I've been doing a little musing on difficuty and wondering what the general consensus is on this. So please take my little survey-thingy, or just say whatever you think about difficulty (specifically in a 3rd person action-adventure game). 1. What difficulty level do you usually play at (Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard, very Hard). 2. Would you rather a game be too easy or too hard? 3. In an action-adventure game, would you be more frustrated by too-difficult puzzles or too-difficult combat? 4. What's the hardest game you've FINISHED? The easiest? 5. Have you ever stopped playing a game soley because it was too difficult or too easy, and, if so, which one(s)? 6. Which of the following are good ways to make a game more difficult?: - Decreased player stats (damage, etc.). - Decreased player health. - Increased enemy stats (damage, etc.). - Increased enemy HP (so enemies take longer to kill). - More enemies. - Better enemy AI. - Fewer powerups. - Fewer save points/saves per level. - Other. - A combonation of the above. 7. What should be the difficulty ramp of a game (i.e. how much harder should the final level be than the first non-tutorial level)? Thanks! Best of wishes, xycos

I'm assuming we're talking single player (e.g. human vs. computer) here.

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Original post by xycos 1. What difficulty level do you usually play at (Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard, very Hard).

Medium. That usually seems the most balanced and before the AI starts seriously cheating.

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2. Would you rather a game be too easy or too hard?

Too easy, but don't let that be an excuse to fall into that trap. Balanced is still far better than too easy or too hard in my opinion (though some would rather win with the deck stacked against them). I don't have the time or motivation to train hard enough to beat a hard game.

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3. In an action-adventure game, would you be more frustrated by too-difficult puzzles or too-difficult combat?

If by "too-difficult puzzles" you mean "All you have to do is click the red pixel. You tried that? Let me see... No, not the crimson pixel, the red one!" or other "What were they smoking?" kind of puzzles, then too-difficult puzzles. Otherwise, definitely too-difficult combat. I'd be more focused on the adventure aspects. Combat should be an entertaining change of pace, not something I have to work hard at.

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4. What's the hardest game you've FINISHED? The easiest?

Hard in what way? I've finished some of the harder FreeCell deals. FFI was decently hard in its way. What about games without a finish? Tetris gets pretty hard, but there's no end (unless you count the point where it is impossible to get a piece from the center to the side even with the entire playing field open).

Easy in what way? Minesweeper is easy if you don't get stuck with a 50-50 choice at the end. Guess the number is pretty easy. Easiest satisfying game? Dues Ex, maybe?

Another problem is I don't finish most games. Between time constraints, a crappy computer (it really doesn't like accelerated 3D), and other issues (like just not caring about finishing games (back in my day, we bought games and didn't expect to finish them! You were hardcore (and probably pasty white) if you saw the ending screen.)) I don't end up finishing many.

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5. Have you ever stopped playing a game soley because it was too difficult or too easy, and, if so, which one(s)?

Not generally, I either overcome the difficult spot or replay the beginning. Some games are just too stupidly hard (as in not something that would be satisfying to overcome) that I did give up on them, but nothing notable (i.e. I don't remember their titles).

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6. Which of the following are good ways to make a game more difficult?:

Let's assume a progression like

Novice < Easy < Medium < Hard < 1337

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- Decreased player stats (damage, etc.). - Decreased player health. - Increased enemy stats (damage, etc.). - Increased enemy HP (so enemies take longer to kill).

I'd say these are acceptable for coming out of Novice mode (where you probably had increased players stats/health and decreased enemy stats/health) or going into 1337 mode (where you want the deck seriously stacked against the player), but I'd rather they weren't in the Easy-Hard progression. I see Novice and 1337 as being special cases, but Easy-Hard being the normal progression. Sort of "the way it was meant to be". These aren't satisfying ways to increase difficulty. It's one thing to lose to a superior opponent, it's another to have the deck stacked against you.

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- More enemies. - Better enemy AI.

I like these, these are satisfying. I'd rather be outsmarted by an opponent than lose simply because he can kill me in one hit and I can't return the favor. More enemies works, too. More guards, more massive legions of undead, yeah, that seems plausible.

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- Fewer powerups.

It works.

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- Fewer save points/saves per level.

H-E-Double-Hockeystick NO. I often don't have even thirty minutes to dedicate to a game. I often have to quit on short notice. This can literally make your game unplayable for me.

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- A combonation of the above.

Definitely.

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7. What should be the difficulty ramp of a game (i.e. how much harder should the final level be than the first non-tutorial level)?

It should probably increase logarithmically, with some fluctuations thrown in. Think something like:
Difficulty = A sin(Bx)log(x)
Where A and B are constants that you pick. A should probably be relatively small to create a gentle curve (barely notice it's getting harder), B should probably be fairly moderate (few or no wild fluctuations).

As for how much, well, give me a ruler and I might be able to measure it for you. Also, there's no general ideal value, it really depends on the game.

Managing the difficulty while designing a game is tricky, as ensuring that there is just enough challenge to keep your players interested without leading to frustration is not easy. I'll try to answer your questions (although skimming through Way Walker's reply mine will be very similar).

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Original post by xycos 1. What difficulty level do you usually play at (Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard, very Hard).

Depends on the game, and how many times I've played it. For the first time through most games I play on the "normal" settings (which I guess is medium in your scale). There's a few exceptions; strategy games often have several really hard levels so I start playing on the equivalent of "easy" to learn the rules, and for Thief 3 I started on "expert" because that's my favourite way of playing the game (I also gave myself the extra rule of not killing anyone unless it was vital for the mission).

On subsequent plays through, I often increase the difficulty to the higher settings.

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2. Would you rather a game be too easy or too hard?

Too easy is better than too hard, because at least then I'll just be bored instread of frustrated. However a balanced game is much, much better than both of those.

However "too easy" is better metric to aim for from the perspective of a designer, because you are likely to be very skilled at playing your game. By making the game "too easy" for yourself, you are likely to get a better level of difficulty for people who are unfamiliar with your game. Aiming for a game that is "too hard" for the designer will make your game impossible for a new player to complete.

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3. In an action-adventure game, would you be more frustrated by too-difficult puzzles or too-difficult combat?

I guess my reply is exactly the same as Way Walker here: if you are talking about the insanely convoluted makes-no-sense puzzles that you have to access a hint guide to figure out, then that would be the worst. If you are just talking about a fiendishly difficult logic puzzle, then that would still be better than the boss you just can't beat, or the sniper that shoots your avatar dead in one shot from the other side of the level.

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4. What's the hardest game you've FINISHED? The easiest?

This is a bit too difficult to say. I finished heaps of tricky puzzle games; every Lemmings game I've bought, Super Monkey Ball (1 and 2), nearly every adventure game I've got my hands on.

I'm not sure what the easiest game I've played is, other than some of those "press the button to win" games I made in BASIC.

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5. Have you ever stopped playing a game soley because it was too difficult or too easy, and, if so, which one(s)?

I've stopped playing heaps of games because the frustration level got too high, but there's also usually other reasons involved as well; with most of those types of games it's pretty hard to pin-point exactly which reason is the one why you stopped playing, as there's often multiple flaws.

The only game that springs to mind is Diablo II, once when I tried running through the single player campaign as a skeleton summoning necromancer. I managed to breeze through the game up until meeting Diablo himself, where his ring-of-fire spells would wipe out my skeletal horde in one blast. The jump in difficulty was a game breaker for me there, since all my character could do is summon skeletons.

I guess the thing to really look out for is the sudden jump in difficulty, as that will be the quitting point for people.

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6. Which of the following are good ways to make a game more difficult?: - Decreased player stats (damage, etc.). - Decreased player health. - Increased enemy stats (damage, etc.). - Increased enemy HP (so enemies take longer to kill).

In general I think these are cheap. It's more about frustration that difficulty.

An exception to this would be the FPS game Outlaws, which on the hardest difficult setting lowered the players health, but also lowered the enemies health as well. This made it more challenging, but still fun.

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- More enemies.

Better, as more enemies can be more fun in many games (more targets to play with)

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- Better enemy AI.

This would be a great way of handling difficulty if you can manage it. Note that most "better AI" is just tweaking the response time, or by giving the computer extra information or resources (i.e. cheating).

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- Fewer powerups.

This works too, as does less of the powerful weapons (i.e. play a FPS using a shotgun rather than a BFG).

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- Fewer save points/saves per level.

This will only work if your whole game is set up to handle this gameplay dynamic. If you just tack it on as a difficulty modifier then it will just annoy people. There are a lot of gamers who really hate limited saves. Personally I think they can work, but you have to design the whole game around removing the frustration that players will have if you remove the saving from them.

I also don't think this would work in console games either; for nearly every type of action/adventure game I know of removing the save points will just frustrate more than it will make things challenging.

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- A combonation of the above.

Well, most of those things will work in tandem [smile].

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7. What should be the difficulty ramp of a game (i.e. how much harder should the final level be than the first non-tutorial level)?

I'm not so sure about this, as it's hard to quantify something like difficulty, and it will depend a bit on your game.

The only thing you really have to ensure is that you never have a huge jump in difficulty. You need to slowly ramp up the difficulty to ensure no-one encounters a bottleneck that causes them to quit in frustration.

Best of luck!

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Original post by xycos I've been doing a little musing on difficuty and wondering what the general consensus is on this. So please take my little survey-thingy, or just say whatever you think about difficulty (specifically in a 3rd person action-adventure game).

Not big into that genre, so this might not be too acurate.

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1. What difficulty level do you usually play at (Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard, very Hard).

Easy.

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2. Would you rather a game be too easy or too hard?

easy.

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3. In an action-adventure game, would you be more frustrated by too-difficult puzzles or too-difficult combat?

puzzles.

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4. What's the hardest game you've FINISHED? The easiest?

I don't finish too many.

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5. Have you ever stopped playing a game soley because it was too difficult or too easy, and, if so, which one(s)?

Oh yeah, a bunch due to difficulty, a few due to ease. I like my entertainment to be entertaining, not frustrating or even too challenging.

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6. Which of the following are good ways to make a game more difficult?: - Decreased player stats (damage, etc.). - Decreased player health. - Increased enemy stats (damage, etc.). - Increased enemy HP (so enemies take longer to kill). - More enemies. - Better enemy AI. - Fewer powerups. - Fewer save points/saves per level. - Other. - A combonation of the above.

bad,bad,bad,bad,okay,good,okay,poor.

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7. What should be the difficulty ramp of a game (i.e. how much harder should the final level be than the first non-tutorial level)?

As close to the learning curve of the game as you can get.

1. medium, if its too easy i try the others
2. i prefere hard, or call it challangign ;)
3. both, you can do it difficult but maybe you can decrease difficulty with dying too many times at one spot ( i played a game some years ago that did this (forgot what it was DX )
4. jediknight 3 on the maximum difficulty, dont know of an easy game ... btw iam more the online player, than the offline one
5. no i didnt ( at least i think so )
6.
- Better enemy AI.
- Fewer powerups.

i think that depends, ... but in general i prefere intelligent enemies ...
less savepoints would be the worst i can think of ...
i like games where you can save everywhere ... because if i got only 10mins time ... i wouldnt paly your game, because i cannot save anyways ..
7. depends ... i think you should keep this variabel to the test-stage ... you testplayers will tell you if its too difficult or too easy


hope i could help

I like a game that grows in difficulty,

For example its easy when I start, and gives me time to get the hang of the interface, after a while it increases in difficulty until I actually need some skills to complete the game...

if i where to skip to level 10 i would find it hard if i where to play from level 1 - 10 I would find level 10 easy

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1. What difficulty level do you usually play at (Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard, very Hard).

Medium on the first playthrough usually.

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2. Would you rather a game be too easy or too hard?

Hard, but if and ONLY if I can tell where I went wrong, or I have some idea on how to be better at it. Also, knowing how far I am to my goal really goes a long way.

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3. In an action-adventure game, would you be more frustrated by too-difficult puzzles or too-difficult combat?

Both are fine.

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4. What's the hardest game you've FINISHED? The easiest?

Hardest? Ikaruga. Easiest?

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5. Have you ever stopped playing a game soley because it was too difficult or too easy, and, if so, which one(s)?

Technically Far Cry, because I started using cheats partway through but still finished. Usually I end up not finishing games because they just stray from my mind, not because of difficulty.

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6. Which of the following are good ways to make a game more difficult?:

- Fewer powerups.

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7. What should be the difficulty ramp of a game (i.e. how much harder should the final level be than the first non-tutorial level)?

Hm, that's a tough question to answer. It should feel as if the difficulty is constantly ramping up through the game such that I feel challenged the whole way, but not frustrated. In terms of difficulty levels and increase in difficulty, I think a perfect example would be Metroid Prime.

Personallay, I like to see the hope in difficult games. When I fight a difficult boss, I don't like it when he kicks my ass and I don't see any way to beat him. I like to try again and again, when each time I discover a new thing about the boss, and feel like he will be beaten in the next try.

1. Usually one up from "Normal" (so "Hard" by the OP's scale). If it's a genre I'm not deeply familiar with, I might go down to Normal, but I'll usually restart fairly soon on Hard. Every now and then I'll get a game purely for the story/to say I played it and go with Easy or Play The Game For Me, I'm Too Lazy.

2. I'd definitely say err on the side of too hard. I'd rather have to cheat past a couple of things than feel like I was ripped off. Balance is optimal, though, and balance is also subjective; a scale and some good options/cheats is the best way to go. Make sure your players can get the experience they want, whenever possible.

3. Puzzles are the most evil things to get "wrong", definitely. I don't think like most people do, so I invariably get hung up on puzzles with no damn clue what to do. If you include hard puzzles, at least have some hints built into the game to get players thinking on the right lines. I'd much rather feel like I'm getting my ass kicked by a bunch of uber-powerful guys than feel stupid.

4. Can't remember, to be honest... probably one of the hardest games I can really recall playing was Caverns of Kroz. I only finished it once; I've never been able to get close since. That was from back in the days of "you don't finish games. Ever." though, so take that how you will. As for easiest... silly casual games aside, probably Dungeons and Dragons Heroes for the Xbox. Even on the hardest setting available, that game was a damned cakewalk.

5. No; if I quit a game, it's for other reasons. Games that are too easy I'll usually finish just to prove that the game wasn't hard enough. For too-hard games, I'll usually resort to a cheatcode or walkthrough if I get really screwed over. If the game is fun, I'll do anything I can to finish it. If I quit, it's probably because the game just wasn't entertaining. INCA3D comes to mind.

6. By item:

- Decreased player power: mediocre. I don't like this option much, but sometimes it makes the most sense.

- Decreased player vitality: acceptable, but not the best route. Definitely one of the easiest to implement, though.

- Increased enemy power: good. Better than decreased player health, but more tricky to implement if you don't plan for it from the beginning. My favorite way to do this is to make enemies smarter, more skilled, etc.

- Increased enemy health: marginally acceptable. Be careful that it makes sense, though; when I play a "Hard" game where the peon enemies are soaking up three or four direct rocket hits apiece, it's clear that the designers couldn't implement a more sensible way to make things challenging. There's difficulty, and then there's just plain stupidity to make the game impossible. Making enemies bullet sponges is stupid, not challenging.

- More enemies: good. Place them in ways that make sense (like in high-security areas, etc.) rather than just dropping an extra guy everywhere there's already a group. A great way to mess with players' minds is to relocate enemies entirely (RTCW did a great job with that) so that the experience is significantly different.

- Better AI: absolutely good. If you can implement it well, this is my number one favorite way to make things more challenging. It's also why I like multiplayer games: I can play against smarter enemies (people).

- Fewer powerups: good by itself; if using any other techniques at all, bad. By itself this can be a great trick to make the player work harder; when I'm already taking five minutes of tactical gunfighting to take out a single soldier, and I need five hundred extra nuclear bombs to take out the boss, decreasing my resources is about the most annoying possible thing a game could do. In fact, I think this should work the other way: in harder modes, give me more toys to create havoc. I should need them.

- Fewer saves per level: this is the work of Satan. If you do this, gnomes will break into your house and pour molten plastic up your nose.

- Other: maybe.


7. Ramp it up. Just don't make it a smooth curve. If each level is 10 Hardness Units more difficult than the last, it gets boring fast. In fact, each level should have a varied pace; some hard bits, some easy bits, etc. The whole game should be a roller-coaster, not a mountain climb. However, by the end, things should be quite a bit more difficult than at the beginning. D&D Heroes is a fresh example in my mind of how not to do this; the final boss fight was easier than the first boss. Even after taking into account the development of the player's character, the end should be a lot more difficult than the average boss in the middle stages. I want to earn my victory.

If the game is plot-oriented, I prefer easy, as long as it isn't too boring. If the game is gameplay-oriented, I prefer difficult, as long as it isn't too frustrating.

As for difficulty of puzzles vs. combat, I would almost say that in a plot-oriented game I prefer difficult puzzles to difficult combat (as long as the puzzles are rationally solvable, the other replies sum this up rather well), but in a gameplay-oriented game it would depend on the gameplay. What I do hate are puzzles in the shape of combat, i.e. the only way to win the boss fight I have to run about pulling switches in a certain order, firing at the boss creature with a specific weapon at specific intervals and what have you. Making bosses (or any enemies, for that matter) more "difficult" by giving them half an hour worth of health is not my idea of making the game more fun.

And a reminder: if there is a locked door with a bunch of odd switches, a slot for inserting tetris-block-shaped blocks and a plaque with strange markings, and I happen to be carrying a grenade launcher, I don't see a puzzle. I see a smoking hole where there once were a locked door with a bunch of switches etc. (at least after pulling the trigger). This is to say that in a game world that is supposed to have at least a bit of credibility, there shouldn't be just the One Certified Way to solve the puzzle.

Personally I'd prefer if you could choose the difficulty of the game based on your style of gameplay, dynamically. In some roguelikes, for instance, the game difficulty is usually tied to the dungeon depth you are at. As the game generates a new dungeon level each time you go up or down the stairs, you can practically stay at the same difficulty as long as you want (and because of character development this will make the game gradually easier, encouraging you to move forward, but allowing munchkiny gameplay if that is what you want). Of course, the best rewards are at the more difficult levels. This means that depending on my mood I can either play it safe and descent slowly into the dungeon (keeping the game relatively easy) or alternatively plunge straight into the more difficult levels (ironman-style, always going deeper if possible etc.), having possibly a shorter, yet more action-packed game session. The best thing about this solution is that instead of simply choosing the difficulty once and just sticking with it, you can first play it ironman-style, plunging into the depths and risking your neck, but after finding some great equipment you can slow down and play it more safe; or if you start to get bored you can go down a couple of levels. Of course, this kind of system doesn't necessarily work well in a plot-oriented game.