"You Will Die" Difficulty... Can I Have It?

[Nakiamiie]

Cue popcorn eating gif

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On topic, before requesting slider for content. Why not try the content first? They are supposed to be quite different from 1.0 in the dynamic and we are supposed to have a constant flow of things to do.

I will personally wait for beta, try it out, then give suggestions long before the end of it. I suggest hardcore power players do the same, your opinion on that matter might be more pertinent than mine, haha.

[fusional]

So the only course of action for a successful MMO is to treadmill the gear rewards? Just flat out make content that is impossible until you have the right gear, and have that content drop the gear you need for the next content, which drops the gear you need for the content after that, in perpetuity?

i never said it's the only course, and i'm not sure where you got the impression that i did. i didn't even imply it. care to clue me in to your thought process there?

but anyway, yes. gear and content progression is what keeps people playing, and people playing keeps communities strong. love it or hate it, it's the foundation of EQ's success, FFXI's success after it, and WoW's success after that. that's not to say that they can't improve on the model, but without it people simply jump to end, beat it, then never log in again until a new patch or expansion.

do you think the most casual players should be entitled to the best gear in the game? do you think they should be entitled to experiencing every bit of content that the most hardcore players see?

should someone who works four hours per week get the same pay and the same perks as someone who works 80? should there not be any perks for the person who works 80 simply because there are people who don't?

[Altena]

To be honest I agree with fusional.

The gear treadmill is pretty much a given in some respect. We are playing an overzealous game of "barbie doll dress up" truthfully. Why do you clear content? To obtain gear/get a stronger character. Why do you want to get a stronger character? To make it easier to clear content.. It's a cycle that keeps people logging in everyday, and there will always be a "top tier". Some will hit that top tier faster then others, and to keep them logging in and not quitting out of boredom, there needs to be a constant stream of content that is progressively more difficult.

If we roll back to that bell curve that Klive posted before :

Removing the difficulty down to the SD-1 (or even the Mean Score), you still have 50% of the playerbase at capped "completed content". It is fairly correct to say that X could indicate time spent, and Y could indicate the amount of players that have completed the content.. If you were to remove that higher difficulty, the players from 0 to 2 would be bored out of their brain with nothing to do. They have nothing to strive for, as the content that is available is already completed, causing them to lose interest and quit until next patch.

If you were to keep this difficulty however, the players that are sitting at -2 (most likely mules/alternate accounts/players that never login) up to 0 will still be around as they have reasons to login, however with this higher difficulty setting, the players sitting around 0-2 have some content to do as well.

So truthfully the most profitable way to hold a larger community is to introduce an adjustable difficulty, which will keep players of all skill levels in the game. You remove that "harder" difficulty setting and suddenly the top tier becomes non-exclusive, easy to obtain, and equates to a boring & unmotivating game.

Unfortunately a lot of "casual" players seem to have a competitive nature and want to "have the best stuff" but I am sorry, if you want that stuff you do need to actually play the game and defeat the content. Ideally new content should be released the moment the "world first" group run out of things to strive for. If you can't keep up with this - consider yourself lucky that you have a lot of things to play after all it is a game.

*edit*

In addition - I hate comparing games but quite simply look at the state that FFXI is currently in. If you are not informed on the current state then you should spend 5 mins on FFXIAH.com and hunt around.
If you don't have 3-10 "legendary" weapons of any kind then you are pretty much a brand new player.
If you don't have all your battle jobs at level 99, guess what.. Yep you signed up last week.

I quit FFXI because I found myself logging in every day, walking around Jeuno (FFXI's Ul'dah) talking to a few friends and logging out. I considered myself once more a "regular" player and yet there was no content that hadn't already been done. I also saw a lot of "hardcore" players quit once the content dried up as well, as a game is boring when there is nothing difficult to do. It becomes a dull, boring grind, with no challenge and turns into an autopilot game that you play but don't truly enjoy.

[Altena]

As to the PUGS, I honestly think JA's are more selective in who they PUG with than NA's and are willing to spend more time building a party than we are...that and they stick in the PUG much longer, agree to meet back again if making progress etc. We aren't typically as proactive and patient. Don't take this as facts...just what I've noticed since playing

100% agreed with this Kinsey !

I am in Australia so my time zone is practically the same as JP's. I have found from my experience that they are a lot more reluctant to party with an EN player (potentially due to the language barrier, but to be honest I think it has a lot to do with the way some EN players treat them). I however was lucky enough to party with a particular JP group that were a little more open to EN players and they were quite selective, polite, and very different to my EN experiences

They had a much higher tolerance level, more persistence and they did indeed agree to continue at a later date.

[fusional]

so what's the answer?

if the JPs can pug it, how seriously do we take the EN cries that it's too hard? do we lower the difficulty curve enough that EN players can also pug it? but then what of the players who could always pug it before?

how then do you challenge them?

as i've said before, i don't think there is a tremendous skill gap between english and japanese players. the problem is in attitude, approach and execution. and i think that's certainly cultural to a large degree. so, unfortunately, if everything is all one difficulty, then there will always be stuff that only the elite can finish, and only the japanese can pug.

while i personally don't have a problem with this, many casual players do. they do feel entitled to a shot at that content. and as a result, the only way i can see them getting the same access without categorically nerfing difficulty across the board for everyone is to add in player controlled difficulty.

[Syrokko]

Woah.

Check out this Altena Trife person and his flashy sig and his Eorzea font.
Neat.

Anyhoo, back on topic...
Extreme difficulty is a nice idea. Can't see anything wrong with this.

[IndigoDarkwolf]

i never said it's the only course, and i'm not sure where you got the impression that i did. i didn't even imply it. care to clue me in to your thought process there?

Well, here's two examples, one each from your previous post and your response to me:

they did the content, they got the stuff, and they can't improve their characters any further outside of cosmetics

but anyway, yes. gear and content progression is what keeps people playing

The content should be challenging, that's a good thing. The content should take a while to complete, that's a good thing, too. So why does tiered gear have to be tied to content unlocks?

There are only two differences between using tiered gear as a gating mechanism to new content and using key items or rare consumables as a gating mechanism to new content:

• Tiered gear creates an illusory sense of skill gains by making it possible to attempt content without a realistic possibility of completing it. When you do complete the content, it was because your gear was better, not you.
• Tiered gear leads to a power treadmill which excludes players from joining their friends until they have completed every shred of content between them.

I have nothing against quest arcs or storylines that take upwards of two months to complete. I agree that if content is too easy and completed too quickly, players will get bored and abandon the game.

I'm saying that, unless the ultimate motivation for players is gear that is unilaterally better than all gear before it, then the better solution for all players is to use a different gating mechanism. Using a different gating mechanism, however, means re-evaluating the reward mechanism, or else new content will be too easy on account of players' stats always going up.

If you're going to say that I'm on the wrong side of the conversation because I want players to be able to attempt an expansion's new content - to join their friends and have the opportunity to spend a few months figuring out how to defeat the new content, even if they never do as a result of time, money, skill, or other constraints - and to do so without having to first spend months of time catching up on previous content just to meet gear tier requirements or leeching while their friends re-grind the content for them, regardless of those new players' skill or potential, then we'll probably never see eye-to-eye on this issue. Stop reading, because nothing else I have to say will be of any interest to you.

If tiered gear is the only answer, that would actually be kind of depressing to me, because that would mean that MMOs are "solved" and the only route to success is to end up following the path of Dragonball Z. Just keep adding more power to the world until the subscriber numbers max out, then constantly scale back your development team to only cater to however many players are the most hardcore, until there's no longer enough players to keep the game afloat. Meanwhile, have the rest of your team work on your next MMO because people will just move to it, starting from level 0.

If content is a stronger motivator, then the question is how to gate the content appropriately so that it can't be completed too quickly. MacGuffins, disposable key items, bosses with puzzle aspects to their fight, etc. There are lots of ways to gate players, including sheer difficulty. This doesn't require a gear treadmill.

If challenge is a stronger motivator, then the question is how to make sure the content is challenging without a gear treadmill. Honestly, this seems like the easiest problem: Make the bosses' stat numbers bigger in relation to the players, and/or change their fight to favor the actions which required the most attention and fastest reactions from the players, that had the most opportunity to wipe the party in the event of a mistake. Van Darnus Hard, Garuda Hard, etc. This doesn't require a gear treadmill, either, in fact a gear treadmill negates whatever effort was spent here making a fight challenging, and all but ensures that the fight will eventually be trivial.

[Stephen]

Yes, it is 'Optional' but the reality is, that that optional content will end up tearing the community further apart and causing undo headaches...because 'if you were a real player you'd have beat that battle on EXTREEEME' will be the epeen sentence people hear all the time. At the end of the day, we will as a community consider the battle to be 'the Extreme' version, not the 'Normal'. But, unless you have a dedicated static/group you do everything with AND play together often (like 4-5+nights a week), you stand little chance of being able to clear this, regardless of your actual skill.

Besides, this is an MMO...overtime battles that once were "epic/hardmode/dude I can't believe we beat him", get easier. This happens either because level cap is raised, players get better gears/abilities/exploits are found/many in the community have clear and are now able to focus on getting 1 person at a time their clear/ or the developers gradually ease the battle as the release newer content. It is far smarter overall to allow the community to ALL beat the same version of a battle for the same quest, than tier content.

For example: Lets remember version 1.0's Ifrit Battle(s) as they were semi-ish tiered.

Ifrit level 25 and Ifrit 'Normal' were both released in the same patch. At the time they were released, we were still in the middle of the 'battle system reforms' and did not have jobs. Even then, Ifrit level 25 was so very easy that very few of us even talk about it. Heck, it is possible to kill him before the person who started the quest can finish watching the CS's.

But the 'Normal' Iffy battle back then, was a decent challenge. MP conservation was an issue, Survival was hard without Sentinel it required some actual player skill, luck with lag and teamwork. But, as the game evolved, with us getting the more refined battle system, jobs, better gears etc. Ifrit 'Normal' became fairly easy for many in the community.

Now that we actually had a battle system and jobs, SE could introduce the Iffy battle they originally intended for us to have..."Iffy Extreme" (due to the lack of jobs, and battle system this would have been an impossible battle back at Ifrit's original patch release) Very few have cleared him at this point or have even gained access, but we ALL talk about it. And now, 'Ifrit Hardmode is now considered the battle you need to clear to be 'Elite'.

Sliders were never needed to allow the community to clear Ifrit though. Overtime and though in game changes, we all get better at the content in the game. Someday, Iffy Hardmode will be considered 'fairly easy' to the community just like 'Normal' mode seems now. (unless SE keeps updating him of course).

Besides, 'hardmode' sliders are really just a cheap way of re-using existing content over and over. "Hey guys we just beat Iffy Easy-mode. Lets try Normal...cool beat that, lets try Hard...beat that....lets do extreeme..." Instead of 'Woot we beat Ifrit! Lets go work on clearing Garuda!'

Nah it wouldn't, I've never experienced people belittling others because they've beaten Garuda or NVD (Hard Mode).

If people want a challenge then give it to them and if they decide to talk sh** and show off just ignore 'em - they'll soon go stroke their epeen elsewhere.

[Altena]

Woah.

Check out this Altena Trife person and his flashy sig and his Eorzea font.
Neat.

Anyhoo, back on topic...
Extreme difficulty is a nice idea. Can't see anything wrong with this.

Lol... this guy... Where did you crawl from?

[Stephen]

There will be hard content that only a small number of the population will beat before the next update is released - and that's the way to it. I remember reading Yoshi answering a question in an interview or something about content (this was originally about 1.x but I don't believe his vision has changed all that much). He said something like "If the content/battle testers in the office can beat it, then it's too easy, as the players will beat it".. Something along those lines at least..

The ability to choose your difficulty is going to exist.
Yes the rewards will reflect the difficulty.
No the "casuals" players should not feel entitled to "rare" or "hard to obtain" items for beating easy content.
Yes items are "rare" because only a minority are able to obtain them.
It does motivate / encourage players (hardcore or casual) to continue playing the game, if there is something to do.

In between a patch, what did you do when you were done with the content? I know all I did was sit in Ul'dah helping random people with AF quests and what not.. It is boring when there is nothing to strive for. Some casual players expect that the regular players should be held back because these casual players are not able to achieve what regulars do.

To be honest, I see more casual players standing around in Ul'dah complaining about not completing content, when the "hardcore" players are out there doing it.

As a casual player: You can not expect to hold a regular player back, waiting for content to be released because they breezed through it, when you have barely even touched it. You cannot complete hard content or obtain the rarer gear because you do not earn it.

This "I am entitled to everything a player who plays 10x as much as me" mentality can shove it. I consider myself a "regular" player, there are many more hardcore then me - however if the content was any easier, even me as a "regular" player would be sitting on 7 relics.

Finally someone with some sense