Originally posted by laokoko I think what "those" people want is hardcore content for everything. I mean raids only compose a small portion of the game.
Really? It is well known that you spend more time in end game than leveling. It is well known that raid is the end game "serious" MMO gamers spend their time on.
How is it small when it takes the most gameplay time? Or btw, throw in the 5-man dungeon achievements, and challenge dungeons .. those are hard.
Didn't the wow developer in vanilla wow era says very small percentage of their player even raid? That's what I remember them saying.
And beside the point is those "old game" players spend a majority of the time "not at the end game". Since leveling actually take a very long time to do in those game. So they are infact spending quite a bit of their time killing critters. In fact, the critters are so hard people have to group for them.
The point is those game are hard starting from level1. The point is wow have easy "and" hard content. Those "other" game is pretty much hard all the way. That is the perception from those EQ, ultima online, or darkfall players.
Maybe there should be difficulty levels in MMOs similar to single player games. I know it's frustrating trying to play something way too hard, but at the same time it's mind numbing boring to play something with zero challenge.
I'm sure f. ex. WoW has gained lots of new subs by 'dumbing down' their game for casuals who found the game too challenging in the past, but they have also lost lots of people who think it's way too easy now (I'm one of them). Blizzard themselves have stated that more people have played and quit than playing and subbed to WoW currently.
In my opinion a gaming experience which gives no challenge is worthless and just wasted time in every way. Currently i'm playing Civ 5 on 2nd or 3rd hardest level which i can seldom beat, but that's the very reason why i still play this game. Also, I'm playing Candy Crush Saga in Facebook, which sometimes makes me wanting to rip my hair off, but i return to it again and again until i beat the 'impossible level'.
We already have servers with different sets of rules in MMOs. We have PvE, PvP, RP, RP-PvP, and what not. Why not have some servers with more challenging content? And don't say people wouldn't play on such servers. WoW gained 10+ mil. subs before the casualization they are doing now.
That is an awesome idea! It would pull quite a few of those folks that are on servers like in WoW that get bored and start ganking newbies. I say put them all together and let them at each other like the British did with convicts in Australia. hehe
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Originally posted by nariusseldon lol .. no one disagree with me yet? That is a refreshing change.
I will slightly disagree to save you disappointment. I agree that there are end game raids insanely difficult and games where you can crank up the level if required, where I disagree is that the levelling part of a MMORPG games are easy, mash buttons, level ping and reward. There should in my opinion be more challenges within the levelling aspects of games.
Most games are set up in regions/maps. It's simple enough to move to a more challenging area. There are few mmo's out there that restrict normal pve movement to these areas. The only restrictions I can remember in most games is instanced areas that require level or player numbers. /shrug
They do require u to be a certain level to do the content. if your 3 levels below an enemy you can do it still quite easely unless he's an elite and even then it doesn't pose too muhc of a problem for certain classes. When u tango with a adversary another level above that u cant even hit the damn thing because of your missrating etc.
I've always assumed that people complaining about difficulty are just trolling, looking to belittle anyone who disagerees with them.
If so, statistics wouldn't affect them. Either they are part of the 1% and seek to lord it over others or they aren't and don't care about actual accomplishments.
(however, there is a subset of complainers who I think have an issue with the track that new players find themselves on in mature games - especially in quest-driven games, there is rarely a trail of breadcrumbs for both people seeking scenic route and the people who want an adrenaline fix on day one)
When people bring it up in the context of challenge that might be true.
On the other hand, when people talk in terms of time to level, it means something else. IIRC, EQ1 it took 9 months for the first person to reach cap. Some people are calling it easy when you could level much quicker than that. It is easier, from a different point of view. That doesn't mean challenge, it means time committment.
For those who are going to shoot their mouths off about games not being jobs or you shouldn't have to work, it's just a different taste.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Originally posted by nariusseldon lol .. no one disagree with me yet? That is a refreshing change.
I will slightly disagree to save you disappointment. I agree that there are end game raids insanely difficult and games where you can crank up the level if required, where I disagree is that the levelling part of a MMORPG games are easy, mash buttons, level ping and reward. There should in my opinion be more challenges within the levelling aspects of games.
Most games are set up in regions/maps. It's simple enough to move to a more challenging area. There are few mmo's out there that restrict normal pve movement to these areas. The only restrictions I can remember in most games is instanced areas that require level or player numbers. /shrug
They do require u to be a certain level to do the content. if your 3 levels below an enemy you can do it still quite easely unless he's an elite and even then it doesn't pose too muhc of a problem for certain classes. When u tango with a adversary another level above that u cant even hit the damn thing because of your missrating etc.
so when can i move to a more chalangeing area?
Well you can't have it both ways! lol
Numbers are the only thing seperating your talents and the mob you are trying to kill. I guess for the devs it's all about tweaking the mobs effective kill rate and not everyone is the same. Sounds like your are stuck in a limbo state between easy and not hard enough then xeniar.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Originally posted by nariusseldon lol .. no one disagree with me yet? That is a refreshing change.
I will slightly disagree to save you disappointment. I agree that there are end game raids insanely difficult and games where you can crank up the level if required, where I disagree is that the levelling part of a MMORPG games are easy, mash buttons, level ping and reward. There should in my opinion be more challenges within the levelling aspects of games.
Most games are set up in regions/maps. It's simple enough to move to a more challenging area. There are few mmo's out there that restrict normal pve movement to these areas. The only restrictions I can remember in most games is instanced areas that require level or player numbers. /shrug
They do require u to be a certain level to do the content. if your 3 levels below an enemy you can do it still quite easely unless he's an elite and even then it doesn't pose too muhc of a problem for certain classes. When u tango with a adversary another level above that u cant even hit the damn thing because of your missrating etc.
so when can i move to a more chalangeing area?
Well you can't have it both ways! lol
Numbers are the only thing seperating your talents and the mob you are trying to kill. I guess for the devs it's all about tweaking the mobs effective kill rate and not everyone is the same. Sounds like your are stuck in a limbo state between easy and not hard enough then xeniar.
well if we talk about uhm SP game difficulty's it seems that normal is becoming more easy. i dont even know what easy is i dare not touch it. and Hard stays hard pretty much. depending on game i geus. but in general games are becoming more easy.
Is that because i am too good? or the masses wich obviously buy the game just really suck? Im not trying to sound like a egomaniac here:P
Originally posted by nariusseldon lol .. no one disagree with me yet? That is a refreshing change.
I will slightly disagree to save you disappointment. I agree that there are end game raids insanely difficult and games where you can crank up the level if required, where I disagree is that the levelling part of a MMORPG games are easy, mash buttons, level ping and reward. There should in my opinion be more challenges within the levelling aspects of games.
Most games are set up in regions/maps. It's simple enough to move to a more challenging area. There are few mmo's out there that restrict normal pve movement to these areas. The only restrictions I can remember in most games is instanced areas that require level or player numbers. /shrug
They do require u to be a certain level to do the content. if your 3 levels below an enemy you can do it still quite easely unless he's an elite and even then it doesn't pose too muhc of a problem for certain classes. When u tango with a adversary another level above that u cant even hit the damn thing because of your missrating etc.
so when can i move to a more chalangeing area?
Well you can't have it both ways! lol
Numbers are the only thing seperating your talents and the mob you are trying to kill. I guess for the devs it's all about tweaking the mobs effective kill rate and not everyone is the same. Sounds like your are stuck in a limbo state between easy and not hard enough then xeniar.
well if we talk about uhm SP game difficulty's it seems that normal is becoming more easy. i dont even know what easy is i dare not touch it. and Hard stays hard pretty much. depending on game i geus. but in general games are becoming more easy.
Is that because i am too good? or the masses wich obviously buy the game just really suck? Im not trying to sound like a egomaniac here:P
No I agree with you in some ways. When you begin playing new games they are getting easier and easier. Like you said they are making them easier for the masses because imho the genre is spreading out. Years ago when I first started playing WoW I would never have thought of one of my younger kids playing because it was to challenging. Now it's common to see 8 year olds online.
You don't sound like an egomaniac, just a old school player. Things change. /shrug
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I've found a lot of people who say MMOs are too "easy" are 10+ year veterans who, after this amout of time, should damn well be quite skilled at playing them.
If it is still "hard" after 10 years, you're doing it wrong...
Even 10+ year vets can find something hard. Have a look at DREAM Paragon, the number 1 WoW guild in the world. A month into the new raid tier and they still haven't cleared all 13 heroic bosses. Keep in mind these are the best raiders in the world, with the best gear, are sponsored, and raid 40+ hours a week.
All games, GW2, WoW, etc, have easy content, and hard content.
Originally posted by Disdena Oh nonsense. MMOs are easy. Any and all MMO content can be beaten by pressing 1 2 3 1 1 1 1. An internet forum user said so in a dismissive manner, and I have it on good authority that they know everything.
I read the first line and then had to doublecheck the name,
then read the second line and it made more sense.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Or just more difficulty level. It is not like difficulty option is a new thing, even in MMOs. In WOW,you can raid LFR, normal and hard. LFR is easy as pie, and hard is .. well .. you need to practice and run it as a full time job to beat.
well if we talk about uhm SP game difficulty's it seems that normal is becoming more easy. i dont even know what easy is i dare not touch it. and Hard stays hard pretty much. depending on game i geus. but in general games are becoming more easy.
Is that because i am too good? or the masses wich obviously buy the game just really suck? Im not trying to sound like a egomaniac here:P
Based on the stat given by the article, most players are not even trying the more difficult settings. Do you beat all your games in "hard"?
Or just more difficulty level. It is not like difficulty option is a new thing, even in MMOs. In WOW,you can raid LFR, normal and hard. LFR is easy as pie, and hard is .. well .. you need to practice and run it as a full time job to beat.
As has been said difficulty is dependant on the person.
What one finds challenging another might find easy.
However for the almost every recently released game the leveling up process isn't so much easy as patronising.
Pretty much every MMO has some form of challenging sontent, just some if harder to find or access. A lot of people don't want challenge though, they want superiority, they want the content to be just hard enough for them to get that buzz ... yet too hard for others to beat.
well if we talk about uhm SP game difficulty's it seems that normal is becoming more easy. i dont even know what easy is i dare not touch it. and Hard stays hard pretty much. depending on game i geus. but in general games are becoming more easy.
Is that because i am too good? or the masses wich obviously buy the game just really suck? Im not trying to sound like a egomaniac here:P
Based on the stat given by the article, most players are not even trying the more difficult settings. Do you beat all your games in "hard"?
All no.
if games are enjoyable yes.
i have the entire Halo series on Legendary, CoD on hardest mode God of war ditto. Some games are not worth to replay hence normal being enough. I have to say tho that the diffrence between hard and normal mode is abit too much. Where normal mode is very easy on hardmode things go batshit crazy. should be a setting inbetween or make normal normal instead of easy.
On the other hand, when people talk in terms of time to level, it means something else. IIRC, EQ1 it took 9 months for the first person to reach cap. Some people are calling it easy when you could level much quicker than that. It is easier, from a different point of view. That doesn't mean challenge, it means time committment.
So there are three little quibbles here:
1) the speed at which numbers increase on your character sheet. Mathematically irrelevent, but it is a part of the illusion of progress a grind provides and so it's fair game to desire that illusion unroll at a diffferent pace. So I have some sympathy here, even though it doesn't bother me.
2) Diminshed sense of accomplishment (wanting to see the next person "suffer" as much when going through the content). Personally, I think this serves as a healthy reminder that these are not real life accomplishments, they are entertainment and that ultmately we are doing the grinds because they are there, not because they have real value.
3) the existance of a level cap in the first place. If you have memories of feeling the level cap was an eternity away (if it existed at all), then this sort of plateau where the criteria for advancement changes from character level to item level or achivement score can be a little jarring. This is just a matter of finding a smooth transition from the "general leveling" that everyone is expectyed to do to optional "endgame leveling" mechancis.
well if we talk about uhm SP game difficulty's it seems that normal is becoming more easy. i dont even know what easy is i dare not touch it. and Hard stays hard pretty much. depending on game i geus. but in general games are becoming more easy.
Is that because i am too good? or the masses wich obviously buy the game just really suck? Im not trying to sound like a egomaniac here:P
Based on the stat given by the article, most players are not even trying the more difficult settings. Do you beat all your games in "hard"?
All no.
if games are enjoyable yes.
i have the entire Halo series on Legendary, CoD on hardest mode God of war ditto. Some games are not worth to replay hence normal being enough. I have to say tho that the diffrence between hard and normal mode is abit too much. Where normal mode is very easy on hardmode things go batshit crazy. should be a setting inbetween or make normal normal instead of easy.
Ah .. ok. If the complaints is that the "normal" mode and "hard" mode has too big of a gap .. then i don't have much to disagree. That is certainly up to the game.
And it is certainly true that more difficulty options, a more gradual curve, is better. Look at D3 .. 10 levels of difficulty (even without factor in hard core) ... and no one can claim there isn't an appropriate level for him-/herself.
On the other hand, when people talk in terms of time to level, it means something else. IIRC, EQ1 it took 9 months for the first person to reach cap. Some people are calling it easy when you could level much quicker than that. It is easier, from a different point of view. That doesn't mean challenge, it means time committment.
So there are three little quibbles here:
1) the speed at which numbers increase on your character sheet. Mathematically irrelevent, but it is a part of the illusion of progress a grind provides and so it's fair game to desire that illusion unroll at a diffferent pace. So I have some sympathy here, even though it doesn't bother me.
2) Diminshed sense of accomplishment (wanting to see the next person "suffer" as much when going through the content). Personally, I think this serves as a healthy reminder that these are not real life accomplishments, they are entertainment and that ultmately we are doing the grinds because they are there, not because they have real value.
3) the existance of a level cap in the first place. If you have memories of feeling the level cap was an eternity away (if it existed at all), then this sort of plateau where the criteria for advancement changes from character level to item level or achivement score can be a little jarring. This is just a matter of finding a smooth transition from the "general leveling" that everyone is expectyed to do to optional "endgame leveling" mechancis.
None of these is what i would consider "hard". I suppose it is a matter of definition. In the context of this thread, "easy" is the opposite of "not challenging" ... not the opposite of "taking a long time".
None of the stuff you ddescribe has anything to do with challenge. A long leveling curve is just that .. long. It can be mind numbing easy that you kill the same easy mob 10000000 times instead of 100.
The point is not about the difficulty. THe point is those difficult content people just dont' want to do it. Take for example WOW. The reason those EQ or UO or DF players think wow is a carebear game because they are not looking for a difficult "raiding game". Those players are looking for a difficult "open world game".
And for games that have adjustable difficulty. Usually people just set it to the lowest setting and see the content and that's it. Take GW2 for example. There are dungeon with 80 different difficulty. But for me I just try the easiest difficulty and see the content and it is good enough for me.
The truth is people will always cheat and take short cut if they can. And if the developer give them the chance to set difficulty "to easy". There is no point trying the harder diffiuclty.
If you want to understand why someone is saying what they are saying, you need to consider the possibility that the person you are talking to is using a slightly different dictionary than you are.
( at least that's my attitude - I don't feel I can control anyone's use of words, I can only try to understand them and sometimes the most bitter flamewars come down to just a failure to communicate, leading each side to be arguing with a strawman who isn't really there )
There is no "easy" myth. MMORPGs are time consuming, not difficult. And now with the wave of convenience, they're not even all that time consuming any longer.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
If you want to understand why someone is saying what they are saying, you need to consider the possibility that the person you are talking to is using a slightly different dictionary than you are.
While that is true, and i understand your point, i also don't see any reason not to call it out, and expose the fact that that is not many would consider "hard".
I think a clarity of ideas .. separating "hard" and 'take a long time" is useful because they are clearly different concepts.
I've found a lot of people who say MMOs are too "easy" are 10+ year veterans who, after this amout of time, should damn well be quite skilled at playing them.
If it is still "hard" after 10 years, you're doing it wrong...
Flawed logic. I have been gaming for 25+ years, so does that mean all games should be easy for me?
If you spent 10 years on the same game then yeah, it should be easy, but games can be different. I say can because so many MMOs are cookie cutter WoW clones but that is the choice of the developers.
So in the end it is the developers who decide how hard a game should be and frankly I feel MMOs have degenerated to such an extent that most single player games are harder. All just to cater to "casual" gamers.
i like how OP article talks about sunwell in WoW how only 2% people did it or some shit. Sunwell is just 1 raid in WoW, and raiding is just 1 aspect of WoW.
Just because 1 raid or 1 aspect of a mmo is "hard" does not mean the whole game is appropriately difficult. This is the main issue that people have with WoW when they say its to easy. They're talking about WoW as a whole, not just raids.
Console games are pretty much static in difficulty across the board. Difficulty in leveling up, killing bosses, quests, whatever they're all pretty consistent in the mode you choose, "Easy, Normal, Hard, Legendary" etc. But mmos are vastly different. Leveling will be so easy you actually lose IQ in the process, yet get to 60 and raids are so hard they make you lose your hair. In another, you might find leveling to be somewhat difficult but once you get 60, everything is just a zergfest and its easy to join the zerg and faceroll everything.
And for games that have adjustable difficulty. Usually people just set it to the lowest setting and see the content and that's it. Take GW2 for example. There are dungeon with 80 different difficulty. But for me I just try the easiest difficulty and see the content and it is good enough for me.
The truth is people will always cheat and take short cut if they can. And if the developer give them the chance to set difficulty "to easy". There is no point trying the harder diffiuclty.
That is certainly not true for everyone .. may be even most, but not all players.
Just go to mmo-champion and you will see all the news about world first of this raid and that raid. There are also news about the race to level the first hard core character to paragon 100 in d3.
There are those who strives for a challenge.
Personally i set my challenge level depends on the game and mood. If i want non-stress relaxation, i will do farming in D3 where i can just laser down all the mobs .. with an occasional challenge from an elite pack. If i want some challenge just to show that i have a powerful char and know how to play, i go to solo an uber boss.
But i get your point, i do play some SP games on easy .. jsut to see all the content.
Comments
Didn't the wow developer in vanilla wow era says very small percentage of their player even raid? That's what I remember them saying.
And beside the point is those "old game" players spend a majority of the time "not at the end game". Since leveling actually take a very long time to do in those game. So they are infact spending quite a bit of their time killing critters. In fact, the critters are so hard people have to group for them.
The point is those game are hard starting from level1. The point is wow have easy "and" hard content. Those "other" game is pretty much hard all the way. That is the perception from those EQ, ultima online, or darkfall players.
That is an awesome idea! It would pull quite a few of those folks that are on servers like in WoW that get bored and start ganking newbies. I say put them all together and let them at each other like the British did with convicts in Australia. hehe
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
They do require u to be a certain level to do the content. if your 3 levels below an enemy you can do it still quite easely unless he's an elite and even then it doesn't pose too muhc of a problem for certain classes. When u tango with a adversary another level above that u cant even hit the damn thing because of your missrating etc.
so when can i move to a more chalangeing area?
When people bring it up in the context of challenge that might be true.
On the other hand, when people talk in terms of time to level, it means something else. IIRC, EQ1 it took 9 months for the first person to reach cap. Some people are calling it easy when you could level much quicker than that. It is easier, from a different point of view. That doesn't mean challenge, it means time committment.
For those who are going to shoot their mouths off about games not being jobs or you shouldn't have to work, it's just a different taste.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Well you can't have it both ways! lol
Numbers are the only thing seperating your talents and the mob you are trying to kill. I guess for the devs it's all about tweaking the mobs effective kill rate and not everyone is the same. Sounds like your are stuck in a limbo state between easy and not hard enough then xeniar.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
well if we talk about uhm SP game difficulty's it seems that normal is becoming more easy. i dont even know what easy is i dare not touch it. and Hard stays hard pretty much. depending on game i geus. but in general games are becoming more easy.
Is that because i am too good? or the masses wich obviously buy the game just really suck? Im not trying to sound like a egomaniac here:P
No I agree with you in some ways. When you begin playing new games they are getting easier and easier. Like you said they are making them easier for the masses because imho the genre is spreading out. Years ago when I first started playing WoW I would never have thought of one of my younger kids playing because it was to challenging. Now it's common to see 8 year olds online.
You don't sound like an egomaniac, just a old school player. Things change. /shrug
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Even 10+ year vets can find something hard. Have a look at DREAM Paragon, the number 1 WoW guild in the world. A month into the new raid tier and they still haven't cleared all 13 heroic bosses. Keep in mind these are the best raiders in the world, with the best gear, are sponsored, and raid 40+ hours a week.
All games, GW2, WoW, etc, have easy content, and hard content.
I read the first line and then had to doublecheck the name,
then read the second line and it made more sense.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Or just more difficulty level. It is not like difficulty option is a new thing, even in MMOs. In WOW,you can raid LFR, normal and hard. LFR is easy as pie, and hard is .. well .. you need to practice and run it as a full time job to beat.
Based on the stat given by the article, most players are not even trying the more difficult settings. Do you beat all your games in "hard"?
^ This.
As has been said difficulty is dependant on the person.
What one finds challenging another might find easy.
However for the almost every recently released game the leveling up process isn't so much easy as patronising.
Pretty much every MMO has some form of challenging sontent, just some if harder to find or access. A lot of people don't want challenge though, they want superiority, they want the content to be just hard enough for them to get that buzz ... yet too hard for others to beat.
All no.
if games are enjoyable yes.
i have the entire Halo series on Legendary, CoD on hardest mode God of war ditto. Some games are not worth to replay hence normal being enough. I have to say tho that the diffrence between hard and normal mode is abit too much. Where normal mode is very easy on hardmode things go batshit crazy. should be a setting inbetween or make normal normal instead of easy.
So there are three little quibbles here:
1) the speed at which numbers increase on your character sheet. Mathematically irrelevent, but it is a part of the illusion of progress a grind provides and so it's fair game to desire that illusion unroll at a diffferent pace. So I have some sympathy here, even though it doesn't bother me.
2) Diminshed sense of accomplishment (wanting to see the next person "suffer" as much when going through the content). Personally, I think this serves as a healthy reminder that these are not real life accomplishments, they are entertainment and that ultmately we are doing the grinds because they are there, not because they have real value.
3) the existance of a level cap in the first place. If you have memories of feeling the level cap was an eternity away (if it existed at all), then this sort of plateau where the criteria for advancement changes from character level to item level or achivement score can be a little jarring. This is just a matter of finding a smooth transition from the "general leveling" that everyone is expectyed to do to optional "endgame leveling" mechancis.
Ah .. ok. If the complaints is that the "normal" mode and "hard" mode has too big of a gap .. then i don't have much to disagree. That is certainly up to the game.
And it is certainly true that more difficulty options, a more gradual curve, is better. Look at D3 .. 10 levels of difficulty (even without factor in hard core) ... and no one can claim there isn't an appropriate level for him-/herself.
None of these is what i would consider "hard". I suppose it is a matter of definition. In the context of this thread, "easy" is the opposite of "not challenging" ... not the opposite of "taking a long time".
None of the stuff you ddescribe has anything to do with challenge. A long leveling curve is just that .. long. It can be mind numbing easy that you kill the same easy mob 10000000 times instead of 100.
The point is not about the difficulty. THe point is those difficult content people just dont' want to do it. Take for example WOW. The reason those EQ or UO or DF players think wow is a carebear game because they are not looking for a difficult "raiding game". Those players are looking for a difficult "open world game".
And for games that have adjustable difficulty. Usually people just set it to the lowest setting and see the content and that's it. Take GW2 for example. There are dungeon with 80 different difficulty. But for me I just try the easiest difficulty and see the content and it is good enough for me.
The truth is people will always cheat and take short cut if they can. And if the developer give them the chance to set difficulty "to easy". There is no point trying the harder diffiuclty.
That's fine, but irrelevent.
If you want to understand why someone is saying what they are saying, you need to consider the possibility that the person you are talking to is using a slightly different dictionary than you are.
( at least that's my attitude - I don't feel I can control anyone's use of words, I can only try to understand them and sometimes the most bitter flamewars come down to just a failure to communicate, leading each side to be arguing with a strawman who isn't really there )
There is no "easy" myth. MMORPGs are time consuming, not difficult. And now with the wave of convenience, they're not even all that time consuming any longer.
While that is true, and i understand your point, i also don't see any reason not to call it out, and expose the fact that that is not many would consider "hard".
I think a clarity of ideas .. separating "hard" and 'take a long time" is useful because they are clearly different concepts.
Flawed logic. I have been gaming for 25+ years, so does that mean all games should be easy for me?
If you spent 10 years on the same game then yeah, it should be easy, but games can be different. I say can because so many MMOs are cookie cutter WoW clones but that is the choice of the developers.
So in the end it is the developers who decide how hard a game should be and frankly I feel MMOs have degenerated to such an extent that most single player games are harder. All just to cater to "casual" gamers.
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i like how OP article talks about sunwell in WoW how only 2% people did it or some shit. Sunwell is just 1 raid in WoW, and raiding is just 1 aspect of WoW.
Just because 1 raid or 1 aspect of a mmo is "hard" does not mean the whole game is appropriately difficult. This is the main issue that people have with WoW when they say its to easy. They're talking about WoW as a whole, not just raids.
Console games are pretty much static in difficulty across the board. Difficulty in leveling up, killing bosses, quests, whatever they're all pretty consistent in the mode you choose, "Easy, Normal, Hard, Legendary" etc. But mmos are vastly different. Leveling will be so easy you actually lose IQ in the process, yet get to 60 and raids are so hard they make you lose your hair. In another, you might find leveling to be somewhat difficult but once you get 60, everything is just a zergfest and its easy to join the zerg and faceroll everything.
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That is certainly not true for everyone .. may be even most, but not all players.
Just go to mmo-champion and you will see all the news about world first of this raid and that raid. There are also news about the race to level the first hard core character to paragon 100 in d3.
There are those who strives for a challenge.
Personally i set my challenge level depends on the game and mood. If i want non-stress relaxation, i will do farming in D3 where i can just laser down all the mobs .. with an occasional challenge from an elite pack. If i want some challenge just to show that i have a powerful char and know how to play, i go to solo an uber boss.
But i get your point, i do play some SP games on easy .. jsut to see all the content.