What is with the Obsession with Challenge?

Ungood

You know, when I started playing MMO's, it was with EQ1 and, truth be told, the combat was amazingly simplistic, you hit attack, maybe used an ability here and there, as they came up, it was slow paced, You had to wait for the pullers to bring the mob to the group, you had to stop and rest, allow the casters to get back mana, all the fast paced words said were macro's, often linked to spells or abilities, so people would know what was going on.

and then, we chatted while inbetween things.

Now I hear people talking about how much a challenge old games where, and truth be told, they weren't. a solid 3 person group in EQ1, and you could pretty much go anywhere with minimal issues. Sure, there were raid bosses, or world bosses, but, some guilds beat those bosses by sheer numbers, and that worked, Zerg Rushing dragons and gods, was a viable tactic if you had enough people.

Today, I see people talk about rotations, skill stacking, and it's much faster paced, with the expectation that you will be playing With Voice while on Discord, and yet I see people talk of needing Challenge.

Where does this come from?

Honestly, I play a game for fun. I enjoy the journey, and I enjoy the rewards, but, I don't get this whole idea that these games are not challenging enough, as they seem to gotten overall more challenging.

So, what is with this urge? Like do people not have enough normal frustration and trial in their everyday life, that need to add frustration to their game time? Or is something else?

Also, what exactly is challenge to you?

BrotherMaynard

Well, you can look at it from two perspectives, game companies and players.

The first camp usually talks about challenging content for two reasons:

1. To keep players in their game (and paying) longer by ramping up the difficulty and counting on players failing repeatedly and not wanting to quit until they beat the encounter. That includes various forms of lazy game development, with extra difficulty being used as additional "content".
2. The e-sports companies who see it simply as another way to squeeze additional $$$ out of players by pushing games away from art and entertainment toward "sport" (which they definitely are not).

If you look at it from the players' point of view, you can pick any of the following general motivations:

1. People who need challenges and risks all the time, for whom content without high risk of failure would not have any appeal. They probably seek this kind of thrill in all parts of their lives, games included.
2. Analytical people, whose enjoyment comes from understanding the challenge in minute detail and devising a way to overcome it. Various theory crafters, for example, trying to come up with the best possible builds.
3. People who generally fail in real life and seek to substitute lack of real life achievement for game achievements.
4. People with some form of disorder, for example those on the autism spectrum, for whom this kind of content may satisfy their intense and focused interest in a specific issue (often not understandable to others) and provide repetitive and well-defined stimulation.

These are a few that come to my mind - could be more, but those are probably more obscure reasons. For most of such players it would probably be a combination of several of these categories.

Also, some form of challenge is needed in any game, otherwise they would be little more than simple interactive stories. It keeps the game exciting. Nobody would enjoy a game where all you have to do is to press the 'I Win' button. But when challenges become the sole purpose or glorified to an unhealthy degree, that's when it can become problematic, as it often resonates with our psychological and social dimension and issues and can amplify them.

If you're not among such players, chances are you take your games as entertainment and not as a job, thrill dispensary, sport or substitute for real life accomplishments and thus you won't dwell too much on these arbitrary challenges. Myself I am in the same boat, I game for fun and entertainment and couldn't care less about challenging content. I have enough of it outside of the games.

And finally to lighten up the mood:

KnightFalz

Ungood said:

So, what is with this urge? Like do people not have enough normal frustration and trial in their everyday life, that need to add frustration to their game time? Or is something else?

Also, what exactly is challenge to you?

Many frustrations and trials of everyday life can not be easily dispatched, and some are unassailable. Perhaps the difficult but possible challenges in games act as a surrogate for their resolution, easing the burdens of what can't be resolved by overcoming what can in their stead.

Challenge to me is that I find challenging.

Scot

I am an advocate of challenge in games, but perhaps it is what challenge has been replaced with that makes the change so bitter...shopping.

Vrika

Think about IRL games: I'm sure there are a few people who enjoy a 100 meter group walk on straight line, or repeatedly pushing a ball to the goal for ninety minutes. But when you add the challenge of opponents, 100 meter run and soccer are hugely more popular.

Imho it's kind of similar situation with games: The activities we're asked to do are in themselves usually boring. But if you add challenge they become fun.

Vrika

KnightFalz said:

Ungood said:

So, what is with this urge? Like do people not have enough normal frustration and trial in their everyday life, that need to add frustration to their game time? Or is something else?

Also, what exactly is challenge to you?

Many frustrations and trials of everyday life can not be easily dispatched, and some are unassailable. Perhaps the difficult but possible challenges in games act as a surrogate for their resolution, easing the burdens of what can't be resolved by overcoming what can in their stead.

I don't think that's it. I think it's more the opposite: When you're feeling bad or stressed you don't take the challenging game out, you'll opt for something relaxing.

But when you're feeling good and have some energy, then you're more likely to see if you could tackle that difficult challenge.

cameltosis

Humans get "in the zone" / in a "state of flow" when they are taking on what they perceive as "achievable challenges". We want to win, but we want it to be difficult to get that win.

When we are able to get into the zone, that is when we are having the most fun. We experience the most amount of immersion, the rest of the world disappears from conscious thought. We are happy in that moment, and its usually followed by feelings of pride or contentment, a pleasent sense of achievement.

So, thats why all the talk about challenge: we are searching for happiness, fun, and a sense of achievement.

Of course, as we grow older and experience more of life, our perception of what is an achievable challenge changes. What we found challenging 20 years ago, we find easy today. This is one of the real problems with the stagnation of the industry - for those of us who've been around for decades, the old challenges are no longer challenging, we needs developers to take the next step, add more complexity, depth and difficulty.....but they aren't doing so. Everything feels easy to us, which is why we end up having to create our own challenges, like soloing group content, deliberately gimping ourselves with crap gear, or focusing on PvP.

WalkinGlenn

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Theocritus

I didnt find early EQ all that easy....We died alot in the first couple of years.

eoloe

A game is supposed to bring a difficulty to figure out. Sometimes it is based on skill, reflex, logic, psychology, probabilities, and even sometimes pure luck.

If this is just a glorified chat... well in this case, it is just a glorified chat.

Ungood

eoloe said:

A game is supposed to bring a difficulty to figure out. Sometimes it is based on skill, reflex, logic, psychology, probabilities, and even sometimes pure luck.

If this is just a glorified chat... well in this case, it is just a glorified chat.

LOL, this reminds me of what a friend said to me way back in the Early EQ! days "MMO's are like bathroom stalls with the doors removed, everyone gets to watch you shit yourself"

I've never stopped thinking about that line.. 

Dattelis

When I see a person talk about the 'old days' (and I find myself falling into this trap as well from time to time) I think its more about the forced sense of 'empathy' or 'comrodary' that going through a tedious situation presents.

Which brings me into my follow-up which is many people confusing 'challenge' with 'tedium.' 'Challenge' usually is interpreted as something that requires skill to overcome and unfortunately many modern people do not see patience as a skill. You could also argue that resource management is a skill as well, while also having the ability to adapt to unique situations (like someone dying or getting disconnected).

The 'mindset' of people has 'evolved' simply because minor things that used to encumber people have usually been done away with. Getting a group together of 10+ people to do an activity would be considered a skill 10+ years ago where as today many games do that for you. So, 'skills' have essentially been 'removed' from games sense that time. Problem is, things become more narrow and people just want to jump from one thing to the next simply because they have the ability to.

cheyane

I think because of how late I got into gaming and my age right now I only have challenges as far as physical reflexes go. Everything else is just elbow grease. I don't consider spending weeks levelling or taking insane amount of times crafting as challenging or for that matter learning complex systems as hard, it seems more like having perseverance. I've always had loads of that even at work.

AlBQuirky

Challenges come in many forms, including "tedium." It's "challenging" to do the same thing over and over.

Aren't challenges just little stepping stones in games to overcome or prepare a player for "THE" grand challenge at the end?

The tricky part is finding the challenges that you, the player, can find fun with

DigDuggy

I don't know if it's an obsession.  Sounds a bit strong.  However, people enjoy overcoming challenges because it produces a sense of accomplishment when overcome.  It's not something new to MMOs.  It's what keeps people going to Mount Everest; Running Marathons; and going to Mars.  It's only natural.

Iselin

I like variety of challenge in my MMOs and especially the ability to choose when to challenge myself.

Modern MMOs do a good job of making the mundane fights that everyone has to go through easy, That's just good design since you have a general population of players with a wide range of capabilities that all need to complete that generic, overland, content.

Even in ESO which IMO, makes the overland grind and quest mobs too easy, I still routinely see some players struggling and dying in content most of us could do with eyes closed.

A well designed game should have a range from very easy to very hard with the very hard content segregated in a way -- instances, areas of a zone, whole hard zones... whatever -- that you need to actively choose to participate in it.

The worst kind of MMO design is when they try to make even the mundane content challenging. Some players - a whole lot of them - are in MMOs primarily to socialize, RP or decorate their homes. Those players who may not be the most savy or efficient killers also need to be catered to with the quest content they all also need to get through to level up.

Dattelis

AlBQuirky said:

Challenges come in many forms, including "tedium." It's "challenging" to do the same thing over and over.

Aren't challenges just little stepping stones in games to overcome or prepare a player for "THE" grand challenge at the end?

The tricky part is finding the challenges that you, the player, can find fun with

Probably the most difficult part I think now-a-days. Part of the thing that added to 'challenge' back in the day was the 'discovery' phase. I dont know about others, but when content was 'fresh,' information on how to overcome it was 'valuable' and many people didn't share tips until months (or even years) later. When content is 'fresh' now, its usually figured out within days (or even before it comes out depending on the game). Sure, an individual can ignore it, but MMORPGs are typically not played in a bubble, so if a large enough group engages with outside elements to figure out how to get something done, it usually translates into the 'norm.' I personally hate hearing people say "didn't you watch a guide or something" when a new piece of content is barely a week old. 'Problem solving' is still a 'skill' that most 'challenges' have or at least try to incorporate.

Shaigh

Challenge is great, until you face an obstacle that you, your group or your guild are unable to beat.

As someone that still play classic TBC its obvious that some designs are problematic. People don't do heroic blood furnace because its so absurdly scaled that you need multiple CC to do it. First runs of heroic shattered halls, you always brought a mage.

In raids, for ssc they brought back the first iteration of lady vashj, and without proper setups and using cheezy items you weren't killing her. In Tk you had kael'thas which is a dps race in phase 3. A huge amount of guild became stopped at 8/10 in p2 until the nerf, which pretty much ruined all challenge.

For p3, you had the easy mount hyjal and black temple, and people sort of complained about lack of challenge.

In p5, sunwell. Brutallus is a dps race and without setups you fail. Muru is both a composition and an execution fight. My guild struggled with twin eredar because we only had one restoration shaman, with more restoration shamans the fight is about one person hit by conflageration not wiping the raid.

Whenever there are challenges, the player base goes to hell and back trying to find the simplest way to beat the challenge. If developers make something that is truly difficult, people will stack composition to favor them, they will copy the cheeziest strategies, they will use all items possible in the game just to stack the odds in their favor.

There are execution fights but a lot of the issues with mmorpg challenges is that it often comes from rpg elements where you have to bring the correct composition to even have a chance, after that it becomes about execution.

Quizzical

My basic view is that games should be interesting to play.  If you get the same output of you win almost no matter what you do, then that's not interesting.

To me, the right level of PVE challenge is that players should usually win unless going out of their way to take on something very hard, but should nearly always have a realistic chance of failure.  You should have to pay attention to what you're doing in order to win.  And furthermore, there should be some variety, so that if you try to do the same thing everywhere, no matter what it is, it will tend to fail in some places and force you to adjust your build or strategy or something in order to win.

Challenging content doesn't mean that a large fraction of players should get stuck and be unable to progress.  If 95% of dungeon runs successfully clear the dungeon, excluding failures because people left and you were shorthanded, that's fine.  Especially if the remaining 5% can mostly adjust, try again, and succeed.  And the few who were just plain bad at the game can gain some levels, come back, and clear it.

Too many games seem to have the PVE difficulty scaled such that the main way to fail is if you get huge lag spikes or disconnected from the server, or something else in real-life abruptly pulls you away from the game and you can't pause it.  If playing recklessly or otherwise badly basically never causes you to fail, then that's too easy, and that's boring.

Quizzical

Dattelis said:

AlBQuirky said:

Challenges come in many forms, including "tedium." It's "challenging" to do the same thing over and over.

Aren't challenges just little stepping stones in games to overcome or prepare a player for "THE" grand challenge at the end?

The tricky part is finding the challenges that you, the player, can find fun with

Probably the most difficult part I think now-a-days. Part of the thing that added to 'challenge' back in the day was the 'discovery' phase. I dont know about others, but when content was 'fresh,' information on how to overcome it was 'valuable' and many people didn't share tips until months (or even years) later. When content is 'fresh' now, its usually figured out within days (or even before it comes out depending on the game). Sure, an individual can ignore it, but MMORPGs are typically not played in a bubble, so if a large enough group engages with outside elements to figure out how to get something done, it usually translates into the 'norm.' I personally hate hearing people say "didn't you watch a guide or something" when a new piece of content is barely a week old. 'Problem solving' is still a 'skill' that most 'challenges' have or at least try to incorporate.

Some games still have a real sense of discovery, though it's mostly when the game is obscure and not very many people play it.  Unfortunately, the reason that not very many people play the game is usually because the game is bad.  There are a handful of very low budget indie gems with a marketing budget of $0 that languish in obscurity, but finding them is hard, and they're usually single-player games, anyway.

Kyleran

Vrika said:

KnightFalz said:

Ungood said:

So, what is with this urge? Like do people not have enough normal frustration and trial in their everyday life, that need to add frustration to their game time? Or is something else?

Also, what exactly is challenge to you?

Many frustrations and trials of everyday life can not be easily dispatched, and some are unassailable. Perhaps the difficult but possible challenges in games act as a surrogate for their resolution, easing the burdens of what can't be resolved by overcoming what can in their stead.

I don't think that's it. I think it's more the opposite: When you're feeling bad or stressed you don't take the challenging game out, you'll opt for something relaxing.

But when you're feeling good and have some energy, then you're more likely to see if you could tackle that difficult challenge.

Oh goodness no, after a hard day's work, having gotten very stressed from taking crap and grief from co-workers, customers and management, when I kick open the door of Robco Industries in FO76 with my explosive .50 caliber machine gun in hand it isn't really the ghouls, robots and super mutants I'm relieving my anxiety over.

Adamantine

A: "What ? You want games to be interesting and challenging ? Why ???"

B: *raises an eyebrow*

Jakobmiller

I agree with most people here. A challenge is required in order to improve. If there is nothing to improve, why do we keep doing it? It will be fun to a certain point, but after some reflection, a lot of people will question what they are doing.

Scot

Adamantine said:

A: "What ? You want games to be interesting and challenging ? Why ???"

B: *raises an eyebrow*

Remember the living dead wandering aimlessly around a shopping mall, that's what gaming should be aiming for apparently.

Ungood

Jakobmiller said:

I agree with most people here. A challenge is required in order to improve. If there is nothing to improve, why do we keep doing it? It will be fun to a certain point, but after some reflection, a lot of people will question what they are doing.

Better at what?

Legit, I don't see people getting all flex about getting better at Candyland.

It's a game, unless it is a E-Sport game, that you can legit make money off of, it will not give you any serviceable real life skills. You play it for the sheer fun of it, nothing more.

So again, I don't see the obsession with needing more and more challenge.

Ungood

Adamantine said:

A: "What ? You want games to be interesting and challenging ? Why ???"

B: *raises an eyebrow*

No, just the challenge part, things can be interesting, enjoyable, and even rewarding, without any need for this obsession with more and more challenge being applied.

To give a fine example of this. It's not a challenge to make PB&J sandwich, but it can be fun, enjoyable, and very rewarding to do so.

So, I am just talking about Challenge Part, is the question, nothing else.

As never in my life, as I was making myself a sandwich did I ever say "Making this harder would be so much better"