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Should players be allowed to set their own difficulty?
ktanner3
Member UncommonPosts: 4,063
I've seen this idea bantered around on the official forums. Apparently in CO (according to one of the posters) you are able to set your own difficulty level in PVE. That poster along with a few others think this should be implemented in STO.In my opinion this is a bad idea.
1.) The game shouldn't have to adjust to the player, it is the player that should have to adjust to the game. If you're not good enough to get past a mission, then you should either ask for help in the community or practice,pracftice,practice until you can get better.
2.) You should not be able to gain the same gear or stuff in game on easy mode as you do in hard mode. That is just unfair to the players.
3.) PVE should have at least some sense of challenge to it. Some of these posters that are advocating for the easy level believe that PVE should always be easy and that NPCS should always be a few skills below them. In my opinion, that means that what they are really wanting is no possibility of dying. They want to be the heroes in their own universe and dying destroys that illusion. In my opinion, that is what single player games are for.
Thoughts?
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Comments
I had to vote no.
The only time I like the idea of being able to set the difficulty of content is when it comes to things like AO's mission type content. It was fun to take a group into a mission and see if we could clear it at higher settings than we should have been able to. Sure we would fail a lot, but it was a challenge we could do when we were bored.
I mean if you could only up the difficulty from your point on I might not see a problem with it. But being able to set it lower than you kinda takes the fun out of a game....
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Not going to be playing STO, as you know, but I'm an adovocate of customizable difficulty.
Problem is some people find the game too hard and others too easy. Make an adjustable difficulty and more people can play. That's healthier for the game. Make sure that people are rewarded for higher difficulties and there's still a good incentive to practice and work harder so you get skills faster and better loot.
Key idea: This also means it is ok for the devs to have very deep tactics in combat. If you can't handle all of the tactical depth, then you can lower the difficulty. If you do learn to handle it, then you can up it, and naturally be rewarded for your hard work.
The only problem is what to do in groups. That's not too hard though. There are a few options:
1. Difficulty is averaged among the people in the group, so weaker players are helped with harder difficulties by more experienced players and those more experienced players still have a challenge because the weaker players can handle less.
2. Difficulty in a formed group can be set by the group leader (for things like raids or dungeons...not terribly applicable in STO though).
3. Or you could only group people together who picked the same difficulty.
Obviously this wouldn't apply to PvP and probably not to Fleet Battles (though option 3 might work well here).
People should rise to the challenge, not whine until its dumbed down for them. I'm against difficulty changes for several reasons. Really, to do it, first of all it only really works with instances. Additionally, you need to basically make the "Easy" missions completely worthless reward wise, or people will ALWAYS grind out millions of easy missions rather than attempt the hard ones so long as its more "cost effective" to grind easy ones than do several hard missions. Stupid? Yes, but this is the community that has formed. The path of least resistance and "everything now". It also makes achievements in the game mean a ton less. I mean, when the first person to take down what is supposed to be some epic boss in a easy instance does it, its just so underwhelming. Sure, you can go "Well we beat Captain Amazing Mob....ON HARD MODE *smug 8D!*" but nobody cares. The event matters more than the difficulty for the most part. I mean really, its just not a great idea. You can do it, but it's a "feature" that completely changes the game.
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It has been my experience that most people who want the easier settings believe that they should get the same rewards. In their view, what they do in game is no business of yours. As long as it doesn't affect you, then you shouldn't care. I disagree of course, but I remember this argument very well from the SWG forums and I'm seeing it repeated on STO.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Why would anyone vote no? You're basically voting against the game giving the player the option of playing at the difficulty level they like to play? If someone else likes to play at a harder/easier setting than your preference, let them! It affects you in no way.
I think they should be able to raise the bar from basic level on there own. but not lower the bar beyond standard difficulty
you can do this with the instancing within this game.
played:WoW and Eve off and on 5 years
Tried:CoH/V, PoTBS, War, TR, STO, FE
TOR is likely to rock
I voted No.
For all the reasons the OP stated.
I personally think it's a huge issue in single-player games, I couldn't imagine how to get it right in an MMO without doing what DDO does in retreading old content with a harder setup... and even then, people only do it twice for loot or favor grinds. Once a player beats a game on easy mode, there really is no incentive to do it again with only being slightly harder.
What's even worse is changing difficulty on the fly ala Oblivion and FO3. Why don't we just give up on pacing in general if we are going that route as a whole? "ya I play on hard until I need an advantage"
It's really lame.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
These complaints are easy to address (same with Ktanner's)
0. Only works in instances, you say? Well STO is basically ALL instances. That's easy.
1. Ignore the people who want easier difficulties to give the same rewards as the harder ones.
2. Make sure rewards scale with time investment, then have a bonus based on difficulty. So if Hard quests take 50% longer to do than an Easy quest, it should provide say 50%+10% more skill points, and 50% more items that are of better quality. Heck, at least aim for neutrality in rewards.
3. Going from WoW, people care about difficulty settings and WoW has a very trivial system (though one that does give better wards). WoW hasn't been hurt by this at all, from what I saw in WoTLK (played until a bit after Ulduar was released). The biggest example would be harder boss fights such as OS with 3 Drakes up...that sort of stuff does impress and people care about it. If you really want something special than a tough fight might only be accessible after beating other things on a sufficiently hard setting.
3 (addition). Well, it does change the game a bit. It makes it less elitist, but that's good for Subs and if done right the hard core still have their stuff to do and things to show off for doing the tough stuff. It also helps keep the game alive. If you prefer a tough game that results in most people quitting...well, then you'll soon have no game at all.
I didnt know they had that option in CO, but in COH they did and I for one always changed the difficulty to higher up just because i destroyed everything at the normal difficulty. I dont remember if i got better xp or anything but it was more fun. Now as for STO I think they should let you increase the difficulty, and keep the difficulty it is right now the base
Most MMOs have their tactical depth set somewhere between tic-tac-toe and checkers. It's pretty lame. If the tactics were really deep like Chess, Battlemech, war games, Go, etc, then how smart you play really matters. If you have the skill, then instead of easy you'd do it on hard, harder, or hardest and get better skills and loot for your trouble (and also be challenged). So changing difficulties allow you to have a lot of tactical depth without sacrificing a bunch of customers for it. It's win-win for players.
I voted no.
Well, they let you pause ingame so why not set your difficulty level too. I think that's an intriguing idea. They could tinker with the whole risk/versus reward too.
I see a couple potential hurdles. First, who decides in a zone what the difficulty would be? And also if there are say...three different ability levels, you have now split up the community even more, perhaps thus necessitating more instances of a zone and increasing server load. And also, the game would now have to be tweeked for three different levels.
This is not a single player game, it's much more complex and tweaking the different difficulties could get very tricky. It would take away resources that could perhaps better be spent expanding the game.
Absolutely....set difficulty to your inability to keep playing a shallow and tedious game.....then rock on.
It's better to lurk in forums and be thought a fool...than to endlessly "Quote" and remove all doubts.
I've though about this feature in MMOs for handicapped people (or just braindead, like me). Some people only have one hand, a few fingers, etc.
I thought separate servers would be a good idea for that. I don't know how to implement that in STO since they have one server. It might be interesting to think about it since there will most likely be handicapped people playing it.
Judging by the numbers of the vote, I seem to be in the minority, thinking that this is just wrong. Why would you (or the designers) have to dictate how someone else plays the game. They want a challenging team mission? Ok, dial up the difficultometer. You want some relaxed single player fun? Sure, take it down a notch!
I'm sick of "the system". People feel like they have to obey "the system", because that's how it is, and you better abide by its rules. The system is what the people made it and the people should be empowered to change it again. (feel free to substitute system with game)
Judging by the numbers of the vote, I seem to be in the minority, thinking that this is just wrong. Why would you (or the designers) have to dictate how someone else plays the game. They want a challenging team mission? Ok, dial up the difficultometer. You want some relaxed single player fun? Sure, take it down a notch!
I'm sick of "the system". People feel like they have to obey "the system", because that's how it is, and you better abide by its rules. The system is what the people made it and the people should be empowered to change it again. (feel free to substitute system with game)
Because when people play a game or sport they like to know that there is set rules which apply for all. And no one is dictating "how" you play your game, they just don't think you should be allowed to change the rules at will. If I have a rough go with a tough boss and barely come out of it alive, then why should the next person who comes after me be able to dial that boss down to where he's easy? Then we aren't really playing the same game.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
WOW is the best example. Have activities at different difficulties (dungeon, H, raid, hard mode raid ...) and each has a different reward. You get more at higher difficulties but have enough content so you can enjoy the game without doing the really hard content if you don't want to.
I am in a raiding guild but I have friends in casual guild that will never raid ICC content and he is still enjoying the game. I think this is the best model. Some choices so you can still play if you don't want to spend a whole nite figuring out a new boss.