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Dispelling the 'easy' myth

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  • DavisFlightDavisFlight Member CommonPosts: 2,556
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by snapfusion
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/26/the-soapbox-dispelling-the-easy-myth/#continued

    "This isn't a WoW-specific issue or even one limited to MMOs. Gamers from all disciplines seem to be fond of complaining about games being easy without actually attempting anything to accomplish difficult. Big Huge Games noted in a GDC 2012 talk that "too easy" was a common complaint about Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, even though two-thirds of its players completed it on the easiest difficulty setting. BioWare's awesome infographic for Mass Effect 3, shown at last week's PAX East, showed that only four percent of players completed the game on "Insanity" difficulty. The "hardcore" in text don't seem to be all that "hardcore" in practice."

    "So the next time you find yourself typing "too easy" in a comment box, maybe you should consider whether you've actually tried the hard stuff before you click the post button."

    This is so true. Many other examples. WOW's famous Sunwell is done only by 2%. Even when LFR first came out, the "normal" mode is done only by 4% where LFR is done by a whopping 35% of the players.

    Take D3 as another example. You can make the game highly difficulty with perma death. How many kill Diablo on MP10 hard core?

     

     

    As usual everyone including the devs are missing the point.  When people talk about a game being easy they are NOT TALKING about the DIFFICUTY setting.  Geez we are not talking about making games "harder" by sliding a bar up and down...........

    Then what are we talkign about? Certainly there is a bar to slide up and down there .. and it changes difficulty .. does it not?

    Ignore the troll guys. Please.

     

     

  • papabear151papabear151 Member UncommonPosts: 110

    I've lost interest in video games because they are too easy. I don't need an executive to tell me how I feel and why I do things, I'm perfectly capable of deciding those things on my own.

     

    The gaming industry is trying to sell "tedious" as "hard / difficult" but there is a large difference between having to improve skills to handle the difficulty and merely throwing hours at the game. Most of the "difficult" games are artifically difficult by adding in high hp mobs that can instant kill you and adding in lots of random unavoidable instant kill situations. When beating a boss equates to fighting him 5 times on the hope that the random number generator doesnt just insta kill you with it's 75% proc chance then the boss isn't difficult, he's tedious.

     

    I don't turn down difficulties, I frequently turn them up.

     

    The reality is that game execs would rather copy/paste whatever store-shelf version of the game engine they bought and slap some sprites on it so they can sell you a rehash of their last 500 games instead of actually investing in AI and advancing the industry.

     

    The issue is that the consumers fall for "studies" like this and let big companies tell them how they feel instead of deciding this on their own and standing firm with that decision by closing their wallets.

  • troublmakertroublmaker Member Posts: 337

    What the OP doesn't realize is that the people complaining about a game being too easy are within the 4% who finished Mass Effect 3 on the hardest difficulty.   There were over 10M sales of Mass Effect 3.  There were not 10M people complaining about the game.

    The problem seems to be that the majority of people are willing to only do one playthrough of these games and see no value in trying them on harder difficulties.  This is because games are trying to become more like Skyrim in which you won't want to abandon your character that you spent so much time building.  So they put in place a New Game Plus in which you play at the exact same difficulty level again.

  • XthosXthos Member UncommonPosts: 2,739
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by Theocritus
    Originally posted by BadSpock

    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...

     

     Thats pretty much true...Those of us that were reared in EQ and UO had to learn how to play or we died and were hit with harsh penalties......Once WoW came out players didn't have to be as sharp because the penalties for dying were meaningless......ALso the games have become easier...In 1999 EQ most classes couldn't solo...The ones that could had to fight mobs lower than them with the exception of one or two classes...in WoW you could easily solo with any class and most classes could handle mobs 5 levels or so higher.....That right there told me the game was easier.

    So you don't get the point of the article at all.

    No one says solo-leveling is not easy. But WOW has both hard and easy content. Is a game easy if it is some easy content? Heck UO is easy. Mining is clicking a rock again and again .. easy.

    EQ is easy ... reprenishing mana is staring at a spell book doing nothing ... easy.

    Since there is easy gameplay, the whole game must be easy.

    I can hit a key in WoW to move....easy.

     

    Really, this has to be the most ignorant example ever...Also, unless something has happend in EQ, they got rid of looking at a spell book probably over 10 years ago.

     

    95-98% of the content being easy, and then 2-5% of it being harder does not make something challenging.  98 > 2.  Difficulty sliders are horrible imo, make the game as hard as it should be for the vision the developer has, not, you can play our 4 dungeons on 5 settings, so we have 20 dungeons!  I see this crap all the time, no thanks.  How about you give me 10 unique dungeons, not 16 fake scaled dungeons, with 4 real ones.

     

    2-3 person group 'raids' in some newer games....Isn't that really called half a party?  So now a harder half party instanced dungeon is a 'raid'...Its all verbage, and shady salesman tricks.  It is much easier to difficulty slide 4 dungeons, than to make some more unique content...Then you don't leave anyone out, level 1, the narcaleptic that fell on his keyboard and cleared the dungeon has a place to play!

     

    Its a fake content hampster wheel, daily checklists, and scaling dungeons that the top 1 out of 'x' levels gives anyone a challenege....But hey, theirs 20 dungeons...sorry probably pc to say raids now, soloing, the new raid content!

     

    Did I tell ya, I can hit a key and move in WoW?.....easy.

     

  • papabear151papabear151 Member UncommonPosts: 110
    Originally posted by Xthos
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by Theocritus
    Originally posted by BadSpock

    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...

     

     Thats pretty much true...Those of us that were reared in EQ and UO had to learn how to play or we died and were hit with harsh penalties......Once WoW came out players didn't have to be as sharp because the penalties for dying were meaningless......ALso the games have become easier...In 1999 EQ most classes couldn't solo...The ones that could had to fight mobs lower than them with the exception of one or two classes...in WoW you could easily solo with any class and most classes could handle mobs 5 levels or so higher.....That right there told me the game was easier.

    So you don't get the point of the article at all.

    No one says solo-leveling is not easy. But WOW has both hard and easy content. Is a game easy if it is some easy content? Heck UO is easy. Mining is clicking a rock again and again .. easy.

    EQ is easy ... reprenishing mana is staring at a spell book doing nothing ... easy.

    Since there is easy gameplay, the whole game must be easy.

    I can hit a key in WoW to move....easy.

     

    Really, this has to be the most ignorant example ever...Also, unless something has happend in EQ, they got rid of looking at a spell book probably over 10 years ago.

     

    95-98% of the content being easy, and then 2-5% of it being harder does not make something challenging.  98 > 2.  Difficulty sliders are horrible imo, make the game as hard as it should be for the vision the developer has, not, you can play our 4 dungeons on 5 settings, so we have 20 dungeons!  I see this crap all the time, no thanks.  How about you give me 10 unique dungeons, not 16 fake scaled dungeons, with 4 real ones.

     

    2-3 person group 'raids' in some newer games....Isn't that really called half a party?  So now a harder half party instanced dungeon is a 'raid'...Its all verbage, and shady salesman tricks.  It is much easier to difficulty slide 4 dungeons, than to make some more unique content...Then you don't leave anyone out, level 1, the narcaleptic that fell on his keyboard and cleared the dungeon has a place to play!

     

    Its a fake content hampster wheel, daily checklists, and scaling dungeons that the top 1 out of 'x' levels gives anyone a challenege....But hey, theirs 20 dungeons...sorry probably pc to say raids now, soloing, the new raid content!

     

    Did I tell ya, I can hit a key and move in WoW?.....easy.

     

    This guy gets it.

  • papabear151papabear151 Member UncommonPosts: 110

    /Looks at the sheer number of people in this thread that are letting a company executive tell them how to feel about their product.

     

    /Remembers why he started his own business.

  • AlBQuirkyAlBQuirky Member EpicPosts: 7,432


    Originally posted by papabear151
    The reality is that game execs would rather copy/paste whatever store-shelf version of the game engine they bought and slap some sprites on it so they can sell you a rehash of their last 500 games instead of actually investing in AI and advancing the industry.
    AI is tricky to balance. I would like to see AI be the improvement when a player selects a higher difficulty, not just numbers to whittle down and survive.

    For me, a monster that attacks a healer first makes sense to me. It is how I would play it. Then I would attack the summoner and pet players. Kill 2 (or more) for 1 with that strategy. The LAST person I would attack would be the beefy fighter getting in my face. That strategy would be too hard for many players, myself included. So introduce this strategy in the harder modes.

    Being able to shoot at 1 opponent out of a group is kind of silly to me. I am constantly reminded of the 2 guards outside of the Swamp Castle in Monty Python's Holy Grail movie when Lancelot storms the place. Lancelot kills one guard as he runs by and the other, eating an apple, slowly turns after his buddy dies and says, "What?" Using crowd control to break up a group makes sense to me. Making opponents more aware of their buddies ("YOU SHOT CHARLIE!") would make the game too hard for some players, myself included. Again, a nice addition to tougher level gameplay options.

    An opponents LoS is always less than a players. I always figure, "If I can see them, they can see me." (Unless in some kind of sneak/invisibility mode.) This is not true. Making this true would make the game too hard for some players, myself included. Imagine adding this to harder mode opponents.

    There is a lot that can be done to improve AI. Developers know that some things would make the game too tough for the average player, like me :) But if they added a better to AI to a difficulty slider, that would be cool! I may even try out the harder mode opponents then.

    - Al

    Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.
    - FARGIN_WAR


  • EverwestEverwest Member Posts: 75
    Honestly, it's not even a study.  They collected data and then misinterpreted it.  That's not exactly research methodology.  Didn't anyone ever explain the difference between correlation and causation to these guys?  Mediators and moderators would be lost on them, I think.
  • papabear151papabear151 Member UncommonPosts: 110
    Originally posted by AlBQuirky

     


    Originally posted by papabear151
    The reality is that game execs would rather copy/paste whatever store-shelf version of the game engine they bought and slap some sprites on it so they can sell you a rehash of their last 500 games instead of actually investing in AI and advancing the industry.

    AI is tricky to balance. I would like to see AI be the improvement when a player selects a higher difficulty, not just numbers to whittle down and survive.

     

    For me, a monster that attacks a healer first makes sense to me. It is how I would play it. Then I would attack the summoner and pet players. Kill 2 (or more) for 1 with that strategy. The LAST person I would attack would be the beefy fighter getting in my face. That strategy would be too hard for many players, myself included. So introduce this strategy in the harder modes.

    Being able to shoot at 1 opponent out of a group is kind of silly to me. I am constantly reminded of the 2 guards outside of the Swamp Castle in Monty Python's Holy Grail movie when Lancelot storms the place. Lancelot kills one guard as he runs by and the other, eating an apple, slowly turns after his buddy dies and says, "What?" Using crowd control to break up a group makes sense to me. Making opponents more aware of their buddies ("YOU SHOT CHARLIE!") would make the game too hard for some players, myself included. Again, a nice addition to tougher level gameplay options.

    An opponents LoS is always less than a players. I always figure, "If I can see them, they can see me." (Unless in some kind of sneak/invisibility mode.) This is not true. Making this true would make the game too hard for some players, myself included. Imagine adding this to harder mode opponents.

    There is a lot that can be done to improve AI. Developers know that some things would make the game too tough for the average player, like me :) But if they added a better to AI to a difficulty slider, that would be cool! I may even try out the harder mode opponents then.

     

    I agree with this completely. I have no problem with difficulty sliders, the issue is that most difficulty sliders are actually tedium sliders.

  • papabear151papabear151 Member UncommonPosts: 110
    Originally posted by Everwest
    Honestly, it's not even a study.  They collected data and then misinterpreted it.  That's not exactly research methodology.  Didn't anyone ever explain the difference between correlation and causation to these guys?  Mediators and moderators would be lost on them, I think.

    This study wasn't done for people like you. This study was done for consumers that let company executives tell said consumers how to feel about their products.

     

    These people don't care about methodology and neither do the game companies as anyone dull enough to let the salesman give them their opinions on products is too dull to realize the ridiculousness of the whole situation.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Xthos

    95-98% of the content being easy, and then 2-5% of it being harder does not make something challenging.  98 > 2.  Difficulty sliders are horrible imo, make the game as hard as it should be for the vision the developer has, not, you can play our 4 dungeons on 5 settings, so we have 20 dungeons!  I see this crap all the time, no thanks.  How about you give me 10 unique dungeons, not 16 fake scaled dungeons, with 4 real ones.

     

    Nope .. it does make the 2-5% challenging. If you prefer to play the 95% .. well ..are you pretending the 5% does not exist?

    And who say it is 5% .. a lot of people spend days and days in raiding.

    And the percentage time is a decision.

    A game with easy and hard game mode . ... if you CHOOSE to only play 100% easy, does it make the game easy?

  • waynejr2waynejr2 Member EpicPosts: 7,769
    Originally posted by papabear151

    I've lost interest in video games because they are too easy. I don't need an executive to tell me how I feel and why I do things, I'm perfectly capable of deciding those things on my own.

     

    The gaming industry is trying to sell "tedious" as "hard / difficult" but there is a large difference between having to improve skills to handle the difficulty and merely throwing hours at the game. Most of the "difficult" games are artifically difficult by adding in high hp mobs that can instant kill you and adding in lots of random unavoidable instant kill situations. When beating a boss equates to fighting him 5 times on the hope that the random number generator doesnt just insta kill you with it's 75% proc chance then the boss isn't difficult, he's tedious.

     

    I don't turn down difficulties, I frequently turn them up.

     

    The reality is that game execs would rather copy/paste whatever store-shelf version of the game engine they bought and slap some sprites on it so they can sell you a rehash of their last 500 games instead of actually investing in AI and advancing the industry.

     

    The issue is that the consumers fall for "studies" like this and let big companies tell them how they feel instead of deciding this on their own and standing firm with that decision by closing their wallets.

     The opposite of easy is hard.  Some people confuse hard with challenging.  It's easier to build one house than two.  It's harder to build 100 houses than 2.   If they all have the same design they are all at the same challenge level.  Killing 10 mobs to gain a level is easier than having to kill 7000 mobs to gain a level.  If the mobs are the identical in function the challenge level is the same.

    Is it really THAT DIFFICULT to understand? 

    http://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2010/QBlog190810A.html  

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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."

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  • papabear151papabear151 Member UncommonPosts: 110
    Originally posted by waynejr2
    Originally posted by papabear151

    I've lost interest in video games because they are too easy. I don't need an executive to tell me how I feel and why I do things, I'm perfectly capable of deciding those things on my own.

     

    The gaming industry is trying to sell "tedious" as "hard / difficult" but there is a large difference between having to improve skills to handle the difficulty and merely throwing hours at the game. Most of the "difficult" games are artifically difficult by adding in high hp mobs that can instant kill you and adding in lots of random unavoidable instant kill situations. When beating a boss equates to fighting him 5 times on the hope that the random number generator doesnt just insta kill you with it's 75% proc chance then the boss isn't difficult, he's tedious.

     

    I don't turn down difficulties, I frequently turn them up.

     

    The reality is that game execs would rather copy/paste whatever store-shelf version of the game engine they bought and slap some sprites on it so they can sell you a rehash of their last 500 games instead of actually investing in AI and advancing the industry.

     

    The issue is that the consumers fall for "studies" like this and let big companies tell them how they feel instead of deciding this on their own and standing firm with that decision by closing their wallets.

     The opposite of easy is hard.  Some people confuse hard with challenging.  It's easier to build one house than two.  It's harder to build 100 houses than 2.   If they all have the same design they are all at the same challenge level.  Killing 10 mobs to gain a level is easier than having to kill 7000 mobs to gain a level.  If the mobs are the identical in function the challenge level is the same.

    Is it really THAT DIFFICULT to understand? 

    That's an opnion. I don't consider tedious work to be difficult, just tedious. On top of that, things can be more difficult and still land in the realm of easy, which is wear tedium lands. Take a game that is easy, add all the tedium in the world, it's still never going to break into "difficult" it'll just be "more difficult than it was", which usually wasn't very and isn't very.

  • papabear151papabear151 Member UncommonPosts: 110
    Originally posted by ClaudeSuamOram
    Originally posted by Cephus404
    Originally posted by doodphace
    Originally posted by BadSpock

    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.

    I'm sorry, maybe it's just me, but that sounds utterly pathetic.  What a bunch of losers.

    This is one time I agree with Cephus404. That is just sad.

    This is their job, how is your job balancing someones bank account or flipping burgers any less pathetic? 

  • AIMonsterAIMonster Member UncommonPosts: 2,059

    The problem with MMOs (or more specifically, RPGs in general) is the difficulty doesn't stem from how challenging an encounter is for each individual player, but more like the time investment required to player (and grind devoted to that specific content).  Once you understand the basics of the encounter it's all about execution and more importantly your level of gear needed to complete that encounter.

    I'm not knocking a raiding guild's achievements.  I've been part of several server first raiding guilds myself.  I'm a very progression minded player who likes to go for world and server firsts in multiple aspects of the game, but the notion that MMOs are difficult is just wrong.  Keep in mind It IS an accomplishment to do something first or even within the top 1% of guilds to do that content first; however the majority of the accomplishment comes down to those two things, not the perceived notion of actual "difficulty".

    If lockout timers were removed on raids in WoW and guilds like Paragon with the time investment necessary could farm all the best gear from first few raid bosses in the dungeon over and over again you'd bet they already have the Heroic content in the new expansion/patch on farm within a week instead of the month or two it takes them now.  That's because when you break MMORPGs down (this is changing slowly with more skill oriented / twitch or even tactical oriented games hitting the market) they are simple "combat simulators" that require little input from the player compared to a twitch (physical) or tactical (mental) game.  If everyone in the world invested as much time into raiding progression as guilds like Paragon did, then nearly everyone would be on the level of guilds like Paragon as it doesn't require much intelligence or muscle memory to perform at the level Paragon does, it just boils down to time investment and efficiency/focus.

    I see people cite EQ's raids as difficult content, but a lot of classes on EQ's raids were played with 1-4 button rotations.  There were Clerics that simply just ran CH rotations (with mana regen increases in later expansions and larger amounts of clerics they were able to cast other skills in between), I know my Magician on the top raiding guild on my server essentially only used 3 spells during combat in raids on average.  Not only this, but the cast times were ridiculously long.  The only thing difficult about EQ's raids was time investment.

    Obviously MMORPGs are improving on this.  WoW is more action oriented than EQ, and Guild Wars 2 is more action oriented than WoW and so on.  Soon MMORPGs will be in line with more skill oriented single and multiplayer games like Fighting Games, Third Person Action Games, and Shooters and we'll see the true difficulty of them skyrocket.

    So I think when we talk specifically about easy, yes the current MMOs and especially the older generations of MMOs are much too "easy" in this aspect.

  • papabear151papabear151 Member UncommonPosts: 110
    Originally posted by Magnum2103

    The problem with MMOs (or more specifically, RPGs in general) is the difficulty doesn't stem from how challenging an encounter is for each individual player, but more like the time investment required to player (and grind devoted to that specific content).  Once you understand the basics of the encounter it's all about execution and more importantly your level of gear needed to complete that encounter.

    I'm not knocking a raiding guild's achievements.  I've been part of several server first raiding guilds myself.  I'm a very progression minded player who likes to go for world and server firsts in multiple aspects of the game, but the notion that MMOs are difficult is just wrong.  Keep in mind It IS an accomplishment to do something first or even within the top 1% of guilds to do that content first; however the majority of the accomplishment comes down to those two things, not the perceived notion of actual "difficulty".

    If lockout timers were removed on raids in WoW and guilds like Paragon with the time investment necessary could farm all the best gear from first few raid bosses in the dungeon over and over again you'd bet they already have the Heroic content in the new expansion/patch on farm within a week instead of the month or two it takes them now.  That's because when you break MMORPGs down (this is changing slowly with more skill oriented / twitch or even tactical oriented games hitting the market) they are simple "combat simulators" that require little input from the player compared to a twitch (physical) or tactical (mental) game.  If everyone in the world invested as much time into raiding progression as guilds like Paragon did, then nearly everyone would be on the level of guilds like Paragon as it doesn't require much intelligence or muscle memory to perform at the level Paragon does, it just boils down to time investment and efficiency/focus.

    I see people cite EQ's raids as difficult content, but a lot of classes on EQ's raids were played with 1-4 button rotations.  There were Clerics that simply just ran CH rotations (with mana regen increases in later expansions and larger amounts of clerics they were able to cast other skills in between), I know my Magician on the top raiding guild on my server essentially only used 3 spells during combat in raids on average.  Not only this, but the cast times were ridiculously long.  The only thing difficult about EQ's raids was time investment.

    Obviously MMORPGs are improving on this.  WoW is more action oriented than EQ, and Guild Wars 2 is more action oriented than WoW and so on.  Soon MMORPGs will be in line with more skill oriented single and multiplayer games like Fighting Games, Third Person Action Games, and Shooters and we'll see the true difficulty of them skyrocket.

    So I think when we talk specifically about easy, yes the current MMOs and especially the older generations of MMOs are much too "easy" in this aspect.

    While I agree with a lot of this I don't see the addition of easy single player mechanics to mmos as making the game more difficult, I mean, single player games aren't hard.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Magnum2103
      If everyone in the world invested as much time into raiding progression as guilds like Paragon did, then nearly everyone would be on the level of guilds like Paragon as it doesn't require much intelligence or muscle memory to perform at the level Paragon does, it just boils down to time investment and efficiency/focus.

    I doubt that. Some of the scripted mechanics in WOW boss fights need a lot of coordination and memory to pull off. I remember practicing boss fights wipe after wipe when i was in a progression guild some years ago.

    I doubt everyone with time can pull it off. A small mistake and it is a wipe. You timing is off and it is a wipe. You forget to do something and it is a wipe. You fail to notice somethign on the ground and it is a wipe.

  • AIMonsterAIMonster Member UncommonPosts: 2,059
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    I doubt that. Some of the scripted mechanics in WOW boss fights need a lot of coordination and memory to pull off. I remember practicing boss fights wipe after wipe when i was in a progression guild some years ago.

    I doubt everyone with time can pull it off. A small mistake and it is a wipe. You timing is off and it is a wipe. You forget to do something and it is a wipe. You fail to notice somethign on the ground and it is a wipe.

    As someone who has done it, I wholeheartly disagree.  I never felt like what I was doing was anything beyond what an average player could pull off if they invested the same amount of time in said game (particularly WoW) as me.  I did say a lot of it comes down to learning the encounter and your general knowledge of the game, but if everyone had the ridiculous time investment it would be a given that they had the experience to pull this off.

    On the other hand if you take a shooter, or strategy game, or a MOBA you'll find that even players with the same amount of time invested in the game specifically for the competitive level they won't necessarily be able to pull off playing at a professional level.

  • AIMonsterAIMonster Member UncommonPosts: 2,059
    Originally posted by papabear151

    While I agree with a lot of this I don't see the addition of easy single player mechanics to mmos as making the game more difficult, I mean, single player games aren't hard.

    There are actually quite a few single (and multiplayer games) that are difficult.  Games like Catherine, Fire Emblem, and Demon Souls come to mind especially on their highest difficulty settings.  Players and critics also complain these games are too difficult and their review scores sometimes suffer as a result.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Magnum2103
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    I doubt that. Some of the scripted mechanics in WOW boss fights need a lot of coordination and memory to pull off. I remember practicing boss fights wipe after wipe when i was in a progression guild some years ago.

    I doubt everyone with time can pull it off. A small mistake and it is a wipe. You timing is off and it is a wipe. You forget to do something and it is a wipe. You fail to notice somethign on the ground and it is a wipe.

    As someone who has done it, I wholeheartly disagree.  I never felt like what I was doing was anything beyond what an average player could pull off if they invested the same amount of time in said game (particularly WoW) as me.  I did say a lot of it comes down to learning the encounter and your general knowledge of the game, but if everyone had the ridiculous time investment it would be a given that they had the experience to pull this off.

    You never encounter the guild player where no matter how many times the group wipe, he never learn a particular maneuver for the boss? I have practiced many times, and some people never get it, and they are replaced. I doubt the ability to maneuver, to remember sequences .. is all the same for everyone.

    On the other hand if you take a shooter, or strategy game, or a MOBA you'll find that even players with the same amount of time invested in the game specifically for the competitive level they won't necessarily be able to pull off playing at a professional level.

    Definitely. Even professional players have a wide range of abilities .. and the Korean pro practice 16 hours every day .. every single one of them.

    I will never be as good as any one of them .. even if i devote my life to a single game.

     

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Magnum2103
    Originally posted by papabear151

    While I agree with a lot of this I don't see the addition of easy single player mechanics to mmos as making the game more difficult, I mean, single player games aren't hard.

    There are actually quite a few single (and multiplayer games) that are difficult.  Games like Catherine, Fire Emblem, and Demon Souls come to mind especially on their highest difficulty settings.  Players and critics also complain these games are too difficult and their review scores sometimes suffer as a result.

    Throw in D3. It was so hard that Inferno was repeated nerfed, and a difficulty option put in. It also has perma death.

  • AIMonsterAIMonster Member UncommonPosts: 2,059
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    You never encounter the guild player where no matter how many times the group wipe, he never learn a particular maneuver for the boss? I have practiced many times, and some people never get it, and they are replaced. I doubt the ability to maneuver, to remember sequences .. is all the same for everyone.

    I have, but no offense to those people, but I think they are WAY below "average".  We've had to kick people from guilds in the past who were unable to learn no matter how many times things were explained.  I'm not saying there is zero skill/difficulty involved in WoW raiding (or MMO raiding in general) just that the ceiling isn't very high.  I'm saying that if everyone had the time investment and were willing to devote it specifically to raiding, that on average most guilds would be at Paragon's level because only people far below the average gamer's skill level wouldn't be able to handle the encounters.

    The main factor in most MMORPGs especially ones with less modernized combat systems is time investment / experience over a player's actual skill level.  There are still players who are going to be way more efficient at said games and are able to compete without as much time investment and there will still be players who have the same time investment and determination, but will never be able to compete at the high end level, yet the factor of "skill" is much lower than in other games that involve more twitch or tactical input from the player and the primary factor is time investment instead.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Magnum2103
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    You never encounter the guild player where no matter how many times the group wipe, he never learn a particular maneuver for the boss? I have practiced many times, and some people never get it, and they are replaced. I doubt the ability to maneuver, to remember sequences .. is all the same for everyone.

    I have, but no offense to those people, but I think they are WAY below "average".  We've had to kick people from guilds in the past who were unable to learn no matter how many times things were explained.  I'm not saying there is zero skill/difficulty involved in WoW raiding (or MMO raiding in general) just that the ceiling isn't very high.  I'm saying that if everyone had the time investment and were willing to devote it specifically to raiding, that on average most guilds would be at Paragon's level because only people far below the average gamer's skill level wouldn't be able to handle the encounters.

    The main factor in most MMORPGs especially ones with less modernized combat systems is time investment / experience over a player's actual skill level.  There are still players who are going to be way more efficient at said games and are able to compete without as much time investment and there will still be players who have the same time investment and determination, but will never be able to compete at the high end level, yet the factor of "skill" is much lower than in other games that involve more twitch or tactical input from the player and the primary factor is time investment instead.

    Now i don't know if there is any evidence whether they are "below" or "above" "average". I have seen data showing that only a few percentage of players have finished DS raid back in CATA normal mode, and most are doing LFR.

    Now this may be self-selection, and may be they don't want to spend the time, but i think most players are really not skilled enough to do the hard mode raiding where there is very little tolerance for mistakes.

    But again, i will concede that i have no evidence if this is above or below average .. and i doubt you have either.

  • AIMonsterAIMonster Member UncommonPosts: 2,059
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Now i don't know if there is any evidence whether they are "below" or "above" "average". I have seen data showing that only a few percentage of players have finished DS raid back in CATA normal mode, and most are doing LFR.

    Now this may be self-selection, and may be they don't want to spend the time, but i think most players are really not skilled enough to do the hard mode raiding where there is very little tolerance for mistakes.

    But again, i will concede that i have no evidence if this is above or below average .. and i doubt you have either.

    Of course I don't and I concede that maybe I consider "average" to be what actually is considered to be above average because I am the type of player that joins end game progression focused raiding guilds and surrond myself with those type of players thus my personal experience (the only evidence I have) would be mostly within my own guild and other progression minded players who enjoy and participate in top end raiding.

    I still can state that with a fair amount of certainty that as MMO combat trends more towards new combat styles that rely more on twitch or tactical skill that the precentage of players able to hit the skill ceiling necessary for the highest level of end game content will be even smaller than it is now.

  • papabear151papabear151 Member UncommonPosts: 110
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by Magnum2103
    Originally posted by papabear151

    While I agree with a lot of this I don't see the addition of easy single player mechanics to mmos as making the game more difficult, I mean, single player games aren't hard.

    There are actually quite a few single (and multiplayer games) that are difficult.  Games like Catherine, Fire Emblem, and Demon Souls come to mind especially on their highest difficulty settings.  Players and critics also complain these games are too difficult and their review scores sometimes suffer as a result.

    Throw in D3. It was so hard that Inferno was repeated nerfed, and a difficulty option put in. It also has perma death.

    Demon souls is the perfect example of tedium instead of difficulty. Bad gameplay mechanics and random instant deaths don't make the game hard, the just require you throw lots of hours at it. Now, that may be more difficult than "easy", but it doesn't change the core concept.

     

    Diablo 3 is probably the worst example you could ever give. The difficulty was nerfed repeatedly because only a few classes that had spent hundreds of hours farming an easier difficulty could complete the difficulty. It was literally as easy as

    1) level a demon hunter

    2) Farm easy stuff for gear enough to farm the inforno, this is not difficult, just time consuming and tedious.

    3) When you have the correct gear to survive act 1 inferno, move to act 1 inferno and begin farming.

    4) Repeat for each act until complete.

     

    If you think this is difficult then I doubt you have the cognitive capacity to actually judge the difficulty of anything.

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