Originally posted by Kyleran

Ah, but if you make sure you are grouping your quests correctly to minimize your travel time, grouping up with a "speeder" character to speed your journey, making sure you minimize damage to your gear so you don't have to return to home base to get it repaired  (which would waste time) and you can see the "skill" that is required to maximize your efficiency in playing.

Modern MMO's don't require this. 

EVE could employ a Travel System which was as deep as the Combat System in any given game.

All systems have a Problem, which needs solving.  In Combat systems, the problem is a monster.  In this theoretical Travel System, the problem is travel itself.

All good systems give players a variety of tools, which aid the player in solving the problem.  In combat, it's skills/abilities.  A theroetical Travel System would have abilities too.

Press the Overdrive button to speed your ship, but press it too much and you overheat.  As you push your ship to the limits, short circuits would occur which would force the player to press the right buttons to repair these minor malfunctions and maintain speed.

Now if an MMORPG actually did all this stuff, then travel would require skill (because there's margin for error and strategy, tactics, and twitch (all forms of skill) would be required to achieve optimal speed.)  I actually think EVE would do a lot better if it took its ultra-tedious game mechanics and made them games rather than AFKable timesinks.  Maybe you could still AFK them, but you could travel (or mine) up to 50% faster if you tackled the game system.

But as you point out, MMORPGs currently don't do this.  So MMORPG travel doesn't require skill, only patience.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Press the Overdrive button to speed your ship, but press it too much and you overheat.  As you push your ship to the limits, short circuits would occur which would force the player to press the right buttons to repair these minor malfunctions and maintain speed.

Now if an MMORPG actually did all this stuff, then travel would require skill (because there's margin for error and strategy, tactics, and twitch (all forms of skill) would be required to achieve optimal speed.)

Press button to speed your ship, but not press too much -> then you find optimal pressing speed or whatever and travel aat optimal speed.  Then you press buttons to repair malfunctions and short circuits.

I don't see ANY skill in this.

To be honest it sound like totally awful, boring and bothersome way to travel. What's worse If I don't like to press buttons in correct order I travel slower.

Ugh horrid.

Sorry for beign so blunt.

Don't want to play a game where optimal gameplay is where I press buttons all the time. It is fine to do things like that in combat. But if all game activities like travelling, crafting, bartering and all other things started to be mini-games itself mimicking combat - to be honest it would be horrible.

I could see myself beign fed up and exhausted after short time.

In game there shuld be intense activities (like combat) and more slower and laid-back ones.

If I would want constant 'on the edge' intense gameplay, very twitch based games like CS or twitch+bit of tactics like SC2 would be my choice not mmorpg's.

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by Axehilt

Press the Overdrive button to speed your ship, but press it too much and you overheat.  As you push your ship to the limits, short circuits would occur which would force the player to press the right buttons to repair these minor malfunctions and maintain speed.

Now if an MMORPG actually did all this stuff, then travel would require skill (because there's margin for error and strategy, tactics, and twitch (all forms of skill) would be required to achieve optimal speed.)

Press button to speed your ship, but not press too much -> then you find optimal pressing speed or whatever and travel aat optimal speed.  Then you press buttons to repair malfunctions and short circuits.

I don't see ANY skill in this.

 

To be honest it sound like totally awful, boring and bothersome way to travel. What's worse If I don't like to press buttons in correct order I travel slower.

 

Ugh horrid.

 

Sorry for beign so blunt.

 

Don't want to play a game where optimal gameplay is where I press buttons all the time. It is fine to do things like that in combat. But if all game activities like travelling, crafting, bartering and all other things started to be mini-games itself mimicking combat - to be honest it would be horrible.

I could see myself beign fed up and exhausted after short time.

 

In game there shuld be intense activities (like combat) and more slower and laid-back ones.

If I would want constant 'on the edge' intense gameplay, very twitch based games like CS or twitch+bit of tactics like SC2 would be my choice not mmorpg's.

It only sounds shallow because I explained the tip of the iceberg.  If someone explained only 2 MMORPG abilities, that would sound shallow too -- but when all the abilities are in place (including the environmental factors which cause combat to be varied) it ends up being relatively deep.

Also, are you really saying that you've played a game where optimal play didn't involve pressing buttons?  Maybe you missed the part where AFK was still an option.  You can let the game play you (AFK travel) for mediocre speed or you can actively play the game (travel system) for great speed.  In a game where trade/travel/piracy exists, making travel have gameplay is entirely appropriate and would be a lot more popular with players than the quasi-AFKable activity it currently is in EVE.

Originally posted by MMOSareDEAD

This is a common misconception. It's not that MMO content has become easier, it's that the games are easier to get into and to master.

There are definitely fewer barriers to entry.

But the thing is, with those barriers removed, a lot of the "omgsohardcore" feels like it's gone too, particularly to 'old school' players.  The top end raiding game used to be filled only with people who could devote enormous time blocks to both passing the barriers and learning to raid.  In a lot of cases bypassing the barriers took more time to do than learning basic raiding skills did.  Atunement, keys, gathering potion mats for days, gathering resistance gear, yadda yadda.

Now if you equate those rather large blocks of fiddle-time with difficulty, damn straight everything's easier now.

The only question is how much fiddle-time is 'skill' and how much is just tedium for pacing purposes.

Originally posted by gary0515

I dont know about the players being responsible for the decline of MMO's, Every company is in the business of making money. I think that because all the current MMO's out are just basically the same game, get a mission/quest, go out kill the bad guys, loot, then return, turn in and get the reward, rinse repeat. If we the gamers really want more, then we need to either convince the people who make these games that it is profitable to make a game that is different from the current model, or make one ourselves.

 

 

I agree with you.

And additionally the way I see it if the Publishers want to make money then it only implies that these would be listening to what people want.

I mean how many 100M $ MMOs flopping would it take for them to understand what the people want.

In any case, I feel I have expressed my thoughts in other threads about the state of the Industry right now. I have decided to go with Option 2, enough is enough.

---

Originally posted by Icewhite

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Originally posted by MMOSareDEAD
This is a common misconception. It's not that MMO content has become easier, it's that the games are easier to get into and to master.

---

There are definitely fewer barriers to entry.
But the thing is, with those barriers removed, a lot of the "omgsohardcore" feels like it's gone too, particularly to 'old school' players.  The top end raiding game used to be filled only with people who could devote enormous time blocks to both passing the barriers and learning to raid.  In a lot of cases bypassing the barriers took more time to do than learning basic raiding skills did.  Atunement, keys, gathering potion mats for days, gathering resistance gear, yadda yadda.
Now if you equate those rather large blocks of fiddle-time with difficulty, damn straight everything's easier now.
The only question is how much fiddle-time is 'skill' and how much is just tedium for pacing purposes.

---

Originally posted by lizardbones

The top end raiding scene is filled with the same people it was before...the 'hardcore' raid crowd. It's the next tier of raiding down that's more accessible. You do not have 'everyone' or even a sizable population completing the current top tier raid.

Personally, if I did want to raid, I'd rather spend my time raiding instead of spending my time grinding mats in order to raid. I did like the idea of atunement though. I get that it's mostly a waste of time, but the concept was pretty cool (imo).

 

Sorry, but that just isn't true.  The raiders do not remain static; there's a substantial portion of top-tier raiders that first raided in the post-TBC world (=they've always raided in a world with fewer barriers).  Let in those damned casuals and surprise--some of them can play at the required level too.

The barriers to entry have been used to keep the two-percenters on top in the past, but they didn't stay there (entirely) based upon skill.

Originally posted by Axehilt

 

It only sounds shallow because I explained the tip of the iceberg.  If someone explained only 2 MMORPG abilities, that would sound shallow too -- but when all the abilities are in place (including the environmental factors which cause combat to be varied) it ends up being relatively deep.

Also, are you really saying that you've played a game where optimal play didn't involve pressing buttons?  Maybe you missed the part where AFK was still an option.  You can let the game play you (AFK travel) for mediocre speed or you can actively play the game (travel system) for great speed.  In a game where trade/travel/piracy exists, making travel have gameplay is entirely appropriate and would be a lot more popular with players than the quasi-AFKable activity it currently is in EVE.

I am not sure we understand each other. 

Sure if it would be in a game like EVE when f.e. running from other player trying to kill you, would require some kind of active gameplay, then sure I am up for it.  This would just be part of the fighting.

In this case running player would have to activelly use some kind of skills  / "press buttons" to try to get max. speed to run from a player that want / try to kill him while player trying to kill his victim would have to do same + propably try to actually shoot at same time.

Still all those activities would be categorized by me as "fighting", even though player running from "pirate" would not actually fight (let's just assume that for simplicity sake).

What would I absolutely LOATHE, if game was designed that I have to be very concentrated ALL the time and all activities would require "button mashing".

Like I said, active gameplay is good but if mmorpg would have similar level of intensity like f.e. Starcraft 2 at all times, It would be horrible for me personally.

I do see advantages of certain 'improvements' to travel encouragining active gameplay. Let's say sailing in medieval / reneissance like ships on seas in some fictional mmorpg.

One could be done like it was done many times - that you just jump on the boat and then "auto-pilot" or that player just simply use WSAD to steer it - which both are preety boring. 

Sailing could be done much more interesting with having to take care of how sails are set vs wind, watching out for waves if they are high or you have small ship / boat, having to look if ship is not damaging itself from travelling at high speed and / or doing some small repairs (broken sail, damage from underwater rock, etc).

What would be very hard imho to do is level of intensity of that kind of gameplay AND advantage gained from it.

If I would have to play very intense only in sporadic cases (like running from pvp or sporadic pve situation) but f.e. this very intense active gamplay during travel would NOT have big impact on f.e. profits from trading then It would be ok.

Why do I focus on that?

Well for me (all my views on this forums are not about some kind of mythical what is objectively best, but what is best for ME specifically ofc) I always viewed mmorpg (that does NOT include games like f.e. Vindictus which are not mmorpg imho) as games that have 'overall' pace somewhere in the middle between strategic games and rts / fps games. 

So they should be faster than Civilization game (obviously) but slower that Starcraft 2 or Call of Duty.

Bursts of very intense gameplay are fine, whole game that is very intense ALL the time like f.e. CoD is, would not work for me in mmorpg.

Difficulty in mmorpg's should be imo bit of : tactic+twitch+time+inconvenience+abilitytochoose.

It should be diffrent than difficulty in strategy games where it is mainly: abilitytochoose+time

AND diffent than in most FPS where it is mainly: tactic+twitch

So in past mmorpg's difficulty were based mostly on: time + inconvenience, when many people now advocate with exchaning this totally with twitch, which lead basically to e-sport mentality and things like rpm and that would be imho horrid.

Merging in good proportions all of this will make good effects.

So f.e. gear should not determine everything (like it currently is in many mmorpg's) but it should not be changed to twich determine everything mentality from FPS games. 

It should be twitch/ tactic AND gear/ planning combined determine "success".

Originally posted by Suraknar

I mean how many 100M $ MMOs flopping would it take for them to understand what the people want.

Lots, there is no single thing that people want, people want a wide variety of things, many of them mutually contradictory.  Because there is no widespread agreement, there are lots of MMOs that try to capture some of what people want and most of them fail because they try to capture the wrong things.

Originally posted by fenistil

What would I absolutely LOATHE, if game was designed that I have to be very concentrated ALL the time and all activities would require "button mashing".

Ignoring the fact that apparently any key-induced activity in a game is "button mashing" to you, let's be honest:  travel isn't "all the time."

And for the third time, you can always AFK-travel still if you crave AFKing from your games.

That's if you don't get enough AFKing already from sitting inside a station, which you can do at any time.

The fact remains that hauling is a pretty core PVE activity in EVE and so attaching genuine PVE gameplay to it makes perfect sense.  It's even fine if we want to claim that only hauler-class ships involve this additional PVE game system.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by fenistil

What would I absolutely LOATHE, if game was designed that I have to be very concentrated ALL the time and all activities would require "button mashing".

Ignoring the fact that apparently any key-induced activity in a game is "button mashing" to you, let's be honest:  travel isn't "all the time."

And for the third time, you can always AFK-travel still if you crave AFKing from your games.

That's if you don't get enough AFKing already from sitting inside a station, which you can do at any time.

The fact remains that hauling is a pretty core PVE activity in EVE and so attaching genuine PVE gameplay to it makes perfect sense.  It's even fine if we want to claim that only hauler-class ships involve this additional PVE game system.

Seriously and I was thinking we have some kind of conversation and that it is obvious that I am way past discussing only Eve.

Anyway, eot for me don't feel like discussing this anylonger as it does not produce good enough results.

Originally posted by fenistil

Seriously and I was thinking we have some kind of conversation and that it is obvious that I am way past discussing only Eve.

Anyway, eot for me don't feel like discussing this anylonger as it does not produce good enough results.

If the discsussion's going nowhere, it's because you assume "this will make every moment from launch to exit intense gameplay", when in every post I've described why that's not the case.  Don't get hung up on EVE; EVE's irrelevant.  Why would you even assume that this solitary feature could make a game nonstop intensity to begin with?

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Where did the arguement that MMORPG are getting easier come from?

 

I know it cant be from World of Warcraft.

 

something happen today, while I was playing rift. the group tank decided to start WoW bashing, because I guess thats cool.

He said something about WoW being easier. Yet he say the highest level character he has is a level 59 hunter. LOL.

 

I been seeing this argument thrown around about MMORPG being too easy. But I really curious, if the people making these claims are like the Tank I had in my group, who doesnt even play. I guess a game would be easy, if you dont play it. right?

 

lol level 59, yet the game is easycake... lol smh

MMORPGs didnt get easier, players just advanced while Devs decided to come to the conclusion that we're all incompetent, mentally challenged and unstable 12 years old with the attention spans of a carrot.

Originally posted by Doctrevil

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Where did the arguement that MMORPG are getting easier come from?

 

I know it cant be from World of Warcraft.

 

something happen today, while I was playing rift. the group tank decided to start WoW bashing, because I guess thats cool.

He said something about WoW being easier. Yet he say the highest level character he has is a level 59 hunter. LOL.

 

I been seeing this argument thrown around about MMORPG being too easy. But I really curious, if the people making these claims are like the Tank I had in my group, who doesnt even play. I guess a game would be easy, if you dont play it. right?

 

lol level 59, yet the game is easycake... lol smh

MMORPGs didnt get easier, players just advanced while Devs decided to come to the conclusion that we're all incompetent, mentally challenged and unstable 12 years old with the attention spans of a carrot.

That's a good way to look at it. I recently started Rift and honestly did not find anything that truly made me go "oh that's different" outside of the Rift gameplay and soul building. Quest are just like wow in this regard, you simply go quest giver read whatever ones you choose to pick up a bunch and head out. You do all the ones in that little area then go back to quest giver, quest giver says thanks and how badass you are then tells ya he forgot to tell you to kill the boss dude while you were out. Many times is kill the guy before hand without even really realizing.

That's what burns most about current MMOs nothing new. Kill them, collect this, talk with whom. Wash and repeat, rewash and you guessed it re-repeat.

Developers need to realize we don't all like our xp bars served on a silver platter. We want something that's actually creaking challenging. Right now before you even open the box there are a few things you already know. Leveling with a pet will always be easiest and pvping with a rouge will always be pwnz..

Originally posted by Doctrevil

MMORPGs didnt get easier, players just advanced while Devs decided to come to the conclusion that we're all incompetent, mentally challenged and unstable 12 years old with the attention spans of a carrot.

That is just part of the reasons, the MMOs are really easier today, at least parts of them.

I played since Meridian 59 to now, and when you leveled before you could actually die, and many times. Today is the endgame dungeons and the raids still as hard as in EQ but the road there is both a lot faster and easier.

Sure, you could level by just grinding easy mobs in the old games but most people actually played the tougher things. While reaching max level surely wasn't really hard it was at least moderatley challenging before, now it is just a big easy toturial.

"Where did the argument that MMORPG are getting easier come from?"

Hundreds of newbie player corpses outside Qeynos gates.

Obviously there are parts of the newer games that are still hard because they need to appeal to people who like a challenge as well but the base game is much easier. It has to be.

If you want the base game to be as accessible to as wide an audience as possible you need to make it easier, especially at the start, and even if you're not trying to make the game accessible to the very young but you have a solo questing game where the quests are the same for all classes then the quests have to be beatable by the weakest soloing class. So it has to be easy. If EQ had been designed to be soloable by clerics then it would have had to be easy too.

One way to get a compromise would be

- make the base game harder but allow the option at character creation for "beginner mode" or "casual mode" etc which provided buffs and maybe did things like stopped mobs from aggroing if the player is already fighting

- make class specific quests, at least for the weak soloing classes, or make the weak soloing classes stronger (or set the base difficulty such that a duo was optimal)

Originally posted by MMOtoGO

Old mmo's were harder back when I used to have to walk to school in 10 feet of snow, uphill both ways with no shoes on.  

Nostalgia makes everything look better.  Except my high-school senior picture...it's still terrible.

haha this made me laugh. Most people think older mmos are harder because it took a much longer time to level. That used to be ok when I was in University and had that kind of time (that's when I played lineage 2). But, by no means does taking longer to level or forcing people to group to level mean that the game is harder. 

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Dewm

 P.S. and now that I thinka bout it puzzle games are measured in time also. If a puzzle game takes me 20 seconds to figure out its easy, if another puzzle takes me 2 hours to figure out its hard...

 time = difficulty in any game.

Okay, while you're jogging across Kalimdor, you can tell your friends how incredibly skillfully you're jogging.  I'm very sure that they'll be very impressed.

Ah, but if you make sure you are grouping your quests correctly to minimize your travel time, grouping up with a "speeder" character to speed your journey, making sure you minimize damage to your gear so you don't have to return to home base to get it repaired  (which would waste time) and you can see the "skill" that is required to maximize your efficiency in playing.

Modern MMO's don't require this.

 

I have difficulaty speaking the same language with anyone who stretches his definitions until they're big enough to fit an argument.

Jogging, from A to B.  Difficult?  A skill that you need to practice to get better at?

I'm simply tring to dismiss an overly simplistic argument that time = difficulty, when we all know that there are a variety of situations where time is simply wasted in the (dev's interest) of game pacing (often called "time sink"). 

The two terms are not synonyms, even when you can show examples where they are closely related, there are also examples where they are not.

I guess it depends on what game we're talking about and if travel is supposed to be dangerous.  Maybe in WoW it's trivial to walk across the continent requiring no skill or thought.  Move that scenario to Eve and traveling from point A to B can be very difficult.  Try setting the autopilot to shortest distance without knowing the route or using the proper ship and chances are you will die in a burst of colorful pixels.

I understand where you're coming from with time sinks, but sometimes they are a necessary evil.

Originally posted by DiSpLiFF

Originally posted by MMOtoGO

Old mmo's were harder back when I used to have to walk to school in 10 feet of snow, uphill both ways with no shoes on.  

Nostalgia makes everything look better.  Except my high-school senior picture...it's still terrible.

haha this made me laugh. Most people think older mmos are harder because it took a much longer time to level. That used to be ok when I was in University and had that kind of time (that's when I played lineage 2). But, by no means does taking longer to level or forcing people to group to level mean that the game is harder. 

I completely disagree with the grouping part.  Working as a team requires skill and takes practice to perfect.