Rabbit and the moon - How should I handle difficulty?
So I'm at an interesting point with my games development and I've been grappling with a question of how do I handle my game's difficulty? I've got all my code set up and I'm ready to go nuts with my level design however is there such a thing as making a game too difficult especially for release?
Then I realised I'm slowly building a following so it would be nice to get some feedback on this issue, do you prefer way more difficult games? Or do you like something fairly standard where there's the option to up the difficulty later. I'm not talking about doing stupid stuff like making health go to 90000hp or anything like that but creating extremely challenging levels where you can die a hell of a lot like in Dark Souls.
This is the dilemma I'm facing for launch, if I make the game too easy, it will flop and people just won't be all that interested in it. I could then release a patch which I'm set up for where I add some extra hard DLC levels for people to play through which will do the job but then the damage will have already been done and people will have been bored with the release and moved on. I actually play and enjoy games so I know how fickle gamers can be, I saw the release of No Man's Sky and what happened during that where it got something like 40,000 negative reviews and I really don't want ot have that happen to me.
So what do you think? I'm honestly searching for the feedback, because I really could now make it as extremely difficult as Dark Souls or even Contra and give my audience credit as gamers or I could soften it a bit and create a seperate load of hard difficulty levels perhaps after that people can play. I'm a bit constrained by development time you see so it is probably best to focus on one option otherwise I'll be spending months developing really hard levels and playtesting them for release even though I have the standard game finished.
So if anyone is still reading the post I've decided I am going to make the game pretty difficult but I'll be sure to make the difficulty gradual as they describe it. Going by the criteria set out by everybody, I've actually designed it pretty well, not only do I have checkpoints to respawn at but I even have a custom save system that I rightly as it turns out spent months talking to other developers and programmers about.
Thanks for all your feedback, now I've got some traps to place :D I've just finished getting all my asteroids to rotate and they'll be going at different speeds the more you progress through the levels.
As grateful as I am for the upvotes why did you bastards all do this and not give me any feedback? lol
wait few minutes for mine, I'm glad there are Game Developers on steemit. (and you're not a hobbiest like me). I think you should add #gamedev tag to this post.
Thanks :P just weird getting upvotes when I'm trying to have a conversation with people
I know, right?
I'll start by answering the main question:
I rather play easy games than difficult ones, I'm not someone who loves to spend much time in a game to master it (unless I love the game for other reasons)!!
But I don't like the "option to up the difficulty later" because this often leaves the game with fake difficulty. Don't do that unless you are really good designer who can make that "fair". I'm sure this video will Help you a lot:
watch it, it's made by people who know what they're doing.
In my opinion there's nothing called "too difficult" there's a thing called"Unfairly Difficult". Every level of difficulty have players who are so into it!!
I wrote so much here, but decided to make it its own post instead, the short version of it is "Make it Fair" and "Market it to people who like that sort of Difficulty".
Just wanna add that this is an opinion based on what I've played/read/heard... as a gamedev I tend to make (easy games) and didn't complete making even those.
Of course, by 'difficult' I don't mean the cheap methods that developers use which is why I mentioned the 9000hp thing, I would purpose build these levels for players who want way more of a challenge. Thanks for your comment it seems your of a similar sort of mind as me, I guess as long as I don't up the difficulty cheaply if I choose to I'll not screw everything up.
It's just that classic problem with balance, I can't make a game so difficult it's almost impossible to get through otherwise people would just rage quit, but then again, there are extremely difficult games like Gemotry Dash and Darksouls which are quite popular though.
I guess this is another one of those types where you just have to roll with it and see what happens, the problem is, I do quite enjoy a challenging game. So my version of difficult is going to be different from everyone else's because I've been gaming since I was a child.
If you can try giving the game to a sample audience and ask them for their opinion. If you don't to "spoil" the game for them, just make a prototype of levels.
I'm writing a post about what makes a difficulty good (some parts of it are in the video though)
Hi again @lethn1.... I published the article with my full advice:
https://steemit.com/gaming/@ahmadmanga/hard-games-is-the-game-difficult-or-unfair-how-to-make-a-videogame-more-fair-to-players
Hope you read it and give me your opinion!!
Forgot to say:
I don't think this is a good idea unless you're popular enough already, because:
Most people who download indie games never play them for more than few hours and uninstall them once they finish (or worse, one they become boring.)... releasing a DLC for a game already uninstalled won't help you.
If you released it on popular platform like steam. The "1st day reviews" will decide the fate of your game (and sometimes even your fate).
as far as I know people don't give Negative reviews for a difficulty they don't like, they give it for fake difficulty, bad design, unresponsive controls, and theme/gameplay that doesn't suit each other.
Guess I just have to make sure I avoid that above all else then :P
Edit: Watched that video and it's actually really interesting, thanks for the link!
Where you from my friend ? i want to know which country to belong to @ronaldmcatee
United Kingdom, says so on my profile.
There is a reason why souls game are so popular and people actually use it as a genre on its own. Its not the difficulty that ruins the game but the 'unfair' difficulty devs use sometimes. If the game is properly laid out the game difficulty only adds the sense of satisfaction and happiness after clearing