Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by Quirhid Originally posted by Holophonist
Dark Souls' difficulty is self-imposed. Some of the classes are significantly harder than others. Not to mention you can grind your way to power at any time without content scaling.
But you're not representing difficulty sliders fairly. If you look at Bioware's games (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Mass Effect trilogy) often the ruleset changes. For example, at one setting friendly fire might be off, while on another it could be half or full. AI crits might be turned on/off.
Often, in games, more mobs are placed in the map, abilities are unlocked, mob behavior is altered. Are you saying you have not encountered any of this? Surely you have, and you must have seen that it is not about altering stats only.
Again, if you are going to implement sliders badly then of course they will be bad.
No.... I'm not saying I haven't encountered any of that. Are you saying that any game with a difficulty slider does so by changing the whole game design? Or all design changes that would occur if the developers made it specifically for that difficulty level? Naming a couple of design changes in games does not prove anything. What would prove it is if there was a slider that changed everything about the game design that pertains to difficulty. That includes a lot of things. And if it doesn't change those things, then the game is different from what it would be if they made it with one difficulty in mind.
Also, think about it, if they're focusing their efforts that much on a difficulty slider (where the game design itself changes with the slider), then that's wasted resources that could've been spent on just one difficulty.
EDIT: Also, dark souls' difficulty is not self-imposed. I guess maybe some of it is because there are some classes that are weaker than others, but that's true in basically any game ever. When looking at the difficulty of a game you obviously average those things out.
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
No none of this is correct or relevant. I'm not bringing up the worst examples. I'm saying there NO "perfect" examples. There are no difficulty sliders that change everything about the game. Games are DESIGNED around a certain amount of difficulty. Sometimes it's even in the lack of information fed to you. How do you have a difficulty slider that changes that? That changes when certain NPCs will tell you where to go, or how to do something? I'm sure it's possible to do that, but nobody has done it yet because it would be way too much work to redesign the game for different difficulty levels. Tldr difficulty = more than just changing stats, which is what difficulty sliders do.
Blizzard implemented flex raiding to de-emphasize the cesspool that was LFR. The problem was that everyone ran LFR (Because it was the easiest way to get gear) But very few people LIKED it. Can you with a straight face tell me that facerolling in LFR was a fun experience for you? Really? If you do I don't believe you..
Do you actually have statistical evidence or you just know 3 friends who hate it?
I liked it .. LFR is why i came back and played CATA before i quit for good. It is a great way to do some casual raiding with zero commitments.
Dark Souls' difficulty is self-imposed. Some of the classes are significantly harder than others. Not to mention you can grind your way to power at any time without content scaling.
But you're not representing difficulty sliders fairly. If you look at Bioware's games (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Mass Effect trilogy) often the ruleset changes. For example, at one setting friendly fire might be off, while on another it could be half or full. AI crits might be turned on/off.
Often, in games, more mobs are placed in the map, abilities are unlocked, mob behavior is altered. Are you saying you have not encountered any of this? Surely you have, and you must have seen that it is not about altering stats only.
Again, if you are going to implement sliders badly then of course they will be bad.
No.... I'm not saying I haven't encountered any of that. Are you saying that any game with a difficulty slider does so by changing the whole game design? Or all design changes that would occur if the developers made it specifically for that difficulty level? Naming a couple of design changes in games does not prove anything. What would prove it is if there was a slider that changed everything about the game design that pertains to difficulty. That includes a lot of things. And if it doesn't change those things, then the game is different from what it would be if they made it with one difficulty in mind.
Also, think about it, if they're focusing their efforts that much on a difficulty slider (where the game design itself changes with the slider), then that's wasted resources that could've been spent on just one difficulty.
EDIT: Also, dark souls' difficulty is not self-imposed. I guess maybe some of it is because there are some classes that are weaker than others, but that's true in basically any game ever. When looking at the difficulty of a game you obviously average those things out.
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
No none of this is correct or relevant. I'm not bringing up the worst examples. I'm saying there NO "perfect" examples. There are no difficulty sliders that change everything about the game. Games are DESIGNED around a certain amount of difficulty. Sometimes it's even in the lack of information fed to you. How do you have a difficulty slider that changes that? That changes when certain NPCs will tell you where to go, or how to do something? I'm sure it's possible to do that, but nobody has done it yet because it would be way too much work to redesign the game for different difficulty levels. Tldr difficulty = more than just changing stats, which is what difficulty sliders do.
But I just told you they don't "just change stats"!
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Blizzard implemented flex raiding to de-emphasize the cesspool that was LFR. The problem was that everyone ran LFR (Because it was the easiest way to get gear) But very few people LIKED it. Can you with a straight face tell me that facerolling in LFR was a fun experience for you? Really? If you do I don't believe you..
Do you actually have statistical evidence or you just know 3 friends who hate it?
I liked it .. LFR is why i came back and played CATA before i quit for good. It is a great way to do some casual raiding with zero commitments.
I don't have access to Blizzard's internal polling numbers and such - and either do you. But I do know they created flex in response to the criticisms leveled at LFR and there are literally thousands of players posting on the boards that they never wanted to experience the cesspool that was LFR again. Over and over these players would explain they felt 'compelled' to do LFR because of the rewards.
If you really did LFR you would know that AFK players were very common there - and they would receive loot and that almost all raid mechanics can be ignored and success achieved. This is what happens with a path of low resistance - people flock to that EVEN IF the gameplay is not very rewarding..
But of course someone who likes the 2-D simpleton gameplay of DIablo III wouldn't get this. Anyway its very possible to find yourself addicted to something - and yet hate it. This is the exact problem that Blizzard was having. They had a nice casino like reward system going and yet combined that with basically non-existent gameplay.
Blizzard can give strong rewards to any aspect of the game and gets lots of players playing that aspect. If you got better gear in PVP people might do that (assuming it took less time), or if dungeon gear outpaces raid gear people do that..
You think 'sliders' are the perfect solution - but they solved nothing because people in a competitive world slide it down to easy and then get the most rewards they could. Even in your favorite game Diablo III tons of people played it on the very easy normal mode and then quit after that..
People do not automatically find the right level for their own enjoyment. Its counter-intuitive to some but its how gaming works. Blizzard was at its strongest when it gently nudged its player base to improve their gameplay via prestige and superior rewards for the more dedicated/talented players.
Their 'accessibility' campaign has done nothing for them.. The game was already accessible but if you wanted to do everything you had to be the best. Designing content like this has proven to be the more successful paradigm in MMOs.
Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by Quirhid Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by Quirhid Originally posted by Holophonist
Dark Souls' difficulty is self-imposed. Some of the classes are significantly harder than others. Not to mention you can grind your way to power at any time without content scaling.
But you're not representing difficulty sliders fairly. If you look at Bioware's games (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Mass Effect trilogy) often the ruleset changes. For example, at one setting friendly fire might be off, while on another it could be half or full. AI crits might be turned on/off.
Often, in games, more mobs are placed in the map, abilities are unlocked, mob behavior is altered. Are you saying you have not encountered any of this? Surely you have, and you must have seen that it is not about altering stats only.
Again, if you are going to implement sliders badly then of course they will be bad.
No.... I'm not saying I haven't encountered any of that. Are you saying that any game with a difficulty slider does so by changing the whole game design? Or all design changes that would occur if the developers made it specifically for that difficulty level? Naming a couple of design changes in games does not prove anything. What would prove it is if there was a slider that changed everything about the game design that pertains to difficulty. That includes a lot of things. And if it doesn't change those things, then the game is different from what it would be if they made it with one difficulty in mind.
Also, think about it, if they're focusing their efforts that much on a difficulty slider (where the game design itself changes with the slider), then that's wasted resources that could've been spent on just one difficulty.
EDIT: Also, dark souls' difficulty is not self-imposed. I guess maybe some of it is because there are some classes that are weaker than others, but that's true in basically any game ever. When looking at the difficulty of a game you obviously average those things out.
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
No none of this is correct or relevant. I'm not bringing up the worst examples. I'm saying there NO "perfect" examples. There are no difficulty sliders that change everything about the game. Games are DESIGNED around a certain amount of difficulty. Sometimes it's even in the lack of information fed to you. How do you have a difficulty slider that changes that? That changes when certain NPCs will tell you where to go, or how to do something? I'm sure it's possible to do that, but nobody has done it yet because it would be way too much work to redesign the game for different difficulty levels. Tldr difficulty = more than just changing stats, which is what difficulty sliders do.
But I just told you they don't "just change stats"!
It was shorthand. The bottom line is that none of them completely redesign the game. As I said, a great many things go into what makes a game difficult.
Originally posted by nariusseldon Originally posted by GuyClinch
Blizzard implemented flex raiding to de-emphasize the cesspool that was LFR. The problem was that everyone ran LFR (Because it was the easiest way to get gear) But very few people LIKED it. Can you with a straight face tell me that facerolling in LFR was a fun experience for you? Really? If you do I don't believe you..
Do you actually have statistical evidence or you just know 3 friends who hate it?
I liked it .. LFR is why i came back and played CATA before i quit for good. It is a great way to do some casual raiding with zero commitments.
I don't have access to Blizzard's internal polling numbers and such - and either do you. But I do know they created flex in response to the criticisms leveled at LFR and there are literally thousands of players posting on the boards that they never wanted to experience the cesspool that was LFR again. Over and over these players would explain they felt 'compelled' to do LFR because of the rewards.
If you really did LFR you would know that AFK players were very common there - and they would receive loot and that almost all raid mechanics can be ignored and success achieved. This is what happens with a path of low resistance - people flock to that EVEN IF the gameplay is not very rewarding..
But of course someone who likes the 2-D simpleton gameplay of DIablo III wouldn't get this. Anyway its very possible to find yourself addicted to something - and yet hate it. This is the exact problem that Blizzard was having. They had a nice casino like reward system going and yet combined that with basically non-existent gameplay.
Blizzard can give strong rewards to any aspect of the game and gets lots of players playing that aspect. If you got better gear in PVP people might do that (assuming it took less time), or if dungeon gear outpaces raid gear people do that..
You think 'sliders' are the perfect solution - but they solved nothing because people in a competitive world slide it down to easy and then get the most rewards they could. Even in your favorite game Diablo III tons of people played it on the very easy normal mode and then quit after that..
People do not automatically find the right level for their own enjoyment. Its counter-intuitive to some but its how gaming works. Blizzard was at its strongest when it gently nudged its player base to improve their gameplay via prestige and superior rewards for the more dedicated/talented players.
Their 'accessibility' campaign has done nothing for them.. The game was already accessible but if you wanted to do everything you had to be the best. Designing content like this has proven to be the more successful paradigm in MMOs.
This is another good argument against sliders, though it's different from mine. People get better when pushed. If you make it easier to give in and lower the difficulty, then obviously more people will. Conversely making something way too hard with no way to lower the difficulty will result in people quitting. You want that sweet spot where people are encouraged to improve.
You think 'sliders' are the perfect solution - but they solved nothing because people in a competitive world slide it down to easy and then get the most rewards they could. Even in your favorite game Diablo III tons of people played it on the very easy normal mode and then quit after that..
So what? If that is how they enjoy the game (play it on easy normal then quit) ... then the slider enable them to do that. It is better than making it Dark Soul hard, and all these people will quit before they even finish the first run through.
You can't deny there is huge complaints about Act 3 & 4 Inferno are too difficult before the slide is put in, and there is little complaint about difficulty after the slider is put. Just serve the D3 forums.
And you don't seem to even understand what the D3 slider does. You don't get the most reward if you slide the difficulty down. Heck, you can't even get end-game legendary drops if your difficulty is below torment. That is the beauty of it .... a trade-off between difficulty and rewards. I suppose anything in games you don;t like .. you won't understand.
And all this hoopla about people using the easiest option ... just go the the D3 board here and read .. no one is doing that .. at least for people who post.
This is another good argument against sliders, though it's different from mine. People get better when pushed. If you make it easier to give in and lower the difficulty, then obviously more people will. Conversely making something way too hard with no way to lower the difficulty will result in people quitting. You want that sweet spot where people are encouraged to improve.
The fallacy in this argument is that that spot is different for everyone, so you can't do it .. unless you have a slider. In fact, a slide with different reward level does exactly that.
People improve from lower to higher difficulty to get more rewards.
You think 'sliders' are the perfect solution - but they solved nothing because people in a competitive world slide it down to easy and then get the most rewards they could. Even in your favorite game Diablo III tons of people played it on the very easy normal mode and then quit after that..
So what? If that is how they enjoy the game (play it on easy normal then quit) ... then the slider enable them to do that. It is better than making it Dark Soul hard, and all these people will quit before they even finish the first run through.
You can't deny there is huge complaints about Act 3 & 4 Inferno are too difficult before the slide is put in, and there is little complaint about difficulty after the slider is put. Just serve the D3 forums.
And you don't seem to even understand what the D3 slider does. You don't get the most reward if you slide the difficulty down. Heck, you can't even get end-game legendary drops if your difficulty is below torment. That is the beauty of it .... a trade-off between difficulty and rewards. I suppose anything in games you don;t like .. you won't understand.
And all this hoopla about people using the easiest option ... just go the the D3 board here and read .. no one is doing that .. at least for people who post.
You're assuming that people can't be pushed or nudged into improving, or that they won't be glad that they did. You're just assuming that a person is always right about what he wants to do, and that being shown something else won't ever be more enjoyable for them.
This is another good argument against sliders, though it's different from mine. People get better when pushed. If you make it easier to give in and lower the difficulty, then obviously more people will. Conversely making something way too hard with no way to lower the difficulty will result in people quitting. You want that sweet spot where people are encouraged to improve.
The fallacy in this argument is that that spot is different for everyone, so you can't do it .. unless you have a slider. In fact, a slide with different reward level does exactly that.
People improve from lower to higher difficulty to get more rewards.
No there's no fallacy in my argument because I don't assume that every game is for everybody. I know full well that some people will like the game's difficulty, and some will not. By making it a game "for everybody", you're making it worse for people than if they had played a game that is TAILORED to their preferred range.
Challenge for me is playing against people, PvP. So the difficulty is dictated by how good my opponent is. How would you change the difficulty in a PvE game without a difficulty setting, or A.I that learns?
OP, it is pretty simple why MMO's are too easy now. New generation of kids and all these born in year 1990 and above are too retarded to handle anything harder. That's why I stick with old tittles like EvE Online. Edit - Also you can blame the whole world system, which made education more simpler than before.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.? -Albert Einstein
"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent" - Qui-gon Jinn. After many years of reading Internet forums, there's no doubt that neither does the ability to write. So if you notice that I'm no longer answering your nonsense, stop trying... because you just joined my block list.
This is another good argument against sliders, though it's different from mine. People get better when pushed. If you make it easier to give in and lower the difficulty, then obviously more people will. Conversely making something way too hard with no way to lower the difficulty will result in people quitting. You want that sweet spot where people are encouraged to improve.
The fallacy in this argument is that that spot is different for everyone, so you can't do it .. unless you have a slider. In fact, a slide with different reward level does exactly that.
People improve from lower to higher difficulty to get more rewards.
No there's no fallacy in my argument because I don't assume that every game is for everybody. I know full well that some people will like the game's difficulty, and some will not. By making it a game "for everybody", you're making it worse for people than if they had played a game that is TAILORED to their preferred range.
Unless you assume a game is made for only ONE individual, your argument would not work. Games like Diablo 3 are played by millions .. and obviously the audience have a variety of difficulty levels. Hence, a successful game like that cannot cater to all its audience without a difficulty slider.
I doubt you will dispute a successful game has an audience in the millions. I also doubt you can dispute all of the millions play are the same.
You're assuming that people can't be pushed or nudged into improving, or that they won't be glad that they did. You're just assuming that a person is always right about what he wants to do, and that being shown something else won't ever be more enjoyable for them.
I did not such thing. In fact, a difficulty slider is great for learning. After you learn, you can up the difficulty and stride for even better rewards. You cannot do that in a game with just one difficulty setting.
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
No none of this is correct or relevant. I'm not bringing up the worst examples. I'm saying there NO "perfect" examples. There are no difficulty sliders that change everything about the game. Games are DESIGNED around a certain amount of difficulty. Sometimes it's even in the lack of information fed to you. How do you have a difficulty slider that changes that? That changes when certain NPCs will tell you where to go, or how to do something? I'm sure it's possible to do that, but nobody has done it yet because it would be way too much work to redesign the game for different difficulty levels. Tldr difficulty = more than just changing stats, which is what difficulty sliders do.
But I just told you they don't "just change stats"!
It was shorthand. The bottom line is that none of them completely redesign the game. As I said, a great many things go into what makes a game difficult.
But you don't need to adjust everything to adjust difficulty. You are making no sense by insisting that they did.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by Quirhid Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by Quirhid Originally posted by Holophonist
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
No none of this is correct or relevant. I'm not bringing up the worst examples. I'm saying there NO "perfect" examples. There are no difficulty sliders that change everything about the game. Games are DESIGNED around a certain amount of difficulty. Sometimes it's even in the lack of information fed to you. How do you have a difficulty slider that changes that? That changes when certain NPCs will tell you where to go, or how to do something? I'm sure it's possible to do that, but nobody has done it yet because it would be way too much work to redesign the game for different difficulty levels. Tldr difficulty = more than just changing stats, which is what difficulty sliders do.
But I just told you they don't "just change stats"!
It was shorthand. The bottom line is that none of them completely redesign the game. As I said, a great many things go into what makes a game difficult.
But you don't need to adjust everything to adjust difficulty. You are making no sense by insisting that they did.
I'm not sure how you aren't getting this. I'm not saying difficulty sliders won't adjust the difficulty. I'm saying it's not a "perfect solution" like narius claims. Difficulty sliders do make the game more/less difficult. The problem that I'm talking about is that those different versions of the game (the different difficulty levels) are not what the game would be like if it were DESIGNED around that specific difficulty level. Difficulty sliders don't totally redesign the game. And a lot of time the difficulty of the game is inherent in the game design.
Originally posted by Holophonist Originally posted by nariusseldon Originally posted by Holophonist
This is another good argument against sliders, though it's different from mine. People get better when pushed. If you make it easier to give in and lower the difficulty, then obviously more people will. Conversely making something way too hard with no way to lower the difficulty will result in people quitting. You want that sweet spot where people are encouraged to improve.
The fallacy in this argument is that that spot is different for everyone, so you can't do it .. unless you have a slider. In fact, a slide with different reward level does exactly that.
People improve from lower to higher difficulty to get more rewards.
No there's no fallacy in my argument because I don't assume that every game is for everybody. I know full well that some people will like the game's difficulty, and some will not. By making it a game "for everybody", you're making it worse for people than if they had played a game that is TAILORED to their preferred range.
Unless you assume a game is made for only ONE individual, your argument would not work. Games like Diablo 3 are played by millions .. and obviously the audience have a variety of difficulty levels. Hence, a successful game like that cannot cater to all its audience without a difficulty slider.
I doubt you will dispute a successful game has an audience in the millions. I also doubt you can dispute all of the millions play are the same.
I don't care how many people play it. The point is the game will be more poorly designed if it isn't designed for a specific difficulty level. A difficulty slider doesn't change every aspect of the game that pertains to difficulty, so it's not a perfect compromise, like you say it is. You use it in discussions all the time when somebody mentions that they want harder games. You say "just use a difficulty slider! Everybody wins!" This isn't true.
You're assuming that people can't be pushed or nudged into improving, or that they won't be glad that they did. You're just assuming that a person is always right about what he wants to do, and that being shown something else won't ever be more enjoyable for them.
I did not such thing. In fact, a difficulty slider is great for learning. After you learn, you can up the difficulty and stride for even better rewards. You cannot do that in a game with just one difficulty setting.
Thank you for making my point.
Only if you are capable of pushing yourself. No difficulty slider is better for being pushed because you don't have the temptation of turning it down.
Only if you are capable of pushing yourself. No difficulty slider is better for being pushed because you don't have the temptation of turning it down.
Many people will want the game as challenging as possible and still push themselves even with a slider just to make the game more interesting. And if people want the game easy what's the point of forcing difficulty on them?
Only if you are capable of pushing yourself. No difficulty slider is better for being pushed because you don't have the temptation of turning it down.
Many people will want the game as challenging as possible and still push themselves even with a slider just to make the game more interesting. And if people want the game easy what's the point of forcing difficulty on them?
the point is to eliminate temptation. Nobody is forcing anybody. This person would willingly be buying this game
the point is to eliminate temptation. Nobody is forcing anybody. This person would willingly be buying this game
By taking out options you are forcing them to play the game a certain way (having the choice not to buy the game doesn't really count as a choice surely).
I don't see what the advantage is to make people avoid temptation? If they want to play the game on a mode that's too easy for them it's their loss.
This might not be about difficult either. Lack of world immersion draws out the level of difficulty. I've always parroted the same line, "there is no hard in a video game". It's 0's and 1's, can and can't but if you are immersed in the game you don't stop and ask if it's hard or easy because it's fun.
Learning from the masters, WoW, EVE Online, DAoC, EQ. How did they immerse people where games now can't seem to do it?
the point is to eliminate temptation. Nobody is forcing anybody. This person would willingly be buying this game
By taking out options you are forcing them to play the game a certain way (having the choice not to buy the game doesn't really count as a choice surely).
I don't see what the advantage is to make people avoid temptation? If they want to play the game on a mode that's too easy for them it's their loss.
Well you just answered your own question: it's their loss. People will often choose the path of least resistance, often at a net decrease in satisfaction. By not giving you the option to turn down the difficulty, it helps you push yourself when you might not otherwise.
Also, games "force" you to do things all the time. People on this site love to use that word as if it means something significant.
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
No none of this is correct or relevant. I'm not bringing up the worst examples. I'm saying there NO "perfect" examples. There are no difficulty sliders that change everything about the game. Games are DESIGNED around a certain amount of difficulty. Sometimes it's even in the lack of information fed to you. How do you have a difficulty slider that changes that? That changes when certain NPCs will tell you where to go, or how to do something? I'm sure it's possible to do that, but nobody has done it yet because it would be way too much work to redesign the game for different difficulty levels. Tldr difficulty = more than just changing stats, which is what difficulty sliders do.
But I just told you they don't "just change stats"!
It was shorthand. The bottom line is that none of them completely redesign the game. As I said, a great many things go into what makes a game difficult.
But you don't need to adjust everything to adjust difficulty. You are making no sense by insisting that they did.
I'm not sure how you aren't getting this. I'm not saying difficulty sliders won't adjust the difficulty. I'm saying it's not a "perfect solution" like narius claims. Difficulty sliders do make the game more/less difficult. The problem that I'm talking about is that those different versions of the game (the different difficulty levels) are not what the game would be like if it were DESIGNED around that specific difficulty level. Difficulty sliders don't totally redesign the game. And a lot of time the difficulty of the game is inherent in the game design.
But you don't know that they would be different. That is what I was trying to tell you earlier. They could be exactly the same for all we knew.
Say you designed a game with medium difficulty: What is to stop you from simply adding easy and hard difficulties? Medium difficulty remains the same, but hard and easy difficulties might very well be the same settings they would've been implemented if the game had only easy or hard difficulty. There's no way to be sure.
Also, like narius said, nobody is customizing a game for just one person, so there is little point in talking about "ideal solutions".
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Comments
Dark Souls' difficulty is self-imposed. Some of the classes are significantly harder than others. Not to mention you can grind your way to power at any time without content scaling.
But you're not representing difficulty sliders fairly. If you look at Bioware's games (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Mass Effect trilogy) often the ruleset changes. For example, at one setting friendly fire might be off, while on another it could be half or full. AI crits might be turned on/off.
Often, in games, more mobs are placed in the map, abilities are unlocked, mob behavior is altered. Are you saying you have not encountered any of this? Surely you have, and you must have seen that it is not about altering stats only.
Again, if you are going to implement sliders badly then of course they will be bad.
No.... I'm not saying I haven't encountered any of that. Are you saying that any game with a difficulty slider does so by changing the whole game design? Or all design changes that would occur if the developers made it specifically for that difficulty level? Naming a couple of design changes in games does not prove anything. What would prove it is if there was a slider that changed everything about the game design that pertains to difficulty. That includes a lot of things. And if it doesn't change those things, then the game is different from what it would be if they made it with one difficulty in mind.
Also, think about it, if they're focusing their efforts that much on a difficulty slider (where the game design itself changes with the slider), then that's wasted resources that could've been spent on just one difficulty.
EDIT: Also, dark souls' difficulty is not self-imposed. I guess maybe some of it is because there are some classes that are weaker than others, but that's true in basically any game ever. When looking at the difficulty of a game you obviously average those things out.
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
No none of this is correct or relevant. I'm not bringing up the worst examples. I'm saying there NO "perfect" examples. There are no difficulty sliders that change everything about the game. Games are DESIGNED around a certain amount of difficulty. Sometimes it's even in the lack of information fed to you. How do you have a difficulty slider that changes that? That changes when certain NPCs will tell you where to go, or how to do something? I'm sure it's possible to do that, but nobody has done it yet because it would be way too much work to redesign the game for different difficulty levels. Tldr difficulty = more than just changing stats, which is what difficulty sliders do.Do you actually have statistical evidence or you just know 3 friends who hate it?
I liked it .. LFR is why i came back and played CATA before i quit for good. It is a great way to do some casual raiding with zero commitments.
Just use it for co-op instance then. It works great in D3, and SP games.
But I just told you they don't "just change stats"!
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I don't have access to Blizzard's internal polling numbers and such - and either do you. But I do know they created flex in response to the criticisms leveled at LFR and there are literally thousands of players posting on the boards that they never wanted to experience the cesspool that was LFR again. Over and over these players would explain they felt 'compelled' to do LFR because of the rewards.
If you really did LFR you would know that AFK players were very common there - and they would receive loot and that almost all raid mechanics can be ignored and success achieved. This is what happens with a path of low resistance - people flock to that EVEN IF the gameplay is not very rewarding..
But of course someone who likes the 2-D simpleton gameplay of DIablo III wouldn't get this. Anyway its very possible to find yourself addicted to something - and yet hate it. This is the exact problem that Blizzard was having. They had a nice casino like reward system going and yet combined that with basically non-existent gameplay.
Blizzard can give strong rewards to any aspect of the game and gets lots of players playing that aspect. If you got better gear in PVP people might do that (assuming it took less time), or if dungeon gear outpaces raid gear people do that..
You think 'sliders' are the perfect solution - but they solved nothing because people in a competitive world slide it down to easy and then get the most rewards they could. Even in your favorite game Diablo III tons of people played it on the very easy normal mode and then quit after that..
People do not automatically find the right level for their own enjoyment. Its counter-intuitive to some but its how gaming works. Blizzard was at its strongest when it gently nudged its player base to improve their gameplay via prestige and superior rewards for the more dedicated/talented players.
Their 'accessibility' campaign has done nothing for them.. The game was already accessible but if you wanted to do everything you had to be the best. Designing content like this has proven to be the more successful paradigm in MMOs.
Dark Souls' difficulty is self-imposed. Some of the classes are significantly harder than others. Not to mention you can grind your way to power at any time without content scaling.
But you're not representing difficulty sliders fairly. If you look at Bioware's games (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Dragon Age 1 & 2, Mass Effect trilogy) often the ruleset changes. For example, at one setting friendly fire might be off, while on another it could be half or full. AI crits might be turned on/off.
Often, in games, more mobs are placed in the map, abilities are unlocked, mob behavior is altered. Are you saying you have not encountered any of this? Surely you have, and you must have seen that it is not about altering stats only.
Again, if you are going to implement sliders badly then of course they will be bad.
No.... I'm not saying I haven't encountered any of that. Are you saying that any game with a difficulty slider does so by changing the whole game design? Or all design changes that would occur if the developers made it specifically for that difficulty level? Naming a couple of design changes in games does not prove anything. What would prove it is if there was a slider that changed everything about the game design that pertains to difficulty. That includes a lot of things. And if it doesn't change those things, then the game is different from what it would be if they made it with one difficulty in mind.
Also, think about it, if they're focusing their efforts that much on a difficulty slider (where the game design itself changes with the slider), then that's wasted resources that could've been spent on just one difficulty.
EDIT: Also, dark souls' difficulty is not self-imposed. I guess maybe some of it is because there are some classes that are weaker than others, but that's true in basically any game ever. When looking at the difficulty of a game you obviously average those things out.
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
No none of this is correct or relevant. I'm not bringing up the worst examples. I'm saying there NO "perfect" examples. There are no difficulty sliders that change everything about the game. Games are DESIGNED around a certain amount of difficulty. Sometimes it's even in the lack of information fed to you. How do you have a difficulty slider that changes that? That changes when certain NPCs will tell you where to go, or how to do something? I'm sure it's possible to do that, but nobody has done it yet because it would be way too much work to redesign the game for different difficulty levels. Tldr difficulty = more than just changing stats, which is what difficulty sliders do.But I just told you they don't "just change stats"!
It was shorthand. The bottom line is that none of them completely redesign the game. As I said, a great many things go into what makes a game difficult.Blizzard implemented flex raiding to de-emphasize the cesspool that was LFR. The problem was that everyone ran LFR (Because it was the easiest way to get gear) But very few people LIKED it. Can you with a straight face tell me that facerolling in LFR was a fun experience for you? Really? If you do I don't believe you..
Do you actually have statistical evidence or you just know 3 friends who hate it?
I liked it .. LFR is why i came back and played CATA before i quit for good. It is a great way to do some casual raiding with zero commitments.
I don't have access to Blizzard's internal polling numbers and such - and either do you. But I do know they created flex in response to the criticisms leveled at LFR and there are literally thousands of players posting on the boards that they never wanted to experience the cesspool that was LFR again. Over and over these players would explain they felt 'compelled' to do LFR because of the rewards.
If you really did LFR you would know that AFK players were very common there - and they would receive loot and that almost all raid mechanics can be ignored and success achieved. This is what happens with a path of low resistance - people flock to that EVEN IF the gameplay is not very rewarding..
But of course someone who likes the 2-D simpleton gameplay of DIablo III wouldn't get this. Anyway its very possible to find yourself addicted to something - and yet hate it. This is the exact problem that Blizzard was having. They had a nice casino like reward system going and yet combined that with basically non-existent gameplay.
Blizzard can give strong rewards to any aspect of the game and gets lots of players playing that aspect. If you got better gear in PVP people might do that (assuming it took less time), or if dungeon gear outpaces raid gear people do that..
You think 'sliders' are the perfect solution - but they solved nothing because people in a competitive world slide it down to easy and then get the most rewards they could. Even in your favorite game Diablo III tons of people played it on the very easy normal mode and then quit after that..
People do not automatically find the right level for their own enjoyment. Its counter-intuitive to some but its how gaming works. Blizzard was at its strongest when it gently nudged its player base to improve their gameplay via prestige and superior rewards for the more dedicated/talented players.
Their 'accessibility' campaign has done nothing for them.. The game was already accessible but if you wanted to do everything you had to be the best. Designing content like this has proven to be the more successful paradigm in MMOs.
This is another good argument against sliders, though it's different from mine. People get better when pushed. If you make it easier to give in and lower the difficulty, then obviously more people will. Conversely making something way too hard with no way to lower the difficulty will result in people quitting. You want that sweet spot where people are encouraged to improve.So what? If that is how they enjoy the game (play it on easy normal then quit) ... then the slider enable them to do that. It is better than making it Dark Soul hard, and all these people will quit before they even finish the first run through.
You can't deny there is huge complaints about Act 3 & 4 Inferno are too difficult before the slide is put in, and there is little complaint about difficulty after the slider is put. Just serve the D3 forums.
And you don't seem to even understand what the D3 slider does. You don't get the most reward if you slide the difficulty down. Heck, you can't even get end-game legendary drops if your difficulty is below torment. That is the beauty of it .... a trade-off between difficulty and rewards. I suppose anything in games you don;t like .. you won't understand.
And all this hoopla about people using the easiest option ... just go the the D3 board here and read .. no one is doing that .. at least for people who post.
The fallacy in this argument is that that spot is different for everyone, so you can't do it .. unless you have a slider. In fact, a slide with different reward level does exactly that.
People improve from lower to higher difficulty to get more rewards.
So what? If that is how they enjoy the game (play it on easy normal then quit) ... then the slider enable them to do that. It is better than making it Dark Soul hard, and all these people will quit before they even finish the first run through.
You can't deny there is huge complaints about Act 3 & 4 Inferno are too difficult before the slide is put in, and there is little complaint about difficulty after the slider is put. Just serve the D3 forums.
And you don't seem to even understand what the D3 slider does. You don't get the most reward if you slide the difficulty down. Heck, you can't even get end-game legendary drops if your difficulty is below torment. That is the beauty of it .... a trade-off between difficulty and rewards. I suppose anything in games you don;t like .. you won't understand.
And all this hoopla about people using the easiest option ... just go the the D3 board here and read .. no one is doing that .. at least for people who post.
You're assuming that people can't be pushed or nudged into improving, or that they won't be glad that they did. You're just assuming that a person is always right about what he wants to do, and that being shown something else won't ever be more enjoyable for them.The fallacy in this argument is that that spot is different for everyone, so you can't do it .. unless you have a slider. In fact, a slide with different reward level does exactly that.
People improve from lower to higher difficulty to get more rewards.
No there's no fallacy in my argument because I don't assume that every game is for everybody. I know full well that some people will like the game's difficulty, and some will not. By making it a game "for everybody", you're making it worse for people than if they had played a game that is TAILORED to their preferred range.Challenge for me is playing against people, PvP. So the difficulty is dictated by how good my opponent is. How would you change the difficulty in a PvE game without a difficulty setting, or A.I that learns?
OP, it is pretty simple why MMO's are too easy now. New generation of kids and all these born in year 1990 and above are too retarded to handle anything harder. That's why I stick with old tittles like EvE Online. Edit - Also you can blame the whole world system, which made education more simpler than before.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.? -Albert Einstein
"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent" - Qui-gon Jinn. After many years of reading Internet forums, there's no doubt that neither does the ability to write.
So if you notice that I'm no longer answering your nonsense, stop trying... because you just joined my block list.
Unless you assume a game is made for only ONE individual, your argument would not work. Games like Diablo 3 are played by millions .. and obviously the audience have a variety of difficulty levels. Hence, a successful game like that cannot cater to all its audience without a difficulty slider.
I doubt you will dispute a successful game has an audience in the millions. I also doubt you can dispute all of the millions play are the same.
I did not such thing. In fact, a difficulty slider is great for learning. After you learn, you can up the difficulty and stride for even better rewards. You cannot do that in a game with just one difficulty setting.
Thank you for making my point.
But you don't need to adjust everything to adjust difficulty. You are making no sense by insisting that they did.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Eh... Of course the implementation of difficulty sliders varies from game to game. That is my point. What you are doing is bring up only badly implemented difficulty sliders as an example of difficulty sliders as a whole. It is the equivalent of me saying "Mortal Online shows how bad the sandbox design is". It is not fair to bring out the worst to represent the whole.
I don't need to prove anything. You don't know which aspects of the game are adjusted when the developers are setting the difficulty to a game that has no sliders. Some are ruleset changes, some are modifiers, mobs are added, AI behavior adjusted... = likely the same stuff that is adjusted by a difficulty slider.
And no, including a difficulty slider is not a waste of resources because it widens the game's target audience. There's an obvious incentive for it.
No none of this is correct or relevant. I'm not bringing up the worst examples. I'm saying there NO "perfect" examples. There are no difficulty sliders that change everything about the game. Games are DESIGNED around a certain amount of difficulty. Sometimes it's even in the lack of information fed to you. How do you have a difficulty slider that changes that? That changes when certain NPCs will tell you where to go, or how to do something? I'm sure it's possible to do that, but nobody has done it yet because it would be way too much work to redesign the game for different difficulty levels. Tldr difficulty = more than just changing stats, which is what difficulty sliders do.But I just told you they don't "just change stats"!
It was shorthand. The bottom line is that none of them completely redesign the game. As I said, a great many things go into what makes a game difficult.
But you don't need to adjust everything to adjust difficulty. You are making no sense by insisting that they did.
I'm not sure how you aren't getting this. I'm not saying difficulty sliders won't adjust the difficulty. I'm saying it's not a "perfect solution" like narius claims. Difficulty sliders do make the game more/less difficult. The problem that I'm talking about is that those different versions of the game (the different difficulty levels) are not what the game would be like if it were DESIGNED around that specific difficulty level. Difficulty sliders don't totally redesign the game. And a lot of time the difficulty of the game is inherent in the game design.The fallacy in this argument is that that spot is different for everyone, so you can't do it .. unless you have a slider. In fact, a slide with different reward level does exactly that.
People improve from lower to higher difficulty to get more rewards.
No there's no fallacy in my argument because I don't assume that every game is for everybody. I know full well that some people will like the game's difficulty, and some will not. By making it a game "for everybody", you're making it worse for people than if they had played a game that is TAILORED to their preferred range.Unless you assume a game is made for only ONE individual, your argument would not work. Games like Diablo 3 are played by millions .. and obviously the audience have a variety of difficulty levels. Hence, a successful game like that cannot cater to all its audience without a difficulty slider.
I doubt you will dispute a successful game has an audience in the millions. I also doubt you can dispute all of the millions play are the same.
I don't care how many people play it. The point is the game will be more poorly designed if it isn't designed for a specific difficulty level. A difficulty slider doesn't change every aspect of the game that pertains to difficulty, so it's not a perfect compromise, like you say it is. You use it in discussions all the time when somebody mentions that they want harder games. You say "just use a difficulty slider! Everybody wins!" This isn't true.
You're assuming that people can't be pushed or nudged into improving, or that they won't be glad that they did. You're just assuming that a person is always right about what he wants to do, and that being shown something else won't ever be more enjoyable for them.I did not such thing. In fact, a difficulty slider is great for learning. After you learn, you can up the difficulty and stride for even better rewards. You cannot do that in a game with just one difficulty setting.
Thank you for making my point.
Only if you are capable of pushing yourself. No difficulty slider is better for being pushed because you don't have the temptation of turning it down.Many people will want the game as challenging as possible and still push themselves even with a slider just to make the game more interesting. And if people want the game easy what's the point of forcing difficulty on them?
Many people will want the game as challenging as possible and still push themselves even with a slider just to make the game more interesting. And if people want the game easy what's the point of forcing difficulty on them?
the point is to eliminate temptation. Nobody is forcing anybody. This person would willingly be buying this gameBy taking out options you are forcing them to play the game a certain way (having the choice not to buy the game doesn't really count as a choice surely).
I don't see what the advantage is to make people avoid temptation? If they want to play the game on a mode that's too easy for them it's their loss.
This might not be about difficult either. Lack of world immersion draws out the level of difficulty. I've always parroted the same line, "there is no hard in a video game". It's 0's and 1's, can and can't but if you are immersed in the game you don't stop and ask if it's hard or easy because it's fun.
Learning from the masters, WoW, EVE Online, DAoC, EQ. How did they immerse people where games now can't seem to do it?
By taking out options you are forcing them to play the game a certain way (having the choice not to buy the game doesn't really count as a choice surely).
I don't see what the advantage is to make people avoid temptation? If they want to play the game on a mode that's too easy for them it's their loss.
Well you just answered your own question: it's their loss. People will often choose the path of least resistance, often at a net decrease in satisfaction. By not giving you the option to turn down the difficulty, it helps you push yourself when you might not otherwise.Also, games "force" you to do things all the time. People on this site love to use that word as if it means something significant.
But you don't know that they would be different. That is what I was trying to tell you earlier. They could be exactly the same for all we knew.
Say you designed a game with medium difficulty: What is to stop you from simply adding easy and hard difficulties? Medium difficulty remains the same, but hard and easy difficulties might very well be the same settings they would've been implemented if the game had only easy or hard difficulty. There's no way to be sure.
Also, like narius said, nobody is customizing a game for just one person, so there is little point in talking about "ideal solutions".
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky