Why then, do people not want a challenge in themeparks? I am legit very curious why people want such easy themepark MMOs, and not challenging ones.
Challenge being:
-Hard group content -Losing items, either through use or in death -Lack of solo play (but still a possibility, just can't solo any dungeons/raids, but questing is fine solo in my opinion. And crafting can be done solo) -Huge reliance on crafters (many themepark MMOs crafters aren't nearly as useful as they are in sandbox MMOs. Exceptions being EQ2 (but raid items are better) and ESO (crafting on par with some raid items)) -A long, slow process to level (or skillup)
People do want a challenge in their themeparks, but it needs to be an achievable challenge which is obviously different for each person. That is why the challenge is set for the largest group of players - the casuals - and not set for the elite who are usually the most vocal.
However, what you've listed out mostly isn't a challenge, its just unnecessary time wasting
- Losing items: How is that challenging? Where is the challenge involved in having to replace lost items? Its just a way to force people to repeat content
- Removing solo play: Again, both solo and group content can be challenging or easy, so forcing group play down everyone's throats doesn't automatically increase the difficulty.
- Reliance on crafters: /facepalm Please explain where the challenge is? I'm all for player-driven economies, but it's not challenging! Its just a different approach
- Long, slow leveling: Really? Do you even think about what you're typing? Time =/= challenge
There are many ways to increase the difficulty of games whilst keeping it enjoyable, but you've not even attempted to go into them. I do wonder whether you're just trolling, or just a teenager lacking experience of the world.
Anyway, whenever I think of difficulty, there are usually three approaches / types:
1) Intellectual
Does the content require you to use your brain to beat it? This covers everything from working out rotations, determining new strategies for bosses as well as second-by-second decision making during combat / content.
This type of difficulty is slowly being eroded from gaming, probably because it is inherently unfair. Stupid people will always do bad whilst intelligent people will always do well. However, in my experience they are the most satisfying. When you beat content, you know you've done it because you are better, rather than simply having played longer.
Intellectual difficulty is best expressed as a "deep" combat system for me. Situational abilities combined with complex rotations results in constantly having to make split-second decisions that greatly affect the outcome. LotRO used to have a very deep combat system, WAR was vaguely deep (in balanced group v group combat) but most modern games have lost depth due to having action combat.
2) Physical
Does the content require you to have certain physical attributes in order to succeed? This could be being quick and accurate with aiming (FPS), good situational awareness so you can dodge etc. This type of difficulty is typified by shooters and action-combat games and getting good is directly related to time spent in game. Muscle-memory is key, your brain is secondary.
A lesser side of physical difficulty is things like forcing concentration. So many games aren't actually difficult but instead severely punish mistakes. So, whilst you may just be pressing the same 3 buttons to attack and doing the same dodges over and over, a single mistake might result in a wipe so keeping up your concentration is key.
3) Social
Other people add a whole new dimension to challenge. The content itself might still remain simple, even if it requires a group, but the more a group is forced to interact with one another, the harder it becomes. Not only do you have to be fully aware of yourself and the enemy, you now have to start tracking your group mates and reacting to them as well.
Some games (like SW:TOR) have virtually no class interdependency so groups add minimal challenge, whereas others have tons of group-skills that require careful coordination and communication to be able to beat the content. Most of the burden of challenge falls on the leader, but each team member still has extra things to think about.
My experience within the MMO genre has been that intellectual difficulty has been steadily declining over the years. My early experiences of MMOs were that they started quite easy and steadily got harder over time, culminating in extremely difficult raids. Now, it seems to be easy start-to-finish, with just the occasional hard raid or dungeon.
This contrasts with physical difficulty which has been steadily rising, especially the last 3-4 years. This can be attributed to action combat primarily, but improvements in technology mean we can put more quick-reaction type content into games. Getting good is mostly just about spending more time in game to gain the required muscle memory.
Social difficulty has also been steadily dropping. First, there is just a lot less group content full stop. Second, with the rise of action combat there is a lot less interdependency so even if there is group content, you are essentially just playing solo next to other people.
Things like punishing mistakes, enrage timers, gear checks etc.....these things are nothing to do with difficulty. Difficulty only refers to what you, the player, actually does in the game. Requiring a minimum amount of gear doesn't make it difficult because you, the player, will still approach the content in the exact same way. There is no way to beat the content by playing better or getting good, you simply have to jump through an artificial hoop first.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Now look at Wildstar, many MMORPG forum users and Reddit wanted and kept asking for a challenging themepark MMORPG. Wildstar was that, and it failed big.
Did Wildstar fail because it was hard or because it wasn't considered a good game? I stopped playing Wildstar at the start because I didn't like it. Had nothing to do with the difficulty of the raids.
Thats just it...i made it to about level 10 before I got really bored with it....I have no idea if the raids are good or not but the gameplay has to be enjoyable to get to that point.
I concluded some time ago that there will never ever be a game invented that pleases every single individual, especially in today's gaming market which is drenched in choices. Because of the sheer multitude of choices, it is prudent to research a game (i.e. read reviews, watch videos, play demos) and make conclusions based on what appeals to one's sense of entertainment. And even if a game starts out being all that one could hope for, it does not mean it will stay that way, particularly anything with a multiplayer or mass multiplayer aspect.
At the end of the day, I just think some people have immutable utopian expectations and it's not limited to games. Modern society in general carries that mindset as if the world should bend to his/her will at a moment's notice.
Never played Wild Star. What was challenging about it?
The only thing hard about WS was the absolutely horrible raid design. A good healthy challenge (ala AoC raids) is good design practice, WS had terrible design, horrible execution and was just not fun to raid in.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
If by challenging you mean adding more tedious grind, then no, I do not want a challenging themepark. If you mean a mechanically challenging game, then sure, I'd love to have a difficult MMORPG.
Now look at Wildstar, many MMORPG forum users and Reddit wanted and kept asking for a challenging themepark MMORPG. Wildstar was that, and it failed big.
Did Wildstar fail because it was hard or because it wasn't considered a good game? I stopped playing Wildstar at the start because I didn't like it. Had nothing to do with the difficulty of the raids.
Thats just it...i made it to about level 10 before I got really bored with it....I have no idea if the raids are good or not but the gameplay has to be enjoyable to get to that point.
To that point, I actually wanted to quit during the tutorial. I had to force my way through it. It was just so dull.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
It comes down to the difference between what people say or think they want, and what they actually do/buy/consume.
There is an old marketing tale told by Malcom Gladwell in his TED talks. A survey found that most people claimed that when they want coffee, they prefer a rich dark roast black coffee, or some similarly strong coffee. In reality, what they bought, and what the sales figures said, most people preferred a weak/mild milky coffee instead.
You cant always trust what people say they want, you have to look at what they then do.
Do people want a game where the only difficulty setting is "too hard"? No, obviously not.
Do people want games where one of the many difficulty settings is absolutely perfect for me as an individual with a specific skill level? Yes, obviously.
...also was that other thread even relevant? I stopped short of reading through it all because it seemed related to consumable equipment (which isn't difficulty at all). Maybe the topic changed later in the discussion?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
One can also say the same thing about monster AI. Do you REALLY want good monster AI? Do you want monsters breaking from combat to get reinforcements? Do you want warning bells that bring the whole zone down upon your party? Do you want them focusing down the easiest to kill members of your party?
I say this like a broken record but horizontal progression can give the gaming world challenge. In fact you would probably need to have challenge to make differences in areas meaningful.
You have areas that are based on difficulty and you know adventuring in a hard area takes skill. For example you could have easy, medium, hard, group required, raid required areas.
Horizontal progression does have some vertical progression. It's just the character is baseline. Think of it as a fighting game where you start out with 4 moves and advancement unlocks those fighting moves. Your not getting more life. You just get more moves.
I would say that making a hard 'closed' themepark, as in a themepark where you just grind linear quests and then, later, grind dungeons, is a waste of time. Most people that play these types of games these days play them to mindlessly chill out to after work. They just want virtual knitting simulators with a fantasy skin. They aren't generally interested in challenge.
Challenge is niche. That is not to say that there isn't a market for a challenging PvE game, but it has to be made with a niche market in mind and expectations have to be adjusted appropriately. Wildstar, for example, was a mainstream game that led with a strong niche foundation... That was never gonna work.
Vg was never great performance. I tried it a dozentimes over the years. It was better for sure but still stuttered for up to a minute when crossing chunk lines, flying through chunk lines often causing falls and death, swimming through the ground was never fixed. Better but definitely not great.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
One can also say the same thing about monster AI. Do you REALLY want good monster AI? Do you want monsters breaking from combat to get reinforcements? Do you want warning bells that bring the whole zone down upon your party? Do you want them focusing down the easiest to kill members of your party?
I enjoy hearing about how messed up ai is, or how bad ai is or how ai never presents a challenge. Programmers can make an AI we can't beat, they don't for obvious reasons, but WS came close to it and look how much people hated raiding in that game. I hated it, and I do enjoy a good challenge.
People should be careful about wishing ai was harder or better.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
I also think MMOs should have 2 different serversets, an easy with nerfed drops and a harder with better. That way you can get both super casuals who just want an easy time and more experienced players who want things more difficult. It isn't really that hard to implement even if it adds a bit to the PvE balance. But you would get more players that way (as long as people who want it easy actually admit it).
I think this is a great idea. I think you wouldn't even need "nerfed" drops, you'd just need to give the hardcore servers some bragging rights like titles, emotes and achievements. Similarly, I actually would love to see "permadeath" MMO servers that'd borrow a page out of Path of Exiles book - once you die your character gets moved to a normal server.
Originally posted by nethaniah
Seriously Farmville? Yeah I think it's great. In a World where half our population is dying of hunger the more fortunate half is spending their time harvesting food that doesn't exist.
I say this like a broken record but horizontal progression can give the gaming world challenge. In fact you would probably need to have challenge to make differences in areas meaningful.
You have areas that are based on difficulty and you know adventuring in a hard area takes skill. For example you could have easy, medium, hard, group required, raid required areas.
Horizontal progression does have some vertical progression. It's just the character is baseline. Think of it as a fighting game where you start out with 4 moves and advancement unlocks those fighting moves. Your not getting more life. You just get more moves.
Horizontal progression is a step backwards in challenge management, actually.
A vertical progression game has a set of challenges of difficulty 1-10, and a set of progression states of power level 1-10. When you're power level 5, you can choose to do a difficulty 8 task and increase the difficulty for yourself (or you can choose a difficulty 3 task if you want something easy).
A horizontal progression game has all the same challenges of difficulty 5, and just one power level 5. So if that baseline difficulty isn't challenging to you then the entire game lacks enough challenge for you.
So it's literally built into vertical progression games to provide at least a minimal amount of difficulty selection, while it's not in horizontal progression -- horizontal progression is a step backwards in terms of difficulty controls. Even though vertical progression games often don't provide sufficient control over your difficulty, at least they provide some inherent control over the challenge you face.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
... look how much people hated raiding in [Wildstar]. I hated it, and I do enjoy a good challenge.
Don't think I've ever met anybody that has actually tried WS raids that hated them. Class mechanics, high Situational Awareness requirement, design issues, piss-poor Customer Service, glacial progress fixing bugs, etc. are all things that have burned out people on my teams.
My former guild's GM summed up Wildstar's ills for us: "You can be punishing or you can be unrewarding. You cannot be both." One of CRB's biggest design failures was RNGCeption. People were basically sharding what should have been rewards because the stats weren't just sub-optimal they were flat out wrong. (eg. support stats on a DPS piece, wrong mainstat, etc.).
Throw in a so-sad-too-bad attitude from their CS people "that's a known bug, we're not going to compensate you for that loss" and the parade of post-launch regressions and of course people weren't going to stick around.
Their latest Hail Mary attempt, the Steam launch, introduced a new mandatory IP verification scheme that requires you to validate any new IP address you're playing from via an email key. More often than not the key has already expired by the time the email has worked its way through the intertubes.
Challenging content is not the primary reason Wildstar has a population problem.
One can also say the same thing about monster AI. Do you REALLY want good monster AI? Do you want monsters breaking from combat to get reinforcements? Do you want warning bells that bring the whole zone down upon your party? Do you want them focusing down the easiest to kill members of your party?
YES, YES and YES
IMHO this is just not possible in an MMORPG unless it is instanced, human nature being what it is.
I haven't played a themepark mmorpg in so long that gave me the choice of being more challenging if I wanted it. Certainly none of them have a difficulty-reward slider. It's usually the game telling you can or can't win a battle before it starts. More often the PvE encounters have been too easy or simplistic for me. Then that paired with not enough other players that are challenge seekers and grouping becomes rare or not challenging as well. I suppose EQ2 and VG were the last times of solo, group, and raid challenge options.
Comments
However I think it's safe to say they'd rather play a game with more people in it, and play a game where their guild doesn't slowly walk away from.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
I had fun once, it was terrible.
However, what you've listed out mostly isn't a challenge, its just unnecessary time wasting
- Losing items: How is that challenging? Where is the challenge involved in having to replace lost items? Its just a way to force people to repeat content
- Removing solo play: Again, both solo and group content can be challenging or easy, so forcing group play down everyone's throats doesn't automatically increase the difficulty.
- Reliance on crafters: /facepalm Please explain where the challenge is? I'm all for player-driven economies, but it's not challenging! Its just a different approach
- Long, slow leveling: Really? Do you even think about what you're typing? Time =/= challenge
There are many ways to increase the difficulty of games whilst keeping it enjoyable, but you've not even attempted to go into them. I do wonder whether you're just trolling, or just a teenager lacking experience of the world.
Anyway, whenever I think of difficulty, there are usually three approaches / types:
1) Intellectual
Does the content require you to use your brain to beat it? This covers everything from working out rotations, determining new strategies for bosses as well as second-by-second decision making during combat / content.
This type of difficulty is slowly being eroded from gaming, probably because it is inherently unfair. Stupid people will always do bad whilst intelligent people will always do well. However, in my experience they are the most satisfying. When you beat content, you know you've done it because you are better, rather than simply having played longer.
Intellectual difficulty is best expressed as a "deep" combat system for me. Situational abilities combined with complex rotations results in constantly having to make split-second decisions that greatly affect the outcome. LotRO used to have a very deep combat system, WAR was vaguely deep (in balanced group v group combat) but most modern games have lost depth due to having action combat.
2) Physical
Does the content require you to have certain physical attributes in order to succeed? This could be being quick and accurate with aiming (FPS), good situational awareness so you can dodge etc. This type of difficulty is typified by shooters and action-combat games and getting good is directly related to time spent in game. Muscle-memory is key, your brain is secondary.
A lesser side of physical difficulty is things like forcing concentration. So many games aren't actually difficult but instead severely punish mistakes. So, whilst you may just be pressing the same 3 buttons to attack and doing the same dodges over and over, a single mistake might result in a wipe so keeping up your concentration is key.
3) Social
Other people add a whole new dimension to challenge. The content itself might still remain simple, even if it requires a group, but the more a group is forced to interact with one another, the harder it becomes. Not only do you have to be fully aware of yourself and the enemy, you now have to start tracking your group mates and reacting to them as well.
Some games (like SW:TOR) have virtually no class interdependency so groups add minimal challenge, whereas others have tons of group-skills that require careful coordination and communication to be able to beat the content. Most of the burden of challenge falls on the leader, but each team member still has extra things to think about.
My experience within the MMO genre has been that intellectual difficulty has been steadily declining over the years. My early experiences of MMOs were that they started quite easy and steadily got harder over time, culminating in extremely difficult raids. Now, it seems to be easy start-to-finish, with just the occasional hard raid or dungeon.
This contrasts with physical difficulty which has been steadily rising, especially the last 3-4 years. This can be attributed to action combat primarily, but improvements in technology mean we can put more quick-reaction type content into games. Getting good is mostly just about spending more time in game to gain the required muscle memory.
Social difficulty has also been steadily dropping. First, there is just a lot less group content full stop. Second, with the rise of action combat there is a lot less interdependency so even if there is group content, you are essentially just playing solo next to other people.
Things like punishing mistakes, enrage timers, gear checks etc.....these things are nothing to do with difficulty. Difficulty only refers to what you, the player, actually does in the game. Requiring a minimum amount of gear doesn't make it difficult because you, the player, will still approach the content in the exact same way. There is no way to beat the content by playing better or getting good, you simply have to jump through an artificial hoop first.
At the end of the day, I just think some people have immutable utopian expectations and it's not limited to games. Modern society in general carries that mindset as if the world should bend to his/her will at a moment's notice.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
There is an old marketing tale told by Malcom Gladwell in his TED talks. A survey found that most people claimed that when they want coffee, they prefer a rich dark roast black coffee, or some similarly strong coffee. In reality, what they bought, and what the sales figures said, most people preferred a weak/mild milky coffee instead.
You cant always trust what people say they want, you have to look at what they then do.
Do people want games where one of the many difficulty settings is absolutely perfect for me as an individual with a specific skill level? Yes, obviously.
...also was that other thread even relevant? I stopped short of reading through it all because it seemed related to consumable equipment (which isn't difficulty at all). Maybe the topic changed later in the discussion?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I didn't like wildstar because of combat, world was linear, humor did nothing for me. Just difficulty in itself doesn't make me want to play a game.
You have areas that are based on difficulty and you know adventuring in a hard area takes skill. For example you could have easy, medium, hard, group required, raid required areas.
Horizontal progression does have some vertical progression. It's just the character is baseline. Think of it as a fighting game where you start out with 4 moves and advancement unlocks those fighting moves. Your not getting more life. You just get more moves.
Challenge is niche. That is not to say that there isn't a market for a challenging PvE game, but it has to be made with a niche market in mind and expectations have to be adjusted appropriately. Wildstar, for example, was a mainstream game that led with a strong niche foundation... That was never gonna work.
Chuck lines were horrible in that game.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
People should be careful about wishing ai was harder or better.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
A vertical progression game has a set of challenges of difficulty 1-10, and a set of progression states of power level 1-10. When you're power level 5, you can choose to do a difficulty 8 task and increase the difficulty for yourself (or you can choose a difficulty 3 task if you want something easy).
A horizontal progression game has all the same challenges of difficulty 5, and just one power level 5. So if that baseline difficulty isn't challenging to you then the entire game lacks enough challenge for you.
So it's literally built into vertical progression games to provide at least a minimal amount of difficulty selection, while it's not in horizontal progression -- horizontal progression is a step backwards in terms of difficulty controls. Even though vertical progression games often don't provide sufficient control over your difficulty, at least they provide some inherent control over the challenge you face.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
My former guild's GM summed up Wildstar's ills for us: "You can be punishing or you can be unrewarding. You cannot be both." One of CRB's biggest design failures was RNGCeption. People were basically sharding what should have been rewards because the stats weren't just sub-optimal they were flat out wrong. (eg. support stats on a DPS piece, wrong mainstat, etc.).
Throw in a so-sad-too-bad attitude from their CS people "that's a known bug, we're not going to compensate you for that loss" and the parade of post-launch regressions and of course people weren't going to stick around.
Their latest Hail Mary attempt, the Steam launch, introduced a new mandatory IP verification scheme that requires you to validate any new IP address you're playing from via an email key. More often than not the key has already expired by the time the email has worked its way through the intertubes.
Challenging content is not the primary reason Wildstar has a population problem.
IMHO this is just not possible in an MMORPG unless it is instanced, human nature being what it is.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
A three
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee