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At what point did you realize your combat powers were too strong ?
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
I think I noticed the change first playing GuildWars 2, one day after I redownloaded it, I logged into one of my lv40 characters and all of a sudden everything was easy...I'm like, what the hell !
I began trying to balance out some kind of challenge by playing a few levels higher. Each race zone is liner in this game, so I pushed the limit's something like six levels forward to even out. I was getting loot that was unable to equip yet, filling my bags along the way.
I remember this created all kind of game balancing issues,
Trying to figure out dungeon issues, what level are they to be played, did the LFD compensate for ease of game ?.... Crafting became worthless as no one needed my stuff.... The Auction House became worthless along with it..... Material gathering became six level's back... Friends list became worthless as they would be scattered among a wide range of levels because of the new level speed.... Friends were not needed anyway, no point in having them other than being friendly.
All this was a big slap in the face easy and became a new complicated way of playing as everything had to be rebalanced to compensate.
It's like ArinaNet one day decided to press the "easy button" without cause and effect. It was like developers pressed it and walked away leaving the players to deal with a new way of playing. After all EVERYONE was doing the same as I. Being level 40 I took note all others around me were playing in a level 46 zone.
As more time passed it was apparent all mmorpgs pressed the "easy button". Infact it felt like all on the same day. Because this day forward I couldn't find a challenge in any mmorpg. I didn't keep a time log but ruffly a year later the classics did the same. Leaving easy across the board.
GuildWars 2 being my first, Lord of the Rings being the easiest. I was playing with a real life friend. We were on a voice channel and laughing at easy difficulty. I asked him, should we quit ?.... His response, I think we better.
What mmorpg were you playing when easy took over ?
I began trying to balance out some kind of challenge by playing a few levels higher. Each race zone is liner in this game, so I pushed the limit's something like six levels forward to even out. I was getting loot that was unable to equip yet, filling my bags along the way.
I remember this created all kind of game balancing issues,
Trying to figure out dungeon issues, what level are they to be played, did the LFD compensate for ease of game ?.... Crafting became worthless as no one needed my stuff.... The Auction House became worthless along with it..... Material gathering became six level's back... Friends list became worthless as they would be scattered among a wide range of levels because of the new level speed.... Friends were not needed anyway, no point in having them other than being friendly.
All this was a big slap in the face easy and became a new complicated way of playing as everything had to be rebalanced to compensate.
It's like ArinaNet one day decided to press the "easy button" without cause and effect. It was like developers pressed it and walked away leaving the players to deal with a new way of playing. After all EVERYONE was doing the same as I. Being level 40 I took note all others around me were playing in a level 46 zone.
As more time passed it was apparent all mmorpgs pressed the "easy button". Infact it felt like all on the same day. Because this day forward I couldn't find a challenge in any mmorpg. I didn't keep a time log but ruffly a year later the classics did the same. Leaving easy across the board.
GuildWars 2 being my first, Lord of the Rings being the easiest. I was playing with a real life friend. We were on a voice channel and laughing at easy difficulty. I asked him, should we quit ?.... His response, I think we better.
What mmorpg were you playing when easy took over ?
Comments
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
Overwhelming strength is boring.
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"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Couldn't disagree more.
One of the main foundations of why I found MMOs fun in the first place, EQ and Classic WoW for me, was their live nature. It was as riveting as a multiplayer match in Halo because i couldn't simply pause or save and load. Confronting something meant committing to risking loss.
The quite high chance of death by over pull or simply bad luck in EQ was more icing on the cake, and back then even WoW had some occasional danger from over pulling.
And Eve is a whole different beast, where the difficulty is mitigated by knowledge rather than performance, and can't be lowered completely (cause pvp).
This explains why i took so well to Ark (arguably an mmo). Plenty of beautiful sandboxes around but the brutal difficulty seals the deal.
Another common denominator here is heavy grind but that's irrelevant.
PS - didn't notice you said RPGs not MMORPGs.
As to RPGs themselves not needing difficulty, I also can't agree less.
Final Fantasy 1 was my first real RPG (we had DOS before that but if I played an RPG before FF1 itd have been Lands of Lore which is very difficult as well).
My most memorable segment of the game was the town you venture to surrounded by Giants, which you must fight several encounters of BEFORE affording the new weapons in the town, which render the Giants significantly easier.
The excitement of roaming through that world terrified of the Giants stalking the forest was a critical aspect of my immersion in the world, AND in the progression AND economic system.
Perhaps im an odd duck but my default assumption is that im not.
I suspect that many of the gamers pushing themselves through the "grind" to reach the "good part" or just enjoy the story while merely tolerating the game would be well served by a healthy dose of death, and come to appreciate the games more instead of merely marking another notch on their gaming chair.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
I mean, some players play games for thousands of Hours, at some point, you need to step back and realize that after you have put more hours into a game than most people put into college, you need to step back and conclude "you got your master's degree in playing this game" and it's gonna seem easy.
Like I played DDO for years, and when I started, with my basic gear and such, and no clue, I was getting owned and killed left and right.. doing "Hard" was hard, and by the end of my second TR in that game, I was ripping though elite content solo.. but.. hey.. I had a few hundred hours under my belt.. I kinda figured this out. But that is what happens with PvE games, they are hard at first and progressively become easier the more you do the same content over and over again.
The game did not become easier, you simply got better at it.
As to the direct topic at hand, I very rarely feel overpowered in any game I play, but I rarely play by predetermined standards either. For a game to be good (for me) it has to allow for the experience to be as hard or as difficult as I want. It doesn't have to have sliders or different instances of each game or dungeon with different numbers or mechanics. It just has to allow me to do things that would be counter to being the best possible combat warrior.
I've played EQ and WoW mostly, but ESO has the same issues you are talking about, and I have absolutely no trouble making those games very very difficult. I do not enjoy that type of gameplay, but it is certainly possible. I think the issue may lie with your perspective and reliance on the game to tailor itself to you instead of the other way around. Maybe that's not the kind of gameplay you enjoy, which is fine, but being overpowered in a game is not something I typically hear players complain about unless they are decked out in raid gear trying to do a normal dungeon with new players and just leaving them in the dust as they solo the place.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Warhammer online when I fought mobs slightly above my level and could take on 5-6 monsters and staying up without issues and could mow them down.
Skyrim when nothing could harm me because my physical and elemental protection was above 100% even on hardest level (without mods). Skyrim when I oneshooted mooks with each sword swing.
All of those things caused by designers that just added stuff without caring how things scaled on high level.