Quote Originally Posted by Niyuka View Post
I think its funny how in every genre except for MMORPGs, game designers have realized that there is such a thing as "too easy". The most successful, popular games on the market can be punishingly difficult and complex to master, and aren't all that easy to learn.
I think the majority of MMORPG designers are pretty well in touch with the concept, too. I've seen two or three different developer reports/letters to the players from MMOs I've played that actually blamed (two explicitly, another implicitly) their own mistakenly excessive streamlining or loss of depth when attempting to increase accessibility for lost player count on specific classes or to subscriptions...

The balance is real, as is player upset. Which makes it all the more important to take a far view, because it'll be hard to get back to the desired intention if the initial design's wrong or, worse, stays wrong for quite a while. Neglect your difficulty curve early on, or retroactive changes to smooth the interim when targeting later content, and it will bite you.

And of course, it doesn't help that the more each successive MMO caters to an LCD MMO-hopping population, the more their options are limited design-wise...