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Please provide us with an option to increase gameplay difficulty.

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
For me, right now, the game is far too easy. It's not the simplicity of the mission objectives themselves because those are the same in any MMO, whether it's WoW or STO - travel to location, interact with person/object, defeat X enemies, collect X items, survive for X amount of time. As long as the storyline being weaved into those objectives is interesting and entertaining I'm fine with the standard goals. The problem is the enemies themselves; they're just too easy to defeat.

I understand that some players might find them to be difficult enough, or that some players may prefer the ease at which enemies can currently be dispatched. As far as I can tell, Kirk and Picard have nothing on me because I can't remember the last time they dove into an armada of seven Klingon vessels alone and emerged victorious and relatively unscathed. It's difficult to admire "the greats" when you're routinely accomplishing victories in scenarios that, in comparison, make the Kobayashi Maru seem tame. I wish I could claim it’s a testament to my skill, but the truth is the enemies are just too easy to beat.

So, the answer is a tool that has been used by Cryptic (and other MMOs) before: the difficulty setting/slider. Allowing the player to set their own level of difficulty ensures that everyone is getting the level of challenge they desire. However, there are good and bad ways of ramping up the difficulty. Improving the AI of the opponents so they fight more effectively, raising their level and/or allowing them to use higher ranked abilities, increasing the amount of damage they can do and take.. all acceptable methods.

What we don't need to see, however, is more enemy NPCs. Increasing the number of NPCs only makes the encounter initially difficult whiile you struggle to survive long enough to kill a few enemies. But once the numbers in the pack are thinned out we're right back to where we are now with each encounter devolving into several minutes of mop-up duty. And that's boring. Not to mention that taking on several ships per player vessel already seems silly enough, and doesn't need to be made even more so by adding more bodies to each encounter.

To summarize: can we have an adjustable difficulty setting, please? And can the increased difficulty come in a form where each individual enemy is made tougher, rather than just throwing more fodder at us and expanding upon the current problem? I should not be hearing friends yawning over voice chat mid-fight, but I frequently do during the battles because victory is ensured regardless of whether we give it our all or just sit stationary firing our weapons and adjusting our shields as needed. We all enjoy the game, it's just the actual combat itself is very undemanding and dragging the entire experience down. Please consider doing something to fix that in both space and on the ground.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    No one else thinks the gameplay is easy enough to warrant a difficulty setting?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    They mentioned somewhere on the forum that this is being considered. I think it's a great idea.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I'm betting the reason no one has commented is because of three magic words: in the works.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I myself am still learning and I have died a few times so I disagree..also MMO's do not have "difficulty" settings like "easy,normal,hard"...if they did anything it would really be stealing World of Warcrafts "heroic" feature...bad idea...also people are not giving the game time do you realize once your capped with patches/expacs the content may get very hard. If not cancel...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Difficulty slider is a great idea.
    I don't see what the problem is to make the game more difficult for ME, so that it is more fun for ME

    Some people quit games because of easy difficulty, and some do because of hard difficulty, a slider would fix that.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Forza 3... Nuff said.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    CptSparrow wrote:
    I myself am still learning and I have died a few times so I disagree..also MMO's do not have "difficulty" settings like "easy,normal,hard"...if they did anything it would really be stealing World of Warcrafts "heroic" feature...bad idea...also people are not giving the game time do you realize once your capped with patches/expacs the content may get very hard. If not cancel...

    Actually, Cryptic's City of Heroes introduced a difficulty slider back in 2005, two years before a heroic setting showed up in World of Warcraft. So some MMOs do definitely have a difficulty setting; more importantly, MMOs designed by Cryptic have in the past.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    In DDO you can choose from 4 differant setting before entering an instance all the way from solo to epic.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    moordrake wrote: »
    In DDO you can choose from 4 differant setting before entering an instance all the way from solo to epic.

    Oh that's right! I always miss that game every time I think about it. I just liked the idea of having finite resources (health) to clear a dungeon with and having to manually attempt to avoid or mitigate damage.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    different difficulties only with different loot.
    in an online role playing game i like to compare my quip with others and i like my equip to tell others what i have achived.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    There already are options to do exactly this. Unequip consoles, or weapons. Discharge your bridge officers. Use a lower tier ship. Don't spend your skill points.

    Any of these will increase the difficulty, why don't you try one instead of pestering the devs to spend time on a ridiculous idea.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    A lot of players ask for this since closed beta. For now, the devs said they are considering it. I really hope this will be implemented in the near future. During closed beta, some space fights were quite challenging for me and it was much more fun than now.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    There already are options to do exactly this. Unequip consoles, or weapons. Discharge your bridge officers. Use a lower tier ship. Don't spend your skill points.

    Any of these will increase the difficulty, why don't you try one instead of pestering the devs to spend time on a ridiculous idea.

    Well, I think suggesting that we do something like basically trying to win every engagement while only using a rear turret to amp up the difficulty factor is a ridiculous idea. No thank you, I want to make use of all my gameplay options when playing the game as they are part of what makes the game interesting. In fact, I would like to make use of more of my options (not less), however many of them are currently unnecessary because combat is just so easy, and many engagements can be won without even trying.

    I'm also looking for specific ways of increasing the difficulty, like bumping up the power level of our adversaries or providing them with improved AI and tactics. Making me fight 12 ships at a time instead of 6 isn't exactly what I have in mind when asking for more difficult combat.

    If you had read the request thoroughly, you would have seen that this suggestion is something Cryptic has already implemented in other games they developed. While you may find it to be ridiculous, apparently it had merit at some point.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    different difficulties only with different loot.
    in an online role playing game i like to compare my quip with others and i like my equip to tell others what i have achived.

    Having a difficulty slider is fine but I see no reason that the loot should be different. The whole point of making things more difficult according to 85% of the players that want it is to make the game a challenge. That should be reward enough for those wanting this.

    If you are able to do a more challengeing difficulty setting and you get different loot (aka better loot) then it would force other people to do it weather they want to or not just so that they can compete.

    However if you'd like some type of reward how about some kind of accolade or medal? That will still let people know of your achievements without making things unfair.

    Another reason to be against such a thing is it could ruin the economy by either increasing the influx of rarer items (and thereby decreasing their value) and/or providing extra money to those that are able to play the game better do to better computers/skill.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Combadge wrote:
    No one else thinks the gameplay is easy enough to warrant a difficulty setting?

    If they increase skillpoint gains to match, i am all for it. Right now in my science ship (not even fully fitted for survivability) i handled three Negh'var's and half a dozen birds that were 2 levels above me yesterday... If they added an option to double the amount of enemies in a mission and double the SP gains you got from handing in that mission to match the time taken and difficulty, that would be great... BUT if they doubled the amount of enemies and gave you like a 10% exp bonus at the end... Nobody would do it. Nobody would strive to be better or actuly put effort into the game, just random button mashing as that is the best way to level up. Thoughts?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Combadge wrote:
    Well, I think suggesting that we do something like basically trying to win every engagement while only using a rear turret to amp up the difficulty factor is a ridiculous idea. No thank you, I want to make use of all my gameplay options when playing the game as they are part of what makes the game interesting. In fact, I would like to make use of more of my options (not less), however many of them are currently unnecessary because combat is just so easy, and many engagements can be won without even trying.

    I'm also looking for specific ways of increasing the difficulty, like bumping up the power level of our adversaries or providing them with improved AI and tactics. Making me fight 12 ships at a time instead of 6 isn't exactly what I have in mind when asking for more difficult combat.

    If you had read the request thoroughly, you would have seen that this suggestion is something Cryptic has already implemented in other games they developed. While you may find it to be ridiculous, apparently it had merit at some point.

    Translation: You want someone else to do the effort for you.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    CptSparrow wrote:
    I myself am still learning and I have died a few times so I disagree..also MMO's do not have "difficulty" settings like "easy,normal,hard"...if they did anything it would really be stealing World of Warcrafts "heroic" feature...bad idea...also people are not giving the game time do you realize once your capped with patches/expacs the content may get very hard. If not cancel...

    Coh's had a difficulty slider and was made by cryptic. So much for the mmo's do not have "difficulty" settings idea.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    There already are options to do exactly this. Unequip consoles, or weapons. Discharge your bridge officers. Use a lower tier ship. Don't spend your skill points.

    Any of these will increase the difficulty, why don't you try one instead of pestering the devs to spend time on a ridiculous idea.

    Because those are features of the game, if your not going to use the features of the game. There is no game. do people think through anything anymore?

    The difficulty of a game should be in no way be connected to how much I cripple my character.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    pierrat wrote: »
    The difficulty of a game should be in no way be connected to how much I cripple my character.

    Oh man, with the 'cripple' again. You have no idea how much I'm laughing right now... you must love that word or something.

    Anyway, a difficulty slider with a change of loot as a result is self defeating. Everyone wants the best loot and thus the slider becomes pointless. It's wasted time and effort implementing such a thing.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I agree with the OP the game is really really easy. Sure I've died and blown up a few times, but it was because I screwed up not because it was hard.

    So far I haven't encountered an engagement I would qualify as 'hard.'

    Unfortunately for those of us that have gone through and tweaked ships power, set in game presets to switch power, and other 'unnecessary' stuff, the game gets even easier.

    I play with a joystick, and as such can only use the very crude tab targeting so half the time I target the wrong stuff, or pull more then needed (still getting used to the order by which it selects a target). Still I don't have issues with difficulty.

    Individual difficulty sliders are perfect, you set it once in the game options this way it doesn't take from the immersion. Every map is designed with a 50 difficulty, you have your slider set to 100, then the mobs will be twice as hard (same lvl mobs, but are twice as hard to beat, ie. more of them, hit harder, etc.). If you have the slider at 30 then the mobs are again the same lvl but easier (hit not as hard, etc.). If you go in with a group it averages the difficulty settings in the group and bases the enemies on that. One nice thing is everyone gets to play the game their way, add loot table changes to the difficulty (ie. higher difficulty increases % chance for uncommon, rare, etc.), you could even have the reward for missions altered by the difficulty multiplier, so in the end the extra time it may take to beat the higher difficulty doesn't result in an xp penalty.


    Cheers
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    id sign up for that idea Afterthought, sounds great!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Individual difficulty sliders are perfect, you set it once in the game options this way it doesn't take from the immersion. Every map is designed with a 50 difficulty, you have your slider set to 100, then the mobs will be twice as hard (same lvl mobs, but are twice as hard to beat, ie. more of them, hit harder, etc.). If you have the slider at 30 then the mobs are again the same lvl but easier (hit not as hard, etc.). If you go in with a group it averages the difficulty settings in the group and bases the enemies on that. One nice thing is everyone gets to play the game their way, add loot table changes to the difficulty (ie. higher difficulty increases % chance for uncommon, rare, etc.), you could even have the reward for missions altered by the difficulty multiplier, so in the end the extra time it may take to beat the higher difficulty doesn't result in an xp penalty.


    Cheers

    Again, if it alters the loot the entire thing becomes pointless. Everyone will just set it to max and it becomes the same as if you had static difficulty. Loot is one of the only primary driving factors in these games, second only to getting the next ship (and second to none when they reach the cap).

    People aren't going to view it in the ideal manner you imagine. What they will see is simply a "gimp my loot" slider - and again it becomes pointless.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Talunak wrote: »
    If they increase skillpoint gains to match, i am all for it. Right now in my science ship (not even fully fitted for survivability) i handled three Negh'var's and half a dozen birds that were 2 levels above me yesterday... If they added an option to double the amount of enemies in a mission and double the SP gains you got from handing in that mission to match the time taken and difficulty, that would be great... BUT if they doubled the amount of enemies and gave you like a 10% exp bonus at the end... Nobody would do it. Nobody would strive to be better or actuly put effort into the game, just random button mashing as that is the best way to level up. Thoughts?

    Well, when Cryptic introduced a difficulty slider in City of Heroes, their solution was to just pit the player against enemies that were a handful of levels over them (rather than the level of the player). I believe more boss-type mobs were also included in place of easier opponents. As a result, the amount of XP you earned per kill increased, as did the quality of "loot" in that those enemies dropped items that were appropriate for their level. It wasn't necessarily a case of rarer loot, it just meant that even though you were level 15, the enemies were dropping level 18 items because they themselves were level 18.

    That said, I don't really care if improved rewards are included. For me, avoiding being bored during combat is the incentive of increasing my difficulty setting. Being entertained by the challenge instead and feeling like all my efforts are paying off is reward enough. Because even without better drops or more skill points I face a choice: play the game at difficultly level that bores me to tears or play the game at a difficulty level that provides an entertaining challenge. Without any extra incentive at all the proper route for me to take is already clear.

    Of course, I honestly don't care when I reach Admiral. On the other hand, someone who is wanting to reach the "end-game" ASAP is probably going to be more interested in the easiest route possible. I doubt they'd even concern themselves with improved drops because they know they'll out-level those items in a matter of days as they race to Admiral in a handful of weeks.

    I do want to stress again that "more enemies" is not a good way of improving difficulty, and I'll explain again why. Let's say the encounter has 6 enemies which I can easily defeat while half asleep. If we bump that number to 13 enemies instead, it will be more difficult initially as I have to deal with more incoming damage, but once I whittle their numbers back down to 7-10 I'm once again killing enemies while half asleep, except now I have to kill a few more of them which just increases the amount of boring, unchallenging combat.

    I also feel that the more ships I'm taking on at once, the less immersed I am in the game. I would honestly prefer to focus on one competent enemy with several abilities (which is probably why I enjoy PvP in this game, although you rarely get one-on-one opportunities there). So increasing the difficultly to me means making the opponents smarter. Raising their level is another method, although I'm not sure if that would really change much. But if they did more damage and were harder to kill then I would probably have to play smarter to survive and beat them. My positioning would matter more; I'd have to focus more on keeping my stronger shields facing the opponent while struggling to strip away one of their shield facings rather than depleting them all. That sort of change would provide more of a challenge.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    There is a way to increase difficulty.

    Have a friend or someone who also feels the game is too easy group with you. Then you both do your own missions solo while still teamed. Quests will be more difficult.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    There is a way to increase difficulty.

    Have a friend or someone who also feels the game is too easy group with you. Then you both do your own missions solo while still teamed. Quests will be more difficult.

    By "more difficult" you mean "populated with more enemies", which is an ineffective solution. Again, increasing the number of opponents is more effective at increasing the time spent being bored than increasing the level of difficulty. Read through the thread, or even the last few posts, if you wish to understand why.

    Thanks for the suggestion, though, as it was at least a reasonable one. And if the opponents were actually difficult to begin with it would be a very valid option. But squishing 10 ants isn't much harder than squishing 5, it just takes more time, none of which is entertaining.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    A difficulty slider would be rather neat, other games do it... ever heard of Epic Dungeons in games like Wow? I think lotro is even doing something similar - I know skirmishes can be ramped up or lowered.

    As long as jacking up the difficulty increased the loot or the quality thereof, Id love it... who wants an battery cell for defeating the Doomsday Device?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Combadge wrote:
    No one else thinks the gameplay is easy enough to warrant a difficulty setting?

    of course I do...

    But since some ppl don't even want DP....
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I reposted this in the DP thread... :x
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I certainly hope they do not wait too long before adding a difficulty setting as I will not be sticking with it in it's current state. I don't even want more experience or better rewards; I want a game where you have a sense of accomplishment for completing your objectives. Is that too much to ask?

    We can start by just having the difficulty slider increase the level of your opponents. Higher level enemies already do more damage to you just because they are higher level, that would go a long way to making things more challenging by itself.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    SnakeChomp wrote: »
    I certainly hope they do not wait too long before adding a difficulty setting as I will not be sticking with it in it's current state. I don't even want more experience or better rewards; I want a game where you have a sense of accomplishment for completing your objectives. Is that too much to ask?

    We can start by just having the difficulty slider increase the level of your opponents. Higher level enemies already do more damage to you just because they are higher level, that would go a long way to making things more challenging by itself.

    I agree. The sooner something happens the better. I read, for example, that the art team was going back over the planets to add alien wildlife to them - something they wanted to do initially but didn't have time to take care of before launch. While I'd be all too happy to see some realism added to these planets, at the same time it makes me feel like maybe I shouldn't be playing the game just yet. It's a little frustrating to know this STO will probably have a much better leveling experience a year from now when I can't enjoy it without creating another alt to start from scratch.

    These aren't "add arbitrary features" request, so much as polish passes that should have been completed before launch. Really, we shouldn't even need a difficulty slider, but apparently some of the folks in beta complained about the difficulty and Cryptic went too far in the other direction just weeks prior to launch. And then it was too late to gather feedback on the changes and make adjustments as needed because there was no additional time for testing. Now we're stuck on easy-mode, which some people seem to like so providing an option to make the gameplay more difficult would satisfy everyone. Or achieving a balance between both camps probably would too, because I sincerely doubt anyone is finding combat to be difficult and surely there's room for adjustment.

    In short, the quicker this game's development gets finished the better.
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