Difference between revisions of "Difficulty Levels"

Revision as of 08:38, 1 May 2011

Controls in a game for letting player choose how difficult the gameplay should be.

To be enjoyable, a game being played needs to have a difficulty fitting the challenge its players wishes to have. Many games try to solve this by steadily become more difficult as gameplay progresses under the assumption that players are getting more skilled - which can be described as keeping the players in the Flow channel^[1]. This does however not solve the case of games that are replayed since they start at a higher skill level. Difficulty Settings are design options that allow players to modify the difficulty to what they perceive as being their right level, which may be harder than normal if they are skilled but also easier than normal if they are not used to the type of game or simply want a more relaxing experience.

Examples

The Doom series lets players choose between five different Difficulty Levels: I'm Too Young To Die, Hey, Not Too Rough, Hurt Me Plenty, Ultra-Violence, and Nightmare. These differ by the number of monsters encountered (or their strength), ammunition available for weapons, the speed of monsters and damage taken from their attacks, and how often they respawn. Left 4 Dead series lets players choose between easy, normal, advanced, and expert when playing, and this affects the speed, strength, and health of the "infected" as well as how often hordes of them attack players. In addition, players of Left 4 Dead 2 can choose to use the Realism Mode in which the game does not provide non-diegetic information about where the other players or supplies are.

The Hearts of Iron series of grand strategy games let players select Difficulty Levels ranging from very easy to very hard. These affect the number of manpower available, industrial capabilities, availability of resources, revolt risks, and efficiency of naval bases and supply networks.

Difficulty Levels can also be found in board games. Space Alert lets players choose difficulty simply by choosing between different scenarios (the actual challenges are randomized, so it is the structures that are chosen by selecting particular scenarios). Players of Pandemic can increase the level of difficulty in games by seeding card stacks with additional "epidemic" cards while in Forbidden Island one can make if harder to win by starting with a higher water level.

Using the pattern

realism mode in Left 4 Dead 2

Can Modulate

AI Players, Ammunition, Geospatial Game Widgets, Damage, Enemies, Respawning

Can Be Instantiated By

Decreased Abilities, Improved Abilities

Asymmetric Starting Conditions together with Characters or Abstract Player Constructs

While Difficulty Levels in themselves do not provide explicit goals in games (they modulate the ones that exist), an except can be found when they are used together with Goal Achievements. In these cases, i.e. when there exists Goal Achievements tied to specific Difficulty Levels as for example done in Torchlight, they do give rise to the presence of Handicap Achievements.

Diegetic Aspects

Interface Aspects

The setting of Difficulty Levels are typically done in Secondary Interface Screens - in Game Lobbies for Multiplayer Games.

Narrative Aspects

Consequences

Difficulty Levels are a form of Handicap System, and since players can choose to deviate from the standard they also represent a form of Optional Rules. They give players a Freedom of Choice to have either Casual or Challenging Gameplay, and when players gradual increase the levels as they get better the presence of Difficulty Levels allows for Smooth Learning Curves to develop Game Mastery. However, this is under the responsibility of players that this occurs - Difficulty Levels can as easily work against Game Mastery if players are tempted to play on easy levels to complete or dominate the game.

As mentioned above, Difficulty Levels can be combined with Goal Achievements to create Handicap Achievements.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Challenging Gameplay, Casual Gameplay, Freedom of Choice, Game Mastery, Handicap Systems, Optional Rules,

Smooth Learning Curves

with Goal Achievements

Handicap Achievements

Can Modulate

AI Players, Ammunition, Geospatial Game Widgets, Damage, Enemies, Respawning

Can Be Instantiated By

Decreased Abilities, Game Lobbies, Improved Abilities, Secondary Interface Screens

Asymmetric Starting Conditions together with Characters or Abstract Player Constructs

Can Be Modulated By

-

Possible Closure Effects

-

Potentially Conflicting With

Game Mastery

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

References

1. ↑ Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-092820-4.