Making the game's "Hard" difficulty level actually feel Harder ...

[Portal Studios]

So during the Alpha testing phase we've had this complaint be brought up several times.
The player is given the choice of playing the each level on "Normal" or "Hard" difficulty.
However, most people can hardly notice the difference between.
In practice, the only difference between the two difficulty levels is that for Hard difficulty the guards 'Suspicion" meter will fill about 50% faster making them more likely to come scouting an area or start a chase upon them noticing the player.

That's obviously not sufficient since, as I mentioned, players don't really seem to notice the difference.

I'd love to hear more suggestions on how you think we should address increasing difficulty in Unknightly.

Do you think we should:

• handicap the player at higher difficulty? (removing or limiting items, etc)
  
• Empower guards? (Increase their senses, speed etc)
  
• Add more difficulty levels?
  
• ...

Any and all suggestions is welcome!

[Major_Troubles]

The thief games reduced the number of allowed kills (or even raised suspicions) for higher difficulties.

More guards wearing helmets.

Additional objectives (aka find a minimum number of special loot items)

It depends on what you want to make harder. Combat, sneaking, exploring, ...

[Portal Studios]

Well I'm leaning towards the idea of reducing the effectiveness of using force and rewarding a more stealth based approach.
So I guess it's kind of all of the above to some extent ...

I think one of the main issues right now is guards being relatively easy targets. Once you get to know how they move and attack it becomes rather easy to deal with them, thus the player loses that "fear" or "panic" of being discovered by guards since he assumes that in the worst case scenario he'll just take them out.

[Major_Troubles]

Ultimately there will always be a way to trick the AI. You can either make guards become alert after a while when they miss their colleagues (which can be countered by taking them out in reasonably quick succession) or just plain hardcode a maximum number of kills (because you don't want to piss (oh, you can't even write a synonym for urinate ;) ) that organisation off too much or whatever storywise justification you can think of).
Or you can make some guards unkillable with impenetrable armour or putting them into a special booth with 360° vision and no access from the outside. (think medieval surveillance camera)

[Jaknet]

Postat inițial de Portal Studios:

I think one of the main issues right now is guards being relatively easy targets. Once you get to know how they move and attack it becomes rather easy to deal with them, thus the player loses that "fear" or "panic" of being discovered by guards since he assumes that in the worst case scenario he'll just take them out.

Maybe make the harder options include No kills, or No detections....(not spotted and no dead / unconcious guards discovered).

Postat inițial de Major_Troubles:

Additional objectives (aka find a minimum number of special loot items)

Always liked this as a harder objective in Thief as it felt a "natural" increase in difficulity for a thief....more time spent searching = higher risk of being found and harder to steal the special loot

Selection of brief ideas, no ideas which might / might not be any use

Maybe place guards so that even a "lone" looking guard is actually being watched by other guards.

Have harder "Riot" / "Elite" squads with (Very accurate) longbows and crossbows and uprated armour.

Higher alert means increased lighting, all chanderliers lit, and additional torches

[Major_Troubles]

I have a bit of a realism problem with some of your ideas. You can't do a lockdown gradually, linearly with the amount of stolen items. If the guards discover that there are items missing, they don't go lock one door. IF they take action, there will be a full lockdown.
Also, random patrols don't just pop up. Where do they come from? They can't radio for backup. There would be a general "red alert" throughout the building.

You could have something like 2 thresholds. First threshold: Every guard that is asleep in the guards' quarters wakes up and starts patroling, with all guards being alert / in combat mode. Second threshold: Lockdown.

But as a stealth player (ghosting player) it would be rather unsatisfactory to not be able to avoid all the ruckus when stealing the special loot items. Part of the fun is avoiding triggering the guards and scripted events take away some freedom.

"kill on sight" is the default setting of the guards.

[Silver_Snek]

I think something along the lines of if you get spotted you automatically lose. Like they send a message pigeon to the HQ and then the organization knows ur involved. Maybe a new enemy type? You might be able to shoot down the pigeon if you have very good aim?

Also you might want to add some timed events to make it even harder like "Find Thomas before he gets transfered" or something. (Even though I personally hate timed quests because I like taking my time finding everything and killing all the guards and it stresses me out)

[Portal Studios]

Hey Silver! Thanks for the comment.

Unknightly used be "lose on sight" when it launched (ages ago).
People actually reacted pretty negatively to that, so that's probably a dangerous path to go down.

Time limits are also tricky in stealth game. In fact I'd like Hard difficulty to force played to play more stealthfully and attentively so I fear introducing time limits will force players to take more risks and play recklessly.

Postat inițial de Silver_AG_Science:

I think something along the lines of if you get spotted you automatically lose. Like they send a message pigeon to the HQ and then the organization knows ur involved. ....

[Black Blade]

I think a lose on sight may be good for an extreme hard mode they got it in MGS as much as I recall (I was unable to pass the first part in the 3 trys that is all my time give me but I can see how some may enjoy it)
But even with the lose on sight I think it may be good if maybe there be a little tunnel vision for the guards to just help the player if its a little too hard to impossible as of simple tracking issues that can happen and stuff

BTW I am following this but yet to give feedback as I want to have a rerun with the game before I do sadly my VR space is messed up currently so can't really VR well for this

But I will give feedback and all after I get on it

[Portal Studios]

Postat inițial de Black Blade:

BTW I am following this but yet to give feedback as I want to have a rerun with the game before I do sadly my VR space is messed up currently so can't really VR well for this

But I will give feedback and all after I get on it :D:

Awesome - If you want to join in on the alpha as well be sure to contact me once your VR space is up and running :)

[Lightstorm66]

The guards, when alerted to a sound, merely turn around and mumble, "is someone there?" I could do that 3, 4, 5 times with the same effect (different phrase). Thief made you feel like, "Oh s*it, that guard heard me." Have the guards come off patrol after, say, 2 noises. They need to investigate, so that I need to go find shadow somewhere, not just wait for him to get close and stab him in the head.

Also, a no kill option would be VERY welcome, as that's how I play UK and Thief. A thief is not a badass. He stays in the shadows with his dinky dagger (I think the Assassin's Creed blade is overkill--WAY too easy to kill a guard by stabbing him in the head), knocking fools out and hiding their bodies.

Thief reboot, although it got panned, pretty much made it so that if a guard came after you, you're toast. I feel that's the way it should be.

I think what you're doing with UK is PHENOMENAL. I feel like I'm THERE. Being able to really crouch is fantastic. This is what Thief COULD have been, but the tech wasn't there. (I wonder if you're tired of all the Thief references--but after all, I think it is a compliment). UK is Thief on steroids...just needs to be harder for those hardcore fans that miss the series.

I haven't played in a while (work priorities) but am looking to dive back in soon. Keep up the GREAT work!

[Portal Studios]

Thanks for the feedback! You should consider joining in on the closed alpha and test out the new content and systems we have laid out there!

[terminal_]

I think you can take a look at what modern stealth games do around difficulty to get some ideas. I disagree with tying no kills/no detection to difficulty, I think those should be achievements. Dishonored and the new Hitman do this very well for encouraging replays.

Obviously difficulty is dependant on the mechanisms implemented in the game. The more mechanisms, the more parameters you can tweak for different difficulty levels. From my research it seems most games play with the following broad parameter groups:
- combat (enemy and player health/damage)
- detection (range, time to detect, light gem visibility threshold or equivalents)
- tools (less ammo/gadgets found in the world, less carry capacity)
- threats (some games limit special enemies or special enemy behaviors for higher difficulties - take a look at what Killing Floor 2 does in that regard, it basically adds special attacks and abilities for enemies when playing at higher difficulty levels)
- information available to player (some games have detection indicators only at lower difficulty levels for e.g.)

Also, apart from having clear difficulty levels, some modern games allow the player to tweak individual difficulty parameters themselves in order to tailor the experience. Take a look at Dishonored 2 custom difficulty and Ghost Recon Breakpoint post Immersive mode patch.

Sources:
https://hitman.fandom.com/wiki/Difficulty_Level
https://splintercell.fandom.com/wiki/Difficulty
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-24-heres-what-dishonored-2s-custom-difficulties-let-you-adjust
https://guides.gamepressure.com/thief/guide.asp?ID=23977
https://wiki.killingfloor2.com/index.php?title=Slasher#Behavior

[Shotoku]

How about "elite" guards, who have very rapid suspision meter, and always have helmets, semi randomised patrol paths ?

[Portal Studios]

Postat inițial de terminal_:

I think you can take a look at what modern stealth games do around difficulty to get some ideas. I disagree with tying no kills/no detection to difficulty, I think those should be achievements. Dishonored and the new Hitman do this very well for encouraging replays.

...

Thanks for the info and sources, am going to check them out!
I definitely agree with some of the concepts you've put forth.

As for randomizing paths etc., from what we've learned on our game and in general is that people don't appreciate randomness in stealth game and rather have predictability which gives them the ability to think and plan ahead.

[Major_Troubles]

Yes, one common tactic is to identify the weak spots in a guard's patrol route. If they move irregularly, a player has to take his/her chances instead carrying out a well-planned move. I can see some not liking that idea.

Postat inițial de terminal_:

I disagree with tying no kills/no detection to difficulty, I think those should be achievements.

I think those are kind of intertwined anyway. You have the restriction "no kills" on the highest difficulty level. You get the achievement "gentle-knight" (as in gentleman and gentle - no violence) upon finishing the game on the highest difficulty level.