How to make difficulty fun

Vhailorx

Demi really seems to want to make a game mode where the players are supposed to lose 75+% of the time. They seem intent on doing that no matter what the players think. So why don't we make some (hopefully constructive) suggestions about how they could do it without creating a completely unfun experience.

Ground rules: Let's try to avoid making any suggestions that would require significant coding changes and bug testing, since demi probably doesn't have an abundance of programmers sitting around not doing anything else. Accordingly, I won't suggest removing the healthpack mechanic entirely.

(1) Give the boss node a single reward and make it REALLY good. Maybe an LT or even a 5* cover for Round 8. Putting eight rewards in a node that most players will struggle to beat once is just insulting. They could even make the node worth 50XP instead of just 10.

(2) Sub nodes should also have just a single reward, since they can only ever be beaten once. Given them 4 rewards is just screwing the players who get bad rng, and taking 50XP away from everyone.

(3) The two wave subnodes for each refresh should also have a 5x healthpack reward. Giving out 10 health packs every boss cycle will really mitigate the sting of incredibly difficult boss fights. It won't feel like difficulty is just a money grab.

(4) Forget about limited boosted lists. Designing a boss that is very challenging for boosted characters makes the boss impossible for unboosted characters. That turns these very hard boss events into heroic events where people can only use whatever characters are boosted (e.g. KP and Cho in this boss rush event), and no one likes that. Bosses have unique mechanics and it can be fun to mix and match teams against them, so let everyone use their whole roster. Boost 1* through 4* characters to their unchamped max level (94 for 2*s, 166 for 3*s, and 270 for 4*s). That way everyone can try out whatever characters they have rostered (and deeper rosters/champions have a meaningful advantage, which seems to be Demi's preference). This will also make designing the bosses much easier, since the player power level will be more predictable.

(5) Lock out Prof X. His blue ability is a ton of fun, and is not overpowered in normal game modes. But it does create a bunch of winfinite engine possibilities. And that means that any match is winnable if prof X. and team can survive long enough to get infinity engine combo rolling. I think this is why so many of demi's ridiculously hard boss designs are "get lucky or you will be slaughtered by round 4." Anything slower would be vulnerable to infinite player loops. X doesn't need a nerf, and he isn't broken overall. But locking him out of boss fights will open up a lot of design options (and it also makes a ton of sense in-universe too, since just about every major x-men story line involves incapacitating Prof. X in some fashion to up the threat level to the rest of the X-men team. Prof X IS overpowered in the comics!).

Would people be more willing to grind extremely difficult boss fights if some or all of those features were implemented?

halirin

Meh. It wasn't that hard. I played casually and got the first Peggy cover. The easiest way for demiurge to make it more fun would be to mail everyone a chill pill.

fmftint

halirin wrote:

Meh. It wasn't that hard. I played casually and got the first Peggy cover. The easiest way for demiurge to make it more fun would be to mail everyone a chill pill.

yeah well a lot of us aspire to more than the first cover. Rounds 1-6 were a picnic, 7/8 are 3 turns to death

Uber303

1-6 was a picnic?
Even r1 I put out a mediocre 3* team against ultron and got hurt a lot more than I was expecting.
I immediately knew this was gonna get insanely difficult when all 3 bosses in wave format weren't nerfed to accommodate the wave format. Just one of those bosses was by all rights difficult enough for the first round.
By r6 I could only just beat oml and then got wiped by pheonix on her first go.
Was by no means a picnic, was more like a bloodbath in mpq hell.

wymtime

I posted this in another thread now in suggestions and feedback. If they want us to play insane scaling when we clear a node give us unlimited health packs for an hour. This way when we lose we can heal and not feel like we have been completely punished for playing the game. We can live with we are suppose to lose if we get to keep trying. It is when we are locked out and expected to pay extra resources to keep trying that we feel ripped off

DrDoMe

This event should not have used the Civil War framework. Civil War was a giant time commitment, and super grindy, but with an alliance working together, it was a fun group challenge. Once you take away the team aspect, this framework is a painful grind. Here's what it should have been:

--8 nodes, one for each boss rush "stage", that must be beaten in order (much like a very short gauntlet), each with a mission reward matching the stage reward in this event. You beat the node once, you're good.

--Progression that allows you to accumulate rewards from related partial success. Partial success is repeated wins would earn points every time. If you can't beat round 4, you can keep trying and still be working towards progression, or if you sweep all 8 nodes you can replay a little (emphasis on little) to finish out the progression. I'm thinking the max progression score should be about 150% of the points gained from beating every node on the first try. That way, if you win most of the fights, the grind is minimal. If you're stuck on a lower node, you can still reasonably hit max progression with many attempts.

--No placement rewards of any kind.

The End.

That would have been a fun challenge that the community and alliances could have worked together on.

GrumpySmurf1002

I didn't mind the challenge of 1-6. Wiping in rounds 3-6 at various points was fine. It gives you chances to find what works and what doesn't. There were multiple teams to get through it, and it changed with each wave. That's fun.

Banner (rd7) and PHX (rd8) are cut from the same cloth as the 1st run of Galactus. It's horrific design to build a boss that gives you 3 turns tops. Hell, at least 1st Galactus gave you 3 to get a winfinite engine started. PHX's passive means a bad draw and you're dead on turn 1.

There's no strategy involved with them, and no strategy = no fun.

fmftint

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

I didn't mind the challenge of 1-6. Wiping in rounds 3-6 at various points was fine. It gives you chances to find what works and what doesn't. There were multiple teams to get through it, and it changed with each wave. That's fun.

Banner (rd7) and PHX (rd8) are cut from the same cloth as the 1st run of Galactus. It's horrific design to build a boss that gives you 3 turns tops. Hell, at least 1st Galactus gave you 3 to get a winfinite engine started. PHX's passive means a bad draw and you're dead on turn 1.

There's no strategy involved with them, and no strategy = no fun.

496 Phoenix turn one

JamesV

For me it's not about difficulty versus rewards as much as its about the punishment (i.e. the negative effect of a loss over the positive impact of a win). That doesn't mean I'm complaining or dismissing any discussions about reward structure, etc. I just mean I view that the negative effects to be so detrimental to play desire that it's hard to correct that with more prizes.

Most games have one negative for a loss: time.
Some games implement a second: time + game progress or time + money (arcade game's for example)
Alternatively for some games its time + in-game resources
MPQ loses thought are built around all of them:

time (not just the time spent playing the loss, but you are literally impacted on the time left you have to play period) progress (both lack of forward progress and actual loss of progress in versus) resources (characters, heath packs, boosts) The ability to do other things in game (this is a sub point of the resource issue)

Very few* games directly punish** a loss as much as MPQ does, and very few games also hang their difficulty on a combination of randomness + damage scaling + enemy health scaling.

This system encourages players to only try fights they can win, to only experiment with teams when they feel they can do it as safely as possible, etc. So any mode that forces players to the opposite is going to be met with absolute annoyance at best and rage at worst.

If they want a mode where the whole goal is to lose, then everything inside of the mode needs to be predicated on that. If the point is survival nodes than structure the boss fights in such a way where the (micro) rewards come from progress within the node, don't structure the unlocks to bleed resources, and don't make the events that you are supposed to lose in a choice between them and everything else in the game content wise.



* I am aware of several others in the mobile sphere that use a similar or harsher system than MPQ but in the scheme of all games its still just a few

** very few games also punish a win in the same way, but MPQ can create some pretty ugly "I walked away but am out X" wins.

IamTheDanger

Something I think would be fun, and that they already have the coding for, would be to make it like balance of power. All characters are buffed to 550. They might even need to make it a little tougher. But that way, everyone, regardless of roster size or strength, could play. And since it's not going to be scaled to individuals rosters, but to all characters at 550, they could put the "alliance works together" aspect back into it.

Or something like this.

Vhailorx

IamTheDanger wrote:

Something I think would be fun, and that they already have the coding for, would be to make it like balance of power. All characters are buffed to 550. They might even need to make it a little tougher. But that way, everyone, regardless of roster size or strength, could play. And since it's not going to be scaled to individuals rosters, but to all characters at 550, they could put the "alliance works together" aspect back into it.

Or something like this.

That's basically my suggestion #4. I don't know that pushing everyone to 550 makes sense, bop always feels a bit gimicky. But pushing everyone to a functional level for their tier seems like a good idea. people can use their rosters and vets still feel like they have gotten something for their work.

amusingfoo1

wymtime wrote:

I posted this in another thread now in suggestions and feedback. If they want us to play insane scaling when we clear a node give us unlimited health packs for an hour. This way when we lose we can heal and not feel like we have been completely punished for playing the game. We can live with we are suppose to lose if we get to keep trying. It is when we are locked out and expected to pay extra resources to keep trying that we feel ripped off

I like this idea. I gave up after beating round six largely because the health pack usage was causing me problems in PvP (thanks to having to take on so many A teams).

CrookedKnight

Vhailorx wrote:

(4) Forget about limited boosted lists. Designing a boss that is very challenging for boosted characters makes the boss impossible for unboosted characters. That turns these very hard boss events into heroic events where people can only use whatever characters are boosted (e.g. KP and Cho in this boss rush event), and no one likes that. Bosses have unique mechanics and it can be fun to mix and match teams against them, so let everyone use their whole roster. Boost 1* through 4* characters to their unchamped max level (94 for 2*s, 166 for 3*s, and 270 for 4*s). That way everyone can try out whatever characters they have rostered (and deeper rosters/champions have a meaningful advantage, which seems to be Demi's preference). This will also make designing the bosses much easier, since the player power level will be more predicable.

This is what I most want to see when the event comes back. The bosses, especially the new set, are designed such that they cannot be just brute-forced by whoever happens to have the highest boosted level -- ideally you'd be countering their unique mechanics with particular characters who can take advantage of those tricks, and most of those characters weren't boosted in this event and so were effectively locked out because they'd die to two turns of match damage. Which is why I kept bashing my head into the wall with Kingpin and Winter Soldier, hoping a countdown tile would last long enough to deal damage, since a slim chance is better than no chance at all. Dropping the boosted list would also soften the penalty for losing, since you could swap in another team that's almost as good rather than seeing a huge drop-off unless you keep reviving your best boosted characters over and over.

atomzed

Vhailorx wrote:

(5) Lock out Prof X. His blue ability is a ton of fun, and is not overpowered in normal game modes. But it does create a bunch of winfinite engine possibilities. And that means that any match is winnable if prof X. and team can survive long enough to get infinity engine combo rolling. I think this is why so many of demi's ridiculously hard boss designs are "get lucky or you will be slaughtered by round 4." Anything slower would be vulnerable to infinite player loops. X doesn't need a nerf, and he isn't broken overall. But locking him out of boss fights will open up a lot of design options (and it also makes a ton of sense in-universe too, since just about every major x-men story line involves incapacitating Prof. X in some fashion to up the threat level to the rest of the X-men team. Prof X IS overpowered in the comics!).

I agree that prof x winfinite limits the game mechanics choices.... but I also think that there's an easy solution. Just make every boss have this passive: "if opponents make a match 5, remove 5 ap in its strongest color "

Viola, problem solved. No more winfinite in boss battles.

It's not new, we see this in jean grey ability. And we also see how they make the bosses immune to stun and airborne.

mpqr7

Bosses with lots of hit points are fine. However their match damage and special attacks need to be toned way down. A boss shouldn't be able to be able to one-shot kill you on their first turn, just because the board is in their favor.

When it's covered with green and you spam 5 more green, and then you match-5 a green and immediately kill off my team member, or it's covered in red and you spam 5 more red, match-5 the red AND THEN THAT FIRES OFF A POWER THAT DOES EVEN MORE DAMAGE TO MY PLAYER, AND THEN YOU FIRE ANOTHER POWER THAT DAMAGES MY ENTIRE TEAM?!?!?!, that just feels a bit unfair.

I wouldn't mind enemy player doing a good amount of damage, but it has to be small enough that I can survive a few special attacks. And maybe there can be special healing tiles that give me a chance to heal more than around 500 hit points.

Every big enemy should have a weakness, and hopefully not just toward winfinite teams, since those take forever.

Imagine if there was a very tough boss, but if you were able to match certain tiles in certain ways, you could automatically do a special attack, gain defense or regain some of your health!!! That would make it a much more fun battle. Then we'd feel like we had a fighting chance, no matter the team, even if wasn't our one A-team.

Maybe special boss events can be a reason to bring back special ENVIRONMENTAL TILES!!! Everybody seems to remember those fondly.

Deimos12

I agree that prof x winfinite limits the game mechanics choices.... but I also think that there's an easy solution. Just make every boss have this passive: "if opponents make a match 5, remove 5 ap in its strongest color "

Viola, problem solved. No more winfinite in boss battles.

So now not only can an enemy cascade completely ruin you but a cascade in your favor also completely ruins you? Hard pass on that one. Honestly think you forgot a /s there or something

BlackSheep101

Deimos12 wrote:

I agree that prof x winfinite limits the game mechanics choices.... but I also think that there's an easy solution. Just make every boss have this passive: "if opponents make a match 5, remove 5 ap in its strongest color "

Viola, problem solved. No more winfinite in boss battles.

So now not only can an enemy cascade completely ruin you but a cascade in your favor also completely ruins you? Hard pass on that one. Honestly think you forgot a /s there or something

I'd rather face that then WTFPHX.

The Bob The

atomzed wrote:

Just make every boss have this passive: "if opponents make a match 5, remove 5 ap in its strongest color "

You shut your mouth. You shut your mouth and never open it again.

The Bob The

aesthetocyst wrote:

Offer a game mode in which the teams in a match aren't trying to kill each other, but are rather competing to outwit each other. To collect X amont of whatever color(s) first, to make so many match 4s or 5s first to destroy the most gems in a limited number of moves, etc. Possibilities are limitless. Consult other match-3 games for ideas.

I am sure the use of Ultron and instakills were intended to make infinite loop teams impractical, and I get that, but the outcome is ... well, what we had. That's why suggestions like this are so good - make it not about damage (although you still need to survive) but about solving a puzzle that can't be easily looped. But making the requirement to gather color amounts would still be susceptible to loops because eventually you can gather all the colors. Therefore, there needs to be a model that requires letting the boss take turns for you to win, which means an instakill needs to come off the table.

The closest thing to this, actually, is the O.G. boss, Ultron (not the tile-moving abomination, either - good ol' stoic, implacable Tetris Ultron). Ultron creates bombs. Bombs fall. If bombs connect, you die. Shaking the board makes bombs fall faster, so infinite loops tend to be impractical (which is why he was in the easier rounds 1-3 - yeah, I see you, Demiurge).

Not letting Ultron create bombs would be a good thing, but what if it wasn't? What if boss tiles were created on each turn, and matching/destroying them there tiles was your win condition. They might be hit points (destroy 10 boss tiles) or power ups (charge the Ultimate Nullifier) or, I don't know, gnocchi recipes (gotta cook 'em all!). The point is, you need 'em to win, which means you gotta let the boss play.

This is a model that can't(?) be as easily cheesed by an infinite looper. Once again, though, for it to work, it can't be based on a boss who can nuke you in round one ... or three ... maybe even ten. So maybe that means higher health but lower damage? A return to bosses who don't move tiles? I don't know. The point is, the ideal boss event is one where both the player and the boss must be allowed to take more than a handful of turns. It's based on reasonable exchange: You let me play, and I let you play. Y'know, like a game.

On paper, this sounds like fun difficulty to me. In practice, who knows? At any rate, that's my two cents.

xidragonxi

Simply making us not have to use health packs to recover characters would have gone a long way. I needed to use my 3 best characters for the boss fights, but by round 7 and 8 I also needed those 3 for the side nodes. Those 10 health packs were gone real quick.

mpqr7

I probably spent around 50 healthpacks for the opportunity to lose most of the time, whenever the board started flooded with the colors that the boss needed to unleash multiple match-5s when automatically spamming their favorite color on me.