Resistance to change

I've always fancied myself to be open minded in regard to positive innovation and moving forward; making things easier with time. It's a part of our evolution, I've always felt. If something that was difficult for me two months ago is now easy, I embrace that, even if I accomplished it back then.

However, I often find people who get up in arms over the exact same changes; people who can't accept that things will move forward and that life will get easier, like it or not. I don't really understand this mentality, I've always summed it up to be something like "I want my accomplishments to stay exclusive. I worked hard for it and anyone who isn't willing to put in the same amount of effort as me shouldn't be able to claim this victory." Whether it's in a video game or real life. We see it every day, even here. People who are unhappy about big bang because it will make it easier to level as if that somehow diminishes their achievement.

I am currently dealing with a similar situation in another game; attempting to make the time requirements a little more manageable without breaking the game completely. However, several members of that group who have already spent 1000+ hours are fighting it or mocking those who agree that it should indeed be made easier. I don't understand the defensiveness over an accomplishment. But dealing with this, I thought of how little we've actually changed over the generations.

My grandfather owned a push mower, and when riding lawn mowers came out he was not the happiest person in the world. In fact, he griped like the people we see here. My father adapted and accepted the change happily; less time spent mowing the lawn means more time doing other things. He would offer to mow my grandfather's lawn in the summer by my grandfather resisted because it was TOO EASY.

Thinking about this really gave me some perspective into that old jest, "When I was a kid we walked 5 miles uphill in the snow...". Does not having to do this anymore make us lesser as people? Of course not. So why would not having to grind for countless months make us worse off? You would think people would be happier when things get easier because of time management.

The question here is, if you are one of those people griping about change... why? Look deep into yourself and give a genuine answer. Is it just a case of misery loving company or can you give a legitimate reason as to why you so dislike the idea of someone else having an easier time than you did?

The way i see it is this: People do the norm and they feel accomplished, but when something new and easier comes along, making the old norm obsolete, it would make that what was once an accomplishment, nothing special.

People seem to do things the hard way JUST to have the sense of accomplishment afterward. You feel good about it, and then when someone else does the samething you've been doing in half the time, you think that they don't get the same satisfaction as you do because they went through it so fast.

I guess then, it is just the way some people are. You can change with the times, or sit back and watch the world move along without you.

"When I was a kid we walked 5 miles uphill in the snow...".

I usually hear that in response to kids whining about how the school four blocks away is too far to walk.

I think the whole "doing it the hard way" has a lot to do about the glory of your own self, and that people like to bask themselves in it, to put it casually.

And for video games, I do it for the challenge. The only reason to put yourself through hell for most older games is either because of the challenge, for fun (because "normal" mode is boring), or because you desperately want to see the secret easter egg movie after the credits.

Personally, I'm in total agreement with you Sarah. Working in the computer field, computers become faster and faster every year and there's not a whole lot I can do about it but accept that my computer here will be worthless in five years. Future increases do not relate to the utility I have gained with my computer over those five years.

However, allow me to explain the thought process of those who would be against Big Bang making things easier.

These users usually are older gamers who grew up when games were Nintendo hard. It was a great personal accomplishment to state that one had beaten any sort of Nintendo game due to the ridiculous difficulty curve. These days, games are much easier and more accessible to Joe Gamer. The problem is this - can't a game become more accessible to Joe Gamer while also be hard for Joe Hardcore? I can think of a few games which accomplish this:

Dungeon Fighter - This game is not Nintendo hard, and the game at higher levels requires a party to get through most dungeons. You simply can't do everything yourself, but at the same time the game is a big challenge. As new equipment is released, so there are new dungeons, towers, and game instances. But as the level cap increases, new challenging content is always added for users.

Starcraft II - This game offers a quickmatch feature. Using proprietary algorithms, the game assesses your rank by assigning a hidden score to your profile. As your score increases, you face other people with similar score. This ensures that you're always playing someone at around the same strategic level as the opponent which always leads to more challenging games.

The problem here is that Big Bang does not follow either of these models. As you gain levels and gain more equipment, the game becomes brokeningly (sic) easier. There are no instanced dungeons where you can set the difficulty level. There is no ranking the enemy according to your skill and ability level, and there is no reason to party except to grind more. Where's the challenge in that? I don't doubt that higher level mobs are harder to kill than lower level mobs, but once you've gotten the "Kill 100,000 mobs in 30 days" medal, the game sorta loses its point.

So perhaps a different angle to approach this problem is that "New content makes the game EASIER without retaining any of the CHALLENGE." In the old days, it was a huge challenge to get to fourth job for most gamers. Statistical estimates were that only 0.5% of the total amount of created characters reached 4th job. With a reduced experience curve and a massive nerfing of the mobs along with potential items, set items, cubing, chaos scrolls, and attack medals - the game presents no challenge curve like it did in the past. Now it's not hard anymore. There's no sense of accomplishment for achieving something great because anyone can achieve what you did.

In Starcraft II, more content makes the game inherently more challenging because you have more units that can counter your own but, at the same time, Joe Gamer also continues facing people at his own level. Additional content does not hurt the challenging concept of the game.
In DFO, for the most part, new content (Hero difficulty over Kings, higher level content, etc.) means a lot more challenge and the ability to know more in depth about how every one of your skills work to beat the dungeon. Additional content increases the challenge of the game.
In Maplestory... well... what higher level content has really been added in the past two years? Pink Bean? Time Temple? And then the only way to beat these guys was not through skill, but just by having better equipment and more luck with scrolling. Additional content reduces the challenge of the game.

In short, "Can't Maplestory stay challenging to become less of a grind and more of an ability-based task?"

While all of that is true, I would think that if you wanted difficulty in anything in life, you could handicap yourself rather than expecting it to be difficult from the get-go so everyone suffers. If person A enjoys cooking on fires should person B not be able to use convection heating? Challenge is subjective and personal, making anything easier doesn't take away your ability to challenge yourself, it just makes it more available to those who don't care or have time for the challenge but still want to get something accomplished.

Using Maplestory as a baseline, it used to be that you needed the best equipment possible and a very organized team to defeat Zakum. As better equipment and easier leveling became available, that option opened up to people without the means before that. Some people used this new equipment and tried challenging themselves by taking less people or even soloing it. After Big Bang, if you want to retain the challenge, there's no reason you can't use unscrolled equipment without potential to level slowly. But none of this explains the thought process behind it, either, which is the actual point of this topic.

It doesn't seem to me that it's about valuing your old accomplishment rather than having something that only specific others do. And while setting challenges for oneself would suffice for that, there's a lot of people who don't take that challenge. To me it seems to be all about the exclusivity of it. Like we witnessed with the visitor event. Everyone was extremely happy when they thought it was a GMS exclusive, then when it came to light that TMS was getting it at the same time people turned like rabid dogs on Nexon, as if it not being only available to us made it somehow worse.

Still a question to those who I've seen griping, why? I would like to hear answers from the people doing it; why it matters so much to them that someone else achieves the same result as them later with more ease, even though an accomplishment should be completely personal.

I've watched several of the exact people I'm questioning here view the thread and leave without posting and I have to wonder if it's because they can't think of a reasonable explanation. I'm not trying to make anyone look bad, I'm just trying to get a grasp on what they're thinking because it is entirely beyond me.

Starcraft II - This game offers a quickmatch feature. Using proprietary algorithms, the game assesses your rank by assigning a hidden score to your profile. As your score increases, you face other people with similar score. This ensures that you're always playing someone at around the same strategic level as the opponent which always leads to more challenging games.

In LoL, it operates in a similar way in that your profile is assigned a ranking score for all the individual modes, so that the matchmaking system can pair you up with similarly skilled people. However, there's normal "casual" game modes, which does not concern itself with "who's the best" (until you start seeing famous top-tier players), while the ranked modes actually place you in a ladder that's visible for everyone to see. Does SC2 have this "casual" mode where you can still play against random people, but not have to deal with the visible ranking system?

If not, then SC2's online features may not be for Joe Gamer. For one thing, people like to win, not lose. And if it shows that they are losing in the big picture, they may be discouraged from playing. For clarity, I'm assuming that Joe Gamer is much better than the average well-off person (who may or may not play games).

Also, SC2 suffers from the time tax problem on a light-medium scale. Then again, many other RTSes suffer from it more heavily. But the time tax exists nontheless.

Still a question to those who I've seen griping, why? I would like to hear answers from the people doing it; why it matters so much to them that someone else achieves the same result as them later with more ease, even though an accomplishment should be completely personal.

I won't lie, I feel proud of what I was able to accomplish in MapleStory, but I also feel the anguish as the patches downplayed my achievements. The anguish has two components to it.

First, the accomplishments were achieved in a virtual world that can and will be modified at any time, potentially voiding any effort, but also making you look like an idiot for spending 24 hours leveling up, when you could have done it in 1 hour. (Me not spending money for NX advantages has nothing to do with it.) To put it in the words of Penny Arcade (not an exact quote): why should I spend countless hours playing this game now, when it will become easier a few months later!? On the other hand, being able to do something extraordinary in a setting that is not very mutable and thus much more provable will allow you to rest easy in knowing that your accomplishments can be a milestone.

Second, is exclusivity. Not quite in the same light as you put it Sarah, but rather it has to do with what exists now, rather than what may be. Even though I initially chose to be a Paladin out of ignorance, I liked my 4th job when Leafre finally came out, partly because it was unique. It felt like I was an actual person at the time worthy of recognition. People talked to me because they were like "oh wow a Paladin", then we became friends. While that's not how all friendships are formed, it was a catalyst, and a fairly good one at that. Now, there's just too much crap going on, and some time before I quit MS, it felt like the older generation of Maplers were getting washed away and disintegrated by the influx of new players that were of the same level and status or even better.

I kinda spewed it out as I typed. Sorry if it gets incoherent at places :x

I don't really regret change. For example, in video games if the change is GOOD, then by all means, do it. Such as, from the top of my head, the Dual Blade invincibility. Why should they have such an immense invincibilty framed skill? If you cannot survive because you RELY on something like that, you have no reason to complain. "AHH! I die because I can't avoid attacks!" No. Just no.

The same can go for life as well. I mean seriously, people KNOW that things will get easier, so why fuss about it? Both the old way and new way work just perfectly. If your time (and money) is worth it, convert to the new way.
Actually, no. I only disagree with the above if, for example, there was a car that was able to go 100 mph and is a Hybrid. If they release a newer model within 6 months of it, goes twice as fast and for half the price, I will most likely rage from the fact I could have waited IF I knew my car would get outdone within 6 months.

To me, the only deal breaker is within the time frame. If it's reasonably long, say 2 years or so for technology, I would understand and move on. However, if it's something like 1 day ~ 1 year, I would most likely be upset with the fact that I have spent money on something that could be considered "replaced" in a short amount of time.