SHOOBINATOR'S PROFILE
Shoobinator
662
I am into just about every genre of game really. My brother and I grew up dabbling in RM2k3 on occasion to the point where hearing the RTP soundtrack brings a wave of nostalgia, so I'm most familiar with that engine as far as RPGMaker goes.
Check out my game I'm working on!
Legend of Alkior: The Impending Storm
Tension between two kingdoms rises as the seal on the renegade archmage, Xargath, inevitably fades and must be promptly restored.
Check out my game I'm working on!
Legend of Alkior: The Impending Storm
Tension between two kingdoms rises as the seal on the renegade archmage, Xargath, inevitably fades and must be promptly restored.
Search
Filter
Too Easy...?
author=amerk
When I first released my game (Night of the Living Noobyas) for testing, I had played through it multiple times and thought the difficulty curve was just right. However, my testers came back and told me that it was too tedious. So I adjusted the stats, the drops, the EXP, the damage output on my skills and weapons, and I thought the game became way too easy. However, the comments I've received state they feel the game is very well balanced.
So... it goes to show that the developer will almost always believe their game is easier than it may actually be. That and the fact that gamers don't want to grind anymore. I'm not saying a player should stand around and grind for an hour just to traverse a four-room dungeon, but some bit of extra grind should be expected, be it a touch encounter and the player must revisit a room or two for extra combat, or random encounter and the player must walk around to find a few extra battles... at least when the game mimics older rpg's.
You seem to imply that harder difficulty is tedious, but I would imagine that easier difficulty would be too tedious and too hard would lead to frustration, so maybe you meant to say something else or the player comments were not clear/poorly written. Unless you mean that losing and repeating parts of the game is tedious, or there is grinding or other forms of fake difficulty that doing is just boring.
There is a whole other thread over in the Development forum about this (challenge vs. frustration).
It basically comes down to: there are ways to make your game more accessible like different difficulty modes, BUT you have to consider, "Will my game still be the same experience as I intended?".
Too Easy...?
author=LockeZ
Those are... the same thing. Difficulty is inherently ALL ABOUT taking options away from the player. Like, if you think about it, that's all difficulty is. Removing some of the valid options, so some of the options that would have resulted in success now result in failure. I mean, "win without even trying" and "win by mashing the A button" are options that you want to remove, right?
By option, I mean a choice that the player can make. I see what you mean by 'valid option'. Yeah, difficulty is achieved by taking away 'valid' options because you must do something in a more particular way, but semantics aside, what I meant was that you shouldn't take away options/choices from the player as a means of achieving difficulty (e.g. level caps or
Edit: I don't think that previous example worked as well as I thought it did. Something perhaps a little more clear: you can't use weapons in the next boss fight.
While actually taking away options/choices is one way to increase difficulty, I would not advocate doing so very often. Although, on the flip side, it can spice things up in certain circumstances. So I guess do it sparingly.
Too Easy...?
imo adding level caps would take an option away from the player. Difficulty should not be made by taking options away from the player, but instead by forcing them to use what they already have in a different way. Alternatively, I don't think adding grinding as a requirement for victory, especially retroactively, should be the way to go. This would be another way to limit the players' options because there would be statistically almost no chance to advance past certain areas without first reaching a certain level.
I'm sure you already have some kind of general level you should be at for each boss fight, etc., that may not require grinding and be lower than if you had required more grinding, but you should expect the player to fight at least some of their fights and not run from all of them because otherwise, that'd largely defeat the purpose of the game.
I'm sure you already have some kind of general level you should be at for each boss fight, etc., that may not require grinding and be lower than if you had required more grinding, but you should expect the player to fight at least some of their fights and not run from all of them because otherwise, that'd largely defeat the purpose of the game.
Too Easy...?
Maybe for "Hard mode", make it so that you must play with one less hero in your party. I'm not sure what that would entail with your game as far as difficulty goes, since I haven't played it, but that's another direction possibly that you could take.
Too Easy...?
author=Clareain_Christopherauthor=ShoobinatorOh, I forgot about that. Yeah, it's the most important part, lol.
Difficulty should be determined not by enemy statistics but how you design the monster groups and bosses themselves and the options available to the player to win. Numbers/statistics should come last (or at least not first) when designing the enemies. It is possible to make a moderately difficult game where you actually have to think to win without requiring intense grinding. If people don't want to be clever when fighting battles, the option exists to grind to power through, but the difficulty should never be at the point where grinding is required.
I like looking at world of warcraft raiding for my designs. When I think of a boss with 2 difficulties, I think of normal and heroic. Some skills on normal can easily be dealt with... but on heroic either you die due to not paying attention, or you grind.
Then it's just a matter of making sure the information is clear.
Otherwise, people will think it's unbalanced right off the bat. This can be pretty hard to do.
Yeah, basically, are the battles fun (i.e. engaging)? If not, you probably have yourself a button-masher-to-win game, and if you want that kind of gameplay go play Mario Party >.> lol
Too Easy...?
Difficulty should be determined not by enemy statistics but how you design the monster groups and bosses themselves and the options available to the player to win. Numbers/statistics should come last (or at least not first) when designing the enemies. It is possible to make a moderately difficult game where you actually have to think to win without requiring intense grinding. If people don't want to be clever when fighting battles, the option exists to grind to power through, but the difficulty should never be at the point where grinding is required.