Difficulty levels in games

Games
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I had never considered this a possibility until I started hanging out here, and I know I’ve whined about it before in similar threads, but it still strikes me as madness. I understand I’m on a pretty lonely island in this, but “enjoyable” and “frustration” are just outright antithetical to me. But I generally don’t like being challenged or made to work hard for reward. I just want that sweet, sweet dopamine hit. Drugs are probably a better outlet for me than videogames, but they’re also more expensive. The local meth dealer doesn’t recognize the Steam Summer Sale!

At least this time I’ve got friends on the island with me. This post is slowly becoming an Animal Crossing metaphor, isn’t it?

-Armando Penblade, who definitely never used the promise of his mom’s tasty baked sandwiches as bribery to tempt friends into spending the night and unlocking all the Ultimate weapons in FFX for him

42

go on…

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Would you be ok with getting up in the middle of a shooter, then coming back and finding that the game played itself and won the level, and your contribution was nothing? At some basic level, ‘challenge’ is simply the interaction we have with the game. Without the challenge, there is no human doing anything. The level of interaction (aka challenge) can simply be ramped up depending on how much we want the human to be involved.

  • For strategy games, a ten year old already recognizes that tic-tac-toe is too easy of a game. Interesting decision-making requires a more challenging system.
  • For action games, a decent gamer recognizes that games like Chompy Chomp Chomp are targeted at kids and people with minimal game skills. A more serious challenge is needed to engage with an experienced human.
  • Even in heavy narrative games, there is often a challenge of sorts, which is the ability to make interesting choices, stay consistent with them, etc.
  • Creative games and toys have their own types of challenges, which are often self-imposed.

In other words, there’s no escaping challenge. Once we interact with something for entertainment, we expect to be challenged to various degrees.

(The other important dimension is variety. We get bored of similar experiences - again, to different degrees - and require variation.)

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Obviously not; the game clearly lacks a pause function!

More seriously, most shooters aren’t going to interest me, because they rarely have much in the way of story or characterization. On some level, they’re nearly a “pure” challenge-based experience, and thus, have nothing to offer me. The challenge is basically the only real gameplay or interaction, and the rewards are, I guess, adrenaline or something? Whatever, I’m sure action gamers will be happy to fill in :)

Says you, buddy!

I mean, I’ve been I’ve been gaming regularly since I was about 4, and I still just suck ass at games. Experience has nothing to do with it in my case. Mario Odyssey is obnoxiously challenging for me, to the point that I gave up on it pretty quickly. BotW, too, for that matter.

That’s a very odd definition of challenge. I mean I suppose if a narrative game had two dialogue choices each time, one of which was labeled, “Get a cool response,” and the other of which was “Get no response,” and it randomized their position onscreen each time, then something like what you talk about as a challenge might exist, but in most narrative games, all choices are interesting and lead the storyline forward with no real mechanical or strategic aspect at play.

Generally why I never play them. ACNH was a huge aberration for me this year, and even that one had heavy guidance in the early game and with each holiday event, plus the massive wall of collectibles, which keeps me engaged enough (except fishing, which is too skill based and makes me sad, lol).

I really don’t, promise :P

I mean shit, have you seen the TV I consume?!

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I mean, do I want the game to respond to my input and feel like I have some sort of agency and meaningful choice? Yes. Do I want my reflexes tested? No. Do I want intellectual challenge? Sometimes, to some degree, but if there’s other stuff going on I’m not married to it. Do I want thorny ethical challenges and decisions I have to think about because of the possible narrative consequences? Fuck yes. I don’t think that last one is what basically anyone in this thread is talking about when they say challenge.

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Larian Studios reports that Baldur’s Gate 3 will lack a Moral Ambiguity slider on release, 0/10, shit game

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Exactly! That’s the point! What makes game design uniquely challenging is the inherent paradox of entertaining someone by putting an obstacle in front of him. Otherwise, you’re just watching a movie or reading a book.

And again – this isn’t directed at you, Armando, but at some posters who seem to think they’re responding to what I’ve said – my assertion is that difficulty levels need to be incentivized. I have never argued against difficulty levels themselves.

-Tom

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My point is that this can be counted as a challenge when translated to this particular domain. It’s far more rare because it’s much harder to do properly.

The symmetry is there between the different interaction elements. The simple test for challenge is, can this be done by a young child, someone lacking any experience, or even nobody at all? Challenge in puzzle games, strategy games and various action games is systematic: you learn to use a system well. Challenge in (good) narrative games (such as Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium) is different, and much closer in form to that provided by the best forms of other media such as books and TV, but it’s still there. In the case of an excellent book, the challenge is purely a passive one of absorbing the material. Good narrative games take it to the next level by making you choose between difficult choices. A child could make those choices but they would be meaningless to him: it’s akin to making random moves on a chess board. Often, narrative games will have strategic, puzzle or action challenges layered in because those are much easier to build.

EDIT: It’s worth thinking about the fact that these forms of interaction: strategic (open-ended optimization), puzzle (problem solving), or action (skill) are fundamental. They are basic theoretical concepts of the universe, which is pretty neat.

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As I said, Tom, this is a much stronger assertion than the weaker one I’ve seen you make, which is that difficulty level domains should be consistent. If I’m playing a game and it has no difficulty levels or has difficulty levels selectable from the main menu, it shouldn’t allow me to tweak the number of enemies via the graphic options. If I’m playing a game and chose a difficulty level, it shouldn’t suddenly ask me if I prefer to get either 3 or 15 food rations (for the same cost). That’s a lack of balance and difficulty tuning.

Making the case for incentivizing difficulty levels is much harder, if only because it’s so rare, and the majority of games seem to do fine without it.

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Ah, it’s that time of year again!

It’s funny that Tom gets pushback even though his perspective is really uncontroversial. I mean, here, have all the difficulty levels you want! Ultra mega easy mode! Just throw a bone, give a little something, to those going the extra mile. If the devs don’t even care enough to give you a cheevo or a check mark, why should you?

But that’s just a trophy and such. You can create much better incentives. Plus, actually making a “good” difficulty level and what that should be is a whole other ball game.

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The incentive is that if you play on a difficulty level that best approximates the level of difficulty you want from the game, you will enjoy it more. Adding an extrinsic incentive means there is a reason to play the game in a way that you may well enjoy less, and depending on what it is, it might even undercut the intent of the difficulty level by making the player more powerful.

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The incentive is that you get more of that enjoyable frustration, if you want more of it. Seriously, you would play on a game on hard for a steam achievement, even if you think it plays better on a lower level? And play a game on easy if there’s no reward for harder levels, because why should you enjoy yourself if not getting anything in return?

If a game offers substantial rewards for playing on harder difficulties, the effect is to punish players on the lower difficulties. Instead of giving players of different skill levels a similar experience, they increase the gap. That’s the opposite of what difficulty levels are supposed to do.

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I really think they’ve cracked it with Hades, all you need is to have a way to measure how well the player is doing, and something that makes the game easier the worst you’re doing.

In Hades it’s measure how much you’re dying and increasing your damage resistance, in a FPS it could be increasing how easy it is to hit the enemies and how much damage they take, an ARPG could make it so you get better loot, loads of possibilities, the key is measuring how well the player is doing and tweaking your ruleset to make the game easier in response to doing poorly.

And then give the player the choice to turn that God Mode on or off.

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Nobody really knows what setting is most “fun” for them in advance. That’s why Tom calls it doing the developers work and that smart devs find ways to “bake” the difficulty into the game.

Having vastly different gameplay rules depending on difficulty level is what really increases the “experience gap” between players. Even though you saw the same cutscene at the end doesn’t mean that you really played the same game.

It’s fascinating to me that the idea of giving rewards to some players is considered “punishment” for those who just want everything on the lowest setting. Why shouldn’t the devs give a little more to those who are most willing to engage with the mechanics, to put in the time? Once again, if the devs don’t care about helping you explore the nuances of the game, why should you?

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I think the problem is that gamers tend to be obsessive completionists. If an achievement exists, they will force themselves to hunt for it, even if it means playing at a level they don’t enjoy.

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I just wish they’d allow the ability to scale God Mode back without turning it off all the way.

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The Resident Evil games already have some kind of adaptative difficulty running in the background, although it’s really subtle.

I hear a lot that Hades’ God mode is the perfect solution, but once you start reframing the difficulty debate as “acessibility”, no difficulty is low enough. Why should I need to die again and again to get that % resistance up? Why can’t I just choose? It’s unfair.

When the whole debate popped up again two years ago about Sekiro, what was demanded by some groups was the ability to toggle invincibility, plus slowing down/stopping time at will. If that doesn’t kill the point of the game, I don’t know what does.

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I watched a video with a youtuber called 'The Completionist". He was unhappy that he collected all the seeds from Breath of the Wild and he got no reward from it. It’s the weirdest thing.

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I’m with ya. This is a sort of rubber-banding for game design. Why make sure that the game is well balanced if I can just give the player the ability to get stronger when they die? It’s similar to the debate about health packs vs regenerating health.

I don’t think it’s terrible or anything once you consider that the balance of the game is now a wide range of possible values, rather than specific set values. Certainly if the game emphasizes narrative experience over challenge (as Hades does), it makes sense.

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Well, other than the really big sack inventory.