Posted by iTZKooPA on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 - 13 Comments
Tags: challenge, challenge vs. reward, challenging yourself, flip flop, hogger raiding, path of least resistance, what drives you
This Is Where It All Starts; High Challenge, Low Reward
The idea of playing a video game for the challenge is the foundation of video games. The earliest games didn’t reward anything (in fact, the first game was PvP), later attaching very small levels of points to the player’s achievements (yay, 10 points!). As video games blossomed, increasing in their complexity hundreds of times, so have the rewards. We are now greeted with elaborate stories, stunning videos, plot twists and cliffhangers at the end of our games. Throughout the adventure we are scored on a range of things, many of which come with their own unique carrots. The one constant is that there is always a challenge, of varying difficulty, associated with the prizes.
The discussion of WoW becoming easier, offering welfare epics and all that jazz, has been discussed to death (did we get something for killing it?). Ignoring the social aspects of playing with guilds and friends - what I want to know is what drives you to keep at it? What makes you attend Naxxramas for the umpteenth time? Is it only the chance for loot (or badges)? Or are you testing something different, maybe tweaking that new spec?
Personally, I’ve been back and forth on the issue throughout my MMOG career. My competitive nature compels me to do whatever it takes to be at the top of my game, forcing me to look only at the rewards. This meant that I spent years farming Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Ahn’Qiraj and Naxxramas for the best loot. A few weeks ago I realized that I’ve shifted back to enjoying a good challenge.
During a low-level 5man run with under-leveled players, most of my group wanted to call it after getting rolled by a tough pull a half dozen times. After some pestering, tactical discussion and the friendly random number generator, we managed to pass the bottleneck. There was no epic loot to be had, it was simple trash, but due to the circumstances, it was difficult. But when we finished off that warlock I cheered as if I had been a part of another server first kill. “Gratz” and “nice jobs” went all around as we shared in a few silver pieces.
I guess the challenges, and the joy of overcoming them, is why I play most of my games on the difficult setting, and attempt missions that are often far out of the given range - such as the Moe and Marley mission in Borderlands at level 12. That was an enjoyable mess. Any other flip-floppers out there? What about reward mongers, or those obsessed with raiding Hogger at level 1?
You know what would be interesting? Seeing how far a 10man raid could get in only dungeon or crafted gear and items. Wrath’s launch content was, more or less, beaten in Sunwell gear. I bet a competent raid would get pretty far.
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By first on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
i love raiding hogger at lvl 1 its awsome!!!
By Runestrike on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
first!
By Highwayman on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
for me, it all depends on the definition of reward. Sure loot which is always an upgrade is great BUT the true reward for me comes from being able to get other players to a place they might not otherwise get.
Did you just ding 80 and get kicked out of your first heroic group for ‘low dps’? It doesn’t matter to me, getting those guys their first real upgrades, explaining the challenge of a fight to them and helping them learn more is a reward because it can only come back and help me in the end.
The challenge of getting a difficult ‘cheeve with undergeared folks is only a bonus.
By Lar on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I FOUND IT TOP LEFT CORNER AT THE SHOE COUNTER
YESSS I FINALLY FOUND WALDO!!!
By Alayea on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I immediately found Waldo when I first clicked on the picture… lol
I find that some challenge is good, but I also enjoy getting loot a lot more. I blame the dual-spec system for this, as now I want everything!
By Taskun on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
It’s funny that you mentioned borderlands. I just got back from playing it and had a great time because I was three or four levels below what I was trying to kill. I went though ALL of my ammo just to get him down to 1/2 HP and then preceded to try to KNIFE him to death. I’m convinced that I would have done that for an hour untill one of us died.
Unfortunetly, there was a timer and the beast recovered its health and got a few buddies. Needless to say, I died. But the experience was so great and the challenge so fun, even though I lost I had a great time.
By cocopuff on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
the great thing about this game is that their is so much stuff to do you never go board but the downside is its hard to decide what to do first when ever i meet a delama like this i have an equation to help me out effort=greater or egual to reward? if the answer is no then i usualy dont bother with it but the reward could be anything a good time, a new mount a new shiny piece of gear, a cool achievement, a title, a pet teh reward is what drives me in this game i love a good chalange as much as anyone but i do it see the next level
By Phanttas on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 2:55 am
I like a challenge, but I don’t want an impossible task.
I’m in a fairly good guild, but we can’t seem to do 25 man hardmodes, and rather than being fun, they are just an annoyance. Wiping again and again on Northern beasts.
We do make some progress, but it’s slow and with 25 people it’s hard to arrange.
I love 10 mans though. Our group is good enough to do them, usually with a few wipes and such, but we do it. (Yay for my New Rusted Proto-drake after we decided to actually go and do Uld 10 hardmodes again last week). I also find that I’m more friendly with the people I do 10 mans with and there is a higher level of relaxed game-play and comradery.
Still I play the game for challenge, because I’m an achievement whore, and because I’ve made friends there. The epic lootz are just a ways for the means and something else to aim for.
(Also, for all you Americans out there, after seeing that picture, us Brits would be wondering ‘Where’s Wally?’ -not Waldo)
By Kevin on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 5:09 am
The loot is great of course but I love the challenge more. It is a game after all. I am not a amazing player with the best epics becuase I simply dont have that much time to commit. But why do I need the best loot if I am not doing the hardest encounters?
I love the social side of the game and the fun things like getting some silly or hard to get achivements etc.
What I really love is helping people. If someone kindly asks me for a quick boost thru a instance or help with a tough quest I will always try to help them, guild mate or not.
I was playing late a few nights ago, it was like 3am so there was ofcourse not a lot of people online. I got invited to a normal run thru TOTC so I accepted. The leader tried to find a healer for a good 15-20 mins with no luck. I decided to help out and got a /w from a lvl 78 priest. I told the leader to invite but he refused saying the guys lvl was too low. I convinced him that he would be ok and we are not going to get anyone else at this stage. So he invites and off we go.
The instance was a success no wipes, the healer was great and we had no problems, the healer even picked up a few ilevel 200 for himself when he hits 80.
Good times and I was chatting to that healer for a while after and he is on my friends list.
By Redaurora on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
hehe I had to find Waldo before I read the post.
By Iiene of Kul Tiras on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 7:41 am
I can’t believe it’s only been 49 years since dinosaurs like the PDP-1 roamed the earth.
I think pretty much any USB storage device has more computing power (Not just memory, actual computing power) now. Hell, I think my lawnmower has more computing power.
By antonio on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 8:22 am
Ha, missed this one too. Thanks boss. That was jive funny about the videos too. LOL…
By Unknownps on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Depends on the game, in wow
its fun, if its not fun im not doing it, and fun comes from
1) the challenge 2) the loot 3) the difference
nothing more boring than doing the same thing over and over
secondly the lore: massive believer in lore
in things like WC3 its the CG Video
i play through so i can watch the next video!
I still dream of the day blizz put a video up showing each race in Full CG glory for more than 3 seconds, how ripped was that troll in the BC Video!