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Gamerasutra
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by Jerry Whorebach 02/26/2012, 6:56am PST |
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jeep wrote:
ironman (very hard):
- save points in place of save anywhere
- multiple shots to kill every enemy
- size of the crowd of enemies changes (gets bigger)
- number of health packs drops
- ammo drops to only ~125% of what you need to kill if you have perfect accuracy (I'm guessing at the number)
- timers everywhere for battles, maybe there's a bomb or reinforcements are coming. maybe even an overall timer per level or for the whole game.
- occasional 'cheap' moves like taking away your guns or limiting you to only one type of gun and making the enemy immune to force you to use environmental effects
- extra steam achievement for completing levels under this difficulty
Brilliant. I especially like the implication that people who play on this difficulty are iron men, something I've always believed about myself but haven't expressed for fear of ridicule. I'm just going to go down your list of points and tell you why they sound fun and maybe speculate a bit as to why they're not standard yet.
First of all, you'd think any game with both achievements and difficulty levels would have at least one of the former tied to the latter, but I'm constantly amazed at how many don't (every achievement in a Bethesda game can be earned on the easiest difficulty, for example). I can only imagine some market research was done at some point which suggests completists are more likely to buy your game if they feel like they have a reasonable chance of "completing" it. This is why, whenever I hear someone complaining about how a game's achievements are too hard, I want to reach through my monitor and throttle them. Of course, I could easily be blaming the wrong party. It's entirely possible to view the lack of difficulty-related achievements as a tacit admission by the developers that their games simply aren't fun anymore when played on harder settings. This is supported by the fact that often, they really aren't.
I would attribute this to the way in which difficulty is typically increased in PC-style brown Starship Troopers/Lord of the Rings battle games: by giving the enemies more hit points and superhuman response times. As opposed to increasing the number of enemies (and thereby causing performance to tank, especially on fixed-spec consoles), making them smarter (LOL is this even possible?), or changing the conditions under which you fight them, such as by adding timers or immunities (adding, balancing, and testing "content" that only a fraction of players will ever see is apparently a cardinal sin of modern games development, and presumably the first thing to get cut when projects run over budget or behind schedule).
Honestly, the only entries on your list that give me pause are the decreased ammo and health, just because I could see those factors, when combined with limited saving, making it far too easy to become trapped in an unwinnable (or at least, highly tedious) situation. This wouldn't be a problem if your "levels" (the instances of gameplay between save points) were as self-contained and well-balanced as the ones in the original DOOM, but that's honestly a pretty high bar to set for yourself, especially over the length of an entire 6+ hour campaign. I could see that being a real nightmare to nail down (without resorting to a Dead Space-style "OH LOOK YOU FOUND EXACTLY AS MUCH HEALTH AND AMMO AS YOU NEEDED IN THIS RANDOM LOCKER" procedural generation, which kind of misses the point spectacularly), and one of the best arguments for abandoning that sort of strategic gameplay entirely and just automatically replenishing health and ammo between encounters (I'm not much of a pen and paper guy, but isn't this the direction D&D ended up going in? It makes more sense for a skill-based shoot 'em up than a tactical RPG, at least).
Of course, difficulty today isn't all doom and gloom. Some developers seem to be on the right track. For example, Irrational released a patch for BioShock to disable the no-fault player respawning, a move which instantly catapulted that game from basically worthless to one of my favourites of the generation. They even added an extra achievement for using it! If they released another patch that went all the way, disabled save-anywhere and turned the Vita-Chambers into Super Metroid-style save chambers, I'd play through it again tomorrow. (Don't tell them, but I might even be willing to pay $5 in Microsoft money for the privilege.) |
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Has there ever been a game where a stamina meter really worked by Rafiki 02/19/2012, 9:50am PST 
It's sole purpose in Deus Ex: HR by fabio 02/19/2012, 10:38am PST
What's best is when your flashlight draws energy from the same pool O_O by Jerry Whorebach 02/19/2012, 8:32pm PST
I'm still pretty sure the worst is also dxhr by jeep 02/19/2012, 8:40pm PST
I'm still confused by the battery thing by fabio 02/19/2012, 10:01pm PST
Re: I'm still confused by the battery thing (spoilers) by Ice Cream Jonsey 02/20/2012, 10:42am PST
Re: I'm still confused by the battery thing (spoilers) by fabio 02/20/2012, 11:59am PST
Re: I'm still confused by the battery thing (spoilers) by Arbit 02/20/2012, 9:34pm PST
Re: I'm still confused by the battery thing (spoilers) by fabio 02/20/2012, 11:01pm PST
Re: I'm still confused by the battery thing (spoilers) by jeep 02/21/2012, 6:59am PST
You can use one unconscious guy to bait others and tran dart them one by one. by Worm 02/21/2012, 10:58am PST
No, Skyrim (or any Elder Scrolls game) by Arbit 02/20/2012, 9:01pm PST
Probably! On a SSD transitions tend to cut off mid-sound/animation/whatever. NT by Mischief Maker 02/19/2012, 8:47pm PST
Keep in mind, even REGULAR hard drives aren't standard equipment on consoles yet by Jerry Whorebach 02/19/2012, 9:34pm PST
They were on the original Xbox :( NT by Mischief Maker 02/20/2012, 1:14am PST
One of the reasons it was only in production for four years. HDDs are expensive! by And they don't get much cheaper. 02/20/2012, 1:38am PST
I'm playing Bulletstorm right now, and that game uses ACTUAL SPEEDBUMPS. by Jerry Whorebach 02/20/2012, 9:54pm PST
HOLY SHIT-PISS by Rafiki 02/21/2012, 8:02am PST
I'm halfway through the campaign on 'Very Hard', and I still feel like I'm in a by mandatory tutorial. 02/21/2012, 3:50pm PST
Finished the campaign. Maybe the other modes are better? by Jerry Whorebach 02/27/2012, 8:47am PST
What do you know, score attack mode is actually a little bit better. by Jerry Whorebach 03/02/2012, 5:56pm PST
Demon's Souls/Dark Souls? NT by Entropy Stew 02/19/2012, 9:54pm PST
This is correct. by Lizard_King 02/24/2012, 10:10am PST
fear 2 has a sprint meter by sdroa jists 02/24/2012, 2:41am PST
Jagged Alliance: Back in Action kicks you in the balls with stamina bullshit too by Eurotrash 02/24/2012, 9:33am PST
Do racing games count? by Last 02/24/2012, 9:56am PST
stamina meter goes on the pile with save points, cutscenes and...combat? by jeep 02/24/2012, 11:58am PST
Your ideas on games are pretty abhorent to me. by Arbit 02/24/2012, 1:28pm PST
He's the opposite of right NT by about everything 02/24/2012, 5:55pm PST
I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what tards think, but just this once by jeep 02/25/2012, 3:20pm PST
it wasn't an insult by about everything 02/25/2012, 9:27pm PST
oh well then thanks that's what I was going for from the start by jeep 02/26/2012, 8:58am PST
Why is he wrong? by Mysterio 02/24/2012, 9:45pm PST
Are games more like reading books (boo) or playing hockey (yay)? by Jerry Whorebach 02/25/2012, 2:50am PST
Here's a better(?) example. by Jerry Whorebach 02/25/2012, 6:10am PST
tl;dr - you don't fix boring games by making them less like games, you do it by NT by making them more like games. 02/25/2012, 6:23am PST
Jerry Whorebach: Ludologist by Let's Make Everything Into Games 02/26/2012, 5:39pm PST
A nerd who likes games is about the last thing you'd expect to find on-- by wait, where am I again? 02/26/2012, 6:19pm PST
Re: Why is he wrong? by Rafiki 02/25/2012, 9:10am PST
Don't think of it as a skip gameplay button then. by Mysterio 02/25/2012, 12:33pm PST
I think we might be talking about different things now by Rafiki 02/25/2012, 1:49pm PST
Re: I think we might be talking about different things now by jeep 02/26/2012, 9:14am PST
Re: I think we might be talking about different things now by Rafiki 02/27/2012, 1:51pm PST
I see what you're worried about but I don't think it's that big a risk by jeep 02/27/2012, 7:35pm PST
Out of hundreds, I've only played 3 (maybe 4) games whose story was "worth it." NT by Mischief Anachronism 02/27/2012, 1:58pm PST
True. Mostly I don't even remember plots, just certain scenes. by Last 02/27/2012, 2:29pm PST
same by jeep 02/27/2012, 6:46pm PST
"Think of it as adding a sandbox mode, then removing all the non-sandbox modes." by GAME GENIE 02/25/2012, 1:55pm PST
Re: stamina meter goes on the pile with save points, cutscenes and...combat? by Hans Clastorp 02/24/2012, 3:47pm PST
I knew when I put "combat" in people would get twitchy by jeep 02/25/2012, 5:08pm PST
Re: I knew when I put "combat" in people would get twitchy by Mischief Anachronism 02/25/2012, 6:55pm PST
How can you not like any Mario games? NT by Entropy Stew 02/25/2012, 11:46pm PST
Not challenging, setting is as bland and corporate as McDonaldland. NT by Mischief Anachronism 02/26/2012, 3:05am PST
The only excuse for not loving the NES version of original Super Mario Bros... by Jerry Whorebach 02/26/2012, 6:59am PST
You're partly right by Mischief Maker 02/29/2012, 9:08pm PST
If you were running for Difficulty Czar, you'd have my vote. by Jerry Whorebach 02/26/2012, 6:56am PST
re: ironman by jeep 02/26/2012, 8:57am PST
I wasn't being sarcastic. I wish every game had such a robust selection of by difficulty settings. 02/26/2012, 9:49am PST
you're still fucking with me right by jeep 02/26/2012, 10:20am PST
Oh, I see where the miscommunication came in. by Jerry Whorebach 02/26/2012, 11:31am PST
Re: Oh, I see where the miscommunication came in. by jeep 02/26/2012, 3:32pm PST
Re: I knew when I put "combat" in people would get twitchy by Hans Clastorp 02/27/2012, 3:28pm PST
I kind of liked the bit of The Void I played by jeep 02/27/2012, 8:14pm PST
How much do you think writers cost? by Jerry Whorebach 02/27/2012, 9:49pm PST
The problem with hiring decent writers isn't cost by fabio 02/28/2012, 7:44pm PST
american mcgee's the third policeman NT by jeep 02/28/2012, 7:52pm PST
Re: The problem with hiring decent writers isn't cost by Arbit 02/28/2012, 8:10pm PST
Re: The problem with hiring decent writers isn't cost by Arbit 02/28/2012, 8:11pm PST
LET'S BLAME THIS SHIT ON APPLE TOO NT by Arbit 02/28/2012, 8:12pm PST
Re: How much do you think writers cost? by jeep 02/28/2012, 7:49pm PST
Re: How much do you think writers cost? by Ice Cream Jonsey 02/29/2012, 10:18am PST
Wasteland 2? by laudablepuss 02/29/2012, 11:43am PST
Re: Wasteland 2? by jeep 02/29/2012, 1:13pm PST
It really is just ego by fabio 02/29/2012, 11:06am PST
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