Quote Originally Posted by Tridus View Post
These things are hard to get right, because having the playerbase improve means slowly cranking up the difficulty such that people will adjust and learn without hitting a wall of frustration and quitting in response. If wipes and failure are more frequent, is that a thing we want? Look at how often Rabanastre comes up as a problem, when the "problem" is that failure actually happens there? Do we want EVERYTHING to look like that, with the risk that the bottom 20% might quit the game entirely as a result (and the revenue implications that brings)?
The thing is. If they did increase the difficulty a bit and doing that did cause the bottom 20% of players to quit rather than rise to the challenge would that really be a bad thing?

On it's own perhaps. But at the other end how many players have quit playing the game because it's to easy and thus not rewarding or satisfying to play? There is no satisfaction beating something you can't possibly lose. And if games aren't satisfying or rewarding people don't play them.

One of the games biggest problems is player retention and that comes largely down to the lack of difficulty or sense of satisfaction from playing it.

The games had over 10 million players but something like 500k are active if the limestone sweeps are even remotely accurate. But even of we double it and say there's a million active players. If a difficulty increase caused the bottom 20% to quit would that be so bad.

How many of the 9 million that already quit would still be playing if the game felt more satisfying and rewarding as a result of that difficulty curve?

You might find that where you lose the bottom 200k you gain 500k in the middle or at the top.

The lack of satisfaction and difficulty is a big reason so many people quit. Because like I said earlier. There is no accomplishment or satisfaction in clearing something you simply can not fail.

So while it may be true increasing difficulty might push players away.
It's also true it might help retain or bring back just as many or even more players