Changing Difficulty on the fly
By
Captain_Photon,
Posted on: 2011-10-12 24:39 in Suggestions and Ideas
I'm pretty sure the "hassle" of the current system is there to prevent any sort of exploit that people may be able to figure out otherwise. I wouldn't expect to see this change anytime soon no matter how irksome it is. *shrugs*
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It's not that hard to change your difficulty settings.
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The difficulty-setting NPCs have always struck me as a particularly egregious example of the more-than-a-little silly mania for putting metagame stuff on the wrong side of the fourth wall that gripped the development team in the game's middle years (Dr. Brainstorm, anyone?), so I agree with you that far. On the other hand, now that it's so firmly entrenched in the system, I'm not sure changing it would be worth the programming overhead required, and then there's the question of how the use of the new version (do you propose another Options tab or what?) would be taught to new players. The "go see the Hero Corps guy" mission is high up on the "can the older contacts please stop wasting my damn time, please" list for veterans, but the new kids have to learn how the system works somehow...
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Originally Posted by Vitality
Please remove the need to talk to someone about changing the "difficulty".
Think about how absurd the whole idea is of what we have to do now to change the "difficulty". |
Quote:
At least you understand that the suggestion was much more than just the quality of life of not having to travel to them.|
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
The difficulty-setting NPCs have always struck me as a particularly egregious example of the more-than-a-little silly mania for putting metagame stuff on the wrong side of the fourth wall that gripped the development team in the game's middle years (Dr. Brainstorm, anyone?), so I agree with you that far. On the other hand, now that it's so firmly entrenched in the system, I'm not sure changing it would be worth the programming overhead required, and then there's the question of how the use of the new version (do you propose another Options tab or what?) would be taught to new players. The "go see the Hero Corps guy" mission is high up on the "can the older contacts please stop wasting my damn time, please" list for veterans, but the new kids have to learn how the system works somehow...
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I would suggest just adding another options tab.
However, I can also agree with it possibily not being worth the programming overhead required.
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I actually realized that there was more to your suggestion than "I don't want to waste an extra minute traveling to a contact" for this.|
Originally Posted by Vitality
At least you understand that the suggestion was much more than just the quality of life of not having to travel to them.
I would suggest just adding another options tab. However, I can also agree with it possibily not being worth the programming overhead required. |
But I also realize there's more to it than the "fourth wall" problem Captain_Photon was describing as well. It's pretty clear the Devs chose to make the difficulty settings something you have to go to a contact to change in order to make it very difficult (if not impossible) to exploit the system by being able to change difficulty levels while in the middle of a mission.
It's like it is in order to prevent any kind of difficulty exploit known or unknown. Sure it may be a crude metagamey way to do it, but as you've already concluded it's probably not going to be changed regardless.
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Sorry to group you...I just didn't actually want to call anyone out.|
Originally Posted by Lothic
I actually realized that there was more to your suggestion than "I don't want to waste an extra minute traveling to a contact" for this.
But I also realize there's more to it than the "fourth wall" problem Captain_Photon was describing as well. It's pretty clear the Devs chose to make the difficulty settings something you have to go to a contact to change in order to make it very difficult (if not impossible) to exploit the system by being able to change difficulty levels while in the middle of a mission. It's like it is in order to prevent any kind of difficulty exploit known or unknown. Sure it may be a crude metagamey way to do it, but as you've already concluded it's probably not going to be changed regardless. |
You at least gave a good reason why it isn't or may never be changed.
Two relatively easy solutions:
1) Move difficulty contacts to more convenient locations. Most are already in fine locations, but Talos' stands out as a particularly annoying one. Similarly, extras would be nice in zones like Indy Port or Nerva. And perhaps add them to more Hazard Zones alongside the hospitals?
2) Add a new "Difficulty" tab to the contacts menu, right next to Tips. There's just one contact on it, your faction-appropriate difficulty contact, and you can call them up and do the same stuff you can do in person.
And the cleverest part? You can't call contacts while in a mission.
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Well just to be clear I'm not -against- suggestions like these myself, for whatever that's worth. |
Originally Posted by IanTheM1
Two relatively easy solutions:
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Please remove the need to talk to someone about changing the "difficulty".
Think about how absurd the whole idea is of what we have to do now to change the "difficulty".