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[Zaffo]

Sometime it's a cool option in stuff like loot games, where you can ramp up the difficulty to suit your gear in order to get better rewards, sometimes there is creative intent in the game difficulty like in the Souls games.
Either way is fine, as long as it suits the game.

 

[Damien Crowley]

Aren't the last two AssCreeds doing this?

 

[Yoshi]

Good difficulty settings do not come down to only some numerical differences, but yeah, in principle I think, choosing difficulty for different aspects of the game individually is nice. The new Tomb Raider seems to have a good system with broad categories puzzles, combat exploration. If it gets too granular, it can quickly get too annoying to think about all this though.

 

[Saruhashi]

I reckon this feels more like a development tool rather than a power that should be handed to players.

Personally, as this conversation develops, I find myself asking if "interactivity" in gaming isn't overrated in some ways.

I'm not sure that a good game can really be "have it your way" because it leads to a bit of an unfocused and frustrating experience.

For example, Shadow of War.
When offered the difficulty options Normal ought to be "how the developers intend the game to be player".
However, on Shadow of War they have a "Normal" option and a "Nemesis" option that says something along the lines of "experience the full Nemesis system".

Now, what the fuck? WHY would you design this "nemesis system" and make it a central aspect of your game BUT "normal" mode does not give the full experience of that game system. Fucksakes.

Honestly, I so often just find myself thinking that I just want to receive the game exactly as the developer intended.
Same as if I go to an expensive restaurant, I want them to show me what they can do not have me dictate the menu to them.
I don't want to go to a Radiohead concert for them to say "we are just taking requests tonight".

I think I'm really just annoyed that the concept of gaming as "interactive storytelling" seems to be interpreted as the game just being a story that you go through with gameplay being like some obstacle that only exists to separate the game experience from a movie experience.

Would much rather see developers offer their game in a single form. Maybe bring New Game Plus and introduce New Game Minus (for game journos) a while after launch as part of free DLC.

A lot of the difficulty stuff also kind of feels like publisher meddling. Like nobody will buy the game if it's too hard so there has to be all of these options.

Probably it's just me over thinking things but I feel like a lot of times I am wondering "how the hell is the game SUPPOSED to be played".

Developers must have stuff like this in mind, surely?
They don't want players just breezing through the game in a couple of hours.
On the other hand they don't want you trying to beat the same boss 100+ times.
So it seems like you would try to design a game that finds a nice middle ground.

Feels like too many options kind of undermines that and allows it to be lost in the mess.

 

[Frenzy-kun]

What does hard means? And easy? How should I know before I already tried the game?

That's why I am a fan of gamifying the settings of the game. An example easy to understand is Kid Icarus Uprising. You can invest into a multiplier that makes the level harder in exchange of better scores. It's not about messing up with the settings but about maximizing profits.

Another game like this is gemcraft. A tower defender where you can use the leftover gems as bombs. If you bomb over the "next wave" interface, you increase the overall resistance of the wave but also they will drop much more "energy points", so the metagame is about balancing the difficulty to maximize the benefits without dying, and this way you can exponentially increase the results, level up faster and tackle challenges that before seemed impossible or even tedious.

 

[Barnabot]

Aren't the last two AssCreeds doing this?

I guess not. At least for Origins. I'm trying to get the campaign done asap but I'm taking some time to level up, even though I set the thing on the easiest mode and turn off enemy level scaling. I just can't get past into those missions which higher levels are required even though I'm just a couple of levels behind.

 

[Damien Crowley]

I guess not. At least for Origins. I'm trying to get the campaign done asap but I'm taking some time to level up, even though I set the thing on the easiest mode and turn off enemy level scaling. I just can't get past into those missions which higher levels are required even though I'm just a couple of levels behind.

Look under "Animus Control Panel" (I think, you have to play it to a certain point to unlock this option)