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CHALLENGE VERSUS FRUSTRATION
Posts
McDohl
120
McDohl
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CloseHere's the thing (and I'm sure this has been asked before).
I've added a series of events in my game that I do not doubt that players will find difficult and probably get inexplicably frustrated. Now, I want this to be challenging. It was designed to be challenging in mind, and right now, it is sufficiently challenging. I really like it the way it is. I've play-tested it the event several times through several different scenarios, and I've been sufficiently pleased. I don't think it's that challenging, but I also know the core game mechanics since I wrote the event, so maybe my judgment is biased.
So the question I posit is this: How do you reconcile difficulty with not frustrating the player?
I've added a series of events in my game that I do not doubt that players will find difficult and probably get inexplicably frustrated. Now, I want this to be challenging. It was designed to be challenging in mind, and right now, it is sufficiently challenging. I really like it the way it is. I've play-tested it the event several times through several different scenarios, and I've been sufficiently pleased. I don't think it's that challenging, but I also know the core game mechanics since I wrote the event, so maybe my judgment is biased.
So the question I posit is this: How do you reconcile difficulty with not frustrating the player?
ridakian
0
Uh.....
make that difficulty legitimate enough.......
That works on me, I don't know with everybody else............
make that difficulty legitimate enough.......
That works on me, I don't know with everybody else............
I dunno if I'm too far out there, but maybe it can thought like having to get a job done, but for getting it done, you need the tools and know how to use them. Now if you want to put in some difficulty, but still be fair to the player, give them the tools, but let them figure how to use them. Or tell them how to use the tools, but have them get the tools themselves.
By this I mean that when the player faces the peak of difficulty, they should be able to look somewhere for help, or be able to figure out what they're supposed to do. Just give them some leads.
By this I mean that when the player faces the peak of difficulty, they should be able to look somewhere for help, or be able to figure out what they're supposed to do. Just give them some leads.
Shinan
4314
Challenges are best when beta-tested. There's so much a developer will miss because he knows everything and even though he tries to forget he knows everything he still does. So Rei's suggestions are good but it's up to some beta-testing to really figure out what the line is when it comes to "hand-holding".
Because some games can also be too obvious as to what you're supposed to do.
But a good rule is to introduce a concept in a simple way first. As training or tutorial if you like. For example if you gain a new attack that has some sort of side-effect that is very useful then you'll have to subtly point it out by making it usable immediately after getting the new attack and have a simple example of how it can be incredibly useful.
Then once the player understands the new tool he has you can throw in some of those more challenging things into it. (Look at Portal for the perfect example of how to build up the challenge while introducing new tools)
Also if it's time/timing-based don't make it so hardcore that you have to do the right sequence exactly. Leave a bit of leeway so that you can make a jump even if you happen to stand two pixels to the right of the perfect spot or even if you did hit that one wall you had to dodge and stopped for a quarter of a second. (i.e. don't force people to play the perfect speedrun just to get past a certain point in the game)
Because some games can also be too obvious as to what you're supposed to do.
But a good rule is to introduce a concept in a simple way first. As training or tutorial if you like. For example if you gain a new attack that has some sort of side-effect that is very useful then you'll have to subtly point it out by making it usable immediately after getting the new attack and have a simple example of how it can be incredibly useful.
Then once the player understands the new tool he has you can throw in some of those more challenging things into it. (Look at Portal for the perfect example of how to build up the challenge while introducing new tools)
Also if it's time/timing-based don't make it so hardcore that you have to do the right sequence exactly. Leave a bit of leeway so that you can make a jump even if you happen to stand two pixels to the right of the perfect spot or even if you did hit that one wall you had to dodge and stopped for a quarter of a second. (i.e. don't force people to play the perfect speedrun just to get past a certain point in the game)
McDohl
120
post=119335
Uh.....
make that difficulty legitimate enough.......
That works on me, I don't know with everybody else............
You have to define "legitimate", since something that is legit in your eyes may be bullshit to someone else.
catmitts
4862
I'm not really involved with the XxHardCorexX gaming community at all so I could be mistaken, but I think it's better to give the player an illusion of difficulty rather than actual difficulty. Difficulty is fun mostly in the feeling of accomplishment you get for overcoming it, unless you dig that masochistic I Wanna Be The Guy stuff. I guess what I mean by illusory difficulty is that it makes the player feel proud of themselves for overcoming it but with the minimum of frustration that comes from the task not being incredibly hard, really.
I guess an example would be a part of a Mario level where you have to get across a large gap by bouncing from one flying koopa to the next. Mostly the koopas are set up to not require split-second timing, and the actual task isn't that difficult, but the sense of constant danger that comes from bounding quickly off platforms over a void and the fact that the only options after making the first jump are to succeed or die makes it pretty engaging and satisfying to pull off.
I'm not sure exactly how this would be accomplished in terms of rpgs: maybe by making certain enemies difficult enough to provide the constant specter of death while setting up the mechanics so that the player rarely actually dies. An example would be an early build of Mog's Chronology Of The Last Era game, which made the enemies quite tough at the start but they gave you potions when you died and iirc you had a heal spell too (?) so there was the sense of danger without actually being hugely dangerous. Apparantly other people found that version too difficult though so I could be wrong, but the principle's the same. It's similar to that in horror games, where you want to keep the player frightened of dying without actually dying because if they die, well, it's just a 'continue' screen, it lets them know that it's just a game and that the monster is just another challenge to be overcome by a certain strategy, and the immersion is broken to a certain extent.
In terms of puzzles I think you can break it down to a few rules, such as:
- always have the player know what they're meant to be doing: get past the rockslide, persude the king, etc. and whenever possible have this be as exact as possible: if the player comes across a locked door, say, try to use things like the description of the door, the comments of npcs, signposts etc to let the player know the distinction between, say, a locked door that means you have to find a key to progress and a locked door that means you have to break it down in some way to progress and a locked door that means you have to find a different way in to progress, etc. You can blur these distinctions to a certain degree but I think it's better in general to err on the side of giving the player more information. there's no fun in finding the cave entrance has been blocked by a landslide and spending an hour running around trying to get to another exit before realising you had to have blown up the rum barrels you saw earlier to, etc.
- Rei-'s comment about giving the player leads is a good one too, but I think it's also important to be consistent about this stuff. This is easier for adventure games because players are used to every character and object and line of dialogue meaning something: in rpgs it can be more difficult to distinguish between comments and events which happen to signpost the player and ones which are just meant to provide ambience. Essentially this amounts to helping the player decide what's relevent and what's not. Sometimes ambiguity and red herrings can make things more interesting but mostly this is the bad kind of difficulty which isn't really testing the player but their patience.
- Similarly, if you're gonna do a puzzle with multiple segments, make sure the player should be able to make some kind of intuitive causal connection between the different parts. This is mostly an adventure game thing but the classic example of scaring the cat to run through the duct tape to get hair for a moustache so you can impersonate a man who does not actually have a moustache still holds as a pretty good demonstration of what not to do.
I'm generalising horribly but you know.
I guess an example would be a part of a Mario level where you have to get across a large gap by bouncing from one flying koopa to the next. Mostly the koopas are set up to not require split-second timing, and the actual task isn't that difficult, but the sense of constant danger that comes from bounding quickly off platforms over a void and the fact that the only options after making the first jump are to succeed or die makes it pretty engaging and satisfying to pull off.
I'm not sure exactly how this would be accomplished in terms of rpgs: maybe by making certain enemies difficult enough to provide the constant specter of death while setting up the mechanics so that the player rarely actually dies. An example would be an early build of Mog's Chronology Of The Last Era game, which made the enemies quite tough at the start but they gave you potions when you died and iirc you had a heal spell too (?) so there was the sense of danger without actually being hugely dangerous. Apparantly other people found that version too difficult though so I could be wrong, but the principle's the same. It's similar to that in horror games, where you want to keep the player frightened of dying without actually dying because if they die, well, it's just a 'continue' screen, it lets them know that it's just a game and that the monster is just another challenge to be overcome by a certain strategy, and the immersion is broken to a certain extent.
In terms of puzzles I think you can break it down to a few rules, such as:
- always have the player know what they're meant to be doing: get past the rockslide, persude the king, etc. and whenever possible have this be as exact as possible: if the player comes across a locked door, say, try to use things like the description of the door, the comments of npcs, signposts etc to let the player know the distinction between, say, a locked door that means you have to find a key to progress and a locked door that means you have to break it down in some way to progress and a locked door that means you have to find a different way in to progress, etc. You can blur these distinctions to a certain degree but I think it's better in general to err on the side of giving the player more information. there's no fun in finding the cave entrance has been blocked by a landslide and spending an hour running around trying to get to another exit before realising you had to have blown up the rum barrels you saw earlier to, etc.
- Rei-'s comment about giving the player leads is a good one too, but I think it's also important to be consistent about this stuff. This is easier for adventure games because players are used to every character and object and line of dialogue meaning something: in rpgs it can be more difficult to distinguish between comments and events which happen to signpost the player and ones which are just meant to provide ambience. Essentially this amounts to helping the player decide what's relevent and what's not. Sometimes ambiguity and red herrings can make things more interesting but mostly this is the bad kind of difficulty which isn't really testing the player but their patience.
- Similarly, if you're gonna do a puzzle with multiple segments, make sure the player should be able to make some kind of intuitive causal connection between the different parts. This is mostly an adventure game thing but the classic example of scaring the cat to run through the duct tape to get hair for a moustache so you can impersonate a man who does not actually have a moustache still holds as a pretty good demonstration of what not to do.
I'm generalising horribly but you know.
Difficulty versus challenge is a tough one. I ask you this :
In my mass effect game, I'm at insane difficulty (last one in the game). Basicly, if you get hit by a sniper weapon, you are dead, one shot (for half of the game or most). So the strategy is to peek for .5 seconds, shot the guy for 1/5 of his life, and cover again.
Is this really a challenge or an invitation to use bugged AI technique in order to avoid overgrown stats of monster ?
To me, challenge would have put more monsters and better AI, not just x10 HP and x10 dmg.
Btw I'm not ranting about the game, just about the insanity difficulty level. Rest of the game is insanly good.
In my mass effect game, I'm at insane difficulty (last one in the game). Basicly, if you get hit by a sniper weapon, you are dead, one shot (for half of the game or most). So the strategy is to peek for .5 seconds, shot the guy for 1/5 of his life, and cover again.
Is this really a challenge or an invitation to use bugged AI technique in order to avoid overgrown stats of monster ?
To me, challenge would have put more monsters and better AI, not just x10 HP and x10 dmg.
Btw I'm not ranting about the game, just about the insanity difficulty level. Rest of the game is insanly good.
I tend to use difficulty levels that can be changed at any point in the game. The main problem that arises from doing so is how to scale reward with difficulty level though, if doing so at all.
DFalcon
2141
Been there. I've tuned a challenge to be just right, exciting and difficult but far from impossible... and then I sent it out for beta-testing, tester opinions varied considerably, and in short that's why Aurora Wing ended up having easier difficulty levels at all. So, having been there... beta-testing and avoiding ridiculous random death and teaching the player to use the tools at his disposal are all great ideas, but in a certain way they are solutions to other problems.
There are things you can do to make it less likely that a player will get frustrated by repeated failure. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the best are either well-known in theory or not terrifically generalizable. I know I don't have to tell McDohl to avoid having a five-minute unskippable dialogue sequence after the save before the challenging part. And being able to use stuff like checkpoints (some way to not have to play already-mastered segments of the challenge, especially if it's long) or showing the player in a concrete way how much progress he made (to tell the player that even though he failed, he's getting better) may depend on the exact situation.
If you still may reach the point where a player is beating his head against some challenge without making progress, in the game at that point I guess you have three options: A) make it easier; B) make it optional; C) get the player to do something else for a while, so that he might think of a different approach or get a better appreciation of the tools he has.
These aren't mutually exclusive. If I were to point at the Holy Grails of difficulty adjustment, I might pick something like DDR or TIE Fighter where you have very flexible goalposts (in both directions) including optional objectives, and lots of opportunity to switch between tasks. But you can get a lot of mileage out of a simple mechanism. For example, in A Blurred Line, when you're escaping from the city there's a driving minigame. Fail 3-5 times and it will offer you the option to skip the minigame, missing out on its minor reward.
And I think much of how the player will react to the options he has to make something easier or optional comes to presentation. If the main way to make something easier is just to go slower and the game shows and tracks elapsed time on a task, I may auto-adjust. But for a more RPG-like example: if, defeated by the Boojum, I go out and grind a couple levels then come back and beat it, have I wimped out on the challenge by making it easier or triumphed through perseverance? Hard to say from just that, particularly if I don't know what the expected level was. But if I get something that's useful in-game I'm more likely to think the latter, whereas if I get a badge saying "I beat the Boojum at level XX" or even just a badge saying "I beat the Boojum" I'm more likely to think the former.
That was sort of half for McDohl, half for general audiences. This is a problem I concern myself with a fair bit and would enjoy talking about.
There are things you can do to make it less likely that a player will get frustrated by repeated failure. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the best are either well-known in theory or not terrifically generalizable. I know I don't have to tell McDohl to avoid having a five-minute unskippable dialogue sequence after the save before the challenging part. And being able to use stuff like checkpoints (some way to not have to play already-mastered segments of the challenge, especially if it's long) or showing the player in a concrete way how much progress he made (to tell the player that even though he failed, he's getting better) may depend on the exact situation.
If you still may reach the point where a player is beating his head against some challenge without making progress, in the game at that point I guess you have three options: A) make it easier; B) make it optional; C) get the player to do something else for a while, so that he might think of a different approach or get a better appreciation of the tools he has.
These aren't mutually exclusive. If I were to point at the Holy Grails of difficulty adjustment, I might pick something like DDR or TIE Fighter where you have very flexible goalposts (in both directions) including optional objectives, and lots of opportunity to switch between tasks. But you can get a lot of mileage out of a simple mechanism. For example, in A Blurred Line, when you're escaping from the city there's a driving minigame. Fail 3-5 times and it will offer you the option to skip the minigame, missing out on its minor reward.
And I think much of how the player will react to the options he has to make something easier or optional comes to presentation. If the main way to make something easier is just to go slower and the game shows and tracks elapsed time on a task, I may auto-adjust. But for a more RPG-like example: if, defeated by the Boojum, I go out and grind a couple levels then come back and beat it, have I wimped out on the challenge by making it easier or triumphed through perseverance? Hard to say from just that, particularly if I don't know what the expected level was. But if I get something that's useful in-game I'm more likely to think the latter, whereas if I get a badge saying "I beat the Boojum at level XX" or even just a badge saying "I beat the Boojum" I'm more likely to think the former.
That was sort of half for McDohl, half for general audiences. This is a problem I concern myself with a fair bit and would enjoy talking about.
I basically agree with Catmitts.
In the case of turn based RPGs I think the difficulty should be in figuring out the strategy rather than the execution of it. Most people will come up with a boss and think "I want this weak vs ice", and then be too scared of it really being weak against ice. They don't want to allow the player to be able to kill it easily even with the weak spot, so boost it's hp so it takes many hits with ice to kill. The problem with this is the encounter isn't really weak vs ice anymore. It's actually resistant to everything except ice. That's a simple strategy anyway and bosses should probably be more complex.
Xenogears had some nice complex strategies to beat the bosses but stuck with it and if the player figured them out made them completely trivial. I prefer this way because then if I can beat them, it feels like *I* outplayed/outsmarted the encounter. Whenever it's some mega hard endurance match type thing, I feel more "I got lucky." For me at least, being lucky is a lot less satisfying than legitimately being better.
In the case of turn based RPGs I think the difficulty should be in figuring out the strategy rather than the execution of it. Most people will come up with a boss and think "I want this weak vs ice", and then be too scared of it really being weak against ice. They don't want to allow the player to be able to kill it easily even with the weak spot, so boost it's hp so it takes many hits with ice to kill. The problem with this is the encounter isn't really weak vs ice anymore. It's actually resistant to everything except ice. That's a simple strategy anyway and bosses should probably be more complex.
Xenogears had some nice complex strategies to beat the bosses but stuck with it and if the player figured them out made them completely trivial. I prefer this way because then if I can beat them, it feels like *I* outplayed/outsmarted the encounter. Whenever it's some mega hard endurance match type thing, I feel more "I got lucky." For me at least, being lucky is a lot less satisfying than legitimately being better.
This is more of an opinion, and a very simple one:
Considering what Rei said, yes it is very important the tools and the knoledge,but the moment and the meaning of the challenge is also something that should be taken into account, and not just that, the results of a very dificult challenge should be something considerably good.
Cause it is even more frustrating when you discovered that all the hard work didn't mean shift, and your reward is nothing!
Like:
- Ok! so i prevented World war 3, do I get the Nuclear satelite atack to save the world from the aliens?
- Actualy... no... but we can spare you a phoenix down!
Considering what Rei said, yes it is very important the tools and the knoledge,but the moment and the meaning of the challenge is also something that should be taken into account, and not just that, the results of a very dificult challenge should be something considerably good.
Cause it is even more frustrating when you discovered that all the hard work didn't mean shift, and your reward is nothing!
Like:
- Ok! so i prevented World war 3, do I get the Nuclear satelite atack to save the world from the aliens?
- Actualy... no... but we can spare you a phoenix down!
I get the feeling that people tend to be less tolerant to frustration when playing amateur games... well, I am. If I'm getting frustrated too often or too quickly, I give up on the game, unless I have a very strong reason to keep playing, which is rarely the case.
So what I try to do is... either keep the difficulty low, or make the big challenges optional. If not optional, make sure the player doesn't get stuck if he can't get pass the big challenges, maybe he'll just miss an item, a level, or a story event.
Honestly, being hard is not what makes a game good. Being easy doesn't make a game bad. Being too simple, maybe, does.
One example that comes to mind... Final Fantasy Tactics. The original PSX version is much harder than the GBA FFTA version. But, in my opinion, they're both equally fun (at least system-wise). I failed/died a lot of times in FFT, and almost never in FFTA, but having died more didn't make me like it more at all.
So what I try to do is... either keep the difficulty low, or make the big challenges optional. If not optional, make sure the player doesn't get stuck if he can't get pass the big challenges, maybe he'll just miss an item, a level, or a story event.
Honestly, being hard is not what makes a game good. Being easy doesn't make a game bad. Being too simple, maybe, does.
One example that comes to mind... Final Fantasy Tactics. The original PSX version is much harder than the GBA FFTA version. But, in my opinion, they're both equally fun (at least system-wise). I failed/died a lot of times in FFT, and almost never in FFTA, but having died more didn't make me like it more at all.
I agree with Calunio. Frustration is going to drive you to ragequit a game much faster if you didn't pay for it and there's nothing at stake. I would definitely write something in your game description about the game being legitimately frustrating so the player knows beforehand. Less people may play, but more who play will finish.
And... there's an article on this site, by Brickroad, I believe, about building your player up for harder and harder puzzles and challenges. For example:
1st challenge) Have them find a locked door, but make the key pretty easily found.
2nd) Have them find a locked door (now they know they need a key) and then make a monster say "aha! I have the key!" so they kill it.
3rd) Have them find a locked door, make the same monster dance around hinting he has the key, then have him run away and make the player catch him.
4th) Have them find a locked door, put the same monster back there, then make him run and then hide him behind a boss, setting your player up for a huge fight.
...or something like that. Basically, you teach the player things (You need keys to open doors, monsters like to steal keys, the monster is a wuss and will run away) and then you can expect him to be ready for your next, more devious, challenge.
And... there's an article on this site, by Brickroad, I believe, about building your player up for harder and harder puzzles and challenges. For example:
1st challenge) Have them find a locked door, but make the key pretty easily found.
2nd) Have them find a locked door (now they know they need a key) and then make a monster say "aha! I have the key!" so they kill it.
3rd) Have them find a locked door, make the same monster dance around hinting he has the key, then have him run away and make the player catch him.
4th) Have them find a locked door, put the same monster back there, then make him run and then hide him behind a boss, setting your player up for a huge fight.
...or something like that. Basically, you teach the player things (You need keys to open doors, monsters like to steal keys, the monster is a wuss and will run away) and then you can expect him to be ready for your next, more devious, challenge.
kayzorkross
25
There's a simple answer to this question...
If it's going to frustrate the player to the point where they no longer enjoy playing and will turn it off... it should be edited or done away with.
Games are played for fun. =]
If it's going to frustrate the player to the point where they no longer enjoy playing and will turn it off... it should be edited or done away with.
Games are played for fun. =]
McDohl
120
post=121646
There's a simple answer to this question...
If it's going to frustrate the player to the point where they no longer enjoy playing and will turn it off... it should be edited or done away with.
Games are played for fun. =]
Okay.
Where's the threshold? Who's the arbiter?
See, for us that's an easy answer: the game creator.
Make the game first and foremost for yourself. If you think it is genuinely fun, chances are someone else out there will too.
Make the game first and foremost for yourself. If you think it is genuinely fun, chances are someone else out there will too.
McDohl
120
post=121765
See, for us that's an easy answer: the game creator.
Make the game first and foremost for yourself. If you think it is genuinely fun, chances are someone else out there will too.
The RPG-Advocate rule of thumb. "I like it, therefore others will too."
See, I like everything I create. But I fully accept the fact that what I create is not necessarily for everybody, and this is shown through unpopular opinions and ideas and such. So I rarely trust my taste for anything other than pleasing me. Which is why you have to deal with conflicts like challenge v. frustration as objectively as possible (and why you have to ask).
