What's even "Artificial Difficulty"

[Rusty_V4]

I've seen a lot of discussion around this because the concept tends to be too vague. This is what I understand as "artificial" difficulty:

Not something that is just remarkably difficult. Rather something that seems to have inflated number values for the sake of making it harder. For example: imagine a regular enemy that you already met in the early game and now suddenly takes 100% more hits to die and does 200% the damage.

That's the "artificial" part. The increased challenge doesn't come from the enemy's moveset and mechanics, rather from stat hyperinflation.

This doesn't mean it's a bad design, not necessarily. It might still be fun fighting the same enemy but tougher, or not. But it does mean that the devs were running out of ideas when trying to keep pushing the skill floor.

[king_of_jamaica]

"Artificial Difficulty" generally means devs just increasing damage and health sliders on enemies instead of making them smarter or giving them new mechanics.

It's not really a valid complaint for SotE, since a lot of the enemies are brand new.

One difficulty decision From Software did make that has pissed me off since Elden Ring released is the sheer number of ♥♥♥♥-you pauses bosses have in their attacks. "Roll Catch" is a term I've seen used online.

One relatively new thing to SotE, at least with regards to Elden Ring, is that they brought back the Dark Souls II 360 no-scope enemy tracking. That is complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and I can't believe From Software would make that mistake after basically everyone ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about it to no end when DS2 released. This is probably the only thing I would say is definitively bad design.

[Steel]

Originally posted by cybercybercybercyber4:

Originally posted by Steel:

Incredible, every single answer in this thread that tries to seriously define what "artificial difficulty" is as a real term is COMPLETELY different, there's not a single thing in common between all of these answers.

not incredible at all. there have been a ton of terms where the playerbase has no common opinion of what they mean exactly leading to unneccessary blabla. neither side is correct and neither side is wrong.
for example: "cheese", "easy mode", "beating the game"

I'd think the side that is describing something that is self-evidently difficult as "not real difficulty" is absolutely in the wrong, because that makes no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sense. Keep coping please.

[paw inspector]

Honestly my complaint is that the game is too easy, but that's the issue when you have one difficulty, the real players have to share the game with the plebs.

[Jowain]

Doesn't help that the Slop-Souls fans have been pushing this kind of thing since DS3, pretty much giving the developers the incentive to not innovate core gameplay mechanics or improve things like the camera for specific boss fights.
Oh and make some enemies un-parryable. So punishing someone TRYING to get good. Fun.

Just make the enemy hit harder, that's what the Slop-Souls want.

[RuleofTwo]

Originally posted by Steel:

Originally posted by zmanbuilder:

Rather large assumption, You can overcome a challenge and still look back and call what you just beat and call it bs.

You don't have to like it, but calling something that is obviously difficult "not real difficulty" is nonsensical, it's a delusion and a coping mechanism. It's also a blatant self-contradiction because if it wasn't "real difficulty", you wouldn't be having an issue with it in the first place, you'd just blow through it.

Scrubs cannot accept that something is hard, because then it'd mean they're falling short, so it HAS to be "fake" or "artificial", the game has to be at fault in some way because they must protect their fragile ego. This same type of player goes around making fun of journalists btw, the same people who harassed the Eurogamer reviewer for saying the DLC is too hard are now posting negative reviews complaining about the difficulty (whether they admit it and use honest language, or cope and use made-up terms).

No one cares if you're good at the elden ring gayme.

[Yuki Terumi]

Difficulty is when the game's mechanics check your knowledge and understanding and demands that you execute with little room to error.

"Artificial" difficulty is the same, except with the addition of 4th wall breaking elements i.e heres a tough boss where you must execute BUT in addition to that we are going to have the camera shoved up your backside such that you can't actually see anything to engage with.

[assgoblin86]

It's things to make a game more difficult in ways that break the game's rules
Enemies having no stamina bar
Enemies having no mana bar
Enemy's attacks going through objects
Enemies reacting to button inputs
As you stated, numbers being inflated. Though that doesn't break the rules, it is a cheap and lazy way to increase difficulty
They're all ways to make something more difficult without playing with the same rule set. Mortal Kombat 2 is the ultimate example. I'm sure there are plenty of videos explaining the ♥♥♥♥ the AI pulls in that game to get an edge (cheat) over the player

[Steel]

Originally posted by RuleofTwo:

Originally posted by Steel:

You don't have to like it, but calling something that is obviously difficult "not real difficulty" is nonsensical, it's a delusion and a coping mechanism. It's also a blatant self-contradiction because if it wasn't "real difficulty", you wouldn't be having an issue with it in the first place, you'd just blow through it.

Scrubs cannot accept that something is hard, because then it'd mean they're falling short, so it HAS to be "fake" or "artificial", the game has to be at fault in some way because they must protect their fragile ego. This same type of player goes around making fun of journalists btw, the same people who harassed the Eurogamer reviewer for saying the DLC is too hard are now posting negative reviews complaining about the difficulty (whether they admit it and use honest language, or cope and use made-up terms).

No one cares if you're good at the elden ring gayme.

Ok but I'm not sure why you quoted that post, it's not relevant to anything I said.
I'm also not even good at this game, players like Ongbal and Gino are good, I'm an average but experienced player, I grit my teeth and learn stuff and get through stuff, sometimes it takes me many hours, to me that is an enjoyable process, I spend time in that process instead of coping and whining about it, that's all it takes, you don't have to be great at the game.

[Lunch Box]

Obviously the people here that want to defend any criticism without Googling or dealing with any other game's with artificial difficulty are just straight up trolls. There's Difficult and Artificial Difficulty. It's not some fake "git gud" coping take. I can see it with Elden Ring. Its a great game but has flaws that are overshadowed by its popularity and again how great it is as game.

Have any of you played Halo 2 LASO? Star Craft highest setting against AI that seemingly do anything and everything within the most impossible time span? Mario Kart with rubber banding AI? Try not to complain about those not being artificially difficult on those forums and they will laugh at you. Elden Ring community is just a bunch of circle jerkers that when someone gives it any form of criticism its "git gud" that worked in Ds1 and Ds2's lifetime. Its a cringe cop out for avoiding an argument or hearing any criticism.

My opinion i think there is some truth in people saying there's artificial difficulty in Elden Ring. Maybe the bandwagoners that haven't touched a single Soul's game can't and they just got Elden Ring cause it's popular but having a boss feel as a chore and drag sucks. It's never been like this in any of the Soul's games. Miyazaki even said that he wants to make this DLC a pain for players. They just scale the HP. attack's per second on bosses and enemies, give them crazy amounts of stamina, and call it good. You move like a Ds3 character while bosses and ads move like Seikiro enemies.

[nwad]

Artificial difficulty is stuff like old arcade games and their guaranteed deaths, so called "beginners's traps" (AVGN) like "memorizer" shoot-em-ups, where you have no way of dodging an enemy attack until you play enough times to know what's coming. The tutorial bosses are similar. It's not actually difficulty, it's impossibility, at least on the first try.

[C1REX]

I wonder how an example of genuinely, naturally, organically, super duper hard boss would look like?

[Zoid13]

artificial difficulty simply refers to unavoidable mechanics that are used as a gear check (you see this lots in MMO's with Tank survival, artificial difficulty being the tank needs enough mitigation and or HP to survival a particular hit the boss does or a DPS check where the raid needs to be cumulatively dealing X amount of damage or the boss enrages after C time and wipes the group).

of which there are none in Elden ring. there's ways around / to avoid everything.

its a term people use to make themselves feel better because they like to live in denial that the reason their failing is the game and not themselves.

nothing is really "artificial" if its there and making things harder its just "+ difficulty"

[matija123123]

By the definition of Google, "Fake or Artificial difficulty is sometimes used to refer to the raising of enemy stats without improving their AI or giving them new abilities". However in most cases it's just a word tossed around by people the second something hard appears in every community. It is always easier to blame the game and numbers instead of your own mistakes.

[楊玄。杨玄。LangrisserWWE]

Originally posted by hey_buddy:

I've seen a lot of discussion around this because the concept tends to be too vague. This is what I understand as "artificial" difficulty:

Not something that is just remarkably difficult. Rather something that seems to have inflated number values for the sake of making it harder. For example: imagine a regular enemy that you already met in the early game and now suddenly takes 100% more hits to die and does 200% the damage.

That's the "artificial" part. The increased challenge doesn't come from the enemy's moveset and mechanics, rather from stat hyperinflation.

This doesn't mean it's a bad design, not necessarily. It might still be fun fighting the same enemy but tougher, or not. But it does mean that the devs were running out of ideas when trying to keep pushing the skill floor.

The term "artificially difficulty" is a pop culture creation. Just like every other pop culture term created by people to allow themselves to feel better about something they disagree with or is unable to legitimately explain something that bothers them. At least in the context of this "Artificial difficulty" term with relation to gaming.

Artificially basically as we already know either means man made or not natural. Which can also be applied to sincerity. A fake smile or something. But games are man made and not natural. Maybe they want to say that the bosses or the difficulty of the game are made by insincere people? Probably.

End of the day. We should have a program to allow hooking up sessions between games, so they can get impregnated. Go through months of labours, assuming they are mammalians. And eventually, the difficulty of the games could be naturally conceived. Nature born. Natural difficulty. Very sincere.

[Sherudon]

Some don't understand the word, some cope for good boy points saying it's a made up term, some understand but refuse to accept anything negative can exist in their favourite media...

In this case, the artificial difficulty is not all the added aoe and flashing lights that stroke some people out it's adding an item directly on top of current progress to nullify it.

With 20 levels in fragments you are actually X amount stronger than your level, you didn't get gud, you didn't get figure anything new out, you just got more damage and less taken because of a scavenger hunt.

You start with 1 boost and your automatically X amount stronger than your SL, enemies are now weaker, it's like a mana shield being added on top of your existing stats, same example is you take a thousand damage a hit from trash, but one buff and now it's 900.. then 800.. until they aren't dangerous anymore.

You are still the same level 100 character until you have more blessings, then you are a level 150... get someone competent to maths it out, that's not me.