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Hard/Difficult vs. Inconvient/Time Sink
Lienhart
Member UncommonPosts: 662
What's your take on this subject? I think all MMOs, even World of Warcraft at one point and even now, are inconvient and full of time sinks. When I look back to Final Fantasy XI, even though I have great memories of it, there were so many damn time sinks and inconviences
#1. Nothing could be done without a party. Not necessarily a bad thing, but flagging youreslf as a melee, except DRG, during the 40s resulted in 3+ hours wait times. You can only do so much farming and "questing" before you get bored.
#2. Traveling from any major city to Jeuno without an airship took 15 minutes on chocobo riding.
#3. Expansion on the party wait problem, 99% of the time the parties would be waiting for a WHM (healer).
Now lets look at what difficulty is:
Demon Souls
I, among many others, died in this game many many times. It wasn't due to invoncience or cheap tricks, it was the simple fact that you HAD to learn the enemy attack patterns. Poking classes (casters/archers) were undeniably easier than melee classes but it was still hard. One of my friends playing yelled "WTF" when he ran off a cliff saying "WTF SHOULDN'T THERE BE AN INVISIBLE WALL?" The lack of checkpoints wasn't inconvient in anyway shape or form because you could die along the way again. It was a simple: adapt or die. This is difficult and hard.
Catherine
Play the game on Easy and you'll start pulling your hair out near the end. This is a puzzle game, nothing is inconvient, it just makes you think...and think hard you will. There were no time sinks. Anyone who's played this game knows what hard/difficult vs. a time sink/inconvience.
Super Mario Brothers
How many times have you beaten the first level? Unless you skipped levels or memorized where things would come from, you will die...many times because of sheer difficulty.
MegaMan X/MegaMan/MegaMan Zero/Rockman Series
Yeah....if you don't know why this is hard lol
Notice how there are no MMOs in that list. The hardest thing about an MMO I've encountered is trying to find a raid group that doesn't someone being carried. Recount in WoW shows you who's being carried and who's not. I remember this one raid I had where there was 1 healer healing 2-3x compared to the other one on a 10m WoTLK raid. What the hell was the other healing doing? And no wonder we wiped 5+ times on the first boss. Final Fantasy XI had the same problem, everyone had to know their role; if you know your role and try to educate someone, and they don't listen, you wipe again! Is this hard? Seems more like an inconvience, even if you adapt you'll still die.
So please, stop thinking back to old MMOs as difficult or hard; they really weren't at all.
Comments
Ninja Gaiden wsa hard and extremely fun.
Forgot that one, the new ones are pretty brutal too; especially if you try to Platinum it on PS3.
Yeah, the most difficult tasks in MMOs involve group coordination - getting people together at the same time, and actually following through with an organized battle plan. Tough for the group, not for the player, type scenario. I've never seen any MMO content on a "Battletoads" level of difficulty (argueably the most difficult game of all time). People who argue that raids are more difficult than solo content lack real gaming experience. I agree with them 100% in an MMO scenario, but that's all based on development and the way the creators choose to slate the difficulty. If you look on any Top 10 Most Difficult Games list, you'll rarely see an MMO - except for the Vanilla WoW C'Thun encounter - which wasn't difficult because of mechanics but because of bugs.
I'm sure many people won't agree with me though. I've wiped and wiped on encounter after encounter as a tank in WoW (from Vanilla till now) but it's generally due to one bad seed or people simply not listening - not due to some insane mechanic. Real difficulty falls under coordination, timing, knowledge, reaction - and I don't mean "when the boss yells this, you move here."
In other words, I'd say a good 90% of MMO content falls under time sink. These encounters are designed to be difficult enough for a challenge, but not so hard that they alienate the playerbase - which by definition is mass appeal. Of course, the real intent is for you to spend more time and increase subscription revenue. When you throw mass appeal into the mix, the bar is greatly lowered in terms of difficultly, heroic setting, difficulty slider, or not.
^
Honestly, I wish there was a way for individual players to contribute more in MMOs and simply be able to carry 24-39 people. I mean, I'm a 2100 ELO player in LoL and carry people 24/7 on normals and friends. Same goes for team games in StarCraft 2 (world top 1000 player).
In Counter-Strike and many other shooters, my little brother is a God, he could and has carried us. This is all because of the "skill cap" in the games I just mentioned. The individual skill cap in MMORPGs are so incredibly low it's stupid. As a tank, in any game, it was rotation or whack a mole with priorities and occasional cool down blows for O SHEET scenerios. There should be more, like the ability to dodge real time and take no damage while maintaining aggro. Hell, even redirection of AoEs. We need a higher skill cap in MMOs to reward players that can handle it and not necessarily punish the handicapped.
what I don't like about many raids/encounters in many MMORPGs is the fact that they can be "learned"
Stand here, cast this, until this happens, then move here because that will trigger this, then this will happen so the people in the other class will do this while you do that.
That sort of thing does take coordination and it is difficult to make all the pieces fit in the right place, but I would rather it be more random, which might make them too difficult for most I guess.
_____________________________
"Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit"
The more emphasis there is on player skill and awareness than there is on stats, the less popular it will be as an MMO.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
awww you did not just hate on FFXI, now i'm going to have to get angry!
But no really, what you pointed out where not "flaws" with the game, but at times....problems. But I still say in its hayday FFXI was one of thee best MMO's ever.
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What counts against MMOs in terms of difficulty is mass appeal.
A) They need a wide playerbase to subscribe - If it's too hard, people won't play it since they won't get a return on their $15.
It's too bad, it's like sellouts in music. If only it wasn't about the almighty dollar, but that's the way things are, unfortunately.
Not really, LoL and StarCraft 2; enough said. Both have more players than any MMO except World of Warcraft. Look up the numbers at sc2ranks.com and leagueoflegends on google.
Old MMOs weren't hard and there was no emphasis on player skill. They were just promoting doing nothing or reptitive tasks more so than current MMOs. StarCraft 2 and LoL are not reptitive...at all. They're also incredibly fun to watch. StarCraft has Husky, HD, Crota, Day9 and many others, LoL has a bunch that I'm not aware of. Do you see videos being made for MMOs besides tutorials? The exception being WoW arena battles and even then that's rare. I am 100% sure the views on an MMO's PvP montage (ie. boring bullshit) is less than that a single Husky SC video on youtube.
With the way investors are going though, I doubt there will ever be an MMO where a single player can carry a team of retards.
As I said, keep things the way they are now, just make the individual player skill cap much much higher. Why could Justin Wong for Super Street Fighter 4 murder a hundred scrubs one after another? There is no class in WoW at 85 that can take 100 people one after each other with equal gear.
Put in something like combination keys, AoE redirection and other crap that requires complex movements or something. I'd love to be a tank that could dodge and tank no damage 24/7 so that if I have 10+ retarded DPS doing less damage than me I can carry them to victory...then swear at them and make sure they know how bad they are.
Yeah, MMOs aren't hard compared to old games, I agree there.
Taking long time to play does not mean harder, just more time consuming.
The hardest thing in MMOs is other peoples misstakes, nothing else.
Even the hardest raids have nothing on certain old classic C-64 games and that is kinda sad. I think there is room for a few games that doesn't demand as much time as most MMOs but instead are really hard and takes skills.
What really turns me off MMOs is that I so rarely gets surprised in them. You know that wonderful kick when things suddenly bombs and only really fast thinking can save you.
The only thing that I see as being truly challenging anymore in MMOs is the combat. Being selfless and nice seems to be the one obstacle many modern players prefer to circumvent by making everything more convenient. Faster travel, faster leveling, faster gear upgrades, faster loot distribution, faster corpse runs, faster health and mana regen, faster trading, faster crafting, and faster death penalties all contribute to the declining standard of modern communities within these games to a large degree, in my opinion. Inconvenience and time sinks tend to spark socialization. It's the one unique feature of these games that keeps them from being arcade games, from my perspective.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
...which are MOBAs, and they are so different from the common MMO that a new classification of game has actually been created for them.
Enough said.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
....
You know why there's facebook and msn right? lol Maybe I grew out of that phase but I have no intention of be friending people online anymore, last time I did that was when I was 16 playing Final Fantasy XI.
You and the other 90% of the current playerbase. Would it surprise you that I have very few RL friends who play MMOs? Meeting new people and making new friends is the one unique feature these games offer outside of single player games. Why do you play them?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Yes, StarCraft 2 is a moba. Okay. There's also Guild Wars, I forgot about that.
Wow... you make this too easy.
Cheers, man.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
It wouldn't surprise me if you didn't have Facebook or if you did your friend count is low. Being selfless or nice has nothing to do with success in raids. Most MMO players I know, except one (he's a good friend, but he doesn't have many friends in real life aside from me) , socialize outside on Friday and Saturday nights. Last week it was BBQ w/ booze, around a dozen or so people. Plus...there's always /1. or /2.
Yeah, now name me an MMO that has more players than those two except World of Warcraft? Hint, something needs to be changed about the formula of MMOs and it has nothing to do with instancing, mobas, RTS, FPS, or god knows what else you think it is.
Hehe. I do have facebook and a good deal of quality friends. The games weren't always like that. You used to have to be nice to other players to even get to raid. I liked the communities better back then. To each their own, I guess. I find the social aspects of these games much more challenging and rewarding, but I can see why player's don't care for that aspect any longer. And as a result I no longer enjoy them, which does give me ample time to socialize in RL, which is great, but I do miss meeting people from around the country and around the world that I otherwise would not have the chance to interact with, that have more depth and personality than a reptile. Not trying to insult you personally, just a general observation.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
EvE Online is based on communication but it's still not being nice LOL I remember ransacking an entire corp worth of shit with 3 real life friends once the corp trusted me enough to give me access. Good times and 12 billion isk. Then there was the drama crap in Lineage 2....(communication seems to lead more to drama for me ahaha).
See, I knew you were a snake. Hehe, j/k. I don't wish to derail the thread further, but I just want to say that I get my social gaming fix from this site, MMORGP.com moreso than any online game I've played in the past five years. Even though I don't really have any "friends" on here, it can be challenging to discuss things with people without hurting their feelings or being misunderstood or getting upset by the trolls and those whose opinions differ from my own, so to me it is a game in it's own right. Plus it's free
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This is a quote about the difficulty of dungeons in Guild Wars 2. It seems especially appropriate to this thread, as GW2 has a very minimal death penalty and is trying to eliminate grind and tedium across the board. Thanks to Fir3line for finding it.
Some insight on dungeons hard mode I found. (regarding grouping)
When I played it on Fanday, the explorable version WAS hard. It was 3+ hours of wipefest. You don't just have to learn the fights, you also have to fine-tune your group synergy. Any combination of professions can beat it, but you absolutely HAVE to work together to make it happen. Honestly, I never had so much fun in a dungeon before, even with the wipes.
And you're right, after we finally beat it at 11:30 at night, it was this awesome rush of endorphins. The people in the group were my brother, and three devs from Content Design; Matt, Devon and Leah. I've always felt close to my brother, obviously, but I now also feel this connection with those three devs. It was like we'd all been friends for ages and had just got together for a night of games and good times.
One of the lead devs in charge of designing the catacombs dungeon was standing over my should when we finished it. And I remember turning to him and telling him to not change a thing by way of difficulty. I honestly do not think you'll be disappointed.
Originally posted here http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=774927&postcount=45
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
What is so hard about finding info on the net and copying what has already been done by someone else? The hard part is learning what is what and when to do what you need to do. It seems to me that the biggest complainers about "ease of play" are the same ones who search and search for the optimal everything, then copy, paste, and get bored. What is the point of playing? I laugh at people in WoW who have actual programs that tell them what do to when. I find many of these same players lamenting how easy games are. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the conundrum here.
Some randomness is exactly what MMOs lack. why not have a pool of powers for the MOBs to choose from and vary their usage of them? I think, as you pointed out, it would be too tough for those that have to get their games given to them on a silver platter. Since that covers the majority of players (I think) it won't happen anytime soon.
- 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
Since it was mentioned here, Battletoads was actually difficult due to poor controls and terrible design mechanics. The difficulty wasn't really genuine. Same goes with a lot of NES games that were deemed difficult such as Contra (wouldn't be nearly as difficult if you had a health bar and unlimited continues) and Friday the 13th (buggy mess + horrible design). Most of what the OP mentioned (and Ninja Gaiden) were genuinely difficult games though.
Mainstream MMOs won't get "hard" till we raise the skill cap OR thinking element beyond the standard hotkey formula. Until then, they are more reliant on time invested into the game and learning each individual classes and how to deal with them (also time investment, AKA grinding). It doesn't require a whole lot of brain power (EX: Catherine) or twitch skill/dexterity (EX: most FPS and Fighting games). Still you can find a few that are more reliant on skills than others, for instance there is a big difference between a skilled Puzzle Pirate player and one who simply just invested a lot of time into the game (the skilled player will always win, even with a newly created character). Same goes for Planetside players.