MSQ Difficulty and Exclusion

[DPZ2]

I do think that nowadays the difficulty of the MSQ has been significantly reduced due to a number of factors, but this hasn’t always been to the benefit of the player experience. Fundamentally, video games should provide logical and increasing challenges as time goes on in the main campaign.

The primary problem I see with your argument, and the examples of what 'main story' combat should be like, is that, while single-player games can afford to be as difficult as possible from the start, working their way down in difficulty via 'cheats' or 'easy modes' for the player, MMORPGs cannot.

The primary goal of an MMORPG is player retention.

MMORPGs do provide increasing challenges to players over time, even in the main campaign. I certainly found that to be so while playing this game across nearly 8 years.

A problem rises, however, when players who are used to the so-called 'difficult' single-user video games are disappointed in the level of challenge in an MMORPG.

In this game, there is both Savage and Ultimate mode (and whatever level of challenge can be found in Criterion dungeon instances). If they are not "hard" enough to satisfy your tastes, it is far better to either accept the fact that this game will never be as hard as one of the single-player games you enjoy or look for an MMORPG (or single-player game) that will satisfy.

Unlike a number of single-player games, this main story is designed to be completed, not to thwart players attempts at success.

While some players may feel left behind by such a decision, I do think it would be in the interest of the majority to try and find a better balance than what we’ve been seeing nowadays.

You appear to be extremely confident that a majority of players would stick around if main story encounters reached Normal-mode 8-person Raid (or higher) levels of difficulty.

The bottom line for the company is to keep those players who "may feel left behind" subscribed. The difficulty of the main story line is geared to that retention. You may not like it, but companies depend on players with multiple levels of video game experience.

Since this seems to be the first MMO for a large number of those players, one would be foolish to ignore the possibility that "harder story line = fewer subscribers = lower income".

I can guarantee that "harder story line = more subscribers = higher income" is not a possibility in the video game MMORPG industry, or someone would have done exactly that at some point in the last two decades. [Rest in Peace, Wildstar].

[Deveryn]

Things used to be more difficult. It can be argued that they were needlessly so. You have things like inconsistencies in markers which don't help matters. There are still tank busters with little or no warning. As they work to make things more consistent and allow people to have time to respond, things might seem to be getting easier. Not everyone is able to play as much and learn as much as others. I pick up on things pretty quickly, but if I go to explain it to some people, it might take a few tries til they see what's going on. Sometimes it's my fault.

The primary problem I see with your argument, and the examples of what 'main story' combat should be like, is that, while single-player games can afford to be as difficult as possible from the start, working their way down in difficulty via 'cheats' or 'easy modes' for the player, MMORPGs cannot.

Mods like ACT are a thing though. If people stopped using them, content would be difficult again and they would actually have to put some effort and thought into their clears. It's quite ironic when folks like this pat themselves on the back for clearing this and that and then try to fault others that don't use cheats, but instead try to remember everything and adjust to situations. If I could always see the cooldowns for the boss or get audio cues for what to do, I'd probably get bored too.

[Kamatsu]

Since this seems to be the first MMO for a large number of those players, one would be foolish to ignore the possibility that "harder story line = fewer subscribers = lower income".

I can guarantee that "harder story line = more subscribers = higher income" is not a possibility in the video game MMORPG industry, or someone would have done exactly that at some point in the last two decades. [Rest in Peace, Wildstar].

Another example of this is what happened in Guild Wars 2 with their 1st expansion "Heart of Thorns" Many players on the official forums decried how easy the base game was and wanted the game to be harder, more group focused, erc... and made the same claims as you see in these kinds of threads - that making the game harder would motivate ppl to get better, that it would make the game more enjoyable to more ppl, that it would bring in more $$$, etc. ANet listened and made the HoT expansion exactly that - way harder, locked character & MSQ progression behind either super hard solo stuff or group-only events, etc.

The result being Guild Wars lost a huge chunk of it's player base, and ANet had it's biggest ever, 6-month loss in revenue. Things were so bad for ANet that they had to make public apologies, nerfed the content hard, changed most of the group-only content to stuff that could be solo'ed, changed character progression & MSQ stuff from super hard to hard, etc just to stop the player bleed and stay in business (had it kept going, they'd likely have ended up shut down by NCSoft within the next 6 months, that's how bad it was looking for them).1

Fact is, the vast majority of MMO players are not the Savage, extreme, ultimate, etc players. They are ppl who just want to sit down and relax after a hard day/week at work... who don't want to have to have stress trying to get through a video game. If they hit a brick wall, most will try once or twice... and if they can't get past, they will quit and go elsewhere. This has been shown and proven to be the case so much over the years, and yet we still have ppl tryign to push for non 'opt in' difficulty changes forced on everyone./.. as if this this it will go a different way than every other time in in the past.

I really wish these ppl would push for more optional & opt-in difficulty, rather than trying to force it on other's who are not interested in it. Optional like a setting that sets the MSQ solo duties at a higher-than-normal setting... as SE has shown these can be scaled from 'normal' to 'very easy', so why not also scale the difficulty upwards as well for those who want it? Or add in a DR for 'forced min ILVL" for those who want to do dungeons/trials/raids aat a harder state with like-minded ppl - sure it might not queue as quickly as normal DR, but at least you'll be getting your optional harder content.