Quote Originally Posted by BigCheez View Post
That generally isn't how the term is used though. You're using the term to describe things that are not intended sources of difficulty but unintentional difficulty created by poorly designed systems. The term is generally used to describe an intended source of difficulty that someone doesn't like for some reason. I've heard bosses having a lot of HP described as artificial difficulty. Mechanics that are too complex. Content not having checkpoints. Body checks. Something that requires the player to react quickly. AI opponents in Civilisation being given bonuses on higher difficulty settings to account for the fact that their decision making isn't as good as a real human opponent. Essentially any time a player doesn't want to develop the skill required to meet a challenge, they'll just slap an "artificial difficulty" label on it because it's easier than admitting that it's a skill issue.
I don't usually toss out tvtropes links but they have some pretty good examples of bad design or implementation being artificial difficulty. Plus have you never heard someone complain about the camera angle in a platformer?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...FakeDifficulty