Difficulty In Games

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

I hear people talking about "I wish this game was harder" and "This game is hard but in the wrong way." often. And so I decided to bring this to YCM. A simple question. What makes a game difficult? What's "fake difficulty"? And how important is difficulty?

Feel free to discuss games you found difficult and why.

[Toffee.]

What's "fake difficulty"?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

 

tl;dr

elements of a game that make little to no sense and/or are poorly designed, but exist just to try and prove something is "hard", when in reality it's honestly not.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

 

tl;dr

elements of a game that make little to no sense and/or are poorly designed, but exist just to try and prove something is "hard", when in reality it's honestly not.

What are some examples/elements you think fit best?

[Flame Dragon]

What are some examples/elements you think fit best?

I feel like I should know a bunch of examples, but the only/first to come to mind is the Crash Bomb boss fight in the castle in MM2.

 

People saying "A game is too easy" doesn't make a ton of sense to me. You can impose all kinds of rules to make games more difficult if that is what you really care about. Like a Mini-Mushroom only run in the original New Super Mario Bros.

[The Warden]

Being hard in the wrong way means that it isn't hard because of the player's incompetence, but because the game was deliberately made that way. An example that comes to mind is the DS version of Final Fantasy 4. There are several monsters in that game that do disgusting amounts of damage when you first find them. This wouldn't be so bad, except that these are PARTY WIDE attacks that, at the time you see them, are KO'ing all but the funking tank from full HP. And they tend to come in pairs, and BOTH use this unfair OHKO bullshit. This is thousands of damage and crushing characters without even a chance to stop them or even recover. This is known as "Nintendo Hard", where the game is brutally difficult for no other reason than sheer sadism.

 

A good hard game is like the Binding of Isaac, where you will funk up... a lot. But you funk up by your own incompetence, NOT because the game is cheating you. And by that same token, the player is constantly improving each run and subsequent death, until they can competently take on almost anything the game throws at them. You funk up in the BoI BECAUSE you funked-up in a game that's challenging. And while you can funk up purely because of RNG screwing you over with a sheet build, that won't necessarily happen in the next run. The game is difficult, but it won't outright cheat you with unavoidable OHKO bullshit. This is where hard in the wrong way applies, as some games are made brutally hard to the point that you die because of outright cheap bullshit. That's the wrong kind of hard, because it's not punishing incompetence, it's punishing you for playing the game in general. Difficulty is there to make the player improve and adapt, getting better and better so they can take on the challenges. It's not there to make something an arbitrary grind and overall bad time.

[Flame Dragon]

Actually, Nintendo Hard does have a reason for existing. Games back then were really short, so in order for players to get the most out of the game the difficulty was pushed to 11 to artificially increase the amount of time kids would need to spend beating the game. Good example of this would be something like Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts where you need to beat the game twice basically with the 2nd time forcing you to use a trash weapon.

[The Warden]

I refer to the trope definition of Nintendo Hard, where modern games are made brutally hard like early Nintendo games.

[Astro Dude]

Three letters:

 

S. N. K.

[The Warden]

Three letters:

 

S. N. K.

Thank you for your insightful comment Astro.

[The Nyx Avatar]

While in some cases, raised difficulty might raise the awareness and overall performance of the AI or environment. However, in other cases, it's not so much the performance but increasing the life of the AI or giving them more hit points.

People saying "A game is too easy" doesn't make a ton of sense to me. You can impose all kinds of rules to make games more difficult if that is what you really care about. Like a Mini-Mushroom only run in the original New Super Mario Bros.

People complain that a game is too easy?

[The Warden]

Some do. I once heard someone say the last boss of Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam was easy, before saying they used a combination of cards to severely nerf it. And I said "Then doesn't it go without saying that it was easy because you MADE it easy?"

[Shradow]

People complain that a game is too easy?

Have you ever been in a discussion about video games? That's an common complaint for any given game ever.

 

It's in the vein of "too hard" or "too short" or "too linear" or stuff like that.

[The Nyx Avatar]

Some do. I once heard someone say the last boss of Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam was easy, before saying they used a combination of cards to severely nerf it. And I said "Then doesn't it go without saying that it was easy because you MADE it easy?"

True. And regardless if it was meant to be a hard boss by the makers of the game, what I think mattered most to them by the end wasn't so much the difficulty, but the experience. A game can be arduous to accomplish or a cakewalk for the most part. But what matters by the end is the overall experience, rather than just the challenge.

Have you ever been in a discussion about video games? That's an common complaint for any given game ever.

 

It's in the vein of "too hard" or "too short" or "too linear" or stuff like that.

True. I still remember people stating how Final Fantasy XIII was too linear.

[Shradow]

I mean, it kinda is, yeah.

[Astro Dude]

Thank you for your insightful comment Astro.

Allow me to elaborate:

 

Ever heard of SNK Boss Syndrome? The trope developed for fighting game bosses that are near impossible to beat? Yup, those guys. They are cheap as fart.

[Trebuchet MS]

Allow me to elaborate:

 

Ever heard of SNK Boss Syndrome? The trope developed for fighting game bosses that are near impossible to beat? Yup, those guys. They are cheap as fart.

Let me help you with that, as there is a trope for it.

 

In short, SNK Bosses are bosses deliberately designed to ignore the game's rules to absurd degrees for the sake of difficulty. Most visible in fighting games (trope named after SNK's fighting games) where the boss gets artificially raised health, damage resistance, knockback resistance, etc. Can also be visible in other types of games - the next most blatant form of this trope can appear in card game adaptations where bosses use banned cards (looking at you, Reshef of Destruction).

 

There is a little more leeway for asymmetrical games like RPGs, since "the rules" for enemies need not necessarily feel the same as the ones that bind you.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

Let me help you with that, as there is a trope for it.

 

In short, SNK Bosses are bosses deliberately designed to ignore the game's rules to absurd degrees for the sake of difficulty. Most visible in fighting games (trope named after SNK's fighting games) where the boss gets artificially raised health, damage resistance, knockback resistance, etc. Can also be visible in other types of games - the next most blatant form of this trope can appear in card game adaptations where bosses use banned cards (looking at you, Reshef of Destruction).

 

There is a little more leeway for asymmetrical games like RPGs, since "the rules" for enemies need not necessarily feel the same as the ones that bind you.

I actually think this is a fairly fair thing for difficulty in certain instances. It forces you to play a bit different to get over the hurdle. As opposed to just learning all the patterns and breezing through.

[Astro Dude]

I suppose so. My personal demon was Karai from TMNT Tournament Fighters SNES.

 

Another forced difficulty: some quests in Kingdom Hearts Unchained X, like lv. 200 or lv. 500 enemies.

[a bad post]

Honestly, my favorite form of artificial is awakenings lunatic/lunatic + difficulties. It's not even an increase in AI intelligence, or even numbers it's literally just ridiculously jacked up stats and a sadistic combination of skills.

[Shradow]

Honestly, my favorite form of artificial is awakenings lunatic/lunatic + difficulties. It's not even an increase in AI intelligence, or even numbers it's literally just ridiculously jacked up stats and a sadistic combination of skills.

 

So like in Fire Emblem?

[The Warden]

They mean Fire Emblem Awakening Shradow.

[Shradow]

Did Fates not also have it? I meant the series, not the actual first Fire Emblem.

[Astro Dude]

And that's what Phoenix mode was made for, so you don't lose characters, making it less frustrating.

[Unbelievably Klane]

I hear people talking about "I wish this game was harder" and "This game is hard but in the wrong way." often. And so I decided to bring this to YCM. A simple question. What makes a game difficult? What's "fake difficulty"? And how important is difficulty?

Feel free to discuss games you found difficult and why.

An example of difficulty done right would be Castlevania 1, it teaches you everything you need to know about the game and requires use of all the weapons (bar throwing knife), it has rhythyms that seem archaic and odd but soon you realise it was quite 'realistic' (delay for whip, jumping in one direction only) for it's time.

 

Difficulty done wrong is quite simply put is Ghosts and Goblins 1, where the game snookers you to the point where only one route is viable.

 

I play most games on the one above what is considered average, then I go again on the hardest difficulty, unless ofc the one above average is the hardest. It makes for a really good challenge and encourages development of skill. Titanfall 2 is a good example of different difficulty 'levels' because there's so much to master (Wallrunning, time shifting at certain points, use of weapons and grenades in not immediately obvious ways).

 

Stuff like Volgarr the Viking is not fun though, I enjoyed Castlevania so I thought I'd enjoy Volgarr.

 

I didn't.

[epicmemesbro]

 

I hear people talking about "I wish this game was harder" and "This game is hard but in the wrong way." often. And so I decided to bring this to YCM. A simple question. What makes a game difficult? What's "fake difficulty"? And how important is difficulty?

Feel free to discuss games you found difficult and why.

 

 

For a game to be difficult in my eyes it would have to progressively challenge what you have learned up to that point. It's too difficult if its challenge is not based on what you had done before. An example would be Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. It teaches you basic mechanics early in the game and the first few bosses require you to use those mechanics, and bosses that follow require you to do more than those mechanics to adapt to the boss. Perhaps with the first boss you make use of arrows but some bosses later on are immune to ranged attacks encouraging the use of more advanced techniques such as stealth strikes and using combos. Fake difficulty that I see in video games is when the developers just use "bullet sponges" as a "challenge". Halo 2's brutes are an example. All they require is an extensive spray and they go down. Metroid Prime's enemies tend to require more than just non-stop power beam fire.