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Jeff Vogel on RPG difficulty

sgc_meltdown

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"idiots should be able to play my game on normal difficulty by shouting 'YOU DIE I WIN' at the screen while dribbling juice and happy meal slurry over their chins because their money is as good as yours and they outnumber you as well, you have a problem with that huh bro wow i guess you must be some kind of uptight bitch who has a problem with me having more money, way to be a whiner"

Good point. Then rename Normal.

You know what the least hardest part of playing a game for casuals is, it's the installation, so let's tailor their entrance that way

have a 'custom gameplay' checkbox that you click, then you get to choose to see the words about what each difficulty means whereas if you mash the 'PLAY GAME RARRGH WHERE IS ACHIEVEMENT' button you get automatic jackass difficulty with full particle effects and extra bass in the music track
 
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Ulminati

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have a 'custom gameplay' checkbox that you click, then you get to choose to see the words about what each difficulty means whereas if you mash the 'PLAY GAME RARRGH WHERE IS ACHIEVEMENT' button you get automatic jackass difficulty with full particle effects and extra bass in the music track

But every game I get - every single game - I always start out trying it out on default settings/normal difficulty then adjust up as necessary. Even if I usually end up on hard/very hard with shit like antialisasing, hdr, bloom and depth of field turned off. If I got bumped straight to retardo I probably wouldn't give the game a chance on higher settings either.
 

sgc_meltdown

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But every game I get - every single game - I always start out trying it out on default settings/normal difficulty

that would just be the way for our AAA games and perhaps those lovable indies

outliers like Tactical Grid Warfront Simulator VII - Chobham Chaos [Blood on the Sturmfront Edit] will probably have default difficulty comfortably on expected levels
 

Whisper

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"idiots should be able to play my game on normal difficulty by shouting 'YOU DIE I WIN' at the screen while dribbling juice and happy meal slurry over their chins because their money is as good as yours and they outnumber you as well, you have a problem with that huh bro wow i guess you must be some kind of uptight bitch who has a problem with me having more money, way to be a whiner"

Good point.



p.s. "Honestly many people here find the later acts of Normal very challenging (like they can't beat the last boss for weeks on end challenging), but I don't want encourage someone to pull up my words later and say "You said it would be difficult!"

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4571558539?page=4#69

Blizzard think that fanbase is mostly made of unskilled/dumb, those who will find so called "Normal" mode very challenging.
 

Topher

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I don't give a damn what they call each difficulty or how they decide to label their "default" difficulty setting but DO NOT lock out higher difficulties and force me to play through anything to unlock them. I quit playing sacred 2, and Diablo 2, for precisely this reason and I won't even consider buying Diablo 3 until there is a work around.
 

Metro

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Most of Vogel's games are shit and designed for the iOS crowd.
 

sea

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Spiderweb games aren't hard. They're tedious. The writing/exploration is what carries them, and there's basically zero reward for playing on the high difficulties except that all enemies have invisible bonuses and you have invisible penalties.

That said, I don't mind easy encounters so much as there are hard ones, and Spiderweb games are usually okay with that, with fairly simple trash mobs and bosses that require some thinking. The big problem is the quantity of trash, and I think it's painfully obvious that Vogel bloats out a lot of his game that way. Balancing for "hard" wouldn't be a problem if his games lent themselves to interesting scenarios in the first place.
 
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Making you play "Normal" before unlocking harder difficulty would look OK - since some games did this before - if this "Normal" wasn't trollishly easy.

No it isn't, and fuck you.

Make "Normal", then make "Hard, Uber-Hard,Impossible" if you want, but locking harder difficulties is bullshit.

At least if you want to be a super care-bear let players unlock those difficulties through playing well in the tutorial or something.
 

Roguey

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I see nothing wrong with the majority of games balancing their standard difficulty for, well, the majority.

What's disappointing is that there aren't enough that aim higher. There's been some progress in this current console generation, but I'm concerned we'll be right back at square 0 or even further back for the next one, especially with even bigger budgets to think about. The bubble will probably burst, fun times to be had.
 

sea

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I see nothing wrong with the majority of games balancing their standard difficulty for, well, the majority.
The issue is that by balancing for normal or easy, usually hard difficulties end up being shitty because they resort to algorithmic false challenge. Instead of more enemies to deal with or more complex challenges and scenarios, it's just multipliers on health, drop rates, etc. That can be fun, but only to a degree, and usually it means that the hardest difficulties are less challenging and more annoying, and lack the features necessary to really survive. By balancing for hard and scaling down, you keep the same number of options and the same complex challenges and scenarios, but give extra handicaps to make the game comfortable for most players. This also gives further incentive to try hard mode other than achievement points, because players will realize there's more depth to the game than is necessary to win on the standard mode.
 

Damned Registrations

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I think the terminology of 'challenging' gets used way too much. It's not that an enemy with a billion hp isn't challenging (assuming it has at least some chance to hit you) it's that it's not engaging since it becomes repetitive. A game of Simon can be made more difficult by speeding it up, adding more colours, or lengthening the sequence. But none of that is really going to make it more interesting for someone who's mastered the basic concept. The same holds true for games. Challenge is less about something that is hard to succeed at and more about something that is hard to do perfectly, or even properly. Success is just a bar to raise or lower. The part that needs to be improved is increasing the variety of mistakes the player is likely to make, but can potentially avoid. If I'm playing a fighting game, it doesn't become significantly more interesting whether the enemies are more or less difficult to fight. It becomes more interesting as I figure out how to play, string combos, counter attacks, etc. and the number of things I'm trying to accomplish increases from 'punch when in range' to 'discern enemy attack, predict next move, produce correct combo, feign to lure out enemy special move, counter with specific move'.
 

sgc_meltdown

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I play spiderweb software games for their story and c&c, so why doesn't he allow me to skip the combat and enjoy the part of his game I prefer: the compelling decisions and unique storylines?

Anyone can pretend fight with their imaginary adventurer dolls with the computer rolling dice for them, the real challenge here is making tough choices and understanding subtle intricacies in the plot
 

Alex

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The issue is that by balancing for normal or easy, usually hard difficulties end up being shitty because they resort to algorithmic false challenge. Instead of more enemies to deal with or more complex challenges and scenarios, it's just multipliers on health, drop rates, etc. That can be fun, but only to a degree, and usually it means that the hardest difficulties are less challenging and more annoying, and lack the features necessary to really survive. By balancing for hard and scaling down, you keep the same number of options and the same complex challenges and scenarios, but give extra handicaps to make the game comfortable for most players. This also gives further incentive to try hard mode other than achievement points, because players will realize there's more depth to the game than is necessary to win on the standard mode.

I agree with you Sea, and I think there is an even worse problem here. The argument assumes you can balance your game in such a way that a player can win it without being challenged. While this may well be the case with more linear stuff, such design philosophy completely shuts off more open games. A game with a more dynamic plot, where your actions could eventually leave you with only tough choice would be impossible if we were to try to guard the player from these consequences. In fact, such design would go against exploration, which is an important mechanic of any such game.
 

Damned Registrations

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I'd like to note that simple number increases (hp for example) can increase the complexity of the game, provided there are other previously unnecessary techniques available. As a most basic example, if everything in a fighting game died in 1 hit, you'd only ever need to use the fastest attack, or the one with the most range. Adding hp to the enemies suddenly makes damage relevant as well as speed. If there's something like a stamina cost for moves, increasing hp further might make that relevant when previously you always had more than enough to fight everything however you want.

Having the difficulty slider just increase hp works just fine- provided the game was built around the highest difficulty and the complexity falls away at lower settings. Building it around the average setting means it won't get any more complicated at higher levels, except maybe by accident.
 

mondblut

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Frankly, I don't see much of an issue with renaming a "Very easy - easy - normal - hard - very hard" sequence to "Normal - hard - very hard - really hard - impossibly hard". That's just a bunch of text strings that don't mean shit.

An audacity to presume someone like me would ever touch a game my mom or an average 8 years old plays, though - now that is offending. No matter the difficulty level.

Really, Jeff, if you want 8 year olds to be your target auditory, it would be prudent to stop raping the decomposed corpse of RPGs and try something else.

Like a Sonic RPG or a South Park RPG :troll:
 

deuxhero

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Problem with difficulty settings is a game has to have its difficulty in mind during design.

Dark Soul's combat system would be horribly unsuited for a game where enemies will never kill you unless you let them.
 

Whisper

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Spiderweb games aren't hard. They're tedious.

Difficulty adds new combat moves to bosses and some mobs. Like additional haste buff or new attack spells.

On hard they are hard, especialy if you play first time new Avernum:EftP and dont know which areas and dungeons have which level range.
In Avadon on hard - boss battles are indeed hard.


I think Jeff Vogel deserves some credit for making good old-school games. But his blog kind of contradicts what he is doing. He say he wants to make easy games and praise Dragon age 2, while doing non-linear quality games like Avernum.
 
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Ulminati

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I play spiderweb software games for their story and c&c, so why doesn't he allow me to skip the combat and enjoy the part of his game I prefer: the compelling decisions and unique storylines?

Anyone can pretend fight with their imaginary adventurer dolls with the computer rolling dice for them, the real challenge here is making tough choices and understanding subtle intricacies in the plot

I want to be an, erm.... geneforge!?

:excellent:
 
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"idiots should be able to play my game on normal difficulty by shouting 'YOU DIE I WIN' at the screen while dribbling juice and happy meal slurry over their chins because their money is as good as yours and they outnumber you as well, you have a problem with that huh bro wow i guess you must be some kind of uptight bitch who has a problem with me having more money, way to be a whiner"

Good point.



p.s. "Honestly many people here find the later acts of Normal very challenging (like they can't beat the last boss for weeks on end challenging), but I don't want encourage someone to pull up my words later and say "You said it would be difficult!"

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4571558539?page=4#69

Blizzard think that fanbase is mostly made of unskilled/dumb, those who will find so called "Normal" mode very challenging.


I agree with Blizzard. Try a few hours of some MP game filled with casuals like Team Fortress 2 or Call of Duty. The complete lack of ability and intelligence would blow your mind. True story: when TF2 went free to play, and all the baddies started playing as the typical classes such as heavy I'd get behind them as a scout and just randomly shoot them from behind. Took a few seconds for most of them to react, and about half of them seemed completely oblivious to the fact that they were losing health.
 

Johannes

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When looking at Vogels games, there's 2 problems with just using the harder difficulties to get proper challenge.
Upping the difficulty basically gives the enemies more hp, maybe also more dps.

Firstly the balance between different playstyles seems to be geared for normal - for example, a style of just doing straight up damage or using spells that charm or immobilize your opponents. On normal both are ok choices, that let you end the fight with about similar amounts of hp and essence (spell energy) used, but with higher difficulty you basically must use the state-altering spells since the battles last longer which makes those better. The alternative is that you must be much higher level to just use direct damage.
Then again using those state-altering attacks is definitely more complex than just hitting them with spells or swords, but you're doing the similar thing every fight still. It's just kinda tedious.

Another thing is, that in RPGs where level of your dudes matters a lot, it's just forcing you to do more sidequests, grind more, in order before you're able to proceed. The games difficulty is in any case determined as much by the difficulty level you chose, as it is by how thorough you are in clearing every area. Which means just tedium, when you're more restricted in the order you're able to tackle things.
 

Cowboy Moment

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I see nothing wrong with the majority of games balancing their standard difficulty for, well, the majority.
The issue is that by balancing for normal or easy, usually hard difficulties end up being shitty because they resort to algorithmic false challenge. Instead of more enemies to deal with or more complex challenges and scenarios, it's just multipliers on health, drop rates, etc. That can be fun, but only to a degree, and usually it means that the hardest difficulties are less challenging and more annoying, and lack the features necessary to really survive. By balancing for hard and scaling down, you keep the same number of options and the same complex challenges and scenarios, but give extra handicaps to make the game comfortable for most players. This also gives further incentive to try hard mode other than achievement points, because players will realize there's more depth to the game than is necessary to win on the standard mode.

Yes, this is the problem. The Facebook generation can have their casual mode, I don't give a fuck. It's when the harder difficulties are also easy, or hard in an extremely shallow and lazy way, that I start to get annoyed.
 

markec

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What every game should have is custom difficulty setting where you can modify pretty much every aspect of the game for your liking. One good example is Stalker games where I didnt mind that most enemies would kill me with one shot/bite on highest difficulty but did mind that I needed to empty a full clip in a bandits face to kill him. Its not difficult to implement it and it would end all bitching from both casual and hardcore gamers.
 

Roguey

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I see nothing wrong with the majority of games balancing their standard difficulty for, well, the majority.
The issue is that by balancing for normal or easy, usually hard difficulties end up being shitty because they resort to algorithmic false challenge. Instead of more enemies to deal with or more complex challenges and scenarios, it's just multipliers on health, drop rates, etc. That can be fun, but only to a degree, and usually it means that the hardest difficulties are less challenging and more annoying, and lack the features necessary to really survive. By balancing for hard and scaling down, you keep the same number of options and the same complex challenges and scenarios, but give extra handicaps to make the game comfortable for most players. This also gives further incentive to try hard mode other than achievement points, because players will realize there's more depth to the game than is necessary to win on the standard mode.
This method tends to result in bad difficulty curves with frustrating spikes for the casual, so it's not an ideal solution either. It could work out better if developers collectively got better at the whole "easy to learn, hard to master" thing they're striving for as opposed to "easy to learn, easy to master" or even worse, "hard to learn, easy to master" which is a big problem with RPGs in particular. Likely not going to happen any time soon though.
 

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