Just to clarify my post was half joke half serious. As it really boils down to that. Frustration. My wife as an example won't play anything that pisses her off. Her reasoning? She doesn't want to spend her "fun time" being pissed off. Which I can understand that. She's the quintessential average gamer IMO. She plays a lot of games, but always on easy. Story mode if available (Mass Effect 3) which is even easier than easy mode...
As far as MMO's go (at least mass market entries). They're aiming for the highest common denominator. That's not a place where you'll find too much focus on the niches that like hard content.
I think because the MMO genre requires ongoing maintenance and has ongoing fixed costs, developers need to have a game that appeals to a large enough audience to cover those costs. So most try to appeal to a large group.
Your leveling content is your story content. It's basically your "story mode" difficulty in a single player game. Most players won't advance past this content and it's usually good enough these days to warrant a box fee and a subscription if combined with all the other events and side activities, such as crafting and housing.
Small group content is for those players looking for a bit more difficulty. It's akin to your "normal mode" difficulty setting.
Extreme modes and Mythic type small group content is like your "hard mode" in a single player games and can only be defeated if players pay attention to mechanics.
Your raids and organized PvP is your hardest mode.
So it's not that developers are just catering to the majority of gamers wanting an easy time, they're just segmenting their game into parts that are segregated from each other so that players can easily identify and access the content designed specifically for them.
Perhaps, but the solo content sucks now. It's a faceroll that's so easy it's pointless. It didn't start out that way. It used to be more challenging and more fun.
Time-consuming? Sure, but challenging? Which MMO was this? It'd take me 1 minute to defeat an equal conned mob in DAoC solo when I was playing that game. It took a while compared to the few seconds that modern day games take per mob, but victory was guaranteed as long as you used your abilities.
Leveling up has always been about experiencing the games story if it had one, or exploring the vast world the developers created. It's never actually offered any challenges outside of a controlled (instanced) group setting.
Just to clarify my post was half joke half serious. As it really boils down to that. Frustration. My wife as an example won't play anything that pisses her off. Her reasoning? She doesn't want to spend her "fun time" being pissed off. Which I can understand that. She's the quintessential average gamer IMO. She plays a lot of games, but always on easy. Story mode if available (Mass Effect 3) which is even easier than easy mode...
As far as MMO's go (at least mass market entries). They're aiming for the highest common denominator. That's not a place where you'll find too much focus on the niches that like hard content.
I think because the MMO genre requires ongoing maintenance and has ongoing fixed costs, developers need to have a game that appeals to a large enough audience to cover those costs. So most try to appeal to a large group.
Your leveling content is your story content. It's basically your "story mode" difficulty in a single player game. Most players won't advance past this content and it's usually good enough these days to warrant a box fee and a subscription if combined with all the other events and side activities, such as crafting and housing.
Small group content is for those players looking for a bit more difficulty. It's akin to your "normal mode" difficulty setting.
Extreme modes and Mythic type small group content is like your "hard mode" in a single player games and can only be defeated if players pay attention to mechanics.
Your raids and organized PvP is your hardest mode.
So it's not that developers are just catering to the majority of gamers wanting an easy time, they're just segmenting their game into parts that are segregated from each other so that players can easily identify and access the content designed specifically for them.
Perhaps, but the solo content sucks now. It's a faceroll that's so easy it's pointless. It didn't start out that way. It used to be more challenging and more fun.
Time-consuming? Sure, but challenging? Which MMO was this? It'd take me 1 minute to defeat an equal conned mob in DAoC solo when I was playing that game. It took a while compared to the few seconds that modern day games take per mob, but victory was guaranteed as long as you used your abilities.
Leveling up has always been about experiencing the games story if it had one, or exploring the vast world the developers created. It's never actually offered any challenges outside of a controlled (instanced) group setting.
Partly true, most have offered some type of harder content in the world proper, be it bosses, heroic mobs, etc... Most of that has been things you had to hunt down, not things that blocked your path.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
When I first played ESO the bosses in the quest line would tear you a new one if you didn't have a strong build and a good strategy. I died a lot but it made me a better player. There were lots of complaints on the boards about how hard it was. Left for awhile, came back and got ready for a real fight. He dropped like a trash mob. Three mobs in some places could kill you if you didn't have a good strategy or help.
Now the game is pretty solo friendly, unless you play only with regular gear from drops. A lot more fun.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Just to clarify my post was half joke half serious. As it really boils down to that. Frustration. My wife as an example won't play anything that pisses her off. Her reasoning? She doesn't want to spend her "fun time" being pissed off. Which I can understand that. She's the quintessential average gamer IMO. She plays a lot of games, but always on easy. Story mode if available (Mass Effect 3) which is even easier than easy mode...
As far as MMO's go (at least mass market entries). They're aiming for the highest common denominator. That's not a place where you'll find too much focus on the niches that like hard content.
I think because the MMO genre requires ongoing maintenance and has ongoing fixed costs, developers need to have a game that appeals to a large enough audience to cover those costs. So most try to appeal to a large group.
Your leveling content is your story content. It's basically your "story mode" difficulty in a single player game. Most players won't advance past this content and it's usually good enough these days to warrant a box fee and a subscription if combined with all the other events and side activities, such as crafting and housing.
Small group content is for those players looking for a bit more difficulty. It's akin to your "normal mode" difficulty setting.
Extreme modes and Mythic type small group content is like your "hard mode" in a single player games and can only be defeated if players pay attention to mechanics.
Your raids and organized PvP is your hardest mode.
So it's not that developers are just catering to the majority of gamers wanting an easy time, they're just segmenting their game into parts that are segregated from each other so that players can easily identify and access the content designed specifically for them.
Perhaps, but the solo content sucks now. It's a faceroll that's so easy it's pointless. It didn't start out that way. It used to be more challenging and more fun.
Time-consuming? Sure, but challenging? Which MMO was this? It'd take me 1 minute to defeat an equal conned mob in DAoC solo when I was playing that game. It took a while compared to the few seconds that modern day games take per mob, but victory was guaranteed as long as you used your abilities.
Leveling up has always been about experiencing the games story if it had one, or exploring the vast world the developers created. It's never actually offered any challenges outside of a controlled (instanced) group setting.
World of Warcraft.
In the original iteration of the game, the overworld was more challenging, meaning the average monster you fought had more hitpoints, did more damage, and if a few of his buddies joined him you were toast. You had to be more careful about how many enemies you pulled at once. Now? You can just run in and kill an entire camp, most of the time without having to rest afterwards. You seriously have to suck unbelievably now, or walk away from your keyboard, for there to even be a possibility you'll die. There's no tension at all in combat. But back then? You had to make sure to recuperate between battles. You had to steer clear of wondering monsters. For some of the tougher groups you actually needed another person, sometimes two. And you even had to talk to people and make a plan! Holy shit, MMOs were actually MMOs, even outside dungeons!
The challenge was in the strategy, is in; some was required. Now the "strategy" is button mash, repeat. Interesting that almost nobody else in this thread seems to remember this, but I certainly do.
Yes, actual strategy. It's the one thing I really miss about Vanilla WoW. It was challenging for the solo player. I remember drowning any number of times, getting mobbed unexpectedly and going down, and spending hours carefully picking my way through camps to reach the boss or quest target. It made playing solo very satisfying.
Folks who partied their way through WoW or started playing at Burning Crusade will have missed this essential WoW experience. It isn't there now. Leveling has been trivialized. But back in my day, every level meant success. Guildies would cheer for you. It was an accomplishment.
Just to clarify my post was half joke half serious. As it really boils down to that. Frustration. My wife as an example won't play anything that pisses her off. Her reasoning? She doesn't want to spend her "fun time" being pissed off. Which I can understand that. She's the quintessential average gamer IMO. She plays a lot of games, but always on easy. Story mode if available (Mass Effect 3) which is even easier than easy mode...
As far as MMO's go (at least mass market entries). They're aiming for the highest common denominator. That's not a place where you'll find too much focus on the niches that like hard content.
I think because the MMO genre requires ongoing maintenance and has ongoing fixed costs, developers need to have a game that appeals to a large enough audience to cover those costs. So most try to appeal to a large group.
Your leveling content is your story content. It's basically your "story mode" difficulty in a single player game. Most players won't advance past this content and it's usually good enough these days to warrant a box fee and a subscription if combined with all the other events and side activities, such as crafting and housing.
Small group content is for those players looking for a bit more difficulty. It's akin to your "normal mode" difficulty setting.
Extreme modes and Mythic type small group content is like your "hard mode" in a single player games and can only be defeated if players pay attention to mechanics.
Your raids and organized PvP is your hardest mode.
So it's not that developers are just catering to the majority of gamers wanting an easy time, they're just segmenting their game into parts that are segregated from each other so that players can easily identify and access the content designed specifically for them.
Perhaps, but the solo content sucks now. It's a faceroll that's so easy it's pointless. It didn't start out that way. It used to be more challenging and more fun.
Time-consuming? Sure, but challenging? Which MMO was this? It'd take me 1 minute to defeat an equal conned mob in DAoC solo when I was playing that game. It took a while compared to the few seconds that modern day games take per mob, but victory was guaranteed as long as you used your abilities.
Leveling up has always been about experiencing the games story if it had one, or exploring the vast world the developers created. It's never actually offered any challenges outside of a controlled (instanced) group setting.
World of Warcraft.
In the original iteration of the game, the overworld was more challenging, meaning the average monster you fought had more hitpoints, did more damage, and if a few of his buddies joined him you were toast. You had to be more careful about how many enemies you pulled at once. Now? You can just run in and kill an entire camp, most of the time without having to rest afterwards. You seriously have to suck unbelievably now, or walk away from your keyboard, for there to even be a possibility you'll die. There's no tension at all in combat. But back then? You had to make sure to recuperate between battles. You had to steer clear of wondering monsters. For some of the tougher groups you actually needed another person, sometimes two. And you even had to talk to people and make a plan! Holy shit, MMOs were actually MMOs, even outside dungeons!
The challenge was in the strategy, is in; some was required. Now the "strategy" is button mash, repeat. Interesting that almost nobody else in this thread seems to remember this, but I certainly do.
Well that's if you played it lone wolf style. Remember those were still the days before companies realized the concept of "alone together" gaming was a thing. If you were in a group as the content was designed for it was a fucking cake walk. And even then with some classes, Paladins and Druids especially, solo play was still pretty damned easy.
Oh just like Sword art online the anime? That will be amazing I always wanted that to happen sooner or later.
Problem is that when most people say they want something challenging they really just want a difficulty they can beat with bit of trouble. You need a game to take you out of your comfort zone to actually become challenging and if you just play the same type of games over and over its not going to be an actual challenge.
Its even worse in most RPG because once you played a few its fairly quick to spec and gear yourself in an optimized fashion it gets really hard to get challenge because the actual gameplay is fairly simple.
It was a challenge to play my first mmorpg, to tank things, to tank raids, to lead raids but after a while it wasn't a challenge. Switching to healing took some adjustment, switching to healing in tera was hard. It took some adjustment playing singleplayer games because combat in MMORPG is really slow, inactive and quite often you focus on what you do instead of what your opponent does.
I got absolutely wrecked the first few hours while playing Witcher 2 because I had gotten so used to being able to tank hits. Dark souls 1 was the first action game I played with a gamepad and those first few hours were brutal. Still beat the game because the brain adjusts to new patterns.
The only way for mmorpg to become challenging is if you play the toughest content available or devs make something completely foreign to players that renders your prior knowledge of the genre useless. Otherwise its just going to be an exercise of tedium that you already played before.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
It isn't that players want things easy, but they want to do things that took 4 hours in the past and now do them in 30 mins. The easy way for developers to implement this to just make it easy so you sail through the content. Not to mention, how do developers make meaningful 30 min content that can't be abused by people that player longer periods of time?
Can someone please link all these posts or articles or something to where there are a players wanting their games easy. I see people bitching all the time about people supposedly wanting easier gameplay. I also see a lot of people give their theories as if they know the inner psyche of these supposed people who are complaining. However, I have yet to actually see someone say they want easier games. Am I the only one who finds these threads odd?
Same. Also I find odd this recurrent theme of mmos being hard "in the old days": What major mmos of yesteryear were even that hard? I have a feeling that by "hard" the OP means "grindy with long-leveling curves", rather than actually challenging gameplay like in say Nioh.
Sure there are people who want "easy" experiences. People say that like it's a bad thing. MMOs have always been a mix of easy as well as "harder" content. Hence generic mobs and heroic mobs. Games in general have for decades,hence easy and hard modes... Do people want it even easier? Devs seem to think so hence the new story modes that pretty much make it a faceroll to just get to the story bits. TES games have a very easy setting, as did games like MK...
Gamers come in all flavors.
I agree that games come in all "flavors". That also means that one persons hard is another persons easy.
For me mmos are easy.If I want "hard" I play CKII, Civ, etc.
All gamers though want to be "entertained". For some that means killing mobs endlessly maybe to destress; for others - perhaps - puzzles. So designers have to target their audience and cater to them rather than go after everyone and fail on all levels (or get it right perhaps!)
Games haven't gotten easier. They've gotten more fun.
Come on, OP. Give me your best example of a "challenging" game. Because EVE for example isn't challenging at all. It's inconvenient in the way that you can lose everything in 1 wrong move. That's not challenging, that's bullshit. Learning curve? Bullshit, play it for a month and you've seen everything.
Early MMOs? Where you had to grind a week for 1% of experience? Yeah no thanks. I'd rather do the "easy" shit from today's MMOs than repeating the same bullshit mob trains for hours on end and have all my week's effort gone in a single death.
What's challenging about Lineage 2? Get the best gear (used to take up to a year to reach the endgame players, atm i think it's longer) and go to PvP and steamroll everyone just by clicking autoattack, it's okay, your gear can tank everything they have to offer. Luck out and get everything enchanted to +6 or more and then even others with BiS can't kill you. Is this your idea of "challenging"? Really?
Or do you miss the 40-50-man raids (like early Antharas in Lineage 2)? WildStar has that. But then y'all complain that telegraphing is too much Q_Q
You did this yourselves.
And no, games are not easier. They are more accessible in the sense that you don't need a freaking 10-man group that is highly specific (having buffers healers 2 tanks and dps), most of MMOs of today are designed around the solo player and small scale group content
you know, so I don't have to beg you morons to free up 1-2 hours of your precious time and have one of you not show up and ruin the whole fucking thing that has been planned for a fucking week.
Challenging my ass. Annoying tho ... definitely.
I'm sorry you are a masochist and can't enjoy a good game.
You want challenging? Go try Guild Wars 2's raids. Too easy? Go with a suboptimal group. Those are some of the finest fights the current MMO generation of games has to offer.
All you people shouting for more "challenging" MMOs are scrubs with lots of free time and you want a game where time invested = power gained and you believe that you deserve to stomp everyone just because you invested more time. Devs tried that, it didn't work. Move on. Git gut.
Look at this guy: - A tank in BiS gear smashing hundreds of people in in medium grade gear. It must've been so challenging ....
It isn't that players want things easy, but they want to do things that took 4 hours in the past and now do them in 30 mins. The easy way for developers to implement this to just make it easy so you sail through the content. Not to mention, how do developers make meaningful 30 min content that can't be abused by people that player longer periods of time?
Guildwars did that really well, particularly before all the nerfs. The content was challenging but not that time consuming. Of course if you played badly it could take forever but someone playing really good could clear things fast. And there were no abuse possible.
Time consummate is not the same thing as difficult. You not the only one here thinking it is but Tetris is way harder then Myst if you get the point.
Now, not all MMOs should be made like Guildwars, not even close but there is certainly room for a few games like that. The genre needs both hard and easy games just like it needs fast and time consuming games. The fast games would not be many hardcore players main game but even hardcore gamers need an alt game now and then.
MMOs tend to only focus on the casual group that not only want a fast ride but also want to always win. Then they add a few hard raids and dungeons that may or may not be time consuming as endgame and hope everyone is happy. The problem is that it ain't good enough for anyone but the stressed casuals that always want to win but as soon as they hit the endgame they either tire or quit or make an alt but they will only restart from lvl 1 so many times before totally tire of the game.
Right now MMOs make no-one happy long term and while the ultra casuals might be a large group that is happy short term it still loses the majority of the players that way, all the other groups (PvPers, crafters, dungeoneers, raiders, people who want hard open world content and so on) might not be as big as the ultra casuals alone but if you just please that group you really can't make a good MMO for any of the others.
And most of those other groups have way more long term players then the ultra casuals so I have rather high doubts that making a game for a single group that mostly leaves within 2 months actually is the most profitable long term. You do earn far more cash the first 3 months after launch but after 5 years the game that focus on long term players will have earned most cash.
.... All you people shouting for more "challenging" MMOs are scrubs with lots of free time and you want a game where time invested = power gained and you believe that you deserve to stomp everyone just because you invested more time. Devs tried that, it didn't work. Move on. Git gut.
Adding a little hard content really wont make people who enjoy that very happy, they still have to play a lot boring stuff to get to the interesting things. "Hey, we added 1% of the games content for you guys" is not really what most players want to hear.
And time invested is not hard at all, why does everyone think that? There is a huge difference between being persistent and playing well. You can make a game really easy while still being time consuming and you can certainly make it very hard but fast.
In GW2s case I just wish they added a server setting with the difficulty from the first beta weekend, things didn't take longer there unless you died over and over of course. It was way harder though (yeah, they don't need to make the raids harder, just the open world, the personal story and the dungeons).
I find that games have gotten way harder over the years, at least if you try to play an MMORPG to its fullest.
I do remember I thought it odd, that some sologames turned easier in their sequels some 15 years ago, but then it went bonkers from there on.
Now you need a PHD in google to be able to play Solo RPG aventures. Even MMORPGS cant be done without the assistance of the internet. Which is why I dont have all skyshards in ESO yet, cause I dont want to play internet, I want to play the game. Give me acces to find clues in the game itself, to find the info about the skyshards I need, would have been so much more fun.
In WoW raiding mythic mode is not for human beings really, the amount of math skills needed, internetbrowsing for preparation and skill and stat optimizing, its really not a game at all even. Not to forget that once you are inside the raid, only people on some kind of reaction enhancing medical product, can actually react as fast as is required.
Games made easier? I dont see it at all.
And as far as questing goes, I am not overly interested in challenging content during that adventure. I like riddle and puzzle designs that are possible to do on my own, which I think ESO does well, dont need the internet to solve that, but some of them still takes a bit if time to figure out on your own, good fun.
I like the story during questing, but immersion breaks so easily if you have to spend time trying to locate some place, where you end up running in circles, cause you could have sworn you have already looked everywhere. Dont get me wrong, I dont mind a bit of riding around, but too many dead ends along the way and it just gets frustrating. 30 minutes available online, can end up only sufficing 1 quest.
So I have to say I dont see that the games got easier, they did the opposite imo.
A game that can not be played without the use of addons or internet in general, it is not an easy game at all.
All that said, I guess I dont want a game to be too challenging, because I play to relax and enjoy the ride, no stress, no need for some anger management. I occasionally find it stressful enough being around players who can not relax.
Challenging doesn't mean something is fun, and for the most part i think people play games, not just MMO's for the 'fun factor'. Personally if i want challenge, i play CS:GO. For fun, i have several MMO's that have that pretty much nailed
I'm curious as to why we have seen a huge surge in this type of player over the years? I'm not talking about people's lack of time, and games designed to be played in chunks either, because I think you can have challenging game play in small bursts. I'm referring to the bulk of MMOs these days that are designed from the ground up to just to be a faceroll in order to cater to this type of gamer. I'm not trying to be mean here, I'm just genuinely curious as to why people like content to be this easy?
First, I reject this as factual information. I don't think the majority of people fall into the category that you've created for them. You should be more specific. Now, if you're talking open world PvP or full loot. Even the survival theme that's been trending lately. Then it's pretty easy to see why people aren't as interested in those games.
In PvE every single MMO out there has scales of difficulty from face roll to next to impossible and the irony being, unless the 'hard core' vocals aren't getting items to make it easier, they don't feel it's worth doing.
In PvE every single MMO out there has scales of difficulty from face roll to next to impossible and the irony being, unless the 'hard core' vocals aren't getting items to make it easier, they don't feel it's worth doing.
This rings so true to me.
When a game is challenging, people look up addons to make it easier. When raiding is too challenging, people who make groups will only allow other players who far outgear the raids. (On the pugscene)
When has an MMO ever been hard? They've always been time sinks over challenge, sure you could challenge yourself and do things you shouldn't be but that wasn't by design.
lemme guess, you never tried a relic raid in DAoC for example?
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I'm curious as to why we have seen a huge surge in this type of player over the years? I'm not talking about people's lack of time, and games designed to be played in chunks either, because I think you can have challenging game play in small bursts. I'm referring to the bulk of MMOs these days that are designed from the ground up to just to be a faceroll in order to cater to this type of gamer. I'm not trying to be mean here, I'm just genuinely curious as to why people like content to be this easy?
First, I reject this as factual information. I don't think the majority of people fall into the category that you've created for them. You should be more specific. Now, if you're talking open world PvP or full loot. Even the survival theme that's been trending lately. Then it's pretty easy to see why people aren't as interested in those games.
Did I say everyone? NO! I do standby what I said though, the bulk of MMO players today want easy, soloable, single player focused content.
There are so many factors that have led us to this "easier" world of games that we're in. I'll try to highlight the top reasons:
1) Perception
Whilst I believe that the average difficulty of computer games has gone down over time, I believe most of it is only our own perception of difficulty, rather than it actually being easier. The reason for this is personal experience. When I first started gaming at age 5, everything was difficult. As my experience grew, both in game and in real life, I got quicker and quicker at learning games. So, within specific genres, the majority of games are now trivial. Not because they are necessarily easier, but because I already fully understand the mechanics and the meta game due to prior experience. What I considered difficult 20 years ago is no longer difficult now.
2) Linear Content
Sadly, MMOs have become extremely linear, to the point where a single roadblock along way can derail your entire experience and force you to quit. If something is too challenging for you and not completing it prevents you from progressing, you quit and the devs lose money.
So, devs have trivialised the majority of the content to prevent those roadblocks from occuring. Such was not the case "back in the day", because the games were not linear. Can't kill that mob? No worries! Just go grind some easier mobs elsewhere then come back when you're stronger.
3) Target Audience
When gaming was relatively niche, devs knew their audience intimately and could predict various things. I know its a bad generalisation, but geeks and nerds do tend to be above average when dealing with maths and logic. As computer games are built on maths and logic (particularly RPGs), this gave us an advantage and content was balanced around this assumption.
Now that gaming is mainstream, that assumption is no longer true and so content has to be scaled down to deal with the average brain. This is why the mechanics of games have gotten simpler over time, but is also why story and personal choice have become much bigger features - it is devs catering to their new audience.
With all that said, there are many different types of difficult that devs could or do add to their games. I don't know what their proper labels would be, but you have "intellectual challenge" - can I beat the game by solving problems with my brain? - "physical challenge" - can I beat the game by reacting quicker, aiming more accurately etc - and "social challenge" - can I beat the game by working well with a team?
I believe the last 5-10 years has seen a diminishing of intellectual challenge and social challenge, but an increase in physical challenge. For me, I believe that is the complete wrong way for MMOs as physical challenge is the least engaging and least satisfying long term, but it is the better type of challenge for shorter games.
I'm curious as to why we have seen a huge surge in this type of player over the years? I'm not talking about people's lack of time, and games designed to be played in chunks either, because I think you can have challenging game play in small bursts. I'm referring to the bulk of MMOs these days that are designed from the ground up to just to be a faceroll in order to cater to this type of gamer. I'm not trying to be mean here, I'm just genuinely curious as to why people like content to be this easy?
Because a lot of people are looking for a pastime. They want to experience some story, fight a bit, do some activities. The idea of challenge is not on the table because to them it's not important. What they want is a fun time for a small bit.
It's less about "the game/challenge/succeeding" and more about an enjoyable, fun, low stress experience.
Post edited by Sovrath on
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Quite simply, I think it's because there isn't a difficulty setting. I don't think it's a matter of the majority WANTING it THAT easy, but a product of not being able to scale difficulty. That being said, most "easy" games can be scaled in difficulty by the user anyway. For instance, I'll often pull 8-10 mobs or as many as I can without dying. Additionally, devs have started adding new difficulty levels to end game content.
While it would be nice if they could do something like add scaled, dynamic, difficulty, I think it would be a nightmare because then you'd also have to somehow dynamically adjust the experience gained or you'd have all the speedsters crying about how their experience is being nerfed because they have to play through content that is harder than most.
Comments
Leveling up has always been about experiencing the games story if it had one, or exploring the vast world the developers created. It's never actually offered any challenges outside of a controlled (instanced) group setting.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Now the game is pretty solo friendly, unless you play only with regular gear from drops. A lot more fun.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Folks who partied their way through WoW or started playing at Burning Crusade will have missed this essential WoW experience. It isn't there now. Leveling has been trivialized. But back in my day, every level meant success. Guildies would cheer for you. It was an accomplishment.
Its even worse in most RPG because once you played a few its fairly quick to spec and gear yourself in an optimized fashion it gets really hard to get challenge because the actual gameplay is fairly simple.
It was a challenge to play my first mmorpg, to tank things, to tank raids, to lead raids but after a while it wasn't a challenge. Switching to healing took some adjustment, switching to healing in tera was hard. It took some adjustment playing singleplayer games because combat in MMORPG is really slow, inactive and quite often you focus on what you do instead of what your opponent does.
I got absolutely wrecked the first few hours while playing Witcher 2 because I had gotten so used to being able to tank hits. Dark souls 1 was the first action game I played with a gamepad and those first few hours were brutal. Still beat the game because the brain adjusts to new patterns.
The only way for mmorpg to become challenging is if you play the toughest content available or devs make something completely foreign to players that renders your prior knowledge of the genre useless. Otherwise its just going to be an exercise of tedium that you already played before.
I could read a book whilst engaged in combat when playing EQ1. Now I don't need to as developers are including stories in the world.
MMO's need to come with a difficulty slider like singleplayer games do if you want challenge for PvE.
I just PvP for challenge, always have. Single player games do PvE far better than any MMO.
For me mmos are easy.If I want "hard" I play CKII, Civ, etc.
All gamers though want to be "entertained". For some that means killing mobs endlessly maybe to destress; for others - perhaps - puzzles. So designers have to target their audience and cater to them rather than go after everyone and fail on all levels (or get it right perhaps!)
Entertainment is key but what does that mean?
Come on, OP. Give me your best example of a "challenging" game. Because EVE for example isn't challenging at all. It's inconvenient in the way that you can lose everything in 1 wrong move. That's not challenging, that's bullshit. Learning curve? Bullshit, play it for a month and you've seen everything.
Early MMOs? Where you had to grind a week for 1% of experience? Yeah no thanks. I'd rather do the "easy" shit from today's MMOs than repeating the same bullshit mob trains for hours on end and have all my week's effort gone in a single death.
What's challenging about Lineage 2? Get the best gear (used to take up to a year to reach the endgame players, atm i think it's longer) and go to PvP and steamroll everyone just by clicking autoattack, it's okay, your gear can tank everything they have to offer. Luck out and get everything enchanted to +6 or more and then even others with BiS can't kill you. Is this your idea of "challenging"? Really?
Or do you miss the 40-50-man raids (like early Antharas in Lineage 2)? WildStar has that. But then y'all complain that telegraphing is too much Q_Q
You did this yourselves.
And no, games are not easier. They are more accessible in the sense that you don't need a freaking 10-man group that is highly specific (having buffers healers 2 tanks and dps), most of MMOs of today are designed around the solo player and small scale group content
you know, so I don't have to beg you morons to free up 1-2 hours of your precious time and have one of you not show up and ruin the whole fucking thing that has been planned for a fucking week.
Challenging my ass. Annoying tho ... definitely.
I'm sorry you are a masochist and can't enjoy a good game.
You want challenging? Go try Guild Wars 2's raids. Too easy? Go with a suboptimal group. Those are some of the finest fights the current MMO generation of games has to offer.
All you people shouting for more "challenging" MMOs are scrubs with lots of free time and you want a game where time invested = power gained and you believe that you deserve to stomp everyone just because you invested more time. Devs tried that, it didn't work. Move on. Git gut.
Look at this guy:
Time consummate is not the same thing as difficult. You not the only one here thinking it is but Tetris is way harder then Myst if you get the point.
Now, not all MMOs should be made like Guildwars, not even close but there is certainly room for a few games like that. The genre needs both hard and easy games just like it needs fast and time consuming games. The fast games would not be many hardcore players main game but even hardcore gamers need an alt game now and then.
MMOs tend to only focus on the casual group that not only want a fast ride but also want to always win. Then they add a few hard raids and dungeons that may or may not be time consuming as endgame and hope everyone is happy. The problem is that it ain't good enough for anyone but the stressed casuals that always want to win but as soon as they hit the endgame they either tire or quit or make an alt but they will only restart from lvl 1 so many times before totally tire of the game.
Right now MMOs make no-one happy long term and while the ultra casuals might be a large group that is happy short term it still loses the majority of the players that way, all the other groups (PvPers, crafters, dungeoneers, raiders, people who want hard open world content and so on) might not be as big as the ultra casuals alone but if you just please that group you really can't make a good MMO for any of the others.
And most of those other groups have way more long term players then the ultra casuals so I have rather high doubts that making a game for a single group that mostly leaves within 2 months actually is the most profitable long term. You do earn far more cash the first 3 months after launch but after 5 years the game that focus on long term players will have earned most cash.
And time invested is not hard at all, why does everyone think that? There is a huge difference between being persistent and playing well. You can make a game really easy while still being time consuming and you can certainly make it very hard but fast.
In GW2s case I just wish they added a server setting with the difficulty from the first beta weekend, things didn't take longer there unless you died over and over of course. It was way harder though (yeah, they don't need to make the raids harder, just the open world, the personal story and the dungeons).
I do remember I thought it odd, that some sologames turned easier in their sequels some 15 years ago, but then it went bonkers from there on.
Now you need a PHD in google to be able to play Solo RPG aventures.
Even MMORPGS cant be done without the assistance of the internet. Which is why I dont have all skyshards in ESO yet, cause I dont want to play internet, I want to play the game.
Give me acces to find clues in the game itself, to find the info about the skyshards I need, would have been so much more fun.
In WoW raiding mythic mode is not for human beings really, the amount of math skills needed, internetbrowsing for preparation and skill and stat optimizing, its really not a game at all even.
Not to forget that once you are inside the raid, only people on some kind of reaction enhancing medical product, can actually react as fast as is required.
Games made easier? I dont see it at all.
And as far as questing goes, I am not overly interested in challenging content during that adventure.
I like riddle and puzzle designs that are possible to do on my own, which I think ESO does well, dont need the internet to solve that, but some of them still takes a bit if time to figure out on your own, good fun.
I like the story during questing, but immersion breaks so easily if you have to spend time trying to locate some place, where you end up running in circles, cause you could have sworn you have already looked everywhere.
Dont get me wrong, I dont mind a bit of riding around, but too many dead ends along the way and it just gets frustrating. 30 minutes available online, can end up only sufficing 1 quest.
So I have to say I dont see that the games got easier, they did the opposite imo.
A game that can not be played without the use of addons or internet in general, it is not an easy game at all.
All that said, I guess I dont want a game to be too challenging, because I play to relax and enjoy the ride, no stress, no need for some anger management. I occasionally find it stressful enough being around players who can not relax.
Personally if i want challenge, i play CS:GO.
For fun, i have several MMO's that have that pretty much nailed
This rings so true to me.
When a game is challenging, people look up addons to make it easier.
When raiding is too challenging, people who make groups will only allow other players who far outgear the raids. (On the pugscene)
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
1) Perception
Whilst I believe that the average difficulty of computer games has gone down over time, I believe most of it is only our own perception of difficulty, rather than it actually being easier. The reason for this is personal experience. When I first started gaming at age 5, everything was difficult. As my experience grew, both in game and in real life, I got quicker and quicker at learning games. So, within specific genres, the majority of games are now trivial. Not because they are necessarily easier, but because I already fully understand the mechanics and the meta game due to prior experience. What I considered difficult 20 years ago is no longer difficult now.
2) Linear Content
Sadly, MMOs have become extremely linear, to the point where a single roadblock along way can derail your entire experience and force you to quit. If something is too challenging for you and not completing it prevents you from progressing, you quit and the devs lose money.
So, devs have trivialised the majority of the content to prevent those roadblocks from occuring. Such was not the case "back in the day", because the games were not linear. Can't kill that mob? No worries! Just go grind some easier mobs elsewhere then come back when you're stronger.
3) Target Audience
When gaming was relatively niche, devs knew their audience intimately and could predict various things. I know its a bad generalisation, but geeks and nerds do tend to be above average when dealing with maths and logic. As computer games are built on maths and logic (particularly RPGs), this gave us an advantage and content was balanced around this assumption.
Now that gaming is mainstream, that assumption is no longer true and so content has to be scaled down to deal with the average brain. This is why the mechanics of games have gotten simpler over time, but is also why story and personal choice have become much bigger features - it is devs catering to their new audience.
With all that said, there are many different types of difficult that devs could or do add to their games. I don't know what their proper labels would be, but you have "intellectual challenge" - can I beat the game by solving problems with my brain? - "physical challenge" - can I beat the game by reacting quicker, aiming more accurately etc - and "social challenge" - can I beat the game by working well with a team?
I believe the last 5-10 years has seen a diminishing of intellectual challenge and social challenge, but an increase in physical challenge. For me, I believe that is the complete wrong way for MMOs as physical challenge is the least engaging and least satisfying long term, but it is the better type of challenge for shorter games.
It's less about "the game/challenge/succeeding" and more about an enjoyable, fun, low stress experience.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
While it would be nice if they could do something like add scaled, dynamic, difficulty, I think it would be a nightmare because then you'd also have to somehow dynamically adjust the experience gained or you'd have all the speedsters crying about how their experience is being nerfed because they have to play through content that is harder than most.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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