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Challenge or Time?
monotom
Member Posts: 24
How do you like earning your prestige and hard to get items ?
With
Time
Or
Challenge
Comments
Neither explicitly. I like these to be inter-exchangeable. I feel like I should be able to either overcome a single difficult obstacle. Or be able to trudge through easy but drawn out task in order to achieve my goals. And, I like it when games give me multiple approaches. Also the two are not necessarily something that need to be an either or.
One example I can think of is earning a fire cape in runescape. You have to grind through wave after wave of progressively difficult mobs. Which are not that difficult but definitely require time in. And, at then comes Boss. So, it's a grind that sort of qualifies you for the challenge.
However, time is not necessarily challenge. So a challenge can be time consuming but most time consuming tasks are not really challenging (unless you are testing solely for endurance to mindless repetition)
Yeah that is a better way of putting it.
Challenges can be brief if you are prepared. While challenge can be time-in... it doesn't necessarily have to be.
Im going to combine them both into one word:
effort
unacceptable: Kill 10,000 bears. Collect Bearfur Trousers of Doom
acceptable:
Travel to Timbuktu to meet with a master tailor
Earn the trust of master tailor by acquiring a silver needle or making one yourself
Kill 10 polar bears from the northern reaches of the world for their furs
Kill 10 Grizzly bears from the mountainous western regions for their furs
Travel to the desert spider cave in the south and obtain silk from the Queen. bring a group.
Return to Timbuktu. receive Bearfur Trousers of Doom
None of this was that challenging, except for maybe the spider queen. However you traveled the world, saw new places, met people, and have ugly white and black pants.
I see what you did there |:)
First of all, time consuming "no skill" tasks are valid. YOU MIGHT HATE IT, but it is still valid. As to challenge, if games want to have it fine, but real challenge is doing things in the real world. Much more satisfying than bragging about some in game accomplishments.
If you make things too hard, the masses can't do it. If you make it take time, the people who want it handed to them will complain. FYI, for sake of that last bit, I am assuming that some of the players want quick and easy but also to be able to call it a challenge even if it isn't.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Yeah this sounds about right.
The only thing a developer should definitely not do is stick to one or the other for everything. Developers shouldn't keep them separated either. Some things can take a long time to accomplish, while also being a challenge and other things can not take very long at all, while also not being very challenging. The trick is finding the right balance or mix for the goals set before the player.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
/thread
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
People that played the older generation of MMORPGs seem to confuse "challenge" with "time sink" somehow. This is obviously evident from people who transition from FFXI to FFXIV. They talk about the glory days of how FFXI was challenging, when in reality the battle system was based around auto-attacking for a minute to get enough resources to execute a powerful attack, standing around for hours at a time waiting for a monster to spawn or waiting for the specific classes you need to finish filling out your party to go grind out xp.
Sure, there was a minimum skill requirement to be able to play the game, but once you got that down there was nothing that made the game overly challenging.
lol at anyone who think FFXIV is a challenge. The only thing to do in that game is max out all your classes.
People always like to say this. I found not many people would work together in a group for very long and that even solo it was difficult to stay alive unless you did all your grinding via kiting melee mobs that had not range attacks.
I guess there is some challenge in today's MMOs via instanced dungeons and instanced PvP, but that was never my thing. I was more of a leveling/journey type of person, but that aspect of the game has been made to easy. In old MMOs you needed patience to find the right spots and execute the right things at the right time. In MMOs today you need patience not to get bored from how easy it is to kill mobs solo while leveling up and stay interested in the story.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
We have the true here
Challenge = hard to over come = no mistake = cost time to learn and perfect your tactic/move.
Cost 3h to take down one boss are difference than kill 1000 monsters in 3h.