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Are mmos becoming frequently easier and easier ?

cyriciancyrician Member UncommonPosts: 189

Hello all

Alright here is an interesting one and would like to know what you all think. This one is a two parter, Are the developers of today hand holding us too much ? Or are they just getting lazy with the content they are releasing? Or are we as consumers being lazy how we play and not I using ourselves as much.

My recent blog regarding  the sale of high level characters an interesting point was raised , it was mentioned that the content we travel through on our travels in these interesting lands can be medioca and boring . Now I personally think the content in some games is borderline brilliant and I am currently enjoying LOTRO helms deep expansion and Eve online and Firefall also keep me entertained.

Now there are always exceptions to my comments personally I think Day Z and the other sandbox games are quite challenging and you really earn your rewards in games like Nether.

But I turn to the mmo's we play today and find them easy and non challenging?

Is this because I have evolved as a player having played these sorts of games for years?

 

lets see what your thoughts are.

 

Spelling mistakes are for the enjoyment of the reader sorry about the misspelling on the pole.

 

Current games;
Star treck online
Rift
Eve online
Firefall

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Comments

  • DibdabsDibdabs Member RarePosts: 3,203
    Queue, not cue.
  • iixviiiixiixviiiix Member RarePosts: 2,256

    lol , why we have wow option here ?

    But i kind find it funny , 2004 we have 40 men raid , 2007 we have 25 men , since 2008 to now we get 10/25 men raid .

    While old game challenge player's patience , current games don't.

    But for games , challenge player's patience by ask them do something easy over and over again are very wrong.

    Same as mobs grind and quest hubs , that's very wrong here.

     

    In games , take 100 time to challenge a monster to find out how to kill it are difference from kill it 100 time.

    The first are what mean of challenge

    The second are stupid.

     

    Game challenge mean there are change for you to game over and restart.

    The easier to get Game Over , the harder of game is.

     

  • BetaguyBetaguy Member UncommonPosts: 2,627
    It's not that they were ever hard or challenging. What has been changed is the tedious nuances removed. True story bra. 
    "The King and the Pawn return to the same box at the end of the game"

  • NildenNilden Member EpicPosts: 3,916

    Sorry I'm too stupid to understand this without a glowing yellow exclamation point above your head that turns into a glowing line I follow to a flashing point that I get. /eyeroll /sarcasim

    This doesn't even seem like a question to me it's just fact they are dumbing them down for public consumption.

    "You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon

    "classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon

    Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer

    Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/ 

  • VincerKadenVincerKaden Member UncommonPosts: 457

    Yes. Of course, yes. Developers often realize that when it's easy for players to progress, the more likely they are to spend.

     

    It's my opinion that older/classic MMOs were designed to ensure that a player would need to continue rolling over their subscription month after month in order to achieve their in-game goals. There were fewer MMOs on the market, and less of a chance that a subscriber would become frustrated and jump ship.

     

    Newer MMOs realize that loyalty to their game is fleeting due to the comparably saturated current MMO market. MMOs are now designed to get micro-transactions as often as possible. A good such model will offer purchasable products that will encourage the players to continue playing: maybe a new mount or a weapon skin to parade around, or even an XP boost that surely will keep someone playing. By making the game easier, they'll stay the course, keep their wallet open, and help continue the trend that MMOs are taking.

     

    I first enjoyed MMOs because of their complexity; because of their "simple to understand but difficult to master" paradigm. It wasn't a game of Madden where I'd play for an hour or two every few days for a few months and set it aside. I knew I was in for the long haul and welcomed this different style of game. I had to invest time and thought to achieve my goals, and overcome challenges. Anymore, I feel that I can drop in and drop out of an MMO and still just keep dinging away at XP and levels without trying.

    image

  • immodiumimmodium Member RarePosts: 2,610
    Originally posted by Betaguy
    It's not that they were ever hard or challenging. What has been changed is the tedious nuances removed. True story bra. 

    This. If they re-released the old games today with shinier graphics to the masses. No one would complain they are harder, just tedious.

    image
  • Kevyne-ShandrisKevyne-Shandris Member UncommonPosts: 2,077
    Originally posted by cyrician

    Hello all

    Alright here is an interesting one and would like to know what you all think. This one is a two parter, Are the developers of today hand holding us too much ? Or are they just getting lazy with the content they are releasing? Or are we as consumers being lazy how we play and not I using ourselves as much.

    My recent blog regarding  the sale of high level characters an interesting point was raised , it was mentioned that the content we travel through on our travels in these interesting lands can be medioca and boring . Now I personally think the content in some games is borderline brilliant and I am currently enjoying LOTRO helms deep expansion and Eve online and Firefall also keep me entertained.

    Now there are always exceptions to my comments personally I think Day Z and the other sandbox games are quite challenging and you really earn your rewards in games like Nether.

    But I turn to the mmo's we play today and find them easy and non challenging?

    Is this because I have evolved as a player having played these sorts of games for years?

     

    lets see what your thoughts are.

     

    Spelling mistakes are for the enjoyment of the reader sorry about the misspelling on the pole.

     

    Have only 24 days left on my skill queue...lol (don't remind me of the rush to get into a command ship hull before June 4th! 40 days of skilling!).

     

    Seriously, I find some games -- like WoW -- getting harder and harder (MoP is all about dexterity, despite those with almost all their spells requiring standing still to cast), which in turn makes gameplay duller and duller (if you're running, you're not casting, and that's not fun or challenging, that frustrating). Cheap class mechanics like stacking mortal strike effects (Battle Fatigue especially) negate the reason to even play the healing role (when is it a challenge to heal 50+% healing debuffs? Let DPS get 50+% stacking DPS debuffs, and let's see arenas last for 2hrs, let them to see how it feels to lose what their role is about!).

     

    Streamlining in itself isn't making a game easier. In WoW, for example, the talent reductions to tiers didn't change class game play in itself, it's the encounter/boss/trash mechanics that does. Blizzard went for cheap tactics for "challenge" in bother Cata and MoP by nerfing healing and buffing DPS for faster kills (1million crits with Chaos Bolts remained in the game for 2 patch cycles. Holy Paladins critted for 80k from 5.0.1, and it was nerfed before 5.1 in contrast. The nerf remains so bad, the WoL logs currently are showing in all of the 120 healers and  healing classes only *8* are Holy paladins, literally -- that's an example of really bad class design, of throwing the hands up and letting it go). That is what makes games unbalanced and frankly boring unless you play FoTM builds (and jockeying through each class per expansion or patch cycle doesn't train specialists, it trains FoTM players who ruin classes -- as they scream for changes in a class they'll disregard in the next FoTM cycle, anyway. All during the Holy paladin 4.1 cycle we had guys asking for "healer rotations" and claiming if you don't have one you're "bad"...that's an example of what FoTM does to classes, they were clueless in healing to begin with. Factually, It's trauma, worst damaged gets healed first, and that isn't a DPS concept to put in a macro on their 10 button mouse). But they don't want to listen to it. 120 top healers and only 8 from one class, is proof enough it isn't the players having problems, it's the class mechanics itself.

     

    That's the type of tomfoolery that makes MMORPGs suck. Either the bar is too low or too high, and the middle ground between almost non-existent. I don't even think Blizzard has an idea what they're shooting for, for the 90% that doesn't do heroic raiding and 2.2k+ arenas, because the middle ground (normal raids/RBGs/BGs to 2.1k rating isn't being catered too). The unwritten and documented way to play WoW isn't taught efficiently (and new players may totally be unaware of it) and if you don't warn players YOU NEED TO MAKE 10+ MACROS and KEYBIND and NEVER USE YOUR BACK BUTTON, they can't even get to middle tier raiding.

     

    That's stupid. It's stupid because what's difficult and painful isn't learning the class or even playing the class, it's dealing with crappy macros and the endless need for more addons to keep up. My UI already looks like a 747 cockpit, and it's not because anything is hard or challenging. It's there to do content that makes me fall asleep as its so boring to do -- 2min, 3min, 5min and 8min CDs on my good abilities and watching them tick down...rest is trash filler or mana burning headaches.

     

    Make a MMORPG an eSport and it sucks beyond belief. WotLK? I was healing non-stop, active in concentrating on my class skills, not watching GCDs tick away as a nerf to burst healing.

     

    Can go on forever about these details, but the premise that a game is easier due to streamlining abilities is wrong. Streamlining in itself isn't the problem...class design and mechanics overall IS the problem...8 out of 120 top healers are only Holy paladins in the 5.4 SoO raid, is simply horrible class design. No question about it.

  • Lord.BachusLord.Bachus Member RarePosts: 9,686

    I disagree

    GW2, TSW and some others where more challenging then all the WoW and clones currently are..  

    Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)

  • AnthurAnthur Member UncommonPosts: 961
    Originally posted by immodium
    Originally posted by Betaguy
    It's not that they were ever hard or challenging. What has been changed is the tedious nuances removed. True story bra. 

    This. If they re-released the old games today with shinier graphics to the masses. No one would complain they are harder, just tedious.

    That's your oppinion which I don't share of course. If they would release EQ e.g. nowadays only with prettier graphics but original gameplay asuming EQ never existied before todays MMO players would die in masses and cry with no end.

    They would get their ass kicked in newbies areas by higher level roaming mobs. Today it is impossible to die in a newb zone. You just can't. They would die deep in dungeoans because they didn't pay attention and have no clue how to get their corpse back ever. They would cry because most stuff actually needs a group and teamwork including communication which they just never learned because it is not needed in todays MMOs. And those which even would manage to reach Kithicor Forrest would die a horrible death at night time, if they were even capable to find that place because there were no crosses on the map or even highlighted trails to get you to your destination.

    You call all this probably tedious. I don't. Just different point of views I guess. But I feel like beating a dead horse anyway, so I will just leave it at this. ;)

  • TorgrimTorgrim Member CommonPosts: 2,088
    There are plenty of upcoming MMOs that tries to break away from the WoW formula, how successfully they are gonna be that remains to be seen.

    If it's not broken, you are not innovating.

  • Kevyne-ShandrisKevyne-Shandris Member UncommonPosts: 2,077
    Originally posted by Anthur
    Originally posted by immodium
    Originally posted by Betaguy
    It's not that they were ever hard or challenging. What has been changed is the tedious nuances removed. True story bra. 

    This. If they re-released the old games today with shinier graphics to the masses. No one would complain they are harder, just tedious.

    That's your oppinion which I don't share of course. If they would release EQ e.g. nowadays only with prettier graphics but original gameplay asuming EQ never existied before todays MMO players would die in masses and cry with no end.

    They would get their ass kicked in newbies areas by higher level roaming mobs. Today it is impossible to die in a newb zone. You just can't. They would die deep in dungeoans because they didn't pay attention and have no clue how to get their corpse back ever. They would cry because most stuff actually needs a group and teamwork including communication which they just never learned because it is not needed in todays MMOs. And those which even would manage to reach Kithicor Forrest would die a horrible death at night time, if they were even capable to find that place because there were no crosses on the map or even highlighted trails to get you to your destination.

    You call all this probably tedious. I don't. Just different point of views I guess. But I feel like beating a dead horse anyway, so I will just leave it at this. ;)

    When is difficult mobs in itself "challenging"?

     

    When is it high on a mountain you climbed to view the scenery, and a Yeti has to attack you for a sense of "danger" important?

     

    When is it that you're just mining some ore in EvE, it must be "difficult" to have sitting duck free kills as a PvP "challenge"?

     

    None of it is actually challenging. Most of it is annoying, though.

     

    Fun is pursuing interests, it's not going over the obstacles to get there. That's filler, that's cheapness thrown in to stall progression.

  • pierthpierth Member UncommonPosts: 1,494

    I don't believe they are "frequently becoming easier and easier." The increasing ease came when the focus went from group required for all content to most leveling content becoming soloable. Even then content only really became easier by stats/power levels, not particularly with the "tricks" mobs could pull- in fact I'd say many mobs are trickier nowadays as the older mobs really just boiled down to tank and spank encounters.


    As content became more soloable (and it's been focused that way for several years now- not a new development) I think the difficulty has leveled out. Personally I think the reason MMOs seem easier is a cross between the increasing amount of solo content combined with a lot of MMO players having more experience in the genre- once you've learned how these games work they don't tend to throw a lot of new surprises at you.

  • AnthurAnthur Member UncommonPosts: 961
    Originally posted by UNATCOII
    Originally posted by Anthur
    Originally posted by immodium
    Originally posted by Betaguy
    It's not that they were ever hard or challenging. What has been changed is the tedious nuances removed. True story bra. 

    This. If they re-released the old games today with shinier graphics to the masses. No one would complain they are harder, just tedious.

    That's your oppinion which I don't share of course. If they would release EQ e.g. nowadays only with prettier graphics but original gameplay asuming EQ never existied before todays MMO players would die in masses and cry with no end.

    They would get their ass kicked in newbies areas by higher level roaming mobs. Today it is impossible to die in a newb zone. You just can't. They would die deep in dungeoans because they didn't pay attention and have no clue how to get their corpse back ever. They would cry because most stuff actually needs a group and teamwork including communication which they just never learned because it is not needed in todays MMOs. And those which even would manage to reach Kithicor Forrest would die a horrible death at night time, if they were even capable to find that place because there were no crosses on the map or even highlighted trails to get you to your destination.

    You call all this probably tedious. I don't. Just different point of views I guess. But I feel like beating a dead horse anyway, so I will just leave it at this. ;)

    When is difficult mobs in itself "challenging"?

     

    When is it high on a mountain you climbed to view the scenery, and a Yeti has to attack you for a sense of "danger" important?

     

    When is it that you're just mining some ore in EvE, it must be "difficult" to have sitting duck free kills as a PvP "challenge"?

     

    None of it is actually challenging. Most of it is annoying, though.

     

    Fun is pursuing interests, it's not going over the obstacles to get there. That's filler, that's cheapness thrown in to stall progression.

    Just regarding your last sentence, for me it is fun to overcome obstacles in order to reach my goal. That is meaningful progression for me. But I know that it is a very old fashioned way to do things. I just have a different oppinion and I know nobody would create a MMO nowadays for a dinosaur like me. I am not angry about that , just a little sad maybe. ;)

  • Kevyne-ShandrisKevyne-Shandris Member UncommonPosts: 2,077
    Originally posted by pierth

    I don't believe they are "frequently becoming easier and easier." The increasing ease came when the focus went from group required for all content to most leveling content becoming soloable. Even then content only really became easier by stats/power levels, not particularly with the "tricks" mobs could pull- in fact I'd say many mobs are trickier nowadays as the older mobs really just boiled down to tank and spank encounters.


    As content became more soloable (and it's been focused that way for several years now- not a new development) I think the difficulty has leveled out. Personally I think the reason MMOs seem easier is a cross between the increasing amount of solo content combined with a lot of MMO players having more experience in the genre- once you've learned how these games work they don't tend to throw a lot of new surprises at you.

    It's easier due to 10001 macros to make the fights easier to deal with. So what do developers do? They keep adding more difficult mobs, remove fun spells like AoEs, as a new set of 10001 macros are made to deal with the current mobs.

     

    It's an ante system going nowhere, but making MMOs more of a job instead of a game (and I'm not buying an $80 mouse or game controller to have more buttons to program to do "well" in a entertainment venue, either. It's senseless).

     

    If a game requires macros to be interesting and challenging, the game has mechanics problems. Not only for the majority who won't even use them, but because it just eggs on creating more macros for the next hair brained mob mechanics that comes out. If the same had to CLICK each spell as they had to in the old days, yeah, it becomes as challenging as it always would've been.

     

    How is it that games made before keybinds and macros could be challenging and rewarding, yet today without keybinding options getting to pointlessness, people claim it's not challenging or rewarding...now?

     

    They got used of doing 3 things at once to hurry the pace, so when they finally get to "end-game" they have nothing left to do anymore that is actually challenging. Zipped through the content; zipped through actual challenge; zipped through even skill.

  • PalaPala Member UncommonPosts: 355
    Originally posted by Anthur
    Originally posted by UNATCOII
    Originally posted by Anthur
    Originally posted by immodium
    Originally posted by Betaguy
    It's not that they were ever hard or challenging. What has been changed is the tedious nuances removed. True story bra. 

    This. If they re-released the old games today with shinier graphics to the masses. No one would complain they are harder, just tedious.

    That's your oppinion which I don't share of course. If they would release EQ e.g. nowadays only with prettier graphics but original gameplay asuming EQ never existied before todays MMO players would die in masses and cry with no end.

    They would get their ass kicked in newbies areas by higher level roaming mobs. Today it is impossible to die in a newb zone. You just can't. They would die deep in dungeoans because they didn't pay attention and have no clue how to get their corpse back ever. They would cry because most stuff actually needs a group and teamwork including communication which they just never learned because it is not needed in todays MMOs. And those which even would manage to reach Kithicor Forrest would die a horrible death at night time, if they were even capable to find that place because there were no crosses on the map or even highlighted trails to get you to your destination.

    You call all this probably tedious. I don't. Just different point of views I guess. But I feel like beating a dead horse anyway, so I will just leave it at this. ;)

    When is difficult mobs in itself "challenging"?

     

    When is it high on a mountain you climbed to view the scenery, and a Yeti has to attack you for a sense of "danger" important?

     

    When is it that you're just mining some ore in EvE, it must be "difficult" to have sitting duck free kills as a PvP "challenge"?

     

    None of it is actually challenging. Most of it is annoying, though.

     

    Fun is pursuing interests, it's not going over the obstacles to get there. That's filler, that's cheapness thrown in to stall progression.

    Just regarding your last sentence, for me it is fun to overcome obstacles in order to reach my goal. That is meaningful progression for me. But I know that it is a very old fashioned way to do things. I just have a different oppinion and I know nobody would create a MMO nowadays for a dinosaur like me. I am not angry about that , just a little sad maybe. ;)

    I just don't understand what pursuing interests without overcoming challenges means - I get it all free initially and just play around or what. Overcoming challenges is fun, anything in life worth doing has an element of challenge. Totally confused as to where this fun is without obstacles.

  • Kevyne-ShandrisKevyne-Shandris Member UncommonPosts: 2,077
    Originally posted by Anthur
    Originally posted by UNATCOII
    Originally posted by Anthur
    Originally posted by immodium
    Originally posted by Betaguy
    It's not that they were ever hard or challenging. What has been changed is the tedious nuances removed. True story bra. 

    This. If they re-released the old games today with shinier graphics to the masses. No one would complain they are harder, just tedious.

    That's your oppinion which I don't share of course. If they would release EQ e.g. nowadays only with prettier graphics but original gameplay asuming EQ never existied before todays MMO players would die in masses and cry with no end.

    They would get their ass kicked in newbies areas by higher level roaming mobs. Today it is impossible to die in a newb zone. You just can't. They would die deep in dungeoans because they didn't pay attention and have no clue how to get their corpse back ever. They would cry because most stuff actually needs a group and teamwork including communication which they just never learned because it is not needed in todays MMOs. And those which even would manage to reach Kithicor Forrest would die a horrible death at night time, if they were even capable to find that place because there were no crosses on the map or even highlighted trails to get you to your destination.

    You call all this probably tedious. I don't. Just different point of views I guess. But I feel like beating a dead horse anyway, so I will just leave it at this. ;)

    When is difficult mobs in itself "challenging"?

     

    When is it high on a mountain you climbed to view the scenery, and a Yeti has to attack you for a sense of "danger" important?

     

    When is it that you're just mining some ore in EvE, it must be "difficult" to have sitting duck free kills as a PvP "challenge"?

     

    None of it is actually challenging. Most of it is annoying, though.

     

    Fun is pursuing interests, it's not going over the obstacles to get there. That's filler, that's cheapness thrown in to stall progression.

    Just regarding your last sentence, for me it is fun to overcome obstacles in order to reach my goal. That is meaningful progression for me. But I know that it is a very old fashioned way to do things. I just have a different oppinion and I know nobody would create a MMO nowadays for a dinosaur like me. I am not angry about that , just a little sad maybe. ;)

    Is it fun standing at the top of the mountain enjoying the scenery and repeatedly get attacked by a roaming Yeti (because the devs have to create a sense of "danger" even there?) a "fun" obstacle to overcome? Or, factually, is it an annoyance factor labeled as a "challenge", instead?

  • pierthpierth Member UncommonPosts: 1,494


    Originally posted by UNATCOII
    Originally posted by pierth I don't believe they are "frequently becoming easier and easier." The increasing ease came when the focus went from group required for all content to most leveling content becoming soloable. Even then content only really became easier by stats/power levels, not particularly with the "tricks" mobs could pull- in fact I'd say many mobs are trickier nowadays as the older mobs really just boiled down to tank and spank encounters. As content became more soloable (and it's been focused that way for several years now- not a new development) I think the difficulty has leveled out. Personally I think the reason MMOs seem easier is a cross between the increasing amount of solo content combined with a lot of MMO players having more experience in the genre- once you've learned how these games work they don't tend to throw a lot of new surprises at you.
    It's easier due to 10001 macros to make the fights easier to deal with. So what do developers do? They keep adding more difficult mobs, remove fun spells like AoEs, as a new set of 10001 macros are made to deal with the current mobs.

     

    It's an ante system going nowhere, but making MMOs more of a job instead of a game (and I'm not buying an $80 mouse or game controller to have more buttons to program to do "well" in a entertainment venue, either. It's senseless).

     

    If a game requires macros to be interesting and challenging, the game has mechanics problems. Not only for the majority who won't even use them, but because it just eggs on creating more macros for the next hair brained mob mechanics that comes out. If the same had to CLICK each spell as they had to in the old days, yeah, it becomes as challenging as it always would've been.

     

    How is it that games made before keybinds and macros could be challenging and rewarding, yet today without keybinding options getting to pointlessness, people claim it's not challenging or rewarding...now?

     

    They got used of doing 3 things at once to hurry the pace, so when they finally get to "end-game" they have nothing left to do anymore that is actually challenging. Zipped through the content; zipped through actual challenge; zipped through even skill.


    I'm not sure why you quoted my post because I mentioned nothing at all regarding keybinds and macros. In fact the only game I'd played in the last few years that had them was RIFT. As far as your point about games being more challenging and rewarding before them, you're going to have to be a bit more informative because that provides no examples at all.

  • Pratt2112Pratt2112 Member UncommonPosts: 1,636
    Originally posted by Betaguy
    It's not that they were ever hard or challenging. What has been changed is the tedious nuances removed. True story bra. 

    Of course they were.

    You didn't have !'s, ?'s, arrows, trails, sparklies, map area markers and all kinds of other helpers guiding you from point A to point B and back again. It was necessary to pay attention to what the quest dialog stated in order to complete a task. You had to learn your way around maps and remember where key locations and NPCs were; at the very least you had to actually find it on your own before it would show up on your map.

    Worlds were actually dangerous, mobs didn't have short leashes causing them to "give up" chasing you after a few seconds. You had to learn the map, learn the mobs and learn how to navigate them, because one wrong step and you could find yourself in a potentially difficult fight, or being chased for quite some time until you reached safety, someone else grabbed the mob for you, or you were defeated.

    Quests were, quite often, actual quests. They weren't the menial, mindless tasks that pass as such today - "go kill 10 rats", "go gather some berries from my yard", "go chase off those boars eating my crop", etc. A Quest is something you could fully expect to take you some time to finish. But that's not "acceptable" to people nowadays, because for some reason they've picked up this notion that they are entitled to a sense of progression and achievement every 10 minutes they're logged in.

    Add-ons, Walk-through Guides and, especially, Strategy videos were not nearly as prevalent - nor nearly as "required" by so many. Once upon a time, it was normal for players to go into content without fully knowing what they were getting into, and learning it the hard way - through trial and error. Now, even a brand-new player "has no excuse" to not know the encounters front to back, due to watching videos, reading guides, etc. They're expected to have add-ons installed that spell everything out; what the enemies are about to do and how to respond accordingly - all things players would once have learned through trial and error.

    In this case, though, it's a matter of players becoming more impatient, more entitled, and more demanding of constant success and reward. It's gotten to the point where rather than saying "Okay, that didn't work, let's figure out a new strategy" when things go wrong, players immediately assume the content is "broken", is "too difficult", or it must be that someone in their group just didn't know the content well enough going in ("probably that n00b who obviously didn't do their due dilligence by studying the encounter before going in... 'cause you know... MMOs are all about "studying" and "homework"... not "fun" and "challenge"). In that way, players dumb the content down for themselves.

    And on and on and on. There are so many examples I can cite of content in MMORPGs I played back in the 2000s that was genuinely hard... not "time sink" or "grind" difficult... actually difficult. So-called modern MMO gamers would call it "bad design", because anything that isn't completely spelled out is automatically "broken" to many people these days.

     

  • RusqueRusque Member RarePosts: 2,785

    I'd say yes and no.

    Certain aspects of MMO's have become easier.

    Questing/leveling - are basically just a thing you have to do now, the map tells you where to go and pretty much nothing you encounter during your leveling process has any sort of challenge to it.

    Raid design has gotten incredibly complex and far more challenging than ever before. More options for seeing said content exist (various difficulty modes), but compared to what raid content used to be, far more difficult. There's always a couple of oldies that people bring up as examples of challenging old bosses, but on any given fight, new content has more phases, more abilities, greater demand of everyone in the raid, and so on.

     

    It really depends on what an individual considers "challenge." I think a lot of people still consider "time-spent" as "challenge." You always hear people complain that it's too easy to get gear now and that it used to takes months upon months to get geared in epics. Yes, but if challenge is equated to RNG, then what did you manage to overcome during those months? Bad luck?

    Or when people bring up spawn camping or the fact that it used to take a really long time to hit level cap. Again, what challenge did you manage to overcome? Boredom? Tedium? It's one reason Asian grinders never took off in the Western MMO market - or at least they were always met with disdain. Because it doesn't matter if it takes 11 days to grind out a level if you spent those 11 days killing the same mobs. There was no challenge, just sheer grinding.

     

    Now, I'm not trying to defend all the convenience modern MMO's have created. Some of it is welcome, some of it has been detrimental. But if I look back at games in terms of challenge, today's games hold more difficulty.

  • immodiumimmodium Member RarePosts: 2,610
    Originally posted by TangentPoint
    Originally posted by Betaguy
    It's not that they were ever hard or challenging. What has been changed is the tedious nuances removed. True story bra. 

    Of course they were.

    You didn't have !'s, ?'s, arrows, trails, sparklies, map area markers and all kinds of other helpers guiding you from point A to point B and back again. It was necessary to pay attention to what the quest dialog stated in order to complete a task. You had to learn your way around maps and remember where key locations and NPCs were; at the very least you had to actually find it on your own before it would show up on your map.

    Worlds were actually dangerous, mobs didn't have short leashes causing them to "give up" chasing you after a few seconds. You had to learn the map, learn the mobs and learn how to navigate them, because one wrong step and you could find yourself in a potentially difficult fight, or being chased for quite some time until you reached safety, someone else grabbed the mob for you, or you were defeated.

    Quests were, quite often, actual quests. They weren't the menial, mindless tasks that pass as such today - "go kill 10 rats", "go gather some berries from my yard", "go chase off those boars eating my crop", etc. A Quest is something you could fully expect to take you some time to finish. But that's not "acceptable" to people nowadays, because for some reason they've picked up this notion that they are entitled to a sense of progression and achievement every 10 minutes they're logged in.

    Add-ons, Walk-through Guides and, especially, Strategy videos were not nearly as prevalent - nor nearly as "required" by so many. Once upon a time, it was normal for players to go into content without fully knowing what they were getting into, and learning it the hard way - through trial and error. Now, even a brand-new player "has no excuse" to not know the encounters front to back, due to watching videos, reading guides, etc. They're expected to have add-ons installed that spell everything out; what the enemies are about to do and how to respond accordingly - all things players would once have learned through trial and error.

    In this case, though, it's a matter of players becoming more impatient, more entitled, and more demanding of constant success and reward. It's gotten to the point where rather than saying "Okay, that didn't work, let's figure out a new strategy" when things go wrong, players immediately assume the content is "broken", is "too difficult", or it must be that someone in their group just didn't know the content well enough going in ("probably that n00b who obviously didn't do their due dilligence by studying the encounter before going in... 'cause you know... MMOs are all about "studying" and "homework"... not "fun" and "challenge"). In that way, players dumb the content down for themselves.

    And on and on and on. There are so many examples I can cite of content in MMORPGs I played back in the 2000s that was genuinely hard... not "time sink" or "grind" difficult... actually difficult. So-called modern MMO gamers would call it "bad design", because anything that isn't completely spelled out is automatically "broken" to many people these days.

     

    All the things you mentioned are "time sinks" and "grinds".

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  • LittleBootLittleBoot Member Posts: 326
    Originally posted by immodium
    Originally posted by TangentPoint
    Originally posted by Betaguy
    It's not that they were ever hard or challenging. What has been changed is the tedious nuances removed. True story bra. 

    Of course they were.

    You didn't have !'s, ?'s, arrows, trails, sparklies, map area markers and all kinds of other helpers guiding you from point A to point B and back again. It was necessary to pay attention to what the quest dialog stated in order to complete a task. You had to learn your way around maps and remember where key locations and NPCs were; at the very least you had to actually find it on your own before it would show up on your map.

    Worlds were actually dangerous, mobs didn't have short leashes causing them to "give up" chasing you after a few seconds. You had to learn the map, learn the mobs and learn how to navigate them, because one wrong step and you could find yourself in a potentially difficult fight, or being chased for quite some time until you reached safety, someone else grabbed the mob for you, or you were defeated.

    Quests were, quite often, actual quests. They weren't the menial, mindless tasks that pass as such today - "go kill 10 rats", "go gather some berries from my yard", "go chase off those boars eating my crop", etc. A Quest is something you could fully expect to take you some time to finish. But that's not "acceptable" to people nowadays, because for some reason they've picked up this notion that they are entitled to a sense of progression and achievement every 10 minutes they're logged in.

    Add-ons, Walk-through Guides and, especially, Strategy videos were not nearly as prevalent - nor nearly as "required" by so many. Once upon a time, it was normal for players to go into content without fully knowing what they were getting into, and learning it the hard way - through trial and error. Now, even a brand-new player "has no excuse" to not know the encounters front to back, due to watching videos, reading guides, etc. They're expected to have add-ons installed that spell everything out; what the enemies are about to do and how to respond accordingly - all things players would once have learned through trial and error.

    In this case, though, it's a matter of players becoming more impatient, more entitled, and more demanding of constant success and reward. It's gotten to the point where rather than saying "Okay, that didn't work, let's figure out a new strategy" when things go wrong, players immediately assume the content is "broken", is "too difficult", or it must be that someone in their group just didn't know the content well enough going in ("probably that n00b who obviously didn't do their due dilligence by studying the encounter before going in... 'cause you know... MMOs are all about "studying" and "homework"... not "fun" and "challenge"). In that way, players dumb the content down for themselves.

    And on and on and on. There are so many examples I can cite of content in MMORPGs I played back in the 2000s that was genuinely hard... not "time sink" or "grind" difficult... actually difficult. So-called modern MMO gamers would call it "bad design", because anything that isn't completely spelled out is automatically "broken" to many people these days.

     

    All the things you mentioned are "time sinks" and "grinds".

    People have a habit of labelling any content they dislike a time sink or a grind.  Levels, which exist in almost every mmo out there, new or old are time sinks and grinds.  It is the nature of the game.  So can we move away from these meaningless emotive buzz words and discuss what content is or isn't engaging and challenging?   

  • immodiumimmodium Member RarePosts: 2,610
    Originally posted by LittleBoot

    People have a habit of labelling any content they dislike a time sink or a grind.  Levels, which exist in almost every mmo out there, new or old are time sinks and grinds.  It is the nature of the game.  So can we move away from these meaningless emotive buzz words and discuss what content is or isn't engaging and challenging?   

    But it's totally subjective.

    I play from a combat perspective. I don't really find a challenge in PvE, I'm beating something with next to no brains. That's nothing new though. Enemies in old games didn't have better A.I, improved intelligence, they were/are just as dumb as games today.

    All I'm saying is that it seems like if you want to make a game harder on these boards, you make it more tedious which I don't agree with.

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  • VincerKadenVincerKaden Member UncommonPosts: 457
    Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

    I disagree

    GW2, TSW and some others where more challenging then all the WoW and clones currently are..  

    I might concede a little on TSW. If a player wasn't paying attention, they could really find themselves in a world of trouble if they're not properly building/equipping their character. Starter decks help. But the gear loadouts are not something to be ignored once you start advancing deeper.

     

    GW2 is exceptionally easy, I found. Not that I didn't have fun when I played, but you didn't have to worry about much during combat.

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  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    It's nice to see people think there is no challenge in showing patience to figure complex things out. It's just tedium and grind. Take it out of the game. There was no challenge in learning what placed were safe and navigating without maps. There was no challenge in having to coexist and cooperate with others who you may or may not like. There was no challenge in deleveling/skilling because you couldn't run in and die over and over again until you get lucky and beat something. I could go on and on but basically it comes down to a lack of patience and creativity in today's gamers. Anything that is hard is generally tedious in some way. Anything that isn't is usually simple. Math is a good example. It can be tedious, but it's hard at more advanced levels for most people. Today's games are like having a calculator/tablet to get you through the tedium of doing it by hand. Google what is the answer? I notice this in systems like 3ds as well. We have things like poke on instead of dragon quest. I believe this has something to do with kids being given lots to do by their parents these days. They are always busy and everything is planned out for them. When I was young we were expected to amuse ourself and figure out what to do for ourself. We weren't always right, but often it required a lot of patience. Especially without things like Google and YouTube.
  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
    No. The older games were just more tedious - filled with timesinks which some people find challenging. In general, MMORPGs have always been fairly easy. Challenging content is pretty rare.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky

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