The thing is, games have a minimum difficulty to be somewhat generally enjoyable, and the game designers have often built their game around this. The fun is generally in the obstacles providing real resistance that can be overcome by optimizing your strategy. It means that these obstacles need to be mentally picked apart by the player to proceed. They are built like puzzles.
This design philosophy - anyone who plays these games can tell you - is deeply rewarding if you go through it, because it requires genuine improvement that you can notice and be proud of. Hence why there is often a limit to how much easier you can make games like these without losing that because you forget the obstacle before even realizing it was preventing you from doing something.
It’s often not as easy as just tweaking numbers. And often these development teams don’t have the time to rebalance a game for those lower difficulties, so they just don’t.
Honestly, the first wojack could be quite mad too, because often making an easy game harder also misses the point, where the game is just more difficult, but doesn’t actually provide you with that carefully crafted feeling of constant improvement. Instead some easy games can become downright frustrating because obstacles feel “cheap” or “lacking depth” now that you have to spend a lot more time on them.
But making an easy game harder by just tweaking the numbers is definitely easier on the development team, and gives existing players a chance to re-experience the game, which wouldn’t happen the other way around. But it’s almost certainly not a better option for new players wanting a harder difficulty.
At the end of the day though, often there are ways to get what you want. Either by cheating, modding, or otherwise using ‘OP’ usables in the game. Do whatever you want to make the game more enjoyable to yourself. But if you make it too easy on yourself you might come out on the other end wondering why other people enjoyed the game so much more than you did.
I’m a hardcore gamer. I’ve 100% all Souls games (no summons), Isaac Rebirth, Hotline Miami 1+2 and lots of other bullshit hard games.
I’m unironically the second wojack. People complaining about wanting certain games to be easier, is like people watching an unfamiliar series and complaining that it doesn’t suit their tastes.
Imagine you like Star Trek and your new friend who hasn’t seen anything watches a few episodes with you. Then they start complaining that it’s too wordy, or there’s not enough action, or Star Wars is better.
It wasn’t made for you!
Almost everyone has had the experience of a franchise we love being adapted in a way which has been the result of compromise.
The sense of entitlement required to ignore the fact that you want this to happen to both a creator and the fans, so your tastes are accommodate to, while never wanting anyone to do that to something you love - is what is rage inducing.
Maybe it’s the circles we find ourselves in, but they’re not exactly opposite situations.
If a game is too hard then casual gamers consider it a barrier to entry (because it is). In these cases some people feel like they’re entitled for the game to be adjusted for them.
But if a game is too easy people generally just say that the gameplay is boring. I don’t typically find people complaining that the devs should make the game more difficult. These people just tend to not play easy games in the first place because there are better games.
The Witcher 3 is a great example of how difficulty improves the experience.
You can play on Easy, and play just for the story, if that’s what you want. But you can mash the light attack button for every fight and win without any challenge.
If you play on Death March though, you will need to carefully consider your armor set, swords, oils, potions, mutagens and skills for each fight.
Playing on anything less than Death March (or the hardest difficulty you can manage) will rob you of the experience of being a Witcher; someone who takes time to prepare for battle in unique ways.
If you were a developer and saw a reviewer trashing your game for being “a button masher” (which actually happened at release), then you might have regretted adding an “easy” difficulty.
In this sense, I would never want to see FromSoft creating multiple difficulties.
I still wouldn’t advocate for being the second wojack though. The presumption that hard games are not made for the other person can also make you blind to genuine flaws in these harder games that prevent people from liking to play those games, because sometimes the frustration isn’t worth it. Harder games have a far higher bar for being fair and feeling good to play, because frustration can genuinely kill people’s desire to go through that effort even if they have the mentality required to play harder games. And sometimes you are circumstantially lucky and reach the bar for you to get hooked, but someone else gets turned off by unfair or rough edges in the game’s design. Those flaws should still be resolved to allow more people to enjoy the game.
The thing is, games have a minimum difficulty to be somewhat generally enjoyable, and the game designers have often built their game around this. The fun is generally in the obstacles providing real resistance that can be overcome by optimizing your strategy. It means that these obstacles need to be mentally picked apart by the player to proceed. They are built like puzzles.
This design philosophy - anyone who plays these games can tell you - is deeply rewarding if you go through it, because it requires genuine improvement that you can notice and be proud of. Hence why there is often a limit to how much easier you can make games like these without losing that because you forget the obstacle before even realizing it was preventing you from doing something.
It’s often not as easy as just tweaking numbers. And often these development teams don’t have the time to rebalance a game for those lower difficulties, so they just don’t.
Honestly, the first wojack could be quite mad too, because often making an easy game harder also misses the point, where the game is just more difficult, but doesn’t actually provide you with that carefully crafted feeling of constant improvement. Instead some easy games can become downright frustrating because obstacles feel “cheap” or “lacking depth” now that you have to spend a lot more time on them.
But making an easy game harder by just tweaking the numbers is definitely easier on the development team, and gives existing players a chance to re-experience the game, which wouldn’t happen the other way around. But it’s almost certainly not a better option for new players wanting a harder difficulty.
At the end of the day though, often there are ways to get what you want. Either by cheating, modding, or otherwise using ‘OP’ usables in the game. Do whatever you want to make the game more enjoyable to yourself. But if you make it too easy on yourself you might come out on the other end wondering why other people enjoyed the game so much more than you did.
I’m a hardcore gamer. I’ve 100% all Souls games (no summons), Isaac Rebirth, Hotline Miami 1+2 and lots of other bullshit hard games.
I’m unironically the second wojack. People complaining about wanting certain games to be easier, is like people watching an unfamiliar series and complaining that it doesn’t suit their tastes.
Imagine you like Star Trek and your new friend who hasn’t seen anything watches a few episodes with you. Then they start complaining that it’s too wordy, or there’s not enough action, or Star Wars is better.
It wasn’t made for you!
Almost everyone has had the experience of a franchise we love being adapted in a way which has been the result of compromise.
The sense of entitlement required to ignore the fact that you want this to happen to both a creator and the fans, so your tastes are accommodate to, while never wanting anyone to do that to something you love - is what is rage inducing.
Okay, but the same applies to easy games, and nobody tears people asking for more challenge a new arsehole for some reason.
Maybe it’s the circles we find ourselves in, but they’re not exactly opposite situations.
If a game is too hard then casual gamers consider it a barrier to entry (because it is). In these cases some people feel like they’re entitled for the game to be adjusted for them.
But if a game is too easy people generally just say that the gameplay is boring. I don’t typically find people complaining that the devs should make the game more difficult. These people just tend to not play easy games in the first place because there are better games.
The Witcher 3 is a great example of how difficulty improves the experience.
You can play on Easy, and play just for the story, if that’s what you want. But you can mash the light attack button for every fight and win without any challenge.
If you play on Death March though, you will need to carefully consider your armor set, swords, oils, potions, mutagens and skills for each fight.
Playing on anything less than Death March (or the hardest difficulty you can manage) will rob you of the experience of being a Witcher; someone who takes time to prepare for battle in unique ways.
If you were a developer and saw a reviewer trashing your game for being “a button masher” (which actually happened at release), then you might have regretted adding an “easy” difficulty.
In this sense, I would never want to see FromSoft creating multiple difficulties.
I still wouldn’t advocate for being the second wojack though. The presumption that hard games are not made for the other person can also make you blind to genuine flaws in these harder games that prevent people from liking to play those games, because sometimes the frustration isn’t worth it. Harder games have a far higher bar for being fair and feeling good to play, because frustration can genuinely kill people’s desire to go through that effort even if they have the mentality required to play harder games. And sometimes you are circumstantially lucky and reach the bar for you to get hooked, but someone else gets turned off by unfair or rough edges in the game’s design. Those flaws should still be resolved to allow more people to enjoy the game.