Thoughts on Difficulty Settings
Posted on 22nd Apr 2010 at 10:42 by Joe Martin with 72 comments
I may as well start off by saying that I don’t usually like my games to be too difficult and that, if I’m sitting down to play a game for my own enjoyment, I’ll almost never, ever put it on Hard difficulty. In fact, I’m more likely to play it on Easy.
There’s a lot of people who’ll baulk at that; the type of people who label themselves as ‘hardcore’ gamers with an inflated sense of pride and dismiss the majority of titles as ‘baby-games’, most likely. Despite what they think though, I think my reasons for opting for a lesser difficulty are pretty good ones.
It comes down to a matter of taste and what you’re looking for – and what I usually look for in the games I play at home is a good story and the chance to have some fun. Sticking the game on maximum difficulty is something that’s more likely to get in the way of that than facilitate it and the worst fear I have with any new game is that I’ll play it on Hard, love the story, reach an impassable boss and then get stuck. In that situation I’d be more likely to put the game down and move on than to replay on a lower skill setting – and I’d hate to miss out on a tale I’d otherwise enjoy.
Piece of cake
That’s not to say that I never up the difficulty though, if I think it’s worth it or if I’m trying to get something new out of an older game. I’d definitely play Deus Ex on maximum difficulty (and would create play restrictions to liven it up too), for example, and I’ve just finished Mass Effect 2 on Insanity difficulty. When I review games I never play them on Easy either – I always opt for the Normal skill setting as a matter of principle; it seems the way that the game is supposed to be played. It’s what the developers think the majority of players will want.
There have been some times when I’ve been really disappointed with how games support difficulty levels. When I first finished Half-Life 2 on Normal I immediately went back and tried it on Hard because I’d found it a bit easy on the whole and had determined to play it again anyway. In the end though, I couldn’t actually notice a difference between Easy, Normal or Hard. The same number of enemies, the same placements, same approximate of bullets required. Boring.
There are only two games I can think of where the difficulty settings have been perfectly implemented – and they are practically polar opposites too; Thief and Serious Sam.
The way Serious Sam tackled game difficulty was to make an option for every single type of player possible, with the usual Easy, Normal, Hard settings bookended by more inventive modes; Tourist and Mental. If you could successfully gun your way through Serious Sam’s huge hordes of horrors then Mental mode would be the ultimate challenge for you; your attacks would do half damage, enemies would do double and they were all invisible to boot.
Hardass
If you were struggling with the usual selection of settings though then Tourist made the game a walk in the park; you’d do double damage, enemies would do half and your health would regenerate. You couldn’t fail even if you eschewed the minigun and rocket launcher and opted to rely only on the knife.
Thief’s approach was a bit different and was the only logical response to the increasing difficulty that didn’t require guards to have super-hearing and x-ray vision. When you’ve built such a tense and brilliantly balanced game why would you want to ruin it on harder settings by making enemies react unconvincingly? You wouldn’t, so the best way to make the game harder would be to give players new things to do – which is what Thief did. On Easy you might only need to run in and grab one bit of loot, but on Expert mode you’d need to pilfer many more pockets and make a successful escape in the process, usually without killing anyone too.
It’s a shame that most games can’t or don’t follow those examples, because increasingly I find myself dissatisfied with the way that games handle the process of challenging the player – probably a side-effect of making modern titles ever more accessible. Having to click the crosshair an extra once or twice to win a fight isn’t a real increase in challenge – or not one I’m interested in anyway.
There’s a lot of people who’ll baulk at that; the type of people who label themselves as ‘hardcore’ gamers with an inflated sense of pride and dismiss the majority of titles as ‘baby-games’, most likely. Despite what they think though, I think my reasons for opting for a lesser difficulty are pretty good ones.
It comes down to a matter of taste and what you’re looking for – and what I usually look for in the games I play at home is a good story and the chance to have some fun. Sticking the game on maximum difficulty is something that’s more likely to get in the way of that than facilitate it and the worst fear I have with any new game is that I’ll play it on Hard, love the story, reach an impassable boss and then get stuck. In that situation I’d be more likely to put the game down and move on than to replay on a lower skill setting – and I’d hate to miss out on a tale I’d otherwise enjoy.
Piece of cake
That’s not to say that I never up the difficulty though, if I think it’s worth it or if I’m trying to get something new out of an older game. I’d definitely play Deus Ex on maximum difficulty (and would create play restrictions to liven it up too), for example, and I’ve just finished Mass Effect 2 on Insanity difficulty. When I review games I never play them on Easy either – I always opt for the Normal skill setting as a matter of principle; it seems the way that the game is supposed to be played. It’s what the developers think the majority of players will want.
There have been some times when I’ve been really disappointed with how games support difficulty levels. When I first finished Half-Life 2 on Normal I immediately went back and tried it on Hard because I’d found it a bit easy on the whole and had determined to play it again anyway. In the end though, I couldn’t actually notice a difference between Easy, Normal or Hard. The same number of enemies, the same placements, same approximate of bullets required. Boring.
There are only two games I can think of where the difficulty settings have been perfectly implemented – and they are practically polar opposites too; Thief and Serious Sam.
The way Serious Sam tackled game difficulty was to make an option for every single type of player possible, with the usual Easy, Normal, Hard settings bookended by more inventive modes; Tourist and Mental. If you could successfully gun your way through Serious Sam’s huge hordes of horrors then Mental mode would be the ultimate challenge for you; your attacks would do half damage, enemies would do double and they were all invisible to boot.
Hardass
If you were struggling with the usual selection of settings though then Tourist made the game a walk in the park; you’d do double damage, enemies would do half and your health would regenerate. You couldn’t fail even if you eschewed the minigun and rocket launcher and opted to rely only on the knife.
Thief’s approach was a bit different and was the only logical response to the increasing difficulty that didn’t require guards to have super-hearing and x-ray vision. When you’ve built such a tense and brilliantly balanced game why would you want to ruin it on harder settings by making enemies react unconvincingly? You wouldn’t, so the best way to make the game harder would be to give players new things to do – which is what Thief did. On Easy you might only need to run in and grab one bit of loot, but on Expert mode you’d need to pilfer many more pockets and make a successful escape in the process, usually without killing anyone too.
It’s a shame that most games can’t or don’t follow those examples, because increasingly I find myself dissatisfied with the way that games handle the process of challenging the player – probably a side-effect of making modern titles ever more accessible. Having to click the crosshair an extra once or twice to win a fight isn’t a real increase in challenge – or not one I’m interested in anyway.
72 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyJust wondering Joe, what class did you play through ME2 insanity with? Like I say I'm on hardcore and I'm using a Vangard and some of the battles have been a bitch lol.
Insanity mode in Mass Effect is a bitch though, whatever the class. Rock hard, in fact. But then, that's the point, isn't it?
Thanks for the reply. I did my veteran run with a Soldier. Both normal and hardcore was with Vangard as I seem to favour that class. Perhaps I should play next as an Infiltrator or Sentinel. And yes, insanity should be frustratingly hard.
Mind you, so does Deity.
Infiltrator is my preferred class, purely because I'm a sniper type of person when it comes to games. The sniper rifle, especially with slow-down, does unbalance the game a bit though. On lower difficulty it's constant one-hit kills with auto slow-motion. On anything above Veteran you're cut down by the time you've drawn a bead. Not a class I'd recommend for high difficulties. What you really want is Assault Rifle + Domination ability.
Serious sam i played on normal (as its not overly difficult anyway)
dragon age i stuck on hard immedaitely
whist i would start skirmishes on RA2 on easy 1v1 then move to 1v7 on easy then 1v5 on 3 normal 2 easy then all the way through to 1v7 on hard ( and yes i did win)
But one game I never did beat on the hardest settings was Ninja Gaiden for Xbox. Now that was hardcore. Barely beat it on Hard, but Very Hard was just too much for me.
Personally though, I've never played HL2 with a competitive mindset, prefering to just savour each episode -to string it out as long as possible, rather than racing through it. I mean heck, why not take in every pixel of their hard work. They make players wait too long to try to turn it into a two hour wonder.
I thought how useless the guards must feel if, at dawn, the entire home/warehouse/what ever was devoid of all valuables, and only 18 out the total 20 guards were still awake and on duty!!
Most other games I start at normal and as I get better I increase the difficulty to keep it a challenge.
Why? Because every time I have to redo a section, that's a bit of fun gone. Every time I get fustrated and find a part difficult, that's a bit of stress I tried to avoid by picking up the game in the first place. I know the challenge often can be the fun, but I like to build up to that challenge. If I find a game too difficult too early on, I simply won't play it any more.
Thankfully, many games have difficulty settings you can change on the fly these days, which is a godsend.
I always felt that Crysis' implementation was pretty good with its 'Delta' mode because it didn't simply change some numbers - It did things like make the KPA soldiers speak Korean instead of english and remove the HUD warnings for nearby grenades.
My typical difficulty choice varies depending on the genre. I usually go with 'Normal' in RPGs, 'Easy' in RTSes and the hardest I can get in FPSes.
Mind you, I went with normal in Bad Company 2 because of the reports of how frustrating the singleplayer campaign was and I'm glad I did.
Any more instant-death headshots out of nowhere than there were in 'Normal' and I'd have just given up on the singleplayer portion.
nah not really i always found hitman to be more fun replaying on harder and harder settings, and trying to get through withot being seen is HARD :P
I think its really important developers add a "Muppet" difficulty setting so people who maybe don't play games can be very gently introduced. My sister used to try and play games then give up as they where to hard for her. It shouldn't be like that. Portal got her back into gaming and now she easily holds her own in L4D but every game should have a setting that even a moderate gamer could breeze through to give total noobs a chance. Everyone should be able to finish a game they bought...unless its something like Braid...thats different.
I agree with that. Of course, there's always cheat codes/trainers...
I like your thinking
* makes mental note *
Easy, as I iz a tourist :D
Naah, depends really, as there are so many games, and so little time, i started going from normal to easy.
Just so I can see the end of the game story without cheating or spending months.
More importantly, most games don't allow you to change the difficulty in game, which would be usefull.
So instead of staggering to a halt at about 2/3 through a game, i start on easy, cos I can't be buggered to start a game again, and repeat 40+ hours just for changing the dificulty.
(note to self, must switch from esay-to-normal in Mass Effect 2 as it really is TOO easy) :D
Balancing difficulty is an art as far as I can see. As you point out, Half-Life 2 was incredibly easy (even on 'hard'). On the other hand, I found games like Aquanox 1+2 and Freespace 1+2 a challenge even on 'very easy'.
Then there are games which have massive jumps between difficulty levels. Take Supreme Commander, for example. Normal mode is piss easy; hard mode destroys me in a matter of minutes (and sometimes seconds).
Personally, I like the system implemented in COD MW - the assault course that judges how good you are. I played through a few times and was recommended the 2nd hardest mode. The game was perfect on this mode for me and I had a really good time playing it.
I charged straight into Mass Effect 2 at 'Insanity'. It was mostly perfect, bar the odd b*stard hard bit.
I like difficult games though.. like trine had me laughing my ass off- there was a friend who I'm pretty sure had to go back and play it through on easy to see the ending XD he was bitching about the last level.. then like 3 days later he finally beat it miraculously (so I say easy or cheated)
I had no problems myself- took a couple of trys but I found it a lot of fun the way they designed that last level.. I love choke points just for the roid rage.. makes a good game and separate the men from the mice- quake 2 multiplayer was the pinnacle (in my book at least) of letting a good gamer stretch his legs out as the jump physics were insane- almost unlimited the amount of tricks you could pull off.. some games are so limiting in scope nowdays, everyone is on a pretty level playing field.. it's boring but I see why they do it- there's money to be had
oh yeah mass effect was one of my favorites.. so not all the new games are like that- but halo.. come on gimme a break and look at how successful that is
I have a thought that I would only play a game on a harder difficulty if it unlocks something special. Did it for GoW and MW2 so I could get all the "easter eggs" and all achievements, respectively. GoW2 had nothing on harder and GoW3 I'm founding a time to got through the A*s-R***ed mode. [shame] I had to use Pro Action Replay on GoW to finish the game on God Mode [/shame]
or completing golden eye only using the pistol or doom only using the shotgun
even sh*t can be successful if you've never seen or smelt it.
I've only in the last year or 2 started running straight through on normal instead. (Apart from Ninja Gaiden II, that game is soul destroyingly hard regardless)
Mostly because easy really was a bit too easy nowdays, so took some of the enjoyment away in the end. A bit more difficulty and "intelligence" from the game and things are much more entertaining. Plus achievements are really a great motivator for considering the harder difficulties.
The only downside to that is some require you to be on a specific difficulty to get ANY achievement.
A few weeks back I completed my first ever game on it's hardest setting. MW2. Which was a pretty fun challenge actually. Some really frustrating sections at times though.
I actually didn't think halo on legendary was so bad. The only bad part is the final level where you really need to memorise the warthog run which is long and REALLY annoying. Hence never finishing it.
If I just want to experience the story and then move on, I'll usually go with normal or easy. But If I've got a lot of time and I really want to make the most of a game, I'll go through it multiple times on various difficulties.
Games like MGS 1,2 and 4 I played tens of times, to get all the different unlocks and to try the different difficulties.
But games like MW2 or BC2, I just play through the campaign once on easy or normal and then move onto the multiplayer.
watch out there, don't provoke the Halo players or else they will try to provoke you by taunting you about how **** games can be unsuccessful too (by referring to Crysis) [those would be their words, not mine. I didn't really give a chance to Crysis]
I personally always play games at their hardest settings simply because I like the challenge. In easier games, when I can, I make sure I have an handicap. If I can't then I simply aim for a perfect game. I even use a "cheat" in Tetris Attack on the GameBoy to be able to play VS mode at SuperHard because I got too good and Hard is just not a challenge
I believe however that the hardest mode anyone can choose is called "Multiplayer"
The thing I don't like about some modern difficulty systems is, when harder modes simply equate to enemies having more health, therefore requiring more damage to die, and you having less health or being weaker in some way. Ideally I would like a system (for FPS anyway) where the AI was major factor in the difficulty. For example, on every setting, a head-shot killed but on harder settings, the AI had better aim and would evade/use cover etc, and on easy, they basically stood still and couldn't shoot a thing. In this case I would more than likely chose hard every time. Crysis came pretty close to this, I have to play that on Delta, but then that's mostly because I like to hear the more authentic Korean.
I just really hate grinding and repetition.:( I game for fun!
Any racing game I play, the first thing I do is search the menus for any driver assists that can be switched off.
That's interesting really, I did 'Hardcore' as a vanguard (continuation of my ME1 character) and thought it was extremely difficult. I did another run on Insanity and tried Infiltrator to see if I would like that class, and found that it was actually easier than hardcore.
I felt once I got the Widow Sniper and bumped my class score to a 4, that the rest of the game became fairly easy (easier I should say). IN fact, for me the final stages was a world of difference between the two settings as Vanguard took forever to do, but I managed all final levels on first go, half the time, no deaths. IMHO Widow Sniper was way overpowered and made Insanity feel like Normal.
Ironically I am Playing Borderlands for the first time, and while I am enjoying it, I wish I could change the difficulty to an easier one. Currently the enemies seem to be getting tougher at about double the rate I am. XD
Confessing that is like confessing to being an alcoholic ... I feel much better.
I for one welcome you to the "Old Gits" section of Bit-Tech. Please hang you "Hardcore" hat on the stand and come over an have a cuppa cocoa with the rest of us
I've played a few games that give you the option to change the difficulty or make an enemy/boss easier after a few retries if you can't get it. I like that idea, the people who want to soldier on can, but the people who just want to get past it can drop the difficulty down for that section.
That way you could adjust the challenge to how it suited you.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_nhfDD_GGElU/SONJ-kDEPDI/AAAAAAAAAxs/pmvpkeeayis/s400/ackbar.jpg
Playing on easy just for the story is I am sad to say, rather lame, especially, since normal is where the developers have targeted the main focus on the overall quality and atmosphere of the game. If it's just the story you want, go watch a movie.
Replayability is about more than just the story, it's about raising your personal bar, increasing challenges and overall accomplishment.
That said I do agree that only a handful of games have truly grasped the concept of sensible difficulty settings in much the same way as other games give you a different story arc when replaying.
I'm an occasional gamer, and I'm not going to lie - I'm terrible at most games. I play most (if not all) on easy, and still manage to fail at some of them - but they're not so frustrating to the point of not wanting to play any more. Dead Rising is so ridiculously hard, no matter what settings you play it with. Some of the areas are so thickly covered with Zombies that I wonder if even talented players could get through some of the parts - and this is only a couple of hours after playing. The sheer lack of save points, and lunacy of having to restart the ENTIRE GAME after being killed is unforgiveable. It wouldn't be so bad if there was some degree of replayability, a slight variation perhaps, but no. It puts the lotion in the basket or it gets the hose again.
I understand that hardcore gamers need something challenging, but to make a full price game all but inaccessible for the light-dabbler is inexcusable.
I have to say I don't agree with tad2008:
I feel that if it's a good enough game, the story, atmosphere and quality should shine through no matter what difficulty setting you play it on. That's like buying a car and being told you can only use the first 2 gears until you're 35 years old.
I hear you on that one, those convicts in the park with the giant jeep mounted gun and all you have to take them on with is a wimpy handgun and a bottle of OJ. Stick with it though, once you level up a few times and get extra health and item slots, the game really shines.
Focussing on only saving survivors and not doing the story missions on the first play-through is a great way to level up fast.
Sadly you have to invest a lot of time and effort to get an enjoyable return but it is REALLY worth it.
L4D2 on expert realism is outright sadistic though, spitter splits the group up, charger runs away 1 team mate, smoker drags another off, jockey runs the last into a group of infected and your on your jack with a hunter about to pounce on your face. :S
The first game to break the LOL MAKE THE ENEMIES FASTER LOL precedent.
Goldeneye.
It's a lot to ask of something like an RTS game, really. For a start you'd need to have a load of different levels of strategem. To be honest we're lucky if they can path the units to attack or defend, never mind organise hundreds of them to fight intelligently. I suppose that's why Starcraft is such a popular MP game, there's so much more a human can do in comparison to AI.
But like Rogan said, we're lucky to have any AI at all. It must be a huge hassle. Perhaps some day we'll actually have an AI 'playing' the game with simulated input devices, only advantage being superior intelligence.
I like Demon's Souls method of implementing difficulty methods: there are none, it is always hard :D
COOP games on hardest difficulty are nearly always fun, aslong as you have a nice bunch of peaple you play with.
I'm surprised so few games have any type of adapative system where they get harder or easier depending on how well you play. fighting games sometimes have them still.
Dragon age seemed unfairly difficult the first time i played it, until i realised you did actually have to make use of the pause button, then it became much, much easier.
Stuntman still holds the record for most "ARGH DIE IN THE PITS OF HELL" level of difficulty, ignition wasn't quite as bad, but still, getting 5*'s was still tricky as hell.