avoiding "difficulty mode abuse"

[RollingSkull]

Well, really, XNA community games are almost... overwhelmingly spammed. Blame Microsoft for somehow changing their entire store system from something absolutely terrible to something that is completely different but STILL absolutely terrible. Unlike the XBLA releases, the community games lack of quality control means that you have to wade through a dozen shitty "Shoulda been a flash game and even then nobody woulda played it." crapfests to actually come out with the good stuff. You can't just quickly download and try all of them anyway.

[monkeyman]

Probably been said already but worth saying again:

Option 1 - Easier difficulties should not contain all the levels (I seem to remember golden axe on the megadrive doing something similar)

Option 2 - Go all Ninja Gaiden Black and only offer the easier difficulties once the player fails badly at the default difficulty, and even then make them beg for it!!

As for avoiding dumb reviews, most mainstream reviewers won't play the game the way you intend them to, I think these sort of reviews are sadly inevitable.

[Iori Branford]

Am I the only one who remembers Konami and Technosoft's level restarting on continue? I don't blame players for credit feeding to the end, I blame lazy porters that don't bother to properly adapt the game for non-coin-operated machines.

[monkeyman]

Am I the only one who remembers Konami and Technosoft's level restarting on continue? I don't blame players for credit feeding to the end, I blame lazy porters that don't bother to properly adapt the game for non-coin-operated machines.

Nice point

The only good reason to continue start where you left off at continue is to entice more coins, but since this isn't the arcade.....

[toaplan_shmupfan]

The issue of just using continues to finish a game can be deterred in two ways, beyond just limiting the continues or not having them at all.

One way to do it is how I saw it was done with Sega's Shinobi arcade game. The game allowed continues, and it even kept the score when the game was continued, but the high score list also indicated the number of coins (continues used).

The other way to do it is how I saw it was done with Atari's Gauntlet game. The game allowed continues ("buy coins for more health") but the high score list was listed as Score per Coin. Essentially, the end of game score divided by the number of (not listed) coins used was the actual score listed on the high score list.

Using method 1, the reviewer would see that they continued something like 12 times to finish the game if they used 12 continues, and would de-facto be encouraged to try to finish with just one credit.

Using method 2, the reviewer would find themselves with a lowered score the more they continued. The game could even present this at the Game Over screen such as Score / Continues = Final Score.

[RollingSkull]

Nice point

The only good reason to continue start where you left off at continue is to entice more coins, but since this isn't the arcade.....

Unless you let me pick back up from that stage at a later time, that's a damn good way to turn me OFF your shooter.

[monkeyman]

Nice point

The only good reason to continue start where you left off at continue is to entice more coins, but since this isn't the arcade.....

Unless you let me pick back up from that stage at a later time, that's a damn good way to turn me OFF your shooter.

I think you misunderstand. Continuing would mean restarting the level, which means you need to get through any given stage in a single credit. Not restarting the game entirely.

Continuing from the exact point you die + infinite credits encourages the more casualy oriented players to see the entire game without actually learning the levels or mechanics, as that's how people are used to playing games these days. And that's how the type of reviewer TC refers to will approach the game given half a chance.

[Aru-san]

The issue of just using continues to finish a game can be deterred in two ways, beyond just limiting the continues or not having them at all.

One way to do it is how I saw it was done with Sega's Shinobi arcade game. The game allowed continues, and it even kept the score when the game was continued, but the high score list also indicated the number of coins (continues used).

The other way to do it is how I saw it was done with Atari's Gauntlet game. The game allowed continues ("buy coins for more health") but the high score list was listed as Score per Coin. Essentially, the end of game score divided by the number of (not listed) coins used was the actual score listed on the high score list.

Using method 1, the reviewer would see that they continued something like 12 times to finish the game if they used 12 continues, and would de-facto be encouraged to try to finish with just one credit.

Using method 2, the reviewer would find themselves with a lowered score the more they continued. The game could even present this at the Game Over screen such as Score / Continues = Final Score.

With method 1, at least the people can know how much they suck and how all they want to do is just get a review out there right away just for the $$$.

With method 2, I might say, reviewers probably don't give a damn about what score they get as long as they complete the game and have something (mostly crappy and more biased on comparing this genre to other genres as if comparing apples to oranges) to write about.

But in the end...

Forget IGN.

And add a special ending to Easy mocking IGN

QFT.

[msm]

i don't like any of the ideas suggested to solve this problem. i don't think the game should be cut short on easier difficulties because people paying for the game should be able to see all of it even if they are crap. and the same for limiting continues, although initially limiting continues but eventually unlocking infinite continues is an ok solution. i really like playing later levels that i can't get to without using continues it's not going to stop bad reviews but any reviewer that says a game is too easy/short because of infinite continues is an idiot anyway.

[Taylor]

The issue of just using continues to finish a game can be deterred in two ways, beyond just limiting the continues or not having them at all.

One way to do it is how I saw it was done with Sega's Shinobi arcade game. The game allowed continues, and it even kept the score when the game was continued, but the high score list also indicated the number of coins (continues used).

The other way to do it is how I saw it was done with Atari's Gauntlet game. The game allowed continues ("buy coins for more health") but the high score list was listed as Score per Coin. Essentially, the end of game score divided by the number of (not listed) coins used was the actual score listed on the high score list.

Using method 1, the reviewer would see that they continued something like 12 times to finish the game if they used 12 continues, and would de-facto be encouraged to try to finish with just one credit.

Using method 2, the reviewer would find themselves with a lowered score the more they continued. The game could even present this at the Game Over screen such as Score / Continues = Final Score.

These assume that the reviewer or player cares about their score, which is a big assumption to make. If anything, it could work the opposite way around: I’ve seen DMC reviews that said it was a slap in the face to crawl to the end of a stage and be given a rubbish rank, and I've seen players say that the score is a horrible out-dated concept that they have no interest in. Like it or not this is your audience.

The fundamental problem you’re trying to prevent here is having someone credit feed the game on their first play through and say the game was too short and they've seen everything in 25 minutes. But the player is not really abusing anything here, logically the game asks if they want to continue, they have said yes, and now you’re complaining they aren’t playing by the rules? They are.

Limited continues have the problem that they don’t fit in with the way most modern games play, and that’s allowing people progress through attrition.

It seems the limited continues with unlocks on play-time (though this shouldn't be too obvious) and then an inevitable Free Play unlock is the best way of doing this. You cater to everyone.

[KindGrind]

It seems the limited continues with unlocks on play-time (though this shouldn't be too obvious) and then an inevitable Free Play unlock is the best way of doing this. You cater to everyone.

My thoughts exactly. Iky being a great example of this.

[emphatic]

How about showing this message at the start of the final stage:

"As you've used more than one credit to reach this far, background graphics will now be turned off. To see the final stage in all of it's glory, use only one credit.

/The producers"

Or adding a "training mode" that gives you unlimited lifes or unlimited bombs, but no bonuses of any kind instead of allowing for continues.

Emph

[Xonatron]

All-in-one response...

nash87, I like the idea of embarassing names for easy difficulty levels. We have already implemented this! "Grandmother, Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert, ..." is how it goes. I would not mind removing "Easy" as reviewers will still use it as if it were meant for them. Can you think of another embarassing name that would take its place?

MathU, we agree. We do not like the idea of looping the game. I remember Super-C having to play through it once to get to a barely harder second loop. It would have been nice to have an immediate harder challenge from game start.

cools, mocking reviewers for using easy modes would be great if regular gamers did not see them, too! Good idea, but too bad it does not work in practice.

One idea I wish worked in practice would be to force reviewers to show their skills in video game play as well as post their high score. And then give the opportunity to do a "respond review", where we respond to their reivew of our game, and force a link to it.

MathU, we may or may not have unlockable difficulty modes. We might offer "Grandmother, Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert" by default, which will be high enough for most players. But then have unlockable modes for anyone who can beat the first stage in next lowest mode. So if you can beat stage 1 in Expert, we will unlock the next mode. And so forth. The logic being if you cannot beat stage 1 there is not sense offering you the next stage. But, to ship this game on time, we might just offer 10 difficulyt modes, even though the top 4 or 5 might be downright impossible to most players.

Lloyd Mangram, we have a description area for each difficulty mode, where we could put "Only choose this if you generally suck at shooters", but I think it would be more powerful if "Easy" were to be renamed as something embarassing.

Maybe we should go right from "Grandmother" to "Normal", and have "Normal" be fairly tough.

TodayIsForgotten, we have not forgotten about players like you. We want our game to become a favorite for all elite gamers. We considered looping the game into the next difficulty mode each loop, but the game would last forever. Instead, to offer a challenge to the elite gamers, and to properly do score running, we have those harder difficulty modes which at some point should be too hard for you to beat and also give you the highest score. Perhaps the difficult mode one lower than the one you cannot beat would give you the highest score, which would still be a challenging difficulty mode none-the-less. I hope this works out, and I'll be eager to hear your feedback on it.

Dave_K, what are "True Last Bosses"? And score is the motivator. The scoring system is not split across difficulty modes, as it works and is comparible and compatible with all difficulty modes. So the top gunners will have the highest scores from playing (and completing) the game in the hardest modes. If someone can come along and beat the game in an even harder mode, he/she will have a higher score. We think the system is fair. Our goal was to design a scoring system which measures your skill of the game as you would play without knowing what the scoring system is.

God, I am starting not to like the "cut-off" ending in the easier modes. Let's say I end the game at stage 5 of 8, when in easy mode. A gamer who should be playing in a harder mode walks through the first five stages of the game, ruining the experience. Easy modes suck. I originally loved the idea of having them in the game until I watched friends walk through my whole game in easy mode, destroying the experience I have been trying to develop. This is such a tough decision. Is the game still fun to those of you who suck at shooters, and will only be able to get to stage 2 or so because the game is so hard? MAYBE I SHOULD MAKE EASY MODE ONLY BE TWO STAGES, instead of five stages, so it's extremely cut off. I hate showing most of the game in such a walk-thru mode.

DJ Incompetent, thanks for the detailed post on training modes. Your suggestions are great, but are far beyond our resources at the moment. We always wanted to do a training "simulator" mode... but it's not meant to be for this game

Limited Continues: Against most suggestions here, we now allow infinite continues, so let me explain: A continue restarts at the beginning of each stage, with the powerups you would have had if you had one more life. FYI, everytime you die, you lose half of your powerups. This makes continuing harder than restarting. The score restarts, too. We will make it obvious that you should restart instead of continuing for score running. In most cases, continuing to continue makes you start with less and less power each time until it is ridiculous to continue any further, as you have knocked your powerups down to 0 or 1. At this point, you should restart the game instead. I think this works. Do you? But if someone is good enough to beat the stage with barely any powerups, let them. This was our thinking. So the continues were designed to let the player try the stage he/she got to for a few more times to see what it's like before restarting. Unlike Sequence mode in Geometry Wars 2 where you have to start all over again. Plus, infinite continues lets a player continue if he is a master of the game but was just being slack for that moment, and can continue with lower powerups no problem.

DJ Incompetent, we do not allow any changing of number of lives. Even changing the difficulyt we do not consider "hacking" the game, as you get more/less points as you set the difficulty lower/higher. In this sense, the journalists can play the game in easy and get a really bad score, but they never post their bad scores which is the problem.

emphatic, point blanking enemies kills them faster, so this is how the player is rewarded for his/her skill. We did not like recognizing the distance of the player to the enemy, as in 1942: Joint Strike, as we felt it missed the point. The point of point blanking was to kill the enemy faster, so we measure the kill speed, not the distance from player to enemy. In all senses our scoring system measures your skill as fundamentally as possible, and we believe it is the most fair system possible.

Alluro, good point on Raiden DX having enemies not shoot at you at all. This originally is why I was not scared to have super easy modes. But, my god, people actually play and rate the game based on them. Maybe it's only a good idea to introduce once the game is well known (like Raiden was when DX came out)?

Alluro, we only have one player fighter type. We designed it to be the best handling fighter possible, so by default, anything else would perform worse and we did not want to bother the gamers with trying to figure out which is the best fighter to use. But you are right it adds to the dynamics and depth (and difficutly) of the game. It wouldn't really fix my problem here. It was a design decision and it will likely not change for this game. Who knows about sequels though!

Ixmucane2 on the scoring system, we give no bonuses for not losing lives, not using bombs (we have none by design), etc. Because we calculated that by not dying, you are more powerful as you have not lost any powerups by dying, and therefore you kill enemies faster, which is where we give you your bonuses. Everything you do in our game that makes you a better player, such as not dying, is rewarded, just not directly. I hope this gets across to the gamers. Perhaps there will be lack of feedback, but as long as we get across "faster kills = bigger score" point, I think we should be ok.

Ixmucane2 on increased score in harder modes, we will include the difficult mode in the scoreboards to give this feedback:

difficulty mode -- score
6 -- 104,345,364
5 -- 56,7654,363
5 -- 50,565,345
5 -- 46,574,347
4 -- 25,544,756

So if you got 25,544,756 in difficulty mode 4 (and let's say you kicked the game's ass to do so) you'll wonder how someone quadrupled your score! the scoreboard will show that he/she played two modes above you. Will this work? We think so.

It might be worth noting that our scoring system is extremely variable. There will be no "perfect" score. There will be no "where did the last 18,500 points come from?" The potential score of the game is to kill every enemy in the first frame it exists, which is impossible. Every additional frame it takes to kill any enemy, the score you get drops. You kill twice as fast, you get twice the points. In play test, this scoring system is incredible. You are always left with the "space invaders" type "i could have done a bit better" feeling, always challenging you to improve yourself.

yyr, great informative post. Thank you. I think our scoring system which combines all the difficulty modes into one scoreboard will solve everything you have mentioned. If nobody plays in an ultra hard mode, so be it, the scores will be what they are. Your post has just further ensured that we must remove some of the lower modes in our game as that's what people are attracted to. It's kind of crazy! They WANT the game to be easy, but if it's too easy it will ruin the experience! I saw Jim Sterling's review and that review basically was biased. "If you really like snake..." was about all he said. I am glad that you made Snake360 and took snake to the next level. Online scoreboards would have help you a lot, I think.

Observer, we cannot do replays in this game. I'm not sure we can do this in community games at all. Where would the be stored? It's only a p2p system we can implement, remember. We have no servers.

robthebanks, left thumbstick or dpad controls one ship, the right thumbstick controls the other. We have auto-fire enabled for dual play!

monkeyman, unlockable LOWER difficulty modes! We thought of this, too. We rejected it because we felt the game judged your performance. We hate judgments of gameplay. The score does that effectively, and without emotion. It is also why we rejected grading (A, B, C, ...) of your gameplay. The score already does it, and without telling you how much you suck. I dislike getting a "D" grade the first time I play a game, while trying to learn the controls, and be judged as if that was a valid effort. All judgments of that sort we have rejected. If it wasn't for that fundamental point, I would offer unlockable lower difficulty modes.

toaplan_shmupfan on continues without resetting score, since we already have the difficulty mode tied into the score, we would not want to also include the amount of continues. Good idea though, but we'd have to rework our scoreboards to incorporate it.

msm, wow... and after all this you have to make the great point that if someone sucks at our game, and bought it, they should still be allowed to play through it in an easy mode. That's why we made easy modes to begin with. Why they have to be abused, I do not understand. Developing game mechanics is truly a balancing act. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. *IF* we were to leave super easy modes in our game, then it was our hope that the scoreboards would show the top scores are from those playing in harder modes and would therefor entice gamers to try harder modes. You can entice them or delete the easy modes and force them. The freedom of choice sounds better to me, but isn't it ok to have the game be a tough game? Have the game be hard enough, in the easiest mode, so the worst players will only make it to stage 2 or 3?

Taylor, I agree with ranks (A, B, C, ...) being "rubbish", but the score in our game is certainly not outdated as it is in most games. It is finely tuned to what you do and how you perform in the game. More so than most arcade games. But, your point is, the audience may have already rejected the notion that it is important. We want to present the scoreboards on the main screen to change that notion, not hide them behind a "scoreboards" menu option. And you may have missed my true problem which was not continuing through the game, but just playing through the game in such an easy mode that even continues are not required to walk through it.

Longest post ever... concludes. Thank you all for your input. It is a lot to take in. I appreciate it!

[PainAmplifier]

Reading over the posts here, I would like to take a minute to remind people of another factor that tends to contributes to fast 'burnout' that leads people to rush through the game. And that is the linear nature of most shmups.

Replaying Level 1 over and over gets old *fast*.

This is compounded by the facts that most first levels are 'buildup' levels and the easiest ones of the game. Thus getting through it is usually the least exciting and most repetitive one in the entire game. And that strongly motivates 'normal' people to 'cheat' (God mode, Powerups, credit feed...whatever.) To get to the 'fun' levels and avoid the 'boring' ones thus breaking much of the 'challenge' from the game just by trying to keep it 'fun'.

Games that allowed you to choose your level progression help aleviate this a lot. (THunderforce III, Contra SS, DeathSmiles, etc.) Games that are purely linear, but not 'easy enough' force you to repeat those early levels nearly an exponential number of times compared to the later ones.

Being able to replay a specific level (ala R-Type Final for example) is nice, but can suffer from not having 'the usual' number of powerups you would have otherwise. The low frequency of powerups in some games, and the extreme power 'down' of others tends to make things less appealing here too. (The Gradius games in particular are like this.) It also limits you to replaying a single level, instead of just restarting from there. (Or restoring from a save. Kinda like playing The Guardian Legend from the NES.)

Thus not only should you consider the number of credits, continues or other bonus/restricted levels or content, you should also give the less fanatical player a good variety of gameplay in those same levels so that they are encouraged to get better and not punished with boredom or extraneous difficulty for not being 'good enough'.

Special game modes or challenge levels aren't bad ideas either. Perhaps a looping level that allows you to fight a boss with infinite lives or not dying so that you can learn it's patterns without replaying the other time consuming parts of the game over and over. Or just against the levels itself, sans the boss. Something kind of like caravan or boss levels, but less of an 'extra' feature and more of a training feature.

Maybe just a 'random' level generator where one plays just to reach a certain score and not an 'end'. Give it a looping background, but randomly generate enemies at certain points raising the difficulty as the score or time increases.

[dmauro]

I was playing Star Fox yesterday and thought of this thread. Star Fox's solution to this is pretty fantastic, but it requires a lot of levels.

[yyr]

Replaying Level 1 over and over gets old *fast*.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

If I find a game enjoyable enough, I will never tire of level 1. I could play Espgaluda level 1 for an hour straight. It all depends on game mechanics.

OR

As most of us already know, Psikyo (and others, I'm sure) solved this problem by randomizing the order of the first few levels in many of their games. For those who didn't know: whatever level is played first is easiest, the second is a little more difficult, and so on. This adds even more replay value because it's like there are multiple versions of each level.

Gunspike/Cannon Spike randomizes levels twice: 1-4, then 5-7. 8-10 are in the same order every time. My strategy sometimes changes when I have to fight a particular boss first or last, because the later you fight them, the more damage they deal/take. I love this mechanic and it's one of the many reasons why I love that game.

[Xonatron]

Replaying Level 1 over and over gets old *fast*.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

If I find a game enjoyable enough, I will never tire of level 1. I could play Espgaluda level 1 for an hour straight. It all depends on game mechanics.

I agree, and I bet PainAmplifier agrees with this, too. The games that do stage 1 *right* will have you never tiring of stage 1. R-Type (I) and Raiden II come to mind. I never tire of their first stages. It would be a dream come true to have our first stage hold a player's attention as long.

[dmauro]

I think DDP DOJ is the only stage 1 that I really love. So yeah, aim for that with your game

[Taylor]

And you may have missed my true problem which was not continuing through the game, but just playing through the game in such an easy mode that even continues are not required to walk through it.

Irk... yes I did. I think if you’ve got a difficulty setting like that then other people have suggested good alternatives. Having these difficulty levels as unlocked mercy modes or ending the game prematurely does seem like the best option. But I really would advise against any suggestion to mock the player while doing this.

[nash87]

All-in-one response...

nash87, I like the idea of embarassing names for easy difficulty levels. We have already implemented this! "Grandmother, Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert, ..." is how it goes. I would not mind removing "Easy" as reviewers will still use it as if it were meant for them. Can you think of another embarassing name that would take its place?

Maybe we should go right from "Grandmother" to "Normal", and have "Normal" be fairly tough.

What are "True Last Bosses"?

Limited Continues: Against most suggestions here, we now allow infinite continues, so let me explain: A continue restarts at the beginning of each stage.

grandmother is a good one. I think fetus should be on the bottom followed by monkey or sloth. just make sure to put them in an appropriate order, you wouldn't want sloth to be harder than grand mother. definately make "normal" tuff.

"true last bosses" are boss(es) that are after the intial last boss and (usually) can only be reached on the hardest difficulty without continuing. You beat the boss of the last level, and then it comes back from hell or whatever with another life bar. in some games even after you defeat this true last boss it comes back yet again with another/third life bar! The first time i saw mushihimesama futari's true last boss come back for the third time, i shit my pants you should include one of these in your game, it's a must have.

For the few games i ever continue in, i hated having to start from the begining of the level. You should make this a choice in the options. I'm against unlimited continues. i think starting with 2 or 3 continues and unlocking/achieving more continues is the way to go

[dmauro]

nash87, I like the idea of embarassing names for easy difficulty levels. We have already implemented this! "Grandmother, Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert, ..." is how it goes. I would not mind removing "Easy" as reviewers will still use it as if it were meant for them. Can you think of another embarassing name that would take its place?

Rename easy to "IGN Review"

[Xonatron]

nash87, I like the idea of embarassing names for easy difficulty levels. We have already implemented this! "Grandmother, Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert, ..." is how it goes. I would not mind removing "Easy" as reviewers will still use it as if it were meant for them. Can you think of another embarassing name that would take its place?

Rename easy to "IGN Review"

LOL that's good!

[emphatic]

For the few games i ever continue in, i hated having to start from the begining of the level. You should make this a choice in the options. I'm against unlimited continues. i think starting with 2 or 3 continues and unlocking/achieving more continues is the way to go

How about the "unlimited continues" starts the player back at the start of each stage. And "limited continues" lets the player start right where he died. This way, a player that actually tries to survive will have a bigger chance of clearing the games (say using 3-5 continues) but a player that plain sucks or doesn't even try will not, no matter how many continues he has.

[PainAmplifier]

Replaying Level 1 over and over gets old *fast*.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

If I find a game enjoyable enough, I will never tire of level 1. I could play Espgaluda level 1 for an hour straight. It all depends on game mechanics.

I agree, and I bet PainAmplifier agrees with this, too. The games that do stage 1 *right* will have you never tiring of stage 1. R-Type (I) and Raiden II come to mind. I never tire of their first stages. It would be a dream come true to have our first stage hold a player's attention as long.

Going to disagree with that. A *good* first level will be fun for longer, yes. But I believe eventually even that will get old and boring if you play it too much. How long that level is, and how short the duration is between replays can affect that in addition to how fun the level is itself. A lack of randomness in gameplay can be a major factor as well.

[TodayIsForgotten]

I wholeheartedly disagree.

If I find a game enjoyable enough, I will never tire of level 1. I could play Espgaluda level 1 for an hour straight. It all depends on game mechanics.

I agree, and I bet PainAmplifier agrees with this, too. The games that do stage 1 *right* will have you never tiring of stage 1. R-Type (I) and Raiden II come to mind. I never tire of their first stages. It would be a dream come true to have our first stage hold a player's attention as long.

Going to disagree with that. A *good* first level will be fun for longer, yes. But I believe eventually even that will get old and boring if you play it too much. How long that level is, and how short the duration is between replays can affect that in addition to how fun the level is itself. A lack of randomness in gameplay can be a major factor as well.

I do agree with this and I sorta agree with it not getting boring. Let's take R-type since it's been re-released. I can breeze through the whole game with no issues. But, there are times when stupid deaths occur or i do wind up losing all my lives. When i have to restart the first 3 levels, I do not get discouraged, but I almost feel like, fuck, i have to do the first three levels again before the game gets more intense? Again, it's not an overwhelming sensation but its still there, lurking and toying with my will power.

On-the-other-hand. What r-type does well is, if i come back to it tomorrow. I'm ok with playing level 1. I think that is a good balance to have. It may discourage the player on Monday, but on Thursday they want round two.

[Xonatron]

I agree, and I bet PainAmplifier agrees with this, too. The games that do stage 1 *right* will have you never tiring of stage 1. R-Type (I) and Raiden II come to mind. I never tire of their first stages. It would be a dream come true to have our first stage hold a player's attention as long.

Going to disagree with that. A *good* first level will be fun for longer, yes. But I believe eventually even that will get old and boring if you play it too much. How long that level is, and how short the duration is between replays can affect that in addition to how fun the level is itself. A lack of randomness in gameplay can be a major factor as well.

I do agree with this and I sorta agree with it not getting boring. Let's take R-type since it's been re-released. I can breeze through the whole game with no issues. But, there are times when stupid deaths occur or i do wind up losing all my lives. When i have to restart the first 3 levels, I do not get discouraged, but I almost feel like, fuck, i have to do the first three levels again before the game gets more intense? Again, it's not an overwhelming sensation but its still there, lurking and toying with my will power.

On-the-other-hand. What r-type does well is, if i come back to it tomorrow. I'm ok with playing level 1. I think that is a good balance to have. It may discourage the player on Monday, but on Thursday they want round two.

So at the point in which you are discouraged, a higher difficult mode would help, but a few days later it would be unrequired. But, in the higher difficulty mode, by the time you get to Stage 4 (speaking about R-Type if it had difficutly modes) it would be an even greater challenge, and potentially impossible, than what you were yearning for.

[Taylor]

The easiest way to make these stages fun to play through repeatedly is with a deep scoring system that they exploit to the fullest. Making the lower and higher bounds for "success" drastically further apart.

And because score leads to extends even the survival players will eventually look into scoring on the stages they are confident with. Or, at least, this is the theory.

[Kaiser]

Dave_K, what are "True Last Bosses"? And score is the motivator. The scoring system is not split across difficulty modes, as it works and is comparible and compatible with all difficulty modes. So the top gunners will have the highest scores from playing (and completing) the game in the hardest modes. If someone can come along and beat the game in an even harder mode, he/she will have a higher score. We think the system is fair. Our goal was to design a scoring system which measures your skill of the game as you would play without knowing what the scoring system is.

I'll explain what true last boss is, it's a special impossibly hard boss you usually face in end-of-second-loop shmups or face them at the end of the game meeting various conditions.

For example Only difficulties Expert and Up would allow players to face True last Boss. And it is best that if you guys are going to create true last boss for expert's end and above difficulties ends. Make him very hard, at least to that level where it's hardest point in the game to master and experts in shmups would LOVE it.

Another suggestion, how many stages are there? I thought how number of stages would be balanced

Grandmother mode - 3 stages
Easy - 4 Stages
Normal - 5 Stages
Hard - 6 Stages
Expert - 7 Stages + True last boss at the end

If you want to get the idea how true last boss must be hard or can be, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKKsgPpUrNk

[MathU]

I like the concept of a hidden last boss with requirements to fight it, but I DON'T like trudging through loops to get to it.

[PainAmplifier]

I do agree with this and I sorta agree with it not getting boring. Let's take R-type since it's been re-released. I can breeze through the whole game with no issues. But, there are times when stupid deaths occur or i do wind up losing all my lives. When i have to restart the first 3 levels, I do not get discouraged, but I almost feel like, fuck, i have to do the first three levels again before the game gets more intense? Again, it's not an overwhelming sensation but its still there, lurking and toying with my will power.

On-the-other-hand. What r-type does well is, if i come back to it tomorrow. I'm ok with playing level 1. I think that is a good balance to have. It may discourage the player on Monday, but on Thursday they want round two.

So at the point in which you are discouraged, a higher difficult mode would help, but a few days later it would be unrequired. But, in the higher difficulty mode, by the time you get to Stage 4 (speaking about R-Type if it had difficutly modes) it would be an even greater challenge, and potentially impossible, than what you were yearning for.

Yes, this is part of that first level(s) dilemma problem. Part of that problem is how difficulty levels are setup. Most difficulty levels are scalar, they just make what is there harder by increasing the enemies HP/Def or making them move and shoot faster and/or more often. The problem with this is it doesn't really change how the level is played all that much.

Just making an enemy take two hits instead of one or even twenty is just a cheap way to inflate the game difficulty instead of making it more intense. Thus, since the curve of difficulty stays the same, the early levels still aren't that challenging, but later levels tend to get ridiculously difficult by default.

If levels were setup so that they were themselves more difficult at higher levels instead of just slapping a multiplyer on things, they could stay fun for far longer. I am thinking of a system that would be somewhat similar to how the original Doom game handled difficulties. In that some enemies were tagged in the editor to simply not exist on lower levels but when you played at a higher difficulty they showed up normally.

Thus you could make the 'difficulty' curve different for each setting instead of increasing things across the boards. So On "Easy" things could ramp up in difficulty slowly, while the "Nightmare" difficulty would be a shooting frenzy from the very start. Having powerups under the same systems could have you add/remove them based on difficulty level as well. (Depending on how the game handles powerups and collectible items.)

I'm not a big fan of games that allow 'point milking', and it actually annoys me that on some games (R-Type Final for example) that on some levels it's hard to beat my early scores on easy difficulties when I took longer to kill things, than later plays on higher difficulties where I was playing much better. (Since I am not playing just for score, and thus am not 'gaming' the system.)