Implementing Difficulty Settings

[MysticalMist]

I was just curious, but how would you go about making various difficulty settings for a story mode? I'd imagine you'd have to duplicate level files and adjust the placements, but that sounds more excessive than necessary. I noticed Rocket Viper 2 had that sort of thing before you even hit play. How does that work?

 

[DCurrent]

@MysticalMist

It works that way because that's the most efficient way, and under the hood, most other games work like that too. Generally, higher difficulties mean more spawns, longer HP bars, and more aggression. Sometimes more difficult placements too. The cheapest method just happens to be with a modified copy of a level map. If you don't like that, there are scripted solutions to do the same thing.

Also, of course, difficulty can be increased a myriad number of ways beyond those cliche basics, but that starts to get into another type of discussion. Which someone will inevitably chime in with anyway, but oh well.

DC

 

[Bloodbane]

I'd imagine you'd have to duplicate level files and adjust the placements, but that sounds more excessive than necessary.

That's the easiest way which comes with its pros and cons. Duplicating level files and adjust settings would sound too much to do but it is great if you also provide different enemy grouping, unique enemies and different decorative effects in the duplicated levels.
It depends on your definition of difficulty in the end.

 

[MysticalMist]

That's the easiest way which comes with its pros and cons. Duplicating level files and adjust settings would sound too much to do but it is great if you also provide different enemy grouping, unique enemies and different decorative effects in the duplicated levels.
It depends on your definition of difficulty in the end.

I guess it's just that I don't know if it would be too much clutter and if there's a way to "work smarter, not harder". My definition of difficulty at the very least would probably be higher enemy aggression, bigger groups, low number lives/credits, etc.

Then again, like you said, the easiest way is to just duplicate the levels and tweak them individually + the "LEVELS.txt" file.

 

[O Ilusionista]

I guess it's just that I don't know if it would be too much clutter and if there's a way to "work smarter, not harder". My definition of difficulty at the very least would probably be higher enemy aggression, bigger groups, low number lives/credits, etc.

There are few ways to do it.

- Aggression: you can use a script as spawnscript on your enemies to raise their agression based on the set (the difficulty) you are playing. Same for the enemy max life, etc
- Lives and credits: can be controlled under the set settings on levels.txt
- bigger groups or more enemies: a bit more tricky, but you can either spawn invisible enemies which will spawn other enemies, or make specific enemies to die if they dected you are not playing on a specific set.

Also, I remember one of your bosses jumps over a table and call 2 minions everytime. You can make it to spawn more minions at once if he detects a specific set and a specific number of players.

Plus, you need to take care about the number of the players, to ballance the game. Beat em ups get very easy once you play in co-op - since your game just allows 2 players, it won't matter so much, but for 4 players...yes.

For example, on my PDC2 / MMPR projects, I have codes for:
- The enemies will automatically gain a boost of max health based on how much players are on the screen, up to 80% more max health
- Some bosses will call more minions based on the same rule
- Some bosses will start to use different moves based on the same rules

There are many options. But the worst way to controll difficulty would be "just throw more enemies and call it a day"