Dynamic difficulty absolutely needs to be opt-in. While the intent is good, I find such systems to be patronizing to people like myself. Like, okay, I died once. I don't need the game to change to help me win; I just need more chances. Dynamic difficulty is also dangerous in that the entire experience begins to feel flat because the game is constantly making sure you are victorious. Let me turn it off. That's all I ask.
from the other side of things i also agree, because i don't want the game to overtake me in difficulty, and i don't want to have to die on purpose to keep it from getting too hard.
yay i beat this mission on son of sparda and it only took me like 2 hours, lets see that D r- >enemy handicap YOU MOTHERFU- fr tho i struggled with that so much i'd end up restarting missions because i was like "oh i didn't REALLY earn that win"
i love the souls games. im also disabled with a condition that only gets worse with time. guess what games i cant play anymore from said disability getting worse? id gladly mod them so i can enjoy them again. and i know what im sacrificing to do so since i used to play them as intended. living with a progressive disability that will eventually kill you is far more brutal than anything fromsoft could make.
there are people who can beat Mario 64 and dark souls with a dancepad or a drum, so being disabled is not that big of an excuse to not play a game. Unless you are completely unable to have any way to have input in the game you should be able to play it.
@@LucasCunhaRocha those are considered challenge runs for a reason. they are not a enjoyable way to play a game. there's a reason bad controls are considered bad.
The problem with dynamic difficulty is if you are playing at a good pace, game is gonna make the game more difficult because you are doing well and that can get really hurt the experience. I remember playing RE4 for the second time and wondering why is it getting so difficult.
Yeah, exactly my experience. Didn't feel great. And while I'm aware the OG RE4 had a similar system, it was so minute most of the time I didn't notice it.
I agree with this, it basically reinforces bad behavior that in turn the game makes you invincible for. While if you do smart/good things your reward is playing on hard mode. You don't get a mode designed for you, you get forced wins and loses.
My preferred solution is customizable difficulty, this is commonly found on D&D games and more specifically in the Pathfinder games. Aside from the usual Easy, Normal, Hard, and Hardcore, you have tweaks that you can adjust. For example healing while resting, number of enemies, how often enemies use special abilities. It was very easy to find the right fit for me. In other games normal is too hard or hard is too easy.
I have a family member who is disabled and they love Mario Kart, but for a long time they didn’t have any accessibility options, and when MK8 came out they added smart steering and auto acceleration, and even though it’s the bare minimum, it really helped them play and enjoy the game a lot more. Hopefully they add more accessibility options in the future.
That's pretty amazing. I remember playing with the options and wondering who would ever want to drive like that as you completely give up the pursuit of actual mastery in the game since they weren't necessarily labelled as accessibility options iirc, but that makes complete sense, and again it's pretty amazing to hear someone disabled can play the game because of it.
Exact same story here, but this time it's me. I was so happy for auto acceleration, Since MK8DX came out I've played about ~900 hours just because how it's possible to play with only 3 fingers and not much grip. I've put (at the time of writing this) 4,311.2 hours into Geometry Dash for the same reason, specifically because it only requires 1 button to play. Accessebility options in games are a must.
I’m all for accessibility and Microsoft is pushing that hard. Just as long as you have to opt in for the things that increase the accessibility. Luckily that seems to be how it’s done for most games.
@@bharadwajvs7795wait I’m stupid I’m not sure if I get the joke, is it the fact that on hard difficulty the npcs have an easier time killing the player?
I like how kirby epic yarn,pizza tower, and the lego games handled difficulty you're pretty much immortal but you lose currency or points for a rank for getting hit so it's easy to beat it but can be a decent challenge to get a 100% completion rating
i think celeste is a good example of not ruining the very difficult challenge with accessibility options, the accessibility options aren't advertised as difficulty levels, and there's a pop-up for people who don't need the accessibility options telling them that it is not the intended way of playing the game
They did however ruin the achievement experience to many people as did Dead Cells. There is a proper way to ago about accessability options, but I believe while Celeste succeeded in some ways, it failed in others.
@@kukukachuAre you implying that the fact that certain achievements aren't as rare as they would be if they didn't add accessibility options ruins the game for... who, people whose ego relies on having a banner saying they're better than 95% of players? I might be misreading here, but I don't think rewarding skilled players justifies keeping achievements out of reach of most players. If that's how you think, Steam achievements were a mistake.
@@kukukachu I'm not sure how its ruins it given you know you've done it legitimately and that is all that matters. As a person who has done them legitimately I'm going to tell you, stop chasing achievements to look down on others. Chase them to have pride in yourself. Otherwise you don't deserve a single one.
these conversations are always so interesting to me as a disabled gamer who does enjoy challenging games. the community for these kinds of games is really a toss-up between some kind and genuine people or literally the worst ableism i have ever experienced in the gaming community. like, on one hand i'm getting in-depth reccomendations on which overwatch heroes would be the easiest for me, while on the other i'm being told that i don't deserve to play certain games, that i wish i could, but can't due to their lack of accessibility.
On the "you don't get to play the game before you have to pick the difficulty" - The Witcher 2 attempted this with a tutorial level to teach you the combat mechanics which culminated in an endless-waves-of-enemies arena fight. Depending on how well it thought you did, it suggested a difficulty setting for you to start the game with. Downside of that set-up was that the arena environment was kinda intense and I decidedly sucked at it; so when it suggested easy, I thought "but that was tough"; and then didn't bother playing the game for another year or two. Eventually tried the tutorial again, got easy again, then decided to play the actual game anyway. After 5 mins into the first bit of the game, I got suspicious about quite how effortlessly I was dispatching enemies and bumped it up to normal, which then felt right for me. So I feel like either the design of the tutorial arena was off, or the assessment of my skill level was off.
Path of Neo also did the same thing, first level is that lobby scene from the movie and you fight increasingly difficult waves until you have to fight an agent in the end, if you beat him you play on the special difficulty.
I like that Cruelty Squad's dynamic difficulty system is actually diegetic (the protagonist loses his "divine light" which makes him more resiliant, and eventually the resurrection method changes from the protagonist being cloned every time to the him being given an experimental regeneration system that fucks him up so much that he can _eat corpses_ to regain health).
if you die too much in god of war 2005 it asks you if you want to switch to an easier mode, but if you were dying to a platforming section it is pointless.
Dynamic difficulty is powerful but comes with many of it's own problems. 1. What happens when I get stuck at one particular part? With a menu option, I can instantly flick the difficulty down and back up. With dynamic difficulty, after I die enough, I am now playing on easy when I don't want to be. What if I know I want to skip through certain content beforehand? Before I change an option, now I have to sit there purposely dying for 5 minutes or something equally inconvenient. 2. What if I don't want the game to get easier? Am I supposed to just never die? What if I don't want the game to get harder? Do I kill myself every now and then as a chore? 3. Why am I struggling with certain content? If I'm not good at important game mechanics, letting me win anyways can make later sections frustrating and unfun when it's expected that I know what I'm doing. 4. What does the difficulty curve of the game look like? Ideally you want to start easy, and smoothly increase until the end of the game. Dynamic difficulty can cause sharp swings up and down, or ruin the climax of a game section. 5. How do you decide whether the player is playing well or not? An FPS game obviously has great metrics to use. But take an ARPG like Dark Souls for example. What metrics should be used? Getting hit/damage taken? If so, we're suggesting that an archer/sorcerer that stands way back or cheeses every encounter is a "good" player, and someone who goes soul level 1 melee only is "bad". We'd give the "good" player a harder time, and the "bad" player an easier time-but that's the exact opposite of what those two players want. The ranger just wants to win by any means possible, while the meleer wants to challenge themselves. What all this suggests to me is that the real next step is a difficulty "slider", which you can lock in place, or let the system dynamically change.
I feel like Celeste is a great example of perfected difficulty. The accessibility settings do give you a laundry list of options to toggle, but at the same time, it can be toggled mid-game, for absolutely free, which lets any player tweak it as they go to make things more accessible too them, while still retaining the ability to self-impose challenge where the player sees fit. You should definitely check it out, it would've been an amazing inclusion into this video.
I second this! Also, Celeste's accessibility options were pretty much the bomb-proof jacket mentioned in that analogy, but in a positive way. The game encourages you to first try out the intended, pretty hard but fair difficulty. And the first chapter is probably doable for most. But of course the game gets harder, but your skill also gets better. But you are not sure if you will be able to handle the later levels. Which is why it is such a godsend to have those accessibility options. Even when the game gets too hard for you, you have the assurance that you will be able to see the end of the game because those options are there. You don't die by the bomb, you have a failsafe option in emergency. I believe this would have worked for Elden Ring too. No one forces you to use the accessibility options, it's your own choice.
As someone who suffers from photosensitivity, sooo many games either rely on or unnecessarily add flashing lights or flash bangs, making it almost impossible to play horror or FPS games with friends.
I love Frogwater's stuff. Great to see them here. "Hades" is still my favorite game for difficulty options since it lets the player decide their own challenges. Fantastic video!
For me I don't like the idea of dynamic difficulty, especially if the game tells you when the difficulty gets lowered/raised. I couldn't imagine anything more frustrating than fighting a boss, you've made multiple attempts but you feel like you're getting close to defeating it. Then on your last attempt you get super close to beating it and lose. Then before your next attempt where you are almost certain you can beat it the game just makes the game easier and you defeat this boss that was giving you major trouble just a few attempts ago quite easily, not because of your new found skill but because the game thinks you need the help. Despite this though I think dynamic difficulty could work in some cases. Maybe make it optional or don't let the player know the difficulty has changed or even make the changes to the difficulty very slight compared to very major changes.
Totally agree. I think this could be thoughtfully implemented though. Like, you could program the game to actually recognize how well you're doing, not just count the number of successive deaths. It would track how long you lasted, amount of healing used, damage you inflicted, ratio of damage inflicted to damage taken, and *trends* in these parameters over successive attempts. It would be tricky and it would have corner cases for sure, but certainly it could be designed well enough to avoid the egregious situation you outline. It would only lower the difficulty if you are below a certain success threshold for successive attempts, without any improvement trend.
Ah...Oblivion flashbacks. The difficulty that scales precisely to your power level means you'll never face enemies too weak or strong, but as a result every single fight is a slog. So the player is incentivised to not "level up" at all. lol
Agree entirely. I like the no difficulty option at the start of a game but a simple prompt like "Would you like the game to adjust your experience automatically as you play? Y/N" would make me very happy. I hate the feeling like the game had to dumb itself down for me and maybe it didn't even happen. On the opposite side, if i stomp the game and its very easy for me with dynamic difficulty disabled, I don't care and still feel very accomplished.
Control has some granular accessibility sliders that I much appreciated. As someone who’s just bad at games generally I found the normal gameplay to be frustratingly difficult (especially since dying is a significant inconvenience in that game) but I was able to just tweak the sliders until it felt challenging but not to the point of being punishing. It took some fiddling to find that sweet spot but once I did I didn’t feel the need to continue tweaking it.
I was hoping he'd talk about Control as someone who sucks at shooting games. I picked up the game based on the story premise to find out the gameplay relied on shooting, buuuut the assist mode (the name is a sweet gesture) made my gaming experience so much better! That's definitely a system that can be implemented and improved on to give more options!
All of your videos are really well done and thought provoking. Glad I found your channel. I've always loved games and did game QA testing for 10 years. Love hearing your ideas on game design and whatnot.
I loved SOMA's non death mode. Basically the enemies who chase you and kill you are dormant and don't attack. I'm a pussy who never could play scary games and still got scared by SOMA's non death mode. Would love if more horror games had such an option
It all comes down to OPTIONS, just let gamers play however they want. If you want a no death mode you should get and if someone an uber hard mode where NPC's would kill you, t-bag and harass you in DM. They should have the choice also.
@@peachesandcream22 I mean honestly, playing a horror game but asking for the horror to be removed just begs the question why they even wanted to play the horror game to begin with.
So this whole conversation proves people that get aroused by the difficulty design in Wolfstein and miss the point completely. You shouldn't feel the need to attack the person for wanting to experience the story of a game (specially SOMA, which is not an Horror game by usual standards), you should praise the developer who took the time to add that feature so more people could experience the story. But at the same time, if the developer doesn't want to do it, it is also okay because the game difficulty is part of their artistic vision.
I'm not sure how i feel about dynamic difficulty, because it feels like the game is punishing the player for playing well. I enjoy blasting through enemies with one or two hits really efficiently if that comes from a place of skill. if the game notices that skill and goes okay, we'll make it harder so that you can't do that anymore, then this takes away some of what made playing fun for me. Sometimes i just want to feel like a badass.
It also has the issue of "ok, I know 2 shots beat this guy...oh wait, he's still alive. And now I am dead because I relied on game knowledge, which really should be rewarded."
I think the best solution is you have difficulty you can adjust as you play without starting a new game. Games with multiple sliders are amazing! Like you want more enemies but not more difficult to kill enemies, or health cures are less effective but the enemies are easier... or whatever. If you can adjust those as you go, it's the best!
My preferred solution is customizable difficulty, this is commonly found on D&D games and more specifically in the Pathfinder games. Aside from the usual Easy, Normal, Hard, and Hardcore, you have tweaks that you can adjust. For example healing while resting, number of enemies, how often enemies use special abilities. It was very easy to find the right fit for me. In other games normal is too hard or hard is too easy.
I just wanted to make the excuse to talk about Ninja Gaiden Black's difficulty. Not only does it remix some enemy encounters on the harder difficulties, but adds in new enemies and bosses not seen on the lower difficulties as well as switch up when and where you pick up some weapons and items as well as trap chests and reworked prices for the shop. They definitely put in some work.
I got Sekiro as a birthday present. Tried for 25 hours to be able to play it, read guides and watched lets plays but I still could never defeat the very first boss. Unlike some games that might get easier the more times you lose, Sekiro actually punishes you and gets harder. It was extremely demoralizing knowing that the more times I failed, the harder it would be. After many tries I finally uninstalled it because it just didn't *click* for me. Was kind of sad to essentially have to throw away a birthday present like that.
4:43 I actually hate that they added that tagline to later versions of the game. For me, it ended up acting less like a playful challenge and more like it was advertising a toxic mentality to its difficulty. This resulted in me not engaging with the game appropriately. When I got out of the Asylum and found myself at fire link, my natural inclination was to go to the graveyard where I came across the skeletons. Had this been any other game, I might have assumed I was going the wrong way, but given this was "Dark Souls: PREPARE TO DIE, the hardest game ever" I just said "Yup, it's pretty hard. Not my thing." And put it down for years. Had it not been for that marketing and this perception of it being a super hard game, I would have engaged with it much differently initially and wouldn't have missed an experience I ended up really relishing for so many years.
dropping a souls game and coming back to it later is part of the journey. also dark souls 1 has the hardest beginning , undead burg is very beginner unfriendly
I had the same experience the first time around with Dark Souls and I was befuddled at the graveyard until I decided to turn back half an hour later, which was a very important turning point during my playthrough. Then I beat the first "real" boss and I dropped the game, didn't find it as fun as I thought I would. If there's a game that can pull this stunt of advertisting itself as difficult and using it to taunt the players to dare beat it is the new Ghosts n Goblins revival / remake. The game KNOWS why you're buying the game and why you're engaging with it, but unlike Dark Souls, it's pretty linear and doesn't pull punches with sometimes intentionally unfair momentts. The default difficulty is even the highest, has the biggest text, the most exciting description and the best background. Thing is: the game still has lower difficulties to choose from and I didn't feel worse for it when I picked it to play coop with a friend. Yes, the game wants you to pick the hardest difficulty right out of the gate, but the game's fine with you going easier if you want to. The only way you could consider the game as poking fun at you is when it gives you a "lower difficulty and retry" option when you die too many times. The intent is clear: go as hard as you can, because challenge is the main point, but if it's too much, there's no shame in going lower to find the perfect difficulty. You aren't lowering the difficulty, because you suck. You're lowering it, because you want a chance of success, not to make the game a cakewalk. I think communicating designer intent is extremely important here and this is one of the main reasons the internet can make or break a first time playthrough of critically acclaimed games, including Dark Souls, which I assume originally wasn't advertised as a hard game. If game devs can send the message first with the marketing and stuff, I think there's a real chance for the difficulty debate for a specific game to be much easier and shorter with a more obvious answer.
An alternative to dynamic difficulty is "skill-gating". Presenting the player with a challenge they have the option to walk away from (think Margot in elden ring). This allows players to decide that something is too hard for them without compromising the game-world's consistency. Some players will bounce off the challenge to spend longer in easier areas learning the game while others will embrace it and get to move on to more challenging content faster.
I really like the main point in this video, which I think ties in nicely with your other video about wanting shorter games with worse graphics. The amount of thought put into a game’s difficulty system can often determine some of the game’s quality. I wish everyone could have access to and enjoy whatever game they want to play, but I also think in a way video games are similar to movies where a movie or video game isn’t always made for every type of person to enjoy. But movies now often have versions with subtitles or even audio descriptions just so more people can enjoy them, and some games offer that, but I think your point is right, even if a perfect difficulty can’t be made it doesn’t mean a company shouldn’t put in the effort. I know this was a long comment but I just really enjoyed the video. And I gotta say I hope you hit 100k soon, you’re probably my favorite underrated channel right now.
Another awesome video! I totally agree with the take at the end, I think a difficulty level that constantly adjusts is the best perfect solution too this discussion, with adding as many accessibility options as possible.
Difficulty in games is such an interesting concept to contend with, as i know it grows infinitely more difficult considering all perspectives, so I’m happy to see we agree about that. However, I do still have reservations resulting in calling devs lazy for not tuning difficulty well. I can see there being a point made about perceived effort, but I’d wager it was a decision made weighed against other priorities competing for their limited resources often imposed by outside factors (usually execs or stakeholders.
The downside of dynamic difficulty is that it loses the customizability aspect. If you don't like hard games you can't just keep it at a comfortable level, the game will automatically get harder when you do well... And if you want to challenge yourself, you _can't_ make the game harder until it catches up to your level. (and yes... I know you address these things, I make comments in the middle of the video so I don't forget what things I say).
I think one of my favourtie difficulty design in a game is the one from slice and dice. There are curses and blesses and every one of them has a value. The difficulty just give you a number that you have to reach with that value, for example you have to reach "10 curse value", so you choose to give more health to evey monster and a bit of shield. Or you chose to give tiny enemies a big bonus and to have a wolf spawn at every level. That way you can chose your own difficulty
great video chief was gonna try to write something about difficulty and give my thoughts on it, but my ADHD is kicking in, so i can't think nearly half as good right now, and my meds have worn off by now, just know that you've brought a lot of great points up in this video and this will be my go to video when it comes to difficulty discussions
God Hand had a dynamic difficulty that was fun. And it told you what level it was on. 1,2,3 and Die. Higher levels meant harder enemies but also more money for upgrades. If you played on Easy, the difficulty maxed out at 2.
I have a solution, make games extremely easy, and people can create ways to make it more challenging. (No items, hitless, low level, starting weapons, etc.) My philosophy is you can always make a game more difficult, you can't always make it easier. I literally had someone telling me I was playing MMBN legacy collection wrong because I used their OP mode. I've beaten the games like 12 times, but apparently, it's atrocious to make the game easier once or twice.
one thing that pisses me off is when games lock content or 100% completion behind the “super ultra hardcore” difficulty. mostly because (and i mean this with all the anger and salt towards game companies that if sounds like i have) that’s like forcing a 2 year old with a learning disability to complete a college-level exam if they ever have any hopes of doing good in life. difficulty is an accessibility feature that makes people who are slow at learning a games mechanics and those who are fast at it experience the same level of challenge. if you want your game to be hard, then make normal difficulty more difficult, and scale everything else accordingly. do not force me into playing a mode that is too hard for me.
Because I like perceiving games as potencial forms of art, I see the lack of difficulty options as a way of keeping cohesion in the artistic purpose of the game, some games are inherently hard so that their message is transmitted adequately to the player, however, I also believe that it´s important to promote acessability in games, because art should strive to be inclusive. It´s a complex balance to be achieved and i believe this video is a right step in developing the discussion, usually when this topic is approached in social media the discourse revolves around "hard equals bad", when it would be more productive to ask " what is the authorial intent behind this level of difficulty ?"
the approach to do that is let the developer create the game in their vision regardless of its an story focused game, gameplay focused, extremely easy or extremely hard. by doing that there be a game for everyone.
An person's Artistic difficulty can't get the message across though. Everyone is different. To get the message across you objectively need multiple difficulties. That is why multiple difficulties exist, why there is a "True" difficulty that is described as the intended experience. Then why there is a harder one for those who learned it and an easier one for those who find it hard enough the message breaks and falters. If you play on Easy then you understand the message from True understanding how hard it would get and in turn the message.
•For the vast majority of games, including Dark-Souls and any action games, difficulty settings are pretty much mandatory simply because not everyone has the same level of skill and potential, the more difficulty presets you have the better as it reduces the amount of players finding it too easy and too hard. •There should always be an option to customize the difficulty further even if just damage and resistance scaling. •The game should tell you which difficulty is the intended, the base, even for those that seek more or less of a challenge so they know what to stay above/under. •There's nothing inherently wrong with pumping numbers for greater difficulty, it works, it reduces the amount of mistakes you're allowed to make while forcing you to play that well for longer, if the balance breaks because of it it's likely a problem with the design of the game itself that wasn't as obvious the first time, you also don't have to increase both enemy health and damage, shooters often work better by just increasing their damage and reaction speed. •Dynamic difficult is unsatisfying and only really works for horror games, a lighter amd optional implementation could work for strategy and management titles like Enemy Unknown to prevent snowballing.
I like how For Honor does difficulty with its bots. Lvl 1 can’t parry, have limited access to their move set, have cooldowns between combos l, can’t feint and can’t activate revenge. Lvl 2 bots can’t parry or feint either but have better access to their move sets and can activate revenge. Finally, lvl 3 bots can parry and feint, have full access to move sets and can activate revenge. Things like health and damage stay the same but the bot’s skill changes with difficulty.
Right now I’m actually watching my Dad get into Ace Combat 7. I showed him the game a few years ago since he is a huge aviation nerd. However, he has a harder time with controlling the game since not being used to controllers. But I’m seeing him start to pick it up through a few things the game did, and one I noticed I caused on accident. First, the game has easier controls that help stabilize your aircraft, and a super easy mode that is very forgiving, and gives you unlimited missiles to use. The part I didn’t realize would help him would actually be access to all the DLC for the game since I kept up with it. I gave him my old ps4 after upgrading to a ps5, but never deleted my account on it just incase he ever wanted to access my library of games on it, because of this, the dlc is installed and accessible right from the beginning of the game, even on his own account. Most of the DLC gives your planes that might as well be space ships, but do throw in a few more conventional aircraft that aren’t outright broken. (The Top Gun collab DLC helps since of course he loves Top Gun) Being able to have an easy difficulty, and also access many overpowered options from the start actually is keeping him in the game. If he is having a hard time still with controlling his plane? Start over but use a slower plane to get back in the groove of things. Section of a mission still really giving him issues? Time to bust out the super laser jets and live the lower fantasy. I hope he is able to slowly not need these crutches since Ace Combat is a game you play over and over again like DMC, and really feels good to be good at and excel at the higher difficulties and expert controls. But even if not, I’m glad he is able to engage with the game. I haven’t seen him giddy like a child about anything like this in literal decades.
I disagree that using an easier mode means you want less challenge, it's adjusting the challenge to your skill level AND skill ceiling. For someone that is not good at videogames even an easy mode Elden Ring can still be an incredible challenge, and overcoming that challenge after multiple failures still leaves an incredible ecstatic feeling. Because for a player of skill X beating a challenge of skill 3X is much harder, tougher challenge than for a player with skill 2X. I believe that the challenge is a matter of the skill delta, not the absolute required skill of the game. Lowering the skill required for lower skilled players permits them to experience the same challenge. And I don't think that the possibility of beating the game on an easier mode, removes anything to the experience of the players that have higher gaming skills.
You don't need that at all for Elden Ring, by design its different builds accommodate different skill ranges. Play a heavy shield build if a dodge glass canon is too hard, or play a ranged mage if even that is too much. The game mechanics already accommodate people looking for different skill floors or ceilings via its builds. This is a much better implementation than a difficulty option because it prevents players from switching to an easier mode out of frustration by instead giving them tools that can make fights easier if they reconsider their build. Instead of letting the player go down the path of disappointment by an encounter becoming trivial after lowering the difficulty and making it feel unearned (one of the big issues with difficulty choices in games like this). The game provides an opportunity for the players to take initiative and play smart, making the fight easier but making it feel earned as the advantage came from using mechanics to build an advantage.
Awesome video! I've always wanted for my parents to play my favorite games but I knew it would be way to hard for them. Those are actually some good solutions to this
I think a solution to the dilemma at the end would have a developer intended mode amongst everything else. That way people who want to play a game like Dark souls with its intended excruciating difficulty won't feel like they are just choosing the hard mode in a game. And people who want an easier experience or accessibility options usually don't really feel any sort of way about choosing them so they can stay labeled normally
Dark Souls games aren't designed to be exceptionally difficult. They're designed to provide a specific experience, which includes struggle and overcoming obstacles, but that's not the same thing at all. The intended experience cannot exist in the presence of an overt "I win button" kind of toggle. The real solution to the dilemma is to recognize that different games can offer different intended experiences. Sometimes a simple toggle that guarantees that you're going to win is absolutely the right thing to do (e.g. something like Hogwarts Legacy is very well served by a story mode because the core of the experience it's offering is that of inhabiting the kind of story where the audience never really has any concern about whether the 'good guys' are going to win), but there are also other experiences a game can want to offer that aren't served by that feature.
They normally do have an intended mode, it is normal mode. In Halo's case Heroic outside side it was intended, but normal and easy existed for casual and new players while Legendary existed for those who mastered Heroic.
@@Eladelia But the intended experience then is lost if the game is too hard for a person isn't it? Celeste is based on the same struggle of overcoming obstacles but has an option because the game acknowledges not everyone is the same and people still get the message even with this option.
@@Dragoonsoul7878 The intended experience is lost for *everyone* if the difficulty level changes per person. Having it be lost for *everyone* isn't a good thing.
I’m glad you included the accessibility section! I respect the fact that a lot of people want a challenge. But I will never have the reaction time to play something like dark souls and wish I could.
I think this also raises the question of why people go to games in the first place. When you were describing the challenges you could set for yourself in Stardew Valley, it occurred to me that I've never played the game in that way. I'd set minor goals for myself like growing a certain crop or dating a certain person, but I mostly played to role play in the world. I can understand why so many people would download Elden Ring's easy mode, considering it's Fromsoft's first open world game and a lot of people probably wanted to play to explore the world and the lore, even if they weren't interested in the main authorial intent of the game being the challenge of the bosses. As we get more cinematic story-based games, alongside more open world games that encourage exploration and role playing elements, I can see why difficulty and accessibility would become more intertwined. Not only are the systems becoming more complex but the games themselves are complex enough they are offering multiple experiences that attract different players, including ones the devs might not have intended.
This is why it bothers me that most games don't even have difficulty options... And usually when they do, its the simplest things like increased HP, less healing, more hazards etc. but the game itself is only really balanced around _one_ game mode (usually the "normal" difficulty).
Can confirm Gears 1 was a nightmare on Insane difficulty. I’m convinced the final boss is nigh-impossible to defeat in single player, you almost have to face him in co-op to stand a fighting chance. Also RE4, my understanding is Professional difficulty turns off the dynamic difficulty and just sets everything to the highest setting permanently.
As far as I’ve looked into it, Professional locks enemy health and aggression to max level, but it does still seem to automatically balance out some things (health items are confirmed dynamic, ammo/other items seem to change as well)
I like to think of it in terms of other media. For example, what would the "difficulty" and "accessibility" be be when reading a book or watching a movie? Accessibility would mean the ability to read, or to see the details and elements that makes up the filmaking. In this case, difficulty would be the ability to understand the story, or its themes, or anticipating the next events (for crime thrillers for example). Would adjusting the difficulty here mean changing the story or the book's writing itself, to accomodate readers who cannot follow along? This is why i find this entire difficulty topic baffling. I don't barge into a crime thriller fan group and complain about how i cannot figure out whats going on or understand the characters in the story. So why are people barging into a mechanics focused game (which entire gameplay loop revolves around techinical execution and mechanics) and demanding it to be tailored to their tastes? This applies to all games of all stripes. The gaming world is so wide and interesting. You may like certain aspects of a game but not its entire core ethos. Demanding change to elements that's core to a game's identity is like demanding a writer make a book less "difficult", just because ypu like the setting or something like that. My opinion is like your conclusion, make the perfect difficulty for "your" particular vision for a game, what fits it best considering what kind of experience you want to deliver.
Good example how to tackle this problem could be seen in Jonas Tyroller's "Will You Snail?" (precision platformer). The game dynamically changes your difficulty when you're having troubles and the game tells you so (making light hearthed fun out of you in the process). You can go in settings and put the difficulty back up. The game will acknowledge that and you can also turn off the auto-difficulty altogether. The game keeps tracks of a lot of variables so the voice lines you get feel very personalized so it doesn't even feel tedious tinkering with stuff like this over and over.
I used to be in the camp of games having no easy mode if they are designed to be hard, but I think I had a big change of opinion after watching Game Maker’s Toolkit’s video on Assist mode in Celeste. It turns out my problem with having too many difficulty options is that it makes it very unclear what difficulty the game was *intended* for. I really don’t like dying/failing and not knowing if either the game is at the right difficulty and I need to get better or the difficulty is set unreasonably high such that the game is unbalanced for me. This is especially a problem with games with a lot of difficulty sliders for different mechanics of the game. I like to play games at the level the devs designed for personally because I trust the devs to properly balance their game for maximum fun factor in the difficulty the game is designed for. I generally don’t like “designing the game for the devs” with tons of difficulty options and sliders; I trust the devs for the most part on their decisions on how the mechanics work and how difficult the game is. This means I like the massive difficulty of games like Dark Souls and XCOM, while also being able to enjoy the easier experiences of other games designed to be easier. The thing that struck me in the Assist mode video is that you can clearly communicate what the “intended” difficulty is whilst still having accessibility/easy mode options. Essentially, you just literally communicate to the player “Hey, this game was designed for normal/hard mode. But, we understand some may not be able to enjoy the game at our intended difficulty. For those people, please make use of the assist mode options,” before players pick a difficulty/choose to use assist mode. This means that it’s clear to players like me what the “intended” difficulty is without removing options for others. Celeste is the video’s example and its also my favorite example of how to do assist mode right, so check that out if you want an example of what I’m talking about. Basically, more options are great, so long as there’s clear communication as to what the game was balanced around and intended for.
I like your channel very much and i'm glad that not only you have maaaany good well-written well-presented videos, but you also recommend other youtubers. Gaming can be a somewhat hostile and shallow place, but people like you make it not only more approachable but more enjoyable and meaningful. I hate "difficult" games and will give up at any minor inconvenience, I don't even like to go to the mines at Stardew Valley! But let me tell you how PISSED I was at Tomb Raider (the one with the plane) and played a few hours at medium just to prove I could. But never ever did I went further than 20min on Last of Us, the multiple buttons having to be turned and pushed at once is a huuuge barrier, even tho i smashed all the Guitar Heroes I've ever had like it was nothing. Gaming difficulty is really... well, difficult lol
I think this is the best video I’ve seen on this topic. You’re the only person I’ve seen talk about the frustration of games like God of War making the player responsible for balancing the game’s difficulty.
I'm so happy to see someone mention the genius of Hades' God Mode. It's honestly the sole reason I was able to play and, just recently, actually beat the main story, and it's just such a smart system that still really makes you feel like you're playing the game the way it's supposed to be played. It's easily one of my favorite games now and I'm always sad to see it never talked about. I had no idea there was a similar option in Ghost of Tsushima and now I'm actually interested in checking that out!
One thing I think is missing from your bomb diffusing example - I honestly think there is a difference between a "get out of jail free card" ala a bomb proof suit and, for example, adjusting the difficulty of diffusing the bomb itself. One completely sucks the adrenaline out of the experience, fundamentally altering it. The other lets people with less skill have the same intended experience. I think, to your point in the video, a lot of conversation around "easy modes" are conflated with accessibility. Low skill gamers who enjoy a high level of difficulty are basically excluded from many games, or are made to feel like they are unwelcome.
For Dynamic difficulty, it should be something toggleable, before / during the game, this makes it so the people who want a challenge can have it, and allow those who cant deal with that challenge to have an easier and more fun and manageable time. For games like Elden Ring and any other souls-like game, the developers made the game PURPOSELY to make the game difficult, making it more rewarding and better when you finally get past it. Making an easy mode would benefit normal players looking for a casual playthrough without having to spend countless hours on the same boss (losing the rewarding feeling of finally beating that boss), and would help people with disabilities play the game and have more fun. An easy mode would also deter a lot of non-disabled players from playing the game how it was intended to be played (the normal/hard difficulty), as some people just want to beat the game, ignoring the ways it should be played, and what some features were intended for (accessibility settings for example). Anyways, an easy mode for all games would benefit everyone, while also reducing the...rewarding completion of the games for those who could have beaten it on the harder difficulties.
dead cells just stresses me out because I feel like I'm not doing anything worthwhile if I'm not playing the highest boss cells available but at the same time 2BC is just so difficult and I don't feel like I'm actually learning/improving
I would use Witcher 2 as a counterargument. It threw me into some weird tutorial where I barely knew how to move. I ended up dying really fast, and the game just gave me the lowest difficulty (the game judges you how well you do in the tutorial tournament)
Same, CD projekt always makes the prologue and "skill assessment tutorial" significantly harder than the other sections for some reason. So, there you are at level 1 without customized keybinds and having just discovered which button moves forward facing a challenge greater than anything chapter 1 will throw at you.
In hallow knight. There is no difficulty option and there are no levels. Any area you went through when you return to it later, other monsters will be added to it to suit levels according to the number of skills and tools that you collected during your game. Sorry for my bad language.
Rather good video. People shit on easy difficulty and accessibility options from their ivory tower. But in reality video games became mainstream because more people are able to access them. You won't have too many games if no one but your 5 friends is good enough to enjoy them.
I am visually impaired (I can’t play sports in real life or do anything team based without being a burden/disadvantage to me or my team). So I turn to gaming since I can see my screen easier, but it’s not perfect. I’m terrible at FPS, can’t see the mini map in any game especially MOBA, I crash in racing games (except Mario kart 😎). So when games make acceleration features to allow me to experience them I am so happy. For example I beat Celeste, yes I had extra jumps and turned on invincibility while being chased by that hotel guy, but if I didn’t have that option it would have been basically impossible for me. So if YOU want a hard experience good for you, but some people like are literally unable to do it no matter how much we want to. Ultimately there’s a target audience but please keep everyone in mind. I might not beat dark souls, but I beat Zelda BOTW and tears of the kingdom 😄
I used to really enjoy extremely challenging games. I now have a wife, a kid, and other responsibilities. I have an actual life where I legitimately don't see a reason to voluntarily stress and anger myself. Why would I want to make my hobbies miserable?
I really appreciate videos like this. Truth is, I live "gaming" vicariously through gameplays, video essays, and game reviews, simply put, because I don't have the necessary skills to play most games. My reflexes and movements suck because of apraxia, so most games that rely on that turn out too difficult for me. I've found like things like Minecraft (and all its difficulty modes) and Pokémon (basically menu management) are the most accesible to me for this reason. I would love to play more games, and while I understand most games are not made for me, a part of me just wishes they were more accesible. Things like control sensitivity settings are actually very useful when I am able to find them. Idk.
@ExpertContrarian Such a cruel way to respond to someone who's just asking for the ability to be able to experience games like others do. What, are you just ableist or something? What's the point in gatekeeping something that you'd never have to mess with or acknowledge?
@@ahloemeopj9111 Wrong, they’ll never be able to experience it like others. If they are incapable of playing a game then they can just watch someone else play it. If they need to play the game with cheats enabled so badly then they can do it themselves. Go download an aimbot. I don’t complain and cry when I find games or genres that are too hard for me and demand change. They can adapt or they can stay in their lane
@@ExpertContrarian As I said in my comment, I understand most games are designed to have a ceirtain difficulty curve. I do. I enjoy watching people play games I can't. I am simply appreciative that there are people out there who care about accessibility, even if I think that ultimately a lot of games are not, and cannot, by their intended purpose and mechanics, be accessible to me or other people. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I do feel like the way you're expressing your thoughts is rather demeaning.
@@lyxthen you’re speaking out of both sides of your mouth. You’re saying you understand but then you turn around and say that games should be made with you in mind. I’m sure there’s plenty of disabled people that would want to participate in professional sports. Doesn’t mean that sports should be designed with them in mind. I’m sorry that you find reality demeaning. Learn to cope
21:50 I'm sorry but I don't understand how that's possible. I can understand the game having audio cues that help you but how do you know where you are aiming? Does it have some crazy surround sound 3D audio that I'm not aware of?
Some games were too hard for me as a child, but that made it that much more rewarding to complete them years later. I don't like the thought of dynamic difficulty snatching away a worthy challenge in front of my face, but I think it would be the perfect option for people that prefer to play games for the story and as such seek a seamless flow state in gameplay where they never get quite stuck. There's also the possibility of a one-way-dynamic-difficulty where it only rises, but never lowers for games that seek to always challenge the player. Like you concluded at the end, it depends on what kind of experience(s) the game wants to offer. If you really wanted to create a game for ANYONE, then you'd have to be prepared to create a dozen versions of the same game stacked on top of each other in option settings to cater to every crowd imaginable. Accessibility is an entirely different beast and it has to do with technology needing to catch up to where it can bridge any gap disabilities create. Lowering the difficulty of the game is just a temporary bandate solution until technology has caught up. In an ideal world, people with disabilities would be able to experience and overcome even the most difficult games like anyone else.
If you're not having fun with your current static difficulty setting, you can change it. manually. With dynamic difficulty, you may try hard and play exceptionally well for your standard but then your efforts will be rewarded with the game kicking your ass even harder. Meaning, you are constantly oscillating between difficulties that you are or aren't having fun with. But then again, I like to have beat a game on a set, comparable difficulty. Playing on dynamic difficulty settings seems like enabling training wheels.
The intended playstyle should be the lowest difficulty. Accessibility options should be there for people that can't complete it for one reason or another. Harder difficulties should be, very clearly, a thing you go out of the way to add into the intended experience. That way, if you want to suffer, you don't get to complain that the game isn't optimised for your playthrough. Bonus points if the maximum difficulty consists of grafting a bunch of different difficulty modifiers and it's practically or straight up impossible to win with all of them enabled (like Hades). That way, people are forced to compromise and look for a preferred difficulty for their gameplay instead of suffering in the hardest difficulty.
On the topic of difficulty options that split between "too easy" and "too hard," Nier: Automata has the most blatant huge leap I've ever experienced, between Normal and Hard. While a big part of that is definitely the lack of saving/respawning for the entirety of its lengthy opening (even just an immediate respawn at start would be better than being booted to the main menu), I think the thing that bugs me more is tying whether or not you can lock on to the difficulty choice. A big part of why Hard is so rough is needing to manually aim. The stats and AI requires a higher level of precision regardless, but needing to move the camera yourself to actually shoot stuff means that it all but requires you to have two thumbs on your right hand to meet that precision, and engage in simultaneous melee and ranged attacks. Having a "Normal/No Lock" mode would provide a way to get used to the physical demands of Hard mode (and don't tell me I can "just not hit the button," that's not the point). But the game absolutely needs a "Hard/With Lock" option at the very least. Systemically, Hard is what I need and would prefer, but physically my hands just can't hit every button on the controller simultaneously. Even switching to Hard after the opening sequence, while technically playable for me at that point, is just not enjoyable without lock-on.
I think the main issue is the FOMO mentality of everyone wanting to play every popular game. There are plenty kinds of games which can be suitable to varying levels of skill and physical capabilities. But many players just fail to find their suitable match, and waste time and money on something not suitable to them Part of the reason for the problem, is general internet validation But also, a lot of big game companies have a very homogenised catalogue of samey games, which makes it hard for the players (especially casuals, who are by definition less explorative) to learn about the variety that can and does exists in this medium.
I think it's not so much standard FOMO as an actual misguided feeling that you're justified in feeling offended if a game exists that does not attempt to cater to you. They don't want to avoid missing out, they want the things that don't cater to them to be wiped out of existence so that they don't have to live in a world where some things don't cater to them.
For me, personaly, perfect difficulty setting is Factorio/Pathfinder KM/WotR approach. Basically - you could customize nearly everything and if that is not enough you could slam few mods to shift your gaming experience anywhere on spectrum from "brewing coffee with modern coffee machine" to "brew coffee without tools and beans in paleolithic antarctica". Yeah probably devs spend some time to design "default" difficulty mod. But there is kinda big difference between "This is my first game in last 10 years" and "I have 10k hours in that genre" anyway
Re: Elden Ring easy mode. I think an important distinction for people to keep in mind is that 'easy mode will ruin the intended experience for you' is not the same as 'easy mode will ruin the intended experience for _me._ It's totally fine to warn someone (as many people have warned me, a scrub who can't handle hard games) that it will fundamentally change the experience, but whether that is an acceptable sacrifice is ultimately _their_ choice to make. As you said, in many cases playing an altered version of a game is better than not being able to play it at all. What isn't fine, and what I find some more belligerent folks doing, is pushing back against difficulty or accessibility options because they would somehow 'cheapen' things for those who went through that intended experience. That kind of 'my suffering is only meaningful if you suffer too/because I _had_ to' mentality is so hostile and frustrating to encounter, and more people need to call it out when it happens. Be proud of _choosing_ the hard road and overcoming it, not of being forced to. Also wait, DMC5 has an instagib mode!?
Jedi fallen order and survivor have difficulty options that can be changed when not in combat. If I couldn’t beat the final boss of each game on normal after trying for a bit, lowered the difficulty and won the fight. The thing is that I got better at both games overtime through multiple playthroughs of both that now I can beat each boss on Normal. If the option to change the difficulty wasn’t there the first time I would have given up on beating the games but because the option was there I could get through the initial frustration and improved to beat both games on normal
"But whether that is an acceptable sacrifice is ultimately their choice to make" And they can do it through mods because ultimately the developers agree with the sentiment of the player base in regards to not adding these modes.
Options like these in games like dark souls is very cool, considering the different levels of difficulty works for those who may want more of the dark story and when they're ready just change the mode. The only ones who would not like these are those who feel like you didn't earn the accomplishment of beating it. Which is weird..
To put it how another youtuber said it, "I want the option, to not have an option". Literally any difficulty option is going to be some level of compromise. My "perfect" difficulty is hard with zero options at all. No accessibility, no easy/hard, no nothing. So the second you add any option, it's already not perfect for me. Of course, I can live with not perfect (rather I have to) so it's going to come down to how much of a strain the options put on my enjoyment. If I can at least lock myself into the difficulty at the start, that takes off a lot of the continual burden. I don't play games to have my willpower tested by putting an easy way out in reach, even if I never fail that test. I should also mention I am disabled and accessibility options that make the game easier for everyone are so shit IMO. I would rather be stuck with the fact that I can't do it because of my disability than have the game lose what was important about it in the first place. Now neutral accessability options are generally fine, stuff like color blind and closed captioning. Honestly though, you know the most important accessability option for me? Pausing. Nothing has caused me more unpleasant stress in games because of my disability than knowing if I were to put the controller down right now, I'd lose and have to do it all again. It's pretty common that I have an attack during a boss fight or something and games that let me pause are much appreciated. Obviously it's impossible in some games but I just feel like I've never heard that option brought up when IMO it's the most important one that usually costs nothing to add. Finally, this video and many difficulty videos don't really address the "point" of difficulty. I mean, the release of pressure is one thing thats nice but theres a reason getting killed in one hit feels a lot worse than AI changes and why so many very hard modes fail to deliver a "good" challenge. IMO the default application of difficulty is to enforce mastery of the game mechanics whereas most hard modes simplify the game rather than deepen it. Certain tools just become unusable which locks away certain skillsets entirely. For instance I've done many dark souls challenge runs and the main way to make that game hard is to make you die in one hit and have fights take longer. This DOES increase the challenge but not really in an ideal way IMO. The skill of recovering mentally from getting hit is important to dark souls. Vital even. You have to completely change your plan on the fly as fast as possible to compensate for mistiming a dodge or attack. If you die in one hit, that skill is literally deleted from the game but it's a fun skill to get better at it. If you don't design the game to be hard from the beginning, it's almost certainly not going to be very deep when you just tweak numbers to make it hard and that depth of improvement is the main motivator for challenging ourselves in the first place.
@@Dragoonsoul7878 its not. The options will weigh on me. It's still possibly a very good difficulty, but it cannot be perfect for me specifically if there are any options.
@@Dragoonsoul7878 Difficulty options are a temptation, everyone who plays difficult games will get frustrated at times. That's part of the experience towards a great payoff, leaving an easy means of progressing through will lead to times when that frustation builds up too much to avoid (maybe its been a long day and you just wanna finish the fight now). But allowing that option will cause the slow build up to a victory to be lost. Likely making the scenario just feel bad in retrospect.
*The perfect difficulty system IMO:* Lots of difficulty options or if you have a particular "hard" vision in mind, say so publically and in promos, make it clear the game isn't for everyone and just be transparent. After which, the issue becomes one of each player deciding for themselves if they're willing to take the game on its own terms and to "git gud." If the answer is no thats fine, there's lots of others games, not everything is for everyone - we should all play whatever we want and not feel pressured to play something because everyone else is. If the answer is yes and they do "git gud" then great good for them, thats the experience they wanted. Job done. However, and here is the sticking point. If the answer is yes and they can't for whatever reason "git gud" then, that is a moment of personal growth. That is a moment for the player to come to terms with not strictly having made a bad choice, but more for living with it. You've bought a game you can't play/don't like - happens to all of us, maybe introspect as to why? Did you feel socially bullied into doing so? Did you feel extreme FOMO? Accept you wasted some money. Move on, let it go. And avoid people and places that caused you to buy that game since their motives may not be pure. That said, difficulty options in everything would be ideal since if you want a challange, you can have it, if you don't, you don't need to. Everyone is happy - except the "I suffered so you should too" crowd. The issue is when parts of the community get up in people's business to shame or bully or showing-off or be toxic etc. Y'all, gaming is a hobby, its meant for fun, you're not answerable to anyone, play how you want, but at the same time, beating a hard game is not a personality. Can we all please just cool tf down and stop making this whole thing well, a thing. Its really not. Nobody cares. Oh, and something something don't just add health and damage to enemies, to make a gamer 'harder.' Improve the AI, enemy tactics, change the level design or put limits on the player themselves.
If games are art (and they are), mechanics are also a form of art. The most unique one the medium has to offer, in fact. Calling some games just "hard" is a gross oversimplification of how nuanced that art can be. Some games are just BS and bad, specially ones with adjustable difficulties that don't have the mechanical framework to make up for it (CoD, Gears come to mind), but oftentimes it can be crucial to how a game feels. Yes, obviously Dark Souls comes to mind, but Sekiro is a much better example. That game simply demands you obey its rules and learn its "language", otherwise you'll get smacked. It just wouldn't be the same otherwise, and diluting it to make it more "accessible" is an offensive proposition. Like asking Tarantino to tone down the violence... which some do, but in a reasonable world, that would really be down to their preference and understanding that something may not be for everyone. Video games should be for everyone. Everyone should have access to them, and a game to enjoy would preferably exist for every person, regardless of their skill level or other factors that may require accommodation. But it's also fine to just make games for a single type of person.
@@dayaftertomorrow1 also true. People need to understand and accept that every video game is not for everyone. The sooner they learn this, will not only be better for everyone else, but themselves as well
@@dayaftertomorrow1 Yeah, rage games like Getting over it exist for a very specific audience and any means of simplyfing the challenge defeats the point of the game. The game by its nature is designed to not be for everyone by catering to a specific type of experience that is not universally enjoyed.
Not sure about an easy mode watering the experience for everyone. It is basically the same as a game having difficulty levels. Doom having an easy difficulty doesn't diminish finishing the game on the highest difficulty.
For me, Ultrakill has one of the most robust difficulty systems as of now. Standard difficulty is considered hard, however the game itself is changed remarkably little on both lower and higher modes. On lower difficulties it just disables the hard damage mechanic, slows down enemy actions a bit, and boosts your health. Meanwhile the higher difficulties keep everything the same just with slightly improved stats and outright new attacks and forms. To top it all off at any time you can switch the difficulty, however you can only play levels that you have unlocked on that difficulty or lower encouraging you to improve with the mechanics rather than just difficulty skipping a section. Additionally the accessibility options are excellent with aim assist, sound options, colorblindness, etc that can stack with any other difficulty.
@Lextorias I think celeste's accessibility features are great. Especially the one for slowing the game down. I never used any of the accessibility features myself though because I felt like it detracted from the experience of overcoming the game's challenges
We should just accept that not every game is made for every person and it shouldn't be. Just like music, movies or books, the same thing goes for games. People with anxiety issues may be left out of horror movies, does that mean we should make horror movies less scary? That we can't have any really scary horror media anymore? Of course not, there's a million more movies out there for them to enjoy. And therefore this "dilema" as you described it as isn't really one. We just have to accept that not everything is made for everyone. It's really that simple. If you like easy relaxing games, souls games aren't for you. Again, it's really that simple. I don't enjoy narrative heavy walking sims like beyond two souls. They bore me to death. I don't ask for a sadistic mode to be added to them so I can too be part of it. I simply accept that they're not for me. The issue arrises from people who always beat the drum about inclusivity. They have that completely unrealistic ideal of including everyone into everything. And the results are usually that whatever it is they try to make more inclusive, becomes trash or worse, completely unfair like womens sports. There's a saying that goes: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions", and I very much believe this to be true. So while trying to include everyone may sound good on paper, in reality it's not just impossible, but a pipe dream that just ends up ruining things that are good how they are. And all for no reason. Because there is always an alternative game to play, movie or series to watch or book to read, which suits your needs or tastes much better, and it's merely one click away.
12:53 also another thing i saw someone talk about. For god of war there is a part in the game where you are supposed to struggle because immediately after you get a weapon that helps you deal with the enemies you struggled with in the last area and you then learn value of the new weapon. But this can all be bypassed if you lower the difficulty immediately when you start not doing a lot of damage.
I remember that in time splitter 2, there are some bosses you only fight when on hard mode. For example the robot factory. It would normally end after a ultra wave, but when on hard mode it will end with you fighting what I call the Scrambler. Btw there is no checkpoint before him, so if you wanted a shot at that boss, got to get through the ultra wave.
I like difficult games and i don't get any of those feelings you described. I play them because i like understanding mechanics and deep lore but there's no adrenaline or rush for me. And i don't think it waters down my own personal experience to have an easy mode at all.
My take on this: When you start a new game or a new save file you are asked: "What so you want, challenge or chill?". If you choose chill, the game starts at standard difficulty, if you die it will make things easier lowering enemy damage or HP, lowering shop prices or making AI a little more dumb or pay less attention to you, maybe they don't see you that far. If you are playing well and don't die it will level the game up but only up to standard difficulty. If you choose "challenge" when you die difficulty doesn't go down. You also start at standard but if you advance too quicky, die less and receive less damage the enemies have better AI, use secret skills and are stronger, there are less shops or they're more expensive, you find less health items or buffs. Only if you die like 5 times in less than 1 hour you'll get a little of difficulty removed. That should fix dynamic difficulty making sure you're adjusting the game according to what kind of player you have or what mood that player has. You could even be asked the same thing when you load the save game, in case today you prefer some challenge.
quick addition to the part where you talked about dead cells(because I was playing it during the video) the game also unlocks higher difficulties every time that you beat it's final boss these higher difficulties don't just make the enemies harder tough,they also add different enemies,take away your healing oppertunitys,give you stronger weapons and,at the highest difficulty,introduce a completally new gameplay element
Dynamic difficulty absolutely needs to be opt-in. While the intent is good, I find such systems to be patronizing to people like myself. Like, okay, I died once. I don't need the game to change to help me win; I just need more chances.
Dynamic difficulty is also dangerous in that the entire experience begins to feel flat because the game is constantly making sure you are victorious. Let me turn it off. That's all I ask.
always more options 👍
from the other side of things i also agree, because i don't want the game to overtake me in difficulty, and i don't want to have to die on purpose to keep it from getting too hard.
You just like being trapped in rooms with bombs. Nothing wrong with that
Then there's Godhand in which dynamic dificulty can only make it harder, never easier than you selected.
yay i beat this mission on son of sparda and it only took me like 2 hours, lets see that D r-
>enemy handicap
YOU MOTHERFU-
fr tho i struggled with that so much i'd end up restarting missions because i was like "oh i didn't REALLY earn that win"
i love the souls games.
im also disabled with a condition that only gets worse with time.
guess what games i cant play anymore from said disability getting worse?
id gladly mod them so i can enjoy them again. and i know what im sacrificing to do so since i used to play them as intended.
living with a progressive disability that will eventually kill you is far more brutal than anything fromsoft could make.
All the best to you man, long may the sun shine \[T]/
i hope youre able to get the most enjoyment out of life while you can
Sounds like you are speedrunning the effects of getting old
there are people who can beat Mario 64 and dark souls with a dancepad or a drum, so being disabled is not that big of an excuse to not play a game.
Unless you are completely unable to have any way to have input in the game you should be able to play it.
@@LucasCunhaRocha those are considered challenge runs for a reason. they are not a enjoyable way to play a game. there's a reason bad controls are considered bad.
The problem with dynamic difficulty is if you are playing at a good pace, game is gonna make the game more difficult because you are doing well and that can get really hurt the experience. I remember playing RE4 for the second time and wondering why is it getting so difficult.
Yeah, exactly my experience. Didn't feel great. And while I'm aware the OG RE4 had a similar system, it was so minute most of the time I didn't notice it.
I agree with this, it basically reinforces bad behavior that in turn the game makes you invincible for. While if you do smart/good things your reward is playing on hard mode.
You don't get a mode designed for you, you get forced wins and loses.
i was literally gonna comment this, just because i played a little well in certain bits doesnt mean im suddenly good!!!
My preferred solution is customizable difficulty, this is commonly found on D&D games and more specifically in the Pathfinder games. Aside from the usual Easy, Normal, Hard, and Hardcore, you have tweaks that you can adjust. For example healing while resting, number of enemies, how often enemies use special abilities. It was very easy to find the right fit for me. In other games normal is too hard or hard is too easy.
@@One.Zero.One101 I usually set parts I don't like to easy and parts I really like to hard. ;)
I have a family member who is disabled and they love Mario Kart, but for a long time they didn’t have any accessibility options, and when MK8 came out they added smart steering and auto acceleration, and even though it’s the bare minimum, it really helped them play and enjoy the game a lot more. Hopefully they add more accessibility options in the future.
That's pretty amazing. I remember playing with the options and wondering who would ever want to drive like that as you completely give up the pursuit of actual mastery in the game since they weren't necessarily labelled as accessibility options iirc, but that makes complete sense, and again it's pretty amazing to hear someone disabled can play the game because of it.
they chose hard mode for life
Exact same story here, but this time it's me. I was so happy for auto acceleration, Since MK8DX came out I've played about ~900 hours just because how it's possible to play with only 3 fingers and not much grip. I've put (at the time of writing this) 4,311.2 hours into Geometry Dash for the same reason, specifically because it only requires 1 button to play.
Accessebility options in games are a must.
Tard should go hold the door instead of playing games if its to hard for the mong
I’m all for accessibility and Microsoft is pushing that hard. Just as long as you have to opt in for the things that increase the accessibility. Luckily that seems to be how it’s done for most games.
I always choose hard to make it easy for the NPCs😎
carefully, he's a hero
@@bharadwajvs7795wait I’m stupid I’m not sure if I get the joke, is it the fact that on hard difficulty the npcs have an easier time killing the player?
phenomenally based
@@adammasterx5854 yup, that's exactly it, and vice versa on easy cause on Easy it'll be Hard for the NPCs
@@ssjduncan7682 oh ok thanks I was just making sure
I like how kirby epic yarn,pizza tower, and the lego games handled difficulty you're pretty much immortal but you lose currency or points for a rank for getting hit so it's easy to beat it but can be a decent challenge to get a 100% completion rating
i think celeste is a good example of not ruining the very difficult challenge with accessibility options, the accessibility options aren't advertised as difficulty levels, and there's a pop-up for people who don't need the accessibility options telling them that it is not the intended way of playing the game
Solid example, I came here to talk about it!
Which reminds me.... I should probably go back to it and finally fng finish 8B, dammit lol
They did however ruin the achievement experience to many people as did Dead Cells. There is a proper way to ago about accessability options, but I believe while Celeste succeeded in some ways, it failed in others.
@@kukukachuAre you implying that the fact that certain achievements aren't as rare as they would be if they didn't add accessibility options ruins the game for... who, people whose ego relies on having a banner saying they're better than 95% of players? I might be misreading here, but I don't think rewarding skilled players justifies keeping achievements out of reach of most players. If that's how you think, Steam achievements were a mistake.
@@kukukachu I'm not sure how its ruins it given you know you've done it legitimately and that is all that matters.
As a person who has done them legitimately I'm going to tell you, stop chasing achievements to look down on others. Chase them to have pride in yourself. Otherwise you don't deserve a single one.
with that end response you don't deserve any other response other than, good day. @@Dragoonsoul7878
these conversations are always so interesting to me as a disabled gamer who does enjoy challenging games. the community for these kinds of games is really a toss-up between some kind and genuine people or literally the worst ableism i have ever experienced in the gaming community. like, on one hand i'm getting in-depth reccomendations on which overwatch heroes would be the easiest for me, while on the other i'm being told that i don't deserve to play certain games, that i wish i could, but can't due to their lack of accessibility.
On the "you don't get to play the game before you have to pick the difficulty" - The Witcher 2 attempted this with a tutorial level to teach you the combat mechanics which culminated in an endless-waves-of-enemies arena fight. Depending on how well it thought you did, it suggested a difficulty setting for you to start the game with. Downside of that set-up was that the arena environment was kinda intense and I decidedly sucked at it; so when it suggested easy, I thought "but that was tough"; and then didn't bother playing the game for another year or two.
Eventually tried the tutorial again, got easy again, then decided to play the actual game anyway. After 5 mins into the first bit of the game, I got suspicious about quite how effortlessly I was dispatching enemies and bumped it up to normal, which then felt right for me. So I feel like either the design of the tutorial arena was off, or the assessment of my skill level was off.
Second option: most games that have that system don't take into account that you can learn and get better.
Path of Neo also did the same thing, first level is that lobby scene from the movie and you fight increasingly difficult waves until you have to fight an agent in the end, if you beat him you play on the special difficulty.
Its a good day when lextorias uploads
Exactly my thoughts! Keep up the good work!
I like that Cruelty Squad's dynamic difficulty system is actually diegetic (the protagonist loses his "divine light" which makes him more resiliant, and eventually the resurrection method changes from the protagonist being cloned every time to the him being given an experimental regeneration system that fucks him up so much that he can _eat corpses_ to regain health).
Eat the rich? Fuck the police? Nah, we eat the police
-A sentient editing software
@@SCP_Void_7274 Eat the police, fuck the rich. That's the quintillionaire mindset.
if you die too much in god of war 2005 it asks you if you want to switch to an easier mode, but if you were dying to a platforming section it is pointless.
Dynamic difficulty is powerful but comes with many of it's own problems.
1. What happens when I get stuck at one particular part? With a menu option, I can instantly flick the difficulty down and back up. With dynamic difficulty, after I die enough, I am now playing on easy when I don't want to be. What if I know I want to skip through certain content beforehand? Before I change an option, now I have to sit there purposely dying for 5 minutes or something equally inconvenient.
2. What if I don't want the game to get easier? Am I supposed to just never die? What if I don't want the game to get harder? Do I kill myself every now and then as a chore?
3. Why am I struggling with certain content? If I'm not good at important game mechanics, letting me win anyways can make later sections frustrating and unfun when it's expected that I know what I'm doing.
4. What does the difficulty curve of the game look like? Ideally you want to start easy, and smoothly increase until the end of the game. Dynamic difficulty can cause sharp swings up and down, or ruin the climax of a game section.
5. How do you decide whether the player is playing well or not? An FPS game obviously has great metrics to use. But take an ARPG like Dark Souls for example. What metrics should be used? Getting hit/damage taken? If so, we're suggesting that an archer/sorcerer that stands way back or cheeses every encounter is a "good" player, and someone who goes soul level 1 melee only is "bad". We'd give the "good" player a harder time, and the "bad" player an easier time-but that's the exact opposite of what those two players want. The ranger just wants to win by any means possible, while the meleer wants to challenge themselves.
What all this suggests to me is that the real next step is a difficulty "slider", which you can lock in place, or let the system dynamically change.
Oblivion did a slider thing back in 2000s... It was horrible
An old game DODONPACHI DAIFUKKATSU approaches all of these problems with elegance, Also why it's considered one of da best shmups
I feel like Celeste is a great example of perfected difficulty. The accessibility settings do give you a laundry list of options to toggle, but at the same time, it can be toggled mid-game, for absolutely free, which lets any player tweak it as they go to make things more accessible too them, while still retaining the ability to self-impose challenge where the player sees fit. You should definitely check it out, it would've been an amazing inclusion into this video.
I second this!
Also, Celeste's accessibility options were pretty much the bomb-proof jacket mentioned in that analogy, but in a positive way. The game encourages you to first try out the intended, pretty hard but fair difficulty. And the first chapter is probably doable for most. But of course the game gets harder, but your skill also gets better. But you are not sure if you will be able to handle the later levels. Which is why it is such a godsend to have those accessibility options. Even when the game gets too hard for you, you have the assurance that you will be able to see the end of the game because those options are there. You don't die by the bomb, you have a failsafe option in emergency. I believe this would have worked for Elden Ring too. No one forces you to use the accessibility options, it's your own choice.
@@yoshikamiyafujidesu
Keep that shit away from Elden Ring
As someone who suffers from photosensitivity, sooo many games either rely on or unnecessarily add flashing lights or flash bangs, making it almost impossible to play horror or FPS games with friends.
I love Frogwater's stuff. Great to see them here. "Hades" is still my favorite game for difficulty options since it lets the player decide their own challenges. Fantastic video!
This guys channel grew a lot since I saw his stealth games video a while back. Good job
the atari joke is so funny since they are re-relesing the console
What incredible timing
For me I don't like the idea of dynamic difficulty, especially if the game tells you when the difficulty gets lowered/raised. I couldn't imagine anything more frustrating than fighting a boss, you've made multiple attempts but you feel like you're getting close to defeating it. Then on your last attempt you get super close to beating it and lose. Then before your next attempt where you are almost certain you can beat it the game just makes the game easier and you defeat this boss that was giving you major trouble just a few attempts ago quite easily, not because of your new found skill but because the game thinks you need the help. Despite this though I think dynamic difficulty could work in some cases. Maybe make it optional or don't let the player know the difficulty has changed or even make the changes to the difficulty very slight compared to very major changes.
Totally agree. I think this could be thoughtfully implemented though. Like, you could program the game to actually recognize how well you're doing, not just count the number of successive deaths. It would track how long you lasted, amount of healing used, damage you inflicted, ratio of damage inflicted to damage taken, and *trends* in these parameters over successive attempts. It would be tricky and it would have corner cases for sure, but certainly it could be designed well enough to avoid the egregious situation you outline. It would only lower the difficulty if you are below a certain success threshold for successive attempts, without any improvement trend.
I think you just like being trapped in rooms with bombs
Ah...Oblivion flashbacks. The difficulty that scales precisely to your power level means you'll never face enemies too weak or strong, but as a result every single fight is a slog. So the player is incentivised to not "level up" at all. lol
Agree entirely. I like the no difficulty option at the start of a game but a simple prompt like "Would you like the game to adjust your experience automatically as you play? Y/N" would make me very happy. I hate the feeling like the game had to dumb itself down for me and maybe it didn't even happen. On the opposite side, if i stomp the game and its very easy for me with dynamic difficulty disabled, I don't care and still feel very accomplished.
In the Ninja Gaiden game I think I remember if you died enough times in an area, Akane would give you an item you can equip to make the game easier.
Control has some granular accessibility sliders that I much appreciated. As someone who’s just bad at games generally I found the normal gameplay to be frustratingly difficult (especially since dying is a significant inconvenience in that game) but I was able to just tweak the sliders until it felt challenging but not to the point of being punishing. It took some fiddling to find that sweet spot but once I did I didn’t feel the need to continue tweaking it.
I was hoping he'd talk about Control as someone who sucks at shooting games. I picked up the game based on the story premise to find out the gameplay relied on shooting, buuuut the assist mode (the name is a sweet gesture) made my gaming experience so much better! That's definitely a system that can be implemented and improved on to give more options!
All of your videos are really well done and thought provoking. Glad I found your channel. I've always loved games and did game QA testing for 10 years. Love hearing your ideas on game design and whatnot.
top tier content
all your videos are well made, interesting, and easy to watch
keep it up
I loved SOMA's non death mode. Basically the enemies who chase you and kill you are dormant and don't attack. I'm a pussy who never could play scary games and still got scared by SOMA's non death mode.
Would love if more horror games had such an option
It all comes down to OPTIONS, just let gamers play however they want. If you want a no death mode you should get and if someone an uber hard mode where NPC's would kill you, t-bag and harass you in DM. They should have the choice also.
@@ExpertContrarian Wow, very insulting thing to say, just because someone doesn't have same preferences as you.
@@peachesandcream22 I mean honestly, playing a horror game but asking for the horror to be removed just begs the question why they even wanted to play the horror game to begin with.
Or maybe just dont play the game? Why do games have to cater to every single person?@@peachesandcream22
So this whole conversation proves people that get aroused by the difficulty design in Wolfstein and miss the point completely.
You shouldn't feel the need to attack the person for wanting to experience the story of a game (specially SOMA, which is not an Horror game by usual standards), you should praise the developer who took the time to add that feature so more people could experience the story.
But at the same time, if the developer doesn't want to do it, it is also okay because the game difficulty is part of their artistic vision.
13:00 the Skyrim gear shoft analogy was insanely accurate and funny
I'm not sure how i feel about dynamic difficulty, because it feels like the game is punishing the player for playing well. I enjoy blasting through enemies with one or two hits really efficiently if that comes from a place of skill. if the game notices that skill and goes okay, we'll make it harder so that you can't do that anymore, then this takes away some of what made playing fun for me. Sometimes i just want to feel like a badass.
It also has the issue of "ok, I know 2 shots beat this guy...oh wait, he's still alive. And now I am dead because I relied on game knowledge, which really should be rewarded."
I think the best solution is you have difficulty you can adjust as you play without starting a new game. Games with multiple sliders are amazing! Like you want more enemies but not more difficult to kill enemies, or health cures are less effective but the enemies are easier... or whatever.
If you can adjust those as you go, it's the best!
My preferred solution is customizable difficulty, this is commonly found on D&D games and more specifically in the Pathfinder games. Aside from the usual Easy, Normal, Hard, and Hardcore, you have tweaks that you can adjust. For example healing while resting, number of enemies, how often enemies use special abilities. It was very easy to find the right fit for me. In other games normal is too hard or hard is too easy.
I just wanted to make the excuse to talk about Ninja Gaiden Black's difficulty. Not only does it remix some enemy encounters on the harder difficulties, but adds in new enemies and bosses not seen on the lower difficulties as well as switch up when and where you pick up some weapons and items as well as trap chests and reworked prices for the shop. They definitely put in some work.
I got Sekiro as a birthday present. Tried for 25 hours to be able to play it, read guides and watched lets plays but I still could never defeat the very first boss. Unlike some games that might get easier the more times you lose, Sekiro actually punishes you and gets harder. It was extremely demoralizing knowing that the more times I failed, the harder it would be. After many tries I finally uninstalled it because it just didn't *click* for me. Was kind of sad to essentially have to throw away a birthday present like that.
4:43 I actually hate that they added that tagline to later versions of the game. For me, it ended up acting less like a playful challenge and more like it was advertising a toxic mentality to its difficulty. This resulted in me not engaging with the game appropriately.
When I got out of the Asylum and found myself at fire link, my natural inclination was to go to the graveyard where I came across the skeletons. Had this been any other game, I might have assumed I was going the wrong way, but given this was "Dark Souls: PREPARE TO DIE, the hardest game ever" I just said "Yup, it's pretty hard. Not my thing." And put it down for years.
Had it not been for that marketing and this perception of it being a super hard game, I would have engaged with it much differently initially and wouldn't have missed an experience I ended up really relishing for so many years.
Getting dunked on by the graveyard skeletons and dropping the game is a core part of the Dark Souls experience
Thanks Bandai Namco 😢
dropping a souls game and coming back to it later is part of the journey. also dark souls 1 has the hardest beginning , undead burg is very beginner unfriendly
I had the same experience the first time around with Dark Souls and I was befuddled at the graveyard until I decided to turn back half an hour later, which was a very important turning point during my playthrough. Then I beat the first "real" boss and I dropped the game, didn't find it as fun as I thought I would.
If there's a game that can pull this stunt of advertisting itself as difficult and using it to taunt the players to dare beat it is the new Ghosts n Goblins revival / remake. The game KNOWS why you're buying the game and why you're engaging with it, but unlike Dark Souls, it's pretty linear and doesn't pull punches with sometimes intentionally unfair momentts. The default difficulty is even the highest, has the biggest text, the most exciting description and the best background. Thing is: the game still has lower difficulties to choose from and I didn't feel worse for it when I picked it to play coop with a friend.
Yes, the game wants you to pick the hardest difficulty right out of the gate, but the game's fine with you going easier if you want to. The only way you could consider the game as poking fun at you is when it gives you a "lower difficulty and retry" option when you die too many times. The intent is clear: go as hard as you can, because challenge is the main point, but if it's too much, there's no shame in going lower to find the perfect difficulty. You aren't lowering the difficulty, because you suck. You're lowering it, because you want a chance of success, not to make the game a cakewalk.
I think communicating designer intent is extremely important here and this is one of the main reasons the internet can make or break a first time playthrough of critically acclaimed games, including Dark Souls, which I assume originally wasn't advertised as a hard game. If game devs can send the message first with the marketing and stuff, I think there's a real chance for the difficulty debate for a specific game to be much easier and shorter with a more obvious answer.
@@TheMikirog i freakin hate the *do you want to lower the difficulty?* on game over screens. `No i dont wanna lower the difficulty! Put me back in!`
An alternative to dynamic difficulty is "skill-gating". Presenting the player with a challenge they have the option to walk away from (think Margot in elden ring).
This allows players to decide that something is too hard for them without compromising the game-world's consistency. Some players will bounce off the challenge to spend longer in easier areas learning the game while others will embrace it and get to move on to more challenging content faster.
I really like the main point in this video, which I think ties in nicely with your other video about wanting shorter games with worse graphics. The amount of thought put into a game’s difficulty system can often determine some of the game’s quality. I wish everyone could have access to and enjoy whatever game they want to play, but I also think in a way video games are similar to movies where a movie or video game isn’t always made for every type of person to enjoy. But movies now often have versions with subtitles or even audio descriptions just so more people can enjoy them, and some games offer that, but I think your point is right, even if a perfect difficulty can’t be made it doesn’t mean a company shouldn’t put in the effort.
I know this was a long comment but I just really enjoyed the video. And I gotta say I hope you hit 100k soon, you’re probably my favorite underrated channel right now.
Subtitles are completely different. That’s a terrible comparison.
Another awesome video! I totally agree with the take at the end, I think a difficulty level that constantly adjusts is the best perfect solution too this discussion, with adding as many accessibility options as possible.
Difficulty in games is such an interesting concept to contend with, as i know it grows infinitely more difficult considering all perspectives, so I’m happy to see we agree about that.
However, I do still have reservations resulting in calling devs lazy for not tuning difficulty well.
I can see there being a point made about perceived effort, but I’d wager it was a decision made weighed against other priorities competing for their limited resources often imposed by outside factors (usually execs or stakeholders.
The downside of dynamic difficulty is that it loses the customizability aspect. If you don't like hard games you can't just keep it at a comfortable level, the game will automatically get harder when you do well... And if you want to challenge yourself, you _can't_ make the game harder until it catches up to your level.
(and yes... I know you address these things, I make comments in the middle of the video so I don't forget what things I say).
I think one of my favourtie difficulty design in a game is the one from slice and dice.
There are curses and blesses and every one of them has a value.
The difficulty just give you a number that you have to reach with that value,
for example you have to reach "10 curse value", so you choose to give more health to evey monster and a bit of shield.
Or you chose to give tiny enemies a big bonus and to have a wolf spawn at every level.
That way you can chose your own difficulty
great video chief
was gonna try to write something about difficulty and give my thoughts on it, but my ADHD is kicking in, so i can't think nearly half as good right now, and my meds have worn off by now, just know that you've brought a lot of great points up in this video and this will be my go to video when it comes to difficulty discussions
God Hand had a dynamic difficulty that was fun. And it told you what level it was on. 1,2,3 and Die. Higher levels meant harder enemies but also more money for upgrades. If you played on Easy, the difficulty maxed out at 2.
Its a rare gem lost in the history of gaming that needs to make a comback
I have a solution, make games extremely easy, and people can create ways to make it more challenging. (No items, hitless, low level, starting weapons, etc.) My philosophy is you can always make a game more difficult, you can't always make it easier. I literally had someone telling me I was playing MMBN legacy collection wrong because I used their OP mode. I've beaten the games like 12 times, but apparently, it's atrocious to make the game easier once or twice.
Dynamic systems suck, what if I never want to die, ever? Or what if I want to repeat it until I beat it on max?
one thing that pisses me off is when games lock content or 100% completion behind the “super ultra hardcore” difficulty. mostly because (and i mean this with all the anger and salt towards game companies that if sounds like i have) that’s like forcing a 2 year old with a learning disability to complete a college-level exam if they ever have any hopes of doing good in life.
difficulty is an accessibility feature that makes people who are slow at learning a games mechanics and those who are fast at it experience the same level of challenge.
if you want your game to be hard, then make normal difficulty more difficult, and scale everything else accordingly.
do not force me into playing a mode that is too hard for me.
Because I like perceiving games as potencial forms of art, I see the lack of difficulty options as a way of keeping cohesion in the artistic purpose of the game, some games are inherently hard so that their message is transmitted adequately to the player, however, I also believe that it´s important to promote acessability in games, because art should strive to be inclusive.
It´s a complex balance to be achieved and i believe this video is a right step in developing the discussion, usually when this topic is approached in social media the discourse revolves around "hard equals bad", when it would be more productive to ask " what is the authorial intent behind this level of difficulty ?"
edit: i made a typo
the approach to do that is let the developer create the game in their vision regardless of its an story focused game, gameplay focused, extremely easy or extremely hard. by doing that there be a game for everyone.
An person's Artistic difficulty can't get the message across though. Everyone is different.
To get the message across you objectively need multiple difficulties.
That is why multiple difficulties exist, why there is a "True" difficulty that is described as the intended experience. Then why there is a harder one for those who learned it and an easier one for those who find it hard enough the message breaks and falters.
If you play on Easy then you understand the message from True understanding how hard it would get and in turn the message.
@@Dragoonsoul7878so when you watch a movie do you want the writer/director sitting next to you explaining everything?
@@Dragoonsoul7878 are you slow? Difficulty options literally defeat the point how do you not get this?
•For the vast majority of games, including Dark-Souls and any action games, difficulty settings are pretty much mandatory simply because not everyone has the same level of skill and potential, the more difficulty presets you have the better as it reduces the amount of players finding it too easy and too hard.
•There should always be an option to customize the difficulty further even if just damage and resistance scaling.
•The game should tell you which difficulty is the intended, the base, even for those that seek more or less of a challenge so they know what to stay above/under.
•There's nothing inherently wrong with pumping numbers for greater difficulty, it works, it reduces the amount of mistakes you're allowed to make while forcing you to play that well for longer, if the balance breaks because of it it's likely a problem with the design of the game itself that wasn't as obvious the first time, you also don't have to increase both enemy health and damage, shooters often work better by just increasing their damage and reaction speed.
•Dynamic difficult is unsatisfying and only really works for horror games, a lighter amd optional implementation could work for strategy and management titles like Enemy Unknown to prevent snowballing.
Amazing video as always Lex! :)
I like how For Honor does difficulty with its bots. Lvl 1 can’t parry, have limited access to their move set, have cooldowns between combos l, can’t feint and can’t activate revenge. Lvl 2 bots can’t parry or feint either but have better access to their move sets and can activate revenge. Finally, lvl 3 bots can parry and feint, have full access to move sets and can activate revenge. Things like health and damage stay the same but the bot’s skill changes with difficulty.
Right now I’m actually watching my Dad get into Ace Combat 7. I showed him the game a few years ago since he is a huge aviation nerd. However, he has a harder time with controlling the game since not being used to controllers. But I’m seeing him start to pick it up through a few things the game did, and one I noticed I caused on accident.
First, the game has easier controls that help stabilize your aircraft, and a super easy mode that is very forgiving, and gives you unlimited missiles to use.
The part I didn’t realize would help him would actually be access to all the DLC for the game since I kept up with it. I gave him my old ps4 after upgrading to a ps5, but never deleted my account on it just incase he ever wanted to access my library of games on it, because of this, the dlc is installed and accessible right from the beginning of the game, even on his own account.
Most of the DLC gives your planes that might as well be space ships, but do throw in a few more conventional aircraft that aren’t outright broken. (The Top Gun collab DLC helps since of course he loves Top Gun)
Being able to have an easy difficulty, and also access many overpowered options from the start actually is keeping him in the game. If he is having a hard time still with controlling his plane? Start over but use a slower plane to get back in the groove of things. Section of a mission still really giving him issues? Time to bust out the super laser jets and live the lower fantasy.
I hope he is able to slowly not need these crutches since Ace Combat is a game you play over and over again like DMC, and really feels good to be good at and excel at the higher difficulties and expert controls. But even if not, I’m glad he is able to engage with the game. I haven’t seen him giddy like a child about anything like this in literal decades.
i swear youre one of the most underrated content creators right now. Love you work!
I disagree that using an easier mode means you want less challenge, it's adjusting the challenge to your skill level AND skill ceiling. For someone that is not good at videogames even an easy mode Elden Ring can still be an incredible challenge, and overcoming that challenge after multiple failures still leaves an incredible ecstatic feeling. Because for a player of skill X beating a challenge of skill 3X is much harder, tougher challenge than for a player with skill 2X.
I believe that the challenge is a matter of the skill delta, not the absolute required skill of the game. Lowering the skill required for lower skilled players permits them to experience the same challenge.
And I don't think that the possibility of beating the game on an easier mode, removes anything to the experience of the players that have higher gaming skills.
You don't need that at all for Elden Ring, by design its different builds accommodate different skill ranges.
Play a heavy shield build if a dodge glass canon is too hard, or play a ranged mage if even that is too much.
The game mechanics already accommodate people looking for different skill floors or ceilings via its builds.
This is a much better implementation than a difficulty option because it prevents players from switching to an easier mode out of frustration by instead giving them tools that can make fights easier if they reconsider their build.
Instead of letting the player go down the path of disappointment by an encounter becoming trivial after lowering the difficulty and making it feel unearned (one of the big issues with difficulty choices in games like this).
The game provides an opportunity for the players to take initiative and play smart, making the fight easier but making it feel earned as the advantage came from using mechanics to build an advantage.
Awesome video! I've always wanted for my parents to play my favorite games but I knew it would be way to hard for them. Those are actually some good solutions to this
I think a solution to the dilemma at the end would have a developer intended mode amongst everything else. That way people who want to play a game like Dark souls with its intended excruciating difficulty won't feel like they are just choosing the hard mode in a game. And people who want an easier experience or accessibility options usually don't really feel any sort of way about choosing them so they can stay labeled normally
Dark Souls games aren't designed to be exceptionally difficult. They're designed to provide a specific experience, which includes struggle and overcoming obstacles, but that's not the same thing at all. The intended experience cannot exist in the presence of an overt "I win button" kind of toggle. The real solution to the dilemma is to recognize that different games can offer different intended experiences. Sometimes a simple toggle that guarantees that you're going to win is absolutely the right thing to do (e.g. something like Hogwarts Legacy is very well served by a story mode because the core of the experience it's offering is that of inhabiting the kind of story where the audience never really has any concern about whether the 'good guys' are going to win), but there are also other experiences a game can want to offer that aren't served by that feature.
They normally do have an intended mode, it is normal mode.
In Halo's case Heroic outside side it was intended, but normal and easy existed for casual and new players while Legendary existed for those who mastered Heroic.
@@Eladelia But the intended experience then is lost if the game is too hard for a person isn't it?
Celeste is based on the same struggle of overcoming obstacles but has an option because the game acknowledges not everyone is the same and people still get the message even with this option.
@@Dragoonsoul7878 The intended experience is lost for *everyone* if the difficulty level changes per person. Having it be lost for *everyone* isn't a good thing.
Nope, dark souls games do not need easy modes to cater to noobs
I’m glad you included the accessibility section! I respect the fact that a lot of people want a challenge. But I will never have the reaction time to play something like dark souls and wish I could.
I think this also raises the question of why people go to games in the first place. When you were describing the challenges you could set for yourself in Stardew Valley, it occurred to me that I've never played the game in that way. I'd set minor goals for myself like growing a certain crop or dating a certain person, but I mostly played to role play in the world. I can understand why so many people would download Elden Ring's easy mode, considering it's Fromsoft's first open world game and a lot of people probably wanted to play to explore the world and the lore, even if they weren't interested in the main authorial intent of the game being the challenge of the bosses. As we get more cinematic story-based games, alongside more open world games that encourage exploration and role playing elements, I can see why difficulty and accessibility would become more intertwined. Not only are the systems becoming more complex but the games themselves are complex enough they are offering multiple experiences that attract different players, including ones the devs might not have intended.
Elden Ring already has an invisible difficulty slider: spirits and summons
This is why it bothers me that most games don't even have difficulty options... And usually when they do, its the simplest things like increased HP, less healing, more hazards etc. but the game itself is only really balanced around _one_ game mode (usually the "normal" difficulty).
Loved the defusing a bomb analogy for difficult games! Great video
Making a game to appeal most to it's intended audience is a very good starting point. I'd like to see more videos analyzing games.
On the subject of accessibility I wish that there was more options for left-handed players especially when it comes to consoles like the DS or Wii
Can confirm Gears 1 was a nightmare on Insane difficulty. I’m convinced the final boss is nigh-impossible to defeat in single player, you almost have to face him in co-op to stand a fighting chance. Also RE4, my understanding is Professional difficulty turns off the dynamic difficulty and just sets everything to the highest setting permanently.
As far as I’ve looked into it, Professional locks enemy health and aggression to max level, but it does still seem to automatically balance out some things (health items are confirmed dynamic, ammo/other items seem to change as well)
I like to think of it in terms of other media. For example, what would the "difficulty" and "accessibility" be be when reading a book or watching a movie? Accessibility would mean the ability to read, or to see the details and elements that makes up the filmaking.
In this case, difficulty would be the ability to understand the story, or its themes, or anticipating the next events (for crime thrillers for example). Would adjusting the difficulty here mean changing the story or the book's writing itself, to accomodate readers who cannot follow along?
This is why i find this entire difficulty topic baffling. I don't barge into a crime thriller fan group and complain about how i cannot figure out whats going on or understand the characters in the story. So why are people barging into a mechanics focused game (which entire gameplay loop revolves around techinical execution and mechanics) and demanding it to be tailored to their tastes? This applies to all games of all stripes. The gaming world is so wide and interesting. You may like certain aspects of a game but not its entire core ethos. Demanding change to elements that's core to a game's identity is like demanding a writer make a book less "difficult", just because ypu like the setting or something like that.
My opinion is like your conclusion, make the perfect difficulty for "your" particular vision for a game, what fits it best considering what kind of experience you want to deliver.
Good example how to tackle this problem could be seen in Jonas Tyroller's "Will You Snail?" (precision platformer).
The game dynamically changes your difficulty when you're having troubles and the game tells you so (making light hearthed fun out of you in the process). You can go in settings and put the difficulty back up. The game will acknowledge that and you can also turn off the auto-difficulty altogether. The game keeps tracks of a lot of variables so the voice lines you get feel very personalized so it doesn't even feel tedious tinkering with stuff like this over and over.
I used to be in the camp of games having no easy mode if they are designed to be hard, but I think I had a big change of opinion after watching Game Maker’s Toolkit’s video on Assist mode in Celeste. It turns out my problem with having too many difficulty options is that it makes it very unclear what difficulty the game was *intended* for. I really don’t like dying/failing and not knowing if either the game is at the right difficulty and I need to get better or the difficulty is set unreasonably high such that the game is unbalanced for me. This is especially a problem with games with a lot of difficulty sliders for different mechanics of the game. I like to play games at the level the devs designed for personally because I trust the devs to properly balance their game for maximum fun factor in the difficulty the game is designed for. I generally don’t like “designing the game for the devs” with tons of difficulty options and sliders; I trust the devs for the most part on their decisions on how the mechanics work and how difficult the game is. This means I like the massive difficulty of games like Dark Souls and XCOM, while also being able to enjoy the easier experiences of other games designed to be easier. The thing that struck me in the Assist mode video is that you can clearly communicate what the “intended” difficulty is whilst still having accessibility/easy mode options. Essentially, you just literally communicate to the player “Hey, this game was designed for normal/hard mode. But, we understand some may not be able to enjoy the game at our intended difficulty. For those people, please make use of the assist mode options,” before players pick a difficulty/choose to use assist mode. This means that it’s clear to players like me what the “intended” difficulty is without removing options for others. Celeste is the video’s example and its also my favorite example of how to do assist mode right, so check that out if you want an example of what I’m talking about. Basically, more options are great, so long as there’s clear communication as to what the game was balanced around and intended for.
I like your channel very much and i'm glad that not only you have maaaany good well-written well-presented videos, but you also recommend other youtubers. Gaming can be a somewhat hostile and shallow place, but people like you make it not only more approachable but more enjoyable and meaningful.
I hate "difficult" games and will give up at any minor inconvenience, I don't even like to go to the mines at Stardew Valley! But let me tell you how PISSED I was at Tomb Raider (the one with the plane) and played a few hours at medium just to prove I could. But never ever did I went further than 20min on Last of Us, the multiple buttons having to be turned and pushed at once is a huuuge barrier, even tho i smashed all the Guitar Heroes I've ever had like it was nothing. Gaming difficulty is really... well, difficult lol
As long as you like playing the game you're good.
I think this is the best video I’ve seen on this topic. You’re the only person I’ve seen talk about the frustration of games like God of War making the player responsible for balancing the game’s difficulty.
I'm so happy to see someone mention the genius of Hades' God Mode. It's honestly the sole reason I was able to play and, just recently, actually beat the main story, and it's just such a smart system that still really makes you feel like you're playing the game the way it's supposed to be played. It's easily one of my favorite games now and I'm always sad to see it never talked about. I had no idea there was a similar option in Ghost of Tsushima and now I'm actually interested in checking that out!
One thing I think is missing from your bomb diffusing example - I honestly think there is a difference between a "get out of jail free card" ala a bomb proof suit and, for example, adjusting the difficulty of diffusing the bomb itself. One completely sucks the adrenaline out of the experience, fundamentally altering it. The other lets people with less skill have the same intended experience. I think, to your point in the video, a lot of conversation around "easy modes" are conflated with accessibility. Low skill gamers who enjoy a high level of difficulty are basically excluded from many games, or are made to feel like they are unwelcome.
For Dynamic difficulty, it should be something toggleable, before / during the game, this makes it so the people who want a challenge can have it, and allow those who cant deal with that challenge to have an easier and more fun and manageable time.
For games like Elden Ring and any other souls-like game, the developers made the game PURPOSELY to make the game difficult, making it more rewarding and better when you finally get past it. Making an easy mode would benefit normal players looking for a casual playthrough without having to spend countless hours on the same boss (losing the rewarding feeling of finally beating that boss), and would help people with disabilities play the game and have more fun. An easy mode would also deter a lot of non-disabled players from playing the game how it was intended to be played (the normal/hard difficulty), as some people just want to beat the game, ignoring the ways it should be played, and what some features were intended for (accessibility settings for example).
Anyways, an easy mode for all games would benefit everyone, while also reducing the...rewarding completion of the games for those who could have beaten it on the harder difficulties.
My favorite examples of correctly done dificulty in games are Dead Cell's 0 to 5 Boss Cells and Hyper Demon's Adaptative Dificulty
RAAAAAAAAAAAHH💀💀💀💀💀💀💥💥💥💥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯💯💯HYPER DEMON MENTIONED💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 WTF IS
dead cells just stresses me out because I feel like I'm not doing anything worthwhile if I'm not playing the highest boss cells available but at the same time 2BC is just so difficult and I don't feel like I'm actually learning/improving
I would use Witcher 2 as a counterargument. It threw me into some weird tutorial where I barely knew how to move. I ended up dying really fast, and the game just gave me the lowest difficulty (the game judges you how well you do in the tutorial tournament)
Same, CD projekt always makes the prologue and "skill assessment tutorial" significantly harder than the other sections for some reason.
So, there you are at level 1 without customized keybinds and having just discovered which button moves forward facing a challenge greater than anything chapter 1 will throw at you.
In hallow knight. There is no difficulty option and there are no levels. Any area you went through when you return to it later, other monsters will be added to it to suit levels according to the number of skills and tools that you collected during your game.
Sorry for my bad language.
Rather good video. People shit on easy difficulty and accessibility options from their ivory tower. But in reality video games became mainstream because more people are able to access them. You won't have too many games if no one but your 5 friends is good enough to enjoy them.
I am visually impaired (I can’t play sports in real life or do anything team based without being a burden/disadvantage to me or my team). So I turn to gaming since I can see my screen easier, but it’s not perfect. I’m terrible at FPS, can’t see the mini map in any game especially MOBA, I crash in racing games (except Mario kart 😎). So when games make acceleration features to allow me to experience them I am so happy. For example I beat Celeste, yes I had extra jumps and turned on invincibility while being chased by that hotel guy, but if I didn’t have that option it would have been basically impossible for me. So if YOU want a hard experience good for you, but some people like are literally unable to do it no matter how much we want to. Ultimately there’s a target audience but please keep everyone in mind. I might not beat dark souls, but I beat Zelda BOTW and tears of the kingdom 😄
I used to really enjoy extremely challenging games. I now have a wife, a kid, and other responsibilities. I have an actual life where I legitimately don't see a reason to voluntarily stress and anger myself. Why would I want to make my hobbies miserable?
I really appreciate videos like this. Truth is, I live "gaming" vicariously through gameplays, video essays, and game reviews, simply put, because I don't have the necessary skills to play most games. My reflexes and movements suck because of apraxia, so most games that rely on that turn out too difficult for me. I've found like things like Minecraft (and all its difficulty modes) and Pokémon (basically menu management) are the most accesible to me for this reason. I would love to play more games, and while I understand most games are not made for me, a part of me just wishes they were more accesible. Things like control sensitivity settings are actually very useful when I am able to find them. Idk.
What’s even the point if you just want the game to play itself? You might as well just continue watching people.
@ExpertContrarian Such a cruel way to respond to someone who's just asking for the ability to be able to experience games like others do. What, are you just ableist or something? What's the point in gatekeeping something that you'd never have to mess with or acknowledge?
@@ahloemeopj9111 Wrong, they’ll never be able to experience it like others. If they are incapable of playing a game then they can just watch someone else play it. If they need to play the game with cheats enabled so badly then they can do it themselves. Go download an aimbot. I don’t complain and cry when I find games or genres that are too hard for me and demand change. They can adapt or they can stay in their lane
@@ExpertContrarian As I said in my comment, I understand most games are designed to have a ceirtain difficulty curve. I do. I enjoy watching people play games I can't. I am simply appreciative that there are people out there who care about accessibility, even if I think that ultimately a lot of games are not, and cannot, by their intended purpose and mechanics, be accessible to me or other people. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I do feel like the way you're expressing your thoughts is rather demeaning.
@@lyxthen you’re speaking out of both sides of your mouth. You’re saying you understand but then you turn around and say that games should be made with you in mind. I’m sure there’s plenty of disabled people that would want to participate in professional sports. Doesn’t mean that sports should be designed with them in mind. I’m sorry that you find reality demeaning. Learn to cope
21:50 I'm sorry but I don't understand how that's possible. I can understand the game having audio cues that help you but how do you know where you are aiming? Does it have some crazy surround sound 3D audio that I'm not aware of?
Some games were too hard for me as a child, but that made it that much more rewarding to complete them years later. I don't like the thought of dynamic difficulty snatching away a worthy challenge in front of my face, but I think it would be the perfect option for people that prefer to play games for the story and as such seek a seamless flow state in gameplay where they never get quite stuck.
There's also the possibility of a one-way-dynamic-difficulty where it only rises, but never lowers for games that seek to always challenge the player.
Like you concluded at the end, it depends on what kind of experience(s) the game wants to offer. If you really wanted to create a game for ANYONE, then you'd have to be prepared to create a dozen versions of the same game stacked on top of each other in option settings to cater to every crowd imaginable.
Accessibility is an entirely different beast and it has to do with technology needing to catch up to where it can bridge any gap disabilities create. Lowering the difficulty of the game is just a temporary bandate solution until technology has caught up. In an ideal world, people with disabilities would be able to experience and overcome even the most difficult games like anyone else.
If you're not having fun with your current static difficulty setting, you can change it. manually. With dynamic difficulty, you may try hard and play exceptionally well for your standard but then your efforts will be rewarded with the game kicking your ass even harder. Meaning, you are constantly oscillating between difficulties that you are or aren't having fun with.
But then again, I like to have beat a game on a set, comparable difficulty. Playing on dynamic difficulty settings seems like enabling training wheels.
The intended playstyle should be the lowest difficulty. Accessibility options should be there for people that can't complete it for one reason or another. Harder difficulties should be, very clearly, a thing you go out of the way to add into the intended experience. That way, if you want to suffer, you don't get to complain that the game isn't optimised for your playthrough. Bonus points if the maximum difficulty consists of grafting a bunch of different difficulty modifiers and it's practically or straight up impossible to win with all of them enabled (like Hades). That way, people are forced to compromise and look for a preferred difficulty for their gameplay instead of suffering in the hardest difficulty.
On the topic of difficulty options that split between "too easy" and "too hard," Nier: Automata has the most blatant huge leap I've ever experienced, between Normal and Hard. While a big part of that is definitely the lack of saving/respawning for the entirety of its lengthy opening (even just an immediate respawn at start would be better than being booted to the main menu), I think the thing that bugs me more is tying whether or not you can lock on to the difficulty choice.
A big part of why Hard is so rough is needing to manually aim. The stats and AI requires a higher level of precision regardless, but needing to move the camera yourself to actually shoot stuff means that it all but requires you to have two thumbs on your right hand to meet that precision, and engage in simultaneous melee and ranged attacks.
Having a "Normal/No Lock" mode would provide a way to get used to the physical demands of Hard mode (and don't tell me I can "just not hit the button," that's not the point). But the game absolutely needs a "Hard/With Lock" option at the very least. Systemically, Hard is what I need and would prefer, but physically my hands just can't hit every button on the controller simultaneously. Even switching to Hard after the opening sequence, while technically playable for me at that point, is just not enjoyable without lock-on.
I think the main issue is the FOMO mentality of everyone wanting to play every popular game.
There are plenty kinds of games which can be suitable to varying levels of skill and physical capabilities. But many players just fail to find their suitable match, and waste time and money on something not suitable to them
Part of the reason for the problem, is general internet validation
But also, a lot of big game companies have a very homogenised catalogue of samey games, which makes it hard for the players (especially casuals, who are by definition less explorative) to learn about the variety that can and does exists in this medium.
I think it's not so much standard FOMO as an actual misguided feeling that you're justified in feeling offended if a game exists that does not attempt to cater to you. They don't want to avoid missing out, they want the things that don't cater to them to be wiped out of existence so that they don't have to live in a world where some things don't cater to them.
For me, personaly, perfect difficulty setting is Factorio/Pathfinder KM/WotR approach. Basically - you could customize nearly everything and if that is not enough you could slam few mods to shift your gaming experience anywhere on spectrum from "brewing coffee with modern coffee machine" to "brew coffee without tools and beans in paleolithic antarctica".
Yeah probably devs spend some time to design "default" difficulty mod. But there is kinda big difference between "This is my first game in last 10 years" and "I have 10k hours in that genre" anyway
Re: Elden Ring easy mode. I think an important distinction for people to keep in mind is that 'easy mode will ruin the intended experience for you' is not the same as 'easy mode will ruin the intended experience for _me._
It's totally fine to warn someone (as many people have warned me, a scrub who can't handle hard games) that it will fundamentally change the experience, but whether that is an acceptable sacrifice is ultimately _their_ choice to make. As you said, in many cases playing an altered version of a game is better than not being able to play it at all.
What isn't fine, and what I find some more belligerent folks doing, is pushing back against difficulty or accessibility options because they would somehow 'cheapen' things for those who went through that intended experience. That kind of 'my suffering is only meaningful if you suffer too/because I _had_ to' mentality is so hostile and frustrating to encounter, and more people need to call it out when it happens. Be proud of _choosing_ the hard road and overcoming it, not of being forced to.
Also wait, DMC5 has an instagib mode!?
Jedi fallen order and survivor have difficulty options that can be changed when not in combat. If I couldn’t beat the final boss of each game on normal after trying for a bit, lowered the difficulty and won the fight. The thing is that I got better at both games overtime through multiple playthroughs of both that now I can beat each boss on Normal. If the option to change the difficulty wasn’t there the first time I would have given up on beating the games but because the option was there I could get through the initial frustration and improved to beat both games on normal
Elden ring already has a easy mode if you know where to look
"But whether that is an acceptable sacrifice is ultimately their choice to make"
And they can do it through mods because ultimately the developers agree with the sentiment of the player base in regards to not adding these modes.
Yet another brilliant essay! Great job
Kid Icarus Uprising has one of the best approaches to difficulty options. There's a great video about it on Masahiro Sakurai's TH-cam channel.
Options like these in games like dark souls is very cool, considering the different levels of difficulty works for those who may want more of the dark story and when they're ready just change the mode. The only ones who would not like these are those who feel like you didn't earn the accomplishment of beating it. Which is weird..
Have you thought about not failing to perfecting difficulty in this very video?
didn't consider that until now
To put it how another youtuber said it, "I want the option, to not have an option". Literally any difficulty option is going to be some level of compromise. My "perfect" difficulty is hard with zero options at all. No accessibility, no easy/hard, no nothing. So the second you add any option, it's already not perfect for me. Of course, I can live with not perfect (rather I have to) so it's going to come down to how much of a strain the options put on my enjoyment. If I can at least lock myself into the difficulty at the start, that takes off a lot of the continual burden. I don't play games to have my willpower tested by putting an easy way out in reach, even if I never fail that test.
I should also mention I am disabled and accessibility options that make the game easier for everyone are so shit IMO. I would rather be stuck with the fact that I can't do it because of my disability than have the game lose what was important about it in the first place. Now neutral accessability options are generally fine, stuff like color blind and closed captioning. Honestly though, you know the most important accessability option for me? Pausing. Nothing has caused me more unpleasant stress in games because of my disability than knowing if I were to put the controller down right now, I'd lose and have to do it all again. It's pretty common that I have an attack during a boss fight or something and games that let me pause are much appreciated. Obviously it's impossible in some games but I just feel like I've never heard that option brought up when IMO it's the most important one that usually costs nothing to add.
Finally, this video and many difficulty videos don't really address the "point" of difficulty. I mean, the release of pressure is one thing thats nice but theres a reason getting killed in one hit feels a lot worse than AI changes and why so many very hard modes fail to deliver a "good" challenge. IMO the default application of difficulty is to enforce mastery of the game mechanics whereas most hard modes simplify the game rather than deepen it. Certain tools just become unusable which locks away certain skillsets entirely.
For instance I've done many dark souls challenge runs and the main way to make that game hard is to make you die in one hit and have fights take longer. This DOES increase the challenge but not really in an ideal way IMO. The skill of recovering mentally from getting hit is important to dark souls. Vital even. You have to completely change your plan on the fly as fast as possible to compensate for mistiming a dodge or attack. If you die in one hit, that skill is literally deleted from the game but it's a fun skill to get better at it.
If you don't design the game to be hard from the beginning, it's almost certainly not going to be very deep when you just tweak numbers to make it hard and that depth of improvement is the main motivator for challenging ourselves in the first place.
That isn't true though, if there is hard with options you just select none of the options.
It is still your perfect difficulty.
@@Dragoonsoul7878 its not. The options will weigh on me. It's still possibly a very good difficulty, but it cannot be perfect for me specifically if there are any options.
@@Dragoonsoul7878 Difficulty options are a temptation, everyone who plays difficult games will get frustrated at times.
That's part of the experience towards a great payoff, leaving an easy means of progressing through will lead to times when that frustation builds up too much to avoid (maybe its been a long day and you just wanna finish the fight now).
But allowing that option will cause the slow build up to a victory to be lost.
Likely making the scenario just feel bad in retrospect.
*The perfect difficulty system IMO:*
Lots of difficulty options or if you have a particular "hard" vision in mind, say so publically and in promos, make it clear the game isn't for everyone and just be transparent. After which, the issue becomes one of each player deciding for themselves if they're willing to take the game on its own terms and to "git gud."
If the answer is no thats fine, there's lots of others games, not everything is for everyone - we should all play whatever we want and not feel pressured to play something because everyone else is.
If the answer is yes and they do "git gud" then great good for them, thats the experience they wanted. Job done.
However, and here is the sticking point. If the answer is yes and they can't for whatever reason "git gud" then, that is a moment of personal growth. That is a moment for the player to come to terms with not strictly having made a bad choice, but more for living with it. You've bought a game you can't play/don't like - happens to all of us, maybe introspect as to why? Did you feel socially bullied into doing so? Did you feel extreme FOMO? Accept you wasted some money. Move on, let it go. And avoid people and places that caused you to buy that game since their motives may not be pure.
That said, difficulty options in everything would be ideal since if you want a challange, you can have it, if you don't, you don't need to. Everyone is happy - except the "I suffered so you should too" crowd. The issue is when parts of the community get up in people's business to shame or bully or showing-off or be toxic etc. Y'all, gaming is a hobby, its meant for fun, you're not answerable to anyone, play how you want, but at the same time, beating a hard game is not a personality.
Can we all please just cool tf down and stop making this whole thing well, a thing. Its really not. Nobody cares.
Oh, and something something don't just add health and damage to enemies, to make a gamer 'harder.' Improve the AI, enemy tactics, change the level design or put limits on the player themselves.
Truth
If games are art (and they are), mechanics are also a form of art. The most unique one the medium has to offer, in fact. Calling some games just "hard" is a gross oversimplification of how nuanced that art can be.
Some games are just BS and bad, specially ones with adjustable difficulties that don't have the mechanical framework to make up for it (CoD, Gears come to mind), but oftentimes it can be crucial to how a game feels. Yes, obviously Dark Souls comes to mind, but Sekiro is a much better example. That game simply demands you obey its rules and learn its "language", otherwise you'll get smacked. It just wouldn't be the same otherwise, and diluting it to make it more "accessible" is an offensive proposition. Like asking Tarantino to tone down the violence... which some do, but in a reasonable world, that would really be down to their preference and understanding that something may not be for everyone.
Video games should be for everyone. Everyone should have access to them, and a game to enjoy would preferably exist for every person, regardless of their skill level or other factors that may require accommodation. But it's also fine to just make games for a single type of person.
@@dayaftertomorrow1 also true. People need to understand and accept that every video game is not for everyone. The sooner they learn this, will not only be better for everyone else, but themselves as well
@@dayaftertomorrow1 Yeah, rage games like Getting over it exist for a very specific audience and any means of simplyfing the challenge defeats the point of the game.
The game by its nature is designed to not be for everyone by catering to a specific type of experience that is not universally enjoyed.
Not sure about an easy mode watering the experience for everyone. It is basically the same as a game having difficulty levels. Doom having an easy difficulty doesn't diminish finishing the game on the highest difficulty.
He hasn't cited Celeste...
The troon game?
For me, Ultrakill has one of the most robust difficulty systems as of now. Standard difficulty is considered hard, however the game itself is changed remarkably little on both lower and higher modes. On lower difficulties it just disables the hard damage mechanic, slows down enemy actions a bit, and boosts your health. Meanwhile the higher difficulties keep everything the same just with slightly improved stats and outright new attacks and forms.
To top it all off at any time you can switch the difficulty, however you can only play levels that you have unlocked on that difficulty or lower encouraging you to improve with the mechanics rather than just difficulty skipping a section.
Additionally the accessibility options are excellent with aim assist, sound options, colorblindness, etc that can stack with any other difficulty.
You should check out Celeste's accessibility and difficulty settings
I have! It and many other games didn’t make it into the video because it was long enough as it is
@Lextorias I think celeste's accessibility features are great. Especially the one for slowing the game down. I never used any of the accessibility features myself though because I felt like it detracted from the experience of overcoming the game's challenges
We should just accept that not every game is made for every person and it shouldn't be. Just like music, movies or books, the same thing goes for games. People with anxiety issues may be left out of horror movies, does that mean we should make horror movies less scary? That we can't have any really scary horror media anymore? Of course not, there's a million more movies out there for them to enjoy. And therefore this "dilema" as you described it as isn't really one. We just have to accept that not everything is made for everyone. It's really that simple. If you like easy relaxing games, souls games aren't for you. Again, it's really that simple. I don't enjoy narrative heavy walking sims like beyond two souls. They bore me to death. I don't ask for a sadistic mode to be added to them so I can too be part of it. I simply accept that they're not for me. The issue arrises from people who always beat the drum about inclusivity. They have that completely unrealistic ideal of including everyone into everything. And the results are usually that whatever it is they try to make more inclusive, becomes trash or worse, completely unfair like womens sports. There's a saying that goes: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions", and I very much believe this to be true. So while trying to include everyone may sound good on paper, in reality it's not just impossible, but a pipe dream that just ends up ruining things that are good how they are. And all for no reason. Because there is always an alternative game to play, movie or series to watch or book to read, which suits your needs or tastes much better, and it's merely one click away.
It's funny that you don't like the term roguelike but you say souls like
soulslike is just as bad, but it hasn’t reached the point yet where people call some games “soulslites” because they aren’t close enough to Dark Souls
12:53 also another thing i saw someone talk about. For god of war there is a part in the game where you are supposed to struggle because immediately after you get a weapon that helps you deal with the enemies you struggled with in the last area and you then learn value of the new weapon. But this can all be bypassed if you lower the difficulty immediately when you start not doing a lot of damage.
Time splitter has a interesting system where the harder the difficulty the more objectives it has on each mission great video
I remember that in time splitter 2, there are some bosses you only fight when on hard mode.
For example the robot factory. It would normally end after a ultra wave, but when on hard mode it will end with you fighting what I call the Scrambler. Btw there is no checkpoint before him, so if you wanted a shot at that boss, got to get through the ultra wave.
Same with Thief 1 and 2
Never played it, but didn't GoldenEye do that on the N64?
@@GhostyOcean I think so, yes!
Shoutout to GODHAND 2006 .. a game that made the first Difficulty meter based on how good a player is or becoming.
what up lextorias
waddup
I like difficult games and i don't get any of those feelings you described. I play them because i like understanding mechanics and deep lore but there's no adrenaline or rush for me. And i don't think it waters down my own personal experience to have an easy mode at all.
I suck at bascketball, but I'd love to play against Lebron
My take on this: When you start a new game or a new save file you are asked: "What so you want, challenge or chill?".
If you choose chill, the game starts at standard difficulty, if you die it will make things easier lowering enemy damage or HP, lowering shop prices or making AI a little more dumb or pay less attention to you, maybe they don't see you that far. If you are playing well and don't die it will level the game up but only up to standard difficulty.
If you choose "challenge" when you die difficulty doesn't go down. You also start at standard but if you advance too quicky, die less and receive less damage the enemies have better AI, use secret skills and are stronger, there are less shops or they're more expensive, you find less health items or buffs. Only if you die like 5 times in less than 1 hour you'll get a little of difficulty removed.
That should fix dynamic difficulty making sure you're adjusting the game according to what kind of player you have or what mood that player has. You could even be asked the same thing when you load the save game, in case today you prefer some challenge.
I hate this conversation. There is a perfect solution. Bring back cheats. Put them right there in the menu, freely available for anyone to use.
quick addition to the part where you talked about dead cells(because I was playing it during the video)
the game also unlocks higher difficulties every time that you beat it's final boss
these higher difficulties don't just make the enemies harder tough,they also add different enemies,take away your healing oppertunitys,give you stronger weapons and,at the highest difficulty,introduce a completally new gameplay element