/v/ - Video Games

>>14476340

God Hand's dynamic difficulty, maybe?

>>14476340

You want to make a game that's easier if the player is better at it?

Why?

>>14476340

How about Demon Soul's world tendency system? World tendency can go white or black with white making the game easier by having enemies drop more curatives, you can make it go white by defeating the bosses. Black world tendency spawns special and harder enemies and drop less curatives. A player can make world tendency darker by repeatedly dying in human form. Shitty players who die in human form will end up making the game harder, while good players can keep world tendency pure white or white enough to not screw themselves over.

Armored Core Last Raven's paths is sort of all over the place. Taking the easier missions leads to easier bosses/AC fights. Yet taking the harder missions or doing the optional objectives in missions, such as taking on an enemy AC rather than just leaving the mission area, will result in harder final boss (Like Zinaida or the airborne Pulverizer). Of course if you don't know what missions are hard or easy a new player can easily find themselves stuck in a mission with no way to progress except by restarting which isn't a problem because the game expects this and you get to keep all the money and parts you had for the next run.

>>14476570

I wanted to say the exact thing but if you'll read what OP is saying, the God Hand dynamic difficulty is actually the opposite of what OP wants.

>>14476340

OP, here's the thing: Almost every game ever made in existence follows this philosophy, just not in the way you're specifying. The entire point of lives and resources is to have a safety net for mistakes. The more mistakes you make, the less mistakes you can make further down the line. On the other hand, the less mistakes you make, the more resources you have to recover from mistakes you make down the line.

Metal Gear Solid, which you use as an example, actually works the opposite of how you think it does. When you trigger an alert, you have caused a failure state. The alert, however, doesn't increase the difficulty due to that mistake. It drains resources (health and ammo), but actually makes the gameplay easier as a result because the soldiers that intercepted you are now, assumedly, incapacitated, which makes traversing the level easier now that there are fewer enemies to sneak past.

A game that gets easier for people who play better alienates both types of players. The ones with skill are not challenged, and the ones without skill are unfairly punished.

Instead, find a way to force skillful players to take and manage risks. The game shouldn't be easy; it should be rewarding. Reward players for being skillful while withholding the rewards of high-risk situations from those without skill.

As for those without skill, don't just punish them for being unskilled. Force them into a situation where the necessary skill needed to proceed is both tested and encouraged in a practical environment. In a sneaking game, for example, force the player to encounter enemies far beyond their combat ability if they fail to sneak properly. However, instead of killing them outright or making the area even more difficult for them to traverse, give them an easy way out that encourages them to use the required skill (stealth) in order to maintain their safety. Maybe the enemies are in armored walkers that can't enter small or hidden entryways, and the player realizes that keeping an eye out for hiding places (and then moving between them without being spotted) is an important skill to acquire.

I dunno why I'm saying any of this, though. OP is clearly too green to actually put any of this information to use. OP, if you seriously want to make a game, start small. Pick up the basics before you start diving into the advanced stuff.

>>14476700

> makes the gameplay easier as a result because the soldiers that intercepted you are now, assumedly, incapacitated, which makes traversing the level easier now that there are fewer enemies to sneak past.

You can abuse the fuck out of this in Hitman if you don’t care about your score (read: you pirated it and have no score because only mental defectives pay for always online single player games). Knock out/kill someone out stealthily, dump the body in a doorway, and then open the door so that it can’t close because the body is in the way. Leave and wait for someone else to find it, they go on alert, and then they all start coming to one area where you can pick them off more easily. When you finally do kill all of them and the alert goes away, take another corpse to another populated area and repeat until there are only civilians left.

Then exterminate the civilians, because Hitman is pretty fucking fun if your goal is to Perfect Stealth kill EVERYONE on the map.

The biggest challenge in these games is memorizing what to do so you have to put in as little effort as possible, not actively playing well enough to git gud. Your best bet is to do something like what I just mentioned but make the game difficult through attrition instead of reflex. Sure you can beat the first 3 levels easily, but what about all 8 without dying? Gradius wasn't fun because you got good at dodging bullets. It was fun because you wanted to try again but with a better strategy.

I take it you don't play many games, anon. Just about every arcade game, and most games made before 1998 follow this rule.

The most prominent example here is Gradius, where you get more powerful and practically untouchable, until you die and lose everything. When you come back, you're still further into the level, but without any items and you can't get any because you're slow as fuck and the boss is right there.

These systems are designed to eat quarters more than anything, and the further you get in the game the more tedious it is, which doesn't make for an enjoyable game. The 1cc emerged from this because it's just the simplest way to beat the game, despite also being the hardest. You don't want to force people to 1cc a 15 hour stealth game, so I recommend you stop thinking this way right now.

The solution you are looking for isn't in difficulty, but in time. And I don't mean Metal Gear Solid 3's extremely long alert phases (those just punished mistakes with more difficulty, it's not viable to wait). Make messing up truly inconvenience the player by forcing them to go another, longer way, or to do a side mission to make up for their mistakes. So ghosting the game would only take a few hours, but messing up constantly extends the route to be 5 times that. Punish mistakes in early game with a few minutes, and build up to adding an hour of extra time by the endgame. If you can, punish a repeated mistake with something extra tedious like backtracking. Let the alternate paths/quests be available even if the player isn't forced down it, to let them extend their route but minus the backtracking.

Of course, this means you have to build at least 2 times the size of the base game, plus a lot of creativity to not make every side path feel exactly the same.

And what >>14476700 said. You will never make your game if you don't lower your ambitions right now, and you still need inhuman amounts of creativity and perseverance to make anything anyone would want to play.

It's a single player game you're thinking of developing OP, so I wouldn't be too worried about difficulty. There will be people who play your game as you intend, and there will be those that intentionally attempt to take the hardest path through the game. Classic examples would be knife runs in the OG RE games, modern examples would be SL1 run in dork souls.

The only faggots who will complain about difficulty in a single player game are mentally dysfunctional mouthbreathers and you should never EVER cater to their tastes if you want to maintain a proper vision for your game.

Devil May Cry is a pretty good example. You get skills and upgrades by performing and get shit on for not

>>14476340

Virtually any game with optional objectives, assuming they have some difficulty/time limit to accomplish them. e.g. Starcraft 2.

Icewind Dale had higher difficulties give more XP, which meant a tougher early game but an easier mid/late game as you were higher level. Probably a few other games with similar issues.

Hitman had Notoriety, which meant that completing missions badly made later missions more difficult as your disguises stopped being as effective.

Any game like Resident Evil 4 where you have an option between running and fighting but fighting means powerful weapon or money drops.

X-Com aliens would panic if you were good and killed a lot of them quickly without taking losses. Only lasted for the map though.

>>14476975

<playing gradius

<forced to 1cc eitherway

Gradius and similar shmups (or even similar games like contra) are so fucking BULLSHIT, especially when the rank doesn't die down and you have to deal with this fucking horseshit design where you can barely recover at all.

>>14478839

>BULLSHIT

Yet despite that there's tons of 1cc videos of Gradius everywhere. Just because it's hard to recover doesn't mean it's that impossible, unlike something past stage 4 in R-Type.

>the rank doesn't die down

Rank only increases when you pick-up powerups, so don't grab more than necessary. That way rank only becomes a problem with the next loops.

>Contra

The only rank Contra had is adjusting zako spawn frequency depending on your equipped weapon, with the highest being for the spreadgun, which makes sense considering it's the most powerful weapon in the game.

>>14479030

Okay I just played a bit more of gradius, and kind of realized, is it when I pick up powerups or activate powerups? When the boss zipped around like crazy one moment really threw me off course when I had a whole set of power-ups four options, missile, laser but then revisiting the same boss with just a laser.

But still, as you said you can recover in gradius and other similar shmups, but after getting nipped by some absolute bullshit moment really ticks me off or maybe I'm not good enough.

>>14476975

>These systems are designed to eat quarters more than anything

Yes we get it, you've played an arcade game before but you haven't actually beaten one. Protip idiot: your argument is extra specious in your own given example because the original arcade Gradius releases did not allow continuing. They were a bit unique in carrying this early '80s design onward when other games moved on to supporting continuing and credit feeding. If you can't beat an arcade Gradius game on one credit, you'll never see the end. Because when you run out of ships,

that it: putting another token in will only allow you to start over from the beginning.

Now go beat the original Gradius, it's actually on the rather easy side of arcade games. Add a single-credit clear to your belt so you gain a little insight.

>>14479030

It's easier in Gradius to just reset the game when you die instead of trying to get back to where you were. Hence the bad design outside of arcade. The game should have just given you 1 life and started you back at the beginning.

God Hand.

Look for it.

It is one of the best games ever made.

>>14479099

The thrill of "solving" a recovery puzzle with the limited stock of lives that you have amassed is actually one of my favorite aspects of the Gradius series.

>>14479112

There's nothing to "solve" if it's objectively less hassle to just reset the game. There's areas in Gradius that are just there to make sure you have upgrades so you don't get a game over. Unless you're going to tell me you can get through the destroyable net sections with only a level 1 weapon. In fact it's probably much more enjoyable just to "solve" each level by remaining calm enough to decide if the double is adequate or the laser for the level while you have everything else maxed.

>>14479125

As tricky as recovering can seem in the Gradius series, most checkpoints really are recoverable. Gradius III is the only one with a significant number of completely unreasonable or downright impossible recoveries. Keep trying and you might surprise yourself.

>>14476635

It's not as much that I want to make it easier, I just wanted to vary it a bit, like an invisible slider that goes up depending on your playstyle. I thought it was a good idea, but on further thought I just noticed that I was taking the fun away from good players and shitting it down on bad players.

>>14476637

AC is like the opposite, since you can choose and play with your full skill.

The Demon's Souls one sounds similar though, how was it? Did it have people killing themselves to make the game harder or was it fun for the whole family?

>>14476700

Still, it's not for the whole game. It's just a temporary state in Metal Gear. It changes the area you are in, but it has no effect in the rest of the game.

What I'm planning to do is have the player get shit on throughout the game for alerting soldier in the first level. In fact, probably more than if he alerted them near the end of the game.

I guess I could have the player call alerts by himself as a mechanic, if he wants fun or as a distraction, and have stealth players be timed, needing to either rush through the game or have the soldiers find out that he escaped in X time. Still, I'm worried that I'll alienate bad players by fucking them over more the worse they are.

>OP, if you seriously want to make a game, start small. Pick up the basics before you start diving into the advanced stuff.

It is small though. It's a simple 2D game, this mechanic would be the most advanced and I still kind of already know how to implement it.

The only problem is having the other guy leave since he's the only drawfag I know and I'm still shit at it.

>>14476843

That's a good point. As a 2D game and an optional stealth game, I might end up making it too limited in terms of choices. The planned freedom of movement because lol science might help it, but maybe not much.

Are there any good 2D stealth games? The only full stealth I've played are pretty much focused on memorizing the guard patterns.

>>14476975

Arcades around here have always been shit, I only ever played pinball and those fags removed them for no reason back in 2010.

That's more about crippling the player by have him do less damage, have less health and all. What I want to do is shit furry on the player in the form of more units with stronger attacks.

The result is similar, but the way to go about it is different.

The side mission sounds interesting though. Making the player find out an alternate way to fix his follow up. I'm not sure if I can do it well, but I might end up trying it.

>>14478230

No, I'm not that much of a faggot.

>>14478271

It's not as much about difficulty as it is about fun. The good players won't have their fun and neither will the bad players.

>>14478286

I've never played a DMC game, how's the upgrade system? Most I've played either take the fun away by making you a fucking god or just slowly give you the fun you should already have from the beginning in the form of locking skills away behind (in-game money)pay walls.

>>14479100

One day fucking PS2 emulators will stop asking for 6gazillion hertz CPUs, I can hardly get past the first level thanks to the lag spikes.

>>14479139

I think you're missing the point. Most areas in Gradius 1 are recoverable. But there's no point in trying if it's objectively easier to just not bother and reset the game. The fact is that if you die in the middle of a level you're going to have a worse time than if you die in the beginning where the power up drops are available. So basically you're being punished for not dying sooner. It's an inconsistent difficulty spike basically.

>>14479146

>and have stealth players be timed, needing to either rush through the game or have the soldiers find out that he escaped in X time.

*or have the soldier find out he escaped in X time, making the game harder to stealth through.

>>14479125

>Unless you're going to tell me you can get through the destroyable net sections with only a level 1 weapon.

Wait which Gradius game are we talking about here? Recovering on stage 6 of the first isn't terribly difficult. The middle of stage 4 is the only really nasty checkpoint in the first game.

And in the later Gradius games when they started making destructible walls regenerate, it in fact is generally easier to sneak through them at low power levels where you can time your shots more easily.

>>14479149

lolwut? How is it objectively easier to start over and put in another 15+ minutes progressing back to the spot you just died on? I can understand starting over when you fuck up on the first or second stage, but that's just silly when you've made some progress. You got halfway or near the end of the game, push through and you just might win!

>>14479105

I think I might be able to consistently past the easter island head if I don't powerup too much, I remember Gradius 3 having better shield optoin.

>>14479159

>Wait which Gradius game are we talking about here

Only been talking about 1.

>it in fact is generally easier to sneak through them at low power levels where you can time your shots more easily.

No it's not.

>but that's just silly when you've made some progress.

it's really not. Spending 15 minutes is a better punishment for failure than making the game arbitrarily more difficult depending on the area you die for playing worse.

>You got halfway or near the end of the game, push through and you just might win!

I already won by the method I just mentioned. If you think the idea of pushing through a retarded difficulty stomp because you made a mistake is fun then go ahead. But this is a thread about objectively good game design.

>>14479105

>R-Type is generally much more recoverable

just no

You start off with incredibly slow movement speed, no Force Pod, and no Bits. In stages where enemies are prone to coming from all sides of the screen (basically all of them) you wouldn't be able to move out of the way of incoming bullets and enemies unless you want to make a plan for every single checkpoint.

Item placement for checkpoints is incredibly uneven, so for some you have to make do without a Force Pod or at the lowest speed, and Bits are only dropped on Stage 1, 4, and 7. With Bits you can just sit in a safe spot in Stage 8 and you've basically won the game at that point, but without it's pure hell (I managed to pull it off once during practice, but only on the first loop).

Checkpoints in Gradius are much more lenient in that regard with the weapon bar since you can choose whatever you need the most first, even though it's ironically called Gradius Syndrome. For R-Type you're too reliant on sparse item drops to recover, whereas power-ups in Gradius are much more ubiquitous.

Nothing will ever be worse than FF13

>only way to reliably get item drops for better weapons is to kill enemies with a record time

>only way to reliably get item drops for status buffs is to fuck up on purpose horrifically

What were they thinking?

>>14479671

>just no

I've single-credit cleared all the classic Gradius games up to Gaiden and all the classic R-Types up to III and I must disagree. Getting a speed up in R-Type is not nearly as important as it usually is in Gradius, and the charge cannon provides a another deal of flexibility for recovery that Gradius lacks. Last time I beat R-Type I recovered from 4 different checkpoints throughout the first loop, including the final stage. The bits really aren't super necessary for the final boss, understanding its attack pattern is much more important than coming fully powered.

>>14476975

This. Lots of old games did stuff like this. Shmups are an obvious example, but a lot of the best old platformers also had a variation where when you're going fast, the cycles line up and make things easier, but if you get hung up on a part and slow down, everything gets fucked up and it can become near impossible to win. Some of my favorite examples are Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Ninja Gaiden, and Crash Bandicoot 1. Ninja Gaiden probably does it the best, and is seen as the hardest of the games listed anyway. But if you go fast, it's much easier. If you slow down you'll get chased by birds and the enemies will be at odd parts in their cycles when you meet them so you can't kill them as quickly, slowing you down even more, making things even harder. Basically, if you fuck up, just start the level over. Extra lives don't mean shit. But when you do well, it feels very fulfilling. The levels end up feeling like they have a good flow to them.

>>14479940

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about point tournament games.

I don't actually like them that much. Killing yourself to win first place by a few milliseconds was really fun in NFSU2, but knowing that you can place last in the race and still get first thanks to the previous races really took a lot of the pressure, necessity and, consequently, the fun out of the game.

>>14481254

I was thinking of going with the RNG meme to prevent a memorization game like Crash Bandicoot. Ninja Gaiden does seem like a good example though, with it being fun even if you're good and going the "easy" route.

I've never played 1 though, is the snes port any good?

>>14481455

>Making the game easier for pros is antithesis to how most good games progress

See >>14479146 , I just wanted the game to be fun and react differently to how the player progressed, then I noticed I was pretty much laying down on a puddle for the good players not to step on water while shitting raw fury down the casuals' necks.

Also, the alert thing goes for both stealth and genocide route, along with everything in between. You just need to prevent soldiers that saw you from using a radio to not have an alert triggered.

>Plot says that you come back after death, but the enemy are alert from the very beginning

That's already planned, except it'll reset the level and the retries are limited. You'll restart with less and less health(that you can get back somehow) until eventually you have 1 hit worth of life, and if you die it's game over man.

IMO, if well implemented, that should make players have to choose between dealing with their fuck up and using death as an actual mechanic.

The only thing that I still think might be a problem is the response to alerts. As of yet, I'm planning on having the alert cause enemies to go look for you in strong groups, stronger units being activated and all that. That'll make the player have to trigger an alert on purpose if he wants fun.

I suppose a genocide route could have the enemy calling for outside backup, leaving the player with even more shit than just being bad and having to kill eventually.

In the end, I guess I'll have to play games and actually start working on it to test shit out.

>>14479089

>Yes we get it, you've played an arcade game before but you haven't actually beaten one.

I don't think you've even played any arcade games outside Gradius at all, I've got several arcade games on an emulator and some more on some old bargain bin sales for console ports. Those free continues represents quarters and those games are mercilessly hard and I've experienced some straight up bullshit that exists purely to kill you to drain all your continues. Come back to me when you can beat Geese Howard on 1 continue in the first Fatal Fury.

>>14479146

Emulation will eventually get better.

Always emulate.

Have a good time playing the quintessential video game.

Sengoku Rance fits that criteria I suppose? The faster you conquer the other houses the less time they have to amass troops. If you were really fast you'll even get loads of bonus points to buy perks for your next playthrough.

Whose MGS playthrough is that from? I kinda want to watch the whole thing. That might be even worse than DSP.

>>14484177

Just a guy getting caught on purpose.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnLBZFgFhZY