MMORPG with challenging non-endgame PvE content?

[May90]

I am truly disappointed with the direction mainstream MMORPGs went after WoW appeared on the market. Today, it seems, in most MMOs challenge has moved to PvP and the endgame, but questing/leveling is a joke in terms of difficulty. I've tried the following games: WoW, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, TERA, Aion, Neverwinter, Rift and a few others - and they all had the same story: mobs during leveling/questing didn't put up any challenge at all. Actually, SWTOR was the only one which didn't let me pull more than 1 group of mobs and survive (but it still was easy if I fought only one group at a time), and in other games questing mobs didn't seem to be balanced at all, like they were intended to just fill the world with pretty models, not to actually make the world dangerous.

I miss the days of Ultima Online when I would get out of the city with a newly created character only to miserably die to the first mob. Today, I get out of the city and see scarecrows walking around, poking me with a finger instead of actually attacking me and dealing some serious damage.

So, my question is: are there MMORPGs like this today, in which open world is truly dangerous, questing requires effort and care? I don't care about their popularity, let it be some niche Korean isometric hack'n'slash RPG, but one that is not a faceroll before the endgame. Or am I just looking at the wrong genre?

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Note to moderators: it is not exactly a "Looking for a game" thread so I started it here. I think many people are interested in the same information I am seeking, so please do not move it to the "Looking for a game" sub-forum if you can help it. Thanks.

[Gumboy]

I would suggest path of exile, but its not an MMORPG Play that on one of the hardcore leagues with self found gear and you can easily die in the first couple hours of playing if you aren't paying attention :P

[Deleted]

Unequip your stuff and If you can put some points in a talent tree, dont do it.

The closer to somethin intredasting like you want could be Rift and the Nightmare Rift or zones' events... scale down your level and clean every zone while been under gear, under level.
I don't think that you really need to find some new games, maybe you just need to change your approach for leveling.

Ex: http://wowironman.com/

[Fencers]

So, my question is: are there MMORPGs like this today, in which open world is truly dangerous, questing requires effort and care? I don't care about their popularity, let it be some niche Korean isometric hack'n'slash RPG, but one that is not a faceroll before the endgame. Or am I just looking at the wrong genre?

Everquest 1 is still active and receives live development. What you are referring to is "grand" style RPGs.

Albion Online is sorta like old Ultima Online.

I am finding it pretty hard to come up with MMORPGs specifically that fit what you are asking for, OP. Though games like EvE and Perpetuum come to mind.

[May90]

I would suggest path of exile, but its not an MMORPG Play that on one of the hardcore leagues with self found gear and you can easily die in the first couple hours of playing if you aren't paying attention :P

Thanks, I've heard a lot of good stuff about PoE. Unfortunately, like you said, it is not a MMO, and, well, Diablo 2 kind of fills the spot for this kind of games in my playlist.

Unequip your stuff and If you can put some points in a talent tree, dont do it.

The closer to somethin intredasting like you want could be Rift and the Nightmare Rift or zones' events... scale down your level and clean every zone while been under gear, under level.
I don't think that you really need to find some new games, maybe you just need to change your approach for leveling.

Ex: http://wowironman.com/

Thanks for the suggestion, I've actually tried doing it (got to level 42 or so with Hunter with white gear, no Talents, no enchants and such) and it was fun, but it is not exactly what I had in mind. Instead of restricting myself in order to get a challenge, I would like a game in which I would have to use all the available in-game arsenal in order to make it through.

Everquest 1 is still active and receives live development. What you are referring to is "grand" style RPGs.

I tried playing this game and it, indeed, felt very hardcore. Unfortunately, the graphics is just way too outdated and just, well, not to my taste.

Albion Online is sorta like old Ultima Online.

Wow, I looked at a couple of Let's Plays on Youtube and this just might be what I've been looking for! I'll check it out. Gracias!

[Shinzai]

So, my question is: are there MMORPGs like this today, in which open world is truly dangerous, questing requires effort and care? I don't care about their popularity, let it be some niche Korean isometric hack'n'slash RPG, but one that is not a faceroll before the endgame. Or am I just looking at the wrong genre?

Final Fantasy XI.

[Cattleya]

Well, Wildstar can be about as challenging as you want it to be, since just about every quest area has regular mobs, strong mobs, and mobs that are fairly suicidal to solo.

[May90]

Final Fantasy XI.

There is something about Japanese RPGs graphical style that doesn't let me play their games at all. They just look, I don't know, a lot like anime, and I can't stand anime.

Well, Wildstar can be about as challenging as you want it to be, since just about every quest area has regular mobs, strong mobs, and mobs that are fairly suicidal to solo.

If Wildstar had a trial or a F2P mode, I would give it a try. But from what I've seen in Let's Plays, I was not impressed, and also the lore and the graphical style repelled me a bit. So with it I will wait until they, at least, offer some kind of a trial.

[SodiumChloride]

FFXIV is the first MMO that I have played that has some challenging quests during leveling.

It's not all the way challenging, but some of the solo instances stuff can really test you - they were smart enough to give you the "Echo"(i.e. WoW's Determination; boosts HP, damage and healing) if you wipe more than once (i.e. it activates on your third attempt).

[OrcsRLame]

Dungeons and Dragons Online: Unlimited. While leveling, the quests in that game present a pretty big challenge. This is partly due to the quests having multiple difficulties, and being repeatable. So like, a level 1 quest on normal or casual is pretty faceroll, standard mmo-stuff. Throw it onto hard and you need to have some idea of what you're doing to win. On elite, you need either a group or a fairly optimized character build, and there's a ton of character customization. Increasing the difficulty one step increases the quest's level by 1, so a level 1 quest on hard is a level 2 quest, on elite it's level 3.

That's level 1 quests though. By around level 3-5, the kid gloves come off. I think a level 5 DDO quest on elite is harder than any non-raid content in wow, by a lot. I've seen well built tanks get gibbed by the kind of damage output you would only expect in mythic raiding in wow. On elite, traps get like a x20 damage multiplier. So, if you just walk into a hallway without a care in the world as a 90hp level 5 tank, you're going to fucking die when the walls suddenly turn into flamethrowers that do 250 damage per tick. Shit is terrifying. You need a rogue to disable that shit, or at least have enough game knowledge to know that the trap is there and know how to get around it without getting your butt blown off in some damn explosion.

On elite, just regular spellcasting mobs also fuck your face incredibly hard. Like, you charge a caster and his 3 buddies, the caster blinds you, (screen goes black) and then stuns you for 30 seconds while his bros rip your face off. Also, whenever you're stunned in that game, every attack against you is an automatic crit, have fun with that.

There's 4 major cons to playing DDO.

1. It's kind of pay to win, and a lot of content is locked behind a pay wall. It's not as bad as a lot of other games, but that element of the game is still there. You can obtain everything in the game with enough grinding if you're willing to devote your life to it, so there's that I suppose.

2. Small community. Pugging dungeons and raids can sometimes be very difficult, due to there not being a lot of players in the game.

3. The game is really fucking punishing to new players. Doing a quest on elite for the first time? Have fun dying over and over and over again if you don't have a damn good rogue buddy. And you'll still die over and over and over again if you don't have a sixth sense for danger. Rooms literally blow up sometimes.

4. The game is old! I think it technically came out after wow, but it hasn't aged that well concerning its graphics and animations.

[May90]

FFXIV is the first MMO that I have played that has some challenging quests during leveling.

Unfortunately, Japanese RPGs are a no-go for me. I just can't stand their visual style, and FFXIV is no exception.

Dungeons and Dragons Online: Unlimited.
...

I've been watching this game a lot, and I would love to go with it. There are 2 problems that are troubling though:
1. As you said, you have to pay for a lot of content after certain point. I don't mind paying for content as long as it is optional... But since there is no free content past that mark and since they position the game as Free To Play, it just feels like money milking to me. If they officially said the game was F2P only in the mode of trial, then I would be OK with it. But as it stands, after being hurt so badly by SWTOR's "F2P" system, I don't want to repeat the experience.
2. It is a very instanced game. While I don't mind challenging instances, I would prefer, at least, some resemblance of an open world. This is doesn't have to necessarily be the case, but searching for a group for a long time might not be pleasant.

Anyway, I will give it a try eventually.

Also, I'm going to try Neverwinter. I know it is not positioned as a particularly hard game, but there is a lot of user made content, so, as in case of Neverwinter Nights where the base game was quite easy but some modules were hard beyond comprehension, I hope the same thing goes here.

[Fencers]

Also, I'm going to try Neverwinter. I know it is not positioned as a particularly hard game, but there is a lot of user made content, so, as in case of Neverwinter Nights where the base game was quite easy but some modules were hard beyond comprehension, I hope the same thing goes here.

You are in for a BIG disappointment if you pay Neverwinter expecting player content to be "hard" or challenging in any way. Most player content is cheese made for fast leveling/loot or incredibly limited due the lack of tools available.

I do not know how to express just how misguided the exception is w/r/t Neverwinter.

[OrcsRLame]

Unfortunately, Japanese RPGs are a no-go for me. I just can't stand their visual style, and FFXIV is no exception.


I've been watching this game a lot, and I would love to go with it. There are 2 problems that are troubling though:
1. As you said, you have to pay for a lot of content after certain point. I don't mind paying for content as long as it is optional... But since there is no free content past that mark and since they position the game as Free To Play, it just feels like money milking to me. If they officially said the game was F2P only in the mode of trial, then I would be OK with it. But as it stands, after being hurt so badly by SWTOR's "F2P" system, I don't want to repeat the experience.
2. It is a very instanced game. While I don't mind challenging instances, I would prefer, at least, some resemblance of an open world. This is doesn't have to necessarily be the case, but searching for a group for a long time might not be pleasant.

Anyway, I will give it a try eventually.

Yeah, the game is pretty much entirely instance based. Even the open areas are instances lol.

Last I heard though, you could reach endgame in DDO without paying for anything, (up to the expansions, which you'll have to pay for) it's just a pain in the ass.

All quests in DDO are what you would call dungeons in wow. They can be soloed though! Last I'd heard, even the hardest 6 man quests could be soloed on Epic Elite, but doing so required a very specific character build. Still, most of them aren't too absurd to duo if you have a buddy that also wants to play, so long as you're both willing to have a hireling as well. Each player in a group can run 1 hireling, up to the maximum group size of 6 players. Hirelings are a bit stupid sometimes, but they're surprisingly powerful.

Even if you don't buy a thing, I'd still say give DDO a try. It's not like other MMOs where you need to reach endgame to get a satisfying experience. It really puts you into the meat of the game by about level 5. Hell,the most difficult quest in the game, (according to many in the community) to do at level is a level 8 quest called Tomb of the Shadow Knight. DDO doesn't pull its punches much past the tutorial.

[jbombard]

There is something about Japanese RPGs graphical style that doesn't let me play their games at all. They just look, I don't know, a lot like anime, and I can't stand anime.


If Wildstar had a trial or a F2P mode, I would give it a try. But from what I've seen in Let's Plays, I was not impressed, and also the lore and the graphical style repelled me a bit. So with it I will wait until they, at least, offer some kind of a trial.

While I don't think it Wildstar leveling was super hard, it does require you to pay attention. That is a far site better than most MMORPGs where you can level with one hand in a bag of chips while watching TV. Some mobs will kill you rather quickly if you don't move out of their damage. Hell even plant life can kill you if you aren't paying attention. Probably the best leveling experience I've had in an MMORPG recently, it's a shame the endgame doesn't have much to do and they pretty much killed the new content release schedule they promised all during development. They really needed to get out a bunch of content in the first year and they just gave up before the game was even out for 2 months.

[announced]

im gonna say path of exile is probly the best free game u can play atm. its a bit grindy in the 2nd difficulty and much more grindy in merciless but overall its quite a solid game. as for your D2 argument its similar to D2 in many ways. very hack and slash.

If u want a wow type mmo, Swtor is decent as well. I still find the imperial storylines pretty damm awesome and it is free to play. its not that dangerous but maybe u could die if u pulled like 10 mobs instead of 1 at a time. theres occasional elites u can run into. and if u have never played swtor and dont use your skills properly bosses can and will kill you. (some end game bosses will kill you atleast once even if u are decently gear'd)

[Razamith]

If only Kingdoms of Amalur went to phase 2: MMO and the cheetEngine rebalance mod was integrated....

Maybe "The Secret World"? Supposedly quite difficult, but different style though.

[May90]

You are in for a BIG disappointment if you pay Neverwinter expecting player content to be "hard" or challenging in any way. Most player content is cheese made for fast leveling/loot or incredibly limited due the lack of tools available.

I do not know how to express just how misguided the exception is w/r/t Neverwinter.

Yes, I've read a lot about it recently... I can't believe they used such an awesome tool unique for MMOs to just power level characters. But surely there are, at least, some mapmakers interested in something different?

Yeah, the game is pretty much entirely instance based. Even the open areas are instances lol.

Last I heard though, you could reach endgame in DDO without paying for anything, (up to the expansions, which you'll have to pay for) it's just a pain in the ass.

All quests in DDO are what you would call dungeons in wow. They can be soloed though! Last I'd heard, even the hardest 6 man quests could be soloed on Epic Elite, but doing so required a very specific character build. Still, most of them aren't too absurd to duo if you have a buddy that also wants to play, so long as you're both willing to have a hireling as well. Each player in a group can run 1 hireling, up to the maximum group size of 6 players. Hirelings are a bit stupid sometimes, but they're surprisingly powerful.

Even if you don't buy a thing, I'd still say give DDO a try. It's not like other MMOs where you need to reach endgame to get a satisfying experience. It really puts you into the meat of the game by about level 5. Hell,the most difficult quest in the game, (according to many in the community) to do at level is a level 8 quest called Tomb of the Shadow Knight. DDO doesn't pull its punches much past the tutorial.

Thanks, I will try it eventually. It is not exactly what I'm looking for in the sense that it is not an open world game, but it has a challenge, and that is more important for me.

While I don't think it Wildstar leveling was super hard, it does require you to pay attention. That is a far site better than most MMORPGs where you can level with one hand in a bag of chips while watching TV. Some mobs will kill you rather quickly if you don't move out of their damage. Hell even plant life can kill you if you aren't paying attention. Probably the best leveling experience I've had in an MMORPG recently, it's a shame the endgame doesn't have much to do and they pretty much killed the new content release schedule they promised all during development. They really needed to get out a bunch of content in the first year and they just gave up before the game was even out for 2 months.

Well, I am not really interested in the endgame... But from what I've seen from leveling, people didn't have much difficulty, as long as they performed basic dodges and jumped out of AOE circles. It resembled Guild Wars 2 in some sense, as there also you can do fine with pulling even a few mobs, as long as you don't just stay hitting ability hotkeys but actively run around and dodge.

If u want a wow type mmo, Swtor is decent as well. I still find the imperial storylines pretty damm awesome and it is free to play. its not that dangerous but maybe u could die if u pulled like 10 mobs instead of 1 at a time. theres occasional elites u can run into. and if u have never played swtor and dont use your skills properly bosses can and will kill you. (some end game bosses will kill you atleast once even if u are decently gear'd)

I played SWTOR for 1.5 months in total and was severely disappointed in the game. Leveling difficulty was, actually, higher than in other MMOs I've tried - but the combat also was "WoW in slow mode", button mashing, only, unlike in WoW, it takes not 5 seconds but rather a minute to kill a mob at later levels - with still low danger, as long as you don't pull additional mobs. My biggest problem with the game was, however, quality of cutscenes: I loved KotoR games, but in SWTOR dialogues feel so childish and stupid, I couldn't take them seriously. For an MMO they are probably awesome, but compared with other recent Bioware games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect series - total disappointment.

And, seriously, the only hard fight I had in SWTOR (I leveled Trooper to 55 and Inquisitor to about 40) was force-sensitive rakgoul on Taris. That dude just kept force choking me without me being able to do anything - I died 3 or 4 times to him.

If only Kingdoms of Amalur went to phase 2: MMO and the cheetEngine rebalance mod was integrated....

Totally agree on this. The balance was my only problem with that game: you get to max level half way through the game, and the game becomes quite easy once you hit level 15 or so and get OP abilities. Even with cheat engine on hardest mode I didn't feel like there was much challenge past level 30 (only the demon boss in a dungeon by the end of the forest zone was a real pain since with that mod he almost didn't take any damage).

Maybe "The Secret World"? Supposedly quite difficult, but different style though.

Not fan of the comics-like visual style.

[Fencers]

Yes, I've read a lot about it recently... I can't believe they used such an awesome tool unique for MMOs to just power level characters. But surely there are, at least, some mapmakers interested in something different?

Sure. Though most are either short, unfinished or essentially a hack-n-slash dungeon. The problem is twofold: limited tools and the nature of Neverwinter.

Neverwinter is not Neverwinter Nights. It's just an action MMORPG, there isn't a lot to gain or motivation in creating some rich story or adventure. And the tools just don't allow creators that much liberty to really make something "difficult".

Almost everything scales and at best any "module" is a collection of rooms with monsters to fight. Not some break neck assemblage of Beholders, Mindflayers and Tiamat arrayed against the player's plucky level 4 Tiefling Bard.

[Enitzu]

I am kind of in the same boat here. I haven't been able to find any game lately that pushes me to even think about what I am doing. Most of them you can level one handed watching tv hitting the same 2-3 buttons over and over. It's pretty much gotten to the point where I am playing multiple games because I get bored with them so quickly.

I'll run down the pros/cons from my angle on a few though:

Wildstar - Cartoony graphics but better in difficulty than most. When I played (beta through about 2 months after launch) the end game was non exsistant outside of the grind to get into raids. Once that was done it was the same as everything else. Raid logging basically. Dungeons aren't a challenge unless you are speed running for medals and even then it's not a challenge once you know the route.

Neverwinter - Don't even bother wasting your time. Cash grab and def not worth the HD space imo.

FF XIV - Good game albeit on the easy side of things. End game raids can be challenging but the leveling is still pretty generic and is 100% soloable until extreme mode raids/coil. Main thing that kills this for me is Fate grinding jobs past your first. It is so incredibly boring and stupid. And that's coming from someone that leveled 3 toons to max in EQ1 so grinding is not a foreign concept.

Tera - F2P and the cash shop is not something you really ever 'need' to spend money in so that's a huge plus. Leveling is still pretty easy and not really any challenge until end game although you do have to pay attention here more than other games. Gear grind is more extreme, especially if you aren't spending money in the cash shop since buying the alkahests is far easier than farming them. Haven't done much in terms of end game as I just started messing around on it again. It's a game that is at least worth looking at since it is pretty much completely f2p.

Guild Wars 2 - Haven't played this one a ton but the little I have played says it's a pretty easy game like the others. PvE wise there is not much of a challenge. Haven't touched any end game yet or pvp (but pvp is always more challenging since it's someone with a brain rather than AI). Cash shop doesn't seem needed but it is another one of those games with lockboxes you have to buy keys for if u want to use them. Good buy if you can find it on sale imo.

EQ1(mainly refering to Project 1999 emulator)- If you haven't played it ever it is by far the most hardcore game around. Very old (hence the 1999, when it was launched) so graphics are highly outdated and are a major problem that keeps most newer players from playing. But difficulty is def there, very easy to die, corpse runs when you do die, soloing is possible but def not recommended. Takes a long time to hit cap and at cap there is so much u still have to camp for gear and attunments if u plan to do anything end game really. Don't bother trying to raids unless u get into a guild that is in the rotation since their whole raid system is open world and community run. It's pretty stupid but not many people really care about it since there is so much more to do. If you can get past the graphics and out datedness of the game it will keep your attention more than most.

SWTOR - Honestly the game I know the least about since my max level was only like 30. Pretty simplistic game play and not very difficult. Friend claims their raids are some of the best but even there I don't see it from vids. Cash shop at some points is pretty much a must unless you sub. IMO just another one to toss into the generic mmo market. Other than the sci fy theme it isn't much different.

Everquest 2 - Pretty much the same as the others. Out dated graphics and solo leveling is quite easy. I didn't get to end game but have watched streams of the raids which seem completely idiotic where most dps are standing looking at the floor casting with no mechanics even. Seems pretty dumb. Button bloat is real here. Most classes end up with 40+ things on the bars which 70% of aren't even needed. F2p and don't really need to buy anything from what I have seen. Pretty standard generic stuff.


TBH my hopes for this genre lay with 3 games coming up: EQ Next, Camelot Unchained, and Pantheon. If those 3 flop (or don't get made in the case of Pantheon and all the things that are going on with that mess) then I don't see this genre surviving. Don't expect any of these to launch even this year however. CU goes into alpha soon though so may get lucky and see a very late release this year but I am expecting spring next year.

If you happen to find a good one let me know however. I am looking to find a game to sink time into. Or if people with the same mindset want to drop some time into P99 msg me and I may think about it

[SodiumChloride]

FF XIV - Good game albeit on the easy side of things. End game raids can be challenging but the leveling is still pretty generic and is 100% soloable until extreme mode raids/coil. Main thing that kills this for me is Fate grinding jobs past your first. It is so incredibly boring and stupid. And that's coming from someone that leveled 3 toons to max in EQ1 so grinding is not a foreign concept

FATE grinding got nerfed a while back. Dungeons are pretty much the way to go now. Good while it lasted I suppose.

Also depends on what you mean by "challenging", just because it's soloable doesn't mean it's "not challenging". Most of it is easy enough, but some of the solo instance stuff can wipe you if you aren't careful.