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#1 Mani Kanina

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Posted 22 February 2016 - 04:00 PM

Since the purist is somewhat on-hold until TS works out if the project should be put to death or not, I figured I'd make a thread for any and all design advice/tips that I like throwing out there.

I'm not sure how in depth I'll go on any one-thing, or how often I'll post, it'll probably be sporadically when I feel like it.

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Friendly reminder that we have an IRC channel for any and all help/advice/script/general ZQ discussion: #ZCDesignCorner @ irc.bladerock.org
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Entries so far:
1 - On the Subject of Difficulty Levels (You are here)
2 - Flow, what is it, and how do you use it?
3 - Idea, tangible elements, and what you shouldn't look at when copying successful games.
 
 
 
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On the Subject of Difficulty Levels

It's always interesting to see games incorporate difficulty levels especially the 'how', there are many approaches out there on how to make proper difficulty balancing in your game, and some work better in certain games while some work less well. More recently certain quests have started offering difficulty levels, Isle of Rebirth and The Forbidden City are two recent quests that have done this, yet I feel that I don't like the approach they used.

I always say that: Offering difficulty levels is the mark of a good game. But a truly great game does not need difficulty levels in the first place, (But it can of course still add to the experience).

For example, Super Metroid does not have difficulty levels, but you'd be hard pressed to find players on either spectrum complaining about the game being either too hard or too easy. Firstly, it's a game that does 'tutorials' masterfully, you don't need to know much about anything about platforming games when picking it up, it'll teach you without fail all the required mechanics in the game before the end of it. A struggling player can also spend some time exploring to find more upgrades that'll help them on their journey. On the other end of the spectrum, skilled players and those coming back for a replay will still be challenged. This is because they will have less upgrades, you'll probably stick mostly for the upgrades that are the most convenient/essential unless you're aiming for a 100% completion run.

Quite a few years later, Metroid Zero Mission was released. This game does have difficulty levels, it does not need them, but it does make the game better. (Though I will say that MZM is not as well crafted game as SM, but then they were a bit more limited what with it being a remake). Easy mode serves as a more lenient experience, enemies takes a bit less to kill, and each hit deals a bit less damage to you. It's perfect for someone who would want a more relaxed experience, while still getting to enjoy everything the game has to offer. Hard mode however is a bit more interesting. Many enemies have been replaced by their harder versions and there are more enemies placed overall. Energy and weapon expansions give less too, energy tanks are at half of what they are in normal and missile tanks are down to 2 from 5. Furthermore a few roadblocks have been removed in hard mode, allowing the playing to do more sequence breaks.

But I digress, my point is that difficulty levels can add a lot to the experience, but in the case of the mentioned quests I feel more that the options take away from the experience rather than adding to it. In the case of Isle of Rebirth, in order to play on easy or very easy mode the player needs to start the game on normal and then later on 'downgrade' to a lower difficulty level. This is very condescending towards players who may want an easier or a more relaxed experience. But I feel both of them completely misses the point when it comes to difficulty levels. From my limited understanding, it mostly seems to be a case of statistics when it comes to difficulty. Enemies hit harder on hard, enemies hit less on easy, etc. The problem with this is that the design remains the same, and in both cases proper difficulty based design seems to have been substituted with the difficulty levels.

What I mean by that is that if you're asked to do X thing, then lowering the amount of damage taken does not make X easier to do, it just makes it more forgiving and easier opened up for brute force solutions. It's even more disturbing in Isle of Rebirth where this seems very much intended. There are a lot of hard and/or cheap things to dodge in the quest, but there are also an abundance of pots that drop restorative hearts. Rather than having enemies that provide more reasonable attack patterns, etc, you're just left with a ton of pots to grind on hearts on if you take too many hits. This implies that it's intended that players will lose a lot of hearts all the time throughout most dungeons. To me that seems backwards, what I'd instead think should be the case is that while enemies are though, once you have learn their patterns you should be able to deal with them while sustaining minimal damage.

Both of these quests also have a habit of treating 'optional' items as required ones. The blue tunic, for example, is completely optional and somewhat possible to miss in The Forbidden City. But as soon as the blue tunic is handed out, the game ramps up the difficulty and makes everything past that point deal more damage than what things did to you in the last area with the previous tunic. At that point what you have created is not an optional item, but an required item in the disguise as an optional one. The blue tunic is perhaps an extreme example since it's such a game changer, but I often feel that stuff like pieces of hearts and other minor upgrades are all intended to be found as soon as possible in quests, even though they are not placed such a manner. This becomes a problem in that you're punishing people who don't explore a lot without rewarding people who actually explore. (Since they'll just follow the de facto balance).

It does not help that both of these quests are somewhat on the hard end of the spectrum when it comes to ZC quests, and the Easy difficulty option could definitely been branded as normal to provide a better baseline in comparison to other games and quests. Comparably even the most bullshit optional part in Lost Isle, (which I find to be a bit lacking in regards to good design), is easier than the last few required dungeons in Isle of Rebirth on normal.



So what is my bottom line? Well, I think that if you want to add difficulty levels to your quest, you should first make sure that your main 'normal' mode is enjoyable for a wide range of skilled players. Take a Link Between Worlds for example the latest '2D' Zelda game, the normal mode was probably very enjoyable even for long term hardcore fans of the series, no? And it should very much serve as a good introduction to 2D Zelda games for a novice. Now I'm the first one to say that hero mode in regular Zelda games could be a bit more fleshed-out, but the hero mode in ALBW is perfectly fine and it serves as a good returning point for players who are skilled and want to experience the game again with a bit more challenge.

And the things that make a game enjoyable by a wide variety of skilled players? That's all in the actual design of the game, not in the difficulty levels. And when you have such a baseline down crafting a few different difficulty levels become all the more interesting, because I am in the firm belief that a good hard mode and a good easy mode is so much more than just taking and receiving more or less damage.


~Lunaria


We'll see what I cover next time.
#420noproofreading

Edited by Lunaria, 10 July 2016 - 09:35 AM.

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#2 James24

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Posted 23 February 2016 - 01:47 AM

Lunaria, what you're suggesting is very expensive to create and its probably beyond the scope of most quest maker's time.  To redesign parts of your quest specifically to cater for different audiences would take a very long time and there's very little incentive to do so.  Nintendo does that because they are paid to create games to suit many different people, but an unpaid quest maker is only ever going to create games that suit their own tastes because that's the main incentive for them and then use a cheap buff or nerf to adjust the difficulty to suit others.  I don't think its fair to compare fan made quests to Nintendo simply because of that reason - the $$$.

 

Don't believe me?  Try creating your own LoH, AQ, DI or IoR and see how that goes.



#3 Aevin

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Posted 23 February 2016 - 04:58 AM

Nintendo does that because they are paid to create games to suit many different people, but an unpaid quest maker is only ever going to create games that suit their own tastes because that's the main incentive for them and then use a cheap buff or nerf to adjust the difficulty to suit others.

What if the quest I want to create is one that appeals not only to a larger range of players, but also to my own unique moods at the time? Maybe I want to have an easy time some of the time, and an intense challenge other times. I also think it's totally possible to create games outside your own preferred genres, or with elements that appeal more to others than yourself. And by getting a beta testing team that's diverse in what they value in a gaming experience, you can get unique perspectives outside your own and make a better game overall. It's true to an extent that people make the types of games they enjoy playing, but it's not at all strange to get others' input and go for a more broad appeal. Sticking solely to your own judgments of what the best design is sounds incredibly limiting to me, and my best work has always come with heavy influence from others and advice from players.


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#4 Timelord

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Posted 23 February 2016 - 07:22 AM

I'm going to say here, that the biggest flaw (related to difficulty) in most enemy/boss designs, is randomised attacks. In many games, you can effectively learn a pattern, but few scripters make a concrete pattern for their creations, and rely on Rand() to determine what the enemy does. This is usually because designing a pattern, or an AI, is far more time-consuming; and requires more exhaustive testing.

It's also why I'm absurdly slow in developing any enemy for my quests, as I'm fond of players learning patterns, to lower the effective difficulty, rather than merely lowering damage output. A round of successive bad luck will result in player death at any skill level, with fully randomised battles.

I did some work on an enemy AI system, as has grayswandir. In my model, the enemy makes checks before every action, based on a mental AI, to 'decide' what to do based on conditions. This is pretty intensive ZScript code, and devising a system that legitimately works is tiresome.

I'm likely going to integrate my model into his, as he's more focused on movement, and tracking, which are components that I would rather not remake from scratch;; and I can incorporate the mental AI components, into any tracking/movement system.

Even with this in place, developing unique patterns for every enemy is quite time-consuming, so while it would be nice if more people did this, I fully comprehend why they do not do it.
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#5 Mani Kanina

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Posted 23 February 2016 - 08:10 AM

Don't believe me?  Try creating your own LoH, AQ, DI or IoR and see how that goes.

A yes, the classical strawman of "if you don't like it, do it better yourself". I'd prefer if the celling of the discussion was not set at such a low point, given that I'd prefer to have an intelligent one.

Lunaria, what you're suggesting is very expensive to create and its probably beyond the scope of most quest maker's time. To redesign parts of your quest specifically to cater for different audiences would take a very long time and there's very little incentive to do so. Nintendo does that because they are paid to create games to suit many different people, but an unpaid quest maker is only ever going to create games that suit their own tastes because that's the main incentive for them and then use a cheap buff or nerf to adjust the difficulty to suit others. I don't think its fair to compare fan made quests to Nintendo simply because of that reason - the $$$.

It does actually not take that much more extra time when designing a quest to give it a wider scope in this regard. Sure, going back now and making such changes to an already complete quest would be an enormous undertaking, and I don't mean to suggest that people should do that. Rather, this is meant as things to keep in mind going forward. Most novice game designers just do whatever they currently feel like without actually reflecting on it. If instead people put in some extra thought in on how a certain design choice might impact the game, then you can better figure out not only what sort of gameplay you'll effectively create but also whether or not you even want that type of gameplay.


Also your argumentation kinda fall flats on its face in regards to monetary reasons, what with this being a hobby for most people. Yes Nintendo pays their employees, and? At the end of the day, it does not matter if a game was made by a huge corporation with many employees or less than a handful of passionate people (Portal, Cave Story, Fez, Undertale, etc). A well designed game is marked by just that, good design. There is absolutely no reason a hobby project made by a single person can't be a well designed master piece, in fact, many really great games in the past few years have been just that.

So no, I don't buy it, that because people who make games as a hobby aren't payed that means they'd have to opt for less ideal or lazy design decisions. In fact, the reverse is often true, far too often triple A or high budget games comes out and they have very lazy design choices, especially in regards to offering different difficulty levels or great difficulty balance.

I'm going to say here, that the biggest flaw (related to difficulty) in most enemy/boss designs, is randomised attacks. In many games, you can effectively learn a pattern, but few scripters make a concrete pattern for their creations, and rely on Rand() to determine what the enemy does. This is usually because designing a pattern, or an AI, is far more time-consuming; and requires more exhaustive testing.

Somewhat, yeah. Behaviour based AI is preferred in most instances, but that IS a very time consuming design choice to go with. I can understand why that specific one is often disregarded given that the ratio of work you have to do contra how much better the game would be from it is actually really low. That being said another simple, but rather predictable solution, is having a cycle based pattern instead.

#6 TheLegend_njf

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Posted 23 February 2016 - 10:24 AM

Difficulty settings are fine. They create options and replay value.

#7 James24

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Posted 24 February 2016 - 03:52 AM

Aevin - agree with your argument that its possible to create games that appeal more to others than yourself.  The main thrust of my argument was that there is no motivation to do this for an unpaid quest maker and that Nintendo does this because the "others" are paying them.  Plus, I also do agree with your arguments that its often better to have a team of beta testers for better ideas and input.  But those beta testers should share the same tastes as you do, otherwise it doesn't work out - tried that on my quests.

 

Lunaria - First, I think you're mistaken with regards to the time it would take to give it wider scope.  Tried that with my LoH and LoH:IE.  Trust me on this, it takes a lot of time to redesign things for different audiences and tastes.  As I said before try making a quest that suits your tastes and the hardcore player's tastes and see how it goes.

 

Second, what you call a "masterpiece" might not be very good in the eyes of someone who has very different tastes than you.  Almost everyone thinks Lost Isle and Hero of Dreams are masterpieces right?  I don't - they didn't accommodate for my tastes and so I quit out of boredom.  But I don't complain or badger the authors to make a version that is suited to my tastes - I simply accept that wolfie and shoelace have very different tastes than I do and it would be a very big hassle for them to make a version that suits me.

 

I put it to you that there is not a single quest in the database that fundamentally changes its design to cater for different tastes and audiences as far as I know.  That should speak volumes.  Sure, there are plenty of quests that buff and nerf things cheaply, but no unpaid quest maker is going to spend their precious time making a game that they don't like to play.



#8 Mani Kanina

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Posted 28 February 2016 - 01:59 PM

Lunaria - First, I think you're mistaken with regards to the time it would take to give it wider scope.  Tried that with my LoH and LoH:IE.  Trust me on this, it takes a lot of time to redesign things for different audiences and tastes.  As I said before try making a quest that suits your tastes and the hardcore player's tastes and see how it goes.

There isn't any form of hidden secret to this or anything though, and it's evidently very possible for solo developers to manage that, as I have stated before, and there are plenty of examples of that out on the market. Taking something and changing it to be something different is very hard and time consuming, certainly, but it is possible. However, it's kinda beside the point what I'm arguing is that by thinking your design through a bit more when you make it the first one can better reflect on how it will affect certain demographics, and from there choose the direction of the game.

There's nothing stopping you from making a game with a very narrow playerbase, especially given that it is a free hobby project and there isn't a need to make a living off of it.
 

Second, what you call a "masterpiece" might not be very good in the eyes of someone who has very different tastes than you.  Almost everyone thinks Lost Isle and Hero of Dreams are masterpieces right?  I don't - they didn't accommodate for my tastes and so I quit out of boredom.  But I don't complain or badger the authors to make a version that is suited to my tastes - I simply accept that wolfie and shoelace have very different tastes than I do and it would be a very big hassle for them to make a version that suits me.

I don't think I have ever heard anyone call Lost Isle or Hero of Dreams a masterpiece, and even if they did that would not make it true. But taking your argument to the logical conclusion you could never call anything a masterpiece, because there will always be someone out there that disagrees with it, that is the nature of subjective opinions.

Few would argue against you if you say that Tetris is a masterpiece, and there are many out there who thinks Super metroid is the best game ever made (and while I'm a huge fan of the latter, I am personally not of that opinion). Even if I'm not hugely into puzzles games, and that I find something like spacechem way more interesting, I'd personally agree with people saying Tetris is a masterpiece. To me personally I'd not judge a game to be a masterpiece about whether or not I enjoyed it, but rather based on how well it's crafted/designed, but there are of course other factors to take into account too.

For example, Undertale is an extreme well crafted game, it would have to be given that the main point of it is to expect player behaviour, and a deep understanding of player behaviour would obviously be needed to do that. But I'd not call it a masterpiece, not yet anyway. Because standing the test of time is also something I feel is important. Tetris is over 40 years old and it's practically identical in regards to how the gameplay works.

I mean, whether or not something is a masterpiece is a very interesting topic on it's own (and I could go on), especially given how very few things in games can be measured objectively. (Lack of options, running on low FPS count, etc.) Certainly there are things to criticise in regards to gameplay, and there are a lot of things that are considered bad practice but that does not make it objectively bad. :P

So no, you're right, what I believe to be a masterpiece night be shit for someone else. But I don't throw around something like that willy-nilly personally, and I do like to base a statement like that on more than just my tastes and gut feeling.
 

I put it to you that there is not a single quest in the database that fundamentally changes its design to cater for different tastes and audiences as far as I know.  That should speak volumes.  Sure, there are plenty of quests that buff and nerf things cheaply, but no unpaid quest maker is going to spend their precious time making a game that they don't like to play.

This argumentation does not make logical sense, it sounds to me that you're suggesting that there isn't a quest in the database with dynamic difficulty. It's also a strawman argumentation at best; even if there are, as you say, no quests in the database with more interesting difficulty balancing, that does not mean that the reason for it is the one you propose. I'd also like to stress that most quests in the database are starter projects made by novices, so a lack of good design or features should be expected.



Nonetheless, you can disagree with me, that's fine. This thread is just my personal advice thread for those who are interested. I can't guarantee I'll respond to more argumentation on this one matter though, since I want to move on to different topics. :P

#9 Deedee

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Posted 28 February 2016 - 02:42 PM

Almost everyone thinks Lost Isle and Hero of Dreams are masterpieces right?

 

Lost Isle, I'd agree with the majority for the most part. It would be a masterpiece if it didn't have it's flaws. However, those flaws are also what makes the game enjoyable. Level 3 is both one of my favorite levels, and yet also one of my most hated, because it's so frustrating with all the pits and platforming, but it always led me on to think I was accomplishing something. The level is filled with shortcuts, and activating a shortcut that makes a platforming section I already did easier just fills me with so much satisfaction. That satisfaction balances out the level, and makes it a love/hate relationship. I guess you can kinda say it's like Liberation of Hyrule in that regard; get through a hard section, and you're rewarded with a shortcut. And the opening of that shortcut, is amazing. It fills you with determination to keep going forward.

Hero of Dreams, I agree with you though. Hero of Dreams I did not enjoy, and I felt it droned on a good deal. Only some of the levels were actually "fun".



#10 Anthus

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Posted 28 February 2016 - 07:40 PM

I'm not against difficulty settings, but I can see your point. As Zoria said, 90% of the time it boils down to RNG when fighting pretty much any enemy in ZC. Also, the Zelda 1 enemies aren't exactly smart to boot either. They all kind of aimlessly wander aounrd, sometimes in Link's direction, and some of them lazily fire projectiles that anyone who has beat Z1 can dodge. This is why when I make quests, I like to focus more on designing areas with puzzles, and environmental challenges. Anyone can make a hard room by pasting down some windrobes, bubbles, a view lynels, and Ganon. Is that fun, or good design? Not really. Also, difficulty setting can't really effect the environment unless you literally remake all puzzles for different settings. I think enemies should be used more sparingly, personally, and should not be the only thing making your quest hard basically,


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#11 TheLegend_njf

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Posted 28 February 2016 - 08:11 PM

a work of outstanding artistry, skill, or workmanship.

 

This is the definition of masterpiece. Nothing here implies that a masterpiece cannot exist without being subject to criticism and subjective opinions. I think you're confusing masterpiece with perfection Lunaria. Through this definition, it is almost difficult to say Lost Isle and Hero of Dreams, including newer quests like Isle of Rebirth are not masterpieces in their own right, because the general consensus from what I've seen it tells me that they are.  


Edited by NewJourneysFire, 28 February 2016 - 08:12 PM.


#12 Mani Kanina

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Posted 28 February 2016 - 09:10 PM

This is the definition of masterpiece. Nothing here implies that a masterpiece cannot exist without being subject to criticism and subjective opinions. I think you're confusing masterpiece with perfection Lunaria. Through this definition, it is almost difficult to say Lost Isle and Hero of Dreams, including newer quests like Isle of Rebirth are not masterpieces in their own right, because the general consensus from what I've seen it tells me that they are.

Nay, given that perfect is, in fact, impossible, I'm not referring to that at all. The entire problem here is that what is or isn't a masterpiece is subjective. One could go great lengths to study a game based on the designing skills of the author to determine whether or not something is a masterpiece. But there will always be someone out there with an subjective opinion based on their own experience that makes them disagree with that.

It's your personal opinion that Lost Isle, Hero of Dreams, and Isle of Rebirth have an outstanding display of either artistry, skill, or workmanship. And as such it's your view that these games are masterpieces.

Personally though? I disagree, I think all three of those games have their own individual design problems, some of which I feel are rather novice mistakes. Just because I have a different view from you does not mean that I'm asking for perfection, I obviously just have very different qualitative views from you. At the end of the day we could spend forever arguing over what is considered a masterpiece or not, it's not really relevant to the actual argument I wanted to present. When I first mentioned the term in passing was to point out that great games can indeed be made by sole passionate developers, that are industry wide considered to be good, not just large corporations. If anything, James24 pulled a strawman argument by starting to argue over the word masterpiece, even though it wasn't the bloody point nor relevant.

Edited by Lunaria, 28 February 2016 - 09:11 PM.


#13 TheLegend_njf

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Posted 28 February 2016 - 10:03 PM

Still, I'm just going by definitions here to pretty much state that these mentioned quests and many more are very qualified to deserve the title "masterpiece".

 

Outstanding by definition means they are exceptionally good. In other words, they stand out.

 

I'd also like to elaborate the word consensus from my previous post indicating that I'm not speaking from my own personal opinions. Lost Isle for example has a lot of bad flaws I don't like, but despite those flaws it is a work that required by definition exceptional artistry, skill, and workmanship. 

 

These quests stand out, and they stand out for a reason.

 

You clearly have a rigid perception of "masterpiece" that is more selective on terms of quality, those of which from your own words "you could never call anything a masterpiece", but I am just reciting the definition of the word and therefore explaining why the term masterpiece is more loosely defined than you think. 


Edited by NewJourneysFire, 28 February 2016 - 10:09 PM.


#14 James24

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Posted 28 February 2016 - 10:15 PM

Lunaria, you were the first person to mention masterpiece so I simply copied it in my later post.  You now change that term to "great game".  Whatever.  My point stands and you seem to acknowledge it - what is considered a "great game" to someone might not be very good to someone else.

 

You also say that the evidence (no quest on the database that has dynamic difficulty) for my argument that no unpaid developers would create a game that they didn't think is a "masterpiece" is "strawman".  You say that the reason that there is no quest on the database like that is because the developers are novices and don't know that they should be accommodating for different tastes.

 

I can point to several examples that refute this quite easily.  Lost Isle being the prime example.  No one can argue that Wolfie and Peteo were novices and didn't know what they were doing.  But yet when I pull up Lost Isle - I see no dynamic difficulty.  What about Jamian's Forbidden City?  Jamian had written several quests prior to his Forbidden City and yet we still see a cheap buff for "hero mode".  And from the rumours I've heard, Jamian didn't test his hero mode and some parts of it are near impossible and not balanced.

 

Nintendo solved the difficulty balancing problem because its developers had good incentive and motivation (the $$$) to create games that the general public considered "masterpieces".  The Nintendo devs might or might not have the same view of their work.  Take away the $$$ and you're going to be faced with the problems outlined in your first post - namely that the unpaid developers are going to balance the game at the difficulty they think is a "masterpiece" and only apply a cheap buff/nerf for everyone else.  Its the price that you pay to play for free.



#15 Shane

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Posted 29 February 2016 - 03:36 AM

Probably my only post here, it's probably going to end up as a ramble, but oh well.

 

James, let's be fair here, no one can appease both "casual players" and "challenge players" in the ZC community due to the absurd difference between "casual quests" and "challenge quests". But that doesn't mean a quest can capture both fairness and a more acceptable version of a challenge. You say no one can be motivated in doing such because no one is getting paid money, but you don't seem to realize motivation doesn't come from money - that's just one of the many things that trigger motivation - it comes from emotion and passion, something everyone has. We just tend to put our passion - and in this case, motivation - to other things because again, the definition (or at least yours) of "challenge quests" completely contrasts everything that a "casual quest" should be. There's no way possible to make a ZC quest that appeals both "casual players" and "challenge players". Luck based challenges and OP enemy spam is simply out of the question, and to you guys anything but a "challenge" is out of the question. So how do we do it?

Simple: Make a "casual quest" that can go on either spectrum of fair difficulty without resorting to cheap nefarious design choices that rely on luck so that players can actually learn how to overcome challenges with their actual skill. Provide optional upgrades for those that want things a bit easier (and not dismiss it as "cheating" to shame those kinds of players) but keep them optional and require extra exploration so you have to do a bit of work either way. That way, the people who want additional challenge and want to actually learn from their mistakes (game overs) can do so without feeling the need to go out of their way to collect said upgrades because the challenge is overwhelming them. Luck-based challenges will not give out the same, and will only encourage people to find these upgrades rendering them not optional. But even then, it won't stop the luck-based challenges.

 

It's not the best solution, but it's one that can be seen in a positive light by the majority, I think.

 

To put it into a simple perspective, luck-based is deliberately trying to bring the player to a game over screen as many times possible just to frustrate them and raise the death count through various means of random enemy AI or other kinds of stuff that makes skill irrelevant. A fair challenge would only punish those who are not skilled enough and need a bit more practice, patience or help (hence the upgrades). You say you tried to appease both sides with Liberation of Hyrule but failed. But you have explicitly stated that you only intended "challenge players" to play your works and even advertised numerous times for "casual players" to avoid playing at all costs. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I don't think you can say you tried, especially when you try shaming those who used the optional resources provided by yourself by saying they "cheated".

 

I don't think it's also fair for you to say getting beta testers with different tastes will simply not work when you also have stated plenty of times that you shut down any other design philosophies and only listen to your own and provide a strict criteria for your beta tester team in the first place. To put it simply, you aren't really open minded to what other types of players have to say, and while that's fine and all, again, it's unfair for you to claim that getting other kinds of players to test your quest will fail. I can 100% guarantee you that it's more likely to work in terms of getting constructive criticism thus finding ways to expand your audience and improve and broaden your design skills. Getting people that like your work to test your quest has less chance of getting constructive criticism, but rather what you want to hear, which is what I believe you intended here. Again, absolutely fine but saying it's the best and only workable method is not.

 

The overall point I'm trying to say is that you have completely different tastes than most of the community here which has been proven multiple times. And I cannot stress this enough: that's more than perfectly fine. But you sound very entitled if not righteous to philosophies and opinions that you don't seem to have much experience with and even go as far as to claim you experimented with them and called them unworkable for reasons that leave me fully skeptical. Again, motivation doesn't come from just money and getting beta testers with different tastes can work in your favor if you are actually open. A fair challenge is still a challenge for at least someone. If you like challenges that lean to luck-based and whatnot, then more power to you! I hope you keep enjoying those kinds of challenges provided in "challenge quests". But I think we need to be realistic here when designing a quest that captures both fairness and a challenge that anyone can overcome given they try hard enough by means of finding upgrades or learning through their mistakes.

 

tl;dr You're allowed to have your opinion on a "challenge" and whatnot, but there's a ton of points you made that are heavily flawed such as your views on motivation and beta testers.

 

Wow, this was a long ramble, uh, this will probably be my only post here about difficulty until a new topic pops up (assuming one does). I feel I covered all grounds that I feel needed to be addressed here. I could of worded things a lot more better but I believe I made my points clear enough.

 

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Fantastic OP, Lunaria. You made perfectly valid points and I felt educated reading it. Wish I could provide more, but I assume I will when there's a topic I can relate to more.


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