Salem

So, I was just having a very very long argue with a carebear in BDO.

Here are some pictures from that last chat:


The real question here is: Why do so many games listen to their carebear playerbase, even when these games are most certainly not meant for them.

I have seen it happen in Tree of Life, I have seen it happen in Runescape, WoW, now BDO where (3 months after full release) its already twice as easy to level up and obtaining money than 2 months ago due to xp boosts, pernament increased drops and reduced health of mobs etc.

Why are all those games pushing this direction, why did it clearly not worked out and what would be the best thing to do, really. Salem is a very good example of this aswell, which is the underlining reason why I would like to debate it here.

Maybe because most of the current playerbase are these new gen gamers who haven't even seen the NES era where games were still hard to beat.

It has to be fun for the carebears so the others have something to hunt.

I remember reading an article a while back about the difficulty of newer games vs older ones. Back in the day writing games was a pain, the space was very limited since they had to fit on a cartridge where as we now have console games fitting on a dvd or blu ray, and computer games are limited by the size of a hard drive. So in order to prolong the longevity of a game they were programed to be more difficult in order to keep people playing them longer. Nowadays, hell, GTA missions can be rather easy to accomplish in 1 or 2 tries because why not? even after that mission you still have hours and hours of content not to mention the open world sandbox aspect of it. Zelda didn't get that option, Gannon had to be a ***** in order to keep people wailing away at their controllers. And I do believe that has caused a gaming rift of sorts where the younger generation, FOR THE MOST PART (dont get mad at me kiddos), tend to expect faster progression because thats what they are used to. Likewise I think there is also an expectation from the older gamers when they reach a max level and think "ok now what?"

Not that this is entirely related to the hardcore vs carebear argument, mmorpg's are still somewhat of a newer thing on the timeline of video games. But it does seem like there is a noticeable difference between the age groups and their play style, which could have an impact on how long people stick around. logically, people raiding are going to play longer than people getting raided are, so when it comes time to determine how to prolong a games longevity, thats the group that gets catered to. How many long time Providence only players would have lasted this long back on the 3 servers when raiding more favored the raiders?

One thing i remember from when I was a "hardcore raider" in early WoW was that Blizzard did some metrics and found that over 90% of players had never even completed the attunement requirements to set foot in Blackwing Lair and Naxxramus on any of their characters.

They also said they would receive "lack of new content" as one of the most common reasons cited in the questionnaire they gave when a player chose to end their subscription, despite the fact that there was new content for them to experience.

I see this problem only on pvp grinding games.
Other type of games may have carebears but they simply drop the game and rarely devs decides to do something about it. Those are a type of game that is well tested in the years of gaming.


Pvp grinding games are a new combination and unbalanced as a concept. It's not an Unreal Tournament, where you log in, kill the other or get killed, log off.

Ther's the Grinding.
Imho, Grind + Pvp formula is bugged and it will be always unbalanced.
It's true that a large player base will never play the game in his full. Whoever join a game after a certain amount of time, should pay the game half, since he will be able to play half of the game.
Obviously, it's not that i think they should half the game prices. Is an example of how the "new game style" is broken and there's the need to improve it.

Even when you listen to carebears, it will be unbalanced. The problem is in the concept of the game, not in the players ability.

We will see this problem fade away when someone find a solution to the concept of Grind + Pvp.


(This is something i take in count since the old H&H. I like the concept but not the actual concept. Bring the experience of a fair challenge in a single player, to the multiplayer, is hard and not obvious to do. The actual pvp crafting system is a prototipe with many problems, but a nice idea in it.)

Reviresco wrote:One thing i remember from when I was a "hardcore raider" in early WoW was that Blizzard did some metrics and found that over 90% of players had never even completed the attunement requirements to set foot in Blackwing Lair and Naxxramus on any of their characters.

They also said they would receive "lack of new content" as one of the most common reasons cited in the questionnaire they gave when a player chose to end their subscription, despite the fact that there was new content for them to experience.

So they quite because they are ***** morons lol. They clearly didn't deserve to be in a raid group.

this is a sandbox game with 99,99% of all areas (exept providence and my base) being able to get killed, the players decide if its carebear or not, whens the last time you raided something serious? oh i forgot this requires skill, its just easier to whine on the forums then to learn how to play the game.

I'm not sure if this is Salem related. Is it?
Anyway i would not call Salem a grinding pvp, as it is now. The pvp is almost none and highly viable.
Thus, it's boring.

Well, the time will show us a better balance, i bet, since devs too are annoyed by carebears - hard players fighting each other.

TotalyMeow wrote:It has to be fun for the carebears so the others have something to hunt.

Quote of the day right here