I think I agree with both Dorotea and Porygon in this, in different ways.
On the one hand, I totally get where Porygon's coming from when he talks about past game experiences informing our current game activities. I think it's safe to assume that a significant proportion of Pantheon players will be relatively experienced in MMOs. This means they bring a lot of background knowledge to the table even before they create their character. Even if game systems work dramatically differently in Pantheon than in other MMOs, experienced players will be able to interpret and adapt to them pretty quickly. This completely removes the "challenge" of figuring out a game rather fast.
On the other hand, I completely agree with Dorotea in that the "mid-game" is absolutely critical and that too many MMOs put all of their attention to "end-game", to the detriment of the rest of the experience. Leveling shouldn't just be a chore that you get through as quickly as possible to get to the "good stuff". Leveling should be very much a part of the true experience of the game and deserves just as much variety in activity as level cap.
Perhaps I'm biased, as I'm an altaholic and LOVE to level characters (who then tend to rot at level cap, save for one or two I designate as my "raiding main"). But that's my 2 cents.
Deadshade said:Zorkon said:
Brad has given statistics on it. It's more like 15% Raid. I think it safe to assume it's even less that actually race to get there.
It is actually a bit more complex than that because the raiding (or end content) percentage of players is not constant but varies with time .
During at least 2-3 years in EQ , it was around 5 % (the statistics exist) . Today, 19 years later, the TLP EQ servers start at around 10 % raiders with Classics but after a few months, latest with Velious release, it is already above 50 % . The mechanism is simple - non raiding people leave the game and those who stay are at or near max level so that only raiding is left . And as there is no flux of new players, there are no low level groups and as there are no low level groups it accelerates the departure of people who are not max level . Finally after some time only raiding guilds are left and the percentage is near to 100 % .
So the percentage mentionned by Brad will only be true during a few months (6 ? 12 ? ) but as the non raiding/casual people will leave slowly but surely , it will mechanically increase the percentage of raiders . This has of course nothing to do with any sort of "challenge" . Like someone rightly said above , raids are not more "challenging" than levelling and vice versa . Pantheon will surely make the mobs more difficult (more HP, harder hitting, debuffing and stunning) but that will not make them "challenging" it will just take more time to kill them and one will have to manage mana and aggro a bit more carefully than in your standard modern MMORPG . No rocket science in there .
Even after all these posts (I read them all) , nobody was still able to give a single argument what he means by "challenging" in an MMORPG . The only argument that was coming over and over was that "challenging" actually means "needing more time" .
However spending more time on some routine non challenging activity doesn't make it any less some routine non challenging activity :)
I see what you mean about it being a bit more complex. It would definitely seem to fluctuate based on when or how the survey was taken.
But I'm not sure I'm understanding your comment highlighted above. Myself (see below) as well as others have given examples of increasing the challenge that were not just "needing more time". Did you miss them or do you disagree?
Zorkon said:Real challenge comes when you throw in the unexpected. And it can be a 1on1 situation with maybe an add or even a group against a unexpected Train. THAT is real challenge, not some preplanned dance 25 on 1 with a single Mob with a lot hit points.
The challenge has been lost, but it's not beyond repair. Give us unpredictability, that alone will bring back a lot of it. And if you want to add challenge back then don't spend a lot of time on making raid content... the only people that want that are those that rush to "end game" and then quit anyway.
Or am I not understanding your comment?
Combat Challenge has not been removed, it still exists but differently and mostly by adding difficulty levels in dungeons/raids (normal, heroic, nightmare, etc ...). I'm not fond of that, I have some difficulties to get motivated to clean a dungeon in hard mode when already cleaned it in normal mode, I still have in mind that it is artificial time sink.
Combat Challenge still also exists in some solo content in various MMOs, rarely though, and I don't find it very interesting in an MMO. If I want solo challenge I can play a solo game, there are good ones, better than anything an MMO can offer.
Difficulty is difficulty, I don't care not having access to a zone if it's too difficult for my community (in fact I like that, it motivates me), but I don't like not having access to a zone due to too much time sink barriers. I deeply regret that in too many player's mind challenge = time, as in my mind challenge = intelligence + strategy + skill. The real challenge that have to be reconquered is not combat difficulty challenge, it's social challenge, how to make people happy to play together and how to make people happy to log in.
The challenge is not removed beyond repair. It can always be added a back. But, more challenge may mean less subscribers. The demographic of MMOs changed and the majority of gamers now want a different kind of game with flashy graphics and less challenge. What VR needs to do is find the sweetspot where they can add a lot or most of the challenge back and yet still attract a large enough player base. Possibly even attract many new players so they can discover why EQ was such an engaging world ... and that is a true challenge.
Arbeor said:The challenge is not removed beyond repair. It can always be added a back. But, more challenge may mean less subscribers. The demographic of MMOs changed and the majority of gamers now want a different kind of game with flashy graphics and less challenge. What VR needs to do is find the sweetspot where they can add a lot or most of the challenge back and yet still attract a large enough player base. Possibly even attract many new players so they can discover why EQ was such an engaging world ... and that is a true challenge.
I don't feel this is true. I actually feel that the want for challenge has shifted from the pre max level game (ie everquest and the difficulty leveling) to max level endgame (focus on raiding and improving your character).
The challenge still exists in many MMOs yo successfully build a raid team and kill bosses. It's not easy to do it at a competitive level.
Its like the difference between a 100 piece puzzle and a 1000 piece puzzle. It depends on how many people are working on it and how well they work together. If it is just one person working on a large puzzle it can be difficult, but doable. But the same can be said for a 100 piece puzzle. If too many people are working on it without cooperation it can be rediculously hard to figure it out. The key to MMO's is finding the right team that works well together. A skilled group that works well together can do much more than a dysfunctional group of three times as many people. So no matter how challenging something is it comes down to the social/team aspect of the game to determine "how" challenging it is to a group of people.
The reason i mention puzzles is because at a previous job we always had a puzzle set out to work on during downtime/breaks. And it never failed that someone didnt know what they were doing and would put the edge pieces together in a way that was completely wrong. I would always have to fix it. Thankfully the puzzles usually had a backside that helped facilitate matching.
Zorkon said:
I see what you mean about it being a bit more complex. It would definitely seem to fluctuate based on when or how the survey was taken.
But I'm not sure I'm understanding your comment highlighted above. Myself (see below) as well as others have given examples of increasing the challenge that were not just "needing more time". Did you miss them or do you disagree?
Zorkon said:Real challenge comes when you throw in the unexpected. And it can be a 1on1 situation with maybe an add or even a group against a unexpected Train. THAT is real challenge, not some preplanned dance 25 on 1 with a single Mob with a lot hit points.
The challenge has been lost, but it's not beyond repair. Give us unpredictability, that alone will bring back a lot of it.
Or am I not understanding your comment?
I read your comment about the "unexpected" but this is not a "challenge" either because there has never been and still is not anything "unexpected" in any MMORPG .
You mentionned trains as an example . Were trains unexpected in Karnors ? No, on the contrary - if you went to Karnors, you expected trains and prepared accordingly (for instance there was mostly the rule to zone in right side and get the trains out left side) . Was Karnors more challenging because trains happened more often ? No it was not . You could say that it was more annoying because you had to interrupt camps and evac/zone out more often because of trains but this is no challenge . It again boils down to what I already said - you just spend more time establishing camps but it is not more difficult than on another place where trains don't happen very often .
You also mentionned random scripted event . Here too it is not because something is random that it is challenging or unexpected . For instance in EQ many important mobs (Quillmane, AC, quest mobs etc) were random spawns . Was it "challenging" or unexpected ? No it was not because you knew that there will be random spawns . Often you didn't exactly know if there was a trigger or if it was purely random but you were actually expecting a spawn even if you didn't know exactly when . Again just a matter of spending more time to get the random spawn .
This is a very general feature of all MMORPGs that I already commented on earlier . In any game based on deterministic scripts, the unexpected doesn't exist by definition because the script never changes . Random may happen but random doesn't equate unexpected and even less challenging . It is always the same thing : what is mistaken for "challenging" actually only means "spending more time" .