Why difficulty shouldn't be an obstacle

Strict punishments for mistakes is an aspect of difficulty. You make one mistake and you're punished you make another and you're punished more severely. Punishment is frequent. repetition is needed; persistence is needed for the understanding of esoteric stat screens, items' use, locations, enemy location and attack pattern, and riddled dialogue. All of these aspects coalesce into a hard or "difficult" game.

Dark Souls is a difficult game because it punishes you. It's a difficult game because it's esoteric. It's a difficult game because it requires persistence. It's a difficult game for all of these reasons.

@foxhound_fox

1) Well its unfair because you're not on Equall playing fields, you can't prepare for something you don't know anything about. I've heard time and time again that every death in Dark Souls is your own fault, well tell me how fair it is exploiting my lack of knowledge to kill me ? Running around testing everything for danger is a stupid way of learning.... I know this because even rats can do it, In fact with a few minor alterations a rat could beat Dark Souls too.

2) Yeah Already knew that. So if your Soul Level doesn't matter then could I invade someone with crappy equipment ?

3) Again, Dark Souls exploits what you don't know so its about as fair as me poisoning your drink and not telling you.

4) Yeah, Thats a load of Crap, That description they give you is kinda vague and amibigous and what good is it to if I don't what enemies I'l be facing ?

Dark Souls is all about Knowledge and Memorization, which would be fine if wasn't Trial and Error and wasn't Artificially Difficult.

@Lulu_Lulu: By exploiting the unkown, I'm assuming you mean when entering an area you don't know where enemies are placed, what there attacks are, and where secrets are placed? This is an element of games in general not just dark souls. If you want to know something before you do it, use a guide. It's very simple.

@Minishdriveby

Let me put it like this, Super Mario is a fairly easy game, more or less, yet its very punishing, if you slip up its back to the beginning.

Prince Of Persia reboot is a fairly Challenging game and if you slip up, you get pushed back ever so slightly.

Difficulty is the Obstacle thats in front of you, whether you fail or Succeed, Punishment is a Condition only for Failure.

Dark Souls is only difficult if you die. but even then, repeating crap that you've already mastered just to reach the part that you haven't is not difficult, its tedious. Hence why its more Punishing than it is Dark Difficult. You may also call it Unforgiving. Dark Souls needs you to die and will use every dirty trick from the Artificial Difficulty text book to Make sure that happens !

Let me simplify my point. Difficulty is the Conditions for Success, Punishing is the Conditions for Failure.

The only people who think these are interchangeble are people who use death as a measuring stick.

Theres a bunch of other words the people use interchangably that are just wrong. Would you like to see my list ?

@Minishdriveby

Yes but its an Element that we've been Trying to get rid of because thats not a proper way to learn anything. Which is why other games don't impliment Punishment of Dark Soul's magnitude. Have you ever play a Puzzle game ? Theres a term, called "Brute Force Solution" and its one of the biggest design sins of any game that requires some level of thinking. Thats how computers break Encryptions, by guessing all the number combonations until they find the right one, thats how the lightbulb was invented, by failing at it 999 times. Anybody can fail untill they succeed, but I think its very insulting that developers would treat us like labrats. I like to believe our intelligence permits us to solve problems without failing at them 50 times over. We're human beings God Damnit ! We can Do anything !

1. Equal playing fields? Play a sports game. Action-adventures and RPG's are about overcoming the odds stacked against you. If you don't have the patience to be careful and advance slowly, why do you even try to play most games? You should just stick with Call of Duty, where you can sit behind cover and still beat the level.
2. Yes, you could. Your point? Most red phantoms are going to be very highly-powered compared to anyone just starting. Getting past The Four Kings is a challenge. Doing it at SL5-10 is a test of pure will and mettle.
3. Read a guide if you are lost. All the info is in the game, you just have to read it and understand it.
4. You'll know what kind of enemies you'll be facing if you walk into an area and get killed by them. Please, name a game where you get foreknowledge of the enemies you will be facing in the next area.

Trial and error is not a negative thing. It's a learning process and inherent to the type of game it is. Artificial difficulty? HAHA. Read a guide. Get better. Be more patient. READ THINGS.

Dark Souls is the epitome of balanced and fair. Period.

Mastered. LOL

Even at my prime, when I was able to beat Ornstein and Smough and the Four Kings at SL5 and SL10 respectfully, I still got killed every once in a while by the zombies on the stairs right after the Firelink Shrine. Everyone who has played Dark Souls any number of hours has. There is no "mastering" the game. It's about mastering oneself, and perfecting skills, memorization, reaction time and physical responses to on-screen action.

And we all know that a human being, no matter how good they are, are never perfect.

Difficulty is not a condition attributed only to success. Something can be difficult if you fail. In fact failure is almost guaranteed at some point as it's part of the learning process. I wasn't able to beat Vexx for the PS2 for almost 10 years. I would call it difficult and frustratingly hard.

If you pull out your thesaurus; you'll see that a synonym for punishing is difficult and another synonym is hard.

I disagree with the notion that Dark Souls is only difficult if you die. While dying sets you back the combat, dodging, blocking, and maneuvering take skill, learning, and patience. Another difficult aspect of the gae is the narrative which requires research and interpretation.

"______ is only difficult if you die. but even then, repeating crap that you've already mastered just to reach the part that you haven't is not difficult, its tedious."

This statement can be used for any game. It's not exclusive to Dark Souls.

How are they insulting your intelligence? If anything they're allowing us the opportunity to learn for ourselves instead of giving a clear cut solution. Trial and error isn't a bad thing; it's fundamental to problem solving and learning. If something doesn't work the first time, try something else. Trial and error opens the mind to new ideas and new problem solving methods. Trial and error isn't the antithesis of critical thinking skills.

What games do you find hard or difficult?

What puzzle games don't involve trial and error?

@foxhound_fox
@Minishdriveby

You're convincing a guy who never played the game and isn't ever going to... don't bother

This isn't even about the Souls series. This is more about the concept of the term "difficult" or "hard" now.

@foxhound_fox

1) Action games are About overcoming the Obstacles stacked against you not the odds, RPGs are about building and defining a character usually by meaningless Numbers, Adventure games.... I don't know exactly.

If the odds are against you then you lose... Pure and simple, you over come those odds by evening them out, After Learning from dying and having the equipment.... In other word theres no odds against you anymore. Which is kinda stupid. I've never stuck to Call of Duty in the 1st place. And cover is very important, feel free to overcome the odds by getting shot in the face, standing out in the open.

2) My point ? Really ? I think you need to explain to me what balance means since you clearly have your own definition for it.

3)Bad Game Design.

4)Dead or Alive :)

Trial and Error is a negative thing whether its inherent to anything or not. Nobody wants to learn by Trial and Error, we do it only if we have to, go ask any man or woman of Science. Everybod welcomes a solution to a problem that doesn't involve failure whether its an out of control bus hurtling towards you in Real Life or Just having fun in a Video Game. Thats what normal non-masochistic people want. I don't even know why you bother with Dark Souls.... You'd have more fun if you just set yourself on fire.... Thats fair right ? By your standards I'm assuming thats fair.

Games annoy me if they are too easy, knowing you can just die because you reappear in the last same point you were 5 sec ago ruins the experience, in souls games i like because i have to be careful, learn the moves, and beat hard bosses instead of staying in there receiving a thousand hits like they were nothing.

multiple difficulty options are a joke, they usually only involve more hp and attack for monsters and never touch game mechanics.

@foxhound_fox

Hey even masters screw up from time to time, I still die in Bayonetta in Normal Mode despite beating it on Infinite Climax mode. But Dark Souls is not a physically taxing, its actually quite slow, or it is atleast to me, since I enjoy games that place Mastering Mastering mechanics over Crunching Numbers and "Being Cautious" at everything that casts a shadow. In terms of Gameplay its average, the mechanics are quick and easy to learn and the enemies have no intelligence beyond killing you with one hit. The rest is just Memorizing Everything and Micromanagement.

The odds for rolling a 6 with dice is 1:5. The odds are stacked against me. I still rolled a six. Just because the odds are against you doesn't mean you cannot overcome them.

I work in a phylogenomics lab. What is your proposal to learning if not by trial and error?

Also you didn't answer my previous two questions.

@Minishdriveby

Like I said. It was just a simplification, theres alot more to difficulty.

"Something can be difficult if you fail. In fact failure is almost guaranteed at some point as it's part of the learning process."

Yes it is... Its also piss poor game design, infact Trial and Error is terrible everywhere it is implimented, its Extremely forbidden in Maths, its Next to useless in Language and is bordeline Tedious in games. Your Brain can do a whole lot better than Trial and Error.

You're righ about Dark Soul's Though, the actual gameplay mechanics do require skill to master, just not alot of it, its slow and simple. You can learn them in 5 minutes and Master them in 5 Hours. The rest is memorization.

"This statement can be used for any game. It's not exclusive to Dark Souls."

Yeah it kind is, other games have this amazing top of the line, cuttting edge innovation called Saving.

"Trial and error opens the mind to new ideas and new problem solving methods."

I totally agree, however Dark Souls doesn't elevate to higher levels of Critical Think, you learn by failing..... The End !

As for what I find hard or difficult. Fighting Games, Racing Games (DiRT3 Forza), Devil May Cry type Action Games and many others, many of which revolve around Reflexes and Dexterity.

As for a Puzzle game that Doesn't Require Trial and Error, I nominate Portal 2. I got through most of the game with "Failing" in the traditional sense.

It's definitely not forbidden in math. That's how you learn math. Practice problems. Trial and Error. I think you're confusing learning with being evaluated. During a test the information should already be known you're not learning in that situation. It's also important in learning languages. For example, you tried to say hard/difficult/punishing are not interchangeable and I showed you the error of your ways by pulling out the thesaurus on my shelf. Creative writing is very trial and error centric.

And once again every game has piss poor game design because every game has trial and error design, especially DMC and Bayonetta.

Dark Souls saves after almost every action.

You learn by trial and error in portal 2 as well along with the poorly designed search for a white walls in an obscure location to shoot a portal, but that's not a puzzle that's exploration. I'm sure there were test chambers that you didn't understand to do the moment you walked in.

Lulu seems to like the fast twitch type action games.

There's nothing wrong with that other than those games being poorly designed as defined by Lulu_Lulu. Learning basic cues of when to dodge, block, and the sequence of button timing needed to perform combos all come down to trial and error.

@Minishdriveby

If you want to Gamble then do it in a Casino like a normal human being.... Atleast if you win there you win actuall money.

Actually you learn by Trying something and observing the effect, whatever the result is, record it without bias. The outcome is to learn and so its not really Trial and Error. However if you're hoping for a specific result then yeah, you're bad phylogenomolist even if your trial and error does produce the right outcome. Its extremely in effecient.

@Minishdriveby

I don't know What school you went to but I didn't learn Maths by getting things wtong until I got them right. You can't Memorize Mathematics you have to understand exactly how it works, in an Exam you don't get problems that you solved before, atleast I didn't. Thats a terrible way to learn maths.

Yeah but in DMC and Bayonetta you don't have to replay an entire section because you didn't know that the boss could Instakill you or break through your defenses or straight up come out of no where and end you.. Infact, good game design compensates for Trial and Error by not Punishing you Excessively for it. thats why they have tutorials and start you off with easy enemies at 1st, You learn by Trial and Error AT NO COST. Like I said, nobody actually likes it, we do it if we have to, as a last resort. If you have the oppertunity to avoid it minimize it then do so immediately ! Don't even hesitate or worry about "Hand Holding" and being "hardcore", just do it.

Lulu wants to use gaming as this training for his reflexes or hand to eye coordination or something. Like if he doesn't feel like he's 'getting something out of it', it's a waste of time.

Meanwhile we're all just relaxing having fun playing, and not over thinking shit. (well some of us anyways)

I like me some fast twitch games sometimes too, btw. Was just playing God Hand actually.

@bussinrounds

Uhm.... He asked which games I thought were difficult not which games I like in general.

I'l play anything from board games to trivial pursuit. Chess is also challenging but believe or not thats not a completely fair game either.

The only games I don't play are Sports, like real life Athletic Sports, unless you want to count that time I played Hop Scoch with the girls. That was fun.

@Minishdriveby

oh yeah I almost forgot. Portal 2 definately was not Trial and Error, theres two sections of the game that were messed up though, The Turret Production Centre and the Camera Puzzle in the co-op campaign, those were Trial and Error. The rest of the game is simple, walk into test chamber, find the exist, examine all the puzzle objects and devices then come up with a Solution, Trial and Error doesn't even actually work in Portal 2, theres no ambiguity about the rules of the game, they are very clear, I could easily rule out which actions I shouldn't perform. I picked up this whole not learning by Trial and Error thing from Adventure games, Specifically in LA Noire, although you can brute force your way through the game, it really is not reccomended, I mean thats not fun at all.

I think LuLu's general point about punishment not equaling difficulty is valid since it can be used simply to arbitrarily extend the time it takes to do something, but it can also be used to add meaningful challenge and I think that's mostly what's going on in Dark Souls. Games like bayonetta (which fyi is currently my favourite game) that have frequent checkpoints are far easier than they would be otherwise because you don't need to reach a level of skill at which you can succeed consistently, and some games take this to such an extreme that every small flukish success moves you on without any need for skill, but it's a hard balance to get right even without accounting for differences in taste since repeating a section can quickly start to feel like wasted time once you've got the hang of it.

Also, I don't like them that much and haven't completed either demon or dark souls, but playing them I pretty much never felt that I died simply because I didn't know what to expect. Knowing what to expect helps a lot but it's not like you die every single time you encounter a new enemy or get caught in an ambush.

@Splatted

I did.... I died everytime, everywhere, oh don't get me wrong, I'm not crazy bastard or anything like that, heard Dark Soul's was a skilled based game so I deliberate initiated combat with anything that moved just to see for my self. And I died, but I was definately not in adequate, my character was though.... I'm pretty skillful yet I died anyways.

Well, then Miyazaki has got his definitions wrong. And you should use quotation marks. :-P The only games you could consider masochistic (if you use a broad definition, in which you look beyond physical pain and humiliation) are games like tetris, which have no ending (you can only end a game by losing). But they work around it by using scores, which can be seen as goals (and therefore as something that can be achieved or overcome). I don't think tetris would work for anyone if it didn't have a scoring system. In the end the majority wants to overcome obstacles (no matter how hard, punishing and/or unfair) and if they feel they can't overcome them, they'll stop playing. If you really want to apply masochism to videogames, then all gamers are masochists.

@loafofgame

Well I don't remember exactly how he said it, I was just Paraphrasings.

Also the actually have term for a game like Tetris, its Called a Negative Sum game, All Survival Based games use Negative Sum Design, games in which which you never actually win. however Dark Souls, Unlike Tetris, Dark Soul's does have an End Game. also Tretis shows you each piece thats coming next so theres no nasty surprizes, Tetris also doesn't have Stat Based gameplay, the blocks don't have number crunching RPG Elements, its simply Shapes and Spaces and Reflexes..... I love Tetris infact I didn't really care about the scoring system since I was convinced that there was an ending and I was determined to reach it.

The Scoring System presents a problem of its own, infact Achievements, Scores and Leveling Up are all part of the same problem that revolves around exploiting the human condition of Progress and Gratification. They use or miss use scores, Achievements and Leveling Up not as tool to Quantify your Skill but as a tool to manipulate your behavior.

Its why I don't like RPGs, I'm far more susceptibla to their manipulation than most people.

http://plebegaming.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/the-struggle-why-i-love-the-souls-series/

There has never been a legit cheap death in a Souls game's PvE. Virtually every single enemy or trap is foreshadowed. The handful that aren't have been positioned in such a manner that they appear and give the player ample time to react before truly going on the offensive. If you exercise caution and observation, nothing will ever get the better of you in a Souls game through anything other than player error.

What if the solution you come up with is wrong? What if you mistime a jump? What if you don't gain enough momentum because the portal you placed wasn't high enough to shoot you out to the next platform? These all take trial and error. You may not get a fail state/game over screen but trial and error doesn't have to lead to a game over.

Let me show you a screen shot of the puzzle game I just finished, like portal there is no ambiguity in the rules. All puzzles actually have the same goal, turn the tiles all one color within the limited number of moves. You can click the 4 selected colors below and click on any color tile. Any tile of the same color adjacent to the tile you clicked will turn into the color you selected. Those are the rules, please solve this puzzle within 7 moves on your first try, and to ensure you're not using a trial and error process you must also complete this by clicking the tile that first pops into your head. You cannot think about tile placement because thinking "if I place this color here... wait no that wouldn't work, I should use this color on this other tile instead." is trial and error, just in the form of a thought experiment.

You begin to understand by trying. Learning concepts by practicing. If you get something wrong then you obviously don't understand the concept and you try again. If you can understand the concept then you can apply it to different situations. Trial and Error doesn't always mean complete lack of critical thinking skills; it does't always mean repetition. Trial and Error allows for innovation and ingenuity. It is needed to some degree for insightful learning--the type of learning I think you're trying to refer.

But it can be an option, games can still have challenging difficulties without changing the game. The games back in the day weren't by design, they were limited by hardware and technology

But that can still be possible, you only have to play on a higher difficulty

Again the games of yesteryear were consciously designed to be difficult. Checkpoint placement, damage dealt, invisible paths, etc. these were not put into practice because limited technology wouldn't allow less stringent mechanics; they were put into place by the developer.

That's all fair enough, but I was just talking about the use of the term masochist, which simply doesn't apply. Oh, and you're not paraphrasing if you do not mention the person who originally said it. :-P

@Minishdriveby: No they weren't, if they had the possibility to make them easier, they would have made them easier by design or adding modes

the difficulty settings only pump the damage and hp of the monsters, if you look carefully souls series rely on mechanics rather than stats (although they are important too), usually difficulty sliders don't do anything to the core gameplay.

That's factually wrong and the whole point of this thread goes against the logic of this argument.

@Minishdriveby

Im a patient person, I've had man wrong solutions in Portal simply because I wasn't paying attention, But not many of them have actually killed me. Besides, its a Puzzle game, failure in the traditional sense is not the point, getting stuck is the point, even with a predictable rule set they still managed to craft mind bending puzzles using the same predictable Cubes and Buttons. Plus its simple Physics, you don't need Trial and Error to understand what goes must come down.

"What if you don't gain enough momentum because the portal you placed wasn't high enough to shoot you out to the next platform?"

Has that actually ever happened ? Usually the make the lower surfaces un portalable so that you don't screw up. Or the only make a single surface that will only hold one Portal. I mean they playtest these things.

As for your lil game, sorry not interest. I don't even understand the rules. Reminds me of a Rubix Cube.

"if I place this color here... wait no that wouldn't work, I should use this color on this other tile instead."

I put anyone whos congnitive process works like that, its kinda sad really. Thats not How I think, atleast not in Portal.

"You begin to understand by trying. Learning concepts by practicing."

I agree.

"Trial and Error doesn't always mean complete lack of critical thinking skills"

I disagree.

Seems like you have your own definition of what Trial and Error actually is. Infact in all the arguments I get into people always have their own unique definition of a concept so the argument never gets resolved.

Failure/error doesn't need to be in the form of a traditional fail state or game over screen. If you are stuck it can be considered an failure/error.

There is an entire puzzle in Portal based on trial and error learning of this process. Here's a let's player going through this process at 2 minutes and 18 second in the video provided.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJLp2SWraoo#t=2m18s

"I put anyone whos congnitive process works like that, its kinda sad really. Thats not How I think, atleast not in Portal."

Your cognitive process doesn't allow for coherent and complete written thoughts. Please try to restate this thought, so I know what you're trying to say. Do you think of people who think like this unintelligent? Where do you put them? In your pocket?

What are your alternatives to learning? What are your alternatives to trial and error? You say trial and error doesn't escalate to critical thinking, but you're not listing or explaining alternatives to trial and error or the methodology to learning and critical thinking without trial and error.

lol, failure due to developer mismanagement is rampant. dark souls can be argued to be the worst ever, besides, foolish "boss" fight games that absolutely rely on gimmicks and memorization.

that's not true difficulty.

it's false, fake, madeup, artificial and cheap difficulty. just like ninja gaiden and other games that don't know how to make a workable camera, lol.

It's hard to "balance" difficulty, devs usually fixes this by just changing stats. That's why there needs to be difficult games by default, you notice big differences in games that are made to be difficult and games with hard difficulty settings that just changes stats. They are mostly a chore to play.

@kaealy: or, devs could spend ALL their money on making the a.i better, since, that's the most important and most inept aspect of games in the last 20 years.

back pay and all.

It's hard to program ai, that's why we don't have decent robot servants yet.

There's still no game that beats F.E.A.R.s ai, a game from 2005. No one spends money on making decent ai today.

So you're telling me, that if developers had the option and ability to have an easy mode back in the day they wouldn't?!

No. I'm telling you that developers had the option and didn't include it in many of the games. This isn't a hypothetical if statement.

Some games had difficulty options. To prove my point, I'll cite Crisis Force.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJElgRFLk80

The menu screen has a difficult select option. In this video it's set to normal.

@Minishdriveby

Sorry mate... Couldn't watch that video, I havent played Portal. Any examples from the Sequel ?