Friday's Heroes of Steel Question - Which Difficulty?

[fallen]

Difficulty scaling is already built into Heroes across the board. The last hold out (which we are working on the entire system) is in the loot that you gather from treasure chests.

So ... it's already in! How do you like it?

1. Which difficulty did you START playing on? When you first opened the game, what was your #1 pick?
2. Have you tried Easy? Is it too Easy?
3. Is Normal well-balanced? By that, I would say -- fun to play?
4. Is it true, as they say, that Nightmare is truly a Nightmare?
5. How long is it taking you to play through the dungeon? Rough estimates accepted.

[beuns]

1) I start playing on easy
2) er...yes. I find it...easy enough (got out of the dungeon at about 10 hours of play which is easy enough for me) it helped me to get in touch with the game.
3) I find normal a bit easy (strange considering that I start on easy)
4) oh my...nightmare is soooo much of a nightmare ! Enemies are so strong and proficient ! I didn't survive past the first fight !!

[fallen]

Put a small extra prompt on #3.

[beuns]

I didn't play much on normal, I tried about an hour and switch to nightmare so what I say is really based on small experience.

I walked pretty quickly through fights, almost not using potions or Myshana's tears to heal up but just resting at camps. I fight the enemies by standing in front of them with my cleric and outlander while the thief and wizard shoot from behind. Enemies were pretty quick to die and I walk almost only worried by my SP (when in nightmare, I was REALLY concerned by my HP as any one would expect ). I doesn't feel really different from easy mode.
If you want, I can go through the dungeon in normal and compare the time with what I did in easy to be more throughout.

[fallen]

I know its extra work, but I'd love everyone's feedback on different levels. Try Hard, Brutal! We only have so many play-hours, so to have the wider set of feedback is critical in these alpha days!

[Deleted]

I always start playing on easy, partly to get to grips with the game and partly because it's fun walking around stomping on monsters.

Easy is easy, but I don't think it's too easy - it's ideal for people who will be new to this type of game. I'm quite good at navigating and finding my way round maps so it took me less than an hour (maybe 40 mins?) to get to the other side.

I haven't played on Normal as much, but it doesn't feel like too much of a challenge either. It's fun, but I can get through the dungeon happily without worrying too much about silly moves and the like.

Nightmare is a nightmare. You have delivered. I got through to the other side once, after an awful lot of slaughter - by the last attempt I pretty much had the best route memorised - I'd died so many times along the way. It took me a long time (a good few hours, around 4 or 5) and it felt like I spent ten minutes considering every move.

Disclaimer: I'm not very good at keep tracking of the time while playing games... those are the times I think I spent playing!

[evmaker]

Oct 25, 2013 8:44:37 GMT -5 fallen said:

So ... it's already in! How do you like it?

1. Which difficulty did you START playing on? When you first opened the game, what was your #1 pick?

Easy, during the week I have have pretty bad time constraints so I tend to play most games on that so I can experience the most of them in the time I have.

2. Have you tried Easy? Is it too Easy?

So far I'd say maybe a little bit on the too easy side, it will still a fun playthrough for me though (found the 'exit' spot then went back to explore everywhere else and find any vermin or treasure to be found left).

But except for some "there wasn't anything you could do anyway" moments, like when I first discovered the restore point issue because I wasn't being careful and had a deathkin take my wizard down on their first turn or other similar engagements, there wasn't there wasn't that any real danger of dieing per se (although a giant rat could almost take down my outlander in one round when it didn't die on my turn a couple times).

Part of the issue could be said to be healing as was being discussed on yesterdays question thread. I don't feel increasing the spirit cost of it would be the best solution though, as I feel the spirit cost especially as it's leveled up is balanced (level 3 is essentially a small potions worth of spirit per cast), but maybe something along the lines of higher AP cost rather then SP cost as beuns suggested. I do think an AP increase over a SP increase for me anyway seems the better solution as needing to 'chug' spirit potions to keep being able to heal doesn't feel too fun to me.

That of course would be offset a fair bit when we can rest as has been noted in other threads and not just at camps (or later in alpha, towns)

But then with a higher AP cost, I can think of alot of times even on easy where there could readily be almost half health on multiple characters gone in a round so only being able to cast heal once would be fairly limiting (and I haven't been able to test the higher difficulties too much due to the above time issues)

So I apologize for the ramble, my mind tends to go in random directions thinking on an issue, but the gist for me is that easy is fun, but seems a little too easy.

3. Is Normal well-balanced? By that, I would say -- fun to play?

I haven't been able to test it a whole lot due to time mentioned before, but from what I have it has been fun, I wouldn't want to comment on the balancing until I can give it a thorough go.

5. How long is it taking you to play through the dungeon? Rough estimates accepted.

My weekday time is pretty much 3 breaks during the day and then off and on at night so this is a really rough estimate, but I'd say if I had been able to do it in 'one sitting', it probably would have taken the couple times so far about 4-5 hours (extremely rough estimate I could be very off, I'll try to give a better one tonight)

Oct 25, 2013 11:06:31 GMT -5 fallen said:

I know its extra work, but I'd love everyone's feedback on different levels. Try Hard, Brutal! We only have so many play-hours, so to have the wider set of feedback is critical in these alpha days!

I will definitely comment on those soon, the weekend is my time off and I plan to have some major crunch time to test out all the difficulties and as many talents as possible on each then, I'll give some observations tonight as well.

[reubenjohn]

1. I started playing on Normal as it was the default choice and I wanted to see what the game felt like. I usually don't even bother checking other difficulties in games unless I know that the default selection is too easy.

2/3. I haven't tried Easy, but normal felt like a good, fun starting point for someone getting into the game. Normal didn't require any real tactical decisions of me and allowed to me get a feel for the game play without being mindless. It felt like your characters were a major cut above the rest and that you were on your way to become epic heroes that bards would sing about for ages to come. It was a fun mix. It still required you to use potions or rest to regain MP back.

4. Nightmare is a vastly different feeling game than normal was. It required me to pay attention to how I was traveling and where I was traveling. I found myself grouping up in a tighter hallway and bringing the enemies to me. The outlander would generally stay out front as the meat shield and main damage dealer while the rest stayed behind proving support. I had to switch my tactics around a bit to deal with one of the groups as it had 2 or 3 of the big rat creatures which do an unbelievable amount of damage. I found that by putting my cleric beside the Outlander, it would cause the rat to hit both of them, allowing me to finish killing the rat the next turn. It was very much a slug fest and I barely survived, but it was doable. The curses and buffs really shine on Nightmare. The rat create went from doing 100+ per attack to 40-50+ allowing me to actually survive.

5. Normal took about an hour to go through. On Normal I took the left path with the spiders and traps. I ran into an issue with the broken bridge and inescapable combat, but it wasn't a major slow down. The traps were a bit annoying but nothing a few heals didn't take care of.

The second play through on Nightmare took about 2 hours of play time. I took the right path with the ratkins. I think it seemed shorter that direction, but it might have been my imagination.

Both directions gave a good mix of combat and exploring time. I got less loot on the right path, but one of the chests I opened was empty so it might have just been that. My first chest on the nightmare play through gave me a 2-handed sword and a 2-handed spear. I tried it for one round of combat and almost died from the increase damage from losing the extra parry and quickly went back to sword and shield.


If brutal is similar to nightmare, just with the enemies doing slightly less damage and the heroes doing slightly more, I think it will be a fun challenge.

[johndramey]

Good question!

1) I started on Normal because I figured this would be the game that most new players would experience. If I was just playing for my enjoyment I would have started on Hard.

2) I have not tried easy and I'll do so ASAP to give you feedback on it. My initial reaction, with no evidence backing it up, would be that it is too easy. Normal feels just a little to hard for Easy.

3) Normal is very fun to play, but a tad too easy to be considered "normal." The reason I say this is that I was able to go through the whole map without really ever worrying about losing a character. There were one or two times where I got low on health, but I was always able to bring that back. Additionally, I never used any potions, instead I was able to rely on my cleric for healing and hit the camps when SP got low. If I had to give my feedback, I'd say that if you could make "Easy" a slightly easier version of normal, and make "normal" a slightly more difficult version of its current iteration.

4) Haven't gotten a chance to try it out, but if my experiences on "Hard" are any indication, yes! Not a bad thing at all. I'll get around to a Nightmare run through after I complete my current hard run through and after my next easy run through.

5) Hmmm, I've had to play in bursts. If I had to guess, I'd say that the alpha dungeon took me about 45 minutes to an hour to complete on normal without exploring the whole thing. I knew that I missed some (and my current hard run proved it) . I think a good estimate for a full Normal run would be about an hour.

[evmaker]

Oct 25, 2013 19:50:28 GMT -5 johndramey said:

3) Normal is very fun to play, but a tad too easy to be considered "normal." The reason I say this is that I was able to go through the whole map without really ever worrying about losing a character. There were one or two times where I got low on health, but I was always able to bring that back. Additionally, I never used any potions, instead I was able to rely on my cleric for healing and hit the camps when SP got low. If I had to give my feedback, I'd say that if you could make "Easy" a slightly easier version of normal, and make "normal" a slightly more difficult version of its current iteration.

5) Hmmm, I've had to play in bursts. If I had to guess, I'd say that the alpha dungeon took me about 45 minutes to an hour to complete on normal without exploring the whole thing. I knew that I missed some (and my current hard run proved it) . I think a good estimate for a full Normal run would be about an hour.

After finishing another easy run and working on normal run, I'd agree with the above, in the slightly easier normal seems like it would make a good easy, with a slightly harder normal for normal.

Also same with the completion timeframe (45-60min or so for easy), haven't finished this normal yet though to say on that.

[fallen]

Awesome, this feedback is so critical as Cory and I have a bit of "played so much we don't know any more" syndrome

The next phase will adjust Easy / Normal. I think the crowd seems to be saying Hard / Nightmare / Brutal are where they need to be.

[johndramey]

fallen - I can vouch for the fact that Hard seems just about right. Not overly punishing, but a couple stupid moves will kill you. No adjustment needed in my opinion.

[slayernz]

I almost always start games on Normal or Easy just so i can understand the basic mechanics. After that, I go back and step up the challenge. Right now, I've had my party explore the map top to bottom (or left to right). It was REALLY hard until the great Alpha's out there helped me find the camp fires. It was lots of death and hurting before that.


Oh oh ... that reminds me, I found the dialog section (you know, where you have to say "yes yes"). That was great to see the mechanics of your narration ... I think I had to die in order to get there though.


Oh oh oh .. and again, do you HAVE to have all 4 party members survive? Can you allow one or more to die and still continue?

[fallen]

slayernz - all characters must survive.

[slayernz]

Yeah, but what if I have a beef with the Wizard. He's got shifty eyes!