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WANTING TO MAKE YOUR GAME DIFFICULT.
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CloseChaosProductions
TWEWY lets you set your level anywhere between 1 and a maximum level - it's your maximum level that grows with experience. Lowering your level increases a multiplier to the drop rates of enemies.
That's a difficulty slider. None of this "please trade x hours of your life to make this section easier".
Note that this is 1) a very generous multiplier (drop rate * levels lost) and 2) drop rate is displayed for each difficulty level in the bestiary (enemies have different drops at each of the four difficulty levels).
Yes, you can change your difficulty and your level (which determines nothing but HP - important in a game where the only stats are HP, ATK, DEF and BRV (BRaVery is how slutty your outfits (equipment) can be; at high BRV, even the gangsta kid can wear a prom dress)). Well, there's also the "SYNC" stat, but it doesn't have a rising maximum. (In summary, as you feed the PCs, they get more SYNC (0-100%) the more they like that food. The higher your SYNC, the longer the Light Puck lasts; the LP moves between the two screens and increases damage done by combos when it's surrounding a character.)
tl;dr
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=LightningLord2
I see grinding as a difficulty slider within RPGs - if you want an easy fight, grind more, if you want more difficulty, grind less. As for myself, I often end up at places where most players think you can't win without reaching a specific level. I'm not at level usually, and I win anyways. Several RPGs have consumable items that can make up for the lack of levels.
That's definitely one way of looking at it, and I definitely treat grinding the same way in a lot of RPGs. If it actually works, then great - I don't have a problem with it. But in a lot of other RPGs, in order to be at a difficulty that would challenge me, I'd have to run from more than half the battles and not do any of the sidequests. This is really painful for me to do, and greatly decreases my enjoyment of the game as I prefer to actually experience the entire game. So I am forced to choose between skipping major parts of the game or fighting battles against enemies that can't even hurt me.
I have a friend whose problem goes a step further - he feels that grinding and gaining power itself is an integral part of the game, and can't stand to not do it. To him, the whole point of an RPG is to become more powerful. So he does that to maximum effectiveness. But then he still wants every battle to be a challenge. So basically he's insane, and his RPG Maker game will murder you.
boos405
636
This is speaking from my own understanding, meaning it could be incorrect, but I think this is how it all goes.
Hard games do not necessary make fun games. Increasing and decreasing difficulty relays on very simple and basic maths skills once the game interaction is fun. First make the battles fun.
To make battles fun; all battles should engage the player, having them think before taking actions.
Regular battles should have small consequences for them making mistakes while during boss battles, and the like, the player can't afford to make many mistakes.
Battles engage players by having first planned out the skillsets and actors.
Think over the skillsets you will give them, a possibly technique would be writing them down in a notepad and thinking over these skills, carefully making sure the skills collaborate and work well with other skills.
Make sure each actor has different strengths and weaknesses, so the player chooses good skills and have them work together as a team they become, to some degree, stronger. While bad choice of skills would result in a weaker party.
Afterwards imply the same ideas to the enemy parties.
Understanding how to increase the difficulty is very easy. Simply do not allow the party to make as many mistake and you've increase it.
As a developer you would do that by either; giving the enemies stronger skills, increasing enemy stats, or both.
Hard games do not necessary make fun games. Increasing and decreasing difficulty relays on very simple and basic maths skills once the game interaction is fun. First make the battles fun.
To make battles fun; all battles should engage the player, having them think before taking actions.
Regular battles should have small consequences for them making mistakes while during boss battles, and the like, the player can't afford to make many mistakes.
Battles engage players by having first planned out the skillsets and actors.
Think over the skillsets you will give them, a possibly technique would be writing them down in a notepad and thinking over these skills, carefully making sure the skills collaborate and work well with other skills.
Make sure each actor has different strengths and weaknesses, so the player chooses good skills and have them work together as a team they become, to some degree, stronger. While bad choice of skills would result in a weaker party.
Afterwards imply the same ideas to the enemy parties.
Understanding how to increase the difficulty is very easy. Simply do not allow the party to make as many mistake and you've increase it.
As a developer you would do that by either; giving the enemies stronger skills, increasing enemy stats, or both.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=boos405
Hard games do not necessary make fun games. Increasing and decreasing difficulty relays on very simple and basic maths skills once the game interaction is fun. First make the battles fun.
Understanding how to increase the difficulty is very easy. Simply do not allow the party to make as many mistake and you've increase it.
As a developer you would do that by either; giving the enemies stronger skills, increasing enemy stats, or both.
If reducing the number of allowed mistakes is your only method of altering difficulty, then no, it doesn't often lead to greatly increased fun.
A more enjoyable way of adding difficulty is to make the player's decisions harder to make. Create battles that require critical thinking, planning ahead, coordination, etc. You want each command they input to require some complex thought, not just "This enemy has the lowest HP, and it's weak to fire, so I'll use Firestorm every single round."
In a way, yes, I realize it can be considered to be the same thing. Even simple and easy games like Final Fantasy 4 allow for very complex tactics involving dozens of buffs and ailments, synchronization of turns, timed effect wearoffs, spell casting times, hit rates and dodge rates, MP conservation, sacrifices with tradeoffs, and more. But you can beat every single battle in the game without ever utilizing any of these tactics a single time, except for a single optional boss (bahamut). This gives you no motivation to understand the game, to actually become engrossed in the battle strategies. So what it feels like is that this layer of tactics isn't present at all, and the only skills in the game are Attack, Fire3, Ice3, Lit3, and a small handful of healing spells, and that what speed or order or frequency you use them in is irrelevant.
I guess this isn't really that different from what you said, just worded differently. But I think it's important to realize that your engrossing gameplay is useless if the player never actually encounters that gameplay, because button-mashing works well enough to beat the game.
