EQ Never

Ukerric_sl said:

Nope. That's not horizontal levelling. That's vertical levelling.

Vertical levelling: 5 tiers. Tier 1, my sword does 100 dmg. Tier 2, my sword does 150 dmg. Tier 3, my sword does 200 dmg. Tier 4, 250 dmg, tier 5 300 dmg. That's vertical levelling: your power value increase.

Horizontal levelling: 40 classes. Warrior, I can do an Heroic Leap to a mob at 15 yards. I add Wizard, I can now doeitheran Heroic Leap to a mob at 15 yards, or a Blink away from a mob to 15 yards; I choose before combat which of the two will be more useful. That's horizontal levelling: the number of different things you can do increase, but their strength does not: having added Wizard has not added a single yard to your Heroic Leap range.

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Good example that points out they will probably use both methods - 5 tiers, 40 classes. How big the vertical or disparity is becomes the question. Tier 1 you do 100 dmg with your average attack, and the other tiers each add 10 damage for 140 at tier 5 is both a big difference for an individual encounter but doesnt mean you are the destroyer of frogloks that kills whole trains with one blow. Wether they aim for even less of a difference then this example or for more can only be guessed now, so theres little point to further debating it.

Khane_sl said:

Ok, but what about all the people who don't want to level any other classes? I mean, it seems they have forgotten there are a lot of people out there who like to pick and stick to one class. If this is the way they are going at it those people are going to get bored pretty quickly.

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I'm sure SoE will spend much effort in trying to solve this problem. But the real answer is they made a waffle game and if you really wanted say a sushi game instead, well then you the customer simply came to the wrong place for that. I wonder how much of the problems in mmog industry comes down a version of the above issue. Where Dev's simply try to please everyone instead of just accepting that they can't ever actually do that.

Khane_sl said:

Sounds like a bunch of the same old nonsense with a different buzzword attached. Instead of cockblocking me from entering a dungeon based on my item level, they cockblock me from entering a dungeon based on my tier number.

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They haven't expressed any desire to make world tiers cockblock people of lesser character (advancement) tiers. The world tiers are effectively difficulty levels. You may be able to access the highest tier content, but the entire basis of this game relies upon their ability to create AI that absolutely cheeses most players (and consequently the highest tiers would be tough as balls). If they can't make AI that is actually difficult/causes a high percentage of players to fail, then you're right: The game will be a big dissapointment. It would be like a chess game against a toddler; both players have the same power, but one is better than the other.

I still ride on the idea that there won't be a difference in power between the lowest tier and the highest tier - only a difference in the number of abilities. That is what horizontal leveling is, among other ideas. Try to wrap that around your head. For everyone that has the kneejerk reaction of, "But that won't work! That won't be fun!" read:

Siddar_sl said:

the real answer is they made a waffle game and if you really wanted say a sushi game instead, well then you the customer simply came to the wrong place for that

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Maybe it won't be fun, maybe you're not the kind of person who would like that sort of game, but it's a waffle game.

Yep some people like waffles and some people like sushi but making sushi waffles in no way guarantees capturing both markets and will likely end up losing the vast majority of both.

Ill be interested to see how willing they are to stick to horizontal only advancement.

I still bet they put some form of vertical power advancement , minor or not , I don't see an attack you get the second you login to the game doing the exact same dmg as using that same attack 200 gameplay hours later.

Be it equipment or some other way to pump stats , there will be a way to at least minority bump your power in that regard I say.

Dahkoht_sl said:

Ill be interested to see how willing they are to stick to horizontal only advancement.

I still bet they put some form of vertical power advancement , minor or not , I don't see an attack you get the second you login to the game doing the exact same dmg as using that same attack 200 gameplay hours later.

Be it equipment or some other way to pump stats , there will be a way to at least minority bump your power in that regard I say.

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Minority bump, perhaps, but probably not given automatically through leveling. Make a certain playstyle more effective, etc. (through gear)

Edit: It's not as if the skills won't progress either. They just might not do sheerly more damage. A fireball might get larger in size (hitting more targets), etc. That seems to be within the realms of their "attribute" system or whatever it is; by that I mean the character points which are difficult to gain but increase "jump distance, AOE size, etc."

Thought this might help:http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/08/03/ev...ext-interview/

Darrin McPherson:

We definitely have vertical gameplay, where a player increases in power in a particular class...It's based on player accomplishments...participating in a Rallying Call, or doing quests, or engaging in any emergency AI that happens to be near you.

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Attributes are very rare things that you can work tremendously hard to modify. Giving yourself a point of strength means that maybe you jump higher...intelligence might be really good because it lets you swing wider with your weapons, or something like that.

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Carry on.

Couloir_sl said:

Carry on.

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Well call me Shirley. I just hope that it doesn't create too great of a disparity between high tier and low tier characters (and that it's linearcoughWoWcough).

E: And on the topic of the attributes, that's what I'm really talking about when I reference gaining power without overall power. Adds to theoretical damage but it isn't an immediate one-up over someone who doesn't have many attributes.

E2: BTW you're twisting their words a bit with that quote. They're not talking about vertical progression in reference to "participating in a Rallying Call, or doing quests, or engaging in any emergent AI that happens to be near you," they're talking about advancement overall.

New polehttps://forums.station.sony.com/ever...-or-more.57%2F. Some really amazing questions lol . One guild per character in EverQuest Next? Or more?

Mellent_sl said:

I still ride on the idea that there won't be a difference in power between the lowest tier and the highest tier - only a difference in the number of abilities. That is what horizontal leveling is, among other ideas. Try to wrap that around your head.

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So horizontal leveling is the same as vertical leveling except you don't get more stats during the trip. When I level up in WoW I get some small stat increases and... gasp... new skills. It's literally the same exact shit in a different package. "Try to wrap your head around that".

Horizontal leveling is a buzzword created by game developers to create hype and excitement over systems that have always existed.

I don't care if it's leveling, or skill ups, or gaining shit to add to my gigantic pile of shit. There will always be challenges that require you to advance your character before you can overcome them. Call it whatever the hell you want, all it really is, is character advancement and EQN isn't doing anything new or revolutionary for character advancement.

Rogosh_sl said:

New polehttps://forums.station.sony.com/ever...-or-more.57%2F. Some really amazing questions lol . One guild per character in EverQuest Next? Or more?

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lol their going to turn guilds in to the equivalent of "likes" on facebook

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/stranges...ression-Really

Am I going to have to do all of the work for you, Khane? Christ you're stubborn.

I can't help you at all if your head is so far stuck up your own ass that you think boiling it all down to "but you progress your character anyways lol" is a valid argument.

Edit: So yes, it's WoW's progression without the power gained over leveling butgasp, who knew that would actually change the core structure of the game?

Mellent_sl said:

I can't help you at all if your head is so far stuck up your own ass that you think boiling it all down to "but you progress your character anyways lol" is a valid argument.

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Yeah... that's exactly what I'm saying...

Thanks for doing all the work... I already knew what "horizontal leveling" was. It's been in every game since the beginning of time, it just happened to work in conjuction with levels. And now instead of levels we get tiers. Yet you seem to think this is somehow "changing the core structure of the game".

Your arguing that starting at "level cap" and then just grinding for skills is vastly different than getting the skills on the way to the level cap. It COULD be if you don't need the skills you don't start with to actually be of any value in an end game scenario, but that would be impressively boring since it would mean there really is no reason to grind those skills other than for flavor. Do you actually believe that's how EQN will work? Or any game for that matter?

That article is terrible.

These skills could augment the existing skill set to provide powerful combinations that may only become apparent with research and experimentation. Again, these abilities don't nullify previous skills, but build on them. The best implementations would reward players who do the work to find synergies and dynamics to build such combinations, and it would take time and effort to attain all these abilities.

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Are they serious? That's exactly what I'm talking about. New, MORE powerful synergies and dynamics. When I get a new rank of Fireball at level 10 it doesn't nullify the previous rank, but it definitely doesn't make sense to use the less powerful one (outside of mechanic oversights like downranking in vanilla WoW). That's typical "vertical progression" as you would define it. Yet, adding a new ability that synergises with Fireball to "build" (i.e. make it more powerful) on it is somehow drastically different? Give me a break.

So grinding 1000 orcs to "horizontally" add a snare component to my Fireball is different than grinding 1000 orcs to get level 20 so I can "vertically" unlock my Frostfire bolt? If these skills don't make us more powerful why would we care about them?

Their bold new ideas on crafting are really ground breaking though:

Allow players to discover legendary crafting recipes that can produce some of the best items, effects and features in the game. The ingredients would be a challenge to find and prepare, but the results could be comparable to running the most difficult content. All crafting systems - mining, blacksmithing, cooking, woodcrafting - would have these legendary recipes, so there is room for great variety in the items that could be created. It would take time and effort to both find the recipes and craft the items they contain.

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I've never seen any game ever do anything like that... oh wait.

Yet again, you miss the point. It's not a question of how the levels are obtained but theoverall fucking powerthat is gained through leveling. Level 90 characters in WoW have 20000%+ base health compared to a level 1. That causes a little thing called "power creep". Stop giving players intrinsic power as they level and bingo, no power creep! That's what I'm talking about. You just don't seem to get that it's not about how the characters progress but what is gained as a result.

Mellent_sl said:

Yet again, you miss the point. It's not a question of how the levels are obtained but theoverall fucking powerthat is gained through leveling. Level 90 characters in WoW have 20000%+ base health compared to a level 1. That causes a little thing called "power creep". Stop giving players intrinsic power as they level and bingo, no power creep! That's what I'm talking about. You just don't seem to get that it's not about how the characters progress but what is gained as a result.

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No I completely get it. You are going to give players intrinsic power as they "horizontally" level too, it's just not as pronounced (maybe, depends on implementation), but you can do the same thing with a "vertical" progression as well.

What I am arguing is that you can call it whatever you want, you don't need to invent terms like "horizontal vs vertical" leveling to remove stat gains from "levels". The reason I am arguing is I think it's stupid to jump on the buzzword bandwagon and act like it's inherently different, new or revolutionary. It isn't. It's character advancement and that's that. I can create a level based game where a character only gains new skills as he levels and there are no level requirements on gear and I can create a game where there are no levels but certain skills unlock the ability to wear more powerful armor and increase stat gains. What should I call these "new" MMO changing ideas? Maybe we can call it hyperbola leveling.

Convo_sl said:

I think Khane is trolling you guys at this point lol. I mean, I just couldn't spend this kind of energy on a game I dislike so much..

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Not trolling, buzzwords invented by marketing teams just really rustle my jimmies. And obviously I can't hate a game that doesn't exist, just have 0 hope for it. But I've read all the other damn forums here and have literally nothing to do at work so... cookie clicker and rerolled...

Rogosh_sl said:

New polehttps://forums.station.sony.com/ever...-or-more.57%2F. Some really amazing questions lol . One guild per character in EverQuest Next? Or more?

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Nothing has done more to turn me off of EQN then the retarded roundtable questions. Good Job Omeed & SOE Marketing!

Next Roundtable question: "Should we have another Roundtable question?"