Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Stop Hiding the Difficulty Settings!”.
Um Sony patents, an automatic difficulty curve right now. This was the one I wanted to talk about with my what, if you don’t quite finish the game thing because beating games all of a sudden, what is just not going to be a thing anymore. Sony has filed a patent for a system that dynamically tweaks the difficulty of a game based on player performance using specially designed algorithms, the algorithms would assess and project player performance then automatically and incrementally adjust parameters relating to movement, speed, delay or hesitation, character, strength, number of Competitors or other metrics until the player’s performance matches an expected level. This is never going to work, never get this patent. Similar systems have been been implemented in past games, notably for years beat them up godand from 2006, which grows more challenging in response to player successes.
So the discussion question here is not about Sony’s patent. I think they’re going to have an extremely difficult time patenting this concept. But what I would like to talk about is: are the days of beating games gone dead over? No, are you just being stubborn? No, I don’t think so. Actually, okay, I I I think, maybe stuff like that is going to invade certain AAA things um, but people are going to resist some amount of game developers are always going to resist to some degree, and we saw like when was that, like 2014 2015 uh, we Saw AAA games go kind of in the hole a little bit and the Indie scene just exploded because they saw a hole because triaa industry was leaving that ho open um.
I don’t, I don’t think you’d see a uh you, you know, Elden ring style game, make itself completely unbeatable. I don’t think you’d see a balers Gate 3 make itself completely unbeatable. There’S going to be these franchises. That are like no there’s a conclusion.
Oh hold on. That’S not what I really meant. I meant the achievement of beating a game being over.
Oh yeah. I think people will beat games because they’re going to design it so that, when you’re playing Spider-Man, you could barely be able to hold a controller and still be an unbeatable badass. Oh, I was going completely the opposite way with this. I still don’t think that’s going to be a thing, though, because okay um, I’m I’m going to I just constantly use baller skate. I really tried to find another one with Elden ring, but even yeah. I don’t think this is a thing on Elder ring. I think there’s just one difficulty right uh, I actually don’t know. I mean definitely make life harder for yourself. If you just you know, don’t wear any arm, custom challenges and stuff, but I think there just is Elden ring it.
Just is the game it is. It is one difficulty um, but like there’s three difficulties: wow. Okay, I didn’t know that I thought there was literally one but anyways yeah there there’s only one to H him yeah, gig, Chad, gamer um, B’s gate.
Oh elen ring has one sorry: what got him uh bers Gate 3, which is what they were probably talking about. Um has different difficulty levels that are actually very specific and change the game, significantly um and I think, there’s also other games where people will play that game or at least find replayability from that game due to specifically the difficulty levels. Yep, I think, there’s going to be other games like I think you mentioned Spider-Man yeah totally and at a certain level, like I mean I haven’t, played the game but probably like who cares uh? You heard it here.
First folks, what I mean you play Spider-Man I mean no. I don’t mean that you try to accompl. I’Ve actually heard it’s a fantastic game, but like is the difficulty level of the game.
What matters uh, I I I mean to someone I mean if we didn’t feel a sense of accomplishment in gaming. Why would we do it like? That’S that’s the part of our brain bra that it you know lights up. That’S the whole point of it.
As far as I can tell yeah it’s to make, you feel like you achieved something we literally have achievements, that’s what we actually call them yeah. I guess I guess the the hidden nature of the difficulty change is the annoying part because, like what I’m talking, there’s a billion games that will do suggested sure difficulty changes, yep or even you can manually, adjust it like uh back to Sea of stars. There’S a whole class of items that, as far as I can tell exists as a way of adjusting the difficulty curve, so I stubbornly refused to equip any of them um, which made things just take longer. As far as I can tell to go back again, I probably just wouldn’t bother but um doing it automatically.
I guess is what kind of bugs me about it, because it’s a matter of time that has also existed, but it’s usually revealed to the player yeah. It’S a matter of time until they just d until they just release the game and because remember what the goal of the developer is is to make sure the player has a good time right, yeah and if they’re going to do episodic episodes, they need to make Sure that you don’t get stuck so I could totally see them shipping a game like this, where even if you can toggle it off it’s enabled by default, and I just I um – I don’t know it just feels like too much handholding to me, like I mean Just the fact that Mario Kart 8 has the assistance on by default. You basically can’t crash a cart out of the box and the process of turning it off is. I couldn’t believe how obtuse it was to turn off the assist.
Oh, you can’t do it from the menu of the game. You have to be in a race and turn it off when the pause. Why to Reaper in float plane chat, said something that sparked a thought in my mind, uh he they said Ubisoft would make it harder to sell, boost and skips what about yeah. You just have the same thought I did what if they started being used nefariously where they started, crushing you with difficulty to try to incentiv like what do you mean? What, if I literally talked about that like 25 minutes ago yeah, but it’s Dynamic, yeah, it’s Dynamic. So they have, they have ideas, they have some, I don’t know camridge analytica data or whatever on like who you are, how much money you’re going to spend on games and stuff, and they push you just enough. If they’re like yeah, this person will probably spend like 15 bucks on microtransactions to get it to the end of this game. Then they’ll poke you for $ 15 and then let you win.
Oh stick. Leer says you can change the auto drive settings from the cart selection screen. Why isn’t it on the main menu? I’M I’m sorry. I had to look it up by default. I had to look well. No, that’s not even my issue.
Oh. That is an issue, but I had to look it up. I couldn’t find it on the main menu of the game, which is where settings go.
Sorry, not sorry. It’S still dumb. Oh man, yeah games will also lower difficulty without you, knowing, if you’re having issues playing on hard Parts yeah, but usually that’s still. It’S still granular like.
If you looked into the settings, you could see it there. Whiskey nerd 88 says Capcom uses this in Resident Evil. After you die too many times in a spot, they lower the enemies and the hit damage it. It very often communicates that to you and if it doesn’t it’s usually a setting that you can still go manually change yourself, but yeah this.
This has God forever. That is not the point. There’S people are telling me some people want to use it and some people, don’t I I know, okay, I know it. None of that matters. The fact is that it’s not obvious to find the settings menu is on the title screen of a game. That’S where the settings menu is. It feels like a setting, not a like feature on the cart.
Yes, it’s not a it’s, not a wheel. I understand it’s. It’S training wheels, but it’s like it’s not the way that people would think about it.
Okay, lonus likes hot dogs, so he hates burgers. Oh man, .