I know my limitations as a gamer and while i have finished Witcher 2 on hard and dark , I have no desire to see any game with one difficulty setting . In my opinion it would do more harm than good . Seeing as it would alienate more people from the series that i have come to cherish . Who knows at this point how difficult or not future games will be . If the game is too easy then do things that make it more difficult . Maybe use Aerondight throughout the whole game or Raven`s Armor . There are lots of different ways to make the game difficult .
It just feels..... very artificial to do that. Sure there's a great deal of challenge to be had if you decide to things unconventionally ( Like going naked against the Operator ), but the default game should still very challenging on it's own without forcing you to do that. TW2 specifically is at points very challenging on Insane/Dark but not constantly. ( Thinking of stuff like dungeon guards and human opponents for the most part through the entire game save for some exceptions ).
i do wish the ai could remain consistent across difficulties. i chose normal because i didn't like how much health enemies had on hard, but the sword wielding enemies don't parry very well, or far less often than on hard.
It does feel very artificial and i dont like it much as well, but dont you agree that every game no matter how difficult it is ends up being kind of easy?CostinMoroianu said:
The thing that makes the games easier at the higher levels isnt difficulty for me, its the player and how much he plays and improves, in the end i think one gets accustomed to any difficulty level that has reasonable mechanics. (not like dying once and loosing your save games)
Mods are probably the best source of difficulty after what all games in their vanilla state can offer.
One thing id really like for TW3 for example, is the campaign to learn from the Arena or the crucible if its darksiders 2 , games that have an Arena mode always offer much better difficulty there than in the main game, like the fights in TW2 were always a lot easier than most in the Arena, they really should improve the scaling of how many enemies you have to fight at the same time and what space is available to dodge.
Guys, seriously? You sure get riled up about anything. Like games. This is just too funny. While I also do not agree with Costin I'd like to remind everyone that we're talking about fucking games here.
I'd just like to add something to Costin's constant "it's too easy" argument. It's called "learning curve". Some people don't mind spending hours learning rules, mechanics and/or polishing up their reflexes in order to move on past the first scene. Others like to play the full game while getting a grasp of how things work, and then bump up the difficulty for a frustration-free tougher version of the game.
In any case Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 will be harder than average games for sure. They will probably include easy and normal difficulties, plus at least one punishing difficulty. I think we all can agree on that regardless of what one or two people want.
I'd just like to add something to Costin's constant "it's too easy" argument. It's called "learning curve". Some people don't mind spending hours learning rules, mechanics and/or polishing up their reflexes in order to move on past the first scene. Others like to play the full game while getting a grasp of how things work, and then bump up the difficulty for a frustration-free tougher version of the game.
In any case Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 will be harder than average games for sure. They will probably include easy and normal difficulties, plus at least one punishing difficulty. I think we all can agree on that regardless of what one or two people want.
No.
Let me make myself perfectly clear: NO.
I'm all for Costin, or anyone else sharing his sentiments, having the option of fighting through TW3 or CP 2077 completely naked with only a moldy baguette as their sole weapon, but that's not how I want to play the game. I don't appreciate having my options foreclosed because someone else finds them insufficiently rigorous to meet their lofty standards. This is a hobby, not how I define myself or evaluate myself as a person.
Don't speak for me, or pretend to do so for anyone else, either. Thank you very much.
Let me make myself perfectly clear: NO.
I'm all for Costin, or anyone else sharing his sentiments, having the option of fighting through TW3 or CP 2077 completely naked with only a moldy baguette as their sole weapon, but that's not how I want to play the game. I don't appreciate having my options foreclosed because someone else finds them insufficiently rigorous to meet their lofty standards. This is a hobby, not how I define myself or evaluate myself as a person.
Don't speak for me, or pretend to do so for anyone else, either. Thank you very much.
It happens in game, that much is very true, unless that game receives new content for it in terms of new enemy types, abilities and so on. WoW has been very good as example until they got to Wrath.
I think Dark Souls deals with this rather well though. It has a NG++ mode ( I do not consider that a difficulty level ) which means that after completed playthrough you start the game again with all your gear and your build but enemies are 3 times tougher, do 3 times more damage and are more aggressive. This carries on until NG+ 7
.Volsung.: Now obviously CDPR will do that, I don't hold any delusions they would do otherwise, but the purpose of my argument is to show them that yes there people like me, Chromie, Simaq and Bloth who would want one single difficulty in an RPG. What they do ultimately is up to them as it's always been.
Realistically what I would hope for is for them to spend more time on the higher difficulties.
I have nothing against you or your views. The fact that your views are so different to mine is what makes them interesting to read. But you have go to tone down the aggression. There have been several times where I wanted to discuss something with you, but have turned away instead because of the unnecessary hostility.
No one is asking you to "budge", just present your argument without spitting in other people's faces.
I see where Costin is coming from and I too would like to see games be designed around a challenging system. The main difference is that I believe this should be done by adding better and more diverse AI scripts instead of simply removing other difficulties. What makes a game challenging is usually the unpredictability of the AI you're fighting. If the AI can do more intelligent and diverse attacks/maneuvers/counterattacks then it will not only be more difficult but also more fun to fight against in consecutive play-throughs.
It would be quite easy for the devs to tweak the AI for different difficulty settings. The devs could modify things such as the AI's reaction time to attacks/counterattacks, making them react quicker on harder difficulty settings and slower on easier settings. This would take almost no time to implement and would make it so people that choose to play on a lower difficulty setting aren't punished by having part of the game removed. This would benefit people who have disabilities, people who are aging (and have slower reflexes than they used to) and people who don't like "twitchy" combat (or those who prefer to learn the game mechanics on their first play-through without dying 100 times and having to keep reloading). Also, simply lower the AI's damage modifier by a % on the easy setting. I would like a game with options like this: a base difficulty that the game is designed around (call it Witcher mode in the game options so it's clear that this is the difficulty the game was designed around?); an easy mode with the previously mentioned modifiers; and an insane mode (same difficulty as Witcher mode but death is permanent).
Likewise, usually when a game's difficulty doesn't scale well as the game progresses it's tied to the AI not scaling well. In TW2 Geralt starts out with very few skills/feats until he levels up and starts unlocking them. Creatures in the early part of a game should also have less attacks/skills/moves available, while creatures towards the latter part of the game should have more complex AI scripts and more attacks/skills/moves available (making enemies more powerful as Geralt becomes more powerful). In this way the difficulty throughout the game would be more consistent.
It would be quite easy for the devs to tweak the AI for different difficulty settings. The devs could modify things such as the AI's reaction time to attacks/counterattacks, making them react quicker on harder difficulty settings and slower on easier settings. This would take almost no time to implement and would make it so people that choose to play on a lower difficulty setting aren't punished by having part of the game removed. This would benefit people who have disabilities, people who are aging (and have slower reflexes than they used to) and people who don't like "twitchy" combat (or those who prefer to learn the game mechanics on their first play-through without dying 100 times and having to keep reloading). Also, simply lower the AI's damage modifier by a % on the easy setting. I would like a game with options like this: a base difficulty that the game is designed around (call it Witcher mode in the game options so it's clear that this is the difficulty the game was designed around?); an easy mode with the previously mentioned modifiers; and an insane mode (same difficulty as Witcher mode but death is permanent).
Likewise, usually when a game's difficulty doesn't scale well as the game progresses it's tied to the AI not scaling well. In TW2 Geralt starts out with very few skills/feats until he levels up and starts unlocking them. Creatures in the early part of a game should also have less attacks/skills/moves available, while creatures towards the latter part of the game should have more complex AI scripts and more attacks/skills/moves available (making enemies more powerful as Geralt becomes more powerful). In this way the difficulty throughout the game would be more consistent.
I think that everyone see where Costin is coming from and everyone agree that there should be option to play on hard difficulty. But Costin want it to be the only option because he is afraid that CDPR have no enough resources to make more than one polished difficulty setting. For me it's insane idea that developer would have no enough money to make properly additional difficulty levels, but would have enough money to develop two AAA games simultaneously.freakie1one said:
Yep, which is why I've pointed out several times that adding more difficulty options doesn't impact a game's level of polish since most all games are designed around only one difficulty to begin with. The minimal amount of time and resources spent during the final development stages on implementing additional difficulties doesn't impact a game's level of polish. If the game's base difficulty isn't polished to begin with then the other difficulties will be no better.Aver said:
This is why I'm not making a plea to the devs asking for only one difficulty. I'm making a plea to the devs asking for better AI; which would help replayability, improve a game's overall difficulty and also improve the consistency of the difficulty throughout the game as it progresses.
First off: I didn't thoroughly read the whole thread. Maybe some things I say have already been pointed out/discussed. Sorry for that.
I for one do like Costin's idea of having only one (hard) difficulty and giving a cinematic mode to all those who don't want a challenge.
Let me tell you why:
I have been playing many modern FPS and TPS (Third Person Shooters) lately and found them all to be lacking something apart from the fact that those games are stupidly linear nowadays. Then I stumbled upon an older game: Metroid Prime for the Gamecube. I started playing it and immediately died twice in the training level. — Guess what? It felt great, relieving. A real challenge to rise up to.
I mean, I really miss this feature from older games, when after you finally beat the bossfight you've been dying in several times you lean back, mop the sweat from your brow and get to watch the following cinematics feeling like you really accomplished something here. It was hard, insanely hard but you got through. Fuck yeah!
There is no better feeling in gaming 'sides this feeling of accomplishment.
But how do you generate a real challenge in a game like TW?
You can only make the fights harder (or make some clues/keys for some quests harder to find, but then this difficulty cannot be repeated, except with changing locations of those things).
But when you go the 'many difficulties' way the only way to make fights harder is by giving the enemies more health. This makes the gameplay just stupidly hard. It just feels ridiculous to have enemies (that should lorewise be weaker than you) take many hits from you and in return tear you health to pieces. Seriously...
To make combat really feel challenging you'd have to make the AI smarter. But this feature often cannot be simply turned off without coding the AI twice (once in 'stupid' and thus easy mode and the second time for the challenge). And the literally 'dumbed down' AI would have to be handled with real care or else it will be like the ridiculous sneak feature in Skyrim with the enemies' IQ below room temperature.
That's why I support Costin's idea of having only one difficulty and adding a cinematic (or guided play) mode for all those who don't want the challenge.
There you can have the player character be controlled by the AI in the fights (giving it a fair chance against the other AI) and giving the player the ability to give instructions, weapons, armor and potions to the AI (like you could order your team around in DA:O).
And for the easiest mode that can even be played by a wooden spoon you could still lower the enemies' health so they die after every hit, for all I care.
I for one do like Costin's idea of having only one (hard) difficulty and giving a cinematic mode to all those who don't want a challenge.
Let me tell you why:
I have been playing many modern FPS and TPS (Third Person Shooters) lately and found them all to be lacking something apart from the fact that those games are stupidly linear nowadays. Then I stumbled upon an older game: Metroid Prime for the Gamecube. I started playing it and immediately died twice in the training level. — Guess what? It felt great, relieving. A real challenge to rise up to.
I mean, I really miss this feature from older games, when after you finally beat the bossfight you've been dying in several times you lean back, mop the sweat from your brow and get to watch the following cinematics feeling like you really accomplished something here. It was hard, insanely hard but you got through. Fuck yeah!
There is no better feeling in gaming 'sides this feeling of accomplishment.
But how do you generate a real challenge in a game like TW?
You can only make the fights harder (or make some clues/keys for some quests harder to find, but then this difficulty cannot be repeated, except with changing locations of those things).
But when you go the 'many difficulties' way the only way to make fights harder is by giving the enemies more health. This makes the gameplay just stupidly hard. It just feels ridiculous to have enemies (that should lorewise be weaker than you) take many hits from you and in return tear you health to pieces. Seriously...
To make combat really feel challenging you'd have to make the AI smarter. But this feature often cannot be simply turned off without coding the AI twice (once in 'stupid' and thus easy mode and the second time for the challenge). And the literally 'dumbed down' AI would have to be handled with real care or else it will be like the ridiculous sneak feature in Skyrim with the enemies' IQ below room temperature.
That's why I support Costin's idea of having only one difficulty and adding a cinematic (or guided play) mode for all those who don't want the challenge.
There you can have the player character be controlled by the AI in the fights (giving it a fair chance against the other AI) and giving the player the ability to give instructions, weapons, armor and potions to the AI (like you could order your team around in DA:O).
And for the easiest mode that can even be played by a wooden spoon you could still lower the enemies' health so they die after every hit, for all I care.
@AnDr01d:
I already discussed simple and quick ways of tweaking the AI (without having to rewrite the entire AI scripts) to make an easy mode plausible without treating people like idiots. Read my post here: LINK
I already discussed simple and quick ways of tweaking the AI (without having to rewrite the entire AI scripts) to make an easy mode plausible without treating people like idiots. Read my post here: LINK
@freakie1one
Again, sorry for not reading your post.
But still I have some problems with your ideas because you can only tweak modifiers a little (which may not be enough) without immersion breaking.
Let's take:
Reaction times. So in the end you propose that for easy mode the enemies (e.g. Soldiers) should react none faster than snails while on hard they'd be as fast as a witcher? Those extremes are both unrealistic and make the game feel bad for both sides (hardcore challenge and noobs alike) leaving none of them satisfied.
Damage multipliers. Again it'll feel retarded when you finally found your end-game armor but the same enemies still tear away similar sized chunks from your health bar. So what was the point of finding the hard to get armor?
More intelligent AI, the later the game. Again this would be ridiculous. So the drowners from the first Act that could hardly see past simple evasive maneuvers can suddenly lay ambushes on you? That takes some heavy storytelling to explain...
It's still better to have the game only have one difficulty.
@Aver:
I don't propose to code new AI for the player character but to let the 'player AI' use the same coding as one enemy (e.g. Letho in TW2) that is already in the game.
- - - - -
And the idea of using AI for the player would even cater to those who complained that they could not play TW2 with mouse only.
A fights outcome would not be determined by the player's skill but maybe by his tactics in easy mode. In 'regular' (read: hard) mode the game would require both heavy skill and tactics making it a real challenge.
Again, sorry for not reading your post.
But still I have some problems with your ideas because you can only tweak modifiers a little (which may not be enough) without immersion breaking.
Let's take:
Reaction times. So in the end you propose that for easy mode the enemies (e.g. Soldiers) should react none faster than snails while on hard they'd be as fast as a witcher? Those extremes are both unrealistic and make the game feel bad for both sides (hardcore challenge and noobs alike) leaving none of them satisfied.
Damage multipliers. Again it'll feel retarded when you finally found your end-game armor but the same enemies still tear away similar sized chunks from your health bar. So what was the point of finding the hard to get armor?
More intelligent AI, the later the game. Again this would be ridiculous. So the drowners from the first Act that could hardly see past simple evasive maneuvers can suddenly lay ambushes on you? That takes some heavy storytelling to explain...
It's still better to have the game only have one difficulty.
@Aver:
I don't propose to code new AI for the player character but to let the 'player AI' use the same coding as one enemy (e.g. Letho in TW2) that is already in the game.
- - - - -
And the idea of using AI for the player would even cater to those who complained that they could not play TW2 with mouse only.
A fights outcome would not be determined by the player's skill but maybe by his tactics in easy mode. In 'regular' (read: hard) mode the game would require both heavy skill and tactics making it a real challenge.
It's not that simply as you think. AIs are programmed to react to other side actions. And if both sides only react to other side actions it may cause a lot of game breaking bugs. For example what if AI have programmed "Stay behind cover when enemy has grenade in his hand" and then enemy AI and player AI will drawn grenades - both of them will be sitting behind covers holding grenades forever. So using AI for player character would require a lot of testing, WAY more than testing difficulty setting with all enemies having 25% less/more accuracy and 50% less/more HP.AnDr01d said:
First: Your example is no real problem. Simply add "when equipping grenade and being behind cover, throw grenade over/around cover if possible, else switch back to main weapon and try to flank".Aver said:
Edit
In the end you could always forego this by allowing the player to change the equipped item/selected tactic any time.
/Edit
And massive testing of the AI would have to be done regardless (at least for my wishes) as I'd always want the AI to be way smarter than they now are in any game.
Yes, massive testing of AI have to be done anyway. But this way you have to test it against living players and against other AIs. And I would prefer if AI programmer would focus on programming AI with a human in mind rather than other AIs.AnDr01d said:
Even more work to be done. As I said. It would be way more expensive than making more difficulty levels.