Does challenging or easy content keep people playing?

[Deleted]

I think this is a very important question to ask and there seem to be two schools of thought:

1. Challenging content keeps people playing

Reasoning: Once you've killed the final boss and overcome all challenges there are ingame, you've essentially "beat the game". There's no logical reason to continue playing.

Pro:
-Overcoming a challenge in order to face the next, more challenging, challenge is a satisfying and acknowledged form of progression.
-There's a sense of accomplishment with every challenge overcome.
-There's stuff to look forward to.

Con:
-Content is somewhat "gated" and only becomes accessible after overcoming previous challenges (progressing from normal to heroic).
-Easy content is limited
-Less and fewer players get to participate in each tier of challenges, as the increasing difficulty filters out lacking players.


2. Easy content keeps people playing

Reasoning: You have a wide range of accessible content available to you. More variety in game-play allows for longer-lasting motivation.

Pro:
-Everyone gets to experience a wide variety of content. There's no "gating".

Con:
-A diminished sense of character progression as there are fewer challenges to overcome and thus, less recognition for overcoming said challenges.
-Players who like challenges see little point in playing.




I think both schools of thought follow a certain logic and can be reasonably argued with. I wonder what you think is true.

[HMonster]

You need both imo. If stuff is too hard, people will stop bashing their heads against the wall. If its too easy, people will clear it and get bored. Its a very fine line.

Thing is the majority of the playerbase only sees it from their own perspective. The hardcore raiders say its too easy. The "casuals" say stuff is too hard to get. What none of us know for sure is which market Blizz is actually aiming at. We assume that the casual playerbase is the majority, and therefore things should be aimed more at them, as they pay the majority of the money.

But, since none of us here work at Blizz, none of us know, and any arguments to the contrary is pure self-centred speculation.

[sinisterwyvern]

I think it takes both. Sometimes you just don't feel like going through a ZA/ZG on the main but facerolling some old dungeons on the blood dk alt for the hell of it. Or doing normal modes on your horribly geared Enh shammy. /shrug.

[Togarox]

Challenging content keeps people playing longer. Easy content allows you to finish everything very fast. Challenging content makes you work at something over and over again until you complete it.

[HMonster]

Challenging content makes you work at something over and over again until you complete it.

Or you find it too hard, and you quit, and stop playing, and stop subbing. There's a limit to how many times someone can wipe on the same thing.

[Togarox]

Or you find it too hard, and you quit, and stop playing, and stop subbing. There's a limit to how many times someone can wipe on the same thing.

Of course but you would still last longer than you would if you finished the content the 1st shot you took.

[HMonster]

Of course but you would still last longer than you would if you finished the content the 1st shot you took.

Depends if you get that loot you want. If not, at least you know you have a chance of it dropping next time, as opposed to not even seeing any loot drop if you find the boss too hard....

[seam]

Every person is different. Every person will give a different answer.

It needs to be hard enough to be a challenge, but easy enough to not be 100% impossible, I feel.

But some people like it when it's borderline impossible, and some people like it when it's "I walked in and epics fell on me!" easy.

[Zarios]

Challenging, I hate dead-brain games like WoW is turning into. You really need a way to seperate things from being easy, and hard. Get rid of Hardmodes and Normal modes, one mode. In TBC this was the case, you had easy raids, you had hard raids. It was easy to determine who knew what they were doing, and those who weren't. I play a game to have fun, but I don't want to play a game to not be challenged.

Just thought of some more: When I first started, a few weeks before TBC. The value of an Tier seemed so rare, WoW really needs to turn back to this. I believe someone who isn't in anyway shape or form doing the hardest of the hard should even have a chance at tier. Tier could potentially be the thing that means something. In return for Tier not being in normal, they would just need to make chest/leggings ect more to replace tier. Then in heroic raiding, those pieces will just simply be replaced by tier pieces on each boss.

But then the Counter argument that everyone should be able to experience everything, that's life that's all I can say. You can see as much as you want if you put your mind to it, if you don't give two fucks about how you're doing, then why should you see everything?

[Resentful]

Every person is different. Every person will give a different answer.

It needs to be hard enough to be a challenge, but easy enough to not be 100% impossible, I feel.

But some people like it when it's borderline impossible, and some people like it when it's "I walked in and epics fell on me!" easy.

M'uru <.< May god be with those who suffered on that boss which I have never experienced pre-nerfed but stories

[seam]

M'uru <.< May god be with those who suffered on that boss which I have never experienced pre-nerfed but stories

.2% the last raid night of 2.4.3, before 3.0. My laptop got to see what it was like to fly out a window.

And even that was after the 50,000 nerfs he got before-hand.

[Togarox]

Depends if you get that loot you want. If not, at least you know you have a chance of it dropping next time, as opposed to not even seeing any loot drop if you find the boss too hard....

Guess it depends on your definition of challenging. I would consider BWD challenging. If a boss is too hard where you aren't able to defeat it even after several tries, than that wouldn't be challenging, that would be borderline impossible.

[Megalithe]

The balance in the middle. You need to have enough content for all that has a reasonable amount of rewards.
While preserving a end content to challenge those who want the Challenge.

My argument is that leveling heals and tanks is to easy giving the vital minority a disadvantage in the learning curve and then thrown into the cata hell hole its simply to challenging for a casual.
Hell even for me a long time Active player I felt like saying screw healing. Blizzard made wrath to easy, and for a time they are making some of cata too hard (for the casuals). They need to find a better balance, and institute a more gradual introduction to difficulty.

[Yousend]

Easy content will keep people playing because the majority are casuals (as in play it like a hobby) so they will actually try to go through content if it's easy, if it's really hard they'll probably just give up because they don't have the time to devote to the game. Also, most people play the game for the shiny pixels rather than the actual content.

[Devilyaki]

If shit is too hard it make people really unmotivated to attempt it, it become less and less fun and more frustrating the longer it goes on. If it's to easy then you may get bored of it, but at lest all the work put onto it gets enjoyed and not hated. It's a fine line they have to walk in, right now in cata it seem they are walking it wrong, I see way to many people leave the moment they get into a place just cause its not fun, sfk and dm come to mind, and now zg/za if it's not a fresh run.

[Deleted]

I guess it does require a bit of both. But how do you give bad players a sense of progression and good players a sense of accomplishment?

[Snakez]

difficult content is aways good, but unfortunately they just want to please the casuals

[seam]

I guess it does require a bit of both. But how do you give bad players a sense of progression and good players a sense of accomplishment?

Honestly, the Hardmode/Normal mode is the main solution.

It has issues though. True bads won't be able toi kill things even when they are faily simple.

Maybe adding an extra mode? So you have Easy/Normal/hard. Easy would give, say, 346 ilevel. And wouldn't need to be done in order to do Normal or Hard.

[Scratches]

Not voting because there is no "both" option.

Both are needed so as to satisfy the two largest player coteries (yes, I just called them prairie dogs ^^) -- hardcore and casual, as much as I detest those labels. Blizzard actually has a decent setup that can support this dichotomy in their normal/heroic modes, but instead they'd rather treat heroic modes as an additional layer of content instead, apparently... (which I personally just don't agree with.. *shrug*)

[Rilgana]

Satisfaction is what keeps me playing. I want challenges that when I (or my group) fail to follow the "planned" mechanics offer an easier but longer way ... this is what is missing (imo) since wotlk content (which really was easy but still had hard things not easy for "casuals")

I consider Wotlk/Cata more a single-player Jump&Run-Game and not an mmo-rpg ... guess the developers have too much diablo in their heads