» Tue Aug 20, 2013 7:31 am I recently watched videos of ESO, and sorry, but from the looks of it, the game is way too easy. Like, alas, all MMos of present day. And I think that really cheapens the feeling of accomplishment. Players should not be ABLE to run through dungeons or forests like they do in the videos. A dungeon, a forest asf. should be a DANGEROUS and risky place.
ow in the hardships discussions I noticed two things. First, not all hardships people quote fall under the same category, some just seem like pointless annoyance and don't really make the game more difficult just more tiresome. Second MMos are now definitely getting too easy, because I just don't have any memorable experienes to really accomplish something. In Dragons Prophet I can not TAME Dragons. I can frigging GATHER them. Like berries. From the get go. There was a time, when there was THE Dragon in a MMO. Somewhere at the end. Where you guild camped the span points for weeks, and then with MUCH luck you saw a Dragon, let alone defeat one, and it was a memory for years. NOT something to be *gathered* like strawberries!
It first dawed me watching Elder Scrolls Online videos. Players entering a dungeon just RAN all through the dungeon.
And that was just PLAIN and TOTALLY wrong. Mind ya, I do not blame the players. They did what the game offered. But a game should not BE so easy, so riskless. If I enter a dungeon, I pause. I go to crouch/sneak mode. I look DOWN: are there traps? I look up: is something lurking above me? I look left and right? Are there deadly enemies lurking in the shadows. And like that I want to proceed. Slowly. Step by step, because any misstep can be deadly!
Or, example from Neverwinter. I was a Thief. In theory my task was to sneak ahead and disarm traps. The reality however was very different: the group RAN through the Dungeon, because the traps did so minimal damage, it was easier to just soak it up and ignore it. And that is not how a trap should be! A trap is something you have to be afraid of! It has to FORCE the players to slow down and sneak! And that is not the players fault, because they react to the environment. That is the developers, the games fault.
Now some people say, well today people want it so easy. But IS that so? Yes many rush through games now. But do they really want it so? A lot of "the kids" we often blame play shooters, and a lot of them are REALL difficult. For instance the much critizised arena pvp style of shooters, are quite difficult, because you play against humans. Not mobs. So again, are people really WANTING so easy MMOs. I really doubt it.
But: there is hardship and hardship. What I do NOT like in the hardcoe games of old, was everything that made me not play the game, but wait. Do nothing. Or rince repeat a menial task. I didn't like downtime, like the EQ1 sitting down to regen. That was not difficult, that was no risk or challange, that was just BORING. You sat down and did nothing. 5 Minutes. Same with hour or day long boss camping. Or overmuch item decay. Or corpse run. A corpse run just means I have to re-do the same stuff with one of my spare gear sets. Let the actual fight be difficult, make dangerous traps, suprise attacking mobs, make the GAME itself difficult and risky, not the death penality. Death penalities are just timesinks, and a timesink is just that: a waste of time instead of making the game itself slower, because of the risks.
What I DON'T like in the old EQ1 formula was clearly, how less rewarding the game was. I really loved WOW for one thing: I could play 1-2 hours if I had less time and still feel I had accomplished something small. A new cap, a fancy pair of boots, or maybe a Dagger +2 or whatevs. What really made me grind my teeth in EQ2 vanilla, how I could play weeks and weeks and still get nothing but a badger liver and 100 pieces of trash loot. That's not to say everything has to be handed to you, let there be difficult to attain things, but also give those with little time some little feel-good rewards. Something to make you smile at the end of an evening.
The problem with games now too easy is, it is generic. You don't remember it anymore. My dangerous approach to cross Nektulos Forest in early EQ2 was something I will NEVER forget. How I tried to sneak close to the "walls". How I tried to avoid the HUGE aggro radius of mobs, and the many super dangerous patrols of 5-6 skeletons in ONE group. THAT was memorable, because I felt like a real hero after I had accomplished it. What I saw in TESO however was the very OPPOSITE of heroic. Mobs had a super small aggro radius, they were practically STANDING there, you had to stand on top of them before they'd attack you, and the places were all WAY too easy from the looks of it. And YES even starter areas need to be a challange. I want the games to be slowed down, not by chores but by the DANGER the world poses.
That is what is just WRONG. In the past, when I was away from a MMO for a week, my buddies has leveled maybe ONE more level in that week. Today, when I make a break for one week and return, all my friends and guildmates are 15 levels higher than me. And that is just the example of what is wrong with MMOs. A MMO SHOULD not be possible to rush through like that. And that is the task of the developer to slow people down by danger and challange. Whether you cross a forest or traverse a dungeon: it has to be dangerous, fearsome and risky EVERY SINGLE STEP. Then you remember it as heroic accomplishment for years and you stay in that game and not swap from MMO to MMO every 2 months like it is now.
This super easy has to go.
