Dynamic Difficulty

[jdoleary]

Taking inspiration from Resident Evil's dynamic difficulty:

Some players take issue that the game is either way too hard to way too easy. I think this can be solved with dynamic difficulty. The new miniboss modifiers stand to increase the difficulty substantially, but instead of just doing this across the board. Maybe we evaluate how the players have performed so far (if they've taken lots of damage, if they've died, if they beat the level quickly) and scale the difficulty accordingly maybe by increasing the number of minibosses and increasing the probability of miniboss modifiers.

[SoulMuncher]

My first instinct is that dynamic difficulty is not a good idea for Spellmasons

• Dynamic difficulty tends to ruin speedrunning and other challenges/accomplishments
• Dynamic difficulty also degrades the experience for anyone who knows its there: "I'm being penalized for not getting hit and picking my spells too fast". Players would likely fall into the mindset of playing the difficulty system instead of playing the game
• I think many of the current difficulty issues stem from game imbalances and "traps" that we've unintentionally set as the developers
  • Starting the game with arrow 1 or bolt, instead of summon decoy or heal
  • Targeting archers instead of the golem on level 1 (The golem has 3x the damage and half the health, but players wont know this unless they click on it)
  • Somewhat lacking tutorial(?) Many new players don't understand crucial game mechanics such as targeting spells and mana ramping, and don't do basic things like select a unit to see its stats.
  • General game imbalance. Summons are OP, blessings aren't great, stamina points vs health/mana points, etc.
  • In later levels, the budgeting issue (too much variance, could spawn [2 priests and a poisoner] or [8 blood archers])
• There are other solutions to consider, such as run options or NG+

[jdoleary]

Hmm okay good points. I agree that early level difficulty is a "skill issue" / players still learning the game ; however there are definitely a lot of experienced players that get bored in the end-game and I think that ought to be addressed somehow. Maybe miniboss modifiers will be enough to keep it interesting for them. Thoughts?

[SoulMuncher]

To clarify my last point: We've gotten feedback saying: "it's impossible to get past level 4 without good RNG", but we both know that's not true. The first 4 levels aren't too hard, nor do they have anything to do with RNG, they're just full of new-player traps, and that's the thing we should address. I think it'll alleviate most of the struggles on that end of the spectrum, while also giving us a more level foundation/perspective to make further difficulty adjustments (there's a lot of variation in how a player can experience the current single-player difficulty due to game imbalance and traps)

= [ separate but related thoughts ]

There is still 100% a difficulty issue, outside of game balance/noob traps. No matter how we balance the game or what we add to it (miniboss modifiers included), some players will find it too easy and other players will find it too hard. I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all solution, and I still think the answer to this issue is run options (difficulty + other)

Miniboss modifiers are interesting, and they may shake things up a little, but it won't satiate the advanced player's need for challenge and accomplishment, and I don't think it will make a huge difference in curing endgame boredom or addressing the overall difficulty issue