Few friends and I are shooting the crap while watching the Super Bowl.  And we got onto the discussion of challenge in games.  All of us used to be in the same raid guild in EQ1 before SoL was out (when EQ was pretty hard), and we all were kind of reminiscing about the difficulty that mmo's used to have.  Eventually we started talking about current MMO's and not a single one of us can think of an MMO currently out where EVERY battle with mobs feels like a fight for your life.  Like you could die at any time, and you are truly in danger of your life.  

Is there anything out currently, or coming out soon, where every PVE fight you get into actually feels hard & challenging?  Strictly talking open world solo or small group content.  Not raiding or group dungeon runs.   I really miss that feeling of imminent danger that EQ1 had.

I can tell you what eve 1v1 feels like...

you try to keep track of all you want to get done going in but as the fight carries on and you start to panic, you start forgetting things like overloading your weapons and are more worried about your range and transversal velocity...then when you die you realised you could've done it 100 times better.

Originally posted by ragz45
Hmmm should have specififed, but I was talking about PVE fights.  PvP pretty much always feels like a challenge, just the nature of the game.  I'll edit the orriginal post.

Well PVE is pretty damn good as well,there is no real kill a zillion rat type missions so you can be focussed on certain mobs and hone your skills,only took part in one major group PVE event which was a blast and I was on Russian servers as well !!

The game is damn hard to pin down as it's very unique you just need to try it and make up your own mind, but if u like old kung fu movies and martial arts coupled with the plethora of  flying skills this could be your thang also being endorsed by Jet Li can't be bad.

challenging PvE outside very high-end raiding is something that has faded over the last decade.

I got owned by a whelp in Lineage 2 badly. it seemed to do %dmg based on your health so i figured I'll go in with low hp and trick it. I had the whole walk back to think about why it was retarded...

Originally posted by darker70
Age of Wushu/Wulin best combat and most fun I've had especially in PVP in a long while.

I actually play Wushu atm as it does indeed have some very fun PvP elements.  (I actually wrote a fairly long review of it on the site here)  But challenging PVE isn't one of the aspects of the game.  Never once have I been worried for my life in Wushu.  Even the dungeon's are fairly par for course for current MMO's, once you understand the mechanics they are fairly face roll-able.

Skyrim is quite challenging at parts.  There were quite a few times in skyrim where I was actually scared for my life.  I can only hope that TES is as challenging as skyrim was.  But I have to be honest and say that I have severe doubts that it will be.

You could try the other old school game.

ASHERON’S CALL

http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

I used to have a blast playing that game.

I might, was just hoping for something with more updated graphics.  But that may be my only choice.

The Secret World. cant stress this enough.

Originally posted by Nitth

The Secret World. cant stress this enough.

I can somewhat second this. I don't know if you feel like you may die in every fight, but no fight is a faceroll and many of them you aren't sure how it will end up. Aion is similar, actually.

PvE was actually challenging in Darkfall. You had to stay on your toes.

Beyond that, none I can think of, unfortunately.

Originally posted by Nitth

The Secret World. cant stress this enough.

Ahh yea!  Now that's a good sugestion =)   There were definitly fights in TSW that I had to really take care of died fast lol.  I haven't played much TSW since the beta, I may have to download it and get back into it.

It's really a shame that dev's seem to think that our brains are so small that challenge in a video game is beyond us....  =(

This whole trend of trying to make us feel like "hero's" is getting to be a bit old.  I miss the days where every player was just an average Joe trying to make it in the big bad world.

Heh this whole thread has gotten me reminiscing about the old days of EQ.  My first character ever in an MMO.  I was outside of Qeynos killing rats (one a time becuase 2 rats could kill me) when suddenly this big rat jumped on me and started beating my tail in.  I quickly high tailed it to the guards and watched as they slaughtered like 15 rats that were chasing after me.

Ahhh I miss those days.

Originally posted by ragz45

Few friends and I are shooting the crap while watching the Super Bowl.  And we got onto the discussion of challenge in games.  All of us used to be in the same raid guild in EQ1 before SoL was out (when EQ was pretty hard), and we all were kind of reminiscing about the difficulty that mmo's used to have.  Eventually we started talking about current MMO's and not a single one of us can think of an MMO currently out where EVERY battle with mobs feels like a fight for your life.  Like you could die at any time, and you are truly in danger of your life.  

Is there anything out currently, or coming out soon, where every PVE fight you get into actually feels hard & challenging?  Strictly talking open world solo or small group content.  Not raiding or group dungeon runs.   I really miss that feeling of imminent danger that EQ1 had.

Path of Exile. 

Originally posted by Nitth

The Secret World. cant stress this enough.

I found TSW PvE to be extremely easy actually up until the second zone in Transylvania (don't remember the name) where the difficulty just skyrocketed.  I'd say at that point it was pretty challenging and every pull was fairly exciting.  Dungeons weren't too hard either, even on the Nightmare modes.  Me and my buddy just did a tank/healer setup and AoEd everything down up until that point.

To be honest I can't really think of a MMO with challenging PvE (beyond end-game raiding / dungeons) INCLUDING old school MMOs which I honestly consider anything but challenging (they were just gear check combat simulators with extremely slow repetitive combat).

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Originally posted by Magnum2103

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Originally posted by Nitth The Secret World. cant stress this enough.

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I found TSW PvE to be extremely easy actually up until the second zone in Transylvania (don't remember the name) where the difficulty just skyrocketed.  I'd say at that point it was pretty challenging and every pull was fairly exciting.  Dungeons weren't too hard either, even on the Nightmare modes.  Me and my buddy just did a tank/healer setup and AoEd everything down up until that point.

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That's because you duod ...

I found doing the story quests quite challenging if you dont know the mechanics..
some of the most challenging things in the game is where your forced to go it alone

Gate keeper is also a great example.