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Challenges In MMOs
AlBQuirky
Member EpicPosts: 7,432
What challenges do you enjoy in gaming, MMOs specifically?
- Is combat a main challenge you seek?
- Can quests/story unfolding be a challenge for you?
- Do you enjoy looking/solving for mysteries in your games?
- Is figuring out the combat numbers a challenge you enjoy?
- Can crafting (interestingly implemented) a challenge you enjoy?
- Does massive group combat (Raids or PvP battlefields) make a challenge you seek in MMOs?
- Is leveling a main challenge for you?
- Do puzzles make an interesting challenge for you?
- Maybe underselling someone in an Auction House is a fun challenge for you?
- Perhaps accumulation of great wealth is a challenge you enjoy?
- So many other big or little challenges I can not think of right now...
I ask for I see a lot "that's boring" comments made for what other players find interesting, or challenging. Should have a poll, but there are way too many activities to include 
So, what kinds of challenges do you seek in MMOs?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Comments
Currently, the biggest challenge I am having with my mmo is prioritizing all the stuff I want to do in it Hehe.
But more to the point, I get the most challenge and reward in keeping my finger on the pulse of the market and stocking my vendors accordingly.
What game are you playing?
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Ffxiv
Mini games... I have found very few I enjoy enough to do more then once. It's great you find them fun and have fun with the challenge of "passive PvP" (score vs score)
Crafting and gathering are challenges I enjoy, too. Lately, though, crafting in MMOs I've tried have not been fun for me. I hope this improves, but have my doubts
Puzzles... I think puzzles and Massively Multi-Player do not mix well, in my opinion. To make them work, you need instanced areas and that defeats the purpose of the MM part
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I like mixing it up. Similar to my "completionist" approach to single player RPGs I like to experience all the content. Within reason at least. I like to have done the Raids/Ops at least once if the game interests me enough, but I don't need to complete them on every single difficulty.
Collecting is probably my main activity though, ranging from cosmetics I like, to getting different mounts and companions (in games that support this).
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Almost everything you typed here is what's wrong with MMOs to me. Sorry
GW2 was a great 2 years for me. You hate ESO (not mentioned here...not needed to be)
Challenges to me are keeping me interested WELL before end game and WELL WITHOUT min maxing or "knowing class mechanics in my sleep"
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
Acquiring an intrinsic knowledge of an area, dungeons in particular. What spawns/roams where, what permutation of mob types can make an area easy one encounter and very difficult another. This ties into combat especially when solo, shifting tactics to a changing situation. I find it very rewarding when this is carried over to leading a group through a dangerous place and making it seem like a cake-walk.
I gravitate toward utilitarian classes as I enjoy experimenting with combining abilities and learning how to predict the AI. For this same reason I have a habit of trying to get different classes to duo with me. It's really the only way I know of to stumble into unorthodox but effective methods of combat. (Hence why I am tiring of the DPS centric designs these days)
Working the economy can be a fun challenge though it's mostly a means to an end, which is spending the currency on something I want. This activity naturally gets coupled with building up a wish-list. However becoming too attuned to the market makes me become unreasonably frustrated.
I only ever enjoyed the challenge of crafting in Vanguard, and I think it's because you could advance it with work orders that also provided various rewards for completing high grade batches. The activity itself was almost like farming where every other time I tried crafting I had to farm first just to do the activity.
Lol, "passive PvP" is actually what I said I don't enjoy. What I enjoy is "get a plushie the first time your score breaks a million" kind of challenges. As far as instancing, I'm perfectly happy with instanced solo minigames and instanced solo dungeons, either of which can have puzzles. I always assumed the main reason MMOs don't usually include puzzles was the fact that by the second day they were up someone would have put all the solutions in a wiki, and half the players wouldn't even try to solve the puzzles on their own before looking up the answers. I don't personally care about the "purpose of MM" part since I don't raid or PvP, which seem to be the two main MM activities in most MMOs. But I can agree that I don't like games that feel too un-social; I wouldn't want to be running solo dungeons more than maybe 20% of my play time. I like playing next to others who are doing the same quests or crafting or farming or w/e.
I forgot to mention, I do like combat if it's actually tactical - each battle being like a little puzzle. That's why Dofus has had my favorite combat of any MMO so far. You're usually fighting a mixed group of monsters, their AI is varied, the terrain is varied, and in between the terrain and the AI the combat is less boring than something like WoW's combat, or worse one of these sandboxes where you just repeatedly chop a monster with a weapon.
Werewolf Online(R) - Lead Developer
I like when whole MMORPG is a challange. So everything you mentioned and more.
What I don't like is when MMORPG is designed to have easy majority of a game with challange pockets here and there.
MMORPG like in example World of Warcraft that is designed to be easy and accomodating and then offering challange in miniority of selected places (like i.e. end-game raids or battlegrounds) is not good enough.
Other variants of doing this like i.e. offering "difficulty levels" (tiers or "modes) is not good enough either. Difficulty levels (done right!) are ok in single player game, but are unacceptable in an mmorpg.
Sounds like you are having a great time! +1
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"