Do you prefer a challenge or winning?

KRBMMO

If something is challenging by definition you will not win all the time. The more challenging a thing is the less you will win. The more you win, the less challenging that this is for you.

Which do you prefer?

geonsocal

hmmmmmm, good poll I guess - I'm currently stumped for an answer...

deano469

Why not both?

Recremen

I think that's too simplistic of a way of assessing how challenging a piece of content is. You're completely ignoring skill mastery and level of engagement. Different tasks will be challenging for people at different skill levels, but at the highest level of performance (and, by degrees, every level under that) a challenging piece of content is not necessarily something you tend to lose at, but something that brings all your expert faculties to bear. The level of effort involved to win, as it were. After all, at peak performance if people are losing more often than winning, then the task is clearly going beyond the realm of human possibility to complete. Is "challenging" really the right word for that? I don't think your definition for a challenge is shared by everyone.

Linaleah

none of the above. I prefer ability to relax into a game. unless you consider progressing through content = winning. winning over what? AI? for me its not winning as much as finishing.

case in point. been having a lot of fun participating in housing contests with my guild. is winning nice? sure, but what feels good, really good - is finishing a project. working on something and being able to say - its finished and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Trinotops

I prefer moderately challenging contests where I often lose but also often win.

In PvP it's boring if players aren't a challenge, but it can also be frustrating if fights are blatantly uneven/unfair. A balance of difficulty is needed for gameplay to be enjoyable.

Betsararie

Very limiting poll.

I always prefer winning, but I enjoy winning in a challenging fight or challenging conditions more.

I always hate losing.

Cadbury

Hmm. Interesting. A good discussion, although I don't know if I can answer properly without context. Is it regarding PvP, PvE, gaming in general, or life?

SirAndy

I prefer highly challenging contests where I usually lose but then I get better and the win feels better..

I often find myself gimping my characters in ways to make content more challenging.

If you're still playing Skyrim, check out my Level 1 mod to see what i mean.

KRBMMO

Recremen wrote: »

I think that's too simplistic of a way of assessing how challenging a piece of content is. You're completely ignoring skill mastery and level of engagement. Different tasks will be challenging for people at different skill levels, but at the highest level of performance (and, by degrees, every level under that) a challenging piece of content is not necessarily something you tend to lose at, but something that brings all your expert faculties to bear. The level of effort involved to win, as it were. After all, at peak performance if people are losing more often than winning, then the task is clearly going beyond the realm of human possibility to complete. Is "challenging" really the right word for that? I don't think your definition for a challenge is shared by everyone.

So if you "master" content do you still like to do it? For how long?
Do you move up to more difficult content after you "master" something, or are you happy to stay with the same content you have already "mastered?

Even at the Olympic level there are very few people who don't have a high chance of losing. The people who have just gone to several Olympics almost guaranteed to get the gold is very rare. Most Olympic athletes are thrilled that their chances of losing are very high.

With pro sports if the odds aren't at least even it gets boring after the 1st quarter. Sure there's a chance of a comeback, but that's exhilarating for the team that overcame the odds, not the team that was supposed to win but lost.

Recremen

KRBMMO wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

I think that's too simplistic of a way of assessing how challenging a piece of content is. You're completely ignoring skill mastery and level of engagement. Different tasks will be challenging for people at different skill levels, but at the highest level of performance (and, by degrees, every level under that) a challenging piece of content is not necessarily something you tend to lose at, but something that brings all your expert faculties to bear. The level of effort involved to win, as it were. After all, at peak performance if people are losing more often than winning, then the task is clearly going beyond the realm of human possibility to complete. Is "challenging" really the right word for that? I don't think your definition for a challenge is shared by everyone.

So if you "master" content do you still like to do it? For how long?
Do you move up to more difficult content after you "master" something, or are you happy to stay with the same content you have already "mastered?

Even at the Olympic level there are very few people who don't have a high chance of losing. The people who have just gone to several Olympics almost guaranteed to get the gold is very rare. Most Olympic athletes are thrilled that their chances of losing are very high.

With pro sports if the odds aren't at least even it gets boring after the 1st quarter. Sure there's a chance of a comeback, but that's exhilarating for the team that overcame the odds, not the team that was supposed to win but lost.

@KRBMMO

That's going to depend on the content, now, isn't it? Even when you "master" content you may still find it enjoyable because it still takes a great deal of effort to complete. Even if it doesn't, it may just be enjoyable for reasons beyond mere difficulty. Once that becomes tiresome they will have generally released new content with new mechanics or rules or what-have-you to provide a new challenge.

Your Olympic analogy doesn't really work because there people are competing against each other, not just against the physical struggle of their event. Most people can go for a run, that's not the challenging part. The challenging part is trying outpace other peak-performance athletes at a specific type of running event. There's nothing even close to that in ESO. The only content you can "lose" at competitively is PvP, and then you're only going up against two other factions or two other teams (in battlegrounds), meaning a third of participants are automatically "victorious". Or if your idea of a challenge is trying to top the trials leaderboards, but the actual content itself can be mastered to the point of always downing the final boss.

A better analogy for much of the game's content would be going on a mountain climb, or participating in one of those obstacle courses. You are much more likely to succeed than fail, but it still takes a ton of effort to complete and is thoroughly enjoyable for it. That's more in line with the actual definition of a challenge. The obstacle courses even have that kind of leaderboard thing going on because you will often find out how long it took you to complete at the end. But you probably still succeeded at the challenge and still had fun regardless of your placing.

And as for PvP, the number of "losers" is just a mathematical function and has little bearing on enjoyment for most people. We like to fight. For the top guilds our best fights are ones where we are as likely to succeed as fail because we're squaring off against another top-tier guild. I wouldn't say it's more challenging because we have a higher chance of losing, otherwise we wouldn't be running competitive builds and wearing impen gear. The challenge is in how much effort it takes to compete at that level, not in how likely you are to lose.

CiliPadi

I prefer moderately challenging contests where I often lose but also often win.

Wish I could finish veteran maelstrom. Maybe one day when the servers don't lag like crap.

Storymaster

Bizarrian Pollmeister

MattT1988

Don’t care either way. It’s a game. It’s not like I get anything for winning.

Rainraven

It depends. Repetitious content - like doing the same dungeon again and again - I just want to get it over with. If they made it challenging by making it less predictable instead of making it challenging by giving NPCs a zillion health and immunity to half our skills, that would be fun. Not how it works in this game though.

Engaging + challenging is fun even if I die a lot. Boring is boring and the easier it is for me the happier I'll be. Sad maybe, but true.

kargen27

I prefer moderately challenging contests where I often lose but also often win.

Give Doshia her power back. Getting your hind side handed to you a few times so early in the game was a good thing.

Runefang

I prefer moderately challenging contests where I often lose but also often win.

It's a game to relax so I don't want anything to annoying or stressful (PuGs in certain dungeons for example). But I don't want it to be faceroll easy all the time.

Looking at the answers I find it hard to believe honestly. I think our perception of how much we all enjoy a challenge doesn't match with the reality of how much challenge we actually go looking for in the game.

The real question for ZOS though is, what kind of challenge provides enjoyment?

Maryal

Your first two options refer to 'contests'
Your third option refers to 'content'
Your fourth option refers to neither.

For a gamer:
- a challenging contest typically refers to a single or particular event within a game
- challenging content typically refers to the overall game contents

Poll results generally provide relevant and useful information when they are not so ambiguously worded.

yodased

I think the more important question is do you equate winning with fun. I.E. if you are not dominating whatever you are doing, can you enjoy it.

Judas Helviaryn

I prefer highly challenging contests where I usually lose but then I get better and the win feels better..

If it wasn't a challenge, what exactly did you win?

bloodthirstyvampire

I prefer moderately challenging contests where I often lose but also often win.

I do love it when my prey hits back, keeps things interesting. Its like a tug o war who kills who

Narvuntien

I prefer moderately challenging contests where I often lose but also often win.

Bias poll is bias.
What people want when they want it to be "easy" is to experience the content not winning. Either that or they just want the gear to furfill thier vision of thier character. Its not about winning at all.

Its only winning when its at least a little hard, so you can feel some kind of accomplishment. You can feel skill progression rather than character progression.

Some people like leveling up thier character some people like leveling up themselves.

Strider__Roshin

I prefer highly challenging contests where I usually lose but then I get better and the win feels better..

The tougher the challenge, the more satisfying the victory :-)

KochDerDamonen

Depends.

I never played ESO for a challenge, never did too many trials or messed with Maelstrom too much.

When I pop back to Dark Souls, I try to kill bosses with a Broken Broken Sword for fun

newtinmpls

I prefer a difficulty slider

FloppyTouch

I prefer moderately challenging contests where I often lose but also often win.

The old VR mobs where a little too much but then they dumped it down way too much. There is a happy medium that needs to be met. Taking on groups of mobs solo should be hard but not like running a trial solo.

Right now i can leave my controller with a full dps spec no tank or health with 3 mobs attacking go to the bathroom get a drink after and still be alive.

soll

I prefer highly challenging contests where I usually lose but then I get better and the win feels better..

I prefer to play small scale pvp and get zerged down most of time, rather than opposite, because the moments, when you are taking down much higher numbers in difficult situations is priceless

Khenarthi

I don't ever want to lose. I prefer to be given an unfair advantage so I can always win.

If I'm going to be honest, I'll admit: if it's a video game, I don't want a challenge. I want to complete the content, to get to the next bit in the story. During the beta, the difficulty levels of Doshia and Norion made me question whether I would play this game for long. At launch I had to be 5 levels above those bosses to beat them, it was not fun at all.

At present I am happy with the level of difficulty. I can solo dolmens, a few world bosses, complete normal dungeons and trials. But I won't touch stuff which I know will frustrate me, like vMA.

Fodore

What's wrong with having a challenge and always winning? If you stick at it long enough you'll win.

Tandor

I prefer less challenging content where I mostly win but run the risk of occasionally losing.

My vote is based purely on standard PvE content such as questing-related combat where I'm more interested in the story than the fight so while I don't want to run around one-shotting everything I also don't want every step of a quest to involve fighting mobs against the odds the whole time. Outside of that I have no interest in competitive play.

Turelus

I prefer less challenging content where I mostly win but run the risk of occasionally losing.

I am fine with challenge and gameplay which punishes you if you're dumb.

However I play games to relax not to stress myself out, which more deaths than wins content generally does.