MMO's aren't "hard", that's merely a misnomer for "time consuming". Older games generally took more time to do something or to get something, and had heavier penalties for messing up. They were also less intuitive and tacticts weren't posted 10 minutes after a new boss was released, thus things took longer to nail down. But nailed down everything was eventually.
Want a hard game? I'm currently playing Victoria II as United States of Central America, vying for world domination. Now THAT is difficult
I've never understood why players who prefer to play casually instead of high end raid even need the epic gear.
Fore example in WoW:
If their playstyle is to grind rep, solo quests and do 5-man dungeons, why do they need super awesome epics? With blue quality max-level gear they can do everything they have chosen to participate in quite easily. Obtaining epic quality gear makes all their game play trivial and boring.
Yet WoW is handing out epics like there's no tomorrow and has essentially removed any sense of joy/accomplishment in obtaining those rewards now that everyone is "entitled" to get them.
The problem with WoW is that they screwed up the sense of character progression in WoTLK. Epics for rep grinders, solo questers, and 5 man runners is fine. They just "forgot" to add content to justify recieving epics and content to put the epics to use.
For example, first, grind green level dungeons to get blue gears. Next, grind blue level dungeons to get purple gears. Finally, purple level dungeons with some sort of leet appearance (or whatever) rewards for the sake of rewards. Green level dungeons rewarding purples was amazingly rediculous on top of having zero content to progress into once the green level dungeons were completed.
Having paths for all players to recieve top quality gear is fine as long as the effort to recieve the gear is justified. Except perhaps for solo players considering the difficulty in making content challenging for all classes in a game where characters have highly defined roles.
There is no problem. It is a problem if you think a purple item is good but no one knows the game think that way.
People look at ITEM LEVEL .. and if you get an hardmode item, there is a little green "heroic" under the name of the item.
And those *are* hard to get. Think of it this way:
L251 epic = green
L264 epic = blue
H model epic = purple. They just distinguish the three with different methods other than the color of the item.
This works for raiding ICC but is borked for earlier raids and all the endgame non-raid content.
ilevel 200 epics are great for running heroics and you really do not need much better to do that content properly. Faction reward epics and ileevl 200 craftables are also really nice for that content. ilevel 213-226 stuff is nice for Uldur and ilevel 32 stuff great for ToC. However, once you get the emblem gear with is ilevel 232-245, it trivializes the non-raid content. If one wants a challenge in 5man heroics ones either downgrades his/her gear or runs it with less geared alts.
The problem with MMO's nowadays is not the difficulty level. They are all pretty easy....Like I said, the REAL problem with today's gaming environment is not difficulty, but EGO.
It sounds like you're the sort of person who can only keep one thing in his head at a time. You refer to "the problem with MMO's".
Have you ever considered the concept that there might be more than one problem?
Or have you considered that your problem with MMOs might not be exactly the same as someone else's problem. Or that other people are allowed to have different ideas and want different things than you do?
So just because you have a difficulty with ego, it doesn't follow in the slightest than someone else is not allowed to have a problem with difficulty?
Btw - IMO your issues with ego are a completely different issue. A lot of it's caused by the much more diverse demographic playing games nowadays. It's not just a bunch of essentially similar college geeks helping eachother out anymore. For better or worse, those days are gone, and society in MMOs tends to reflect society as a whole (with added problems caused by internet anonmity, and the presence of large numbers of young kids in some games).
ilevel 200 epics are great for running heroics and you really do not need much better to do that content properly. Faction reward epics and ileevl 200 craftables are also really nice for that content. ilevel 213-226 stuff is nice for Uldur and ilevel 32 stuff great for ToC. However, once you get the emblem gear with is ilevel 232-245, it trivializes the non-raid content. If one wants a challenge in 5man heroics ones either downgrades his/her gear or runs it with less geared alts.
Agreed. Anyone who wants a challenge in WoW PvE content is essentially confined to the latest raid instance. So nowadays, the only place they can find it is ICC. Even there, many of the normal mode bosses are pretty easy for any experienced raider (hence the large number of PuGs).
When the entire game shrinks to a single raid instance in pursuit of a challenge, then the game feels very small indeed.
I've never understood why players who prefer to play casually instead of high end raid even need the epic gear.
Fore example in WoW:
If their playstyle is to grind rep, solo quests and do 5-man dungeons, why do they need super awesome epics? With blue quality max-level gear they can do everything they have chosen to participate in quite easily. Obtaining epic quality gear makes all their game play trivial and boring.
Yet WoW is handing out epics like there's no tomorrow and has essentially removed any sense of joy/accomplishment in obtaining those rewards now that everyone is "entitled" to get them.
The problem with WoW is that they screwed up the sense of character progression in WoTLK. Epics for rep grinders, solo questers, and 5 man runners is fine. They just "forgot" to add content to justify recieving epics and content to put the epics to use.
For example, first, grind green level dungeons to get blue gears. Next, grind blue level dungeons to get purple gears. Finally, purple level dungeons with some sort of leet appearance (or whatever) rewards for the sake of rewards. Green level dungeons rewarding purples was amazingly rediculous on top of having zero content to progress into once the green level dungeons were completed.
Having paths for all players to recieve top quality gear is fine as long as the effort to recieve the gear is justified. Except perhaps for solo players considering the difficulty in making content challenging for all classes in a game where characters have highly defined roles.
There is no problem. It is a problem if you think a purple item is good but no one knows the game think that way.
People look at ITEM LEVEL .. and if you get an hardmode item, there is a little green "heroic" under the name of the item.
And those *are* hard to get. Think of it this way:
L251 epic = green
L264 epic = blue
H model epic = purple. They just distinguish the three with different methods other than the color of the item.
This works for raiding ICC but is borked for earlier raids and all the endgame non-raid content.
ilevel 200 epics are great for running heroics and you really do not need much better to do that content properly. Faction reward epics and ileevl 200 craftables are also really nice for that content. ilevel 213-226 stuff is nice for Uldur and ilevel 32 stuff great for ToC. However, once you get the emblem gear with is ilevel 232-245, it trivializes the non-raid content. If one wants a challenge in 5man heroics ones either downgrades his/her gear or runs it with less geared alts.
That is inevitable for a gear centric game. Old content will never be challenging since you can over-gear it.
But we were not talking about the ease of the content, but the "meaning" of epics. In fact, it is pretty clear that all epics BEFORE the latest tier is designed to be easy to get. There is no differentiation. A 226 item is more or less same difficulty to get as a 232 or 245 item. It only makes a different at 251 and up.
ilevel 200 epics are great for running heroics and you really do not need much better to do that content properly. Faction reward epics and ileevl 200 craftables are also really nice for that content. ilevel 213-226 stuff is nice for Uldur and ilevel 32 stuff great for ToC. However, once you get the emblem gear with is ilevel 232-245, it trivializes the non-raid content. If one wants a challenge in 5man heroics ones either downgrades his/her gear or runs it with less geared alts.
Agreed. Anyone who wants a challenge in WoW PvE content is essentially confined to the latest raid instance. So nowadays, the only place they can find it is ICC. Even there, many of the normal mode bosses are pretty easy for any experienced raider (hence the large number of PuGs).
When the entire game shrinks to a single raid instance in pursuit of a challenge, then the game feels very small indeed.
That is *if* your own goal is to have challenging PvE encounters. You can always go play PvP, or achievements, or leveling alts.
I don't think there is a way around that for a progression game. Progression = toons becoming more and more powerful = content becoming eaiser and easier when you progress.
Agreed. Anyone who wants a challenge in WoW PvE content is essentially confined to the latest raid instance. So nowadays, the only place they can find it is ICC. Even there, many of the normal mode bosses are pretty easy for any experienced raider (hence the large number of PuGs). When the entire game shrinks to a single raid instance in pursuit of a challenge, then the game feels very small indeed.
That is *if* your own goal is to have challenging PvE encounters. You can always go play PvP, or achievements, or leveling alts.
I don't think there is a way around that for a progression game. Progression = toons becoming more and more powerful = content becoming eaiser and easier when you progress.
Even without progression things are easy.
Heroics were easy the minute people hit level 80 at the start of WotLK. They just became even easier as we geared up.
Comments
MMO's aren't "hard", that's merely a misnomer for "time consuming". Older games generally took more time to do something or to get something, and had heavier penalties for messing up. They were also less intuitive and tacticts weren't posted 10 minutes after a new boss was released, thus things took longer to nail down. But nailed down everything was eventually.
Want a hard game? I'm currently playing Victoria II as United States of Central America, vying for world domination. Now THAT is difficult
This works for raiding ICC but is borked for earlier raids and all the endgame non-raid content.
ilevel 200 epics are great for running heroics and you really do not need much better to do that content properly. Faction reward epics and ileevl 200 craftables are also really nice for that content. ilevel 213-226 stuff is nice for Uldur and ilevel 32 stuff great for ToC. However, once you get the emblem gear with is ilevel 232-245, it trivializes the non-raid content. If one wants a challenge in 5man heroics ones either downgrades his/her gear or runs it with less geared alts.
It sounds like you're the sort of person who can only keep one thing in his head at a time. You refer to "the problem with MMO's".
Have you ever considered the concept that there might be more than one problem?
Or have you considered that your problem with MMOs might not be exactly the same as someone else's problem. Or that other people are allowed to have different ideas and want different things than you do?
So just because you have a difficulty with ego, it doesn't follow in the slightest than someone else is not allowed to have a problem with difficulty?
Btw - IMO your issues with ego are a completely different issue. A lot of it's caused by the much more diverse demographic playing games nowadays. It's not just a bunch of essentially similar college geeks helping eachother out anymore. For better or worse, those days are gone, and society in MMOs tends to reflect society as a whole (with added problems caused by internet anonmity, and the presence of large numbers of young kids in some games).
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Agreed. Anyone who wants a challenge in WoW PvE content is essentially confined to the latest raid instance. So nowadays, the only place they can find it is ICC. Even there, many of the normal mode bosses are pretty easy for any experienced raider (hence the large number of PuGs).
When the entire game shrinks to a single raid instance in pursuit of a challenge, then the game feels very small indeed.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
That is inevitable for a gear centric game. Old content will never be challenging since you can over-gear it.
But we were not talking about the ease of the content, but the "meaning" of epics. In fact, it is pretty clear that all epics BEFORE the latest tier is designed to be easy to get. There is no differentiation. A 226 item is more or less same difficulty to get as a 232 or 245 item. It only makes a different at 251 and up.
That is *if* your own goal is to have challenging PvE encounters. You can always go play PvP, or achievements, or leveling alts.
I don't think there is a way around that for a progression game. Progression = toons becoming more and more powerful = content becoming eaiser and easier when you progress.
That is *if* your own goal is to have challenging PvE encounters. You can always go play PvP, or achievements, or leveling alts.
I don't think there is a way around that for a progression game. Progression = toons becoming more and more powerful = content becoming eaiser and easier when you progress.
Even without progression things are easy.
Heroics were easy the minute people hit level 80 at the start of WotLK. They just became even easier as we geared up.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium