i think the issue that makes this approach seem cheap is when it is done to a game that is already lacking. if the normal difficulty means you can kill an enemy before even seeing its full range of abilities/moves, then increasing its health means you get more gameplay, and more challenge. but if at normal difficulty you already see everything that enemy has to offer, increasing its health doesnt lead to anything new or interesting happening. instead youre just stuck seeing the same stuff for longer. the same goes for damage. if at normal difficulty enemies aren't always threatening enough to make you engage in the games mechanics fully (for example, knowing you can just ignore an attack because it wont do enough damage to matter for the encounter, or never concerning yourself with elemental resistance since the elemental damage of enemies attacks is negligible.), then an increase that makes you consider changing your build to survive specific, difficult attacks, or forces you to learn to avoid damage instead of ignoring the smaller enemies entirely will make you engage with the game more. where this fails is when there isnt more of the game to engage in. in that case it just makes the game less forgiving. for some people, that isnt a problem, but most gamers arent trying to play the game like a "no hit challenge run" in dark souls. being allowed to make a few mistakes is good, because it gives the player a chance to respond and adapt to the challenge instead of just sending them to a loading screen repeatedly until they've memorized the correct sequence of button presses to pass the first enemy. so yeah, tl;dr i totally agree but there definitely are reasons those values get changed sometimes
I really liked how in MGSV enemies on the world map would adapt to your play style . If you focus on headshots, they’ll start wearing helmets, wearing night vision goggles if you only approach at night, etc. It forces you to be agile with your tactics and has a very believable in-universe explanation - the camps and bases communicate with each other about what’s happened to their fallen allies.
Reminds me of Mr. Freeze’s boss fight in Arkham City where the player must damage him with a different method ever time since Mr. Freeze, being a smart guy, will adjust his suit on the fly to cover every weakness you expose
I wish more developers told us which difficulty was play tested and balanced. Sometimes Easy and Normal are just not fun due to lack of challenge, but sometimes Hard is just unfair with no difference to AI.
is there a game that ever had the easy difficulty be called the "intended experiance"? it makes me curious what kind of reputation it would have in the community.
As an older gamer, who has vision difficulties in certain situations and also can suffer tremors in my hands... getting the difficulty right for a game can be extremely frustrating. You started this talking about The Witcher 3, and I recently started this on Story and Sword (the one you said was not a challenge) because I was told it would be the right balance for me. However I found the game nearly impossible at this difficulty. The combat was just a blur on my screen because it was so close to the camera, and I couldn't tell the difference between a monster attacking and a monster moving. And the dodge was nearly impossible to time correctly because the controls were so picky that if due to hands shaking I pushed a button too early to too late, the whole combat was over and I just couldn't progress. I could understand what I had to do, it was just physically impossible for me to do it. This is what difficulty sliders are so important. The ability to slow down aspects of a game for people who aren't able to react as fast as they used to, or are dealing with various disabilities. Often when I am talking about these issues I am told "just get gud" or "The game isn't designed for you". This might be true, but I have to ask all gamers, are you planning on stopping playing games as you get older? Are you just not expecting to get older? There is a reason you don't see as many people playing professional sports in their 40s as in their 20s, and when you hit your 50s and 60s, do you expect to completely give up playing video games; or do you want video games that can adapt to you?
Absolutely! I used to play games on normal mode, now I'm always looking for the easiest mode possible. I'm not in my 20's anymore and my reaction time is just not as fast. When I accepted this reality, I started enjoying games more. I think the gaming industry is recognizing that a sizable chunk of their target audience is aging. More and more, I'm seeing a "very easy mode" or some equivalent in games. I'm always like, "Bless you, devs, for realizing that not all of us are young and fast."
I mean most people don't play games competitively, and that doesn't change with age, therefore that isn't and shouldn't be an issue for 99% of gamers. Regarding the age-related difficulties, most people do not have such issues as you are having. I think you are an outlier, and I know it isn't a remedy and it doesn't make it any better for you, but developers cannot make the game balanced for everyone, it is just impossible or more accurately impractical to do that. The majority of older people are perfectly capable of beating Witcher 3 on the lowest difficulty setting, I would even argue that most could beat it on a medium setting. It is unfortunate that you have such disabilities but I don't see how any developer can solve those issues for you. I think you have to carefully choose which games to play and which not.
@@Kenny-yl9pcyou clearly arent around any older ppl lmao yes, many older people do have issues such as hand problems, tremors, slower reaction time worsened eyesight. Yes shaky hands might be a more specific problem with no answer but to say older gamers arent having problems is just silly. Theres a reason why the “getting too old to game” trope on tiktok is getting popular even with people below age 50. I think its silly to say most ppl dont have these problems when realistically they do, they dont bother playing video games bc of these problems.
Adaptive difficulty is great in horror. A lot of people don't realize this but you don't want a horror game to be too hard. This might seem counterintuitive but it's true in most cases. The moment the game gets too hard and you start dying a lot is the moment the game stops being scary. If you see death is just an annoyance, you stop fearing it. It becomes familiar at that point. Good horror is all about making you feel helpless, like death lurks around every corner. It's an illusion though. And a great way to break that illusion is to change the difficulty too much. I hope I didn't spoil the magic for a lot you. I just find it fascinating.
horror is different for everyone though, in truth, no one should be scared at all by horror because you cannot die in real life when playing horror games, therefore all fear is gone immediately. also i think horror has that affect only once and then it's like "whatever", jump scares aren't really horror either, cheap trick for the mechanism of the body, they can be done well though.
Yeah, When you repeatedly get destroyed by the same roadblock in a horror game it starts feeling frustrating instead of tense/scary. Leads to becoming desensitfied much faster, so the best balance keeps things near the brink as much as possible where you feel like you COULD die often, but never actuall do so too frequently.
@@Psycho1343It's less about the fear of death and more about maintaining the tension. A good horror game will attempt to keep the tension going for as long as possible. You want the player to be constantly on edge, fearing that the game will suddenly force them in an uncomfortable situation that they may have to face again if they fail. But what if they _do_ fail? Well then they're sent to the game over screen. The scares are gone. There is no danger. They are given an opportunity to catch a breath in peace. The tension is lost and the player is forced to revisit the section knowing what's up ahead. And do it enough times and the feeling of dread will be replaced with the feeling of frustration, which is the number one way of undermining the horror. Things stop being scary when the illusion breaks and you're simply annoyed you can't get a move on. Of course everyone finds different things scary but for those scared by the game, it's best to make sure the game is not too challenging for them for the aforementioned reasons.
the only thing this video lacks is a brief explanation on the difficulty / punishment thematic. Celeste for example can be very difficult, but its punishment is nearly nonexistant, there is no downtime, you just get reset to the beginning of the screen/levelpart. you can also have games that are mostly a cakewalk and still feel unfairly difficult because in case you die you need to replay the last hour.
This is an extremely good point. It’s something I noticed while playing Super Meat Boy, Hotline Miami, Celeste, etc. I normally do not enjoy difficult games, but these games became my favorite despite being harder than most of the other games I played. And then I realized that the punishment for failing is a more significant factor in how frustrating the game feels than the actual gameplay difficulty itself.
I noticed this in Slime Rancher. Those games are super chill and breezy to play, but if you miss the drop and run off a cliff? You lose everything in your vac-pac. And that kinda sucks.. especially in 2, there are way too many blind drops to warrant that amount of punishment. You can turn off tar and the angry slimes, why not this?
This is why I think the difficulty of Souls games are exaggerated some. Death is likely, but the cost of death is negligible and even what is lost can usually be regained.
This comment made me realize that I like games with high punishment and games with almost no punishment. I hate having to redo the same sections of a game over and over, I hate grinding. If I have to redo something, it better be highly variable during playthroughs, so that on the next playthrough I don't feel like I have to repeat stuff, and if that's the case, reloading an earlier state of my current run seems less interesting than just starting a new run entirely. So I play roguelikes, which are made for permadeath, modern Paradox titles which are mostly about simulation and which will punish you with you losing options but hardly ever with ending the game and stuff like Disco Elysium, which doesn't ever end the game until you've reached The End, but will give you lots of options inbetween on how to get there.
Something that rubs me the wrong way is a game taking away your abilities because of mistakes you’ve made. For example, if in the depths of dark souls you become cursed, your health is halved until you collect a rare item, a devastating punishment which makes the following areas much harder.
So i started playing the witcher 3 recently for the first time, and i decided to start on death march (because why not). "Certain enemies are impossible to beat without specific game mechanics" and the werewolf on screen hits hard
@@eneco3965 Huh, it does give less EXP. Didn't realize. Even so, there's enough EXP in the game to be well above EXP requirements, you just have to do more sidequests, so there's no problem for completionist types, and there was already EXP scaling, so this more tries to avoid excessive overleveling. Definitely not a "beat the game quickly" mode.
I just go for whatever the normal mode is and then increase it to make it a thoughtful game if need be. I stopped caring about playing on the highest difficulty ages ago, found out I was having less fun for no purpose. One other massive benefit for 1 difficulty that is set, is you can really discuss games with friends under the same lens. It helps the Souls communities really relate, because everyone deals with the same challenge.
yes, if anyone ever thought what this junks of item or Crafting is used for, it's often very important in a very hard game mode. but because people play it in normal mode, they're often can finish the game without using any of the mechanics, often, blasting thing randomly will solve the problem. i also agree, that game like Dark Soul and Monster Hunter is really good, because you've to use everything to be able to win, use every items and trick to our advantage, and it was very rewarding. some game like starfield even become an entirely completely new game when you change from normal to hard, because instead of only relying to looting, you're forced to crafting & Modification, and creating your own buff, seeing that your weapon finally effective against the enemy is one of the most rewarding moment. i think game should scale the Enemy, let people learn the rope, the techniques on the go, not the difficulty.
Well even in souls this is flawed as some people say, actually LEARNED Malenia and beat her sword vs sword whereas many likely did mimic tear comet azure instant kill for both phases. You'll have skilled player A who learned Malenia say she was a challenge but one that felt very good to beat. Whereas unskilled player B will say he felt nothing upon killing her and that she was easy. Even under one global difficulty the cheese available ruins that "we all faced the same challenge" thing. Sekiro is the closest to that. As it has the least amount of cheese and doesn't even have stat grinding. And even there some think x is harder than y and vice versa. One example being fire cracker spamming into mortal blade to cheese some enemies. You'd need a game like sekiro but without ANY cheese. So sekiro with just the grapple to get around and katana. That's it. Then players would have a identical challenge no matter what. Then you know most people who fought say, Isshin for the first time likely struggled a similar amount to you. And you wouldn't have these "I beat this boss by using this cheese haha so easy"
@thedoomslayer5863 by definition it doesn't really "ruin" facing the same challenge at all- it just means overcoming a challenge in a different way, regardless of how cheesy it can feel to other players
But not doesn't help everybody relate. My girlfriend playing No Mans Sky on the same difficulty as me doesn't relate, because it's too hard for her but easy for me. When she makes it easier, then we relate, because it feels equally difficult for both of us. You act like everybody subjectively feels the same difficulty.
I recall the first time I encountered adaptive difficulty. It really took the joy out of the game. I had played against a difficult spot several times and lost, and then one of the times, the game decided to downgrade the difficulty level and I could immediately tell the difference. The enemies weren't as aggressive, they didn't use some of their attacks and it felt like the game just let me win out of pity. It robbed me of the chance to actually win at the encounter.
Adaptive difficulty is the worst.I hate with passion.I don't want your pity,I play game to develop skill,to cross a hurdle and I am not alone look at the successes of hard and punishing games.
@@TheK0rs3 It was Resident Evil 4, if I recall correctly. There was a room where you have to fight through several enemies that are more powerful than average. Not quite a boss fight, but harder than usual. I lost a few times, figuring out how best to deal with them, and then suddenly one of the attempts the enemies barely put up any fight at all...
I like how Hades deals with difficulty. Once you have enough skill and upgrades to get to and defeat the final boss reliably, you can enable options to make the game more difficult, spawning more enemies, giving them armor or buffs, limiting upgrades, adding time limits, new boss move sets, etc. The fact that each run can be quite short makes it particularly fun to experiment with those options and finding a challenge you enjoy
@@SimonWoodburyForget I agree that having that many options can be overwhelming. But while the player is encouraged to play with the settings, this is not absolutely necessary. Also, not all permutations need to be checked. I see it more as the game providing the player with options to increase difficulty to their taste. E.g., I never really liked the addition of a time limit, so I hardly ever played with that option enabled. But having more enemies spawn and giving them additional buffs can be quite fun. If it becomes too much, I can simply dial down some of the settings in my next run. You can think of this approach more like gradient descent (i.e. taking small steps until you find a setting you like), rather than exhaustive grid search (i.e. trying out all options and then choose the one you like best)
@@SimonWoodburyForget Sort of, but you're encouraged to only turn on 1 at a time, win a run, add another/swap it out for one higher value, and so on until you clear 20 heat with each weapon. So considering it only unlocks once you clear a run, I think it's as much complexity as a winning player can handle & ramps up in complexity very, very slowly. Also, the Fates encouraage you to try each one once, which further narrows choice (like, "oh I need to turn _this_ one on to get the in-game cheevo").
I don't know what you guy's opinions are, but I think that a difficulty system based on removing the player's abilities is a really bad way of doing it.
Another thing about adaptive difficulty and games that get harder as you get better - it also takes away from the sweet feeling of "these guys used to be hard and now I can wreck them because I got better"
Yes! I hate when enemies "evolve" with you, so they never get easier to take down. I've gotten better weapons and leveled up 40 times, why do I still have to spend time on you?!
Not really an issue, because there is a ceiling. If you cap out the difficulty cieling early, you can enjoy progressing against enemies that are as hard as they can be.
That was soo me - on the second play-through of Elden Ring, beating the Tree Sentinel knight outside the starting cave. I was like - how did I ever think this guy was hard?! :D
I like the way control and others do it. One definitive difficulty level and if people can't get through it treat it like accessibility features. At least for smaller studios it makes sense to focus on one experience.
I prefer Mario odyssey and Kirby game approaches. It allows an adult to assist a child. With a very young person they can be the helper. Since the adult doesn’t need help it doesn’t matter how good they are and they still get to play. The helper usually is invincible. Then when a child is older / more skilled, you play the helper character. Then the game is over when they die but you can add in extra help. Usually those games have options to swap out and in. It does require multiplayer so might not be best for the scope of some developers
I partially agree, however I dislike how Control always has the full set of "Intended Difficulty, are you sure you want to do this" popups any time you enable them. I was able to get through most of the game just fine without them, but on at least two bosses I had to turn them on to progress and if felt like it was rubbing salt into the wound of feeling like I needed to adjust the difficulty to progress.
One thing to note is skill level changes throughout the course of the game. For example: 1) I just started Arkham Origins and I thought it was much harder than Arkham City. There's so many enemies that break your combo, notably the ninja and the martial artist. I felt like I'm really sucking at the game so I settled on Normal. But in the end I aced all the combat challenges and had to up the difficulty to Hard. 2) Some games also have a power creep. I started XCOM on Normal and I found it difficult at the start, but the game gets really easy when you get all your powers and I raised the difficulty to Hard midway through the game. I think it's great when you can change the difficulty on the fly. I'm not a fan of not having difficulty options.
I found the notion that "player skill" is at some set level to be interesting. In my experience, my own "skill level" is wildly malleable, fluctuating up and down with my mood, my energy level, and the situation at hand. And by just playing a game and gradually accumulating knowledge, my skill level's "baseline" also goes up over time. Not slowly, either--that baseline goes up fast.
@@Ghorda9 Eh.. Yes I agree that unfair and unfun aren't necessarily the same thing even if they can be related. But I'm not sure I like the word fun either. Because when I am first banging my head against a really difficult boss fight dying over and over in that moment I'm not really having fun per se. Rather I'm actually getting a little frustrated but it's the release of all that build up frustration that creates for such a satisfying moment when I finally do overcome the challenge. That FUCK YESS moment. Fair in that sense works a little better for me. Because when the difficulty is coming in part from the game being poorly designed that moment doesn't always happen.
@@zeosummers3984It’s interesting because it’s clear that devs don’t take this into account and force you to keep learning. Difficulty should scale dynamically depending on how easy you’ve progressed through the game.
The other thing that hades does which is cool is just the whole rogue like style in general. Its supposed to be insanely hard and you are supposed to die and fail over and over but make small progress with each attempt that helps you eventually succeed. For some people they will rely more on skill and succeed faster while others can organically rely more on powering up from each fail. This way its still fun for everyone despite your skill and despite the difficulty and no one thinks about the difficulty but instead focuses on just doing there personal best and mastering the gameplay and builds. Great game design overall.
.... ive had that game for nearly 3 years and I'm only now learning that there's difficulty settings... i haven't been able to get past thesus and the minotur (I'm not bitter about not finishing any runs I really love the game play loop so it dosen bother me but I would love for the chance to finish it one day)
Not just Hades but all 4 games from Super Giant have that sort of system and they all work so well in making the game as much of a challenge as you can take.
@@crowsandcryptids if you want a couple tips, i'd say go for killing the minotaur first, and then theseus once he's dead. you don't want both of them in their second phase at once, and at least without extreme measures 3 on, theseus' second phase is a lot harder than asterius'! also don't forget to use your cast with boiling blood to make him take 50% more damage, and if you can survive to there without dying more than twice use death defiance instead of stubborn defiance :) also, athena's call is super great for dealing with theseus, since when he first uses his call he stops using his shield, and if you're invincible while it's happening you can just beat him tf up while he's vulnerable instead of dodging. i actually save my greater call if i have it until theseus' second phase even if it is fully charged before then!
In bloodborne i would always use people summoning me to get better at the fight without losing my mind by getting killed 33 times and while it definitely didn’t make me better as fast as if I just tried alone it again and again it was a nice break and a reminder that other people were struggling with the same boss and seeing them win was so encouraging
Sometimes you bump into a host who just doesn't even try to touch the boss and it's incredibly sad to see. When that happens I try my best to remind them they should at least accept the challenge by directing the boss's attention to the host, using less effective weapons etcetc because... where's the fun in watching your summon defeat the boss? Like, I don't care if you're a bad player, at least punch the annoying shit in the face when it's staggered!
One of my favorite approaches to difficulty is The World Ends With You. It starts you off on Easy, and you unlock the other difficulties as you go. The game changes which enemies you fight and how difficult they are to beat by difficulty, but it also affects what drops these enemies have. You also unlock the ability to lower your maximum health in exchange for higher drop rates. This essentially incentivizes the player to experiment with difficulty, and feel free to change it up and down as it benefits your experience. Also gives replayability, since you can replay each section with difficulties unlocked later in the game.
I think one thing not covered here but that i find incredibly interesting is a way that lower difficulties can train bad habits into new players making it harder for them to asceses higher difficulties.
It's actually much worse than that. Think of God of War 2016. On the easiest difficulty, your axe attack accomplishes everything. Will you ever do combos or weapon skills or powers? Combat will get quite repetitive then. Players will just smash the light attack button, forget the heavy attack even exists, or vice versa. 2016's combat itself isn't even much to write home about, but at least it has more to it than just spamming the attack button. At least they didn't do a Bethesda approach. Horizon Forbidden West is another example. I have come across those who didn't know that weapon skills or valor surges were a thing, or at least never use them, because at lower difficulties it was honestly more work to read the tooltips on the valor surges and weapon skills, than it was to just fire the bow. It was more work to learn the button to activate a weapon skill, than just to just spam melee or just fire your bow semi-blindly at the enemy, not even utilizing weak points. "Well I'm not an avid gamer, and these are new modern titles, so they must have advanced in player accessibility and streamlining the average experience that even I can't possibly mess it up!" Wrong. Especially on the accessibility front. Horizon Forbidden West's hud on large widescreen TVs is so miniscule, and you can't even scale it. And the subtitles are microscopic even on the largest setting. But at least there is an "easy loot" accessibility option that goes completely against the core gameplay loop and combat system and decentivizes playing the game in one of the few ways that actually makes it worth playing. It's probably no coincidence that those who didn't even focus on weak points or even know remotely how to also had easy loot turned on. And when the game introduced stronger enemies, the solution wasn't to learn how to counter them, it was to turn down enemy health so that basic arrows did enough damage to easily kill the giant boss enemy. Watching the gameplay was little more than watching someone play a choose your own adventure game/movie hybrid (but with no narrative choice.) A pretty bad movie IMO. And I checked, the tutorial and teaching systems in that game are quite awful. It just brushes over everything. Half Life 2, what if ammo in Ravenholm was so plentiful or guns did so much damage, that you never actually were incentivized to use the gravity gun? Thankfully the game didn't give you the accessibility option to just give you infinite ammo. A lot of players will take the path of least resistance if it is offered.
Well.... That's kinda already been shown really. Just no one likes to look at it. There is a reason dark souls ... was given it's title... and it's not because it really is that hard, but because the normal was just that 'easy' before to the point that it was unthinkable that a game 'mostly' follow it's own rules & not just let you to the end if you couldn't do it.
This is timely. I'm at the end of my youth, and arthritis is becoming a factor in how I play, among things. Difficulty and accessibility have become part of my decision making process when figuring out what to play. Thanks for making this video.
A game that has an interesting adaptive difficulty is Metal Gear V, they upgrade their guards depending on your playstyle in a way that feels organic. You do mostly headshots ? The guards now wear helmets. You act more at night ? The guards now have nightvision goggles. Etc... I liked that approach because not only did it gradually increase the challenge, but it also made me feel like I had an impact on the world of the game
Not enough people talk about that absolutely amazing aspect of the game design. Also, if you headshot a lot in that game, you can still do it, you just gotta knock the helmets off first with another shot
but if I'm not mistaken, if you explode some specific cargo and storage places, enemies would not be able to wear helmets. Far Cry 3 enemies also adapt like this, I feel that Far Cry 3 is harder than MGSV
That reminds me of how in the batman arkham games, if thugs see you retreating up to gargoyles or down into vents, they'll make it a point to ruin those escape routes when they can Cool stuff and it makes the enemies feel more dynamic and lively
I like The World Ends With You, where increasing difficulty gives you bonus rewards so you never feel too pressured to play it on hard but you get better rewards for completing fights on a harder difficulty.
reminds me of the additional conditions you could take on per-mission in assassin's creed, though some of them were extremely unfair and i stopped having fun because I felt like my gamer cred required me to fulfill them no matter how many times i failed.
Dying light does nightmare mode really well too, rewarding you with more recourses for playing on the hardest difficulty, my only argument is that it’s too easy. Cause you can grind stuffed turtle and grind the prison and have OP weapons by level 15 smh
skyrim difficulty scaling is so horrid getting insta killed with a custcene attack by a dragon on legendary even though your 70% hp ;c@@ungabungacaveman9021
What you mentioned around 27:00 was exactly my experience, but I just saw it as a kind of reward: Me being overpowered was a reward for exploring a lot and beating a lot of bosses. Some of the late game bosses like Hoarah Loux and Radagon were a piece of cake with my strength build and I wasnt disappointed by that. I felt like I deserved that by enduring all the stuff before
Couldn't have said it better myself. Ppl forget Elden is not Dark souls. you are meant to become powerful in this game. Its literally in the story but I digress.
se i had a similar experience, but i felt bad about it becuse i had farmed a bunch of runes before maliketh and the last boss that took me more than 10 goes except for malenia was fire giant
I think one of the best points in this video is that the player doesn't always know what level of difficulty they want (or are best served by). Sometimes you think you may just want the story but if pushed you end up having so much more fun than you would have if you didn't struggle a bit. Personally, I pretty much always want to be pushed to the limit but never lose. Yes, I am aware how tricky that is to pull off.
Or vice versa, one might think they want a challenge but actually end up having more fun just enjoying the story :D And to make things more complicated, one might feel like a challenge one night, and another might just want to sit back and relax (or, ya know, maybe plow through some enemies)
@@greatday19 That's become me with the years. I used to be a "I want the hardest challenge" type of guy but then I set Deus Ex: Mankind divided in hard mode... And I dropped it. I didn't drop it becase I physically couldn't make it (I could) but because any single level/mission was a really terrible chore so I just lost interest in the game. And I'm a bit sad because I did like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and if I only had set the game to "normal" I would have possibly make it to the end instead of dropping it. Nowadays I either look on the internet for opinions or just go to whatever the game hints as the default option. I usually like to complete the game with a challenge but without it being a chore. I can die/lose several times on hardest sections but if I'm not dying at all or I'm dying at "easy" sections I just lose interest
Yeah, as great as configurability options are, we as players are often idiots: optimizing the fun out of a game, pushing ourselves to the absolute limits when that might not actually be the most enjoyable, or turning the difficulty too far down just because it’s the path of least resistance. I do find myself more and more appreciating when a dev has the confidence to just set a single difficulty that helps better shape the player experience. (That certainly is not a universal solution tho)
that is why I believe the best way to do it if you really need to is to have the basic difficulty options, with the game balanced for normal, but have all of them being mechanically identical, and then just give the player the option to enable or disable mechanics in the difficulty menu. for example in Witcher 3, I hated the damage sponge enemies, but I wanted to play without auto-healing on rest, but I couldn't change it without also making the enemies harder to kill.
I feel the same way, and I think a big factor with this is having a solid enough idea of what's actually expected of you. Walking up to a boss and finding yourself unable to win at the moment could be affected by a number of significant factors, such as the enemy's power level (relative to your character's stats, if any), gear, intended player experience/developed skills, and on top of all that, the enemy's relative challenge level, meaning how difficult they're 'supposed' to be for your current level of power/gear/experience playing. All this can make a big difference in how you react to the challenge presented, and in how you may need to solve it. If you're fighting a boss and losing, you may be spurred on to eventual victory if you know you're fighting it much earlier than 'intended'. Or you may be more likely to accept that 'it's okay I can't win this right now', leave it for later. You may also have a better idea of what you need to work on to bridge the gap. However, if you have no information on where this enemy rests on the 'challenge' spectrum, you may find yourself badly discouraged, never realizing how far you're actually pushing yourself, thinking you're bad because you're 'expected' to be able to do this right here and now. Even a rough idea of power scaling can help a lot with this, I think, and a more accurate system could help even more.
One thing I've learned in all my years of always playing games on whatever the hardest difficulty is. The tutorial/first couple fights/encounters are always the hardest, either they have been overlooked in the balancing and design aspect, or I just havn't been able to *git gud* yet.
@@SalmanKhan-ez7no because it's progression and it ensures youre equipped to tackle a higher difficulty mode by making you beat a baseline difficulty first. RE7 does this, starting you out on either assisted or standard and clearing the game on standard unlocks madhouse difficulty, which doesn't just make enemies faster and deal more damage, but also changes up things like item placement and spawning more enemies in places where there aren't any on the base difficulty. I think if madhouse was just unlocked at the start, the player wouldn't be able to appreciate these changes nearly as much as they can after playing through the game beforehand and it makes madhouse a fun piece of post game content.
@@itsrainingcats9968 So I can't play the game the way I want because it might make a programmer feel less appreciated? I paid money for the game, I don't feel like I need to prove myself to play how I want
Ah yes, the gatekeeping of "you must grind your way through entire game in normal (easy for any experienced gamer) to get to unlocking actual difficult gameplay".
I thought the way FF7 remake did it was alright. At that point you have all your gear choices and you have to optimize it to overcome much harder progression.
Coming from the standpoint of a game developer myself, I would say giving enough choices for everyone is important. Some people don't want to be bothered with min/maxing stats and mixing potions for just to a single encounter. But at the same time you don't want the elite players to get bored. It is a tough balance for sure.
In the TWEWY games, changing the difficulty is a core gameplay mechanic. enemies drop different items on different difficulties (generally rarer items on higher difficulties, but on the other hand Easy is probably best for making money). You can also lower your level to increase the drop rate. There's also systems like Skulls in Halo or Heat in Hades, which treats the "detailed difficulty options" as a set of optional challenges (or semi-optional, i guess, in Hades' case). I don't think either of these options works universally, but in general i think the idea of integrating difficulty settings into gameplay is a neat way to go about it.
Hades heat in particular works really well to give the game lasting playability for genre veterans (or people who want to just keep for ages). It incrementally increases the challenge pretty nicely from "difficult for a beginner" all the way to "impossible for an expert", and in a way that forces you to adapt how you play as well, rather than just having to perform the same moves more accurately.
Personally I prefer to play lighter difficulties on my first playthrough just so I can allow myself a chance to immerse myself with the world. Only after I've finished the story or felt comfortable enough with the gameplay loop will I go and increase the difficulty.
I think it depends on the game. Some games like mayber Baldurs gate 3 yes, but for many other games I dont see why I should need to do a second playthrough just to experience the game in a way that actually challenges me after the first hour
If a game's world isn't interesting enough to make me want to play it again on a higher difficulty, then I would have been happy I started on the lower difficultly and not wasted the effort. But also, if difficulty wasn't the appeal in the first place, same conclusion but the opposite reason: the world was interesting enough as it was.
@@almicc the problem with that approach is that sometimes games just arent good enough for a second run, but way too easy on the first one if you decide to go the "give me absolutely no challenge, I want to have a I win everything button" difficulty. Or maybe you will feel so bored by the easy approach that you dont really feel like trying again in a more difficult setting
In some games I find a higher difficulty improves immersion. Walking though a world that is supposed to convey a feeling of danger and fragility but you are not scratched by anything is at odds with each other.
a problem with that would be that especially in Open world games, you just start being overpowered so insanely fast i played horizon zero dawn on second hardest difficulty and everything was straight up a joke because at some point you find out stuff that makes Fights laughably easy
I also have this feeling "normal" difficulty is now what easy used to be, but I also can't tell how much of that feeling stems from me being more experienced at games. What you learn in games carries over to those you'll play later. Another feeling I also frequently get is how some difficulty can be punishing leaving you with a "thank god it's over" feeling, closer to victory by attrition after countless die/retry runs. I enjoy difficulty when it feels rewarding, not when it comes as a relief.
No games are definitely easier now. But I don't think that's a bad thing. For example, arcade games were made to be purposely impossible to force you to pump in quarter after quarter. Also back in the old days movement was limited by the crappy equipment so a lot of it was less intuitive. You can't play Ghosts and Goblins or Contra and tell me it feels natural and smooth. So not only were you overcoming the obstacles you were overcoming the game itself. That being said, the original Halo is stupidly easy and then when they made the second one they said, fk you nobody gets to beat Legendary now lol. Make games accessible to a wider audience isn't a bad thing necessarily
I can't remember who said it but I think there is truth to the idea that back in the old NES/SNES days they couldn't put much game into a cartridge, so they just made them crazy hard to ensure you got your 40-50 hours of play time out of them. Now open world landscapes are so cheap I routinely find areas I assume were for some encounter or side quest that didn't make it into the final game because there's a big open side area that looks interesting/intentionally designed but doesn't have anything in it.
That's so true! I was thinking that during the whole intro section. Razbuten felt underwhelmed by Normal because he has a baseline ability to play games similar to the Witcher 3 already. And he's right about how it's weird we have to guess what difficulty we'll like based on if we've played similar games before (and that's a guess based on info we have before we even play). So many online conversations around difficulty are about the same types of games (action games with elements like live combat, large open worlds, etc), and so many of the people talking about it ONLY play those games (or mostly those games), and are super used to them. Is "normal" meant for someone who's used to those mechanics? How familiar do you have to be? It makes sense that the guy who does a whole series where his non-gamer partner tries different titles would have so many nuanced things to say about this topic. I can say it gets a little frustrating whenever this conversation comes up, as someone who IS a gamer but not "that" type of gamer, so I rely on easy mode in most action games just to experience them at all. I sometimes even get stuck in the easiest "cinematic" modes, like the one for death stranding.
There is also another option. I've found that the way I select games to play have changed. It used to be more on ratings and now it is more on the gameplay but this change is only possible after playing a bunch of different games and figuring out what I like and don't like. The feeling of difficulty is also tied to how much you are enjoying the experience. It's like someone working at a job that they really like not feeling like it is a job versus working at a job where you just show up for the paycheck.
There's another interesting side effect with dynamic difficulty where players begin to gameify it. In RE4 for instance, I picked up on the fact that enemies would drop more bullets when I was low on ammo - so I became more reckless with my shots knowing I'd always be good down the line. It actually removed an important part of the conservation mechanic for me, which was somewhat unfortunate, because I couldn't unlearn that mechanic. It also made me prioritize weapons with high magazine capacity, as the game seemed to only consider reserve ammo - not what was already loaded. This isn't necessarily bad, but it does have interesting consequences.
Could also bank all your items in the item crate and the game will give you more ammo and health pickups, which makes it easier and less items to manage. You could see this also as the game compensating for those who are badly prepared, big part of survival horror was managing what you take out of the safe room with you but this is now gone, with dynamic drops based on what's in your inventory you don't need to try. When I watched most streamers playing the modern REmakes, they almost all "failed" their way through the game but the game kept them alive barely, so for first playthrough tension I guess it does it's job.
I think it took away part of the anxiety that is appropriate for the setting of not knowing whether I'd have enough to continue, knowing that I always would. I stopped caring about missed shots because I knew they'd be replaced. The thing is, the game is quite easy (even on professional) when this decision becomes less important. Without that pressure, good shots don't matter as much - and therefore you can let loose much more than you would without that knowledge. It's not at all like having infinite ammo, but it sometimes feels close to it.@@ookiemand
Don’t know if I’m late but this is actually a feature in all the remakes but hilariously enough it is based on adaptive difficulty. Let’s say you choose Standard difficulty, depending on the amount of heals, items and overall performance you have the game will raise it to a certain value. So you could be playing on Standard but it’ll be borderline hardcore. On hardcore? It’ll get progressively harder and it’ll feel like professional. The reason they drop ammo when low on bullets is because on harder difficulties and for harder achievements, you’ll most likely be running through ammo because of the built in difficulty system. There’s also not enough ammo laying around to matter on hardcore or professional. While those are the harder difficulties, enemies require more shots, are faster and stronger than before. So you’re probably a good gamer but I honestly feel like the ammo thing is pretty useful all things considered.
I watched this because I've got two game designs on my mind that I'm going to try making. The one waiting on the side will be a "one difficulty, take it or leave it" platformer, and the one I'm working on now will be a "here's a gazillion settings to play around with" text-based RPG. You've got me thinking a little bit deeper about the philosophy and tradeoffs between each of those choices. I don't plan to change either, but it's good to think about it more.
@@Spectrum0122 Enemies could move faster. You could have less health. Some platforms could be removed to easier jumps aren't available and you have to make trickier ones.
I like Crosscodes approach, where the difficulty is set to the intented difficulty at the beginning but they offer you 3 sliders, where you can turn down damage taken, enemy attack frequency and puzzle speed.
man I always appreciate how this channel makes me think about just how difficult some otherwise unnoticed aspects of game development are. Really brings a whole new appreciation from me to the art form I've enjoyed for my entire life. Really great work as usual :)
I've been thinking about difficulty lately myself. Whenever I play games, I usually choose easy and bump it up later. I'm a slow learner which is why I go at my own pace. I never choose "story" modes if there is one below easy. Lately though, Ive realized that choosing story mode actually IS the best option for me. I always found myself feeling guilty that I don't play harder than easy. I feel like I'm not getting the "intended" expect if I don't force myself to learn the battle system. But lately I realized, that doesn't and shouldn't matter to me. What matters isn't if I'm a master at the combat, it isn't if I'm throwing myself at bosses for hours because I can't beat it. What matters is if I'm taking something positive away from the experience. If harder difficulty hurts my experience in the game... Then I shouldn't force myself to do it.
This is pretty much what I do too. And also the main reason I refuse to touch any Souls game and hate when people call newly difficult games "the dark souls of " because if, for example, Pokemon Legends: Arceus REALLY was "the dark souls of pokemon," I wouldn't have beaten it so easily??? Or at all???
@@SnoFitzroy Well if you refuse to touch any Souls game you will never know if you are actually good at them lol. Souls games are hard but fair, there are no 100% hit attacks or anything like that so you are guaranteed to succeed if you spend enough time learning the attack patterns. But I'm also the kind of guy who enjoys fighting a boss 20 times and is kinda disappointed when I finally defeat them because I want to fight them a little longer so if you don't like to feel challenged then just ignore my recommendations. The cool thing about From Software Games in my opinion is that you always know why you died. You can immediately identify your mistakes and improve, try a different approach or timing there is always something for you to try.
Same for me. Sometimes my pride is the hardest boss fight. I've played a lot of games on story or easy and I couldn't care less about the difficulty. I just remember the story, the characters, the world. Nowadays I play on normal if I know I'm "comfortable" with the genre, but I won't hesitate to bump it down immediately if I get frustrated. Always remember, the point of videogames is to have fun. If the game is too easy, bump it up, if it's too hard, bump it down. If someone judges you for playing on a specific difficulty, just ignore them and move on.
@@SnoFitzroySimply being "difficult" is an enormously reductive way to view that series. And you're greatly limiting yourself if you refuse to touch it because of that viewpoint
@@SnoFitzroy Sorry bud, you've activated the souls game sleeper agents, they will not rest until you say that learning to be good at Dark Souls opened your third eye and cured your medical anxiety.
The biggest amount of shell shock was playing on Hard difficulty (or it’s equivalent) in Doom 2016 and hopping to Eternal and feeling like I was playing on an actual simulation of World War One…
I always feel like the conversation about difficulty in games is held mostly between good or professional gamers and often leaves those of us who are more casual or just bad at it behind. I have notoriously bad reaction times and have pretty much failed to get out of the tutorial for every first person shooter I've ever attempted to do. My first open world game was Skyrim. I really enjoy exploring and doing the side quests. I have done seven playthroughs of Skyrim getting up into the '80s and '90s for my character level and even maxing out multiple skill trees. But I have never beaten the main game and gotten all the way to Auldwin. Recently my little brother was staying with us during a covid lockdown and I got to play Elden Ring using his Steam account. It was the only dark souls game I have ever played. Before he moved out to his own apartment, I logged over 300 hours on the game. Made it all the way up to the 150s for levels and only just made it to Lindell. I hadn't exceedingly large amount of fun playing it, and only haven't gotten my own copy because I have neither computer nor game system capable of running it since I normally game on a switch. I did have to do a lot of grinding and over leveling to get the game to a point where I was comfortable, but I am aware of my inadequacies with gaming enough to have been knowledgeable to do that. On games with hard difficulty settings that you have to select. I typically go for the one above easy and give the game a try on that. If I find the game to be far too easy within the first 6 to 8 hours of gameplay, I restart on a higher difficulty. I think a lot of the discussion about difficulty needs to acknowledge that you are responsible for your own actions. If you're unwilling when you're not having fun with the game to think about what that issue is and take strides towards fixing it, then you are kind of shooting yourself in your own foot. I'm also one of the people who requires accessibility features. I have learning disability and I'm slowly going deaf. I need subtitles in my games to be able to play. I'm very glad that recently subtitles have become a common option in games. Their older games I used to play as a child that I can no longer revisit unless I have someone sitting there to clarify what they're saying to me. I feel that in the last two decades the video game industry has made some fantastic strides towards accessibility. I'm irate at certain choices like Xbox planning to prevent use of third-party controllers and then charging an arm and a leg for their own accessibility controller. However, on a whole, I think that the video game industry has made fantastic forward movement on this. They're absolutely some games that I am never going to be able to beat, even on the easiest difficulty. I have an issue with my hand. I coordination that makes all shooters pretty much impossible for me to make any decent strides in, but that just means that those games aren't for me. Something that people need to remember is just because you can purchase. It doesn't mean you're going to be able to play or beat it. In some ways I feel that people look at video games and feel that since they are consumer who paid for it, they should be able to get absolutely everything out of it and that's not always going to be possible. I bought Hollow Knight on the switch at one point when it was on sale. I have put about 25 hours into that game and still never beaten the first boss. This is not a fault of the game company but a skill issue on my end 🤷🏻♀️ I think it's important that people be honest with themselves about what isn't isn't within their capabilities on certain video games. 😅 My inability to beat this boss does not remove the fun I have had trying. Or the fund my little siblings have had watching me fail and then turning around and beating it for me. I just think it's important that people remember that will accessibility and ease of use is valuable. Not everything is for everyone and sometimes you just have to accept the fact that you're not good enough to do something.
This is why I would never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever recommend a FromSoftware game at full price to someone who's never played one. Or at least give someone a disclaimer.
This is a very interesting topic to me, I have a friend who has very minimal game experience but loves the game Hades as a classics student, but even with the assist mode she's still frustrated by it as she wants to progress the story but is hindered by her lack of experience and reactions. I also had her and another friend come over several years ago and try Spiderman PS4 - she liked the swinging and picked the movement up very fast, but our friend took over the fighting sections for her. Interesting to me how different people handle different challenges!
I felt the same way as her, I wanted to see the progress of the story. But that's why I love Hades so much, you still get most story dialogue after a failed attempt! I did a second playthrough where I won a lot very early on, and I had to die a bunch over and over just to get the stories going
@stevhen42 and unfortunately most gamers take their skill for granted... I've been trying to introduce my wife to video games, but I've had to be very selective about what i suggest (something with a minimal barrier of entry, low skill level, and that's aligned with her interest so that she is internally motivated to play during her free time) and very careful about how i react to her struggles (not taking things for granted, not being patronizing, putting her down, getting exasperated)... I loved Razbuten's Games for Non Gamers series because of how eye opening it was. Most recently, I've been trying to teach her to use a controller (a input method a lot of gamers prefer because of how comfortable it fits in your hand), but it's a completely foreign tool for her, constantly having to look at it to see what buttons are where... I tried introducing her to smash, and quickly realized first she needs to get comfortable with a controller before even considering approaching a fighting game...
@@random99789 that's actually sth that's been on my mind a lot: why are the majority of games centered on combat? When looking at MMOs (or, well, any RPG), the first thing that gets reviewed is the combat... I was recently looking into introducing my wife to Skyrim, a game which i love because of it's quests, npc interactions, exploration, and breadth of life skills. However, when i pulled up the trailer to show it to her to see if she'd be interested, all that was showcased was combat, something which is part of the core gameplay loop... We see this even in Minecraft... If you want to play pure survival, you need monsters enabled for resources like slime balls, string, and bone meal, resources which are needed to craft tools like leads, fishing rods, bow and arrow, and for wolf taming... (Basically, you need these ingredients for a farming play style). Sure, technically they're all obtainable in peaceful, i do appreciate that it is possible, but a bamboo forest is one of the rarest biomes in the game (which is where pandas live that produce slime balls)...
There are a lot of open world games you might enjoy that don’t focus on combat, especially in the indie scene. They might be smaller in scope than the massive AAA maps but they make up for it in quality and detail. Off the top of my head: - Outer Wilds - A Short Hike - Firewatch - Subnautica - Astroneer - Slime Rancher (more of a farm sim but you do a lot of exploration)
I almost like the idea of having a comprehensive tutorial that walks you through 15 different settings, telling you exactly what each one does, letting you experience what the game feels like with that turned all the way down and all the way up, keeping track of your performance in that section of the tutorial and recommending it a certain level. This might allow you to deliver the best experience overall... but it would kinda suck to have to go through it every time you start a new game.
I tend to play on easier difficulties because way to many games just raise the enemies' health so I catch myself thinking "what if I'll just have to deal with bullet sponges all the time on hard mode" when it comes to deciding the difficulty.
I agree with you, also I prefer not having too high of a difficulty in horror games, because encounters will stop having any impact to me if I already done them like 10 times because I died to something.
Be careful not to call them bullet sponges too quickly. Sometimes it's to incentivize combos or to push you to learn about the game's combat mechanics or to utilize skills or weapons you otherwise wouldn't. But yes, sadly a lot of games don't use it as a teaching tool, but more of a... I'm not exactly sure what the intention is really. I guess, a quick mandatory setting for the "hardcore gamers" out there. Added right before shipping. The ultra super easy modes tend to be added post-production as well for the game journalists. And sometimes hard mode just does become... Longer mode. Fun may or may not be included. Enter at your own risk.
There is no one size fits all solution to difficulty, and there shouldn't be. Every game and its difficulty and how that difficulty is presented to the player is part of the game experience. Great vid as it always is Raz, I hope the family is good! (happy Halloween as well)
yes one thing fabout difficulty options isn't just that it makes it more accessible to people with disabilities/less skill/slower reactions. It makes it so we can go back and play it on a harder mode giving us a reason to play it again when we've gotten really good at it and its just a cakewalk. I played the first two mass effects over and over when I couldn't work due to a broken clavicle and therefore had no money to buy new games. each time I beat it I started on a higher difficulty that I would not have been able to do previously, my skill at that game getting better and better each time.
@@ThwipThwipBoom about normal bief the intended difficulty, it may have been true in the past but nowadays easy mode has been renamed normal and normal become hard and etc, anyway unless the game directly specifies it I don’t think there will be a intended difficulty but personally I like too play in hard but not the hardest difficulty because these is where I am challenged, you want something that isn’t enraging nor that takes away the stakes of the story by being too easy and the latter is especially true in games that should feel hard by their stories or world like most post-apo game or really any stories that talks about you facing impossible odds
Also an absolute fantastic video and a great take on this rather difficult topic. In recent years I usually start the game at one above the "normal" difficulty, except when the game clarifies, as you mentioned, that the intended experience is on normal.
Should really be noted that Normal difficulties are easier today than in the past. Dying to learn was absolutely a part of older games. Now that is seen as negative experience.
This was a really interesting video especially considering how I rarely think about difficulty in games I play, and what sort of games I play generally. Like, I remember my first time playing a Souls game and being so frustrated that I didn't want to touch it again. Subsequently, this was also due to the fact that the game had spiders and it wasn't mine in thenfirst place. At the same time, looking over the games I do frequently play most of them are story focused first, or I play just to learn more of the story and world and not play to beat the game. It's a fascinating topic that also got me interested in your Gaming for Non-Gamers series, as well as subbing to your channel. I'd love a continuation of this topic if possible because it feels so vast.
Two examples of difficulty systems i enjoy are slay the spire and a lot of the supergiant games. Both of them feel like integrate the difficulty more closely with the gameplay than most games which i think is important. For the the spire, the fact that difficulty is tied with progression, gives you a reason to finish runs on the highest difficulty you can. It's also really gradual so you never feel that you're way out of your league; you've worked to unlock the difficulty multiple times beating runs at slightly easier difficulties. A lot of supergiant games have another mechanic where you pick a curse which improve the rewards that you get, which i think solves the problem of games with multiple aspects of difficulty you can adjust if balanced right. There's a base level of difficulty and you can adjust based off of the risk and reward which makes it a more interesting decision and makes the decision more extrinsically motivatee than intrinsic. These aren't perfect systems but are a good step over traditional approaches to difficulty. I do think difficulty balancing is possibly the most important thing to get right in most games since it really determines what systems the player will find themselves needing to engage with. The way I've enjoyed difficulty handled that is a bit less obvious is just difficulty in the form of optional content. The base game should be fairly approachable but those who are up for challenge have extra levels to look forward to. Kind of like the b sides in celeste Another thing I think would have liked to hear you touch upon is difficulty scaling as well. Some games can feel so different from the beginning to the end of the game as you gain more gear or as enemies get harder. Its frustrating when i play a game where the difficulty is enjoyable, then i either get overleveled/geared or there's a difficulty spike that makes the game harder than i would enjoy
Your last point is exactly how I felt with the Witcher 3. At the beginning, the game looked like it was going to give me a real challenge and by the end I was having such an easy time I fought the final boss bare-fisted for a while because they just weren't a threat.
This was a really interesting video. I loved the crpg rep with the pathfinder games and solasta. I also appreciate that you took time to point out that some people like their games to trend easy in terms of difficulty. I'm certainly that way. I play games for the story and I absolutely hate dying because all it means is that I'm being delayed to get to the story that's my main motivation for playing in the first place.
I mean if you want to play the game like a slightly interactive movie that's your decision. I do know a lot of people who get personally insulted when dying in single player games, and I go "okay, well, so running in the middle of the enemies with guns clearly didn't work the first 5 times, maybe try a somewhat different strategy?" More often than not, they just need to turn their brains on. They need to enter in the mindset that this is not a movie, this is an interactive medium that will challenge them and their problem solving skills. This isn't a movie where you get to move the invincible protagonist and press x to shoot enemies only if and when you want to, and then get to the next cutscene. This isn't solely background noise or pretty colors. Don't be fooled by the animated environments and pretty graphics. Treat it a bit more like a board game or a sport, or something that requires input to be fun and engaging. The ball doesn't move itself. The board doesn't play itself. Usually these are chronic movie and TV watchers that expect drama and excitement, but are confused when it isn't served up on an effortless platter. They go in expecting a movie or TV show, and find it cool they can control the character and interact with the environment, but as soon as there is a challenge, anger ensues. "Why can't I beat it right away? I don't understand why I am dying!" But they haven't even begun to think why. They just expect to walk in and win. Maybe that partially speaks to how mind-numbing modern TV and shows are today. Or how TV today doesn't really provide enough mental stimulation to engage critical thinking skills.
@@GarrulousHerald i think you're just looking too much into something that just isnt there, and i highly doubt you really know THAT many people who are like that, like be serious. all you're doing is being elitist by connecting dots that arent there and claiming that people who don't like having to repeatedly die in game are people who don't have critical thinking skills. i actually have 3 friends who play games on the easiest modes made available to them, and they're nothing remotely like how youre describing people who get frustrated when dying in games, and theyre not chronic movie or tv watchers, either. they're just average people who dont spend every day playing video games but still like them! rather than people needing to "turn their brains on" the truth is that they just need to have a history of playing games and have developed the gaming sense that those kind of games require, and many people will enjoy videos but NOT have the time or the interest to dedicate their lives to gaming, and THATS OKAY. they should still be able to play video games, and video games should continue to make efforts to be playable by as many people as possible! you have gotta get off your high horse of making it seem like playing video games makes you a better, more critical thinker than people with other interests, because it doesnt. i see the way other gamers are often completely lacking media literacy, some of the dumbest most mind bendingly stupid people ive ever had the displeasure of talking with have been avid gamers, and that's because, believe it or not, your interests alone actually dont make you a more intelligent and balanced person. like what games are you playing that makes you think like that? and to begin with it's already clear that your literacy skills aren't that great anyway because you're conflating the skills of people who by your own admission aren't gamers to the skills gamers would naturally develop. perhaps you should watch another razbuten video "What Elden Ring is Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games" to hear about how it's actually GAMES faults that you apparently know a lot of people who clearly dont play certain kinds of video games yet youre expecting them to play like someone who does.
@@notyaunzzz Well uh, I'm the one who has had said experiences I claimed to have so I guess I ought to know. But maybe you're right. Maybe it was all a figment of my imagination. When I said chronic TV watchers, I meant that most of all of their leisure time is spent watching TV or TH-cam. That's not entirely uncommon today. I've seen them play. Playing on the easiest difficulty of games. "Story mode" of God of War 2016. You want to know what happens? The light attack button is good enough to carry them through THE ENTIRE GAME. They NEVER use weapon combos or powers. Because they forget, there's no reason to. Horizon Forbidden West? Well that's partially because of a lack of teaching on the game's part, but people completely forget weapon skills or valor surges are even a thing. Because the mindset is "well I'm not a super duper amazing lifelong gamer... So super easy seems like it would be for me." And then they play the entire game using the basic attack and maybe a few other mechanics, but completely ignore like 90% of the game's features. And they don't tend to enjoy it. At least not as much as they could. They might enjoy the graphics and the cutscenes, but you can tell they just play the game wanting to get from point A to point B because the game fails to grab their attention. Because of how mind-numbingly simple it is. One of these people I reference I am actually quite close to. He is middle aged, and it took him a while to develop the muscle memory required to play various popular titles. After he was playing games adequately, I asked him if he thought it was time to bump up the difficulty. The response? "I'm not very good at games. I don't want to die a bunch." We are talking about bumping the difficulty from story mode, to super easy. Small increments. But modern titles had already drilled into his brain that he wasn't a gamer, he probably never would be, so no use to try. And after reaching this state of good cognitive control of the controller, I saw how much he lost interest in the game. He still played it, but... It wasn't as fun anymore. There was nothing to learn. No challenge. And humans in general love learning and they love overcoming challenges. Over time I did sly underhanded tactics like changing the difficulty without him noticing, and he performed perfectly well. When I revealed the news, he was surprised. Over time, I tutored him and helped him explore everything from games settings to general UI. I taught him to be perceptive, put thought into the skill tree. Look at these skills you can unlock. There's more to the game than you realize. He learned surprisingly quickly, he just needed a little push. SOMETHING to motivate him and show faith in him. Soon enough, instead of choosing the easiest difficulty on every single game, he has enough confidence to actually put thought into what difficulties he is actually capable of pulling off. And he's had more fun with games than ever. He went from playing the easiest difficulty all the time, to trying normal or higher difficulties just to test the waters. And he is more engaged in the games, he uses his head more. He even solves non-difficulty related puzzles better because he is more attentive and doesn't expect it to just be handed to him. Now he only looks up walkthroughs for puzzles if it's either repetitive (like the catalysts in H:FW) or if he already gives it a try. He still sometimes gets mad if he dies a bit too often, but he's much more willing to take some responsibility and adapt his strategies. Changing difficulty at hard spots is now a last resort, he usually gives it a couple tries first and a lot of the time he comes out on top, feeling accomplished by overcoming the challenge. And most importantly, he has more fun. He's more confident in himself and his capabilities, and I'm proud of him. Humans of all ages and skill sets are capable of learning if you just give them the chance. Yes, a lot of the time, it is the game's fault. For trying to appeal to more mainstream audiences while not putting in the effort to engage them and inspire confidence. Not pushing them to try to be their best in a supportive manner. Instead, there are poorly cobbled together difficulty changes meant to allow anyone to beat the game with zero effort involved. Having trouble with a boss? Give him 0.1x health. Having a small hiccup understanding this integral mechanic to the core gameplay loop? Well just disable it! Players will often take the path of least resistance. That does not mean they will have fun doing so. And more and more modern titles are refusing to acknowledge this integral aspect of game design. They say it's to be more accessible, but the same games that introduced super duper easy mode press one button to win... Many of them DON'T EVEN HAVE SCALABLE UI OR SUBTITLES (H:FW, looking at you.) How can you claim to be accessible if you don't even attempt to tackle one of the most common disabilities, which is imperfect vision? If it's to become 'more accessible' for 'game journalists,' I think we are better off gatekeeping those kinds of people from the product. They either need to get better at the game so they can get by on easy difficulty, or they shouldn't focus their careers off of writing about games they barely even play. I think everyone should be able to enjoy games. Keyword, ENJOY. Not just play, ENJOY. This isn't some rite of passage to show how modern you are. This is for you to have a good and fun time, and all these claims of accessibility are just that, claims. I want non-gamers to have fun. And the unfortunate reality is... If you give people an option of an easier time which they don't need at the cost of fun... They'll tend to pick it. It's why options in difficulty and gaming aren't so clear cut of an implementation. It's more complicated than that. Not every game needs to cater to an audience that expects an effortless joyride. In fact, including such options, when the game isn't optimized or play-tested for such, it negatively impacts the experience of many casual gamers. Because how does the casual gamer even perceive "easy" mode vs "story" mode? It's subjective. It's not often conveyed well. "Well I think I like stories..." You have to hold the hand of casual gamers. They don't have the experience or knowledge of the medium to make educated decisions. And modern gaming has become so patronizing to casual gamers and newcomers. More options does not mean better. You need to actually look at it from the perspective of a non-gamer, and see the flaws in this supposed rise of "accessibility." Some of the results have been good, don't get me wrong. I like some of the accessibility options. But if you aren't careful, "accessibility" and "appealing to everyone" has the potential of simply making things convoluted and confusing, rather than actually widening the audience. Because if your product becomes TOO accessible, TOO mainstream, TOO "for everyone," more often than not, without a target audience, your game ends up becoming for no one instead. The veteran gamers are the ones who roughly know which difficulty to choose. It's the casual ones and newcomers who suffer.
@@notyaunzzz So I'm returning to this comment to analyze it a bit more based on what it actually presents instead of just justifying myself... And wow... I kind of overlooked how uh... Hostile and aggressive it is. It starts out attempting to gaslight. Not a great start. +There is a difference between dying twice or three times to a major boss or encounter, and dying 28 times to basic enemies. It then sets up a strawman. I didn't say they didn't have critical thinking skills, I implied they weren't used to exercising them within their entertainment. I mean I'm not pulling this out of nowhere I know what TV is like lol. And I know plenty of people who do almost nothing in their free time other than watch TV. Don't read books, don't play games, board games, physical, digital... And unfortunately I would have to say that it does describe the average person. Particularly older aged individuals more than newer. People we would consider to be middle aged or older. I don't know what "those games" are, but uh, no really I don't know what you are talking about. Game sense? I mean sure it can take a day or two to get used to the controls, they might not have the reaction time or experience with certain genres to pull off hard or super hard difficulty, but I believe they are typically more capable than modern games and their "ultra accessible easy easy extra easy" modes give them credit for. You then... Talk about... dedicate lives to gaming? I'm not preparing them to enter E-Sports "or else they aren't real gamers." I myself don't care for ultra competitiveness or super duper hardcore. I tend to play on hard or one or two difficulties below the hardest difficulty. I care more about the quality of the experience than the challenge, though challenges are an integral part of the experience sometimes, it's just some harder difficulties aren't geared towards newcomers and prefer you play the game through at least once, while others are labeled hard for those experiences with the genre or quick to learn on this medium or have existing skills. Sometimes difficulty can certainly overshadow the quality of the experience if it is too frustrating or poorly constructed. "Playable by as many people as possible." I agree. Which is why it is strange why modern games tend to offer these... Challenge-less difficulties that a goldfish hooked up to the controller could beat, while they tend to neglect things like scalable UI or a variety of accessibility or QoL options. They're newcomers or casuals, not idiots. And I don't find it particularly preferable to treat them like they can't do anything right. I don't know where you got the idea I thought I was better than anyone else. I thought I was quite clear in my original post that I was considering the experience of others, not myself. Then there's this strange rant about gamers and media literacy? Like it's as if you strawmanned what I was saying just to build up to this moment to complain about something completely unrelated so it wouldn't be completely out of place? It also just seems to be an attempt to try and roast me out of nowhere. There's then uh... Another strawman. I never... Conflated the skills of gamers vs non gamers. "Skills gamers would naturally develop." Like what? Being open to trial and error, learning, challenges, and exploring your capabilities is not solely a gamer skill. My point was that games are not TV and many get caught up trying to conflate two very different mediums. Which ends up causing trouble for everyone involved. Games are interactive mediums which naturally mean they will have different priorities than TV which is primarily only a visual medium. Most modern games that include super duper easy modes, the interactive medium sucks under these poorly thrown together difficulties because they are clearly not designed for them, and the casual, or less than casual gamer misses way more than you may realize. And I don't want them to miss out. Did you even read my comment? Or did you read someone else's, read part of mine, and then just assume you knew everything I said based on some faulty correlation skills? This is quite bizarre.
@@GarrulousHerald "More options does not mean better." is something quite uncomfortable that doesn't just apply to video games, but sometimes to real life as well.
As someone that didn't grow up with video games and has very little inherent video game skill, I really appreciated Resident Evil's adaptive gameplay. As it is, there aren't a lot of games that interest me (as I like stories and puzzles but have little ability to deal with action or platforming) so I really appreciate it when I can play a game and not get so frustrated that I just give up because I just can't enjoy it.
The main downside is you are playing a game in which the rules are constantly changing, which can be unsatisfying to someone who feels they have mastered their current difficulty, only for it to suddenly change and they are now failing, or for deaths to be required before the game starts easy enough for lower skilled. The game is learning and changing the difficulty dynamically every time you succeed or fail, but a series of failures will still always lead to death and constantly changing combat rules can make understanding that combat harder. Also making a horror game dynamically easier does take away some of the fear factor and the whole overcoming your fear aspect to horror.
@@cattysplat as he said in the video, there's not a great way to make a game work for everyone. Though maybe it would be good to have the difficulty settings and adaptive difficulty (such as with RE) but with an option to turn ad off. I guess I don't really see RE as a game that's really meant to scare you or make you face fears so not being as scary wasn't even a consideration, but again, everyone is different. I'm sure a lot of people don't think fatal fame is scary, but that creeped me out more than dead space or resident evil. As far as adaptive difficulty goes, I don't see how it really changes combat at all. You don't have to adapt to playing differently, the enemies just die easier and there are more ammo drops and stuff like that. You aren't having to adjust to a different combat style...granted I'm a noob so maybe I just don't see it.
Qhenever i invade someone or get summoned in dark souls 3, i usually drop them a bunch of embers before we do anything. Someone did that for me when i was new and it was a nice way to show me that i was never alone.
One of my favorite implementations of difficulty is in God Hand. Difficulty dynamically adjusts as you defeat enemies without taking damage, but you will most likely spend your entire first playthrough on the easiest level due to the high upfront difficulty. As you get better at the game, the difficulty increases and enemies become more aggressive/less exploitable. It forces you to learn all of the game's systems and gradually incorporate them into your gameplay if you want to maintain that higher difficulty. And unlike Resident Evil, the difficulty is shown as a gauge at all times; this removes the sense that the game is handholding you from behind the scenes with impenetrable algorithms.
As good as God Hand is, this approach has plenty of problems as well. Enemy damage scales far to harshly with the dynamic difficulty, and it often feels like the game is punishing you for doing well. It's to the extent that many players strategically choose to sandbag their performance in order to keep the difficulty in check. I know I basically felt as though I had to, as I dropped the game multiple times due to sitting in the exact skill window in which I would reach the highest level and immediately get killed for it. The number of times I had to repeat segments because I was good enough to reach the highest difficulty, but not good enough to beat the highest difficulty, was such that I just gave up entirely. The fact that I had to make the strategic choice to eat hits at certain points in order to succeed felt artificial, cheap, and unintuitive on a level that was just blatantly unfun. I think the game is great, but my first playthrough was anything but.
@@tyrant-thanatos These are all honestly great points that I just never ran into. I was so terrible during my first playthrough that I basically never got out of level 1. After that, chasing higher levels became the name of the game so I never really ran into that frustration. I can totally see how it could ruin a first playthrough if you grasp the mechanics more quickly than I did lol.
On a similarish vein I really enjoyed Furi. It doesn't have a dynamic difficulty but the default choice is appropriately challenging. Yet the entire game feels like it's training you to get better. One of the bosses is focused solely on a specific part of the combat. While that's a cool boss fight it also forces you to engage with a system you might've been largely avoiding. But that also means it's making you better and more confident at using it on every other boss fight in the game. By the time you have beaten the game it feels like the entire game has been preparing you for the harder difficulty option (that I think only unlocks after playing through it?) It also has one of my favorite boss fights in any game I have ever played. And that is Bernard an untextured dummy they used to test boss mechanics on. A 9 stage boss fight that has some of the best elements from every other boss combined into one single challenge. It was thrown in as a bonus alongside the one more fight dlc alongside a boss fight that i belief was an xbox exclusive at first? Which is a little unfortunate but apparently it's now included with the base game.
OMG I just wrote about GOD HAND the best forgotten PS2 fighting game that is basically resident evil 4 but with punches instead of guns and that leans even more on its combat system resulting the in most chad and stylish fighting game EVER ( not even kidding its that GOOD) and with EPIC soundtack IT ROCKS DUDE.
The Celeste method is interesting. It made it clear what the expected version is, but it does provide assistance methods. Although, I never went with those methods. I wonder if people felt discouraged because of that separation.
the assist tools in celeste were intended as an accessibility tool, but it's good that it ALSO functions as a difficulty slider. You can make the game a bit more forgiving if you cannot physically move fast enough for certain segments , have a hard time seeing certain things, or just don't wanna bang your head against a wall when you're playing a highly emotional game about defeating depression and finding yourself.
I loved it. i couldn't beat the ending of the final part of farewell and was frustrated and was about to look it up on youtube and I heard someone say the assisstance options so I just turned them on and cheesed the final room so I could finally see the ending. I don't think games without a story need assistance options, but if you put such a meaningful story behind an extreme difficulty wall people are going to never see the ending and maybe even resent the story because it made them frustrated.
@@Zectifin I was the same, I gave up on the very last B-Side and the last part of farewell. But see for me, if I feel like I cheesed it, I think, why am I wasting my time on this? I love how the achievement for getting every strawberry was literally a sarcastic "impress your friends." I honestly found the strawberries really rewarding, but choosing between another 3000 deaths or turning on a cheese mode? I picked neither, just didn't finish the game
@@Zectifinditto. I grided the last room for a few hours before turning on invincibility, but have subsequently beat farewell over a dozen times without it. Instead of dropping it and never coming back which is close to where I was, assist mode let me get closure, and then later git gud
@@SnoFitzroy I'm in the "physically cannot move fast enough for certain segments" camp, to where it's actually random whether I nailed the timing for even a single input in one of the more demanding sections, even after I learned the rhythm. I only ever had to slow down the game speed by a max of 30% (so 70% speed) to get to a point where it felt -- and was -- doable for me, though. Could still be really hard, but there's a colossal difference between 'hard' and 'beyond my ability to even control whether I succeed.'
Another advantage of the difficulty setting is to allow disabled or young players to be able to enjoy the story without being limited by the gameplay. I really like how tunic does this. The difficulty is not presented as an option at the start, but it is in the options if you look for it. There's even an invincible option which was great for my 5yo. She wanted to play the "fox game" as her first game, without having the reflexes you need to be able to survive the enemies.
The drawback is that they will have no challenge so they will not learn how to face higuer difficulties. Every approach has its downsides: more accessible then less improvement
@@lluisg.8578 invincible mode doesn't necessarily imply 'no challenge'. For my daughter (and I'm sure for other kids or disabled people), the movement and gameplay itself without enemies may be challenging enough. My daughter struggles with any games that require timing of button presses (mario, pong, etc) nevermind the enemies. Naturally when she gets older and this mode no longer poses a challenge to her, I can change it.
Great comment! People can enjoy games for very different things. When I was little I loved playing games like Kirby Air Ride and Sonic Adventure 2, not for the story or any of the main quests, but just because I loved interacting with the world. I also liked games with invincibility options (GoldenEye & Guitar Hero come to mind) but these options were always locked behind "cheat" menus. It's nice to see more accessibility options being implemented as part of the base game experience.
I've always defaulted to "Easy" or "Story" mode until recently, and now I've been going back to older favorites and experimenting more. I've always had the mindset of "I want to keep the narrative moving forward, not get stuck for hours and frustrated" since I play story driven, single-player games almost exclusively. But a couple years ago, I decided to run through Ghost of Tsushima again and stumbled upon a video discussing the "Lethal" difficulty. The idea of the game being harder by making the weapon damage realistic in their damage for both the player AND the enemies was intriguing. And I just absolutely loved it. It was so fast, smooth, and brutal. Constantly being one wrong move away from death while slicing through hordes of enemies in a way that resembles the films the game is so heavily inspired by is absolutely thrilling. I've come to realize that I dont hate difficult games, I hate games that substitute difficulty with "just make the enemy a damage sponge" because it destroys the immersion. My ability to suspend by disbelief is totally gone after stabbing or shooting a guy 30 times but they keep coming. I wish I would have experimented more over the years, who knows what other amazing experiences I've robbed myself of by defaulting to what I incorrectly assumed was the best option for me.
I really love the difficulty scaling thats baked into Hades and the Pact of Punishment system. I agree that wondering if i have all the right settings sticks in the back of my head. Happy Halloween!
Another big advantage of Hades is that you apply before each run, and you only engage with it after being already familiar with the game. But that sort of brings the issue of difficulty to when you start Hades for the first time, with there being only 2 options.
in principle yes, but i think it could still be improved. For example, i wanted to be challenged by Hades, becase even the lower heat levels didnt really do it for me. However, i need to actually grind the heat levels 1 by 1 for every weapon to actually get the rewards. Which just made me give up because its tedious, grinding through multiple dozens of fairly easy runs just to get to the fun part. If they instead just let you choose whataver heat level you wanted, and gave you all lower heat rewards you havent gotten yet, it'd be better imo.
Difficulty sliders and Roguelikes tend to go hand in hand, since you're encouraged to play through the game multiple times. Games like Dead Cells do a mix of both difficulty sliders in the form of upgrades/passive skills and Boss Cells which are basically the game's gradual difficulty options.
I remember being determined to beat the game without God Mode. Once I achieved that, I did all I could to attain full Godhood. Zagreus shall forever be ~80% god.
Yeah, my favourite way to do adjustable difficulty is in roguelikes like Hades and Slay the Spire where it starts out pretty managable and then once you beat your first run you can increase the difficulty at your own pace. Hades even has an easy mode that explicitly framed as something you can turn on if you're struggling too much, rather than just one option in a list of difficulty modes.
As a games designer where my main job is balance of systems, after decades of back and forth on this, I came down on the side of accessibility. Challenging core combat is usually only one facet of your game and difficulty modes when done right (either through an obvious menu, adaptive mechanics or a clear ability to play in an easier way - personally they're all classed under difficulty options for me) are essential to opening up as much of your game to as many people as possible. Which is what it's all about really. More people should have the chance to enjoy the experience you and hundreds of others have made over many years. Even if it's only a part of it.
Then again easy game may instead "close" experience of accessing a mechanic. Like what he said about Witcher 3 where it's possible to never even consider maybe enjoyable gameplay like potion. Designing really is hard.
@@HazhMcMoor When developing a slew of mechanics, one thing I developer must consider is how many of them an individual player is going to access. There can be good reasons that every tool must be used to its fullest, or that different people will only utilize certain tools, depending on a game's core themes and objectives.
I definitely understand difficulty options, I just prefer the Fromsoft approach, there are different gameplay options but the challenge is measured and set.
I'm glad you showed Sea of Stars, if only for a moment. But I liked that the difficulty options were at least somewhat integrated in the game, as things you need to find or buy. It makes them feel more earned, and spreads the decisions out so you can evaluate each in turn, and only after having some real experience.
One thing I love is when games tell you their intended difficulty, but something that would make me like games with toggleable difficulty even more is if they tell me how difficult the game is intended to be. Some games have a normal mode that I could feasibly breeze through and others are hard enough that I will just inevitably get stuck at a certain point and need to lower the difficulty to progress in a reasonable amount of time, and the "intended gameplay experience" only tells me that this is the setting that the game was playtested with in mind
The reason why Capcom pioneered dynamic difficulty for basically the Resident Evil series is because it actually helps maintain the horror elements better. Horror games, contrary to what conventional thinking might indicate, don't actually want you to die. If you die, you do the same section over and over, which makes you familiar which makes you unscared of the game. They want to keep you on the cusp of thinking you're going to die. That's maximum tension. It's why as you get more familiar with the game through playthroughs and seek higher challenge the scaling modifiers are usually turned all the way up and left there on the hardest of difficulties.
i love how you analyze videos, you put my 15+ years playing, experiencing and learning video games and their little quirks into a clear voice that makes me finally understand the nuance that ive been a part of all this time.
This was a really nuanced breakdown, nice job! Personally, I don’t mind adaptive difficulty when it’s successfully unnoticeable, because I like to be fully immersed in a game-both easily wiping through enemies and dying all the time can break the immersion for me, so if the game can successfully tweak that behind the curtain, I definitely find it to be a more fulfilling experience. But I know that just has to do with my playstyle preferences, and there’s as many of those as there are gamers
Great video, nice to see someone cover difficulty in all its facets rather than just regurgitating the 'easy mode' discourse. It's fascinating to me how difficulty connects with the experience of a game, and trying to simplify it to 'options good' or 'options bad' has never sat well.
It also depends on what kind of player you are. Are you looking for a challenge or just walking around shooting stuff and have fun or do some exploring. For me I mostly don't play games for the challenge just want to hop in a be in a different world for some time.
Totally agree. Razbuten talks a lot about enjoying overcoming obstacles but if I am playing a puzzle game with a puzzle way above my level, I don't feel satisfied when I finally figure it out - I just feel kind of stupid.
Same. I’m honestly more in the “power fantasy lover” group they mentioned near the end of the video. But I love just taking in a new world and testing what I can do with it. It’s a lot easier to do that when the enemies don’t do 6 times your normal damage lol
Absolutely. I can't relate to this "sense of achievement" constantly spouted by the people who can only get enjoyment from challenging difficulty. To me it's just a feeling of "I'm glad that's over" more than anything. Challenging gameplay often gets in the way of my enjoyment of a game. I play every game on easy/story mode for this reason and I don't have to justify myself to others why. I enjoy the game far more as I'm looking for a different experience, and on a single player game, why does that even matter? I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm trying to have fun.
I do think for that reason even in fromsoft games and other set-difficulty games I wish there were the options of "power trip" and "intended difficulty" That being said I'm disappointed in the way some games have made difficulty choice feel like a personal attack that "intended difficulty" even as I wrote it felt like some attack on those who would choose power trip, even though I don't think it had to be that way.
@@loucam08 I hate how games have left people feeling the need to justify themselves why they choose an easier difficulty. One of the most common statements I hear when I walk in on my mother playing Horizon: Zero Dawn is she'll make some comment about the challenge of enemies after beating them and then clarify something like: "Of course I know I'm playing on an easy difficulty, I'm just so exhausted after work that I want to come home and have fun playing the game, not have a challenge"
I really like the structure of this video. Every approach to difficulty is worth discussing but all have their flaws, and that's okay. Just something to be aware of rather than a problem requiring a simple fix.
Really solid video. My quick take is having difficulty options, even ines that aren't thought out very well, will always be better than having none. It's silly for gamers™️ to get mad at difficulty options for one game (dark souls) but beg for them in another (pokemon). It hurts no one to have options. It only ever helps bring in different people.
This is not universally true. Because the difficulty of a game should be determined by the intentions of the developer, not the desire of gamers. Generally, difficulty comes in two favors. Either the player must meet a difficulty check to complete an objective to the developer's satisfaction, or the game must meet the skill level of the player. Is the concept or the completion of a game its core goal? Is the vehicle of that challenge or immersion?
Have difficulty options does hurt some players though. This is one of the many reasons Souls fans are so adamant about not having them and appreciative of the one difficulty for all philosophy. How does it hurt players having these options? Because people get frustrated, rage and in a hissy fit they lower the difficulty and cheat themselves of the "Git Gud" moments Souls fans love. Even people who know they want these challenging have moments of weakness and will take the easy road if it's there when they're pissed off. This philosophy isn't for every game or even every genre. Most games and I'm talking 90 plus percent, cater to the difficulty option philosophy. Part of the reason Fromsoft basically started a Souls genre is because their base philosophy was extremely missed and lacking in the video game world. Souls fans can be as cringe and ridiculous as any other fans but a lot of what Souls fans are fighting back against, is the idea that Fromsoft should stop being the one small corner of the game world where this philosophy can be found and comform.
@@SaintKines If you get mad because you chose to use a completely optional option, that's not the optional option's fault, that's your fault. Also you're forcing your own view onto everyone else. You are not the god king, your view is not everyone else's.
@@Purpletrident Fromsoft isn't forcing anything on anyone. And at this point nobody could realistically claim that they didn't know either. Considering "Soulslike" is a full on genre at this point. Not every game is for every person and that's ok. Demanding that every single game follow a certain difficulty option rule is forcing your views on everyone else. 90 plus percent of games already cater to you and you still can't accept and understand that at least a small minority group appreciate and believe in a different way. Whos the one forcing their opinions here? It's well known Souls games don't have those options and are designed to be a reasonable challenge, if that's not your thing then you're still in luck because most of the industry is pandering directly to you. And yes, the options are optional, kind of in the name. But you can look at thousands and thousands of Fromsoft testimonials where people admit that not having the option to just switch off all challenge when frustrated saved from ruining rewarding Git Gud moments when they finally overcame the challenge. It's what keeps Souls fans going and coming back. Some people just want to put a game in and chill and not be challenged. There is nothing wrong with that. Some people just want to engage in a power fantasy where they get to pretend and experience what it's like to be powerful and skillful. Some people want to spend the time and rage to earn that.
I think Will you Snail did a really good job with adaptive difficulty as it changes mid game based on how well you do. And it actually feels very integrated to the game because of how its set up
It decrease the difficult but I still die at the same spike , I think king of thief's does it better by removing the spikes if you die to it for 3 times in a row
Survival horror games usually do some really cool stuff with their harder difficulties. The AI of the Xenomorph in Isolation is optimal at the harder difficulties.
the thing with dark souls is that you could just grind/farm to get stronger and its hard to tell if you are underleveled or playing it how it is meant to be
Love this discussion, and this video is a phenomenal contribution. I see difficulty as part of the dialogue between player and designer. The way difficulty is framed is important, and that process is continuous. If there are difficulty options, they need to be thoroughly described. If the intended experience is constant death, then that needs to be communicated early (see: the Supposed-To-Die first bosses of FromSoft games). I am also a big fan of Celeste's approach, with one "difficulty", but accessibility options. Side note on FromSoft bosses: What I would love to see is for bosses to tweak, not their stats, but their moveset in response to what the player brings to the fight. Maybe a multi-phase boss reaches the next phases sooner, or maybe they account for multiple opponents with more wide swings of their weapons.
a rule of thumb for me is if it's a new developer/game series ill always starts at normal to gauge what type of difficulty it will have after that is based on my conclusion
That explains a lot. I like to play games on harder difficulties because it helps slow down the experience, I tend to blow through games on normal. I always thought people were nuts when they said the witcher three was boring but I'm willing to be there playing on easier modes now.
9:14 I think the Modern Warfare FNG course is actually a really good metric for the player setting difficulty. You did make some valid points, but I do want to stress that I was also that person out to grind the speed up, and get the higher recommended difficulty, and then select it... even though I wasn't truly ready. But in the end, though it took me quite a lot of time working up to that level of play, it WAS the right difficulty for me. The game offered one choice, but instead of just going with it or picking a higher difficulty anyway, you and I--and presumably many many more like us--stuck it in, determined to PROVE we could handle it. And that determination, perseverance, and presumably ability to get used to trying over and over again to deal with CoD's bullshit, means that we were choosing our difficulty all along.
Love the points made in the video, there's just one I wonder about: You mentioned that someone running the COD4 tutorial until they are recommended Veteran would be setting themselves up for failure, however the type of player who wants to keep trying until they get it right is exactly the type of player who would enjoy the challenge a harder difficulty provides. In that regard a tutorial like that is potentially slightly more effective than credited.
Im glad you addressed acessability as I feel like that particular topic is always neglected specifically in the difficulty topic. I have often felt like some games just tell me "youre not good enough to play." As ive just harsly learned souls games are. I have have tremmors, peripheral regognition issues and with adhd i have issues focussing, be this overwhelmed or underwellmed on game's. For me with small elements like the lack of a pause button in souls games or an option for more recovery time in fights i will never be physicaly able to play, complete or enjoy a souls game. Which is sad because i just got given lies of p as a gift over Christmas, which is why i got here looking at the difficulty debate. I do feel like i have learned more about the other side - more skilled players' issues with difficulty. However, i still can't help but feel like difficultly gatekeeps some games. And while i understand the argument some people have that an easy mode and acessability are not the same and that an easy mode would undermine dissabled people. I have played many a game where ive had a little cry because they remind me that my disabilities in fact- disable me. The issue for me stands with the stigma and naming of difficulties as well as the creation of them. To have a "as intended" difficultly topped with a more challenging one, an unlockable one like many dmc games and then for people like me a "beginner, story or learner" mode would just make more games feel accepting. I do get sad as a lover of gothic littriture and media that i can never fully experience a souls game on my own on console (if i was pc i know there are mod creators who add disability aids more then the game creators... which is also sad to me) its sad to me that games just cut a whole willing audience off through difficulty gatekeeping.
I think the most blatant example I have experienced when my neurodivergence has completely fucked up a gand for me was cuphead I’ve ADHD myself but generally I don’t think it’s too bad in a lot of places but I know for a fact that u literally cannot see most of the screen because I have to focus on my character Currently I’ve gotten past most of the game I’ve rage quit a few times but I eventually got through until I found Dr Kahls robot It’s the hardest base boss in the game abd it’s obvious why I can get to the third stage (even if u require a speed run strat gif the second phase) but I literally cannot see anything in the third stage and end up dying constantly I can barely avoid the emerald sparks but the electrified gates are basically unavoidable
This also gatekeeps younger players from playing certain games, as typically you have less fine motor control until you start to reach adulthood. Not to mention it keeps less skilled players from playing titles they think look fun. As someone with no physical disabilities but who just sucks at video games, it really sucks when I pay 80 dollars for a game just to find out I can't actually play it because of the skill requirements. Also, some games don't seem to know what "easy" is. I genuinely struggled in some spots in certain games, on the games designated "easy mode". To top it off, games that lock the "good ending" off to higher difficulties? Just.. no. That's really shitty.
The thing is people overestimate how many players play on the hardest setting. 50% of players don't even finish games, let alone play on Impossible difficulty. You would think everyone plays on Impossible because they all brag about it but nobody brags about playing on Easy.
For me personally I figured that I almost always roll the best with the second hardest difficulty available, I like a little challenge where I feel how I’m getting better and better over time but I don’t get crushed in the ground if I’m not always a 100% focused it’s most of the time the best balance between a challenge and enjoying the story
"I like to play without choosing the difficulty" is exactly why I i will ALWAYS select the second hardest difficulty for my first playthrough. I feel confident that I can handle most challenges a game throws at me, but I'm extremely aware that the hardest difficulty available for a game is typically not designed for your first playthrough. So the second hardest is generally good enough, and then I dont change the difficulty from then on: this is how hard the game is, so if I'm struggling then I've got to get better until I can beat it
I've seen people with this mentality on reddit, except they ignore the fact that the hardest difficulty isn't meant for beginners. So they retry like 30 times and then have to give up because they played the entire day away instead of just inviting an experienced player who can teach them and carry the noob.
@@Phoenix.Sparkles- I started going for the max difficulty years ago to avoid multiple playthroughs when going for platinum trophies, but later I discovered it enhances the immersion of games like the Witcher (all 3 of them) or The Last of Us or even Horizon (Zero Dawn/Forbidden West). Hell, I even started Dragon's Dogma on Hard, a clearly NG+ difficulty, but it was _so_ immersive for my glass canon assassin character! Same for Horizon on Ultra Hard: in the beginning it makes you _feel_ like a human fighting huge killer robots. Sure, by the end you can easily kill scores of them without breaking a sweat, but if you don't mind the switch to power fantasy, then _that_ effect is heightened even more by three sheer difference in power level, going from 11 dmg with your starter bow to 3500+ with a triple Powershot on a frozen enemy's weak spot!
Personal note on difficulty settings, specifically easy mode: for me wether or not a game has an easy mode is a big factor in most cases. I'm not great at doing multiple things either at once or in quick succession, like trying to time a dodge while also having to move and attack, or having to move my finger to several different buttons in a row while moving in a platformer. My reaction times are not the quickest unless i mainly focus on one thing, and even then it's more quick than precise. Spamming I can do, timing less so. it's like there's a delay where my brain has to register what im supposed to do and what i am doing, and i get overwhelmed. An easy mode makes me feel more secure that I'll actually be able to play and enjoy a game, and less at risk of wasting my money on a game i get stuck in. It has allowed me to play and enjoy games like Dishonored and Witcher 3, I really need that room for error. I can get people wanting challenge and overcoming great obstacles, but for me constant deaths can get infuriating quickly, because it feels like I'm supposed to do more than I'm actually capable of, and games then become these stressful trials to get past one section instead of getting immersed and enjoying the world. Easy modes have allowed me to enjoy some of my favorite games ever, so I'm certainly happy when they're there. sometimes I can go higher, sometimes I can't, sometimes easy mode is a challenge for me, other times it allows me to not feel stressed and have fun. So I guess, personally, id prefer for simple difficulty settings to be there, as without an easy mode I would never have been able to play some of my favorite games that I now have 100+ hours in. That's the take of someone who really needs room for error and sucks at timing responses, especially quickly.
Don't underestimate yourself, it always takes time to get better at something. This sounds like the main cause of your problems is that you're unwilling to build up muscle memory and want instant gratification instead of taking your time.
Ghorda9 has a point. It'd be intriguing to see how you fare on a higher difficulty on the same game you've spent 100+ hours in. Might be worth considering. Unless, of course, the problem is motor neuron-based.
Armored Core 6 has been probably my favorite experience with difficulty. The opening mission and boss encourages you to utilize most of the core elements of combat and the chapter 1 boss builds on that by encouraging experimentation with playstyle and parts. Those 2 moments set you up for the rest how the game will play.
I LOVE this video. I’m only a bit through it but I found your tlou take interesting. I played on the hardest difficulty my first time, and I personally feel it’s the ONLY way the game should be experienced. You genuinely feel IN the world. It’s a post apocalyptic world, supplies aren’t going to be super abundant, and yeah you could do like 1 lesser difficulty but man the struggle of the hardest difficulty makes me FEEL like im truly experiencing it, all the sadness and desperation in the tlou world feels like it’s shining through when you play that hardest one, I just think it’s hella interesting because I usually go for a normal play through my first time. Just had a different gut feeling for tlou and it payed off.
I definitely think some description for the difficulty settings would be immensely helpful for games that don't have them. Like for your Witcher example, if they explained that killing monsters was designed to be a challenge you approached with preparations and care, then I think people would realize real quickly if they are on the right difficulty or not. It could even say that those looking for a more casual experience where monsters require less preparations and care, and can easily be brute forced, then they should consider lowering the difficulty.
I personally really like the assist mode option. I was playing through a small indie game called going under, a very challenging rogue-like with a lot of cool story elements. After making it around halfway through the game, it got too hard for me, even though I am usually good at very difficult games, and so I just bumped up the assist mode settings until I started having fun again. I would still absolutely recommend the game if anyone seeing this hasn't played it.
As someone that plays games for relaxation I am a great fan of playing in easier difficulties. As such it annoys me when there is no difficulty settings, its not like i have no frustration tollerance. But as someone who studies Physics my Frustration tolerance is used up in other places over the day already. Thus I think noone should be shamed for liking to play in easy mode you never know what the person does or has been through. Edit: I was writing this comment in the middle of the Dark Souls part. And thank you so much for saying that there is more to love a game about than being good at the combat. And that its to easy to say these games are not for those people. Thank you so much its a major pain point I have been having whenever I look at the Soulslike stuff and people are just like well if you dont like difficulty then the game is not for you. Even tho I belive games are so much more than just the difficulty.
Thank you so, so much for addressing the wide variety of details regarding videogames difficulty. WAY too many people just default to "Erm game hard == good because rewarding and if you dont like it dont play it" but reality is so much more than that. Personally I still think Celeste should be the golden standard: no one ever says that difficulty in Celeste is a problem because of how transparent the game is about it and the options you have to modify it.
Many people have this "git gud" mentality whenever it comes to difficulty. I often drop the difficulty, because I want to experience the game first and if it is really fun I'll consider putting more time in. If something isn't for me, I want to move on to something I can enjoy. In case it is so much fun that I want to learn everything it has to offer, I will "git gud". But I won't waste time on things that are only fun once you have already mastered it.
I love to “git gud”, so I always play on “normal” settings. Easy makes games too easy most of the time and hard makes the games tedious instead of hard.
I usually play at normal or harder difficulty usually just because I don’t want the game to be to easy, I actually forgot I was in hard mode when playing my current game🤣
Just got off playing Chapter 2 of Alan Wake 2 and this video rings so true. Initially started the game at hard, thinking hey I played survival horrors before, this should be fine. But during that first boss fight I found myself hitting a ceiling. It wasn’t until I turned the difficulty down to normal that I was able to beat it, with no ammo and a sliver of health. It was satisfying as hell but it took a few beatings to learn the right difficulty for me. Great video, Raz! Keep em coming!
No difficulty trophies so I'm just playing on easy. That same boss fight wasn't difficult on easy, but was still tense because it's designed well. Tight, maze-like areas, bass heavy music, the blurry, darkness effects. If you're comfortable playing at normal then keep at it, but I would say the game design and direction nails horror, regardless of whether or not the difficulty is making you manage your inventory.
I'm only really not having a good time when I'm frustrated. I would always rather a game have fun combat for the sake of it and be too easy than block all progress by being too hard. Some games and genres I just default to easy or story mode, and even then I still have some rough times, and I think how much I'd be frustrated and not having fun if I set them to harder difficulty options.
One reason I love difficulty options in games is for accessibility. I have dyspraxia, so a lot of the time, playing on easy is equivalent to a neurotypical person playing on normal, simply because my hands don't always do what my brain tells them to do.
I feel like not enough people take this into consideration when talking about difficulty options. The souls games aren't much of a challenge for me but I have neurodivergent friends that literally can't play them and no amount of telling them to get good is going to change their physical limitations
My brain can't always react fast enough to what I see. So extremely aggressive enemies are going to wipe the floor with me because I'm trying to parse what I'm even seeing... as the sword is coming down. I have a similar issue with games that ask you to move and aim and shoot, all at once. With the camera moving, I'll often struggle to recognize what I need to be aiming at. That makes most action games impossible for me if it's based on reactive combat, lacks auto aim features, or even just incorporates a camera bob when the character moves.
To me this is kind of the only argument that matters. Easy mode is necessary for some people not just to enjoy a game but to play it at all. Games not having an easy mode (like the souls games) is indefensible for this exact reason and people who say otherwise are deliberately excluding certain people from certain games because of a disability or a neurodifference and that's not ok. Especially when the level of difficulty someone plays at is nobody's business but their own and it has no impact on people who choose to play on diamond bastard hard that story mode exists.
This is the best video you've made. I really enjoy your analysis and you have been the only person I've met who felt similarly about the Souls series inasmuch as, if a difficulty option existed, I may have cheated myself out of one of the most rewarding gameplay experiences I've had. You bring up good counterarguments against multiple approaches, which is fantastic as well. More like this, please.
Great video. I grapple with this kind of thinking kind of frequently. As much as I love video games, I can get pretty frustrated with them and overwhelmed. So like you said, all I can do is try to minimize the frustration and maximize the enjoyment. Way easier said than done though. Who woulda thought..
This is the best video essay I've seen in the last 12months. It describes exactly how i feel about difficulty options in games. Sometimes i just have a moment of clarity/frustration and think to myself "I'm just going to play every game on Normal. If i don't have fun, then the game was balanced poorly = the game is badly designed and i dont care how fun it is on Hard". But at the same time i do just want to fill myself with amazing experiences. Even though clearly game developers cannot decide what Hard mode even means - ive just started playing every game on the hardest. At least i KNOW that i will engage with all of the games systems becuase i NEED to to survive. Money and Skills actually matter becuase i NEED them to survive. Planning and engaging with the world is NECCESSRY to progress. These days when i play a game on Normal - i forget to even select new skills when i level up, i dont bother crafting/reading/cooking because i dont need to. I don't take my time to survey the area, plan my attack and think about the engagement - becuase all i have to do is press " Attack, Attack, Attack" and i win. Which absolutely kills engagement and even the enjoyment of the world. Witcher 3 is an amazing example. Personally i prefer a game has no difficult options. Then i KNOW i am playing the intended experience. If i dont have fun, then i can just say "game bad" and move on with my life.
Honestly those ghouls are unironically the second hardest fight on death march. With the hardest one being making sure that one merchants brother survives looting a battlefield so you can get a crossing ticket.
So excited! This video filled me with the same excitement as the gaming for a non gamer vid did when it first came out. Awesome idea, awesome video. I love hearing you describe cool thoughts like this!
Normal - Introducing myself to the mechanics and other systems Higher difficulties - Testing my knowledge on what I know and my skill in more difficult situations
The thing for me, and the reason I'll usually opt to play most games on at least one-higher-than-normal difficulty is that it tends to force me to engage with the game's mechanics and systems more meaningfully. Normal difficulty has a habit of letting you skate by with only minimal engagement and you can sometimes miss out on a lot of what the game is offering. Even something The Last of Us, on harder difficulties, the game plays more like a survival horror game which is great, and you need to scrounge for supplies, making exploration more rewarding, and forces you to make smarter and greater use of the tools available to you in encounters and all. On Normal, you can mostly just shoot your way through most of the game. It's definitely a lot more than just 'higher numbers'.
This video made me think about one of the most transformative experiences I ever had with a video game with regards to difficulty. When I first played FF14 I wasn't super into it mechanically. It took playing one of the most complicated classes (Black Mage) for me to even kinda get engaged, and I spent the entire first 50 levels or so not feeling particularly challenged. And then, after the end of the main campaign in ARR, I did an extreme fight using duty finder because it was a quest and I didn't know about unsyncing and it was the most fun and interesting the game had ever been. I spent 45 minutes eating shit before finally clearing Titan Extreme for the first time, and it made me so excited. I was like, oh! This is what this game can be. This is dance of doing mechanics and dps. It was wild and fun and engaging in a way the normal difficulty almost never was. I spent all the subsequent levels getting excited for the endgame, so finally get to another Titan Extreme moment, and I wasn't disappointed. Clearing Extremes and then Savage and even progging ultimates, it's all so so so interesting and fun, and without that difficulty spike I would have dropped ff14 the second I ran out of MSQ, lol. But really few moments have been as magical to me as when I first realized how deep and interesting the game's mechanics had the potential to be.
As someone with a dynamic physical and cognitive disability, I consider difficulty options to be part of the accessibility options. If you don't want to adjust them, you don't have to, just like all the other accessibility options. But their existence does not actually detract from the game's experience because you can always experience the game as intended or as you personally want to.
I absolutely agree, but I do think that there should be some sort of comment saying something like "this is the intended difficulty for a regular player." In that case it is very easy to tell what will be the best balanced for players that want a healthy challenge and don't need accessibility options. Otherwise the, as you put, "intended experience" is extremely unclear. You could also have games with equippable items that customize difficulty. I think Sea of Stars does this pretty well. There is a specific menu in the inventory that lets you choose specific things that make the game easier or harder. It gives you time to see how you enjoy the game's difficulty and mechanics, running you through some quite easy sections before giving you the items for options. I've played games that are super hard on normal and reasonable on easy, and ones that are unenjoyably easy on normal. I've played games that are still hard to me on easy despite me being more experienced in gaming. Having that level of muddled explanation makes everyone frustrated I think, making it so that nobody knows what difficulty is right for them at all unless they trial and error it. And the trial and error of difficulty settings genuinely *does* taint the experience.
I think this is the best option. It's a kind of mix of having no difficulty setting and still having difficulty settings. Like, there is the intended difficulty, but you can adjust them if you want the game to be harder or easier. The key thing is not actually calling them difficulty settings. This leads players to leave those settings alone in the beginning, but if they start to struggle or find the game too easy, they could be directed to those accessibility options.
I definitely prefer a fixed difficulty or that developers communicate more descriptively what to expect from each difficulty setting. However I think it’s good that not every games tries to do the same thing with difficulty. Variety is good. And having goofy experiences where the challenge was a bit off in one way or the other can be special or reflective moments. I also think self imposed challenges to make games harder is a neat way to get the challenge you maybe missed in a play through or have grown out of from getting better. I’m mostly thinking about my experiences with shovel knight writing this. Amazing video as per the usual. I really appreciate your reflective nature. Cheers^^
Absolutely love this topic-it’s something I think about often when I compare my video game consumption to my partner’s. They are a “hard mode” always on first playthroughs, no matter the game, something I sometimes argue far too heavily against sometimes!
I feel that, and as a player who is the exact same as them, I know in my own experiences it *isn't* necessarily to my benefit, especially with how much of games is learning an enemy's moveset so you can counter it with movement or abilities, it is sometimes better for me to just take a step down and enjoy learning it without as much pressure to never mess up. Then additionally there's problems like having a short enough attention span that that isn't even often viable for me because after my first playthrough, I've burned out on the game and have no desire to play through it a second time on a harder difficulty.
Video game difficulty is ALWAYS on my mind too! I am one to usually pick hard mode on my first playthrough as I feel games have gotten too easy nowadays. I dont mind people picking lower difficulty by any means, but I do sometimes wonder if they are picking the right difficulty for them. It's definitely a topic that has a long way to go before it can be perfect... if it ever will be. (also, hello you, funny seeing you here)
Great video! Just like to say i´m surprised you didn´t mention difficulty by equipment. For example, in my first playthrough of dark souls 1 I struggled immensely, and just as I was about to drop the game entirely a friend mentioned something about a certain glaive I picked up by chance and that Harvel armour set. I ended up powering through the game with 3-5 tries per boss, sometimes first trying them. While my skill did increase with experience, I would never have finished it had I not learned about Glaive/Harvel easy mode. Now, after several playthroughs with different playstyles, it is my favorite game ever
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been a bit of time between videos, but I hope you are well.
No worries ❤
Wish I could be better. But your voice helps.
As always, take as much time as you need. Gonna watch whenever you upload. Happy Halloween!
Likewise hope things are well for yourself and family.
I’m doing good thanks for asking man
I hate when hard difficult just means that enemies deal more damage and have more health.
Good old Bullet sponge 1-shot enemies really make it challenging 😐
i think the issue that makes this approach seem cheap is when it is done to a game that is already lacking.
if the normal difficulty means you can kill an enemy before even seeing its full range of abilities/moves, then increasing its health means you get more gameplay, and more challenge.
but if at normal difficulty you already see everything that enemy has to offer, increasing its health doesnt lead to anything new or interesting happening. instead youre just stuck seeing the same stuff for longer.
the same goes for damage. if at normal difficulty enemies aren't always threatening enough to make you engage in the games mechanics fully (for example, knowing you can just ignore an attack because it wont do enough damage to matter for the encounter, or never concerning yourself with elemental resistance since the elemental damage of enemies attacks is negligible.), then an increase that makes you consider changing your build to survive specific, difficult attacks, or forces you to learn to avoid damage instead of ignoring the smaller enemies entirely will make you engage with the game more.
where this fails is when there isnt more of the game to engage in. in that case it just makes the game less forgiving. for some people, that isnt a problem, but most gamers arent trying to play the game like a "no hit challenge run" in dark souls. being allowed to make a few mistakes is good, because it gives the player a chance to respond and adapt to the challenge instead of just sending them to a loading screen repeatedly until they've memorized the correct sequence of button presses to pass the first enemy.
so yeah, tl;dr i totally agree but there definitely are reasons those values get changed sometimes
Difficulty modes have been reified to exactly that, unfortunately.
Unfortunately I’ve always had that mindset. I’ve never bothered with anything higher then normal because of the whole dmg sponge and double dmg.
In a lot of games it would be better to leave those numbers alone, and to just slow down certain attacks so that players have more time to react.
I really liked how in MGSV enemies on the world map would adapt to your play style . If you focus on headshots, they’ll start wearing helmets, wearing night vision goggles if you only approach at night, etc. It forces you to be agile with your tactics and has a very believable in-universe explanation - the camps and bases communicate with each other about what’s happened to their fallen allies.
yeah, Far Cry 3 was like this
@@alfistibrasilianiI want to play that copy of Far Cry 3
@@alfistibrasiliani huh?
Reminds me of Mr. Freeze’s boss fight in Arkham City where the player must damage him with a different method ever time since Mr. Freeze, being a smart guy, will adjust his suit on the fly to cover every weakness you expose
I meant that Far Cry 3 enemies will also adapt to your gameplay and strategies
I appreciate so much when a game just says "this is the intended experience difficulty"
I wish more developers told us which difficulty was play tested and balanced. Sometimes Easy and Normal are just not fun due to lack of challenge, but sometimes Hard is just unfair with no difference to AI.
@@MrConredsXor just didn't have those settings to begin with
When that option is available I pick it 100% of the time on a first playthrough.
Except in Pathologic 2, that game's intended difficulty can go fuck itself
is there a game that ever had the easy difficulty be called the "intended experiance"? it makes me curious what kind of reputation it would have in the community.
As an older gamer, who has vision difficulties in certain situations and also can suffer tremors in my hands... getting the difficulty right for a game can be extremely frustrating.
You started this talking about The Witcher 3, and I recently started this on Story and Sword (the one you said was not a challenge) because I was told it would be the right balance for me. However I found the game nearly impossible at this difficulty. The combat was just a blur on my screen because it was so close to the camera, and I couldn't tell the difference between a monster attacking and a monster moving. And the dodge was nearly impossible to time correctly because the controls were so picky that if due to hands shaking I pushed a button too early to too late, the whole combat was over and I just couldn't progress. I could understand what I had to do, it was just physically impossible for me to do it.
This is what difficulty sliders are so important. The ability to slow down aspects of a game for people who aren't able to react as fast as they used to, or are dealing with various disabilities.
Often when I am talking about these issues I am told "just get gud" or "The game isn't designed for you". This might be true, but I have to ask all gamers, are you planning on stopping playing games as you get older? Are you just not expecting to get older? There is a reason you don't see as many people playing professional sports in their 40s as in their 20s, and when you hit your 50s and 60s, do you expect to completely give up playing video games; or do you want video games that can adapt to you?
Absolutely! I used to play games on normal mode, now I'm always looking for the easiest mode possible. I'm not in my 20's anymore and my reaction time is just not as fast. When I accepted this reality, I started enjoying games more.
I think the gaming industry is recognizing that a sizable chunk of their target audience is aging. More and more, I'm seeing a "very easy mode" or some equivalent in games. I'm always like, "Bless you, devs, for realizing that not all of us are young and fast."
I mean most people don't play games competitively, and that doesn't change with age, therefore that isn't and shouldn't be an issue for 99% of gamers. Regarding the age-related difficulties, most people do not have such issues as you are having. I think you are an outlier, and I know it isn't a remedy and it doesn't make it any better for you, but developers cannot make the game balanced for everyone, it is just impossible or more accurately impractical to do that. The majority of older people are perfectly capable of beating Witcher 3 on the lowest difficulty setting, I would even argue that most could beat it on a medium setting. It is unfortunate that you have such disabilities but I don't see how any developer can solve those issues for you. I think you have to carefully choose which games to play and which not.
@@Kenny-yl9pcyou clearly arent around any older ppl lmao yes, many older people do have issues such as hand problems, tremors, slower reaction time worsened eyesight. Yes shaky hands might be a more specific problem with no answer but to say older gamers arent having problems is just silly. Theres a reason why the “getting too old to game” trope on tiktok is getting popular even with people below age 50. I think its silly to say most ppl dont have these problems when realistically they do, they dont bother playing video games bc of these problems.
Your fingers still let you type apparently 😂
It's important not only for aging, but also disabilities (those can happen with anyone) or neurodivergences.
Adaptive difficulty is great in horror. A lot of people don't realize this but you don't want a horror game to be too hard. This might seem counterintuitive but it's true in most cases. The moment the game gets too hard and you start dying a lot is the moment the game stops being scary. If you see death is just an annoyance, you stop fearing it. It becomes familiar at that point.
Good horror is all about making you feel helpless, like death lurks around every corner. It's an illusion though. And a great way to break that illusion is to change the difficulty too much.
I hope I didn't spoil the magic for a lot you. I just find it fascinating.
Though outside of horror, I hate adaptive difficulty.
great point
horror is different for everyone though, in truth, no one should be scared at all by horror because you cannot die in real life when playing horror games, therefore all fear is gone immediately.
also i think horror has that affect only once and then it's like "whatever", jump scares aren't really horror either, cheap trick for the mechanism of the body, they can be done well though.
Yeah, When you repeatedly get destroyed by the same roadblock in a horror game it starts feeling frustrating instead of tense/scary.
Leads to becoming desensitfied much faster, so the best balance keeps things near the brink as much as possible where you feel like you COULD die often, but never actuall do so too frequently.
@@Psycho1343It's less about the fear of death and more about maintaining the tension. A good horror game will attempt to keep the tension going for as long as possible. You want the player to be constantly on edge, fearing that the game will suddenly force them in an uncomfortable situation that they may have to face again if they fail. But what if they _do_ fail? Well then they're sent to the game over screen. The scares are gone. There is no danger. They are given an opportunity to catch a breath in peace. The tension is lost and the player is forced to revisit the section knowing what's up ahead. And do it enough times and the feeling of dread will be replaced with the feeling of frustration, which is the number one way of undermining the horror. Things stop being scary when the illusion breaks and you're simply annoyed you can't get a move on.
Of course everyone finds different things scary but for those scared by the game, it's best to make sure the game is not too challenging for them for the aforementioned reasons.
the only thing this video lacks is a brief explanation on the difficulty / punishment thematic. Celeste for example can be very difficult, but its punishment is nearly nonexistant, there is no downtime, you just get reset to the beginning of the screen/levelpart. you can also have games that are mostly a cakewalk and still feel unfairly difficult because in case you die you need to replay the last hour.
This is an extremely good point. It’s something I noticed while playing Super Meat Boy, Hotline Miami, Celeste, etc. I normally do not enjoy difficult games, but these games became my favorite despite being harder than most of the other games I played. And then I realized that the punishment for failing is a more significant factor in how frustrating the game feels than the actual gameplay difficulty itself.
I noticed this in Slime Rancher.
Those games are super chill and breezy to play, but if you miss the drop and run off a cliff? You lose everything in your vac-pac. And that kinda sucks.. especially in 2, there are way too many blind drops to warrant that amount of punishment. You can turn off tar and the angry slimes, why not this?
This is why I think the difficulty of Souls games are exaggerated some. Death is likely, but the cost of death is negligible and even what is lost can usually be regained.
This comment made me realize that I like games with high punishment and games with almost no punishment. I hate having to redo the same sections of a game over and over, I hate grinding. If I have to redo something, it better be highly variable during playthroughs, so that on the next playthrough I don't feel like I have to repeat stuff, and if that's the case, reloading an earlier state of my current run seems less interesting than just starting a new run entirely.
So I play roguelikes, which are made for permadeath,
modern Paradox titles which are mostly about simulation and which will punish you with you losing options but hardly ever with ending the game
and stuff like Disco Elysium, which doesn't ever end the game until you've reached The End, but will give you lots of options inbetween on how to get there.
Something that rubs me the wrong way is a game taking away your abilities because of mistakes you’ve made. For example, if in the depths of dark souls you become cursed, your health is halved until you collect a rare item, a devastating punishment which makes the following areas much harder.
So i started playing the witcher 3 recently for the first time, and i decided to start on death march (because why not). "Certain enemies are impossible to beat without specific game mechanics" and the werewolf on screen hits hard
That was the moment where I was really like "okay, we really gotta pay attention to shit now"
Don't you get less xp on higher difficulties? It seems like it would be better if it were the opposite.
Ngl Death March made me love Witcher 3 all over again.
@@eneco3965 Huh, it does give less EXP. Didn't realize. Even so, there's enough EXP in the game to be well above EXP requirements, you just have to do more sidequests, so there's no problem for completionist types, and there was already EXP scaling, so this more tries to avoid excessive overleveling. Definitely not a "beat the game quickly" mode.
I find the Witcher 3 combat too clunky for DM to be enjoyable, especially at early levels. Great game though.
I just go for whatever the normal mode is and then increase it to make it a thoughtful game if need be. I stopped caring about playing on the highest difficulty ages ago, found out I was having less fun for no purpose. One other massive benefit for 1 difficulty that is set, is you can really discuss games with friends under the same lens. It helps the Souls communities really relate, because everyone deals with the same challenge.
yes, if anyone ever thought what this junks of item or Crafting is used for, it's often very important in a very hard game mode.
but because people play it in normal mode, they're often can finish the game without using any of the mechanics,
often, blasting thing randomly will solve the problem.
i also agree, that game like Dark Soul and Monster Hunter is really good, because you've to use everything to be able to win,
use every items and trick to our advantage, and it was very rewarding.
some game like starfield even become an entirely completely new game when you change from normal to hard,
because instead of only relying to looting, you're forced to crafting & Modification, and creating your own buff,
seeing that your weapon finally effective against the enemy is one of the most rewarding moment.
i think game should scale the Enemy, let people learn the rope, the techniques on the go, not the difficulty.
Well even in souls this is flawed as some people say, actually LEARNED Malenia and beat her sword vs sword whereas many likely did mimic tear comet azure instant kill for both phases.
You'll have skilled player A who learned Malenia say she was a challenge but one that felt very good to beat.
Whereas unskilled player B will say he felt nothing upon killing her and that she was easy.
Even under one global difficulty the cheese available ruins that "we all faced the same challenge" thing.
Sekiro is the closest to that. As it has the least amount of cheese and doesn't even have stat grinding. And even there some think x is harder than y and vice versa. One example being fire cracker spamming into mortal blade to cheese some enemies.
You'd need a game like sekiro but without ANY cheese. So sekiro with just the grapple to get around and katana. That's it. Then players would have a identical challenge no matter what. Then you know most people who fought say, Isshin for the first time likely struggled a similar amount to you. And you wouldn't have these "I beat this boss by using this cheese haha so easy"
It’s just a shame for older games where you can’t change your difficulty whilst playing (Arkham asylum and Arkham city)
@thedoomslayer5863 by definition it doesn't really "ruin" facing the same challenge at all- it just means overcoming a challenge in a different way, regardless of how cheesy it can feel to other players
But not doesn't help everybody relate. My girlfriend playing No Mans Sky on the same difficulty as me doesn't relate, because it's too hard for her but easy for me. When she makes it easier, then we relate, because it feels equally difficult for both of us. You act like everybody subjectively feels the same difficulty.
I recall the first time I encountered adaptive difficulty. It really took the joy out of the game. I had played against a difficult spot several times and lost, and then one of the times, the game decided to downgrade the difficulty level and I could immediately tell the difference. The enemies weren't as aggressive, they didn't use some of their attacks and it felt like the game just let me win out of pity. It robbed me of the chance to actually win at the encounter.
Adaptive difficulty is the worst.I hate with passion.I don't want your pity,I play game to develop skill,to cross a hurdle and I am not alone look at the successes of hard and punishing games.
what game was it?
@@TheK0rs3 It was Resident Evil 4, if I recall correctly. There was a room where you have to fight through several enemies that are more powerful than average. Not quite a boss fight, but harder than usual. I lost a few times, figuring out how best to deal with them, and then suddenly one of the attempts the enemies barely put up any fight at all...
You'll be still losing that level to this date then
@@AugustRx You do realize that you get better at a game as you play it, right? Failure is part of the path to learning.
I like how Hades deals with difficulty. Once you have enough skill and upgrades to get to and defeat the final boss reliably, you can enable options to make the game more difficult, spawning more enemies, giving them armor or buffs, limiting upgrades, adding time limits, new boss move sets, etc. The fact that each run can be quite short makes it particularly fun to experiment with those options and finding a challenge you enjoy
@@SimonWoodburyForget I agree that having that many options can be overwhelming. But while the player is encouraged to play with the settings, this is not absolutely necessary. Also, not all permutations need to be checked. I see it more as the game providing the player with options to increase difficulty to their taste. E.g., I never really liked the addition of a time limit, so I hardly ever played with that option enabled. But having more enemies spawn and giving them additional buffs can be quite fun. If it becomes too much, I can simply dial down some of the settings in my next run.
You can think of this approach more like gradient descent (i.e. taking small steps until you find a setting you like), rather than exhaustive grid search (i.e. trying out all options and then choose the one you like best)
@@SimonWoodburyForget Sort of, but you're encouraged to only turn on 1 at a time, win a run, add another/swap it out for one higher value, and so on until you clear 20 heat with each weapon. So considering it only unlocks once you clear a run, I think it's as much complexity as a winning player can handle & ramps up in complexity very, very slowly.
Also, the Fates encouraage you to try each one once, which further narrows choice (like, "oh I need to turn _this_ one on to get the in-game cheevo").
I don't know what you guy's opinions are, but I think that a difficulty system based on removing the player's abilities is a really bad way of doing it.
one of the greatest games of all time
@@SimonWoodburyForget That's why in Hades those options aren't there right away.
Another thing about adaptive difficulty and games that get harder as you get better - it also takes away from the sweet feeling of "these guys used to be hard and now I can wreck them because I got better"
For one mechanic of one game? At what cost cost? Losing immersion and burning out?
Yes! I hate when enemies "evolve" with you, so they never get easier to take down. I've gotten better weapons and leveled up 40 times, why do I still have to spend time on you?!
@@jaye2997 Git gud noobie
Not really an issue, because there is a ceiling. If you cap out the difficulty cieling early, you can enjoy progressing against enemies that are as hard as they can be.
That was soo me - on the second play-through of Elden Ring, beating the Tree Sentinel knight outside the starting cave.
I was like - how did I ever think this guy was hard?! :D
I like the way control and others do it. One definitive difficulty level and if people can't get through it treat it like accessibility features. At least for smaller studios it makes sense to focus on one experience.
My young sister definitely would not have played Celeste had she not been able to turn on unlimited dashes. i definitely agree
I prefer Mario odyssey and Kirby game approaches.
It allows an adult to assist a child. With a very young person they can be the helper. Since the adult doesn’t need help it doesn’t matter how good they are and they still get to play. The helper usually is invincible.
Then when a child is older / more skilled, you play the helper character. Then the game is over when they die but you can add in extra help.
Usually those games have options to swap out and in.
It does require multiplayer so might not be best for the scope of some developers
I partially agree, however I dislike how Control always has the full set of "Intended Difficulty, are you sure you want to do this" popups any time you enable them. I was able to get through most of the game just fine without them, but on at least two bosses I had to turn them on to progress and if felt like it was rubbing salt into the wound of feeling like I needed to adjust the difficulty to progress.
One thing to note is skill level changes throughout the course of the game. For example:
1) I just started Arkham Origins and I thought it was much harder than Arkham City. There's so many enemies that break your combo, notably the ninja and the martial artist. I felt like I'm really sucking at the game so I settled on Normal. But in the end I aced all the combat challenges and had to up the difficulty to Hard.
2) Some games also have a power creep. I started XCOM on Normal and I found it difficult at the start, but the game gets really easy when you get all your powers and I raised the difficulty to Hard midway through the game.
I think it's great when you can change the difficulty on the fly. I'm not a fan of not having difficulty options.
I found the notion that "player skill" is at some set level to be interesting. In my experience, my own "skill level" is wildly malleable, fluctuating up and down with my mood, my energy level, and the situation at hand. And by just playing a game and gradually accumulating knowledge, my skill level's "baseline" also goes up over time. Not slowly, either--that baseline goes up fast.
How is that interesting. You just described learning.
@@zeosummers3984 lol true, i believe that players have some responsibility to "learn" a game (in addition to developers designing a fair challenge)
@@Eksratu "fair" should just be replaced with "fun", fair isn't necessarily fun and unfair isn't necessarily unfun.
@@Ghorda9 Eh.. Yes I agree that unfair and unfun aren't necessarily the same thing even if they can be related. But I'm not sure I like the word fun either. Because when I am first banging my head against a really difficult boss fight dying over and over in that moment I'm not really having fun per se. Rather I'm actually getting a little frustrated but it's the release of all that build up frustration that creates for such a satisfying moment when I finally do overcome the challenge. That FUCK YESS moment.
Fair in that sense works a little better for me. Because when the difficulty is coming in part from the game being poorly designed that moment doesn't always happen.
@@zeosummers3984It’s interesting because it’s clear that devs don’t take this into account and force you to keep learning. Difficulty should scale dynamically depending on how easy you’ve progressed through the game.
The customizable difficulty settings part reminded me of Hades. It's amazing how you can customize your runs to achieve the perfect challenge.
The other thing that hades does which is cool is just the whole rogue like style in general. Its supposed to be insanely hard and you are supposed to die and fail over and over but make small progress with each attempt that helps you eventually succeed. For some people they will rely more on skill and succeed faster while others can organically rely more on powering up from each fail. This way its still fun for everyone despite your skill and despite the difficulty and no one thinks about the difficulty but instead focuses on just doing there personal best and mastering the gameplay and builds. Great game design overall.
Sniper elite 4 and 5. Totally customizable
.... ive had that game for nearly 3 years and I'm only now learning that there's difficulty settings... i haven't been able to get past thesus and the minotur (I'm not bitter about not finishing any runs I really love the game play loop so it dosen bother me but I would love for the chance to finish it one day)
Not just Hades but all 4 games from Super Giant have that sort of system and they all work so well in making the game as much of a challenge as you can take.
@@crowsandcryptids if you want a couple tips, i'd say go for killing the minotaur first, and then theseus once he's dead. you don't want both of them in their second phase at once, and at least without extreme measures 3 on, theseus' second phase is a lot harder than asterius'! also don't forget to use your cast with boiling blood to make him take 50% more damage, and if you can survive to there without dying more than twice use death defiance instead of stubborn defiance :)
also, athena's call is super great for dealing with theseus, since when he first uses his call he stops using his shield, and if you're invincible while it's happening you can just beat him tf up while he's vulnerable instead of dodging. i actually save my greater call if i have it until theseus' second phase even if it is fully charged before then!
In bloodborne i would always use people summoning me to get better at the fight without losing my mind by getting killed 33 times and while it definitely didn’t make me better as fast as if I just tried alone it again and again it was a nice break and a reminder that other people were struggling with the same boss and seeing them win was so encouraging
Without loosing your mind you say?
Sometimes you bump into a host who just doesn't even try to touch the boss and it's incredibly sad to see. When that happens I try my best to remind them they should at least accept the challenge by directing the boss's attention to the host, using less effective weapons etcetc because... where's the fun in watching your summon defeat the boss? Like, I don't care if you're a bad player, at least punch the annoying shit in the face when it's staggered!
@@danieladamczyk4024 I think he might have missed the point of the game ***pops insight skull***
One of my favorite approaches to difficulty is The World Ends With You. It starts you off on Easy, and you unlock the other difficulties as you go. The game changes which enemies you fight and how difficult they are to beat by difficulty, but it also affects what drops these enemies have. You also unlock the ability to lower your maximum health in exchange for higher drop rates. This essentially incentivizes the player to experiment with difficulty, and feel free to change it up and down as it benefits your experience. Also gives replayability, since you can replay each section with difficulties unlocked later in the game.
Wait a second wasn't TWEWY that DS VN tho? (I have it on my backlog but still didn't play it)
@@placekpie it is on the DS, but no it is not a visual novel. It is an action rpg
I think one thing not covered here but that i find incredibly interesting is a way that lower difficulties can train bad habits into new players making it harder for them to asceses higher difficulties.
you can extend that issue into real life and make it something that's worth mentioning
What if they never care to access higher difficulties
That was mentioned multiple times
It's actually much worse than that. Think of God of War 2016. On the easiest difficulty, your axe attack accomplishes everything. Will you ever do combos or weapon skills or powers? Combat will get quite repetitive then. Players will just smash the light attack button, forget the heavy attack even exists, or vice versa. 2016's combat itself isn't even much to write home about, but at least it has more to it than just spamming the attack button. At least they didn't do a Bethesda approach.
Horizon Forbidden West is another example. I have come across those who didn't know that weapon skills or valor surges were a thing, or at least never use them, because at lower difficulties it was honestly more work to read the tooltips on the valor surges and weapon skills, than it was to just fire the bow. It was more work to learn the button to activate a weapon skill, than just to just spam melee or just fire your bow semi-blindly at the enemy, not even utilizing weak points.
"Well I'm not an avid gamer, and these are new modern titles, so they must have advanced in player accessibility and streamlining the average experience that even I can't possibly mess it up!" Wrong. Especially on the accessibility front. Horizon Forbidden West's hud on large widescreen TVs is so miniscule, and you can't even scale it. And the subtitles are microscopic even on the largest setting.
But at least there is an "easy loot" accessibility option that goes completely against the core gameplay loop and combat system and decentivizes playing the game in one of the few ways that actually makes it worth playing. It's probably no coincidence that those who didn't even focus on weak points or even know remotely how to also had easy loot turned on. And when the game introduced stronger enemies, the solution wasn't to learn how to counter them, it was to turn down enemy health so that basic arrows did enough damage to easily kill the giant boss enemy. Watching the gameplay was little more than watching someone play a choose your own adventure game/movie hybrid (but with no narrative choice.) A pretty bad movie IMO.
And I checked, the tutorial and teaching systems in that game are quite awful. It just brushes over everything.
Half Life 2, what if ammo in Ravenholm was so plentiful or guns did so much damage, that you never actually were incentivized to use the gravity gun? Thankfully the game didn't give you the accessibility option to just give you infinite ammo.
A lot of players will take the path of least resistance if it is offered.
Well.... That's kinda already been shown really. Just no one likes to look at it. There is a reason dark souls ... was given it's title... and it's not because it really is that hard, but because the normal was just that 'easy' before to the point that it was unthinkable that a game 'mostly' follow it's own rules & not just let you to the end if you couldn't do it.
This is timely. I'm at the end of my youth, and arthritis is becoming a factor in how I play, among things. Difficulty and accessibility have become part of my decision making process when figuring out what to play. Thanks for making this video.
Gg
Carpio g2.0
A game that has an interesting adaptive difficulty is Metal Gear V, they upgrade their guards depending on your playstyle in a way that feels organic. You do mostly headshots ? The guards now wear helmets. You act more at night ? The guards now have nightvision goggles. Etc... I liked that approach because not only did it gradually increase the challenge, but it also made me feel like I had an impact on the world of the game
Not enough people talk about that absolutely amazing aspect of the game design.
Also, if you headshot a lot in that game, you can still do it, you just gotta knock the helmets off first with another shot
but if I'm not mistaken, if you explode some specific cargo and storage places, enemies would not be able to wear helmets.
Far Cry 3 enemies also adapt like this, I feel that Far Cry 3 is harder than MGSV
@@lankyGiganticor bypass the helmet by hitting the lower part of their nog
That reminds me of how in the batman arkham games, if thugs see you retreating up to gargoyles or down into vents, they'll make it a point to ruin those escape routes when they can
Cool stuff and it makes the enemies feel more dynamic and lively
@@roseflows6585 Bypass the helmet by running in with an LMG
You might die but y'know, it is what it is
I like The World Ends With You, where increasing difficulty gives you bonus rewards so you never feel too pressured to play it on hard but you get better rewards for completing fights on a harder difficulty.
reminds me of the additional conditions you could take on per-mission in assassin's creed, though some of them were extremely unfair and i stopped having fun because I felt like my gamer cred required me to fulfill them no matter how many times i failed.
Dying light does nightmare mode really well too, rewarding you with more recourses for playing on the hardest difficulty, my only argument is that it’s too easy. Cause you can grind stuffed turtle and grind the prison and have OP weapons by level 15 smh
Reminds me of Terraria - High difficulties unlock unique rewards
❤ TWEWY's awesome for that. I struggled A LOT with the hardest Leo Cantus in NEO 😂
I like it when games have a “this is our intended difficulty” marker on one of them, regardless of if it is the “normal” difficulty mode
Like heroic on Halo
Fromsoft does it right.
@@emperorborgpalpatine Yes. Their intended difficulty is "stop being shit at the game" as it should be in damn near every game.
@@emperorborgpalpatineI think it’s right for their game. I don’t think an immersive rpg like Skyrim is made better by being made difficult.
skyrim difficulty scaling is so horrid
getting insta killed with a custcene attack by a dragon on legendary even though your 70% hp ;c@@ungabungacaveman9021
What you mentioned around 27:00 was exactly my experience, but I just saw it as a kind of reward: Me being overpowered was a reward for exploring a lot and beating a lot of bosses. Some of the late game bosses like Hoarah Loux and Radagon were a piece of cake with my strength build and I wasnt disappointed by that. I felt like I deserved that by enduring all the stuff before
It’s honestly a very realistic approach to RPGs in general. You suffer now to thrive later. I see it as an absolute win lol
Couldn't have said it better myself. Ppl forget Elden is not Dark souls. you are meant to become powerful in this game. Its literally in the story but I digress.
se i had a similar experience, but i felt bad about it becuse i had farmed a bunch of runes before maliketh and the last boss that took me more than 10 goes except for malenia was fire giant
I think one of the best points in this video is that the player doesn't always know what level of difficulty they want (or are best served by). Sometimes you think you may just want the story but if pushed you end up having so much more fun than you would have if you didn't struggle a bit.
Personally, I pretty much always want to be pushed to the limit but never lose. Yes, I am aware how tricky that is to pull off.
Or vice versa, one might think they want a challenge but actually end up having more fun just enjoying the story :D
And to make things more complicated, one might feel like a challenge one night, and another might just want to sit back and relax (or, ya know, maybe plow through some enemies)
@@greatday19 That's become me with the years. I used to be a "I want the hardest challenge" type of guy but then I set Deus Ex: Mankind divided in hard mode...
And I dropped it. I didn't drop it becase I physically couldn't make it (I could) but because any single level/mission was a really terrible chore so I just lost interest in the game.
And I'm a bit sad because I did like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and if I only had set the game to "normal" I would have possibly make it to the end instead of dropping it.
Nowadays I either look on the internet for opinions or just go to whatever the game hints as the default option. I usually like to complete the game with a challenge but without it being a chore. I can die/lose several times on hardest sections but if I'm not dying at all or I'm dying at "easy" sections I just lose interest
Yeah, as great as configurability options are, we as players are often idiots: optimizing the fun out of a game, pushing ourselves to the absolute limits when that might not actually be the most enjoyable, or turning the difficulty too far down just because it’s the path of least resistance. I do find myself more and more appreciating when a dev has the confidence to just set a single difficulty that helps better shape the player experience. (That certainly is not a universal solution tho)
that is why I believe the best way to do it if you really need to is to have the basic difficulty options, with the game balanced for normal, but have all of them being mechanically identical, and then just give the player the option to enable or disable mechanics in the difficulty menu. for example in Witcher 3, I hated the damage sponge enemies, but I wanted to play without auto-healing on rest, but I couldn't change it without also making the enemies harder to kill.
I feel the same way, and I think a big factor with this is having a solid enough idea of what's actually expected of you. Walking up to a boss and finding yourself unable to win at the moment could be affected by a number of significant factors, such as the enemy's power level (relative to your character's stats, if any), gear, intended player experience/developed skills, and on top of all that, the enemy's relative challenge level, meaning how difficult they're 'supposed' to be for your current level of power/gear/experience playing. All this can make a big difference in how you react to the challenge presented, and in how you may need to solve it.
If you're fighting a boss and losing, you may be spurred on to eventual victory if you know you're fighting it much earlier than 'intended'. Or you may be more likely to accept that 'it's okay I can't win this right now', leave it for later. You may also have a better idea of what you need to work on to bridge the gap. However, if you have no information on where this enemy rests on the 'challenge' spectrum, you may find yourself badly discouraged, never realizing how far you're actually pushing yourself, thinking you're bad because you're 'expected' to be able to do this right here and now.
Even a rough idea of power scaling can help a lot with this, I think, and a more accurate system could help even more.
One thing I've learned in all my years of always playing games on whatever the hardest difficulty is. The tutorial/first couple fights/encounters are always the hardest, either they have been overlooked in the balancing and design aspect, or I just havn't been able to *git gud* yet.
I’m surprised you didn’t talk about when higher difficulties are locked behind a completed play through on a lower difficulty.
Yeah I hate that like just why
@@SalmanKhan-ez7no because it's progression and it ensures youre equipped to tackle a higher difficulty mode by making you beat a baseline difficulty first. RE7 does this, starting you out on either assisted or standard and clearing the game on standard unlocks madhouse difficulty, which doesn't just make enemies faster and deal more damage, but also changes up things like item placement and spawning more enemies in places where there aren't any on the base difficulty. I think if madhouse was just unlocked at the start, the player wouldn't be able to appreciate these changes nearly as much as they can after playing through the game beforehand and it makes madhouse a fun piece of post game content.
@@itsrainingcats9968 So I can't play the game the way I want because it might make a programmer feel less appreciated? I paid money for the game, I don't feel like I need to prove myself to play how I want
Ah yes, the gatekeeping of "you must grind your way through entire game in normal (easy for any experienced gamer) to get to unlocking actual difficult gameplay".
I thought the way FF7 remake did it was alright. At that point you have all your gear choices and you have to optimize it to overcome much harder progression.
Coming from the standpoint of a game developer myself, I would say giving enough choices for everyone is important. Some people don't want to be bothered with min/maxing stats and mixing potions for just to a single encounter. But at the same time you don't want the elite players to get bored. It is a tough balance for sure.
In the TWEWY games, changing the difficulty is a core gameplay mechanic. enemies drop different items on different difficulties (generally rarer items on higher difficulties, but on the other hand Easy is probably best for making money). You can also lower your level to increase the drop rate.
There's also systems like Skulls in Halo or Heat in Hades, which treats the "detailed difficulty options" as a set of optional challenges (or semi-optional, i guess, in Hades' case).
I don't think either of these options works universally, but in general i think the idea of integrating difficulty settings into gameplay is a neat way to go about it.
Hades heat in particular works really well to give the game lasting playability for genre veterans (or people who want to just keep for ages). It incrementally increases the challenge pretty nicely from "difficult for a beginner" all the way to "impossible for an expert", and in a way that forces you to adapt how you play as well, rather than just having to perform the same moves more accurately.
Personally I prefer to play lighter difficulties on my first playthrough just so I can allow myself a chance to immerse myself with the world. Only after I've finished the story or felt comfortable enough with the gameplay loop will I go and increase the difficulty.
I think it depends on the game. Some games like mayber Baldurs gate 3 yes, but for many other games I dont see why I should need to do a second playthrough just to experience the game in a way that actually challenges me after the first hour
If a game's world isn't interesting enough to make me want to play it again on a higher difficulty, then I would have been happy I started on the lower difficultly and not wasted the effort. But also, if difficulty wasn't the appeal in the first place, same conclusion but the opposite reason: the world was interesting enough as it was.
@@almicc the problem with that approach is that sometimes games just arent good enough for a second run, but way too easy on the first one if you decide to go the "give me absolutely no challenge, I want to have a I win everything button" difficulty.
Or maybe you will feel so bored by the easy approach that you dont really feel like trying again in a more difficult setting
In some games I find a higher difficulty improves immersion. Walking though a world that is supposed to convey a feeling of danger and fragility but you are not scratched by anything is at odds with each other.
a problem with that would be that especially in Open world games, you just start being overpowered so insanely fast
i played horizon zero dawn on second hardest difficulty and everything was straight up a joke because at some point you find out stuff that makes Fights laughably easy
I also have this feeling "normal" difficulty is now what easy used to be, but I also can't tell how much of that feeling stems from me being more experienced at games.
What you learn in games carries over to those you'll play later.
Another feeling I also frequently get is how some difficulty can be punishing leaving you with a "thank god it's over" feeling, closer to victory by attrition after countless die/retry runs.
I enjoy difficulty when it feels rewarding, not when it comes as a relief.
No games are definitely easier now. But I don't think that's a bad thing. For example, arcade games were made to be purposely impossible to force you to pump in quarter after quarter. Also back in the old days movement was limited by the crappy equipment so a lot of it was less intuitive. You can't play Ghosts and Goblins or Contra and tell me it feels natural and smooth. So not only were you overcoming the obstacles you were overcoming the game itself.
That being said, the original Halo is stupidly easy and then when they made the second one they said, fk you nobody gets to beat Legendary now lol. Make games accessible to a wider audience isn't a bad thing necessarily
I can't remember who said it but I think there is truth to the idea that back in the old NES/SNES days they couldn't put much game into a cartridge, so they just made them crazy hard to ensure you got your 40-50 hours of play time out of them. Now open world landscapes are so cheap I routinely find areas I assume were for some encounter or side quest that didn't make it into the final game because there's a big open side area that looks interesting/intentionally designed but doesn't have anything in it.
Imo if 3 difficulty options go hard, if 5 go hard not very hard
That's so true! I was thinking that during the whole intro section. Razbuten felt underwhelmed by Normal because he has a baseline ability to play games similar to the Witcher 3 already. And he's right about how it's weird we have to guess what difficulty we'll like based on if we've played similar games before (and that's a guess based on info we have before we even play). So many online conversations around difficulty are about the same types of games (action games with elements like live combat, large open worlds, etc), and so many of the people talking about it ONLY play those games (or mostly those games), and are super used to them. Is "normal" meant for someone who's used to those mechanics? How familiar do you have to be? It makes sense that the guy who does a whole series where his non-gamer partner tries different titles would have so many nuanced things to say about this topic. I can say it gets a little frustrating whenever this conversation comes up, as someone who IS a gamer but not "that" type of gamer, so I rely on easy mode in most action games just to experience them at all. I sometimes even get stuck in the easiest "cinematic" modes, like the one for death stranding.
There is also another option. I've found that the way I select games to play have changed. It used to be more on ratings and now it is more on the gameplay but this change is only possible after playing a bunch of different games and figuring out what I like and don't like. The feeling of difficulty is also tied to how much you are enjoying the experience. It's like someone working at a job that they really like not feeling like it is a job versus working at a job where you just show up for the paycheck.
There's another interesting side effect with dynamic difficulty where players begin to gameify it. In RE4 for instance, I picked up on the fact that enemies would drop more bullets when I was low on ammo - so I became more reckless with my shots knowing I'd always be good down the line. It actually removed an important part of the conservation mechanic for me, which was somewhat unfortunate, because I couldn't unlearn that mechanic. It also made me prioritize weapons with high magazine capacity, as the game seemed to only consider reserve ammo - not what was already loaded. This isn't necessarily bad, but it does have interesting consequences.
Was it more or less fun to play this way?
Could also bank all your items in the item crate and the game will give you more ammo and health pickups, which makes it easier and less items to manage. You could see this also as the game compensating for those who are badly prepared, big part of survival horror was managing what you take out of the safe room with you but this is now gone, with dynamic drops based on what's in your inventory you don't need to try. When I watched most streamers playing the modern REmakes, they almost all "failed" their way through the game but the game kept them alive barely, so for first playthrough tension I guess it does it's job.
I think it took away part of the anxiety that is appropriate for the setting of not knowing whether I'd have enough to continue, knowing that I always would. I stopped caring about missed shots because I knew they'd be replaced. The thing is, the game is quite easy (even on professional) when this decision becomes less important. Without that pressure, good shots don't matter as much - and therefore you can let loose much more than you would without that knowledge. It's not at all like having infinite ammo, but it sometimes feels close to it.@@ookiemand
Thank you Underdog for your elaborate explanation!@@underdog353777
Don’t know if I’m late but this is actually a feature in all the remakes but hilariously enough it is based on adaptive difficulty. Let’s say you choose Standard difficulty, depending on the amount of heals, items and overall performance you have the game will raise it to a certain value. So you could be playing on Standard but it’ll be borderline hardcore. On hardcore? It’ll get progressively harder and it’ll feel like professional. The reason they drop ammo when low on bullets is because on harder difficulties and for harder achievements, you’ll most likely be running through ammo because of the built in difficulty system. There’s also not enough ammo laying around to matter on hardcore or professional. While those are the harder difficulties, enemies require more shots, are faster and stronger than before. So you’re probably a good gamer but I honestly feel like the ammo thing is pretty useful all things considered.
I watched this because I've got two game designs on my mind that I'm going to try making. The one waiting on the side will be a "one difficulty, take it or leave it" platformer, and the one I'm working on now will be a "here's a gazillion settings to play around with" text-based RPG.
You've got me thinking a little bit deeper about the philosophy and tradeoffs between each of those choices. I don't plan to change either, but it's good to think about it more.
Curious, how would a platformer have more than one difficulty?
@@Spectrum0122
Enemies could move faster. You could have less health. Some platforms could be removed to easier jumps aren't available and you have to make trickier ones.
@@Spectrum0122 You can be weaker, stronger, jump low, run fast, the platforming can be different, reworked abilities and many more.
I like Crosscodes approach, where the difficulty is set to the intented difficulty at the beginning but they offer you 3 sliders, where you can turn down damage taken, enemy attack frequency and puzzle speed.
man I always appreciate how this channel makes me think about just how difficult some otherwise unnoticed aspects of game development are. Really brings a whole new appreciation from me to the art form I've enjoyed for my entire life. Really great work as usual :)
It's a nice change from seeing everyone complain constantly about videogames
I've been thinking about difficulty lately myself. Whenever I play games, I usually choose easy and bump it up later. I'm a slow learner which is why I go at my own pace. I never choose "story" modes if there is one below easy.
Lately though, Ive realized that choosing story mode actually IS the best option for me. I always found myself feeling guilty that I don't play harder than easy. I feel like I'm not getting the "intended" expect if I don't force myself to learn the battle system. But lately I realized, that doesn't and shouldn't matter to me. What matters isn't if I'm a master at the combat, it isn't if I'm throwing myself at bosses for hours because I can't beat it.
What matters is if I'm taking something positive away from the experience. If harder difficulty hurts my experience in the game... Then I shouldn't force myself to do it.
This is pretty much what I do too. And also the main reason I refuse to touch any Souls game and hate when people call newly difficult games "the dark souls of " because if, for example, Pokemon Legends: Arceus REALLY was "the dark souls of pokemon," I wouldn't have beaten it so easily??? Or at all???
@@SnoFitzroy Well if you refuse to touch any Souls game you will never know if you are actually good at them lol. Souls games are hard but fair, there are no 100% hit attacks or anything like that so you are guaranteed to succeed if you spend enough time learning the attack patterns. But I'm also the kind of guy who enjoys fighting a boss 20 times and is kinda disappointed when I finally defeat them because I want to fight them a little longer so if you don't like to feel challenged then just ignore my recommendations. The cool thing about From Software Games in my opinion is that you always know why you died. You can immediately identify your mistakes and improve, try a different approach or timing there is always something for you to try.
Same for me. Sometimes my pride is the hardest boss fight. I've played a lot of games on story or easy and I couldn't care less about the difficulty. I just remember the story, the characters, the world. Nowadays I play on normal if I know I'm "comfortable" with the genre, but I won't hesitate to bump it down immediately if I get frustrated.
Always remember, the point of videogames is to have fun. If the game is too easy, bump it up, if it's too hard, bump it down. If someone judges you for playing on a specific difficulty, just ignore them and move on.
@@SnoFitzroySimply being "difficult" is an enormously reductive way to view that series. And you're greatly limiting yourself if you refuse to touch it because of that viewpoint
@@SnoFitzroy Sorry bud, you've activated the souls game sleeper agents, they will not rest until you say that learning to be good at Dark Souls opened your third eye and cured your medical anxiety.
The biggest amount of shell shock was playing on Hard difficulty (or it’s equivalent) in Doom 2016 and hopping to Eternal and feeling like I was playing on an actual simulation of World War One…
I never thought about the difficulty affecting the experience you get that much until this video.
cuz you always play on easy mode
Literally how was this not your immediate inference?
I always feel like the conversation about difficulty in games is held mostly between good or professional gamers and often leaves those of us who are more casual or just bad at it behind.
I have notoriously bad reaction times and have pretty much failed to get out of the tutorial for every first person shooter I've ever attempted to do. My first open world game was Skyrim. I really enjoy exploring and doing the side quests. I have done seven playthroughs of Skyrim getting up into the '80s and '90s for my character level and even maxing out multiple skill trees. But I have never beaten the main game and gotten all the way to Auldwin.
Recently my little brother was staying with us during a covid lockdown and I got to play Elden Ring using his Steam account. It was the only dark souls game I have ever played. Before he moved out to his own apartment, I logged over 300 hours on the game. Made it all the way up to the 150s for levels and only just made it to Lindell. I hadn't exceedingly large amount of fun playing it, and only haven't gotten my own copy because I have neither computer nor game system capable of running it since I normally game on a switch. I did have to do a lot of grinding and over leveling to get the game to a point where I was comfortable, but I am aware of my inadequacies with gaming enough to have been knowledgeable to do that.
On games with hard difficulty settings that you have to select. I typically go for the one above easy and give the game a try on that. If I find the game to be far too easy within the first 6 to 8 hours of gameplay, I restart on a higher difficulty. I think a lot of the discussion about difficulty needs to acknowledge that you are responsible for your own actions. If you're unwilling when you're not having fun with the game to think about what that issue is and take strides towards fixing it, then you are kind of shooting yourself in your own foot.
I'm also one of the people who requires accessibility features. I have learning disability and I'm slowly going deaf. I need subtitles in my games to be able to play. I'm very glad that recently subtitles have become a common option in games. Their older games I used to play as a child that I can no longer revisit unless I have someone sitting there to clarify what they're saying to me.
I feel that in the last two decades the video game industry has made some fantastic strides towards accessibility. I'm irate at certain choices like Xbox planning to prevent use of third-party controllers and then charging an arm and a leg for their own accessibility controller. However, on a whole, I think that the video game industry has made fantastic forward movement on this.
They're absolutely some games that I am never going to be able to beat, even on the easiest difficulty. I have an issue with my hand. I coordination that makes all shooters pretty much impossible for me to make any decent strides in, but that just means that those games aren't for me. Something that people need to remember is just because you can purchase. It doesn't mean you're going to be able to play or beat it. In some ways I feel that people look at video games and feel that since they are consumer who paid for it, they should be able to get absolutely everything out of it and that's not always going to be possible.
I bought Hollow Knight on the switch at one point when it was on sale. I have put about 25 hours into that game and still never beaten the first boss. This is not a fault of the game company but a skill issue on my end 🤷🏻♀️ I think it's important that people be honest with themselves about what isn't isn't within their capabilities on certain video games. 😅 My inability to beat this boss does not remove the fun I have had trying. Or the fund my little siblings have had watching me fail and then turning around and beating it for me.
I just think it's important that people remember that will accessibility and ease of use is valuable. Not everything is for everyone and sometimes you just have to accept the fact that you're not good enough to do something.
This is why I would never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever recommend a FromSoftware game at full price to someone who's never played one. Or at least give someone a disclaimer.
Very well put
This is a very interesting topic to me, I have a friend who has very minimal game experience but loves the game Hades as a classics student, but even with the assist mode she's still frustrated by it as she wants to progress the story but is hindered by her lack of experience and reactions. I also had her and another friend come over several years ago and try Spiderman PS4 - she liked the swinging and picked the movement up very fast, but our friend took over the fighting sections for her. Interesting to me how different people handle different challenges!
I felt the same way as her, I wanted to see the progress of the story. But that's why I love Hades so much, you still get most story dialogue after a failed attempt!
I did a second playthrough where I won a lot very early on, and I had to die a bunch over and over just to get the stories going
@stevhen42 and unfortunately most gamers take their skill for granted... I've been trying to introduce my wife to video games, but I've had to be very selective about what i suggest (something with a minimal barrier of entry, low skill level, and that's aligned with her interest so that she is internally motivated to play during her free time) and very careful about how i react to her struggles (not taking things for granted, not being patronizing, putting her down, getting exasperated)...
I loved Razbuten's Games for Non Gamers series because of how eye opening it was. Most recently, I've been trying to teach her to use a controller (a input method a lot of gamers prefer because of how comfortable it fits in your hand), but it's a completely foreign tool for her, constantly having to look at it to see what buttons are where... I tried introducing her to smash, and quickly realized first she needs to get comfortable with a controller before even considering approaching a fighting game...
@@random99789 that's actually sth that's been on my mind a lot: why are the majority of games centered on combat? When looking at MMOs (or, well, any RPG), the first thing that gets reviewed is the combat...
I was recently looking into introducing my wife to Skyrim, a game which i love because of it's quests, npc interactions, exploration, and breadth of life skills. However, when i pulled up the trailer to show it to her to see if she'd be interested, all that was showcased was combat, something which is part of the core gameplay loop...
We see this even in Minecraft... If you want to play pure survival, you need monsters enabled for resources like slime balls, string, and bone meal, resources which are needed to craft tools like leads, fishing rods, bow and arrow, and for wolf taming... (Basically, you need these ingredients for a farming play style). Sure, technically they're all obtainable in peaceful, i do appreciate that it is possible, but a bamboo forest is one of the rarest biomes in the game (which is where pandas live that produce slime balls)...
There are a lot of open world games you might enjoy that don’t focus on combat, especially in the indie scene. They might be smaller in scope than the massive AAA maps but they make up for it in quality and detail. Off the top of my head:
- Outer Wilds
- A Short Hike
- Firewatch
- Subnautica
- Astroneer
- Slime Rancher (more of a farm sim but you do a lot of exploration)
I did a similar thing with my little sister when breath of the wild first came out
I almost like the idea of having a comprehensive tutorial that walks you through 15 different settings, telling you exactly what each one does, letting you experience what the game feels like with that turned all the way down and all the way up, keeping track of your performance in that section of the tutorial and recommending it a certain level. This might allow you to deliver the best experience overall... but it would kinda suck to have to go through it every time you start a new game.
I tend to play on easier difficulties because way to many games just raise the enemies' health so I catch myself thinking "what if I'll just have to deal with bullet sponges all the time on hard mode" when it comes to deciding the difficulty.
I agree with you, also I prefer not having too high of a difficulty in horror games, because encounters will stop having any impact to me if I already done them like 10 times because I died to something.
Dying Light suffers from this MASSIVELY. That game is just straight up not fun on its highest difficulty due to how durable EVERYTHING becomes.
Be careful not to call them bullet sponges too quickly. Sometimes it's to incentivize combos or to push you to learn about the game's combat mechanics or to utilize skills or weapons you otherwise wouldn't.
But yes, sadly a lot of games don't use it as a teaching tool, but more of a... I'm not exactly sure what the intention is really. I guess, a quick mandatory setting for the "hardcore gamers" out there. Added right before shipping. The ultra super easy modes tend to be added post-production as well for the game journalists.
And sometimes hard mode just does become... Longer mode. Fun may or may not be included. Enter at your own risk.
@@GarrulousHerald Nah, in Dying Light it's absolutely a problem of some enemies being TOO durable.
people who have played S.T.A.L.K.E.R are tumbling on their beds reading this lol
There is no one size fits all solution to difficulty, and there shouldn't be. Every game and its difficulty and how that difficulty is presented to the player is part of the game experience.
Great vid as it always is Raz, I hope the family is good!
(happy Halloween as well)
yes one thing fabout difficulty options isn't just that it makes it more accessible to people with disabilities/less skill/slower reactions. It makes it so we can go back and play it on a harder mode giving us a reason to play it again when we've gotten really good at it and its just a cakewalk. I played the first two mass effects over and over when I couldn't work due to a broken clavicle and therefore had no money to buy new games. each time I beat it I started on a higher difficulty that I would not have been able to do previously, my skill at that game getting better and better each time.
I just stick to normal difficulty because that's how the devs intended the game to be played.
@@ThwipThwipBoomthat is a wild statement to make and very untrue lmao
There CAN'T be
@@ThwipThwipBoom about normal bief the intended difficulty, it may have been true in the past but nowadays easy mode has been renamed normal and normal become hard and etc, anyway unless the game directly specifies it I don’t think there will be a intended difficulty but personally I like too play in hard but not the hardest difficulty because these is where I am challenged, you want something that isn’t enraging nor that takes away the stakes of the story by being too easy and the latter is especially true in games that should feel hard by their stories or world like most post-apo game or really any stories that talks about you facing impossible odds
Also an absolute fantastic video and a great take on this rather difficult topic. In recent years I usually start the game at one above the "normal" difficulty, except when the game clarifies, as you mentioned, that the intended experience is on normal.
Should really be noted that Normal difficulties are easier today than in the past. Dying to learn was absolutely a part of older games. Now that is seen as negative experience.
This was a really interesting video especially considering how I rarely think about difficulty in games I play, and what sort of games I play generally.
Like, I remember my first time playing a Souls game and being so frustrated that I didn't want to touch it again. Subsequently, this was also due to the fact that the game had spiders and it wasn't mine in thenfirst place.
At the same time, looking over the games I do frequently play most of them are story focused first, or I play just to learn more of the story and world and not play to beat the game.
It's a fascinating topic that also got me interested in your Gaming for Non-Gamers series, as well as subbing to your channel. I'd love a continuation of this topic if possible because it feels so vast.
Two examples of difficulty systems i enjoy are slay the spire and a lot of the supergiant games. Both of them feel like integrate the difficulty more closely with the gameplay than most games which i think is important.
For the the spire, the fact that difficulty is tied with progression, gives you a reason to finish runs on the highest difficulty you can. It's also really gradual so you never feel that you're way out of your league; you've worked to unlock the difficulty multiple times beating runs at slightly easier difficulties.
A lot of supergiant games have another mechanic where you pick a curse which improve the rewards that you get, which i think solves the problem of games with multiple aspects of difficulty you can adjust if balanced right. There's a base level of difficulty and you can adjust based off of the risk and reward which makes it a more interesting decision and makes the decision more extrinsically motivatee than intrinsic.
These aren't perfect systems but are a good step over traditional approaches to difficulty. I do think difficulty balancing is possibly the most important thing to get right in most games since it really determines what systems the player will find themselves needing to engage with.
The way I've enjoyed difficulty handled that is a bit less obvious is just difficulty in the form of optional content. The base game should be fairly approachable but those who are up for challenge have extra levels to look forward to. Kind of like the b sides in celeste
Another thing I think would have liked to hear you touch upon is difficulty scaling as well. Some games can feel so different from the beginning to the end of the game as you gain more gear or as enemies get harder. Its frustrating when i play a game where the difficulty is enjoyable, then i either get overleveled/geared or there's a difficulty spike that makes the game harder than i would enjoy
Your last point is exactly how I felt with the Witcher 3. At the beginning, the game looked like it was going to give me a real challenge and by the end I was having such an easy time I fought the final boss bare-fisted for a while because they just weren't a threat.
This was a really interesting video. I loved the crpg rep with the pathfinder games and solasta. I also appreciate that you took time to point out that some people like their games to trend easy in terms of difficulty. I'm certainly that way. I play games for the story and I absolutely hate dying because all it means is that I'm being delayed to get to the story that's my main motivation for playing in the first place.
I mean if you want to play the game like a slightly interactive movie that's your decision. I do know a lot of people who get personally insulted when dying in single player games, and I go "okay, well, so running in the middle of the enemies with guns clearly didn't work the first 5 times, maybe try a somewhat different strategy?"
More often than not, they just need to turn their brains on. They need to enter in the mindset that this is not a movie, this is an interactive medium that will challenge them and their problem solving skills. This isn't a movie where you get to move the invincible protagonist and press x to shoot enemies only if and when you want to, and then get to the next cutscene.
This isn't solely background noise or pretty colors. Don't be fooled by the animated environments and pretty graphics. Treat it a bit more like a board game or a sport, or something that requires input to be fun and engaging. The ball doesn't move itself. The board doesn't play itself.
Usually these are chronic movie and TV watchers that expect drama and excitement, but are confused when it isn't served up on an effortless platter. They go in expecting a movie or TV show, and find it cool they can control the character and interact with the environment, but as soon as there is a challenge, anger ensues. "Why can't I beat it right away? I don't understand why I am dying!" But they haven't even begun to think why. They just expect to walk in and win. Maybe that partially speaks to how mind-numbing modern TV and shows are today. Or how TV today doesn't really provide enough mental stimulation to engage critical thinking skills.
@@GarrulousHerald i think you're just looking too much into something that just isnt there, and i highly doubt you really know THAT many people who are like that, like be serious. all you're doing is being elitist by connecting dots that arent there and claiming that people who don't like having to repeatedly die in game are people who don't have critical thinking skills. i actually have 3 friends who play games on the easiest modes made available to them, and they're nothing remotely like how youre describing people who get frustrated when dying in games, and theyre not chronic movie or tv watchers, either. they're just average people who dont spend every day playing video games but still like them! rather than people needing to "turn their brains on" the truth is that they just need to have a history of playing games and have developed the gaming sense that those kind of games require, and many people will enjoy videos but NOT have the time or the interest to dedicate their lives to gaming, and THATS OKAY. they should still be able to play video games, and video games should continue to make efforts to be playable by as many people as possible! you have gotta get off your high horse of making it seem like playing video games makes you a better, more critical thinker than people with other interests, because it doesnt. i see the way other gamers are often completely lacking media literacy, some of the dumbest most mind bendingly stupid people ive ever had the displeasure of talking with have been avid gamers, and that's because, believe it or not, your interests alone actually dont make you a more intelligent and balanced person. like what games are you playing that makes you think like that? and to begin with it's already clear that your literacy skills aren't that great anyway because you're conflating the skills of people who by your own admission aren't gamers to the skills gamers would naturally develop. perhaps you should watch another razbuten video "What Elden Ring is Like For Someone Who Doesn't Play Games" to hear about how it's actually GAMES faults that you apparently know a lot of people who clearly dont play certain kinds of video games yet youre expecting them to play like someone who does.
@@notyaunzzz Well uh, I'm the one who has had said experiences I claimed to have so I guess I ought to know. But maybe you're right. Maybe it was all a figment of my imagination.
When I said chronic TV watchers, I meant that most of all of their leisure time is spent watching TV or TH-cam. That's not entirely uncommon today.
I've seen them play. Playing on the easiest difficulty of games. "Story mode" of God of War 2016. You want to know what happens? The light attack button is good enough to carry them through THE ENTIRE GAME. They NEVER use weapon combos or powers. Because they forget, there's no reason to. Horizon Forbidden West? Well that's partially because of a lack of teaching on the game's part, but people completely forget weapon skills or valor surges are even a thing. Because the mindset is "well I'm not a super duper amazing lifelong gamer... So super easy seems like it would be for me." And then they play the entire game using the basic attack and maybe a few other mechanics, but completely ignore like 90% of the game's features.
And they don't tend to enjoy it. At least not as much as they could. They might enjoy the graphics and the cutscenes, but you can tell they just play the game wanting to get from point A to point B because the game fails to grab their attention. Because of how mind-numbingly simple it is.
One of these people I reference I am actually quite close to. He is middle aged, and it took him a while to develop the muscle memory required to play various popular titles. After he was playing games adequately, I asked him if he thought it was time to bump up the difficulty. The response? "I'm not very good at games. I don't want to die a bunch." We are talking about bumping the difficulty from story mode, to super easy. Small increments. But modern titles had already drilled into his brain that he wasn't a gamer, he probably never would be, so no use to try.
And after reaching this state of good cognitive control of the controller, I saw how much he lost interest in the game. He still played it, but... It wasn't as fun anymore. There was nothing to learn. No challenge. And humans in general love learning and they love overcoming challenges.
Over time I did sly underhanded tactics like changing the difficulty without him noticing, and he performed perfectly well. When I revealed the news, he was surprised. Over time, I tutored him and helped him explore everything from games settings to general UI. I taught him to be perceptive, put thought into the skill tree. Look at these skills you can unlock. There's more to the game than you realize.
He learned surprisingly quickly, he just needed a little push. SOMETHING to motivate him and show faith in him.
Soon enough, instead of choosing the easiest difficulty on every single game, he has enough confidence to actually put thought into what difficulties he is actually capable of pulling off. And he's had more fun with games than ever.
He went from playing the easiest difficulty all the time, to trying normal or higher difficulties just to test the waters. And he is more engaged in the games, he uses his head more. He even solves non-difficulty related puzzles better because he is more attentive and doesn't expect it to just be handed to him. Now he only looks up walkthroughs for puzzles if it's either repetitive (like the catalysts in H:FW) or if he already gives it a try. He still sometimes gets mad if he dies a bit too often, but he's much more willing to take some responsibility and adapt his strategies. Changing difficulty at hard spots is now a last resort, he usually gives it a couple tries first and a lot of the time he comes out on top, feeling accomplished by overcoming the challenge.
And most importantly, he has more fun. He's more confident in himself and his capabilities, and I'm proud of him.
Humans of all ages and skill sets are capable of learning if you just give them the chance.
Yes, a lot of the time, it is the game's fault. For trying to appeal to more mainstream audiences while not putting in the effort to engage them and inspire confidence. Not pushing them to try to be their best in a supportive manner. Instead, there are poorly cobbled together difficulty changes meant to allow anyone to beat the game with zero effort involved. Having trouble with a boss? Give him 0.1x health. Having a small hiccup understanding this integral mechanic to the core gameplay loop? Well just disable it!
Players will often take the path of least resistance. That does not mean they will have fun doing so. And more and more modern titles are refusing to acknowledge this integral aspect of game design.
They say it's to be more accessible, but the same games that introduced super duper easy mode press one button to win... Many of them DON'T EVEN HAVE SCALABLE UI OR SUBTITLES (H:FW, looking at you.) How can you claim to be accessible if you don't even attempt to tackle one of the most common disabilities, which is imperfect vision?
If it's to become 'more accessible' for 'game journalists,' I think we are better off gatekeeping those kinds of people from the product. They either need to get better at the game so they can get by on easy difficulty, or they shouldn't focus their careers off of writing about games they barely even play.
I think everyone should be able to enjoy games. Keyword, ENJOY. Not just play, ENJOY. This isn't some rite of passage to show how modern you are. This is for you to have a good and fun time, and all these claims of accessibility are just that, claims. I want non-gamers to have fun. And the unfortunate reality is... If you give people an option of an easier time which they don't need at the cost of fun... They'll tend to pick it. It's why options in difficulty and gaming aren't so clear cut of an implementation. It's more complicated than that.
Not every game needs to cater to an audience that expects an effortless joyride. In fact, including such options, when the game isn't optimized or play-tested for such, it negatively impacts the experience of many casual gamers. Because how does the casual gamer even perceive "easy" mode vs "story" mode? It's subjective. It's not often conveyed well. "Well I think I like stories..." You have to hold the hand of casual gamers. They don't have the experience or knowledge of the medium to make educated decisions. And modern gaming has become so patronizing to casual gamers and newcomers. More options does not mean better. You need to actually look at it from the perspective of a non-gamer, and see the flaws in this supposed rise of "accessibility." Some of the results have been good, don't get me wrong. I like some of the accessibility options. But if you aren't careful, "accessibility" and "appealing to everyone" has the potential of simply making things convoluted and confusing, rather than actually widening the audience. Because if your product becomes TOO accessible, TOO mainstream, TOO "for everyone," more often than not, without a target audience, your game ends up becoming for no one instead.
The veteran gamers are the ones who roughly know which difficulty to choose. It's the casual ones and newcomers who suffer.
@@notyaunzzz So I'm returning to this comment to analyze it a bit more based on what it actually presents instead of just justifying myself... And wow... I kind of overlooked how uh... Hostile and aggressive it is.
It starts out attempting to gaslight. Not a great start.
+There is a difference between dying twice or three times to a major boss or encounter, and dying 28 times to basic enemies.
It then sets up a strawman. I didn't say they didn't have critical thinking skills, I implied they weren't used to exercising them within their entertainment. I mean I'm not pulling this out of nowhere I know what TV is like lol. And I know plenty of people who do almost nothing in their free time other than watch TV. Don't read books, don't play games, board games, physical, digital... And unfortunately I would have to say that it does describe the average person. Particularly older aged individuals more than newer. People we would consider to be middle aged or older.
I don't know what "those games" are, but uh, no really I don't know what you are talking about. Game sense? I mean sure it can take a day or two to get used to the controls, they might not have the reaction time or experience with certain genres to pull off hard or super hard difficulty, but I believe they are typically more capable than modern games and their "ultra accessible easy easy extra easy" modes give them credit for.
You then... Talk about... dedicate lives to gaming? I'm not preparing them to enter E-Sports "or else they aren't real gamers." I myself don't care for ultra competitiveness or super duper hardcore. I tend to play on hard or one or two difficulties below the hardest difficulty. I care more about the quality of the experience than the challenge, though challenges are an integral part of the experience sometimes, it's just some harder difficulties aren't geared towards newcomers and prefer you play the game through at least once, while others are labeled hard for those experiences with the genre or quick to learn on this medium or have existing skills. Sometimes difficulty can certainly overshadow the quality of the experience if it is too frustrating or poorly constructed.
"Playable by as many people as possible." I agree. Which is why it is strange why modern games tend to offer these... Challenge-less difficulties that a goldfish hooked up to the controller could beat, while they tend to neglect things like scalable UI or a variety of accessibility or QoL options. They're newcomers or casuals, not idiots. And I don't find it particularly preferable to treat them like they can't do anything right.
I don't know where you got the idea I thought I was better than anyone else. I thought I was quite clear in my original post that I was considering the experience of others, not myself.
Then there's this strange rant about gamers and media literacy? Like it's as if you strawmanned what I was saying just to build up to this moment to complain about something completely unrelated so it wouldn't be completely out of place? It also just seems to be an attempt to try and roast me out of nowhere.
There's then uh... Another strawman. I never... Conflated the skills of gamers vs non gamers. "Skills gamers would naturally develop." Like what? Being open to trial and error, learning, challenges, and exploring your capabilities is not solely a gamer skill. My point was that games are not TV and many get caught up trying to conflate two very different mediums. Which ends up causing trouble for everyone involved. Games are interactive mediums which naturally mean they will have different priorities than TV which is primarily only a visual medium. Most modern games that include super duper easy modes, the interactive medium sucks under these poorly thrown together difficulties because they are clearly not designed for them, and the casual, or less than casual gamer misses way more than you may realize. And I don't want them to miss out.
Did you even read my comment? Or did you read someone else's, read part of mine, and then just assume you knew everything I said based on some faulty correlation skills? This is quite bizarre.
@@GarrulousHerald "More options does not mean better." is something quite uncomfortable that doesn't just apply to video games, but sometimes to real life as well.
As someone that didn't grow up with video games and has very little inherent video game skill, I really appreciated Resident Evil's adaptive gameplay. As it is, there aren't a lot of games that interest me (as I like stories and puzzles but have little ability to deal with action or platforming) so I really appreciate it when I can play a game and not get so frustrated that I just give up because I just can't enjoy it.
The main downside is you are playing a game in which the rules are constantly changing, which can be unsatisfying to someone who feels they have mastered their current difficulty, only for it to suddenly change and they are now failing, or for deaths to be required before the game starts easy enough for lower skilled. The game is learning and changing the difficulty dynamically every time you succeed or fail, but a series of failures will still always lead to death and constantly changing combat rules can make understanding that combat harder. Also making a horror game dynamically easier does take away some of the fear factor and the whole overcoming your fear aspect to horror.
@@cattysplat as he said in the video, there's not a great way to make a game work for everyone. Though maybe it would be good to have the difficulty settings and adaptive difficulty (such as with RE) but with an option to turn ad off. I guess I don't really see RE as a game that's really meant to scare you or make you face fears so not being as scary wasn't even a consideration, but again, everyone is different. I'm sure a lot of people don't think fatal fame is scary, but that creeped me out more than dead space or resident evil. As far as adaptive difficulty goes, I don't see how it really changes combat at all. You don't have to adapt to playing differently, the enemies just die easier and there are more ammo drops and stuff like that. You aren't having to adjust to a different combat style...granted I'm a noob so maybe I just don't see it.
Qhenever i invade someone or get summoned in dark souls 3, i usually drop them a bunch of embers before we do anything. Someone did that for me when i was new and it was a nice way to show me that i was never alone.
One of my favorite implementations of difficulty is in God Hand. Difficulty dynamically adjusts as you defeat enemies without taking damage, but you will most likely spend your entire first playthrough on the easiest level due to the high upfront difficulty. As you get better at the game, the difficulty increases and enemies become more aggressive/less exploitable. It forces you to learn all of the game's systems and gradually incorporate them into your gameplay if you want to maintain that higher difficulty. And unlike Resident Evil, the difficulty is shown as a gauge at all times; this removes the sense that the game is handholding you from behind the scenes with impenetrable algorithms.
I think outsidexbox covered this system in one of their videos, mentioned some tricky think that can end up happening if you combo too hard
As good as God Hand is, this approach has plenty of problems as well. Enemy damage scales far to harshly with the dynamic difficulty, and it often feels like the game is punishing you for doing well. It's to the extent that many players strategically choose to sandbag their performance in order to keep the difficulty in check. I know I basically felt as though I had to, as I dropped the game multiple times due to sitting in the exact skill window in which I would reach the highest level and immediately get killed for it. The number of times I had to repeat segments because I was good enough to reach the highest difficulty, but not good enough to beat the highest difficulty, was such that I just gave up entirely. The fact that I had to make the strategic choice to eat hits at certain points in order to succeed felt artificial, cheap, and unintuitive on a level that was just blatantly unfun. I think the game is great, but my first playthrough was anything but.
@@tyrant-thanatos These are all honestly great points that I just never ran into. I was so terrible during my first playthrough that I basically never got out of level 1. After that, chasing higher levels became the name of the game so I never really ran into that frustration. I can totally see how it could ruin a first playthrough if you grasp the mechanics more quickly than I did lol.
On a similarish vein I really enjoyed Furi. It doesn't have a dynamic difficulty but the default choice is appropriately challenging. Yet the entire game feels like it's training you to get better. One of the bosses is focused solely on a specific part of the combat. While that's a cool boss fight it also forces you to engage with a system you might've been largely avoiding. But that also means it's making you better and more confident at using it on every other boss fight in the game. By the time you have beaten the game it feels like the entire game has been preparing you for the harder difficulty option (that I think only unlocks after playing through it?)
It also has one of my favorite boss fights in any game I have ever played. And that is Bernard an untextured dummy they used to test boss mechanics on. A 9 stage boss fight that has some of the best elements from every other boss combined into one single challenge.
It was thrown in as a bonus alongside the one more fight dlc alongside a boss fight that i belief was an xbox exclusive at first? Which is a little unfortunate but apparently it's now included with the base game.
OMG I just wrote about GOD HAND the best forgotten PS2 fighting game that is basically resident evil 4 but with punches instead of guns and that leans even more on its combat system resulting the in most chad and stylish fighting game EVER ( not even kidding its that GOOD) and with EPIC soundtack IT ROCKS DUDE.
The Celeste method is interesting. It made it clear what the expected version is, but it does provide assistance methods. Although, I never went with those methods. I wonder if people felt discouraged because of that separation.
the assist tools in celeste were intended as an accessibility tool, but it's good that it ALSO functions as a difficulty slider. You can make the game a bit more forgiving if you cannot physically move fast enough for certain segments , have a hard time seeing certain things, or just don't wanna bang your head against a wall when you're playing a highly emotional game about defeating depression and finding yourself.
I loved it. i couldn't beat the ending of the final part of farewell and was frustrated and was about to look it up on youtube and I heard someone say the assisstance options so I just turned them on and cheesed the final room so I could finally see the ending. I don't think games without a story need assistance options, but if you put such a meaningful story behind an extreme difficulty wall people are going to never see the ending and maybe even resent the story because it made them frustrated.
@@Zectifin I was the same, I gave up on the very last B-Side and the last part of farewell. But see for me, if I feel like I cheesed it, I think, why am I wasting my time on this? I love how the achievement for getting every strawberry was literally a sarcastic "impress your friends." I honestly found the strawberries really rewarding, but choosing between another 3000 deaths or turning on a cheese mode? I picked neither, just didn't finish the game
@@Zectifinditto. I grided the last room for a few hours before turning on invincibility, but have subsequently beat farewell over a dozen times without it. Instead of dropping it and never coming back which is close to where I was, assist mode let me get closure, and then later git gud
@@SnoFitzroy I'm in the "physically cannot move fast enough for certain segments" camp, to where it's actually random whether I nailed the timing for even a single input in one of the more demanding sections, even after I learned the rhythm. I only ever had to slow down the game speed by a max of 30% (so 70% speed) to get to a point where it felt -- and was -- doable for me, though. Could still be really hard, but there's a colossal difference between 'hard' and 'beyond my ability to even control whether I succeed.'
Another advantage of the difficulty setting is to allow disabled or young players to be able to enjoy the story without being limited by the gameplay. I really like how tunic does this. The difficulty is not presented as an option at the start, but it is in the options if you look for it. There's even an invincible option which was great for my 5yo. She wanted to play the "fox game" as her first game, without having the reflexes you need to be able to survive the enemies.
The drawback is that they will have no challenge so they will not learn how to face higuer difficulties.
Every approach has its downsides: more accessible then less improvement
@@lluisg.8578 invincible mode doesn't necessarily imply 'no challenge'. For my daughter (and I'm sure for other kids or disabled people), the movement and gameplay itself without enemies may be challenging enough. My daughter struggles with any games that require timing of button presses (mario, pong, etc) nevermind the enemies. Naturally when she gets older and this mode no longer poses a challenge to her, I can change it.
Great comment! People can enjoy games for very different things. When I was little I loved playing games like Kirby Air Ride and Sonic Adventure 2, not for the story or any of the main quests, but just because I loved interacting with the world. I also liked games with invincibility options (GoldenEye & Guitar Hero come to mind) but these options were always locked behind "cheat" menus. It's nice to see more accessibility options being implemented as part of the base game experience.
I've always defaulted to "Easy" or "Story" mode until recently, and now I've been going back to older favorites and experimenting more. I've always had the mindset of "I want to keep the narrative moving forward, not get stuck for hours and frustrated" since I play story driven, single-player games almost exclusively. But a couple years ago, I decided to run through Ghost of Tsushima again and stumbled upon a video discussing the "Lethal" difficulty. The idea of the game being harder by making the weapon damage realistic in their damage for both the player AND the enemies was intriguing. And I just absolutely loved it. It was so fast, smooth, and brutal. Constantly being one wrong move away from death while slicing through hordes of enemies in a way that resembles the films the game is so heavily inspired by is absolutely thrilling.
I've come to realize that I dont hate difficult games, I hate games that substitute difficulty with "just make the enemy a damage sponge" because it destroys the immersion. My ability to suspend by disbelief is totally gone after stabbing or shooting a guy 30 times but they keep coming.
I wish I would have experimented more over the years, who knows what other amazing experiences I've robbed myself of by defaulting to what I incorrectly assumed was the best option for me.
I really love the difficulty scaling thats baked into Hades and the Pact of Punishment system. I agree that wondering if i have all the right settings sticks in the back of my head. Happy Halloween!
Another big advantage of Hades is that you apply before each run, and you only engage with it after being already familiar with the game. But that sort of brings the issue of difficulty to when you start Hades for the first time, with there being only 2 options.
in principle yes, but i think it could still be improved. For example, i wanted to be challenged by Hades, becase even the lower heat levels didnt really do it for me. However, i need to actually grind the heat levels 1 by 1 for every weapon to actually get the rewards. Which just made me give up because its tedious, grinding through multiple dozens of fairly easy runs just to get to the fun part. If they instead just let you choose whataver heat level you wanted, and gave you all lower heat rewards you havent gotten yet, it'd be better imo.
Difficulty sliders and Roguelikes tend to go hand in hand, since you're encouraged to play through the game multiple times. Games like Dead Cells do a mix of both difficulty sliders in the form of upgrades/passive skills and Boss Cells which are basically the game's gradual difficulty options.
I remember being determined to beat the game without God Mode. Once I achieved that, I did all I could to attain full Godhood. Zagreus shall forever be ~80% god.
Yeah, my favourite way to do adjustable difficulty is in roguelikes like Hades and Slay the Spire where it starts out pretty managable and then once you beat your first run you can increase the difficulty at your own pace. Hades even has an easy mode that explicitly framed as something you can turn on if you're struggling too much, rather than just one option in a list of difficulty modes.
As a games designer where my main job is balance of systems, after decades of back and forth on this, I came down on the side of accessibility. Challenging core combat is usually only one facet of your game and difficulty modes when done right (either through an obvious menu, adaptive mechanics or a clear ability to play in an easier way - personally they're all classed under difficulty options for me) are essential to opening up as much of your game to as many people as possible. Which is what it's all about really. More people should have the chance to enjoy the experience you and hundreds of others have made over many years. Even if it's only a part of it.
Then again easy game may instead "close" experience of accessing a mechanic. Like what he said about Witcher 3 where it's possible to never even consider maybe enjoyable gameplay like potion. Designing really is hard.
@@HazhMcMoor When developing a slew of mechanics, one thing I developer must consider is how many of them an individual player is going to access. There can be good reasons that every tool must be used to its fullest, or that different people will only utilize certain tools, depending on a game's core themes and objectives.
I definitely understand difficulty options, I just prefer the Fromsoft approach, there are different gameplay options but the challenge is measured and set.
I'm glad you showed Sea of Stars, if only for a moment. But I liked that the difficulty options were at least somewhat integrated in the game, as things you need to find or buy. It makes them feel more earned, and spreads the decisions out so you can evaluate each in turn, and only after having some real experience.
One thing I love is when games tell you their intended difficulty, but something that would make me like games with toggleable difficulty even more is if they tell me how difficult the game is intended to be. Some games have a normal mode that I could feasibly breeze through and others are hard enough that I will just inevitably get stuck at a certain point and need to lower the difficulty to progress in a reasonable amount of time, and the "intended gameplay experience" only tells me that this is the setting that the game was playtested with in mind
The reason why Capcom pioneered dynamic difficulty for basically the Resident Evil series is because it actually helps maintain the horror elements better. Horror games, contrary to what conventional thinking might indicate, don't actually want you to die. If you die, you do the same section over and over, which makes you familiar which makes you unscared of the game. They want to keep you on the cusp of thinking you're going to die. That's maximum tension. It's why as you get more familiar with the game through playthroughs and seek higher challenge the scaling modifiers are usually turned all the way up and left there on the hardest of difficulties.
i love how you analyze videos, you put my 15+ years playing, experiencing and learning video games and their little quirks into a clear voice that makes me finally understand the nuance that ive been a part of all this time.
This was a really nuanced breakdown, nice job! Personally, I don’t mind adaptive difficulty when it’s successfully unnoticeable, because I like to be fully immersed in a game-both easily wiping through enemies and dying all the time can break the immersion for me, so if the game can successfully tweak that behind the curtain, I definitely find it to be a more fulfilling experience. But I know that just has to do with my playstyle preferences, and there’s as many of those as there are gamers
*I like when a game lies to me about my skill at the game"
@@stackflow343 yeah sure, as long as I’m having fun 😂 what is any curated experience but a detailed, intricate lie
After watching the video, I've come to realize the solution to the difficulty problem in games is to not play games anymore. Thank you.
Great video, nice to see someone cover difficulty in all its facets rather than just regurgitating the 'easy mode' discourse. It's fascinating to me how difficulty connects with the experience of a game, and trying to simplify it to 'options good' or 'options bad' has never sat well.
It also depends on what kind of player you are. Are you looking for a challenge or just walking around shooting stuff and have fun or do some exploring. For me I mostly don't play games for the challenge just want to hop in a be in a different world for some time.
Totally agree. Razbuten talks a lot about enjoying overcoming obstacles but if I am playing a puzzle game with a puzzle way above my level, I don't feel satisfied when I finally figure it out - I just feel kind of stupid.
Same. I’m honestly more in the “power fantasy lover” group they mentioned near the end of the video. But I love just taking in a new world and testing what I can do with it. It’s a lot easier to do that when the enemies don’t do 6 times your normal damage lol
Absolutely. I can't relate to this "sense of achievement" constantly spouted by the people who can only get enjoyment from challenging difficulty. To me it's just a feeling of "I'm glad that's over" more than anything. Challenging gameplay often gets in the way of my enjoyment of a game.
I play every game on easy/story mode for this reason and I don't have to justify myself to others why. I enjoy the game far more as I'm looking for a different experience, and on a single player game, why does that even matter? I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm trying to have fun.
I do think for that reason even in fromsoft games and other set-difficulty games I wish there were the options of "power trip" and "intended difficulty"
That being said I'm disappointed in the way some games have made difficulty choice feel like a personal attack that "intended difficulty" even as I wrote it felt like some attack on those who would choose power trip, even though I don't think it had to be that way.
@@loucam08 I hate how games have left people feeling the need to justify themselves why they choose an easier difficulty. One of the most common statements I hear when I walk in on my mother playing Horizon: Zero Dawn is she'll make some comment about the challenge of enemies after beating them and then clarify something like: "Of course I know I'm playing on an easy difficulty, I'm just so exhausted after work that I want to come home and have fun playing the game, not have a challenge"
I really like the structure of this video. Every approach to difficulty is worth discussing but all have their flaws, and that's okay. Just something to be aware of rather than a problem requiring a simple fix.
Really solid video. My quick take is having difficulty options, even ines that aren't thought out very well, will always be better than having none.
It's silly for gamers™️ to get mad at difficulty options for one game (dark souls) but beg for them in another (pokemon). It hurts no one to have options. It only ever helps bring in different people.
This is not universally true. Because the difficulty of a game should be determined by the intentions of the developer, not the desire of gamers. Generally, difficulty comes in two favors. Either the player must meet a difficulty check to complete an objective to the developer's satisfaction, or the game must meet the skill level of the player. Is the concept or the completion of a game its core goal? Is the vehicle of that challenge or immersion?
Have difficulty options does hurt some players though. This is one of the many reasons Souls fans are so adamant about not having them and appreciative of the one difficulty for all philosophy.
How does it hurt players having these options? Because people get frustrated, rage and in a hissy fit they lower the difficulty and cheat themselves of the "Git Gud" moments Souls fans love. Even people who know they want these challenging have moments of weakness and will take the easy road if it's there when they're pissed off.
This philosophy isn't for every game or even every genre. Most games and I'm talking 90 plus percent, cater to the difficulty option philosophy.
Part of the reason Fromsoft basically started a Souls genre is because their base philosophy was extremely missed and lacking in the video game world.
Souls fans can be as cringe and ridiculous as any other fans but a lot of what Souls fans are fighting back against, is the idea that Fromsoft should stop being the one small corner of the game world where this philosophy can be found and comform.
@@SaintKines If you get mad because you chose to use a completely optional option, that's not the optional option's fault, that's your fault. Also you're forcing your own view onto everyone else. You are not the god king, your view is not everyone else's.
@@Purpletrident Fromsoft isn't forcing anything on anyone. And at this point nobody could realistically claim that they didn't know either. Considering "Soulslike" is a full on genre at this point.
Not every game is for every person and that's ok. Demanding that every single game follow a certain difficulty option rule is forcing your views on everyone else. 90 plus percent of games already cater to you and you still can't accept and understand that at least a small minority group appreciate and believe in a different way. Whos the one forcing their opinions here? It's well known Souls games don't have those options and are designed to be a reasonable challenge, if that's not your thing then you're still in luck because most of the industry is pandering directly to you.
And yes, the options are optional, kind of in the name. But you can look at thousands and thousands of Fromsoft testimonials where people admit that not having the option to just switch off all challenge when frustrated saved from ruining rewarding Git Gud moments when they finally overcame the challenge. It's what keeps Souls fans going and coming back.
Some people just want to put a game in and chill and not be challenged. There is nothing wrong with that. Some people just want to engage in a power fantasy where they get to pretend and experience what it's like to be powerful and skillful. Some people want to spend the time and rage to earn that.
I think Will you Snail did a really good job with adaptive difficulty as it changes mid game based on how well you do. And it actually feels very integrated to the game because of how its set up
It decrease the difficult but I still die at the same spike , I think king of thief's does it better by removing the spikes if you die to it for 3 times in a row
Great video as always, As someone invested in an accessible world, I love how you pointed out the difference between difficulty and accessability
Survival horror games usually do some really cool stuff with their harder difficulties. The AI of the Xenomorph in Isolation is optimal at the harder difficulties.
the thing with dark souls is that you could just grind/farm to get stronger and its hard to tell if you are underleveled or playing it how it is meant to be
razbuten vids are the kind that I deliberate avoid until I'm in the perfect mood to absorb everything
Love this discussion, and this video is a phenomenal contribution.
I see difficulty as part of the dialogue between player and designer. The way difficulty is framed is important, and that process is continuous. If there are difficulty options, they need to be thoroughly described. If the intended experience is constant death, then that needs to be communicated early (see: the Supposed-To-Die first bosses of FromSoft games).
I am also a big fan of Celeste's approach, with one "difficulty", but accessibility options.
Side note on FromSoft bosses:
What I would love to see is for bosses to tweak, not their stats, but their moveset in response to what the player brings to the fight. Maybe a multi-phase boss reaches the next phases sooner, or maybe they account for multiple opponents with more wide swings of their weapons.
a rule of thumb for me is if it's a new developer/game series ill always starts at normal to gauge what type of difficulty it will have after that is based on my conclusion
unless the developer changes the difficulty, Witcher 3 Death March is Witcher 2 Normal))
I'm not joking, you actually helped me fall asleep last night. Your style of video is so relaxing
That explains a lot. I like to play games on harder difficulties because it helps slow down the experience, I tend to blow through games on normal. I always thought people were nuts when they said the witcher three was boring but I'm willing to be there playing on easier modes now.
9:14 I think the Modern Warfare FNG course is actually a really good metric for the player setting difficulty. You did make some valid points, but I do want to stress that I was also that person out to grind the speed up, and get the higher recommended difficulty, and then select it... even though I wasn't truly ready. But in the end, though it took me quite a lot of time working up to that level of play, it WAS the right difficulty for me. The game offered one choice, but instead of just going with it or picking a higher difficulty anyway, you and I--and presumably many many more like us--stuck it in, determined to PROVE we could handle it. And that determination, perseverance, and presumably ability to get used to trying over and over again to deal with CoD's bullshit, means that we were choosing our difficulty all along.
Love the points made in the video, there's just one I wonder about: You mentioned that someone running the COD4 tutorial until they are recommended Veteran would be setting themselves up for failure, however the type of player who wants to keep trying until they get it right is exactly the type of player who would enjoy the challenge a harder difficulty provides. In that regard a tutorial like that is potentially slightly more effective than credited.
Im glad you addressed acessability as I feel like that particular topic is always neglected specifically in the difficulty topic. I have often felt like some games just tell me "youre not good enough to play." As ive just harsly learned souls games are. I have have tremmors, peripheral regognition issues and with adhd i have issues focussing, be this overwhelmed or underwellmed on game's. For me with small elements like the lack of a pause button in souls games or an option for more recovery time in fights i will never be physicaly able to play, complete or enjoy a souls game. Which is sad because i just got given lies of p as a gift over Christmas, which is why i got here looking at the difficulty debate. I do feel like i have learned more about the other side - more skilled players' issues with difficulty. However, i still can't help but feel like difficultly gatekeeps some games.
And while i understand the argument some people have that an easy mode and acessability are not the same and that an easy mode would undermine dissabled people. I have played many a game where ive had a little cry because they remind me that my disabilities in fact- disable me.
The issue for me stands with the stigma and naming of difficulties as well as the creation of them. To have a "as intended" difficultly topped with a more challenging one, an unlockable one like many dmc games and then for people like me a "beginner, story or learner" mode would just make more games feel accepting.
I do get sad as a lover of gothic littriture and media that i can never fully experience a souls game on my own on console (if i was pc i know there are mod creators who add disability aids more then the game creators... which is also sad to me) its sad to me that games just cut a whole willing audience off through difficulty gatekeeping.
I think the most blatant example I have experienced when my neurodivergence has completely fucked up a gand for me was cuphead
I’ve ADHD myself but generally I don’t think it’s too bad in a lot of places but I know for a fact that u literally cannot see most of the screen because I have to focus on my character
Currently I’ve gotten past most of the game I’ve rage quit a few times but I eventually got through until I found Dr Kahls robot
It’s the hardest base boss in the game abd it’s obvious why
I can get to the third stage (even if u require a speed run strat gif the second phase) but I literally cannot see anything in the third stage and end up dying constantly
I can barely avoid the emerald sparks but the electrified gates are basically unavoidable
This also gatekeeps younger players from playing certain games, as typically you have less fine motor control until you start to reach adulthood. Not to mention it keeps less skilled players from playing titles they think look fun. As someone with no physical disabilities but who just sucks at video games, it really sucks when I pay 80 dollars for a game just to find out I can't actually play it because of the skill requirements.
Also, some games don't seem to know what "easy" is. I genuinely struggled in some spots in certain games, on the games designated "easy mode".
To top it off, games that lock the "good ending" off to higher difficulties? Just.. no. That's really shitty.
The thing is people overestimate how many players play on the hardest setting. 50% of players don't even finish games, let alone play on Impossible difficulty. You would think everyone plays on Impossible because they all brag about it but nobody brags about playing on Easy.
For me personally I figured that I almost always roll the best with the second hardest difficulty available, I like a little challenge where I feel how I’m getting better and better over time but I don’t get crushed in the ground if I’m not always a 100% focused it’s most of the time the best balance between a challenge and enjoying the story
"I like to play without choosing the difficulty" is exactly why I i will ALWAYS select the second hardest difficulty for my first playthrough. I feel confident that I can handle most challenges a game throws at me, but I'm extremely aware that the hardest difficulty available for a game is typically not designed for your first playthrough. So the second hardest is generally good enough, and then I dont change the difficulty from then on: this is how hard the game is, so if I'm struggling then I've got to get better until I can beat it
I've seen people with this mentality on reddit, except they ignore the fact that the hardest difficulty isn't meant for beginners. So they retry like 30 times and then have to give up because they played the entire day away instead of just inviting an experienced player who can teach them and carry the noob.
@@Phoenix.Sparkles- I started going for the max difficulty years ago to avoid multiple playthroughs when going for platinum trophies, but later I discovered it enhances the immersion of games like the Witcher (all 3 of them) or The Last of Us or even Horizon (Zero Dawn/Forbidden West).
Hell, I even started Dragon's Dogma on Hard, a clearly NG+ difficulty, but it was _so_ immersive for my glass canon assassin character!
Same for Horizon on Ultra Hard: in the beginning it makes you _feel_ like a human fighting huge killer robots. Sure, by the end you can easily kill scores of them without breaking a sweat, but if you don't mind the switch to power fantasy, then _that_ effect is heightened even more by three sheer difference in power level, going from 11 dmg with your starter bow to 3500+ with a triple Powershot on a frozen enemy's weak spot!
I've also adopted that mentality, and honestly, it works.
Back in the day the hardest difficulty setting had to be unlocked by completing the game
Personal note on difficulty settings, specifically easy mode:
for me wether or not a game has an easy mode is a big factor in most cases. I'm not great at doing multiple things either at once or in quick succession, like trying to time a dodge while also having to move and attack, or having to move my finger to several different buttons in a row while moving in a platformer. My reaction times are not the quickest unless i mainly focus on one thing, and even then it's more quick than precise. Spamming I can do, timing less so. it's like there's a delay where my brain has to register what im supposed to do and what i am doing, and i get overwhelmed. An easy mode makes me feel more secure that I'll actually be able to play and enjoy a game, and less at risk of wasting my money on a game i get stuck in. It has allowed me to play and enjoy games like Dishonored and Witcher 3, I really need that room for error.
I can get people wanting challenge and overcoming great obstacles, but for me constant deaths can get infuriating quickly, because it feels like I'm supposed to do more than I'm actually capable of, and games then become these stressful trials to get past one section instead of getting immersed and enjoying the world. Easy modes have allowed me to enjoy some of my favorite games ever, so I'm certainly happy when they're there. sometimes I can go higher, sometimes I can't, sometimes easy mode is a challenge for me, other times it allows me to not feel stressed and have fun.
So I guess, personally, id prefer for simple difficulty settings to be there, as without an easy mode I would never have been able to play some of my favorite games that I now have 100+ hours in. That's the take of someone who really needs room for error and sucks at timing responses, especially quickly.
Don't underestimate yourself, it always takes time to get better at something.
This sounds like the main cause of your problems is that you're unwilling to build up muscle memory and want instant gratification instead of taking your time.
i disagree seeing that he has 100+ hours on certain games, some people just dont have a knack for games.@@Ghorda9
Ghorda9 has a point. It'd be intriguing to see how you fare on a higher difficulty on the same game you've spent 100+ hours in.
Might be worth considering. Unless, of course, the problem is motor neuron-based.
@@Ghorda9 Not everyone wants a challenge when playing video games...
@@maxsoundandmusicThen they should watch a movie or read a book.
Armored Core 6 has been probably my favorite experience with difficulty. The opening mission and boss encourages you to utilize most of the core elements of combat and the chapter 1 boss builds on that by encouraging experimentation with playstyle and parts. Those 2 moments set you up for the rest how the game will play.
I LOVE this video. I’m only a bit through it but I found your tlou take interesting. I played on the hardest difficulty my first time, and I personally feel it’s the ONLY way the game should be experienced. You genuinely feel IN the world. It’s a post apocalyptic world, supplies aren’t going to be super abundant, and yeah you could do like 1 lesser difficulty but man the struggle of the hardest difficulty makes me FEEL like im truly experiencing it, all the sadness and desperation in the tlou world feels like it’s shining through when you play that hardest one, I just think it’s hella interesting because I usually go for a normal play through my first time. Just had a different gut feeling for tlou and it payed off.
Rain World player in embryo
I definitely think some description for the difficulty settings would be immensely helpful for games that don't have them. Like for your Witcher example, if they explained that killing monsters was designed to be a challenge you approached with preparations and care, then I think people would realize real quickly if they are on the right difficulty or not. It could even say that those looking for a more casual experience where monsters require less preparations and care, and can easily be brute forced, then they should consider lowering the difficulty.
I personally really like the assist mode option. I was playing through a small indie game called going under, a very challenging rogue-like with a lot of cool story elements. After making it around halfway through the game, it got too hard for me, even though I am usually good at very difficult games, and so I just bumped up the assist mode settings until I started having fun again. I would still absolutely recommend the game if anyone seeing this hasn't played it.
As someone that plays games for relaxation I am a great fan of playing in easier difficulties. As such it annoys me when there is no difficulty settings, its not like i have no frustration tollerance. But as someone who studies Physics my Frustration tolerance is used up in other places over the day already.
Thus I think noone should be shamed for liking to play in easy mode you never know what the person does or has been through.
Edit: I was writing this comment in the middle of the Dark Souls part. And thank you so much for saying that there is more to love a game about than being good at the combat. And that its to easy to say these games are not for those people. Thank you so much its a major pain point I have been having whenever I look at the Soulslike stuff and people are just like well if you dont like difficulty then the game is not for you. Even tho I belive games are so much more than just the difficulty.
Thank you so, so much for addressing the wide variety of details regarding videogames difficulty. WAY too many people just default to "Erm game hard == good because rewarding and if you dont like it dont play it" but reality is so much more than that. Personally I still think Celeste should be the golden standard: no one ever says that difficulty in Celeste is a problem because of how transparent the game is about it and the options you have to modify it.
Yeah he hits both hard == good and easy == good equally and exposes problem with them.
Many people have this "git gud" mentality whenever it comes to difficulty. I often drop the difficulty, because I want to experience the game first and if it is really fun I'll consider putting more time in. If something isn't for me, I want to move on to something I can enjoy. In case it is so much fun that I want to learn everything it has to offer, I will "git gud". But I won't waste time on things that are only fun once you have already mastered it.
I love to “git gud”, so I always play on “normal” settings. Easy makes games too easy most of the time and hard makes the games tedious instead of hard.
I usually play at normal or harder difficulty usually just because I don’t want the game to be to easy, I actually forgot I was in hard mode when playing my current game🤣
Just got off playing Chapter 2 of Alan Wake 2 and this video rings so true. Initially started the game at hard, thinking hey I played survival horrors before, this should be fine. But during that first boss fight I found myself hitting a ceiling. It wasn’t until I turned the difficulty down to normal that I was able to beat it, with no ammo and a sliver of health. It was satisfying as hell but it took a few beatings to learn the right difficulty for me.
Great video, Raz! Keep em coming!
No difficulty trophies so I'm just playing on easy. That same boss fight wasn't difficult on easy, but was still tense because it's designed well. Tight, maze-like areas, bass heavy music, the blurry, darkness effects.
If you're comfortable playing at normal then keep at it, but I would say the game design and direction nails horror, regardless of whether or not the difficulty is making you manage your inventory.
I'm only really not having a good time when I'm frustrated. I would always rather a game have fun combat for the sake of it and be too easy than block all progress by being too hard.
Some games and genres I just default to easy or story mode, and even then I still have some rough times, and I think how much I'd be frustrated and not having fun if I set them to harder difficulty options.
One reason I love difficulty options in games is for accessibility.
I have dyspraxia, so a lot of the time, playing on easy is equivalent to a neurotypical person playing on normal, simply because my hands don't always do what my brain tells them to do.
I feel like not enough people take this into consideration when talking about difficulty options. The souls games aren't much of a challenge for me but I have neurodivergent friends that literally can't play them and no amount of telling them to get good is going to change their physical limitations
This!! Absolutely this.
My brain can't always react fast enough to what I see. So extremely aggressive enemies are going to wipe the floor with me because I'm trying to parse what I'm even seeing... as the sword is coming down.
I have a similar issue with games that ask you to move and aim and shoot, all at once. With the camera moving, I'll often struggle to recognize what I need to be aiming at. That makes most action games impossible for me if it's based on reactive combat, lacks auto aim features, or even just incorporates a camera bob when the character moves.
To me this is kind of the only argument that matters. Easy mode is necessary for some people not just to enjoy a game but to play it at all. Games not having an easy mode (like the souls games) is indefensible for this exact reason and people who say otherwise are deliberately excluding certain people from certain games because of a disability or a neurodifference and that's not ok. Especially when the level of difficulty someone plays at is nobody's business but their own and it has no impact on people who choose to play on diamond bastard hard that story mode exists.
@@rosiescott1531it's perfectly fine to exclude anyone you want from anything for any reason :)
This is the best video you've made. I really enjoy your analysis and you have been the only person I've met who felt similarly about the Souls series inasmuch as, if a difficulty option existed, I may have cheated myself out of one of the most rewarding gameplay experiences I've had.
You bring up good counterarguments against multiple approaches, which is fantastic as well. More like this, please.
Great video. I grapple with this kind of thinking kind of frequently. As much as I love video games, I can get pretty frustrated with them and overwhelmed. So like you said, all I can do is try to minimize the frustration and maximize the enjoyment. Way easier said than done though. Who woulda thought..
This is the best video essay I've seen in the last 12months. It describes exactly how i feel about difficulty options in games.
Sometimes i just have a moment of clarity/frustration and think to myself "I'm just going to play every game on Normal. If i don't have fun, then the game was balanced poorly = the game is badly designed and i dont care how fun it is on Hard".
But at the same time i do just want to fill myself with amazing experiences. Even though clearly game developers cannot decide what Hard mode even means - ive just started playing every game on the hardest. At least i KNOW that i will engage with all of the games systems becuase i NEED to to survive. Money and Skills actually matter becuase i NEED them to survive. Planning and engaging with the world is NECCESSRY to progress.
These days when i play a game on Normal - i forget to even select new skills when i level up, i dont bother crafting/reading/cooking because i dont need to. I don't take my time to survey the area, plan my attack and think about the engagement - becuase all i have to do is press " Attack, Attack, Attack" and i win. Which absolutely kills engagement and even the enjoyment of the world.
Witcher 3 is an amazing example.
Personally i prefer a game has no difficult options. Then i KNOW i am playing the intended experience. If i dont have fun, then i can just say "game bad" and move on with my life.
Honestly those ghouls are unironically the second hardest fight on death march. With the hardest one being making sure that one merchants brother survives looting a battlefield so you can get a crossing ticket.
The Djinn is also really hard if you turn level scaling on.
So excited! This video filled me with the same excitement as the gaming for a non gamer vid did when it first came out. Awesome idea, awesome video. I love hearing you describe cool thoughts like this!
Normal - Introducing myself to the mechanics and other systems
Higher difficulties - Testing my knowledge on what I know and my skill in more difficult situations
Reality:
Normal - normal numbers
Higher difficulty - higher numbers
The thing for me, and the reason I'll usually opt to play most games on at least one-higher-than-normal difficulty is that it tends to force me to engage with the game's mechanics and systems more meaningfully. Normal difficulty has a habit of letting you skate by with only minimal engagement and you can sometimes miss out on a lot of what the game is offering. Even something The Last of Us, on harder difficulties, the game plays more like a survival horror game which is great, and you need to scrounge for supplies, making exploration more rewarding, and forces you to make smarter and greater use of the tools available to you in encounters and all. On Normal, you can mostly just shoot your way through most of the game. It's definitely a lot more than just 'higher numbers'.
This video made me think about one of the most transformative experiences I ever had with a video game with regards to difficulty.
When I first played FF14 I wasn't super into it mechanically. It took playing one of the most complicated classes (Black Mage) for me to even kinda get engaged, and I spent the entire first 50 levels or so not feeling particularly challenged. And then, after the end of the main campaign in ARR, I did an extreme fight using duty finder because it was a quest and I didn't know about unsyncing and it was the most fun and interesting the game had ever been. I spent 45 minutes eating shit before finally clearing Titan Extreme for the first time, and it made me so excited. I was like, oh! This is what this game can be. This is dance of doing mechanics and dps. It was wild and fun and engaging in a way the normal difficulty almost never was. I spent all the subsequent levels getting excited for the endgame, so finally get to another Titan Extreme moment, and I wasn't disappointed. Clearing Extremes and then Savage and even progging ultimates, it's all so so so interesting and fun, and without that difficulty spike I would have dropped ff14 the second I ran out of MSQ, lol. But really few moments have been as magical to me as when I first realized how deep and interesting the game's mechanics had the potential to be.
As someone with a dynamic physical and cognitive disability, I consider difficulty options to be part of the accessibility options. If you don't want to adjust them, you don't have to, just like all the other accessibility options. But their existence does not actually detract from the game's experience because you can always experience the game as intended or as you personally want to.
I absolutely agree, but I do think that there should be some sort of comment saying something like "this is the intended difficulty for a regular player." In that case it is very easy to tell what will be the best balanced for players that want a healthy challenge and don't need accessibility options. Otherwise the, as you put, "intended experience" is extremely unclear.
You could also have games with equippable items that customize difficulty. I think Sea of Stars does this pretty well. There is a specific menu in the inventory that lets you choose specific things that make the game easier or harder. It gives you time to see how you enjoy the game's difficulty and mechanics, running you through some quite easy sections before giving you the items for options.
I've played games that are super hard on normal and reasonable on easy, and ones that are unenjoyably easy on normal. I've played games that are still hard to me on easy despite me being more experienced in gaming. Having that level of muddled explanation makes everyone frustrated I think, making it so that nobody knows what difficulty is right for them at all unless they trial and error it. And the trial and error of difficulty settings genuinely *does* taint the experience.
I think this is the best option. It's a kind of mix of having no difficulty setting and still having difficulty settings. Like, there is the intended difficulty, but you can adjust them if you want the game to be harder or easier. The key thing is not actually calling them difficulty settings. This leads players to leave those settings alone in the beginning, but if they start to struggle or find the game too easy, they could be directed to those accessibility options.
I definitely prefer a fixed difficulty or that developers communicate more descriptively what to expect from each difficulty setting. However I think it’s good that not every games tries to do the same thing with difficulty. Variety is good. And having goofy experiences where the challenge was a bit off in one way or the other can be special or reflective moments. I also think self imposed challenges to make games harder is a neat way to get the challenge you maybe missed in a play through or have grown out of from getting better. I’m mostly thinking about my experiences with shovel knight writing this.
Amazing video as per the usual. I really appreciate your reflective nature. Cheers^^
Absolutely love this topic-it’s something I think about often when I compare my video game consumption to my partner’s. They are a “hard mode” always on first playthroughs, no matter the game, something I sometimes argue far too heavily against sometimes!
I feel that, and as a player who is the exact same as them, I know in my own experiences it *isn't* necessarily to my benefit, especially with how much of games is learning an enemy's moveset so you can counter it with movement or abilities, it is sometimes better for me to just take a step down and enjoy learning it without as much pressure to never mess up.
Then additionally there's problems like having a short enough attention span that that isn't even often viable for me because after my first playthrough, I've burned out on the game and have no desire to play through it a second time on a harder difficulty.
Video game difficulty is ALWAYS on my mind too! I am one to usually pick hard mode on my first playthrough as I feel games have gotten too easy nowadays.
I dont mind people picking lower difficulty by any means, but I do sometimes wonder if they are picking the right difficulty for them. It's definitely a topic that has a long way to go before it can be perfect... if it ever will be.
(also, hello you, funny seeing you here)
Great video! Just like to say i´m surprised you didn´t mention difficulty by equipment. For example, in my first playthrough of dark souls 1 I struggled immensely, and just as I was about to drop the game entirely a friend mentioned something about a certain glaive I picked up by chance and that Harvel armour set. I ended up powering through the game with 3-5 tries per boss, sometimes first trying them. While my skill did increase with experience, I would never have finished it had I not learned about Glaive/Harvel easy mode. Now, after several playthroughs with different playstyles, it is my favorite game ever