[Suggestion] Difficulty modes

[LKnight]

I know this may sound kinda noobish, but I think that the difficulty set in the single player mode may be a reason why some turn down mm8bdm.

Bosses especially seem way too hard starting with Gamma, and even the best Megaman players might have problems killing bots, since the mechanics are Doom based and not very common on FPS games. Having a "I'm too young to die" mode would make it more accessible for newcomers. Just my opinion.

[CutmanMike]

I'm totally with you, this is something that I REALLY want to add for the next version of the game (a lot of bosses are getting remade/remastered and should have a better difficulty curve). Implementation is the thing I'm worried about, what should different difficulties change?

The bot AI in the game is something we can't really alter so that's out of the question. We can however adjust their power levels (i.e the damage of their weapons, how much extra damage they take) which is an option. Would that be enough?

Also another thing: should you have to commit to a difficulty when starting the game or not? By that I mean, should you have a different save progress for each difficulty level? That would be kinda awkward, but possible. I think that only makes sense if the bosses really change it up depending on the difficulty, which I haven't set things in place for yet.

I will sticky this as I am curious to what people want.

[Beed28]

Idea for the easier difficulty; how about giving the player an Energy Balancer and maaaaybe an E-Tank with each spawn (although the latter might be overdoing it) as well? For the bosses, maybe give a longer breather period in between their attacks?

[LKnight]

Well, the example I gave was to have "I'm too young to die" as a base for the easiest option. In the original Doom, that difficulty made the player take only 50% damage from enemies.

However, enemy spawns don't affect this game so I think that increasing the damage received by 25% on each subsequent difficulty would be the way to go.

Heck, the most fun in all of this would be naming the difficulty settings, but I'll let you guys decide on that.

[Trillster]

For easier difficulties I would mostly suggest giving bots less health, lower damage, and slow them down somehow. Currently bots are a bit finicky and they seem to ignore physics entirely, being able to swap directions instantly, so a slow-down would be good I feel. Then on the opposite of the spectrum for harder modes, you could implement more health, higher damage, and possibly a speed boost. I could see it getting a bit crazy with weapons like Scorch Wheel though, so you might need to accommodate for that weapon.

[TheDoc]

For easier difficulties I would mostly suggest giving bots less health, lower damage, and slow them down somehow. Currently bots are a bit finicky and they seem to ignore physics entirely, being able to swap directions instantly, so a slow-down would be good I feel.

I think the speed of the bots was one thing that helped me learn to play MM8BDM (never played Doom). I agree that bots don't behave the same way bosses may and definitely not online, but in the heat of combat, having to handle and react to the speed of your opponent is the bread & butter of the game. I do think that lowering damage and health on the bots would allow for a more forgiving game, so I'm all for that. The speed of the bots, however, should be left as is.

[Orange juice :l]

I've expressed my support for the shop concept beforehand which would enable players to "grind" for currency that would make gameplay easier, but for this thread I'll ignore that and go off discrete difficulty settings.

Personally, I think easier difficulty modes should involve, for DM stages, giving the player more damage, incoming damage mitigation, extra resources (think MMK weapons- an EasymodeBuster with boosted stats sounds like a good idea to me about now...) and perhaps frag limit reductions. These directly make winning deathmatches easier, whereas less-tanky bots would only feed each other more. A harder DM mode I think should add a special twist rather than stat tweaks, considering the current gameplay is the most basic and "pure" (i.e. multiplayer-similar). Perhaps frags lost on death, timelimits, bot team stacks, or health handicaps? I think having these "hardmode modifiers" rotate through the stages would be a fun twist.

Bosses are entirely different, though. Simply put easier difficulties could get away with reducing damage taken, reducing boss health, or providing more resources/checkpoints- extreme examples could see troublesome mechanics removed altogether (easymode cop chase could have no aerial cops at all, for example) I've said it before so won't elaborate much on the idea but for Hardmodes I would LOVE to see special challenges tied into the boss itself ala Bass 2.

[CutmanMike]

We're going to try cutting the speed of bots slightly and lower their damage output by half for now and see how it goes. For bosses I'll probably just give you damage resistance for the entire boss or something.

Moved to closed!