Castwell said: Yeah, that's about where I am at on that question. I wouldn't say its beyond repair, but changing the mentality of the players might be tough. Too many of them seem to think everything should be handed to. Them.
Yeah, I think you're right, it will be interesting to see what happens when some of them try Pantheon for the first time, if they think we will be watering it down to feed the instant gratification crowd they are in for a rude shock lol ;)
The future of mmorpg's will hopefully hinge on virtual reality tech regardless of challenge. That said, if an mmorpg is made before virtual reality games are the norm, and it's very challenging but fun, the genre will begin a new trend.
Again, I look at it through the lens of music. Korn was too heavy, until it wasn't.
Zlambit said:Pve mmo's feel more and more like single player games with an optional group thing, it almost seems there can't be any challenge left outside of raids/heroic group content.
This is pretty accurate in my opinion!
Kilsin said:Yeah, I think you're right, it will be interesting to see what happens when some of them try Pantheon for the first time, if they think we will be watering it down to feed the instant gratification crowd they are in for a rude shock lol ;)
While every MMORPG difficulty has been trivialized by individuality, there was still some sense of accomplishment for the individual. As many flaws as World of Warcraft had (And trust me I'm not saying this is correct) it was very rewarding as an individual to look at world DPS logs and compare yourself to them, to see what type of player you were.
To be a little blunt (perhaps pessimistic even) I'm a little worried that if P:ROTF is so group oriented that there will less pride for individual accomplishment. If you're a GREAT player but you have 5 other decent/good players in your group, I just hope that the difference can be felt.
I think the premise of many of the responses to this post is A is better then B and because so many have grown accustomed to B the A thing may not work..
I rather look at it this way What did EQ teach us about group and solo play, Where did EQ fail on group and solo play
What did WoW do well in correcting the weaknesses from EQ when it comes to group and solo play and where did they over reach
What can we do here in Pantheon to capitalize the strengths of EQ group and solo play and how do we merge that with the strengths of what WoW did.
You see the tire has already been created, we can't reinvent it, BUT we can improve it dog gone it. Look I am biting at the bit to be done with WoW as most are or have already seperated from it BUT the greatest mistake I think we make as gamers sometimes is to say this game burned me out and they screwed x,y and z up so NO NEW game can say or use anything good from that game, why? because we are all emotional about it. I guess many forget the massive frustrations felt in EQ. I quit EQ to play wow and said I am never going back. Now time has passed and I clearly can seperate the trees from the forest so to speak. EQ had a lot of great things and honestly so does WoW.
Group play should always be King in a core to hardcore game like Pantheon. Solo play should be challenging enough at high level that someome has to be Really good to do it, but, to forgo solo play altogether is a bad rabit hole to go down. When I log in and guildies are not on, not enough people around during the early day to form a group then what do I do if I don't have solo options? log out? Go play another game? sit in trade chat trolling? OR I could find areas of solo content, NOT EASY content but solo content and play Pantheon while I wait for others to log in.
We REALLY have to stop trying to form opinions on Pantheon based on emotions. A military leader once said "it is good to learn even from the enemy" lets find the good in other things and combine them with them good in Pantheon.
Xan
They have become too easy, too casual, and even more importantly, they do very little to protect your time invested. In Everquest today, you can create a 'Heroic' character which starts you out at level 85. Imagine a game where the developers give you the ability to just skip over the first 85 levels of content. Imagine how those who put in the time and effort to level up and experience the game must feel. They had already made Everquest pretty much play by itself, so the entire start at level 85 thing was just another slap in the face. Can you feel like a hero in a world where everyone is a hero?
Everquest used to be a game in which there was so much to work on, you really never could run out of fun things to do. Norrath used to be a very dangerous place and for times when you needed a break from those dangers, it had a pretty steep crafting system and a complex faction system. You could spend months and months on those two systems alone.
Double experience potions for sale, an experience vitality system that also grants bonus experience, double faction potions, tradeskill potions, double experience weekends. On and on; it all adds up to a game where it takes a few days to level out a new character.
Setting those concerns aside, they also stripped down NpC behavior to make the game even easier. Mobs no longer gate at low health. Mobs no longer dispel you. Mobs no longer mez or charm you. Mobs no longer cast spells like ice comet on you, because the resist system no longer works. Many mobs no longer see invis and conversely players have wide access to invis spells that do not suddenly wear off. Breathing under water is now a given on almost all gear, so that entire mechanic was also removed. Travel now takes less than 30 seconds, to most locations within the game. You no longer need a druid or wizard to help you out. Run speed inflation and the deluge of mounts have also stripped out important interdependent mechanics that used to exist (Think of Spirit of the Wolf). Factions are now almost entirely gone in the newer zones. Mana management is also pretty much no longer a concern as it just regenerates so fast, even without the assistance of an Enchanter. Now sure, is there a named mob somewhere that still might mez you, yes. But in general, NpC behavior is just a shadow of its former self. Kind of shocking, when you think that with advancing technology, NpC behavior could be even more complex then ever.
I'll share a quick story from when I played on the Everquest Sullon Zek server. I had died to a mob on Luclin and it was later at night, so not as many were online. My character was a druid, so I needed to get a rez so that I could get back some of the experience that I had lost. To not get a rez, would be a fairly decent setback, something I really wanted to avoid. Well, there was still one cleric online from my guild and she took the time to port up to Luclin where I met her in the Nexus and I escorted her to where I had died. It was a significant time investment for both of us and not only did I feel an immense amount of gratitude towards her, but I would imagine that she felt very much appreciated and needed. A win win situation for a developer who is trying to build a very social and interdependent game. Now fast forward to today. You die. All you need to do is summon your body to the guild lobby and have your cleric mercenary rez you. You never need to talk with anyone else. There is never the risk of not getting rezzed. It is all very sterile. It totally negates any type of risk vs reward calculation.
The gaming market is very large. Within that market are different audiences with different tastes. Just like anything else in life. I get why games try to market themselves to the lowest common denominator, but I do agree strongly that there is room for games that cater to a more sophisticated gamer who view these games as a hobby and like to be challenged by them. It is the challenge that keeps you coming back for more, it is why Everquest used to be so addictive and rewarding.
The genre is absolutely watered down, since the biggest player and all the riders on the Blizzard coattails are trying to move boxes and subscriptions by dumbing down and appealing to the masses, i.e. lowest common denominator. Nobody is pushing the genre forward because the budgets are too high for anyone to take risks.
The most loyal niche in MMO gaming is EVE, and that's the same 70k folks who have been there since day 1. But at $15 per month, can 70k people pay back the dev costs, keep the servers up and pay the devs to keep caring about the game into perpetuity? There's the question, and the answer most often given is no, so you get kung fu panda pokemon releases from Blizzard, and then a half dozen WoW wannabes every year, with all the same watered down, easy, accessible and pretty content, because you just want to move boxes.
I go back to it all the time, but the MMO PVE community needs its version of Demon/Dark Souls to happen. FROM Software, in the post-Skyrim world of the single player RPG, put the hard back into RPGs and has rattled off 5 hits in a row. And they make their games harder every iteration. The difficulty becomes the selling point. Lots of single player RPGs come out every year, and nobody pays any attention to them, because why play weaksauce when you can turn the difficulty to 11 and play Bloodborne? MMOs need that, and they need it in the worst way. The genre needs a shot of adrenaline right in the neck, and difficulty is how you do that.
The meta is stale. Grind this, grind that, time time time, boring boring boring. Every MMO has a bazillion quests, story telling, character/UI customization blah blah, raid level encounters, blah blah. All of that is genre norm. A new way of presenting mana and HP isn't groundbreaking or compelling. It's another bar I have to pay attention to now and again. Same stuff, different game. What few MMO games have is death, pain and suffering under every rock, behind every tree and the feeling that your luck simply has to run out soon because it's been like 5 minutes since your last trip to your bind point.
Not saying it needs hardcore "one death means reroll" by default, but MMOs need a new game to go back to UO/EQ1 with the mentality that a player buying/subscribing to the game is throwing down the gauntlet and picking a fight with the Devs. What...you bought our game and actually logged in? Oh hell no you did not...OK, if that's how you want it....
YMMV.
I agree 110% with what everyone said. Today's MMOs are watered down to the point of worthlessness. I don't have any desire to play any of them. Give everyone everything he whines for, and nothing is worth anything any more.
What we want is a game in the original EQ 1 style, challenging. A game where you can, theoretically, get anything... if you put in some serious effort and win. No easy paths. Every time you give players a shortcut for something - double exp weekend, soloable mobs, mercenaries, automated corpse summon, instant ports anywhere... you push the game another step down into pointlessness. We want none of that. And I hope to God that Pantheon is not going to go down that path, because if it goes that way, my last hope will be gone.
Besides general challenge, MMOs need to focus on the social challenges that existed in oldschool games. The absolute need for players to work together to succeed is what is missing from mmorpgs today. Whether its adventuring, exploring, trading or even crafting, your ability to work and communicate with other players should play a huge part in your success. As soon as you cut out the need for that interaction, the entire system collapses. Such is the state of the mmorpg in 2015.
Furor said:While every MMORPG difficulty has been trivialized by individuality, there was still some sense of accomplishment for the individual. As many flaws as World of Warcraft had (And trust me I'm not saying this is correct) it was very rewarding as an individual to look at world DPS logs and compare yourself to them, to see what type of player you were.
To be a little blunt (perhaps pessimistic even) I'm a little worried that if P:ROTF is so group oriented that there will less pride for individual accomplishment. If you're a GREAT player but you have 5 other decent/good players in your group, I just hope that the difference can be felt.
I think your fears can be put to rest. I'm not sure of your MMORPG play history, but it was very easy to see who was a Great player even in original EQ, which was majorly group oriented, with classes that had a very limited skillset. If Pantheon classes have defined roles, offer utility and it is not just a DPS race, there is a lot more strategy and nuances in gameplay/classes that can be learned and observed other than who is the best at button mashing. It may not show up on the DPS Log, but it is substituted for tactics such as root parking which can save groups.
With that said, I think the challenge has been removed for the sake of convenience, subscriptions, and accessibility. Instant Gratification and player entitlement has seeped into MMOs and challenge/content/design has been reduced to meet the lowest common denominator so everyone can receive a participation ribbon instead of creating difficult challenges and having players rise to meet them.
*Edit just read the entire thread - I realized I could have just said /agree Venjenz as well
Honestly no MMO is as challenging as EQ was. After your first 5 levels it became increasingly difficult to solo without good skills and tactics. Some classes stopped being able to solo at all. No game does that anymore. Just surviving to level up was a challenge, let alone dungeon crawls, raids, etc. That is gone from the MMO landscape and it is a detriment.
Kilsin said:has the challenge been removed beyond repair?
PS - I wanted to specifically call out this part of Kilsin's original question. No, the challenge has not been removed beyond all repair, it just takes one game developer with guts to implement proper MMO PVE. What has been done already with the watered down games does not have to be done again. It can be brushed aside in favor of a group centric, challenging, make-you-earn-every-point-of-xp model.
You just have to accept that the game will not necessarily have 8 million players. People seeking challenge and pushing themselves are out there, but there might not be 8 million of them is all I am saying. The two Dark Souls sold ~3 million each, and Bloodborne sold ~2 million. So clearly, there are gamers who want to be pushed to the limit of tough.
Dullahan said:Besides general challenge, MMOs need to focus on the social challenges that existed in oldschool games. The absolute need for players to work together to succeed is what is missing from mmorpgs today. Whether its adventuring, exploring, trading or even crafting, your ability to work and communicate with other players should play a huge part in your success. As soon as you cut out the need for that interaction, the entire system collapses. Such is the state of the mmorpg in 2015.
Quoted for truth.
Difficulty in most modern games has been reduced to the point of playing a single player game on the "easy" setting. That being said I do not think it is beyond repair.
The reason Challenge is a good thing is it builds a sense of investment and accomplishment. When it takes real effort to accomplish things you feel a sense of pride in doing so. This still exists in other MMO's however it has been almost completely taken over by high end raiding guilds. They go out and find the hardest thing they can fight and take pride in getting first kills or wearing a full suit of "raid gear".
The problem exists in that the solo and group content has been so watered down that only those select few raiders feel that sense of accomplishment, it has been stolen from the vast majority of players. Raiders have taken to describing themselves as "hardcore" and everyone else as "Casual". Somewhere along the line the community has decided that "Casual" content (Meaning 2 hours of gameplay per night) cannot be difficult. I would like to see very difficult group content that can be completed in 2 hour chunks. (Particularily Dungeons)
Other games have attempted to bridge the gap between "Casual" and "Hardcore" by creating 2 sets of difficulties for all group content. This is effectively an "Easy" and "Hard" setting and for the most part has been toxic to the community. Slowly the difficulties move from "Normal to Hard" to "Easy to Normal" and it creates a divide in the community. Everyone thinks they are entitled to raid gear even if they dont have the skill / experience to obtain it. Those who do have the skill become disenchanted with the entire process as the Investment does not match the reward. (Part of the reward of completing extremely hard content, is knowing that you have something that others don't. This is also a motivation for other players to try harder content)
Please stay away from "Normal" and "Heroic" difficulties. Every dungeon should be Heroic in difficulty. Raids should be Epic in difficulty and reward. I want to wipe on a raid several nights a week for a month before finally getting it right and bragging to all my friends. I want dungeon groups that REQUIRE that everyone pay attention and know how to play their class or be doomed to failure.
There can be no real sense of victory without first tasting defeat. No feeling of acomplishment without hardship.
Baulkin said:Difficulty in most modern games has been reduced to the point of playing a single player game on the "easy" setting. That being said I do not think it is beyond repair.
The reason Challenge is a good thing is it builds a sense of investment and accomplishment. When it takes real effort to accomplish things you feel a sense of pride in doing so. This still exists in other MMO's however it has been almost completely taken over by high end raiding guilds. They go out and find the hardest thing they can fight and take pride in getting first kills or wearing a full suit of "raid gear".
The problex exists in that the solo and group content has been so watered down that only those select few raiders feel that sense of accomplishment, it has been stolen from the vast majority of players. Raiders have taken to describing themselves as "hardcore" and everyone else as "Casual". Somewhere along the line the community has decided that "Casual" content (Meaning 2 hours of gameplay per night) cannot be difficult. I would like to see very difficult group content that can be completed in 2 hour chunks. (Particularily Dungeons)
Other games have attempted to bridge the gap between "Casual" and "Hardcore" by creating 2 sets of difficulties for all group content. This is effective an "Easy" and "Hard" setting and for the most part has been toxic to the community. Slowly the difficulties move from "Normal to Hard" to "Easy to Normal" and it creates a divide in the community. Everyone thinks they are entitled to raid gear even if they dont have the skill / experience to obtain it. Those who do have the skill become disenchanted with the entire process as the Investment does not match the reward. (Part of the reward of completing extremely hard content, is knowing that you have something that others don't. This is also a motivation for other players to try harder content)
Please stay away from "Normal" and "Heroic" difficulties. Every dungeon should be Heroic in difficulty. Raids should be Epic in difficulty and reward. I want to wipe on a raid several nights a week for a month before finally getting it right and bragging to all my friends. I want dungeon groups that REQUIRE that everyone pay attention and know how to play their class or be doomed to failure.
There can be no real sense of victory without first tasting defeat. No feeling of acomplishment without hardship.
Couldn't agree more with this statement.
I have seen this time and time again with newer MMO's.
Something I think Everquest has done really well recently was the Raid balancing instances, it's takes the average level of the raid and sets the zone accordingly.
Don't get me wrong, you don't want to punish the "casual" players, I only get 2 hours a night if im lucky and then about 5-6 on weekends, but I love the fact that I just have to try harder to keep up with the hardcore players, they rush through the content though and I feel I can take my time, and enjoy the view as I level and quest.
Now on to my original answer from the OP
I think the reason a lot of the newer MMO's seem to have lost the "hard mode" is due to advancements in technology, in game maps, quest paths, markers, and vast internet libraies which are easier to fill now than they were back in 1999.
Wiki's can be created from database dumps and give players an entire Item table with what mobs drops what etc, part of the difficulty of classic used to be figuring out what you needed to do, rather than just doing it.
I used to research all this stuff outisde of playing time on my phone, discussing on forums etc.. so as a casual player, I could still keep up because of this.
You almost need this fine balance of discussion of the mechanics but not actually revealing too much, I do not evny you guys for having to figure this out!
I might take a slightly different path here, with Kilsins statement 'has the challenge been removed beyond repair' everyone's first response is it's all soloable and need a reason to group again. I want a more group oriented MMO again as much as everyone, but I still stand by the opinion their needs to be some solo content as well.
Solo doesn’t have to be easy either, I want to see both the group and solo content be a challenge, when I only have 30-40 mins on a Sunday afternoon I want a fun challenge as I fight by myself to, I should be picking my fights and I should not be steam rolling through 10 mobs before I have to stop and rest up.
Zandil said:I might take a slightly different path here, with Kilsins statement 'has the challenge been removed beyond repair' everyone's first response is it's all soloable and need a reason to group again. I want a more group oriented MMO again as much as everyone, but I still stand by the opinion their needs to be some solo content as well.
Solo doesn’t have to be easy either, I want to see both the group and solo content be a challenge, when I only have 30-40 mins on a Sunday afternoon I want a fun challenge as I fight by myself to, I should be picking my fights and I should not be steam rolling through 10 mobs before I have to stop and rest up.
Since this has been discussed before in other threads, I'll summarize - soloing is fine if it is EMERGENT gameplay, not designed. Period. If you figure out a way to do group oriented content by yourself, as in the charm soloing enchanter impressing all the n00bs in South Ro by soloing the specter tower which was dangerous as all get out, then bully for you. That specter tower was not designed to be solo'd and was actually decently tough group content for level appropriate players. Soloing emerged from that group content, it wasn't planned. When the first shaman with a Jaundiced Bone Bracer solo'd Yeldema in WW, that was someone testing a limit and going past it. Soloing Yeldema became a thing, but Yeldema was not planned as a soloable mob, nothing in the Western Wastes was. Just running around that zone solo took a good combo of brave, stupid and crazy. That tradition continues in EQ1 to this day. Reverse charm soloing is an example.
And it is the thinking that the game simply MUST have content for people who only have 30-40 minutes of playtime on Sunday that wrecks the challenge. Nothing in a group centric design should be intentionally planned for soloing. If you design along the lines that anyone should be able to "do something meaningful" as a solo player because they only have limited playtime, then your group centric design and the challenge both fail miserably. Put easy in the game, and everyone flocks to easy and the game becomes every other MMO on the market.
There's WoW and a few dozen clones of it that cater to Half Hour Playtime Per Week Guy. The genre doesn't need anymore.
