“Set difficulty to unfair”

Games can be hard... very hard at times.And that's actually quite fine, in fact there are tons of people who love difficult games and there are many difficult games that are fun.

However a big problem is how this difficulty is achieved as in most cases it simply changes how unfair the game is towards you.

How is the difficulty in most games achieved?

Oftentimes it changes how much damage you do and how much damage enemies can take and dish out. In many it will change enemy spawns simply flooding you with opponents.

While those things make it more difficult I'd say it's often a “fake difficulty” as it mostly just makes the game unfair.

However there are examples of games that change difficulty in an interesting way.

Crysis for example, while also changing how much damage you can take (which still isn't a huge change as you can't take a lot to begin with) mostly changes the enemies AI. On lower difficulties they are not the smartest oftentimes just rushing you and easily tricked by your stealth mode.

On higher difficulty they behave much more tactical flanking your position and, when they observe you going invisible, will cover the area in machine gun fire and chuck grenades at your last seen direction.

Additionally your control in vehicles changes slight, on easy you can control a vehicle and its turret the same time but on higher you have to switch between them.

It pretty much demands you to act much more tactical as your opponents do so too. While you do take more damage on higher ones it still matters what and where you were hit and your opponents can't suddenly survive a head shot but won't go down easily from unaimed shots.

Also one I should mention is a Minecraft challenge map called “Super Hostile – Legendary” which was given the justified label of “Rom hack hard”. But still I'd say it's pretty much never “unfair” towards you despite being loaded with traps, enemy spawners and simple hair pulling hard areas (not to mention that it's recommended to play it on hardest difficulty for extra spice).

And why? Because it's Minecraft, you are the BOSS and in control. Pretty much any time you fail it was not because the game was unfair to you, it was because you didn't utilize the game right.

That is a part most of the difficult games miss, giving you actual CONTROL over the situation you're in.

Now on the issue of enemies dealing more damage many would likely say “it is more realistic as you can easily die in real life too due to injures”. However if an enemy can kill you with two hits to the knee while you can give them several shots in the head and chest and they don't even flinch the realism aspect is pretty void.

A point counting into this also is enemies that have infinite projectiles. An archer blocking your path can shoot hundreds of arrows your way despite only having a single quiver, the solutions often used are either nerfing the arrows so you can soak up a few hits or “you just have to be tough”. But again neither of those offers a real challenge, it simply balances the game unfair against you or makes the threat only exist when there's several archers in unreachable locations.

How much simpler could it be if that archer simply had a limited amount of arrows, he has 20 shots, you can evade him till he runs out and then has to confront you up close. Not only can the arrows in this case deal more realistic damage as there isn't an infinite arrow factory pumping them out, it also allows you the before mentioned control over the situation.

Improbable aiming skills of opponents should get a small side mention here too... don't make them all ace snipers, that simple.

And actually for a strange reason many people actually seem to want unfair/fake difficulty over actual challenge.

Especially in RPGs this seems to be the case. This is mainly tied into the whole leveling aspect, you start off extremely weak and die easily from a few hits while opponents take tons of hits to kill and with rising level this slowly shifts to your benefit, while you go from plankton to godlike.

To me this more seems like it starts out unfair and slowly you get to “cheat” your way around the unfairness rather than offering actual challenge. However I myself think that this is connected into the “fear” of realism which I covered before.

Personally I'd like to see more realism aspects brought into RPGs as well though simply as they can offer REAL challenge. For example locational damage, leveling and improvement can still help you along. A vicious guard dog will still offer the same challenge to you whether being on level 5 or 50, if it tears your throat out you're dead. However on level 50 you most likely have more skills of evading its attacks, defending yourself and better gear to protect yourself.

Like this enemies simply would not need artificial buffs and powerups simply to keep you challenged, the “low level” ones can still do that but you are simply better equipped to deal with it.

All in all I'd say the classic shifting damage system is not necessarily wrong but it does leave you somewhat “cheated”. There are a few better ways to deal with difficulty such as changes in AI and how some game mechanics function.

I think it could best be said as difficulty making opponents and environment behave more realistic but not into unreasonable or implausible levels. Like from missing very often to being reasonable shots that barely miss at close quarters but not to being able to snipe-kill you while running from an odd angle. Or from being killed by a single hit anywhere to requiring chest or head shots for reliable kills but not take a full magazine of machine gun fire to the chest and still stand.

Or to give a non shooter heavy example, an enemy in a jump n run game that is easy to hit on easy and can actually dodge you on higher difficulties but not to a degree that it can almost teleport out of any corner you push it in.