Weekly Poll 9/25/18 - Difficulty Levels

[Sardukhar]

Difficulty levels! Once an incidental consideration in gaming, the post Dark Souls/Rogue-like world sees a lot more emphasis on this.

Both for the sporting challenge and the e-peening. Wheeee!

Now, given that we will probably have a Story mode for those if us who just want to cruise the game and see the story and choices, what -else- would you like to see in terms of challenge? Dark Souls? Skyrim Sponge Mode? Increased Damage to you and them mode? Hardcore, one life mode?

VOTE!

Note I'm allowing more than one vote, because, hey, a multiplicity of options here.

List of Polls to date: https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.php?threads/collected-weekly-polls-thread.10984601/

 

[Hoeya]

 

[4RM3D]

4. Doesn't work because CP2077 is a RPG with damage modifiers. Also, boss fights are going to be tricky then.
5. Level scaling enemies can go wrong real fast. *points at Skyrim*
7. The AI should be smart regardless, it would be a waste otherwise.
8. Iron man mode should be an optional choice.
9. Might be the best to address all kinds of players, from those that just want a story mode to those that want a Dark Souls experience.

 

[Draconifors]

2, 4 and 7 -- this was a hard one to vote in, though.

I've never played Witcher 3 on the Just the Story! mode, so I personally don't need that with Cyberpunk either.
Medium difficulty that allows game completion without too many deaths is always nice to have when a game has difficulty levels. On the other hand, it would also be great to have a more realistic mode where everyone dies fast.
AI getting smarter as difficulty level increases would be awesome.

 

[Odinsauge]

I want a challenge but not to much challenge. As my time that I can spend on playing games is limited, I don't want to spend to much time in doing things over and over. But making things too easy is also boring.
I hope for intelligent difficulty levels. I hate when enemies become bullet sponges or like in Dragon Age when all uncommon enemies are resistant to everything. It doesn't make sense to invest skill points or whatever in skills that cause blind/poison/weakness to XY/etc. if every enemy where this could become helpful, is resistant to that.

Not becoming an ice block but getting slowed done - OK
Don't care about the strongest ice spell at all - not OK unless you are some creature not caring about ice at all but then have fire vulnerability.
Being immune to certain conditions - OK
Being immune to everything - not OK

 

[KakitaTatsumaru]

Easiest mode for me, as FPS shooters bores me to hell and neither have I seen interesting melee gameplay in FPS.
So if combats are not interesting, why having them taking more time?

 

[AlexiaRevan]

Voted 'Story mode' or in some games it's called 'Narrative' .

I'm used to games having 'Casual , normal , Hard , Insanity' . So , I always start off with Casual to see the story..get the feel of the game . Map it kinda . Then up the difficulty up to hard . Don't play Insanity cose I don't look for challenges in games , I don't play them to be the best or rub my ego . I play games to have fun .

I enjoy a good gameplay system and thats the only reason why I would up the difficulty . But I don't want the game to become a chore either .

 

[BaalNergal]

I want multiple difficulties, ranging from Baby Mode where the enemies don't even attack you to Cyberpunk Spartan where the enemies are wielding miniguns and wearing power armor with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. And you have to unlock all of them and must start the game on Medium.

 

[Loostreaks]

Custom difficulty settings should become a must, in rpgs, especially of this size. You cannot please everyone with 4-5 simple settings, there are just too many variables here, differences in how we all play, etc.
And you'll end up losing your hair trying to please everyone, later on, with balancing/patches...why not let the player customize this by changing global values?

We've seen this in Witcher: first they complain x is OP/too easy, then they tone it down and even more complain it's too weak/too hard, etc.

Nothing extensive as this, of course

https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/33395-4-1438936787.jpg

But at least basic parameters: damage taken/dealt for both sides, Adrenaline gain, regeneration rate, skill xp gain, resistances cap, global barter rates, etc.

 

[4RM3D]

Nothing extensive as this, of course
https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/33395-4-1438936787.jpg

The difficulty choices should still matter. When everything is split into an array of just number, the choices lose their meaning.

Copy-pasted something I've written in another similar thread:

I am not much a fan of difficulty modes. Instead, I rather have the difficulty incorporated into the game world. Taking certain paths will be more difficult than others, like it is in real life. This can also be further extended in the skill tree. For example, going full melee might be more difficult than using guns.

 

[Wenceslaus]

I love the adrenaline of realistic shooters where a good bullet could end the fight, like mentioned ArmA, Tarkov, Hell Let Loose and such.

Though this is and RPG, not a tactical shooter and there will be some numbers and progress involved. Still, I think that combat oculd get some of those lethal feel of those FPS (especially since Cyberpunk 2077 going to have FPS combat).

So 4 is it for me.

I have nothign against different difficulties (the "4 Think ArmA!" being the hardest), but the fewer the better IHMO. As setting and story, it should hold some consistency.

 

[kolosmenus]

2,4,5 and 7.

Medium difficulty is always nice to have, maybe for the first run or sth.

Realism mode and no levelled enemies as "faithfulness to CP20 system" mode. Something along the lines of w3ee mod for Witcher 3. Also, I'm just not a fan of levelled enemies, it completely destroys the immersion. You can one-shot level 5 dragon, but you'll struggle with level 50 thug.

And smarter AI ofc, because the worst possible thing is making the game harder by pumping up stats or nerfing yours.

 

[Garrison72]

Voted #7. No matter what, please tweak the AI for harder settings.

 

[sv3672]

One possible issue is, smarter AI on high difficulty means less smart AI on the default, what is likely chosen by the majority of players. Although smarter in practice may just mean more aggressive and accurate: shorter reaction time, better and faster aiming, more frequent attacks in general, more use of grenades, and so on. But even that could be more of a challenge to players with great FPS skills than just damage multipliers.

 

[devivre]

I went with #1 but it really depends on the game and how I connect with the gameplay. My favorite setting is a balanced mix of story and challenge. However, if I'm having a lot of fun with the gameplay, I usually go with a higher difficulty setting. If not, the story mode is my last resort

Usually, I don't need the hardest difficulty setting (TW3 is one of few games where I played that).
But for the sake of immersion, a bit of challenge is definitely healthy.

 

[Hoeya]

I generally play most games for the story, and the occasional bump of difficulty. However, I generally don't want to have to "git gud" to play a game. Because I'm just not gud. I'm barely average. More power to you if you're that kind of gamer, but I am not.

I'd say the difficulty from easy to hard, and an ironman mode for those people who hate themselves. A one life game doesn't work too well, considering it's an RPG game. I could not imagine trying to play something like that.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

I don't really want difficulty to consist of HP/DMG buffs/debuffs. That's boring. I voted for "Mix and Match", but for a reason of my own....

What I would like to see is the difficulty to be static and the different settings affecting the impact of skills and stats, general progression speed and availability/price of items and services and perhaps the rules that govern the NPC's (negatively for harder levels and positively for easier).

They could even split the difficulty settings in two gauges where for a crude example:

Combat difficulty measures relevant combat related specs:
- Weapons/ammo/armor/mods rarity&prices.
- Combat cyberwear rarity&prices.
- Enemy accuracy, AI and possibly amount.
- And minimum damage in the case they opt for a range per bullet (i.e. 4-12) instead of a flat number.

And Gameplay difficulty handles the rest:
- XP requirements per level ups.
- Starting levels and progression speed of skills.
- Skill impact on gameplay (combat - accuracy/spread/recoil for guns; strike speed and damage for melee/HtH).
- Difficulty of the non-combat skilltests (still hoping they ditch the skill gates and opt for 2020 styll RNG+gating where appropriate).
- Non-combat item/cyberwear prices and availability.
- Stat effects on the PC's physical and mental prowess (i.e. how much REF affects movement etc.).

E.g. If the difficulties per gauge go for Easy, Normal and Hard, you could tailor the game to suit your style to quite a large degree.

- Going for hard combat and hard gameplay, you get a very hard and stat driven gameplay across the board.
- Going for easy combat and easy gameplay, you get an easy storydriven action adventure.
- Going for hard combat and easy gameplay, you get an action adventure that has HC shooter combat.
- Going for easy combat and hard gameplay, you get very stat driven RPG where combat is (whilst more tied on stats) relatively easy.

Add in "Normal" in the mix...

Mix and match.

That's not meant to be exactly what I'm suggesting, but giving the broad idea of it.

Something along those lines. Too many permutations and choices just make things confusing and cumbersome, and possibly even frustrating (it’s not supposed to be ”Options - The Game”), but I don’t think this is there yet. Fallout 1 and 2 had a system of that ilk... Not precisely the same (because the gameplay was very different), but similar. And I would guess it could work here too with a bit of tuning.

 

[Tree_Fox]

I want the difficulty to be realistic. I don't want to be able to stand in the middle of a room and kill all the enemies while tanking all their bullets without moving. I also don't want to shoot bullet sponges or, worse, have an enemy be immune to my attacks because there is a level difference. Although if there's an adequate in-lore reason for enemies being immune to my attacks, I'd be fine with that.

 

[EngryEngineer]

Voted for: 1, 3, 6, 7, 8
I'd love to have a playthrough where I just focus on the story and setting. After that I like to play one where I step it up and push myself with high difficulty and smart AI, then finally the rest of my playthroughs should require near to perfect tactics/skill so bring it on with increased quantity, damage, one life, etc.

 

[Bellator Pius Gratus]

Realistic mode from Deus Ex, thanks.