For crying out loud, I beg of you, give me some CHALLENGE!!!!!

[Holyomen]

These are from 2004 and 2005, around the 'height' of FFXI's playerbase.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...php?story=6582

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/featur...vatar_the_.php



MMORPGs cater to MMORPG players.

The data doesn't support your thesis, cause your thesis doesn't implicate anything.
The question still remains, what is an MMO player?
If anything the data shows they are a variety of people who play MMOs, and they play for different reasons.

The trend for the past several years has been to make MMOs more "dumbed" down or easy for the mainstream.
One of the top EQ players worldwide retired his character even before the first expansion came out. Why? Cause hardcores get burnt out quick, so if you want to keep your player base slowly feed them easy content. And it looks like that is exactly what SE is doing now with XIV.

I don't know all the factors that have made the MMO market what it is today. But I do know that MMOs have gotten easier and easier while MMO players continue to complain more and more.

There is no real solution, MMO companies just have to make as much money out of it while they can, cause honestly it seems like a brutal business.

[weeble]

if u ask me they turning mmo's like the products they sell us, they don't make them to last, they are meant to break so we buy the next one. mmo's are dumbing down way to much, se already making another mmo, they probably easy to pop out once u make a good engine for it or something i don't know much bout game making, but i do understand that dlc's are pretty much nothing to make after the game is made.

while i don't think this is the trend yet purposely(maybe i dunno), after a few more years of mmo's just dying out in a year tops they will start to think screw it and make em to die out way faster aka not using up as much resources and money to do so, all mmo's just have that one or 2 new things that make them a little different, other then that u might as well call them all mmo's.oh wait... lol

then they might as well just start charging monthly for offline games too just cause they got online chat on them. i don't think it coming to this obviously exaggeration a bit but seriously.

[Rhomagus]

I wish they would do away with the SP gain cap. There are level 90ish Rainbow Peistes in Mor Dhona. I have yet to get a group together to try and tackle one of them but I'd imagine it'd be pretty difficult. Unfortunately, even if we were to win, the incentive is missing and the reward is lacking.

There are ways to make the game difficult, such as setting leve difficulty, the problem is the lack of incentive.

I'd like to see a special reward for killing all the monsters in the dungeons or not using cross class abilities. I agree to an extent with the OP but I still think it needs to be accessible to casual players, new players, and less talented players. There needs to be content for those who are looking for a challenge though as well. It's frustrating though when you get into that argument though. It then becomes that the easy stuff isn't good enough anymore and less capable players want access to the difficult to procure content.

From a development standpoint it becomes difficult to say:

"But that content is... for... the... hardcores. This content... is ... for ... you. You can has fun now?"

As of right now it seems like they're trying to balance the two which I think is great. I do think that there is very difficult stuff already, but as stated above, there's no incentive. So, for the hardcores, it's not really a matter of difficulty, as truly hardcore players will always make up their own goals, but really positively reinforcing difficult content.

Another thing that has to be taken into account is once something is figured out, it is then pretty much easy from then on. Some people in this very thread were cheering SE on for the new dungeon content. Only a month later look at where we're at. Not saying that anyone is a hypocrite here but difficult content naturally becomes simple once it's figured out.

To combat that, you'd have to add reflex based content, which is what auto attack pretty much did away with and that change has been too applauded to scrap. Other alternatives to add "difficulty" would be randomization, time management, or party mechanic restrictions but a lot of players, even hardcores, are against such things.

You could add 28 hour bosses again?

tl;dr Hardcores create their own goals but want to be sufficiently rewarded for them and casuals want what hardcores have.

[odette]

well palyers in 1997 are not same in 2011
in the past people had more time for waste of time, old school mmorpg have this factor
in 2010 new players looks for fun not for tedious queue system that ffxi fans like it

[Anapingofness]

"Catering to casuals" Isn't an excuse to make your game stupidly easy.

And those same casual players should be pretty damn offended by it.

Casual doesn't mean easy. It just means you need content that doesn't require countless hours to enjoy.

Truer words were never spoken...

However, I do see where the thread starter is coming from.

Hopefully, the combat will become more challenging once the classes are more specialized.

I noticed a reference to FFXI's party system. Yeah, you're right when you say that your party could get wiped if you didn't play your job right. However that was because not just anyone could go in like rambo. (Abyssea Expansion does not count. Even there you have job limitations. You try main healing when all you have is Cure IV and your tank has 3k+ HP.)

You had to work with the limitation of your job class.

Here the job classes are kind of amorphous. Either a CONJ or a THM could be a healer as far as the game is concerned. In FFXI the WHM is the healer, hands down. Certainly you can have a job like RDM provide backup when things got nasty but nobody could jump in for a WHM. Much like you can't expect a RDM to play the role of a BLM. It doesn't work that way.

Plus, the battle system is more complete in FFXI. The hate management worked differently than here which also meant that players had to be careful or they could wipe their party or alliance if they were stupid.

So yeah... Hopefully you (the thread starter and others, including myself) will be happier when the jobs are specialized a bit. ^^;

[Neptune]

I disagree with you.. Darkhold was very challenging. Nobody ran in there and beat it the first time. If it's easy now that it's been done so much that is different.

Maybe you were talking about regular fights? In that case it doesn't matter how challenging they are since no one will bother with it. Leveling parties will always seek out the lowest challenge available.

If you want to fight something tough, there are plenty of monsters to engage in challenging fights, for no reward of course but your own entertainment.

And if none of the above concerns you, I'd say just give them a little time. If Darkhold is any indication, the dev team loves creating challenging content and I'm sure we will see more just like that in the future.

And if that doesn't help, go buy Demon's Souls or Dark Souls when it comes out. I think that's the kind of game that will really entertain you while you're waiting for a challenging MMO experience.

[SniperRifle]

FFXI did do it (i agree). Could merit for hours, get tired and stop, then immediately want to do it again.

[Rutelor]

This and this are on the same page, exciting to see how SE going to juggle both request.

The devs are trying to balance both a casual/solo game and a more challenging group-oriented one on the same, rather narrow territory at the moment. The poster you link is right in complaining that supposedly solo-friendly leves should be placed in such a way, and in such a place, so that they don't collide with the stronger free-roaming mobs... but sometimes a bit of that can also be fun. Let's hope that both populations SE is trying to harmonize (and satisfy) in a single game are satisfied.

[Xianghua]

I disagree with you.. Darkhold was very challenging. Nobody ran in there and beat it the first time. If it's easy now that it's been done so much that is different.

Maybe you were talking about regular fights? In that case it doesn't matter how challenging they are since no one will bother with it. Leveling parties will always seek out the lowest challenge available.

If you want to fight something tough, there are plenty of monsters to engage in challenging fights, for no reward of course but your own entertainment.

And if none of the above concerns you, I'd say just give them a little time. If Darkhold is any indication, the dev team loves creating challenging content and I'm sure we will see more just like that in the future.

And if that doesn't help, go buy Demon's Souls or Dark Souls when it comes out. I think that's the kind of game that will really entertain you while you're waiting for a challenging MMO experience.

I wouldn't consider darkhold a challenge. You see a true challenge is something that even after you learn how to do it you still can fail with a couple mistakes. no matter what setup how good the group is ect. That's a real challenge. Darkhold took a week or 2 to learn and now people can do it in Swimsuits. its a complete joke. to consider that a challenge is very sad.

[SnowTiger]

Could not agree more... Game needs moar challenge asap. Grind parties need to be the norm way of sp'ing, and need to take more strategy and have more danger... And yes, the damn server lag needs to be fixed at all costs, Idc if they have to start charging to play, I'll happily pay it even just for that.