"We wanted more instant gratification : kill, get treasure, repeat."

[GalacticKegger]

Originally Posted by former LucasArts game's senior director

"We wanted more instant gratification : kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an opportunity to be a part of what they've seen in the movies, rather than something they have created themselves."

Probably why he is their former senior games director. Edited January 23, 2012 by GalacticKegger

[quantumsheep]

no i dont understand anything - still nothing explained.

 

where is the 'challenge' in watching a comedy show. or, going to a rock concert.

 

there was no such 'challenge' fixation in games back 10 years ago. or until wow made it something 'mandatory'. games were ENTERTAINMENT, and came in any form that would entertain the player.

 

now, all of some of you speak about is 'challenge'.

 

challenge is NOT entertainment.

 

 

 

You stated this or something similar early on in the discussion, in the quote above, and a few pages later repeated it, and I quote, "im still waiting someone to explain, when did the definition of ENTERTAINMENT had become synonymous with DIFFICULTY."

 

Please allow me to try and give my version here!

 

Watching a show, going to a movie, going to a concert, largely, I would argue, are passive ventures.

 

Yelling at a movie you're watching will not change the outcome of said movie. It is predetermined and will always play out the same.

 

 

The wonderful, nay magical thing about video games is that they are, by their very definition, interactive.

 

Interactive entertainment, if you will.

 

Before the home PONG systems became available in the 70s, televisions were used for one purpose. To consume entertainment. Passively.

 

Suddenly, attaching a PONG system made your television experience interactive. Black and white blobs on the screen reacted to your input.

 

Suddenly, you were in control of your destiny. Suddenly you could influence the outcome of a game due to your skill at manipulating your character's movements and actions.

 

Suddenly, entertainment stopped being passive, and became interactive.

 

If anyone wants to passively enjoy watching a tv show, they certainly can! They can sit back in their chair and just watch. This is entertainment. This is consuming content.

 

Playing a game, by defacto, usually means having a challenge of some sort. Working out the rules of a game to determine the best way to achieve the 'win' scenario.

 

This is interactive entertainment.

 

Still entertainment, but requiring input from a player to achieve usually one of two outcomes win or lose.

 

I hope that I've been clear enough to perhaps demonstrate that.

 

Personally, trying to cater to everyone would suit me just fine, and that's where difficulty levels come in. If you don't have the patience, or indeed the time, as I usually don't, to do everything on hard, then choosing an easier difficulty level so I can see all a game has to offer is what I usually do.

 

If I've enjoyed that experience, I'll try and do it on a harder setting, just for the challenge.

 

If I'm finding a particular boss or mob a little too challenging, I go away, level up by other means (e.g. PVP or Space Battles) or just grind till I'm a couple of levels higher than the problem I'm facing.

 

Think of it as putting 'easy' mode on for that challenge!

 

Anyway, I'm not expecting to change your mind on this stuff, and I certainly agree with a lot of what you say. I just liked the gauntlet you threw down!

 

Take care!

 

QS

[LenaMarie]

Sorry, wii doesn't cover 99.9% of the market. While it's understandable that wii is the only console you have the brain capacity to turn on, it doesn't mean anything. Oh, wait, you are just trolling like 99.9% of the forum users.

 

Assumptions you make plenty, I dont even own a wii, I own a modern Gaming PC and a 360 and for both a vast majority of games are made easy, as its what most people want. The whole advertising point of "Dark Souls" Was Its difficulty, that should speak volumes to even the most deluded hardcore gamer about where gaming is that these days.

 

If you like challenges good for you, Im sorry you apparently dont get enough in your Real life to give you any meaningful 'sense of accomplishment' that you have to look to get your jollys in Entrainment, but that is your problem not anyone elses and expecting the world to change just for you is very "Self Entitled" which is hilarious because that is what you hardcore types claim casual players are.

 

Its pretty sad you people have to resort to attacks on casuals as yet another elitist attempt at making yourselves feel superior, which is a joke. Odds are more casuals are smarter then many hardcore players will ever be.

Edited January 23, 2012 by LenaMarie

[Adam_Nox]

sorry to tell you, but swg was in the crapper long before NGE, subs wise. It was bleeding out. They thought they could stop it, they were wrong. No new people come into an mmo that's been out for a couple years already without media, word of mouth, and new shiney features. SWG was never a mainstream game. NGE just sped up the inevitable.

[failr]

People don't honestly call SWTOR "challenging" with a straight face, do they??

 

This game is the most easymode MMO I've seen in a long time, my guild had 4/5 nightmare 5/5 hardmode 5/5 normal cleared within our first 2 raids(and 3hours of the first raid were spend trying to get into it lol). And everyone went from lvling gear to almost full bis gear in those 2 nights.

 

HM flashpoints are a joke honestly. I can do them with my eyes closed, except for last boss in HM foundry which is bugged.

 

I think that about covers it hah. Unless you also mean space missions, rofl.

[Derbefrier]

if this game becomes a faceroll like WoW i'll be sad. I am a casual player but i dont want things dumbed down so i can see all the content. i accept the fact that as a casual player i wont get to see everything or get all the leet gear, but its unfair to change the game just for me. besides i like a challenge. if i do get a chance to raid i want it to be hard. ITs what i loved about vanilla WoW when we finnally killed Onyxia (if i remember we were 3rd on our server to do this) it took a couple weeks but man the feeling we got after killing her was awesome and cant be replicated in the faceroll that is now WoW) if its easy i get bored and dont wanna play anymore. End game content is supposed to be hard its supposed to require a certain gear level (if not whats the point of even having it). its supposed to be for the dedicated. the casuals have something already its called PvP.

[Frostbird]

I'm writing this request before the game becomes too popular for Bioware not to lose control over target audience decisions.

 

Level 30 here, and most flashpoints past 20 are deliciously challenging. Not specially difficult, but at least challenging.

Each boss does have some "don't mess this up or you'll wipe" mechanic, and that's perfect, even if it's while leveling.

 

But challenging means that inevitably, a part of the playerbase will start to complain about actual game difficulty.

It will happen at some point in time.

I'm already hearing distant complaints of some players saying "I don't have the night to spend on one instance, it's too hard, please lower the difficulty so I can experience more stuff in less time".

 

So as a counter-mantra, I'll quote LucasArts game's senior director about why they changed SWTOR's older brother, Star Wars Galaxies :

 

 

 

And then came the most destroying changes in a MMO ever. Everybody knows that, even those who didn't play it. Subscriptions fell down a sink hole (you have a nice video about it here).

 

World of Warcraft is falling down the same hole actually, even since WotLK. Instant gratification, casual friendly. It is what kills MMOs interest, litterally. No need to be a Forbes analyst to guess that, you just have to play the damn games over a long time.

 

I understand that some people are less skilled to manage their spells correctly, but lowering the difficulty is really the cheapest possible solution. There are tons of other ways to help them match the required skill level, and dumbing whole thing down instead of helping each individual to improve is never a good idea.

 

Challenge is fun again, and not locked down to gathering tons of high level gear.

So I'm asking this from deep within my gamer heart :

Please, Bioware, do never, ever fall for the easy-mode demanding audience. Ever.

 

With such popularity, you're now partly responsible in how future players of any MMO will set their expectations. Don't screw it.

 

 

T11 killed WOW. It was the hardest patch in ages. It's message was "get a guild or get out".

 

Lots of people did.

 

The gaming market has changed. The college students who played WoW hardcore back then now mostly have jobs, families and other stuff to take care of.

 

Of course, some challenge is great. But the question is *where* this challenge should be. I want the largescale group content to give me an (overcomeable) challenge. I don't want a game that wastes my time or is the sort of 'all hard all the time' thing you seem to want.

 

Extreme challenge:

 

Should not be in:

- Overhead/time requirements to form groups or get geared.

- Grind.

- Class stacking requirements.

- Leveling/gearing phase of endgame.

 

Should be in:

- Challenging, coordination heavy boss fights.

- Interesting boss mechanics.

- Top tier content.

 

The hardcore demographic is, these days, the absolute minority of players.

 

If Bioware wants to see continued growth, they need to invest the majority of their time into making good, varied and above all - accessible content. Make some hardmodes etc. for the hardcore to bash their heads against, but if everything is like that this game will die.

[BunnyMage]

It's already happening. Devs have stated they are addressing numerous "quality of life issues". Quality of life being just another way of saying "making things easier so you don't need to do as much."

 

It happens in every MMO, and SWTOR is definitely being built around the casual mainstream.

 

This is why nobody is happy with any new MMO that comes out and none are successful. They don't realize that making things too easy destroys everything. The casual mainstream doesn't know WHAT they want.

[jkasdorf]

Assumptions you make plenty, I dont even own a wii, I own a modern Gaming PC and a 360 and for both a vast majority of games are made easy, as its what most people want. The whole advertising point of "Dark Souls" Was Its difficulty, that should speak volumes to even the most deluded hardcore gamer about where gaming is that these days.

 

If you like challenges good for you, Im sorry you apparently dont get enough in your Real life to give you any meaningful 'sense of accomplishment' that you have to look to get your jollys in Entrainment, but that is your problem not anyone elses and expecting the world to change just for you is very "Self Entitled" which is hilarious because that is what you hardcore types claim casual players are.

 

Its pretty sad you people have to resort to attacks on casuals as yet another elitist attempt at making yourselves feel superior, which is a joke. Odds are more casuals are smarter then many hardcore players will ever be.

 

In every form of entertainment anyone consumes, whether it is television, a book, a video game, a board game... anything, the level of challenge is always a factor. This is why it is widely accepted that Cable television shows are different than the large broadcast television; they are simply more challenging of shows. Whether viewers are aware of it or not, the narrative and characters are more complex, and the episodes usually end up following one overarching narrative, and the locales/themes are considered more challenging. This is also why so many critically acclaimed television is found on these channels and not on the big name networks. Video games are no different, but they can expand on narrative challenges with gameplay challenges.

 

All video games have different ways of measuring challenge (that's why single player games can have a difficulty setting). Even arcade games fiddle with this in the form of lives per quarter, how frequently life replenishing items are found, and how much life a hit takes off from attacks. Some theory that can be applied to everything (not just video games) is that every person has a threshold of what keeps them interested in something. Make things too challenging, and they will simply throw up their hands and lose interest out of frustration. Make things too easy, and people will simply lose interest out of boredom.

 

This is why challenge is important. No challenge can kill a game just as much as too much challenge. This is also the answer as to why the hardcores get to have some content/items quicker and more reliably than the non hardcores; time invested increases our skill in something. Hardcores simply have more time to invest in something, and they will always be able to get the better things quicker. It's also why they are better in single player games too.

 

There is no way to lower the challenge level on all content in a game of this magnitude without adversely affecting the interest levels of the gamers on the other end of the spectrum. The problem with lowering the challenge level of everything in this game to cater to people with no time to invest in getting better also means that you must define who your lowest common denominator is. Without creating servers for people with an "easy mode" in place, you affect everyone above the accepted "lower common denominator".

 

There is challenging content in this game for a reason, just like there is not as challenging content in this game for a reason (one could say that most of the content outside of flashpoints is not challenging given that dying has no repercussions and money can be found almost freely).

 

Unfortunately, this means that people with less time to increase their skills (including me) will get access to the higher-difficulty areas and rewards later than people with more time. People who spend more time on things will almost always be better than someone who spends less time; there is plenty in this game to do for those without as much time to spend on it.

[TheOnlyKyrenS]

i agree with OP. I am only level 40 and I have great difficulty with quests and can wait to get to 50 and rage with my guild mates at raids. WoW's was too easy. I remember doing a raid (i can't remember which one) with some guildies and we just made the level requirement and were still able to do it perfectly fine.

[krinaman]

the casuals have something already its called PvP.

 

And what if the casuals don't want to PvP?

[Bossalinie]

It's already happening. Devs have stated they are addressing numerous "quality of life issues". Quality of life being just another way of saying "making things easier so you don't need to do as much."

 

It happens in every MMO, and SWTOR is definitely being built around the casual mainstream.

 

This is why nobody is happy with any new MMO that comes out and none are successful. They don't realize that making things too easy destroys everything. The casual mainstream doesn't know WHAT they want.

 

Casual mainstream pays the bills. If I was in the business of this, that's all that would matter to me...

[Jandi]

Assumptions you make plenty, I dont even own a wii, I own a modern Gaming PC and a 360 and for both a vast majority of games are made easy, as its what most people want. The whole advertising point of "Dark Souls" Was Its difficulty, that should speak volumes to even the most deluded hardcore gamer about where gaming is that these days.

 

If you like challenges good for you, Im sorry you apparently dont get enough in your Real life to give you any meaningful 'sense of accomplishment' that you have to look to get your jollys in Entrainment, but that is your problem not anyone elses and expecting the world to change just for you is very "Self Entitled" which is hilarious because that is what you hardcore types claim casual players are.

 

Its pretty sad you people have to resort to attacks on casuals as yet another elitist attempt at making yourselves feel superior, which is a joke. Odds are more casuals are smarter then many hardcore players will ever be.

 

How ironic. You contradict yourself 3 times and add some hypocrisy to the mix, just for laughs. Yes, you appear so intelligent it hurts my face.

 

The only thing I attacked was your ridiculous statistic you pulled out of your behind, even made an equally ridiculous statement to emphasize a point. Honey, it's impossible NOT to feel superior when replies such as yours are the norm. Completely ridiculous.

[LilSaihah]

You have to strike a medium. Cataclysm earnt itself a great big slash in its subscriber base because of ZA and ZG. Instances which take half an hour each, are fairly challenging(introducing the real possibility that you need to spend more than half an hour on them), you need to PUG them(increasing that possibility of failure even further), you need to do seven a week and there's only two? That's how you grind your players down into a weary nub.

 

There's definitely room to introduce challenging content, but don't make it so they're something you need to do every single day, and don't make them the lowest common denominator for advancement at max-level. That's PUG content, and PUG content should be tuned for PUGs. Introduce challenging content in an environment that doesn't foster PUGs; challenge-mode dungeons in MoP are probably going to fill this role very well.

Edited January 23, 2012 by LilSaihah

[Chromiie]

And what if the casuals don't want to PvP?

 

The cancel button is right up there. Oh wait...

[Frostbird]

The cancel button is right up there. Oh wait...

 

Okay, you get your wish.

 

- Developers make everything in the game as hard as Ninja Gaiden Sigma on Master.

 

- Only the hardcores have any meaningful pve content to do.

 

- 97% of the population quits after the first month and heads back to WoW which has plenty of casual content and some genuinely hard stuff for those who want it.

 

- The 3% elite left can enjoy walking around their empty world showing off their super PvE gear to NPCs and PvPers.

 

- Game is a gigantic financial failure. There is no more new content made, active development of the game ceases.

 

- It goes F2P after a few months.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Frostbird

[VoXPCS]

I'm writing this request before the game becomes too popular

 

I stopped reading your wall of text right there.

 

just.. lol.

 

it won't ever become too popular. You live in a fantasy. Game is over bro.

[Kalfear]

I'm writing this request before the game becomes too popular for Bioware not to lose control over target audience decisions.

 

to late

 

 

Level 30 here, and most flashpoints past 20 are deliciously challenging. Not specially difficult, but at least challenging.

Each boss does have some "don't mess this up or you'll wipe" mechanic, and that's perfect, even if it's while leveling.

 

hmmm, I guess I can agree with this, the flashpoints are challenging and fun because of their challenge.

 

whats truely great about them is its 4 players, not 10, not 20, not 50, but 4.

 

Flashpoints are the BEST part of this game content wise IMO

 

 

But challenging means that inevitably, a part of the playerbase will start to complain about actual game difficulty.

It will happen at some point in time.

I'm already hearing distant complaints of some players saying "I don't have the night to spend on one instance, it's too hard, please lower the difficulty so I can experience more stuff in less time".

 

Was happening in beta as well and trust me, the product that mad Retail is signifigantly dumbed down from the beta version.

 

The Beta version (for normal content) was the weaker side of normal (for elites and Strongs, normal mobs always been nothing more then mindless fodder) but there was massive QQing in beta from the WOW crowd and looks like they got heard.

 

Its sad to, I just redid a Consular act 1 combat (Vivicars ship) that killed me 3 times before I figured it out in beta and even then I lost Qyzen every single time and there was nothing I could think of to change that outcome in beta ( I was 2 levels over boss mob in beta). Well I just finished same encounter being 1 level under boss mob and not only did I not die, Qyzen didnt die and neither of us got below 75% health. DEPRESSING.

 

So yeah, they are already screaming and dumbing down from those screams are already happening Kine.

 

Wish I could say otherwise but that would not be truthful on my part.

 

 

So as a counter-mantra, I'll quote LucasArts game's senior director about why they changed SWTOR's older brother, Star Wars Galaxies :

 

And then came the most destroying changes in a MMO ever. Everybody knows that, even those who didn't play it. Subscriptions fell down a sink hole (you have a nice video about it here).

 

While I agree its a stupid thing to say (the quote you made) I take two issues here

 

1) SWG is not any relation to TOR. Different company, different concept, different everything. The two games are related in same way every person in the world supposably related. If you go back far enough im sure they are but that doesnt mean I call them brothers and sisters!

 

You do TOR a disservice speaking of it in same relation as that other game.

 

2) I know down below you claim it caused this massive subscription loss but isnt it about time you SWG fans dropped that urban legend already. Anyone thats followed MMORPGs from back then has seen the numbers and knows full well SWG was dead after its first 3 quarters and the CU, village, NGE, all of it was to try and rescue a quickly sinking boat.

 

Fact of matter is SWG was already dead and empty when the NGE came out. Maybe the NGE drove the last few thousand (talking 1000-3000, no more) die hards from game but their numbers really didnt matter and dont matter in the large scale picture.

 

The NGE didnt kill SWG and its about time you all let that little peice of revisionist history go already.

 

 

World of Warcraft is falling down the same hole actually, even since WotLK. Instant gratification, casual friendly. It is what kills MMOs interest, litterally. No need to be a Forbes analyst to guess that, you just have to play the damn games over a long time.

 

Im not going to argue with you about the instant gratification stuff. Your 100%, its a stake to the heart of a MMORPG looking for long term success.

 

Only WOW has done it and been successful and they did it by taking focus off game and putting it on celebrities and cultural impact and creating a FAD.

 

FADs have never been about quality and substance (except for maybe the Beetles) and WOW was no John Lennon.

 

So yes, instant gratification will kill any MMORPG over the short haul. Like its done to RIFT most recently. Excellent game that gave it all away and gave players no reason to stay long term, so they didnt.

 

 

I understand that some people are less skilled to manage their spells correctly, but lowering the difficulty is really the cheapest possible solution. There are tons of other ways to help them match the required skill level, and dumbing whole thing down instead of helping each individual to improve is never a good idea.

 

Challenge is fun again, and not locked down to gathering tons of high level gear.

So I'm asking this from deep within my gamer heart :

Please, Bioware, do never, ever fall for the easy-mode demanding audience. Ever.

 

With such popularity, you're now partly responsible in how future players of any MMO will set their expectations. Don't screw it.

 

Its to late Im afraid.

 

Im hoping Bioware sees their mistakes and fixes them in expansions so yeah, 1-50 is given away. To late to change that. Reaching lvl 50 in this game is about as meaningfull as reaching 50 in RIFT or WOW or any other Post WOW mmorpg was. It had no meaning and anyone that thinks its a accomplishment needs to set their standards MUCH MUCH MUCH higher.

 

But Bioware can make the post 50 game meaningfull. And I hope they do.

 

I WANT to be subd 5 years from now to TOR.

I WANT to see all the planets and stories emerge and grow

I WANT to give Bioware/EA my money for TOR (lord knows they will never see another cent of it from their single player games now, barring a complete 180 turn in direction).

 

But thats not going to happen if they dont make the content meaningfull, substantive, worthy.

 

When I ACHEIVE something, I want it to feel like... well like a actual acheivement.

Its to late for the 1-50 journey (except for Flashpoints).

 

Ive subd for 6 months but while the OP might not want to say it, I will

 

In 6 months time if I can look at the new content and literally blow through it mindlessly with my eyes closed.

 

I will not resub.

 

On the flip side, Im sure if Bioware did a poll of all the people that cancelled at end of free month, they would find the mass majority of them are the same people that demanded fast, easy, sloppy content so they could reach max level!

 

Our long term players are the ones that want the game to have menaing and challenge and substance.

 

Your short term players are the ones that blow through content and quit!

 

Single player games LOVE the later play style

Successful LONG TERM MMORPGs NEED and LIVE OFF OF the 1st play style.

 

I hope Bioware figures this out before its to late for TOR in the long term of things.

 

IMO, there is NO REASON AT ALL TOR shouldnt be able to have 3-5 million subscribers 5 years from now. Made up mostly (talking 80%+) of players that started the game in the first 18 months of release.

 

The game as it stands today will not do those numbers or that retention rate.

So now its up to the expansins and updates to fix the problems!

[DarthKhaos]

It's already happening. Devs have stated they are addressing numerous "quality of life issues". Quality of life being just another way of saying "making things easier so you don't need to do as much."

 

It happens in every MMO, and SWTOR is definitely being built around the casual mainstream.

 

This is why nobody is happy with any new MMO that comes out and none are successful. They don't realize that making things too easy destroys everything. The casual mainstream doesn't know WHAT they want.

 

Sorry gotta disagree with you there. I'm all for having challenge but the "Quality of Life" addresses annoyances and instances where mistakes are made. Like a confirmation box here, improved interface there. stuff like that.

[MortenBork]

Well, SWTOR as it is, can hardly get anymore instant gratification? I mean, what about this game is not easy mode?

 

To make this game more instant gratification, they would have to let you just cash in rewards at imperial fleet without doing the work.

[Gorloff]

Their is nothing challenging in this game what so ever, besides the amount of work arounds I had to create to counter the hundreds of in-game bugs.

[racsofp]

they would have to let you just cash in rewards at imperial fleet without doing the work.

They used to. It was called slicing and when it was finally nerfed, many of the slicers cried out in anguish.

Edited January 23, 2012 by racsofp

[mutharex]

I stopped reading your wall of text right there.

 

just.. lol.

 

it won't ever become too popular. You live in a fantasy. Game is over bro.

 

LOL yeah right that's why the servers keep on getting more and more people

Give up, it's getting pathetic

[Blurble]

Ok I'll change that, sorry.

(pretty hard to find the rightest word as english is not my mother tongue :s)

 

 

Casual has becomes synonymous with bad.

[mutharex]

Their is nothing challenging in this game what so ever, besides the amount of work arounds I had to create to counter the hundreds of in-game bugs.

 

Hundreds! Do you realize how silly does it sound? There are a few bug, but HUNDREDS! THIS GAME IS DYIIIIIIING! Oh wait, no it isn't

 

phew