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"
@@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 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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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).
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 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
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.
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.
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!
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!
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!
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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 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
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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 😄
one of my favorite examples of difficulty setting in a game is "will you snail" where the difficulty is not only dynamic but changes a lot of things from how many spikes there are how fast the obstacles are what kind of obstacles there are etc.
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.
I loved the difficulty system from Kid Icarus Uprising, in which you are practically doing a bet against you, more items more reward, more money the harder the game, and also some optional areas are close in some of the missions until you put an specific difficulty. If you lose, a big chunk of the lot that you have been getting not only gets shrinked, but is just worst that the one that you would had in you manage to beat the difficulty, but the game immediately ask you if you want to try again one level of difficulty lower. So it becomes a game about addressing risk, how much and well prepared you are VS the difficulty of the level itself
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.
Dynamic difficulty is the worst of all worlds. It takes away the challenge for those who seek it, forces it on people enjoying a power fantasy, and forces minmaxers to die a lot.
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.
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 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 love how games like Kirby's Epic Yarn and Pizza Tower tackle difficulty. Both games are full of optional challenges that are incredibly difficult, but none are required to get through the story and the games don't punish you or make fun of you for ignoring them... okay, I guess Pizza Tower makes fun of you a little, but whatever. I also love how Super Mario Odyssey does it. Many of the slower, intentional routes can be skipped with risky shortcuts if you're an advanced player, and the shortcuts aren't usually that obvious. The game also likes to reward ambitious platforming by putting hidden coins in hard-to-reach places.
I think as much as difficulty settings are great for accessibility, I find that it is entirely valid for a dev to say: "This is our vision for the game, if you don't like the difficulty, I'm sorry, but that's how it is." This is of course an entirely separate discussion from accessibility options to accomodate people with physical limitations.
Here is the counter argument, Halo's intended difficulty was Heroic. They outright side it in the difficulty list. They provided 1 higher difficulty, Legendary, and 2 lower difficulties, Normal and Easy. By acknowledging those outside of their vision existed they had a harder difficulty and easier ones. Everyone won.
@@Dragoonsoul7878 Halo was never intended to be a sole difficulty as their vision. Its a completely different scenario. By contrast there is no way from soft would have had as big a following as they do now if they added difficulties. When their entire rise to fame was riding their 'prepare to die' motto.
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.
*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.
Soooo... I have a 3D platformer called Caleum Flow that i'm (proudly) developing where you play with a 5 meter Golem-Robot that is also a parkour UNIT, and the difficulty on a game-loop is based on player choices dynamically, like the path you choose, identifiable by a color coated scan ( that is an input, so it's optional) kind of emulating climbing courses. The game will have litle to no language ( because i want to give an alien and isolated atmosphere). So, to teach the player things, the camera (that it's a companion) will propose challenges, making holograms that will both teach and show you the intended inputs if you want, it would be a banther, like "hey, i bet you can't do THIS!", displayed in the area and interactable and optional through a hologram drone, that when interacted with will show more details about the course, like timing, cues and inputs. The reward will be style points (that are achieved through acrobatics combos per-area, kinda like Tony Hawk, these challenges and destroying-sculpting things) that can be used to enhance specific aspects of your maneuvers, like jump height or speed, wich can be set to automatically evolve (based on inputs, like how many times you hold jump longer to get extra height < will also gain level a litlle faster, a speedrunner-friendly wink ;) ) or manually ( based on use threshold, then it levels, and then you choose the aspect you want ). Also, the builds are full refundable, so you can change aspects on the fly and test then, the only downside is that it requires a currency that is only gained trough time or destroying specific things, so it all fits in the game's narrative. :D Also, the game will have configurable reaction timings, in every aspect, because there are quicktime events, parries and rythm movements, and all can be tuned down or cranked up. This will change the music pacing too, giving Chill Synthwave vibes or Furi Epic Carpenter Brut vibes. The focus is the player expression, and the main opponent is time itself + Civilization-ending Calamities that are on the brink to obliterate everybody in that local, so it's kind of a boss-rush, but the bosses are the maps itself. Oh, and it will use the same time-based currency to create checkpoints whenever you like, wich is a place that pauses the game and let you test builds in test-tracks and change any configuration you want. It would be immersive-based, so i want to try to don't use menus, so to change camera settings, the character change to a POV that shows camera buttons to press and on the background a hologram scene where you can test how the changes apply. TLDR.: Caelum Flow is a game you can beat doing the easy in-map routes shown by a scanner, use acessibility configurations to tune your low intensity settings and your own skills build will enhance the experience and intensity you want to get and give fine-tune options to give the exact challenge you want.
I forgor to mention that the same hologram-challenge system can be used as a 'puzzle solving assist' and many other acessibilty things, that will cost time too (but not real time, only in-game time), the narrative is that the companion is developing a solutions and calculating advanced physics, so the results will always be timing-assisted. Also, inspired by your video, i will add an option like Hades God Mode, where you will make time slower gradually based on how many times you failed challenges or the maps phases.
I think it's all up to intent. Whatever the game dev wants is the correct difficulty for that game. If the dev wants to have 20 different difficulty modes with sliders and accessability options that's fine. If the devs wants 1 option with no sliders, no accessability, no dynamic difficulty and asks the player to improve or play something else, that's also fine. Games are art, whatever the intent is for that game it's what defines the game. It's just as important as gameplay, story and audio.
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.
Some games I've played with unique difficulty systems: >Gears of War: Judgement. You can choose to "embellish" your story, which imposes optional challenges for the mission. >Rocksmith: adds or removes notes depending on how well you are doing. >Shovel Knight: you can destroy your checkpoints for some extra cash.
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.
As someone who loved They Are Billions in concept, it fucking ruined me when I realized I'd have to the mod the SINGLE PLAYER experience just to be able to play the different maps because they were locked behind beating previous maps at certain difficulties. What made it worse is the community around it was TOXIC AS ALL HELL. The "Get Gud" "Ur Mom Go Boom" bullshit and it drove the general consumers away. But by then, people like me had already bought into the early release and the devs walked away with millions in sales even though the active numbers of players literally disappeared overnight once people realized they could no longer play the game without turning into sweaty no-lifers. (No offense high achievers - I'm just pissed about this years later. It's insane that the top 5% of a games players expect a game to cater to them in a SINGLE PLAYER experience because their fragile egos need to get their rocks off to the universal leader board.) They went on to release a campaign mode which has difficulty settings, but by then it was far too little too late imo. I didn't even realize they had implemented the campaign with difficulty options because I had completely uninstalled and ignored any updates. And because of that, any PR the devs tried to garner fell on deaf ears because the majority of the initial consumers had moved on.
As a person with autism, THANK you so much for talking about accessibility. I have really good reflexes so reaction time isn’t an issue, but part of my autism is a lack of “gut feeling” which makes choices like what perks to pick or stats to level up in RPG games literally impossible for me to make, so an auto leveler or recommendation system helps immensely.
I think the biggest problem in the industry when it comes to difficulty is that you have a vocal minority screaming that every game needs to be accessible to everyone, and devs that actually listen
I think unless your core concept is in the difficulty, like souls games, you can make games more or less accessible to everyone by lowering the difficulty, just not with multiplayer ones of course. I personally play on PC so I can cheat on every game I play, If I have to repeat anything I get instantly bored (ADHD) and just can't force myself to continue. So instead of constantly paying for games that I then immediately get bored of and never play again, I use trainers on PC from the get go, but choose the hardest option anyway. I also hate adrenaline (cPTSD).
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
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..
What gets me is how people tackle acessibility alongside game difficulty. Having a "easy mode" doesn't make the game automatically acessible. One should look at the last of us part 2 to see how acessible a game can be.
If a dev doesn't want to add a difficulty options, to the game It's their choice to make. Games don't and shouldn't cater to everyone. Accessibility, isn't Difficulty options, it's a color blind mode, on screen prompts for the hearing impaired, and stuff like that.
•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.
my main problem with difficulty options is i never know which of the modes did the game devs have in mind unless it says something along the lines of "this is how its intended to be played" and if it doesnt say that the next best thing you can do is normal which isnt always the intended 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
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.
I'm firmly of the belief that every game has a perfect difficulty and its the one it was designed for. difficulty options should be reformed into accessibility options. which is more or less what they were to begin with. games should not try to appeal to the widest audience possible, games should be for specific audiences and do their niche thing as well as can be done and people that dont like it can just play a game they do like.
I mean difficulty options also serve functions like a "story" mode. like, take TLOU for an example. It's an amazing game but it's also a brutally challenging one. a lot of people might wanna get all the story of it but not wanna deal with the difficulty. That game has easier modes for those people, and it's so clear that those modes are necessary because it's a game they literally made an HBO TV show directly adapting and it barely felt out of place as something for TLOU to do
@@Lextorias idk if you'll see this but I think I see where I lost you. I meant people who don't like action adventure games for example shouldn't have survival craft mechanics thoughtlessly stuffed into those games to appeal to an entirely different crowd. I was not meaning to refer to disabled people who play games as a group to not be catered to in their interests or needs. I can see why that would not have been clear. it was a kind of tacked on thought. all games should have accessibility options
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 like te "difficulty setting" in Severance: Blade of Darkness. You can safe as often as you want, but if you do safe often enough, the game will call you a coward.
Hot take: Dark Souls and Elden Ring aren't hard games. That's the reason why people can finish the game twice at the same time, or with a steering wheel, or without a weapon, etc. They are just punishing in annoying ways that makes them feel harder than they really are. It's also the reason why the games are not something you can recommend to anyone.
Most people attempt to fight a boss on their first run, rather then learn the openings and patterns. If you just focus on learning the game becomes miserably easy and boring. It is glorified pattern recognition.
@@apersonwhomayormaynotexist9868 Yeah, Elden Ring is the most accessible FromSoft souls-like by far. But, also, if you're here, chances are that most of your friends aren't a good representation of most gamers.
im a casual game dev and the way i end up doing in my VERY indie games is to have a checkbox at game start that is titled "test mode" and has a very clear dialog under it explaining that this removes spawns and lowers enemy health and was primarily made for testing purposes but left in for accessibility reasons.
Your whole elden ring argument in the middle of the video throws your entire argument out the window. Imagine talking about Melania, talking about how difficult she is, then your friend is like "oh I just first-tried her on easy mode" completely undermines the entire game.
"How to make a perfect difficulty?" is a wrong question. It presents games as problems we need to solve. Its the same as "How to make the best game?". Its just wrong.
Something to note about simple numerical changes from difficulty is that done right... it can be extremely effective. A game where it works out extremely well is Battle Brothers, although admittedly it gives you 3 values you can adjust, theyre all simple numerical changes which in the end work out to give actual gameplay changes in terms of how precise you need to be. One might say that all it does is force you into a strict optimal playstyle if you play in the hardest difficulty but in this case that would simply be the sign of someone who should play on a lower difficulty, because with proper planning and decision making you can play in a plethora of ways both on the world map as well as within battles and in terms of recruit selection and their leveling, in pretty much any way you wish really if youre good enough. What this means is that someone who is good enough at the different aspects of play in terms of economic management, brother builds, tactical and world map decision making can for example consciouscly sacrifice some aspect of the "proper" play for perhaps additional challenge, or for faster play or simpler play or whatever else. Whereas another player who makes many errors in all of the aspects of play will have to play as optimally as they can in all those aspects even on the lowest difficulty, which might not sound great but actually means that theyre allowed freedom within those aspects of play as part of those errors, i.e the player makes "mistakes" in their level up choices for their battle brothers, but because they play on a lower difficulty they get away with it, but those mistakes are really just their personal uninformed decisions on what seems cool or interesting and therefore they can play the game in a more casual manner doing what seems cool to them while still being able to make progress, despite the difficulty options only having numerical effects. This more casual player can then get better at the game and move up in difficulty, perhaps during the process of learning eliminating certain things from their playstyle. But eventually if they get good enough they can start reintegrating those flawed playstyles they previously discarded, since now they have the skill to actually make those flawed playstyles into something that works. I.e they might move from making cool and interesting level up decisions that clash with each other and dont work well together but serve them in a lower difficulty, into making more streamlined and optimized decisions on a higher difficulty to be able to beat the game and then eventually going back and making cool and interesting decisions at a now higher difficulty, but in a manner that works together with itself and other decisions such that it works despite not being what he might have previously claimed to be the most optimal playstyle. These decisions that change based on difficulty and skill level despite only numerical value changes from difficulty are also present in all aspects of gameplay, and all those aspects of gameplay work together with eachother to make it so that you have a lot of different levels of decision making in various aspects of play that then feed into and inform what decisions you have in other aspects as well as what is viable.
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 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 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.
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 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.
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
Its a good day when lextorias uploads
Exactly my thoughts! Keep up the good work!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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
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
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.
the atari joke is so funny since they are re-relesing the console
What incredible timing
This guys channel grew a lot since I saw his stealth games video a while back. Good job
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!
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!
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!
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
top tier content
all your videos are well made, interesting, and easy to watch
keep it up
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
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!`
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?
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.
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.
Loved the defusing a bomb analogy for difficult games! Great video
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.
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)
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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 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
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.
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
Shoutout to GODHAND 2006 .. a game that made the first Difficulty meter based on how good a player is or becoming.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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 😄
A game for everyone is a game for no one. I have to agree with this quote, it might just be impossible to make a game tuned to everyone.
i swear youre one of the most underrated content creators right now. Love you work!
one of my favorite examples of difficulty setting in a game is "will you snail" where the difficulty is not only dynamic but changes a lot of things from how many spikes there are how fast the obstacles are what kind of obstacles there are etc.
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.
I loved the difficulty system from Kid Icarus Uprising, in which you are practically doing a bet against you, more items more reward, more money the harder the game, and also some optional areas are close in some of the missions until you put an specific difficulty.
If you lose, a big chunk of the lot that you have been getting not only gets shrinked, but is just worst that the one that you would had in you manage to beat the difficulty, but the game immediately ask you if you want to try again one level of difficulty lower. So it becomes a game about addressing risk, how much and well prepared you are VS the difficulty of the level itself
Have you thought about not failing to perfecting difficulty in this very video?
didn't consider that until 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.
As long as you like playing the game you're good.
Dynamic difficulty is the worst of all worlds. It takes away the challenge for those who seek it, forces it on people enjoying a power fantasy, and forces minmaxers to die a lot.
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.
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 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.
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
I love how games like Kirby's Epic Yarn and Pizza Tower tackle difficulty. Both games are full of optional challenges that are incredibly difficult, but none are required to get through the story and the games don't punish you or make fun of you for ignoring them... okay, I guess Pizza Tower makes fun of you a little, but whatever.
I also love how Super Mario Odyssey does it. Many of the slower, intentional routes can be skipped with risky shortcuts if you're an advanced player, and the shortcuts aren't usually that obvious. The game also likes to reward ambitious platforming by putting hidden coins in hard-to-reach places.
I think as much as difficulty settings are great for accessibility, I find that it is entirely valid for a dev to say: "This is our vision for the game, if you don't like the difficulty, I'm sorry, but that's how it is."
This is of course an entirely separate discussion from accessibility options to accomodate people with physical limitations.
Here is the counter argument, Halo's intended difficulty was Heroic. They outright side it in the difficulty list. They provided 1 higher difficulty, Legendary, and 2 lower difficulties, Normal and Easy.
By acknowledging those outside of their vision existed they had a harder difficulty and easier ones. Everyone won.
@@Dragoonsoul7878look at Halo now 😂
@@Dragoonsoul7878 Halo was never intended to be a sole difficulty as their vision.
Its a completely different scenario.
By contrast there is no way from soft would have had as big a following as they do now if they added difficulties.
When their entire rise to fame was riding their 'prepare to die' motto.
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.
*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.
Soooo... I have a 3D platformer called Caleum Flow that i'm (proudly) developing where you play with a 5 meter Golem-Robot that is also a parkour UNIT, and the difficulty on a game-loop is based on player choices dynamically, like the path you choose, identifiable by a color coated scan ( that is an input, so it's optional) kind of emulating climbing courses. The game will have litle to no language ( because i want to give an alien and isolated atmosphere). So, to teach the player things, the camera (that it's a companion) will propose challenges, making holograms that will both teach and show you the intended inputs if you want, it would be a banther, like "hey, i bet you can't do THIS!", displayed in the area and interactable and optional through a hologram drone, that when interacted with will show more details about the course, like timing, cues and inputs. The reward will be style points (that are achieved through acrobatics combos per-area, kinda like Tony Hawk, these challenges and destroying-sculpting things) that can be used to enhance specific aspects of your maneuvers, like jump height or speed, wich can be set to automatically evolve (based on inputs, like how many times you hold jump longer to get extra height < will also gain level a litlle faster, a speedrunner-friendly wink ;) ) or manually ( based on use threshold, then it levels, and then you choose the aspect you want ). Also, the builds are full refundable, so you can change aspects on the fly and test then, the only downside is that it requires a currency that is only gained trough time or destroying specific things, so it all fits in the game's narrative. :D Also, the game will have configurable reaction timings, in every aspect, because there are quicktime events, parries and rythm movements, and all can be tuned down or cranked up. This will change the music pacing too, giving Chill Synthwave vibes or Furi Epic Carpenter Brut vibes. The focus is the player expression, and the main opponent is time itself + Civilization-ending Calamities that are on the brink to obliterate everybody in that local, so it's kind of a boss-rush, but the bosses are the maps itself. Oh, and it will use the same time-based currency to create checkpoints whenever you like, wich is a place that pauses the game and let you test builds in test-tracks and change any configuration you want. It would be immersive-based, so i want to try to don't use menus, so to change camera settings, the character change to a POV that shows camera buttons to press and on the background a hologram scene where you can test how the changes apply.
TLDR.: Caelum Flow is a game you can beat doing the easy in-map routes shown by a scanner, use acessibility configurations to tune your low intensity settings and your own skills build will enhance the experience and intensity you want to get and give fine-tune options to give the exact challenge you want.
I forgor to mention that the same hologram-challenge system can be used as a 'puzzle solving assist' and many other acessibilty things, that will cost time too (but not real time, only in-game time), the narrative is that the companion is developing a solutions and calculating advanced physics, so the results will always be timing-assisted.
Also, inspired by your video, i will add an option like Hades God Mode, where you will make time slower gradually based on how many times you failed challenges or the maps phases.
Amazing video as always Lex! :)
I think it's all up to intent. Whatever the game dev wants is the correct difficulty for that game. If the dev wants to have 20 different difficulty modes with sliders and accessability options that's fine. If the devs wants 1 option with no sliders, no accessability, no dynamic difficulty and asks the player to improve or play something else, that's also fine. Games are art, whatever the intent is for that game it's what defines the game. It's just as important as gameplay, story and audio.
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!
Some games I've played with unique difficulty systems:
>Gears of War: Judgement. You can choose to "embellish" your story, which imposes optional challenges for the mission.
>Rocksmith: adds or removes notes depending on how well you are doing.
>Shovel Knight: you can destroy your checkpoints for some extra cash.
I suck at bascketball, but I'd love to play against Lebron
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.
Kid Icarus Uprising has one of the best approaches to difficulty options. There's a great video about it on Masahiro Sakurai's RUclips channel.
As someone who loved They Are Billions in concept, it fucking ruined me when I realized I'd have to the mod the SINGLE PLAYER experience just to be able to play the different maps because they were locked behind beating previous maps at certain difficulties.
What made it worse is the community around it was TOXIC AS ALL HELL. The "Get Gud" "Ur Mom Go Boom" bullshit and it drove the general consumers away. But by then, people like me had already bought into the early release and the devs walked away with millions in sales even though the active numbers of players literally disappeared overnight once people realized they could no longer play the game without turning into sweaty no-lifers. (No offense high achievers - I'm just pissed about this years later. It's insane that the top 5% of a games players expect a game to cater to them in a SINGLE PLAYER experience because their fragile egos need to get their rocks off to the universal leader board.)
They went on to release a campaign mode which has difficulty settings, but by then it was far too little too late imo. I didn't even realize they had implemented the campaign with difficulty options because I had completely uninstalled and ignored any updates. And because of that, any PR the devs tried to garner fell on deaf ears because the majority of the initial consumers had moved on.
He hasn't cited Celeste...
The troon game?
As a person with autism, THANK you so much for talking about accessibility. I have really good reflexes so reaction time isn’t an issue, but part of my autism is a lack of “gut feeling” which makes choices like what perks to pick or stats to level up in RPG games literally impossible for me to make, so an auto leveler or recommendation system helps immensely.
I think the biggest problem in the industry when it comes to difficulty is that you have a vocal minority screaming that every game needs to be accessible to everyone, and devs that actually listen
I think unless your core concept is in the difficulty, like souls games, you can make games more or less accessible to everyone by lowering the difficulty, just not with multiplayer ones of course.
I personally play on PC so I can cheat on every game I play, If I have to repeat anything I get instantly bored (ADHD) and just can't force myself to continue. So instead of constantly paying for games that I then immediately get bored of and never play again, I use trainers on PC from the get go, but choose the hardest option anyway. I also hate adrenaline (cPTSD).
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
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..
What gets me is how people tackle acessibility alongside game difficulty. Having a "easy mode" doesn't make the game automatically acessible. One should look at the last of us part 2 to see how acessible a game can be.
If a dev doesn't want to add a difficulty options, to the game It's their choice to make.
Games don't and shouldn't cater to everyone.
Accessibility, isn't Difficulty options, it's a color blind mode, on screen prompts for the hearing impaired, and stuff like that.
•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.
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
my main problem with difficulty options is i never know which of the modes did the game devs have in mind unless it says something along the lines of "this is how its intended to be played" and if it doesnt say that the next best thing you can do is normal which isnt always the intended 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
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.
I'm firmly of the belief that every game has a perfect difficulty and its the one it was designed for.
difficulty options should be reformed into accessibility options. which is more or less what they were to begin with.
games should not try to appeal to the widest audience possible, games should be for specific audiences and do their niche thing as well as can be done and people that dont like it can just play a game they do like.
Many people with disabilities "don't like" games that don't accommodate them by default, and I wouldn't want them to just not be able to play
I mean difficulty options also serve functions like a "story" mode. like, take TLOU for an example. It's an amazing game but it's also a brutally challenging one. a lot of people might wanna get all the story of it but not wanna deal with the difficulty. That game has easier modes for those people, and it's so clear that those modes are necessary because it's a game they literally made an HBO TV show directly adapting and it barely felt out of place as something for TLOU to do
@@apersonwhomayormaynotexist9868
that in no way conflicts with what I was trying to say
@@Lextorias idk if you'll see this but I think I see where I lost you.
I meant people who don't like action adventure games for example shouldn't have survival craft mechanics thoughtlessly stuffed into those games to appeal to an entirely different crowd.
I was not meaning to refer to disabled people who play games as a group to not be catered to in their interests or needs.
I can see why that would not have been clear. it was a kind of tacked on thought.
all games should have accessibility options
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).
what up lextorias
waddup
I like te "difficulty setting" in Severance: Blade of Darkness. You can safe as often as you want, but if you do safe often enough, the game will call you a coward.
Hot take: Dark Souls and Elden Ring aren't hard games. That's the reason why people can finish the game twice at the same time, or with a steering wheel, or without a weapon, etc. They are just punishing in annoying ways that makes them feel harder than they really are. It's also the reason why the games are not something you can recommend to anyone.
Not really a hot take
Most people attempt to fight a boss on their first run, rather then learn the openings and patterns. If you just focus on learning the game becomes miserably easy and boring.
It is glorified pattern recognition.
literally like everyone I know who's played it recommends elden ring what do you mean
@@apersonwhomayormaynotexist9868 Yeah, Elden Ring is the most accessible FromSoft souls-like by far. But, also, if you're here, chances are that most of your friends aren't a good representation of most gamers.
im a casual game dev and the way i end up doing in my VERY indie games is to have a checkbox at game start that is titled "test mode" and has a very clear dialog under it explaining that this removes spawns and lowers enemy health and was primarily made for testing purposes but left in for accessibility reasons.
Your whole elden ring argument in the middle of the video throws your entire argument out the window.
Imagine talking about Melania, talking about how difficult she is, then your friend is like "oh I just first-tried her on easy mode" completely undermines the entire game.
"How to make a perfect difficulty?" is a wrong question. It presents games as problems we need to solve. Its the same as "How to make the best game?". Its just wrong.
Something to note about simple numerical changes from difficulty is that done right... it can be extremely effective. A game where it works out extremely well is Battle Brothers, although admittedly it gives you 3 values you can adjust, theyre all simple numerical changes which in the end work out to give actual gameplay changes in terms of how precise you need to be.
One might say that all it does is force you into a strict optimal playstyle if you play in the hardest difficulty but in this case that would simply be the sign of someone who should play on a lower difficulty, because with proper planning and decision making you can play in a plethora of ways both on the world map as well as within battles and in terms of recruit selection and their leveling, in pretty much any way you wish really if youre good enough.
What this means is that someone who is good enough at the different aspects of play in terms of economic management, brother builds, tactical and world map decision making can for example consciouscly sacrifice some aspect of the "proper" play for perhaps additional challenge, or for faster play or simpler play or whatever else. Whereas another player who makes many errors in all of the aspects of play will have to play as optimally as they can in all those aspects even on the lowest difficulty, which might not sound great but actually means that theyre allowed freedom within those aspects of play as part of those errors, i.e the player makes "mistakes" in their level up choices for their battle brothers, but because they play on a lower difficulty they get away with it, but those mistakes are really just their personal uninformed decisions on what seems cool or interesting and therefore they can play the game in a more casual manner doing what seems cool to them while still being able to make progress, despite the difficulty options only having numerical effects.
This more casual player can then get better at the game and move up in difficulty, perhaps during the process of learning eliminating certain things from their playstyle. But eventually if they get good enough they can start reintegrating those flawed playstyles they previously discarded, since now they have the skill to actually make those flawed playstyles into something that works. I.e they might move from making cool and interesting level up decisions that clash with each other and dont work well together but serve them in a lower difficulty, into making more streamlined and optimized decisions on a higher difficulty to be able to beat the game and then eventually going back and making cool and interesting decisions at a now higher difficulty, but in a manner that works together with itself and other decisions such that it works despite not being what he might have previously claimed to be the most optimal playstyle.
These decisions that change based on difficulty and skill level despite only numerical value changes from difficulty are also present in all aspects of gameplay, and all those aspects of gameplay work together with eachother to make it so that you have a lot of different levels of decision making in various aspects of play that then feed into and inform what decisions you have in other aspects as well as what is viable.