Hell, MMOs were actually far simpler back in the day.
For some players, MMOs are hard. Some players don't want to master a game (too much effort) and some people simply don't have the capabilities for it. I've also encountered players who want to keep their illusions and the mystery of the game mechanics intact so that they can be more immersed in the game.
In your typical MMORPG, you don't have to get good to advance. You can always either bring more friends, out-level the content or get better gear. And two out of those three can usually be achieved through grind.
Did you see the outcry against action combat and non-trinity systems? These people do not want hard games! They get confused: "Its chaos - a mindless zerg.", "Where's my healer? I want my healer!"
Your stereotypical MMORPG player is not a very skilled gamer. Of course he/she will say that grinding takes skill. What else would he/she have?
I played various other games with the players I met in Eve, and apart from few exceptions, all of them had well below 50% win rate in World of Tanks, Battlefield and such games where these stats are actually tracked. And you could tell that these people were never going to get good in these games. But when they play Eve, they don't have to be good. They can just mine or grind away and get ISK. Jump into fleets and press F1 on called targets. Soak in the atmosphere of those big fights. Feel like they've contributed.
This is precisely why these people play MMORPGs instead of MOBAs where they get yelled at for being so bad. If you play in a team of five, a big part of your chances of winning rests on your shoulders. But if you're one in a hundred or one in a thousand? -There's a good chance nobody will notice your screw up. Nobody is going to tell you how much you suck.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I remember those days and played some of those games. I don't remember them as being glorious or really hard just aggravating.
If those days where so glorious and great then why didn't they continue? Maybe they weren't as good as people seem to remember.
Something being aggravating is generally a good sign that it is challenging/difficult in some way. I don't think to many people are aggravated by something being too easy (maybe a small minority).
You know what else isn't aggravating? Fun stuff.
Fun is a separate topic from the one I was discussing and is subjective to the person playing.
Fair enough.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I keep reading stuff about length of leveling being tied into MMO difficulty. I don't think I'd call doing tedious tasks over and over again hard.
Saying stuff like MAN IT TOOK ME 500 HOURS TO HIT LEVEL 2 IT WAS SO HARDCORE AND HARD is a lie.
It's not hard. Its monotonous.
Devil May Cry 3 on Dante Must Die mode is hard. Yogg +0 and Kael'thas was hard. Thoth-Amon was a challenge. Trying to get the Big Boss Mask in Metal Gear Solid 4 was hard.
Let's stop spreading this falsehood that length of leveling = difficulty.
"This hand of mine glows with an awesome power....."
I keep reading stuff about length of leveling being tied into MMO difficulty. I don't think I'd call doing tedious tasks over and over again hard.
Saying stuff like MAN IT TOOK ME 500 HOURS TO HIT LEVEL 2 IT WAS SO HARDCORE AND HARD is a lie.
It's not hard. Its monotonous.
Devil May Cry 3 on Dante Must Die mode is hard. Yogg +0 and Kael'thas was hard. Thoth-Amon was a challenge. Trying to get the Big Boss Mask in Metal Gear Solid 4 was hard.
Let's stop spreading this falsehood that length of leveling = difficulty.
It's already been explained why it is hard in this thread. It is all part of simple mathematics. There are a lot of variables that go into it than repeating something over and over again.
Something could be fairly hard, but if I can quickly repeat it over and over again then my percentage chances of beating it goes up high.
This seems again like a bunch of random insults with no bearing because there is no logic against my points.
You are comparing something physical to a something that is a skill that is learned by people. Patience is learned. Do a google search as to weather or not patience is a skill or patience is learned and see what comes up. You will find that people agree that patience is something that is a skill and is learned. You are not born with patience. It is something that is hard to acquire (more difficult then other skills you learn in game). It is probably the most challenging skill and most important in terms of problem solving difficult issues in life.
In terms of bosses being easy enough to kill by everyone generally that is the case. There might be a small amount of bosses at the raid level that people can't kill, but who cares. That means 95% of the game is super easy and requires little in the way of skills or patience. Right now we were discussing weather or not grind was a skill and it is if the game is structured in a certain way that makes it difficult to level up.
They weren't insults, they were just a strong implication that perhaps you should have a higher standard of factual input than a random guy posting at answers.com, and that you should avoid making statements like the one about bosses.
Not sure what you're talking about with "something physical". Skill is decision-making and execution. It's not just execution (often called twitch,) it's also the decision-making requiring the execution. In fact games like chess involve basically zero execution skill, and we still call grandmasters skilled.
Even if we called it a skill, patience isn't actually difficult to learn since it's basically "do nothing a while". Which is why in a game purely about patience (Progress Quest) a dead player can end up being #1 on the leaderboard.
Even if we called it a skill, it wouldn't work because players have choices. Why play the game demanding patience which provides you with 10 interesting things an hour when you could play the game with 20 interesting things an hour? Players shouldn't encourage developers to be lazy (creating 10 things instead of 20) and the reality is they don't encourage developers to be lazy (because they're definitely going to leave the 10-thing game to play the 20-thing one.) Good game design isn't about demanding patience but about providing gameplay. That means instead of easy non-decisions ("do nothing a while") games need to provide interesting decisions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Isn't it odd how many equate "time spent" with difficulty. Yet few would remember "single character per game/account" as difficult.
But it clearly is far more difficult to go it alone than it is to multi-box it (evidenced by the enormous hatred for multi-boxers early on, that gradually disappeared).
When every account sported a handful of characters, and many (most?) players sported a handful of accounts...
This seems again like a bunch of random insults with no bearing because there is no logic against my points.
You are comparing something physical to a something that is a skill that is learned by people. Patience is learned. Do a google search as to weather or not patience is a skill or patience is learned and see what comes up. You will find that people agree that patience is something that is a skill and is learned. You are not born with patience. It is something that is hard to acquire (more difficult then other skills you learn in game). It is probably the most challenging skill and most important in terms of problem solving difficult issues in life.
In terms of bosses being easy enough to kill by everyone generally that is the case. There might be a small amount of bosses at the raid level that people can't kill, but who cares. That means 95% of the game is super easy and requires little in the way of skills or patience. Right now we were discussing weather or not grind was a skill and it is if the game is structured in a certain way that makes it difficult to level up.
They weren't insults, they were just a strong implication that perhaps you should have a higher standard of factual input than a random guy posting at answers.com, and that you should avoid making statements like the one about bosses.
Not sure what you're talking about with "something physical". Skill is decision-making and execution. It's not just execution (often called twitch,) it's also the decision-making requiring the execution. In fact games like chess involve basically zero execution skill, and we still call grandmasters skilled.
Even if we called it a skill, patience isn't actually difficult to learn since it's basically "do nothing a while". Which is why in a game purely about patience (Progress Quest) a dead player can end up being #1 on the leaderboard.
Even if we called it a skill, it wouldn't work because players have choices. Why play the game demanding patience which provides you with 10 interesting things an hour when you could play the game with 20 interesting things an hour? Players shouldn't encourage developers to be lazy (creating 10 things instead of 20) and the reality is they don't encourage developers to be lazy (because they're definitely going to leave the 10-thing game to play the 20-thing one.) Good game design isn't about demanding patience but about providing gameplay. That means instead of easy non-decisions ("do nothing a while") games need to provide interesting decisions.
In terms of physical the two examples you provided were gaining something physical that you could touch. Gaining patience is actually something you learn to do and is all mental.
I'd say answers.com is a fairly reliable source for answers on things and the answer provider there made sense. Again if you were to do a google search on is patience a skill you will find articles indicating that it is indeed a skill and is not at all easy to learn or hone. Most people today lack patience or problem solving skill. That is why we have such simple games today in general.
In terms of laziness most developers today are lazy in MMOs. They don't often come up with new ideas and the ones they do are to make the game even easier then they already are so they can hit even more mass appeal and make more money. Most of the content for leveling is simple cut and paste content.
FFXI's world was dangerous. I remember when we camped in valkurn dunes and at night bogys would spawn and if it spotted you, you would most likely die before zoning out of the area. Some camps had elementals around, and if a mage casted a spell while those were around it would actually agro you and kill you.
You had to be carefull in that game. Even in the beginner zones. You would be out soloing one mob at a time to slowly level, but if one of those beastman saw you it would chase you forever and you would be running for your life. FFXI you really had to be carefull of links. If you were out xping you would 90% of the time be fighting one mob at a time.
Mobs would actually chase you across the entire zone, only way to escape is if a higher level person ran by and pulled it off you or you made it to the zone line and exited the zone before your hp got down to 0. I even remember times were I would zone out, but still end up dead on the other side.
And no one wanted to die, because you would loose xp and possible dlvl. I remember years ago I dlvled my 40 blm to lvl 39 and couldn't equip half my gear. I never did get that level back... The higher level you were the more xp you would loose, and you'de be begging for a whm to come and raise 3 you.
We used to have to go out and xp just to get a buffer, for when we did end game content and died several times we wouldn't dlvl.
There were places even at lvl cap mobs would agro you and be hard to solo in ffxi. One place comes to mind, ifrits cauldram. Peaple used sneak oils and prism powers to hide from mobs.
I just rememberd think it was called "Garlieged Citidal" that place had cracks in the floor and if you accidently fell though one you would end up surrounded by mobs that were like 20 levels higher than you.
Riding that boat from mhara to selbina, ocationally a lvl 75 sea horrer would spawn on the deck or even pirates at times. If you not high level you'de better go downstairs and hide in the bottem or those would agro you and no way to escape um on that little boat, oh man all the fisherman that died from those Oo.
I remember when death penalties were really harsh and when your toon died SOE would send thugs over to your house to beat you to a pulp. They would destroy your computer, kick your dog and shave your cat.
In terms of laziness most developers today are lazy in MMOs. They don't often come up with new ideas and the ones they do are to make the game even easier then they already are so they can hit even more mass appeal and make more money. Most of the content for leveling is simple cut and paste content.
Er, you do understand that older MMORPGs required patience because of laziness, right?
We're talking about games with hundreds of hours of content which lazily set XP requirements in a way so that every ounce of that content had to be repetitively grinded, turning hundreds of hours to thousands.
So the reason MMORPGs required patience is rooted in a clear developer laziness.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
... "no life" nerds in a basement thought there finally were "someone" because they wasted years of their life to be the "best" for enduring an awful grind in some video game...
Originally posted by HappyFace
I keep reading stuff about length of leveling being tied into MMO difficulty. I don't think I'd call doing tedious tasks over and over again hard.
Saying stuff like MAN IT TOOK ME 500 HOURS TO HIT LEVEL 2 IT WAS SO HARDCORE AND HARD is a lie.
It's not hard. Its monotonous.
Devil May Cry 3 on Dante Must Die mode is hard. Yogg +0 and Kael'thas was hard. Thoth-Amon was a challenge. Trying to get the Big Boss Mask in Metal Gear Solid 4 was hard.
Let's stop spreading this falsehood that length of leveling = difficulty.
This guy won the thread.
I did Yogg+0 back then, on level, with on level gear. That was indeed hard. There was no grind involved, no other factor, it's the fight itself which was just hard, as in difficult, requiring various skills from everyone in your party.
But grinding mobs for 100 hours to gain one level? That's tedious, not hard. The only hard part is to not fall asleep, or just poke out your own eyes because you are so bored of seeing and grinding the same shit for weeks if not months. And making one mistake out of boredom or one disconnection due to an Internet problem out of your control making you lose one level, all your gear, or more isn't hard either... it's, once again, tedious and boring. And even if people enjoy that, and it's not tedious and boring to them, it's still not hard, it's still not difficult. It's like bashing your face on a wall until the wall breaks.
Yes, some of the "Take a number" camp fest grinds were tedious. But, not everything was like that. And not everything was easy. The only content that were easy but tedious in the old MMORPGs was the soloable content. What was hard was getting groups to stay together for hours at a time to complete those large dungeons. And/or working undermanned and with questionable and unknown players in the group. What was hard was trying to solo content that was not meant to be solo'd but still possible.
Not everything about old MMORPGs was easy and not everything was difficult. It's all in how you wish to remember I guess.
What was hard was getting groups to stay together for hours at a time to complete those large dungeons.
What you call hard is in reality symptom of bad game design. Why would people want to leave if they are having fun and if it's within reasonable amounts of time you can expect a normal people to spend playing a video game?
Nerds were doing it an got their "epeen" hard from it, other people were doing it because there was no other choice back then... but nowadays, those same people know better, and the only left are a few nerds who are still able as adults to spend insane amounts of time in a row playing a video game.
Whether or not it was bad design I guess is subjective. Back then, the dungeons were still fun.......assuming you had a Saturday afternoon to blow just doing a single dungeon. Yes, 4 hrs is too long for a singel 5 man instance and they should have been more modular. But to go from that to 20 minutes with zero group coordination needed?, I think the pendulum swinging the other way was also bad design. Violet Hold was, IMO, one of the most poorly designed dungeons in any MMORPG. To me, that should have been a group quest, not a heroic dungeon.
Note: Just to be clear, I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, I do think they could have been done better.
What was hard was getting groups to stay together for hours at a time to complete those large dungeons. And/or working undermanned and with questionable and unknown players in the group.
I find it amusing that part of what you considered hard in early MMORPGs was convincing people they were having enough fun to keep playing.
"It was really hard, but we did it! We managed to convince the entire group they were having fun for 4 whole hours!"
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What was hard was getting groups to stay together for hours at a time to complete those large dungeons. And/or working undermanned and with questionable and unknown players in the group.
I find it amusing that part of what you considered hard in early MMORPGs was convincing people they were having enough fun to keep playing.
"It was really hard, but we did it! We managed to convince the entire group they were having fun for 4 whole hours!"
Having fun and having time are 2 different things.
Not everything about the older MMOs was good. But neither was it all bad either.
Most of the arguments in this thread deal in the absolutes, but MMOs are multi-faceted and as with today's games, there is much right and there is much wrong with them. Early 2000s were no different. At least in that regard.
2) You shared your account with 2 ppl so as a team you could have the best character.
3) If you died you were so screwed.......
What else...?
Hell, I remember the days when MMORPGs were so hard that they didn't EXIST. If we wanted a bit of role playing we had to flock to the same geocentric location, create our characters on bits of paper, Ha! PAPER! And instead of RNG we had to settle skill outcomes with dice. DICE I TELL YOU!! Like fucking cavemen!!!
And you know what!? We were happy.
Then along came these annoying repetitive time wasting simulators and no one wanted to bother with having to actually go somewhere to meet up with friends for entertainment. Not when they could sit at home on their fat holes in front of the computer and kill the same fucking digital baddie twenty thousand fucking times in lieu of actual meaningful storied game play with real live companions. At least that's how I felt during the dawn of the MMORPG.
Of course as time went by these new games grew on me. Not that this means I feel they are in any way superior to the entertainment I enjoyed with real pen and paper gaming. They are simply different. Same goes for the MMORPGs of yesterday. And oddly enough if I had to make a complaint about either it would be the same one. The sheer amount of time invested, read WASTED. That's right, as fun as both the aforementioned activities can be, they took an exhausting amount of time out of your day. And these days that's just way too much. Its not just that I find my life too busy to take time out for entertainment, its the fact that there is so much more entertainment choices to choose from to lock myself into spending all my time on just one.
Which kind of half assed segues back into the OPs actual topic. The idea that the MMORPGs of days gone by were in someway more challenging than the ones of today. I'm sorry my friend but I have to say BOLLOCKS to that. They were just more time consuming and tedious. Anyone with enough time and patience could bumble their way to greatness like a determined tortoise.
I feel this attitude that games of yore were better simply because they took more time, needs to die. There are far better examples of why many feel the older games felt more alive than many of the carbon copy, paint by numbers, one size fits all games we have today.
Maybe if we started focusing on those reasons rather than continuing this holier than thou attitude that we older gamers are somehow superior to the ones of today, we could convince companies that when it comes to making MMORPGS one size does not fit all.
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
-Bruce Lee
Just took the time to read through all of this entertaining thread. Don't have much to add, besides the quote from someone who was quite skilled himself.
Less time required in new games, less repetition, less skilled playerbase--pretty much the bottom line. Not to say you can't get very good at new games, but you'd be doing it more for bragging rights than out of necessity, and maybe that's what more people prefer.
More skills to choose from does not mean more skill is required to play a character either. MOBAs, largely a skill-based genre, have very few abilities, and in the early game of two of the biggest MOBA powerhouses (DOTA 2 and League) you start by picking a single skill, and coordinate the use of your single skill with others on your team who also have a single skill, and make &$#* happen.
In terms of laziness most developers today are lazy in MMOs. They don't often come up with new ideas and the ones they do are to make the game even easier then they already are so they can hit even more mass appeal and make more money. Most of the content for leveling is simple cut and paste content.
Er, you do understand that older MMORPGs required patience because of laziness, right?
We're talking about games with hundreds of hours of content which lazily set XP requirements in a way so that every ounce of that content had to be repetitively grinded, turning hundreds of hours to thousands.
So the reason MMORPGs required patience is rooted in a clear developer laziness.
Leveling
Old Games XP_TO_LEVEL = 1000 XP_PER_KILL = 1 XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 100 SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (10%)
Basically you have to kill 100 monsters without dying 100 times.
New Games XP_TO_LEVEL = 100 XP_PER_KILL = 1 XP_PER_QUEST = 50 XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 0 SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (0%)
You are garunteed to make it to max level no matter how poorly you play. Between having no experience penalty and getting experience for completing very simple and basic quests you dont't really have to succeed at anything to progress.
Items
Old Games ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = .05
New Games ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = 5
Chance to level without dying solo is reduced heavily based on not being geared to handle monsters solo.
Chance to aggro
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 20% radius CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 10% radius without lull MOB_LEASH = NULL MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 5% radius CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 2% radius MOB_LEASH = 10 yards MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
If you look in depth at the numbers and everything that goes into it you will see that it really is harder. What you call laziness is actually a mechanic to install difficulty. Designing lots of items in a game doesn't make the developer less lazy. Especially when they are just copy and pasting it short of the extra art work.
I am not arguing weather this is better design or a more enjoyable design. People will have their own preferences. I am simple arguing that the games were harder for a number of different factors. Factors that can't be argued IMO.
This again doesn't take into account the small percentage of difficult content that may take places in these games at the very end. It is simple a measure of difficulty to level up and get to that end point.
Originally posted by Blueliner I don't recall that at all and i been doing MMOs since OU started, they were harder than now, but not THAT hard.
I recall Asheron's Call when the first Monarch hit level 128 (after almost a year playing).
But I agree with you, AC wasn't hard, it was just time consuming, which is to say it felt like w lived in a virtual world and that is what I miss. IMO focusing on End-Game and Max level is why MMO's are shiet now.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Originally posted by Nilden ...players had to play the game together to progress.
Not in Asheron's Call they didn't and let me remind you there was a whole subset of players who played EQ exclusively solo.
Grouping should never be forced, but it should be rewarding. Just as it was in AC, as it is in Path of Exile and as it is ESO. The missing element modern MMO's have is it takes zero time to reach max level and once there, your play style does an abrupt 180. What we need is LONGER progression times that reward player interaction to advance meaningfully, and no that doesn't mean it should be forced.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Originally posted by Axehilt ...Why play the game demanding patience which provides you with 10 interesting things an hour when you could play the game with 20 interesting things an hour?
That sounds a bit hyperactive.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
In terms of laziness most developers today are lazy in MMOs. They don't often come up with new ideas and the ones they do are to make the game even easier then they already are so they can hit even more mass appeal and make more money. Most of the content for leveling is simple cut and paste content.
Er, you do understand that older MMORPGs required patience because of laziness, right?
We're talking about games with hundreds of hours of content which lazily set XP requirements in a way so that every ounce of that content had to be repetitively grinded, turning hundreds of hours to thousands.
So the reason MMORPGs required patience is rooted in a clear developer laziness.
Leveling
[a bunch of random numbers]
If you look in depth at the numbers and everything that goes into it you will see that it really is harder. What you call laziness is actually a mechanic to install difficulty.
Not harder, but more time consuming. The difficulty wasn't in completing tasks, as simple repetition solved that one. It was in reaching the end. Without that, the subscription model probably would have failed, at least for the EQ/WOW style games.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Super Mario Bros sums up my MMO 'difficulty' experience. Mario was in the area of being my first video game. Was extremely tough for me in the beginning, sitting there for hours. Eventually started beating it every now and then, and some time later, started beating with no deaths. 25 years of gaming later after not playing Mario in that span, I pick it up on an emulator and beat it with maybe a death or two in a matter of 15 minutes.
Games are just easy because I have 25 years of gaming experience. I don't just hop into a new MMORPG and not remember how to play MMORPGs. Pay attention to the genre new bloods in current games and see if they didn't resemble you when you popped your MMORPG cherry...
In terms of laziness most developers today are lazy in MMOs. They don't often come up with new ideas and the ones they do are to make the game even easier then they already are so they can hit even more mass appeal and make more money. Most of the content for leveling is simple cut and paste content.
Er, you do understand that older MMORPGs required patience because of laziness, right?
We're talking about games with hundreds of hours of content which lazily set XP requirements in a way so that every ounce of that content had to be repetitively grinded, turning hundreds of hours to thousands.
So the reason MMORPGs required patience is rooted in a clear developer laziness.
Leveling
Old Games XP_TO_LEVEL = 1000 XP_PER_KILL = 1 XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 100 SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (10%)
Basically you have to kill 100 monsters without dying 100 times.
New Games XP_TO_LEVEL = 100 XP_PER_KILL = 1 XP_PER_QUEST = 50 XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 0 SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (0%)
You are garunteed to make it to max level no matter how poorly you play. Between having no experience penalty and getting experience for completing very simple and basic quests you dont't really have to succeed at anything to progress.
Items
Old Games ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = .05
New Games ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = 5
Chance to level without dying solo is reduced heavily based on not being geared to handle monsters solo.
Chance to aggro
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 20% radius CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 10% radius without lull MOB_LEASH = NULL MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 5% radius CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 2% radius MOB_LEASH = 10 yards MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
If you look in depth at the numbers and everything that goes into it you will see that it really is harder. What you call laziness is actually a mechanic to install difficulty. Designing lots of items in a game doesn't make the developer less lazy. Especially when they are just copy and pasting it short of the extra art work.
I am not arguing weather this is better design or a more enjoyable design. People will have their own preferences. I am simple arguing that the games were harder for a number of different factors. Factors that can't be argued IMO.
This again doesn't take into account the small percentage of difficult content that may take places in these games at the very end. It is simple a measure of difficulty to level up and get to that end point.
If you died one mob kill from ding you lost all of your XP for that level.
Anarchy Online. 2001-ish.
And yet those were my MMO coppery-taste-of-fear glory days. No doubt because it was my first MMO and everything was fresh and new.
Also, roller rats and minotaurs were the bane of my early existence. That and getting lost for hours and dying to said roller rats and minotaurs a few yards outside West Athen. Why the hell am I smiling about that? It was torture. It was hell. It was a completely ridiculous, unnecessary hardship. But damn, it was fun!
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
Comments
For some players, MMOs are hard. Some players don't want to master a game (too much effort) and some people simply don't have the capabilities for it. I've also encountered players who want to keep their illusions and the mystery of the game mechanics intact so that they can be more immersed in the game.
In your typical MMORPG, you don't have to get good to advance. You can always either bring more friends, out-level the content or get better gear. And two out of those three can usually be achieved through grind.
Did you see the outcry against action combat and non-trinity systems? These people do not want hard games! They get confused: "Its chaos - a mindless zerg.", "Where's my healer? I want my healer!"
Your stereotypical MMORPG player is not a very skilled gamer. Of course he/she will say that grinding takes skill. What else would he/she have?
I played various other games with the players I met in Eve, and apart from few exceptions, all of them had well below 50% win rate in World of Tanks, Battlefield and such games where these stats are actually tracked. And you could tell that these people were never going to get good in these games. But when they play Eve, they don't have to be good. They can just mine or grind away and get ISK. Jump into fleets and press F1 on called targets. Soak in the atmosphere of those big fights. Feel like they've contributed.
This is precisely why these people play MMORPGs instead of MOBAs where they get yelled at for being so bad. If you play in a team of five, a big part of your chances of winning rests on your shoulders. But if you're one in a hundred or one in a thousand? -There's a good chance nobody will notice your screw up. Nobody is going to tell you how much you suck.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Fair enough.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I keep reading stuff about length of leveling being tied into MMO difficulty. I don't think I'd call doing tedious tasks over and over again hard.
Saying stuff like MAN IT TOOK ME 500 HOURS TO HIT LEVEL 2 IT WAS SO HARDCORE AND HARD is a lie.
It's not hard. Its monotonous.
Devil May Cry 3 on Dante Must Die mode is hard. Yogg +0 and Kael'thas was hard. Thoth-Amon was a challenge. Trying to get the Big Boss Mask in Metal Gear Solid 4 was hard.
Let's stop spreading this falsehood that length of leveling = difficulty.
"This hand of mine glows with an awesome power....."
It's already been explained why it is hard in this thread. It is all part of simple mathematics. There are a lot of variables that go into it than repeating something over and over again.
Something could be fairly hard, but if I can quickly repeat it over and over again then my percentage chances of beating it goes up high.
They weren't insults, they were just a strong implication that perhaps you should have a higher standard of factual input than a random guy posting at answers.com, and that you should avoid making statements like the one about bosses.
Not sure what you're talking about with "something physical". Skill is decision-making and execution. It's not just execution (often called twitch,) it's also the decision-making requiring the execution. In fact games like chess involve basically zero execution skill, and we still call grandmasters skilled.
Even if we called it a skill, patience isn't actually difficult to learn since it's basically "do nothing a while". Which is why in a game purely about patience (Progress Quest) a dead player can end up being #1 on the leaderboard.
Even if we called it a skill, it wouldn't work because players have choices. Why play the game demanding patience which provides you with 10 interesting things an hour when you could play the game with 20 interesting things an hour? Players shouldn't encourage developers to be lazy (creating 10 things instead of 20) and the reality is they don't encourage developers to be lazy (because they're definitely going to leave the 10-thing game to play the 20-thing one.) Good game design isn't about demanding patience but about providing gameplay. That means instead of easy non-decisions ("do nothing a while") games need to provide interesting decisions.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Isn't it odd how many equate "time spent" with difficulty. Yet few would remember "single character per game/account" as difficult.
But it clearly is far more difficult to go it alone than it is to multi-box it (evidenced by the enormous hatred for multi-boxers early on, that gradually disappeared).
When every account sported a handful of characters, and many (most?) players sported a handful of accounts...
So much for "hard".
In terms of physical the two examples you provided were gaining something physical that you could touch. Gaining patience is actually something you learn to do and is all mental.
I'd say answers.com is a fairly reliable source for answers on things and the answer provider there made sense. Again if you were to do a google search on is patience a skill you will find articles indicating that it is indeed a skill and is not at all easy to learn or hone. Most people today lack patience or problem solving skill. That is why we have such simple games today in general.
In terms of laziness most developers today are lazy in MMOs. They don't often come up with new ideas and the ones they do are to make the game even easier then they already are so they can hit even more mass appeal and make more money. Most of the content for leveling is simple cut and paste content.
FFXI's world was dangerous. I remember when we camped in valkurn dunes and at night bogys would spawn and if it spotted you, you would most likely die before zoning out of the area. Some camps had elementals around, and if a mage casted a spell while those were around it would actually agro you and kill you.
You had to be carefull in that game. Even in the beginner zones. You would be out soloing one mob at a time to slowly level, but if one of those beastman saw you it would chase you forever and you would be running for your life. FFXI you really had to be carefull of links. If you were out xping you would 90% of the time be fighting one mob at a time.
Mobs would actually chase you across the entire zone, only way to escape is if a higher level person ran by and pulled it off you or you made it to the zone line and exited the zone before your hp got down to 0. I even remember times were I would zone out, but still end up dead on the other side.
And no one wanted to die, because you would loose xp and possible dlvl. I remember years ago I dlvled my 40 blm to lvl 39 and couldn't equip half my gear. I never did get that level back... The higher level you were the more xp you would loose, and you'de be begging for a whm to come and raise 3 you.
We used to have to go out and xp just to get a buffer, for when we did end game content and died several times we wouldn't dlvl.
There were places even at lvl cap mobs would agro you and be hard to solo in ffxi. One place comes to mind, ifrits cauldram. Peaple used sneak oils and prism powers to hide from mobs.
I just rememberd think it was called "Garlieged Citidal" that place had cracks in the floor and if you accidently fell though one you would end up surrounded by mobs that were like 20 levels higher than you.
Riding that boat from mhara to selbina, ocationally a lvl 75 sea horrer would spawn on the deck or even pirates at times. If you not high level you'de better go downstairs and hide in the bottem or those would agro you and no way to escape um on that little boat, oh man all the fisherman that died from those Oo.
Help support an artist and gamer who has lost his tools to create and play: http://www.gofundme.com/u63nzcgk
Er, you do understand that older MMORPGs required patience because of laziness, right?
We're talking about games with hundreds of hours of content which lazily set XP requirements in a way so that every ounce of that content had to be repetitively grinded, turning hundreds of hours to thousands.
So the reason MMORPGs required patience is rooted in a clear developer laziness.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yes, some of the "Take a number" camp fest grinds were tedious. But, not everything was like that. And not everything was easy. The only content that were easy but tedious in the old MMORPGs was the soloable content. What was hard was getting groups to stay together for hours at a time to complete those large dungeons. And/or working undermanned and with questionable and unknown players in the group. What was hard was trying to solo content that was not meant to be solo'd but still possible.
Not everything about old MMORPGs was easy and not everything was difficult. It's all in how you wish to remember I guess.
Whether or not it was bad design I guess is subjective. Back then, the dungeons were still fun.......assuming you had a Saturday afternoon to blow just doing a single dungeon. Yes, 4 hrs is too long for a singel 5 man instance and they should have been more modular. But to go from that to 20 minutes with zero group coordination needed?, I think the pendulum swinging the other way was also bad design. Violet Hold was, IMO, one of the most poorly designed dungeons in any MMORPG. To me, that should have been a group quest, not a heroic dungeon.
Note: Just to be clear, I'm not entirely disagreeing with you, I do think they could have been done better.
I find it amusing that part of what you considered hard in early MMORPGs was convincing people they were having enough fun to keep playing.
"It was really hard, but we did it! We managed to convince the entire group they were having fun for 4 whole hours!"
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Having fun and having time are 2 different things.
Not everything about the older MMOs was good. But neither was it all bad either.
Most of the arguments in this thread deal in the absolutes, but MMOs are multi-faceted and as with today's games, there is much right and there is much wrong with them. Early 2000s were no different. At least in that regard.
Oh well, my childhood days!
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
-Bruce Lee
Just took the time to read through all of this entertaining thread. Don't have much to add, besides the quote from someone who was quite skilled himself.
Less time required in new games, less repetition, less skilled playerbase--pretty much the bottom line. Not to say you can't get very good at new games, but you'd be doing it more for bragging rights than out of necessity, and maybe that's what more people prefer.
More skills to choose from does not mean more skill is required to play a character either. MOBAs, largely a skill-based genre, have very few abilities, and in the early game of two of the biggest MOBA powerhouses (DOTA 2 and League) you start by picking a single skill, and coordinate the use of your single skill with others on your team who also have a single skill, and make &$#* happen.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Leveling
Old Games
XP_TO_LEVEL = 1000
XP_PER_KILL = 1
XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 100
SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (10%)
Basically you have to kill 100 monsters without dying 100 times.
New Games
XP_TO_LEVEL = 100
XP_PER_KILL = 1
XP_PER_QUEST = 50
XP_DEATH_PENALTY = 0
SUCCESS_RATE_REQUIRED = XP_DEATH_PENALTY / XP_TO_LEVEL (0%)
You are garunteed to make it to max level no matter how poorly you play.
Between having no experience penalty and getting experience for completing
very simple and basic quests you dont't really have to succeed at anything to progress.
Items
Old Games
ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = .05
New Games
ITEMS_GAINED_PER_LEVEL_SOLO = 5
Chance to level without dying solo is reduced heavily based on not being geared to handle monsters solo.
Chance to aggro
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 20% radius
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 10% radius without lull
MOB_LEASH = NULL
MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO = 100% within a 5% radius
CHANCE_TO_AGGRO_FRIENDS = 100% within a 2% radius
MOB_LEASH = 10 yards
MOB_WANDERS = TRUE
If you look in depth at the numbers and everything that goes into it you will see that it really is harder. What you call laziness is actually a mechanic to install difficulty. Designing lots of items in a game doesn't make the developer less lazy. Especially when they are just copy and pasting it short of the extra art work.
I am not arguing weather this is better design or a more enjoyable design. People will have their own preferences. I am simple arguing that the games were harder for a number of different factors. Factors that can't be argued IMO.
This again doesn't take into account the small percentage of difficult content that may take places in these games at the very end. It is simple a measure of difficulty to level up and get to that end point.
I recall Asheron's Call when the first Monarch hit level 128 (after almost a year playing).
But I agree with you, AC wasn't hard, it was just time consuming, which is to say it felt like w lived in a virtual world and that is what I miss. IMO focusing on End-Game and Max level is why MMO's are shiet now.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Not in Asheron's Call they didn't and let me remind you there was a whole subset of players who played EQ exclusively solo.
Grouping should never be forced, but it should be rewarding. Just as it was in AC, as it is in Path of Exile and as it is ESO. The missing element modern MMO's have is it takes zero time to reach max level and once there, your play style does an abrupt 180. What we need is LONGER progression times that reward player interaction to advance meaningfully, and no that doesn't mean it should be forced.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
That sounds a bit hyperactive.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Not harder, but more time consuming. The difficulty wasn't in completing tasks, as simple repetition solved that one. It was in reaching the end. Without that, the subscription model probably would have failed, at least for the EQ/WOW style games.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Super Mario Bros sums up my MMO 'difficulty' experience. Mario was in the area of being my first video game. Was extremely tough for me in the beginning, sitting there for hours. Eventually started beating it every now and then, and some time later, started beating with no deaths. 25 years of gaming later after not playing Mario in that span, I pick it up on an emulator and beat it with maybe a death or two in a matter of 15 minutes.
Games are just easy because I have 25 years of gaming experience. I don't just hop into a new MMORPG and not remember how to play MMORPGs. Pay attention to the genre new bloods in current games and see if they didn't resemble you when you popped your MMORPG cherry...
Wooooow... No one is touching this one?
Anarchy Online. 2001-ish.
And yet those were my MMO coppery-taste-of-fear glory days. No doubt because it was my first MMO and everything was fresh and new.
Also, roller rats and minotaurs were the bane of my early existence. That and getting lost for hours and dying to said roller rats and minotaurs a few yards outside West Athen. Why the hell am I smiling about that? It was torture. It was hell. It was a completely ridiculous, unnecessary hardship. But damn, it was fun!
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein