Suggestion: About Difficulty Scaling

[Skriff]

Oh i'm definitely gonna get yeeted away for this topic but here we go
OK so talking as someone who's up to date with all updates and generally thinks difficulty is correctly paced (even if this hecking Malkuth Boss got on my nerves), I still believe this game is currently inaccessible to some players.
You may think I'm completely out of reality but I believe a game as good as Library of Ruina should be accessible to every and any kind of players -including casuals who aren't necessarily good at strategy games or don't especially want to tryhard. Lots of my friends who absolutely love the lore 'n' all have just given up the game because they don't have fun trying over and over again and being forced to farm pages 'n' all to actually suffer through.
I am NOT saying we should nerf all fights. But I AM suggesting that we include a difficulty selection when we start a new game. And by that I mean that we'd have "easy/normal/hard" scaling like in numerous games, so that casuals and hardcore players can actually have the experience they desire. Some people are here for the lore and aesthetic, we should respect that.
PM has numerous advantages in doing so, notably a more accessible and inclusive game.

By difficulty scaling I mean, notably for easier levels:
- additional HPs/SRs to Librarians
- lower HPs/SRs to Guests/Abnos
- additional receptions floors or authorized librarians for some fights
- better drops, both in books and key pages
A good 10%-15% of HP/SR variation would be more than enough to make the game more manageable for those players. The idea is that the game is still there, you don't touch the cards themselves, but you don't struggle as much as since you have more floors it's harder to actually get a complete defeat.

Similarly, harder difficulty would have lower stats for Librarians, higher for enemies, less librarians/floors, but an untouched drop (because i believe it's already difficult as it is).

I'm taking up suggestions before I actually try and e-mail PM on the matter. I don't think it'll be included before the game development ends but it'd be really amazing if it eventually did.

[CarThief]

Uh, wot? What's the point of a easy mode if it litterally makes the game unplayable by throwing in a invincible, unpassable encounter stopping the game mid-game? No-one learns anything from that besides that the developer responsible is a HUGE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, idiot and should not be developing games. (The only time this is justified is as a anti-piracy measure, which is kinda smart because it gives pirates a "demo" to try out, like the really old days. Ah, nostalgia.)

Difficulty != quality, nor is it "charm" or "good". It is a element that everyone has their own subjective preference towards. Some like it hard, some prefer easy, and some choose ultramegadeath hard because they feel like they deserve to suffer.

Either it gets added and functions as intended or it doesn't. Granted, the balance is ever so fluctuating so it's best left as a (near) completion goal on the roadmap.

[Skriff]

Publicado originalmente por CarThief:

Difficulty != quality, nor is it "charm" or "good". It is a element that everyone has their own subjective preference towards. Some like it hard, some prefer easy, and some choose ultramegadeath hard because they feel like they deserve to suffer.

Either it gets added and functions as intended or it doesn't. Granted, the balance is ever so fluctuating so it's best left as a (near) completion goal on the roadmap.

Yeah! This sums it up. Tbh I think it's important to mention it now so it doesn't "suddenly" appear as a suggestion later on, but honestly I doubt it'll be the devs priority. I'd just want them to consider this and offer them a correct set of ideas to pull that off.

[Yhune]

Nah, I find the game will get easier over time, so if you want a easy mode, decide it after the game is completed.
Because after all there are things like general invitations or other paths that can make boss fights become a joke, for example sayo vs el felipe(despertado) or tomerry.

[fish444]

Publicado originalmente por CarThief:

Uh, wot? What's the point of a easy mode if it litterally makes the game unplayable by throwing in a invincible, unpassable encounter stopping the game mid-game? No-one learns anything from that besides that the developer responsible is a HUGE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, idiot and should not be developing games. (The only time this is justified is as a anti-piracy measure, which is kinda smart because it gives pirates a "demo" to try out, like the really old days. Ah, nostalgia.)

Difficulty != quality, nor is it "charm" or "good". It is a element that everyone has their own subjective preference towards. Some like it hard, some prefer easy, and some choose ultramegadeath hard because they feel like they deserve to suffer.

Either it gets added and functions as intended or it doesn't. Granted, the balance is ever so fluctuating so it's best left as a (near) completion goal on the roadmap.

No need to be so aggressive, lad. U wot right back to you my lad.
Multiple people have presented you the facts my friend. The facts are that the indie game studio Project Moon has made a previous game called Lobotomy Corporation. The game was hard. Koreans can attest to that. Famous(?) Korean reviewers the likes of MetalKim(?) rated the game highly because it was so rewarding to beat a difficult game, and you essentially get infinite retries.

It has been metioned multiple times that beating a hard game gives you a sense of accomplishment. The charm of such games is exactly their difficulty. Who even plays Dark Souls for the story initially?
It shouldnt be so hard to understand? Touhou was mentioned which you squarely ignored.
A discussion should be there to promote and understand viewpoints.
Now I am a filthy foreigner but jesus christ what is this blatant blathering even?
The anti-piracy point makes zero sense, because pirates can beat the same game that they illegally obtained by "getting good", as it were.

An easy mode has its advantages sure thing, my lad, but Project Moon didnt include it in their previous game. Their previous game was kind of early access. Parallels to Library can be drawn, even if the games play completely differently.
Their entire design is focused on building a hard game where you try out different things and lose very little should you lose.
Lore-wise Lobotomy has time control and infinite repeats.
Library has people revive at the end of the invitation/day and you lose a couple books for defeat.

There was something about games appealing to a certain group of people in the first place.
Games of the video kind do not make everyone happy. They are not supposed to.

Also balancing will be hell for a so called easy mode.
They already painstakingly balanced regular mode. Might as well make a skip batlle button and call it a day, thus rending the gameplay part completely irrelevant.
Feel free to experience the story, which you make half as much sense to you if you havent played through Lobotomy first.
And I dont think anyone with that kind of easy mode attitude will have finished Lobotomy in the first place.

[Jiripoca]

Ruina is NOT supposed to be a casual game. This is like saying Arma 3 should have an arcade mode since some people don't have the patience to learn it, that's not how it works

building decks and strategies is PART OF THE GAMEPLAY, if you don't like these kind of games, maybe try a game that isn't centered around deckbuilding. That's akin to asking the abno management to be removed from LobCorp. I was never a fan of this genre and I personally don't like having to spend much time thinking about an ideal deck, but this is what the game is about, so I'm not going to complain

as snek said this game is already MUCH easier than Lobotomy Corporation, specially when you consider some of the core suppressions and the final days. Angela's fight was nowhere as hard as some people were saying.

there hasn't been a single unfairly difficult reception in the game. Tomerry and Philip are only hard on the first tries since you're still trying to find out a good strategy for them, and even a mediocre bleed deck can easily destroy them

Publicado originalmente por Skriff:

Snek: I know the game, I've played the same, thank you. But once again, your personal G4M3R experience does not define everyone's experience. While I have the same experience, I know not everyone wants to spend hours on building decks, looking for strats, talking to people online or just doing the same fight over and over again. Some people just want to have casual fun, y'know? Gatekeeping really sucks whatever the domain, and a game as qualitative as Library of Ruina should be enjoyed AND completed by anyone, no matter their game style. It's not because LC was really hard that LoR isn't hard on itself. And I will insist on the fact that anyone should be able to play and beat the game however they want it, even if you think it's "baby play". What would it cost to us players to add an easier mode if we keep our "normal" mode? Except more people to actually get into the game and share it with?

CarThief: I think it'd need a reset right now, since they insist on having one save file atm, but otherwise I generally agree with your ideas. I just think you should still lose your books after losing a fight, after all it's literally in the lore.

it's not gatekeeping, it's what the game is about. As I said, LC and Ruina were never supposed to be casual games. If you're looking for a casual experience, I'm sorry but you'll have to look elsewhere. The difficulty and charm of the fights and the deckbuilding are part of the experience, and by removing them, you're cutting out part of the experience the game wants you to feel.

they insist on you having a single save file because it's a linear game. There is no reason for you to have multiple save files, this isn't an RPG

as snek wisely said,

Publicado originalmente por snek:

fights are generally invalidated in terms of difficulty in the update after their release, this was the case with the release of sayo which completely shredded tomerry and remains a great bosskiller, and it will be the same with the more recent big fights too.
you can currently pick what path to take in the story, unlike those who do fights on release, which lets you take the more difficult fights for later.

objet pages i find aren't too hard to obtain, much more so than they were on release day where books would also drop cards
updates will also bump up the level limits i bet as well, which will also make fights early on easier as you can just power up your pages beyond the level that is expected for that. an extra +10 levels than expected for that point massively sways things in your favour.

card games are inevitably rng, the dice roll will determine if you will have a good time or not, but with proper planning and thought you can shift the odds as much as you can in your favour. you are at the mercy of rng regardless but you can sway it far in your favour with a good amount of thought put into your decks.

you can look up guides, you can ask others who play the game, etc, on paths to take, what to build and so on, generally there are easier paths that give a major leg up against the harder fights on other paths and so asking around would get you pointed to take on those fights first.

if you're having problems with a fight it's most likely because you aren't supposed to be doing it in the first place.

Publicado originalmente por CarThief:

Well suppose one thing's true, once the game is completed one can take other paths and build up strenght (abnormality cards, regular cards, key pages, increased team sizes, etc) to face the new issues with less difficulty, though some of them remain rather difficult. Doubt everyone could overcome stuff like doing Phillip with one team or just Tomerry in general.

Personally i'm of the opinion a easy mode wouldn't hurt to implement, for those looking for a more casual experience. Never hurts to have around as a option (also more profitable then having people skip it due to difficulty to watch it on YT instead).
(And is relatively cheap to introduce in a way such as allowing +1 floor when "easy mode" is active, that alone would be a lot of leeway.)

once again, the game isn't supposed to be casual. You wouldn't play Dark Souls and complain it isn't "casual friendly", would you?

not only is Philip possible with a single floor, but it's also the easiest bossfight currently in the game. As I said, a mediocre bleed deck on Hod's floor can obliterate him before he reaches the third phase

Ruina isn't even a "hardcore" game as I saw some people saying, it's incredibly simple all things considered.

Publicado originalmente por CarThief:

Uh, wot? What's the point of a easy mode if it litterally makes the game unplayable by throwing in a invincible, unpassable encounter stopping the game mid-game? No-one learns anything from that besides that the developer responsible is a HUGE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, idiot and should not be developing games. (The only time this is justified is as a anti-piracy measure, which is kinda smart because it gives pirates a "demo" to try out, like the really old days. Ah, nostalgia.)

Difficulty != quality, nor is it "charm" or "good". It is a element that everyone has their own subjective preference towards. Some like it hard, some prefer easy, and some choose ultramegadeath hard because they feel like they deserve to suffer.

Either it gets added and functions as intended or it doesn't. Granted, the balance is ever so fluctuating so it's best left as a (near) completion goal on the roadmap.

yes, difficulty isn't akin to quality IF you have a badly made game. Looks like you don't really know PM. There are many mind-blowingly difficult games out there that are extremely popular because they're well made and fair, so beating them gives you a massive sense of acomplishment

And I don't know if you haven't noticed, but PM isn't like most game companies. They would rather make a good but unpopular game than a bad but popular one. Lobotomy Corp was made on a very tight budget and it's fantastic even though it's a very obscure game in the West

also, the game is literally a sequel to Lobotomy Corporation, saying "it isn't Lobotomy Corp 2 and thus shouldn't be as difficult" makes no sense

this huge wall of text I made can be summarized very well with this part from fish's perfect comment, who made a much better analysis than I could have done

Publicado originalmente por fish444:

There was something about games appealing to a certain group of people in the first place.
Games of the video kind do not make everyone happy. They are not supposed to.

[Skriff]

(So I don't deny most of the rest that I didn't quote, but it's either true and I have nothing to add, or irrelevant enough not to be answered.)

Publicado originalmente por fish444:

Feel free to experience the story, which you make half as much sense to you if you havent played through Lobotomy first. And I dont think anyone with that kind of easy mode attitude will have finished Lobotomy in the first place.

Lots of people I know in the fanbase have opted for videos or counting on others to actually get to the end of the game. Precisely because the game was really long/hard to complete but they were interested with the lore, characters, story. I believe people shouldn't have to choose between not experiencing the game themselves or suffering through it because it's not fun to them. Since putting an easy mode to LC is close to impossible (most difficulty comes from management itself, which is not something you can modify variables on), they were hoping for a more accessible game. I'm not talking about those who are like "uhhhh thinkin hard wont try more than 1 time", I'm talking about people who legitimately want to get through but don't enjoy to struggle over and over or have to rely on guides.

Publicado originalmente por Paulin bacana 2:

The difficulty and charm of the fights and the deckbuilding are part of the experience, and by removing them, you're cutting out part of the experience the game wants you to feel.

But some people don't care about the story at all (I know some) yet they have opportunity to skip dialogues and completely ignore the story parts? They cut themselves part of "the experience" because they have the freedom to. People who aren't here for GP should also have this freedom.

Publicado originalmente por Paulin bacana 2:

yes, difficulty isn't akin to quality IF you have a badly made game. Looks like you don't really know PM. There are many mind-blowingly difficult games out there that are extremely popular because they're well made and fair, so beating them gives you a massive sense of acomplishment

And I don't know if you haven't noticed, but PM isn't like most game companies. They would rather make a good but unpopular game than a bad but popular one. Lobotomy Corp was made on a very tight budget and it's fantastic even though it's a very obscure game in the West

also, the game is literally a sequel to Lobotomy Corporation, saying "it isn't Lobotomy Corp 2 and thus shouldn't be as difficult" makes no sense

I know PM, I know their objectives, and I know LC wasn't known in the West for three reasons : bad translation, niché genre and low advertising (due to low budget). They had to strive for uniqueness and give the atypical player that would find them an unique experience. Now the situation is very much different. They have a bigger fanbase, they have better translations, they have a bugger budget and chose a genre that's much more accessible for more types of players -the situation just ain't the same, you can't entirely put LC's development and LoR's on the same level. It's not a "first game, must get remarked" situation.

What I mean in the end of the day is that this whole conversation is more about what a game's difficulty should be in our own experiences/preferences more than actually thinking about what's best for LoR as it stands. PM is still a company that depends on sales and I know lots of people who would buy/play the game if it had an easier mode. Whether you like it or not, this is truth and I think an independent company like PM should at least think about the idea -at least being submitted the suggestion and respond to it. I still plan to e-mail them about it, I mostly need ideas to give them. If they refuse it or not, it'll be up to them.

[fish444]

Publicado originalmente por Skriff:

And I don't know if you haven't noticed, but PM isn't like most game companies. They would rather make a good but unpopular game than a bad but popular one. Lobotomy Corp was made on a very tight budget and it's fantastic even though it's a very obscure game in the West

What I mean in the end of the day is that this whole conversation is more about what a game's difficulty should be in our own experiences/preferences more than actually thinking about what's best for LoR as it stands. PM is still a company that depends on sales and I know lots of people who would buy/play the game if it had an easier mode. Whether you like it or not, this is truth and I think an independent company like PM should at least think about the idea -at least being submitted the suggestion and respond to it. I still plan to e-mail them about it, I mostly need ideas to give them. If they refuse it or not, it'll be up to them.

No need to take this passive agressive tone with me and the other people, as you clearly have not noticed.
After all we seek to improve this game, do we not?
There are several points here that are misconstrued, and I wont even get into them. After all you can believe whatever you want, as long as you do not ruin the enjoyment i have of this game.

For one, Lobotomy Corporation was a huge success even in the West. It was obviously a huge success in Korea. It was a huge success in Japan, supposedly. It was huge in China. It was successful in Russia, if the guides and discussions in Library on this very steam page have not alerted you to the fact.
People in Korea compare the fandom of Lobotomy to Undertale, another hugely successful Indie game.
I'm not going to post walls of text again, as our opinions are clearly set.

There is this old established saying: Do not fix what is not broken.
Spoken by a man in a bar or a dodgy politician, it makes a lot of sense.
At the current state of the game, the battles Library offers at this very moment are beatable and challenging, but not impossible, by your own admission.
A hypothetical improvement for a future problem is pointless.
Scaling of cards and pages might be a problem might be a problem but is not currently.
The UI could see some improvement but they are working on it.
Easy mode is a completely new problem in low demand, due to the previous game Project Moon produced, their design philosophy and from said game.
It is also hard to implement and balance. How easy is "easy mode" supposed to be?
Difficulty is subjective, remember? They would have to set a baseline, which is, as has been mentioned again and again, very hard to do for a yet-to-be-completed game.

Therefore the easy mode feature is pointless to be implemented at this time. It is pointless to be implemented in the future as well, because the problems that come with are will persist.

In the hypothetical scenario that the game becomes too difficult for some people's little hearts to bear, they might well balance the cards in this game with gameplay specifically designed to use such cards, so that you can win with the cards by playing the game, thereby actually playing the game.

I don't consider hypothetical scenarios in my video games unless i think they will become a real problem.
The difficulty issue is not one of them, and I for one do not want Project Moon to waste any manpower on it.
Unfortunately they will pay attention to it because of this 20 response thread.

[Skriff]

Just wanted to point that out since you open your message with it, but there wasn't any (intended) passive-agressiveness in my responses? I am pretty calm and understanding of your statements -however I don't like being lectured on something I know pretty well and make clear that I know already. I'm not using sarcasm or debasing comments, which would be actual passive agressiveness. Sorry if my intent didn't come clear or words got twisted when I wrote, english ain't my native.

As for the rest: I agree with the point that difficulty is subjective, just as "success", "problem" and "hypothetical". That's why I respect your opinions (which I don't deny for the most part, as I also benefitted from the satisfaction of beating through two hard games; I played it through all too), but I still believe we should try to get PM thinking on the matter and consider the idea. If they refuse it, that's fine, they're still the designers of their own games, but such a suggestion has to be made at some point so that, if it's refused, we can explain why to people who'd like it.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Publicado originalmente por snek:

fights are generally invalidated in terms of difficulty in the update after their release, this was the case with the release of sayo which completely shredded tomerry and remains a great bosskiller, and it will be the same with the more recent big fights too.
you can currently pick what path to take in the story, unlike those who do fights on release, which lets you take the more difficult fights for later.

objet pages i find aren't too hard to obtain, much more so than they were on release day where books would also drop cards
updates will also bump up the level limits i bet as well, which will also make fights early on easier as you can just power up your pages beyond the level that is expected for that. an extra +10 levels than expected for that point massively sways things in your favour.

card games are inevitably rng, the dice roll will determine if you will have a good time or not, but with proper planning and thought you can shift the odds as much as you can in your favour. you are at the mercy of rng regardless but you can sway it far in your favour with a good amount of thought put into your decks.

you can look up guides, you can ask others who play the game, etc, on paths to take, what to build and so on, generally there are easier paths that give a major leg up against the harder fights on other paths and so asking around would get you pointed to take on those fights first.

Till we get bosses that nullify bleeds entirely.(Or at least reduces max stack size) Something that I think they should implement as bleed stacking can be rather cheesy.

[fish444]

You do make fair points. Sorry if I misinterpreted your posts.
Library appeals to a much wider audience than Lobotomy does or did.
Library has the mili songs, arguably way better graphics, and a story that is more straightforward rather than Lobotomy's kind of confusing early segments.
Being a turn-based RPG-type rather than a manangement-type game also makes it more accessible.
It has reached people who would skip over something like Lobotomy, and who do not even like the visual novel style of games.

I am still of the opinion that a meticulously balanced game will have no need of easy/normal/hard difficulty modes. Lobotomy managed to pull it off, though it was not without its faults.
The early game was laughably easy, then it got increasingly harder.
Honestly, I'm just shy of finishing the ordeals of White, but I just lost motivation to actually do it.
I would have to relearn Lobotomy, and familiarize myself with my facility, and invest several hours in a grueling boss fight.

So I would agree that in principle, an easy mode can be considered. Though I'd want it to be implemented near the end anyways.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Publicado originalmente por fish444:

You do make fair points. Sorry if I misinterpreted your posts.
Library appeals to a much wider audience than Lobotomy does or did.
Library has the mili songs, arguably way better graphics, and a story that is more straightforward rather than Lobotomy's kind of confusing early segments.
Being a turn-based RPG-type rather than a manangement-type game also makes it more accessible.
It has reached people who would skip over something like Lobotomy, and who do not even like the visual novel style of games.

I am still of the opinion that a meticulously balanced game will have no need of easy/normal/hard difficulty modes. Lobotomy managed to pull it off, though it was not without its faults.
The early game was laughably easy, then it got increasingly harder.
Honestly, I'm just shy of finishing the ordeals of White, but I just lost motivation to actually do it.
I would have to relearn Lobotomy, and familiarize myself with my facility, and invest several hours in a grueling boss fight.

So I would agree that in principle, an easy mode can be considered. Though I'd want it to be implemented near the end anyways.

Lobotomy Corp's Graphics and LoR are actually very similar. You just have more character interaction that showcases the artwork in LoR. In Lobotomy Corp those sequences were rarer and usually only rewarded after Core Suppression.

Considering this is Pm's second game that I am aware of, their artwork probably has improved between the two games for certain, but whos to say the graphic quality artwork wasn't deliberate for Lobo Corp.

[Skriff]

fish444: Thank you for your understanding! I agree with your current points. I'll have "we'll have to think about this more seriously once we reach the end anyway" indicated in the e-mail, since we pretty much all agree that it's too early to be 100% that it's a good idea.

Whisper: The simpler artstyle was intended & justified; LoR's is supposed to be LC's without any Cognition Filter. But even still, as you say, there are much more artworks than there were previously. And do you realize that at this point of development there are about 40+ developed and unique character sprites/designs? In LC we barely had ~20-25. The general aesthetic is also much more appealing. And, as Fish mentioned and I had even forgotten: OSTs were excellent back in LC, but mostly unknown. Here, we have a big indie artist doing the opening theme and a boss theme; this is clearly an aesthetic upgrade, even if this were a mere extension of the previous game. This increases the audience a lot -but we're kinda getting off topic still.

[tymon2701]

The game is in no way harder than Lobotomy Corporation and the newer updates often makes certain fights easier. This is not a normie or game journalist friendly game.
I find trying to force easy mode for this game insulting, go play easier games if you care so much about being 'normie friendly'.
Go read a book if you want a story, or even just watch the playthrough of this game on youtube. Games are not passive entertainment like movies where you can just do nothing to consume the media.

[Arch-Knee]

The hard receptions mentioned were supposed to make you figure out what strategies you should use and who to focus on first in these battles.
Tomerry was even made easier by proxy due to Sayo and Meow receptions, and Second Philip is made much easier if you take out Philip and Oscar first in the first battle.
Making the battles have an easy mode just makes it less satisfying to complete because the whole point of these battles were to test you on target prioritization and light and card management.

[Shbnfc]

Publicado originalmente por Arch-Knee:

The hard receptions mentioned were supposed to make you figure out what strategies you should use and who to focus on first in these battles.
Tomerry was even made easier by proxy due to Sayo and Meow receptions, and Second Philip is made much easier if you take out Philip and Oscar first in the first battle.
Making the battles have an easy mode just makes it less satisfying to complete because the whole point of these battles were to test you on target prioritization and light and card management.

Right on, by dumbing down the game for inexperienced players you're really doing them a disservice in the long run. Anyone who is struggling at this point just needs to read the manual and revise their decks.