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General Zelda How Would You Incease Difficulty?

ihateghirahim

The Fierce Deity
Joined
Jan 16, 2013
Location
Inside the Moon
The Zelda franchise has gotten a lot easier over the years, and while Zelda II was way too hard; SS feels way too easy. Please tell us how you would increase difficulty. Would it come through harder dungeons, more enemies, less hearts, or some other way?
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
First of all, three hearts to start. Not that six heart madness.

Second, increase battle speeds. As a whole, Zelda battles are too slow for me. Whether it comes from the smoothness of 60FPS gaming or the innate battle speeds of JRPGs are just faster than typical Zelda fare, I play faster games and that speed makes things harder.

Dungeons would have to stop being so forgiving. Enough with the checkpoints*. Back in my day, when I saved I didn't have a checkpoint.

Make us actually have to explore to get where we need to.

Have difficulty spikes; enemies that are quick and can deal a lot of damage. Just because something deals a lot of damage does not mean it has to be offset by horrible speed. If Link can OMA, enemies should be able to as well.

Have a diverse range of enemy battle styles. There can be automated foes, foes that follow your movements (like Dark Link), counter-based foes, and many more. :I

*Farore's Wind is different.
 

MW7

Joined
Jun 22, 2011
Location
Ohio
I would make the games much more mentally challenging in terms of puzzles and dungeons. I would make the dungeons less linear with a central puzzle so that you have to focus on the big picture rather than just on the puzzle in front of you. What I am talking about are dungeons like the Water Temple, Stone Tower Temple, Sandship, and Sky Keep. What these dungeons have in common is a global puzzle mechanic that affects a large portion of or the entire dungeon. I would also add more kinds of puzzles. For instance logic puzzles and other kinds of puzzles that are commonplace in Professor Layton games could be adapted to Zelda games. One possibility is that boss keys could require a tough puzzle to be solved rather than a mini-boss. I'm all for the games being more puzzle heavy, but it's extremely important that the puzzles actually be challenging.
 

Mellow Ezlo

Spoony Bard
Joined
Dec 2, 2012
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eh?
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Slothkin
Definitely make enemies more difficult to kill. Give them more health, increase their attack damage, more puzzle based enemies, enemies with unavoidable attacks. Oh, and, that thing Skyward Sword did. You know, improved enemy AI.

Also, I would put more difficult puzzles not only in the dungeons, but outside as well. Maybe make a puzzle the key into more dungeons. Maybe make more puzzles as boss keys. Recent games have been slightly lacking in the puzzle aspect, so future games should really improve upon it.

Also, make the games less linear. Zelda is not a platformer, so the incredible linearity that was put in the most recent games lowered the difficulty by a ton. Not only are the dungeons too linear, but the games force players to take one specific path to complete the game. Older titles did not do this. What I mean is that dungeons in some of the old games could be completed in an order not intended by the developers. Recent Zelda games are very limited on this aspect, and it makes the games that much easier.
 

The Jade Fist

Kung Fu Master
Joined
Jul 17, 2012
Definitely make enemies more difficult to kill. Give them more health, increase their attack damage, more puzzle based enemies, enemies with unavoidable attacks. Oh, and, that thing Skyward Sword did. You know, improved enemy AI.

Also, I would put more difficult puzzles not only in the dungeons, but outside as well. Maybe make a puzzle the key into more dungeons. Maybe make more puzzles as boss keys. Recent games have been slightly lacking in the puzzle aspect, so future games should really improve upon it.

Also, make the games less linear. Zelda is not a platformer, so the incredible linearity that was put in the most recent games lowered the difficulty by a ton. Not only are the dungeons too linear, but the games force players to take one specific path to complete the game. Older titles did not do this. What I mean is that dungeons in some of the old games could be completed in an order not intended by the developers. Recent Zelda games are very limited on this aspect, and it makes the games that much easier.

I disagree with that.

Challenge still needs to be fair, with punishment for sucking, and reward for doing well. Simply taking damage isn't really challenging as much as it is just simply punishing you for nothing you did wrong.

Difficult to avoid would be another thing, such as perfectly timed jumping, would how ever be completely fair. If they get hit, it needs to be their fault.

The player needs to be able to have the potential to out skill the enemy, that said doesn't mean it has to be an easy option.
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
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Akkala
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Hylian Champion
Challenge still needs to be fair, with punishment for sucking, and reward for doing well. Simply taking damage isn't really challenging as much as it is just simply punishing you for nothing you did wrong.

I completely disagree. Fairness is a joke. Take Guild Wars Factions for example. In it, there's an Elite Mission called "The Deep". Trust me, this mission is anything BUT fair. In one room particularly, there's an ongoing effect called Aspect of Pain, which gives every character -2 health degenation and 20% less maximum health. It's ongoing while you're in that room. And guess what else? It's completely unavoidable. There are other annoying rooms, such as the Scorpion Aspect room which teleports you to the nearest foe and knocks you down...but Pain is likely the worst one next to Kanaxai's room o_O

My point is that, unfairness is a legitimate part of challenge. And unfairness is nothing new to gaming, nor is it new to Zelda. Counteracting unfairness is what gives players that sense of relief, and that sense of enjoyment.
Kanaxai.jpg
 

DarkestLink

Darkest of all Dark Links
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
I wouldn't. I'd change the way difficulty is handled, but I wouldn't increase it. This game is for casuals and difficulty is at an appropriate level for them. All I'd do is increase the AI but lower the damage. Anyone who wants to self "challenge" themselves with 3 hearts can have at it. But the audience this series was made for doesn't want to be overly challenged and as such, when it comes to combat, they should be able to beat it without too much trouble.

If we alienate the audience this series is made for, it will die.
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
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Akkala
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Hylian Champion
But the audience this series was made for doesn't want to be overly challenged and as such, when it comes to combat, they should be able to beat it without too much trouble.

The core player which, at the time, was practically everyone with a gaming machine. Everyone wants to be challenged. A sizable amount want to be OVERLY challenged. Q_Q
 

Musicfan

the shadow mage
Joined
Mar 6, 2011
Location
insanity
-Less linearity
-More complex combat
-More difficult puzzles
-Start out with 3 hearts
-Magic
6 hearts could be arguably more difficult because you start out with more of a cushion but giving you that cushion makes it harder giving you less chance to improve you health. It gives them a chance to increase damage. I think they should increase the aggressiveness of the enemies 10 fold. They should make use of every Item that is available to you and give you branching paths in dungeons based on the items you collected. If you have a bow you can solve a puzzle. Maybe force you out of a dungeon or have multiple Items in a dungeon and only access one or another based on what you collected.
 

67ghost

no you're not
Joined
Jul 21, 2011
Hard mode with one heart only and armor and invincibility optional better ai for monsters mindboggling puzzles
 

DarkestLink

Darkest of all Dark Links
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
The core player which, at the time, was practically everyone with a gaming machine.

What time are you referring to?

Everyone wants to be challenged.

Not true. If gamers wanted to be challenged, they wouldn't be sitting next to their computer 24/7 reading the strategy guide while playing. Casuals do not want to be challenged. In fact, they are liable to rage quit over a single Game Over. I've even personally seen a few refuse to continue because they're worried they MIGHT be challenged.
 

CynicalSquid

Swag Master General
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The End
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Apache Helicopter
6 hearts could be arguably more difficult because you start out with more of a cushion but giving you that cushion makes it harder giving you less chance to improve you health. It gives them a chance to increase damage.

The only game that had 6 hearts to start with didn't do that though. ;)
 

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