[Koji]

There has been some talk (now and in the IC days) about what I'm calling here backwards difficulty curve, which is a phenomenon happening in plenty of games, new and old. It can happen in two ways: in one, successive achievements will reduce the difficulty of the game as you progress (through upgrades to your character, or other such kind of reward,) and in the other, failing to play well will increase the difficulty, by punishing you in some form.

In the Platformer Theory! thread there has been some talk on this, regarding Megaman especifically. Baines put it this way:

[Mikey]

[hyouko]

Twilight Princess definitely has this. The game's pretty tough for the first few hours, when you only have 3 hearts. As you get more hearts, though, the enemy attacks don't scale proportionately, and fights against regular enemies become an (admittedly fun) cakewalk. I think the fights in the beginning were a bit more enjoyable because of this backwards difficulty curve - lots more was at stake from each enemy hit.

[Koji]

[Koji]

Regarding Zelda, I haven't played TP, but the ones I have played effectively maintain their difficulty throughout the whole game, progressively introducing stronger enemies that hurt Link more, balancing the extra hearts in his possession. Not even the last bosses feel any harder (or easier) than regular bosses from past dungeons. It is true, though, that the first dungeon is always where you have to be the most careful, but it is hardly ever frustrating, compared to some challenges further into the game.

[Mikey]

There's an odd thing in Lost Planet, sometimes there are cinematics in the middle of a level (I'm thinking of Level 7 right now) and although you are still in the same level, you suddenly get reduced to your basic mission loadout (1,000 units of thermal energy, machine Gun w/300 bullets, 10 hand grenades) no matter what you had before the cinematic. In short I think that's bullshit and has made sections of the game harder than they should have been. If I go through the trouble of hoarding rockets for the first half of a mission, I should sure as hell have them for the second half, plot-holes be damned.

Thief 3 is an interesting example. For the first few missions, despite fairly even difficulty progression, they become a little easier if you start earning lots of money from stealing things; this allows you to buy a lot of items/ammo which combined with some item hoarding, essentially turns you into a bit of a juggernaut by early-game standards. You become less reliant on stealth than you should be, in the context of the game mechanics. Suddenly you've got half a dozen sleeping-gas bombs, and getting past guards in areas that should be challenging becomes a walk in the park. However, in a few specific missions and situations, this is mitigated by the introduction of enemies which are more or less or beatable only by very specific means, so you become suddenly reduced to sneaking around again. If you graphed out the difficulty it would probably wind up looking like some sort of sinewave.

[Baines]

[mauve]

X-Com is a decent example of this. The only major upgrades the enemy ever gets are Chrysalids, Heavy Plasmas, and Psychic ability, and the former two come relatively early and the last one around mid-game. Meanwhile you're constantly beefing yourself up throughout the course of the game, with the only major stumbling blocks being either surprise psychic mutiny or fantastically hilarious group wipes. By the end of it you have a nigh-indestructible army of soldiers who can snap-shot at 100% accuracy across the length of the entire map while your tanks run around scouting for them and eating alpha strikes.

Nighttime is still terrifying, at least.

A lot of other strategy RPGs are similar, depending on how you play them. Both FFT and Tactics Ogre can be outright trivialized by certain powers, for example.

I tend to feel that it works better for games where it's logical and consistent with the game's premise for it to do so. Not necessarily in a "I'm killing stuff so I get more powerful hurr" sort of way. X-Com, there, for example, is more about catching up to the aliens and getting on an equal footing with them than it is about the ever-increasing numbers. Megaman, as not fond as I am about the design, is at least (mostly) consistent in premise as to its gameplay.

[Koji]

OK, first of all! I played some more Racing Gears, and I'd like to withdraw my original comment. It's not at all obvious at first, but it turns out that any upgrades that you buy for your car are recorded for the next time you play, so you do earn something through sorely losing the first few races, and championships. I might almost go as far as saying that this setup is genius. Almost.

Anyway, Baines... I still consider Megaman to be an exception, because it's a game designed to be replayed several times, to create a strategy and to learn slowly what is the best order to follow. Basically, through trial and error you figure out that Heat Man can't be tackled without first beating Air Man (or whomever,) which will give you Item-2, and so forth.

And regarding your appreciation of open-endedness in the light of this topic, I think that RPGs embrace the principle of doing things easier for the player, but in the way that, if the player tries hard enough (i.e. grinds,) he will level up and get strong enough to overcome any obstacle, regardless of his ability. You know what? I think that just recording any experience gained since the last save point to the moment of death, instead of wiping any progress made, would render RPGs grind-less, since you'd only need to fight X enemy enough times to eventually get powerful enough to beat him, instead of going 'damn, I need to go kill some more monsters to go up some extra levals.'

There is a different design issue related to difficulty, but that I think has a place here nonetheless, which is 'Gradius syndrome.' I say Gradius because it's the first game that I can think of that has this problem most marked, but there are plenty of other examples. In the game you collect power ups, which are stacked one upon the other, so you eventually become very powerful, and the game becomes easier. But if you get hit you lose everything you collected, so you need to do with a terribly slow ship amid bullet fireworks going off everywhere, and on top of that you're going out of your way to collect red power-ups. So suddenly, by a tiny mistake, you will probably waste several lives trying to rebuild your lost power. The most broken examples of games that have this design issue might even contain dead-ends, and while I'm sure I know at least one such example, I can't get it off the tip of my tongue.

[Baines]

Actually, with trial and error you can pass the disappearing blocks without Item-2. You just need an adequate combination of talent, patience, and memory. (I don't recall if it pulled any really dirty tricks that guaranteed a death on the first try.)

More so, you face a similar situation in Wily's castle while chased by the dragon, and you cannot rely on Item-2 (or any other item) to navigate that run.

Quick Man's stage is similar in theme. It is much easier to navigate with Flash Man's Flash Stopper. But you can also learn the path with patience, or just extremely good reflexes and ability to comprehend a screen layout quickly. Indeed, you actually get a form of reward if you have the Flash Stopper and don't use it on the lasers, as a full Flash Stopper will take about half of Quick Man's life.


The "best order" thing became something that arguably grew into the franchise, as Capcom played with damage levels, items, and special abilities.

The Megaman 1 loop could be started almost as easily with Bomb Man as it could with Cut Man. The biggest benefit to starting with Cut Man is that Cut Blade made Elec Man trivial, and Elec Beam offered vertical fire. (Bombs on the other hand weren't that great, nor was the follow-up Guts ability, and if you continued the loop you then went to Cut Man anyway.) You could try to start the loop anywhere, though it took more skill on some of the other paths.

I think Nintendo Power suggested you start Megaman 2's loop with Air Man, even though Metal Man would become the popular choice (due to the sheer usefulness of Metal Blade). You could also start okay with Bubble Man, but Bubble Lead was more useless than Air Shot. Flash Man fell okay to the regular gun, but again you get an issue of not much good coming from it (Flash Stopper had limited uses, most of which were in Quick Man's stage) or from its follow-up (Quick Boomerang wasn't that great either.) Wood Man was possible, but Wood Shield's main use was probably cheesing the birds in Air Man's stage for extra lives.

[Moogs]

Lost in Blue?

[hyouko]

[Hot Stott Bot]

[Hot Stott Bot]

[DarwinMayflower]

In an age where power-ups seem to be relied upon more and more, I have to say that Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga was kind of refreshing in the sense that the powerups or in this case the enchanced moves and avoiding tactics were actually required to play the game efficiently. It's like if you didn't put any effort in maximizing the effectiveness of the movies, you are just playing the game at 30% effectiveness. This is opposed to most games of when you use the powerups, you probably are working at 150% effectiveness.

Even worst if you decided not to bother with avoiding enemy attacks and just get hit, you probably end up wasting a lot of time on getting health items or using them during the battle. This isn't so much the backwards difficulty curve that we are discussing, but I brought it up because I thought it was a neat way for people to be forced to play the game on somewhat of a level that the gaming hardcore of SM: RPG (i.e. jumping 100 times to get a shell) in order to naturally progress through Superstar Saga.

[alice]

I second that TP notion. Windwaker actually balanced things out, and then, on top of all that, you had the cave. TP really failed miserably at making things difficult later on. It's just not. At least they threw in the cave.

[BenoitRen]

[Baines]

But Wind Waker was "balanced" by everything (except the cave) being easy. Getting more hearts and healing didn't change much because you weren't really in that much danger before you got them anyway.

[Koji]

[Cryo]

You can get a whole extra life if you do it without Item-2! I know, not that great of a prize.
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[haircute]

[SplashBeats]

Border Down?

[Mr Stegosaurus]

Don't you want a difficulty curve to be a bit uneven anyhow? You want a bit of a roller coaster, keep it interesting. Besides, following the weapon weakness chain in a Mega Man game is like grinding in an RPG or collecting 100 lives in stage 2 of Mario 3 -- it's for people who like to be bored.

[haze]

Most of the challenge in Megaman was getting through the stages, anyway. after Megaman 2, very few of the weapons were very useful on their own outside a boss fight.

(though I believe they started making the bosses harder intentionally, to the point where they're almost impossible without the right weapon. ah well.)

[luvcraft]

the entire survival horror genre is all about the backwards difficulty curve; if you use up all your healing stuff and ammo at the beginning, you're not going to make it to the end, and conversely if you're really stingy and keep lots of crap until the end the game then it's usually a breeze.

[Talbain]

Other than games that come from the arcade (shooters, platformers, beat-em-ups, fighters, etc.), I'd say most games have backwards difficulty curves. RPGs generally become easier as you get more party members, action/adventure as you get more items, life, etc., and FPS games as you get better guns. Any game that really "builds" the character as you go along can't really be said to have a forwards difficulty curve unless the function gained is novel; because everything before the point at which you gain the ability becomes much easier.
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[shnozlak]

Id like to suggest that the entire concept of a set difficulty curve is kinda of a problem. Okay, so I learned this new skill found this gun, ect. But imagine if your RPG character grew up in a town surrounded by level 20 monster. This is one of these issues that forces a gap between the game as a simulation or representation of a story and a game as a rule/number system.

should the game build evenly? I dunno. The issue of it going the other way could just be a representation of the hero becoming used to his role as the hero. Personal growth ect. Legend Of Zelda is a good example. Evenly building could represent the idea of getting closer to the heart of the enemy strong hold though it also means that the avatar isn't learning?

Growth in a game is a serious issue, players want to progress not just in terms of incrementing the stage number but in terms of character's strength. old enemies = easy enemies ect. So you get locked in the unending power up cycle.
A semi-solution is tactical changes. RPG's, tactical ones most especially tends to feature an increasing array of tactical options as you progress, new spells, new effects ect. In this way the curve is pushed by means of necessary tactical understanding. However this can be bypassed by finding a place where healing is free and then spending hours walking back and fourth fighting random battles. Pre-planning on the part of the player actually ruins the planned curve in this instance, however when designers attempt to predict things like power leveling we get the issue of the out of the blue very hard boss beast, who isn't tactically harder than he might be he just has really big numbers.

The curve can also be warped in games where the player uses the game elements in unforeseen ways. EX: Vanish-Doom:FF6, screen warping :Links awakening, sniping with the magnum:Half Life 2.

I suppose the question is: when dose it work? not: when dose it fall down?
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[Talbain]

In what sense do you mean when does it work? Structure wise, there's never been a game where you can play it first with a backwards difficulty curve, and then with a forward one. So the simple answer would be to say that it works in any game it's applied to, because both have never been applied to a game. Well, that's not entirely accurate. It should be said that both have never been applied to a game in an effective manner, such that the curve steepening or falling changes the experience itself.
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[alice]

I think this thread is becoming a bit misleading:

We seem to be making too much of an example of megaman; Yes, it is true that most games will feature powerups later on that make the game easier, but name one game that doesn't also progressively become harder as you play on. Oh wait, yes, megaman. But that's why megaman might not be entirely applicable to this discussion. As mentioned (and I've never really played megaman myself), mcuh of megaman is finding the best order to play through the game.

I think i just repeated what someone else said in better more eloquent way. My bad :P.

[Koji]

Just to clear the misunderstanding that any game that rewards the player with new power-ups or whatever has a backwards difficulty curve:

A proper difficulty curve, from a traditional standpoint, is one that challenges the player to the same degree throughout the whole game. This means that the game is very easy at first, when the player is only getting acquainted with the controls, and it escalates from there, constantly staying a bit ahead of the player's abilities, so that he always feels the tension of having to one-up his abilities in order to overcome new obstacles. It's not necessarily the only way to make a fun game, though, but the opposite situation (a game that unfairly challenges the player first, and later becomes a cakewalk) is certainly a way to bore the player, unless there is something to lure him along, like an interesting plot.

And regarding what Mr Stegosaurus said, about a 'rollercoaster'-type difficulty design: Purposefully uneven difficulty progression is risky, because it causes the flow to stagnate, and frustrates the player when the difficulty is too high for his abilities. Nevertheless, valleys in the difficulty could be related to bonus stages or some other kind of relaxing moment, and might be a good practice with very intense games, like more arcadey stuff.

[Talbain]

[inmatarian]

I like the way Disgaea handled the difficulty curve. Each new chapter saw a major ramp in the enemy level. It was up to you to keep up.
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2993 badness blog email

[Baines]

[alice]

baines, the paragraph is only powerful if used in moderation.

Of course, I don't let content impair my judgment. I'll go read your post now.

[Baines]

The original three large paragraphs looked worse.

HTML isn't always friendly to text layouts, not without serious tag use.

[Intentionally Wrong]

I like inserting additional line breaks between major topical shifts, myself.




Aren't most Zeldas a good example of this?
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JSNLV is frequently and intentionally wrong.

[Koji]

I realized that Ridge Racer Type 4 is a good example of a game that gets it right. If you perform poorly but well enough to advance in a race, you'll get a new car that's only slightly faster than the one you were using before, and your oponents will get similar (not very dramatic) upgrades. In racing games, a large part of the difficulty comes from the speed; Mario Kart games make this very clear. So under this setup, the game is penalizing you by not giving you the cooler car, but the challenge is kept fair by not incrementing the difficulty too much, more than you can handle, through making the overall race slower than it would've been. It goes a long way into making this game one to play and enjoy, never to be frustrated by it.

[Talbain]

I dunno. Somehow the idea of opponents scaling leads to a lack of a sense of accomplishment, or want thereof. The MMO is basically an extreme example of this, where your opponents have the ability, in most cases, to scale themselves to a point that they're unreachable, creating a sort of gap between players. Removing the gap altogether, such that one doesn't really exist in the first place, would seem a bit more enamoring to me, except that the way it's done in Ridge Racer 4 is by having everything scale. I'd rather play against AI that plays smarter, not against AI that's continually "matched" against my abilities.
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[Koji]

But, see, it's all contextual. It's like 'here's the deal kid, looks like we didn't have enough time to finish up a new car, so you get this souped up version of your old one instead; but be careful, I hear the other racers got similar upgrades.' You're not being told that things are shrinking, you're told this is how it is. You take what you're given and race the other guys to your best ability, knowing that you all face similar chances, and it's all down to the technique. It's a pretty exciting way of developing a narrative!