Re: Oh, I see where the miscommunication came in.by jeep 02/26/2012, 3:32pm PST
Jerry Whorebach wrote:
I agree with you about this, too! I think Half-Life 2 is probably not the greatest example of a game that would benefit from really crazy difficulty settings because, let's face it, the core gameplay is kinda weak. The ridiculously protracted campaign mainly coasts by on variety, alternating basic shooting with linear exploration with simple puzzles with boring conversation with awful vehicle segments, in such a way that HOPEFULLY the player will be so overwhelmed by the entire experience they'll be able to ignore any deficiencies in the moment-to-moment action. It didn't really work for me, but I'm obviously in the minority on that one. Still, what optional challenges it did present - Little Rocket Man, for example, or even just Keep Off the Sand! - were unquestionably the most joyful and compelling things about it. So who knows.
yeah i used hl2 because valve like to serve their customers so I think they'd be likely to patch it in even much later. I agree with your assessment of the gameplay, but I thought the 'overwhelm them with content' worked because I almost forgot I was on rails for all 10000 hours of the game. my real objection is to the science fiction: once you've written yourself into a hole that only time travel can get you out of, you failed.
also why did I have to wait for the end for
upgraded gravity gun is the best shit! put it at the beginning.
I suppose what I'm getting at is that games should ideally be designed from the ground up to ensure all their difficulty settings are viable for the people who would choose them. I would think the easiest way to do this would be to make the really gamey game - the game your testers want to play - first, and just make sure your design is modular enough that individual components (the save system, the combat difficulty, etc.) can be safely dumbed down without compromising whatever sort of interactive narrative thrillride is left over. Easier said than done, I guess, which is convenient for me since I'm the one saying it.
right yes I'm also just saying it as of now. the idea that they could patch it in after kind of assumes they've already made the easy/normal/hard game they always make. I can imagine game developers of any kind are offended to their very core just thinking of an idea like this. if 95% of the gameplay they puked up all over an unsuspecting market weren't utter fucking shit this probably would never have come up, but as long as this is the norm, they can go ahead and give me a button to opt out.
on the other hand, if you are starting to make a new game, and it's maybe kingdom of amalur or the witcher 2 so you know you're going to make a fantasy game with a fantasy story that potentially appeals to fanfic writing carebears, and maybe you're thinking you'll sell a million copies, but maybe you could sell an extra hundred thousand by stating "carebears, we have a mode just to play the story where combat is all taken care of," then it's possible that you could decide in advance to hire an extra writer against the extra revenue who might make the overall game's story better, and you have achieved a very small benefit for all players by serving some group no one else cares about.
kingdom of amalur has an easy mode, but I'd like to see them go further due to the already-newb-friendly nature of the game. maybe the scripted combat is showing you what to do and you can just jump in whenever, I don't know how much harder that is than "press x to skip". they could also patch this in via steam any fucking time. and I recommend they do, because their combat as-is isn't so much hard as deeply personally embarrassing to both curt schilling and the rest of the 2004 red sox.
