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Did MMORPGs become too easy? (again)
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
I know it's the n-th debate about this, but recently I wanted to write my own approach towards the topic, especially focussed on the upcoming MMOs TESO and EQN.
Now reading forums like these I often have the impression the MMO gamers are perfectly divided between ultra hardcore games who "want it all back the way it was in good olde EQ and UO" and an invisible, presumed mass audience somewhere "out there" who "apparently" want it all easy, handed on a silver platter. I guess and hope though, in reality we are maybe much closer to a middle ground, who can say?
Now in the hardships discussions I noticed two things. First, not all hardships people quote fall under the same category, some just seem like pointless annoyance and don't really make the game more difficult just more tiresome. Second MMos are now definitely getting too easy, because I just don't have any memorable experienes to really accomplish something. In Dragons Prophet I can not TAME Dragons. I can frigging GATHER them. Like berries. From the get go. There was a time, when there was THE Dragon in a MMO. Somewhere at the end. Where you guild camped the span points for weeks, and then with MUCH luck you saw a Dragon, let alone defeat one, and it was a memory for years. NOT something to be *gathered* like strawberries!
It first dawed me watching Elder Scrolls Online videos. Players entering a dungeon just RAN towards the goal, all through the dungeon.
And that was just PLAIN and TOTALLY wrong. Mind ya, I do not blame the players. They did what the game offered. But a game should not BE so easy, so riskless. If I enter a dungeon, I pause. I go to crouch/sneak mode. I look DOWN: are there traps? I look up: is something lurking above me? I look left and right? Are there deadly enemies lurking in the shadows. And like that I want to proceed. Slowly. Step by step, because any misstep can be deadly!
Or, example from Neverwinter. I was a Thief. In theory my task was to sneak ahead and disarm traps. The reality however was very different: the group RAN through the Dungeon, because the traps did so minimal damage, it was easier to just soak it up and ignore it. And that is not how a trap should be! A trap is something you have to be afraid of! It has to FORCE the players to slow down and sneak! And that is not the players fault, because they react to the environment. That is the developers, the games fault.
Now some people say, well today people want it so easy. But IS that so? Yes many rush through games now. But do they really want it so? A lot of "the kids" we often blame play shooters, and a lot of them are REALL difficult. For instance the much critizised arena pvp style of shooters, are quite difficult, because you play against humans. Not mobs. So again, are people really WANTING so easy MMOs. I really doubt it.
But: there is hardship and hardship. What I do NOT like in the hardcore games of old, was everything that made me not play the game, but wait. Do nothing. Or rince repeat a menial task. I didn't like downtime, like the EQ1 sitting down to regen. That was not difficult, that was no risk or challange, that was just BORING. You sat down and did nothing. 5 Minutes. Same with hour or day long boss camping. Or overmuch item decay. Or corpse run. A corpse run just means I have to re-do the same stuff with one of my spare gear sets. Let the actual fight be difficult, make dangerous traps, suprise attacking mobs, make the GAME itself difficult and risky, not the death penality. Death penalities are just timesinks, and a timesink is just that: a waste of time instead of making the game itself slower, because of the risks.
What I DON'T like in the old EQ1 formula was clearly, how less rewarding the game was. I really loved WOW for one thing: I could play 1-2 hours if I had less time and still feel I had accomplished something small. A new cap, a fancy pair of boots, or maybe a Dagger +2 or whatevs. What really made me grind my teeth in EQ2 vanilla, how I could play weeks and weeks and still get nothing but a badger liver and 100 pieces of trash loot. That's not to say everything has to be handed to you, let there be difficult to attain things, but also give those with little time some little feel-good rewards. Something to make you smile at the end of an evening.
The problem with games now too easy is, it is generic. You don't remember it anymore. My dangerous approach to cross Nektulos Forest in early EQ2 was something I will NEVER forget. How I tried to sneak close to the "walls". How I tried to avoid the HUGE aggro radius of mobs, and the many super dangerous patrols of 5-6 skeletons in ONE group. THAT was memorable, because I felt like a real hero after I had accomplished it. What I saw in TESO however was the very OPPOSITE of heroic. Mobs had a super small aggro radius, they were practically STANDING there, you had to stand on top of them before they'd attack you, and the places were all WAY too easy from the looks of it. And YES even starter areas need to be a challange. I want the games to be slowed down, not by chores but by the DANGER the world poses.
That is what is just WRONG. In the past, when I was away from a MMO for a week, my buddies has leveled maybe ONE more level in that week. Today, when I make a break for one week and return, all my friends and guildmates are 15 levels higher than me. And that is just the example of what is wrong with MMOs. A MMO SHOULD not be possible to rush through like that. And that is the task of the developer to slow people down by danger and challange. Whether you cross a forest or traverse a dungeon: it has to be dangerous, fearsome and risky EVERY SINGLE STEP. Then you remember it as heroic accomplishment for years and you stay in that game and not swap from MMO to MMO every 2 months like it is now.
This super easy has to go.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
And here's the same answer for the n-th time...
If people are having fun then who cares?
Shhhh. He's posing. Just clap and say "ooh, ahh".
The people like me and the OP who don't find it fun, who want an alternative.
I don't think the OP is cursing all MMO's that are currently popular.
Its that there is NO alternative in sight. We have been patiently waiting for a new MMO that is going to challenge us, somewhere we can create new fond memories with fulfilling game play.
That's the problem, its not the majority gaming audience, its just that what feels like a large segment of the gaming populace is being ignored by developers. Its possible we are a incredibly small portion, I'd hope not.... im still waiting while playing other genres but the majority of MMO's today are so easy they aren't worth playing.
Yeah, for about the last ten years...
I have to agree with the op here when he talks about the old games there was a sense of danger in them now I wont say I dont get that now in some games but the way I felt when crossing Nek forest in EQ:OA was even worse we had no map's we had no idea where we were we had to learn where Freeport was or Kelethin we had to find them by hard means. Games now a-days you don't have that you have heres quest open map map shows exactly where to go and what to do hell it almost plays for you and I can name a few games that do have a auto-pilot feature that takes you to a quest area plays your character and loots for you as well. Point is in older games they did not have easy to read maps or easy to get anywhere zones that was the challenge.
Look at EQ2 now we have mounts that leap us from lvl 25 or so to 60 or higher there is no danger for you you just hop around from place to place till you get your flyer then you fly everywhere no fear in that. Just like in Vangaurd that game at launch was freaking hard now you can lvl to 30 and not even need a group I know I have 6 characters there all around 30+. Todays games are made for the mass majority but it does not mean you can't have challenge and fun at the same time plus back then if oyu ran alone you died alot and you needed the help of other to get through these areas not that it was hard it was a challenge.
Sherman's Gaming
Youtube Content creator for The Elder Scrolls Online
Channel:http://https//www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgYNgpFTRAl4XWz31o2emw
They didn't become too easy, they're just like everything else in life. People want everything for very little effort. Games aren't supposed to be hard, games aren't supposed to be work.. games aren't supposed to make me read, or think, or behave myself in global chat. It's just about me having FUN.
Guess what... shallow games with no substance, that give you a lot of flash and very little solidity, that only require 2 months of your time to level where you get led around by your nose on a linear line in between two invisible walls straight to endgame so you can raid three nights a week ad nauseous or just jump to the next game and do the same mind numbing shit... THAT is not fun. That is not what good games are made of.
People have stuck with EQ and WoW and FFXI not because they have new content rolling out every week to placate the masses, but because when it took you half a year to hit max level, you actually had time to make FRIENDS and have relationships with people that transcended conversations about Chuck Norris.
I think devs scramble to give players what players want. Unfortunately what players think they want - what sounds good - isn't necessarily what makes a good game. A game that someone works on and pours their talent and heart into for 5+ years shouldn't be treated like flavor of the week. I think that devs that create games to what THEY believe is right and good - those make the best games.
People don't appreciate what they don't pay for and they really don't appreciate what they don't have to EARN. Making MMO's too 'easy' by giving players shortcuts and painfree rides to endgame is killing MMO's - it's taking away the reason to start playing, for character progression, exploration, advancement and it's taking away the reasons to keep playing, for community, continued progression and time invested.
No bitchers.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
I don't think we just adapted to MMOs, I think they got objectively easier.
Also, at least for me, it is less about competitveness, but achievement. Take the "Old Forest" from LOTRO. When there was no map of the Old Forest, it was cool, because it was dangerous and spooky and it felt like 10 times the size. Then there suddenly was an ingame map of it, and it was just a small dumb forest.
And traps. Traps are a real pet peeve of mine. Now they are essentially useless. A trap but be near deadly. Not something like in Neverwinter, which most people dont even NOTICE they walked through 10 traps just now!
It is also a matter of surprises. And that is the difficult part. In the many years I was DM, I usually adapted the encounters and dungeons on the fly, without the group knowing. My aim as DM was to keep the group alife, but also on their toes. They never should feel save, they never should be certain what was coming. So I added stuff and changed stuff all the time while playing. Now I know that is difficult to implement in a MMO. But we "wasted" so much time only improving the graphics, which is now at an end. We CAN do photorealism. That is no longer the challange. Now the challange would be to make really smart, adapting AI, like a chess software which adapts to the skill of the player, always keeping him on his toes but never overpowering him totally.
That is what *I* see as the challange of Next Gen MMos. To make them smart and go away from this static mob placement and static game worlds, which are just too easy.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
QFT
For me, fun is all that matters. I don't really care about graphics, the game difficulty, or anything else that people cry and whine about. It's a game, and I play games for fun, it's that simple. I play games for fun. If they aren't fun anymore, I move on.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Alternatively, maybe we've grown up enough that games don't fill a need for external affirmation any more?
Obviously, there are going to be exceptions.
There won't ever be a shortage of snowflakes seeking special recognition from a game, but e-fame is ephemeral.
Dungeons are hard to pull off in MMOs, because players run them repeatedly. They don't have to look for traps, because they know where the traps are. I'm hoping EQN's randomly generated dungeons will solve the issue partially. Neverwinter was a real letdown dungeons wise, but maybe there are some decent dungeons in the Foundry.
The "40 hours long tutorial" design of MMOs is something I loathe. If you want to make a tutorial, make it short and optional. I was in FFXIV's beta and, while it was a very nice game otherwise, the tedious starter areas killed it for me. I think I'll skip the whole game now, because there's no way I'm spending dozens of hours of my life just to get to the part where a monster might kill me even if I don't fall asleep on the keyboard.
That being said, didn't you quit GW2 because it was too hard in your opinion?
I, as well as many others derive fun from game difficulty, I play games to challenge my mind not to autopilot through content/story.
i am starting to see a pattern in these forums.... a pattern that repeats in round circles.
lol, strawberries
lol lol lol
i want a strawberry dragon
sry, i am taking the subject seriously i just couldn't stop laughing at that point
That is the biggest bullshit I have every heard in my life, created by some kind of lazy people that would like to get everything effortlessly and completely miss the idea of a game in the first place.
Read the very definition of game. It is a competitive activity, played according to a set of rules, and the objective is to win. That is a game. Electronic or not, whether it has thousands of years, or was made yesterday. If you do something just for the fun of doing it, that is what it is. Doing something for fun, not PLAYING a game. What kind of nonsence is that? Where do you get that? A GAME is a GAME, you PLAY and you WIN or LOSE. And the FUN is out of that.
Do you see football players running after ball with a banana on their face, screaming oh my god I love running after ball it is so fun, who needs the goal. No, they play a game to win, and they are pretty happy while they do it, and believe me it is not because they love to kick the ball over and over. You are trying to invent new definition for a game, which is complete nonsense.
People have this wierd mentality, that the activity in a game needs to be fun, for the game to be fun. It is the damn CHALLENGE! Why are people so lazy nowadays.
To the creator of this topic. Your points are valid but totally useless on this forum. Those people just don't understand that you can be more happy by achieving something in a game, than by just hacing a fun gameplay.
And games are getting easy, you can't deny it. It is way to obvious, time is not a factor or skill. Go play a game from 1999 and a game from 2013 in the same day and tell me if they have the same difficulty.
I'm scared that people just aren't achievers anymore. All the progress in the world has come from a mentality, that I need to go through hardships to achieve something new and rare. If someone ever experience it, he knows the feeling and should want to have it even in a little stupid thing like a game. I guess no one had.
Just like you don't understand that some are looking for fun gameplay, and that video game achievement is just an illusion created by the devs anyway.
I don't understand that people are looking for fun gameplay? I just explained that people are looking for fun gameplay instead of achievements, so what are you talking about? I understand it, let them do what they want, just don't say game is all about fun activity, game is for winning. The whole point why games were created is competition. I think those people might be missing on the actual fun with this mindset.
Do what you like, just don't rewrite definition to your own preferences.
And if you go with this mentality, you can just say that any achievement in sport is just an illusion created by people that have interest in it. And if you have that kind of mind set, none discussion will matter.
And you know what is fun for everyone?
Games are no longer just for competition. In fact, the whole point of PvE is NOT to compete with others. They are plenty of solo, co-op non-competitive gameplay.
The reason EQ2 could get away with making a super dangerous zone was because the game wasn't on rails like the modern MMOs. Oh I remember vanilla Nektulos forest alright but nobody was forced to go there. Nektulos mobs ranged from about level 20 to level 30, however, there were other zones in EQ2 to level through the 20s. Here is a list I can think of off the top of my head to level in the 20s. Lower sewers of both cities, Fallen Gate, Stormhold, Thundering Steppes, Ruins of Varsoon. The key was multiple leveling paths. People went to Nektulos out of curiosity and a sense of exploration. Hey there is a grey area on the map lets check it out. The hardmode danger zones made the game feel more real. Getting past the 20s wasn't something you knocked out in an afternoon so multiple zones had value.
And that is not the game I want to play.
I would much prefer an instance with a difficulty option. Making a zone overly hard with the player has no chance is not fun to me.