Frankly, unless the loot is necessary in an intensely PvP-centric game, who gives a damn? I play games that I enjoy playing. I am not big on PvP, and the one big PvP game I did play (EvE) didn't have game-balance-changing loot. It seems to me that a lot of MMO players have the same worldview as my father. He was always so worried about what everyone else had that I wonder if he truely appreciated what he had. He was pretty successful in his career, had a fantastic wife (my mother is a saint!), great kids (like me ), and plenty of man-toys. Yet, he always bitched about the successes of others or what they had. None of these other peoples' achievements were at his expense, and they didn't lessen his own accomplishments. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason. My father wasn't miserable, but I wonder if he and all of the MMO players who think loot really matters enjoyed life/gaming as much as they should have.
I've never understood why players who prefer to play casually instead of high end raid even need the epic gear.
Fore example in WoW:
If their playstyle is to grind rep, solo quests and do 5-man dungeons, why do they need super awesome epics? With blue quality max-level gear they can do everything they have chosen to participate in quite easily. Obtaining epic quality gear makes all their game play trivial and boring.
Yet WoW is handing out epics like there's no tomorrow and has essentially removed any sense of joy/accomplishment in obtaining those rewards now that everyone is "entitled" to get them.
I've never understood why players who prefer to play casually instead of high end raid even need the epic gear.
Fore example in WoW:
If their playstyle is to grind rep, solo quests and do 5-man dungeons, why do they need super awesome epics? With blue quality max-level gear they can do everything they have chosen to participate in quite easily. Obtaining epic quality gear makes all their game play trivial and boring.
Yet WoW is handing out epics like there's no tomorrow and has essentially removed any sense of joy/accomplishment in obtaining those rewards now that everyone is "entitled" to get them.
The problem with WoW is that they screwed up the sense of character progression in WoTLK. Epics for rep grinders, solo questers, and 5 man runners is fine. They just "forgot" to add content to justify recieving epics and content to put the epics to use.
For example, first, grind green level dungeons to get blue gears. Next, grind blue level dungeons to get purple gears. Finally, purple level dungeons with some sort of leet appearance (or whatever) rewards for the sake of rewards. Green level dungeons rewarding purples was amazingly rediculous on top of having zero content to progress into once the green level dungeons were completed.
Having paths for all players to recieve top quality gear is fine as long as the effort to recieve the gear is justified. Except perhaps for solo players considering the difficulty in making content challenging for all classes in a game where characters have highly defined roles.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
In THE old day you had to work hard long time to get THE stuff you wanted in game. Nowerdays in modern day mmo it is much more instant gratification. Many people want to go back to THE old days, but why? I am working hard all day at work and thats no fun, in THE evening i want to have fun, and in my world hard work and labour are not fun. In real life i am an archeiver, but when playing my online adventures i love to be immersed intoo THE world. so THE only plagers that want it to be hard to aquire stuff in games are THE natural archeivers, which are only about 25% max probably even less people.
On insane it takes a half an hour to kill a mob that can one shot you.
.
But everyone gets the same reward because we all pay $15 a month and not everyone has the time these days.
What works for a single player game, doesn't work for a multi-player game where players using different difficulty levels interact.
That the option to make things easier exists, and that other people take advantage of it, depreciates the value of taking the harder path. Particularly when people of varying difficulties interact, which they will because it's an MMO.
If on the other hand, the difficulties are split between servers, then you can pull it off by having "casual" and "hardcore" servers.
City of heroes has a difficulty setting. It's worked for years.
I don't want the old days of camping areas for hours or days but really at this point it has gotten silly in games. You level so fast in most games anymore and gear comes so easily.
I especially love the newer games that do this and then have nothing or little available for the players at max level. At least the older games have a bunch of endgame content.
Frankly, I find this new fad of allowing for people to get max level as fast as possible less fun than the older days where it took some time to level and progress through the game. Not to mention it kills the life of the game in newer ones where there isn't much to do once you get max level.
Goes the same for item progression for me as well.
And yet, when a game comes along like Aion that actually DOES take some time to level (though honestly it's not much longer than vanilla WoW), all people do it bitch about it.
There are 2 things to consider here: Difficulty and time.
AION was easy but took long time. I rather play something with less timesinks an higher difficulty myself.
The dumbing down to make things easy for those that dont have the time or skill to play the game has been going on for a few years now.
Time and skill are two different things. Time invested is rewarded a lot more than player skill is in most MMOs. A lot of the people who rather have skill-based rewards are often falsely considered to be looking for 'instant gratification' just because they either do not want to or are unable to embrace the masochistic repetition required to 'earn' the rewards of many modern MMOs.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Well, I am actually a fan of working hard to get what I want in-game. I don't mind working hard to get the stuff that I have in real life and if one luxury I have is the ability to play a game I want to extend my gameplay experience by being able to work on getting newer, better items and skills in the game. Ryzom lets you work at your own pace though, so really I have the best of both worlds. I can play with people who don't want to work very hard, but I have a whole guild to support me when I am slacking and make it so I kick it into high gear and start getting more and better things. I think it makes it fun to have the best of both worlds in a game.
On insane it takes a half an hour to kill a mob that can one shot you.
.
But everyone gets the same reward because we all pay $15 a month and not everyone has the time these days.
What works for a single player game, doesn't work for a multi-player game where players using different difficulty levels interact.
That the option to make things easier exists, and that other people take advantage of it, depreciates the value of taking the harder path. Particularly when people of varying difficulties interact, which they will because it's an MMO.
If on the other hand, the difficulties are split between servers, then you can pull it off by having "casual" and "hardcore" servers.
City of heroes has a difficulty setting. It's worked for years.
I've played the game, so I'm aware of that... and per my personal opinion on it, it does not contradict my previous statement.
The game has extreme difficulty scaling, to the point where you can scale down to play with lowbies as a high level character, or even vice-versa. It made the game's progression feel pointless... not to mention most of the scaling required hevy use of instancing.
So sure, you can mash sliding difficulty into an MMO, but it's not necessarily a good thing for all involved.
Well I think there should be content for everyone, but that's a hard balance to play toward.
People PAY the same amount so their investment naturally should be equally returned by product. I used to average about 24 hours of gaming a week, which actually was a lot of time for me. Now I range between 16 and 8 depending on a few factors. For quite a few modern games this meant typically I'd find an average group and take on average content, but hopefully at a higher difficulty level. Therefore for my time invested I would stay compeditive with gear.
But I know people and game with people who go 40 to 50 a week and have kept it up for 8+ years. They have this and that in all sorts of games and basically keep me informed about the hardcore content I basically would never get to see.
My argument goes back to Shadowbane, but can be applied to a couple of other games, where the gear wasn't really hard to come by. There wasn't a whole lot of choice, but with proper time and material investment a shop could roll up something really nice for your build that you could swipe from the store to keep for yourself. I'm sure crafters come across this sort of satisfaction, but I'd never craft because I find it dull in every MMO.
But in Shadowbane truly unique items, were truly unique. An event happened and GMs gave players named weapons. A pair of daggers that were a set together were won by people on opposing factions. The fight to try and complete these sets of daggers in pvp and in politics was truly awesome to behold. An experience that couldn't be replicated now a days.
STILL the core mechanic was that these unique items were created.
I'm still predicting player generated content to be the next big thing in every MMO after the accessiblity that WoW offered grows old. Let people have, craft, make, break, move and use really customized (min / max whatever) items and make it something that rewards those hardcore players, but could be obtained by the more causal player who would appriciate it.
That's true for quests, buildings, the lay of the land, a cool sword, a unique spell. So on and so forth.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Your numbers are way off. Try 5% or less actually look for a challenge. 'Earn'? pft...
In the long ago days, previous to computer MMO's, as you 'progressed', the world around you became more difficult. In miniture and board games like D&D/AD&D around to pinball/arcade games. As you progressed, it became more and more difficult -- not more time consuming all the time, just more difficult as things moved faster, etc... but with MMO's it's gotten sloppier and sloppier and PvP mindset players are always looking for an ez-mode *I WIN* switch that they can use to insta-win against opponents. Very few are actually interested in competition, the vast majority want an I win button.
I recall back when I played WoW... They adjusted the PvP rewards so that anyone could 'earn' them fairly easily -- right before an expansion... TBC I think. The old warlords/grand marshal types threw a fit. They were getting their brains stomped out by people who hadn't 'earned' that gear like thay had. When others had those top end weapons, the "I hit you and you die because I'm so good!' was easily seen for what it was -- sloppy players packing over-kill items that could NOT compete against others when the gear matched up. "But I play more! I EARNED it!" -- and are so gimp that someone who just got it "the easy way" kicked your brains out 1vs1... Ain't life unfair at times when your sorry lameness is being shown like this.
As for 'earning' in PvE -- again... 5% or LESS actually look for challenges and its been that way for a LONG time. Look at the whine posts from your 'top guilds'/players when "new content" is released about "share the tactics on how to beat this pace! It's not fair that you're keeping secrets!" etc... etc... etc... while the actual "earners" are still busy figuring it out.
With point-by-point instructions they can follow, most will do the encounters but, without them, your "top raiders" will sit, whine and wait for someone to tell them what to do. Only a HANDFUL ever are willing to try 'new content' without that preset roadmap of instructions. That got so "rough" that many games now turn the 'beta testing' of the next expansion into a documentation fest for "early triers" so the roadmaps can be ready when it goes live.
LAME comes to mind more so than "earning" with the vast amounts of sheeple waiting for someone else to figure out how things "are best" so they can follow those guides on "how to win" -- without ever figuring jack squat out on their own and that's from M59/UO days into EQ up through today's most recent entries into the field. "Where's the "I win" route and instructions on how to be the best?" followed by "I play more so I deserve my I WIN gear..."
Not very nice sounding but a hell of a lot more accurate than most of the 'earning' comments in this thread and yes... I have been among those who "did it first", back a ways in my gaming. I recall dieing so many times gear busted and/or losing levels but we kept working the places - 1 fight at a time -- to figure out how the hell to beat it. I even 'faked' a strategy post once so a group I was in would TRY an "undocumented" encounter... They didn't want to try it without "instructions" so we went to the web -- I to create one, them to keep looking. After we beat the place, I updated my "fake" post and it became one of those "gospils" others followed on how to beat the place...
So respect for 'earning'? try again... I have little respect for most that "claim" they've earned anything by following instruction sheets, wearing gear any moron could get if they spent enough time playing and claiming it's "earned"...
Trying to aim for one or the other group is fine but their are plenty in between willing to do a little work and people can change where they are on this based on real life things which could cause them to fall out of the bracket the game is aimed for.
What I think we need is a way for casual and hardcore players tointeract (not compete) effectively in an mmo.
I'll give examples from two games eve and wow.
In eve you have one half of the solution done extremely well, day old characters can join in a battle with 6 year old veterans, sure it would be a long time before they could compete in a 1v1 and the 6 yr old is contributing a lot more but they both have their roles that are necessary they are interacting effectively. Wow has the exact opposite of this with "the game starts at 80" attitude and limits on dungeons and groups that won't let you in until you have x gear score.
The other half of the solution is done rather well by wow, when a player jumps on it should only take them a few minutes to get in a arena battle or jump in a battleground and your fighting for the horde/alliance. They can't round up all their guild mates for a raid in 5 minutes time but if you can only log on for only an hour you won't be stuck to only interacting with the npc's or playing with yourself. Eve on the other hand requires a lot more time and organisation to do things. Even getting on at the right time you could take up to 15-30 minutes to get ship and for the fleet to form up, another 15-30 minutes getting to the enemy space and now it's time for you to log off, also lots of time spent moving stuff around between homes that change every few months farming isk for new ships/equipment/skills. Despite the skill system eve requires you to spend a lot of time to interact with others properly, while wow once you've reached a high level you can play it pretty casually.
What I would like to see in a game is the ability to interact with others effectivly from day one as a casual player. I want to empthasise again interact, not compete. Sure the guy who plays all the time will have a larger affect on the game and he'll know a lot more about the game and he's played longer so he could beat you 1v1 but you and him should be able to get together and play and you will contribute to a battle, without having to go through massive amounts of organisation to get there.
In my personal opinion the best way to do this is to make clever use of NPC's. I'm currently studying AI/game making so I'm biased, feel free to ignore anything past here, in fact it's probably better if you do.
Having a constant battle between sides at certain areas with npc's trying push each other back and take control points. A casual player can join up and jump straight in amongst the rank and file without having to wait half an hour for some enemies or allies to show up, a hardcore player can sit their all day leading a small section of the army to take certain goals. With the hard core player being used to commanding around armies of npc's adding in a player amonst them should be pretty fluid, adding a bunch of hardcore players to fill vital roles in his minions should also work so not all older players are having to take a command position. You'd also need to allow players to roam free and not join the command structure, otherwise you might end up causing it to feel too much like work.
The other thing you'll need is a way to stop it being a race/grind to end game so you'r all elite soldiers and commanders. In eve they achieve this by having you drop all items on death so you end up in more of a cycle instead of a straight climb.
My solution is to have a scaleable death penalty that gives bonuses for each death penalty you add and also lets you unlock higher/more skills. Before going into each battle you would choose your death penalties and what skills you would use sorta like a respec in wow or refit in eve. Death penalties would include permanant loss at higher levels such as item drop, skill loss and perma death (as the final penalty) to keep players in a sort of advancemend cycle, they could still advance horizontally though by training up different weapons so you could keep advancing in some way without having to take a death penalty you don't want.
Theres still the problem of players creating work for themselves by grinding their way to maxing all their skills on some character just because they "need everything max" which I havn't been able to think up a way around yet (eve's time based skill system has some very nice points).
I enjoyed running heroics in WoW back in the TBC days. I played both a hunter, and a resto shaman healer.
Whilst hunters were seen by many as an easy mode class (and they were in raids and whilst levelling), I found plenty of challenge for my hunter in heroics. I had to master skills such as chain trapping, double trapping, kiting, using misdirections right, whilst all the while keeping an eye on my threat, my pet and what else was happening in the group - e.g. was our healer in trouble? Was there something I could do to help? What would I do if one of my traps broke early, and the next one wasn't ready - could I improvise some way of keeping both myself and the healer alive? Doing some of the TBC heroics in blue gear was fun!
I just can't seem to get that challenge from Warcraft any more. The heroics are all trivial, unless you play a tank whose gearing up, in which case they are simply frustrating (or rather the other players are!). Raiding is monotonous. Farming the same place over and over for months in 10 and 25 man modes, and then doing it all over again for hard modes.
The choice for me in Warcraft at the moment is between no challenge and no fun.
Other similar games (LOTRO, EQ2) also seem to have similar problems. Vanguard seems to contain some nice challenges, but hardly any population or developer support.
I'm keeping my eye open for alternatives. Maybe FF XIV? Maybe Rift? Not sure. Hope something comes along.
Guess I'll be spending a little more time on Starcraft II as well.
I feel like "working for stuff" tends to be a symptom of a larger issue I have with a lot of MMOs: the gear grind. People are so caught up with the proper way to obtain the best gear, while I find the gear grind itself the problem. I prefer gear to be the means, not the end. Things like SWG with clothing/housing is a different matter though.
First, I want a game that has bench marks. For me, the bench mark will always be the easiest way you can accomplish a task. Anything else is just added fluff that is meaningless.
For example, you can kill 10,000 Goblins to get to level 2. Or, there is a slider, and you can kill 1 goblin to get to level two.
The bench mark for level 2, is killing one goblin. Doing anythying else, is a waste of time, and is not fun, nor is it a challenge, nor does it have any meaning whatsoever.
This is why I don't like scaling dungeons.
The other issue is we all have a perception of when something is to easy, just right, kinda hard but doable, and a boring grind that we won't suffer through, and will just cancel the sub.
It's not possible to hit that setting perfect for everyone.
And for me, the "scaling" solutions are worthless, because the only thing that means anything in the game, is the easiest setting.
Doing anything else is like having sex with a pig. Sure, you can do it, but why?
I think in terms of benchmarks as well. However, I set my benchmarks on whether I am still learning anything from given content.
So with the 'kill goblins to get to level 2', I feel that killing a single goblin will not really teach me anything about combat in the game or how goblin mobs function. I would say that 20 goblins would be about the right amount at which I am not really learning anything more about it and I am ready to move to new content (and new learnign opportunities).
So anything under 10 goblins killed is a waste of content and anything above 30 goblins becomes a waste of time. Within that range you learned the important things about that content and are still learning the finer details. And if you are not learning anything important from a piece of content then it might as well be a waste of time.
The thing about scaling content difficulty is that if you just scale the time it takes then it is a waste since you really do not learn anything from it beyond endurance. So any hardmode content cannot just increase the amount of hitpoints mob has but has to make the mob behave differently enough so the players have to teach themselves new ways of fighing that encounter. Then it becomes meaningfull content.
Of course some people, like Ihmotepp, only care about the numerical value of their epeen so they will only take the easiest path and pretend it is the same accomplishment as taking the challenging path.
I've never understood why players who prefer to play casually instead of high end raid even need the epic gear.
Fore example in WoW:
If their playstyle is to grind rep, solo quests and do 5-man dungeons, why do they need super awesome epics? With blue quality max-level gear they can do everything they have chosen to participate in quite easily. Obtaining epic quality gear makes all their game play trivial and boring.
Yet WoW is handing out epics like there's no tomorrow and has essentially removed any sense of joy/accomplishment in obtaining those rewards now that everyone is "entitled" to get them.
The problem with WoW is that they screwed up the sense of character progression in WoTLK. Epics for rep grinders, solo questers, and 5 man runners is fine. They just "forgot" to add content to justify recieving epics and content to put the epics to use.
For example, first, grind green level dungeons to get blue gears. Next, grind blue level dungeons to get purple gears. Finally, purple level dungeons with some sort of leet appearance (or whatever) rewards for the sake of rewards. Green level dungeons rewarding purples was amazingly rediculous on top of having zero content to progress into once the green level dungeons were completed.
Having paths for all players to recieve top quality gear is fine as long as the effort to recieve the gear is justified. Except perhaps for solo players considering the difficulty in making content challenging for all classes in a game where characters have highly defined roles.
There is no problem. It is a problem if you think a purple item is good but no one knows the game think that way.
People look at ITEM LEVEL .. and if you get an hardmode item, there is a little green "heroic" under the name of the item.
And those *are* hard to get. Think of it this way:
L251 epic = green
L264 epic = blue
H model epic = purple. They just distinguish the three with different methods other than the color of the item.
On insane it takes a half an hour to kill a mob that can one shot you.
.
But everyone gets the same reward because we all pay $15 a month and not everyone has the time these days.
What works for a single player game, doesn't work for a multi-player game where players using different difficulty levels interact.
That the option to make things easier exists, and that other people take advantage of it, depreciates the value of taking the harder path. Particularly when people of varying difficulties interact, which they will because it's an MMO.
If on the other hand, the difficulties are split between servers, then you can pull it off by having "casual" and "hardcore" servers.
City of heroes has a difficulty setting. It's worked for years.
WOW has two raiding difficulties (if you count 10 man vs 25 man .. 4 difficulties) since WOTLK and it works well.
In THE old day you had to work hard long time to get THE stuff you wanted in game. Nowerdays in modern day mmo it is much more instant gratification. Many people want to go back to THE old days, but why? I am working hard all day at work and thats no fun, in THE evening i want to have fun, and in my world hard work and labour are not fun. In real life i am an archeiver, but when playing my online adventures i love to be immersed intoo THE world. so THE only plagers that want it to be hard to aquire stuff in games are THE natural archeivers, which are only about 25% max probably even less people.
When a game becomes a WORK, there is a big problem with the game and how you play it.
90% of haters are begging for love. 10% just want a little attention -- Paulo Coelho
In the old days the games were less about the stuff, and more about the people around you, for the most part. The effort wasn't necessarily in jumping through hoops to kill the big bad monster, it was being nice and helpful enough that you were able to get enough people together to help you when you needed it.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The problem with MMO's nowadays is not the difficulty level. They are all pretty easy.
The actual problem is that these people that want to "work" in video games have a complex and want to feel special by showing off to other players. This is because they fail at life, so they need some reason to feel accomplished. If you don't care that some guy is running around with the same stuff as you and satisfied that you could pwn him anyway, YOU are one of these people.
These people who proclaim themselves "hardcore" are the reason that the communities on most games are decaying. They are the real reason why stupid things like gear score, achievement checks, etc. exist. They have some need to feel special, so they create barriers to stop others from achieving what they have. Once others have achieved what they have, it then becomes trivial and meaningless to them, so they need their next fix of "I'm better than everybody else". Effectively the community has devolved into an, "I'm not going to help you get even with me because then I'm not special" kind of community. "Hardcore" players are just the playground bullies, just in a different setting.
I'm playing a game to have fun and interact with others. I always try to help people out and hang out with new people. I don't care if some nub has my gear. He's still just a nub.
What happened to the days when people helped each other out? What happened to geared people taking along lesser geared people to teach them and help them get better?
Like I said, the REAL problem with today's gaming environment is not difficulty, but EGO.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke
Comments
Since it's a game, that will never happen.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I'd rather have an mmo where work is hard, but not a timesink. Skill over mindless grinding.
Frankly, unless the loot is necessary in an intensely PvP-centric game, who gives a damn? I play games that I enjoy playing. I am not big on PvP, and the one big PvP game I did play (EvE) didn't have game-balance-changing loot. It seems to me that a lot of MMO players have the same worldview as my father. He was always so worried about what everyone else had that I wonder if he truely appreciated what he had. He was pretty successful in his career, had a fantastic wife (my mother is a saint!), great kids (like me
), and plenty of man-toys. Yet, he always bitched about the successes of others or what they had. None of these other peoples' achievements were at his expense, and they didn't lessen his own accomplishments. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason. My father wasn't miserable, but I wonder if he and all of the MMO players who think loot really matters enjoyed life/gaming as much as they should have.
"Work" doesn't have to be seen as "OH MY GOD WORK", understand?
I like to call it having fun. Not... "Work". If I feel like I'm working, then I'm probably not having fun.
I've never understood why players who prefer to play casually instead of high end raid even need the epic gear.
Fore example in WoW:
If their playstyle is to grind rep, solo quests and do 5-man dungeons, why do they need super awesome epics? With blue quality max-level gear they can do everything they have chosen to participate in quite easily. Obtaining epic quality gear makes all their game play trivial and boring.
Yet WoW is handing out epics like there's no tomorrow and has essentially removed any sense of joy/accomplishment in obtaining those rewards now that everyone is "entitled" to get them.
So everyone had the time to accomplish hard/insane mode in the past?
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
The problem with WoW is that they screwed up the sense of character progression in WoTLK. Epics for rep grinders, solo questers, and 5 man runners is fine. They just "forgot" to add content to justify recieving epics and content to put the epics to use.
For example, first, grind green level dungeons to get blue gears. Next, grind blue level dungeons to get purple gears. Finally, purple level dungeons with some sort of leet appearance (or whatever) rewards for the sake of rewards. Green level dungeons rewarding purples was amazingly rediculous on top of having zero content to progress into once the green level dungeons were completed.
Having paths for all players to recieve top quality gear is fine as long as the effort to recieve the gear is justified. Except perhaps for solo players considering the difficulty in making content challenging for all classes in a game where characters have highly defined roles.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
work and effort aren't the same thing.
City of heroes has a difficulty setting. It's worked for years.
There are 2 things to consider here: Difficulty and time.
AION was easy but took long time. I rather play something with less timesinks an higher difficulty myself.
Time and skill are two different things. Time invested is rewarded a lot more than player skill is in most MMOs. A lot of the people who rather have skill-based rewards are often falsely considered to be looking for 'instant gratification' just because they either do not want to or are unable to embrace the masochistic repetition required to 'earn' the rewards of many modern MMOs.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Well, I am actually a fan of working hard to get what I want in-game. I don't mind working hard to get the stuff that I have in real life and if one luxury I have is the ability to play a game I want to extend my gameplay experience by being able to work on getting newer, better items and skills in the game. Ryzom lets you work at your own pace though, so really I have the best of both worlds. I can play with people who don't want to work very hard, but I have a whole guild to support me when I am slacking and make it so I kick it into high gear and start getting more and better things. I think it makes it fun to have the best of both worlds in a game.
www.ryzom.com
I've played the game, so I'm aware of that... and per my personal opinion on it, it does not contradict my previous statement.
The game has extreme difficulty scaling, to the point where you can scale down to play with lowbies as a high level character, or even vice-versa. It made the game's progression feel pointless... not to mention most of the scaling required hevy use of instancing.
So sure, you can mash sliding difficulty into an MMO, but it's not necessarily a good thing for all involved.
Well I think there should be content for everyone, but that's a hard balance to play toward.
People PAY the same amount so their investment naturally should be equally returned by product. I used to average about 24 hours of gaming a week, which actually was a lot of time for me. Now I range between 16 and 8 depending on a few factors. For quite a few modern games this meant typically I'd find an average group and take on average content, but hopefully at a higher difficulty level. Therefore for my time invested I would stay compeditive with gear.
But I know people and game with people who go 40 to 50 a week and have kept it up for 8+ years. They have this and that in all sorts of games and basically keep me informed about the hardcore content I basically would never get to see.
My argument goes back to Shadowbane, but can be applied to a couple of other games, where the gear wasn't really hard to come by. There wasn't a whole lot of choice, but with proper time and material investment a shop could roll up something really nice for your build that you could swipe from the store to keep for yourself. I'm sure crafters come across this sort of satisfaction, but I'd never craft because I find it dull in every MMO.
But in Shadowbane truly unique items, were truly unique. An event happened and GMs gave players named weapons. A pair of daggers that were a set together were won by people on opposing factions. The fight to try and complete these sets of daggers in pvp and in politics was truly awesome to behold. An experience that couldn't be replicated now a days.
STILL the core mechanic was that these unique items were created.
I'm still predicting player generated content to be the next big thing in every MMO after the accessiblity that WoW offered grows old. Let people have, craft, make, break, move and use really customized (min / max whatever) items and make it something that rewards those hardcore players, but could be obtained by the more causal player who would appriciate it.
That's true for quests, buildings, the lay of the land, a cool sword, a unique spell. So on and so forth.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Your numbers are way off. Try 5% or less actually look for a challenge. 'Earn'? pft...
In the long ago days, previous to computer MMO's, as you 'progressed', the world around you became more difficult. In miniture and board games like D&D/AD&D around to pinball/arcade games. As you progressed, it became more and more difficult -- not more time consuming all the time, just more difficult as things moved faster, etc... but with MMO's it's gotten sloppier and sloppier and PvP mindset players are always looking for an ez-mode *I WIN* switch that they can use to insta-win against opponents. Very few are actually interested in competition, the vast majority want an I win button.
I recall back when I played WoW... They adjusted the PvP rewards so that anyone could 'earn' them fairly easily -- right before an expansion... TBC I think. The old warlords/grand marshal types threw a fit. They were getting their brains stomped out by people who hadn't 'earned' that gear like thay had. When others had those top end weapons, the "I hit you and you die because I'm so good!' was easily seen for what it was -- sloppy players packing over-kill items that could NOT compete against others when the gear matched up. "But I play more! I EARNED it!" -- and are so gimp that someone who just got it "the easy way" kicked your brains out 1vs1... Ain't life unfair at times when your sorry lameness is being shown like this.
As for 'earning' in PvE -- again... 5% or LESS actually look for challenges and its been that way for a LONG time. Look at the whine posts from your 'top guilds'/players when "new content" is released about "share the tactics on how to beat this pace! It's not fair that you're keeping secrets!" etc... etc... etc... while the actual "earners" are still busy figuring it out.
With point-by-point instructions they can follow, most will do the encounters but, without them, your "top raiders" will sit, whine and wait for someone to tell them what to do. Only a HANDFUL ever are willing to try 'new content' without that preset roadmap of instructions. That got so "rough" that many games now turn the 'beta testing' of the next expansion into a documentation fest for "early triers" so the roadmaps can be ready when it goes live.
LAME comes to mind more so than "earning" with the vast amounts of sheeple waiting for someone else to figure out how things "are best" so they can follow those guides on "how to win" -- without ever figuring jack squat out on their own and that's from M59/UO days into EQ up through today's most recent entries into the field. "Where's the "I win" route and instructions on how to be the best?" followed by "I play more so I deserve my I WIN gear..."
Not very nice sounding but a hell of a lot more accurate than most of the 'earning' comments in this thread and yes... I have been among those who "did it first", back a ways in my gaming. I recall dieing so many times gear busted and/or losing levels but we kept working the places - 1 fight at a time -- to figure out how the hell to beat it. I even 'faked' a strategy post once so a group I was in would TRY an "undocumented" encounter... They didn't want to try it without "instructions" so we went to the web -- I to create one, them to keep looking. After we beat the place, I updated my "fake" post and it became one of those "gospils" others followed on how to beat the place...
So respect for 'earning'? try again... I have little respect for most that "claim" they've earned anything by following instruction sheets, wearing gear any moron could get if they spent enough time playing and claiming it's "earned"...
I say why not have a bit of both?
Trying to aim for one or the other group is fine but their are plenty in between willing to do a little work and people can change where they are on this based on real life things which could cause them to fall out of the bracket the game is aimed for.
What I think we need is a way for casual and hardcore players to interact (not compete) effectively in an mmo.
I'll give examples from two games eve and wow.
In eve you have one half of the solution done extremely well, day old characters can join in a battle with 6 year old veterans, sure it would be a long time before they could compete in a 1v1 and the 6 yr old is contributing a lot more but they both have their roles that are necessary they are interacting effectively. Wow has the exact opposite of this with "the game starts at 80" attitude and limits on dungeons and groups that won't let you in until you have x gear score.
The other half of the solution is done rather well by wow, when a player jumps on it should only take them a few minutes to get in a arena battle or jump in a battleground and your fighting for the horde/alliance. They can't round up all their guild mates for a raid in 5 minutes time but if you can only log on for only an hour you won't be stuck to only interacting with the npc's or playing with yourself. Eve on the other hand requires a lot more time and organisation to do things. Even getting on at the right time you could take up to 15-30 minutes to get ship and for the fleet to form up, another 15-30 minutes getting to the enemy space and now it's time for you to log off, also lots of time spent moving stuff around between homes that change every few months farming isk for new ships/equipment/skills. Despite the skill system eve requires you to spend a lot of time to interact with others properly, while wow once you've reached a high level you can play it pretty casually.
What I would like to see in a game is the ability to interact with others effectivly from day one as a casual player. I want to empthasise again interact, not compete. Sure the guy who plays all the time will have a larger affect on the game and he'll know a lot more about the game and he's played longer so he could beat you 1v1 but you and him should be able to get together and play and you will contribute to a battle, without having to go through massive amounts of organisation to get there.
In my personal opinion the best way to do this is to make clever use of NPC's. I'm currently studying AI/game making so I'm biased, feel free to ignore anything past here, in fact it's probably better if you do.
Having a constant battle between sides at certain areas with npc's trying push each other back and take control points. A casual player can join up and jump straight in amongst the rank and file without having to wait half an hour for some enemies or allies to show up, a hardcore player can sit their all day leading a small section of the army to take certain goals. With the hard core player being used to commanding around armies of npc's adding in a player amonst them should be pretty fluid, adding a bunch of hardcore players to fill vital roles in his minions should also work so not all older players are having to take a command position. You'd also need to allow players to roam free and not join the command structure, otherwise you might end up causing it to feel too much like work.
The other thing you'll need is a way to stop it being a race/grind to end game so you'r all elite soldiers and commanders. In eve they achieve this by having you drop all items on death so you end up in more of a cycle instead of a straight climb.
My solution is to have a scaleable death penalty that gives bonuses for each death penalty you add and also lets you unlock higher/more skills. Before going into each battle you would choose your death penalties and what skills you would use sorta like a respec in wow or refit in eve. Death penalties would include permanant loss at higher levels such as item drop, skill loss and perma death (as the final penalty) to keep players in a sort of advancemend cycle, they could still advance horizontally though by training up different weapons so you could keep advancing in some way without having to take a death penalty you don't want.
Theres still the problem of players creating work for themselves by grinding their way to maxing all their skills on some character just because they "need everything max" which I havn't been able to think up a way around yet (eve's time based skill system has some very nice points).
Into the breach meatbags
I enjoyed running heroics in WoW back in the TBC days. I played both a hunter, and a resto shaman healer.
Whilst hunters were seen by many as an easy mode class (and they were in raids and whilst levelling), I found plenty of challenge for my hunter in heroics. I had to master skills such as chain trapping, double trapping, kiting, using misdirections right, whilst all the while keeping an eye on my threat, my pet and what else was happening in the group - e.g. was our healer in trouble? Was there something I could do to help? What would I do if one of my traps broke early, and the next one wasn't ready - could I improvise some way of keeping both myself and the healer alive? Doing some of the TBC heroics in blue gear was fun!
I just can't seem to get that challenge from Warcraft any more. The heroics are all trivial, unless you play a tank whose gearing up, in which case they are simply frustrating (or rather the other players are!). Raiding is monotonous. Farming the same place over and over for months in 10 and 25 man modes, and then doing it all over again for hard modes.
The choice for me in Warcraft at the moment is between no challenge and no fun.
Other similar games (LOTRO, EQ2) also seem to have similar problems.
Vanguard seems to contain some nice challenges, but hardly any population or developer support.
I'm keeping my eye open for alternatives. Maybe FF XIV? Maybe Rift? Not sure. Hope something comes along.
Guess I'll be spending a little more time on Starcraft II as well.
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I feel like "working for stuff" tends to be a symptom of a larger issue I have with a lot of MMOs: the gear grind. People are so caught up with the proper way to obtain the best gear, while I find the gear grind itself the problem. I prefer gear to be the means, not the end. Things like SWG with clothing/housing is a different matter though.
I'm not here to complete my forum PVP dailies.
I think in terms of benchmarks as well. However, I set my benchmarks on whether I am still learning anything from given content.
So with the 'kill goblins to get to level 2', I feel that killing a single goblin will not really teach me anything about combat in the game or how goblin mobs function. I would say that 20 goblins would be about the right amount at which I am not really learning anything more about it and I am ready to move to new content (and new learnign opportunities).
So anything under 10 goblins killed is a waste of content and anything above 30 goblins becomes a waste of time. Within that range you learned the important things about that content and are still learning the finer details. And if you are not learning anything important from a piece of content then it might as well be a waste of time.
The thing about scaling content difficulty is that if you just scale the time it takes then it is a waste since you really do not learn anything from it beyond endurance. So any hardmode content cannot just increase the amount of hitpoints mob has but has to make the mob behave differently enough so the players have to teach themselves new ways of fighing that encounter. Then it becomes meaningfull content.
Of course some people, like Ihmotepp, only care about the numerical value of their epeen so they will only take the easiest path and pretend it is the same accomplishment as taking the challenging path.
There is no problem. It is a problem if you think a purple item is good but no one knows the game think that way.
People look at ITEM LEVEL .. and if you get an hardmode item, there is a little green "heroic" under the name of the item.
And those *are* hard to get. Think of it this way:
L251 epic = green
L264 epic = blue
H model epic = purple. They just distinguish the three with different methods other than the color of the item.
WOW has two raiding difficulties (if you count 10 man vs 25 man .. 4 difficulties) since WOTLK and it works well.
When a game becomes a WORK, there is a big problem with the game and how you play it.
90% of haters are begging for love. 10% just want a little attention -- Paulo Coelho
In the old days the games were less about the stuff, and more about the people around you, for the most part. The effort wasn't necessarily in jumping through hoops to kill the big bad monster, it was being nice and helpful enough that you were able to get enough people together to help you when you needed it.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The problem with MMO's nowadays is not the difficulty level. They are all pretty easy.
The actual problem is that these people that want to "work" in video games have a complex and want to feel special by showing off to other players. This is because they fail at life, so they need some reason to feel accomplished. If you don't care that some guy is running around with the same stuff as you and satisfied that you could pwn him anyway, YOU are one of these people.
These people who proclaim themselves "hardcore" are the reason that the communities on most games are decaying. They are the real reason why stupid things like gear score, achievement checks, etc. exist. They have some need to feel special, so they create barriers to stop others from achieving what they have. Once others have achieved what they have, it then becomes trivial and meaningless to them, so they need their next fix of "I'm better than everybody else". Effectively the community has devolved into an, "I'm not going to help you get even with me because then I'm not special" kind of community. "Hardcore" players are just the playground bullies, just in a different setting.
I'm playing a game to have fun and interact with others. I always try to help people out and hang out with new people. I don't care if some nub has my gear. He's still just a nub.
What happened to the days when people helped each other out? What happened to geared people taking along lesser geared people to teach them and help them get better?
Like I said, the REAL problem with today's gaming environment is not difficulty, but EGO.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke
I did,
I have a beautiful wife, a pretty decent kid
, a sweet house out in the woods, a good job i've been at for almost 23 years now...
i'm doin ok ; )
oh... ya mean....??
pfft.....