What's your opinion on difficulty?

How difficulty do you want the game to be?

Personally I love challenging games, a game that's too easy doesn't feel satisfying.
Having a fight where you could easily die by a small mistake keeps tension high.
Winning that fight feels amazing! Losing doesn't make you feel bad either, simply because you KNOW it's hard. You gave it your best and will probably succeed eventually, a difficult game also lasts longer.

Also, when I say difficult I'm not talking about numbers like +150% HP and damage. I'm talking about the AI being faster/better/more complex.

I do understand that this game mostly appeals to the casual type of gamer, but that's what building is for! Most of those casual people will just explore/build, while the rest of us will try to conquer the universe, and it being a cake walk won't be fun.

I read Tiy comment that the combat will resemble Castlevania SotN, so I hope it will be at least modestly difficult.

 

It would be cool if it was hard, but not that hard. I mean, I like a challenge but not a frustratingly hard challenge If it was an easy game I don't think I would mind that much.

 

I don't think this game is capable of being hard without being frustrating
Assuming dying makes you drop your items and teleport back to your home, it'd become annoying quickly if this happened everytime you left your house, and you wouldn't really consider the game hard if there wasn't a good chance that you would die leaving your house
That said if they do find a way to make the game hard but not frustrating I'd love to see it implemented, although I don't see it happening

Also, if the combat is anything like Terraria it seems like difficulty will be based on what equipment you have rather than how skillful you are. I don't consider that a hard game.

 

As you progress, monsters and npcs get harder, while you obviously get higher ranked armors and weapons "borderlands logic" lol

 

Maybe in Starbound there could be softcore and mediumcore and hardcore, but it'd be a little different, like say, this:

Softcore: You have the standard health bar. You drop half the pixels you're carrying on death
Mediumcore: You have the Hunger Bar (You need to eat). You drop all the pixels you're carrying on death
Hardcore: You have the Hunger Bar (You need to eat). You drop your items on death.

I guess there could be one more core level if players want the option for there character to get deleted on death like in Terraria.

 

This is indeed how it will most probably work, thing is that doesn't exactly make the game difficult, it just makes it very unforgiving. However, it is still a challenge.

 

It's a bit too terraria like with that, if starbound is procedurally generated, it should be like that with difficulty as well, just my opinion

 

That feeling when Normal mode(Because that's how you play games apart for guitar hero) offers you wonderful difficult situations.Kinda like minecraft when you just have to run through the swarm of mobs.You know,not always hard,but when it comes the moment to test your skills,there is no mercy.

@Star and Moon:I really hope not.So many differences between difficulties are awful.If change the enemy AI or specs fine.But change the drops and death mechanics that should be optional in all the difficulties.

 

I personally don't like how difficulty is usually "increased" by giving enemies more health etc. *cough*Minecraft*cough*
Even something like Terraria's hardcore mode where you drop everything would be better in my opinion,
since it actually made a significant difference to the player's gameplay. Instead of just running in and being able to spawn back at home with
your bag full of goodies after dieing deep down in the caves, the player has to consider getting back to up to surface level safe and sound.

An example of an interesting difficulty option would be adding a hunger meter to higher difficulties, forcing players to farm/hunt rather than
hack and slash all day.
Another example would be to force players to use different weapons against different enemies/situations, rather than just running around with the same weapon.
Eg. guns useless against goons with bullet-proof vest.

 

Oh my.That's rather frustrating than fun.

 

Some people find these "frustrating" gameplay mechanics fun, for example, me.
This is why there are choices for difficulty; if you find the use of a hunger bar frustrating, then choose a lower difficulty where there's no hunger bar!

 

I like challenging games, but really it depends on the type of game really. Being at constant risk of dying at any moment can make a game pretty intense, but if you wanted to just explore or build something, that would start to detract from the overall experience before long.

Difficulty has always been a bit of a funny thing for me, sometimes you get genuinely challenging games, sometimes you just get games that present you with what I call 'false difficulty'. An example of false difficulty is something like when the stats of an enemy are simply inflated so they simply hit harder and take more damage to defeat. Combine that example with questionable/weak AI and it becomes painfully obvious that it's false difficulty, because you can just approach it in pretty much the same way and deal with those foes like you would their weaker counter-parts. Terraria is an example of game that many will be familiar with and that was absolutely rife with false difficulty. I honestly felt the most challenging non-boss enemy in the game was the Skeleton Archer, simply because it was a 'significant' threat before you managed to close in on it. The rest of the AI was just that much more predictable and easy to deal with in comparison, and most of the threat came from large increases to damage and HP on enemies rather than them being smarter or attacking in new and different ways.

When it comes to Starbound, I like the gist of what I've heard so far concerning difficulty. Different threat levels on planets means there will be some planets you can explore to your hearts content without fear of threat, while others will supposedly be so dangerous that they'll still be a considerable threat once you've accumulated all your fancy gear and gubbins. It sounds like there will be something for everyone in that regard. I'm also hoping that the wide range of different enemies means we'll see lots of different attack patterns, method of attack and unique threats that will keep us thinking and prevent us from simply roflstomping everything we come across that moves with contemptuous ease because they always just run or fly pretty much right at you.

 

I like a challenge, I always played games on normal, but I started playing skyrim on master a few days ago, its fun, hard and keeps me interested, I've never thought a draugur was hard, then he hit me 2 times and I died

I hope starbound has difficulty settings too(hard mode+hunger+temperature=ultimate game)

 

Things like death penalities and survival elements should be optional in all difficulties.Just have the server menu to disable/enable those.Anything that forces the player isn't good on a sandbox game,so I don't even know if canonic difficulty levels would be good for starbound.It's also true that merely increasing the enemy stats is a boring way to change difficulty,but how to change it?

 

The topic made me think back to a couple points at this thread "List of announced game information"

I imagine if none of these facts have changed during development, they're promising some nice bits of difficulty. Terraria had a more of a equipment based difficulty where it was pretty easy to get owned if you didn't have the right weapons/armor/accessories and it was based more so on numbers to make up for the limited AI. Based on the two statements from that thread, we'll end up seeing that kind of item progression in Starbound as well along with a bunch more AI types to deal with. You'll have to adapt your playing style a few times to deal with the situation. This type of variety is what I'm looking forward to and I'm sure the amount of challenge that the game cranks out will adequately keep me occupied for quite some time.

I also like the idea of the hunger bar adding to it. It didn't really stick with me in Minecraft because I had played the game well before that bar and it seemed somewhat as an unnecessary implementation at the time considering how long the game went without it(maybe more of a mental limitation on my behalf but w/e). With Starbound I think it'll work out better. It just feels more so apart of the game.

 

Now that you make me think of it,This game should not even have a difficulty switch.It would change the entire procedural generation and stuff.I.e. you catch the same mob twice but with two different difficulties,one is stronger than the other.

 

I like games that challenge you but offer different ways to get around/solve those challenges.
Concerning difficulty, I wouldn't mind if it was brutal.

 

I enjoy a semi-casual start, taking things easy, killing a couple of small hostile creatures, doing simple quests, etc. - and eventually, as my character grows, so will the difficulty of the things I do. For instance, hunting down new monsters will be more demanding, as these new ones are trickier than the ones I've killed before. Same with the quests - While starter quests might be more about collecting a certain amount of minerals, later quests might be more about rescuing someone from a nest of nasty insect-like creatures.

However, if things are too easy, then I start losing interest as well. Gladly, it's been stated several times that certain planets will be quite tough even with top dog gear, so no worries there. For everyone's sake, I'm glad that different planets will have different levels of difficulty, so people can pretty much decide the type of environment they'd like to be in. To those more interested in peaceful mining and growing crops, I'm certain that there will be quite friendly planets out there that will allow this to happen. To those who'd rather jump right into the middle of a pack of rabid monsters, the opportunity will also be there.

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One thing I dislike, though, is having to die in order to learn the tactics (unless you check guides online, which feels like cheating to me ). I really despise this method of learning, where players are forced to go 'blind' into a fight, only to be killed multiple times in order to learn what must be done - Have to stand on point A for 10 seconds and then do a back flip to point B so the boss can evolve into phase 2 where it will summon a Gorilla that throws cannons that shoot mini-Gorillas that cast a debuff that can only be removed if the player taps his head and rubs his belly simultaneously... You get the picture. A few example of games that use this method: World of Warcraft and the God of War series.

A fight can still be tough and challenging without relying on tactics that require a guide/dying in order to learn how to tackle down the character's enemies. For instance, besides the typical dodge enemy attacks/projectiles, in-game information about a boss can be provided by a certain NPC prior to the conflict: "Wait, Starborn... The Bitezorgs... They can only see things that are moving... Be careful." - or even - "The Space-Crabs have indeed a tough shell. However, they're extremely vulnerable to fire." (These are just a couple of simple examples. They'd have to be more worked on in the game, to give a better flow) Thus the player would already have hints/tips on the back of his/her mind, given by a perfectly acceptable source.

Other idea would be taking advantage of the scenario in order to defeat a certain opponent, a few examples include leading it to a minefield and causing a cave to collapse on top of it.

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I also enjoy survival elements that certain games provide, such as Fallout New Vegas, with a hunger, thirst and sleep bars. It's not necessarily difficult, it just adds depth to the game for me. ^^

 

I prefer easy games myself. I'm not a fan of super uber hax challenge games.
I'll be honest, I can take on challenging games, but when I'm stressed out [which is almost always happening to me], I would prefer a game which I can smash everything to the ground with little effort, without pissing me off even more. Anger issues, mang.

 

I don't think any game should be designed in such a way that achieving any goal becomes a chore only the most hardened players can achieve. A game is meant to be enjoyed, not causing frustration and aggitation for the stupidest reasons such as overwhelmingly strong mobs and "by the breadth of a hair" time limits.

I'm not saying that games should be so simple that you don't need to put any effort into them. I like a game that, if you pay attention you can overcome your obstacles, where the fighting should flow naturally and immerse the player rather than cause their blood pressure to rise and make their mind scramble just to defeat an average foe. If you are lazy and take things for granted, you get wasted, if you pay attention, you can get through huge battles without major difficulty while still being able to enjoy yourself.

If you want high tension and that "feeling of a rush from success", try base jumping. Games are supposed to be enjoyed, not become chores to complete.