Suggestion Remove 1-star limit on easier difficulties

I posted this on the Discord, but decided to put it here as well to ensure it was seen by the devs. I'd love it if the one-star limit for playing on easier modes was removed. I love turn-based strategy games, but have a cognitive issue which makes playing these types of games one the regular difficulty practically impossible and, in Wargroove's case, it feels like I'm being punished for something that's outside of my control.

Normally I wouldn't care about something like a mission rating, but in this case it really sucks because stars are needed to unlock the various extras. I understand there's an achievement in the Steam version for getting all three stars in all the campaign missions, but perhaps you can change it so that reducing the difficulty specifically locks out the achievement while not limiting the star rating?

Actually, that might take a ton of work since you'd need to track which difficulty was played on each mission, and display that information to the player so they can know which missions are preventing the achievement from unlocking. Perhaps all that's needed is a way to unlock the extras without stars. Have stars be there purely as a bragging rights/achievement kind of thing, with extras being made available as one completes campaign missions?

Or, perhaps even better/easier to implement: a cheat code that can be entered into the options menu that unlocks all extras. That way, people who want to unlock the content the "intended" way can do so, while those of us who can't still have a way to access the content?

Please consider this.

 

I'm really no expert regarding serious incapabilities, but could you explain more the nature of your cognitive issues? (you don't have to go into detail)
I would assume that a turn-based strategy game, where you can take your time and there is no execution-heavy input, shouldn't pose any problem. At least it looks to me like, if its possible for you to play the game then it should be possible to play the the same way as everyone else making smart and not so smart moves as well.

I can tell you something, there are several mission where I really have not the slightest clue, if I ever obtain 3-stars. Most of the time I end up getting only one star, the same amount you would get when you reduce the difficulty to whatever intensity. I actually thought that it's a little bit unfair to punish players who play it the on "normal" (only just bad) the same way as player who would put themself on training wheels, it feels like they punish you for playing bad the same way as cheating. So I tend even more like to the opposite, don't grant any stars for playing on easier than normal.
However I'm not aware of people with serious dieseases so of course I don't want to lean to far out of the window.

Regarding unlockables as far as I can see they don't unlock anything essential, so it's not really like you miss something important. For me getting rid of any constraints and requirements would rather take away the incentive of going back to missions and improve. If you have a problem with the 3-stars then you should have problems with arcade mode too, because they also unlock stuff which is even harder to obtain. As you said yourself, trying to implement an compromise would add a new layer of complexity to satisfy both sides. I'm also not that much fond of achievments as rewards, on the Nintendo Switch they don't even exist and on pc anyone can simply use SAM to unlock them. But what those people couldn't do, is faking videos where they show gold flags on all levels. The incentive is at one side rather intrinsic, striving for perfection, collecting ranks, on the other side of course you want something to brag about your achievments midly.

So yeah, I want call upon you if you maybe want to reconsider your viewpoint. I actually think its already pretty generous from the developers for leaving the option open, that any player can expierence the story to its fullest. Extra rewards and bonuses of course should be for player who take the effort for running the extra mile, without that, at least for me the game would become quickly a stale sandbox expierience and lose its edge, there would be no feeling of getting rewarded at all.
When things really get worst you still can read guides or watching videos I'm sure it won't take long for step-by-step guides that show you how to get S-rank on every mission, I'm sure you would be able to follow them.

I hope I don't sound to rude but in my perspetive the game already has more than enough compromises especially for a game where mechanical inputs don't pose any problems, to add even more feels a bit like they wouldn't respect players who run the extra mile. I actually did had that problem with CrossCode in the past, where I was wishing they could put a little bit more extra thought in their player assistant-functions.

 

I personally don't agree that games should have "rewards and bonuses ... for player who take the effort for running the extra mile". I think the reward for playing a game should come from the intrinsic joy of playing, not from extrinsic rewards the developer doles out for playing the way they see fit. If one plays a game on hard difficulty, the reward should be one's personal satisfaction in accomplishing that task, not some shiny new bit of content that other people aren't allowed to enjoy because they aren't "good enough." The medium is called "games" because they're supposed to be fun. Fun is a subjective experience, and videogames are perfectly suited to providing options that allow everyone to have fun in the way they see fit.

Celeste is my current gold standard in accessibility options. It allows one to customise one's experience to an insane degree, without locking anything out. I can still access the B-sides, C-sides, everything, without feeling bad because I've not reached some arbitrary level of "skill." Celeste locks out leaderboards and competitive stuff like that, which is understandable, but otherwise the game is wide open for a person to play without losing access to content. And, honestly, Celeste is a blast even with all the "challenge" removed; simply jumping around in that game is fun, and more game developers should learn from them. I'm planning to pick up CrossCode on Switch because I hear that game's accessibility options are similarly generous toward players who use them, but I think I'm going to research more into it before making the commitment, to see if anything gets locked when using the assists.

In fact, the only reason I bought Wargroove day one was that I read that I could tailor the difficulty. I'm not demanding that Chucklefish change anything; I'm just asking them to please consider changing it. I think my cheat code idea would be best, that way a person who plays the game normally still has the satisfaction of unlocking everything the normal way, while those of us who can't handle the default difficulty can access the content as well. Everybody wins.

 

Then it seems we have to agree to disagree, as you said fun differs from person to person, and I'm more that kind of person who gets motivated by extrinsic rewards and fixed rules. In my opinion not every games needs to be as accessive as Celeste, I wouldn't be so attached to games if all the games on the 80s and 90 would've been like that. This game is already highly accessible, to relativise absolutely everything is like arranging an contest where everyone is the winner.

I would be ok with that, as long they don't put the cheat code inside the game, so only those who precisely search for it will know that something like that exists, who knows, maybe it does already?

 

You have to keep in mind we're not talking about a sports game or a contest here. You won't see me on, say, the Hearthstone forum asking for accessibility options because I can't play that game. We're talking about a single-player game one enjoys in the privacy of their own home. Letting me get three stars on easier difficulty has zero impact on your enjoyment of getting three stars on normal or hard difficulty. Accessibility options without penalty should be the default on all single-player experiences, full stop. Games are a medium that everyone should be able to enjoy regardless of capability or skill level.

 

Where I am with you is there SHOULD be games like that, but to force the same pattern on every game would undermine them as a piece of art. Difficulty can be just more than just a "gate" or "wall" for the noobs it can envoke feelings, by allowing players always a path of least resistance, which you can't get fully out of your mind once you know it, you draw out all the tension and immersion that critical situations can generate, especially those with high risk. By homogenizing rewards, you heterogenize the player experiences and that shouldn't be the goal all the time. I would rather seek help from than seeking solvement from the system.

 

I don't believe in the whole "games as art" thing. Games are entertainment, not art. They are made for an audience to purchase and consume. It's important to keep that in mind, because entertainment puts the audience first while art puts the creator first, and it's very important, especially in games, for the audience to be put first. When one is charging people money for something, it is one's responsibility to create something they are going to enjoy. I would argue that the whole "games as art" movement is what's causing the game industry to go down the dark path of live services, loot boxes, and microtransactions, because developers are being encouraged to stop caring about the audience.

But, back on point, even if one were to accept that games are art and that difficulty can be used to evoke feelings, that doesn't change the fact that different people experience difficulty differently and being able to tailor that difficulty is important. What you would consider to be a reasonable challenge would be impossible for me, which means my experience of the "art" would be drastically different from what the creator intended; that difference thus undermines the meaning the art was intended to evoke. Having the ability to activate assist modes is not about allowing players a path of least resistance, it's about allowing players to tailor the experience to their skill/ability level, and thus experience the game the way it was intended in a way that's suited to their ability.

You say that you would rather seek help rather than seeking "solvement from the system", and you say that the mere presence of assist modes would ruin your personal enjoyment of a game, and that's why some games shouldn't have assist modes. But that in itself is you seeking a "solvement from the system"; you want the system to throw up a wall and lock out people who aren't at your skill level, because otherwise it would ruin your experience of the game. You want the system to have built in rules that reward you for playing at a hard difficulty and punish those that play on easy. I know you're not saying that ALL games should be like that, only some, but the fact is one can't tell what games will appeal to what people, and what those people's skill/ability level are. So, the best thing to do would be to have sliders in all games, just in case. Homogenized rewards and heterogenized player experiences is a good thing; it means everyone gets the same experience regardless of skill level, an experience that they paid good money for. Let all the people play in the way they see fit without punishment, because we're talking about games, and games should be a medium that everyone can enjoy without penalty.

 

I joined specifically to add in my two cents.

I think the conversation about art/games is interesting, but sort of a dead end (as you guys have sort of come to realize). Furthermore, Wargroove wouldn't become less or more art worthy, or change in artistic merit, by changing its difficulty settings. The mechanical depth of a game is the most important factor in its artistic merit, and that intent. The difficulty has about as much importance as the aesthetics. It's important to separate the two, because often I see people erroneously conflating mechanical complexity with depth.

Aside 1: Most games that are considered artistic, or of high artistic merit, are not mechanically complex, they're actually pretty easy to play. Their artistic value and thematic intent instead come in with how those mechanics express certain feelings or emotions. Pyre is probably the only game I can think of, with artistic aspirations, where the difficulty of the game is important to the core of the artistic experience. Namely because, whether you win or lose a match, the story continues. The narrative plays off of that.

Dark Souls too, maybe, if you squint at it. And make a lot of weak, bad arguments.

Back to the point: there's no level to Wargroove's difficulty where raising or lowering it somehow changes the core of the artistic intent, namely because Wargroove isn't trying to be an artistic game. Chess can be seen as "artistic" in a number of ways, but nothing about Chess' existence or design conveys a larger artistic framework. It's sort of elegant in how it plays out. When playing against AI in a video game, a similar experience can be created, but it's clear when there's artistic intentions and not. Much like the argument "I can't tell you what pornography is, I know it when I see it." Games and art are so integral and ephemeral to the human experience that it isn't something that can be conveyed easily in words, much less words online, much less words online for an anime chess game.

Aside 2: Also, any work that someone puts a price on doesn't magically become "not art" because its commercialized. Art is worth as much as people are willing to pay for it, and in whatever form of payment that takes. Many games aren't "artistic", and most are commercial, which is true. But just because a game has a price tag doesn't mean it magically becomes "not art". Art can also be commercial, and artistic. Most alt-art nowadays is.

Source: Artist with work in a few galleries, went to school to learn art criticism, spend weekends talking with artists, etc.

*****

Moving on, my problem with the difficulty settings is they're very... Half-baked. And I don't mean to put Chucklefish on the spot, but I get the feeling that the design team might've missed some key problems with the system as-designed.

Namely, there's no real tangible meaning to having the system be as granular as it is. Adjusting the settings to such fine a detail doesn't really mesh with the fact that you're penalized with a lower star score. What's the point in adjusting difficulty by .5% when you're penalized at the same rate as someone at the maximum?

The reverse question is also true, what's the purpose in increasing the difficulty to such a high degree when taking a tiny handicap yields the same results?

Why not just have "it's all easy" and "it's all default" and "it's all hard" buttons?

It's like the game is running on Cuphead rules, and then gives you many ways to adjust the settings that don't matter. I have no incentive not to tweak all the settings, since the system treats minor adjustments and major adjustments as the same.

I dunno, it seems like the dev team also agrees the system could use some work. I mean, I personally also dislike how I'm rewarded stars for speed, not careful planning or making sure my troops don't die. This is one of the reasons why Pikeman spam is so pervasive. In the end, the system is working against the kind of play you're trying to reinforce.

I think you should trust your players, and maybe remove the star ratings altogether. Just grant whatever art you need to whenever some mission is complete.

he meat of your game, your MVP in UX-speak, is the multiplayer and campaign creation components. Those are what will keep players around. So if you want, create mechanics that help players learn how to be better in multiplayer, or engender a reason to go into campaign creation mode. Again, don't remove something from the players, but introduce how fun it might be to play against someone else of similar skill, or to make their own maps.

All stars do is piss of narrative-lore nerds like myself.