Custom Difficulty


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On 11/14/2016 at 7:05 PM, ridankrad said:

I said that "For what Hinterland is planning, a game with distinct types of experiences depending on the difficulty level, four is a lot." You didn't seem to even read that very closely, because then you asked me what Hinterland is planning, ignoring the part in bold. I then gave you a quote from Raphael where he makes it clear that TLD is intended to be a game with distinct types of experiences depending on the difficulty level.

As for it being "a lot", yes that part is my opinion based on Raphael's statement that Hinterland is creating experiences, and not just various "systems". I'm also mindful of his statement about development and testing. Does that mean more experience modes won't be added? Not necessarily. But for quite some time the game had 3 experience modes and it was only recently and with a great deal of fanfare that a fourth experience mode, Interloper, was added. I could see them perhaps adding others, but I'd be shocked if they suddenly added 10 or 20, let alone sliders.

Obviously you're welcome to be as vocal as you like about customization options. I haven't said anything against offering feedback. My point is offering my own opinion about what I think Hinterland's goals are for TLD, relying on statements they've made previously. Anyway, I guess hope springs eternal as they say, so feel free to keep on hoping that the devs add sliders if you and enough others ask for them. I recognize that Hinterland is keeping their options open about TLD and don't want to ever be dismissive of community feedback, and that's all well and good. But I personally think Raphael's statement about "watered-down experiences" is pretty telling about the likelihood of sliders. I think it also should say a lot that the quote I gave you is from 6 months ago and in that time a new experience mode has been added and sliders have not.

"For what Hinterland is planning". And what exactly Hinterland is planning ? You seem to make conclusions based on non-existing evidence.

And again, are you trying to tell me that definition of "distinctive types of experiences" is maxed out at 4 ? Is there some guideline where those are written down ? Were it says that if i want distinctive, then i should go with 3 options; if feel like pushing it, then 4; and 5 is already crazy. Raphael havent written a single word regarding amount of difficulty levels they intend to create.

You are drawing conclusions out of thin air, with nothing to support them, based on fact that there used to be 3 modes and now there is 4. Creating predictive model based on 2 variables is absurd in this case, as there are numerous secondary variables that are in state of constant change, since game is being in middle of development phase.

Same goes for "watered-down" part - firstly, its subjective, secondly, it definition may change. And attempting to rub my nose into "from 6 months ago" notion is another extremely weak argumentation attempt - game was supposed to be release a year ago, based on original schedule, yet we, most likely, wont see even first part of story mode prior to 2017. Things change. Idea about customizable experience is nowhere near being dead.

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6 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

"For what Hinterland is planning". And what exactly Hinterland is planning ? You seem to make conclusions based on non-existing evidence.

And again, are you trying to tell me that definition of "distinctive types of experiences" is maxed out at 4 ? Is there some guideline where those are written down ? Were it says that if i want distinctive, then i should go with 3 options; if feel like pushing it, then 4; and 5 is already crazy. Raphael havent written a single word regarding amount of difficulty levels they intend to create.

You are drawing conclusions out of thin air, with nothing to support them, based on fact that there used to be 3 modes and now there is 4. Creating predictive model based on 2 variables is absurd in this case, as there are numerous secondary variables that are in state of constant change, since game is being in middle of development phase.

Same goes for "watered-down" part - firstly, its subjective, secondly, it definition may change. And attempting to rub my nose into "from 6 months ago" notion is another extremely weak argumentation attempt - game was supposed to be release a year ago, based on original schedule, yet we, most likely, wont see even first part of story mode prior to 2017. Things change. Idea about customizable experience is nowhere near being dead.

Why do you keep asking me what Hinterland is planning? I have given you a quote and answered you several times now, using portions of that quote as evidence. As I said in my previous post, I gave you a post from Raphael where he said that Hinterland has "been opposed to the idea of adding sliders because we see ourselves as Experience Creators and not simply system architects" and that the people at Hinterland "try to think of them [difficulty levels] as different 'experiences' of The Long Dark, utilizing the same mechanics but tuned differently." Like it or not, quotes from the Founder and Creative Director at Hinterland is evidence of what Hinterland is planning. I'm not drawing conclusions out of thin air.

I never said that the experiences are maxed out at 4. Where did you read that? In fact I said "Does that mean more experience modes won't be added? Not necessarily." I hoped that would make it clear that I acknowledge the fact that Hinterland may release additional experience modes. However, I followed up by saying that I'd be shocked if Hinterland suddenly added 10 or 20 experience modes, let alone sliders. My evidence for them not releasing that many experience modes is the time it took for them to release the 4 we currently have. They clearly take their time with, and give a lot of thought to, adding new experience modes.

You think that "watered-down experiences" is subjective or its definition may change? What do you think "watered-down experiences" means? I think that it means that custom difficulty would dilute the impact of the experiences, with which I'm inclined to agree because I think it shifts the burden to the players to figure out combinations of systems for a fun experience.

Finally, regarding the "from 6 months ago" point, I'm not rubbing your nose in anything. Let me ask you this: can we agree that releasing a new experience mode requires programming, testing and balancing, and therefore takes time and resources? If you agree with that, then maybe you can see my point that investing into making experience modes indicates that Hinterland is committed to experience modes for TLD. If custom difficulty of some type were released, then players could tweak the numbers themselves and figure out difficulty equivalents of Interloper, and beyond perhaps. But as I have repeated several times now, Hinterland see themselves "as Experience Creators and not simply system architects"--i.e. they don't want to leave it up to the player to craft the experience using the systems that Hinterland makes.

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Guys, this argument is getting a bit cyclical at this point...

And @ridankrad is correct in that @Raphael van Lierop et. al. at the moment have no plans for custom difficulty modes. Their stated design goals are to create experiences with their game. That being said you are right @Dirmagnos that there has been no official statements on the total number of experience modes planned for the game.

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6 hours ago, cekivi said:

Guys, this argument is getting a bit cyclical at this point...

And @ridankrad is correct in that @Raphael van Lierop et. al. at the moment have no plans for custom difficulty modes. Their stated design goals are to create experiences with their game. That being said you are right @Dirmagnos that there has been no official statements on the total number of experience modes planned for the game.

Yes, I agree with that and I'll let @Dirmagnos have the last word on this topic, but I just wanted to make myself clear because I feel like some of what I've said has been misunderstood--namely, I have never claimed that there is any official statement on the total number of experience modes. The only claim about Hinterland I made is what you reiterated @cekivi, that there are no plans for custom difficulty modes and their stated design goals are to create experiences for the game. Beyond that, I offered my personal opinion that 4 experience modes is "a lot" which is what seemed to spark this whole debate. I hope that my points are clear at this point, but I agree that we're going in circles so I'm happy to end it here.

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On 11/16/2016 at 5:01 AM, ridankrad said:

I think that it means that custom difficulty would dilute the impact of the experiences, with which I'm inclined to agree because I think it shifts the burden to the players to figure out combinations of systems for a fun experience.

I for one would relish the burden. I understand that the developers have come out previously and said "we are experience creators" and after playing these experiences I say they are good and I have had fun but for me to continue to play I would like to change the experience apart from what is on offer.

Now instead of just out right saying please provide this experience, I have shaped it in a way that would cater for a wider audience. Also I might find that (had a custom game type been added) having all the cabins/houses available is not as good as I first thought it would be, I could then go back and start a new game with that feature slightly tailored. So in this way I can find the perfect experience that caters for what I like.

Further if you are worried that new players see the custom game option and jump straight into that then you could shape it that the custom game option is linked to a badge (like survive 50 days on interloper) or has to be enabled in the options menu. Also you could turn off progression for badges/achievements in a custom game to prevent any unforeseen ways for abuse.

In my opinion this would increase the games replayability 10 fold and have the side bonus that people would not complain (too much) about certain features they do not like.   

 

   

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