What can we learn from the phenomenon of Classic WoW Hardcore?

There's a WoW addon called Hardcore that requires players to delete their character if they die while playing WoW Classic. The addon broadcasts all player deaths to others who have it installed.

It is not a surprise to me that even experienced WoW players are dying repeatedly at low levels and in absurd ways, such as falling, pulling mobs incorrectly, being unaware of dungeon traps, and more. This demonstrates that veteran players who have played for years can still die due to their lack of basic knowledge, as they never had to learn these skills when they first started playing the game. They are dying in the most ludicrous ways like AoE farming, fall deaths, pulling mobs the wrong way, dying to mob trains, dying to obivous dungeon traps and dyring to blatant lack of awareness of their surroundings... this is because they were playing the game mindlessly without any care at all.

Here are two observations

They are enjoying the game much more as they get a thrill from entering a room or taking a risky jump. People are having a great time unlike anything they have experienced before.
With the discovery of a hardcore flag in WoW's code, some players speculate that Blizzard is planning to release official hardcore servers where players will lose their characters if they die. However, this has sparked controversy among those who have been grinding the game without a purpose and are now demanding new content instead of hardcore servers. It's worth noting that if they weren't grinding the game to the point of mental exhaustion, they probably wouldn't be clamoring for new content in the first place..

I believe that game developers and the gaming community should understand that games with risks encourage players to play thoughtfully and slowly in the long run. This means that every little detail and experience gains value and makes the game more enjoyable. However, when there is no risk and only grinding involved, all those details and experiences lose their value, leading to players demanding more content. Unfortunately, this additional content also loses its value quite quickly due to this lack of meaningful gameplay.

A game with no risks loses it's substance that is being enjoyable.

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Comments

RazThemun

Systems put in place that are viewed as a punishment to the player,do not end well for the masses! You could de level for each death, have to create a new character, etc. Some players would be A OK with this. However many over time would find it tedious and boring and just stop playing the game.
You mask ask why? Because of lack of progression. If people do not feel progression in a video game they eventually ask themself "why am I doing this"? I keep dying in the same spot or at the same level... just to start all over again. And this spot or level of the game may feel mandatory to me. So this is no longer fun to me... let me just play something else.
There does need to be challenge, there does need to be some risk vs reward. But if the risk seems to heavy, you will lose players resulting in smaller servers, fewer servers, or dead game. If the goal is for millions to play or retaining several hundred thousand players this is not a good idea.
I have guildees right now who have left games like wow for shooters... why? lack of time. Not feeling their time respected, etc. Why grind for hundreds of hours always chasing the carrot to never get it... when I can just que into a 15 minute round to enjoy my time, wind down for bed, and then log?

Spif

The rise of idle-style games show that there is a large swath of gamers that don't really want challenge or a skill check. They just want to click their way through to rewards. Luckily this isn't the way AoC is going to go, but it's been influencing a lot of games.

In AoC, full hardcore isn't in scope. But there could be "Hardcore mode" events. IE, you can play this (weekend, week-long, whatever) event until you die. Then you're booted and cannot rejoin. I'd actually like to see this as a solo event, but the lack of focus on solo balancing means that probably won't work.

Maybe something to work on after release

Ludullu

Spif wrote: »

The rise of idle-style games show that there is a large swath of gamers that don't really want challenge or a skill check. They just want to click their way through to rewards. Luckily this isn't the way AoC is going to go, but it's been influencing a lot of games.

As someone who's put multiple thousand hours into all kinds of idlers, but still wants difficulty in his games - I dare claim that correlation does not equal causation in this case

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Spif wrote: »

The rise of idle-style games show that there is a large swath of gamers that don't really want challenge or a skill check. They just want to click their way through to rewards. Luckily this isn't the way AoC is going to go, but it's been influencing a lot of games.

As someone who's put multiple thousand hours into all kinds of idlers, but still wants difficulty in his games - I dare claim that correlation does not equal causation in this case

But have you downloaded State of Survival from the link in the video to receive your 777 draws and the Legendary Hero Lucky?

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

But have you downloaded State of Survival from the link in the video to receive your 777 draws and the Legendary Hero Lucky?

Nope, but I did cave in to play Raid Shadow Legends after months of yt ads

wasn't my type of game. Autoplay is not quite idle gaming imo (even if it is effectively the same thing), so I kinda differentiate those.

Diamaht

Yulivee wrote: »

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

There's a WoW addon called Hardcore that requires players to delete their character if they die while playing WoW Classic. The addon broadcasts all player deaths to others who have it installed.

It is not a surprise to me that even experienced WoW players are dying repeatedly at low levels and in absurd ways, such as falling, pulling mobs incorrectly, being unaware of dungeon traps, and more. This demonstrates that veteran players who have played for years can still die due to their lack of basic knowledge, as they never had to learn these skills when they first started playing the game. They are dying in the most ludicrous ways like AoE farming, fall deaths, pulling mobs the wrong way, dying to mob trains, dying to obivous dungeon traps and dyring to blatant lack of awareness of their surroundings... this is because they were playing the game mindlessly without any care at all.

Here are two observations
They are enjoying the game much more as they get a thrill from entering a room or taking a risky jump. People are having a great time unlike anything they have experienced before.

With the discovery of a hardcore flag in WoW's code, some players speculate that Blizzard is planning to release official hardcore servers where players will lose their characters if they die. However, this has sparked controversy among those who have been grinding the game without a purpose and are now demanding new content instead of hardcore servers. It's worth noting that if they weren't grinding the game to the point of mental exhaustion, they probably wouldn't be clamoring for new content in the first place..

I believe that game developers and the gaming community should understand that games with risks encourage players to play thoughtfully and slowly in the long run. This means that every little detail and experience gains value and makes the game more enjoyable. However, when there is no risk and only grinding involved, all those details and experiences lose their value, leading to players demanding more content. Unfortunately, this additional content also loses its value quite quickly due to this lack of meaningful gameplay.

A game with no risks loses it's substance that is being enjoyable.

My wife and I were playing a lot of MMORPGs over the years and at some point came to WoW Classic. I already anticipated, that I would have fun with it due to the nostalgic feelings involved etc. etc.
But I didnt expect how much my wife, who never played the old WoW, enjoyed it and even prefered it over newer versions of the game and other, newer MMORPGs. We were thinking a lot (and I really mean a lot) about this and a part of our conclusion is precisely represented by your post Arya.

Really hope Intreprid will stay with this as a core principle for their games design and overcome the temptation to weaken it to please a certain audience that in my interpretation falls into Stevens "the game is not for everyone" category.

The OP isn't refering to WoW Classic. He's talking about Hardcore gameplay, think Path of Exile.

I agree with you and you wife about WoW classic

Diamaht

If they were to ever put this system in, it wouldn't bother me. You would have players running around with a HC tag.

You would 100 percent get PKd eventually, though, and I don't imagine HC folks would generally be ok with that.

Dezemi

Hmm.. perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought Arya meant "punishing" deaths (which is a thing in AoC) - and I agree death should be punishing - I did not read it as necessarily permadeath (which I really don't think should be a thing in regular mmo play - that is a lobby game thing).

Arya_Yeshe

Yulivee wrote: »

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

There's a WoW addon called Hardcore that requires players to delete their character if they die while playing WoW Classic. The addon broadcasts all player deaths to others who have it installed.

It is not a surprise to me that even experienced WoW players are dying repeatedly at low levels and in absurd ways, such as falling, pulling mobs incorrectly, being unaware of dungeon traps, and more. This demonstrates that veteran players who have played for years can still die due to their lack of basic knowledge, as they never had to learn these skills when they first started playing the game. They are dying in the most ludicrous ways like AoE farming, fall deaths, pulling mobs the wrong way, dying to mob trains, dying to obivous dungeon traps and dyring to blatant lack of awareness of their surroundings... this is because they were playing the game mindlessly without any care at all.

Here are two observations
They are enjoying the game much more as they get a thrill from entering a room or taking a risky jump. People are having a great time unlike anything they have experienced before.

With the discovery of a hardcore flag in WoW's code, some players speculate that Blizzard is planning to release official hardcore servers where players will lose their characters if they die. However, this has sparked controversy among those who have been grinding the game without a purpose and are now demanding new content instead of hardcore servers. It's worth noting that if they weren't grinding the game to the point of mental exhaustion, they probably wouldn't be clamoring for new content in the first place..

I believe that game developers and the gaming community should understand that games with risks encourage players to play thoughtfully and slowly in the long run. This means that every little detail and experience gains value and makes the game more enjoyable. However, when there is no risk and only grinding involved, all those details and experiences lose their value, leading to players demanding more content. Unfortunately, this additional content also loses its value quite quickly due to this lack of meaningful gameplay.

A game with no risks loses it's substance that is being enjoyable.

My wife and I were playing a lot of MMORPGs over the years and at some point came to WoW Classic. I already anticipated, that I would have fun with it due to the nostalgic feelings involved etc. etc.
But I didnt expect how much my wife, who never played the old WoW, enjoyed it and even prefered it over newer versions of the game and other, newer MMORPGs. We were thinking a lot (and I really mean a lot) about this and a part of our conclusion is precisely represented by your post Arya.

Really hope Intreprid will stay with this as a core principle for their games design and overcome the temptation to weaken it to please a certain audience that in my interpretation falls into Stevens "the game is not for everyone" category.

I have rediscovered fun in a MMO where just by running around the map is a thrill, hardcore remembered me how good WoW is and it only became a bad game to me because since there was no risk involved everything became a grind

Now with hardcore there is no mindless grind and everything has a meaning, everything is well thought and well put together

Arya_Yeshe

Dezmerizing wrote: »

Hmm.. perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought Arya meant "punishing" deaths (which is a thing in AoC) - and I agree death should be punishing - I did not read it as necessarily permadeath (which I really don't think should be a thing in regular mmo play - that is a lobby game thing).

I'm not advertising that permadeath is what devs should look for, but the post is about the community's quest for meaningful gameplay

Permadeath just makes blatant that people miss the adrenalin rush, I don't think games should be unforgivin like Path of Exile (which I also played and lost my favorite Gladiator), but having meaninful deaths and meaninful exploration is where the fun is

Many possibilities could be made other than permadeath, it all depeonds on the game... but ressurecting right after and just continuing the grind brakes the fun

Arya_Yeshe

Apparently AoC will have a healthy amount of risk, this ingredient is important and how it is handled is also important

Azherae

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Dezmerizing wrote: »

Hmm.. perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought Arya meant "punishing" deaths (which is a thing in AoC) - and I agree death should be punishing - I did not read it as necessarily permadeath (which I really don't think should be a thing in regular mmo play - that is a lobby game thing).

I'm not advertising that permadeath is what devs should look for, but the post is about the community's quest for meaningful gameplay

Permadeath just makes blatant that people miss the adrenalin rush, I don't think games should be unforgivin like Path of Exile (which I also played and lost my favorite Gladiator), but having meaninful deaths and meaninful exploration is where the fun is

Many possibilities could be made other than permadeath, it all depeonds on the game... but ressurecting right after and just continuing the grind brakes the fun

Well then now I have a potentially useful question.

tl;dr Meaningful is a function of skill and in a competitive game setting the 'meaningful' slider to something that doesn't punish the average player results in no change long term.

The problem with MMOs is that generally their 'difficulty' is a weird function. You have to make it so that players don't have to be 100% at all times even in their combat, but gamers have a huge skill range. But then if the dying isn't the interesting part, what do you do?

I'll use MOBA anecdote because it's easy, I'm not really saying that MOBAs specifically are related to your topic, it's just that I can't think of a 'single player' game that feels hard without self imposed challenge, so:

A good Carry in Predecessor in a short game usually kills 10 opponents and dies maybe 5 times depending on how much escape their kit has.

An average one kills about 6 opponents and dies maybe 5 times.

A poor one kills 3 people and dies 15 times, and a genius one might kill 12 people and die only once. That genius one is never even thinking they're in danger. There's no adrenaline rush for them, it's just 'another day at the office'.

If you make an MMO where the GENERAL open world experience is dangerous to the AVERAGE player you haven't changed anything about the experiences of the people who tend to talk about the game. To those people (who are usually the 'winners' on a server in a competitive game) everything is still easy, and because things are easy to them, for their average opponents, every encounter with them is 'extra hard'.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

If you make an MMO where the GENERAL open world experience is dangerous to the AVERAGE player you haven't changed anything about the experiences of the people who tend to talk about the game. To those people (who are usually the 'winners' on a server in a competitive game) everything is still easy, and because things are easy to them, for their average opponents, every encounter with them is 'extra hard'.

All the 100++ pages of dps meter discussion is proof of this. That whole thread pretty much comes down to "no, you don't need meters because content can be difficult w/o them" vs "no, you need meters because content literally can't be difficult w/o them". And the difference in opinion comes from the skill lvl of the participants of that discussion.

Arya_Yeshe

People are dying non-stop in WoW hardcore for the dumbest reasons!! LOL
Blizzard didn't change anything in the game (for now), everything is default

This is proof that people have been playing the game like zombies for years, dying carelessly and indifferent to consequences of any kind... Now, this just shows that the lack of incentive for staying alive has made them bad at the game. In hardcore people are feeling alive and having fun

Noaani

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

People are dying non-stop in WoW hardcore for the dumbest reasons!! LOL
Blizzard didn't change anything in the game (for now), everything is default

This is proof that people have been playing the game like zombies for years, dying carelessly and indifferent to consequences of any kind... Now, this just shows that the lack of incentive for staying alive has made them bad at the game. In hardcore people are feeling alive and having fun

Or its proof that people are only playing it as a gimmick, as a side show.

People are going there to meme it up, not to have a meaningful gaming experience.

Syndraela

I think a game does not need to be hardcore to make people start thinking (again), but it can. A lot of people are careless today and the games let them do it. Character death is not the only thing .. when is the last time you have seen a quest fail? And were you able to just cancel it and start it anew or was it gone forever because that NPC you were supposed to escort died or something? I may have played too many mainstream games but i have not seen a quest truely fail in any content that is younger than 15 years. The last deaths I really wanted to avoid at all costs was while revisiting my nostalgia games Lineage 2 and Ragnarok online because it could mean hours woth of playtime. Most games have developed away from punishing to players and have become some shallow handholding experience with opt-in danger at maximum. And I agree with Stevens opinion just recently stated on the Q&A that this is mostly because the people making the decisions are not gamers but just interested in player retention rate and milking the game as much as they can. Sure when you are raiding or doing arena and the like you want to minimize unplanned deaths but this is basically only a few hours a week, opt-in and can change from second to second when the raid lead/ team mate announces 'we just try again'.

I am really grateful that Ashes has a different aproach to this and I hope they don't back down on this or tune it down so much that it becomes irrelevant because I highly doubt corporate will ever have the guts to try and I don't want to wait 20+ years to maybe find a game that will. We need a prime example to prove that this can work and that our games are allowed and even need to have challenge to them.

In terms of difficulty and what is appropriate I don't see a problem during level phase if you don't explicitly introduce it. By that I mean mechanics like WoW's hit rating that artificially increases the power gap between attacker and target by reducing the hit chance for every level of difference. To the point that it soon becomes undoable even though the dps to hp ratio has barely changed. This of course requires giving the players meaningful content they can do together without the need of micromanaging quest progress. What I mean by this is that traditionally in theme park mmos every person has personal progression in a story line of a zone. Which is nice for telling a narrative but a real hassle when you want level somewhere that matches your or your group's level of strength. Quests are often implemented as chains (meaning you can't hop in at any point but have to do all previous steps) starting at a certain level. If you level alone this might be fine. Quest chain starters becomes available when your character hits a level the devs think is appropriate and then provide content of appropriate level as you progress through a zone. But this changes a lot if any or a combination of the following happen (only the first few I could think of. There is propably more)
- You like to quest as a group (especially relevant for non-dps-classes)
- - The level of your group members varies
- You you have higher personal skill level as what the quest is balanced around
- You like more challenge
- You have something affect your experience income (basically any activity that you can do asside from questing)
A lot of these things already apply to playing in single player mode. If you bring more players into the equation it only gets worse. This is where I think story arcs will help us a lot because they provide a meaningful goal that is available to everyone propably in a broad level range that everyone progresses in as a team. They were said to have multiple objectives which maybe don't have to be for the same level and can yield different amount of quest progress for participating. This way you are part of the same narrative but you can adjust the difficulty as members leave and join the party or as you see fit and you have a reason to get back into . If you combine this with quests that don't have many preconditions, if any at all, you give the players some flexibility to adjust the difficulty themselves. If you take the risk taking on higher level mobs with the chance of additional, better or just different rewards/experience is up to you and if you like to play it safe and feel cozy you just do simpler objectives. At least this sounds like a vlaid option for me but I m not sure whether it still works in endgame content.

I think the main goal of the original post was to show that the hardcore movement, even though really unforgiving, already appeals to some players who miss the challenge in their games. And challenge is not really about the punishment but about the fun, thrill and pride propably many of us felt when first playing mmos. When we got out of dangerous situations, when we achieved a certain level and because we have learned from our mistakes and those of others, made friends and got to know the world better. That got lost along the way due to us becoming more experienced as mmo players and games getting easier. It is not just character progression (level, items,..) but also player progression (player skill). Hardcore is just some challenge to bring back a bit of viewing the world through the eyes of a child. And yeah maybe some people try to get attention and clicks with this but some others do it purely for their enjoyment because we can't wipe our brains to get this experience back so one has to find other ways.

Kilion

I think there is not much to learn for Intrepid from this as they already are aware of the risk-reward dynamic that makes things ingame and IRL meaningful. With that being said - what works in WoW does not work in other MMOs. For once, WoW has been out for a freaking long time so in theory the knowledge to survive has been out there for a long time hence getting into a perma death mode of a game people have known for over a decade has a significantly lower threshold than going into a new game entirely. Add to that the fact that Ashes requires change and perma death in a game that encourages people to take their time every step of the way through horizontal progression, trial and error, that ultimately requires massive scale breaking of the current situation through huge PvP sieges (meaning giant amount of perma deaths) and that allows for PKs even of low level players through higher level players, neither permadeath nor log in timers after death would make sense for Ashes.

The only three things this shows in my opinon are: (1) risk motivates people who love to play daredevil style, (2) the love of this mode amongst streamers means they are almost the only ones with the time to commit to building back up after death and (3) there are no more interesting MMORPGs out there to play and watch so modding old ones is the only solution next to just letting the genre rest (for now).

Arya_Yeshe

@Syndraela last time I've seen the npc die in a quest leading to quest failure, it was in the WoW (2004) 's Defias Traitor quest, where people from the Horde would come to an Alliance low level area and kill the npc just to ruin other people's missions. At that time I only had a character in the Alliance and I found this hilarious, I never cried about it.

In EVE Online (2003) some missions are so hard for your skill level (or you lost the quest item, because you died and random people looted it) that you simply turn around and go talk to the npc and click ABANDON MISSION and it fails LOL. But, if you find someone else doing the same mission, kill that player, loot the mission item, you can go to the NPC and deliver the item a if it was yours and the mission is sucessful.

In Guild Wars 2 (2012) it is impossible failing a quest, also any random person (not even in the party) can shoot your mobs and that will also help you in completing the quest, you will both complete the quest/event and the payout will be in full for both of you. Everybody is a winner in GW2 PvE.

What I would like to see in a MMO is you starting your own quests and goals, even setting goals for your weapons... let's say you right click your sword and select an achievement, then you complete that achievement along many days. When this tracker is complete you can turn your sword into a legendary sword. That would mean something

I gave up playing a few games with hit rating influenced by level differences, this is utter garbage... I want to play a game where I can create my level 1 character right now and if I see a level 50 with 1 hp in his health bar, I want to gank him while being level 1

Arya_Yeshe

About streamers, everything I said about hardcore is validated by the streamers, since it is the streamers who know that this is fun and people will like this. Even I LMAO just by seeing people running and jumping around and then falling from a bridge and dying for no reason... it is hilarious. If this wasn't hardcore, I wouldn't have laughed hysterically

They know it is fun, they have a public to appease to, also the streamers themselves sometimes are on the edge playing wow hardcore.They streaming this is just proof

Azherae

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

People are dying non-stop in WoW hardcore for the dumbest reasons!! LOL
Blizzard didn't change anything in the game (for now), everything is default

This is proof that people have been playing the game like zombies for years is dying carelessly and indifferent to consequences of any kind... Now, this just shows that the lack of incentive for staying alive has made them bad at the game. In hardcore people are feeling alive and having fun

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

About streamers, everything I said about hardcore is validated by the streamers, since it is the streamers who know that this is fun and people will like this. Even I LMAO just by seeing people running and jumping around and then falling from a bridge and dying for no reason... it is hilarious. If this wasn't hardcore, I wouldn't have laughed hysterically

They know it is fun, they have a public to appease to, also the streamers themselves sometimes are on the edge playing wow hardcore.They streaming this is just proof

As a streamer, in a frustrating genre, this is not even remotely how this works.

One thing you hear from people who watch Fighting Game streams a lot is that they watch because they can't play.

Playing is too frustrating, the game is too hard, the mindsets required are too strict. What they want is to watch someone who has already mastered all those things. This goes for so many sports, not even for just streaming. Football, MMA, the people watching these are not watching 'because they would find those sports fun to play', they watch it because it is fun to watch.

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