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[thomasmahler]

Hey GAF,

I've been recently struggling with this in terms of design and this article on RPS regarding Hyper Light Drifter wanted me to write a few words on this topic:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/03/31/hyper-light-drifter-impressions/

So, Hyper Light Drifter is a brilliant game. From the first moment you play it (apart from the weird 30fps limit, yuck!), the game just tackles how a good game should feel. But a good 20 minutes into the game, you'll notice that the game is brutally difficult.

I'm not sure I fully understand everything about HLD yet, but to me, this game is harder than any Souls game I played. That alone will be enough to make the game never reach the kind of success it could've otherwise had. Let's face it: Most 'normal' players out there aren't as good at games as many of you guys here are.

And I think I do have some expertise in this area. When we designed Ori and the Blind Forest, we used Microsofts testing department to get a good feel early on how player would perceive Ori. The first couple of playtests were very interesting to us since we immediately saw 2 issues:

1) Ori was described as 'way too challenging' by literally every single playtester.
2) Ori was quite a bit more open in the early stages, allowing you to roam around much more freely, but a lot of players just got confused and spent their whole playtime not knowing where to go.

We obviously tried to fix these issues and for the most part, I think we nailed it. We still heard outcries from quite a lot of people that Ori had brutal difficulty spikes, even AFTER we made adjustments - and that was after a lot of testing and feeling like we hit the right spot.

So, GAF, this is where you come in, since I think we should acknowledge that this is a problem.

There's this interesting phenomenon where if you make your game too easy (most games between 2005 and 2009 I think should fall into this category - to me, that was the 'let's dumb it all down' era, when developers and publishers just tried to make their games accessible to almost everyone with games like Prince of Persia 2008 completely getting rid of 'failure'), a lot of players will complain that there's no challenge, but if a game's actually challenging, a lot of players complain that they can't beat it and it's too frustrating.

So the obvious, easy answer is: Designers should know this stuff and find a good compromise. But see, it's not really that easy, since everyone has a different level of skill. What's easy for one person might be brutally difficult for another. We've seen that clearly on Ori: The Ginso Tree Water Rising sequence is now infamous for it's difficulty spike. A lot of players reached out to us and told us that they LOVED those sections and that they wanted more. Others told us that they stopped playing the game and were really angry at us for making the game 'needlessly difficult' (This is why in the Definitive Edition of Ori, we actually implemented Difficulty Modes and put checkpoints into these sequences if you play on 'Easy').

So the way this problem has been handled before was through difficulty modes: Easy, Normal, Hard, you get the idea. Personally, I've been an outspoken hater of Difficulty Modes, since no developer designs their games three times over: Usually in development, games are being made with one difficulty mode in mind and the other ones are usually treated as an afterthought. On top of that, making games easier often means that you're destroying the core of the game: Games like Dark Souls simply rely on certain 'difficulty' game mechanics and implementing an Easy Mode might water down the actual experience people should have. As a designer, I always want to craft that one perfect experience that's just well designed and well-balanced, but I'm accepting more and more that this might just be an impossible goal to have, exactly because everyone has a different skill-level.

With difficulty modes, we also have the problem that most people don't like to play on Easy mode. Picking the Easy difficulty means that you're sort of admitting to yourself that you're 'not very good' and your ego might get in the way of making that choice. I'm sure everyone remembers dying a few times in God of War and the shameful feeling one got when the game asked you if you want to switch to Easy Mode...

So with all that being said, I wonder what your perfect approach to this problem is. How should developers approach that problem? What's the perfect solution here? Is there one? Have there been games recently that just destroyed you and you stopped playing them, but would've kept playing if the game would've been a tad easier? Are there any examples of developers tackling that issue perfectly?

Edit: Also, this is something we've talked about internally and I just wanted to know what your guys stance on it is.

Imagine a game tracks how well you play the game. We track how often you take damage, how often you die, how often you have to heal up, which enemies you have the most trouble with and we adjust things accordingly:

That means that if we see that an area is very difficult for you, more health drops would spawn. If enemies are too difficulty for you, instead of 3 enemies that you have to defeat to follow the critical path, there'd only be 1 or 2. Once you get better at the game, we could play the same game in reverse: If you leveled up a lot and just blaze through areas and enemies, we could raise the difficulty back up again.

Would you feel offended by an approach like that?

Share your thoughts!

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Are there any examples of evolutionary/genetic algorithms being used to control game difficulty?

Edit: guess I should search first ask later because a quick Google search found me...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_game_difficulty_balancing
http://www.cp.eng.chula.ac.th/~vishnu/gameProg/papers/CGAT_LevelDifficultyPlatform.pdf
http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2005miami/papers/501-131.pdf

 

[gigantor21]

Having difficulty modes is a key factor IMO. I really, REALLY don't like games releasing with just one take-it-or-leave-it difficulty, to where you either get bored and stay bored or simply don't beat the game because you never get good enough at it. Very few developers are capable of putting all their eggs in one basket like that and pulling it off.

I always appreciate when efforts are made to accommodate players of all skill levels.

 

[SmartWaffles]

I couldn't get into any of the souls games since for me the death punishment and save system is rage inducing but Ori is an eye opener.

I finished Ori 4 times with 100% completion, two in original and two in definitive edition and I can see myself do it at least one more when it launches on PC. I love how the way Ori being fair and let you, the player decide how you want to approach a section with its brilliant save system. I still suck at games, I died over 100 times in my last Ori DE 100% run, but I didn't even once feel the urge to rage because I know I can control how I want to do it. For me Ori is the prime example on how a modern game handles difficulty and simultaneously being very fair.

 

[thomasmahler]

Also, this is something we've talked about internally and I just wanted to know what your guys stance on it is.

Imagine a game tracks how well you play the game. We track how often you take damage, how often you die, how often you have to heal up, which enemies you have the most trouble with and we adjust things accordingly:

That means that if we see that an area is very difficult for you, more health drops would spawn. If enemies are too difficulty for you, instead of 3 enemies that you have to defeat to follow the critical path, there'd only be 1 or 2. Once you get better at the game, we could play the same game in reverse: If you leveled up a lot and just blaze through areas and enemies, we could raise the difficulty back up again.

Would you feel offended by an approach like that?

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Also, this is something we've talked about internally and I just wanted to know what your guys stance on it is.

[...]

Would you feel offended by an approach like that?

I wouldn't be offended by it. And It sounds like you may be describing what I linked previously.

Edit: I think you can do what you're describing while also having hard lock difficulty options for those who insist on using them. Basically just implement standard easy/normal/hard settings that lock values in, but then add a fourth 'dynamic' option which self adjusts in response to the player.

 

[thomasmahler]

I couldn't get into any of the souls games since for me the death punishment and save system is rage inducing but Ori is an eye opener.

I finished Ori 4 times with 100% completion, two in original and two in definitive edition and I can see myself do it at least one more when it launches on PC. I love how the way Ori being fair and let you, the player decide how you want to approach a section with its brilliant save system. I still suck at games, I died over 100 times in my last Ori DE 100% run, but I didn't even once feel the urge to rage because I know I can control how I want to do it. For me Ori is the prime example on how a modern game handles difficulty and simultaneously being very fair.

See, this is where it gets interesting. For you, we seemed to have hit the right spot: Challenging, but not frustrating or unfair. For others, this simply wasn't true and they just stopped playing after a certain point because they just didn't have the skill level to complete the game...

 

[Admiral Woofington]

I think difficulty levels have their place if the game can be designed around it.

For example in a long ass RPG. When I played the Witcher 3 I could have easily played in Hard and done just fine. In fact in third person shooters I always tend to choose the second to hardest difficulty.

But in RPGs with 40+ hours of content I'll choose either easy or hard depending on what I know of its difficulty. The reason? I don't want to have to add extra fucking time to the completion of an already incredibly fucking long game. Most of these titles I play for the story, the characters, the customization, weapon selection, etc... I'm not playing for the difficulty. I'm playing for all of the above. So if playing on normal/easy guarantees I won't be retrying enemy encounters over and over again but still remain challenging enough I won't grow bored with it, so be it.

Dark Souls is at the center of this discussion. I'm of the mind that if From felt like it and designed it, they could make an optional unlockable easier difficulty work. And I emphasize that it's IF they felt like doing it. You could have it unlock for a player if they die X amount of times in a certain boss, and warn them that if they choose this option they'd be basically throwing away their experience.

Ninja Gaiden had Ninja Dog mode this way and they attempted to mock/remind the player they were doing easy mode by giving you a pink scarf you couldn't remove.

 

[gigantor21]

Also, this is something we've talked about internally and I just wanted to know what your guys stance on it is.

Imagine a game tracks how well you play the game. We track how often you take damage, how often you die, how often you have to heal up, which enemies you have the most trouble with and we adjust things accordingly:

That means that if we see that an area is very difficult for you, more health drops would spawn. If enemies are too difficulty for you, instead of 3 enemies that you have to defeat to follow the critical path, there'd only be 1 or 2. Once you get better at the game, we could play the same game in reverse: If you leveled up a lot and just blaze through areas and enemies, we could raise the difficulty back up again.

Would you feel offended by an approach like that?

I would absolutely LOVE that approach, as long as it was optional.

 

[PaulloDEC]

I see your point about an Easy mode in games possibly being an afterthought or offering a watered-down experience, but my answer to that would be "I don't care, it beats not being able to play the game at all."

The example I use every time this discussion comes up is the item duplication (and by extension XP gain) exploit that showed up for Bloodborne. I played the game for a while before that exploit became known, and I was having an increasingly miserable time. I couldn't even get past the first boss, and my patience was running out. It had stopped being fun.

Then the item duplication glitch showed up, and I was able to boost my level up. Not to an outrageous degree mind you; just a modest boost that gave me the leg-up I needed. The game was still challenging, but not insurmountable anymore. If I pushed hard enough, I was able to beat the bosses. The game was fun again.

I know that devs want all players to have a single, laser-focussed experience with no compromises, but the truth is that people who aren't skilled enough (or don't have the time to become skilled enough) will often be super grateful for whatever concessions you're able to make, even if you feel like they diminish the game somewhat.

Also, this is something we've talked about internally and I just wanted to know what your guys stance on it is.

Imagine a game tracks how well you play the game. We track how often you take damage, how often you die, how often you have to heal up, which enemies you have the most trouble with and we adjust things accordingly:

That means that if we see that an area is very difficult for you, more health drops would spawn. If enemies are too difficulty for you, instead of 3 enemies that you have to defeat to follow the critical path, there'd only be 1 or 2. Once you get better at the game, we could play the same game in reverse: If you leveled up a lot and just blaze through areas and enemies, we could raise the difficulty back up again.

Would you feel offended by an approach like that?

This sounds absolutely brilliant. So long as players can toggle it off, I can't see anyone objecting to it.

 

[Cyborg]

Games are so easy these days. Back in the days we had a lot of more harder games. Even Dark Souls games are not that hard.

 

[Gbraga]

I'm still very early into Hyper Light Drifter, but as a player who isn't really good but just pacient and willing to try to understand the game, I don't see anything that's remotely unfair about it so far.

The art style might make people think this is a game about going ham and playing flashy, but it's much closer to a Souls game in the combat's pacing.

While I do think that some complaints about difficulty balance can be quite valid and some nerfs actually make for a better product (like Shrine of Amana, for example), I also find that there's this weird mentality from people who don't like challenging games that they're owed a game they can beat. I find that most posts that show difficulty accepting that not everything is for everyone (when it comes to challenge) are from that crowd.

I'm mostly the opposite, and the more time I spend playing videogames, less patience I have for things that don't challenge me in any way, save a few exceptions, but I see no point in complaining about every single game that doesn't offer me the challenge I look for, I can easily accept it's just not the kind of game I like and continue to play the ones I do like.

The devs for HLD said that challenge, and the satisfaction of overcoming it, is a major point of the game's design, and it's important to keep going forward, even if they do nerf some things due to popular demand. I think this is a decent enough compromise in theory, but I'm really having trouble seeing anything that needs nerfing at all.

Some people said some areas are harder to start at than others, and the eastern gate is the easiest, but you even have an animation luring you to that place, the game just doesn't force you that way. Just like you'll have a bad time if you start Dark Souls exploring New Londo Ruins, Blighttown or Catacombs, but the game won't stop you, that makes for much more interesting design and allows players to be creative, not to mention it enhances replayability. Who never started a Dark Souls run going to the Catacombs to get the Gravelord Sword? It's awesome! I find it a shame that some people just can't get over the fact that the area they chose is hard, and instead of trying a different one (you can warp at any time back to the main HUB in HLD) they prefer to just complain about it.

About Ori specifically, I still didn't play it, unfortunately, but while I did hear a few things about its difficulty spikes, they were all in a positive light

And I was also pleasantly surprised to know it was a challenging game, for whatever reason I expect a walk in the park when I see a gorgeous 2D game. Even Hyper Light only REALLY captured me when it came out and people were talking about how challenging it was, that's when I said "ok, fuck it" and bought the game. Before that, it was just "that game that is really gorgeous and seems to have a very rich world, I'll play it some day"

 

[Vincent Grayson]

I'm a big fan of the illusion of danger/challenge, without actually killing the player.

Of course, some games are built entirely around failure, learning, and trying again, so I'll excuse them from this.

But your average game with beautiful art, a compelling story/characters, etc simply cannot be so challenging that I have to repeat content. It immediately takes me out of the game, kills immersion, and often, means I won't finish it.

Ori is an interesting example, because it looks gorgeous, and like a game I'd want to play, but I've seen too many accounts of its challenge and players being frustrated by doing a particular section over and over, and to me, that's the antithesis of fun.

I'm with you on difficulty levels. I'd rather a game be designed to be as hard or easy as the developers feel makes sense, and if that's too high/low for some players, then it just means that game isn't for them.

 

[half a moon]

I play on easy mode often. There have been a few games that were too hard for me even on easy. It's usually things one shotting me, overwhelming enemies, health that doesn't regen, unforgiving vehicle segments and etc. I won't hesitate to quit a game if I feel a difficulty spike is too frustrating. I'll chalk it up as shitty game design or shitty difficulty quality control. Souls games I can do especially since you can level up to find the right difficulty for yourself as with any RPG.

Recently the excavator boss in Arkham Knight was giving me a lot of trouble. I thought it was stupid and had no fun doing it or finally completing it. The only reason I did complete it was because of checkpoints during the boss fight alteast.

 

[Hektor]

Also, this is something we've talked about internally and I just wanted to know what your guys stance on it is.

Imagine a game tracks how well you play the game. We track how often you take damage, how often you die, how often you have to heal up, which enemies you have the most trouble with and we adjust things accordingly:

That means that if we see that an area is very difficult for you, more health drops would spawn. If enemies are too difficulty for you, instead of 3 enemies that you have to defeat to follow the critical path, there'd only be 1 or 2. Once you get better at the game, we could play the same game in reverse: If you leveled up a lot and just blaze through areas and enemies, we could raise the difficulty back up again.

Would you feel offended by an approach like that?

I personally would. You would take away the chance for me to beat the game in it's "normal" state and force this decision upon me. Already quite a few games do that, like TLOU with it's ammunition spawns, and i find that to be very lame.

There is not really an incentive to "git gud" if it's just going to get easier every time i die, it would make me less motivated.

 

[Junahu]

If you give players of all skill levels the tools and situations to express themselves within the game's mechanics, it doesn't matter how difficult or easy the game is.

It's tempting to blame a boring experience on the game being easy, but in reality it's simply not engaging enough for the skilled player.

Typically, games with a single difficulty setting will offer optional content beside the main route that demands a better understanding of the mechanics. They may also offer a ranking system, that allows any player to bumble their way through, but gives skilled players a better sense of accomplishment.

 

[John Kowalski]

Also, this is something we've talked about internally and I just wanted to know what your guys stance on it is.

Imagine a game tracks how well you play the game. We track how often you take damage, how often you die, how often you have to heal up, which enemies you have the most trouble with and we adjust things accordingly:

That means that if we see that an area is very difficult for you, more health drops would spawn. If enemies are too difficulty for you, instead of 3 enemies that you have to defeat to follow the critical path, there'd only be 1 or 2. Once you get better at the game, we could play the same game in reverse: If you leveled up a lot and just blaze through areas and enemies, we could raise the difficulty back up again.

Would you feel offended by an approach like that?

This was actually the case with RE4. I like that kind of thing.

Moreover, i've seen a lot of people react positively to the feeling of having managed through a difficult level even if that difficulty was illusory (e.g. you're kept in low health for long stretches, but always safeguarded from death, always having low supplies but never really having none, etc.).

 

[MixedBeverage]

I think difficulty is a really interesting topic. For me, Soulsborne is possibly my favorite game series, but I can't stand games like Megaman. Both are difficult and punishing, but one can be overcome by getting better generally or through the mechanic of summoning help, while one relies on level and timing memorization. One I like, one I don't. So it seems not always be clear what axis of difficulty people are talking about when discussing likes and dislikes.

I agree with your criticism of difficulty level selection -- how do you know at the start of a new game what you should select? On harder difficulties, does the game improve its AI smarts or do the AI turn into bullet sponges with perfect headshot aim? One is fun, one is just annoying. It's definitely annoying to have to switch to "easy". I did this a short way into The Last Of Us, because I was so into the story that I just wanted to see what happened next and the gameplay was just getting in the way. I did later replays on harder difficulties, and it was really fun to experience the game that way, with limited resources and no ability rely on HUD, etc.

In general, if a game is kicking my ass through difficulty, I'll stop if it's because the game relies on pixel perfect jumps, memorization of timed actions, RNGesus, stuff like that. If it seems like I can affect my own experience of difficulty through something like learning a boss's tells better or improving skills like dodging (Souls, Bayonetta), that is motivating. Just my thoughts, not sure if it's helpful.

 

[SmartWaffles]

See, this is where it gets interesting. For you, we seemed to have hit the right spot: Challenging, but not frustrating or unfair. For others, this simply wasn't true and they just stopped playing after a certain point because they just didn't have the skill level to complete the game...

For Ori that is the case since there is a baseline amount of skill required to complete the game no matter how fair the game is, while in Souls series at least you can use some of the more newbie friendly weapons and grind to bruteforce through bosses, something can't be done in a platforming game, that is when difficulty options comes into play.

 

[Gbraga]

Also, this is something we've talked about internally and I just wanted to know what your guys stance on it is.

Imagine a game tracks how well you play the game. We track how often you take damage, how often you die, how often you have to heal up, which enemies you have the most trouble with and we adjust things accordingly:

That means that if we see that an area is very difficult for you, more health drops would spawn. If enemies are too difficulty for you, instead of 3 enemies that you have to defeat to follow the critical path, there'd only be 1 or 2. Once you get better at the game, we could play the same game in reverse: If you leveled up a lot and just blaze through areas and enemies, we could raise the difficulty back up again.

Would you feel offended by an approach like that?

I'm not sure how I feel about it. I wouldn't really feel offended, but if it wasn't optional, it would certainly affect my experience negatively. As I said, I'm not really a great player or anything, I just enjoy challenge. So the game would certainly get easier for me because I'm not great and would take some time adjusting, but I want to go through that proccess, I have fun with it, I don't want the game to stop letting me try and lowering itself to my level. I want to improve instead. Don't spoon feed me.

If it's something like more health drops that I can choose to ignore, I think I could live with it. Less enemies would feel kinda boring to me, unless it was an optional mode.

Not to mention that your way to "fix" this for players might not be super efficient. You play through the game again, and now the difficulty goes up because you're doing better with your experience. On paper it sounds great, but I feel like the people most likely to replay their games in the first place are the ones who do enjoy challenge. People who just want to breeze through the game to get to experience the story, environments and music are less likely to replay it anyway.

I personally think a better solution would be to have optional easier difficulty settings. Like you, I'm not a big fan of difficulty settings for the same reason you mentioned, but instead of several difficulty settings, have just default, which is the challenging difficulty you balance the game around, and Easy, just made as an afterthought for people who don't want to deal with the challenge. I'm still not very fond of this solution, but I find it better than the game adjusting itself to you.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Games are so easy these days. Back in the days we had a lot of more harder games. Even Dark Souls games are not that hard.

I think games were more difficult when I was a kid. But as a kid I was better. I had more time to get better, as well as patience. Old me just isn't as good, nor do I have the time or patience. I just want to have a great time now.

I don't like the mentality I see with smaller games having to be extremely punishing. They're ultimately more difficult then the old games they're paying homage to.

 

[YankeeDonB]

I think there's a partial analogy to literature.

Consider difficult books, say Infinite Jest, The Recollections, or the daddy of them all, Finnegan's Wake. These are hard to read. They take dedication, prior experience with challenging literature, and an active and curious intellect. None of them ever stood a chance of selling like Harry Potter or something. (The works of Shakespeare and the Bible may be exceptions here, though arguably their long term global success comes throug truly unique top-down canonizing forces, and most who read these will understand about 2% of what's going on).

But for people who like difficult books, these may provide an experience that mass market literature will never provide. In theory you limit your potential sales by pushing the medium to its limits, or breaking new technical ground, but you may speak more deeply to a select crowd.

I agree to an extent with your antipathy toward difficulty levels. It's a bit like embedding cliff's notes into a difficult book. You're getting part of the experience, but missing out on some of what may make the work truly great (which, in literature as in games, is often reliant on the struggle required to master the material).

Obviously the analogy breaks down in that an individual can write a book, but most big games take a well funded team, so it may not be sustainable to place purity of artistic vision above all.

In the end, I think you're right that there's no pure way to satisfy the dedicated enthusiast and more casual mass market equally.

 

[Gbraga]

I'm a big fan of the illusion of danger/challenge, without actually killing the player.

This is something that makes for amazing horror games, IMO

I loved Amnesia, but I'm getting kinda tired of every horror game in the world being about "avoid the jumpscare" now. We need more psychological threats. >_<

I personally would. You would take away the chance for me to beat the game in it's "normal" state and force this decision upon me. Already quite a few games do that, like TLOU with it's ammunition spawns, and i find that to be very lame.

There is not really an incentive to "git gud" if it's just going to get easier every time i die, it would make me less motivated.

I also hate the way The Last of Us deals with ammo spawn. It goes completely against the game's design. I'm very glad I didn't find it out on my first playthrough, and was actually under the illusion that the game tries to impose on you that every shot counts, and I treated it as a last resource, but replaying on Survivor, it was very often that I just didn't have enough materials to craft stuff, and had to rely on shooting. And the NPCs kept giving me bullets from their asses. You balance guns and their power around being a scarce resource, and then you give them like candy to the player. Brilliant.

 

[Leafhopper]

I am more in the camp of not every game is for everyone. I get the complaint though but, at the same time I don't think everything has to have an easy mode either.

Games are so easy these days. Back in the days we had a lot of more harder games. Even Dark Souls games are not that hard.

Rewards patience.

 

[Dylan]

I think the two best examples of how to design difficulty are

- Dark Souls
- Punch Out!! (any version really, but I personally think Super Punch Out did it best)

Here are two games that seem extremely challenging to a new player, but allow the player to gain the skill required to complete the game with practice. How many players found Dark Souls (or whichever Souls they started with) ridiculously challenging on their very first attempt, but then eventually became so skilled at the game mechanics that they could complete several bosses on speed runs, without leveling up, etc?

Similarly, remember putting in the Mike Tyson code for the first time and getting utterly destroyed, but then playing through Punch Out!! in full, and realizing that you had acquired the skill to beat Tyson along the way.


I think this is where much of the enjoyment of gaming comes from; it isn't the feeling of beating something really hard, it's that feeling that you have become better at something. Ask any MOBA player and they can describe this well; the compulsion to keep playing largely stems from gaining knew expertise each time you play, and wanting to apply that knew skill during the next match.

 

[Pehesse]

See, this is where it gets interesting. For you, we seemed to have hit the right spot: Challenging, but not frustrating or unfair. For others, this simply wasn't true and they just stopped playing after a certain point because they just didn't have the skill level to complete the game...

As mentioned above, Resi 4, 5 to an extent and quite a few others use adaptive difficulty, which is an elegant solution to the "one difficulty fits all" mantra. I'll have to look up the precise references later, but you should definitely take a look at those! (here's something to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_game_difficulty_balancing) (EDIT: woops, scrolling back up I see this was mentioned already, but... it bears repeating :-D)

However, in your opening post, I don't agree that difficulty modes are inherently wrong because designers don't like designing their games three (or more) times over. On the contrary, I find that designing different difficulty modes allows for the crafting of different experiences based on the kind you want/expect the player to have. If you only consider "easy mode" to be "an easier normal mode", then sure, but I believe it fails to live up to the potential of having different modes in the first place. I love having different difficulty modes that adapt and offer slightly altered content (not only stats) based on the kind of experience that is associated with said difficulty mode... and that starts with not naming the difficulty modes "easy", "normal" and "hard".*

I'll be taking the example of Honey Rose since it's what I'm designing : it's a visual novel/beat em up, so a heavy narrative focus along with some skill requirement, which is why I'm still building three separate difficulty modes, along with an additional "no battles" mode (though that one might need to be unlocked, still unsure about that).
What would traditionally be "easy" mode is basically a "narrative" mode, the "normal" mode is focused around reacting to unforeseen events, and the "hard" mode a very mechanics focused one, designed around careful planning with very little room for additional story leeway. Because of that, all three modes have a little extra content based on this design: a little more story detail/time leeway in easy mode (say, to meet all extra characters), and some extra challenging fights in hard mode.

I believe difficulty modes to be a very good solution when done well, meaning not simply adjusting the stats higher/lower than the intended "base" experience... and also, possibly by not naming those modes "easy" or "hard", but rather names that reflect the kind of experience they'll propose (or go all the way and offer complete descriptions). Deus Ex HR with its "tell me a story" mode, for instance, System Shock 1 with its individual difficulty sliders (puzzle, action, etc) or Deadly Premonition with its detailed explanation of the contents of each mode, have interesting takes on what it could mean to use difficulty modes beyond the traditional Big Three, or at least expand on the barest basics.

The issue here isn't simply about avoiding "dumbing down" games, as that considers the experience solely focused on skill. There are many more things a game can develop - narrative, atmosphere, feeling - and those can be affected by difficulted modes as well, though much, much more rarely. I feel there's the uncharted ground to explore as a designer.

*to be clear, I'm not advocating keeping exclusive content required for the base experience locked to specific difficulty modes, such as having the ending only in normal+ - that's a relic of arcade past, and best left buried. Rather than punishing people for choosing to play in easier difficulties, try to understand *why* they would, and expand the experience your game offers based on that.

 

[Gbraga]

It's tempting to blame a boring experience on the game being easy, but in reality it's simply not engaging enough for the skilled player.

Hmm. You know what? There's a lot of truth in this. When you're more experienced with stylish action games, they're no longer very challenging at all, aside from a few boss fights, but the skill ceiling is so high that you can still have fun with them because you're being challenge by the systems themselves, even if killing enemies has become trivial. You're still experimenting and discovering things.

Same goes for the infinite replayability of Souls games. I can kill the first DLC boss from Bloodborne in less than a minute now, it took me many many many many tries on my first playthrough of the DLC, but I still have a blast, because there is a lot of agency in making that fight trivial. I need to know the right strategy and I need to execute it properly for it to become trivial. It's still engaging even if it's no longer any more difficult than playing a random AAA game on easy.

 

[Mik317]

I don't have as much time for games as I used to and I have some anger issues in general so I tend to avoid hard games. So hearing that a game is super difficult is a huge turn off. Howeva, I don't want the industry to dumb everything down for my ass either because the opposite end of the spectrum is also bad if not worse.

Dragons Dogma is pretty tough early on but the loot and level up system got me through it. So I think a big part is giving the player something they really want to work towards. In the souls games, it is the promise of new environments and things to wreck you..., which may not be enough for folks struggling early. Most gamers need that carrot to chase.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

1) Ori was described as 'way too challenging' by literally every single playtester.
2) Ori was quite a bit more open in the early stages, allowing you to roam around much more freely, but a lot of players just got confused and spent their whole playtime not knowing where to go.

We obviously tried to fix these issues and for the most part, I think we nailed it. We still heard outcries from quite a lot of people that Ori had brutal difficulty spikes, even AFTER we made adjustments - and that was after a lot of testing and feeling like we hit the right spot.

So, GAF, this is where you come in, since I think we should acknowledge that this is a problem.

There's this interesting phenomenon where if you make your game too easy (most games between 2005 and 2009 I think should fall into this category - to me, that was the 'let's dumb it all down' era, when developers and publishers just tried to make their games accessible to almost everyone with games like Prince of Persia 2008 completely getting rid of 'failure'), a lot of players will complain that there's no challenge, but if a game's actually challenging, a lot of players complain that they can't beat it and it's too frustrating.

As you have shown, when this decision-making system is left to a system that mimics populism and 99% of modes are "no responsibility" and 1% is nastily unfair against the player.

 

[Sölf]

I am a big fan of difficulty modes. I mostly play on normal or hard nowadays, depending on my mood and if I already know games of the franchise. Kingdom Hearts, for example, I nowadays exclusively play on the highest difficulty (but without level 1), starting with Birth by Sleep I think. Fire Emblem is also rather weird in terms of difficulty. FE8 is rather easy, even in hard mode, because the differences aren't that high. On the other hand, FE 10 even on normal is quite hard. And then you get stuff like FE 13, Awakening, where the difference between each difficulty mode is completely ridiculous.

While I myself am only working with the RPG Maker, I also tend to create rather hard games. I often have to reduce difficulty rather fast because most people have problems with it after the initial round of testing. Sometimes I do get it right though, but that often means the game is rather linear to begin with in my case. Which is the reason I nowadays just add several difficulties to a game. My most recent one (german, first demo available) for example has 4 difficulties and additionally a second option which let's the player decide if he wants to get a complete heal after each combat or not. I think without the healing on normal difficulty, the game has hit it's intended sweet spot, but I myself have much more fun planning the battles on the highest difficulty, even if that means I sometimes just have to grind that 1-2 extra level in order to actually beat a boss.

So, anyways, difficulties are great. As for your mentioned dynamic difficulty, that would be great of course, but I forsee various problems that could be abused. Don't want to fight a specific enemy? Just die over and over again and maybe he just won't appear after some time. Are really good at the game? Here, have even MORE enemies that are able to kill you in 2 hits. Now you can't get past this area anymore unless you die 4 more times and the game decides you actually are not as good as expected.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I think the two best examples of how to design difficulty are

- Dark Souls
- Punch Out!! (any version really, but I personally think Super Punch Out did it best)

Here are two games that seem extremely challenging to a new player, but allow the player to gain the skill required to complete the game with practice. How many players found Dark Souls (or whichever Souls they started with) ridiculously challenging on their very first attempt, but then eventually became so skilled at the game mechanics that they could complete several bosses on speed runs, without leveling up, etc?

Similarly, remember putting in the Mike Tyson code for the first time and getting utterly destroyed, but then playing through Punch Out!! in full, and realizing that you had acquired the skill to beat Tyson along the way.


I think this is where much of the enjoyment of gaming comes from; it isn't the feeling of beating something really hard, it's that feeling that you have become better at something. Ask any MOBA player and they can describe this well; the compulsion to keep playing largely stems from gaining knew expertise each time you play, and wanting to apply that knew skill during the next match.

In regards to Punch Out, the difficulty is overcome by simple memorization. I don't see that as the player becoming more skilled. They just know what hints to look for and react.

Not all difficult parts in a game can be overcome by remembering a set pattern.

 

[paragonpro]

There are games I prefer to have difficulty modes. Because honestly, I have no desire to play games like uncharted on anything above normal. But games like the arkham series I never play on anything but the hardest difficulty. Halo is never played above or below heroic. And I dont find dark souls particularly hard. Its hard in the sense of the term, but when you learn it, its no harder than any other game.

 

[SmartWaffles]

I am more in the camp of not every game is for everyone. I get the complaint though but, at the same time I don't think everything has to have an easy mode either.

Rewards patience.

This. Straight difficult games like Souls or Ori can and should coexist with games that have traditional difficulty options.

 

[VariantX]

Edit: Also, this is something we've talked about internally and I just wanted to know what your guys stance on it is.

Imagine a game tracks how well you play the game. We track how often you take damage, how often you die, how often you have to heal up, which enemies you have the most trouble with and we adjust things accordingly:

That means that if we see that an area is very difficult for you, more health drops would spawn. If enemies are too difficulty for you, instead of 3 enemies that you have to defeat to follow the critical path, there'd only be 1 or 2. Once you get better at the game, we could play the same game in reverse: If you leveled up a lot and just blaze through areas and enemies, we could raise the difficulty back up again.

Would you feel offended by an approach like that?

Share your thoughts!

I always thought that was the way it SHOULD be done. I didn't even know this was a thing until I read an article posted here that RE4 did this secretly though capcom never confirmed this was true. But I don't feel my experience was cheapened for it even if it was the case. God Hand also made it straight into a front facing mechanic layered onto core difficulty settings.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/03/resident-evil-4-difficulty/

 

[Dylan]

In regards to Punch Out, the difficulty is overcome by simple memorization. I don't see that as the player becoming more skilled. They just know what hints to look for and react.

Not all difficult parts in a game can be overcome by remembering a set pattern.

Memorization does play a role, true, but I think there is still a lot of skill involved. For example, the ability to time counters properly is a skill. So even if you have every opponents' move-set memorized, an increase in sheer skill will allow you to beat them with better times etc, much like a racing game.

You could also argue that any fighting game also comes down to simple memorization, in the sense of "When my opponent does X, I should do Y", however, there is still a lot of skill involved in pulling it off. I think Punch Out!! is just a very well executed distillation of these concepts.

 

[Dice//]

As a Full Time worker.... I appreciate a challenge (I especially liked it in High School or back when I just had a lot less on my plate), but I really don't like having to spend the time dying/retrying over and over again. My free time is limited, and sometimes I just wanna enjoy myself.

Difficulty modes are totally worth it; just make a trophy for hard modes to get that "bragging rights"? :S But I understand that other people live for the hard games and don't want to see the experience 'get soft' on them.

 

[Syril]

You kind of already had a difficulty system of sorts in Ori with the ability tree. None of the abilities you can learn are required but they all make various elements of the game easier. Triple Jump give you more leeway on platforming, Water Breath removes the timer from swimming sections, Regroup and Ultra Soul Link make it so attrition is less of a factor, etc. This is all so optional that you even made an achievement for beating the game without using the ability tree at all. I also get the feeling that one of the reasons why the escape sequences might be so frustrating to some players is that the way they're designed invalidates practically every ability you can learn except Triple Jump, which you pretty much have to go out of your way to build to if you want to have it by the Ginso Tree.

 

[Exentryk]

Imagine a game tracks how well you play the game. We track how often you take damage, how often you die, how often you have to heal up, which enemies you have the most trouble with and we adjust things accordingly:

That means that if we see that an area is very difficult for you, more health drops would spawn. If enemies are too difficulty for you, instead of 3 enemies that you have to defeat to follow the critical path, there'd only be 1 or 2. Once you get better at the game, we could play the same game in reverse: If you leveled up a lot and just blaze through areas and enemies, we could raise the difficulty back up again.

I don't mind this approach, but do give the player the option to control/reset/turn-off this. I think this approach would work well for casual players, and the hardcore can just turn it off.

Personally, I like the games to be as hard as possible, but not tedious. Like games that don't have save anywhere option, and that make you keep retreading the areas. I don't mind fighting a tough enemy 100 times, but if I have to walk 10 mins to get to the fight every time, I'll drop it.

 

[GoldenCrow]

I still think difficulty modes are the best option. I like the idea of a fluid difficulty modes that adapts to the skill of the player, I personally like to play at a set difficulty but fluid would be a nice option. Certain games I don't mind with a single difficulty, Mega Man is one of those as are the From Software games but I wouldn't want to buy Ninja Gaiden and only get the game with Master Ninja difficulty.

Unexpected spikes are the worst thing and can ruin what is a great game, by unexpected I mean that there has been no build up of the skills required for that section. God of War Ascension elevator section is one that stands out at the moment, it is bull shit and comes out of nowhere in what is a very easy game up until that point. Spikes in difficulty are fine but introduce players to the skills earlier or allow them to do others things that allow the player to learn them. If the spike comes at a point that prevents any progress whatsoever that is a what can kill a game for many and ultimately lose money in the long run for the developer.

 

[TylerDurden4321]

Have games as easy as in 2005-2009 in normal and then encourage them with mods or unique rewards to make it harder on themselves is what I'd do. i don't like hard games and I don't like switching to easy neither. But I do like non-linear, open world games where I can do really hard stuff early on and level up until I can play the main missions on borderline god-level(edit: god-mode). It feels like I've earned that power fantasy by grinding and dying to too hard stuff over and over again.
Adapative difficulty has been done poorly in every game I tried and rpg games where the enemies level up with you are the worst.
Edit2: I too like the Mario game approaches the 2 posters below me mention. "Ok, this is hard, make just this level easier for me, next level will be normal again" and "now that I'm getting the hang of this and it's fun, give me some hard(!) stuff".

 

[Mista Koo]

IMO there are two ways of doing difficulty right and I would really like these systems to be more widespread/almost universal :

1- The World Ends With You difficulty menu

At any point during the game you can open the menu and change the difficulty. The higher the difficulty the more experience or rarer drops you get.
Of course this is facilitated by the game being an action RPG where you initiate most of the battles. Also since it's an RPG the only places where difficulty needs to be adjusted are the battles.

2- Nintendo's Super Guide

Possibly a controversial opinion. In a bunch of Mario games (as well as a DK game) when you die a lot the game offers to complete the level or part of it for you. It's just like when family members get me to beat certain sections for them, except the game is doing it without needing someone else.
For the experienced player it feels more like the game taunting the player, except for the time where you actually need to use it. While I've never used it in a Mario game, I stopped playing a bunch of games (including an older Mario game) due to certain horrible sections that made me give up on completing them.

 

[Mohasus]

That means that if we see that an area is very difficult for you, more health drops would spawn. If enemies are too difficulty for you, instead of 3 enemies that you have to defeat to follow the critical path, there'd only be 1 or 2. Once you get better at the game, we could play the same game in reverse: If you leveled up a lot and just blaze through areas and enemies, we could raise the difficulty back up again.

Would you feel offended by an approach like that?

Sounds like rubberbanding in racing games. I don't like it, it feels like being punished for getting better at the game, even if that isn't exactly the case.

I like the approach from newer mario games, the real challenge comes from optional levels after the "main story", this way you can go batshit crazy (i.e. champion road) without having to worry about people not being able to finish it.

 

[Golnei]

Sounds like rubberbanding in racing games. I don't like it, it feels like being punished for getting better at the game, even if that isn't exactly the case.

Giving some further incentive to having the difficulty increase to that level, like with the increased rewards at higher levels of Kid Icarus Uprising's dynamic difficulty slider, could work to make it feel less like being punished for performing well, while still tailoring the difficulty to the player's skill - it'd also provide another reason for the player to want to avoid dying and having the difficulty lower, giving it more of a risk-and-reward dynamic. Of course, that's much easier to implement in a level-based game.

 

[Eegah]

I really enjoy the way most recent Mario games handle this. The first few worlds are absurdly easy for most experienced players, but may be difficult for newer players. The difficulty slowly ramps up throughout the game until you get to the end where the stages can be controller-breakingly hard. Then there was the release of Luigi Bros. U which basically acted as a DLC expansion pack of more difficult levels for those who enjoy the challenge.

This sort of of difficulty ramp up may not work for all types of games though. Mario, being structured around individual stages, makes this technique work. I could imagine that this method might be harder to implement in an open world style game.

 

[SmartWaffles]

IMO there are two ways of doing difficulty right and I would really like these systems to be more widespread/almost universal :

1- The World Ends With You difficulty menu

At any point during the game you can open the menu and change the difficulty. The higher the difficulty the more experience or rarer drops you get.
Of course this is facilitated by the game being an action RPG where you initiate most of the battles. Also since it's an RPG the only places where difficulty needs to be adjusted are the battles.

2- Nintendo's Super Guide

Possibly a controversial opinion. In a bunch of Mario games (as well as a DK game) when you die a lot the game offers to complete the level or part of it for you. It's just like when family members get me to beat certain sections for them, except the game is doing it without needing someone else.
For the experienced player it feels more like the game taunting the player, except for the time where you actually need to use it. While I've never used it in a Mario game, I stopped playing a bunch of games (including an older Mario game) due to certain horrible sections that made me give up on completing them.

Yeah I definitely like the mario approach, helpful for the ones and completely optional for players that don't. The difficulty structure for the recent Mario games too, the main game is approachable enough for everyone to complete, if you want challenge there are post-game worlds that can be brutally hard.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

I can't talk about this in modern terms because I've been playing nothing but old games in the past couple years with the exception of Super Mario 3D World.

Things I don't like though is arbitrary difficulty like giving enemies a ton of HP. Having one fight take an hour is not fun. One hit kill bosses are annoying too, but I don't see them often. The newest game I've played is Super Mario 3D World and I was fine with the difficulty in that game. Some of the post game levels I found too hard, but it's whatever. I never found it unfair.

 

[TylerDurden4321]

Speaking of racing games, driving with "assists"(tcs , stm, manual shifting etc.) doesn't feel like switching to easy mode and it doesn't feel like cheating, but turning some assists off can give you more control over a car and enables you to do things with car you otherwise couldn't. Some "assists" could even work as "diificulty settings" in souls games, where the Mario approach probably wouldn't work as well (and would piss off fans less as well).

 

[spliced]

I think the highest quality of game design is multiple natural solutions to challenges that cater to different styles of play.

Dark Souls' summoning system is probably the best help system because it still makes the player feel involved while also debatably makes the game more enjoyable while you get help.

Another idea I like is buying help like clues or invincibility potions. This way it puts limits on how much help you get, but it also allows you to get help at the specific parts you need help with.

 

[Silver Arrows]

When it comes to difficulty in sports games, I really, REALLY wish more sports developers would follow MLB The Show's lead and introduce adaptive difficulty. It would reduce the amount of slider fiddling that comes with higher difficulties. I'd also like to see more sports games do what The Show does and offer more options for accessibility.

 

[SmartWaffles]

Speaking of racing games, driving with "assists"(tcs , stm, manual shifting etc.) doesn't feel like switching to easy mode and it doesn't feel like cheating, but turning some assists off can give you more control over a car and enables you to do things with car you otherwise couldn't. Some "assists" could even work as "diificulty settings" in souls games, where the Mario approach probably wouldn't work as well (and would piss off fans less as well).

I'll definitely play a souls game with some assists though.

When it comes to difficulty in sports games, I really, REALLY wish more sports developers would follow MLB The Show's lead and introduce adaptive difficulty. It would reduce the amount of slider fiddling that comes with higher difficulties. I'd also like to see more sports games do what The Show does and offer more options for accessibility.

This too. FIFA's difficulty spike between Professional and World Class is ridiculous.