View Full Version : Difficulty levels - what do you like to see?
Nocturnal Stillness
22-03-09, 09:31
What do you like to see in difficulty levels? ie how hard it is, any changes or unlockables?
For me I'd like to see more differences level wise in higher difficulties as well as the usual harder enemies and less items etc
I'll use the resident evil series as an example to what I mean.
***
Resident Evil 6
The player has to make it through a maze of laboratories of a shutdown Umbrella facility but to get there they have to go through a ruined city infested with BOWs.
so basically the areas go Landing Zone -> outskirts -> inner city -> Lab entrance -> minor labs -> major labs -> Evac point
If the player picks easy they can reach the inner city with little to no confrontation and they have to go through all those areas.
yet in normal the confrontations start in the outskirts.
choosing hard the confrontations start at the Landing zone and when they get to the labs the entrance is locked and the player has to detour through a BOW enclosure to get in through a side door.
Where as the hardest difficultly plays just like hard but as well as the bow enclosure they get trapped in a testing zone and are forced to make it through several areas packed with BOWs (similar to the novel underworld) and then finally fight a prototype BOW that only appears in that area.
***
So basically as you increase the difficulty as well as the harder BOWs you have to go through new areas and possibly face new foes.
What do you think?
What would you like to see?
in phantasy star online, the hardest difficulty, all the monsters (who in previous diffculty levels just got stronger, more health etc.) all looked different, moved faster and had different elemental weaknesses
really helped revived the game when you would have started winding down, id like to see that sort of thing in other games too.
and also im not a fan of increasing the difficulty by limiting your ammo, id prefer something like, un-killable enemies to make you have to run past rather than just running away cause your out of ammo
Nocturnal Stillness
22-03-09, 11:36
That would be interesting enemies that you couldn't kill until later on in the game its one of the reasons i like resi as you progress you get better guns to deal with the harder enemies
I remember a platform game (2D) where increasing the difficulty to hard would make the screen moving forward instead of being static, so if you weren't fast enough it would push you (so it was harder to avoid the traps). It was a good ideia, not sure how it would apply to 3D games.
Like everyone has said, increasing the difficulty would imply stronger enemies (don't mean different enemies, just the same ones with more health and stronger attacks), more enemies, less ammo, less time to perform some event (for example time to leave a building that is about to explode), limited number of saves (assuming that the game uses a system like the ink for typewriters in Resi < 4)... Can't remember of anything else
I think I remember something like that in the MasterSystem version of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Mario 3 also did the 'pushing forward' thing, which could really be hectic - especially when you're only 8 to 10 years old.
Anyway, I'd love to see companies just up the difficulty in general. Or hell, let gamers pick certain things before they start playing, like changing the way you die in games like Prince of Persia or Fable 2. That way, you'd keep both the hardcore and the casual crowd happy.
I'd also love to see an entire generation of games that are as difficult as, for example, Mega Man 9. But we all know that won't happen any time soon.
I think I remember something like that in the MasterSystem version of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Yeah, it was on the 2nd area of the Bridge zone. There were no difficulty options though.
My first ever game :)
I remember the name of the game I was talking about, Realm of Chaos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realms_of_Chaos_%28computer_game%29). Only played the first episode.
I don't think so, even if the player wants to play through on the easiest settings they still want a rewarding gaming experience and if you tailor the progression through the game to suit the difficulties they will think they're not getting the full experience.
Imo weakening the enemies or the player's hp/defense/weapons should be sufficient.
Nocturnal Stillness
25-03-09, 20:07
I don't think so, even if the player wants to play through on the easiest settings they still want a rewarding gaming experience and if you tailor the progression through the game to suit the difficulties they will think they're not getting the full experience.
Imo weakening the enemies or the player's hp/defense/weapons should be sufficient.
Its not tailoring the progression per say more like its rewarding players for challenging themselves.
I have to say, I am liking this idea of having certain areas reserved for harder difficulties. Imagine if there were an easy mode in Dead Rising, for example, that didn't allow you outside of the mall at all? No convicts, and no maintenance tunnels, so the first time you went out there in Normal would be a real shocker. And then Hard could be the only mode where the timed missions even existed. Or, certain survivors simply weren't around in Easy and Normal, or would even be required to be rescued in Hard in order to get to certain areas.
Basically, anything that steps outside the traditional "more and tougher enemies" route gets a thumbs up from me. :thumb:
yea i have to say i agree with that, i mean theres no point in having multiple difficult levels if theres nothing different
for me personally i always play a game through on normal difficulty first, partly because i believe thats how a game is intended to be played when developt and partly because i want the most out of the game so jumping straight to hard would take away a whole playthough and leave nothing to aspire to (bar very hard mode if it has one)
however its often the case that by doing so, hard mode becomes the same as normal because although ememies have more health etc. you know how to beat them, where to go, what weapons to use, so the balance is that you end up the the same experiance due to there being nothing new