Unless something is timelocked, it can and will be acquired at varying degrees of pace and thus at the quickest pace by those with the means to do so. This is undeniable fact. Experience points or whatever it will take to achieve of a class or milestone...if it requires any tangible form of progession then it will definitely be roflstomped by the powerleveling contingent.
EQ Never
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the fact that there are people who believe horizontal leveling is somehow different than vertical leveling is the reason why this industry is in the shape it's in. these are the same people who believe a ton of feathers weighs less than a ton of bricks...
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Seriously man?
What if a condition of 'tier'ing up, or even acquiring a class, in EQN is to participate in the completion of a rallying call? You can't stay up later and grind that shit faster.... It's gonna take 3 fucking months and that is that. You could get very creative with this achievement based levelling scheme as far as limiting content consumption rate.
In vertical systems people acquire power through leveling as the main reward (edit: Perhaps not the main reward but it is a side effect of leveling; leveling accrues power). In (closer to) horizontal systems people simply acquire more/different toys to mess around with. Is thisnotthe main difference between the two? If we're arguing semantics they're simply different ways out handing out rewards, the difference between them being the massive disparity between low and high level players in a system with vertical progression.
you start on tier 1, right? and you end on tier 5? so explain to me exactly how this "horizontal" leveling is any different than vertical leveling? unless you start the game and end the game exactly the same, there is leveling. any game where time exists and progression exists, there is leveling. the fact that most of the current MMO gamers are unable to comprehend this is of no surprise, however.
Quaid
Trump's Staff
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Dude, what conversation are you in? This isn't what we are talking about... We are talking about the ability to effectively speed grind in an environment that is based on achievement rather than xp bars.
They avoided using the term "level" to avoid the connotation that comes with it. You're arguing semantics. What makes horizontal and vertical leveling different isn't the name of the levels but what is acquired as a result of progression.
I don't even know what the fuck you're going on about. Everyone comprehends that there is "leveling" but you don't seem to understand that "leveling" =/= vertical progression.
read dgrabs post at the top of the page. if you still don't understand that there will be people who will "power level" through the game regardless of whether it's horizontal or vertical leveling then i honestly don't know how you're smart enough to even use your computer to post here.
That's not even the argument we're having. You're all over the place man. First you're trying to tell us that there can't be any differences between the rewards gained upon leveling, and now you're telling me that I don't think people will "power level."
One at a time.
Grim1
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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etchazz is correct. It doesn't matter what you call it, as long as a character's power can be increased over time then it is leveling. Old school FPS games don't have leveling, almost every other game does.
But mixing up how character progression (leveling) is done can be an improvement. Especially if it isn't as linear as EQ, WoW, etc. Some of the newer games have nteresting ideas. I like the way TSW does character progression, and of course EvE. Unfortunately, it sounds like EQN is going to copy GW2's craptastic version with meaningless achievements, and boring 0.00001 percent grinds.
this is what you posted one fucking page ago. you are wrong. points do matter, as someone will power level through the game and be more powerful than someone who doesn't. the only way your statement makes sense is if someone who reaches tier 5 is exactly the same ability as someone who is tier 1, which isn't the case. i'm just going off of what you posted. there is absolutely no difference between someone power leveling through the game to reach max level, and someone power leveling through the game and reaching "max abilities" or tiers (or whatever EQN wants to call it). therefore, there is no difference between a game having horizontal leveling or vertical leveling. as long as there is a power curve, this is just a fact. clear enough now?
If they really want to have "horizontal" leveling, then there won't be any sheer points difference between max tier and tier 1. You'll look cooler and have a bunch of toys to dick around with for more combos, but that's the idea I'm going off of. Shocking, I know.
I'm just arguing that the difference here is not that a tier 5 character has a free pass to annihilate a tier 1 character. Who knows, maybe with some rigged combo only available to the tier 5, the tier 5 can do that.
What I'm saying is that if they have anactualhorizontal progression system, then there won't be a sheer power difference between max tier and tier 1. 100 base health points going in, 100 base health points going out (like an FPS).
I'm just arguing based off of what the developers say they want to do while most everyone else is saying that they won't do it.
What army says that there is going to be a power curve? When did they state this? Because they have not, in any way, stated this. The most we've heard out of them is "horizontal" meaning "no power curve." All indications point towards it making sense because
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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There's however a major difference.
XP is fungible. One point of XP gained killing a bear, completing a fed-ex quest, uncovering a new mini-map area, is equal to the other point of XP. As a result, you can go to the place where XP is most efficient, and do it to the exclusion of nothing else. In the end, you get people who max their level in 40 hours of /played, and people who max it in 10 days of /played.
Milestones are specialized. If you need to kill 100 bears, then you need to get to a bear area, find them, and kill them. You can't run to an outpost to deliver a parcel: no bear killed. You can't AOE hundred of wolves very fast: no bear killed. You DO have to jump through the very specific and narrow hoop the designer has created for you. It is much harder to find the optimal area or path to fill your milestone.
Are catasses going to do it before everyone else? Of course. But you're not going to have, say, "It takes 200 hours of /played to unlock 20 classes" and get people completing that in 50. If it takes 200 hours, people are going to complete it in a week only because they rotated their char between friends and played 24-24.
Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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Because tiers aren't horizontal levelling, they're vertical.
The horizontal part is getting tier 5 in forty different vertical silos, each independent from the other, each that can be progressed completely independently from the others, and the fact that you're tier 1 or 5 in the wizard class has very little impact on the tier 5 warrior class you already have (other than, say, giving you a choice between using the Heroic Leap tier 5 movement or the Blink Push tier 5 movement with your warrior).
What we're talking here isn't people getting tier 5 warrior vs people only at tier 3, it's people going tier 5 in all forty classes vs people going tier 5 in 10 classes. The tier 5 warrior would be largely more powerful than the tier 3 warrior. The 40-classed tier 5 warrior will be only marginally more versatile than the 10-classed tier 5 warrior.
Sabbat
Trakanon Raider
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There is no difference in outcome, there's a hell of a difference in option.
In your magical milestone system, you must complete tasks, either in order, or within a subset to progress. If the task is to kill 100 bears, there are better ways to kill said 100 bears than other ways. The powerlevel crowd will find the area with the highest density of bears, with the shortest distance between them and the next area, and the highest amount of damage to kill them faster than other people. This is why it doesn't matter if it's a milestone, achievement or just plain good old xp bars.
To explain to you how a milestone system works, just take a look at the Warcraft model and lets remove a few things. Firstly, no monsters give XP. Quests now no longer give XP either, in fact, there is no XP bar at all. Once you start the game as.. say an Orc, you get some quests to bash some pigs, and later on some peons to slap around and get to work. As you work through these tasks in the order you are given them, you will unlock new, and useful abilities. When you've completed that structured area (aka the first newbie area) you can move on to do other quests in the next area that happens to have some trolls in it.
It is impossible to think that this system outlined above is anything but the incarnation of the anti-christ and illustrates perfectly just how much hand holding is possible in a theme-park style game. Damn near all choice has been removed, but I can guarantee you, that some people will progress faster than others.
Space-baring in SWOTR is a classic example of powerleveling in a milestone environment. Skipping those cut scenes gave me a drastic increase in my leveling speed.
Forget all this bullshit about vertical or horizontal leveling, it's all bullshit to obfuscate the matter at hand.
Darkfall: Unholy Wars has an achievement system that grants you character power. There is no XP. You kill numbers of mobs, and mob types to complete achievements. Once completed, you are given points to spend on advancing your character. Advancing your weapon skills will/might make it easier to complete other harder monster based achievements. All this even applies to crafting.Quaid_sl said:
One enterprising player offered to buy (for RL cash) all the materials players had gathered. In a few days, he'd spend a few hundred dollars and maxed out a few different crafts, which using the points gained from the achievement system he put back into his combat abilities, making him the toughest (highest prowess) character in the game for very little effort, and in a remarkably short amount of time.
If you still believe that milestones, achievements or any other variant of progression is not the same as an XP bar, then you've had the developer spin doctors pull one over on you, and you should be ashamed.
Just as an aside to the argument above , does anyone actually believe there will be zero vertical leveling ?
Not arguing with anyone or calling anyone out , just curious if anyone thinks there will truly be only horizontal skill type or whatever leveling ?
Ill admit , regardless of what the SOE folks say , I feel certain there will be some sort of direct vertical progression of a character.
I just don't see any way to avoid it.
Not arguing with anyone or calling anyone out , just curious if anyone thinks there will truly be only horizontal skill type or whatever leveling ?
Ill admit , regardless of what the SOE folks say , I feel certain there will be some sort of direct vertical progression of a character.
I just don't see any way to avoid it.