INTRODUCING DIFFICULTY LEVELS

INTRODUCING DIFFICULTY LEVELS

Difficulty Levels_Devlog

Hello and welcome to a new inside look into SBK Official Mobile Game! In today’s post we’ll be exploring the different difficulty settings available on launch and how these not only affect gameplay, but also post-race rewards.

 

PICK YOUR POISON

 

At Digital Tales we value all types of players, from casual to highly competitive, and the new difficulty levels added to the Options menu will allow anyone to enjoy the SBK racing experience. One thing to keep in mind is that the higher the difficulty level, the more rewards you earn. No guts, no glory!

 

Since the game will be a single-player experience on launch, the most noticeable areas where difficulty will affect gameplay are AI behaviour in the Championship and Quick Race modes, and Time Attack lap-time goals. 

 

The difficulty options available on Day 1 will include Easy, Medium, Hard, and Simulative. 

 

A screenshot of the Settings menu tab

 

SCALABILITY: THE CHALLENGE GROWS WITH YOUR SKILLS

 

In Quick Race and Championship mode, depending on the selected difficulty level, the AI’s behaviour will be more or less competitive. If you are new to SBK Official Mobile Game, we recommend starting off by playing on ‘Easy’. Playing at this level will make the AI opponents less aggressive and will reduce their lap times, allowing players to ease into the SBK riding experience.

 

Once you have a better grasp of the game’s physics, riding aids, and tracks, we encourage you to raise the difficulty level for a more challenging experience. Not only will that make the AI more aggressive and faster, but it will also increase the overall rewards you get at the end of the race. This means that players who choose to race on ‘Easy’ win slightly less rewards compared to those who race on ‘Medium’ or higher difficulties. 

 

Regardless of the difficulty settings, your final position also affects your rewards—i.e.a player who wins 1st place will always receive more compared to one finishing in 5th place, although rewards earned when arriving 1st place on ‘Easy’ will differ noticeably from rewards obtained for a 1st place on ‘Hard’. 

 

If you find yourself achieving 1st place over and over again on ‘Easy’, then we suggest you change the difficulty to ‘Medium’. When the difficulty increases, re-visiting the riding assists might be worthwhile, since these can affect your lap times as well: playing with all the riding assists enabled, while increasing the difficulty level, will highlight that some of these aids might be hindering you from being able to achieve a better position/lap time. 

 

As a matter of fact, Riding Assists are meant to help you learn the basics and perfect your riding skills. Let’s take the Brake Assist as an example: beginners can start off on ‘Easy’ with the Brake Assist set to max. After playing a couple of times, they will notice that their bike starts braking automatically right before sharp turns. On reducing the Assisted Brake intensity, they won’t be able to fully rely on automatic braking, and they will need to start manually braking in some areas: they will have to pay close attention on each track to learn when they must start reducing their speed vs. when they can go full throttle without consequences. By doing so, they will be able to push the bike to its limits, thus reducing their total lap time. 

 

A screenshot of the Riding Assists menu tab

 

Veterans and quick learners, who may not find the ‘Medium’ difficulty level challenging enough, are invited to play on ‘Hard’ and put themselves to the test—the AI opponents will be faster and will compete to beat you to the finish line. 

 

Last but not least, we have a difficulty setting dedicated to the hardcore racing game fans: on top of offering the same badass AI opponents as ‘Hard’, ‘Simulative’ will force all the Riding Assists off. It will be a true test of grit and determination for any player, but it will grant you the highest possible rewards in the game. 

Another key factor that will affect your performance at any difficulty level will be the Repair and/or Tuning Kits applied to your bike. If you haven’t read about those yet, please make sure you head over to our post on Bike Maintenance to be filled in with all the details.

 

WHAT HAPPENS IN TIME ATTACK MODE

 

Changing the game’s difficulty level will not only impact the AI’s behaviour in Quick Race and Championship mode, where you compete against opponents, but will also affect your goals in Time Attack mode, where you race alone trying to achieve better and better lap times: there will be different lap-time goals and rewards depending on the selected difficulty, namely Bronze, Silver, and Gold goals. The higher the difficulty level, the faster you will need to complete laps in order to earn the respective, incremental rewards. Fortune favors the bold!

Now you are up to date on the new difficulty settings, one of the most requested additions to SBK Official Mobile Game! If you missed our past Game Features Focus posts, check them out right away to catch up! And be sure to stay tuned for more news and behind-the-scenes stories!

About the author

Founded in 2006 and based in Milan, with offices in Rome and Miami, Digital Tales develops games, e-Learning solutions and anything in between, including edutainment, gamified training courses and VR/AR applications. Its racing and action-adventure games are based on a proprietary cross-platform C++ framework and/or third-party engines. The studio has collaborated with established developers and publishers on console, mobile, PC and browser games, but has also self-funded and self-published a few mobile games which topped iOS, Android and Windows Phone charts worldwide, while totaling over 50M downloads cross-platform and garnering 2 Italian Video Game Awards (Best Italian Indie Game, Best Tech).

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