Artificial Difficulty

[Bloody]

Artificial difficulty is, as several others have said, when player skill is minimalized or removed as a factor of success or failure, and is instead based heavily on gear checks (hp, dps, etc).

Memorization, adaptability, reflex, rotations are all measures of a player's skill and thus things that create the difficulty of an encounter. Having mechanics based on having X amount of HP or being able to do an amount of DPS that is unachievable without certain amounts of gearing is what adds artificial difficulty to an encounter, but this game is designed to have tiered gear and tiered raids.

[SDaemon]

I think people are just using the word artificial to attempt to differentiate things that add to an objective's difficulty but it comes off nonsensical to me because it seems to try to redefine "artificial" to suit the situation.

[StrejdaTom]

Memorization, adaptability, reflex, rotations are all measures of a player's skill and thus things that create the difficulty of an encounter. Having mechanics based on having X amount of HP or being able to do an amount of DPS that is unachievable without certain amounts of gearing is what adds artificial difficulty to an encounter, but this game is designed to have tiered gear and tiered raids.

I agree with you.
In my opinion Artifical Difficulty related to DPS check can be only DPS check that is impossible to pass with gear that is obtainable at this moment. Currently anyone should be able to do A1-A3 savage, and if we aren't able to clear it (I am at 8th wave in A2s at this moment) it only means we aren't as good as others (or our raid mates aren't) and we should improve. Problem is, that some people like to blame nonexistent artifical difficulty for their bad performance (I do mistakes in my rotation under pressure too), instead of thinking why it is possible that some people cleared the same content with worse gear than they have. But it is like talking to a wall, you can still meet people who have ilvl180 gear and can't or won't do T9, because it is not difficult, it just stacks ridiculous amount of mechanics and it's just "artifical difficulty".

[repoe]

Funny stuff, I bequeath this thread the following snippets

Frankly, I’ve heard a lot of different definitions of what people think artificial difficulty means and the only thing that has remained consistent through all of them is “The difficulty doesn’t feel fun.”

The same sobbing toddlers who quit Ghouls n’ Ghosts grew into the whining adults who quit Dark Souls and say it’s artificially difficult. Their reasons always boil down to the same things – it’s harsh, unfair and unpredictable. One of the main culprits that will receive blame in games like these are the seemingly random events that surprise and punish players. This type of gameplay is a punch to the balls but is also designed to teach players what to expect in similar settings later on. This type of difficulty is often regarded as…

TRIAL AND ERROR / MEMORIZATION

Gamers have allowed their frustrations to manifest into the boogie man. Artificial difficulty didn’t exist until it caught on a few years ago. Before that time, people actually examined what made the game hard and why they felt it was unfair or not fun. For any game you may become frustrated with there are going to be reasons why. Attempting to identify those reasons helps promote meaningful discussion. There is always a better word to describe your grievances with a games difficulty other then “artificial”. Merely tossing a blanket over everything you don’t like and calling it artificial has the opposite effect and achieves nothing other than the dumbing down of language.

The boogie man is not real, your dog didn’t go to live on a big farm with hundreds of other playful dogs, the Easter bunny is not real and neither is artificial difficulty.

[CGMidlander]

The best example of Artificial Difficulty I can think of is Hero Mode in Vindictus. lol
The bosses are just sped up, hit extremely hard, and are incredibly durable without a highly enhanced weapon to hit them with.

[Reynhart]

• RNG

Am I the only one who understand this as "Congratulations, group, you did very well, but the coffer only gives shitty drops, go do it again" ?

Too much FFXI in my past, maybe...

[Gallus]

This entire game mechanics are artificial difficulty.
The same moment you have the same bosses with the same scripted rotations over and over again it's artificial difficulty.

Do you know what would be real difficulty? Bosses with random rotations that required reflexes. However, we'd need better servers for that, as it is now, this game doesn't praise reflexes (*I'm about to die! *presses Hallowed Ground* *HG goes on CD, still dies*), it praises memory (Tank buster is coming, HG popped!).

The only thing that can be remotely considered "difficult" in this game is taking a job and being like 99% optimal at it.

Imagine Titan doing weight of the land whenever he pleases? (on dedicated servers). That fight would separate people who truly have reflexes from people who don't.

[Gilthas]

This entire game mechanics are artificial difficulty.
The same moment you have the same bosses with the same scripted rotations over and over again it's artificial difficulty.

This isn't artificial difficulty, it's just something that you don't like.

Having fights rely on RNG has its problems too because then you'll have times when the fight is easy and others when you simply just can't win.

[Verius_Nox]

Artificial difficulty is whatever you want it to be, because it's the new buzzword for complaining.

[Reynhart]

I like the "Anything you can't have any impact on" kind of definition.

That includes random drops and server lag, but not random mechanics, since you can improve on how to dodge each of these mechanics.
BUT, it includes obscure one-hit-kill mechanics, like Blighted Bouquet, who gives absolutely no indication on how to not die.

Food for thoughts