95 réponses à ce sujet

[Durmir]

Hey,
I know it may have been said loads of times, but with awakening it's getting worse and worse, so I came here to make a suggestion. I really hope Bioware will read this (I'm a user of the french forum, and no one from Bioware never come there, so it's hard to be listened to). By the way, plz excuse my english if it's bad, it's not my native language.


Difficulty in this game is very low. Some players (including myself) have finished the game, in nightmare difficulty, with only 1 guy (the main character) in the team, all game long. It can be done using an archer, a duelist, a 2H warrior, an arcane warrior, and maybe more (I think nearly any kind of mage can do this too, except of course the lame shapeshifter). And, more important, in some cases (like the duelist I tested), finishing the game in solo, in nightmare mode, is VERY easy (so easy it was boring, indeed).
I know mechanics are a bit different between normal mode, and nightmare mode. But obviously, not enough, as the game doesn't seem more difficult in normal than in nightmare. Why putting a nightmare mode if it's not harder than the normal one ?

I hoped Bioware would consider that issue and fix it with Awakening.
I realize I was wrong. In fact, the game is EVEN easier, so that it's nearly impossible now to die or to even consider healing or prepare a nice tactics. Just charging and getting a coffee while your team auto-attacks is enough to win any fight.

So now, I'm wondering, why the hell doesn't Bioware propose a real challenging mode ? I mean, I'm ok with the fact that easy and normal difficulties have to be quite easy, so the player is not frustrated if he's not used to RPG. But hard and even more nightmare difficulties should be much harder !

So plz, Bioware, when people say your game is too easy, stop getting an add-on which is even easier ! It's not good, even for the lifetime of your game. People won't want to start new games if they know it'll be the same easy game. It's a RPG, so there's a real pleasure to discover the game, talk to people, visit cities and whatever. But when you already know all of this, what's the point of keeping playing that game if it's too easy ?

So, may I expect some challenge in the future, or will it be Smurfs in the Love Country with Pink Teddybears again, and again ? I wonder...

Modifié par Durmir, 18 mars 2010 - 04:32 .

[k9medusa]

LOL -- Some battles I have a hard time with! I thought the opposite before -- the game is to hard on normal. I hope Bioware does not up the difficulty any more....

[Durmir]

I agree the game should be easy for some unused people. So I don't ask to raise the easy and normal difficulties. I ask to change the hard and nightmare difficulties so they really are harder than normal mode.
I'm well aware some people are not very comfortable with game difficulty for now. That's why easy mode is here. But why proposing a hard and nightmare difficulties if they're not harder ? I think people can expect that nightmare difficulty can provide them... well, nightmares.

A game which propose 4 difficulty ranges, but all are obviously the same (or with so little difference it's all the same), is flawed.
Easy and normal difficulties should not be changed (or maybe the easy one can be easier for beginners). But hard difficulty should be hard, and nightmare REALLY hard. It's actually not the case, I've noticed no real difference.

Modifié par Durmir, 18 mars 2010 - 04:30 .

[booke63]

Are you on a PC? Here is maybe a mod for you:



http://social.biowar.../9/index/232387

[I Valente I]

k9medusa wrote...

LOL -- Some battles I have a hard time with! I thought the opposite before -- the game is to hard on normal. I hope Bioware does not up the difficulty any more....

why? If they add another difficulty or change Nightmare, and you play on normal....it has no effect on you at all....

[Durmir]

booke63 wrote...

Are you on a PC? Here is maybe a mod for you:

http://social.biowar.../9/index/232387

Thx for the tip


Anyway, I don't think it's "ok" to consider mods to get what the core game should provide. I'd really prefer an "official" fix, as it'll be closer to what developpers intended for the game, and not to be obliged to go everywhere looking for a mod doing what the game should do.
But I guess I will make it with the mod, until then...

[Sloth Of Doom]

User - Comprehension epic fail , common sense please do something.

You can't expect any game by an developer to somehow magically be able to suit the playstyles and abilities of every person in the world. I too find the game quite easy, but I realize that if they made things too difficult they would drive away the majority of their customers Adjusting nightmare to be more difficult in order to appease a minor percentage of users would take time and resources away from developing things that would benefit the majority and (I know this sounds crazy) make Bioware money.

Saying an official fix would be closer to what the developers intended is fallacious, since the 'intended' difficulty is obviously what they released.

Modifié par Sloth Of Doom, 18 mars 2010 - 04:40 .

[Durmir]

Adjusting nightmare difficulty can be done very easily and very quickly. Just change some lines in the code to put more life/dmg or whatever to ennemies, for example. Moreover, it can be a suggestion for the future, as difficulty was obviously not considered in Awakening.

And I never asked they suit the game for myself or whatever. Nightmare difficulty was their idea. So I think they can do it right. I don't think they intended to propose a nightmare difficulty which would be the same as normal one, they simply didn't test it.



So plz stop trolling, it's annoying. If you have something interesting or true to say, be my guest. If not, so you may find other topics that better suit you.

[wowpwnslol]

You have to remember that the majority of Bio's customers are mouth breathers who still use sippy cups, so if they actually made a challenging game, the outcry from "casuals" would be epic. Just accept the fact that no developer will risk his product in this day and age by making it difficult.

[Durmir]

Ok, plz let me repeat once again :

I do NOT ask developpers to raise the general difficulty of the game, especially for easy and normal modes. I ask them to do something so that hard and nightmare modes are not as easy. There's actually no real difference. Why hard and nightmare mode do even exist, then ?
The game can keep its difficulty for casual players. But it should consider challenging modes as well.
Often, it's not casual players who keep a game living. Develop a game ONLY for casuals, and you will lose MANY customers. Develop a game for casuals AS WELL as for more used players, then you'll get a lot of customers.

I hope I made my point : I don't want to get the easy and normal difficulties changed. So you can breathe.

Modifié par Durmir, 18 mars 2010 - 04:50 .

[Gliese]

@Sloth



On the other hand, if single users can mod the game in a few days or weeks with simple tweaks to make hard and/or nightmare much more difficult and Bioware risk losing future customers by neglecting a certain demographic, would it not be sensible to actually make a real effort at differentiating the difficulties in the game beyond adding -5% here and there?

It's not a gigantic project to do so by any means, and there's the added luxury that it's hard to overshoot tweaks to the nightmare difficulty. If the changes happens to be a little bit too much, well that's why it's called nightmare, as long as you don't go totally crazy with changes, and why would an experienced dev/programmer do that?

[AlanC9]

Has anyone ever counted up the difficulty complaint threads? My impression is that they run about even -- half saying too easy, half too hard.

[wowpwnslol]

Durmir wrote...

Ok, plz let me repeat once again :

I do NOT ask developpers to raise the general difficulty of the game, especially for easy and normal modes. I ask them to do something so that hard and nightmare modes are not as easy. There's actually no real difference. Why hard and nightmare mode do even exist, then ?
The game can keep its difficulty for casual players. But it should consider challenging modes as well.
Often, it's not casual players who keep a game living. Develop a game ONLY for casuals, and you will lose MANY customers. Develop a game for casuals AS WELL as for more used players, then you'll get a lot of customers.

I hope I made my point : I don't want to get the easy and normal difficulties changed. So you can breathe.

To make game truly challenging you need to fix this game's absolutely awful AI, get creative with monster abilities and actually make an effort at balancing talents instead of just throwing random **** together with obvious zero playtesting. Simply adding more hitpoints would be dumb because the game will remain easy, but it will also become boring.

Modifié par wowpwnslol, 18 mars 2010 - 04:55 .

[carlosjuero]

wowpwnslol wrote...

You have to remember that the majority of Bio's customers are mouth breathers who still use sippy cups, so if they actually made a challenging game, the outcry from "casuals" would be epic. Just accept the fact that no developer will risk his product in this day and age by making it difficult.

.... Wow. The complete... ignorance... of this post makes my eyes want to bleed. Go take your stereotypical generalizations elsewhere troll.

@ The OP: As another poster pointed out, it is impossible for any development company to create difficulty levels that please everyone. There are folks who play Nightmare and think its just the right amount of challenge, so what would happen to them if you upped it? Force them to go lower? Then they would be complaining.

The good thing is that BioWare provided a tool for folks to 'tweak' the game to their needs - the Toolset has allowed for mods to tailor game play to specific groups of people without overhauling the base game.

Maybe the addition of another level of difficult like 'You have to be out of your mind' - but I don't see it as a development priority.

@ the comment about the change 'only requiring a few changes of code'... how do you know? Do you have access to some super secret code repository? No? Well then... you can't say that can you? You (and I) have no idea how the code is structured, so making assumptions at how easy or difficult something would be to change in the code is beyond our bounds. I am a software programmer, but I make no false assumptions that I know how BioWare can tweak the code to fix bugs or make changes - and it irritates me when someone says 'oh you can just do X, its easy' - unless you are a developer working on the software in question, there is no way to say whether it would be easy or not.

[Eurypterid]

wowpwnslol wrote...

You have to remember that the majority of Bio's customers are mouth breathers who still use sippy cups, so if they actually made a challenging game, the outcry from "casuals" would be epic. Just accept the fact that no developer will risk his product in this day and age by making it difficult.

You're completely missing the point: he's not asking that it be made more difficult on all settings, just on the Hard and Nightmare settings. How would that affect the 'mouth breathers'? Seriously, there's no need for you to toss insults.

Durmir: I doubt it's as simple as adjusting a few lines of code. While that's likely part of what would need to be done, doing so can have unforseen effects on the rest of the game. Proably not as simple as you make it seem. That being said, feedback of this sort is good, as it may help move them in that direction for future games - or maybe even a sequel.

[wowpwnslol]

Eurypterid wrote...

You're completely missing the point: he's not asking that it be made more difficult on all settings, just on the Hard and Nightmare settings. How would that affect the 'mouth breathers'? Seriously, there's no need for you to toss insults.

And the point EVERYONE who's spamming for "harder difficulty" is missing is that it's simply not feasible without significant spending of resources on Bio's part, which I doubt will happen.

[Eurypterid]

No, it probably won't. But if BioWare sees enough requests for it, maybe they'll take it into consideration for their next title.

[Fredericol]

Its not that simple... simply increasing health and damage can cause "impossible" scenarios to pop up. (Try 10+ archers all shooting you with scattershot at once... )



That being said, if you exploit certain strong skills (in combat stealth, Arcane warrior) yes, you will have an easy time...

[Durmir]

The question is, then : is there really a difference between normal and nightmare modes ? I mean, I know the differences in mechanics. But do they really impact the difficulty at the expected range ?

I'm sorry I'm not a programmer, and you're right indeed when you say I can't know if it's gonna be hard or easy. Neither can the trolling "Sloth of Doom". But I expect, as i know a little about programming as well, that it won't be a 2 months hard work to do. I can't be sure, but well, let me guess, as the chances are on my side.

Finally, if it would spoil game experience of some players to change nightmare difficulty, then why not simply get another, new difficulty range ? Ok, it'll be more work. But I don't think it's impossible to think.

I came on this forum to make this suggestion, for as long as I'm a french forum user, and there everybody agrees about the game difficulty issue. So I thought the majority of people would think the same here, but here, Bioware developpers read, what they don't on french forum.
If most people (who are concerned by playing harder difficulties than normal) actually think that nightmare difficulty should be raised, then it will be legitimate to work about it, am I wrong ?

In the same way, if people think that hard and nightmare difficulties are not to be changed (I talk ONLY about hard and nightmare, stop thinking I ask for easy and normal modes, people), then ok, I'll consider I'm a minority, then I'll just shut up and walk away. But i assumed, as it was the case on the other forum, that many people would think the same way, so I wouldn't waste my time making the suggestion here.

Modifié par Durmir, 18 mars 2010 - 05:09 .

[AlanC9]

Durmir wrote...
And, more important, in some cases (like the duelist I tested), finishing the game in solo, in nightmare mode, is VERY easy (so easy it was boring, indeed)..

Is it actually easy, or is it easy because of cheese tactics? All the nightmare solo guides I've glanced at have relied on AI exploits or mechanics exploits.

[Durmir]

AlanC9 wrote...

Durmir wrote...
And, more important, in some cases (like the duelist I tested), finishing the game in solo, in nightmare mode, is VERY easy (so easy it was boring, indeed)..

Is it actually easy, or is it easy because of cheese tactics? All the nightmare solo guides I've glanced at have relied on AI exploits or mechanics exploits.

I welcome you on the french forum to check the guide I made out
duelist guide


It's in french, but as I play with an english version of the game, all screenshots / names / equipments are exposed in english. So you may understand.

Anyway, however you get ANY game to be easy is by using the game mechanics at your advantage. It's even the way to win any game, I guess... So I'm ok with that. If some mechanics make the game too easy, the mistake is not the player's one

[LH000]

Eurypterid wrote...

 I doubt it's as simple as adjusting a few lines of code. While that's likely part of what would need to be done, doing so can have unforseen effects on the rest of the game. Proably not as simple as you make it seem. 

For example some origin stories could suffer when just fix would be just increasing hitpoints or something similar. My experience with Mage-origin-story on nightmare is that it was quite close to being too difficult (perhaps, I've chosen bad skills, but still, it would be problem), I mean, you do not have much tactics-possibilities at the beginning of the game.  And there could be other similar parts of the game.

As someone has already stated, right solution would be to improve AI, balance abilities and so on... and that is not a simple task.

[Mordaedil]

Sloth of Doom is normally pretty cool, he just probably just picked up the wrong vibes from you.



It could be as "easy" as switching around a few numbers, or it could be as involved as needing to revise every monster to have a new "adjustment" for hard difficulty on every level variant it can spawn as in the encounter trigger.



Regardless of either, it would require an extra playthrough of QA not only once, but at least as many times as there are difficulties and extended levels from the starting level, just to see if there's some kind of unexpected leap in difficulty.



The smoothest gaming experiences are when you don't notice bumps, but sometimes those bumps are hard to tell if they are missing because you are too good at the game or if the game is simply being too easy on you.

[Sloth Of Doom]

I'm terribly sorry that you don't find common sense and an average grasp of marketing and economics 'interesting' here on your private forums.  Your miscomprehension here is that by "keeping the game living" they will somehow make money and that just isn't true.  They need to SELL  things to make money, and the way to sell things is to make them appeal to the largest audience.  Unfortunately, the largest audience are not pro gamers, they are average people that have a hard time coordinating mouse movements and keyboard commands and don't have the time to learn all of the ins and outs of a game.

You are, in effect, asking them to tailor the game to what you feel Nightmare should be when you say "make it harder because I find it too easy".   Which is ironic because you just asked them not to make it easier when people complained that it was too hard.  

As I said before, I would love to see a more difficult setting but common sense states that pulling designers and programmers away from other projects to work on it won't show a return on the investment.  Those employees could be working on other things such as bug fixes, expansions and DLCs all of which wil impact the majority of game owners and grow the brand.   Appeasing the 2% of people that want a harder game is a waste of money.

Who in the hell are you to say that Bioware didn't make their game 'right' or imply that they didn't test difficulties?   The difficulty levels do exactly what they say they do and nightmare is NOT the same as normal. If you are confused you can look at this chart to see exactly what the differences are.  Whop exactly is the troll here with their "Fail" topic?"  The word of the day is "Hypocrite".3

Actually, I have an idea!  Since you think that you can change all of the difficulty settings with a couple of lines of code and still present a balanced game, you should check this out.  I'm sure Bioware could bnefit from your obviously superior prorgamming skills.

[k9medusa]

Poll:  I like to play on what level?