Difficulty in gaming today

[Kafriel]

Originally Posted by Kyero Fox

Bosses hitting 80% of your health isn't "Difficulty" its Artificial Difficulty.

One shot kill is indeed artificial, but still counts as a difficulty level and is, apparently, manageable (although it still boggles me how people do it in FPS, "realistic" difficulty meaning one bullet and you're down).

Originally Posted by Key Board

the closest equivalent that I can think of is "soccer fan"
It's not just someone who likes soccer

That would be a hardcore gamer.

[Sparda4]

The best example i can say for artificial difficulty is Payday two's One down. Unless your playing dodge(need to run around like a headless chicken to survive.) you can kiss your ass goodbye. I would not say it's very manageable.

[Kafriel]

I'm not much of an FPS gamer, so I can't really comment on how difficult it truly is. If you can sneak around, it's possible, but it turns loud missions into a death wish.

[Sparda4]

Nice joke btw(Death Wish is a difficulty in payday 2) and yeah it's a hell when 2 zeal dozers 7 cops 3 shields and a cloaker or two is on your position and you can really can't go anywhere and there is little to no cover. It's very much so an artificial difficulty on some heists. Open space ones are fine Cook Off ? Rats? God forbid Big Bank ?(Ok the last one isn't as bad) your basically your dead the minute the heist goes loud.

[Kafriel]

I know what you mean. What about other games like call of duty? You're in the middle of a battlefield, but the same rules apply: one bullet to the finger and you're dead.

Artificial difficulty comes in other forms too, though. Many fighter games these days have challenges with extremely peculiar rules (win using only combos/throws/juggling/ringouts/counters or don't get hit). It's obvious they are of a more light-hearted nature than a campaign difficulty, but can also help the player explore a game to more depth (play other characters or learn new ways to play favored ones).

[IceHism]

Ehh the only way to get true difficulty in gaming is games where you compete against other players. Optimizing is by far the hardest thing. Mostly referring to eSports games and board games. I remember playing through persona 5 on hard mode but I just swapped the difficulty back to normal because it's really just a stats/time check and spamming buffs/debuffs in a easy to figure out pattern. You can get through the game provided you grind the time. Persona 5 already has 60+ hours of gameplay on normal difficulty and I rather not spend any more on it And just play for story/trophys. Most other single player games is the same with trying to identify a way to exploit the AI. I remember playing ChinaFE which was a hard mode hack of FE8 and all you really needed to do to win was to be sure you are leveling the most optimal units and abusing the shitty AI. it has about the same difficulty as awakening on lunatic plus mode in the end but like I said, time sink. Compared to a game like League of Legends, Dota, Smash, other fighters or CSGO in a ranked/competitive setting where what you do is so dependent on the situation and what other people do And it doesn't increase the amount of time needed to complete a game. If you play well, you finish quicker. if you don't, you get stomped.

I guess you can boost the difficulty by trying to do speed runs and competing at games done quick. (ACDQ?).

[Kafriel]

If you play well, you finish quicker. if you don't, you get stomped.

Do note, MOBAs got FOTM heroes and eeeveryone picks/bans the same shit over and over, in triple digit rosters of heroes. Teamwork is a great hurdle to overcome though, as is studying enemy teams and coming up with all sorts of counters.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Do note, MOBAs got FOTM heroes and eeeveryone picks/bans the same shit over and over, in triple digit rosters of heroes.

Go play dota2. Last international (of the top of my head) I think only like 4-6 heroes didnt get used.

[IceHism]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Do note, MOBAs got FOTM heroes and eeeveryone picks/bans the same shit over and over, in triple digit rosters of heroes. Teamwork is a great hurdle to overcome though, as is studying enemy teams and coming up with all sorts of counters.

Not really in soloq. Most people just want to play the shit they want to play. Yeah you'll likely run into something meta more frequently but the other 9 champions/heroes can drastically change your experience depending on how well/not well they are played even if the comps are fairly similar in core.

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by Kyero Fox

Bosses hitting 80% of your health isn't "Difficulty" its Artificial Difficulty.

Hey now, Mario doesn't like to be called artificial! .



Building a smart game that's challenging without being cheap is an art. First thing first though, i think we as consumers should really look at what we want out of a game first and pick our choice smartly as game design diverged into multiple genres and category. Big name games are generally movies with button presses, small games often jack up their difficulties with small window of success or inserting random probabilities. But all of em can be enjoyable depending what players are looking for be it technical executions or puzzle solving.

If big tech companies had to build supercomputers just to play a game of chess, can we reasonably expect videogames to try and replicate that in our toaster level of devices in terms of processing power?

End of the day, once players decipher the formulas and solve the puzzle... most games quickly became just a set routine of inputs while rolling a bunch of virtual dices to beat. Human opponents are still the only thing videogames can rely on to provide a challenge for gamers on a regular basis.

TLDR: Difficulties in games are all artificial, it's a matter of what you prefer (technical execution or logic solving or a mix of both)

[Sparda4]

Well you can make A-life in games to react to you in ways you would not expect. In Stalker shadow of chernobyl if you threw a granade and missed then the a.i would approach you from a different angle or in a tight corridor have one on the side of the wall while another throws in a granade.(The last one happened to me in the brain scorcher level on master). You don't need a supercomputer for "smart" a.i

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by Sparda4

Well you can make A-life in games to react to you in ways you would not expect. In Stalker shadow of chernobyl if you threw a granade and missed then the a.i would approach you from a different angle or in a tight corridor have one on the side of the wall while another throws in a granade.(The last one happened to me in the brain scorcher level on master). You don't need a supercomputer for "smart" a.i

They are still just set instructions which players can easily learn and exploit.
It's a better way no doubt to increase difficulties in games (refer back at Half Life vs Quake 3 AI comparison) but players quickly learn how to play around them (atleast for me who been playing games since late 80s.)

But i don't think it's because of incompetence that many big budget games are easy. Most of them are simply tuned to reach the widest possible market and difficulties can often be a turn off for some players.

That's the main reason why games like Soul series, RTS and grand strategies are considered a niche market lately. Even Stalker is a niche game tuned specifically for players that are looking for realistic challenges.

Of course ideally all games should have selectable difficulties ramped up via complexity instead of just adding more damages and HP onto everything which many games doesn't do.

Ultimately, what i m getting at is games don't have to be difficult or smart for people to enjoy and current AI aren't smart enough to give players difficulties without resorting to cheating.