Found this to be very fitting

[Artemo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL_bCwiUKNE

Just gonna leave this here :rolleyes:
Many videos on this channel focus on MMORPGS like CoR and provide imo very good inspiration to developing such games.

[Takeyo]

This is very insightful! I really enjoy multilayered games, but if the multiple layers have very little to absolutely no interdependence, it does kill some of the fun and create an entry barrier to new players who want something simple to pick up. Complexity can be fun, but the fun factor is largely controlled by how interactive the many facets and layers are. That's kind of the crux of sandbox-like games, and probably the primary reason so many people enjoy them so much, even when they're not very high-cap.

This touches a little on the whole "vertical progression" vs. "horizontal progression" discussion. Many big-name companies and hugely popular games have fully embraced total vertical progression. This strategy always results in side-effects that I consider very undesirable and usually quite ridiculous. Some very iconic examples are: the classic multilevel fight problem (when a difference of even as little as 3 levels can make a fight so one-sided that handicap mechanics must be introduced to allow PvP under reasonable conditions), what I call the "pay gap problem" (where loot value and income scale directly with level causing inflation of gear quality/rarity and loss of game currency value), and the damage inflation problem (where all stat values of both players and environment continue to scale unabated to the point that people are walking around touting health and armour values in the hundreds of thousands or even millions on damage-centric classes, and tanks are hitting basic attacks with damage in the tens of thousands).

Now, numbers are just numbers, admittedly, nothing more than a tool for balance. However, when a max-level character's fart deals ten times the damage necessary to defeat a starting character in one hit, then something is out of control.

I agree with the core philosophy of vertical progression, and so I believe that some vertical progression is absolutely necessary, but a healthy balance requires enough horizontal progression to outweigh the negative effects of the vertical progression, and the vertical progression that exists absolutely must be kept in check to prevent raw numbers from beginning to control every outcome of every encounter. Likewise, it is good business to keep adding new content and new ways to play, but a healthy balance requires that these new systems, activities, and abilities be integrated into the pre-existing mechanics, so that they add to them and advance them rather than debasing them and breaking them.

In a game world, unless the old content is going to be removed, the new should add to the old, not render it obsolete.

TL;DR -- I liked the video, and agreed in general with its points. It made me think of other aspects of game development that are deeply affected by the same kinds of issues.

;)