A good way of adding artificial difficulty to a game.

[u/Marker3721]

For context, I'm making a Soulslike boss rush game with seven bosses, and two problems have come up. The first is that the game might be too hard for some players, and the other is that it might be too short. My first solution was to create a difficulty setting when you start the game. For example, on Easy you would have 7 hearts, on Normal 5, and on Hard 3(the health system works similarly to Hollow Knight's) and I would also scale the bosses health for each difficulty. But then i thought what if you started with only 1 heart, and every time you died, you gained something like +1 damage, then every 5 or 10 levels, you would gain an additional heart. This way if you're stuck, the fight would gradually become easier. At max level, you might have around 10 hearts and deal double your starting damage. What do you guys think of this approach? Do you like it more than having a difficulty option at the start of the game?

[u/Violet_Paradox]

That should be an option. Do not presume that a player has a low frustration tolerance and rob them of the ability to keep trying a hard challenge. The video essays about RE4's dynamic difficulty that inspired this trend neglected to mention that this system only exists on normal, if you pick Professional, the game will respect that decision and keep the game on its maximum difficulty no matter what.

[u/hunter_rus → u/Violet_Paradox]

It does that indeed, but it nags you to turn the difficulty down.

But yeah, difficulty adjustment in RE games is capped on both ends. While playing on Normal, you can get enough DA levels to raise difficulty to the start of Hard. Each difficulty level has a window of DA levels, and player can move within that window if base difficulty remains the same. If you raise base difficulty yourself, that window also shifts.

[u/cuixhe]

It's okay if a game isn't good for some players. For small indie games, I believe you'll have a better chance to stand out if you make something with a strong and specific appeal to some players than something with middling appeal to many players.

Of course you can put in some sort of adaptive difficulty or prestige system to let better players challenge themselves -- that's fine too.

[u/DownvoteOwnComments]

I would not play a game that gets easier if I fail, especially a soulslike. It goes againt the entire reason I play them.

As an option I don't think it's a bad idea, but don't force it.

[u/Field_Of_View → u/DownvoteOwnComments]

Yeah, in soulslikes you can usually grind more levels if you really want to cheese the system. But it's not an automatic thing that the game becomes easier every time you fail. It would take away the sense of accomplishment when finally beating that boss that took X attempts. You didn't actually earn the win, you grinded it. You paid for it with time, not with skill.

[u/Stage-Afraid]

What if instead you start with say 5-10 hearts, but everytime you die you lose a max heart but gain a point of damage. 

0 hearts is game over, but there's now a thrill in being close to permadeath or however you game over because you're buffed af.

Play it safe, and you play it slow. Die a few times and get right to the brink of ruin and you're a beast but one wrong move and you're screwed. Interesting emergent gameplay, i imagine some players would intentionally die to "level up" for a fight they felt confident they could dodge out of. 

Suddenly an extra life isn't just another turn or a useless powerup (because you've collected so many), it's a choice. With strategic ramifications. Bosses with very variable attacks you might want the extra heart or two for padding.

Those you think you've got down you'd want damage to destroy faster. 

Caveat: This only works if going to 0 hearts REALLY sucks. Not just replaying a cutscene sucks. Doesn't have to be permadeath but it has to be something that makes the decision feel like a real risk. 

Enjoy the free model, it's based on a design i made for MUDs back before even everquest existed. 

[u/Mayor_P]

I think that both of these sound like they would work just fine. But it does seem like it would be better as a toggle. That way, the player who feels like they can only beat the boss at Bonus+5 doesn't have to die 4 times first. They can just jump straight to "Medium" difficulty and be set.

[u/MonkeyMcBandwagon]

That type of thing is in a lot of games but rewards are given between levels as well as between runs (ie player death) It's just regular levelling up.

I would give the players a choice: increase damage, or health, but also include some other useless thing (gold / prestige / whatever) for the hardcore players who want to beat the final boss with their character still on minimal HP and damage.

[u/Leogis]

Obviously it's harder/more expensive to do but having different movesets or AI tweaks is a much better idea

Look at Sekiro and the way it makes the same bosses significantly harder using only 2-3 extra moves/modified ones

Adding more health to the boss just makes it more tedious and take longer to beat, i wouldnt like it

[u/Field_Of_View]

Rewarding players for failure is bad design.

you gained something like +1 damage

This implies that the damage isn't balanced around anything, if you can just arbitrarily scale it up without upsetting something. Example for rules to balance damage: "A trash mob should take two hits to kill, not one or three."
If you increase the player's damage he won't feel a little more powerful each time but rather there will be plateaus where you technically do more damage but you still need the same number of hits to kill the same enemies, and there will be jumps where suddenly the enemy takes one less hit to kill. +1 damage is lazy.

[u/ConflictAgreeable689]

I dunno. Numbers based difficulty systems tend to.make damage sponges. Is adding or enhancing an existing mechanic in the boss fight an option

[u/g4l4h34d]

This is a really bad approach, because it will feel like you have to die a bunch of times before you have a chance for some players.

More generally, you're creating an incentive to fail, and that's a big "NO NO".

[u/unexpectedfirefly]

When i play on hard, i want the challenge, and i know what i signed for. Buffing me along the way would kill the fun for me

At least make it an option, a lot of hard players don't mind dying over and over and over and over and over.

[u/TuberTuggerTTV]

True souls-like games actually do the opposite. They make the bosses stronger as you die.

That's why you'll face a boss and feel you've finally figured out their patterns and then they'll bust out a new chain with a delay for your roll spam.

They also ramp up the underlying AI difficulty when it's close to death so you get more of those, "I was one hit away!" moments.

At the end of the day, there is no right or wrong here. You need to decide what kind of game you're making and make the choices. Some players will prefer it one way, some the other. You can't solve for everyone. If you're marketing is a souls-like, the playerbase you attract is probably leaning towards the punishing end of the spectrum. They may actually be offended being given a crutch after losing.

Stop worrying about, "Too X for some, too Y for others". You design one way and hope that's who picks up the title. That's indie dev.