Difficulty setting for the game (Essence of "Why, oh why...")

Feedback/Feature Requests
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I know this has been requested before.

I am doing it again. Because we had a very lengthy discussion about it:

And if anything has shown that players can’t - rightfully - agree on a single game difficulty, it was that thread. We are all different, and we all want different things from the same game. So…

Dear developers, dear Avalanche, please give us a difficulty setting. Because without it, the whole game would have to be re-balanced whenever a majority of the player base cries out loudly. Which means that the game is ever-changing and another group of players will be unhappy with the result.

I am intentionally not posting any specific personal ideas on how to implement this. There are various ways from a mere battle-based difficulty (only modulating enemy response time and damage) to a wide variety of sliders that let you customize the game in a very individual way. Actually, there are ample ideas in this forum, particularly in the second thread I have linked above.

And I would like to ask everyone to refrain from starting another lengthy discussion here. There are other very lively threads in this forum for that. This thread is for summing up the message in a general way so that most players can agree to (the ones asking for a harder game, the ones struggling with the game, and the ones who are happy with the game as it is now).

Thank you for the lively discussions in the past. Please like, if you do, so that we can show Avalanche that this is something many of us desire to have in the game!

And if it turns out we don’t… well then we at least know. :slight_smile:

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For the sake of Feedback & Feature Requests, it’s always up to the creator of the topic in which direction they want to take it. That being said, it’s worth to keep in mind that people must be allowed their opinions. As long as they’re about the topic. If it’s a popular subject, the thread could grow.

The whole point of posting feedback is for people to weigh in if they agree or disagree about it. There’s no need to keep a lengthy discussion about why that is, but it’s better if Avalanche see other people’s opinions on the subject rather than just leaving likes.

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Sure, and I welcome that. The emphasis was more on “lengthy” than anything else. I would like this to be well readable for the devs and Avalanche in general. I feel that is important for our wish to come true.

I see the major point in getting feedback to the devs or the studio, though. Of course it is important to capture how other parts of the community see things. But in this particular case Xog’s thread did that already, and will keep on doing that, I belive.

EDIT: So maybe what I mean by that is that I feel it would be more helpful if people post their individual views on the general proposal of a difficulty setting, and why they see this as important, rather than replying again to each other in a lengthy way. Because we already had that and it only shows that we - rightfully - cannot agree on a single implementation of difficulty.

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Seconded.

In the interest of keeping things short and sweet:
“detailed sliders would be fun, but just having one for a multiplier of enemy hitpoints or player armor would presumably go a long way, and sounds comparatively safe and easy compared to the alternatives.”

I loved many things about the Alpine DLC, but the Apocalypse machines are the point where I can still hack it solo, but no longer find it enjoyable. If the next DLC were to bring another tier of machines and not either a difficulty slider or suitable balancing according to group size, I’d expect to give it a pass.

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There’s a difference between a game being balanced and being hard. Balance isn’t about being fair, either. I wanted to get that in before we return to the “some people find it easier than others” bit.

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I agree that balancing is different from a difficulty modulation. And being able to play at different difficulties does not solve other issues you can have with the game.

Do you have personal opinion on the proposed difficulty setting, though?

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The first quote in this thread was from someone getting killed six times an hour. I can sympathise with that! I got smashed to pâté when I started. I learnt that standing still in front of robots does not bring joy. I learnt that guns don’t shoot where I point and I can’t hit a house while running. I even struggled figuring out the iron sights on the pistol (it’s true!) and which part was supposed to overlap my target. Changing my approach didn’t take a lot of insight, and I’m doubtful that a difficulty setting would really change that situation beyond slowing down the learning process. My embarrassment at being killed so frequently prompted me to look at the situation a little more critically.

I suspect difficulty is more about the level of challenge, and overlaps a little with play style. We have a range of options for completing the missions, including blowing up every robot, and avoiding them as much as possible.

If someone likes being in the open going through engagement after engagement then I can see why they might like sliders or modes to add some variety. Simple settings like damage, health, perhaps detection range might suit that play. But so do other games.
I don’t want to see Generation Zero start throwing trash mobs at us because then we’ll have to be tilting at windmills in the real sense of the phrase.

I think the idea of a difficulty setting splits the game so we’ll lose touch with being in a shared world. I’m not sure how that impacts the community, or if that even matters. This isn’t a mmporg, and we’re not really sharing our heroic stories from outside the bunkers, or (I’m assuming) joining each other’s game. I’m not sure either what the player base is like. It was raised in passing recently that some are here purely to blast robots, and others are trying to “immerse” in story and world.

From my “immersive” perspective, I feel that having reality-warping powers like altering difficulty would be detrimental to my own experience (irrespective of whether I use them or not - I’m finding the same feeling from experimental weapons too, to my surprise). In simple terms: No, I don’t personally want to see difficulty settings, but I can understand why others want it.

If the difficulty is not about missions, story or immersion, then perhaps the answer lies in some kind of insurrection mode where one can take the fight directly to the machines. Where the player(s) have a warehouse / bunker safe house on an island, and a short route to an elaborate robot factory where they can play scrapheap challenge to their hearts’ content. This could be loaded from the menu, instead of existing off the coast of the main island, and scale in difficulty as much as one pleases. I’m just doodling with that, I haven’t thought that one through.

Is there some approach that people pro or contra difficulty settings tend to have in common?

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Thanks for your detailed statement!

I did not post that older feature request to pit it against Xog’s desire for more challenge. I just wanted to point out that I knowingly re-post this topic.

So you basically say you would prefer to not have a difficulty setting because you fear it kills your immersion if being able to adjust the world your playing in (its plausibility). Do I understand correctly?

I also understand your desire for a more inclusive solution to the problem. Although I am not sure I know what the problem then is, actually. The problem I would like to try to solve with my/our request is that some would like the game to be harder, while others would like it to be more casual. This suggestion therefore is already inclusive and addresses this specific problem.

If you feel that there is something else going on, and underlying issue with the game we haven’t really touched/discovered, yet, we should definitely do that. But maybe not in this thread? Or do you feel that a difficulty setting would be even aggravating that aspect of the game which is in imbalance from your perspective?

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:+1: (short, sweet, 20)

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I’d definite prefer keeping this thread on topic.

Yes, I think that sums it up. It took a bit of reflection for me to get to that point, but I think you’re right.

I’m wondering if the solutions for the run-and-gun style is at odds with the solution for the immersive style. Really, I’m wondering what “difficulty” means. Are we talking about the fact some people can’t experience everything in the game, or that there’s a high penalty for making mistakes?

I’m not sure what ‘casual’ is in gaming terms, really. Gaming isn’t my priority or my best skill, I’m just moderately competent. Is that’casual’? Is this like “story mode” versus “battle mode”?

On multiplay host sliders, that’s easy - set it up like oldschool server browsers where you can see and filter the “mode” and rules you’re walking into. It might even improve match making.

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If not a difficulty setting or mode than maybe there is a way for the game’s to scale to the players abilities for example if you are dying 6 times an hour then the A.I recognises that and scales down to match the skill level of that player of course that would only work in solo play and not multi play.
But the game does need something to challenge the elite player but not impacting the casual gamers i.e who play for fun.

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I would prefer not talking about specifics here. Because that is a discussion that never ends. And at the end (…) it comes down to how the studio wants to implement things. Do you see a benefit of a difficulty setting in general? Or even a necessity?

As I said above, I’d like to not talk about specifics. But we probably cannot really avoid that. As the game in itself aside from fighting is not difficult in any way, I (personally) am currently talking about how hard it is to fight the enemies. A ‘casual’ player rather wants to experience the story and not spend so much time with fighting and does not want the fights to be a really hard challenge. While others want that, explicitly. For me a difficulty setting should accommodate for that. A difficulty slider would, of course have a descriptive caption explaining the effects on the game. So you can make an informed decision.

Thinking about that, I guess you are right. The term ‘casual’ does not really help. It often is used in a kind of disrespectful way by hardcore fps shooter players. Maybe your story vs. battle mode distinction is more on the point, @Flick.

I would not be opposed to the missions getting harder aside from fighting, as in it being harder to find the clues (less hud, no overly specific map markers but rather search areas, etc.). But the basic idea is addressing the fighting difficulty.

I could imagine a 3-point scale with the center being the game as it is right now. On the lower level the enemies would be easier to deal with, on the higher level it would be harder. One could even imagine a 4th setting presenting @Zesiir’s hardcore mode (or a variant thereof), with perma-death, reduced inventory, only selected skills, and all the other good stuff.

But that is just me and I don’t want to create another fruitless endless discussion showing that we cannot agree on a very specific implementation. I’d rather find out whether the majority thinks the game would benefit from a difficulty setting, or not. In addition I’d love to learn what it is that you guys experience as too hard or too easy.

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No matter what play-style and difficulty one may prefer, aren’t they all means to the same end, fun?

But MMORPGs often do offer the same dungeons/raids in multiple difficulties.

A fair argument could be made that GZ didn’t have anything but trash mobs when it came out. That notwithstanding, it’d probably take some interesting gymnastics to define ticks as anything else.

How is a slider (that you don’t see while playing) worse than the reality-warping power of resurrecting six times an hour (that you see while in the actual game world)? Or did you create a new character each time?

I would argue that
a) easier<->immersive is a false dichotomy
b) easier can mean more immersive for people as it means being pulled out of immersion by character death less often

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In that case might as well go with the classic Easy - Medium - Hard on the menu and let the play testers set it. I think I’d be ok with that.

@Ennui I agree with your point about easier and immersive.
Fair point re adrenaline. I have actually started a permadeath character recently, as it happens. I guess I’ll see how that one goes. Well, a second. The first died. I think I’m coming around to the idea of variable difficulty.

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Another pro argument for a difficulty setting could be that it increases the replay value of the game. It would allow us to go full hardcore once we know how each enemy type is fought best.

That is actually something I tend to do more frequently with games. I think I played Wolfenstein 2 three times while increasing the difficulty.

That was basically the idea. Just maybe call it “Story mode”, “Original mode”, and “Battle mode”. Or something. That way people don’t get dissed by making their choice. The choice would rather be qualitative than quantitative in apparel. (but we again are in the details)

I also love the more elaborate idea of creatively customizing the game with a multitude of sliders. But I also see the problems outlined earlier on game stability, and how to market a game that is not really one/the game, and not to overwhelm new players with too many confusing/initially obscure settings.

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I wish that was true unfortunately a small percentage of players take gaming to serious and lose sight of “it’s just a game”

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So back on topic, yes the game would benefit new players and casual gamers on different difficulty modes but not elite/long time players of the game who are already skilled with mechanics of the game

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That would be so cool, and even I could understand that. I’m pretty much a medium guy (except that I’m probably a bit more boring than the average :blush:)

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All the better that we don’t cater to that harmful mindset.

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I’ve encountered this a few times but just kick the offending player