We've all seen the game play footage of groups cutting down the lower level mobs and then progressing into the mobs that are of their level. The fights took longer, the mobs hit harder but does that really mean it's more challenging. The videos have demontrated that once you get past the first or second wipe, it becomes routine.
I've been playing A LOT of EQ (EQReborn) and EQ2 lately.
EQ2, the leveling is so quick it's insulting. There is zero challenge and I've caught myself falling into my old habit of just pulling as much as I can and trying to level even faster. Not catching anything, missing all of scenes and running through contents that is wonderully crafted. (Granted I've seen it a 100 times, but still). Also, the overwhelming amount of abilities that are giving to us is atroucious. (I have 5 hotbars worth of abilities already and I'm only level 25 (I just reinstalled Friday)).
EQ (EQReborn), is so slow it's bored me to sleep twice. Literally fell asleep with my laptop in my chair playing the game. The draw however is it's harder. I appreciate the levels more. I continually keep opening my character sheet just to see how much futher until next level. It takes forever. Level, after leve, after level with no new abilities however it's crushing. (I play Paladin, I get nothing until level 9 and then I only get 1 extra attack option unless I stick to fighting just undead.) It's rough. I have bash (if I'm using a sheild) taunt and Melee attack. So all I really get to do, is watch my character swing a sword until I die, or the other mob starts running away.
The only real challenge in EQ is the drive to not zone out, or fall asleep. It's longer, but it's not exactly more challenging. There's no real challenge in EQ2, I've have to pull a swarm of orange mobs to push myself. There's no real challenge in EQ, if I pull anything more than a solo yellow I'm dead.
What I'm hoping is that Pantheon finds that middle ground. Where I've got enough abilities at lower levels that if I pull more than one mob at a time I'm going to have to use my resouces in a near prefect combination to win. The game play we've seen the members have been levels, early teen to early 20's and already they have a hotbar full of abilities. I'm hoping it was just for the streams. I'm hoping for a hot bar (or more) of abilities, just not by level 12. One new abilities ever 2 or 3 levels.
How we define "challenge" has been discussed a few times at least. I'm going to copy/paste a post I made from a recent thread:
I think maybe some of the misunderstanding is that a large part of how many people define "challenge" in an mmo is based around how extreme the penalty for failure is and also the length of time it takes to achieve success (ie the amount of dedication involved to reach a specific goal).
My opinion is that the above ^ is at least as important as how challenging the actual gameplay itself is, if not moreso, because with minimal consequences any amount of challenging gameplay is also minimized.
I do consider long grinds or extended timesinks as something that increase the challenge level simply by lengthening the time it takes to reach your goal. There are many more factors involved in defining "challenge" than just the difficulty of a mob or an encounter in my opinion.
That's a question I've already seen here, but the problem is allways the same :
-Is it real challenge if it's longer ?
-Is it real challenge if it harder ?
-Is it real challenge if it require more people ?
-Is it real challenge if it require specific skills or gear ?
Technically, if you discard any of thoses, can it really be a challenge ?
For some, challenge is jumping into action withouth any requirement and just learn the boss untill you master it, with the fight having a 5min duration. But is that real challenge since all you need is a good memory and muscle memory, that your endurance is never fully used, and it requires no specific atunement of gear ?
The sole definition of a timesink lies in the definition of a game itself : something that waste time somehow.
To me, difficulty is tied to all of this. Of course EQ is boring and such now, because our standard evolved to more refinement and less autoattack while in tabletop to EQ, an automatic melee roll lead to surprise and excitation.
But back when it was out ? I was stalking my backstabs and I was glad when I deal a dual stab for max damage. I loved 1 hour tedious fight because they weren't done in 5 min and lead to a lot of players doing their role at best for success. I love to be cast out if not enough resistance, or beeing out of melee range throwing shurikens, because it gave me goals : Get resist gear to be back in melee.
This debate makes me think about the people who say e-sports shouldn't be called sports. They say that they aren't real athetes because they don't run or jump or do anything that requires you to be strong or agile physically. But they fail to understand the dexterity and timing involved in clicking those buttons at just the right moments and in the right places. Not to mention the strategy and complexity and memory involved. If any of you have ever really followed an e-sport and understand the difference between the Pro's and the common players, you know what I mean.
Hopefully Pantheon will have enough dexterity, timing, complexity, and strategy requirements that we will be able to notice the difference between a great player and an average player.
It really depends on what one is trying to make challenging. A monster fight is rather boring if it's nothing but a massive health bar, and I wouldn't consider that challenging. A lengthy quest that involves a great deal of time investment to complete is another matter.
Part of what made EQ a fun experience was how it built a community. For good or bad people were driven together to achieve common goals and that bonded them either through success and especially failure that would eventually lead to success.
You could tell really good players from average or even bad players based on their play.
Any one who defied the norms to achieve the same goal was fun to play with.
A druid pulling for her exp group in Charasis instead of the normal monk or tank.
An enchanter using a level 1 minor illusion spell to turn himself into a chest then casting gravity flux on himself to literally move himself around NTOV and start the ring/boss event during the height of the game was an accomplishment.
What I loved about EQ was how people could trully show you how good, or bad they were based on their knowledge of the game, game mechanics, class mechanics and their desire to not just sit there for 8 hours and have things happen to them.
Hopefully some of that will exist in this game because I LOVED playing with players like that.
I'm sure the dev team will find a middle ground once more players start testing the game in alpha and then beta. Then they'll get more feedback and be able to tweak settings to find the sweet spot. It also sounds like the OP is soloing both games. The dev's have said Pantheon won't be a soloing game so I wouldn't use soloing in other games as a comparison.
First, try hiding some of those abilities in a combat macro. Turns 5-10 buttons into one. Admittedly, that's lazy design and you shouldn't have to do that, but your excess button issue is fixable.
Second, things taking longer to do doesn't make it a real challenge. That's my answer to your question. My reasoning is challenges are composed of many elements, and if you removed the amount of time it takes to do something, or lessened it, that would lessen the challenge. However, there are other elements to challenges, as mentioned above. (longer/harder/more people/better gear/right skills, among others), and if you reduced any of those elements in quantity, or removed them, then the challenge would be reduced accordingly. Thus, challenges are composed of many elements, and reduction of those elements reduces the challenge proportionally.
Now, the big question is can we make challenge in an MMO into an equation and optimize it? And what would that optimization look like? (Horrible, I think, but that's fodder for a different discussion.)
SoWplz said: Maybe I'm not creative enough, but not sure how you can make the average encounter much tougher then boosting HP, damage, mitigation, maybe a few random abilities.
I think the answer lies in mob random behaviors, dispositions, and smarter AI/mob decision making based on conditional requirements.
Things like:
Mobs throwing out various debuffs/cc to party members regardless of who its main target is, based on what is happening in a fight. Attempting to silence/stun/concuss(slower cast time) caster DPS & healers or disarm/stun/etc rising threat DPS or in reaction to receiving critical hits.
Players on the threat list and in melee range that turn their back to a mob provoking attacks of opportunity against them, making positioning & awareness more important.
Player healing generating more threat based on the % hp of the target being healed or even becoming enraged if a player falls below 15% and is then healed past 30%. The idea being the mob is furious that defeat of his target was snatched out of its grasp, sort of how players tend to get upset when their target is near death and healed out of nowhere in a PvP battle.
Just things to reduce the relative safety commonly associated with a mob being held down threat wise by a main tank in general; things that reach beyond who tops the threat list.
Something taking longer to accomplish does not equate to that something being more of a challenge.
You could easily have an encounter where the NPC has an incredibly large hitpoint count and your DPS against it is miniscule thus the TTK is very long. If the NPC also has pathetic DPS where the chance for failure is low means the entire encounter, though long, is trivial.
There are potentially quite a few variables involved: Your DPS output; your HP total; your mitigation; your manapool capacity; your quantity of abilities; NPC hitpoints; NPC DPS output; NPC spells/abilities; NPC mitigation and finally the XP reward..just to name a few. The permutations here are huge. Lets explore a few:
Your side: Low DPS, Low HP, Low Mitigation, Low Manpool, limited PC spells/abilities
NPC side: Low DPS, Low HP, Low Mitigation, Low Manpool, limited NPC spells/abilities
Reward: Low XP
This, to me, is the typical low level encounter. Neither side as much of anything to bring to the fight. There you are at level 3 with a few spells, a couple of terrible pieces of moldy gear and a weapon you couldn't give away at a garage sale. Nothing exciting or rewarding here.
Your side: Low DPS, Low HP, Low Mitigation, Low Manpool, limited PC spells/abilities
NPC Side: High DPS, High HP, High Mitigation, High Manapool, Numerous NPC spells/abilities
Reward: Low XP
Is this scenario challenging? No, it's an exercise in futility. The chance for failure is so high it outweighs the rewards.
Your side: High DPS, High HP, High Mitigation, High Manpool, numerous PC spells/abilities
NPC Side: Low DPS, Low HP, Low Mitigation, Low Manapool, Limited NPC spells/abilities
Reward: High XP
This scenario is not challenging either as the encounter is trivial. The chance to fail is negligible and the reward far exceeds the effort and risk.
Your side: High DPS, High HP, High Mitigation, High Manapool, numerous PC spells/abilities
NPC Side: High DPS, High HP, High Mitigation, High Manapool, Numerous NPC spells/abilities
Reward: High XP
I see this as possibily challenging as both sides are equally matched. The fight can go back and forth for some time yet and the outcome can remain undecided until the very end as each side has a full toolbox of skills and abilities to bring to bear. The reward for this effort and risk is well balanced. The only problem with this scenario is it the most open to the RNG problem. This example, for me, represents the most enjoyable situation and one usually experienced at the max level of the game. Here is where you have all your spells and abilities, your stats are at the cap (or at the highest you can achieve) and you are facing off against very tough NPCs that also have a lot of spells/abilities with which to fight you.
Where I deem something challenging is where a each side has one weakness the other side can exploit so you need to rely upon inventive use of your positives against their negatives. Outcomes are not predictable yet a bad RNG will not result in an insurmountable deficit for either side.
Iksar said:I think the answer lies in mob random behaviors, dispositions, and smarter AI/mob decision making based on conditional requirements.
While I file this under the generic 'NPC spells/abilities' it really does go much deeper than that. I've said it for years that NPCs need to act like their class. Right now when looking at any of the Pantheon streams, every NPCs (regardless of its class) does the same thing: Rush right into melee range. Caster classes should never go into melee range. Ever. Serious VR, stop making them do that. Caster classes should avoid melee range at all costs. They should have, and should use, the same spread of spells that players use. If I'm facing up against an Enchanter class NPC, it should be trying to charm me, mez me, strip my buffs, blind me, root me...all from a distance all while yelling its head off for help. Summoner NPCs should be shoving their pets up my rear end while also rooting, nuking, etc. Shaman NPCs should be casting slow, debuffing my stats, then loading me up with DoTs.
Not a simple question to answer, to be honest. You pretty much answered the question with your initial post. How do you make content challenging when you have done it a thousand times? Not likely to happen. However someone that has never done that content may find it extremely challenging.
If i look deeper into your original post i feel that you are seeking less options for hotbuttons so that there is an illusion of challenge. VR has stated that they want your choices to matter, if you pick the wrong spell/ability before combat you have to suffer for that choice. So in a way, yes, the game will be challenging. Also, if you take into account dynamic content, advanced AI/dispositions, and the newness of the game/content. This game will be challenging, will it remain challenging years from now? That is the goal, i would think....
kreed99 said:If i look deeper into your original post i feel that you are seeking less options for hotbuttons so that there is an illusion of challenge. VR has stated that they want your choices to matter, if you pick the wrong spell/ability before combat you have to suffer for that choice. So in a way, yes, the game will be challenging. Also, if you take into account dynamic content, advanced AI/dispositions, and the newness of the game/content. This game will be challenging, will it remain challenging years from now? That is the goal, i would think....
We haven't seen that to be true though. Unless every stream we have seen everyone is given a preset of abilities for that stream. Is that something they haven't shown us, or is that something that is no longer true?
I've ready all the class abilities and even Chris has stated that not all abilities have been shown, nor will they, they (VR) wants to keep some surprise. (and I appreciate that) but I don't beleive their statement of setting up pre-battle hotbar assigned abilities matter.
Yes, I'd like to see few abilities than EQ2, but more than EQ1. I think they have a good balance on that right now (from what I've seen/read). My hope is that these abilities are dependant more exponentally so, upon others abilities, your own or groupmates.
There really isn't much challenge in XP mob grinding. Sure, you would get the occasional add but once you find the sweet spot for your group's capabilities, it's pretty static. How long would that take to level up would depend on many other factors. Adding time after a pretty fair base line wouldn't increase the challenge, just the tedium. However, where I remember most challenges from my EQ days were things that weren't about XP leveling. Raids, Epics, and other multi-tiered quest lines were where I generally found challenge. (And I guess getting into higher level/harder content areas solo)
Part of what makes something challenging is the desirability of people to do that raid/quest/epic. Most wanted to do the epics, but things like non-critical zone keys, Iksar class weapon quests, the Coldain War, Eyepatch of Plunder, Shawl, and other lines like that seemed to have a minor barrier to entry. As if to say, "you sure you want to go down this road??" Sure, most of those could simply be defeated/obtained with perseverance and sticktuitiveness, but part of the challenge was setting the goal and obtaining it. Every journey begins with a first step, so to speak.
I think one of the key challenges to EQ was that (for most classes) grouping was the way to get that xp bar to move and in order to get the xp moving well you had to all play well and that took co-ordination between people. The level of challenge in EQ changed depending on who was in your group what classes and how well they played and it would fluxuate depending on any one of those factors on any given day. This was great because it meant that for me (as a big fan of PUG's) my gameplay experience changed constantly and as someone who especially enjoyed leading a group of rag tag classes in to take on harder mobs way above our level and developing strategies depending on our class combination at the time. Sometimes stuff would melt in front of us and then the next day with classes and people we would have to work our butts off to kill it sometimes the next day woith the same classes and different people we would have to work our butts off because someone is playing differently and it makes a huge difference to the rest of us. Things taking longer to kill opens the door for more mistakes, more breaks of concentration and the need for more consistant communication and I think that is where some of the greater challenge came from.
In my opinion there is definitely value that can be found in things taking longer. An individual fight is not inherently more interesting or challenging if made to take longer, but it can play a part in how challenging combat is when you look at the game's flow through multiple fights.
Dungeon crawling (even just clearing to a camp location) becomes more interesting as you increase the time to kill relative to the respawn time. If you are clearing through a long hallway filled with 20 mobs, and each one takes 10s to kill, then respawns will never be a concern for you. If each one takes 1min+ to kill, then you are on the clock and you better keep the pace up for fear of respawns encroaching on your group. This was actually seen in one of the earlier streams where they had to get a move on. While this isn't a defining feature MMO dungeon combat and can be seen as a bit artificial (respawn timers and all), it is certainly an aspect that makes dungeon crawling more challenging and dangerous.
The same logic also extends to roamers. If it takes you 30s start to finish to kill a pack of mobs, then the chance that an unseen roamer pack gets to you is slim (unless they are really booking it). If your fight is 3 minutes long, then a roamer pack will able to pop out from behind a corner, meander in your direction, and force you to move your fighting location (dangerous) or take on the adds (dangerous).
Zyellinia said:Longer doesn't necessarily mean more challenging. If mobs are jacked up to take longer to kill but don't have any real hope of threatening you it's tedium not challenge...
I agree. There's a vast difference between hard ("Nintendo hard," as I call it) and challenging.