Since making my first Liberation of Hyrule game, the concept of a Lite Mode has always intrigued me and I had always wanted to make one. Of course, I would never personally enjoy it but I know that a lot of players want it. There were many reasons why I never went through with it, but the main one was that I simply felt that it was impossible to do in a short space of time. I still believe that to be the case now, but if it were possible to do in a short space of time (were talking in a day or so here) then it would be something I would seriously consider implementing.
So I ask any experienced quest makers out there, do they know of any silver bullet that would fix the difficulty translation problem? Try to point out examples in your own quest(s) where you have successfully translated the difficulty.
Lets also take a look at a few examples of how difficult this problem is to solve. Have a look at this video of the iconic 10 blue darknut fight from LoH:IU:
How would I go about nerfing this so that the spirit and vision of the game is captured but just that the difficulty is reduced to a level that makes a typical player feeling very challenged but also feeling that the experience is fun and enjoyable? Perhaps I can follow Nightmare's approach and simply cut the number of enemies that must be fought. But then how would I know what the magic number is? 7? 6? 2? 1? It would be impossible for me to tell how many to put in that would make it a fun experience for a typical player to enjoy. I'm completely tone deaf to any difficulty other than my own. Perhaps its 0 and they just want to take the key and not fight at all?
Perhaps I can do what Evan20000 did in Isle of Rebirth and simply halve all damage done. Only problem would be that Evan's approach has been proven not to work with the many criticisms about Isle of Rebirth being that the difficulty was not translated properly. And there's also my original LoH which had a gold ring that reduced damage to 1/16 of what the player normally takes. Didn't work either. Maybe the answer is in reducing damage but how would I tell what the magic ratio is? How would I know the extent to which I should reduce damage so that a typical player would find the game fun and enjoyable to play? Remember I'm completely tone deaf to any difficulty other than insane.
Assuming that you can find an approach that works for that fight then how about this one?
This fight only involves one enemy so reducing the number of enemies is not going to work. Also, reducing the amount of damage done won't work because once Link gets hit, he loses the ability to shoot sword beams which more or less makes the fight impossible. Perhaps reduce the speed of the Death Knight? But by how much? How would I determine what the magic number is? Remember that when I'm testing the fight with the new speed, I can't tell whether or not a typical player would find that speed to be a fun and enjoyable experience.
I'm highly sceptical that a silver bullet exists that would solve these problems in a short space of time, but I might be wrong on this. And if I am wrong on this and there is a clear approach that would work then I'd be all for implementing The Liberation of Hyrule: Lite Mode.