The Daily Grind: Do you think MMOs should be harder?

People need to stop demanding that they be able to get everything that an MMORPG offers just because they pay a sub and log in. They need to realize that they CHOSE to play a game, and that for some things they actually have to play and win parts of said game in order to get their precious little pixels.

There can be harder parts of MMOs if people stop with this sense of entitlement that they should be able to get everything that someone else can get without having to play the same parts of the game.

Sadly, this will never happen, people overall, people are just dumb.

Its rough.
I think hard content should be an option, but not forced.
Like if games had 2 different levelling paths, one that was far harder and required alot more work but had better rewards vs a nice easy faceroll that took a bit longer and less rewards.

The problem becomes, that people want the better rewards without doing the extra work. =(
IE - "OH NOES WOW HEROICS ARE TO HARD!NERFNERFNERF"
No fun when all content is made easy, no fun when all content is made hard=(

I think MMOs should try to cater to both ends of the spectrem or at least cater to one or the other easy/hard and focus on it. There should be heroic modes of instances for example were a higher level of play and knowledge of game mechanics etc should be expected. Heroic modes should be hard and not nerfed to oblivion because bad players can't clear them.

Easier content should not reward the same as harder content, though I know this causes alot of contenion between people in games like WOW and RIFT. People doing easyier content or solo content often want/demand the same rewards that high-end raiders get.

Raids/dungeons etc should have an easy mode for people who want to experiance raiding or dungeons just without the toughness of more hardcore content.

Grinding should not be equated with difficult thou. That said I dont think powerful items should be handed out to people for minamal effort either. If you only play 2 hrs a week and only have a passingly familier idea on how to play the game why expect to be decked out in BIS gear within a short amount of time?

I guess its just hard balancing the differnt ends of the spectrems and trying to make both happy. Perhaps games shoulden't. Once upon a time if someone was not good enough then that was to bad. Most did not demand the game drop to their level but tried to impove themselves.

Still overall I do lament the dumbing down of MMOs and thier game worlds. I lement the same thing in single player games to.

Yes, at least a bit.

And by this I mean the encounters themselves you do when you're leveling up. See, you have many abilities and combinations of those abilities available to you, but if the encounters do not push you to utilize them fully, it can get a bit boring. Sooner or later, you start standing there and going through the motions with a blank stare, or going out of your way to concoct a challenge for yourself. :)

To me the best encounters tend to be the ones where there is at least some chance of dying, but you pull through anyway. I remember beta-testing The Chronicles of Spellborn and thinking mob toughness was kind of refreshing.