Going to the same route as WoW. The game is TOO easy

[DarkEiraStar]

I’m genuinely curious, what is your original statement here based on?

Even many single player JRPGs have difficulty that increases over time. If difficulty increases, then there surely must be some people for whom, somewhere along the way, the difficulty becomes too hard to continue. If you go outside classic turn-based JRPG design, it gets even more exacerbated. I can assure you there are people who never beat Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea’s main story due to the difficulty. And those aren’t Dark Souls. They aren’t even twitch reaction games. The strategy required is just beyond some people and/or their “fun limit.”

You definitely can’t rescue the princess from the castle if you consistently choke on the jumps in 8-1. That’s not a flaw in game design. That’s what makes Super Mario Bros a game instead of a movie.

To be clear this isn't even a matter of difficultly, its a matter of perception. OP perceives FFXIV as becoming too "easy" and therefore not fun. Yet how many people would really continue to pay $13-$15 a month if they could only access half or less of the content that they wanted to played because the game was designed only for the most skilled players.

The community in WoW ruined the game long before the current expansion. All endgame content became gated behind max item levels that you could only get by already having done the content. Hardcore and Midcore got to have an exclusive club and feel superior to the casuals that only were allowed a watered down version of the raids.

The first sign of an MOO dying is not the hardcore or the midcore leaving.

[Adrestia]

To be clear this isn't even a matter of difficultly, its a matter of perception. OP perceives FFXIV as becoming too "easy" and therefore not fun. Yet how many people would really continue to pay $13-$15 a month if they could only access half or less of the content that they wanted to played because the game was designed only for the most skilled players.

The community in WoW ruined the game long before the current expansion. All endgame content became gated behind max item levels that you could only get by already having done the content. Hardcore and Midcore got to have an exclusive club and feel superior to the casuals that only were allowed a watered down version of the raids.

The first sign of an MOO dying is not the hardcore or the midcore leaving.

Umm...did we play the same WoW? With the advent of Badges of Justice (tomestones) in The Burning Crusade, WoW pioneered the concept that even if you take a break or start later, you can catch up to current tier item levels. If you can’t do Mythic raids today, it’s not because you don’t have access to strong enough gear from the last half dozen raid tiers.

For what it’s worth, I hate the badge/tomestones system for creating this race to the top and the death of old content. In EverQuest, “raid gear” and “all the other gear” were on such disparate power levels that if you wanted to raid top tier content from any of the last 3 or 4 years, you had to go back and progress through expansions to gear your people up. I realize in today’s MMO ecosystem that must sound terrible, what with old raids being ghost towns and the gear being dramatically worse than what you get for completing your first solo quest in the newest expansion. But back in EQ, when this instant gratification catch-up gear wasn’t available, that old content wasn’t abandoned. Instead, on any given server, you’d have some guilds raiding the latest content, some raiding the previous expansion, and some the expansion before that. Everyone still bought the new expansion because it offered a lot more than just endgame raids. They were just content to get to those raids a bit later (or never raid at all).

[DarkEiraStar]

Umm...did we play the same WoW? With the advent of Badges of Justice (tomestones) in The Burning Crusade, WoW pioneered the concept that even if you take a break or start later, you can catch up to current tier item levels. If you can’t do Mythic raids today, it’s not because you don’t have access to strong enough gear from the last half dozen raid tiers.

I'm not talking about the game itself, but the player base. If you wanted to do raiding outside of LFR you had to either raid with your guild or pug. If for whatever reason you couldn't raid with your guild and didn't want to leave you were left with pugging. And the vast majority of pug groups wanted you to have x ilvl (which you was often way higher than you needed or could only get by doing that raid) and proof that you had already completed the raid by sharing your achievement.

[Melichoir]

To be clear this isn't even a matter of difficultly, its a matter of perception. OP perceives FFXIV as becoming too "easy" and therefore not fun. Yet how many people would really continue to pay $13-$15 a month if they could only access half or less of the content that they wanted to played because the game was designed only for the most skilled players.

The community in WoW ruined the game long before the current expansion. All endgame content became gated behind max item levels that you could only get by already having done the content. Hardcore and Midcore got to have an exclusive club and feel superior to the casuals that only were allowed a watered down version of the raids.

The first sign of an MOO dying is not the hardcore or the midcore leaving.

Well WoW is a complex bag to unpack, because a lot went on there that has lead it to it's current state and its not a point-to-this specific-issue kind of problem.

However, if you created to much division between the best players and the average player, yeah thats gonna create problems. But, if you drop the skill floor out completely, youll end up killing your MMO as well. You cant have it so casual that most game content can be completed by literally pushing 2 skill buttons. Here's the rub: You have to find a balance with the average player that they CAN make the leap to Savage and Ultimate stuff with invested effort, while at the same time making sure those tiers are tough for the people who want it tough. This usually means raising the skill floor, not dropping it, on average players over time. The higher level they get, their skill should increase. Not just get stronger simply because they have better stats/gear.

The issue with balancing 'down' is that it is leads to a self feedback loop. Make content easy, average players think that is the average, creates a larger and larger gulf between the hardcore players and the average players, which obviously fuels resentment. This gets worse because average players stop feeling like they can realistically bridge that gap, and when devs try to implement more difficult content, players whove been trained on the easy mode cant cut it effectively and complain its to hard. This usually results in it being made easier which lowers the quality of play on average players, thus creating a larger gap and preventing harder mechanics.


As the Savage and Ultimate raids scale up in difficulty, so too must the average dungeon content. This means the average player should get better as well. With how FFXIV handles some of the midcore content and how people have difficulty even doing mechanics that have been around since the beginning of HW, or how they complain the Burn is to hard to do, its clear that there is some merit to the idea that midcore and casual content mightve been to easy. That or players have have been poorly trained to expect dungeons where they can complete the content by pressing two buttons or just pressing random skills without even trying to do proper rotations. While it's not indicative of all players, if I see a BLM at level 70 just spamming fire and bliz and doing nothing else but using transpose when they run out of mana, that is a problem. Those players are ignoring most of their kit and class mechanics and should fail dungeons and trials. That isnt a matter of "Playing the game my way" at that point, but deciding that you cant be bothered to even play the game at all but expect the rewards.

Like I said before, if youre in 390s and pulling 2-3k dps as a DPS, youre not doing something right. If a tnak can sit in tank stance spamming ONLY their aggro combo and get the near same DPS as you, this is a big problem in the quality of skill. And oddly, what Ive seen is the people most hostile to the idea of making things harder are the very same people who just push one or two buttons to play their class and never seem to want to improve. As long as their is a visible path to improvement, I would hazard MOST players would be ok with upping the difficulty.

[Edax]

But, if you drop the skill floor out completely, youll end up killing your MMO as well. You cant have it so casual that most game content can be completed by literally pushing 2 skill buttons.

False. Literally OSRunescape has just an autoattack and a special attack. That MMORPG is still going on strong.

If anything, Runescape 3 killed itself by adding a hotbar and a bunch of skills that the playerbase wasn't interested in. Why push 12 buttons to do the same job when you can just click once? It's needless busywork.

[Melichoir]

False. Literally OSRunescape has just an autoattack and a special attack. That MMORPG is still going on strong.

If anything, Runescape 3 killed itself by adding a hotbar and a bunch of skills that the playerbase wasn't interested in. Why push 12 buttons to do the same job when you can just click once? It's needless busywork.

Naming Outliers or taking partial examples does not disprove anything. Particulary when were discussing FFXIV which is built on more complex combat systems. If were talking playerbase interest, Runescape does not have the player count near FFXIV or most big mainstream MMOs - which would indicate that most players prefer more Mainstream MMOs . Granted its more than just skills, but if were gonna play the game of using very niche and specific examples to prove the other person wrong, then pretty much the success of MMOs like WoW and FFXIV mean Runescapes setup is not popular among players in general.

[Edax]

Naming Outliers or taking partial examples does not disprove anything. Particulary when were discussing FFXIV which is built on more complex combat systems. If were talking playerbase interest, Runescape does not have the player count near FFXIV or most big mainstream MMOs - which would indicate that most players prefer more Mainstream MMOs . Granted its more than just skills, but if were gonna play the game of using very niche and specific examples to prove the other person wrong, then pretty much the success of MMOs like WoW and FFXIV mean Runescapes setup is not popular among players in general.

Runescape isn't "very niche". What exactly is the rule for an MMO to be mainstream? How many active players make it "count"? For a time it was the most famous MMORPG of all time, being the gateway MMO for most MMORPG players. FFXIV only has 668,550 active characters (https://ffxivcensus.com/), while Runescape has 1 million active subscribers (https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/01...n-subscribers/).

Runescapes setup is not popular among players in general.

Runescape's setup of auto-attacks proved more popular then when it implemented a hotbar and skills.

[linay]

Runescape isn't "very niche". What exactly is the rule for an MMO to be mainstream?

It's not just about the number, but also familiarity/recognizability/acknowledgement within society. There could be games with more players in China, it still won't make them mainstream to people living in the US.

From my experience, I've heard of WoW and FFXIV (and FFXI before that) long before I ever played any MMORPG. I've never heard of Runescape until I play MMORPG and started talking to other people playing MMORPG.

So, I'm not saying Runescape isn't mainstream, because obviously my experience is anecdotal. But if there are many more people like me today (not whenever Runescape was more popular) who has never heard of it, then it could be considered niche or not mainstream within the general public in certain parts of the world even if it may actually have a lot of players.

[Melichoir]

Runescape isn't "very niche". What exactly is the rule for an MMO to be mainstream? How many active players make it "count"? For a time it was the most famous MMORPG of all time, being the gateway MMO for most MMORPG players. FFXIV only has 668,550 active characters (https://ffxivcensus.com/), while Runescape has 1 million active subscribers (https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/01...n-subscribers/).

Mainstream MMOs are more widely recognized and are more involved in the current dialogue when discussing MMOs (and games at large). This means MMOs can move in and out of mainstream depending their relevance to the game culture at the time. Runescape is not mainstream by this criteria. While a classic MMO, it is not a leader in MMOs, nor is it part of the mainstream discussion typically for a lot of reasons (graphics, gameplay, story, features, etc). This doesnt mean people cant enjoy it. I enjoy things like RO, which is old and terrible by all standard means and still has a 'large' enough player count, but it is not mainstream.

Furthermore, while that article says 1 million subscribers, I would need clarity as to what it counts as subscribers, as the article does not seem to mention differences between memberships and F2P members. This is important because if the Runescape model is F2P with people opting in for membership programs with perks, it will naturally have higher player counts because the gate of entry is that low. This gets more complicated because you can play the game still after ending membership. So does that 1 million subscriber count (if it only counts memberships) mean continuously active ones, or does it include any account who had at some period of time for any length a membership. You would see much larger numbers for FFXIV if it had a baseline F2P model with a membership program. Furthermore, that article seems to also suggest that 1 million count is not from the mobile app alone but all iterations of runescape, so this doesnt give us a 1:1 comparison. There's a lot of variables to the article that dont exactly make it clear how it's reaching that 1 million number. This is a problem when comparing the two because FFXIV hits a 600k subscriber count with ACTIVE accounts, meaning that people are actually paying to play the game in the current moment, where the article does not illustrate whether thats the case or not, or if its just 1 million active accounts, which are easier to achieve with it being f2p, which also means defining active. With FFXIV, Active subscriptions = actual players playing the game. Where an active sub in an F2P could literally mean someone logging in once or twice a year for a few days.

Runescape's setup of auto-attacks proved more popular then when it implemented a hotbar and skills.

Again, proved popular to who? The game industry at large, or within its own player base? If were gonna get into niche examples that are harder to compare 1:1, then I can say simply by the fact that most mainstream MMOs (or MMOs in general) rely on multiskill combat, and thats where most players who play MMO are, the 1 button combat system is not popular across MMO players at large.

If you want to say 1 button combat is popular among Runescape players, then what needs to be discussed is how that relates to FFXIV. The one button system might be just fine (and more popular) in Runescape due to other factors within the game. You may not need a complex skill system if other factors come into play that make the game rewarding and challenging (unless Runescape is quite literally just a fancy chatroom at this point, then its more of a social tool than MMO, but thats another discussion). The one button combat system doesnt work for FFXIV because the game isnt designed for it, and switching over to said system would more than likely cause a player base crash, not be a boon to its numbers. This is why in the context of more Mainstream and Modern MMOs, they dont rely on a 1 or two button system. They rely on more advanced combat systems that engage players more. Ill put it this way: If 1 or two button combat was that desired, most MMOs would have this set up. They dont, however. This isnt a 'cause its trendy' thing, but more a 'this is what most players gravitate towards. This is where the market demand is at.

"(Thursday 11th September 2008) The Guinness Book of World Records has recognized RuneScape as the world's largest free massively multiplayer online role-playing game. In addition to being the world's largest free MMO, the game is also the second largest MMO in the world, according to developer Jagex, with over one million paying subscribers and five million players taking advantage of the free game." -
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...st-free-mmorpg

That article from 2008 hurts your earlier article you linked. If they have 1 mil in 2008 with what seems to be 1 game, and have 1 million in 2018 across all platforms, that means their player base is spread and is suffering a loss in players to the specific game.

[Edax]

Again, proved popular to who? The game industry at large, or within its own player base? If were gonna get into niche examples that are harder to compare 1:1, then I can say simply by the fact that most mainstream MMOs (or MMOs in general) rely on multiskill combat, and thats where most players who play MMO are, the 1 button combat system is not popular across MMO players at large.

To itself. Runescape 3 added a hotbar and a bunch of skills, which so fundamentally changed the game that the players demanded the old game's one-click system return. So eventually they uploaded a saved copy of the game from 2004 and called it Old School Runescape, which eventually garnered so much support, it's playerbase eclipsed Runescape 3, despite that one having better graphics and a larger team working on it.

However, if you created to much division between the best players and the average player, yeah thats gonna create problems. But, if you drop the skill floor out completely, youll end up killing your MMO as well. You cant have it so casual that most game content can be completed by literally pushing 2 skill buttons. Here's the rub: You have to find a balance with the average player that they CAN make the leap to Savage and Ultimate stuff with invested effort, while at the same time making sure those tiers are tough for the people who want it tough. This usually means raising the skill floor, not dropping it, on average players over time. The higher level they get, their skill should increase. Not just get stronger simply because they have better stats/gear.

That article from 2008 hurts your earlier article you linked. If they have 1 mil in 2008 with what seems to be 1 game, and have 1 million in 2018 across all platforms, that means their player base is spread and is suffering a loss in players to the specific game.

No it doesn't. You said an MMO couldn't just have 2 buttons, but that wasn't true. You said Runescape was too niche to count, so I asked how many players it needed to have to "count" and you didn't provide one. Looking at the player growth curve over 12 years is a complete distraction from your mistaken point. The fact I had to reach for the Guiness Book of World Records should be enough to point out the Runescape is not obscure of "very niche". You can have it so casual that most game content can be completed by literally pushing 2 skill buttons.

So all this is built on a false premise:

The issue with balancing 'down' is that it is leads to a self feedback loop. Make content easy, average players think that is the average, creates a larger and larger gulf between the hardcore players and the average players, which obviously fuels resentment. This gets worse because average players stop feeling like they can realistically bridge that gap, and when devs try to implement more difficult content, players whove been trained on the easy mode cant cut it effectively and complain its to hard. This usually results in it being made easier which lowers the quality of play on average players, thus creating a larger gap and preventing harder mechanics.