[quote=“Dominae, post:109, topic:4434”]Don’t you get bored though? The dangers in game become trivial, and can become so very fast. Especially if you get lucky with drops at start or find a library early you can become near infallible. Once you jump that first hurdle, what is there? After you can survive special zombies easily (which if you die to them a few times and learn mechanics you can easily adapt to accomplish VERY quickly in game) what is there to really do?
So I guess, that is why I really hope for progressive difficulty (even if its just a game mode) and an in-game purpose to living beyond “just survive indefinitely”. It is far too easy right now to become invincible and render all danger out of the game, and you’re left with a base-building, pile-of-inventory-management simulation. I feel like I’m making runs to town to buy groceries or mail things at the Post Office. It becomes an ASCII real-life simulator (like The Sims) and I shudder at the thought ;)[/quote]
Well that’s my hole point in letting player progress when they feel comfortable… to person above you… there is plenty of hack n slash rpgs that allow you to farm earlier content before moving to next… actually path of exile is a great example of this in later difficulties and is still considered one of more “hardcore” variants of hack n slash rpg, but there are even older rpgs that you can do same, what about the old final fantasy series, you could spend a ton of time building up perfect character before taking on that last boss or could challenge yourself and take him on earlier… or if you got bored of building yourself up. I love that path of exile because you almost have to at some point stop progressing like a wild man and farm earlier levels since there are so many road blocks like bosses that are extremely difficult if you haven’t spent enough time farming lower levels, but even still i get bored and move on to the harder levels for more challenge when i feel ready, sure if i farmed in lower level long enough there wouldn’t be any point at some point… but the way gear works in path of exile and the non-currency like system makes it so your always benefiting farming lower levels before moving on… it’s just a matter of how much patience you have and if it’s your first rodeo you’ll probably spend even more time then necessary preparing… but that’s the choice of player. In fact most people playing path of exile for new players make mistake of advancing too quickly and not keeping gear up and not choosing enough defense nodes in their passive tree which eventually forces them to slow down or even just start a new character and try again.
If someone wants to just stay at starter area and never move on… then so be it, but that would be pretty boring compared to exploring farther away places and harder complexes and getting better stuff and more of a challenge. With all the potential out there for better stuff… why stick around the easy starting area? I personally tend to move on faster then many players in other games because i want to force more of a challenge and not steamroll everything and been playing games non-stop since early 90’s of all genre’s so i tend to want more challenge faster, but at same time i want that choice… New players especially are going to greatly appreciate that then move on to harder areas faster and faster the more they play the game instead of doing the early stuff for so long after a while… especially in a rogue like and playing multiple times the early stages will start to get easier and easier and more boring so you’ll want to move on faster but going further from spawn or to harder complexes to get that better gear/items quicker… but that’s one of the joys of sandbox games, if designed right it allows for all sorts of different game play styles and allows player to challenge themselves at the pace they choose.
So what i’m basically saying is. i don’t like some of ideas posting here of artificially forcing more difficult game play just based on time in game, etc. but i wouldn’t mind seeing game play get more challenging the further you venture, or instead just making progressively more difficult complexes. You can do it one of 2 ways, make higher complexes drop better gear/materials which in turn gives you stronger character that in turn allows you to progress to even more difficult complexes… or make it skill based and just make it require more skill so that a well experienced vet player could still potentially infiltrate a harder complex earlier on and skip past the earlier content this way but this discussion probably for a different debate.
its also easier to forget how difficult games are for people who don’t play them as rigorously as us… it’s so hard to imagine how hard it is for younger/newer gamer to play games, I’ve have so many family and friends myself who like games or want to get into games but struggle like crazy even on the easiest games out there because they just don’t have the gamer type of mind yet. But a good designed sandbox can still be challenging early on but allow more experienced players to advance sooner or skip earlier constant faster to get to more challenging stuff on their own, and all their friends would can be jealous 
but that would only push new players to try harder and learn faster knowing there is so much room for improvement… that’s exciting and keeps you coming back for more. But if you design a system that automatically increases difficult artificially, then your really limiting to who can play the game, newer players are likely to get more frustrated sooner, or not play game at all knowing they cannot play at their own pace, will think of game as being a more hardcore game that they won’t have time to bother with, etc. I’ve seen so many times other people not want to bother with a game because they think they don’t have the skills for it… but in sand box style games it’s like a perfect training ground for the less skilled gamer while still having a great challenge later for more skilled gamers.
sorry this is turning out waaay longer then i intended… but i’m pretty passionate about games… i feel like so many games out there fail because of not having the right balance, and sandboxes have that huge potential to get it right.
