Request: I don't want to solo the main scenario

[Alerith]

As a LONG time FFXI player, may I please request that you be very careful with the word "Balance" around SE? >_>

[Dragon]

Thing is, I love daggers, they are my favorite weapon. So, I didn't choose to put that harder difficulty on myself, I just wanted to play with daggers.

Even though you love daggers, you could still have chosen a better weapon. I'm not saying DS/DkS are the easiest games ever, but I don't think they deserve their reputation without context. Hell, I'm even saying this while I had a tough time in Demon Souls my first time around (DkS was different, as it was the same thing as DS and while I felt it was harder, it was definitely easier first time around because I knew what to expect).

Let's get more specific. How would you make it more difficult, would you allow this difficulty to be optional, and why?

Also, try to keep it short. The more we break down the issues to it's basic structure such as desires and solutions, the easier this conversation becomes on all fronts.

In the case of the Souls franchise, extremely dynamic AI being perhaps the most important (which is hard to program, but not impossible). On the other hand rather than just fighting one-two bosses at any one point, minions could've jumped in throughout each boss battle and have a more free-roaming atmosphere during the boss battle where the boss would run to previously unlocked areas (like a 4-4 boss battle could have the boss going back to 4-1 area).

In FFXIV, more dynamic AI would also be nice...

[Hyrist]

In FFXIV, more dynamic AI would also be nice...

I agree. But difficulty scales on two factors.

AI and raw stats.

Creating more dynamic fights rely on enemy AI, which I'm in full support of, so long as the raw stats are given a scaling factor depending on player's desires.

And of course you can throw in an extra script or two to make the hard fights harder.


My idea is to provide more dynamic fights with select-able difficulties, but provide rewards for the higher difficulties to insentivise pushing yourself to get better and to play with allies. Encouragement rather than forcing people.

I mean, as we like using FFXI as a reference so much, think of Rise of the Zilart. Divine Might was an OPTIONAL battle, but so many players still went after those earrings. We can do that here with pretty much every fight we wanted to, given the way FFXIV programs instances right within the larger world.

About Dagger usage in Dark/Demon Souls

That's not really a difficulty issue. That's a balancing issue. Some weapons in those games were misbalanced, one way or another. Daggers were poorly powerful on the scale, and others were flat out broken. You can't judge a difficulty of a game by the minimum or maximum performance of the weapons, or the skill of the worst or best players, actually.

Dragon, you've pretty much claimed you're above the current skill curve, and it colors your perception. You believe your skillset to be average, therefore you believe Demon/Dark souls do not deserve its reputation. But you're essentially the exception that proves the rule. Most people find the game notoriously hard.

[Platinumstorm]

I agree. But difficulty scales on two factors.

AI and raw stats.

Creating more dynamic fights rely on enemy AI, which I'm in full support of, so long as the raw stats are given a scaling factor depending on player's desires.

And of course you can throw in an extra script or two to make the hard fights harder.


My idea is to provide more dynamic fights with select-able difficulties, but provide rewards for the higher difficulties to insentivise pushing yourself to get better and to play with allies. Encouragement rather than forcing people.

I mean, as we like using FFXI as a reference so much, think of Rise of the Zilart. Divine Might was an OPTIONAL battle, but so many players still went after those earrings. We can do that here with pretty much every fight we wanted to, given the way FFXIV programs instances right within the larger world.

About Dagger usage in Dark/Demon Souls

That's not really a difficulty issue. That's a balancing issue. Some weapons in those games were misbalanced, one way or another. Daggers were poorly powerful on the scale, and others were flat out broken. You can't judge a difficulty of a game by the minimum or maximum performance of the weapons, or the skill of the worst or best players, actually.

Dragon, you've pretty much claimed you're above the current skill curve, and it colors your perception. You believe your skillset to be average, therefore you believe Demon/Dark souls do not deserve its reputation. But you're essentially the exception that proves the rule. Most people find the game notoriously hard.

I don't have any problem with reward variance as long as it's made clear to the player as to the difference in rewards.

[Hyrist]

Agreed.

Let's start off on the idea of course that experience rewards scale up with difficulty. That one is most obvious.

Then, say that there's difficulty rewards at 3 stars (the hardest you'd expect someone to solo.) and 5 Stars (The absolute hardest that fight offers.)

SE will probably make it a random chance at the reward, because they do adore their Skinner Boxes, but I personally would prefer that they don't.

My one rule for this however would be Untradable Unsellable only. So long as SE keeps the idea that the best items are crafted, these can be really helpful, but not required items to help along the journey.

[Dragon]

I agree. But difficulty scales on two factors.

AI and raw stats.

Creating more dynamic fights rely on enemy AI, which I'm in full support of, so long as the raw stats are given a scaling factor depending on player's desires.

And of course you can throw in an extra script or two to make the hard fights harder.


My idea is to provide more dynamic fights with select-able difficulties, but provide rewards for the higher difficulties to insentivise pushing yourself to get better and to play with allies. Encouragement rather than forcing people.

I mean, as we like using FFXI as a reference so much, think of Rise of the Zilart. Divine Might was an OPTIONAL battle, but so many players still went after those earrings. We can do that here with pretty much every fight we wanted to, given the way FFXIV programs instances right within the larger world.

About Dagger usage in Dark/Demon Souls

That's not really a difficulty issue. That's a balancing issue. Some weapons in those games were misbalanced, one way or another. Daggers were poorly powerful on the scale, and others were flat out broken. You can't judge a difficulty of a game by the minimum or maximum performance of the weapons, or the skill of the worst or best players, actually.

Dragon, you've pretty much claimed you're above the current skill curve, and it colors your perception. You believe your skillset to be average, therefore you believe Demon/Dark souls do not deserve its reputation. But you're essentially the exception that proves the rule. Most people find the game notoriously hard.

I'm going to address these issues in a different order.

Firstly, I don't believe I have claimed to be above the current skill curve, and if I have - that's not been my intention. (I've had to work a hundred times as hard on my own skills compared to most people due to several glitches in life, but that's neither here nor there.)

I even said that I had a tough time with DS just like most people, the first time around. My point is the Souls franchise doesn't deserve the reputation it gets without context, not that it doesn't deserve it at all. That context is that it gets harder, NOT easier, and punishes you, every time you die on a single character, unlike the majority of video games where things get considerably easier on the same character/save as you go through trial and error.

Secondly, I agree about the raw stats.... yeah.

[Hyrist]

It may not have been your intention, but it's reflected in your mannerism. You might not think of yourself as one, but you likely are an above-average player. The fact that you don't consiter yourself one is probably where you get a lot of the differences you get in opinions with other players - you keep viewing yourself as the average level when all that trial and error in gaming has increased your ability to do better in games in general. - Just as an observation.

But you bring up an interesting issue that the game ramps UP it's contexual difficulty as you play.

Let's break this back down into the two categories I've mentioned before. AI, and Stats.

In the games with a downward difficulty scaling, as you mention. Often times what is happening is that the AI is increasing, but the player's raw stats are sky-rocking to the point where even if the AI is more complex, they can just bully their way through it.

In DS, the AI improves, but the stats also skyrocket to surpass even the player's stat scaling. What this does is force the player to step up their game (The equivilant of the Game's AI). Sadly, this often just leads to the player finding the nearest, easiest exploit.

So, given the context to this, would you reccomend that SE adopt the policy of having their stat scaling curve upwards sharply for their monsters? I can see some of the attraction in this, particularly in something niche like epic world bosses, but ultimately I feel as if this sort of scaling should be best reserved outside of the main storyline.

[Dragon]

It may not have been your intention, but it's reflected in your mannerism. You might not think of yourself as one, but you likely are an above-average player. The fact that you don't consiter yourself one is probably where you get a lot of the differences you get in opinions with other players - you keep viewing yourself as the average level when all that trial and error in gaming has increased your ability to do better in games in general. - Just as an observation.

Interesting observation, then.

But you bring up an interesting issue that the game ramps UP it's contexual difficulty as you play.

Let's break this back down into the two categories I've mentioned before. AI, and Stats.

In the games with a downward difficulty scaling, as you mention. Often times what is happening is that the AI is increasing, but the player's raw stats are sky-rocking to the point where even if the AI is more complex, they can just bully their way through it.

In DS, the AI improves, but the stats also skyrocket to surpass even the player's stat scaling. What this does is force the player to step up their game (The equivilant of the Game's AI). Sadly, this often just leads to the player finding the nearest, easiest exploit.

So, given the context to this, would you reccomend that SE adopt the policy of having their stat scaling curve upwards sharply for their monsters? I can see some of the attraction in this, particularly in something niche like epic world bosses, but ultimately I feel as if this sort of scaling should be best reserved outside of the main storyline.

I certainly would recommend such a policy, not only because of the increased difficulty but it would be the easiest policy to implement for now. We even already have it available in the form of the Guildleve system (though granted, they still need more improvements, but still a good start).

And if you were to ask me, there is a particularly dynamic AI I'd like to see Square Enix take a page from, which was Bethesda's own creation. Before TES4:Oblivion came out, Bethesda had managed to create a virtually "too perfect" AI in it where the NPCs were truly alive without the player being there, and they had to cut one of their major previews short because it worked too well: various NPCs were actually stealing from one-another and the guard NPCs would kill them, and other NPCs murdered one-another, all without the "player interaction". Now I'm not saying the same should be done here, but I think it'd be nice for Square Enix to adapt.

[Zaaku]

Let's get more specific. How would you make it more difficult, would you allow this difficulty to be optional, and why?

Also, try to keep it short. The more we break down the issues to it's basic structure such as desires and solutions, the easier this conversation becomes on all fronts.

By gentley reminding players that they are in an M M O and to quit trying to solo a major event alone. The story line is just as potent is not more important an aspect of an MMO. If you make it bypassable by a single player you just ruin the after wards when they feel like they just *beat the game* yet don't feel very heroic or satisfied in their task.

Cripes sake people you are in a massive MULTIplayer online game! It is supposed to be played with friends and complete strangers! Gives players tools to do content solo when they are time constrained or prefer to level at their own pace is fine. Those are our leves (Also I'm pretty sure Hamlet defenses), and solo jobs are for. A game should never be designed to allow a single person to do what a full party can at a different difficulty. That completely undermines the purpose of partying in the first place. Also there are only a dozen at the most fights in most story lines that really are a bear. With the weeks upon months of time players will continue their subscriptions you're telling me they can't suck it up just a few times to earn a powerful item and complete a one time story line?

If so then MMO is not the genre they should really be investing their time into >.>;

[Roj]

"Hi, Im Victor Kiam. When my wife bought me FFXIV, I was so impressed I bought the company"....
"Then I put the monthly fee up to $200/month and made the game solo friendly for busy people with busy jobs like me. Now I don't have to grind pointlessly or tolerate those whiny, stupid know-it-all college kids or unemployed tossers who live their entire lives through an MMO any longer!"