Stuff about difficulty settings and gameplay

[kofeiiniturpa]

Since there is a "suggestions" thread now that I didn't notice before I'll just take this opportunity to push on some stuff I've had in mind for some time. NO, this is not about making a turnbased game.

I remember CDPR has said something about how they'd want to make difficulty settings more interesting than simply adjusting done and recieved damage. Please do! And here's one way of doing it that I think is actually doable (nothing really new, but perhaps better elaborated):

The thing about a damage-adjusting difficulty settings is that it leads to very straightforward progression and it mitigates the players success on harder levels by making his hits not matter until his counted 10+ of them. The player is not "rewarded" when he manages to connect with the target and skill progression usually helps things at so subtle rate that the player hardly notices it, and by that time he does, the new "mostly encountered" enemies are probably tougher too and we're back at the start. This is equally true with both guns and melee weapons. Things happen through attrition that, at worst, is extremely cumbersome and unreward even at the end of the fight. It overrelies on usage potions/drugs/chockolatebars/sugary bewerages/whatever that the player is incentiviced to hoard by the hundreds; which is very arcade. And everybody seems to hate damage sponges no matter where you go anyway.

So, what I think would solve the issue is to start rewarding the player again when he succeeds at connecting with the enemy, but making those connections a bit harder to achieve.

Firstly... Let every gun be at least semi lethal from the get go (i.e. no peashooter first guns). Secondly... leave the enemy HP untouched, let it be set regardless of the difficulty. And thirdly... introduce soft requirements for skills and stats for every weapon meaning that the player can at any time use any weapon, but if those requirements are not met, combat is cumulatively more cumbersome and inaccurate - if potent enough, this would heavily incentivize (but not force) using lower caliber weaponry (or smaller melee weapons) before skill requirements are met. And fourthly... add in a Deus Ex style focusing reticle.

Then, introduce two settings for difficulty. Combat and gameplay. Three stages for both: easy, normal, hard. Let's think of the gameplay that's shown so far as "easy".

What combat difficulty does is it adjusts the base penalties of weapon handling before skill and stat adjustments and modifiers so that the harder the setting, the higher the effects from recoil, accuracy, reload times and focus times. This means that the harder the game is, the more you miss your shots and the more you need to find opportunities to focus your aim. Missing sounds unfun, I get it, but this should be nicely mitigated by the knowledge that every time you do connect with the enemy, almost regardless of the gun you use (armor notwithstanding...) it really hurts him and you do not need to sink dozens of rounds in him to bring him down.

What it also would do, is it would adjust the prices of healing- and combat-related items and the avalaibility of weapons/armor that are tagged something else than "common" (since those tags are there...I wouldn't mention them otherwise since they're stupid). You have to make do with commonalities, and if you happen get your hands on a rarity, you're either lucky or very rich.

And lastly, it would adjust the speed at which combat skills increase through their use. Harder -> slower, easier -> faster.

So the overall effect of this is that on harder difficulties, combat is cumbersome on lower skills and overall very stat related, and actually hard since both parties can kill and die relatively fast and hard part is focusing on and hitting the target. On easier difficulties, however, it combat feel like a shooter with some skill influence, but not much, like it seems to be intended.

Also, for the non-twitchy... Make the smart guns such that the player locks on a singular target and the game calculates hit chances - through specific hand- and eye-ware - based on the characters skill and the proximity and mobility of the enemy -- implement the aim focus there too as a dynamic meter to allow the player a chance to increase his odds if he pulls the trigger at the right time. (Difficulty settings adjust your to-hit chances... easier is easier and so on.) Let the player switch between individual targets and area-based reticle (as seen in the 2018 demo) with which the gun chooses targets randomly but hit chances are calculated as before. If the player hasn't got the required cyberware, he can still use smartguns, but only with the huuuge area-based reticle with random targeting. What you’d basically have, is individual targeting for single- and semi auto fire and group control targeting for burst and full auto fire (which ever you wish to choose for the situation at hand); but you need to have the character aptitude and cyber to back it up if you wish to be effective.

Every connected hit feels rewarding, far less bullet sponging, skill impacts adjustable by the player to his liking. Everybody wins.

Gameplay difficulty would then handle all things not related to combat in a similiar fashion. Harder minigames (since they are there), skillchecks, rate of level ups (XP requirements between levels), stat effect on mobility (if such exists...it should, though) and so on. Not gonna go too far with this since there's probably too much reading in this post already. The general idea should've gotten through.

The end result is that the player can pretty much tailor the difficulty to his liking by mixing and matching the values of the two gauges. Easy story based shooter, medium-rare mix of RPG and shooter, very difficult game leaning much more heavily on RPG gameplay and stat influence, and all kinds of stuffies in between.

What's not to like?


Also more of my shit in the link in my sig. It's old, but still stands.
(log in saver: https://forums.cdprojektred.com/ind...eedback-thread.10980518/page-27#post-11188460 )
Because obviously everybody's craving to read my shit. Yes you do, don't fool yourself.
There's a fancy poll too. Yeah, sure is fancy.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

So, just to make sure I'm understanding correctly.... The idea is to nerf the player instead of buffing the enemies. High difficulty = slower progression and more severe penalties when lacking proficiency. If so then yes please. It's a better option compared to bullet spongefest. Such a system probably fits better with the character progression elements where you gain improvements via usage too.

I'd assume this type of system would mitigate how a character becomes god tier toward the higher end of the progression spectrum. I cannot think of any recent "RPG" I've played where this didn't happen. Granted, I can't think of many, if any, recent games I've played where the game was what I'd describe as "hard" at maxed difficulty on SP. This is more subjective though...

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

So, just to make sure I'm understanding correctly.... The idea is to nerf the player instead of buffing the enemies. High difficulty = slower progression and more severe penalties when lacking proficiency.

Yes. Exactly so.

The idea is that enemies remain as they are regardless of difficulty setting. Only the player and player related things like skillchecks and items are affected.

 

[doktor_fleck]

Looks good on paper, would be cumbersome and not intuitive for a player. There is nothing more stupid in CRPG's like missing a shot to a target 2 meters in front of you.

In other words: instead of bullet sponges we will get a spray-and-pray gameplay. I don't like it.

 

[Garrison72]

Doom 2016 basically did this I think. Whether it can work in 2077 I don't know.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

There is nothing more stupid in CRPG's like missing a shot to a target 2 meters in front of you.

In other words: instead of bullet sponges we will get a spray-and-pray gameplay. I don't like it.

In that case, you put the combat difficulty on a lower setting so you’re not penalised as much as character stats have a lesser meaning on your combat performance.

But I don’t think what I suggested leads to consistently missing 2 meters away. It’s just that you’re more likely to die yourself if you insist on getting that close.

Also, what I wrote there is specifically trying to incentivize more calculated shots instead of spray and pray.

Doom 2016 basically did this I think.

Which part exactly? I haven’t played that game.

 

[Mybrokenenglish]

Voted for Flipper the dolphin, quite mandatory.

That being said, I might like such settings, but I'd be happy even with something easier to implement: the difference between easy-medium-hard is just enemies' accuracy, at worst with 10% DMG input/output difference between each setting (but no more than that). The difficulty in action games is mainly hitting the enemies before they hit you. Instead of tweaking DMG, tweack their accuracy (think star wars' stormtroopers). In this way I can kill them with few bullets and the same for them, but at easy their accuracy is quite bad so I can have an easy life without destroy immersion at hard settings where enemies can absorb hundreds of bullets.

No bullet sponges, no DMG scaling with level, no stats influencing ranged weapons' DMG (accuracy is fine), no lvl 17 common shotgun > lvl 13 epic shotgun > lvl 13 common shotgun (or enemy instead of shotgun, stil applicable, actually worse), no other gamey immersion breaking bullshit.

 

[BabalKabak]

Voted for the Dolphin (sorry haha)

Whereas your idea is far from being the worst one, I'd prefer that the parameters "owned by the player" remain untouched in all difficulties ; in example, the player's health gauge, accuracy, stat rolls, weapon rolls, item efficiency and such, because it could feel frustrating even though you have explained your choice.

And I wouldn't want to touch the enemies health gauge nor would I change the items' stats, too. In fact, I don't like much when there's a handicap on one side or another, it (not always but) often feels weird. In example, the only games where I tolerate enemies health being low, already means that I don't care much for the combat system because the game combat by default feels flawed/unfair to me.

So, let untouched the player character from his/her personal variables and inputs (and same for the enemies and items' stats and effects), what remains is... not much ? Hahaha...

Change the A.I. behavior ?

I think that at any difficulty, the players want to feel that the game is treating them fairly, whatever difficulty is met ; that implies many games are constantly cheating with the player, in a way that the unskilled player can win a game ; for example, while on Easy mode, the resolution of the obstacle relies more on the decision to do an action, rather than the accuracy of such action. Can be the reaction time in a QTE, the ability to grab a platform while jumping, the aiming precision... is what divide the skilled players and the unskilled, and while it's unseen by the player, the fun is present. That's why we often insult an A.I. when we clearly see it cheating on us with auto-aim. And my philosophy about the Hard mode is : if the game wants it hard on me, it gotta be equally hard on the mobs too (aka, if we own the same gun it gotta have the same effects on both sides).

In general, I think that whatever one player won't complain about, is the good variable to change in the difficulty mode. Each games difficulty cannot rely on the same variables, it really depends on the genre and the game goals.

Considering an action-RPG with FPS elements (and what I know so far about CP77), I thought I'd preferably choose to influence the A.I. difficulty ; may be their accuracy, their reaction time, their organization/strategy, their ability to call for reinforcements, or even (a more physical approach), like their number, or their equipment.

 

[CyberBobber]

I hope they build the difficult lvl stuff about Trauma Team. They could do little bit harder game as the Trauma Team is backing you up, I dont know any game what does that.

Btw, didn tthey already say Hardcore difficult lvl comes without UI? Then there is "smart gun" what is supposed to help with hard battles. Smart Gun kinda hints at player can choose whether he wants easy or hard battle.

 

[SigilFey]

I do agree with the overall concept. One of my least favorite aspects of games are bullet-sponges / needing to do the same thing 20-30 times to win instead of 2-3 times. (Talking primarily "boss" fights, here.) And, of course, nothing is more fun than having to do things 20-30 times, then losing, and needing to reload to do the same things 20-30 times again.

Plus, I often find that such systems don't really make the game any harder, just more time-consuming and boring. Or frustrating if there's RNG involved. Diffculty should challenge my skill as a player, my mastery of the game mechanics, the penalties I suffer for making mistakes, the amount of "help" I receive in terms of quest markers, enemy highlights, etc.

Many games simply up the difficulty by saying, "Ha! We jacked the numbers up sooo much. Bet you can't beat this level!! There's, like, almost no chance!!!"

I prefer difficulty that says, "The game is the same, but mistakes will not be forgiven."

Agreed that a great way to achieve that without messing up the macro balance is to simply stop helping the player, rather than trying to actively punish them.

 

[MauricioMM]

I agree with your ideas for the most part, except for the skill increase speed, at least when it comes to dramatic differences between difficulties. I've grown weary of grindy games, so I prefer level-up speeds that are fairly balanced, even on higher difficulties. Challenge ≠ Chore

And it'd be fair for the player if, even on the highest difficulty setting, they're capable of withstanding some heavy damage if they're armored with the most state-of-the-art hardware. To this date, I'm still bugged with how unimpactful the best gear in TES IV: Oblivion was

I think difficulty should also account for the "nature" of each NPC. That is, under predictable circumstances, even a heavily-armored gang member should be a bit easier to take down than a fully-geared and experienced corporate soldier, regardless of difficulty.

(Also, I know you didn't directly suggest this but still I have to say it: no RNG please! It's frustrating enough in games like Morrowind )

Other than that, pretty cool ideas, with some caveats but still nice. I don't expect Cyberpunk 2077 (or any similar games) to be as overly complex as in your suggestion but I'd appreciate it even more if it were

-------

P.S.: for shooter and semi-shooter games, my to-go example of good AI is the Combine troops in Half-Life 2

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Voted for Flipper the dolphin, quite mandatory.

Voted for the Dolphin (sorry haha)

I'll count those in in my little book of sins and virtues.

Whereas your idea is far from being the worst one, I'd prefer that the parameters "owned by the player"

There's so much to quote that I'll stay with this short bit, but I did read your post and am responding to it as a whole.

"Owned by the player", that's a good quote. I'd translate it as owning the choices you've made (in character building). However by your meaning of it, as you said, not much left besides AI, it leads to problems. And that's because you can't get an AI that would be that granular in its behavior without it feeling and looking absolutely stupid or completely unfair at the polar ends. More over, it does force everyone to play the game as a shooter no matter what (which is at the heart of my suggestion). I'll make a more general comment later on.

I've grown weary of grindy games, so I prefer level-up speeds that are fairly balanced, even on higher difficulties. Challenge ≠ Chore

That's really the point of separating "gameplay" and "combat" difficulties. You can change those attributes at will to suit your style of play.


Generally speaking, Babal and Mauricio. I read your comments, but I'm not entirely sure you thought of the bigger picture I was going for. That's not a slight towards you, more than likely it is a slight on my self for not being clear enough in my looong post.

But the idea is not to create a difficulty system that would be "better" than that other one or "better" than this one, or a difficulty system to "trump them all". It would certainly be worse that some in the market, and better than others, but what it allows is more player agency. The crux is to build a difficulty system that is malleable enough to allow the player to modify it "close to" his liking. One that provides real challenge at harder settings, and one that is a relative cakewalk on others.

Combat difficulty allows the adjustment of combat stats, but gameplay difficulty follows suit with level up rates (because primary stats limit the skill increases to their level). They work together and in so doing, they allow a huge variety of different setups with merely 3 steps each. From easy story driven shooter to haaaard stat based RPG. It's not perfect, nor is it set out to be. But it works. And it is definitely better than what games normally do, if the developer gives it enough love.

Diffculty should challenge my skill as a player, my mastery of the game mechanics, the penalties I suffer for making mistakes, the amount of "help" I receive in terms of quest markers, enemy highlights, etc.

This is exactly what I'm going for with all this. Perhaps not entirely to your liking (since there is a bit of RNG involved), but the base principle is to "learn to play" even (and specifically) with the stat effects.



On a general note... I'm actually astounded that I got my response quota filled by 800%.

And voting for flipper is absolutely a thing. Flipper is awesome, and everyone wants it to flap in their laps. But it was originally meant to depict not understanding what the OP is saying.

 

[BabalKabak]

as you said, not much left besides AI, it leads to problems. And that's because you can't get an AI that would be that granular in its behavior without it feeling and looking absolutely stupid or completely unfair at the polar ends. More over, it does force everyone to play the game as a shooter no matter what

Yes I'm aware that nerfing the A.I. (or make them OP) is a failure at game design, I should've explain further : either the player will get bored from easy enemies, or frustrated from over-powered ones. I think there's a good balance to find, like putting a minimum and maximum amount of "combat skill" that shouldn't be overpass. Plus, all enemy class/categories should be treated differently.

Maybe I should've add a suggestion : earning more or less skill points depending on the difficulty level. That would allow exploring more skills (= more solutions given to an obstacle) in Easy, while on Hard you have to specialize more and think wiser to solve problems.

Babal and Mauricio. I read your comments, but I'm not entirely sure you thought of the bigger picture I was going for.

OK I've just read your posts a second time, I get it now ^^
I think I've made suggestions about difficulty settings in another post, but anyway since I probably updated my mind on that, I can just make a new list of features:
- Enemy A.I. level (human beings only)
- Skill points earned (versatile character VS specialist)
- Mini-game difficulty (copy-pasting you idea)
- Social (factions tolerance toward your failures, and ability to join multiple factions at once)
- Misc helpers (example : auto-aim zone, platformer help, auto-heal when you have healing items, etc.)

I believe with these 5 gauges, you can pretty much customize your experience.

 

[doktor_fleck]

If you are not able to make your point in a manner which will be understood by the people really engaged in this topic, how do you think it will work with a broader, casual player base?

 

[MauricioMM]

That's really the point of separating "gameplay" and "combat" difficulties. You can change those attributes at will to suit your style of play.

[...] the idea is not to create a difficulty system that would be "better" than that other one or "better" than this one, or a difficulty system to "trump them all". It would certainly be worse that some in the market, and better than others, but what it allows is more player agency. The crux is to build a difficulty system that is malleable enough to allow the player to modify it "close to" his liking. One that provides real challenge at harder settings, and one that is a relative cakewalk on others.

Combat difficulty allows the adjustment of combat stats, but gameplay difficulty follows suit with level up rates (because primary stats limit the skill increases to their level). They work together and in so doing, they allow a huge variety of different setups with merely 3 steps each. From easy story driven shooter to haaaard stat based RPG. It's not perfect, nor is it set out to be. But it works. And it is definitely better than what games normally do, if the developer gives it enough love.

I think I get your idea a bit more clearly now Well, it’s still a great suggestion and I’m sure it could be done someday (not in Cyberpunk 2077 though, unless they’ve worked on something very similar from the get-go), however it also sounds to me like it could complicate testing and maintenance (i.e. make it more prone to bugs and balance issues) as well, especially in a game with the scope, complexity of variables and number of outcomes as CP2077.

I might be wrong, of course. Otherwise, I think it could be easier to implement in a game with a more limited scope, like a Dishonored 3 or a hypothetical sequel to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (I hope that game becomes a reality someday... a man can dream )

I know I saw a slightly similar system in Silent Hill 2 and 3, where players could adjust the difficulty for both combat and puzzles, but it was way less complex to implement (because of the scope of both games’s gameplay) and, in the case of combat, it followed a traditional enemies-with-more-HP-and-more-aggro approach. It was really interesting what they did with puzzle difficulty, though

 

[CyberBobber]

Own difficutl lvl for combat and puzzles sounds good to me. Im playing Star Wars Jedi Fallen atm, you can ask hint for puzzles if you want or try to solve it by yourself, might be a way to go? If player wants to cheat, i dont care, this isn't competitive game as far I know.

Actually my Trauma Team idea could work the same way, you can try to win hard battles but if you start to get frustrated call Trauma Team to help.

 

[BabalKabak]

If you are not able to make your point in a manner which will be understood by the people really engaged in this topic, how do you think it will work with a broader, casual player base?

Hum... you can use your computer OS easily, yet there are great chances that you'll find long and tedious to explain how it works in details ?

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

If you are not able to make your point in a manner which will be understood by the people really engaged in this topic, how do you think it will work with a broader, casual player base?

If you don’t understand, you can ask.

 

[Restlessdingo32]

If you are not able to make your point in a manner which will be understood by the people really engaged in this topic, how do you think it will work with a broader, casual player base?

I didn't think it was hard to understand. As I understood it the idea entails two parts.

1. Negative impacts to actions the player performs are more pronounced on higher difficulty.

2. The player character rate of improvement is slowed on higher difficulty.

For #1 think KCD Archery. Archery there required taking certain actions to line up the shot. Lower skill = more difficulty pulling it off. If we apply the idea here it would mean those actions would be inherently harder to perform at higher difficulty values.

#2 should be self explanatory. Instead of buffing the opposition you make the player character less capable for a given point in the game. Skills progress slower, experience comes in lower quantities, gear improvements are harder to acquire, things of this nature.

Add an independent difficulty slider for non-combat actions following a similar theme.

If I were to compare this to slapping more health and damage on enemies found in the game it's not much of a choice. I'd much prefer the above.

 

[CyberBobber]

#2 should be self explanatory. Instead of buffing the opposition you make the player character less capable for a given point in the game. Skills progress slower, experience comes in lower quantities, gear improvements are harder to acquire, things of this nature.

That sounds like MMORPG endgame. Is that what you guys want?

As long time MMORPG gamer, I know players start to drop like flies when endgame hits, when things get hard, they leave. You need to make sure theres pleasant flow of progression.