Sandbox / Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels Wick Check

Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels is a trope describing a specific naming convention for difficulty levels that is not the standard "Easy, Medium, Hard". It is closely related to the tropes Easier Than Easy and Harder Than Hard. The important distinction between the two being the former (IDL) requiring most if not all difficulty levels be named other than the standard while the latter (ETE and HTH) are about the existence of levels lesser and greater than easy and hard.

After a brief on-page look, this Wick Check is to see if the trope is suffering from misuse from a combination of ETE/HTH as well as examples not meeting the requirements of most DL named nonstandard.

Wicks Checked: 50/50

Correct 37/ 50 or 74%

• Minecraft.Tropes G To L: When using the "pirate speak" or "LOLCats" language packs, respectively:
  • "Smooth Sailin'/Cake (Peaceful)"
  • "Deckswabber/Meh (Easy)"
  • "RegulARRRR/Cheezburger (Normal)"
  • "True Pirate/Double Cheezburger (Hard)"
  • "Aimless Sailing/HAX (Creative)"
  • "Swashbuckler/SIRVIVL (Survival)"
  • "Captain/1 LIEF INSTED OF 9 (Hardcore)"
• VideoGame.Alley Cat: Although it plays more like a level select feature. Every difficulty level changes the obstacle placement on the alley and the type of task rooms you can enter. Every time you clear a level, it will advance to the next:
  • Kitten (Easy)
  • House Cat (Normal)
  • Tomcat (Hard)
  • Alley Cat (Very Hard)
• VideoGame.Arcaea: Past (easy), Present (medium), and Future (hard). With the release of Black Fate, a fourth difficulty was introduced: Beyond, the charts of which must be unlocked either from anomalies or from the special Beyond Chapter.
• VideoGame.Back 4 Blood: Recruit (Easy) , Veteran (Normal) , and Nightmare (Hard).
• VideoGame.Conduit 2: Like the prequel, difficulty levels are named after the five levels of the Homeland Security Advisory System: Low, Guarded, Elevated, High, and Severe.
• VideoGame.Dance Central: In DC3, the seven levels of song difficulties are thus named: Warm-Up, Simple, Moderate, Tough, Legit, Hardcore, Off The Hook. Averted in Dance Central Spotlight, where there are no skill level ratings at all (other than the different difficulty routines for each song).
• VideoGame.Dead Nation: Braindead, Normal, Grim, Morbid and Undead.
• VideoGame.Devil May Cry 5: Again, per the usual tradition in the series, the difficulty levels in DMC5 range from Human, Devil Hunter, Son of Sparda, Dante Must Die, Heaven or Hell, and Hell and Hell. These difficulty levels are taken wholesale from DMC4.
• VideoGame.Duke Nukem 3 D: Named after catchphrases that Duke sometimes utters in-game:
  • "Piece of Cake": The easiest.
  • "Let's Rock"
  • "Come Get Some"
  • "Damn, I'm Good": Harder Than Hard, roughly equivalent to Video Game/Doom's Nightmare difficulty. The enemies respawn on this difficulty if the player does not destroy their corpses.
• VideoGame.Dusk: With a question mark next to each difficulty level that gives a description of what to expect.
  • "Accessible": Intended for players of any skill level.
  • "Go Easy": Easy difficulty. Slow enemies and projectiles with minimal damage.
  • "I Can Take It": Medium difficulty. Recommended for a first playthrough.
  • "Cero Miedo" (Spanish for "Zero Fear"): Hard difficulty. Enemies are fast and deadly and armor is less effective. Recommended for twitch shooter veterans.
  • "DUSKMARE": For masochists only. Enemies are ruthless and their attacks kill in one hit.
• VideoGame.Expeditions Viking: Named after famous Norsemen with a life of varying spans and tumultuousness - from easiest to hardest is Leifr Eiriksson, Ivarr Beinlausi, Ragnarr Lodbrok and Eirikr Blodøx.
• VideoGame.Friday Night Funkin Hellbeats: Simple (Easy), Durable (Normal), and Resistant (Hard).
• VideoGame.Genetos: Beginner, Standard User, Programmer, Hacker, and Creator.
• VideoGame.God Hand: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and Level Die.
• Heretic: "Thou needest a wet-nurse," "Yellow-bellies R us," "Bringest them oneth," "Thou Art a Smite-Meister," and "Black Plague possesseth thee" are the difficulty levels seen in the first Heretic, whereas Heretic II goes with "Adventure", "Action", and "Armageddon".
• VideoGame.Hitman 3: As with H2, You can play Hitman 3's levels on Casual, Professional, or Master difficulties. Casual mode has very forgiving combat, no security cameras, and Mission stories are active. Professional mode adds back in the security camera's, as well as the smarter AI, and getting into combat isn't advised, while Master Mode only lets you save once, disables auto-saving, and the AI is smarter still. They will also respond to running (crouch-running is unaffected)
• VideoGame.Hostile Waters: The difficulty names are based on navy ranks - Ensign, Commander, and Admiral.
• VideoGame.Kid Icarus Uprising: The difficulty settings for the Solo Mode levels: "Effortless", "Easy", "Standard", "Tougher", "Challenging", "Heatin' Up", "Extra Spicy", "Infernal", "White Hot", and "Nothing Harder!".
• VideoGame.Lanota: Whisper, Acoustic, Ultra, and Master, the last of which requires an A-rank on Ultra to unlock for the song.
• VideoGame.Legend Of Mana: Normal, Nightmare, and No Future. In Nightmare, things still scale with your level, but they start at level 20 and get exponentially higher as you progress through the game. In No Future, everything starts at level 99.
• VideoGame.Lit 2009: "Light" (easy) and "Dark" (hard). The rooms stay the same, but in Dark Mode, the player character appears as a silhouette, and all light sources will slowly dim once turned on (and cannot be re-turned on once they're off entirely), so every level becomes a Timed Mission after you've made your first move.
• VideoGame.Mary Skelter: Dream (lowest enemy stats but lowered EXP), Normal, and Horror (highest enemy stats but higher EXP).
• VideoGame.One Way Heroics:
  • Walk In The Park (Easy)
  • Afternoon Stroll (Normal)
  • Grueling Campaign (Hard)
  • Inhumane Odyssey (Harder Than Hard)
• VideoGame.Mazogs: The difficulty levels are the following - 1. Try it Out, 2. Face a Challenge, 3. Maniac Mobile Mazogs.
• VideoGame.Outlaws: Keeping with the above, the difficulty levels are Good", "Bad," and "Ugly.” Correct usage, but needs to be rewritten to not reference another trope (which I believe is Homage).
• VideoGame.Painkiller: Daydream is easy, Insomnia is normal, Nightmare is hard, and Trauma is Nintendo Hard.
• VideoGame.Pac Man: (1) The new mazes in Pac-Man for Mobile have their difficulty categorized from Relaxed, Challenging, and Elite. Averted for the Classic Maze, it's simply Easy, Medium, and Hard.
• VideoGame.Sixty Seconds: Each level of difficulty is named after a nuclear bomb.
  • Little Boy (Easy)
  • Fat Man (Normal)
  • Tsar Bomba (Hard)
• VideoGame.South Park The Fractured But Whole:
  • The difficulty slider changes the color of your character's skin, with lighter skin being easy and darker skin being hard. Rather than altering combat, it alters the amount of money the player starts with as well as interactions with characters. For example, the crooked cops will try to attack you playing as a black character, but require direct provocation when playing as white.
    Cartman: Don't worry, this doesn't affect combat. Just every other aspect of your whole life.
  • The actual combat difficulty is ranked Casual (Easy), Heroic (Normal), Mastermind (Hard) and Diabolic (Very Hard). There is a trophy/achievement for completing the game on Mastermind as a black character.
• VideoGame.Super Mario Kart: Each difficulty level affects how fast you and the AI will go. 50cc=Easy (You will easily lap the AI). 100cc=Normal (The AI can keep up a little bit, but you will be a bit faster than they are). 150cc=Hard (You and the AI race incredibly fast and it's difficult to keep a lead on them).
• VideoGame.Trauma Center: Trauma Team's have a doctor theme: Intern, Resident, and the unlockable Specialist.
• VideoGame.Unloved:
  • Sliver of Mercy ("For the weak and inexperienced"): Easy, for levels 1-5. Enemies are weak and ammo/health/armor drops are worth 50% more.
  • No Hope ("If you can't fight them all, better bring someone along"): Normal, for levels 5-15. Supplies are still worth 50% more, but enemies are tougher.
  • Kill 'Em All ("You feel a constant, sharp pain and you want to inflict it on others"): Hard, for levels 15-30. Drops are fewer and worth their normal amount. Enemies are tougher still. The Rotten may appear on this difficulty and above.
  • Time to Die ("Let go of the fear of death"): Harder, for levels 30-50.
  • Beast Mode ("Pure insanity"): Harder still, for levels 50-100. A single Demon Chest containing a rank 3 trinket or ring may spawn at random, and the collectible card pieces have a small chance of giving you another one.
  • Unearthly ("You are already dead"): Harder Than Hard, for levels over 100. Up to two Demon Chests may spawn at random in addition to the possibility of getting one from card pieces, and all enemies gain the Witch's ability to summon more enemies.
  • Abyss ("The abyss stares into you"): Restricted difficulty for levels above 150. Features Abyss Wanderers. Kill three of them and you will get an Abyss Chest granting a powerful rank 4 trinket, if you survive the run.
• VideoGame.Wasteland 2: The game's difficulty levels are Rookie (Easy), Seasoned (Normal), Ranger (Hard) and Supreme Jerk (Very Hard).
• VideoGame.Weird And Unfortunate Things Are Happening: Dream-related titling, as seen here◊, from easiest to hardest:
  • Daydream: "I just want to relax and enjoy the weird and unfortunate events."
  • Lucid Dream: "I like how things have been so far. Don't want it super hard."
  • Bad Dream: "I'd like a bit more challenge, please. That'd be cool."
  • Nightmare: "Basically, I'm not happy unless I'm at a constant risk of death."
• VideoGame.The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt: "Just the Story!", "Story and Sword!", "Blood and Broken Bones!", and "Death March!"
• VideoGame.Wolfenstein: Ranging on four, commonly called: "Can I play, Daddy?", "Don't hurt me!", "Bring 'em on!" and "I am Death incarnate!"
• VideoGame.Zeus Master Of Olympus: The only game in the series to have them. Beginner (very easy), Mortal, Hero, Titan and Olympian (very hard).

Easier Than Easy and/or Harder Than Hard 5/ 50 or 10%

Note: By their nature, all of the following examples fail to have a majority of nonstandard names.

• VideoGame.Crysis: Easy, Normal, and Hard are straightforward, but then there's Delta, which the game files refer to as "bauer". Among other things, it averts the Translation Convention with the NK soldiers and makes them speak actual Korean.
• VideoGame.Earth Defense Force 2017: The game's five difficulty levels are Easy, Normal, Hard, Hardest, and Inferno.
• VideoGame.Pac Man: (2) Tengen's Ms. Pac-Man has their difficulty sorted as: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Crazy.
• VideoGame.Rabi Ribi: Beyond Casual, Easy, Normal and Hard, there's Hell (unlocked after beating the game on Hard) and the aptly-named Bunny Extinction Mode, unlocked after clearing the post-game on Hell difficulty. The Artbook also includes experimental Unknown and Impossible difficulties.
• VideoGame.Unleash The Light: The Black Hole has three different difficulty options, Normal (signified by a happy Steven in front of a pale blue star), Hard (signified by a nervous Steven in front of a gold star with a ring through it), and Diamond (signified by Steven in an action pose with his shield, in front of a rose-tinted diamond).

ZCE 3/ 50 or 6%

• VideoGame.DRL: Inherited from Doom.
• VideoGame.Metal Gear Rising Revengeance: The highest difficulty is called Revengeance. Only references one difficulty level.
• VideoGame.Revolution 60: The hardest difficulty level is called "girlfriend". Only references one difficulty level.

Other Misuse 5/ 50 or 10%

• VideoGame.Golden Krone Hotel: Here, they are Easy, Normal, and Despair. No majority on nonstandard naming
• VideoGame.Mutant Year Zero Road To Eden: The levels have plain names, but where most games have Easy, Normal and Hard, this game has Normal, Hard and Very Hard. The example admits it's not an example. It just lacks an "easy" difficulty.
• VideoGame.Skyshines Bedlam: At the start of the run, you can "Go Easy", "Go Normal" or "Go Bedlam". No majority on nonstandard naming
• VideoGame.Soma Spirits: Rebalance adds difficulty levels, with the first two being Easy, and Normal, but the hardest is called "Hero". No majority on nonstandard naming
• Stellaris.Tropes I To Z: Played with. Besides the usual difficulty settings (which give the AI bonuses at higher difficulties), there are options to select the number of AI empires spawned at the start of the game session, and how many of those empires have an "advanced" start . Generally speaking, it is a different experience starting in a game with few AI empires and few (or no) "advanced" starts, as compared to a game with many AI empires and "advanced" starts. Nothing to do with difficulty name, just how difficult the level can be.