Difficulty Levels 1-7

by Cold, Wednesday, April 24, 2013, 09:04 (4020 days ago) @ thebruce
edited by Cold, Wednesday, April 24, 2013, 09:11

I guess I should elaborate a bit as my original post assumed a lot.

If I were in control of the universe and all things therein, here's an example of what I would do (raping and pillaging aside):

There would be 7 levels of difficulty (an obvious choice...)
As soon as you start up your game you will be asked what level you would like to play at: 1,2,3,4,5,6 or 7? These levels of difficulty are not unlocked by completing previous difficulty levels, rather they are all available initially and you are free to go get destroyed in level 6 if you so please.

Difficulty level 1 would be normal mode (there will be no "easy", if you can't beat easy mode then you are [idontknowthestrikethroughcommand] probably [/idontknowthestrikethroughcommand] not old enough to be playing the game). Level 2 would be hard, level 3 would be insane, level 4 would be x, level 5 y, and so on and so fourth.

Level 4 difficulty would be impossible to make any sort of progress in having not obtained at least some gear from the previous difficulties. So on and so forth for difficulties 5-7 as well.

However, not only do enemies hit harder, have more health, etc. in increasing difficulty levels but their mechanics are also slightly different. This should effectively make difficulty level 5 (for instance) fundamentally harder than difficulty level 4, regardless of how sparkly your loot is. It should also help to keep players interested in additional playthroughs/difficulty levels.

Level 7 difficulty should be virtually unbeatable by even the most skilled players in the game's best gear.

The result is players can choose their campaign difficulty level, but all players are subjected to the same multiplayer experience (like most every other game). So, to balance multiplayer to an enjoyable, accepted degree their should be an algorithm in place that dampens level 6 difficulty gear and amplifies level 2 difficulty gear ( for example). They should be dampened and amplified to a degree where the higher level gear is still advantages, but to an almost negligible degree (keyword: almost).

And that's pretty much it.

Some more thoughts:

• I DO NOT want multiplayer rewards. If there are multiplayer rewards they should be based on skill, not time.
  
• Weapons and gear should be purchasable for a significant amount of MS points. This way if players want that small advantage in multiplayer that bad, and they can't get the gear from the harder difficulties, then they can spend all of their parents money to teabag that player that's been killing them just one time. This would also provide another constant stream of revenue, as there are people out there that have no problem spending $500+ on pixels. (I know this seems to counter my previous point, but it doesn't. Maybe I can explain later if someone wants to know)
  
• I think it would be awesome if the city held players of all difficulty levels and difficulty levels were chosen when players embark on each mission rather than at the main menu(much like instances have evolved in MMOs).

TL/DR: gerbils