(edited 5/21 and added other thoughts. It's fluid and growing)
Progeny incentivizes itself because of the way the mastery system distributes points 1 per level. Because players advance through levels quickly early on, deleveling your character to lvl 1 and releveling will be a quick way to earn mastery points.
( whether it is considered the best/most efficient way to gain mastery points, and enough of an incentive to delevel, would depend on how other mastery point acquisition methods are balanced)
Just to be clear, these type of systems usually allow the player to keep all items and can also return/reset gained points/bonuses to the player when they delevel themselves.
We know Mastery points will have a "reset" function that costs an increasing amount of gold/currency each time it is reset. It should be trivial to have a free reset when a player delevels themselves through progeny. Players would retain any mastery points they earned on their previous play through (granted they likely couldn't spend them all at first due to their low level/abilities).
Another inherent benefit to the progeny system is how it synergizes with mid level raids. Players will have the option to play/replay level restricted content that they had previously out leveled.
Joppa has mentioned liking the idea of having new race/class combos unlock through the progeny system. If the inherent mastery point benefit isn't enough incentive, something like this could add flavor and variety to the game.
Players also have the option of switching classes/races when they delevel (but they don't have to) in most systems similar to progeny.
For example: A player levels as an ogre warrior and then delevels and chooses to be an gnome rogue. Maybe on the 3rd play through they could have the option to be an ogre rogue or a gnome warrior? (don't focus on my bad example, the kinks can be worked out...understand the idea behind it).
As far as game design and philosophy, what should VR incentivize most based on the tenets and the direction of Pantheon?
Is this a group first game that is about the journey more than the destination? Should the design direction be to incentivize high end raiding once people hit max level? Or should it incentivize releveling and replaying through the journey?
Replaying is better than standard horizontal progression as far as the overall health/logevity of the game. It spreads out the player base to a variety of levels and populates low and mid level zones that often get little use when the majority of the player base is around max level. It minimizes the high end bottleneck and removes some of the raid mob blocking/monopolization by incentivizing other play styles.
(Granted people will still raid. it just becomes more intermittent for some).
Regarding other types of incentives that could potentially be earned through progeny:
I am well aware that there is a certain part of the population who only wants to raid (honestly thats been me in every game). It would have to be a bold move by VR to incentivize another play style more than raiding. I understand the reluctance.
If the journey is truly the most fun part of the game AND replaying it is also incentivized well, that solves a ton of issues that plague games in the genre today. (I mentioned a few above...I know VR members know the list of things i'm referring to).
On the other hand it will piss off some raiders who want to be able to "have their cake and eat it to". People are used to raiding being the most highly incentivized play style. Though there is a discussion to be had for incentivizing them in separate but equal ways.
In reality, as long as the gamer has 1 high level character they can still delevel a different character through the progeny system and be able to raid at the same time. It's not removing the option of doing both.
I don't want to get to much into this part but, I feel Brad did the system a disservice by justifying it as the offspring of the original character. Even explaining it as a separate character or referring to it as "restarting" instead of deleveling the current character with extra options has lead to a lot of confusion in past discussions. Because players get to keep so many of their past acquisitions it is basically the same character just without the levels. Some don't understand that and think they are starting from scratch.
These type of systems are instated to solve a number of issues plagueing the genre today. They have to work a certain way for those issues to be addressed. Deleveling, or removing those levels from the game, is important to gain the most benefit out of these type of systems.
Who would most use a system like progeny?
That depends on the rewards/incentives.
A reward such as the option to unlock race/class options might appeal to both min/maxer type players (depending on racial actives/passives) and roleplay type players alike. Any player who values being slightly more unique than "standard" race/class options might want to participate in progeny.
Other incentive options might be more sought after by different playstyle.
What type of players participating in progeny is best for the game as a whole?
While all players will eventually get to the high end and create the bottleneck (assuming the challenge level is easy enough to allow all players to get there...and there is no level loss etc.), not all players will raid and become part of the group of players vying for loot from a finite number of raid boss spawns.
The infamy system and spawning mobs as a guild has been mentioned as a solution. I'm hoping lockout timers or ghost type mechanics aren't utilized because honestly, at that point, is it really an open world game anymore? Just have instances if that's the case...but that is off topic.
The point being that it is most beneficial for the long term health of the game if raiders are incentivized to participate in a different play style like progeny compared to non-raiders. Moving a portion of the playerbase away from raiding through progeny voluntarily, alleviates the bottleneck and concerns about raid mob monopolization (as has already been mentioned).
If we assume a large portion of raiders tend to be min maxers, it is then logical to add rewards that are most appealing to those type of players specifically. Note that the reward doesn't need to be powerful. It just has to be appealing to those type of players.
Something like a +1 tome in D&D might be an option?
By the time players are max level, +1 to one stat is very minimal and likely not a noticable increase. But that is just the kind of thing min/max type players will go out of their way to attain.
It is +1 to a stat that stacks with all other stats except itself. I believe players would go through the releveling process for a +1 stat stackable bonus...and it wouldn't be a noticable power increase at max level.
It would be a noticable increase at low level which would synergize well with progeny and encourage people to replay low levels when they would actually feel stronger.
This could increase the amount of times a player might be willing to relevel through the progeny system (extend content...incentivize players to keep playing when they have run out of content). This would incentivize some players to relevel up to 8 times to get +1 to all stats (there is a discussion to be had for how something like this should be distributed and whether it should be tradable or not)
Some of the other incentive options listed above would not encourage that many play throughs thus making the benefit of this type of system more minimal than this option.
Whether progeny needs to be in on release has been discussed. Lets talk about that.
My thought is that it is not needed on release necessarily but once players start to hit max level it would be beneficial shortly after. There will be horizontal leveling type gear/glyphs/keys etc to collect that might delay the need for a progeny system at first but that won't last long.
We should all understand that the first few guilds per server to kill raid mobs will monopolize the content based on the amount of raid content we know will be in on release. They will live in the few raid zones at the expense of others who come on their tail.
That ^ will happen quickly. We have already seen guilds advertising to recruit people who will play 18+ hours a day and encouraging multiple people to play the same character to advance faster up to 24 hours/day.
Unless server populations are extremely limited (which creates other issues) a system other than raiding (like progeny)will become beneficial quickly. Maybe we are talking weeks for raid bosses to start being killed by the fastest guilds? In order to have a long enough leveling/horizontal progression to keep the hard core players active for months...would force more "standard" play times/style players to take years to progress (not only do those "hardcore" spend much more time in game but they also tend to be more efficient with their time).
I'm not saying cater to the hardcore. I'm saying incentivize other playstyles in a way that might provide other options to extend content. Will gear/glyph acquisition and mastery point acquisition be enough? If raiding is limited...? Maybe? More options can only help.
As far as when progeny will be beneficial, on release day is not really necessary obviously...a few weeks after...very likely? If it's not ready by release will it be ready when it would be useful? I'm doubtful. It basically has to be fully fleshed out by release...and if that is the case it may as well be in. Players will run out of content (we know it to be the case, we have to accept it), especially if some content is monopolized limiting options.
There is something else to be said for allowing players to plan out their progeny runs in advance (knowing the rewards, knowing what needs to be done etc). If there are rewards tied to a race/class...and that first race/class choice matters...by dropping progeny info late some players will be upset that they didn't choose the best path originally because they weren't given the necessary info. That wouldn't be a good look for such a new, involved, system.
Even if progeny is added post release, hopefully it will be laid out in detail prior to release so players who want to make educated decisions based around a progeny path will have that option. Players need to be given tools to make educated choices.
Other incentive options for progeny that would include simply allowing the player to keep what they already earned could be crafting or faction. Again, it incentivizes itself. I'd prefer if the player simply keeps so much of what they already earned that there is no need for added incentives.
We know crafting will be limited. Maybe players could keep one crafting skill at whatever skill it was at on their last play through? I keep seeing people wanting to be able to participate in more than 1 crafting profession. They have that option with an alt anyway. This could be the way a single character could learn more crafting professions.
I would expect players could only increase one tradeskill per progeny run just like a standard run. So players could either continue to increase a tradeskill that wasn't maxed on their last run...or they could start a new tradeskill. This would lead to a scenario where max level players would want to make sure to max out their tradeskill before they take the plunge and delevel. It encourages taking the time to plan ahead to make the most out of the progeny path.
Faction. What if the player retained faction for the race of their last play through? That would open up unique possibilities where an evil race might be accepted in a good area because the player was good on their last play through (or vice versa). There is also the option to have a special "progeny tier" of faction.
Maybe if you play through as the same race twice that might allow a character additional, faction based, options. So if the max faction is "Kindly"...if you were kindly already to elves, and restart as an elf, maybe you have the option to raise kindly to "Lovingly" or something? That could open up a variety of possibilities. Everything from simply better buy/sell prices to extra quests/npc interactions etc. There are a lot of possibilities there.
