Mark Kern: Have MMOs Become Too Easy?

[JungleGeorgeRK2]

I stumbled on this article Mark Kern: Have MMOs Become Too Easy?. Mark Kern talks about making a MMO accessible to wider audience by making it simpler to reach max level with max equipment at the expense of loosing a sense of achievement.

I agree with much he says and read other posts in this forum that echo his thoughts. There is balance between difficulty and rewards which varies with each player. As a player ages, this balance continues to change.

Balance is an ongoing elusive target.

[Gimpynoob]

This article nails the problem in the head. An MMO should be about the journey and its greatest achievement reaching max level. On the side it should have some additional content for variety, like PvP and extra dungeons with marginally better gear. And it should give us players a believable and evolving world.

[Tanisthonus]

That's part of why I liked The Secret World so much, not that it was difficult, but because "end game" was not the ultimate goal. Yes, the missions would sometimes bounce you right to he next one like a roller coaster, but they were individual stories, with characters that had personality. It made playing enjoyable, not just a "Welp, one step closer to the game being real."

[Mekh]

This article nails the problem in the head. An MMO should be about the journey and its greatest achievement reaching max level. On the side it should have some additional content for variety, like PvP and extra dungeons with marginally better gear. And it should give us players a believable and evolving world.

Exactly! :-)

[Valter]

That's a very interesting read... It may partially explain why some of the older games persist. I know for myself, I enjoy a challenge and I don't want to be spoon fed content that leads me around by the nose.

One of the things I enjoy about AO is the twinking. I have a mountain of notebooks next to my computer with endless calculations and notes from over the years and I still manage to find new ways to do things even today.

[Gatester]

Leveling should be nothing more than exposure to the story and stepping stones for learning how to use your toolset. Content focusing on players who have all their skills but need to work toward min/maxing is where you supply the challenging tasks and complicated raids. AO's problem is the challenge that persists through the entire game rather than solely at the end. Veterans have no problem because we can disperse our endgame power down through our alts and new characters, but for new players its not the case. You should NEVER force difficulty on to leveling players and instead only make the most difficult parts optional until endgame. Those optional parts can introduce unique encounter mechanics, but allow the rest of the game to be a simple progression instead.

Gear that makes the game reasonable is difficult for new players to acquire and is either quite expensive or rare, forcing players to rely on weaker weapons and being "gimps" in much content. Veterans are using gear from their alts, so of course when you are equipped to the equivalent of a player far higher in level then the content you are doing then things become easy. My level 1 obviously has no "challenge" killing things until about level 20ish or later, and typically boss mobs at that point only.

New players have very limited toolsets and this causes a gap in effectiveness between professions who have powerful starting tools and one's that come into powerful tools later on. A great example is NT's and their single-target nuking and "evade" classes. NT nuke damage is weak until about TL6+ when it starts to become competitive. Evaders generally cannot reliably evade attacks at lower levels (unless you are a veteran who can actually afford to make an effective evader).

When players can twink, content becomes easy. When players are unable to twink, content becomes challenging. Rather than excluding all possible new players in a game design based on a perception veterans tend to have about making the game "eternally difficult" it is better to consider what leveling players need more.


Whenever a vet says "the game is too easy, I wish it was even harder!" I start to wonder why they don't realize why it is so easy for them. I tried playing a froob crat where I recieved NO help from outside sources or my alts, I played it fresh. The game was fun, and challenging, and the tools I had required me to think and play carefully. Players who think they should have a challenge just need to learn how to find it instead.

[mawu]

Nice article which I can fully agree with.
Also agree with gatester. Dont hand millions (or gear worth millions) to your fresh rolled alt and AO is HARD. So hard in fact that I would ask FC to ease it up a bit. I played a trader alt a few years ago without any help from my other chars and its ridiculous how long one has to work for a simple set of level 30 implants.

[Lliers]

I think it's telling in the first paragraph when he asks, "when was the last time you died in a starter area."

I've been playing this game for a few years now and I still die regularly when I start a new character on noob island.

Make no mistake. AO is hard. =P

[drainbamage]

You have to be either not paying attention, utterly new, or extremely bad to die on noob island.


As to the article, it's half pining for the old days and half advertisement for his game. Making a number go up is not something to feel a sense of achievement over. It's Skinner box conditioning. If that is actually the essence of MMOs then I hope WoW did indeed kill the genre.

[Gimpynoob]

You have to be either not paying attention, utterly new, or extremely bad to die on noob island.


As to the article, it's half pining for the old days and half advertisement for his game. Making a number go up is not something to feel a sense of achievement over. It's Skinner box conditioning. If that is actually the essence of MMOs then I hope WoW did indeed kill the genre.

Its not about the numbers dummy. Its about loosing xp if you die.

AO started as a more or less classic MMO but is now becoming a typical WoW clone in its design philosophy. This is a bad choice, first because AO doesnt have the resources to compete in the WoW-clone arena and second because it becomes unattractive to oldskool MMORPG players. Or in other words it is neither a mainstream nor a niche game.

[Esssch]

You have to be either not paying attention, utterly new, or extremely bad to die on noob island.

If you're sticking to what you're supposed to, ya. Usually I hit level 2 and skip to aliens or the mobs farther along the beach that are level 5ish. Those can definitely kill you, no matter how experienced you are at AO at level 2.

[Anarrina]

You have to be either not paying attention, utterly new, or extremely bad to die on noob island.

A few years ago I was watching a video review of AO, like three guys playing around on newbie island and discussing it at the same time. They were having a segue discussion about realistic body depiction and sexuality in MMOs (and said they should come back and do a full segment on that, in part using AO as an example... presumably because one of their character was old, fat, and bald and they were surprised that was an option). In the middle of this discussion while they were fighting something, one of their characters died. The ensuing shock was hilarious.

"Dude, did you just die? Seriously?"
"Um, yeah. I did. Whoa."
"When was the last time one of us DIED in a beginning area? That's cool!"

[Nanostratege]

You have to be either not paying attention, utterly new, or extremely bad to die on noob island.

Eh, I also still die on the noob island (about 2-3 times per char). Not even from going after red mobs, just chaining orange mobs together without waiting for stim/healkit to come off cd and then getting an unexpected rollerrat add.

[Shareida]

That's a very interesting read... It may partially explain why some of the older games persist. I know for myself, I enjoy a challenge and I don't want to be spoon fed content that leads me around by the nose.

One of the things I enjoy about AO is the twinking. I have a mountain of notebooks next to my computer with endless calculations and notes from over the years and I still manage to find new ways to do things even today.

Also, read my signature link

[Valter]

Also, read my signature link

Great post! Believe it or not, I had never seen it. Thank you for pointing that out to me.

[Aiken]

Great post! Believe it or not, I had never seen it. Thank you for pointing that out to me.

Same here. I'm quite surprised that post managed to slip me by....

Good read indeed.

[lainbr]

You have to be either not paying attention, utterly new, or extremely bad to die on noob island.

One salamander + 2 surprise rollerrat can pretty sure kill a lot bunch of profs. So does those weird salamanders tied with giant snakes, since they have social aggro and you can end up with 5 of then on you.

EDIT:

A few years ago I was watching a video review of AO, like three guys playing around on newbie island and discussing it at the same time. They were having a segue discussion about realistic body depiction and sexuality in MMOs (and said they should come back and do a full segment on that, in part using AO as an example... presumably because one of their character was old, fat, and bald and they were surprised that was an option). In the middle of this discussion while they were fighting something, one of their characters died. The ensuing shock was hilarious.

"Dude, did you just die? Seriously?"
"Um, yeah. I did. Whoa."
"When was the last time one of us DIED in a beginning area? That's cool!"

:x I demand a link. Searched for one hour w/o sucess!

[If6was9]

Also, read my signature link

That actually was a good read. And I have you on ignore. I think we piss each other off frequently. Let's give that a rest on this thread.

So you are Ilayila or you like to link to an article by Llayila? And Llayila is a game producer associated with AO? The relationships have me confused.

[Mastablasta]

That actually was a good read. And I have you on ignore. I think we piss each other off frequently. Let's give that a rest on this thread.

So you are Ilayila or you like to link to an article by Llayila? And Llayila is a game producer associated with AO? The relationships have me confused.

I like how you say to give it a rest and then instantly you post something inflamatory.

:x I demand a link. Searched for one hour w/o sucess!

I remember seeing this video

[RedWatr]

I believe listening to the players have proven to be a very bad idea. the only fix is to have staff fully play every profession to endgame and get a sense of the relative difficulty each profession encounters. unfortunately this requires a committed staff, interested in understanding the game and the funding to support the staff while they're on the learning curve, as well as ongoing support to stay current. ultimately bringing productivity down, but gaining game knowing universally superior to any type of saturation training, i think this approach would result in a much higher quality product, but of course with a cut in profit, productivity, and possibly other restricted potentials that I don't see.