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Blizz philosophy of difficulty design ...

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  • headphonesheadphones Member Posts: 611

    Originally posted by MMOExposed

    Originally posted by itgrowls

    Originally posted by JohnnyBravol

    Just wait till GW2, then all this WoW business will be over. Hopefully.

    Exactly i'm with you bub 100%, this game is going to change everything. MMO's that fail to meet expectations of players after this one launches will fail. we're already seeing it. A distaste for the unnecessary overhyped monthly sub, desire to do something other then dungeons/dailies all day, need for a dynamic environment instead of a linear questline system with fixed options and poor ui. It's getting old i tell yeah and the GW2 fans on this site and others aren't the only ones who are getting weary from the crap that's being passed off as a AAA title these days.

     

    Why not wait for the game to actually come out before making such wild claims...

    in a way, it doesn't matter if gw2 lives up to its hype. what matters is the hype. that hype then gets used by all devs to progress their designs. you see it with wow all the time. a game comes out with something innovative, and blizz will consume it and adapt it to wow. if you think of vanilla wow to now, the actual mechanics in many areas of the game have changed drastically to comply with "hyped" ideas. the lfg function, etc. these things were tried in other games and these functions (dynamic events, anyone?) get touted as the wow-killing idea, and blizz eats it up.

    not just blizz. every other dev adapts and changes.

    gw2, though, just set the benchmark a lot higher in the players' eyes. swtor and skyrim both set the "story" aspect of an mmo sky high, too. i'll bet you'll see a lot of mmos which had been phasing story out will now be looking deeply into how to adapt their questing options to make them more interesting.

    for me, a great deal of what excites me about gw2 isn't necessarily the gameplay of gw2, but the gameplay of other games which are big enough to adapt (wow) and those which will come next.

  • MMOExposedMMOExposed Member RarePosts: 7,387
    Originally posted by headphones


    Originally posted by MMOExposed


    Originally posted by itgrowls


    Originally posted by JohnnyBravol


    Just wait till GW2, then all this WoW business will be over. Hopefully.

    Exactly i'm with you bub 100%, this game is going to change everything. MMO's that fail to meet expectations of players after this one launches will fail. we're already seeing it. A distaste for the unnecessary overhyped monthly sub, desire to do something other then dungeons/dailies all day, need for a dynamic environment instead of a linear questline system with fixed options and poor ui. It's getting old i tell yeah and the GW2 fans on this site and others aren't the only ones who are getting weary from the crap that's being passed off as a AAA title these days.

     

    Why not wait for the game to actually come out before making such wild claims...

    in a way, it doesn't matter if gw2 lives up to its hype. what matters is the hype. that hype then gets used by all devs to progress their designs. you see it with wow all the time. a game comes out with something innovative, and blizz will consume it and adapt it to wow. if you think of vanilla wow to now, the actual mechanics in many areas of the game have changed drastically to comply with "hyped" ideas. the lfg function, etc. these things were tried in other games and these functions (dynamic events, anyone?) get touted as the wow-killing idea, and blizz eats it up.

    not just blizz. every other dev adapts and changes.

    gw2, though, just set the benchmark a lot higher in the players' eyes. swtor and skyrim both set the "story" aspect of an mmo sky high, too. i'll bet you'll see a lot of mmos which had been phasing story out will now be looking deeply into how to adapt their questing options to make them more interesting.

    for me, a great deal of what excites me about gw2 isn't necessarily the gameplay of gw2, but the gameplay of other games which are big enough to adapt (wow) and those which will come next.

     

    you mean in the same way SWTOR's story telling was hyped up, so future MMO will now have these as well right?

    Philosophy of MMO Game Design

  • headphonesheadphones Member Posts: 611

    Originally posted by MMOExposed

    Originally posted by headphones

    Originally posted by MMOExposed


    Originally posted by itgrowls


    Originally posted by JohnnyBravol

    Just wait till GW2, then all this WoW business will be over. Hopefully.

    Exactly i'm with you bub 100%, this game is going to change everything. MMO's that fail to meet expectations of players after this one launches will fail. we're already seeing it. A distaste for the unnecessary overhyped monthly sub, desire to do something other then dungeons/dailies all day, need for a dynamic environment instead of a linear questline system with fixed options and poor ui. It's getting old i tell yeah and the GW2 fans on this site and others aren't the only ones who are getting weary from the crap that's being passed off as a AAA title these days.

     

    Why not wait for the game to actually come out before making such wild claims...

    in a way, it doesn't matter if gw2 lives up to its hype. what matters is the hype. that hype then gets used by all devs to progress their designs. you see it with wow all the time. a game comes out with something innovative, and blizz will consume it and adapt it to wow. if you think of vanilla wow to now, the actual mechanics in many areas of the game have changed drastically to comply with "hyped" ideas. the lfg function, etc. these things were tried in other games and these functions (dynamic events, anyone?) get touted as the wow-killing idea, and blizz eats it up.

    not just blizz. every other dev adapts and changes.

    gw2, though, just set the benchmark a lot higher in the players' eyes. swtor and skyrim both set the "story" aspect of an mmo sky high, too. i'll bet you'll see a lot of mmos which had been phasing story out will now be looking deeply into how to adapt their questing options to make them more interesting.

    for me, a great deal of what excites me about gw2 isn't necessarily the gameplay of gw2, but the gameplay of other games which are big enough to adapt (wow) and those which will come next.

     

    you mean in the same way SWTOR's story telling was hyped up, so future MMO will now have these as well right?

    that's what i said, so i guess that's what i meant. i'll work on my english to make it more clear in future. let me try it this way:

    swtor and skyrim both set the "story" aspect of an mmo sky high, too. i'll bet you'll see a lot of mmos which had been phasing story out will now be looking deeply into how to adapt their questing options to make them more interesting.

    is that better?

  • freetoquitfreetoquit Member Posts: 9

    I dont  undersand what players expect to be challenging in a mmorpg.. character gameplay in WOW i consider more challenging because of the wide variety of skills and synergies each class has with talents.   Rotations in other games are normally a lot more basic.

    The endgame PVE in WOW is raid based, and though i prefer to play wow to pvp, I know that raids in wow take a lot of cooridination.  As for the leveling up/gearing procces, do you simply want it to be slower? You have a game like EQ, where death happens more often, and generally accomplishing anything is a lot more risky and takes better coordination.  But this ends up being more frustarting than "fun", and people dont want to invest insane amounts of time into getting soemthing done in a game.

     

  • CuathonCuathon Member Posts: 2,211

    Originally posted by freetoquit

    I dont  undersand what players expect to be challenging in a mmorpg.. character gameplay in WOW i consider more challenging because of the wide variety of skills and synergies each class has with talents.   Rotations in other games are normally a lot more basic.

    The endgame PVE in WOW is raid based, and though i prefer to play wow to pvp, I know that raids in wow take a lot of cooridination.  As for the leveling up/gearing procces, do you simply want it to be slower? You have a game like EQ, where death happens more often, and generally accomplishing anything is a lot more risky and takes better coordination.  But this ends up being more frustarting than "fun", and people dont want to invest insane amounts of time into getting soemthing done in a game.

     

    Casuals were never the intended audience for MMOs anyways... The fact that even casual friendly WoW consistently becomes more and more casual over time and slowly trends toward single player or coop RPG is a clear demonstration of this. Every update to WoW essentially adds features that are designed for other types of games. The auction hosue instead of localized markets, the tiny raids, the all the looking for tools, all the new battlegrounds that are basically just clones of LoL.

    The freatures that were specifically MMO features are always being downgraded. That is the distinction between MMOs and coop and single player games are eroding over time because casuals don't want MMOs.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775

    Originally posted by Banaghran

    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    1) I suppose not. Raid is just a part of the end game choices. In fact, if you look at wow (since i have no other stat, so wow is going to be the example), ONLY 35% of the players finished LFR. So i guess not even a majority of players raid in WOW. The numbers are probably LOWER in other MMOs since WOW is the only one (correct me if this is wrong) with a LFR feature.

    In fact, WOW is adding 'scenarios' in the next expansion, so i am hoping there is one more things to do at the end game.

    2) I don't know about others but I think i am getting less value if i do not get to see all the content. This is particularly true when Blizz put so much resources in making the raids. Dungeons are not cheap to make and it makes little sense, from a company perspective, if only a few percentage of the players will ever see it. In fact, i go back to do BC raids just to see them.

    3) Apparently there is a LONG WAY. Right now Blizz is merely putting in like 5% hp/damage nerfs per month on the NORMAL raids. Even if you just look at the normal raid, it will be a LONG time before a MAJORITY of players can/will do them.

    1) I hope so.

    2) this is one thing , which i mentioned because it gets thrown around a great deal recently "if i cannot do it NOW its bad!" and "company perspective", and i have problems understanding it. You say that you go visit TBC but on the other hand you think you are getting less value if you cannot visit new things, where do you see a difference between TBC and "now" ? Are you bored because of 1) ?

    Dunno, even leveling zones (you skip), quests (you skip) and reputations (you skip) cost money...

    3) Again, i hope so.

     

    2) Essentially it is about new experience. Everyone loves new content .. see a new zone, fight a new boss, learn a new skill, loot a new piece of gear. So locking players out is denying them to VERY expensive part of the content. In my experience, EACH raid dungeon and fights are designed very different. I went back to TBC and certainly it is very different from WOTLK or CATA. In particular, the zone designs, mob design and encounter design are all different. For example, magistrate terrace (tempest keep and sunwell) are very much blood elf design. The fire bird boss fight came to mine as an encounter different in sight and mechanics than others. Now the TBC encounters are EASY (because we are doing it in 85 gear) but still fun to see it once or twice and may be get a mount.

    Hmm .. i did NOT skip leveling zones or quests. In fact, I level up alts just to make sure I see everything. For example, in CATA, there are TWO leveling zones for 80-81 and i made sure i took my main and an alt to different routes. I also do not skip any reputation (at least from WOTLK onwards). It is too much to go back and do the old ones.

    3) That is easy to see. Hard mode is not going away. In fact, the early CATA dungeons are deemed too difficult by many and there are a lot of QQing in the forums before they make the easier new dungeons. Based on that fact alone, Blizz is not always making thing easier (compared to before) although they have obviously learned the errors of their way and opt to make more difficult levels (newly LFR) instead of increasing difficulty across the board.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775

    Originally posted by Cuathon

     

    Casuals were never the intended audience for MMOs anyways... The fact that even casual friendly WoW consistently becomes more and more casual over time and slowly trends toward single player or coop RPG is a clear demonstration of this. Every update to WoW essentially adds features that are designed for other types of games. The auction hosue instead of localized markets, the tiny raids, the all the looking for tools, all the new battlegrounds that are basically just clones of LoL.

    The freatures that were specifically MMO features are always being downgraded. That is the distinction between MMOs and coop and single player games are eroding over time because casuals don't want MMOs.

     

    Casual may not be the intended audience in the OLD TIMES. However, as always, things change. They are OBVIOUSLY part of the audiene for WOW, other MMOs, and video games as a whole.

    HECK, computers are not intended for the casuals 50 years ago. You cannot use past values to judge today's world.

    And if MMOs are eroding .. so be it. If that means more fun to more people, who are you to decide it is not a good thing?

    And when times change, some people are going to be left behind. I am sure the really good horse riders hate the automobiles making everyone going as fast as they did too. I am also sure there are those who are ranting about why few are making text-based adventure games.

    However, progress just cannot be stopped.

  • BanaghranBanaghran Member Posts: 869

    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    Originally posted by Banaghran


    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    1) I suppose not. Raid is just a part of the end game choices. In fact, if you look at wow (since i have no other stat, so wow is going to be the example), ONLY 35% of the players finished LFR. So i guess not even a majority of players raid in WOW. The numbers are probably LOWER in other MMOs since WOW is the only one (correct me if this is wrong) with a LFR feature.

    In fact, WOW is adding 'scenarios' in the next expansion, so i am hoping there is one more things to do at the end game.

    2) I don't know about others but I think i am getting less value if i do not get to see all the content. This is particularly true when Blizz put so much resources in making the raids. Dungeons are not cheap to make and it makes little sense, from a company perspective, if only a few percentage of the players will ever see it. In fact, i go back to do BC raids just to see them.

    3) Apparently there is a LONG WAY. Right now Blizz is merely putting in like 5% hp/damage nerfs per month on the NORMAL raids. Even if you just look at the normal raid, it will be a LONG time before a MAJORITY of players can/will do them.

    1) I hope so.

    2) this is one thing , which i mentioned because it gets thrown around a great deal recently "if i cannot do it NOW its bad!" and "company perspective", and i have problems understanding it. You say that you go visit TBC but on the other hand you think you are getting less value if you cannot visit new things, where do you see a difference between TBC and "now" ? Are you bored because of 1) ?

    Dunno, even leveling zones (you skip), quests (you skip) and reputations (you skip) cost money...

    3) Again, i hope so.

     

    2) Essentially it is about new experience. Everyone loves new content .. see a new zone, fight a new boss, learn a new skill, loot a new piece of gear. So locking players out is denying them to VERY expensive part of the content. In my experience, EACH raid dungeon and fights are designed very different. I went back to TBC and certainly it is very different from WOTLK or CATA. In particular, the zone designs, mob design and encounter design are all different. For example, magistrate terrace (tempest keep and sunwell) are very much blood elf design. The fire bird boss fight came to mine as an encounter different in sight and mechanics than others. Now the TBC encounters are EASY (because we are doing it in 85 gear) but still fun to see it once or twice and may be get a mount.

    Hmm .. i did NOT skip leveling zones or quests. In fact, I level up alts just to make sure I see everything. For example, in CATA, there are TWO leveling zones for 80-81 and i made sure i took my main and an alt to different routes. I also do not skip any reputation (at least from WOTLK onwards). It is too much to go back and do the old ones.

    3) That is easy to see. Hard mode is not going away. In fact, the early CATA dungeons are deemed too difficult by many and there are a lot of QQing in the forums before they make the easier new dungeons. Based on that fact alone, Blizz is not always making thing easier (compared to before) although they have obviously learned the errors of their way and opt to make more difficult levels (newly LFR) instead of increasing difficulty across the board.

    2) He is not locked out, he WILL see it, just not now, maybe when another tier gets realeased, i never understood that, if i join half a year late, im half a year behind, if i play half the time some hypothetical average player plays, i will be at the half of my journey whe he is already finished, otherwise what is the point of actually playing (and paying) for a longer time?

     

     

  • MMOExposedMMOExposed Member RarePosts: 7,387

    if WoW is easy, can somebody back this up with some stats please

    Philosophy of MMO Game Design

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