DESIGN DIARY: Difficulty Levels

When you hit start in most modern games, you get a prompt asking you what difficulty you would like to play the game on. Ideally, normal is the default difficulty option - not too easy and not too hard. So you complete this awesome game on normal, and then decide to try it on hard for the extra challenge. This is where things start to fall apart.

I strongly disagree with how most games have been implementing easy and hard difficulty levels.

It doesn't matter what game, genre or platform - all have been guilty of this. It's understandable for old school 16 and 32-bit games where memory was low and changing the color pallet was a good solution to make "new" content. In that situation, you could easily adjust some enemy stats to make the gamer easier or harder for the player. However, in today's day and age, it seems almost criminal that we're still doing it. Hard mode in games like Modern Warfare, Halo, Uncharted, Warcraft III, and God of War means the same thing it did 20 years ago - toggling some numbers for attributes like player/enemy HP, and player/enemy damage output.

Having hard and easy modes be the same game as normal with simple number adjustments is an incorrect way of thinking and handling this issue. The most common way of adjusting the game to hard mode is raising enemy and lowering player HP. Because it's so easy to implement, it doesn't cost developers any extra time or effort, and I understand where they're coming from. However, they're missing the point.

By spending some extra time and making easy and hard modes of the game different enough, you can add some pretty great replay value, potentially interesting players to try more than one mode, therefore spending more time with your game.

If hard is supposed to be hard, why not make the player work harder and press more buttons? Maybe to reload correctly, two button presses are required with timing involved. For example, imagine that an FPS game on hard would differ from normal in the following ways:

- Reloading your ammo clip in a gun before it's empty takes longer, and would eat up all your bullets for that particular clip. Bullets also wouldn't magically transfer to your other clips as they always do.

- No HUD. Much like Modern Warfare's "hardcore" multiplayer game mode, there would be no indicators present for your ammo, health, and mission objectives.

- Running makes more sound than walking, and walking makes more sound than crouching, allowing enemies to spot you easier.

- Weapons have more recoil and react more realistically and less arcadey.

- The amount of guns you can carry at a time depends on the difficulty level. For example, easy = 5 guns, normal = 3 guns, hard = 1 gun.

Adding random factors can also make the game feel more challenging.

- Random gun jamming after lots of use. Far Cry 2 does this. In a normal game, it's annoying, but for those looking for a challenge, it's a good way to mix things up and have the player constantly think on their feet.

Setting a time limit on the player in certain situations also works well. Modern Warfare 2 puts a timer in certain instances on hard, where there isn't one on normal or easy.

These are just some of the suggestions for FPS games, but similar changes like these can also be used for games in other genres.

RTS games:

- A unit on the player's faction randomly rebels against you, and attacks your other units/structures if you haven't used him in some time.

- Weather would temporarily interfere with unit electronics and radar causing them to either shut offline or go haywire for short periods of time (tanks start moving in different directions, fracturing your formations). Units who are weaker, but don't have any electronic equipment are unaffected, making them more valuable, even though they're weaker.

- Map scenery could randomly affect the game like trees toppling over and crushing units underneath.

My point is that game designers have to give a second thought to difficulty levels. Upping or lowering some stats feels rushed and inconsiderate to all gamers - both hardcore and those looking for an easier interactive experience. By adding more interesting tweaks like I listed above, they would also get their audience interested in the game more, adding replay value - something every single game needs and always strives for.