basically, what I'm saying is that you lose something with sliders. A game set to a certain difficulty on a slider will not be as good as that same game designed specifically for that level of difficulty.
But why does that matter unless you're playing these games as a dick-waving contest? What difference does it make if you're playing at the same difficulty level as anyone else? About the only place it might make a difference is when grouping so you only allow people to group with people playing at the same level of difficulty. Problem solved.
Umm I don't think you understand the point...? It has nothing to do with dick-waving, it has to do with enjoying the game. If you enjoy a game that is of a certain difficulty, you would ideally want a game that is designed specifically for that difficulty level.
But I don't think you can justify that. If a game is designed to have variable difficulty and you get to choose which difficulty you want to play it at, how is that not enjoying the game? It only becomes an issue when you become concerned what other people around you are doing. Don't worry about it and just have a good time.
basically, what I'm saying is that you lose something with sliders. A game set to a certain difficulty on a slider will not be as good as that same game designed specifically for that level of difficulty.
But why does that matter unless you're playing these games as a dick-waving contest? What difference does it make if you're playing at the same difficulty level as anyone else? About the only place it might make a difference is when grouping so you only allow people to group with people playing at the same level of difficulty. Problem solved.
Umm I don't think you understand the point...? It has nothing to do with dick-waving, it has to do with enjoying the game. If you enjoy a game that is of a certain difficulty, you would ideally want a game that is designed specifically for that difficulty level.
But I don't think you can justify that. If a game is designed to have variable difficulty and you get to choose which difficulty you want to play it at, how is that not enjoying the game? It only becomes an issue when you become concerned what other people around you are doing. Don't worry about it and just have a good time.
Again, it has nothing to do with other people. People on this site seem to have some weird obsession with shutting down arrogant behavior, to the point of seeing it where it is indeed non-existant. I don't care if people know how difficult my preferred games are.
I'm not sure what else to say other than what I've already said. A game will be of lesser quality if it is possible to play it in different ways; at different difficulties. A team focusing their efforts on a game that can change based on that difficulty slider, will not be as good as if that company focused all of their efforts and resources on making a game for one specific difficulty. If a game can be set to a difficulty between 1 and 10, and you prefer it to be set at 8, you would be a happier camper if they just made the game as if it were only going to be played at that difficulty.
basically, what I'm saying is that you lose something with sliders. A game set to a certain difficulty on a slider will not be as good as that same game designed specifically for that level of difficulty.
But why does that matter unless you're playing these games as a dick-waving contest? What difference does it make if you're playing at the same difficulty level as anyone else? About the only place it might make a difference is when grouping so you only allow people to group with people playing at the same level of difficulty. Problem solved.
Umm I don't think you understand the point...? It has nothing to do with dick-waving, it has to do with enjoying the game. If you enjoy a game that is of a certain difficulty, you would ideally want a game that is designed specifically for that difficulty level.
But I don't think you can justify that. If a game is designed to have variable difficulty and you get to choose which difficulty you want to play it at, how is that not enjoying the game? It only becomes an issue when you become concerned what other people around you are doing. Don't worry about it and just have a good time.
For a lot of people I think competing with them for max level and getting certain in game items is what drives them forward. I was never the one who would be willing to do what it takes to win such a race, but it did drive me forward sometimes when I would have quit. Then again perhaps I was playing the game in the wrong manner anyway. A lot of times I wish I had just relaxed and enjoyed the journey more. At a certain point I felt the need to drive forward and try to level up. For people who are looking for that type of experience though MMOs of today will come up empty.
But I don't think you can justify that. If a game is designed to have variable difficulty and you get to choose which difficulty you want to play it at, how is that not enjoying the game? It only becomes an issue when you become concerned what other people around you are doing. Don't worry about it and just have a good time.
Again, it has nothing to do with other people. People on this site seem to have some weird obsession with shutting down arrogant behavior, to the point of seeing it where it is indeed non-existant. I don't care if people know how difficult my preferred games are.
I'm not sure what else to say other than what I've already said. A game will be of lesser quality if it is possible to play it in different ways; at different difficulties. A team focusing their efforts on a game that can change based on that difficulty slider, will not be as good as if that company focused all of their efforts and resources on making a game for one specific difficulty. If a game can be set to a difficulty between 1 and 10, and you prefer it to be set at 8, you would be a happier camper if they just made the game as if it were only going to be played at that difficulty.
Well, you've stated it and you're certainly welcome to your opinion but you haven't demonstrated that it's actually true. Quality is subjective, fun is subjective, entertainment is subjective, maybe your subjective feelings on these things isn't represented by the majority? Since most games don't use difficulty sliders, maybe that's not the mainstream position either.
Personally, I'd be a happy camper if the game was fun regardless of the difficulty setting. If I set it to 2 and it was fun and I set it to 8 and it was fun, what difference does anything else make?
Umm I don't think you understand the point...? It has nothing to do with dick-waving, it has to do with enjoying the game. If you enjoy a game that is of a certain difficulty, you would ideally want a game that is designed specifically for that difficulty level.
But I don't think you can justify that. If a game is designed to have variable difficulty and you get to choose which difficulty you want to play it at, how is that not enjoying the game? It only becomes an issue when you become concerned what other people around you are doing. Don't worry about it and just have a good time.
I don't think he understands. All this "a game that is designed specifically for that difficult level" is just a lot of empty talk. If a devs dont know what difficulty level i want, how is he going to do that? How is he going to do that for more than 1 person?
Difficult slider works. D3 is perfect calibrated for me .. and it is great fun to me. In fact, it is much more fun to me than every game that does not have a difficult slider. I doubt holophonist can claim he knows what is fun to me better than i do.
Difficulty slides suck - and so does Diablo III. With a bigger IP it sold less copies then Skyrim. Good game designers should be looking at Diablo III for what not to do..
Why do difficulty slides suck? Human nature. Human nature dictates that people crave efficiency. Thus they pick the path of least resistance. Thus you get ALOT of players playing at the lower levels even when they COULD raise their game and handle tougher content.
These same people get 'bored' and call your game 'too easy.' Unfair? A developer might think so - but it's what happens. The big problem is that unlike a single player game in an MMO you are competing with your guildmates, other players etc to get the best gear. In gear locked games that gear opens up new content and allows you to do the best things with your team.
The best approach is old school BC style WoW. No sliders - just different content for different players. A simple vertical progression works best. If your are awesome you play a lot and raid Sunwell. If you are not as good or as dedicated you raid less and do Kara. Everyone wins.
With sliders everyone loses. If you don't understand this - you don't understand human nature. While part of the human mind likes a challenge - another often larger part really enjoys getting things the most efficient way. Pretending the other half of the human mind doesn't exist is not good game design.
The downside of the BC system is you need to make more content - and you need to make sure it has progressive increases in difficulty - which require a lot more balancing. Thus you need to make sure heroics are a little harder then normal dungeons, and Kara is a little harder then an heroic and so on and so forth.
But I don't think you can justify that. If a game is designed to have variable difficulty and you get to choose which difficulty you want to play it at, how is that not enjoying the game? It only becomes an issue when you become concerned what other people around you are doing. Don't worry about it and just have a good time.
Again, it has nothing to do with other people. People on this site seem to have some weird obsession with shutting down arrogant behavior, to the point of seeing it where it is indeed non-existant. I don't care if people know how difficult my preferred games are.
I'm not sure what else to say other than what I've already said. A game will be of lesser quality if it is possible to play it in different ways; at different difficulties. A team focusing their efforts on a game that can change based on that difficulty slider, will not be as good as if that company focused all of their efforts and resources on making a game for one specific difficulty. If a game can be set to a difficulty between 1 and 10, and you prefer it to be set at 8, you would be a happier camper if they just made the game as if it were only going to be played at that difficulty.
Well, you've stated it and you're certainly welcome to your opinion but you haven't demonstrated that it's actually true. Quality is subjective, fun is subjective, entertainment is subjective, maybe your subjective feelings on these things isn't represented by the majority? Since most games don't use difficulty sliders, maybe that's not the mainstream position either.
Personally, I'd be a happy camper if the game was fun regardless of the difficulty setting. If I set it to 2 and it was fun and I set it to 8 and it was fun, what difference does anything else make?
It's intuitive. Look at Dark Souls, for example. Part of the difficulty is inherent in the game design. ie how many estus flask shards you can get, how many sublime bone dust, what items you have available to you, etc.
In order to believe that difficulty sliders are perfect, then you need to believe that NOTHING else besides what that slider controls determines how difficult the game is. You also have to believe that IF the developer was going to design the game as a certain level of difficulty, that they wouldn't change anything else besides what that difficulty slider changes: stats, attack modifiers, numbers of lives, etc.
Difficulty slides suck - and so does Diablo III. With a bigger IP it sold less copies then Skyrim. Good game designers should be looking at Diablo III for what not to do..
Lol .. selling 15M boxes is what not to do? I suppose no one should make FPS or RTS anymore?
Sucks for you .. you seem to have no control over the "least resistance thing". It works perfectly for many others. I suppose you want to dictate how games are designed?
You know the beauty of a difficulty slider .. everyone has a choice.
Umm I don't think you understand the point...? It has nothing to do with dick-waving, it has to do with enjoying the game. If you enjoy a game that is of a certain difficulty, you would ideally want a game that is designed specifically for that difficulty level.
But I don't think you can justify that. If a game is designed to have variable difficulty and you get to choose which difficulty you want to play it at, how is that not enjoying the game? It only becomes an issue when you become concerned what other people around you are doing. Don't worry about it and just have a good time.
I don't think he understands. All this "a game that is designed specifically for that difficult level" is just a lot of empty talk. If a devs dont know what difficulty level i want, how is he going to do that? How is he going to do that for more than 1 person?
Difficult slider works. D3 is perfect calibrated for me .. and it is great fun to me. In fact, it is much more fun to me than every game that does not have a difficult slider. I doubt holophonist can claim he knows what is fun to me better than i do.
I am sorry but it's empty talk to people who don't understand it.
This post just illustrates your ignorance on the subject. It has NOTHING to do with if a dev can guess what difficulty YOU want. The point is if YOU like a certain difficulty level, the game would be of higher quality if it were designed around JUST that difficulty level, and not an adjustable one. Similarly if somebody else comes along and wants a difficulty level different from you, they would benefit from a game that designed just for THEIR preferred level of difficulty. Do you see? By trying to please everybody, you're pleasing people less than if you targeted one specific audience, or in this case one specific level of difficulty.
I'm not trying to claim that I know what is fun to you.... what are you even talking about? I really wish people would have some more humility and not instantly jump to insults when they are the ones that don't understand what's being talked about. D3 in fact is NOT perfectly calibrated for you because it's not calibrated at all. That's the whole POINT of a difficulty slider lol. Whatever difficulty level you're playing at in a given moment, the game would be of higher quality if the devs made a game designed simply around THAT difficulty level.
You can make (and I have) a similar argument for the idea of separate pvp and pve servers for MMOs.
You know the beauty of a difficulty slider .. everyone has a choice.
And those choices are sub-optimal compared to what could be if the games were designed with a specific difficulty level in mind.
which is infeasible because no devs know the specific difficulty in mind for me.
If you cannot adapt to the difficulty of a game, you simply move on to one that better suits your skill level. It's worked just fine since the inception of gaming.
Never been a fan of difficulty sliders that artificially dilute a game's content. Part of the job for the devs is to find that sweet spot that makes things challenging for the average person, difficult for those less skilled, while still providing those at the higher end of the spectrum something that is at least mentally stimulating and not a yawnfest.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
If you cannot adapt to the difficulty of a game, you simply move on to one that better suits your skill level. It's worked just fine since the inception of gaming.
Now i don't have to do either .. a game adapt to me (or let me choose the right level). In fact, it is not even new. It works well in D3, and almost ALL SP games i have played. It is the norm now.
You know the beauty of a difficulty slider .. everyone has a choice.
And those choices are sub-optimal compared to what could be if the games were designed with a specific difficulty level in mind.
which is infeasible because no devs know the specific difficulty in mind for me.
What is... huh? Developers make games without difficulty sliders all the time. They're not making it for Narius, they're making it for people who want a game that happens to be that difficult. You pick and play the games that you like; the games that are the difficulty you like.
Why have MOGs gotten easier? Why is content no longer locked behind a wall of gear or team requirements? Dude, that's an easy question to answer.
Because people will not pay for a game when they know that there is a good chance they will never get to experience much of the high-end content. When people put down money for a movie ticket, they want to see the WHOLE movie, and when people put down money for a game, they want to see the WHOLE game. If they have the impression they will not get to do this, they will spend their money elsewhere, and in the game industry today, money talks.
Countless hours of dying and few players ever reaching really top level/gear
This MMO would be a niche, just like every other "old school" MMO people want. Rose tinted glasses and all that. Why do you think people flocked to WoW when it came out? Because it took so much of the crap out of MMOs that people seem nostalgic about now. Many MMO players only have a couple of hours a night to play because we grew up got jobs and had families. Why would anyone want to spend their precious gaming time dying only to never ever reach top level?
Countless hours of dying and few players ever reaching really top level/gear
This MMO would be a niche, just like every other "old school" MMO people want. Rose tinted glasses and all that. Why do you think people flocked to WoW when it came out? Because it took so much of the crap out of MMOs that people seem nostalgic about now. Many MMO players only have a couple of hours a night to play because we grew up got jobs and had families. Why would anyone want to spend their precious gaming time dying only to never ever reach top level?
Because playing the game doesn't have to be a carrot-on-a-stick rewards system? Because playing the game can be fun every step of the way?
But I don't think you can justify that. If a game is designed to have variable difficulty and you get to choose which difficulty you want to play it at, how is that not enjoying the game? It only becomes an issue when you become concerned what other people around you are doing. Don't worry about it and just have a good time.
Again, it has nothing to do with other people. People on this site seem to have some weird obsession with shutting down arrogant behavior, to the point of seeing it where it is indeed non-existant. I don't care if people know how difficult my preferred games are.
I'm not sure what else to say other than what I've already said. A game will be of lesser quality if it is possible to play it in different ways; at different difficulties. A team focusing their efforts on a game that can change based on that difficulty slider, will not be as good as if that company focused all of their efforts and resources on making a game for one specific difficulty. If a game can be set to a difficulty between 1 and 10, and you prefer it to be set at 8, you would be a happier camper if they just made the game as if it were only going to be played at that difficulty.
Well, you've stated it and you're certainly welcome to your opinion but you haven't demonstrated that it's actually true. Quality is subjective, fun is subjective, entertainment is subjective, maybe your subjective feelings on these things isn't represented by the majority? Since most games don't use difficulty sliders, maybe that's not the mainstream position either.
Personally, I'd be a happy camper if the game was fun regardless of the difficulty setting. If I set it to 2 and it was fun and I set it to 8 and it was fun, what difference does anything else make?
It's intuitive. Look at Dark Souls, for example. Part of the difficulty is inherent in the game design. ie how many estus flask shards you can get, how many sublime bone dust, what items you have available to you, etc.
In order to believe that difficulty sliders are perfect, then you need to believe that NOTHING else besides what that slider controls determines how difficult the game is. You also have to believe that IF the developer was going to design the game as a certain level of difficulty, that they wouldn't change anything else besides what that difficulty slider changes: stats, attack modifiers, numbers of lives, etc.
Dark Souls' difficulty is self-imposed. Some of the classes are significantly harder than others. Not to mention you can grind your way to power at any time without content scaling.
But you're not representing difficulty sliders fairly. If you look at Bioware's games (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Mass Effect trilogy) often the ruleset changes. For example, at one setting friendly fire might be off, while on another it could be half or full. AI crits might be turned on/off.
Often, in games, more mobs are placed in the map, abilities are unlocked, mob behavior is altered. Are you saying you have not encountered any of this? Surely you have, and you must have seen that it is not about altering stats only.
Again, if you are going to implement sliders badly then of course they will be bad.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
But I don't think you can justify that. If a game is designed to have variable difficulty and you get to choose which difficulty you want to play it at, how is that not enjoying the game? It only becomes an issue when you become concerned what other people around you are doing. Don't worry about it and just have a good time.
Again, it has nothing to do with other people. People on this site seem to have some weird obsession with shutting down arrogant behavior, to the point of seeing it where it is indeed non-existant. I don't care if people know how difficult my preferred games are.
I'm not sure what else to say other than what I've already said. A game will be of lesser quality if it is possible to play it in different ways; at different difficulties. A team focusing their efforts on a game that can change based on that difficulty slider, will not be as good as if that company focused all of their efforts and resources on making a game for one specific difficulty. If a game can be set to a difficulty between 1 and 10, and you prefer it to be set at 8, you would be a happier camper if they just made the game as if it were only going to be played at that difficulty.
Well, you've stated it and you're certainly welcome to your opinion but you haven't demonstrated that it's actually true. Quality is subjective, fun is subjective, entertainment is subjective, maybe your subjective feelings on these things isn't represented by the majority? Since most games don't use difficulty sliders, maybe that's not the mainstream position either.
Personally, I'd be a happy camper if the game was fun regardless of the difficulty setting. If I set it to 2 and it was fun and I set it to 8 and it was fun, what difference does anything else make?
It's intuitive. Look at Dark Souls, for example. Part of the difficulty is inherent in the game design. ie how many estus flask shards you can get, how many sublime bone dust, what items you have available to you, etc.
In order to believe that difficulty sliders are perfect, then you need to believe that NOTHING else besides what that slider controls determines how difficult the game is. You also have to believe that IF the developer was going to design the game as a certain level of difficulty, that they wouldn't change anything else besides what that difficulty slider changes: stats, attack modifiers, numbers of lives, etc.
Dark Souls' difficulty is self-imposed. Some of the classes are significantly harder than others. Not to mention you can grind your way to power at any time without content scaling.
But you're not representing difficulty sliders fairly. If you look at Bioware's games (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Mass Effect trilogy) often the ruleset changes. For example, at one setting friendly fire might be off, while on another it could be half or full. AI crits might be turned on/off.
Often, in games, more mobs are placed in the map, abilities are unlocked, mob behavior is altered. Are you saying you have not encountered any of this? Surely you have, and you must have seen that it is not about altering stats only.
Again, if you are going to implement sliders badly then of course they will be bad.
No.... I'm not saying I haven't encountered any of that. Are you saying that any game with a difficulty slider does so by changing the whole game design? Or all design changes that would occur if the developers made it specifically for that difficulty level? Naming a couple of design changes in games does not prove anything. What would prove it is if there was a slider that changed everything about the game design that pertains to difficulty. That includes a lot of things. And if it doesn't change those things, then the game is different from what it would be if they made it with one difficulty in mind.
Also, think about it, if they're focusing their efforts that much on a difficulty slider (where the game design itself changes with the slider), then that's wasted resources that could've been spent on just one difficulty.
EDIT: Also, dark souls' difficulty is not self-imposed. I guess maybe some of it is because there are some classes that are weaker than others, but that's true in basically any game ever. When looking at the difficulty of a game you obviously average those things out.
Difficulty slides suck - and so does Diablo III. With a bigger IP it sold less copies then Skyrim. Good game designers should be looking at Diablo III for what not to do..
Lol .. selling 15M boxes is what not to do? I suppose no one should make FPS or RTS anymore?
Sucks for you .. you seem to have no control over the "least resistance thing". It works perfectly for many others. I suppose you want to dictate how games are designed?
You know the beauty of a difficulty slider .. everyone has a choice.
It doesn't work for developers or customers in multi-player competitive settings. That's the issue. WoW tried it with their LFR - and that was an abysmal failure. They lost customers at a time where the number of potential players was rapidly increasing..
What happened is that LOTS of good players ended up doing LFR to complete sets or to just gear up their character. Why? Because it was the path of least resistance. But many of those players ended up greatly disliking the game.
Throw in a bunch of easy content that gets good rewards and players choose that EVERY SINGLE TIME. It doesn't matter how much it sucks. The path of least resistance is a well known MMO/MUD design problem that goes back even before the time of EQ.
The blizzard design paradigm is bankrupt. What works in single player games doesn't work in competitive MMOs and trust me games like WoW , ESO, Rift etc are all competitive..
Difficulty slides suck - and so does Diablo III. With a bigger IP it sold less copies then Skyrim. Good game designers should be looking at Diablo III for what not to do..
Lol .. selling 15M boxes is what not to do? I suppose no one should make FPS or RTS anymore?
Sucks for you .. you seem to have no control over the "least resistance thing". It works perfectly for many others. I suppose you want to dictate how games are designed?
You know the beauty of a difficulty slider .. everyone has a choice.
It doesn't work for developers or customers in multi-player competitive settings. That's the issue. WoW tried it with their LFR - and that was an abysmal failure. They lost customers at a time where the number of potential players was rapidly increasing..
What happened is that LOTS of good players ended up doing LFR to complete sets or to just gear up their character. Why? Because it was the path of least resistance. But many of those players ended up greatly disliking the game.
Throw in a bunch of easy content that gets good rewards and players choose that EVERY SINGLE TIME. It doesn't matter how much it sucks. The path of least resistance is a well known MMO/MUD design problem that goes back even before the time of EQ.
The blizzard design paradigm is bankrupt. What works in single player games doesn't work in competitive MMOs and trust me games like WoW , ESO, Rift etc are all competitive..
That's true. If older games had a path of less resistance like WoW I probably would have had less fun. At the time I wanted those things that caused resistance removed, but ended up realizing they were actually what made it rewarding. Most people will say it's nostalgia, but it isn't. I believe the biggest issue is there are to many games that offer a path of least resistance. If one game offers a path of resistance it doesn't matter because people will just go to the ones with less resistance leaving the one with resistance to fail (I am guessing indies) if they even know they exist at all. It was the same when EQ came out and a lot of people left Ultima Online because they didn't like PVP. Then it happened again with World of Warcraft when people no longer wanted long grinds, harsh death penalties, and having to rely on others.
Originally posted by GuyClinch Originally posted by nariusseldonOriginally posted by GuyClinchDifficulty slides suck - and so does Diablo III. With a bigger IP it sold less copies then Skyrim. Good game designers should be looking at Diablo III for what not to do..
Lol .. selling 15M boxes is what not to do? I suppose no one should make FPS or RTS anymore?Sucks for you .. you seem to have no control over the "least resistance thing". It works perfectly for many others. I suppose you want to dictate how games are designed?You know the beauty of a difficulty slider .. everyone has a choice.It doesn't work for developers or customers in multi-player competitive settings. That's the issue. WoW tried it with their LFR - and that was an abysmal failure. They lost customers at a time where the number of potential players was rapidly increasing..
What happened is that LOTS of good players ended up doing LFR to complete sets or to just gear up their character. Why? Because it was the path of least resistance. But many of those players ended up greatly disliking the game.
Throw in a bunch of easy content that gets good rewards and players choose that EVERY SINGLE TIME. It doesn't matter how much it sucks. The path of least resistance is a well known MMO/MUD design problem that goes back even before the time of EQ.
The blizzard design paradigm is bankrupt. What works in single player games doesn't work in competitive MMOs and trust me games like WoW , ESO, Rift etc are all competitive..
So much wrong with this.
LFR prevented WoW from having greater losses.
I mean, did you really think that WoW could grow infinitely? Thats ridiculous.
The players that were leaving in large numbers were casuals moving on to new and shinier games and LFR kept some of them engaged longer by giving them progression goals.
Yeah, maybe some of the hardcore players quit in a nerd rage over casuals being able to do raids but a huge majority stayed and simply complained about it.
Difficulty sliders do work in MMOs and LFR was a massive success.
I mean, did you really think that WoW could grow infinitely? Thats ridiculous.
Based on what. All we know is that LFR was added and they lost players.. Claiming they stemmed possible losses is just unsupported speculation. We could claim that pet battles or archaeology stemmed losses and that would be equally nonsensical. They went from a company growing their product every quarter to a company that was taking losses - and that was when they created more paths of least resistance.
The players that were leaving in large numbers were casuals moving on to new and shinier games and LFR kept some of them engaged longer by giving them progression goals.
And you base this on? Wait more unsupported speculation.. They LOST players - get over it.
Yeah, maybe some of the hardcore players quit in a nerd rage over casuals being able to do raids but a huge majority stayed and simply complained about it.
I won't call 2/3 a huge majority.
Difficulty sliders do work in MMOs and LFR was a massive success.
Blizzard implemented flex raiding to de-emphasize the cesspool that was LFR. The problem was that everyone ran LFR (Because it was the easiest way to get gear) But very few people LIKED it. Can you with a straight face tell me that facerolling in LFR was a fun experience for you? Really? If you do I don't believe you..
MMOs are supposed to be in the business of providing a fun experience - autoattacking 'bosses' for loot with a random bunch of strangers isn't fun - and the sub numbers show it.
Sliders don't work - again - BECAUSE people always pick the easiest level provided the rewards don't absolutely suck. Its all about risk reward - people choose the easiest path at expense of game play.
You know as well as I do if they eliminated the loot in LFR - NO ONE WOULD RUN IT. The content sucks and its a stupid feature in a MMO. Calling LFR raiding is like calling the zergs in GW2 'raids'. Its not and they aren't.
Dark Souls' difficulty is self-imposed. Some of the classes are significantly harder than others. Not to mention you can grind your way to power at any time without content scaling.
But you're not representing difficulty sliders fairly. If you look at Bioware's games (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Mass Effect trilogy) often the ruleset changes. For example, at one setting friendly fire might be off, while on another it could be half or full. AI crits might be turned on/off.
Often, in games, more mobs are placed in the map, abilities are unlocked, mob behavior is altered. Are you saying you have not encountered any of this? Surely you have, and you must have seen that it is not about altering stats only.
Again, if you are going to implement sliders badly then of course they will be bad.
No.... I'm not saying I haven't encountered any of that. Are you saying that any game with a difficulty slider does so by changing the whole game design? Or all design changes that would occur if the developers made it specifically for that difficulty level? Naming a couple of design changes in games does not prove anything. What would prove it is if there was a slider that changed everything about the game design that pertains to difficulty. That includes a lot of things. And if it doesn't change those things, then the game is different from what it would be if they made it with one difficulty in mind.
Also, think about it, if they're focusing their efforts that much on a difficulty slider (where the game design itself changes with the slider), then that's wasted resources that could've been spent on just one difficulty.
EDIT: Also, dark souls' difficulty is not self-imposed. I guess maybe some of it is because there are some classes that are weaker than others, but that's true in basically any game ever. When looking at the difficulty of a game you obviously average those things out.
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
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But I don't think you can justify that. If a game is designed to have variable difficulty and you get to choose which difficulty you want to play it at, how is that not enjoying the game? It only becomes an issue when you become concerned what other people around you are doing. Don't worry about it and just have a good time.
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Again, it has nothing to do with other people. People on this site seem to have some weird obsession with shutting down arrogant behavior, to the point of seeing it where it is indeed non-existant. I don't care if people know how difficult my preferred games are.
I'm not sure what else to say other than what I've already said. A game will be of lesser quality if it is possible to play it in different ways; at different difficulties. A team focusing their efforts on a game that can change based on that difficulty slider, will not be as good as if that company focused all of their efforts and resources on making a game for one specific difficulty. If a game can be set to a difficulty between 1 and 10, and you prefer it to be set at 8, you would be a happier camper if they just made the game as if it were only going to be played at that difficulty.
For a lot of people I think competing with them for max level and getting certain in game items is what drives them forward. I was never the one who would be willing to do what it takes to win such a race, but it did drive me forward sometimes when I would have quit. Then again perhaps I was playing the game in the wrong manner anyway. A lot of times I wish I had just relaxed and enjoyed the journey more. At a certain point I felt the need to drive forward and try to level up. For people who are looking for that type of experience though MMOs of today will come up empty.
Well, you've stated it and you're certainly welcome to your opinion but you haven't demonstrated that it's actually true. Quality is subjective, fun is subjective, entertainment is subjective, maybe your subjective feelings on these things isn't represented by the majority? Since most games don't use difficulty sliders, maybe that's not the mainstream position either.
Personally, I'd be a happy camper if the game was fun regardless of the difficulty setting. If I set it to 2 and it was fun and I set it to 8 and it was fun, what difference does anything else make?
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I don't think he understands. All this "a game that is designed specifically for that difficult level" is just a lot of empty talk. If a devs dont know what difficulty level i want, how is he going to do that? How is he going to do that for more than 1 person?
Difficult slider works. D3 is perfect calibrated for me .. and it is great fun to me. In fact, it is much more fun to me than every game that does not have a difficult slider. I doubt holophonist can claim he knows what is fun to me better than i do.
Difficulty slides suck - and so does Diablo III. With a bigger IP it sold less copies then Skyrim. Good game designers should be looking at Diablo III for what not to do..
Why do difficulty slides suck? Human nature. Human nature dictates that people crave efficiency. Thus they pick the path of least resistance. Thus you get ALOT of players playing at the lower levels even when they COULD raise their game and handle tougher content.
These same people get 'bored' and call your game 'too easy.' Unfair? A developer might think so - but it's what happens. The big problem is that unlike a single player game in an MMO you are competing with your guildmates, other players etc to get the best gear. In gear locked games that gear opens up new content and allows you to do the best things with your team.
The best approach is old school BC style WoW. No sliders - just different content for different players. A simple vertical progression works best. If your are awesome you play a lot and raid Sunwell. If you are not as good or as dedicated you raid less and do Kara. Everyone wins.
With sliders everyone loses. If you don't understand this - you don't understand human nature. While part of the human mind likes a challenge - another often larger part really enjoys getting things the most efficient way. Pretending the other half of the human mind doesn't exist is not good game design.
The downside of the BC system is you need to make more content - and you need to make sure it has progressive increases in difficulty - which require a lot more balancing. Thus you need to make sure heroics are a little harder then normal dungeons, and Kara is a little harder then an heroic and so on and so forth.
It's intuitive. Look at Dark Souls, for example. Part of the difficulty is inherent in the game design. ie how many estus flask shards you can get, how many sublime bone dust, what items you have available to you, etc.
In order to believe that difficulty sliders are perfect, then you need to believe that NOTHING else besides what that slider controls determines how difficult the game is. You also have to believe that IF the developer was going to design the game as a certain level of difficulty, that they wouldn't change anything else besides what that difficulty slider changes: stats, attack modifiers, numbers of lives, etc.
Lol .. selling 15M boxes is what not to do? I suppose no one should make FPS or RTS anymore?
Sucks for you .. you seem to have no control over the "least resistance thing". It works perfectly for many others. I suppose you want to dictate how games are designed?
You know the beauty of a difficulty slider .. everyone has a choice.
I am sorry but it's empty talk to people who don't understand it.
This post just illustrates your ignorance on the subject. It has NOTHING to do with if a dev can guess what difficulty YOU want. The point is if YOU like a certain difficulty level, the game would be of higher quality if it were designed around JUST that difficulty level, and not an adjustable one. Similarly if somebody else comes along and wants a difficulty level different from you, they would benefit from a game that designed just for THEIR preferred level of difficulty. Do you see? By trying to please everybody, you're pleasing people less than if you targeted one specific audience, or in this case one specific level of difficulty.
I'm not trying to claim that I know what is fun to you.... what are you even talking about? I really wish people would have some more humility and not instantly jump to insults when they are the ones that don't understand what's being talked about. D3 in fact is NOT perfectly calibrated for you because it's not calibrated at all. That's the whole POINT of a difficulty slider lol. Whatever difficulty level you're playing at in a given moment, the game would be of higher quality if the devs made a game designed simply around THAT difficulty level.
You can make (and I have) a similar argument for the idea of separate pvp and pve servers for MMOs.
And those choices are sub-optimal compared to what could be if the games were designed with a specific difficulty level in mind.
which is infeasible because no devs know the specific difficulty in mind for me.
If you cannot adapt to the difficulty of a game, you simply move on to one that better suits your skill level. It's worked just fine since the inception of gaming.
Never been a fan of difficulty sliders that artificially dilute a game's content. Part of the job for the devs is to find that sweet spot that makes things challenging for the average person, difficult for those less skilled, while still providing those at the higher end of the spectrum something that is at least mentally stimulating and not a yawnfest.
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Now i don't have to do either .. a game adapt to me (or let me choose the right level). In fact, it is not even new. It works well in D3, and almost ALL SP games i have played. It is the norm now.
What is... huh? Developers make games without difficulty sliders all the time. They're not making it for Narius, they're making it for people who want a game that happens to be that difficult. You pick and play the games that you like; the games that are the difficulty you like.
Why have MOGs gotten easier? Why is content no longer locked behind a wall of gear or team requirements? Dude, that's an easy question to answer.
Because people will not pay for a game when they know that there is a good chance they will never get to experience much of the high-end content. When people put down money for a movie ticket, they want to see the WHOLE movie, and when people put down money for a game, they want to see the WHOLE game. If they have the impression they will not get to do this, they will spend their money elsewhere, and in the game industry today, money talks.
This MMO would be a niche, just like every other "old school" MMO people want. Rose tinted glasses and all that. Why do you think people flocked to WoW when it came out? Because it took so much of the crap out of MMOs that people seem nostalgic about now. Many MMO players only have a couple of hours a night to play because we grew up got jobs and had families. Why would anyone want to spend their precious gaming time dying only to never ever reach top level?
Because playing the game doesn't have to be a carrot-on-a-stick rewards system? Because playing the game can be fun every step of the way?
Dark Souls' difficulty is self-imposed. Some of the classes are significantly harder than others. Not to mention you can grind your way to power at any time without content scaling.
But you're not representing difficulty sliders fairly. If you look at Bioware's games (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Mass Effect trilogy) often the ruleset changes. For example, at one setting friendly fire might be off, while on another it could be half or full. AI crits might be turned on/off.
Often, in games, more mobs are placed in the map, abilities are unlocked, mob behavior is altered. Are you saying you have not encountered any of this? Surely you have, and you must have seen that it is not about altering stats only.
Again, if you are going to implement sliders badly then of course they will be bad.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
No.... I'm not saying I haven't encountered any of that. Are you saying that any game with a difficulty slider does so by changing the whole game design? Or all design changes that would occur if the developers made it specifically for that difficulty level? Naming a couple of design changes in games does not prove anything. What would prove it is if there was a slider that changed everything about the game design that pertains to difficulty. That includes a lot of things. And if it doesn't change those things, then the game is different from what it would be if they made it with one difficulty in mind.
Also, think about it, if they're focusing their efforts that much on a difficulty slider (where the game design itself changes with the slider), then that's wasted resources that could've been spent on just one difficulty.
EDIT: Also, dark souls' difficulty is not self-imposed. I guess maybe some of it is because there are some classes that are weaker than others, but that's true in basically any game ever. When looking at the difficulty of a game you obviously average those things out.
It doesn't work for developers or customers in multi-player competitive settings. That's the issue. WoW tried it with their LFR - and that was an abysmal failure. They lost customers at a time where the number of potential players was rapidly increasing..
What happened is that LOTS of good players ended up doing LFR to complete sets or to just gear up their character. Why? Because it was the path of least resistance. But many of those players ended up greatly disliking the game.
Throw in a bunch of easy content that gets good rewards and players choose that EVERY SINGLE TIME. It doesn't matter how much it sucks. The path of least resistance is a well known MMO/MUD design problem that goes back even before the time of EQ.
The blizzard design paradigm is bankrupt. What works in single player games doesn't work in competitive MMOs and trust me games like WoW , ESO, Rift etc are all competitive..
That's true. If older games had a path of less resistance like WoW I probably would have had less fun. At the time I wanted those things that caused resistance removed, but ended up realizing they were actually what made it rewarding. Most people will say it's nostalgia, but it isn't. I believe the biggest issue is there are to many games that offer a path of least resistance. If one game offers a path of resistance it doesn't matter because people will just go to the ones with less resistance leaving the one with resistance to fail (I am guessing indies) if they even know they exist at all. It was the same when EQ came out and a lot of people left Ultima Online because they didn't like PVP. Then it happened again with World of Warcraft when people no longer wanted long grinds, harsh death penalties, and having to rely on others.
It doesn't work for developers or customers in multi-player competitive settings. That's the issue. WoW tried it with their LFR - and that was an abysmal failure. They lost customers at a time where the number of potential players was rapidly increasing..
What happened is that LOTS of good players ended up doing LFR to complete sets or to just gear up their character. Why? Because it was the path of least resistance. But many of those players ended up greatly disliking the game.
Throw in a bunch of easy content that gets good rewards and players choose that EVERY SINGLE TIME. It doesn't matter how much it sucks. The path of least resistance is a well known MMO/MUD design problem that goes back even before the time of EQ.
The blizzard design paradigm is bankrupt. What works in single player games doesn't work in competitive MMOs and trust me games like WoW , ESO, Rift etc are all competitive..
So much wrong with this.
LFR prevented WoW from having greater losses.
I mean, did you really think that WoW could grow infinitely? Thats ridiculous.
The players that were leaving in large numbers were casuals moving on to new and shinier games and LFR kept some of them engaged longer by giving them progression goals.
Yeah, maybe some of the hardcore players quit in a nerd rage over casuals being able to do raids but a huge majority stayed and simply complained about it.
Difficulty sliders do work in MMOs and LFR was a massive success.
Based on what. All we know is that LFR was added and they lost players.. Claiming they stemmed possible losses is just unsupported speculation. We could claim that pet battles or archaeology stemmed losses and that would be equally nonsensical. They went from a company growing their product every quarter to a company that was taking losses - and that was when they created more paths of least resistance.
And you base this on? Wait more unsupported speculation.. They LOST players - get over it.
I won't call 2/3 a huge majority.
Blizzard implemented flex raiding to de-emphasize the cesspool that was LFR. The problem was that everyone ran LFR (Because it was the easiest way to get gear) But very few people LIKED it. Can you with a straight face tell me that facerolling in LFR was a fun experience for you? Really? If you do I don't believe you..
MMOs are supposed to be in the business of providing a fun experience - autoattacking 'bosses' for loot with a random bunch of strangers isn't fun - and the sub numbers show it.
Sliders don't work - again - BECAUSE people always pick the easiest level provided the rewards don't absolutely suck. Its all about risk reward - people choose the easiest path at expense of game play.
You know as well as I do if they eliminated the loot in LFR - NO ONE WOULD RUN IT. The content sucks and its a stupid feature in a MMO. Calling LFR raiding is like calling the zergs in GW2 'raids'. Its not and they aren't.
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky