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Challenging PVE

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  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775

    Originally posted by Axehilt

    Death penalty isn't challenge.  It's penalty.

    Challenge represents how much skill you need to succeed at something.

    Penalty is what happens when you fail.

    Now I never played EQ1, but I've certainly heard way more Tedious and Penalty-heavy mechanics described by others than genuine Challenges.  Even if it was challenging, with all the tedium and penalties I sorta doubt it was a fun challenge.

     

    I played 1 yr of EQ since its beginning. I never got to the 40 man raid because I had a live (new family then). If you talk about grinding mob leveling up, or dungeon play (like Lower Guk) it was NOT challenging, just grindy and frustrating.

    If you grind mobs to level up, either you solo and pick a safe spot, or with a group. Either case, if you know what you are doing, it is pretty easy but repetitive. You camp the SAME spot again and again and again. Now I wouldn't call repeating the SAME tactic on the SAME spawn challenging.

    Dungeons were worse because usually (at its hey day) there were tons of people camping the same boss. Since there are so many groups, and they want the next kill fast, they will help and no boss lasted very long. NOT challenging at all when 50 people were beating on a boss meant for 5.

  • tazarconantazarconan Member Posts: 1,013

    Challenging pve .. what are we talking about. Are we talking about

    1.mobs with the standard low a.i. of wow lotro etc with just higher stats to make it harder to kill them

    2.or are we talking about well develoved a.i which u have to fight well tactically in order to kill the smart mob?

    In order the player base to embrace death penalty (or at least dont complain at least about it) and challenging pve, we are talking definetely for the 2nd case along with impressively designed combat system that will have  tactical aspect prior ,great smooth animations so the players actually enjoy the combat even with a single goblin mob for example.

    If the whole game is poorly designed and it just has a let's say wow's combat system death penalty kills u, since the combat itself through the lvling is just a boring nowdays procceedure, since all that matters is to go to the 80 lvl cap to start gather fast gear to join arenas and raids.

    A game in order to have challenging pve and death penalty needs to have a spesific design along with ,maybe roleplay elements focus too,and a solid medieval fantasy world packed in.

  • AmatheAmathe Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630

    The death penalty is only one of many ways EQ was more challenging than more recent games.  Many of us miss it.  But it's not just the games that have changed - it's the type of people who play the games.  Bottom line, most people today want hand holding ez mode games. 

    EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests

  • Cactus-ManCactus-Man Member Posts: 572

    It is really hard to feel challenged in a RPG.  That is because they are so heavily dependant on your character that it is hard to feel like you the player are being challenged rather than your character.  I mean fighting a monster with a lot of health and damage isn't hard it is just statistically less likely you will win, even if your team pulls everything off without a hitch.  You the player are not being challenged physically or mentally, rather you are just fufilling a role that tactically seldom changes sure you can be a bad player but you would have to be really incompotent, otherwise success or failure is nearly all about your level/gear/build.

    In much the same way a death penalty isn't challenging, it just consumes time or a mob train isn't challenging, since all you have to do is run away there is just more likiehood you will die.  Making it where the player dies a lot doesn't mean it is challenging, especially when success or failure doesn't depend on the player that much.

    All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441

    Originally posted by bosmer24

    Any of you remember Everquest?Have any of you played EQ?Now i ask this because i am wondering what happened to challenging PVE.Did it die when WOW came a long or a mass slew of other mmo games?I find myself playing EQ again after years of being in mmo limbo.

    Granted i think you should be able to play solo,grouping isn't always an option,but make it challenging.Challenge is where the fun is at.I don't know how many other games i've played where the mobs just seem to lay down and die for me as soon as i hit them.thankyou.

    I agree, PvE should be challenging. EQ and Meridian were however challenging in some ways but not in other.

    Just like most games today were they very predictable, if you play DPS you more or less do the same with every mob except with some special features that you do the same every time.

    So I don't think going back to EQ is the right way to do things, we need to add a better AI and force the players to think fast. Mobs needs to be smarter and react closer to humans and some random abilities doesn't hurt there. Also mobs that have a cool item should actually use it in combat, why would someone not fight with their Vorpal +5 sword (or whatever) if they have one?

    The old games had some good features and I think some of them could make comeback. But we should instead looking forward and not backward, the EQ mechanics have been done for a long time and the closest modern game to EQ, Vanguard isn't doing great even if it has some good sides.

    Just adding hitpoints isn't the best way to make something harder.

  • tupodawg999tupodawg999 Member UncommonPosts: 724

    Narius

    If you grind mobs to level up, either you solo and pick a safe spot, or with a group. Either case, if you know what you are doing, it is pretty easy but repetitive. You camp the SAME spot again and again and again. Now I wouldn't call repeating the SAME tactic on the SAME spawn challenging.

    There is a lot of truth in that however another reason people liked finding safe camping spots in EQ was because it was a bit *too* challenging otherwise. The 80% in EQ developed tactics to minimize the risk because the game tried a bit too hard to kill you. Most groups if they went on an actual d&d like dungeon crawl in the big open dungeons would almost certainly die horribly.

    I think a group game like EQ is better off set at a default difficulty level of:

    -- high difficulty soloing optionally dropping to medium with certain classes

    -- low to medium difficulty if grouped with optional hard mode sections

    Camping in EQ was also heavily influenced by the loot system using place-holders, rare spawns and rare drops. This could be designed differently while still keeping the special loot from named mobs.

    However you are basically right that most people (for perfectly logical reasons) will pick the easiest way to get what they want and if what they want is mob xp then camping is the easiest way as long as the mobs respawn fast enough.

    You can only really talk about challenge in the context of when people are given some other goal, like getting a shiny piece of loot at the bottom of a dungeon, and an obstacle to achieving that goal (which should be the primary role of quests imo rather than as the main source of xp).

  • tupodawg999tupodawg999 Member UncommonPosts: 724

    Loke

    The old games had some good features and I think some of them could make comeback.

    That's my view in a nutshell. In the rush to get away from the bad points of the older games the good points were dropped as well.


  • Originally posted by tupodawg999

    Gestalt

    None of the things you list make a game more challenging.  Yes they do add extra stress compared to some RPGs.  But they add no challenge.  Don't mistake an adrenaline rush for challenge.

     

    Yes they do. They might not increase the challenge for you because you're just so awesome but is what challenges you a reasonable definition of challenge?

     

    Let's take a more sensible definition of what a challenge is e.g the percentage of mmorpg players who could complete a certain task within say three attempts. Let's say the task is to get a specified character down to the bottom of a dungeon full of same-level mobs and get some loot off the mob at the bottom.

    -- it could be impossible i.e all unbeatable heroic mobs. Which isn't a challenge at all.

    -- it could be set so 100% of players could do it on the first attempt. Which isn't a challenge at all either.

    -- it could be set so 80% of players could do it withing three attempts.

    -- it could be set so 20% of players could do it within three attempts.

    The last is what i would call challenging and the points i made about how EQ made the PvE more challenging did make the PvE more challenging by that (sensible) numerical definition. In words i'd say "challenging" means how many mistakes can a player make and still not die. "None" is a bit too challenging for my taste except in small doses but if the answer is any higher than "two" and i'll be getting bored.

    (I didn't really want to get into the death penalty thing but even that *did* make the battles harder because the thought of a nasty CR made people more likely to panic.)

    Now that level of challenge might be fine in a group game (as long as people can find people to group with) as the 80% could just form a group. However in a solo based game that 80% would get frustrated and leave. Even if the difficulty was set at the third option then in a solo game you're basically going to lose 20% of your potential market.

    Which brings us to the real crux of it all - something entirely self-evident - but something which people still feel the need to argue over.

    -- Solo games *have* to be designed to be beatable by the weakest solo class.

    -- If a solo game wants to maximize their players it *has* to be designed to be beatable by the least capable solo players playing the least soloable class.

    Commercially speaking, if you want to maximize the potential player base, the difficulty of a solo game has to be set such that an averagely intelligent ten year old (or even a dumb ten year old) could easily solo to max level with the least soloable class.

    Logic dictates they *have* to be that way (if they want to mazimize their potential players.)

    (It's an exact analogy with the low vs high level graphics argument. If a game wants to maximize their potential pool of players they have to design the game to run reasonably well on low end machines. Not only does that maximize the pool of players directly there is also the indirect effect of players liking to feel the world is well populated. So if the world pop is low because the technical requirements are high-end, then even people with high-end machines will start to leave because there aren't enough people. Vice versa for games with low-end system specs.)

    EQ had a 1001 things wrong with it but the general PvE was more challenging by any sensible definition.

     

    Personally as someone who likes challenging soloing my compromise ideal would be a game designed as a low to medium difficulty group game - which as long as the game doesn't use heroic type mobs should automatically provide high difficulty soloing - with a hard level group mode on top e.g an open dungeon designed to be low to medium group difficulty and high solo difficulty with an instanced boss section at the bottom of the dungeon with "regular", "hard" and "heroic" options (where the "regular" could be soloed if the player outlevelled it a bit).

     

    Let me try to make this idea as simple as possible because the term "challenge" is really often used to mean many fairly different things.  So I will use an analogy.

     

    Can most people bench press their own body weight?  The answer is no.  The average bench press for a man is something around 80%.

    Can a normal male human bench press their body weight?  Sure fairly easily and considerably more if they work at it.

     

    Does this mean that Bench pressing your body weight is challenging?  No its not.  It is simply something that takes work to achieve.  You simply need to do some particular exercises regularly.  Nor do you even need to optimize the workout or even do it particularly well such as if you were doing competitive weight lifting.

     

    But here is the wrench in the works of this explanation.  People often use the word "challenge" to include things like this weight lifting analogy.  Because its work.  It takes effort.  For many people its not fun or pleasant.

     

    I can easily bench my body weight and have been able to do so for decades.  For me it is not a challenge in any sense of the word applicable to this discussion.  But it is also not really a challenge for someone who cannot currently do it.  It will require some work and diligence. 

     

    Now let me extend this analogy given that i have no doubt that I can bench press my body weight.  Suppose I was told I had to do 5 reps of this exercise and if I fail any rep I will be shot in the head.

    This is not any more or less challenging except in that I will be under stress and to perform best I need to be relaxed.  I know I can do 5 reps.  I have have done it often.  Barring unforseen I should be able to do it.   Basically if I fuck up for some reason I am screwed but it says nothing about the activity itself or even life in general.  Its just a shitty situation.

     

     

    So given this analogy I think I have made a good case their niether terrible drastic immenient threats nor the general public's ability to do something are useful measures of "challenge".

     

    The main aspect of confusion and disagreement is whether the aspect of what you need to do to be able to execute the activity is also part of the challenge.

    I do not accept nor do many other people that things that are analogous to rote work like weight lifting to prepare your muscles constitute part of the challenge.  And I further submit that everything you mention can all be accounted for by all normal human beings simply by performing a rote list of activities and are therefore analogous to my preparatory exercise example.

     

    Now I am not saying that preparing and accounting for patrols is a brainless activity.  It does take some brainpwoer to do it.  But its rote.  Its something you should do everytime and if the coast is clear you proceed.  Now some people are simply not careful and patrols force you to be careful.  Some people are stupid and will never learn.  That does not mean you msut be particularly smart to deal with patrols.  It is a simple If A then B proposition with the same answer everytime.  Some people are dumb enough or crazy enough to repeatably do dumb things.  That is just the way it is.

     

    If you would like more things going on in your game because you feel like you have way too much spare brain power and the game is becoming brainless that is fine.  There is nothing wrong with this in fact it is a perfectly valid concern and one of the things about RPGs.  They abstract out some things so you can have a number of things you take into account.  But this is not the same as challenge.

    Just as memorizing a bunch of numbers is not the same thing as writing a mathematical proof or solving a puzzle.  None of these activities are brainless.  But they have real differences and rather different consequences.

  • tupodawg999tupodawg999 Member UncommonPosts: 724

    Gestalt

    Sure, pretty much nothing in a computer game could be described as "a challenge" or "challenging" in any kind of objective sense *relative* to the big real world challenges that exist like say designing a nuclear power station but that is just semantics.

    What we're talking about (or at least what i'm talking about) is relative challenge in the context of computer games.

  • TorikTorik Member UncommonPosts: 2,342

    Originally posted by tupodawg999

    Let's take a more sensible definition of what a challenge is e.g the percentage of mmorpg players who could complete a certain task within say three attempts. Let's say the task is to get a specified character down to the bottom of a dungeon full of same-level mobs and get some loot off the mob at the bottom.

    -- it could be impossible i.e all unbeatable heroic mobs. Which isn't a challenge at all.

    -- it could be set so 100% of players could do it on the first attempt. Which isn't a challenge at all either.

    -- it could be set so 80% of players could do it withing three attempts.

    -- it could be set so 20% of players could do it within three attempts.

    The last is what i would call challenging and the points i made about how EQ made the PvE more challenging did make the PvE more challenging by that (sensible) numerical definition. In words i'd say "challenging" means how many mistakes can a player make and still not die. "None" is a bit too challenging for my taste except in small doses but if the answer is any higher than "two" and i'll be getting bored.

    (I didn't really want to get into the death penalty thing but even that *did* make the battles harder because the thought of a nasty CR made people more likely to panic.)

    Now that level of challenge might be fine in a group game (as long as people can find people to group with) as the 80% could just form a group. However in a solo based game that 80% would get frustrated and leave. Even if the difficulty was set at the third option then in a solo game you're basically going to lose 20% of your potential market.

    Well, none of these challenge levels are really affected by the severity of the death penalty since that will only limit the amount of tries people are willing to put into beathing them.

    Also obviously this kind of setup would be more challenging when done solo rather than with a group so grouping for it would be 'easy mode'. 

    The number of attempts someone would do trying to beat this challenge is really dependant on how well they can progress in their learning of it.  If the key difficulty is some split-second movement that wins or loses the fight then people unable to do so will get frustrated easier.  If it is all about learning the 'flow' of the place and its patrols and mob behaviour then people are going to keep trying since they will get better after each fight till their learning plateaus.  If people feel that they are learning and progressing they will keep trying.  If they feel they are banging their heads against a wall or even getting worse then they will get frustrated and leave. 

  • SwampRobSwampRob Member UncommonPosts: 1,003

    Almost every game has challenging PvE if you want it, and I don't mean by nerfing yourself.

    Just fight multiple mobs or mobs above your level.   I guarantee that if you get enough mobs or get mobs high enough above your level, they will challenge you.

    Also, I absolutely do not want even level normal mobs to be a challenge in any of the games I play, ever.    I am the hero of the story and mere minions should be able to only slow me at best.   I want to wade through bodies like a scythe does wheat.     In fact, I dislike it when I have to fight 'grey' mobs to be able to do that.      How many action or superhero movies have you seen where the hero downs regular mobs with ease?    Just about all of them.   That's the experience I want.   Save the challenges for either special tricky environments or boss fights.

    Another thing to consider is that in the scope of most MMOs, during the course of your character's career you will be fighting thousands of regular mobs.    If every single fight took slow care and consideration, the game would be a slow boring slog.

  • TryggviTryggvi Member Posts: 83

    Then you want Diablo 2, my friend.  What's the point of everyone in an MMO being a "hero"?  You should be able to become a hero, either through PVP or some PVE equivalent.  Everyone is the same in all these MMOs and it's lame. 

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775

    Originally posted by Tryggvi

    Then you want Diablo 2, my friend.  What's the point of everyone in an MMO being a "hero"?  You should be able to become a hero, either through PVP or some PVE equivalent.  Everyone is the same in all these MMOs and it's lame. 

    How do you know he hasn't played D2? In fact, D2 is prob more popular than 95% of the MMOs out there and i predict that D3 will be like that too.

  • SwampRobSwampRob Member UncommonPosts: 1,003

    Originally posted by Tryggvi

    Then you want Diablo 2, my friend.  What's the point of everyone in an MMO being a "hero"?  You should be able to become a hero, either through PVP or some PVE equivalent.  Everyone is the same in all these MMOs and it's lame. 

    Yes, I've played D2 and Titan Quest and countless others.   I'm semi-retired so I game a ton of hours every week.

    My post has zilch to do with being the same as everyone else.   I don't care what others have or can do in an MMO, I'm talking about my power respective to even level minions.    My journey through the MMO is my story, no one else's, and I am the hero.   And the hero never dies to mere minions.      I want to be Spiderman or Conan or Darth Vader; wading through minions by the dozen.   I don't just want to be slightly powerful than the average nobody mob, I want to be WAY more powerful.    

    It doesn't mean I don't want to be challenged, but rather than one or three mobs should not even be close to that challenge.   It should take either some badass boss or a least a dozen mobs at a time to threaten me.    Making every fight challenging makes the game long and dull.    The challenging parts should stand out, and be memorable.     I want to remember the time I single-handely took down the Orc King, not the time I defeated two of his nobody mobs.

    More to the topic at hand, these challenges can be found in almost all MMOs if you look for them.

     


  • Originally posted by tupodawg999

    Gestalt

    Sure, pretty much nothing in a computer game could be described as "a challenge" or "challenging" in any kind of objective sense *relative* to the big real world challenges that exist like say designing a nuclear power station but that is just semantics.

    What we're talking about (or at least what i'm talking about) is relative challenge in the context of computer games.

    I disagree. 

     

    There are challenging things in DDO.  Doing "The Pit" solo is challenging, not syaing its the hardest thing in the world but it requires execution and quick on your feet thinking.  The 3D jumping puzzles are non-trivial and requires real execution.  Doing the floor puzzle room (especially if you have never done the the puzzle) while constantly being attacked by slimes is quite tricky.  Managing your shrines and being efficient while doing all this is also non-trivial.

     

    Certain things in Guild Wars also can be quite challenging and require very decent timing and execution.

  • Sid_ViciousSid_Vicious Member RarePosts: 2,177

    Originally posted by Thrage

    On the subject of death penalty, I have tried and quit Darkfall twice.  The second time I could play for free, so I figured it was no big deal.

    Both times I ended up quitting because I died from some completely unfair situation (Mobs spawning on top of me, etc) and because of it, lost just about everything I owned when some other player would wander by and take all my stuff.  I didn't find that challenging, just frustrating to the point of uninstallation.  Darkfall is a terrible, terrible game, and you should never, ever play it.

    To each their own I guess . .. I think that the games that you are currently playing are a pile of crap compared to Darkfall and would never touch them unless I was maybe babysitting some kid and wanted to show him an MMO since the ones you play are so cartoony and kid-friendly. I am willing to bet that you did not play the game more than 24 hours so I think that it is pretty stupid that you would tell other people so strongly not to play it because you rage over not being able to kill the starter mobs . ... only assuming this since you say that it is unfair that mobs spawn on top of you which is only a problem that a complete new comer would have. Darkfall's mobs spawn where it is tactically effective. Their mobs AI tops all other MMOs imo because of how realistic they feel and act. The mobs in Darkfall skill up as they hit you and if you are defeating them easily than they will spawn further away in an attempt to 'survive'. Right now AV is working on the mobs working together when they are not being camped to skill up until they eventually become powerful enough to attack a neighboring player-made city. Pretty amazing step in the right direction if you ask me! I can't wait!!

     

    I have been looking for a suitable replacement for the original EQ myself for years until I found Darkfall. Vanguard was rumored to become the next EQ with so-called original DEVs with full rights over SOE to design it how they wanted or what not but it never quite recovered from the failed launch. I am glad that I found Darkfall though because it is even harder than EQ was and I find it a lot funner too. Since playing I have been trying out new games as they come out and stuff but I think that all of the EQ clones have burned me out when it comes to tab-targeting auto-attack and I cannot see anything coming out within the next 5 years at least that has any chance of providing the epic experiences and battles that I have had in Agon.

     

    How could anyone say that a death penalty does not increase the challenge?

    My hands are shakier if I know that I am risking something and I will have more of a rush and possibly adrenaline since I know that every action that I do counts. If you die than you will have to do more than just run back and try again so that can significantly lengthen the process of the challenge which in my book would increase it. Why is it that I find games without a death penalty too easy?

     

    How could anyone say that you should not get an adrenaline rush from playing a game?

    You say that I need to get off the computer to experience a rush in real life? That is a pretty stupid thing to say . .. I don't go around killing people and fighting to the death in real life. In real life I will find a rush from a good performance in front of others, rollercoaster rides, and a bunch of bad things that I should not mention because they are bad to do. In a video game it doesn't matter because I am not hurting other people physically or myself (unless I game all day of course). To be honest, until I came across Darkfall I really did not get much of a rush from gaming, but after playing this one for awhile it really gets your heart beating fast at times. Everyone in vent has a shaky voice when something crazy happens and we are all at the edge of our seat doing our best to succeed, no matter how long we play pretty much. I almost feel like I have to have a buzz from a  few beers to do good because if I do not it is harder to play with that amount of adrenaline when there are so many controls and complex techniques used. I cannot play it well if I am eating bad food that makes my heart beat faster either or if I am drinking coffee. The game can get pretty intense if you fight while outnumbered often without dying.

     

    There have been games since EQ that are more difficult and have a death penalty but there will never be anything quite like how EQ was . .. unfortunately . ... at least I am happy to have found my gem though!

    image

     

    PVE is way too easy in most games and it feels pretty retarded playing something where you can just run back and try again when you fail in my book. For one thing, I hate doing the same thing over and over . ...  for other thing, I want to feel like a failure when I lose so that it feels better when I win. This is what I want out of an MMO and will play solo-games if it I am feeling in the mood for something else.

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  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,787

    PVE can be very challenging in about every MMO.  The problem is people just attack things they know they can kill fast so they get their loots and xp fast.  If people want to find hard mobs they can, most people do not though and just complain in MMO forums about how easy everything is.  It is much easier and makes people feel leet and hardcore.   You may have to find mobs that are higher level or go to dungeons but there is something difficult you just have to find it.

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  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441

    Originally posted by MMOman101


    PVE can be very challenging in about every MMO.  The problem is people just attack things they know they can kill fast so they get their loots and xp fast.  If people want to find hard mobs they can, most people do not though and just complain in MMO forums about how easy everything is.  It is much easier and makes people feel leet and hardcore.   You may have to find mobs that are higher level or go to dungeons but there is something difficult you just have to find it.

    Well, that is partly true but what makes MMOs easy is the fact that you easily can see if a mob is easy or hard.

    No surprises and that makes it easier. If you attack a "hard" mob you know it before and can boost yourself, have pots ready and generally are prepared. And you know exactly how the mob will react except nameds which you know is a challenge and can do certain stuff.

    If mobs were slightly more random and at times got a skill from a list things would be different but if you know everthing that will happen when you attack someone it wont really be hard.

  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,787

    Originally posted by Loke666

    Originally posted by MMOman101



    PVE can be very challenging in about every MMO.  The problem is people just attack things they know they can kill fast so they get their loots and xp fast.  If people want to find hard mobs they can, most people do not though and just complain in MMO forums about how easy everything is.  It is much easier and makes people feel leet and hardcore.   You may have to find mobs that are higher level or go to dungeons but there is something difficult you just have to find it.

    Well, that is partly true but what makes MMOs easy is the fact that you easily can see if a mob is easy or hard.

    No surprises and that makes it easier. If you attack a "hard" mob you know it before and can boost yourself, have pots ready and generally are prepared. And you know exactly how the mob will react except nameds which you know is a challenge and can do certain stuff.

    If mobs were slightly more random and at times got a skill from a list things would be different but if you know everthing that will happen when you attack someone it wont really be hard.


    Adding randomness does not make a game hard it makes it random.  Most people will still chose the content they can blast through and complain about how easy it is.  If a game has randomness the player will just take it into account and choose easier mobs.  If people want challenge they will find it.  If they do not they will not.  It is that simple.  I see no grey area here.  I was always able to find difficult mobs when I wanted a challenge.  At times I would have to attack things that I should not be able to beat and really push my skill, but I could do it. 

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • Cephus404Cephus404 Member CommonPosts: 3,675

    Originally posted by Loke666

    Originally posted by MMOman101



    PVE can be very challenging in about every MMO.  The problem is people just attack things they know they can kill fast so they get their loots and xp fast.  If people want to find hard mobs they can, most people do not though and just complain in MMO forums about how easy everything is.  It is much easier and makes people feel leet and hardcore.   You may have to find mobs that are higher level or go to dungeons but there is something difficult you just have to find it.

    Well, that is partly true but what makes MMOs easy is the fact that you easily can see if a mob is easy or hard.

    No surprises and that makes it easier. If you attack a "hard" mob you know it before and can boost yourself, have pots ready and generally are prepared. And you know exactly how the mob will react except nameds which you know is a challenge and can do certain stuff.

    If mobs were slightly more random and at times got a skill from a list things would be different but if you know everthing that will happen when you attack someone it wont really be hard.

    People would complain about that too.  If every mob looked the same and you didn't know before you attacked if it was a level 1 mob or a level 50 mob, you'd have chaos.  Either the groups out looking for level 50 mobs would complain when they attacked and easily killed a level 1 mob, or the lowbies who are looking for level 1 mobs would complain when they got a level 50 mob and got slaughtered.

    You just can't win.

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  • tupodawg999tupodawg999 Member UncommonPosts: 724

    Originally posted by MMOman101


    PVE can be very challenging in about every MMO.  The problem is people just attack things they know they can kill fast so they get their loots and xp fast.  If people want to find hard mobs they can, most people do not though and just complain in MMO forums about how easy everything is.  It is much easier and makes people feel leet and hardcore.   You may have to find mobs that are higher level or go to dungeons but there is something difficult you just have to find it.

     

    Sure but...

    In a max market solo grind game the *default* level of difficulty has to be very low. The biggest difference between the old games and most of the new is the old games were aimed at college age and upwards because they were the only ones with their own computers whereas now the potential market is age 10 and up.

    What are the side-effects of that?

    1) The younger segment may have access to computers now but they're not buying them themselves. Most of them will be family computers and not high end game machines.

    2) People will want to play with their friends from school and player numbers attracts player numbers so

    -- five friends at school, one likes hardcore PvP the others don't

    -- five friends at school, one prefers sci fi the others prefer fantasy

    -- five friends at school, one prefers crafting the others prefer combat

    -- five friends at school, four are average but one is a bit dumb

    -- etc.

     

    So basically if a game wants WoW type numbers they have to go for the lowest common denominator in terms of

    -- level of difficulty

    -- low end machines

    -- core gameplay,

    because numbers breeds numbers.

     

    Say you have a 1000 people playing four games

    -- one game has a level of difficulty only 200 players like

    -- one game requires a high end machine only 200 players have

    -- one game is hardcore PvP which only 200 players like

    --  the fourth game is low difficulty, low system spec and carebear and gets the other 400 players

    What happens? Gradually half the peoplein the other games drift towards the biggest game so they can play with their friends and the numbers end up 100, 100, 100, 700

     

    I'm not criticizing WoW for this btw, WoW is obviously a great success, i'm criticizing the other game companies for not realizing that they either copy WoW properly or go for something different. Instead they copied WoW too much and not enough both at the same time.

     

    So the first point is if a game company is aiming for WoW-size there are certain things they *have* to do. There is no option. If they don't want to do those things then they need, like Darkfall, or Eve to start small and hopefully grow

    *or*

    the second point, which is the interesting bit from my point of view. How you design a game that is *both* lowest common denominator by default *but* which has options that can change the default.

  • tupodawg999tupodawg999 Member UncommonPosts: 724

    Originally posted by Torik

    Originally posted by tupodawg999

    Let's take a more sensible definition of what a challenge is e.g the percentage of mmorpg players who could complete a certain task within say three attempts. Let's say the task is to get a specified character down to the bottom of a dungeon full of same-level mobs and get some loot off the mob at the bottom.

    -- it could be impossible i.e all unbeatable heroic mobs. Which isn't a challenge at all.

    -- it could be set so 100% of players could do it on the first attempt. Which isn't a challenge at all either.

    -- it could be set so 80% of players could do it withing three attempts.

    -- it could be set so 20% of players could do it within three attempts.

    The last is what i would call challenging and the points i made about how EQ made the PvE more challenging did make the PvE more challenging by that (sensible) numerical definition. In words i'd say "challenging" means how many mistakes can a player make and still not die. "None" is a bit too challenging for my taste except in small doses but if the answer is any higher than "two" and i'll be getting bored.

    (I didn't really want to get into the death penalty thing but even that *did* make the battles harder because the thought of a nasty CR made people more likely to panic.)

    Now that level of challenge might be fine in a group game (as long as people can find people to group with) as the 80% could just form a group. However in a solo based game that 80% would get frustrated and leave. Even if the difficulty was set at the third option then in a solo game you're basically going to lose 20% of your potential market.

    Well, none of these challenge levels are really affected by the severity of the death penalty since that will only limit the amount of tries people are willing to put into beathing them.

    Also obviously this kind of setup would be more challenging when done solo rather than with a group so grouping for it would be 'easy mode'. 

    The number of attempts someone would do trying to beat this challenge is really dependant on how well they can progress in their learning of it.  If the key difficulty is some split-second movement that wins or loses the fight then people unable to do so will get frustrated easier.  If it is all about learning the 'flow' of the place and its patrols and mob behaviour then people are going to keep trying since they will get better after each fight till their learning plateaus.  If people feel that they are learning and progressing they will keep trying.  If they feel they are banging their heads against a wall or even getting worse then they will get frustrated and leave. 

     

    Yep. That's why i'm stressing the learnable elements like patrol paths, secret routes, or mob archers up on a rock you don't neccessarily spot the first time. Games do this sort of thing already at the raid level.

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