[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:

[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.

[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.

[Koji]

[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.

[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.

[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!