Looking For Feedback On My "Story Mode" Setting

[Eschaton]

@Aesica, I disagree. I think the player ought to be able to adjust the difficulty after realizing they bit off more than they could chew when they selected "Not For C-c-c-casuals" at the beginning of the game and don't want to lose all that progress. I don't think its lazy, so much as a bone thrown to the player.

 

[TheoAllen]

Since it had been repeatedly mentioned here. I'm going into a little controversial route to wholeheartedly disagree about difficulty slider / change difficulty mid game, story mode / normal mode represent a lazy developer balancing their game. As a rule of thumb, no game ever balance in the first place. You can't balance a game to serve them for both casual gamers and hardcore gamers.

The change mode mid game is not really a bad idea. There're many types of players. One that challenge themself (try to beat the game without legendary item, lowest level, etc. And even not changing the difficulty mid game), one that don't want the trouble and want to enjoy the content (changing difficulty on the spot they particularly don't like), one that make a mod to cheat everything. Nonetheless, they're all enjoy the game the way they want. And I think it's wonderful.

It was mentioned that "I'm going to change difficulty when I'm gonna buy stuff so it's cheaper" things are 'meta gamers' where this type of gamers always min-maxing game so they gain more with lesser loss. Of course, there're some people who complain about the game can be exploited that way, and you have a right to complain if it's an online game. However in offline game, are you really going to do that? of course some of you do, but do you really "enjoy" doing that? if not, why u do it?

As a disclaimer, I'm not sure if it's not derailed from the original topic. I'm just throwing my cents here.

 

[Aesica]

@Aesica, I disagree. I think the player ought to be able to adjust the difficulty after realizing they bit off more than they could chew when they selected "Not For C-c-c-casuals" at the beginning of the game and don't want to lose all that progress. I don't think its lazy, so much as a bone thrown to the player.

I can see why people might want that, but at the same time, I feel like it's kind of the player's fault to for backing themselves into that corner. When I play a game for the first time and it presents me with difficulties like Super Snooze Easy, Casual, Normal, Hard, Noob Grinder, and Killface Armageddon Murderstorm, I fully expect to get slaughtered repeatedly on every boss (or even from random encounters) if I pick the hardest difficulty. Unless I identify as a hardcore gamer who is ready to throw everything I possibly can into beating the game on Killface Armageddon Murderstorm difficulty, I have no business picking it.

I fully acknowledge that this is just an opinion, and I suspect it isn't a popular one, but it's still my thoughts on the matter.

That said, I'm not likely to use difficulty settings in my game at all, and instead, go with "somewhat challenging story mixed with plenty of extra-challenging side content." That way, I can give extra attention to detail on making sure that the game's singular difficulty level is just right.

 

[Eschaton]

One person's Killface Armageddon Murderstorm is another's Super Snooze Easy. But I understand your point.