Secret auto-altering of game difficulty? Acceptable?

[britboy4321]

Difficult post to write so bear with it ..

I know a games developer who I was chatting to over the weekend. He says they are considering the following formula within single player games:

Each time the player dies -- WITHOUT informing the player -- the thing that kills them (the part of the game) in reality becomes 2% easier to get past. So, after a few fails, the player is almost guaranteed to pass before he thinks 'screw this' and presses 'EXIT' never to reload.

The thing is, this 'making easier' is going to be secret from the player to not destroy his illusion, and by a very small amount each time. As 'invisible as possible' to the player. So the creature will still say on screen he starts the battle with 1500hp. But each hit the player does will hurt the bad-guy slightly more than last time when the player failed. Or secretely the chance of a player dealt 'crit' has actually raised from 2% to 4% without the player being told. Or the player will be able to jump 2% further -- so in reality when playing he manages to jump over the 'pit with spikes at the bottom', or kill the bad-a$$ monster, just a little easier - although he'll think he's just done better all by himself .. hoorah!

When past that obstacle -- the 'new' bits of the game the player sees are back to original difficulty - unless he starts dying on them then the system starts 'easying them up' again by subliminally small amounts..

The idea is that the player believes he is making steady progress and nothing stops him dead, and the player thinks he is actually improving and learning and not being rubbish -- leading to his overall enjoyment of the title.

But it's all kind of a bit of a lie to the player. Just leaves an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. I'm not sure where I stand on it ..

Here's the question -- does the above 'secret auto-make-slightly-easier so player doesn't get stuck, and thinks he's getting better at actually playing' formula sounds OK to you -- or is it unacceptable 'lying to the player?

Have you any thoughts on this intended system for single player games? Good? Bad? Who cares?

 

[Tombstone]

I'm sure there are already games out on the market which have enemies which scale to the players performance. Pretty certain that I've encountered games in the past where one of their features was that things get easier as the player struggles and harder as the player does well.

 

[James1954]

yea i swear far cry had this auto adjusting enemy difficulty if you were passing stages too quickly or slowly. .

 

[Sleepery]

I'm pretty sure I've experienced this too, and thank god! I could handle repeatedly replaying the same stuff over and over when I was a lot younger, now if it takes more than five tries to get past an enemy, I usually just toss the game and play something else.

 

[Jsbeer]

There have been several games with this feature already, but as far as I am aware it was always mentioned, and could even be turned off. However, like the original poster I would be slightly put off if this feature wasn't explicitly mentioned.

 

[Frapple]

N3 did this, but actually told you about it, not that many people noticed it, it was a icon on the loading screen that reduced in number each time you died. x5 x4 x3 x2 x1 I think.

Was very useful on areas with new enemies that you hadn't learnt how to deal with yet.

 

[Guest2]

Seems like a good idea, but the player should choose between a set difficulty and auto adjust difficulty.

I much preferred/prefer games that have one difficulty setting (usually hard) ...Goes back to play some stupidly hard amiga games like X-out

 

[gt_junkie]

Yeah, i'm sure some of the more recent Tekken's did this too.

Never minded it TBH.

gt

 

[toon_mad]

Im sure ive also felt this in some games, not so much newer ones but maybe a few year back

 

[Darg]

Sounds good. So long as it's not a massive change that the player will notice then it really doesn't make any difference in the long run apart from the player enjoying the game more.

 

[Fisk]

Sounds like a decent idea, but I'd prefer if it there was also an option included to turn this off.

 

[_Gizka_]

Sounds like a good idea if implemented well and has very small, unnoticeable changes as mentioned. It would save a lot of frustration on the players part and probably lead to the completion of more games. Having the options to turn it on and off would be a good idea for people who actually enjoy the challenge certain areas of the game pose, or maybe an option when you die to makes the difficulty changes or keep it at the same level for a few goes.

I can see people just getting to a part, dying once then just repeatedly dying on purpose to create a much easier section of the game, but thats not really a big issue. Its all down to the gamer really.

 

[dalin80]

I believe resident evil 4 ran a auto-difficulty feature, the better you played in the first half of the game (measured by how much you were carrying and weapons) the harder the game was in the 2nd.

A idea i liked which was one of the few things valve has done that i could agree with was monitoring play of the episodes and altering areas where player deaths were spiking.

 

[Briton]

Seems like a good idea, but the player should choose between a set difficulty and auto adjust difficulty.

I much preferred/prefer games that have one difficulty setting (usually hard) ...Goes back to play some stupidly hard amiga games like X-out

Did you ever play Shadow of the Beast II ? I found that too hard...although maybe I just didn't like it enough to persevere.


Good idea as long as there's a choice. If you play on Hard, then it should be off.

 

[Rroff]

This won't become a standard for all SP games - each developer has different ideas, etc.

There are games out there that do something like this and quite a few game developers are trying to converge on a heuristic system that will try to adapt the game difficulty to the player without the game being too easy or too hard unless you specifiy you want to increase the difficulty.

 

[Smit]

Sounds good to me
I am more of a casual gamer currently since I don't have time to play for more than 20 minutes at a time so anything to ease frustrations is welcome to me.

 

[BeeP]

Seems fine to me although I would rather know I passed it on the same level as someone else who did it 1st time.

 

[dekez]

I think it's a good idea for normal / easy, but if playing though on hard or veteran it should be off.

 

[Dano]

Great idea, but as othes have said, an option to turn it off would be good, cannot stand games where I get stuck and have to attempt to do a particular section again and again, it's not entertaining in the least.

 

[NathanT]

Not seen it as an option for it on any of the PC games I own, but my son plays on the PS2 quite a bit, Lego Indiana Jones has an option for what I think they call an "adaptive difficulty".
This alters certain little things such as enemy spawns and stud loss (when you die) depending on if you romp or struggle through a level.

I'd like to see it as an option in some games, but not as a hard coded rule.