Is Difficulty just a myth?

[thekdawg21]

Is Difficulty just a myth?

1) Randomness

The example you gave about randomness is rather silly and does not apply. The enjoyment and difficulty of playing in a random system is in maximizing your odds to win and minimizing your odds to lose your dice rolls. It is imperative that you look to the long term when regarding such things.

It is the very REASON we look to find a better weapon to improve our dice roll from a missing 12 to a hitting 13, or perhaps even changing our characters skill set in order to give us a better chance in accomplishing our task.

We know we'll fail sometimes. It's inevitable. The fun is in minimizing the failures, dealing with the consequences, and improving our chances from that failure forth.

It is very rare in your example (and relatively poor quest design) to have one single dice roll determine whether you continue or have game over.

Randomness is GOOD.

2) Disguised puzzle

Being prepared for all situations is part of 'strategy'. Casual gamers who want to blow through a game without really thinking, preparing, or 'strategizing', are welcome to cry when they fuck up. Puzzles, even disguised ones, are key elements to good difficult game-play.

3) Long term imbalance

In your example of System Shock 2, some classes are easier to play than other classes. This is an older game and YES, it's imbalanced and could probably use a bit of balance tweaking. That said, there is a great deal of enjoyment for the player that wants to go the OSA route in SS2 and succeeds in doing so.

If your only goal is to get to the end credits in the fastest way possible, feel free to play Halo or Gears of War.

If you want a thinking mans survival horror game with challenging difficulty, play OSA in System Shock 2.

4) Short term imbalance

'Grinding' is not the only solution to places or encounters that are too difficult for a character or a party. Many games will allow you to go to different places, perhaps easier or more appropriate for a party or character of your strength. Once you've done that:

You get the wonderful feeling of 'progression'. I have accomplished something. I am more powerful due to my toil. The giants that held me back are now beatable. There is very little more enjoyable than beating a difficult encounter that I struggled with for some time, for me.

Conclusion

I have never come across a game that was too difficult for me. Very few have even been a significant challenge and I end up having to handicap myself in some way to make it more difficult. I suspect, if you were a patient, thorough, and strategic player... you would have a similar experience.



All of your definitions and descriptors for difficulty were indeed real, and not illusions. I do long for a game however that utilizes them in a better way than they have been utilized before.

 

[spectre]

I lol'd really hard. What is this "difficult" you speak of? Asks the OP, as if unable to fathom what this mythical beast of the past may be?

Then the OP drops some game names like he knows them, but in reality it is just some shallow attempt at rationalizing the simple fact, mang, gtfo, play some pre-2000 games and then tell the hivemind all about your theory so that we can talk about difficulty, not misguided notions about bad design.

Suggested reading:
Any arcade game from that period, if you want specific ones, try Raptor then Tyrian.

Any sort of strategy, try Panzer General (any), try to get major victory repeatedly then come back to me. Move on to Homm3 with expansions.

Try Adom then go back to me with your silly notion that randomness = fuuuu I missed.

etc.

 

[Der_Unbekannte]

Ninja Gaiden.

Just a difficult game. No cheating enemies, good controls, and good progression of character strength.

Really enjoyed it.

 

[deuxhero]

MegaTen. Nothing cheats, one screw up gets you killed and it's pretty much impossible to level grind thanks to scaling XP and lack of real benefits from single levels (the real benefit is fusion options). Most bosses are of the "needs specific tactics to beat" type or just pushovers though.

 

[Ermm]

MegaTen = HOLY GRIND BATMAN
Ok it's pretty good nonethless but I played only first Persona games on PS1.

Still....

Castelvania 3 MOTHAFUCKA. That's one tough bitch.

 

[bhlaab]

@thekdawg Your responses to the op are interesting, but I'd like to know how you could change an RPG between the "Normal" difficulty level and "Hard" or even "Easy"

For example, randomness works with rpgs. But is lessening the chances of a good roll actually making the game harder or just more arbitrary and unfair?

 

[BearBomber]

@thekdawg Your responses to the op are interesting, but I'd like to know how you could change an RPG between the "Normal" difficulty level and "Hard" or even "Easy"

I'm not thekdawg but I think I know the answer. First of all no difficulty adjusting when they nerf your damage and boost enemies hp, also no exp/level/stats nerfs. The right way to do this is to add more stronger monster to encounter. For example if player fights a few goblins on easy he will have to fight goblins backed up by archers on medium and elite goblins backed up by archers and mage on medium. As a result players who don't care about combat and just want to explore plot can have a very straightforward and easy fight with no need to think while players looking for challenge will fight more difficult but also more interesting battles. The other way is to buff damage for both players and monster which will make battles harder but also more dynamic.

 

[bhlaab]

I'm not thekdawg but I think I know the answer. First of all no difficulty adjusting when they nerf your damage and boost enemies hp, also no exp/level/stats nerfs. The right way to do this is to add more stronger monster to encounter. For example if player fights a few goblins on easy he will have to fight goblins backed up by archers on medium and elite goblins backed up by archers and mage on medium. As a result players who don't care about combat and just want to explore plot can have a very straightforward and easy fight with no need to think while players looking for challenge will fight more difficult but also more interesting battles.

That's a hell of a lot of work, though. Going through each and every combat area and adding different monsters for 3 or more different difficulty levels. And isn't replacing a regular goblin with an elite goblin more or less the same thing as buffing the regular goblin?

The other way is to buff damage for both players and monster which will make battles harder but also more dynamic.

Now this is an interesting idea.

 

[madbringer]

 

[Mangoose]

Psh, difficulty scaling should mainly be better or worse AI.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Psh, difficulty scaling should mainly be better or worse AI.

 

[bhlaab]

Psh, difficulty scaling should mainly be better or worse AI.

That's ridiculous though. I see people talk about Halo that way "Dude if you play it on legendary the AI gets smarter!"

Bullshit, if you program this great AI you're not going to only show it to 10% of the players.

 

[deuxhero]

Ok it's pretty good nonethless but I played only first Persona games on PS1.
.

In before butthurt

 

[soggie]

Psh, difficulty scaling should mainly be better or worse AI.

That's ridiculous though. I see people talk about Halo that way "Dude if you play it on legendary the AI gets smarter!"

Bullshit, if you program this great AI you're not going to only show it to 10% of the players.

It'll add to immersion. At easy level those elite soldiers come at you with Bandit-level AI, and at hard level those elite soldiers employ sound tactics like pinning you down and then sending people to flank you or flush you out with grenades.

 

[Mangoose]

Psh, difficulty scaling should mainly be better or worse AI.

That's ridiculous though. I see people talk about Halo that way "Dude if you play it on legendary the AI gets smarter!"

Bullshit, if you program this great AI you're not going to only show it to 10% of the players.

Huh? This is how strategy games work. It's what happens when I play Chess against a computer. Or does increasing the difficulty give my opponent five Queens?

The problem of course is that making smarter AI isn't easy. I was being a bit facetious.

It'll add to immersion. At easy level those elite soldiers come at you with Bandit-level AI, and at hard level those elite soldiers employ sound tactics like pinning you down and then sending people to flank you or flush you out with grenades.

Not sure if this is sarcasm, but if there are relative degrees of AI within each difficulty, then there is less of a hit on immersion. In other words, if easy bandits have weaker AI than easy elite soldiers. And hard bandits have weaker AI than hard elite soldiers.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Huh? This is how strategy games work. It's what happens when I play Chess against a computer. Or does increasing the difficulty give my opponent five Queens?

The problem of course is that making smarter AI isn't easy. I was being a bit facetious.

1) There is no AI. AI in chess or computergames is a misnomer.
2) The difficulty level of chess engines is usually manipulated by limiting the search depth (calculation) of the engine and by, depending on the difficulty level, deliberately adding ridiculous blunders to give the human some chances. Ranging from just putting a piece on a square where it can be taken to making a tactical error that requires a certain( varying) depth of calculation on the humans part to see it.
3) Although we're talking just about some instruction sets, instructions to do this or that if this or that is true or false, a varying degree of complexity & efficiency of said instructions can have a significant influence on the difficulty of the game. Example BG2: in vanilla most enemy mages never heard of spells like Protection from Magical Weapons, Spell Immunity Abjuration and the like. The difficulty of the game changes drastically with a mod like SCS2 when they suddenly use such spells. However, it is way easier to manipulate the difficulty by cheating in favor of the AI, so this is what happens most of the time in games.

 

[Mangoose]

1) There is no AI. AI in chess or computergames is a misnomer.

Well, yes. I mean it in the misnomer way.

2) The difficulty level of chess engines is usually manipulated by limiting the search depth (calculation) of the engine and by, depending on the difficulty level, deliberately adding ridiculous blunders to give the human some chances. Ranging from just putting a piece on a square where it can be taken to making a tactical error that requires a certain( varying) depth of calculation on the humans part to see it.

Would this not be possible in an RPG? Perhaps a tactical hex/square- and turn-based RPG?

3) Although we're talking just about some instruction sets, instructions to do this or that if this or that is true or false, a varying degree of complexity & efficiency of said instructions can have a significant influence on the difficulty of the game. Example BG2: in vanilla most enemy mages never heard of spells like Protection from Magical Weapons, Spell Immunity Abjuration and the like. The difficulty of the game changes drastically with a mod like SCS2 when they suddenly use such spells. However, it is way easier to manipulate the difficulty by cheating in favor of the AI, so this is what happens most of the time in games.

Sounds good.

 

[Raghar]

@thekdawg Your responses to the op are interesting, but I'd like to know how you could change an RPG between the "Normal" difficulty level and "Hard" or even "Easy"

Normal: Your quest giver will not describe to the detail road from point A to B and will not solve the quest himself when you encounter minor difficulty.

Hard: A lot of information is on purpose misleading.

 

[StrangeCase]

Hard: A lot of information is on purpose misleading.

Eh, that sounds more irritating than challenging. And none too good for IMMERSHUN unless it was used sparingly.

 

[laclongquan]

What kind of difficulty are we talking about? And in what genre.

Strategy? All you need is different patterns for each situation. Chain of build, some certain designs of units, some certain chain of button mashing, and some certain winning strategies for certain factions. take Alpha Centaury for example: There's no weak faction, there's only weak players. Once you learn the correct strategy for each faction, winning become easy.

Tactic? Make full and intelligent use of each and every tool you have in your hand, be it an unit, a spell, or whatever. Make full use of battlefield terrains. Make sure you have superior advantage in quality, quantity and try not to engage out of that. Details? Dont attack unless you either are better or more people, and attack on favoured ground. Like Fallout tactic, for example: try to engage Mutants one at a time, silently and quickly, and dont let they ALL run screaming at you.

RPG? It's hard to find difficulty combat in RPG. In other aspects, it's mostly a matter of learning your strength and weakness.

Puzzle? I dont want to talk about puzzle.

So yeah, I think Difficulty is just a myth.

 

[thekdawg21]

For example, randomness works with rpgs. But is lessening the chances of a good roll actually making the game harder or just more arbitrary and unfair?

Well, in it's simplest form, making each individual roll you attempt have a standard 10% penalty -would- make the game more difficult. It's a bit of a simple method, but it does indeed require the player to think more about their decisions.

In the case of combat, if you are already suffering from difficult to make dice-rolls, it is even that more imperative that you strategize the most effective way of building your character (or maneuvering your troops), select your equipment, use consumables to improve your chances, etc. Did you ever use buffout, mentats, jet, or chems at all in Fallout? Did you ever need to? Wouldn't it have been nice if they were really the necessary items that they could have been? (Mentats I suppose were useful in some situations, but you never really NEEDED to use them.)

So in answer to your question, I would say YES, lessening the chances of a good roll DOES increase the difficulty and (for me) make it more fun. As I said, it's a simple way to do it, and there can be many other more interesting ways to increase difficulty.

Fallout Tactics' "Tough Guy Mode" was among the best ways to increase difficulty that I've seen in a long time. (You weren't allowed to save during missions, and they were LONG missions, but your characters got more experience per gain.) If every game had something like this, something that made death matter and a simple 'save/reload' wouldn't fix your mistakes, difficulty and fun increase. Winning a game is now an accomplishment of strategic success instead of an inevitable outcome like watching a movie.

Fairness, I believe, is something we as gamers need to accept for the moment, that we cannot realistically have. It is extremely difficult, I imagine, for a developer to make the AI (or just computer, if you will) think on the level of a human. To have the creativity of a human. I suspect they can do a LOT better than they have been, however.

Civilization IV is one game that masters difficulty. Age of Decadence, I suspect, will master difficulty. From the combat demo, I am very pleased with combat and I felt as if I had accomplished something when I finally beat it.

 

[non]

Here's a difficult game:

Solving equations faster than the computer.

 

[BearBomber]

That's a hell of a lot of work, though. Going through each and every combat area and adding different monsters for 3 or more different difficulty levels. And isn't replacing a regular goblin with an elite goblin more or less the same thing as buffing the regular goblin?.

Look at it differently. You do not add anything, you create interesting encounter and then remove parts that can be hard for a newbie, and nerf enemies sometimes. Like the difficulty levels in Secret of the Monkey island where they made normal and crazy monkey modes. Crazy monkey was a full game while normal difficulty had some puzzles cut.

As for goblin yes, he is buffed but because he have better equipment and stats, not because he deals double damage for no reason.

 

[Introdeker]

First let me thank you for the responses.

Since I don’t think I’ll have time to post anything in the near future I’ll take this opportunity to offer what I’d have chosen as my sig were I to become a regular contributor here:

“Any game that gets replayed is a sadbox game.”

 

[Der_Unbekannte]

Who is this guy?

And why does he think we care about him?

And your sig sucks.