First impression concern

[Pepisolo]

One thing that always bothers me when I fire up SC is the sheer amount of difficulty settings. I just find it a little overwhelming even now. I mean, 4 each of easy, medium, hard, and expert. So many that you even have to scroll down to see them all? For a new player this is like a wall of complexity hitting you right in the face. If this game was intended to be incredibly complicated and hardcore then fine, but it's not. It's meant to be midcore and accessible.

I think this initial difficulty settings screen needs to be trimmed down to Tutorial/Sandbox/Easy/Medium/Hard/Expert/Custom. Custom would then allow access to all the other little tweaks like Woe frequency etc.

Actually, I don't think I need to post much more, this kind of sums things up. Any thoughts?

[x4000]

I think that the more boxes you have, the more overwhelming it gets, personally.  I hate hate hate how complex the AI War lobby is, when it's for a midcore game.  It's fine for AI War, but when we start splitting things out that's where this heads.  The AI War lobby once only had like 10 settings, but now it has what feels like 80+ (whether or not that is actually true I don't know, as I've not counted it).

In terms of having a lot of difficulty options, the core thing is: is this so overwhelming that someone new is not going to try it?  I think the answer is no, because it starts them on tutorial and they then just play that first.  If they aren't inclined to do that, they probably aren't midcore gamers.

Once they've played the tutorial, they're much more acclimated to the game and the list of long difficulty options shouldn't bother them.  But as it stands, all those extra options are all hidden inside one difficulty dropdown.

I'll be curious as to the thoughts of others, as I'm obviously too close to it to be of much use in evaluating it.  But that has been my thinking.

[Pepisolo]

I think that the more boxes you have, the more overwhelming it gets, personally.  I hate hate hate how complex the AI War lobby is, when it's for a midcore game.  It's fine for AI War, but when we start splitting things out that's where this heads.  The AI War lobby once only had like 10 settings, but now it has what feels like 80+ (whether or not that is actually true I don't know, as I've not counted it).

Haven't gotten into AIWar yet, but surely this increase in settings is because you keep adding options or it has much higher granularity in what you can tweak. Wouldn't a SC with those added options be even worse. Maybe the difficulty menu would increase from its current of 16+ to 32+ or even more. Maybe you will want to add more options to SC.

In terms of having a lot of difficulty options, the core thing is: is this so overwhelming that someone new is not going to try it?  I think the answer is no, because it starts them on tutorial and they then just play that first.  If they aren't inclined to do that, they probably aren't midcore gamers.

They may still try it, but upon completion of the tutorial that doesn't automatically mean that the player is going to be savvy in regards what the other difficulty modes offer them. I've played quite a few games and I still look at the difficulty options and think "..uh.". I've played down my strategy leanings, but I'm not a complete newb, I'm a bit of a Romance of the Three Kingdoms aficionado. Don't also forget how it is going to look on Let's Plays. Once a Let's Player gets to that difficulty selector some viewers are going to see the complexity and deem the game far more complex than it actually is.

Once they've played the tutorial, they're much more acclimated to the game and the list of long difficulty options shouldn't bother them.

Still bothers me. I'm sure it doesn't bother others. Just giving my honest personal opinion.

I'll be curious as to the thoughts of others, as I'm obviously too close to it to be of much use in evaluating it.  But that has been my thinking.

Yes, it'd be great to see what opinion others hold.

[Mick]

I think one problem with the difficulty system as written is that it somewhat of a step function. The difference between medium 2-> medium 3 is going to be very different from the difference between medium 4 -> hard 1.

It's also a bit weird because going from medium 1 to medium 4 makes the game difficult in a way that jumping straight from medium 1 to hard 1 does not.

[x4000]

All right, these are fair enough points.  I'll have to think on this some.