Some thoughts on game difficulty from sc2 Day 9 I would like to share with you

[Plospo]

Hello Don't Starve community.I enjoy watching day9, an amazing man active in the starcraft community, and his equally epic Funday Mondays. On a recent one, he shared some thought about game difficulty. If you want you can hear him talk about it himself 19.30 minutes in, otherwise i took 10 minutes of my life to write it down:Youtube Link: /watch?v=cCb8KCWxs_g&list=PL6D20870C373B6F96"...Do you know what a game designer's actual job is? It is to make your life more difficult, more inconvenient. That is the goal of a game designer.And you would be like: Nononono it's not, it's to create fun!PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT PPFFFFFT, here is what game designers do:Game designer create a game like golf, where the goal of golf is to put a little ball, into somewhat of a larger hole. Do you know what the easiest way to do that would be? It would be to pick the ball up and set it in the hole. And yet for some reason, we don't do that in golf. We start hundreds of yards away, and you can't throw the ball. You have to use this weird mallety thing, and there's 15 billion different kinds of mallety things, and you have to hit it from really far away, with obstacles such as sand, trees, wind which you have no control over. And yet many people love golf.That's one of the reasons why I like oldschool games. None of these newschool bull****. Have you guys played the new prince of persia where you would fall of a cliff and the girl who is with you would fly down and set you back down on the cliff and be like: aaah no you didn't die, just don't worry about it. And you would never lose a life!Do you remember what old games were like? There would be something of the wrong color, for example blue, and you wonder what happens when you touch it, and then you touch it and you would DIE! And with 0 lives it would say GAME OVER....And far in the way the best games ever, that were like this were the original text. based. zork. games. Where you could have f*cked yourself over at the start of the game, and it would never tell you. Ever. If you have played returned zork, you know my pain. The plant at the start that you can't cut out of the ground, instead dig out of the ground, because if you don't it will die when you need it 15 hours into the game and never tells you! THAT, is a manly game."I hope I've made my point clear.

[sirmentlegen]

What does this have todo with don't starve?

[Toaster Fu]

What does this have todo with don't starve?

I assume the gist (what a weird looking word) of it is to say "the game needs to be difficult".Carry on the discussion in a calm manner peoples.

[Enchanter]

I assume the gist (what a weird looking word) of it is to say "the game needs to be difficult".

I pretty much skimmed through the first 4 lines within 5 seconds, and then stopped reading because I saw it was not related to Don't Starve whatsoever except for the beginning, "Hello Don't Starve Community".

Then I scrolled down and read your post, then proceeded to scroll up again and read the whole thing.

ON TOPIC: I really, truly, completely, sincerely, whole-heartedly agree. Don't Starve was not meant to be a game in which you turtle all day just to watch the little number next to the word "DAY" go up. But, there is not much the developers can do to change people's playstyles in games. They can only add to the kind of playstyles that OTHER people like.

[Dr.Seezme]

He is purposely missing this word called "challenge" and making himself bombast by doing so.

[GamingGorman]

Its really true when you think about. Do casual gamer's want an extra large bowling ball when they bowl? an extra large basket when shooting a basket ball? a rubix cube with only two colors?By definition a game isn't a game without challenge, it is a toy. Some really good video toys exist, (the sims for example) But should a survival game even consider being a toy.

[asix79]

I pretty much skimmed through the first 4 lines within 5 seconds, and then stopped reading because I saw it was not related to Don't Starve whatsoever except for the beginning, "Hello Don't Starve Community".

Then I scrolled down and read your post, then proceeded to scroll up again and read the whole thing.

ON TOPIC: I really, truly, completely, sincerely, whole-heartedly agree. Don't Starve was not meant to be a game in which you turtle all day just to watch the little number next to the word "DAY" go up. But, there is not much the developers can do to change people's playstyles in games. They can only add to the kind of playstyles that OTHER people like.

You're right that people will play how they want to play; however, there are things the developers can do to encourage a certain style of play. In a word, randomization. Randomization of the world map, randomization of item drops, randomization of the effect sanity has in-game, and randomization of every other important metric in the game.

My concern is this: If the game doesn't create a sense of urgency, players will play a certain way, finish the game once or twice, and then forget about it. I would think, the developers are after more than just $15 from each of us. I'd think, they want to create an enduring experience for us. There are reasons why The Binding of Isaac and Dark Souls remain so popular.

[Sevidra]

players will play a certain way, finish the game once or twice, and then forget about it.

Players will do that anyway. The thing is, will the _core playerbase_ continue to want it and recommend it to friends?I've played Don't Starve a lot recently. It's a masochist's game. I love the artwork, think the music is fun, and enjoy romping around and doing the sciencey stuff and reading the little quips the characters make. But I'd rather see a "sandbox" mode that really IS a sandbox mode, where you can play without losing everything so easily.This from Day9 (who I do like), via another poster:"THAT, is a manly game".... might be the problem. I'm not a man. I don't have the need to conquer the game, I want to PLAY it. Different modes help a game to achieve the ideal of appealing to different types of players.The uppity, old-school, masochistic types who need it to be 'manly' hard can play it in Survival mode, or "Insane" diffficulty. The easy-mode, never-die folks can play it in "easy" difficulty or on "Sandbox" or "Build" mode.Those of us who like a reasonable middle could play it on "Normal" difficulty, or in a mode that allows a respawn with losses or something.That's the whole point of having different modes and difficulty settings - so people can get the experience they want.-Sevi

[GamingGorman]

The game is marketed towards us manly masochist types, as it is an uncompromising survival game. And we manly masochists would rather Klei work on actual content for the game as advertised instead of worrying about adding modes for people who should have researched the game better. Not every game is for everyone, you wouldn't go to the dead space forums and complain that its too scary would you?

[Plospo]

The reason why I quoted Day9 is that he was former champion in competetive sc2 NA, and is therefore a perfect example of a "masochist" gamer, and his opinions are biased in that way. But I wanted to start a topic with him, since he is well respected, rather than opening up with my own thoughts and get flamed upon. Also, i like the stories he tells!

"THAT, is a manly game".... might be the problem. I'm not a man. I don't have the need to conquer the game, I want to PLAY it. Different modes help a game to achieve the ideal of appealing to different types of players.

Ok, so first of all, welcome to the forums! :DI can really understand how you as a casual player would like the game to be easier and not to punish you too hard, and I can respect that. The problem is, in my opinion, that new "masochistic" games are reeaaaaally hard to find. So everytime Don't Starve is made easier, I'm not sad just for this game, but for the whole "masochistic" genre.The bad thing with difficulty modes, in my opinion, is that newer players aren't forced to play hard difficulty. Because the wonderful thing about dying in Don't Starve is learning from your mistakes, just like in real life (although you shouldn't be dying in real life to learn stuff lol).However, since Don't Starve is growing and have to appeal to a bigger audience, easier difficulty is demanded. And since difficulty modes haven't been implemented, we end up with the current sanity system, where days can go by and you are still at 90+ sanity, without picking a single flower.In short, klei should protect its "masochistic" nature with all it takes, even if it involves introducing difficulty modes like wolfgang and wes, sandbox and story mode. I really, really hope that soon, sanity will be buffed again, just like it was the first day of the patch.