i dont rank my packs in order of difficulty so if it became a required part of building packs i wont build anymore and like namida says its hard to judge sometimes so yes I agree some indication of difficulty is really useful for players I am 100% against enforcing a difficulty rating system or making people order their packs easy to hard cos sometimes its nice to play things all over the place having an easy level following a difficult level can be a relief.
I wouldn't suggest that any such system be
enforced, or even obligatory. I'd simply suggest that it be there as a universal indicator of the pack's difficulty, should the author want that to be taken into account by players, and particularly - for the purposes of compiling a
leaderboard.
Choosing not to give your pack a difficulty rating is as valid a creative decision as any, and certainly shouldn't preclude anyone from playing your pack - it can simply be a "surprise", which I'm sure many players would enjoy from time to time
However, those who pride themselves on creating particularly challenging levels, or those who simply want to attract players by giving an indication of how difficult (or not) the pack is expected to be, can do so in a more standardised way that the majority of the community agree on and understand. It would only take a few creators to begin using the system and it would either catch on or not; I wouldn't expect
everyone to use it, in any case.
Lemmicks might be considered in that range as well.
For sure, I'd probably even put
Lemmicks into "4 and up" territory -
most of those levels require a specific solution that you can either figure out or not, I don't remember there being any levels that the player can just riff with. As we've previously discussed, I think a rank or two of 2 - 3 rated levels would not have gone amiss!
But yeah, any-way-you-want levels, or those that leave you with many spare skills at the end - levels which you label as difficulty 1 or 2... A pointless waste of the player's time. If you can do basically anything, it feels like nothing you do matters. Any decision you make on a level can be the correct one. And if you make a false decision, you have plenty of skills left to salvage the attempt without even having to rewind.
I totally disagree. The best way to learn anything is to get creative with it. These kind of levels allow the player to do that; they can explore the game at their own pace, in their own way, and this can be its own reward. Of course, this is obviously best for beginners and novices, but even experienced players can stumble upon new tricks, new ways of doing things, ways to optimise skill usage, by being given the freedom to explore in a less restricted setting. Hardcore puzzles are great, and offer a lot of satisfaction when you complete them, for sure, but easier levels have their place. They also help to give a player momentum and, as Mantha said, a bit of "relief" in between the more difficult ones.
Even worse, when a bunch of levels can be solved in the same way (e.g. with Basher-cancel-staircases), it also gets repetitive
To be fair, I'd consider Basher-cancelling a comparitively advanced trick that I absolutely wouldn't expect beginners to know about, and certainly wouldn't feature in a "1-2" rated level, or even a "3". Also, repetitiveness is possible at any level of difficulty.
if we tried to assign difficulty ratings to individual levels, assigning the ratings would be a lot more work (so fewer people would bother)
Absolutely. I think the simplest way to assign a rating would be to rate the most difficult level in the rank. That way, the rank is (in theory) never
more difficult than its given rating, although it can of course be less so.
Levels can have one specific solution and be very easy: "Just dig"
That's why I added "and relatively obscure" to the definition of a "4" level
That said, I agree that the definitions should be treated as loosely as possible, and it is very much a spectrum, as you've discussed.
In general, difficulty is a combination of length of solution; obscurity of tricks involved; temptingness of red herrings ("entropy"); how much leeway you have in terms of skills, save requirement and time; and difficulty of execution.
Absolutely. I'd expect that the definitions could be further quantified by these sorts of things, to a greater or lesser extent. Also, if an author has created a level which would otherwise be straightforward if not for, say, a tight time limit or use of red herrings, then I would expect that they would know to rate it a bit higher in terms of difficulty even though it might otherwise "fit" the definition of a lower rating.
As always, the definitions I've suggested are merely a starting point on which to build, or perhaps from which to create a comparitive starting point based on whatever factors arise from discussion.