Do you miss the time when games dared to let players fail, or do you prefere the "no risk" method?

Danikat · June 2019

When did you last play these old games you remember being really hard? Is it possible you're discounting how much you've learned since then?

I often go back to replay older games and I'm often surprised at how different they can be. For example dungeons in Twilight Princess where on the first go I had to spend ages studying each room to solve the puzzle now seem blindingly obvious. It was my 5th or 6th Zelda game and I was an adult when it came out but even so I've apparently learned a lot since then. I've not played it since 2012 according to the save files and don't remember a lot so it seems unlikely I remember the solutions to each puzzle but they seem obvious.

It's even more noticeable with games like Baldur's Gate or Morrowind. Baldur's Gate was my 3rd DnD game but the first where I actually cared about building decent characters instead of just picking whatever looked or sounded cool. Morrowind was my first TES game and although by then I understood the importance of stats and equipment in RPGs I wasn't that good at putting a decent build together.

Replaying them now it's almost like a different game. I spend a lot more time in menus trying to make the right choices, but a lot less time repeating fights because the tools available to me are much more effective this time round.

And IMO ESO is an extreme example of that. Yes a lot of people find it easy, but that's because they know what they're doing (or have copied builds from people who know what they're doing). There is a world of difference between how easy it is for an experienced player with a well made build, hundreds of effectively distributed CP and good equipment and a genuinely new player with none of that. And it's really hard to balance content so that it's challenging for both of them.

The fact that it's a purely cooperative (in PvE) MMO makes a difference too - even if you're going to struggle with a fight there's a good chance a random stranger will come along and do it with you, making it easier.

Varana · June 2019

- There is plenty of challenge in this game. Vet dungeons, vet DLC dungeons, vet trials, vet DLC trials, hardmode on all of them, trifecta achievements.

- Sure, that doesn't apply to overland questing, but then, challenge is not the point of that part of the content. It's about story, and it tries to give everyone the chance to experience this story. Especially the people who may want to play this game for the story content and that alone, without bothering to even enter normal dungeons. Because that's not why they play the game. It's not about easy gratification or whatever your horribly biased poll was saying, it's about different play styles and preferences.

- ESO overland content is easy to you. It is not to new players. I regularly do the original quest lines on new characters, and the difference between now and when I did them first, is astonishing. I remember dying repeatedly to Alexandra Conele in Stonefalls - and now I don't even assume I might fail to some quest boss even with those new characters. I was happy when I started reliably beating normal dungeons (I had well over CP160 at that point) - now I queue for random normals with level 10 noobies with three skills and dropped gear. I don't even give the new characters CP. It's just practice and knowledge about the game. For you and me, that challenge is gone, forever. It is not gone for new players.

- Yes, I wish that sometimes the build-up to some scary quest boss would pay off more. But then, that's the price I pay for getting better at the game and regularly doing vet trials. That part of the content is not supposed to be challenging to me any more.

- ESO is not an easy game. But it is an absolutely ginormous behemoth of a game with an ocean of content, and different parts of that content are aimed at different players and playing styles. You can fail in ESO - but where you fail in this game depends on where you stand and how much experience you have. In that, your poll is meaningless.

Mik195 · June 2019

No, I really dont want a risk in my games, I just want easy success.

I was playing a mid-30 no CP character with green/blue non-set gear. I think I had 2 or 3 Fiords and 2 from a Deshaan Stam set from a couple levels ago.

I triggered a dolman and since I was playing EU in the middle of the NA night, I thought I should try to finish it in case anyone was waiting at another dolman to spawn. I cleared everything, but was having a hard time with the last voidstaker boss.

I died 5-6 times because I couldn't quite beat him and a CP 298 arrived and we took it down. Now, eventually I would have cleared the dolman myself, but at the end, I wouldn't have felt accomplished, but "about f***** time". I get that banging your head against the wall until you win makes some people happy, but it doesn't do anything positive for me. So TLDR, I want a minimum challenge because that's the game I'm playing. I have others that I'll struggle to beat, but ESO is supposed to be fun.

Digiman · June 2019

Your poll is biased and you thread is full of crap

Imperial_Voice · June 2019

Gotta love an OP who just screams at everyone who doesnt agree with them

Runefang · June 2019

I kinda miss games that dared to make me repeat quests when I screwed up...

I work 60 hours a week. I have the stress of managing other human beings. I have two small children. While I do particularly dislike having guard quests where enemies only want to attack me, I really don’t want quests to be hard. I have vet trials and dungeons for that.

thumpthing · June 2019

I kinda miss games that dared to make me repeat quests when I screwed up...

yep, was pretty damned silly and lazy to just go with the entire world scaled to character level when they already had a bit of challenge to the quests in leveled zones, it was just fine your low level character could still go anywhere, just with much higher difficulty.

bulbousb16_ESO · June 2019

I kinda miss games that dared to make me repeat quests when I screwed up...

This game is too easy, but that is how the current generation expects things. They can't fail in SCHOOL these days, never mind a video game.

People keep point to "Vet" content as an indication that there is hard content available, but that is all optional group content. There should be difficult solo content as part of the regular progression of the game. Before One Tamriel, there was content that simply wasn't achievable at certain levels. You needed to build yourself up to accomplish it.

One Tamriel had some positives, but it really did screw a lot of things up that have never been fixed, i.e. the main storyline of the game.

jainiadral · June 2019

No, I really dont want a risk in my games, I just want easy success.

Ragnork wrote: »

I remember a puzzle game; before google and the internet when you relied on the gamer magazine to publish help.

You are in an ally way and there is washing on a line blocking your progress.
You look for alternative routes to avoid the washing.
You talk to the person who has hung out the washing, no she will not take it in until it is dry.

I gave up.

The solution? Build a time machine, go back in time and release a butterfly that through causality created a rainy day on the day you wanted to use the ally and so no washing on the line. Simple.....

I put the "game" in the bin.

So no we do not need "old school" mechanics thank you

Whoa... what game was that? That takes asininity to whole new old heights

leeux · June 2019

Depends on the game, really... MMOs cannot have failure conditions embedded in them, how'd you implement them?

As you cannot reload a save, or rollback state... what'd you propose? Losing gold? Experience? Items? Permanent dead? Having to do a quest ro revive?

If you fail a quest scenario: do you ever lose access to that quest ever? You die?

Even in SP games where you can reload a save and retry... is that really a failure condition?

Not even Dark Souls (which is one of the games that was normally touted as a "hard game") has a failure condition... you, the player, cannot lose in Dark Souls: it doesn't have a losing condition. You die twice and lose your souls? No problem, just grind a bit to get back to where your were before. You were cursed? No problem, yeah you'll have less HP for a bit, but again grind some souls and buy an item that reverses your curse, or pay the NPCs that cures you.

Failure conditions make sense for single player games, mostly. In MMOs at the most you could implement quest failure conditions that have consequences in the world, but the deepest you wanna go with that the harder it gets to implement as the branching conditions that could potentially rise from that leads to a combinatoric explosion for any but the simplest of quests... and then you also have to contend with the rest of the players around that also have to be taken into account maybe for some of the conditions.

navystylz_ESO · June 2019

I kinda miss games that dared to make me repeat quests when I screwed up...

Ragnork wrote: »

I remember a puzzle game; before google and the internet when you relied on the gamer magazine to publish help.

You are in an ally way and there is washing on a line blocking your progress.
You look for alternative routes to avoid the washing.
You talk to the person who has hung out the washing, no she will not take it in until it is dry.

I gave up.

The solution? Build a time machine, go back in time and release a butterfly that through causality created a rainy day on the day you wanted to use the ally and so no washing on the line. Simple.....

I put the "game" in the bin.

So no we do not need "old school" mechanics thank you

Lol, that's just stupid. With arbitrary ridiculous solutions such as that, you'd never get anywhere. Wait for laundry to dry, or build a time machine (like that can happen), go back in time, release a butterly in another part of the world if the flutter of it's wings would conceivably have any kind of effect, and hope for rain rather than some other kind of wind phenomenon?

That kind of inane solution has no place in anything, let alone obtuse far-fetched crap like that in a video game.

navystylz_ESO · June 2019

I kinda miss games that dared to make me repeat quests when I screwed up...

leeux wrote: »

Depends on the game, really... MMOs cannot have failure conditions embedded in them, how'd you implement them?

As you cannot reload a save, or rollback state... what'd you propose? Losing gold? Experience? Items? Permanent dead? Having to do a quest ro revive?

If you fail a quest scenario: do you ever lose access to that quest ever? You die?

Even in SP games where you can reload a save and retry... is that really a failure condition?

Not even Dark Souls (which is one of the games that was normally touted as a "hard game") has a failure condition... you, the player, cannot lose in Dark Souls: it doesn't have a losing condition. You die twice and lose your souls? No problem, just grind a bit to get back to where your were before. You were cursed? No problem, yeah you'll have less HP for a bit, but again grind some souls and buy an item that reverses your curse, or pay the NPCs that cures you.

Failure conditions make sense for single player games, mostly. In MMOs at the most you could implement quest failure conditions that have consequences in the world, but the deepest you wanna go with that the harder it gets to implement as the branching conditions that could potentially rise from that leads to a combinatoric explosion for any but the simplest of quests... and then you also have to contend with the rest of the players around that also have to be taken into account maybe for some of the conditions.

I think you went far into left field with this one. Failure can be as simple as not progressing in the content. No one said it had to be permanent. Which, of course, if you can't succeed means you will never progress in that content which is about as permanent as it can be until you do.

Some of you forum goers have a strange idea what challenge means.

Sylvermynx · June 2019

Other: at my age, my reflexes are not as good as 30 years ago (when I first started playing CRPGs). That makes things a problem if they're very fast like combat in this game (though it's better now with a better connection). Making overland harder would probably give me a lot of grief even with a better connection.

I'm not going to answer your poll as it's very slanted. As it happens, I don't care about being called "an easy success" person, but most polls need a "neutral" option as well. Y'all can call me whatever you want - I'm specifically an old lady....

Mik195 · June 2019

No, I really dont want a risk in my games, I just want easy success.

bulbousb16_ESO wrote: »

This game is too easy, but that is how the current generation expects things. They can't fail in SCHOOL these days, never mind a video game. .

I don't think it is a generational thing. My first videogame was the original Pong and I spent a lot of time in college playing Dungeons of Daggerath (?) on a Radio Shack Color Computer and I don't find struggling as entertainment fun.

Mettaricana · June 2019

I kinda miss games that dared to make me repeat quests when I screwed up...

I miss punishment like exp loss towrds next level maybe reward reduction penalties like trials something that says learn or lose badly. Heck maple story was brutal as hell died lose 40% of a level levels took ages to gain be playig a week of grinding no level ups died once heres anotger week of grinding.

leeux · June 2019

navystylz_ESO wrote: »

I think you went far into left field with this one. Failure can be as simple as not progressing in the content. No one said it had to be permanent. Which, of course, if you can't succeed means you will never progress in that content which is about as permanent as it can be until you do.

Some of you forum goers have a strange idea what challenge means.

What you do mean "left field"? I don't understand that phrase (not a native speaker here, that may be why...)

I was responding to the OP's post about "failure" and "no risk"... and that implies the existence of some kind of failure conditions embedded in the game that would allow players to fail... my entire point is that it makes no sense.

You can ask about more engaging combat or better designed encounters though... but "failure" in that context would just mean you die and retry it until you learn how to "solve" it, so is not really "failure" in my mind.

BTW: The game used to be like that in the past, way way in the past... there were many people that loved that, and many that hated it... perhaps the reason it was changed is that the "hated" population was greater than the "loved" population? I cannot say.

Sylvermynx · June 2019

leeux wrote: »

navystylz_ESO wrote: »

I think you went far into left field with this one. Failure can be as simple as not progressing in the content. No one said it had to be permanent. Which, of course, if you can't succeed means you will never progress in that content which is about as permanent as it can be until you do.

Some of you forum goers have a strange idea what challenge means.

What you do mean "left field"? I don't understand that phrase (not a native speaker here, that may be why...)

I was responding to the OP's post about "failure" and "no risk"... and that implies the existence of some kind of failure conditions embedded in the game that would allow players to fail... my entire point is that it makes no sense.

You can ask about more engaging combat or better designed encounters though... but "failure" in that context would just mean you die and retry it until you learn how to "solve" it, so is not really "failure" in my mind.

BTW: The game used to be like that in the past, way way in the past... there were many people that loved that, and many that hated it... perhaps the reason it was changed is that the "hated" population was greater than the "loved" population? I cannot say.

From google: "Out of left field" is American slang meaning "unexpected", "odd" or "strange". The phrase came from baseball terminology, referring to a play in which the ball is thrown from the area covered by the left fielder to either home plate or first base, surprising the runner.

So it's someone saying wow, where did you ever get THAT idea from, generally.

leeux · June 2019

Sylvermynx wrote: »

From google: "Out of left field" is American slang meaning "unexpected", "odd" or "strange". The phrase came from baseball terminology, referring to a play in which the ball is thrown from the area covered by the left fielder to either home plate or first base, surprising the runner.

So it's someone saying wow, where did you ever get THAT idea from, generally.

Ah gotcha, Thank you!

You learn something new everyday, as they say

Sylvermynx · June 2019

leeux wrote: »

Sylvermynx wrote: »

From google: "Out of left field" is American slang meaning "unexpected", "odd" or "strange". The phrase came from baseball terminology, referring to a play in which the ball is thrown from the area covered by the left fielder to either home plate or first base, surprising the runner.

So it's someone saying wow, where did you ever get THAT idea from, generally.

Ah gotcha, Thank you! You learn something new everyday, as they say

Yes. Even as old as I am, I DO learn something new every day. I don't plan to let that stop until they're putting me on my pyre.

jainiadral · June 2019

No, I really dont want a risk in my games, I just want easy success.

navystylz_ESO wrote: »

leeux wrote: »

Depends on the game, really... MMOs cannot have failure conditions embedded in them, how'd you implement them?

As you cannot reload a save, or rollback state... what'd you propose? Losing gold? Experience? Items? Permanent dead? Having to do a quest ro revive?

If you fail a quest scenario: do you ever lose access to that quest ever? You die?

Even in SP games where you can reload a save and retry... is that really a failure condition?

Not even Dark Souls (which is one of the games that was normally touted as a "hard game") has a failure condition... you, the player, cannot lose in Dark Souls: it doesn't have a losing condition. You die twice and lose your souls? No problem, just grind a bit to get back to where your were before. You were cursed? No problem, yeah you'll have less HP for a bit, but again grind some souls and buy an item that reverses your curse, or pay the NPCs that cures you.

Failure conditions make sense for single player games, mostly. In MMOs at the most you could implement quest failure conditions that have consequences in the world, but the deepest you wanna go with that the harder it gets to implement as the branching conditions that could potentially rise from that leads to a combinatoric explosion for any but the simplest of quests... and then you also have to contend with the rest of the players around that also have to be taken into account maybe for some of the conditions.

I think you went far into left field with this one. Failure can be as simple as not progressing in the content. No one said it had to be permanent. Which, of course, if you can't succeed means you will never progress in that content which is about as permanent as it can be until you do.

Some of you forum goers have a strange idea what challenge means.

So like the wispmother boss in that one quest in Stormhaven that totally screwed up the DC storyline when I first started playing

It brought my game to a complete halt. I completely missed Rivenspire and the Alik'r because of it.

Trust me, that kind of "challenge" currently exists in the game. It's probably worse now, since I did it before the sorc shield nerfs

Editing: I hate u, tablet keyboard.

Gordon906 · June 2019

No, I really dont want a risk in my games, I just want easy success.

Tasear wrote: »

There's some quests that are um fun. Like spent 2 days on this shealth quests. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I even googled it. Turns out need to use cat as distraction go figure.

It wasn't hard and clearly most people got it right away, but it was rewarding experience.

People usually just google stuff if they can't figure it out after many attemps.