Lately, I started to shy away from the difficulty level system and I have become a big proponent of auto balancing systems for the following reasons. Firstly, as mentioned above it can be difficult to create a series of difficulty levels, not to mention that players often have a different idea of what is difficult. Secondly, I detest saving and reloading in scenarios. There is nothing more frustrating then playing a fixed force scenario, only to learn later on through the scenario that those three archers you lost four battles were necessary to win the current battle. So in order to keep going you need to load up a previous save game and replay a large swath of the scenario that you just played. Lastly, I find that auto balancing systems can create more believable battles. In my flag control scenario for Empires, Halfaya Pass, I constructed an auto balancing system that determined the aggressiveness of the enemy and the frequency of enemy reinforcements based on how many flags you controlled. The result, if the enemy controlled the majority of the flags, it would back off, giving you room to rebuild your forces. On the other hand, if you controlled the majority of the flags the enemy would become more aggressive sending more units your way, more frequently in an attempt to turn the tide of the scenario.
Unfortunately, auto balancing tends to be unique to the editors with powerful trigger systems. While it might be entirely possible to create an auto balancing system in AoK/AoM/AoE3 it could conceivably take several hundred triggers. The flexibility and power of the Empire Earth, Empires and by that extension the Rise and Fall editor can let designers create fairly complicated balancing systems without having to create an obscene amount of triggers.
What do you prefer, the difficulty level system or the auto-balancing system? If you have never tried constructing an auto balancing system for a scenario do you think you might attempt one for Rise and Fall?
Discuss
| EE: | | Europe Under Fire (rate me) | |Day of Defeat (rate me) | | Stalingrad (4.8) | | DMDT (4.8) |
| AoM: | | Europe Under Fire 2 (4.8) |
| Empires: | | Europe Under Fire 3 (4.8) | | The Siege of Vienna (4.6) | | Halfaya Pass (4.6) | | 1837 – 1947 (4.8) | | A City on the Hill (4.4) |
[This message has been edited by Intrepid (edited 10-16-2005 @ 07:07 PM).]