5. The Best solution I have heard thus far is to have these options set as server rules instead of individual character options. I agree. That would be a better way in which to handle something like that, and I did not think about that at the time. Mainly because I feel like that would be asking for too much.
You need to add one more ...
as options to instances.
The fact is people are in mood of different difficulties at different times. Server rules is the most inflexible, because you cannot change it at will.
Oh, there is one more idea. Use the maple story channel idea but with a difficult setting. So you can switch from a easy channel to a difficult one at will, while everyone at the same channel has the same difficulty.
I don't consider the high instanced MMOs to really be MMOs. In my book they are more Lobby based games then full MMOs. Developers can attach the MMO tag to them to try and get more interest in them but behind the scenes the technology powering them isn't much different then your average Lobby game where the Developers host the Game Servers like Combat Arms and other games like it.
That is just semantics. Personally i don't care what they are called. Genre labels don't determine fun, and i don't choose games based on that.
Secondly, it is just convenient that the industry refers to these games as MMOs. I doubt devs want the label very much. Just look at Destiny, Division, and even Marvel Heroes .. they are actively trying NOT to use the MMO label.
MMOs have difficulty sliders. You adventure in areas above your level or below your level.
How does that equate to optional Perma-Death, Corpse Run, XP Loss.... pracitcally anything on that list?
Permadeath is easy. If you die, you delete your character. End of story.
that's called character wipe not perma-death.
they also violate a fundamental MMO expectation of always having the potential to improve your character.
from a roleplaying standpoint, char death would equate to the end of the MMO in this context.
The effect is identical though, you die, your character dies permanently. It's funny that so many perma-death people really want to impose it on other people. It's really about making everyone else play by their rules and not having the choice to play any particular way without impacting other people's fun.
That's why you don't find perma-death in most games.
And improving your character? Fine. Don't kill it. See if anyone cares. Make up your mind.
IF you want a game that caters to your play style and difficulty then go play a Single Player game or a highly instanced MMO where each Instance is just you and you can set how hard you want it.
If MMOs were to move the direction of having Difficulty settings for everything it would end up being the death of MMOs. MMOs are MEANT to be played along side others end of story.
MMO is not "meant to be" anything.
In fact, you said it yourself, there are highly instanced MMOs now .. and in fact, that has become the mainstream.
I agree and I don't agree....The pseudo mmos that are lobby/instanced to death, it is fine for them, but traditionally mmos are supposed to be more open and massive, not a lobby....So if it is a mmo lobby hybrid, put 100 levels on it, even 1000....If it is something that is not a hybrid/lobby mmo, it isn't a good idea and has no place imo.
That is just semantics. Many games, like WOW, DDO, NWO ... are classified as MMOs by the industry and they are highly instanced.
If you want to call it some other name .. like hybrid lobby game .. it is fine with me. I really don't care about labels, only about if a particular game is fun.
The point is that for these games where instanced and lobby gameplay is a focus, then a difficulty slider is a good thing .. and it is already implemented in some of these games.
I said I agree in the type of mmo you seem to prefer, and the type I prefer, no. In a open world mmo without instances or very limited instances.
On a side note, I really dislike dungeons with different hardness settings, I think GW2 atleast changes the dungeons layouts and content (cannot be sure, as I did not like it enough to find out)...But if they just add 15/30/60% hp and damage and then they like to say, hey look this 1 dungeon that is the same layout/mobs is now 4 dungeons! I find this lazy and turns me off of a game that is creating 'content' in this manner, but that is just me.
I don't consider the high instanced MMOs to really be MMOs. In my book they are more Lobby based games then full MMOs. Developers can attach the MMO tag to them to try and get more interest in them but behind the scenes the technology powering them isn't much different then your average Lobby game where the Developers host the Game Servers like Combat Arms and other games like it.
That is just semantics. Personally i don't care what they are called. Genre labels don't determine fun, and i don't choose games based on that.
Secondly, it is just convenient that the industry refers to these games as MMOs. I doubt devs want the label very much. Just look at Destiny, Division, and even Marvel Heroes .. they are actively trying NOT to use the MMO label.
I applaud this, I hope they come up with a label that becomes popular, so people on both sides know if something is supposed to be more traditional mmo, or more newer lobby type. Then people wouldn't need to argue the 'semantics', when these truly are different styles and for different tastes.
I've never bought in to the difficulty factor in games.
Hard = takes longer.
Even before MMO, PS1 games. Hard mode was what? Mob has twice the HP, I hit for half the damage, he hits for twice as much. It's multipliers. You beat the boss the same way, you may need to speed up the cycle and do it longer with no errors but the process never changes.
I'm in favor of more difficulty if it was done with good AI or cleverly. Maybe instead of sliders you could have an easy server and a difficult server similar to what Path of Exile does.
City of Heroes/Villains had a difficulty slider in the game years ago. I used to group with a full 8-person group with friends and run everything at the highest difficulty setting because it made things more interesting.
Permadeath is easy. And it exists in every game. You die, you delete your character. No passing on loot to other charaters, no transferring money, or mounts, or housing or whatever. You die, log out to the character select screen, hit Delete, and voila! Done. Instant permadeath.
Originally posted by Gorwe I am against current implementation of difficulty therefore I Support the idea of only one difficulty.
Permadeath, High dmg taken, low dmg done is not difficulty. That's called masochism.
Smart mobs that alert each other in pseudo player like groups(Tank+Healer+DPS+Support->think of GW 1 now) where the aggro manipulation DOES NOT WORK. This is difficulty.
Now have varying implementation of the Real difficulty(Heavy DPS groups, area mechanics{Traps}, ...) and I am more than satisfied. But NO 10 gajillion hp mobs that one shot party members randomly and tickle tanks the rest of the time PLEASE.
Thank you!
Also: as for permadeath, who's keeping you from recreating your char? The same goes for increased difficulty(go fight 5+ mobs{or 15+ if Zerg mobs} at the same time/1-2 mobs that are 5+ lvls above you) and every other possible thing. Instead of clicking the "REZ ME NOW!!!" button, corpse run. Simple. The solution?
Be free. Live free. With honour and responsibility, as always.
I think you're missing the point. Also, nothing you have said gives a reason why this sort of thing wouldn't work.
Here's my advice. In the event that something like this was created... if you don't like it - you don't have to click the option. That's the same logic pattern as saying, "Just delete your character."
The sort of argument you and a lot of people in this thread are using is like saying:
"We don't need HDR Bloom lighting when you can just put a foggy sheet of tracing paper over your computer monitor."
"We don't need crosshairs. Just put a black magic marker dot in the center of your screen."
"We don't need an auto-run feature. Just tape your W button down."
On a side note, I really dislike dungeons with different hardness settings, I think GW2 atleast changes the dungeons layouts and content (cannot be sure, as I did not like it enough to find out)...But if they just add 15/30/60% hp and damage and then they like to say, hey look this 1 dungeon that is the same layout/mobs is now 4 dungeons! I find this lazy and turns me off of a game that is creating 'content' in this manner, but that is just me.
That is just you. Who is counting different difficulty as different dungeons? In fact, the point is that you can choose the level you like (or may be "graduate" into the higher one later).
No one is asking devs to make fewer dungeons. We are asking them to put in difficulty options for every one.
So... We have these MMO's and all I ever hear people talk about is that they don't have feature X or feature Y. The game is too easy. The game is too hard.
Why don't MMO's have a difficulty slider or some kind of thing where you can put a checkmark beside the things you want your game to have? When you make a new character, go down the list:
Can I play, Daddy?:
Bring 'em on!:
I am Death incarnate!:
Seems to me this sort of thing should be in MMO's, pronto. And really, I don't know how you checking any of this would affect any other player's game.
With your system, they're locked in at character creation, a common bad design decision we have routinely accepted for years in MMOs. However, MMOs allow you to adjust the difficulty through the natural level system most have.
If you're level 20 and want easy, fight level 15. If you want hard, fight level 25. If you like really hard, go fight elites.
To go back to your suggestion of multiple rulesets:
That's far more doable in a game that isn't regualrly being balanced, updated and changed over time. The persistence and ongoing development of an MMO make for a nightmare to support what you suggest, although I am sure there are those here that will content it's just a matter of ticking a flag or changing a variable.
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
5. The Best solution I have heard thus far is to have these options set as server rules instead of individual character options. I agree. That would be a better way in which to handle something like that, and I did not think about that at the time. Mainly because I feel like that would be asking for too much.
Different server rules are definitely the way to go if you want sliders of any kind in an MMO environment. While something intermediate like sliders for individual dungeons can work for a while, you'll still run into the problem of people complaining that someone running a higher difficulty got something they wanted but wasn't available in the easier difficulty level they preferred. You really do need to have the entire environment built around the same expectations for everyone if you want to create a truly satisfactory experience. It's not an issue unique to MMOs, either; I've seen it a lot in pen and paper roleplaying groups where all it takes is one person who is unhappy with the overall views of the group to ruin everyone's fun, including their own. You can do intermediate steps like allowing for variety in dungeons or even the security status in EVE and still retain a single overall player base, but modern MMO design, with it's instant gratification goals, really do need at the very least separate servers, if not entirely separate games, in order to really accomplish what the sliders are intended to do.
To go back to your suggestion of multiple rulesets:
That's far more doable in a game that isn't regualrly being balanced, updated and changed over time. The persistence and ongoing development of an MMO make for a nightmare to support what you suggest, although I am sure there are those here that will content it's just a matter of ticking a flag or changing a variable.
Its challenging, certainly, but not undoable, and certainly easier than trying to push it down to an individual level. A game built with that kind of support in mind could do just fine; the base of the game could be built in such a way that would minimize the diffculties. A game that simply tried to slap it on at the very end of development, or even well after release would find a much harder time.
its Very difficult to do that on an mmo were everything is about equality and balance.
Blizzard and WoW have done that for the dungeons and raids.. :
for each mode they have different Loot Item Level Wise and for Raids lower/higher item level according to difficulty as well different Colors of the same item )
1) Looking For Dungeon (normal)
2) Looking For Dungeon (Heroic)
3) Looking For Raid (easier than Normal Raids with inferior Loot table item level wise/colors)
4) Normal Difficulty Raids (harder than LFR)
5) Heroic Difficulty Raids
And soon enough they gonna put in the next patch the new mode Flexible Raid. that mode is between Looking for Raid and normal Raid difficulty and Loot Item Level. That Raids doesnt need to have exactly 10 or 25 people..you can do it with less people and the difficulty raises or lowers depend of how many people you could have/find in your team.
That's far more doable in a game that isn't regualrly being balanced, updated and changed over time. The persistence and ongoing development of an MMO make for a nightmare to support what you suggest, although I am sure there are those here that will content it's just a matter of ticking a flag or changing a variable.
Exactly why it took so many years for Blizzard to get rid of their EQ-era Fixed Loot tables.
It is harder, and more demanding of the dev staff. And generally works better when your combat math is designed for it from the ground up. Dynamic is always harder than fixed.
But are we having a pity party for the poor poor devs again? Was it too too hard? Poor babies.
WoW was already behind the curve in terms of technology on the day it opened; because they cribbed basic systems from games that were turn-of-the-century, and took just heaps of hard-coded short cuts ('why can't we dye our armor again, Bliz?')
Given enough time, they've begun to make their own systems much more dynamic, and yes it is harder for them because they had to retro-fit their own original fixed designs.
Wasn't too hard, after all.
Originally posted by sodade21
its Very difficult to do that on an mmo were everything is about equality and balance.
Blizzard and WoW have done that for the dungeons and raids..
[clip]
And soon enough they gonna put in the next patch the new mode Flexible Raid. that mode is between Looking for Raid and normal Raid difficulty and Loot Item Level. That Raids doesnt need to have exactly 10 or 25 people..you can do it with less people and the difficulty raises or lowers depend of how many people you could have/find in your team.
And clearly it could've been a lot less work and a lot less time to reach that point.
Hopefully other dev teams are learning some little lessons here; might be worth taking the extra time early on. Begin with combat math that easily scales through your entire range of levels. And take a look at your looting system; prepare your critturs to drop better (or worse) loot in reaction to balance levels. Prepare for players within the same party receiving loot individually. Bosses clearly need much more thought than "just add more hp!"...do that thinking early.
---
It's really difficult to imagine a system as flexible in every way as the op suggests; there are always going to be some functional limits, some frontiers to push back. It might just be too adaptive (sandboxy?) for a low-budget dev team to pull off.
But there are some very good (and honestly some imo maybe bad) ideas emerging in dynamic mmo coding concepts recently.
---
I think your marketing guys can find a way to sell "rare loot weekends", right? Turn the master gear knob in the lead dev's office up two notches... or xp... or reputation... or gold... or...
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Originally posted by Gorwe Here is why narius(I'll use D III->MMO analogy because I know for a fact you love both):
In D III your survival depends on you and on you alone. You misclick/forget to click and bam! you're dead mister. That's fair enough. It also depends on which skills you took which is fair enough as well. In short: it depends on your ability to SURVIVE. Also: your Life is IN your control.
In a typical MMO your survival is always without exception tied to someone else. If that wasn't enough, the oneshots and stupidly balanced mobs(Herp it's for a group! Derp) are a plenty. This all leads to one conclussion and that conclussion is the style of play of MMOs: your survival depends on your ability to EXPLOIT stuff(be it stupid AI/OP team compositions or anything else). Also: your Life is OUT of your control.
That's why permadeath is a bad idea for an MMO.
Idk why I wrote about other stuff. Hardcore mode/permadeath is my specialisation so...yeah. Herp Derp I guess :P
"In D III your survival depends on you and on you alone" .. it is obviously NOT true. There is a MP mode, remember? In fact, that is why MP is less popular in HC (perma-death) because you depends on others. You do have a CHOICE of whether to depend on others in D3.
But that is the same in MMOs. You can solo. You can do a dungeon group. It is completely up to you. When you solo in a MMO like wow, others cannot really affect your survival much. In that regard, there is no difference between a MMO and D3.
Comments
You need to add one more ...
as options to instances.
The fact is people are in mood of different difficulties at different times. Server rules is the most inflexible, because you cannot change it at will.
Oh, there is one more idea. Use the maple story channel idea but with a difficult setting. So you can switch from a easy channel to a difficult one at will, while everyone at the same channel has the same difficulty.
That is just semantics. Personally i don't care what they are called. Genre labels don't determine fun, and i don't choose games based on that.
Secondly, it is just convenient that the industry refers to these games as MMOs. I doubt devs want the label very much. Just look at Destiny, Division, and even Marvel Heroes .. they are actively trying NOT to use the MMO label.
Permadeath is easy. If you die, you delete your character. End of story.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
The effect is identical though, you die, your character dies permanently. It's funny that so many perma-death people really want to impose it on other people. It's really about making everyone else play by their rules and not having the choice to play any particular way without impacting other people's fun.
That's why you don't find perma-death in most games.
And improving your character? Fine. Don't kill it. See if anyone cares. Make up your mind.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I said I agree in the type of mmo you seem to prefer, and the type I prefer, no. In a open world mmo without instances or very limited instances.
On a side note, I really dislike dungeons with different hardness settings, I think GW2 atleast changes the dungeons layouts and content (cannot be sure, as I did not like it enough to find out)...But if they just add 15/30/60% hp and damage and then they like to say, hey look this 1 dungeon that is the same layout/mobs is now 4 dungeons! I find this lazy and turns me off of a game that is creating 'content' in this manner, but that is just me.
I applaud this, I hope they come up with a label that becomes popular, so people on both sides know if something is supposed to be more traditional mmo, or more newer lobby type. Then people wouldn't need to argue the 'semantics', when these truly are different styles and for different tastes.
I've never bought in to the difficulty factor in games.
Hard = takes longer.
Even before MMO, PS1 games. Hard mode was what? Mob has twice the HP, I hit for half the damage, he hits for twice as much. It's multipliers. You beat the boss the same way, you may need to speed up the cycle and do it longer with no errors but the process never changes.
There is no hard in a video game.
Sorry for being a wet rag. It's just true.
Or just delete the game when you die ;P
I'm in favor of more difficulty if it was done with good AI or cleverly. Maybe instead of sliders you could have an easy server and a difficult server similar to what Path of Exile does.
Gaming since 1985; Online gaming since 1995; No End in Sight! My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8POVoJ8fdOseuJ4U1ZX-oA
City of Heroes/Villains had a difficulty slider in the game years ago. I used to group with a full 8-person group with friends and run everything at the highest difficulty setting because it made things more interesting.
Permadeath is easy. And it exists in every game. You die, you delete your character. No passing on loot to other charaters, no transferring money, or mounts, or housing or whatever. You die, log out to the character select screen, hit Delete, and voila! Done. Instant permadeath.
I think you're missing the point. Also, nothing you have said gives a reason why this sort of thing wouldn't work.
Here's my advice. In the event that something like this was created... if you don't like it - you don't have to click the option. That's the same logic pattern as saying, "Just delete your character."
The sort of argument you and a lot of people in this thread are using is like saying:
"We don't need HDR Bloom lighting when you can just put a foggy sheet of tracing paper over your computer monitor."
"We don't need crosshairs. Just put a black magic marker dot in the center of your screen."
"We don't need an auto-run feature. Just tape your W button down."
All of it is nonsense.
That is just you. Who is counting different difficulty as different dungeons? In fact, the point is that you can choose the level you like (or may be "graduate" into the higher one later).
No one is asking devs to make fewer dungeons. We are asking them to put in difficulty options for every one.
With your system, they're locked in at character creation, a common bad design decision we have routinely accepted for years in MMOs. However, MMOs allow you to adjust the difficulty through the natural level system most have.
If you're level 20 and want easy, fight level 15. If you want hard, fight level 25. If you like really hard, go fight elites.
To go back to your suggestion of multiple rulesets:
That's far more doable in a game that isn't regualrly being balanced, updated and changed over time. The persistence and ongoing development of an MMO make for a nightmare to support what you suggest, although I am sure there are those here that will content it's just a matter of ticking a flag or changing a variable.
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
Different server rules are definitely the way to go if you want sliders of any kind in an MMO environment. While something intermediate like sliders for individual dungeons can work for a while, you'll still run into the problem of people complaining that someone running a higher difficulty got something they wanted but wasn't available in the easier difficulty level they preferred. You really do need to have the entire environment built around the same expectations for everyone if you want to create a truly satisfactory experience. It's not an issue unique to MMOs, either; I've seen it a lot in pen and paper roleplaying groups where all it takes is one person who is unhappy with the overall views of the group to ruin everyone's fun, including their own. You can do intermediate steps like allowing for variety in dungeons or even the security status in EVE and still retain a single overall player base, but modern MMO design, with it's instant gratification goals, really do need at the very least separate servers, if not entirely separate games, in order to really accomplish what the sliders are intended to do.
Its challenging, certainly, but not undoable, and certainly easier than trying to push it down to an individual level. A game built with that kind of support in mind could do just fine; the base of the game could be built in such a way that would minimize the diffculties. A game that simply tried to slap it on at the very end of development, or even well after release would find a much harder time.
its Very difficult to do that on an mmo were everything is about equality and balance.
Blizzard and WoW have done that for the dungeons and raids.. :
for each mode they have different Loot Item Level Wise and for Raids lower/higher item level according to difficulty as well different Colors of the same item )
1) Looking For Dungeon (normal)
2) Looking For Dungeon (Heroic)
3) Looking For Raid (easier than Normal Raids with inferior Loot table item level wise/colors)
4) Normal Difficulty Raids (harder than LFR)
5) Heroic Difficulty Raids
And soon enough they gonna put in the next patch the new mode Flexible Raid. that mode is between Looking for Raid and normal Raid difficulty and Loot Item Level. That Raids doesnt need to have exactly 10 or 25 people..you can do it with less people and the difficulty raises or lowers depend of how many people you could have/find in your team.
Exactly why it took so many years for Blizzard to get rid of their EQ-era Fixed Loot tables.
It is harder, and more demanding of the dev staff. And generally works better when your combat math is designed for it from the ground up. Dynamic is always harder than fixed.
But are we having a pity party for the poor poor devs again? Was it too too hard? Poor babies.
WoW was already behind the curve in terms of technology on the day it opened; because they cribbed basic systems from games that were turn-of-the-century, and took just heaps of hard-coded short cuts ('why can't we dye our armor again, Bliz?')
Given enough time, they've begun to make their own systems much more dynamic, and yes it is harder for them because they had to retro-fit their own original fixed designs.
Wasn't too hard, after all.
And clearly it could've been a lot less work and a lot less time to reach that point.
Hopefully other dev teams are learning some little lessons here; might be worth taking the extra time early on. Begin with combat math that easily scales through your entire range of levels. And take a look at your looting system; prepare your critturs to drop better (or worse) loot in reaction to balance levels. Prepare for players within the same party receiving loot individually. Bosses clearly need much more thought than "just add more hp!"...do that thinking early.
---
It's really difficult to imagine a system as flexible in every way as the op suggests; there are always going to be some functional limits, some frontiers to push back. It might just be too adaptive (sandboxy?) for a low-budget dev team to pull off.
But there are some very good (and honestly some imo maybe bad) ideas emerging in dynamic mmo coding concepts recently.
---
I think your marketing guys can find a way to sell "rare loot weekends", right? Turn the master gear knob in the lead dev's office up two notches... or xp... or reputation... or gold... or...
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
"In D III your survival depends on you and on you alone" .. it is obviously NOT true. There is a MP mode, remember? In fact, that is why MP is less popular in HC (perma-death) because you depends on others. You do have a CHOICE of whether to depend on others in D3.
But that is the same in MMOs. You can solo. You can do a dungeon group. It is completely up to you. When you solo in a MMO like wow, others cannot really affect your survival much. In that regard, there is no difference between a MMO and D3.