Difficulty Spike: Subjective VS Objective

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There's a growing concern that Difficulty Spike is undergoing Trope Decay because a lot of the examples are based on the editors' opinions rather than any objective facts (Word of God, etc.). In addition, it's being used as an excuse to list YMMV tropes like Demonic Spiders, That One Boss and That One Level in one package, bypassing the barrier. A split and clean-up may be needed to separate subjective examples from confirmed objective ones.

It should probably only be YMMV. I've watched enough Let's Plays and Twitch Streams to know that everybody finds different things to be difficult.

I've seen people attempt parts on games that are generally considered to be extremely difficult and breeze by them on their first try effortlessly. And the opposite, I've seen people take hours on what most people consider to be very easy things. Sometimes from the same person.

Honestly, I don't even know how you would make this "objective" without Word of God confirming that it was a deliberate attempt to make the game more difficult. And if we start requiring that, there will be so few legit examples that we might as well not even bother.

Edited by Primis on May 11th 2020 at 10:06:49 AM

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Difficulty as a whole is subjective and varies on opinion, so Difficulty Spike should be changed to YMMV.

The only arguments I can see for it being objective is if it's based on things like level spikes, the type of enemies in the area, the complicated nature of certain puzzles, etc. But even then, not everyone will find these things objectively more difficult in practice, just on paper.

For a demonstration, here's an example I added on The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel.

• Difficulty Spike: Chapter 5 in Cold Steel I presents a massive difficulty curve even by late-game standards. During the actual field study, you will have no access to any of your all-around healers; Alisa, Elliot, and to a lesser extent, Machias, and instead, must rely on Emma as your primary healer whose craft can only select a single party member while picking up the slack with whatever healing quartz you can set on others. The chapter also contains really tough bosses who will wreck your party if you come unprepared, Unsurtr and Nosferatu, in addition to a Wake-Up Call Boss fight against <S> (aka Scarlet), the first boss you'll encounter who can use an S-Break against you. It's by this point that the game is telling you the gloves are off in terms of difficulty.

The way I wrote it is based on my own experience. However, when I got into a discussion with fans off-site, they disagreed with my opinion, saying it's not even close to being the hardest part in the game according to them. The difficulty depends on how you apply attack delay and whether or not you decide to use many of the game's Game-Breaker strategies.

I think statements of difficulty, including Difficulty Spike and Nintendo Hard, are inherently YMMV.

See Non-Indicative Difficulty and Schizophrenic Difficulty for, well, screwups in practical difficulties.

I broadly agree that difficulty is a subjective concept. I see lots of games with Nintendo Hard listed as an example, yet the quality of those examples varies wildly and they tend to attract Walkthrough Mode natter. Indeed, almost any reference to difficulty in terms of player experience rather than game mechanics (That One Boss, Goddamned Bats, etc.) will collect natter like flies unless carefully curated.

Agreed. I've seen levels where some complain are Difficulty Spikes, but I can surpass them easily, unlike them. Because of this, I consider this to be subjective.

Right. What makes the game more difficult on paper might not make it more difficult in practice, and not to every player of the game.

In addition, the images on Sequel Difficulty Spike and Sequel Difficulty Drop seem to be... opinion surveys? I'm not sure, something like that. But it definitely contributes to the whole subjectivity thing.

Alright, since most people here agree that Difficulty Spike needs to be changed to YMMV, I'll take it to the Trope Repair Shop.

While you're at it, some other difficulty tropes may be YMMV, too.

I'll bring it up on the TRS thread so we can create a central discussion for difficulty tropes.