Difficulty of the Game...

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, but I believe it comes from a good place. They want new players to have the experience they had, and value so highly. Personally the games provide a unique experience, in that they meld that sense of wanderlust with trepidation. I want to know what's next, but I have to be very careful how I go about finding out. Without the difficulty, there's no cost to the exploration, and it seemingly has less value."
- Stewart (unknown)

Source: http://kotaku.com/apparently-im-not-...ium=Socialflow (This is not a comparison to this game, I just thought this part of the quote applies to me, and I thought I could find some like-minded people)


-Tari

Citation pls. >.>

How is this any better than people with relic wanting new players to suffer what they had to go through?

I just want to get the story, not the gear, not the DPS queue wait times, not the pf rejections. And certainly not the "up at 1am waiting for a tank after the 2nd bails.". If I have to be an addict to clear t13 then its not worth it.

Nobody is saying you need to be an addict but it does (and should) take a bit of dedication. Otherwise this game might as well be a single player RPG. Unfortunately, long gone are the days of corpse runs and the eerie feeling of imminent danger when out exploring. I miss it but i've also come to realizze that it will never be that way again. It's a shame because that was the best MMO experience I have ever had and nothing can compare to it.

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Originally Posted by SinisterJointss

Unfortunately, long gone are the days of corpse runs and the eerie feeling of imminent danger when out exploring. I miss it but i've also come to realizze that it will never be that way again. It's a shame because that was the best MMO experience I have ever had and nothing can compare to it.

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Go play p99, the original/Kunark Everquest emulator. Its just as horribly brutal as you remember from 1999/2000. The graphics are horrible but its still awesome. Corpse runs, insane xp grind, "relic" quests that require 30-man raids, 24 armor slots to fill, NPC racism (getting merc'd in Freeport for being an Ogre), quests that only gave you cryptic hints as to what to look for, all there.

The only really "difficult" stuff in this game is the mechanic checks of T9/T12/T13, which are very fun, if not very challenging, and the relic grind. Relic grind is just a brutal slog through easy content over and over; if dungeons were harder or more independently rewarding it would be better.

I keep telling myself that this game is truly very young in its current iteration. Give it time to develop and learn from itself, it is/was fantastic at launch for a new MMO (I know there was 1.0 but from what I have heard mostly everything has changed). Heavensward will be telling.

Oh I know all about p99, but what I was talking about are new gen MMO's with difficulty (maybe not as difficult as EQ in its hayday) but something that gives you them feels

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Originally Posted by Ehayte

NPC racism (getting merc'd in Freeport for being an Ogre)

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Wait, what? I never played EQ, can you explain this? That sounds actually really awesome, and builds the world up! NPCs reacting to the type of character you are shows more of how MMOs back then were built to create a virtual world first and foremost, rather than a content delivery system now-a-days.

Guess the RPG in MMORPG was lost somewhere along the way.

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Originally Posted by Magis

Wait, what? I never played EQ, can you explain this? That sounds actually really awesome, and builds the world up! NPCs reacting to the type of character you are shows more of how MMOs back then were built to create a virtual world first and foremost, rather than a content delivery system now-a-days.

Guess the RPG in MMORPG was lost somewhere along the way.

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Everquest had a large series of factions, from rival city factions to roving monsters to gods. Being too far on the wrong side of a faction can mean having to fight the town guards and citizens that kill on sight("kos"), who were difficult to solo for some classes. Likewise, getting on the good sides of even the mobs could open quests for them.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Everquest had a large series of factions, from rival city factions to roving monsters to gods. Being too far on the wrong side of a faction can mean having to fight the town guards that kill on sight("kos"), who were difficult to solo for some classes. Likewise, getting on the good sides of even the mobs could open quests for them.

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

Still, it seems their faction system was more complex instead of just "grind this to 100% to get stuff". I think up to TBC there was only three factions that had a balance system (being friendly with one made you hated with the other). The most interesting one was the Goblin's since most people treated it as another city. However if you kept killing the npcs, you'd rank up with their hated pirates and could open up quests with the pirates (who are at the start flagged as enemies).

I think difficulty is an important thing to keep parties interested, however, I don't think anyone wants to sludge though a backlog of what they know is old content. Especially if they're trying to catch up to friends. There's a reason older stuff is nerfed, it's the same reason you're complaining. Because the grind is awful at the end in some cases, but they want to keep that grindy feeling at the END. If you have to grind to get to the grind as a new player, that'll take the wind out of your sails right quick.

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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.

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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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This is true.

Going through a dungeon at a fair pace with i70 gear, it does something for me and I definitely feel like it's fun, not a grind. Another thing I enjoy is taking new combers through it, the teaching and learning different tactics with lesser gear is a fun experience (again most of the time).

Some have mentioned in a game like Dark Souls, it's ok for people to just not play it since they have already invested in the Hard Copy of the game, producer/director/company has made it's mark. But in a game with this difficulty it's easy for us to make it challenging and well I enjoy it.

For first timers that go through a dungeon with a blind fold, it can seem like a grind. IN MY OPINION if it was slightly challenging, it would create that tiny little nostalgia that some of us felt when completing the dungeon, taking it slow, taking in the music/environment, going out of our way for that extra chest that may or may not contain a minion or a Mimic! :o

The point of the OP was to point that out, that I would like people to experience the game in a way that is fun for them, and in my opinion a challenge (self imposed) is heck-a-fun :)


-Tari

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Originally Posted by Mishini_Dracoto

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.


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I wish this game was more like Dark Souls, then It would be more open and less closed to trying new ways of thinking. As it stands now, this game is NOTHING like the Souls Series. To say otherwise is a joke.......

There are still some hardcore MMOs out there (not all old), they just don't come with the money bag backing like big name games do. I love Souls games but I don't have the time to play and enjoy a game that is as challenging as Souls and as grindy as every MMO I know of (Souls games are not nearly as grindy as an MMO, and without making it something like a Sandbox you cannot "not" make it grindy). I think in a Sandbox MMO you might be able to find a happy balance of extreme hardcore specially since the content sort of comes about through play and is less based on strict railroading (more about you and other players actions). In a themepark I don't think many will have time to shout 3 hours to have a 4 hour party to kill 20 monsters and gain 2 levels - and that is why they are not as popular now.

That said I'm not necessarily suggesting themepark MMOs have to be easy, I think SE could have used a bit more intelligent* and stronger* monsters that you would need to approach with a lot more thought than "haha running through slyph lands, 20 monsters on my tail". *AI/Abilities, not straight buffs and more thoughtful abilities and counter strategies - like monsters that can run at your sprint speed and don't let down so soon, lunge and slow, the frog tongue grab in game is actually pretty good imo, monsters that use more deadly positional abilities, NM or NM like monsters breaking up expectations (greater level diversity of a set of monsters in an area - needing to pay attention to name and level disparity), the 'need' to stun more non-positional attacks (or be hurt greatly), making status effects seem a bit more serious or at least to match the theme of particular monsters (poison is weak, paralyze is actually pretty annoying on mage - imo that is good). Minor tweaks to make things a little bit scarier without making it impossible to go alone, though some monsters you would avoid or sincerely challenge.

Still difficulty but less expected I miss traveling forms (and related, more seamless areas loaded by grids instead of zone), and i don't mean 30 minute boat rides, not needed to be like WoW but as an example it had a number of .5-5 minute zeppelin/boats between islands and I just really liked the feeling that things had a scale that couldn't quite be trivialized and yet weren't incredibly annoying (or when you could teleport it felt powerful, mage portal to town was neat - nothing like FFXIV's teleporting feeling). Stopped around TBC though, so if it changed I'm not quite aware besides seeing occasional patch notes and videos.

So I guess tl;dr I agree a little bit but also I think in a themepark mmo that it is important to have tangible gain and plausible catch-up without having to skip every piece of side content, be a teen again (jobless, or unique job like that guy who says: 'I work at a server farm, and play games at work'), or be incredibly slow if you cant or are unwilling to sacrifice other parts of your real life (FFXIV is fairly easy to create tangible results without extreme amounts of time). I like that Yoshida follows something described like a rolling mountain.

Edit: Yes difficulty != grind, but if you keep them truly separate then you will still skew rewards greatly - there are a lot of good players and they would get these rewards nearly instantly and if repeatably then that too.. in an MMO grind is important and so regardless of higher difficulty you'd also need grind (now I'm also a huge fan of RNG that tracks failures so you don't become that super unlucky person as that isn't fun, but the grinding is important and imo inseparable in discussion of a themepark mmo).

From what Yoshida said, the overworld of 3.0 will be a bit more serious and that sounds nice. I'm curious how they went about that.

I look back at older MMOs from 10 years ago with fondness as well. The dedication, time spent to gain achievement, fear of death. Hours and hours spent preparing even to go into a raid. All great memories and I get warm fuzzies thinking about it but... Reality, I can't do that kind of game any more, not really. My time is more limited and I find the more difficult parts of this game fun but not the time sink MMOs used to be and that's undoubtedly good for me right now. But I admit to daydreaming about the nostalgia of a different era and am just happy I was there to experience it at that time.

So, I've read everyone's posts, and in more than half of them I've read grind = challenge in some regard. I don't understand. Any sort of grind is not challenging at all, it's tedious. The whole idea of grind is to lengthen content, not to make that content more challenging. Sure, grind can be a factor in challenge, but it's not a good one. Don't get me wrong and think I want everything easy. I like a challenge. I like failing, learning from my mistakes, and going at a problem with a new idea. FFXIV's dungeons aren't challenging. If the content is new, it will only take one boss encounter to understand what needs to be done to complete it. That's not challenging, that's easy. And it's set to easy so SE can make you grind it. To lengthen the life of their content. There does indeed need to be a balance--if something is too hard for the majority, then it needs to made easier--but I feel like SE has just made everything unbearably easy that when I die in a dungeon, it's because I've stopped paying any amount of attention because the content is easy or I've run this dungeon x amount of times I'm probably sleeping through it at this point.

TLDR; grind does not equal challenge, and is actually a very poor mechanic for challenge. Grind also doesn't equal the amount of dedication put into a task.

the grind is there to keep u playing and paying , nothing more nothing less.

The key is not the difficulty itself, its how the individual player feels!
In a group of 8 players each one have a different feeling of how hard or easy the content is...
The problem as developer is now to find and create a system where you can satisfy each individual player...
The problem we have in FFXIV is static programming (just adding RNG does not mean it becomes dynamic)...
In physics we know about action and reaction (maybe thats why older final fantasy feels more satisfying) and thats what is missing the most...
Mostly it is called AI and it is one of the most hardest thing to programm, please keep that in mind...

How is it even possible to offer you a chalange where every action you do or is done upon you is based on dice roll. Numbers on your gear decide your readiness for 'raid' and not your brains cappabilities to react and forge strategy on the go with tools at your disposal. Tell where is the chalange in ANY MMORG be it old or new, where this so called raid is just getting muscle memory for strict sript. It is always the same route, thats like playing one minesweeper layout over and over again, untill you complete it and all thats left is maximazing your speed in pressing right locations. Thats is how i see raids in todays MMO's they are always the same layout and the only encumbrance to you is that you have to do it together with other people. So in reality completing raid is just doing some mass dancing, geting into that unison to the beat.

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Originally Posted by Yukiko

Mostly it is called AI and it is one of the most hardest thing to programm, please keep that in mind...

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Raid bosses,Elite hunts even dont have AI per say, they have strict script they follow, they are the blandest and dumbest characters in whole game, all they have is one rotation, no variations none at all. From start o finish they are as same as tides. They have only 2 checkpoints, percent of hp and time.

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Originally Posted by gzuscry

How is it even possible to offer you a chalange where every action you do or is done upon you is based on dice roll. Numbers on your gear decide your readiness for 'raid' and not your brains cappabilities to react and forge strategy on the go with tools at your disposal.

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You need both. Gear alone isn't going to get you through FCoB when one mistake on your part can wipe your raid team. BCoB and SCoB can be, for the most part, outgeared at this point.

T13 is a gear check, as it has the most predictable rotation of all the bosses (timer based).

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Originally Posted by Oce

T13 is a gear check, as it has the most predictable rotation of all the bosses (timer based).

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Its more like a dive bomb check then anything else. The fight is overall easy but when you have the same 2-3 people always dying to divebombs making you wipe, while you have like a 100% dodge rate is just aggravating. Spent awhile on that boss because a couple people were bad at divebombs.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Everquest had a large series of factions, from rival city factions to roving monsters to gods. Being too far on the wrong side of a faction can mean having to fight the town guards and citizens that kill on sight("kos"), who were difficult to solo for some classes. Likewise, getting on the good sides of even the mobs could open quests for them.

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The amount of corpses used to see outside Neriak, *chuckle* Dark elves hated everyone XD Of course I was Dark Elf ^_^ cleric ftw! Post nerf cleric epic 1, the ragefire camp, join the que for 12-24 hrs until it was your turn ^^ Getting caught in Kithicor forest when night fell *shudders*, lower Guk. TRAIN TO ZONE! MOVE IT OR LOSE IT! Then realising you forgot to bind and had to run all way across the world to find you cant go one way because that train kill delevelled you ^_^ Hoping one of your Necro friends logged on.

Bards training Sand Giants across to zone to MPK xp camps.....

Used to make a foortune selling http://www.eqtraders.com/items/show_item.php?item=1112 XD

So many memories. To be honest I loved it at the time, but I very much doubt I could do it again. I do miss a Dark Knight style tank. 'twas my second fave class. Almost forgot, having to have your book open to regen mana and not seeing that sand giant train bearing down on you as the Bard ran past :P