"Good" vs "Bad" Difficulty

[Ihateregistering1]

This is going WAY back, but the "Myth" games (the RTS games Bungie made before they made Halo).

Myth was an RTS game, but you didn't have bases or resources, just a limited number of guys in each mission that you had to utilize effectively. The game was very tough: you were always heavily outnumbered, death was permanent, and your guys weren't much tougher than the enemies, so you wouldn't last long in a stand up fight. You had to use careful tactics to win the day, but (with a small handful of exceptions) the game almost never put you in a position where only one strategy could be used to win the day, even on the tougher missions. There was always alternate ways to find victory (and with a little luck on your side).

Ninja Gaiden 2 did difficulty poorly (to me). I still loved the game, but too frequently the difficulty came about due to either a shitty camera or bullshit attacks (I'm looking at you, incendiary shuriken Ninjas).

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Rubberbanding has killed any love I have for most racing games. I don't think your car all of a sudden gained an extra 50HP that allowed you to steal first from me. I also don't think someone filled your trunk with lead when I go screaming into a pole and have to extricate it from the middle of my engine before I can continue.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Bad difficulty? I have to go with DAO as being the most messed up difficulty curve I've ever seen. I love the story of that game but I've only ever been able to play it once because between the terrible combat system and the difficulty I can't face playing it again. And I don't mean its too hard overall...I mean its just WEIRD. I'll straight up smash my way through a fight one minute, then the next minute I'll instantly die in another, then after getting through that after a dozen reloads I'll breeze through a couple more. I could never quite wrap my head around how the difficulty could be so all-or-nothing. Either I'd win a fight in about five seconds flat or I'd lose horribly in a similar timescale.

I don't even know quite what is wrong with it. It just always felt so, so wrong to me.


Good difficulty? That's a little harder I have to say. Though...I'd tentatively say Dwarf Fortress? Maybe? That game will rip your head off if you give it half a chance but it never really felt unfair or particularly badly paced. Whether or not you survive is entirely down to whether you, as a play, understand how to handle situations; its a learning experience and when you've learned how to progress you'll get somewhere...until it throws the next challenge at you. In essence, every mistake is entirely your own fault.

 

[Callate]

Puzzle Quest: Galactix comes to mind. The number of times I saw computer opponents "randomly" pull enormous stacks of damage out of the sides...

It does raise another question in my mind, though: should computer games, given the opportunity, play "fair"? It is perfectly possible, in a real-world game, for dice to roll a series of elevens and fours and not hit the seven you so desperately need twenty times in a row. But a computer can tell if a random event has happened "too often" and adjust its results accordingly. Should it?

Playing through the dregs of Far Cry has me wishing for wildlife that was actually afraid of gunfire, rather than going looking for its source every three minutes.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

A good difficulty idea is having more complications in a mission. Armored Core loved to throw curveballs at you at the Hard difficulty. Like facing an extra AC in battle or having to deal with an enemy unsupported. Having complications makes you be prepared for more trouble.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I always thought Elder Scrolls (well Skyrim anyway) was a good example of difficulty done poorly, which is weird, since there are so many parameters that could affect the difficulty in the base game already. I haven't ever noticed any other effect in the game besides increasing the damage and HP of enemies / decreasing your HP and damage. Why just those when you could make diseases more potent or easier to contract, make health potions heal more slowly, increase the number of enemies, make items more expensive or more rare, have crafting require more materials etc.? It's baffling. On a side note, I can't understand the decision to make the Pickaxe in Skyrim a weapon you can equip, but mining for ore a completely passive chore where you watch an animation without any input for 10 seconds. Why not just make it so that you mine by whacking at the ore vein with the pickaxe?

The way the OP described Valkyria Chronicles reminded me a lot of Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones, which I never played on any other difficulty than easy, because on higher levels the game just flings shit at you by merely chaning the probabilities of hitting and critical hits and damage done in the enemy's favor. That, and the game also had a "one way to victory" habit.

Perhaps the worst example of bullshit difficulty I can think of is Far Cry 1. Even on Normal the enemies have super x-ray sniper scope vision and perfect aim. I've mentioned this before, but I kept dying over and over in one section, only to realize I was being shot at from a tower that was outside the game's draw distance.

I think Binding of Isaac is a good example of difficulty done well. Yes, you absolutely live and die by the random powerups, but there's a world of difference in difficulty once you've mastered the different enemies, bosses and behaviors.

 

[G00N3R7883]

Killing Floor is one of my favourite games because it manages to get an excellent difficulty balance. Its brutal, but its also fair. Every time I've failed, I felt like either myself or a teammate or even the whole team made a mistake.

 

[Teoes]

So good and bad difficulty is being discussed, but how does the way the game handles getting the player back into the fray affect our judgment on how it handles difficulty overall?

Take for example Super Meat Boy or Hotline Miami. Now whether you consider these games to be good hard or bad hard [footnote]hurr hurr hurr it's like good touch bad touch[/footnote], while they will happily kill you in a nanosecond they will also let you restart and try again in a nanosecond. Does this affect our judgement; does this excuse otherwise bad difficulty?

 

[ninja666]

I'm gonna mention a surprisingly good example of difficulty: Resident Evil 4. It made you choose a difficulty level right at the beginning of the game, but had some sort of dynamic encounter difficulty system. When you died a few times in a row in a specific encounter, the next time you loaded the game, the encounter was sneakily made to be slightly easier for you because the game spawned less enemies, or replaced strong ones with weaker versions.

 

[joest01]

Hmm, I guess everybody has a different definition but I never thought Valkyria Chronicles was particulary difficult. The hard mode DLC is insanely hard but the game itself, as long as you know how to use the smoke bombs and what each class can and can't do it seems like you can get through most battles within a reasonable number of tries. Compared to other srpg it is actually fairly easy. Try Wild Arms XF on for size.

But that wasn't your question. My obsession isn't so much with bullshit difficulty but with good difficulty.
Difficulty done right is one that gives you the tools to overcome it. Games that are technical and have a "high skill ceiling". As well as intelligent and varied enemy AI. That you can still dominate, given sufficient mastery of the game mechanics. One of the best examples is of course Ninja Gaiden Black, Sigma, Sigma2.

But even there, my hard mode run of NGS1 is stuck on the effin boulder. I beat Doppelganger Ryu, followed by Alma, and all the goddamn cats inbetween, just to hand in the controller at the indiana jones scene. Which I overcame during my normal run but couldnt suffer through again.

A much worse offender is Bayonetta 1. A tremendous game, with a skill ceiling as high as mount everest. But also with gimmickey battles and qte sequences to ruin it all.

I think Bayonetta 2 is the purest example I can think of for pure skill based difficulty. Especially for someone who has played too much NG in his past and tends to focus on not dying instead of chaining combos together..

Another is N+. That game ramped it up until I couldn't keep up anymore. But I know in my heart it is fair, I just suck, and am just not ready to invest the time.

If you watch the speed run of i wanna be the boshy, that guy keeps casually talking while dominating a game that would bring me to tears within the first level. And why can he do that? Because the level design and mechanics are actually thought out well enough to allow for the insane difficulty.

So there, thats my convoluted take.

 

[Angelous Wang]

I've always felt Alien: Isolation used a cheating AI system.

Hell yes it does.

Most people don't realise this but simply aming your weapon (or motion detector) spawns the Alien to the nearest vent (if he is not already spawned) and alerts the Alien to your exact location. Even if amiming the weapon makes no noise (like a pistol).

How do I know? Well I've used a Cheat Engine to disable the Aliens visablity of me (I can stand right in front of him just outside insta-kill range without notice) however as soon as I point a weapon, knows exaclty were I am.

Knowing that actually lets you play with him more, because if you have pesky humans in you way all you have to do is get close to them (but hidden) aim you weapon for 5 secs, and the Alien will come looking for you and clean them up for you.

Also the Alien has an insta-kill range, from any direction, invisable or no.

 

[Fractral]

On a side note, I can't understand the decision to make the Pickaxe in Skyrim a weapon you can equip, but mining for ore a completely passive chore where you watch an animation without any input for 10 seconds. Why not just make it so that you mine by whacking at the ore vein with the pickaxe?

You actually can mine ore from a vein manually; if you whack at it with a pickaxe 3 times you get the ore, same as in the animation. It's slightly faster than the animation too. Not that the game tells you this anywhere, mind.

 

[communist gamer]

X-com enemy unknow/with in. Do you know what is the ONLY thing that is really harder in the game on higher diffriculty setings? The game fucking with the change of hiting something. I'v had my entire team miss a 90-something% chance of hiting (take note that a few of them shot more then one time because of skills) while a bloody sectoid crits me for 15 dmg across the map, 3 times.

DS: at least for me, throwing bosses and enemies at me who i can beat only when the stars allainge in the right way, and not giving me a warning about this is not something good, it's a cheep shot and never will be anything more. GOD DAM IT DS AT LEAST GIVE ME A WARNING THAT THE GIGANTIC KNIGHT WONT DO SHIT TO ME BUT THE TINY SKELLY WILL 1-HIT ME!

 

[Loonyyy]

I may just be pissy because 90% of my deaths in those situations are cheap pitfalls

I'm sure you meant to say "pratfalls".

Dark Souls definitely has numerous instances of situations where, unless you pre-prepared going in by reading a guide, you gonna die. That's when it slips into "cheap" difficulty rather than "admirable" difficulty. The Goat dude and his stupid dogs are an example of that. Walk through misty door and they are literally eating your balls off before you have time to even register the scenery.

Speaking of that motherfucking Capra demon, felt so good beating him. Went around in a circle, got the Stone Armour, upgraded halberd. Each hit, something like a quarter of his health. I felt like I had reversed the game, and now I was the boss.

 

[Scow2]

Another game I thought was absurdly difficult was Dark Souls. Now yes its supposed to be hard, but that always felt like a cop-out to me, like when Tommy Wiseau said The Room was supposed to be bad. I can deal with obtuse, trial/error game-play, or I can do bad controls or obnoxiously hard enemies. I hate the idea of them all being together, because then its never a challenge. Then its a test of patience where any and all progress has a sense of achievement sucked out of it because you pretty much lucked out. You can fight the same guy the same way 100+ times and that one victory has no actual joy. You just feel cheated of your time and angry that your only reward for spending 5+ hours fighting one enemy was...SHOCK! Two more of the same type! Hope you cleared your weekend! Basically if you have to use a Wiki to get out of the prologue training area, the game has done something wrong.

I'm sorry... but if it takes you 100+ times to beat an enemy, and only then because you 'luck out', it means you're doing something wrong. And the 'prologue training area' is extremely easy and straightforward (And I'm saying this as someone who had to return the game to my bro before I ever managed to get through Undead Burg)

 

[Razuli]

On a side note, I can't understand the decision to make the Pickaxe in Skyrim a weapon you can equip, but mining for ore a completely passive chore where you watch an animation without any input for 10 seconds. Why not just make it so that you mine by whacking at the ore vein with the pickaxe?

Off topic, but you actually can mine by just whacking ore with the pickaxe.If you use elemental fury you can completely mine a node in like seconds.



Throw me in with the Halo (specially 2) jackal snipers, I don't play on legendary solely because of them.

 

[Zannah]

Honestly, the single biggest Bullshit of the soul-series is that if my scimitar comes within a meter of the wall it bounces off, but firebreath' or the swings of stupidly oversized weapons can just merrily clip through walls and textures. Because god forbid I try to play smart, insted of memorizing the pattern and pressing the dodge button right like good little lab-monkey.

 

[Kiardras]

Why not just make it so that you mine by whacking at the ore vein with the pickaxe?

You can. Equip pick axe, face the ore, and do a power attack on it.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Another game I thought was absurdly difficult was Dark Souls. Now yes its supposed to be hard, but that always felt like a cop-out to me, like when Tommy Wiseau said The Room was supposed to be bad. I can deal with obtuse, trial/error game-play, or I can do bad controls or obnoxiously hard enemies. I hate the idea of them all being together, because then its never a challenge. Then its a test of patience where any and all progress has a sense of achievement sucked out of it because you pretty much lucked out. You can fight the same guy the same way 100+ times and that one victory has no actual joy. You just feel cheated of your time and angry that your only reward for spending 5+ hours fighting one enemy was...SHOCK! Two more of the same type! Hope you cleared your weekend! Basically if you have to use a Wiki to get out of the prologue training area, the game has done something wrong.

Oookay, now I have to ask... no, just simply say: You did it wrong, or we're not talking about the same game. Dark Souls is not a game where you "luck out". It is not a game that has bad controls. It is not a game of just trial and error. Not even the enemies are that hard in the end once you figure out their attack patterns, which usually takes only 2-3 times at most. It's true that you have to use the wiki to really get into it, but needing that to get out of the starting area (I'm assuming that's the Undead Asylum you're talking about) shouldn't be even possible. It's the most straightforward are in the game!

You actually can mine ore from a vein manually; if you whack at it with a pickaxe 3 times you get the ore, same as in the animation. It's slightly faster than the animation too. Not that the game tells you this anywhere, mind.

You can. Equip pick axe, face the ore, and do a power attack on it.

Off topic, but you actually can mine by just whacking ore with the pickaxe.If you use elemental fury you can completely mine a node in like seconds.

Fucking seriously? Good job Bethesda, over 200 hours sunk into that game and at no point did you ever indicate that was even possible.