#game difficulty

[charlesoberonn]

Easy-Bake Oven

Normal-Bake Oven

Hard-Bake Oven

Extreme-Bake Oven

Nightmare-Bake Oven

Insane-Bake Oven

[transgendertails]

It’s sad that when Mina the Hollower was revealed to have multiple difficulty settings people thought that would make the game worse, because, realistically every game should have difficulty settings at very least as an accessibility option.

You shouldn’t not be able to enjoy a game because it’s too difficult, and that’s not to say games can’t be difficult but why is it a controversial topic to want to have the option to turn down the difficulty of a game.

Indie games have an excuse, but at this point if you are spending 80 dollars on a games you should be able to make the enemies die if you look at them funny.

[venipede-fan]

Hate when a game’s higher difficulties just punish mistakes more harshly instead of forcing more mistakes

Like Fe games generally add more enemies and increase their stats at higher difficulties, this is good! It makes it so you have to play much more carefully and have less room for error, and if you’re playing very well you can kill the extras fairly quickly it doesn’t make maps much longer

But the higher difficulties of many action games just increase enemy health and damage, not their speed or number, so the game is exactly the same if you were already very competent

[vidityavoleti]

In today's Level Design class I'm talking about Difficulty and I'm very excited to talk about my favorite spell casting system in ttrpgs: The Fantasy Flight Genesys Spell Crafting Tables

I love these things. Is it a little clunky? Sure! But I love a spell casting system that says "sure you CAN try to cast a really power spell you fuckin novice see how that goes" and then after a few levels in you it becomes completely doable and rewarding!

I want to use this as a specific type of Difficulty Scaling outside of just video games, I hope my students like it!

Also fun fact, a long time ago I reformated these into better, printable spell book type pages for my own convenience. If anyone plays Genesys and wants them here you go

[igayorhm]

I still never understand the mockery other people who play video games on easy mode. Like video games are supposed to be fun. I don’t want to be stuck on the same boss for two weeks. I don’t care about trophies or achievements. I just want to explore the world and story of a game I like with as little stress as possible. 

Cool you beat a game on Extreme Nightmare Hell Mode. I bet that was fun for you. It’s fun for me to play on easy mode. We both had fun experiences playing the same game. That’s all that should matter. 

[chartreuse-gale]

Do You Like your Pokemon Shift or Set?

Shift (aka Switch) = You can swap out your pokemon everytime you K.O an NPC opponent pokemon. Set = You can’t. I started off using shift (the default option [at least, in the games I’ve played]), without realizing what it does. After I learned the difference, I changed to shift. It feels more fair and I it’s sorta like a flavor shot of added challenge.

[askagamedev]

When it comes to difficulty in a game, do you think a dev should be able to clear every challenge they put in their game at the highest difficulty? Is it 'fair' if, say, they use debugging tools to use extra checkpoints to clear a gauntlet challenge?

That’s not really a reasonable ask because it isn’t broadly applicable. When I build gameplay systems, I usually know how they work and I can usually handle it myself under controlled conditions at maximum difficulty, sure. However, that doesn’t (and can’t) always apply. The skills needed to design content don’t necessarily match the skills needed to execute on that content at the highest difficulty level. As long as the iterative process involves people on the team who can perform the actions consistently, it’s largely fine if the designer or programmer working on the feature can’t - as long as some people can do it within acceptable limits, we’re good.

Let’s take an example from my own history. One of the gameplay systems I’ve worked on in the past was a QTE system - press this button during this canned animation sequence within this timing window to succeed. The creative leads decided that the timing window to press the button at higher difficulties should be smaller. I adjusted the timing window based on difficulty, and then pulled in various other team members to test out how the different difficulties felt. I wasn’t always able to hit the timing consistently at the highest difficulty (I gave a 500ms window), but a few of the QA testers were able to do it. That was good enough for the leads to give it their stamp of approval.

As another example, let’s say that I’m designing new multiplayer content. There is no way for me to test it on my own because I have only two arms and two eyes. There’s no way for me to test group content like raids in Destiny or zombie mode in Call of Duty by myself. I can verify that the monster abilities work, but I need enough people to field a group to test it properly and tune it. So I have to organize playtests - developers, QA testers, etc. For high execution content like WoW’s Mythic raid difficulty, it generally involves scheduling a lot of highly skilled testers (almost always QA) to test.

Overall, given the breadth of content and features we have to design, it’s unreasonable to expect a developer to be able to clear all content at all difficulties. Skills needed to perform at that execution level aren’t the same as skills needed to create that content in the first place, especially for things like multiplayer content. As long as we have somebody involved who can perform at the necessary level of execution during the difficulty tuning process, it’s fine. That somebody might be the designer, but it doesn’t have to be.

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[craftmanatee]

Sekiro is easier than Dark souls

Its funny, but both games have different philosophies that make them hard. 

In short: Dark souls is about answering challenges the best way you can, and is evenly distributed across the environment, enemies and bosses but for the most part your character is unique and may struggle in different areas from other characters. In the end, its about enduring and pulling through with your best tools than it is beating it with pure skill.

Sekiro forces you to get better by learning and reacting faster than you thought you could. So a big part of Sekiro is simply getting used to the game.

Ok, so you are the best player in your area in this one Fighting game. The game is complex but pretty playable. In your area, nobody has beaten you, until someone from a different country comes to play against you. He wins with seemingly even more skill. He did things you never thought you could. He basically rose the skill ceiling of the game for you and is now demanding that you climb that new height.

This is what Sekiro does as a singleplayer game.

Once you beat your 1st playtrough, 2nd playtrough is much more fun and engaging as you have learned everything that it can throw at you. Heck, maybe you have gotten so good that you will have new and better answers against bosses and enemies you have played.

But Dark souls is different in this manner. You may choose to play a different character all together and re-struggle in areas you have played. You MUST answer with things you can only answer with, especially towards the end game.

Sekiro is a pretty different game from dark souls and in many ways is also a lot more polished. But that is because of an inherit design that separates the difficulty in the two games.

Exhibit 1: Character diversity or strength

Dark souls has a character creator and lots of different weapons and tools and spells that make your character unique. Which means your playtrough will be different, and harder or easier in certain areas. Dark souls games also has a leveling mechanic where your character for the most part will be stronger at whatever he is doing best. This also goes for upgrading your weapons. My first playtrough of Dark Souls (1) where i discovered the usefulness of upgrading weapons meant a huge difference.

Sekiro however, you play as a single character and the only difference that makes you different from other people is your strategy and what prosthetic you choose to use. You can even pause the game to use all prosthetics in a single fight, some of which instant kills tougher enemies or disables bosses. This does not make Sekiro easier though, as not all players will discover the most optimal strategy, but you have most of the advantage and the resources, and are free to experiment.

Exhibit 2: Enemies and Environment.

Dark souls features more enemies than Sekiro, it also features better enemy placement with their environment (Particularly Dark soul 2 does this best). This also makes the new areas more interesting and makes it easier or harder for certain characters. The best example is DS2′s Shrine of Amana or Scholar of First sin edition. It mixes and mashes enemies and environment to be harder or more interesting. And again, this can be more or less difficult depending on your character and strategy.

Sekiro also has this, but not as much. It is mostly watered down because of Sekiros unique stealth mechanic that allows you to farm or kill enemies instantly if you catch them without being seen. This makes your path to progression/next boss much faster and less likely to put you in a difficult to pull trough area. Combine it with tools and tricks from Exhibit 1, you can trivialize these areas. Sekiros mobility also helps the game be easier as you can escape the area and “Reset it” in a way. Much like how Dark souls in some or many cases has these zones that enemies do not traverse over.

Exhibit 3: Death Mechanic

In dark souls, your only saving grace is coming back to the place that you died and reclaiming all that you have lost (Souls only). In some Dark souls games, you also loose maximum health, until you humanize yourself.

Sekiro on the other hand lets you die 1 or two more times before truly dying. And you loose half of your money and half of skill point EXP when truly dead. But, your money can always be spent on the Idols before loosing them, and you only loose EXP, not the skillpoint itself. This to me, compared to dark souls is a lot more forgiving because when it is your first time. In dark souls games, you can happen to burn all your humanity resources quicker and or happen to have died in a boss room, which is more difficult to get out of (only escapable with your souls if you have homeward bone, also a resource).

But Lastly,

Game difficulty, and how Sekiro demands 1-upping yourself

The things mentioned do add up to make a point of how Sekiro is trying to be more forgiving than dark souls. Dark souls has a much more general design to fit the online aspect. But there is still one thing unique to Sekiro that makes Sekiro so difficult.

With your character, resources and gameplay in dark souls, you will most likely be stuck with that set of tools across your entire game. All bosses and enemies are killed in the same way that you endured and pulled through. This is the difficulty of dark souls.

Simply pulling through the difficult challenge, and responding to it accordingly as it is presented.

Sekiro on the other hand, forces you to play better. Most of its difficulty comes from getting used to things, such as getting used to deflecting, and learning the parameters of how exactly or when it lets you deflect and countering the Unblockables. As well as learning enemies/bosses methods of fighting so you can better abuse them with tools or sword gameplay.

Once you ARE better, the game turns into Normal mode. or Easy mode. There are obscured difficulty settings to make the game stupidly harder.

But, fuck demon of hatred though... That is a terrible and hard boss. Who invited Dark souls bosses into Sekiro? It doesnt work!