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majormitch

Playing FF7 Rebirth is giving me the Bad Thought of replaying other FF games.

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The Myth of Difficulty

Hollow Knight is a video game that first released in early 2017 for the PC. I played that initial release, and it ended up being one of my favorite games of 2017. There’s a laundry list of things I love about it too: The world is incredibly well-designed and full of details I love exploring. The art style does a lot to bring the world to life, along with the diverse set of creatures you encounter. It has a host of meaningful upgrades that alter what you can do. The music is great, the map system is clever, and the combat is effective in its simplicity and responsiveness. Best of all may be how it all comes together to create a singular, impactful vision. I could go on, but I think you get the idea; it’s a wonderful game that I appreciate for many different reasons.

Is Hollow Knight a
Is Hollow Knight a "hard" game? Does it matter?

And yet, Hollow Knight seemed to slip under the radar throughout 2017. Fast-forward to the summer of 2018, though, and everyone seems to be talking about it. That’s what a release on the Nintendo Switch gets you these days, and while I’m super excited more people are now playing and enjoying Hollow Knight, the main talking point doesn’t appear to be any of the things I most appreciate about the game. Instead, most blogs and reactions I’ve come across are about how “difficult” Hollow Knight is. So much so that a friend (who has no interest in playing Hollow Knight himself) asked me why I never mentioned the game’s difficulty before. The best answer I had was that I never really thought about the difficulty; it simply wasn’t all that important to my appreciation of the game. And I’ve always felt that way about the games I enjoy. But why is that? Why is this aspect of video games, which has defined much of video game history and culture (for better or worse) never been important to me? I’ve continued to think on the topic, and while that original answer I gave to my friend remains true, I think I’ve finally realized more fully why.

Difficulty doesn’t exist.

Difficulty is an entirely mental construct, and something we use to explain all sorts of things that have more to do with ourselves than a game itself. When we get frustrated by not making clear, tangible progress by a game’s metric, we call it difficult. When we feel lost, stuck, or have to reload a checkpoint? When we feel like we failed? The game must be difficult. But I would argue it reflects player behavior and/or mentality more than anything, and the key is that every player is different. Some players could lose progress in a game and get frustrated or get down on themselves, where others could simply acknowledge that they’ve learned from their mistakes or gotten more practice, and soldier forward without being bothered in the slightest. Others still may get excited about it, and say “Aha, I didn’t realize that could happen!” before jumping back in with renewed vigor. And of course there are the masochists that take it as a challenge, and see beating the game as an opportunity to test their skill. I’m not trying to argue than any reaction is better or worse than another (though I would be a happier person if I never saw the phrase “git gud” ever again), but rather that everyone reacts differently to different situations.

That gets to my problem with the idea of difficulty: it’s subjective and impossible to define, an unmeasurable and theoretical metric that isn’t actually present within the games we play. Is a game difficult if you can’t reliably make progress every second you play it? How do you even define progress? If it’s getting closer to beating the game, then doesn’t dying from a mistake, but learning from that mistake, gain you knowledge and practice that also gets you closer to completing the game? You could argue almost anything as a form of progress, a necessary step on each individual player’s journey toward their goal within the game. I think games and our relationship to them are more nuanced and personal than a simple, universal scale of player skill vs. video game difficulty. Everyone has their own path through each individual game; there are simply too many variables in play to codify the idea of video game difficulty.

I was a math major in college, and whenever anyone asked what my major was (you know, the typical icebreaker question) and I said math, the near-universal response was “Wow, math is hard. You must be smart.” But I never felt math was all that hard, or that I was all that smart. I’d then ask what their major was, and they’d say something like biology, or psychology, or business, or English. And I would think, “Man, those all sound way harder than math to me.” Math was something I enjoyed, and something I wanted to spend time learning more about at that time. Therefore, whatever potential challenges came with that didn’t seem all that daunting. Math excited me, it motivated me, so the individual steps of the process were fulfilling and worthwhile. Biology, on the other hand? I always hated biology, and the work I had to put into it always felt, well, difficult as a result. I eventually realized that the classes I found “harder” were nothing more than the classes I didn’t like enough to want to do the work for.

Fighting through adversity for things I love helps me grow.
Fighting through adversity for things I love helps me grow.

The same has been true for me with video games. The biggest and truest sign of whether I’m into a game or not has always been my gut reaction when I meet any form of adversity. If I die, for example, and feel excited and eager to jump right back in and try again, then I clearly really like that game. A favorite example of this was Resident Evil 4 -- a wonderful and fascinating game for many reasons -- which I played obsessively when it came out, including through many sections that tested me through many deaths. But I didn’t bemoan each death. Instead, I felt it was a chance to try again and figure out how to improve. Conversely, if I die and feel the urge to set a game down or go search for help, then I probably don’t like that game very much in the first place. The supposed roadblocks I hit are nothing more than indications I don’t really want to play the game in earnest and that it's not worth any more of my time; I was only going through the motions until that point because that’s often what people do until adversity strikes.

But how worth it is that, really? Just going through the motions in games that don’t provide any kind of adversity? I’ve read a lot lately about how happiness requires struggle and growth. Humans are real good at getting used to anything, and if you were to somehow obtain all those things we stereotypically think of as making us happy -- a great job, enough money to cover what we need/want, great relationships, all the knowledge and skills in the world, etc. -- how long would it be before you got used to them, and then subsequently bored. We need new problems to solve, new things to engage with and see, and new things to, you guessed it, challenge us. These challenges don’t always have to be back-breaking, but it’s through our struggles that we grow and learn, no matter how messy they may be. Most things that come easily aren’t worth much, because it’s often the struggle itself that provides meaning, that lets you know you are in fact growing and moving towards something you care about. There’s nothing wrong with simple pleasures, the games that go down easily and don’t push us to think or grow. But they’re like junk food: they feel good in the moment, and are well and good in moderation. But basking in it too much ignores the substantial stuff we need to be truly happy and healthy.

I would argue that if you’re not willing to work through adversity for something, then that something isn’t worth much to you to begin with. Conversely, if you enjoy what you’re doing to the point where you genuinely want to push through, then that struggle feels completely worth it. It’s not about “no pain, no gain” or “git gud” (gosh, did I really use that phrase twice in one article?). It’s about finding the things you’re willing to deal with any amount of adversity to pursue. That’s your biggest indicator of happiness, and once you find such games, you won’t even think about whether it’s difficult or not; you’ll be too absorbed in the process to notice. That’s why difficulty is a myth, and why I don’t think any of us should avoid adversity in the games we love, but rather embrace it.

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ArbitraryWater

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This reminds me of a conversation I had with someone recently, where I remarked upon how crazy it is that 7 years ago the discussion surrounding Dark Souls entirely revolved around how it was an impossibly hard, obtuse game for weirdo lunatics. Fast forward to the remaster this year and not only is it a well-known name among the gaming community at large, but its style of gameplay has become part of a larger trend. The conversation has finally mostly moved on from how "hard" those games are supposed to be now that we're collectively used to them.

In that context, I think your blog is pretty on-point. However, I think it's still worth remarking that plenty of modern AAA video games are designed for the average player to get through without needing an especially high amount of systems mastery or twitch reflexes to avoid dying.

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Slag

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Edited By Slag

Difficult and hard may be the most improperly used terms in the game community. They are so ingrained, that I'm not sure anybody uses them correctly. I know I don't. With the case of Dark Souls and many Action Adventure/ RPGs games of that nature, a lot of them I don't feel are significantly mechanically easier or harder than their predecessors (other than perhaps sheer number of buttons on controllers), but what has really changed is how they handle checkpointing. I.e. the ease of "difficulty" since NES days is a largely a factor of a reduction of punishment. Dark Souls actually punishes you if you die, a lot of its peers didn't really. That's the bulk of its "difficulty" imo.

I haven't played Hollow Knight yet, but if I had to guess if it has a corpse run mechanic, I'm going to guess that's why people call it "hard". Because especially on social media people are lazy and don't try very hard to articulate what they really think as often as they should :( The little I've seen didn't seem that rough.

That being said I don't agree with you for once @majormitch. Even Though you were bringing up being a Math Major as part of your argument, I feel like you were exploring this concept more from the mindset of a competitive Athlete where denial and minimization of challenges is a good mental trick to keep oneself striving against long odds. Great approach for tackling a tough challenge, but not proof imo that said challenge does not exist.

I think difficulty is a measurable phenomenon defined by individual and species level human biological limitations, not a mental construct. No question there is a large degree of subjectivity due to individual variability to it so getting a precise value for any game is near impossible, but I think you can observe general ranges. And this makes some sense if you think about it. A Human can hit a 100mph fastball, but could any of us hit a 1,000,000 mph fastball? No, of course not. That would in fact be too difficult for a human to do, it doesn't matter what mental frame of mind you have, Your eyes and brain do not work fast enough to do that.

Games are designed by humans to be played by other humans with these limitations in mind. They also are usually tuned for a specific difficulty to be enjoyed by enough players to make the game economically viable. I had a friend once who failed a CS test once because the little minigame created was virtually impossible for a human to complete due to the AI having too many advantages.

I feel comfortable saying Getting Over it with Bennett Foddy is a more difficult game than say the The Walking Dead: Season 1. I think executing a super move in Street Fighter takes considerably practice and baseline skill than using an ability in Smash Brothers (though the skill ceilings at the competitive level play maybe much closer). Starcraft: Brood War is a more mentally taxing game than Kirby's Air Ride.

And I think if you polled players few would disagree with me. And I also think if you tested players you'd get hard results that would support that opinion. While there are certainly other important factors that undoubtedly heavily influence these numbers, consider these achievements as a cheap proxy instead of us actually commissioning a study

https://steamcommunity.com/stats/TheWalkingDead/achievements/

vs

https://steamcommunity.com/stats/240720/achievements/

In the TWD, ~39% of players cleared the game whilst in Getting Over it only about ~5% did.

(as a sidenote, I did not realize until this that devs could get custom URLs from Steam for their games).

Now those are obvious extreme examples from an admittedly very flawed data set, but the fact that there is that degree of variance is some evidence that difficulty is a tangible, measurable thing that I personally argue is at least partially determined in no small part by what a human body can perform.

anyhoo, that's my 2 cents. Fun topic. :)

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johnseminario

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I agree to an extent, I guess. Playing through Hollow Knight, I've hit multiple spots where I'll die during a boss fight and have to make my way all the way back to it. That doesn't feel difficult, it feels tedious. I have to learn the boss patterns and execute on them, and the frustration comes from having to make my way back each time.

At the same time, though, your argument feels a bit extreme. I don't think it's unfair to say that some games are just more difficult than others. The bigger problem, I think, is when people use that as shorthand for lack of anything interesting to say about something. "The Dark Souls of so-and-so."

Dark Souls is harder than a lot of other games out there, but a lot of that stems from the fact that people neglect to take it seriously. Demonstrating patience and restraint can go a long way in a game like that, it seems, but that kind of thing isn't really required when jumping into an Uncharted game.

I legitimately loved my time with Celeste and would recommend it to just about anyone. I think that game is hard, but I think it gradually ramps up in difficulty so well that you don't really notice it. And, like you said, I had so much fun with it that I was willing to bang my head against a particularly tough section.

So I don't really think it's fair to say that difficulty is a myth, but a lazy way to describe something and how it relates to both other games and a general audience.

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majormitch

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@slag: Hey Slag! Lot to digest here, apologies in advance if I bounce around. It is a fun topic though :)

I definitely agree with you that some things are impossible given biological and physical limitations: hitting a 1,000,000 mph fastball is not possible for humans. I can't fly, or breathe underwater, etc. But I think there is a distinction between difficult and impossible, and I'll stay within the realm of things humans can do. I am operating under the assumption that most people engaging in conversations on game difficulty are physically and biologically capable of handling a controller and playing games. I recognize there are disabled people, and they do have real limitations that may prevent them from completing certain game tasks. So the broader blanket is that within things that are possible, difficulty doesn't exist.

I also think most players would agree with you that some games are just harder than others, that's the conventional wisdom. I know I'm going against the grain here, and that's kind of the point of this one ;) To take you're example, I could very much argue that TWD Season 1 is a harder game than Getting Over It (I almost made that argument in the original draft, but between Getting Over It and FF15). Despite how hard people claim Getting Over It is, it took me 6 hours to finish my first run of that game. It took me over twice that long to finish TWD Season 1. I think it's very reasonable to say I had an easier time beating Getting Over It than TWD Season 1.

Which all circles back around to subjectiveness and definitions. I think how long it takes to beat a game is as reasonable a definition of difficulty as anything else. Usually we talk about "skill" needed, but that's also hard to measure and varies between players. Or we talk about number of times you died, but that's going to vary drastically between players for any given game. And I also don't think deaths inherently mean anything about difficulty. If I learn a mechanic through dying, I don't think that's any harder than learning the mechanic and not dying. I may have to replay something that I already did, but is that "hard?" It may be annoying to you (I don't like old stealth games for this reason), but that goes back to the "I just don't like those games" bit.

I think this is why you see lower completion rates- generally speaking people don't like Getting Over It as much as TWD Season 1, so more people stopped playing it before they finished. Or maybe there are even other spins you could put on that stat- I don't think any of this proves any direct correlation, people stop playing games for any number of reasons.

Finally, one last thing about those 2 games, if I were to unravel my experience with Getting Over It, and lay out my 6 hour run as a series of linear events (which will look different for different players), I don't think that series of individual steps would look any more daunting than TWD Season 1. We often get wrapped up in "losing progress" and "dying" and "replaying sections", but as mentioned, that can just be part of the process. I was always moving towards the end in Getting Over It, along my line I just laid out, even when I "failed" in the traditional sense. It may not be as obvious while you're playing the game, since you kind of have to unravel that line in your head, but in retrospect games are almost always easier when I look back on them.

Which brings us back to why I think it is all mental and subjective, and we could probably debate those definitions until the end of time. I know that's still not going to be agreeable to most people, and I probably sound like some weirdo zen nut job to some, but there it is :)

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majormitch

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@arbitrarywater: Dark Souls , or really Demon's Souls, was (no surprise) one of the games that started getting me to think about this stuff, and how all of it is so subjective and based on our collective cultural definitions. At the time Demon's Souls was simply labelled as "the hard game", and Dark Souls was even marketed with the tagline "Prepare to Die." Nowadays we've come to appreciate the actual good parts of the game past the supposed difficulty, to the point where many other games use those same mechanics and we don't talk about them just being "hard."

And Dark Souls did come out at a time where most AAA games were meant to be as non-frustrating as possible for everyone. Dark Souls kind of showed how boring those games were getting for a lot of people, and pushed its players (and arguably the medium at large) to grow. The struggles that came with it simply spurred that growth, one of the themes I was talking about.

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majormitch

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@johnseminario: I know I'm being a bit extreme :) That's kind of the point, and hopefully get people to think. Because you're totally right that we so quickly default to lazy language to describe things, and it bugs the living shit out of me. I know it's unrealistic, but I wish people would think about why they like or don't like games, instead of tossing out labels.

As for some of your other points, I kind of hit them in the post/other comments. I would argue that the tedium of going through sections you feel like you've already done (like in Hollow Knight) is more an indicator that you don't like the game, or at least parts of the game, than it's hard, which you also acknowledge to a degree. And where you mention patience and restraint being needed for Dark Souls but not Uncharted, I think that's again not a measure of difficulty. They're just different games, and you learn to play them differently, and that's going to click differently with different players. Again, all subjective. I have a hard time coming up with concrete definitions for any of this, which is why I think it largely is a mental/cultural thing.

But anyway, thanks for the response- this is a fun topic to discuss, I appreciate it!

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Slag

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@majormitch:

No worries, I'm good with bouncing around. Sorry it took a while to respond, I debated not doing do at all because I have a feeling this is going to be ultimately be one of those "agree to disagree" sorts of things because we are using pretty different mental frameworks here (yours seems to be considerably more philosophical than mine, which is fine but hard to reach common ground when using different approaches :) ). But heck why not, here goes.

Yeah I deliberately threw out a ludicrous example to at least establish that difficulty has some component that is biologically determined before moving on.

So let's take that ludicrous example I made and now make it more human scale relevant. I'd argue a 100mph fastball is much harder to hit than a 50 mph fastball consistently. Now to support this assertion of mine, we have the benefit of seeing it tested out constantly in real time by very determined individuals who do their utmost best to perform at the very limits of human ability in more or less equivalent meritocratic conditions. From watching 30 major league clubs, we know that their scouts highly value pitchers based upon fastball velocity. We also have data that shows that generally speaking when a pitcher's average fastball velocity drops below 94 mph, opponents' batting average tends to shoot up. So scouts have a solid rationale supported by extensive evidence for using this as an important selection criteria. And we know that hitters when they age and lose the reaction time to catch up to high fastballs, tend to suffer dramatic performance drops of their own, often exiting the game at the major league level altogether shortly thereafter. It is an excellent predictor of future non-success for position players. Thus fastball velocity not only is predictive of pitchers' success but of hitters as well.

From this I think we can safely conclude that difficulty exists in major league baseball determined largely by fastball velocity, only a select group of individuals are able to compete effectively at the highest level and of that group most of their careers ends in their 30's due to deteriorating physical ability induced by aging.

So how does that relate to gaming? Well gaming undoubtedly has a physical component to it (besides the more obvious mental component), certain games (like Street Fighter) demand the player hit certain buttons at a specific time. Often in concert or in sequence with others. As you noted some people have disabilities and can't perform certain tasks as well as their able bodied peers. But I think professional sports ( as well as other competitive endeavours) show us that even able-bodied competitors have a large amount of variation with their own natural capabilities, even when factoring in the skill improvements you can make from practice and conditioning. You can then apply this knowledge to gaming if you accept that it has physical component and I think it becomes apparent that claiming executing a HaDouKen is physically (not mentally necessarily) harder to successfully do than picking a dialogue choice out of a multiple choice field (not dunking on adventure games, they are some of my favorites to play).

P.s. I'm not trying to discount mental challenge (I.e. I think Myst is a tougher game than the Walking Dead too, because of the obtuse puzzle solving required to succeed). I just have less readily available examples to demonstrate that.

Like you I don't believe deaths are a good metric to evaluate difficulty but unlike you I personally don't think length is either. So I don't think TWD vs Bennett Foddy is fairly compare by length. And this makes sense if you think about it. A perfect run of TWD (no exploits, no skips) can probably never be completed faster than a perfect run of Foddy, just due to the volume of content that must be played.

The way I think you can measure difficulty best is by how long it takes to succeed at something the player intends to do versus how long it takes to do when executed successfully. And I think using success as a metric is more important than failures, because some games (again like Myst) don't fail you, they just don't let your progress any further until you succeed.

So I'd ask you, Do you really have an easier time beating Foddy than TWD? Do you think you had to exert less effort, burn less calories, make fewer attempts to clear the game? I'm not you so I can't tell you that TWD1 was physically harder than Foddy for you to execute, but I'd be shocked if it actually was. I certainly acknowledge it could be that way for you, and if you feel that is true for you ask yourself if you think that's true for the general population of gamers. I think we both know what the general consensus there would be.

Wher it gets tougher to evaluate is when you pick games of more equivalent styles. Is DMC4 harder than Bayonetta? Is Life is Strange harder than TWD1? or how about TWD2 vs 3? I dunno. And that is where I think difficulty becomes more of a subjective evaluation on a personal level than an empirical one (though I personally bet if you really really wanted to, you could probably measure some of those difficulty differences as well through an empirical study).

So that's my argument for my take on the matter. And you better believe I'll certainly use yours in my head as motivation whenever I try to play the next Souls game to keep myself going :)