110556-punishing-vs-difficult-content

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I'm putting an edit here since a bunch of you clearly are not getting the gist of this post.  There has been a link to a video at the beginning of this which makes it very clear what the difference between difficult and punishing content is (seven minutes long).  If you are not willing to first view this short video, please don't bother to comment.  You're wasting your time because you're missing the whole point, and I won't respond to you (and shouldn't be expected to).  This is not a call to reduce difficulty.
 
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Surely some of you have seen this video by Extra Credits.  If you haven't, do take the time to view it because you'll have a better understanding what I mean when I suggest that Wildstar's PvE content is failing to deliver difficult content without the punishing aspects that turn people off to it.
 
I'll use the dichotomy between everything pre-dungeon to everything post-dungeon as my example.  Everything before adventures is super easy.  The early game was designed apparently to appeal to the "must be able to solo the game's 1-50 grind as fast as possible" masses.  There is little which calls for groups to play together, and in fact a lot of game design actively discourages players from grouping and instead fighting to click something on the ground before the other guy steals it from them.  Stand in telegraphs for a long time and you'll die, but you're OK if you hit some.  Rotations not necessary (mash buttons to win).  Practically every other MMO has used the grind up to max level to train players in what they'll be experiencing later on, and the old school games trained them by being hard enough that players could die at a number of places during the leveling process which made them group up and work together.  Having a World of Warcraft easy mode solo grind to 50 is absolutely not appropriate preparation for the endgame here, but that is probably unlikely to be changed.  It was a mistake that I expect will take some hard pill-swallowing to rectify.
 
Then the player gets to adventures.  One is trained to kill packs of mobs in large numbers and some which cannot be taunted to stay on a traditional tank (War of the Wilds), which is the first hint that the player will see that there will be content to come where the rules do not have to be followed by the content designers.  There's a minor DPS check in Siege of Tempest Refuge (killing tanks/bunker busters before they get far enough in), but it is is really a minor DPS speedbump that one or two players who have reasonably good gear can carry the others through silver on.  There's Malgrave Trail which is apparently designed to test a player's fortitude at withstanding extreme boredom and "skill" at a silly easter egg hunt (yeah, we get it, lots of us remember Oregon Trail.  Now double the speed of the caravan, please.)  All in all, nothing here will prepare a player for what they're going to see in dungeons or in raiding, and will actually teach players bad habits (trash pulls en masse in a dungeon is suicide except the very first room of Stormtalon).  Essentially, anyone from any old MMO or even without any experience with them can learn how to do these because they're fairly classic content design.
 
Then come dungeons.  Now a single player has an incredible responsibility not to get the team killed.  Gear matters a lot.  In the easiest of these, Stormtalon, one can still occasionally hit a telegraph and not die instantly, though that no longer works for most telegraphs.  One can interrupt and learn how interrupt chains work, but pick-up-groups (PUGs) usually can't be arsed to set them up or expect people to follow them, which only means frustrated dungeon veterans and a lot of carried newbies.  Every tiny pack of mobs can be lethal if even one pather is accidentally pulled, and they'll slow the group down a lot if they're not interrupted at proper times (like shaman Rejuvenate spells).  This is all relatively straightforward stuff, but nothing prior to this has prepared a player for it.  Still, people like to run it and one can typically find a group with the group finder most times of the day.  The dungeon has punishing aspects, however.  When the group is trying to get silver, any wipes may result in a significant run (just to chew up their timer) back to the boss, which is also boring and the opposite of content.  Mobs don't always follow the rules. For example, for one mini boss, the group must break his absorb before breaking his interrupt armor and stunning him, which is counter to everything the player has experienced even if they've grouped with others.  Mobs now have one-shot mechanics or might-as-well-be one-shot mechanics, which players have not yet experienced anywhere else and really is a cheap shot in a game where there is no in-combat resurrection.  If a player drags telegraphs onto one another or in another player's path, there may be no escaping death for some classes.  There really is nothing before this which is somewhere between the simplicity of adventures and this now completely unforgiving telegraph dodge fest to train a player in the skills needed to surmount it.
 
Telegraphs are inconsistent as well, and don't follow their own rules.  For example, there are three motifs for the type of telegraph which is a circle that fills up beneath a player (from center outward) and follows them around.  One type is seen in everything pre-dungeon and in Stormtalon's first fight:  when the circle almost filled, dash out of it.  But then in Stormtalon's second fight this motif is changed without warning.  One can dash out of it, as previously, but it now becomes a permanent hazard to running a gauntlet the new player has not yet seen.  The only way to know this is to research the fight or be told about it or experience it and be observant (most players would assume these eventually go away like everything else they've experienced).  The third motif is the gotcha. A player can't dash out of it and the group is expected to interrupt it.  It will follow the player and kill them (and possibly others) if it is not interrupted (this may be seen outside of dungeons in Blighthaven from some elementals if the player has experienced them).  This is punishing game design, not challenging game design.  Carbine really should make telegraph motifs extremely consistent so the players know which one they're about to experience and react accordingly.  Some telegraphs are absolutely deadly to even touch (if you're not the tank), while others will hurt but probably not kill.  Does a telegraph stun the player or kill them outright?  The only way to know is to experience them or to be told what they'll do ahead of time which is a rote memorization skill, not one of difficulty or challenge.  Each such telegraph should be unique and exceedingly obvious what it will do or at least give the player pause to say "hmm, well that is different from anything I've seen, what do I do about it?"  Russian roulette telegraphs are punishing game design.  I'm absolutely not saying that bosses should not have mechanics nor should they be easy.  I'm advocating clear, consistent design that a player is trained to recognize through experiencing the game (not dumped on the player all at once when attempting a dungeon).
 
A final word:  Skullcano and Swordmaiden dungeons need to be shortened up significantly.  Players will not queue for content that is designed to be an hour long, especially with punishing one-shot mechanics, long runs back to a boss and tight timers.  If players do not queue, new players will never get experience and nobody will trust a random PUG to complete them.  This hangs up attunement because the players who already tried the content and finally got through their hard-won silver medals have no motivation to go back to help new players understand the mechanics or have patience with them as they repeatedly wipe until they develop the skills necessary to get through these fights.  Trying to use the group finder for practice runs results in a mixed bag of new players and veterans on alts (if anyone bothers to queue at all) who, due to timers, elitist attitudes, and lack of motivation to teach, will refuse explanation and drop without warning when silver is no longer achievable or looks not to be.  This results in group disbands and players never even seeing the fights they're supposed to be learning.  Learning does not mean "watch an hour long video and become an expert."  There is a big difference between learning how to drive a manual transmission car by trying to read about it or watch a training video and actually doing it.  If dungeons are meant to be training for raiding, they should be enticing to play and failure should not be punished so harshly that players give up and refuse to queue for the content (the "well, there went an hour of my time I'll never get back" type of disappointment).  My guild decided the best course of action to get me through the Swordmaiden dungeon was simply to do all of it, kick someone else out for the last boss and carry me through it (instantly dead to a mechanic I was unprepared for).  I have yet to see this dungeon except for in videos.  This is a failure in game design and I encourage the developers to take good hard look at how to smooth this out so that I and others can enjoy the content and have reasonable expectations that new players can get in no-pressure practice runs to learn and others have motivation to help them through good design and not through RNG epic drop carrots said players have already written off as unattainable and/or unnecessary.  Fix what is wrong with this content which is causing players to refuse to queue and the playerbase will be happier on the whole.  You might even keep some of the rapidly-dropping subs.	
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I can't say I agree with the assessments.  Yes, the game has a rapidly rising difficulty curve in the endgame.  The content will surprise you; it doesn't warn you ahead of time, just shows you the red and tells you to be out of it.  Your responsibility rises and gear is important before you step into another tier of difficult content.
 
I really don't think that needs to be changed.  Difficult content is one of the principles of the game, wiping on bosses as you learn is part of that learning curve.  Seeing something in a video and it still requiring you to learn is a breath of fresh air.  That's working exactly as intended.
 
Maybe less stick for people who help new players and more reward for helping them is what might help here, if this is a problem.  Maybe additional renown for killing bosses you've already killed.
 
I know they're putting in a new "training" dungeon in the next drop, but I didn't hear many people quit because of leveling dungeon difficulty.  It's what got most people addicted.	
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I know they're putting in a new "training" dungeon in the next drop, but I didn't hear many people quit because of leveling dungeon difficulty.  It's what got most people addicted.
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The pressure will soon be off to silver.
 
As for learning telegraph types, that's part of learning the fights.
 
I really enjoy the dungeon content quite a bit. It's what keeps me coming back.	
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I am not sure what you'd hear anyone say at all about leaving, most just do.  I'm playing with a group who have gotten addicted to several MMOs and at one point were achieving the world and server firsts and trailblazing mechanics for the rest in at least one.  Even many of them are the opposite of addicts now, quite possibly just waiting for the next thing to try.  When a group of people like that doesn't even bother to log in to voice or play on the weekends, you've got some serious motivation issues inherent in the game design.
 
Again, this is about preserving difficulty, which I adore, and eradicating punishing design.  Some of the dungeons can even be fun when the pressure is off to get silver/gold, but that is the sole motivation vets have to do them.  Inconsistency in telegraphs is just one example of poor mechanics. If I have but a split second to react to them, I need to be able to identify what threat I'm dealing with and take the proper course.  It's easy enough to fix: make them each distinctive and do not reuse them for the wrong things.  Set rules and follow them.  It's a core principle of good game design.
 
There are ways to incentivize vets to help out new players that are consistent and not RNG carrots.  For example:  everyone hates the elder point cap.  Carbine could make it so that certain achievements one helps other players get in dungeons raises the cap for the week (and make it something actually worth the effort).  They'd have vets tripping over one another to help as many newbies as they can to get the bonus gems and get further in their own gaming.
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But by all means, I hope Carbine continues to try to kill me in new and surprising ways.  Just that I'd rather somebody not hate me for dying the first few times.
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That's actually one point where I will disagree, difficulty through information obscurity is poor design in a game.  The boss's abilities are for all intents and purposes, the rules of for that encounter.  If a telegraph is designed such that it's impossible to discern what action should be taken until after you've already failed, that in itself is basically making a hidden rule.
 
Specifically the only telegraphs I have an issue with are the ones where it's out of the player's control, it relies on teammate action.  Almost every telegraph is essentially a personal reaction, you see a telegraph, it's up to everyone to get out of it.  That's fair enough, it's a clear and consistent message.  Hit by red and you're dead.  However, the telegraphs that appear on you and your teammates must react in order to save you, that's extremely unclear.  It would be extremely easy to assume that "Oh, that person died because they stood in the telegraph", never once understanding that you were supposed to save them instead.
 
Basically they have a defined pattern, see telegraph, dodge it.  That I'm ok with, however any telegraphs that break that rule should be clearly indicated visually as such.	
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But that's the problem. You can't have both. Either the contient is punishing and cruely difficult, or it can accomplished smoothly by random people.
 
I personaly don't find punishing mechanics rewarding. Yes, I've done the hard grinds, I've done the grueling boss fights in many games. I don't feel 'hell yes, I'm bad ass', I feel 'thank G'd I never have to do that again.'
 
There are games I never touched again AFTER clearing the helacious boss fight. And yes, it was specifically because I never wanted to deal with that headache again.
 
Especially in an MMO environment, you need to make doing something over and over appealing. That's the real goal, the real hook. Challenge appeals to one group of people (and it's not actually that big a group of people...), story appeals to another, etc, etc, etc.
 
Wildstar endgame ONLY appeals to the group who actually enjoys spending months grinding something for multiple hours a night, and finally getting a kill.
 
That's a nightmare to me, not a game.
 
I *do* enjoy the leveling and the story of Wildstar. All of the solo-able content is great.
 
The group content is like hitting a brick wall and changing games.
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			They should make dungeons more rewarding, they should not make them easier. That would ruin the point of WildStar for a good number of people. There are people playing WildStar because they like that the Dungeons are actually a challenge and it makes the game exciting.The main problem is that people don't want to do that challenge without having a nice juicy reward at the end for accomplishing the difficult challenge.	
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Difficult dungeons is a part of why i kept playing this game eventho my entire experiance from 1-50 seemed very empty and alone.I dont think the problem lies in that the dungeons are difficult. Problem is that there are no easy ones. There need to be content for everyone for a game to truely thrive. We have housing which some people love, we have difficult dungeons and raids that some people love. We dont have any easy pve content for casuals and we have lots of problems with PvP for the fnatics (but the game was never advertized as a pvp focused game so i wont bring this up).In a perfect world there would be a normal lvl 50 version of each dungeon for people to play, but without the epic drops. Primal Patterns and epics would only drop in veteran dungeons and you would be garantueed atleast one epic when completing the dungeon on veteran, no matter what medal (to encourage people to do the dungeons even if they fail the silver timer).Attunement wouldnt require silver dungeons but rather bronze. People who say that "but there are timers in raids, bosses have enrage mechanics tha wipe the raid if not killed withing X minutes." -> Yes, but then add some of those mechanics to veteran dungeon bosses so people can feel the time pressure DURING BOSSFIGHTS rather than "oh damn we wiped twice on the first boss now there is no chance for us to get silver and i wont get my attunement".There would also be a slight buff to GA gear and an easier NON ATTUNEMENT raid would be added in between dungeons and GA that would drop gear on kind of the same level as veteran dungeon epics. 
 
---What would all of this accomplish?  
Players with no intention of raiding can still do dungeons for the fun of it without all the mega crazy veteran mechanics, difficulty and pressure. Most of the gear they would gain is not "pre-raid best in slot" but they still have fun PvE content to do during the days other than dailys.
Veteran dungeons wouldnt be any easier, just more worth while doing even if you are not going for silver medals for your attunement.
Attunements wouldnt require people to do flawless guild runs with 5 people who have done all the dungeons 10 times before. You could enter a dungeon either as a pug or a guild, have the new guys learn the mechanics during a few wipes and then complete it after 3 hours on bronze. The new players will still have learned all the mechanics by the end of the run and pug groups ending in people leaving or flaming would decrease. New players would feel more at home and i cant stress this enough - PUGS WOULD ACTUALLY BE DOABLE.
Raiding guilds have a raid to do while waiting for their core to complete their crazy attunements.
GA is still as hard as it is, only difference is that it had a small bump in loot to make room for the easier raid. If people want the absolute "best in slot gear before 40man raids" they would still have to do GA.
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OMG DID I JUST FIX WILDSTAR?Edit: Would also like to add that very few things in wildstar are "punishing" and even fewer things make me feel "oh damn there was nothing i could have done differently there". When i first started doing veteran dungeons i wiped.. a lot. But each wipe made me feel "Ah i could have dodge that telegraph like that" or "damn i need to interrupt that spell instead of this one".The things that are punishing are however being adressed with my fixes earlier in this post. I feel punished when my guild loses an attuned member and has to recruit a new member and get him attuned. We've done that already, so having to do it over and over again is punishing.Another thing is the silver requirement for attunements. Even as a guild group there is a learning curve to getting silver, its not just "we are 5 good players and are going to crush this dungeon", this results in bosses being the same kind of progression as raids should be, without the fat loot. If we manage to master the first boss in Skullcano (always killing him on the first try) and then go to wipe at the second boss a couple of times -> The silver requirement will force us to restart the dungeon and kill the first boss again which we already mastered and then move on to fighting the second boss. Removing the silver requirement will remove the punishment from attunements.	
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I didn't read the entire post because I didn't agree with the beginning, which I could tell was a foundation for the rest.
 
Leveling WildStar is not at all as easy as modern-day WoW. It may be close to Vanilla WoW, but not modern.	
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^....if you're not reading the whole post how can you bother to comment?
 
Leveling in Wildstar has FLAIR, when you hear that "Holy s***! You leveled up! Way to go cupcake!" and then never hear it again I feel like the game lost some character somewhere....but onto the response for this post.
 
OP, I watched your video and I read your post and every post that followed, and I'm pretty sure we got somewhat off topic. Punishing vs. Difficult. Punishing is wiping 3 times on Grond even though everyone in your group has done it before but decided to screw up 3 times and now you have to vote abandon and try again, only for the same thing to happen on Slavemaster Drokk and then doing it ALL over again. PUNISHING!
 
Wildstar lacks a sense of accomplishment, learning and memorization to some are the same thing, because at some point you can use those same "memory" techniques elsewhere. But even though you may make one mistake on that one boss fight now you get to start all over. What is this "Ninja Gaiden"?
 
I understand what the white knights are talking about, "I stayed for this reason and for that reason BECAUSE it was difficult and you should beat your brains out too or get into another game!" I enjoyed finally mastering dungeons, and now that I'm raid attuned and I've switched guilds because my previous guild wasn't rading, I'm still waiting....and people are losing interest....and so am I....I will train people, PUGs or otherwise but what I've found is others have little patience even if they are learning. This is also a punishing mechanic because this is a social barrier, one of the worst types of punishing....a multi-player game with no one to play with or no one who wants to learn.
 
What I will say is this, Carbine. You're a great developer, you've been transparent with only minimal "shadow fixes" and you've tried to do the best you can by the community as a WHOLE. But if you're going to make us wait after delaying the content drop to incorporate the changes that will aid people in having MORE fun in your game, you are the most punishing, you are the worst RNG carrot, we are beating our heads against you. To make a statement and have no date other than "With that delayed content drop we haven't set a date for, yeah!" You are creating the walls hindering success of your own game.	
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That's not necessarily true, though.  We played in FFXI where you had to put together a group of 5 people even to level.  Boss fights weren't just hard, they relied on a lot of people operating in perfect synchronization to keep skillchains going.  And, looking back, those fights were boring because they were slow and required very little movement or mechanical knowledge.  But difficult, and easily puggable.
 
In fact, I wouldn't call Wildstar's dungeons, even vet dungeons, unpuggable.  But the people who have the skill aren't pugging them.  In WoW, for instance, there's a reason to continue to clear content, JP and VP.  You find people who raid showing up in random queues because they have a reason to be there, being instructive or, at least, being highly skilled and raising the overall Queue IQ.  The biggest problem with vet dungeon pugs at the moment is that vets aren't pugging them; they have no reason.  There are whole guilds of people who eat vet dungeons for breakfast and gold medal more often than not.  But they don't PUG, they have no reason to.  And that means all that's left in queue is the odd vet who doesn't run with his guild, people who don't like to socialize and don't have guilds, and a lot of people who are still learning.  Groups 2 and 3 don't often make for a good mix.
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Wildstar actually have a great learning curve in my opinion, and is way more consistent with their rule.
 
You are spammed with telegraph from lvl 1. some of them apply damage immediatly but do little damage. some of them apply damage once the telegraph is completed but do alot. some of the telegraphs follow you and you have to keep moving to avoid them ( crimson badland spiders). As you level up, you'll encounter mobs with 2 or 3 interrupt armor and you will need help to interrupt them, aka introduction to teamwork ( atleast, as a medic... can't interrupt those alone). No example pop to mind, but i'm pretty sure some telegraph stay on the ground for a while ( in referance to OP stormtalon mechanic)
 
When you first start doing dungeon and adventure, it is super obvious that proper interrupt and interrupt rotation are needed. interrupt are ALOT more important than squeezing few extra damage ( you actually get a decent DMG boost from properly interrupting)... an introduction to veteran dungeon and raids.  This is also where teamplay come on the scene... every DPS rotation only have 2 or 3 button, leaving alot of space for group defensive/offensive cooldown ( defense grid, empowering probe). you stack up together so the healer have an easier time... in WoW, I couldn't care less what the other guy is doing. sure i'll be annoyed if he's a crap DPS'er or cant heal... but what am I gonna do about it? In wildstar I can pop a cure in DPS rotation if the healer need help. communication/placement also mean alot ( or movement.. stormtalon). i've used extricate on the fire boss of SSM to help people move...
 
There's very few 1 shot mechanism. you can survive then suppression wave from KV 2nd boss, Mother Selene dark wave dosen't 1 shot, nothing but the big laser 1-shot you on Mordechai Redmoon and that is consistant with raids; kuralak for example: the laser won't kill you... you better not step in other bad stuff, but it won't kill you. Of course keep in mind it is a MMO.. new mechanics have to be introduced in.. you cannot lay down all the rule at lvl 1 and never move away from it; some new stuff have to come and go. 	
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Telegraphs are inconsistent as well, and don't follow their own rules.  For example, there are three motifs for the type of telegraph which is a circle that fills up beneath a player (from center outward) and follows them around.  One type is seen in everything pre-dungeon and in Stormtalon's first fight:  when the circle almost filled, dash out of it.  But then in Stormtalon's second fight this motif is changed without warning.  One can dash out of it, as previously, but it now becomes a permanent hazard to running a gauntlet the new player has not yet seen.  The only way to know this is to research the fight or be told about it or experience it and be observant (most players would assume these eventually go away like everything else they've experienced).  The third motif is the gotcha. A player can't dash out of it and the group is expected to interrupt it.  It will follow the player and kill them (and possibly others) if it is not interrupted (this may be seen outside of dungeons in Blighthaven from some elementals if the player has experienced them).  This is punishing game design, not challenging game design.  Carbine really should make telegraph motifs extremely consistent so the players know which one they're about to experience and react accordingly.  Some telegraphs are absolutely deadly to even touch (if you're not the tank), while others will hurt but probably not kill.  Does a telegraph stun the player or kill them outright?  The only way to know is to experience them or to be told what they'll do ahead of time which is a rote memorization skill, not one of difficulty or challenge.  Each such telegraph should be unique and exceedingly obvious what it will do or at least give the player pause to say "hmm, well that is different from anything I've seen, what do I do about it?"  Russian roulette telegraphs are punishing game design.  I'm absolutely not saying that bosses should not have mechanics nor should they be easy.  I'm advocating clear, consistent design that a player is trained to recognize through experiencing the game (not dumped on the player all at once when attempting a dungeon). 
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My few cents:
 
The video starts right away talking about how awesome Dark Souls is for it's difficulty, yet ignore the fact Dark Souls is also a horrible game that's very difficult for all the wrong reasons. I admit I enjoyed the first one for a whlie, but the second... meh. Hated it. Oh, sure, the gameplay itself is still fun, and the enemies are somewhat fun. But take something as simple as making progression. You struggle for a long time to get past some nasty enemies, then finally succeed with a bit of health left. You come to a campfire, finally get  to rest... and all the enemies have respawned. Including some mini-bosses. This isn't fun at all. It means all the hard work you had to do to get to this point is suddenly thrown out the window. Not to mention Dark Souls 1 started with that huge monster right at the beginning, giving us an awesome start and a big "you're so dead" moment. Dark Souls 2 didn't even have that.
 
Second, there's the stupid system of using an overlay menu. This doesn't go away when you continue to play, so if you are unaware of it, you can end up trying to equip something rather than defending yourself or attacking an enemy. I lost count how many times I died because of this. Again, this isn't fun. This is a stupid feature that should never have left the drawing board, and a classic example of punishing gameplay. Yet the video failed to even mention this, only talked about how awesome the game is. I should have stopped watching there, but I did manage to get through it.
 
And to be fair, he does have some valid points. Some. I'm just not sure what it has to do with Wildstar. Wildstar tend to stick to its own rules, and there aren't really many difficulty spikes, as far as I can tell. It doen't even lack on the controller-bit, but gives us great control over our character. My biggest issue with the game are the prime enemies, and that you can't run away from combat. You can attack regular enemies for some time, then all of a sudden find yourself in combat with a prime enemy you had no way of spotting. Also, when you find enemies in your way, you might as well activly attack them. Running from them is pointless, as you will be slowed down to a crawl if you are hit even once when sprinting. This is ridiculous, and one reason why I finally left the game. Anyway, I think Wildstar had a lot of promise, and in a better world, it would have been very successful. But in reality... I think it failed. It can perhaps still be saved, but I don't see how. The difficulty is easily one major reason why people quit, but it can't be the only one. Like the video said, games today needs to cater to as many people as possible to be successful, and I don't think Wildstar did that. It caters to the hardcore fans who thinks games today are too easy, but that's the wrong focus for an MMO. Personally, I think it should have started easy, then gradually gotten harder, until we get today's difficulty near endgame. By then a lot of people would get to the higher levels, and many would want to continue investing time in the characters they have come to love. But being killed frequently before lvl 20 means it's just not fun for everyone, and by then you haven't gotten to love the character or game yet. So why bother continue, when there are so many other games out there wanting your attention?	
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My few cents:
 
The video starts right away talking about how awesome Dark Souls is for it's difficulty, yet ignore the fact Dark Souls is also a horrible game that's very difficult for all the wrong reasons. I admit I enjoyed the first one for a whlie, but the second... meh. Hated it. Oh, sure, the gameplay itself is still fun, and the enemies are somewhat fun. But take something as simple as making progression. You struggle for a long time to get past some nasty enemies, then finally succeed with a bit of health left. You come to a campfire, finally get  to rest... and all the enemies have respawned. Including some mini-bosses. This isn't fun at all. It means all the hard work you had to do to get to this point is suddenly thrown out the window. Not to mention Dark Souls 1 started with that huge monster right at the beginning, giving us an awesome start and a big "you're so dead" moment. Dark Souls 2 didn't even have that.
 
Second, there's the stupid system of using an overlay menu. This doesn't go away when you continue to play, so if you are unaware of it, you can end up trying to equip something rather than defending yourself or attacking an enemy. I lost count how many times I died because of this. Again, this isn't fun. This is a stupid feature that should never have left the drawing board, and a classic example of punishing gameplay. Yet the video failed to even mention this, only talked about how awesome the game is. I should have stopped watching there, but I did manage to get through it.
 
And to be fair, he does have some valid points. Some. I'm just not sure what it has to do with Wildstar. Wildstar tend to stick to its own rules, and there aren't really many difficulty spikes, as far as I can tell. It doen't even lack on the controller-bit, but gives us great control over our character. My biggest issue with the game are the prime enemies, and that you can't run away from combat. You can attack regular enemies for some time, then all of a sudden find yourself in combat with a prime enemy you had no way of spotting. Also, when you find enemies in your way, you might as well activly attack them. Running from them is pointless, as you will be slowed down to a crawl if you are hit even once when sprinting. This is ridiculous, and one reason why I finally left the game. Anyway, I think Wildstar had a lot of promise, and in a better world, it would have been very successful. But in reality... I think it failed. It can perhaps still be saved, but I don't see how. The difficulty is easily one major reason why people quit, but it can't be the only one. Like the video said, games today needs to cater to as many people as possible to be successful, and I don't think Wildstar did that. It caters to the hardcore fans who thinks games today are too easy, but that's the wrong focus for an MMO. Personally, I think it should have started easy, then gradually gotten harder, until we get today's difficulty near endgame. By then a lot of people would get to the higher levels, and many would want to continue investing time in the characters they have come to love. But being killed frequently before lvl 20 means it's just not fun for everyone, and by then you haven't gotten to love the character or game yet. So why bother continue, when there are so many other games out there wanting your attention?
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That is what you call punishing? Don't wanna sound like some kind of elitist douche here, but that really is far from punishing or even difficult.  You have to bring in some kind of unpredictable mechanic into a boss fight otherwise you'll have a hard time designing encounters, without recycling mechanics.
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~snip~
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This is it on lunatic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxL5-g73l-Q
 
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This is an S rank Bullet Heaven game.  I can't say which game is harder since I never played that one, though they look about the same to me.  It isn't a video of my run, this is someone else's, but I got all S ranks for that game when I did it.  This guy is better than I am at it because, though there is no reward for doing so, he didn't use any bombs (which you have a limited number of but will wipe part or all of the screen (depends on the character you choose) temporarily to give you some breathing room.  You can't get hit at all if you want S rank.  It's an insanely difficult game, but it actually isn't punishing because the game is extremely consistent with its rules, doesn't make you re-clear anything else you've already mastered just to move on, etc.  I felt a hell of a sense of accomplishment when I got them done on S rank for the first time, and then proceeded to do it with most of the other characters until I had to break the addiction.  I don't get that sense of accomplishment from Wildstar, to be perfectly honest.
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The only problem I see is that some challenges that are difficult in a single player game become punishing in a multiplayer game, and this just kills group dynamics. When your only option to learn new dungeons is to group with people who are sick to death of running it... you start feeling guilty really quickly if you make any mistake. This means that unless you're going through the entire attunement process with an all-noob group (not likely), you're just praying not to be the one to die at the last boss and cause four other people to have to start the thirty minute run over.  Throw in some lag, bugs, and maybe somebody's kid needing attention and it becomes a disaster.
 
In a single player game, sure, I'd run the same content over and over.  I did a few hundred sub-ten minute runs in Castlevania HD just to get the 0.5% sonic boots drop. That was punishing but fun for the challenge.  But with four other people, some of whom don't want to be doing this AGAIN, it's nerve wracking and not fun.
 
But moving to a bronze requirement should fix that, so yay!	
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