Time does NOT equal difficulty

I have noticed a common misconception in MMOs in general that I would like to address. People seem to think that the amount of time it takes to get something done in a game directly reflects how hard it is to do; that is to say, doing things the fast way is always considered the same as doing things the easy way. I disagree with this notion. I want a game that is challenging but not a game that necessarily takes a long time to complete. Of course like any gamer, I want as many game hours as I can get out of a piece of content but not if that time is spent doing the exact same thing over & over with out end in sight & that's where the issue comes in. Some players & developers have adopted this mentality & it has manifested in two erroneous & detrimental scenarios.

1. "He got it done to fast, it must be to easy." When a player blazzes through some content, people are inclined to think well it must be to easy. Rare is the notion that the content is plenty hard, he's just that damn good. The result is often content that is moderately challenging for the hjtdg player & nigh on impossible for the other 99% of us.

2. "It's taking forever, it must be really challenging." Developers make mobs with stupid big HP & think that because it takes even the best of us an hour to kill the guy that he must be a really brutal challenge. I've seen guys set macros & walk away from the computer to have lunch because it takes for ever to kill them but they are so sure that setting continuous auto attack will kill the boss that they don't even need to watch it to win. A game I can win while absent is not a challenge, even if it takes an hour. There are plenty of activities that take all day, & yet a third grader could do it unsupervised. I want (& I think ever one else does to) a game that is challenging; not monotonous. That's one of the reasons so many people left WoW (that & Kung Fu Pands).

I am not saying that there is not a correlation between level of difficulty & completion time, but correlation is not causation. It didn't take a long time to complete a particular map solely because it's challenging. There could be any number of issue including lack of skill on the players part, under leveled for content, under geared for content, weak build, mods on the map are stacked against your particular build forcing you to use a different (& presumably weaker) strategy than you'd normally use (ie. glass cannon caster on a blood magic map). None of this means the map is to hard. Another player with different factors may be able to tare right through that same map & pick it clean in under five minutes & that doesn't mean it's to easy.

I am not saying that this attitude is prevalent in POE (I've seen map bosses go down in under 10 seconds, but I don't think anyone doubts their difficulty), but I have seen several players display this attitude, & I wanted to address it. It's a dangerous way to think.

Fast =/= easy
slow =/= difficult

i think you spelled perspicacity wrong there

tl;dr Time does NOT equal difficulty

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hoya написал:

i think you spelled perspicacity wrong there

Yes, yes I did. It's a subtle joke. I misspelled a word that means intelligent or smart. It's suppose to be Ironic. I guess it's a little to subtle since no one seems to get it but me.

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Perspikacity написал:

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hoya написал:

i think you spelled perspicacity wrong there

Yes, yes I did. It's a subtle joke. I misspelled a word that means intelligent or smart. It's suppose to be Ironic. I guess it's a little to subtle since no one seems to get it but me.

no i get it, its just terrible

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MGTopgun написал:

tl;dr Time does NOT equal difficulty

It's not hard to read it, it just takes a long time.

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Perspikacity написал:

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MGTopgun написал:

tl;dr Time does NOT equal difficulty

It's not hard to read it, it just takes a long time.

From your title, i can imagine the same shit people were whining about every now and then. I didn't take my time to read, but what ever problem you have with the game, either you are poor or don't get the gear you have, is because you are playing wrong.

I agree. First I will say I love PoE, and it's difficulty level. However, if you want a hard game: get an Xbox 360 if you can fathom the idea, and play Ninja Gaiden 2 on Master Ninja. *That* is a difficult video game, and slow is the opposite of what that game is. It's simply based on your raw skill.

Regardless, PoE is just what it should be IMO.

Play Dark Souls/Demon Souls. Amazing.

March can't come soon enough.

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hoya написал:

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Perspikacity написал:

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hoya написал:

i think you spelled perspicacity wrong there

Yes, yes I did. It's a subtle joke. I misspelled a word that means intelligent or smart. It's suppose to be Ironic. I guess it's a little to subtle since no one seems to get it but me.

no i get it, its just terrible

*RIM SHOT*