Vertical, Horizontal, and Diagonal Progression
Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2014 4:02 pmA reply to Prickett's Question on the Thread: "Help with Quest Direction"
In a sense yes, Prickett, but on a much larger scale. Vertical progression is what's in the quest: you get stronger every time you level up. Then you keep playing as you did before. With horizontal progression, you don't get any stronger when you level up, but your character learns new ways to do things or the ability to do something new entirely. You also get a lot of utility abilities.
A good example of horizontal progression is the Jury Rigger perk in Fallout that lets you sacrifice a weapon to repair a similar weapon. It doesn't make you any stronger, but it allows you to repair your weapons without a repair kit (I think. Been a while since I played Fallout).
The perk doesn't make you any better STATISTICALLY but it gives you a whole new gameplay aspect. Many horizontal leveling systems also introduce trade-offs: you get +5% damage to members of the same sex but also take 10% more damage, for example, or you deal 25% more damage from behind an enemy but also take 25% more damage from behind an enemy. The trade-offs don't make it impossible to win some fights without grinding: rather, they make some things easier and some harder, though that last example blurred the line a bit.
What I preach is something that I want to call "diagonal progression". A combination between the two. As you level up, your character DOES get stronger but he also can do things that he couldn't do before: he can repair items in a new way, he can use new dialogue options. He can understand a new language. He can cook new foods at a campfire. The list goes on and on. It's easy to see how horizontal progression adds replayability to a game and vertical progression is necessary to make sure the player doesn't wander off too far in a game like TQ, so why not combine them?
Prickett- your 1 handed/2 handed example is along the right lines, but only scratches the surface of what could be done.
In a sense yes, Prickett, but on a much larger scale. Vertical progression is what's in the quest: you get stronger every time you level up. Then you keep playing as you did before. With horizontal progression, you don't get any stronger when you level up, but your character learns new ways to do things or the ability to do something new entirely. You also get a lot of utility abilities.
A good example of horizontal progression is the Jury Rigger perk in Fallout that lets you sacrifice a weapon to repair a similar weapon. It doesn't make you any stronger, but it allows you to repair your weapons without a repair kit (I think. Been a while since I played Fallout).
The perk doesn't make you any better STATISTICALLY but it gives you a whole new gameplay aspect. Many horizontal leveling systems also introduce trade-offs: you get +5% damage to members of the same sex but also take 10% more damage, for example, or you deal 25% more damage from behind an enemy but also take 25% more damage from behind an enemy. The trade-offs don't make it impossible to win some fights without grinding: rather, they make some things easier and some harder, though that last example blurred the line a bit.
What I preach is something that I want to call "diagonal progression". A combination between the two. As you level up, your character DOES get stronger but he also can do things that he couldn't do before: he can repair items in a new way, he can use new dialogue options. He can understand a new language. He can cook new foods at a campfire. The list goes on and on. It's easy to see how horizontal progression adds replayability to a game and vertical progression is necessary to make sure the player doesn't wander off too far in a game like TQ, so why not combine them?
Prickett- your 1 handed/2 handed example is along the right lines, but only scratches the surface of what could be done.
