I'm writing this request before the game becomes too popular for Bioware not to lose control over target audience decisions.

 

Level 30 here, and most flashpoints past 20 are deliciously challenging. Not specially difficult, but at least challenging.

Each boss does have some "don't mess this up or you'll wipe" mechanic, and that's perfect, even if it's while leveling.

 

But challenging means that inevitably, a part of the playerbase will start to complain about actual game difficulty.

It will happen at some point in time.

I'm already hearing distant complaints of some players saying "I don't have the night to spend on one instance, it's too hard, please lower the difficulty so I can experience more stuff in less time".

 

So as a counter-mantra, I'll quote LucasArts game's senior director about why they changed SWTOR's older brother, Star Wars Galaxies :

 

"We wanted more instant gratification : kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an opportunity to be a part of what they've seen in the movies, rather than something they have created themselves."

 

And then came the most destroying changes in a MMO ever. Everybody knows that, even those who didn't play it. Subscriptions fell down a sink hole (you have a nice video about it here).

 

World of Warcraft is falling down the same hole actually, even since WotLK. Instant gratification, casual friendly. It is what kills MMOs interest, litterally. No need to be a Forbes analyst to guess that, you just have to play the damn games over a long time.

 

I understand that some people are less skilled to manage their spells correctly, but lowering the difficulty is really the cheapest possible solution. There are tons of other ways to help them match the required skill level, and dumbing whole thing down instead of helping each individual to improve is never a good idea.

 

Challenge is fun again, and not locked down to gathering tons of high level gear.

So I'm asking this from deep within my gamer heart :

Please, Bioware, do never, ever fall for the easy-mode demanding audience. Ever.

 

With such popularity, you're now partly responsible in how future players of any MMO will set their expectations. Don't screw it.

Edited December 28, 2011 by kineticdamage

agreed

 

and that quote always makes me cry on the inside

This ^^

 

So true...

 

Driz

I love a challenge and I'm definitely classed among the more casual players. One of the worst changes they made to LotrO was dumbing it down, most of us enjoy a challenge and having to think a bit.

 

Please do not change the level of difficulty. I think it's pretty much spot on right now.

But challenging means that inevitably, casual players will start to complain about actual game difficulty.

You should be careful not to confuse casual players with bad, spoiled or whatever players.

 

Casual player myself and I enjoy a challenge!

You should be careful not to confuse casual players with bad, spoiled or whatever players.

 

Casual player myself and I enjoy a challenge!

 

Ok I'll change that, sorry.

(pretty hard to find the rightest word as english is not my mother tongue :s)

I think it's pretty much spot on right now.

 

agreed

 

a lot of it isn't even really "difficulty"

 

it's more of

 

"if you don't actually pay attention you're going to DIE"

 

like a boss on red reaper... if u didn't pay attention he'd one shot you, but once you figured out his gimmick he was tank and spank and became easy lol

Edited December 28, 2011 by DarthVenizen

Providing instant gratification is pretty much always a great way to shoot yourself in the foot.

 

I suspect Bioware have already figured a fair bit of this out; it's pretty much impossible to study MMOs without learning about SWG, setting aside that this is a Star Wars game.

It doesn't have to be one or the other though. There are ways to add simpler operations and flashpoints that have lesser rewards and more complicated time-consuming ones that offer great rewards. For example, CoH has a variety of trials (i.e., operations) for end-game. Some of these are rather easy and on the shorter end. Some of them are harder and longer but give better rewards. So there is something to do for both groups at end-game. The only real danger is setting the easier ones up in a way that they can not be farmed efficiently. Otherwise, the frequent players stop doing the harder ones because they end up spending all their time farming the easier ones. That is what has happened in CoH and it's basically dumbed-down the end-game play. As long as there is a daily timer on them though, that would pretty much eliminate farming them.

It doesn't have to be one or the other though. There are ways to add simpler operations and flashpoints that have lesser rewards and more complicated time-consuming ones that offer great rewards. For example, CoH has a variety of trials (i.e., operations) for end-game. Some of these are rather easy and on the shorter end. Some of them are harder and longer but give better rewards. So there is something to do for both groups at end-game. The only real danger is setting the easier ones up in a way that they can not be farmed efficiently. Otherwise, the frequent players stop doing the harder ones because they end up spending all their time farming the easier ones. That is what has happened in CoH and it's basically dumbed-down the end-game play. As long as there is a daily timer on them though, that would pretty much eliminate farming them.

 

We can also say that Devs have to assume that there have to be different levels of rewards, each tied to their challenge difficulty.

 

But providing both easy and hardcore content is very hard to keep up in the long run, as both easy-demanding and hardcore playerbases are asking for regular content update up to their need. We saw it with a lot of MMOs, one day or the other, it's either the former or the latter who wins the majority of content updates.

Edited December 28, 2011 by kineticdamage

World of Warcraft is falling down the same hole actually, even since WotLK. Instant gratification, casual friendly. It is what kills MMOs, litterally. No need to be a Forbes analyst to guess that, you just have to play the damn games over a long time..

 

wow lost 600,000 subscribers the moment they made their game 'challenging' in cataclysm. in just 3 months.

 

AND they are still losing subscribers as we speak.

 

excuse me but statistics speak about the nonsense you are blabbering to us.

 

games. are. not. jobs.

 

people do not want to be subjected to 'effort' when they log into a game to entertain themselves in evening hours.

 

EFFORT IS SOMETHING FOR A DAY JOB.

 

a game should be entertaining RIGHT at the time you are doing any activity within that game.

 

..................................

 

what is flawed is the 'grind-reward' format. it has worked for wow only for some time until its novelty wore out.

Providing instant gratification is pretty much always a great way to shoot yourself in the foot.

 

I suspect Bioware have already figured a fair bit of this out; it's pretty much impossible to study MMOs without learning about SWG, setting aside that this is a Star Wars game.

 

swg was much more 'casual' than any other game that has ever been.

 

everything was entirely left to player's own discretion. what to do, how to do. and the game was flourishing until someone named - if im not mistaken - smedley from lucas arts pressurized soe to make swg more like wow.

 

and then everything went downhill.

 

................

 

what was your point again ?

They also support the game you play. Biting the hand that feeds you?

 

'support' is a light word.

 

casual gamer crowd engrosses an eclipsing majority. 'hardcore' percentage can not go above 10% or so of gamerbase at any given point.

 

if anyone argues otherwise, i have a thread discussing this with statistics and references below :

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=83208

 

the 'casual' crowd is SO big that, EA's strategy director thinks that someone is going to make a social game that brings 1 billion a year soon.

If this were Reddit. I'd upvote.

wow lost 600,000 subscribers the moment they made their game 'challenging' in cataclysm. in just 3 months.

 

AND they are still losing subscribers as we speak.

 

excuse me but statistics speak about the nonsense you are blabbering to us.

 

games. are. not. jobs.

 

people do not want to be subjected to 'effort' when they log into a game to entertain themselves in evening hours.

 

EFFORT IS SOMETHING FOR A DAY JOB.

 

a game should be entertaining RIGHT at the time you are doing any activity within that game.

 

..................................

 

what is flawed is the 'grind-reward' format. it has worked for wow only for some time until its novelty wore out.

 

WoW ... It's like your post is the best caricature we could find about what plagues the MMOs actually.

 

Let me give you some hint to understand how you don't know this playerbase you're pointing at :

 

* Challenge is not a "job" for people who like to be challenged. Some people are making a hobby of challenges, to prove you how much they're having fun at it (extreme sports, for ex).

* Another one : Actual swtor difficulty is not demanding "efforts" for people who know their class. It's just making things more fun. Some lvl 50 are even saying they steamrolled the Hard mode Operations.

* And a last one, with all capped style like you :

EASINESS IS BORING.

 

Now I'm pretty sure your post will get you flamed to oblivion, even by casual players themselves, so you might review your stance about this "job" argument.

Edited December 28, 2011 by kineticdamage

wow lost 600,000 subscribers the moment they made their game 'challenging' in cataclysm. in just 3 months.

 

AND they are still losing subscribers as we speak.

 

excuse me but statistics speak about the nonsense you are blabbering to us.

 

games. are. not. jobs.

 

people do not want to be subjected to 'effort' when they log into a game to entertain themselves in evening hours.

 

EFFORT IS SOMETHING FOR A DAY JOB.

 

a game should be entertaining RIGHT at the time you are doing any activity within that game.

 

..................................

 

what is flawed is the 'grind-reward' format. it has worked for wow only for some time until its novelty wore out.

 

 

Can't believe what i am seeing, I just got a warning for trolling and you write something like this. Your either trolling or something else which i can't write as i'm on my last warning.

WoW ... It's like your post is the best caricature we could find about those easy-demanding people's arguments.

 

good thing that we 'casuals' as you name it, outnumber the hardcore types by a whopass majority.

 

just like the rest of the planet in everything else in regard to hardcore vs others.

 

* Challenge is not a "job" for people who like to be challenged. Some people are making a hobby of challenges, to prove you how much they're having fun at it.

* Another one : Actual difficulty is not demanding "efforts" for people who know their class. It's just making things more fun.

* And a last one, with all capped style like you :

EASINESS IS BORING.

 

and let me break something to you :

 

challenges and effort are for day jobs. as well as achievements. people who are doing these everyday in their daily life, -hell actually HAVING to do these in their daily life everyday, will NOT need any of these in their ENTERTAINMENT.

 

Now I'm pretty sure your post will get you flamed to oblivion, even by casual players themselves, so you might review your stance about this "job" argument.

 

yeah. sure.

We can also say that Devs have to assume that there have to be different levels of rewards, each tied to their challenge difficulty.

 

But providing both easy and hardcore content is very hard to keep up in the long run, as both easy-demanding and hardcore playerbases are asking for regular content update up to their need. We saw it with a lot of MMOs, one day or the other, it's either the former or the latter who wins the majority of content updates.

 

True. Theoretically, as long as there is content for both though, the majority of the new content should not be for the casual players as they burn through content at a much slower pace. But there is some middle ground they can find....although obviously the burden is on them to do so.

Can't believe what i am seeing, I just got a warning for trolling and you write something like this. Your either trolling or something else which i can't write as i'm on my last warning.

 

are you contesting that effort/reward/progress/achievement is something that you HAVE to do in your daily life, and the fact that people who have to do these all day, get BORED of doing that and want to run away from that ?

 

that you have not yet got fed up with having to participate in that cycle, does not mean that you wont, in near future.

 

see, here i am. someone who had pvped hardcore in wow for 1.5 years straight. solely pvp, every day, every hour - leave aside what else i did. leave aside raiding, leveling up 8 toons and gearing them up for raids, pvp and so on.

 

you get bored eventually.

 

 

 

.................

 

and you need to start developing discussion aptitude that will be able do discern trolling from arguments. just that something does not seem pleasant to your eyes, does not make it 'trolling'.

@Enako, oh my god, you're some big fish. I never thought I'd catch one that big.

Please continue to post your arguments, so that you illustrate perfectly what is wrong with MMOs right now.

 

edit : by judging your post above, you reap what you sore by tunnel visionning what a game could offer to you during 1.5 years. Please don't make the still challenge-demanding people pay for that.

And by "what is wrong with MMOs right now, of course I mean studios trying to satisfy more your audience type than challenge demanding players.

Edited December 28, 2011 by kineticdamage

True. Theoretically, as long as there is content for both though, the majority of the new content should not be for the casual players as they burn through content at a much slower pace. But there is some middle ground they can find....although obviously the burden is on them to do so.

 

now, the problem is, there is NO satiating the hardcore progressive crowd.

 

i am speaking from my own experience.

 

when you are one, you burn through EVERYthing, hell - even totally bypass content and level through farming or pvping or other means and get to the top. then you gear up, and then you find out that you have exhausted the content.

 

even in games like wow where there are hard raids, you eventually beat them out SO much faster than the 90% players in the game that you are left with nothing to do.

 

you know what this crowd does then ? they suspend their subscription and go play another mmo to beat. entire guilds move about like that in hardcore scene.

 

providing content for these groups is impossible. because even with multimillions poured into development and hundreds working on it, these groups burn through stuff much faster than you can produce.

good thing that we 'casuals' as you name it, outnumber the hardcore types by a whopass majority.

 

just like the rest of the planet in everything else in regard to hardcore vs others.

 

 

 

and let me break something to you :

 

challenges and effort are for day jobs. as well as achievements. people who are doing these everyday in their daily life, -hell actually HAVING to do these in their daily life everyday, will NOT need any of these in their ENTERTAINMENT.

 

 

 

yeah. sure.

 

You sound like you have no 'get up and go' in you, Just want a easy ride.

 

I'm not as hardcore as i used to be 10 years ago, I run a guild and have very limited time, But when i login i want to feel like i'm achieveing something and have that drive to push further and better myself.

 

 

 

 

 

game/gām/Noun: A form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

 

 

Adjective: 1.Eager and willing to do something new or challenging: "they were game for anything".

2.(of a person's leg) Permanently injured; lame.

 

 

 

Play games of chance for money: "the gaming tables of Monte Carlo".

 

 

Synonyms: noun. play - match - sport

adjective. brave - plucky - courageous - gallant - ready - manful

 

 

You sound like you should take up knitting.

Level 30 here, and most flashpoints past 20 are deliciously challenging.

 

uhm... are we playing the same game? All flashpoints are incredibly boring and offer barely any challenge. Just because a boss has million hp and you gotta spend eternity killing it doesn't mean it's challenging. For the most part, apart from tank & spank most bosses have just 1 or 2 moves that you need to react to, and it's hardly any hassle. Plus there are hardly any elites in them, just mindless zerg through standard and strong mobs.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Makhbet

@Enako, oh my god, you're some big fish. I never thought I'd catch one that big.

Please continue to post your arguments, so that you illustrate perfectly what is wrong with MMOs right now.

 

i actually thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak on behalf of the 'casual gaming' crowd, you SO despise - for some godfrigging reason -, with the thread you opened.

 

............

 

like it or not, casual gamers outnumber hardcore gamers to such an extent that even id, valve are eyeing the areas that they hang out. like social platforms, handheld devices, tablets.

 

excuse me but there is nothing to do about it. elitism in gaming, does not persist at the wake of 80 million people playing one casual game on one platform - leave aside the entire casual gaming market.

You sound like you have no 'get up and go' in you, Just want a easy ride.

 

when was the point in recent history that 'easy ride' in ENTERTAINMENT became something thats a no no ?

 

are you aware that, we are talking about ENTERTAINMENT ?

 

you can only deride 'easy rides' if you are talking about competitive gaming. starcraft, counterstrike and so on.

 

this is a game that is made for entertaining people in the evenings. it being HARD is not something that is desirable.

 

how hard is it for you to tune into a comedy channel in the evening and watch your favorite comedy show ? your favorite talk show ? how big an effort do you require to tune into that channel and set the volume ?

 

if, you are not jumping through hoops and rolling on the carpet and taking positions, then landing on your couch with a back salto to simultaneously catch your tv remote with your left hand and tune in the channel in mid-air, then do not bring 'hard in entertainment' argument to us.

 

You sound like you should take up knitting.

 

and you sound like you should either take up starcraft, counterstrike or similar competitive gaming, or join french foreign legion.