LEVEL-BASED ENRAGE MECHANIC​

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I consulted with the CEO and Design Director on a mechanic they were planning to scale difficulty in their roguelite game, Starlight Re:Volver.

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The problem we were trying to solve:

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• Add various challenges and mechanics that could be placed within procedurally generated levels that players would have to overcome.

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First, I reviewed their design documentation and play-tested the build. When reviewing their designs, I noticed a plan to implement an escalation mechanic where the levels would get harder (more enemies would spawn, and harder enemies would spawn) if players were unable to clear the level in time.

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The initial intent and design:
 

• Encourage players to work together and use abilities efficiently by continually increasing the difficulty of levels when they fail to clear quickly enough.
   

• It is designed as a line of tension to facilitate the behavior they want to see.
   

• It is meant to apply pressure on the players’ health economy.
   

• It is not applied universally to all levels.

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I flagged this as a potential problem for several reasons:

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• This would as a randomly generated enrage mechanic for players. But, instead of placing it on an enemy (usually a boss), it would be placed on the level. Enrage mechanics disproportionately punish players on the lower end of the skill spectrum. Thus, they create a frustrating experience for a specific subset of players.
   

• This mechanic creates an inverted difficulty curve where the game becomes harder for less-skilled players, and easier for high-skilled players. It will only feel 'right' for the players whose skill level closely matches the difficulty of the encounters.​
   

• It punishes players with combat when combat should be a reward.

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My proposal:

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• ​Invert the mechanic. Instead of spawning a higher volume of increasingly stronger enemies when failing to clear the level in time, spawn them when the player clears the level quickly enough.

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This creates a mechanic that scales dynamically with player skill level, accommodates skill differences in groups, and rewards skilled play with opportunities to engage in combat more often.

ENEMY DESIGN

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There were many different types of enemies and bosses in the game. However, the variety didn't matter in practice.

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Enemies could essentially be categorized into three types:​

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• Run at the player and attempt to melee.
   

• Shoot a projectile at the player.
   

• ​Dash at the player while attacking.

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Because of this, combat could be simplified into one dominant strategy:

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• Run in circles and attack behind.

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In addition, the primary scaling for difficulty was through increasing enemy health. This meant that the only way to clear encounters in a reasonable amount of time was to have 4 players alive, hitting the mobs. As a result, levels were easy, but tedious to progress solo, or with less than the maximum amount of players in a party.

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I flagged these as potential problems and proposed enemy designs that encouraged a higher variety of player responses to successfully deal with.