I stop playing far less because of a lack of a challenge but far more because of a lack of vareity of game play
Those 2 are my 2 top problems, can't we have both?
An too easy game becomes boring and grindy to me rather fast, fighting loads easy trash mobs just bores me far more then fighting fewer but hard ones that forces me to adapt and use tactics.
Games that are so similar to every other games feels like I already played them for years and also adds boredom.
Right now I go for either improvement but both are probably required to get me invested for years again.
we do...
your just not looking in the right place. I have many games that qualify as both
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
your just not looking in the right place. I have many games that qualify as both
For some reasons do other genres get it right often enough but for MMOs the few games made the last 10 years who does either have so lousy coding that playing it just annoy me or get nerfed quick enough to take away the difficulty...
But I am open for suggestions of course, I might certainly have missed something good.
your just not looking in the right place. I have many games that qualify as both
For some reasons do other genres get it right often enough but for MMOs the few games made the last 10 years who does either have so lousy coding that playing it just annoy me or get nerfed quick enough to take away the difficulty...
But I am open for suggestions of course, I might certainly have missed something good.
I agree that MMOs are no longer the place to be. But its good to compartmentalize specifically what items in an MMO make it worth not looking outside of MMOs. Many of these games have a strong multiplayer if you already have a community I am sure said community could start up a server.
There are many titles but the one I have been really enjoying lately is empyrion galactic survival
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
History is filled with events where the technological advantages have made the other side practically defenseless even though they had numerical advantage. When pizarro conquered the Inca the spanish troops were almost invincible due to gear and training.
on simplifying things
You are right that I did simplify things but it was more about making a simple point. The reason I picked pizarro is that he had very few people under his command but let's go with mounted armored knights fighting peasants, aircraft vs target without anti-aircraft weapons, spec op units fighting in darkness.
Battles tend to be fairly straight forward but war is a different beast since it involves economics, especially if you get bogged down with someone doing guerilla warfare that get supplies from the outside. If you get to fight on open ground I would pick the side with training using superior gear.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
The point is that sheer power, higher technology (or perhaps stronger magic), experience, and training do not guarantee victory in every situation imaginable. Tactics, intelligence, skill, and teamwork can make a difference, among other things. And as Loke stated, there are many other things which are capable of effecting the outcome of battles and wars, such as strategy, logistics, diplomacy, and morale, etc. In a battle of rifles vs bows, the rifles will usually win, but the arrows being loosed can still kill the riflemen. The guns do not make them invincible. If enough peasants with pitchforks and other farming implements surround an armored knight they have a decent chance of taking him down. While it's harder to bring down jets without anti-aircraft batteries or missiles, helicopters can be destroyed by shoulder-mounted bazooka-type weapons (like stinger missiles). Special operations using night vision fighting in darkness certainly have an advantage, but they can still be killed.
And, yes, I want challenge and variety.
Post edited by Brald_Ironheart on
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
Actually, my answer to the question posed by this thread is that I want more and different kinds of progression beyond just becoming more wealthy and powerful. And I want to be able to do more with my wealth and power than just become wealthier and more powerful. I also want to do other things with my wealth and power than just the same things I did to gain the wealth and power. Wealth and power are not ends in and of themselves.
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
For those who enjoy vertical progression, I'm curious whether you actually enjoy seeing the numbers getting bigger or not.
For me, stat increases have always felt like artificial progression to me. So, sure, I level up and instead of hitting for 1000dps, I start hitting for 1100dps. The numbers on the screen get bigger.
But what has actually changed beyond floating numbers? I'm still using the same skills, the same rotations. Hell, in most games, you don't even feel more powerful because as you progress through the quests, the enemy level also goes up, so power relative to content typically stays the same anyway.
For me, the only progression that has ever felt truly meaningful has been the unlocking of skills or traits that change the way I actually play my character.
The whole thing with getting increased stats gets rather pointless whenever you move to the next zone where you go from killing dragons at the high end of last zone to getting killed by goblins as a low in the next zone is rather silly, yes.
It is a weird thing loosely based on D&D but in D&D the average monster have a standard level and a regular wolf will never be a challenge to a higher lvl PC, only intelligent beings that also can level up can be that there. I think it would feel less confusing if animals and most monsters were set at a specific level in the entire game instead of just zonewise.
Of course it is also the rather silly powergap between noobs and people of max level that really messes things up, I wish they decreased that, even D&D (besides the crappy 4th edition) have nowhere near that huge powergap even if D&D and Pathfinder probably are the 2 pen and paper games with largest powergap, and that by far.
I agree that is a very silly aspect of mmorpgs, where you can have wolves, bears, and goblins (or whatever) that can be more powerful than dragons in mmorpgs.
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
You are right that I did simplify things but it was more about making a simple point. The reason I picked pizarro is that he had very few people under his command but let's go with mounted armored knights fighting peasants, aircraft vs target without anti-aircraft weapons, spec op units fighting in darkness.
Battles tend to be fairly straight forward but war is a different beast since it involves economics, especially if you get bogged down with someone doing guerilla warfare that get supplies from the outside. If you get to fight on open ground I would pick the side with training using superior gear.
Still does not neccesarily mean victory, how about 25 000 well trained, well armed english knights and proffesional soldiers against 8000 Scots peasants (and that number likely included women with bows) at Bannockburn?
That was not a war but a 3 day battle. The English sides strategy was bad, the Scots were brilliant so the Scots won.
Another good example is Agincourt where the French knights died in mud by arrows. Or Battle of the Hydaspes where Alexander the great beat a far superior army that had war elephant cavalry.
History proves again and again that superior tactics & strategy will win the day. Yes, there are far more factors and someone with superior strategy will avoid a battle that can't be won (as Tzun Su pointed out 2500 years ago).
If you have superior gear and training but are lead by a moron you are doomed anyways unless the opposite leader.
Of course there are plenty of examples of technological advantage that wins the day but you need officers that can and are allowed to use that advantage. If your leader are presented with the worlds most advanced fighter jet (Hitler with the Me 262) and just ask if it can carries bomb and if not tells you to get back to work delaying you for years you are screwed.
Or if you have good bullet proof wests but think it is too expensive to give it to your troops, that has happened.
I think MMOs should reflect all that, or MMO PvP to be exact. Stuff like gear, experience, logistics and similar should give an advantage but tactics really should be far more important.
It certainly wouldn't hurt to improve the group dynamics in PvE either but the experience and gear does not ruin the fun as much there.
Note: I am hardly a historian or anything, but I do enjoy learning about it.
The fact that most mmorpgs oversimplify so many things is why so many of us have grown dissatisfied with them. Adults have more money than kids, why not make games for adults that aren't easy enough for kids to play?
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
Oh, I would also like for fighting, questing, and dungeon delving (with a dab of gathering and crafting) not to be the only important ways a character can progress in an mmorpg. I've really had enough of virtual worlds that are totally unrealistic and cartoonish in many ways. I believe that the only reason some of us are playing certain games is because there aren't really many good options out there if we want to play mmorpgs. The vast majority are all basically just variations on the same basic model.
EDIT: So, I think many of us settle for games that suck the least out of those available to play.
Post edited by Brald_Ironheart on
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
The fact that most mmorpgs oversimplify so many things is why so many of us have grown dissatisfied with them. Adults have more money than kids, why not make games for adults that aren't easy enough for kids to play?
When I was a kid I had a Commodore 64 and played games far harder then anything "adult" today so I don't think the difficulty really is what makes adult and kid games differ.
Games became easy 17 or so years ago when none gamers started to get computers so everyone could play no matter how much they sucked. But most of those people have moved to mobile games since so there really is no need to cateer to them anymore.
The fact that most mmorpgs oversimplify so many things is why so many of us have grown dissatisfied with them. Adults have more money than kids, why not make games for adults that aren't easy enough for kids to play?
When I was a kid I had a Commodore 64 and played games far harder then anything "adult" today so I don't think the difficulty really is what makes adult and kid games differ.
Games became easy 17 or so years ago when none gamers started to get computers so everyone could play no matter how much they sucked. But most of those people have moved to mobile games since so there really is no need to cateer to them anymore.
It is definitely a money making thing.
The harder you make a game, the less people can enjoy it and so less money you can make. It's a big reason with shooters went through a revolution with Medal of Honour and Call of Duty - they deliberately made it so that a complete noob could join a game and with some spray + pray + grenades, could still get kills.
The trick, in my opinion, is either to have a variety of difficulties throughout the game or to have the difficulty slowly ramp up across the course of the game. Sadly, MMOs tend to make it all easy throughout leveling, then all of a sudden ramp up the difficulty in a big leap at endgame. This is especially true when looking at solo vs group - you level up solo so learn to play one way, typically with trivial difficulty, then you jump into an endgame dungeon and not only do you suddenly have to play completely differently, it is also harder too.
There are also all the different ways that you can introduce difficulty:
1) Concentration / Reaction Times
Some games introduce difficulty by heavily penalising mistakes. Didn't move out of the fire within 1 second? Dead. Didn't block a special attack? Dead. I'm generally not a fan of this type of difficulty as it doesn't really engage your mental abilities - there is no thinking involved, no decision making, you just need to not make a mistake.
2) Timers / Hard Limits
Some games introduce difficulty via hard limits. You have 5 minutes to kill this boss, otherwise you wipe. You need a certain gear level, or you wipe. Again, not a fan of this type of difficulty as again, it doesn't really engage the brain so there is no real player skill. Sometimes an enrage timer might force you to min-max your toon which takes some skill (assuming you don't look it up) but then this kinda forces you to play a certain way.
3) Tactics
This is my favourite form of difficulty. Combat that requires you to study the enemy, learn their strengths and weaknesses, learn their tactics and then formulate a plan of your own. Things like interrupting key skills, pulling levers at certain times, solving puzzles, moving to certain spots etc. Generally requires you to engage your brain, but even if you look up tactics online you still usually need to adapt them to your own strengths and weaknesses, plus still takes some skill to execute properly. Tends to result in fights that take a while to learn and plan, but once you've done it once or twice then the fights become fairly trivial from then on.
4) Social / Interdependency
A close second favourite form of difficulty, I love it when you genuinely have to work together as a team in order to succeed. Anyone who's ever been a raid leader knows how difficult it is to get 10+ people doing things at the right time. I especially like interdependency, going beyond just aggro and healing to things like timed buffs, emergency skills, resource management, cc, interrupts etc. This not only requires you to learn a whole new skillset that you don't need to use when solo, but also taps into social bonding, being able to anticipate other players moves and support one another efficiently.
I definitely feel that the MMO genre has slowly moved away from 3 and 4 and has focused on 1 and 2. I'm not sure whether this has been deliberate in order to at least provide easy feedback / understanding for newbies, or whether it is simply a side effect of the move towards action combat, or whether designing combat mechanics and content that is tactically difficult is simply beyond the capabilities of most devs and I simply got lucky with my early gaming.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
Oh man rage timers on bosses drive me nuts. I remember in SWTOR we had a undergeared party running through a max level flashpoint and me (the healer) and the tank were on point enough we were winning anyway. That was until we came to a boss with a rage timer and the DPS just couldn't burn it on time.
Felt like the flashpoint was punishing us for deciding to challenge ourselves and do some harder content with weaker characters when the only thing stopping us from clearing it was "Oh you took too long and the boss one shots everyone!"
@cameltosis True (and great post) but you loose many people when you make a game too easy, just as you loose many when you make it too hard. The only way too cateer for both sides is to have "easy" and "hard" servers (and yes, the hard servers should have increased loot chance of good stuff), it is easy to implement and would increase the number of players enjoying the game.
Just adding a few difficulties on some dungeons and raids ain't enough.
Tactics is my favorite form of difficulty too, particularly when the tactics include utilize a partys strenghts to defeat a hard opponent. Things like skill rotations just bores me.
I don't think action combat is a huge problem there, there are certainly single player and regular multiplayer games that require tactics while still being action styled, the Rainbow 6 series for instance requires lots of tactics even if it is FPS games.
My theory is that the gaming companies think their customers are morons, but I think far more people would enjoy a higher difficulty and tactical thinking if the games just were better easing people into it. MMOs tend to be super easy until you maxed out your level and then suddenly ramp up the difficulty rather much in endgame dungeons and either more for the raids instead of slowly increasing it as people play. People never really learn how to play the characters as they level up and then often quit or possibly roll an alt when the difficulty suddenly becomes hard and and groups expect you to play well in the endgame.
The difficulty curve of the average MMO is rather terrible in my opinion and probably the main reason so many MMO fans hate the endgame (well, that and the fact that you tend to be forced to repeat a very limited amount of content over and over).
You are right that I did simplify things but it was more about making a simple point. The reason I picked pizarro is that he had very few people under his command but let's go with mounted armored knights fighting peasants, aircraft vs target without anti-aircraft weapons, spec op units fighting in darkness.
Battles tend to be fairly straight forward but war is a different beast since it involves economics, especially if you get bogged down with someone doing guerilla warfare that get supplies from the outside. If you get to fight on open ground I would pick the side with training using superior gear.
Still does not neccesarily mean victory, how about 25 000 well trained, well armed english knights and proffesional soldiers against 8000 Scots peasants (and that number likely included women with bows) at Bannockburn?
That was not a war but a 3 day battle. The English sides strategy was bad, the Scots were brilliant so the Scots won.
Another good example is Agincourt where the French knights died in mud by arrows. Or Battle of the Hydaspes where Alexander the great beat a far superior army that had war elephant cavalry.
History proves again and again that superior tactics & strategy will win the day. Yes, there are far more factors and someone with superior strategy will avoid a battle that can't be won (as Tzun Su pointed out 2500 years ago).
If you have superior gear and training but are lead by a moron you are doomed anyways unless the opposite leader.
Of course there are plenty of examples of technological advantage that wins the day but you need officers that can and are allowed to use that advantage. If your leader are presented with the worlds most advanced fighter jet (Hitler with the Me 262) and just ask if it can carries bomb and if not tells you to get back to work delaying you for years you are screwed.
Or if you have good bullet proof wests but think it is too expensive to give it to your troops, that has happened.
I think MMOs should reflect all that, or MMO PvP to be exact. Stuff like gear, experience, logistics and similar should give an advantage but tactics really should be far more important.
It certainly wouldn't hurt to improve the group dynamics in PvE either but the experience and gear does not ruin the fun as much there.
Note: I am hardly a historian or anything, but I do enjoy learning about it.
I was sort of expecting you picking what happened at bannockburn, the lesson is if you want to win pick a terrain where their gear works against them.
In MMOs you do have PvP fights where one side has better gear and lose badly, it usually happens between people that only focus on PvE where they get great loot and the other side that knows how to PvP. You do need good enough gear for it to work but any serious PvP player will get the gear so it usually isn't an issue.
The tricky part is how do you make PvP interesting without killing the progression system and the quick and easy answer is that you shouldn't allow high level characters killing off low level characters that has no chance.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Progression in all its forms is what keeps me playing a game, progression above repetition. If a games endgame forces me to do the same dungeon over and over for better gear... i an out..
but if there is no gear progression at all, i am out to... story progression and world progression is very important for me..
where i am currently looking for is a game with true character progression... which can be created by making skills not raise linear in power with the levels.. much like is done in D&D or even good old EQ, where you got new skills every few levels dorcing you to play different to be efficient... Where it comes to skill progression, i dont like a max level game, i would prefer endless levels, but on a dynamic logarythmic scale...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I appreciate your comments. They were interesting, and I agree with some of the points you made. However, when I made reference to the difficulty of games in relation to children and adults, I really meant realism and complexity. (Though I enjoy a challenge, so I don't mind when games are difficult either.)
I also prefer the need for strategy, tactics, and teamwork in games. Though I would rather not always have learn through trial-and-error in especially difficult dungeons and raids. To me, it makes more sense that there would be hints and clues or some kind of way to figure out what to do to win a fight during the fight. Without having to die a few times to understand whatever strategy is needed. Of course, not everyone will be able to do this, but I would like it to be possible. Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe there are already some games that feature something like this. (I haven't played every game there is after all.)
But what I would really like is if combat wasn't the only or even the main challenge or obstacle an mmorpg presented me with. Of course, I want combat to be present and important, but there are so many other experiences a person or character can have by which he or she may progress. And there are so many other important skills and abilities which could be useful and important in mmorpgs besides combat skills and abilities. Making things/crafting is usually present in mmorpgs, but they are mostly geared towards helping us with combat.
Yes, the difficulty can gradually increase over time. But there can also be areas that are safer and areas that are less safe in the virtual world, just as in the real world. There can be places where people who aren't competent, skilled, armed to the teeth, or ready to die simply don't belong.
Post edited by Brald_Ironheart on
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
I was sort of expecting you picking what happened at bannockburn, the lesson is if you want to win pick a terrain where their gear works against them.
In MMOs you do have PvP fights where one side has better gear and lose badly, it usually happens between people that only focus on PvE where they get great loot and the other side that knows how to PvP. You do need good enough gear for it to work but any serious PvP player will get the gear so it usually isn't an issue.
The tricky part is how do you make PvP interesting without killing the progression system and the quick and easy answer is that you shouldn't allow high level characters killing off low level characters that has no chance.
I kinda think that Agincourt where the Enlish defeated the french with mud works even better, but yes, I been at Bannockburn and it was an excellent place for the Scots. Still, it was more then that and the English did a load of tactical blunders, just the terrain wouldn't been enough.
Anyways, I agree that progression and good PvP is a problem and most MMOs fail here rather badly, which I assume is the reason most MMOers prefer PvE.
The first thing I personally would do is to decrease the powergap between gear. A 20% boost for wearing good gear compared to cheap is still motivation enough for players to get that gear, particularly if it have cool skins you can't get anywhere else. Some MMOs today have an insane gear curve and I don't think the difference need to be that great. An advatage is fine but you can give an advantage without breaking the game.
The progression is far harder. The easiest solution is probably something like GW2 does and downlevel players to the level of the area they are in. Yes, not all people like that and it is a compromize but it is the best system I seen if you want both PvP and PvE, even though you need to do a far better job at it then GW2.
If you just have PvP then you can go for horizontal progression or at least close to horizontal but PvEers wont go for that. I guess you could set it so a terrible playing vet will barely be defeated by a brilliant playing noob but it is still a far tougher sale.
There might of course be other solutions as well, a progression that raises everything but hitpoints work in many pen and paper roleplaying games (like Shadowrun, Vampire and BRP for instance), that would work really good for a game with powerful firearms or generally a more realistic combat system. Or something else.
I think something needs to be done, more multiplayer PC fans like PvP then PvP but just not in our genre. Better group dynamics and for that matter actual mechanics for larger battles (just a simple thing like a shieldwall bonus Never existed in any MMO I tried).
I appreciate your comments, they were interesting, and I agree with some of the points you made. However, when I made reference to the difficulty of games in relation to children and adults, I really meant realism and complexity. (Though I enjoy a challenge, so I don't mind when games are difficult either.)
I also prefer the need for strategy, tactics, and teamwork in games. Though I would rather not always have learn through trial-and-error in especially difficult dungeons and raids. To me, it makes more sense that there would hints and clues or some kind of way to figure out what to do to win a fight during the fight. Without having to die a few times to understand whatever strategy is needed. Of course, not everyone will be able to do this, but I would like it to be possible. Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe there are already some games that feature something like this. (I haven't played every game there is after all.)
But what I would really like is if combat wasn't the only or even the main challenge or obstacle an mmorpg presented me with. Of course, I want combat to be present and important, but there are so many other experiences a person or character can have by which he or she may progress. And there are so many other important skills and abilities which could be useful and important in mmorpgs besides combat skills and abilities. Making things/crafting is usually present in mmorpgs, but they are mostly geared towards helping us with combat.
Yes, the difficulty can gradually increase over time. But there can also be areas that are safer and areas that are less safe in the virtual world, just as in the real world. There can be places where people who aren't competent, skilled, armed to the teeth, or ready to die simply don't belong.
A MMO focused on less combat focused skills could be really fun, for instance do I think making a MMO inspired by the old "theif" games have potential. Or heck, you could make a Sherlock or CSI MMO where players solved crimes instead of bash monsters.
A MMO based on Chaosiums pen and paper RPG "Call of Chthulhu" would be really fun as well, while you do have combat in it the main focus is on investigating paranormal activities and require activities like research and investigating
While I realize a player not focused on combat isn't necessarily a pacifist I think a good way of answering "Is a game too combat focused?" Is "Can I roleplay a pacifist and still have fun?"
I've seen people RP pacifists in MMOs. It's a difficult road to go in most of them. In fact you can't even make it past many tutorials as a pacifist as your first kill is considered part of learning the game.
I actually found a fairly decent phone game for once that's a phone based zombie survival game. I decided I wanted to play a kindly figure intent on helping other people through the apocalypse. I've run into 5 other players. Three times I ran away as they were looking to kill me after I got injured fighting zombies. Twice I let them make the first move and ended up killing them in self defense. At no point were words exchanged or was I even given the option of a peaceful meeting. It's kind of funny because the two I killed had little worth looting and had there been a conversation I would have tried to give them some food and water. Instead they lost their gear I just left sitting on their corpse.
I'm all for PvP and combat. Some worlds are dangerous, some people are not friendly, and sometimes you need to fight to survive. But I do wish there were more games in which deciding you want a plowshare instead of a sword was a viable option. Even most "carebear" games are focused on PvE combat. Ironically games like EVE and Mortal Online are some of the most friendly to non-combat oriented characters.
It's not that I don't want combat. I like combat. However, everything my character can do in the vast majority of mmorpgs is completely or largely centered around combat. The classes in medieval fantasy-themed mmorpgs cannot do most of the things that D&D classes can do, for example.
If we're going to have a game focused on adventuring and dungeon-delving, there are many other things that characters could need to do in a dungeon or on an adventure besides fight. Interesting and challenging obstacles and encounters do not necessarily require violence or direct combat. Experience could be gained from using non-combat and utility skills as well as combat skills.
The possibilities that Loke666 mentioned are also interesting. And I agree with Eldurian. A virtual world where it could just as interesting to be a farmer, a stonemason, a merchant (or many other occupations) as it to be a soldier or an adventurer would be very cool.
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
Its not that people are pacifists its that there is only about a billion other things we could be doing AS WELL as that.
building, crafting, making factories...hell in one game I built a car 'bolt by bolt' the possiblities are endless and this bullshit that everyone is staying up late at night dreaming that they wish they could kill in real life but cant and that is all they dream about, never about flying a plane, never about jumping from a plane, never about building a home...none of those things.
its horseshit of course people would want to do that.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
@SEANMCAD - Yes. The majority of people in the world only kill when they are forced to kill. It even bothered me at first when I had to kill human women during quests in an mmorpg. Why couldn't I knock them out, tie them up, or take them captive? Why do I have to kill everything that I can't or don't want to run away from or can't otherwise avoid?
If a game makes an activity important and necessary, it can become interesting. If my character's personal success, and/or the success of the kingdom, realm, community, society, or civilization to which he belongs is effected by whatever activity he is asked to do in a virtual world, then it matters, and can be fun. Even better if the way he does it in the game is also challenging and fun. Pretty much anything can be made into a game or a mini-game.
Roleplayinn.com - New forum for people who love role-playing of all kinds - tabletop/pencil & paper, live-action, and role-playing in mmorpgs.
Comments
your just not looking in the right place. I have many games that qualify as both
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
But I am open for suggestions of course, I might certainly have missed something good.
There are many titles but the one I have been really enjoying lately is empyrion galactic survival
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Battles tend to be fairly straight forward but war is a different beast since it involves economics, especially if you get bogged down with someone doing guerilla warfare that get supplies from the outside. If you get to fight on open ground I would pick the side with training using superior gear.
And, yes, I want challenge and variety.
That was not a war but a 3 day battle. The English sides strategy was bad, the Scots were brilliant so the Scots won.
Another good example is Agincourt where the French knights died in mud by arrows. Or Battle of the Hydaspes where Alexander the great beat a far superior army that had war elephant cavalry.
History proves again and again that superior tactics & strategy will win the day. Yes, there are far more factors and someone with superior strategy will avoid a battle that can't be won (as Tzun Su pointed out 2500 years ago).
If you have superior gear and training but are lead by a moron you are doomed anyways unless the opposite leader.
Of course there are plenty of examples of technological advantage that wins the day but you need officers that can and are allowed to use that advantage. If your leader are presented with the worlds most advanced fighter jet (Hitler with the Me 262) and just ask if it can carries bomb and if not tells you to get back to work delaying you for years you are screwed.
Or if you have good bullet proof wests but think it is too expensive to give it to your troops, that has happened.
I think MMOs should reflect all that, or MMO PvP to be exact. Stuff like gear, experience, logistics and similar should give an advantage but tactics really should be far more important.
It certainly wouldn't hurt to improve the group dynamics in PvE either but the experience and gear does not ruin the fun as much there.
Note: I am hardly a historian or anything, but I do enjoy learning about it.
EDIT: So, I think many of us settle for games that suck the least out of those available to play.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Games became easy 17 or so years ago when none gamers started to get computers so everyone could play no matter how much they sucked. But most of those people have moved to mobile games since so there really is no need to cateer to them anymore.
The harder you make a game, the less people can enjoy it and so less money you can make. It's a big reason with shooters went through a revolution with Medal of Honour and Call of Duty - they deliberately made it so that a complete noob could join a game and with some spray + pray + grenades, could still get kills.
The trick, in my opinion, is either to have a variety of difficulties throughout the game or to have the difficulty slowly ramp up across the course of the game. Sadly, MMOs tend to make it all easy throughout leveling, then all of a sudden ramp up the difficulty in a big leap at endgame. This is especially true when looking at solo vs group - you level up solo so learn to play one way, typically with trivial difficulty, then you jump into an endgame dungeon and not only do you suddenly have to play completely differently, it is also harder too.
There are also all the different ways that you can introduce difficulty:
1) Concentration / Reaction Times
Some games introduce difficulty by heavily penalising mistakes. Didn't move out of the fire within 1 second? Dead. Didn't block a special attack? Dead. I'm generally not a fan of this type of difficulty as it doesn't really engage your mental abilities - there is no thinking involved, no decision making, you just need to not make a mistake.
2) Timers / Hard Limits
Some games introduce difficulty via hard limits. You have 5 minutes to kill this boss, otherwise you wipe. You need a certain gear level, or you wipe. Again, not a fan of this type of difficulty as again, it doesn't really engage the brain so there is no real player skill. Sometimes an enrage timer might force you to min-max your toon which takes some skill (assuming you don't look it up) but then this kinda forces you to play a certain way.
3) Tactics
This is my favourite form of difficulty. Combat that requires you to study the enemy, learn their strengths and weaknesses, learn their tactics and then formulate a plan of your own. Things like interrupting key skills, pulling levers at certain times, solving puzzles, moving to certain spots etc. Generally requires you to engage your brain, but even if you look up tactics online you still usually need to adapt them to your own strengths and weaknesses, plus still takes some skill to execute properly. Tends to result in fights that take a while to learn and plan, but once you've done it once or twice then the fights become fairly trivial from then on.
4) Social / Interdependency
A close second favourite form of difficulty, I love it when you genuinely have to work together as a team in order to succeed. Anyone who's ever been a raid leader knows how difficult it is to get 10+ people doing things at the right time. I especially like interdependency, going beyond just aggro and healing to things like timed buffs, emergency skills, resource management, cc, interrupts etc. This not only requires you to learn a whole new skillset that you don't need to use when solo, but also taps into social bonding, being able to anticipate other players moves and support one another efficiently.
I definitely feel that the MMO genre has slowly moved away from 3 and 4 and has focused on 1 and 2. I'm not sure whether this has been deliberate in order to at least provide easy feedback / understanding for newbies, or whether it is simply a side effect of the move towards action combat, or whether designing combat mechanics and content that is tactically difficult is simply beyond the capabilities of most devs and I simply got lucky with my early gaming.
Felt like the flashpoint was punishing us for deciding to challenge ourselves and do some harder content with weaker characters when the only thing stopping us from clearing it was "Oh you took too long and the boss one shots everyone!"
True (and great post) but you loose many people when you make a game too easy, just as you loose many when you make it too hard. The only way too cateer for both sides is to have "easy" and "hard" servers (and yes, the hard servers should have increased loot chance of good stuff), it is easy to implement and would increase the number of players enjoying the game.
Just adding a few difficulties on some dungeons and raids ain't enough.
Tactics is my favorite form of difficulty too, particularly when the tactics include utilize a partys strenghts to defeat a hard opponent. Things like skill rotations just bores me.
I don't think action combat is a huge problem there, there are certainly single player and regular multiplayer games that require tactics while still being action styled, the Rainbow 6 series for instance requires lots of tactics even if it is FPS games.
My theory is that the gaming companies think their customers are morons, but I think far more people would enjoy a higher difficulty and tactical thinking if the games just were better easing people into it. MMOs tend to be super easy until you maxed out your level and then suddenly ramp up the difficulty rather much in endgame dungeons and either more for the raids instead of slowly increasing it as people play. People never really learn how to play the characters as they level up and then often quit or possibly roll an alt when the difficulty suddenly becomes hard and and groups expect you to play well in the endgame.
The difficulty curve of the average MMO is rather terrible in my opinion and probably the main reason so many MMO fans hate the endgame (well, that and the fact that you tend to be forced to repeat a very limited amount of content over and over).
In MMOs you do have PvP fights where one side has better gear and lose badly, it usually happens between people that only focus on PvE where they get great loot and the other side that knows how to PvP. You do need good enough gear for it to work but any serious PvP player will get the gear so it usually isn't an issue.
The tricky part is how do you make PvP interesting without killing the progression system and the quick and easy answer is that you shouldn't allow high level characters killing off low level characters that has no chance.
but if there is no gear progression at all, i am out to... story progression and world progression is very important for me..
where i am currently looking for is a game with true character progression... which can be created by making skills not raise linear in power with the levels.. much like is done in D&D or even good old EQ, where you got new skills every few levels dorcing you to play different to be efficient... Where it comes to skill progression, i dont like a max level game, i would prefer endless levels, but on a dynamic logarythmic scale...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I appreciate your comments. They were interesting, and I agree with some of the points you made. However, when I made reference to the difficulty of games in relation to children and adults, I really meant realism and complexity. (Though I enjoy a challenge, so I don't mind when games are difficult either.)
I also prefer the need for strategy, tactics, and teamwork in games. Though I would rather not always have learn through trial-and-error in especially difficult dungeons and raids. To me, it makes more sense that there would be hints and clues or some kind of way to figure out what to do to win a fight during the fight. Without having to die a few times to understand whatever strategy is needed. Of course, not everyone will be able to do this, but I would like it to be possible. Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe there are already some games that feature something like this. (I haven't played every game there is after all.)
But what I would really like is if combat wasn't the only or even the main challenge or obstacle an mmorpg presented me with. Of course, I want combat to be present and important, but there are so many other experiences a person or character can have by which he or she may progress. And there are so many other important skills and abilities which could be useful and important in mmorpgs besides combat skills and abilities. Making things/crafting is usually present in mmorpgs, but they are mostly geared towards helping us with combat.
Yes, the difficulty can gradually increase over time. But there can also be areas that are safer and areas that are less safe in the virtual world, just as in the real world. There can be places where people who aren't competent, skilled, armed to the teeth, or ready to die simply don't belong.
Anyways, I agree that progression and good PvP is a problem and most MMOs fail here rather badly, which I assume is the reason most MMOers prefer PvE.
The first thing I personally would do is to decrease the powergap between gear. A 20% boost for wearing good gear compared to cheap is still motivation enough for players to get that gear, particularly if it have cool skins you can't get anywhere else. Some MMOs today have an insane gear curve and I don't think the difference need to be that great. An advatage is fine but you can give an advantage without breaking the game.
The progression is far harder. The easiest solution is probably something like GW2 does and downlevel players to the level of the area they are in. Yes, not all people like that and it is a compromize but it is the best system I seen if you want both PvP and PvE, even though you need to do a far better job at it then GW2.
If you just have PvP then you can go for horizontal progression or at least close to horizontal but PvEers wont go for that. I guess you could set it so a terrible playing vet will barely be defeated by a brilliant playing noob but it is still a far tougher sale.
There might of course be other solutions as well, a progression that raises everything but hitpoints work in many pen and paper roleplaying games (like Shadowrun, Vampire and BRP for instance), that would work really good for a game with powerful firearms or generally a more realistic combat system. Or something else.
I think something needs to be done, more multiplayer PC fans like PvP then PvP but just not in our genre. Better group dynamics and for that matter actual mechanics for larger battles (just a simple thing like a shieldwall bonus Never existed in any MMO I tried).
A MMO based on Chaosiums pen and paper RPG "Call of Chthulhu" would be really fun as well, while you do have combat in it the main focus is on investigating paranormal activities and require activities like research and investigating
I've seen people RP pacifists in MMOs. It's a difficult road to go in most of them. In fact you can't even make it past many tutorials as a pacifist as your first kill is considered part of learning the game.
I actually found a fairly decent phone game for once that's a phone based zombie survival game. I decided I wanted to play a kindly figure intent on helping other people through the apocalypse. I've run into 5 other players. Three times I ran away as they were looking to kill me after I got injured fighting zombies. Twice I let them make the first move and ended up killing them in self defense. At no point were words exchanged or was I even given the option of a peaceful meeting. It's kind of funny because the two I killed had little worth looting and had there been a conversation I would have tried to give them some food and water. Instead they lost their gear I just left sitting on their corpse.
I'm all for PvP and combat. Some worlds are dangerous, some people are not friendly, and sometimes you need to fight to survive. But I do wish there were more games in which deciding you want a plowshare instead of a sword was a viable option. Even most "carebear" games are focused on PvE combat. Ironically games like EVE and Mortal Online are some of the most friendly to non-combat oriented characters.
If we're going to have a game focused on adventuring and dungeon-delving, there are many other things that characters could need to do in a dungeon or on an adventure besides fight. Interesting and challenging obstacles and encounters do not necessarily require violence or direct combat. Experience could be gained from using non-combat and utility skills as well as combat skills.
The possibilities that Loke666 mentioned are also interesting. And I agree with Eldurian. A virtual world where it could just as interesting to be a farmer, a stonemason, a merchant (or many other occupations) as it to be a soldier or an adventurer would be very cool.
Its not that people are pacifists its that there is only about a billion other things we could be doing AS WELL as that.
building, crafting, making factories...hell in one game I built a car 'bolt by bolt' the possiblities are endless and this bullshit that everyone is staying up late at night dreaming that they wish they could kill in real life but cant and that is all they dream about, never about flying a plane, never about jumping from a plane, never about building a home...none of those things.
its horseshit of course people would want to do that.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
If a game makes an activity important and necessary, it can become interesting. If my character's personal success, and/or the success of the kingdom, realm, community, society, or civilization to which he belongs is effected by whatever activity he is asked to do in a virtual world, then it matters, and can be fun. Even better if the way he does it in the game is also challenging and fun. Pretty much anything can be made into a game or a mini-game.