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THE RPG DIFFICULTY PROBLEM
Posts
DFalcon
2141
DFalcon
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CloseBasically, the built-in difficulty players encounter in battles has nothing to do with how good they are at battles.
If you look at the very earliest video game RPGs, the difficulty paradigm seems clear: if you're having trouble fighting someone, go explore for loot or level grind for a while to bring your stats up. While that takes some time, there's an interesting idea here: automatically self-selecting difficulty at a pretty fine grain. (We can leave the fairly unwarranted assumption that our hypothetical game's battles are interesting at any difficulty level for another time.)
Fast forward and add another layer, and we begin to have a problem: exploration is kind of fun, and a lot of the people who play RPGs do so because that's what they like. But the bulk of rewards are recognizable as such because they have stat effects, and often:
a) exploration automatically adds level grinding due to random or hard-to-avoid encounters;
b) exploration is required often enough (to find a switch or the like) that people won't be able to recognize many of the times it's optional until too late;
c) level grinding is out of fashion, so the developer makes sure anyone who's been through all the optional parts of the dungeon is set up to pretty well breeze through;
d) the player isn't certain how hard a boss is until he fights it, and who wants to waste time losing?
Putting these together basically eliminates the feedback between effectiveness in battles and effort spent making battles easier; how strong the characters are no longer has much relationship to how skillful the player is.
IMO making a battle interesting is a very difficult thing to do at any level of character power; so why go out of our way to make the problem harder by varying the in-game resources players can have so wildly? Anyway, I'm curious what people think are the best solutions/ameliorations. Certainly not everything follows the stereotypical pattern I've presented.
If you look at the very earliest video game RPGs, the difficulty paradigm seems clear: if you're having trouble fighting someone, go explore for loot or level grind for a while to bring your stats up. While that takes some time, there's an interesting idea here: automatically self-selecting difficulty at a pretty fine grain. (We can leave the fairly unwarranted assumption that our hypothetical game's battles are interesting at any difficulty level for another time.)
Fast forward and add another layer, and we begin to have a problem: exploration is kind of fun, and a lot of the people who play RPGs do so because that's what they like. But the bulk of rewards are recognizable as such because they have stat effects, and often:
a) exploration automatically adds level grinding due to random or hard-to-avoid encounters;
b) exploration is required often enough (to find a switch or the like) that people won't be able to recognize many of the times it's optional until too late;
c) level grinding is out of fashion, so the developer makes sure anyone who's been through all the optional parts of the dungeon is set up to pretty well breeze through;
d) the player isn't certain how hard a boss is until he fights it, and who wants to waste time losing?
Putting these together basically eliminates the feedback between effectiveness in battles and effort spent making battles easier; how strong the characters are no longer has much relationship to how skillful the player is.
IMO making a battle interesting is a very difficult thing to do at any level of character power; so why go out of our way to make the problem harder by varying the in-game resources players can have so wildly? Anyway, I'm curious what people think are the best solutions/ameliorations. Certainly not everything follows the stereotypical pattern I've presented.
Lennon
88
Okay so excuse my idiocy, but I have almost no idea what you are saying here. Are you saying that grinding removes the need for skill, or?
One thing that I like to do (I don't think I've released a major project like this, but) is kill off levels, or at least downplay them so that they are an expendable resource (like levels add a little HP/SP and maybe boost outgoing damage somewhat, but nothing else; they can be spent to craft items or something, I dunno). Basically, make the difficulty static and ramp up exactly the pace you want to. It rewards strategy and planning, but also has to be very fair.
I've found few solutions to the grinding problem, minor as they are they add up well:
1) Monster Levels. Seriously. Set your monsters to have stats equivalent to a given level. Balance them against a given-level party.
2) Award experience BASED ON LEVEL. I have an after-battle thing where I take the battle group's average level, add two, subtract the party's average level, and square the result. What this does is make it damn-near impossible to grind - level too high and enemies give you 1 experience. However, if you're too low, you damn near jump a complete level.
1) Monster Levels. Seriously. Set your monsters to have stats equivalent to a given level. Balance them against a given-level party.
2) Award experience BASED ON LEVEL. I have an after-battle thing where I take the battle group's average level, add two, subtract the party's average level, and square the result. What this does is make it damn-near impossible to grind - level too high and enemies give you 1 experience. However, if you're too low, you damn near jump a complete level.
The problem with those solutions is that they tend to create a linear growth in difficult, or no growth at all. You do need to fluctuate the difficulty of the game to kept the gameplay from growing stale. Have some peaks and valleys in the difficulty graphs. Throw the player a bone every now and again with an easy area, and then really challenge him in another.
author=kentona link=topic=3843.msg76787#msg76787 date=1243288103
The problem with those solutions is that they tend to create a linear growth in difficult, or no growth at all. You do need to fluctuate the difficulty of the game to kept the gameplay from growing stale. Have some peaks and valleys in the difficulty graphs. Throw the player a bone every now and again with an easy area, and then really challenge him in another.
Can't that be done with elemental and status resistance, skillsets, availability of heals and items, or the number of monsters in a group?
There's so much to play around with concerning difficulty that linear difficulty growth should never be a concern.
Or just make an ABS.
But seriously. You have to allow the player the option to explore/grind if they want, but you have to balance the game so that someone who chooses the most linear path can still beat it by using good tactics (and investing their skill points wisely if the game has such a system)
But seriously. You have to allow the player the option to explore/grind if they want, but you have to balance the game so that someone who chooses the most linear path can still beat it by using good tactics (and investing their skill points wisely if the game has such a system)
Final Fantasy 8 was about going into battle with 300/9999 HP with Aura and Revive and Dueling and Renzekuken-ing the fuck out of everything.
Or giving Rinoa Auto-Haste, Magic Bonus, Magic +40%, and Meteor when she goes into Angel Wing.
Or giving Rinoa Auto-Haste, Magic Bonus, Magic +40%, and Meteor when she goes into Angel Wing.
Shinan
4314
how strong the characters are no longer has much relationship to how skillful the player is.This is actually one of the definitions of a roleplaying game. Player skill and player character skill should not be the same thing in an RPG. This is why the player character have got stats that determine how good the character is, not the player.
In fact player skill should have as small an impact as possible on how the player character fares in all kinds of situations. (if the character is dumb and the player is smart the character should still be dumb. If the character sucks at fighting the player's insane battling skills shouldn't help. (although the opposite is probably more common :))
author=ChaosProductions link=topic=3843.msg76871#msg76871 date=1243330129Well you can't say it isn't satisfying!
Final Fantasy 8 was about going into battle with 300/9999 HP with Aura and Revive and Dueling and Renzekuken-ing the fuck out of everything.
Or giving Rinoa Auto-Haste, Magic Bonus, Magic +40%, and Meteor when she goes into Angel Wing.
It doesn't make sense to scale the battle to the player, I think. It just eliminates the point of battles - a set challenge for the player to overcome and use the skills that they've learned from your game.
If the end result of you making your avatars stronger or faster or have more HP is the enemies grow stronger, faster or have more HP, you're just treading water with higher numbers. What's the point if no relative progress is made?
I think it is better to craft particular set challenges and areas than to create some overarching system that nullifies growth.
EDIT:
tl;dr version: Having scaling enemies removes a tool from your arsenal in designing the game.
If the end result of you making your avatars stronger or faster or have more HP is the enemies grow stronger, faster or have more HP, you're just treading water with higher numbers. What's the point if no relative progress is made?
I think it is better to craft particular set challenges and areas than to create some overarching system that nullifies growth.
EDIT:
tl;dr version: Having scaling enemies removes a tool from your arsenal in designing the game.
DFalcon
2141
author=Lennon link=topic=3843.msg76773#msg76773 date=1243285117
Okay so excuse my idiocy, but I have almost no idea what you are saying here. Are you saying that grinding removes the need for skill, or?
Well, it seems it wasn't you, I wasn't clear enough in the OP to get across what I was aiming for. So let me neglect individual responses this post in order to try again.
Read it like this. Any game has to deal with players of a wide range of skill, so any game has the problem: how do I provide a skill-appropriate challenge to Joe Slow, Joe Average, and Joe Whizkid, plus every player in between? (Of course, there's a lot that can go into 'skill' here: familiarity with the game itself, with the genre, abstract reasoning, sometimes twitch...)
We can probably assume there's some flexibility to deal with this in the battle system alone (e.g., slightly less skilled people than the target use a little more MP, so they have waste time running to an inn occasionally), but that to provide optimum challenge to any given player we have a fairly narrow target range of difficulty.
So. RPGs tend to have lots of mechanisms for making sure an unskilled player can make the game easy enough. But many of these mechanisms are also attractive to more skilled players, for the reasons in the OP among others. How can we keep things challenging for everybody?
So for example, one thing I thought of some years ago is to track the resource expenditure of the party for each battle. Then when the player encounters an enemy group, if he's met that group before, give him the option of just spending what he spent the last time he fought them. (Ideally without interrupting the flow of play much.) That way if he's satisfied enough with how the battle went to not want to do it over again, you're not forcing him to waste time on a boring fight.
Lennon
88
Ah, I see now. Good point. I think you could put in a difficulty system, say with Easy and Normal open, but Hard closed until Normal is finished, so players who are more skilled can have more challenge, wheras players who are less skilled can pick Easy.
But, then theres your point about these things attracting skilled players. Maybe very skilled people will just play on easy?
I suppose another way to do this is to get rid of most things that make the game easier, such as, maybe, items as a whole. I think that could certainly even out the difficulty.
All in all though, the more skilled player is more than likely going to have an easier time, since they are more skilled. There is no real way of stunting the skill level of your players.
But, then theres your point about these things attracting skilled players. Maybe very skilled people will just play on easy?
I suppose another way to do this is to get rid of most things that make the game easier, such as, maybe, items as a whole. I think that could certainly even out the difficulty.
All in all though, the more skilled player is more than likely going to have an easier time, since they are more skilled. There is no real way of stunting the skill level of your players.
gerkrt
488
You can't make a casual rpg fun for skilled players, this is the reason that i dont have any modern rpg and i play only clasical games. Now im playing the original Phantasy Star for de SMS and Dragon Quest V.
The dificulty levels are a good choice, really. Also i think there are other reasons than dificulty that make a skilled player get boring.
For example, a casual rpg like FFX, its not only that the game has a poor challengue, is that it have totally linear, predictable and accesible gameplay.
You can't compare it to the Job or materia system depth, is true the game have interesing hability and equipment system, but overall is aimed for casual players: the "complexity" and flexibility is not there for skilled master it, its only purpose is to make the play-movie varied and spectacular.
If a skilled player want to play FFX like he played other FF, he will bored, totally unbalanced, simplified and cheap knwoledge curve. And without a clasical dungeon, every combat its only fillers to level up, no general objectives anymore.
To sum up, its not only about challengue, a lot of games include a difficulty selecetor but their gameplay is poor and boring. Playing FFX or FFXII with more challengue will not be fun either.
You have to aim to one or another player in gameplay terms. But i think that in indie scene, were casuals will not dowload your game, this is obvious.
The dificulty levels are a good choice, really. Also i think there are other reasons than dificulty that make a skilled player get boring.
For example, a casual rpg like FFX, its not only that the game has a poor challengue, is that it have totally linear, predictable and accesible gameplay.
You can't compare it to the Job or materia system depth, is true the game have interesing hability and equipment system, but overall is aimed for casual players: the "complexity" and flexibility is not there for skilled master it, its only purpose is to make the play-movie varied and spectacular.
If a skilled player want to play FFX like he played other FF, he will bored, totally unbalanced, simplified and cheap knwoledge curve. And without a clasical dungeon, every combat its only fillers to level up, no general objectives anymore.
To sum up, its not only about challengue, a lot of games include a difficulty selecetor but their gameplay is poor and boring. Playing FFX or FFXII with more challengue will not be fun either.
You have to aim to one or another player in gameplay terms. But i think that in indie scene, were casuals will not dowload your game, this is obvious.
