Not a big fan of game difficulty just being a % damage received, damage dealt modifier. like:
Easy: 50% damage taken, 150% damage dealt
Normal: 100% damage taken, 100% damage dealt
Hard: 125% damage taken, 75% damage dealt
No info on this at this year's E3 either to my knowledge. What I'd really like to see is:
1) A pool of randomly seeded positive and negative traits tied to difficulty. Example:
Purely beneficial:
Agile (+50% reload speed)
Blitz (Will attempt to rush the player)
Tactician (Will attempt to flank)
Toughness (+25% life)
Spray'n'pray (Will fire with reckless abandon, providing supression fire)
Mixed:
Eagle-eye (Drastically improves aim, -33% life)
Cyborg (Has more and/or upgraded implants, but has a chance to go berserk also attacking allies)
Junkie (Uses more combat enhancing stims in combat, worse aim)
Survivor (Might grab nearby allies to use them as a living shield)
Leader (Has lower combat stats, but provides buffs to nearby allies)
Negative traits:
Fearful (Weaker aim and damage the less allies are nearby)
Coward (Chance to flee when wounded)
Weak (-20% life and damage)
Slow (Less movement and reload speed)
Traitor (Might shoot allies, bringing them out of cover for you to shoot at - to give themselves room to shoot or advance)
The way it could work, with all enemies getting 1-4 traits at random. Some stronger traits for enemies are only applied at higher difficulties. Some bad traits are excluded or has a very low chance to be rolled on higher difficulties. So difficulty applies trait seeding.
Other than that: Difficulty tied to AI behavior. Like enemies might flank more at hard+. Enemy spawns. Remember that gangleader you fought on normal in that alley who had 2 bodyguards? Well on Hard difficulty he has a sniper on the roof. And on VH difficulty he has 2 guys reinforcing from the back. Maybe also a RNG seed system equal to the trait system above for weapons and armor.
Yeah I know, I'm probably expecting too much here. In any case, I'd personally enjoy pretty much ANY game difficulty that does not do the arbitrary dmg/life slider/scaling thing. I'd like your opinion on this. What is your preferable way to deal with game difficulty? What are good and bad ways to make the game less and more difficult? What's your dream-come-true of a game like this handling difficulty?
Easy: 50% damage taken, 150% damage dealt
Normal: 100% damage taken, 100% damage dealt
Hard: 125% damage taken, 75% damage dealt
No info on this at this year's E3 either to my knowledge. What I'd really like to see is:
1) A pool of randomly seeded positive and negative traits tied to difficulty. Example:
Purely beneficial:
Agile (+50% reload speed)
Blitz (Will attempt to rush the player)
Tactician (Will attempt to flank)
Toughness (+25% life)
Spray'n'pray (Will fire with reckless abandon, providing supression fire)
Mixed:
Eagle-eye (Drastically improves aim, -33% life)
Cyborg (Has more and/or upgraded implants, but has a chance to go berserk also attacking allies)
Junkie (Uses more combat enhancing stims in combat, worse aim)
Survivor (Might grab nearby allies to use them as a living shield)
Leader (Has lower combat stats, but provides buffs to nearby allies)
Negative traits:
Fearful (Weaker aim and damage the less allies are nearby)
Coward (Chance to flee when wounded)
Weak (-20% life and damage)
Slow (Less movement and reload speed)
Traitor (Might shoot allies, bringing them out of cover for you to shoot at - to give themselves room to shoot or advance)
The way it could work, with all enemies getting 1-4 traits at random. Some stronger traits for enemies are only applied at higher difficulties. Some bad traits are excluded or has a very low chance to be rolled on higher difficulties. So difficulty applies trait seeding.
Other than that: Difficulty tied to AI behavior. Like enemies might flank more at hard+. Enemy spawns. Remember that gangleader you fought on normal in that alley who had 2 bodyguards? Well on Hard difficulty he has a sniper on the roof. And on VH difficulty he has 2 guys reinforcing from the back. Maybe also a RNG seed system equal to the trait system above for weapons and armor.
Yeah I know, I'm probably expecting too much here. In any case, I'd personally enjoy pretty much ANY game difficulty that does not do the arbitrary dmg/life slider/scaling thing. I'd like your opinion on this. What is your preferable way to deal with game difficulty? What are good and bad ways to make the game less and more difficult? What's your dream-come-true of a game like this handling difficulty?