Review question regarding difficulty

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Trantor
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Review question regarding difficulty

Post by Trantor »

I have always been a big supporter of reviews and vow to write more of them. My question about reviews is the category "difficulty". What's your opinion about how this category should be rated? To me, a high difficulty rating means that the difficulty is very well balanced and the dungeon gets harder and harder as it goes on. As a simple example, DM would get a very high rating from me in that category as it gets slightly harder from level to level, while CSB would get a rather low score, since it starts hard and has some easy and some hard spots all over the place. But I think some people could confuse this, with a high difficulty rating meaning a very difficult dungeon. These people would give Conflux a very high rating, while mine would be only moderate since I think it is a bit too hard in the beginning.

So, what is your opinion on this? Does a high difficulty rating equal a balanced dungeon, or is it rather an indicator for the general difficulty?
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beowuuf
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Post by beowuuf »

Yes, I do think you are creating a very confusing situation doing it this way, it doens't seem logical to me that way aorund, although I understand what you mean, just difficulty is not the place for it.

Most people only care about difficulty in regards to their playing ability. A hard dungeon like CSB with too steep a learnign curve for a beginner, playing it would be stupid if they wanted a fun distraction for an hour at a time. An easy dungeon by a beginner might be too simple for a hardcore player vice versa.

A well made dungeon doens't have to have a ramp of difficulty, but it's usualyl a good thing - I think this aspect would be in the overall score, and you would specifically mention it in your review verbally
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George Gilbert
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Post by George Gilbert »

I agree with Beowuuf.

I think to most people the term "difficulty" relates to the amount of skill required by the human player to complete it. DM would therefore be low, CSB medium and Conflux hard.

What I think you are referring to is how the difficulty varies whilst you're playing the dungeon. For example, how much skill is required by the player to start with, during the middle of the game and towards the end. In particular, this concept is independent of the absolute difficulty, it is merely a reflection on the relative difficulty of any given part compared to any other part within the same game.

Under that definition, DM is pretty smooth (the skill required to fight the rock piles, rats, scorpions and dragon are all pretty much the same because your characters will be of an appropriate level when you reach them) whereas CSB is more "lumpy". Conflux could be regarded as being more "downhill" (i.e. starts off very hard, but then gets easier).

I don't think such a concept can be described by a single number; as Beowuuf suggests, doing it in text as part of the description seems to be a sensible way forward.
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Trantor
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Post by Trantor »

I agree that there should be a describing part in the text on the difficulty, and I suppose your way of seeing things make more sense. After all, a number to indicate the difficulty makes the most sense as "high number - difficult, low number - easy". The problem I have with this is that the it makes the review feel inconsistent in my mind. In all other categories, the number given indicates what the reviewer thinks of the quality of the dungon in that aspect, while the number in the "difficulty" aspect has no meaning on quality. All in all, I think the practicability wins over the inconsistency, and I will write future reviews with that in mind.

Thanks for your thought.
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beowuuf
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Post by beowuuf »

Well, it is not a quality rating, no one can say if difficulty is a good or bad thing, new players will hate it, regulars will perhaps like it, those with alot of time, new or old, may like it, experienced players just wishing a five minute game will hate it - there's no quality.

A 'consistency' rating is what you are looking for to denote, amoung other thigns, this difficulty progression. Feel free to include this number too in your review as a quality award
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Post by Gambit37 »

Yes, I agree -- your earlier "difficulty" setting doesn't really make sense Trantor, "consistency" or "balance" would be better for your explanation, though I think that's already covered by the existing categories, isn't it?
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