Artificial Difficulty: Biggest Offenders

[PedroSteckecilo]

Definition:

Artificial Difficulty is the term I use to describe a game that makes itself harder through means which will more often annoy the player than give them a good sense of challenge. Usually this type of difficulty involves enemies or situations which take advantage of crummy controls simply to make the game FEEL harder. Overall, Artificial Difficulty is annoying and frustrating instead of Challenging and Rewarding.

Examples of games that are (for the most part) the GOOD kind of challenging.
Gears of War: Tactics and Skill win the day (except for the whole Driving/Solar Gun section, hella Artificial Difficulty there)
Resident Evil 4: Shooting Ability and Decisions are important (though ammo scarcity fits into Artificial Difficulty territory, as do escort missions).


My Worst Offenders List...

1) Grand Theft Auto (1, 2, 3, Vice City and San Andreas): The controls suck, the cars are too weak and the autolock frequently targets the wrong foe. You often end up dying four or five times on a mission because of something stupid, like a random car drives into the intersection during a crucial car chase and destroys you, or the cops are in the wrong place at the wrong time while your doing a mission and you get a 3 star rating like that because of it. GTA has too many random elements and while they do increase the difficulty, the frustration is much greater than the fun. These are not good challenges, these are ANNOYING challenges.

2) Dead Rising: The time limits are too fast, the nighttime zombies are tougher for no reason, the rescued people are stupid but the WORST thing they do is this... The control system is designed to fight slow moving enemies (a.k.a. Zombies) but to make the boss fights harder the bosses are fast moving people who for some reason are WAY faster, more agile and have better aim than you, hence making it REALLY hard to aim/hit/defeat them using your super-slow zombie fighting moves, you lose due to crappy controls more often than to any actual strategy by the bosses. Also time limits, what the hell? As if this game wasn't hard enough anyway.

 

[Watershed]

Do games that blatantly cheat count? Pro Evolution Soccer is definetly a contender there. You'll be winning quite comfortably until the computer either...

1) Gives itself a free kick in injury time and scores, sending a player off in the process
2) Same as above but calls a soft penalty
3) A teammate you're not controlling randomly decides to foul the opposition in the box
4) You get through on goal, go round the keeper with an open goal to shoot at... and your player misses.
5) Or my personal favourite. The computer team gets the ball around the halfway line, goes on a surging run, shrugs off the 8 players attempting to tackle him and scores a 20 yard screamer in the last minute... very frustrating.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I would say that blatant cheating counts, I just don't play sports/racing games where that shows up in the programming so I have no criteria to judge them.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Like when an easy AI Star Wars sniper one in a billion happenstace gets a perfect headshot on you while flying at high speed. Inside an X-wing.

 

[Watershed]

Like when an easy Star Wars sniper one in a billion happenstace gets a perfect headshot on you while flying at high speed. Inside an X-wing.

That's an impressive shot to say the least. :/

 

[m_jim]

The dead rising time limit thing was bullshit, reminded me of Pikmin. Thankfully the GTA on foot has been fixed so I have no problems with that.

I totally concur with you! have a cookie

I didn't think that Dead Rising's time limit was that bad. As long as you didn't try to save everyone, it was totally possible to get the good ending on the first go-around.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

I didn't think that Dead Rising's time limit was that bad. As long as you didn't try to save everyone, it was totally possible to get the good ending on the first go-around.

The part I got stuck at that really pissed me off was Steven in the Super Market, where they barely give you enough time to run across the goddamn mall let alone get stuck anywhere. The timelimit was too damn short for that bit.

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

Interesting thread. I like the term "artificial difficulty". Even though all games are completely artificial by nature, I think it's pretty clear what you mean by it.

I take issue with a couple of things though.

Resident Evil 4: Shooting Ability and Decisions are important (though ammo scarcity fits into Artificial Difficulty territory, as do escort missions).

Ammo scarcity is another word for "resource management". Nothing artificial there. You have a limited amount of resources (bullets) and you have to make the best possible use of them. Strike a balance between careful aiming and quick shooting. Don't use shotguns on a lone enemy unless the situation is desperate. Manage your grenades judiciously.
Escorting Ashley isn't artificial either. She's a material target for the enemy and you need to balance the need to protect yourself with the need to protect her. Sometimes you can afford to let them carry her off for a little while (as you thin their numbers around yourself) but you can't let it go too long or it's all over.

Grand Theft Auto (1, 2, 3, Vice City and San Andreas): The controls suck, the cars are too weak and the autolock frequently targets the wrong foe.

Serves you right for playing it on a console instead of PC with mouse and keyboard.

You often end up dying four or five times on a mission because of something stupid, like a random car drives into the intersection during a crucial car chase and destroys you,

So. Annoying. The fact that you can't anticipate or deal with those problems except by repeating the missions until you get lucky is what really burns. Though somehow the phrase "artifical difficulty" doesn't seem to apply here. It seems like random screwage, rather than something the designers deliberately put in. I wonder, is it useful to make the distinction?

Anyway. My least favourite is AI cheating in RTS and TBS games. I remember playing the original Civilization on Emperor level, and I couldn't understand how my neighbours were managing to grow their cities so damned fast. Eventually I sent in a diplomat to spy on their production and realized that the food and production icons were oddly staggered in their respective boxes. The AI only needed 1/6th the food to grow its population and 1/6th the production to construct its buildings and military units. I turned the machine off and have never enjoyed the game quite as much since. THAT's artificial difficulty for you.

AIs who always antagonize the player and rarely antagonize each other are also irritating. Let 'em win or lose on their own merits, the lazy bastards.

 

[Jack Sheehan]

Everything by CryTek. How are you supposed to play Far Cry like a stealth shooter if everyone in the map has super vision and can see you at 6 miles away? To add insult to injury they of course have perfect aim.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Ammo scarcity is another word for "resource management". Nothing artificial there. You have a limited amount of resources (bullets) and you have to make the best possible use of them. Strike a balance between careful aiming and quick shooting. Don't use shotguns on a lone enemy unless the situation is desperate. Manage your grenades judiciously.
Escorting Ashley isn't artificial either. She's a material target for the enemy and you need to balance the need to protect yourself with the need to protect her. Sometimes you can afford to let them carry her off for a little while (as you thin their numbers around yourself) but you can't let it go too long or it's all over.

So. Annoying. The fact that you can't anticipate or deal with those problems except by repeating the missions until you get lucky is what really burns. Though somehow the phrase "artifical difficulty" doesn't seem to apply here. It seems like random screwage, rather than something the designers deliberately put in. I wonder, is it useful to make the distinction?

Valid Criticisms!

Your pretty much right about Resident Evil 4, the reason why I mention those is because they skirt the line, sometimes it feels like resource management, but sometimes it seems like they want to suck your bullets to increade difficulty. And Ashley is one of the more well designed escort missions around, but I feel all escort missions are just an excuse to make the game harder.

In regards to the GTA bit I feel that, as they do in Saints Row, the cars should be tougher and the missions shouldn't run on such a tight timer. If you get blind sided, which 50% of the time you do, the designers should anticipate that and the enemy should be slower as a result, or you should be given more leeway in picking up their trail after you recover. The problem here being that if you get hit by a random car, launched even slightly off of the chase route, hit one wrong pedestrian/police car your basically done for and a 50% random failure rate is not good.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Everything by CryTek. How are you supposed to play Far Cry like a stealth shooter if everyone in the map has super vision and can see you at 6 miles away? To add insult to injury they of course have perfect aim.

Or in the same vein how any guard in Oblivion can magically sense you when you perform a criminal act. Or how Cops in previous GTA games can find you no matter where you hide? Sometimes even teleporting right behind you?

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Agree about Oblivion's guards, and how come the game gets harder the more you level up? The general monsters get bigger and tougher.

I can understand this in the high-level quests, but the everyday monsters? It just feels unfair that as you get all this ability to cut a rat or goblin in two with a single sword stroke or lightning bolt, you stop having to fight them and get bloody great minotaurs and bears as standard instead.

Note - despite gripes like this, Oblivion is still a great game, and the only one I've managed to finish in the last few months!

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Agree about Oblivion's guards, and how come the game gets harder the more you level up? The general monsters get bigger and tougher.

I can understand facing tougher beasties in the high-level quests, but the everyday monsters? It just feels unfair that as you get all this ability to cut a rat or goblin in two with a single sword stroke or lightning bolt, you stop having to fight them and get bloody great minotaurs and bears as standard instead.

Note - despite gripes like this, Oblivion is still a great game, and the only one I've managed to finish in the last few months!

 

[The Franco]

A lot of capitol offenders have been cataloged here:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheComputerIsACheatingBastard

But with that link hopefully placing you deep in nostalgia here is my most hated/favorite Bullshit AI moment:

Mario Party. My friends will hoot and holler to no end when they win, and ***** for hours when they lose. Keep in mind that winning and losing is complete fucking chance in Mario Party unless you're actively trying to lose.

 

[flaming_mo]

Do games that blatantly cheat count? Pro Evolution Soccer is definetly a contender there. You'll be winning quite comfortably until the computer either...

any of those, or when a weak cross goes into the box, hangs in the air for an eternity, and then the computer ALWAYS seems to win the header, this happening mostly during the early days of master league

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

Your pretty much right about Resident Evil 4, the reason why I mention those is because they skirt the line, sometimes it feels like resource management, but sometimes it seems like they want to suck your bullets to increade difficulty.

It is a fine line. The designers have to balance the number of enemies they throw at you with the muntions they provide, so that you'll succeed or fail based on how well you use what you've got. Sometimes that means hitting you with enemies that are massive ammo sinks. If you managed your stuff well enough, you can win. If not, you're toast. If there were always enough ammo to get the job done without having to worry about it, it wouldn't be a survival-horror game.

And Ashley is one of the more well designed escort missions around, but I feel all escort missions are just an excuse to make the game harder.

If she wandered around at random like the citizens driving the streets in GTA, I'd agree with you. But she stays right behind you wherever you go unless you tell her to stay put. If she didn't keep her head down when the bullets start flying, if she didn't come straight to you when you call her, if she didn't take every reasonable precaution to stay out of the line of fire, I'd call artificial shenanigans.

But nope, it's an honest-to-goodness challenge keeping her safe. You have too much control for it to be otherwise.

I'm not sure if giving extra time in GTA when blind-sided is the way to go; keeping the streets clear of meandering idiots during certain missions would probably work better. I mean they do it during the racing missions, right?

 

[ResidentEman]

IMO, Dead Rising is the biggest offender of this I've ever played. I mean, to quote Yahtzee, there's something wrong with a katana that breaks in five or six hits. I realize, the developers don't want you wielding around so=me uber weapon for an unlimited amount of time and just killing everything, but come on! With the sheer number of zombies, and the difficulty of actually getting a fucking katana, you should be able to slice through at least 100 before you have to go back to throwing TVs! And the bosses are total bullshit also.

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

Okay, so. Rubberbanding in racing games. Artificial difficulty?

 

[random9qz]

Okay, so. Rubberbanding in racing games. Artificial difficulty?

I hated MK64 for that. :\ Get the fastest kart and use a mushroom, and the other kart, no items, stayed right beside me. Fail.

Also, the Oblivion guards thing is why I prefer Morrowind, I prefer to be able to wreck absolutely everything (except maybe the god, he was tricky) once you reach a certain stage of awesome.

I thought Wii Sports (although this is more a rubberband issue) did this well with the score balance, except the difficulty curves are non-existent in Tennis and insane in Baseball >_<