Horizontal progression needs an actual power ceiling
I really hope somebody from Blizzard reads this, because I’m currently worried about how horizontal progression will be implemented in WoW Forever.
I’m very excited for the game, but I’m concerned that “horizontal progression” could end up meaning the usual WoW gear progression with smaller increases between raids.
If every new raid gives slightly stronger gear than the previous raid, the result will eventually be the same. It might take longer, but older content will still become trivial and older gear will still become obsolete.
That creates several problems.
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Players who return after a long break will be far behind everyone else.
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New players may have to work through several abandoned raid tiers before they can join current content.
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Players with older gear will get destroyed in battlegrounds by people who completed the latest raids or PvP seasons.
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Earlier raids will eventually become something people skip, carry, or solo.
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Classes that scale extremely well with gear will become increasingly difficult to balance.
Season of Discovery is an obvious example of excessive scaling, but this also happened in regular Vanilla. By Naxxramas, geared characters could trivialize large parts of the level 60 world. Warriors became ridiculously powerful because of how well they scaled with gear.
Keeping the level cap at 60 will not prevent that from happening again. If item levels and character power continue increasing, Forever will eventually become a normal expansion progression system trapped at level 60.
I think Forever should have a limited number of permanent power bands.
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Tier 1 would be the entry level raid power band.
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Tier 2 would provide a meaningful increase for established characters.
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Tier 3 would establish the permanent maximum item level and stat budget.
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Future raids would be designed within those existing power bands.
New raids could still have desirable equipment without increasing the overall power ceiling. One raid might have excellent armor and stamina gear. Another might have agility, avoidance, threat, resistance, unusual set bonuses, or weapons with specialized effects.
A tank could collect different sets for physical damage, magical damage, avoidance, threat, resistance, or solo content. A damage dealer could have different sets for particular enemies, weapon builds, or talent combinations. The player would gain more options without eventually becoming powerful enough to make the rest of Azeroth irrelevant.
Future updates could also release more than one kind of raid. One could be an accessible Tier 1 raid for newer and returning players. Another could be a harder Tier 2 or Tier 3 raid for established groups. Both could provide useful gear while serving different audiences.
The test I would use is simple.
- Could somebody wearing Barrow Deeps or Hyjal gear return two years later and participate in current content without completing every raid released during their absence?
- Would players two years from now still need a real group to complete Barrow Deeps?
- Could somebody in launch raid gear enter a battleground and still contribute?
- If the answer eventually becomes no, then the progression system is still vertical.
Other online games have already faced this same problem and found ways to preserve older content while maintaining strong player retention. Other MMOs have shown that players do not need endless numerical gear increases to remain interested. New content, different builds, useful sidegrades, cosmetics, achievements, collections, and new challenges can all give people reasons to keep playing.
My main question for the developers is this:
Will WoW Forever eventually establish a permanent maximum item level and player power ceiling, or will every new raid continue raising that ceiling?
Small increases would delay the problem. A permanent ceiling would actually solve it.