Being the cruelest (but fair) RPG Maker you can be.

[BloodletterQ]

What are your methods to difficulty in an RPG Maker game other than broken, unfair monsters?

 

[Golden Unicorn Gaming]

You could warn the player in advance of how dangerous a section may be, and then have consecutive battles, back to back, without affording the player the ability to heal up and change out equipment/spells via an event.


Luke

 

[Ghost of Christmas Kloe]

You should ask Nessy, her games are really really hard...

 

[GreyStone84]

I would make stronger creatures. I'd play test and try to make them so so the player could barely defeat them. I wouldn't call them "broken" and "unfair". Stronger creatures just means to me you have to go level up some more first, maybe grind a little. You can also reduce the amount of resources: available items, how much gold the players find/receive from battles which in turn will limit what they can buy from shops, stuff like that.

 

[Alexander Amnell]

   My methods of difficulty are simply not worrying in the slightest about the growing demographic of people who want nothing to do with difficulty and designing the game to a single, balanced scale. A lot of the 'cheap' difficulties I've seen, especially in rm games involve different game modes for different people where the stats of monsters are changed. Unfortunately I've yet to see a game with such difficulty setting where the game wasn't completely broken for it, either by the hard mode being tacked on just to draw 'hardcores' where the only difference is enemies have unfair stat advantages over players or else an easy mode that is likewise tacked on to appeal to 'casuals' where the enemy stats are lowered to the point where it doesn't matter what strategy was designed to be used against the enemies, they're all just insects hitting the proverbial windshield of the driving plot who cannot pose a threat to even the greenest of the newest of rpg enthusiasts.


   So I don't worry about balancing the game for 'everyone' but balancing it instead for those who want a strategic challenge. My game focuses a lot on party synergy and on throwing off enemies trying to develop the same for their opposition party. As such the game requires thought, go in button mashing and you'll die in the tutorial battle, attack enemies on obvious weaknesses automatically and you set yourself up for falling into battlefield traps and having your own character's turns used against them for the benefit of their foe. At the same time, these same strategies are available to the player very early in the game and showing a little bit of observational skills can turn the tides of battle for you, the difficulty is mostly determined by how quickly the player can observe the games mechanics and learn from their mistakes.


   I take a different route with difficulty. On it's face nothing changes regarding the player characters, enemies or either of their collective abilities regarding the two difficulty levels that players can choose from. On the one hand I don't care how difficult people find the game, but on the other I can admit that not everyone has the time to see a difficult game through to the very end when it means dying to enemies you just didn't have experience with yet and made a mistake that left you open to being obliterated. So instead of having a punishing Hardcore mode and a condescending Casual the modes you select at the beginning of the game are called "lore and story" and "perfectionist", and literally the only difference between the two modes is that on lore and story you have a guardian of sorts (the protagonist's teacher) who will step into most battles and use a powerful second-wind ability (varies from battle to battle, but usually either healing and buffing the party against the enemy's attacks for a couple of turns or stunning said enemy for a turn or two to let the party heal/buff themselves back to living) when the party's collective hp pool falls below 20%. This way the game stays the same functionally and is thus balanced against both modes, but if you are hardcore and want do do everything on your own you can choose the mode that puts all of the burden on winning or failing on you and if you aren't, for whatever reason you are still given a chance to play the game as it was designed to be played, and if/when you get the hang of the games mechanics and start playing well you'll likely no longer see the difference, as the one-time-per-battle second wind ability will never kick in unless you are on the absolute cusp of defeat and likely beyond turning the battle around on your own anyway (I've been testplaying where the animation for the ability plays but the effects have been deleted and have thus far only had one encounter where the ability triggered and I was still able to pull off a victory afterwards, out of dozens of tests set up trying my hardest to do just that) so that outside of what happens when you actually lose the game functionally everything in the game is the exact same for the player playing on lore and story and the player playing perfectionist.


   It neither compromises to people who don't want to have to think nor condescends to those whose time constraints disallow them from taking up all or nothing challenges. I respect both types of players by allowing their needs to fit within the game itself, rather than butchering the integrity of my game to appease everyone.

 

[Wavelength]

I think the answer would lie in placing the challenges of the game outside the battle screen.  Once you do so, you give yourself a lot of latitude because you can deal with success/failure conditions that don't automatically end the game and you can require skills from the player that aren't measured in raw stats.


In a game I playtested recently, dungeons would collapse after you fought a boss and you'd have a limited amount of time to escape the dungeon (failing gets you a game over).  One particularly cool twist on this was a dungeon which contained a puzzle you had to solve - after it collpased once you beat the boss, you had to escape the dungeon, which meant you had to do this puzzle again, in reverse, while the timer kept ticking!  It was very frantic and very cool.


The goal of one of my own games is to save a local business by earning enough money before deadlines to pay off a debt.  There are battles and lots of other activities, but losing these don't net you a game over - it simply wastes time without you earning any money.  The game over condition is to fail to pay the debt before a deadline.  In redefining success/failure in this way, I can now make the individual activities as challenging as I want to because it's okay to fail them.  I can also introduce long-term strategy and planning as necessary skills that add challenge to the game without making anything unfair.

 

[MadMaus]

I think the answer would lie in placing the challenges of the game outside the battle screen.  Once you do so, you give yourself a lot of latitude because you can deal with success/failure conditions that don't automatically end the game and you can require skills from the player that aren't measured in raw stats.


In a game I playtested recently, dungeons would collapse after you fought a boss and you'd have a limited amount of time to escape the dungeon (failing gets you a game over).  One particularly cool twist on this was a dungeon which contained a puzzle you had to solve - after it collpased once you beat the boss, you had to escape the dungeon, which meant you had to do this puzzle again, in reverse, while the timer kept ticking!  It was very frantic and very cool.

I agree with every single word Wavelength said. People tend to think the combat is the only way you can make obstacles for the players in an RPG game, specially beginning developers. RPGs have a lot of other concepts to be explored, like the role-playing itself for example (Making difficult choices with different results for each one), scenery discovery (In Dark Souls, for example, the scenery is one of your most dangerous enemies) and puzzles, like Wavelength said above. These would be my go-to choices of creating obstacles for the players in my games.

 

[Victor Sant]

More than how strong are your enemies, you should also see how much resources are available, specially healing.


An old project I was making didn't had strong enemies, but was considered very hard because people would end dungeons without items and mp if they spent them without thinking.


If your game your characters have hundred MP points, with skills costing 5 MP and having MP recovery items on shops, then the skills can be abused (specially the healing skills) and this makes the battles easy. With this model, character will only die when they are one-hit-KO'ed.

 

[hadecynn]

My approach is to detach the difficulty and challenge from the game over condition, and offer "difficulty selection" on an encounter-by-encounter level that is in direct response to the player's performance.


I'm using on-map visible encounters (where enemies do NOT chase and auto-engage), so when a player party is wiped out, be it by a boss or a normal enemy, the player is merely returned back to the tile where they were, allowing them to rethink their strategy and redo the battle without the frustration of losing progress or just ignore the encounter and move on. For unavoidable boss encounters, after an X number of wipes, the player will be given the option of retrying the battle with a 10% boost across all stats; a few more unsuccessful attempts later, and the player will be given the option of retrying the battle with a 20% boost across all stats. At no time are these buffs forced on the player; they are merely a way out for those that are truly stuck.


The counterweight to this system is that, every encounter gives different rewards based on how quickly they were cleared, with better rewards given to shorter battles. By selecting to use these buffs to clear the boss, the game automatically puts the player into the lowest reward tier. Therefore, players that only want to progress for the story will be able to "control" the difficulty on a case-by-case basis reflected by their actual performance in exchange for minimum loot, while "hardcore" players in for the challenge will have the additional time constraint to worry about in addition to just making it out alive. Regardless of how the boss is cleared, there is a mini-game-like system where the player can freely re-challenge this boss for a better ranking/loot, with the caveat that their party composition/stats/equipment/skills will be set to the theoretical maximum of what they could have gotten at the point in the game when the boss was originally fought (doable in my game because there's are level caps for each section of the game). Therefore, players who opt to first clear the story before diving into the challenges do not run the risk of permanently missing anything and always have the option to challenge themselves, while the integrity of the difficulty/challenge of boss battles that have been deliberately fine-tuned will not be compromised due to over-leveling. Due to these systems, I can deliberately make getting the best rank REALLY hard, and I do. =)


For some reason, maybe due to how games were like this back in the old days, people seem to really like to tie "difficulty/challenge" to "story progress". Making it as if "story" is the ultimate reward that incentivizes players to confront and overcome gameplay challenges. That's just not true. In fact, I would argue that if players are suffering through the game systems in order to get to the next part of the story, then the game part of the game has failed and needs a lot of work. For a well-designed game that's actually fun to play, players that enjoy the game and its mechanics will seek out challenges for themselves even if you don't make them long after they've cleared the story (just look at how many speed runs, level-one runs, handicapped runs, god-knows-what-other-masochistic-restrictions-people-do runs are out there for games that we love). Therefore, I think the best reward for players who like to solve the problems that you've made for them (defined within your game rules, goals, challenges) is to give them more challenges or new tools to tackle these challenges. Hence, make "difficulty/challenge" a feature independent from things like "story/plot progress"; by doing so you'll eliminate the need to "cater" to different audience groups while also making challenges hard enough to give your best players a run for their money.

 

[BloodletterQ]

More than how strong are your enemies, you should also see how much resources are available, specially healing.


An old project I was making didn't had strong enemies, but was considered very hard because people would end dungeons without items and mp if they spent them without thinking.


If your game your characters have hundred MP points, with skills costing 5 MP and having MP recovery items on shops, then the skills can be abused (specially the healing skills) and this makes the battles easy. With this model, character will only die when they are one-hit-KO'ed.

Yeah and that's where your MP plugin comes in. Looking forward to seeing that one since it's more optimized with the spell system I have going on than the trouble I'm having right now with Yanfly's Limited Skill Uses, but I digress.

My approach is to detach the difficulty and challenge from the game over condition, and offer "difficulty selection" on an encounter-by-encounter level that is in direct response to the player's performance.


I'm using on-map visible encounters (where enemies do NOT chase and auto-engage), so when a player party is wiped out, be it by a boss or a normal enemy, the player is merely returned back to the tile where they were, allowing them to rethink their strategy and redo the battle without the frustration of losing progress or just ignore the encounter and move on. For unavoidable boss encounters, after an X number of wipes, the player will be given the option of retrying the battle with a 10% boost across all stats; a few more unsuccessful attempts later, and the player will be given the option of retrying the battle with a 20% boost across all stats. At no time are these buffs forced on the player; they are merely a way out for those that are truly stuck.


The counterweight to this system is that, every encounter gives different rewards based on how quickly they were cleared, with better rewards given to shorter battles. By selecting to use these buffs to clear the boss, the game automatically puts the player into the lowest reward tier. Therefore, players that only want to progress for the story will be able to "control" the difficulty on a case-by-case basis reflected by their actual performance in exchange for minimum loot, while "hardcore" players in for the challenge will have the additional time constraint to worry about in addition to just making it out alive. Regardless of how the boss is cleared, there is a mini-game-like system where the player can freely re-challenge this boss for a better ranking/loot, with the caveat that their party composition/stats/equipment/skills will be set to the theoretical maximum of what they could have gotten at the point in the game when the boss was originally fought (doable in my game because there's are level caps for each section of the game). Therefore, players who opt to first clear the story before diving into the challenges do not run the risk of permanently missing anything and always have the option to challenge themselves, while the integrity of the difficulty/challenge of boss battles that have been deliberately fine-tuned will not be compromised due to over-leveling. Due to these systems, I can deliberately make getting the best rank REALLY hard, and I do. =)


For some reason, maybe due to how games were like this back in the old days, people seem to really like to tie "difficulty/challenge" to "story progress". Making it as if "story" is the ultimate reward that incentivizes players to confront and overcome gameplay challenges. That's just not true. In fact, I would argue that if players are suffering through the game systems in order to get to the next part of the story, then the game part of the game has failed and needs a lot of work. For a well-designed game that's actually fun to play, players that enjoy the game and its mechanics will seek out challenges for themselves even if you don't make them long after they've cleared the story (just look at how many speed runs, level-one runs, handicapped runs, god-knows-what-other-masochistic-restrictions-people-do runs are out there for games that we love). Therefore, I think the best reward for players who like to solve the problems that you've made for them (defined within your game rules, goals, challenges) is to give them more challenges or new tools to tackle these challenges. Hence, make "difficulty/challenge" a feature independent from things like "story/plot progress"; by doing so you'll eliminate the need to "cater" to different audience groups while also making challenges hard enough to give your best players a run for their money.

Welcome back by the way. Very fine points.


Right now with the current starter project I have going on and ideally my passion project, I want a Fire Emblem level of influence, even having random level ups in my game. I know Final Fantasy III on the DS got criticized for this, but save points are out on the field map. Dark Souls doesn't have a game over, but right now I'm thinking of having continues cost money like in SMT IV.

 

[Chaos Avian]

I grew up playing a LOT of Atlus RPGs so if the game isn't "cruel" in some way, I consider it too easy most of the time. A lot of my games I design draw especially from Etrian Odyssey in particular, sure of course fights are a threat but the environment is trying to kill you as well (depending on your choices when interacting with said environment). Ahh, a bright sunny clear open space? Go relax there, I dare you. My games are far from a button mash fest, though unlike Atlus RPGs they aren't maddeningly difficult (unless you're a masochist, which in that case you must live a very eventful life~).


Similar to what Victor Sant mentioned about resources, I never allow really easy access to items/ MP Pools, etc since it can/ does trivialise the difficulty and you can offset the attrition of battles with little worry for resource diminishing. I either limit the amount of items you can use in battle, or have it so you can't buy items right from the get go and have to survive on what you find and your own HP/MP reserves. However, the player is greatly rewarded for "surviving" the earlier stages. I essentially start the player off at Magikarp level, then they ascend to Gyrados level after time. 

 

[AwesomeCool]

For some reason, maybe due to how games were like this back in the old days, people seem to really like to tie "difficulty/challenge" to "story progress". Making it as if "story" is the ultimate reward that incentivizes players to confront and overcome gameplay challenges. That's just not true. In fact, I would argue that if players are suffering through the game systems in order to get to the next part of the story, then the game part of the game has failed and needs a lot of work. For a well-designed game that's actually fun to play, players that enjoy the game and its mechanics will seek out challenges for themselves even if you don't make them long after they've cleared the story (just look at how many speed runs, level-one runs, handicapped runs, god-knows-what-other-masochistic-restrictions-people-do runs are out there for games that we love). Therefore, I think the best reward for players who like to solve the problems that you've made for them (defined within your game rules, goals, challenges) is to give them more challenges or new tools to tackle these challenges. Hence, make "difficulty/challenge" a feature independent from things like "story/plot progress"; by doing so you'll eliminate the need to "cater" to different audience groups while also making challenges hard enough to give your best players a run for their money.

I have to disagree.  There are some people that do that, but there are many people that only ever default to the normal game difficulty and then complain it is to easy.  Heck, I read old game design books on difficulty that even stated statistics that people rarely move up the difficulty if it is to easy (quick to go the other way around however), even if the easy difficulty is ruining the game for them.  Pretty much making the initial difficulty picked as the hardest the average person will go (using statistics and humans natural desire for the path of least resistance as it's reasoning).


And to add to that, I like hard games, but will never go out of my way to challenge myself after the story is over.  There are many other games to play out there and there isn't anything left to progress in the game (what is the point of killing a super boss or other post endgame challenges really? No more story, no more point to progression, just a ego boost).


*I forgot if the statistic was from the book written by the creator of Doom, Ultima (the player feedback loop from this one is stupidly interesting) or another.  So don't ask for the exact source as it has been to long.

 

[hadecynn]

I have to disagree.  There are some people that do that, but there are many people that only ever default to the normal game difficulty and then complain it is to easy.  Heck, I read old game design books on difficulty that even stated statistics that people rarely move up the difficulty if it is to easy (quick to go the other way around however), even if the easy difficulty is ruining the game for them.  Pretty much making the initial difficulty picked as the hardest the average person will go (using statistics and humans natural desire for the path of least resistance as it's reasoning).

I think one of the main reasons you would observe this, especially if the data is dated, is that in the past, games didn't have difficulty modes implemented as well as current games. Though mainly for action games and not RPGs, it used to be that the player would go into the Options menu in the Title Screen of a game and choose a Difficulty Mode that locks the entire game session/save file into that mode. I think there are two fundamental design flaws here, the first is that for a first-time player, there's nothing for them to use as frames of references in terms of "Easy", "Normal", or "Hard". The "Hard" I'm used to in a different game might very well be "Easy" in this new game. I wouldn't know. Therefore, it becomes very natural for the "average" player to play it safe, and like you said, take the path of least resistance when they are starting out. The second flaw is that, because you are not allowed to change the difficulty of the game DURING this play session, the levels that you've cleared up until wherever you find the game to be too easy become sunk costs working against the motivation to start over on a higher difficulty.


I don't know if this is true, but if I had to venture a guess on why people are quick to move down from difficult to easy and not the other way around, I would say its because for people that are forced to move down, they feel the stress of them continuing on this particular level on "Hard" is higher than the stress of re-clearing on "Easy" the previous stages they've already cleared; having cleared the previous content on "Hard" virtually guarantees that they can quickly and perhaps effortlessly get back up to where they were stuck once they reset on "Easy". This doesn't work in reverse, because not only do players NOT have the stress of the current level kicking their butts (why fix something if it ain't broke, even if its not the best?), they also don't have the guarantee that they can even get back to where they were if they reset the game on "Hard". Coupled this with the fact that older games aren't out necessarily out to provide an enjoyable experience, and I can see why most people (including myself) won't have the urge to play on a higher difficulty mode.


However, recent games have taken different and more dynamic approaches to difficulty setting, and I think a great counter-example against players not moving up the difficulty curve would be Diablo 3. The game has dozens of difficulty levels that are adjustable on the fly, and the harder difficulties aren't even unlocked until you've met various milestones, including beating the main story campaign. If most of Diablo's players were in fact reluctant to move up the difficulty ladder and only out to see the story, we would have a hard time explaining the game's lifetime, player base size, and success. Also note that even though higher difficulty levels causes players to die more easily (permanently if the player plays on that mode), the "reward" for playing in hard mode isn't to advance the story; it's to increase the likelihood of getting better loot. And why do you want better loot? To play on even higher difficulty to get ever better loot!!! Overall, the enjoyment and the challenge doesn't come from getting to unlock the plot, which is my main point about detaching "difficulty" with "story progression": its that there's something inherently fun about seeing your character being able to deal millions of points of damage per hit, and something addicting about anticipating that sound and visual effect of a Legendary/Set item dropping.

And to add to that, I like hard games, but will never go out of my way to challenge myself after the story is over.  There are many other games to play out there and there isn't anything left to progress in the game (what is the point of killing a super boss or other post endgame challenges really? No more story, no more point to progression, just a ego boost).

You mention that you like hard games, but do you feel antagonistic about easy, or at least, not-so-hard games? Do you automatically dislike them by virtue of their difficulty (or lack thereof) even if it had a great story (which I am guessing is one of your main points of interest)? If you don't dislike them, then I don't really see a problem. I think its great that you know what you want to get out of in a game, and if a game delivers, perfect! End-game bosses and optional dungeons cater to a specific group of players, so I wouldn't expect everybody to clear it. 


Ultimately, the point I'm making is that I think there's an all-too common habit of going: "let's make the game feel hard by making the player unable to progress until they've cleared the challenge." In essence, this is holding the plot hostage as a threat in order to create the sense of difficulty. While doing this will almost certainly add additional playtime to your game, it doesn't necessarily add additional fun to your game, and can quickly escalate into frustration and abandonment by certain player demographics. Some developers will respond, as we see in this community as well, by saying "I'm not going to cater to these guys, they'll just have to 'git gud'", but that doesn't solve the problem for anybody, especially because there are so many games and options out there today. Therefore, I think as developers we should challenge a lot of these legacy assumptions and really dig deep into what difficulty actually do and not do for their game, instead of just operating on the belief that difficulty means costing players unnecessary delays towards the next plot point and wasted play time.

 

[AwesomeCool]

@hadecynn - Diablo 3 entire point is getting to harder points with more and more loot.  Most people even tell me the game isn't beat till you beat it at the highest difficulty.  So the difficulty stops being optional and more of the next step.


Also, Diablo 3 is not about the story and most players I know think the lore is pretty stupid (just about smashing monsters to them).  So it isn't optional but the entire point and if anything, the story could be the one considered optional.  Not really a fair comparison with story driven games whose point is to play to completion for the story and not to beat the game 3+ times in an attempt to get better and better loot.


In regards to your second question, not automatically, but it does impact my enjoyment of the game (the difficulty).


An easy game will make me less invested as I would be less pumped about victory and less worried about mistakes.  This would ultimately make the experience more forgettable for me and less immersive.


ex: That supposedly really tough enemy? If I beat it the first try with no sweat, I will not really think the enemy is all that tough in my head.  And being told that they are tough and it was a difficult for the party just makes me feel a disconnect from what they are saying and what it really felt like (and will ultimately hurt immersion).


Also, just because a game is easier does not make it more fun either.  Decreases in difficulty can make players feel like they are being treated as inept or feel like the game is being dumbed down for the sake of getting more sales.  And might even cause people to drop the game as they get to bored with the gameplay to finish the story.


Plus, unless they played the game thoroughly before, cared enough and actually remembered the challenging segments, optional difficult challenges will never be reached by those that are looking for challenging games anyway (and they probably would want to play a new game rather then sift through many old ones to find challenging games).  As they would have to play through many hours of easy content to get to the hard content (main gripe people have with the New Game+ system in Dark Souls).


Finally, what is wrong with targeting certain player demographics and ignoring others?  I honestly think that this isn't done enough, as developers try to please everyone and end up not amazing anybody.  A game should not be forced to be as inclusive as possible (game has to have a single player, multiplayer, easy modes, hard modes, etc) and gamers shouldn't expect every game to be made specifically for them.


Conclusion:


If a game wants to be difficult, go for it.  If a game wants to be easy, go for it.  If a game wants to include a bit of both, go for it.


All of these options will end up with people loving and hating the end result and one choice does not make the game better then another choice.

Spoiler

Do people realize why Dark Souls does not have difficulty options?


A good difficult game needs more then just differing damage numbers (increasing damage is just punishing design).


The level design, the enemy placement, the traps, the ambushes, and even the pacing would have to be changed to accommodate the easier difficulties (or the game will end up being terribly balanced for the lower difficulties) and that would impact the  fairness of higher difficulties as well.


Plus many of the games play on fears and panic will no longer matter and would impact the main theme the game has (hope and how far one will go to hang onto hope).

 

[hadecynn]

Diablo 3 entire point is getting to harder points with more and more loot.  Most people even tell me the game isn't beat till you beat it at the highest difficulty.  So the difficulty stops being optional and more of the next step.


Also, Diablo 3 is not about the story and most players I know think the lore is pretty stupid (just about smashing monsters to them).  So it isn't optional but the entire point and if anything, the story could be the one considered optional.  Not really a fair comparison with story driven games whose point is to play to completion for the story and not to beat the game 3+ times in an attempt to get better and better loot.

I wasn't using Diablo 3 as a way to compare story-driven game versus those that are not though. In response to the data pointing out how players are more likely to go down the difficulty scale as opposed to up, I was merely suggesting that there are ways to incentivize players to attempt harder difficulty outside of the progression of plot by using non-traditional ways of difficulty adjustment, which I think you're in agreement with me here by virtue of you pointing out that the story could be the one considered optional in this case.

Also, just because a game is easier does not make it more fun either.  Decreases in difficulty can make players feel like they are being treated as inept or feel like the game is being dumbed down for the sake of getting more sales.  And might even cause people to drop the game as they get to bored with the gameplay to finish the story.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for easier games and certainly not suggesting that easy games make for better games. Since my first post, all I've been trying to say is: the use of story progression as the reward for overcoming a difficult challenge, and thereby forcing every player to go through that challenge, might need some reconsideration and deliberate decision rather than simply "because that's how it's been done." 


The implication and difference here is that the difficulty and challenge exists as an option, but not optional in the sense of having secret boss/dungeons post-game. The challenge/difficulty is instead interwoven into the game design in such a way that it's there for the player to aim for. I guess the best way to describe it would be: "easy to learn, hard to master", where the "hard" part (literally) comes with the mastering aspect that not every player is forced to go through. 


To use my game as an example again, since there is no difficulty option, Boss Fight A is going to have the same stats/numbers/mechanics for both the "hardcore" player as well as the "casual" player (I don't particularly like these classifications, but bear with me, the former stands for the challenge-seeking players, while the latter refers to the story-hungry players). 


By having a good understanding of the skills/abilities at their disposal, the "hardcore" player wipes once, and clears the Boss A on her second try. However, she only got a B Rank, which signifies to her that there are ways to do even better and clear the battle more efficiently (implying better play) with her current gear/state. If she wants to progress with the story at this point, that's fine. If she wants to immediately go to the mini-game-area and re-challenge the boss until she gets the S Rank and the loot, that's fine too. In whichever case, the game has both provided feedback to the player on how she is doing (in terms of her own player skill), as well as clearly defining a difficult challenge and its rewards (getting that S Rank) for the player to aim for if she chooses.


On the other hand, the "casual" player is a novice to RPGs, and repeatedly gets wiped by Boss A. Has the concept that this game is difficult and will kick your butt if you keep mashing "Attack" been communicated? Absolutely. So now, after the third try, the game gently offers the player the option to try this specific encounter with a 10% boost across all stats without taking anything away from the player. If the "casual" player wants to solve the battle himself, that's fine, the option to use the buff will still be there. But if this player is pressed for time, or simply doesn't want to think through every boss battle, he can take the buff and resume the game/story. 


In both cases, I'm not making an easy game and certainly not dumbing things. I'm making a hard game that offers even harder challenges with appropriate awards for players that are interested in the challenge, while providing an option to temporarily lower the difficulty for those that just want the story not because I assume they are inept, but because their actual performance suggests the possibility of needing a little help. By doing so, I'm isolating the challenge and making it intrinsically motivated rather than the extrinsic "I have to overcome this otherwise I'm stuck forever." 

Finally, what is wrong with targeting certain player demographics and ignoring others?  I honestly think that this isn't done enough, as developers try to please everyone and end up not amazing anybody.  A game should not be forced to be as inclusive as possible (game has to have a single player, multiplayer, easy modes, hard modes, etc) and gamers shouldn't expect every game to be made specifically for them.

This was poor wording on my part. I agree that developers should be self-aware in terms of whether they want to appeal to the masses or to a niche, and should pursue whatever they decide to do. What I DO think is wrong, is a developer who ISN'T thinking about their target audience AND has the mentality that "either the players learn to git gud, or these noobs that grew up on __insert_casual_game__ are not good enough/worthy of a REAL game."


Finally, while I'm not quite sure how the conversation moved from my "Hence, make "difficulty/challenge" a feature independent from things like "story/plot progress"; by doing so you'll eliminate the need to "cater" to different audience groups while also making challenges hard enough to give your best players a run for their money." to your "If a game wants to be difficult, go for it.  If a game wants to be easy, go for it.  If a game wants to include a bit of both, go for it. All of these options will end up with people loving and hating the end result and one choice does not make the game better then another choice," but I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion. =) 

 

[MidKin]

As above mentioned there are multiple ways we can keep the game challenge (battle, puzzle, multi-end quests, etc.) . I think combination of this elements rather than having one. So that players do not have to be master of battling or puzzle solving but they need to try a bit of each. Sometimes parallel option could be given too. For example you can complete a quest by solving a puzzle to get the reward item or kill a boss to get it. While both ways could be challenging , players could chose the way they prefer. Some players might even play a second round in order to try both.

 

[kaukusaki]

I like strategy games and when I plan my games I don't have a difficulty slider. It depends on how the player uses their resources (items, magic armor etc). What one person finds difficult another finds easy. I played a few so called difficult rm games and to me they were super easy as I play conservatively and grind enemies. (I don't mind - played lots of old school games).


in development I try to keep in mind the different play styles players tend to fall into - aggressive, defensive and balanced. I also test my party members to make sure all configurations have equal chances of winning.


I don't like playing games that force the player into the developers preferred play style as it can be aggravating. But some I tolerate (side eye Atlus) because despite my misgivings I still enjoy it.

 

[Ellie Jane]

Difficulty isn't necessarily about stronger monsters, but monsters that attack in different (but fixed) styles so that you can deploy a strategy to defeat them. A quick example is when you enter the boss fight between Reno and Rude in FFVII for the first time, and Rude keeps healing Reno. You quickly gather that if you kill Rude first then no heals will be cast - BUT Rude attacks for much less damage. So if you silence Rude and kill Reno first you do a much better job.


Make it so that it's difficult to defeat the enemy if you don't employ that strategy, and you have a difficult battle.

 

[Matseb2611]

Cheap ways of increasing the difficulty (the ones I'd encourage to avoid at all costs):


 - difficulty spikes that force grinding


 - disable saving anywhere option


 - make items overpriced


 - overly frequent random encounters that are hard to escape/avoid


 - bosses immune to every negative status effect


 - revive skills/items only restoring the KOed ally to 1 HP


Good (in my opinion) ways of increasing the difficulty:


 - a large variety of player skills, as in make each skill somewhat unique and useful in at least some situations


 - a large variety of enemy types, troops, and behaviours, as in force the player to change their strategy on a regular basis and to make them figure out what is the best tactic against the enemy troop at hand


 - a rich and non-linear equipment customization, as in make the player optimize the role of each character - like they have to think about what gear they give each character in order to make them as effective in battle as possible so that they can overcome the challenge ahead


 - optional challenge that comes with a reward - make the player want to partake in optional and more challenging activities in the game, such as difficult sidequests, or even having to defeat a boss a certain way and so on

 

[Valryia]

After many years of contemplating, i came to the conclusion that i won't offer different difficulty settings.


Why? Because lmost all players can't know what the differences between the settings are, or if it is optimal for them


Instead, i simply make the main game easy-moderate - throw a monkey wrench here and there, but nothing a alive player can't handle. On the other hand, i make any bonus dungeons hard. Mind you, i'm not planning to have a single bonus dungeon at the end. I want to have multiple over the course of the game.