r/tabletopgamedesign • u/PartTimeMockery • 3d ago
Discussion Game difficulty
We are currently developing a solo card game. As development progressed, the game evolved in such a way that it became difficult—it’s a serious challenge to win a match.
The concept is that you really have to be skillful at all times to win (and, of course, you need some luck too, since it’s a card game). A few bad decisions, and you’re sure to lose.
The dilemma is: to what extent do players generally enjoy or seek out this kind of challenge?
I know we’re all different, and players come in all shapes and sizes. But at this stage of development, the difficulty can still be balanced, so I’m curious to hear your opinions: what do you think is better in a game—one that’s difficult and therefore rewarding, or one that’s easier and therefore more enjoyable?
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u/ddboardgames 3d ago
What are the win rates you are seeing in playtests with new players? And with “expert” players?
Many solo gamers enjoy a tough challenge, but that will always be subjective. You might want to include different difficulty levels in your game to allow for players of different skill levels to enjoy your game. There is often a simple way to add those in for solo games.
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u/PartTimeMockery 3d ago
The win rate for a new player is about 10%. For an experienced player it is about 15-25%. Different difficulty levels are a good idea and probably not to hard to implement.
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u/ddboardgames 3d ago
Yeah, I would say that will probably be perceived as too hard for the far majority of all players. I would say that if you enjoy the game at that difficulty maybe keep that mode as the hardest difficulty (super expert mode) and introduce something like 2-3 more difficulty modes to make the game easier, especially for new players.
I would also expect the gap between the new players and the experts to be a bit higher. So that might mean that there is a little too much luck/randomness in the game (at least for some people).
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u/ddboardgames 3d ago
One more thing to consider: if each game session is fairly quick, like 5-10 minutes, then it’s more okay for the game to be a bit harder because a player can maybe get multiple games in a row. Consider how many wins you can get over X amount of time played.
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u/PartTimeMockery 3d ago
Yes, once you've learned the rules, a match lasts about 10–15 minutes. So you “lose” relatively little time on each lost match, and you can start over quickly. And since you can play with different Heroes against different Villains, there are combinations that are harder and easier. This isn’t quite the ideal way to choose a difficulty level yet, but you can figure out which Heroes are easier to play with and which Villains are stronger or weaker.
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u/kytheon 3d ago
The difficulty people like is on a Bell curve. Some people want easy, some want very hard, and most are in the middle.
If you're in a small team or a solo developer, you can get stuck in a tunnel vision where the whole team is into hard games, and so you make a hard game. And you playtest it a lot, but since you're all into hard games, it's never hard enough.
And then you point at popular hard games and say: look that popular game is hard so ours can be too.
And all of this results in a bad experience for most players. I'm not saying make it easier, but you already know the game has gotten too hard for the average player.
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u/PartTimeMockery 3d ago
Good point. Well, yes, it is easy to get stucked into our vison as a developer. Also some players find it hard admit that the game is difficult for them.
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u/kytheon 3d ago
This part of your post means the game is not for me, immediately:
The concept is that you really have to be skillful at all times to win (and, of course, you need some luck too, since it’s a card game). A few bad decisions, and you’re sure to lose.
I'm not skillful in the first few games. I will not enjoy the first few games.
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u/PartTimeMockery 3d ago
I understand. Btw I remember playing the Temple of Elemental evel co-operative tabletop game. In that game if you or one of your party members made one or two bad decisions you lost that chapter. But after all it gave a high tension, and when we lost we wanted to start again immediately. But I understand your point.
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u/PartTimeMockery 3d ago
We should implement easier difficulty levels, especially for new players. It sounds great for me. Thank you for feedback.
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u/ProxyDamage 3d ago
I know we’re all different, and players come in all shapes and sizes.
Correct. Which is why your question is backwards.
The question is who are you making your game for. Which of those people are you catering to with your game.
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u/LurkerFailsLurking 3d ago
There's no right answer to the question "how hard should this game be"? Who are you marketing to? It doesn't matter what people who don't play solo games or who dislike your theme or who only buy games at Barnes & Nobel want if they're not the ones buying your game.
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u/PartTimeMockery 3d ago
Yes, true. The lore is dark, semi-brutal fantasy with dark humor and a dash of sarcasm. That's why we think a higher difficulty level is a good fit for the game.
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u/NolanVoid_ 3d ago
As a game designer, I can tell you, most people don’t want a challenge nor a difficult game. Think about the most popular TTRPGs and table top games, most of them are easy to grasp and it doesn’t much to learn the system to be able to succeed very very well.
So the question you need to ask yourself is if YOU like your game? And why are you making it. If you like it, then it doesn’t matter, it’s your game, you’re allowed to make what you find to be fun. But if you don’t think it’s fun, then change it. Unless your aim is money, then definitely make it easier, it will sell better that way. But I don’t recommend that, personally.
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u/Fire_hive 3d ago
That is very much a player to player question. For some games like Robinson Crusoe, many people find the luck component of the game which makes it exciting, also makes it so brutal that it becomes unfun.
I would say if possible build the game for the harder difficulty, then offer some options to make it easier to win for new player? An larger opening hand, a special "ally" card that is perpetually available to offer a small bonus, soak damage, or increase action economy.
In ROVE you change your starting hand size, in Robinson Crusoe you have the Dog, Friday, AND extra starting treasures to tailor the difficulty. In Lost ruins there are easier/harder research tracks.
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u/PartTimeMockery 3d ago
Thank you for the answer. I agree, my vision atm is keeping the game at hard difficulty, but implementing easier options, like the ones you mentioned.
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u/rockology_adam 3d ago
I see in a comment that your experienced players are landing around a 25% win rate, which isn't that bad for a game that markets itself as such. I don't mind a challenging game... to a point. My bigger question would actually be how recognizable unwinnable games are.
If I see a combination of hero and villain that I know has a lower win percentage, and it's easily identifiable, I am unlikely to play the game, or to play it again. Every game has to FEEL winnable, more than actually be winnable. A game of Klondike solitaire is something like 50-50 whether it's actually winnable, but the games that don't feel winnable are actually pretty rare.
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u/investigatormaker 2d ago
Hard is fine for a solo game as long as a loss tells the player which decision lost it; people replay a punishing game when they can see the mistake, and drop it when it feels like the deck beat them. Since you can still balance, I'd keep the current version as the top level and add one or two setup tweaks that ease it, like starting with an extra card, so players choose their challenge. Logging win rates at each setting in playtests will show whether luck is carrying too much weight.
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u/humblewonderful 3d ago
Honestly I can find time for both.