Making difficulty curves in games(davetech.co.uk) |
Making difficulty curves in games(davetech.co.uk) |
Please never do this. This deceptively looks smart to a game designer, but actual players read this like a book and then it feels cheap and massively unrewarding for them.
i know there are problems with this approach, but games without a difficulty setting “feel” more like a game to me for whatever reason
City builders do this a lot where you often have lots of difficulty settings you can adjust to tailor the game to your preferred playstyle.
I’ll also say this: if you’re making a game and you add in a mechanic or mini-game that is not typical of the genre, make it optional or provide a way to skip it. Few things things in gaming piss me off more than a memory or Simon Says puzzle in an MMO or similar. If I wanted to play puzzle games, I’d be playing a puzzle game, not your game.
Normal varies so much.
As a "cozy" gamer, I want the standard setting to be something I can play without having to switch my context to to the internet for help or a guide. This was one of many triumps of Baldur's Gate 3: the difficulty settings make sense in how they translate to gameplay, and the default is fun.
I think I disagree with your basic point, though what you say about normal vs. hard is funny. I'm fortunate enough to work with a UI/UX pro, and these things have right answers; they're incredibly obvious after they've been explained to you.
However, this article reminded me of this meme
Multiplayer FPS, strategy games, and sport games are still very enjoyable without these mechanisms.