The new Standard of Gaming?

[silentwindfr]

the beginning of wow wasn't challenging... it was more a trouble with the fact to bring 40 people and make them do what they need to do with the right gears.
and don't watch high level content... try it!!! watch and do it are two different thing.

the primal hm don't allows any error... you miss, you die is as simple than this... then when people play well it look simple... but it's far of simple.

[Yoko_Kurama]

Dude you are barking up the wrong tree here with these people trust me. Many of these guys don't know what it's like to play an mmo where the very possibility to get to end game content involves weeks of struggle where you must plan out not only personal strategy on how you will build your characters class and abilities but also find like minded friends who can plan battle strategies with otherwise that level 15 or level 30 dungeon will be impossible to get through. These people who say that the game should truly activate at max level just make me chuckle, level 1 through 50 IS the game! People talk about what they call end game but in actuality what they are talking about is After the end of the game. In other words people here seem to be satisfied that the entire game leading up to the last 10 levels (when content begins to sort of challenge you) is somehow a good rpg practice...ridiculous. Don't worry i'm siding with you on this on OP.

[MattReaver]

This game was ready for release. So it was very difficult to read your entire post but got most of it.

I've ran into 2-3 bugs so far and all of them have been display bugs. (I'm not counting server issues though).

I felt your post was about a disagreement with the mechanics of the game. Most I agree with and definitely plays into the casuals. The problem though is striking a balance for casuals and hardcore which hopefully willimprove over time. Please don't take that statement as a fan boy when the last FF I've played was X. But yea you're in disagreement with the game design and thats why you are saying it was released early.

[FritoBandito]

What you're calling "too easy" might be just right for someone else, or challenging for another. IMO the difficulty is just right once they iron out some kinks with certain battles.

I personally do not find anything that is overly-challenging to be "fun." There is a sweetspot between too difficult and too easy, and that's where I believe the difficulty level should rest. I'd say a perfect example of how challenging a good boss fight should be is the battle with the final boss of the story. It's really not a "hard" boss but it's fun, it keeps you moving, it's not cheap, and it's quite doable. That's what I call fun. But hey, if stressfully-difficult is what you want, then go play with Titan Hardmode. Good luck.

[Ariyn]

-snip-

You start off saying that all games are easy mode and that no content is challenging anymore. Well sir if you think that then why not jump back on wow and go clear out hard mode warchief. After that come back level to 50, grind your gear, and blow through the hard mode primals. Since you are so amazing and the games are so faceroll you should be able to do all of this quickly since you won't die and carry 7+ others with you the entire way right?


You play the beginning of a game and expect it to be hard? Get real. No game you have played has been hard. WoW, GW, and (lol) Maple Story ... what part of any of them was actually hard minus the end game hard modes in WoW? And even then only some were difficult.

You should stick to the console games that don't cater to the casuals. /endrant

Dude you are barking up the wrong tree here with these people trust me. Many of these guys don't know what it's like to play an mmo where the very possibility to get to end game content involves weeks of struggle where you must plan out not only personal strategy on how you will build your characters class and abilities but also find like minded friends who can plan battle strategies with otherwise that level 15 or level 30 dungeon will be impossible to get through. These people who say that the game should truly activate at max level just make me chuckle, level 1 through 50 IS the game! People talk about what they call end game but in actuality what they are talking about is After the end of the game. In other words people here seem to be satisfied that the entire game leading up to the last 10 levels (when content begins to sort of challenge you) is somehow a good rpg practice...ridiculous. Don't worry i'm siding with you on this on OP.

Prolly shouldn't speak for others when you have no idea what they have or haven't done. Personally been playing MMOs since UO and EQ1 and hardcore raided even back then being world 2nd to clear VT when it took weeks of farming for just 1 key and you needed to get 72 of them done. I know all about time sinks and difficulty. And if you think for a second that any game designer will ever put that into a game again you're sadly mistaken. They would lose their asses off if they did that. Hell even SOE the kings of bs and time sinks are making their new game to cater to the more casual crowd because that is where the money is.

I do agree that the challenge shouldn't be as low as it is in the early levels and that players should gradually be pushed into harder and harder content. But realistically speaking no company will do it. You push too much and people say its too hard and needs to be nerfed. You nerf it to cater to the casual crowd and the hardcore will complain. No one will ever be 100% happy with a game. If you don't like it find one that suits you better. No harm done and I'm sure most won't miss you.

[Daragust]

So why, then, do the developers of today's society feel the need to make all the content readily, and quickly, available to people who play for no more than an hour a day?

Before I say this, I want you to understand I totally get where you are coming from. I have found the continual casualisation of MMOs to cause the downfall of community and challenge.

That being said, lets look at the numbers. This is the real world, and money speaks, not passion.
A hard core player that plays 10 hours a day is getting their entertainment on a 15 dollar a month MMO at a price of 5 cents an hour. For that price, you are demanding the following: More content, constant tuning of existing content, new gear models, new enemy models and usually re-balancing of PvP. Every patch. For 5 cents an hour.

A casual playing 2 hours a day is paying 25 cents an hour. 5 times your hourly investment. For that they are asking the following. Some time, in the future, I want the same things everyone else has. That is it. They aren't demanding fixes. They aren't demanding new content.

If you are a company looking to make money, which crowd would you target?

[ExiaQuanta]

I thought Garuda Normal and Aurum Vale was already a bitch to deal with. First few runs in Aurum Vale? Didnt even get pass the first room. Got killed twice by Garuda. And im playing what people consider the easiest/laziest class to play which is Bard.

[arctic]

Thesis paper on qq

tldr;

Go play the game till you hit cap instead of wasting your time acting upset over something you haven't finished yet.

[jbizzi]

OP, It just kind of sounds like these aren't the types of games for you. If you have not found a challenge in any of the games you have played over the last 10+ years, then you should really just focus on the things in life that aren't "boring."

You can't really just sit back and ask a game to change to your whims because you find it necessary for your enjoyment... notice how many times I referenced you.

[Yshnal]

1) A long GCD, which makes combat easier because you have more time to think about what you're doing, and more time to react to what happens to you.

It might seem so, but the GCD limits what you can do at any given moment and keeps you on your toes to not spam abilities and think more strategically. Just spam them and you won't have that skill that you need at a certain point in order to keep everyone safe (i.e. stuns & interrupts).

2) Pigeon-holing jobs into very specific skill-sets and roles, which takes the thought out of creating a class, thus making it easier to understand and use.

Holy trinity and all that. It was clear that this game was based on it. Variety in MMOs is good, and if you want a bit of freedom in that regard you have both GW2 and TSW there for you, and both are decent games.

3) A very low number of abilities, which make it easier to figure out what to do, because you have very few buttons to ever push.

Not at 50. I have two bars full of abilities that I use almost on every fight.

4) FATEs that give ridiculous amounts of experience, and developers that say this is how it should be. Simply another way to expedite the leveling process.

The problem with fates is that they're the optimal alternative when you level your other classes/jobs. They don't need to reduce the exp they give, but limit the amount of fates that you can do daily receiving the full reward (similarly to levequests, but with no hard limit and just some sort of diminishing returns after you do X fates to prevent mindless farming) and, at the same time, improve the other alternatives.

5) Bosses that are just laughable and feel like a big trash monster. Making fights flashy doesn't make them hard, sorry.

Not all of them, specially at end game. Also, if you really care about really hard fights just roll a tank or a healer and you'll have what you want since level 1.