RPGs and difficulty settings: where did the balance go?Follow

Remember FF 1?

How about the orginal Dragon Warrior?

How did the game designers then understand so well what level of difficulty would be fun, and yet years later, with endless research and testing, RPGs can range fron way-too-easy, to this-isn't-even-fun?

heres what you have to do to have a marketable game (kinda like politics:
you need to cater to the masses (easy mode), while also keeping your core fan base happy (so hard that only gamers with a great store of RPG experience have any hope of success)

Option 1: difficulty settings

recent release Star Ocean has a difficulty setting that you unlock *after* you finish the game.

i call this fail, personally i'm likely only going to play through any game 1 time, and i want a damn challenge. while this caters to both markets, you need more time to get to the challange

Option 2: starts easy, gets very hard. no difficulty selection

this is not bad, allthough... you will alienate your mass market when they start dying over and over mid game, and you hardcore gamers are bored for the first half

isn't there something we can do about this!

option 3: difficulty slidebar, more exp gained when slidebar is on hard

implemented years ago in the first Bethesda games (elder scrolls), this option kicks-***. allthough its true i just slide it over to max and leave it there, i feel like i've chosen my own destiny, somewhat
(unfortunately, Bethesda's games often allow you to become so overpowered, by the time you get around to the storyline, you are 1-hitting your way to victory)

option 4: don't be repetitive

this is where the fun is! a new challange, requiring a new solution, everytime you turn around.

remember how dynamic Chrono Trigger was? every section of the game unlocked new challenges with new tools to use

there was only 1 difficulty, and it fit everyone just right

how the hell did they do it?

i'll you what was fun tho, getting killed by the first boss in Lost Odessy.

I'm willing to bet you did too

Who knew you were expected to grind a bit in the very first level?

(this is not sarcasm, Lost Oydessy caught my full attention with this little gimmick)

Personally if a game is too difficult I quit playing it. When it comes to an RPG game I think its safer to keep them easy then hard. Thing about a RPG game is a majority of the content is the story behind the game. Lost Odyssey is a good example of this. If it wasn't for the story behind Lost Odyssey Id have never bought it. I first rented it when I had gamefly. I got pissed after dieing over and over to the first boss and even more pissed after dieing to the 2nd boss over and over (then finding out I had to fight two of the bastards). So I sent the game back and said hell with it. I remember reading some reviews and alot of people were saying the same thing about it being too difficult to be enjoyabled. Now if the game hadn't been so stupidly hard at this point I would have went right out and bought it because even up to that point I could see it was developing a pretty good story. However, at least at this point in the game, trying to level was painfully slow and there was just not alot you could do with your group.

Well several months went by and I finally saw this game used for $25 and picked it up. I still had my old save game so I beat my head against the wall and killed trash for 2 of 100 exp per kill and finally leveled up and beat the worm boss. I am now on Disc 4 and I can easily say the most difficult part of this game was the first 2 bosses. It has been a great game but it seems pretty damn foolish to make getting started in a game this difficult. The thing about this game is it doesn't allow you to grind and level up as easy as say a Final Fantasy game might do. I know in Final Fantasy X there was several points when I would get to a boss and my whole party would get 1 shotted. I would have to spend an hour running circles then try again and generally have no problem.

Even though I bought Lost Odyssey I would have paid full price for it at release if not for the starting difficulty.

Easy games still sell pretty well I mean look at Zelda Wind Waker. This has to have been the easiest Zelda game ever. I went all the way through this game and never once died to anything. However it was still enjoyable and was a highly successful game. Most of the popular games out there are generally easier games. I think WOW is a good example. I mean compare wow to alot of other MMORPG games and popularity. WOW is prob one of the easier games and it is the most popular. I know alot of people in WOW who talk about how they got sick of Everquest 1 because it was basically too hard.

As far as those older RPG games go I hated the original Dragon Warrior with a passion. I also don't remember it being all that popular. In fact there was a point in time they gave it away for free when you purchased a couple of boxes of cereal. I never knew anybody who liked that game growing up. In fact this game was so bad it turned me away from RPG games all the way up until I played Chrono Trigger.

I don't mind it when RPGs are easy, so long as they have a good storyline. Same with ones that are hard, so long as they're not frustratingly so. What I hate is when they sucker me into thinking that the final boss will still be a fun fight after prepping myself for a bonus encounter but instead I end up disappointed.

FFVII is a good example. If you can down Emerald Weapon, Cloud's ******* could one shot Sephiroth.

FFX: If you can beat some of the easier boss level coliseum monsters, then Tidus can pimpslap the final fight.

And let's not even discuss the shenanigans of FFVIII and the Omega Weapon.

Hmm, I didn't die in the first boss... and I didn't grind.

I did die during the fight with the horse riding guards in the garden that were trying to destroy the flowers though. That one caught me by surprise.

CT wasn't ever really all that hard... then again, I always tried to have the best items at every point in the game :-P Chrono Cross had some damn hard encounters the first time through, especially since you couldn't really "level up" in that game except off bosses.

This game was ridiculous. The hardest parts were random trash enemies because you needed a ton of potions to get through with enough health. Healing up after fights sucked. And the end boss? He instantly RUBbed out two of my characters on the first round! ARGH! So I went back, leveled up to like level 32, and two-shot the end boss. Literally. My Knight hit him, and then my Grand Master hit him. Those two hits killed him. It was hilarious. Surviving the hordes up to the end boss was a LOT tougher than fighting him.

If I remember correctly the final fight is against your own Aeons and Yu Yevon. During the entire fight you have perma-auto-life.

I thought that was a story driven event and not a real fight, so I don't really count it as one.

...well, I would be motz-ing if I had graphical smileys.

I'm definitely a huge fan of party leveling as opposed to individual character leveling. It's a silly RP element that most often ends up irritating players and causes them to wastes hours grinding. The developers seem to think I care so much about the realism of a character not gaining experience for battles he has not fought in, but apparently I don't give a damn about the guy standing on the sideline in every fight because My opponents don't think it is fair to fight more than 4 of my characters at a time?

As for difficulty balance I think platformers often do it best. Games like Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie were rarely frustrating because of the amount of flexibility the player had in progression. With 10 magic items being required to reach the next stage and 15 quests available to get an item the player could decide to throwaway 5 challenges before becoming truly frustrated. This is more difficult to implement in RPGs due to the more linear nature and importance of story elements, but I think the idea of providing optional difficulty within the game is a good one. Many RPGs have sidequests that intended to be completed at the end of the game. I think increasing the availability of difficult optional fights throughout the game goes a long way towards providing difficulty to gamers who want more while not stalling those who desire or require an easier challenge.

Fighting I think it was Glenns brother in the laternate world was a real pain, especially since you had to take that white chick with you.

FF1 was really hard for one reason I think, no healing item higher than a basic potion, last time I played I had fighter, monk, thief and red mage so i had a hell of a time.

The key for FFX, at least for me, was getting 1 toon their celestial weapon. Most of the Celestial weapons were just plain BS (like dodging lightning 200 times in a row, winning blitballz, winning a ton of mini games, etc.) Yuna's was actually... whats the word I am looking for.... Ahh FUN. After I got Yuna her celestial weapon she went from doing 9999 damage to like 60,000ish. I think Jecht was down in 2 rounds at this point for me.