BlazeHedgehog
Member
The "git gud" mentality is dumb and belittles others. The idea is to be inclusive, not to drive people away by telling them how awful they are and how steep the cliff in front of them is.
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Let's talk about difficulty and accessibility
- Thread starter thomasmahler
- Start date
The "git gud" mentality is dumb and belittles others. The idea is to be inclusive, not to drive people away by telling them how awful they are and how steep the cliff in front of them is.
ianhamilton_
Member
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.
They are a researcher for a studio/publisher, the studies are not publicly available. These are day to day professional user research studies carried out in the course of making games, not publicly available academic studies.
ianhamilton_
Member
I honestly Didnt know gamers were such babys. Whenever I faced adversity in a game i'd use it as motivation to git gud and complete the game. I guess most leople don't have the patience?
Be very grateful that you're able to 'git good'. Once you're over 65 you'll have a 50% chance of some kind of disability. 20%+ of people at average gamer age do. Others still have responsibilities that prevent them from spending huge amounts of time on gaming, but completely rely on it for the little bits of recreation they can snatch.
They are a researcher for a studio/publisher, the studies are not publicly available. These are day to day professional user research studies carried out in the course of making games, not publicly available academic studies.
I see, the good ol' focus test studies. feels like the last path I want any developer to go down.
Bigmac1910
Member
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 absolutely hate that approach lol (sorry), and I usually avoid buying games like that. Reason being that I don't wan't a "flat" challenge curve all the time, I want to feel a bit overpowered from time to time if I am playing well. (I usually play on normal difficulty.)
For me, if the difficulty is constantly adjusted, I would never feel that I've become any better, (as I don't know what part of the game is made easier or tougher on me) and my satisfaction level would drop. As for dying in a game, the difficult part can't be more than approx a minute away. If I have to fight a five to ten minute section just to get to the difficult part, only to die within seconds of getting there, I give up. I don't mind re-doing parts of a game, but that is also limited to around five to ten tries. After that your game has to be truly amazing for me to keep trying.
So I guess my key point is, failure cannot be too punishing time wise, there is only so much time I am willing to give to a game that is supposed to entertain/challenge me. (I feel most casuals would fall into this category). This is regardless whether a game has different difficulty settings or not.
I hope this makes somewhat sense, it's a difficult topic.
ianhamilton_
Member
I see, the good ol' focus test studies. feels like the last path I want any developer to go down.
No, user research. Very different to focus groups. You don't ask a group of people to discuss what they think, you watch individuals play, paying attention to their actions and reactions at the time, rather than questionnaires afterwards. It's not about getting mass input from the public, is it about gaining useful insight that the team can use to ensure that their vision is getting across in the way they intended.
Regardless of what you want, all of the big publishers have user research teams, and even small ones sometimes pay for it as a service through external companies such as Player Research (http://www.playerresearch.com).
It is a really valuable discipline. You can learn more about it here: http://gamesuserresearchsig.org/what-is-gur/
Camp Freddie
Member
Here are a random bunch of my thoughts.
I like having highly customisable difficulty for games that have multiple mechanics. For example, Total War games let you set the 'battle' and 'campaign' difficulty separately. That's great for people who find one aspect of the game hard (or just 'not fun') but enjoy other aspects. A lot of 4X games are good at this, allowing you to set tech-speed, AI-aggression, resource abundance and that sort of thing.
Difficulty sliders work really well in some types of game, but a lot of games don't have granular difficulty.
Fighting games can easily adjust incoming/outgoing damage on a granular scale. Platformers require you to make a jump or die.
There's also the question of how you make something easier. Prince of Persia did three things. You get a checkpoint on your last piece of solid ground while not in combat. The platforming mechanics are basically "press A when you're roughly in the right area". Lastly, the correct path was very strongly signposted.
For me, the problem wasn't "you can't die" (which is a misnomer for "you have very regular checkpoints") but that the platforming mechanics were really dumbed down and everything was signposted so much that there weren't any puzzles.
I don't like Dark Souls because it's difficulty is based on unforgiving checkpoints. You have to be able to master a section so you can get to the end and still have enough life to beat the boss. Failure at the boss fight means re-running the 10 minutes of fighting the same tedious enemies until you get to try something different on the boss (and fail and die again).
Some players love the feeling of mastering a section so they practically never take damage. I hate tedious repetition. I like being put straight back in the action at the point where I failed. The best difficulty for me is when each encounter is hard, so I always feel good about completeing a section, and rarely feel bad about dying (after all, it's hard and you're supposed to die).
I think one of the best ways to do difficulty is the MGSV method. Completing a mission isn't that hard, but getting a good rank and completing all the bonus objectives is. The sandbox nature also means that 'failing' at perfect stealth means I usually try some alternative method to complete the mission rather than restarting because enemy guard number 37 spotted me.
Poor players can get satisfaction from completing a mission, while the hardcore can try for the S-rank perfect score.
I like having highly customisable difficulty for games that have multiple mechanics. For example, Total War games let you set the 'battle' and 'campaign' difficulty separately. That's great for people who find one aspect of the game hard (or just 'not fun') but enjoy other aspects. A lot of 4X games are good at this, allowing you to set tech-speed, AI-aggression, resource abundance and that sort of thing.
Difficulty sliders work really well in some types of game, but a lot of games don't have granular difficulty.
Fighting games can easily adjust incoming/outgoing damage on a granular scale. Platformers require you to make a jump or die.
There's also the question of how you make something easier. Prince of Persia did three things. You get a checkpoint on your last piece of solid ground while not in combat. The platforming mechanics are basically "press A when you're roughly in the right area". Lastly, the correct path was very strongly signposted.
For me, the problem wasn't "you can't die" (which is a misnomer for "you have very regular checkpoints") but that the platforming mechanics were really dumbed down and everything was signposted so much that there weren't any puzzles.
I don't like Dark Souls because it's difficulty is based on unforgiving checkpoints. You have to be able to master a section so you can get to the end and still have enough life to beat the boss. Failure at the boss fight means re-running the 10 minutes of fighting the same tedious enemies until you get to try something different on the boss (and fail and die again).
Some players love the feeling of mastering a section so they practically never take damage. I hate tedious repetition. I like being put straight back in the action at the point where I failed. The best difficulty for me is when each encounter is hard, so I always feel good about completeing a section, and rarely feel bad about dying (after all, it's hard and you're supposed to die).
I think one of the best ways to do difficulty is the MGSV method. Completing a mission isn't that hard, but getting a good rank and completing all the bonus objectives is. The sandbox nature also means that 'failing' at perfect stealth means I usually try some alternative method to complete the mission rather than restarting because enemy guard number 37 spotted me.
Poor players can get satisfaction from completing a mission, while the hardcore can try for the S-rank perfect score.
Difficulty and accessibility, is very subjected along with what is a hardcore gamer. I played through most games once usually on Easy/Normal (depends on genre). I play a average of 15-20 per week depends on circumstances.
When I sit down to game I what to feel like a I have progress in a game rather than be frustrated and punished just because I can't play x amount of hours. I need to be able to save all the time or least have a regular checkpoint system as I have other commitments. and shift work. As a gamer of of over 30 years I hate the idea of games becoming mainstream but I am still willing to drop over £1500 on a new PC, even though my current one is adequate.
When I sit down to game I what to feel like a I have progress in a game rather than be frustrated and punished just because I can't play x amount of hours. I need to be able to save all the time or least have a regular checkpoint system as I have other commitments. and shift work. As a gamer of of over 30 years I hate the idea of games becoming mainstream but I am still willing to drop over £1500 on a new PC, even though my current one is adequate.
Fahzgoolin
Banned
I hate this approach.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?
When I fail I want to earn my success, it's part of what I love about the hobby.
The grind to get better at something I find compelling is an amazing feeling.
I think a good choice would be offer your dynamic difficulty and static difficulty as an option.
The "git gud" mentality is dumb and belittles others. The idea is to be inclusive, not to drive people away by telling them how awful they are and how steep the cliff in front of them is.
Your idea maybe.
You don't make a game more 'inclusive' by making it easier. Everyone's in this to have fun playing. By 'including' the type of gamer that prefers to have an easy time of the game your 'excluding' the ones that enjoy the challenge. Not everyone who gives up on a game does so because it's too hard.A game being too boring/easy is also a common reason.
ianhamilton_
Member
Your idea maybe.
You don't make a game more 'inclusive' by making it easier. Everyone's in this to have fun playing. By 'including' the type of gamer that prefers to have an easy time of the game your 'excluding' the ones that enjoy the challenge. Not everyone who gives up on a game does so because it's too hard.A game being too boring/easy is also a common reason.
I don't think that anyone would argue for games to have a single difficulty level set to 'easy'. The topic is how best to go about allowing different players to experience an enjoyable level of challenge, relative to their own ability and preferences. It's about allowing as many people to enjoy the game as possible, not allowing some to enjoy it at the expense of others.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Your idea maybe.
You don't make a game more 'inclusive' by making it easier. Everyone's in this to have fun playing. By 'including' the type of gamer that prefers to have an easy time of the game your 'excluding' the ones that enjoy the challenge. Not everyone who gives up on a game does so because it's too hard.A game being too boring/easy is also a common reason.
I mean, it's not just my idea -- The GDC Youtube channel recently put up Koji Igarashi's talk he gave in 2014 right after he left Konami, and he talks about the thinking that lead to the creation of Symphony of the Night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLyjAWYK2Kg
If you ask me, Konami's NES, SNES, and Genesis games were among some of the hardest games out there, and Iga says that was the driving force behind making Symphony significantly easier than past Castlevanias. He blames the high level of difficulty in Konami's games for all kinds of things, and one of them is driving users away who felt defeated by the challenge.
I'm not really saying that all games should be dumb and simple, not that at all. I personally find something like Nintendo's "Super Guide" system to be kind of an insult, but I think that difficulty should be an "everything in moderation" sort of thing. Unless you're making a game specifically about difficulty, like Super Meat Boy or Ninja Gaiden or Dark Souls, then you should be aiming for the fair middleground of challenge. (along side a way to tweak things in one direction or the other, as per my other post in this thread)
Having your response be a rude, knee-jerk "WELL YOU JUST SUCK, SO GET GOOD" is not going to engender anybody but the most insane, hardcore assholes to your cause.
antennaehead
Member
Great discussion! My thought on the matter:
- Like many others, I don't like the difficulty levels. For me, they seem to be too artificial. It doesn't help that you are forced to choose difficulty before even playing the game ("am I good enough to play this on normal? Or maybe on hard? How should I know?!"), and I certainly don't like that this choice is usually made outside of the game - in menus and stuff.
- I think the easiest solution to difficulty and accessibility already exists - the cheat codes! They are relatively easy to implement (definitely easier than to rebalance the whole game), they could be fun on its own and they solve the problem of difficulty. This boss is too hard? You want to explore the setting and lore without having to deal with those pesky enemies? Just type in IDDQD or whatever and have a good time! Unfortunately, cheat codes nowadays are a long forgotten art, with microtransactions slowly taking their place.
- As far as the actual difficulty and balancing goes, I am a fan of in-game features or mechanics that serve as difficulty levels. There are different ways of doing so. One example would be Super Mario 3D World with its super tanooki suit (which is basically a cheat code, but in game).
Another way would be to provide the player with clearly overpowered stuff that he could choose to use or not - I remember having Thundergod Cid in Final Fantasy Tactics that could trivialize the game to certain extend if you use him. My favorite example would be (already mentioned) Dark Souls. It has so many ways of changing the difficulty in-game. For once, you could choose mage at the start - ranged combat is much more easier that melee brawl. Then you have the entire RPG system with stats and leveling - which by itself is essentially a difficulty picker. You could beat the game as level 1 character with starting weapon - but it's very hard. Or you could grind souls and overlevel the boss - trivializing the encounter. On top of that, there are plenty of exploits or overpowered stuff that you could use if you want to - to make the game easier or to achieve something without too much bother - and that's good! I don't think that the single player games should be overly balanced to begin with. Unbalanced or overpowered items could help with accessibility and make the game more fun. The biggest problem with all that though is that you have to communicate it to the player somehow - what choices could make the game easier and vice versa.
- About dynamic difficulty - maybe this is the future for certain games. I don't like the idea personally, but just as procedurally generated content, it has the potential of making things easier on the long run. That being said, the difficulty (or challenge) is part of the game - just as the story, or visuals, or combat system. And just like the story, or visuals, or combat, difficulty defines some games. And in those cases, hand crafted difficulty that challenges the player would always be the way. But for other games, that doesn't focus on challenge but on other stuff - yeah, dynamic difficulty would probably be a better solution. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this dynamic difficulty isn't already implemented in mobile gaming where one of the primary problems is retention of players.
- Like many others, I don't like the difficulty levels. For me, they seem to be too artificial. It doesn't help that you are forced to choose difficulty before even playing the game ("am I good enough to play this on normal? Or maybe on hard? How should I know?!"), and I certainly don't like that this choice is usually made outside of the game - in menus and stuff.
- I think the easiest solution to difficulty and accessibility already exists - the cheat codes! They are relatively easy to implement (definitely easier than to rebalance the whole game), they could be fun on its own and they solve the problem of difficulty. This boss is too hard? You want to explore the setting and lore without having to deal with those pesky enemies? Just type in IDDQD or whatever and have a good time! Unfortunately, cheat codes nowadays are a long forgotten art, with microtransactions slowly taking their place.
- As far as the actual difficulty and balancing goes, I am a fan of in-game features or mechanics that serve as difficulty levels. There are different ways of doing so. One example would be Super Mario 3D World with its super tanooki suit (which is basically a cheat code, but in game).
Another way would be to provide the player with clearly overpowered stuff that he could choose to use or not - I remember having Thundergod Cid in Final Fantasy Tactics that could trivialize the game to certain extend if you use him. My favorite example would be (already mentioned) Dark Souls. It has so many ways of changing the difficulty in-game. For once, you could choose mage at the start - ranged combat is much more easier that melee brawl. Then you have the entire RPG system with stats and leveling - which by itself is essentially a difficulty picker. You could beat the game as level 1 character with starting weapon - but it's very hard. Or you could grind souls and overlevel the boss - trivializing the encounter. On top of that, there are plenty of exploits or overpowered stuff that you could use if you want to - to make the game easier or to achieve something without too much bother - and that's good! I don't think that the single player games should be overly balanced to begin with. Unbalanced or overpowered items could help with accessibility and make the game more fun. The biggest problem with all that though is that you have to communicate it to the player somehow - what choices could make the game easier and vice versa.
- About dynamic difficulty - maybe this is the future for certain games. I don't like the idea personally, but just as procedurally generated content, it has the potential of making things easier on the long run. That being said, the difficulty (or challenge) is part of the game - just as the story, or visuals, or combat system. And just like the story, or visuals, or combat, difficulty defines some games. And in those cases, hand crafted difficulty that challenges the player would always be the way. But for other games, that doesn't focus on challenge but on other stuff - yeah, dynamic difficulty would probably be a better solution. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this dynamic difficulty isn't already implemented in mobile gaming where one of the primary problems is retention of players.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Since I linked the Koji Igarashi GDC talk, this just went up on the GDC Youtube channel, it's from this year:
Platinum Games: Action Without Borders
He talks difficulty balancing here, too, and obviously Platinum's philosophy is to provide a difficulty selection menu so that everybody can enjoy their games. Atsushi Inaba actually says it's more important for less-skilled players to enjoy the game first and foremost, but to build enough depth in to the game so that hardcore players don't exhaust themselves too quickly.
Platinum Games: Action Without Borders
He talks difficulty balancing here, too, and obviously Platinum's philosophy is to provide a difficulty selection menu so that everybody can enjoy their games. Atsushi Inaba actually says it's more important for less-skilled players to enjoy the game first and foremost, but to build enough depth in to the game so that hardcore players don't exhaust themselves too quickly.