A Difficult Discussion

So Conash and I had a little discussion about this “difficulty menu”  idea he had, and we’ve started to give it some serious discussion. 

My original vision for Harem Collector was to have the dungeon  exploration to relatively streamlined, but for combat itself to be  reasonably challenging.  I don’t really enjoy the sorts of RPGs where  you have to grind for hours to proceed, or get certain items or skills. I  much prefer games where enemies are limited in supply, or there is some  other constraint meaning you have to balance grinding with something  else. If I were to pick some of my favourite RPGs, I would select the  latter SMT: Persona games, where grinding comes at the expense  of time in the game’s very limited calendar, or the early-mid Bioware  games where enmy encounters don’t respawn. This is also why I prefer to  play Pokemon games Nuzlocke-style– grinding becomes a pretty dangerous prospect when an unlucky crit can kill one of your “party members” forever.

Not everyone is like that, however. Some people prefer to grind, they  find the process to be relaxing or even soothing in a way.  Others  prefer the simple knowledge that if they encounter a challenge that they  can’t overcome, they can just keep at it and eventually grow powerful  enough to steamroll whatever is in their way. Still others might not  care to grind, but they’re just playing Harem Collector for the sweet,  sweet pornography, which I totally understand. Others don’t mind the  combat, but don’t care for the economy side of the game. My policy for a  long time has been to stick to the original vision, but I’ve come to  see the wisdom of having various, multi-faceted difficulty levels.

If you’ve been paying attention you may have been able to suss out  that I’m a huge horror fan and one of the greatest horror game  franchises of all time, Silent Hill, is well known for having separate  combat and puzzle difficulty levels. I am totally cool with this idea,  and honestly a little disappointed with myself that I didn’t think of it  sooner.

The idea, for now, is to divide difficulty between economy and  combat, with independent easy-medium-hard levels for each. As Conash  mentioned last week, we’re cooking up a “hard” difficulty for combat  right now, and we intend to re-examine “easy” mode to make it something  more than just “permanent stat growth potions are everywhere and you  start with a huge amount of cash”. For economy, I think we’re mainly  looking at playing with the return on investment of the various  investment opportunities, and dialing down the amount of money that  selling items (including vendor trash) gets you. We’re also looking at a  third option, to replace the existence of the Timeturner, for whether  or not you want to advance a day whenever you like.

Well, there’s a lot to do before the backer release next week, so I’d better get going. See you all later!