ianhamilton_
Member
No, they make different people's experiences more similar. Lack of options takes people's individual experiences further away from the original vision.
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Let's talk about difficulty and accessibility
- Thread starter thomasmahler
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No, they make different people's experiences more similar. Lack of options takes people's individual experiences further away from the original vision.
ianhamilton_
Member
"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."
I bought Ori. I had a pretty miserable experience with it, amd that was one of the reasons. All of the beautiful visuals in the world couldn't make up for the ensuing boredom and frustration. It was a real shame, I really wanted to enjoy it, there is clearly a great deal of love that went into it. And despite finding the game totally unenjoyable to play, I still like it as a cultural/artistic artefact.
The reason I'm bringing this up is to discuss the nature of difficulty. 'Easy' 'Hard' etc is a really blunt instrument. Different people find different things easy and hard. Some find the timing of jumps difficult, some remembering what they're supposed to be doing, some finding their way around the level, some the combat.
So more detailed options are great. Sports games kind of do a good job of this, but they have a pretty big failing in how overwhelming it becomes. You need presets too. Presets of common combinations for people who don't want to tinker, and then for those who do want to tinker, more detailed settings, some of which would include exposing some of the variables you already have available for dev / balancing use.
"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."
Not an uncommon outlook, but as you say, completely unachievable. Everyone experiences games differently, even the most rigid on-rails experience is viewed through the lens of each player's tastes, preferences, cultural references and so on, and difficulty is no exception.
The key thing is that "easy" and "hard" are relative to a person's skill level. And many people can't just "get good", particularly the 20%+ of gamers who have some kind of disability.
So when designers think that only having a single fixed difficulty equates to ensuring that all players have the same experience... the opposite is true. If you allow a range of difficulty, you're actually allowing a more unified experience, with players able to have an enjoyably challenging session regardless of their individual abilities or preferences.
"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..."
Don't call it easy, call it something that reflects the experience, in the same way as Mass Effect. For example a preset called exploratory with precision and timing help, a preset called combat with navigation and objective help, another preset for the full experience with all of the help turned off.
"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.""
This!
I bought Ori. I had a pretty miserable experience with it, amd that was one of the reasons. All of the beautiful visuals in the world couldn't make up for the ensuing boredom and frustration. It was a real shame, I really wanted to enjoy it, there is clearly a great deal of love that went into it. And despite finding the game totally unenjoyable to play, I still like it as a cultural/artistic artefact.
The reason I'm bringing this up is to discuss the nature of difficulty. 'Easy' 'Hard' etc is a really blunt instrument. Different people find different things easy and hard. Some find the timing of jumps difficult, some remembering what they're supposed to be doing, some finding their way around the level, some the combat.
So more detailed options are great. Sports games kind of do a good job of this, but they have a pretty big failing in how overwhelming it becomes. You need presets too. Presets of common combinations for people who don't want to tinker, and then for those who do want to tinker, more detailed settings, some of which would include exposing some of the variables you already have available for dev / balancing use.
"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."
Not an uncommon outlook, but as you say, completely unachievable. Everyone experiences games differently, even the most rigid on-rails experience is viewed through the lens of each player's tastes, preferences, cultural references and so on, and difficulty is no exception.
The key thing is that "easy" and "hard" are relative to a person's skill level. And many people can't just "get good", particularly the 20%+ of gamers who have some kind of disability.
So when designers think that only having a single fixed difficulty equates to ensuring that all players have the same experience... the opposite is true. If you allow a range of difficulty, you're actually allowing a more unified experience, with players able to have an enjoyably challenging session regardless of their individual abilities or preferences.
"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..."
Don't call it easy, call it something that reflects the experience, in the same way as Mass Effect. For example a preset called exploratory with precision and timing help, a preset called combat with navigation and objective help, another preset for the full experience with all of the help turned off.
"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.""
This!
Exactly. As some one who isn't great at video games while I do actually enjoy a challenge I'm a lot more forgiving of a game if it is too easy than if it is too hard. Too easy will have me wish it was harder. Too hard and I'll probably finally put the game down in disgust and stop caring about finishing it.
Now, give me a chance to change difficulty in the middle of my plays rough I'll get stubbern about not going to easier cause I know I can if I need to and if it does get to the point of it's that or not play again then I'll change. Add in a trophy that you don't get if I change I may even just put the game down and try when I'm less frustrated. Just knowing I can go on easy though makes me less likely to give up and leave the game.
Well, for instance, practically all Uncharted and TloU games dynamically spawn ammo based on your need.
It's simply that "fun" and "flow" are found in the window between "too challenging" and "not challenging enough".
Dynamic difficulty eases that, but if too blunt, makes achievements feel hollow.
If you're battling a boss, or a difficult section, and making progress - but suddenly, after, say, 3 deaths - the algorithm decides you're having too much of a rough time, and you clear the boss, not on your merits but because the game decided you'd suffered enough, it feels bad.
Even worse if some players recognize the fact and start suiciding on purpose to cheat the algorithm.
.. Never underestimate the part of the playerbase which will do the efficient thing instead of the fun thing, and then whine that it's not fun.
toddhunter
Member
TLoU and Uncharted are good examples of games where adaptive or low difficulty is appropriate. Beating the gameplay challenges isn't really the point, enjoying the ride is.
For other games? It would ruin the experience.
For other games? It would ruin the experience.
Pokemaniac
Member
Umm, no. Options (or the lack thereof) are part of the vision itself. Difficulty options are choices that the player makes, designed into the game just like any other bit of player agency. If the developer feels that including difficulty options will improve the player's experience of their game, then so be it. However, the problem with the "options are always good" line of thinking is that, taken to its logical conclusion, it suggests that player agency ought to override developer vision. Options are only good as long as they are in support of the vision of the game.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
To this day I am wondering why people are complaining that some Nintendo games offer easy mode. It's not like the normal or hard modes are abandoned or something.
The Xtortionist
Member
I believe Resident Evil 5 does this. Amateur, Normal, and Veteran difficulties all set appropriate "ranges" for the game to dynamically shift to based on how the player performs (the highest possible setting for Amateur will likely be lower than the lowest possible setting on Veteran, for example). Professional - the highest difficulty - simply locks the challenge at the toughest level. It's a fantastic system.
Bornstellar
Member
IMHO, true flow comes when you master mechanics without diminishing the challenge. Having a game make itself easier isn't going to help me get better. As a player, I think it's my responsibility to recognize that and never let myself get too comfortable.
This is my flow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01rIOHNfEec&feature=share
You'll notice that this is my most recent montage and is markedly different from the previous montages I made specifically because I went out of my comfort zone to try to master something new (backwards wallruns / bhops, kraber, CR, and goosers with such).
This is my flow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01rIOHNfEec&feature=share
You'll notice that this is my most recent montage and is markedly different from the previous montages I made specifically because I went out of my comfort zone to try to master something new (backwards wallruns / bhops, kraber, CR, and goosers with such).
Clockwork5
Member
Offended? No but there is something rewarding about improving and accomplishing a goal which I found super difficult before. Then later, when I am able to repeat that success repeatedly i just feel unstoppable.
If I noticed I was getting more health or the enemies took less hits to kill I would feel kind of like the dev pitied me and I would want that challenge back.
Of course this is a very subjective opinion. Also, if this was an option in a game I would see it, be glad that it is there for others and ignore it.
deathkiller
Member
This whole discussion seems to only make sense in "cinematic" games. In a stage based game you can always just give the user ranks regarding how well have they done in each difficulty and they can switch to lower difficulty for a bit and come back to improve latter.
Sounds very familiar.
As game design scientists we've also done some experiments in trying to figure out what difficulty level people prefer. Trying to find when one reaches that, you've probably heard of the term, flow zone of optimal challenge, which should lead to the highest engagement.
I think pretty much every single study found people preferring the easiest difficulty level. There's as far as I'm aware no empirical basis whatsoever for the average person liking difficult versions of the same game.
I don't think many people actually like being challenged. They like the solution to not be straightforward, but above that, nothing too frustrating. They want a feeling of accomplishment, not challenge, though challenge could perhaps heighten that feeling (though I would hazard the guess this challenge should come at next to no cost of frustration).
Obviously we researchers have more of a cross section than 'real gamers' or even your playtesters. Additionally, this is speaking about averages and not individual preferences. But still.
I can't shake the feeling that part, and I should be careful to stress only part, of the whole dumbing down and no more difficult games mantra is gamers trying to find some kind of street cred measure of being a true gamer. A relatively harmless but exclusionary metric. Games were more difficult back in the day, so if you like difficult games you play games for longer and/or are more of a pro than casuals. But, not necessarily something they actually prefer to play.
At least I find it striking that anonymous questionnaires after an experiment lead to different result than what you read on social media.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
From what I've seen making it "easier" is even optional.
Though I've seen people even complain about it, like the existence somehow makes the game lesser.
ianhamilton_
Member
And if you're unable to just get better?
ianhamilton_
Member
If a developer's vision is of a fixed locked down experience that all players will experience in the same way.. As the OP accurately stated, this is impossible to achieve, because everyone experiences things differently, depending on their own abilities (inc. disability), preferences, experiences, cultural touchpoints etc. Locking down the experience means that those things cannot be taken into account, forcing people to have wildly different experiences.
If the vision is a bit more fluid, based on for example getting players into a nice flow of hard enough to be a worthwhile challenge but not too hard to be exclusionary, it is possible to achieve that through flexibility in difficulty. It is not possible to achieve it without. "Hard" is a relative term.
After ten years of working on accessibility in gaming I've seen many many players have a miserable time with a game due to too narrow a range of difficulty. Those people are not experiencing anything remotely like the developer's vision.
What appears on the surface to be a wider range of experiences is actually the opposite, it allows more players to have the same kind of enjoyment out of a game.
ianhamilton_
Member
Also worth mentioning that there is no game, Dark Souls included, where 'difficulty' is a critical part of the mechanic. This is because 'difficulty' is a broad, generic term, it means many different things.
Difficulty figuring out how to beat a boss? Difficulty hitting the inputs with the right timing? Difficulty finding how to get from one room to the next? Difficulty remembering what you're supposed to be doing? Difficulty knowing where on the map you are? Difficulty targeting small objects? Difficulty being able to distinguish things from the background they're against?
Each of those things is critically important for some games, and cannot be messed with without breaking what's fun about them. But in other games, they are are unnecessary barriers that can easily be opened up to options without harming the vision at all.
Difficulty figuring out how to beat a boss? Difficulty hitting the inputs with the right timing? Difficulty finding how to get from one room to the next? Difficulty remembering what you're supposed to be doing? Difficulty knowing where on the map you are? Difficulty targeting small objects? Difficulty being able to distinguish things from the background they're against?
Each of those things is critically important for some games, and cannot be messed with without breaking what's fun about them. But in other games, they are are unnecessary barriers that can easily be opened up to options without harming the vision at all.
In my case it's nothing about feeling pro or ego boosting. It's the difference between me wanting to play a game and me preferring to watch someone else play a game. I've spent hundreds of hours watching my ex wife play games like Animal Crossing or my kids playing games like Kirby. I've sat on my couch and watched play throughs of so many games that I have no interest in playing but enjoyed watching.
If the gameplay isn't engaging, then it has to engage me on some other level. Games like Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Zelda and GTA manage to engage me despite their gameplay, but these are more the exceptions.
Right here... what RE4 does. That's what I want all games to do. I don't want to set a difficulty at the beginning of the game. I don't mind if a game gives me a little help if I'm struggling through an area.
Getting stuck and making no progress will be a reason that I will put a game down and never come back.
Great OP!
I can share my own experience. I made the game A Bastard's Tale, and since I have few friends who plays games and since I did not have money for play testing I had to try out the game myself. However, I had played the game for 100s of hours I was already expert at the game. Therefore it was very hard set the correct difficulty and the game became very difficult. I think that the main problem was that the game became too difficult too early. The first level is actually very easy but since the players were not used to the controls many found the level almost impossible.
However, and this is a big however, many really liked the game and liked the difficulty. They did not mind that they died a lot. Personally, I feel that an easy game are wasting my time. Super Mario 3D world is a great example of a game that in my opinion does not become fun until world 5ish. Before that the game is so easy that it felt to me like the game did not respect my time. But, many says exactly the same about the Souls games, that they are so hard that they do not respect their time. Many people probably rage quite my game already on the first level while others really liked that it was hard from the very beginning. Since I fully agree with OP that difficulty settings are a flawed concept this creates a dilemma. The short answer is that you cannot please everybody, some enjoy difficult games while others do not. I think the difficulty of a game is one of it's most important aspect and game developers (that does not make AAA games ) have to choose which audience they want to please.
I can share my own experience. I made the game A Bastard's Tale, and since I have few friends who plays games and since I did not have money for play testing I had to try out the game myself. However, I had played the game for 100s of hours I was already expert at the game. Therefore it was very hard set the correct difficulty and the game became very difficult. I think that the main problem was that the game became too difficult too early. The first level is actually very easy but since the players were not used to the controls many found the level almost impossible.
However, and this is a big however, many really liked the game and liked the difficulty. They did not mind that they died a lot. Personally, I feel that an easy game are wasting my time. Super Mario 3D world is a great example of a game that in my opinion does not become fun until world 5ish. Before that the game is so easy that it felt to me like the game did not respect my time. But, many says exactly the same about the Souls games, that they are so hard that they do not respect their time. Many people probably rage quite my game already on the first level while others really liked that it was hard from the very beginning. Since I fully agree with OP that difficulty settings are a flawed concept this creates a dilemma. The short answer is that you cannot please everybody, some enjoy difficult games while others do not. I think the difficulty of a game is one of it's most important aspect and game developers (that does not make AAA games ) have to choose which audience they want to please.
Bornstellar
Member
Then you bump the difficulty down.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Regarding difficulty modes: I think they're fine. Maybe not perfect, but as a designer, you aren't perfect, either. There have been a few games I've bought where the general consensus is to stick the game on Easy Mode because otherwise things will get in the way of enjoying it (for example, Red Faction Guerilla).
Sometimes, the experience you've planned isn't the experience people want, and having a way to bypass that really helps.
Maybe Silent Hill's difficulty selector was more the answer. It let you set the difficulty of multiple elements of the game separately. Maybe instead of "Easy, Medium, Hard" you tack on a fourth option: "Custom."
I remember with the original release of Doom 3, there's a mod called "Sikkmod" that adds a ton of customization options for gameplay and graphics alike. I found it really fun because it let me custom-tweak the game's difficulty. I cranked everything up -- enemies did more damage, my weapons did more damage, and I had slowly regenerating health that would make sure I was never below 40% HP.
And to me, that made Doom 3 a lot more fun. It made the game feel a lot more exciting because I couldn't afford to trade damage. But it also meant that, if I barely survived one encounter, I wouldn't be totally screwed for the next one.
You can't account for everything, and that goes both ways. If difficulty really is so subjective, give players subjective options. If they're too prideful to drop down to something easier, well, at least they have that option. You and your design decisions aren't the roadblock there, it's the user's own stubbornness.
Sometimes, the experience you've planned isn't the experience people want, and having a way to bypass that really helps.
Maybe Silent Hill's difficulty selector was more the answer. It let you set the difficulty of multiple elements of the game separately. Maybe instead of "Easy, Medium, Hard" you tack on a fourth option: "Custom."
I remember with the original release of Doom 3, there's a mod called "Sikkmod" that adds a ton of customization options for gameplay and graphics alike. I found it really fun because it let me custom-tweak the game's difficulty. I cranked everything up -- enemies did more damage, my weapons did more damage, and I had slowly regenerating health that would make sure I was never below 40% HP.
And to me, that made Doom 3 a lot more fun. It made the game feel a lot more exciting because I couldn't afford to trade damage. But it also meant that, if I barely survived one encounter, I wouldn't be totally screwed for the next one.
You can't account for everything, and that goes both ways. If difficulty really is so subjective, give players subjective options. If they're too prideful to drop down to something easier, well, at least they have that option. You and your design decisions aren't the roadblock there, it's the user's own stubbornness.
Pokemaniac
Member
What does it really matter that any individual game is accessible, though? Accessibility is not a measure of quality. To the contrary, many of the works lauded as the greatest in their medium are often some of the least accessible.
ianhamilton_
Member
...assuming that option exists, which is the topic of this thread
ianhamilton_
Member
There is no absolute measure of quality. If someone is unnecessarily locked out of a game or has an unnecessarily bad time with it, as far as they're concerned, the quality is abysmal. E.g. for someone who is deaf, decent subtitling is 100% a measure of quality.
No game developer wants their game to be an unnecessarily miserable experience for anyone. So it 100% matters, for all games.
There is no binary accessible/inaccessible switch. No game can be accessible to everyone (to do so would mean removing all barriers and turning it into a toy or interactive narrative). Instead of a game 'being accessible', accessibility is an optimisation process of identifying unnecessary barriers.
These games you're thinking of... Inaccessible to who? They will be accessible to some people, inaccessible to others, and with plenty of missed opportunity to have made them accessible to more people without harming anything that they were critically lauded for.
//ARCANUM
Member
I hate when a game's "hard" difficulty setting does nothing more than inflate enemies HP. That really doesn't require any additional strategy to beat, everything just takes longer. Prime example: Persona 4 Golden. I think the game is decently balanced (with a couple boss exceptions) on normal. On hard it's the same game but everything takes like 4x as long. That's just a waste.
This is patently false. There are plenty of games where the developer knows most people will give up. Super Meat Boy, Spelunky, The Binding of Isaac, N+, plenty of bullet hell games and recently Enter the Gungeon to give some examples. These games are amazing and their difficulty is a major part of what makes them so great. This "all games could be accessible without diminishing what makes them great" idea is terrible. Every game doesn't have to be for everyone. It's OK to realize "You know what? This game isn't for me." Not every game has to be. There are already so many games released that no human could play them all, and there are always more games coming.
Pokemaniac
Member
Yeah, no. I really don't think most people are meant to be able to complete Super Meat Boy, Binding of Isaac, that one boss in Undertale, or a multitude of other other examples. Games don't have to be completable by just anybody, and developers shouldn't feel obligated to accommodate people if doing so would be detrimental to their vision.
The key point is that the inclusion of any option in a game is a design decision, and thus, isn't inherently good or bad.
ianhamilton_
Member
I think you've skipped over a couple of very important words - "unnecessarily" and "more".
Again - no developer wants players to have an unnecessarily miserable time, that completely flies in the face of what working in games is about. I have never met or worked with a developer who wants their players to have an unnecessarily miserable time.
And yes, every game could be more accessible without harm. If you scroll back up and read the previous post about the many different things that the term 'difficulty' encompasses, it should make sense. What makes those games you listed 'difficult' varies from game to game. The types of barriers that are a necessary part of the enjoyment are specific to each game.
Also bear in mind that accessibility means this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility
But the principles are the same regardless of whether you're talking about barriers relating to disability or not: it's about identifying which barriers are unnecessary. Which barriers can be avoided without impacting what makes the game fun. It doesn't mean taking an oversimplified difficult/easy view and shunting more towards the latter.
If it really is a core element of the enjoyment that you're required to have ten fingers on the controller simultaneously, to be able to execute pixel perfect jumps, to target tiny objects, to discern subtle differences in color, to learn and recall complex attack patterns etc etc etc, there's nothing wrong with that.
But in EVERY game (I say every because the industry is still learning about this stuff, although the situation is rapidly improving) there are many unnecessarily missed opportunities to allow more players to experience the same enjoyment.
Ultimately, you have a vision, you have a target audience who you want to experience that vision. But your target audience is not an army of clones of you, so you need to make allowances to ensure your vision is able to get across to as many of them as possible.
Are hard to distinguish visuals part of what makes Super Meat Boy fun? Of course not, if it had visuals like that it would be adding completely unnecessary difficulty, harming the experience for many of the people the developers wanted to reach. And the same barrier in a hidden object game? That's a completely necessary barrier, it's what makes the game fun.
Precise timing? Other way around. In SBM that's a critical part of the mechanic, and in a hidden object game it's a completely unnecessary barrier.
So really, that's my point. That difficult/easy is relative to your own ability, and is not a linear scale.. It encompasses many different things, so you absolutely can optimise any game to make it easier in some way, i.e. avoiding some unnecessary barrier, while leaving the necessary barriers intact.
In The Binding of Isaac the game features overt blood, gore, urine and feces. It has religious overtones and involves injured and dead children. On top of this, the game is hard as nails. This game was not intended to be accessible for everyone.
In Super Meat Boy you play as a bloody hunk of meat trying to rescue your girl friend who was kidnapped by a fetus in a jar. You leave a trail of blood wherever you touch and die horribly. The game is hard as nails. This game is not intended to be accessible for everyone.
There are plenty of games that are created with the intention of not being accessible for everyone. In fact in the case of these two games, the developers seemed to go in with the intention of disgusting people before they even touch the controller. You have to get past the subject matter to even reach the point where you get a chance to die over and over. Your suggestion that some developers don't intend people to be miserable while playing is definitely incorrect.
ianhamilton_
Member
Please read the previous posts and stop mis-quoting. I did not suggest that 'developers don't intend people to be miserable while playing'.
Again:
1. NO developer wants any player to have an UNNECESSARILY miserable time with their game.
2. No game in existence can be accessible to everyone.
3. EVERY game can be optimised to be more accessible to more people without harming what makes it fun.
You previously mentioned Undertale. The choice of colours in Undertale made it miserable for many players.
In The Witness, there is a puzzle involving overlapping coloured panes of glass. For this, the difficulty is based entirely on colour perception. It's a necessary barrier. However in Undertale, the demand on colour perception was a completely unnecessary source of difficulty.
So the developer went back and patched in a solution, removing the unnecessary barrier, removing the unnecessary source of difficulty without harming the core experience, allowing really substantial numbers of his target audience to have a better experience of his game, an experience closer to his vision.
I think this is an awful approach to game design. It comes from a place of good intentions, but it's just another form of the "everybody wins" school of game design.
Games designed to reach the broadest possible audience are also the games most likely to be watered-down, boring affairs. To trust an algorithm to do it just adds soulless to the list of adjectives.
You are wrong. These two developers intended people to be miserable while playing. My ex wife can't even look at the screen while I am playing these games as it makes her feel ill. If she tried to play she would be miserable the entire time. Thia was intended by the developers.
ianhamilton_
Member
TeddyShardik
Banned
Difficulty modes are just Baby's first difficulty management. They hardly ever amount to more than a few values like enemy damage being dialed up or down and most of the time he player is not even really told what each difficulty level entails.
It's just a selection how much you want to ruin the balancing of the game because the only balanced mode (if you're lucky) is normal.
So yeah, I find this type if difficulty management really boring and even not very useful most of the time.
Give players the possibility to make things easier through gameplay mechanics. Maybe give them an optional partner or an easier alternative route to discover etc.
The Binding of Isaac could have many different themes and play identically. The game was made unnecessarily miserable on purpose.
flatearthpandas
Member
Automatic difficulty adjustment is not something that sounds appealing to me. Some people like to slam their heads against the wall until they figure things out. Likewise, sometimes I don't necessarily feel like being challenged. If I enjoy a game I've become skilled at, it doesn't make it more fun to play if enemy hp is suddenly increased or there are more enemies in my way. That sounds like it could get annoying. At the least, I would hope a feature like this is optional.
ianhamilton_
Member
Here's a quote from Edmund, one of the two Super Meat Boy developers that you're referring to:
"Frustration was the biggest part of retro difficulty and something we felt needed to be removed at all costs, in order to give the player a sense of accomplishment without discouraging them to the point of quitting."
This is a perfect example of how "difficulty" is a vague umbrella, and is defined differently in different games.
Pinpoint accuracy - necessary barrier, so it is part of the game. Having to redo long sections - this would have made the game more difficult, but they viewed it as an unnecessary barrier, so they intentionally avoided it. They went to great lengths to avoid unnecessary barriers to people's enjoyment. It was a central part of their design philosophy. All of this is fact, they said it themselves in interview.
There are more still that could have been avoided, for example the barrier of having fixed inputs, people having an unnecessarily miserable time because they find that control setup difficult. Allowing remappable controls would have removed that barrier without any harm at all to what makes the game fun.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Just for reference, in the game that has my favorite example of dynamic difficulty, both are present. You can set the game to legendary difficulty from the start (or easy as pie), or just let the game scale to your skills.
Polioliolio
Member
I have been gaming since I was 3 years old. I can play most games well, but I'm definitely more of a hard mode guy than a very hard mode guy, and I would rarely, if ever touch anything like nightmare mode.
I've never beat Mike Tyson or Ninja Gaiden, but I have gotten through every stage in Super Meat Boy, and adore Dark Souls about more than anything and consider it to have rescued my interest in video games when, as OP states, games in 2005 - 2009 were trying their damnedest to make broad experiences suited to anybody.
To me, if a game doesn't challenge me in some way, the it's not a game, but a toy. And that's alright. I'm a huge Noby Noby Boy fan...
But the wind empties from my sails when I play a game that just leads me through the experience without challenging me.. What the point in playing if there's no challenge? If there's no need to learn or get better? When playing co-op games, difficulty has been an enormous factor to whether we have a fun time or not.. I'll tell you what, if not for challenge, how many games do you think have what it takes to entertain the players by simply being fun or delivering an amazing and captivating story? Very very few! Not every game is Super Mario 3D World and even then the novelties dry up after a couple hours and without a sense of difficulty or challenge to overcome, the game can quickly become a bore.. Thankfully, Nintendo seems to get that and is sure to make the challenge increase in the end game.
The most fun I've had in games like Super Mario Maker have been taking on difficult stages in a room of friends, passing the controller around as we slowly figured out how to beat these hard stages.. Come to think of it, similarly, we played Little Big Planet the same way.
If not for the well designed challenging levels, the game would have quickly become boring. Anyone can make an easy level.. What's the point of playing yet another easy level? We've seen the cute graphics and experienced the novelties.. There's no thrill or excitement in slogging through an easy game unless is has an incredibly captivating story, and let's face it, games rarely pull that off.
I guess a great example of a game that needed to be playable for everyone, but was self aware enough to realize it had to be short in order to maximize satisfaction is Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. It's short enough that the charming story is completed before the novelty wears off. Great little game that needn't be difficult.. But fuck me if a game like Dark Souls was made easier just to get more people through it. I'm one of those guys who is defensive about the idea of "making the game more accessible".. Why? Because Demon's Souls singlehandedly made games fun for me again. It was precisely the challenge, the patience required, the learning experience, and let's face it, the punishment of failure, that made the game so engaging.
I don't think a lot of people understand that.
I'm rambling now I think, but I want to add that if a game is interesting enough to virtually any player, they will rise to overcome the challenges it puts forth. I refuse to believe there are bad players out there who can't adjust to learn to play a game if they really like it.. I mean I suppose there might be some older inexperienced players who still can't move two analog sticks at once, or don't play enough games to get the basics of a game controller, but I would say first, not every game needs to suit every play style, but also, don't underestimate even these players. If there's a game that engages them well enough to get them to spend time learning it, you'd be surprised the challenges they can overcome.
Anyway, I really hate that difficulty slider algorithm stuff. Please do not include that in your future games. I crave to overcome challenges. If I struggled with something and the game just moved past it, it would be insulting and would deflate me knowing that even the game thinks I can't do it. If I wanted a passive experience, I'd watch television. There's nothing wrong with difficulty modes or other ways to deal with difficulty.
I've never beat Mike Tyson or Ninja Gaiden, but I have gotten through every stage in Super Meat Boy, and adore Dark Souls about more than anything and consider it to have rescued my interest in video games when, as OP states, games in 2005 - 2009 were trying their damnedest to make broad experiences suited to anybody.
To me, if a game doesn't challenge me in some way, the it's not a game, but a toy. And that's alright. I'm a huge Noby Noby Boy fan...
But the wind empties from my sails when I play a game that just leads me through the experience without challenging me.. What the point in playing if there's no challenge? If there's no need to learn or get better? When playing co-op games, difficulty has been an enormous factor to whether we have a fun time or not.. I'll tell you what, if not for challenge, how many games do you think have what it takes to entertain the players by simply being fun or delivering an amazing and captivating story? Very very few! Not every game is Super Mario 3D World and even then the novelties dry up after a couple hours and without a sense of difficulty or challenge to overcome, the game can quickly become a bore.. Thankfully, Nintendo seems to get that and is sure to make the challenge increase in the end game.
The most fun I've had in games like Super Mario Maker have been taking on difficult stages in a room of friends, passing the controller around as we slowly figured out how to beat these hard stages.. Come to think of it, similarly, we played Little Big Planet the same way.
If not for the well designed challenging levels, the game would have quickly become boring. Anyone can make an easy level.. What's the point of playing yet another easy level? We've seen the cute graphics and experienced the novelties.. There's no thrill or excitement in slogging through an easy game unless is has an incredibly captivating story, and let's face it, games rarely pull that off.
I guess a great example of a game that needed to be playable for everyone, but was self aware enough to realize it had to be short in order to maximize satisfaction is Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. It's short enough that the charming story is completed before the novelty wears off. Great little game that needn't be difficult.. But fuck me if a game like Dark Souls was made easier just to get more people through it. I'm one of those guys who is defensive about the idea of "making the game more accessible".. Why? Because Demon's Souls singlehandedly made games fun for me again. It was precisely the challenge, the patience required, the learning experience, and let's face it, the punishment of failure, that made the game so engaging.
I don't think a lot of people understand that.
I'm rambling now I think, but I want to add that if a game is interesting enough to virtually any player, they will rise to overcome the challenges it puts forth. I refuse to believe there are bad players out there who can't adjust to learn to play a game if they really like it.. I mean I suppose there might be some older inexperienced players who still can't move two analog sticks at once, or don't play enough games to get the basics of a game controller, but I would say first, not every game needs to suit every play style, but also, don't underestimate even these players. If there's a game that engages them well enough to get them to spend time learning it, you'd be surprised the challenges they can overcome.
Anyway, I really hate that difficulty slider algorithm stuff. Please do not include that in your future games. I crave to overcome challenges. If I struggled with something and the game just moved past it, it would be insulting and would deflate me knowing that even the game thinks I can't do it. If I wanted a passive experience, I'd watch television. There's nothing wrong with difficulty modes or other ways to deal with difficulty.
struggler_guts
Gold Member
I don't think I'd enjoy the adjustive difficulty style.
When playing dark souls 2 and seeing enemies disappear after getting killed by them multiple times I didn't think "oh great now I can move on" i felt disappointed that I couldn't learn to beat them and feel the satisfaction of persevering.
When playing dark souls 2 and seeing enemies disappear after getting killed by them multiple times I didn't think "oh great now I can move on" i felt disappointed that I couldn't learn to beat them and feel the satisfaction of persevering.
please link these studies. Studies I've seen so far have been biased by the choice of game to the point of being useless. Also, like someone mentioned earlier creatively it makes much more sense to make something for the ideal person rather then the average.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
That doesn't make any sense. The enemies disappear after you kill them repeatedly, not after they kill you multiple times. So if they disappear it's because you already killed them over and over so you obviously "learned to beat them".
Moreover, you can re-spawn the enemies using an item if you really want, or better yet, join a covenant that makes the enemy never de-spawn, so if the enemies disappearing bothers you, there are not one but two in-game solutions for that.
Polioliolio
Member
Killing each enemy isn't the challenge.. It`s surviving an entire level of them.
I think you'll find most players consider this mechanic as 'loser clearing'
struggler_guts
Gold Member
Oh guess I got that confused then, but the post below describes my feelings better. Didn't know about that other mechanic either, in that case maybe an adjustive difficulty wouldn't be bad as long as their is an option to turn it off for some sort of "true mode" but that sounds a little complicated to design for
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
No matter how you feel about this mechanic, it doesn't apply to what struggler_guts was talking about. Plus, again, they despawn after you repeatedly kill them, so clearly you already have "survived an entire level of them". That argument would only make sense if enemies despawned after killing you too many times.
I finished both Hotline Miami 1 + 2, so I am not a terrible gamer, but there have been quite a few games that have wrecked me in the difficulty department in the past year, and I think from now on I will ask myself before I buy: "will this game be too difficult for me to finish it?" whereas normally I just impulsively buy whatever seems cool. If games could recognize that I'm out of my league and incrementally change the difficulty level so that I'm still challenged but can make it to the end of every game, I would be happy and buy more games. Or I'd like the option to change the difficulty myself, to a level which would allow me to finish.