ITT: Actual Game Design Discussion

Is locking certain aspects of a game (like items and enemies) to harder diffiulty modes a good way to encourage people to play on harder difficulty settings?

pic unrelated

And, on the topic difficulty, should devs even bother making difficulty settings? Or should they just design the game with one setting in mind?

good album. nice taste.

fuck you weeb
thanks

Very few games actually do difficulty well. I'd like to list EDF as an example of doing it just right, it goes like this:
Easy - Braindead easy, no matter what
Normal - Easy(with level-appropriate weapons)
Hard - Normal(with level-appropriate weapons)
Hardest - Hard((with level-appropriate weapons)
Inferno - Really hard, you need an appropriate plan for pretty much every mission after 35 or so(there are 90+), you need pretty much all high level weapons to even stand a chance in it.

More, better endings is what you should give for playing on harder difficulties. That being said, that is only in the context of a game of a certain tone, like Halo. It wouldn't make sense for Dark Souls or Doom to have a hard mode where you get a happy ending.

fucking nips

For different topics,
1. What is a subtle way to implement a cheat codes menu? Should it be locked behind certain missions, or hidden collectables? Should it be NG+/endgame only?
2. Assuming this is a free-roam/linear levels platforming game, how hidden should collectable items be? How many should there be?
3. Should you unlock anything for collecting items?

Only if it drastically changes gameplay or is distinguishable enough to justify it, otherwise you really shouldn't because that would simply fuck with balance and not change much else. Another way to encourage it would be to leave part of the game on the easier gamemodes and have more levels available with higher difficulties, assuming the higher difficulties don't simply make enemies bullet sponges but rather make them faster, deal more damage, act more aggressively and maybe even do additional attacks.

I would lick Deco's taint tbh fam

Seems rather pointless to entirely lock certain enemies or weapons to higher difficulty levels when they can be experienced at lower difficulties but at a later level or lesser degree.

DMC3, for example, at higher difficulties will spawn enemies normally only seen at later stages in early levels.

It makes sense to leave harder, more technical enemies to later as you dont want to overburden the player into having to learn all enemy types at once (even less so if they dont have appropriate kit to deal with them), but returning to early levels is then too easy for an experienced player, even at a higher difficulty due to certain technical plays being abusable.

Adding additional spawns or implementing new skills for enemies (taking DMC3 as an example again would be giving enemies their own DT) is a better means to increasing difficulty without throwing entirely new concepts at a player.

Perhaps but I'd say it's better to lock things off so as not to confuse players rather than punish them. There are people who struggle with higher difficulties often through no fault of their own (injuries, old age, limited time to play) and locking them out of content for no reason isn't a good idea. The examples to look towards is Thief 1 and 2 which are both fine games on lower difficulties but change the level design/add more objectives on higher difficulties. Nobody loses out.

I'm a fan of NG+/endgame and having cheats unlock with difficulty levels completed (obviously they don't count if completed with already unlocked cheats). Brothers in Arms has a good system of unlocking more bonus content the higher difficulty you finish on and I think it might give you cheats for the max difficulty.

If it's 'collect all 200 obvious items' collect-a-thon style then not too hidden. A good thing modern games do is give you a map once you're at say 190/200. You'll just fucking look it up then and the last 10 are exponentially harder to find to the point of frustration. These collectibles can be used to unlock gameplay-important items or future levels since you expect almost all players to get a good % of them. On the other hand if we're talking rarer collectibles for the hardcore players keep their number limited, their spots imaginative and the rewards mostly cosmetic/incidental but still a little bit special.

Depending on how demanding the game is, you may just end up frustrating the player. The content locked behind the difficulty has to be pretty damn worthwhile if the difficulty demands a lot. It really just depends on what constitutes your difficulty and what you're offering as a reward. Special costumes, special weapons, special but MINOR and INCONSEQUENTIAL dialogue or cutscenes between key characters, and cheats are all appropriate items to hold behind challenges. The better questions are, "What is a good example of difficulty? How can we create more interesting challenges that strike a balance between critical thinking and physical dexterity? What drives a player to challenge?"

I personally feel that the player must possess an innate tendency to push himself or the desire to accept a challenge before he'll see your trials through with vigor and enthusiasm.

I like how GTAIV did this; In this game cheats are just phone numbers that you dial on your personal cell phone and then the results instantly appear in the world before you. Once used, a number will remain in your contacts list, after which you can call it with a few flicks of your thumb. It's convenient.

I feel that it'd be easier to integrate the cheats into a practical in-universe solution for more fantastical realms; in a futuristic cyberpunk setting, you could have a character interact with some high tech terminal or character that could allow them to acquire "specialized technology" that could be embedded into their skulls or prosthetics; In a fantasy setting, a character could follow a prophecy to acquire a legendary magical artifact that must be interfaced with some ancient contraption that would use arcane energy to infuse them with the ability to temporarily bend space and time. That sort of thing.
I personally don't like collectathons, but in most good games, the items are hidden in secret areas or rewarded as a result of problem/puzzle solving. I think that's most appropriate. You could devise any number of challenges and place any number of items to collect, so long as the experience is engaging and there's payoff involved. This ties into your final question. Of course there should be some sort of pay for collecting items, unless the collection is itself the reward (for example, the statues in Wind Waker/character action figures in Resident Evil)

An interesting(but not necessarily good) way of encouraging the player to try harder difficulties is giving them more freedom than on easier difficulties. Even giving the player the same freedom they would normally only get towards the end of the game early on would be enough of a reason to play on hard, in my opinion.

Another way would be to have an at least decent post game, and give the player certain bonuses in that mode if they beat the main game on hard.

i think it's fine, what i don't like is when the higher difficulty settings themselves are locked. having to grind through a gime that's mindlessly easy to unlock a difficulty setting that's suitable for your skill level is not fun.

Metal Gear Rising did something like that too, didn't it?

Good ideas. I'm probably never actually making this shit, so I shouldn't be asking to be spoonfed

1. How should online singleplayer be handled, if at all? Are event-exclusive items (like legendary pokemon) a good way to keep players engaged (this would be a bad idea with indieshit regardless), or should everything be available always without having to cheat to get stuff?

2. How should HPs work? Should it be limited to something like 3 or 5 hits, or should different enemies do different amounts of damage? If it's upgradable or works in some complex way, I suppose it should be displayed as some sort of bar. Should there be a number? pics related

3. How should combat be handled in a 3D platformer without being ridiculously easy? Jumping on enemy's heads is a little unoriginal, but is there any way to implement it well? Making the game switch to "combat mode" when you get near enemies would restrict freedom, so is it easy to use combat like in Blinx or Spyro without feeling too clunky? Any thoughts on combo attacks?

The only reason anyone should have to play a higher difficulty is to get more of a challenge

Higher difficulties on multiple playtroughs are good for people who want more of the game they just played and i don't think its a good idea to lock stuff away from them if they aren't good at the game, if you do make the game more dumbed down on easy they wont even want to play the game on hard

I'm a big fan of the way that difficulty is handled in GoldenEye on n64.

On the lowest difficulty, guards are innacurate, have poor reactions and shitty peripheral vision. Body armour is littered around the level generously and ammo is plentiful.

Compared to the hardest difficulty where not only are body armour and ammo much more scarce, but the player also needs to complete extra objectives to complete the level. Not to mention the guards aren't retards anymore.


I'm not a big fan of changing how much damage enemies can give and take as a way to increase difficulty, but changing mission objectives, the resources the player has, and the AI of the enemies is a great way to increase difficulty in my mind.

Big problem with that is your audience will range from age 3 babies with no motor skills to 80 year olds trying out their grandsons new football game. Scary as it sounds, every game with any skill requirement needs to be designed as if it was your first. That includes people who have never used technology or computers before (a huge problem where I live, where dyslexia is a massive issue).

It can be done well, but I would still limit that to strategy or story based games, modern Final Fantasy games being probably the best example of a game doing one difficulty and curving nicely. They are all very appropriately designed to guide you so you understand the underlying factors that drive the game by the end.

u wot? How can dyslexia be a regional issue?

The only way I thought of would be to just handle it Mario RPG-style. You know how those games work, yes? Maybe up the difficulty a little, so it's not baby tier? I'm not entirely sure that's a good idea for every game though.

The most important part of a game is how you interface with the world. How you move within it and the actions you can take. Literally everything else should be emergent from movement. If you get game isn't fun to navigate your game isn't good.

Name me one good game that isn't fun to "move" in.

I agree with you, but some games manage to get away with only passable movement. Pokemon R/B/G/S and FFVII, for instance. They do have movement upgrades that are fun, though, so they were definitely conscious of it.

Nothing wrong with difficulty settings, as long as the game is designed with the higher ones in mind.
Easier settings should serve as training for first timers, and are arguably better than being forced to play through an easy beginning every time.

Ideally:


God Hand did a hybrid of this idea with (visible) scaling difficulty. Actions that are effective offensively or defensively (i.e. show the game that you understand what you're doing, not just hitting dudes) raise the meter. Levels 3 and especially Die had a tendency to add moves to more powerful enemies. 3 to Die was also the biggest jump in enemy damage and attack speed. At the same time, the game encouraged fighting at higher difficulties, because at the end of the stage, you'd get much more gold for killing harder enemies, and gold can only be turned into more power (moves, HP, etc.) or gambled at the casino. Also, harder difficulties only buffed enemy offensive potential, it didn't make them bulkier.

It also had manual difficulty. Normal used the full difficulty system. Easy locked it to 1 and 2, meaning you wouldn't get any mean surprises, but the game remained somewhat challenging throughout. Hard locked the game on level Die, and it's hard as fuck without being unfair. It just tests skills you already know to a much stricter extreme.

While movement in pokemon isn't anything special in the over world, gameplay is definitely designed around it. For instance tall grass in potentially an obstacle for the player which the player must navigate using their limited tool set. In a weird way grass acts as either something you want to move into (while you're looking for pokemon, or as an obstacle when your team is weak or you want to get somewhere fast. Things like ledges often provide 1 way shortcuts, but are also used as one way barriers. Escape rope allows you to "escape" from difficult situation or save time, although in the earlier games perhaps dungeons could be better designed to allow for easy escape at the end via shortcut to the start. Of course you can also trade another resource for this ability in the form of a move slot, to teach your pokemon dig/teleport. Of course most of these mechanics are disposed of once you get fly, which begs the questions "Does fly make pokemon LESS fun?". It seems like fly is somewhat of a bandaid to a greater problem, and being to virtually teleport to anywhere in the map makes the world seem less challenging. Is it good game design to reward a player the player's progress with an ability that lets them skip a fundamental part of gameplay? If routes were designed to have more replayability the trek back through previous explored routes could be fun. Instead as is, it's tedious, and Fly is the go to solution to navigate the world.

A game's base movement doesn't necessarily need to be fun to for navigation of the world to be fun. On one hand you have Tribes, where it's just a joy to simply move around, playing with speed and momentum etc, but on the other you have something like STALKER, where you're essentially just walking, but mechanics emerge from this in the form of equipment, supplies, anomalies, AI, and even the terrain. These things limit how you can navigate and thus lead to agency. Your equipment and supplies effect your weight which means that going on treks is a risk reward calculation the player must make. The player must weigh how many supplies they must take to be prepared for what they encounter. Take too much and you won't be able to carry sick loot or you'll have to dump valuable assets, but take too few and you could end up stranded and die. Anomalies play with your limited foresight, and on long treks you always have to be ready at a moments notice that you might run into something deadly. Especially in the frantic heat of battle, if you act sporadically you might jump straight into one making emphasizing the careful planning of movement, and observation of your environment. AI works in a very similar fashion. One of the most important things to keep navigation like this separate is to have your map separate from the main game screen. The minimap that exists isn't helpful in navigating large terrain, and because the map is on a different screen, it makes the player observe the terrain first, and then look at the map for additional pointers. This enables the player to stay in the game world, something that many open world games fail to do because of an overbearing GPS system e.g. Skyrim, FarCry, etc.

I see your point. Movement in Pokemon is more like a puzzle than just a movement system.
It doesn't, though. Fly will only take you to places you've already been, which means it reduces backtracking while forcing you to still progress through new areas manually, or in the terms we've just described, relieves the player of having to repeatedly solve a puzzle they've already solved.

It does. That's why I said:

Yes, as the games are, without fly they would not be good, but the problem isn't back tracking, it's the lack of replay ability in previous routes, and hence makes backtracking not fun.

Rising also gave enemies more attacks

Shit, I guess I'm blind. You're right. Subsequent passes through old areas having new things in them, such as new trainers or side-quests, would have offered more replayability, but from what we know about its development, this probably would have been impossible due to the existing cartridge space problems.