TX_Angel Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 (edited) Ok, so single player games have a difficulty slider, why not MMOs? Let those who want a super casual, relaxed game, have it... Let those who want a challenge hard mode, have it... So the slider could have 3 positions, "easy, medium, hard" In easy mode, a quest might give 5,000 credits, 2 basic comms, and a green gear drop In medium mode, a quest might give 10,000 credits, 4 basic comms, and blue gear drop In hard mode, a quest might give 20,000 credits, 6 basic comms, 2 elite comms, and a purple drop Make easy mode easy, as in, you can solo anything without fear of death Make medium more like the launch game, doable solo, but a challenge and you'll die sometimes Make hard mode brutal, you'll die many times but you'll shout for joy when you finally beat that boss! Level sync example: easy mode - 2 levels above max planet medium mode - 1 level below max planet hard mode - even with starting level of planet --- Changing the difficulty slider would reset any active quests, so you can't game the system by doing 90% of them in easy mode, then changing to hard mode at the last second. There could be new achievements for doing all the major missions on a planet in hard mode without changing settings. Thoughts? Edited November 16, 2015 by TX_Angel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZanyaCross Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 That's pretty much what they have in Star Trek Online, which I actually liked, but the problem is that nearly everything in that game was instanced. It's kinda hard to do that in open-world, unless instead of buffing the enemies you handicap the player, which could make group-content a real pain if people who think they're hardcore can't pull their weight. It'll also seriously throw off combat logging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
branmakmuffin Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 That's pretty much what they have in Star Trek Online, which I actually liked, but the problem is that nearly everything in that game was instanced. It's kinda hard to do that in open-world, unless instead of buffing the enemies you handicap the player, which could make group-content a real pain if people who think they're hardcore can't pull their weight. It'll also seriously throw off combat logging. Yeah, DDO has something similar. But, as you say STO is, everything in DDO is instanced. And in TOR many instances have something roughly similar, i.e., solo, tactical and hard for many (most?) FPs and story, hard and nightmare for most Ops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anaesha Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 (edited) Ok, so single player games have a difficulty slider, why not MMOs? Let those who want a super casual, relaxed game, have it... Let those who want a challenge hard mode, have it... So the slider could have 3 positions, "easy, medium, hard" In easy mode, a quest might give 5,000 credits, 2 basic comms, and a green gear drop In medium mode, a quest might give 10,000 credits, 4 basic comms, and blue gear drop In hard mode, a quest might give 20,000 credits, 6 basic comms, 2 elite comms, and a purple drop Make easy mode easy, as in, you can solo anything without fear of death Make medium more like the launch game, doable solo, but a challenge and you'll die sometimes Make hard mode brutal, you'll die many times but you'll shout for joy when you finally beat that boss! Level sync example: easy mode - 2 levels above max planet medium mode - 1 level below max planet hard mode - even with starting level of planet --- Changing the difficulty slider would reset any active quests, so you can't game the system by doing 90% of them in easy mode, then changing to hard mode at the last second. There could be new achievements for doing all the major missions on a planet in hard mode without changing settings. Thoughts? I think you might have those numbers backwards. Easy implies that everything is easier to get even creds and crystals yet your numbers would suggest otherwise. Edited November 16, 2015 by Anaesha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlienEyeTX Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 No. I don't think it's appropriate for this type of game. What happens when you play on Easy and join a group with people who play on Nightmare? Or when the group is totally mixed? How does this impact PvP? Too complicated. It is what it is. Live and die by the saber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm-Cutter Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 The devs took since Easter to get this right- with OP companions and a patch to nerf them. or if you think their work was entirely on the story - then they've taken best part of a month to realize that something might need tweaking- with the mighty nerf hammer. Good suggestion, but so many people would QQ. /too easy/too hard/ too impossible / not worth the credits etc. Better to have tested it first. If only they had a dedicated server to try new stuff out on, and get selective feedback, rather than releasing something unfinished, and having to patch it. Hmmmm...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TX_Angel Posted November 16, 2015 Author Share Posted November 16, 2015 I think you might have those numbers backwards. Easy implies that everything is easier to get even creds and crystals yet your numbers would suggest otherwise. I'm suggesting there could be suitable rewards for people who do it in hard mode. In easy mode, you don't really need that stuff anyway, now do you? Your companion is super powered and you can't really die, so who cares? The idea is to make it so that you can't earn a ton of credits/comms/gear in easy mode, then switch to hard mode and crush it all. If you want the stuff, earn it. But for those who want to have a game they can click hammer shot over and over while watching netflix, then there you go, easy mode. And it doesn't get in the way of those who want a challenge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TX_Angel Posted November 16, 2015 Author Share Posted November 16, 2015 That's pretty much what they have in Star Trek Online, which I actually liked, but the problem is that nearly everything in that game was instanced. It's kinda hard to do that in open-world, unless instead of buffing the enemies you handicap the player, which could make group-content a real pain if people who think they're hardcore can't pull their weight. It'll also seriously throw off combat logging. What if there was an instance for each mode? Right now, if population gets too high, another instance is created and shown on the map in the drop down box. Perhaps that is how the missions get rest if you change modes, it moves you to another instance. This way the enemies and open world stuff is balanced to the mode you picked and you can't group up with people in a different mode than you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
branmakmuffin Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 I'm suggesting there could be suitable rewards for people who do it in hard mode. In easy mode, you don't really need that stuff anyway, now do you? Your companion is super powered and you can't really die, so who cares? The idea is to make it so that you can't earn a ton of credits/comms/gear in easy mode, then switch to hard mode and crush it all. If you want the stuff, earn it. But for those who want to have a game they can click hammer shot over and over while watching netflix, then there you go, easy mode. And it doesn't get in the way of those who want a challenge. In any event, as noted more than once, your suggestion is unworkable in a non-instanced game environment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TX_Angel Posted November 16, 2015 Author Share Posted November 16, 2015 In any event, as noted more than once, your suggestion is unworkable in a non-instanced game environment. Unless of course... they use the instances to control it... Instance 1 for easy mode, instance 2 for medium, etc... Yes, I get that it is additional dev time, but I would toss out the suggestion that you might make large groups of people happy with it. Those who want easy mode and those who do not. As it stands, they are going to piss off half the players. Either keep it easy and piss of the hard core or make it hard and piss off the easy players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
branmakmuffin Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 Unless of course... they use the instances to control it... Instance 1 for easy mode, instance 2 for medium, etc... Yes, I can see it now, 3 different instances for every planet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReverendAnderson Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 No. I don't think it's appropriate for this type of game. What happens when you play on Easy and join a group with people who play on Nightmare? Or when the group is totally mixed? How does this impact PvP? Too complicated. It is what it is. Live and die by the saber. It wouldn't effect PvP, only damage taken and dealt to AI enemies. If you join a group, the difficulty syncs to the leader's setting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TX_Angel Posted November 16, 2015 Author Share Posted November 16, 2015 It wouldn't effect PvP, only damage taken and dealt to AI enemies. If you join a group, the difficulty syncs to the leader's setting. That seems like a reasonable solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vankris Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 would probably never happen, but i like it, i would probably play at the hardest difficulty available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muljo_Stpho Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 (edited) Something like this had sort of come up somewhere in all the fuss over 4.0 companion strength. The proposal would basically be that we would have a slider to select for ourselves how "easy mode" or "hard mode" we want our solo gameplay experience to be. And there would also probably be some scaling of drops and xp gains (I'm not sure if that could extend to mission rewards as well? swtor doesn't seem like it has a way to do that. But yeah, that too if it's possible) because of "risk vs reward". If you're going to make things super easy for yourself (this end of the slider might include a special buff for your character and a scaling up of the presence bonus per companion influence rank) you're going to earn xp and credits slower and you're going to be getting drops from a drop table that's skewed towards junk items and low quality items. If you're going to make things more difficult for yourself (this end of the slider might include a debuff for your character and it might cut your presence down to a fraction of your total) you're going to earn more xp / credits and you're going to be getting drops from a drop table that's more generous about high quality drops. In between, you'd have no special bonus / penalty and you'd get the standard drop table. Being PVP flagged would probably have to override your setting and cause the game to act as if you're operating in the neutral setting. (Otherwise it becomes pretty much mandatory for all PVPers to select "easy mode". Selecting any less would be kind of suicidal.) Maybe being in a group might have to override it as well? (Although it's going to be more of a concern for people running hard mode flashpoints or hard/nightmare operations. People grouping for heroics or soloable content aren't going to notice or care so much.) Edited November 16, 2015 by Muljo_Stpho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghisallo Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 -To the OP you can not give a difficulty slider in a open persistent world MMO. -SWTOR already has a defacto one in terms of instanced content (solo mode, tactical, SM etc.) - a buff thingie doesn't work either. I know people who don't like MMOs may not appreciate this but for an open world MMO to work right everyone has to start at the baseline. If people can click a button and then they are baseline +3 it screws stuff up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianDavion Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 I think you might have those numbers backwards. Easy implies that everything is easier to get even creds and crystals yet your numbers would suggest otherwise. in most games with a difficulty setting you get better drops the higher you have that setting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GelstonJ Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 (edited) -To the OP you can not give a difficulty slider in a open persistent world MMO. -SWTOR already has a defacto one in terms of instanced content (solo mode, tactical, SM etc.) - a buff thingie doesn't work either. I know people who don't like MMOs may not appreciate this but for an open world MMO to work right everyone has to start at the baseline. If people can click a button and then they are baseline +3 it screws stuff up. For the first, you sure can. It would change your stats and your companion ' s stats. Select hard, you get a debuff, select easy, you get a buff. I don't see how it screws anything up. Explain that. There is a baseline, it is normal. Easy gets a buff, hard gets a debuff, normal isn't touched. Edited November 17, 2015 by GelstonJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maidelken Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 I'm pretty certain something like this would break the economy of the game as credit farmers parked on easy modes and farmed all day long. It would have to be server by server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GelstonJ Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 I'm pretty certain something like this would break the economy of the game as credit farmers parked on easy modes and farmed all day long. It would have to be server by server. Easy mode would give far less rewards though. It isn't like farmers have ever had a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
well Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Ok, so single player games have a difficulty slider, why not MMOs? Let those who want a super casual, relaxed game, have it... Let those who want a challenge hard mode, have it... So the slider could have 3 positions, "easy, medium, hard" In easy mode, a quest might give 5,000 credits, 2 basic comms, and a green gear drop In medium mode, a quest might give 10,000 credits, 4 basic comms, and blue gear drop In hard mode, a quest might give 20,000 credits, 6 basic comms, 2 elite comms, and a purple drop Make easy mode easy, as in, you can solo anything without fear of death Make medium more like the launch game, doable solo, but a challenge and you'll die sometimes Make hard mode brutal, you'll die many times but you'll shout for joy when you finally beat that boss! Level sync example: easy mode - 2 levels above max planet medium mode - 1 level below max planet hard mode - even with starting level of planet --- Changing the difficulty slider would reset any active quests, so you can't game the system by doing 90% of them in easy mode, then changing to hard mode at the last second. There could be new achievements for doing all the major missions on a planet in hard mode without changing settings. Thoughts? Starting at planet level for hard mode? Seriously? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GelstonJ Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Starting at planet level for hard mode? Seriously? Yeah, that should just be normal. I like the idea of a slider, but not necessarily their idea of the effects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
well Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 (edited) Yeah, that should just be normal. I like the idea of a slider, but not necessarily their idea of the effects. I know. I use to do Ilum dailies at 47. As long as you have good gear and stims. I agree about the effects also. Edited November 17, 2015 by well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maidelken Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Easy mode would give far less rewards though. It isn't like farmers have ever had a problem. But then everyone would mean that they can't solo the hard content. It's a vicious circle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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