A plea to SE : make it difficult !

[Silma]

Hello here

I have been playing sooo many of the MMOs out there ; in fact, I tried them all except the first generation (UO, EQ, DAOC). I am what some could call a hardcore player, or more precisely an intensive player. I like games, gameplay, community, having to work out a strategy, fix details to achieve a goal : defeating this or that. I dont like loots, I dont care about loots that much.

That being said, i wondered what defines a game ? Is it its universe ? Yes, but some universes are great yet the game fails ... [Hummm.] Is it its gameplay ? Yes, but gameplay is nothing without background. [Hummm.] is it its special features you find nowhere else ? Somehow, but that is not sufficient to define an entire game. Fun goes without saying. A bit of everything ? An alchemy ? sounds like too simple answers.

No. I came up with an answer after talking with a lot of friends from many MMOs. When we talk about the good souvenirs we have, the best ones are always when it was hard! When we struggled for days or weeks to defeat that boss, when we wiped so many times in that dungeon just to succeed in the end. The sense of accomplishment that only something difficult can bring. This forges the souvenir you will have about a game, this makes your players stay in your game, and this creates the legend of it.

To use a metaphore, succeeding in something made "easy" or "for the casual players" by the devs is like quickly smoking a cigarette in the cold. Succeeding in something long and complicated is like having a cigar and a glass of Cognac at 3am with your close friends.

So please, do not take that path of the casual-oriented game a lot of companies seem to take. This will only lead you to the desert of "that other MMO".

[DoctorMog]

I've been asking for hard content for months. I agree.

Know what was fun for me?

40 man Naxx/AQ 40 raids in vanilla WoW and old school FFXI content. Tiamat, Jorm, Nidhogg, dynamis. etc... (before they were easy)

Everything since has left me wanting more. It has all been far too easy, and because of this, there is no sense of accomplishment anymore.

[Atoli]

To use a metaphore, succeeding in something "easy" is like quickly smoking a cigarette in the cold. Succeeding in something long and complicated is like having a cigar and a glass of Cognac at 3am with your close friends.

I don't like Cognac.
I don't have the time or motivation for anything beyond those three minutes in the cold.
But I want to enjoy those 3 min to the fullest.
So to me, and many other players too which have a different idea of what defines a good game, making it just "hard" is a bad idea.

I like games with an interesting storyline and a beautiful world I can explore.
No matter how boring or dumb or hard or easy the gameplay mechanics are, I will play that game, and I will like it.
But that's just my personal opinion, and I don't go to the forums with it and try to force it on others by requesting a game they enjoy to get changed to how I personally want it to be to MY liking..

(What I'm trying to say is: Fine, have your hard challenges, but making the entire game difficult and not "casual friendly" is selfish, nothing else. Respect the way others want to play and want the game to be, even if it's different from what you prefer.)

[DoctorMog]

I Don't believe that we want the whole game on hardmode. That is not the case.

We want something here and there that poses a serious challenge.

It's just a request for "something challenging" nothing more.

[Jennestia]

Don't believe that we want the whole game on hardmode. That is not the case.

We want something here and there that poses a serious challenge.

It's just a request for "something challenging"

Exactly why I say they should have built off of FFXI as a foundation (yes yes I know people will kill their first borns just because I mentioned FFXI):

"Light" content, e.g Assaults (this alone could have been in place of Guildleves or Guildleves built around this, it has much more variance than eventually being a kill quest.)
"Light" content like Limbus except for bosses (which were challenges back when they were introduced, i.e Proto Omega/Ultima)
"Light" content like Missions with hard fights sprinkled in, CoP was almost perfect in this regard.
"Light/Hard" content like Campaign which varied depending on if you're doing OPs (Shadow Lord fight for example) or the plain battles.
"Hard" content like Dynamis, Sea Gods, Sky Gods, Shinryu (unless you brew it), Abyssea Zone bosses, Neo Omega etc.
"Hard" content like Salvage which was more strategizing than difficulty at times.

So on, XI had the perfect set up in terms of content, while people hated having to work with others (....) It scaled beautifully in terms of what was and wasn't a challenge. For example if SE were to introduce a new Bahamut fight in FFXI, it'll be a challenge, if they were to introduce a Bahamut fight in XIV, it'll be a push over because they have to please the casual playerbase as well as the "hardcore" playerbase so the overall difficulty would be set very low in order to fit all playstyles. Like Ifrit is a decent challenge, but realistically latency problems from poor servers optimization gave it the slight challenge it does have.

[AmyRae]

No. I came up with an answer after talking with a lot of friends from many MMOs. When we talk about the good souvenirs we have, the best ones are always when it was hard! When we struggled for days or weeks to defeat that boss, when we wiped so many times in that dungeon just to succeed in the end. The sense of accomplishment that only something difficult can bring. This forges the souvenir you will have about a game, this makes your players stay in your game, and this creates the legend of it.

But, what if you only had one year to get that stuff? And you had multiple classes to equip?

Wouldn't you rather have a decent chance of getting everything you wanted before it was too late?

[Silma]

I don't like Cognac.
I don't have the time or motivation for anything beyond those three minutes in the cold.
But I want to enjoy those 3 min to the fullest.
So to me, and many other players too which have a different idea of what defines a good game, making it just "hard" is a bad idea.

I like games with an interesting storyline and a beautiful world I can explore.
No matter how boring or dumb or hard or easy the gameplay mechanics are, I will play that game, and I will like it.
But that's just my personal opinion, and I don't go to the forums with it and try to force it on others by requesting a game they enjoy to get changed to how I personally want it to be to MY liking..

(What I'm trying to say is: Fine, have your hard challenges, but making the entire game difficult and not "casual friendly" is selfish, nothing else. Respect the way others want to play and want the game to be, even if it's different from what you prefer.)

This is exactly the purpose of a forum. Go on it, express your opinion, discuss.

Now, dont get me wrong, i do not want an entire hardcore game. Its all about content design : you can have hard stuff, but that does mean it take long to accomplish. Those are 2 separate things. Difficulty =/= time. Remember BCNMs in FFXI ?

But, what if you only had one year to get that stuff? And you had multiple classes to equip?

Wouldn't you rather have a decent chance of getting everything you wanted before it was too late?

Well, no. You have to make choices. Wanting everything IS a "hardcore" thing. Wanting it quickly and easily is a "casual" thing. Wanting both is hypocrite.

[KumaAkuma]

Everything that was hard has been shaved off with a cheese grater this year.

[Ruisu]

I haven't even fought Ifrit yet, but from flowcharts that I've seen, he looks far more difficult than any average raid boss from any other MMO that I've played. Yoshida even stated that the developer of Ifrit wants to make Good Moogle King's fight even harder than that. You're talking about Timesinks, my friend, and that is exactly what we don't need in this game.

[Nero]

Funny how i see people in this Thread which want more difficulty and were the same people which screamed for Easy Mode 10 Month ago. Make up your mind finally.