And I am a solo player for the most part and I am complaining, it just makes the game boring if you can easily kill mobs. Yes you have your PvP action if you like that, but than you have to put up with ganking and unbalanced characters, and the games that have good PvP usually have poor PvE. I am talking about games like LOTRO and WOW and Aion and EQ2 and Fallout online and DCUO , etc, etc, It actually takes away the desire to group , because if solo is easy how easy is group. I guess I could play something like EVE but to me that is an empty game (my opinion) It is a shame that these games have made it so easy to get bored
First, because most players are just interested in advancing to the next level, loot etc. Making it that much more difficult would thus be counter productive. Second, its not all that difficult to make mobs that can easily kill players. They exist server side, and can have all of the advantages. The trick is to moderate that with the reality in my first statement. Not to mention that even semi decent AI in this sense, is much more difficult than most people realize. Put all of those together, and one has the reality as it currently exists.
You seem to assume that OP and other that want more difficult open world experience want very hard mobs , that would be super-challanging even in 1v1. Well that's not my impression and not my desire.
There is alot of space between EQ1 hard and WoW insultingly increadiby easy.
Except for Vanguard which had a good deal of hard mobs to kill, and doing it in pair or a small group was even brainstorming difficult from time to time.
But Darkfall when I played it had really tough mobs, I don't recall how many times I died from the first group or even single goblin over and over again. It was fun though, it was challenging like hell and you had really an acomplished feeling when you actually managed to kill it, just to be encountered with something worse than a goblin after a while .
Are we on the same page here? Just because it takes more time to kill mobs in Vanguard, doesn't mean they are "hard mobs". I don't think that any game that relies heavily on taunts and trinity combat are "hard". Even in those games, the mobs that break those rules are the hardest e.g. bosses.
GW and DDO had some tough monsters. I don't remember Vanguard having any. Vanguard had some seriously overpowered control abilities though. Perhaps the monsters that were immune to them were considered "hard". Anyways, just amping up DPS and HP doesn't make monsters hard.
Mob AI, -tactics and special abilities make mobs hard. Something that demands a correct response from the players, good improvisation or player skill. That is hard.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
All PVE mobs in games that strive for universal soloability are undertuned.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I don't get why people want mobs like EQ1. EQ1 trash mobs in the open world were mostly tougher than players by far (except if you had a trick like dot kiting). The mobs were not harder, but more tedious.
Now are you asking for mobs that are deadly yet can be killed as easy as a player or are you asking for a punching bag that can only be taken down by a group with a healer?
A mix of both would be fine.
Thing is, I don't think anyone wants them like old EQ1... that's going to an extreme.
However, at this point, in many (arguably most) MMOs, it's at the other extreme.... far too easy.
For me, it should all come down to the "con" system actually meaning something.
If a mob cons as an "even match" to me, then that should mean it's at least as strong/resilient as I am, and so killing it should be an almost 50/50 chance. I should certainly be scratched up noticeably after killing it. In some MMOs I've played, I'm killing mobs that are 8-10 levels above me as though they were below my level... but getting xp rewarded based on the fact that it's supposed to be harder mob.
It's far too fast and far too easy. They're nothing more than sacks of easy xp. While many people are certainly fixated on "leveling as fast as possible" and are probably all too happy to be seeing that xp roll in... if you notice, many of the same people will also invariably end up complaining about how boring leveling is. Well no kidding! It's not a challenge! They barely even have to think. Just target the next mob.. hit, hit, hit, kill... target the next mob.. hit, hit, hit, kill... Or, if they're a mage (in most MMOs), it's more like target the next mob... cast fireball... kill... target next mob... cast fireball.. kill.
Players should have to choose their fights carefully, they should have to consider their surroundings, what other enemies are in the area that might cause a problem if they wander too close, etc.
When I think of "more challenging mobs" I don't think of it only in terms of "how slowly does the mob die". I think of it in terms of "how much does the mob make me think on my feet", "how many "oh shit" moments are there while fighting it" and "how much danger is there from other mobs or the environment around me..."
FFXI handled the "thinking on your feet" moments and the "be wary of your surroundings" part beautifully. You're fighting a mob like, say, a goblin in a group and you see the goblin ready a "Bomb Toss".. you better hope that either A) You have barfire cast on you, Someone in the group has the TP to use an attack to stun and cancel the bomb toss or C) The goblin "drops" the bomb and kills itself instead... Otherwise, those bomb tosses can bring down HP in a hurry. And the thing is, you never knew if or when a goblin was going to use that. I've fought goblins that never used it once, only to have the next goblin use it 3 times in the course of the fight. Sometimes it would use Goblin Rush instead, which isn't as bad, but still not to be taken lightly.
Also in FFXI, fighting in Qufim Island, outside the tower was always fun to me, because mobs could easily wander in to aggro range while you're fighting something... especially at night when undead spawn, which are attracted to blood (will aggro someone whose HP is below 75%). So again, you always had to be wary of your surroundings and be prepared to move, fight or flee at any moment, depending if something came your way, what it was, etc. etc.
What made that all work in FFXI is that the mobs were tough. They weren't push-overs. You had to respect them. Having one additional mob come into your group - unless you had a Black Mage who was great at crowd control - could be devastating.
I remember surviving a fight in Crawler's Nest once where we had a seemingly non-stop stream of crawlers coming at us.. another one aggroing as we were killing another one. It was really tough and pushed our (quite capable) Black Mage in terms of conserving MP while helping kill the current mob, and keeping the add sleeping. Everyone else pulled out their top-game and really made it work. I think we downed 4 crawlers in a row... When we succeeded, without one death (though coming close a few times), it was freaking epic.
In most MMOs these days? Killing 4 or 5 mobs in a row like that, in most MMOs, is a cakewalk. It's barely an accomplishment.
If course it all became easier as soon as people started demanding/relying on power-levelers to keep them alive... at which point xp parties lost much of their enjoyment for me. 'cause it was no longer the group members working together to stay alive. It was some high level player out-of-party throwing out Cure IIIs and/or keeping aggro while the party played whack-a-mole. 'course, that wasn't SE's fault... It's players being lame and lazy and wanting everything easy.
However, if a MMO could capture that kind of challenge as they did in FFXI, and apply it to groups and solo content (where applicable), I think it'd be very different.
'course, you'd still have the people complaining that it takes too long and they're not leveling fast enough.. but meh.. they have plenty of other MMOs to play as it is.
So it's not only "have tougher mobs" or "mobs with more HP" that I think is necessary. MMO devs have tried that approach and, in my opinion, it hasn't worked. On the other hand, there are MMOs that have looked at it from other directions, and it has worked.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
However, if a MMO could capture that kind of challenge as they did in FFXI, and apply it to groups and solo content (where applicable), I think it'd be very different.
'course, you'd still have the people complaining that it takes too long and they're not leveling fast enough.. but meh.. they have plenty of other MMOs to play as it is.
The actual complaint you get is "my healer can't solo the same mobs as <insert rockcrusher class> can".
It's an interesting idea to beef up the mobs and cut the enormous number of "required kills" per level--and that really is the only difference between older games' leveling mobs and newer ones. But you have to abandon the "everyone can solo everything" idea in order to do it.
Then the "forced grouping" complaints begin all over again. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
In my opinion, the single biggest reason for the mob difficulty, is to get as many subscribers as possible. Hard mobs usually means only the "hard core" gamers will show up and these days, everyone wants "WoW" subscription numbers.
I do like Vanguard's difficulty though. I now know not to brush off those little pixies when I am near their level...
However, if a MMO could capture that kind of challenge as they did in FFXI, and apply it to groups and solo content (where applicable), I think it'd be very different.
'course, you'd still have the people complaining that it takes too long and they're not leveling fast enough.. but meh.. they have plenty of other MMOs to play as it is.
The actual complaint you get is "my healer can't solo the same mobs as can".
Yeah I've seen that complaint before, and it always makes me laugh. "You're a healer... You're not a DD. Pick mobs more ideal to your capabilities". (I use "you" in general).
The funny thing is, some people will say "but, but... if you pick weaker mobs you get less xp!" Yes, but you kill them more quickly, you drain less MP (as a caster) which means less down-time, which means you can move on to the next one more quickly. In the long run, you get more xp that way than you would fighting even or tougher mobs.
But, of course, many people are stuck on this "harder = better for xp" mentality. In fact, the "instant gratification" factor comes into play here. They would rather see "bigger numbers now" than "bigger total numbers after an hour or two".
It's an interesting idea to beef up the mobs and cut the enormous number of "required kills" per level--and that really is the only difference between older games' leveling mobs and newer ones. But you have to abandon the "everyone can solo everything" idea in order to do it.
Then the "forced grouping" complaints begin all over again. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I think some MMOs should be group-centric,a nd others should be solo-centric.. with perhaps *some* overlap between them. The pro-solo people have their games. The pro-grouping people have their games. Problem solved. Problem is developers keep thinking they can adequately cater to both crowds and leave them both equally entertained, occupied and happy.
Can't happen... one side or the other always ends up feeling like they're getting the shaft; that the other group is being favored.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I think some MMOs should be group-centric,a nd others should be solo-centric.. with perhaps *some* overlap between them. The pro-solo people have their games. The pro-grouping people have their games. Problem solved. Problem is developers keep thinking they can adequately cater to both crowds and leave them both equally entertained, occupied and happy.
Can't happen... one side or the other always ends up feeling like they're getting the shaft; that the other group is being favored.
Going to have to point to Guild Wars 2 here. They scale the game based on how many people are participating in a given quest. While it isn't entirely catering to both crowds, it is an idea that can evolve into exactly that.
Take the current (lame) dungeon system: You run up to a group, they all aggro, and a few feet away is another group just sitting there waiting for you to finish the group you're on so you can go kill them too. It's retarded, but let's take that system and see what we can do with it:
Instead of each group having their own little aggro radius, let's make it so all the mobs in the entire instance are at the ready to attack at all times, but only send what they think is needed. If you enter the dungeon/instance as a solo player, they might send two or three to dispatch you, because why waste everyone else's time taking care of this single player? But if you enter the instance with a hundred people, the entire instance might jump up and rush to take care of this veritable army that has entered their lair. Scale through numbers, not health bars.
This would allow solo players to have their fun, without alienating the group players. It isn't perfect, but it's a start.
I think some MMOs should be group-centric,a nd others should be solo-centric.. with perhaps *some* overlap between them. The pro-solo people have their games. The pro-grouping people have their games. Problem solved. Problem is developers keep thinking they can adequately cater to both crowds and leave them both equally entertained, occupied and happy.
Can't happen... one side or the other always ends up feeling like they're getting the shaft; that the other group is being favored.
Going to have to point to Guild Wars 2 here. They scale the game based on how many people are participating in a given quest. While it isn't entirely catering to both crowds, it is an idea that can evolve into exactly that.
Take the current (lame) dungeon system: You run up to a group, they all aggro, and a few feet away is another group just sitting there waiting for you to finish the group you're on so you can go kill them too. It's retarded, but let's take that system and see what we can do with it:
Instead of each group having their own little aggro radius, let's make it so all the mobs in the entire instance are at the ready to attack at all times, but only send what they think is needed. If you enter the dungeon/instance as a solo player, they might send two or three to dispatch you, because why waste everyone else's time taking care of this single player? But if you enter the instance with a hundred people, the entire instance might jump up and rush to take care of this veritable army that has entered their lair. Scale through numbers, not health bars.
This would allow solo players to have their fun, without alienating the group players. It isn't perfect, but it's a start.
This is a great idea. I wish more people implmented it.
Create your own challenge by soloing group content. Or doing it with less people if you cant manage that.
Ugh...this is what we would like to change. I shouldn't have to resort to soloing instances to have a mildly interesting solo PvE game.
I can't figure out how some people would want WoW soloing over anything that requires even a little bit of thought. Do all of you truly enjoy running into a pack of mobs and AOEing them down. I find this style of soloing more mind numbing than the 5 minute fights in EQ1. At least I can be killed by a mob in EQ without going AFK.
I'm sure there has to be a way to make leveling require less mobs to kill, however, each fight is important and will take a little time and strategy. Improving mob AI is absolutely key to this. I know SWTOR is trying to have you fight more mobs which have a small health pool. I'm not sure if more mobs with small health pools is the answer, hopefully it will at least keep me awake while soloing.
If I wanted Diablo style soloing I would play Diablo....
Meh... I remember TCOS in beta where everyone was dying from lvl 1 mobs 'cause they wouldn't try to dodge attacks and just sat there trying to out-dmg the bears... Really wish that game hadn't flopped >.>
Aaanywho, if you find the mob you're fighting too easy, than fight harder mobs... It isn't that hard a concept, fight above your lvl/fight elites/fight groups of mobs. If you find this to be too tedious, play a different class that is more active, or better yet, find a game that's not simply: Tab > "Spam 1" > Rinse&Repeat.
Despite the similarities, I had way more fun simply killing mobs in eq1/DAoC than in WoW but I don't know if it was some hidden formula or the luster just wore off for me. Ah wells, no one plays WoW for the combat, they do it for the community, if it had the numbers of it's competitors no one would bother.
Devs need to make combat and boss/quest sequences as fun as they are in single-player rpg games. As it is, mmo's today resemble p2p chat rooms surrounded by a minigame rather than the immersive worlds that pulled so many d&d tabletop folks into the genre.
Create your own challenge by soloing group content. Or doing it with less people if you cant manage that.
Ugh...this is what we would like to change. I shouldn't have to resort to soloing instances to have a mildly interesting solo PvE game.
I can't figure out how some people would want WoW soloing over anything that requires even a little bit of thought. Do all of you truly enjoy running into a pack of mobs and AOEing them down. I find this style of soloing more mind numbing than the 5 minute fights in EQ1. At least I can be killed by a mob in EQ without going AFK.
I'm sure there has to be a way to make leveling require less mobs to kill, however, each fight is important and will take a little time and strategy. Improving mob AI is absolutely key to this. I know SWTOR is trying to have you fight more mobs which have a small health pool. I'm not sure if more mobs with small health pools is the answer, hopefully it will at least keep me awake while soloing.
If I wanted Diablo style soloing I would play Diablo....
If this has been said before, I apologize. Maybe what we need now, is mobs with health similar to players, but really smart AI? Something where they are just as fragile as we are but very inteligent about protecting themselves and going after others. That is hard to pull off though.
I need to get off these forums and get back to work...
Going to have to point to Guild Wars 2 here. They scale the game based on how many people are participating in a given quest. While it isn't entirely catering to both crowds, it is an idea that can evolve into exactly that.
Take the current (lame) dungeon system: You run up to a group, they all aggro, and a few feet away is another group just sitting there waiting for you to finish the group you're on so you can go kill them too. It's retarded, but let's take that system and see what we can do with it:
Instead of each group having their own little aggro radius, let's make it so all the mobs in the entire instance are at the ready to attack at all times, but only send what they think is needed. If you enter the dungeon/instance as a solo player, they might send two or three to dispatch you, because why waste everyone else's time taking care of this single player? But if you enter the instance with a hundred people, the entire instance might jump up and rush to take care of this veritable army that has entered their lair. Scale through numbers, not health bars.
This would allow solo players to have their fun, without alienating the group players. It isn't perfect, but it's a start.
I agree with this line of thought. I've allways found it mindboggling that we were slaughtering a bunch of mobs while their friends stood by idly a few feet away, waiting for their turn.
Or that you could walk by a mob in their dungeon/castle/w.e. a few feet away in plain sight, just because you are to powerfull to be noticed. I mean wtf is up with that?
But to take it in perspective, a favorite quote from WoW: "Skinning a bear should aggro all bears in a 40feet radius!"
Certainly some developers have that AI ready to give us a more realistic approach in this matter. It'd be nice if you could attempt to sneak in a heavily guarded zone and assassinate npc X and try to make it out alive as a rogue type character. While at the same time you could try to take the fortress by brute force. Depending on your favorite type of play, or the amount of friends online. There's more ideas here.
Btw Rift's rifts have scaled difficulty: depending on the amount of people involved in that spot, the spawned mobs get tougher. (larger amount, hit harder, have more hp, are more resistant kind of tougher, but still tougher)
Currently playing: Skyrim, SWTOR Looking forward to: Guildwars 2 ! modestly excited for: The Secret World Have played intensely: Rift, Eve, AoC, WoW, Conquer 2.0, Astonia 3 Have played less intensely: just about everything else
MMO combat will continue to suck until we have the tech and bandwidth to give us Devil May Cry / God of War / Zelda game levels of action-packed combat where the challenge comes from more complex mechanics rather then simply larger health pools.
Games like Tera/GW2/TOR are inching closer and closer, but for the "real" combat you still have to have a heavy reliance on instancing like Rusty Hearts / Vindictus.
I mean.. seriously just think about the mechanics from a "easy" fight in a Zelda game in comparison to any MMO-
Active dodging, blocking, counter-attacks, special weaknesses, exposing those weaknesses, proper timing, proper ability usage...
I saw someone saying that longer monsters just make the quests take longer.
I think one of the main problems with todays MMOs is they arent taking the time to make the quests interesting.
And I am NOT saying that we should be innundated with a million cut-scenes either.
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If I am being told by some random NPC I don't care about to kill 10 wolves rince and repeat it puts one in the "lets get this over with" mentality.
If I actually care then the game itself can be more or less than what I am doing and I will still be happy. But they arent making people care.
Rift had a great system but did you really care about the quests -- and what about the theme -- while yes it is world under seige, did they really ever get you worked up about it?
Everquest 2 actually had it at the beginning but ONLY on the evil side. The oppression was tangible. It was truly a dog eat dog place and the NPCs were more trying to take advantage of you than anything else. It was actually alive. Even the world was harsh with tons of aggro monsters from level 1.
The GOOD side of EQ2 was like a candyland where people were constantly asking you to find their lost cat. Bunch of wimpy whiner types and holier than tho types and people would actually be driven to have a disdain for them. Here the zones were easy with solo pulls and little aggro -- easymode.
The result?
On the good side people KSed crafting nodes from each other and generally acted like spoiled brats.
On the evil side people actually were civil to each other and didnt steal nodes so much etc. It was a "opression is all around we only have each other" environment.
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Of course they lost that with the new starting towns etc. Start in the later towns and it is typical themepark fare where the quests are light and the monsters are easy and you are led from point A to point Z by your nose.
I saw someone saying that longer monsters just make the quests take longer.
I think one of the main problems with todays MMOs is they arent taking the time to make the quests interesting.
And I am NOT saying that we should be innundated with a million cut-scenes either.
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If I am being told by some random NPC I don't care about to kill 10 wolves rince and repeat it puts one in the "lets get this over with" mentality.
If I actually care then the game itself can be more or less than what I am doing and I will still be happy. But they arent making people care.
Rift had a great system but did you really care about the quests -- and what about the theme -- while yes it is world under seige, did they really ever get you worked up about it?
Everquest 2 actually had it at the beginning but ONLY on the evil side. The oppression was tangible. It was truly a dog eat dog place and the NPCs were more trying to take advantage of you than anything else. It was actually alive. Even the world was harsh with tons of aggro monsters from level 1.
The GOOD side of EQ2 was like a candyland where people were constantly asking you to find their lost cat. Bunch of wimpy whiner types and holier than tho types and people would actually be driven to have a disdain for them. Here the zones were easy with solo pulls and little aggro -- easymode.
The result?
On the good side people KSed crafting nodes from each other and generally acted like spoiled brats.
On the evil side people actually were civil to each other and didnt steal nodes so much etc. It was a "opression is all around we only have each other" environment.
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Of course they lost that with the new starting towns etc. Start in the later towns and it is typical themepark fare where the quests are light and the monsters are easy and you are led from point A to point Z by your nose.
Do you know why its that way in so many games? Because thats what the majority of gamers today WANT. The Dev's are just playing to a changed demographic. I'm not fond of that approach myself, but its todays reality. More and more, I'm starting to believe that we are seeing the beginings of the type of society shown in this movie. ^^
Do you know why its that way in so many games? Because thats what the majority of gamers today WANT. The Dev's are just playing to a changed demographic. I'm not fond of that approach myself, but its todays reality. More and more, I'm starting to believe that we are seeing the beginings of the type of society shown in this movie. ^^
Sure , though it is not a reason , not to discuss this kind of things or to not want this kind of things , well unless we want happily sail to what is shown in your link ^^
Not to mention that majority of current mmorpg players never even had an opportunity to try game designed like WoW , with very easy open world. Some just refuse to play any old game , many don't know any similar games like WoW exist , etc , etc
I know that shift towards "old times" won't happen in industry , just hoping mmorpg market will grow so big and it will be divided much more in future than it is now (no 1 game totally dominating over all others , but more like few major games ) so some developer (s) will target this niche with something other than indie and broken games.
Let me get straight here , I am not saying about "hardcore" unforgiving games , just something in between EQ1 / UO and WoW / Rift , style.
So maybe it will happen maybe not , but anyway I hope WoW will shrink in size in west markets and stop dominating by so big margin and market start to be divided more evenly by few players , not just one shark and crowd of small fishes , then maybe market become less stagnant.
Create your own challenge by soloing group content. Or doing it with less people if you cant manage that.
Ugh...this is what we would like to change. I shouldn't have to resort to soloing instances to have a mildly interesting solo PvE game.
I can't figure out how some people would want WoW soloing over anything that requires even a little bit of thought. Do all of you truly enjoy running into a pack of mobs and AOEing them down. I find this style of soloing more mind numbing than the 5 minute fights in EQ1. At least I can be killed by a mob in EQ without going AFK.
I'm sure there has to be a way to make leveling require less mobs to kill, however, each fight is important and will take a little time and strategy. Improving mob AI is absolutely key to this. I know SWTOR is trying to have you fight more mobs which have a small health pool. I'm not sure if more mobs with small health pools is the answer, hopefully it will at least keep me awake while soloing.
If I wanted Diablo style soloing I would play Diablo....
Haha, you think that you cant solo even con heroic / group mobs in EQ1, EQ2 or Vanguard? You are sadly mistaken.
And it doesnt involve running in and AOEing them like you and your WoW buddies. But feel free to keep thinking that everyone is talking about WoW. It involves crowd control and fast reflexes because you will die in a few hits if you lose control of the situation.
Age of Conan has a lot of solo dungeons which require some thought and challenge. Maybe the OP should try there.
Not really as only the towns are mmo style with a lot of players.
It does have the chat system, auction house, persistent characters, gearing, leveling etc etc and all the other online rpg elements.
Fighting is instanced though (think wow dungeons, but not shitty) and you play with up to 3 other people in normal dungeons, up to 6 I think, or was it 7 in the 'raid' dungeons.
The combat is a lot like god of war.
It would be even better if it were more elaborate like say bayonetta or DMC, but as far as mmos go it's way above par.
The biggest bonus of the game is the rewarding crafting systems (knocking armor pieces off bosses to use in your crafts to make sets or special shields etc) and the absolutely gorgeous armor models.
They look more more elegant/detailed/nice/right than in other mmos.
Here's a (n old) video of the character creation menu, you can also preview some of the later armor sets in the char creation screen so this video shows them off.
Comments
You seem to assume that OP and other that want more difficult open world experience want very hard mobs , that would be super-challanging even in 1v1. Well that's not my impression and not my desire.
There is alot of space between EQ1 hard and WoW insultingly increadiby easy.
Except for Vanguard which had a good deal of hard mobs to kill, and doing it in pair or a small group was even brainstorming difficult from time to time.
But Darkfall when I played it had really tough mobs, I don't recall how many times I died from the first group or even single goblin over and over again. It was fun though, it was challenging like hell and you had really an acomplished feeling when you actually managed to kill it, just to be encountered with something worse than a goblin after a while
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Are we on the same page here? Just because it takes more time to kill mobs in Vanguard, doesn't mean they are "hard mobs". I don't think that any game that relies heavily on taunts and trinity combat are "hard". Even in those games, the mobs that break those rules are the hardest e.g. bosses.
GW and DDO had some tough monsters. I don't remember Vanguard having any. Vanguard had some seriously overpowered control abilities though. Perhaps the monsters that were immune to them were considered "hard". Anyways, just amping up DPS and HP doesn't make monsters hard.
Mob AI, -tactics and special abilities make mobs hard. Something that demands a correct response from the players, good improvisation or player skill. That is hard.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Soloability.
All PVE mobs in games that strive for universal soloability are undertuned.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
A mix of both would be fine.
Thing is, I don't think anyone wants them like old EQ1... that's going to an extreme.
However, at this point, in many (arguably most) MMOs, it's at the other extreme.... far too easy.
For me, it should all come down to the "con" system actually meaning something.
If a mob cons as an "even match" to me, then that should mean it's at least as strong/resilient as I am, and so killing it should be an almost 50/50 chance. I should certainly be scratched up noticeably after killing it. In some MMOs I've played, I'm killing mobs that are 8-10 levels above me as though they were below my level... but getting xp rewarded based on the fact that it's supposed to be harder mob.
It's far too fast and far too easy. They're nothing more than sacks of easy xp. While many people are certainly fixated on "leveling as fast as possible" and are probably all too happy to be seeing that xp roll in... if you notice, many of the same people will also invariably end up complaining about how boring leveling is. Well no kidding! It's not a challenge! They barely even have to think. Just target the next mob.. hit, hit, hit, kill... target the next mob.. hit, hit, hit, kill... Or, if they're a mage (in most MMOs), it's more like target the next mob... cast fireball... kill... target next mob... cast fireball.. kill.
Players should have to choose their fights carefully, they should have to consider their surroundings, what other enemies are in the area that might cause a problem if they wander too close, etc.
When I think of "more challenging mobs" I don't think of it only in terms of "how slowly does the mob die". I think of it in terms of "how much does the mob make me think on my feet", "how many "oh shit" moments are there while fighting it" and "how much danger is there from other mobs or the environment around me..."
FFXI handled the "thinking on your feet" moments and the "be wary of your surroundings" part beautifully. You're fighting a mob like, say, a goblin in a group and you see the goblin ready a "Bomb Toss".. you better hope that either A) You have barfire cast on you,
Someone in the group has the TP to use an attack to stun and cancel the bomb toss or C) The goblin "drops" the bomb and kills itself instead... Otherwise, those bomb tosses can bring down HP in a hurry. And the thing is, you never knew if or when a goblin was going to use that. I've fought goblins that never used it once, only to have the next goblin use it 3 times in the course of the fight. Sometimes it would use Goblin Rush instead, which isn't as bad, but still not to be taken lightly.
Also in FFXI, fighting in Qufim Island, outside the tower was always fun to me, because mobs could easily wander in to aggro range while you're fighting something... especially at night when undead spawn, which are attracted to blood (will aggro someone whose HP is below 75%). So again, you always had to be wary of your surroundings and be prepared to move, fight or flee at any moment, depending if something came your way, what it was, etc. etc.
What made that all work in FFXI is that the mobs were tough. They weren't push-overs. You had to respect them. Having one additional mob come into your group - unless you had a Black Mage who was great at crowd control - could be devastating.
I remember surviving a fight in Crawler's Nest once where we had a seemingly non-stop stream of crawlers coming at us.. another one aggroing as we were killing another one. It was really tough and pushed our (quite capable) Black Mage in terms of conserving MP while helping kill the current mob, and keeping the add sleeping. Everyone else pulled out their top-game and really made it work. I think we downed 4 crawlers in a row... When we succeeded, without one death (though coming close a few times), it was freaking epic.
In most MMOs these days? Killing 4 or 5 mobs in a row like that, in most MMOs, is a cakewalk. It's barely an accomplishment.
If course it all became easier as soon as people started demanding/relying on power-levelers to keep them alive... at which point xp parties lost much of their enjoyment for me. 'cause it was no longer the group members working together to stay alive. It was some high level player out-of-party throwing out Cure IIIs and/or keeping aggro while the party played whack-a-mole. 'course, that wasn't SE's fault... It's players being lame and lazy and wanting everything easy.
However, if a MMO could capture that kind of challenge as they did in FFXI, and apply it to groups and solo content (where applicable), I think it'd be very different.
'course, you'd still have the people complaining that it takes too long and they're not leveling fast enough.. but meh.. they have plenty of other MMOs to play as it is.
So it's not only "have tougher mobs" or "mobs with more HP" that I think is necessary. MMO devs have tried that approach and, in my opinion, it hasn't worked. On the other hand, there are MMOs that have looked at it from other directions, and it has worked.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
The actual complaint you get is "my healer can't solo the same mobs as <insert rockcrusher class> can".
It's an interesting idea to beef up the mobs and cut the enormous number of "required kills" per level--and that really is the only difference between older games' leveling mobs and newer ones. But you have to abandon the "everyone can solo everything" idea in order to do it.
Then the "forced grouping" complaints begin all over again. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
In my opinion, the single biggest reason for the mob difficulty, is to get as many subscribers as possible. Hard mobs usually means only the "hard core" gamers will show up and these days, everyone wants "WoW" subscription numbers.
I do like Vanguard's difficulty though. I now know not to brush off those little pixies when I am near their level...
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Going to have to point to Guild Wars 2 here. They scale the game based on how many people are participating in a given quest. While it isn't entirely catering to both crowds, it is an idea that can evolve into exactly that.
Take the current (lame) dungeon system: You run up to a group, they all aggro, and a few feet away is another group just sitting there waiting for you to finish the group you're on so you can go kill them too. It's retarded, but let's take that system and see what we can do with it:
Instead of each group having their own little aggro radius, let's make it so all the mobs in the entire instance are at the ready to attack at all times, but only send what they think is needed. If you enter the dungeon/instance as a solo player, they might send two or three to dispatch you, because why waste everyone else's time taking care of this single player? But if you enter the instance with a hundred people, the entire instance might jump up and rush to take care of this veritable army that has entered their lair. Scale through numbers, not health bars.
This would allow solo players to have their fun, without alienating the group players. It isn't perfect, but it's a start.
Sarcasm is not a crime!
Sorry, but... I never saw the fun in hacking 10 minutes on one mobs over and over until he is dead. I find that SO BORING.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Create your own challenge by soloing group content. Or doing it with less people if you cant manage that.
This is a great idea. I wish more people implmented it.
Ugh...this is what we would like to change. I shouldn't have to resort to soloing instances to have a mildly interesting solo PvE game.
I can't figure out how some people would want WoW soloing over anything that requires even a little bit of thought. Do all of you truly enjoy running into a pack of mobs and AOEing them down. I find this style of soloing more mind numbing than the 5 minute fights in EQ1. At least I can be killed by a mob in EQ without going AFK.
I'm sure there has to be a way to make leveling require less mobs to kill, however, each fight is important and will take a little time and strategy. Improving mob AI is absolutely key to this. I know SWTOR is trying to have you fight more mobs which have a small health pool. I'm not sure if more mobs with small health pools is the answer, hopefully it will at least keep me awake while soloing.
If I wanted Diablo style soloing I would play Diablo....
Meh... I remember TCOS in beta where everyone was dying from lvl 1 mobs 'cause they wouldn't try to dodge attacks and just sat there trying to out-dmg the bears... Really wish that game hadn't flopped >.>
Aaanywho, if you find the mob you're fighting too easy, than fight harder mobs... It isn't that hard a concept, fight above your lvl/fight elites/fight groups of mobs. If you find this to be too tedious, play a different class that is more active, or better yet, find a game that's not simply: Tab > "Spam 1" > Rinse&Repeat.
Despite the similarities, I had way more fun simply killing mobs in eq1/DAoC than in WoW but I don't know if it was some hidden formula or the luster just wore off for me. Ah wells, no one plays WoW for the combat, they do it for the community, if it had the numbers of it's competitors no one would bother.
Devs need to make combat and boss/quest sequences as fun as they are in single-player rpg games. As it is, mmo's today resemble p2p chat rooms surrounded by a minigame rather than the immersive worlds that pulled so many d&d tabletop folks into the genre.
If this has been said before, I apologize. Maybe what we need now, is mobs with health similar to players, but really smart AI? Something where they are just as fragile as we are but very inteligent about protecting themselves and going after others. That is hard to pull off though.
I need to get off these forums and get back to work...
I agree with this line of thought. I've allways found it mindboggling that we were slaughtering a bunch of mobs while their friends stood by idly a few feet away, waiting for their turn.
Or that you could walk by a mob in their dungeon/castle/w.e. a few feet away in plain sight, just because you are to powerfull to be noticed. I mean wtf is up with that?
But to take it in perspective, a favorite quote from WoW: "Skinning a bear should aggro all bears in a 40feet radius!"
Certainly some developers have that AI ready to give us a more realistic approach in this matter. It'd be nice if you could attempt to sneak in a heavily guarded zone and assassinate npc X and try to make it out alive as a rogue type character. While at the same time you could try to take the fortress by brute force. Depending on your favorite type of play, or the amount of friends online. There's more ideas here.
Btw Rift's rifts have scaled difficulty: depending on the amount of people involved in that spot, the spawned mobs get tougher. (larger amount, hit harder, have more hp, are more resistant kind of tougher, but still tougher)
Currently playing: Skyrim, SWTOR
Looking forward to: Guildwars 2 ! modestly excited for: The Secret World
Have played intensely: Rift, Eve, AoC, WoW, Conquer 2.0, Astonia 3
Have played less intensely: just about everything else
I agree with the OP.
I refuse to give money to the developers who dont.
MMO combat will continue to suck until we have the tech and bandwidth to give us Devil May Cry / God of War / Zelda game levels of action-packed combat where the challenge comes from more complex mechanics rather then simply larger health pools.
Games like Tera/GW2/TOR are inching closer and closer, but for the "real" combat you still have to have a heavy reliance on instancing like Rusty Hearts / Vindictus.
I mean.. seriously just think about the mechanics from a "easy" fight in a Zelda game in comparison to any MMO-
Active dodging, blocking, counter-attacks, special weaknesses, exposing those weaknesses, proper timing, proper ability usage...
There is another side to this coin...
Storyline.
I saw someone saying that longer monsters just make the quests take longer.
I think one of the main problems with todays MMOs is they arent taking the time to make the quests interesting.
And I am NOT saying that we should be innundated with a million cut-scenes either.
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If I am being told by some random NPC I don't care about to kill 10 wolves rince and repeat it puts one in the "lets get this over with" mentality.
If I actually care then the game itself can be more or less than what I am doing and I will still be happy. But they arent making people care.
Rift had a great system but did you really care about the quests -- and what about the theme -- while yes it is world under seige, did they really ever get you worked up about it?
Everquest 2 actually had it at the beginning but ONLY on the evil side. The oppression was tangible. It was truly a dog eat dog place and the NPCs were more trying to take advantage of you than anything else. It was actually alive. Even the world was harsh with tons of aggro monsters from level 1.
The GOOD side of EQ2 was like a candyland where people were constantly asking you to find their lost cat. Bunch of wimpy whiner types and holier than tho types and people would actually be driven to have a disdain for them. Here the zones were easy with solo pulls and little aggro -- easymode.
The result?
On the good side people KSed crafting nodes from each other and generally acted like spoiled brats.
On the evil side people actually were civil to each other and didnt steal nodes so much etc. It was a "opression is all around we only have each other" environment.
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Of course they lost that with the new starting towns etc. Start in the later towns and it is typical themepark fare where the quests are light and the monsters are easy and you are led from point A to point Z by your nose.
Do you know why its that way in so many games? Because thats what the majority of gamers today WANT. The Dev's are just playing to a changed demographic. I'm not fond of that approach myself, but its todays reality. More and more, I'm starting to believe that we are seeing the beginings of the type of society shown in this movie. ^^
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
Sure , though it is not a reason , not to discuss this kind of things or to not want this kind of things , well unless we want happily sail to what is shown in your link ^^
Not to mention that majority of current mmorpg players never even had an opportunity to try game designed like WoW , with very easy open world. Some just refuse to play any old game , many don't know any similar games like WoW exist , etc , etc
I know that shift towards "old times" won't happen in industry , just hoping mmorpg market will grow so big and it will be divided much more in future than it is now (no 1 game totally dominating over all others , but more like few major games ) so some developer (s) will target this niche with something other than indie and broken games.
Let me get straight here , I am not saying about "hardcore" unforgiving games , just something in between EQ1 / UO and WoW / Rift , style.
So maybe it will happen maybe not , but anyway I hope WoW will shrink in size in west markets and stop dominating by so big margin and market start to be divided more evenly by few players , not just one shark and crowd of small fishes , then maybe market become less stagnant.
Haha, you think that you cant solo even con heroic / group mobs in EQ1, EQ2 or Vanguard? You are sadly mistaken.
And it doesnt involve running in and AOEing them like you and your WoW buddies. But feel free to keep thinking that everyone is talking about WoW. It involves crowd control and fast reflexes because you will die in a few hits if you lose control of the situation.
Age of Conan has a lot of solo dungeons which require some thought and challenge. Maybe the OP should try there.
Vindictus is where it's at.
Much more fun than traditional mmo global cooldown gameplay.
Is Vindictus an MMO?
Yes and no.
Not really as only the towns are mmo style with a lot of players.
It does have the chat system, auction house, persistent characters, gearing, leveling etc etc and all the other online rpg elements.
Fighting is instanced though (think wow dungeons, but not shitty) and you play with up to 3 other people in normal dungeons, up to 6 I think, or was it 7 in the 'raid' dungeons.
The combat is a lot like god of war.
It would be even better if it were more elaborate like say bayonetta or DMC, but as far as mmos go it's way above par.
The biggest bonus of the game is the rewarding crafting systems (knocking armor pieces off bosses to use in your crafts to make sets or special shields etc) and the absolutely gorgeous armor models.
They look more more elegant/detailed/nice/right than in other mmos.
Here's a (n old) video of the character creation menu, you can also preview some of the later armor sets in the char creation screen so this video shows them off.