Difficulty Scaling

[Astraea]

Today I learned that Resident Evil 2 Remake will have - what they call - "adaptive difficulty". It means the game will get easier or harder based on how the player performs. It was a tough cookie to swallow for me, because I like my difficulty to be set in stone.
Why, does it make you feel supreme when you beat it in hard mode?
Yes, it gives me a feeling of mastery over game mechanics in a game I enjoy enough to bother with harder settings. When you give a player a difficulty that isn't set in stone like a slider you can adjust while playing (Late elder scrolls games and many more) it's just a matter of resisting that slider. But when the difficulty automatically changes based on how you perform it's worse.
You will never feel thoroughly frustrated, but you'll also never feel real mastery over a game which takes away difficulty control from the player. It will never give you any incentive to learn enemy patterns , conserve ammo, generally 'git gud' (and feel supreme).

There's many games that have built in 'cheat difficulty', whether it's in it's worst form (adaptive) or being able to slide/finetune it during a playtrough. I get that some people might prefer this to have a more cinematic experience, which is totally fine but I hope more developers will give us the option to opt-out of that model.

/rant.

[Ryan]

I'm sure it will have a way to lock the difficulty in. Adaptive is probably the default.

Personally, I think this is a great addition. I'm not a fan of inherently hard games. Call me a pleb, to "git gud" or whatever - I enjoy my games without the unneeded stress. Most of the time I use the default settings of the game, but there are times when I just want to get through a game and I set it on easy to enjoy the story and action and less time figuring out obscure strategies of defeating something over and over and over again. As long as there is a way for most people to get their kicks in, I think it all works out.

[Astraea]

Yeah I get that playstyle, nothing wrong with it. I'm a guy that doesn't really play for the story though, although I do enjoy the occasional cutscene (the first time). And I hope you're right about locking in the difficulty, we'll see.

[ad_victoriam]

As certified casual scum I've never beaten a game on hard and find the unit-measuring that goes on about it tiresome, that said, I'm also getting sick and tired of "features" added in to games or applications in general that steal agency from the end user. If this adaptive difficulty can't be turned off or toggled to traditional difficulty settings I'd be just as upset about it as I am about mandatory updates for Windows 10.

[Astraea]

Yeah as mentioned above, I think we can have both. I think I just like the mechanical aspect of locked in difficulties; you get X amount of ammo in Y place, to dodge an attack you must use Z tactic and if you screw up you will have to restart and do better and when you play the next difficulty you learn additional tactics, less ammo in a different place etc. . There's a clear learning curve that satisfies me.

[fenrif]

Adaptive/scaling difficulty is lame, because it robs you of the feeling of achievment that comes from conquring a difficult section, and scaling the hurdle. You don't have to master a game, because the game rolls over like a lonely puppy and bears it's stomach to you the moment you hit a bump in the road.

The problem is that modern games generally do not understand how difficulties should work. With most games, the difference between easy and hard is just how bullet-spongey the enemies are, or how high their aimbot is turned up. There are some games which change up enemy patterns/behaviour, change enemy placement and types, change puzzles to be more diffucult, etc. But these games are few and far between. Rare gems in modern gaming.

I used to be an avowed hard-mode only guy. But I realised that most games view hard mode as another bullet point to be checked off on the back of the box, and put about as much thought and effort into it as is required to type the words "hard mode" into the code.

[MrVulture]

I believe a good adaptive difficulty model can really improve the experience. The best adaptive difficulty is the one you don't notice. Many games of old had good implementations of it; not taking away the satisfaction of completing a challenging section, while cleverly giving you a hand when you really needed it to progress.

Still, I agree that people who don't want it should be able to turn it off. Also, while not "adaptive", I like what games like Pillars of Eternity or Shadow of The Tomb Raider did. Allowing you to tailor the difficulty the way you want it.

[Lynk Former]

Resident Evil 4 has the same type of "adaptive difficulty" system... at least, for normal difficulty.

[Spect3r]

I also prefer them set in stone.
But as someone said above it all depends on how intrusive the "scaling" is, if is well done (barely noticeable) then i am ok with it. When i had time i used to go for Hard mode on my 2nd play but now that I almost have no time to play, I do a play in normal and thats it.

[Astraea]

For me it's already too intrusive if I know it's there. Because you never know if you found that box of ammo because you did bad or because everyone gets it.

[Unentokku]

Originally I was really against the idea since experiencing it in Oblivion sucked but when I learned that Resident Evil 4 also had such a system I became more accepting of the idea since I really enjoyed that game partly because it always remained challenging enough that I had to pay attention. So I'd say if it's well done and tends toward making the game harder it can be really nice.

[Astraea]

If it uses as system like 4 though, like Lynk said above these posts, we may have the option to just bypass it with a harder difficulty. I hope so. I wasn't happy about it in Oblivion either, I even used it a couple of times in Oblivion which made it worse.

[isturbo1984]

Not a fan of adaptive difficulty. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice had it. Once I got the controls down, the game just threw ultra hard mode at me for no reason, lol. and once I died, it regressed to being easy again. It was so weird. How can you get good or enjoy a game you are playing if the literal game and rules changes while you are playing it? the idea of adaptive gamely is a flawed thing imo. What's wrong with just a Hard or Insane mode??

[Jargoyle]

Have never played a game with this difficulty scaling feature.
Just let me change it at will. If I find something infuriating let me scale it back..
Perhaps I really want a challenge. I don't want the game to decide anything for me.

[Thomas_JCG]

Adaptive difficulty is a terrible idea, there is no way the game can recognize if you "got gud" or simply lucked out and didn't ran into many enemies. An upscaling base difficulty where enemies get tougher and meaner the more you play, and the player has to respond by getting better is infinitely superior to some fluctuating, arbitrary difficulty spikes.

However, many developers still don't know how to make a game "hard", and often appeal to reverse progression: the enemies do more damage and you do less, which completely negates the point of progression.

[JackofTears]

There's nothing wrong with enjoying a challenge. When I play Diablo 3, I do it on the highest difficulty I can manage, but that's because the challenge is the point of the game. In an rpg I care much less about the challenge and much more about story, so it's really a genre issue for me. This sliding scale seems like a very nice mechanic but I agree that you should also have the option of just setting the difficulty to Hard so you can expect a consistent level of challenge throughout the game and not be tempted into complacency.