68 replies to this topic

[anikom15]

Regenerating health is a joke. It would make it easier than having drops because you just chill on a safe screen to refill everything. The trap idea is great though. Having a player get stuck and being forced to restart from their last save sounds like something that would fit well in the quest.

[Timelord]

I suppose if you want to play the game, sitting for an hour, doing nothing, waiting for your HP to regenerate, you could do that. It depends on if the player will play in a fair, non-cheating manner; and if your target is the hardcore player, they are going to do that. Anyone else will simply hate the game, and rage-quit.

 

I wasn't suggesting to add intentional game-ending flaws. I honestly can't think of any player that wouldn't just abandon the game after running into something like that. That is the kind of thing that pushes the line between difficult, and unfair, far bast the boundary.

 

I might try the game, without health drops, given that there are reasonable ways to regain HP, and that there is an actual curve to game difficulty; and not just a rush of creatures annihilating me, especially if the game relies not only on physical game skills, but also on mental aspects; but if there are intentional game-ending flaws, I wouldn't touch it. That's no different than the first ladder in the NES Super Pitfall. A beginners' trap, which most gamers flag as unacceptable.

 

What I was suggesting, is to use a combination of a global variable, and an onContinue script, that I could write in about five minutes, to eliminate F6->Continue health refilling, by forwarding CurrentHP to the continued game, which eliminates the biggest problem with F6->Continue.

 

If you do decide to include things like that kind of trap, be sure to allow F6->Retry. Otherwise, you would need to force-quit ZC just to try again, taking a few minutes just to get back to the game.

Edited by ZoriaRPG, 03 April 2014 - 12:40 AM.

[DarkFlameWolf]

That actually is a good solution, the HP forwarding script with the F6. True, I'd like player to take the long way back to where they need to be, but if they are just that impatient, then retain their current status inbetween F6 saves.

[klop422]

I suppose if you want to play the game, sitting for an hour, doing nothing, waiting for your HP to regenerate, you could do that.

The F1 Key/Vsync (If that's what it's called). That speeds up the game almost tenfold, so your hour of 60 minutes turns to 6 minutes. Still a while, but I'm sure it's easirr than playing the quest properly. Right?

[Kivitoe]

I kind of agree with Moosh. It just seems to hard.

[Alucard648]

The F1 Key/Vsync (If that's what it's called). That speeds up the game almost tenfold, so your hour of 60 minutes turns to 6 minutes. Still a while, but I'm sure it's easirr than playing the quest properly. Right?

But what about global time limit ala Prince of Persia? F1 also speeds up timer. Run out of time - time to restart the quest from scratch!

[James24]

As the author of LoH and LoH:IE, arguably the two of the most difficult quests in ZC history, I believe I am in a uniquely qualified position to advise quest makers on the subject of difficulty.  This isn't directly related to the topic but I feel that it is of paramount importance and must be answered before any attempt is made to make quest difficult.  Why are you making the quest difficult?

 

If the reason why you are making the quest difficult is to appease the ZC fanbase so that you can gain fame, reputation, peer acceptance, a large fanbase etc..., then I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree.  If you want all these things, you'd best be advised to make your quest very easy and instead focus on the visual, more cosmetic aspects of the game.

 

For me, the reason why LoH and LoH:IE are difficult is because I enjoy playing the game that way.  And your own enjoyment is, in my opinion, the greatest motivation of all.  Trust me on this, there were many a time when I had thought about cancelling LoH and LoH:IE but my own motivation and enjoyment of the game kept me going.  And motivation like this is very important.

 

Motivation is very important because in order to write a hard quest that can still be completed requires a LOT of testing and balancing.  And these things are no fun at all.  It is no fun to sit there and test your quest, find that your quest is too easy.  Change your quest slightly.  Test again, find that your quest is now impossible.  Change your quest slightly.  Test again, find that your quest is now possible but too hard.  Change your quest slightly.  Test again and find that your quest is too easy.  You get the picture.  This process is no fun at all and I guarantee you that unless there is a large reward at the end of all of it, no one is going to do it.

 

This process of testing and balancing is so crucial to hard difficulty and I'm frequently reminded of some challenge quests that I've played that don't come across as tested and balanced.  Now I can't be 100% sure the authors didn't test and balance their work so I apologize in advance if I've got it wrong.  Origin's Extreme - challenging at the start but when I got powerups and weapons, it was not challenging at all.  A big hunk of hyrule fortress 3 hard path - pretty sure that a fight against 6 blue wizzrobes with only 7 hearts and a wooden sword on a horizontal stripes terrain with "enemies always respawn" rule is impossible.  Tried as I might I couldn't beat it.

 

I strongly disagree with statements like "its easy to make a quest difficult all I need to do is put 10 death knights everywhere".  10 death knights everywhere does not necessarily make a quest difficult because if link is OP and there are fair fountains everywhere, it might just become a cakewalk nonetheless.  On the other hand, your quest might become impossible.  Fact is, you don't know whether or not 10 death knights everywhere is going to be a hard quest unless you've tested and balanced it.

 

You can use whatever mechanics you like to balance difficulty including the things listed above like enemies not dropping hearts, own bombs hurting link, slash, diagonal movement, pots where link can regain health 1 hit KOs and a global timer if you like.  But whatever mechanics you decide to use to make the quest more difficult the golden rule still applies:  you must test and balance to ensure that the quest is at the hard difficulty that you desire and doesn't become too easy or impossible to complete.

[kurt91]

--- No fairy fountains ---

 

This sounds reasonable. I think the only issue some people may have with this is that they have to use their potions as their only way to heal if you also include the "Enemies don't drop life" idea. What about a full heal that costs money? Make a massive-boosted Recovery Heart that heals so much that Link's guaranteed to be filled up to the maximum, and make it only available in shops. The more conveniently-placed shops would be incredibly expensive, while shops located insanely out of the way or in a starting location that's gradually more inconvenient the further away you travel would be cheaper, but never free.

--- Enemies don't drop life (or magic?) ---

 

This would indeed force the player to play more conservatively, although you would need to be much more careful on pacing. Long dungeons would be incredibly grueling to work through unless there were multiple shortcuts to allow the player to leave and refill/reload before returning for the next part. Still, I can see this working well as long as appropriate compromises were made.

--- Enemies drop less rupees ---

 

This isn't so much a difficulty boost as much as a tedium boost. The player needs a way to earn money to gather supplies. There's nothing difficult about having to spend hours grinding just because the player ran out of arrows at a bad time. If enemies drop less money themselves, there had better be another alternative way to earn money consistently. Also, keep in mind that there needs to be some incentive for the player to fight enemies. I'm playing Paper Mario: Sticker Star right now, and while it's a fun game, there's no incentive to fight enemies at all and the game mechanics actually seem to discourage entering combat.

--- No clocks ---

 

There's a good reason why every Zelda game after the first dropped the Clock idea. It's incredibly overpowered for what it is. Unless you plan on scripting an alternative like the Stopwatches in Castlevania, just ditch the Clocks entirely.

--- Link only starts with 3/4 of his life, except at the beginning. Heart containers and pieces refill life.---

 

Again, you're going to need some method of the player being able to heal themselves in-game. I think that a full heal upon starting is pretty fair, given your next idea...

--- No F6 ---

 

A hundred times YES! I always felt that F6 was flat-out cheating, and implemented save points in my game to counteract it. If you intend on using scripting, you could even do two different types of save points. One would be more common and just save the game, while the other one would allow you to save the game as well as heal the player.

 

That pretty much sums up what I think of your ideas, but let me add in a few other things that I've seen games do that might give you a few ideas.

 

Kid Icarus: Uprising had a pretty interesting healing system. If the player found a hot spring in the level, they could go in to refill to full health. However, subsequent visits to the same hot spring would heal for less each time, preventing the player from making repeated trips to cheese their way through the level. Eventually, the spring would be completely useless and they'd be forced to move on.

 

Distorted Travesty allows the player to freely change the difficulty up and down as they needed it, so if they were stuck on a particular boss or level, they could temporarily lower the difficulty. This had the drawback of players eventually ending up playing through the whole game on Easy Mode regardless of what they initially started at. DT3, on the other hand, uses an alternative called "Assist Mode". If a player is having trouble, they could activate Assist Mode and receive half damage from everything. As a drawback, enemies would no longer drop experience and it would be impossible to pick up items. Similarly, you could include an item or setting that boosts the player's defense but all items and enemy drops can no longer be collected until the setting was deactivated at certain shops. If you wanted to be particularly cruel to players who still try to abuse it, Heart Pieces that come from chests and Heart Containers dropped by bosses would be completely wasted if the boss was beaten on Assist Mode, or if the chest was found and opened on Assist Mode since the player could no longer pick up the item. Of course, if you were to go that far, you would need an obvious visual cue to remind the player that they're still in Assist Mode so they don't forget and miss out on things that they didn't mean to.

[Matthew Bluefox]

This thread has been zombified twice and the OP is banned. It's unlikely he'll ever read all of this.