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See the original image at gamasutra.com —

Difficulty is Difficult: Designing for Hard Modes in Games

gamasutra.com — In this in-depth article, originally printed in Game Developer magazine, designer Boutros takes a close look at difficulty in games, asking how creators can add unique, high-end challenges which excite, but don't frustrate skilled players.

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  • MacSuxWindozSux, on 09/17/2008, -1/+56According to John Carmack, it's easy to make a game that's impossible to win, ai that can't be beat, enemies with instant perfect aim. The challenge is making the game merely difficult.
    • Beanbones, on 09/17/2008, -2/+3Also, the same game might present different difficulty levels to different players. Aaron may find RTS games challenging, whereas Bob, who is know to "pwn nubs" on occasion in any RTS game out there, has more problems with FPS action games.
    • ultraseamus, on 09/17/2008, -0/+2It's true, it is easy as pie to give an enemy perfect aim in an FPS, perfect timing in a fighter, or have them follow the perfect path in a racing game. Those are basically the starting point for a game AI (unless you are dealing with a Neural Network of some other method of computer learning), from there you have to add in randomness, decision trees, and other imperfections. As for RTS games, if you allow the AI to cheat (most games do) then an unbeatable AI would be tough to create. If they are limited to the same information a player would have it would be extremely difficult.
    • Valyn, on 09/18/2008, -0/+2I think the lack of truly good AI is why multi-player is such a big deal now.
    • aterimperator, on 09/19/2008, -0/+1I disagree, I've never seen a racing game where the AI could take a perfect route, this is what spawns the cheating AI where it increases the AI's max acceleration (including cornering). If you could make the AI so it takes perfect racing lines you wouldn't need to resort to cheating AI, you could easily just improve their racing routes.
  • u5bLue, on 09/17/2008, -0/+14Not in Guitar Hero! =]
  • nadcraker, on 09/17/2008, -0/+11Just make all the enemies Buzzy Beetles.
  • ligyron, on 09/17/2008, -1/+81Thanks for linking to the print version, which is all on one page and no ads. Appreciate it
  • FENWAYFREAK, on 09/17/2008, -0/+51Sadly most games just lower your health and double the enemies.
    • soulweaponry, on 09/17/2008, -3/+1Hey, it works! Maybe they should try the player having only one foot to run with. Running and gunning would be quite the challenging. Hopping and gunning
    • latova, on 09/17/2008, -0/+1For Doom that worked pretty well (while it didn't lower your health I'm pretty sure you took more damage).
  • ncapone, on 09/17/2008, -2/+11I haven't played too many new games this generation, but every single one I have, I've played on hard mode and were incredibly easy. Why aren't games insanely difficult anymore?
    • Kenzan, on 09/17/2008, -1/+13In a phrase:

      The rise of the Casual Gamer.
    • kingmanic, on 09/17/2008, -0/+4Insanely difficult games exist, they don't' sell well *cough* *NGII* *Cough* thus they are less common. also the design goals before were to take your money at arcades or to stretch out your play time by killing you lots. So the games of the 80's and early 90's were hard to extract more money. That incentive is gone.
    • Morwynd, on 09/17/2008, -0/+1Try the new "Bionic Commando: Rearmed" (on Hard and/or Super-Hard) for some oldskool, want-to-smash-my-controller difficulty.

      And it's not just "the enemies have more hit points" difficulty, the AI patterns significantly change, requiring a completely new and much more tactical approach to the gameplay.

      Fantastic remake of a classic.
    • Otnehs, on 09/17/2008, -2/+0I'm not a big fan of the Halo series but Halo 3 was not very easy on Legendary, it took hours to beat some of the stages if you were playing with someone who wasn't as experienced, which was a huge difference compared to the first two.
    • yamikaze, on 09/17/2008, -0/+3You mean like this?
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nb5Ohbt1Sg&fmt=18

    • kaosethema, on 09/17/2008, -0/+1you need to get out more...
  • Garofoli, on 09/17/2008, -0/+4I've never really thought of the depth of creativity that is required in game creating, especially for hard levels. That is versus games that just ramp up the enemies health to ridiculous amounts.
  • jerrolds, on 09/17/2008, -4/+21digging for the fact that it is not mccain/obama/palin related - that and its a genuwinely interesting read
  • katerpilar, on 09/17/2008, -0/+1its an interesting thing when a gamer exceeds the performance of the level designer, though im sure this is quite often. For example Portal, im pretty sure no level designer though about beating a level in 4 seconds or something.
    • Valyn, on 09/18/2008, -0/+2A couple of those 4 second completions are talked about in the game from the commentary. If not all, then most of them were expected. Im not a huge Valve fan (I just like portal), but any other devoloper and I would agree, but not Valve...

      Outside of your specific example though, it is quite intersting. Especially in MMO's. The earlier generations, like when EQ first came out had all kinds of ways to cheat against the crappy AI. Rather than fix it, they just declared that your cheating. The first time my account got suspended was becasue i was killing bad guys standing on a rock about 2 feet high. Evidently it was not allowed to kill things that could not hit back.

      Or you could just step left and right in the correct spot, and the horrible pathing made the mob run away and back for 10 seconds. Take another step left, and he runs away and back again. That was my second sespension.

      Third time, and banned for it was actually cheating, but by that time, i did not care, i was just selling plat on ebay.
  • arjie, on 09/17/2008, -0/+9I remember playing this 2D football (soccer to the Americans) game on the NES. I think it was some pirate copy. If you decided to play the World Cup, every successive match would have opponents that were faster. They grew faster with each match. After a while, they'd be gone before you could get close enough to tackle.

    It was the worst way to make a game tougher ever.
  • almighty, on 09/17/2008, -0/+11I think they have perfected difficulty in Ninja Gaiden. That game is insanely hard but still beatable. Well on normal at least.
    • DeathJux, on 09/17/2008, -0/+5Completely agree, as well as, to a slightly lesser degree, the God of War games. On the harder difficulties, the game essentially forced you to play like a ***** badass, you just had to be really good with timing blocks and the occasion dodge (for unblockables). It was rewarding because the computer DIDN'T CHEAT! It's SO easy to give the computer unfair advantages, but in God of War or Ninja Gaiden, if you died it was 100% YOUR FAULT, as the game gives you all the tools you need to never die.

      Playing through GoW on God, and GoW2 on Titan were some of the most rewarding gaming experiences I have ever had.

      I got about 1/5 through Ninja Gaiden on Hard before I had to sell my Xbox... I miss it badly.
  • SSPink, on 09/17/2008, -2/+3Difficulty is hard, that's why so many programmers take the easy way out and use cheating AI instead of good AI. Game programmers that do this should be publicly flogged.
    • kingmanic, on 09/17/2008, -1/+5Good AI is hard. How do you make a good NPC without making the NPC play the game for you? How do you make a good Enemy without making it impossible? Give an example of a good AI.
      • qwertydvorak, on 09/18/2008, -0/+1splinter cell has pretty good ai. the changes in hard mode seem to be that the enemies can hear better. i dunno if it is a hardware limitation, but in the current gen versions i am hoping that the ai would get even smarter about searching. especially if they come into a room where there used to be a light on and you have shot it out.

        another point of the article is the saving issue. i loved socom back in the day. up until i got to the helicopter level. you spend 30 minutes fighting your way through, and get into the buildings only to get blown away by a helicopter. i did that a few times and put the game down forever. i don't mind working my way through something hard, but i would like to be able to have the option to save before the hard part.
  • Kenzan, on 09/17/2008, -6/+5How to make a great Hard Difficulty:

    ADD CRAPLOADS MORE ENEMIES.
    Period.

    I mean, come on, it's like the article says, just pumping up their health x 2 and limiting health packs and ammo just won't cut it.

    I want to fight whole armies in each encounter of the level in HARD or INSANE mode.
    Remember how awesome this was in Doom and Serious Sam?

    Thought so.
    • Kenzan, on 09/17/2008, -2/+2What? Why am i getting dug down?
      Are you guys honestly saying that less enemies is more fun or more difficult?
      Look, If the AI is good to begin with, then more enemies is key!

      Show me where I'm wrong then.
      I'm willing to be taught.
      • Valyn, on 09/18/2008, -0/+4Becasue more is a cheap trick devolopers use. It works, but ts not interesting in anyway.

        Crysis: you could hear the Korean bad guys giving each other orders (in english), you could tell when you lost them etc. On hard, they spoke in Korean, making it tougher to understand them. That is an ingenious way to make it a bit tougher. I sure there were bad guys as well, but this is the kind of thing that makes playing on the hard difficulty fun.

        The only simple thing that devs use that i find fun: Hardcore mode. One life in an RPG that takes 40+ hours. Not because I enjoy starting over, but because you play the game an entirely different way. You gear up differently, suddenly different skills are more useful.
    • ZeMoose, on 09/18/2008, -0/+2I will never complain about having more stuff to shoot at.
  • dsmx, on 09/17/2008, -2/+5Crysis did difficulty right, delta was brilliant.
  • jerrolds, on 09/17/2008, -0/+9"And there is the difference: whereas one mode is a reactionary and lightly memory-reliant experience, in the tough mode, the game becomes very classically rooted in trial and error, using memory play as the core consistent play type. The only way a player can survive with meager resources and a damage disadvantage is by trying, dying, remembering, and restarting. "

    so true, trial and error gameplay sucks - even if it isnt impossible
  • InspectorGadget, on 09/17/2008, -0/+3Designing hard/expert mode may be difficult, but the creators of "You Raff You Rose" seemed to do a pretty good job of it. I wonder why I can't ever find a copy at Gamestop...
  • TheR3dMenace, on 09/17/2008, -1/+4so... difficult game is difficult?
  • SunathAlgeraan, on 09/17/2008, -9/+0Buried for all the Halo-ass-kissing.
    • gdehms, on 09/17/2008, -0/+8If there is one thing Halo does well it's its Heroic / Legendary modes. Play the game on those settings then read it again and you'd understand. There is something legitimately funny and scary about a grunt running at you with two lit plasma grenades in hand.
  • mnortei, on 09/17/2008, -4/+18http://imagechan.com/img/6094/Hardmode/
  • TheKitchenSinkX, on 09/17/2008, -0/+4I liked how they made "Hard Mode" levels in Sonic Adventure 2. Since the mechanic was different than a health bar, they obviously couldn't just make enemies hurt more... in Hard Mode they completely changed many of the challenges of the level. Oftentimes the paths/terrain would be completely altered to make it very skillful. Or...skillfun?
  • ChristoFox, on 09/17/2008, -0/+4Bring on NaziShoot 2000.
  • lolwutpear, on 09/17/2008, -0/+2Are they trying to say that TF2 was the first game with a good killcam?
    I always liked the way that Thief handled difficulty. More sensitive, slightly more plentiful AI combined with a no-kill restriction. Find a better way to avoid, distract, or escape them as you strive for even more loot.
    • demiurgency, on 09/17/2008, -0/+2I logged in just to mention Thief as well.

      Thief the Dark Project had my all-time favorite difficulty adjustment for expert mode. Instead of making the game arbitrarily harder, it added extra objectives to each level, which required you to scout and explore more carefully and thoroughly.

      The biggest difficulty modifier was adding the restriction that you could not kill anyone. Completing a level like Assassins or Lord Bafford's Manor without killing a soul was one of the most satisfying, (but not impossibly hard) moments in gaming I have ever experienced. Thief is the only game I have ever played, that immediately on completing it for the first time, I started a new game and finished again on expert mode.

      I wish more games would take after Thief, where a higher difficulty actually means getting more out of the game, not just better armor/more health for your enemies.
      • lolwutpear, on 09/18/2008, -0/+0uuuggggghhhh brb, ghosting bafford's
  • FredFredrickson, on 09/17/2008, -3/+3I'll put it in terms the internet community can understand: Difficult cat is difficult.
  • MojoJonJon, on 09/17/2008, -1/+2Halo has the best scaling for difficulty. You pretty much have to do what would be considered cheap in online play to get by in certain areas or it makes you play smarter in most other cases, which i find alot more fun than frantically hitting more buttons... Dragonforce - GH3, UGH!
  • pcrazy, on 09/17/2008, -0/+3How about making games where you don't have regenerating health. I hate how some games let you hide and your health builds back up. Another idea would be if your character dies, you don't start over with a full bar of life but with a smaller amount.
  • wrenchone, on 09/17/2008, -0/+11Oh god, I'm stuck on the ***** "LOOK AT ALL DAT JUICE!" spot in Gears of War right now. Every time I die, I want to chainsaw the level designer.
    • jpjandrade, on 09/17/2008, -0/+6When I read it, my eye started twitching remembering all those crossbows shots. God, the suffering, the pain...
    • rmeddy, on 09/17/2008, -0/+1Really? I found the Marcus' house to be harder than that area on Insane at least.
    • X9001, on 09/17/2008, -0/+4How much is all that emotion worth?
      • Waaaaalt, on 09/18/2008, -0/+2EMULSION. Emotions are worth nothing.
  • modix, on 09/17/2008, -1/+4I found it odd that there was an article discussing difficulty that didn't seem to span past Halo. It is undeniable that older games were in general much harder to beat; so to take in the full span of difficulty ranges, older styles of difficulty needed to be discussed as well. In older games the difficulty stemmed from VERY hard levels and bosses and the inability to save. The idea of the boss as a puzzle to kill died off with the prevalence of the internet.

    However a smart developer can still present a challenge that requires you to bring the right elements to the table to win a fight. My favorite example of this is Vagrant Story. Hit the boss with the wrong weapon and you deal next to no damage. And there are no guarantees that you even HAVE the right weapon, it might be necessary for you to create it (with its fusing system) to win the fight. Between the necessity of skilled button input, critical thinking for weapon choice and development, and a fighting system that causes you to take more damage and miss more as you chain together long attacks... It was considerably difficult while never ever giving the sense of 1shot kills stupidity or unfairness. Killing the boss was a fun problem to be solved and gave a great sense of accomplishment. That is the type of difficult developers should look into, not just ramping up HP and damage; though that could be part of the solution.

    And, yes, I do hold a very very large grudge against Square for giving every game a sequel except Vagrant Story.
  • mingusmingus, on 09/17/2008, -1/+1i loved metal gear solid 3's difficulty settings. on the hardest mode things like snake sneezing unexpectedly came into play.
    i thought that was the coolest thing since cheese.
  • iSkylla, on 09/17/2008, -1/+7I think the Halo difficulty is by far the best. Legendary in all 3 games were challenging but they weren't so insane that you wanted to quit when you died, it was hard but still fun and that is the key to a good game.
  • Scira, on 09/17/2008, -2/+1I agree with the article, games are either too easy or just lazy hard nowadays.
  • teh_spazz, on 09/17/2008, -1/+1hard is trying to race the chocobo trainer in ffx. those of you who have played the game will know what I mean.

  • setrajonas, on 09/17/2008, -1/+1I thought God Hand's difficulty system was pretty well thought out. Within the game, here's actually a sliding scale of 4 sub-difficulty levels: 1, 2, 3 and Die. Which one you're on is determined by how well you're playing. Each successive level features smarter enemies and more random devil summons, as well as slightly increasing enemy health. On Easy mode, it restricts the scale to Levels 1 and 2, but on Hard mode it merely locks the scale at Level Die.
  • Kenzan, on 09/17/2008, -6/+1What? Why am i getting dug down?
    Are you guys honestly saying that less enemies is more fun or more difficult?
    Look, If the AI is good to begin with, then more enemies is key!

    Show me where I'm wrong then.
    I'm willing to be taught.
  • DougieD, on 09/17/2008, -1/+3Well written article. Game designers: plz read!
  • rmeddy, on 09/17/2008, -0/+6The problem is that most game AI sucks. So they usually need to create contrived situations and/or unfair advantages to compensate for the ***** AI. Take Gears of War or Ninja Gaiden .for example You hit these ***** over 9000! times and they're still kicking with your best stuff. Better AI is the main fix I'd rather have an enemy be equal to me but outsmart than some overpowered freak on Digital steroids .

    In Conclusion Play Team Fortress 2
  • psykiv, on 09/17/2008, -1/+1Hard Mode in blast corps: Do it faster, No problem
    God mode in blast corps (all platinums): if you tilted the control sick 3 degrees too much to the left for one nano second, just restart the level, youre not going to make it.
  • shadydentist, on 09/18/2008, -1/+2Crysis did a good job with Delta mode. Part of your HUD goes away, forcing you to use your iron sights more, and the enemies start speaking in korean.
  • lubczyk, on 09/18/2008, -2/+0That's BS!!! Enemies in Call of Duty games don't get more aggressive. All they get is aim hacks. On Veteran, a downed enemy with a pistol can hit you 2 miles away!!

    That's the problem with most Shooter games, enemies don't get more aggressive, they just get aim hacks. Same with racing games like Need for Speed or Mario Kart. On the harder difficulty settings, rubber-band AI is out of control.

    AI hasn't evolved like graphics have.
    • zackinyourpants, on 09/18/2008, -0/+1So you think the AI enemies in Call of Duty are hacking? lol.
  • Valyn, on 09/18/2008, -1/+2Dugg for being led to an actual article (and interesting at that!), not a website splattered with adverts and and the article spread over 27 pages.
  • dslartoo, on 09/18/2008, -0/+3I do wish they had talked some about the annoying "rubbberband" AI that makes some games like the Burnout series and the Need for Speed series so annoying at harder difficulty levels. Making the PC cars impossibly fast so they can catch up with you is cheating and is a cheap-ass way of making the game more difficult. How about programming some better DRIVING behavior instead?
  • nickert0n, on 09/18/2008, -0/+1Perfect example: http://digg.com/pc_games/Idiots_of_Gary_s_Mod
  • zenubio, on 09/18/2008, -0/+0This was a very well written article.
  • veesofnaught, on 09/18/2008, -0/+1I might get dugg down for this comment amongst hardcore gamers, but I don't like hard games anymore. I enjoyed really difficult games back when I all I had to worry about was my math homework and a few zits on my face. Now that work and college are serious stresses in my life, I like to unwind by playing video games and use them as a form of entertainment and not frustration.
  • Lynsanity, on 09/19/2008, -0/+0I don't have a lot of time to play games, so I am fine with some games being easier than others. Case in point: Mario Strikers. That came was way too difficult toward the end. The final cup was full of AI cheats. Mario Kart was an exercise in frustration online. Too many people using the advanced techniques. I ended up just creating a website for casual and hardcore gamers to find their ideal gamer matches: http://www.lynteractive.com
  • Atomic1fire, on 09/20/2008, -0/+1You know what they should do...
    Create difficulty specific areas/levels
    Because running through the game can give you a good idea where everything is, which creates an advantage... So change things up with a different area and it confuses the players who master their surroundings in game, because they DON'T expect that level or levels to be there.they usually think its all the same story and level selection, only harder so basically, they should make harder levels that are only available in the next difficulty.
    change the objectives and parameters (missions)
    some stuff is just is just designed to be easy (especially in objectives based games, such as tony hawk where its usually some task that is not really all that difficult when you learn it), remove those parts and replace them with different goals, or change the setups to make them more difficult.


  • psibladeZX, on 09/22/2008, -0/+1I usually dont mind an easy game, but thats because I suck at games... love em anyway
  •  

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