I've been reading a discussion lately about Dark Souls' difficulty where it was argued that every game should have difficulty settings and be made as accessible as possible.
This is an interesting discussion, and I felt like writing a bit about it.
For starters, some people argued that an easy mode would diminish the sense of accomplishment of the people that finish the normal Dark Souls or other hard games. This is idiotic and misses the point. If you really really like difficult games, playing them and finishing them is its own accomplishment. For example, people have played the legendary mode in Halo while having always the easy option as well, and it didn't make them feel that the Legendary mode was diminished by having also the easy option. If anything, playing the hardest setting gives you certain "bragging rights", which is not the nicest thing to do but it does feel nice to know you have a certain level of skill.
If that would be the only argument against difficulty there would be no discussion. What is interesting is the people that mentioned that difficulty was part of the game atmosphere and it was integral to understand the world of the game and the developer's artistic message.
This is trickier. When you start talking about art, anything goes. That's the thing about art, if the artist says you should experience it in a certain way because it's the only way to trigger the required emotions , it's hard to argue that you should not...regardless of the fact that the artist may be an asshole about it.
Sometimes it has been discussed if games are art. Well, yes, they are, end of the discussion. Of course plenty of them are bad examples, same way plenty of art is terrible (there's lots of terrible movies,terrible books and poems, terrible music, terrible paintings, etc),but the badness of some of them does not diminish the goodness of others, it just makes them brighter.
Therefore, as artistic expression, some games may be difficult on purpose to recreate certain emotions on the player. And it's a valid point. I have not seen "funny games", but I know its purpose is to make you, the movie viewer, feel bad about torture porn movies, in a way. Same can be said about some games, like "I wanna be the guy", which tries to frustrate the player in ironic and terrible ways. The frustration it generates is a wanted side effect, the game wants you to kind of laugh at the twisted ways it's killing you or tricking you into traps. That also enhances the feeling of accomplishment once you pass certain sections.
Another point that I would like to make is that horror games,to be truly horror games, need to be difficult. Otherwise they're action games set up inside a horror story, which is very different. Horror games should bring dread by playing. If the story is scary but playing is not, I would say they have not truly done their intended purpose. And the only way I know to make the player scared is by making the player vulnerable,and to punish failure. This needs to be balanced, of course, too many deaths and it becomes just frustrating, but the right amount makes you feel truly immersed in the game and really scared.
Dark Souls is not exactly horror but the difficulty is basic for its premise of a decaying ruthless world. You need to experience feeling little and weak, lost, in such a world. You need to feel that only hard work and good fighting skills will get you through. The setting is really important, and this difficulty is basic to achieve that.
Having said that, games are never equal for everybody. What one person finds difficult is easy for another. So, if you, as a game designer, want players to experience a certain degree of difficulty, it is basic to put different levels. This is kind of like clothes, you cannot tailor-made it for each player but you can make scales of difficulty. You can even put recommendations, I have seen already this in current games, where they point that if you're familiar and comfortable with a certain gameplay you should choose this or that difficulty.
This is an interesting discussion, and I felt like writing a bit about it.
For starters, some people argued that an easy mode would diminish the sense of accomplishment of the people that finish the normal Dark Souls or other hard games. This is idiotic and misses the point. If you really really like difficult games, playing them and finishing them is its own accomplishment. For example, people have played the legendary mode in Halo while having always the easy option as well, and it didn't make them feel that the Legendary mode was diminished by having also the easy option. If anything, playing the hardest setting gives you certain "bragging rights", which is not the nicest thing to do but it does feel nice to know you have a certain level of skill.
If that would be the only argument against difficulty there would be no discussion. What is interesting is the people that mentioned that difficulty was part of the game atmosphere and it was integral to understand the world of the game and the developer's artistic message.
This is trickier. When you start talking about art, anything goes. That's the thing about art, if the artist says you should experience it in a certain way because it's the only way to trigger the required emotions , it's hard to argue that you should not...regardless of the fact that the artist may be an asshole about it.
Sometimes it has been discussed if games are art. Well, yes, they are, end of the discussion. Of course plenty of them are bad examples, same way plenty of art is terrible (there's lots of terrible movies,terrible books and poems, terrible music, terrible paintings, etc),but the badness of some of them does not diminish the goodness of others, it just makes them brighter.
Therefore, as artistic expression, some games may be difficult on purpose to recreate certain emotions on the player. And it's a valid point. I have not seen "funny games", but I know its purpose is to make you, the movie viewer, feel bad about torture porn movies, in a way. Same can be said about some games, like "I wanna be the guy", which tries to frustrate the player in ironic and terrible ways. The frustration it generates is a wanted side effect, the game wants you to kind of laugh at the twisted ways it's killing you or tricking you into traps. That also enhances the feeling of accomplishment once you pass certain sections.
Another point that I would like to make is that horror games,to be truly horror games, need to be difficult. Otherwise they're action games set up inside a horror story, which is very different. Horror games should bring dread by playing. If the story is scary but playing is not, I would say they have not truly done their intended purpose. And the only way I know to make the player scared is by making the player vulnerable,and to punish failure. This needs to be balanced, of course, too many deaths and it becomes just frustrating, but the right amount makes you feel truly immersed in the game and really scared.
Dark Souls is not exactly horror but the difficulty is basic for its premise of a decaying ruthless world. You need to experience feeling little and weak, lost, in such a world. You need to feel that only hard work and good fighting skills will get you through. The setting is really important, and this difficulty is basic to achieve that.
Having said that, games are never equal for everybody. What one person finds difficult is easy for another. So, if you, as a game designer, want players to experience a certain degree of difficulty, it is basic to put different levels. This is kind of like clothes, you cannot tailor-made it for each player but you can make scales of difficulty. You can even put recommendations, I have seen already this in current games, where they point that if you're familiar and comfortable with a certain gameplay you should choose this or that difficulty.
Of course some may argue that not all games allow you to tune the difficulty in an easy way, and that it's not possible to make them easier without changing them completely. And this is true, but not in all games. For example, platformers do depend on the level design exclusively for its difficulty, so you cannot really graduate that. One map is as difficult as it is. You could theoretically increase or decrease it by changing things like jump distance,but its hard to argue if this would make it easier or harder.
However, in most current games the dependency on the map is greatly reduced. For example, in Dark Souls, increasing your HP and decreasing damage dealt by enemies is an easy and effective way to make the game easier, allowing for more mistakes. There's plenty of other stats that you could play around without changing level design nor other mechanics, enabling you to experience some of the traps in the game and such things while lowering the challenge to an acceptable level.
Then of course there is fake difficulty, like not explaining basic mechanics (don't put a compulsory tutorial but leave a manual you can consult at will),or the inability to pause. This point in particular really annoys me, and may force me to never finish the game even if I kind of enjoy it. I think this adds nothing to the setting nor the tension, and it's just a dick move.
However, not counting fake difficulty, a difficult game can be required by the creator to produce the wanted emotions. The thing then is to consider what is the lowest difficulty level and what is the highest, and what levels are in between, knowing that the higher you put the starting bar and the less options are to change its height, the less people will jump over it.
In the end, therefore, while it is a valid demand from an artistic point of view to experience the game in a certain difficulty setting, it depends again on what audience the creator wants to have
If you believe only a selected chosen few superhumans deserve to experience your art fully, you have every right to do so with your creation, but this tends to mark you as a huge asshole...
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