The importance of difficulty in rpgs/metroidvanias

[BlueManifest]

imo even for people that don't like high difficulty, these types of games with gear and leveling progression, exploration needs to be even more rewarding and it's only possible with high difficulty.

When your able to kill a boss with little effort on your first attempt then find a weapon right afterwards that further increases your damage it's like ok I didn't really need that, game is easy enough already, so the excitement in finding that weapon is diminished. Complete opposite if you failed on the boss 10 times then decide to explore some and found a new weapon.

Finding gear and items lowers difficulty as you play so rpgs/metroidvanias need to start off hard at the beginning and then become easier as you progress and explore.

This - Hard changes to medium/easy through exploration

Not this - easy changes to very easy through exploration

Was thinking about bloodstained and xenoblade 2 releasing soon and just thought of this, was curious who agrees.

 

[Deleted member 16753]

Do you have some examples of what games do this well and what games do this poorly in your opinion?

 

[The Traveller]

I really enjoyed Dragon Age Inquisition for this reason on Nightmare. I needed to understand which skills to use to tank and hold aggro while my party did damage. Also it required me to explore to try and find the strongest gear, so it was worthwhile and fun to run around the world. Leveling up and being able to take on enemies that were previously too difficult was also rewarding.

 

[robotzombie]

The perfect example of no difficulty is Persona 2 Innocent Sin on PSP. It is painfully easy, you just walk through every encounter with enemies doing 1 damage to you. It turns what could be an amazing game into an immensely boring slog that I couldn't bear to play. I was so disappointed when I got that game because I was really hyped for it

 

[BlueManifest]

Do you have some examples of what games do this well and what games do this poorly in your opinion?

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FF15 and sotn are 2 I can think of just off the top both do it poorly

Order of eccelsia did it somewhat good, it was pretty challenging from beginning to end

 

[No Depth]

As someone that ALWAYS plays games on the hardest difficulty, I am actually frustrated that most titles still fail to properly balance the challenge level in the face of upgrades/skill progression.

Like a rollercoaster, the early game is often a real uphill climb as you start with the most minimal of skills and equipment and are forced into difficult encounters with little recourse beyond attrition duels due to limited options. It's exciting! It forces you to truly start appreciating the ruleset and what potential is to come IF the devs successfully maintain that balance between feeling just powerful enough to eke victory with wit and thoughtful combat execution, while avoiding the reliance of becoming overly discouraged and players resorting to lame-duck solutions like grinding(the "I am uncreative" solution!).

Sadly for most games, it isn't long before you reach the apex and those first few skill upgrades before the challenge flattens out and you hit freefall. A few sidequests and even with the challenge level capped the balance is just not tuned to accommodate as opposition can rarely stand up to your power levels gained for doing that easy escort-quest 3 hours in. I have more trouble thinking of titles that don't turn into complete sleepwalking snoozefests after a few hours than those that maintain a level of stabilized challenge from beginning to end. Not enough props are given to games that are able to keep a meaningful challenge trajectory through-line from beginning to end and they rarely get recognized for doing so compared to the ones that lavish praise for storytelling and visuals.

 

[BlueManifest]

As someone that ALWAYS plays games on the hardest difficulty, I am actually frustrated that most titles still fail to properly balance the challenge level in the face of upgrades/skill progression.

Like a rollercoaster, the early game is often a real uphill climb as you start with the most minimal of skills and equipment and are forced into difficult encounters with little recourse beyond attrition duels due to limited options. It's exciting! It forces you to truly start appreciating the ruleset and what potential is to come IF the devs successfully maintain that balance between feeling just powerful enough to eke victory with wit and thoughtful combat execution, while avoiding the reliance of becoming overly discouraged and players resorting to lame-duck solutions like grinding(the "I am uncreative" solution!).

Sadly for most games, it isn't long before you reach the apex and those first few skill upgrades before the challenge flattens out and you hit freefall. A few sidequests and even with the challenge level capped the balance is just not tuned to accommodate as opposition can rarely stand up to your power levels gained for doing that easy escort-quest 3 hours in. I have more trouble thinking of titles that don't turn into complete sleepwalking snoozefests after a few hours than those that maintain a level of stabilized challenge from beginning to end. Not enough props are given to games that are able to keep a meaningful challenge trajectory through-line from beginning to end and they rarely get recognized for doing so compared to the ones that lavish praise for storytelling and visuals.

Click to shrink...

I'm just hoping xenoblade 2 and bloodstained do it right because I'm really looking forward to those