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Most challenging PvE?
Dhaeman
Member Posts: 531
A simple question from a player who has spent much more time in PvP than PvE. I've actually found myself attracted the PvE elements in MMOs once again but all most games offer is mind numbing grinding. All I do is press button 1,2,3,4,2,1 and then repeat and I win every battle. Yay! 
So I'm interested in PvE that offers some sort of a challenge, whether its during the leveling stage or end game. I remember FFXI as being more difficult than most but aside from that I have found very little lasting challenge in the MMORPG department. The timed missions in CoH/CoV looked like a nice change of pace but for all I know it's on easy mode just like the rest of the MMO world. I'm hoping there's something out there to grab my interest. I want to be challenged by my game. I can beat up on 3rd graders if I really need to feel all macho powerful...
So I'm interested in PvE that offers some sort of a challenge, whether its during the leveling stage or end game. I remember FFXI as being more difficult than most but aside from that I have found very little lasting challenge in the MMORPG department. The timed missions in CoH/CoV looked like a nice change of pace but for all I know it's on easy mode just like the rest of the MMO world. I'm hoping there's something out there to grab my interest. I want to be challenged by my game. I can beat up on 3rd graders if I really need to feel all macho powerful...
Comments
Well, having played EnB, UO, SWG, Horizons, Entropia, EVE and now Auto Assault -- and realize I'm traditionally terrible at combat -- I think they're all pretty much equal for PvE. Entropia is tough because you don't have much decent stuf early, you need ammo, and gear decays quickly, requring more money down the sink. Horizons has a nice progression of difficulty in mobs until you get really high in your 4th or 5th class. Auto Assault is a LOT of fun because it's SO fast paced and the mobs are SO numerous. And it's got the PvP for you too, the whole endgame in fact is PvP amidst insane mobs. But I think in the games that support PvP, the mobs are there to get you experience and level you up to where you can participate in the PvP. I've enjoyed all 7 of those games a lot, each for different reasons. But, being kinda combat-challenged (I'm old...hand-eye coordination's shot and I wasn't brought up on videogames LOL), I'm not sure what constitutes "difficult".
I will say that in Auto Assault, until you get to around level 60 (of 80...and the Open PvP zone starts around 60), missions are how you gain XP. Sure, mobs give a little, but by FAR the most XP is from missioning. And the missions tell a story, with the Mutant faction's storyline being almost on a par with a good single-player RPG. You blow up enough stuf on the missions, though, so there's plenty of mob action, and it can get quite dicey at times. But in all games, mob AI isn't really all that great, so I think that's why they appear pretty simple. You ARE beating up 3rd graders because that's about the best the AI can do. At least in AA, the mobs don't just stand around waiting to be killed. NOTHING in that game just stands around.
-- Xix
"I know what you're thinking: 'Why, oh WHY, didn't I take the BLUE pill?'"
EverQuest is the king of static PvE content.
It's a good day to beleive
WoW currently has the most brutal PvE ever in any MMORPG. NPCs will randomly patrol. In dungeons, there are armies of NPCs that regularly patrol the halls. So if your deep inside a dungeon, you kill a boss, suddently, and randomly a group of NPCs will storm in and you will be fighting for your life.
Blizzard is also constantly changing NPC, henchmen, and boss, respawn times. Anywhere from 2 days, to litterally 30 seconds! There are also different types of special NPCs. Just because they might be the same level as you, or even a few levels below you, you chance fighting for your life. They might have special moves, powers, that you never experienced before. Then during battle you have to instantly decide on a new strat.
For example, say you are level 21 fighting a level 21 Rabid Wolf. Normally you kill it, and still have half your health left. Suddently it gives you rabbies. Suddenlty you are instantly dead. Players who are sharp, would watch that Rabbis appearing on their screen, and see what it means. (Serious drop in your abilities, lasting up to 10 minutes!). You must instantly change your strat during battle. (My favorite thing is use "Hamstring" on them, then "rend" then walk backwards, in a circle around a large tree, they gradually die/get weaker while their Rabbis is on me.)
Then after you kill it, while you are either eating food, and/or bandaging yourself, while your character is doing this, you must use your mouse to click, hold, and pan around the area, watching out for random monsters on their random paths about to jump you. IF this happens, you need to know ahead of time what strat to use in battle when a NPC jumps you first. Try to run? Some will use backstab on you, hitting you for tripple damage!
Soo, in WoW you have NPCs with random, unpredictable pathing, spawn times, and moves/powers/abilities. There are 4 ways to play WoW, as well as any MMORPG:
1. The super-safe way. The player on purpose fights the lowest level NPC possible. It's safe, but not heart thumping. It takes longer to level up, get good drops. At mid - higher levels though, WoW forces even super-safe players to take some type of risk heheh.
2. The avarage way. The player fights monsters roughly same level. Good chance of dying, some heart thumping. There is fun. Takes normal time to level up. Good chance to get good drops.
3. HARDCORE player vs NPC! You on purpose fight NPCs 1-5 levels higher than you. Your heart hurts non-stop! You MUST know your character, your moves, in your sleep! And have different strats planned for when you jump a NPC first, when a NPC jumps you first, as well as be ultra-prepared before battle! You'll level up.... actually... just a wee bit better/quicker than someone who plays the 'avarage way'! BUT...You'll get INCREDIBLE drops/loot.
4. The TRUE gamer vs NPC! A true gamer spends time during playing, and not playing, thinking about unique strats. They are constantly studying the game, their character, all their moves, coming up with unique strats. They are ultra-prepaired before battle. They constantly fight NPCs 5- ..... 10 levels higher than them! After each fight they are sooo near dead, that it litterally comes down to them being 1 HIT away from death! Their heart has packed its bags and run away from the constant abuse it recieves! They don't level up that much quicker than those who play 'hardcore' or 'avarage'. BUT...BUT... they WILL get... loot soooo incredible... it is mind-blowying!!! Many times soo NICE it makes them roll and alt just to use it and check it out!!
Quick note, for anyone playing WoW for the first time, be a Warlock. Easiest class for the beginner, while getting a feel for the game. Get insane power early. Next best is hunter. They pass Warlock as best first character later - since they have far more choices of which type of NPC helper to have.
Warrior is fun, and the rest. (Turion Warrior is most deadly warrior type!). Paladin IMHO is 2nd hardest since they cannot use ranged weapons. The hardest, most complicated, is Rogue. Requires the player to be able to do serious, constant, thinking! As far as I currently know, Rogue has the most moves, and abilities. BTW, Rogues in WoW are the best ever Rogues done out of every MMORPG ever created! And yes... they can steal money, and pick pockets too! (Dwarf Rogue is ultra best combo, since Dwarf has treasure find ability - instantly spot treasure chests in dungeons!)
Surely you jest, xplorororr. WoW having "the most brutal PvE ever in any MMORPG?" Please. WoW had some of the easiest PvE ever, and you're sensationalizing. I'm a creampuff when it comes to skill and even I was good in WoW.
Your reasoning is rubbish as well. "Random unpredictable pathing?" I think not. Enemies always had set paths. They're not going to walk away from your party and then turn back around quickly to surprise you. You know where they're going. "Spawn times?" While I can vouch for there being spawn times on some enemies, if anything, that made things easier. You knew when you had to be out of somewhere so you could avoid spawns popping on you.
And "NPCs with...moves/powers/abilities?" That's completely insane and has never once before existed in any other game.
WoW currently has the most brutal PvE ever in any MMORPG.
Way too much to quote, but you're kidding right? You've got to be, WoW has the easiest PvE out there. That's why everyone solos, BECAUSE THEY CAN, WoW's PvE is so easy it bored me to tears. For me DAoC had the most interesting combat system, and some of the PvE could be very challenging. CoH/CoV can be as well, if you up the mission level. Unfortunatly most MMO's don't require alot of skill from the player, it's more about your class, level "build" and gear rather than player skill.
I'm glad to see that someone else though this guy was on crack. I switched servers 3 times in about 2 months and still levled a hunter to lvl 56 before I got bored with the complete easy of soloing or duoing. Absolutely patheticly easy. But to kinda rebut your last point (true, WoW never had anything like that, it was totally lame) But many of the higher level mobs in DAoC that came out with the SI expansion and later have combat styles. So at least 1 game does have that sort of thing, but DAoC is considered to be a fairly "hardcore" game as well.
As for WoW: MMO with training wheels.
I'd have to say that EQ2, DDO, and CoH/V are the most difficult, or at least can be.
in EQ2, there are Heroic mobs that you can challenge yourself with, but Heroics are mostly aimed at Groups.
in DDO, you can choose to enter your missions in different types of difficulties (Same with EQ2) but you have to beat the "Normal" version first, then the others unlock themselves.
In CoH/CoV, there is an NPC you can talk to if you want to change the difficulty of your missions. Most Missions are soloable, and you should beable to solo missions set on the hardest mode. Missions will also increase the amount of enemies inside when you have more people in your group.
There may be more like this, but I have not played them.
WoW currently has the most brutal PvE ever in any MMORPG. NPCs will randomly patrol. In dungeons, there are armies of NPCs that regularly patrol the halls. So if your deep inside a dungeon, you kill a boss, suddently, and randomly a group of NPCs will storm in and you will be fighting for your life.
Blizzard is also constantly changing NPC, henchmen, and boss, respawn times. Anywhere from 2 days, to litterally 30 seconds! There are also different types of special NPCs. Just because they might be the same level as you, or even a few levels below you, you chance fighting for your life. They might have special moves, powers, that you never experienced before. Then during battle you have to instantly decide on a new strat.
For example, say you are level 21 fighting a level 21 Rabid Wolf. Normally you kill it, and still have half your health left. Suddently it gives you rabbies. Suddenlty you are instantly dead. Players who are sharp, would watch that Rabbis appearing on their screen, and see what it means. (Serious drop in your abilities, lasting up to 10 minutes!). You must instantly change your strat during battle. (My favorite thing is use "Hamstring" on them, then "rend" then walk backwards, in a circle around a large tree, they gradually die/get weaker while their Rabbis is on me.)
Then after you kill it, while you are either eating food, and/or bandaging yourself, while your character is doing this, you must use your mouse to click, hold, and pan around the area, watching out for random monsters on their random paths about to jump you. IF this happens, you need to know ahead of time what strat to use in battle when a NPC jumps you first. Try to run? Some will use backstab on you, hitting you for tripple damage!
Soo, in WoW you have NPCs with random, unpredictable pathing, spawn times, and moves/powers/abilities. There are 4 ways to play WoW, as well as any MMORPG:
1. The super-safe way. The player on purpose fights the lowest level NPC possible. It's safe, but not heart thumping. It takes longer to level up, get good drops. At mid - higher levels though, WoW forces even super-safe players to take some type of risk heheh.
2. The avarage way. The player fights monsters roughly same level. Good chance of dying, some heart thumping. There is fun. Takes normal time to level up. Good chance to get good drops.
3. HARDCORE player vs NPC! You on purpose fight NPCs 1-5 levels higher than you. Your heart hurts non-stop! You MUST know your character, your moves, in your sleep! And have different strats planned for when you jump a NPC first, when a NPC jumps you first, as well as be ultra-prepared before battle! You'll level up.... actually... just a wee bit better/quicker than someone who plays the 'avarage way'! BUT...You'll get INCREDIBLE drops/loot.
4. The TRUE gamer vs NPC! A true gamer spends time during playing, and not playing, thinking about unique strats. They are constantly studying the game, their character, all their moves, coming up with unique strats. They are ultra-prepaired before battle. They constantly fight NPCs 5- ..... 10 levels higher than them! After each fight they are sooo near dead, that it litterally comes down to them being 1 HIT away from death! Their heart has packed its bags and run away from the constant abuse it recieves! They don't level up that much quicker than those who play 'hardcore' or 'avarage'. BUT...BUT... they WILL get... loot soooo incredible... it is mind-blowying!!! Many times soo NICE it makes them roll and alt just to use it and check it out!!
Quick note, for anyone playing WoW for the first time, be a Warlock. Easiest class for the beginner, while getting a feel for the game. Get insane power early. Next best is hunter. They pass Warlock as best first character later - since they have far more choices of which type of NPC helper to have.
Warrior is fun, and the rest. (Turion Warrior is most deadly warrior type!). Paladin IMHO is 2nd hardest since they cannot use ranged weapons. The hardest, most complicated, is Rogue. Requires the player to be able to do serious, constant, thinking! As far as I currently know, Rogue has the most moves, and abilities. BTW, Rogues in WoW are the best ever Rogues done out of every MMORPG ever created! And yes... they can steal money, and pick pockets too! (Dwarf Rogue is ultra best combo, since Dwarf has treasure find ability - instantly spot treasure chests in dungeons!)
sorry to burst your bubble but, you are basically completely wrong. World of warcraft is the most generic piece of crap once you get to end game. I quit and sold my account to a friend for over 300+ because it got so easy. The rogue and paladin are probably the easiest class in the game of pve and pvp. They both have benefits that other classes don't yet still complain about being able to bear 4+ classes but not all. The best warrior class in terms of pvp is still orc. Treasure find is useless because good loot is dropped off mobs in high end instances. It's kinda pointless to play a game when a guild will beat the latest dungeon on the TEST server then tell everyone else how to do the same. Its all the same strategy with a little variation to suit a guild's playstyle. Having many moves does not make a character hard to play, but easier because they have more moves to handle every situation. Guess you just started to play world of warcraft. All I can say to you though is, goodluck with molten core, bwl, aq +. The 4-6 hour raid fests are so much fun. Hah.
One reason WoW doesn't appeal to me is the fact that it's so simple. And the end, if you can call it that. After the mind-numbing ease of leveling to 60... and it takes a fraction of the time to reach the level cap then most other games... you are left with raiding. You raid to get better gear so you can do more raids or PvP. Both the big raids and the style of PvP in WoW just leave me cold. For me, the only thing to do after reaching the level cap in WoW, is to start an alt and do it again... and I just can't be arsed. I want WoW to be more gripping and motivating... really, I do.
So which game out there has the most challenging PvE? I don't know. I'm at a loss. Like I said, I enjoy the combat in CoH/V, but the rest of the game isn't enough to satisfy me. EQ2's PvE is okay. Nothing special at all. They have those heroic oppourtunities but they don't make that much of a difference. Ryzom has that interesting Stanza system that makes it a bit different but I don't find the game itself to be much fun. I'm hoping the game with the most interesting PvE is just late to the party. Hopefully whatever it is will be released before I die of old age.
EQ wins the PVE challenge handsdown.Most endgame content per its expansion phase required 50+ of the right people to even think of attempting it and when you did if one person droped the ball your raid could fail slightley or completely.Depnding on what class you play theres even times were you have to make sure that nothing would interupt play for one second for 2 hours at a time like rathe council or that butterfly chick.
Sadly with each expasion previous expansions content becomes more and more worthless.What use to take 50+ ppl in the start of EQ can now be done with 3-4.I remember right before i quite for the 3rd time me and 3 other ppl with 95% time gear stomped venril sathir like he was nothing looking for gear for lowbie twinks.This was a guy thow back in the day you could fail on even with 50 people.Yeah it makes your pimp hand feel strong but also takes something away from the previous encounters.
When you compare it to CoH and Auto Assault you see missions with well written storys behind it compared. No cookie cutter missions mostly.
CoH is as difficult as you want it to be, largely because you can pick the difficulty of the missions. CoH definitely has some of the best PvE because if you find the right challenge level for you, it really does require skill/planning/tactics/teamwork to do well. And unlike WoW, there is a death penalty which adds some excitement.
EQ2 does require more skill and attention to play well. You can zone out and just repeatedly press the same few buttons, but if you pay attention, you'll do a lot better. I think the PvE is more challenging because it wasn't designed to be totally solo-friendly. Some...well, most classes can solo, but you almost always do better in a team.
Guild Wars...now that has some challenging PvE, especially if you're going solo and you have to wrestle with the occasionally braindead henchmen.
I thought everyone solo's in WoW because they get no xp reward for sharing a mission that they didn't originate.
So no one will team with you if you are not doing the exact same leg of the exact same mission arc at the exact same time.
While in COH, no one solo's everyone is in an 8 man team constantly.
I found COH to be the easiest game to solo, at any difficulty. There were a couple of mission arcs that could not be completed alone, but essentially there are only about 30 monsters in the game that are not easy to kill. the instances autobalance to the number of players in the team, so if you are soloing, it is always goinf to be completeable easily. WoW did the bulk of it's missions outside instances in areas that may well be too tough for you, that do not auto balance to team size.
I thought everyone solo's in WoW because they get no xp reward for sharing a mission that they didn't originate.
Nah, its because any class can solo with ease, just spec your talents for it, and of course if you group you drop your exp per mob 50-75%. Ever play a "healer" in another game that could solo stuff a few lvls over you? Nyet. Comrade. But is't easy in WoW.
So no one will team with you if you are not doing the exact same leg of the exact same mission arc at the exact same time.
Never had a problem with that, but then I really didn't need much help.
While in COH, no one solo's everyone is in an 8 man team constantly.
I soloed a fair amount, when I was feeling like I needed some "me time", or getting on before or after my SG was on. I duoed a bunch too. or had a server where I played exclusivley with a 3-4 man group of RL friends.
I found COH to be the easiest game to solo, at any difficulty. There were a couple of mission arcs that could not be completed alone, but essentially there are only about 30 monsters in the game that are not easy to kill. the instances autobalance to the number of players in the team, so if you are soloing, it is always goinf to be completeable easily. WoW did the bulk of it's missions outside instances in areas that may well be too tough for you, that do not auto balance to team size.
In the past I agree for the most part, but now they inserted NPC in the game that allow you to raise the lvl of all the mobs in the instances several levels, and if you try to solo after bumping that up, you're in for a seriously rude awakening!
That NPC was always there. I tend to solo on invincible. I sometimes turn this down if I am in a group with predominantly lower levels or a lower average level than me.
I found Wow a lot harder. The AI is better.
COH AI pretty much stands there and waits to die. Plus most of the missions are instanced so the AI never respawns behind you.
It also doesn't aggro you more for being lower level, patrol or have monsters that use very many specific tactics. (loke the goblins who call their allies etc).
Wow is also equipment dependant, so if you don't find good kit, (random) you can't kill things you're own level. Let alone higher levels. While in COH you can always kill anything your level and higher levels, and may also select the difficulty level of enemies manually to best suit taste. there were very few tomes in my WoW progresion that I was able to defeat higher level monsters easily.
You're kidding right? hmmm Guess I must really be uber that I got my shaman to lvl60 almost entirely solo in 6 days played...gimme a break. This game is easy mode...
Can't wait for a developer to make WoW on hard mode. Will be a great game.
Hardest PvE? EQ1 hands down. A more modern PvE MMO with challenge would be....hmmm nevermind. It's all way too easy.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
It depends on your own goals too. If you just want to grind for experience, it is often the best choice to pick a relatively easy spot and do it over and over again. In WoW, the best grinding is to go after easy monsters (-2 level)...you kill them really quickly, no downtime and no risk of wasting time after dying.
In the end, though, let's face it. Grinding is grinding. That's why so many people get burned out because we want more from a game...we want a challenge and variety and the current generation of MMO's aren't the solution. We play them so much because they are the best options out of our limited choices.
The thing is that the best part of these games is the community...interacting with other people. But unless you commit time and effort, it's hard to be part of the community...so you end up being resigned to the grind. At least, that's the way it is for me.