If all mmo's were diffacult, would you enjoy them more ?

delete5230

A few in-development mmos will be released within the next few years with the promise higher difficulty gameplay.  They seem to have a following mainly because of this feature. 

What would happen if all the latest ( modern) mmos raised difficulty to a far greater level ? 



For me this would simply encourage community, and make abilities count...... WoW, what a feature

Wizardry

It still depends on the overall game design for me,difficulty will not make a bad game good.

One of my biggest turnoffs is difficult UI,it is cumbersome or too many menus,i will not play it no matter how good the game is.Point being,it has to be the entire package,great UI,great gameplay,well designed and preferably open world not linear paths of unlocks.

I do not  want super difficult,i have seen the results of that and they always play badly or fake/unrealistic.
A couple examples of difficult that turn me off.
1 The red carpet idea from FFXIV done in a few other games,i do not consider dodging markers on the ground as good gameplay.
2 Hearthstone story gameplay.Blizzard has chosen to  rather than create real decks for constructive/difficult challenges,they just cheat the entire game design and make decks that are not even possible in the game,cheat mechanics are not good game design.

Another sign i have seen throughout gaming is combat made difficult by removing player abilities/spells,in other words the Bosses are immune to pretty much everything meaningful,again a LAZY way of creating difficulty.The other common trend in difficult is to think that a 24 man raid is the way to make difficult,WRONG,having access to several healers is not harder than 1 healer if dies your whole group is dead,raiding is actually an easier form of combat.

Excession

Define "difficult" with regards to MMORPG gameplay.

delete5230

Excession said:

Define "difficult" with regards to MMORPG gameplay.

I don't define anything, use your imagination. 

Tofke

No, just as with other games I like a good diverse range. Sometimes I feel like being challenged, other times I feel like relaxing. Most MMO's offer different difficulties inside their game so that's fine... though some could do better on the challenging bits being challenging.

(Instead of nitpicking like the Kano, I opted to understand what you were going for ;p)

Albatroes

DMKano said:

There are no difficult MMOs, there never were any that were difficult.

Time investment does not mean difficult.

What is difficult - getting 2 PHDs at the same time example -  in physics and molecular biology.

Or try learning a difficult language like Icelandic (for an english speaker it is difficult)

I'm with Kano on this one. It was just more that the things you invested in the past had a longer impact on what you did, not really about the difficulty of the content. I played FFXI for a very long and the game wasn't really difficult, but it did require you actually knew how your job (class) worked, that you had skills up (not just having the abilities but also that you had skills in order to effectively use said abilities, like dark mage skill in order to stun and not get resisted etc), and that you could actually pay attention to your said job. It wasn't so much about this one man army system that we have in games today where tanks tanked, healers healed, and dps just dps'd. You were your class first and not a role. Sometimes White Mages had to enfeeble, paladins had to cure others to hold threat, black mages could off heal, etc, whatever you comp was at the time and what the fight required. Also you kind of had to be social and learn how to not troll people because there wasn't all this server hopping and instance finder stuff. You had to know and remember people on your server and more importantly people would remember you.

Scorchien

DMKano said:

There are no difficult MMOs, there never were any that were difficult.

Time investment does not mean difficult.

What is difficult - getting 2 PHDs at the same time example -  in physics and molecular biology.

Or try learning a difficult language like Icelandic (for an english speaker it is difficult)

ohh BS .. tell ya what go log into UO .. Skill up whatever you want then go take on a Paragon Lich Lord ...

  If you are not prepared and execute perfectly you will be one shot dead and looted .. Its Difficult to pull off and players have many deaths learning to do something like this and still more failures because of the difficulty after they know how .. As on intangible creeps in one slip up and your Dead..

  even regular Lich Lords will kill you qwikly if you slip up ..

  Difficulty in games is there if you challenge yourself and take challenges that seem unachievable , but if you are the type of player that max lvls then enjoys going in to low -mid areas and carpet bombing kittens you would not understand challenging yourself ... That type of player is looking for the path of least resistance not challenge and difficulty ...

Neanderthal

delete5230 said:

Excession said:

Define "difficult" with regards to MMORPG gameplay.

I don't define anything, use your imagination. 

Ok then, I imagine that what  you meant by "difficulty" was if a game required you to play with a cat walking back and forth across your keyboard.  So, no, I don't see how this would promote community or make abilities count more.  It might require greater hand/eye coordination and faster reflexes though.

Kyleran

delete5230 said:

Excession said:

Define "difficult" with regards to MMORPG gameplay.

I don't define anything, use your imagination. 

Then there is no question to discuss, as I'm not sure what you mean.

I never considered anything in a MMO to be particularly difficult if you are referring to actual gameplay.

Sure, complicated raids force you to learn the "dance steps" and pay close attention to orders, and perhaps even some study beforehand,  but with enough practice, preparation, and most importantly perseverance I've never failed to complete content. 

Getting a group of 40 plus people together willing to do all of the above,  that was sometimes difficult, but I was never the raid leader,  so someone else's problem.

Being a guild leader, that was really difficult, spent far too much time trying to organize and manage things, and dealing with people personality issues was really challenging,  so I don't do that anymore.

Getting into a group as a steather was very difficult in DAOC as it brought no real utility outside of raw DPS,  which in PVE was actually bad if it drew aggro from the tank. Solved that by being very social and helping other stealthers level up when on my group friendly characters.

Some classes were difficult to solo in, but the fix was easy,  1st level to cap a necromancer or other strong solo class, then dual box and power level the feeb class to cap in your favorite grinding spot. Toss in a third account to run a buff bot for extra ease and convenience.

So again I ask, what did you mean by difficult? 

Albatroes

Scorchien said:

DMKano said:

There are no difficult MMOs, there never were any that were difficult.

Time investment does not mean difficult.

What is difficult - getting 2 PHDs at the same time example -  in physics and molecular biology.

Or try learning a difficult language like Icelandic (for an english speaker it is difficult)

ohh BS .. tell ya what go log into UO .. Skill up whatever you want then go take on a Paragon Lich Lord ...

  If you are not prepared and execute perfectly you will be one shot dead and looted .. Its Difficult to pull off and players have many deaths learning to do something like this and still more failures because of the difficulty after they know how .. As on intangible creeps in one slip up and your Dead..

  even regular Lich Lords will kill you qwikly if you slip up ..

  Difficulty in games is there if you challenge yourself and take challenges that seem unachievable , but if you are the type of player that max lvls then enjoys going in to low -mid areas and carpet bombing kittens you would not understand challenging yourself ... That type of player is looking for the path of least resistance not challenge and difficulty ...

Personally, I don't think you can rate a mmorpg's difficult on the same scale of an action game with different modes, with one shot kills etc, mainly because there's a lot more variables such as latency, server stability, hardware, etc. There were plenty of "ruthless" things in FFXI, like if you went into an instanced area without re-raise (similar to shaman's reincarnation but there were various to get it like via items/spells/etc) then you locked out until your timer was ready again if you wiped. There were also mobs that had en-death/en-doom (meaning pretty much you were dead if they physically hit you). To me, realistic difficulty would be having to interrupt a cast or you get greeted with an uncleansable debuff, or having to keep a target debuffed in order to control its attack speed because most "boss fights" had some form of en-debuff. Plenty of mmorpgs today use "one-shot" tactics to "amplify" difficulty, but it really does require a perfect storm of factors for it to be realistically difficult.

I will say that one of the things about difficulty in games too today is that it really doesn't matter in the long term, simply because there's no fear of getting left behind. Most devs create content that elevates the floor of the game at the same time the ceiling is raised, so no one really is that much higher than anyone else regardless of time investment. I dont know about others, but I've never liked busting my butt in the most difficult content only to see someone marginally inferior with minimal effort. Thus, I dont really participate in high end content anymore in most games because its not worth it if all I have to do is just wait.

Azaron_Nightblade

I imagine that by "difficult", he means tedious. No fast leveling, and every mob you fight is an epic battle. You really gotta "earn" those levels.

Which would be a boring as hell game to me. Challenging encounters should be reserved for boss fights and group content.

Kyleran

Neanderthal said:

delete5230 said:

Excession said:

Define "difficult" with regards to MMORPG gameplay.

I don't define anything, use your imagination. 

Ok then, I imagine that what  you meant by "difficulty" was if a game required you to play with a cat walking back and forth across your keyboard.  So, no, I don't see how this would promote community or make abilities count more.  It might require greater hand/eye coordination and faster reflexes though.

My cats do that all the time (I have 4), all love to walk across my laptop or keyboard, one manages to regularly step on the power button and start the shutdown sequence when she wants attention. 

Staying awake while in my recliner can be very difficult, number one cause of death in games for me.

Wife aggro has been a huge challenge at times, same with those other pesky family members, children I think they are called. Thank heavens they all grew up and moved out, but wife is still there. (Almost 35 years now)  

Scorchien

Albatroes said:

Scorchien said:

DMKano said:

There are no difficult MMOs, there never were any that were difficult.

Time investment does not mean difficult.

What is difficult - getting 2 PHDs at the same time example -  in physics and molecular biology.

Or try learning a difficult language like Icelandic (for an english speaker it is difficult)

ohh BS .. tell ya what go log into UO .. Skill up whatever you want then go take on a Paragon Lich Lord ...

  If you are not prepared and execute perfectly you will be one shot dead and looted .. Its Difficult to pull off and players have many deaths learning to do something like this and still more failures because of the difficulty after they know how .. As on intangible creeps in one slip up and your Dead..

  even regular Lich Lords will kill you qwikly if you slip up ..

  Difficulty in games is there if you challenge yourself and take challenges that seem unachievable , but if you are the type of player that max lvls then enjoys going in to low -mid areas and carpet bombing kittens you would not understand challenging yourself ... That type of player is looking for the path of least resistance not challenge and difficulty ...

Personally, I don't think you can rate a mmorpg's difficult on the same scale of an action game with different modes, with one shot kills etc, mainly because there's a lot more variables such as latency, server stability, hardware, etc. There were plenty of "ruthless" things in FFXI, like if you went into an instanced area without re-raise (similar to shaman's reincarnation but there were various to get it like via items/spells/etc) then you locked out until your timer was ready again if you wiped. There were also mobs that had en-death/en-doom (meaning pretty much you were dead if they physically hit you). To me, realistic difficulty would be having to interrupt a cast or you get greeted with an uncleansable debuff, or having to keep a target debuffed in order to control its attack speed because most "boss fights" had some form of en-debuff. Plenty of mmorpgs today use "one-shot" tactics to "amplify" difficulty, but it really does require a perfect storm of factors for it to be realistically difficult.

I will say that one of the things about difficulty in games too today is that it really doesn't matter in the long term, simply because there's no fear of getting left behind. Most devs create content that elevates the floor of the game at the same time the ceiling is raised, so no one really is that much higher than anyone else regardless of time investment. I dont know about others, but I've never liked busting my butt in the most difficult content only to see someone marginally inferior with minimal effort. Thus, I dont really participate in high end content anymore in most games because its not worth it if all I have to do is just wait.

"mainly because there's a lot more variables such as latency, server stability, hardware"


These are all Non Factors for most gamers these days , it was in 1999 ...No longer an issue or factor for the most part

"
  In a fight like the one i used as an ex. you had better be prepared to counter Many many different attacks and situations and you had better be ready to do it in a split second ... And no performance is no longer in this discussion ,, Its just skill and difficulty of encounter.. Not time invested .. you can have all 20 years in UO and still not possess the skill to ovbercome some of the diffcult challenges it holds.. this is an ex .. Other games hold equal challenges .. you just need to Chalenge yourself..

anemo

I have a difficult game that I like:  Screeps.    It's just a simple matter of AI programming, mind the skill gap (though devs have actually done quite well in letting simpler/naive systems work so it's not at the insane deep end level).   Frankly I don't get more "joy"/"fun"/"entanglement" out of the game compared to any other MMO that I liked.  

You could also say that the game lacks some really good things for enjoyment to support it's difficulty: 

• there are no interesting NPCs to interact with
•  no story
•  player trade takes somewhat of a back seat
•  gameplay is slow to support "automation"/"complexity" of 24/7 online with hundreds of thousands of unique entities
•  the game can only support a couple of devs so development is SLOW.   Seriously even if they capture 100% of people willing to play the game, still a small player base.   (seriously I want 'hero' units, but the devs needed to take a detour to improve the backend for faster gameplay).

Horusra

Scorchien said:

DMKano said:

There are no difficult MMOs, there never were any that were difficult.

Time investment does not mean difficult.

What is difficult - getting 2 PHDs at the same time example -  in physics and molecular biology.

Or try learning a difficult language like Icelandic (for an english speaker it is difficult)

ohh BS .. tell ya what go log into UO .. Skill up whatever you want then go take on a Paragon Lich Lord ...

  If you are not prepared and execute perfectly you will be one shot dead and looted .. Its Difficult to pull off and players have many deaths learning to do something like this and still more failures because of the difficulty after they know how .. As on intangible creeps in one slip up and your Dead..

  even regular Lich Lords will kill you qwikly if you slip up ..

  Difficulty in games is there if you challenge yourself and take challenges that seem unachievable , but if you are the type of player that max lvls then enjoys going in to low -mid areas and carpet bombing kittens you would not understand challenging yourself ... That type of player is looking for the path of least resistance not challenge and difficulty ...

too progress in the game do you have to kill the Paragon Lich Lord...if not the MMORPG as a whole is not difficult.  It only has a difficult part.

Scorchien

Horusra said:

Scorchien said:

DMKano said:

There are no difficult MMOs, there never were any that were difficult.

Time investment does not mean difficult.

What is difficult - getting 2 PHDs at the same time example -  in physics and molecular biology.

Or try learning a difficult language like Icelandic (for an english speaker it is difficult)

ohh BS .. tell ya what go log into UO .. Skill up whatever you want then go take on a Paragon Lich Lord ...

  If you are not prepared and execute perfectly you will be one shot dead and looted .. Its Difficult to pull off and players have many deaths learning to do something like this and still more failures because of the difficulty after they know how .. As on intangible creeps in one slip up and your Dead..

  even regular Lich Lords will kill you qwikly if you slip up ..

  Difficulty in games is there if you challenge yourself and take challenges that seem unachievable , but if you are the type of player that max lvls then enjoys going in to low -mid areas and carpet bombing kittens you would not understand challenging yourself ... That type of player is looking for the path of least resistance not challenge and difficulty ...

too progress in the game do you have to kill the Paragon Lich Lord...if not the MMORPG as a whole is not difficult.  It only has a difficult part.

silly semantics ................ not applicable

Horusra

Scorchien said:

Horusra said:

Scorchien said:

DMKano said:

There are no difficult MMOs, there never were any that were difficult.

Time investment does not mean difficult.

What is difficult - getting 2 PHDs at the same time example -  in physics and molecular biology.

Or try learning a difficult language like Icelandic (for an english speaker it is difficult)

ohh BS .. tell ya what go log into UO .. Skill up whatever you want then go take on a Paragon Lich Lord ...

  If you are not prepared and execute perfectly you will be one shot dead and looted .. Its Difficult to pull off and players have many deaths learning to do something like this and still more failures because of the difficulty after they know how .. As on intangible creeps in one slip up and your Dead..

  even regular Lich Lords will kill you qwikly if you slip up ..

  Difficulty in games is there if you challenge yourself and take challenges that seem unachievable , but if you are the type of player that max lvls then enjoys going in to low -mid areas and carpet bombing kittens you would not understand challenging yourself ... That type of player is looking for the path of least resistance not challenge and difficulty ...

too progress in the game do you have to kill the Paragon Lich Lord...if not the MMORPG as a whole is not difficult.  It only has a difficult part.

silly semantics ................ not applica

by your standards WoW is one of the most difficult MMORPG's because of Mythic Raids.

GameboyMarc

I recently left FFXIV due to it being harder than what I am use too. It was the solo quest for the jobs and the main story line. Though I do not consider it a bad game at all. I ended up leaving due to it.

Theocritus

I found in many games they were as easy or as difficult as I wanted them to be.....Lets say you are level 10....You can grind level 5 mobs all day without breaking a sweat...sure it takes a little longer to level but its easy, or you could try to take on level 20s where if you win at all it takes all you have to do it....Most people never go that route...If they do its because they have something like Kyleran said where they have another toon leveling them or a major buffbot/healer that helps them win.....Also in MMOs, Players try to find the route that maximizes XP but is the path of least resistance.....If you factor in that most games have questing that is easy leveling then that takes away difficulty too.

Scorchien

DMKano said:

Scorchien said:

DMKano said:

There are no difficult MMOs, there never were any that were difficult.

Time investment does not mean difficult.

What is difficult - getting 2 PHDs at the same time example -  in physics and molecular biology.

Or try learning a difficult language like Icelandic (for an english speaker it is difficult)

ohh BS .. tell ya what go log into UO .. Skill up whatever you want then go take on a Paragon Lich Lord ...

  If you are not prepared and execute perfectly you will be one shot dead and looted .. Its Difficult to pull off and players have many deaths learning to do something like this and still more failures because of the difficulty after they know how .. As on intangible creeps in one slip up and your Dead..

  even regular Lich Lords will kill you qwikly if you slip up ..

  Difficulty in games is there if you challenge yourself and take challenges that seem unachievable , but if you are the type of player that max lvls then enjoys going in to low -mid areas and carpet bombing kittens you would not understand challenging yourself ... That type of player is looking for the path of least resistance not challenge and difficulty ...

But thats not how the game is played nor designed, you are creating artificial challenge for yourself. Like trying to solo raid content - its not designed to be done that way, once you have a properly geared full raid party - its not difficult

Things that are truly difficult in life dont have an "easy way" or an easy path, there is nothing that suddenly trivializes them.

So my point stands - MMOs are not difficult, if they were, they would fail miserably.

Well that point ill concede , But im the sort of player that will look for those difficult challenges . Thats where i have the most fun ... So the difficult challenges are still there .. But you are right . you must seek it out and attempt it alone or lesser groups ... But ill also add that in some games now these challenges are not artificial as the devs know it can be achieved by the top 3 % and implement Acheivements/Titles /rewards for surmounting the most difficult challenges Solo/Small group/Speed etc .. So working as intended ..Not artificial

And i try not to apply real life to gameing it always sounds silly to me ..

Ive already won at Life .. Gaming and raising my 6 year old are the only challenges atm

Horusra

DMKano said:

Theocritus said:

I found in many games they were as easy or as difficult as I wanted them to be.....Lets say you are level 10....You can grind level 5 mobs all day without breaking a sweat...sure it takes a little longer to level but its easy, or you could try to take on level 20s where if you win at all it takes all you have to do it....Most people never go that route...If they do its because they have something like Kyleran said where they have another toon leveling them or a major buffbot/healer that helps them win.....Also in MMOs, Players try to find the route that maximizes XP but is the path of least resistance.....If you factor in that most games have questing that is easy leveling then that takes away difficulty too.

All of that is true. The thing is this is artificial difficulty players impose on themselves.

In contrast - truly difficult things in life like
Learning icelandic (for a native english speaker) is diffcult no matter what. There is no easy way about it, no shortcuts or anything that will make it easy. Its going to be a bitch no matter what you do and what kind of help you get.

sleep learning  

btdt

No one is looking for 'difficulty'... what they are looking for is a challenge with a reward that few if any can receive.  They don't care if they can do it by themselves or within a group... they just want to know that in the end, they won it and somebody else didn't.

Harken back to the old video arcade days... in which achieving the high score and maintaining it meant something.  Just seeing the inside of Molten Core for the first time was awe inspiring because of all the things you had to do to even enter the place.  Then there were the raids that only opened up to you if you completed the previous ones.  The gear that you acquired along the way were trophies of those accomplishments.  Someone saw you in x gear they KNEW what you had to do to get it.

Fast forward... it's all either in a cash shop... available in super-dooper-I can't-even-hit-the-right-keyboard-key mode... or looks identical to every other piece of gear except that it has glowing blue eyes on it.

But the players that truly care about such things are in such a minority... although they are the most vocal... as to make one laugh out loud.  It's precisely why all 'difficult' games are made easy in short order... there are far more people wanting it all now than all later.

Kyleran

All of this conversation is why I asked the OP what he meant by difficult. 

What he's refusing to say but we all understand what he really means is "if MMOs all required more time to progress, would you enjoy them more? "

As is so often the case, people equate more time or tedium to be more challenge,  hence the strong resistance to suggestions such as fast travel between starter cities in the the Pantheon Cities thread

Even suggesting players be permitted to choose a starter city are decried as the will "deprive" people of the "joy" and challenge of traveling to other cities  to meet up with others.

All of the other justifications against them such as damage to the lore or community are ancillary and just smoke screens to mask the real reason, people want games to just take longer, thats the difficulty they want games to bring back.

So I'll answer the real question,  no, I don't want to bring back time consuming activities if theres no in game purpose.

I fully support EVEs long, tedious travel mechanics, they serve multiple strategic design purposes, even on the PVE side, but for many other games they seemed mostly pointless back then, so no interest from me to see this return.

Octagon7711

I would say difficulty done right.  Like some Devs have said, there's a fine line between;
fun and frustration
hard and tedious
challenging and difficult
difficult and annoying

The ultimate decision is made by how well the content is received by the general or target population.

Eldurian

I think the ideal level of difficulty is "Simple to learn difficult to master."

99.95% of MMOs are "Simple to learn, simple to master... given enough grinding time."

So on that level I definitely desire more difficulty in my MMOs. I'd like to see more content that requires more skill, and not just a higher gearscore.

I'd like to see some content I can breeze through, some content I struggle with but can overcome with a bit of effort, some content that pushes me to my limits and I can barely overcome, and some content that is something I can aspire to and may not ever be able to complete it.

Loke666

The problem with all MMOs with high production value is that they all have the exact same difficulty. Making all of them harder would still keep that problem.

The solution is to have 2 serversets, an easymode with reduced droprate for epic loot and a harder one. It is surprisingly cheap to implement and will make far more people happy.

And yes, the hardmode needs better droprate because risk Vs reward. The game should encourage people to roll on the harder servers but not forcing anyone to do that.

Mixing hard and easy content in the same open world as some people suggest now and then wont work. The people who want it easy will still constantly get killed and the people wanting it harder will get way too many super easy trashmobs to deal with, compromizes like that makes no-one happy.