Difficulty - how to do it without making it fake discussion

[Xarg]

Tried a forum search in here, and nothing came up, so here we go. The topic for today is difficulty, more specifically, how to make a mission difficult without using fake difficulty. Seems the most commonly used (in my opinion) methods for creating difficulty seem to fall along these lines:

• Key hunts - You end up retracing your steps over and over to find keys to unlock further areas of the mission.
  
• Loot hunts - Similar to key hunts, but not as bad, your progress (unless its the final objective) are seldom hindered by having insufficient loot.
  
• AI spam - filling a map with a million guards feels fake to me, you often end up with a rote-learning exercise with where and when to move, the outside area of Sons of Baltona would be a good example of this.
  
• Adjusted AI acuity - with guards already able to identify you instantly and ramp up to the fully alert threat level if you're in the light, tweaking these variables seems to be hit or miss for increasing difficulty
  
• Light placement - this one isn't too bad, though excessive light placement can lead to rote-learning patrols to avoid over-exposure to strong lights
  
• Objectives - this seems like one of the better options, with an example being the fake crown in Crown of Penitance, if the fake gets noticed the AI alert level in the area goes up which makes things tougher for you.
  
• Athletics challenges - though I have no doubt that our protagonist(s) are nimble and agile little fellows, probably with solid upper body strength, I'm wondering at what level of complexity do dexterity/timing based athletics challenges become fake-difficulty (think Swing but worse, Swing was about right for dexterity challenge IMHO)
  
• Ghosting - This is my preferred method of playing missions these days, but it seems some missions are not built for ghosting at all. One example off the top of my head... Too Late? The warehouse one... right at the end, that fireplace/candle combo in the warehouse, I can't find any way to get past it without a water arrow (since throwing something raises alert level and iirc makes stealth score 0 virtually impossible without "kiting" the 0 level alert to momentarily pause an AI). Is building missions to allow for ghosting removing fake difficulty via the AI and Light factors?
  

I think I've covered everything I wanted to here, now I open the floor for mappers and players of all skill levels and experience to chime in on this. I guess the overall goal of this thread is to come up with a set of difficulty factors that we can all agree don't feel fake or forced, hopefully to allow aspiring mappers to avoid some pitfalls when they go to create their first/next mission..

 

I'd like to thank the Stealth Bastard user missions, some of which contain a ridiculous level of rote-learning, frame perfect movement and timing skills that belong to Max Payne on fulltime bullet time mode, for inspiring me to create this thread.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Xarg

[Springheel]

I guess the overall goal of this thread is to come up with a set of difficulty factors that we can all agree don't feel fake or forced,

 

While I'm not a fan of loot or key hunts, but I don't think any of the rest are "fake or forced".

[Sotha]

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Mission_Design_Tips#Difficulty

 

On ghosting:

I'd like to just say my opinion. It would be daft to design mission to enable specifically ghosting. Ghosting means inactivity. You avoid using anything in the world. If you deliberately design your mission to be ghostable, that means that you leave an "easy path" to all the objectives. "Easy path" means that all situations are doable without equipment. Dull.

 

I find it important to promote clever useage of equipment.

[Xarg]

The other factors are a bit more complex, and while I should have put them in the first post, I didn't want it to become a gigantic wall of text. Key and loot hunts seem to stand alone as fake difficulty, the others, barring maybe an extreme athletics challenge, seem to form fake difficulty when matched up. An example would be hyper sensitive AI (say acuity +20%), lots of those guards (must have a carrot surplus for that night vision!), plus excessive lighting (especially of the strong variety where crouching does nothing), and especially when tied to an objective to not be detected, or not raise alert above a certain level. That's a combination of AI spam, acuity tweaking, objectives and lighting. Depending on how that section of the map is constructed, the player could be subjected to a boring/painful rote-learning reload-fest.

 

@Sotha, the article raises some good points, though I imagine some people will try to do it without equipment anyway. I can't and don't speak for anyone else, but I will attempt to ghost every single mission no matter how hard you try to force me to use equipment. Short of making the encounter impossible without, say, a water arrow, at which point I'll probably grumble and begrudgingly fire one. However, I don't feel that ghosting in itself is a problem, provided the map isn't left wide open for it. Personally, I'm fine with taking 2-3x longer to finish a map if I can ghost it, I enjoy the added challege of defeating a situation that was designed for equipment, without using any. I realise some situation won't allow ghosting, and that's fine, and I agree that ghosting implies a difficulty reduction, what I wonder here is how to make something ghostable without making it easier. If that involves spending 5 minutes in a hallway ducking corners and hiding under a staircase praying to the Builder that your 2-levels-above-dark light gem doesn't give you away, I'm fine with it.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Xarg

[Springheel]

Well, yes, if the mappers throws every possible difficulty into an area, that might feel forced. I can't think of any map that does this, however.

 

 

Depending on how that section of the map is constructed, the player could be subjected to a boring/painful rote-learning reload-fest.

 

Aren't you ignoring the option of clever use of equipment?

[Xarg]

Probably, but I felt that equipment loadouts being what they are, the point would stretch out too far. If a player has 1+ of all equipment types, then this corridor wouldn't be an issue, especially if the lights were torches instead of electric/shielded gas. A noisemaker would make that situation trivial each run-through until you run out, a gas arrow would work if you could hide the bodies in an adjacent room... and I could go on. I could just concede the point, however if someone makes that theoretical hair puller hallway and mistakenly puts electric lights in instead of dousable lights, or puts the switches for the electric lights in weird places (like other rooms, for whatever reason). I think I'm in danger of losing my point as this post rambles on, and I'm sure you understand what I'm trying to do here. Even just a post listing combinations of things people shouldn't combine (long hallway, covered gas lamps, multiple ai/hyper-acute ai, alert level based objective) would be, I think, quite helpful. It's also interesting to see other people's takes on what makes things difficult.

[grayman]

In, 1.08, AI won't be as quick to spot you.

[Xarg]

A change I look forward to greatly, it would also help reduce the difficulty factor of some of the situations. I might even be able to finish Reap without reload-spamming!

[Baddcog]

I wouldn't say key hunts are a difficulty factor as much as a frustration factor. Nobody enjoys long winded key hunts. It doesn't make it hard, it makes it boring/frustrating. So best to avoid making them for player enjoyment.

 

Loot hunts, can be the same, but I do think it should be harder for an expert to find the loot. At least there should be less of a window of loot, the goal should be closer to the total than for beginners.

 

I don't see any reason making sure your mission is ghostable would make it easier. Ghosting isn't supposed to be easy. You should just have the ability to find the timing to ghost. A good mission should always be ghostable sans killing type objectives.

Forcing a player to use equipment, bj, ko is just being a stubborn author and trying to force players into a certain playmode. It's as bad as forcing them to ghost. Players should be able to play missions how they feel comfortable.

 

Of course for story some missions make 'true ghosting' impossible. Score would be an example, [spolier]You have to BJ at least one ai and 'get busted' by others

. But I'm alright with that. I can ghost in a relaxed fashion. I ghosted the entire mission until those parts. So I still feel that I was successful.

 

Having it be ghostable doesn't mean leaving big swaths of no lights or ai, it just means giving the player enough of a chance that they can get through a well lit area if they time it right. That's just good mission design. What if they aren't ghosting but ran out of water arrows. In a well designed map they'd still be able to find the sweet spot anyway.

[stumpy]

well old thief 1 and 2 used to open up more areas by removing blocking brushes on higher levels, bonehoard had that feature, reduce the number of health points you had, and make guards harder to sneak past, and increase the number of guards, add more loot, on higher levels of difficulty.

[dumpkin]

In, 1.08, AI won't be as quick to spot you.

That's funny. I stopped playing TDM because the player is almost invisible to the AI.

[Baddcog]

well old thief 1 and 2 used to open up more areas by removing blocking brushes on higher levels, bonehoard had that feature, reduce the number of health points you had, and make guards harder to sneak past, and increase the number of guards, add more loot, on higher levels of difficulty.

I actually did the opposite in L4D, I opened up at least one easier path for lower difficulties (a rock blocked the path)

 

That's funny. I stopped playing TDM because the player is almost invisible to the AI.

Look at your light gem, the player is the master of shadows. ie: when he is in complete darkness the ai can't detect him.

The difference between T2 and TDM in this respect is in T2 the ai could walk against you and never notice. In TDM bump into them and you are busted.

 

The change fixes the issue of ai seeing you at long distances and instantly charging. Now at certain distance you will be too far away for them to notice. When you are closer they will notice something and start to look for the disturbance. Up close they will fully alert within a second or so.

[Springheel]

I've sometimes felt that the AI is a little blind at close range too, but you can't please everyone.

[SiyahParsomen]

That's funny. I stopped playing TDM because the player is almost invisible to the AI.

Maybe drunk AI?

Edited April 7, 2012 by SiyahParsomen

[grayman]

I've sometimes felt that the AI is a little blind at close range too, but you can't please everyone.

 

Agreed. There is a disconnect in lighting conditions (I can see the suspicious door is open, why can't the AI see it too?) that is difficult to grok. While it's frustrating that an AI many times won't react to events in low light, it's satisfying that one of those events is that I can stand next to him as if I were wearing Harry Potter's invisibility cloak .

[Baddcog]

That's the thing, Garrett was always a master thief, he almost had a magical ability to stay hidden if he played his cards right.

 

The shadows are the players domain and they should be in complete control if they play it right. Think of how good it feels when an ai narrowly misses bumping into you while searching. You are pinned in a corner, scared, just waiting for him to bump you and pull his sword.

 

You wait quietly, holding your breath... then he walks away. Phew, I won! It's a total reward to escape and elude.

 

On the other hand, you run into a corner, he comes close and you know he is going to see you. What do you do, just run until there are no ai present? Run out of the mansion, down the street, jump in the sewer... then come back and break into the mansion again and try over... Or reload.

 

A lot of the time spaces are small and tight and you barely have room to cringe in a corner and wait for an ai to stop searching, or to pass on his patrol. Your light gem is dark, you are invisible.

What if they could see you within 5 feet. That would completely kill a lot of missions. Authors would have to make even larger dark spots so you had a buffer. Right now you can slip into a sliver of shadow and be completely tense hoping you don't get busted. Seeing you up close would eliminate that.

[RPGista]

The change fixes the issue of ai seeing you at long distances and instantly charging. Now at certain distance you will be too far away for them to notice. When you are closer they will notice something and start to look for the disturbance. Up close they will fully alert within a second or so.

 

Though I completely agree with your last post and the thrill of lurking in the shadows, I hope you meant to say here that when you are far away from a guard, in full bright light, you get a chance he might not notice you before he gets a full understanding that he just saw a thief (the suspicion curve that people were talking about that wasnt implemented yet); having them unable to see you if you are far doesnt sound right. Its a simple test really, though there were talks at the time about AI being able to spot you from hundreds of meters away (never seen it happening myself, because theres never such long distances in any fms I played); if you can easily discern a guard from a distance, he should equally be able to spot you just as easily if you are in a bright lit area. This is simply reasonable I think. I really like the idea of having a small buffer between just spotting you and realising you are a menace (would give you time to jump into the shadows, depending on how long you were exposed, he might as well go to you direction to investigate), but I think it would be exciting only if it was a split second. Being immune to guards at X distance doesnt sound very interesting, really.

Edited April 8, 2012 by RPGista

[Baddcog]

I don't think it's 100% immunity. It's just that they don't immediately ramp up to charge.

 

Gray man could tell you the specifics much better. But I believe there is a cut-off distance where the ai just won't care. Closer than that there is a radius where they will notice and get suspicious, but not full alert. Closer yet the full alert comes quicker but there should always be a slight delay to full alert.

ie: they walk around a corner and bump into you. They don't immediately thwack you with their sword, they go ' ugh, wha? THIEF!" Then whack you with a sword.

 

But it does (and should) lean towards forgiveness for the player. Think of it from the player/guard perspective. The player is a thief, out to loot, not get caught and he knows that ALL ai he encounters are a threat.

But a guard is a guy walking the beat, there are many people around the city. Shabbily dressed, poor down trodden souls. Should they go ballistic and run in their heavy armor towards every single figure they see in the distance? Who knows, maybe it's just a beggar. Can they really spot a 'thief' at 60 yards. Someone who is dressed low key and not making a scene?

 

Of course if you just stand in the light they are more bound to recognize and attack.

 

The fact that maybe you haven't seen a guard at a distance enough where you shouldn't be an alert doesn't mean the system shouldn't be set up for that. Someday there will be that map and players would be like 'wtf? he was a mile away'.

 

Mainly the tweak was made to give players more reaction time, and the further the distance the larger that time is. It still doesn't give you a freebie 'act like a dunce and dance in the light'.

[grayman]

Grayman could tell you the specifics much better.

 

Please read the details in the last note in issue #3063.

[RPGista]

Thats something a really like, to add depth and subtleties to the AI's senses, Im all for that. I do believe however that features that tend to favour the player should always be balanced by some other thing, to keep things balanced and challenging. For example, even though some people disagree, its actually pretty simple to just walk to an AI and KO him; I was doing that to an AI whose acuity I increased by 50%, by the time he would go "Sounds?" I was already koing him, by just walking carelessly towards him. In a test with 3 AI, the only one that would turn before I got to him was one with huge acuity and increased alert thresholds, normal AI is really easy prey in optimal situations. If you are going to kill them, you can just run towards them, by the time they are turning its already too late. And thats where the balancing should kick in - if you can KO or kill them easily, maybe the sounds the falling body makes should be slightly increased so AI that are further away can hear it, increasing the likeness of the action causing negative consequences for you. Thats actually the only defense AI has from the player, their numbers and the fact they can help each other. Instead of being frustrated that they cant stealthly KO everyone in a dim lit room one by one right under everyones noses, people should just be able to find better alternatives to bypass the situation since they cant use violence. Or if they have to take someone out, they will have to follow him or wait for a chance, and thats all part of the fun.

[Xarg]

Even with the ramped up AI difficulty, I've once again been able to overcome every guard in my map (nearly 10), including one with an advanced bonus stat that makes him harder to kill, often 2-3 at a time. The key seems to be a mixture of nonstop speed, worthless attacks (to flatfoot a parrying AI) and held strikes, the ai will eventually let their guard down and it's just one well place thrust to the face to down them. I'm certain with enough freedom of movement I could handle 2-3 of the helmeted pro guards at the same time. This is probably unavoidable, however, without creating invincible guards via uberhealth or full plate like a knight. A louder death sound would probably help via numerical advantage, or give them a longer max parry holding, so that using a held strike to force them to parry locks you out of attacking for longer, allowing the guards you aren't halting with flat feet to land hits.

 

Alternatively, I could stop being a power gaming jerk who's aware he's in a video game..

Edited April 8, 2012 by Xarg

[Melan]

WRT ghosting, don't forget that people who enjoy this playstyle enjoy it as a hard and unforgiving exercise. The ideal mission for a ghoster is one which is not designed for ghosting, but which can just barely be finished that way. It is about finding that tiny little gap between patrols, or that miniature sliver of a ledge around a tower which lets you bypass a well-lit area. In a way, it is also about exploiting unintended (emergent) features of a level to get by. A mission specifically designed for ghosting is usually not much of a challenge for ghosters.

 

Myself, I tend to leave routes in my missions which let you avoid AI. I think it is fair - if you find them, or can access them, that's your reward for being observant. Of course, if you want to see the whole level, you will have to get into tight and dangerous situations.