[Suggestion] Add an "Easy" difficulty level

Heh, and you can tell why I don't like arguments.

See, the way I like to talk is this: we work together "in a conversation." So the chess metaphor is inadequate? Find a better one, it doesn't matter. The very fact that you're seeking a better metaphor means you're working WITH ME to get the point across. Right?

And thus I have very little to add because repeating myself would just lead us in circles. I will repeat myself once to be polite and see what happens with the conversation.

As I said (and as people replied!), the metaphor can be refined all you want. My point is still that once we allow a system to have "winning" and "losing," the very idea of locking "winning status" to "people who win" is by definition. The way a game works is that "if you beat the content" then "you proceed." Hence I wanted to clarify that elitism could be relevant, but wasn't what we were discussing.

It is possible to argue for all levels on the "winning versus losing" thing: it's even possible to argue that winning should be optional, such as this long discussion about allowing "gameplay skipping" just like "cutscene skipping."

And the fact that you're not trying to be mean makes you a human being. I thank you.

To respond, again, it is only once we reach the last words ("restricted to an elite") that we see something like normal gaming. The rest is charged in this context. Specifically: why did you include the noun form about "a person who believes that a system or society should be ruled or dominated by an elite"? It's not what you meant for this discussion, and it leads with charged phrasing about "a person." Hence, it could sound like you were "trying to call people names."

Seriously, though, there's no point in going in circles about these exact same things. I feel we really understand each other here and can get back to the conversation at hand.

 

This is a good point. I didn't think about that - I just copied/pasted the whole definition. I've edited out the noun definition now so as to remove that implication.

 

Okay, cool then.

 

I would not be against the addition of multiple difficulty settings if it would help to retain more players. The idea of reducing the amount of loot obtained is all down to, I assume, the effect of an easier campaign on the multiplayer part of the game? I have very little experience of multiplayer so I don't feel that I am in a position to comment on this. As was mentioned at the start, giving players fewer items might actually end up handicapping them later in the campaign so it is certainly an issue that would need careful consideration.

However, I do feel like adding an easier difficulty option should be a last resort if a more elegant solution cannot be found. It looks like Blue Manchu are handling this in a very sensible way - they are starting off by trying to add more hints at the point in the game where are lot of people (based on forum feedback and presumably their own data) start struggling. I'm sure they'll be carefully watching what effect this has and if the hints don't appear to be helping then I'd guess they will move on to contemplating bigger alterations, suggestions for which appear to be abundant... not that I think this should stop people from making more suggestions or from discussing the ones already put forward of course!

 

I'm all for different difficulty settings, but I don't like the idea of reducing a player's loot. I understand the concern about players farming an easier difficulty for easy loot, but I just can't agree with reducing loot. It would feel like: "Oh, you're not good enough to play the normal game? Well then you don't deserve as much loot.". I think players would feel punished for not being good enough. I know I would. And then there's the issue that others have brought up about how reducing a player's loot could actually slow their progression due to lack of needed gear. There's got to be a better way to go about balancing loot gains for different difficulty settings.