 |
 |
|
If you enjoy reading this site, you might also want to check out these Think Services sites:
 Game Career Guide (for student game developers.)
 Indie Games (for independent game players/developers.)
 Finger Gaming (news, reviews, and analysis on iPhone and iPod Touch games.)
 GamerBytes (for the latest console digital download news.)
 Worlds In Motion (discussing the business of online worlds.)
 Game Set Watch (the Group's alt.game weblog.) |
|
|
|
| |
Analysis: Video Games -- Don't Be So Difficult
by Lewis Denby
|
|
| |
|
October 2, 2009
|
| |
[If you're no good at video games, should you be able to enjoy them anyhow? Gamasutra correspondent Lewis Denby looks at why difficult games might be "some elite party to which I'm not invited", and what to do about it.]
So you're pointing and clicking your way through a hot new adventure game, if such a thing still exists. You're stuck at a point where a mighty evildoer has rigged the entrance to the next area with all manner of preposterous boobie traps. What do you do?
Do you go to the local arms dealer and trade him some items so he'll explain how to disarm the explosives? Do you search around for a secret door that'll allow you to bypass the traps all together? Of course not. That'd be too easy. Too sensible.
No, what you have to do is take a rubber chicken to the local grave-robber, who'll give you a skeleton in exchange. Then you'll have to break off Mr. Boney's arms and legs, grind them down into a powder to give to a voodoo sorceress, who'll make you a potion as long as you bring her three sprigs of thyme in exchange. After that, you can feed the potion to a cat, who'll immediately vomit up a map of the island on which you reside, marked with an X.
Go to the X and dig - with a magical trowel, naturally, not the ordinary one you've had in your inventory for ages - to uncover a piece of paper with detailed instruction in how to sneak by the traps undetected. Oh - as long as you dress up as a woman.
Of course.
There was a time when puzzles such as this would have been all the rage. Gamers have always loved a challenge - that's the basis from which the medium is largely constructed. But there's a reason why such obtusely difficult and illogical sections of games are widely hated today.
As games become more and more about the experience, rather than about leaderboards and showing off to your friends, such horrendous difficulty spikes are becoming a real problem. They're making games annoying, frustrating and not at all fun to play.
No Entry
While the adventure genre is the one that many would point to when it comes to such matters, it's by no means the only area of gaming to suffer from such design idiocy.
Take the first-person shooter where every door is locked except the one you have to progress through, which isn't signposted one bit. Or how about the RPG that demands hours of grinding away at repetitive side-quests before you can crack on with the story? There's always the inevitable section in every platformer in the world where you've to precisely leap across tiny stepping stones above a sea of fire, where jumping just an inch too far means restarting the level for the eight hundredth time.
This might have been okay when games were purely about bettering yourself, or bettering other players. But in a climate where the medium is as much about storytelling, atmosphere and immersion as any other factors, it's a serious issue that needs to be stamped out.
The problem with difficulty in games isn't that it's tricky to balance, or that no one will ever be able to please their entire audience. It's that a great deal of games are simply too difficult, no matter how you look at it. Too many developers are failing to understand the very point of their own titles, with releases billed as immersion-driven mood pieces being broken up by vast swathes of obtuse design.
There's nothing at all wrong with highly challenging, fiendishly difficult games. The title I've played more than any other this year is Derek Yu's Spelunky, a remarkable, procedurally generated platformer that's utterly relentless in its arbitrary slaying of the player. But that's part of its charm. Though there's never the opportunity to save your game, meaning each death deposits you back at the start, the randomised level design means you're never facing the same challenge twice.
And the complete lack of fairness to the rules? Well, that's a rule in itself. From the very first time a missile shoots out of a near-invisible trap in the cave wall, you know Spelunky's playing with dirty tactics. This is what you're signing up for. So as you progress, and as the game spectacularly evolves, you establish new ways to outsmart it, and promise yourself you won't fall for the same trick next time.
But having to play out the same battle in the next big action blockbuster again and again, never being quite sure why I'm not good enough to progress, is not the same thing. This is at best lazy design; at worst it's a way of artificially lengthening the experience. And all the while, all that detail in the level design, all that beautiful artwork, all those Hollywood-level voice actors... they're all going to waste. All you're focused on is one last attempt at beating that boss, before you slam the controller down in a rage and never return again.
Easy Does It
So I play my games on easy mode, wherever possible. I'm the guy who loved the Vita Chambers in BioShock, the one who adored the streamlined gameplay of Deus Ex: Invisible War. I play through most titles without ever having to reach for the load button. Maybe I'll play through a whole game in a single sitting. Perhaps I'm not getting my money's worth out of that. Perhaps I'm just making sure that every second I spend in the game's company is enjoyable and worthwhile.
And maybe I'm simply not very good at games. I never got on with the Thief titles, much to everyone's absolute dismay. "It'll take you weeks to get good enough to start really enjoying them," someone once told me. Frankly, I don't have the time. I'll invest plenty of time into a game, but only if it's letting me actually have a bit of fun, or get something equally valuable out of the experience.
So let me play Thief on very easy mode. That series' difficultly options are famously brilliant, with the tiniest of details adjusting depending on your chosen level of challenge. But it still fails spectacularly when it comes to letting someone like me, tremendously ropey at my sneaking, get the most out of the product I've just paid good money for.
Max Payne featured dynamic difficulty, where the efficiency of the AI adapted to your own talent at the game. This might be a smart route to go down. Many adventure games are now incorporating advanced, intelligent hints systems, for those times when you're particularly stumped by a madcap puzzle. That's probably a good idea too.
In all honesty, I don't care how the problem's resolved. As long as these games don't remain part of some elite party to which I'm not invited, I'll be happy. I just want to be able to enjoy, soak up and become immersed in any title I choose to play.
[Lewis Denby is general editor of Resolution Magazine and general freelance busybody for anyone that'll have him. Wander over to his website for more information and contact details.]
|
| |
|
|
And maybe I'm being elitist myself, but I don't see how Thief is so difficult. I'm actually playing it for the first time, and it's simple to get into. It's a first person game where you sneak around and whack people in the back of the head and unlock chests. There's a tutorial, so that you can understand the game mechanics in a safe environment. Sounds better than making the entire game easier.
Deus Ex? I played the original for the first time in May 2009. Stupidly easy to get into. Also had a nice "training" section where you learn how to play. I can't see how this game needed "streamlining" in the sequel.
If these games are still too difficult, play something else. I enjoy them exactly as they are.
rudeness aside, what do you get out of playing a game that gives you endless opportunity and no difficulty? The art direction? The voice acting? the story lines? I just don't think these are the video game industries forte...
Meh, let them have their easy games. And LET ME HAVE MINE. Is variety so bad?
I don't know what games you are playing but its exactly the opposite. You find less and less games about the experience and more about the leaderboards and comparing with friends. Today's games go out of there way for players to compare singleplayer and multiplayer stats with each other. Its what they call "Achievements" If the experience sucks why would I want to play. For today's game industry if you find a game that first and for most gave you an awesome experience/challenge you hit the jackpot.
Games are much easier now not harder. Please go play Castlevania:Symphony of the Night, or the first Prince of Persia...then please see the latest Prince of Persia for the PS3/360. You will have a better evaluation of which is more challenging.
True Gamers enjoy a challenge and challenge is not the same as TIME CONSUMING. There is a difference. Just because something is time consuming doesn't make it challenging. You have to determine whether you are willing to invest that time or not. Plain and simple. There are games for players who do not want to, they are called Bejeweled, Diner Dash, Cake Mania, Mahjong etc.
Lastly, to Sinan Kubba, please do not underestimate the skill level of FF players. FF players have skills, just because you like the battle system doesn't mean you are going to be good at it. Its about analyzing the weakness and strengths of an enemy and using your strengths and abilities to defeat them. These same skills are transferable to other game genres such as fighting games. You can't just press random buttons and win a battle. FF games are specifically designed as such. You grind to get strong, if you don't want to grind, just play the game and die. You grind in real life to get better don't you, its called school, and the workforce.
I'm guessing you missed that recent innovation known as Achievements/Trophies which has made gaming endlessly more narcissistic and ostentatious.
To address your other point, that games are more about "experience", you attack games such as Thief for their difficulty, yet you're attacking the very attribute that makes them a pleasurable experience; creating tension and immersion, whilst also providing a definitive sense of accomplishment.
If Demon's Souls was easy, I would find it an extremely boring experience.
This is like asking to be allowed to pick up the ball and run with it if you're crap at football (soccer for the Americans reading this). Yes it makes it easier for those less skilled, but is it *really* as gratifying an experience?
All games are fundamentally learning experiences. In asking to remove that learning curve, are we not dispossessing the gamer of the chance to locate the joy of learning and accomplishment within their experience?
This was EXACTLY how I felt about Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I enjoyed the fairytale atmosphere for the first half of the game, but after running through another insanely punishing level for the 30th time I started to hate it. The animations, the British accents, the game. All the wonder and emotional investments that I've held in the beginning of the game was THROWN AWAY, by stupid barriers like unending enemy spawns.
I ask Ubisoft this: WHY INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF ENEMIES AND THE DIFFICULTY CURVE AT ALL? Does this decision ADD to the game's mood? Why is the palace populated more and more by enemies towards the end of the game? Does the story justify any of this?!
I say that you could only have it one of two ways: If you're interested in the atmosphere of your game, then let up on the butt-raping gameplay so that more players can access and enjoy what you've crafted. But if you're more interested in the hardcore challenges, then make a Counter Strike map or something. My opinion, YOU CANNOT DO BOTH.
I understand challenge. But I also know how it feels when game designers don't give a fuck about you.
When a player quits, and stops playing, because a mass-market game is too difficult to enjoy, the game is inherently of a poor design. Why? The game has alienated a potential fan, which means less brand loyalty, less return buyers, and yep, less money for publishers/developers; which means you get laid-off and have to move into your parents basement where you can no longer have Nerf wars with your fellow smelly unshaven cubicle ridden designer buddies. How's that for hard? =0
If ROI and achieving the ever abstract "fun target" is our goal, we can only shun designers whom make games to only challenge themselves. That said, I empathize with them, for it is no easy task to design mass-market.
To provide players the option of changing the challenge level based on their aptitude, or desire, is only apt in an interactive medium. Certainly this is not ideal for all games, but where appropriate by design. This is one of the reasons Jenova Chen's application of flow theory for increasing the challenge of gameplay according to the player is so compelling. Games like EA's SSX series are a fantastic example of this.
I don't have the answer, but I know Nintendo was looking @ a "help system" for games. It may not be the perfect, but at least they are trying. I for one had a hard time with "Gears of War" on 'casual', and I know from seeing "Company of Heroes" metrics that most players choose not to compete online whenever possible; by that I believe an option to decrease challenges either dynamically or by selection would be most helpful to a majority of players.
As Miyamoto told "USA Today" when describing the patented help system: "In New Super Mario Bros Wii, if a player is experiencing an area of difficulty, this will allow them to clear troubled areas and take over when they're ready... and yes, we're looking into this for future games, too."
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2009/06/67677679/1
It begs the question though, would these games work with a super easy mode? Would the puzzles in Day of the Tentacle be the same game if they hadn't of used ridiculous solutions? Would Geometry Wars be as successful without a Leaderboard? Would Thief had been fun without the use shadows? It's hard to believe in any of these cases that it would be true.
The majority of the people who aren't able to get past level 1-3, are not the people buying video games. They're usually the ones buying it for their kids, and they'll have a go at it once they've gone to bed or are at school. The cost of developing\testing a super easy mode to the amount of people using or buying a game because of a super easy mode, I can't believe would be close to worth while.
And if all else fails, there's usually always cheats. ;)
I'm somebody who loves easy games 95% of the time, but I have some exceptions, especially for arcade games. I love Donkey Kong and Pacman and Centipede. I'm really, really bad at the former two (never beaten level 3 on either). But the games are fun even if you only are on the first level because there is no gameplay difference in levels. You get just as much of a good experience on one level as the next. The goals and approach to solving the puzzles are the same.
But in a game like Half Life 2, where if you can't get past level 3 you never get to ride the motorboat, or never get to fight the zombies of ravenholm, or even get the gravity gun, you're missing out on a significant gameplay experience. While having a difficult puzzle or obstacle is fine, it should never impede a player from reaching one of the most important gameplay experiences.
Also, as for the Day of the Tentacle question, take a look at mega-monkey mode in Curse of Monkey Island. Harder puzzles for the hardcore puzzler. Normal mode for the normies. Or Warcraft III: easy mode only upon failing normal mode...
There are many solutions to difficulty that designers can achieve to please larger audiences. It shouldn't be the player's responsibility to look up cheats or a walkthrough to m,ake a game easier, or to meta-game to increase difficulty (System Shock 2 wrench players, I'm looking at you). The player should be able to have the experience that's the right difficulty for him/her.
Better than skipping parts of the fucking game, which is what some people want.
Hey, when you're cheating, you're still playing the game.
Unlimited lives, regenerating health, very easy modes, etc.
Thief is an old game, and so would be your hypothetical adventure game. Modern, big-budget games now are, generally, easy. It's pretty much perfect. You can play easy games, you can play easy mode, and then there are also the games like Mega Man 9 and Spelunky for traditional gaming thrills (and frustration).
But this goes to what kind of game you're trying to do and the kind of experience you're trying to evoke.
What I don't like is dynamic difficulty. As a designer, losing the ability to control the challenge curve on a minute to minute basis seems like failing. It punishes good players while patronizing weaker ones. Anything that can be done using it can be done better with a well planned and well thought out difficulty curve solution and gameplay testing.
So what I'm saying is, a game becomes too hard for a player if the designer has failed to prepare them for the challenges presented.
Or ask stealth games allow lack of stealth (huh... MGS4 on easy do that, and I know it without playing because I saw several complaints about that...)
Or ask a maniac shooter to have less bullets on the screen...
Seriously, yes, we need better usability and tutorials, and a well made design, but we should not ever 'dumb-down' games, specially when this take off the point of the genre (like the lastest Prince of Persia, that was a platformer series, and now is a... game play itself series... seriously, platformers are supposed to be hard to jump around! They should not make extra-easy to make those jumps...)
Seriously, games are about the rules, about the challange, not story-telling (not that story-telling is not nice, I love it, I play RPGs for the story, I play adventures in one sitting because I can not stand get away from the story...), games without any challange are stupid.
Some people want to "casualize" games, make them reach mass market and stuff making them stupid. To those, go play "casual" games, play Bejeweled and see your ass kicked, play Zuma and see that those 30 yo woman can kick your ass and reach the final level much faster than you, or try to clear all levels from all peggles in Peggle, and see what is a proper "casual" game.
These games, the "casual" that reach a huge market, are things that we have to mirror and not just do a poorly made copy, they teach you, they have easy controls, easy playing, but a hell of a challange.
@Guy that disliked Sands of Time.
Sorry, but you don't got the genre ;) I doubt that you would enjoy the previous Princes too, the game was exactly about the ever increasing difficulty platformer puzzles. Too bad that Ubi ruined it in the lastest one :(
Btw: I suck at fighting games for example, but I see how much my university classmates enjoy it, some buy arcade controllers to put on their PS3 and PCs (seemly fighting game fans dislike XBOX 360 for some reason...), making the fighting game any easier dumbing it down (like: press "X" to do Zangief super special stuff that take 4/6 of the oponent life bar) would only make the game worse, not better.
You have to choose your public, after that, if you make a game suited for their tastes, but a well made game (see my paragraph about mirroring casual), if you made it right, you will sell a lots of copies, to /that/ public. If you want to sell to "everyone" you need to learn to be less ambitious, or learn how to make a game that fall on the taste of the majority of the population, making a totally ridiciously dumbed down game is not the way, it only serves to fans of the genre not buy it, and several people that are not fan of the genre buy it, maybe it would make you sell a bit more than normal, but it damages your reputation, it is bad in long term.
People don't remember Ubisoft for Beyond Good and Evil, people remember ubisoft for the repetitive Assassins Creed and the poorly made (in design and story that is, the graphics, audio and whatnot are fine) lastest Prince of Persia.
Not bad, just different. It did fall down because the difficulty curve was flat so it never got more challenging due to the open nature of the game world.
I think strives are being taken to ensure that if a part really is too hard for you that the game will alter itself so as to help you progress. Most games now have the option in the pause menu to change the difficulty right in the middle of play. Some, like Crysis, even pops up a message after you die many times in a row saying something to the effect of "You can change the difficulty in the pause menu".
The way RPGs have been getting around this for years, is offering the really hard parts of the game as side quests that can be ignored completely. Some might argue you don't get the full experience of the game if you don't do these side quests, but you will get to see the entire game from the opening to the credits none the less.
But I do definitely think there comes a point where you have to say, "if you can't get passed this point with enemies hardly hurting you and you have lots of ammo, simply get better." A game that doesn't reward the development of skill, I believe, also lacks good game design.
The purpose of the challenges is to provide a risk of failure, without a risk of failure the reward is less. People receive accomplishment from succeeding regardless if they could lose or not, but different audiences require more or less.
The best example that I can think of is not video games at all, but sports. Specifically the way sports scale through a persons life.
Baseball for example is provided to a younger audience, the rules are different, sometimes they hit off a stand, sometimes they have a coach pitch it slowly, everyone is a winner. These kids accomplish something and feel rewarded for it because the challenges faced were designed for them as an audience.
As the game advances and they become older those challenges are no longer rewarding. They require a new set of challenges to enhance their experience and their personal reward. This is accomplished by changing the rules of play, making the field larger, and adding a risk of losing. They still are rewarded regardless of a win or a loss, but they are goal oriented and driven.
This leads all the way to the professional level. Where they have a certain strict set of rules that everyone in a particular league plays by. They have a season and tournaments and strict score is tallied. They play to represent their city, their region, or their country. They are rewarded at an even higher level than personal fulfillment, and their risk of loss extends beyond the players to those not even playing but watching their experiences. Thus providing the non-player with reward as well.
There are many games that cover this gamut well. Proper difficulty scaling and properly targeting your audience can allow you to provide a better experience than changing the experience for the sake of everyone.
While I agree everyone should get an experience they enjoy, not everyone wants the same experience, and scaling and options should be available to accommodate the different challenges as a player developes from a novice to an expert.
Design smarter, not harder, not easier.
It doesn't matter how complex a game is as long as you are adequately trained to perform the functions you need to succeed. some games are easy to figure out as you go along (most arcade games), but chess is impossible if you don't know how the pieces move.
but then again you do have to develop a way for people to learn how to do things, like training levels (or portions of levels). you may also need to remind them of the things they have learned. Its all things that make level design more complex. Its probably cheaper and easier to communicate if you just make simple games.
(I'm not even going to start on how control schemes might affect this (checkers to chess for example)).
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is more difficult than any Metroidvania game out there. By far.
Some games within this decade have been incredibly difficult though. Metroid Prime 2 and Viewtiful Joe come to mind.
"What's wrong with some games catering to other people besides you?"
I want to ask that question to every single person who derides so-called "casual" games (a misnomer in many ways).
@Kevin
I found in interesting that POP: Sands of Time was so frustrating for you. I found the game to be (almost) laughably easy. It was almost as if I was watching the game at times. I did enjoy the game; in fact, I think it was Mechner's finest piece of storytelling. (It's a shame Mechner is no longer involved. The series has fallen to the depths of cliche teenage testoterone since his departure.)
Yet, Sands of Time was an absolute cakewalk compared to the original game. It took me (literally) years to beat the clock and save the princess. As sad as it sounds, I am also proud of beating the game. I know how challenging it is; and I enjoy knowing that many people simply aren't up to the challenge. That's the appeal.
"I'm not a gymnast, but I bought these gymnast rings and cant do anything with them, however I should be able to."
or:
"I'm not an artist, I bought a painting set, but I cant paint anything nice! what is wrong?? I demand you fix this painting equipment so that anyone can paint the Mona Lisa".
You see, games are interactive. Hence, for many (if not all) games, a core goal is to challenge the player to some degree. Since people have different levels of skill, there are often difficulty settings made available in games. However, one can only make an FPS so easy. One can only go so far in making a game 'easy'. Once you go over this threshold, there is no game. It is just a movie where you press a button to see the next cutscene.
You cant play a game, so you call it elitist. How about instead of asking for everything to be compatible to the lowest common denominator player, you actually invest a bit of time in improving your skill in the game. If you want to watch a movie, do that instead. You cant have both at the same time. Just because you like sport, it doesn't mean that playing it should be as easy as watching it - and if it did become that easy, it would no longer be a sport (or interactive for that matter).
Yes, some people play games for the experience and storyline, but depth of interactivity can only be dumbed down so much before it becomes unrecognisable as a game. Be honest, what you want is not a game, you want a movie that lets you delude yourself that you have some control... you want a film with buttons to go to the next chapter. This feature is already available on most DVD players.
The opinion of this article is sadly the way that games eventually will move towards, as mass accessibility becomes more important than pushing the interactive medium forward. Will there be a golden age for interactive games, or are we already well past it?
Every door except the one you have to go through is locked and it isn't suggested one bit? Pretty much all games I can remember have some kind of distinct factor around accessible doors, be it green lights (that means "go" by the way), or red lights (stop...) above the door.
Few RPGs require doing repetitive side-quests to carry on with the story. I honestly can't think of any at the moment except maybe Blue Dragon on "EX Hard" mode, or Cross Edge on Hard mode. Now as for RPGs that have no difficulty levels, I can't think of any that force you to grind to carry on with the story. If you're talking about western RPGs then they usually have difficulty levels that make the game stupid easy where you barely take any damage and kill things in one hit.
As for your inevitable section in platformers, even that has already been made easier by nearly any platformer around. Most platformers now day won't even allow you to fall of ledges by walking/running, your character will either grab onto the ledge automatically before falling or there will be what seems like an invisible wall preventing you from running off the ledge. That invisible wall means that you can basically run in place then simply jump to the other ledge for a guaranteed made jump. Finally, most platformers today have some kind of magnetic thing going on where your character is sucked onto the ledge they jump for or stick to walls as they fall.
Bosses in games are also much easier today than they used to be. Take Megaman for instance, you had to learn patterns through trial and error, learn which weapons to use through trial and error, and be dexterous enough to pull it all off. That is a far cry from games of today which usually point out at the beginning or during the course of a boss battle exactly how to beat the boss. See the pulsating red heart that the camera keeps zooming in on? That's probably its weak point. See the boss just laying there doing nothing? It's waiting for you to go up to it to trigger a QTE sequence that will ultimately kill it.
With all that said there's even difficulty levels added to nearly every game out there where easy mode makes it close to impossible to die/lose. If you can't survive when you're able to get shot for 10 seconds by 4 or so enemies in an FPS, or stand still and be shot for 3 minutes straight (MGS), be able to take 1+ minutes of punishment in a western RPG while surrounded by 20 enemies plus be given hundreds of health potions from dropped enemies then I don't think anything can help you aside from handing you a movie of other people playing through these games for you.
---
Now on to a subject on the other side of the spectrum that is more unfair and more overlooked: locked hard mode. Why must designers lock hard mode until the game is beat? I enjoy to play my games on the hardest setting, preferably on my first playthrough (because 1, I don't usually play more than once, and 2, playing a second time on a harder difficulty isn't even any harder because I know what to expect since I already beat it).
This is a real complaint unlike your illusion, it is a fact that most games lock hard mode until the game is beat at least one time. How would you guys that like to play your games on easy (because that's how you enjoy them) like it if the designers locked easy mode until you beat the game on hard? Just like you guys enjoy playing on easy, I enjoy playing on hard and I should be given that option from the start. I'm not trying to be an elitist or anything, just telling the truth, nearly all games on medium difficulty are way too easy for me to enjoy as much as I could have if I could have put it on hard. Is it a big big deal? Kinda, but not entirely, it is restricting people from playing the game the way they want to though and in turn hurting an initial experience that could have been much better.
The main reason I bring this up is because it is something that is easy to do, something that any developer could do, and should do. Making games as easy as you want them is more complicated, especially with the lengths they've already gone to make games easier. They've almost run out of room without just making the game a movie.
For people that complained about how Sands of Time is too hard and that it was a good move to "streamline" Prince of Persia (2008).
This is like cutting the wings of a plane to make it more suitable for road, or putting more 2 weels on a bike to make it accessible to the population that can't equilibrate on the top of one, or making a intellectual movie that explains everything so stupid people can understand it too, or a romance without much descriptions and extensive phylosofical dialog, so the book is shorter for inpatient people...
Seriously, what I mean is: You should never, ever, destroy the genre of your game for the sake of making it have more costumers, you should not make your frantic action shmup easier, you should not make your platformer character impossible to fall and die, you should not make your simulator easier to pilot, you should not make your stealth game allow direct confrontation without punishment...
That is what I call the "dumbing down" of games, for the sake of wider audience, or porting PC game to console (like Rainbow Six series, that went from a purely tatical game where you could even just plan the action and watch it happen, to a.... normal shooter that forces you to keep saving your teamates with stpid AI that keep dieing)
What I didn't like about that game was that there was very little communication between us. At times, it was "too obvious" - there was only one way to do something, and it was literally painted on walls in case I was too stupid to figure out that walls are for wall-runs. At different times, it was "too obscure" - I had to memorize all enemy animations, because the relation betwen the animation the enemy was performing and the QTE button I was supposed to push didn't make any sense to me. Outside of combat, learning how double jumps worked involved almost-dying some 20-30 times. Not user-friendly at all.
Generally speaking, there are three kinds of "difficulty" problems:
1. By not maintaining communication with the player, the game creates impossible challenges. For instance, enemy attacks you with a sword, and his attack animation is 0.25 seconds long, and is not telegraphed. Looks great. Cannot be beaten. 0.25 seconds is pretty much the physiological limit for a human - when you're young, in good health, and you're reacting to something very conspicuous (like a light blinking). This problem is mitigated by "easy" mode, because in easy modes enemies are often slowed down or made more passive, player failures are cheaper because of reduced damage, victories are cheaper because of reduced enemy health, and so on.
2. By not maintaining communication with the player, the game fails to communicate its rules. Typically, either too big leaps of thought are being made, or game delivers unreliable information. Part of the problem is that game designers rarely bother to provide internally consistent systems that you could explore the way you explore real-life physics. Even if you hate science, you can safely rely on the knowledge, that in real life things generally don't stay in the air, being hit hurts, cars are faster than people, etc. In a game, you often shoot this chair, and it falls apart, but you shoot that one, and it's unscratched. It's arbitrary. This essentially turns the player's intelligence off, because human intelligence relies on pattern recognition, and that won't happen if there are no patterns under game's hood. This problem, as well as the following one, is a major barrier to entry for novice players.
3. The game does not communicate its conventions to the player. This is a huge problem, because there are many more arbitrary conventions than you would suspect. For instance, in a first person shooter, using one control for walking and another for turning your camera is not obvious. Doom didn't do that by default. It's a convention that had to be invented. When I was twelve, I accidentally discovered you could strafe in Wolfenstein 3D, and it earned me a major respect boost from classmates. Now everyone acts as if you were born with that kind of knowledge. Well, that's not the case, yet. Maybe in the next generation.
Typical response to these problems is to provide an info dump, also known as "tutorial". Those often don't work very well, because instead of showing you patterns to recognize, they offer you knowledge to memorize. People are generally not very good at memorizing - it works best for them if they memorize something through repetition. And you only play a tutorial once.
This can be done better! I was recently amazed by a video from World Science Festival, showing how Bobby McFerrin taught the audience a simple musical game in forty five seconds. He did not explain the rules to them, in fact he could have made do without saying a single word. Instead, he presented a pattern to them, and then expanded it gradually. He made a kind of contract with them: he never broke the pattern exept for the one time when he allowed himself to make a joke. By the end of his "tutorial", the audience became a chorus. I'd recommend that you find the video on the Net and watch it a few times, because another thing it shows is how the audience enjoys the process of learning. Every time they learn something new about their "game", they laugh.
The problem, as I see it, is that you often can't know in advance whether a game will be too hard (or too easy for that matter) for your taste. For free games that's not a problem, or donation-ware etc. For commercial games, a demo that is representational of the whole game can suffice. But for games that have no demo and which you have to buy before you can try it out at all, I think that complaints about it being too hard are actually justified. "I paid good money for this, and I had no way of knowing it would be so difficult that I could only experience 10% of the content!" That's just not fair when refunds is not an option.
So if there is the least bit of chance that your game is too hard for some people, give them a free demo so they can get a feel for the difficulty before they make their purchase. As long as that is done, I don't see any problem with some games being "elitist" (and that's coming from a guy with pretty bad skills and patience with difficult games).
or:
"I'm not an artist, I bought a painting set, but I cant paint anything nice! what is wrong?? I demand you fix this painting equipment so that anyone can paint the Mona Lisa".]
No, it's more like, "I bought a Honda Civic but I need an F1 Super License to drive it! WTF!" Many games are like this even today and it is ridiculous. I don't need to be Michael Jordan to enjoy playing basketball. I don't need to be Pele to enjoy playing soccer. Why do I need to be Thresh to enjoy playing an FPS? Besides, games are so varied today that people are bound to be good at some games while being bad at others that they still have an interest in.
I suck at most action games, after all I think Prince of Persia 2008 is pretty well balanced, but still a little too hard. However I kill at racing games. Should racing games then be the only games I play? Did I whine and gnash my teeth when I heard Forza 3 will have assists like auto-braking and race rewind? No, because I don't plan to use them. I think it's great that a feature like that is in the game so that I can enjoy it with less experienced players than me, which when it comes to racing games is most people, including so-called "hardcore" gamers.
I think the gist of this article is "However you achieve it, have an easy mode and actually make it easy." I mean "Win Button" easy. Ikaruga, perhaps the hardest game I have ever played, allows players to view replays of the top pilots. It's an awesome feature and the only way I'd ever get to see the end. Plus, with the confidence I gained from watching the best players I played Ikaruga far more than I have played much easier but stingier shooting games. If you want challenge in the game, don't press the win button. Why is this such a hard concept for some people to grasp?
See what I did there?
Totally awesome! Agreed!
Nah, I'm not even asking for that anymore. They should stop bitching about why some books don't cater to them and instead look for other ones.
Bawww, this book is soooo boring! It's clearly the product of an outdated era!
Bawww, Risen is sooo hard! It's got no excuse in this post-Oblivion era!
I am playing a neat little 2002 RPG now called Divine Divinity and am also loving most of it and hating parts of it. You get a quest (find the murderer of a local healer or the duke) and have no earthly idea where to do or what to do next. Finally you stumble into a cave or run into the right NPC and they give you the next clue. I don't want hand-holding, but do want some general idea of what I should be doing next to try to solve the quest. Should I search in this town or look for this sort of clue? Just give me a basic hint of what I should do next and I will do it.
Also, the game has puzzles that hinge on finding portals, books, stairways, etc. Then it likes to hide them where you can only see a tiny piece of it. C'mon folks, leave it where the player can find it without having to search forever. Maybe make it glow slightly or give a distinct noise if it is a portal on the floor. Fallout 3 did a nice job of hiding things in the side-quests involving radio station signals. If you could still hear the low-powered station, you were still somewhat close to the entrance. Their mini-map also showed entries (like sewer grates) you had passed near, so you could go back and look closer.
I spent a while trapped in one level where you have to find an NPC. The Imp who was the target has a character speech pattern that makes it hard to understand them and this one puts a sphere into your inventory to use to leave the level.
Why not simply dispense with this complicated solution and have the NPC announce they will open a one-way glowing portal for you to leave? This was the solution used by a previous character in another level, so why not reuse it? It was also the standard mechanic use in other parts of the game when you had to enter closed-off areas. This is the solution the player expects, not looking in their inventory for a small sphere placed there by an NPC who utters gibberish.
If you must use a sphere, have the NPC drop it on the ground when they teleport out and have it glow so the character can see it and realize it is important. When they mouse over it, let it tell you what it is and what to do to use it (Activate to leave this Magic Garden).
Some games incorporate a "scry" mechanic, where you can use some sort of magic/glasses/scanner to find things that are hidden. This is a good compromise, as perhaps the player could have to expend a character-building skill point, spend some gold, or use up some mana to get their visual hints.
The fun part of an RPG is doing stuff. The un-fun stuff is wandering around at 3:00 a.m. lost.
I remember reading years ago how the Half-Life team explained their approach to game difficulty. They built a game that they could play well, then kicked the difficulty back to reflect that the customers playing it didn't spend months or years learning it already. The game was likely easy for them, but they built the darn thing. It was "just right" for the gamers who picked it up at Compusa or Best Buy.
Sure, you like challenging games, a "dumbed down" game isn't appealing to you, but then, other players who also enjoy a challenging game aren't as good as you, thus their challenging game is your "dumbed down" game. Some players play for an experience, rather than for a challenge (these two could arguably be related, no?), so because their preferred games have little to no challenge you consider them "dumbed down", when in fact they're not, they've been cleverly designed this way.
Someone mentioned target audiences before, and I think this is key. If your building the next SIMs you want it to hit as many as possible, so you make failure difficult, you make the game entirely scalable to the players play style (manage an entire town, a family, a single person), if you're building the next Modern Warfare, you want your game to be challenging, but to people of various skill levels. A lot of people hate the new Prince of Persia, because it's not the same as the older games, yet it was never advertised as thus, in fact, all the reviews out their said it would be a lot easier, BUT, it would be more stylish. It was! It was designed to provide an experience, and a small degree of challenge. It did this well, yet for some reason, people hated on the game because it was all of a sudden designed for a different purpose?
It's like saying you hate Team Fortress simply because it's not Half Life. They're different games designed differently, to accomplish different goals, and hit different audiences. Don't whine that the game was not made for you. (note this isn't technically about whether the new PoP was a good idea from a dev standpoint, for instance they must've known that it stood a chance of alienating current fans of the series, but perhaps they hoped to counter that by dragging in new fans). Perhaps people who complain about such things ought to do a little soul searching, work out the games they like, and the difficulty suited to them AND PLAY IT, and stop whining about things that shouldn't concern them.
Now in reference to what was actually contained in this post, I agree, games should have easier modes, but depending on the target audience they're only likely to eventually bottom out at some low difficulty, because easier than that point and you're no longer playing that game. This though, shouldn't affect the integrity of the games challenge at all, the game should still be able to be played by people of greater skill than the lowest common denominator and enjoy it. Too many games these days are, rather than implementing a clever difficulty scheme, are simply reducing the difficulty of the game overall.
a) Unnecessary Timesinks:
There's nothing wrong with a series of tricky jumps or bosses with consecutive forms which you have to repeat when they die. But putting a meaningless maze before said jumps or forcing the player to rewatch 5 minute cutscenes is a major crime. Players shouldn't be penalized for failing a challenge other than requiring to repeat the challenge. Cutscenes and boring memory mazes shouldn't be forced upon the player more than once.
Of cause it can be arguable that when a series of challenges are mastered, they're are for practical purposes no longer challenges, but at the very least, the obvious issues should still be dealt with.
b) Mystery Grab-bag Gameplay:
b)For all intents and purposes, if there is no logic between how to solve a puzzle, I do not consider it a puzzle; it may as well be a random event solution. And with random events, the problem is that there is a potential that your solution may never be obtained. Granted there's player guides, but that essentially defeats the purpose of your "puzzle" regardless, unless you build your puzzle to factor in said guides. But the point is, if you are going to include such a "puzzle", make sure the player has some backup way of solving the puzzle. Even a time-factor taken is preferable to simply expecting the player to guess your lucky combination.
And on Accessibility:
Games should be sufficiently accessible such that players can play what they want to play without having to replay through that which they don't. ("players" being your target audience, so your mileage may differ)
So I shouldn't have to replay my boss battle to watch the ending again (unless the boss battle IS the ending in itself), I shouldn't have to reclimb a giant mountain to retry a tricky jump, I should be able to easily try combinations of all items in my inventory (and with environmental objects), and etc. This in itself would ensure that if the player is frustrated, they're frustrated by the challenge (which is intentional), and not by time taken. I admit that increasing time take may be required for balancing issues, but again, this doesn't negate the capability to remove unnecessary frustrations.
To Stephen Dinehart:
One flaw with your argument is that you assume games must be mass-market to succeed. Fact is, you cannot please everyone. The "Mass Market" games will in generally always exclude several catagories of audiences. And for that matter, business success is not comparable with artistic success. Granted you are right that said designers would probably end up poor, but that's also the same with many artists we now hold in high regard.
In fact, I would say that for games to further improve, they must gradually move back away from being mass-market. Not that mass-market should be excluded, but that mass-market should be recognized as only one of multiple potential markets; Just as there are mass-market movies which focuses on action and explosions, there're other smaller-market movies which are also held in reasonable regard, despite not being as commercially successful.
Just to give an example: Bejewelled and Tetris are from the same gameplay type, but Tetris is generally considered more challenging, and more well regarded. Even so, if not for the simplicity of implementation and it's age, Tetris would likely not be as successful as Bejewelled.
"Mass market" implies "bell curve." Doesn't that mean a game whose purpose is to make money should be designed so that its average difficulty hits the peak of the curve, rather than either of the tails?
To what extent should designers cater to the innately preferred playstyles of individuals? For example, what if a person naturally prefers what Nicole Lazzaro has called "easy fun?" Should there be games only they can enjoy, along with games that only those who prefer "hard fun" can enjoy?
To put the previous question another way, there are two ways to provide a broad set of games with variation in difficulty level. One is to include a difficulty (or, even better, playstyle) slider in every game, and to perform whatever design and coding gyrations are required to make that slider effective. The other is to make lots of different games (in the same genres) with relatively fixed difficulty levels. Is one of these approaches inherently better or more desirable than the other?
Enjoying a game is about the knowledge and the skill. Take an example in the literature. In order to enjoy a book, you need to be able to read. Being a kid, who doesn’t know how to read, you can still enjoy the illustrations. And there are quite a lot of books for kids with just pictures. Some of them are great and the kids love them. But we can’t call these picture books a literature. To experience the literature, one really needs to learn reading. But will the knowledge of an alphabet and words be enough for you for reading all books? Will the kid, who just learned how to read, enjoy reading Dostoyevskiy or Sartre. No, it’s just too difficult. Ok, let’s do some tutorial, which will explain the basics, so the reader can progress. Well, this will probably not work. Fortunately for the young readers there are enough books for kids with just simple stories. But we can’t call these kid’s books a literature. To experience the real literature, one needs to educate himself to be able to understand the meanings. The kids pass their schools and become adults. They have passed their tutorials. They know about the world and they are ready to read the real literature. But do they read the classic novels? The philosophical essays? The scientific theories? No, they say that they have no time to read 500 pages nerd books. They just read newspaper. Or some paperback thriller or a fantasy book. Or just watch movies.
Games are just like movies. Easy. For movies one doesn’t need to know anything. Just sit and watch. Wait. So there is no skill required? Ah, that’s why kids can watch and enjoy movies. But do they really enjoy them? There was a cat watching the TV and she really enjoyed the program. I must tell. Or do you disagree? Probably the kids haven’t enjoyed the Fellini. Hmm. And what about our adult friend? Is it too difficult for him too. No definitely not, because he is the world’s expert on the film language, able to recognize the subtlest symbol or connotation. He would enjoy such an art movie. But not now. He is tired. He has spent whole day in the office. He wants something easy and entertaining. Maybe some sweet romance or some brainless action.
There was a comparison with sports. Yes, games have a lot of common with sports. They have rules. And players who compete between each other. But hey, do I need skill to do sport. Surely not. Take skiing. Just take skis go up some snowy slope and go down. Easy. Well skiing is great even if you are bad in it. Why. Because you are on the fresh air with your friends. But will you enjoy skiing on any snowy slope if you have spent years in training and you have the best gear. No. You want some challenge. You go to the Alps or some other big mountains to do some proper skiing.
Unfortunately for us, basic schools still don’t have subject of videogames, like they have for reading or literature. Many boys and girls start playing and learn the basic, but a lot of people just don’t have this opportunity. What the hell is strafing? Stamina? Lock target? How to replenish my health? Do I need to control my character and the camera at the same time? You said I can use the cheats? What exactly is it? Sorry I don’t understand. As without ability to read I am stuck with picture books. Complicated games are great, but just too difficult for people who can’t understand them.
Games are like movies. Some of them are very accessible so almost anyone can play. But a lot of games are just too hard for people to play just for fun. They don’t need the challenge, they just want to relax. Not everyone is able to run marathon or willing to climb the Mount Everest on Thursday afternoon.
"You can game, make games, and have a life but you can only pick two."
I think the people with a life deserve a medium mode. You won't catch me playing on it though. For hardcore gamers. it gives them the challenge they need. For those that aren't so edgy on their skills, the 'adjusting' difficulty benefits them greatly.
I know I find myself frustrated and unable to play a game anymore because I sometimes pick a difficulty to hard for me. It's often the games that have no 'achivments' that have adjusting difficulties. This offers nothing substancial to a core gamer. A real hearty, staple game usually appeals to both.