The following outlines testing to be done for level 1 enemy layouts.

Objective

As level 1 should act as the "tutorial" for the of sorts, level 1 should teach the enemy how each enemy works, how to fight each enemy, and how to approach enemies in later levels of the game. Therefore, testing is done to see how well level 1 accomplishes these objectives.

Prototype

An older version of level 1 with all the enemy positions intact, but without npcs or lighting effects.

Testing plan

Briefing

Explain that this is the first level of the game, and that their goal is to reach the "safehouse" at the end of the level.

Give a brief explanation on how the controls work (moving, attacking, healing, etc)

Tasks

1. Tell the user to find and kill any enemy in the level to get used to the controls.
2. Afterwards, restart the level and ask the user to make it to the end of the level.

Things to note

• How much trouble the tester had with each enemy on their first encounter vs any subsequent encounters (if applicable)
• Whether the tester changed their approach towards enemies later into the level

Interview with tester

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how difficult do you think this level is?
• Do you feel that the difficulty curve of the level feels natural, or are there parts of the level where there are weird peaks or valleys?
• Which part of the level do you think is the most difficult?

Testing

Tester 1

Observation:

• Died against the first enemy 3 times before a successful kill (with low health remaining)
• Tried to dodge attacks of second enemy (ranged) but took a hit when getting close
• Died against first enemy group without killing a single one of them
• Eventually landed upon a strategy of hit and run for melee enemies, and eating attacks to get close to ranged enemies
• Started avoiding enemies entirely near the end
• Reached end of level within 15 tries
• Never used a single ranged attack or healed a single time

Interview:

• Difficulty: 7 to 8
• Melee enemies were too difficult compared to ranged enemies
• All the melee enemies

Tester 2

Observation:

• Died against the first enemy 2 times. Performed a hit and run strategy on the third try and killed with no damage taken.
• Tried to dodge attacks of second enemy (ranged). Couldn't get close and eventually took a hit to attack with melee
• Died against first enemy group trying to get close to the ranged enemies
• Started using ranged attacks soon afterwards
• Eventually relied exclusively on ranged attacks, only attacking with melee when they ran out of ammo
• Started using healing items from the 2nd-3rd attempt
• Reached end of level within ~10 tries

Interview:

• Difficulty: 6 to 7
• Melee enemies hit too hard compared to ranged enemies
• Spawners, other melee enemies

Analysis of test results

Melee enemies

All testers had significant trouble with melee enemies at first. Eventually, all of them found ways to handle them, but melee enemies were still considered the most difficult parts of level 1 by far.

As a result, the difficulty curve of the level with regards to enemy layout was uneven due to the high difficulty of melee enemies.

There may be a need to push melee enemies further back into the level so that the difficulty curve is smoother.

Alternatively, the attack power of melee enemies might need to be reduced so that the enemies are more in line with each other.

Ranged enemies

While ranged enemies appeared to be much less powerful and thus much more manageable compared to melee enemies, none of the testers managed to get close enough to hit them with a melee attack without getting hit. As a result, ranged attacks are heavily pushed against ranged enemies.

However, this conflicted with one of the testers' playstyle. As that tester preferred to exclusively use melee attacks, they constantly accumulated damage each time they ran into a ranged enemy, effectively being penalised by using only melee.

There are a number of ways to resolve this. One way is to push ranged attacks more, by putting in situations where the player is forced to use ranged attacks, e.g. having the enemy be unreachable by melee attacks.

Another way would be to adjust various elements of the game to be more permissive to using melee attack only. As an example, increasing the player's HP, increasing the number of healing items available, reducing ranged enemies' attack, or reducing ranged enemies' rate of fire would all make using melee attacks only less punishing as a playstyle.