Poll: Should every game have difficulty setting?

[djAMPnz]

I always play every game on the medium setting anyway so I'm not really bothered either way. It generally seems to me that games that don't have difficulty settings don't really need them. The only games I've played where I've cared about the difficulty setting was the Monkey Island games. More, harder puzzles on the harder setting is better for veterans of the series but most would probably get annoyed with them and prefer the easier setting.

 

[Volothos]

I've played plenty of great games without difficulty settings, Disgaea being one of them, so I'd say no.

Disgaea: Well, technically there ARE two difficulties. There's what can be called "Normal" mode, and then the New Game + stuff, which would be "Oh my god this is fucking impossible." mode.

What about the level bills? Do those count?

 

[Vegosiux]

I'm not bothered. I mean I'm not one of those people who have something to prove to I don't know who, so I don't care if someone else is doing easy mode.

 

[Hunter65416]

I kinda think there should only be a normal and hard setting, I cant stop myself turning the difficulty to 0 in skyrim when i get to a tough patch

 

[krazykidd]

I've played plenty of great games without difficulty settings, Disgaea being one of them, so I'd say no.

Disgaea: Well, technically there ARE two difficulties. There's what can be called "Normal" mode, and then the New Game + stuff, which would be "Oh my god this is fucking impossible." mode.

I'm not saying games with no difficulty settings are bad , i'm just saying it would be better with difficulty settings . Why couldn't difficulty settings be good in disgaea? I could even see easy mode in disgaea being not so easy ( kinda like Catherine)

If you make a game that is hard on purpose, you don't code difficulty settings. There is no point.

See Angry Birds. Is there any point in several difficulties?

I meant "real" games. Thats like asking for katawa shoujo to have difficulty settings :/

 

[The Abhorrent]

Depends on the game, to be perfectly honest.

Normal difficulty will more or less always be the baseline experience, how the game was meant to be played; on the odd occassion a developper might say the hard mode is the intended difficulty (for example, the Halo series on Heroic), but for the most part normal is the design target.

Games which generally don't need difficulty settings are those which lean towards being fairly easy no matter what you do. When the only changes which come out of the difficult settings are enemies having altered toughness and damage outputs, the only thing affected the amount of tedium the player goes through. In games which are relatively easy by design (Fable, for example; The Legend of Zelda franchise is another good one), this is unnecessary; find a nice balance for maximum fun, so that fights aren't too long or too short.

For games which are more action-oriented, difficulty settings make more sense; not everyone has the dexterity needed(or patience to acquire it) to beat the game, so not including an easy difficulty could pretty much kill your game due to it being inaccessible for the average player. This also allows room for higher difficulties as well, at which point a developper can go nuts with what's being thrown at the player (more enemies, different types and combinations, smarter too). In these games, it works.

---

Not every game really benefits for difficulty settings, plain & simple; sometimes they don't affect the game in any significant way, which is most apparent when the only thing affected is the amount of tedium involved (nothing more than reducing the margin for error doesn't do much either). What's the point of a platformer having a difficulty setting? Or an enjoyable puzzle-focused action-adventure game?

Some games take to difficulty settings well, others don't.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

i prefer the kind when you have to do a trial that determines your difficulty, for example the matrix path of neo.

 

[Nouw]

Depends entirely on the game. If it's a game like Portal where solving the puzzles are the challenge, they shouldn't be toned down. Maybe a time-limit, and we all know how much we love those, but I wouldn't want to see a change in the puzzle itself. If it's a shooter like Halo where the challenge comes from the enemy which can be made harder, better, faster and stronger then yes a difficulty option should be present.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I wouldn't have thought so until recently. Now I feel every game needs one simply because "normal" has gradually shifted to "easy mode". Even hard mode on most RPGs nowadays is still easy. It is mostly just poor design. I am getting bored to tears by Kingdoms of Amalur right now simply because even on hard, you can just mash attack to get by any enemy in the game.
By having difficulty options, at least I can crank it to hard and hope it won't be too bad.

 

[ElPatron]

I meant "real" games. Thats like asking for katawa shoujo to have difficulty settings :/

Okay, Angry Birds wasn't the best example I could use. It's basically a glorified Flash game.

What I meant is that games that were made to offer the same experience to everyone should not have difficulty settings.

Take a look at point-and-click games. They are supposed to be the same for everyone, unless you are creating a randomly generated game to make it harder and prevent people from using walkthroughs. There are difficulty settings that influence the number of hints you can use, etc but that's beside the point.

And don't tell me point and click games aren't real games...

 

[kuyo]

No, because difficulty settings mainly focus on enemy confrontation. It can't apply to puzzle games like Portal and Professor Layton

 

[kuyo]

I boycotted portal for not having difficuly settings.

the portal gun should have inexplicably started using ammo for the second game

 

[standokan]

If pokemon had dificulties I'd probably still play it, then again I also could've just cripled myself by just using beedrills or something.

 

[kyogen]

Okay BUT, imagine, that the initial difficulty of dark souls was the easy mode . Because thats basically what it was the game got harder with each ng+ ,therefor you theoretically start the game on easy

It is that in a sense, but it's built into the game. It's not something that the player can change on a whim.

I would hate for games like Demon's Souls or Dark Souls to have difficulty settings because difficulty is a central element of the design.

What about "Hard, Harder, and Murder" as your options.?

Not that I wouldn't have fun with that, but it's really just renaming sliding difficulty. One of the things I love about the Souls games is that everyone faces the same challenges by design. The trick is not scaling down the difficulty. Instead, the trick is working around or through it by summoning other players, leveling up your character, or just getting really good at reading enemy tells and dodging blows.

My argument is not against sliding difficulty (I like sliding difficulty); it's just that I don't want it in every game.

 

[Xanadu84]

Here's a nearly universal law for game design deconstruction.

If a statement says, "Every game should...", it is wrong. I can't name an exception. "Passage" shouldn't have difficulty. Like all universal statements about what games need to be, it is wrong.

 

[Nimzar]

I voted Other.

Games should have difficulty options.

What I really want is games is an itemized difficulty menu.

Example: In Gamey-Game 2: The Return, difficulty is managed using several factors: Number of enemies, Toughness of enemies, toughness of pc, AI, PC growth rate, etc. What I don't what only have a slider that on extra-hard sets all of those to the hardest setting. Number of enemies and toughness of enemies can make a good game seem too grindy at the hardest setting. However on the hardest setting make the PC very fragile and up against "smart" enemies is nice. Having a some presets called easy-normal-hard-insane is fine so long as you can also have a 'custom' difficulty.

 

[Torrasque]

I'd say it depends on the game.
For shooters, I'd say they should have a difficulty setting just because the gameplay can get more difficult for a better challenge, and you feel rewarded when you defeat that challenge.
For puzzle games, the game itself is just a difficulty setting with early levels being set to "easiest" and later levels being set to "hard/hardest". How the game actually manages that difficulty curve usually determines how well the game does as a whole.

An example of a game that should have a difficulty setting, would be a Zelda game. Skyward Sword technically has a "hardmode" because all enemies do double damage (and some other things, but I can't recall what atm). For a game like Zelda, just making everything do double damage is challenge enough. If there was a mode beyond that, say you couldn't repair your shield when it broke or grass/enemies never dropped hearts, then that shit would get intense.

An example of a game that should not have a difficulty setting, would be Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes. The game itself creates a difficulty setting, with certain campaigns and levels being harder than others (like Urukubar's campaign being ridiculously hard). If I could replay a campaign in a harder mode, the campaigns would have to be longer, experience caps raised, and overall it would be completely silly. Urukubar's campaign would be even more impossible too =|

It is easy to say "yes, every game needs a difficulty setting", but it is not always viable to just add one in. Enemy damage, AI smart-ness, map design, tools at your disposal, would all need to be addressed. For games like Starcraft or Fire Emblem, that would just be easy "ok, just add more of everything and give the player less". But for games like Portal or Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes, adding a difficulty curve may accidentally the whole game.

 

[Torrasque]

Here's a nearly universal law for game design deconstruction.

If a statement says, "Every game should...", it is wrong. I can't name an exception. "Passage" shouldn't have difficulty. Like all universal statements about what games need to be, it is wrong.

"Every generalization that has ever been made and ever will be made, is an incorrect generalization no matter what the circumstances. Period." - Philosophy prof I had in my second term.

 

[Xanadu84]

Here's a nearly universal law for game design deconstruction.

If a statement says, "Every game should...", it is wrong. I can't name an exception. "Passage" shouldn't have difficulty. Like all universal statements about what games need to be, it is wrong.

"Every generalization that has ever been made and ever will be made, is an incorrect generalization no matter what the circumstances. Period." - Philosophy prof I had in my second term.

Philosophically yes, an absolute statement is generally going to be wrong, including my own. Do some logical linguistics and you will get an exception. But practically, if you assume that absolute statements about game design are always wrong, you will have correct insight, most likely every time it comes up, and certainly enough to stay an expert.

 

[Torrasque]

Here's a nearly universal law for game design deconstruction.

If a statement says, "Every game should...", it is wrong. I can't name an exception. "Passage" shouldn't have difficulty. Like all universal statements about what games need to be, it is wrong.

"Every generalization that has ever been made and ever will be made, is an incorrect generalization no matter what the circumstances. Period." - Philosophy prof I had in my second term.

Philosophically yes, an absolute statement is generally going to be wrong, including my own. Do some logical linguistics and you will get an exception. But practically, if you assume that absolute statements about game design are always wrong, you will have correct insight, most likely every time it comes up, and certainly enough to stay an expert.

Lol, no I agree with you.
I just think whenever someone says "I wish all X was like Y!" they are begging me to prove them wrong.
The only way you can generalize something correctly is to say what you said, that there will always be an exception to every generalization whether it is has a positive or negative assertion.