Are we as players afraid of a challenge?

Windi PSA here,

Don't confuse challenge with difficulty. Challenge is a broader subject that deals with how an individual solves a problem; difficulty deals more with how hard that problem is to solve. All games, including this one, provides some challenge, it's just that some challenges are more difficult than others. Typically, in games aimed towards broader audiences, the challenges presented early on are easily or intuitively solved, while, gradually, more complex solutions are required later on.

In that regard, the reason I'm not keen on strong overworld monsters at the start is that there is little the player can do to work around it, with the current system in place. Following the steps you proposed in your OP could help, but I question whether many players would be willing to do anything you mentioned or just put the game down as a whole?

The issues I see as covering the majority of travel design is, as Windi said, pacing, but I don't think that's necessarily a reason not to, or even having anything to do with, having challenge from the offset. A paradigm of caution is not necessarily a bad one for players to start into, as long as there are sufficient hints to push them towards more aggressive or opportunistic gameplay, just as in the opposite case. The only real difference with expecting little to no resistance and being presented with vulnerabilities, versus expecting vulnerabilities and being presented with mitigation or bypasses, is that (I'd imagine) the prior is a bit more reactive and the latter a bit more active compared to each other. Similarly, the prior's probably quicker to respond to new stimulus, and/or the latter's harder to design cues that don't feel invasive.

I guess another way to term the sense of pacing is "attachment" (emotional?... not quite) or "pivot" (on or by which to adjust perspective). For instance, if you wanted a shortcut to feel like a bonus, rather than just a box on a checklist, I'd imagine there'd have to be a few conditions:

1. You have to be able to reach the bonus based on your own perceptions, interests, and/or initiative, to some extent, rather than it just being tossed in as a quest chain bonus.

Exception: when the quest chain is difficult to progress, tempting and challenging you to hurry along in it.

2. You'd have to spend enough time in the initial condition of travel to have a sort of playstyle in response to it.

For example: The objective area is on the far end of a crescent shaped plateau from the quest hub, with a ravine (and a small river at the bottom) running a more direct route between the two, creating a narrowed semi-circular area. Atop the plateau there are numerous dangerous birds who patrol over the area between the quest hub and the objective zone. You can (1) go out of your way a bit to cut along the ridge, avoiding being seen by flying enemies (who will toss you into the ravine for fun if adolescents, likely killing you, or will take you to their nest to be eaten if parents, and will simply attack and probably kill you if youths), but it doubles the time it takes to get back to base, or (2) sprint from point of cover to cover, keeping watch in case you need to hide, etc. This makes it all the more rewarding when you discover that you can repel off the side of the ravine to a path cut into the side, running a more direct route back to base. This path can be seen from the far side, difficult to access, is mentioned by a given NPC on this side, and the rope can be crafted or rewarded. Better yet, you can use the rope to tie yourself to a bird that would have flung you down the ravine to your death or uncomfortable watery landing, simply exhausting it until it puts you down or slams you repeatedly into something deadly. In other words:

3. The improved methods of travel, where possible, should fit the surrounding tools given, and should seem to come from universal emergent mechanics even while creating intended pathing decisions and balances. It should feel part and parcel among the other means of learning or character progression in the area. It both unlocks quicker pacing in other areas (quicker routes meaning quicker gathering, questing, etc., and be a part of that pacing.

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Now, I realize this says little about how difficult mobs should be, or how long things should take. That is because, to be honest, I don't think those issues are of import until you figure out how to make "challenge" fun. As you said, there are no stealth mechanics, nor mob AI at the moment; there's nothing to perceive or gain advantage against. There's nothing to really be optimized that would have much, if anything, to do with the environment of mob type. And gathering and questing don't even qualify as bare-bone mechanics if they're to be considered tools for open world immersion or emergence.

I'm cool with taking a while to reach another town, if there are landmarks, save points of sorts, along the way (not as return points, just as somewhere I can log off and still have an idea of what I've done and what I need to do next on return), and that actual process is fun. Simply keeping your distance from l99 mobs and waiting until they turn around is not that. I want distraction, verticality, gliders if necessary.

(The latter being why I hated the idea of unlimited flight in Heavensward; gliders can be used tactically, while anything unlimited and essentially omnipotent has no such need. Now, aerial patrols, limited flight stamina, food, and mount variation could supply that level of interest, but that's not what we got. We got the copy-paste physics-less flight of every other MMO to have flying mounts.)

As Windi said, challenge and difficulty are two different things. The latter, especially, isn't necessarily fun.

Hey, you know how in the current Moonfire Faire, there is the quest where there are some weak bombs in the open world you need to weaken and capture? And also how a ton of servers had people spamming their aoe attacks to repeatedly wipe them out before people could catch them? Just cuz lol?



Yeah, I can't trust the random joe NOT to go pulling the level 70 or 75, purposefully overpowered mob you'd normally coordinate/sneak around up to newer level 60 players to watch the carnage as they try to get away.

It would be a mess. So, no. Keep the hard stuff in it's own place.

Would love it, but then I remember the days of XI. If you tried to walk from the town you started to another major town right off the bat, your chances of survival were very slim. There was no sprint, monsters used more than just line of sight and initially they wouldn't give up chase until you zoned. It was typical to need an escort or a group if you wanted to visit a city at a very low level. Everyone remembers the walk from the Dunes to Jeuno. It was nerve wracking, but so so worth it!

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

Hey, you know how in the current Moonfire Faire, there is the quest where there are some weak bombs in the open world you need to weaken and capture? And also how a ton of servers had people spamming their aoe attacks to repeatedly wipe them out before people could catch them? Just cuz lol?



Yeah, I can't trust the random joe NOT to go pulling the level 70 or 75, purposefully overpowered mob you'd normally coordinate/sneak around up to newer level 60 players to watch the carnage as they try to get away.

It would be a mess. So, no. Keep the hard stuff in it's own place.

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Technically there are spot fixes for things like this. Remember when leve mobs could AoE people not involved in the leve? Ever popped 400+ GP only to have someone bring a mob over to AoE your gather?

Also, ever seen player count or total ilvl scaling? Composition scaling (not in this MMO)? Or better yet, worldwide level syncs? That last subject will be controversial, but it might also be necessary.

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Originally Posted by Windi

In that regard, the reason I'm not keen on strong overworld monsters at the start is that there is little the player can do to work around it, with the current system in place.

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Mainly why I would only consider something this scale to be tackled in an expansion style advancement. New mehcanics would need to be made for these zones, large sprawling and have multiple areas of interest allowing division of player mass to discourage over-crowding.



XI took this approach in two ways to ensure player concentration never became a big concern for most of it's open world content.

1. The three starting cities: Player decisions of three starting areas allowed the developers to reasonably expect 1/3 of the total game population to be in one of the starting areas.
2. Areas of Oportunity: In the early game there was at least 20 or so viable "Areas" that players could actively level up without much competition or interuption even at the most busy of times.
3. Spread out...again!: As players leveled up they would spread out even more rather than start to concentrate in areas. Up until the "Dunes" phase where it encouraged grouping up players would slowly spread out on a large map looking for stronger prey and in doing so make room for the newer players behind them.
4. Group up!: Once the dunes phase was hit it allowed players to concentrate in larger masses while still having many areas of oportunity for leveling allowing for a vibrant but busy overworld to function.
5. Monsters don't mess around: I often see people say a higher level player could troll lower levels by training monsters on people trying to complete the content but XI actually tackled the "Train" issue later in it's life by making monsters still chase a character to the death (Or any agro loss mechanic) but once lost they would "Phase" back to their spawn instead of leaving a trail of death.

New systems and mechanics would have to be put into place to allow more dynamic open world interaction but I feel it would be well worth it. Sure there will be cases of people zerging areas with sheer numbers but there could even be interactive game mechanics to counteract that such as player density causing areas to go under alarm and dynamically interacting with the size of the horde of players coming at it.

Other such things as day/night monster cycles could also be ways to encourage times of peace for more casual players to traverse and night time dangers (And rewards) for those who would venture out at night.

There is no shortage of interesting ways we could make the open world a viable part of the game and foster a sense of community.

I hope they do something, right now the majority of endgame is just farming tomestones. Which gets boring pretty fast. And all they ever seem to be doing is pushing people to the tomestone farming phase of the game faster and faster. They need to find ways to get people raiding again, or doing SOMETHING besides farming tomestones to advance your character.

Palace of the dead was a PERFECT opportunity for mid-core or medium difficulty content. Every 10 levels could have been a different medium difficulty boss to bridge the gap between dungeons and extreme trials... What did we get though? Some boring crap that can be steamrolled with 4 dps using no strategy what-so-ever. Just button mashing..... I am severly dissapointed with the direction this game has taken in 3.0, to the point I'm not sure if i'll even buy 4.0

I think having some open world difficult zones would be good though. FFXI and Aion both had really cool, scary, dangerous beastman strongholds where you could get murdered pretty fast if you went in there carelessly.

Honestly, I think the monsters in the Heavensward areas are scaled well. Could they be taken down solo, yes, with some jobs easier than others, but they can be scary (until, of course, you massively outgear them). My friends going through these areas the first time have often asked me to escort them so they have much better survival odds (and having a two-seated flying mount helps too). It encourages team play (or challenging solo play) without turning off people who are just wanting to get from point A to point B.

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Originally Posted by Whocareswhatmynameis

I hope they do something, right now the majority of endgame is just farming tomestones. Which gets boring pretty fast. And all they ever seem to be doing is pushing people to the tomestone farming phase of the game faster and faster. They need to find ways to get people raiding again, or doing SOMETHING besides farming tomestones to advance your character.

Palace of the dead was a PERFECT opportunity for mid-core or medium difficulty content. Every 10 levels could have been a different medium difficulty boss to bridge the gap between dungeons and extreme trials... What did we get though? Some boring crap that can be steamrolled with 4 dps using no strategy what-so-ever. Just button mashing..... I am severly dissapointed with the direction this game has taken in 3.0, to the point I'm not sure if i'll even buy 4.0

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Out of curiosity, have you tried it with a couple of those 4 dps, no one having spare HP potions, and a significant floor debuff (e.g. Gloom) up? At that point you do have to have a trap scout, do have to follow his exact course, do have to focus targets, do have to be wary of patrols, do have to cycle tank and scout positions based on health and CDs, do have to keep one person out of the fight except against the focused mob if someone triggers a lure trap. The issue is even with all those extra considerations made crucial due to reduced leniency, they still might not be attractive.

Though I guess that's basically just saying that PotD, even at its best, is pretty lackluster. But, it isn't always just button-mashing.

Alternatively though, let's look at what they could have done while still allowing unusual compositions, which, at present, are about the only way PotD gains unique gameplay concepts or concerns (and even then, only from particular compositions, at particular output levels between skill, upgrade count, and buffs or debuffs). They could scale things based on composition or the particular roles in your group, for instance, such as more tanks equating to more mobs that, effectively, require tank swaps, or will be pulled as a group in order to require splitting among the different tanks to prevent deaths. But unless that's done on a very local basis, such as only via luring traps based on unengaged party members within 60 yalms, then this would mean that you can't split up the party to scout more effectively (a small and not especially attractive unique concept, but one nonetheless that may be missed), because it could be setting a challenge for a composition that's otherwise not presently all there. There are a lot of paths to make positive adjustments to PotD, but there's a lot to be wary of in each.

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Originally Posted by Windi

Don't confuse challenge with difficulty. Challenge is a broader subject that deals with how an individual solves a problem; difficulty deals more with how hard that problem is to solve. All games, including this one, provides some challenge, it's just that some challenges are more difficult than others. Typically, in games aimed towards broader audiences, the challenges presented early on are easily or intuitively solved, while, gradually, more complex solutions are required later on.?

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It's actually for this reason that if I want to be specific about design, I try to avoid the term difficulty. Instead, there's just complexity and tightness/tension, the first being the number of checks and solutions you have to work with, and the second being how compelled you are to use them and when. Too tight or too lax and gameplay sours or pales.

So basically... you want FFXI again? Part of me is torn. One part of me really enjoyed trying to navigate through incredibly dangerous areas (Sea Serpent Grotto anyone?) to get to where you needed to be. It was pretty intense managing your sneaks and invisibles to get there safely. The other part of me, however, does not miss the time it took and the things that went wrong trying to get there.