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Making difficulty curves in games

davetech.co.uk

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Re: Making difficulty curves in games

#41

Post by PetitPrince »

gertop wrote: post #20
globalnode wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in games like wow where the more powerful you get the harder the enemies become, this reduces incentive to get more powerful. its a simple consequence so im not sure why they do it - probably to keep "time played" metric hovering at the desired level. which imho backfires when time played becomes 0.

You're only looking at one side. Dynamic difficulty also allows players to progress by lowering the health of a boss they've failed to beat for over two hours. Casual players giving up was a problem that no amount of shaming managed to fix ("haha skill issue, sucks to suck").

Resident Evil 4 famously had a hidden dynamic difficulty setting that made the game easier if the player struggled. I think it worked because RE4 is a linear / ambiance based game. The game designer wants the player to progress in the story, and getting stuck on an impossible doesn't make sense except if the player chose a challenge mode. Contrast with Morrowing where it makes no sense having common bandit on the road carrying god-like equipment.

Re: Making difficulty curves in games

#42

Post by onion2k »

orbital-decay wrote: post #23
gertop wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're only looking at one side. Dynamic difficulty also allows players to progress by lowering the health of a boss they've failed to beat for over two hours. Casual players giving up was a problem that no amount of shaming managed to fix ("haha skill issue, sucks to suck").

How is it a problem? Giving up is absolutely fine. Different games are made for different types of players. Who cares what the others think (or you think they think). By trying to cater to everyone you satisfy nobody.

If a game is so hard that the player gives up, they won't buy your next game. That is an existential threat to your game studio.

Worse though, if your game is deemed 'unfair' rather than just 'hard', then even the hardcore gamers will avoid it. That's enough to kill the business before you even start the next game.

Some studios pick the 'hardcore' market, especially once they've built a reputation and a following, but everyone else needs a more general appeal in order to stay in business.

Re: Making difficulty curves in games

#43

Post by nottorp »

orbital-decay wrote: post #8

>Dynamically adjust the difficulty depending on how well the player is doing. Please never do this. This deceptively looks smart to a game designer, but actual players read this like a book and then it feels cheap and massively unrewarding for them.

> then it feels cheap and massively unrewarding for them

Or even blocks them, in games that have dynamic leveling. Oblivion is the ur-example, but I've ran across at least two more:

1. Been playing Tyranny and there are mentions in the faqs/forums that you should disable leveling of skills you don't use if you do the new game+ thing where there are no level caps.

2. And one that happened to me personally a year or two ago: was playing Grim Dawn and hit my character's incompetence ceiling. This is a gear based ARPG/Diablo clone so the solution is to get better gear. But you can't go back to an easier area to improve your gear because they're all auto scaled and every map is the same - too hard now - difficulty. So there goes the uninstall and the lost DLC sales...

Re: Making difficulty curves in games

#44

Post by zahlman »

ryandrake wrote: post #12
ragequittah wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Something like Dark Souls where an enemy is an enemy and it'll smash you if you're underleveled is so much more satisfying than something like Oblivion where enemy health inexplicably goes up based on your level. It also gives you the satisfaction of going back to earlier areas that were scary and laughing off the puny enemies.

Totally different when it comes to multiplayer matchmaking, though. There I wish games were even more aggressive and exact at matching you to players around your skill level. Nothing worse than casually sitting down after work for a quick multiplayer PVP game of any sort and getting totally annihilated by a streamer who plays 20 hours per day.

> There I wish games were even more aggressive and exact at matching you to players around your skill level.

PvP involves sandbagging and a variety of fragile gimmick strategies. (Oh, and cheating. For slow enough turn-based games, players can cheat with a separate physical device, which can't be detected.)

The system can't measure skill level accurately against a player base that's actively antagonistic to such measurement, so of course it can't match players well on that basis.

Even abstract games of perfect information, like chess and Go, have this problem online.

Re: Making difficulty curves in games

#45

Post by orbital-decay »

onion2k wrote: post #42
orbital-decay wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a problem? Giving up is absolutely fine. Different games are made for different types of players. Who cares what the others think (or you think they think). By trying to cater to everyone you satisfy nobody.

If a game is so hard that the player gives up, they won't buy your next game. That is an existential threat to your game studio. Worse though, if your game is deemed 'unfair' rather than just 'hard', then even the hardcore gamers will avoid it. That's enough to kill the business before you even start the next game. Some studios pick the 'hardcore' market, especially once they've built a reputation and a following, bu…

If your studio's only goal is to make money and games are a byproduct then it makes sense, but in most of the gamedev it leveled itself out some 10-15 years ago - very few studios outside of mobile gaming target the lowest common denominator audience, most seem to understand that opinionated design adds flavor and sells the game as well. Certain target audiences simply never cross under any circumstances, it's not even necessarily "hardcore vs casual".

Re: Making difficulty curves in games

#46

Post by bob1029 »

orbital-decay wrote: post #8

>Dynamically adjust the difficulty depending on how well the player is doing. Please never do this. This deceptively looks smart to a game designer, but actual players read this like a book and then it feels cheap and massively unrewarding for them.

This is why Diablo 4 was a complete flop.

Re: Making difficulty curves in games

#47

Post by atoav »

orbital-decay wrote: post #8

>Dynamically adjust the difficulty depending on how well the player is doing. Please never do this. This deceptively looks smart to a game designer, but actual players read this like a book and then it feels cheap and massively unrewarding for them.

The good way of doing this is to ask the player if the difficulty shall be lowered temporarily just for that level of they keep dying. Then it is transparent and the choice is theirs.

Re: Making difficulty curves in games

#48

Post by lelanthran »

bob1029 wrote: post #46
orbital-decay wrote: post #8

>Dynamically adjust the difficulty depending on how well the player is doing. Please never do this. This deceptively looks smart to a game designer, but actual players read this like a book and then it feels cheap and massively unrewarding for them.

This is why Diablo 4 was a complete flop.

> This is why Diablo 4 was a complete flop.

This is interesting to me; can you explain please?

Re: Making difficulty curves in games

#49

Post by teamonkey »

orbital-decay wrote: post #9
teamonkey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is ‘normal’ is unfortunately subjective and can mean a lot of different things to different people. Also often what is listed as ’hard’ is often normal, because most people will see ‘normal’ and decide they’re better than that and have a miserable old time.

There's nothing wrong with opinionated design. The dev has set the bar this high and chosen this thing to represent difficulty levels, either you like it or you don't. Catering to everyone is impossible.

This is true, but you don’t want people to bounce off the game immediately, so they have a bad time and refund it before giving it a proper go.

This can happen if they feel it’s easier or harder then expected.

Re: Making difficulty curves in games

#50

Post by safwat-halaby »

orbital-decay wrote: post #8

>Dynamically adjust the difficulty depending on how well the player is doing. Please never do this. This deceptively looks smart to a game designer, but actual players read this like a book and then it feels cheap and massively unrewarding for them.

It doesn't have to be deceptive!

In Factorio, you build an automated factory on an alien world whose native inhabitants hate air pollution.

If you spend your time gathering resources manually or with a humble-sized factory, there'd be very little alien hostility. But the better you're playing, the grander the factories, the more you're polluting, the more aggressive the aliens attack you.

Furthermore, trees soak up CO2, so if you preserve them you reduce alien hostility, but if you go fully industrious and build on top of them you invite more alien aggression.

I think this concept is delightful and far from deceptive. It makes the game suitable for players of all levels and it meshes with the game mechanism rather than working behind your back.

hnews folks would also probably enjoy the cellular-automata-like mechanism of the pollution. Essentially the world is divided into cells and each cell has a pollution value. Pollution dissipates to nearby cells on regular intervals. Cells with trees soak up some pollution, cells with machines produce some pollution. A pollution map is available in-game.

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