If most players don't want a challenge then fine, you literally have hundreds of games to play that cater to your needs. I want a challenging game that no one can just walk through without thinking.
Why pick MMORPGs to begin with? They were never a challenging genre (outside of PvP/small amount of raids).
You are on MMORPG.com on a topic about MMORPGs wondering why we're talking about MMORPGs.
1. Adding a difficulty selector means that a majority will choose the easy route even if it's something they don't find fun. Why? Why choose the hard route to obtain what you want when it can be obtained more easily. I don't like having indicators telling me where to go, which is why I can't play NWO. Turn them off you say? It's literally not that easy. You are satisfied by being able to choose the difficulty and just move through the game. I like taking a difficult situation and finding the ways through it. When the game provides that easy method, the fun of beating that difficult situation is ruined.
2. I don't think you are understanding the analogy properly. Like I made in a different post, it's not that the other jellybeans are bad or disliked, it's that the rare ones are sought after and desired, largely because they are scarce. A common misconception on scarcity is that an item has to be important for it to be scarce. In any MMO where everyone can easily obtain any item they desire, it gets boring for players like the OP and myself.
3. The game play that was removed is the challenge to acquire a sought after item. It's the challenge that we want back and the challenge that you are saying is the 10% that most players don't want.
If most players don't want a challenge then fine, you literally have hundreds of games to play that cater to your needs. I want a challenging game that no one can just walk through without thinking.
1. Wrong. You're again assuming a deliberately shitty implementation of difficulty options. In City of Heroes if you selected the easiest option you would literally advance like 10% as fast as if you chose the hardest option (and were skilled enough to handle it.)
It's fairly understandable you'd make this wrong assumption, as the basic reward structure of MMORPGs is almost universally broken: killing a tough mob might take 100% longer, but yield only 25% better rewards. This means you advance 75% slower if you engage in tougher challenges.
This wasn't true of CoH which had a non-broken reward structure. It felt more like earning 200% better rewards for that tough mob, which meant you advanced 100% faster if you engaged in tough challenges.
2. Scarcity increases demand, but it doesn't magically counteract severe flaws. Again, we're talking about early MMORPGs which had severe flaws, and those flaws didn't make those games better - when they were removed for subsequent MMORPGs, those MMORPGs just performed better and kept players playing longer. It wasn't like the one-type-of-jellybean bag, exactly. It was more like "everyone hates this one jellybean, so we're now selling jellybean bags without that type."
These weird fake scenarios you're describing (an MMO where everyone can easily obtain any item they desire) aren't relevant.
3. Again, where are these imaginary MMOs where you can easily obtain any item you want? Did you get best-in-slot everything in WOW? No? Well then I guess not all items were easy to obtain, right?
Whining about challenges being too easy just goes back to how these games need to add better difficulty options.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Ask any coh player. Xp came much much faster with higher settings. When architect came in it was all max settings which became annoying because people were getting max level in a day.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
1. Adding a difficulty selector means that a majority will choose the easy route even if it's something they don't find fun. Why? Why choose the hard route to obtain what you want when it can be obtained more easily. I don't like having indicators telling me where to go, which is why I can't play NWO. Turn them off you say? It's literally not that easy. You are satisfied by being able to choose the difficulty and just move through the game. I like taking a difficult situation and finding the ways through it. When the game provides that easy method, the fun of beating that difficult situation is ruined.
2. I don't think you are understanding the analogy properly. Like I made in a different post, it's not that the other jellybeans are bad or disliked, it's that the rare ones are sought after and desired, largely because they are scarce. A common misconception on scarcity is that an item has to be important for it to be scarce. In any MMO where everyone can easily obtain any item they desire, it gets boring for players like the OP and myself.
3. The game play that was removed is the challenge to acquire a sought after item. It's the challenge that we want back and the challenge that you are saying is the 10% that most players don't want.
If most players don't want a challenge then fine, you literally have hundreds of games to play that cater to your needs. I want a challenging game that no one can just walk through without thinking.
1. Wrong. You're again assuming a deliberately shitty implementation of difficulty options. In City of Heroes if you selected the easiest option you would literally advance like 10% as fast as if you chose the hardest option (and were skilled enough to handle it.)
It's fairly understandable you'd make this wrong assumption, as the basic reward structure of MMORPGs is almost universally broken: killing a tough mob might take 100% longer, but yield only 25% better rewards. This means you advance 75% slower if you engage in tougher challenges.
This wasn't true of CoH which had a non-broken reward structure. It felt more like earning 200% better rewards for that tough mob, which meant you advanced 100% faster if you engaged in tough challenges.
2. Scarcity increases demand, but it doesn't magically counteract severe flaws. Again, we're talking about early MMORPGs which had severe flaws, and those flaws didn't make those games better - when they were removed for subsequent MMORPGs, those MMORPGs just performed better and kept players playing longer. It wasn't like the one-type-of-jellybean bag, exactly. It was more like "everyone hates this one jellybean, so we're now selling jellybean bags without that type."
These weird fake scenarios you're describing (an MMO where everyone can easily obtain any item they desire) aren't relevant.
3. Again, where are these imaginary MMOs where you can easily obtain any item you want? Did you get best-in-slot everything in WOW? No? Well then I guess not all items were easy to obtain, right?
Whining about challenges being too easy just goes back to how these games need to add better difficulty options.
1. If by difficulty option you simply mean different mobs with different difficulty then yes, if you mean a selection box that says I want this dungeon to be easy then piss off, not one I'm going to play. Be careful when you say difficulty option as it sounds like you're referring to single player games with easy, medium and hard modes. There should be no option, there should just be a world with things to do. Some are easier than other, yet yield less reward. That's fine, but completely different than "difficulty options".
2. Again I don't think you're getting the analogy correct. The jellybeans are the reward not the actions people took to get them (modern mmos are not removing any jellybeans, they're making it easier to get them). The OP is saying that if you want a special jellybean in modern MMOs you don't have to try for it, you can just buy the one bag full of your favorite jellybean (meaning you don't have any challenge in getting the reward). Centi Longsword was my favorite weapon in EQ1. It was a rare drop that would sometimes take forever to get and I never got one to drop myself, so instead I saved enough plat to buy one. (many would argue that rare drops != difficult, but if you think about it, the persistence and patience required could be. It pays off in the end).
3. You assume I played WoW long enough to give a crap about them. WoW was the birth of rails. When I realized that killing NPCs (questing/tasking is boring to me) would yield me no way to level up. When I dinged level 10 in what seemed like the amount of time to get half way to level 2. When I realized that I was moving across the map so fast I didn't even get to enjoy my surroundings. I was level 30 when it all sunk in. That was when I quit. I was bored. There was no challenge.
No the analogy was pretty accurate. There was said to no market for muscle cars. Not good or crappy ones.
There was a notion in the NFL that read option wouldn't work in the NFL. All the old guard said it. The last 4 Super Bowl have been played by QBs have run the read option incorporated in their offense.
Until those "flawed" ideas have been tried again and fail they worked. Many of the ideas just weren't used. They don't fit the market trend and targeted audience. The special issue that comes with MMORPG development prevents going against the money.
No, it really wasn't. You're lumping all "rejected" ideas in the same exact bucket. I'm saying some rejected ideas have simply fallen out of public favor, and other rejected ideas are outright bad (flawed) and we know why they're bad. We can deconstruct them to see exactly why they're bad.
They didn't fallout of public favor. They lost developers/investors favor. Just as the current themepark is now out of favor and not being made. Current market is a mix of old and new being made by mid and low level developers.
The bigger point is that not being made sometimes is just a trend. Many of the ideals of older gen didn't match the themepark era. A death penalty makes sense in mmorpgs that wants you take actions to not die. In a themepark where end game is the focus and fast progression slowing progression doesn't make sense
1. If by difficulty option you simply mean different mobs with different difficulty then yes, if you mean a selection box that says I want this dungeon to be easy then piss off, not one I'm going to play. Be careful when you say difficulty option as it sounds like you're referring to single player games with easy, medium and hard modes. There should be no option, there should just be a world with things to do. Some are easier than other, yet yield less reward. That's fine, but completely different than "difficulty options".
2. Again I don't think you're getting the analogy correct. The jellybeans are the reward not the actions people took to get them (modern mmos are not removing any jellybeans, they're making it easier to get them). The OP is saying that if you want a special jellybean in modern MMOs you don't have to try for it, you can just buy the one bag full of your favorite jellybean (meaning you don't have any challenge in getting the reward). Centi Longsword was my favorite weapon in EQ1. It was a rare drop that would sometimes take forever to get and I never got one to drop myself, so instead I saved enough plat to buy one. (many would argue that rare drops != difficult, but if you think about it, the persistence and patience required could be. It pays off in the end).
3. You assume I played WoW long enough to give a crap about them. WoW was the birth of rails. When I realized that killing NPCs (questing/tasking is boring to me) would yield me no way to level up. When I dinged level 10 in what seemed like the amount of time to get half way to level 2. When I realized that I was moving across the map so fast I didn't even get to enjoy my surroundings. I was level 30 when it all sunk in. That was when I quit. I was bored. There was no challenge.
1. Right, difficulty option is the ability to select your difficulty (which is exactly what I described.) And as I described, nobody is going to select easy mode unless they can't do anything else, because it will result in worse rewards. Your dislike of it is completely arbitrary, and your demand that everything in the world has a static difficulty also arbitrary. Whereas I've described a very clear reason why it would be better for games, because when things are too easy they're boring, when they're too hard they're frustrating, but when they're in the sweet spot of challenge they're the most fun a game can offer -- and it should offer that ideal fun to everyone, regardless of skill level. (It's just you won't all be equally rewarded.)
2. No, the analogy definitely works best in the more straightforward way where the OP is trying to imply he would make more money if he filled half the jellybean bag with rocks nobody wants. He clearly wouldn't.
It's great that you had a favorite longsword, but hard-to-get items still exist in games and not everyone has best-in-slot everything. (In fact almost nobody does.)
If you're upset that it's now possible to consistently get a full set of functional, useful items, then that's not the same as a game giving its best rewards away, it's merely a functional reward system. If EQ had a shitty item system you shouldn't hold that against the rest of the genre, you should simply embrace the better modern item systems. These rewards aren't in fact all black jellybeans, but are a mix of good, great, and fantastic jellybeans (and not all are easy to earn.) The good jellybeans are still noticeably worse than the great ones, and just because your old favorite MMORPG gave you poop-flavored jellybeans as rewards most of the time that doesn't mean that's the right way to design a game.
3. Nothing you're saying here gives you any item you want. Hard-to-get items still exist in WOW.
Additionally, your dislikes are incredibly arbitrary: it's like complaining that a highway has 3x as many mile-markers. Do you care about the mile-markers or the journey? (ie complaining about faster levels) I guess if you didn't pay attention to your surroundings while playing, you care more about the mile-markers. Odd.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
They didn't fallout of public favor. They lost developers/investors favor. Just as the current themepark is now out of favor and not being made. Current market is a mix of old and new being made by mid and low level developers.
The bigger point is that not being made sometimes is just a trend. Many of the ideals of older gen didn't match the themepark era. A death penalty makes sense in mmorpgs that wants you take actions to not die. In a themepark where end game is the focus and fast progression slowing progression doesn't make sense
The majority of mechanics lost to MMORPGs weren't the 'fallen out of favor' ones. They were known bad mechanics, like tedious travel, punishing penalties, etc. There are very clear reasons these mechanics fail to aid in the primary purpose of games (fun/entertainment), and I've described those reasons in earlier posts.
Not being made sometimes is a trend, I agreed with that. But the specific things mentioned in this thread have largely not been mere trends, but have been outright bad ideas that went the way of the dodo because they were legitimately inferior.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
They didn't fallout of public favor. They lost developers/investors favor. Just as the current themepark is now out of favor and not being made. Current market is a mix of old and new being made by mid and low level developers.
The bigger point is that not being made sometimes is just a trend. Many of the ideals of older gen didn't match the themepark era. A death penalty makes sense in mmorpgs that wants you take actions to not die. In a themepark where end game is the focus and fast progression slowing progression doesn't make sense
The majority of mechanics lost to MMORPGs weren't the 'fallen out of favor' ones. They were known bad mechanics, like tedious travel, punishing penalties, etc. There are very clear reasons these mechanics fail to aid in the primary purpose of games (fun/entertainment), and I've described those reasons in earlier posts.
Not being made sometimes is a trend, I agreed with that. But the specific things mentioned in this thread have largely not been mere trends, but have been outright bad ideas that went the way of the dodo because they were legitimately inferior.
No, they didn't fit with the target audience. Do you believe if Dark Souls is made into a true MMO it won't have death penalties? You think if a MMORPG is built around exploration its not possible it will have long travel times? Do I think those games will have 13 million players? No.
If by bad mechanics you mean the clunky UI and playability... I don't think anyone has clamored for that.
I don't look at things like XP loss as masochistic, yet it's only real purpose was elongated subscriptions, the more they pushed you back, the longer it took to reach the end (longer you were subbed). Can you show me any example of this in games that are not sub based?
As for gear it can work in games like SWG or EVE... where commerce is a true play-style to be undertook. Yet in games based on gear grinds, it would be nonsensical.
Almost all games punish you in regard to time. Make it all the way to the boss of the dungeon but died? Sorry you wasted your time, try again...
Well, from that perspective, any loss is "just a sub extender." It is a glass half-full/half-empty situation. If the loss hits a player negatively, then they think, "just to get me to sub another month." These players usually try to fly through MMORPGs as quickly as possible, like a single player game. If a player actually enjoys the game, they don't even think about subbing for another month. They were going to anyway.
Like many discussions, there is no middle ground. Either it is "fun" or "horribly masochistic." How about "less fun?" Where do you place "chance of failure" at? How about "loss of something", like gear, or XP, or God forbid... time? Are these at your farthest end with "horribly masochistic?"
Or is this yet another attempt to paint those who disagree as terrible people? If we do not agree with your idea of fun, we all must be horribly masochistic?
A chance at failure is great. A game is at its best when it offers each player their sweet spot of challenge (because too easy is boring and too hard is frustrating.) This is often done in other game genres with a difficulty selector, but MMORPGs are poorly-designed because this feature almost never exists. This causes most of their gameplay to be outside a player's sweet spot, resulting in a more boring game (though you'll usually eventually find a satisfying challenge somewhere in progression.)
The required penalty for failure is a fight reset. If you fail, you die* and must do the fight over. This lets players practice and improve, which is where the fun of gaming is most commonly experienced.
Penalty beyond that is excess. It's purposeless punishment. Masochism.
*It's worth pointing out that character death is not the only type of failure. There is always a passive skill-check in terms of how fast and efficiently you kill mobs, which is also rewarded (a skilled player in these games can kill mobs twice as fast or faster than an unskilled one, and will end up with that much more rewards too.) This is why games can remain interesting even when character death is very rare, because there is always a dynamic skill challenge being experienced at all times.
There are varying degrees of masochism, and all I've pointed out is that deliberately designing things crappy (like this death penalty example) is masochistic. It's bad, and there's no reason it should be bad. So it's masochistic. I didn't take it to the extreme like you did by labeling it "horribly masochistic". That's your extremism.
Also I'm not using the term to call people terrible. Some of my best friends are masochists!
OK. I'll buy most of that.
Character death is not what I'm talking about for failure. I'm talking about: - Combat: If you aim correctly, you hit your target, though it may be blocked or dodged). - Crafting: every attempt is a success. - Spell Usage: Casting is automatically successful. - Weapons and Armor: Never degrade. Always in tip-top shape. Are these features "artificially implemented?"
Now, how about "artificially easy" mechanics? Do you see those mechanics in the same light (not masochistic, but hand holding)? Or is this where the "fun" is, for you? Some players actually enjoy making top level in 2 weeks (though that may be too long for them, too). Some players think they are greart players because they breeze through an MMO in 1 month. Maybe even twice. It sounds like nearly any "artificial detriment" is "bad design", according to you and many others.
No, they didn't fit with the target audience. Do you believe if Dark Souls is made into a true MMO it won't have death penalties? You think if a MMORPG is built around exploration its not possible it will have long travel times? Do I think those games will have 13 million players? No.
If by bad mechanics you mean the clunky UI and playability... I don't think anyone has clamored for that.
Right, you can interchangeably use "bad mechanic", "not many people like it" and "didn't fit with the target audience."
The examples you gave are all unpopular concepts, except exploration which can range from great (lots of exploration-related gameplay) to so-so (watching a run animation while exploring new places) to awful (being forced to slow-travel places you've already traveled.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Character death is not what I'm talking about for failure. I'm talking about: - Combat: If you aim correctly, you hit your target, though it may be blocked or dodged). - Crafting: every attempt is a success. - Spell Usage: Casting is automatically successful. - Weapons and Armor: Never degrade. Always in tip-top shape. Are these features "artificially implemented?"
Now, how about "artificially easy" mechanics? Do you see those mechanics in the same light (not masochistic, but hand holding)? Or is this where the "fun" is, for you? Some players actually enjoy making top level in 2 weeks (though that may be too long for them, too). Some players think they are greart players because they breeze through an MMO in 1 month. Maybe even twice. It sounds like nearly any "artificial detriment" is "bad design", according to you and many others.
Are you suggesting those mechanics should just fail to work randomly? Why stop there? Why not have WASD randomly fail to move your character sometimes? Chat could fail to post sometimes. The menu system could fail to register your clicks sometimes!
Generally basic commands shouldn't just randomly fail on you. Even though RPGs aren't entirely about skill, they're still largely about skillful decision-making, and those decisions should work when they're made.
When you add in other deterministic factors that randomness is acceptable: at max level where lots of +hit gear was available in WOW, if I didn't land a spell it was entirely my fault because if I was correctly hit-capped then my spells would always land. (Of course this mechanic was later removed, perhaps because it's not a very interesting gear choice, but admittedly modern WOW's gear choices of flat prioritization are equally dull nowadays.)
It's also fine for varying rotations (which makes mastering the game more difficult), although typically you would want the spells to always work like they say they will (meaning randomness takes the form of procs/crits which cause you to vary your rotation in different ways.)
Repairing gear is just death penalty, and unnecessary for reasons mentioned before.
Things which are too easy are boring, as I stated.
But things like reaching max level in 2 weeks are completely irrelevant, because that's not the end of the journey. It's fine for those players to think they achieved something, and you apparently think they achieved something, but the true measure of an achievement is in how much skill it requires to beat, so the most meaningful achievements typically exist beyond max level.
Besides, are you playing these games for the mile-markers along the highway or for the journey? It's pretty superficial to play for the mile-markers, imo, but if that brings players happiness then so much the better.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Do you believe if Dark Souls is made into a true MMO it won't have death penalties? You think if a MMORPG is built around exploration its not possible it will have long travel times? Do I think those games will have 13 million players? No.
I think no MMORPG is going to be build around long travel times + exploration, and no one is going to bother to make DS into a "true" MMO, except may be some super niche indie effort.
Long travel times and harsh death penalties in modern games? Really?
No, they didn't fit with the target audience. Do you believe if Dark Souls is made into a true MMO it won't have death penalties? You think if a MMORPG is built around exploration its not possible it will have long travel times? Do I think those games will have 13 million players? No.
If by bad mechanics you mean the clunky UI and playability... I don't think anyone has clamored for that.
Right, you can interchangeably use "bad mechanic", "not many people like it" and "didn't fit with the target audience."
The examples you gave are all unpopular concepts, except exploration which can range from great (lots of exploration-related gameplay) to so-so (watching a run animation while exploring new places) to awful (being forced to slow-travel places you've already traveled.)
They're not interchangeable. With MMORPG it's a slow and expensive process that can only be done by a few. We essentially had two or three cycles of MMORPG that only served WoW audience. There was nobody could just easily step in and make competent MMORPG for under served audiences. No more than any random person jump out there and easily ship automobiles.
Why did they serve only the WoW audience? WoW was essentially a gold mine. Why invest in a mine that could net you 500k when you had one that had the potential net you 13 million? After pumping out 2 or 3 MMORPG most never even got to a sustained 500k. Now there is no large western company with an announced MMORPG in the works.
Many of those features did not fit into the trend of single player themeparks. Some of them don't work. Doesn't mean all of the features don't fit in other types of MMORPG if they're ever made. Right now there are more traditional features being made in new MMORPG then themepark. Does that mean themepark doesn't work or market is tending away?
1. If by difficulty option you simply mean different mobs with different difficulty then yes, if you mean a selection box that says I want this dungeon to be easy then piss off, not one I'm going to play. Be careful when you say difficulty option as it sounds like you're referring to single player games with easy, medium and hard modes. There should be no option, there should just be a world with things to do. Some are easier than other, yet yield less reward. That's fine, but completely different than "difficulty options".
2. Again I don't think you're getting the analogy correct. The jellybeans are the reward not the actions people took to get them (modern mmos are not removing any jellybeans, they're making it easier to get them). The OP is saying that if you want a special jellybean in modern MMOs you don't have to try for it, you can just buy the one bag full of your favorite jellybean (meaning you don't have any challenge in getting the reward). Centi Longsword was my favorite weapon in EQ1. It was a rare drop that would sometimes take forever to get and I never got one to drop myself, so instead I saved enough plat to buy one. (many would argue that rare drops != difficult, but if you think about it, the persistence and patience required could be. It pays off in the end).
3. You assume I played WoW long enough to give a crap about them. WoW was the birth of rails. When I realized that killing NPCs (questing/tasking is boring to me) would yield me no way to level up. When I dinged level 10 in what seemed like the amount of time to get half way to level 2. When I realized that I was moving across the map so fast I didn't even get to enjoy my surroundings. I was level 30 when it all sunk in. That was when I quit. I was bored. There was no challenge.
1. Right, difficulty option is the ability to select your difficulty (which is exactly what I described.) And as I described, nobody is going to select easy mode unless they can't do anything else, because it will result in worse rewards. Your dislike of it is completely arbitrary, and your demand that everything in the world has a static difficulty also arbitrary. Whereas I've described a very clear reason why it would be better for games, because when things are too easy they're boring, when they're too hard they're frustrating, but when they're in the sweet spot of challenge they're the most fun a game can offer -- and it should offer that ideal fun to everyone, regardless of skill level. (It's just you won't all be equally rewarded.)
2. No, the analogy definitely works best in the more straightforward way where the OP is trying to imply he would make more money if he filled half the jellybean bag with rocks nobody wants. He clearly wouldn't.
It's great that you had a favorite longsword, but hard-to-get items still exist in games and not everyone has best-in-slot everything. (In fact almost nobody does.)
If you're upset that it's now possible to consistently get a full set of functional, useful items, then that's not the same as a game giving its best rewards away, it's merely a functional reward system. If EQ had a shitty item system you shouldn't hold that against the rest of the genre, you should simply embrace the better modern item systems. These rewards aren't in fact all black jellybeans, but are a mix of good, great, and fantastic jellybeans (and not all are easy to earn.) The good jellybeans are still noticeably worse than the great ones, and just because your old favorite MMORPG gave you poop-flavored jellybeans as rewards most of the time that doesn't mean that's the right way to design a game.
3. Nothing you're saying here gives you any item you want. Hard-to-get items still exist in WOW.
Additionally, your dislikes are incredibly arbitrary: it's like complaining that a highway has 3x as many mile-markers. Do you care about the mile-markers or the journey? (ie complaining about faster levels) I guess if you didn't pay attention to your surroundings while playing, you care more about the mile-markers. Odd.
Nah you don't understand the OP. I cave as you will never get it. Have fun with your easy games. That wont stop me from wanting what I want.
Nah you don't understand the OP. I cave as you will never get it. Have fun with your easy games. That wont stop me from wanting what I want.
Of course not. No one (or few) ever changes their minds here.
But the real question is .. are you getting what you want from the gaming market?
Are we getting what we want from the healthcare market? Auto insurance market? Banking? Our job? Seems to me, we have an endless precedence of NOT getting what we want and yet we somehow accept this in every part of our lives EXCEPT gaming.
Nah you don't understand the OP. I cave as you will never get it. Have fun with your easy games. That wont stop me from wanting what I want.
Of course not. No one (or few) ever changes their minds here.
But the real question is .. are you getting what you want from the gaming market?
Are we getting what we want from the healthcare market? Auto insurance market? Banking? Our job? Seems to me, we have an endless precedence of NOT getting what we want and yet we somehow accept this in every part of our lives EXCEPT gaming.
says who?
I am getting exactly what I want in my job, and i changed jobs twice within a period of 2 years to get to that.
Healthcare market? I have no complaint. Ditto for auto insurance.
But the point is that ... who says anything about accepting anything. But if you do not accept whatever is happening in the gaming market, is there anything you can do about it?
They're not interchangeable. With MMORPG it's a slow and expensive process that can only be done by a few. We essentially had two or three cycles of MMORPG that only served WoW audience. There was nobody could just easily step in and make competent MMORPG for under served audiences. No more than any random person jump out there and easily ship automobiles.
Why did they serve only the WoW audience? WoW was essentially a gold mine. Why invest in a mine that could net you 500k when you had one that had the potential net you 13 million? After pumping out 2 or 3 MMORPG most never even got to a sustained 500k. Now there is no large western company with an announced MMORPG in the works.
Many of those features did not fit into the trend of single player themeparks. Some of them don't work. Doesn't mean all of the features don't fit in other types of MMORPG if they're ever made. Right now there are more traditional features being made in new MMORPG then themepark. Does that mean themepark doesn't work or market is tending away?
Right, MMORPGs are an abnormally expensive genre. So targeting a niche makes even less sense in this genre than some others. You can still be successful (we worked out the math one time) with a niche audience, but it won't be aim-for-the-fences successful.
The under-served audience was ~500k monthly subscribers in the absolute best case, and that simply wasn't enough to attract a company willing to bunt the ball.
The games industry as a whole will never "trend away" from themepark games. Themeparks are just another word for content-driven gaming (ie dev-created content), which has been strongly popular since almost the beginning of videogames. Super Mario Bros (1985), Ultima 3 (1984), Raid on Bungeling Bay (1984), Impossible Mission (1984), and many other successful early games were about visiting a developer-created world, not about players creating their own world. This is still true of all of the most successful MMORPGs, and is still a major component of most of the less successful ones as well (Archeage didn't stop being a themepark in all the time I put into it, for example.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Why are we using login screens and internet to play what are essentially single player games with a login screen.Then at end game you get to play co-op ,greedy co-op me me me,i want i want.
When we got the internet up to playable standards "DSL" we were suppose to bring players together,i think we have more players cheating each other, than players working together.
Even if players wanted to work together,WHY,what do these games offer from 1-99 except soloing?
It costs a lot of money and a lot of effort to actually make a MMO world and bring it to life,NOBODY is going to do that,so all these games are FAKE.Devs create login screens to try and grind money out of users over a long haul,allow players to solo and easy level to keep them coming back in hopes they spend in the cash shop.
Oh but wait these devs saw another small potential market of real lazy ,non gamer's that just want all freebies.So they said we better have offline advancement,that way we might get some cash shop money out of these guys too.Then we have those gamer's that couldn't think if their brain had a turbo drive,so lets give them tons of hand holding.
LMAO between hand holding and offline game play,these games can now literally play themselves.Don't worry though,we will tell you about this massive great game we are building,but in reality all your going to be doing 90% of the time is sit in a VERY small cockpit looking at space.star textures,how FUN is that !!!
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Character death is not what I'm talking about for failure. I'm talking about: - Combat: If you aim correctly, you hit your target, though it may be blocked or dodged). - Crafting: every attempt is a success. - Spell Usage: Casting is automatically successful. - Weapons and Armor: Never degrade. Always in tip-top shape. Are these features "artificially implemented?"
Now, how about "artificially easy" mechanics? Do you see those mechanics in the same light (not masochistic, but hand holding)? Or is this where the "fun" is, for you? Some players actually enjoy making top level in 2 weeks (though that may be too long for them, too). Some players think they are greart players because they breeze through an MMO in 1 month. Maybe even twice. It sounds like nearly any "artificial detriment" is "bad design", according to you and many others.
Are you suggesting those mechanics should just fail to work randomly? Why stop there? Why not have WASD randomly fail to move your character sometimes? Chat could fail to post sometimes. The menu system could fail to register your clicks sometimes!
Generally basic commands shouldn't just randomly fail on you. Even though RPGs aren't entirely about skill, they're still largely about skillful decision-making, and those decisions should work when they're made.
When you add in other deterministic factors that randomness is acceptable: at max level where lots of +hit gear was available in WOW, if I didn't land a spell it was entirely my fault because if I was correctly hit-capped then my spells would always land. (Of course this mechanic was later removed, perhaps because it's not a very interesting gear choice, but admittedly modern WOW's gear choices of flat prioritization are equally dull nowadays.)
It's also fine for varying rotations (which makes mastering the game more difficult), although typically you would want the spells to always work like they say they will (meaning randomness takes the form of procs/crits which cause you to vary your rotation in different ways.)
Repairing gear is just death penalty, and unnecessary for reasons mentioned before.
Things which are too easy are boring, as I stated.
But things like reaching max level in 2 weeks are completely irrelevant, because that's not the end of the journey. It's fine for those players to think they achieved something, and you apparently think they achieved something, but the true measure of an achievement is in how much skill it requires to beat, so the most meaningful achievements typically exist beyond max level.
Besides, are you playing these games for the mile-markers along the highway or for the journey? It's pretty superficial to play for the mile-markers, imo, but if that brings players happiness then so much the better.
I see we are at an impasse. I could not disagree with you more. "RPG" is about the character, not about the player for me. It is quite the opposite for you, it seems. Your abilities trump your character's. Never miss a target in your life? Never stumble? Do you always find success in everything you do? Hell, I can't even hit the right keys half the time!
Yes, we are on total opposite sides here. Luckily, you're in the majority and games are designed for your pleasure, not mine. Congratulations.
Character death is not what I'm talking about for failure. I'm talking about: - Combat: If you aim correctly, you hit your target, though it may be blocked or dodged). - Crafting: every attempt is a success. - Spell Usage: Casting is automatically successful. - Weapons and Armor: Never degrade. Always in tip-top shape. Are these features "artificially implemented?"
Now, how about "artificially easy" mechanics? Do you see those mechanics in the same light (not masochistic, but hand holding)? Or is this where the "fun" is, for you? Some players actually enjoy making top level in 2 weeks (though that may be too long for them, too). Some players think they are greart players because they breeze through an MMO in 1 month. Maybe even twice. It sounds like nearly any "artificial detriment" is "bad design", according to you and many others.
Are you suggesting those mechanics should just fail to work randomly? Why stop there? Why not have WASD randomly fail to move your character sometimes? Chat could fail to post sometimes. The menu system could fail to register your clicks sometimes!
Generally basic commands shouldn't just randomly fail on you. Even though RPGs aren't entirely about skill, they're still largely about skillful decision-making, and those decisions should work when they're made.
When you add in other deterministic factors that randomness is acceptable: at max level where lots of +hit gear was available in WOW, if I didn't land a spell it was entirely my fault because if I was correctly hit-capped then my spells would always land. (Of course this mechanic was later removed, perhaps because it's not a very interesting gear choice, but admittedly modern WOW's gear choices of flat prioritization are equally dull nowadays.)
It's also fine for varying rotations (which makes mastering the game more difficult), although typically you would want the spells to always work like they say they will (meaning randomness takes the form of procs/crits which cause you to vary your rotation in different ways.)
Repairing gear is just death penalty, and unnecessary for reasons mentioned before.
Things which are too easy are boring, as I stated.
But things like reaching max level in 2 weeks are completely irrelevant, because that's not the end of the journey. It's fine for those players to think they achieved something, and you apparently think they achieved something, but the true measure of an achievement is in how much skill it requires to beat, so the most meaningful achievements typically exist beyond max level.
Besides, are you playing these games for the mile-markers along the highway or for the journey? It's pretty superficial to play for the mile-markers, imo, but if that brings players happiness then so much the better.
I see we are at an impasse. I could not disagree with you more. "RPG" is about the character, not about the player for me. It is quite the opposite for you, it seems. Your abilities trump your character's. Never miss a target in your life? Never stumble? Do you always find success in everything you do? Hell, I can't even hit the right keys half the time!
Yes, we are on total opposite sides here. Luckily, you're in the majority and games are designed for your pleasure, not mine. Congratulations.
That's true and RPGs generally started out being games where it was more important to plan your character and their course through the game than to actually be skillful during combat. It was more about the decisions you made then the players reflexes. I guess it just goes to show how much things change when the games are being developed for the main stream audiences.
I see we are at an impasse. I could not disagree with you more. "RPG" is about the character, not about the player for me. It is quite the opposite for you, it seems. Your abilities trump your character's. Never miss a target in your life? Never stumble? Do you always find success in everything you do? Hell, I can't even hit the right keys half the time!
CRPG is really not "about" anything anymore. They are just games. Some have more progression elements, some have less.
If players want to do action combat, with their (not the character) skills, in games with some RPG elements, what is the problem?
Now i get that you may not like it, but a) devs are not obligated to make games you like, and b) there are still turn-based games out there (like the new Xcom2). So it is not like you have nothing to play.
I see we are at an impasse. I could not disagree with you more. "RPG" is about the character, not about the player for me. It is quite the opposite for you, it seems. Your abilities trump your character's. Never miss a target in your life? Never stumble? Do you always find success in everything you do? Hell, I can't even hit the right keys half the time!
Yes, we are on total opposite sides here. Luckily, you're in the majority and games are designed for your pleasure, not mine. Congratulations.
Nonsense. RPGs have always been about both the character and the player.
An RPG just about the character would be Progress Quest. Surely you understand PQ is not a great RPG. (It's barely even an RPG. You need decisions to be a game, and PQ has exactly 2 decisions.)
I'm describing the typical experience in an RPG, which is level x player vs. level x mobs. In those situations, capabilities are balanced and player skill emerges as the deciding factor.
Note that this doesn't mean there aren't mobs way above and way below your level where skill is almost entirely irrelevant. It just means that the best gameplay lies in the middle where you're facing challenges relevant to your level and earning rewards relevant to your level.
You won't always find success, because you won't necessarily always play perfectly. But if you do play perfectly (and your group/raid does too), you should achieve success in everything because it would be stupid to experience victory or failure entirely at random when facing a balanced challenge.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
When you don't know a topic, don't discuss it.
It's fairly understandable you'd make this wrong assumption, as the basic reward structure of MMORPGs is almost universally broken: killing a tough mob might take 100% longer, but yield only 25% better rewards. This means you advance 75% slower if you engage in tougher challenges.
This wasn't true of CoH which had a non-broken reward structure. It felt more like earning 200% better rewards for that tough mob, which meant you advanced 100% faster if you engaged in tough challenges.
2. Scarcity increases demand, but it doesn't magically counteract severe flaws. Again, we're talking about early MMORPGs which had severe flaws, and those flaws didn't make those games better - when they were removed for subsequent MMORPGs, those MMORPGs just performed better and kept players playing longer. It wasn't like the one-type-of-jellybean bag, exactly. It was more like "everyone hates this one jellybean, so we're now selling jellybean bags without that type."
These weird fake scenarios you're describing (an MMO where everyone can easily obtain any item they desire) aren't relevant.
3. Again, where are these imaginary MMOs where you can easily obtain any item you want? Did you get best-in-slot everything in WOW? No? Well then I guess not all items were easy to obtain, right?
Whining about challenges being too easy just goes back to how these games need to add better difficulty options.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
2. Again I don't think you're getting the analogy correct. The jellybeans are the reward not the actions people took to get them (modern mmos are not removing any jellybeans, they're making it easier to get them). The OP is saying that if you want a special jellybean in modern MMOs you don't have to try for it, you can just buy the one bag full of your favorite jellybean (meaning you don't have any challenge in getting the reward). Centi Longsword was my favorite weapon in EQ1. It was a rare drop that would sometimes take forever to get and I never got one to drop myself, so instead I saved enough plat to buy one. (many would argue that rare drops != difficult, but if you think about it, the persistence and patience required could be. It pays off in the end).
3. You assume I played WoW long enough to give a crap about them. WoW was the birth of rails. When I realized that killing NPCs (questing/tasking is boring to me) would yield me no way to level up. When I dinged level 10 in what seemed like the amount of time to get half way to level 2. When I realized that I was moving across the map so fast I didn't even get to enjoy my surroundings. I was level 30 when it all sunk in. That was when I quit. I was bored. There was no challenge.
The bigger point is that not being made sometimes is just a trend. Many of the ideals of older gen didn't match the themepark era. A death penalty makes sense in mmorpgs that wants you take actions to not die. In a themepark where end game is the focus and fast progression slowing progression doesn't make sense
2. No, the analogy definitely works best in the more straightforward way where the OP is trying to imply he would make more money if he filled half the jellybean bag with rocks nobody wants. He clearly wouldn't.
It's great that you had a favorite longsword, but hard-to-get items still exist in games and not everyone has best-in-slot everything. (In fact almost nobody does.)
If you're upset that it's now possible to consistently get a full set of functional, useful items, then that's not the same as a game giving its best rewards away, it's merely a functional reward system. If EQ had a shitty item system you shouldn't hold that against the rest of the genre, you should simply embrace the better modern item systems. These rewards aren't in fact all black jellybeans, but are a mix of good, great, and fantastic jellybeans (and not all are easy to earn.) The good jellybeans are still noticeably worse than the great ones, and just because your old favorite MMORPG gave you poop-flavored jellybeans as rewards most of the time that doesn't mean that's the right way to design a game.
3. Nothing you're saying here gives you any item you want. Hard-to-get items still exist in WOW.
Additionally, your dislikes are incredibly arbitrary: it's like complaining that a highway has 3x as many mile-markers. Do you care about the mile-markers or the journey? (ie complaining about faster levels) I guess if you didn't pay attention to your surroundings while playing, you care more about the mile-markers. Odd.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The majority of mechanics lost to MMORPGs weren't the 'fallen out of favor' ones. They were known bad mechanics, like tedious travel, punishing penalties, etc. There are very clear reasons these mechanics fail to aid in the primary purpose of games (fun/entertainment), and I've described those reasons in earlier posts.
Not being made sometimes is a trend, I agreed with that. But the specific things mentioned in this thread have largely not been mere trends, but have been outright bad ideas that went the way of the dodo because they were legitimately inferior.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If by bad mechanics you mean the clunky UI and playability... I don't think anyone has clamored for that.
VG
Character death is not what I'm talking about for failure. I'm talking about:
- Combat: If you aim correctly, you hit your target, though it may be blocked or dodged).
- Crafting: every attempt is a success.
- Spell Usage: Casting is automatically successful.
- Weapons and Armor: Never degrade. Always in tip-top shape.
Are these features "artificially implemented?"
Now, how about "artificially easy" mechanics? Do you see those mechanics in the same light (not masochistic, but hand holding)? Or is this where the "fun" is, for you? Some players actually enjoy making top level in 2 weeks (though that may be too long for them, too). Some players think they are greart players because they breeze through an MMO in 1 month. Maybe even twice. It sounds like nearly any "artificial detriment" is "bad design", according to you and many others.
VG
The examples you gave are all unpopular concepts, except exploration which can range from great (lots of exploration-related gameplay) to so-so (watching a run animation while exploring new places) to awful (being forced to slow-travel places you've already traveled.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Are you suggesting those mechanics should just fail to work randomly? Why stop there? Why not have WASD randomly fail to move your character sometimes? Chat could fail to post sometimes. The menu system could fail to register your clicks sometimes!
Generally basic commands shouldn't just randomly fail on you. Even though RPGs aren't entirely about skill, they're still largely about skillful decision-making, and those decisions should work when they're made.
When you add in other deterministic factors that randomness is acceptable: at max level where lots of +hit gear was available in WOW, if I didn't land a spell it was entirely my fault because if I was correctly hit-capped then my spells would always land. (Of course this mechanic was later removed, perhaps because it's not a very interesting gear choice, but admittedly modern WOW's gear choices of flat prioritization are equally dull nowadays.)
It's also fine for varying rotations (which makes mastering the game more difficult), although typically you would want the spells to always work like they say they will (meaning randomness takes the form of procs/crits which cause you to vary your rotation in different ways.)
Repairing gear is just death penalty, and unnecessary for reasons mentioned before.
Things which are too easy are boring, as I stated.
But things like reaching max level in 2 weeks are completely irrelevant, because that's not the end of the journey. It's fine for those players to think they achieved something, and you apparently think they achieved something, but the true measure of an achievement is in how much skill it requires to beat, so the most meaningful achievements typically exist beyond max level.
Besides, are you playing these games for the mile-markers along the highway or for the journey? It's pretty superficial to play for the mile-markers, imo, but if that brings players happiness then so much the better.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Long travel times and harsh death penalties in modern games? Really?
Why did they serve only the WoW audience? WoW was essentially a gold mine. Why invest in a mine that could net you 500k when you had one that had the potential net you 13 million? After pumping out 2 or 3 MMORPG most never even got to a sustained 500k. Now there is no large western company with an announced MMORPG in the works.
Many of those features did not fit into the trend of single player themeparks. Some of them don't work. Doesn't mean all of the features don't fit in other types of MMORPG if they're ever made. Right now there are more traditional features being made in new MMORPG then themepark. Does that mean themepark doesn't work or market is tending away?
But the real question is .. are you getting what you want from the gaming market?
I am getting exactly what I want in my job, and i changed jobs twice within a period of 2 years to get to that.
Healthcare market? I have no complaint. Ditto for auto insurance.
But the point is that ... who says anything about accepting anything. But if you do not accept whatever is happening in the gaming market, is there anything you can do about it?
The under-served audience was ~500k monthly subscribers in the absolute best case, and that simply wasn't enough to attract a company willing to bunt the ball.
The games industry as a whole will never "trend away" from themepark games. Themeparks are just another word for content-driven gaming (ie dev-created content), which has been strongly popular since almost the beginning of videogames. Super Mario Bros (1985), Ultima 3 (1984), Raid on Bungeling Bay (1984), Impossible Mission (1984), and many other successful early games were about visiting a developer-created world, not about players creating their own world. This is still true of all of the most successful MMORPGs, and is still a major component of most of the less successful ones as well (Archeage didn't stop being a themepark in all the time I put into it, for example.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Why are we using login screens and internet to play what are essentially single player games with a login screen.Then at end game you get to play co-op ,greedy co-op me me me,i want i want.
When we got the internet up to playable standards "DSL" we were suppose to bring players together,i think we have more players cheating each other, than players working together.
Even if players wanted to work together,WHY,what do these games offer from 1-99 except soloing?
It costs a lot of money and a lot of effort to actually make a MMO world and bring it to life,NOBODY is going to do that,so all these games are FAKE.Devs create login screens to try and grind money out of users over a long haul,allow players to solo and easy level to keep them coming back in hopes they spend in the cash shop.
Oh but wait these devs saw another small potential market of real lazy ,non gamer's that just want all freebies.So they said we better have offline advancement,that way we might get some cash shop money out of these guys too.Then we have those gamer's that couldn't think if their brain had a turbo drive,so lets give them tons of hand holding.
LMAO between hand holding and offline game play,these games can now literally play themselves.Don't worry though,we will tell you about this massive great game we are building,but in reality all your going to be doing 90% of the time is sit in a VERY small cockpit looking at space.star textures,how FUN is that !!!
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Yes, we are on total opposite sides here. Luckily, you're in the majority and games are designed for your pleasure, not mine. Congratulations.
VG
If players want to do action combat, with their (not the character) skills, in games with some RPG elements, what is the problem?
Now i get that you may not like it, but a) devs are not obligated to make games you like, and b) there are still turn-based games out there (like the new Xcom2). So it is not like you have nothing to play.
An RPG just about the character would be Progress Quest. Surely you understand PQ is not a great RPG. (It's barely even an RPG. You need decisions to be a game, and PQ has exactly 2 decisions.)
I'm describing the typical experience in an RPG, which is level x player vs. level x mobs. In those situations, capabilities are balanced and player skill emerges as the deciding factor.
Note that this doesn't mean there aren't mobs way above and way below your level where skill is almost entirely irrelevant. It just means that the best gameplay lies in the middle where you're facing challenges relevant to your level and earning rewards relevant to your level.
You won't always find success, because you won't necessarily always play perfectly. But if you do play perfectly (and your group/raid does too), you should achieve success in everything because it would be stupid to experience victory or failure entirely at random when facing a balanced challenge.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver