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Why don't more MMOs simply have options for difficulty?
iridescence
Member UncommonPosts: 1,552
Why don't more MMOs have instanced content options for easy and hard and solo,duo,group,raid for every instanced encounter ?
Why don't any have things like being able to check a box at character creation for things like:
-slower experience gain
-item decay
-no quest markers or marks over questgivers' heads
-no fast travel
-item weight/encumberance
-(Maybe) perma-death
(as well as probably a few others I can't think of right now)
Want the game easy? No problem, leave all those options unchecked. Only like a couple of them? You can do that.
Each player could have a history viewable but other players That would say things like "____ has a phobia of teleporters" or "____killed the black wizard *and* his cohort of demon lords." if you did the raid version of the instance where the solo version would just be the wizard.
It seems like the increased development time this would take would be more than compensated by a lot more replay value as well keeping more people happy longer. I do not favor giving better gear for at least most harder in game achievements as that leads to all kinds of balance problems and whining but things like a cool line in your player history for a bit of bragging rights would be nice...
I don't think everyone would choose the path of least resistance, many people really do like a challenge...
Oh, and if you're a smart-ass and say "You can just gimp yourself if you want to make the game harder!" Please don't bother, that is not the same as having adjustable difficulty options within the game
Does the technology for this kind of stuff really not exist yet in the MMO space?
Comments
Because people will take the path of least resistance.
If I had to leave a group mid-quest to repair my items due to having 'item decay' switched on I would not be invited back.
They will take the path of least resistance for most reward and that ends up being a balance nightmare. Every harder option would have to give better stuff and then someone would be complaining that they can't get the same thing the harder people can get etc.
This idea is a complete nightmare from a game design standpoint.
That is like asking why dont you play basketball with "beer goggles" on. Or play with no shoes.
People are not willingly going to handicap themselves against other players.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
If you run with the idea that XP potions and the like adjust difficulty, then developers do have options for difficulty. They just charge money for them.
However, back in the real world, I think the issue would be that everyone would just use the easiest level of difficulty, or the level of difficulty that returns the most reward for the least amount of effort, making the difficulty system something that would only be used by a small number of people, which is not the goal when designing a system that impacts nearly everything about a game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
---
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
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
It's sad when you have to complain that a game isn't hard enough lol. In the old games we all complained they were to hard and took to long. Now we are paying for that.
I was never a person who was a top level player in Everquest. I actually didn't like raiding or grouping much and accepted that I wouldn't get the things people who grouped a lot did. I didn't mind that as I felt it was a lot of effort for people to group and raid. I had a good time exploring the world and finding good places to kill mobs. Sure I was envious of people with epic's and raid armor. In fact I remember before there was a term raid. People would just go to various high level areas and kill things that were never meant to be killed by ganging up on them in large groups. It was something to watch even if you weren't a part of it. It was one of the best parts of Everquest. You saw people doing things that shouldn't have been possible. You saw druids snaring a yellow conned mob and kiting it from one end of a zone to another and meditating in between while their stinging swarm was killing them. You saw Necro's reverse kiting mobs in tight areas. People created the holy trinity because it was the most efficient way to group. It wasn't designed that way. My friend was an enchanter and I recall he would group with others in the planes of power. The mobs were very difficult there. One Druid would snare a really difficult mob. He would then charm it and they would use it as the tank against other really difficult mobs in the area. It was difficult though because one hit could kill you and one death could mean a lot of exp loss. You had to be very sharp/alert.
Is it possible to program all these options in an MMO? .... The short answer is yes, but while all these options don't look like much it really places a lot of work onto the developers QA/QC teams. Testing and tuning an instance can be time consuming and adding instance scaling means that the instance must be tuned to each setting ..... now when you add in other character level choices, mostly the ones which could impact the instance, means the job of tuning an instance could quite literally cause the testers to mutiny and or go postal. There are reasons why most quest or instance phasing requires all the participants be on the same step of a quest.
So while it is technically feasible to add in all these character sliders/check boxes and instance options, their value to a developer starts to diminish rather rapidly when the design allows for players to mix and match character options with instance settings.
O.P. if self-imposed limitations are the way to a better MMO, then you might like a game where character power is completely configurable by the player. Anyone is free to create a character that has 10,000,000 million hit points, and can insta-kill any mob in the game.
How many people do you think would, instead, create characters with 30 hit points and meager damage output? The question is rhetorical. Self imposed limitations are a fallacy. Create a very difficult game world, and players will rise to the challenge. Create an easy game world that players can handicap themselves in; and no one will.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
A shared world that is different for each player is a tricky illusion to create.
I've always been a fan of keeping the world the same for everyone, but rewarding characters that abide by various taboos that efffectivelhy increase the difficulty of the game.
That doesn't make sense to me.
Even though these are social games, it's also competitive.
Not only that, but this would also affect game economy.
It would make sense if there are penalties. Rewards should decrease if you want an increased convenience. Then it could work I guess.
While used in instanced events, City of Heroes implemented a double difficulty slider set. You could set the event to be anywhere from one less to five levels above yours, and set the party size from normal to plus 8. The group I ran with most tended to go for +3, +3.
One group we met once was taking a high end Task Force designed for 8, and seeing how few players they could complete it with. They'd gotten it down to three and were making a run at two. We kowtowed to their awesomeness!
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
MMO's are typically bound up in an intricate relationship between risk vs. reward. Since players will gravitate towards whatever the max benefit for least effort is, you really can't create different rulesets unless you create different rewards. There are games that have integrated a "difficulty" setting like heroics in WoW for instance where you can get better rewards, but I find it to be a lazy design mechanism.
And yet in Single player games that have selectable difficulty options most people do not just play the easiest possible way all the time. Maybe they do at the beginning but then most get bored and want to increase the challenge. Wouldn't whole guilds of people form around those who liked the more difficult mechanics and wanted to play that way?
The vast majority of MMOs are "Everybody's a winner!" mode by default though. Options like this would probably mainly make things harder and more immersive for people that wanted that.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.