How Hard is Too Hard?
When was the last time you were confronted with a choice of difficulty in a game? And how many of you didn’t know what to select? It’s a tough call, especially if you’ve never played the game before. You haven’t yet developed an understanding of the developer’s definition of “Easy,” or “Experienced.” For all you know, “Easy,” could mean “a five-year old can play it without incident.” On the other hand, it could mean “Easier than Super Ultra Difficult… but not by much!” You don’t want to ruin the game by selecting an inappropriate difficulty setting. But more importantly, you don’t want to ruin it for your players.
In the final publicly released beta of Jeweltopia, many players complained the game was too challenging. This was especially true among casual gamers - my audience. In the act of re-tooling the game since the last release, I’ve come across many ways to handle difficulty levels:
None At All
It is possible to introduce variable difficulty into any game, so chalk this one up to a lazy developer. That’s not to say all games need difficulty settings - an extremely small niche game may thrive on its extremely difficult play, for example. But this method of handling difficulty isn’t recommended for most games, and especially most commercial titles.
Explicit
The prevailing method of difficulty adjustment on console games. Originally introduced with just two options (”Easy” and “Hard,) but has since grown to be far more complex with some games using multi-state or analog adjustment allowing for almost limitless difficulty settings. Usually not an ideal choice for game developers since the player has no idea what “Easy,” really means. However, this type of option can - and does - thrive in sim and god games where breadth of choice is a valuable asset.
Implicit
Certainly the most common. As the player progresses through a game, it is understood the difficulty will ramp up, usually gradually. However, while this method has been in use for ages, it’s important to recognize that its true purpose is to adapt to the player’s experience. As the player progresses, it is reasonable to assume the player excels at tasks previously difficult. To make later levels more difficult is to actually match what the earlier levels were in difficulty, but for a more seasoned player. Most games employ this method.
Dynamic
When abused, this is sometimes referred to as rubberband difficulty. The game adjusts to the player’s experience: as the player does better, the game becomes more difficult, and when the player begins to fail, the game lightens the load. This is a good way to keep the player interested, but can result in the game’s operations becoming “transparent.” When implimented improperly, this method can in fact be worse than explicit player selection, or no selection at all.
In the next article, I’ll discuss how to utilize most or all of these options for the best player experience.