Adding risk to the game?

[Hawklaser]

And lets be real... if risk was such a good thing now it:ll sell. Hard games don:t sell anymore... not like they used too anyway.

I'd disagree that hard games don't sell. The Dark Souls franchise is a very good example. The problem a lot of hard games run into is they are Punishing and not Challenging. Punishing games are the ones that don't sell, and its much easier to create a punishing game than a challenging one.

Early on there seemed to be a better understanding and ability that allowed more games to actually be challenging and not punishing. You can probably thank arcades and the coin-op machines for that. They had to find the right level of challenge to get people to keep plugging those machines. Punishing games, would be quickly walked away from, while the challenging ones would keep people playing. And for most early console games, they were designed by the same people designing for the arcades.

Some of the old MMO mechanics like xp lost on death were more on the punishing side of the equation.

So the question isn't so much about how to not add difficulty and challenge, but how to not make it punishing.

Sadly the tolerance for challenging games went down because of the trend of developers shying away from making challenging games, due to lumping challenging and punishing games together as hard. And thanks to punishing games far out weighing the challenging games, it was assumed both didn't sell. Which is most of what lead to the glut of easy games.

So the question becomes how to add some challenge without it being seen as punishing.

[Eldevern]

...

It's more or less that.

The thing it is easier to make solo games with a step-by-step increasing level of difficulty. For a MMO especially RPG, many people aren't running them for challenge, even less competition, but for the RP and the story.

One factor to consider is the reward. A recent study about Fornite explains that players are expecting some kind of reward. Punishing contents with pure loss are not interesting because they appears like a waste of time.

[SturmChurro]

One factor to consider is the reward. A recent study about Fornite explains that players are expecting some kind of reward. Punishing contents with pure loss are not interesting because they appears like a waste of time.

Naturally the reward(s) are a giant motivator for the general community. Most people will not want to do something challenging - or easy - if it doesn't give them something in return for their time/effort. People have complained about this in WoW as well (specifically rewards) and the players of that game seem to enjoy content that rewards them well.

Unfortunately, developers nowadays are choosing to add more desirable items to cash shops. While leaving the base game having few desirable rewards/items for the time they put in, and psychologically using the players who have purchased items via the cash shop to try and get more players to purchase items via cash shop. Make no mistake, cosmetic microtransactions* are also harmful to a game, just as pay to win is - just a different beast.

In the context of this game, while it has a cash shop with a large amount of items, I think there are just enough rewards in the base game to justify doing content to collect. However, to me there seems to be less now. I am eagerly awaiting what they plan to do about artifacts this time around. I am hoping something on the level of eureka rewards, but more enjoyable to actually play - I would also like a punishing aspect like eureka, maybe even just a refined, overhauled eureka personally.

[RyuSaarva]

I'd disagree that hard games don't sell. The Dark Souls franchise is a very good example. The problem a lot of hard games run into is they are Punishing and not Challenging. Punishing games are the ones that don't sell, and its much easier to create a punishing game than a challenging one.

Early on there seemed to be a better understanding and ability that allowed more games to actually be challenging and not punishing. You can probably thank arcades and the coin-op machines for that. They had to find the right level of challenge to get people to keep plugging those machines. Punishing games, would be quickly walked away from, while the challenging ones would keep people playing. And for most early console games, they were designed by the same people designing for the arcades.

Some of the old MMO mechanics like xp lost on death were more on the punishing side of the equation.

So the question isn't so much about how to not add difficulty and challenge, but how to not make it punishing.

Sadly the tolerance for challenging games went down because of the trend of developers shying away from making challenging games, due to lumping challenging and punishing games together as hard. And thanks to punishing games far out weighing the challenging games, it was assumed both didn't sell. Which is most of what lead to the glut of easy games.

So the question becomes how to add some challenge without it being seen as punishing.

souls games are not hard, you can make them very easy and 1 hit kill bosses or just summopn other players and let them carry you.