And all I was pointing out is that from the point of view of the casual, average, fat part of the bell curve, player. This would in fact make the game harder to access. I wasn't saying anything about if it was a good idea or not. I for one am all for the removal of "daily guided tours of the world's deadliest dungeons".
Well, the concept of it was from a raiding point of view (I know I was overly ambiguous, my fault..I explained later but it was still muddled), and I couldn't disagree with you more about it making the game more difficult. I think, for the average player, the "normal" difficulty raid encounter has become far more difficult since Vanilla. Again, this goes back to the raid team being able to control where the brunt of the difficulty lies. For example, a bunch of the bosses in MC/BWL were "simplistic" in terms of mechanics (Mostly a carry over from EQ)--so they used simple line of sight and range to dictate who can be hit with bad effects. This left a lot of abilities in the raid leaders hand to dole out to the raid. Have weaker players? Don't make them targets for bad curses/effects, for example.
Simply put, if the LFR and LFD mechanics were to be removed, right now, content completion as a % of the player base would plummet. These mechanics completely bypass the logistical and social difficulties you were referencing. So to take away such convenience from casual players, would ensure fewer of them even see the fights. And the hardest boss to kill is the one you never see.
This isn't really the social difficulty I was discussing. It's more about making the game work between different tiers of skill, and finding ways to balance difficulty in different ways--rather than just making things harder. Though I do have problems with the LFD system, it's not on a philosophical level. I think the LFD is fine, I just think elements of it need to be changed (Auto-transport for new dungeons, grouping off server--I know there are reasons for these, but I think those reasons are the biggest hurdles MMO's have right now. And I have more issues, just tossing out examples. )
As for difficulty versus design. Design influences every aspect of a game, absolutely. But good designs or bad designs are not tied to difficulty. You can have very thought out and rewarding experiences that require not much more interaction than keeping your eyes open, such as a really well put together narrative. Despite this extreme ease of access it would still fall under "good design".
Difficulty relies on design but it can come from the whole spectrum of design, from abso-fuckin-lutely amazing to abso-fucking-lutely horrendous. One difficult encounter will leave you with the feeling that you just accomplished something, the other difficult encounter will leave you feeling like the ghost of a rabid buffalo just raped your soul.
Therefore the two do rely on each other but are in no way so connected that you can assume one equates the other. Because THAT is when crap mechanics like the stuff we see in wow come out. WoW thinks "easy = good".
Yes, but what I'm saying is that difficulty should come THROUGH design, in as much as it comes through increasing numbers in boss encounters. A lot of developers seem to have separated these two things, and believe that a more difficult boss encounter simply means, he does more things....However, EQ's bosses were
verydifficult (Like I said, most of WoW's uber guilds wouldn't have cut it in EQ), BUT those bosses often did no more than hit the tank hard. There are ways to differentiate difficulty that don't all exist with the boss--I don't really want to arm chair develop here, but if you don't want to have non-instanced content, then make it so one instance (Of the many you release) has a lot of trash and simple bosses, but there is a timer on it. The instance becomes about your efficiency at clearing trash, and then collecting loot--you're then testing a guild's organization and focus, as well as their ability to memorize, rather than just the ability to memorize like a hard boss encounter forces.
That's just an example...Like I said, difficulty can come from many, many sources--it shouldn't be distilled down to a switch that doesn't even exist within the raid. That just makes the world feel fake and sterile. Its' really no different than hitting "easy" mode on Civilization--and that's fine for Civ, because civ is a
game. The MMO developers though should want to create a world. It's a subtle difference, but from your posts, I can tell you understand it.
And I think that's when you'll see "crap" mechanics, when the developer starts designing elements, like difficulty, separately and stops trying to design a cohesive world, where they all add up. Difficulty should be part of design, it should not be something you flip a switch on and have things be harder. And really, the biggest goal, is to allow your players as much possible room to subvert difficulty with the widest variety of options possible. And that kind of freedom only comes from when a designer looks at the world as a whole, rather than a boss as a separate game you flip on from the world-chat-lobby.