What makes a game "challenging"?

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

I am writing this under "Suggestions" because frankly, almost every suggestion people make will revolve around what kind of game they want Wurm to be. 

 

This came up recently  in discussing the troll bug that made them much more powerful than intended. Some disliked the change. Others loved it. 

 

In the course of the discussion, it seemed to come down to -- some people who wanted  "more challenge"  thought everyone opposing the bug wanted things too easy.

 

One of the things I noticed was that the two sides (both who claimed to appreciate Wurm as a "challenging" game) seemed to be divided between those who I guess I would call "immersion" players, vs "achievement" players. Many of the "achievement" oriented players were also PvP players, which was no surprise. Many of the "Immersion" players were PvE/Freedom players who did not want the game to be excessively combat oriented.

 

For an achievement player, there is nothing to do in Wurm once you have built your deed -- unless you PvP or fight epic creatures who constantly threaten your life. The game is about Winners & Losers, and not everyone can "win" or the game is no longer very hard. 

 

For an immersion player, there is always something to do and "everyone can be a winner" but you don't just get things by being somehow inherently "better" than everyone else. You get there by trudging through the snow and keeping the pigs fed, and getting your chores all done. For an immersion player, it might literally take YEARS to be considered a "high level player." Nothing is much of a rush so it's normal and fine if it takes years to be a Master Blacksmith or Master Miner, or especially to become a master Jack of Trades. You get there by doing things that you find interesting, and over time getting better and better at those skills. I don't have any skills yet in 90s but I have a number in the 70-85 range, and none got there by what I consider to be "grinding".  "Hard" means you do not get to be a Master Craftsman in a month.

 

For an acheivement player, however, this can ONLY mean mindless "grinding" because they want to be the BEST and are willing to work super hard to do that, but guddamn if they are going to sink YEARS into that. They have jobs and LIVES, ya know? They do not mind working hard but .. YEARS?  That can only mean .. mind ... numbing ... grinding and doing things they do not want to be doing and that do not interest them at all. 

 

For an immersion layer, "challenging" might mean that they have to worry about food-water-sleep, getting sick if they do not take care of themselves, falling off a mountain in the dark, having their stuff decay if they do not do regular maintenance to it all, and DYING because they got careless at the wrong time.

 

For an achievement player, "challenging" means "not just anyone can do this" - they have achieved some status by hard work and being smart and the majority of people will probably fail, because there is no status if no one ever fails.  Acheivement players also tend to be "content locusts" unless they have good PvP or constant "epic" upgrades in game content. They can whiz through a game like Skyrim in a month and be done. Immersion players can be happy with one game for YEARS if it is the right game. 

 

 

 

What kind of game is Wurm? What kind of Wurn player are YOU?

 

Can Wurm  be challenging if it is not full of combat and epic-scale fighting?

 

Is it even possible to keep both types of players perfectly happy? Since this is Suggestions forum, how could this be achieved?

Edited June 26, 2014 by Brash_Endeavors

[GorgonKain 355]

By your definition I would say I am an achievement oriented player, simply because I find the fear of death and dismemberment a primary challenge in Wurm. I view a challenge as something that could negatively affect your character if failed. the only real example of this in Wurm is character death and loss of skills. Though I believe you are misrepresenting some achievement oriented players. I for one, am playing Wurm because the chance for character growth is pretty much infinite and never ending. If someone is grinding just to grind, and getting mad about it, I pretty much consider this the only way to lose Wurm. 

 

Some achievement players would also consider being the first to scale the largest mountain, or see the first seal, or so forth to be equally as challenging. But to a degree, it is about "being the best or first". 

 

I would say yes, Wurm is fairly challenging at the start without combat or other player's influence, but that challenge diminished very quickly for me. The challenge was the learning curve rather than any particular system. It was great in the beginning, but eventually I stopped being afraid of cliffs that I learned to manage, and hell hounds I can now beat in the face. In order to continue to feel challenged, I needed to move onto a more dangerous setting. 

[Tissotx 217]

I played Diablo 3 in hardcore, and i played Path of Exile in Hardcore.

 

I want a Wurm Hardcore mode for freedom server.

[Nirnan 12]

I played Diablo 3 in hardcore, and i played Path of Exile in Hardcore.

 

I want a Wurm Hardcore mode for freedom server.

Or do Chaos solo. That will give you something to chew on for some time!

[KanePT 699]

Wurm, unless given some deep changes, will never be challenging combat-wise. There's nothing challenging in looking at a graph and thanking your lucky stars every time the internal RNG decides you get a hit, thats why PvP will never be true PvP, and why it will remain a small niche within a small niche.

I find that the biggest challenge in Wurm is to look past all the grind, and the pain, and boredom and see the greatness of building what you want pretty much how you want it. Everything else is patience and comitment, not really a challenge, or "hard".

 

Troll change was bad simply because it was done on a critter that, at the time, were spawning hardened and about 10-a-day in one of my deeds, so that's not fun, and fighting something you can't really win, isn't a challenge, its suicide.

 

If you want to fight near-impossible creatures, go find uniques, move to chaos and go hunt drake spirits, but should be stuff that's balanced toward being that way, not something that was already hard, had massive spawn rates, and destructive behaviour, and that got accidentally boosted to a point where it's pretty much unkillable by most people.

Edited June 26, 2014 by KanePT

[Kuwani 16]

I'm without a question what you would call an immersion player based on how you've defined it. I think that's the sort of game Wurm though my view carries the bias of the sort of player I am. I don't see anything inherently difficult about Wurm as you can do everything with enough time so far as I've seen. It just happens to be a lot more time than most games. The only real changeling parts come from other players mostly in PvP and perhaps some times in PvE I guess if you don't like your neighbors or when its the first time dealing with something like a raid boss where there's no information on how its going to behave.

 

As for the trolls, well I started a new character when Xan came online and dealing with the bugged trolls wasn't really hard, I just had to lure them away to keep them from getting at my horses. Even if I had an older character its just combat which while it does depend on some luck and limited player input its mostly about your fighting skill and your gear which are products of time... so where's the real challenge there? Either way I would be dealing with my troll problem. I see nothing inherently difficult about standing there and killing a troll even a bugged one if you've put in the time. He's not going to slowly lure you away to a point where his buddy is going to jump out from behind a tree and clobber you.

 

In short I believe  that novelty and the dealing with the unexpected is where a sense of achievement comes from. Players and completely new content are the best sources of that with players being much more complex since good AI is difficult and expensive to produce.

[Klingone 9]

I live now some years on wild/chaos and always noprem. Sometime alone on a kingdom or/and in a cave   Challenge is: survive!

 

My motto: Make not, what all make and you have fun

[Danny 52]

As an achievement player I would like to see more of an immersion challenge. I want to get cold, I want to struggle for food. Wild life should be hunting me, my crops failing and all the rest. I think when we eat food it should consume atleast 10x as much as it does now or produce 1/10th as much on cooking. With bigger penalties for low nutrition, slower movement, strength and bigger stam penalties. I feel this route would tick boxes for both types of player.

 

However it blocks access to newer players which is a shame. I also feel starting players have it a little too hard at 0 in every skill. Its just too slow to make any action and the repeated failures are painfull. I would like to see new players have the abilities of roughly 20 in everyskill. I'm not proposing raising their skill to 20 but rather decreasing the maximum action time etc so new players are giving more input to the game rather than watching 30 second action timers which really kills immersion and ultimately satisfaction gained from playing.

[Ayes 3,715]

Brash,

A very well composed post that I think clearly defines the two warring sides of the Wurm player base, simply because their viewpoints and objectives for playing Wurm bear little relation one to the other, resulting in little comprehension of how players could prefer to play the game from the opposing point of reference.

 

With this in mind, how it is possible to code the game to appeal to one side of this mindset without detriment to the other side of this mindset is something that to me seems an exercise in futility. This then is what I see that results in a lot of detriment to both sides of these play styles.

 

Perhaps the best solution would be to have two types of Wurm Online's. One with challenging pvp and PvE aspects enabled and focused upon and another with only peaceful PvE aspects enabled and focused upon. Then a clear choice could be made as to which play style to participate within and the other would not create any conflict within it.

 

As the draw to myself of Wurm is the building, land shaping and creative aspects, my ideal Wurm world would not have anything enabled within it to distract from these objectives. This would mean no aggressive mobs or anything damaging enabled that would destroy creative works accomplished. The time involved in currently creating, crafting and skilling within Wurm doesn't really bother me and lends value to these things as time and years pass from participating in the same. Decay and tool degradation should be reduced though, so as not to turn the game further into a maintenance issue that takes time away from other more constructive purposes.

 

Perhaps between these two Wurm Online's there could even be a crossing ability, so that those who chose to do so could take their characters over to the other side; however, if this would degrade the separation of these two play styles then it should not be allowed. Players make their choice and there you have it.

 

=Ayes=

[Forgedrake 130]

yeah I live on the epic servers and most of us are bored with the combat system it really devolves simply into who can zerg rush the other guy 95% of battles - and before anyone says epic is dead our servers have as many or more then most freedom servers (or at least serenity does)

 

that said most epic players pvp maybe once a week and we build more in groups - I'd like to see a better combat system sure - but I'd also like to see more social things - like buffs for playing music or if my house is decorated I get a content buff that makes crafting nicer - I walk into these giant houses on freedom and epic and its 1 bed and a chest or a ton of bsb's and just seems so meh - there is so much depth to wurm but allot of the social stuff is just looks and offers no reasons to do it

[Teksan 22]

Perhaps between these two Wurm Online's there could even be a crossing ability, so that those who chose to do so could take their characters over to the other side; however, if this would degrade the separation of these two play styles then it should not be allowed. Players make their choice and there you have it.

 

=Ayes=

Is this not the idea behind Epic and associated portals?

 

Perhaps that was your point and I'm just missing it  .  I'm sitting down so it's easy for things to go over my head.

 

I'm not sure the dichotomy between immersion and achievement is as simple or pronounced as might appear.  Plenty of the immersion folks broke out the pitch forks and molotov cocktails (pottery jar+tar) during the OliveGate debacle.  One might have thought needing to maintain stores of olive oil for the light we need might fit the immersion playstyle, but maybe not so much.

 

 

Part of the issue here is perhaps a lack of communication skills.

"You just want the easy way!!"  is not really going to accomplish anything other than alienating the very people you need to work with.

"You just want to beat things up and have no patience!!" is not really going to accomplish anything other than alienating the very people you need to work with.

 

Clearly, there will never be pvp raids on freedom.  That's right, it's never going to happen, ever.  +1 peaceloving, tree hugging, bleeding heart, hippies.

Clearly, there will always be dangerous animals in some form, even on pve servers as they are indeed part of the environment.  +1 bloodthirsty, knuckle dragging, warmongers.

 

Do they need to destroy things on-deed?  I don't know.  What does that add to the game?  It adds the requirement for building defenses.

Okay, then again on Epic, if you're into building defenses, one has to build defenses against human ingenuity.  Surely a better challenge to the defense building proponents than any troll on steroids could ever be!

Seems like the requirement to build defenses is better suited to the Epic servers.

 

Do things really need to take YEARS to do?  I mean, come on, I have band practice, football practice, a new game is coming out in 3 months, and my little sister needs to use the computer, give me a break.  On the other hand, do I really need another rat race?  I mean, seriously, I'm working hard towards my raise, I'm putting money away for the kids, and my honey-do list is tackled diligently and with a really convincing albeit fake smile... Can't I just have ONE place to relax and enjoy?  A place for my own goals just for ME to get lost in?

 

Yes.  To which?  Both.  Whippersnapper that's got things to do, go to Epic lad, you can gain skill faster, start building, breeding, fighting, imping, etceteraing, faster and sooner.  Bill-paying-old-coot, go to freedom, put some roots down, take a deep breath.  You can be here as long as you like and there will always be something else.  Welcome to finally having found your stable, your constant.

 

But I want PVP with the longterm skill gain and super strong troll on steroids?  Go west.  No, further.  See that?  It's Chaos.  Love it, live it, it's what you asked for.

 

But, but, I want all that, but only with PVE!!  Okay, fine.  Here, someone (was it sevenless) suggested an Ent, or something similar, that will kick there ever living  out of you but will not aggro other players so they can continue to be peaceloving, treehugging, bleedingheart, hippies...

 

What am I missing?  Fries?  Okay, go to Belgium, take a right.  Next?

[Kagrenac 812]

I wouldn't really call it immersion vs achievement, its more

peaceful sandbox (PvN), "survival" sandbox (PvE), and PvP sandbox.

 

A lot of the so called "immersion" players, (PvN/PvE light) are more about the sandbox aspect than actual immersion challenges. Getting diseased isn't a challenge, its a feature they don't like because it effects their sandbox play. Having to deal with animal AI isn't a challenge, its something that needs to be fixed, animals should be perfectly fine with the minimum of care.

 

PvE players are more about the survival aspect, they generally want more difficult environmental aspects, weather effects, more difficult mobs, etc

 

Being a PvP player really isn't really about being the best either. Losing a good fight can be just as fun as winning it(if its a good fight).

 

I feel that there really are not many immersion players, in pvp or pve, being the best is a goal for lots of players, look at the release of pristine/release and how they resisted joining the main cluster for so long because they didn't want to have to compete with the older accounts.

[lawurm 337]

 

For an immersion player, there is always something to do and "everyone can be a winner" but you don't just get things by being somehow inherently "better" than everyone else. You get there by trudging through the snow and keeping the pigs fed, and getting your chores all done. For an immersion player, it might literally take YEARS to be considered a "high level player." Nothing is much of a rush so it's normal and fine if it takes years to be a Master Blacksmith or Master Miner, or especially to become a master Jack of Trades. You get there by doing things that you find interesting, and over time getting better and better at those skills. I don't have any skills yet in 90s but I have a number in the 70-85 range, and none got there by what I consider to be "grinding".  "Hard" means you do not get to be a Master Craftsman in a month.

 

For an acheivement player, however, this can ONLY mean mindless "grinding" because they want to be the BEST and are willing to work super hard to do that, but guddamn if they are going to sink YEARS into that. They have jobs and LIVES, ya know? They do not mind working hard but .. YEARS?  That can only mean .. mind ... numbing ... grinding and doing things they do not want to be doing and that do not interest them at all. 

 

For an immersion layer, "challenging" might mean that they have to worry about food-water-sleep, getting sick if they do not take care of themselves, falling off a mountain in the dark, having their stuff decay if they do not do regular maintenance to it all, and DYING because they got careless at the wrong time.

 

For an achievement player, "challenging" means "not just anyone can do this" - they have achieved some status by hard work and being smart and the majority of people will probably fail, because there is no status if no one ever fails.  Acheivement players also tend to be "content locusts" unless they have good PvP or constant "epic" upgrades in game content. They can whiz through a game like Skyrim in a month and be done. Immersion players can be happy with one game for YEARS if it is the right game. 

 

 

 

What kind of game is Wurm? What kind of Wurn player are YOU?

 

Can Wurm  be challenging if it is not full of combat and epic-scale fighting?

 

Is it even possible to keep both types of players perfectly happy? Since this is Suggestions forum, how could this be achieved?

 

 

It has been my experience in other games as well as wurm achievement players move on from game to game as they "conquer" each game's content, sure some of the achievement players hang around but its mostly to troll or for spurts of random "this should be fun" game play.

 

Ask any player in wurm and i bet they play some other game that gives a different type of immersion, even if it a basic one like backgammon or minesweeper.

 

Games for me at least are a way to create your own story (like writing your own book), without having to be worried about real life influences (to much).

 

​If you had a magic life and were 100% for-filled in that real life you would not be playing a computer game, the entire concept of the virtual is immersion, weather that immersion is violence, education or building.

 

So i would say we are all immersion players as we all seek that gaming moment we had "fun" in and why not this is the entertainment industry after all.

[Lovefall 148]

I think that wurm is really about immersion, not achievment.

Let's face it, there is nothing really challenging in WURM, no real skill required, just patience to repeat same actions thousands and thousands of times. And being the "best" player is nothing about being the smartest, fastest or skilled player, but just the player that wasted spent the biggest amount of time and/or money. There is absolutely no way how a six month player (no matter how skilled or smart) can "beat" a 10 years old player, while in most games, presuming you are good enough, you can easily become a top player if you are better skilled (smarter, better game knowledge, faster reaction, etc) than anyone else.

That's why I feel that if you spend time grinding, that's just wasted time. The only way I feel is worth playing the game is to just do what you enjoy, focus on having fun, not even track skills and just stay assured that they will eventually raise anyway.

Or how I like to say it:

WURM is not a sprint, but a marathon. If you want to become the best, you don't have to min-max everything, but just resist (not quit) longer than everyone else who will overburn themselves.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Lovefall