How to make difficulty fun

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Comments

  • Omega Red
    Omega Red Posts: 366 Mover and Shaker
    Make this an alliance event like past boss battles. That alone makes it more fun.

    Create an event that actually puts your whole roster to use and not just the same cheesy winfinite combo.
  • El Satanno
    El Satanno Posts: 1,005 Chairperson of the Boards
    The Bob The wrote:
    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.

    God dammit this post gave me a boner.

    This is the kind of idea so many of us have been clamoring for. A gametype that puts the PUZZLE into Puzzle Quest. Can we have this? Please?
  • JVReal
    JVReal Posts: 1,884 Chairperson of the Boards
    I would have loved the Boss Rush event with it's existing difficulty IF we had been able to select 3 waves too. Choose your 3 waves of 3 (9 characters total), and when a boss wipes out the 3 of your team, your B team comes out... then your C team. Of course, when the fight ends, victory or not, your team would be back to normal health.

    I would have enjoyed that.

    At least then it would have felt like you were rushing the boss'.

    That leaves your Health Packs for the overscaled side nodes to unlock the boss fight.

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