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Challenging PVE
bosmer24
Member UncommonPosts: 116
Any of you remember Everquest?Have any of you played EQ?Now i ask this because i am wondering what happened to challenging PVE.Did it die when WOW came a long or a mass slew of other mmo games?I find myself playing EQ again after years of being in mmo limbo.
Granted i think you should be able to play solo,grouping isn't always an option,but make it challenging.Challenge is where the fun is at.I don't know how many other games i've played where the mobs just seem to lay down and die for me as soon as i hit them.thankyou.
Comments
How could a game encourage challenge-seekers to tie one hand behind their back without feeling silly deliberately nerfing themselves?
Pve is challanging in most mmo,sure if you bring a group of 20 to kill a soloable mob it is not challanging.What I think most pve games lacks is a function that scales down revard for killing mobs the more people you have in your group. With a system where you get better loot xp the less members your group has would encurage people to more challanging encounters.
This kind of gaming system in mmo would set very high difficulty for the programers to ballance classes,othervice we would see a world with palladines or maybe wizards no other classes when players figure out what is most effective. But I still think gamemakers should be able to create such game if they want to do something new fun and challanging.
The downside to death penalties is that it doesn't encourage any risk taking either. One of the funnier aspects of City of Heroes is that the death penalty was severe enough that many players would run away the moment they saw something where the was risk of death. So much for being a hero...
To me, severe death penalties are a lazy developers way to add challenge. A good challenge involves something where I have to do something other than press attack 1 followed by attack 2 followed by attack 3...rinse and repeat. A good challenge is also not (at least not regularly) increase the number of mods by X% or increase health and/or damage by X%. A good challenge would involve substantial improvements in game AI. Even the relatively minor improvement in game AI with LOTRO ranged characters moving back away into ranged attack (their strength) is a notable improvement / minor incremental challenge to WoWs mobs which stand there and take the damage even when you are in melee (their weakness). Game AI has the additional challenge of taking away it's total knowledge of what is going on. As an example, one of the positive / challenging aspects of PvP is that you might need to take a moment to find where the healer or dps is...trying to figure out how to get around the tank...these are the types of things that game AI needs to accommodate, but I think it is still a long ways away since you need to selectively take away pieces of information that, by default, the computer already absolutely knows.
A great game AI is one that would vary it's tactics based on what the player does...which is probably even further away. Unfortunately, since most gaming companies are dominated by the corporate culture, I'm not certain there are any game companies left that would be willing to take on such a monumental task.
I don't think the death penalty affects how challenging the content is. Why not have monsters that are extremely difficult to kill mixed with a negligible death penalty? Even with a stiff death penalty, the only REAL penalty in any of these games is TIME. It's not like they're gonna charge your credit card two bucks for every time your characters die that month. Of course, imagine how much more careful people would be if they did. Then again, MMORPG.com would be full of threads talking about yet another way devs are bilking their customers out of cash. I like being able to select a difficulty in a game ala CoX. Then I can run on harder settings with my combat toons and easier settings if I'm stuck soloing a support toon.
We believe not only in challenging PvE, but scaling difficulty. The more risk one wants to take, the better the reward but the more challenging the PvE. This way players can do as hard or easy as they want without it being too difficult or too easy. Balance is the key, especially in an MMO with such a large playerbase ranging from casual relaxing players to hardcore intense combat maniacs!
One of the most interesting, fun, and challenging aspects of our game is that one of the big core mechanics of Emergence is Player vs Monsters. Where players may take on the role of monsters in dungeons, quests, or even towns. We are going to develop it enough that players will be able to be satisfied if they wanted to do nothing BUT play as monsters (if that is what they truly love about the game.)
The monsters are more strictly defined than characters and classes, but we are going to provide a good variety of types of monsters (similar to classes). For example in a graveyard besides skeletons, ghosts, vampires, demons, and ghouls there are also zombies! Zombies are a cult favorite, so let's use them for an example. We will provide many different TYPES of zombies to play as. Think Left4Dead and how they have zombies, but several different types of zombies. They're not very developed (Hunters just pounce, Boomers suicide and explode, Smokers strangle the humans) but they are very fun! Of course ours will be slightly more developed since it's a RPG, but you get the point: fun is the main concept.
When players ARE the monsters in addition to NPC monsters-- the game becomes much much more challenging, as well as fun.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Well even withouth EQ's harsh death penalty i'd still play it.
Exactly, the content stands alone regardless of a death penalty. It's either easy to do or it's difficult, what happens after you die is entirely irrelevant. However, if you make the death penalty too punishing, people aren't even going to try difficult content, most people will stick to things they know they can accomplish with minimal chance of dying.
Developers aren't crazy enough to put in a harsh death penalty. They have to pay the bills at the end of the month, the last thing they want to do is drive away the majority of their player base.
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The things that made EQ PvE more challenging imo (i don't know if it still is) were / are
-- The mobs seemed to be set so an even con mob was a bit stronger than the player rather than a lot weaker
-- Mobs in social groups that helped each other
-- The death penalty made it feel more challenging but that doesn't actually make the fights harder
-- trains and mobs chasing you for miles
-- wandering mobs
-- In EQ the game was trying to kill you all the time whereas in WoW the game only really tries to kill you in the main dungeons
Games designed around solo play might not want to implement most of those but the one thing they could do which wouldn't break the solo gameplay but which would crank up the adrenaline would be more and better use of wandering mobs. Dungeons in particular could have the standard setup of one solo mob one after the other but also a learnable pattern of timed patrollers. If the fight difficulty was set such that a player could easily win against one but struggle againt two then the player would have to carefully work their way through dungeons avoiding situations where a patroller jpoined in mid-fight.
Mob positioning and evil patrol patterns could easily make solo games more challenging without any fundamental changes.
After that i think it's AI. One simple change would be to give all melees, including mobs, a lock-taunt ability. Basically if they got close enough to a player/mob they could lock them. The effect of being locked would be to force the player/mob to look at and target the locker and greatly reduce the target's movement speed - a bit like a short range root. The locker would be forced to target the lock target as well. There would be unlocking skills like shield bash to break the lock and allow normal movement again. The melees in a group of mobs would aim to lock all the players if possible thereby protecting their healer / caster / leader.
So the players might enter a room and instead of all the mobs heading for the tank while the players all head for the mob's healer; the first mob locks the main tank, the second goes for the next nerarest etc and the rest look for new targets so pin down .
As the above poster mentioned, EQ tried to kill you. Lots. In many various and comedic forms. Whether at the beginning of a zone, standing up to stretch, sitting down to see yourself the victim of a train, or in the Commonlands, innocently camping an orc camp, not paying much attention, and suddenly a Hill Giant sneaks up on you and *WHAMMO*, I never really had the feeling I was in any control whatsoever in EQ1.
Even in KFC (The Aviak towers), or in any number of the dungeons, having a group camping the top room or the lowest named dungeon depended on a precarious balance of staying on top of the spawn, and sometimes even depending on other groups in the areas/dungeons to keep the spawns lower on their part - being the only group at the bottom of Guk or somewhere meant for quite a fun time getting out.
In WoW, just about anyone can take an even leveled or a +1, +2, even +3 leveled mob (some more), but taking an even powered "white" mob in EQ1 was risky business depending on the class you played, and heavily depended on you controlling the uncontrollable enviroment (add management).
Man, those were fun days!
Halo doesnt have a Harsh DP, yet I can play it on different difficulty levels.
So Iam confused, as to how a DP, has anything to do with how difficult something is.
Question for you and the OP: Have you beat HC 25 Lich King in WoW?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
There's a difference between no death penalty and a harsh one. There is a middle ground, one that has been used for decades in video games and has been extremely successful. When you were playing Super Mario Brothers, you didn't have a long or painful death, you went back to the last place you "saved" and had to do that part again. It was instant. And SMB is a hell of a lot more successful as a franchise than any MMO in history.
There's nothing scary about *ANY* video game. It's just a game. That's all it's ever been, that's all it'll ever be. If you make it too difficult of frustrating, people will go off and play something else. The overwhelming majority of MMO players today just don't want that and they are the ones with all the money and influence.
Stop pretending your niche matters.
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As much as I would like to agree with this idea, I have to admit to having jumping from my chair a few times suddenly enough to fluff my cat and struggled against quivering hands a few times. I'm not a fan of adrenaline rushes myself, but I suspect that some of the desire for challenging gameplay is because some people are and they miss that rush they got from time to time when they were new to MMOs (which, if correct, raises the question of whether "difficulty" is the best lever to use or if minigames rich in mystery and sudden events might be more effective)
There's a difference between something being actually scary and a game using cheap shots to get a jump. Horror movies do it all the time, they throw a head at the screen out of nowhere to make people jump. That doesn't make it scary, it makes it gimmicky.
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Perhaps, but people keep paying to go see those sorts of movies. Everyone has different things that push their buttons - spiders don't bother me, but some people get freaked out by them even in a computer game.
But my point was simply to muse that when people long for higher difficulty, perhaps they are longing for a sensation, a rush, that they once experienced. The threat of character death may not always be the best way to achieve that because, as you pointed out, even with increasing difficulty there comes a point as an MMOer where you no longer see death as "scary", just as an abstract time-sink slowing your progression.
(but I am just tossing the idea on the table as food for thought, I don't mean to champion it if I know people better than they know themselves)
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You make so many generalizations and assumptions I don’t even know where to begin. You really need to wrap your head around the concept that you only speak for yourself, and not me or anyone else for that matter.
Horror movies are meant "to get you some action"? "There are no rushes in games"?
I think you're posting from another world, because I don't live in the one you seem to paint so often.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
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None of the things you list make a game more challenging. Yes they do add extra stress compared to some RPGs. But they add no challenge. Don't mistake an adrenaline rush for challenge. Getting smacked in the face will pump up your adrenaline but its not really challenging. Its just a smack in the face.
You simply need a formula that works and then apply that formula in a by the number careful manner and you will win every time. It is a fairly simple analysis to figure out which figjhts to avoid. Then it is simply a matter of covering your back trail and being careful.
It requires no real skill in execution. Nor even any creativity beyond figuring out a workable/powerful formula.
EQ was not challenging it was formulaic. You can account for every single one of these "challening" things by goign through a rote checklist of action (ie. check for a patrol before initiating, or do not take on a social group unless you are a CC class with an aoe CC).
You may argue that EQs formula had more to it (or more consequences) than WoW when it came to its execution. But that does not make it more challenging per se. Unless you consider memorizing 10 things more challenging than memorizing 5 things. I don't. There is simply a difference in time not difficulty.
As a side note this is also why so many MMOs begin to feel so grindy. Their formulaic nature makes the repeated action feel completely rote. And this is why PvP and shooter mechanics sometimes aleviates this feeling for some people, you don't what palyers will do and shooter mechanics mean you have a measure of skill involved and therefore an unknown.
I think you are missing something, Cephus. The element on the unknown. This is often the difference between a gimmick that everyone scoffs at and a technique that works well.
A good horror movie will startle many people even if the way they do it in a way that is essentially a gimmick. Even if the people watching know of this gimmick. How do they fool us? It is a principle as old as humans. Sleight of hand. Distract the mind and then come at you from an unforseen, or more often no longer monitored, direction.
But for MMORPGs. They are basically predictable and one dimenional. So not only are they predictable but there is no room to even particularly pull off any sleight of hand. Oh you lost aggro? Use your snap aggro taunt. Oh? that didn't work? Apply back up plan b and try to kite for a bit. Oh that didn't work? kiss your ass good bye, because there isn't anything more to the game when you are talking about a boss battle and all CC doesn't work.
Think about that for a second. In major boss battles they actually REDUCE the tactical options. REDUCE them. And you think people will be shocked or surprised by either good or bad outcomes?
Not scary. Never gonna be. Its either this or that and you can see which direction it is going ahead of time. Might stir up some adrenaline if there is a nasty death penalty as a despairing realization hits you. But no genuine shock or need to account for anything. Its just a flow chart.
Flow charts are not scary. Some of them are silly though.
Edit: keep in mind complete randomness is also equally boring. Which is what some boss encounters have as well. Just a random effect of some sort to spice up. Then it is simply out of you control, a flip of a coin. Not intersting but maybe worth a gamble.
Death penalty isn't challenge. It's penalty.
Challenge represents how much skill you need to succeed at something.
Penalty is what happens when you fail.
Now I never played EQ1, but I've certainly heard way more Tedious and Penalty-heavy mechanics described by others than genuine Challenges. Even if it was challenging, with all the tedium and penalties I sorta doubt it was a fun challenge.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Cephus
There's nothing scary about *ANY* video game. It's just a game. That's all it's ever been, that's all it'll ever be.
Yes there is unless you have no imagination.
For example, for me, the "Thief" games were like being *inside* a horror movie as was trying to solo inside the house in Unrest.
On the subject of difficulty, City of Heroes allows you to scale your difficulty on the fly through the use of an NPC. You can choose whether to face liutenant, boss or arch-villian ranked mob leaders and end bosses. You can also scale your missions (quests) to count you as equivalent to anywhere from 2 to 8 heroes. Choose 8 and enter a mission solo and the game will throw the same number of enemies at you as if you were partied in a group of 8.
On the subject of death penalty, I have tried and quit Darkfall twice. The second time I could play for free, so I figured it was no big deal.
Both times I ended up quitting because I died from some completely unfair situation (Mobs spawning on top of me, etc) and because of it, lost just about everything I owned when some other player would wander by and take all my stuff. I didn't find that challenging, just frustrating to the point of uninstallation. Darkfall is a terrible, terrible game, and you should never, ever play it.
The best situation is one in which you think you're going to lose, but somehow come out ahead anyway. That's what makes the "first boss kill" so great, among other things. I can't say I like how World of Warcraft mobs for the most part just roll over and die when you hit them, like said, but then again, the earliest iterations of "heroic instances" in Burning Crusade were not popular. I liked 'em, because they were a challenge, but they proved too much for most people to handle, so they didn't resonate as well with a majority of the playerbase.
Single player games don't have this problem. Doesn't make any difference to anyone if I play Dragon Age: Origins on "Nightmare" mode, my friends can still play it on Easy or whatever and still get the same story (read as: reward) out of it. Maybe 'heroic' mode in an MMO shouldn't yield better rewards? Or maybe they should just yield a slightly higher amount of the same reward (One 'badge' for beating a level 80 instance boss, two for a 'heroic' version, etc.)
Gestalt
None of the things you list make a game more challenging. Yes they do add extra stress compared to some RPGs. But they add no challenge. Don't mistake an adrenaline rush for challenge.
Yes they do. They might not increase the challenge for you because you're just so awesome but is what challenges you a reasonable definition of challenge?
Let's take a more sensible definition of what a challenge is e.g the percentage of mmorpg players who could complete a certain task within say three attempts. Let's say the task is to get a specified character down to the bottom of a dungeon full of same-level mobs and get some loot off the mob at the bottom.
-- it could be impossible i.e all unbeatable heroic mobs. Which isn't a challenge at all.
-- it could be set so 100% of players could do it on the first attempt. Which isn't a challenge at all either.
-- it could be set so 80% of players could do it withing three attempts.
-- it could be set so 20% of players could do it within three attempts.
The last is what i would call challenging and the points i made about how EQ made the PvE more challenging did make the PvE more challenging by that (sensible) numerical definition. In words i'd say "challenging" means how many mistakes can a player make and still not die. "None" is a bit too challenging for my taste except in small doses but if the answer is any higher than "two" and i'll be getting bored.
(I didn't really want to get into the death penalty thing but even that *did* make the battles harder because the thought of a nasty CR made people more likely to panic.)
Now that level of challenge might be fine in a group game (as long as people can find people to group with) as the 80% could just form a group. However in a solo based game that 80% would get frustrated and leave. Even if the difficulty was set at the third option then in a solo game you're basically going to lose 20% of your potential market.
Which brings us to the real crux of it all - something entirely self-evident - but something which people still feel the need to argue over.
-- Solo games *have* to be designed to be beatable by the weakest solo class.
-- If a solo game wants to maximize their players it *has* to be designed to be beatable by the least capable solo players playing the least soloable class.
Commercially speaking, if you want to maximize the potential player base, the difficulty of a solo game has to be set such that an averagely intelligent ten year old (or even a dumb ten year old) could easily solo to max level with the least soloable class.
Logic dictates they *have* to be that way (if they want to mazimize their potential players.)
(It's an exact analogy with the low vs high level graphics argument. If a game wants to maximize their potential pool of players they have to design the game to run reasonably well on low end machines. Not only does that maximize the pool of players directly there is also the indirect effect of players liking to feel the world is well populated. So if the world pop is low because the technical requirements are high-end, then even people with high-end machines will start to leave because there aren't enough people. Vice versa for games with low-end system specs.)
EQ had a 1001 things wrong with it but the general PvE was more challenging by any sensible definition.
Personally as someone who likes challenging soloing my compromise ideal would be a game designed as a low to medium difficulty group game - which as long as the game doesn't use heroic type mobs should automatically provide high difficulty soloing - with a hard level group mode on top e.g an open dungeon designed to be low to medium group difficulty and high solo difficulty with an instanced boss section at the bottom of the dungeon with "regular", "hard" and "heroic" options (where the "regular" could be soloed if the player outlevelled it a bit).
On the subject of difficulty, City of Heroes allows you to scale your difficulty on the fly through the use of an NPC.
More of that sort of thing would be a solution - like a game's default difficulty could be set so your ten year old could easily play while for your own characters you clicked some options that made things harder.