Survival Mode.
More Enemies.
That doesn't sound like a good choice at all.
In my opinion difficulty levels often indicates lack of confidence in the game design. If they're willing to give you a difficulty setting that lowers the amount of enemies, or lowers their health, that probably means fighting those enemies isn't actually all that fun or engaging. For some games it seems like a higher difficulty just translates into you being forced to stock up on items and prepare for long monotonous fights (eg. Skyrim). In this case it sounds like they want to use limited resources and stronger enemies on higher difficulties to encourage running away and getting creative, and that sounds like a good idea for tense gameplay. But again, that must not be particularly enjoyable if they expect a significant amount of players to want to switch it off.
IMO, for single player games, difficulty should be adjusted around player health and checkpoints.
Like easier has more checkpoints and more player health, while harder difficulties have fewer checkpoints and less player health.
This keeps the challenge and "git gud" part of the game, but makes it easier for a less good player to tumble through a level.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;52776083]In my opinion difficulty levels often indicates lack of confidence in the game design.[/QUOTE]
Resident Evil 4's adaptive difficulty was amazing, ahead of its time and should be the norm.
They pulled it off in way you couldn't even notice it was taking place, and the game was always on the healthy level of challenging no matter how you played.
[QUOTE=Stiffy360;52776135]IMO, for single player games, difficulty should be adjusted around player health and checkpoints.
Like easier has more checkpoints and more player health, while harder difficulties have fewer checkpoints and less player health.
This keeps the challenge and "git gud" part of the game, but makes it easier for a less good player to tumble through a level.[/QUOTE]
It depends on the game. I'm pretty sure the Uncharted series already fucks with player health, but reducing checkpoints would be fucking infuriating and terrible because of the game's tendency to have long, drawn out gunfights that spawn enemies behind you.
Ideally, in a game like this, they should go the RE7 madhouse mode route, while something like Half-Life 2 needed more enemy spawns or something, rather than a shitty enemy health and damage upgrade.
[QUOTE=GHOST!!!!;52775914]Survival Mode.
More Enemies.
That doesn't sound like a good choice at all.[/QUOTE]
I wholly disagree. More games should go this route to increase difficulty. It is explicitly a better way of increasing difficulty compared to the far too common method of increased enemy health and damage. Combined with reduced resources (less ammo or health in pickups, fewer of some special item, etc.) it makes for a legitimately more difficult experience.
Half-Life 2 is like that where Hard difficulty only increases enemy health and damage without adding more enemies or adjusting item spawns. Meanwhile HL1 on Hard actually changes some mechanics like giving Female Assassins the ability to cloak, increasing the attack speed of Vortigauts, medkits give you less health, etc. The only thing HL1 Hard difficulty is missing is more enemy spawns. In System Shock 2 the higher difficulties remove items from the world (fewer ICE Picks most notably) while increasing the spawn rate of enemies, amongst other things. It makes for a much more challenging experience overall.
Unfortunately both those examples are the exception, not the rule. However, it is very nice to see a developer in this day not taking the easy route of increased health and damage when creating higher difficulties.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;52776083]In my opinion difficulty levels often indicates lack of confidence in the game design. If they're willing to give you a difficulty setting that lowers the amount of enemies, or lowers their health, that probably means fighting those enemies isn't actually all that fun or engaging. For some games it seems like a higher difficulty just translates into you being forced to stock up on items and prepare for long monotonous fights (eg. Skyrim). In this case it sounds like they want to use limited resources and stronger enemies on higher difficulties to encourage running away and getting creative, and that sounds like a good idea for tense gameplay. But again, that must not be particularly enjoyable if they expect a significant amount of players to want to switch it off.[/QUOTE]
What about people who want to just experience the story and dont have the skills to beat the intended challenge? They should just be excluded from the experience?
The God of War games do this fucking shit I hate where after a certain number of deaths it asks you if you want to turn the difficulty down, even if you're dying on one of the shitty platforming sections that have nothing to do with the difficulty mode.
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;52778543]What about people who want to just experience the story and dont have the skills to beat the intended challenge? They should just be excluded from the experience?[/QUOTE]
yes? its a video game, not a movie. why not a "skip all combat" button, or watch those YT videos where someone made a mashup of all cutscenes? video games arent exactly difficult to learn to play.
[QUOTE=LeonS;52778737]yes? its a video game, not a movie. why not a "skip all combat" button, or watch those YT videos where someone made a mashup of all cutscenes? video games arent exactly difficult to learn to play.[/QUOTE]
There's a difference between skipping combat and going through the combat without getting constantly killed and having to restart over and over. Some people are just inherently not amazing players.
then play on the easiest difficulty? what seems to be the issue? play until you get past it. there is, and should be no other option.
[QUOTE=LeonS;52778760]then play on the easiest difficulty? what seems to be the issue? play until you get past it. there is, and should be no other option.[/QUOTE]
But that's exactly what your post was against?
I hate higher difficulty in games because usually it just means it turns enemies into hitsponges or adds more
that only works to a certain point really
I've been playing through this game on Survival difficulty and I think it's fine. In fact, to me it's [I]too[/I] easy and will definitely replay it on Nightmare difficulty once I finish it.
Also, keep in mind that in this game you're meant to be careful with your ammo, stealth kills using your knife is a viable option and sometimes running/sneaking past enemies is the better solution. This [I]is[/I] a survival horror game after all.
[QUOTE=simkas;52779038]But that's exactly what your post was against?[/QUOTE]
if you can't beat a game on the easiest difficulty then maybe just look at a video of it instead.
[QUOTE=LeonS;52779106]if you can't beat a game on the easiest difficulty then maybe just look at a video of it instead.[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. The original post about not having any difficulty levels at all.
A difficulty system that changes the way AI functions as the game progresses would be neato. If the player uses explosives the AI begins to wear armor more often, or amp up their aggressiveness and regularly chargs the player instead of going into cover.
[hd]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJoax1Z1x4Y[/hd]
Extra Credits recently did a video on accessibility, covering the topic of "curb cuts" for individuals with handicaps or complete inexperience when they attempt to play games. Super easy difficulty settings are important for folks like the visually impaired, dexterity-challenged, or game journalists.
[QUOTE=Stiffy360;52776135]IMO, for single player games, difficulty should be adjusted around player health and checkpoints.
Like easier has more checkpoints and more player health, while harder difficulties have fewer checkpoints and less player health.
This keeps the challenge and "git gud" part of the game, but makes it easier for a less good player to tumble through a level.[/QUOTE]
good difficulty levels in games should do more than just reduce the room for error, it just gives any game a "monkey typewriter" feel where you know you can get past a section just by retrying it over and over until you pass
The traditional Easy-Normal-Hard difficulty is a very dated (and often lazy) implementation that many games kinda add it in to broaden their audience. There are modern, elegant solutions to enable gamers of varying skill levels to get into their respective flow, but they require design considerations very early on, and are often more expensive to implement.
A few examples are:
-Adaptive [Game adjusts difficulty on the fly based on player performance] (Resident Evil 4 / Left 4 dead)
-Mentor [Player may ask for human assistance, primarily through online/offline co-op] (Dark Souls / any optional co-op)
-Mechanical [Player can 'equip' difficulty spikes in exchange for better rewards] (Supergiant games' Shrine / Limiter / Titan Stars)
-Modifiers [Allow players to add/remove/adjust the finer points before embarking into session] (Custom game in Overwatch / can't really think of any atm)
-Extrinsic [Game is 'easy', but depth allows experts to impose their own challanges] (Speedrunning in most platformers)
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