Just a thought I have had going through my head:

Imagine an RPG with these difficulty settings, and I am wondering what you think of them:
* Trivial: Game is really easy, and if you somehow party wipe, your party will be instantly revived. Exclusive to this difficulty is the option to skip encounters (this includes boss fights).
* Normal: An average player can beat the game without having to stop to level up; this is the default difficulty.
* Hard: A good player can beat the game without having to stop to level up. Beating this unlocks the 1980's and Kaizo difficulties.
* 1980's: It is necessary to stop and spend time leveling up; in fact, much of the game will be spent doing so. Getting through at a low level is not realistically possible, and the XP you get just from exploring and fighting every battle you encounter naturally is not going to be enough for this difficulty.
* True 1980's: Unlocked by beating 1980's; this difficulty is similar except that XP and GP gains are significantly reduced. Intended for players who like to spend hours power-leveling.
* Kaizo: A different hard difficulty, in which the game can sometimes be downright evil. Some enemies will do nasty things if you do the wrong things, and you can expect a lot of game overs. Bosses turn into puzzle bosses on this mode. To compensate, it is much easier to learn abilities; by learning powerful abilities early and using them strategically, victory should be possible.
* Level 1 Kaizo: Unlocked by beating Kaizo; this difficulty is similar except that the level cap is 1. In other words, you have to go through the *entire* game at level 1. Good luck! (A developer would play through to make sure this mode is possible, but this mode is not intended to be something most players would be able to beat.)

In addition, there would be a couple other options that can be set when starting a new game:
* Save mode: Can be set to save anywhere, (hard) save in towns only, or permadeath mode.
* Crippling attacks: If set, enemies can use attacks that cause permanent harm to your characters, like level draining. (Just imagine: True 1980's, permadeath, and crippling attacks; imagine how frightening level draining enemies become at this point. You could lose hours of XP to one encounter if you're not careful.)

So, your thoughts on these difficulty settings? (I note that it might take extra work to balance all the difficulties, which would increase development costs and time.)

Is this a game about unlocking difficulties? :)

EDIT: I mean. Shrink it down and put time and resources on what you want to make, no point in making things more complicated. Why include trivial when you clearly want to make a difficult game? And what if you got all those difficulties going then you realize you have to ditch a certain game mechanic and now all those difficulty settings are broken? It seems overly ambitious to me, but hey I could be wrong.

How about Dead Bolt mode? If you die at all you're locked out of the game permanently.

Trivial difficulty is for those who play the game for the story (and don't care about the gameplay), or who just want to have fun steamrollihg the game and don't want any challenge at all. There is some precedent for this: Story mode in Beamdog's Enhanced Edition is one example, there's Casual difficulty in Dust: An Elysian Tail, Easy in Metroid: Zero Mission (which I describe as "even if you are careless, you aren't going to die"), and Dream mode in Timespinner, for example.

Yes, this does seem a bit ambitious, and things might not all work out if said game is actually made, but I think it's interesting (and fun) to discuss ideas; it's OK if the ideas mutate over time.

Level 1 Kaizo is for those who want a true challenge that requires thinking (rather than power-leveling) and are of the type who enjoys the sort of challenge of a Low Level Game (LLG). (Final Fantasy 5 is my favorite example of this; some players have beaten the game at levels 2-1-1-4 or 2-2-2-3, and it is interesting watching videos of boss fights at such low levels.) There is actually precedent for a level 1 cap mode, though not in any game I count as an RPG (a couple of the Nintendo DS Castlevanias have such a mode). I wouldn't be *that* cruel.

(By the way, the game would be balanced around the "save in towns" mode, which would be the default selection.)

My opinion: games should have one difficulty, and build the game around that. That encourages the developer to but more thought into what they are creating.

I like choice. But I'm used to old id Software. Of course not every game needs difficulty levels, but if there's resources, why not? Personally I always though Arcade, Home, and Devkit could work well with most games. The "Intended Experience" mode, the people without free time tro play the game for hours on end mode, and the here be cheats mode. Not necessarily mutually exclusive by the by.

1980s and townsaves. I'd take that, but not if I had to unlock it by beating the game first. I want a power leveling and moderate grinding experience in my JRPG style games. I broke Final Fantasy by leveling because I enjoyed the grind!

Frankly all of those ideas sound terrible. Just shifting the power scale of things so that people have to grind more is incredibly lazy game design, and for most people simply isn't fun at all. Additionally, the "Kaizo" mode you proposed sounds like it will continually hit the player with unexpected things, forcing them to replay many parts of the game after failing once then going back with the information on what's about to be thrown at them. Again, not fun for most people. Finally, the "level 1" idea would basically pigeon-hole players into abusing the hell out of a few key mechanics that make such a mod possible. Once again, not fun for most people.

Difficulty settings can be tough to get right, but really should be tailored to people having an increased understanding of the game's mechanics, with the differences between difficulties requiring players to make more thorough and advanced use of those mechanics.

Perhaps 1980s should be available from the start, as it would be designed for people who enjoy such things. (I might leave the "True 1980's" setting locked because that might be a bit too extreme for most players; for that mode, I am thinking it would be like the original Dragon Quest (*not* the remakes of that game, which significantly increased XP and GP rewards) where you literally have to spend hours leveling up to complete what would be a short game. I note that the world record speedrun of Dragon Warrior NES (in the No Manipulation category) is over 5 hours, most of which is spent farming XP.) Kaizo mode is intended for players with an increased understanding of the game's mechanics. For the "replaying many parts of the game" problem, the solution is to set the save mode for "save anywhere"; perhaps that setting should enable a retry option, allowing an instant restart of any battle where the player dies. (Of course, that doesn't solve the problem of a softlock due to neither side being able to kill the other.) In fact, perhaps the description of Kaizo should recommend save anywhere.

1980s still has some strategy; it encourages players to find the fastest and/or safest ways to farm experience points and other after-battle rewards. (I note that this is different than the sort of strategy expected in Kaizo mode, but it is still a form of strategy.)

Also, not everyone will find the 1980s or Kaizo modes fun; the modes exist for those that do find them fun, and those that don't can enjoy Hard mode just fine. (Hard mode is probably the setting that I would recommend for playtesters who are experienced with the genre; game developers tend to be better gamers than most people, so games tested by them will tend to aim high in terms of difficulty.)

I don't mind a difficulty setting but atleast it should be challenging.....not downright frustrating.....but still if it is enjoyable who cares......

I'm not sure how much game dev experience you have, but I would suggest to start something with smaller scope. Before you put too much effort into designing elaborate unlockable difficulty levels, you should work on the core mechanics of your game. There is nothing wrong with leaving your options open while designing/developing, but don't spend too much time on unlockable content until you have something that's fun and engaging with high replay value. What you described might double or triple the development time, which is a waste if nobody bothers to play through it even once.

It is just my opinion. As a hobbyist game dev myself I know how easy it is to dream big, get carried away with complex design, then get intimidated by the scope and don't even start the project.

As I said, the issue is that those things just aren't fun for most people. Yes, there are some people who do enjoy those things, but creating difficulty settings that only appeal to a small subset of people means that you're spending resources on an aspect of the game that most of your potential customers would not only not care about, but actively dislike.

I have thought about the amount of work that would be required to add each of these difficulties.

Hard: This difficulty would be developed first, and would be balanced so that the developers feel that it is a good challenge. (Remember that game developers tend to be better gamers than most people, especially if they developed the game.)

Normal: This could be done in a lazy manner, reducing the damage dealt by enemies, or their stats. (It might be worth putting more effort into this, particularly since this would be the default setting; perhaps giving enemies easier attack patterns.)

Trivial: Easy. Just make enemies even weaker, and add the encounter skip. The only tricky thing would be the interaction of encounter skip with encouters that are scripted to end in unusual manners; for example, if there is a battle that is supposed to be lost, one needs to make sure that encounter skip proceeds as though the fight had been lost. (Of course, one might want to make sure the game doesn't break if the player somehow manages to win.) Making sure this difficulty is balanced is less important because of the option to skip encounters and the auto revive.

1980s: One could just take Hard, and reduce the XP and GP awarded from enemies and other sources. This difficulty wouldn't take much work.

True 1980s: Easy. Just reduce XP and GP awarded further, or increase the requirements. If 1980s is working, this is truly a lazy addition.

Kaizo: This difficulty would take the most work, as it involves re-designing enemy attack patterns, and perhaps giving enemies abilities they didn't have before. (I think the addition of new abilities and attack patterns to enemies would be a better approach to this difficulty than simply raising enemy stats.) The adjustment to ability learn rates would be simple, as it could just be a multiplier.

Level 1 Kaizo: Once Kaizo is done, easy to implement. Making sure this mode is beatable, however, is another matter.

So the only difficulty that it seems would require a lot of work to include is Kaizo difficulty.