#difficulty modes

[bigfreakinfrog]

i KNOWWWW gamefreak would fuck it up. i KNOW it. but dear god do i want black/white remakes. Maybe its nostalgia goggles but every character in those games actually compels me. the story is good. it has drama. intrigue. moral dilemma. the music fucking BOPS

make a remake like oras and not bdsp. i will give you all the money. i will buy the switch 2 for it

[trivorowo]

So with the humble choice I got a game called there is no light. Booted it up and got this interesting difficulty mode selector. Feels like they got part of the memo of newer games not using easy/medium/hard terminology, but kept it in either way in the descriptions and the art.

[eruwaedhiel-in-an-impardis]

^this 100%! As someone who enjoys ultra death mode in metroidvanias like Ori, I will always love games that have different levels of difficulty available. Because most of my friends don't enjoy 100 million death games like I do, but so many metroidvanias are gorgeous and have amazing stories and music, and I want to share them with my friends! I can't recommend one of my favorite games, Hollow Knight, to a lot of people, bc it only has one mode--Catholic Suffering. So if there's like a story mode in a game it's easier for me to recommend it to people who don't find it enjoyable to die seventeen times in a row to the same miniboss. Which, very admittedly, is sometimes me.

I’m playing Ori and the Blind Forest. It’s so pretty and I’m enjoying it. About halfway through I was trying to go to bed and stuck on the water shrine blasting you out.

I just wanted to go to bed but I kept dying and in frustration I turned the difficulty to easy. I cleared it instantly and afterward I told myself I’d change it back to normal, but I forgot and realized I was having a way better time on easy.

There’s still a tiny voice leering at me in my head that I’m playing on easy but honestly games should be fun. I was succeeding on normal but I’m thriving on easy and I feel like that should be the point.

[antisolanum]

I feel like an elder scrolls-type large-scale fantasy RPG should have three core difficulty modes: "Storyteller", "Adventurer" and "Crusader", and they aren't "easy, medium, and hard", they're fundamental shifts in some core ways that the game interfaces with you.

"Storyteller" mode could have a larger communication interface with more information available to the player, more like Fallout 1 and 2, and have additional, non-essential dialogues that provide additional context and flavor. It could also by default activate one of the optional difficulty-modifying options, "participant" mode, which makes it so that most standard "go to the place and fight the guys" missions would have allied factional NPCs there to assist you, like if in Skyrim you got a quest to go clear out "Butt-Fucker Cave", a handful of "Imperial Scouts" would be there to help you out, because you are helping the Empire (or whatever), as well as increasing the presence of traveling allied NPC caravans who can help you out if you run into shit in the field. Not "Easy Mode", just a mode tailored to someone who is there to enjoy a cool fun story experience.

"Adventurer" mode would be more jack-of-all-trades, with a more Mass Effect-like communication interface, no optional modes active by default except for one very normal one that Storyteller mode would DEactivate, which would allow enemy groups to have "organic composition", meaning a bunch of random bandits you encounter wouldn't be "Goons 1-6", they'd be a "Thug"(tough guy), a "Pickpocket"(quick, DPS, stunning), a "Bossman" (leader, combat aura), and so on. A more cooperative, organic composition instead of a bunch of copypasted randos. More complex, but not numerically more "difficult".

"Crusader" mode would be focused on gameplay over story, with dialog being shortened, linear, no options for asking questions (although all relevant information would still be available both in a codex and quest listing and if you go back to talk to an NPC non-essentially, it would default to the Adventurer interface), and NPCs would have an icon next to their information to tell you if they have no unread info or only purely optional info (grey icon), relevant info and current quest content (shining bronze icon), or new quests and key information (shining gold icon). Quests would also have completely unique categorical iconography to indicate whether it is a technical challenge (combat), a communicative challenge (go to man, speak to man), or an adventurous challenge (go to place, investigate, find my lost daughter).

"Storyteller" mode would disable the presence of "Espollier" enemies, challenging enemies who are essentially "anti-protagonists", they are knights from a hostile foreign territory who travel the land adventuring just like you, but under the banner of their kingdom for the purposes of slowly conquering the land with "kindness" (but the insidious kind of kindness that offers disaster aid in exchange for the rights to build a military base on your untouched wilderness). They exist to be a technical challenge, where these knights in armor are about your level, but step back when they engage you in combat and let their goons fight you, and everything you do while fighting those goons levels the Espollier up, and grants them buffs, and changes their gear (they 're-equip') specifically to fight you. Are you sword-and-board? By the time you're done fighting their four hired swords, they're four levels higher than you, have specific buffs to counter your fighting style, and have switched to a lance to counter your sword-and-board style.

"Crusader" mode would not only have Espollier enemies, but would buff them, make the fights more complex, and increase the likelihood of encountering them, and increase the rewards for beating them.

Like I said, not "difficulty modes", but core differences in how the game approaches presenting you with the game mechanics.

[venriliz]

Kiandra.

i did @birdietrait's random cas challenge and got plantsim and fantasy/colorful eyes °-° is it cheating that she actually isn't really a plantsim? am i a cas-challenge cheater??? :<

[bbbbbbbbatman]

I want a Timkon clone baby where tim realises he’s kind of batshit insane right now and not equipped to raise an infant, so he leaves the baby on the manor doorstep and disappears into thin air to do a martial arts eat pray love until he’s sane again because he doesn’t know what therapy is. And now Bruce is not only a first time grandpa but a first time infant caregiver and he’s been thrown into the deep end with an alien baby who instead of pissing on him when he’s being changed can shoot lasers at him, scream so loud it shakes the foundations and launch projectiles at people with TTK. He has to wear a full bomb proof batsuit to change the little guy and has ma Kent on speed dial

Bruce, calling Clark at 2:47 am: Clark, I need your help, it's an emergency

Clark, who has never heard Batman ask for help so directly, knows whatever's going on must be truly dire: What is it? What do you need? I can be there right away

Bruce, desparate: I need your mother's phone number

Clark, not sure what emergency could be solved by his mother in the middle of the night: ...My mother's...phone number?

*loud crash in the background, followed by crying*

Clark: Um...what exactly is going on?

Bruce, using the bat voice: Your. Mother's. Phone number. Now

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Honestly, as someone who spent most of his youth not even buying games if there weren’t game genie/shark codes for stuff like infinity lives/health, I’m not necessarily looking for a challenge (though the satisfaction I’ve gotten playing without them is a good feeling).

But I’m also generally not a player of games where tension is an integral part of the design.

Cutscene incompetence though, always sucks. Or any form of “this is too dangerous/we can’t fight all of them” when it’s been proven you can.

The New Vegas grenade launcher post feels like a good example in favor of one of my more controversial video game takes.

That is, while I don't think easier difficulty modes are a bad thing I do think you can kind of ruin the intended experience more than you think by using them.

The gameplay of a game is not a separate thing from its story or atmosphere. In many games, the gameplay is supposed to reinforce the aesthetic elements of the game to create a specific type of emotional experience, and this experience can be dramatically changed if the gameplay does not resonate with what the game is presenting.

If a game's setting is supposed to be dark and dangerous but the game is overly easy, you may never actually feel the danger. You may not make decisions based on it or immerse yourself.

Similarly, if an antagonist is supposed to be intimidating but defeating them is not particularly difficult then they are unlikely to actually feel as threatening as they're supposed to be.

Some games suffer from this much more than others (there's some games where it just doesn't matter) but playing easy mode can be like playing through a worse version of the game and getting a less engaging experience as a result.

It's not an elitism or gatekeeping thing to me. It's all about maintaining that connection to the setting and enabling immersion in ways that make the thing more interesting.

[st-hedge]

MGSV sketch dump. The brainrot is thriving

[e-johnsen]

I present my gift for the wonderful @spacedpanini. I love love love a 'family outing' prompt. Thanks so much @emis-equivalent-exchange for putting this together! So excited to take part this year.

[nagunkgunk]

you. You’re the reason that i bought monster hunter world on steam when it was on sale for like ten bucks. I have no idea what i’m doing here. The beasties are cool and i have opinions on animal behavior but also what the fuck. I don’t understand the controls. I’m genuinely just flailing around with swords now. What is a combo and why is it just me clicking randomly on things

HA HA YES... YES!!!!!!!!! ten dollars for world is an incredible deal!!!!

You're in that funny 8-15 hour period before combat clicks and you dump 100+ hours into the game. (don't worry about the fact it can take 15 hours. its a journey. you explore the maps and pick mushrooms and capture tiny wildlife in your net. its fun i'm telling you) trust

in all seriousness, you could spend some time in the training area to learn important combos for your weapon's mechanics! all combo knowledge will fly away once you face a scary monster, but also it won't. There are some interesting attacks that are only late combo though. Watching a weapons tips/combo video is really helpful but not necessary. I never did for world switchaxe and you can intuit mostly everything with enough hours. Watch top right corner for different attacks that pop up during combos!

Early on you won't even be landing your fancy 5 attack deep combos since you don't know the monster too well, so getting a one two combo is good enough! consistent one twos is better than getting knocked and hurt trying for the one two three four five ULTRA FUCKOFF ATTACK, if you get what I mean. Don't be the one to over commit to an attack!!! You'll want to get a feel for the monsters attacks, and only attack when the monster makes a mistake and goes into a combo that won't hit you at all. when a monster falls down and cries so very sadly, that's when you go for a full combo

the controls: it is soooo funny that weapon attacks are Like That and Clunky and incredibly dependent on which direction your character is actually facing, but I also love this old style over the wilds focus mode. Once it clicks it is truely so very fun. I'm actually relieved I didn't power thru the world dlc before wilds bc that means I still have a whole game (rise) and a half of that old style

[gayestcowboy]

starting an honor mode playthrough 🫡 will update when i die

[kristiliqua]

some ultrakill fans flaming people for playing on lenient/harmless is so funny to me because here i am in my little corner playing on harmless with Also 100% damage reduction (in major assist settings) because my severe anxiety cannot handle the idea of me taking any damage at all . i am wearing my propeller hat and eating my lollipop and i am having fun :3 (and maybe one day i can ease that anxiety and play without major assists)

[justablah56]

hi guys ummmmmm gay robots <3

[acroagoraphobe]

Every game is a cozy game if you try hard enough

[maximura]

[thatonecrookedsmile]

Waiting in the nothingness.

But waiting for what exactly?

Waiting for the arrival of a salvation that will take you out of the void?Or waiting for the moment when you will finally disappear into the engulfing darkness?

What is the point of waiting when you are condemned to an eternal and timeless space?

...

Maybe it's curiosity.

Life,even in the nothingness,can be unpredictable.

You never know what it's next move will be. What it can change around you in the blink of an eye. And in such conditions, it's not as if you have much to do.

Guess you'll just have to wait and see.