The Hot Topic Returns

[OCH]

Personally, I prefer games that don't have difficulty settings at all. Progressive difficulty is preferable. For example, by the time you reach the last dungeon etc the game should be more challenging than the start. But your proficiency/tool kit has developed enough by that point to compensate. The Souls series or Mega Man are good examples of that, imo.

 

Whereas, if I'm unlocking stuff in Fighters. I set it to 'Easy & one round only'. Because there are things I want to see and don't really like the earning part to take longer than necessary.

 

I tend not to change difficulty settings really. Sticking with the default, whatever that maybe. "Ultra-Punishing-Sadistic-Cruelty-Must Die" Modes, I typically ignore as a gimmick. Maybe that is just down to my lack of competitive streak though?

[one-armed dwarf]

It's not purely about competition, it's about having a mode that rewards exploring a game's systems. Not every game does it well, but there's lots of games that would plateau and feel completely linear without a higher difficulty option. I never used status effects in VII Remake until I modded it

[OCH]

This is from X-Men on the Mega Drive. If you played Easy Mode, the game hard cuts to this game over screen before the last boss. You were not allowed to finish the game on that lower difficulty setting.

 

16 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

it's about having a mode that rewards exploring a game's systems.

You can get the same experience through progressive difficulty too though. No Hit runs, Buster Only (Mega Man), stuff like that. I just don't see the point in playing the same game that suddenly says "one hit kills" or instead of one enemy in a tight corridor, here's ten.

[Maf]

Most games even with difficulty options have progressive difficulty. It’s the difficulty curve and why sometimes it’s not done well and people complain about difficulty spikes 

 

I think every game’s last boss is meant to be harder than the first one for example 

[OCH]

5 minutes ago, Maf said:

I think every game’s last boss is meant to be harder than the first one for example 

Which is funny to think about when the Souls series was mentioned above. 

 

Demon's Souls has Vanguard, for example. Who is a lot harder than True King Allant. Because you don't have the skill check at that point in the game. Arguably, Asylum Demon in Dark 1 is harder than Gwyn, for the same reason. 

[one-armed dwarf]

7 minutes ago, OCH said:

You can get the same experience through progressive difficulty too though. No Hit runs, Buster Only (Mega Man), stuff like that. I just don't see the point in playing the same game that suddenly says "one hit kills" or instead of one enemy in a tight corridor, here's ten.

Well, I've never played games like that either

 

But you know, it shouldn't be hard to imagine why people use these modes. If DMC did not have a higher difficulty mode I would find the game utterly pointless personally. There would be no room to express myself. Likewise, if you had no choice but to play it on my preferred difficulty mode, you would get nowhere with it, no offense. 

 

I dunno, I feel on this thread sometimes people are inventing controversy about things which aren't really controversial, like optional difficulties. It's about having experiences which scale to all preferences. The Last of Us 2 has maybe the singular best selection of difficulty options in a game I've ever seen, every possible thing you can think of is adjustable

[OCH]

1 minute ago, one-armed dwarf said:

But you know, it shouldn't be hard to imagine why people use these modes.

Oh, I get that. To me they've always just come across as a bragging rights thing. For example, those that care about trophies/achievements/whatever and it says 0.001% of players have beat the game under UBER HARDCORE EXTREME difficulty.

Which falls under the competitive angle I mentioned. 

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

So do you not acknowledge at all the point I made about some higher difficulty modes helping with player expression (while lower ones allow people to find a more comfortable experience for the same)? Just this weird 'competitive' thing?

 

(I'm going to leave it at this cause it's one of those converstations that tend to get recursive)

[OCH]

😄 

"player expression" being a lot more weird and nebulous a notion than simple competition, to be honest.

[Maf]

19 minutes ago, OCH said:

Which is funny to think about when the Souls series was mentioned above. 

 

Demon's Souls has Vanguard, for example. Who is a lot harder than True King Allant. Because you don't have the skill check at that point in the game. Arguably, Asylum Demon in Dark 1 is harder than Gwyn, for the same reason. 

 

But Gwyn is harder than the first boss, at least in terms of stats. If you tried to play him at the same level/equip you were at the beginning of the game you'd be there for a really long time, skill check or no.

 

The reason the first boss feels harder is because it's picking on player inexperience and shock. By the time you get to Gwyn to should be a lot better at the game, because of the progressive difficulty curve and the learning that goes with it, so you notice, oh these attacks are super easy to parry

 

Which was always a weird design choice if you ask me but regardless, what I'm saying is the game does get progressively more difficult along the way. It's just you're better at it by the end than the beginning.

 

I dunno. I actually have a much bigger take on Soul's like difficulty and how they're not actually that hard at all. They're all knowledge and pattern memorisation not real skill. But that's a different thing to this. 

[Nag]

I think it depends on the genre of game I'm playing to which difficulty I choose, third person shooters (Gears, Dead Space and the newer Tomb Raiders) I don't mind cranking up the difficulty a bit where as stuff more like DMC or God of War I'll knock it to easy as I just can't wrap my head around those.

 

I prefer having the options to change things though... Fromsoft games and their one size fits all approach is very hit and miss for me.

[one-armed dwarf]

2 minutes ago, Maf said:

I dunno. I actually have a much bigger take on Soul's like difficulty and how they're not actually that hard at all. They're all knowledge and pattern memorisation not real skill. But that's a different thing to this. 

There's a whole other potentially more interesting discussion to have about things like this. I personally find Elden Ring far harder than any character action game I've played. I just hate the combo strings you have to learn to interact with in that game. But I guess other people like the fresh new challenge that each new fight brings

 

Not me though, fuck those jumpy, twirly ambiguous fuckers. So indecisive about when they actually want to hit you with their stupid fucking frame trapping bullshit

[Maf]

I think the only exception I've played in Souls games is Lies of P. I didn't get very far, just past the Police man boss fight. But it's a game that demands you know how to parry and have good timing. So real game skill. Even if you memorise what the attacks look like. From what I've seen you can't just level up and throw rocks at people

 

Which is the other thing about Souls games (and I mean this in a positive way) there's always an out if it's too hard. 

[OCH]

11 minutes ago, Maf said:

Which was always a weird design choice if you ask me

I think even From realised that was a mistake with Gwyn. I can't think of any final boss they've made since that is so susceptible to an in-game mechanic? Which is why Manus, imo, is the better final boss for Dark 1.

 

9 minutes ago, Nag said:

I prefer having the options to change things though... Fromsoft games and their one size fits all approach is very hit and miss for me.

Growing up with Capcom and Konami's 2D platformers (which were almost exclusively damn hard). If you managed to beat them, by default you were great at the game by the end. Since most didn't have the option for decreasing challenge. 

 

I suppose what genre you've had the most experience with can also colour your opinion on difficulty. DMC, as Dwarf mentions, is beyond me. It takes me a while to memorise move sets in Fighting Games. But that doesn't come with the pressure of using that knowledge to a time limit and against multiple enemies at once. God of War (OG trilogy) seemed more button bashing than that. So I could get my head around it easier.

[Maryokutai]

I don't think reactions being somewhat the gatekeeping thing to differentiate between 'real' and 'not real' skill is the right way to look at it. Parries in particular I think work best if they're an optional risk-reward tool, not something mandatory. Way too easy to just abuse it from a designer's perspective otherwise ('this move isn't too strong, just parry it'). My opinion on this might be a bit skewed due to certain fighting games with said mechanics, but if a game's difficulty relies on checking something I inherently can't improve at because I'm a human being with certain delays between information reception and manual reaction, then that just seems bad design to me.

 

Edit: as for the question, I usually stick to Normal modes. That should be the way the game should be experienced on the first playthrough IMO. In the rare cases where I would replay something and NG+ is an option I might increase difficulty, but I honestly can't even remember the last time I did that. Probably Bayonetta 1.

 

I will say though that I'm not a fan of these modern sliders for difficulty. I realise they're pretty cool tools in terms of accessibility, but I would never go mess with any of that. In the Guardians game you can change so many things in there (add slow-mo, decrease skill cooldowns etc.) that it comes across like a complete lack of faith in whatever vision the combat designers had in their product. If the combat ever starts bothering me I might pick a general 'easy' setting, but with all the time that goes into designing these games I can't help but feel I create some Frankenstein monster by using the sliders.

[Maf]

Related to difficulty, the 5 hardest enemies I hate the most

 

1. Hammer Bros (Mario Bros)

2. Grace and Glory (regular or gold versions) (Bayonetta)

3. Medusa Heads (Any Castlevania)

4. Knife guys in Batman (City onwards)

5. Grasshopper badniks (Sonic 2)

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Some fun PTSD for Mary

 

 

[Maf]

15 minutes ago, Maryokutai said:

I don't think reactions being somewhat the gatekeeping thing to differentiate between 'real' and 'not real' skill is the right way to look at it. Parries in particular I think work best if they're an optional risk-reward tool, not something mandatory. Way too easy to just abuse it from a designer's perspective otherwise ('this move isn't too strong, just parry it'). My opinion on this might be a bit skewed due to certain fighting games with said mechanics, but if a game's difficulty relies on checking something I inherently can't improve at because I'm a human being with certain delays between information reception and manual reaction, then that just seems bad design to me.

 

Thing about Lies of P which I suppose is like Sekiro (though never played that) is you're trying to raise boss's stagger bar with multiple parries. So it's not like you have to get every one. Yyou can say "this attacks is too hard and will kill me if i try to parry" so I will dodge away. So it is risk reward and not strictly mandatory

 

But you have to "get good" on some level, the game seems to be built around it. 

 

As opposed to regular Souls games where I never parried once in Bloodborne. Still got the plat

 

I didn't have to 'master' the game at all to do everything in it 

[OCH]

😅Reminding me that I do in fact own Sekiro.. and Bloodborne. The latter on hiatus until I have someone else to move my TV (otherwise the game is too dark for me to see).

[HandsomeDead]

I suppose I mostly start off on normal these days.  There was a time I was a hard mode person.  It would make most of the games more satisfying to play but it was frustrating when the game wasn't balanced the best and hard mode would be a slog.  Its just not good to have it as a rule because not every hard mode is created equal.

 

I'm glad I played The Last of Us games on hard from the jump because the limited ammo and items does make you play in a more in your face and brutal way and sells on the game's tone better than having all the ammo to play it comfortably as a shooter.

 

I did start Pillars of Eternity recently and I did put that on easy because I have never played a classic CRPG in my life and it's harder for old dogs to learn new tricks.  That's gonna be the only kind of situation I'd put a game on easy though.

 

I don't like to say that their should be any rules in regards to how difficulty should work.  I know some devs work hard at making a game that's accessable but has a high ceiling, and has lots of customisable options and I respect that.  And then there's Miyazaki who is a freak that thinks suffering is great and wants the game to be that, and I respect that creative choice too.

 

Dynamic difficulties that change on how well you're doing are interesting and not used that much.  Left 4 Dead and RE4 are probably the most famous for it.  It keeps it so you're always at the brink.  Do well and you'll have tons of enemies but start messing up and there'll be less and more drops, it gives an effective sense of survival no matter what your skill level is.

 

I kinda like the thing in older arcade or arcade-like games where you only got half the game if you play on easy.  I remember Streets of Rage 3 doing this most.  I guess it's kinda mean spirited to just drop a bad ending on you like that and told to go back and 'git gud', especially since SoR3 is harder than the others but it worked on me.  I did go back and try to get good enough to beat it on normal.