Topic: Game Difficulty discussion

So Celeste last night and I was struggling with a section and grab the strawberry. The Hotel owner is chasing me and he shoots lightning. It was late and I put on assist mode to see what it was like.

Absolutely ruins the game you can just fly everywhere. Matt the game designer made the choice to put it in the game for accessibility but it's gone from a great game to ridiculously easy. Knowing its there as a time poor gamer is too much of a pull.

The first 3 sections of the game took me about 3 hours.

The 4th level took me 10 minutes including looking for secrets.

If this was in Sekiro or Souls games it would absolutely ruin the whole point. Maybe that says more about me than I would like to admit but what's the point if there's no challenge?

Just a small thing, why is this even in the PS4 section? I think it would sit better on the Retro and Other Gaming section, no?

@Th3solution Oh, absolutely. If I were playing Bloodborne, I wouldn't be complaining (and I'm not even "complaining" as such, but hey). That game trades on a reputation for being challenging.

What bothered me about the DA:I DLC is that I'd already completed the main story without ever once having to craft anything, or worry about what my team's abilities were. I could just take my favourite characters with me, periodically empty my inventory when it got full, auto-level everybody up whenever the flashing icons got annoying and crack on. The annoying touchpad tactics screen only got activated when I hit it by accident. I know there are tougher experiences out there (like the dragons, one of which I'd managed to defeat in a long-but-not-difficult encounter when Trevelyan was around Level 14) but as you say, they're optional; completing the story had otherwise been a breeze, and I'd loved every second of it.

Here I was, trying to see a storyline through to completion, and twice I was forced to fast travel back to Skyhold and enter the Undercroft (somewhere I'd barely ever been, except to talk to Dagna because Dagna's awesome). This entire process immediately shattered the narrative continuity of the quest. I had to craft armour for me and three specific squadmates, not the ones I actually like or wanted to use, and craft and enchant weapons of various shapes and sizes. It drained all the resources I was saving up to make a pretty banner for my room, and I had to start looking at nonsense like grenades and potions (yawn). The optimal folks for seeing me through the mid-quest wave battle weren't the same optimal folks for the final boss, so back I had to go, trudging through now-empty levels with new people, all wearing new armour, to return to where I'd left off (because the usually-generous fast travel points had all but dried up, randomly). And then I was forced to use the touchpad tactics system because my usually-reliable squad AI wasn't following the only single, specific way to victory.

If my best friend wasn't watching via SharePlay, offering tips and helpful suggestions, I might never have finished the quest (and I never, ever leave story content in big games unfinished). Everything on the crafting screen might as well have been written in Klingon; it was suddenly everything I'd feared from a fantasy RPG, a dozen times over.

You can either make your stupidly-complicated tactics and crafting systems integral to the game from the beginning, or you can make them skippable from beginning to end. Don't just randomly wait until you're in one of the last little bits of story and go "you've been playing the game wrong, git gud or go home". Not that I have first-hand experience, but I'm pretty sure Bloodborne doesn't pull that kind of nonsense.

When it comes to difficulty in gameplay, consistency and context are key. If it doesn't make narrative sense or is suddenly prohibitive, it's definitely the fault of the developers, not your own skills.

@themcnoisy lol I’m sorry mate but I don’t get the argument. Just have some will power and don’t play it on the easy mode if it ruins it for you? You absolutely don’t need to get the strawberries, they are made for people who’ve mastered the game and want to rerun earlier levels. Go back for them if you have to. I don't believe you literally can’t help yourself, if you couldn’t you’d just watch games on YouTube instead of buying them yourself - it’s the ultimate “easy mode” after all!

That particular section is tough but it preps you for things to come. It is a hard game but not unfair.

@kyleforrester87 The point I'm making is it makes the game stupidly easy.

I don't have the willpower. Not when it helps bring the game time down from 7-10 hours to 45 minutes tops. I can still say I've finished the game. It's a pity though for sure.

@themcnoisy 🤷‍♂️

@kyleforrester87 OK so let's say Sekiro put in a difficulty slider. You can make yourself invincible.

Who the hell won't use that feature? Especially if it doesn't effect anything other than making you invincible. Trophies aren't locked.

99% of people would. One of the reasons so many people like Froms games is they are uncompromising, and a ton of the 99% who would pick invincibility cant as they have to practice. Then they actually realise they enjoy the challenge.

Celeste is a lot like Trials of what I have played ranging from Easy to Hard - but not so hard you need 500 retries. I have never felt the need to ask Red Lynx to give me invincibility mode. You have to improve. But if it was there damn right I would use it as I don't have the spare time to practice.

So by using assist mode (which initially I avoided as I thought it took some control away) I have ruined the game whilst improving my spare time.

@themcnoisy well, I played Celeste with the same easy option and didn’t use it so I didn’t ruin the game.. as for saving my spare time i don’t see games as a chore, if I’m not enjoying something i’ll move on, but I’m not just trying to get on to the next one as quickly as possible to spite myself.

The developer literally said in the case of Celeste that the assist mode is not how the game is intended to be played. It’s not as if it’s a regular easy/medium/hard slider found in a lot of other games.

@themcnoisy I certainly wouldn't play Sekiro if you could make yourself invincible. It would make the game a bit pointless, negate most of the challenge, make it less satisfying and fun.

And speaking of Sekiro I’m getting hammered by the same boss right now, but I am slowly getting better. 30 minutes of having my ass handed back to me, I’m starting a new go on Fez lol. Wish it had an easy mode to solve the puzzles for me...

(Oh wait it does, it’s called Google)

@JohnnyShoulder Exactly.

@kyleforrester87 I've turned the assists off after level 4. It is totally ridiculous though.

@themcnoisy Yeah but surely that is a bad implementation of difficulty options rather than a reason to not have them at all?

@themcnoisy just think of it as a very easy to access cheat code.

@Rudy_Manchego how would the solo developer reasonably rework a game like Celeste to be more forgiving without throwing the whole thing out of whack though? Maybe another year or two of development time :s

If a game has difficulty options I never ever pick 'easy', so something like an Assist mode has never tempted me either.

I like having a hard time, actually.

And I don't have a lot of time to play, but I rather play less games each year, than having to lose that feeling of satisfaction you get when you accomplish something you seemed "impossible", "too hard" or even "unfair" before.

To each their own of course.

And I may have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. I don't get why people treat games as if they're something you have to work through as fast as possible, or you have to play as many games as possible.

So many make it sound like games are a chore. As if being stuck in a game is something that shouldn't happen.

Well, you should be stuck in games. It's part of what distinguishes games as an art form. Sometimes you make it, sometimes you don't. And sometimes you're not able to even finish the game at all ever.

I don't get why so many gamers want their platinums handed to them on a silver platter. Or why so many are so obsessed with finishing the game instead of enjoying the journey itself.

I never finished Final Fantasy VI way back when, and I still enjoyed the gameplay and the story. Even though I still wonder how it might have ended. I never finished Castlevania Symphony of the Night or Viewtiful Joe either. All because they were too difficult for me. They're still among my favorite games of all time regardless, because I do like what they did.

Anyway, entitlement and the need for instant gratification. An uninted consequence of our advanced society.

Sorry for the rant. All love.

@Kidfried I like what you’re saying there, mostly because it makes me feel better about myself after having left so many games unfinished. And I agree that hopefully gaming does not seem like a chore most of the time.

However, I have found that a game’s ending is often the climax of the experience. It depends of course, but when I list my all time favorite games (or even movies for that matter) nearly all of them had a immensely impactful ending. Of course this applies to story driven games. I’m completely with you on platformers, puzzle games, sports games, fighting games, racing games, online shooters, .... the journey is definitely the point, rather than a destination.

The Last of Us is an oft cited example where it is the narrative and the powerful ending which we all remember and adore, rather than the somewhat derivative gameplay. Still one of my favorites, but I can’t imagine having it anywhere near my top 20 if I didn’t experience the last hour of the game. And it looks like TLoU2 is going to be similar — accordingly to the developers the game is “not necessarily fun” so the moment to moment gameplay may not be much of a draw.

@JohnnyShoulder But most people would use it when they get to a stumbling block if the option was available present company excepted.

The funny thing is Ive actually played Ninja Blade by From last gen which is a Ninja game and it is a very tough game to 1000g on xbox. You can pick between easy, normal and hard.

I've read the reviews. Most reviewers said it was easy.

Because they played on easy. Ninja Blade is not easy on hard AT All!!! In fact it has a lot in common with the soulsborne franchise. The Metacritic for Ninja blade is a complete joke. Played on Normal or Hard (as I was going for the achievements) was extremely fulfilling.

I actually think when Ninja Blade came to market and when the reviews all said it was easy and was used as a negative, From then got rid of the option in every game from that point.

@Rudy_Manchego Matt makes games is the developer of Celeste. He's gone on record via twitter this week about Sekioros difficulty and the fact he would add similar options in. I'm completely dumbfounded.

Dark Souls popularity (alongside super meat boy / ftl / rogue legacy etc) is because it was two fingers to the dumbing down of gaming. Its tough but fair.

I actually think in the future games should be able to recognise when a player is struggling. Constantly getting beat up at a certain point or bottle neck in the game. At that exact point the game could (for example) take something away like an enemy or boss power. Give a hint. Resupply your grenade ammo etc. Better that than have an option for invincibility. Crazy.

@themcnoisy Man, I really like that idea about a game auto-adjusting the difficulty. Many games give you a small clue on the load screen when you die a couple times and it’s typcially useless. Something like “If you’re struggling with a certain enemy, you might consider checking their profile to plan attacks that exploit their weaknesses.” And usually you’ve already been trying that. Sometimes is even patronizing advice like, “Use a Medicine Pack to restore health when it gets low.” Yeah, thanks for the advice Sherlock.
Many games will prompt you at the third death screen in a row to decrease the difficulty. I also find this insulting. Like I didn’t know that.

....🤔 But a game that could automatically tweak the strength of a boss ever so slightly to match your skill at the time, just enough to keep you from rage quitting and then ramp the difficulty back up to normal even. All done so you don’t have to commit to a lower difficulty necessarily. It would be great for those times when you just have a skill or mental block against one boss or one sequence. Actually, I think I read somewhere that some games do this don’t they? Like the last 10% of your health bar goes down slower than the rest so you get that rush of just barely scraping by that fight by the skin of your teeth, but you really should have died 3 hits ago. Where did I read that?

@themcnoisy
A few games do it and I think it's an awful system. The more you struggle, the more they help you. Your not in control at all.