Difficulty setting de-valuates the game

The thing is, the way you play the game itself dictates how difficult it is. If you take it slow and make sure you've got the best armor and weapons you can have at the sector you're in before you move on, think of that as easy mode, the enemies will do less damage and you'll kill them easier. If you move along quickly and jump from sector to sector without getting all the gear first, that'll be hard mode, the enemies will hit harder, you'll most likely hit weaker for awhile, and you won't have as many pixels.

People seem to pull the "Similar to Terraria" card as a negative thing. But why? Terraria was a fantastic game and I loved the hell out of it. You can't avoid doing or adding something into your game just because someone else did it in the past, because then you wouldn't be able to make a game at all.

 

I actually agree. I like the folk at Chucklefish but I don't want the game being easy. I want it to be challenging. However when folks come on the forum and boo-hoo about things, they're going to end up changing it to please the masses.

I miss the days when a developer would make a game and that'd be it. You had no say it in. It was designed, you played it, you liked it or not.

As long as there is challenge and a lot of content, I'll be pleased, but if the game insists on holding my hand and being identical to other games, then I'm not interested.

 

And if they added options for people on one end who want the challenge of being ohko'd by everything and people on the other end who want to steamroll the universe, there would still be complaints, even though one side of the difficulty meter doesn't affect people playing on the other side in any conceivable way.

So you want the game to be challenging? Good for you. It's great that you like a challenge. But not everybody wants that, and who are you to say that they can't cater to both parties? Why does everything have to be a challenge? Why can't people have fun WITHOUT everything being hard?

 

I want there to be a challenge and I want it to be easy. Having difficulty options helps accomplish this.

I want the challenge because that's what I like. I like to overcome things. It's fun.

I want an option for the game to be easy because I have an 8 year old Brother who plays this game, and he just wants to be able to cause mayhem and build stuff, which would bore me very quickly, but if thats the way he wants to play I'm not going to stop him.

 

I respectfully fail to understand why people say the Death Punishment of Losing all items wouldn't make the game more difficult.

In the way I see it, it does....

1) If you die, you lose the items you have with you (the best available in most of the cases), therefore you are getting a gear-downgrade as punishment.
2) If you are getting a gear-downgrade, monsters will hit harder and you will hit them softer.
3) Thus difficulty is more intense when compared to "always keep you best gear, regardless of death"


It isn't there "just to make the player rage after dying".

It is there to make you eventually lose the "great items" you have gathered so far... forcing you to rebuild yourself. And since resources aren't illimited, the new items you will rebuild will almost always be not as powerful as the ones you had before. Your overall gear in this setting will be worse, and because of that, the game will more difficult.

 

So the consequences of dying might make the game more challenging, but it's unlikely, and you will always get further.

A harsh death penalty is just annoying and inconvenient. A penalty isn't a challenge. A challenge is staying alive in the first place.

 

their only possible argument to this will be "well then be more careful!" or the classic "you arent hardcore enough."

 

That's just how I feel. A penalty doesn't feel challenging. How can it? If you lose everything on death but it's still hard to actually die, why is it challenging?

 

But the penalty itself will make staying alive a harder thing to do. Do you agree that the better your items are, the easier it is to stay alive?

Not really. My argument just orbits around the idea that having worse items will make the game more difficult even on your idea of difficulty. And that the "hardcore mode" makes you have worse items, since you will always lose the best items you have upon death.

 

That's slightly less of a contribution to the discussion that we would hope for, sir.

Of course I agree.
What you're saying is that the penalty basically means your gear will be worse, making the game harder... after you die. That's not a challenge because you have to actually die in the first place. If you consider this penalty a challenge, then at least consider it a challenge that only kicks in when you die.

Before then, it isn't a challenge unless you are easily killed. If you don't die, you don't lose all your good gear, and if you don't lose all your good gear, you aren't set back, and if you aren't set back... the game doesn't become more difficult.

 

http://community.playstarbound.com/...ayers-knock-it-off.44207/page-20#post-1449947

 

Because this mindset is applied to EVERY current gen game! There are no hard games out there, there is no challenge. Dark souls is just a game of memorization and demons souls was the last challenging game that I enjoyed. I enjoy this game because it has some level of challenge and yet is a sandbox, can't there be one where it takes time/effort to get what you want instead of day one getting top tier junk>

 

Old games were all either quarter eating cheap or straight up memorization and even then all skills are memorization. Difficulty is vague and varies between people. So I do no see what the problem is.

 

The problem is hand holding, games you can NEVER lose in. Not 'every' game was a quarter eating machine, did you grow up with them? You know, games that actually had consequences to losing and actually have to learn 'not' to do something or bad things might happen to your character in game?

 

You can just ignore the hand holding.

 

You're right. My bet is that, unless playing ultra-carefully, people are bound to make mistakes eventually.

But I agree, if the player don't ever die, it will be just like the easiest setting.

 

That's not quite what I was saying. I was giving a reason as to why a penalty is not difficulty.

 

how far does molly go