Arbitrary Difficulty Settings

[CostinRaz]

Arbitrary Difficulty Settings

For years in many games we've had to deal with arbitrary difficulty settings, most of them the only change being in some number: Either there's more enemies or they are tougher, but it's such a broken system.

I once argued on this forum that CDPR might be better off ditching this system and going for something more akin to Dark Souls. Extra Credits made a video explaining why Dark Souls has a much better system then many other games when talking about difficulty adjustment, and despite the horror stories you hear about that series it actually can be very easy to decimate your foes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM2dDF4B9a4

Please watch the video before replying.

 

[Garrison72]

They didn't really have a clear point in all that rambling nonsense but Extra Credits rarely does. I agree those are clever mechanics by From to make the game easier. I still think CDPR should stick with difficulty settings so they appeal to a broader market. This isn't selling out, it just makes sense. As for how to implement difficulty, I agree stat changing alone is a poor way to do it. Enemy AI, and enemy type should change as the game gets harder. What we know so far is:

- enemies will get back up, ie; the werewolf will summon wolves.
- enemy patterns are important.
- CDPR have tried to improve enemy AI, so they are more deliberate in their attacks and co operate.
- timing is important. we have parries and counters now.

Is any of this revolutionary? Not really. But it sounds much improved over TW2.

 

[CostinRaz]

I still think CDPR should stick with difficulty settings so they appeal to a broader market.

I'm not sure how shoving in difficulty modes makes a game appeal to a broader market or sell better. There's in fact plenty of games with no difficulty modes that sell amazingly well.

Dark Souls doesn't because it has a reputation that it's only for the hardcore of the hardcore. That's a rather false statement about how it really is as a game.

Story focused RPGs need more fundamental changes if they want to appeal to a broader audience. Their biggest issue is just the way they tell their stories.

 

[Garrison72]

The Witcher already has a rep for being complex and difficult, it would scare a lot of people off if there was only one setting. If you want to discuss ideas on how to implement separate difficulties in new ways, I'm all for it. But I'm not for removing a feature that makes the game more widely accessible. Oh, and welcome back.

 

[CostinRaz]

I don't think so. Making it one difficulty only doesn't mean the game suddenly will scare people off: Look at Assassin's Creed.

Now if they only had one mode and focused their marketing on saying their game is uber difficult then yes they would have a problem. I don't think newcomers would care if they didn't do that. Focus your marketing on the idea the gameplay is solid and that it's rewarding and boom.

Lords of the Fallen did something similar and it sold over a million copies in a shorter period then TW2.

The Witcher has plenty of reputations, the fact it's complex is arguably not the thing holding it back, in fact it's a selling point: Game of Thrones is also viewed as being quite complex and yet it's popularity is huge.

 

[TheDeathRun]

TW2 already had differences between its difficulty settings that were more than stat increases/decreases. Easiest example I can think of is the werewolf. On Easy, you can swing away at it, spamming either attack button, and it would just eat your blade until it died. On Normal, you can't do that. The werewolf would block your blade after two or three strikes, and then while you were off-balance, retaliate with a quick and rather painful strike.

Therefore, it's not unlikely at all that the Reds will have done something similar to TW3's monsters.

 

[Phinnway]

Please watch the video before replying.

We have to have an informed opinion before making a comment? On the internet? Oh the HUMANITY!!!

 

[CostinRaz]

TW2 already had differences between its difficulty settings that were more than stat increases/decreases.

You had one single difference between easy and every other difficulty.

On easy no enemy would ever parry your attacks.

 

[Phinnway]

Now that I have watched the video...

I thought the video gave a few interesting examples of difficulty. I'm not 100% sure how they could be translated into The Witcher 3 though, especially since at this point content is allegedly locked in place. The one thing that made sense to me was making using different types of character builds easier or harder. But that's direct conversion of the Dark Souls system and isn't very creative. For all we know CD Projekt may have already done that. Geralt does have a wide array of abilities after all (bombs, crossbow, signs, multiple dodges, etc.)

You had one single difference between easy and every other difficulty.

On easy no enemy would ever parry your attacks.

Just pointing out that attacking through blocks even included attacking through shields. I think you could make the argument that in this example the lower difficulty actually crippled players because it taught them to play the game wrong.

 

[KingHochmeister]

But that's direct conversion of the Dark Souls system and isn't very creative.

That's a good point actually, any game that tries to do the "Dark Souls" way of doing difficulty settings like Lords of the Fallen for example will get flagged for it, by fools, sure, but still it will limit sales (even though Lords of the Fallen sold well).

Now for the topic, I would rather have this "archaic" difficulty settings system because it offers you a choice, if you do not like being stressed out in combat you should have the option of turning it down or playing with a difficulty that is suited for you, and if you like being stressed out in combat you should also have the option to do so, "cheating" in a game by following some steps to gather some equipment is impractical and quite frankly, a lot of people would not even bother doing that in the first place.

Now I watched the Extra Credits video, they bring a good point about players finding out that a certain game is more fun when they cranked the difficulty levels up, but my argument is that they find it out by themselves, not being forced into one difficulty setting for all people, especially in a story-driven RPG where the emphasis is the storytelling and choices and consequences, some people did not buy the Witcher series for its combat, but for the storytelling (my own father is an example), let there be freedom of choice for those people.

 

[TheDeathRun]

You had one single difference between easy and every other difficulty.

On easy no enemy would ever parry your attacks.

Ah I wasn't aware of that. It makes sense to me though. "Normal" is what the game is supposed to be experienced at - it is the game at its most balanced, where story and combat are both given emphasis. It is the game mode a majority of players are likely to experience. Doesn't it then make sense to let as many people as possible experience the varying mechanics you've thought up for the enemies? Why restrict an enemy maneuver to a higher level?

If you want to suggest doing it the Dark Souls way though (haven't played DS, but I've watched the video), then I personally think it's a terrible idea. Making the Ranged classes easier to play than the Melee classes isn't good design, it's terrible balance for both the people who want either an easy or hard game. It effectively means that if you want a hard game, you have no choice but to use Melee weapons, and if you want an easy game you're stuck with Ranged weapons. That sounds like restricting player choice, not increasing player choice.

 

[Phinnway]

It effectively means that if you want a hard game, you have no choice but to use Melee weapons, and if you want an easy game you're stuck with Ranged weapons. That sounds like restricting player choice, not increasing player choice.

I agree with this sentiment. I thought about this during the video but I forgot to mention it. I'm a brainy player and I usually pick the optimal strategy unless I am role-playing.

 

[Zhyphix]

Good to see you again, Costin. Will they ever stop banning you every time? At least I'm glad you're not discouraged to keep coming in here, I enjoy your points of view.

About the matter at hand, the system of Dark Souls II is a hit and miss for me. I like the fact that you're able to summon friends and NPCs to help you fight bosses while they get a small difficulty bump, and Bonfire Ascetics and the Company of Champions are a great way to get the opposite result, but on the other hand, the Ring of Life Protection just throws one of the major mechanics of the game straight out the window for too little a price to pay (which is optional however, so it's not a big deal), and deliberately unbalancing the player's playstyles choices - such as making spells more safely efficient than facing your opponents in melee and allowing cheap exploits to skip fights - is one of the worst ways to face the problem. As far as I'm concerned, I want every option to be as equally viable and effective as possible; their power differences should come out naturally - an enemy would be more susceptible to one approach and another enemy more to a different one, or I would simply find myself more comfortable with a particular style.

The way Dark Souls II handles it, I get discouraged to use spells or certain items since I see it as the easy way out, almost cheating in a sense, and discard other approaches which seem too pointless to even bother with - see greatshields or certain heavier weapons. I don't want the crossbow to be a killer gun in The Witcher 3, for example, or Quen to be a blatant cheat like in the first versions of the previous game. If I choose an approach, I prefer it to be equal and fair to the other possible playstyles.

About the rest, I mostly agree with @King_Hochmeister, but I would surely welcome a change of direction from the usual Easy, Normal, Hard difficulty system, or an expansion and perfecting of the Dark Souls II way. I am curious, however: how do you suggest CDPR should handle such a system, @Costin, with The Witcher being a story-driven experience and all?

 

[Nenous]

No No No I hope CD never adapts the difficult setting that Darksouls has, I like a challenge when I play, but im all about the story and the quest.

 

[red36]

the basic problem with the extra credit video is apparantly you need to watch IT before playing Dark Souls 2. How am I to know, as a gamer of 20 years, that magic is the easier gameplay mechanic. Or that I need 20 int and 20 faith to talk to the dark magic guy. The Dark Souls series is good for many things but INTUITIVE it is not in the slightest. Also the video never addresses that lets say im a player and I want to RP a warrior, but want easy mode. DS has no solution to that. If i want easy, Im forced to abuse a mechanic that is not part of this world (pathing errors? really? fuck that. it's plain insulting).
The video states that players chose to quit rather than adjust difficulty. these players are either fools or didnt actually BUY the game. When you have pitched 50+ bucks into a title, you are more than likely going to invest the effort of humbling your apparently tremendous ego to lower a difficulty if you find it difficult.
That being said, many games simply make the numbers bigger when increasing the difficulty. Either increasing NPC health or increasing the numbers of enemies. Sometimes both. While the latter is far better neither are perfect. The player, when choosing more difficult, is looking to tax their brains, and the game should follow suit. Ideally, puzzles would be harder, enemy AI smarter etc etc. In an open world tho, i really am skeptical as to a smaller-ish teams capacity to do so on such a large scale. But who knows, CDPR has surprised me since witcher 1, so I welcome them to do so.

 

[CostinRaz]

I hope CD never adapts the difficult setting that Darksouls has

You obviously weren't paying attention.

DS has no solution to that. If i want easy,

Ghosts. They even mention it in the video.

When you have pitched 50+ bucks into a title, you are more than likely going to invest the effort of humbling your apparently tremendous ego to lower a difficulty if you find it difficult.

There's actually plenty of developers who have stated that when players are frustrated by a game due to it's difficulty they will quit. Hell there were people on this very forum who bitched about the so called difficulty of TW2 and how they quit over it.

 

[TouPoutsou]

Yeah, that video was nice, but it's wrong really. Magic used to be easy mode on DS2, but that was not intentional by FROM. They want their game to be challenging no matter what. That's why they nerfed magic to the ground, and that's why they pushed the magic resist of monsters through the roof on the DLCs. As of now, sure if you are extremely patient you can be safer with magic -NOT in the DLCs- but it will take you 5 times more time to actually kill an enemy compared to melee. And that;s fine, it's balanced.
Ghosts of course help, but they also promote the online play which is crucial for the SOuls Series. Several boses are easier solo though. The ring of life protection was a flat out mistake.
The only easy more on DS 2 right now is the old clasic "run past all the enemies". AND YET, From software does not like it. That's why they are making the enemies on the Scholar of the first sin rerelease to much harder to avoid. Apparently now they are more and are programmed to follow you forever(another fuck you to ranged payers ).
And now comes point 3. DS actually does have clasic difficulty levels, and many of them -8. Nre game(s) plus.

Having said all these i do agree with the sentiment though. I would prefer if The Witcher had 1 difficulty mode, something around "hard". And possibly an NG+ option that puts it to dark+. The NG+7 scaling of DS is just stupid though.

 

[red36]

Ghosts. They even mention it in the video.

If one pays attention, one knows such a mechanic is irrelevant to what makes an RPG.
But fair enough, let me go further. DS has no solution for me if i want to RP a SOLO warrior and have easy mode. The problem with using mechanics such as these to create difficulty modes is that, at least in an RPG, (i believe) one is meant to be able to RP the role one wants without having to compromise that role in order to progress. Therefore in an RPG, i should be able to player how I damn well want and be able to beat the game at the difficulty I want. Admittedly, there are exceptions in MANY(most) rpgs , as I have found. You can't RP the character you want, but what the devs see fit to allow (bioware). And secondarily I have no idea how much easier the game is as a mage since I never play mages. certainly in PVP they seem to bedeviled with some advantages.

Further, I will note that Geralt is no where near the blank slate that the main char is in DS. DS is a world BASED on the mechanics of gameplay. The whole game is based around creating a mythology off of gameplay mechanics (sorry to be redundant , but i hope to be clear). Therefore even if CDPR wanted to use a similar system, it would not work for the lore as Geralt is not a full mage like Triss or Yenneffer, Half of the point is that Geralt occupies a sort of medium power. Not so powerful as to be a mage(as when he was to duel a mage he was fearful in the books(by my estimation)) but more powerful than even a skilled warrior(also exemplified in the same story).

There's actually plenty of developers who have stated that when players are frustrated by a game due to it's difficulty they will quit. Hell there were people on this very forum who bitched about the so called difficulty of TW2 and how they quit over it.

Personally I simply dont believe this statistic. For instance, one may source the fact that most players never finish the games they buy. Something like 80% of games dont get finished. This, like many, is a skewed statistic that fails to reveal its source. For instance, a good health percentage of games bought are in fact COD or battlefield or other games its like. MANY gamers never beat its single player. Why? because its a multiplayer game. I bet the percentage of players who beat mass effect 3 was far larger.

that being said, I think you raise a good point RE witcher 2. in witcher 2, i have seen friends get lost among the complexity of all the quests thrown at them at once in flotsam. THERE, which is not difficulty related per se, is the real trial for casual players. Not combat.
Further, players had difficulty with combat in witcher 2 because the tutorial section is FAR too hard.

 

[TouPoutsou]

If one pays attention, one knows such a mechanic is irrelevant to what makes an RPG.
But fair enough, let me go further. DS has no solution for me if i want to RP a SOLO warrior and have easy mode. The problem with using mechanics such as these to create difficulty modes is that, at least in an RPG, (i believe) one is meant to be able to RP the role one wants without having to compromise that role in order to progress. Therefore in an RPG, i should be able to player how I damn well want and be able to beat the game at the difficulty I want. Admittedly, there are exceptions in MANY(most) rpgs , as I have found. You can't RP the character you want, but what the devs see fit to allow (bioware). And secondarily I have no idea how much easier the game is as a mage since I never play mages. certainly in PVP they seem to bedeviled with some advantages.

Further, I will note that Geralt is no where near the blank slate that the main char is in DS. DS is a world BASED on the mechanics of gameplay. The whole game is based around creating a mythology off of gameplay mechanics (sorry to be redundant , but i hope to be clear). Therefore even if CDPR wanted to use a similar system, it would not work for the lore as Geralt is not a full mage like Triss or Yenneffer, Half of the point is that Geralt occupies a sort of medium power. Not so powerful as to be a mage(as when he was to duel a mage he was fearful in the books(by my estimation)) but more powerful than even a skilled warrior(also exemplified in the same story).

There are easier ways. For istance Ultra weapons. While they suck in PvP, they can permastunlock 90% of the enemies in PvE. However there are still times on certain bosses, like Sir Alonne, that using a faster weapon would be "easier'. DS does not have an easy mode. It wants to search and find yourself what makes each fight easier, to create your own easy mode if you wish. But this is silghtly off topic.

 

[Phinnway]

Yeah, that video was nice, but it's wrong really. Magic used to be easy mode on DS2, but that was not intentional by FROM. They want their game to be challenging no matter what. That's why they nerfed magic to the ground, and that's why they pushed the magic resist of monsters through the roof on the DLCs.

This is what I was afraid of. The conflict between Roleplaying and Optimal Strategy. As I already said in this thread I am a brainy player and I usually choose the optimal strategy. When I am role-playing I like to have what I am role-playing as still be fairly effective compared to the other options. If it is too OP or too underpowered it ruins the fun of customization for me.