Difficulty Philosophy

[AlexxKay]

[Search on these forums isn't being very helpful to me, so I'm starting a new thread...]

It seems to me that the current design of the game is that combat constantly gets harder as the player progresses.  That seems like a fine *option* for *some* storytellers, but not all of them.  I'd really like something less challenging, yet still not a total lack of challenge.  "Chill" Callie continues to not function as described (for me, at least); every wave of enemies is bigger than the last, until I am inevitably crushed.  This is both predictable and un-fun.

I'm enjoying the colony-management stuff, and it wouldn't feel meaningful without *some* threats to protect against.  But I want a Storyteller where the threat level is capped, at least until/unless I take some conscious action to invite trouble.

Now, I know the super-skilled players think I'm a wimp, and that Chill Callie is totally beatable.  But she's advertised as "a good choice for your first game".  I've played about 6 games now, in various alpha versions, and I still get consistently crushed.

[Dalhan]

I'd like the story tellers to be more diverse too. Something sort of like:

Colony management: Hugely reduced focus on combat, more natural disasters / colony issues. Like people go nuts.

Assassins: Instead of huge waves, 3-4 sneaky high-skilled shooters enter the region unannounced and infiltrate your base.

Theives: Like the above, they don't intend to fight, just steal from your base.

Waves: Reduce the high-end wave counts and just make the soldiers tougher. Having 20 of my own dudes plus 100 AI lags out the game (and I have an impressive rig too!)

[Tynan]

Good to see you Alexx! Sorry the game's giving you trouble.

Well, Callie is certainly intended to be a low but present challenge. They will only ramp up now in proportion to your wealth and population, and very slowly if you don't take serious damage for a long time. How far are you getting anyway? If you really want to just build stuff you could play on Phoebe (she does still raid you), but there has been some demand for a level between Callie and Phoebe, so perhaps I should fill it in future.

[Jeroen Jager]

I agree. I really like the combat but after a few waves I don't have time to gather food anymore since everyone is dead or in bed.

And ignoring the siege isn't an option because they take out my solar panels.

I'm currently set up in a mountain with a 6 man team. Trying to figure out a way to kill the brawlers that are besieging me.
Attempt #7 here we go!

EDIT: I'm just camping out in my dark powerless cave, with more food stored than the raiders have. I am just going to wait until they starve!

[Gabriel_Braun]

I'm just camping out in my dark powerless cave, with more food stored than the raiders have. I am just going to wait until they starve!

That's only going to work until they get cabin fever

[murillokb]

They will only ramp up now in proportion to your wealth and population

Does things like stone blocks count as wealth? because i'm getting rid of that huge stockpile of stone blocks right now if that's the case 

Also on my Phoebe run i'm only geting attacked by 3 raiders tops no matter how many colonists I have (may be the total lack of turrets). Is that intended?

[Gabriel_Braun]

Turrets apparently don't have any impact on raid strength I read somewhere

[Tynan]

Also on my Phoebe run i'm only geting attacked by 3 raiders tops no matter how many colonists I have (may be the total lack of turrets). Is that intended?

Yes.

[AlexxKay]

If you really want to just build stuff you could play on Phoebe (she does still raid you),

OK, next version I'll try Phoebe.  (I'm trying not to play too much of any one version, so my feedback stays at least a little fresh.)

But if Phoebe performs raids, then I think you have a serious mismatch between the storyteller descriptions and their actual contents...  (So often in game design the fix that is both cheapest and best at preserving the designer's intent is to clarify the wording in player-facing material.)  A friend of mine in another startup (non game-based) was recently having an on-line discussion about naming skill levels, and a mutual friend of ours who is professionally a UX person, said the following: "I think it's important that "Easy" sounds really attractive. People want to believe that they're uber competent, and then they get into hot water, and they blame the system. If you can brand the "typical user" level in a positive way, that may help."  Phoebe sounded *too* simple, so I didn't give her a try...

[Tynan]

Damn so you mean this wasn't the right example to follow?



But you're right, maybe I should call her Builder Betty, for players who just like constructing things.

[Evul]

Damn so you mean this wasn't the right example to follow?



But you're right, maybe I should call her Builder Betty, for players who just like constructing things.

heheh

[Gabriel_Braun]

"I think it's important that "Easy" sounds really attractive. People want to believe that they're uber competent, and then they get into hot water, and they blame the system. If you can brand the "typical user" level in a positive way, that may help."  Phoebe sounded *too* simple, so I didn't give her a try...

I hear what you're saying dude but I don't agree with that assumption at all...

I've been playing PC games since the first Simcity and Frontier Elite II so I'm hardly new to pc gaming-  I'm not saying this to imply any kind of superior position or arrogance though, it's important to know how far back I'm coming from to get here!
I'm not going to make this a history lecture or a discourse on changes in development philosophy but to say it bluntly the 'Easy, Medium, Hard & Nightmare' descriptions or 'pseudo-skill level' dynamic never worked for me and never will.  I play RPGs on easy or casual level because I'm there for the story so combat might still present but my heroic character and/or party are exactly that:  Hero units just like in all the movies.  They might get injured or killed sometimes and even on casual levels standing in the open during a firefight or something going boom still gets you killed. 

On the other hand I play grand strategy games on the highest level if that does not include economic modifiers being imposed on the player and boosts to the AI.  The cool thing about the rimworld storytellers is that they all play by the same economic rules (apart from Randy, he's so random he can swing either way or both at the same time!) so the challenges this game offers are of a different type than traditional difficulty settings IMHO.

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To conclude I have to disagree with the assertion that all gamers want to believe they are uber-competent:  I'd personally say it's limited to a particular genre of games with a three letter abbreviation but that's just me

I do agree with your suggestion that Phoebe's description suggests a casual mode however it's interesting that you interpreted the storyteller selection screen to be a difficulty selection option so I wonder how many other people do the same thing?  Phoebe is of course recognisable as the 'safest'  but Randy random could technically be considered the easiest for 50% of games played

[artemas]

Yeah. The fact that there are three 'classic' storytellers, differentiated only by difficulty doesn't help in that matter though. To be honest, i've never played phoebe, also because it sounded too boring.

[AlexxKay]

To conclude I have to disagree with the assertion that all gamers want to believe they are uber-competent

Didn't mean to suggest "all".  But I think "many" is accurate.

it's interesting that you interpreted the storyteller selection screen to be a difficulty selection option so I wonder how many other people do the same thing?

Well, whether you think of it as "difficulty selection" or "preferred playstyle", the storyteller screen is the most obvious place to choose that sort of thing.

[Gabriel_Braun]

Totally true dude but would you agree that nobody can really say that Cleopatra or any of the others are comparable to Randy for the sake of measuring overall game difficulty?