When you get stuck at a level while playing a game, how many minutes is the limit of your patience?
I want to design a feature to help player pass the level when they lose their patience.
To pass a level? Maybe 3-5 minutes.
To replay a level to get gold - if I can spot something I could've done differently or quicker, then I don't mind replaying it. But if I did everything I could think of, and still didn't get gold, I'd give up.
Here, when I play browser games and I can't even pass level 1, I just tend to move to the next game.
That's why I use casual and expert features in my games. With casual, you should pass, with expert, you might not. Players can switch freely, so if they can't pass a level on expert, they can switch to casual, play the level, and then switch back to expert if they want to.
It depends on the game. If it's nothing special or not my favorite genre which I've played for trying, I would stop playing the game completely if I'm stuck for couple minutes.
But for my favorite genres, I could try new ways or tricks to get past getting stuck for long time. I don't mind trying it again the next day.
It depends on the game.
Very much this.
Ever played Dark Souls. Or Baba is You?
It is a thin line to make a game playable but not too easy. But also not too frustrating.
I think the length of the timer intervall till you pop up the notification that help would be available is not very important. It also depends on what this will cost the player. Dignity? Achievments? Some kind of ressources?
Without knowing the scenariou I would suggest considering a one time help notification that the option is available in the menu or whereever you hide it and pop it up after a few minutes of non activity to remind the people not reading the manual that the level can be made easier / skipped (for a price. or even for free.)