WildStar proved the no one liked "hard"content either...
You thought WildStar was hard? In beta I solo'd to about 20 before I just gave up on that buggy heap and I found it to be entirely simple (I don't think I died once in those 20 levels of soloing) and really linear (run to camp of quests, run to next camp of quests)..
So you pretty much got out of the tutorial(aka 1-20) and then stopped playing... =P
Any way... My point still stand as a counter to the OP seeing how Carbine is re-structuring WS to be... well... Easier to get in too. And they are reworking the 40-man raid system... Seems nobody wanted that either (sorry Vanilla WoW).
Did i think WildStar was hard... Well the leveling was pretty easy.. but... Newsflash... That is the idea... Getting to max level is not a goal in of it self any more. I found the raiding to be over-designed and to hard for most people, creating a divider where the only people who cared to raid was the ones that was "really" serious... Creating a very unhealthy community.
WildStar proved the no one liked "hard"content either...
You thought WildStar was hard? In beta I solo'd to about 20 before I just gave up on that buggy heap and I found it to be entirely simple (I don't think I died once in those 20 levels of soloing) and really linear (run to camp of quests, run to next camp of quests)..
So you pretty much got out of the tutorial(aka 1-20) and then stopped playing... =P
Any way... My point still stand as a counter to the OP seeing how Carbine is re-structuring WS to be... well... Easier to get in too. And they are reworking the 40-man raid system... Seems nobody wanted that either (sorry Vanilla WoW).
Did i think WildStar was hard... Well the leveling was pretty easy.. but... Newsflash... That is the idea... Getting to max level is not a goal in of it self any more. I found the raiding to be over-designed and to hard for most people, creating a divider where the only people who cared to raid was the ones that was "really" serious... Creating a very unhealthy community.
I loved my time in 40 man raiding back in the day and I would have loved a game with 40 man raiding but gearing up a character that looks like they're straight out of a Loony Tunes cartoon takes away 95% of the joy for me and I've had enough linear quest grinding for one lifetime.
I seriously think they had no real understanding of their demographic. It's like they designed a game to cater perfectly too ultra-casuals until you get to endgame where they tacked on super-hardcore raiding. I feel like the vast majority of people who would enjoy getting to max level in WIldstar would not in turn enjoy 40 person raiding so it's hard to see what future that game ever had.
looking at 40man vanilla WoW, most early fights had only very few abilities.
Patchwerk or Loateb were challenging fights but not mechanically.
Mechanically challenging fights like C'thun / 4H were extremely rare.
When think back to the amount of hours I spent wiping to a boss that was basically a dispel check...
What really set vanilla raiding part from other expansions is that it was much longer than any of the expansions and there was no real catch-up gear (well, maybe AQ20) Three years into vanilla new raid groups basically had to start at Molten Core and most of what they got was an upgrade, in today's terms that would be like the final raid of Cataclysm being the entry tier.
I don't think there are many people asking for easy :
- Little Johnnies mother is not making a phone call to developers asking to make mmos easy so her son can play !
- No one is asking for purely liner either.
- I don't even think ANYONE is asking for cash shops except people trying to play totally for free.
The point of all three issues are WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF BAD MARKETING.....This is pretty much only in the mmo industry !
This is why mmos suck !.....We are not in control of what we like. Were told !
I think a bit of a reality check is in order:
1) The data shows contrary to what you think. In every game I've seen data for, roughly ~10-20% (or less) of a game's population partakes in it's most difficult content. MMOs aren't really that difficult to begin with, so that should tell you something right there.
Now, you may be thinking 'well I know 100 people on an internet forum that also don't want easy content!' and you may even be telling the truth. But let's do some math on that one. Nearly all MMOs have at least a thousand player, most having populations in the 10s or 100s of thousands. Take some of the more well known ones that have around 2-300k players, and you're talking about a population of around 3-6000 that likes the harder content. That is a lot of people, but it's still a small fraction of the total playerbase.
Have harder games become more popular? Absolutely. But the number of people who play video games has also grown substantially since the first / second generation of games.
2) Cash shops would not exist if they didn't make money. Cash shops cost the studios money to run them, to maintain them, and to handle potential issues such as faulty transactions. They wouldn't even bother making a cash shop if it haasn't been proven to be very profitable.
3) You were NEVER in control. The only way you have control over something is if you do it yourself. You want control over a game, create one yourself. The reality is much different than how you imagine it to be.
Don't confuse a lack of control with a lack of choice, though. You can still choose what you yourself buy into, what you play, and what you don't. You may not be able to sway others opinions, but you have complete control over your own.
Fights should be just about hard enough that it will take a few tries to kill woth some skull that's fun. Have to spend 12 hours a week attempting the same fight over and over and over until everyone has sunk the entire fight into muscle memory is a treadmill.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Why is LOTRO made crazy easy ?..........To stimulate everyone to buy expansions and spend in the cash shop.
Why is WoW made crazy easy ?.............See above.
NOT BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE ASKING FOR IT !
My time is limited as of the last year. I'm playing Shadow of Mordor. For me starting out if was frustrating hard, I would go to bed pissed off ( but loved it )......Eventually the game balanced out, then Eventually turned too easy....It's not as fun anymore, I could go through bosses like water.
I don't think there are many people asking for easy :
- Little Johnnies mother is not making a phone call to developers asking to make mmos easy so her son can play !
- No one is asking for purely liner either.
- I don't even think ANYONE is asking for cash shops except people trying to play totally for free.
The point of all three issues are WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF BAD MARKETING.....This is pretty much only in the mmo industry !
This is why mmos suck !.....We are not in control of what we like. Were told !
I think a bit of a reality check is in order:
1) The data shows contrary to what you think. In every game I've seen data for, roughly ~10-20% (or less) of a game's population partakes in it's most difficult content. MMOs aren't really that difficult to begin with, so that should tell you something right there.
Now, you may be thinking 'well I know 100 people on an internet forum that also don't want easy content!' and you may even be telling the truth. But let's do some math on that one. Nearly all MMOs have at least a thousand player, most having populations in the 10s or 100s of thousands. Take some of the more well known ones that have around 2-300k players, and you're talking about a population of around 3-6000 that likes the harder content. That is a lot of people, but it's still a small fraction of the total playerbase.
Have harder games become more popular? Absolutely. But the number of people who play video games has also grown substantially since the first / second generation of games.
2) Cash shops would not exist if they didn't make money. Cash shops cost the studios money to run them, to maintain them, and to handle potential issues such as faulty transactions. They wouldn't even bother making a cash shop if it haasn't been proven to be very profitable.
3) You were NEVER in control. The only way you have control over something is if you do it yourself. You want control over a game, create one yourself. The reality is much different than how you imagine it to be.
Don't confuse a lack of control with a lack of choice, though. You can still choose what you yourself buy into, what you play, and what you don't. You may not be able to sway others opinions, but you have complete control over your own.
I agree with your "reality check"
But..The real question is how do we get out of this mousewheel, how do we get the "easycrowd" to change attitude towards harder gaming in general ?
Or is it to late for a "really hard game " to ever become popular ? By popular I mean AAA popular !
I don't think there are many people asking for easy :
- Little Johnnies mother is not making a phone call to developers asking to make mmos easy so her son can play !
- No one is asking for purely liner either.
- I don't even think ANYONE is asking for cash shops except people trying to play totally for free.
The point of all three issues are WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF BAD MARKETING.....This is pretty much only in the mmo industry !
This is why mmos suck !.....We are not in control of what we like. Were told !
I think a bit of a reality check is in order:
1) The data shows contrary to what you think. In every game I've seen data for, roughly ~10-20% (or less) of a game's population partakes in it's most difficult content. MMOs aren't really that difficult to begin with, so that should tell you something right there.
Now, you may be thinking 'well I know 100 people on an internet forum that also don't want easy content!' and you may even be telling the truth. But let's do some math on that one. Nearly all MMOs have at least a thousand player, most having populations in the 10s or 100s of thousands. Take some of the more well known ones that have around 2-300k players, and you're talking about a population of around 3-6000 that likes the harder content. That is a lot of people, but it's still a small fraction of the total playerbase.
Have harder games become more popular? Absolutely. But the number of people who play video games has also grown substantially since the first / second generation of games.
2) Cash shops would not exist if they didn't make money. Cash shops cost the studios money to run them, to maintain them, and to handle potential issues such as faulty transactions. They wouldn't even bother making a cash shop if it haasn't been proven to be very profitable.
3) You were NEVER in control. The only way you have control over something is if you do it yourself. You want control over a game, create one yourself. The reality is much different than how you imagine it to be.
Don't confuse a lack of control with a lack of choice, though. You can still choose what you yourself buy into, what you play, and what you don't. You may not be able to sway others opinions, but you have complete control over your own.
I agree with your "reality check"
But..The real question is how do we get out of this mousewheel, how do we get the "easycrowd" to change attitude towards harder gaming in general ?
Or is it to late for a "really hard game " to ever become popular ? By popular I mean AAA popular !
Good luck with that, when you figure out an answer youll be richest man alive (because mind control can be very lucrative business). Until then youre stuck with games that can fiancilly sustain themselves unless you dish out money to make/run one yourself.
I don't think there are many people asking for easy :
- Little Johnnies mother is not making a phone call to developers asking to make mmos easy so her son can play !
- No one is asking for purely liner either.
- I don't even think ANYONE is asking for cash shops except people trying to play totally for free.
The point of all three issues are WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF BAD MARKETING.....This is pretty much only in the mmo industry !
This is why mmos suck !.....We are not in control of what we like. Were told !
I think a bit of a reality check is in order:
1) The data shows contrary to what you think. In every game I've seen data for, roughly ~10-20% (or less) of a game's population partakes in it's most difficult content. MMOs aren't really that difficult to begin with, so that should tell you something right there.
Now, you may be thinking 'well I know 100 people on an internet forum that also don't want easy content!' and you may even be telling the truth. But let's do some math on that one. Nearly all MMOs have at least a thousand player, most having populations in the 10s or 100s of thousands. Take some of the more well known ones that have around 2-300k players, and you're talking about a population of around 3-6000 that likes the harder content. That is a lot of people, but it's still a small fraction of the total playerbase.
Have harder games become more popular? Absolutely. But the number of people who play video games has also grown substantially since the first / second generation of games.
2) Cash shops would not exist if they didn't make money. Cash shops cost the studios money to run them, to maintain them, and to handle potential issues such as faulty transactions. They wouldn't even bother making a cash shop if it haasn't been proven to be very profitable.
3) You were NEVER in control. The only way you have control over something is if you do it yourself. You want control over a game, create one yourself. The reality is much different than how you imagine it to be.
Don't confuse a lack of control with a lack of choice, though. You can still choose what you yourself buy into, what you play, and what you don't. You may not be able to sway others opinions, but you have complete control over your own.
I agree with your "reality check"
But..The real question is how do we get out of this mousewheel, how do we get the "easycrowd" to change attitude towards harder gaming in general ?
Or is it to late for a "really hard game " to ever become popular ? By popular I mean AAA popular !
MMO's have never been really hard to begin with like asesperus mentioned. The only time they are is during PvP but you can say that about any game.
Plenty of single player AAA hard games, a lot by Paradox Interactive and quite a few turn based games.
Originally posted by Ludwik "No child left behind"
What we thought it meant: Better education and after school activities for all kids.
What it actually meant: Testing so easy a chimp could pass them.
LOL, this,
Seeing what they teach my kid's in school makes me shake my head in disbelief. It's true. No child is left behind.......because no child is allowed to progress.
But yes, it does seem this mentality has invaded many other areas of life as well.
Catchy populist slogans usually end up being far more complicated and expensive to implement than anyone could have imagined.
That's why it's much easier to redefine the concept of "being in front", as opposed to ensuring that nobody is "left behind"...
I don't think there are many people asking for easy :
- Little Johnnies mother is not making a phone call to developers asking to make mmos easy so her son can play !
- No one is asking for purely liner either.
- I don't even think ANYONE is asking for cash shops except people trying to play totally for free.
The point of all three issues are WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF BAD MARKETING.....This is pretty much only in the mmo industry !
This is why mmos suck !.....We are not in control of what we like. Were told !
I think a bit of a reality check is in order:
1) The data shows contrary to what you think. In every game I've seen data for, roughly ~10-20% (or less) of a game's population partakes in it's most difficult content. MMOs aren't really that difficult to begin with, so that should tell you something right there.
Now, you may be thinking 'well I know 100 people on an internet forum that also don't want easy content!' and you may even be telling the truth. But let's do some math on that one. Nearly all MMOs have at least a thousand player, most having populations in the 10s or 100s of thousands. Take some of the more well known ones that have around 2-300k players, and you're talking about a population of around 3-6000 that likes the harder content. That is a lot of people, but it's still a small fraction of the total playerbase.
Have harder games become more popular? Absolutely. But the number of people who play video games has also grown substantially since the first / second generation of games.
2) Cash shops would not exist if they didn't make money. Cash shops cost the studios money to run them, to maintain them, and to handle potential issues such as faulty transactions. They wouldn't even bother making a cash shop if it haasn't been proven to be very profitable.
3) You were NEVER in control. The only way you have control over something is if you do it yourself. You want control over a game, create one yourself. The reality is much different than how you imagine it to be.
Don't confuse a lack of control with a lack of choice, though. You can still choose what you yourself buy into, what you play, and what you don't. You may not be able to sway others opinions, but you have complete control over your own.
I agree with your "reality check"
But..The real question is how do we get out of this mousewheel, how do we get the "easycrowd" to change attitude towards harder gaming in general ?
Or is it to late for a "really hard game " to ever become popular ? By popular I mean AAA popular !
MMO's have never been really hard to begin with like asesperus mentioned. The only time they are is during PvP but you can say that about any game.
Plenty of single player AAA hard games, a lot by Paradox Interactive and quite a few turn based games.
The hardest thing in MMOs was overcoming all extreme time sinks. Otherwise theyre not hard or complex (unless you delve in SKILL based PvP) which very very few have to start with. In fact, they are very simplistic games.
WildStar proved the no one liked "hard"content either... So what is the smartest way to go...
WildStar was hard?
I solo'd Blazewing with ease. An open world raid boss, since there was really a lack of players to do much else.
The appeal to WildStar was certainly not its "hard" content.
??
Appeal to WS was supposed to be super hard(core) PvE endgame.
The problem is not been too hard or too easy, it is the fact that people think differently now when it comes to how they spend there money. In the old days we knew it would take a long time to reach end game, that you could not solo 10 or 12 mobs at a time, etc. So leveling was taking a very long time but at least you had a reason to play a character and was feeling a sense of accomplishment when you had reach the max level. Up to a point where starting a new character was a big issue and had to think twice before doing it.
Fast forward to 2015, now it is trivial to make characters, people think also that paying 15$ a month is to make as much characters as they can and must also have it gear etc before there next sub is up. Otherwise for them they did not max there sub that month. The thing is that they keep requesting more and more end game content in every mmorpg but they don't realize that the journey to get there is what makes the game fun.
Even if they where to change the way we level up or gain xp they will still complain the game is boring. Even if they would take away levels they would still complain because they are used to the fact of getting everything for free or easy. They don't know what challenge means. It always was about making it hard to level up, kill mobs, having a challenge to get to end game and even at end game making it hard to be successful, That is what games are suppose to be, not trivial.
Remember when we use to play mario or other platform games on the nes and super nes, sometimes we would die 2 or 3 times on certain levels and get mad about it because we where aware we could do it but for a reason or not at that time we had a hard time doing it. Well that is what made it fun. Not blasting true it like if it was trivial.
If the game has other content that keeps me interested, I'll continue playing anyway.
Most importantly that would be story.
For example, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is very easy, more often than not, but it has great storytelling, which makes me enjoy the experience.
I would also like to point out that extremely easy is bad, but extremely hard is worse. I was not happy at all when I finally got my Griffon in Vanguard. Akande was INSANE. I spent WEEKS trying to kill that dude again and again. In the end I was just endlessly frustrated with that boss.
About free to play: I never played any of the pure free to play games. You're free to play only - I'm not interested.
Obviously, playing Vanguard, I was forced by SOE into the freemium, but I still was paying my regular fee and never spent any additional cash on the game.
It seems to me that other than WoW and EVE, all MMOs have a free to play option nowadays.
WildStar proved the no one liked "hard"content either... So what is the smartest way to go...
WildStar was hard?
I solo'd Blazewing with ease. An open world raid boss, since there was really a lack of players to do much else.
The appeal to WildStar was certainly not its "hard" content.
??
Appeal to WS was supposed to be super hard(core) PvE endgame.
The problem is not been too hard or too easy, it is the fact that people think differently now when it comes to how they spend there money. In the old days we knew it would take a long time to reach end game, that you could not solo 10 or 12 mobs at a time, etc. So leveling was taking a very long time but at least you had a reason to play a character and was feeling a sense of accomplishment when you had reach the max level. Up to a point where starting a new character was a big issue and had to think twice before doing it.
Fast forward to 2015, now it is trivial to make characters, people think also that paying 15$ a month is to make as much characters as they can and must also have it gear etc before there next sub is up. Otherwise for them they did not max there sub that month. The thing is that they keep requesting more and more end game content in every mmorpg but they don't realize that the journey to get there is what makes the game fun.
Even if they where to change the way we level up or gain xp they will still complain the game is boring. Even if they would take away levels they would still complain because they are used to the fact of getting everything for free or easy. They don't know what challenge means. It always was about making it hard to level up, kill mobs, having a challenge to get to end game and even at end game making it hard to be successful, That is what games are suppose to be, not trivial.
Remember when we use to play mario or other platform games on the nes and super nes, sometimes we would die 2 or 3 times on certain levels and get mad about it because we where aware we could do it but for a reason or not at that time we had a hard time doing it. Well that is what made it fun. Not blasting true it like if it was trivial.
Sorry, but you just dont understand how time sinks worked.
Just your Mario example - nowhere in that game were you forced to repeat same level hundreds, even thousands of times successfuly before you can move on to next level
If you were, it would have had same fate as other games you mention.
there was nothing really difficult in those gams, the biggest "difficulty" was extreme amount of time repeating exactly same basic simple actions. If you mastered killing wolves (lets say it took you 10-20) you dont need to kill another 10000000 just because of some counter up there in your upper left corner says you cant move on.
And yes, we did perfect both - standing in one spot+pulling or running farming stuff. Thats all there was to it, really.
Reaching the cap was just matter of putting extreme amount of time into it. Difficult. Sorry, nope.
A large portion of human like simple answers, even to the point of purposely avoiding obvious truths. They will intuitively create strawmen in their own minds to make things as neat and tidy as possible. This is the heart of all political "discourse". And most humans behave in a political manner whether they realize it or not.
WildStar proved the no one liked "hard"content either... So what is the smartest way to go...
WildStar was hard?
I solo'd Blazewing with ease. An open world raid boss, since there was really a lack of players to do much else.
The appeal to WildStar was certainly not its "hard" content.
??
Appeal to WS was supposed to be super hard(core) PvE endgame.
The problem is not been too hard or too easy, it is the fact that people think differently now when it comes to how they spend there money. In the old days we knew it would take a long time to reach end game, that you could not solo 10 or 12 mobs at a time, etc. So leveling was taking a very long time but at least you had a reason to play a character and was feeling a sense of accomplishment when you had reach the max level. Up to a point where starting a new character was a big issue and had to think twice before doing it.
Fast forward to 2015, now it is trivial to make characters, people think also that paying 15$ a month is to make as much characters as they can and must also have it gear etc before there next sub is up. Otherwise for them they did not max there sub that month. The thing is that they keep requesting more and more end game content in every mmorpg but they don't realize that the journey to get there is what makes the game fun.
Even if they where to change the way we level up or gain xp they will still complain the game is boring. Even if they would take away levels they would still complain because they are used to the fact of getting everything for free or easy. They don't know what challenge means. It always was about making it hard to level up, kill mobs, having a challenge to get to end game and even at end game making it hard to be successful, That is what games are suppose to be, not trivial.
Remember when we use to play mario or other platform games on the nes and super nes, sometimes we would die 2 or 3 times on certain levels and get mad about it because we where aware we could do it but for a reason or not at that time we had a hard time doing it. Well that is what made it fun. Not blasting true it like if it was trivial.
This is a fairly good example. If you played Mario on the NES you couldn't progress if you sucked. You had a finite amount of lives. If you didn't finish the game before running out you would have to start back at the beginning again. That means you had to be good at the game to progress and beat it. I can only speak for UO and EQ, but both had steep death penalties that would keep you from progressing if you kept dying. In UO you would lose all your equipment and some stats. In EQ you would loose a lot of experience and potentially your equipment. Basically you had to have a success rate in terms of killing things that was pretty high because you lost more experience from dying then you would from a few hours of killing. It may be a time sink, but it's also a mechanism to prevent you from advancing if you can't find a way to succeed more often then not. Dark Souls would be the closest I've seen to this in recent times.
WildStar proved the no one liked "hard"content either... So what is the smartest way to go...
My bet is with what ever appeases the biggest group. And that my angry and slightly delusional OP is... The casual player with a decent chunk of disposable income that is not ashamed of buying his/her way past not having as much time anymorr between family, work and other commitments.
In my mind WoW has done this the best with WoD. There is a ton of casual content for the "average" user and then you have mythic raiding and challenge modes for the really hard-core people. Now would you find mythic raiding easy... Well son/daughter... Be proud to be part of about 0.1% of the MMO market.
I love the "Wildstar proof" bullarky comments. Wildstar proved that the Action combat folks do not like hard content. Hard content is a Traditional combat folks kind of thing. Same thing goes for real MMORPGs with depth, etc etc...
Meeeeeeehhhhhhh, I'd be careful how you frame that response. I think it's widely accepted that less than 5% of guilds finish heroic content in WoW, and that's been the case since I can even remember. That's not even the individual, we're talking about 5% of guilds. I'd expect the population number to be lower than that, only because most guilds are larger and have a set raid group.
That being said, there's nothing wrong with difficult content, but to think that's it's something that's coveted by many is not at all accurate. Not saying easy content is either, but there isn't an outcry wanting punishing content.
Originally posted by kitarad I cannot stand reality TV but it's on all the time because large number of people watch it. I was so sad when shows done by Aaron Sorkin or good Sci Fi like Farscape get cancelled so they can put more reality TV on. This is just like now the games we like do not get made because people are spending their money on games I do not like. I just have to adapt I guess.
This is way worse, you can still tune in to "Game of thrones" and similar shows but here it is just "Big brother" and similar stuff on every channel.
I mean, I have zero problem with easy linear games, the problem is that there are no alternatives anymore, particularly with MMOs.
Time to make "Megaman Online" with classic difficulty.
The problem with difficult content ( WoW heroic raiding or wildstar raiding, as they were mentionned in this thread) isn't so much the difficulty of the actual content, but the lack of learning curve.
In wow, you can go from 1 to max level with a hand tied in your back, picking your nose with the other. Seriously, you need to go out of your way and try extra-hard to die while level'ing up in WoW, even if your gear is horrible, even if you don't know about your rotation, even if you don't use 50% of your character abilities.
Then you jump in group content... slightly more difficult but they are still designed to be doable by anyone on their first try ( or 2nd try for the hardest bosses). LFR isn't any better.
however, when you jump in normal mode raiding ( or heroic raiding some would say), you are expected to know all your rotation by hearth, be geared appropriatly, interrupt/crowd control/stuff like a champ, dodge fire / follow mechanics like a champ...
it's not a learning curve, it's a learning cliff.
of course, you have veteran gamers who mastered all the basic... but for the new guys just joining the gaming crowd... it's near-impossible to overcome that cliff, and there's nothing in-game to teach them how to do it.
Comments
So you pretty much got out of the tutorial(aka 1-20) and then stopped playing... =P
Any way... My point still stand as a counter to the OP seeing how Carbine is re-structuring WS to be... well... Easier to get in too. And they are reworking the 40-man raid system... Seems nobody wanted that either (sorry Vanilla WoW).
Did i think WildStar was hard... Well the leveling was pretty easy.. but... Newsflash... That is the idea... Getting to max level is not a goal in of it self any more. I found the raiding to be over-designed and to hard for most people, creating a divider where the only people who cared to raid was the ones that was "really" serious... Creating a very unhealthy community.
This have been a good conversation
I loved my time in 40 man raiding back in the day and I would have loved a game with 40 man raiding but gearing up a character that looks like they're straight out of a Loony Tunes cartoon takes away 95% of the joy for me and I've had enough linear quest grinding for one lifetime.
I seriously think they had no real understanding of their demographic. It's like they designed a game to cater perfectly too ultra-casuals until you get to endgame where they tacked on super-hardcore raiding. I feel like the vast majority of people who would enjoy getting to max level in WIldstar would not in turn enjoy 40 person raiding so it's hard to see what future that game ever had.
When think back to the amount of hours I spent wiping to a boss that was basically a dispel check...
What really set vanilla raiding part from other expansions is that it was much longer than any of the expansions and there was no real catch-up gear (well, maybe AQ20) Three years into vanilla new raid groups basically had to start at Molten Core and most of what they got was an upgrade, in today's terms that would be like the final raid of Cataclysm being the entry tier.
I think a bit of a reality check is in order:
1) The data shows contrary to what you think. In every game I've seen data for, roughly ~10-20% (or less) of a game's population partakes in it's most difficult content. MMOs aren't really that difficult to begin with, so that should tell you something right there.
Now, you may be thinking 'well I know 100 people on an internet forum that also don't want easy content!' and you may even be telling the truth. But let's do some math on that one. Nearly all MMOs have at least a thousand player, most having populations in the 10s or 100s of thousands. Take some of the more well known ones that have around 2-300k players, and you're talking about a population of around 3-6000 that likes the harder content. That is a lot of people, but it's still a small fraction of the total playerbase.
Have harder games become more popular? Absolutely. But the number of people who play video games has also grown substantially since the first / second generation of games.
2) Cash shops would not exist if they didn't make money. Cash shops cost the studios money to run them, to maintain them, and to handle potential issues such as faulty transactions. They wouldn't even bother making a cash shop if it haasn't been proven to be very profitable.
3) You were NEVER in control. The only way you have control over something is if you do it yourself. You want control over a game, create one yourself. The reality is much different than how you imagine it to be.
Don't confuse a lack of control with a lack of choice, though. You can still choose what you yourself buy into, what you play, and what you don't. You may not be able to sway others opinions, but you have complete control over your own.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Why is LOTRO made crazy easy ?..........To stimulate everyone to buy expansions and spend in the cash shop.
Why is WoW made crazy easy ?.............See above.
NOT BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE ASKING FOR IT !
My time is limited as of the last year. I'm playing Shadow of Mordor. For me starting out if was frustrating hard, I would go to bed pissed off ( but loved it )......Eventually the game balanced out, then Eventually turned too easy....It's not as fun anymore, I could go through bosses like water.
I agree with your "reality check"
But..The real question is how do we get out of this mousewheel, how do we get the "easycrowd" to change attitude towards harder gaming in general ?
Or is it to late for a "really hard game " to ever become popular ? By popular I mean AAA popular !
Good luck with that, when you figure out an answer youll be richest man alive (because mind control can be very lucrative business). Until then youre stuck with games that can fiancilly sustain themselves unless you dish out money to make/run one yourself.
MMO's have never been really hard to begin with like asesperus mentioned. The only time they are is during PvP but you can say that about any game.
Plenty of single player AAA hard games, a lot by Paradox Interactive and quite a few turn based games.
Catchy populist slogans usually end up being far more complicated and expensive to implement than anyone could have imagined.
That's why it's much easier to redefine the concept of "being in front", as opposed to ensuring that nobody is "left behind"...
Publishers will always go for profits.
This is why the "fairness" is only possible through kickstarting.
Unless a major player in the gaming field decides to say "Hey! This is not fair for the customers! Remove cash shops and put a 5$ sub on our games!"
The hardest thing in MMOs was overcoming all extreme time sinks. Otherwise theyre not hard or complex (unless you delve in SKILL based PvP) which very very few have to start with. In fact, they are very simplistic games.
WildStar was hard?
I solo'd Blazewing with ease. An open world raid boss, since there was really a lack of players to do much else.
The appeal to WildStar was certainly not its "hard" content.
-Azure Prower
http://www.youtube.com/AzurePrower
??
Appeal to WS was supposed to be super hard(core) PvE endgame.
The problem is not been too hard or too easy, it is the fact that people think differently now when it comes to how they spend there money. In the old days we knew it would take a long time to reach end game, that you could not solo 10 or 12 mobs at a time, etc. So leveling was taking a very long time but at least you had a reason to play a character and was feeling a sense of accomplishment when you had reach the max level. Up to a point where starting a new character was a big issue and had to think twice before doing it.
Fast forward to 2015, now it is trivial to make characters, people think also that paying 15$ a month is to make as much characters as they can and must also have it gear etc before there next sub is up. Otherwise for them they did not max there sub that month. The thing is that they keep requesting more and more end game content in every mmorpg but they don't realize that the journey to get there is what makes the game fun.
Even if they where to change the way we level up or gain xp they will still complain the game is boring. Even if they would take away levels they would still complain because they are used to the fact of getting everything for free or easy. They don't know what challenge means. It always was about making it hard to level up, kill mobs, having a challenge to get to end game and even at end game making it hard to be successful, That is what games are suppose to be, not trivial.
Remember when we use to play mario or other platform games on the nes and super nes, sometimes we would die 2 or 3 times on certain levels and get mad about it because we where aware we could do it but for a reason or not at that time we had a hard time doing it. Well that is what made it fun. Not blasting true it like if it was trivial.
Depends.
If the game has other content that keeps me interested, I'll continue playing anyway.
Most importantly that would be story.
For example, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is very easy, more often than not, but it has great storytelling, which makes me enjoy the experience.
I would also like to point out that extremely easy is bad, but extremely hard is worse. I was not happy at all when I finally got my Griffon in Vanguard. Akande was INSANE. I spent WEEKS trying to kill that dude again and again. In the end I was just endlessly frustrated with that boss.
About free to play: I never played any of the pure free to play games. You're free to play only - I'm not interested.
Obviously, playing Vanguard, I was forced by SOE into the freemium, but I still was paying my regular fee and never spent any additional cash on the game.
It seems to me that other than WoW and EVE, all MMOs have a free to play option nowadays.
Sorry, but you just dont understand how time sinks worked.
Just your Mario example - nowhere in that game were you forced to repeat same level hundreds, even thousands of times successfuly before you can move on to next level
If you were, it would have had same fate as other games you mention.
there was nothing really difficult in those gams, the biggest "difficulty" was extreme amount of time repeating exactly same basic simple actions. If you mastered killing wolves (lets say it took you 10-20) you dont need to kill another 10000000 just because of some counter up there in your upper left corner says you cant move on.
And yes, we did perfect both - standing in one spot+pulling or running farming stuff. Thats all there was to it, really.
Reaching the cap was just matter of putting extreme amount of time into it. Difficult. Sorry, nope.
A large portion of human like simple answers, even to the point of purposely avoiding obvious truths. They will intuitively create strawmen in their own minds to make things as neat and tidy as possible. This is the heart of all political "discourse". And most humans behave in a political manner whether they realize it or not.
This is a fairly good example. If you played Mario on the NES you couldn't progress if you sucked. You had a finite amount of lives. If you didn't finish the game before running out you would have to start back at the beginning again. That means you had to be good at the game to progress and beat it. I can only speak for UO and EQ, but both had steep death penalties that would keep you from progressing if you kept dying. In UO you would lose all your equipment and some stats. In EQ you would loose a lot of experience and potentially your equipment. Basically you had to have a success rate in terms of killing things that was pretty high because you lost more experience from dying then you would from a few hours of killing. It may be a time sink, but it's also a mechanism to prevent you from advancing if you can't find a way to succeed more often then not. Dark Souls would be the closest I've seen to this in recent times.
Meeeeeeehhhhhhh, I'd be careful how you frame that response. I think it's widely accepted that less than 5% of guilds finish heroic content in WoW, and that's been the case since I can even remember. That's not even the individual, we're talking about 5% of guilds. I'd expect the population number to be lower than that, only because most guilds are larger and have a set raid group.
That being said, there's nothing wrong with difficult content, but to think that's it's something that's coveted by many is not at all accurate. Not saying easy content is either, but there isn't an outcry wanting punishing content.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
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This is way worse, you can still tune in to "Game of thrones" and similar shows but here it is just "Big brother" and similar stuff on every channel.
I mean, I have zero problem with easy linear games, the problem is that there are no alternatives anymore, particularly with MMOs.
Time to make "Megaman Online" with classic difficulty.
The problem with difficult content ( WoW heroic raiding or wildstar raiding, as they were mentionned in this thread) isn't so much the difficulty of the actual content, but the lack of learning curve.
In wow, you can go from 1 to max level with a hand tied in your back, picking your nose with the other. Seriously, you need to go out of your way and try extra-hard to die while level'ing up in WoW, even if your gear is horrible, even if you don't know about your rotation, even if you don't use 50% of your character abilities.
Then you jump in group content... slightly more difficult but they are still designed to be doable by anyone on their first try ( or 2nd try for the hardest bosses). LFR isn't any better.
however, when you jump in normal mode raiding ( or heroic raiding some would say), you are expected to know all your rotation by hearth, be geared appropriatly, interrupt/crowd control/stuff like a champ, dodge fire / follow mechanics like a champ...
it's not a learning curve, it's a learning cliff.
of course, you have veteran gamers who mastered all the basic... but for the new guys just joining the gaming crowd... it's near-impossible to overcome that cliff, and there's nothing in-game to teach them how to do it.
after a long day of hard work they last thing I want is a game to frustrate me. easy? no. but not so hard and complicated that I cant enjoy it.