Krixus said:EQ was the best chat program of all time. Eliminating downtime means eliminating the social interactions that helped make EQ magical.
One of the things I think is lost in today's MMO's is the use of the chat window while grouping, raiding, etc... It's not that you couldn't make use of them these days, it is that the pace of combat and the desire of players to push to that pace more or less amount to no time to stop and type once you start. It's pull, kill, run to the next pull.
I know that there are people who jump in voice comms - even if grouped with total strangers in a PUG... and they say it amounts to the same thing... but to me it isn't. The chat window afforded players a level of separation that simply is not there when you jump to voice comms.
Bringing this back on topic, we all talk about how EQ was more challenging because you needed to pay attention, understand the game, etc... How does that mesh with "Hey, you could sit and chat during combat!"
Wandidar said:Bringing this back on topic, we all talk about how EQ was more challenging because you needed to pay attention, understand the game, etc... How does that mesh with "Hey, you could sit and chat during combat!"
I wouldn't say people chatted during combat, but definitely between spawn cycles there was time to chat. Didn't everyone run clocks to determine the spawn time of mobs then count how long it took to kill each one so you knew just how many you could pull, fight and kill before the respawns started, balancing the need to have enough time to recoup mana to last the next cycle. Thats when all the chatting took place.
The fact you could work all that out, the spawn timers, spawn locations, TTK for each mob (including pull time) and mana and still have time to chat? That was what made things difficult.
I base a games difficulty on the end game PvE content nowadays. I've grown up in the WoW era, however I've experience EQ on both live and P99. I didn't find much difficulty with Everquest if I'm being honest, it was simply a long grind to the tank n spank boss'.
However, push me infront of Lich King 25 man heroic prior to the nerf and you can watch me wipe for hours after hours, days to weeks before we finally got a kill. Now that was difficult. The scaling was way out of our gear range but having to co-ordinate buffs to counter the mechanics whilst executing everything else perfectly and pushing every class to its limits was what I found both amazing and difficult at tht same time.
I will never forget the Sindragosa and Lich King first kills for my guild, ever. The atmosphere in the Teamspeak was absolutely unreal and I will carry that through every game I play, looking for the next experience like it.
Aldie said:MMORPG's have gotten much more challenging in terms of raiding, boss mechanics, and boss complexity. Lets not kid ourselves in this regard.
In terms of every other aspect, the exact opposite is true.
I'd like to continue on with the current raid difficulty while bringing back all the old school open world challenge.
Lets see...
In EQ, there was consequence in play. When you died, you had to do a naked corpse run back to where you died, which could mean having to work deep back into a dungeon to get to it.
You lost exp, a rather large amount if you didn't have any form of resurection which would return a percentage of your lost exp.
If your exp loss was more than your level, you lost your level as well.
Leveling took a very long time.
Money took a long time to gather (buying high end items off the vendors took a long time to save for).
Travel was a long and dangerous process (measured in hours to get from one side of the world to the other).
Dungeon progression: Was slow, filled with numerous mobs that had to be carefully pulled in order to progress.
Mob kills took time, instant killing groups of mobs was not possible (at least in early EQ).
Player power progression was slow in its increasing curve, yet meaningful.
Old content did not become completely trivial early on. Mobs still attacked you as you were higher level, and a higher level player could have difficulty if they got too many mobs on them.
The list goes on, but there were many subtle elements that when combined together made EQ very difficult in play. Difficulty and challenge are not simply how hard a given fight is in terms of the "action" component of play.
bigdogchris said:Great thread topic. Everyone thinks about challenge in different ways.
- Class Design. EQ classes all played differently, some drastically different (think Bard). It took skill to get good because there was such a wide variety of what you could do with different classes.
-Loot. Loot in EQ was hard to come by which means sometimes you had to get by just on non-magical gear or wait quite a while between upgrades. This made the game more challenging and more rewarding when you finally got the loot!
- Scale. The game world was big and unless you were a Wizard or Druid, you were probably running. This made where you camp and bind a strategic move, not just for safety net.
-Progression. You leveled slowly in EQ which wasn’t a big deal to me because the game was extremely fun to play. Only those who are worried about getting to the top ASAP complained about “grinding”.
-Grouping. EQ required well balanced groups to optimally progress. It was tough getting good people in groups but felt really good when it finally happened.
Exactly this, with 1 addition: Encounters should be challenging, not only in a DPS race but also in alternative factors like having to change climates on certain bosses at certain stages or having to click a certain item in the room to prevent from healing. Closing a window so that roamer healers cannot heal from the other side of a wall. That kind of stuff.
Challenge is the unknown.
Such as trains, traps, death pits, mob strength, what's around the corner, passable walls or running into danger while traveling great distances. As someone new to an area these things are challenges that can be mastered by knowing about them.
Unique class abilities give the illusion of challenge. Something might seem like a challenge to your class but for another class with a skill you don't understand may make things seem more challenging.
Kaelang said:I base a games difficulty on the end game PvE content nowadays. I've grown up in the WoW era, however I've experience EQ on both live and P99. I didn't find much difficulty with Everquest if I'm being honest, it was simply a long grind to the tank n spank boss'.
However, push me infront of Lich King 25 man heroic prior to the nerf and you can watch me wipe for hours after hours, days to weeks before we finally got a kill. Now that was difficult. The scaling was way out of our gear range but having to co-ordinate buffs to counter the mechanics whilst executing everything else perfectly and pushing every class to its limits was what I found both amazing and difficult at tht same time.
I will never forget the Sindragosa and Lich King first kills for my guild, ever. The atmosphere in the Teamspeak was absolutely unreal and I will carry that through every game I play, looking for the next experience like it.
I did LK 25 heroic too when it was current, it was insanely difficult and my guild couldn't get him down past 90%. Had everything else on lockdown too. But when I compare that experience with EQ it is such a vastly different feel to raiding in the planes. The pacing was vastly different...EQ was all about breaking camps, doing good pulls, keeping respawns timed right, etc. It was also an era (esp back in 1999-2001) when there were hardware limitations that prevented the style of gameplay WoW raids developed. WoW at it's most difficult (and you listed one of the most difficult raids in MMO history) was beyond what most players desire to experience. Most gamers didn't even manage to put together a 25 man ICC raid force let alone doing the heroic versions. Your standard for difficulty is insanely high, your guild was at the very top of the game taking down heroic LK 25. I think the only other raid in WoW that is considered in the running is Sunwell's Kil'Jaeden. I mean the number of guilds that cleared that content is miniscule.
FFXI sets the golden standard for me. The community for that game was forged from challenge and difficulty. It's known as the "Dark Souls of MMO's" -- all of this while still having a really slow, but engaging combat system. There was a ton of emphasis on macro-play compared to most games. You had to pay attention to what was going on around you at all times ... whether it was something do with NPC's, players (in-group or out), or the world itself. Every detail mattered and if you weren't dialed in there was a good chance of making a mistake that could have lethal consequences. There were no participation trophies. No zerging. Multi-boxing was extremely ineffective (never saw players boxing because of how well the content was tuned and balanced) -- no glowing waypoints telling you where to go or who to talk to. The death penalty was one of my favorite overall aspects. Pure XP loss with the possibility to de-level. XP was considered a precious resource in that game because of how dangerous and unforgiving the world was. Progression required effort, coordination, and skill. It wasn't something that happened on it's own ... even with something as basic as an XP bar. I have yet to play another MMO that could hold a candle to the raw difficulty and challenge of FFXI.
Ziegfried said:Kaelang said:I base a games difficulty on the end game PvE content nowadays. I've grown up in the WoW era, however I've experience EQ on both live and P99. I didn't find much difficulty with Everquest if I'm being honest, it was simply a long grind to the tank n spank boss'.
However, push me infront of Lich King 25 man heroic prior to the nerf and you can watch me wipe for hours after hours, days to weeks before we finally got a kill. Now that was difficult. The scaling was way out of our gear range but having to co-ordinate buffs to counter the mechanics whilst executing everything else perfectly and pushing every class to its limits was what I found both amazing and difficult at tht same time.
I will never forget the Sindragosa and Lich King first kills for my guild, ever. The atmosphere in the Teamspeak was absolutely unreal and I will carry that through every game I play, looking for the next experience like it.
I did LK 25 heroic too when it was current, it was insanely difficult and my guild couldn't get him down past 90%. Had everything else on lockdown too. But when I compare that experience with EQ it is such a vastly different feel to raiding in the planes. The pacing was vastly different...EQ was all about breaking camps, doing good pulls, keeping respawns timed right, etc. It was also an era (esp back in 1999-2001) when there were hardware limitations that prevented the style of gameplay WoW raids developed. WoW at it's most difficult (and you listed one of the most difficult raids in MMO history) was beyond what most players desire to experience. Most gamers didn't even manage to put together a 25 man ICC raid force let alone doing the heroic versions. Your standard for difficulty is insanely high, your guild was at the very top of the game taking down heroic LK 25. I think the only other raid in WoW that is considered in the running is Sunwell's Kil'Jaeden. I mean the number of guilds that cleared that content is miniscule.
Black Temple was up there as well , we are talking like less then 5% of the game population cleared it on point. That was also at the height of wow's population with over 10 mil subs.
Wandidar said: SO... in your own words, define what difficult and/or challenging mean to you as those words relate to an MMO. I'm thinking it might be interesting to see similarities / differences in what folks think.
So I think I will respond to this before I read the entire thread of everyone elses responses.
The other day I was at a work meeting and I was chatting to one of the ladies at the meeting and we got to talking about video games since she and her daughter like to play. She mentioned to me that she plays WoW and that she really loves that game still. I told her that I played for a long time but that I had not played in a few years. She then expressed to me why she still likes to play WoW instead of trying any other MMO's.
She said "I love the fact that I don't have to think... I can just log on and kill monsters and I don't have to think about it... There is no need to plan things out, strategize, or even try very hard... I just get to push my buttons and watch enemies die! When you are a mother with 3 teen girls you don't want a game that feels like a chore... you just want to kill some monsters and escape from reality for a while"
So to address the OP's question... what defines 'difficult and/or challenging'. It's about how much thought and effort goes into it. Some games require almost no thought or planning, you just go in guns blazing or spells blasting and you beat up on some virtual enemies, much like the old 'punching your pillow' to release stress. In other games you need to put in a lot of effort to prepare, practice, coordinate, and even then it may not work out and you end up being the one getting beat. Which may cause more stress than it relieves.
Some people don't have exciting challenges in our jobs or our family lives and so these kinds of people may look for that feeling of accomplishment of overcoming challenges in the games they choose to play. So these people will pick games that make them think and have to work for it. This is what I think of when the words 'difficult' or 'challenging' are used. Games with those descriptors require effort and make you think in order to succeed. This is the kind of game I hope Pantheon is.
The lady from my work had enough work in her normal day to day life and so she didn't want to 'work' or 'think' in the game she plays. This is fine and she is welcome to it, sometimes I may want to play games like that too. But I doubt that she will play Pantheon.