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.
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.
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