Risk vs. Reward? Upping the difficulty level

[Uncle Al]

On 8/5/2022 at 5:57 PM, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

I didn't say the game was too easy, I said that *I* was finding it too easy and I considered raising the difficulty level. What I learned however is that if you do that, you increase the difficulty without getting any additional reward, which means that all you get by doing that is more challenge. More challenge is not in and of itself my goal, my goal is more fun, and that usually derives from the standard formula: more risk = more reward, i.e., better loot. The disappointment of extra effort without any payoff other than extra challenge was the point of my message. A simple observation (apparently shared by others), no need to complicate it with additional interpretations.

 

Seems to be a bit of confusion here.  The actual game design principle is 'for a given baseline difficulty, increased risk should lead to potentially increased reward'.  The whole point of difficultly settings is they increase difficulty, not rewards.

 

As mentioned, moving to other biomes does increase both risk and reward - you get a more difficult environment and better loot.  Or you can increase some difficulty settings and also increase loot settings if you want harder zombies and more loot.

 

Difficulty settings that increase rewards are really bad design, because they don't do what they should, i.e. increase the difficulty.  You see this a lot with CRPGs if higher difficulties makes more enemies appear in combats.  The extra enemies give more exp, you level faster and actually end up with an easier game when you set the difficulty harder.  Good designers reduce the exp for enemies proportionally to the increased enemy count to stop this happening.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Uncle Al (see edit history)

[Apocalyptical Survivor]

On 8/7/2022 at 5:18 AM, Uncle Al said:

 

Seems to be a bit of confusion here.  The actual game design principle is 'for a given baseline difficulty, increased risk should lead to potentially increased reward'.  The whole point of difficultly settings is they increase difficulty, not rewards.

 

As mentioned, moving to other biomes does increase both risk and reward - you get a more difficult environment and better loot.  Or you can increase some difficulty settings and also increase loot settings if you want harder zombies and more loot.

 

Difficulty settings that increase rewards are really bad design, because they don't do what they should, i.e. increase the difficulty.  You see this a lot with CRPGs if higher difficulties makes more enemies appear in combats.  The extra enemies give more exp, you level faster and actually end up with an easier game when you set the difficulty harder.  Good designers reduce the exp for enemies proportionally to the increased enemy count to stop this happening.

 

I'll agree that there's some confusion here, but I'm not sure where it is. You state

 

"The actual game design principle is 'for a given baseline difficulty, increased risk should lead to potentially increased reward".

 

That is a sound game principle, but the critical key is how one interprets those words. What is "increased risk"? And where exactly does it come from? If one chooses to play at a higher difficulty, one should expect that encounters will be more challenging, more likely to fail, and that the chance of dying will be greater, meaning greater risk of failing the quest or losing experience. And with that greater risk, should come greater rewards, all resulting from the choice to play at a higher difficulty. How is your stated principle in conflict with the issue I'm raising?

[Uncle Al]

1 hour ago, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

 

I'll agree that there's some confusion here, but I'm not sure where it is. You state

 

"The actual game design principle is 'for a given baseline difficulty, increased risk should lead to potentially increased reward".

 

That is a sound game principle, but the critical key is how one interprets those words. What is "increased risk"? And where exactly does it come from? If one chooses to play at a higher difficulty, one should expect that encounters will be more challenging, more likely to fail, and that the chance of dying will be greater, meaning greater risk of failing the quest or losing experience. And with that greater risk, should come greater rewards, all resulting from the choice to play at a higher difficulty. How is your stated principle in conflict with the issue I'm raising?

Because you're ignoring the 'for a given baseline difficulty' part.

 

The solid design principle is that if you take larger risks at a set difficulty, assuming the larger risks are aligned with game objectives and you're not just randomly handicapping yourself, you get the chance of larger rewards.  Exploring a dangerous biome does exactly this in 7DTD.

 

An equally solid part of the principle is that if you raise the difficulty level then you get larger risks with NO larger rewards.  That's pretty much what defines the concept of 'difficulty level'. Lowering rewards without decreasing risk is also a valid raise in difficulty level. Do you expect putting loot to 25% to also reduce zombie hit points to a quarter of their normal value?