Artificial Difficulty

[DreameR7g]

So I guess we can all train to be Rafael Nadal or Lionel Messi

There's a difference between talent and skill. In truth, we could all reach that level in skill... if all of us cared to be professional sports players.

[Melch]

If everyone can do it, it's not difficult.

So yeah it's scripted and everyone can do it. But before or after echo and nerves?
Everything could be easy or hard if you play with people who have same skill level than yours.
I don't know what you're trying to explain, but the difference you make between difficult and easy is pretty much a lot of non sense and partial view since you don't take in account the fact that some players play at 110-120 % potential while others are not at 60 % potential, also you don't seem to take in account the dps checks when you talk about difficulty. That means you assume everyone is playing at 120% potential?
Also in a lot of games you're talking about you're alone and only your own skills matter you don't have to deal with communication. It's easier to be good alone than with a group.

[StouterTaru]

Now...a scripted battle? It's like saying that memorizing a paragraph is hard. Please get real.

The attacks that you claim to be real difficulty are scripted. Boss starts casting move, ground lights up where you need to not be, you move out of it before casting ends. You have seen the move before and know exactly what it does.

Part of the practice and memorization of a fight is practicing dodging. Anyone can dodge when there's a small number of attacks that the boss can do and they are telegraphed, just the same way anyone can memorize a fight.

[Melch]

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

The only artificial difficulty I can think of is ravana not being targetable for a millisecond when it switches stance and leading you to target it again.

[Sandpark]

Artificial difficulty is when anything detrimental happens regardless of player input.
-Lag
-One Shot mechanics
-Long fights with little to no way to shorten them much
-Enemy invincibility to all counters such as stun,silence,etc
-Unavoidable skills
-Insufficient means by design to tackle obstacles

I would label all you mentioned as "On rails" not as artificial difficulty except for RNG. Because once you learn the rotation of skills and dodging. All content afterwards can be handled the same way not requiring different performance based on specific situations other than gimmicks.

[ApolloGenX]

Maybe they mean artificial barriers- barriers that are out of player control... time gating/gear gating when gear is time/capped currency obtained?

My pet peeve is the pseudo-intellectual "hardcore" gaming term "meta". This has got to be the "synergy" of the gaming world....

[SendohJin]

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:

• RNG

that's the only one, and it's not the the RNG people in this thread seems to be talking about. RNG in what attack a boss will do next is fine, that tests how players react and adapt. that's not the kind of RNG that creates artificial difficulty.

the Atma part of the relic quest was artificially difficult because of low drop rate, the requirements of the quest was to complete FATEs, which in itself is insanely easy. having no idea how many you have to do and having no cumulative effect is what makes it artificial.

grinding light was similar but because every time you complete something you're making progress, it's not as artificial.

[Kaurie]

ar·ti·fi·cial
ˌärdəˈfiSHəl/
adjective
1.
made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural.

I prefer Natural Difficulty. Dev's please stop working on the game and let mother nature do it's work.

[Kallera]

Having "times of deduction" hardly means anything if trial and error gameplay is the major part of it. If the player cannot tell when to start and stop guessing, what is the diffrrence?