Nightmare Difficulty Mode (Submitted)

Would you guys enjoy huge or small changes towards nightmare difficulty?

- Change enemy placement.
- Add a random generated placement on enemies.

- Change important item placement.
- Add a random generated placement within limited number of areas. So instead of top right we have item X to get across a river, it might be in center bottom. This would be a cool mod!

- More attack and movement patterns on enemies, but most bosses.

- Add a frenzy / faster boss fight. Have them either speed up or be faster in the first place.

- Limit the amount of potions you can carry, or any other special items.

- Change a few items into something else, similar to reverse castle ring and rib of Vlad. To give smaller buffs or to summon a powerful special boss (not IGA boss).

- Add bleeding attacks from enemies, which would drain health over periods of time if hit too much. Even if potions were limited, saverooms and shops could save your life.

- Close the shop, everyone in the village is probably dead during this difficulty anyways.

- Some saverooms (if there are any), now only treat wounds and fills you health, a few others can also save, but they are scattered. (Random placements on which is which could make this difficulty interesting as well!)

- Add mist, deadly traps and other objects that either needs to be broken, walked around or just make it more difficult for our heroes to pass through, reason: More time, more of a challenge. Imagine a block of stone you need to cut to make a ramp. This while monsters are running or flying towards you.

- End boss needs to be defeated twice. Second time with a higher frenzy speed and attack pattern.

- From Facebook, someone wrote: Enemies gain invulnerability to certain elements

Thoughts?

Sorry to hear DSLevantine . I first read it as you dislike the ideas but now see that you hate them.

But what are your suggestions? It would be way better to respond with an idea, rather than just say its idiotic of me to share ideas that would spice up the difficulty mode. Valuable input you got there, thank you so much. I am so sorry you got angry and needed to write that you are truthfully, and with your whole heart really hate my ideas. Sorry I ruined your day sir.

Response from Discord:

gene - Yesterday at 10:28 PM

Anybody play Dragon's Crown?
they have three ways of increasing difficulty
1. changing enemy combinations in a room. same stats, but the new grouping makes things more challenging.
2. adding one extra move for certain enemies. even bosses gain one or two extra attack phases. either new moves or summon minions.
3. adding 'elite' enemies that have even deadlier moves than regular enemies.

I am sorry. It is not my intention to annoy you. Please allow me to rephrase my sentence "We have different opinion on the game". I hope this will make you feel better

I've been here for a few months and I thank you for providing valuable information and ideas from time to time. Looking back at the post history, I actually like your posts but unfortunately we have different opinion on the nightmare difficulty.

Redogan That reminds me of a similar idea that I posted in the Save Room thread. In Nightmare Mode, perhaps there could be more "fake" Save Rooms where the statues would come to life upon attempting to Save. You must destroy them in order to finally have the privilege of saving your progress in that immediate area.
^
Also; Keys definitely sound like something I'd expect in this game anyway, but not required for every door. Sounds like a good idea for Nightmare, if you ask me!


Enkeria DSLevantine How about the following as a sort-of compromise?

Most of Enkeria's suggestions could be purely Optional; factors you can adjust to your liking (or just leave at default) before starting a New Game+ (Like difficulty-selection and other playable characters, I honestly wouldn't expect these features to be available right from the start, when you haven't already cleared the main game at least once).
^
As for his suggestions related to random-generation?  Make those exclusive to the Roguelike Mode.

Change enemy placement? (how about an option similar to "Enemy Set Mode" from Dawn of Sorrow?)

Changing important item placement? (only change to other areas that the player-character can actually reach with their current abilities/relics/shards)


Considering most past Igavania games?  Difficulty is most likely going to determine at least one or two [if not all] of the following for enemies and Bosses alike: Speed of movement, base-damage from attacks, attack-speed, variety of attacks, and even changing some attacks they already use on lower difficulties.

Here are two examples I can easily come up with:

Bone Ark (Dawn of Sorrow) ~ A bone-pillar carried by two skeletons on a palanquin. (Found exclusively in the "Subterranean Hell" area)
^
On Normal difficulty, the Skeletons carrying the Bone Pillar move slowly and cause very little contact damage regardless of level/equipment.  The Bone Pillar charges a dark energy-sphere (34 damage at most; if you're not underleveled) for approx. 3 seconds before firing it.  It takes a full 4 seconds before beginning to charge another energy-sphere.
^
On Hard difficulty, the Skeletons move about as fast as normal Skeleton enemies, and cause at least 22 contact damage.  The Bone Pillar takes less time to charge dark energy-spheres (slightly above 1 second) and, instead of one energy-sphere, it fires two at once in a V-arc; each will cause up to 78 damage per hit (if you don't have the Demon Mail equipped).

Dullahan (Portrait of Ruin) ~ Gigantic knight with a floating severed head. (BOSS of the "City of Haze" painting)
^
On Normal, Dullahan spends a 2.5 second delay winding up his jump-attack, and only occasionally launches ground-spikes.  If Jonathan & Charlotte are at least Level 11 with decent equipment, the damage of Dullahan's attacks aren't too much to worry about (unless you don't know how to dodge his homing attack).
^
On Hard?  Dullahan's jump-attack prep is almost instant, he launches ground-spikes more often, and his "Ghost Chaser" homing attack is faster (On top of it being faster; the final shot always splits into four extra shots on Hard).  If Jonathan isn't at least Level 8 or 9 by then (since he has a lower MIND stat than Charlotte), the Ghost Chaser might kill him instantly if it ever hits.

_END of enemy examples_


 - Igavania games (with the exception of SotN) usually limit the number of Potions [and Ethers] you can carry to 9 even on Normal.  Other items are usually limited to that number, too.
^
Perhaps it can go this way for Bloodstained?  Normal = 20 Potions max, Hard = 9 Potions max, & Nightmare = 5 Potions max.

 - Don't close the Shop on Nightmare difficulty; just make certain items slightly more expensive depending on the Difficulty chosen.  Perhaps certain things can only be bought on Hard or Nightmare, as well.

- Traps were definitely a thing in past Igavanias (such as spike-pits and iron maidens).  I personally wouldn't be surprised if something like these are present in Bloodstained, and if they're more damaging on higher difficulties.

- By "twice", do you mean a 2nd Form?  That's actually typical of past games (with the possible exception of OoE).  On higher difficulties, the Final Boss is sure to have a faster & slightly-changed attack pattern anyway.


- "Enemies gain invulnerability to certain elements" <- Something like this was definitely present in SotN, at the very least.  I'd actually like to see certain enemies (obviously not all enemies) gain specific immunities that they didn't have on Normal.  For example:  Let's say that the Light Elemental enemy is resistant to, but doesn't totally block, Holy-attribute damage on both Normal & Hard difficulties.  On Nightmare difficulty, it finally gains total nullification against that specific elemental damage-type (if not outright absorbing the damage; healed by it).

yeah I kind of like the idea of enemies absorbing the damage of certain otherwise very powerful weapons. The Crissaegrim, Claimh Solais etc would have been offset some if several late game enemies were resistant to their damage types. For that reason as it is, "Dark" damage types are generally not so great. It should probably be that way realistically anyway of course, but interesting concessions could be made for that in this case - perhaps using "dark" equipment passively buffs demon shard abilities as a whole.

I digress though - I think we've got quite a few good ideas for Nightmare on the board and in design review. Croc also pointed this out way back, almost two and a half years ago, which is a good sign already:

My idea of nightmare difficulty for a game of this nature would be pretty simple.

Take a hit and you die.

Technically, Curse of Darkness' Crazy Mode was locked behind completing the game once to unlock it, too.

I've found that Hard Modes usually do much more than just limit your level (though, in all Igavanias before Portrait of Ruin, they didn't).  All enemies definitely hit harder, certain attacks are modified, some are much faster, and enemies that are [normally] from later points in the game can appear earlier.

I'm not sure that there'll be a default Level-limit for Bloodstained's Hard/Nightmare Modes.  Only that they might be options.

In all fairness, I'd hesitate to call that an "Igavania", despite it being directed by Igarashi.  It simply doesn't have all the usual gameplay mechanics.

Unless you actually mean Harmony of Dissonance.