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So, lets discuss mission difficulty
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Like it or not, the difficulty slider is a part of this game, and many people use it. That being the case, when people try to make their missions challenging and then someone plays that mission on a higher difficulty setting, that mission may be impossible to complete. Right or wrong, this will result in bad ratings. So how can the Foundry community address this issue before the system goes live?
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In Space I can handle at least 3 of anything with no problems whatsoever.
To me that seems balanced but I got a review that said two ships was too much for space combat?
The question could be "Who do we cater our missions to?"
Ultimately I make my missions to satisfy myself. Is that setting the bar too high?
Probably, but the baby food flavor of most things Cryptic puts out seems boring.
It is my desire to provide an interesting story with a "I think I soiled my armor" feeling to the combat sections without being impossible.
It is the definition of impossible that is going to be difficult to cram into a box to look at closely.
I'd like players to be challenged but I'm afraid that they won't be up to the task because of the general lack of skills and tactics that are not required for 98% of all current STO missions.
So I must make a choice... the story can be told with out any absolutely defined amount of enemies to defeat.
So all I can do is make my missions fun and very do-able by My VA and My Ensign and wait for reviews to see what other players think about it.
I truly have no desire to make anything "easy" for anyone... that would be too much like average or worse - lame in my opinion...
I'd rather have good players satisfied and give reviews that said they were at least challenged and entertained and I'm willing to accept that I can never satisfy mediocre players that are lazy and spoiled and will complain about it being too difficult.
I see this as better than having good players be bored with my missions, and weak players continuing to be weak players... If I can get some strong players to go... "Wow.. that was cool" or "hey.. I've never seen that before" I'll feel good and can deal with the "it's too hard" comments without a single second thought or a wasted nights sleep.
The other issue is the problem with ground mobs on advanced and elite difficulties... until this is resolved, the actual possibility of making missions properly balanced for all difficulties will remain impossible for us.
I hate to say it, but that is a very closed minded statement. Just because someone considers something more difficult that someone else does not mean they are "lazy and spoiled". There are all sorts of factors that come into play that effect how well a person is able to do in video games, such as physical handicaps. While I fortunately do not have any that I am aware of, I know better than to lump everyone who thinks something is difficult into one category and call them lazy.
With all of that said, I'm not saying that we should cater to the people who for whatever reason may not do as well as others. But the question is, should a person be forced to change their difficulty setting to complete your mission? Considering the fact that the missions already scale to a players level, my answer would be no. If a mission is properly designed it will be a moderate challenge on normal and if a person wants more of a challenge they can increase their difficulty setting and still be able to complete the mission.
if for space pick 5 battleships just re-skin them top the ship type you want. then at least you know every encounter is winnable, it will just be tough
once you start using two mobs in the same place it can get tricky. if you really want to do this best to then use weaker mobs for all multiple encounters and maybe throw in some npc allies. ship combat is often easier to try to stick to multiple mobs only in space.
what would really help is some fixing of the difficulty levels by cryptic. it feels like we need something in between normal and advanced.
One encounter out of the five actually involves multiple Captain-level squads and is not meant as a challenge but as something the player can complete by getting from one re-spawn point to the next. Even on normal difficulty, I expect people to die at least once and if the player does not understand the re-spawn system, they may get stuck in this sequence. I do expect some bad reviews concerning this nightmare sequence, which I call "Running the Gauntlet", but the idea of it is to establish the antagonist as a formidable opponent that may surpass the Borg as an enemy.
In essence, I will do whatever I deem necessary to tell my stories and will not shy away from easy or nightmarish combat where-ever I feel it is appropriate. If I end up with people telling me that the Borg in my story-mission are too easy and the Revava are too difficult, so be it. It's simply because the Borg drones are escapees from the Borg attack on Vega colony, and the Revava are... well, a new nightmare for the Federation to deal with!
establishing a good plot hook that leads the character to a shocking or unexpected revelation is a good way to instill a sense of impending defeat or respect for a foe.
difficulty should be balanced around the story as plot mechanic.
a great example of this is the early fed side undine missions where players had to stay alive long enough for reinforcements, or ally with klingon fleets to defeat the enemy
at no time do you feel like the enemy is "cheap" instead it keeps you immersed and suspends disbelief .
Having larger numbers of enemies requires help for the player in the form of Friendly groups that spawn on the scene or I have the character run up on them already fighting.
I made my 6th mission all one on one fights against 8 top captain squads in a challenge/arena setting and to be honest the Klingon Captain group with several Swordmasters and a Dahar Master is very challenging due to the dual pistol bug and will occasionally wipe my whole team in milliseconds.
That being said... I gave the player the task of starting each challenge when they were ready as opposed to just dumping nasty enemies in their laps. This gives the player as much time as needed to prepare any strategy and setup they choose for the challenge. I think this is an important distinction... A surprise moment or a serious, get prepared situation has a very different feel for players...
With space I just really don't see much of a challenge on the most difficult ones I made... Cryptic often throws out groups of 3 frigates, single escorts or single battleships. This was never a challenge at all. I like 1 group of fighters, 1 escort and one battleship as a typical group I'm going up against.
For larger scale battles I add Friendly groups to help out and draw aggro from the players so they can gird their loins and pick a target before getting blasted to bits... However, I had some a little close for the finale of my first episode... and it was a real "Between the Hammer and Anvil" moment...
I gave fair warning before the map transfer that things getting really nasty with ships warping in from multiple Vectors and there was a different faction enemy in there as well throwing in a chaos factor of "The Enemy of My Enemy is Cool until it is His Time to Die Thing".
I really wanted to add more flavor to combat then Cryptic typically does and believe I have achieved it. The Bar is set High for satisfying good players. The others can go roleplay or play dabo or make their own missions... not worth my time to make easy-cheesy missions for people I care not on whit for.
Until the ground combat difficulty bugs are fixed I'll assume most players will try missions on normal, although the first 20 missions I tested I did on advanced with no healer or shield charges. That's just how I roll... I like to take Naps in the middle of a ground battle... LOL
I do similar things with space encounters (which I like but find easy). Sometimes I just put up two mobs there, laced in a way that you don't necessarily fight all at once, but you easily will. That seems to be oe of the models Cryptic is actually doing in some of the newer missions. (The Breen "Diplomacy" mission - if you get to the combat part - likely only if you're a Klingon, since as Fed, you probably go the diplomacy or trickery route, there is a Breen Cruiser and a weak frigate group warping in close too enough so that you typically will end up fighting both at some point) On other occassions, I also spawn NPC ship groups that fight by your side and can soften up the enemy.
While I find space combat easy, I don't like the difficulty slider's effect on difficulty - it just leads too a sloggier combat, not really to having more fun. I'd rather fight tons of ships (even though that doesn't really fit standard canon type fights), and I will design my missions with that in mind.
I figure some people will not like that, because they prefer to play at Advanced or Elite and find this too difficult (I would probably, too.) I will try to warn people of "challenging" combats in my msision description. (And as Foudnry author, the only way to change the challenge of a mission is too play around with the numbers of mobs, in the end.)
You can't please all the people all the time, so if some give a bad review for difficulty,then this just falls under it.
I play through the mission in the Foundry preview with my ensign character and if I can get through it without dying at all (no-god mode), I consider it OK for release.
Then after publication I try it with my VA tribble character and if it seems OK at normal difficulty (not dying at all during the mission but still finding it challenging after scaling up) I think it will be OK for most people.
I'd have to rely on feedback to know if it works ok on Advanced or Elite modes. Usually I only put one Captain level boss fight in the mission - as recommended in the Foundry text - usually when you click on the NPC group in the description it says that captain level bosses should be used sparingly.
I also try to give some kind of mission learning curve - the first enemies you encounter are always weak squads and then during the mission they start to get progressively harder so that you can get used to the enemies.
As I'm not going for zergfest intentionally killing you type missions - I'm going for casual story enjoyment with battles in there for story purpose or flavour - in some cases I also put in an NPC to help you fight and take some of the pressure off.
Difficult enemies are not totally necessary to the story line but should be there in adequate numbers to represent the size of the encounter related to the relevant story elements.
Adding Helper Npc's can help to scale up battles as appropriate and there are many ways to explain these extra ships through dialogue and foreshadowing.
The antagonist in my gauntlet sequence basically kidnaps your "transporter-stream", deposits you in a different destination than the one you were supposed to materialize in and tells you in no uncertain terms that a) your ship is going to be destroyed; b) you will not have time to save it; c) she dug into your mind and armed her forces with the most nightmarish enemies the Federation fears; d) you're expected to "die well", as she puts it.
I don't know what more would one need to feel in awe of such a foe, but I do know that had the Foundry allowed me to use the same theatrics/mechanics that Q uses in "State of Q", I would.
Yes, and the difficulty of that sequence is exactly what the plot requires. A swift kick in the head to show the player what he's dealing with, and who truly is the Boss.
Sorry, those tricks felt just as "cheap" really. I knew there was a timer and it did not cause me to feel immersed. Allying with one enemy to defeat another, that's all fine and well, but that too feels cheap to me, not to mention that my story-mission is a Federation affair only.
So...
1. If the mission will be space combat only --> design for elite setting
2. If the mission will be ground combat only --> design for normal
3. If it will be mix (and this is the real question I think) --> design space fights for elite, limit ground mobs to Ensigns and costume as necessary. Maybe throw in a LT or CDR for the boss fight.
4. Make sure the mission description states the recommended difficulty setting so the player has a chance to adjust it.
This is my approach. I pass no judgements on others' methods. However, at the end of the day, if I didn't like a mission because it was too hard, or worse, I had to drop the mission because it was impossible, I think those are legitimate points of feedback to consider when assigning a star-rating.
Of course this would all be unnecessary if we could simply get resolution with the difficulty slider. Like maybe having separate sliders for space and ground.
I also wanted the player not to feel like they are Kirk, but simply more soldiers on the battlefield, so there are plenty of allies to help you along the way too.
So far, it seems to have worked for the most part. I did get one negative private message about the big battles, and another saying the Klingon fleet isn't big enough, but you can't please everyone.
And this should show that when writing your mission, you should first and foremost please yourself, unless you're a professional writer whose livelihood depends on pleasing a paying audience.
I'm afraid I must disagree. The purpose of the Foundry is to make missions for other people to play. That being the case, my goal will be to please most of the people who play my mission, even if its not possible to please every individual player. Of course, your free to just try to please yourself if you like.
Hence, the last sentence of my post.
Overall, I'm focusing on missions that start out short and simple and introduce characters and story lines... so that if players don't care to see the whole enchilada they still get some nice eye-candy and don't waste a bunch of time with something they are not really interested in.
The players that enjoy it might play through the whole 6 mission story arc to see what happens, but either way the Camel's Nose is under the Tent.
I like a challenge and the Finale of the series has some serious combat in space and on the ground so I put a warning in for that one. However after the second mission I really start to pick up the drama.
I could always change things around if I change my mind or get some relevant reviews that make the case for easier or harder. I'm taking a wait & see approach... Lots of waiting and not much seeing...
Are you saying you actually are going to design and create stories and gameplay according to concepts which you yourself do not enjoy all for the benefit of others?
If you are only making stuff for yourself to play, go all out for it, if you want others to play it you may need to make changes. Kind of why writers have editors and why most self published books don't become commercial successes. On the other hand niche markets need to be served and if serving a niche is enough then that is a good thing. Trek is a niche filled with niches, and a Nichelle.;)
No, I will obviously create stories that I like. However my main goal will to create a mission that is enjoyable for others to play, not just enjoying the process of creation. Thankfully, those two aspects are not mutually exclusive.
I was not talking about the process of creation. I was talking about the basic story-idea for the mission.
If you follow the chain of posts here, this started when apt.pupil talked about his mission where the most common story-element was the scale of battle, i.e. massive forces and big battles. This is a part of the story apt.pupil wanted to tell.
Since I usually dislike large battle scenes, especially when crafted in the particular way apt.pupil did, I told him as much. He then politely and discreetly mentioned my dislike, and then I reinforced his choice to do what he felt was right for the story he wanted to tell.
So, just as I will not write missions based on stories that I dislike, and I advise others to do the same, I don't believe you will write missions based on stories you dislike. Am I wrong?
The whole point of making missions is the hope that folks will play and like them,
We are at the beginning of the learning curve and charting new territory every day. Lessons learned will help improve everyone's missions and allow all of us to be better authors.
We should, as a group, encourage thinking outside the box and use experimentation to see what works and what doesn't. It is up to us to figure all of this out so everyone has a better end product.
If you wish to try something a certain way I would encourage you to try and if you fail, ask for help and we can work together to either find a solution or write it off as currently not possible.
It might be helpful for us to get on each others friend lists if possible for better communication.
So, in essence, I guess I'm saying that if a lot of people say "LordOfPit, your story was disappointing because there wasn't enough action and it felt like one of those episodes of TOS/TNG where they talked and talked talked...", and then some other people would say "LordOfPit, your story made me feel like I was actually Capt. Picard, awesome job!" I may decide the positive outweighs the negative and the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.
But not at all costs and by any means, that's how I see this issue.
I think we're also learning what our little group considers acceptable as far as stories, mission difficulties and gameplay sequences go.
I was a live audio engineer for 28 years and every idiot in the club thought something was louder than something else and demanded that I fix it... a similar problem that we face now...
My solution was that I was the one being paid to do MY JOB and the actual Musicians on the stage were the ones paying me... so I tried to please my employers and friends that I had to share a silly crowded van with 24 hours a day and that inspiring confidence was just as important as delivering the goods on a consistent basis.
At the end of the day it will be up to us to help each other and find what works and what doesn't and develop reasonable guidelines for reasonable people while keeping the gate open for experimentation and creativity to flow in a coherent manner.
Its funny, I have the same job kinda. I'm a Jack of all trades in live audio and lighting engineering. I am also proficient in the use of Sony semipro cameras for filming.
I had the camera Guy *****ing at me about how my bosses voice was overpowering the music, but it was a theatre style venue, and he was at the back of the room, so he was getting the voice clap. One coaster around the microphone later and there was no clap on the camera.
Moral of the story is that there is always room for compromise if the author allows themselves to be flexible and take in constructive criticism, over paying attention to the unconstructive feedback.