Hi Sikret,
I've been so excited since I first discovered this mod more than half a year ago. Back then I was already start playing a 'Mega Mod' for Baldur's Gate, so I didn't allow me to commit the time for this Mod then. This Mod is just so professional. I myself used to make Mod for Civ IV, I know what kind of enthusiasm and commitment it takes for the modder to keep working on one Mod for such an extended period of time, while maintaining an ever-increasing high standard. This is awesome feat that's a true test of character.
Recently I'm designing a new game. During the design process there's an important choice which I call 'difficulty control'. There is a theory about what makes an activity enjoyable to human being, that induces a status in that person, making him totally focused on the activity at hand, immersed to the point that the person won't notice the passage of time. Theorist call this status 'flow', and they say one condition for the person to achieve 'flow' status is the 'difficulty level' of the activity. The activity must be neither too hard nor too simple, or the person will feel bored, frustrating, losing the sense of immersion. From my own experience, I know there's a lot of truth in this theory, so for a couple of years I took it for granted that a good game design should control the difficulty so that it fit the skill level of the player.
Then that game called 'Demon's Souls' for the PS3 came out last year. It won Game of the Year prize from gamespot.com. This is a game that's extremely hard, that the player will die a lot of times, that it's even punishing to a point if the player dies too many times in a level, the level actually adjust itself to be even harder. From the sound of it, it's everything against the 'flow principle'. However, many players find this game extremely rewarding, and fun. It even wins that Game of the Year award largely due to this 'unconventional' design choice of being extremely difficult on purpose.
Think back to the old days of SNES and Arcade. It's an age that games are extremely hard and punishing. Take Contra, if the player died, he has to start over from zero, there's no save or continue, and the player will die a lot. Yet we all love Contra. I haven't played Demon's Souls myself, but it's enough to make me wonder if there's something 'wrong' with the Flow principle.
Maybe many of us have a little more endurance for difficult challenge that the theorist about Flow envisioned. Maybe we won't lose our interest in an activity simply because it's very challenging and a little higher than our own skill level. Maybe if as player, though we fail for a lot of times, but we believe the challenge can be surmounted, we believe if we find the correct method we will prevail, with that belief in mind, we can endure a lot of hardships. And there's another condition: the challenge there must be real. I think we do will lost our interest in the game if we fail for a lot of times but actually feels the challenge is NOT really there. Something cheesy and cheap happens that artificially prevents us from succeeding in the game. This something makes the challenge feels fake.
What is this something that distinguished a challenge that feels real and one that feels fake? I could find some examples just now. In the classic Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, in the city of Goron, a walkthrough says the player should control the PC to grab a bomb, run for some distance, and throw the bomb inside an urn before the bomb explodes, to gain an item. The throwing process is all about trial and error, so that the urn will rotate to face you exactly when the bomb reaches it's opening. I failed many times. But I don't feel any challenge here. Another example is Final Fantasy 13, the combat system here is much more fluid than previous installments in the series, I died quite a lot of times. But I still don't feel any challenge, I think the cause of those deaths is far too obvious, that usually won't happen ever again facing the same enemy. One last example is the SRPG game called Disgaea. In this game there are random levels that are filled with very high-level monsters. It's hard to beat those high-level monsters with my normal-level characters so I have to play more random levels, beat more low-level baddies in order to level up. However, those high-level monsters are only tough in NUMBER. They don't have any new skill, they are not smarter, they just have higher stats. This whole mega leveling process is so empty and meaningless.
So I could say that challenge based on some random factor which generates trial and error behavior, challenge that over-relies on stats but not skill, challenge that is only there because some hidden information, are fake challenges that cannot make us feel rewarding. We can only endure those challenges that provide true test of skill which we also believe to be surmountable. They won't break player's 'flow' status.
The above is just my thought. I'm typing it out to help myself think, also to express my respect for Improved Anvil and the team behind it. I'm also interested in your take on this whole 'difficulty control' design problem.
take care,
stmartin