Let's Talk: Game Difficulty

[EnjoyTheJourney]

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What's the right balance of challenge vs success for YOU? Do you expect to never fail when playing Normal - or would that simply bore you?

I'm raising this subject for a few reasons. I think a lot of people expect that when it comes to an MMO, if you put time in you must get progress/reward out of it - and that failure is just plain bad. Spending 45 minutes into a quest only to fail can be very frustrating.

We have been accused (and perhaps there's truth to this) that we've been balancing the game for the uber-player. Are you finding this to be the case? It seems like a couple years ago the salient message from the community was 'enough with the easy button already!'

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Feel free to reference specific quests.

I'll bring this back to the OP. There are plenty of posts from uber-players in this thread. There are also a relatively small number from newer / more casual players posting in this thread. A significant percentage of uber-players are forthright about what they want; they want dungeon scaling eliminated entirely or eliminated for elite difficulty.

"It's a group game" gets repeatedly trotted out as a reason for why making soloing fun should be a lower priority. However, these kinds of suggestions imply a "zero-sum" approach to setting difficulty, and they answer the wrong question. The question is how can you make the game better for groups of all sizes, and not just for larger teams, at the expense of smaller teams (or soloists). And, on that note, multiple posts in this thread have pointed out that even on normal difficulty soloing can (already, under the current system) be very challenging for those who are less experienced.

On another point, at some level of experience, wealth, and skill, players will find that a random stranger being added to the team isn't likely to make missions easier. At some point on the experience / wealth / skill curve, soloing or working with close friends who are near the same level becomes the most efficient option, as well as providing insurance against some of the "low points" that can arise when teaming with strangers (teammates who are not only mistake-prone, but who don't listen, etc.) If the devs focus on catering to uber-players who are chasing the nigh impossible dream of turning teaming with random strangers into the "most efficient" option for anything other than raids, then they're probably going to screw things up for the other 99% of the playerbase who are not uber. Since it's the uber-players who are by far the most frequent posters on the forums, I don't envy the devs reading through this thread the challenge of figuring out how to set mission difficulty.

If you really want to create a game that's enjoyable for teams of all sizes, then keep dungeon scaling at all difficulty levels. Find ways to tweak the current system, instead of making a radical change that cuts soloists off from attaining a fair number of relatively attractive favor rewards and more generally narrows the range of ways in which they're likely to be able to enjoy the game. A few specific suggestions:

1. "Flawless" bonuses can be calculated "per player" instead of "per team", and be larger for larger teams; thus, one player doesn't cost the entire team 10% of their bonus by making a mistake (and get treated badly / squelched for it, sometimes), and more experienced players still have some incentive to help newer players learn how to avoid dying. The larger flawless bonus for larger teams helps to compensate for how much harder it is to avoid any deaths on a team. It also reduces the incentive of team leaders to set arbitrary limits for hit points for teammates, because less is at stake if a teammate turns out to be more fragile / less skillful than hoped. Average team size would be likely to increase, with this change.

2. The scaling value can go up at a decreasing rate, for each increment in team size, and be very low for the last (and perhaps second last) team slot, to give teams a stronger incentive to take a chance on whoever is willing to join for that last one or two team slots. That helps newer players secure a place on teams with more experienced players, so they can learn and get better. This would also increase average team size.

3. Experiment with different ways of scaling up mobs, including different mixtures of scaled up mob hit points, scaled up mob damage, and scaled up mob numbers -- be careful about this last one, though, as this favors teams loaded with AOE attacks, and hurts many melee characters.

4. Finally, provide more randomization in dungeons, and increase randomization as the difficulty level increases; the game becomes far easier when a player knows what's up ahead, so make that less of an issue. This change would also tilt incentives further in favor of teaming, for many missions, by getting uber-players who might otherwise level up by soloing on elite (which they can probably do for many missions while practically asleep, because they know what's ahead) to team up to take on the randomized challenges up ahead.

[ArcaneMelee]

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On another point, at some level of experience, wealth, and skill, players will find that a random stranger being added to the team isn't likely to make missions easier. At some point on the experience / wealth / skill curve, soloing or working with close friends who are near the same level becomes the most efficient option, as well as providing insurance against some of the "low points" that can arise when teaming with strangers (teammates who are not only mistake-prone, but who don't listen, etc.) If the devs focus on catering to uber-players who are chasing the nigh impossible dream of turning teaming with random strangers into the "most efficient" option for anything other than raids, then they're probably going to screw things up for the other 99% of the playerbase who are not uber. Since it's the uber-players who are by far the most frequent posters on the forums, I don't envy the devs reading through this thread the challenge of figuring out how to set mission difficulty.
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My perspective is that Dungeon Scaling hurts the newer/casual players more than the "uber experienced". When I roll up a low player (TR or on a new server), I have the advantage (from TR gear, account twinkage, rich uncles, or just plain quest knowledge) needed to over come the scaling when I run with strangers.

But a new player lacks all of these - all they see is that the mob that was hitting them for 2 points before the others entered is now hitting them for 6, or that the mobs they were easily hitting they are now missing, or the mobs that they were pwning with spells are now making every save.

If the experienced players with their perfect teamwork and 'leet gear solo stuff to avoid Dungeon Scaling, how are the newer people supposed to fare?

Dungeon Scaling was introduced before the Casual Setting - I think the Casual setting does a better job.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

My perspective is that Dungeon Scaling hurts the newer/casual players more than the "uber experienced". When I roll up a low player (TR or on a new server), I have the advantage (from TR gear, account twinkage, rich uncles, or just plain quest knowledge) needed to over come the scaling when I run with strangers.

But a new player lacks all of these - all they see is that the mob that was hitting them for 2 points before the others entered is now hitting them for 6, or that the mobs they were easily hitting they are now missing, or the mobs that they were pwning with spells are now making every save.

If the experienced players with their perfect teamwork and 'leet gear solo stuff to avoid Dungeon Scaling, how are the newer people supposed to fare?

Dungeon Scaling was introduced before the Casual Setting - I think the Casual setting does a better job.

The opposite is true; dungeon scaling makes soloing beyond casual easier, not harder, for everybody, and especially for newer, not-well-geared players.

[pHo3nix]

A team of 6 TR's with full guild buffs and top level weapons will shred a quest 6 new players would struggle with.
Make very quest at level (or even under level) a challenge for EVERY party that enters it.
If aprty has 30pt guild resists, scale elemental damage up. Not the full 30pt up but maybe half the difference.
If a group has a rogue, scale damage of traps up.
If group has twinked to the hilt why shouldn't the mobs be scaled up to match.

DDO needs to understand there is a huge gap between the haves and the have nots but need to cater for both groups. The 4 difficulty split just does not cut it.

If acquiring gears grants no benefit cause the game scales to match it, then what's the reason of acquiring new items? Why should i run 100+ evon6 for the eSoS when i can keep my uber +1 greatsword and take the same time to kill a mob?

The same applies to buffs: if mobs bypass buffs, what's the reason of buffing? Ship resists should just scale with the lvl of the toon grabbing them: 10 points till lvl 7, 20 points till lvl 11 and 30 points after lvl 11.

[danotmano1998]

If acquiring gears grants no benefit cause the game scales to match it, then what's the reason of acquiring new items? Why should i run 100+ evon6 for the eSoS when i can keep my uber +1 greatsword and take the same time to kill a mob?

The same applies to buffs: if mobs bypass buffs, what's the reason of buffing? Ship resists should just scale with the lvl of the toon grabbing them: 10 points till lvl 7, 20 points till lvl 11 and 30 points after lvl 11.

This, 100 times over. ^^

The point of getting the TR past lives and gear is to make things a little easier the next go around. IF things scale up to match it, then there is effectively no point to getting any of this stuff. I would rather just stick with a first life, +1 wielding guy. He'll do just as good as my completionist fully epic geared guy, and costs a lot less to play. Not to mention I wouldn't bother grinding for gear, because it wouldn't make things any better!
By scaling up to match these things, you effectively nullify the point of them.

NO THANKS.

[ArcaneMelee]

The opposite is true; dungeon scaling makes soloing beyond casual easier, not harder, for everybody, and especially for newer, not-well-geared players.

I wasn't talking about soloing, I was talking about grouping. Dungeon Scaling makes grouping harder for everyone, and especially for newer, not-well geared players.

Now if you want to argue that it's better for the game if everyone solos, that's a different topic.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

I wasn't talking about soloing, I was talking about grouping. Dungeon Scaling makes grouping harder for everyone, and especially for newer, not-well geared players.

Now if you want to argue that it's better for the game if everyone solos, that's a different topic.

Dungeon scaling exists in many games that allow a multiplayer option, which means that most players (even casual players) are unlikely to be surprised when the game gets somehow harder, as the number of teammates increases. If they are surprised to see damage numbers rise, then a quick conversation with teammates about why incoming damage seems so high is likely to clear that up.

Eliminating dungeon scaling effectively means that all dungeons would be scaled for the maximum number of players; all team sizes below that would have more difficulty in-game--experience, skill, and player wealth kept equal--which is more of an issue than getting a feel for how dungeon scaling works.

[nibel]

The opposite is true; dungeon scaling makes soloing beyond casual easier, not harder, for everybody, and especially for newer, not-well-geared players.

As said, the game itself is buildt on the base that Hard is the highest any soloist can do. The game text for Elite do not say anything about "solo extreme challenge".

So, Casual should be made with solo/duo in mind (That should include changing quest mechanics, so the thing is soloable, like removing the light pads on the right corridor in Xorian Cipher), Normal for 4-man party of inexperienced players wanting completion or soloists wanting a challenge (Add scaling for solo, and cap scaling up to 4 people), Hard for 5-man party of inexperienced players wanting a challenge (Scaling is less noticiable, like the mobs is ~70% base strenght instead of actual ~25%), and Elite for full party of experienced or geared parties wanting a challenge (Experienced or geared wanting completion can run Hard without any problems, remove scaling at all).

The problem is not the difficult levels. Is everyone thinking that Elite is not a challenge, but "something to farm favor". And except for sos flagging, you seldom see anyone playing casual because "no one should run casual since normal is too easy".

[EnjoyTheJourney]

As said, the game itself is buildt on the base that Hard is the highest any soloist can do. The game text for Elite do not say anything about "solo extreme challenge".

So, Casual should be made with solo/duo in mind (That should include changing quest mechanics, so the thing is soloable, like removing the light pads on the right corridor in Xorian Cipher), Normal for 4-man party of inexperienced players wanting completion or soloists wanting a challenge (Add scaling for solo, and cap scaling up to 4 people), Hard for 5-man party of inexperienced players wanting a challenge (Scaling is less noticiable, like the mobs is ~70% base strenght instead of actual ~25%), and Elite for full party of experienced or geared parties wanting a challenge (Experienced or geared wanting completion can run Hard without any problems, remove scaling at all).

The problem is not the difficult levels. Is everyone thinking that Elite is not a challenge, but "something to farm favor". And except for sos flagging, you seldom see anyone playing casual because "no one should run casual since normal is too easy".

You lay out that descriptive language as if "this is the way it should be", but there's no particular reason for things to be the way you're describing. It's arbitrary. And, like many other things that are arbitrary, you start to see warts when you look even a little more closely at the implications.

One of the chief warts associated with this way of setting mission difficulty is that it amounts to saying "nerf soloing." But, there are games that manage to be both solo-friendly and team-friendly and there are no coherent arguments in this thread for why this game can't be, as well, or why it shouldn't be.

[rfachini]

On normal and casual most quests are not too frustrating. I don't like to fail on ANY quest, especially on casual.

The worst thing is when you have a PUG trying something on elite, and fail or have people leave partway through. The house P quest where you can't kill the mummies is a great example of this. Anytime you spend more than 20 min on a quest (and sometimes it well over an hour) and get almost nothing for it is frustrating. A possible solution would be to give a 25% XP consolation prize to any player who has been in a quest (active, taking damage, not piking or exploiting) over 60 min and then abandons it.

Raids are another story. Abbot and Lord of Blades are known for not being assured completions. It's fine to have quests that are that challenging, but the rewards should be much greater than easier quests.

[nibel]

You lay out that descriptive language as if "this is the way it should be", but there's no particular reason for things to be the way you're describing. It's arbitrary. And, like many other things that are arbitrary, you start to see warts when you look even a little more closely at the implications.

One of the chief warts associated with this way of setting mission difficulty is that it amounts to saying "nerf soloing." But, there are games that manage to be both solo-friendly and team-friendly and there are no coherent arguments in this thread for why this game can't be, as well, or why it shouldn't be.

Can you give examples? I really dont know any.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Can you give examples? I really dont know any.

Diablo 2
City of Heroes

Players having the option to team or solo--and to have a blast either way--is obviously a huge win for a game, and Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3 are clearly taking aim at this objective.

Edit: Instead of just listing games, a little of the thinking behind why I and many others found them both solo and team friendly might be in order.

Diablo 2 can be solo'd just fine, of course. It's not very "PUG-friendly" on open Battle Net as many multiplayer games because of the "going hostile" option, the way loot drops (first come, first serve), and the historically ubiquitous presence of hacks and exploits. But, "closed" games with friends (ie: with a password) can be a lot of fun -- speaking from plenty of experience at bringing characters from level 1 to "Guardian" through solo play, team play, or a mixture of both.

City of Heroes is more PUG-friendly for most content than Diablo 2 primarily because unilaterally going hostile isn't possible, the way drops are decided is less likely to promote anger at teammates, and various griefing mechanics are generally better controlled than on open Battle Net. However, you can solo (or team) from level 1 to 50 and have been able to do that for a very long time, on many different difficulty settings; I've solo'd to 50 and teamed to 50 multiple times, and both can be a lot of fun.

[nibel]

Diablo 2
City of Heroes

I'll concede the point because I never played CoH, and Diablo made me sleep on my keyboard. So, I'll take your word for it.

Anyway, my point is: I'm averse of the highest difficult setting in the game be soloable. Playing solo you can get all non-raid loot quite easily (many need TONS of repetition, but is acessible), and level up to 20 with only normal and wilderness zones (up to 400 slayer, plus explorers). Also, Raiding the Giant's Vault is the best place for any casual player to farm plat.

I see no reason to not build Elite raids to challenge the multi TR twinked players that want a challenge (actually, I would set all raids on elite to level 20. Chrono/TS/VoN/Titan/DQ included).

Elite quests do not require multi-TR to be finished, just to have some changes to not let the quest be simply brute-forced to the end. Like Elite Small Problem or Elite Demon's Den. Eg, Elite Xorian Cipher could be the only one that have 4 light pods (Casual and Normal have one pod that opens to puzzle, Hard have 2 pods so someone need to face the mobs on the big room, and Elite is like it is today). Elite Waterworks could have respawning kobolds, so Arlos dying could be a problem (obviously, Arlos would not be as fragile as he is today). Elite Faithful Departed and Sleeping Dust would have the failure conditions they have today (Casual-Hard they would be only optionals that give a lot of XP or loot). Timed quests could have a smaller or bigger timer to work ("defensive" quests like Baundry Shipment and Threnal East 3 would be longer on elite, "offensive" ones like New Invasion would be shorter). And so on.

The only reasons everyone wants to jump on elite completions are:

-Bravery Streak
-Silver Flame/Yugo favor for pots
-Coin Lords/House K favor for space
-Free TP

[Jahmin]

I find the overall difficulty of at level Casual, Normal, Hard & Elite settings pretty good and just about correct. I find Epic more tedious than challenging however…

If by find Normal too much like Hard you mean that there is not a noticeable increase in difficulty then yes.

I actually find difficult settings cluster by Module and Update: that is that quests released closer together (often as part of a single release or as parts of a chain) have similar difficult on similar settings which differ from those of other quests of the same level released previously or subsequently. Logically the rotation of level designers probably explains this, but I am not familiar with who is doing what quest and I do not believe it has been made public since Vale (Mod6). Nevertheless this would be something worth considering.

For challenge vs. success on normal I expect to not need resources/consumables in order to succeed, although those would make it easier, but it should require average teamwork and tactics to do so. For Hard, good teamwork and tactics should be able to succeed without needing consumables although resources maybe expended. Elite requires great teamwork and tactics while needing resource expenditure and potentially consumable usage. With Casual I expect to be able to succeed with all party members phoning in their performances drunk.
For this purpose resources refer to easily replaced items (scrolls, wands, rechargeable charges) whereas consumables are more difficult to replace (mnemonics, non-rechargeable charges).

Although I do not expect to fail when playing Normal, it is a possibility however remote. No chance of Normal failure would be incredibly boring and completely negate the necessity of Casual.

One of the problems (if not THE problem) is the scaling you introduced. It essentially invalidates (or at least overwrites) the difficulty setting: it is often far easier to solo Elite, than full man Normal… I frankly cannot think of a worse mechanic to introduce into a cooperative game than one that DISCOURAGES grouping.


Yes, it sucks to fail - even more so after spending 45+ minutes in the quest - but it happens, and when it happens because of player choice it is acceptable outcome. Even then, between re-entry and the DDO: Store even failure is not a certainty anymore. Not to mention there is an easier difficulty setting than Normal as well. It also is worth noting that DDO is decidedly NOT most MMOs, and doing something different should not be seen as bad. Rewarding player skill is something the game should strive for, not run from!


Yes, currently you are needlessly RE-balancing the game for the ultra-elite. Aside from the stupidity of targeting this extremely small subsection of your player base at the expense of the VAST remainder, the fact remains that changing old content takes time away from new content and bugs/fixes that do require changes.

Let us reference the Reaver. This was the capstone raid for the game’s fourth module and first anniversary. The level cap was raised to 14 with its release. It was over 4 YEARS old when it was selected to be balanced for an end game 6 levels further on. Not surprisingly if the goal was to challenge level 20s, this lvl14 Raid FAILS utterly. It is however significantly more challenging at level, being incredibly difficult on elite especially for the original cap of 14. Net result: everyone runs it at cap… great investment of development resources.

There exists a difficulty setting for challenging the uber-player: EPIC. Had development not waffled from the original statement of every release would include an Epic difficulty to oh we are going to avoid epics and then back to here are some more Epic raids to challenge you this might have actually been useful. Ultimately rather than finishing Epic Gianthold you ****ed away time and effort to change the base quest needlessly and did not even accomplish your goal.

The bigger issue with changing old content is that the people that are uber that you apparently want to challenge have ALREADY FARMED IT DOWN. The only people that are punished by these changes are the newer players that have not gotten everything they need (let alone all they want) to move on.


J-

[sirgog]

I find the overall difficulty of at level Casual, Normal, Hard & Elite settings pretty good and just about correct. I find Epic more tedious than challenging however…

If by find Normal too much like Hard you mean that there is not a noticeable increase in difficulty then yes.

I actually find difficult settings cluster by Module and Update: that is that quests released closer together (often as part of a single release or as parts of a chain) have similar difficult on similar settings which differ from those of other quests of the same level released previously or subsequently. Logically the rotation of level designers probably explains this, but I am not familiar with who is doing what quest and I do not believe it has been made public since Vale (Mod6). Nevertheless this would be something worth considering.

For challenge vs. success on normal I expect to not need resources/consumables in order to succeed, although those would make it easier, but it should require average teamwork and tactics to do so. For Hard, good teamwork and tactics should be able to succeed without needing consumables although resources maybe expended. Elite requires great teamwork and tactics while needing resource expenditure and potentially consumable usage. With Casual I expect to be able to succeed with all party members phoning in their performances drunk.
For this purpose resources refer to easily replaced items (scrolls, wands, rechargeable charges) whereas consumables are more difficult to replace (mnemonics, non-rechargeable charges).

Although I do not expect to fail when playing Normal, it is a possibility however remote. No chance of Normal failure would be incredibly boring and completely negate the necessity of Casual.

One of the problems (if not THE problem) is the scaling you introduced. It essentially invalidates (or at least overwrites) the difficulty setting: it is often far easier to solo Elite, than full man Normal… I frankly cannot think of a worse mechanic to introduce into a cooperative game than one that DISCOURAGES grouping.


Yes, it sucks to fail - even more so after spending 45+ minutes in the quest - but it happens, and when it happens because of player choice it is acceptable outcome. Even then, between re-entry and the DDO: Store even failure is not a certainty anymore. Not to mention there is an easier difficulty setting than Normal as well. It also is worth noting that DDO is decidedly NOT most MMOs, and doing something different should not be seen as bad. Rewarding player skill is something the game should strive for, not run from!


Yes, currently you are needlessly RE-balancing the game for the ultra-elite. Aside from the stupidity of targeting this extremely small subsection of your player base at the expense of the VAST remainder, the fact remains that changing old content takes time away from new content and bugs/fixes that do require changes.

Let us reference the Reaver. This was the capstone raid for the game’s fourth module and first anniversary. The level cap was raised to 14 with its release. It was over 4 YEARS old when it was selected to be balanced for an end game 6 levels further on. Not surprisingly if the goal was to challenge level 20s, this lvl14 Raid FAILS utterly. It is however significantly more challenging at level, being incredibly difficult on elite especially for the original cap of 14. Net result: everyone runs it at cap… great investment of development resources.

There exists a difficulty setting for challenging the uber-player: EPIC. Had development not waffled from the original statement of every release would include an Epic difficulty to oh we are going to avoid epics and then back to here are some more Epic raids to challenge you this might have actually been useful. Ultimately rather than finishing Epic Gianthold you ****ed away time and effort to change the base quest needlessly and did not even accomplish your goal.

The bigger issue with changing old content is that the people that are uber that you apparently want to challenge have ALREADY FARMED IT DOWN. The only people that are punished by these changes are the newer players that have not gotten everything they need (let alone all they want) to move on.


J-

Excluding runs with fewer than six people, I have not seen a Reaver failed at-level as a result of anything other than puzzle failure. It is widely PUGged, on elite, by 14-16s. I've solohealed Bravery runs.

When it came out, Reaver was a pure puzzle quest. Figure out the puzzle, and you had a guaranteed completion. A couple of individuals dying was common, but the completion was assured.

Now, it's back to the same. One tank rolls a 3 on Disintegrate and dies, the next steps in, and the Reaver seldom casts it twice in a two minute period. Some groups kite him instead of tanking him, and that is easier still.

The only reason it is mostly run at 20 is because people are 14-16 for such a short time, and flagging through Crucible is very hard without breaking Bravery streaks. So there are not many flagged 14-16s, and the lockout timer makes it very difficult to get a group - most people are 17 by the time they've done the raid two or three times.


Reaver elite at level is easier than a LOT of quests noone has mentioned in this thread. I've wiped a lot more in Co6 part 5 elite, or Dreams of Insanity elite, or even Xorian Cypher Hard - all MUCH harder to do at-level than the Reaver raid is.

The old elite Reaver (the 35000hp one from pre U11) would fit well as a quest boss in a Normal difficulty level 16 6-person quest.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

To improve the "fun factor" for teams of all sizes (1 player to a full team), here's one suggestion:

Let team leaders choose the difficulty level per mission (casual, ... elite) and also let the team leader specify the number of players for which mobs will be scaled - with a key constraint as outlined later.

For example, somebody who loves extreme challenge can choose to play all missions on elite difficulty with mobs scaled for the maximum number of players. A brand new player can play as "one player" on casual / normal / ... A moderately experienced, reasonably well geared player can play as one player on hard difficulty, or as two players on normal (or casual) difficulty. Or whatever. Teams can do the same thing, scaling the overall challenge level up or down, in accordance with what makes sense for them.

The basic idea is that by giving players more control over their chosen challenge level, they'll choose whatever allows them to have the most fun -- really, why would players make any other choice? Teams would (generally) pick a player scaling value and difficulty level that suited their desired pace and level of challenge, as well.

A key balance consideration is to set a "floor" on how a mission can be scaled, vis a vis the number of players selected, that is equal to or greater than the number of players on the team. Thus, a team of six could not select "equal to one player" for a mission, for obvious reasons related to game balance; a team of six players would always be set for six players, for missions for which a team of six is the maximum size. A team of five, however, would get the chance to select mission difficulty level, as well as having mobs scaled for either 5 or 6 players.

This kind of player control over both the number of players to which a character is equivalent and the "overall" difficulty level of mobs exists in at least one more game that I know about, and I really liked having that flexibility. More player choice = more fun for teams of all sizes.

[ddobard1]

DDO's difficulty is acceptable! But if you wanna make the game a better game.... make it tougher! With more difficulties to overcome......

Normal difficulty right now is a joke!!!!! Never fail a quest? Who wants success guaranteed in an MMO? Come on.....

I feel the game is balanced through the levels..... No more easy buttons, plz.

Heroes shouldnt run freely around foes' territory without taking any penalty..... Reality is welcome... Keep dungeon scale!

You've been balancing the game for the uber-player.... LOL

Keep tuned with d&d! Bring in the next years the DRUID, the GNOME, the GOBLIN, etc. DDO is the best of all because you respect D&D! (Yes Gnomes are +2 Constitution and -2 Strength)

STAY DDO

[BossOfEarth]

DDO's difficulty is good because of the broad spectrum of choices. There are a handful of quests that are notoriously difficult at level and that's good! And for risk free questing, there's always slayer -- each kill counts towards the goal. Personaly, I'd like to have more activites like slayer where you can come and go as you please.

The best quests offer a late game chance to increase the difficulty. I really enjoy that aspect of Tower of Despair. If you want Sulo's chest you've gotta pull off the rest of the quest with style. The first quest that has such a meaninful decision point is the Sewers of Azagkor, the choice to risk fighting the Clay Golum in the waterfall is a choice fraught with danger.

I'd also like the ability to level-down. Personaly, I love the Pit and I would run it nonstop if I could get my main in there. But usualy my main is the wrong level. And when I had a friend join DDO, I had difficulty grouping with him because his lowby leveled up faster than my TR but my alts were too high level, and then he quit. So... the option to level-down to enter lower level quests and group with friends would be great.

[sirgog]

DDO's difficulty is good because of the broad spectrum of choices. There are a handful of quests that are notoriously difficult at level and that's good! And for risk free questing, there's always slayer -- each kill counts towards the goal. Personaly, I'd like to have more activites like slayer where you can come and go as you please.

The best quests offer a late game chance to increase the difficulty. I really enjoy that aspect of Tower of Despair. If you want Sulo's chest you've gotta pull off the rest of the quest with style. The first quest that has such a meaninful decision point is the Sewers of Azagkor, the choice to risk fighting the Clay Golum in the waterfall is a choice fraught with danger.
...

Slayer IMO needs more XP so that running it actually advances your character. I'd rather a clear warning is given for the 'notoriously tough' quests too.

On TOD - I like the idea, but not so much the implementation in TOD. Fighting Suulo doesn't really make the fight harder, just longer (and more SP strained) as Suulo doesn't really interact with Horoth at all. An example of an optional that really makes a fight harder is the Domination optional in Lord of Blades (doing it the proper way, i.e. not marking LOB until the Quori are up), where doing the optional adds a lot of new, nasty mobs.

The problem with these optionals is that they make it harder to form a group for the exact way you want to run a raid. Not only do you need 11 other flagged and prepared players, but they all need to be willing to run 'Hard + Optional' or whatever.

[Shade]

The biggest thing being done wrong lately with game difficulty:

The lack of difficulty options.

It's a massive step in the wrong direction. As you can see from this thread, there is a huge diversity in what players want.. So more options is the answer.

The fact U12 came out with ZERO difficulty settings was a huge disapointment. Along with U9/10/11 lacking any real epic options for quests is holding the game back.

All new content from now on should have all difficulty settings available.

It's something we always had great choices in the past, yet seems to have been forgotten lately. If theres to be progress, we can't be going backwards like this.

The new challenges are great. Can be really fun, lots of cool loot, etc.. Yet they very rarely get ran because they have no difficulty settings, and I the the default just can't cater to everyone. It's too easy for the hardcores, yet too hard for the casuals.. A few simple normal/hard/elite settings could solve all that.

If anything, we want more options, not less. Not silly scaling to try to make a one size fits all, it just doesn't work. The players are smart enough to use simple selection boxes, let us have them.