Artificial Difficulty

[Deathgiver]

I've seen this term tossed out countless times over the last couple of years, and I'm curious to know what you think constitutes artificial difficulty, and what constitutes real difficulty. Things I've seen mentioned as artificial difficulty in other threads:

• DPS checks aka performing perfect rotations
• RNG
• Twitch Mechanics
• Scripted mechanics aka memorization
• Team jump rope aka finding 8 people who know the fight
• Content gates or lockouts

[Squrilruler]

It's a video game. It is all artificial.

[StrejdaTom]

I never took DPS checks and RNG as an artifical difficulty.
Ability to do a perfect rotation is part of your (mine) job and RNG is imo nice to learn react fast (if RNG doesn't mean stacking mechanics that are unbeatable even with exceptional performance).

[Risvertasashi]

I prefer content that is about playing your class very well over handling a bunch of arbitrary, counter-intuitive mechanics. For example, turn 4 when relevant (and most of first coil really), or A1S while it's new. I also kinda liked turn 5, ramuh ex, and...maybe lev ex, turn 13 a bit too-- because they aren't about twitch handling of mechanics down to the tenth of a second, but rather they require a lot of group coordination and handling things right (adaptability).

Examples that don't follow this would be turn 9. While I do enjoy the challenge, simply stacking a bunch of mechanics... yeah, it takes time to overcome, but I wouldn't call that sort of difficulty as fun. Difficult but kinda boring difficulty, if that makes sense*? Something like T9's elementals would have been fun if the fight was mechanically simpler, but required tanks, healers, and DPS to be exceptional at their classes.

Well, that's my preference and 2 gil, anyways.

Admittedly, fights with lots of mechanics preserve their difficulty better once obsolete, and a lot of players (here on the forums at least) will call any content that doesn't require twitch reactions easy.

*admittedly the visuals did make the fight pretty epic at first, but that gets old after a few hours wiping...

[Lone-wolfe-02]

Normally it tends to mean giving enemies more hp and do more damage instead of actually changing how fights work. HW has done this abit most of the enemies out in the world take longer to kill and do more damage but do nothing else different.

[Colt47]

The difficulty isn't related to the increased damage or hit points directly. Rather, artificial difficulty happens because they make the fights take longer or set a hard cap on how long the fight can last, all the while using mechanics that everyone has seen before in a similar ordering. It's artificial because you know you are correctly addressing mechanics, it's just numbers that prevent a victory.

[Allyrion]

The difficulty isn't related to the increased damage or hit points directly. Rather, artificial difficulty happens because they make the fights take longer or set a hard cap on how long the fight can last, all the while using mechanics that everyone has seen before in a similar ordering. It's artificial because you know you are correctly addressing mechanics, it's just numbers that prevent a victory.

Performing up to a standard isn't that artificial unless it's just a hard gear check gating.
Faust, for example, is similar but people cleared him before getting any ESO gear.

If the difficulty goes beyond doing the fight mechanics correctly and pushing the Job mechanics to their limit, then it's artificial.
Though there's usually some great players that show the limit is past where you might think it is.

The only other difficulty in the list I would agree with is RNG.
But then with mostly scripted mechanics, that doesn't happen that much here.

But basically -

It's a video game. It is all artificial.

All of it is artificial. OP sounds like they're just listing types of difficulties they don't like.

[Colt47]

Performing up to a standard isn't that artificial unless it's just a hard gear check gating.
Faust, for example, is similar but people cleared him before getting any ESO gear.

If the difficulty goes beyond doing the fight mechanics correctly and pushing the Job mechanics to their limit, then it's artificial.
Though there's usually some great players that show the limit is past where you might think it is.

The only other difficulty in the list I would agree with is RNG.
But then with mostly scripted mechanics, that doesn't happen that much here.

But basically -


All of it is artificial. OP sounds like they're just listing types of difficulties they don't like.

Case in point, all of it is artificial, it's just when people say something feels artificial they really mean that it feels unfair, cheap, or only difficult in a specific way to waste time. Anything that is a heavy "damage" check can be a time waster so a lot of people put that as being artificial difficulty, for example.

For myself, things feel artificial when the mechanics are brain dead simple and the only thing the group is struggling with is running numbers. That is why I hate enrage timers, instant kill after a certain amount of time, etc. If a group takes longer to kill something they shouldn't get punished for it. The point is to learn the pattern and survive it.

[Allyrion]

Case in point, all of it is artificial, it's just when people say something feels artificial they really mean that it feels unfair, cheap, or only difficult in a specific way to waste time. Anything that is a heavy "damage" check can be a time waster so a lot of people put that as being artificial difficulty, for example.

For myself, things feel artificial when the mechanics are brain dead simple and the only thing the group is struggling with is running numbers. That is why I hate enrage timers, instant kill after a certain amount of time, etc. If a group takes longer to kill something they shouldn't get punished for it. The point is to learn the pattern and survive it.

I get that it's personal, but calling it artificial is acting like it's some legitimate category.
Which it isn't if it's personal and different for everyone.

DPS checks are based on mechanics though.
They're based on Job mechanics and how to synergize with your comp.
Numbers aren't just passive, at least not in this game.

Unless it's proven that it's virtually impossible for anyone to do it until passive stat upgrades, then it's artificial.
But hasn't ever been the case.

Not having enrage timers allows for teams to turtle and play it safe the whole fight.
Sometimes leading to silly things like bringing a ton of healers so that once everyone does the fight's gimmick mechanics, you can pass without any fear of dying.
Worse, it trivializes all the optimization and Job mechanics you're supposed to learn.

What's the point of all our skills if we just have to jump through some loops at the right time to win a fight?
You should be good at your Job, and DPS checks are how you test the dps.
Boss damage output is how you test the tanks and healers.

While fight mechanics are important and all, they have little to do with how good a person is at their Job.
If mastering your Job is irrelevant to clearing content, Jobs are pointless.

They have all these mechanics involved and developed to maximize dps, why shouldn't your dps matter other than making the fight shorter?
If you can do that, you're ignoring the most basic mechanics - your Job's.
Enrage timers force dps to do mechanics and master their Job's damage output at the same time.
Boss damage force tanks to do fight mechanics while master their hate and mitigation.
Damage on Tank as well as on other players (and debuffs) test the healers while they do fight mechanics.

Not having enrage timers just let dps slack off or not even needed.
Numbers - healing, mitigation, damage - are all still mostly based on mechanics more than gear.

imo, artificial difficulty is when player ability has little to no influence on the task, but it's still "difficult". In most cases, this is RNG, such as getting a Terra Branford card. It can also be something that's pointlessly grindy, like getting a fenrir mount (or mobs with too much hp). These things don't require any special player ability other than hitting your head against a wall until done. Sadly, this describes the vast majority of the non-combat parts of the game. :/

I agree.
RNG can be a pretty bad gating (like the relic quest sometimes).
It's just worse when you can be really unlucky or really lucky and get an easy run or get that item you need on the first try.

I think good RNG stays within a certain range.
Kind of like the gearing system where you can trade in items for gear.
With Ravana as an example, you're guaranteed a weapon after 10 clears.

While fight mechanic RNG can't be like that, it's okay once it doesn't make or break the fight.
(I.e. one run is cake cause the rng lines up really well while another feels impossible).

RNG needs to still stay within a range so that it's not unfair.

[Krylo]

I get that it's personal, but calling it artificial is acting like it's some legitimate category.
Which it isn't if it's personal and different for everyone.

Just because people (mis)use the term in ridiculous ways that doesn't mean it doesn't exist and have a meaning, or that it's purely subjective. It's another word for 'bad' difficulty or 'punishing' vs 'challenging'.

Basically games are designed with specific mechanics and gameplay cycles involved. In FFXIV DPS checks are one of them, as is dodging AoEs, 'team jump rope', and otherwise executing manuevers. These are all designed/challenging/good difficulty. They're there for a reason, and are all keyed very specifically. FFXIV has very very little artificial difficulty. I'd suggest there's some in RNG issues with farming things and crafting, but that's there to be a time sink. Arguably, there's also the increase in open world mob difficulty in HW (but those mobs are so easy anyway, that it's hardly worth mentioning).

Artificial/bad/punishing difficulty is the opposite of designed difficulty. The most common place it happens is when enemy parameters are tuned up (damage, hp, etc) but nothing is altered in their actual mechanics. Imagine if T9 savage mode had all the mechanics exactly the same, but Nael had 5x the HP and did 3x as much damage, as opposed to adding extra meteors during heavensfall, and divebombs and adding an extra thunder and just generally adding more mechanics. That's artificial difficulty. It's no longer tuned to allow people to learn the fight, or increase their skill. Indeed, as you have to have done T9 normal to do savage, it's no longer skill at all that prevails, just endurance.

It's most often seen in difficulty increases in other games (go into Very Hard and instead of AI or mechanics changing things just hit you harder and absorb more bullets).

Or when things aren't telegraphed at all--which is to say something happens you have no method of reacting to until it's happened. All your choices need to be informed; if you're just shooting in the dark that's artificial difficulty. You need some kind of hint that something dangerous is going to happen, or, at least, time to react when it does. You need a way to play around things (the ground AoE markers in FFXIV are a great way of ensuring this doesn't happen here, or at least very very rarely). Lacking these is the equivalent of 'rocks fall, everybody dies, no saving throw.'

There's also things like bad camera controls (most early 3D games, most noticable in platformers--how many times did you miss a jump in Mario 3D, not because you were incapable, but because the Camera refused to stay lined up right?), or buggy, glitchy things. Or situations where the rules in the game change without warning or consistency (this kind of leads back to telegraphing, if the rules are consistent they telegraph themselves--such as being able to look away to dodge gaze attacks in FFXIV). And, of course, iteration time. Long iteration time--which is to say you die and go back 30 minutes of gameplay--is punishing, not challenging or fun. Again, FFXIV avoids this pretty well with instant and cheap teleports--although I'd say it could be improved by having you rez at the nearest aetheryte to your death instead of your home point, but no one's perfect.

ANYWAY, the point of all this is that, no it's not entirely subjective. It's part of game design and important for design philosophy to understand and identify the difference between artificial/designed or good/bad or challenging/punishing or whatever two adjectives you want to use for difficult.