Harder! Not just MMO's either. Almost all games now, especially AAA games, are so unbelievably easy they are hardly games anymore. I used to be afraid to up the difficulty setting when starting a game, now its the best way to enjoy it. Hell, some I though I should up to nightmare or whatever highest difficulty it has. Otherwise youre just kind of watching an interactive movie. Very few games out there ever really take out the training wheels anymore. Like Dark Souls, yeah some people find it easy now, but they still need to get good at it. It still drops you off in game, explains little, and tries to stop you from winning. Even the best will die throughout unless they watch some guide. Cant really say that about most other games anymore. Its almost like youre guarded from losing now. After all, new DLC comes out next month, gotta make sure youre done and ready for more by the time it releases, right?
MMOs are the worst offenders too. Not only have the games become a walk in the park, they have made every single hand holding convenience they could think of over the last decade a standard in the genre. To the point where way too many players think its actually GOOD to have a quest tracker with GPS, telegraph every attack, and auto-port anywhere because they cant be bothered to, you know, play.
This poll really doesn't capture how I see things. I've seen plenty of different combat systems, some good some bad. But I've always been able to find a challenge in my MMOs. Want it hard? Round up more mobs at once.
Probably he keep talking about his level13 experience when everyone is at max level.
I have thousands of game time in wow and not much is spent leveling in the open world, so I never care much about it.
I'm still puzzled what game he actually liked EQ? UO? Eve?SWG?
Or if he never liked any mmorpg
Actually it appears his first MMO was....WOW?
Never would have guessed that from all his posts about wanting a more challenging MMO, thought he was former EQ1 player for sure.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Tab targeting PvE has always been easy. Going back to my EQ, SWG days to now.
I think some of the challenges with EQ was that it wasn't such a clean and controlled environment. You had factors out of your control. Was a higher lvl mob wandering? could you pull too much? Is your neighbors about to wipe and give you adds or trains? Did someone CC the dying MOB before it called for help?
I wasn't much of a EQ fan but that is one thing I liked about the game.
Harder! Not just MMO's either. Almost all games now, especially AAA games, are so unbelievably easy they are hardly games anymore. I used to be afraid to up the difficulty setting when starting a game, now its the best way to enjoy it. Hell, some I though I should up to nightmare or whatever highest difficulty it has. Otherwise youre just kind of watching an interactive movie. Very few games out there ever really take out the training wheels anymore. Like Dark Souls, yeah some people find it easy now, but they still need to get good at it. It still drops you off in game, explains little, and tries to stop you from winning. Even the best will die throughout unless they watch some guide. Cant really say that about most other games anymore. Its almost like youre guarded from losing now. After all, new DLC comes out next month, gotta make sure youre done and ready for more by the time it releases, right?
MMOs are the worst offenders too. Not only have the games become a walk in the park, they have made every single hand holding convenience they could think of over the last decade a standard in the genre. To the point where way too many players think its actually GOOD to have a quest tracker with GPS, telegraph every attack, and auto-port anywhere because they cant be bothered to, you know, play.
You sum it up perfectly,
Theirs an mmo commentator, The Lazy Peon who reviews and gives first looks on all mmos. I like this guys style. When I get the chance I watch his stuff.
His reviews consist mostly of up coming Asian grinders. Sadly that's all we have to look forward to other than a few kick starter PvPs.
It's terrible what we have to look forward to, they ALL PLAY THE SAME, no diversity at all. But they all have a few standout similarities.
- Easy
- Large focus on Cash Shops
- Small zones
- Story driven paths to follow
Were force fed this crap !!!.........With an emphasis on EASY first and foremost.
Eastern or Western mmos, It doesn't matter. Very few like too easy. Are developers that disconnected or the real reason....Small worlds, small games, limited quest. Maybe it is the least common denominator. Small kids.
I remember when my girlfriends daughter was three. I would sit with her and help with the keyboard, her little fingers and motor skills didn't work.....Are mmos made for her ?....This is crazy too have to sink that low, yet EVERY mmo is made that way.
For me the only meaningful way to increase challenge in gaming is by improving the A.I. in gaming.
Removing the contrived taunt mechanic is necessary for any meaningful step in that direction, but that completely breaks the trinity - a system often revered by the same people who want more "challange" in their MMO combat.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
The poll is a farce. It's a subjective measure and it's leading. It's like this. NEW POLL!!!
Would you rather: A) Eat dog shit B ) Drink Ovaltine
Results: 95% of people want Ovaltine!
I'm not sure how its leading ?.....In what direction ?
I think my example explains exactly what leading means. It means that you place an option that is less desirable against another option in order to strengthen your position. I mean anyone who has spent any amount of time on the forums understands that you want more difficult games, games which are much more punishing that what's available today. So the intent of your poll is to support that argument. Generally speaking, I feel like people would prefer a game to be harder than easy, whatever that means. So why not do a quantitative poll with relevant examples? Shit, even a scale like WoW -> ESO -> Dark Souls provides more of a quantitative measurement than "harder". Yes, I never play a game on "Easy" difficulty setting, therefore I must want "harder".
That's what leading is. Not giving people a REAL option on what to pick.
The poll is a farce. It's a subjective measure and it's leading. It's like this. NEW POLL!!!
Would you rather: A) Eat dog shit B ) Drink Ovaltine
Results: 95% of people want Ovaltine!
I'm not sure how its leading ?.....In what direction ?
I think my example explains exactly what leading means. It means that you place an option that is less desirable against another option in order to strengthen your position. I mean anyone who has spent any amount of time on the forums understands that you want more difficult games, games which are much more punishing that what's available today. So the intent of your poll is to support that argument. Generally speaking, I feel like people would prefer a game to be harder than easy, whatever that means. So why not do a quantitative poll with relevant examples? Shit, even a scale like WoW -> ESO -> Dark Souls provides more of a quantitative measurement than "harder". Yes, I never play a game on "Easy" difficulty setting, therefore I must want "harder".
That's what leading is. Not giving people a REAL option on what to pick.
WoW.......Both options are short and sweet. Both to the best of my knowledge don't sway in one direction or the other.....I do say, it's set up with no middle ground and to pick one.
The poll even has an escape for those that are unsure of their decision or don't like to give it or don't understand it "let me see the poll".
If your referring to my past post and replies and the knowledge of my history......Now would be a great chance to prove me wrong. So as you can see it could easily work against me, if that's your concern !
I actually like to change it up. Some parts easy, some a challenge, and some nearly impossible. I liked what ESO did before they nerfed everything when you would die 7 or 8 times fighting the last quest boss and sometimes had to come back later to finish him off. I don't like every fight to feel impossible, just every once in awhile. It gets boring if every fight is easy or every fight is hard.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I don't want hard combat, I want smart combat. I should be able to either take 15 minutes slowly chipping away at a monster's health, or kill it in one hit with a strategic attack (for example, using a combination of abilities that have a worthwhile effect only due to the monster's position, the current environment, randomly generated weakspots, etc).
Hard combat, to me, simply means playing with numbers, adding a few telegraphs to dodge, and other things that at the most basic level only increase the time it takes to kill something.
Dark Messiah gave you several different ways of taking out mobs which I really enjoyed. Sometimes it was fun to just kick them off the cliff. Shadow of Mordor had a great system in which you could flip a bad guy over to your side and take out his rivals so he got promoted which allowed him to help you in better ways. Games like that require some thought and not just hacking your way through mobs.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
The poll is a farce. It's a subjective measure and it's leading. It's like this. NEW POLL!!!
Would you rather: A) Eat dog shit B ) Drink Ovaltine
Results: 95% of people want Ovaltine!
I'm not sure how its leading ?.....In what direction ?
I think my example explains exactly what leading means. It means that you place an option that is less desirable against another option in order to strengthen your position. I mean anyone who has spent any amount of time on the forums understands that you want more difficult games, games which are much more punishing that what's available today. So the intent of your poll is to support that argument. Generally speaking, I feel like people would prefer a game to be harder than easy, whatever that means. So why not do a quantitative poll with relevant examples? Shit, even a scale like WoW -> ESO -> Dark Souls provides more of a quantitative measurement than "harder". Yes, I never play a game on "Easy" difficulty setting, therefore I must want "harder".
That's what leading is. Not giving people a REAL option on what to pick.
WoW.......Both options are short and sweet. Both to the best of my knowledge don't sway in one direction or the other.....I do say, it's set up with no middle ground and to pick one.
The poll even has an escape for those that are unsure of their decision or don't like to give it or don't understand it "let me see the poll".
If your referring to my past post and replies and the knowledge of my history......Now would be a great chance to prove me wrong. So as you can see it could easily work against me, if that's your concern !
How do people come up with this stuff ?
I don't think it's really rocket science. Why is it that you feel I'm coming "..up with this stuff"? I work with data on a daily basis and I would say that this is weak at best. It proves absolutely nothing is what I'm saying, other than, "HOLY FUCK!! 3 times the number of people want harder games!!" Wow!!!! "I really wish more people understand whats going on."
Ok, so here's what you've established with your poll. There are, at minimum, 15-20 million people who would be willing to pay monthly for a harder mmo. Take this poll to a VC firm with those numbers and get that game made!! WoW makes at least $1 Billion per year, so all you have to do is make something that's harder and you will make $3 Billion per year!!! Pretty good return on a $100 million investment.
Lol, sorry, I just can't get enough of self-righteous people who think that they know more than industry experts who spend their entire day, with ENTIRE TEAMS of people, analyzing data of ACTUAL gamers, to come up with the best combination of features that people will pay a subscription for, or just play in general.
When talking about EQ in terms of combat it depended a lot on your class and abilities. Warriors and rogues didn't have the abilities to do anything creative with. For them it was just do I have more hp and damage or do they? Other classes had abilities that required some kiting skill to use as it wasn't always easy to know if they were close to you are not and death was quick if you did get to close to them. Figuring out what abilities you needed to use was also important and took some time. There was a lot of trial and error to see what class could solo best and what abilities worked best.
There is also the experience loss and corpse runs. One thing that makes Dark Souls difficult or any game that requires repeating whole levels difficult is that you have to be prefect the whole way though a level. You can't just take it down in small segments and overcome one small part at a time. This combined with losing experience makes it difficult to progress if you are not able to come up with and execute a good strategy consistently.
Mobs with more HP and damage require you to come with better strategies and execute them to a higher level of perfection. There is less room for making a mistake in your rotation. Mobs with additional special abilities makes like snare, root, and heal make things even more difficult.
Challenge as it is now in games seems to be one dimensional....."Raiding"...BOSS.
pretty sad when every single developer is using the exact same crap formula.What about "challenge" even at level 1 the way it was playing a Thief in FFXi or a Taru whm?
Instead games are pretty much laying out a path to follow,it is NOT YOUR role playing adventure but a scripted one.Even the raiding is for ONE reason only and that is the BEST LOOT,otherwise nobody could care less. I feel and of course my opinion but i have seen it all and figure the best way to game and keep it fun is the way FFXI USED to do it.
That means that you had to LEARN your foes and types of races/enemies,anything including what you might think as EASY fodder could be challenging.Gaming right now is nothing more than a gear treadmill and it bothers me a LOT,GEAR should NEVER be a factor in the "challenging" aspect of a mmorpg,yet that is exactly what it is.You can thank Blizzard for crap designs like that because they relied solely on that type of design,NOBODY was talking about Wow other than raiding which of course played ZERO part in the lore of the game or even carried any reasoning other than ,,,"let's go raid" for loot.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The poll is a farce. It's a subjective measure and it's leading. It's like this. NEW POLL!!!
Would you rather: A) Eat dog shit B ) Drink Ovaltine
Results: 95% of people want Ovaltine!
I'm not sure how its leading ?.....In what direction ?
I think my example explains exactly what leading means. It means that you place an option that is less desirable against another option in order to strengthen your position. I mean anyone who has spent any amount of time on the forums understands that you want more difficult games, games which are much more punishing that what's available today. So the intent of your poll is to support that argument. Generally speaking, I feel like people would prefer a game to be harder than easy, whatever that means. So why not do a quantitative poll with relevant examples? Shit, even a scale like WoW -> ESO -> Dark Souls provides more of a quantitative measurement than "harder". Yes, I never play a game on "Easy" difficulty setting, therefore I must want "harder".
That's what leading is. Not giving people a REAL option on what to pick.
WoW.......Both options are short and sweet. Both to the best of my knowledge don't sway in one direction or the other.....I do say, it's set up with no middle ground and to pick one.
The poll even has an escape for those that are unsure of their decision or don't like to give it or don't understand it "let me see the poll".
If your referring to my past post and replies and the knowledge of my history......Now would be a great chance to prove me wrong. So as you can see it could easily work against me, if that's your concern !
How do people come up with this stuff ?
I don't think it's really rocket science. Why is it that you feel I'm coming "..up with this stuff"? I work with data on a daily basis and I would say that this is weak at best. It proves absolutely nothing is what I'm saying, other than, "HOLY FUCK!! 3 times the number of people want harder games!!" Wow!!!! "I really wish more people understand whats going on."
Ok, so here's what you've established with your poll. There are, at minimum, 15-20 million people who would be willing to pay monthly for a harder mmo. Take this poll to a VC firm with those numbers and get that game made!! WoW makes at least $1 Billion per year, so all you have to do is make something that's harder and you will make $3 Billion per year!!! Pretty good return on a $100 million investment.
Lol, sorry, I just can't get enough of self-righteous people who think that they know more than industry experts who spend their entire day, with ENTIRE TEAMS of people, analyzing data of ACTUAL gamers, to come up with the best combination of features that people will pay a subscription for, or just play in general.
Sorry, had to go out for a few hours,
Lets all relax and take a deep breath, even me and I'm not saying that in a bad way.
I can see what's going on....I don't think it's a jaded or bad poll, and I don't think you feel it is.
Your just fed up with my crusade of always trying to prove a point. The poll just put you over the edge.
So let me explain:
First I would like to say I'm not angry. However I've always been a crusader against wrong doing. At work, home or where ever I go I usually have people on my side. I'm the vocal one. Here on a message web site it's hard for others to understand a persons demeanor. So it would appear that I'm just mad and spiteful......Well I'm not !
I too had worked with data all my life. I'm good at it too, way better than my spelling.
My MMO data is strictly from here. I'll not dispute that. From info gathered here I'm way more informed than my RL mmo friends. Now you can gather REAL facts here, even if mmorpg.com is a small representation of the industry. Sure it's a fraction, BUT one of the better fractions you can find. Just watch any Youtube about the state mmoprgs are in and you will see it matches what we say.
As I say, I'm a crusader against wrong doing. But I'm seeing a lot of bad information trying to be spilled out as fact here. Talking about SELF- RIGHTEOUS. Several people overwhelm everyone's topic when they say they don't like mmos anymore, cash shops, easy, small, Story driven, not open world, hating a game in three weeks, the list goes on and on.
THEASE PEOPLE DESERVE AN OPINION but they just get shot down by the same self proclaimed experts, with no back up to their clime other than giving us their made up resume.
We'll I'm doing it too, but using facts of lessoning to the other 1,000 posters and their complaints.
What do you mean by hard ? Is it a mob with tonnes of hp that you chip away at ? Your definition of hard seems to be based on downtime. That is tedium not hard.
Preparation before you fight is hard for you . So you spend a few minutes setting up a fight by CCing the adds then you take on the main boss and dpsing him down. What is so hard about that ? Don't sound hard at all I can understand you liking this type of combat but it is not hard at all.
I find it harder to think on my feet when combat makes me have to move about to avoid hits and then to find the right place to hit a mob. That would be hard for me since I suck at that type of combat. The challenge you describe is easy for me.
You've missed a crucial point.
The difficulty of OP's combat doesn't come from how long it lasts, so the tedium point is invalid.
It comes from what happens before and what happens during. Preparation can be hard, yes. It requires time spent researching/thinking, and time spent playing and learning tasks. It uses memory recall.
Twitch combat does the same; it uses memory recall, time spent thinking, and time learning tasks.
OP's combat requires these things in a different way. Instead of spotting a telegraph within a two second window and pushing a button, OP has to spot a telegraph within a two minute window and push a button. Is it inherently harder to spot a telegraph in a shorter timeframe? No, it depends on the leeway granted by the telegraph.
If OP's telegraph with a two minute window had a 0.2 second leeway, it'd be absurd. The attention required would be too high. If your telegraph had a 0.02 second leeway, it'd be absurd. Reaction time required would be too high. Either way the telegraph leeway determines the difficulty, not the length of the window.
This shows that difficulty scales along with fight length, using attention span, reaction time, etc, to invest difficulty.
I didn't mention choreographing because that adds difficulty to both types.
TLDR: if I'm grouping in EQ, I'm not performing any actions during most combat, just chipping away at mob's hp. But I'm constantly watching for situations where my abilities are crucial, and if I miss that, we can lose. Chain reactions happen.
If I'm playing CoD I'm performing constant actions and also watching for situations where my abilities are crucial, and if I miss, chain reactions can happen.
Adding constant action performance can raise the difficulty, yes. But so can tuning the situations where my abilities are crucial.
I played Everquest from 1999 to about 2002 and since then I have played many many games and I have come to the conclusion that Everquest was neither challenging nor hard. It was however in my eyes at the time that I played both challenging and hard but after trying out other games I realised that it was my lack of experience in the genre that gave me that impression.
Comments
MMOs are the worst offenders too. Not only have the games become a walk in the park, they have made every single hand holding convenience they could think of over the last decade a standard in the genre. To the point where way too many players think its actually GOOD to have a quest tracker with GPS, telegraph every attack, and auto-port anywhere because they cant be bothered to, you know, play.
Never would have guessed that from all his posts about wanting a more challenging MMO, thought he was former EQ1 player for sure.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I wasn't much of a EQ fan but that is one thing I liked about the game.
You sum it up perfectly,
Theirs an mmo commentator, The Lazy Peon who reviews and gives first looks on all mmos. I like this guys style. When I get the chance I watch his stuff.
His reviews consist mostly of up coming Asian grinders. Sadly that's all we have to look forward to other than a few kick starter PvPs.
It's terrible what we have to look forward to, they ALL PLAY THE SAME, no diversity at all. But they all have a few standout similarities.
- Easy
- Large focus on Cash Shops
- Small zones
- Story driven paths to follow
Were force fed this crap !!!.........With an emphasis on EASY first and foremost.
Eastern or Western mmos, It doesn't matter. Very few like too easy. Are developers that disconnected or the real reason....Small worlds, small games, limited quest. Maybe it is the least common denominator. Small kids.
I remember when my girlfriends daughter was three. I would sit with her and help with the keyboard, her little fingers and motor skills didn't work.....Are mmos made for her ?....This is crazy too have to sink that low, yet EVERY mmo is made that way.
Would you rather:
A) Eat dog shit
B ) Drink Ovaltine
Results:
95% of people want Ovaltine!
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
I'm not sure how its leading ?.....In what direction ?
I think my example explains exactly what leading means. It means that you place an option that is less desirable against another option in order to strengthen your position. I mean anyone who has spent any amount of time on the forums understands that you want more difficult games, games which are much more punishing that what's available today. So the intent of your poll is to support that argument. Generally speaking, I feel like people would prefer a game to be harder than easy, whatever that means. So why not do a quantitative poll with relevant examples? Shit, even a scale like WoW -> ESO -> Dark Souls provides more of a quantitative measurement than "harder". Yes, I never play a game on "Easy" difficulty setting, therefore I must want "harder".
That's what leading is. Not giving people a REAL option on what to pick.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
WoW.......Both options are short and sweet. Both to the best of my knowledge don't sway in one direction or the other.....I do say, it's set up with no middle ground and to pick one.
The poll even has an escape for those that are unsure of their decision or don't like to give it or don't understand it "let me see the poll".
If your referring to my past post and replies and the knowledge of my history......Now would be a great chance to prove me wrong. So as you can see it could easily work against me, if that's your concern !
How do people come up with this stuff ?
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I don't think it's really rocket science. Why is it that you feel I'm coming "..up with this stuff"? I work with data on a daily basis and I would say that this is weak at best. It proves absolutely nothing is what I'm saying, other than, "HOLY FUCK!! 3 times the number of people want harder games!!" Wow!!!! "I really wish more people understand whats going on."
Ok, so here's what you've established with your poll. There are, at minimum, 15-20 million people who would be willing to pay monthly for a harder mmo. Take this poll to a VC firm with those numbers and get that game made!! WoW makes at least $1 Billion per year, so all you have to do is make something that's harder and you will make $3 Billion per year!!! Pretty good return on a $100 million investment.
Lol, sorry, I just can't get enough of self-righteous people who think that they know more than industry experts who spend their entire day, with ENTIRE TEAMS of people, analyzing data of ACTUAL gamers, to come up with the best combination of features that people will pay a subscription for, or just play in general.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
There is also the experience loss and corpse runs. One thing that makes Dark Souls difficult or any game that requires repeating whole levels difficult is that you have to be prefect the whole way though a level. You can't just take it down in small segments and overcome one small part at a time. This combined with losing experience makes it difficult to progress if you are not able to come up with and execute a good strategy consistently.
Mobs with more HP and damage require you to come with better strategies and execute them to a higher level of perfection. There is less room for making a mistake in your rotation. Mobs with additional special abilities makes like snare, root, and heal make things even more difficult.
pretty sad when every single developer is using the exact same crap formula.What about "challenge" even at level 1 the way it was playing a Thief in FFXi or a Taru whm?
Instead games are pretty much laying out a path to follow,it is NOT YOUR role playing adventure but a scripted one.Even the raiding is for ONE reason only and that is the BEST LOOT,otherwise nobody could care less.
I feel and of course my opinion but i have seen it all and figure the best way to game and keep it fun is the way FFXI USED to do it.
That means that you had to LEARN your foes and types of races/enemies,anything including what you might think as EASY fodder could be challenging.Gaming right now is nothing more than a gear treadmill and it bothers me a LOT,GEAR should NEVER be a factor in the "challenging" aspect of a mmorpg,yet that is exactly what it is.You can thank Blizzard for crap designs like that because they relied solely on that type of design,NOBODY was talking about Wow other than raiding which of course played ZERO part in the lore of the game or even carried any reasoning other than ,,,"let's go raid" for loot.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Sorry, had to go out for a few hours,
Lets all relax and take a deep breath, even me and I'm not saying that in a bad way.
I can see what's going on....I don't think it's a jaded or bad poll, and I don't think you feel it is.
Your just fed up with my crusade of always trying to prove a point. The poll just put you over the edge.
So let me explain:
First I would like to say I'm not angry. However I've always been a crusader against wrong doing. At work, home or where ever I go I usually have people on my side. I'm the vocal one. Here on a message web site it's hard for others to understand a persons demeanor. So it would appear that I'm just mad and spiteful......Well I'm not !
I too had worked with data all my life. I'm good at it too, way better than my spelling.
My MMO data is strictly from here. I'll not dispute that. From info gathered here I'm way more informed than my RL mmo friends. Now you can gather REAL facts here, even if mmorpg.com is a small representation of the industry. Sure it's a fraction, BUT one of the better fractions you can find. Just watch any Youtube about the state mmoprgs are in and you will see it matches what we say.
As I say, I'm a crusader against wrong doing. But I'm seeing a lot of bad information trying to be spilled out as fact here. Talking about SELF- RIGHTEOUS. Several people overwhelm everyone's topic when they say they don't like mmos anymore, cash shops, easy, small, Story driven, not open world, hating a game in three weeks, the list goes on and on.
THEASE PEOPLE DESERVE AN OPINION but they just get shot down by the same self proclaimed experts, with no back up to their clime other than giving us their made up resume.
We'll I'm doing it too, but using facts of lessoning to the other 1,000 posters and their complaints.
The difficulty of OP's combat doesn't come from how long it lasts, so the tedium point is invalid.
It comes from what happens before and what happens during. Preparation can be hard, yes. It requires time spent researching/thinking, and time spent playing and learning tasks. It uses memory recall.
Twitch combat does the same; it uses memory recall, time spent thinking, and time learning tasks.
OP's combat requires these things in a different way. Instead of spotting a telegraph within a two second window and pushing a button, OP has to spot a telegraph within a two minute window and push a button. Is it inherently harder to spot a telegraph in a shorter timeframe? No, it depends on the leeway granted by the telegraph.
If OP's telegraph with a two minute window had a 0.2 second leeway, it'd be absurd. The attention required would be too high. If your telegraph had a 0.02 second leeway, it'd be absurd. Reaction time required would be too high. Either way the telegraph leeway determines the difficulty, not the length of the window.
This shows that difficulty scales along with fight length, using attention span, reaction time, etc, to invest difficulty.
I didn't mention choreographing because that adds difficulty to both types.
TLDR: if I'm grouping in EQ, I'm not performing any actions during most combat, just chipping away at mob's hp. But I'm constantly watching for situations where my abilities are crucial, and if I miss that, we can lose. Chain reactions happen.
If I'm playing CoD I'm performing constant actions and also watching for situations where my abilities are crucial, and if I miss, chain reactions can happen.
Adding constant action performance can raise the difficulty, yes. But so can tuning the situations where my abilities are crucial.
Thus, both combat types can be hard.
I played Everquest from 1999 to about 2002 and since then I have played many many games and I have come to the conclusion that Everquest was neither challenging nor hard. It was however in my eyes at the time that I played both challenging and hard but after trying out other games I realised that it was my lack of experience in the genre that gave me that impression.