Almost none of the things you listed are difficult. They're time consuming and tedious, nothing more.
Forced grouping? Time sink, but sometimes hard to find a group. So somewhat difficult, but mostly a time sink because you need to find a group before you can do anything. Corpse runs? Time sink. De-leveling and XP loss? Time sinks. Slow grind? Time sink. Slow travel? Time sink. Slow health / mana regen? Time sink. Raids? Only difficult because of the logistics involved in coordinating 40+ people. But I'll give you that one. However, it's also important to note that while the games did get slightly easier, much of the perceived ease is due to familiarity with how the games work, and the proliferation of detailed raid / dungeon information.
Again, time consuming =/= difficult.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
There are people who like the logistical challenge, the grinding insane levels nobody else can endure. It's not fun to me but I am not trying to discredit people who do do this and fund it fun. And it is difficult. It would be difficult for me to endure the tedium or be bothered organizing all those people for a 4 hour event.
There are holdovers from days of hourly rates. Endurance Players came to be admired for their ability to get to the top First, simply by virtue being able to afford paying six dollars per hour forever. Those were clearly the "winners," in the age of dialup. Or the "losers," if you don't like poopsocks.
The gamerworship moved rather naturally onto to boys with the kewlest gear, that acquired only through enormously improbable random drops and a whole lot of zzzz wait to spawn time.
A lot of EQ's early timesinks were also holdovers from the MUD and AOL era of just a few years earlier. Game designers were still commonly confusing time invested with "difficulty," at that point. UO actually still had hourly rates and dialup available, clear up to...02?
In essence, EQ players were trained to accept this condition as normal, and required. And then the Culture of Assumed Superiority that grew up around intense WoW-hatred from '03 onward only confirmed it in their mind.
When WoW 'won', by just burying EQ and EQ2 in sales, population, dollars, and interest... Well, sour grapes emerged that are still with us to this day.
And after WoW opened, of course, the Hardcore/Casual War really began in earnest. Here we are still fighting it.
Answer is simple and does not require 13 page discussion IMO. The answer is competition and free time aka supply and demand. As a MMO game dev you don't have the luxury to torture your player base through a mind numbing, time wasting *grind*. People eventually get fed up that they can't reach the "endgame" content and compete with "veterans" so they just leave to join the next best thing.
This can be also seen in the raise of MOBAs. Easy to pickup games, where you compete with "veterans" right off the bat, if you want to. It's fair to everyone, no matter how many hours a given person spends in it.
I myself like many other adults have work and family we have to attend to. Some 13 year old little shit has his whole day infront of the computer. Why should he be mechanically better than me? There's your answer.
We don't need harder MMOs.
And if you really wish to look back at the "games of old" and "true hardcore games" remember that ... everything looks better in the rear view. Even communism.
Almost none of the things you listed are difficult. They're time consuming and tedious, nothing more.
Forced grouping? Time sink, but sometimes hard to find a group. So somewhat difficult, but mostly a time sink because you need to find a group before you can do anything. Corpse runs? Time sink. De-leveling and XP loss? Time sinks. Slow grind? Time sink. Slow travel? Time sink. Slow health / mana regen? Time sink. Raids? Only difficult because of the logistics involved in coordinating 40+ people. But I'll give you that one. However, it's also important to note that while the games did get slightly easier, much of the perceived ease is due to familiarity with how the games work, and the proliferation of detailed raid / dungeon information.
Again, time consuming =/= difficult.
The humorous part is that they complain about "the instant gratification crowd" in one breath and then talk about how watching a progress bar fill up is difficult to them.
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
The humorous part is that they complain about "the instant gratification crowd" in one breath and then talk about how watching a progress bar fill up is difficult to them.
WHO complained about "the instant gratification crowd"? Personally i think instant gratification is great for ENTERTAINMENT.
When i watch tv shows, i tend to use DVR so i can skip the "boring" commercials. When I want a novel, i bought the kindle version so I can have it right away, and start the fun. There is no reason why I should endure boredom in a game (and i don't ... either it is fun within the first 5 min .. or else i do something else).
It seems the same tired arguments come up about EQ being easy. Generally the arguments against are ignored. I'd say again who completed even the early dungeons in EQ? Who completed the raids? Who finished any of the quests? How many people were lost with limited guidance and couldn't figure things out for themselves?
How is it fun when you are shown exactly how to do something the right way and where exactly to do it? How are things fun when there is no resistance in the beginning? How are things fun when there is no ability to be creative? How are things fun when a world of adventure is basically turned into a world of small and quick instances?
It seems to me that old MMOs may have had parts that were not needed and overly draining. At times they were like a hard physical labor job where you repeat the same task over and over again. I believe a lot of people looked at this as a training of sorts. In old Kung Fu movies and old stories a lot of the time they started out with a character who wasn't very good at fighting. Then a bunch of bad guys would come and wipe out the village pushing everyone around and doing bad things. This would signify the evil taking over. At this point the character would set out and train to be good enough to stop the evil people. A lot of time the training took a long time and wasn't fun. This could be akin to grinding levels. It was a task that isn't fun, but is rewarding once you reach the end goal.
I have been thinking about the time sinks of things like corpse runs making something harder or just making it take longer. I believe it does make things harder. I believe a lot of people have short term memories. This is the case for myself in many ways. If you can quickly repeat something there is a higher chance you will learn from your mistakes as you still remember what happened previously. On the other hand if there is a fair amount of time in between each encounter then it's less likely that you will be able to remember what you need to do right and your body many have started to relax in between said fight. You also have to take your focus off actually winning the fight against said monster to finding a way to get your body back without any equipment. You have to weigh the risk of getting your body back vs the penalty of dying over and over again and possible losing a level. This is seen in games like Dark Souls, but you could also go back to a game like Super Mario Brothers where you would have to start back at the beginning after dying.
In terms of travel time I've already stated this, but instant travel turns worlds into a small place no matter how big. If you want a world full of dangers to traverse you can't have fast travel. Fast travel takes a world and makes it into a few small rooms.
Dungeons were a lot harder for various reasons in EQ. One was that they were just far longer and more complex. There were a lot more wandering mobs, invisible floors, traps, and overall nasty mobs. Add into the equation having to deal with other random events from real people who might bring mobs on top of you and you have a more difficult experience to deal with.
One thing I am disappointed with in WoW is how they have separated all the content into instances. I used to play Vanilla WoW a lot and there were group mobs all over the place in the outside world. These were the only good solo challenges available. They have all mostly been removed from the game. They have also closed off any possibility of soloing dungeon mobs and bosses with tactics like stealthing in and taking down a mob by utilizing a lot different skills. A good example in WoW would be the Druid, but it's not longer possible since the Druid now has to choose a single role and talent tree.
Flyte27 said: In old Kung Fu movies... A lot of time the training took a long time and wasn't fun.
In most Kung Fu movies, the training sequence is a montage deliberately cut short of the months or years of training that it represents. This is done because movie producers understand the primary role of a movie: entertainment (or "instant gratification" as some posters here would label it.)
When you examine how entertainment is actually shown, any attempt to rationalize the deliberate time-wasting of early MMORPGs falls apart. It's seen for what it is: bad entertainment.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Flyte27 said: In old Kung Fu movies... A lot of time the training took a long time and wasn't fun.
In most Kung Fu movies, the training sequence is a montage deliberately cut short of the months or years of training that it represents. This is done because movie producers understand the primary role of a movie: entertainment (or "instant gratification" as some posters here would label it.)
When you examine how entertainment is actually shown, any attempt to rationalize the deliberate time-wasting of early MMORPGs falls apart. It's seen for what it is: bad entertainment.
I've heard you argument on this before, but this is a game where you are interacting. Not a movie you are watching. IMO to really get that feeling you have to experience it in a game.
Almost none of the things you listed are difficult. They're time consuming and tedious, nothing more.
Forced grouping? Time sink, but sometimes hard to find a group. So somewhat difficult, but mostly a time sink because you need to find a group before you can do anything. Corpse runs? Time sink. De-leveling and XP loss? Time sinks. Slow grind? Time sink. Slow travel? Time sink. Slow health / mana regen? Time sink. Raids? Only difficult because of the logistics involved in coordinating 40+ people. But I'll give you that one. However, it's also important to note that while the games did get slightly easier, much of the perceived ease is due to familiarity with how the games work, and the proliferation of detailed raid / dungeon information.
Again, time consuming =/= difficult.
Corpse run = difficult. Go get your body alone in a deep dungeon alone naked in old EQ. Delevling and XP? Time sink yes. It also adds to the difficultly because it makes death harder to bare. Slow grinding = difficult as well as time sink. I couldn't stomach most of EQ leveling. Something I can't or won't due because its extreme = difficult. Slow travel = depends. Can be difficult depending what you have to travel through. If you can instantly teleport past challenge then it is difficult. Slow health/mana regen = time sink and difficulty. It makes you more accountable for you play and encourage grouping. The more efficient you and/or you group play the less this becomes a factor.
Time consuming does add to difficulty. Tedium difficulty =/= good would be better statement.
I am not even a EQ fan. But again, I don't see the point in trying to deny the game wasn't harder. Even if you feel most of it was tedium its still harder to have difficulty. I could go to relative power of experience giving NPC to your character or even NPC behaviors of fleeing and calling for help, training, stalking unlimited and etc made EQ harder than most games now.
Time consuming added on to almost anything makes it harder. Standing on one leg is easy. Stand on one leg for a day is hard physically and mentally.
I've heard you argument on this before, but this is a game where you are interacting. Not a movie you are watching. IMO to really get that feeling you have to experience it in a game.
Interaction changes nothing. People don't suddenly wish their time was deliberately wasted just because they have interaction.
To really get the feeling of skill development towards mastery, challenges have to be about actual skill mastery -- not simply some tedious time-wasting or repetition.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I've heard you argument on this before, but this is a game where you are interacting. Not a movie you are watching. IMO to really get that feeling you have to experience it in a game.
Interaction changes nothing. People don't suddenly wish their time was deliberately wasted just because they have interaction.
To really get the feeling of skill development towards mastery, challenges have to be about actual skill mastery -- not simply some tedious time-wasting or repetition.
That's not really true. There are challenges that are time wasting. Time wasting is subjective. Difficulty is subjective. Tedium is subjective.
I've heard you argument on this before, but this is a game where you are interacting. Not a movie you are watching. IMO to really get that feeling you have to experience it in a game.
Interaction changes nothing. People don't suddenly wish their time was deliberately wasted just because they have interaction.
To really get the feeling of skill development towards mastery, challenges have to be about actual skill mastery -- not simply some tedious time-wasting or repetition.
I would disagree as training is generally repetition of training the body by doing similar repetitive tasks over and over again. Along the way you learn new skills to make you more effective. Your body or mind also becomes stronger. The leveling system simulates this fairly well. I'm sure it could be done better than in the past, but IMO skipping it is not the answer.
That's not really true. There are challenges that are time wasting. Time wasting is subjective. Difficulty is subjective. Tedium is subjective.
It seems to these people any level of challenge is unacceptable. If the game does not simply give them everything they need just for showing up it is wasting their time. I mean it's so obvious to me that watching an actual training sequence in a movie would be boring because you're just watching an actor do something and unless you know a lot about real martial arts you probably wouldn't even understand what they were doing.
But a good martial arts game could be based on actual martial arts and teach you, the player some of those skills (at least the theory behind it if not the physical part) so you as a player would actually learn something as your character did.
Sure early games were primitive but I'd like to see games become better at gameplay not just emulate bad movies.
" Time wasting is subjective. Difficulty is subjective. Tedium is subjective. "
Exactly this, If you consider something to be time wasting, don't do it and your time won't be wasted!
Put it the other way of the only people that do an activity in a game because they enjoy it then they are absolutely not wasting their time. Now if some fool does an activity that they consider time wasting then they are wasting their own time. Stop blaming the world for you own poor decisions.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
That's not really true. There are challenges that are time wasting. Time wasting is subjective. Difficulty is subjective. Tedium is subjective.
Who said challenges are never time-wasting? FF11's bosses with ridiculously excessive HP would prove that wrong.
Instead, I specifically spoke about challenges which were about skill mastery and weren't about time-wasting.
Basically if you have a challenge, with each success that challenge will be less about proving your skill. A player is showing skill to avoid standing in the fire the first time, but by the time they've avoided the fire the 10,000th time it's mostly just repetition. So unless those 20+ hour FF11 bosses had more boss mechanics than all the raiding in WOW, they were certainly a waste of time and not about skill mastery. We're not talking about those types of fights.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I would disagree as training is generally repetition of training the body by doing similar repetitive tasks over and over again. Along the way you learn new skills to make you more effective. Your body or mind also becomes stronger. The leveling system simulates this fairly well. I'm sure it could be done better than in the past, but IMO skipping it is not the answer.
How can you disagree?
I'm talking about actual, literal skill mastery. When a player faces a challenge, the only repetition involved will be the actual real skill development needed to surpass the challenge, and no more.
You're talking about artificial skill mastery. A bar fills up from repetitive tasks that don't challenge you as a player, then eventually the game tells you your character is more skilled.
I don't really see how you can feel the latter would feel more like training, when the former actually is training.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I've heard you argument on this before, but this is a game where you are interacting. Not a movie you are watching. IMO to really get that feeling you have to experience it in a game.
Interaction changes nothing. People don't suddenly wish their time was deliberately wasted just because they have interaction.
To really get the feeling of skill development towards mastery, challenges have to be about actual skill mastery -- not simply some tedious time-wasting or repetition.
I would disagree as training is generally repetition of training the body by doing similar repetitive tasks over and over again. Along the way you learn new skills to make you more effective. Your body or mind also becomes stronger. The leveling system simulates this fairly well. I'm sure it could be done better than in the past, but IMO skipping it is not the answer.
The problem is the leveling process is far to long for what's needed for endgame.
Like I mentioned in another topic, you can buy a lvl 90 WoW class and an average skilled gamer can suss the mechanics of that class within a day. Same if you could buy a maxed level EQ character or any MMORPG.
You don't need all that time to level a character for training. A week would do.
Combat has never been the main thrust of RPGs. It's about an interesting journey, deep interesting story and world to explore. Oh and chests of loot.
The problem is the leveling process is far to long for what's needed for endgame.
Like I mentioned in another topic, you can buy a lvl 90 WoW class and an average skilled gamer can suss the mechanics of that class within a day. Same if you could buy a maxed level EQ character or any MMORPG.
You don't need all that time to level a character for training. A week would do.
Combat has never been the main thrust of RPGs. It's about an interesting journey, deep interesting story and world to explore. Oh and chests of loot.
I think the problem is that people view leveling process as "training for endgame" The leveling process should be the meat of the game in an RPG and having a level 1 character should be mechanically as fun as a level 20 or 100 one. It is so disappointing that games are looking to help you skip content or always speeding it up rather than just making it more interesting. It's like if you had a pen and paper DM who was like "OK I know this campaign isn't very good but how about I just give you a max level character and some awesome gear, won't that make it awesome!?"
Nah, the bad and boring campaign will still be bad and boring.
I think the problem is that people view leveling process as "training for endgame" The leveling process should be the meat of the game in an RPG and having a level 1 character should be mechanically as fun as a level 20 or 100 one. It is so disappointing that games are looking to help you skip content or always speeding it up rather than just making it more interesting. It's like if you had a pen and paper DM who was like "OK I know this campaign isn't very good but how about I just give you a max level character and some awesome gear, won't that make it awesome!?"
Nah, the bad and boring campaign will still be bad and boring.
I'd love to see multiple DMs in games that control mobs in an RTS style. Even setup the quests. That would make the leveling process a lot more challenging. It would also be a lot of fun.
I don't enjoy grind but I enjoy challenging content. I can give a very specific example of a game which most have played that became too easy. In the Cataclysm expansion of WoW the most challenging 5-man content in the game was heroic dungeons. Heroic dungeons at the start of Cata were challenging when you had the minimum gear to enter, requiring crowdcontrol, stuns, counterspells and coordination to complete. I really enjoyed healing those dungeons because to me healing is only fun when it's challenging. Well it didn't take long before the forums were flooded by people complaining that the most challenging 5-man content in the game was too difficult resulting in a nerf to the difficulty. After that there has been no 5-man content in WoW that has interested me because it's too easy.
^^ the problem with Cata wasn't the difficulty, it was that ths game is obsesses with constant progression, difficult 5 mans slow progression, if you don't progress in wow (i.e increase stats) your a dead man walking.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Comments
Some possible aspects can be looked into for why MMO's have become much more streamlined and casual:
Forced grouping? Time sink, but sometimes hard to find a group. So somewhat difficult, but mostly a time sink because you need to find a group before you can do anything.
Corpse runs? Time sink.
De-leveling and XP loss? Time sinks.
Slow grind? Time sink.
Slow travel? Time sink.
Slow health / mana regen? Time sink.
Raids? Only difficult because of the logistics involved in coordinating 40+ people. But I'll give you that one. However, it's also important to note that while the games did get slightly easier, much of the perceived ease is due to familiarity with how the games work, and the proliferation of detailed raid / dungeon information.
Again, time consuming =/= difficult.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
The gamerworship moved rather naturally onto to boys with the kewlest gear, that acquired only through enormously improbable random drops and a whole lot of zzzz wait to spawn time.
A lot of EQ's early timesinks were also holdovers from the MUD and AOL era of just a few years earlier. Game designers were still commonly confusing time invested with "difficulty," at that point. UO actually still had hourly rates and dialup available, clear up to...02?
In essence, EQ players were trained to accept this condition as normal, and required. And then the Culture of Assumed Superiority that grew up around intense WoW-hatred from '03 onward only confirmed it in their mind.
When WoW 'won', by just burying EQ and EQ2 in sales, population, dollars, and interest... Well, sour grapes emerged that are still with us to this day.
And after WoW opened, of course, the Hardcore/Casual War really began in earnest. Here we are still fighting it.
This can be also seen in the raise of MOBAs. Easy to pickup games, where you compete with "veterans" right off the bat, if you want to. It's fair to everyone, no matter how many hours a given person spends in it.
I myself like many other adults have work and family we have to attend to. Some 13 year old little shit has his whole day infront of the computer. Why should he be mechanically better than me? There's your answer.
We don't need harder MMOs.
And if you really wish to look back at the "games of old" and "true hardcore games" remember that ... everything looks better in the rear view. Even communism.
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
When i watch tv shows, i tend to use DVR so i can skip the "boring" commercials. When I want a novel, i bought the kindle version so I can have it right away, and start the fun. There is no reason why I should endure boredom in a game (and i don't ... either it is fun within the first 5 min .. or else i do something else).
It seems the same tired arguments come up about EQ being easy. Generally the arguments against are ignored. I'd say again who completed even the early dungeons in EQ? Who completed the raids? Who finished any of the quests? How many people were lost with limited guidance and couldn't figure things out for themselves?
How is it fun when you are shown exactly how to do something the right way and where exactly to do it? How are things fun when there is no resistance in the beginning? How are things fun when there is no ability to be creative? How are things fun when a world of adventure is basically turned into a world of small and quick instances?
It seems to me that old MMOs may have had parts that were not needed and overly draining. At times they were like a hard physical labor job where you repeat the same task over and over again. I believe a lot of people looked at this as a training of sorts. In old Kung Fu movies and old stories a lot of the time they started out with a character who wasn't very good at fighting. Then a bunch of bad guys would come and wipe out the village pushing everyone around and doing bad things. This would signify the evil taking over. At this point the character would set out and train to be good enough to stop the evil people. A lot of time the training took a long time and wasn't fun. This could be akin to grinding levels. It was a task that isn't fun, but is rewarding once you reach the end goal.
I have been thinking about the time sinks of things like corpse runs making something harder or just making it take longer. I believe it does make things harder. I believe a lot of people have short term memories. This is the case for myself in many ways. If you can quickly repeat something there is a higher chance you will learn from your mistakes as you still remember what happened previously. On the other hand if there is a fair amount of time in between each encounter then it's less likely that you will be able to remember what you need to do right and your body many have started to relax in between said fight. You also have to take your focus off actually winning the fight against said monster to finding a way to get your body back without any equipment. You have to weigh the risk of getting your body back vs the penalty of dying over and over again and possible losing a level. This is seen in games like Dark Souls, but you could also go back to a game like Super Mario Brothers where you would have to start back at the beginning after dying.
In terms of travel time I've already stated this, but instant travel turns worlds into a small place no matter how big. If you want a world full of dangers to traverse you can't have fast travel. Fast travel takes a world and makes it into a few small rooms.
Dungeons were a lot harder for various reasons in EQ. One was that they were just far longer and more complex. There were a lot more wandering mobs, invisible floors, traps, and overall nasty mobs. Add into the equation having to deal with other random events from real people who might bring mobs on top of you and you have a more difficult experience to deal with.
One thing I am disappointed with in WoW is how they have separated all the content into instances. I used to play Vanilla WoW a lot and there were group mobs all over the place in the outside world. These were the only good solo challenges available. They have all mostly been removed from the game. They have also closed off any possibility of soloing dungeon mobs and bosses with tactics like stealthing in and taking down a mob by utilizing a lot different skills. A good example in WoW would be the Druid, but it's not longer possible since the Druid now has to choose a single role and talent tree.
When you examine how entertainment is actually shown, any attempt to rationalize the deliberate time-wasting of early MMORPGs falls apart. It's seen for what it is: bad entertainment.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I've heard you argument on this before, but this is a game where you are interacting. Not a movie you are watching. IMO to really get that feeling you have to experience it in a game.
Delevling and XP? Time sink yes. It also adds to the difficultly because it makes death harder to bare.
Slow grinding = difficult as well as time sink. I couldn't stomach most of EQ leveling. Something I can't or won't due because its extreme = difficult.
Slow travel = depends. Can be difficult depending what you have to travel through. If you can instantly teleport past challenge then it is difficult.
Slow health/mana regen = time sink and difficulty. It makes you more accountable for you play and encourage grouping. The more efficient you and/or you group play the less this becomes a factor.
Time consuming does add to difficulty. Tedium difficulty =/= good would be better statement.
I am not even a EQ fan. But again, I don't see the point in trying to deny the game wasn't harder. Even if you feel most of it was tedium its still harder to have difficulty. I could go to relative power of experience giving NPC to your character or even NPC behaviors of fleeing and calling for help, training, stalking unlimited and etc made EQ harder than most games now.
Time consuming added on to almost anything makes it harder. Standing on one leg is easy. Stand on one leg for a day is hard physically and mentally.
To really get the feeling of skill development towards mastery, challenges have to be about actual skill mastery -- not simply some tedious time-wasting or repetition.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I would disagree as training is generally repetition of training the body by doing similar repetitive tasks over and over again. Along the way you learn new skills to make you more effective. Your body or mind also becomes stronger. The leveling system simulates this fairly well. I'm sure it could be done better than in the past, but IMO skipping it is not the answer.
But a good martial arts game could be based on actual martial arts and teach you, the player some of those skills (at least the theory behind it if not the physical part) so you as a player would actually learn something as your character did.
Sure early games were primitive but I'd like to see games become better at gameplay not just emulate bad movies.
Exactly this, If you consider something to be time wasting, don't do it and your time won't be wasted!
Put it the other way of the only people that do an activity in a game because they enjoy it then they are absolutely not wasting their time. Now if some fool does an activity that they consider time wasting then they are wasting their own time. Stop blaming the world for you own poor decisions.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Instead, I specifically spoke about challenges which were about skill mastery and weren't about time-wasting.
Basically if you have a challenge, with each success that challenge will be less about proving your skill. A player is showing skill to avoid standing in the fire the first time, but by the time they've avoided the fire the 10,000th time it's mostly just repetition. So unless those 20+ hour FF11 bosses had more boss mechanics than all the raiding in WOW, they were certainly a waste of time and not about skill mastery. We're not talking about those types of fights.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
How can you disagree?
- I'm talking about actual, literal skill mastery. When a player faces a challenge, the only repetition involved will be the actual real skill development needed to surpass the challenge, and no more.
- You're talking about artificial skill mastery. A bar fills up from repetitive tasks that don't challenge you as a player, then eventually the game tells you your character is more skilled.
I don't really see how you can feel the latter would feel more like training, when the former actually is training."What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Like I mentioned in another topic, you can buy a lvl 90 WoW class and an average skilled gamer can suss the mechanics of that class within a day. Same if you could buy a maxed level EQ character or any MMORPG.
You don't need all that time to level a character for training. A week would do.
Combat has never been the main thrust of RPGs. It's about an interesting journey, deep interesting story and world to explore. Oh and chests of loot.
Nah, the bad and boring campaign will still be bad and boring.
My point is that tedium adds difficulty even if it's not enjoyable. Anything made EASIER by removing or lessening means it was more difficult before.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D