alt title(s): Artificial Difficulty
When one plays a
Video Game, there are certain expectations. One of these is that a challenge will be provided which depends on the skills of the player. There is an unspoken contract between the player and the game - the game provides entertainment, and the players has the right to solve it using their skills and the information provided to them.
Occasionally, however, the difficulty comes from somewhere else. It could be due to shoddy programming, a
Game Breaking Bug, poor implementation of gameplay elements, or time constraints, but the developers threw in something which makes the game harder, but which has nothing to do with the player's or AI's skills. That's when you run into fake difficulty.
Fake difficulty is defined by four criteria, in addition to the sub-category (
The Computer Is A Cheating Bastard). If
any one of these criteria are present in a game, fake difficulty is present.
- Bad technical aspects make it difficult. Making a difficult jump is a real difficulty. Making a same difficult jump with overly complex controls, bad jumping physics, or an abrupt mid-air change of camera angle - and therefore the orientation of your controls - is not.
- The outcome is not reasonably determined by the player's actions. Unlocking a door by solving a color puzzle is real difficulty. Unlocking it by pressing a button until you get the right number is not.
- Denial of information critical to progress. A reasonable game may require the player to use information, clues, or logic to proceed. Witholding relevant information means the player cannot possibly win without a guide, walkthrough or trial and error.
- The outcome of the game is influenced by decisions that were uninformed at the time and cannot be undone. A game that offered a Joke Character and was clear about the character's weakness is real difficulty. A game that disguises a joke character as a real one is fake difficulty.
- The game requires the player to use knowledge that's either incorrect or has nothing to do with the genre. A football game that requires you to describe the position that Jerry Rice played for a power-up is real difficulty. A football game that forces you to do multi-variable calculus in order to train your starting lineup is fake difficulty.
It is important to note that just because a gameplay feature is annoying and frustrating does not make it fake difficulty. For example, placing a large number of
invincible minor minions between the player and the
Plot Coupon is extremely annoying, but they can be avoided by skilled movement - thus, the difficulty is real.
Note also that fake difficulty is
not inherently bad. If used subtly, it can provide a satisfying challenge in cases where the AI might be lacking. However, it is obviously preferable for the AI to provide a challenge by playing well than by getting special advantages from the programmer.
See also
Fake Longevity,
Classic Video Game Screw Yous. For its cousin, see
Fake Balance
Sub-categories:
Subtropes:
Difficulty due to bad technical aspects of the game.
- Depth Perplexion
In 2D games, even though an enemy looks like it's in the wrong horizontal plane, it can still kill you.
- Game Breaking Bug
If it's part of regular gameplay, it can make gameplay more difficult in a not-so-fun way.
- One Bullet At A Time
Older games where your firing ability is based on how many bullets are onscreen at the same time.
- Some Dexterity Required
Games with unintuitive, complex, or difficult control systems.
- Uncomfortable jumping or other physics.
- One Hit KO
Only when there is no chance for the player to avert an instant-death attack in any way.
- Ratchet Scrolling
Non-continuous scrolling that only allows you to go forward.
- The presence of certain types Game Breaking Bugs.
- Action Commands, when used as the main method of character activity, and when the window for said commands is shorter than the time it takes to render the screen. (See Telengard.)
Outcome due to factors beyond player control.
Denial of critical information.
- Camera Screw
Problems with the camera in a 3D game.
- You Can't Get Ye Flask
Where the text parser in old Adventure Games can't understand what you're telling it.
- Hitbox Dissonance
Where the area around a character/enemy that registers hits doesn't match up with the actual graphics of the character/enemy.
- Leap Of Faith
A hole in a platform game which, deceptively, is not bottomless.
- Selective Memory
When the player is denied information that the actual character should have.
- Trial And Error Gameplay
When you can only figure out the correct path by trying the incorrect ones and dying, until you get to the right one.
- Obstructive Foreground
You can't see yourself or the enemies because some object in the foreground is in the way.
- Guide Dang It
A quest or objective which is difficult or impossible to figure out without using a strategy guide.
- Games with Copy Protection or Feelies that are not included with some nonetheless legal purchases of the game. E.g. Quest for Glory has maps and pamphlets that are used to give information about the setting and gain hints.
Punishing decisions made long before one could reasonably understand the ramifications.
- Character Select Forcing
Where the game designs levels or enemies to only be beatable by a particular character or set of characters and doesn't require or at least hint at which characters you need to pick at the outset. Some older D&D modules which require a certain character class's abilities in order to advance the plot (but doesn't force a member of the party to be one at the outset) are like this.
- Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards (when the game isn't upfront about this)
Melee classes are better at lower levels, while wizards are better at higher ones. Some games are clear about the fact that you will gain more power now at the cost of less power later, but some will advertise all of the classes as being relatively equal throughout the duration of the game—and won't let you change the decision easily.
- Lost Forever
A "missable" item which, if you didn't get it on your first chance, will be unobtainable afterwards. Doubly frustrating if it's a very powerful item that will aid the quest, and sure to cause a lot of frustration if it's a key item, primarily required for the best ending.
- Unwinnable
A gameplay state in which it is completely impossible for the player to finish the game.
- Unwinnable By Design
A gameplay design element that cripples the player so he can't win - but won't tell him about it for hours.
- Unwinnable By Mistake
Either a bug or an oversight has rendered the game broken so there's no way for it to tell the player how screwed they are.
Requires or rewards counter-intuitive or irrelevant behavior or skill from the player to continue the game.
- Alphabet Soup Cans
A game's solution requires real-world knowledge above what can be reasonably expected out of an average genre gamer. While simple, universal tasks like performing arithmetic or using geometry are more excusable, having to use advanced trigonometry to determine where the Big Bad is hidden it is not unless you're playing an Edutainment Game.
- Bladder of Steel
Have to go to the bathroom or answer the phone? Too bad, vital information for the plot was in this Cutscene that you couldn't pause!
- Empty Levels
Where the stat gains from gaining levels aren't enough to beat the new, stronger wave of enemies that attack higher-level characters. This is only fake difficulty if it's possible to avoid gaining levels in the first place (and thereby enjoy the artificially lowered difficulty now or at a later date) otherwise it's just a game with a Parabolic Power Curve.
- Encyclopedia Browned
A game's solution requires an answer that is blatantly incorrect in the real world, causing players with the true answer to get stuck at the puzzle.
- Old Save Bonus
If the game is balanced on the assumption that you will be using empowered characters from a previous game but starts new players to the game with crummy default characters (e.g. the later Wizardrys), this is fake difficulty.
