Factorio Forums

Very simply put, have a difficulty slider OR a difficulty pulldown menu for new games.

I really like the idea of a slider that will change map settings (Frequency, Size, Richness, Peaceful Mode) in a fluid manner, rather than having a set list of difficulties (Easy, Medium, Hard, etc). With all of the settings that can be changed, I think this is very realistic to change the settings with a simple slider. It adds a bit of extra "random" factor, because that slider will probably never be exactly in the same position twice. If I'm doing my math right, there are over 4,000,000 combinations of settings to affect the difficulty (double that if you include "Peaceful Mode") (probably wrong math, but I tried).

I'm not one to make a suggestion without proposing a solution. I'm not adept at programming, but if I were to design the system.... Positive numbers to increase difficulty, negative numbers to decrease difficulties. Knowing that certain settings can vastly affect the games difficulty, each of the 21 settings will have a multiplier. A smaller multiplier for more game changing settings, and a higher multiplier for less game changing settings.

For instance:

All settings have the same requirements (the numbers are completely arbitrary, you'll probably want to use a larger range).
-100 = Very High
-50 = High
0 - Normal
+50 = Low
+100 = Very Low

Slider is at half, all settings are set to "normal", difficulty value = 0
Slider goes below half, game gets easier, difficulty value goes negative
Slider goes above half, game gets harder, difficulty value goes higher

Decrease the slider 5% of the overall slider, which would be -10 in difficulty value.
Certain settings have certain multipliers based on how much they affect difficulty. Increasing the frequency of coal should have a smaller multiplier than increasing the richness of stone.

If coal frequency has a multiplier of 1, and stone richness has a multiplier of 2.8, this is how the settings would look if the difficulty value is set to +20 (out of a possible +/-100)
Coal Frequency = 1 x (difficulty value) = +20 (Coal frequency is not affected at this difficulty level)
Stone Richness = 2.8 x (difficulty value) = +56 (Stone Richness is increased to "Poor" at this difficulty level)

With this setup, stone richness will increase before the coal

I see that as an little side-aspect of this:
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=13022 World Generation / Map Generator / Game Modes

Added this suggestion into that list.

Thanks!