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Questing then vs questing now, has the everybody gets a trophy crowd ruined questing?

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  • laseritlaserit Member LegendaryPosts: 7,591
    immodium said:

    Honestly, you're wasting your breath on this.  There are people who simply will not acknowledge older games being harder, especially.  If you point out something specific it will be ignored and they will say its just more tedious.  Even though it could easily be argued that tedium is added mental challenge because not everyone has the ability to marathon through a game.  

    Almost any game how much you die is a testament to how hard a game is.  Excluding cheese death and of course Everquest.  You died in Everquest because it was tedious and so was the death penalty.  No way did that make it harder to level.  
    They were only "harder" because they required more time, not more thinking/intelligence.

    For example what's harder, painting for 10 minutes or painting for 1 hour?
    I'd have to respectfully disagree.

    Lets leave raiding out of the equation.

    Vanilla Wow was definitely harder than say the same dungeons were in Wrath and later. The dungeons took longer in vanilla because they were more difficult. You died and wiped far more frequently because it was harder.

    I could go on, but I hope you get my point. 

    "Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee

  • DeivosDeivos Member EpicPosts: 3,692
    Axehilt said:
    In an earlier post I described how broad a concept pattern mastery is...
    In an earlier post that claim was also corrected.

    Learning is little more than an introduction in many instances. It provides a flash of entertainment and value, but it does not last and it does not provide any deeper involvement once the experience is done with. You have explorers, socializers, and killers/achievers because there are other forms of activities that interest them, and many of their activities are rooted in a much broader spectrum of reasons for fun and dopamine release.

    Adrenaline, stress/relief, risk, gambling, art, humor, emotions, comfort, reward, etc. These are all elements that drives a human without being tethered to learning and people are all fundamentally motivated to desire many of them for the dopamine releases they offer.

    Learning comes up as an element for new actions, but the variance of any given game to others in it's genre often sees a rapidly dwindling amount of new content and variety. As multiple other posts have also pointed out, in order to gain a person's interest and actually hold them, they need to be held with multiple forms of entertainment. "Pattern mastery" is all well and good, but it is not the largest component of gameplay value and it is completely incapable of holding any kinda value in the long term because of what's been mentioned by you in previous posts. 

    Once you've soaked up what learning experience the game has to offer, that form of fun is gone. "Deep pattern mastery" is rather a joke of a claim, as the reality is that it's essentially just repetition for muscle memory in many instances such as spamming one's way through a skill rotation. While, yes, you are "learning" a bit more your brain in not particularly engaged in any manner, and that's the death knell for fun.

    Good gameplay requires variety to be engrossing and remain interesting beyond the first look. These other forms of entertainment are not lesser values, and in plenty of cases they are perhaps more important because they are what will motivate a player to keep playing long after the veneer of "new" has worn off and most the content has been "learned".

    "The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay

    "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin

  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    laserit said:
    immodium said:

    Honestly, you're wasting your breath on this.  There are people who simply will not acknowledge older games being harder, especially.  If you point out something specific it will be ignored and they will say its just more tedious.  Even though it could easily be argued that tedium is added mental challenge because not everyone has the ability to marathon through a game.  

    Almost any game how much you die is a testament to how hard a game is.  Excluding cheese death and of course Everquest.  You died in Everquest because it was tedious and so was the death penalty.  No way did that make it harder to level.  
    They were only "harder" because they required more time, not more thinking/intelligence.

    For example what's harder, painting for 10 minutes or painting for 1 hour?
    I'd have to respectfully disagree.

    Lets leave raiding out of the equation.

    Vanilla Wow was definitely harder than say the same dungeons were in Wrath and later. The dungeons took longer in vanilla because they were more difficult. You died and wiped far more frequently because it was harder.

    I could go on, but I hope you get my point. 
    I would say they were harder for a number of different reasons I pointed out. 

    Anything that required social interaction by default was something that required a measure of intelligence because players are a unpredictable lot and it's not easy to determine what they are going to do.  In a PvE environment that is a persistent world you are either working with or competing against other players because there isn't much choice.  Sooner or later you will encounter them for good or ill and they will impact you in some way.  Someone mentioned the games people played while raiding and competing for raid content.  The same was done on a smaller scale in many cases with solo content.  There was also a mini game of sorts with bartering where you would compete to get the best deal through deception.  This is mostly what I was trying to stab at with the whole poker is hard type of game.  Any persistent world with competition between players will require a measure more thought than one where you don't have direct competition (instances).
  • immodiumimmodium Member RarePosts: 2,610
    Flyte27 said:

    Any persistent world with competition between players will require a measure more thought than one where you don't have direct competition (instances).
    You can have direct competition in instances. The most challenging PvP/PvE I've experienced has been instanced over openworld.

    TBH this topic, like 95% of topics discussed on forums is completely subjective. The only reason it's well into 17 pages is because people are going away from the OP.

    image
  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    Any persistent world with competition between players will require a measure more thought than one where you don't have direct competition (instances).
    You can have direct competition in instances. The most challenging PvP/PvE I've experienced has been instanced over openworld.

    TBH this topic, like 95% of topics discussed on forums is completely subjective. The only reason it's well into 17 pages is because people are going away from the OP.
    Sure, but you can also avoid direct competition.  That is the point.  In poker you can't avoid directed competition.  In a persistent world it is fairly difficult to avoid direct competition if there are a lot of players.
  • immodiumimmodium Member RarePosts: 2,610
    edited February 2016
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    Any persistent world with competition between players will require a measure more thought than one where you don't have direct competition (instances).
    You can have direct competition in instances. The most challenging PvP/PvE I've experienced has been instanced over openworld.

    TBH this topic, like 95% of topics discussed on forums is completely subjective. The only reason it's well into 17 pages is because people are going away from the OP.
    Sure, but you can also avoid direct competition.
    But that's a good thing for an RPG. When you just want to chill and explore you should be able to without looking over your shoulder when more often than not you'll be in an encounter where you won't win. No matter how skilled you are. Or getting trolled by other high level PvE players kill stealing at a spawn point you've found.

    image
  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    Any persistent world with competition between players will require a measure more thought than one where you don't have direct competition (instances).
    You can have direct competition in instances. The most challenging PvP/PvE I've experienced has been instanced over openworld.

    TBH this topic, like 95% of topics discussed on forums is completely subjective. The only reason it's well into 17 pages is because people are going away from the OP.
    Sure, but you can also avoid direct competition.
    But that's a good thing. When you just want to chill and explore you should be able to without looking over your shoulder when more often than not you'll be in an encounter where you won't win. No matter how skilled you are. Or getting trolled by other high level PvE players kill stealing at a spawn point you've found.
    I suppose it depends on the individual.  If you want some excitement in game you might prefer that someone can challenge you in some way like kill stealing.  It was interesting to see what different ways people would come up to kill steal or do the most damage to a mob the quickest.

    Getting trained by higher level players keeps you on your toes I guess.  Otherwise the game would be as you call it boring grind.

    I think all these annoyances are actually what made the game exciting in many ways.  It injected some life into a lifeless world.  People had a reason to do things.  It might be as simple as getting higher in level and getting revenge on the person who trained them.
  • immodiumimmodium Member RarePosts: 2,610
    Flyte27 said:

    I think all these annoyances are actually what made the game exciting in many ways.  It injected some life into a lifeless world.  People had a reason to do things.  It might be as simple as getting higher in level and getting revenge on the person who trained them.
    Not for me, it made the game feel less like a world and more like a giant arena.

    image
  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    I think all these annoyances are actually what made the game exciting in many ways.  It injected some life into a lifeless world.  People had a reason to do things.  It might be as simple as getting higher in level and getting revenge on the person who trained them.
    Not for me, it made the game feel less like a world and more like a giant arena.
    A real world would be like a giant arena in many ways.  Especially if the time period was set in a medieval setting.

    My point though is that those type of things break up the monotony and give you something else to think about besides killing the next mob.
  • immodiumimmodium Member RarePosts: 2,610
    edited February 2016
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    I think all these annoyances are actually what made the game exciting in many ways.  It injected some life into a lifeless world.  People had a reason to do things.  It might be as simple as getting higher in level and getting revenge on the person who trained them.
    Not for me, it made the game feel less like a world and more like a giant arena.
    A real world would be like a giant arena in many ways.  Especially if the time period was set in a medieval setting.

    My point though is that those type of things break up the monotony and give you something else to think about besides killing the next mob.
    The problem I have is that there isn't enough gamers who want to police other peoples behaviour in a game.

    The games basically feel like being a westerner in Syria/Iraq at the moment and that's not a virtual world I want to live in.

    image
  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    I think all these annoyances are actually what made the game exciting in many ways.  It injected some life into a lifeless world.  People had a reason to do things.  It might be as simple as getting higher in level and getting revenge on the person who trained them.
    Not for me, it made the game feel less like a world and more like a giant arena.
    A real world would be like a giant arena in many ways.  Especially if the time period was set in a medieval setting.

    My point though is that those type of things break up the monotony and give you something else to think about besides killing the next mob.
    The problem I have is that there isn't enough gamers who want to police other peoples behaviour in a game.

    The games basically feel like being a westerner in Syria/Iraq at the moment and that's not a virtual world I want to live in.
    I can understand that.  A lot of movies and games I grew up with had the chaotic, unlawful, western kind of theme so I enjoyed that.  I don't really want that kind of thing in real life.  I just think it's fun in a game where everything is fake and no one really gets hurt.  Obviously if I lived in an situation where that was my real life I would likely not want to play such a game.  So far I've been fairly lucky to not live in such an environment.
  • laseritlaserit Member LegendaryPosts: 7,591
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    I think all these annoyances are actually what made the game exciting in many ways.  It injected some life into a lifeless world.  People had a reason to do things.  It might be as simple as getting higher in level and getting revenge on the person who trained them.
    Not for me, it made the game feel less like a world and more like a giant arena.
    A real world would be like a giant arena in many ways.  Especially if the time period was set in a medieval setting.

    My point though is that those type of things break up the monotony and give you something else to think about besides killing the next mob.
    The problem I have is that there isn't enough gamers who want to police other peoples behaviour in a game.

    The games basically feel like being a westerner in Syria/Iraq at the moment and that's not a virtual world I want to live in.
    I can understand that.  A lot of movies and games I grew up with had the chaotic, unlawful, western kind of theme so I enjoyed that.  I don't really want that kind of thing in real life.  I just think it's fun in a game where everything is fake and no one really gets hurt.  Obviously if I lived in an situation where that was my real life I would likely not want to play such a game.  So far I've been fairly lucky to not live in such an environment.
    How about a "Westworld" themed MMO ;)

    "Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee

  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    edited February 2016
    laserit said:
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    I think all these annoyances are actually what made the game exciting in many ways.  It injected some life into a lifeless world.  People had a reason to do things.  It might be as simple as getting higher in level and getting revenge on the person who trained them.
    Not for me, it made the game feel less like a world and more like a giant arena.
    A real world would be like a giant arena in many ways.  Especially if the time period was set in a medieval setting.

    My point though is that those type of things break up the monotony and give you something else to think about besides killing the next mob.
    The problem I have is that there isn't enough gamers who want to police other peoples behaviour in a game.

    The games basically feel like being a westerner in Syria/Iraq at the moment and that's not a virtual world I want to live in.
    I can understand that.  A lot of movies and games I grew up with had the chaotic, unlawful, western kind of theme so I enjoyed that.  I don't really want that kind of thing in real life.  I just think it's fun in a game where everything is fake and no one really gets hurt.  Obviously if I lived in an situation where that was my real life I would likely not want to play such a game.  So far I've been fairly lucky to not live in such an environment.
    How about a "Westworld" themed MMO ;)
    I suppose it depends on the theme heh. 

    I am a big fan of the spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood.  I also like Silverado and some others.  I'm not a huge fan of Bonanza and other lighter themed westerns.

    I always liked the man with no name.  The poncho and hat was cool.
  • laseritlaserit Member LegendaryPosts: 7,591
    Flyte27 said:
    laserit said:
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    I think all these annoyances are actually what made the game exciting in many ways.  It injected some life into a lifeless world.  People had a reason to do things.  It might be as simple as getting higher in level and getting revenge on the person who trained them.
    Not for me, it made the game feel less like a world and more like a giant arena.
    A real world would be like a giant arena in many ways.  Especially if the time period was set in a medieval setting.

    My point though is that those type of things break up the monotony and give you something else to think about besides killing the next mob.
    The problem I have is that there isn't enough gamers who want to police other peoples behaviour in a game.

    The games basically feel like being a westerner in Syria/Iraq at the moment and that's not a virtual world I want to live in.
    I can understand that.  A lot of movies and games I grew up with had the chaotic, unlawful, western kind of theme so I enjoyed that.  I don't really want that kind of thing in real life.  I just think it's fun in a game where everything is fake and no one really gets hurt.  Obviously if I lived in an situation where that was my real life I would likely not want to play such a game.  So far I've been fairly lucky to not live in such an environment.
    How about a "Westworld" themed MMO ;)
    I suppose it depends on the theme heh. 

    I am a big fan of the spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood.  I also like Silverado and some others.  I'm not a huge fan of Bonanza and other lighter themed westerns.

    I always liked the man with no name.  The poncho and hat was cool.
    The Westworld was the main story of the movie, but remember...  the resort also housed Medievalworld and Romeworld.

    Could make for a pretty cool MMORPG concept.

    "Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee

  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    laserit said:
    Flyte27 said:
    laserit said:
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    I think all these annoyances are actually what made the game exciting in many ways.  It injected some life into a lifeless world.  People had a reason to do things.  It might be as simple as getting higher in level and getting revenge on the person who trained them.
    Not for me, it made the game feel less like a world and more like a giant arena.
    A real world would be like a giant arena in many ways.  Especially if the time period was set in a medieval setting.

    My point though is that those type of things break up the monotony and give you something else to think about besides killing the next mob.
    The problem I have is that there isn't enough gamers who want to police other peoples behaviour in a game.

    The games basically feel like being a westerner in Syria/Iraq at the moment and that's not a virtual world I want to live in.
    I can understand that.  A lot of movies and games I grew up with had the chaotic, unlawful, western kind of theme so I enjoyed that.  I don't really want that kind of thing in real life.  I just think it's fun in a game where everything is fake and no one really gets hurt.  Obviously if I lived in an situation where that was my real life I would likely not want to play such a game.  So far I've been fairly lucky to not live in such an environment.
    How about a "Westworld" themed MMO ;)
    I suppose it depends on the theme heh. 

    I am a big fan of the spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood.  I also like Silverado and some others.  I'm not a huge fan of Bonanza and other lighter themed westerns.

    I always liked the man with no name.  The poncho and hat was cool.
    The Westworld was the main story of the movie, but remember...  the resort also housed Medievalworld and Romeworld.

    Could make for a pretty cool MMORPG concept.
    It seems I read your post to quickly.

    I haven't watched west world yet so I can't comment.
  • laseritlaserit Member LegendaryPosts: 7,591
    Flyte27 said:
    laserit said:
    The Westworld was the main story of the movie, but remember...  the resort also housed Medievalworld and Romeworld.

    Could make for a pretty cool MMORPG concept.
    It seems I read your post to quickly.

    I haven't watched west world yet so I can't comment.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld

    Was a great movie back in the day. 

    "Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Flyte27 said:
    The same could be said of old MMOs.

    [...and some other stuff...]
    No, the same couldn't be said of old MMOs. The Poker elements I called out are present in basically every hand of Poker.  The MMORPG elements you called out were rare (bartering, trolling others with trains), or were predominantly negative (trolling others with trains), or were more tedious chores than interesting decisions (using chat to form a party.)

    The reason forming a party was a tedious chore was there aren't really difficult decisions involved.  You spam chat when you need members, and while the message you use has a tiny influence on how effective your advertisement is, the overall amount of skill/learning involved is extremely small (and that means it's shallow, and because it was both shallow and mandatory it was considered tedious.)

    Death penalty occurs after the player fails. This means a high-penalty game really doesn't add anything in terms of depth.  Perhaps we could say it adds a single shallow decision ("play cautiously or be kicked in the shins") which actually drives players to shallower combat (less skill is required to fight easier mobs.) Any depth you think is associated with high-penalty gameplay is actually equally associated with low-penalty gameplay (whether or not the game is going to kick you in the shins for failure, it's a good move to pull mobs back a safe distance.)

    The "other factors besides pressing buttons" you list are not exclusive to old MMORPGs. The better modern MMORPGs have everything you've listed, plus rich combat, minus purposeless penalty.

    (Examples: In Tanaan (new WOW zone) I regularly have to worry about the way I approach/pull mobs since my Rogue is kinda crappily geared and will actually die (or burn cooldowns) if I don't handle things correctly.  In WOW's Mythic dungeons you either pull and CC correctly or you wipe (though gear has scaled considerably since I last went in those, so this may be slightly different now.))

    As for socializing, the social aspects of Poker work because you're actually in competition with your opponents. It's mind games, and being good at predicting and manipulating your opponent's actions can add good depth to a lot of PVP games as long as the game mechanics enable it (in Street Fighter you can do two jump-kicks in a row and then bait out their Dragon Punch (normally the counter to a jump-kick) by canceling your third jump, but in early MMORPG combat there was nothing you could really do to bait out a critical ability -- nor would it matter most of the time since the battle was likely decided by far shallower decisions (you were fighting a 3v1 or your opponent was 20 levels below you, so the battle was won regardless.))

    Non-competitive socializing is going to happen regardless. If players want to socialize, they'll socialize.  If not, then it's a bad idea for the game to force them to socialize.

    So while plenty of games like Poker and Werewolf/Mafia involve social skills as part of the gameplay and that works great, if a game doesn't have that type of socialization (and MMORPGs haven't) then socializing should be purely opt-in (like MMORPGs now are.)

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Honestly, you're wasting your breath on this.  There are people who simply will not acknowledge older games being harder, especially.  If you point out something specific it will be ignored and they will say its just more tedious.  Even though it could easily be argued that tedium is added mental challenge because not everyone has the ability to marathon through a game.  

    Almost any game how much you die is a testament to how hard a game is.  Excluding cheese death and of course Everquest.  You died in Everquest because it was tedious and so was the death penalty.  No way did that make it harder to level.  
    If you wish to say it was "hard" to repetitively grind the same mob for a very long time, fine.

    I'm talking about the actual level of skill involved.  The game depth.  Early MMORPGs were notably shallower than the best modern MMORPGs.

    In my post above I believe I addressed every single one of the features he mentioned (most of which are still in modern games, and a few were simply too shallow to survive the evolution of the genre.)  If I actually ignored something, feel free to point it out and I can address that.

    Things are considered tedious when the time they take is much greater than the depth they provide. It seems clear that early MMORPGs' excessive repetition (mob-grinding) and unnecessary inconveniences (no group-finder, etc) were tedious.  You seem to be trying to justify tedium as a mental challenge, but you aren't really putting forth a reason why that tedium is actually better than the gameplay modern games have which focuses more on depth.

    In the card game War, you are going to lose ('die') almost completely at random.  So to measure games' difficulty by how often you die seems like an extremely poor way of measuring the true difficulty of the game.

    Death rate is a bad indicator because it's self-adjusting.
    • If you give me an accurate gun in a FPS, I'm going to use it at longer and longer ranges, and my actual accuracy stat with the weapon won't be noticeably higher than a very inaccurate weapon (which I learned to use at shorter and shorter ranges.)
    The same holds true of death rates: I'm always going to push the limit in games at the same general rate, which will result in a very normalized death rate.  This is why my death rate in WOW's level 90+ zones is actually quite comparable to my death rate in early MMORPGs (AC, AO, DAOC, etc.)

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • AmarantharAmaranthar Member EpicPosts: 5,849
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:
    immodium said:
    Flyte27 said:

    Any persistent world with competition between players will require a measure more thought than one where you don't have direct competition (instances).
    You can have direct competition in instances. The most challenging PvP/PvE I've experienced has been instanced over openworld.

    TBH this topic, like 95% of topics discussed on forums is completely subjective. The only reason it's well into 17 pages is because people are going away from the OP.
    Sure, but you can also avoid direct competition.
    But that's a good thing for an RPG. When you just want to chill and explore you should be able to without looking over your shoulder when more often than not you'll be in an encounter where you won't win. No matter how skilled you are. Or getting trolled by other high level PvE players kill stealing at a spawn point you've found.
    As far as PvE grief like that, UO had an answer where the player who did the most damage got the most loot.
    After a few minutes the MOB corpse loot all fell into one backpack for anyone to take.
    I think that's a good way to go.

    There's other issues in PvE too, but everything has an answer.

    I agree with your other post about the world being like a giant arena. There too are answers through PvP restrictions and justice systems that work (by actually punishing the character with what hurts, skill loss).

    There's answers to any problem. The difficulties have ALWAYS been because the producers don't want to do what it takes.

    Once upon a time....

  • Vermillion_RaventhalVermillion_Raventhal Member EpicPosts: 4,198
    edited February 2016
    Axehilt said:
    Honestly, you're wasting your breath on this.  There are people who simply will not acknowledge older games being harder, especially.  If you point out something specific it will be ignored and they will say its just more tedious.  Even though it could easily be argued that tedium is added mental challenge because not everyone has the ability to marathon through a game.  

    Almost any game how much you die is a testament to how hard a game is.  Excluding cheese death and of course Everquest.  You died in Everquest because it was tedious and so was the death penalty.  No way did that make it harder to level.  
    If you wish to say it was "hard" to repetitively grind the same mob for a very long time, fine.

    I'm talking about the actual level of skill involved.  The game depth.  Early MMORPGs were notably shallower than the best modern MMORPGs.

    In my post above I believe I addressed every single one of the features he mentioned (most of which are still in modern games, and a few were simply too shallow to survive the evolution of the genre.)  If I actually ignored something, feel free to point it out and I can address that.

    Things are considered tedious when the time they take is much greater than the depth they provide. It seems clear that early MMORPGs' excessive repetition (mob-grinding) and unnecessary inconveniences (no group-finder, etc) were tedious.  You seem to be trying to justify tedium as a mental challenge, but you aren't really putting forth a reason why that tedium is actually better than the gameplay modern games have which focuses more on depth.

    In the card game War, you are going to lose ('die') almost completely at random.  So to measure games' difficulty by how often you die seems like an extremely poor way of measuring the true difficulty of the game.

    Death rate is a bad indicator because it's self-adjusting.
    • If you give me an accurate gun in a FPS, I'm going to use it at longer and longer ranges, and my actual accuracy stat with the weapon won't be noticeably higher than a very inaccurate weapon (which I learned to use at shorter and shorter ranges.)
    The same holds true of death rates: I'm always going to push the limit in games at the same general rate, which will result in a very normalized death rate.  This is why my death rate in WOW's level 90+ zones is actually quite comparable to my death rate in early MMORPGs (AC, AO, DAOC, etc.)

    You're not addressing why the combat in say Everquest was harder.  We are not discussing if the game was more fun or better.  We are talking about if there was more challenge player Everquest than a modern game.  Everquest by most metric we traditionally use for difficulty in RPGs was harder than modern games.  

    Diablo difficulty levels add more NPCs with more HP that hit harder and harsher death penalties.  In fact, I would say difficulty in 90% of RPG are limited to tougher and more numerous NPCs.  RPG are in fact number games by nature. These tougher NPCs were there to make you die more.  They weren't smarter.

    I would say Everquest challenge stretched beyond traditional numbers game.  The NPCs script also made the game harder.  NPCs ran and called for help, assisted and had unlimited pursuit range and etc.   NPC placement also made the game harder.  Other players skill in your party, in your zone had drastic effects on how hard it was to combat NPCs.  Spells fizzled and failed.  

    In a numbers game unaccountable variables are always the most difficult to handle.  EQ had tons of unaccountable variables + harder numbers = more difficult.  Lets even use War.  Its difficult to win because its based 100% on unaccountable variables.  We discount it because at 100% we have no control through skill.  Everquest we had player skill and awareness that could over come a lot of the unaccountable variables.  That added to the challenge.

    What you're talking about is balance of the numbers to your current characters power.  That is in fact the definition of easy in a numbers game.  For example if your character is tuned to do 20% damage per 5 seconds... the challenge will be the same no matter what level you are.  Many modern MMORPG work towards something similar to allow easy leveling.  


  • SteelhelmSteelhelm Member UncommonPosts: 332
    I can only speak in terms of WoW because that's when I started playing mmorpgs.

    I don't think depth is a valid measure, it's clearly subjective. If you want to count how hard something is you need a valid countable measure, like death count, otherwise it's meaningless to try to determine something because people only agree on numbers it seems and some people not even those...

    I found that WoW before LFG had more depth than after. To me the immersion and cohesiveness of a game are paramount, not how quickly I get to play with others or how quickly I can get into a combat situation or get loots from anywhere, or if there's no one to play with I don't play that day if it's group content I only want to do. That's depth to me.

    I really don't see the depth in modern AAA mmorpgs.
    Talking about games where thousands of players exist simultaneously in a single instance and mechanics related to such games.
  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504

    You're not addressing why the combat in say Everquest was harder.  We are not discussing if the game was more fun or better.  We are talking about if there was more challenge player Everquest than a modern game.  Everquest by most metric we traditionally use for difficulty in RPGs was harder than modern games.  

    Diablo difficulty levels add more NPCs with more HP that hit harder and harsher death penalties.  In fact, I would say difficulty in 90% of RPG are limited to tougher and more numerous NPCs.  RPG are in fact number games by nature. These tougher NPCs were there to make you die more.  They weren't smarter.

    I would say Everquest challenge stretched beyond traditional numbers game.  The NPCs script also made the game harder.  NPCs ran and called for help, assisted and had unlimited pursuit range and etc.   NPC placement also made the game harder.  Other players skill in your party, in your zone had drastic effects on how hard it was to combat NPCs.  Spells fizzled and failed.  

    In a numbers game unaccountable variables are always the most difficult to handle.  EQ had tons of unaccountable variables + harder numbers = more difficult.  Lets even use War.  Its difficult to win because its based 100% on unaccountable variables.  We discount it because at 100% we have no control through skill.  Everquest we had player skill and awareness that could over come a lot of the unaccountable variables.  That added to the challenge.

    What you're talking about is balance of the numbers to your current characters power.  That is in fact the definition of easy in a numbers game.  For example if your character is tuned to do 20% damage per 5 seconds... the challenge will be the same no matter what level you are.  Many modern MMORPG work towards something similar to allow easy leveling.  

    I didn't play EQ. I played many other MMORPGs around that era (AC, AO, DAOC, etc).  So I can't say for sure that EQ in particular was easier, only that the mechanics of MMORPGs of the same era were shallower and much easier to master than the better modern MMORPGs.

    So far none of the evidence I've seen points to EQ having significant mechanics that made it difficult to master.  Everything I've ever seen/read/watched about EQ has made it seem like the same exact shallow auto-attack-intensive game of other games of that era.

    As for difficulty:
    • Yes, games call HP increases "difficulty".  That's why I said it was fine for you to call longer grinding "difficulty".  (Even I call this difficulty, in other contexts.)
    • Yes, an inability to manipulate victory (in War) is also called "difficulty" (it's "harder to win" because you can't make any decisions that significantly improve your chance of winning.)
    • But in terms of the greater discussion here on pattern mastery as a source of fun, neither of those things matter.  The third type of difficulty is game depth: the importance of player skill, how high the skill cap is, and how much effort is required to reach the skill cap (if it's possible.)
    If you want to call EQ a harder game because of the first two meanings, feel free.  But when it comes to the meaningful definition where a player's skill is being challenged and rewarded, early MMORPGs utterly failed to provide that.

    And that's the type of difficulty which is relevant to the larger, earlier discussion on pattern mastery.  Players aren't going to play a game longer if it takes 10x longer to kill mobs (difficulty definition #1), and they aren't going to play a game longer if victory feels random (difficulty definition #2), but they are going to play it longer if they feel like they've been improving their skill and there is plenty of skill growth left to improve (difficulty defintion #3.)

    Mobs calling for help did add a little of that depth.  Not much though, because the solution to that problem was quite simple: just pull mobs back further.  With so few exclusive-to-early-MMORPG mechanics, and most failing to add much depth, and some detracting from depth (excessive death penalty), early MMORPGs simply weren't challenging in the way that players found most fun.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    Axehilt said:
    No, the same couldn't be said of old MMOs. The Poker elements I called out are present in basically every hand of Poker.  The MMORPG elements you called out were rare (bartering, trolling others with trains), or were predominantly negative (trolling others with trains), or were more tedious chores than interesting decisions (using chat to form a party.)
    I would disagree with this. 

    All of those activities were a lot more exciting then what developers put in as static content because it's unpredictable.  You don't know what humans are going to do.

    All of those activities were quite common and so was human interaction in those games.  I don't think you played them when they first came out and if you did you obviously didn't spend much time in them.

    Forming parties was not always an easy/trivial task.  Try managing a group of people or managing gathering together/managing a large group of people.  There is a reason the managers generally get paid more then the people who do the actual work.
    The reason forming a party was a tedious chore was there aren't really difficult decisions involved.  You spam chat when you need members, and while the message you use has a tiny influence on how effective your advertisement is, the overall amount of skill/learning involved is extremely small (and that means it's shallow, and because it was both shallow and mandatory it was considered tedious.)
    You obviously didn't partake in such things.  It was more difficult to get people together and get them to cooperate then it is to learn the strategy to take down a raid boss in many cases.  Many times you had to be a people person with people skills.
    Death penalty occurs after the player fails. This means a high-penalty game really doesn't add anything in terms of depth.  Perhaps we could say it adds a single shallow decision ("play cautiously or be kicked in the shins") which actually drives players to shallower combat (less skill is required to fight easier mobs.) Any depth you think is associated with high-penalty gameplay is actually equally associated with low-penalty gameplay (whether or not the game is going to kick you in the shins for failure, it's a good move to pull mobs back a safe distance.)
    Actually it does add something.  It stops players who are not very good at the game from progressing.  This seems to be something you have ignored.  It also get players to think more creatively as they have to find a way to succeed.  They aren't just given success.
    The "other factors besides pressing buttons" you list are not exclusive to old MMORPGs. The better modern MMORPGs have everything you've listed, plus rich combat, minus purposeless penalty.
    This is extremely false and if you played older MMOs you would know this.
    (Examples: In Tanaan (new WOW zone) I regularly have to worry about the way I approach/pull mobs since my Rogue is kinda crappily geared and will actually die (or burn cooldowns) if I don't handle things correctly.  In WOW's Mythic dungeons you either pull and CC correctly or you wipe (though gear has scaled considerably since I last went in those, so this may be slightly different now.))
    Comparing WoW combat to EQ is pretty sad if you played both.  Even in Vanilla WoW (when it was harder) the combat mechanics were far more complex in nature due to factors mentioned by others in this thread.
    As for socializing, the social aspects of Poker work because you're actually in competition with your opponents. It's mind games, and being good at predicting and manipulating your opponent's actions can add good depth to a lot of PVP games as long as the game mechanics enable it (in Street Fighter you can do two jump-kicks in a row and then bait out their Dragon Punch (normally the counter to a jump-kick) by canceling your third jump, but in early MMORPG combat there was nothing you could really do to bait out a critical ability -- nor would it matter most of the time since the battle was likely decided by far shallower decisions (you were fighting a 3v1 or your opponent was 20 levels below you, so the battle was won regardless.))
    You are joking here right?  People were far more creative in use of their abilities to either aid or hinder each other than in modern MMOs.  I think you fail to realize the sheer amount of different abilities available to classes in older games and how they could be exploited.  I think you also fail to realize the game mechanics were not shallower at all.  The game mechanics now are shallow.  They are heavily restricted in what you can actually do.  In early MMOs there were almost no restrictions in terms of what you could do in combat.
    Non-competitive socializing is going to happen regardless. If players want to socialize, they'll socialize.  If not, then it's a bad idea for the game to force them to socialize.

    So while plenty of games like Poker and Werewolf/Mafia involve social skills as part of the gameplay and that works great, if a game doesn't have that type of socialization (and MMORPGs haven't) then socializing should be purely opt-in (like MMORPGs now are.)
    Having a non persistent world will pretty much take any form of real competition out of the game and that's exactly what most people want.  They don't want to really compete.  That seems pretty obvious by the way the new games are selling.  If you want a really competitive game the world has to be persistent IMO.
  • Vermillion_RaventhalVermillion_Raventhal Member EpicPosts: 4,198
    I didn't play EQ. I played many other MMORPGs around that era (AC, AO, DAOC, etc).  So I can't say for sure that EQ in particular was easier, only that the mechanics of MMORPGs of the same era were shallower and much easier to master than the better modern MMORPGs. 

    I see little difference.  Newer games are more complex in presentation but I think character building was more complex in older games.  They still come down to pressing buttons for abilities or maybe too many buttons depending on how you view it.  

    So far none of the evidence I've seen points to EQ having significant mechanics that made it difficult to master.  Everything I've ever seen/read/watched about EQ has made it seem like the same exact shallow auto-attack-intensive game of other games of that era.
    But mechanics aren't all there is to difficulty especially in RPG.  I would say things like twisting songs in EQ is a harder mechanic than anything in modern gaming.  

    As for difficulty:
    • Yes, games call HP increases "difficulty".  That's why I said it was fine for you to call longer grinding "difficulty".  (Even I call this difficulty, in other contexts.)
    • Yes, an inability to manipulate victory (in War) is also called "difficulty" (it's "harder to win" because you can't make any decisions that significantly improve your chance of winning.)
    • But in terms of the greater discussion here on pattern mastery as a source of fun, neither of those things matter.  The third type of difficulty is game depth: the importance of player skill, how high the skill cap is, and how much effort is required to reach the skill cap (if it's possible.)
    Again, name me an RPG where difficulty isn't a numbers game.  You have failed to do that. Even elite NPCs in WoW or most other MMORPG have vastly more HP than normal ones.   There was skill to try to prevent the uncontrollable.  For example you could root a fleeing NPC to prevent it from going deeper into the dungeon and getting help.  There was your own awareness that could sometimes prevent being trained by others or running to prevent dying deep in a dungeon when you failed to stop NPC.  

    If you want to call EQ a harder game because of the first two meanings, feel free.  But when it comes to the meaningful definition where a player's skill is being challenged and rewarded, early MMORPGs utterly failed to provide that. 
    And that's the type of difficulty which is relevant to the larger, earlier discussion on pattern mastery.  Players aren't going to play a game longer if it takes 10x longer to kill mobs (difficulty definition #1), and they aren't going to play a game longer if victory feels random (difficulty definition #2), but they are going to play it longer if they feel like they've been improving their skill and there is plenty of skill growth left to improve (difficulty defintion #3.)
     Its not that it took just 3 times longer its that you had to actually survive the battle.  Usually by using your skills correctly.  Todays games you can pretty much mash any buttons any type of way because you're fighting very weak NPCs.  In Everquest a single NPCs your level usually had the advantage over you and it took skill or good group play to overcome it.


  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    I didn't play EQ. I played many other MMORPGs around that era (AC, AO, DAOC, etc).  So I can't say for sure that EQ in particular was easier, only that the mechanics of MMORPGs of the same era were shallower and much easier to master than the better modern MMORPGs. 

    I see little difference.  Newer games are more complex in presentation but I think character building was more complex in older games.  They still come down to pressing buttons for abilities or maybe too many buttons depending on how you view it.  

    So far none of the evidence I've seen points to EQ having significant mechanics that made it difficult to master.  Everything I've ever seen/read/watched about EQ has made it seem like the same exact shallow auto-attack-intensive game of other games of that era.
    But mechanics aren't all there is to difficulty especially in RPG.  I would say things like twisting songs in EQ is a harder mechanic than anything in modern gaming.  

    As for difficulty:
    • Yes, games call HP increases "difficulty".  That's why I said it was fine for you to call longer grinding "difficulty".  (Even I call this difficulty, in other contexts.)
    • Yes, an inability to manipulate victory (in War) is also called "difficulty" (it's "harder to win" because you can't make any decisions that significantly improve your chance of winning.)
    • But in terms of the greater discussion here on pattern mastery as a source of fun, neither of those things matter.  The third type of difficulty is game depth: the importance of player skill, how high the skill cap is, and how much effort is required to reach the skill cap (if it's possible.)
    Again, name me an RPG where difficulty isn't a numbers game.  You have failed to do that. Even elite NPCs in WoW or most other MMORPG have vastly more HP than normal ones.   There was skill to try to prevent the uncontrollable.  For example you could root a fleeing NPC to prevent it from going deeper into the dungeon and getting help.  There was your own awareness that could sometimes prevent being trained by others or running to prevent dying deep in a dungeon when you failed to stop NPC.  

    If you want to call EQ a harder game because of the first two meanings, feel free.  But when it comes to the meaningful definition where a player's skill is being challenged and rewarded, early MMORPGs utterly failed to provide that. 
    And that's the type of difficulty which is relevant to the larger, earlier discussion on pattern mastery.  Players aren't going to play a game longer if it takes 10x longer to kill mobs (difficulty definition #1), and they aren't going to play a game longer if victory feels random (difficulty definition #2), but they are going to play it longer if they feel like they've been improving their skill and there is plenty of skill growth left to improve (difficulty defintion #3.)
     Its not that it took just 3 times longer its that you had to actually survive the battle.  Usually by using your skills correctly.  Todays games you can pretty much mash any buttons any type of way because you're fighting very weak NPCs.  In Everquest a single NPCs your level usually had the advantage over you and it took skill or good group play to overcome it.


    I think this pretty much brings us back to an unwinnable argument that combat was more difficult.  To many of us that played we believe that combat was more difficult.  There were many factors that went into this.  Some were intended by the developer and some were not (like bugs).

    My main argument is that EQ was far more like a poker game because it had a lot more forced social aspects/deception by the player base you had to deal with.  In current games you don't have to deal with any social aspects.  You just have to perform your role in combat.  There is no direct competition over anything in the game.  It is all instanced.
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