AzathothMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@wanderingmist, I can understand your point. I think implementing quest markers and navigation info in the display is a poor fix. I'm sure there will be language patches, maybe not for all. If players choose to play before their language patch (assuming they will have one), that's on them. If players won't have a language patch (or one they know, since most non-Americans know at least 2 languages), then that is a shame.
However, I don't think Ashes needs to accommodate every possible player.
I never rush my first character through a game. Most of the time I don't even know what level my character is at any given moment. I don't normally use "XP boosters" because I don't want to out level the content. I play with a group of friends and I'm nearly always the lowest level of the group. Like others have said I usually lose interest in a game once I'm max level and have run out of new content.
I will somewhat rush subsequent characters through the content. Like in ESO I have 8 max characters so the content starts to get a little repetitive about the 3rd time through so I tend rush through it more.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
@wanderingmist, I can understand your point. I think implementing quest markers and navigation info in the display is a poor fix. I'm sure there will be language patches, maybe not for all. If players choose to play before their language patch (assuming they will have one), that's on them. If players won't have a language patch (or one they know, since most non-Americans know at least 2 languages), then that is a shame.
However, I don't think Ashes needs to accommodate every possible player.
Try to please everyone and you'll end up please nobody. That's why I admire games like Secret World Legends that aren't afraid to go against the norm and deliver a more unique questing experience.
Oh buddy. I seem to have started a decent discussion here. I was reminded of why I started skipping quest text last night. My uncle and I were back in ESO, and I had made the conscious effort to read the quest I was working on. With all the information it was taking me about 5 minutes to read that part of the quest from that NPC. That was great in that it explained the situation, and it was a bit sad, but that was 5 minutes from one NPC that I could have spent killing and leveling. So, it's definitely going to have to be a balance.
I also think that quest markers decrease my need to read the text. If it's going to show me where to go why bother, right?! But it's an interesting dilemma. I, personally, will try to read what I can so that the experience is more enjoyable...and remember-able. There aren't many MMOs that I've played, that I can honestly remember a great moment from it. It was just content grind. And I wish to change that with my time in ESO and with AoC in the future.
Gamer, Husband, Father, and Hard Working Individual. Let's have fun!
When it comes to quest text I always skip the long dialogue, and just read the summary in my Journals/logs. I skim it for the important bits like location, objective, and any special conditions that need to be met. Since they have said there won’t be quest markers to speed things along and each server will be different I think rushing will be a bit more difficult. I hope.
I very much hate rushing to “end game”, but I still do it.
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ArgentDawnMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Anyone remember the "Fatigue System" from the first run of FF14?
Yeah we definitely don't want that.
Why artificially impact how fast a player reaches max level? If someone wants to devote 20hrs a day to bum rush content, then more power to them. It's not the way I'd play, but I'd be salty if i had my play style dictated by them, so why is it okay for me to dictate their's?
We don't talk about the days before a realm reborn. But yes that was awful.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Oh buddy. I seem to have started a decent discussion here. I was reminded of why I started skipping quest text last night. My uncle and I were back in ESO, and I had made the conscious effort to read the quest I was working on. With all the information it was taking me about 5 minutes to read that part of the quest from that NPC. That was great in that it explained the situation, and it was a bit sad, but that was 5 minutes from one NPC that I could have spent killing and leveling. So, it's definitely going to have to be a balance.
I also think that quest markers decrease my need to read the text. If it's going to show me where to go why bother, right?! But it's an interesting dilemma. I, personally, will try to read what I can so that the experience is more enjoyable...and remember-able. There aren't many MMOs that I've played, that I can honestly remember a great moment from it. It was just content grind. And I wish to change that with my time in ESO and with AoC in the future.
There definitely needs to be a balance between immersion and information-overload. Working my way through FF14's main story, I'm getting constantly bombarded with information to the point where I struggle to keep track of the important events. It's all just a blur. I'm praised for all my heroic deeds and yet I can barely remember any of them, and I'm only about a third of the way through the story. The other problem is keeping track of all the characters you are introduced to along the way. I will be introduced to a character, given a ton of exposition about them, and by the time I have forgotten most of what I was told.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you just give the bare bones information about what you are doing it's a lot harder to get immersed in the story. For example, there was one quest I did in FF14 where I went to a farmer who asked me to find a treasure chest, which contained a seed. If that was the only information I was given I would dismiss the whole thing as pointless filler. But when I accepted the quest I was told that the people of the village were suffering because none of their plants would grow, and the seed I went to find was the only plant that would grow. Me retrieving that seed essentially saves the village was starvation.
Again, if you haven't already I would definitely recommend playing through the main story of GW2, as it does a fantastic job of immersing you in the story without overloading you with information and lore.
With regards to quest markers, what other options could developers use to direct players where they need to go for a quest? Either you give them markers and accept that a lot of players are going to skip through the quest text, or you take away the markers and make people read the text (or do "google-fu" to find the answers from someone else).
Does anyone else remember the oldschool slow scrolling questtexts from WoW Classic? Those, where you could brew a cup of tea, while waiting for it to finish?
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KarthosMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Does anyone else remember the oldschool slow scrolling questtexts from WoW Classic? Those, where you could brew a cup of tea, while waiting for it to finish?
Im pretty sure Blizzard's greatest gift to mankind was removing that feature. I remember starting one in Thousand Needles and literally eating dinner the whole time it played.
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VolgaireMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The only mmo that had me interested in quests was SWTOR, I actually listened to side quests and the main story because it was interesting and fun, other mmo's have it just for filler and it's quite boring.
I don’t understand people who want the whole game to be about the most boring aspects of the game. Basically until your max level nothing really matters except leveling, to me at least.. I can kill a guy at level 20? Good job me I’m sure the games not balanced for level 20. I got my professions to the highest you can get them for a level 15. Sweet I can vendor everything I made it’s all worthless in 2 levels. I want to explore the map.. well can’t go to most zones and mostly high level zones are way more interesting. I can socialize with people and group up? Wait what’s an ilvl and why aren’t their any level 30 tanks in que.. Absolutely nothing in the leveling experience is worth while doing except leveling in every mmorpg I’ve played. It’s all tutorial until max. Please don’t ask for month long tutorials.
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VolgaireMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I don’t understand people who want the whole game to be about the most boring aspects of the game. Basically until your max level nothing really matters except leveling, to me at least.. I can kill a guy at level 20? Good job me I’m sure the games not balanced for level 20. I got my professions to the highest you can get them for a level 15. Sweet I can vendor everything I made it’s all worthless in 2 levels. I want to explore the map.. well can’t go to most zones and mostly high level zones are way more interesting. I can socialize with people and group up? Wait what’s an ilvl and why aren’t their any level 30 tanks in que.. Absolutely nothing in the leveling experience is worth while doing except leveling in every mmorpg I’ve played. It’s all tutorial until max. Please don’t ask for month long tutorials.
You haven't read much about the systems Ashes will have did you ? nodes level as the player do activities in them, in other words if you level you see the entire node grow bigger and more/bigger events will occur in that node. There are no levels on the zones either, you can get fucked by a level 20 monster where level 10 mobs are plenty. Intrepid is literally trying so that this game will not be like every other mmorpg out there.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I don’t understand people who want the whole game to be about the most boring aspects of the game. Basically until your max level nothing really matters except leveling, to me at least.. I can kill a guy at level 20? Good job me I’m sure the games not balanced for level 20. I got my professions to the highest you can get them for a level 15. Sweet I can vendor everything I made it’s all worthless in 2 levels. I want to explore the map.. well can’t go to most zones and mostly high level zones are way more interesting. I can socialize with people and group up? Wait what’s an ilvl and why aren’t their any level 30 tanks in que.. Absolutely nothing in the leveling experience is worth while doing except leveling in every mmorpg I’ve played. It’s all tutorial until max. Please don’t ask for month long tutorials.
Just out of curiosity what mmorpgs have you played? If your answer is only WoW then I can fully understand your jaded attitude towards leveling, because the leveling in that game is amongst the worst of any mmorpg I have played.
I can see everyone's point on what @Beardo is saying - sure plenty of mmos do have interesting things to do before max level
..but, conversely and typically, you've got the most content open to you at max level..totally understandable why people would rush to get there
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OrcLuckMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I'm not going to be rushing to end game. I will be playing, gathering, and role playing, and I will be exploring.
I want to enjoy the game in a way that I get a life time subs worth of game, and I don't want to burn out early because I feel like I've done all the content in the first month and I didn't enjoy any of it because I skipped reading text, and rushed to be max level.
What I will do is try to be first to engage with hidden areas of the game, and to find interesting locations and POIs(points of interest) and I will breath deep the good earthy smells of the caverns.
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AtamaMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
The only mmo that had me interested in quests was SWTOR, I actually listened to side quests and the main story because it was interesting and fun, other mmo's have it just for filler and it's quite boring.
PURPLE PARALLEL
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MorashtakMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
If the crafting levels are linked to player levels (ex. WoW ) then one can see players rushing to level cap in order to max out their chosen profession.
If, on the other hand, profession levels are not linked then we should see a wide variety of player levels (level 20 character that is a Master Miner, etc).
That said, one can expect that since crafting materials are going to be harvested from some of the dungeon and raid bosses we can expect some master gatherers to be max level and part of the raid group.
My point is that in every situation being a higher level is better.. if you have a level 20 miner that is a master which I doubt is going to be a thing since harvesting will be dangerous for example they’ve put in a blog and a video that fishing and gathering flowers will have encounters.. not to mention if I see a level 20 taking some rare ore in an area I’m farming that nerd is dead. It’s better to be a higher level in every case.. would you run a caravan as a low level player.. would you want to be in a siege as a low level character.. in all cases being max level is preferred..
My number 1 reason I can’t stand the idea of throttling leveling is because it encourages solo play. Why even play an mmo? Max level is the only real grouping level. Not that you can’t find some random people your level and group with them. I’d just prefer playing with my friends I game with who all have different speeds in which they level. Not everyone will wait and level with you.
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
My point is that in every situation being a higher level is better.. if you have a level 20 miner that is a master which I doubt is going to be a thing since harvesting will be dangerous for example they’ve put in a blog and a video that fishing and gathering flowers will have encounters.. not to mention if I see a level 20 taking some rare ore in an area I’m farming that nerd is dead. It’s better to be a higher level in every case.. would you run a caravan as a low level player.. would you want to be in a siege as a low level character.. in all cases being max level is preferred..
My number 1 reason I can’t stand the idea of throttling leveling is because it encourages solo play. Why even play an mmo? Max level is the only real grouping level. Not that you can’t find some random people your level and group with them. I’d just prefer playing with my friends I game with who all have different speeds in which they level. Not everyone will wait and level with you.
So in your opinion we should get rid of leveling entirely and just skip everyone straight to max level? If we did that then that kind of defeats the whole point of playing an RPG in the first place. It would be like going into Call of Duty and saying "I hate the fact everyone uses guns, we should only be allowed knives instead".
That said, I do see your point regarding wanting to play with friends who are different levels to you, but this is easily fixed with scaling technology that a lot of mmorpgs use now-a-days.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
MMORPGs need to evolve to no longer have an endgame.
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NagashMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Im rushing to end game on the 25th ^^
The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead have no desires, petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace
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Wandering MistModerator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Vertical leveling is boring and for most people max level isn't even a accomplishment. It just takes resources from horizontal progression in my opinion.. Just think of all the low and high level zones being for you to explore at any time if your brave enough.. Having progression of skills in more meaningful ways like actually training weapons and magic instead of slicing pigs with a sword and magically learning how to heal because you're level 6 now.. having a more realistic monster world where you are not killing spiders in one zone and then for some reason the elders of those spiders are in another zone because they are a few levels higher. Exploration is stopped by natural things like stronger monsters that need groups to take out or dangerous zones where you need resistances to survive the poisonous gasses or heat protection from volcanic activity.. Finding an epic sword instead of the only gateway to use it is being level 60, you now have to train your sword skills and maybe know a little ice magic to use it to its full potential. Crafting levels no longer mean what level your gear is but what kind of quality it is. Making horizontal progression more difficult and rewarding would make a great game.
Vertical leveling is basic and not really creative. I believe rushing to max level is a bad thing so why not just remove it all together. 1-59 in my opinion is fluff content that's easy to develop. It makes for a questionable world too... for example why is this staving level 60 zombie wolf so content on staying in a zombie land with no food when a 5 minute walk away is a starting zone filled with farmers and pigs like right next to it. Not having to craft swords youll never use over and over only to break them down and recraft the same thing. Also being ganked by someone 10 levels higher than you and have the feeling that you just encountered the actual God of death and you and your gang of 7 friends cant even hit him because 10 levels means he is immune to anything you do, All you can do is cry Nani as he calmy says Omea wa mou shindeiru and Aoes you all down with one ability when all the guy does in his questing is kill elder versions of the monsters you kill in the next zone over. I think its an old system that needs to be improved.
The OP stated all mmorpgs not just ashes so some of my examples ashes may have some interesting mechanic for instance the zones are changing and have high level and low level mobs which i agree is a step in the right direction but Id love to see vertical leveling get thrown out the window someday. Its unnecessary and I havent seen it done well in most mmos I have played. Level scaling I like but I also think its a bandage to the actual problem. All of this is my opinion of what the next generation of mmorpgs should be. Id like to see more of how Ashes will be different in terms of leveling. I expect pretty much the same old thing though.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
You can't have a system where a character can grow stronger indefinitely, so wherever the stopping point is, that is the end game.
I didn't say anything about a character growing stronger indefinitely.
Reaching max character level is max character level - but that should not be the end of the story and should not be the end of the game.
With Ashes, we have racial progression, social progression, religious progression and naval progression.
In addition, we have Node progression which dynamically changes the world - building and destroying villages and metros, which in turn dynamically changes the content available in the world.
So, no, the cap on how strong a character grows vertically is not the end of the game in Ashes.
CoE also puts and end to endgame.
One of the mechanisms there is having characters eventually die from old age, thereby needing to progress an heir. CoE also has a dynamic world rather than a static world.
Vertical leveling is boring and for most people max level isn't even a accomplishment. It just takes resources from horizontal progression in my opinion.. Just think of all the low and high level zones being for you to explore at any time if your brave enough.. Having progression of skills in more meaningful ways like actually training weapons and magic instead of slicing pigs with a sword and magically learning how to heal because you're level 6 now.. having a more realistic monster world where you are not killing spiders in one zone and then for some reason the elders of those spiders are in another zone because they are a few levels higher. Exploration is stopped by natural things like stronger monsters that need groups to take out or dangerous zones where you need resistances to survive the poisonous gasses or heat protection from volcanic activity.. Finding an epic sword instead of the only gateway to use it is being level 60, you now have to train your sword skills and maybe know a little ice magic to use it to its full potential. Crafting levels no longer mean what level your gear is but what kind of quality it is. Making horizontal progression more difficult and rewarding would make a great game.
Vertical leveling is basic and not really creative. I believe rushing to max level is a bad thing so why not just remove it all together. 1-59 in my opinion is fluff content that's easy to develop. It makes for a questionable world too... for example why is this staving level 60 zombie wolf so content on staying in a zombie land with no food when a 5 minute walk away is a starting zone filled with farmers and pigs like right next to it. Not having to craft swords youll never use over and over only to break them down and recraft the same thing. Also being ganked by someone 10 levels higher than you and have the feeling that you just encountered the actual God of death and you and your gang of 7 friends cant even hit him because 10 levels means he is immune to anything you do, All you can do is cry Nani as he calmy says Omea wa mou shindeiru and Aoes you all down with one ability when all the guy does in his questing is kill elder versions of the monsters you kill in the next zone over. I think its an old system that needs to be improved.
The OP stated all mmorpgs not just ashes so some of my examples ashes may have some interesting mechanic for instance the zones are changing and have high level and low level mobs which i agree is a step in the right direction but Id love to see vertical leveling get thrown out the window someday. Its unnecessary and I havent seen it done well in most mmos I have played. Level scaling I like but I also think its a bandage to the actual problem. All of this is my opinion of what the next generation of mmorpgs should be. Id like to see more of how Ashes will be different in terms of leveling. I expect pretty much the same old thing though.
I love this! I, too, would love a horizontal system. If I want to be great at magic, I need to practice my magic, not just level up. ESO has a small amount of this in the skills systems. Unlock your skill, and after using it enough ( earning xp) you can morph that skill. Unfortunately that horizontal progression ends there. There needs to be a game that tries to do this, and do it well.
I think with AOC, you can go without an expansion for a year or 2 since I'm hoping that within those years there will be new types of metropolises that emerge instead of seeing the same one's over and over again. Yes, you will be max level but with the introduction of a new questing concept where some quests will unlock as you level the node it will be like a DLC in itself. Say you've done all the Metropolis quests for a year and suddenly 2 of them get sieged and a new one develops, and that happens to be a religious node. Rumor has it that religious nodes are themed around questing and augments. Also, if your tired of a server where nothing is changing perhaps you can enter another server where the world is different. When it comes to questing and treasure hunting I think this will be a good game long term.
I see "rushing" in most MMOs I've played as trade-off between efficiently gaining strategic advantage vs. immersion in lore. Even without an endgame, those that efficiently build up the nodes will conquer those that do not because they will get to the next tier of good stuff before those that hang out at the inn. To that end, those that want the best nodes will skip optional content.
Don't get me wrong. I'm always falling behind the endgame chase because I love that optional content. I find however that I am often rejected by the groups/guilds playing for that strategic advantage. For instance, I've been kicked from groups in dungeons because I slow things down by reading npc comments or can't even find a group because i don't already have the best-in-slot gear.
I don't rush. I like to take my time, throw in some RP, hell take "vacation" photos fishing in different zones I've visited.
Also with Ashes I have 2 characters anyway and will be splitting time between them. My character I will be playing with my wife because we love doing a tank/healer duo in MMOs. And my solo character when they feel like doing something else or I'm gaming and they aren't.
Comments
However, I don't think Ashes needs to accommodate every possible player.
I will somewhat rush subsequent characters through the content. Like in ESO I have 8 max characters so the content starts to get a little repetitive about the 3rd time through so I tend rush through it more.
Try to please everyone and you'll end up please nobody. That's why I admire games like Secret World Legends that aren't afraid to go against the norm and deliver a more unique questing experience.
I also think that quest markers decrease my need to read the text. If it's going to show me where to go why bother, right?! But it's an interesting dilemma. I, personally, will try to read what I can so that the experience is more enjoyable...and remember-able. There aren't many MMOs that I've played, that I can honestly remember a great moment from it. It was just content grind. And I wish to change that with my time in ESO and with AoC in the future.
I very much hate rushing to “end game”, but I still do it.
We don't talk about the days before a realm reborn. But yes that was awful.
There definitely needs to be a balance between immersion and information-overload. Working my way through FF14's main story, I'm getting constantly bombarded with information to the point where I struggle to keep track of the important events. It's all just a blur. I'm praised for all my heroic deeds and yet I can barely remember any of them, and I'm only about a third of the way through the story. The other problem is keeping track of all the characters you are introduced to along the way. I will be introduced to a character, given a ton of exposition about them, and by the time I have forgotten most of what I was told.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you just give the bare bones information about what you are doing it's a lot harder to get immersed in the story. For example, there was one quest I did in FF14 where I went to a farmer who asked me to find a treasure chest, which contained a seed. If that was the only information I was given I would dismiss the whole thing as pointless filler. But when I accepted the quest I was told that the people of the village were suffering because none of their plants would grow, and the seed I went to find was the only plant that would grow. Me retrieving that seed essentially saves the village was starvation.
Again, if you haven't already I would definitely recommend playing through the main story of GW2, as it does a fantastic job of immersing you in the story without overloading you with information and lore.
With regards to quest markers, what other options could developers use to direct players where they need to go for a quest? Either you give them markers and accept that a lot of players are going to skip through the quest text, or you take away the markers and make people read the text (or do "google-fu" to find the answers from someone else).
Im pretty sure Blizzard's greatest gift to mankind was removing that feature. I remember starting one in Thousand Needles and literally eating dinner the whole time it played.
You haven't read much about the systems Ashes will have did you ? nodes level as the player do activities in them, in other words if you level you see the entire node grow bigger and more/bigger events will occur in that node. There are no levels on the zones either, you can get fucked by a level 20 monster where level 10 mobs are plenty. Intrepid is literally trying so that this game will not be like every other mmorpg out there.
Just out of curiosity what mmorpgs have you played? If your answer is only WoW then I can fully understand your jaded attitude towards leveling, because the leveling in that game is amongst the worst of any mmorpg I have played.
..but, conversely and typically, you've got the most content open to you at max level..totally understandable why people would rush to get there
I want to enjoy the game in a way that I get a life time subs worth of game, and I don't want to burn out early because I feel like I've done all the content in the first month and I didn't enjoy any of it because I skipped reading text, and rushed to be max level.
What I will do is try to be first to engage with hidden areas of the game, and to find interesting locations and POIs(points of interest) and I will breath deep the good earthy smells of the caverns.
PURPLE PARALLEL
If, on the other hand, profession levels are not linked then we should see a wide variety of player levels (level 20 character that is a Master Miner, etc).
That said, one can expect that since crafting materials are going to be harvested from some of the dungeon and raid bosses we can expect some master gatherers to be max level and part of the raid group.
My number 1 reason I can’t stand the idea of throttling leveling is because it encourages solo play. Why even play an mmo? Max level is the only real grouping level. Not that you can’t find some random people your level and group with them. I’d just prefer playing with my friends I game with who all have different speeds in which they level. Not everyone will wait and level with you.
So in your opinion we should get rid of leveling entirely and just skip everyone straight to max level? If we did that then that kind of defeats the whole point of playing an RPG in the first place. It would be like going into Call of Duty and saying "I hate the fact everyone uses guns, we should only be allowed knives instead".
That said, I do see your point regarding wanting to play with friends who are different levels to you, but this is easily fixed with scaling technology that a lot of mmorpgs use now-a-days.
You can't have a system where a character can grow stronger indefinitely, so wherever the stopping point is, that is the end game.
Vertical leveling is basic and not really creative. I believe rushing to max level is a bad thing so why not just remove it all together. 1-59 in my opinion is fluff content that's easy to develop. It makes for a questionable world too... for example why is this staving level 60 zombie wolf so content on staying in a zombie land with no food when a 5 minute walk away is a starting zone filled with farmers and pigs like right next to it. Not having to craft swords youll never use over and over only to break them down and recraft the same thing. Also being ganked by someone 10 levels higher than you and have the feeling that you just encountered the actual God of death and you and your gang of 7 friends cant even hit him because 10 levels means he is immune to anything you do, All you can do is cry Nani as he calmy says Omea wa mou shindeiru and Aoes you all down with one ability when all the guy does in his questing is kill elder versions of the monsters you kill in the next zone over. I think its an old system that needs to be improved.
The OP stated all mmorpgs not just ashes so some of my examples ashes may have some interesting mechanic for instance the zones are changing and have high level and low level mobs which i agree is a step in the right direction but Id love to see vertical leveling get thrown out the window someday. Its unnecessary and I havent seen it done well in most mmos I have played. Level scaling I like but I also think its a bandage to the actual problem. All of this is my opinion of what the next generation of mmorpgs should be. Id like to see more of how Ashes will be different in terms of leveling. I expect pretty much the same old thing though.
Reaching max character level is max character level - but that should not be the end of the story and should not be the end of the game.
With Ashes, we have racial progression, social progression, religious progression and naval progression.
In addition, we have Node progression which dynamically changes the world - building and destroying villages and metros, which in turn dynamically changes the content available in the world.
So, no, the cap on how strong a character grows vertically is not the end of the game in Ashes.
CoE also puts and end to endgame.
One of the mechanisms there is having characters eventually die from old age, thereby needing to progress an heir. CoE also has a dynamic world rather than a static world.
I love this! I, too, would love a horizontal system. If I want to be great at magic, I need to practice my magic, not just level up. ESO has a small amount of this in the skills systems. Unlock your skill, and after using it enough ( earning xp) you can morph that skill. Unfortunately that horizontal progression ends there. There needs to be a game that tries to do this, and do it well.
Thanks for mentioning this @Beardo
Don't get me wrong. I'm always falling behind the endgame chase because I love that optional content. I find however that I am often rejected by the groups/guilds playing for that strategic advantage. For instance, I've been kicked from groups in dungeons because I slow things down by reading npc comments or can't even find a group because i don't already have the best-in-slot gear.
Also with Ashes I have 2 characters anyway and will be splitting time between them. My character I will be playing with my wife because we love doing a tank/healer duo in MMOs. And my solo character when they feel like doing something else or I'm gaming and they aren't.