It is agreed that most games are to "easy" not EASY in the point where leveling comes in because truthfully i don't have much high level characters in allot of games, and i played loads of online mmo's. I just find it to Easy, as in mentally the strategy, thats why i try to stick to games where theres allot of strategy.
That way we learn more, also learning and enjoying games.Tell me that i am wrong? plus it would create a great community people would associate with other people more because how they use there strategies. It would give uniqueness to the Game and to each player. That i would love to be created and to spread among the internet as well ^.^
Great topic!
Thanks for posting that good to hear someone with alike idea's
2) Succeeding is dependend on player skill (tactics, movement, aiming, ...) and NOT your character or its items and level.
Todays MMOs try to make everything so easy that anyone, even those IQ 50 apes, will come out victorious. Its good for business. If players cannot handle the situation and lose again and again they will quit. Most "casual gamers" just want a smooth ride without having to think or try out new strategies to get to the goal. With challenges it would be:
Try 1: Method A didnt work / Character ist not of appropriate level
Try 2: Method A didnt work / Character ist not of appropriate level
Try 3: The player starts to concentrate but somehow Method A still doesnt work.
Player quits the game.
The MMos have been dumbed down so hard that nearly everyone can play all the characters with nearly optimal performance. Every single player will be able to kill 10 rats but never 11 because it is easy to play the characters well but the chars level and items are limiting better performance. When you die in WoW or Vanguard it is not because you played your char wrong, it is because your char just wasnt strong enough. You as a player cannot change anything with a different playstyle. There is no place for growth, no place for variation, no place for losing because of your lacking skill, no place for challenges.
Imagine a game like this:
Player A fights a rat and dies because of low skill.
Player B fights 10 rats at the same time with the same character but wins because of superior tactics, aiming, movement and knowledge.
A game like this provides the framework for true challenges. A challenge for mind, reflexes, intuition and experience. A game where you need to move from method A to B, C and D until you finally succeed. It may take a long time but at some point you will have found the proper strategy and will have perfected it enough to overcome the challenge.
==
Your issue seems to be with the "RPG" element in MMORPGs. If you want a game that's entirely skill based then you have to do away with a large part of character-development. And I'm not sure what you mean about "Today's MMOs" being so easy in this respect. I'd argue they're easier because there is less consequence and generally require less thought. However, MMORPGs have always been very character-based. The first "traditional" MMO (EQ) was, in some ways, more character-skill-dependent than a lot of modern MMOs, as some classes had very few skills at their desposal (warriors, for example, having pretty much 3 types of attacks that just had to be spammed). UO was also very character-based, although there was a higher player skill ceiling.
Basically it all depends on the context of the game. There isn't one "right way" to do it; some games work better with traditional RPG elements (aim and such are calculated automatically, eg any EQ-formula MMO) and others with more direct control over combat (Neocron, Planetside, etc).
I want to deepen this a bit. So far, the responses seem to be against timesinks and death penalties (which surprises me - I was expecting to hear all about how I'm a 'carebear' because I dislike death penalties and endless timesinks like corpse runs). Now, about 'skill'.
I assume that you're talking about player skill, GL. In an MMORPG of the standard format of which we have all seen repeatedly (the EQ format), attacks and such are based on the skill of the character, which is one of the defining points of an RPG. I've never played Battletoads (maybe I'll download it to try it out), so help me understand: my experience with Nintendo games is a bunch of button mashing, hoping that you win.
Are you talking about skill as in strategy and planning? Or are you talking about a different kind of skill, more like a twitch-format? I think I'm getting confused on definitions here.
Keep the responses coming, and please, try to keep them civil! We've done a great job so far!
Edited for clarity.
EDIT #2: Okay, I had some additional thoughts I wanted to add. 'Skill' is really too broad a term. Different kinds of games require different skills. Fighting games require lightning-quick reflexes and a well-honed memory for long combo chains. FPSes require lightning-quick reflexes and good hand-eye coordination. Strategy games require thought processes and - dare I say it - strategy, well-planned and swiftly executed. MMORPGs require group tactics, coordination, cooperation, and a thorough knowledge of your character's abilities in order to efficiently dispatch your foes.
All of which are skills that need training. So, what kind of skill do you feel today's games should require that they do not?
It can be anything. It can be tactical skills, fast reflexes, depending on the game. Right now,Imo, MMORPG's don't require real thinking before you do something. Its all mind numbing. You never think "What should I do now!?". Nor do you ever really have to react fast or be quick with a mouse and keyboard. In fact, I play every MMORPG like I'm watching a movie.
To answer the question posed in this thread's title is quite tricky and if we were to come to a conclusion that can satisfy a large number of people for a long time then, my friends, we should go into business. A challenge, gaming wise, is a personal thing, completely subjective. What one person finds easy, another will find trivial. What one person would find fun another will see a grind. The only resource I have to draw upon when trying to reply here is my gaming experience, not only from mmos, but also from all games I have tried. It seems to me that people will determine what a challenge is by how they feel after the fact. To explain, how did you feel the first time you killed a boss monster? The feeling of achievement or defeat is what defines a challenge. I feel challenged when there is a consequence (or consequences) for my actions. Be it a thief messing up sneaking about, the firepower of my spaceship not being able to break the tank of a foe or whatever. Tied into this is the death penalty. I think it's a mistake to see a death penalty as a time sink. You might as well consider the entire game as a time sink if that's your attitude. Not having a death penalty takes away from the challenge of a game, for me. As examples of games where death penalties are severe I cite the arcade games of old, from space invaders to R-type. 3 strikes and you're out. The better you play, the longer your coin carries you through the game until you beat the game, the challenge is overcome. Other consequences from actions could be gaining of items from non-trivial crafting. I found angus858's description of the bioengineering in early SWG intriguing, clearly challenging although not my cup of tea. Not all consequences need be negative to be challenging. I find working in teams in an Internet game challenging, which is amplified by the anonymity factor of multiple toons/account as is common in most mmos. Even when team members are not solely self-interested it can be challenging. Learning tough encounters in a WoW raid can take alot of time, effort and co-ordination. Most of all, I find PvP challenging. I have yet to play against a computer AI that can match a human for deviousness. What I do not find challenging is repetition. It is the doom of computer games to be repetitious. You do the same dungeons in WoW, defend the same base in battlefield, kill the same npcs in EvE, etc. To design a computer game that is NOT repetitious would be a real achievement. I've yet to find a game that is not so. This, I feel, is the source of many people's discontent with the mmo industry at present. Having played a repetitious game for a long while, to be faced with more of the same in a different coat is not appealing. Perhaps an answer to this would be a multi-style game, i.e. a game similar to SWG's (pretty poor) attempt to incorporate a space flight game into a third person avatar game. A game with a FPS, dungeon crawling, RTS and flight elements to it will have alot of pull so long as each component is a worthwhile game in as of itself. So, in conclusion, Kyellan to find a mmo challenging I would have to feel in-game consequences for non-trivial activities, including a death penalty. It would cater for my solo-play desires as well as having team-based activities and include PvP elements throughout the game, but most importantly it must avoid repetition in gameplay to hold my interest. Hope this helps :-)
I think that what is challenging is anything that requires real-life skills, thinking, and decisions. For a game to be challenging, the outcome of combat, crafting, diplomacy, even exploration will be altered by an individual's choice. E.g., if it is combat, the right combination of spells, attack tactics and techniques will determine the outcome. If it is crafting, it will depend on the right use of formulas and materials, which should impact the quality of the item crafting.
However, challenging imho is not a timesink; that is an annoyance.
What I do not find challenging is repetition. It is the doom of computer games to be repetitious. You do the same dungeons in WoW, defend the same base in battlefield, kill the same npcs in EvE, etc. To design a computer game that is NOT repetitious would be a real achievement.
why is repetition not challenging? Can I point out sports which are strongly based on repetition.
It can be anything. It can be tactical skills, fast reflexes, depending on the game. Right now,Imo, MMORPG's don't require real thinking before you do something. Its all mind numbing. You never think "What should I do now!?". Nor do you ever really have to react fast or be quick with a mouse and keyboard. In fact, I play every MMORPG like I'm watching a movie.
Skills doesn't just mean physical skills. If you don't find challenge in a mmorpg its probably because you're not seeking it.
a casual game can be played equally good from a professional and from a noob. while in a challenging game the professional will be playing considerably better than the noob.
To me, what makes a game challenging is the requirement to think or to plan. I'll just give some examples. 1) Crafting in early SWG was very deep. There were hundreds of different materials you could use and every decision you made effected the final product. Bioengineering pets was the ultimate challenge. It was simple to make a pet. But to make a great pet that had all the traits you wanted was fantastically difficult. You had to breed multiple generations and crossbreed. There were no instructions on how to do this. Players devoted hours to real scientific investigation trying to crack the algorithms of the game code. Websites and forums were full of experimental data and results. Some gamers would have found it boring and frustrating but I loved it. Crafting in other games has seemed so shallow. Most games give you a recipe which TELLS you exactly what materials to use. If you use the same materials and qualities you will get the SAME product every time. There is nothing to figure out, no mystery, no depth. 2) In EVE online it was challenging to run a profitable business. All of the things you have to consider for a real life business are present in the game along with things like pirates and corporate shooting wars. A great deal of planning was required. We used spreadsheets to calculate costs and profits. Just to begin a new mining operation might take a week of planning, staging ships and supplies at new locations, negotiating with local pirates and alliances, scouting and laying navigational bookmarks to increase the speed and safety of your mining and cargo ships. Even if you did everything right a swing in the market could render your new business unworkable. It took time, smarts, and a willingness to take risks. 3) In the early days of DAoC I thought the quests were often challenging. Just to find a quest required travel, exploration, and conversation with every npc in every town just to find all of the quests. There were no glowies floating over the heads of the npc's. You actually had to intereact with them all. When you got a quest it told you what the objective was but only gave you clues on how to accomplish it. If you had to go kill Joe it gave you a vague verbal description of the general area where Joe might be. But you had to find the spot by comparing what you saw with the clues you were given. There were no waypoints. Even if you had the right spot, Joe might only be there each day between 3am and dawn. If you found all that to be too tedious there were web sites that had walk-throughs. But if you wanted a challenge you could figure it out yourself. Quests in most games today require almost no thinking. You are told what to do at every step, given waypoints to the next location, target objects often glow and hum just to make sure you can't possibly miss them. The only thing missing from quests in LotRO and Vanguard is a button which automatically runs your avatar through them. Ok, that's an exageration but you get my point. You may feel that all three of those examples are things you'd never want to do in your favorite game. That's cool. That's why we should have games with varying degrees of challenge. I just wish there were some more challenging games available.
Yep, it seems as the todays MMO developers think we are mentally challanced or something. They take away all complex action, challencing gameplay feature or mind involving task.
And at moment i dont see to many high lights in the future either.
I also agree 100% to the time factor is all that matters today. When someone tell me that they have a lvl 70 character in WoW, and expect some admiratiuon from me..i get angry.
If you play a lame level/class MMO with a clear endgame for a year, its a mystery if you dont reach cap?
But as you said about SWG, you could play for 3 years and never mastered the crafting or the bioengineer feature.....because it was a real challence to do it.
Your issue seems to be with the "RPG" element in MMORPGs. If you want a game that's entirely skill based then you have to do away with a large part of character-development. And I'm not sure what you mean about "Today's MMOs" being so easy in this respect. I'd argue they're easier because there is less consequence and generally require less thought. However, MMORPGs have always been very character-based. The first "traditional" MMO (EQ) was, in some ways, more character-skill-dependent than a lot of modern MMOs, as some classes had very few skills at their desposal (warriors, for example, having pretty much 3 types of attacks that just had to be spammed). UO was also very character-based, although there was a higher player skill ceiling.
Basically it all depends on the context of the game. There isn't one "right way" to do it; some games work better with traditional RPG elements (aim and such are calculated automatically, eg any EQ-formula MMO) and others with more direct control over combat (Neocron, Planetside, etc).
I agree with you. Character progression as we know it does not work well with "skill-intensive" games. For these games I would try to create a different sort of progression:
1) Individualtiy: Starting with a default char and shaping it into what you want. Example: Start with a hybrid and specialize in a teleporting ranger. When you look at the levels/attributes etc. the ranger still has got the same overall strength as the starting char. This would be you trying to become different than everyone else.
2) Progressing through ranks, areas and social networks. You play to get a better rank in a npc guild or you try to get to new unknown areas which provide you with a different sort of challenge, harder challenges and therefor simply better loot. Social networks: Player run cities + wars + conquering and holding pvp areas. This is more a guild progression than a personal char progression.
3) A skill having 5 strength levels may not be so bad after all. It should not take you that long to get to lvl 5 though.
--- Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
A character only becomes challenging to progress when the xp loss from a death penalty is potentially greater than the xp you earn between deaths.
There is no other goal in PvE mmo's. That's why I quickly get bored of them once I get all the character skills and equipment I want.
That's why I think we need more PvP mmo's with risk and reward, where you progress your character through PvP,and where the challenge is to conquer land, defeat other guilds, or just fight for a cause other than arbitrary "matches".
It's a bit disappointing that this type of gameplay is shunned by most. It's pretty evident if you go play any pvp centric mmo like Shadowbane or Eve, and a lot of people playing it will complain about not being able to pve because of pvp.
A character only becomes challenging to progress when the xp loss from a death penalty is potentially greater than the xp you earn between deaths.
There is no other goal in PvE mmo's. That's why I quickly get bored of them once I get all the character skills and equipment I want.
That's why I think we need more PvP mmo's with risk and reward, where you progress your character through PvP,and where the challenge is to conquer land, defeat other guilds, or just fight for a cause other than arbitrary "matches".
It's a bit disappointing that this type of gameplay is shunned by most. It's pretty evident if you go play any pvp centric mmo like Shadowbane or Eve, and a lot of people playing it will complain about not being able to pve because of pvp.
NO !
If a challenge is a real challenge you will never be able to handle it the first time. You overcoming the challenge is not dependend on your character. Having a strong char does not automatically make you pass the test. If you have to try to overcome a challenge 10 times with differing tactics you will, with xp loss as a penalty, lose 10x the xp loss.
Challenges are not about what you lose when you fail but about how much you have to adapt to win. A small loss would be fine though.
--- Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Thanks everybody for keeping this relatively flame-free.
I'll move onto a hypothetical now. If there was a game designed that:
Had a complex and in-depth crafitng system where the item's quality and durability outcome was affected by character skill, type of materials and quality of materials used, but did NOT have a pointless, repetitive mini-grind to advance...
Allowed players to completely customize every aspect of their character's development, by choosing where level advancement points go, where skill points are allocated and having differing and exclusive options (taking one skill makes it impossible to choose this other skill) as to what special skills their characters have...
Had extraneous, non-combat but fully-developed systems such as animal breeding and training...
A non-class-dependent combat and non-combat pet and mount system, supported by the above animal breeding/training system...
A world large enough to support non-instanced player housing, player shops, player vendors and entire player settlements, but with enough transportation options that you don't wind up with nobody being able to find each other...
A skill-based character advancement system...
More player-appearance options than you can shake a stick at...
A strategic combat system where one player's actions can affect another's outcome in a group (this attack causes this, which can be exploited by this)...
A strategic magic system that allows you to essentially construct each spell on the fly from basic elemental and metamagic abilites...
Is this the kind of game you'd buy and play? If not, what would you like to see added/removed from the list?
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"Give a man a fire, and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he is warm for the rest of his life."
Thanks everybody for keeping this relatively flame-free.
I'll move onto a hypothetical now. If there was a game designed that:
Had a complex and in-depth crafitng system where the item's quality and durability outcome was affected by character skill, type of materials and quality of materials used, but did NOT have a pointless, repetitive mini-grind to advance...
Allowed players to completely customize every aspect of their character's development, by choosing where level advancement points go, where skill points are allocated and having differing and exclusive options (taking one skill makes it impossible to choose this other skill) as to what special skills their characters have...
Had extraneous, non-combat but fully-developed systems such as animal breeding and training...
A non-class-dependent combat and non-combat pet and mount system, supported by the above animal breeding/training system...
A world large enough to support non-instanced player housing, player shops, player vendors and entire player settlements, but with enough transportation options that you don't wind up with nobody being able to find each other...
A skill-based character advancement system...
More player-appearance options than you can shake a stick at...
A strategic combat system where one player's actions can affect another's outcome in a group (this attack causes this, which can be exploited by this)...
A strategic magic system that allows you to essentially construct each spell on the fly from basic elemental and metamagic abilites...
Is this the kind of game you'd buy and play? If not, what would you like to see added/removed from the list?
You just pretty much described Pre-Cu SWG......It was my first MMORPG and I pay the price for that. I have yet to find something equal to that experience. I currently play LOTRO and am enjoying it, but, it is no Pre-CU SWG. I would buy the above described game in a second....put it in a sci-fi setting.....all the better.
Thanks everybody for keeping this relatively flame-free.
I'll move onto a hypothetical now. If there was a game designed that:
Had a complex and in-depth crafitng system where the item's quality and durability outcome was affected by character skill, type of materials and quality of materials used, but did NOT have a pointless, repetitive mini-grind to advance...
Allowed players to completely customize every aspect of their character's development, by choosing where level advancement points go, where skill points are allocated and having differing and exclusive options (taking one skill makes it impossible to choose this other skill) as to what special skills their characters have...
Had extraneous, non-combat but fully-developed systems such as animal breeding and training...
A non-class-dependent combat and non-combat pet and mount system, supported by the above animal breeding/training system...
A world large enough to support non-instanced player housing, player shops, player vendors and entire player settlements, but with enough transportation options that you don't wind up with nobody being able to find each other...
A skill-based character advancement system...
More player-appearance options than you can shake a stick at...
A strategic combat system where one player's actions can affect another's outcome in a group (this attack causes this, which can be exploited by this)...
A strategic magic system that allows you to essentially construct each spell on the fly from basic elemental and metamagic abilites...
Is this the kind of game you'd buy and play? If not, what would you like to see added/removed from the list?
I'd play it. Heck I'd test it, buy it, and pay $20/mnth to play it...but it wouldn't make money.
Playing:I can't say Waiting:Tabula Rasa Played:M59,UO,EQ,AO,SWG,L2,CoX SB,EQ2,WoW,VG:SoH,GW,AC,AC2, DAoC,DDO,DR,EVE,FFXI,PSO,RO, RFO,RoE,MxO,H:EoI,N2,Imagine
You forgot the freedom of choosing whether we engage on all of those activities or not.
But yeah, I'd play a game like that, except that the combat seems simplistic. I'd add "real-time" combat for physical attacks and the traditional "turn-based" for non-physical attacks (magic in Fantasy, tech stuff in Sci Fi, and so on). Or a combination of both via the various skills available in order to satisfy a wide audience that wants "turn based" in their physical and "real time" in their non-physical.
You know, basically many games out there try to accomplish the points you describe. But they're all either insatisfactory to a mainstream audience of players very diverse in their interests (EVE and Ultima aren't exactly the most played games out there) or they screw it up at some point (SWG). Maybe, just maybe, that kind of game is ideally awesome, but realistically almost impossible to achieve and accomplish. And even then, depending on the theme and its execution, it still wouldn't cater to most people, which is what I sense you're trying to get to. THE game. But if you're talking about the basis for a next-gen game then I'm with you all the way. New games will hopefully be more complex than before without necessarily hampering the learning experience.
1) Death penalty -- making death "sting" makes the game exciting. The dungeons are scarier, the players are more careful, etc...
2) Dangerous world -- tougher encounters require more than one person to defeat, so grouping is required much of the time. Grouping creates socializing and makes gameplay more memorable.
3) Mysterious world -- you adventure where you dare, not to where some linear line of quests leads you.
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine. MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
Like in any game there are many ways to make something a challenge, some require time, patience, skill or even luck. Grinding is an obvious example of a challenge based around time spent, it is by far the easiest of all to implement. It is a lazy and unimaginative form of creating challenge in a game lettings those that have more freetime naturally get ahead of those that have less regaurdless of skill. Pretty much it creates a carrot on a stick style gameplay that promises the developers that the hardcore competitive crowd will be far less likely to quit always having menial repetitive tasks to preform if they want to stay ontop.
Beyond this there are several ways to develop skill based challenges and this is where developers should really focus their time in today's gaming community. Just like in any game an MMO can develop its challenge to actualy be difficult to the players requiring teamwork gear and skill. Most of the time in MMO games though this challenge is developed through the use of numbers alone. If you don't have the raw numbers the fight will likely not end in your favor. This kind of challenge is difficult to balance but allows character building however it leaves nothing for yourself you the player.
Additionally patterns are utilized quite often straying away from numbers but not abandoning them these can be used to create an initial challenge for groups to face those huge bosses they love to kill. The major downfall with this method is simply that once one group learns it the whole community will then copy this method, any group making it to this point in the game behind others have their entire game plan laid out for them providing no real challenge.
What lacks in all modern MMOs is the need to really have skill in playing your character. There is an initial learning curve and then the challenge of builds and thats really about it the actual need for skill is reduced to a minimum because many classes end up mashing one or two buttons, playing a heal bot or you are kept around to buff.
There is likely a need for a major overhaul in MMO mechanics to add any real challenge that will last to a game.
Fortunately there appears to be several deeper games with excellent combat dynamics in the work. Time will tell if someone can come up with a good fun long lasting way to add challenge.
Personally I love the challenge and I'd be disappointed if in WoW for example Illdian was defeated within a month of the instance release, that character is far too epic to meet his end so easily. I remember a story my friend told me about a boss in EQ1 that was release around the first expansion I think.
Some of this post may be semi incoherent, at work, constantly interrupted so apologies in advance >.<
There is nothing difficult about MMOs. As a matter of fact I'm starting to look at them in a literal sense. Literally... They are nothing more than huge time sinks to do exactly that: Pass time. Some are more, some less. The difficulty as it calls just adds up to being more of a time sink. You spend countless hours hitting hotkeys to watch a colored bar called an "xp bar" cross the screen to make that number next to your name become greater. Why? In the end did you solve anything? Did you win? Did you lose? No. You acomplished basically nothing. Sure. I guess your character has a fancy dancy weapon that glows or some crap like that. But after you get that sword of lookatmeiminternetcool does it really satisfy you? I used to love mmo's. But very recently as I was watching tv, I thought to myself.. "Why don't you like them much anymore or have more fun reading up on them then actually playing them?". It's just that. Everything I've mentioned above. I get more enjoyment these days out of walking my dog or slapping my friend across his big fat face after scoring a goal on him on the 360. Or even as far as taking my girlfriend to the mall and watching the joy on her face as she shuffles thru clothes in a store. Cause in the end.. I actually achieve something from this. I realize not everyone shares my opinion or might even call me a troll. So be it. But its what I think. And yes. I'm very competetive.
QFT , herein lies the truth to mmos. Read and learn from this.
I have to say I haven't found anything challanging about MMOs, new or old.
Any challange found in those games can be overcome through commonsense, experimentation or just getting stronger be it level or skill, especially considering that MMOs are just number crunchers so the player has a more passive role when playing.
I also think that many people are confusing complex poorly designed systems in a MMO to be the challenge.
If it takes a year to fully understand the crafting system then that is a bad crafting system, it is inefiecient, you can allow people many options to make whatever their heart's desire and make it simple to understand. Having to make a spread sheet to figure out which combination of materials will make the best whatever isn't hard in the least, it is just time consuming and boring.
Likewise impossing harsh death penalties doesn't make the game hard, again it is just time consuming and boring. This just serves to alienate the casual audience, not because casuals don't like a challange, many casuals I know, including myself, don't like games to be to easy, it is because those type of games are boring, and casuals are mainly about having fun.
Probably the biggest reason MMOs are like this is because of the lack of interactivity.
For example your knight is fighting a dragon, you click the correct buttons to lower the draon's defense and do the most damage you can, yet the dragon still killed you, even with potions and buffs. Technically this would be considered a challange, then why do we not feel challanged by this defeat, you were so close to killing that dragon but failed.
But if you will look at Resident Evil 4, after the third time that Krauser knifed you before you react, you probably said something like "this is hard," or more likely "MotherF*cker!" but why?
I think the answer is though the epic struggle between man and dragon would be challanging, you see floating numbers. Going back to RE4, you have to control Leon while fighting El Gigante, you are being directly confronted by the beast. The dragon however is an impersonal fight, driven by arithmatic, your lack of control over your knight prevents you from really pitting your wit or tactics against this behemoth. Instead you read your skills and then click them when it seems useful at the time. You are following a formula, not inventing calculus.
Don't read this as another post for "FPS RUlez!" I am just saying that what would be a challange in the game is being met by our characters not us, just think of how many times you said something like " stupid rogue, hit the orc!" The player should be the stupid rogue that is missing the orc on his own volition.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
I think it is wrong to rule out everything in mmorpgs as unchallenging, for instance if you decided to go into a WoW instance with say 2 people over 5, of course you will find that challenging but the probability is most people will go as the 5 man group as challenging is something that maybe they just don't actually want. Single player games you find in general follow this in that challenge isn't really put at that hard a level (with exceptions) as people will just quit if it is too hard.
However, I digress from what I originally wanted to post about regarding shade's post and thats regarding 'grinding' and what I think is the least challenging aspect of mmorpgs that could be improved and that is soloing. The problem is the game is based around the mentality of mobs not providing much resistance so people can more likely fulfill their primary objective of levelling up or progressing their character. With this mentality, challenge isn't welcomed. When you have 1000 mobs to level, would you rather they were difficult mobs which you were likely to die against, or easy mobs that are straightforward and get you to your desired goal? Exactly.
The soloing mechanics themselves are designed to simply kill the mob without providing much in the way of skill. Abilities aren't about where you position yourself or targetting but more about pressing press button-action performed which leads to basically people finding optimum ways of killing mobs very quickly and every solo encounter almost exactly the same. How can it be improved? that is the question or if indeed it can be improved? I think as mentioned physical skill in soloing with especially targetting, aiming and positioning mattering, or physical skill to perform an act to unlock other abilities in battle so that you could have a combat encounter where whether you see certain abilities depends on how good you are. An example perhaps is tekken type combat, you have combos which if you perform correctly you can unlock other combos which can be quite tough to do. In fact, if any of the combat was akin to fighting games that would have a lot more variety and more openness to allowing more challenge to the game.
I see its not just me who wants the old dodging/aiming abilites from diablo 2 brought back, in my opinion the worst thing to ever happen to online games is the "auto attack" feature. I cant see how people can play a game where they are locked in, is it even considered a game when you cant really move out of the way or use tactics to win and where your "character" controls where he shoots his fireball instead of you.
Final fantasy 1 didnt really take skill to win it took lots and lots of grinding and a bit of luck, exactly the same as all these crappy new games being made; if you want to sit and basically watch a movie with a group of people you should go to a movie theatre.. then maybe game designers will stop making games catering to people who dont want to think when they play or just like to look at the pretty colors..
What I do not find challenging is repetition. It is the doom of computer games to be repetitious. You do the same dungeons in WoW, defend the same base in battlefield, kill the same npcs in EvE, etc. To design a computer game that is NOT repetitious would be a real achievement.
why is repetition not challenging? Can I point out sports which are strongly based on repetition. Repetition is not challenging, and most of the sports that your thinking about are not as repetitious as you think. The few that I can think of would be games like Darts and Bowling. Now these the challenge is getting the repetition down but ideally once you set you have to keep it there. This is a little bit different in most games because your characters act "perfectly" every single time. therefore all of the minute differences that a athelete tries to control in his body is purely handled by a mathmatical equation there is no challenge in the repetition.
PVE in both EvE and WoW are boring and repetitious to me. Over all once you figure out how to beat the first NPC, none of the others are going to give you a challange. Challanges requireeither constant adaptation of strategies or a continuous difficulty of maintaining the same percision with external variables.
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It is agreed that most games are to "easy" not EASY in the point where leveling comes in because truthfully i don't have much high level characters in allot of games, and i played loads of online mmo's. I just find it to Easy, as in mentally the strategy, thats why i try to stick to games where theres allot of strategy.
That way we learn more, also learning and enjoying games.Tell me that i am wrong? plus it would create a great community people would associate with other people more because how they use there strategies. It would give uniqueness to the Game and to each player. That i would love to be created and to spread among the internet as well ^.^
Great topic!
Thanks for posting that good to hear someone with alike idea's
-Joshua
________
-nexen-
I agree with you ^.^
-Joshua
To answer the question posed in this thread's title is quite tricky and if we were to come to a conclusion that can satisfy a large number of people for a long time then, my friends, we should go into business.
A challenge, gaming wise, is a personal thing, completely subjective. What one person finds easy, another will find trivial. What one person would find fun another will see a grind. The only resource I have to draw upon when trying to reply here is my gaming experience, not only from mmos, but also from all games I have tried. It seems to me that people will determine what a challenge is by how they feel after the fact. To explain, how did you feel the first time you killed a boss monster? The feeling of achievement or defeat is what defines a challenge.
I feel challenged when there is a consequence (or consequences) for my actions. Be it a thief messing up sneaking about, the firepower of my spaceship not being able to break the tank of a foe or whatever. Tied into this is the death penalty.
I think it's a mistake to see a death penalty as a time sink. You might as well consider the entire game as a time sink if that's your attitude. Not having a death penalty takes away from the challenge of a game, for me. As examples of games where death penalties are severe I cite the arcade games of old, from space invaders to R-type. 3 strikes and you're out. The better you play, the longer your coin carries you through the game until you beat the game, the challenge is overcome. Other consequences from actions could be gaining of items from non-trivial crafting. I found angus858's description of the bioengineering in early SWG intriguing, clearly challenging although not my cup of tea. Not all consequences need be negative to be challenging.
I find working in teams in an Internet game challenging, which is amplified by the anonymity factor of multiple toons/account as is common in most mmos. Even when team members are not solely self-interested it can be challenging. Learning tough encounters in a WoW raid can take alot of time, effort and co-ordination.
Most of all, I find PvP challenging. I have yet to play against a computer AI that can match a human for deviousness.
What I do not find challenging is repetition. It is the doom of computer games to be repetitious. You do the same dungeons in WoW, defend the same base in battlefield, kill the same npcs in EvE, etc. To design a computer game that is NOT repetitious would be a real achievement. I've yet to find a game that is not so. This, I feel, is the source of many people's discontent with the mmo industry at present. Having played a repetitious game for a long while, to be faced with more of the same in a different coat is not appealing. Perhaps an answer to this would be a multi-style game, i.e. a game similar to SWG's (pretty poor) attempt to incorporate a space flight game into a third person avatar game. A game with a FPS, dungeon crawling, RTS and flight elements to it will have alot of pull so long as each component is a worthwhile game in as of itself.
So, in conclusion, Kyellan to find a mmo challenging I would have to feel in-game consequences for non-trivial activities, including a death penalty. It would cater for my solo-play desires as well as having team-based activities and include PvP elements throughout the game, but most importantly it must avoid repetition in gameplay to hold my interest.
Hope this helps :-)
I think that what is challenging is anything that requires real-life skills, thinking, and decisions. For a game to be challenging, the outcome of combat, crafting, diplomacy, even exploration will be altered by an individual's choice. E.g., if it is combat, the right combination of spells, attack tactics and techniques will determine the outcome. If it is crafting, it will depend on the right use of formulas and materials, which should impact the quality of the item crafting.
However, challenging imho is not a timesink; that is an annoyance.
Skills doesn't just mean physical skills. If you don't find challenge in a mmorpg its probably because you're not seeking it.
a casual game can be played equally good from a professional and from a noob. while in a challenging game the professional will be playing considerably better than the noob.
Yep, it seems as the todays MMO developers think we are mentally challanced or something. They take away all complex action, challencing gameplay feature or mind involving task.
And at moment i dont see to many high lights in the future either.
I also agree 100% to the time factor is all that matters today. When someone tell me that they have a lvl 70 character in WoW, and expect some admiratiuon from me..i get angry.
If you play a lame level/class MMO with a clear endgame for a year, its a mystery if you dont reach cap?
But as you said about SWG, you could play for 3 years and never mastered the crafting or the bioengineer feature.....because it was a real challence to do it.
1) Individualtiy: Starting with a default char and shaping it into what you want. Example: Start with a hybrid and specialize in a teleporting ranger. When you look at the levels/attributes etc. the ranger still has got the same overall strength as the starting char. This would be you trying to become different than everyone else.
2) Progressing through ranks, areas and social networks. You play to get a better rank in a npc guild or you try to get to new unknown areas which provide you with a different sort of challenge, harder challenges and therefor simply better loot. Social networks: Player run cities + wars + conquering and holding pvp areas. This is more a guild progression than a personal char progression.
3) A skill having 5 strength levels may not be so bad after all. It should not take you that long to get to lvl 5 though.
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Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
There is no other goal in PvE mmo's. That's why I quickly get bored of them once I get all the character skills and equipment I want.
That's why I think we need more PvP mmo's with risk and reward, where you progress your character through PvP,and where the challenge is to conquer land, defeat other guilds, or just fight for a cause other than arbitrary "matches".
It's a bit disappointing that this type of gameplay is shunned by most. It's pretty evident if you go play any pvp centric mmo like Shadowbane or Eve, and a lot of people playing it will complain about not being able to pve because of pvp.
If a challenge is a real challenge you will never be able to handle it the first time. You overcoming the challenge is not dependend on your character. Having a strong char does not automatically make you pass the test. If you have to try to overcome a challenge 10 times with differing tactics you will, with xp loss as a penalty, lose 10x the xp loss.
Challenges are not about what you lose when you fail but about how much you have to adapt to win. A small loss would be fine though.
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Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
I'll move onto a hypothetical now. If there was a game designed that:
Had a complex and in-depth crafitng system where the item's quality and durability outcome was affected by character skill, type of materials and quality of materials used, but did NOT have a pointless, repetitive mini-grind to advance...
Allowed players to completely customize every aspect of their character's development, by choosing where level advancement points go, where skill points are allocated and having differing and exclusive options (taking one skill makes it impossible to choose this other skill) as to what special skills their characters have...
Had extraneous, non-combat but fully-developed systems such as animal breeding and training...
A non-class-dependent combat and non-combat pet and mount system, supported by the above animal breeding/training system...
A world large enough to support non-instanced player housing, player shops, player vendors and entire player settlements, but with enough transportation options that you don't wind up with nobody being able to find each other...
A skill-based character advancement system...
More player-appearance options than you can shake a stick at...
A strategic combat system where one player's actions can affect another's outcome in a group (this attack causes this, which can be exploited by this)...
A strategic magic system that allows you to essentially construct each spell on the fly from basic elemental and metamagic abilites...
Is this the kind of game you'd buy and play? If not, what would you like to see added/removed from the list?
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"Give a man a fire, and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he is warm for the rest of his life."
You just pretty much described Pre-Cu SWG......It was my first MMORPG and I pay the price for that. I have yet to find something equal to that experience. I currently play LOTRO and am enjoying it, but, it is no Pre-CU SWG. I would buy the above described game in a second....put it in a sci-fi setting.....all the better.
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But yeah, I'd play a game like that, except that the combat seems simplistic. I'd add "real-time" combat for physical attacks and the traditional "turn-based" for non-physical attacks (magic in Fantasy, tech stuff in Sci Fi, and so on). Or a combination of both via the various skills available in order to satisfy a wide audience that wants "turn based" in their physical and "real time" in their non-physical.
You know, basically many games out there try to accomplish the points you describe. But they're all either insatisfactory to a mainstream audience of players very diverse in their interests (EVE and Ultima aren't exactly the most played games out there) or they screw it up at some point (SWG). Maybe, just maybe, that kind of game is ideally awesome, but realistically almost impossible to achieve and accomplish. And even then, depending on the theme and its execution, it still wouldn't cater to most people, which is what I sense you're trying to get to. THE game. But if you're talking about the basis for a next-gen game then I'm with you all the way. New games will hopefully be more complex than before without necessarily hampering the learning experience.
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Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
1) Death penalty -- making death "sting" makes the game exciting. The dungeons are scarier, the players are more careful, etc...
2) Dangerous world -- tougher encounters require more than one person to defeat, so grouping is required much of the time. Grouping creates socializing and makes gameplay more memorable.
3) Mysterious world -- you adventure where you dare, not to where some linear line of quests leads you.
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Beyond this there are several ways to develop skill based challenges and this is where developers should really focus their time in today's gaming community. Just like in any game an MMO can develop its challenge to actualy be difficult to the players requiring teamwork gear and skill. Most of the time in MMO games though this challenge is developed through the use of numbers alone. If you don't have the raw numbers the fight will likely not end in your favor. This kind of challenge is difficult to balance but allows character building however it leaves nothing for yourself you the player.
Additionally patterns are utilized quite often straying away from numbers but not abandoning them these can be used to create an initial challenge for groups to face those huge bosses they love to kill. The major downfall with this method is simply that once one group learns it the whole community will then copy this method, any group making it to this point in the game behind others have their entire game plan laid out for them providing no real challenge.
What lacks in all modern MMOs is the need to really have skill in playing your character. There is an initial learning curve and then the challenge of builds and thats really about it the actual need for skill is reduced to a minimum because many classes end up mashing one or two buttons, playing a heal bot or you are kept around to buff.
There is likely a need for a major overhaul in MMO mechanics to add any real challenge that will last to a game.
Fortunately there appears to be several deeper games with excellent combat dynamics in the work. Time will tell if someone can come up with a good fun long lasting way to add challenge.
Personally I love the challenge and I'd be disappointed if in WoW for example Illdian was defeated within a month of the instance release, that character is far too epic to meet his end so easily. I remember a story my friend told me about a boss in EQ1 that was release around the first expansion I think.
Some of this post may be semi incoherent, at work, constantly interrupted so apologies in advance >.<
I have to say I haven't found anything challanging about MMOs, new or old.
Any challange found in those games can be overcome through commonsense, experimentation or just getting stronger be it level or skill, especially considering that MMOs are just number crunchers so the player has a more passive role when playing.
I also think that many people are confusing complex poorly designed systems in a MMO to be the challenge.
If it takes a year to fully understand the crafting system then that is a bad crafting system, it is inefiecient, you can allow people many options to make whatever their heart's desire and make it simple to understand. Having to make a spread sheet to figure out which combination of materials will make the best whatever isn't hard in the least, it is just time consuming and boring.
Likewise impossing harsh death penalties doesn't make the game hard, again it is just time consuming and boring. This just serves to alienate the casual audience, not because casuals don't like a challange, many casuals I know, including myself, don't like games to be to easy, it is because those type of games are boring, and casuals are mainly about having fun.
Probably the biggest reason MMOs are like this is because of the lack of interactivity.
For example your knight is fighting a dragon, you click the correct buttons to lower the draon's defense and do the most damage you can, yet the dragon still killed you, even with potions and buffs. Technically this would be considered a challange, then why do we not feel challanged by this defeat, you were so close to killing that dragon but failed.
But if you will look at Resident Evil 4, after the third time that Krauser knifed you before you react, you probably said something like "this is hard," or more likely "MotherF*cker!" but why?
I think the answer is though the epic struggle between man and dragon would be challanging, you see floating numbers. Going back to RE4, you have to control Leon while fighting El Gigante, you are being directly confronted by the beast. The dragon however is an impersonal fight, driven by arithmatic, your lack of control over your knight prevents you from really pitting your wit or tactics against this behemoth. Instead you read your skills and then click them when it seems useful at the time. You are following a formula, not inventing calculus.
Don't read this as another post for "FPS RUlez!" I am just saying that what would be a challange in the game is being met by our characters not us, just think of how many times you said something like " stupid rogue, hit the orc!" The player should be the stupid rogue that is missing the orc on his own volition.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
I think it is wrong to rule out everything in mmorpgs as unchallenging, for instance if you decided to go into a WoW instance with say 2 people over 5, of course you will find that challenging but the probability is most people will go as the 5 man group as challenging is something that maybe they just don't actually want. Single player games you find in general follow this in that challenge isn't really put at that hard a level (with exceptions) as people will just quit if it is too hard.
However, I digress from what I originally wanted to post about regarding shade's post and thats regarding 'grinding' and what I think is the least challenging aspect of mmorpgs that could be improved and that is soloing. The problem is the game is based around the mentality of mobs not providing much resistance so people can more likely fulfill their primary objective of levelling up or progressing their character. With this mentality, challenge isn't welcomed. When you have 1000 mobs to level, would you rather they were difficult mobs which you were likely to die against, or easy mobs that are straightforward and get you to your desired goal? Exactly.
The soloing mechanics themselves are designed to simply kill the mob without providing much in the way of skill. Abilities aren't about where you position yourself or targetting but more about pressing press button-action performed which leads to basically people finding optimum ways of killing mobs very quickly and every solo encounter almost exactly the same. How can it be improved? that is the question or if indeed it can be improved? I think as mentioned physical skill in soloing with especially targetting, aiming and positioning mattering, or physical skill to perform an act to unlock other abilities in battle so that you could have a combat encounter where whether you see certain abilities depends on how good you are. An example perhaps is tekken type combat, you have combos which if you perform correctly you can unlock other combos which can be quite tough to do. In fact, if any of the combat was akin to fighting games that would have a lot more variety and more openness to allowing more challenge to the game.
Final fantasy 1 didnt really take skill to win it took lots and lots of grinding and a bit of luck, exactly the same as all these crappy new games being made; if you want to sit and basically watch a movie with a group of people you should go to a movie theatre.. then maybe game designers will stop making games catering to people who dont want to think when they play or just like to look at the pretty colors..
PVE in both EvE and WoW are boring and repetitious to me. Over all once you figure out how to beat the first NPC, none of the others are going to give you a challange. Challanges requireeither constant adaptation of strategies or a continuous difficulty of maintaining the same percision with external variables.