There is a feature I'd like to see in the game before we reach beta. It was one that Adam and I discussed in the past. I have some recommendations on how to implement it as well as some mock-up screenshots. Alongside this, I am also advocating for a few additional changes including a new difficulty level in-between hard and impossible. The feature is per-player difficulty settings. There are a number of reasons a player may want to change the difficulty level for themselves or specific AI players. Here are just a few examples: A player may want all races to be set as normal except one they want to set as "impossible". That race is a very advanced threat to deal with that game. This could even be a custom race the player created for this purpose. Great for role-playing solo and especially in let's play/streams. A player may be tired of race XYZ always dominating their games. Or they think race XYZ is overpowered. They don't want to not include them, but they'd like to slow them down. They set the game's overall difficulty to impossible, but then tone that race down to normal. A player may want to have a hardcore start for themselves, but doesn't want the AI getting huge boosts, so they set the game difficulty to normal or hard and set themselves to hardcore to slow themselves down. The number of changes required are hopefully pretty minimal and mostly with the UI. I also added a new difficulty level of Severe. This was mostly so I could make impossible even more impossible without necessarily having to use "hardcore" and hamper the player. HOW DOES IT WORK When a game difficulty level is selected, all races are set accordingly as shown below. Tutor - Player and AI players all set to Tutor Easy - Player and AI players all set to Easy Normal - Player and AI players all set to Normal Hard - Player set to Normal. AI players set to Hard Severe - Player set to Normal. AI players set to Severe (this is new - see below). Impossible - Player set to Normal. AI players set to Impossible Hardcore removed from overall difficulty. See below for how it works. In order to make this work, the UI would need changes. I have mocked up some potential ways to do this: TOOLTIP ADJUSTMENTS Tooltips should show all information when hovered over. This should also be true when hovering over player/AI specific difficulty settings. To support this, all tooltips must be adjusted to separate player and AI bonuses. This can easily be done as follows: Leave ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES heading as-is Add FOR ASSIGNED PLAYER - move player advantage/disadvantage into this section Add FOR ASSIGNED AI PLAYERS - move AI player advantage/disadvantage into this section Remove "OTHER BONUSES" section - it is confusing as to who this effects now anyway Changes for clarity since the Note: discusses favourable/unfavourable, not good/bad "VERY GOOD START" to VERY FAVOURABLE START Change "GOOD START" to FAVOURABLE START Change "VERY BAD START" to VERY UNFAVOURABLE START Change "BAD START" to UNFAVOURABLE START SUGGESTED DIFFICULTY ADJUSTMENTS Tutor - No change Easy - No change Normal - Remove +1 ship support points. Truly place everyone on an equal footing as the tool-tip indicates. Otherwise give player and AI +1 SSP on normal and indicate this in tooltip for each. Hard - No change Severe - replace and copy current "Impossible" difficulty settings Impossible - All of the following: ALL CURRENT IMPOSSIBLE DIFFICULTY BONUSES AS-IS VERY GOOD STARTS FOR THE AI PLAYERS - taken from current hardcore difficulty ROBOTIC FACTORY & ECONOMIC CAPITAL PRE-BUILT FOR THE AI PLAYERS - may help them early? +2 MID-LEVEL TECHNOLOGIES AT START FOR THE AI PLAYERS - optional boost for "advanced AI? Thoughts?" HARDCORE MODE CHANGE Convert Hardcore into a player specific difficulty setting selected from the drop down instead of an overall game difficulty setting. Remove "Very Good Start" for AI player from the Hardcore option since this is now a player specific difficulty setting. Move it to the updated "Impossible" difficulty. This makes hardcore purely a player setting of "Very bad start for the player". This makes separation between player and AI difficulties cleaner. It also allows a player to play against the hardest AI settings without hindering themselves. EXAMPLE SCREENSHOTS NEW TOOLTIP FORMAT (TUTOR EXAMPLE) TUTOR DIFFICULTY NORMAL DIFFICULTY NORMAL DIFFICULTY W/ DRAGUUL SET TO IMPOSSIBLE IMPOSSIBLE DIFFICULTY (NOTE PLAYER IS SET TO NORMAL SINCE IMPOSSIBLE DOESN'T APPLY) IMPOSSIBLE DIFFICULTY (PLAYER DIFFICULTY SELECTIONS) Note the player only has tutor, easy, normal, and hardcore since other difficulties don't impact the player at all. Select hardcore here, if desired. AI would have tutor, easy, normal, hard, severe, impossible options since all impact them. Thoughts? Concerns? Have I overlooked anything? EDIT: Updated Impossible difficulty to make it clear all current bonuses are kept and new bonuses are added.
Per player difficulty levels, similar to the AoW series yes? I could see that helping especially some of the weaker races. Anything where the player can customize the experience would be a help, Setting the AI per race, using custom factions etc. What I need to digest more is the changes to the levels you suggest, specifically this one I haven't done the math here but is this more or less than what the AI receives now? Currently they get six techs, extra pops and I believe some infrastructure. This is nice, particular the tech as it insures they come out with missiles and shields from turn one. We've both seen the AI pursue research that is not ideal and this at least insures they cover the basics. The production boosts they receive from extra pop and infrastructure may be more than a robo factory, though I think the econ cap will give more cash, wouldn't this then give them less of an advantage? I'll be honest, I hate the though that the AI starts with tech I need to research and is more developed on turn 1, but it is overcome easily, even with the AI at 100%, I think this will still be the case, though perhaps take slightly longer to accomplish
the per player difficulty i like, for the reasons you mentioned... For the impossible however.... I rather would see that the AI gets more bonus and the player gets a better game then just severly limiting the player... Example, civ games.. all start positions are equal, but the AI gets bonusses. Currently in ISG the actual galaxy is against the player with no "ideal" worlds and only tiny/small 'favorable" worlds. The joy of finding a nice system is gone and replaced by a scramble for enough territory to expand into a zone with some decent planets or just take the -50% morale hit and colonize "hostile" worlds...
I'm sorry, I guess I was not clear. I am proposing the AI keep what they have on impossible now. That includes the extra infrastructure, pops, techs, and favourable start. This is all the same. I am then proposing ADDING even more bonuses to them as listed.
The idea is to create a thematic reason why the AI starts with advantages. They have been around the block longer than you, so they already discovered some things you have yet to learn. This is far better than the AI getting artificial boosts throughout the game. Allowing granular control over each race's difficulty level allows you to set the age/progression of each race as you start the game. This is why I proposed making hardcore an optional player difficulty level instead of a game difficulty level. I also moved the benefits the AI gets on Hardcore to Impossible.
I like the ability to set levels for all, this was done way back in Warlords DLR. The only thing I would say about the game levels is that I would not do anything to increase Normal. I think you do not want to have new players struggle on what they will see as the entry level. I know there are lower levels, but people will mostly think normal is the place to start and if things go hard for them, they put the game away and tell their friends it was not fun. I still remember AoW2 came out with the start of one of the maps broken. It caused a huge blow back, from vet players. I never went back to the series. I still played AoW up till Win10. (I still miss that game).
Good point. Normal is currently intended to remain as-is. No bonuses for the AI or player at this level presently.
This is a very interesting feature proposal. It shouldn't take too long to implement, however our current TODO list is huge and the Q2 2019 release date is just around the corner, so we'll see what we can do. Many thanks @aReclusiveMind for making this very comprehensive post and everyone for your contributions. There are a few things we need to adjust for this to work, but I think it's doable and would undoubtedly result in a richer game difficulty system. This feature was added to the CFL.
