[Suggestion] Add an "Easy" difficulty level

The Problem:

These forums are constantly flooded with people talking about how a given mission is too hard/broken/not fun. However, it's not just a few missions that people are saying this about - they're saying this about TONS of missions throughout the campaign. And while people on these forums are trying to be helpful (posting hints and whatnot), the people who are stuck don't always have the cards people recommend they use to beat the mission, or perhaps simply STILL can't beat it.

There's also complaints that with RNG determining item drops, the game's progression hinges far too much on getting the lucky item drops that you need - and that if you don't, the game is unfairly punishing.

I understand that Card Hunter is supposed to be challenging. In fact, that's one of the reasons I love the game so much. However, people being unable to progress and being forever stuck on whatever mission they're on is a huge problem. It causes players who might otherwise love the game to quit out of frustration, and it makes the game completely unplayable by more casual players.

This could be especially problematic since CH is a F2P game - these sorts of games need to appeal to as broad a group of people as possible.

The Solution:

I suggest that a simple way to solve this problem would be to have an Easy/Normal difficulty toggle for each mission, and to create "Easy" difficulty variants of all existing missions.

Playing an adventure on the Easy difficulty would give lesser rewards and still trigger the adventure's cooldown (In order to not incentivize players simply farming the easier difficulty). For reduced rewards, I'm thinking a single random rarity item after each battle instead of two, and the chest for completing the adventure would have lower guaranteed rarities and/or fewer items.

This would allow for a lot of things. Players who simply aren't looking for a challenge will be able to enjoy the game (and perhaps get better, and then play through it on normal!). Players who are stuck on an adventure will be able to beat it on easy, so they can continue progressing. Players who haven't gotten good items but don't want to go back and grind will be able to play through the rest of the campaign on easy, then use the new items they've won doing so and go back and play through it on normal.

These are all situations where a player would otherwise get incredibly frustrated, and potentially quit the game for good. Implementing this easier difficulty gives them a way to keep playing and having fun with the game.

There are, however, a few complications with implementing this. What do you do with treasure hunt rewards, and other first-time completion rewards? If a more casual player is playing through the entire campaign on easy difficulty, they have to be getting enough items to continue progressing, even with the the reduced rewards. Not to mention the time it'll take the devs to go through and make new versions of every battle in the game.

Nonetheless, I feel like this feature is really important for retaining new players, and would be worth the effort.

 

Doesn't really help, less loot means that people will run into problems eventually. Unless "easy" versions of higher level adventures would be extremely easy. (you know, half the loot, half the potential and flexibility)

Cheaper stuff from shops, especially higher level items might help. Or more money.

Or some ability to grind equipment, atleast more than now.

 

Yeah, but this isn't immediately obvious to players, generates loot at a really slow rate (since it's mostly all whites), and most of all, isn't very fun. For players who are frustrated at not being able to progress, this isn't a solution that seems that much more appealing than just stopping playing the game.

This is what this suggestion is trying to do - allowing them to complete adventures in a less farmable way.

How do you suggest they retain less skilled players without having an easier difficultly option? I've never really understood the elitist attitude of not wanting to allow lesser skilled players to have fun. People don't start out being skilled at a game, and having easier content allows them to get better while still being able to accomplish things.

When I started raiding in WoW, I had trouble completing Naxx 10. When I quit the game, I had 25-man Tribute to Mad Skill. If WoW hadn't had easy content for me to work through, I never would haven gotten good enough to do the hard content. Appealing exclusively to the players who are already skilled makes it nearly impossible for new players to reach that level.

Not really, it's more like harder difficulty levels in diablo-style games dropping more loot. For the players skilled enough to complete the content, it become much more efficient to do the harder content, as they get more rewards.

Well, the thought behind this is that players wouldn't do 10 adventures on easy and then try #11 on normal - they'd go back to the first one on normal and now they'd have way more loot than they had before.

 

I just spent the last half-hour typing up a long, thorough response, but then accidentally closed the tab and lost it all. So I'm gonna go with a much briefer version:

This is, by definition, elitist, and is the thing I most strongly disagree with. When you say "the game should make you learn" what you mean is that the player should repeatedly fail while they learn. I just don't see why this is necessary. The reality is that the game's difficulty curve is just going to be too steep for some players, regardless of what BM does. So what should those players do? Quit playing? This just reminds me of the "L2P nub" attitude that dominates games like LoL and hardcore WoW raiding.

WoW is so successful because it caters to everyone, casual and hardcore alike. What does it matter if there's easier content for less skilled players, as long as there's still the difficult content for you to play? Why does less skilled players being able to beat an easier version of the game detract from your fun?

 

I apologize if you saw this as me calling you names, as that wasn't my intention. I know that "elitist" is used as a slur by some people, but I was trying to use it in a more objective sense. The definition of elitist is:

This is the view that you're advocating. You're saying that you believe that only players skilled enough to beat the content should be able to proceed. This is an "elitist" view. That's not inherently bad or wrong or anything, that's just what it is.

But this is what we're talking about here. Players who are stuck on adventures, and can't proceed. If you're not saying players should learn by repeatedly failing, and I've misunderstood you, what are you saying players in this position should do?

Sorry, this was poorly phrased. I didn't mean to suggest that you'd said that. What I was trying to say is that saying players who are having trouble should just "get better" leads to that "L2P nub" attitude that dominates those games (I wasn't even trying to suggest that you're saying players should just "get better", I was just following the train of thought through to its conclusion).

All this WoW stuff is potentially leading us off-topic, however I feel it should be addressed as what we're discussing here (at its core) is accessibility and casual vs hardcore players. And, while I don't want to be argumentative (despite what you may think), I have to point out that while this is an opinion that's parroted by almost everyone on the internet, it's objectively un-true.

Look at this review of WoW from 2004 (when the game was released). Here's a choice quote that sums it up pretty well:

WoW has always been casual-friendly. When it released it was casual because it removed XP death penalties, didn't require a group to explore the world, and had instanced raid bosses. As time has gone on, the reason why WoW is "casual" has changed. But ultimately, what does it matter? WoW still has the challenging content, and the hardmode raids are harder than at any other point in WoW's history. So if the challenging content is still there, what does it matter if you get teleported to dungeons now? Or that you don't have to grind out an attunement before you can do the difficult skill-based content? Or that lesser skilled players can do an easier version of the content?

Shouldn't players be able to play the game the way they want, at the level of difficulty they want?

 

But a reader CAN read every book, and a viewer CAN watch every piece of art or film. At no point will a book be like "Sorry, you're not good enough to read past this chapter. Go re-read the preceding chapters a few dozen times, and come back once you finally understand the literary themes at play here". Whether or not a viewer gets the full experience out of reading a book or watching a film is up to them. Games are unique in this sense in that they simply stop you from continuing if you can't prove your worth.

So why can't games be more like books and film? Allow everyone to see the entirety of the content, with the people who are well-versed in gaming getting the best experience (through challenging themselves).

I feel like this in an opinion that I share. However, I don't see how also having content that appeals to these players detracts from my own experience. If Easy and Normal appeal to these players, but not Hard, and I play on Hard, what does it matter to me that Easy and Normal exist? This is the reason why I've had such a strong negative reaction to what you're saying - you're saying that Easy and Normal shouldn't exist, and I just don't understand that. Their existence in no way affects my experience with the game, and it improves others'. How is that bad?

Some of the most satisfying gaming experiences I've had are when I played a game in a genre I was terrible at, and worked my way up through the difficulty levels. The first FPS I ever beat was Gears of War. I simply had no interest in the genre before that, as every time I picked one up I was systematically destroyed, and didn't understand how to get better. Me and a similarly FPS-inept friend played through the campaign on co-op on the easiest difficulty. And we struggled. It was painful. But, eventually, we finished it. And then we played through it on the next higher difficulty. And we continued to do this until we'd beaten it on its hardest difficulty. And now we play FPSs all the time.

I understand wanting a more hardcore experience. That's the experience I want too. However, I see no reason why the game also can't provide a different experience to players who aren't as skilled. Players who have perhaps never played a tactics game before (and don't understand even the most basic combat strategies), or a CCG (and don't understand basic deckbuilding strategies), or perhaps any videogame at all. Everybody was bad at one point. By giving less-experienced players an experience they can handle, they'll be in a position where they can appreciate the hardcore one.

Having said all that, that doesn't necessarily mean that adding an easier difficulty level is the correct solution. Having played so much CH, I've lost any perspective on how difficult the adventures currently are to a new player (I breezed through all of them after the beta wipe). Perhaps it's already easy enough, and the problem lies elsewhere.

 

Why not? I absolutely and thoroughly do not understand this. As I've said elsewhere, a single player experience is a single player experience. What does it matter to you if I used cheat codes to get through the game? What does it matter if I play the game on easy? Who cares?

I'm currently playing through The Last of Us on easy. I hate third person shooters, and I hate stealth games, and TLoU is both of those things. The game has a lot of other things going for it, though, and I want to experience them. Easy mode allows me to play and (mostly) enjoy the game, though. If I could only play on Normal - or worse, on Hard - I would have dropped it in the first hour or two (I can tell you exactly where, if you want). Easy means that I don't get frustrated to the point of quitting when I run up against an aspect of the game I don't like.

And more importantly, why aren't you in favor of easy mode in a plot based game? You said anywhere. I suggest reading this and this.

Put in the context of Card Hunter, that means that I might like collecting loot, and building a deck, and the, uh, meta-plot, but I'm not a big fan of having to slam my head against the wall several times to get through a given mission. Easy mode means I can continue to play and enjoy the things I want to rather than quit in frustration. I don't care if I get worse loot than people on Normal, as long as I get enough loot to beat the next quest.

One issue with, this, however, is that Card Hunter muddies things up by mixing single player rewards with multiplayer rewards. Personally, I think the game would be better with that crossover severed, which would make easy mode even, uh, easier to implement.

Do you want to read Slaughterhouse Five, or do you want to read Ulysses? More importantly, does Blue Manchu want to write Slaughterhouse Five or Ulysses? If you're opting for the latter, be prepared to sell a lot less copies and be read by a lot less people than Slaughterhouse Five.

In my opinion, if you're creating something, you should do whatever you can to make it accessible to more people as long as such changes do not damage the integrity of the project. That means that releasing an album on vinyl only is stupid, and should not be done, unless the vinyl somehow really, truly is integral to the experience.


Personally, I think that even if easy mode isn't included, there should be three missions (at least) available at any given level. One easy, one normal, one hard - and each of them labeled as such. Make one a "challenge" level, so that the player goes in with the expectation that it's going to be rough. Give them a better reward (not an epic treasure, for the love of crap). And make sure that the hard levels aren't required, in the sense that you either do them or you spend three days replaying the other two to get the experience necessary to hit the next level. Hell, make the hard ones the ones that you unlock with pizza.

 

Hmm . . .

Yep, I still don't like arguments, and name-calling still bothers me--especially when it's based on conflicting terminology. Think of all the other social situations where someone has said "look, people, you don't get to complain about the term I just used for you: it's true!" Those don't go over very well.

Thankfully, it's obvious that a lot of good points are coming up in here. So I'll just respond to the terminology:

I feel that this misses the point. Once we allow a system to have "winning" and "losing," the two states have to be different somehow. The way a game works is that "if you beat the content" then "you proceed."

One may argue that this "locks out content" to people who cannot beat it. But again, that's by definition. Consider other examples like, well, chess: surely playing against grandmasters is the highest level of "experiencing the content," but why would you expect to do it without "winning" a little first? Side topics like charity matches and simply having a grandmaster as a friend notwithstanding.

Out of those definitions for "elite," it is only once we reach the last words ("restricted to an elite") that we see something that even sounds close to normal gaming. The rest is charged phrasing for this context, and hence feels like name-calling.

 

Your question is about access to a grandmaster, not about necessitating winning in order to play one. You'll learn a heck of a lot more, faster, if you play one from the start. But this does relate in that, you aren't going to win against the grandmaster until you've played many many MANY games against them. For some people, this means they quit. The rest become experts chess players. Would you really want the grandmaster to throw games to keep people interested? Does the grandmaster need an easy mode or can we respect the game as being hard and experience and skill based?

 

This is completely different though. You're talking about a competitive multiplayer experience, and I'm talking about a non-competitive single-player one. Why shouldn't you offer easier experiences to allow a newer player to work their way up to the harder ones?

And I don't really understand why some people are getting up in arms about the word "elitist". It's not a bad word or anything, and its usage in this context is entirely accurate. Some people are advocating that Card Hunter should be a hardcore experience, and that it simply isn't for people who aren't interested in that. That's an elitist point of view.

And at no point did I call any PERSON an elitist, I've simply been using it to describe that view. I'm...really not trying to call people names or anything, it's just that we're having a discussion about elitism vs accessibility, and it's kinda hard to do that if we can't use the word "elitist".

 

I started to type up a big, long post about Slaughterhouse Five, Fifty Shades of Gray, Bioshock, and The Last of Us, but then realized that I was spending a lot of time going really far afield. Suffice to say that I think the core issue is one of identity. What does the game strive to be, and does it do a good job of being what it wants to be? If CH wants to be at least semi-hardcore, it's doing fine. If it wasn't to be casual friendly, I think it needs work. And I somewhat agree with you in that I don't care how easy of settings someone uses when they play something single player - I'd just go further and say that the presence of a community does not alter that apathy for me.

Personally, I think the chess metaphor is totally borked, because:

• A grandmaster's time is limited - CH's AI's time is not
• A total noob playing a total noob still gets to experience 100% of chess's content
• Chess isn't hard, at all - it's really quite easy to learn, but, yes, difficult to master
• Chess has any easy mode - play someone else who sucks

To me, a better analogy would be golf, if it were played solo, and golf required you to get a bogey or better to advance to the next hole. It would be a terrible change, and you can be damn sure that golf would lose about 50% of its players, if not more. There are various easy modes for golf (whatever the variant is where you pool your shots and use the best out of four), and you're more than welcome to take ten shots to sink a ball if you want to. No one stands at the tee of each course checking your score card and pointing you to the club house if you're not up to snuff. And yet the game remains challenging and interesting to many.

 

I disagree here. Yes, a grandmasters time is limited, that's part of why I said it was a question about accessibility more than anything.

You do not receive 100% of content when playing new players. There are many tactics and strategies that you will never see playing a new player. You may not even see all types of moves used.

It's not hard for you. That doesn't mean it's not hard. It has a (relatively) simple ruleset, but so does your example of golf. Doesn't mean people don't find it hard. Anyone can play, not everyone can play well. (Just like F2P games!)

If playing someone who sucks is the easy mode of chess, by that then, CH has an easy mode. Go into MP and play someone who sucks!

 

I considered this, but applied broadly, no one will ever see 100% of content in chess, baseball, Card Hunter, or anything else. The way I figure it, if you can see all the pieces, and move them, you've basically seen 100% of the content. You just haven't seen all the meta content, as it were. But this is kind of beside the point, I think.

Sure - and honestly, I think the MP experience is better than the single player. I don't feel as frustrated when I hit MP. I think it's a more level playing field. But the problem here is that there's a ton of stuff that you won't see in MP (namely missions) that you will in SP.

Going back to the golf metaphor (and no metaphor is perfectly, obviously), it would be like saying, "go play a par 3 course." I mean, yeah, that's an answer, but as far as I know, golf courses do not prevent people who suck at golf from playing and experiencing difficult courses. If you were the grand poobah of golf, and made money off of every game played at any course, why would you want to turn away anyone for not being good enough? I mean, hey, they have three sets of tees for a reason, eh? So it should be with CH, in my opinion.

 

Or just golf... There are green cards and other similar stuff. And people still play it...

Anyways, analogies like this or chess will fall flat on their face. There just isn't enough similarities. One could argue that first 4 missions of Cardhunter are the easy mode, and there's nothing preventing players playing them once a day. Multiplayer is also accessible without too much of a problem. Decked with few easy AIs and one somewhat hard...

Then again, there isn't nothing wrong with the idea of easy mode. Implementation might be quite problematic however. Balancing would be very hard, as progression is based mostly on loot. Few hitpoints pale in comparison. Hence easy mode with less loot is bad idea, if current progression causes problems, in easy mode each mission would have to be downtuned more than previous.

Easy mode with same loot is even worse for free to play game.