Difficulty - Re:Vised

Alternate title - Non-numbers difficulty (nnd)

i did a post a while ago about difficulty in videogames, and it's alright. i've had some more thoughts rattling around for a bit, so let's try and do it again.

The obvious (and most boring) way to increase difficulty is simply to tweak the numbers. Make the enemies have more health and do more damage, make the player have less health and do less damage, damage and health damage and health damage and health. This works but it's not particularly imaginative, and can get to be a real slog depending on the game. While the core gameplay is great, the Borderlands 3 bossfights pretty much all have the same loop of lots of health and temporary invulnerable stages, making later fights feel like a chore rather than an exhilarating firefight. To be fair, i can't really think of a different way to do it, they are sort of limited by the mechanics.

One game that does pull off pure numbers difficulty increases (in my opinion - which is always right) is Left 4 Dead 2. On regular difficulties, common infected do about 2 damage per hit. Pathetic, i know, On expert difficulty, they do 20 - meaning you'll go down in 5 clean hits. The damage of special infected is similarly boosted - hunters eviscerate survivors in seconds, tanks incapacitate with a single hit and witches instakill. The crucial part of this balancing act is that the health of the infected is unchanged - common infected die with a single clean melee hit and the grenade launcher oneshots everything that isn't a tank or witch. Instead of combat being a slugfest, expert mode instead forces the survivors to play L4D2 really, really well. Listening for the distinctive special infected noises to prevent being caught unawares, using the shove to clear space and free teammates quickly, having a good balance of weapons for the right situation and knowing when to use them. Rather than being fun tools to watch a bunch of zombies turn into jam, pipebombs and gas canisters are now essential tools to prevent being overwhelmed by a horde or dealing with a tank. If the special infected just had double health the entire core would be undone, the tense game of spotting a hunter before it can pounce just becomes another bullet sponge shooting gallery. L4D2's difficulty can further be enhanced with realism mode, removing the glowing outlines of items and survivors. This means you actually have to communicate quickly and efficiently with your team, as it's now much more difficult to see where you're being clawed at by a smoker - further emphasising the importance of spotting and eliminating these threats before they can fully manifest.

A lot of games that have a reputation for being difficult do so without relying on pure numbers. Celeste, although not a difficult game by any stretch of the imagination, requires the player to input precise commands with (near) perfect timing to complete tricky platforming puzzles. The very mechanics and environment of the world are preloaded with difficulty in mind, rather than being an optional mode to make it harder. What these difficult-by-design games do instead is have ways to make them easier, think Celeste's easy mode giving additional jumps, soulslikes changing enemy attack patterns to be easier to dodge, that sort of thing. It's interesting how these are also non-numbers focused, rather than making the player stronger they instead make the world a little more hospitable. This is similar to how individual characters are harder or easier to play, it's often not because one character explicitly does less damage than another - it's because their abilities/gameplay require different engagement. Nasus is easy in League not becauses he does lots of damage and lots of health (although he definitely can), he's easy because his abilities are simple and intuitive to use for new players. Oh, my passive gives me extra lifesteal. My Q gives me more damage the more things i kill with it, i should kill minions with it then. My W makes an enemy slow, i should use it if they try to attack me. My E does damage in a big area, i should use it against multiple enemies. My R gives me extra health and damage, i should use it when i'm in a tricky fight. All of Nasus' abilities are easy to understand, even if you haven't played League you've probably got a good idea of what he does from that brief description alone. Similarly, Zangief in Street Fighter 6 isn't difficult because he doesn't do lots of damage (he has the most damaging single move in the game), he's difficult because he requires good game sense to use. Zangief is slow and has one traditional special move, his double lariat. What he does have are throws, your typical Street Fighter character will have maybe 2 or 3 different throws. Zangief has 11. Rather than focusing on sneaking in combos, Zangief instead favours baiting an opponent into making a mistake and then hitting them with a devastating command grab - which understandably requires good matchup and general game knowledge. His inputs are also considerably different than other characters, several of his moves require you to perform full circles with the joystick which usually has the side effect of making you jump - unless you're exceptionally quick or know how to make use of the dead time in another animation when you can't jump. Timing and setups are essential to playing Zangief, making the split second decision to use the right throw to put your opponent in the right position to bait them into using the wrong move so you can repeat the whole process again.

In my quest for 100%itude i recently completed Resident Evil 7's highest difficulty setting - Madhouse. While the damage and health are increased (although not to egregious levels), the main source of difficulty comes from the different placement of items and enemies. At this point, i'd played through the story a fair few times, i knew my way around the Baker mansion, i knew what Molded were behind which doors and i knew the quickest way to get the shotgun. Madhouse changed all of that, making me feel like just as much of a scared idiot as my first playthrough. i thought i knew the exact moment when Jack would start stalking me and had a heart attack when he turned up much earlier, i found out that Jack can get in the car before you in the garage fight and perform vehicular manburger helper, i found out a lot about Jack. This and more gave me an experience that simply cranking the numbers up never could, i was essentially forced into the unknown. That's the only real way a game like RE7 can capture the magic of that first unspoiled playthrough, that feeling of not knowing what's going on or where the shotgun is. Other Resident Evil games also follow this trend of difficulty augmentation, modern titles don't require the classic games' trick of needing an ink ribbon to save by default but do in their harder difficulties, adding an extra level of tension to the item-based panic. Requiem straight up just doesn't give Grace a gun until much later in her opening area, forcing her to stealth around and use her other tools to survive. It's a far more engaging experience than tweaking numbers can provide, and makes it feel like you've accomplished something rather than put yourself through the Chicken Run pie machine.

Thanks for reading! Was this post difficult? Was it good difficulty? Is all difficulty just numbers? Where whether an item will be there or not is binary? Is it all just ones and zeroes? Should Aurelion Sol be difficult and unique or mediocre and boring? Should Mel be removed from the game? Are these questions getting off topic? Should a film about a popstar who slept with little boys become the highest-grossing biopic yet? Why did Netflix release one episode of Steel Ball Run in April and not elaborate? How is it September?