Your thoughts on customizable difficulty settings

[wndrbr]

These days more and more games give player the ability to "configure their playstyle".

► EXAMPLES

Personally I think it's just devs being lazy and trying to find a way to avoid properly balancing their systems. They don't want (or don't know how) to fine-tune their own game's difficulty, so in order to avoid retards screeching that the game is too hard they just shift the responsibility to gamers. And even if those custom options were added in an earnest attempt to make the game more accessible for bad players or more challenging for good players, in my opinion the fact that you can just toggle some parts on or off detracts from the overall experience.

For example, let's take quest markers in Dishonored series. Quest markers can be disabled, but this feature is turned on by default so most players aren't going to disable it. After all, videogames are about optimization, finding a path of least resistance and "gaming" the system. If the game gives you options that are so OP you may as well call them cheats, players will use those options even if it may rob them of fun in the process.

Another issue is that when starting the new game players aren't going to be familiar with game's systems. How can they make decisions on which options to toggle on and which to toggle off when they don't even know how the game works? How do I know what tier of "AI perception" the levels were designed around?

And, obviously, there's also a question of "intended experience". How can you discuss the game with other players, when there's always a possibility that you played it on a big man mode, while they picked an easy option and also skipped most of the difficult content? One can say "i reduced enemy's stats because in my opinion they were inflated, and this reduction made the game less of a slog", but what if the tanky enemies were a part of intended experience? What if the game tried to teach you how to properly cut through armor, or use special abilities to reduce resistances, or to properly build your damage dealers? Can you really say "I finished the game!" when you basically skipped a possibly important chunk of gameplay?

[Roguey]

I'm all for it. How people play their games is their business.

[Emphyrio]

this is only a problem for d&d games

[Tweed]

Should just let the game play itself for you at this point.

[Acrux]

I guess the penultimate option is the closest to my preference. Difficulty can mean completely different things in games, like when hard just means enemies are bullet sponges or get a +26 to hit or something. My preference is for enemies to have more abilities at harder difficulties. I like Solasta's difficulty options as you can configure just about everything, including enemy extra abilities and even things like whether they prioritize downed PCs.

[rusty_shackleford]

"Customizable difficulty" is just the cheat menu for the everyone-gets-a-trophy generation.

[WhiteShark]

I don't really care how the lesser difficulty modes are handled, whether present at all, as long as the devs focus all their efforts on the top difficulty. Frankly, the way I see it, people who want to play on lesser difficulties don't really care about gameplay else they would test themselves on the higher difficulty, so there's no reason to bother investing dev time into catering to them beyond tweaking some stats.

The real issue with difficulty settings is that devs too often understimate their playerbase or are simply bad at their own games, and thus "normal" mode is equivalent to easy and "hard" to normal in the vast majority of games. I've played indie games before with an "insane" difficulty beyond hard which the devs openly admitted they did not test nor expect anyone to beat, and only at that point was the game satisfyingly challenging. So, while in principle devs should focus on crafting a cohesive difficulty setting of proper challenge, sliders and the like (with presets, for the best of both worlds) are nice for pushing the difficulty where the dev has failed to do so.

Option 2 works in certain contexts, especially in roguelike, that are already well-constructed. This is how DCSS does it: you can pick something like a minotaur berserker and have a pretty smooth game or you can pick something like a mummy <whatever> and suffer.

[Tweed]

If you didn't play on 3 you didn't beat the game.

[Cedric]

I prefer games not having a difficulty setting because otherwise I'll pick the hardest in the naive expectation the game was balanced with that one as the default in mind. (Which feels true for a lot of great action games like God Hand or DMC3.)

I also really like that thing some old games do where you're cucked out of the best ending if you didn't pick the hardest, or God forbid, skip final levels and bosses. A suitable punishment for dweebery.

[Mesugaki]

The more custom options the better. If it comes with even a embed barebone mod tool or mod support feature, it's already a plus on this day and age.

[BlueMemphis]

Custom difficulty and general custom options all the way for me.

Devs usually can't balance their own game anyways so acting like you are messing with the intended purity of a game was never a persuasive argument in my eyes unless ball breaking difficulty is intended in the experience. But jokes about journos putting everything on easy mode aside, i find that difficulty just tends to translate to bulletspongey enemies and i don't find that harder, just more tedious. Hell by playing on such difficulties, it often pigeon holes you into being only able to use a certain set of tools as most of your arsenal becomes inneffective for that difficulty.

Immediate example that comes to mind: total warhammer. I don't mind putting the campaign difficulty on the harder settings but for battle it will always be normal because i hate it when my elite swordsman loses 1v1 to the same rookie swordman unit who gets powered up by the difficulty modifiers. As a result players are encouraged to use primarily ranged and artillery based armies but fuck that, i want to make silly themed armies and maybe even do all melee forces because it's fun.

[WhiteShark]

Immediate example that comes to mind: total warhammer. I don't mind putting the campaign difficulty on the harder settings but for battle it will always be normal because i hate it when my elite swordsman loses 1v1 to the same rookie swordman unit who gets powered up by the difficulty modifiers. As a result players are encouraged to use primarily ranged and artillery based armies but fuck that, i want to make silly themed armies and maybe even do all melee forces because it's fun.

I empathize strongly with this. When I was playing Famicom Wars recently I set the AI to "200 IQ", which evidently does little, if anything, but increase the damage dealt by enemy units across the board such that every mirrored engagement goes to the enemy. I like difficulty but that just feels bad and, much like your example, it forced me to abuse indirect fire units and AI defects to win, which was more tedious than hard.

[Maggot]

Something like what Twiglard posted or JA2's startup settings is ideal to me. Not forcing you to tinker with every little setting while still offering choice.

[rusty_shackleford]

'custom difficulty' is just cheating by another name

[Priest]

Difficulties under normal should be reclassified as an accessibility option.

[maidenhaver]

There are only two difficulties: man and woman.

[rusty_shackleford]

Difficulty is part of the design of the game, difficulty modes shouldn't exist. There's an intended way to experience a game, the rest are unintended.

[WhiteShark]

Difficulty is part of the design of the game, difficulty modes shouldn't exist. There's an intended way to experience a game, the rest are unintended.

Devs don't even know how hard (easy) their games are. It's a lucky accident when they put together a game with appropriate challenge.

[1998]

Difficulty is part of the design of the game, difficulty modes shouldn't exist. There's an intended way to experience a game, the rest are unintended.

Without difficulty modes all games since idk 2010 would be story mode aka nu-normal only.

[rusty_shackleford]

Difficulty is part of the design of the game, difficulty modes shouldn't exist. There's an intended way to experience a game, the rest are unintended.

Without difficulty modes all games since idk 2010 would be story mode aka nu-normal only.

Then they'd sell less copies and be forced to adapt.

[1998]

Difficulty is part of the design of the game, difficulty modes shouldn't exist. There's an intended way to experience a game, the rest are unintended.

Without difficulty modes all games since idk 2010 would be story mode aka nu-normal only.

Then they'd sell less copies and be forced to adapt.

Most people play on lower difficulties, they are more likely too lose players if the game is too hard for the majority.

[rusty_shackleford]

Most people play on lower difficulties, they are more likely too lose players if the game is too hard for the majority.

Haven't Souls games been some of the best-selling games in years?

[1998]

Most people play on lower difficulties, they are more likely too lose players if the game is too hard for the majority.

Haven't Souls games been some of the best-selling games in years?

Sure, but that's more of an exception. You have way more people complaining about games that are too hard than vice versa. Also you cannot copy the souls formular to all other genres. Say TB tactical games, most people would be much less patient with these games.

[rusty_shackleford]

Sure, but that's more of an exception. You have way more people complaining about games that are too hard than vice versa. Also you cannot copy the souls formular to all other genres. Say TB tactical games, most people would be much less patient with these games.

I think the complainers are just outliers tbh. I could be wrong, but I'd prefer developers pick a vision and stick with it rather than trying to compromise.

[Vergil]

Difficulties just seem like a waste of time to me. 99% of the time easy makes the game trivial and hard is an after thought that just makes things more tedious/unbalanced.

[1998]

Ideally games would be developed with a good challenge in mind. Then they can simply offer lower settings just by changing some numbers. Yes it's lazy, but if you can't beat the intended, hard way you probably also don't understand the game well enough to actually realize it.

[KnightoftheWind]

Difficulties just seem like a waste of time to me. 99% of the time easy makes the game trivial and hard is an after thought that just makes things more tedious/unbalanced.

The worst "Hard" modes are ones that only buff enemy health, making them bullet sponges. If it's something more novel like more enemies, new enemy types, etc then it's fine. Video games should have a healthy amount of challenge to them, and there's a reason why all the samey, handholdy games of today are boring zoomers.

[rusty_shackleford]

Ideally games would be developed with a good challenge in mind. Then they can simply offer lower settings just by changing some numbers. Yes it's lazy, but if you can't beat the intended, hard way you probably also don't understand the game well enough to actually realize it.

It's something online games are essentially required to do and haven't struggled with it. If anything, there was more pushback towards things like the casualization of raids in WoW than there was in support of it — and the subscriber numbers tanked as the game was overall casualized. That was about when I realized the psychology of normies playing games they suck at: they enjoy it. There's such a massive road ahead of them that they can't even see the 'finish line', so to speak. They love the idea of there being content they can't do, but may one day be able to do if they just keep working towards it. Giving them the carrot — what designers insist upon doing because they want everyone to see what they made — defeats the entire purpose. It's not about them seeing the content, it's about the content merely being able to be seen.

[Vergil]

If it's something more novel like more enemies, new enemy types, etc then it's fine

At that point though I'd almost rather it be a new game plus or some other bonus game mode. I think "hard mode" doesn't really do it justice when it's entirely remixing levels, enemies, encounters etc.

[KnightoftheWind]

If it's something more novel like more enemies, new enemy types, etc then it's fine

At that point though I'd almost rather it be a new game plus or some other bonus game mode. I think "hard mode" doesn't really do it justice when it's entirely remixing levels, enemies, encounters etc.

What I mean is, a game like Doom adds stronger enemies earlier on when played in Ultra Violence. On "Normal" mode, you'd never see a shotgun zombie in the first level, but on Ultra Violence it adds a dozen of them.