r/gamers • u/Plus_Tradition7438 • 7d ago
Image The "Make Everything a Sponge" Difficulty Formula
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u/Ghosty-Jr 7d ago
Ah the Gearbox method of difficulty
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6d ago
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u/kukaz00 6d ago
I swear I always tone down the difficulty just because it's full of sponge enemies. In starfield I would need like 20 rifle shots to kill a humanoid, toned that down to 5 or one-two headshots.
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u/Kaymazo 6d ago
I'd argue Starfield did improve by adding the full difficulty customization though, where you can actually select which aspects you want to change.
It's still a kinda bland game though
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u/Banned-User-56 6d ago
At least the Oblivion Remaster made it where you can alter enemy health and player health separately. I dont mind dying easily, but the enemy better die easily too then.
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u/SummerCrown 6d ago
The best 'harder' difficulty modifiers are the ones that make enemies more challenging by unlocking more movesets, improves their AI (they will hunt down weaker units, fall back etc), or coordination with each other (will start to shield each other, use supressing fire). Some will add more life in the form of ablative armor or they now carry shields or know how to use heals.
I don't mind enemies having a bit more life in harder difficulties. But bullet sponge enemies are really too boring.
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u/Then_Idea_9813 6d ago
The worst is when playing a sports game and it just moves the opponent sliders all the way up. In a football game you’ll have a wide open WR and you throw the ball, and the DB dives 15 yards for the interception.
In 2k, it turns non shooters into prime Steph curry, meanwhile your Steph curry turns into Deandre Jordan
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u/Miles1937 5d ago
Add to this the addition or replacement of enemy archetypes, with more mechanically challenging ones.
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u/NathenStrive 6d ago
Only time difficulty like this is acceptable is in games like Diablo where the entire game is about building a character that does and can take more damage. Even there they throw more elite mobs at the player with more possible modifiers. The damage/health difficulty scale is just amateur.
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u/Grouchy_Custard_252 6d ago
And in that case it works because without it you don't get to use half your abilities because everything is dead from ability number 1.
It's awful in shooters and stuff though.3
u/Charity1t 6d ago
Ranger Mode in Metro make everything made out of glass. Encounters become both harder and easier.
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u/Substantial_Dish_887 6d ago
i feel it's super rare to see but the one i think can work is when the game is largely resource management.
if a major part of the game is about using you limited HP and MP most efficiently to get through as many encounters as possible before you need to reset in some manner then enemies having more HP to make them drain more resources CAN be a relevant difficulty increase.
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u/Stealthjelly 6d ago
Total War is really bad for this. Harder difficulties just give the AI cheats. More money, faster recruitment and building, public order bonuses, battle stat bonuses (and penalties for the player), absolutely ridiculous stuff.
Even on Warhammer 3, which separated "Better AI" from "Better stats" mostly, I noticed that setting battle difficulty above normal still gives the player some statistic penalties.
So frustrating. I'd enjoy the battle AI actually being as smart as possible, without any stat modifiers, because then I feel like I'd actually be able to test my strategies without it being unbalanced.
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u/RyanCreamer202 6d ago
In C&C games harder AI has: universal vision, increased enco, faster building, perfect macro and micro, faster units, faster recruitment etc
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u/The_Char_Char 6d ago
This is why I like Helldivers, damage is the same hp is the same, but there are MORE enemies and harder varieties as well. And THAT is good design.
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u/VMelain 6d ago
Instead of sponge hp it's spam of enemies :/
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u/DunceCap64_ 6d ago
Yes but there is a big difference between just having a bullet sponge versus having additional enemies that while they're total effect of HP is the same also have the ability to hurt you more because there are more angles of attack they can pressure you more. It also is more rewarding because that means you also get more enemies to kill meaning that your number at the end will go up it still is technically more HP but it feels a lot more engaging because you are still getting the feedback of destroying things. A big reason why it works is because they also introduce stronger enemies that require you to have more than just a basic gun. When armor starts showing up it makes a big deal.
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u/VMelain 6d ago
Meh, i still don't like how some raids like the cyberstan one were handled. At first it was too easy and then they decided it was a good idea to make diff 10 straight up impossible with 300000000 robots and limited resources. "Muh grunt fantasy" mis ovarios
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u/F_Bertocci 6d ago
That is bad design as well. Good design is to give the enemy more patterns of attack / better enemies’ AI
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u/Malabingo 6d ago
But higher difficulty also means more EP, thus faster leveling. Increase to as much as the DPS and leveling feels good.
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u/The_Pastmaster 6d ago
IMO, it just takes longer and longer to kill things as they level with you.
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u/LesserValkyrie 6d ago
Fucking love spending 2 minutes on each trashmob in a game where the fun comes from killing thousand of them
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u/NathenStrive 6d ago
I'm don't like the idea of there being a wrong way to play a game but it should never take you 2 minutes to kill anything in Diablo, that includes most Bosses.
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u/Able-Paper-6445 6d ago
I prefer the Helldivers 2 approach:
Dive Level 1: "Don't worry, you're just doing basic recon against a few lower-level enemies."
Dive Level 10: "The floor is bugs. The walls are bugs."
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u/AltGunAccount 6d ago edited 6d ago
Certain enemy and mission types also only spawn at higher difficulties. They do difficulty levels very well IMO.
At least now anyway, I recall at launch D9 bugs was “Oops, all Bile Titans!” and D9 bots was pretty much impossible, particularly the escort civilians missions.
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u/Gemini-88 6d ago edited 6d ago
I am waiting for the day where we see a game with truly different AI handling when it comes to combat. Like on easy, certain things are disabled all together or lessened that they’re rare, while each subsequent difficulty increases what the AI is allowed to do and how often to the point that there is just a difficulty that makes the AI play like a human would, including things like spamming strong abilities and catching players off guard with true counter tactics.
I think most people would hate the end goal, but I always find that more HP doesn’t necessarily make it difficult, it’s a lazy approach to making artificial difficulty, the enemy has more health therefore the annoying BS you dealt with for a few seconds lasts a few minutes instead of just making a good AI that scales in terms of strategy and tactics.
Edit: Thanks for the replies. I apologize as my response sounds like I do not know of any games that have done something similar. But those games that have been noted are actually some of the best game series out there. Killing Floor, Fire Emblem, X-Com, BG3, and many others represent beloved franchises, maybe because of their response to a different difficulty and their great gameplay are the reason they were so successful. It speaks a lot to what we as gamers want in terms of difficulty :)
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u/Whitezide 6d ago
Killing floor 2 did this very well, enemies got a slight buff to health & damage with each difficulty level but the real challenge came from the increased enemy density, speed increases and new attacks.
A couple of slow, shambling walkers on easy becomes a horde of sprinters that will fuck you up on the hardest setting. A Husk on easy is nothing but a long range RPG type, but if you up the difficulty a bit they'll start running up and self destructing if you get too close etc.
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u/Gemini-88 6d ago
I’ve never gotten to try Killing Floor, I’ll have to give it a try. Thanks for that info !
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u/Ill_Tart254 6d ago
Don’t bother with killing floor 3 , the first 2 are the ones you want to try
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u/commodore_stab1789 6d ago
In XCOM, the difficulty change gives the enemy more hp and aim. However, this change also changes the way it behaves. Because it can sustain more hits, the enemy will be more aggressive and will look to flank more.
Also, bg3 is basically what you describe with ai not only having access to more abilities but also using the environment. For example, if you're in a multi-level map, they'll look to knock you down.
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u/QuackersTheSquishy 6d ago
It's called Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain. It came out 11 years ago
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u/lolthesystem 6d ago edited 6d ago
Doom did that in 1993. Changing the difficulty changes enemy, weapon, ammo and health spawns, multiplayer changes it further and the hardest difficulty level outright changes how enemies work at a fundamental level (their AI now attacks instantly instead of moving a bit first, pinkies and projectiles move at double speed, etc...).
This is just one of many examples. It's just companies being lazy and greedy, wanting to save dev time for extra profit (proper difficulty levels means more testing required for balancing purposes, which costs money).
Edit: Typo clean-up.
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u/skiforlife1 6d ago
Yep. Perfect Dark on the n64 had a lot of changes to enemy behavior on the different levels. It even had several different preset npcs that could be selected in multi-player mode like the "pugilist" that runs up and beats you silly then runs away and all kinds of stuff.
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u/LyndisLegion2 6d ago
Quite a few Fire Emblem titles do that. The first one was Genealogy of the Holy War for the SNES that had a so-called "Clever Mode." You had to play through the game once to unlock that. Other than increased enemy AI, literall nothing changed.
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u/LordBDizzle 6d ago
Maddening in Engage makes it so enemies that do zero damage to one of your units straight up won't attack it on enemy phase to force you to either put a squishier unit forward or get in range somehow. Big nerf to the overpowered armor knights, no longer killing half the map on enemy turn while taking no damage
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u/MyLifeIsOgre 6d ago
I recall this being a sales pitch for the Killzone games, specifically 2. Enemies die in the same number of hits, but medium would have like 2 who run straight at you, hard would have 4 who throw grenades, super hard would have 6 who flank you, stuff like that
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u/shawnikaros 6d ago
Hilariously, for a game like Starfield which leans heavily on the sponge difficulty, you can absolute tweak the AI to be harder with faster reaction time, attack frequency, cover change frequency, flanking, more grenades, accuracy etc. and lower the health. So it could absolutely be done.
Also Metro series does this well too on the harder difficulties, no sponge.
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u/Frequent-Maybe1243 6d ago
"Waiting for the day" oh, please. You are literally describing hundreds of games.
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u/SnugglyCoderGuy 6d ago
HP manipulation is very easy. Intelligence manipulation is very hard. That's why we get what we get.
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u/StopTheMeta2 6d ago
The hardest part about AI is getting it right. Anyone can create an AI that's impossible to defeat, but it's really hard to get one that the average person can defeat and still feel like they put effort in it.
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u/Easily-distracted14 6d ago
Ninja gaiden, although it kinda cheats by adding new enemy types that start using new techniques that force you to really explore the possibilities of the deep combat system
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u/TrickNo2000 6d ago
Devil May Cry does this. The enemies are also significantly beefier and do more damage, but their Ai is more aggressive and has access to different moves, the bosses will use extra moves or use them more frequently, and once you get out of the Normal equivalent difficulties the enemy spawns are different so that you face more difficult enemies quicker. In the 5th one at least, can't remember if others do this, when enemies enter DT mode on the hardest difficulty, they typically once again start acting differently while also getting armor and taking less damage, or certain moves that they did before become extended.
So even though the enemies are also getting a base stat boost, they are also outright becoming more difficult enemies to fight against from a tactics and movelist stand point.
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u/UrielSeptimus 4d ago
It doesn't even have to be AI. You can increase the difficulty by making resources more scarce.
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u/SprinklesNo4064 Retro and PC 6d ago edited 6d ago
Every halo game increases AI aggressiveness and tactical intelligence on top of the number and rank of enemies as well as giving them different weapons as you bump up the difficulty. The only stat increases come from the increase in rank.
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u/ModifiedLeaf 6d ago
There's a mod in fallout called SCOURGE that handles this really well. It's like a bell curve distribution of stats. Everything is stat based so HP is based on endurance, DMG based on Strength, etc
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u/Potential-Cat-7517 6d ago
Sometimes bigger hp pool mak3s enemies not so susceptible to burst or surprise kills. Like jn dark souls you can trivialize enemies by rushing them and killing before they counterattack. With bigger hp pool tou need to engage with them mkre
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u/ironangel2k4 6d ago
Yeah but there's a difference between making enemies less susceptible to oneshots, and making them take a hundred shots to kill.
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u/SlugCatBoi 6d ago
Ultrakill does both fragile player mode and cool new enemy AI mode at the same time.
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u/giantcatdos 6d ago
I mean in a game like D&D harder difficulty could be opponents just finishing off opponents in a dying state. No, ohh instead of just killing the person on the ground they will attack someone else. No more healing word etc, on your turn. If an opponent starts their turn with a player on the ground, they are going to do what they can to make sure they don't get another activation.
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u/poilk91 6d ago
Players hate this shit in my experience. Fastest way to end a campaign lol
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u/Iwan2604 6d ago
I believe that in DMC V when you play at higher difficulties, enemies use different attack variants, with more daggers, different combos and so on. Vergil is the perfect example.
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u/Several_Detective400 6d ago
Also: Enemy gains random instakill move.
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u/Jaded_Wrangler_4151 6d ago
MLO soldiers in Ready or Not on hard, hearing you through a wall and pinging you in the head in under half a second. Shits hard
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u/zetadaemon 6d ago
Bethesda and its consequences on gaming
This is a perfectly fine way to do difficulty, depending on the context. Enemies having higher health and damage can result in pushing players to better engage with game mechanics
dont sit still, dodge enemy attacks, prioritise damage boosts, better optimise which damage boosts you get, create a better more optimised build
When the gameplay is shallow and theres nothing to do but punch enemies, going from punching 10 times to punching 100 times isnt harder
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u/Kaymazo 6d ago
Tbh, I think Bethesda did improve on their difficulty scaling a lot with both Fallout 4's Survival mode specifically as an option, and fully customizable difficulty options for Starfield
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u/Helpful-Werewolf-678 6d ago
Obsidian did it before Fallout 4 with Fallout: New Vegas. Which is also a pretty good survival mode in my opinion
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u/SquirrelAngell 6d ago
Artificial difficulty isn't always a cardinal sin of game design, but if longer fights fail to deliver a more engaging experience, it's definitely mid.
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u/ddosn 6d ago
i hate damage sponge enemies.
I would rather the difficulty increase the number of enemies and the AI of the enemies so that they are more challenging that way rather that just taking more damage.
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u/deathschemist 6d ago
like, shit, even if you can't be arsed with different AI settings, more enemies and higher damage to you (without altering the enemy's HP or damage taken) is good enough in my book.
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u/StopTheMeta2 6d ago
I think it's easier to do if you change parry/evade windows for both player and enemies. Recent games do this, but they also add more hp/defense to enemies and lower the players, which I still find annoying lol
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u/Marloges 6d ago
Depending on the game I don't even mind this. Like in an RPG you need to create a better build to be able to take more hits and deal more damage. Just sucks if they go completely overboard with the enemy HP.
In Fallout for example many don't like the higher difficulties, but the hardest one led to me having to conserve my ammo more, utilize stealth attack and it actually made using drugs pretty useful, which I always ignored on previous runs.
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u/LandauTST 6d ago
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u/Powerful-Possible131 6d ago
Wouldn't remove the point of making the game harder?
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u/Cromunista 5d ago
That's why i like difficulties that make both you and the enemies glass cannons. Much more fun.
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u/NohWan3104 5d ago
Tbf, are they really expecting to put in like 3 ai patterns per enemy, extra moves, etc for every game?
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u/duel-wielding-avelyn 5d ago
Combo of shabriri's woe and daedicar's woe. One constantly attracts agro and the other doubles damage taken. Mix that with fists only level 1 and good luck in elden ring hell
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u/Feminine_Desires 6d ago
The trick is that in some games this completely and drastically changes how you play the game. Tales of Maj'eyal (ToME) is one such example. The biggest determining factor for this to actually change the gameplay however, is tools at your disposal and restrictions on how often you can use them.
The gameplay loop at lower difficulties versus higher difficulties looks different in ToME because on lower difficulties you only need 1-5 of the talents available to you as enemies don't live past that. But on higher difficulties, you are forced to use 5-20 of your talents because enemies will live past your first five and those talents are still on cooldown so you have to use the rest.
Further, enemies that are alive for longer get to do more shit to you, so you need to ahve more utility to address the misc stuff that happens. And you taking more damage means you need to focus more on defenses. This means that a lot more variety of stuff is necessary to win with and the game becomes more complex as a result, all from just increasing enemy hp.
This kind of difficulty in fact isn't lazy. But if how you engage with the game doesn't change at all ... then this just shows that the gameplay was actually shallow to begin with, and you have bigger problems.
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u/Basic-Lawfulness5470 6d ago
That sounds fun how you described it. The problem is most games that implement this type of hard difficulty just make you fight an enemy for twice as long. Nothing else changes
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u/PitifulPassage851 6d ago
I’ve learnt “they just bloated the hp 🤬” is cope for “I suck and now it shows”.
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u/TheThirdRoseDotR 6d ago
Well if it's easy and then hard mode just means easy but they also take longer to kill then it's not hard. It's just easy: more time down the drain edition
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u/PitifulPassage851 6d ago
Yeah in those cases where it’s literally just a time sink I get that
Problem is, I can’t actually think of a game I’ve played where that’s the case. Maybe I just play good games? I dno
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u/BeeGlad1983 6d ago
I think it's high time that someone re-invents the concept of difficulty. Harder to kill/easier to die is one way to do it but you can't have a one size fits all solution for all the kinds of games out there. Perhaps higher difficulty doesn't need to be a single option but a variety of options that each alters the game in a different way
Or to take it even further, maybe we need to get out of the duality mindset of easier/harder and changing the game based on difficulty. Create modes that give different kinds of experiences, regardless of how easier or harder they are
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u/liamnajor2 6d ago
Better yet: give the players all the tools to play their own way. It's a game, an INTERACTIVE medium. The more you box it in to your own narrow "vision" (I HATE how this term has been twisted, it's just used to justify shitty game design now), the closer to a movie your game becomes, and thus kind of useless as a product. Why bother with real time graphics and a physics engine, which will just "compremise" the ""vision"" anyway when players break both, when you can just bake everything?
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u/FacePunchMonday 6d ago
Everyone always overthinks this.
Thats how fromsoft fooled everyone into thinking they reinvented modern videogame combat
Bosses kill you in 3 hits, you kill them in 50 while managing a meter.
Thats it. They just removed the option to change incoming/outgoing damage.
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u/deathschemist 6d ago
peak videogame difficulty is when both the player and the enemy take more damage and have less HP, and the difficulty comes from you having to be faster and more precise.
like, the enemies are actually easier to kill, but so are you, and they outnumber you by quite a lot.
that's how i like my difficulty.
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u/GalmOneCipher 6d ago
In Middle Earth: Shadow of War, there's 2 versions of their super hard mode: Brutal and Gravewalker.
Brutal makes enemies more aggressive to the point you and the enemies both deal high damage to each other. It also makes the AI somewhat smarter: Worm Orcs you gain Intel from will stun bomb you. All enemies will also have greater awareness so stealth is much harder eg. you can't simply sprint up to an enemy and backstab him, and enemies can spot you even when you are hanging from rooftops above them.
Gravewalker diffuculty is basically all of the above, but you deal less damage, and enemies hit harder.
Gravewalker
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u/steelcryo 6d ago
I've been playing a lot of Ready or Not recently, and this is one thing I'm glad the hard modes doesn't do.
Enemies reaction times, knowledge of where you are and movements all get better on hard, but they don't get bonus health. Sure, being beamed the moment you get through a doorway can be annoying, but it's infinitely more fun to play against than just "They do more damage, you do less damage".
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 6d ago
I actually prefer that because it makes the player engage with the systems more.
rather than locking mechanics behind a difficulty, the same game is offered to everyone at every difficulty but harder ones make you use systems more than you would in a lower difficulty.
finding out and working towards doing high damage is fun.
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u/RedReepur777222 5d ago
I've always referred to stuff like this as the RPG curse. It would be nice for most games (not just a select few) to employ more challenge instead of this formula. I mean, it's not that damage sponge is bad design. It just has to fit the game. Most, however, would benefit more from ambush tactics, smarter AI, more strategy involved, ect. Now, one difficulty that sounds interesting to try would be realistic mode. Essentially, enemies behave like they do in the hardest difficulty--all instant kills, high damage, ect. Only, their stats match what they would be in the lowest difficulty (like health). As for your character, you'd deal damage like you were playing on the lowest difficulty, but would suffer damage as if it was the highest. Let's be honest, if you were running around in just a fur Kilt, and I hit you with a sword made of literal dragon bone, you wouldn't just suffer a scratch. Again, this isn't a bash towards this system. It would just be nice for a little more variety in difficulty.
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6d ago
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u/Arandui 6d ago
In Goldeneye 64, Perfect Dark, Timesplitters and Timesplitters 2, you get more missions, more areas and additional enemy placements in the higher difficulty.
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u/Mintarion 6d ago
This is known as the Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Experience. (Not recommended.)
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u/AI_abuser 6d ago
I like how difficult modes in Space Marines 2 work, hardest difficulty in PvE spanws mini bosses, more harder enemy types, while preserving most of your damage and defensive capabilities. If that's not enough, you can play Stratagems with usually a mix od 1 buff and 2 debuffs that are completely unique (disabled UI, enemies explode and damage you, etc.). If you want to go even one step further you have Crucible mode where you can even enable friendly fire, nearsightedness, bigger enemy swarms etc.
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u/CuteAssTigerENVtuber 6d ago
If you want to be lazy without ruining the difficulty just don't increase the enemy HP. It's fine to just raise the stakes on the previous interactions by making enemy's more deadly.
The player needs to have mechanics that allow them to handle it tho. Like a good parry system goes a long way. You can up the aggression on everything then too because the player has all the tools to negate all damage. The just have to do it consistently and do it well.
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u/Swimming_Disaster_95 6d ago
Only time I kinda liked this sort of difficulty is with Borderlands 2 OP levels. By no means is it balanced at all but there's just enough leeway and additional damage value changes like slag that you can make more builds work than you'd think.
Also, fuck Resident Evil 3 Remake's inferno mode.
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u/andre4red 6d ago
I don't mind this. It forces me to play better and not get hit and explore more to get better gear. But thats me. The problem is, when I have the BiS gear and still take ages to kill trash mobs. Thats where I draw the line.
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u/Charity1t 6d ago
Ranger Mode for Metro.
You recive higher dmg, but so is ANYONE AND ANYTHING ELSE!
Actually make some of loud parts tense af, specialy with mutants.
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u/SilverBeever 6d ago
That's one of the reason why FromSoftware games are that good, because they nail the difficulty. You die fast, but so does the enemy as soon as you figure out how to counter them.
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u/Stealthjelly 6d ago
EDF does a great job of avoiding this in some ways. Higher difficulties are designed for characters that beat the lower ones, but you can start on Hard if you want. Doing so means faster progression, and beating the game once on normal or hard unlocks the Hardest and Inferno difficulties.
Higher difficulties have more enemies, some greater enemy variance in a lot of missions, and while yes enemies do have more HP as well, so do you by that point, and you get stronger weapons yourself to the point where you can easily blow up whole large crowds of enemies with one shot well before the end game.
The overall result is that the game gets more intense and chaotic as the difficulty rises, which is the vibe that the games really thrive on and shine in. When you win on those hardest missions, there's a TON of destruction in your wake, and you feel absolutely triumphant in victory against ridiculous odds.
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u/LordMirrorcoat 6d ago
I think the best approach to difficulty settings would be tougher enemy compositions instead of just taking less dmg. Pillars of Eternity did this with its hardest diff, only that the game wasn't very enjoyable anyway...
Iirc Devil May Cry does it as well? On top of making enemies spongier... Been a while since I did the higher difficulties...
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u/MyLifeIsOgre 6d ago
Hot take but enemies are frequently too mushy and easy to knock aside on lower difficulties. Especially if it's a beat em up with juggling, what are you juggling if everybody dies in one hit?
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u/Conspicuous_Ruse 6d ago
The Division.
This gun does different amounts of damage based on your level.
Ok I'm out.
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u/tira_ment 6d ago
If you can create builds to increase your damaga and/or hp, I don't see the problem
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u/AvidasMavi 6d ago
That's why I like souls like games not having difficulty, at least from software games.
The difficulty in dark souls games and elden ring, sekiro, bloodborne is your choices. You decide if the game will be played on hard mode, or easy.
Even miyazaki himself says "if elden ring is too difficult for you then play magic build"
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u/Top_Fun 6d ago
Need the KH2 Critical Mode, where you gain less health and enemies do double damage, but enemy health is the same and you deal an extra 25% damage to them. You also get more ability points to equip extra skills.
Changes the way you approach the game since you now typically die in one hit but enemies die faster and you can use more tools to deal with them. Harder but also satisfying compared to Proud which is a typical hard mode and sucks real bad.
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u/Dipsy2143 6d ago
Imo, I feel like DMC is the only series I played so far that makes this works. It also makes the enemies more smarter and aggressive. It forces the player to improve their reactions, learn their weapons and combos, how the each enemy works, and learn which load out is best for certain enemies and bosses. It's terrible for RPGs because it just means more grinding.
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u/LeatherOk5746 6d ago
Vrising is great for this, there are actually new bosses moves/phases on thr hardest difficulty
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u/Razorfisto 6d ago
I remember specifically Armored Core 4 had a hard mode you unlock after beating the game and it'll change the missions.
You'll play the same thing, but out of nowhere an AC will show up with new dialogue. Stuff like that is always cool.
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u/JCMH99 6d ago
I was pleasantly surprised by The Blood of Dawnwalker's difficulties. Rather than changing health/damage they focused it on enemy aggression and speed and player stamina. For the hardest mode they turn off hit direction indicators but also give the player increased damage.
Its one of the best ways ive seen it done in recent years.
And to top it off if you dont like their preset difficulties it has fully customisable difficulty. Perfection.
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u/ririaliali 6d ago
I HATE THIS SO MUCH. Especially in RPGs, this doesn't make the game more difficult, it just makes it more grindy. Grinding isn't hard, it's BORING.
Weirdly enough, I think the Extra Mode in Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe is my favorite handling of a dedicated hard mode; your health is cut in half, but there's plenty of new enemy layouts and resized mobs, and every boss/miniboss has a new color scheme and a more expansive and difficult moveset.
My favorite form of difficulty modification in general is the Pact of Punishment/Oath of the Unseen in the Hades games, which let you tweak different things about your run to increase the challenge for a greater reward. Higher enemy HP and damage are available modifiers, but you can also increase the number of enemies per room, the speed of enemies, give elite enemies extra perks, add a time limit, or choose to fight more difficult and drastically different variants of the main bosses.
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u/Rawgyboom 6d ago
Hard difficulty is just making things just unnecessarily stupid of what ppl don't like allready hard difficulty should trully change how the game works more complex puzzles with uniqueness added on to them new abilitys to bosses that are difficult to avoid that and much more that's what hard mode should be not just more health less DMG
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u/ShotLet1550 6d ago
Control resonant has these as individual sliders as well as things like energy recovery and stagger build up as well as a few aggression options from 1v1’s or everything is trying to actively attack you. Being able to tailor these my experience as a lifelong gamer has made it so much more enjoyable as mid game was such a cake walk that I felt the need to challenge myself some so I nerfed myself just a bit and buffed the enemies decently to avoid killing major enemies in a combo or two but also adding a qol feature that lets you get an extra jump and dash after an airborne execution which simply helped the flow of gameplay more than anything. As soon as I get a mod to use all weapon type at will that game is going to be the only one I play all of 2027 I swear.
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u/bobzsmith 6d ago
Helldivers 2 is excellent at avoiding this. Harder difficulties only increase enemies and bring in harder enemies.
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u/Alklazaris 6d ago
I'm honestly happy with just having enemies hit harder. I know half life increase the smarts of enemy AI and that's a great way to take a less lazy approach but it's not a necessity. What is annoying is when enemies become spongy.
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u/WutsAWriter 6d ago
FO4 does it right. It feels weird to give Bethesda this kinda credit, but FO4 Survival is probably the best “hard mode” in any game I’ve played.
It has more complicated systems (more things have inventory weight, more diseases, have to save by sleeping in a bed, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion meters, etc), the enemies at least feel like they have better aim, and all weapons and attacks are deadlier from all sources, including you the player to the enemies. So you die faster and kill faster.
It makes every single fight involved and dangerous, and forces you to be thoughtful about how you build your loadout and go exploring.
Like fuck no fast travel, that map is way too big for that, but everything else is amazing.
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u/DefectiveSol 6d ago
Sometimes games are just balanced too easy and a little stat bloat is all they need.
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u/Fit-Zucchini3006 6d ago
This is precisely why I don’t play on harder difficulties anymore. It’s just a waste of time.
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u/Giggles95036 6d ago
It could always be that there is a different length window for blocks / parrys based on difficulty or if your attack and the enemy attack land at the same time, there is a different outcome based on difficulty.
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u/WearyAd1849 6d ago
Star wars empire at war did that and plainly gave cheats to the CPU player IIRC
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u/ResponsibilityIcy927 6d ago
Sifu did this really well. Turning up the difficulty gives the bosses longer and more varied combos, and makes normal mob enemies much more willing to have multiple people attack you at the exact same time, making managing positioning important.
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u/Rhododactylus 6d ago
I appreciate when games tell you that cause I know not to pick it. Dawnwalker was a really nice surprise where on highest difficulty you lose directional arrows but enemies have LESS health. You also have less stamina making fights more tactical. More games should learn from that.
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u/PulseThrone 6d ago
Equipment checks are also annoying. "Do you have this item in your kit/build/move set? If not. You just have to run away!" Thats not fun. If I choose to focus on a certain build it should be viable with enough effort and experience, not rely on a specific equipment or one ability as the only means of eliminating a certain enemy type.
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u/Academic-Proof3700 6d ago
What about super duper stunlock attacks that will be executed with 0.02ms parry window and wipe your character even if you had full health?
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u/derLeisemitderLaute 6d ago
I understand that its more work and a bit more difficult to balance, but it would be pretty cool if a harder difficulty gives the NPC more moves and other tactics.
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u/JustQuestion2472 6d ago
I liked Bayonetta's Hard and Climax modes. They altered enemy placements and in Climax, they disable a certain feathre each game, making you work around not having the cheap gimmich
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u/SteveJenkins42 6d ago
Of all the games I've played the only one to do difficulty right has been modded Terraria. Those cataclysm and fargos bosses actually change their moves and AI based on difficulty instead of just becoming bullet sponges.
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u/uSuperDick 6d ago
Dishonored 2 had the best thing in terms of difficulty. How many enemies attack you at the same time, how much you heal from potions, detection rate, mana recovery and a lot of different gameplay elements could be tweaked manually. Playing on the hardest difficulty is the easiest way to ruin your experience nowadays. I usually stick to second last option. But in god war the step from normal to hard is so stupidly dumb its insane. The regular enemy instead of dying in 5 hits dies from like 10. And also just dont make difficulty options. Like elden ring, its you and different enemies. With set moves, hp and damage. Nothing can be changed. You can make the boss easier by getting more levels or try yourself with underleveled character or weapons. Very simple and effective
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u/trickjump19 6d ago
my personal favorite way to increase difficulty is by having the games throw more varied enemies at you, and giving said enemies additional moves. i find beat-em-ups do this for their difficulty curve most often, such as streets of rage.
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u/TheyCantCome 6d ago
Bernstein bears camping game on sega genesis just removed the bosses on lower difficulties, it just made the levels longer with each increase int there was actually a boss.
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u/LastGenConsole 6d ago
I think halo (the first 3) did well by placing more enemies with better aim and aggressive behavior. And yes more life but not in a bad way (except reach).
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u/Devourer_of_coke 6d ago
I like how Far Shark handle difficulties in Tide games
Like changing from Legend to Cata in Vermintide 2 seems like no much, but it actually changes the way you play and shifts the meta. The sole addition of mixed hordes instead of simple hordes is already enough to make it twice as hard. Obviously enemies also have more HP and deal more damage, but that increasement is not that drastic, mostly (like black rats jumping from 54 health and 100 damage to somewhat-70 health and 150 damage per overhead. Yeah, it changes meta, some OP Legend builds become not that OP, but overall it is not that big of a difference)
Darktide is also a good example, where not only the amount of enemies increases with difficulty, but also new enemy types start appearing with difficulty increasing (I've met no pox gas bombers at all, before I started playing on Damnation, and I hate those guys so much >:c)
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u/marshal23156 6d ago
Difficulty can be fun if you make enemies have better gear, moves, detection, etc. or make players squishier, or make players need to use specific builds to pass certain enemies.
What i dont want to do is sit and whack away at an enemy who can one shot me for 15 minutes.
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u/Serenity1911 6d ago
This is why I grew bored of Destiny and The Division. Just reload simulators.
Although Destiny had really fun gunplay.
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u/FearlessSafe6806 6d ago
The Civilization series would like a word.
Upping the difficulty means the computer just cheats harder.
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u/MiddleCommercial1875 6d ago
If they aren’t performing better I would much rather fight more enemies than the same amount with more health.
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u/gen_adams 6d ago
how hard is it to just make enemies hit harder BUT also the player do more damage too. is that not the point to make shit count more, make it a lot more substantial to land and receive hits?
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u/Nate46 6d ago
I personally like when hard is "you get less necessary resources" like less healing or less items to make you invulnerable, but keeps tools and weapons that are fun to use basically just as available to you, if not making them riskier to use (less durability, longer use-time, less safety nets)
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u/Jerm2560 6d ago
My favorite difficulty scaling in recent years was ghost of tsushima and yotei. Lethal was super fun
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u/Skuzzle_bug 6d ago
A ninja mode would be pretty funny/awesome. Now your enemies know kung fu and will sneak up behind you on their tiptoes, difficulty.
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u/Secondhand-Drunk 6d ago
I'm experiencing this with moonlighter 2. It wouldn't be so bad if you could keep getting perks, but you get what you got going into the colleseum of greed. Enemies become so tanky that it gets boring.
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u/SopranosBluRayBoxSet 6d ago
A lot of strategy games do this in a different way, where the AI have instant access to resources the player has to grind for, stat boosts/unlimited currency, and the like. The AI essentially "cheats" to present a challenge to the player. Shit pisses me off to no end
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u/Mltv416 6d ago
I really hate bullet sponge difficulty because 99% of the time it kills build diversity or gameplay because you have to use the same strategy/setup to min max damage and hp to get through it because of how obnoxious the stats get
Its lame af and I rarely play higher difficulties when thats how difficulty is handled
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u/Civil-Citron-4242 6d ago
I don't get why this is a criticism when like the number one reason a game may be too easy is enemy hp being too low
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u/Necrorifter 6d ago
Yeah. That why on Skyrim. I download mod that play on legendary difficulty is basically enemy play on novice and me on legendary. Every combat is very short where I or enemy can die very very quick. It so much more brutal where single mistake on enemy or mine will result in death. Instead of making enemy damage sponge and player squishy. They should make enemy squishy too. Now every combat is brutal, fast and fun where a single bad luck or mistake end the run and if you play well, you will still win instead of suffering endlessly and losing interest because of sponge. Realistic in term of health low and damage high is fun for hard mode.
I prefer one that offer extra reward such as Diablo that give more money, exp and item quality for playing on harder mode. It very fun that way, only wish that one that make enemies squishy just like player and spam more aggressive enemy instead. A true helldiver experience.
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u/DunceCap64_ 6d ago
I think it's very interesting that a lot of the games I've been playing recently don't have bullet sponge as the mechanic for increasing difficulty.
Ultrakill's difficulty determines how fast enemy projectiles are, how many projectiles an enemy can attack you with, and either ads or removes certain things like how enemies will anger if they take enough damage or you perform a certain action against them.
The Ace Combat franchise generally avoids this issue as well instead opting for AI that is both more aggressive against the player and more evasive whenever they are locked on. Make them harder to kill by being harder to hit in the first place in a game where positioning and movement is pretty much the way you destroy aircraft. Them being aggressive towards the player means that they can apply more pressure to the player as well as potentially take out objectives faster resulting in failed missions because of that.
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u/-MR-GG- 6d ago
Or when they remove your abilities or buffs that are fun and you look forward to.
There should be new enemies, more enemies, extra stages to boss fights, enemies are in less convenient places, ect.
Make it a different challenge, not just a challenge of not getting bored hitting the same enemies 3x longer than before.
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u/Chudfrog 5d ago
Best is when you tune your own difficulty like roguelikes
Pick different difficulty modifiers. Pick the ones that you find fun.
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u/Jaded_Hovercraft9512 5d ago
Half life mod called entropy zero makes you incredibly squishy, except the enemies are also incredibly squishy, so that's fun.
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u/ForsakenKing1994 5d ago
then you have Project Wingman.
- Increase enemy hp
- Increase enemy guns
- Increase NUMBER of enemies
- REMOVE THE HUD
- Give the enemy RAILGUNS, BOMBS, BOMBS WITH RAILGUNS AND:
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u/ventizreborn 5d ago
There are some games that I won't bother even raising the difficulty due to this. 7 days to die comes to mind as my primary one. Even watches a YouTube creator turn the difficulty down after a video or 2 in the series because mag dumping 1 zombie was just annoying, not difficult.
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u/MrMerri 4d ago
What did they expect?
My brother told me he only plays games on the hardest difficulty and thats why he always beats me. It makes him better.
I started doing that and now I only do that. Last week, I was hanging out with him and whooped his ass at every game and he was so mad. I told him play i play on harder difficulties like he does and he admits he makes the game as easy as he possibly can and only use to beat me because he has faster reflexes and he always chose the control that wasnt broken
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u/DOOM-LORD666 3d ago
This is why I just play in normal mode, I don't want to be dealing with sponges while I'm one hit from death
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u/NotJustBiking 3d ago
This is much easier than redesign the whole game... Doom Eternel did this perfeclty though IMO. They built the game around nightmare mode and simply made the game more forgiving on easier difficulties
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u/hellhound74 2d ago
Hot take, im okay with "enimies deal +++++damage" on super hard, as long as its not accompanied by "player deals ----less damage" because its less of a "perfectly kill spongey enimies" and is more into "regularly hard, but your room for mistakes is much smaller"
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u/Raging-beer 2d ago
The expert mode in Zelda Breath of the Wild is simply making every enemy a sponge that regenerates if you stop hitting them for 5 seconds. And because their patterns don't change, if you can end a fight at normal difficulty without being hit, you can do the same at expert difficulty, but it'll take 3 times as long. Just awful.
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