So I think "master hero" is Difficulty 7 for AVWW

[Martyn van Buren]

I've been submitting a lot of complaints about things like health drops making the game a bit too easy lately, and it seems like some people have agreed --- so I just wanted to note that going up to "Master hero" difficulty seems to have fixed all of them for me.  I think Master hero now is about as hard as "hero" was a few months ago, which is about the right place for me and I suspect anyone else who isn't especially skilled but wants a decent challenge.  Anyway if you're like me and tend to go with default difficulty but are finding it a bit easy now, I suggest trying a notch up.

[x4000]

Oh, yeah -- that's a great observation.  I play exclusively at AI7 in AI War, and at Master Hero in AVWW.  And I balance both games for each of these difficulties primarily, with my own skill level bounded there and others falling on both sides.  In both cases, I actually balance so that it will be "comfortable, but interesting" for me at those levels.

[Martyn van Buren]

May I suggest communicating that in-game somehow?  AI War makes it pretty clear in the tutorial and the game lobby that you want to aim for playing at diff 7 eventually, and I think AVWW could use this.  I remember Jeff Vogel a while ago observing that players are remarkably resistant to raising the difficulty when they find the game too easy, and thinking about it I realize that I've been doing the same thing this last week.  In strategy games like AI War you think of every game as a new start and expect to move up the difficulty scale as you get better, but for whatever reason in platform/adventure games you feel kind of committed to the difficulty level and expect it to make itself harder for you as you move forward.

[keith.lamothe]

I remember Jeff Vogel a while ago observing that players are remarkably resistant to raising the difficulty when they find the game too easy

The article of his that I recall mentioned the resistance to lowering the difficulty if it was too hard, but it may have been about both

[Martyn van Buren]

Dude Jeff Vogel has an article about players refusing to do *everything*.  He is the anti-Arcen.

[x4000]

He predates us considerably.  I guess we're the anti-Vogel? 

But yeah, we'll have to think about a way to communicate that difficulty thing you mentioned -- that would be a good one for mantis if you don't mind.

[Martyn van Buren]

Will do.

[x4000]

I promise I won't close that one.

[Martyn van Buren]

Hey, I'm happy.  I won one today even after it was closed!

Thinking about it, I do think Vogel was really right about that --- now I think about it I think the only reason it occurred to me to try Master Hero was remembering that article of his.