Vertical Progression
This is a hot button issue. People are fairly well adjusted to the idea of ascended now, but simply taking the easy road and adding another and another 5% stat hike down the line is going to result in new and returning player alienation.
Gates, not Grinds
Vertical progression needs to be handled in terms of gates, not grinds. A good example is the way fractal levels, hearts, and waypoints are handled. You don’t theoretically need to grind 31 to gt to 32, or 32 to get to 33, etc. and you don’t need to collect 4 milliong whatevers to unlock a waypoint. You need to prove your ability to pass the prerequisite, and you need to do that one time. Doing a thing, even if it’s difficult, costly, or time consuming to first time is often fun. In terms of gated content, it isn’t about the equipment and stats as much as it is about accomplishing something. Putting laundry lists of “a stack of this and 200 or that, and five of these” in place of some sort of questing, boss fight, or other content diminshes that sense of accomplishment. Getting one of each of five things, all from different places/methods, and combining them to get the “key” for the sixth thing is fun.
You already did it better once
If we’re going to progress characters, it needs to be meaningful, fun, and content driven. The EOTN systems and guild wars 1’s mission systems were very good at this. You could earn skills by progressing thematically through content related to those skills. You could unlock a “boss dungeon” by defeating several other dungeons. You could access later fights by doing easier ones. The goal of these methods of advancement didn’t just boil down to “do one thing” or “Collect currency” as much as it encouraged you to go out and complete a variety of content. In these systems my advancement wasn’t ever measured by the numbers on my character sheet as much as it was measured by all the things I had access to, and a lot of those things were placed in a strict vertical acquisition heirarchy despite not adding mechanical power to the character.
Horizontal Progression
Horizontal progression is a term that should really read “customization and options” as that’s what we are really saying when we talk about it. The main problem with horizontal progression is that so many of the trait and skill systems are extremely high impact per choice, leaving little room to have a skill or rune set or whatever “for fun” because taking that one “fun” thing can seriously cripple your overall effectiveness.
Despite having a smaller skill bar, GW1 did a slightly better job of this. A large number of builds had around five or six “key” skills, and two or three “optional” skills. With the GW2 system, there’s very little wiggle room due to the limitation on slot types. You can’t take a fun but lackluster skill because it takes up all or 1/3 of your options. When looking at Horizontal Progression we need to look at low impact but useful customization hand in hand with high impact things like traits and mainline skills.
Adventuring Ranks
Skill points are vastly underutilized. Take a look at the WvW ranking system and envision a version of that, only for general PvE. Allow players to “rank up” passive buffs to acquire effects like those found on consumables. “favored enemy” bonuses, minor stat buffs. Conditional bonuses when in certain areas, and other things that help to individualize characters.
Teamwork!
What if there were a way to customize the effects of your combos with other players? What if there were more ways for characters to meaningfully interact in combat? What if these were highly customizable, both visually and mechanically?
Weapon skill customization and collection
What if there were several cosmetic versions of each weapon skill, and you could learn them via skill capture, looting, or some other method? Mechanically they would always work the same, but let’s pretend you could get unique or rare versions of these skills with altered effects, character animations, shouts, projectiles, etc. This could be an entire new and fun subset of horizontal progression.
What if it were possible to add over time slot-limited skills to weapons? Use the weapon slots like the heal and elite slots to make it easier to balance, but how about it?
My Home Town and/or Guild Hall
You know where vertical progression is awesome? When you’re building something massive. Adding content to allow players to upgrade, improve, and customize things like these adds an entire new subset of potential shinies to acquire, none of which upset the power balance of player skills.
That type of progression, showy instead of powerful, would go a long way.
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