What is your opinion on challenge in gameplay? What makes a game challenging?

[Vic]

Exactly which MMORPGs have you done hard content in for comparison?

I recently did RS10 in wotlk, while far, far, from the hardest content in the game, I got my *** kicked for a good 4 hours on my first attempt. Funny story, I joined the raid as a newbie healer, after we wiped a few left and I volunteered to lead the raid (LOL), anyway I was trying to beat the boss for a good 4 hours, constantly rotating in players as it was a PUG raid. It was probably my fault because I was one of two healers and was responsible for dispelling the boss's debuff. Thing is, the raid leader told me where to stand on the first try, and I've been fixating on his instructions, which were actually not ideal, and kept dying to an insta-kill death ray. It did feel good to finally beat the boss recently, and wasn't really hard coming in with some experience under my belt and a fresh mind.

Anyway, like I said, all of this is action gameplay, don't stand in the fire, time your spells right etc. Comparing it to real RPGs is apples and oranges.

Besides, I was talking about doing quests and grinds in MMOs, not about endgame content.

[Fedora Master]

Pubbie raid leader? Do you love pain and herding cats?

[Vic]

It was quite embarrassing and what helped me over the edge to unplug myself from the game for a couple months Came back to it recently, killed that boss that was giving me nightmares, and didn't really feel like playing anymore.

[Vic]

that and well, I was doing that raid on our 5 year anniversary, completely forgot about that she decided not to mention either seeing how I was so glued to the game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I think RPGs are pretty fun when the game is difficult enough to make me stop in town, buckle down and look at all of the items and abilities I have to come up with a strategy and builds, trying to minmax before heading off to the next climatic mission. And ofcourse, when the actual battle itself keeps me on my toes. But the worst part is when I feel I have prepared as best I could, but just can't beat the actual battle anyway and get stuck, but that doesn't happen too often off of the top of my head. Or I have forgotten those bad experiences.

[Yankee Zulu]

This also depends on the genre. RPGs are one thing, strategies are another. Tale Total War series. The difficulty setting in those games accounts for various economic and military buffs for enemies and debuffs for the player. No general AI changes, no diplomacy changes, no changes in AI behaviour on the map, nothing. Only tweaking numbers. With AI being the buzz word nowadays perhaps it should rise up to challenge a human in video games for once.

[NotAI]

Games should be fun, not necessarily hard.

They can be hard, if being hard is necessary to be fun, because of the setting and tone and premise.

But difficulty is not intrinsically fun. Observe real life.

It is true that what is challenging might differ based on personality and past experience (past learning), or even based on reading speed.

There is a channel which makes normie women, who never play video games, play video games like Elden Ring.

Turns out they can play just fine....so long as they can read the tutorial prompts fast enough when they show up, before they disappear. And read carefully. Catch is, most prompts are up for only a few seconds, and then, most nongamers don't read carefully. Period.

They also don't notice anything not said explicitly, because they don't pay careful attention to surroundings and make assumptions.

So they never figure out how to use flasks to heal. Or that they can run past enemies. Or how to do different moves.

Then they miss something, but they never go back and try to learn what they missed

A person who is careful, even if not smart, and a good reader, has a very easy time in RPGs, whether ARPGs or turn-based.

But too many people are not careful, even if smart, and can barely read or comprehend what they read.

In other words, each game, when it comes to difficulty, like any science, has a difficulty bump for particular personality flaws. But is easy otherwise, because most people drop anything too difficult.

[J1M]

"dynamic difficulty tuned to the player" sounds like a special kind of hell

Has existed for a long time. And yes it sucks.

[Fox1]

I enjoy challenge in games, I feel it gives you incentive to keep going and beat the game or get the secrets locked behind harder difficulties. Alot of games these days are too easy and boring or just throw too many resources at you, or don't have things locked behind challenges. The challenge shouldn't feel cheap though