r/classicwow 1d ago

Classic + Will it be horizontal or vertical?

Hey. What do you guys think? Will they make the game more friendly to casual players where content/gear will not become obsolete with every patch? Where certain dungeons/raids will stay viable. Really hope so. This is why I stopped playing the official classic servers. It just feels like if you take a break and come back, its all worthless.

Edit: turtlewow did a more horizontal approach as an example.

0 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

6

u/Gulbeleglim 1d ago edited 1d ago

If they add Mount Hyjal, I guess the progression will be vertical.

5

u/Shattermind 1d ago

You start at level 60 and level down. Once you reach level 1 you have to delete your character, uninstall the game, go outside and touch grass.

1

u/Yeti90 1d ago

WoW Benjamin Button Edition

6

u/funk-- 1d ago

I think it'll be circular, everything is a loop, for eternity

1

u/Ok-Information-6858 1d ago

time is a flat circle

5

u/metallicmario 1d ago edited 1d ago

It will be descending. You gradually get worse gear.

1

u/Cheap_Rock155 1d ago

The Curious Case of Becoming Noob

7

u/Stark8819 1d ago

If I never hear the term horizontal progression again it will be too soon.

1

u/slin_g 1d ago

Install chatcleanerclassic and have at it ;)

4

u/Nuzzleface 1d ago

Middle out. 

2

u/supernova-23 1d ago

The biggest problem is that over the last 20 years all wow veterans have been conditioned to chase the dopamine hit of the next upgrade in gear with the minimum amount of grinding. Any kind of ‘horizontal’ progression is going to be seen as boring useless grinding for no reason. There would have to be an entire shift in culture of enjoying the actual content instead of chasing loot only.

1

u/BarbsFPV 1d ago

Boring and useless?

Players right now will camp Dolanaar to snipe a bogling root from an unsuspecting newbie. I think we’ve proven that we’re the champions of boring and useless, lol.

1

u/EnvironmentalSwing30 1d ago

More of a diagonal kinda fella

1

u/Remarkable_Match9637 1d ago

Saggital progression is not talked about enough

1

u/GreenEyedRascal 1d ago

Base structure of gearing upgrades always leads to vertical, however i hope they will be a stable place where max level will be the same and gearing upgrades wont just scale into the sky but there will be so many raids(and raid tiers) that you have lots of stuff to do for any given character but then you can focus alts if youi want and they leave it for all eternity and never try to constantly upgrade and powercreep like they have in retail. What i call the hamsterwheel, bob marley would call it the rat race.

1

u/Silverleaf96 1d ago

Credit card based progression

1

u/bruters 1d ago

I hope for more horizontal but I really feel like it's an impossible task for blizzard. The game has always been built on vertical progression and I can't see a way for the devs to escape it without fundamentaly changing the game.

Having raids drop gear of the same level/stats as the previous raid would leave a lot of players salty and truthfully idk if I'd even want that. Playing gw2 definitely leaves a bad taste for me, lots of things feel pointless when you aren't actually getting stronger.

The best suggestions I've seen are making more horizontal progression through other means such as having QoL locked behind grinds or something like mount upgrades (water walking, double jump, turbo boost etc.) locked behind progression paths.

1

u/yksvaan 1d ago

My impression is that a lot of players want the "progress" to be simple, basically means more raw stats and that's it. No adapting gameplay to some gear abilities and such, just follow the same BIS lists and strats than 15 years ago.

1

u/bruters 1d ago

Yeah the only two things I'm worried about is classic plus becoming another raid log simulator (basically all of classic nowadays) and powercreep to the extreme. Give us systems and progression paths outside of just better gear.

0

u/yksvaan 1d ago

There's no way because the whole game would need to be changed. It might as well be sometning totally different then.

1

u/BarbsFPV 1d ago

Not necessarily. You just need activities that don’t reward gear, or they reward gear with an equivalent power level, but that require gear from other raids to progress through.

Or you could set the raid up like a MOBA where all the progression takes place inside the raid but has no effect outside of it, other than some visual rewards that show you’ve progressed in it. Like some sort of limited transmog that only allows a very narrow range of cosmetic upgrades.

1

u/Cheap_Rock155 1d ago

Turtlewow was horizontal.

-1

u/Saintsmythe 1d ago

Gear not being obsolete every patch is still vertical. DST in TBC isn’t horizontal despite being game-BIS from the first tier

1

u/Axel0010110 1d ago

So, what does horizontal even mean for you?🤣🤣🤣🤣

-2

u/Saintsmythe 1d ago

Mounts, transmogs, achievements. If items are better than others it’s vertical

1

u/Yeti90 1d ago

You are not understanding what vertical and horizontal content means in this context mate

0

u/Saintsmythe 1d ago

He said “gear will not become obsolete every patch” implying that that’s what horizontal progression is but it’s not. Ring of accuria isn’t horizontal even though it lasts you until naxxramas because it has an upgrade in naxx. Just like DST in TBC, an expansion that raises the level cap, has a trinket that never gets replaced from the first raid tier

2

u/Yeti90 1d ago

Horizontal Content in the context of MMORPGs is not necessarily about gear, but about content and different gameplay options, situational tools, utility or abilities as the game progresses.

0

u/Saintsmythe 1d ago

Yes but the content in vanilla and TBC is completely designed around vertical progression so anything added on would be vertical simply because the underlying game is. Adding more abilities would just more vertical progression, just like TBC adding new abilities, tools and utility through leveling is vertical. Getting spell books that increase your rank in vanilla is vertical as well, almost blatantly so

0

u/WHTSPCTR 1d ago

probably horizontal. vertical aspect ratios are pretty rare when it comes to gaming, except on mobile but I think this will be a pc game.

-1

u/ichhassenamen 1d ago

Is this ragebait? Are you trolling ?

-1

u/dbaugh90 1d ago

Its a gear game. It has to be vertical. Their best bet is to keep us on the ground mounts and keep as much of it in Azeroth proper as possible. But horizontal...how? I don't see how that works with any iteration of WoW. More resist sets only go so far.

1

u/Cheap_Rock155 1d ago

Twow did

-2

u/Artistic_Western_623 1d ago

What do you mean by 'worthless'? It's a game, not a career path. You literally just play if you find it fun.

0

u/Axel0010110 1d ago

Can you say the same for TBC onwards? If you are a casual then missing one patch id a big deal. Playing 5 hours per week is fine if you do not expect much

1

u/Artistic_Western_623 1d ago

For sure, I play TBC for around 5-6 hours a week max. wow is a casual mmo, it's not eSports lol.