Difficulty of the Game...

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Originally Posted by Magis

Ah so it was more like WoW's Horde vs Alliance or their factions as well.

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Never played Wow but there were pretty much 2 major factions to start: Evil and Good. While there were different shades of grey (elves and humans were dubious in barbarian lands, even though they were technically allies), you would have to be crazy to be a level 10 Ogre trying to go to the elven cities of Felwithe or Kelethin. Later expansions introduced the iksar, who hated everyone and everyone hated them, a band of dwarves that had a 3-way faction battle with dragons and giants, the Vah Shir, a cat-people who had no prejudice, Frogloks, who were on the constant receiving end of beat-downs from Trolls, various adventuring guilds whose respect needed to be earned, etc, etc, so on and so on.

Everquest was a much deeper game than FFXIV in that its lore was deep seeded and soaked into every aspect of the game, not just the story line.

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Originally Posted by Meshico

I came across this article and I found this relates to how I feel, and well probably others.

"...The community can be vocal, even brutal at times . . ." - Stewart (unknown|)


-Tari

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wut?!

I can't seem to draw a comparison between the Souls' series to FFXIV.

The Souls games are a punishing game. meaning that in order to accompish goals, you almost need to literally punish yourself either in order to complete objectives or because you completed your objectives. If you are comparing this to FFXIV being a grindfest, I don't think that's what the post of Demon/Dark Souls was about.

Those games were often VERY Challening, in my memory. with circumstances such as getting overwhelmed by enemies if you didn't take it very slow.

SE's initial reaction to speed runs was "Don't let them do this! Make it more difficult!" *Points to origins of Amdaplor Keep.*

By that, I'm referring to either skipping lots of mobs, or killing lots at one time. We, as players, have the capacity to make this game very easy. Their is a speed run strategy for all non-BCoB related content. You can't do that in the Souls series.

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Originally Posted by Ehayte

Never played Wow but there were pretty much 2 major factions to start: Evil and Good. While there were different shades of grey (elves and humans were dubious in barbarian lands, even though they were technically allies), you would have to be crazy to be a level 10 Ogre trying to go to the elven cities of Felwithe or Kelethin. Later expansions introduced the iksar, who hated everyone and everyone hated them, a band of dwarves that had a 3-way faction battle with dragons and giants, the Vah Shir, a cat-people who had no prejudice, Frogloks, who were on the constant receiving end of beat-downs from Trolls, various adventuring guilds whose respect needed to be earned, etc, etc, so on and so on.


Everquest was a much deeper game than FFXIV in that its lore was deep seeded and soaked into every aspect of the game, not just the story line.

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Much of vanilla WoW was based off of Everquest since the lead developers were from one of the large EQ raiding guilds. I can see a lot of influence coming from it.

There were two major factions the players were part of, the Horde and the Alliance. Horde consisted of Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, and Undead while Alliance was Humans, Night Elves, Gnomes, and Dwarves. These two factions were kill on sight and you couldn't rank up or become friendly with each other.

There was a reputation system though which brought in NPC factions. Here is a list:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Faction

The ones I know of are under "Classic" and "The Burning Crusade". You had factions primarily that fell under the above two factions (the cities and their military forces). You had then factions that fell under the Steamwheedle Cartel which were basically the neutral capitalist Goblin cities that worked with both Horde and Alliance. You then had third party factions which was everything else.

You had the holy crusaders fighting off the evil undead scourge who were neutral to the squabbles of the Horde/Alliance (The Argent Dawn). You had things like the two Centaur factions who hated each other (the Gelkis clan and the Magram clan). You had factions like the Furbolgs, Brood of Nozdormu and the Bloodsail Buccaneers, who start hated and you have to become friendly with to open more quests. Finally you had the other factions which were just grinds like how FFXIV treats the beastman quests (ie: Cenarion Circle or Zandallar Tribe).

A more interesting system indeed.

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Originally Posted by Magis

Ah so it was more like WoW's Horde vs Alliance or their factions as well.

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I guess? The thing about EQ was that it was very lore driven. The game gave you a sense of immersion that you just wont find in today's MMO's (thanks WoW) also it was very difficult in the aspect that anything could pretty much kill you. It was pretty unforgiving and every accomplishment felt like an accomplishment. You made it accross Kithicor alive? (a harsh zone for low lvl players) was a feat not to mention trying to do it before night because all sorts of baddies came out at night. The game was truly epic in magnitude.

There were tons of factions in EQ and it wasn't really a good or bad driven one either. It was a very complex faction system that honestly is hard to explain but Ehayte did a pretty good job of it. The depth inside EQ was amazing and you really jus thad to be there to get the full experience. It was amazing.

Go opinions! Woot Woot!

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Originally Posted by Meshico

I'm really just saying that a little difficulty can be a good thing, but it does have it's draw backs. I think Dark Souls has such an avid fan base because of the extreme game that it is.

I put myself in some situation with my Alt, where I am gearing up the way the game intended us to. It is hard and challenging and fun (most of the time).

But I have to create my own party's explaining i'm below i70 gear, running brayfox (HM) and well the i70 dungeons to get this gear. once I get all the i70 gear. i will start working on my relic, and once i get my weapon, i'll start grinding the i80 dungeons, although it is very slow going, I find it an immense amount of fun.

I did this from 1-50, gearing my job up to the ilvl minimum.

I can appreciate the quote, not a comparison, just what the person said. But I cannot stress enough, I do not want/wish/expect all players to think like this. It just rang very true with me, and I was hoping to meet some people like that on the forums :)

-Tari

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If you want a MMO with Dark Souls difficulty, then you are talking to the wrong people. You need to get on the From Software boards and convince them to make a Souls MMO. Good luck!

I'm really just saying that a little difficulty can be a good thing, but it does have it's draw backs. I think Dark Souls has such an avid fan base because of the extreme game that it is.

I put myself in some situation with my Alt, where I am gearing up the way the game intended us to. It is hard and challenging and fun (most of the time).

But I have to create my own party's explaining i'm below i70 gear, running brayfox (HM) and well the i70 dungeons to get this gear. once I get all the i70 gear. i will start working on my relic, and once i get my weapon, i'll start grinding the i80 dungeons, although it is very slow going, I find it an immense amount of fun.

I did this from 1-50, gearing my job up to the ilvl minimum.

I can appreciate the quote, not a comparison, just what the person said. But I cannot stress enough, I do not want/wish/expect all players to think like this. It just rang very true with me, and I was hoping to meet some people like that on the forums :)

-Tari

People who played ffxi often refer to ffxiv as "easy mode" and the reason for that is the grind in this game is almost non existent. I havent really hit any part of the game where i feel the "grind" except for when i was farming atma, and that was due to rngesus hating my guts.

There's a problem with making content difficult though and that is that theres a huge number of incompetent players. The other issue is that dungeons are fun for the first X number of times you run them, but when you start getting into double digits it's no longer fun. This is where incompetence and repetitiveness would compound to create a really frustrating experience.

Sure struggling through a difficult dungeon is fun the first time, but can you imagine doing it over and over? This game is molded out of repetition. Whether this design was due to the fact the game had to have a really fast makeover when 1.xx flopped and the repetition is to buy them time to make the expansion, or whether the expansion will just be more of the same, who knows?

Coming from an old EQ player, there is nothing grand or all achieving from major grind. Waiting hours, days or even weeks to get gear. I dunno I like FF14 pace, it is slower and more difficult then other games out there (no need to name names you know what I am talking about), but no so fast that I feel like I am done with the game with in the first month.

There so much to do and I am not even sure were to begin.

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Originally Posted by Deifact

There's a problem with making content difficult though and that is that theres a huge number of incompetent players. The other issue is that dungeons are fun for the first X number of times you run them, but when you start getting into double digits it's no longer fun. This is where incompetence and repetitiveness would compound to create a really frustrating experience.

Sure struggling through a difficult dungeon is fun the first time, but can you imagine doing it over and over? This game is molded out of repetition. Whether this design was due to the fact the game had to have a really fast makeover when 1.xx flopped and the repetition is to buy them time to make the expansion, or whether the expansion will just be more of the same, who knows?

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In a harsh and uncompromising game the incompetent players would just give up and go away so problem solved there. Unfortunately that would mean fewer subscriptions which is why we'll never see much hard content beyond coil or its equivalents. It's really that simple at the end of the day. As much as I would love to see challenging content return to all aspects of gameplay (and I mean challenge, not grind, some people seem to always think they're the same thing) we'll never see it happen since WoW showed that appealing to the lowest common denominator is the best way to make money from an MMO.