Are MMOs being made easier to play....?

[Kalfear]

not reading the responces as undoubtably will be the QQs about deaths and grinding and ect.

 

MMORPGs are at a all time low for challenge and difficulty and its taking its toll on the genre.

 

WOW did the genre a real disservice by making a MMORPG on training wheels. It might of attracted new player base, but it robbed MMORPGs of any long term success (other then WOW).

 

Now im not going to say we need EQ, AC level grinding back in the genre because that wasnt the answer either.

 

But we doneed the time to max level back in genre

 

Right now maxing out is MEANINGLESS.

Where as it use to be a accomplishment and meaningfull reward in itself.

 

As for actual game play, I play allot with a few friends so its usuallme and 1 or 2 others and other then a flashpoint or 4 person heroic, we are simply never challenged in TOR. Heck im never challenged when solo, its meaningless god mode for the most part.

 

I love the story aspect of TOR but they did themselves a real disservice making game so mindlessly easy and fast to max level.

 

Gladim not a investor, thats for sure.

[Raeln]

not reading the responces as undoubtably will be the QQs about deaths and grinding and ect.

 

MMORPGs are at a all time low for challenge and difficulty and its taking its toll on the genre.

 

WOW did the genre a real disservice by making a MMORPG on training wheels. It might of attracted new player base, but it robbed MMORPGs of any long term success (other then WOW).

 

Now im not going to say we need EQ, AC level grinding back in the genre because that wasnt the answer either.

 

But we doneed the time to max level back in genre

 

Right now maxing out is MEANINGLESS.

Where as it use to be a accomplishment and meaningfull reward in itself.

 

As for actual game play, I play allot with a few friends so its usuallme and 1 or 2 others and other then a flashpoint or 4 person heroic, we are simply never challenged in TOR. Heck im never challenged when solo, its meaningless god mode for the most part.

 

I love the story aspect of TOR but they did themselves a real disservice making game so mindlessly easy and fast to max level.

 

Gladim not a investor, thats for sure.

 

Is there really that many that want "challenge" in a MMO? I think we could take a look at WoW's hardmode absorption numbers to get an idea of that.

 

Very few seem to be interested in hardmodes (read: challenge). I think what many of that small number are actually interested is in something to feed their elitist ego - as in to set them apart from the rest of the masses and be worshipped in their minds as some sort of pixellated god.

 

I'm not sure "challenge" is really thought about that much by the majority of the playerbase.

 

Now "fun" is a different beast altogether.

[Neeseek]

WoW changed the MMO market forever, go on WoW right now and level a class from 1, that game is so freaking brain dead it's insulting.

 

This explains why the majority of 85s in heroics are garbage.

[Raeln]

WoW changed the MMO market forever, go on WoW right now and level a class from 1, that game is so freaking brain dead it's insulting.

 

This explains why the majority of 85s in heroics are garbage.

 

The market was virtually nonexistent before WoW though. Sub numbers of EQ1 were not impressive at all and it was the big boy on the block. 400k subscribers? really? That number of subscribers now is considered fail compared to WoWs 11M record.

 

Let's extrapolate a bit. 400k apparently liked EQ1 enough to play it at its heyday. 11 million like WoW. Shoot, apparently 10 million still like it enough after Failaclysm. If we could assume the 400k is the hardcore and the ~10 million is mostly casual - how many really desire a more difficult game?

[SoggyHotDog]

Those "challanging" games had a lot of elitism. I played a lot of Asheron's Call when it came out, and returned several times. Great game, love the concepts and gameplay, but when it was in its prime, I hated the playerbase. The arrogance was sickening.

 

This game is fairly easy compared to AC, but the design of the game is better in the sense that I do not forsee an issue of someone not being invited into a group because he didn't spend 20 hours camping one spot for the right kind of lightsaber.

[Quip]

They're certainly less dependant on time sinks. Challenging content has gotten more and more difficult as group sizes shrank for convenience the mechanics of events had to become less and less forgiving. I remember needing 15 good players and a bunch of filler to kill a 72 man boss in EQ, now you 25 good players to down heroic content in World of Warcraft, only a tiny number of players actually do that in it's early life, eventually they make it easier for the people who had been avoiding the tough content. And that brings me to the modern design philosophy of MMOs:

 

I think the big thing is that it has gotten easier to avoid challenges in MMOs. You have to decide to pursue difficult content in games now, it's not rammed down your throat from level five. I think these games as a whole are in a far better place than they were when games like UO and SWG ruled the land where the was no real challenge to be found it was just grind, grind, grind. But I wouldn't be disappointed to see a little bit more content that was just flat out inaccessible to the average player (like an "insane" difficulty setting for raids) that stayed that way.

 

I've noticed that the loudest squawkers about difficulty in MMOs seems to spend most of their time avoiding challenging content, so it's pretty hard to pay them any mind whatsoever.

[TheHeadCapper]

Games have been getting easier since Donkey Kong this isn't a news flash and no I'm not kidding.

 

Continue game....pffft start again from scrathc, that's a real game! Corpse Looting perhaps.

 

MMO's have never really been tough, they are less of a time sink now. Some people equate time sink with difficulty and i don't think that's the case..

[ferroz]

2004 will forever stand in the hearts of many who dare call themselves hardcore gamers as the rise of the casual gamer.

 

The game that contributed in no small part to this was: WoW

 

Long I miss the days of EQ, UO, DAOC, Lineage, Lineage2 and all games like them.

 

They all went downhill eventually.. but on release they were almost perfect <3

hardcore vs casual != skilled vs unskilled

 

Games are becoming less hardcore, but that doesn't mean that they're getting easier.

 

A game where the strat is

1. Clear trash,
   
2. Send in the tanks, healers and melee dps.
   
3. Once enough melee dps have died, send in the caster dps.
   

is hardcore, but hardly can be said to require skill.

Edited January 3, 2012 by ferroz

[Ellisande]

We can't all be masochists.

[Thorbrand]

Fact is there still hasn't been a casual MMO launch that was a successful MMO. Right now MMOs are a commodity to be used to make money.

 

DEVs don't actually care about making a game for gamers. Until we have a real game developer come out and make a game for the sake of making a game we will not have any good games come out.

 

This game will go the way of the others, so much potential but I don't see BioWare taking advantage of it. They have removed to much already in Beta and not fix enough of the issues.

[TheHeadCapper]

Fact is there still hasn't been a casual MMO launch that was a successful MMO. Right now MMOs are a commodity to be used to make money.

 

.

 

Wow could easily be considered casual.

 

Did you miss the first year of forum complaints?

 

That being said, this is a great game IMO, comparing it to the MMO's that have come out recently as a measuring stick is laughable at best. Different bllapark.

Edited January 3, 2012 by TheHeadCapper

[Varghjerta]

Wow could easily be considered casual.

 

Did you miss the first year of forum complaints?

WoW today and have been since the end of Tbc been an MMOFPS catered for instant gratification players.

 

Before that WoW coined the expression Working as intended but sadly they completly removed by saying all should see all the content ................

 

And after that well i dont relly know didnt had my account frozen most of the time in Wotlk because in one month there where time seeing it all to to the "next" gated experience .

 

And then freeze 2 months join 1 months do some heroics get the gear from the next raid and rinse repeat.

 

Before that WoW was a MMORPG

Edited January 3, 2012 by Varghjerta

[Thorbrand]

Wow could easily be considered casual.

 

Did you miss the first year of forum complaints?

 

That being said, this is a great game IMO, comparing it to the MMO's that have come out recently as a measuring stick is laughable at best. Different bllapark.

 

99% of the people playing SWTOR would not play vanilla WOW. It was not casual at launch.

[Tourniquett]

Fact is there still hasn't been a casual MMO launch that was a successful MMO. Right now MMOs are a commodity to be used to make money.

 

DEVs don't actually care about making a game for gamers. Until we have a real game developer come out and make a game for the sake of making a game we will not have any good games come out.

 

.

 

SO far alot of good points made in the thread. This one especially.

 

B/4 MMO's became as popular as they are today, they simply catered to more of a niche audience, that didnt complain about every detail of the game. The playerbase either dealt with it and figured out how to deal with it or left the game and tried something else.

 

I think alot of that generation didnt mind wiping on content, or grinding for it, b/c they were more concerned about the accomplishment of succeeding eventually. When WOW got so popular it brough in a whole different playerbase. One who eventually outgrew the original niche (or hardcore so to speak) market by alot, so companies became motivated to keep them happy, since at the end of the day, it is about $$$$.

 

Now the problem is that WOW basically tried to be all things to all people in order to keep the $$$ rolling in, and butchered their product. Which I would normally care less about, but they spoiled their playerbase, and that base that is new to MMOs doesnt know any other way.. All theyh know is easymode, and instant gratidfication, so they expect it.

 

Any company that makes a MMO and tries to buck this trend, gets hit in the pocketpocket b/c that large whiny, lazy player base pressures them to "make it like WOW".. And they ultimately do, b/c $$$ guides their decisions, and this new player base is large enough not pleasing them hurts profits.)

 

 

So I do blame blizzard for setting the precident, but can see why it happened.

 

 

However as someone earlier in the thread mentioned, things do usually come full circle... Eventually (hopefully) easy will get boring, and their will be a demand for more "traditional" MMO, that prides itself on the anti-casual game. I wont hold my breath, but it might happen.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Tourniquett

[Vikassi]

blame apple and it's super easy to use ios.

[TheHeadCapper]

99% of the people playing SWTOR would not play vanilla WOW. It was not casual at launch.

 

All right we'll end the conversation here. usually when someone takes a gut feeling and tries to present it as fact you can tell there is nothing to be gained by conversing with them anymore.

 

As someone who played EQ prior to WoW, LOLOLOL WOW was and will always be extremely casual.

[Amdarius]

Of course they are. Because the people that play games demand that they be easy and soloable in the entirety.

 

One of these days we'll get a niche game that harkens back to the EQ days. Can't wait. Maybe EQ3?

[Amdarius]

99% of the people playing SWTOR would not play vanilla WOW. It was not casual at launch.

 

What!? WOW was and has always been casual other than the elite end-game raids.

 

It was incredibly casual compared to the games that came before it.

[BGGOOI]

...switch from this to EVE Online where someone can come along and steal your stuff...in some cases people literally lost thousands of dollars (USD) to another player. This game and the majority of MMOs being released today are pathetically easy compared to what they used to be, and, like everyone has said, thanks to WoW.

 

I played SWG from launch and watched death punishments get stripped from running to your corpse if you didn't insure your items to literally nothing for quite some time. I watched Jedi go from all-powerful alpha class with permadeath, to a "beta-class" with XP loss for death, straight down to a regular profession. I watched a beautiful, customizable, endless canvas of professions get burned down to 9. It's really sad to watch games decay in such a fashion, whether or not I agreed with permadeth, alpha-classes, or extreme death penalties in general.

 

As for whether all the stuff above makes a game that hard or not, I started playing that game at the age of 12 and I could play that game extremely well Pre-CU, CU, and NGE.

 

That being said, I enjoy SWTOR for what it is, but I will never get the same sense of exploration and fulfillment that I did out of Galaxies simply because I'm given a small breadcrumb trail to follow and everything is handed to me along the way.

[LoL-K-Noob]

Face it, "hardcore" gamers are just living off of nostalgia. Ya it was fun to grind and have big risks back in the day, but no way do I want to go back to that being 2012 (and older).

[Maxxian]

MMO's are definetly getting easier as time goes on. However from a business standpoint this model makes sense.

 

What I think would work in TOR is a couple of side bonus quests per planet that were tailored towards "hardcore" players. These quests would be instanced allowing only the player and his/her companion and can only be accomplished if the player knows their class mechanics. To ensure only those who want "hardmode" could accomplish them (aka come back at level 50) these quests would no longer be attemptable once certain parts of the main storyline were accomplished. The rewards for such quests would be bonus class storyline and perhaps some gear thats only good for a few extra levels.

 

Now this is of course assuming the casual population doesnt get upset that they are missing out on "bonus" content if they decide to skip these optional quests. I dont think they would but hey who am I to speak for the population?

 

What ya think?

 

P.S. I am one of those who thinks this game is way to easy and would like some harder content...but I will not complain because the story makes up for it.

[Raeln]

99% of the people playing SWTOR would not play vanilla WOW. It was not casual at launch.

 

Actually, WoW was just as casual at launch. The "hardcore" raiding didn't show up until about 8 months after launch. Even then, only a minority of players were even interested in raiding. At some point, Blizzard stated that only 4 out of every 10 accounts had even zoned into Molten Core, the first raid zone, one time.

 

If anything, that should have been a clue that the playerbase isn't really interested in raiding and perhaps wants something different for end game.

[lowizi]

Its waaaay too easy, had to call for the med drone at lvl 22 for the first time lol

[Raeln]

...switch from this to EVE Online where someone can come along and steal your stuff...in some cases people literally lost thousands of dollars (USD) to another player. This game and the majority of MMOs being released today are pathetically easy compared to what they used to be, and, like everyone has said, thanks to WoW.

 

I played SWG from launch and watched death punishments get stripped from running to your corpse if you didn't insure your items to literally nothing for quite some time. I watched Jedi go from all-powerful alpha class with permadeath, to a "beta-class" with XP loss for death, straight down to a regular profession. I watched a beautiful, customizable, endless canvas of professions get burned down to 9. It's really sad to watch games decay in such a fashion, whether or not I agreed with permadeth, alpha-classes, or extreme death penalties in general.

 

As for whether all the stuff above makes a game that hard or not, I started playing that game at the age of 12 and I could play that game extremely well Pre-CU, CU, and NGE.

 

That being said, I enjoy SWTOR for what it is, but I will never get the same sense of exploration and fulfillment that I did out of Galaxies simply because I'm given a small breadcrumb trail to follow and everything is handed to me along the way.

 

It's one thing to have permadeath when it may only take a few hours to replace the character - it's another thing to have permadeath on a character that you have hundreds of hours invested in. There are only two outcomes in that case: 1) either you will never take a risk, for fear of losing your character and time investment or 2) not even try in the first place. I imagine market testing showed people would not even try in the first place. I know I wouldn't. I'd have never made a Jedi if I'm going to lose it to a weird death caused by a client clash or lag.

 

Regarding having a lot of professions - there is such as thing as too many options. While I would have no problem with there being more crew skills in TOR, there is a point where too many is too many. It becomes confusing, especially to a player that doesn't want to spend 30 minutes trying to find out what profession actually makes a specific item. It gets worse when you have to follow a recipe chain and look up 20 of those items just to make one component to a final product. There is something to be said for simplicity.

[Icecrypt]

I dont know, i mean ive died in this game many many times more then ive done in any modern mmo ive played or in wow. This game is far harder then any other mmorpg ive played in terms of solo quests being difficult. I mean if you pull 2 packs in this game you are most often screwed, if you pull 2 packs or mobs in wow it's a breeze.