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Letting players cheat

I'm tempted to add cheats.

When I was young, I couldn't beat Grandia II because it was too difficult. So I chose to restart the game with a hacked save file where the main character had max stats. Every monster was easily destroyed. A substantial part of the game was completely invalidated, and yet I loved it.

My game, Notes From Province, is probably too difficult. The battles are tuned for the hardcore RPG enthusiast. Some of my testers are not hardcore RPG enthusiasts, but still love the game as long I press the debug button that kills all monsters. There's a lot of value in exploring, solving puzzles, and talking to NPCs, and I don't want players to miss out because they keep losing battles.

Players should be able to cheat. How they cheat is still undecided.

Cheat Option A
If the player loses too many battles, they are given an item that can arbitrarily boost stats. There is no penalty for using this.

Cheat Option B
Players can freely increase or decrease stats from a "Difficulty" option in the main menu. If you increase stats beyond your current level, you will be unable to challenge the endgame bosses, but can still complete 99% of the game, including the story. Players are warned that increasing their stats will permanently lock them out of the most difficult bosses.

Cheat Option C
No cheats? A completely different method? Not sure. Any feedback is much appreciated :)

Posts

Pages: 1
WheelmanZero
947
12/03/2020 05:35 AM
How about an overpowered weapon or piece of equipment? That way, if the player just wants to get past a tough boss, they can equip it, slaughter the boss, unequip it, and continue the game as intended.
bicfarmer
3601
12/03/2020 07:46 AM
i personally wouldnt like it but i'd pick B AND let them access the super bosses or whatever, I'm starting to find out that ALOT of ppl dont actually play games for a challenge, they just want to be overpowered and thats what they think is fun. But the idea is to make the superbosses specifically unbeatable with just raw stats and require the player to actually have to strategize
sushiman345
0
12/03/2020 09:34 AM
Maybe it's because I'm a hardcore RPG enthusiast myself, but from what I've played in the demo, I felt like a part of this game's fun are the battles themselves. Some aren't just mindless tanking and spanking. Well, some of them can be if you level and gear up high enough, but that's not the point. You actually have to think about what kind of strategy to approach an enemy with, kind of like solving a puzzle, which this game has plenty of, and I do love me some puzzle solving. Most, if not all of the battles, I didn't find too difficult either. If I lost one, I reflect on what happened and think about what I could do differently for next time. Learning from failure is a good thing.

However, I can also kind of relate to those that want to cheat just cause they don't want to play through a certain part of the game just to get to parts of the game they want to experience (in my case, I loathe repetitive grinding and will thus do anything to speed through or skip it altogether). That said, I suppose it ultimately comes down to what you want out of this game and what kind of people you want to cater it to. I, for one, will continue to reflect those lightning bolts that those certain kinds of monsters cast even if I can beat them with just one attack just cause it was the first strategy I devised and I like to watch it happen :)
Jpratt
659
12/04/2020 06:42 AM
I'm all about hiding cheats in the game. Whether it be a secret cheat menu or actually unlocking the cheats through actions. Doom Eternal did a great job of this. The game is challenging, but it rewards the player for exploring by giving them cheats that have no penalties for using. Just extends the fun of the game. Red Dead Redemption did a combination of the two methods I mentioned.
amerk
2539
12/04/2020 09:27 PM
author=WheelmanZero
How about an overpowered weapon or piece of equipment? That way, if the player just wants to get past a tough boss, they can equip it, slaughter the boss, unequip it, and continue the game as intended.

That's not a bad thought. Then make the super bosses immune to the weapon.
Ramshackin
1462
12/05/2020 05:26 PM
These are good ideas. This has been on my mind for a while, and I couldn't come up with something that worked well, so hearing everyone's thoughts is fantastic. Now I'm leaning towards some type of item that can be found/bought.
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