I would say 5 man lairs should not be soloable, since it defeats its team content purpose. So if the proposed change would keep people froms soloing lairs I'll support it.
This is something I've discussed in game with people before. In the discussion I had, I said that I don't think anyone should be able to solo all the content in a MMO. To me, that kind of defeats the point of it being a MMO. I think all MMOs should have content that can't be soloed. The thing is, I think it should be because that content is difficult rather than gating it behind mechanics like gating it behind a minimum number of players. I'm all for allowing people to try to solo that content. I just think it should be hard enough that they face plant epicly unless they've figured out some miracle build. That is part of the reason I am for an increase in this game's difficulty.
I think the biggest issue that needs to be addressed is the big gap in power among players. While some are able to solo pretty much everything others have trouble to manage basic content.
Causes?
many from differences between ATs and freeform, though equipment(including awesome devices) to skill.
I don't think it is a good idea to divide population and give the sensation of elite people without giving some path or hope to reach that status. If not, it would be like having a VIP server, which imho didn't work too well for CoH
There is a huge gap in power among the various toons people use and that was done by design. I don't think it can be addressed by looking at the charactes themself though.
One way to balance it on that end would be to make everyone freeform or take freeform away. Both of those options would cause an uproar among players. It can't realisticly be balanced through the tweaking of powers. There's just too many possible combinations.
I personally stay away from devices once my character has a few levels in it and enough powers to survive on its own but, I don't think nerfing those is the answer either. People would throw a fit if the devs took away or nerfed things like pheremones or elixers.
The only way I see to realisticly balance it is by adjusting the game's difficulty slider so that players are able to set the level of challenge for themselves. If anyone has a better idea I'd love to hear it.
Make a poll on the game. Ask some random lvl 40 players which of them have done Andrith, Mandragalore and Therakiel Temple at least a couple times and if they did it how they felt about them. That might give us some idea of what is the real status on perceived difficulty on this game.
I actually prefer to direct friends to forum threads that I think they'd find relevant to them so they can cast their own vote rather than trying to take polls. Baro is one of those people. One of the reasons for this is even if I do take a poll, the results of it are being filtered through my interpretation of it. Unfortunately, a lot of my friends are burned out on forum PvP from engaging in it on other games so they tend to look over the thread without commenting. Another reason is that there's often times when they hold the same opinions I do or are close enough that they don't feel they could add anything by commenting so they don't.
I think it's a better method than trying to question people I don't know in game and encourage others to do the same.
I actually prefer to direct friends to forum threads that I think they'd find relevant to them so they can cast their own vote rather than trying to take polls. Baro is one of those people. One of the reasons for this is even if I do take a poll, the results of it are being filtered through my interpretation of it. Unfortunately, a lot of my friends are burned out on forum PvP from engaging in it on other games so they tend to look over the thread without commenting. Another reason is that there's often times when they hold the same opinions I do or are close enough that they don't feel they could add anything by commenting so they don't.
I think it's a better method than trying to question people I don't know in game and encourage others to do the same.
Any conclusion obtained from forum posters would be extremely bias towards forumnites. If you want to check the situation from the people close to you, you might get an idea of what you might want, but you can't extrapolate them to the rest of the population.
Any conclusion obtained from forum posters would be extremely bias towards forumnites. If you want to check the situation from the people close to you, you might get an idea of what you might want, but you can't extrapolate them to the rest of the population.
You say that as if all the people that post on forums are interested in one thing. Are we part of the PvP crowd? Perhaps we're all RPers. Or are we all insisting that the game be only for casuals?
The people I call my friends aren't all part of any one part of the game. It's actually a pretty diverse crowd. I almost never do anything in game with a handful of them but, they're all friendly and I enjoy talking with them which is why I'm friends with them.
I'm not against this idea, at least a vast majority of myself isn't (my left gonad is a whiny ***** anyway, so it's ignored offhand...)
However, I do see a potential chain reaction occurring...
Forum: Give us a challenge! Make Elite harder! We don't care about rewards...
Cryptic: Oh, OK.
Other players (the large chunk that doesn't read the forums): What do you mean you don't get better gear on Elite mode? What lame idiot game designer does that? That's stupid! <tableflip>
Cryptic: *sigh*
...and the circle of gamer life is once again renewed...
Originally Posted by mijjestic: Ultimately, though, MMO players throwing stones at each other in this fashion is basically one nerd pointing and laughing at another nerd whose glasses are thicker.
Ideally increased rewards for higher difficulty should be more loot rather than better loot, preferably more Recognition Tokens that we can use to get the same gear and other rewards (like costumes and such) as everyone else (only faster).
Ideally increased rewards for higher difficulty should be more loot rather than better loot, preferably more Recognition Tokens that we can use to get the same gear and other rewards (like costumes and such) as everyone else (only faster).
Originally Posted by mijjestic: Ultimately, though, MMO players throwing stones at each other in this fashion is basically one nerd pointing and laughing at another nerd whose glasses are thicker.
And you don't think that part of the reason for this is that almost everyone that plays is able to easily breeze through all the content that's already here?
No I don't. The Challenge of the game is not the problem with this game because no matter the challenge you still going to go through the whole content of the game hit the cap and than wonder what is next. The survivability of any MMO that I always found is on a consistant bases putting out new content, reinventing the game, and making it better. When I look on the threads of the this game the biggest complaint that I see is not the challenge but the lack of content and things to do in the game. To me depending on your build and what you want your hero to be some people dont mind the challenge (besides Therakiel is plenty hard enough I cant even find a team to do that one.)
You say that as if all the people that post on forums are interested in one thing. Are we part of the PvP crowd? Perhaps we're all RPers. Or are we all insisting that the game be only for casuals?
The people I call my friends aren't all part of any one part of the game. It's actually a pretty diverse crowd. I almost never do anything in game with a handful of them but, they're all friendly and I enjoy talking with them which is why I'm friends with them.
No.
Would make more sense to ask IN GAME, where you're more likely to get a larger sample of players.
The game's biggest issue IMO is NOT lack of challenge.
The biggest issue is the same damn leveling path for over a year+.
The game needs new content first. Higher difficulty last.
If you polled people in game and on the forums I'd bet money the number of folks clamoring for more content and/or the foundry would outweigh those complaining about increasing difficulty on CURRENT content.
Now if you're talking about adding an endgame content system, that could be NEW content and MORE difficult content.
EDIT: To be fair if I were confident this game had more than ONE or a handful of devs working at a time I'd be more willing to say sure lets try and work on multiple things at the same time. But seeing as how the resources for this game SEVERELY limited, you need to pick your battles.
I just don't thinking focusing on increased difficulty at this time is the best use of those VERY limited resources. Some of the explanations about how limited vehicles were built, have led me to believe that there just aren't that many resources available.
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
No I don't. The Challenge of the game is not the problem with this game because no matter the challenge you still going to go through the whole content of the game hit the cap and than wonder what is next. The survivability of any MMO that I always found is on a consistant bases putting out new content, reinventing the game, and making it better. When I look on the threads of the this game the biggest complaint that I see is not the challenge but the lack of content and things to do in the game. To me depending on your build and what you want your hero to be some people dont mind the challenge (besides Therakiel is plenty hard enough I cant even find a team to do that one.)
The lifeblood of any MMORPG is regular updates and additions. It's what makes them worth playing over time, rather than being this month's video game obsession and then moving on to the next. I know the market is changing some, but I'm willing to bet "horribly neglect game after it is made" isn't really a part of the new business model.
"Challenge" is only important to the Achiever folks, and you can increase things until the cows come home and they will still holler for more. On the other hand, I have no problem giving them what they want if it doesn't interfere with others' play, so **shrugs**.
Would make more sense to ask IN GAME, where you're more likely to get a larger sample of players.
The game's biggest issue IMO is NOT lack of challenge.
The biggest issue is the same damn leveling path for over a year+.
The game needs new content first. Higher difficulty last.
If you polled people in game and on the forums I'd bet money the number of folks clamoring for more content and/or the foundry would outweigh those complaining about increasing difficulty on CURRENT content.
Now if you're talking about adding an endgame content system, that could be NEW content and MORE difficult content.
EDIT: To be fair if I were confident this game had more than ONE or a handful of devs working at a time I'd be more willing to say sure lets try and work on multiple things at the same time. But seeing as how the resources for this game SEVERELY limited, you need to pick your battles.
I just don't thinking focusing on increased difficulty at this time is the best use of those VERY limited resources. Some of the explanations about how limited vehicles were built, have led me to believe that there just aren't that many resources available.
The lifeblood of any MMORPG is regular updates and additions. It's what makes them worth playing over time, rather than being this month's video game obsession and then moving on to the next. I know the market is changing some, but I'm willing to bet "horribly neglect game after it is made" isn't really a part of the new business model.
"Challenge" is only important to the Achiever folks, and you can increase things until the cows come home and they will still holler for more. On the other hand, I have no problem giving them what they want if it doesn't interfere with others' play, so **shrugs**.
Same with you. I have no problem with things being more challenging but that is far the issue with this game.
No I don't. The Challenge of the game is not the problem with this game because no matter the challenge you still going to go through the whole content of the game hit the cap and than wonder what is next. The survivability of any MMO that I always found is on a consistant bases putting out new content, reinventing the game, and making it better. When I look on the threads of the this game the biggest complaint that I see is not the challenge but the lack of content and things to do in the game. To me depending on your build and what you want your hero to be some people dont mind the challenge (besides Therakiel is plenty hard enough I cant even find a team to do that one.)
Challenge is part of the problem.
Lack of it trivializes the content. It results in people plowing through it faster and giong back to demanding there be more content sooner than they will with a more difficult challenge.
Would make more sense to ask IN GAME, where you're more likely to get a larger sample of players.
Then why not do it instead of insist others do?
I've already explained my preferred method. Why should I alter those methods to what other people want when those same people don't seem to be doing what they're asking of me?
The game's biggest issue IMO is NOT lack of challenge.
The biggest issue is the same damn leveling path for over a year+.
The game needs new content first. Higher difficulty last.
If you polled people in game and on the forums I'd bet money the number of folks clamoring for more content and/or the foundry would outweigh those complaining about increasing difficulty on CURRENT content.
Now if you're talking about adding an endgame content system, that could be NEW content and MORE difficult content.
EDIT: To be fair if I were confident this game had more than ONE or a handful of devs working at a time I'd be more willing to say sure lets try and work on multiple things at the same time. But seeing as how the resources for this game SEVERELY limited, you need to pick your battles.
I just don't thinking focusing on increased difficulty at this time is the best use of those VERY limited resources. Some of the explanations about how limited vehicles were built, have led me to believe that there just aren't that many resources available.
You seem to think I have to be for one or the other. I don't. I'm perfectly capable of advocating an increase in this games content and an increase in that content's level of challenge.
I know the market is changing some, but I'm willing to bet "horribly neglect game after it is made" isn't really a part of the new business model.
I don't think you've been keeping up on Perfect World's business model. To put it bluntly, their plan is to just keep making new games and neglect already existing ones on the assumption that they'll make a higher amount of profit on impulse buys in new games.
I don't think it is a good idea to divide population and give the sensation of elite people without giving some path or hope to reach that status. If not, it would be like having a VIP server, which imho didn't work too well for CoH
This "sensation of elite people"... I don't really get it. Far as I can tell, sometimes people want a hectic fight for survival... sometimes they want a cakewalk... some people lean more to one side or the other. As far as you can tell... they go into the adventure pack... and then a while later they come back out. Hell, more realistically you probably don't even know that they ran it or what difficulty they ran it on, and they don't know you ever ran it on what difficulty you did. This whole idea of the population being divided between elite and non-elite players to me seems to be a work of fiction. Maybe if you could explain how that would actually happen, as in what would be the observable effects of such a separation, then I might understand what you mean.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
No I don't. The Challenge of the game is not the problem with this game because no matter the challenge you still going to go through the whole content of the game hit the cap and than wonder what is next. The survivability of any MMO that I always found is on a consistant bases putting out new content, reinventing the game, and making it better. When I look on the threads of the this game the biggest complaint that I see is not the challenge but the lack of content and things to do in the game. To me depending on your build and what you want your hero to be some people dont mind the challenge (besides Therakiel is plenty hard enough I cant even find a team to do that one.)
Easy content has a shorter shelf life than challenging content. Known fact. That's what he's saying.
Putting out easy content really just makes more work for the developers. They put out a whole new zone with easy content... we tear through it in a day or two, then we want more. They put out another zone... two days... more. Repeat.
They put out content with a difficulty slider where the highest difficulty has us struggling to make progress, something we can't tear through so easily and it takes us longer to get bored of it. The folks who prefer the normal difficulties might breeze through it, but that's what they want, so fair is fair.
---^@ultimate2k12---v@thebabbies---
And yes, when we do finally manage to beat that difficult content, we're gonna feel good about ourselves, we're gonna take a moment and think about how well we just played. If that makes someone else feel bad, and makes them feel the need to start characterizing others as "big bad elitists" then that's a you problem, not a me problem.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Easy content has a shorter shelf life than challenging content. Known fact. That's what he's saying.
Y'know, your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
This could very easily be said to be your "opinion." After all, harder difficulty is well known to make people outright quit which completely destroys the shelf life of content. People use terms like "unfair" or "unfun" to describe the same thing you call "challenging," and proceed to go do something else.
But then we'd be forgetting that there really are facts in action here, and the larger picture is much more complicated, now wouldn't we..?
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
After all, harder difficulty is well known to make people outright quit which completely destroys the shelf life of content. People use terms like "unfair" or "unfun" to describe the same thing you call "challenging," and proceed to go do something else.
How does an optional harder difficulty mode that provides no increase in drops, not at all required for those who do not wish to participate, count as unfair and drive people to go do something else ?
How does the existence of an optional, non drop affecting, hard more destroy the shelf life of a piece of content ?
How does an optional harder difficulty mode that provides no increase in drops, not at all required for those who do not wish to participate, count as unfair and drive people to go do something else ?
How does the existence of an optional, non drop affecting, hard more destroy the shelf life of a piece of content ?
For starters, the proposed solution does in fact effect drops. Both in terms of quantity, and quality. Think about it, reaaaal well.
Secondly, you either are oblivious of or have way too much faith in human behavior. This "solution," even improved in such a manner as to remove the immediately obvious damage it would do as currently proposed, just focusing on how the group who's rallying this, there's one showstopper: This change would last a few months at best, before people are demanding a better solution.
Just what are people going to do with this? Run Andrith? TT? Assuming they don't get bored immediately, eventually they do and demand the things I listed in my thread. Which should have been done first, to begin with. If they don't demand this, they start demanding better rewards for their effort, to at least make running the existing content on the hardest difficulty feel worthwhile.
Delivery. Craftsmanship. Prioritization. If you're not going to approach something with the intent to do it right, you might as well not do it at all.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
It's easy. Sure, in the long run we want more interesting mechanics to challenge us, but in the short run, do the simple thing.
Just double up everything on elite difficulty... health, damage, hold strengths, healing. If after a while that's not enough, just keep tweaking it upwards. Hell, I'm sure the devs can roll up some freeforms with unity gear and see what's feasable.
No new gear or rewards required. We'll pound on that while you guys think of something more creative.
^ hey anti-difficulty guys, notice how I only mentioned Elite difficulty? None of the others would even be touched, and you're not missing out on anything other than that challenge you hate so much. If you can't accept that, then you're just plain selfish or delusional.
Increasing difficulty for the difficulty hawks and not making things more difficult for the difficulty doves?
/Signed
I can totally support this as it means i dont have to have my game made more difficult (which is serious, i'm disabled, making the games harder means i might not be able to play them at all as they can flare-up my symptoms and literally harm my health!) and yet those who need more challenge get more challenge.
Though i wonder if it'd be a good idea to make an uber-elite level above the current perhaps? Would that be easier/better? Ah well i won't play any elite+ difficulty anyway but it'd be great for the challenge to be there for those who want it.
___________________________________
While she has been rescued
what diabolical mastermind
was behind the devious brain-napping of
the Volterrific Dr Cerebellum?
Secondly, you either are oblivious of or have way too much faith in human behavior. This "solution," even improved in such a manner as to remove the immediately obvious damage it would do as currently proposed, just focusing on how the group who's rallying this, there's one showstopper: This change would last a few months at best, before people are demanding a better solution.
Just what are people going to do with this? Run Andrith? TT? Assuming they don't get bored immediately, eventually they do and demand the things I listed in my thread. Which should have been done first, to begin with. If they don't demand this, they start demanding better rewards for their effort, to at least make running the existing content on the hardest difficulty feel worthwhile.
Delivery. Craftsmanship. Prioritization. If you're not going to approach something with the intent to do it right, you might as well not do it at all.
Again, seems you missed something. It's meant to be a temporary solution.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
For starters, the proposed solution does in fact effect drops. Both in terms of quantity, and quality. Think about it, reaaaal well..
You are correct, it would affect drops. Technically it should lower them. If mobs are tougher it will take longer to kill them and so the drop rate goes down.
Secondly, you either are oblivious of or have way too much faith in human behavior. This "solution," even improved in such a manner as to remove the immediately obvious damage it would do as currently proposed, just focusing on how the group who's rallying this, there's one showstopper: This change would last a few months at best, before people are demanding a better solution.
This solution was suggested as a temporary fix. A hold over until Cryptic decides to perform a perhaps more in depth overhaul of the difficulty slider. Its pretty clearly represented as a, "some of us will settle for even a half-a$$ed temporary fix until development resources and priorities can, maybe someday, be allocated.
Just what are people going to do with this? Run Andrith? TT? Assuming they don't get bored immediately, eventually they do and demand the things I listed in my thread. Which should have been done first, to begin with. If they don't demand this, they start demanding better rewards for their effort, to at least make running the existing content on the hardest difficulty feel worthwhile.
They are asking for a temporary fix so that the game is more enjoyable for them until such a time as Cryptic chooses to allocate resources for a better solution.
Delivery. Craftsmanship. Prioritization. If you're not going to approach something with the intent to do it right, you might as well not do it at all.
An intent to do something, "right," does not preclude a (hopefully) quick short term workaround to tide people over until a more full-featured solution can be implemented. On Thanksgiving my wife prepared a truly magnificent meal. She is an amazing cook, and has in fact taught. That upcoming masterpiece of a meal, prepared with attention to every detail, does not preclude a quickly thrown together snack to tide everyone over until the meal is ready.
You all still don't seem to grasp that this temporary fix isn't going to last long enough to achieve anything, and when you all start asking for- no, DEMANDING more- your escalating requests will serve to slow down any real work that could be done. As such, you'd still be better off asking for the large hurdles to be addressed one at a time, and waiting patiently until they are and quality work can be done. (AKA you can't have a Pony right now)
Also, Smoo, I read your OP fine. Your proposed suggestion has a glaring flaw in it, and I'm not going to tell you what it is. I'm going to let you figure it out yourself, because I'm sick of pointing out the obvious and I want to see you at least show you have the capability to come to better conclusions.
I will give you a clue: There's one post on the first page that suggests the person posting it might have caught the flaw in some capacity. It's then followed by a few posts that make the flaw worse. It's also something that's likely astoundingly easy to fix, however it doesn't solve the problem with how incredibly "temporary" the solution is.
Also, Ashen caught one thing that hadn't even occurred to me. Hah. No, that's not what I'm talking about, but it's very similar to what I'm thinking of.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
This "sensation of elite people"... I don't really get it. Far as I can tell, sometimes people want a hectic fight for survival... sometimes they want a cakewalk... some people lean more to one side or the other. As far as you can tell... they go into the adventure pack... and then a while later they come back out. Hell, more realistically you probably don't even know that they ran it or what difficulty they ran it on, and they don't know you ever ran it on what difficulty you did. This whole idea of the population being divided between elite and non-elite players to me seems to be a work of fiction. Maybe if you could explain how that would actually happen, as in what would be the observable effects of such a separation, then I might understand what you mean.
For instance, in a alert like gravitar if there are 2 difficulty settings being pretty apart from each other. Most people would go to the normal alert, and given the drops are the same, only the difficulty fans would go to the elite setting. Here is the division, how significant this could be, it depends on how significant would be a population that looks for more difficulty with no better rewards involved.
Id say its pretty obvious where people would go. You only have to look at where people go now.
Is harder content like top end lairs, gravitar and carrier command popular, or are the easy fast higher reward alerts more popular?
People will and do go for the easier faster more rewarding route, and if its harder for same reward that wont be where the majority, or even a significant minority will go.
it will at best be where a handfull of people will go for a short time then ignore.
Im not against it in principle, but given the pitiful resources we have for development the ONLY thing that the devs should be working on (as well as fixing bugs that crop up) is more things to do (missions. aps, comic series or zones - not more alerts or gimmicks or new mechanics)
Then why not do it instead of insist others do?
I've already explained my preferred method. Why should I alter those methods to what other people want when those same people don't seem to be doing what they're asking of me?
You seem to think I have to be for one or the other. I don't. I'm perfectly capable of advocating an increase in this games content and an increase in that content's level of challenge.
You can advocate it all you want, reality of this game resources mean one or the other will be done. Not both at the same time. Till the devs and PWE tell SHOW US otherwise they can't do both at the same time.
At least not until NWO and their 4th game is out in 20whenever.
And I'm not insisting anyone do anything. What I'm saying is that if the ones who RUN THIS game want to get a better data sample it's best to do it IN GAME not on the forums.
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
Id say its pretty obvious where people would go. You only have to look at where people go now.
Is harder content like top end lairs, gravitar and carrier command popular, or are the easy fast higher reward alerts more popular?
People will and do go for the easier faster more rewarding route, and if its harder for same reward that wont be where the majority, or even a significant minority will go.
it will at best be where a handfull of people will go for a short time then ignore.
Im not against it in principle, but given the pitiful resources we have for development the ONLY thing that the devs should be working on (as well as fixing bugs that crop up) is more things to do (missions. aps, comic series or zones - not more alerts or gimmicks or new mechanics)
Pretty much this.
Sick and tired of them tinkering with mechanics and non-story drive content.
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
You can advocate it all you want, reality of this game resources mean one or the other will be done. Not both at the same time. Till the devs and PWE tell SHOW US otherwise they can't do both at the same time.
At least not until NWO and their 4th game is out in 20whenever.
And I'm not insisting anyone do anything. What I'm saying is that if the ones who RUN THIS game want to get a better data sample it's best to do it IN GAME not on the forums.
It's best if they do it that way. They've chosen not to and instead provided us with forums to express our opinions on. If we do it then it's just us saying, "Hey, we talked to some people in game and they thought...", with no way to actually verify the information we're providing. This is why I encourage people to come speak their opinions on the forums.
It's best if they do it that way. They've chosen not to and instead provided us with forums to express our opinions on. If we do it then it's just us saying, "Hey, we talked to some people in game and they thought...", with no way to actually verify the information we're providing. This is why I encourage people to come speak their opinions on the forums.
Honestly not a big deal to me.
Not like I expect them to read anything we say or comment on it in game or in the forums until their work is done launching NWO and super sekrit game number 4.
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
Id say its pretty obvious where people would go. You only have to look at where people go now.
Is harder content like top end lairs, gravitar and carrier command popular, or are the easy fast higher reward alerts more popular?
People will and do go for the easier faster more rewarding route, and if its harder for same reward that wont be where the majority, or even a significant minority will go.
it will at best be where a handfull of people will go for a short time then ignore.
Im not against it in principle, but given the pitiful resources we have for development the ONLY thing that the devs should be working on (as well as fixing bugs that crop up) is more things to do (missions. aps, comic series or zones - not more alerts or gimmicks or new mechanics)
Easy content has a shorter shelf life than challenging content. Known fact. That's what he's saying.
Putting out easy content really just makes more work for the developers. They put out a whole new zone with easy content... we tear through it in a day or two, then we want more. They put out another zone... two days... more. Repeat.
They put out content with a difficulty slider where the highest difficulty has us struggling to make progress, something we can't tear through so easily and it takes us longer to get bored of it. The folks who prefer the normal difficulties might breeze through it, but that's what they want, so fair is fair.
---^@ultimate2k12---v@thebabbies---
And yes, when we do finally manage to beat that difficult content, we're gonna feel good about ourselves, we're gonna take a moment and think about how well we just played. If that makes someone else feel bad, and makes them feel the need to start characterizing others as "big bad elitists" then that's a you problem, not a me problem.
1. I never said anything about being elitists. No such word.
2. I never said that the arguement for wanting a higher difficulty is a bad thing either, just pointing out the fact that it is really not the biggest issue with this game.
See what I am pointing out is that people are making proclamation of why people are leaving, and again what I am saying is that it has nothing to do with how difficult the game because really if you look at every post everyone have their own ideas of how difficult a mission should be. But my point is that the difficulty of the game has nothing to do with people leaving, lack of content is the reason why people are leaving. The idea of MMORPG is to keep people coming back to the game, to have longevity of replayability, how do they do that, not by going back over the game and making 1-40 as hard for everyone to level as possible, you add more to the game. You add Endgame you add another zone, you add SG bases, you add new and innovative stories and events, that how you keep player bases. If you want to grind and die as many times as you want and rely on others to help you with missions and such more power to you, I am not going to take away your idea of what you think is fun, that is being elitiest when I say my way is better than yours and I am not all I'm saying is this, once you get over to that grind and you make it to your goal you going to feel proud of yourself yea but than you going sit back after beating your chest and go now what? Than you going look and see that you did everything get bored with doing the same thing over and over and move on to the next game because there is nothing else exciting about the game.
1. I never said anything about being elitists. No such word.
2. I never said that the arguement for wanting a higher difficulty is a bad thing either, just pointing out the fact that it is really not the biggest issue with this game.
See what I am pointing out is that people are making proclamation of why people are leaving, and again what I am saying is that it has nothing to do with how difficult the game because really if you look at every post everyone have their own ideas of how difficult a mission should be. But my point is that the difficulty of the game has nothing to do with people leaving, lack of content is the reason why people are leaving. The idea of MMORPG is to keep people coming back to the game, to have longevity of replayability, how do they do that, not by going back over the game and making 1-40 as hard for everyone to level as possible, you add more to the game. You add Endgame you add another zone, you add SG bases, you add new and innovative stories and events, that how you keep player bases. If you want to grind and die as many times as you want and rely on others to help you with missions and such more power to you, I am not going to take away your idea of what you think is fun, that is being elitiest when I say my way is better than yours and I am not all I'm saying is this, once you get over to that grind and you make it to your goal you going to feel proud of yourself yea but than you going sit back after beating your chest and go now what? Than you going look and see that you did everything get bored with doing the same thing over and over and move on to the next game because there is nothing else exciting about the game.
You need both. You need new content but you need it to be more challenging so it is not finished right away. Tough Alerts do not caount because they are still quick mission that take no time to do or have stupid timers as a part of them.
But this is also something that would take time to make, if it meant we had to put up with crap alerts, I would say bring on the easy flat missions so we can get the good challenging "Content"
You need both. You need new content but you need it to be more challenging so it is not finished right away. Tough Alerts do not caount because they are still quick mission that take no time to do or have stupid timers as a part of them.
But this is also something that would take time to make, if it meant we had to put up with crap alerts, I would say bring on the easy flat missions so we can get the good challenging "Content"
For instance, in a alert like gravitar if there are 2 difficulty settings being pretty apart from each other. Most people would go to the normal alert, and given the drops are the same, only the difficulty fans would go to the elite setting. Here is the division, how significant this could be, it depends on how significant would be a population that looks for more difficulty with no better rewards involved.
None of the alerts are affected by the difficulty settings.
1) Some of us run adventure packs right now... for basically no reward beyond what little xp, resources, and questionite we get, and all of that could be gotten about a thousand times faster elsewhere. This suggestion is less about "risk vs reward", and is a lot more about "fun vs bored". If, for you, having more fun isn't in itself a worthy enough reward, then this suggestion was not made on your behalf.
2) What's the point of new gear? So we can farm the crap out of the new higher difficulty, get fully geared up, and then we're right back to square one with the content being boring and easy because we got more powerful? Sure, you could say you want to use this place to gear up for something else... but oh look, now that content is stupidly easy too and we've magically turned the game into even more of a bore fest. Adding better gear rewards turns this into a very very temporary solution... by not adding gear, we give it a bit of lasting power by forcing us to conquer it with build and play strategy, rather than numbers. Sure, we could add in the gear you normally get through silver recog.. but I'm sure someone would quickly point out that you can get that faster through the unity missions.
3) "Elite is good peoples want challenge I know, but not everyone want that kind of challenge." Then don't put the difficulty on Elite. The only thing you'll be missing out on is that challenge that you don't enjoy anyway. If, like you suggest, we add better gear rewards, then that just makes the people who don't want the challenge feel like they're missing out on something (because they will be), and the last thing we want to turn this game into is a bunch of people standing around showing off their gear trying to act like it matters.
Guess I never have my blood runs in PVP kind of challenge before....................
But new gears isn't kind of my style either. Just some imaginations for my heroes. Being a heroes isn't mean about winning on any challenge. You already knows that not every mobs can be defeat.
If you seek difficulty, then don't seek it too much..........
A warning message from your friendly hero Tempest, Xerath
Nope. Just because you put beans in your ears doesn't change a damn thing. This community is doing a good job putting the bean farmer's kids through school though, that's something right?
Still nice you haven't figured out the flaw with your proposed suggestion. Seeing as it's been mentioned elsewhere before.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
For starters, the proposed solution does in fact effect drops. Both in terms of quantity, and quality. Think about it, reaaaal well.
Nope. Re-read the OP to refamiliarize yourself with the context of the thread....
Since we're ignoring anything that was talked about after the OP. . .
This solution doesn't deal with anyone who enjoys the Elite difficulty as is. Regardless of their reasoning you can't possibly argue that they can't exist.
~Why aren't they posting about it then?~
Perhaps because they don't bother to go on the forums to complain about things they like?
^ hey anti-difficulty guys, notice how I only mentioned Elite difficulty? None of the others would even be touched, and you're not missing out on anything other than that challenge you hate so much. If you can't accept that, then you're just plain selfish or delusional.
Who is to say they're anti-difficulty? Maybe they're not as capable as you or are challenged by the Elite difficulty? But more importantly, again regardless of their reason, they would be enjoying it as it is and your solution only helps you and those of your like mind. Are you the majority? And even if (a big word) so, why remove (because that's what it would effectively be) Elite and replace it with your own version of it when a better solution would be a higher or more customizable difficulty to satisfy you and the whole lot who are like you but not as good as or better than you (in terms of content clearing, obviously).
People will leave because of the difficulty of "Elite" regardless of whether they view it as too easy, too hard, or even if it's ~just right~ because eventually they'll tire of it. There will be those who won't but there will always be those who will because there are always people leaving.
Why use a solution, especially a temporary one as you put it, that could aggravate issues for other users?
Since we're ignoring anything that was talked about after the OP. . .
This solution doesn't deal with anyone who enjoys the Elite difficulty as is. Regardless of their reasoning you can't possibly argue that they can't exist.
There is a pretty big difference between arguing that something, "can't exist," and arguing that it, "doesn't exist."
Still, I agree that there probably are some people who enjoy elite as is.
He is speaking to the people who are claiming to be against an optional increase in difficulty. The answer to your question there is, "they do." The very people the comment is directed to have said that they are, "anti-difficulty."
a better solution would be a higher or more customizable difficulty to satisfy you and the whole lot who are like you but not as good as or better than you (in terms of content clearing, obviously).
This was requested first. The idea was shot down by the, "anti-difficulty," people as requiring too much in the way of dev resources and so the current suggestion was made in order to provide a stop gap fix while other priorities are being addressed in the hope that eventually a more comprehensive review of game systems (including difficulty) MIGHT be undertaken.
People will leave because of the difficulty of "Elite" regardless of whether they view it as too easy, too hard, or even if it's ~just right~ because eventually they'll tire of it. There will be those who won't but there will always be those who will because there are always people leaving.
Under the example you provide people are not leaving BECAUSE of the difficulty of elite, but rather because they have become bored with the game.
Why use a solution, especially a temporary one as you put it, that could aggravate issues for other users?
Every possible solution to every possible problem, "could," (and so far has) aggravate issues for some users. That doesn't mean that solutions to problems should not be pursued.
Comments
This is something I've discussed in game with people before. In the discussion I had, I said that I don't think anyone should be able to solo all the content in a MMO. To me, that kind of defeats the point of it being a MMO. I think all MMOs should have content that can't be soloed. The thing is, I think it should be because that content is difficult rather than gating it behind mechanics like gating it behind a minimum number of players. I'm all for allowing people to try to solo that content. I just think it should be hard enough that they face plant epicly unless they've figured out some miracle build. That is part of the reason I am for an increase in this game's difficulty.
There is a huge gap in power among the various toons people use and that was done by design. I don't think it can be addressed by looking at the charactes themself though.
One way to balance it on that end would be to make everyone freeform or take freeform away. Both of those options would cause an uproar among players. It can't realisticly be balanced through the tweaking of powers. There's just too many possible combinations.
I personally stay away from devices once my character has a few levels in it and enough powers to survive on its own but, I don't think nerfing those is the answer either. People would throw a fit if the devs took away or nerfed things like pheremones or elixers.
The only way I see to realisticly balance it is by adjusting the game's difficulty slider so that players are able to set the level of challenge for themselves. If anyone has a better idea I'd love to hear it.
I actually prefer to direct friends to forum threads that I think they'd find relevant to them so they can cast their own vote rather than trying to take polls. Baro is one of those people. One of the reasons for this is even if I do take a poll, the results of it are being filtered through my interpretation of it. Unfortunately, a lot of my friends are burned out on forum PvP from engaging in it on other games so they tend to look over the thread without commenting. Another reason is that there's often times when they hold the same opinions I do or are close enough that they don't feel they could add anything by commenting so they don't.
I think it's a better method than trying to question people I don't know in game and encourage others to do the same.
Any conclusion obtained from forum posters would be extremely bias towards forumnites. If you want to check the situation from the people close to you, you might get an idea of what you might want, but you can't extrapolate them to the rest of the population.
You say that as if all the people that post on forums are interested in one thing. Are we part of the PvP crowd? Perhaps we're all RPers. Or are we all insisting that the game be only for casuals?
The people I call my friends aren't all part of any one part of the game. It's actually a pretty diverse crowd. I almost never do anything in game with a handful of them but, they're all friendly and I enjoy talking with them which is why I'm friends with them.
What an interesting idea.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
However, I do see a potential chain reaction occurring...
Forum: Give us a challenge! Make Elite harder! We don't care about rewards...
Cryptic: Oh, OK.
Other players (the large chunk that doesn't read the forums): What do you mean you don't get better gear on Elite mode? What lame idiot game designer does that? That's stupid! <tableflip>
Cryptic: *sigh*
...and the circle of gamer life is once again renewed...
M-O-O-N, that spells @Rhyatt
Originally Posted by mijjestic: Ultimately, though, MMO players throwing stones at each other in this fashion is basically one nerd pointing and laughing at another nerd whose glasses are thicker.
Laws yes!
Now THAT could work... Well done!
Even my left gonad is appeased...
M-O-O-N, that spells @Rhyatt
Originally Posted by mijjestic: Ultimately, though, MMO players throwing stones at each other in this fashion is basically one nerd pointing and laughing at another nerd whose glasses are thicker.
Laws yes!
No I don't. The Challenge of the game is not the problem with this game because no matter the challenge you still going to go through the whole content of the game hit the cap and than wonder what is next. The survivability of any MMO that I always found is on a consistant bases putting out new content, reinventing the game, and making it better. When I look on the threads of the this game the biggest complaint that I see is not the challenge but the lack of content and things to do in the game. To me depending on your build and what you want your hero to be some people dont mind the challenge (besides Therakiel is plenty hard enough I cant even find a team to do that one.)
No.
Would make more sense to ask IN GAME, where you're more likely to get a larger sample of players.
The game's biggest issue IMO is NOT lack of challenge.
The biggest issue is the same damn leveling path for over a year+.
The game needs new content first. Higher difficulty last.
If you polled people in game and on the forums I'd bet money the number of folks clamoring for more content and/or the foundry would outweigh those complaining about increasing difficulty on CURRENT content.
Now if you're talking about adding an endgame content system, that could be NEW content and MORE difficult content.
EDIT: To be fair if I were confident this game had more than ONE or a handful of devs working at a time I'd be more willing to say sure lets try and work on multiple things at the same time. But seeing as how the resources for this game SEVERELY limited, you need to pick your battles.
I just don't thinking focusing on increased difficulty at this time is the best use of those VERY limited resources. Some of the explanations about how limited vehicles were built, have led me to believe that there just aren't that many resources available.
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
The lifeblood of any MMORPG is regular updates and additions. It's what makes them worth playing over time, rather than being this month's video game obsession and then moving on to the next. I know the market is changing some, but I'm willing to bet "horribly neglect game after it is made" isn't really a part of the new business model.
"Challenge" is only important to the Achiever folks, and you can increase things until the cows come home and they will still holler for more. On the other hand, I have no problem giving them what they want if it doesn't interfere with others' play, so **shrugs**.
Agree 110% with you.
Same with you. I have no problem with things being more challenging but that is far the issue with this game.
Challenge is part of the problem.
Lack of it trivializes the content. It results in people plowing through it faster and giong back to demanding there be more content sooner than they will with a more difficult challenge.
Then why not do it instead of insist others do?
I've already explained my preferred method. Why should I alter those methods to what other people want when those same people don't seem to be doing what they're asking of me?
You seem to think I have to be for one or the other. I don't. I'm perfectly capable of advocating an increase in this games content and an increase in that content's level of challenge.
Where are you getting "every single enemy in the game" from?
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
This "sensation of elite people"... I don't really get it. Far as I can tell, sometimes people want a hectic fight for survival... sometimes they want a cakewalk... some people lean more to one side or the other. As far as you can tell... they go into the adventure pack... and then a while later they come back out. Hell, more realistically you probably don't even know that they ran it or what difficulty they ran it on, and they don't know you ever ran it on what difficulty you did. This whole idea of the population being divided between elite and non-elite players to me seems to be a work of fiction. Maybe if you could explain how that would actually happen, as in what would be the observable effects of such a separation, then I might understand what you mean.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Easy content has a shorter shelf life than challenging content. Known fact. That's what he's saying.
Putting out easy content really just makes more work for the developers. They put out a whole new zone with easy content... we tear through it in a day or two, then we want more. They put out another zone... two days... more. Repeat.
They put out content with a difficulty slider where the highest difficulty has us struggling to make progress, something we can't tear through so easily and it takes us longer to get bored of it. The folks who prefer the normal difficulties might breeze through it, but that's what they want, so fair is fair.
---^@ultimate2k12---v@thebabbies---
And yes, when we do finally manage to beat that difficult content, we're gonna feel good about ourselves, we're gonna take a moment and think about how well we just played. If that makes someone else feel bad, and makes them feel the need to start characterizing others as "big bad elitists" then that's a you problem, not a me problem.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Y'know, your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
This could very easily be said to be your "opinion." After all, harder difficulty is well known to make people outright quit which completely destroys the shelf life of content. People use terms like "unfair" or "unfun" to describe the same thing you call "challenging," and proceed to go do something else.
But then we'd be forgetting that there really are facts in action here, and the larger picture is much more complicated, now wouldn't we..?
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
How does an optional harder difficulty mode that provides no increase in drops, not at all required for those who do not wish to participate, count as unfair and drive people to go do something else ?
How does the existence of an optional, non drop affecting, hard more destroy the shelf life of a piece of content ?
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
For starters, the proposed solution does in fact effect drops. Both in terms of quantity, and quality. Think about it, reaaaal well.
Secondly, you either are oblivious of or have way too much faith in human behavior. This "solution," even improved in such a manner as to remove the immediately obvious damage it would do as currently proposed, just focusing on how the group who's rallying this, there's one showstopper: This change would last a few months at best, before people are demanding a better solution.
Just what are people going to do with this? Run Andrith? TT? Assuming they don't get bored immediately, eventually they do and demand the things I listed in my thread. Which should have been done first, to begin with. If they don't demand this, they start demanding better rewards for their effort, to at least make running the existing content on the hardest difficulty feel worthwhile.
Delivery. Craftsmanship. Prioritization. If you're not going to approach something with the intent to do it right, you might as well not do it at all.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
Increasing difficulty for the difficulty hawks and not making things more difficult for the difficulty doves?
/Signed
I can totally support this as it means i dont have to have my game made more difficult (which is serious, i'm disabled, making the games harder means i might not be able to play them at all as they can flare-up my symptoms and literally harm my health!) and yet those who need more challenge get more challenge.
Though i wonder if it'd be a good idea to make an uber-elite level above the current perhaps? Would that be easier/better? Ah well i won't play any elite+ difficulty anyway but it'd be great for the challenge to be there for those who want it.
While she has been rescued
what diabolical mastermind
was behind the devious brain-napping of
the Volterrific Dr Cerebellum?
Nope. Re-read the OP to refamiliarize yourself with the context of the thread.
Again, seems you missed something. It's meant to be a temporary solution.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
You are correct, it would affect drops. Technically it should lower them. If mobs are tougher it will take longer to kill them and so the drop rate goes down.
This solution was suggested as a temporary fix. A hold over until Cryptic decides to perform a perhaps more in depth overhaul of the difficulty slider. Its pretty clearly represented as a, "some of us will settle for even a half-a$$ed temporary fix until development resources and priorities can, maybe someday, be allocated.
They are asking for a temporary fix so that the game is more enjoyable for them until such a time as Cryptic chooses to allocate resources for a better solution.
An intent to do something, "right," does not preclude a (hopefully) quick short term workaround to tide people over until a more full-featured solution can be implemented. On Thanksgiving my wife prepared a truly magnificent meal. She is an amazing cook, and has in fact taught. That upcoming masterpiece of a meal, prepared with attention to every detail, does not preclude a quickly thrown together snack to tide everyone over until the meal is ready.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Also, Smoo, I read your OP fine. Your proposed suggestion has a glaring flaw in it, and I'm not going to tell you what it is. I'm going to let you figure it out yourself, because I'm sick of pointing out the obvious and I want to see you at least show you have the capability to come to better conclusions.
I will give you a clue: There's one post on the first page that suggests the person posting it might have caught the flaw in some capacity. It's then followed by a few posts that make the flaw worse. It's also something that's likely astoundingly easy to fix, however it doesn't solve the problem with how incredibly "temporary" the solution is.
Also, Ashen caught one thing that hadn't even occurred to me. Hah. No, that's not what I'm talking about, but it's very similar to what I'm thinking of.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
For instance, in a alert like gravitar if there are 2 difficulty settings being pretty apart from each other. Most people would go to the normal alert, and given the drops are the same, only the difficulty fans would go to the elite setting. Here is the division, how significant this could be, it depends on how significant would be a population that looks for more difficulty with no better rewards involved.
Is harder content like top end lairs, gravitar and carrier command popular, or are the easy fast higher reward alerts more popular?
People will and do go for the easier faster more rewarding route, and if its harder for same reward that wont be where the majority, or even a significant minority will go.
it will at best be where a handfull of people will go for a short time then ignore.
Im not against it in principle, but given the pitiful resources we have for development the ONLY thing that the devs should be working on (as well as fixing bugs that crop up) is more things to do (missions. aps, comic series or zones - not more alerts or gimmicks or new mechanics)
It's just meant to be a temporary fix.
You can advocate it all you want, reality of this game resources mean one or the other will be done. Not both at the same time. Till the devs and PWE tell SHOW US otherwise they can't do both at the same time.
At least not until NWO and their 4th game is out in 20whenever.
And I'm not insisting anyone do anything. What I'm saying is that if the ones who RUN THIS game want to get a better data sample it's best to do it IN GAME not on the forums.
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
Pretty much this.
Sick and tired of them tinkering with mechanics and non-story drive content.
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
It's best if they do it that way. They've chosen not to and instead provided us with forums to express our opinions on. If we do it then it's just us saying, "Hey, we talked to some people in game and they thought...", with no way to actually verify the information we're providing. This is why I encourage people to come speak their opinions on the forums.
Honestly not a big deal to me.
Not like I expect them to read anything we say or comment on it in game or in the forums until their work is done launching NWO and super sekrit game number 4.
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
This sums things up fairly well.
1. I never said anything about being elitists. No such word.
2. I never said that the arguement for wanting a higher difficulty is a bad thing either, just pointing out the fact that it is really not the biggest issue with this game.
See what I am pointing out is that people are making proclamation of why people are leaving, and again what I am saying is that it has nothing to do with how difficult the game because really if you look at every post everyone have their own ideas of how difficult a mission should be. But my point is that the difficulty of the game has nothing to do with people leaving, lack of content is the reason why people are leaving. The idea of MMORPG is to keep people coming back to the game, to have longevity of replayability, how do they do that, not by going back over the game and making 1-40 as hard for everyone to level as possible, you add more to the game. You add Endgame you add another zone, you add SG bases, you add new and innovative stories and events, that how you keep player bases. If you want to grind and die as many times as you want and rely on others to help you with missions and such more power to you, I am not going to take away your idea of what you think is fun, that is being elitiest when I say my way is better than yours and I am not all I'm saying is this, once you get over to that grind and you make it to your goal you going to feel proud of yourself yea but than you going sit back after beating your chest and go now what? Than you going look and see that you did everything get bored with doing the same thing over and over and move on to the next game because there is nothing else exciting about the game.
You need both. You need new content but you need it to be more challenging so it is not finished right away. Tough Alerts do not caount because they are still quick mission that take no time to do or have stupid timers as a part of them.
But this is also something that would take time to make, if it meant we had to put up with crap alerts, I would say bring on the easy flat missions so we can get the good challenging "Content"
He gets it.
Lemme just stop ya right there.
None of the alerts are affected by the difficulty settings.
That second part wasn't aimed specifically at you. That's what this thing was about:
---^@ultimate2k12---v@thebabbies---
it indicates the top half is @ you, and the bottom half is not.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Guess I never have my blood runs in PVP kind of challenge before....................
But new gears isn't kind of my style either. Just some imaginations for my heroes. Being a heroes isn't mean about winning on any challenge. You already knows that not every mobs can be defeat.
If you seek difficulty, then don't seek it too much..........
A warning message from your friendly hero Tempest, Xerath
If another difficulty it should be called : Elitist Bunnehs..:biggrin:
My Characters on PRIMUS
[#]WeNeedHeroicFashion - <Aura Suggestions> - <CO Wiki (WIP)> - <Crowd Control Discussion> - <Telepathy in Champions Online> - How to review The Force Power Set - Join the Champions Online: On Alert Discord!
I am @RavenForce in game
__________________________
Maybe you could ramp it up to 10.....
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Nope. Just because you put beans in your ears doesn't change a damn thing. This community is doing a good job putting the bean farmer's kids through school though, that's something right?
Still nice you haven't figured out the flaw with your proposed suggestion. Seeing as it's been mentioned elsewhere before.
...I just recently realized something really disturbing. We're all eating Sodapop3's "humble pie."
This is something I would love to see.
Since we're ignoring anything that was talked about after the OP. . .
This solution doesn't deal with anyone who enjoys the Elite difficulty as is. Regardless of their reasoning you can't possibly argue that they can't exist.
~Why aren't they posting about it then?~
Perhaps because they don't bother to go on the forums to complain about things they like?
Who is to say they're anti-difficulty? Maybe they're not as capable as you or are challenged by the Elite difficulty? But more importantly, again regardless of their reason, they would be enjoying it as it is and your solution only helps you and those of your like mind. Are you the majority? And even if (a big word) so, why remove (because that's what it would effectively be) Elite and replace it with your own version of it when a better solution would be a higher or more customizable difficulty to satisfy you and the whole lot who are like you but not as good as or better than you (in terms of content clearing, obviously).
People will leave because of the difficulty of "Elite" regardless of whether they view it as too easy, too hard, or even if it's ~just right~ because eventually they'll tire of it. There will be those who won't but there will always be those who will because there are always people leaving.
Why use a solution, especially a temporary one as you put it, that could aggravate issues for other users?
There is a pretty big difference between arguing that something, "can't exist," and arguing that it, "doesn't exist."
Still, I agree that there probably are some people who enjoy elite as is.
He is speaking to the people who are claiming to be against an optional increase in difficulty. The answer to your question there is, "they do." The very people the comment is directed to have said that they are, "anti-difficulty."
This was requested first. The idea was shot down by the, "anti-difficulty," people as requiring too much in the way of dev resources and so the current suggestion was made in order to provide a stop gap fix while other priorities are being addressed in the hope that eventually a more comprehensive review of game systems (including difficulty) MIGHT be undertaken.
Under the example you provide people are not leaving BECAUSE of the difficulty of elite, but rather because they have become bored with the game.
Every possible solution to every possible problem, "could," (and so far has) aggravate issues for some users. That doesn't mean that solutions to problems should not be pursued.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Don't ask the devs for things you are too lazy and too afraid do yourselves.
Point... missing it?