You have a point, its more of a symptom than a problem in itself.
The problem being; that all you do is queue and run dungeons... thats a game lobby to me and not being in a virtual world. You dont even have to know where the dungeon is..
Yes. Many MMOs are more like lobby games than virtual world. So? That has nothing to do with challenges. In fact, the most challenging game i have played is Diablo 3 hard core MP10 ... and that is not even a MMO .. certainly with no virtual world.
Not directly, no. It allows everyone, no matter how bad or disaggreable they are, to have a go at it and to get loot. No matter if they are deadweight. In open dungeons you atleast have the risk of being out competed by a group where everyone pulls their weight
That is true. But if you are a deadweight and cause wipes .. well .. you got kicked. Not anyone is willing to carry others, particularly strangers. If i meet a bad tank, or a bad DPS, i either kick them or quit.
*And* who says others cannot carry you in an open dungeon? It has nothing to do with the instance or open dungeon, it is about if others are willing to carry you.
And what I meant by getting the hell out... well I was bored doing the same old stuff.. went and tried some other games.. seems they had the same boring stuff and right now Im not playing any MMO..
in WoW I didnt enjoy replaying dungeons every single week. I didnt enjoy breezing through the solo stuff either. Tried the PvP batlegrounds and there didnt seem to be anything to it... just run out and smash stuff, die, and repeat.. You could try to be sneaky or clever.. but that usually just meant less points.. And points was exactly what there wasnt to PvP in WoW... why fight... to be top tier... thats not why I play MMOs.. thats why I play FPS... not that I am top tier.. though I might top the scoreboard for a map :P
Everything in that game was so mindnumbingly simplyfied and straightforward. Not once did it make sense to stop and consider what you were doing. That was wasting time, that could be spent mashing buttons.
There was one way to skin a cat and you would only get penalized for experimenting.
Many will say video games are just wasting time. And certainly you state clearly why you did not like MMOs. But again, that is irrelevant to whether there are challenges.
You are saying you don't want to even to attempt the challegnes because they are boring (to you). That is fair. Just don't claim there is none.
Hard mode raid is hard .. no matter you think is boring or not. Finish it, show us the achievement, then you can say it is easy.
Whenever I have found the content I am doing in any MMO to be too easy. I go and do harder content.
This isn't a difficult idea people. Go to a tougher area.
If you choose not to, and still complain games are too easy then you are pathetic.
I think some complains just to feel good and have an ego-boost about how l33t they are.
Now if the paragon guys come here and tell us how easy WOW hard mode raiding is, i will incline to believe it more.
It is like people tell me that "tensor analysis is easy because it is just shifting symbols around .. and oh .. i don't know how to do it ... but i am sure it is easy".
Originally posted by nariusseldon You never seen theorycrafting? Even in WOW, stochastic programming has been used to figure out optimal gear/gem/reforge choices in software like RAWR. You have never made a DPS spreadsheet? Many people do.And why is a 2-day game crappy? You are equating quality with quantity.I played WOW for years. I played Bioshock Infintie for a week (not as fast as you friend but still quite fast). BI is a very fun game ... i don't see how a game is better just because it is longer. BI is in no way, less fun than WOW, and probably a lot more so.Is it a bad product just because it is shorter? No in my books.
...
You play these as arcade 3rdPS..
Like someone else said: why you still here.. you have claimed over a hundred times now... that you are not a MMORPG player.
Hmm, Phelcher makes a good point.
Because MMORPG can be played solo, like lobby games, and if MMO devs make games i like (like STO story mission), is there a reason why i should not play them, or talk about them?
An MMORPG can be played many ways^... that is their point.
But to thread-crap one playstyle (as you have over the last 7 months) only to be reminded that the things you constantly speak of, are nothing to do with MMORPG, but arcade, or MMO.
Just like somone on a Corvette Forum discussing their niche.. Some people might talk Trucks briefly... but the focus is vettes. They are not talking about hondas, or suvs.
They are talking about their thing... mmorpg's... not MMO.., or action arcade... etc.
So NArius.. you like to play SOLO... and sit in lobbies but why do you think u need to flood every thread with such non-mmorpg stuff..? Then keep claiming you can say whatever you want, because you onced played WoW, but have now found you don't have times for MMORPG's, but arcade games instead.... but your still here. Have not transitioned away from the game forum you claim (yourself) to dislike..
So yes... You can play/takl about whatever game you want, but PLEASE do it in the off-topic forum... we here are talking & concerned about MMORPG's..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
MMOs are created for an audience that varies much more than audiences from other genres. What some find easy, others find hard. So content has to walk a fine line... and will sometimes end up easier than it maybe should be as a result.
Also, MMOs typically only have one difficulty setting unless you raid. If you don't like to raid, then you won't be facing the toughest content either since developers generally focus all their engame attention on instanced content. Balancing for a group is just another can of worms too...
Lastly, MMOs are in the business of making money. They are not typical one-off game purchases. They are potentially longterm investments for players. The quickest way to alienate a player is to kill them early and often. I would wager most players don't enjoy losing very much. Frustrated playerbase = less money.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
MMOs are created for an audience that varies much more than audiences from other genres. What some find easy, others find hard. So content has to walk a fine line... and will sometimes end up easier than it maybe should be as a result.
Also, MMOs typically only have one difficulty setting unless you raid. If you don't like to raid, then you won't be facing the toughest content either since developers generally focus all their engame attention on instanced content. Balancing for a group is just another can of worms too...
Lastly, MMOs are in the business of making money. They are not typical one-off game purchases. They are potentially longterm investments for players. The quickest way to alienate a player is to kill them early and often. I would wager most players don't enjoy losing very much. Frustrated playerbase = less money.
It is a balance, if you are able to play the MMO half asleep they won't subcribe for a second month and/or buy anything in the cash shop. Thats were we are today playing MMO's where we are sleepwalking.
Originally posted by nariusseldon ...Yes. Many MMOs are more like lobby games than virtual world...
There is absolutely nothing massive about a lobby game. No wonder the industry is tanking; trying to push non massive content into a genre which describes itself first and foremost as massive.
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
It is a balance, if you are able to play the MMO half asleep they won't subcribe for a second month and/or buy anything in the cash shop. Thats were we are today playing MMO's where we are sleepwalking.
So people sub WOW for years. Sub TOR for more than 2 month, and GW is still going strong.
So which part of your argument is wrong?
Is it people cannot play these MMO half asleep?
Or that they do, and they don't care and continue to have fun?
Originally posted by nariusseldon ...Yes. Many MMOs are more like lobby games than virtual world...
There is absolutely nothing massive about a lobby game. No wonder the industry is tanking; trying to push non massive content into a genre which describes itself first and foremost as massive.
hmm .. you don't need "massive" to be successful. Look at all the non-MMO online games.
The most successful is LoL. Is it massive?
D3 sold 12M. Is it massive?
WoT is highly successful. Is it massive?
Even WOW is still going strong. How much of it is massive?
A study, by a video game company, came back and said that the criticisms of it's consumers were unfounded. So basically... "anyone complaining about our products has no right to do so since we say that they (anyone who complains) haven't actually *done* the *hard* stuff".
Again, a video game executive telling me that the games I think are easy are actually hard isn't going to make me change my mind. This is a propaganda piece to mitigate the "too easy" losses that video games are having.
"Oh this game is really easy"
"No its not, because you didn't collect all the rare stamps"
"OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT, FIFTEEN MORE HOURS OF THE SAME EASY GAME SUDDENLY MAKES IT DIFFICULT!"
A study, by a video game company, came back and said that the criticisms of it's consumers were unfounded. So basically... "anyone complaining about our products has no right to do so since we say that they (anyone who complains) haven't actually *done* the *hard* stuff".
Again, a video game executive telling me that the games I think are easy are actually hard isn't going to make me change my mind. This is a propaganda piece to mitigate the "too easy" losses that video games are having.
"Oh this game is really easy"
"No its not, because you didn't collect all the rare stamps"
"OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT, FIFTEEN MORE HOURS OF THE SAME EASY GAME SUDDENLY MAKES IT DIFFICULT!"
...
...
Get real.
Remember my comment a couple weeks back of no guild has cleared the latest heroic WoW tier yet in its first month? Ya....its April 10th, and that comment still stands...
So much for "content gets cleared the first day/week/month"
Thats hardly "you didn't collect all the rare stamps"
There is merit in the whole "you cant complain about it being too easy when you havent attempted the hard stuff", there really is no denying that. Nobody who has cleared any heroic WoW raids (I keep using WoW as my example for ease of understanding) has complined how "easy" it was. Thats literally like syaing "this game is way too easy" when choosing the easy option from the start menu...
Making up disengenious examples does not help this discussion.
A study, by a video game company, came back and said that the criticisms of it's consumers were unfounded. So basically... "anyone complaining about our products has no right to do so since we say that they (anyone who complains) haven't actually *done* the *hard* stuff".
Again, a video game executive telling me that the games I think are easy are actually hard isn't going to make me change my mind. This is a propaganda piece to mitigate the "too easy" losses that video games are having.
"Oh this game is really easy"
"No its not, because you didn't collect all the rare stamps"
"OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT, FIFTEEN MORE HOURS OF THE SAME EASY GAME SUDDENLY MAKES IT DIFFICULT!"
...
...
Get real.
Remember my comment a couple weeks back of no guild has cleared the latest heroic WoW tier yet? Ya..that still stands...
So much for "content gets cleared the first day/week/month"
Thats hardly "you didn't collect all the rare stamps"
There is merit in the whole "you cant complain about it being too easy when you havent attempted the hard stuff", there really is no denying that. Nobody who has cleared any heroic WoW raids (I keep using WoW as my example for ease of understanding) has complined how "easy" it was. Thats literally like syaing "this game is way too easy" when choosing the easy option from the start menu...
Making up disengenious examples does not help this discussion.
If it is just time sink .. like the horrible EQ camping .. then it is not real challenge.
But raid content that no one on earth can clear .. if that is not challengin, what is?
If it is just time sink .. like the horrible EQ camping .. then it is not real challenge.
But raid content that no one on earth can clear .. if that is not challengin, what is?
Chiming in here: That people whine that games are too easy while playing them on their easy settings is actually really telling. What it tells me is: "Don't give players a choice to play easymode. As a game designer, you are better equipped to present your experience to your players than they are to choose their own"
Still, time sinks != challenge. "Takes more hours" isn't challenging, although it may be more difficult. Difficulty is a tool to deliver challenges, which bring about accomplishment. Cruddy difficulty doesn't do that.
"Raid content that no one on earth can clear" <--- this definitely CAN be challenging, however - what if that raid content was a gear check that is impossible to defeat? That's not challenging, it's just dumb and broken. I'm not trying to suggest WoW's latest Hardmode raids are like that, but it demonstrates a point.
If it is just time sink .. like the horrible EQ camping .. then it is not real challenge.
But raid content that no one on earth can clear .. if that is not challengin, what is?
Chiming in here: That people whine that games are too easy while playing them on their easy settings is actually really telling. What it tells me is: "Don't give players a choice to play easymode. As a game designer, you are better equipped to present your experience to your players than they are to choose their own"
Still, time sinks != challenge. "Takes more hours" isn't challenging, although it may be more difficult. Difficulty is a tool to deliver challenges, which bring about accomplishment. Cruddy difficulty doesn't do that.
"Raid content that no one on earth can clear" <--- this definitely CAN be challenging, however - what if that raid content was a gear check that is impossible to defeat? That's not challenging, it's just dumb and broken. I'm not trying to suggest WoW's latest Hardmode raids are like that, but it demonstrates a point.
Agree, if gearchecks were the "gate", that would indeed be somewhat of a false challenge. Thankfully thats very rarely the case.
Edit - Developers giving the option to players is not necessarly a problem. WoW having those options is one of the main reasons its by far the most played MMORPG. Competative hardcore raiders play it because they have content for them. Casuals play it because they have content for them. A minorty of its playerbase having the false assumtion of how "easy" it is, its an acceptable tradeoff (as shown by its continued popularity).
"Raid content that no one on earth can clear" <--- this definitely CAN be challenging, however - what if that raid content was a gear check that is impossible to defeat? That's not challenging, it's just dumb and broken. I'm not trying to suggest WoW's latest Hardmode raids are like that, but it demonstrates a point.
Good point of discussion.
The fact that all hard mode raids eventually are finished, sometimes abate by a very small percentage of players ... is evidence that it is not just an impossible gear check.
I want to point out that this topic is about whether challenges exist, which they do.
It is less about what challenges are fun (a side, but i guess fair sub-topic). Obviously not every player agree that the same level challenge is fun. Otherwise, we won't need difficulty option in so many games.
I think there are many examples of many different type of challenges in WOW, other MMOs, and D3. Whether the challenge comes from gear checks, numerical scaling, or different mechanics .. matter little to the existence of challenge, although they do speak to the fun factor.
In fact, in WOW (as far as i know, since i quit last Dec), hard mode is not JUST numerical scaling, but can also have different mechanics (or slightly different ones). And also, if the numerical scaling allows you to ignore some mechanics, then it is equivalent to a change of mechanics.
Example, in D3, in low MP, i will just ignore fire on the ground, but at high MP, i need to avoid, and kite. So to me, that changes the difficulty in meaningful strategic ways .... not just now i need to hit the mob 10 times instead of 5 to kill it.
"Raid content that no one on earth can clear" <--- this definitely CAN be challenging, however - what if that raid content was a gear check that is impossible to defeat? That's not challenging, it's just dumb and broken. I'm not trying to suggest WoW's latest Hardmode raids are like that, but it demonstrates a point.
Good point of discussion.
The fact that all hard mode raids eventually are finished, sometimes abate by a very small percentage of players ... is evidence that it is not just an impossible gear check.
I want to point out that this topic is about whether challenges exist, which they do.
It is less about what challenges are fun (a side, but i guess fair sub-topic). Obviously not every player agree that the same level challenge is fun. Otherwise, we won't need difficulty option in so many games.
I think there are many examples of many different type of challenges in WOW, other MMOs, and D3. Whether the challenge comes from gear checks, numerical scaling, or different mechanics .. matter little to the existence of challenge, although they do speak to the fun factor.
In fact, in WOW (as far as i know, since i quit last Dec), hard mode is not JUST numerical scaling, but can also have different mechanics (or slightly different ones). And also, if the numerical scaling allows you to ignore some mechanics, then it is equivalent to a change of mechanics.
Example, in D3, in low MP, i will just ignore fire on the ground, but at high MP, i need to avoid, and kite. So to me, that changes the difficulty in meaningful strategic ways .... not just now i need to hit the mob 10 times instead of 5 to kill it.
In WoW, the difference between normal and heroic is vastly more than just numericle values. In fact, on one of the t14 heroic boss fights, the boss actually had less health on heroic. Heoric fights usually contain quite a few additional mechanics..on top of numerical damage/health increases.
One quick example, and this is an example of the "easiest" heroic of T14, Stoneguard.
The normal mechanics consist of 3 bosses. You need 2 tanks, 1 of them tanking 2, the other tanking one. Each of them has certain abilities, such as crystal mines that explode of people stand in them, dealing mass amounts of raid damage and rooting any player that it it in place on the floor.. One puts chains on 2 people, and you have to run together to stop the damage (sucks when a healer and melee DPS get chanined). if you dont run togehter, you can die within 5 seconds. Aother drops pools of crap on the floor that slow your movement if they touch you. A 4th boss (there are 4 total on 10 man, it spawns 3 ranly each week) does periodic raid damage. Now...back to the tanks....the bosses have enbergy meters that increase when they are next to another boss. if the energy reaches max, it wipes the entire raid. With that said, the 2 tanks need to juggle the bosses back and fourth (all while maaging threath against the DPS after their taunts). As you can imagine, it sucks if a person is rooted or slowed, then gets chained to a player at the other end of the room or seperated by a line of "bad stuff" on the ground. All of the abilited happen at random, and to random players.
Now, keep in mind everything i just typed out is the normal version of the fight. On heroic, all of the same mechinas apply, only more mines appear, more puddles appear, and more concurrent players get chianed together, with quite a few additions. On heroic, each boss has a segnifican amount of more health and dmaage (this is just a small additon). In order to make up for the increased health and enrage timers, crystals appear at the edge of the room that when picked up, allw you to "paint" tiles on the floor. the more tiles painted, the more damage and healing everyone does. once you pick up a crystal and start painting, the crystal also adds a dmagaing dot on that player, so they have to run around painting until they have used it all up. Idelay, you need 4-5 players paiting. Now, imagine doing all of this while chained to othe other players, getting rooted, getting slowed, being chained to players seperated all over the place due to not being able to "stack", tanks juggling the bosses, stuff being placed randmly on the floor all over the place etc.
I know above is a huge wall of text, but keep in mind that its an example of literally the "easiest" heroic of last tier.
"Raid content that no one on earth can clear" <--- this definitely CAN be challenging, however - what if that raid content was a gear check that is impossible to defeat? That's not challenging, it's just dumb and broken. I'm not trying to suggest WoW's latest Hardmode raids are like that, but it demonstrates a point.
Good point of discussion.
The fact that all hard mode raids eventually are finished, sometimes abate by a very small percentage of players ... is evidence that it is not just an impossible gear check.
I want to point out that this topic is about whether challenges exist, which they do.
It is less about what challenges are fun (a side, but i guess fair sub-topic). Obviously not every player agree that the same level challenge is fun. Otherwise, we won't need difficulty option in so many games.
I think there are many examples of many different type of challenges in WOW, other MMOs, and D3. Whether the challenge comes from gear checks, numerical scaling, or different mechanics .. matter little to the existence of challenge, although they do speak to the fun factor.
In fact, in WOW (as far as i know, since i quit last Dec), hard mode is not JUST numerical scaling, but can also have different mechanics (or slightly different ones). And also, if the numerical scaling allows you to ignore some mechanics, then it is equivalent to a change of mechanics.
Example, in D3, in low MP, i will just ignore fire on the ground, but at high MP, i need to avoid, and kite. So to me, that changes the difficulty in meaningful strategic ways .... not just now i need to hit the mob 10 times instead of 5 to kill it.
In WoW, the difference between normal and heroic is vastly more than just numericle values. In fact, on one of the t14 heroic boss fights, the boss actually had less health on heroic. Heoric fights usually contain quite a few additional mechanics..on top of numerical damage/health increases.
One quick example, and this is an example of the "easiest" heroic of T14, Stoneguard.
The normal mechanics consist of 3 bosses. You need 2 tanks, 1 of them tanking 2, the other tanking one. Each of them has certain abilities, such as crystal mines that explode of people stand in them, dealing mass amounts of raid damage and rooting any player that it it in place on the floor.. One puts chains on 2 people, and you have to run together to stop the damage (sucks when a healer and melee DPS get chanined). if you dont run togehter, you can die within 5 seconds. Aother drops pools of crap on the floor that slow your movement if they touch you. A 4th boss (there are 4 total on 10 man, it spawns 3 ranly each week) does periodic raid damage. Now...back to the tanks....the bosses have enbergy meters that increase when they are next to another boss. if the energy reaches max, it wipes the entire raid. With that said, the 2 tanks need to juggle the bosses back and fourth (all while maaging threath against the DPS after their taunts). As you can imagine, it sucks if a person is rooted or slowed, then gets chained to a player at the other end of the room or seperated by a line of "bad stuff" on the ground. All of the abilited happen at random, and to random players.
Now, keep in mind everything i just typed out is the normal version of the fight. On heroic, all of the same mechinas apply, with quite a few additions. On heroic, each boss has a segnifican amount of more health and dmaage (this is just a small additon). In order to make up for the increased health and enrage timers, crystals appear at the edge of the room that when picked up, allw you to "paint" tiles on the floor. the more tiles painted, the more damage and healing everyone does. once you pick up a crystal and start painting, the crystal also adds a dmagaing dot on that player, so they have to run around painting until they have used it all up. Idelay, you need 4-5 players paiting. Now, imagine doing all of this while chained to othe other players, getting rooted, getting slowed, being chained to players seperated all over the place due to not being able to "stack", tanks juggling the bosses, stuff being placed randmly on the floor all over the place etc.
I know above is a huge wall of text, but keep in mind that its an example of literally the "easiest" heroic of last tier.
I have no doubt it is like that. I was there doing hard mode back in WOTLK. Same deal. Hard mode is much harder because of the mechanics, even if you have the gear.
One wrong position and you are dead.
And you can ignore any of the mechanics until you get to the next (or next-next) tier and vastly outgear the fight.
I don't think "Do difficult tasks exist in gaming?" is a question that needs exploration. Some of the most difficult tasks in gaming exist today.
A more relevant question is "Are gamers feeling challenged" and the answer to that is a resounding "Sometimes". Many players are clearly doing it to themselves, playing on easy and complaining that it isn't hard enough. Player choice is lauded as this great thing, but players are less qualified to choose their experience than developers are (Developers still choose wrong sometimes). In an effort to become accessible games make themselves pitifully easy such that people don't even need to learn how to play, because they want mindless entertainment: They want to "play a game" with the same level of engagement as watching television. Because the goal is to reach this broad audience, many games are developed with that difficulty in mind, rather than designed from the ground up around reasonable challenge, leaving those of us who like to push ourselves with an inferior experience.
So some of us decided to beat Dark Souls using only a bow the whole game.
I don't think "Do difficult tasks exist in gaming?" is a question that needs exploration. Some of the most difficult tasks in gaming exist today.
A more relevant question is "Are gamers feeling challenged" and the answer to that is a resounding "Sometimes". Many players are clearly doing it to themselves, playing on easy and complaining that it isn't hard enough. Player choice is lauded as this great thing, but players are less qualified to choose their experience than developers are (Developers still choose wrong sometimes). In an effort to become accessible games make themselves pitifully easy such that people don't even need to learn how to play, because they want mindless entertainment: They want to "play a game" with the same level of engagement as watching television. Because the goal is to reach this broad audience, many games are developed with that difficulty in mind, rather than designed from the ground up around reasonable challenge, leaving those of us who like to push ourselves with an inferior experience.
So some of us decided to beat Dark Souls using only a bow the whole game.
No. Many games have OPTIONS of difficulty. The easy one may have that in mind, but certainly not the hard ones.
Don't tell me you think hard mode raiding has this broad audience in mind. If so, it won't be only 2% of players ever saw sunwell when it is the latest content.
They want to "play a game" with the same level of engagement as watching television. Because the goal is to reach this broad audience, many games are developed with that difficulty in mind, rather than designed from the ground up around reasonable challenge, leaving those of us who like to push ourselves with an inferior experience.
No. Many games have OPTIONS of difficulty. The easy one may have that in mind, but certainly not the hard ones.
Don't tell me you think hard mode raiding has this broad audience in mind. If so, it won't be only 2% of players ever saw sunwell when it is the latest content.
By "that difficulty in mind" I meant the "same level of engagement as watching television" difficulty.
They want to "play a game" with the same level of engagement as watching television. Because the goal is to reach this broad audience, many games are developed with that difficulty in mind, rather than designed from the ground up around reasonable challenge, leaving those of us who like to push ourselves with an inferior experience.
No. Many games have OPTIONS of difficulty. The easy one may have that in mind, but certainly not the hard ones.
Don't tell me you think hard mode raiding has this broad audience in mind. If so, it won't be only 2% of players ever saw sunwell when it is the latest content.
By "that difficulty in mind" I meant the "same level of engagement as watching television" difficulty.
So you agree that a) there are difficulty options, and b) some options (like hard mode raiding) is NOT the same as "same level of engagement as watching television"?
They want to "play a game" with the same level of engagement as watching television. Because the goal is to reach this broad audience, many games are developed with that difficulty in mind, rather than designed from the ground up around reasonable challenge, leaving those of us who like to push ourselves with an inferior experience.
No. Many games have OPTIONS of difficulty. The easy one may have that in mind, but certainly not the hard ones.
Don't tell me you think hard mode raiding has this broad audience in mind. If so, it won't be only 2% of players ever saw sunwell when it is the latest content.
By "that difficulty in mind" I meant the "same level of engagement as watching television" difficulty.
So you agree that a) there are difficulty options, and b) some options (like hard mode raiding) is NOT the same as "same level of engagement as watching television"?
I think hes saying that developers should not add the option of having "easy content", because otherwise players wont choose the hard stuff on their own.
I personally do not agree with that at all, but I believe thats what he ment.
So few people did see Sunwell and other high end raids in vanilla / TBC because most players didn't care for raiding, at all. That's why i find it funny that now the only challenging content in WoW is raids; the type of content most people didn't care in the first place.
What kept me playing and entertained was 5-man dungeons, reputation grinds and some BGs every now and then.
I guarantee 99% of the people crying that games are too easy are also the first to cry if they are too hard. The baddies are always the first to cry. Yes...I MEAN YOU!
One reason I think the bigger world the better is because you can have both hard and easy content in the same place. I'd be completly fine with a 50/50 spread but it's more like 10/90, 10% of the game features hard content while 90% is faceroll.
If whole areas had one or the other in the world you wouldn't have to worry about that IMO.
Comments
Whenever I have found the content I am doing in any MMO to be too easy. I go and do harder content.
This isn't a difficult idea people. Go to a tougher area.
If you choose not to, and still complain games are too easy then you are pathetic.
I think some complains just to feel good and have an ego-boost about how l33t they are.
Now if the paragon guys come here and tell us how easy WOW hard mode raiding is, i will incline to believe it more.
It is like people tell me that "tensor analysis is easy because it is just shifting symbols around .. and oh .. i don't know how to do it ... but i am sure it is easy".
An MMORPG can be played many ways^... that is their point.
But to thread-crap one playstyle (as you have over the last 7 months) only to be reminded that the things you constantly speak of, are nothing to do with MMORPG, but arcade, or MMO.
Just like somone on a Corvette Forum discussing their niche.. Some people might talk Trucks briefly... but the focus is vettes. They are not talking about hondas, or suvs.
They are talking about their thing... mmorpg's... not MMO.., or action arcade... etc.
So NArius.. you like to play SOLO... and sit in lobbies but why do you think u need to flood every thread with such non-mmorpg stuff..? Then keep claiming you can say whatever you want, because you onced played WoW, but have now found you don't have times for MMORPG's, but arcade games instead.... but your still here. Have not transitioned away from the game forum you claim (yourself) to dislike..
So yes... You can play/takl about whatever game you want, but PLEASE do it in the off-topic forum... we here are talking & concerned about MMORPG's..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
MMOs are created for an audience that varies much more than audiences from other genres. What some find easy, others find hard. So content has to walk a fine line... and will sometimes end up easier than it maybe should be as a result.
Also, MMOs typically only have one difficulty setting unless you raid. If you don't like to raid, then you won't be facing the toughest content either since developers generally focus all their engame attention on instanced content. Balancing for a group is just another can of worms too...
Lastly, MMOs are in the business of making money. They are not typical one-off game purchases. They are potentially longterm investments for players. The quickest way to alienate a player is to kill them early and often. I would wager most players don't enjoy losing very much. Frustrated playerbase = less money.
Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.
It is a balance, if you are able to play the MMO half asleep they won't subcribe for a second month and/or buy anything in the cash shop. Thats were we are today playing MMO's where we are sleepwalking.
There is absolutely nothing massive about a lobby game. No wonder the industry is tanking; trying to push non massive content into a genre which describes itself first and foremost as massive.
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
So people sub WOW for years. Sub TOR for more than 2 month, and GW is still going strong.
So which part of your argument is wrong?
Is it people cannot play these MMO half asleep?
Or that they do, and they don't care and continue to have fun?
Enlighten me.
hmm .. you don't need "massive" to be successful. Look at all the non-MMO online games.
The most successful is LoL. Is it massive?
D3 sold 12M. Is it massive?
WoT is highly successful. Is it massive?
Even WOW is still going strong. How much of it is massive?
You people don't seem to get it.
A study, by a video game company, came back and said that the criticisms of it's consumers were unfounded. So basically... "anyone complaining about our products has no right to do so since we say that they (anyone who complains) haven't actually *done* the *hard* stuff".
Again, a video game executive telling me that the games I think are easy are actually hard isn't going to make me change my mind. This is a propaganda piece to mitigate the "too easy" losses that video games are having.
"Oh this game is really easy"
"No its not, because you didn't collect all the rare stamps"
"OH MY GOD YOU'RE RIGHT, FIFTEEN MORE HOURS OF THE SAME EASY GAME SUDDENLY MAKES IT DIFFICULT!"
...
...
Get real.
Remember my comment a couple weeks back of no guild has cleared the latest heroic WoW tier yet in its first month? Ya....its April 10th, and that comment still stands...
So much for "content gets cleared the first day/week/month"
Thats hardly "you didn't collect all the rare stamps"
There is merit in the whole "you cant complain about it being too easy when you havent attempted the hard stuff", there really is no denying that. Nobody who has cleared any heroic WoW raids (I keep using WoW as my example for ease of understanding) has complined how "easy" it was. Thats literally like syaing "this game is way too easy" when choosing the easy option from the start menu...
Making up disengenious examples does not help this discussion.
If it is just time sink .. like the horrible EQ camping .. then it is not real challenge.
But raid content that no one on earth can clear .. if that is not challengin, what is?
Chiming in here: That people whine that games are too easy while playing them on their easy settings is actually really telling. What it tells me is: "Don't give players a choice to play easymode. As a game designer, you are better equipped to present your experience to your players than they are to choose their own"
Still, time sinks != challenge. "Takes more hours" isn't challenging, although it may be more difficult. Difficulty is a tool to deliver challenges, which bring about accomplishment. Cruddy difficulty doesn't do that.
"Raid content that no one on earth can clear" <--- this definitely CAN be challenging, however - what if that raid content was a gear check that is impossible to defeat? That's not challenging, it's just dumb and broken. I'm not trying to suggest WoW's latest Hardmode raids are like that, but it demonstrates a point.
Agree, if gearchecks were the "gate", that would indeed be somewhat of a false challenge. Thankfully thats very rarely the case.
Edit - Developers giving the option to players is not necessarly a problem. WoW having those options is one of the main reasons its by far the most played MMORPG. Competative hardcore raiders play it because they have content for them. Casuals play it because they have content for them. A minorty of its playerbase having the false assumtion of how "easy" it is, its an acceptable tradeoff (as shown by its continued popularity).
Good point of discussion.
The fact that all hard mode raids eventually are finished, sometimes abate by a very small percentage of players ... is evidence that it is not just an impossible gear check.
I want to point out that this topic is about whether challenges exist, which they do.
It is less about what challenges are fun (a side, but i guess fair sub-topic). Obviously not every player agree that the same level challenge is fun. Otherwise, we won't need difficulty option in so many games.
I think there are many examples of many different type of challenges in WOW, other MMOs, and D3. Whether the challenge comes from gear checks, numerical scaling, or different mechanics .. matter little to the existence of challenge, although they do speak to the fun factor.
In fact, in WOW (as far as i know, since i quit last Dec), hard mode is not JUST numerical scaling, but can also have different mechanics (or slightly different ones). And also, if the numerical scaling allows you to ignore some mechanics, then it is equivalent to a change of mechanics.
Example, in D3, in low MP, i will just ignore fire on the ground, but at high MP, i need to avoid, and kite. So to me, that changes the difficulty in meaningful strategic ways .... not just now i need to hit the mob 10 times instead of 5 to kill it.
In WoW, the difference between normal and heroic is vastly more than just numericle values. In fact, on one of the t14 heroic boss fights, the boss actually had less health on heroic. Heoric fights usually contain quite a few additional mechanics..on top of numerical damage/health increases.
One quick example, and this is an example of the "easiest" heroic of T14, Stoneguard.
The normal mechanics consist of 3 bosses. You need 2 tanks, 1 of them tanking 2, the other tanking one. Each of them has certain abilities, such as crystal mines that explode of people stand in them, dealing mass amounts of raid damage and rooting any player that it it in place on the floor.. One puts chains on 2 people, and you have to run together to stop the damage (sucks when a healer and melee DPS get chanined). if you dont run togehter, you can die within 5 seconds. Aother drops pools of crap on the floor that slow your movement if they touch you. A 4th boss (there are 4 total on 10 man, it spawns 3 ranly each week) does periodic raid damage. Now...back to the tanks....the bosses have enbergy meters that increase when they are next to another boss. if the energy reaches max, it wipes the entire raid. With that said, the 2 tanks need to juggle the bosses back and fourth (all while maaging threath against the DPS after their taunts). As you can imagine, it sucks if a person is rooted or slowed, then gets chained to a player at the other end of the room or seperated by a line of "bad stuff" on the ground. All of the abilited happen at random, and to random players.
Now, keep in mind everything i just typed out is the normal version of the fight. On heroic, all of the same mechinas apply, only more mines appear, more puddles appear, and more concurrent players get chianed together, with quite a few additions. On heroic, each boss has a segnifican amount of more health and dmaage (this is just a small additon). In order to make up for the increased health and enrage timers, crystals appear at the edge of the room that when picked up, allw you to "paint" tiles on the floor. the more tiles painted, the more damage and healing everyone does. once you pick up a crystal and start painting, the crystal also adds a dmagaing dot on that player, so they have to run around painting until they have used it all up. Idelay, you need 4-5 players paiting. Now, imagine doing all of this while chained to othe other players, getting rooted, getting slowed, being chained to players seperated all over the place due to not being able to "stack", tanks juggling the bosses, stuff being placed randmly on the floor all over the place etc.
I know above is a huge wall of text, but keep in mind that its an example of literally the "easiest" heroic of last tier.
I have no doubt it is like that. I was there doing hard mode back in WOTLK. Same deal. Hard mode is much harder because of the mechanics, even if you have the gear.
One wrong position and you are dead.
And you can ignore any of the mechanics until you get to the next (or next-next) tier and vastly outgear the fight.
I don't think "Do difficult tasks exist in gaming?" is a question that needs exploration. Some of the most difficult tasks in gaming exist today.
A more relevant question is "Are gamers feeling challenged" and the answer to that is a resounding "Sometimes". Many players are clearly doing it to themselves, playing on easy and complaining that it isn't hard enough. Player choice is lauded as this great thing, but players are less qualified to choose their experience than developers are (Developers still choose wrong sometimes). In an effort to become accessible games make themselves pitifully easy such that people don't even need to learn how to play, because they want mindless entertainment: They want to "play a game" with the same level of engagement as watching television. Because the goal is to reach this broad audience, many games are developed with that difficulty in mind, rather than designed from the ground up around reasonable challenge, leaving those of us who like to push ourselves with an inferior experience.
So some of us decided to beat Dark Souls using only a bow the whole game.
No. Many games have OPTIONS of difficulty. The easy one may have that in mind, but certainly not the hard ones.
Don't tell me you think hard mode raiding has this broad audience in mind. If so, it won't be only 2% of players ever saw sunwell when it is the latest content.
By "that difficulty in mind" I meant the "same level of engagement as watching television" difficulty.
So you agree that a) there are difficulty options, and b) some options (like hard mode raiding) is NOT the same as "same level of engagement as watching television"?
I think hes saying that developers should not add the option of having "easy content", because otherwise players wont choose the hard stuff on their own.
I personally do not agree with that at all, but I believe thats what he ment.
So few people did see Sunwell and other high end raids in vanilla / TBC because most players didn't care for raiding, at all. That's why i find it funny that now the only challenging content in WoW is raids; the type of content most people didn't care in the first place.
What kept me playing and entertained was 5-man dungeons, reputation grinds and some BGs every now and then.
I guarantee 99% of the people crying that games are too easy are also the first to cry if they are too hard. The baddies are always the first to cry. Yes...I MEAN YOU!
Complainer: "me?"
YES YOU!!
If whole areas had one or the other in the world you wouldn't have to worry about that IMO.