Making the difficulties less granular

[zoutzakje]

I'm ok with the idea of just 10 difficulties, straight and simple. But what about the achievements? Dif 7 and dif 9 achievements have to be adjusted too or the new dif 9 will be impossible to beat for most players. 9/9 as it is is already at the edge.

[Kahuna]

There's nothing wrong with the current 17 difficulty levels. Removing ~half of them would just nerf the game and give the player less options.
Minor Factions having 10 difficulty levels and AIs 17 is not confusing at all. All the player has to do is to read the tool tips and boom problem solved.

New value <- Equivalent difficulty in the old values.
1<-1
2<-3
3<-5
4<-6
5<-7
6<-7.5
6.5<-7.75
7<-8
7.3<-8.3
7.6<-8.6
8<-9
8.3<-9.15
8.6<-9.3
9<-9.45
9.3<-9.6
9.6<-9.75
10<-10

This would be good.

[Mánagarmr]

There's nothing wrong with the current 17 difficulty levels. Removing ~half of them would just nerf the game and give the player less options.
Minor Factions having 10 difficulty levels and AIs 17 is not confusing at all. All the player has to do is to read the tool tips and boom problem solved.

It feels like you are speaking only out of your own experience. The system in itself is completely illogical for a newcomer, especially the difference in difficulty levels between AIs and minor factions.

Part of the problem is also that the AIs at levels 2-5 are rarely ever used because they're pretty much the same.

[Kahuna]

The system in itself is completely illogical for a newcomer, especially the difference in difficulty levels between AIs and minor factions.

If the newcomer can't read, yes. Those tooltips really tell everything the newcomer needs to know about difficulty levels.

Code: [Select]

set /A diff=7
title Newcomer
set /A me=ExperiencedRTSplayerButNewToAIWar
if %me%==ExperiencedRTSplayerButNewToAIWar (
   set /A diff=6
) else (
   set /A diff=4
)
Start Game


[Mánagarmr]

Yes, I can read too. My point is that it's unintuitive and you should never have to read tooltips that are a sixtillion miles long in order to figure out the difficulty system. That's my point. It's not unclear per se, but it's unintuitive.

[chemical_art]

I don't understand how this system is any more intuitive.

The old system is intuitive:

Find the intersection of your current difficulty level and AI Progress off the chart below. This is an abbreviated chart, of course: the non-integer AI Difficulties are ignored here, and only a few example AI Progress amounts are shown. If you want the exact number for your specific case, the formula for this step is as follows:

    For Difficulties less than 8: ( (AIProgress + modifier) * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty )
    For Difficulties 8 and above (on version 5.036 and later) : ( ( ( ( AIProgress + modifier) * 0.8 ) ^ 1.1 ) * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AI Difficulty )

The new system makes no logic in difficulty.

Don't get me wrong, having 9+ difficulty being broken up to more difficulties is nice for me, but it hinders, and doesn't help, new players as the difficulties don't increase in strength linearly.

Having a system where you can explictly find the strength is better then having no formula at all.

[Mánagarmr]

I'm no talking in code. I don't care what happens under the hood with the game. I'm talking about what I see in the interface when I start the game up. For us veterans, of course this isn't an issue! Many of us have been playing since before AI:War even had expansions.

But I'm thinking new players. And also a slight bit of OCD. This didn't really hit me until the new minor factions got their scales and they didn't even remotely correspond to the AI difficulty, in spite of having the exact same scale (1-10). Now it's confusing for anyone who doesn't sit down and meticously read the tooltips. And even then it's unintuitive.

[chemical_art]

I'm no talking in code. I don't care what happens under the hood with the game. I'm talking about what I see in the interface when I start the game up. For us veterans, of course this isn't an issue! Many of us have been playing since before AI:War even had expansions.

But I'm thinking new players. And also a slight bit of OCD. This didn't really hit me until the new minor factions got their scales and they didn't even remotely correspond to the AI difficulty, in spite of having the exact same scale (1-10). Now it's confusing for anyone who doesn't sit down and meticously read the tooltips. And even then it's unintuitive.

How does the interface get any better?

[Eternaly_Lost]

I'm no talking in code. I don't care what happens under the hood with the game. I'm talking about what I see in the interface when I start the game up. For us veterans, of course this isn't an issue! Many of us have been playing since before AI:War even had expansions.

But I'm thinking new players. And also a slight bit of OCD. This didn't really hit me until the new minor factions got their scales and they didn't even remotely correspond to the AI difficulty, in spite of having the exact same scale (1-10). Now it's confusing for anyone who doesn't sit down and meticously read the tooltips. And even then it's unintuitive.

You are aware that new players that know RTS, but are new to AI wars are suggested to start at 5?

They start right in the middle, and you might as well call it medium as that is what a lot of games would call it. Hard would be when the AI starts to bring out all it toys (Hey look, that would be 7) and Brutal is when it starts cheating or stops limiting it actions to human level of control (Hello 10)

If we look at it from a new player who does not bother to read the tool tips at all. Would look at the numbers, Pick 5 for the AIs as that would be medium and would set minor factions to 5.

Sure the expected for minor factions is 4, but that is putting them at the halfway point at 5, and is not that far off.

If anything, your change to the interface makes it worse for new players, as they will set it to the middle without reading the tool tips ([strike]7[/strike] 5 ) and get piled on by the AI and wiped out.

[Kahuna]

When I started AI War for the first time I didn't think the difficulty levels were confusing or unintuitive at all. Easy=easy and normal=normal. I decided to try normal. It was too hard and I tried "less easy".