Difficulty

[Desensitized]

This has popped up a few times on the forums, and I thought it would be nice to have a topic discussing difficulty in games. But I wanted to make it a bit deeper than talking about 'hard' and 'easy'...

Those that I talk to about video games might think I have an unnatural obsession with tough difficulty in games, but that's not really the case at all. I find the balance of legitimate challenge in gaming on top of clever level design a sort of zen experience. Not that I can't find joy in a lack of challenge and a streamlined experience, as long as the game design is still strong (Super Mario Bros. 3, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and TMNT4 fall into this category), but there is something magical about throwing yourself into a seemingly inescapable situation and coming out on top.

However, with the release of Modern Warfare 2 (which I have not played, but I have heard remains an issue) and NSMBWii (which brings back 'Nintendo hard') I would like to bring up the idea of different styles of difficulty.


1. Quarter Muncher Difficulty

For those that have played a hard arcade game, you know what this means. Developers in the old days would pretty much throw the player into situations where unless you were basically a 'God of Gaming', you would need to keep pumping quarters into the machine to keep going. Very rarely was it 'impossible' to beat a game, but quite frankly it was infuriating to try in most cases, and instead move on or just accept your defeat and put in another quarter.

Somehow this style still lives on in games like Street Fighter 4 with crap like Seth. A random spike in difficulty made to make you go to the continue screen and try again. Even OCCing (One Credit Complete) these types of games is tough because you frequently have to exploit bugs and dumb design decisions to get past them. SNK Boss Syndrome was made purely for the reason of getting the player to do just that. (I love you SNK, but I hate you so much)


2. Old School Difficulty

Named as such because it's been at the forefront of gaming for a long ass time (also known as 'Nintendo hard') and still remains active in gaming, this is my personal favorite style of difficulty. The difficulty revolves around the developers testing the player by deliberately making challenges the player has to work their way through, and challenge themselves to get better at the game. This is different from quarter munching difficulty in that its frequently (but not always) less frustrating and more forgiving with the chances it gives you to conquer an obstacle, since you're not pumping quarters in, there's really no need to bother.

My favorite example of this is Contra for the NES. A seemingly impossible game full of one hit deaths and screen filling chaos. However, after playing the game enough, and getting used to the rules of the world, you can navigate yourself through without much of a challenge at all. This is, in my opinion, true difficulty. Unlike the other examples of difficulty, these perfectly designed games test only your skills as a gamer and when you die it is ONLY your own fault.


3. Bad Design Difficulty

This is the second worst kind of difficulty, in my opinion. Difficulty made because the developers made a bad decision in the making of the game and made things much harder than they're supposed to be.

But not just that. Some games are designed specifically with strange design issues or control quirks in mind, (Castlevania and GnG come to mind) and base their difficulty on the player working around these issues instead of any challenge the actual game may possess. Heck, some include that too (Ninja Gaiden has the damn birds, but still remains challenging for other reasons such as legitimate level and boss design), and this still remains a popular style of difficulty to a lot of retro gamers. Even if it feels archaic to most newer ones.


4. Fake/Cheese Difficulty

This is probably the most controversial one, and the one I'll receive the most flak for (who am I to judge difficulty and whatnot), but I will say it anyway. Fake Difficulty is when developers simply kill or harm you and there is no way to avoid or work around it. There are multiple forms of this cheese in gaming, but it is by far the worst form of difficulty, one that punishes players simply for the hell of it. There are many games I could include here, but the one I will focus on is Call Of Duty's veteran mode.

Call Of Duty is well known for being a game that has "no AI". The enemies always know exactly where you are and will spray bullets over your location no matter where you are. You can't sneak around unless it's scripted and when you blow your cover, enemies instantly know where you are and fill you full of bullets. COD is known for the 'wall of death' difficulty that simply kills you for walking where the developers don't want you to go, without any warning, and spam instant kill grenades that you simply can't avoid (and in a certain level in COD4, it's basically up to chance if you can even make it through) all the while pouring enemies out that only stop when you walk over an invisible switch. Sort of like a shooting range.

Enemies can't be worked around, or strategized around. You simply need to shoot them until they fall and hope you have enough cover so that a grenade or a wall doesn't find you first. It's not difficulty you can overcome, merely put up with.


So what does everyone here think? Do you like difficulty? Hate it? What do you think could be done to make the games you like easier or harder?

 

[Foggle]

What about difficulty that merely offers a good challenge without being overly frustrating or tedious? Like in God Hand or in a lot of older FPS games like Doom and Blood? Let's not forget F.E.A.R. (1) on Difficult or Extreme, so far the only game to actually have realistic AI.

I'd also like to point out that the first two Call of Duty games (PC only, except for the 360 version of CoD 2) on Veteran weren't as cheap/fake as the Modern Warfares. And that's all I'll say of that, I don't want anyone complaining about "consolitus" in this thread.

 

[Desensitized]

What about difficulty that merely offers a good challenge without being overly frustrating or tedious? Like in God Hand or in a lot of older FPS games like Doom and Blood? Let's not forget F.E.A.R. (1) on Difficult or Extreme, so far the only game to actually have realistic AI.

Oh yeah, balanced difficulty. It's a bit harder to define, but games that simply have a tough but manageable difficulty tend to fluctuate between old school trial and error and a bit of overwhelming odds like a quarter muncher. That's pretty good difficulty, too.

I'd also like to point out that the first two Call of Duty games (PC only, except for the 360 version of CoD 2) on Veteran weren't as cheap/fake as the Modern Warfares. And that's all I'll say of that, I don't want anyone complaining about "consolitus" in this thread.

I heard that, but I wasn't sure about it (never played the PC CODs) but it is hard to imagine Inifinity Ward stooping to this level of difficulty after using legitimate challenge. Look, I like the COD games, but I really hate playing them on anything higher than normal (though the next highest difficulty isn't AS grenade spam friendly, it still has it's moments) due to not being able to actually test myself in any way. It's pretty much like Russian Roulette just getting through a level. It does annoy me because otherwise the games are really fun.

 

[defunctzombie]

I liked the rubber band AI of FFVIII, since I was always dying on other FFs. Of course, since the bosses have caps, they become too easy after a certain level.

 

[ensatsu-ken]

3. Bad Design Difficulty

Heck, some include that too (Ninja Gaiden has the damn birds, but still remains challenging for other reasons such as legitimate level and boss design)

To be fair, in most cases the birds become completely avoidable in those games once you already know to expect them after trial and error, and after a while they really aren't that hard to work around. The only times when they are downright cheap, IMO, is when you encounter them in a situation in which its nearly impossible to avoid getting hit in some way when they are on-screen (for example, in NG1 on the NES there si a part where a bird attacks you while you are climbing up a ladder, which is just plain cheap since you can't attack it back or jump to avoid it while you are climbing up).

Anyways, I also must say that I prefer old-school difficulty to the other ones which you listed. However, my favorite type of difficulty doesn't quite fit fully under any 1-single category that you listed.

Now that games have evolved to have real A.I. rather than enemies that follow a direct pattern of movements as they did in the days of old-school difficulty, it is possible to have games that challenge you not by making you simply memorize attack patterns and breeze your way through on knowing exactly what to expect, but instead making the enemies vary greatly in how they can approach and attack you, which will in turn force you to consantly have to adapt your strategy on the fly. However, at the same time, if you have practiced enough with the game, you can still get through these situations without taking too much harm (if any at all), but at the same time, while it can get easier as you get more skilled, it never becomes a 100% cake-walk.

Ninja Gaiden Black on the XBOX, when playing it on its harder difficulties, is the perfect example of this for me, personally (and to a lesser extent, NG2 on the XBOX360, which still has mostly fair difficulty, but can also get itno some cheap and frustrating moments on the harder difficulty settings, from time to time).

To explain why just little bit in-depth, each time you get to a harder difficulty in NGB, you encounter new enemies which you previously never saw on the easier difficulties, which are based off of the designs of older enemies, but which bring with the new and more lethal abilities and improved A.I., forcing you to unlearn some of your previous tactics in order to properly re-learn how to properly fight these new foes. However, even when you learn how to fight them, they can still surprise you from time to time by attacking you in some quick way that you may not have expected, since they are never 100% predictable, but even then you can still avoid them in cases like this with quick reflexes, and can also adjust to the situation by attacking them with another good weapon or move if you are finding that the techniques which you normally use against them aren't working quite as well as they usually do for you.

This has proven to still be a completely legitimate difficulty ever since an NG player uploaded a series of videos in which he played through the full game on Master Ninja mode without taking ANY damage at all throughout the whole entire fun (well, with just 1 exception during a certain boss-fight, if I'm not mistaken).

Well, anyways, despite me being obsessed with that series, I merely only used the new NG series in this case to describe the type of difficulty which I find to be teh most appealing. However, plenty of other games feature this type of difficulty, and they include games like Halo: CE (on Legendary mode), as well as certain other FPS games, and also some other action games as well, like Max Payne.

 

[Desensitized]

Interesting, EK. I never considered difficulty having evolved in such a way, though from the way you described it, it seemed to be based on old school difficulty with a modern spin. Probably sine most modern games I play seem to only make enemies faster, more aggressive, take more hits to kill, but are otherwise unchanged. Not really changing anything about them at all except to make the player move faster.

This has proven to still be a completely legitimate difficulty ever since an NG player uploaded a series of videos in which he played through the full game on Master Ninja mode without taking ANY damage at all throughout the whole entire fun (well, with just 1 exception during a certain boss-fight, if I'm not mistaken).

See, if it's possible to do this, then claims of 'unfair difficulty' are total bunk. Sure it may be tough as hell, but that's why it's difficult. Though the new NG games have always given me the impression of quarter muncher games. Almost like you could place the games as is into an arcade and no one would bat an eye. I mean, they are possible to master by all means, but even a slight screw up could cost you a 'quarter', so to speak.

 

[ensatsu-ken]

Interesting, EK. I never considered difficulty having evolved in such a way, though from the way you described it, it seemed to be based on old school difficulty with a modern spin. Probably sine most modern games I play seem to only make enemies faster, more aggressive, take more hits to kill, but are otherwise unchanged. Not really changing anything about them at all except to make the player move faster.

Well, you're right, it is still mostly old-school difficulty with a twist added to it, but this twist alone adds a whole new level of depth to the challenge of the game, IMO. Still, I just love any "fair" challenge in general, whether it be new or old Ninja Gaiden games, various Mega Man titles, or just any challenging game in gneral that at least follows the basic criteria of what you describe as old-school difficulty, which we can both agree is basically what all games should use as their guide-line for "true/real" difficulty.

See, if it's possible to do this, then claims of 'unfair difficulty' are total bunk. Sure it may be tough as hell, but that's why it's difficult. Though the new NG games have always given me the impression of quarter muncher games. Almost like you could place the games as is into an arcade and no one would bat an eye. I mean, they are possible to master by all means, but even a slight screw up could cost you a 'quarter', so to speak.

Well, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 on Master Ninja mode would probably fit this description really well, since from what I've heard, Hayashi decided to allow enemies to do a ridiculous amount of damage to you by giving them grab-moves that 1-hit kill you (which changes the difficulty for the worse in the opinions of most veterage NG players).

But, as for the other games in the series being quarter-munchers, I do agree with you to an extent that they do feel that way, but only at first. After really mastering the deeper mechanics of the games, you would actually find that the games are much less punishing than they may have seemed to be at first. Although, to be fair, NG2 on the XBOX360 does fit the exact criteria of a quarter muncher at certain points where the action just gets too crazy to be able to avoid getting hit at least a few times (even with tons of skill and experience in the game). However, NG2 wasn't designed for no-hut runs to be possible, but it was instead designed to have you wisely approach your battles with proper strategies, and while you can't always avoid getting hit, its still possible to beat the game without using any healing items, ninpo, or even extending your original life bar (and I know at least a dozen other NG2 players who have successfully completed this "handicap" run, as it has been nick-named).

 

[Desensitized]

Interestingly enough, the final boss gauntlet of NG1 NES was a bad design decision that turned out to just make the game harder instead of cheaper. I wonder how many other games have little quirks like that which changes the game so drastically purely by accident. (I don't mean mistakes that lead to cheap deaths, but which actually add to the experience... But that's getting OT)

 

[Mynd Hed]

I think the key is less a game's general level of difficulty, but the smoothness of its difficulty curve. For example, Super Mario Galaxy started off almost mind-numbingly easy, but slowly ramped up the difficulty level until by the end it was demanding split-second precision from the player.

Another factor to take into consideration is the penalties for failure. In Splosion Man for XBLA, for example, there are some SERIOUSLY tricky bits, but there's also little or no penalty for failure. You have infinite lives and frequent checkpoints, and you respawn instantly on death (no lengthy Game Over screen or long load times) so you can get right back to the action if you die, so there's no penalty for trial and error. Also, if you get to a level that you just CAN'T beat, you can skip it after a certain number of deaths (at the price of wearing a tutu in the next level).

Those are two games that I think did a fantastic job of balancing the sense of accomplishment that comes with surmounting a healthy challenge with accessibility.