pdesrivieres@yahoo.com

Join Date 12/2005

+14

Dynamic Game Difficulty Level

Adding Support for Changing the Game Difficulty Level During the Game

There have been several posts that the game difficulty level "Crippling" is too easy and "Masochistic" is too hard. At the higher levels, you start the game out way behind the AI players. A decent human player does a much better job of growing his/her economy, developing his/her planets, researching and trading tech., etc., than the AI. So if the human player can avoid getting crushed in the early game, he/she will eventually surpass the AI and find the mid-late game easy. But what if the difficulty level of the AI increased over the course of a game to keep things more interesting.

For example, a game could be setup to start at level "Painful" and increase one level every year, up to a maximum of level "Suicidal".

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This is suggested occaisonally, but not nearly often enough. I think it'd be about the best thing they could add to the game, especially if they put in an even better AI (300% plus the Suicidal bonuses, perhaps?) to give you a good run in the endgame. I'd love to have a game with "Intelligent" AI for the first few years and "Suicidal +1" AI & bonuses for the end.

So, bumpity bump for the best feature I think they could possibly add...

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I'd love to have a game with "Intelligent" AI for the first few years and "Suicidal +1" AI & bonuses for the end.

I was thinking of a more gradual change in difficulty rather than jumping from "Tough" to "Suicidal".

I don't think it would be difficult to implement. It would involve some UI changes to the game setup for selecting the starting level, maximum level, and how many turns between increments. As for Metaverse scoring, the game's average difficulty level could be used.

Paul D.

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I'm bumping my post so that more players see it and comment on it. This would make the mid/late game mop up more challenging and hence interesting.

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Agreed. By the end of the game you are either in the hole or the game is in the bag....which I guess would be the reason it's called 'the end'

But it would be nice to see a gradual increase in difficulty or something along the way against the AI.

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I don't think it would be difficult to implement. It would involve some UI changes to the game setup for selecting the starting level, maximum level, and how many turns between increments. As for Metaverse scoring, the game's average difficulty level could be used.

Yay for bumps of great topics!

Let's see, something to say... Something to say...
How about giving the following fields, which would allow a very flexible system:
1)Year increases start
2)Rate of increase
3)Maximum difficulty level

So you could give yourself +1 difficulty every year, or you could give yourself +1 difficulty one time a certain number of years in, or you could make the difficulty jump once per week five years in, or you could (if a newbie) start at Cakewalk and get to Tough within a few years, etc.

You wouldn't need a new field for starting difficulty, naturally--we already have that.

As for Metaverse scoring, I would suggest going the harsh route so as to totally prevent abuse: The lowest difficulty level seen during the game is what determines the score for the whole game. You want a better score, don't start at a low level!

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MarvinKosh

Join Date 08/2005

+87

Any chance we can have a setting to have the improved AI of the later levels come in but not give them any additional economic cheats? I feel that a sudden economic shift late in the game would effectively pull the rug out from under the human player when they've gained the upper hand through determined struggle.

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I think this is a very interesting idea. I would also like to be able to set the AIs handicap more precisely -- like by 1% increments -- and in more than just 1 setting -- like seperate sliders for MP,SP,Economy,and research.

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As for Metaverse scoring, I would suggest going the harsh route so as to totally prevent abuse: The lowest difficulty level seen during the game is what determines the score for the whole game. You want a better score, don't start at a low level!

I disagree. I think it should use the average difficulty level. I game that starts on level Crippling and finishes on level Suicidal is more difficult than a game that is at level Crippling the entire time. In computing the average it shouldn't just take the average of the starting and maximum levels as the maximum level might never be reached or most of the game might be played at that level. It should take the sum of the # of turns played at a given level times that level, divided by the total # of turns in the game. For example, if 50 turns are played at Crippling, 50 at Masochistic, 50 at Obscene, and 25 at Suicidal, we get (9 * 50 + 10 * 50 + 11 * 50 + 12 * 25) / 175 = 10.286; if we need to round off to the nearest we get Masochistic.

Also, the progression in difficulty levels is not uniform. After easily defeating the AI on Tough in the campaign I wanted to play my first Metaverse game at a harder level. I thought on Crippling the AI got a 125% bonus (i.e., runs at 225%) and thus then figured at Painful it got a bonus between 50-75%. I was disappointed that at Painful the AI only gets a 5% bonus (i.e., it runs at 105%), on Crippling the AI gets a 25% bonus (i.e., runs at 125%), and on Masochistic gets a 100% bonus (i.e., runs at 200%)! As a result my game on Painful was far to easy; I'm currently playing my second on Masochistic. It would be better to have levels where the AI gets a bonus of 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, and 150% (i.e., runs at 125%, 150%, 175%, 200%, and 250%). There is too small a difference between Tough and Painful and too large a difference between Crippling and Masochistic!

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Any chance of Dynamic Game Difficulty Level in Dark Avatar?

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