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Gameplay Difficulty Decay Catering to Casual Playerbase.
ArchivedUser
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It is no mystery that over the past 10ish years MMORPG's have continued to cater to the casual playerbase. Which means creating content that is for the lowest common denominator, No Offense. Sure, there are "super duper hardcore raids, weeee" but not enough players want to come home from work to spend 4 hours raiding, (not speaking for everyone here). The concept in itself sounds incredibly appealing; excited to come home, hop on, gain powerful armor and weapons to delve DEEPER into the worlds mysteries and depths, a PURPOSE for progression, and a REASON to keep playing, it is all-important to the model of any RPG. But with MMORPG's having become so farm/grind heavy with daily and weekly requirements, the gameplay becomes dull and redundant. So the best option ends up with the Dev team needing to dull down mechanics, make content simpler and easier, so it can be done within 20 minutes tops. This is fine, until the game becomes a treadmill. Entering dungeon, grabbing all mobs in as many rooms as quickly and safely as possible, killing said mobs, moving to next room. Healer following group, pressing the 2 key (its the biggest most mana efficient heal). Dps saving buffs until everything is grouped, spamming that delicious AOE, or using best 3 button combo until enemies lay in a pile of corpses (great band name btw).
What I'm getting at, is be it dungeons, or raids, or ESPECIALLY WORLD EVENTS, no player should be able to strap itself to a monster and smash on the keyboard until monster is destroyed.
FFXIV and GW2 have a neat "event/fate" system, but it ultimately defeats the purpose of bringing players to play together, since buffs dont matter, and nobody needs healing other than the tank. Difficult matters, it gives tanks and healers a purpose, and DPS a reason to think while in combat.
Anyway, I appreciate it if anyone read through my book here XD
Wonder if anyone has felt MMORPG's have become too easy, and thus "lifeless". (literally no MMORPG that feels like it has life anymore)
What I'm getting at, is be it dungeons, or raids, or ESPECIALLY WORLD EVENTS, no player should be able to strap itself to a monster and smash on the keyboard until monster is destroyed.
FFXIV and GW2 have a neat "event/fate" system, but it ultimately defeats the purpose of bringing players to play together, since buffs dont matter, and nobody needs healing other than the tank. Difficult matters, it gives tanks and healers a purpose, and DPS a reason to think while in combat.
Anyway, I appreciate it if anyone read through my book here XD
Wonder if anyone has felt MMORPG's have become too easy, and thus "lifeless". (literally no MMORPG that feels like it has life anymore)
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However I do think that if you design content where casuals or those with not so much time can still contribute to the bigger part (node expansion, caravan defending) will make even the small amount of time they spent in the game meaningful and impact the game experience as a whole. And with that the difference between casual, normal or hardcore players are at least reduced to some point.
I mean I hope that the systems in place (node system for me and possible item decay) will make the participation of every player important because I don't think no node leader (?) or Guild leader can then neglect the importance of having a few casual players under their wing.
That should lead to casual players not complaining too much about the game. I mean we will still get the discussion fully maxed out custom gear (hardcore) vs. General average gear (normal/casual) and all the PvP drama a like but well... that's another thing.
As long as "awesome gear" is still attainable by the casual I'm fine with it, if 40 hour a week guy gets his awesome BIS gear after 5 weeks, as 10 hour a week guy, I would hope that I could be in the same spot in 20 weeks.
All things said, balancing is one of the most difficult things to do in MMOs, and there will always be someone out there that doesn't like it. I just hope there's a niche for someone like me who can only put in a bit of time each night and cannot commit to things that need lots of dedication.
<a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/casual-friendly/">Topic 1</a>
<a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/crafting-vs-gear-dropped-from-bosses/">Topic 2</a>
<a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/ideas-to-help-keep-dungeons-from-becoming-so-repetitive/">Topic 3</a>
<a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/item-decay-2/">Topic 4</a>
<a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/dungeon-finderlooking-for-group-system/"></a>
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/gameplay-difficulty-decay-catering-to-casual-playerbase/#post-9072" rel="nofollow">Bell wrote:</a></div>
Also I hope that casual players or those with only a small amount of time at hand per session will understand that they won’t get the awesome gear the guy has who spend 40 hours per week playing. I mean clarifying that is important too.
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As long as “awesome gear” is still attainable by the casual I’m fine with it, if 40 hour a week guy gets his awesome BIS gear after 5 weeks, as 10 hour a week guy, I would hope that I could be in the same spot in 20 weeks.
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well question is where does the best in slot gear come from? - crafting, pve, pvp - all three?
My take on this one is that crafting should be the primarily source of gear anyway. Dungeons and World bosses drop rare materials to craft better equipment. And that casually players can achieve the bis gear but it will take a while since they have to get all the materials necessary.
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/gameplay-difficulty-decay-catering-to-casual-playerbase/#post-9080" rel="nofollow">Nikerym wrote:</a></div>
<blockquote>
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/gameplay-difficulty-decay-catering-to-casual-playerbase/#post-9072" rel="nofollow">Bell wrote:</a></div>
Also I hope that casual players or those with only a small amount of time at hand per session will understand that they won’t get the awesome gear the guy has who spend 40 hours per week playing. I mean clarifying that is important too.
</blockquote>
As long as “awesome gear” is still attainable by the casual I’m fine with it, if 40 hour a week guy gets his awesome BIS gear after 5 weeks, as 10 hour a week guy, I would hope that I could be in the same spot in 20 weeks.
</blockquote>
well question is where does the best in slot gear come from? – crafting, pve, pvp – all three?
My take on this one is that crafting should be the primarily source of gear anyway. Dungeons and World bosses drop rare materials to craft better equipment. And that casually players can achieve the bis gear but it will take a while since they have to get all the materials necessary.
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I think high level dungeon bosses and world bosses only dropping materials to craft gear would be silly. Not everyone crafts, and you would have entire raids filled with crafters, because everyone else would see that boss as pointless to them. Unless of course you want every person in the game to craft their own armor and such.
My feeling on casual players is that if you are a casual, you of course still have an equal chance of getting anything some hardcore player might get, so long as you are online.
It does not matter how long it takes a casual player to get their gear, and I think its silly to say that a casual will /not/ get any high end gear while all the 'hardcore players' do. It's just a matter of time.
Simply put, you shouldn't need to send 40 hours a week on a game to progress through it.
As for difficulty of mobs and such, I think difficult is really good. Games are about challenging the skills you have gained from playing. Though I want to point out that difficulty does not = raid wipe mechanics/instant kills. There are a lot of games out there that have these mechanics, and I think they are fine in some cases such as dungeons.
Too many games simply have the boss bop you in the face non stop for lots of dmg, and you're forced to have a healer pocket you.
I think difficulty (and excitement) comes from being able to actually /fight/ the boss. Being able to move around and dodge abilities, block certain things based on your own abilities. If you out play the boss, you have a good chance of winning.
For PvP the difficulty is already there of course, as long as players can easily find other players of equal skill/power to fight with. The community can challenge itself.
But for PvE there needs to be content that is designed specifically to be very challenging. I think TERA has some of the best examples of this. Their end-game dungeons get pretty freakin hard, and require gear AND skill. And while, I never got to do the raid that they released, it sounded like it was just as hard but with the added requirement of a lot of team coordination. On top of that they also had leaderboards for the hard dungeons, so that the best players could compete for fastest completion (and that used to play into guild rankings). I'm not saying I want AoC to just copy TERA, god no; the only good things about TERA were the fun combat and challenging dungeons. But AoC needs at least some hardcore content like that (in addition to the normal content) in order to provide end-game goals for dedicated players focused on PvE combat.
(I believe my biases shine bright here :) )
Content should take hours to complete, and not just a few hours. We should have dungeons that take 1 to 2 hours to complete yes with Save points so players with casual schedules can play. BTW There is a Difference between Casual players and Casual schedule players. Casual players are what MMORPGs cater to today and end up causing everything the OP said. Casual Schedule players accept they will not have everything they want inside of a short period of time, dont want easy content and take a LONG view of the game.
So yes Players shouldnt grab more than 1 or 2 mobs at a time because mobs should be hard enough that if not using the strengths of their class and the weakness of the mob should end up dying. The Other option is do make shit so easy you are bored with it fast.
There should be no epic gear period. Gear should be obtain through mainly crafting, if a drop happens that a player can use great if not sell it then buy what you want.
WOW Raids and Dungeons should NOT exist here. The Minute you add in Dungeons that are treadmills this game will just copy and paste of WOW. This is why I fight so hard for Item Decay and SWG like crafting. It makes sense to have Dungeons that are run for fun, VS GEAR. Yes The Odd piece that players can get by buying it off a vendor will be help full but the aim is not gear. You get stuff like Mounts, Glamour gear, Gold, and Crafting mats out of Dungeons. This will kill the Treadmill and the need for easy content and catering to casual players.
We need to have a deep look at Pre-WOW 2004 Games and see what they did right. That was being Hard. That was being time consuming and that was also not creating a daily treadmill. In UO if I wanted to fight Blood Elementals in Shame Dungeon and my Bard was just not ready for it yet, I tool my friends who could fight the Elementals. The Content was Hard for me to do but it was not impossible I just got friends to help me out. I also didnt have to grind levels just to go fight blood elementals I just went with some friends. Nothing stopped me but me.
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/gameplay-difficulty-decay-catering-to-casual-playerbase/#post-9072" rel="nofollow">Bell wrote:</a></div>
Also I hope that casual players or those with only a small amount of time at hand per session will understand that they won’t get the awesome gear the guy has who spend 40 hours per week playing. I mean clarifying that is important too.
</blockquote>
As long as “awesome gear” is still attainable by the casual I’m fine with it, if 40 hour a week guy gets his awesome BIS gear after 5 weeks, as 10 hour a week guy, I would hope that I could be in the same spot in 20 weeks.
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I disagree, not everyone should be able to get the best gear. Thats how it used to be in games like wow years ago, only the players that put effort and were skilled in their gameplay were able to get the good cool looking gear with nice stats.
Also i think people that play open world sandbox mmos tend to be much more hardcore in generall and even the casuall people in this genre play pretty much daily and many hours weekly. The entire point of having your own character and developing world and community is that your progression is meaningful. If everyone gets given the same gear if they just log in weekly then this game will be just modern wow 2.0 and wont be able to compete it and it will eventually wither down.
Instead of catoring to casualls id love for this game go back to what mmos used to be where your character progression was meaningfull and good items were incredibly hard to obtain. If you have good items it should mean you completed hard content, not that you won the lottery or that you logged in every day to collect free tokens or w/e. I think most people that are looking to play this game want it this way, otherwise they would just go back to wow.
My favorite part of older MMO's is that feeling of progression and growth, delving into your character and choices in stats per level; the true RPG. Deciding on what your character means in that world and how it interacts with it. Early WoW only allowing a couple classes to stealth. Or having a pet that tanks for you on warlock or hunter, really changing how you can survive. But the reality is, it's incredibly difficult to have choices and balancing in a market that is saturated by games that "cater". I have faith in our beloved AoC team, and cant wait to explore the world they build. But I also fear we will end up with just another MMO.
Anyway, hope this discussion isn't a total downer, hahaha. I think we have all become exceptionally passionate about MMORPG's. Many of our relationships between others were built upon struggle and triumph together, and we dream of the day that can come again, joining arms once more in battle.
Secondly, I don't think the lack of challenge in todays MMOs are mostly because of "catering to casuals", although you might have different definitions of casual than I do. I believe we humans are suckers for rewards, and many games have taken this too far in how easy rewards come (login rewards are a great example), and a lot of people are reacting against this and want to feel that a reward whould be deserved. I also think fast and easy levelling are often linked to games that have existed for a long time and added a lot of "end game" content, so that the original levelling experience is considered a nuisance by many - often the hardcore players levelling their alts.
Fight for the features you want in the game. However, it is more constructive doing so without attacking a large part of the player base. I think many of us, regardless of playing 10 or 40 hours a week, have a lot of common dreams for AoC, and we have larger impact on the devs if we provide common arguments and wishes.
2 cents from someone who thinks casuals and hardcore players both are needed for a MMO to flourish
Well, as one of those "lowest common denominators" (and, gee, why would any offense be taken), I have to wonder, instead, why cater to the hard core player (i.e. people with no lives - hey, no offense)? After all, the majority of players are "casual" gamers.
Seriously, the erroneous supposition here is that one play style is more valid than another. It's elitist to assume that because someone can play hours on end because they have no life (hey, no offense) that they are more entitled simply because they have more time on their hands.
It's also a fallacy to assume that a casual player can't do hard content. They can - it just takes them longer. It's just as much a fallacy to assume that because someone plays a lot that they can do hard content. So, if the game is too easy, don't blame the casual player. It just might not be a very good game.
It's just as much a fallacy to assume that because someone plays a lot that they can do hard content. So, if the game is too easy, don't blame the casual player. It just might not be a very good game.
-the problem is its easy to blame the "casual player" we see more and more catered to people with less playtime or less skill, I am not in anyway saying either of those are bad but if either of those reasons cause mechanics to be dumbed down, gear is easier to obtain or overall difficulty to be changed to accommodate that it becomes a problem, there should be a balance between difficulty and reward i believe ashes will achieve it.
Im a little biased on my approach to it because i have the ability to play for longer time periods, im hoping we don't have the easy gear game, i hope fights arent just standing still, i want it to take me a long time to gather materials for that massive sword because at the end of the day it feels rewarding. Years ago i switched to PC and sub based games for the sole reason that they can be played for more than a few hours like most console games.
I have no problem with the person who plays 3 hours a week having amazing gear, once the same amount of effort has been put in as the person who plays 30+ hours.
Notice i did not say TIME, effort is my key word here. I hope to see some 40+ hour people struggling to get high end items due to difficulty.
At the end of they day "casual" or "no lifer" isnt the issue, the problem is MMOs have been to easy and to rewarding for minimal effort.
1) the node system. It seems like the nodes will generate most of the PvE content, and part of personal progression for each character is progression of the node. This already undercuts the pursuit-of-gear type of play that is part of what led to this eroding in many games. Furthermore, nodes can be destroyed. Are highly geared players who have just taken over their rival guild's node going to want to go faceroll through the level 1 node's dungeon? probably not. They will probably run alt characters through it, or hire lower geared players to take care of it for them. Already we have addressed the problem of the game allowing for casual participation while not dumbing down ALL the game's mechanics. Either this, or the node will generate content at a variety of levels all the time.
2) the caravan system. raiding a caravan presumably gets you some loot, I'm guessing so would escorting the caravan. Neither of those things look likely to take more than half an hour, since the distances between nodes don't look huge. This is as difficult or as easy as the gear level and skill level of the players involved.
3) the trading/crafting system. This game has been hinted to have a quite exciting feature relevant to this discussion: being able to turn your house into a crafting station or resource hub for the node. Casual players can specialize easily, while harder core players may not want to specialize since they partake of so many types of content. Thus a casual player can directly contribute to the progression of hardcore players by crafting items for them, or providing them the resources they need in order to do more difficult content. Presumably consumables of some kind will be in this game and will be required for harder content: so a node will need a farm, an orchard or something of that type. The person who runs that does not have to be the person who is going to use the items it produces.
There, we've just come up with 3 things that will likely address the issue you raised. We will see whether these predictions are correct, when these systems are fully implemented.