Games

A lot of games allow you to adjust the difficulty mid game. I've played several games on "ultra masochist hard" only to lower the difficulty for the bullshit final boss (looking at you Kena).

Around 2010, I remember this game studio sharing a innovative technique of game design where as people failed a boss battle, the game would slowly make the battle easier.

Some companies ran with it. Nintendo gives you extra help if you die multiple times in a level. Where some studios do it more behind the scenes. For example - giving you a bit more ammo. Or slowing the boss down a little more. I can't remember the game, but they have a feature where a boss can't one-shot you. And they give you more of that buff the more you die, so it "feels fair".

Depending on the game I'd even do the opposite.

I don't care for the 20th fight against bandits to be hard - but a boss should feel like more of a challenge and take more time to finish.

I agree. I honestly hate boss battles. I love playing video games on hard mode, but for some reason boss battles have never filled my soul with joy or given me a sense of satisfaction when I'm done. They just irritate me. I definitely have games where I'm on the hardest difficulty for normal game play and then right before every boss battle I'm going into settings changing the difficulty to story mode so I can knock them down in 5 hits and move on with the game.

I've come to firmly believe that all games should have an invulnerability setting for the sake of accessibility. It's probably one of the easier settings to implement for most games and it would have the most impact for the wide range of accessibility needs out there.

That is a question where the answer is very complex. You'd have to break down different game design philosophies, think them through, and then apply them to specific games.

In general, I have two gut reactions:

1. If players are desiring to change the difficulty of the bosses compared to the rest of the game, the devs have to ask if there is a failure of design on their part. An example of this would be Dues Ex Human Revolution, which was an immersive sim that supported many different character builds, except the boss fights which were entirely based on combat. This created a frustrating and unfair situation to players not making a combat built character. The solution was that the boss fights were completely redesigned in the Director's Cut release to support alternate builds. This is one example, but naturally there are many more. If a game has a "that boss", the devs should look at it and examine if there is a problem with the design. Is a battle too comparatively difficult? Too tedious? Only suitable for certain builds (in games with builds)? Is the battle too much of a departure from standard gameplay in the rest of the game?

2. A popular game is going to get mods. If there is a strong desire in the player base, the mod is going to happen regardless of dev stubbornness, so devs may as well just give the people what they want. If a game is praised but has outcry for boss difficulty sliders, either put it in officially or incorporate it into the sequel.

Yeah that's relatable.

#Adultgamers

Super Mario Bros Wonder threads this needle expertly, in my opinion.

Each level has a difficulty rating from 1 to 5 stars with 1 being easiest and 5 being "Mario Hard."

To complete the main story, you only really need to beat mostly the easier levels, like difficulty 1-3 stars. All other levels are really optional, but there are a lot of them, and they are the 4-5 stars level difficulty.

So the "main game" by default should be "easy enough" for most gamers, and for those who want a challenge, there are tons of extra challenges for them to pursue.

I think I prefer this to a "difficulty setting" because it allows both casual and hardcore gamers to approach the same game in different ways. It doesn't make you feel like you are missing anything from either way you choose to play. It also allows you to practice the harder levels if you want to get better.

Some games like Halo, if I recall correctly, literally rewarded you with special cutscenes for the hardest difficulty in beating the game. That can leave players who "aren't good enough" for such high difficulty to feel a bit left out.

I don't feel the same about Super Mario Bros Wonder, it just feels pretty accessible to all and I think more companies need to attempt something similar.

I prefer games that use reactionary difficult (idk what the proper term is) where the difficulty changes based on how well you do.

Kicking too much ass? Here's more enemies and they hit harder.

Getting gangbanged at every turn? Fewer enemies and they're easier to kill.

This seems like the best way to make sure everyone playing has a fun experience

Sure, I'm generally in favour of more options when feasible. Hell, if someone wants to skip 90% of a single player game, more power to them. Hell, any non-competitive online game too, though I doubt many publishers would consider not charging extra for it…

Fuck before even that, they should fix and put and easy mode on all games. Why can't the lazy devs even to fkin that for accessibility.

I think my preference would be to have the game offer to reduce the difficulty temporarily after failing or offer other forms of support to make the boss encounter easier. If I selected Hard then I probably want the challenge of Hard, but if this difficulty spike is too much, then smoothing it out could be acceptable.

This is also ideally in addition to a way to adjust the difficulty mid-game as needed, of course.

I wouldn't mind but I also maybe wouldn't use it. Even though I'm with you. Boys fights are fine set pieces but not really my favorite part most the time. I've had ribs of fun with with ring and DS3, but what I like about then is the setting, exploration, and tension moving from bonfire to bonfire.

I'm stubborn though and would have a hard time convincing myself that it's ok to decrease the difficulty and not cheating/missing out on the intended game.

To me this seems like solving the wrong problem. Ever since Souls, too many games get obsessed about making their boss encounters challenging but making the main level gameplay just tedious filler. AC6 missions often feel like that. Imho the correct action is to refine the gameplay and figure out your core loop, instead of having massive difficulty spikes.

This is the gameplay equivalent of the "Whisper and Explosion" problem.

Would be nice if there was a dynamic difficulty that constantly changes based on how well your performing. You can always have a hard fought and be victorious but just barely to have a great experience. Would need a different implementation to have some penalty or reduce reward for not performing well so you will be motivated to try your best. Although properly implementing that is definetely a difficult task but seems possible enough to hope for. The closest thing I can imagine is hades that gradually increases damage resistance each time you die and I really like that implementation for a rougelike. I am someone who likes a bit of challenge but will definitely lose interest if I have to repeat something multiple times. Hades is an exception as each runs varies a lot but soulslike game that you have to try multiple times to learn and defeat a boss is a massive turn off for me.

I'd like to skip them all together. They are often gimmicky and tiresome.

Yeah, also a way to skip certain missions in older GTA games. I usually play games on easy because I have a low tolerance for frustration. Hence, I tend to avoid souls-likes, etc, although I would love to play them.

Totally depends on the game. Some games, like Ratchet and Clank Size Matters, yes for the final boss. Games like Brok The InvestiGator, no because I found the combat easy on the hardest difficulty.

I did this with Ghosts of Tsushima. I played on hard mode but when I dueled against other samurai I often dropped to easy mode after getting destroyed fifteen or twenty times

I have the opposite issue, so yes. I don't particularly enjoy having to constantly pay attention to every enemy, but I enjoy learning a boss fight for an hour or two. I've also played a few games where dealing with random enemies felt harder than dealing with bosses due to sheer numbers, and it would help with that too.

So I don't think it's really a design problem. If you know exactly what you want your game's experience to be, then don't add it. But I'd argue for most games it isn't integral to the experience how the difficulty of normal mobs vs bosses compares, and people have different preferences for it.