Disclaimer: I am NOT talking about whether games should be difficult or not (AKA "We need more retro
gaming difficulty!" or on the other end of the spectrum "Dark Souls sucks so hard, games shouldnt be hard,
they should be fun!"), and the first one who does gets slapped across the face for not even reading the first
line of this OP. If the whole text is too long, read only the last part of the OP for my favourite discussion points
and/or the questions below the current sentence you are reading in italics.
I considered making a thread about this for a long time now, and I think this also would be a welcome change
of the other "difficulty"-related threads we had lately. All of my discussed points are of course up for discussion
and might be somewhat subjective. Feel free to point out any flaws and post your own opinion on that matter.
A few questions for discussion (the bolded one being the most interesting for me):
How do difficulty levels affect the replay value for you?
Do you care at all if games offer higher difficulty levels?
Which developers put a lot of effort into creating replay value through complex changes on a higher difficulty level? (Game examples please)
Which approaches to how higher/lower difficulty levels are handled are annoying to you?
Any elements you would like to see, but havent yet?
Would including all of the approaches (if applicable) always make for a more enjoyable higher difficulty?
Please note: I am NOT saying that games that only use one, or the most basic, type of difficulty change are bad,
or that this type needs to go away. More often than not its also probably a monetary decision not to go with more
intricate difficulty changes. I just want to point out my appreciation for when developers actually go out of their way
to change more than just the HP/damage stats and I would like to hear your examples and opinion on that. I am
also aware that many of these are incorporated in the game difficulty curves (Enemies having less HP at the beginning
of the game than at the end), but am specifically talking about the replay value through higher difficulties.
My initial thought for this topic was this:
I hugely enjoy if games offer more than just raised HP/damage stats on a higher difficulty level. A game provides
more motivation/incentive to replay the game on a higher difficulty level if those higher difficulty levels offer an interestingly
altered experience from the normal difficulty.
I noticed that games may achieve this in 2 ways, either by using several aspects that change upon the difficulty level
(not just focussing on HP/Damage as many, if not most, games do), or by using at least one very complex alteration
(different level layouts, enemy placement, better AI). I took a look at which elements actually are being used in games
and wrote them down to make for a better understandable discussion later on. Feel free to add any aspects that I might
have missed.
The effect of these approaches can be twofold. Either it simply lengthens the amount of time it takes for the player to
reach his goal, while the player still does exactly the same things, just more often. Or in the better way, it means that
the player needs to apply more game skills (like the necessity of using game elements such as potion brewing in RPGs
, using traps in Roguelikes or finding great cover spots in First Person Shooters) and/or soft skills (mouse aiming accuracy,
multi tasking). I'll try to point out the lazy and better ways when I can think of them.
Don't consider this complete or exhaustive, its merely thought as an overview which is supposed to serve as food for discussion.
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1. Changing simple stats
Skyrim (or all Elder Scrolls games really) - Damage dealt, Damage received, Own health, Enemy health
FTL(Faster Than Light) - Money received (unable to buy as many upgrades)
Call of Duty - Damage received, own health, enemy accuracy, enemy reaction time
Genre where you might encounter that more often: probably every genre ever
This may come in varying forms, which all usually have the same effect: Make the game take longer by getting the
player to do the exact same things more often. Again, I am not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing (I love
FTL and Elder Scrolls), and games that rely solely on it may still just be as fun as games that combine more elements.
In fact, in my opinion, this is a hugely important element that, if properly used, shouldnt be missing from our games
and difficulty levels. Open world games especially need to rely solely on these for higher difficulty levels as the other
approaches would be hugely time consuming to integrate into such a vast world. However, this is also probably the
easiest to get "wrong" because its so easily applied. Getting the player to spend twice the amount of time doing
tedious things is bad. BAD. Getting the player to use other skills (as mentioned above) to overcome the new challenges,
however, is awesome. The requirement for that to happen is that developers need to playtest higher difficulty levels
though. These modes will be bad as long as developers consider these modes nothing but a nuisance that need to
be added so as not to lose 0.5 points in Metacritic. "Hey, same game, just increase the enemy HP by 50% No playtesting
needed." BAD.
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2. Changing the enemy skills
FTL - Enemies you encounter have a higher chance of carrying deadlier weapons
Diablo 3 - Enemies accumulate more abilities
Every Shmup ever - Enemies shoot more bullets/ more difficult to dodge bullet patterns
Genre where you might encounter that more often: Shoot 'em Ups
A huge part of the threat that enemies in games usually pose comes from their different possibilities to harm the player.
I consider this a very smart approach, as this usually also changes the way the player needs to approach these enemies.
The obvious example are shmup enemies that start using different bullet patterns (like wavy instead of a straight line),
getting you to search different spots to safely shoot at them. This also applies to many other games that give the
enemies skills which they might use more often on a higher difficulty setting(for example enemies using more grenades).
If applicable, this is almost always a great way to make higher difficulties feel less tedious and more like needing to
learn a new way to approach these enemies, which feels fresh and definitely keeps the motivation higher to replay a game.
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3. Change Item Setup
Resident Evil 4 - Less Ammo, no tactical vest
Bioshock - Less random loot
Genre where you might encounter that more often: Any game that uses ammunition
This also has a rather lazy way of integrating this and a more interesting way (that, on the downside, also needs
more balancing/playtesting). The most commonly used approach is to simply give the player less ammo so that he
needs to aim better and use other skills/items/weapons he might not have used if he has enough ammunition for
his preferred weapon. However, using this idea a developer might not only change the amount of things to be found,
but can actually dictate which weapons a player gets to survive a certain level. Imagine a shooter level which you
can beat on normal with any weapon you want, but on hard they'll strip everything away from you except your pistols.
Completely turns the way around how the player would go about this, AND it would be a huge surprise for an
unsuspecting player, which is always a plus in my book since a really small minority of games actually manage to make
the higher difficulty levels feel genuinely surprising.
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4. Enemy Count & Placement
Resident Evil 4 - Raising enemy count, enemy danger level, placing them were no enemy has been earlier
Genre where you might encounter that more often: ARPGs & Shooters
Something that is rather similar to the approach of "3. Change Item setup", but I want to talk about that a bit in
detail here with Resident Evil 4 as the main example. First off, as always, there is a lazy way to go about that
and a more intricate way. The lazy way simply means doubling the spawn count of enemies in a certain area. This
however,albeit certainly offering a challenge, might get repetitive pretty fast. Its basically the equivalent of raising
the HP bar of an enemy. However, there is nothing wrong with using this approach, if its not the only one being
used. Other than simply raising the numbers of existing enemies, the games can add more dangerous enemies to
that area, make them move faster..etcetc. Resident Evil 4 did something more subtle though. It actually plays on the
fact that the player relies on positions considered to be safe from their previous playthrough. On you first playthrough
you learned that entering a certain house is safe since you went in, locked it up and fought a horde of enemies. On
your second playthrough (harder difficulty) you assume this to be the same, only to notice that the game threw an
enemy at you that did not appear on your previous playthrough that actually got into the house, slicing you up nicely.
My last playthrough has been a while, so please correct me if I am wrong on that a bit. Still, now THAT is awesome
difficulty design.
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5. AI
Fear - Improved AI, using better tactics
Chess - Improved AI
Genre where you might encounter that more often: Board Games and Shooter
I think this one is a bit of a tricky topic. I mean you built a crazy great AI, but wont allow 50% of the players that
don't jump into hard mode to ever see it? Not saying their approach was wrong, but it certainly begs the question
whether dumbing down the AI, or dumbing down the weapons the AI has at hand might be the better solution
for this. The lazy solution to this is having AI pause completely instead of having an AI process at all. Think the
easy modes for beat em ups. They usually mean that the enemies will do a combo and stop fighting for 3-4 seconds
in which you can do what you want. Afterwards, they still might not immediately react as they need to give the
inexperienced player time for a retreat. Actually writing an AI that simulates a beginner level player on the other
side (without button mashing), sounds like a horribly difficult task, though, so that might not go away anytime soon.
Any Beat em up that does it better? Other obvious appliances include how many turns the AI is allowed to calculate
in advance in turn based games(see the chess example).
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6. Adding Game Content
Castlevania - Adding Bosses
Resident Evil 4 - Adding Level areas and puzzles
Genre where you might encounter that more often: not applicable
With this, we now move away from the field of making the game "harder" as the sole motivational aspect
to get the players to play higher difficulty levels. Difficulty levels can not only be "harder" through the means
described above, but they can also contain hidden rewards, which are more in line with what I consider
rewards for playing higher difficulty levels (compared to pretty petty stuff like achievements for beating higher
difficulty levels). These are the examples that inspired me to do this thread, and search for more games like it.
Resident Evil 4 has entire level areas that are hidden from you on the lower difficulty settings. That was an
amazing surprise that blew me away, when I discovered something I had not seen before in a game I considered
beaten and properly well known by me. Castlevania (DS, did all DS games do this?) pushes that even further by
not allowing you to beat the final boss on the lower difficulty settings. People might dispute my idea of that
being awesome ("I want to play the game as I want! Not fair I shouldnt be able to beat the boss just because
I wanted to play on easy!"), but I simply consider this an amazing reason to pick up the game again, up your skill,
and get through the game on a higher difficulty to see all the content the game has to offer. Every game locking
away core content could be a bit annoying, but what is keeping the developers to include levels that didnt make
the cut in a higher difficulty level? I remember reading about some God of War levels that got scrapped, but if
they are already finished, why not put them in for those willing to search for/unlock them?
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7. Subjective Difficulty
Metal Gear Solid - Decide which enemies to avoid
Europa Universalis - Decide on a nation
Mario Games - Multiple routes you can take
Genre where you might encounter that more often: Stealth games, PC RPGs
This is another approach to difficulty levels, and another one that is rather subtle and that we all have probably
already encountered so far, maybe even without realizing that it is actually a difficulty level. Games love giving
you choices, and multiple solutions or routes offer challenges appropriate to players of different skill levels. The
easiest example would probably that famous first jump/enemy from Super Mario Bros (Youtube it if you must).
Players are given the complete freedom to decide how difficult they want to make this scene. Jump on it while
hitting the coin block, not wasting any time? Or wait for it to come out and jump over it? Or using a different way
altogether by avoiding it when jumping on top of the blocks? These topics can get a bit fuzzy, since some games
are a rather blurring the lines between several elements but I would consider Metal Gear Solid , or even the
Europa Universalis games to use the same approach. You decide which enemies to tackle, and therefore how
difficult you want the game to be. The more I thought about it, the more I got to the conclusion that these decisions
are in fact nothing but a very smartly designed and invisible difficulty slider.
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8. Dynamic Difficulty
Left4Dead - AI Director
Mario Kart - Rubberbanding
Genre where you might encounter that more often: Racing Games
I encourage you to read this great article about this issue, from which I took these examples from. What it basically boils
down to, is that the game gets harder or easier based on the players performance. One of the most annoying
instances we find this in, are racing games and the rubber banding AI. You are having the best race of your life,
and the others still cling to your heels. I can't stand that at all. A better example would be Left4Deads AI director
which changes the difficulty on the fly, allowing to drop in enemies when it notices that you are having an easy
time with the game. Apparently that very same director even changes the music to what it has in store for you.
Now as the last sentence for this short overview, let me blow your mind by stating the example they used in the
link above. One of the hardest to integrate difficulty adjustment measures in Videogames (Dynamic Difficulty) is an
old trick in games of the "real" world. Pocket Billards actual has a dynamic difficulty. The more balls your enemy
pockets in, the better are your chances to hit your own balls on your next shot.
:-o
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Resident Evil 4 - Analysis
Part 1 - Stat Change
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Issues that I'd like to comment and would love to get some opinions on:
Now let me blow your mind, by saying that Resident Evil 4 does ALL of the above, which also makes it my contender
for most awesome difficulty levels in any game so far. Anything that is comparable? This also raises the question
whether games that use all of these techniques are immediately better for it. The more influential dynamic AI from
Left4Dead is also pretty damn impressive though, I gotta say.
I also read that Max Payne 2 actually changes the narrative on the unlocked higher difficulty setting? Anyone that
can shed a bit of light on what actually happens there?
Another discussion point which my girlfriend pointed out to me: Jump and Runs should contain easy modes that
allow to play the game with bigger platforms. This may sound a bit ridiculous at first but its actually rather
ingenious. This would obviously be aimed at people not very apt at hand-eye coordination or (in 3D games)
people less apt at virtual movement in a 3D space. Those games are usually designed for people knowing how
to play jump&runs, which might already pose a high entry barrier for someone willing to give the genre a try
based on style alone. This completely changes the way a difficulty level is being done, compared to approaches
as making you immune to all enemies with an item that pops up after 5 deaths, which even my gf noted as a
rather cheap way out to balance the difficulty.