FF14 and WoW both have challenging content along the entire leveling curve, and a ton of it at the high end. Granted, WoW allows bypassing a bunch of their challenging content, and FF14 forces you to do everyting minus raids at least once. But the content is there.
What has changed is so much more content that both provides xp and allows you to circumvent challenges. But EQ1 had plenty of paths to circumventing challenging content. Off the top of my head, the LOO->OT->DL->KC treadmill comes immediately to mind, where you could level to the mid 50s before ever setting foot inside a dungeon, and lots of people did just that. All modern MMOs have dne is make that particular challenge avoidance route more efficient and profitable.
There's challenges out there, people simply avoid them and take the path of least resistane.
I feel that the challenge has been removed from most MMOs, its what has broken the exerience and taken me out of them all together. I..like some others here, have become disheartened by MMOs lack of community and meaningful experience. To me the best way forward would be to create a game thats very DnD like. Adventure, mystery, intrigue, challenge and pizzle solving all need to be a part of that. USING YOUR HEAD is a lost artform. I feel huge things can be accomplished through a few simple means as well.
A little randomness spreadout over the world would go a long way. Factionally, Orcs could HATE other NPCs like Ratkin and take over their caves from time to time, briging new bosses and different loot and tactics, as well as pathing etc. This type of thing spread through different NPC groups or races, even different factions of like-races could be very interesting. Lets say Tesch Mal Gnolls, go to war with Black Burrough Gnolls for instance, for a month long period (real world time) and there could be certain things as players we could do to help one side or another. This could be faction gains and hits as well as quest related, with unique rewards.
A game I played, Horizons Empire of Istaria had some kool features, though a broken game overall. One community event that was really awesome was unlocking of a new race. It took the combined efforts of crafters, gatherers and combatants to accomplish this HUGE feat and there was a site that kept track of each servers progress. It was an awesome competative experience I will not forgot. It took weeks to do with constantly working teams 24/7 but my guild was the world first to accomplish it.
This could be an awesome way of introducing new content, rather than just releasing an expansion pack and "all the sudden" a new isle, teleporter to the moon, or other feature just appearing. Having to actually unlock it through serverwide effort. Want acces to the Planes? Do this epic quest to unlock them. I feel the key to content and challenge is keeping it fresh. Add new ideas through the forums not just always Devs coming up with content. Also FORCE challenge and dont relent.. NEVER give everyone trophies for just showing up. Do however keep it real and not impossibly challenging, so that only the top teir guilds will be able to accomplish content. Theyre gonna do it anyways and elitists will be elite. Dont let it ruin it for those not fortunate enough to either have all the time in the world to game, or those with a guild that isnt elite.
Kilsin said:Challenge - Have today's MMORPGs watered down the genre too far, has the challenge been removed beyond repair, and how do you think this will effect MMORPGs in the future? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters
There's a lot of subjectivity here, but I'll touch on a few of my thoughts on the subject.
* Have today's MMORPGs watered down the genre too far?
Yes. Many MMORPGs have done a few things that have taken the challenge of gameplay right out and shot it in the back of the head. Take Star Wars: The Old republic as one of the more recent examples as it's still not too old. When it was developed, the developers intentionally made it easier to solo large groups of enemies at once alone with a statement I remember well as I rolled my eyes as I heard it but it's been a while so I'm paraphrasing a bit. When asked about the ability to solo groups of enemies I recall one of the devs responding with something like this: We want the player to feel powerful, so you’ll be able to take down groups of weaker enemies alone. Problem is you could still do that with more difficult enemies as well. You didn't even really have to be smart about it.
Easier enemies are fine for a bit of soloing but here are a few things I feel like have really brought down the difficulty of the modern MMORPG. There's also the over-reliance on Add-ons that games like WoW have adopted. WoW got to a point that it has to be considered when developing new content. And that should never happen.
The Degradation of the Group Game:
In a lot of the more modern MMORPGs group size has been cut down to 4-5 players. The fewer players to a group also meant that the mobs of the world have to be downscaled in difficulty as well and that has a ripple effect throughout the rest of the game. And this is made moreso when tactics are replaced with action combat. Much of that then becomes twitch-based.
Then there's the return of the fourth pillar of grouping that Pantheon is giving us that’s been forgotten over the years: Crowd Control. I remember when I played Guild Wars 2 a long while back that our groups at one point had devolved into our main healer playing a healer tank and the rest of us being DPS (Kind of put me out of a job as a tank :p). But that's why the trinity was never a bad thing nor was its predecessor, the quatrinity. These roles all offer not only more playstyles, but also flexibility in developing harder content when you know players also have these support class options available.
Mob Oversimplification:
Mobs have not only seen their survivability nerfed but also their skillset. Anyone remember being blinded by an orc mystic in EverQuest and having your whole screen go black, making you think for the first time your monitor blitzed out while you were in fact just blinded? How about getting snare dotted by a random shadow knight? Charmed and forced to smack your own group members over the head? For the most part the common mob these days will have nukes, roots, some buffs, and a couple of other little things but they lack some of the big guns that made grouping in EQ chaotic and interesting.
* Has the challenge been removed beyond repair?
No, but it has been changed forever. As much as we'd like to go back to the way things were, even with Pantheon, we just can't. The players and the mentality of players have changed. Many of them dissect the gameplay right down to the line of code. So designing challenge can be done in an old school way, but developers of the future will need to be more creative to keep things interesting.
Deadshade said: I prefer to use the word "mystery" rather than "challenge" because there is no challenge in any MMORPG . Indeed within months if not weeks every quest, NPC location, fight, raid in an MMORPG is analysed and solved in great detail on many web sites . The only difference is that 20 years ago no you tubes , tweets or other facebooks existed so that some parts of an MMORPG were still unknown after 1 year or more . What happened was that with the new social media this "mystery" time has been so dramatically shortened that no mysteries exist anymore . So yes, the exploration/wonder/immersion dimension has been broken beyond repair .However I believe that precisely this dimension is instrumental to the feeling to be in a real breathing world and makes the specific charm of MMORPGs compared to other games . So, obviously, it is only a matter of time untill somebody will find a way to make the fantasy worlds mysterious, appealing and unknown again . As this is impossible to do with scripted, predetermined design the only solution I see is AI and evolving environment . That's why I would think that the future MMORPG will use more and more sophisticated adaptative AI and allow irreversible changes in the environment (towns get destroyed, kings die, wars erupt, alliances are forged and betrayed ....) . For me the MMORPG of the future will be like history in writing where nobody will be able to predict exactly what will happen.
Excellent post!
Iksar said:Trasak said:Also tuning all encounters to a minimum of three players will also automatically make the game harder for soloing while not making it difficult in a group.
Please tune fights/encounters to 6 players.
Yeah encounters should be tuned for a full group, not a small group. If you want to move in a small group, you will need to being higher level than the encounter or very well equipped and/or skilled. If you want to solo you should have to pick on stuff you've nearly out-levelled.
Thinking about this, it must be difficult to balance. I'm not sure how EQ managed it (well, we know it didn't for some classes soloing, but...) I often played in incomplete groups and soloed quite a lot as well and there was always fun to be had.
I'm sure Pantheon can manage as well.
zewtastic said:This question is badly worded and vague.
You need to define what you think a challenge is and how it has been removed.
And moreover, to answer accurately you would need to have total knowledge of all MMO's, or at least ones applicable to your argument.
Most posters here only played one or two MMOs to any great length, so their "opinion" is largely based on that limited knowledge.
Unless Kilsin is expected an accurate and comprehensive journalistic article from each of us then the question is fine.
It is (like pretty much all of Kilsins polls/questions) intended to provoke thought and debate and if it is interpreted differently by every individual you will still get some useful and interesting opinion around the issue.
I'm seeing some real negativity toward concepts like 'effort', 'persistence' and 'stamina' when it comes to defining 'challenge'.
Sure, perhaps the most immediately fun kind of challenge is one that you can match your skill to and either beat or not in short order, but some challenges require time and tenacity.
It's best not to have those as the *only* component, but having the grit to do something 100 times when you mastered it after 50 *is* still a challenge. Some would give up saying "it's boring". Some would have the fortitude to push through and would extract quite a deal of satisfaction that they met the challenge of patience to get the reward.
Personally, I don't mind a *bit* of grind and tedium in my challenges. I would *much* prefer VR slant things that way than make everything immediate and end up with lots of it being over too quick.
Sometimes in games I set myself 'endurance' challenges when the original 'mission' is over, but I feel I haven't seen all there is to see in an area. If the quest was to "kill the bandit leader" and I did that without having to kill all the bandits in the whole complex, I will do that and explore every nook and cranny. Some would say "boring" because they've done the 'most challenging' part right quick.
TL;DR: 'Challenge' can include endurance, tenacity and patience. I hope Pantheon doesn't eradicate *all* 'grinds' and I hope they lean toward things being 'grindy' rather than 'immediate'.
((It is (like pretty much all of Kilsins polls/questions) intended to provoke thought and debate and if it is interpreted differently by every individual you will still get some useful and interesting opinion around the issue.))
This. And the answers show that the question is working as intended.
Kilsin said:Challenge - Have today's MMORPGs watered down the genre too far, has the challenge been removed beyond repair, and how do you think this will effect MMORPGs in the future? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters
Yes, it has, but not necessarily due to any fault by game developers. It is mostly due to everyone now innately understanding how these games work even before playing them. MMOs all function off very similar rules and mechanics so once you understand them the challenge is already gone. Why was leveling in EQ1 so slow in the first few expansions? Because everyone was learning the rules, we had no previous experience from which we could extrapolate and apply to EQ1. With EQ1, EQ2, WoW, Rift, etc, etc, etc all behind us, unless an MMO comes out with totally unique mechanics we, the players, already know how to beat it.
So far, nothing in Pantheon has surprised me nor made me think 'wow, I haven't seen that before, I wonder how it works'. Reading through the updated class descriptions I can already visualize how and under what situations to use those abilities, how I might maximize their effectiveness, their strenghts and weaknesses...all without seeing them in action. The only challenge ahead of me is refining what I'm visualizing into reality...but that won't take long.
Porygon said:There is definitely still challenge in MMOs. Due to an ever changing player mentality the challenge has shifted from leveling up / exploring to max level instances and raids.
Even with WoWs addons telling you exactly what to do, when, there are still fractions of a percent of the playerbase that is able to kill the top end mobs. So the challenge is still present, I feel it's just shifted to a different segment of the game.
I also dont think you will ever be able to replicate the mystery of early games like classic eq and classic wow, weve changed and adapted. Weve learned how to go about exploring in a safe and efficient way. We read blogs. And watch videos and look at database sites. You cannot change this. Before the game is even launched you will have the beginnings of database sites sprouting up, giving players information that they otherwise wouldn't know unless they did it themselves.
Exactly. I hesitate to say that the main issue in current MMO's is a lack of challenge. People often talk about "theme park" MMO's vs "sandbox" MMO's to distinguish the type of content in the game, but I think a better framework which examines the type of content and the role of challenge would be carnival vs expedition/safari. If you think about a carnival, there are rides that you can get on and just have a good time. But there are also games you can play which can be very difficult to win. If you want to focus on playing the challenging games you can, but you can also spend all day there having fun without doing anything challenging. Contrast that to an expedition in the wild. You can certainly have fun on an expedition, but it's a completely different experience compared ot a carnival. Challenges and difficulties are universal and natrual part of the adventure and not artificially compartmentalized. The stakes are higher, and you're more invested in the journey.
So while the deliberate choices made to make mmo's more accessible have certainly expanded the number of players playing MMO's, more and more veteran MMO players are realizing that some of the magic was lost when the experience shifted from being more like a safari to something like a carnival.
I read the question differently. It is challenge? or could it mean expectation?
I make general assumptions of the genre (from my EQ esperience) and these assumptions are, if the game is not stupid then it stands to reason I am stupid as I keep failing in this game.
The expectation was that I needed to figure out what I was doing wrong by making repeated attempts and at the same time, learning what was too hard and what was doable. If the game was too smart for me, why are so many people playing it well?(achieved higher levels)
Then I started hearing some people think that the game needed to cater to their expectations, it started slowly at first: mob pathing for one, unfair undercons, then gradually melted into the general "this is STUPID!" and blaming devs.
Dont get me wrong, the MMO started as being challenging. I think players should expect to meet the MMO's challenges.
Yes there are random events like getting killed by High level roaming mobs (darned brownie! no fair the air elemental is Invis in a level 5 zone!) that allow me to not think myself as stupid on second thought of assement of the challenge (why did I die?) and allow me to vent my anger deliciously at higher levels by going back and killing that monster while at the same time enjoing the aftertase of altruism. "the air elemental is dead!~ things are safe for you all, for now at least"
So how does an MMO stay challenging? maybe its by defining the boundary where challenge is, and player expectations meet. QOL stuff is one thing, mob pathing is another- you dont go to myconids for the fungi without bringing crowd-control, I mean you can try -and you better believe I will help!(and expect to die a couple of times, even :))- but don't get your expectations up.- sec while I try another spell set. ok, gtg......
disposalist said:Thinking about this, it must be difficult to balance. I'm not sure how EQ managed it (well, we know it didn't for some classes soloing, but...) I often played in incomplete groups and soloed quite a lot as well and there was always fun to be had.
I'm sure Pantheon can manage as well.
Well, EQ kind of didn't manage it well IMO since the only difference tended to be efficiency not difficulty. A duo could be killing the same mobs as an equal level group, they would tend to do so at a slower rate but not with much more difficulty. EQ for the most part wasn't challenging at all from mob to mob, especially in a full group...which I think is part of why it felt like such a grind at times. Even caster mobs since they often got interrupted just by the tiny knockback from player auto-attacks.
Deadshade said:I prefer to use the word "mystery" rather than "challenge" because there is no challenge in any MMORPG .
Indeed within months if not weeks every quest, NPC location, fight, raid in an MMORPG is analysed and solved in great detail on many web sites . The only difference is that 20 years ago no you tubes , tweets or other facebooks existed so that some parts of an MMORPG were still unknown after 1 year or more . What happened was that with the new social media this "mystery" time has been so dramatically shortened that no mysteries exist anymore . So yes, the exploration/wonder/immersion dimension has been broken beyond repair .
However I believe that precisely this dimension is instrumental to the feeling to be in a real breathing world and makes the specific charm of MMORPGs compared to other games . So, obviously, it is only a matter of time untill somebody will find a way to make the fantasy worlds mysterious, appealing and unknown again . As this is impossible to do with scripted, predetermined design the only solution I see is AI and evolving environment . That's why I would think that the future MMORPG will use more and more sophisticated adaptative AI and allow irreversible changes in the environment (towns get destroyed, kings die, wars erupt, alliances are forged and betrayed ....) . For me the MMORPG of the future will be like history in writing where nobody will be able to predict exactly what will happen .
I agree with you to an extent Deadshade, but there's one thing no one seems to be mentioning.
Your reasons only apply to 'static' encounters.
If every time you enter X dungeon, Y boss behaves exactly the same as before, then yes - everything will be theorycrafted to death.
The goal of any modern MMO developer, should be to create as little 'static' content as possible, and instead create 'dynamic' boss fights.
Take a game like Path of Exile for example, sure it's an action RPG and not an MMO, but if we borrowed some elements from it (and Diablo 2, which it borrowed heavily from), we could create content that can't be consumed in a matter of weeks.
For example, let's all imagine we are going to slay Trakannon, or some other similar bad-guy Dragon. What if, on the way to slay him, there were random numbers of mobs.. and not the same, set patterns. And these mobs have different "Affixes". (Extra fast, Defensive Masters, Thorns enchant, etc)
You finally get to Trakkannon, and he has similar random enchants/buffs. Furthermore, his abilities could be any combination from his toolbox. Perhaps this week's version of Trakannon leaps to a random player in the raid every 10 seconds. Or, his breath attack takes a different shape.. perhaps this week it's a very intense single target nuke, where as last week it was a wide-spread, poison gas AOE style.
The key to getting rid of the "Youtubes" effect, is to simply create more dynamic content. Even if it's only superficially dynamic, by adding a few random features here and there.
Kilsin said:Challenge - Have today's MMORPGs watered down the genre too far?
Yes. Generally speaking, challenge and mystery has slowly been dying from most games over the last 12 years and I can point my finger firmly at Blizzard for this. Do not take this wrong, Blizzard was a fine company and has made some amainzg games that are extremely polished. That said they have lost their way. Either because of new designers, changes in management combined with the chase for money has made them water down game play for the masses and have settled into an easy routine of twitch style game mechanic meets cinematic linear boredom. All other studios after them looked to WoW's slick animations, easy in and out UI as well as the simplicity and arcade feel of the game to learn from instead looking to EQ, UO and MUDS of old. That again is all fine. I just don't like where MMO's are anymore. On second thought, I can't really blame the new designers for the last part because they probably weren't born to play EQ, etc and unless they played them with their parents, they would never know.
Kilsin said:Has the challenge been removed beyond repair, and how do you think this will effect MMORPGs in the future?
No. Games like Pantheon can surely change the tide. IF it gets the following it needs and deserves. It will depend on how good it is and that is dependant on our feed back here and in game as well as what the devolopers listen to ( good or bad ). Then and only then other companies may see the potential in this game style and begin like minded designs.
Obviously their a lot of people on this planet and we all love different games. WoW still has 5 million or more player so we know the masses still love that sweet, sugary game play. Personallly, I dip my feet into the simple games now and again to satisfy that itch because they are fun and that is what games are about, but I'm still playing EQ too and its fun. That says a lot about Everquest and longevity as a game.
If anything I would like games to be harder. In other words more real in the since of the world mirroring real world elements minus the magic :D. So far Pantheon is doing it up right. No map ( so far ), no mini map, no quest hubs, realistic weather that has a real impact, quantrinty and most everything else I've seen or read.
Question. Will there be weight limits that players can carry? in other words no unlimited loot. Maybe higher levels can create magic bags that are lighter, but nothing more!! :D
Kilsin said:Challenge - Have today's MMORPGs watered down the genre too far, has the challenge been removed beyond repair, and how do you think this will effect MMORPGs in the future? #PRF #MMORPG #MMO #communitymatters
Yes and No.
I recently tried ESO (Elder Scrolls Online) and found that no matter what you picked class wise there simply was no challenge. There may have been some for PvP or End Dungeons, but they did not seem to be able to code the game so it was balanced across all of these areas. Solo leveling in ESO is the ultimate cake walk, nevermind if you get the bag of holding for gathering, you could hold as much as you want for the most part.
Games easy to level and with a narrow challenge on one fuction to me would be games like: WoW, Rift, GW2, BDO, Final Fantasy Online, on and on.
New games attempting a challenge: Star Citizen (Playing around in Alpha I believe it will be more challenging on release than what we have in the market today). I truley can't think of another MMO that is both successful and challenging that was just released in the last 3-4 years, so I had to go with something not released yet.
Thanks,
Barnum
Dulu said:You finally get to Trakkannon, and he has similar random enchants/buffs. Furthermore, his abilities could be any combination from his toolbox. Perhaps this week's version of Trakannon leaps to a random player in the raid every 10 seconds. Or, his breath attack takes a different shape.. perhaps this week it's a very intense single target nuke, where as last week it was a wide-spread, poison gas AOE style.
The key to getting rid of the "Youtubes" effect, is to simply create more dynamic content. Even if it's only superficially dynamic, by adding a few random features here and there.
This will only temporarily make things more difficult. Each affix will have an individual strategy for the boss to which you will still see YouTube videos explaining.
This happens with the Mythic+ dungeons in wow. You figure out what the affixes is, and just tailor your dungeon/fight to the affixes present.
I could see this used as some sort of extra reward system. Tack on 3 affixes and if you win you get a bonus piece of gear or something. But having every fight with these affixes won't create the affect you're looking for.
First, there is too much information available on websites. The best one can do to counter that is to keep it mysterious for as long as possible. I've used this example before, but no compass, mini-map or in-game map with your character marked on them. Sure there will be online maps eventually, no need to contribute to that though. Keep it mysterious and immersive for as long as possible.
Also have limited feedback about what is hitting you. "Mob X hit you for 622 fire damage that you could have mitigated with 122 fire resist. I recommend these 3 pieces of armor and these 2 potions. For 2.99 you can have them in your inventory right now." Obviously a ridiculous example, but you get my point.
Secondly you can have a near-infinite variety of mobs and conditions. Instead of one named having a chance to spawn at that spawn location, make it 1 of 20. Whether they share the same loot table or not I don't know. Changing dungeon conditions - a section of the tunnel collapsed and opened up a new passageway with a couple new rooms. Others have mentioned big changes to the environment as different groups attack villages, burn fields, blow up mountains for mining....all these ideas have promise.
The problem with all these ideas is the resources they take up. What if there were 2 content development teams at VR. One would be the traditional group working on new expasions, the second would be a content team for the current world. This group would keep things fresh and change things in each zone. Think of WoW's cataclysm on a much more reasonable and well contructed scale. If you can keep the world alive and changing, it will keep people engaged and interested.
disposalist said:Sometimes in games I set myself 'endurance' challenges when the original 'mission' is over, but I feel I haven't seen all there is to see in an area. If the quest was to "kill the bandit leader" and I did that without having to kill all the bandits in the whole complex, I will do that and explore every nook and cranny. Some would say "boring" because they've done the 'most challenging' part right quick
A good example of those few players that seek to create the challenge. The way that dungeon was created was fairly straightforward, as most would clear it all, end up at the boss and slay him. So from creative standpoint it's quite simple. BUT to bring back the challenge to the game...make it a requirement not to slay all or X-amount of trashmobs before getting to the named or perhaps some areas of the dungeon must not been cleared or looted before the boss has died. Killing too many could trigger a fail condition (aka boss flees the scene or the boss lets the dungeon flood or storm out with reinforcements.) If players manage to break down this dungeonscript, they would still need to take carefull measures.
If a player such as Disposalist makes the dungeon experience more challenging than originally was intended by the dev's.. than that would be a good example of the playerbase showing the dev's.. Hey, you're game lacks a challenge and we're not entertained by the content in the manner you're offering it to us.
Manouk said:Yes there are random events like getting killed by High level roaming mobs (darned brownie! no fair the air elemental is Invis in a level 5 zone!) that allow me to not think myself as stupid on second thought of assement of the challenge (why did I die?) and allow me to vent my anger deliciously at higher levels by going back and killing that monster while at the same time enjoing the aftertase of altruism. "the air elemental is dead!~ things are safe for you all, for now at least"
I like where you are heading. Dynamic mobs would make for an ever changing world to encounter. If you have a general 'safe' newby zone and another newby zone but that's guarded by higher level mobs, which newbies can't possibly defeat, it disables newbies to clear that area at their level. So the chain of events would be, to level up in the safe zone, go to the guarded zone and kill those higher leveled mobs and thereby opening up a new 'safe' newby zone. This "unlocks" or opens up new quests former newbies would not have been able to reach for example. The defeated bosses, might migrate to that other 'safe' newby zone and start preventing players start over there, making them shift in that newly cleared zone. This disables them to pick up the questlines in that new danger zone. etc. Of course this has not have to be limited to newbies.. it was just an example.
If you experience a hit or death by an invisible mob, one could try and get a groupmember or skill/tool to see that mob and tackle it. An easy way would be that the dev's wouldn't enscript such mobs in a region where players would just die on the spot. But that would make the game easier again. So this dimension is a piece of the puzzle to make the game interesting, exciting and challenging. If you can't get your head around how to get passed or defeat that invisible mob, you'll want to try and skip it all together and bypass the region and its content. And would that be so bad? No, those willing to put in that extra effort will get rewarded. That is the pay off for the challenge.
In a world that might get "destroyed" (I use this term with caution, no need to tumble over it) to a certain degree, it would allow a lot of options to rise. Options that would make the creation or use of a permanent map of lesser value and interest. For example. A mob has been cleared and moves out of the region or gets replaced by a different mob with different strats. A waypoint would have little value other to highlight a danger zone. This makes the information of the map already more vague and thus challenging. Let me go even further. A dungeon gets cleared, but instead of all mobs returning to their starting point, they venture into another cavesystem on the other side of town. Again the waypoints would show possible caves, but players would have to scout out which one has the mobs they are looking for. Especially if that region has different kinds of mobs and bosses. The map will show you something but not that straightforward information of head over there and kill X and come back. A last, perhaps too dramatic approach would be; if the boss is cleared in a dungeon or cave.. that cave collapses or floods or in a fashion becomes unaccessable for players. (for example in order to kill the boss you need to destroy his escape route). This would mean that a map showing this cave or boss, would only have temporary uses. The breakdown of a cave might allow for new cavesystems to open up and after a while become populated with mobs or the migration of mobs to other underground regions. You could of course encounter a mob and its boss traversing the plains on its way to another cavesystem. Making up for a whole other kind of encounter compared to the fight inside the cave.
This opens up a whole different kind of game and manner of how to use or think of maps. And in a way it makes sense.
Big natural landmarks would remain on the maps (mountains, larger rivers) but other waypoints might be effected by change.
The challenge would certainly be there, but it is possible to create? Might there be a worthy solution or compromise to bring back the challenge and the hunt. Most definatly!
Ziegfried said:Everyone else in this thread has mostly said what I would have said, but yes I consider the challenge to be almost non existant in modern MMORPGs. I don't think the challenge should begin at max level, and that is the model most of the developers today are using.
How would you go about making challenges while leveling?
Furthermore, if a majority of a characters time is spent at max level, why would you not put a focus on making that area challenging?
Any challenges made for below max level either get trivialized by being a higher level, or become obsolete by passing a level requirement.
Dulu said:I agree with you to an extent Deadshade, but there's one thing no one seems to be mentioning.
Your reasons only apply to 'static' encounters.
If every time you enter X dungeon, Y boss behaves exactly the same as before, then yes - everything will be theorycrafted to death.
The goal of any modern MMO developer, should be to create as little 'static' content as possible, and instead create 'dynamic' boss fights.
Dulu, Porygon already basically answered your point but I will add another argument why what you mention doesn't change qualitatively the challenge at all .
I do not distinguish "static" and "dynamic" fights .
I distinguish "scripted fights with no random element" and "scripted fights with random elements" . Neither poses a challenge there is only a slight difference in the learning curve .
Let's take an example :
1) The script says "If HP = 80 % , Boss summons 4 mobs X" . Obviously you will need only 1 or 2 attempts to understand the script and win all next fights .
2) The script says "If HP = Random , Boss summons Random (1 to 5) mobs of Random type (X,Y,Z,)" . Despite the fact that there are 3 random elements crammed in one script line this fight is not more challenging than the previous one . You will only need more tries to understand the script and be ready for the worst case f.ex 2 mobs X and 3 mobs Z . The you tube walthrough for this fight will basically be a developpement of the simple line I wrote just before and I'd guess that it will take perhaps 1 week but not more for the player basis to figure it out .
The reason why there is no challenge in any MMORPG and there never was is because they are all scripted and not because there are too few random elements in the script . The example above shows that the second randomized case is not more challenging but only takes a bit more tries to be figured out and you can be very sure that it will be figured out quite fast .
That's why I wrote that the only way to introduce a challenge in a game which stays for a very long time is to use adaptative AI what no MMORPG did sofar . Here you'd have a major qualitiative difference because adaptative AI cannot be figured out in a few tries . Or, if one wanted to use an analogy, an adaptative AI is equivalent to a script of infinite length . But nobody can read a script of infinite length even if he spends a lot of time trying . The common mistake is to think that adaptative AI is just a long script with many random elements . Well no, it is quite the opposite - there is little randomness in an adaptative AI because it learns from experience and changes strategies depending on circumstances and therefore keeps doing unpredicted surprising things . That's why it is called "intelligence" and not "script" .
From there comes my conviction that the (challenging) MMORPGs of the future will all use adaptative AI perhaps with some scripts here and there to make things sometimes easier for the players :)
I would rather see an XP Bonus chain in the game (Like FFXI had) than a free bonus for adding more players to the group. I feel XP Chains are aligned with the game tenets while the free bonus is not. The biggest complaints I have seen against XP Chains is that they are contrived to encourage certain behaviors and that groups may be a bit more selective with who they invite. When it comes to encouraging player behavior this is most definitely true, and the type of behavior that was encouraged involved a higher level of strategy/coordination, and more focus on timing/positioning. While it's true that some players may create a "standard" for their XP groups based on being able to pull off chains, I always viewed this as a good thing. If you wanted to get into a group focused on XP, you would generally build a composition that offered sustained damage, good regen, situational burst, great pulling, and overall flexibility. Players were naturally more inclined to help others perform at a higher level in order to help facilitate the better chains. Player interdependence was a beautiful thing and seeing the otherwise monotonous grinding of MMO's turn into a bunch of windows of opportunity where players could leverage their knowledge/skill/composition for improved progress felt amazing.