Offering Difficulty Settings For Games Is Not Lazy Game Development
Offering Difficulty Settings For Games Is Not Lazy Game Development
Offering Difficulty Settings For Games Is Not Lazy Game Development
By Stephanie Minor
April 26, 2021
Summary
I couldn't figure out what the downside would be to not offering difficulty options for players at the beginning of the game.
Many games out there fail to implement innovative difficulty settings and instead rely entirely on the tweaking of stats while everything else remains the same.
This is lazy game design, but this is not all games.
Pokemon could be a much better game with difficulty settings in which the harder mode includes improved AI. I do agree with Maxx that making difficulty settings that are set in stone from the beginning of the game might not be the best option.
As far as the difficulty options being available ruining the game even if they're not touched, I'm not seeing this argument.
Maxx says, "The entire experience hinges on menu options and not anything consistent with the game world," and that doesn't describe my experience when playing these kinds of games at all.
I loved every second of it, yet I wouldn't have been able to experience the game that way without difficulty settings.
I'm not arguing that every single game should have difficulty settings.
The Dark Souls games have actually been praised quite a bit for their lack of difficulty options.
That being said, acknowledging that fact doesn't somehow take away from the way that difficulty options can be a positive feature in plenty of other games, including RPGs. Difficulty settings are not automatically synonymous with lazy game development.
Reference
Minor, S. (2021, April 26). Offering difficulty settings for games is not lazy game development. Retrieved July 29, 2021, from https://www.thegamer.com/difficulty-settings-pokemon-dark-souls-witcher/