Adjustable difficulty

[pangaea]

I've seen some people saying the game is too easy or too hard, so this is how I think it should work:

Beginner:

-Unlimited fuel

-More durable parts

-Mostly just so people can learn the basics of orbiting, landing, building, etc without yet having to worry about fuel as well as having a more forgiving landing system

Normal:

-The game as it is now

Expert:

-Not possible to get a good map of a planet until you get a few satillites in orbit around it; eg it will be hard to know whether or not your ship is headed for water on Eve until you actually get there if you don't have satillites

-Too much spinning or g-force can kill crew

-Must either set up a "space farm" or crew dies of hunger; finite supplies of food can be brought in crew capsules

-Limited budget and Kerbals, more can be gained either through waiting or by achievements such as successful landings or putting satellites into orbit.

Custom:

-ability to enable or disable various features from any of the three difficulties

Edited August 14, 2013 by pangaea

[Bilfr3d]

-please suggest more

I would probably suggest having a limited number of crew members, so if you continually die and you end up having no kerbalnauughts, it's an actual GAME OVER.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

The Developers have said, multiple times, they will not add a difficulty to KSP. Sorry for crushing the thread.

[Bilfr3d]

The Developers have said, multiple times, they will not add a difficulty to KSP. Sorry for crushing the thread.

Y U DO DIS!!!

My dreams are crushed now.......

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Welp, they were squishy. The dreams, that is.

[Beeman]

Instead of adding predefined difficulty levels, it'd be better for KSP to have various things you could toggle to set your own difficulty setting. Kinda like how ArmA does it. They've got like four presets for difficulty, but you can manually customize each. For that game, you can tweak things like HUD, enemy intelligence or accuracy and other such things.

For KSP there could be options like...I don't know, unlimited fuel or cash...or better yet, set a multiplier for the rate of income with something like .5x being playable but rather challenging but something like 5x being really easy and maybe 2x being the default(1x being comparable to NASA's budget in the sixties, perhaps). There could also be things like toggling life support, resources gained from mining, toggling or setting a multiplier for reentry heat/g-force damage to parts, having a toggle or multiplier for part connections. That way, everyone can set their own play experience without needing to hassle with mods(if mods for certain difficulty settings even exist for ksp1.0).

Would be good, methinks.

[pangaea]

Instead of adding predefined difficulty levels, it'd be better for KSP to have various things you could toggle to set your own difficulty setting. Kinda like how ArmA does it. They've got like four presets for difficulty, but you can manually customize each. For that game, you can tweak things like HUD, enemy intelligence or accuracy and other such things.

For KSP there could be options like...I don't know, unlimited fuel or cash...or better yet, set a multiplier for the rate of income with something like .5x being playable but rather challenging but something like 5x being really easy and maybe 2x being the default(1x being comparable to NASA's budget in the sixties, perhaps). There could also be things like toggling life support, resources gained from mining, toggling or setting a multiplier for reentry heat/g-force damage to parts, having a toggle or multiplier for part connections. That way, everyone can set their own play experience without needing to hassle with mods(if mods for certain difficulty settings even exist for ksp1.0).

Would be good, methinks.

Maybe the best thing would be to make those "preset" difficulties with those lists and let people check one box that selects them all and deselects everything in the other difficulties, but let people go in and check/uncheck various specific features. eg you could have unlimited fuel AND Kerbals who need to have farms or food resupply missions.

[wasabiguy]

In a game like KSP where the game runs on Newtonian physics, Difficulty is un needed, It is meant to be realistic by having limited fuel within conjunction Newtonian physics so you have to manage Delta-V.

In short. KSP difficulty is stupid and wrong

[Beeman]

If there's more than one person(or even just one) that wants it, a simple feature is never a bad idea, unless it's going to cost the the developers too much to make, which this most likely wouldn't. It could be something they add right near the end, just before KSP1.0 and it would add SO much to the game for some people.

As for what pangaea said, that's exactly what I was talking about because that's exactly how it works in ArmA. I can take my veteran difficulty level and add the crosshairs back or make the AI super dumb or do both or make it even harder by making the AI even more accurate. That's the type of customizable difficulty that would make sense for a game like KSP

[EmissionGeneration]

As said before, the DEVs have mentioned not adding a difficulty challenge into the Game, but from your list, alot of these can be done through Mods and Editing.

Beginner:

-Unlimited fuel -

[Alt+F12 will bring up the Debug Menu for Unlimited Fuel]

-More durable parts -

[All parts can be edited through the .cfg file]

Normal:

-The game as it is now -

[schweet!]

Expert:

-Not possible to get a good map of a planet until you get a few satillites in orbit around it; eg it will be hard to know whether or not your ship is headed for water on Eve until you actually get there if you don't have satillites -

[There is RemoteTech. Although it doesn't do what you are asking for, it does definitely add a challenge to the Game which Requires you to build up a Satelite Relay Network around anywhere you plan on Traveling to.]

-Too much spinning or g-force can kill crew -

[This is definitely something I would like in the Game, so I have no objections]

-Must either set up a "space farm" or crew dies of hunger; finite supplies of food can be brought in crew capsules -

[There is Ioncross Life Support System which Requires you Maintain and Supply all the goodies to keep your Kerbals from dying (again, I do recall the DEVs awhile ago talking about adding this into the Core Game)]

-Limited budget and Kerbals, more can be gained either through waiting or by achievements such as successful landings or putting satellites into orbit. -

Career Mode is close, and will provide this. Although the only way your Kerbals would be limited in it, is if you cannot afford to Hire anymore]

[Beeman]

Is the released game going to have the debug mode? Things like life support and remotetech are going to be added to the vanilla game via career mode, one way or another.

The point, though, is that simple functionality like toggling some features on and off...or changing multipliers for some things is a simple enough feature that it should be available in the vanilla game. Some people don't want to have to hassle with mods, but perhaps they don't like the way career mode plays all that much. They can either turn away from the game or, if they had the ability to customize various aspects of it(nothing too extreme, mind you), why shouldn't they have the ability to?

Like...I couldn't play vanilla Skyrim because it was bland and uninteresting compared to Morrowind or even Oblivion. But after tons of modding(which was a big hassle, by the way), I finally got it to a point where I like it. A lot of my problems with the game, though...and a lot of the mods I see for Skyrim could've been solved or alleviated with more in-depth options for setting things like...the rate at which you gain skills or the min/max level range of scaled enemies, toggling some of the high-tier equipment from spawning on enemies(for lore reasons), disabling fast travel, enabling hunger(to give food a purpose) and so on. Like...those things could've been tacked onto an additional configuration menu in the options at the very end of their development cycle or even added as a patch right after the game launched. I'm sure people would've even been willing to pay money for that as DLC(not saying SQUAD should do that for KSP, though >.> ).

[Kimberly]

I don't think unlimited fuel would be good for a beginner, anyhow. It allows you to ignore the very basics of how rockets work, and therefore inhibits learning. It's better to be faced with this core issue right away, so that you can y'know, actually learn how to play the game. Perhaps there are more complex challenges (e.g. life support) that could be suppressed based on difficulty, but at this stage the game doesn't have anything that I think could be stripped.

[Mr. Scruffy]

Possible difficulty settings:

- KSC at old location (non-equatorial)

- tilt of bodies (a parameter for all bodies - moons, planets...- to be implemented, which when this feature is disabled is uniformly set to 0° for all)

- Various causes for death of Kerbal (g-force, heat, live support?)

- Physical weather-effects

...

Instead of presets, i´d have each have a ´realism-rating-percentage´ - people who played subsims will know this: Turn everything on, and you get 100% realism, skip on an item rated with, say, 12%, and you will be playing at 88% ´realism´.

[EmissionGeneration]

Things like life support and remotetech are going to be added to the vanilla game via career mode, one way or another.

Well, Squad have spoken about Life Support, but as for something like RemoteTech, they havent mentioned. They have said though that they want to keep the Core Game as fun as it can be while still being interesting, so I don't see them putting something like RemoteTech in as it adds a depth to the Game that is more on the Realistic side of things rather than fun [even though it is a must have Mod].

why shouldn't they have the ability to?

Well I'm gonna be selfish here, but I'm sure there are many that agree.

I've been saying this Quote for years on Forums for many Games. "Why shouldn't we have the option to make Games a challenge?" Most DEVs will focus on Gameplay that requires the Player to do no thinking for themselves to get past a level or what not. Throwing in Waypoints that you can't turn off, Real Event Action Keys [what ever the abominations are called], no need to watch your Health bars cause it's all regenerated at a fast rate, way to many Items / Ammo scattered through levels so you never run out [many Games have completely removed Ammo all together], and the list goes on.

I'll use Take on Mars as the latest Example that I've encountered [and I've rambled to them aswell]. It has so much potential with it's Concept, but if they stick to the way their Career Mode is at the moment, I forsee that Game only being played for a Modded Version only. I understand that it is only an Alpha, but the Game gives you no Freedom, no thought, and basically, no Science for your own rewards at the end. You have to go to a Waypoint [spot on it, not within a certain area, if your not right ontop of it, then you cannot continue the Mission], you need to take exactly the Photo's they make you take [not just of the area that the Mission Description says], and Analyze the Rocks they make you [not in the Area the Mission Description says]. All of these are covered with Markers for you to follow, and in my oppinion, thats not what a "Science Simulation" should be about.

It just feels like Games are playing you, rather than you playing the Game. So basically, my point to all of this Ramble is, I understand that KSP can be a tough learning curve for some people, but I very much enjoy the fact that Squad is trying to bring Gaming back to where it used to be, where the Player had to Play the Game, and actually put some thought into their accomplishments. At the end of the day though, if people would struggle doing a Career Mode with just starting out, then the Sandbox can be used how ever people wish to learn what ever they wish.

[Beeman]

The thing is, though...these difficulty options apply to both ends of the spectrum. Literally everyone wins. If you want the game to be harder, you can ramp up some of the settings, give yourself lower income per mission or increased fuel consuption/weight with slightly weaker part connections or more of a chance of micrometeorites breaking your solar panels or stations/bases requiring more frequent maintenance. This isn't only catering to people who want the game to be easier. The original post explicitly mentions that people think the game is too easy as is and would like to add more challenge.

That's the mindset of my stance on the topic, some people want the game to be harder...some will want it to be easier. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch for them to implement toggles or multipliers for certain mechanics in a realism/difficulty menu in the options. Purist vanilla types can play using the defaults, people who want more challenge(even after playing default or easy for a while) can increase the difficulty of some aspects while people who don't really care to worry about fuel or what-not can ignore those features without being limited exclusively to sandbox mode(some people just like structure but not challenge). Pretty much everyone wins, there's only benefits to adding this type of thing with the only detriment being an extra month, give or take, of development time right at the end of their cycle(or whenever they would get around to it).

As for RT implementation into the vanilla game...I can't say that they'll have actual communication between parts remotely or that they'll make the RT mod obsolete...but you will undoubtedly get missions that lead to constellations of satellites. I mean, they said career mode isn't going to be like...do this series of linear missions then win the game and you're basically in sandbox mode now. It's going to be like...you do what you want and the game generates missions(or just gives you predefined missions) based on things you've been doing. Research will happen based on things you do as well. So you'll probably have all kinds of missions where you're placing satellites, stations, bases and probes...which is essentially what RT leads to, except the mod requires those satellites, the vanilla game might not.

But like I've been saying, adding tweakable difficulty/realism parameters is a win-win addition. I can't think of a single person who wouldn't benefit from it.

[EmissionGeneration]

The thing with KSP though, is it's not about Difficulty, it's about Creativity. So if people are saying the Game is too easy, well I guess that just means they are not thinking outside of the Square and pushing their own limits and just want the Game to do it for them instead. Everyone has the ability to up the Challenge in this Game, but it's up to them to Challenge their knowledge and understanding of the Mechanics. That's what KSP is about, creating your own Difficulty.

I would understand if Life Support in the Core Game had a option to enable and disable [in Sandbox], and what other new Features they add [maybe like Re-entry Damage], but Unlimited Fuel [or less], Crash Damage [Higher or Lower], ect ect ect, is already changeable in the Game files, which is very simple to do. Mods are another thing that can change the Difficulty for both sides of the party [and yes not everyone likes Mods, and this includes myself, until I tried them in KSP and found how easy and hassle free they were], aswell as the Debug Menu, which I'm guessing will stay on the final Version in Sandbox Mode, but not Career.

I think though it is way to early still to say things aren't challenging enough, because it's a Alpha, and who's to say what Features will end up in the Final Version.

[Ittiz]

I see a lot of people say "there should be no difficulty setting". Well compared to our system and planet KSP is a cake walk. Kerbin has parameters much like Mars. For Earth you need to be going at almost 10kps at 120km altitude to get in to orbit. Kerbin is only about 2 at 70km altitude. The moon is around 30 times the distance from Earth as the Mun is from Kerbin, even Minmus is 10 times closer than our moon. Even the Kerbin system is much smaller than ours, more like red dwarf sized system. Eloo the most distant planet in the Kerbin system has an orbit that would put it between Venus and Earth in our system.

That being said I think difficulty should be set by these parameters. The current settings should be the "easy" mode. Kirbin is about as small as you can get for a living (natural) planet. Medium should be a Planet and system some where between Kirbin's and our's. Hard should be an Earth like system. Finally I think there should be an Ultra Hard with the largest possible (theoretically) living Planet at about twice Earth's size. Each setting the gravity of the home world should approximately double.

It's worth noting that Earth has so much gravity that getting into space using a chemical rocket is just barely possible. So the only thing that could achieve orbit in Ultra Hard would be space planes (probably multistage) and nuclear rockets.

I think that the harder the modes get the more interesting the systems should be. Alternatively they could just use the same system design and just increase the sizes, distances and gravities. That would be the most simplistic way of doing it.

[stupid_chris]

As mentioned just above, you can already set the difficulty of the game yourself. The devs are against creating different difficulty selectors, and have instead left tools to customize the game to what you want. The debug menu has plenty of tools to make your game much easier, such as hack gravity, unbreakable joints and infinite fuel. Then to make it harder, there's a lot of mods that can do the job for you.

Since this can already be done and that actual difficulty selectors won't be in the game, better close this now.