Seriously I do think there is a sweet spot between needing a pen and graph paper to map a game and having your hand held with day glow signs. It does not have to be one or the other. We just need some gaming companies who are willing to risk trying to find where that sweet spot is.
There *is* a sweet spot. The sweet spot is where we are today where you can have all the maps, mini-maps and quest marked on the map, and the option to turn them off.
Gamers will always take the easy option when in multiplayer. Turning of the map system can work in single player but not in MMO's. I prefer more difficulty but what am I going to say to my guild? "Ok guys lets all not use the map system to make the game harder" I would never expect them to tie their hands together while others are racing ahead. Or I could remove mapping just for me, what do I say when we are meeting up - "I will be a bit late as I don't use the mapping tools?"
I think you are seeing this from the perspective of a solo player who likes to play MMO's. The more you interact in a MMO, the more problems there are with variable difficulty.
As we talked about before, if you offer rewards for doing something the hard way, then yes variable difficulty could work, but I have only seen that work in dungeon difficulty settings.
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Gamers will always take the easy option when in multiplayer. Turning of the map system can work in single player but not in MMO's. I prefer more difficulty but what am I going to say to my guild? "Ok guys lets all not use the map system to make the game harder" I would never expect them to tie their hands together while others are racing ahead. Or I could remove mapping just for me, what do I say when we are meeting up - "I will be a bit late as I don't use the mapping tools?"
I think you are seeing this from the perspective of a solo player who likes to play MMO's. The more you interact in a MMO, the more problems there are with variable difficulty.
As we talked about before, if you offer rewards for doing something the hard way, then yes variable difficulty could work, but I have only seen that work in dungeon difficulty settings.