No consequnces are not challenges they are consequences. Challenge implies difficulty, "timesinks" are not hard they are merely an unfavorable consequence.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't have such things. The consequence of an action is important. For example in Eve Online it takes a very very long time to travel from one end of the Eve-verse to another. Some people call this a "timesink" (a misnomer in this case, "time-barrrier" would be more accurate), but the designers purposely put this in so that things like trade routes and controling regions have meaning. This "timesink" doesn't make travelling in Eve "hard". It just has very large consequences on Eve gameplay.
Thinking that severe death penalties will make Vanguard "hard" is a common mistake. But it is a mistake and will lead to bad conclusions. However severe death penalties have some significant consequences for gameplay. Consequences are a way to sculpt a game. Even if Vangaurd had perma-death instant deleteion it wouldn't be "harder" it would just take longer and make people paranoid.
Originally posted by gestalt11 Thinking that severe death penalties will make Vanguard "hard" is a common mistake. But it is a mistake and will lead to bad conclusions. However severe death penalties have some significant consequences for gameplay. Consequences are a way to sculpt a game. Even if Vangaurd had perma-death instant deleteion it wouldn't be "harder" it would just take longer and make people paranoid.
I think a death penalty like having to retrieve your corpse is indeed a challenge, not a timesink. It is a challenge to travel into a dungeon naked, not a consequence. The consequence is the fact that you have to retrieve your corpse, not the act of actually retrieving it. That is a challenge.
I understand your arguement, you're just wrong.
If you have to go back to the start of a race every time you drop the egg from your spoon, that makes the race harder. Things that take longer are harder than things that don't take as long. However, hard is a relative term.
If I think walking to work in the rain is harder than walking to work on a sunny day, then it is harder, for me. No, the falling droplets don't slow you down much are cause you any pain, but if I decide it makes it harder, then it does make it harder, for me. Relativity homes.
However if you don't think perma death makes a game harder, then you are just really stupid.
1. You wont be doing corpse run naked, unless you are dumb.
2. Penalties do not equal challenge. Challenge speaks toward chance of success. Something that is "very challenging", would have a lower chance of success. Some thing that has 99% chance of success would certainly not be called challenging. Penalties, on the other hand, are the cost of failure. They don't impact the chance of success. If I told you to say "hello" or I would kill you, you wouldn't say that the act of saying "hello" was challenging or "hard", although the penalty would be severe.
3. Perhaps you shouldn't call people stupid, unless you are sure you are right. It just makes you look like the stupid one.
Originally posted by briskojr Timesinks should be avoided at all costs in MMO's, it's what drives so many away.
all mmo's are time sinks, all the successful ones at least. also time sinks are what keep players playing the game and paying that subscription fee.
without the time sink it would be just another console game that people beat in a week or two and then move on to the next console game.
As long as I enjoy the timesink, I see no problem with it, no matter the form or place it take.
As soon as the timesink bother me, I stop playing. Quite simple.
Leveling grind, EQ was always an easy game, I can withstand far harder than pre-kunark. But that is me. Check SoR if you want an idea of what a REAL level grind is...except it doesn't have levels, only skill, still you can get my point.
Travel: Booooooring unless it is the FIRST time.
Non-grouping/non-soloing PvE gameplays: NOW that is extremely boooooring and lame. Just wake me when it is a game again.
Death penalty: IMO, a debt system ala CoH (not WoW, CoH is different) is the best for the casual players, yet you have to find a death penalty that sting the hardcore achievers like me, without hurting the casuals. To do so, my humble idea would have an amount of "lives" per month, once you run out of them, you can't play that character. Have enough so the casuals are extremely seldomly affected by this, but that peoples playing 80 hours a week considering this like THE penalty. Maybe an additional feature can be added, someone who didn't gain Z xp during an amount of time can't lose a life, that way the very casuals can benefit from this...and the lame zergers as well, they would have to zerg prior gaining xp. Not to mention that a "lives" per month concept bring a all new aspect for you to be able to balance stronger and weaker races, so someone can pick a stronger race that grant less lives per month, or a weaker race with a lot more...anyway, just an idea.
Corpse Run: I hardly see the need for it, it is not fun. Maybe you can leave 1 item on the corpse and if you didn't do the corpse run for sometimes it automatically come back, but the real penalty for dying should be the death penalty, not a corpse run...a corpse run happen AFTER someone is defeated, after he suffer the death penalty, the last thing you want to do is punch that player further.
Regen: Again, something very boring, make the grind worser, but gimme an instant regen between fights. I rather fight 2 kobolds to get 10 xp, than fight 1 kobold and med to get the same 10 XP. Med downtime is evil. Gimme a real grind, something nasty, but don't bring some waiting downtime with it. That remove directly from playing, as you want me to be waiting. CoH is borderline long IMO on this. Really, stop listening to cry babies who want less grind but more downtime, gimme a hell of a grind and no downtime! Pre-Kunark grind was easy, I went to level 50 and I always laugh when I hear Afterlife vets saying how hard it used to be....Zzzz, it wasn't. I was there. The downtime was bad, not the grind. So many noobs in these ubers guilds. At least include a tool a character can take at character creation: earn half XP but has instant regen between fights...the casuals can avoid this tool, I will cheerish it however! Have this option disabled or activate for all members of a group. Tadam, you have both, achievers and sitters happy!
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
There is no challenge without a significant penalty. It doesn't really matter how hard something is, if you lose nothing from dying then you just zerg it until you win. Where is the challenge in that? It's like extreme sports with air bags and a net. A death penalty doesn't necessarly make something a challenge, but it is part of the formula for making something challenging.
As for travel times, if there is no travel, you might as well make something like DDO or GW. Without travel the world is mostly meaningless, so why have a world at all? Just make a meeting zone with tons of instances linked off of it.
Originally posted by Anofalye Originally posted by baphametOriginally posted by briskojrAs long as I enjoy the timesink, I see no problem with it, no matter the form or place it take.As soon as the timesink bother me, I stop playing. Quite simple. !
the rest of your post is based on your opinion and thats fine, but the fact i was pointing out is that indeed all mmo's are time sinks, and I'm sure everyone quits a game "As soon as the time sink bother me" not that there is a problem with it, witch the poster that i was quoting was implying.
Originally posted by gestalt11 No consequnces are not challenges they are consequences. Challenge implies difficulty, "timesinks" are not hard they are merely an unfavorable consequence.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't have such things. The consequence of an action is important. For example in Eve Online it takes a very very long time to travel from one end of the Eve-verse to another. Some people call this a "timesink" (a misnomer in this case, "time-barrrier" would be more accurate), but the designers purposely put this in so that things like trade routes and controling regions have meaning. This "timesink" doesn't make travelling in Eve "hard". It just has very large consequences on Eve gameplay.
Thinking that severe death penalties will make Vanguard "hard" is a common mistake. But it is a mistake and will lead to bad conclusions. However severe death penalties have some significant consequences for gameplay. Consequences are a way to sculpt a game. Even if Vangaurd had perma-death instant deleteion it wouldn't be "harder" it would just take longer and make people paranoid.
Eloquently put. Too bad it's buried in this thread like a diamond in a pile of cow poop.
Originally posted by n2sooners There is no challenge without a significant penalty. It doesn't really matter how hard something is, if you lose nothing from dying then you just zerg it until you win. Where is the challenge in that?
Hold onto your hat Bessie. In a few years, MMOs won't be so easy that anyone with free-time can get teh uber l00tz. They'll add in stuff that requires actual skill to complete instead of making everything a prize for attendance and mere competence.
Imagine endgame content that is as difficult as Ninja Gaiden boss fights. Sure, you could "zerg" them over and over until you are good enough to win, but when you finally do win, it will be because you've mastered the game. . . Not because you've been able to beat it the last 50 times you did it but just had to do it over and over because the game is stingy with loot in order to keep you playing.
MMOs right now aren't hard for anyone. They are all set on easy-mode because the gameplay mechanics are all super simple. Anyone who has actually played games that are hard (and learned to beat them) knows that nothing in an MMO is actually that difficult.
Because game mechanics make it really difficult to allow for player-skill in MMOs, what they do to make the game "hard" is make the content more difficult to access due to out-of-game challenges like requiring you to get an ungodly number of players together in order to access content.
Years of game designers spinning timesinks as a challenge have actually created this weird hardcore base that believes that they make games difficult rather than simply harder to access.
Originally posted by gestalt11 No consequnces are not challenges they are consequences. Challenge implies difficulty, "timesinks" are not hard they are merely an unfavorable consequence.This doesn't mean you shouldn't have such things. The consequence of an action is important. For example in Eve Online it takes a very very long time to travel from one end of the Eve-verse to another. Some people call this a "timesink" (a misnomer in this case, "time-barrrier" would be more accurate), but the designers purposely put this in so that things like trade routes and controling regions have meaning. This "timesink" doesn't make travelling in Eve "hard". It just has very large consequences on Eve gameplay.Thinking that severe death penalties will make Vanguard "hard" is a common mistake. But it is a mistake and will lead to bad conclusions. However severe death penalties have some significant consequences for gameplay. Consequences are a way to sculpt a game. Even if Vangaurd had perma-death instant deleteion it wouldn't be "harder" it would just take longer and make people paranoid.
Eloquently put. Too bad it's buried in this thread like a diamond in a pile of cow poop.
i understand the point he was trying to make but that is just one way to look at it, sure actually playing a mmorpg isn't that hard, none of them are.
but think of it like this, vanguard is a level based item-centric game... harsh death penalty's and Cr's make it harder to reach your goal witch is (for example) the boss of a dungeon or the next level.
i don't know how many times i lost tons of xp and even levels in eq and hell yes it made it harder, especially since you have to depend on other people to be successful.
death penalty's and Cr's are going to make the game more challenging than if it didn't have those systems implemented, weather you think its a good system or weather you think it makes the game "hard" is based on opinon....whats considered hard for one person may not necessarily be considered hard for another.
penalties dont matter if the 'Game' is fun. In monopoly, going directly to jail is a penalty, it sucks. But its part of what makes the 'game' fun. If you took all the penalties out of monopoly, landing on boardwalk with hotels ect..the game would never have existed. If penelaties in MMO's can be incorporated in the same fashion, that would make a 'game' better.
See you in the dream.. The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Originally posted by FikusOfAhazi penalties dont matter if the 'Game' is fun. In monopoly, going directly to jail is a penalty, it sucks. But its part of what makes the 'game' fun. If you took all the penalties out of monopoly, landing on boardwalk with hotels ect..the game would never have existed. If penelaties in MMO's can be incorporated in the same fashion, that would make a 'game' better.
great post
that pretty much sums it up right there, the only problem is not everyone thinks that is "fun" but hey, you cant please everyone now can you?
Originally posted by zethcarn I see this agruement quite often so I just want to respectfully give my opinion on the subject. Corspe Runs, XP debt, and travel times TO your corpse are a challenge. Ok, I understand there is very little skill involved in pressing auto-run to get back to your body and recover your items. Likewise, there is very little skill involved in "grinding" back your lost XP. The challenge is to your patience and will to continue on. It's really that simple. If you don't like that idea then why even play MMO's in the first place? It's these challenges or "timesinks" that will directly influence the community of the game that differs it from a community like WoW. Ask yourself, do you want a WoW community? No? Then the game can't be as assecisible and easy as WoW.
If the selling point for SoH is that it is a harder PVE mmo then guess what, FFXI beat you to the punch about 4-6 years ago. And to the poster here who makes 3 word posts, if you don’t think VG is going to be a grinding game… well you have no clue.
I will just never get it, how all these bogus hardcore players demand a HARD game yet most of them are blind to a game like FFXI, a game with all the time sinks you could ever want, with a large community… to me, its just more of the same. People trying to look hardcore when there not.
Let me say this, if your “uber” then play an uber game. Don’t sit here playing WoW, EQ2 ETC and complain about how MMO’s are to easy when you have games like FFXI and L2 already long out and doing very well. </rant>
You know what....I don't really care what type of mechanics are in a game. If I look forward to loging on during my drive home from work...then the game is doing something right.
Originally posted by Vengeful You know what....I don't really care what type of mechanics are in a game. If I look forward to loging on during my drive home from work...then the game is doing something right.
The fact that you express your opinion constantly on these boards really makes this difficult to believe. . .
Unless you interpret the message as "I don't really care what you guys say because I'm going to like Vanguard no matter what." THEN, it would make perfect sense.
Originally posted by dink Originally posted by Vengeful You know what....I don't really care what type of mechanics are in a game. If I look forward to loging on during my drive home from work...then the game is doing something right.
The fact that you express your opinion constantly on these boards really makes this difficult to believe. . .
Unless you interpret the message as "I don't really care what you guys say because I'm going to like Vanguard no matter what." THEN, it would make perfect sense.
Meh?
I express my opinion about how the alleged features of this game have me a little excited, and I always say that the game sucking is just as likely as another game sucking. And I always say that as soon as this game (or any other, for that matter) becomes boring I will pick up and move on.
There are some things that I'm not too crazy about that Vanguard will have... No Area/zone chats
I'm worried about the allure of Melee Healers like the Disciple...doesn't really sound like you'll have the response time to be an effective healer...the class will probably need to be overhauled and it's direction changed.
I'm worried about how they are going to handle, if they do, "Death Loops"
I love PvP, yet I've heard nothing about it in Vanguard
I'm excited about Diplomacy, but I know almost certain it won't meet my expectations.
/shrug Whatever the mechanics are, they have me interested and I'll try it out....and whatever the mechanics are, so long as I look forward to logging in, I'll keep playing. Simple as that. Now, on your end, you might say...I really don't think I could believe anything you say about Vanguard for similar reasons....you know, like trolling every thread on these forums to defame a game you haven't played....dispite your convictions about how terrible this game will be (which if you really thought that, you would spend your time looking for a game you might actually want to play)
Just a few points... Anyone who thinks that EQ1 had more "depth" than WoW or EQ2 needs to define for me what "depth" means to them. I've played EQ1 since beta (still do) and have played WoW, EQ2 and CoH since release and have taken multiple characters to max level in all 4 games. The way *I* view "depth", WoW and EQ2 have a LOT more of it than CoH and EQ2. CoH is fast and fun, EQ1 is good in terms of large scale end game raid content, but EQ2 and WoW provide the "depth" in terms of window dressing, other things to do that are actually somewhat fun/rewarding, quests that seem to tie meaningfully into the game and just a host of neat little niceties that you only appreciate if you actually put real time into the games.
There are also a lot of semantics problems that are not "opinion" that people need to accept. "Timesink" is a pejorative. "All MMOs" are not "based on timesinks". Something that takes time to accomplish is not a "timesink". Timesink should be used exclusively to describe frustrating/pointless endevours that you are forced into by the game design. If we cant agree on basic definitions, we cant have any kind of discussion beyond semantics. Camping an ultra rare random spawn for 400 hours because the devs have decided that it simply shouldnt spawn faster than that is a timesink. Spending those same 400 hours stepping through 100 discrete quest steps that are achievable without frustration and are fun, but take a long time, would not be a "timesink".
"Challenge" and "penalty" are NOT the same. One poster really nailed it perfectly and even gave a great analogy, but people seem to not want to get it. Severe penalties do NOT make a game "challenging". If a raid mob requires serious strategy, gearing, timing, and class composition to beat, that is a "challenge". If every time your raid wipes you need 4 hours to CR, that isnt part of the "challenge" that is a severe penalty of failure.
Do severe penalties make the game more challenging overall? No, not necessarily. If that raid mob was easily zergable, you wouldnt wipe so the 4 hour CR wouldnt impact you. The degree of penalty has some bearing on the overall level of challenge, but it should NOT be the *basis* of what makes a game "challenging".
I also dont think that tedious and annoying penalties some how make the players who put up with them more "l33t" than players who stick with something like WoW. I hope that Brad has more up his sleeve than he came up with with EQ1.
If everything that people seem to believe is reality on this forum were true, EQ1 wouldnt be bleeding subs. All of this nostalgia is total BS if you look at the real sub numbers. People pretend they loved the old annoying aspects of EQ1, but at the time, they did NOTHING but bitch about it. Its like mom and dad bragging about the days they walked 100 miles uphill in the snow to get to school. Exaggerated and irrelevant.
Im hoping that Vanguard can actually deliver a challenge (a REAL challenge) that is fun and rewarding without being an endless and mindless grind riddled with ridiculous speed bumps and impediments to fun like severe penalties, loooooong travel times, annoying CRs, etc. If it really delivers, Ill be there. If not, they can keep it.
Originally posted by mlambert890 ... "Challenge" and "penalty" are NOT the same. One poster really nailed it perfectly and even gave a great analogy, but people seem to not want to get it. Severe penalties do NOT make a game "challenging". If a raid mob requires serious strategy, gearing, timing, and class composition to beat, that is a "challenge". If every time your raid wipes you need 4 hours to CR, that isnt part of the "challenge" that is a severe penalty of failure....
Just wanted to comment on this paragraph. I guess I don't see it as advantagous having to raid the same mob over and over tens if not hundreds of times to get a chance at getting your class pieces to drop. So what if I don't have to worry about a corpse run. Even if it was challenging and fun the first few times - after awhile it becomes tedium and IS considered a "timesink".
Opposed to getting wiped out occasionally and having to do a corpse run. IF, (and that is a big if) we are not required to re-do the exact same mob in the exact same way ad nauseum.
That is the part I'm hoping Vanguard does correctly with it's raiding. I don't mind it being extremely challenging and doing corpse runs occasionally. As long as I'm not expected to do it hundreds of times to get an item to drop. That would be where the risk is worth the reward. I know going into the raid there is a good chance I might be doing a corpse run, but I also know that if we are victorious - we will get what we were after.
I have to disagree with the op...i play a mmo to have fun, not make it a second irratating job....its a game its supposed to be fun not tedious....im not paying a monthly fee for a game thats only going to frustrate me and punish me just for the sake of it.
The whole challange is not to get killed in the 1st place.
EQ2 had shard runs and grp xp loss upon a member getting killed, but now its just a grind, and death means very little, they went for the kiddie market aka WOW, so let em have it.
If your group has a newb member either learn how to protect him, or teach him how to play better, these games should require cooperation, TEAMwork.
penalties must be tough, enough to make you go " goddamn it" !!!!!!! (or worse)
If you die the npc takes all yer cash! why not ehh?? (can hear the kids crying now ) lolol
Comments
No consequnces are not challenges they are consequences. Challenge implies difficulty, "timesinks" are not hard they are merely an unfavorable consequence.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't have such things. The consequence of an action is important. For example in Eve Online it takes a very very long time to travel from one end of the Eve-verse to another. Some people call this a "timesink" (a misnomer in this case, "time-barrrier" would be more accurate), but the designers purposely put this in so that things like trade routes and controling regions have meaning. This "timesink" doesn't make travelling in Eve "hard". It just has very large consequences on Eve gameplay.
Thinking that severe death penalties will make Vanguard "hard" is a common mistake. But it is a mistake and will lead to bad conclusions. However severe death penalties have some significant consequences for gameplay. Consequences are a way to sculpt a game. Even if Vangaurd had perma-death instant deleteion it wouldn't be "harder" it would just take longer and make people paranoid.
I think a death penalty like having to retrieve your corpse is indeed a challenge, not a timesink. It is a challenge to travel into a dungeon naked, not a consequence. The consequence is the fact that you have to retrieve your corpse, not the act of actually retrieving it. That is a challenge.
I understand your arguement, you're just wrong.
If you have to go back to the start of a race every time you drop the egg from your spoon, that makes the race harder. Things that take longer are harder than things that don't take as long. However, hard is a relative term.
If I think walking to work in the rain is harder than walking to work on a sunny day, then it is harder, for me. No, the falling droplets don't slow you down much are cause you any pain, but if I decide it makes it harder, then it does make it harder, for me. Relativity homes.
However if you don't think perma death makes a game harder, then you are just really stupid.
1. You wont be doing corpse run naked, unless you are dumb.
2. Penalties do not equal challenge. Challenge speaks toward chance of success. Something that is "very challenging", would have a lower chance of success. Some thing that has 99% chance of success would certainly not be called challenging. Penalties, on the other hand, are the cost of failure. They don't impact the chance of success. If I told you to say "hello" or I would kill you, you wouldn't say that the act of saying "hello" was challenging or "hard", although the penalty would be severe.
3. Perhaps you shouldn't call people stupid, unless you are sure you are right. It just makes you look like the stupid one.
all mmo's are time sinks, all the successful ones at least. also time sinks are what keep players playing the game and paying that subscription fee.
without the time sink it would be just another console game that people beat in a week or two and then move on to the next console game.
As long as I enjoy the timesink, I see no problem with it, no matter the form or place it take.
As soon as the timesink bother me, I stop playing. Quite simple.
Leveling grind, EQ was always an easy game, I can withstand far harder than pre-kunark. But that is me. Check SoR if you want an idea of what a REAL level grind is...except it doesn't have levels, only skill, still you can get my point.
Travel: Booooooring unless it is the FIRST time.
Non-grouping/non-soloing PvE gameplays: NOW that is extremely boooooring and lame. Just wake me when it is a game again.
Death penalty: IMO, a debt system ala CoH (not WoW, CoH is different) is the best for the casual players, yet you have to find a death penalty that sting the hardcore achievers like me, without hurting the casuals. To do so, my humble idea would have an amount of "lives" per month, once you run out of them, you can't play that character. Have enough so the casuals are extremely seldomly affected by this, but that peoples playing 80 hours a week considering this like THE penalty. Maybe an additional feature can be added, someone who didn't gain Z xp during an amount of time can't lose a life, that way the very casuals can benefit from this...and the lame zergers as well, they would have to zerg prior gaining xp. Not to mention that a "lives" per month concept bring a all new aspect for you to be able to balance stronger and weaker races, so someone can pick a stronger race that grant less lives per month, or a weaker race with a lot more...anyway, just an idea.
Corpse Run: I hardly see the need for it, it is not fun. Maybe you can leave 1 item on the corpse and if you didn't do the corpse run for sometimes it automatically come back, but the real penalty for dying should be the death penalty, not a corpse run...a corpse run happen AFTER someone is defeated, after he suffer the death penalty, the last thing you want to do is punch that player further.
Regen: Again, something very boring, make the grind worser, but gimme an instant regen between fights. I rather fight 2 kobolds to get 10 xp, than fight 1 kobold and med to get the same 10 XP. Med downtime is evil. Gimme a real grind, something nasty, but don't bring some waiting downtime with it. That remove directly from playing, as you want me to be waiting. CoH is borderline long IMO on this. Really, stop listening to cry babies who want less grind but more downtime, gimme a hell of a grind and no downtime! Pre-Kunark grind was easy, I went to level 50 and I always laugh when I hear Afterlife vets saying how hard it used to be....Zzzz, it wasn't. I was there. The downtime was bad, not the grind. So many noobs in these ubers guilds. At least include a tool a character can take at character creation: earn half XP but has instant regen between fights...the casuals can avoid this tool, I will cheerish it however! Have this option disabled or activate for all members of a group. Tadam, you have both, achievers and sitters happy!
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
As for travel times, if there is no travel, you might as well make something like DDO or GW. Without travel the world is mostly meaningless, so why have a world at all? Just make a meeting zone with tons of instances linked off of it.
the rest of your post is based on your opinion and thats fine, but the fact i was pointing out is that indeed all mmo's are time sinks, and I'm sure everyone quits a game "As soon as the time sink bother me" not that there is a problem with it, witch the poster that i was quoting was implying.
Eloquently put. Too bad it's buried in this thread like a diamond in a pile of cow poop.
In alot of MMOs on the market, most people do not fear death, its more of an annoyance. Im glad to see a Dev make it something to be feared.
Hold onto your hat Bessie. In a few years, MMOs won't be so easy that anyone with free-time can get teh uber l00tz. They'll add in stuff that requires actual skill to complete instead of making everything a prize for attendance and mere competence.
Imagine endgame content that is as difficult as Ninja Gaiden boss fights. Sure, you could "zerg" them over and over until you are good enough to win, but when you finally do win, it will be because you've mastered the game. . . Not because you've been able to beat it the last 50 times you did it but just had to do it over and over because the game is stingy with loot in order to keep you playing.
MMOs right now aren't hard for anyone. They are all set on easy-mode because the gameplay mechanics are all super simple. Anyone who has actually played games that are hard (and learned to beat them) knows that nothing in an MMO is actually that difficult.
Because game mechanics make it really difficult to allow for player-skill in MMOs, what they do to make the game "hard" is make the content more difficult to access due to out-of-game challenges like requiring you to get an ungodly number of players together in order to access content.
Years of game designers spinning timesinks as a challenge have actually created this weird hardcore base that believes that they make games difficult rather than simply harder to access.
Low accessability != challenge.
i understand the point he was trying to make but that is just one way to look at it, sure actually playing a mmorpg isn't that hard, none of them are.
but think of it like this, vanguard is a level based item-centric game... harsh death penalty's and Cr's make it harder to reach your goal witch is (for example) the boss of a dungeon or the next level.
i don't know how many times i lost tons of xp and even levels in eq and hell yes it made it harder, especially since you have to depend on other people to be successful.
death penalty's and Cr's are going to make the game more challenging than if it didn't have those systems implemented, weather you think its a good system or weather you think it makes the game "hard" is based on opinon....whats considered hard for one person may not necessarily be considered hard for another.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
great post
that pretty much sums it up right there, the only problem is not everyone thinks that is "fun" but hey, you cant please everyone now can you?
If the selling point for SoH is that it is a harder PVE mmo then guess what, FFXI beat you to the punch about 4-6 years ago. And to the poster here who makes 3 word posts, if you don’t think VG is going to be a grinding game… well you have no clue.
I will just never get it, how all these bogus hardcore players demand a HARD game yet most of them are blind to a game like FFXI, a game with all the time sinks you could ever want, with a large community… to me, its just more of the same. People trying to look hardcore when there not.
Let me say this, if your “uber” then play an uber game. Don’t sit here playing WoW, EQ2 ETC and complain about how MMO’s are to easy when you have games like FFXI and L2 already long out and doing very well. </rant>Rites of the Four Horsemen
http://www.rotfh.com
The fact that you express your opinion constantly on these boards really makes this difficult to believe. . .
Unless you interpret the message as "I don't really care what you guys say because I'm going to like Vanguard no matter what." THEN, it would make perfect sense.
The fact that you express your opinion constantly on these boards really makes this difficult to believe. . .
Unless you interpret the message as "I don't really care what you guys say because I'm going to like Vanguard no matter what." THEN, it would make perfect sense.
Meh?
I express my opinion about how the alleged features of this game have me a little excited, and I always say that the game sucking is just as likely as another game sucking. And I always say that as soon as this game (or any other, for that matter) becomes boring I will pick up and move on.
There are some things that I'm not too crazy about that Vanguard will have... No Area/zone chats
I'm worried about the allure of Melee Healers like the Disciple...doesn't really sound like you'll have the response time to be an effective healer...the class will probably need to be overhauled and it's direction changed.
I'm worried about how they are going to handle, if they do, "Death Loops"
I love PvP, yet I've heard nothing about it in Vanguard
I'm excited about Diplomacy, but I know almost certain it won't meet my expectations.
/shrug Whatever the mechanics are, they have me interested and I'll try it out....and whatever the mechanics are, so long as I look forward to logging in, I'll keep playing. Simple as that. Now, on your end, you might say...I really don't think I could believe anything you say about Vanguard for similar reasons....you know, like trolling every thread on these forums to defame a game you haven't played....dispite your convictions about how terrible this game will be (which if you really thought that, you would spend your time looking for a game you might actually want to play)
Just a few points... Anyone who thinks that EQ1 had more "depth" than WoW or EQ2 needs to define for me what "depth" means to them. I've played EQ1 since beta (still do) and have played WoW, EQ2 and CoH since release and have taken multiple characters to max level in all 4 games. The way *I* view "depth", WoW and EQ2 have a LOT more of it than CoH and EQ2. CoH is fast and fun, EQ1 is good in terms of large scale end game raid content, but EQ2 and WoW provide the "depth" in terms of window dressing, other things to do that are actually somewhat fun/rewarding, quests that seem to tie meaningfully into the game and just a host of neat little niceties that you only appreciate if you actually put real time into the games.
There are also a lot of semantics problems that are not "opinion" that people need to accept. "Timesink" is a pejorative. "All MMOs" are not "based on timesinks". Something that takes time to accomplish is not a "timesink". Timesink should be used exclusively to describe frustrating/pointless endevours that you are forced into by the game design. If we cant agree on basic definitions, we cant have any kind of discussion beyond semantics. Camping an ultra rare random spawn for 400 hours because the devs have decided that it simply shouldnt spawn faster than that is a timesink. Spending those same 400 hours stepping through 100 discrete quest steps that are achievable without frustration and are fun, but take a long time, would not be a "timesink".
"Challenge" and "penalty" are NOT the same. One poster really nailed it perfectly and even gave a great analogy, but people seem to not want to get it. Severe penalties do NOT make a game "challenging". If a raid mob requires serious strategy, gearing, timing, and class composition to beat, that is a "challenge". If every time your raid wipes you need 4 hours to CR, that isnt part of the "challenge" that is a severe penalty of failure.
Do severe penalties make the game more challenging overall? No, not necessarily. If that raid mob was easily zergable, you wouldnt wipe so the 4 hour CR wouldnt impact you. The degree of penalty has some bearing on the overall level of challenge, but it should NOT be the *basis* of what makes a game "challenging".
I also dont think that tedious and annoying penalties some how make the players who put up with them more "l33t" than players who stick with something like WoW. I hope that Brad has more up his sleeve than he came up with with EQ1.
If everything that people seem to believe is reality on this forum were true, EQ1 wouldnt be bleeding subs. All of this nostalgia is total BS if you look at the real sub numbers. People pretend they loved the old annoying aspects of EQ1, but at the time, they did NOTHING but bitch about it. Its like mom and dad bragging about the days they walked 100 miles uphill in the snow to get to school. Exaggerated and irrelevant.
Im hoping that Vanguard can actually deliver a challenge (a REAL challenge) that is fun and rewarding without being an endless and mindless grind riddled with ridiculous speed bumps and impediments to fun like severe penalties, loooooong travel times, annoying CRs, etc. If it really delivers, Ill be there. If not, they can keep it.
Opposed to getting wiped out occasionally and having to do a corpse run. IF, (and that is a big if) we are not required to re-do the exact same mob in the exact same way ad nauseum.
That is the part I'm hoping Vanguard does correctly with it's raiding. I don't mind it being extremely challenging and doing corpse runs occasionally. As long as I'm not expected to do it hundreds of times to get an item to drop. That would be where the risk is worth the reward. I know going into the raid there is a good chance I might be doing a corpse run, but I also know that if we are victorious - we will get what we were after.
The whole challange is not to get killed in the 1st place.
EQ2 had shard runs and grp xp loss upon a member getting killed, but now its just a grind, and death means very little, they went for the kiddie market aka WOW, so let em have it.
If your group has a newb member either learn how to protect him, or teach him how to play better, these games should require cooperation, TEAMwork.
penalties must be tough, enough to make you go " goddamn it" !!!!!!! (or worse)
If you die the npc takes all yer cash! why not ehh?? (can hear the kids crying now ) lolol
have fun guys, tis but virtual bit o fun.