Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
I find that something often irritating me with games these days is finding something with the right balance of challenge and engagement. Often you are left with a choice like this:
Game is "too hard" (in quotes because it isn't about raw challenge):
-Dying more easily is what many people focus on and assume the singular thing you have a problem with if you dislike the difficulty ("get good")
-Many added obstructions, walkbacks, limited resources/economy to simply make it more tedious rather than engaging and also more time-consuming, which is often gatekeeping against parents and other persons with limited windows for gaming
-Some unforgiving elements like extremely fast QTEs so you end up repeating moments that were supposed to be cinematic/dramatic and it has the opposite effect of being more engrossing at key story moments
-Bullet sponge enemies to make it more tedious and ruins the sense that your hero character is capable of giving more than papercuts, often contrasting greatly from their performance in cutscenes
-Forced gauntlets of multiple fights that would before be broken up, making it more tedious as well as more demanding on your free time
-More limited capabilities of your character, making the battles less dynamic and more reliant on footsies and patience for lesser strikes in small pockets rather than cooler fights and combos
Game is too easy:
-Almost impossible to die, many people focusing on this being what makes the experience boring and bad, yet…
-Overbearing tutorials that are often forced, breaking up the experience of freely playing the game, often feeling condescending
-Enemies die in a flash so you don't get to engage with their moves (because they rarely attack) or use your own (especially parries or dodging), making the tutorials even more pointless
-Sometimes neuters the coolest things like ultimate moves and summons because they are dependent on meters that don't build up because the fight ends too fast
-Items/economy/collecting/status effects become a completely pointless waste of time because they are never used as base kit attacks win just fine (Contrast: TotK is a brilliant example of designing items that aren't required but often used)
-If the gameplay design involves teamwork and strategy, you usually just blast though on the power of your character and never really experience this element
-For some reason puzzles get dumbed down too so even non-combat is less engaging to the point of feeling patronizing
From these you can see "difficulty" involves a lot more than being easy to die or not. It is well possible to design a game where you don't die in 3 hits yet the battles aren't 30 minutes long of bullet sponge tedium, yet also aren't over before you have even had a chance to experience the engaging gameplay mechanics. Some devs are finding this balance (I think Pragmata did very well), yet I find that others may not try as hard to balance it because they are more cognizant of the fact that many different types of players at different capability levels are engaging with their game and they want it to be enjoyable for all. I just think the way they often handle difficulty levels is lazy and ruins the experience on one end or the other with the way things are tuned.
That said, I do think there should be options for people who are not only at different levels of their familiarity with videogames, but even those who may have different disabilities. There are people with motor skill issues from degenerative diseases and injuries, those with cognitive limitations or particularities for various reasons, those with visual impairments or sensitivities, and I think it is good to design toggles that allow for these people to still engage with a game that would have otherwise been inaccessible to them. I think Mina the Hollower and modern Doom games are a pretty good example of making these sorts of things available.
Have you noticed this distinction between difficulty and gameplay engagement, how they are different things yet impact upon each other?
Game is "too hard" (in quotes because it isn't about raw challenge):
-Dying more easily is what many people focus on and assume the singular thing you have a problem with if you dislike the difficulty ("get good")
-Many added obstructions, walkbacks, limited resources/economy to simply make it more tedious rather than engaging and also more time-consuming, which is often gatekeeping against parents and other persons with limited windows for gaming
-Some unforgiving elements like extremely fast QTEs so you end up repeating moments that were supposed to be cinematic/dramatic and it has the opposite effect of being more engrossing at key story moments
-Bullet sponge enemies to make it more tedious and ruins the sense that your hero character is capable of giving more than papercuts, often contrasting greatly from their performance in cutscenes
-Forced gauntlets of multiple fights that would before be broken up, making it more tedious as well as more demanding on your free time
-More limited capabilities of your character, making the battles less dynamic and more reliant on footsies and patience for lesser strikes in small pockets rather than cooler fights and combos
Game is too easy:
-Almost impossible to die, many people focusing on this being what makes the experience boring and bad, yet…
-Overbearing tutorials that are often forced, breaking up the experience of freely playing the game, often feeling condescending
-Enemies die in a flash so you don't get to engage with their moves (because they rarely attack) or use your own (especially parries or dodging), making the tutorials even more pointless
-Sometimes neuters the coolest things like ultimate moves and summons because they are dependent on meters that don't build up because the fight ends too fast
-Items/economy/collecting/status effects become a completely pointless waste of time because they are never used as base kit attacks win just fine (Contrast: TotK is a brilliant example of designing items that aren't required but often used)
-If the gameplay design involves teamwork and strategy, you usually just blast though on the power of your character and never really experience this element
-For some reason puzzles get dumbed down too so even non-combat is less engaging to the point of feeling patronizing
From these you can see "difficulty" involves a lot more than being easy to die or not. It is well possible to design a game where you don't die in 3 hits yet the battles aren't 30 minutes long of bullet sponge tedium, yet also aren't over before you have even had a chance to experience the engaging gameplay mechanics. Some devs are finding this balance (I think Pragmata did very well), yet I find that others may not try as hard to balance it because they are more cognizant of the fact that many different types of players at different capability levels are engaging with their game and they want it to be enjoyable for all. I just think the way they often handle difficulty levels is lazy and ruins the experience on one end or the other with the way things are tuned.
That said, I do think there should be options for people who are not only at different levels of their familiarity with videogames, but even those who may have different disabilities. There are people with motor skill issues from degenerative diseases and injuries, those with cognitive limitations or particularities for various reasons, those with visual impairments or sensitivities, and I think it is good to design toggles that allow for these people to still engage with a game that would have otherwise been inaccessible to them. I think Mina the Hollower and modern Doom games are a pretty good example of making these sorts of things available.
Have you noticed this distinction between difficulty and gameplay engagement, how they are different things yet impact upon each other?
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