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Uway
Member Posts: 58
From a triple A title perspective:
Companies seperate their servers based on pvp, role-playing, etc. They do this to appeal to more players and present them with other people with similar playstyles. From these people communites are created with players actively enjoying the game together. The developers then have to ask themselves, how do we make everyone happy that is playing our game while appealing to a specific audience (usually the majority aka the mainstream solitaire players that aren't looking for a real challenge).
So, how?
Make game difficulty based on servers.
Easy mode server would target solo and small group players. Controls are streamlined to be pretty basic.
Medium difficulty server would be what most servers are today, solo open world and raid dungeons. Controls would be what they are in today games (figuring out best combo/spell rotation)
And finally, hard mode servers would make nothing soloable or at the very least make mobs at the lower spectrum challenging to anyone trying to solo. Controls would be more advanced than normal with more combos/spells to be managed, nothing is given.
Make everything for the hard mode server and then dumb it down from there.
Everyone is targetted and appeased.
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Completely, thoroughly, wholeheartedly disagree. This would be like creating three different games. I'd rather see them make one good game than spread out their talent to make three bad ones. Simply put, taking a hard game and going "double hit points and triple exp for the easy server, that oughta do it" will result in a far worse play experience than designing an easy game from scratch.
Furthermore, there's a large percentage of players who get the "casual" label not because they hate challenge but because they don't or can't play for 10 hours every day. These players would like to play a hard game but they want the option to be able to solo sometimes. I'm not confident that any of those servers would appeal to this sizeable section of the playerbase.
Definitely the wrong way to implement different difficulties.
Defining "difficulty" as whether a game requires groups or not is also misleading. "Difficulty" defines how much individual skill I am required to contribute to succeed (assuming my groupmates put forth the same effort.) This individual skill often doesn't vary too much between group and solo content, so it's wrong to call group content "hard" by simple virtue of being group content.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well you made up your own examples there and those I feel do not reflect the main points of my discussion. Sure, they can make a game hard and then make it easier and it turn out to be something enjoyable, its in the realm of possible
The second part of the discussion would find that particular person on the normal mode server. Time invested in a game has no bearings on difficulty.
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I'd just play hardcore on easy mode server.
Unless offcourse, they restrict the amount of hour you can play on the easy mode server.
Difficulty is not solely defined in this way but can be defined in this way. It is defined in this way to create an environment where it is possible to do encounters in a game. It would not in any way be the only indication of difficulty as all encounters are not the same. You are kind of on the right track about skill but you didn't define what skill actually is in an MMO and what skill is in an MMO is a mix of knowledge of the playable character and knowledge of the encounter or to put simply their role when used in a group sense.
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Amount of time invested does not equate to difficulty lol.
I've played several MMOs and only spent 10 hrs a week max playing them and I have done fairly well. I don't have experience in F2P games where playing hardcore time wise gives you some kind of advantage over other F2P players.
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Adding casuals servers isn't really a bad idea but it would take some work. you would have to balance 2 different games that way.
Should the drop rate be the same on casual servers? Should you also make them family friendly?
3 server types is a really bad idea. 2 is however possibly to make working but it would take a lot more work than just PvE and PvP servers. It might be the only way to make the players happy with the difficulty.
So maybe, the question is if you get enough more players to make it worth all the work or not. Making all open world easy and all dungeons hard is easier and will give you almost the same resault.
What you suggested still dont' relate to difficulty though.
It's mainly solo server or group server. That still dont' have much to do with difficutly.
I have to agree here. Poor idea. This idea sounds like it's more based on one's personal dislike for certain palystyles instead of any real desire to identify or support multiple playstyles.
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
I suggested that certain difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard) would target certain kind of player bases. That was the relation not that solo = easy and group = hard. Look at it as with the increase in difficulty, fights become more tactiful.
Look at it as we are all currently playing on normal mode servers in w/e game your playing. When the game gets dumbed down, its not because of the guy who only has x amount of time to play, its because of the guy who just isn't good with tatics. This sort of person is undersirable in groups, thus they tend to lean towards solo content. So, the easy mode server is tailored to this sort of person.
Again, a medium difficulty server would be just like the normal server you play on as far as what you bring to a group and how well you understand an encounter and all that good stuff.
The hard mode server would make every encounter challenging (better AI and abilities). Think of it this way; a encounter on a normal mode server is recommended for 12 players is defeated by a single player within their lvl range (I've done this before in EQ 2 way back in yesteryear). That encounter would be recommended for six players on a hard mode server and it would use its abilities smarter.
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Ignore fan boys.
You agree with someone who is really offbase in their argument. I think it is pretty fair as the developers I know make their encounters difficult and then scale them back from there, so what I'm suggesting is already a common practice when it comes to difficulty. I honestly think this idea would make all player bases happy with content. You can say the idea is bad or doesn't cater to a certain player, but you fail to point out who is being left out.
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You made some good points, I guess when I was going over the idea I was really trying to figure out what would make everyone happy, but three kinds servers based on difficulty is never going to happen. Even if finacially possible, it would just make people feel like they were on the shortbus server and whatnot, which isn't right.
I guess in the end players will always take the easier road unless the harder road rewards them adequately enough for their efforts, same can be said of developers, as we are all just people.
/end thread
Rise above hate.
Ignore fan boys.
Skill is making the right decision, then executing it successfully.
As a definition, it involves twitch, strategy, and tactical elements.
In practice, any given game tends to lean one way or the other -- towards either execution (twitch) or decision-making (strategy/tactics). MMORPGs obviously lean heavily towards the latter, while still involving some of the former.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
OP sorry but your deffinition of whats easy and whats hard is wrong.
Solo dont mean its should or is always easy i know plenty of games where solo is hardest gamestyle to play only few can manage or casual dont mean easy.
You can have extreme hardgameplay for solo players thats as difficult to achieve then when you have a large group that need to solve a veryhard prolbem.
Casual is just that people for most time can't spent many hours ingame but that dont mean there only good for ease mode.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
You may very well have misundestood what those developers said.
In creating ANY content, when testing you start with a less desirable scenario than predicted so that you can scale towards the optimal range for the playerbase. If you start with more desirable, you create a nightmare of gimped/nerfed furor when you scale back to approriate levels.
That is a standard part of the development and testing process. You're suggesting a release process that exponentialy increases the amount of both design and testing that has to be done with each update and release of new content.
I'd also add that when one has a very clearly negative view of a particular portion of their target playerbase, they need to set that aside or they will let their jaded view color the entire process, leading to content that is really of no fun or value to either the ones they favor or the ones they are looking to mark/mock.
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
I think some posters reacted to the terms and the way the ideas was presented, rather than the concept.
It's not important whether grouping is "hard" and solo is "easy" or vice a versa, or what is "hardcore", etc., etc. So some posters got side tracked, thinking they were insulted because their style of play, mostly solo before the end game, was being called "easy", and they don't think they play the "easy" game. Or they think it takes more "skill" to play solo, and less "skill" to group, etc., etc., all the old solo vs grouping arguments.
Call solo hard and grouping easy if you want to. It doesn't make any difference.
I think the basic idea is sound if implemented properly.
Many games have FFA PvP servers. The majority of players do not want to play FFA PvP games, so they would be put off by such a game. But there is a niche of players that like to engage in this playstyle, and they are entertained by such servers.
I can't prove this with any statistics, but I think many players will roll characters on BOTH types of servers. They will play the regular game, and when it suits them, they will play some on the FFA server. If there's no one to fight, or they are getting beat badly, or just bored with the FFA PvP style of play, they can just go play the regular server.
Similarly, you could make a server that is more geared toward grouping in the early game for the niche of players that like this playstyle.
I don't think 3 servers are needed, just one additional server that would appeal to group players.
Make that server require team work to the extent that EQ or DAoC did. And all the other servers can be like WoW, where you can easily solo to the cap without very little grouping, if any.
I think it depends on what criteria you are using.
Is it easier for 1 player to kill a wolf pup, or 8 players to kill a wolf pup? It is easier for 8 players to kill a wolf pup.
If you're using that as the judge for what is hard and what is easy, then solo is "harder".
Is it easier to decide what you want to do by yourself, or is it easier to get 8 players to stick together, and all agree on what to do, and how to do it?
I think it's obviously much, much harder to work together with 8 other people and get them to all agree on what to do, and how to do it, then just do whatever you want by yourself.
If you're using that as the judge for what is hard and easy, then obviously grouping is much harder than solo play.
Get 8 people and try to decide on which movie to go see, or what restaurant to go to. That's always going to be harder than you just going to a movie or restaurant by yourself, without having to consult anyone else about the decision.
Some people enjoy the challenge of working with others, and getting everyone to work as a team, when it's necessary (if it's not really necessary, then there is no "challenge").
Others find this tedious and not entertaining if they have to do it all the time in a game, and prefer the option to be able to just solo any time they want, and still progress at the same rate as in a group.
It's not possible to make the game challenging for the grouper, and still fun for the soloer, at the same time. Either there is no challenge, because you can just quit the group at any time and go solo without any consequences at all, OR it's tedious for the solo player, because they can't enage in the grouping content and the solo content doesn't give them the same rate of advancement.
Hence, the different server, for those that want a group challenge, while still allowing the majority to solo on the other servers whenever they wish.
Before the end game of course.
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
No player or developer uses social ineptitude as the gauge of content difficulty. Players don't say "That quest was challenging because we couldn't find 8 peopel that agree," rather it's "That quest is annoying because it takes so long to get people together."
In any case, I think you were looking for THIS THREAD.
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
I don't think the example you gave about UO is relevant.
I was thinking about the DAoC FFA PvP server. There is no character transfer from server to server. You either build a character on the FFA PvP server, or you don't. There is no crossing over.
Adn I know I saw on the forums that some mostly PvE players would make a character on the FFA PvP server. It's not the same as crossing over to the FFA side with your PvE character. It's a completely different character, that cannot cross over. Some players might play most of their time on the PvE servers, but would mess around on the FFA server once in a while.
Other players would concentrate solely on the FFA PvP servers. So I'm not sure how the data you mentioned from from UO is relevant?
The whole point of the DAoC FFA PvP server was that you could NOT go level up in a PvE server. You had to level up on the FFA server.
You got a pass until I think it was level 10. higher levels couldn't attack you, unless you attacked them, up to level 10. After that they could gank you all day long, and there was no PvE area to run to so you could level up.
As for the point about it being not feasible, maybe you're right. However, I think a few changes could accomplish the objective of the OP.
For example, drop the xp rate on mobs overall, and add in a group bonus for XP, and buff the mobs a bit.
There you go, content that encourages grouping, tough slog for the solo players, not terribly hard to program.
And what if you log on and can't find a group?
Well, you just go play a character on the solo friendly servers.
I can imagine that some players would even solo to the cap on the group server. I wouldn't do it, but some would. They did it on the FFA PvP servers on DAoC so they wouldn't get ganked.
I couldn't do it, but some players liked it.