Challenging is anything that tests your abilities. So that could be a pong match challenging your reflexes, it could be a movie like "The Ring" testing your tolerance for fear, or it could be a series like Wheel of Time challenging your thought process by making you see a foreign world through different perspectives and consider what you would do in the shoes of the character (Or just pressing your limits of how many plot lines you can follow at once.)
Let me ask you a question. How many times do you watch the movie that you really enjoy and not sit there and put yourself in the character's shoes and think of how you might of reacted differently were you in their position? What you could have done to avoid negative plot points or achieve better outcomes?
I'd say I do that 100% of the time unless the movie was just utter trash. Even then somtimes. Like I said earlier. If you are thinking about it afterwards it was mentally challenging to you.
I am not saying you are not how you say you are, or if there's anything wrong with how you perceive everything. It is not universal.
I never put myself in the character's shoes, I never think about the stuff you mentioned. I really don't care about that, at all.
Some movies provide me a challenge of understanding the different layers, the hidden meanings, the symbolism, and such. But many movies don't, and that doesn't make them any less good. Because that's not any factor in reviewing nor rating a movie.
Anyways you are branching the debate, which is good. But my point is just about how you say when something is not challenging then it is not good. That doesn't apply to a lot of people, in lots of situations.
Constantine, The Console Poster
"One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves." - Carl Jung
Lol .. now you are grasping as straws. Are you going to say that sitting down at the beach front and enjoy a glass of wine is a "challenge" too?
Yeh ... it is really challenging when i watched the Avengers in 2012 *eye rolls*
(unless you are talking about getting tickets and lining up for good seats)
MMOs, as a genre, are harder than just about anything else that I've played. Thanks to the heavy focus on twitch-skills, which I'm no good at. For example, I find games such as Guild Wars 2 (which is marketed as 'casual') to be far more difficult than games such as Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy.
So no, I don't want MMOs to be more challenging. Wouldn't play the genre if they were.
MMOs, as a genre, are harder than just about anything else that I've played. Thanks to the heavy focus on twitch-skills, which I'm no good at. For example, I find games such as Guild Wars 2 (which is marketed as 'casual') to be far more difficult than games such as Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy.
So no, I don't want MMOs to be more challenging. Wouldn't play the genre if they were.
Really? I find MMOs more time consuming then hard, tactical FPS games are way harder for me then any MMO. I guess it differs from person to person.
MMOs, as a genre, are harder than just about anything else that I've played. Thanks to the heavy focus on twitch-skills, which I'm no good at. For example, I find games such as Guild Wars 2 (which is marketed as 'casual') to be far more difficult than games such as Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy.
So no, I don't want MMOs to be more challenging. Wouldn't play the genre if they were.
Interesting statement
Twitch skills in MMOs are a relatively new thing and the level of twitch skill required in MMOs is still a hell of a lot less than other genres. I also thought Dark Souls was the king of difficulty, with extreme reliance on good twitch skills. Not that I've played Dark Souls, always thought it looked shit.....
With MMOs, I've always found the difficulty to be quite lacking. MMOs are extremely complex in comparison to most genres, so it can take days/weeks/months before you have acquired enough knowledge of all the systems to feel like you finally know what you're doing, but actual difficulty is usually lacking.
Twitch skills in MMOs are a relatively new thing and the level of twitch skill required in MMOs is still a hell of a lot less than other genres. I also thought Dark Souls was the king of difficulty, with extreme reliance on good twitch skills.
I'm not sure what my major malfunction is with MMOs, but they're definitely harder for me than so-called 'difficult' single-player games.
Maybe I'm just bad at multitasking. There's too many things going on at once: having to keep track of your own position and the enemies, while also adjusting the camera, dodging, and using the abilities... plus other players running back and forth, in a total cacophony of graphics effects and overlapping sounds... I can't keep track of what's happening, I have no idea how anyone manages it.
Whereas games such as Dark Souls, with basic UI and simple controls, where you can focus on the enemies and even plan ahead before attacking them? Those are easy.
MMOs, as a genre, are harder than just about anything else that I've played. Thanks to the heavy focus on twitch-skills, which I'm no good at. For example, I find games such as Guild Wars 2 (which is marketed as 'casual') to be far more difficult than games such as Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy.
So no, I don't want MMOs to be more challenging. Wouldn't play the genre if they were.
Interesting statement
Twitch skills in MMOs are a relatively new thing and the level of twitch skill required in MMOs is still a hell of a lot less than other genres. I also thought Dark Souls was the king of difficulty, with extreme reliance on good twitch skills. Not that I've played Dark Souls, always thought it looked shit.....
With MMOs, I've always found the difficulty to be quite lacking. MMOs are extremely complex in comparison to most genres, so it can take days/weeks/months before you have acquired enough knowledge of all the systems to feel like you finally know what you're doing, but actual difficulty is usually lacking.
Right, but imagine your progress being bottle lock by twitch gameplay. Many people will never be able to progress through it.
Thus mainstream mmo only put difficult content near the end or completely optional.
I cannot play darksouls too hard for me and any game that requires me to hit keys fast or use the mouse a lot is a difficult game. Those games are difficult but games that require me to grind or where I die a lot trying to finish is fine as long as there is no twitch. Those other kind of games just hurt my hand and make it difficult to play the games. I don't know whether that is an accurate way of describing them but that is difficult because physically I am unable to play them.
They should be at least difficult enough that it takes a team of 6 people working together to take down a monster...Once they decided that 1 person could kill everything it pretty much ruined the genre and made it single player with other people around.
I don't think it's as much about difficulty as it is about interdependence and immersion through realistic gameplay elements.
I started my MMORPG experience in 2001 with Everquest, and I honestly haven't found anything that quite scratched that itch since. Everyone likes to look at all the features that MMORPGS gained as progress, but a lot of the features in place (maps, shared or similar abilities and roles across class lines, gearing of content toward the single player experience, etc.) have taken a toll on interdependence, social interaction, and immersion. Now we look at games that are trying to back away from some of these features as "niche" games, and that's kind of sad.
In EQ, I loved that I had to go talk to a certain guy to buy a scroll I needed for a spell, and that there was a guy selling a SoW over at the orc lift. I needed that from him, so that's a realistic social interaction within a fantasy world. I don't want to be able to teleport if I'm playing a ranger, I want to have to buy a tp from a mage. In real life, everyone can't do everything, we rely on others. Having that sort of dependence in a fantasy world is a key necessity for real immersion.
I think that features such as map markers, and teleports and mounts for all, and locked encounters all sounded really appealing, but in practice it has taken away much of the player to player drama, especially in the PVE style of gameplay. The gaming industry hasn't found another good way to simulate this through game mechanics, in my opinion.
I'm not saying that all conveniences need to be removed, but I think that developers need to spend a little less time listening to complaining gamers, because I don't think we really know what we want, or what will actually be fun most of the time. I certainly didn't.
I'm just waiting for a F2P overhyped sandbox WoW clone with full PVP, epic raid bosses, instanced group content, and Crysis-quality graphics to come out. That, or something fun.
I don't think it's as much about difficulty as it is about interdependence and immersion through realistic gameplay elements.
I started my MMORPG experience in 2001 with Everquest, and I honestly haven't found anything that quite scratched that itch since. Everyone likes to look at all the features that MMORPGS gained as progress, but a lot of the features in place (maps, shared or similar abilities and roles across class lines, gearing of content toward the single player experience, etc.) have taken a toll on interdependence, social interaction, and immersion. Now we look at games that are trying to back away from some of these features as "niche" games, and that's kind of sad.
In EQ, I loved that I had to go talk to a certain guy to buy a scroll I needed for a spell, and that there was a guy selling a SoW over at the orc lift. I needed that from him, so that's a realistic social interaction within a fantasy world. I don't want to be able to teleport if I'm playing a ranger, I want to have to buy a tp from a mage. In real life, everyone can't do everything, we rely on others. Having that sort of dependence in a fantasy world is a key necessity for real immersion.
I think that features such as map markers, and teleports and mounts for all, and locked encounters all sounded really appealing, but in practice it has taken away much of the player to player drama, especially in the PVE style of gameplay. The gaming industry hasn't found another good way to simulate this through game mechanics, in my opinion.
I'm not saying that all conveniences need to be removed, but I think that developers need to spend a little less time listening to complaining gamers, because I don't think we really know what we want, or what will actually be fun most of the time. I certainly didn't.
This seems to be the same as with society though. Everything is being controlled more and more to the point everyone is acting similar and there isn't much creativity going on. It is just everyone following the same path that is presented to them. It is often being termed as innovative, but in reality, there is little freedom. Games reflect this in the modern age. They are all about forcing people to adopt beliefs and ideas through social pressure. It removes one sort of bullying and introduces another in its place. All these game mechanics prohibit any potential negative actions or behavior in the game. They also remove most of the social interaction. There isn't much point to adventure games in their current state as it's hard to term them adventures by the definition.
They should be at least difficult enough that it takes a team of 6 people working together to take down a monster...Once they decided that 1 person could kill everything it pretty much ruined the genre and made it single player with other people around.
THAT is the problem, REQUIRING 6 people. While I like to work together with a team and I like to play and work together with my friends, I also like to play at times when that is just not possible. Therefore, requiring 6 people becomes a huge blocker for me at times. Frankly, what I would think that should happen is that everything should scale. If you have a party of 6, the fight scales to 6. If you have only one, the fight scales to one. Rewards should also scale based upon the size and difficulty. With that said, rewards should be randomized to a point when the fight is scaled down that even the solo player has a slight chance to come away with epic rewards.
Taken from another angle, instead for requiring 6, why not require 100. Or maybe 200. You see where it starts becoming more and more difficult? Random groups have never been easy in my experience and no matter the number you "require", you end up hurting playability. MMO's should be accessible to everyone no matter how they wish to play.
I'm not saying that all conveniences need to be removed, but I think that developers need to spend a little less time listening to complaining gamers, because I don't think we really know what we want, or what will actually be fun most of the time. I certainly didn't.
nah .. only those who don't like what other players want says "i don't think we really know what we want".
I certainly don't want any inter-dependencies in my fun. It is a lot more fun, for me, to just go kill stuff (assuming combat is fun), then waiting around (waiting is no-no) or try to find someone to sell me a scroll.
If i want to deal with sales rep and be bored, i go with my wife to the mall.
So now are you going to tell me I don't know what is fun for me ... and you, a total stranger, know better?
I'm not saying that all conveniences need to be removed, but I think that developers need to spend a little less time listening to complaining gamers, because I don't think we really know what we want, or what will actually be fun most of the time. I certainly didn't.
nah .. only those who don't like what other players want says "i don't think we really know what we want".
I certainly don't want any inter-dependencies in my fun. It is a lot more fun, for me, to just go kill stuff (assuming combat is fun), then waiting around (waiting is no-no) or try to find someone to sell me a scroll.
If i want to deal with sales rep and be bored, i go with my wife to the mall.
So now are you going to tell me I don't know what is fun for me ... and you, a total stranger, know better?
Of course each individual gamer knows what sort of stuff they consider fun, and if you're satisfied with what's out there, then you clearly aren't one of the "complaining gamers" that I was referring to, and therefore have no need to be as personally offended by my statement as you seem to be.
The "complaining gamers" that I was referring to are the dissatisfied mass of MMORPG gamers out there who hop from game to game in search of an experience to recreate the magic we felt in games and expansions past- the ones who might welcome a return of "more difficult times," as defined within the context of this discussion thread.
It was our complaints that took MMORPGs to the place they are today:
"I wish I knew where this quest goal was."
"I wish I could teleport to where I am going without any help."
"I wish I could defeat the entire encounter by myself."
"I wish that this idiot's poor choice didn't get me killed." (TRAIN INCOMING!)
"I wish that I didn't have to go to a mailbox for my mail."
"I wish that I could play by myself and experience all the content."
We all thought that having all these wishes granted would result in the funnest games ever made, and I am sure they are for some people, but many of those of us who loved games like UO, EQ, and DAoC feel like we lost some of what made those games special.
Massively multiplayer games became more accessible, more intuitive, and easier to play alone, but we lost something in the adding of features and accessibility. What about the conversation that I had with another random player as we traveled on the boat to Freeport? The haggling that I did with the Mage who teleported me to another continent? The argument that I had with the bozo who pulled a train of orcs on our party?
I know the games that are available now are exactly what some people are looking for, and that things like interdependence and realistic elements of play aren't important to everyone. I am just suggesting that there are many of us who thought we were getting more, and we didn't realize what we lost in the process until it was gone.
I'm just waiting for a F2P overhyped sandbox WoW clone with full PVP, epic raid bosses, instanced group content, and Crysis-quality graphics to come out. That, or something fun.
The "complaining gamers" that I was referring to are the dissatisfied mass of MMORPG gamers out there who hop from game to game in search of an experience to recreate the magic we felt in games and expansions past- the ones who might welcome a return of "more difficult times," as defined within the context of this discussion thread.
I have no sympathy to those who cannot find good entertainment in this day and age. If no MMO is fun for them, go read a book, or watch a netflix show.
If a person has such narrow taste that nothing in this world, with almost unlimited entertainment options, entertains, well, too bad.
The "complaining gamers" that I was referring to are the dissatisfied mass of MMORPG gamers out there who hop from game to game in search of an experience to recreate the magic we felt in games and expansions past- the ones who might welcome a return of "more difficult times," as defined within the context of this discussion thread.
I have no sympathy to those who cannot find good entertainment in this day and age. If no MMO is fun for them, go read a book, or watch a netflix show.
If a person has such narrow taste that nothing in this world, with almost unlimited entertainment options, entertains, well, too bad.
The "complaining gamers" that I was referring to are the dissatisfied mass of MMORPG gamers out there who hop from game to game in search of an experience to recreate the magic we felt in games and expansions past- the ones who might welcome a return of "more difficult times," as defined within the context of this discussion thread.
I have no sympathy to those who cannot find good entertainment in this day and age. If no MMO is fun for them, go read a book, or watch a netflix show.
If a person has such narrow taste that nothing in this world, with almost unlimited entertainment options, entertains, well, too bad.
I wasn't trying to assault your opinion when I stated mine, and I'd love to be perfectly happy with what's available now, in terms of MMORPGs, but I'm not. It doesn't mean that I can't have fun playing them, or that I have narrow tastes.
I'm just waiting for a F2P overhyped sandbox WoW clone with full PVP, epic raid bosses, instanced group content, and Crysis-quality graphics to come out. That, or something fun.
MMOs, as a genre, are harder than just about anything else that I've played. Thanks to the heavy focus on twitch-skills, which I'm no good at. For example, I find games such as Guild Wars 2 (which is marketed as 'casual') to be far more difficult than games such as Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy.
So no, I don't want MMOs to be more challenging. Wouldn't play the genre if they were.
Interesting statement
Twitch skills in MMOs are a relatively new thing and the level of twitch skill required in MMOs is still a hell of a lot less than other genres. I also thought Dark Souls was the king of difficulty, with extreme reliance on good twitch skills. Not that I've played Dark Souls, always thought it looked shit.....
With MMOs, I've always found the difficulty to be quite lacking. MMOs are extremely complex in comparison to most genres, so it can take days/weeks/months before you have acquired enough knowledge of all the systems to feel like you finally know what you're doing, but actual difficulty is usually lacking.
When you're a casual, everything is easy. Casuals don't really play the content that requires the higher twitch skills, and they often play at lower difficulty, while getting to the content with better gear than the end-gamers first cleared the content in (no time to farm, there is "competition."
And people who don't think MMORPGs are twitchy need to go watch some top enders do Mythic Raids in WoW. When you're min-maxing, it's very twitchy.
The thing that really spoils the difficulty in modern MMORPGs, IMO:
1. Add-Ons: There are too many, and many are designed to trivialize content (Deadly Boss MODs, GTFO, etc.). They drastically lower the "situational awareness requirement" for raiding, as well. A monkey can raid in most modern MMORPGs. The raids in WoW aren't substantially more difficult than what we had to deal with in, for example, Gates of Discord in EverQuest - but the addition of these Add-Ons has really trivialized things and made higher difficulties too dependent on "one shot mechanics" to give any challence (so basically, either your army of lemmings is close to flawless, or you're probably not going to win).
2. Social Pressures: Most lower guilds will not take (or kick) players who have not done extensive research on the raids - which usually involved looking up FatBoss, etc. videos that the guild will try to carbon copy when they attempt the boss. This is very widespread, and it's not just a WoW problem. It happens in many other games, as well.
3. The focus on raiding has trivialized solo and group content, to a large extent. People who don't want to raid don't get much challenge out of the games, because the group content is either trivial, or quickly becomes trivial. This is why Blizzard added the Mythic+ system into WoW. Solo content is forgettable, and largely for leveling and solo progression purposes (i.e. opening up Argus).
I don't see anything wrong with in-game maps. I think that's one of the better things to happen to MMORPGs.
I see very little wrong with QuestHelper functionality, because it's not a big deal. Developers can always make the quest content more difficult to make up for it... Wasting an extra hour a day running around looking for stuff doesn't make a game challenging, at all, never mind "difficult."
I personally feel like the biggest issue are the Add-Ons. Honestly, WoW raiding is almost unbearable because of them. There simply is not sense of discovery or surprise when doing the content. Everyone seems to know the fight (from chain watching YouTube videos), and the AddOns literally tell you everything ahead of time. If fire spawns under you, you don't have to even see the screen - an AddOn will buzzer your speaker to tell you, etc.
And at the Mythic raiding level, it gets quite twitchy, especially if you tend to do the end-content fairly early in the patch. Twitchy gameplay in an MMORPG is annoying, although I do enjoy a faster combat "pace" (I could never play FFXIV - it feels way too slow).
MMOs, as a genre, are harder than just about anything else that I've played. Thanks to the heavy focus on twitch-skills, which I'm no good at. For example, I find games such as Guild Wars 2 (which is marketed as 'casual') to be far more difficult than games such as Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy.
So no, I don't want MMOs to be more challenging. Wouldn't play the genre if they were.
Interesting statement
Twitch skills in MMOs are a relatively new thing and the level of twitch skill required in MMOs is still a hell of a lot less than other genres. I also thought Dark Souls was the king of difficulty, with extreme reliance on good twitch skills. Not that I've played Dark Souls, always thought it looked shit.....
With MMOs, I've always found the difficulty to be quite lacking. MMOs are extremely complex in comparison to most genres, so it can take days/weeks/months before you have acquired enough knowledge of all the systems to feel like you finally know what you're doing, but actual difficulty is usually lacking.
When you're a casual, everything is easy. Casuals don't really play the content that requires the higher twitch skills, and they often play at lower difficulty, while getting to the content with better gear than the end-gamers first cleared the content in (no time to farm, there is "competition."
And people who don't think MMORPGs are twitchy need to go watch some top enders do Mythic Raids in WoW. When you're min-maxing, it's very twitchy.
<snip>
And at the Mythic raiding level, it gets quite twitchy, especially if you tend to do the end-content fairly early in the patch. Twitchy gameplay in an MMORPG is annoying, although I do enjoy a faster combat "pace" (I could never play FFXIV - it feels way too slow).
I'm really confused. Please can you now define for me what you mean by twitchy?!?
In the context I (and everyone else) here uses the term, it means a reliance on a person's physical attributes as opposed to mental attributes - generally muscle memory for aiming and dodging.
It has nothing to do with pacing.
So, I've been a hardcore raider in the past, not in WoW but in other tab-targetting games. I've beaten raids on all the highest difficulties early on. I've never come across twitchy gameplay. The closest tab-target games get to twitch skills is avoiding shit on the floor. Most still give you a second or two to avoid it, some might be more twitchy and reduce that to 0.5s.
I can't recall anybody ever mentioning the need to manually aim in WoW. I know there are some bosses that require a lot of movement, but generally you know in advance that the movement is required and so doesn't count as twitch combat. The only time that the outcome of a fight depends on a persons physical traits is when you have to move out of fire etc. Its about as far away from twitch combat as you can get!
i.e. Red ring appears under you. Dodge within 0.75 seconds or half your HP disappears in one hit.
Twitch gameplay has nothing to do with "aiming." It's not exclusive to FPS games, and there are multiple "MMORPG" games with dodge mechanics in them : Elder Scrolls Online and [infamously] Guild Wars 2.
Even more games have movement mechanics that function similarly: Blink and Demonic Teleport in WoW. Ice block.
On top of that, you have to have a clue how the game is played above the "casual level" - where people are min-maxing for DPS, or PvPing... On top of dodging boss mechanics or reacting to the encoutner script. PvP is reactive by nature, therefore people who are accustomed to twitchy gameplay tend to do well in it.
Not ironically, the people who tend to do well in PvP also tend to do well in PvE at the top end... because at that level, even the PvE becomes quite twitchy.
Twitch refers to the need to react fast to changes in the encounter, and your rotation/spell or skill prioritization - adjusting quickly. Ability or Trinket Procs, On Use Abilities, Cooldowns, etc. Yes, people who are accustomed to this type of gameplay have better reaction time. That's kind of the point - the more you do it, the better you get (though physically some people may be more acclimated to it than others). That's why there are target dummies in the game - to practice it.
You can't compare WoW to random games so generally. EverQuest was a Tab Targeting Game, and so is FFXIV, but those games had different combat pace to them. EQ, for example, never had you reacting to Procs and Temp Buffs the way WoW does - at least not before the DoDH expansion... FFXIV has a much slower combat pace than WoW, as well, which is why it's so playable on on consoles with a controller, and why casuals tend to like it (and often say WoW is like facerolling the keyboard in comparison). Many of the cast and ability use times in those games were longer than in WoW. EQ Players never had to worry about mechanics like snapshotting, etc.
Casuals can crawl out of fire in WoW. The raid difficulties they do often don't do enough damage to kill them unless they're really bad and stand in them forever.
----
I didn't say all MMORPGs were twitchy. I said playing WoW at a high level in PvE (and in PvP, always) is twitchy. I'd argue that the same applied to EQ2, except to a slightly less extent, from my experience raiding at the high end in that game (DoV timeframe) on a Necromancer. It was nothing like raiding on a Necromancer in EQ, where the gameplay was almost like taking the dog for a walk.
Additionally, older MMORPGs were often not, because they had a much slower combat pace to them, and often brainless spell priorities/rotations.
Games with action combat are just the next step in that (i.e. GW2, ESO), and games that have combos on top of the action combat are a further step ahead... However, the underlying systems (how much other shit you have to manage and get done during combat) can differ between the two.
It isn't always about the fact that you just "tab target a mob and press spells." At last... not if you've actually done any end game content in some of these games.
i.e. Red ring appears under you. Dodge within 0.75 seconds or half your HP disappears in one hit.
Twitch gameplay has nothing to do with "aiming." It's not exclusive to FPS games, and there are multiple "MMORPG" games with dodge mechanics in them : Elder Scrolls Online and [infamously] Guild Wars 2.
Even more games have movement mechanics that function similarly: Blink and Demonic Teleport in WoW. Ice block.
On top of that, you have to have a clue how the game is played above the "casual level" - where people are min-maxing for DPS, or PvPing... On top of dodging boss mechanics or reacting to the encoutner script. PvP is reactive by nature, therefore people who are accustomed to twitchy gameplay tend to do well in it.
Not ironically, the people who tend to do well in PvP also tend to do well in PvE at the top end... because at that level, even the PvE becomes quite twitchy.
Twitch refers to the need to react fast to changes in the encounter, and your rotation/spell or skill prioritization - adjusting quickly. Ability or Trinket Procs, On Use Abilities, Cooldowns, etc. Yes, people who are accustomed to this type of gameplay have better reaction time. That's kind of the point - the more you do it, the better you get (though physically some people may be more acclimated to it than others). That's why there are target dummies in the game - to practice it.
You can't compare WoW to random games so generally. EverQuest was a Tab Targeting Game, and so is FFXIV, but those games had different combat pace to them. EQ, for example, never had you reacting to Procs and Temp Buffs the way WoW does - at least not before the DoDH expansion... FFXIV has a much slower combat pace than WoW, as well, which is why it's so playable on on consoles with a controller, and why casuals tend to like it (and often say WoW is like facerolling the keyboard in comparison). Many of the cast and ability use times in those games were longer than in WoW. EQ Players never had to worry about mechanics like snapshotting, etc.
Casuals can crawl out of fire in WoW. The raid difficulties they do often don't do enough damage to kill them unless they're really bad and stand in them forever.
----
I didn't say all MMORPGs were twitchy. I said playing WoW at a high level in PvE (and in PvP, always) is twitchy. I'd argue that the same applied to EQ2, except to a slightly less extent, from my experience raiding at the high end in that game (DoV timeframe) on a Necromancer. It was nothing like raiding on a Necromancer in EQ, where the gameplay was almost like taking the dog for a walk.
Additionally, older MMORPGs were often not, because they had a much slower combat pace to them, and often brainless spell priorities/rotations.
Games with action combat are just the next step in that (i.e. GW2, ESO), and games that have combos on top of the action combat are a further step ahead... However, the underlying systems (how much other shit you have to manage and get done during combat) can differ between the two.
It isn't always about the fact that you just "tab target a mob and press spells." At last... not if you've actually done any end game content in some of these games.
Thanks for your explanation, means I understand what you mean now.
I still disagree, I do not think that needing to react quickly counts as twitch gameplay because it does not rely on a physical attribute, like hitting lots of keys quickly, or aiming accurately, or steering smoothly etc. The initial reaction - the decision making process - is a mental attribute and I would only class it as twitch gameplay if the required action puts a stress on a physical attribute. Having to press a single button does not count!
As I mentioned, I have raided at the top end, I've min-maxed and I'm also primarily a PvPer, so whilst I recognise the fast paced combat and rapidly changing situations, especially in pvp, I've never once felt that the outcome was based on a physical attribute, only on my mental abilities. (talking about tab-target games).
But, as I also mentioned, I didn't like WoW so never made it past the trial so I don't know what the endgame is like. I've watched some videos of mythic raids before and never noticed any twitch gameplay but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
The "complaining gamers" that I was referring to are the dissatisfied mass of MMORPG gamers out there who hop from game to game in search of an experience to recreate the magic we felt in games and expansions past- the ones who might welcome a return of "more difficult times," as defined within the context of this discussion thread.
I have no sympathy to those who cannot find good entertainment in this day and age. If no MMO is fun for them, go read a book, or watch a netflix show.
If a person has such narrow taste that nothing in this world, with almost unlimited entertainment options, entertains, well, too bad.
I wasn't trying to assault your opinion when I stated mine, and I'd love to be perfectly happy with what's available now, in terms of MMORPGs, but I'm not. It doesn't mean that I can't have fun playing them, or that I have narrow tastes.
But it does mean that you are complaining while you can find good entertainment somewhere else.
Again, my point still stands. So complain more .. let's see if the world will change. Personally, i would rather to find something else to do that is fun.
Comments
I never put myself in the character's shoes, I never think about the stuff you mentioned. I really don't care about that, at all.
Some movies provide me a challenge of understanding the different layers, the hidden meanings, the symbolism, and such. But many movies don't, and that doesn't make them any less good. Because that's not any factor in reviewing nor rating a movie.
Anyways you are branching the debate, which is good. But my point is just about how you say when something is not challenging then it is not good. That doesn't apply to a lot of people, in lots of situations.
Cryomatrix
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Yeh ... it is really challenging when i watched the Avengers in 2012 *eye rolls* (unless you are talking about getting tickets and lining up for good seats)
Thanks to the heavy focus on twitch-skills, which I'm no good at. For example, I find games such as Guild Wars 2 (which is marketed as 'casual') to be far more difficult than games such as Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy.
So no, I don't want MMOs to be more challenging. Wouldn't play the genre if they were.
Twitch skills in MMOs are a relatively new thing and the level of twitch skill required in MMOs is still a hell of a lot less than other genres. I also thought Dark Souls was the king of difficulty, with extreme reliance on good twitch skills. Not that I've played Dark Souls, always thought it looked shit.....
With MMOs, I've always found the difficulty to be quite lacking. MMOs are extremely complex in comparison to most genres, so it can take days/weeks/months before you have acquired enough knowledge of all the systems to feel like you finally know what you're doing, but actual difficulty is usually lacking.
Maybe I'm just bad at multitasking. There's too many things going on at once: having to keep track of your own position and the enemies, while also adjusting the camera, dodging, and using the abilities... plus other players running back and forth, in a total cacophony of graphics effects and overlapping sounds... I can't keep track of what's happening, I have no idea how anyone manages it.
Whereas games such as Dark Souls, with basic UI and simple controls, where you can focus on the enemies and even plan ahead before attacking them? Those are easy.
Right, but imagine your progress being bottle lock by twitch gameplay. Many people will never be able to progress through it.
Thus mainstream mmo only put difficult content near the end or completely optional.
I started my MMORPG experience in 2001 with Everquest, and I honestly haven't found anything that quite scratched that itch since. Everyone likes to look at all the features that MMORPGS gained as progress, but a lot of the features in place (maps, shared or similar abilities and roles across class lines, gearing of content toward the single player experience, etc.) have taken a toll on interdependence, social interaction, and immersion. Now we look at games that are trying to back away from some of these features as "niche" games, and that's kind of sad.
In EQ, I loved that I had to go talk to a certain guy to buy a scroll I needed for a spell, and that there was a guy selling a SoW over at the orc lift. I needed that from him, so that's a realistic social interaction within a fantasy world. I don't want to be able to teleport if I'm playing a ranger, I want to have to buy a tp from a mage. In real life, everyone can't do everything, we rely on others. Having that sort of dependence in a fantasy world is a key necessity for real immersion.
I think that features such as map markers, and teleports and mounts for all, and locked encounters all sounded really appealing, but in practice it has taken away much of the player to player drama, especially in the PVE style of gameplay. The gaming industry hasn't found another good way to simulate this through game mechanics, in my opinion.
I'm not saying that all conveniences need to be removed, but I think that developers need to spend a little less time listening to complaining gamers, because I don't think we really know what we want, or what will actually be fun most of the time. I certainly didn't.
I'm just waiting for a F2P overhyped sandbox WoW clone with full PVP, epic raid bosses, instanced group content, and Crysis-quality graphics to come out. That, or something fun.
THAT is the problem, REQUIRING 6 people. While I like to work together with a team and I like to play and work together with my friends, I also like to play at times when that is just not possible. Therefore, requiring 6 people becomes a huge blocker for me at times. Frankly, what I would think that should happen is that everything should scale. If you have a party of 6, the fight scales to 6. If you have only one, the fight scales to one. Rewards should also scale based upon the size and difficulty. With that said, rewards should be randomized to a point when the fight is scaled down that even the solo player has a slight chance to come away with epic rewards.
Taken from another angle, instead for requiring 6, why not require 100. Or maybe 200. You see where it starts becoming more and more difficult? Random groups have never been easy in my experience and no matter the number you "require", you end up hurting playability. MMO's should be accessible to everyone no matter how they wish to play.
Let's party like it is 1863!
I certainly don't want any inter-dependencies in my fun. It is a lot more fun, for me, to just go kill stuff (assuming combat is fun), then waiting around (waiting is no-no) or try to find someone to sell me a scroll.
If i want to deal with sales rep and be bored, i go with my wife to the mall.
So now are you going to tell me I don't know what is fun for me ... and you, a total stranger, know better?
Of course each individual gamer knows what sort of stuff they consider fun, and if you're satisfied with what's out there, then you clearly aren't one of the "complaining gamers" that I was referring to, and therefore have no need to be as personally offended by my statement as you seem to be.
The "complaining gamers" that I was referring to are the dissatisfied mass of MMORPG gamers out there who hop from game to game in search of an experience to recreate the magic we felt in games and expansions past- the ones who might welcome a return of "more difficult times," as defined within the context of this discussion thread.
It was our complaints that took MMORPGs to the place they are today:
"I wish I knew where this quest goal was."
"I wish I could teleport to where I am going without any help."
"I wish I could defeat the entire encounter by myself."
"I wish that this idiot's poor choice didn't get me killed." (TRAIN INCOMING!)
"I wish that I didn't have to go to a mailbox for my mail."
"I wish that I could play by myself and experience all the content."
We all thought that having all these wishes granted would result in the funnest games ever made, and I am sure they are for some people, but many of those of us who loved games like UO, EQ, and DAoC feel like we lost some of what made those games special.
Massively multiplayer games became more accessible, more intuitive, and easier to play alone, but we lost something in the adding of features and accessibility. What about the conversation that I had with another random player as we traveled on the boat to Freeport? The haggling that I did with the Mage who teleported me to another continent? The argument that I had with the bozo who pulled a train of orcs on our party?
I know the games that are available now are exactly what some people are looking for, and that things like interdependence and realistic elements of play aren't important to everyone. I am just suggesting that there are many of us who thought we were getting more, and we didn't realize what we lost in the process until it was gone.
I'm just waiting for a F2P overhyped sandbox WoW clone with full PVP, epic raid bosses, instanced group content, and Crysis-quality graphics to come out. That, or something fun.
If a person has such narrow taste that nothing in this world, with almost unlimited entertainment options, entertains, well, too bad.
Let them eat Netflix
I wasn't trying to assault your opinion when I stated mine, and I'd love to be perfectly happy with what's available now, in terms of MMORPGs, but I'm not. It doesn't mean that I can't have fun playing them, or that I have narrow tastes.
I'm just waiting for a F2P overhyped sandbox WoW clone with full PVP, epic raid bosses, instanced group content, and Crysis-quality graphics to come out. That, or something fun.
When you're a casual, everything is easy. Casuals don't really play the content that requires the higher twitch skills, and they often play at lower difficulty, while getting to the content with better gear than the end-gamers first cleared the content in (no time to farm, there is "competition."
And people who don't think MMORPGs are twitchy need to go watch some top enders do Mythic Raids in WoW. When you're min-maxing, it's very twitchy.
The thing that really spoils the difficulty in modern MMORPGs, IMO:
1. Add-Ons: There are too many, and many are designed to trivialize content (Deadly Boss MODs, GTFO, etc.). They drastically lower the "situational awareness requirement" for raiding, as well. A monkey can raid in most modern MMORPGs. The raids in WoW aren't substantially more difficult than what we had to deal with in, for example, Gates of Discord in EverQuest - but the addition of these Add-Ons has really trivialized things and made higher difficulties too dependent on "one shot mechanics" to give any challence (so basically, either your army of lemmings is close to flawless, or you're probably not going to win).
2. Social Pressures: Most lower guilds will not take (or kick) players who have not done extensive research on the raids - which usually involved looking up FatBoss, etc. videos that the guild will try to carbon copy when they attempt the boss. This is very widespread, and it's not just a WoW problem. It happens in many other games, as well.
3. The focus on raiding has trivialized solo and group content, to a large extent. People who don't want to raid don't get much challenge out of the games, because the group content is either trivial, or quickly becomes trivial. This is why Blizzard added the Mythic+ system into WoW. Solo content is forgettable, and largely for leveling and solo progression purposes (i.e. opening up Argus).
I don't see anything wrong with in-game maps. I think that's one of the better things to happen to MMORPGs.
I see very little wrong with QuestHelper functionality, because it's not a big deal. Developers can always make the quest content more difficult to make up for it... Wasting an extra hour a day running around looking for stuff doesn't make a game challenging, at all, never mind "difficult."
I personally feel like the biggest issue are the Add-Ons. Honestly, WoW raiding is almost unbearable because of them. There simply is not sense of discovery or surprise when doing the content. Everyone seems to know the fight (from chain watching YouTube videos), and the AddOns literally tell you everything ahead of time. If fire spawns under you, you don't have to even see the screen - an AddOn will buzzer your speaker to tell you, etc.
And at the Mythic raiding level, it gets quite twitchy, especially if you tend to do the end-content fairly early in the patch. Twitchy gameplay in an MMORPG is annoying, although I do enjoy a faster combat "pace" (I could never play FFXIV - it feels way too slow).
In the context I (and everyone else) here uses the term, it means a reliance on a person's physical attributes as opposed to mental attributes - generally muscle memory for aiming and dodging.
It has nothing to do with pacing.
So, I've been a hardcore raider in the past, not in WoW but in other tab-targetting games. I've beaten raids on all the highest difficulties early on. I've never come across twitchy gameplay. The closest tab-target games get to twitch skills is avoiding shit on the floor. Most still give you a second or two to avoid it, some might be more twitchy and reduce that to 0.5s.
I can't recall anybody ever mentioning the need to manually aim in WoW. I know there are some bosses that require a lot of movement, but generally you know in advance that the movement is required and so doesn't count as twitch combat. The only time that the outcome of a fight depends on a persons physical traits is when you have to move out of fire etc. Its about as far away from twitch combat as you can get!
i.e. Red ring appears under you. Dodge within 0.75 seconds or half your HP disappears in one hit.
Twitch gameplay has nothing to do with "aiming." It's not exclusive to FPS games, and there are multiple "MMORPG" games with dodge mechanics in them : Elder Scrolls Online and [infamously] Guild Wars 2.
Even more games have movement mechanics that function similarly: Blink and Demonic Teleport in WoW. Ice block.
On top of that, you have to have a clue how the game is played above the "casual level" - where people are min-maxing for DPS, or PvPing... On top of dodging boss mechanics or reacting to the encoutner script. PvP is reactive by nature, therefore people who are accustomed to twitchy gameplay tend to do well in it.
Not ironically, the people who tend to do well in PvP also tend to do well in PvE at the top end... because at that level, even the PvE becomes quite twitchy.
Twitch refers to the need to react fast to changes in the encounter, and your rotation/spell or skill prioritization - adjusting quickly. Ability or Trinket Procs, On Use Abilities, Cooldowns, etc. Yes, people who are accustomed to this type of gameplay have better reaction time. That's kind of the point - the more you do it, the better you get (though physically some people may be more acclimated to it than others). That's why there are target dummies in the game - to practice it.
You can't compare WoW to random games so generally. EverQuest was a Tab Targeting Game, and so is FFXIV, but those games had different combat pace to them. EQ, for example, never had you reacting to Procs and Temp Buffs the way WoW does - at least not before the DoDH expansion... FFXIV has a much slower combat pace than WoW, as well, which is why it's so playable on on consoles with a controller, and why casuals tend to like it (and often say WoW is like facerolling the keyboard in comparison). Many of the cast and ability use times in those games were longer than in WoW. EQ Players never had to worry about mechanics like snapshotting, etc.
Casuals can crawl out of fire in WoW. The raid difficulties they do often don't do enough damage to kill them unless they're really bad and stand in them forever.
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I didn't say all MMORPGs were twitchy. I said playing WoW at a high level in PvE (and in PvP, always) is twitchy. I'd argue that the same applied to EQ2, except to a slightly less extent, from my experience raiding at the high end in that game (DoV timeframe) on a Necromancer. It was nothing like raiding on a Necromancer in EQ, where the gameplay was almost like taking the dog for a walk.
Additionally, older MMORPGs were often not, because they had a much slower combat pace to them, and often brainless spell priorities/rotations.
Games with action combat are just the next step in that (i.e. GW2, ESO), and games that have combos on top of the action combat are a further step ahead... However, the underlying systems (how much other shit you have to manage and get done during combat) can differ between the two.
It isn't always about the fact that you just "tab target a mob and press spells." At last... not if you've actually done any end game content in some of these games.
That's not difficult gameplay, that's bullshit design.
I still disagree, I do not think that needing to react quickly counts as twitch gameplay because it does not rely on a physical attribute, like hitting lots of keys quickly, or aiming accurately, or steering smoothly etc. The initial reaction - the decision making process - is a mental attribute and I would only class it as twitch gameplay if the required action puts a stress on a physical attribute. Having to press a single button does not count!
As I mentioned, I have raided at the top end, I've min-maxed and I'm also primarily a PvPer, so whilst I recognise the fast paced combat and rapidly changing situations, especially in pvp, I've never once felt that the outcome was based on a physical attribute, only on my mental abilities. (talking about tab-target games).
But, as I also mentioned, I didn't like WoW so never made it past the trial so I don't know what the endgame is like. I've watched some videos of mythic raids before and never noticed any twitch gameplay but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
But it does mean that you are complaining while you can find good entertainment somewhere else.
Again, my point still stands. So complain more .. let's see if the world will change. Personally, i would rather to find something else to do that is fun.