General Zelda Optimum Difficulty

[ihateghirahim]

People are always complaining about how easy Zelda has gotten. I wonder what difficulty level you want? How might it be implemented? What game best reflects this level of difficulty?

 

[Ventus]

Firstly, let's rule out difficulty levels. That's too easy of an argument, and one that isn't likely to be implemented unless the game is THAT GOOD (i.e. OoT ) ;p

Secondly, this is many things. Difficulty isn't just how easy foes are to dispatch. It's also endurance. It's also puzzle depth, and puzzle frequency. It involves shortcuts or lack thereof. etc.
I'll leave Legend of Zelda as optimal difficulty until i get my thoughts together.

 

[DarkestLink]

Intelligent enemies with low attack power. The casuals and non-gamers can get through the difficult game by Link's endurance and the hardcore gamers can challenge themselves. And it can also give newbies a chance to improve themselves...sorta like training wheels, I guess.

 

[Egregious]

Let's not rule out difficulty levels though! Sometimes a simple answer can be a good one. In my personal opinion, the optimum difficulty is a variable difficulty. I don't know anything about programming, but I can't imagine it would be THAT astoundingly complicated to implement a simple difficulty system like this one:

Normal: Enemies/Traps do 1x Damage, Enemies have 1x health
Difficult: Enemies/Traps do 2x Damage, Enemies have 2x health
Die in a Fire: Enemies/Traps do 5x Damage, Enemies have 5x health

That would allow people to have the option to, well, die in a fire... if that's how they want their Zelda experience to be.

In addition, enemies should get progressively more difficult throughout the game. I think that if the player has access to fairies and 15+ heart containers by a certain point in the game, it's fair game for enemies to do several hearts of damage per hit.

As others in this thread have pointed out, there are more factors to difficulty than just enemy strength. As for puzzle difficulty, it's really hard to quantify how difficult it is. Some puzzles are instantly obvious, while others take a long time - and which puzzles are difficult vary from person to person. I would say that the current puzzle difficulty is probably about right for the population that buys and plays Legend of Zelda games. Would I personally like more difficulty? Sure.

I think given the ubiquity of internet walkthroughs, it wouldn't hurt to have more difficult puzzles. The people who want to challenge themselves by avoiding walkthroughs could still do so, while those who are having a harder time and don't want to spend forever solving one puzzle can look up answers or consult an in-game resource for hints. But again, difficulty of a puzzle is mostly subjective, so it's hard to say what is really a proper difficulty. I'll leave that issue to those who are more equipped to address it.

Another change that should be made would be to steer away from the Fi model of guide/player interaction. There is a 94% chance that Fi's repetition of the dialogue content immediately after it has been told to the player is asinine. The text of the game should make it reasonably clear (or even a little vague!) what you have to do, but with an option to "talk to [insert guide/fairy name]" if you forgot, missed it the first time, or are generally clueless.

 

[DarkestLink]

I don't see the point in difficulty levels if it's based on damage...if damage is all it takes to win you over then you already have "difficulty settings" with 3 heart challenges.

 

[tketle]

A Link to the Past nailed it in my opinion.

The enemies moved quickly and unpredictably, there were many of them, and they got tougher as the game went on. The dungeons, while not featuring remarkably complicated puzzles, were designed in a very labyrinth-like fashion (I have yet to go through the Ice Palace without visiting each room a million times). And best of all, extremely limited hand-holding.

All the while you're able to rack up the heart containers, upgrade your equipment, and it's pretty easy to familiarize yourself with the overworld, which wonderfully balances everything.

For 3D games, Skyward Sword was a good start; all they need to do is provide more enemy diversity, bring the starting health back down to three hearts, create a sufficient difficulty curve (I'm talking three or four hearts per hit in the later dungeons), and get more creative with dungeon-item puzzles. Oh, and do the exact opposite of what they did with Fi.

 

[r2d93]

Either Link's Awakening or A Link to the Past were the best difficulty.

1. I don't want my hand to be held and lead directly where to go. At least make it somewhat of a mystery

2. Field enemies can be easy but bosses/minibosses should have semistrong attacks and think/ act quickly

3. Puzzles have been pretty steady IMO. Challenging but not enough to hurt your brain

 

[Spirit]

Implement an AoL level system, gain new attacks etc the higher your level is which is earned by attacking and defeating enemies, but then this very same exp is lost if you get punished or defeated.

thus its an in-game difficulty setting, if you want an easy time then attack the enemies, if you want the game to be a little harder then dont accost any enemies and the bosses and heavier later enemies will give you runs for your rupees. I think this is the best thing Zelda could do in terms of becoming more difficult.