[Campaign] RPG Campaign Difficulty

[The Nightmare Book]

DIFFICULTY.​

I played different campaigns, both RTS and RPG campaigns alike, and always noticed the similar pattern folks use:

• Increase HP for all enemy mobs - like killing Centaur with 320 HP instead 240 HP is funnier, right? On Hard especially.
• Decreasing player EXP get - like getting 3% from each kill to increase your time spent in a campaign, like Rexxar or other Rexxar-styled campaigns.
• Adding pretentiously big creatures for Hard difficulties, like 100-200 DMG and a lot of HP. Unfun for me, unchallenging.
• And something rare - LOCKING quests under difficulty! Playing on Easy? Sorry man, but this quest is not for you - it will be locked.
• Or RTS analog - lets make a mission with 3 enemies attacking you in a short time between, so you will always be frustrated.

But I'm talking about RPG campaigns.
Recently for my currently unannounced project, I decided to do something stereotypical but more interesting: adding difficulty-related boss mechanics like specific for easy or hard-ones and affixes.
What do I understand under affixes? Passive effects for your enemies, which tweaks your gameplay experience! Tornadoo whirling through the map, enemies roar when they die and empower nearby allies, specific "win-dare" mechanics like in World of Warcraft Mythic Plus dungeon difficulty.
For now I'm using the next pattern - the higher the difficulty, the more affixes you have: from 1 at easy up to 3 at hard.

IMO, such an addition can add more diversity to the player experience, make it enjoyable, and so on.

What do you think?
I've added a pool for you and want to hear your opinions about the difficulty.

 

[cleavinghammer]

I think making fights more difficult should be not just increased HP but maybe giving one or two extra abilities to the enemies, and most importantly give better loot / increased experience so there's a good reason to replay on harder difficulties.

Far too many maps and campaigns use "let's dump 300 food worth of enemies on the player at once and make the boss spell immune" as a substitute for challenging gameplay.

 

[The Nightmare Book]

I think making fights more difficult should be not just increased HP but maybe giving one or two extra abilities to the enemies, and most importantly give better loot / increased experience so there's a good reason to replay on harder difficulties.

Far too many maps and campaigns use "let's dump 300 food worth of enemies on the player at once and make the boss spell immune" as a substitute for challenging gameplay.

Indeed!
I think that if the boss has magical immunity, so there should be some way to remove it permanently or temporarily, like some interesting boss mechanics.

 

[Chonky Dwarf]

Changing mechanics is always better and more engaging to players.
You can have a chance that a boss will cast an ability stored in a variable and adjust that variable based on difficulty. Then make the ability avoidable with movement, items etc...
That way you can finish the fight with the same build, level, hero... on all difficulties and the only difference is player skill.
You can also add additional mechanics on hard and reduce their number or remove them completely on easy to further differenciate the skill level required to finish the fight.

 

[The Nightmare Book]

Changing mechanics is always better and more engaging to players.
You can have a chance that a boss will cast an ability stored in a variable and adjust that variable based on difficulty. Then make the ability avoidable with movement, items etc...
That way you can finish the fight with the same build, level, hero... on all difficulties and the only difference is player skill.
You can also add additional mechanics on hard and reduce their number or remove them completely on easy to further differenciate the skill level required to finish the fight.

100% agree!
I felt from playing different RPG & MMORPG games, mostly like WoW or Wildstar, or TESO, or even some single-player RPG have something like that.
In my current project, I design all bosses accordingly to 3 difficulties: normal is a base difficulty, while easy and hard have fewer or additional mechanics.
Also, I like when player can optionally increase their difficulty to receive better rewards/a bigger reward pool.

 

[Chonky Dwarf]

100% agree!
I felt from playing different RPG & MMORPG games, mostly like WoW or Wildstar, or TESO, or even some single-player RPG have something like that.
In my current project, I design all bosses accordingly to 3 difficulties: normal is a base difficulty, while easy and hard have fewer or additional mechanics.
Also, I like when player can optionally increase their difficulty to receive better rewards/a bigger reward pool.

That's especially great if you add the optional increase in difficulty organically. For example, adding an NPC for players to protect in the fight and giving them additional rewards if they succeed... It just makes the fight more engaging and fun.