The eternal struggle
(media.scored.co)
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Nearly any game that has difficulty settings is going to be numbers, so that rules a fair amount out.
Well the meme was specifically if it was simply difficult, not if it had sliders.
The difference is somewhat like the difference between Oblivion and Sekiro let's say.
Oblivion can be hard if you don't spreadsheet out your skill leveling and end up with zero higher level combat skills on your way up. Now the Numbers have fucked you.
Sekiro is mechanics. You either get it or you don't, skill issue or skill display.
The meme, from what I thought, was asking if the difficulty came from mechanics or numbers. My point was that difficulty sliders are usually based on numbers, increasing HP or decreasing damage, and not based on adding new mechanics for enemies. Perhaps I misunderstood.
I think it's generally understood that numbers have to play a role in difficulty on some level, but the question is where the line is drawn. For example, difficulty in the good Halo games is largely numbers; there are a few AI tweaks that happen and if you're using skulls you can add non-numbers things like exploding enemies or no checkpoints, but a big part of the scale from Easy-Legendary is about how much damage you do, or enemies do, or your occasional marine allies do. For the most part, people are fine with this because it's very well-executed in general and the number tweaks are done with intention and consideration.
But there are definitely some games that are guilty of saying "okay, my higher difficulty setting is that the basic grunt who you're supposed to be mowing down in hordes now takes five hits to kill and if he hits you you die." (And to be fair, some people enjoy this too).
The only game I can think of where difficulty isn't numbers at all is something like "I Wanna Be The Boshy," where if you ever mess up a jump or get hit you die. But not every game can be or should be a precision platformer, and some genres do need to use numbers on some level.
Halo is a great example for it because Legendary in a lot of games also shows the problem with "Numbers" as the big barometer.
Halo Legendary is often a game where numbers are cranked so high that a lot of the mechanics actually stop mattering. Most of the weapons that aren't named Plasma Pistol become useless. A lot of the vehicles just become death traps. Heck merely peeking out a pixel from cover is death if you haven't memorized Jackal spawns. It becomes basically "meta only."
Its not "absolutely bad, no one can have fun with this" but its a good example of why people also dislike the Numbers system a lot of the time as well.
Sekiro feels like an outlier, even among Fromsoft games. The mechanics are so simple and pure that its kind of difficulty is closer to an indie platformer or racing game. I happen to be in the camp that thinks Sekiro's difficulty is overstated, but since there is no way to outlevel or RNG-hack its challenge, it developed a reputation as one of the toughest games ever. The masses really aren't comfortable with a game that doesn't adapt to their natural level of play and forces them to learn, react and rise to its level.
I'm playing through the Nioh games for the first time lately and I love them - maybe as much as I love Sekiro - but I can't help the nagging feeling that despite a similar reputation to Sekiro, they are... easy. And I'm not the type of person to use easy as a pejorative, I'm fine with not struggling in a game. I do die a fair amount in Nioh, sure, but there is such an absolute glut of ways to overwhelm, outlevel, out-equip and out-maths the enemies, that it makes the ways the devs have cooked up to make the game 'difficult' - mostly cynical and sadistic enemy placement, combined with high incoming damage - come across as comedic more than serious. There is such an abundance of options at your disposal at any given moment that the biggest difficulty is being spoilt for choice. Thankfully the gameplay, as deep as it is, is also incredibly fun as a result. But any challenge you fail to live up to in skill terms in Nioh, you'll soon compensate for and beat with the help of maths, it feels. That isn't as satisfying a feeling as I got from Sekiro... although mastery of the complex combat comes with a different sense of satisfaction to Sekiro.
Most people who beat Sekiro didn't do it charmless, let alone with the demon mode active. This isn't to brag, as I didn't get very far charmless alone, but its unironically turning the game into what its intended to be difficulty wise.
Regular Sekiro you can spam the parry button and fish for hits and do pretty well. Timing isn't super strict and you lose little from doing so. And you still feel really fucking good mastering it regardless, because it is still very hard to do.
But it is a great example of a "Mechanical" Difficulty change that is purely skill based. All it does is take off training wheels you didn't know you had, and makes the game absolutely miles harder.
Agreed, Charmless is where the game becomes a real test, but it's also a natural and harmonious upgrade from the first run difficulty. There was a point somewhere in NG+ (going for the Shura ending) that I thought I'd hit my ceiling and that Charmless/Bell was too much for me and I'd have to throw in the towel. But I pushed through, tried to raise my game and then started enjoying the game even more in NG+2 Charmless (going for the finicky ending with the sakura branch stuff) - and even started having an easier time, despite the fact that you more or less hit a hard limit on attack dmg at that stage (besides expensive upgrades via dragon mask). I sometimes revisit the game for the boss gauntlets these days but never play it in anything less than charmless, since it feels like the most natural difficulty now.
Still, I have a tendency to talk about Sekiro in terms of its first run difficulty, because I know that's what everyone else tends to be talking about. A bizarrely low number of people ever seem to have tried or are talking about Charmless, even when they talk about Sekiro as if they've played it inside out. To me that just cements how unaccustomed most players are to real mechanical difficulty challenges. They just write Charmless off as some bonus mode, whereas what its really doing is kicking off the training wheels, as you say.
But imo rather than parry spam, the real training wheels in first run difficulty is ... blocking. When blocking you're immune from all damage from everything that isn't a rare piercing attack or telegraphed unblockable. Enemies are mostly quite bad at punishing a broken posture bar, as long as you recovery roll asap. And from block, a quick release and re-tap in response to an enemy attack becomes a successful deflect. Once you realise this it reveals itself as a massive safety blanket. I've thought about going back through Seki on NG and timing how long it takes for certain bosses to kill me if I just stand still, hold block, recovery roll after posture break and sprint away from unblockables, no attacking or healing. I suspect multiple bosses will find it literally impossible to kill me. Charmless takes all this away, as it should, but it's weird how so few players ever learn how safe they are in vanilla Sekiro if they just engage with the mechanics, plus the fact that the real learning experience is discovering how to fill every empty moment with pro-active attacking.
Not all. Take RTSs. StarCraft is hard. In campaign you turn up the difficulty by increasing the speed. The AI will make largely the same decisions you just have less time to deal with it. Purely mechanics skill based.
Funny, cause what you just said is exactly what difficulty by number is. It's not just about levels and gears stats.
You can quantittize anything and everything, but a change in the rate of flow of time is not what people would consider numbers. The enemies don't get more HP or higher attack or faster attack speed comparable to your own, everything just happens faster taxing a human player's multi-tasking and strategy given their skill's limited amount of APM.
Another good example would be a fighting game where the difficulty is altered by changing the amount of time between when the AI performs combos. The enemy doesn't get more HP or higher attack or faster attack speed comparable to your own. Sure, you could consider that in built "stagger time" a number too, but everything that would stay the same against a human opponent instead stays the same.
Absolutely don't care about "what people would consider". People still don't understand what AAA or Indie games mean, or the difference between a remake and a remaster. Because the number is hidden, doesn't mean it's not a number.
No, you can't quantitize everything. A game mechanic is made of numbers, but by itself, is not a number or even a math concept at all.
Take Pacman, and every level, it gets 5% faster (for everyone). This is easily measurable, even if the game doesn't show you the value.
Take Pacman, and each level, you introduce a different level design elements (like one-way passages, portals, boosts or slow-downs, or "pacgums" for the ghosts that will power them up instead of Pacman). Those mechanics do have numbers with them sure, but adding them to the game doesn't constitute an increas by number. You can't really tell how much harder the game got if you suddenly have one-way passages, contrary to a flat 5% speed increase.
That would be a number, you twit.
You can quantittize anything and everything, but a change in the rate of flow of time is not what people would consider numbers. The enemies don't get more HP or higher attack or faster attack speed comparable to your own, everything just happens faster taxing a human player's multi-tasking and strategy given their skill's limited amount of APM.
Another good example would be a fighting game where the difficulty is altered by changing the amount of time between when the AI performs combos. The enemy doesn't get more HP or higher attack or faster attack speed comparable to your own. Sure, you could consider that in built "stagger time" a number too, but everything that would stay the same against a human opponent instead stays the same.
Yes, that's why I didn't say all.