"Artificial Difficulty" in video games / Doom?

[The_SloVinator]

9 hours ago, Scotty said:

It is a completely meaningless term used by poor, salty players.

If a certain situation in a video game (especially in some doom slaughter wads) requires barely any skill & you have to rely on luck OR tedium & grind, then the "salt" can be justified.

[boris]

Go play Super Mario Maker 2 Endless Expert and you'll see that artificial difficulty is very much a thing.

[reflex17]

 

[Doomkid]

Why do people refer to unfair or impossible shit as artificial though? I’m not debating the concept that bad design can result in delayed input, unfair outcomes that aren’t all dependant on skill and all that other crap, but how is it “faker” than anything else in gaming? I feel like the term itself is wrong. Call unfair stuff unfair, call bad design bad design. 100% of a video game is artificial by definition as Marcaek stated. I guess it’s pedantry, but the whole topic is anyway

[seed]

I wonder why am I not surprised by the fact that this topic already has 2 pages worth of comments. Predictable outcome considering the subject, obviously.

 

Anyway, my 0.02$, I'm going to be one of those people who claim that artificial difficulty is a thing, but, I'm not one of those who claim anything difficult or unfair is artificial by definition (cause that's just plain nonsense). I see artificial difficulty as something that gets in the player's way solely for the purpose of slowing things down or making the game more difficult in a way that isn't meaningful to the experience in the slightest, that doesn't require knowledge, skill, or whatever, something that's just... "there".

Edited November 16, 2019 by seed

[Cruduxy Pegg]

15 minutes ago, reflex17 said:

 

 

What exactly does this prove? You don't play bullet hell games so they seem impossible to you? 

 

When I think of artificial difficulty I think of bullshit like battle toads. Random garbage you have to react to in a split second. Stupid frame perfection sections with RNG? 

 

Shit like monsters who need 20 seconds to kill when there is nothing interesting about them to merit all that health are understandable as well. Those shitscanning soldiers don't need the health of a fucking tank. It is usually extremely tedious instead of difficult as well (those same soldiers are such trash you won't die much more than playing on normal anyway). If it is something like Nuclear Throne where a tiny increase to a boss health makes the difference between me killing it perfectly and dying horribly to a mistake then bring it on! 

 

So in conclusion it isn't a clear cut thing and just depends on how badly designed the game's difficulty is overall. You can have a billion hp on a boss and still have it be an interesting fight, or have 1 hp monsters that are annoying as all fuck with random movement to top it off.

[reflex17]

1 hour ago, Pegg said:

 

What exactly does this prove? You don't play bullet hell games so they seem impossible to you? 

 

 

 

The video was in reference to the one just before it, boris' post about Mario Maker. There are some nearly impossible Mario levels and hacks, just like bullet hell games or something like "I wanna be the Boshy". Battletoads is one of the hardest games on the NES for sure, I agree. I'd put it near the top of the list of tough games on the nes along with Castlevania 3 and Ninja Gaiden. I like SHMUPs but I don't play many bullet hell shooters, personally.

 

There's terrible camera angles for example, that's one thing which is bad design/lack of testing, sure. Any difficulty like the turbo tunnel in Battletoads or a tough boss is a subjective thing and repetition in games is something that can be expected. No game is ever going to be released in a perfect state and depending on the platform, those imperfections might be permanent. All I'm trying to say is that calling any difficult part in a game "artificial" or especially "fake" doesn't really help explain what makes it difficult in the first place. People sometimes complain that modern games are too much alike and at the same time don't like it if they are "broken" or "too hard". Thankfully it seems like most games are getting better with patches, updates etc.

 

Not really sure if I'm getting my point across but I appreciate the discussion in the topic, thanks to everyone in the thread for taking the time to share ideas/opinions.

 

[Andromeda]

To me, games are either difficult or not. In Doom's case, I have the skill to complete most non slaughtermaps (and even some easy slaughtermaps) on UV, however I prefer to play on HNTR since it forces me to play extremely recklessly and it's more fun to me that way, hence creating artificial difficulty for myself.

[Mk7_Centipede]

so long as a difficulty is tested and respected, i appreciate it.  Everyone rightfully doesnt play on Nightmare mode.

[Nine Inch Heels]

Artificial Difficulty these days in an empty and nonsensical term that loosely translates to "Difficult for reasons I don't like", or something similar.

 

There have been some cases in the history of gaming where it might have been fair to say that the game was difficult for reasons that didn't contribute to the experience, such as extremely high and unpredictable input delay for example. But in most cases when somebody uses the term "artificial difficulty" it's usually best to take these "evaluations" with a mountain of salt.

[[McD] James]

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Artificial Difficulty these days in an empty and nonsensical term that loosely translates to "Difficult for reasons I don't like", or something similar.

 

There have been some cases in the history of gaming where it might have been fair to say that the game was difficult for reasons that didn't contribute to the experience, such as extremely high and unpredictable input delay for example. But in most cases when somebody uses the term "artificial difficulty" it's usually best to take these "evaluations" with a mountain of salt.

 

This the only time you've ever been wrong about anything. 

 

@reflex17 Personally, I didn't find Battletoads very difficult to play through. I still don't quite understand what you were trying to reference by posting a link to Mushihimesama Futari. Games designed by Cave are among some of the most well designed and balanced games ever created. 

[Doomkid]

Is no one going to acknowledge that “artificial difficulty” is a terrible blanket term, even when the person saying it isn’t just being salty? Acknowledging this negates the crux of the entire discussion.

 

Yes, some games have difficulty that is unsatisfying for one reason another - unfair challenges, unpredictable outcomes, bad control or delayed input, among other things.

 

These are all totally different aspects of bad design though. Saying “I got killed by artificial difficulty” tells another player precisely nothing. You have to go into detail about what aspect of design (or otherwise) lead to your demise, rendering the blanket term itself worthless. The whole point of blanket terms is to convey something more complicated in a simple manner and this fails at that basic entry level requirement.

 

If we just call things what they are rather than making up strange inaccurate blanket terms it will make life easier. 100% of a video game is artificial, so we can quite easily rule out “artificial” as an accurate descriptor of anything. It’s about as meaningful as saying “existence exists”. Call unfair battles unfair battles. Call bad controls bad controls. Call something that requires perfect timing something that requires perfect timing. And so on. Lumping them all under the word “artificial” - which, as thoroughly established, makes no sense in the context of a video game - is utterly worthless because no one can agree what it means and everyone interprets it differently. As demonstrated in a crystal clear fashion by this very thread!

 

If we just called things what they are as opposed to using silly buzzwords it would make communication a lot clearer. Sometimes there’s no appropriate catch-all term because all the things it’s trying to catch are fundamentally disparate.

[reflex17]

13 minutes ago, Ajora said:

I still don't quite understand what you were trying to reference by posting a link to Mushihimesama Futari. 

 

I wasn't trying to say it's imbalanced or impossible or anything like that, it was just an example of a 'hard game' in reference to tough maps in Mario maker.

 

Someone could say bullet hell is artificially difficult or cheap but I think that's too easy. On the contrary, bullet hell shmups and kaizo levels are great if you ask me, and there are more effective ways to discuss any perceived shortcomings than labeling tough spots as artificial or fake. You hear that sometimes about people too, "Oh they're so fake" - yeah it carries an idea across and has a meaning, but it glosses over - and can potentially distract from - the heart of the discussion, which is what I'm personally after. 

 

As for Battletoads I did think it was easier when I went back to it... I think it gets categorized as extremely difficult because it's a genre mashup and can easily throw the player off any momentum they've carried from the stage before it. Beating Battletoads takes not only reactions but memorization and repetition as well. 

 

Just for the record, the videos I posted of The Fool's Errand and Mushihimesama Futari are examples of exceptional games. I generally tend to think that all games are 'good' as long as someone's having fun with them, even the terrible ones. I can understand someone might be upset if they spend money on a game and it's an unfinished mess, that's something many of us can relate to. If anybody wants call something artificial, or say a game is shitty, no issue is taken with that because I'm interested in any and all thoughts. I'm not opposed to anyone using the phrase necessarily, it's just the topic at hand. No misunderstanding intended, Ajora your opinion is one I honestly respect and place in high regard. Game mechanics are a subject I find endlessly fascinating so I should've added comments to the video post.

[[McD] James]

Now that I think a little more about it, perhaps I was conflating the term "artificial difficulty" with a term I've sometimes used; "hard for the wrong reasons" a bit. Taken at face value, the connotations are similar but not necessarily identical.

 

An example of artificial difficulty in my mind might be a game where you have to choose between opening a series of doors, some of which will instantly kill you and not offer any means of knowing which ones will. Doing this will make said game more difficult, but not by challenging the player to improve their abilities or requiring them to memorize something. Another example would be a good number of point and click adventure games that employ moon logic. 

 

What I've described above is similar to, but not entirely the same as games I would describe as being hard for the wrong reasons. Things like bad controls, bullet sponge enemies, unforgiving time limits in 2D platformers, bad hit detection, etc. That sort of stuff usually boils down more to developer incompetence, rather than point and click adventure game designers (such as Roberta Williams) wanting to drive people insane. 

 

Of course, it's always more fruitful to get into the specifics for this sort of thing, but I don't think blanket terminology always has to be regarded as a bad or lazy thing. 

[Noiser]

I will just give my two cents here, so take it with a grain of salt... but the only occasion where this term make sense to me is when

1. a game tries to look "hard" by waiting or losing your time - non-threatening bullet-sponges, too much cover\reloading, etc
2. a game that looks hard just to be trivialized later on - with items you can buy, xp you can farm, upgrades you can use etc

I call them artificial because they are not tied with gameplay and are there to look difficult without really being hard or going with the flow. However this is almost the opposite meaning that people tend to give to this term. None of this is really applicable to classic Doom btw, at least not at a great extent (maybe the Baron of Hell when placed on some very specific situations). 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Noiser

[Octillion]

    The hell is "artificial difficulty"? I've never heard this term before. Sounds like someone who ragequit a level, decided to bitch about it with his wall of text and added the words "artificial" and "difficult" together to make himself look cool.

 

    To me, "difficulty" has always been defined with three other words in any game. "Bullshit", "Broken", and "Hard". When to differentiate the three? Depends on the player sometimes.

 

Example A):-

 

    You're in a large linear area, a chaingunner can be seen about a thousand pixels away, at an elevated height, and some demons are scattered across to block your way to him. You'll have to traverse a good amount of distance to kill the chaingunner, while he can chip away your health, or worst case even die to him depending on RNG. This pretty much makes the chaingunner in the entire fight "Broken" and the demons are pretty much irrelevant. There is nothing to be done except rely on RNG to win this since there is no cover. This is a good example of the mapper's fault for abusing the chaingunner's powerlevel and not the player.

 

Example B):-

 

    Same area, except cover is now accessible and the path to the chaingunner is now very non-linear. This multiplies the distance the player needs to travel now, in exchange for a very difficult encounter. Chaingunner now only has a few windows of opportunity to attack the player. Demons are also smartly scattered in a way that they can swarm the player when he is hiding from the chaingunner. This situation can be either "Bullshit" or "Hard" depending on the player, and is no longer the mapper's fault.

 

    Now that I look at it, is RNG an "artificial difficulty" in relation to hitscanners?

[tchkb]

2 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

Artificial Difficulty these days in an empty and nonsensical term that loosely translates to "Difficult for reasons I don't like", or something similar.

 

There have been some cases in the history of gaming where it might have been fair to say that the game was difficult for reasons that didn't contribute to the experience, such as extremely high and unpredictable input delay for example. But in most cases when somebody uses the term "artificial difficulty" it's usually best to take these "evaluations" with a mountain of salt.

 

This. Furthermore, the term itself makes zero linguistic sense, no matter how hard you try to strain the analogies.

 

Quote

artificial

adjective

uk /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/ us /ˌɑːr.t̬əˈfɪʃ.əl/

 

B2

made by people, often as a copy of something natural:

clothes made of artificial fibres

an artificial heart

an artificial lake

artificial fur/sweeteners/flowers

 

C2 disapproving

not sincere:

Their cheerfulness seemed rather strained and artificial.

 

[reflex17]

 

22 minutes ago, Ajora said:

 

I don't think blanket terminology always has to be regarded as a bad or lazy thing. 

 

 

Yeah agreed, categories are useful if for nothing else than deciding what type of game to look for. I'm a huge fan of the King's Quest and Space Quest series, you gotta know what section to go to if you want to find them lol. A discussion needs reference points so that both sides can understand what's being talked about... this is a videogame forum so it goes without saying that most of us know what 'bullet hell' or 'fps' means, for example. On the other hand, to call the use of the term artificial 'lazy' is also overly simplistic I think, it's just another way to describe a situation regarded as unfair for whatever reason.

[xdarkmasterx]

12 minutes ago, Octillion said:

    The hell is "artificial difficulty"? I've never heard this term before. Sounds like someone who ragequit a level, decided to bitch about it with his wall of text and added the words "artificial" and "difficult" together to make himself look cool. 

 

 

That is basically what it is, from what i've see, that will describe just about any sort of challenge that the player finds frustrating, or cannot overcome easily, simply to shift blame from the player to the designer. :p

 

i understand that, when there is really an element of luck, or controls that do not work correctly, but many ocmplainers are not so great at differentiating something with RNG elements (ex: boss that shoots projectiles in random directions) and something that does require luck to finish, or a game with intentionally stiff or clunky controls (classic castlevania and so on) with unresponsive and irritating ones

 

BTW since was mentioned mushihimesama: i died inside every time somebody accuse shumps as a genre of "artificial difficult" :/

 

[[McD] James]

For whatever the reason, shooters are generally very well balanced and challenging for all of the right reasons. It's a tried and tested genre that's very hard to go wrong with. I guess if I were to get into nitpicky territory, I'd argue that the ship in Raiden 1 moves slightly slower than it should, and the PC Engine ports of Tatsujin and Image Fight are too cramped, allowing for very limited maneuverability. 

[Doomkid]

24 minutes ago, Ajora said:

Of course, it's always more fruitful to get into the specifics for this sort of thing, but I don't think blanket terminology always has to be regarded as a bad or lazy thing. 

Oh definitely not, blanket terms are generally very useful, just not this particular one, and only for two reasons: 1) because it doesn’t make sense as a descriptor linguistically as tchkb points out and 2) because people lump a bunch of fundamentally disparate concepts under this blanket term.

 

More often than not, blankets help to negate the need for threads/discussions like this one where we all struggle to work out what one another is even talking about, because usually the blanket (or grouping or whatever we want to call it) makes more sense. Here it’s like half of players were trying to do the scientific thing and work out what type of difficulty is “artificial” (despite the word itself being a poor choice) and the other half was just using it to describe “challenges I don’t like in games” and everything was just accepted and thrown under the blanket even when a bunch of it doesn’t belong there.

 

My theory is that it all comes down to the misuse of the word artificial in the first place, where more accurate descriptors such as unfair, unpredictable, unresponsive, etc would have avoided this problem from square one. Since the use of the word artificial in this context is nonsensical from a linguistic standpoint, any random person could claim that any element of a game’s design is “artificial difficulty” and it’s tough to refute since the term itself is gibberish - just about anything could potentially qualify when the qualification itself is unclear, after all.

 

This actually comes down to a broader discussion about the fickle nature of language and perceptions if we go any further with it. Which is fine by me! Just to clarify I wasn’t trying to crap on the thread or any participants, I just get frustrated by the unwitting use of nonsensical jargon because I’ve been confused by it and had plenty of miscommunications due to it. I hear some phrase and glean it’s meaning based on context, only to find everyone else has gleaned their own completely different meaning for the exact same words.

 

It’s great to keep definitions in mind when coming up with these terms because it helps avoid this pitfall, but sometimes the people who come up with them don’t do that and they end up birthing a nice-sounding nonsense phrase and it gets picked up because it has that punchy, roll-off-the-tongue quality to it. By the time people realise the phrase is gibberish, the damage is done and a million different people are using it, all in their own unique and disparate ways.

[Benjogami]

“artificial difficulty” is artificial criticism.

[Cursed Lemon]

I think a lot of people are missing the meat of the gripe here. Artificial difficulty implies that the difficulty arises from a change in the gameplay that is boring or unrewarding. As has been mentioned, simply multiplying enemy stats is a good example of this because it's an increase of difficulty that is completely uninteresting; it doesn't inherently change the gameplay in a meaningful way, it literally just makes the game take longer. An argument can be had as to what kind of elements fall under that term, but the sentiment in and of itself is entirely valid. If a game increased the intelligence of its AI but took care to do so in a way that felt organic and continued to allow the player to dictate the pace/direction of the action based on their choices and ability to read patterns or think critically, that would be a worthwhile level of difficulty. If in an FPS, the game simply commanded its AI enemies to rush a player every single time they reloaded or looked in a different direction, that would be needlessly frustrating and not worth the time to figure out the asinine, glitchy trick to winning.

[Maximum Matt]

To me 'artificial difficulty' is that asshole friend who keeps trying to distract you while you're playing one of the final levels by waving his hands next to your head and repeating "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you" until you fuck up then you pummel him

[SOSU]

First of all i wanna know what the fuck natural difficulty is to understand what artificial one is :O

[dmslr]

From what I understand, 'natural' difficulty is when your success depends only on your own skills and knowledge of the game mechanics. 'Artificial' difficulty, on the other hand, is when you suck, no matter how good you are, because of unfair traps and enemy placement, but you can succeed by using trial and error or knowing beforehand where are the traps and where you can run to avoid those.

Edited November 17, 2019 by dmslr

[Super Mighty G]

On 11/15/2019 at 3:08 PM, Archvile Hunter said:

No matter what the designer had in mind, the fact of the matter is that a certain amount of skill in (a) specific area(s) is required to succeed. The only thing standing between you and victory is your own knowledge of game mehcanics and your personal ability. That said, foreknowledge is always helpful, of course.

brb making a map with a small start room and an Archvile. Push these 4 switches and the exit opens. Just pain chance the Archvile with your pistol while the exit is opening, it'll be fine. 

[whirledtsar]

It seems like most times people complain about "artificial difficulty", it turns out theyre playing on the hardest or near-hardest skill level and refuse to even consider trying a different skill level possibly more fitting for them.

[Cynical]

On ‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 5:08 PM, Archvile Hunter said:

TL;DR Is "artificial difficulty" real, or just an excuse made by players who refuse to accept that a challenge is too hard? And, if you think "artificial difficulty" is real,  is The Plutonia Experiment really "artificially difficult"?

"Artificial difficulty" is an appropriate term in cases where the player doesn't have much control over the outcome, so success or failure is largely down to luck.  It doesn't apply often in Doom (it could be made to apply by doing things like using a Lost Soul and walklover lines as an RNG for crushing ceilings or something equally stupid), but there's plenty of games I've played where it could.  An example that comes to mind instantly is keeping teammates alive in The Outer Worlds on Supernova difficulty; you have no direct control over party members, so it's largely out of the player's control whether a party member permanently dies (forcing a reload), or not.  This could be said to be "difficult", since it forces a lot of reloads, but it doesn't demand any skill out of the player, just frustrating "grind at it until you get lucky" play.

 

EDIT: @Ajora

Quote

@reflex17 Personally, I didn't find Battletoads very difficult to play through. I still don't quite understand what you were trying to reference by posting a link to Mushihimesama Futari. Games designed by Cave are among some of the most well designed and balanced games ever created. 

lolwut?  Cave's games post-Ketsui are just atrocious poorly-designed mess after atrocious poorly-designed mess.  Broken scoring systems, scoring systems where what shot you use is chosen in relation to an arbitrary counter rather than action on the screen, dumb counterstops, games with hyper systems but no rank to push-back so you just sit there "firin' mah laz0r!", etc.  Seriously crap games.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Cynical

[[Vitz!]]

I think whoever created this term just meant "this game/map/level's way of handling difficulty makes it boring/unfair", but some people are too lazy to bother to actually explain why they think in such a way and just throw in a lazy buzzword thinking it will be enough to prove a point.

I think people should stop being lazy and actually sit down and explain why they feel in certain ways instead of relying on terms that barely communicate anything if at all.

 

Quote

brb making a map with a small start room and an Archvile. Push these 4 switches and the exit opens. Just pain chance the Archvile with your pistol while the exit is opening, it'll be fine. 

 

If you change the code to make the pistol shoot like it does when you use the "sv_fastweapons 2" command in GZDoom then it could possibly work. lmao 

Edited November 18, 2019 by [Vitz!] : I would end up flooding the topic otherwise.