Make hard mode be less grind mode and more challenge mode ?

[columini]

Hello everyone. It's my first time posting on the forums even though I've been playing the game since alpha but I really wanted to talk about this.

I've started a new game for 1.0 and I really enjoy it so far, but I find hard mode to be a bit too grindy. I think it would be more enjoyable if instead of nerfing the incomes hard mode would nerf the rocket parts.

Wouldn't it be better if parts were a little heavier, engines a little less efficient and/or powerful, atmospheric drags a little more powerful and parts a little less resistant to reentry ?

What I'm looking for when I play hard mode is not to have to do 10 easy missions instead of 1 to get the same amount of cash/science but rather to have to do 1 really difficult mission that would get me that cash/science.

Maybe we could even get greater rewards than in normal mode because there would be a higher failure rate on our flights.

What do you think about it ?

[Schmermin]

Like youself, I also have been playing ksp for quite a while. And I must say, I think hard mode is brilliant, just because it's such a challenge. I have started from scratch for the fifth time now. Went bankrupt, killed all pilots, had all pilots stuck in space somewhere, and other stupid things. I just like the fact that when you find out you did something really stupid with te design there's no turning back. Live with it. Design rockets with escape systems like spare parachutes. Try to think of what could go wrong in stead of actually having it go wrong and simply reverting to the design table.

I've given up a couple times already, only to start again the next day determined to be smarter this time.

I agree that sometimes you just need to do fairly simple stuff to make some money, but In my opinion, it's not that bad. I have designed a fool proof simple and reliable three-crew rocket to take ViP's around kerbin for quick cash, for example. Fast-forward into orbit and landing close to the space center to get 40-50k in about 5 minutes. Like a tour operator. And then back to serious stuff.

I see your post is 2 weeks old. Have you given up already, or are still playing?

[stibbons]

I'm not really a fan of the idea of having the same vessel perform differently depending on the difficulty level.

But I do agree hard mode can feel grindy. In 0.90 I found a reasonable compromise by starting with hard mode and cranking the rewards back up to 100%. Not playing Hard in 1.0, because I'm giving myself some breathing room adjusting to the new aerodynamics. But it could be worth tweaking.

[Empiro]

I think a big source of the problem is that the buildings are so expensive -- even on hard mode it's not that hard to earn money with every single mission, but with a building being 100x the cost of a rocket, a huge chunk of your overall earnings has to be directed toward that. This makes the game feel grindy -- you already have proven that you can launch satellites to a specific orbit, land on the Mun, rescue a Kerbal, and proven that you can earn money while doing it, but you have to keep doing it to earn enough money.

The second issue is much more subtle: it's that you spend money the same way you make money (i.e. you build rockets, which costs money, and use the rockets to do contracts, which makes money). You're either able to do that efficiently enough (which means that money quickly becomes not an issue, besides grinding away to upgrade buildings), or you can't, which means you'll quickly go bankrupt. There needs to be other rewards for success or failure that isn't tied to money.

For example (and this doesn't mean I think KSP ought to do this, but just an example of how to make things more interesting), you're given a set of missions and a specific budget. However, it's designed in a way such that it's nearly impossible to accomplish all of the missions on the budget (and difficulty determines the budget). However, accomplishing certain missions might reward you with bonus science. Other missions might give you reputation (which can be spent on things like hiring better Kerbals, etc.), and other missions might slightly increase your budget for future time periods. Other rewards might even be totally non-gameplay related, such as learning about how the Kerbol system formed, and learn interesting facts about the bodies in the system). This presents the players with a meaningful tradeoff, while letting them decide where to take their space program. After the time period passes, you get judged on how well you did, and even just getting a good grade is rewarding to the player.

[Wanderfound]

Hard mode is certainly grind mode. I play with FAR, TAC-LS, permadeath and no revert/quickload, but I leave all of the money/rep/science sliders on default. Having to launch fifty satellites in order to raise the funds to upgrade R&D isn't difficult, it's just tedious.

I agree that it would be a bad thing to change ship performance, though. I suspect that the best way to implement difficulty would be through the contract system. Reduce the number of easy contracts, bring on the "20 kerbal base landed on an asteroid, then moved to LKO" stuff earlier in the game.