Difficulty levels in games

So basically, if a game designers includes two experiences in one game they failed? If they’d just done a call of duty-tuned shooter it’d be fine, if they’d done a spectacle game with minimal pushback, it’d be fine.

Would your response be different if they’d done both as separate releases?

It also changes how much health Garrett has, such that getting attacked makes you significantly less likely to survive the encounter. (But, unlike most games, you’re trying not to get in fights in the first place, it just gives you less margin of error.)

Yeah Thief is a great example. Even within this one game and given my own mood, I might want to take an easy tour through the game, or I might want to test my skills to the utmost. The same person, depending on the time of day, may wish to experience a game differently. And this, I think, is because games really do contain more than one system working simultaneously. Making the stealth system easier doesn’t affect the narrative system very much.

not sure if Doom is the best example. I think for bragging rights, you could increase the difficulty. Or (in the 90s) when Doom was new, and you already replayed it on HurtMePlenty several times, and it became too easy, lets increase the difficulty and suddenly it felt fresh again.

But today? I don’t have time to replay Doom Eternal, so I play on HMP and it appears there is no reward for playing on harder difficulty, sadly.

A lot of racing games do reward you if you turn off assists with more XP or credits. Then I am actually willing to play above normal difficulty. Diablo 3 did it at some point, you could get better loot and more xp I think when you increased the difficulty. Nice!

I find it is always nice when a game does this. Or Agents of Mayhem. Make it harder, but your rookie agent will level up faster! It is so obvious, that this is a better system than one where “make it harder” only means it will be more stressful and nothing else.

The worst offender I think is Darkest Dungeon (a game I adore). There are so many options in the menu like play without corpses, radiant mode, and what not, I can’t even compare my play through with my buddies if I change a switch. Let me play how it is intended. I don’t touch any of the options, because I don’t know how they change the experience.

Oh you’re right! I’d forgotten about that.

I don’t think it is obvious at all. Levelling up faster is the opposite of what many people want out of a higher difficulty, because you get more powerful more quickly and thus the game is less likely to stay challenging. In extreme cases, it can even ramp up to the point where you’re trivializing the game well before the end. Whereas a system that makes it more stressful is exactly what they’re looking for.

(Not me, to be sure.)

But XP do not level up linear. Usually you will need more and more XP to level up, or in a car game, you get more credits to buy new parts or new cars.

I don’t think I had an issue where Wreckfest got trivial because, I earned more credits for harder difficulty.
The devs really did a good job in balancing it. Also Infested Planet did it that way. Of course it is more work on the dev side.

Agent of Mayhem can get really nasty in a mission on a high difficulty, but if I know that it is worth it for the XP and money, I will try it and leave my comfort zone. It did not make the rest of the game trivial.

It still counterbalances the increased difficulty. Maybe not fully, but when the increased difficulty is what you want, that’s a bad thing. And making it still harder overall is, as you say, more work. So that’s why it’s not obviously the correct solution.

Only to a degree. Yes, players who like their games challenging do want the game to push back more as you make your way up the power curve, and usually a good game design balances it so when you get stronger, the enemy gets stronger. But eventually, those of us who prefer more challenging games still want to get to the top of the power curve. We still want that feeling of being a badass when we get to the top.

What I meant, it is obviously for me as a player the better system and more work for the devs. In the car game example, the game does not get easier when I level up, because the driving is harder. Maybe I can overtake cars now because of greater speed, but the driving with less assists or manual shift is still harder.
But I got to buy other cars sooner or could improve my cars faster. Wreckfest did it that way and I did not breeze through the game at all.

Right, my point is that it’s the better system for you, specifically, but there are other players for whom it would be worse. So, given that and the additional part where balancing it is more work for the devs, it’s not at all the clear choice.

I got a press release about some new Snowrunner content, something about playing desert rally races and Tim Heidekker’s joke band, Dekkar. I guess they licensed “Empty Bottle” for the soundtrack or something, so let’s check it out.

Oh, wait, this has nothing to do with Dekkar or even Snowrunner! I’ve been tricked by deceptive cross-promotion for a game called Dakar Desert Rally, published by the same folks who publish Snowrunners. Pretty sneaky, but I’ve come this far, so I might as well try it. I’m always willing to sample another rally racing game.

And right away, as soon as I finish their goofy “Welcome to our GAEM, gamer, and check out that we have cars and dirt bikes and even truckzorz for you to race!” intro race, I’m confronted with the difficulty level choice of Sport, Professional, or Simulation. I’ve made my peace with single-player racing games on this front. I’m here for the driving model more than the AI, so I tend to crank up driving realism as far as it will flippin’ go and leave the driving AI around the middle.

But what’s this? They’re not called “difficulty levels”, but Game Modes. Hmm.

I can choose Sport, which is for little babies, grandmas, and people from Europe who’ve never driven a car. As if. I can choose Professional for a reward boost, a financial penalty for damage, harder AI, and fewer glowing HUD assists (this game seems to lend itself nicely to driving from inside the cockpit for maximum immersionnessivity!!!1!, which is my second main emphasis after driving model). But what’s that last difficulty? Isn’t that the one I want? And I have to unlock it???

Okay, fair enough, you’ve got me, Dakar Desert Rally. But don’t be too proud of yourself! I’m easy. But given what I’ve seen so far, I’ll stick with you for 25 levels just to see what you’re hiding behind that last panel. It better be awesome!

SIMULATION DIFFICULTY UNLOCKED

LOADING SECRET MISSION PARAMETERS

…LOADING

…LOADING

DRINK MORE OVALTINE.

In Simulation mode you go up against people from Europe who have driven a car before.

Trying my first race on “Professional”, something has happened that has never happened to me in a rally racing game. Heck, in any racing game.

I got lost.

To be fair, I did ask for “realistic navigation”. Which at this point means a) looking for another driver and following him, or b) reading the documentation. Choice a) didn’t work because the car wouldn’t wait for me to keep up, so at this point I’m doing what I love having to do in a game where I’ve chosen perhaps too hard of a difficulty level and b) reading the manual. Which seems to be a series of short tutorials, but I see now that my flight simulator skillz will be coming in handy.

Okay, well played. That was quite good, but mostly because I set it up for you!

I got scared for a moment, because a rally mode in a Spintires game sounds like it would be similar to playing QWOP (Would QWOP have been better if it had difficulty levels?).

Also, have you really never heard of the Paris-Dakar Rally? Actually that sort of day-after-day racing event could be a great setting for a simulation, combining driving gameplay with long term planning.

I have not! What I don’t know about sports could fill volumes! Hmm, maybe this should become it’s own thread? If this Dakar Rally Racing thing keeps surprising me, I might have to start the thread myself.

I like both the “There are no difficulty levels to choose from” FromSoft design as well as customize the difficulty in different categories like in System Shock. Hate puzzles but still want challenging combat? Set the puzzle difficulty to 1 and combat difficulty to 5.

I also like how Diablo I & II also have additional difficulties but you need to use a character that has already finished the game and they are never meant to be played with a fresh character.

Motorsports don’t count as sport! There’s no ball. You might as well call fishing or chess or monopoly a sport. Or Counter-Strike.

There are only three sports : bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games
-Hemmingway