On Difficulty

[Demonocrat]

We’ve always believed that games are a medium capable of delivering all kinds of compelling experiences—and that said experiences don’t need to be conventionally pleasant to be interesting and fulfilling. Pathologic 2 was always intended to be gruelling, stressful, and bleak; we believe in ludonarrative cohesion and aren’t too fond of stories that are only dark and hurtful on the cover.

However, we also believe—even firmer—in player freedom.

Pathologic 2 was balanced around three principles:

• We want the player to always balance on the verge of death, but also always to have an opportunity to drag themselves out (perhaps loading a save or two back—that’s why the game keeps the full history of your saves)
  
• We want the player to be forced to sacrifice “cool and interesting” content due to their survival needs, to be always short on time and not being able to achieve an optimal playthrough. The story of Pathologic 2 is written to be caught glimpses of, not unfold completely
  
• We want the player to do things that feel clearly wrong, like voluntarily thrashing their reputation or using the healing items that could have saved someone. Among other things, Pathologic 2 is an exploration of selfishness—that video games often allow us to completely disregard as a factor

Judging by your feedback, Pathologic 2 is actually balanced in a way that achieves all that.

However, we have received clear feedback that the game is too hard—and we don’t think that everyone who says that misses the point of the experience. People are different and have different attention spans and patterns. So we’re fine with allowing the players to tweak the game a bit to account for this fact.

Our games have always been in a curious spot. Some people only finished the original Pathologic and The Void using cheat codes. So while in theory these players agreed with our stance on games as a medium for creating compelling experiences, in actuality they didn’t really—well—experience what we had in store for them. Which is, of course, understandable. Not everyone wants a life-changing experience every time they launch a game. Sometimes people only want a cursory glance.

Well, we’d rather give people a tweaked experience than none at all.

So, in the coming 2-3 weeks we’ll introduce a difficulty slider to Pathologic 2. You’ll be able to tweak the game mildly, within the limits of what we consider intended difficulty, and also set it the way you want, if you want.

But we hope that you don’t. Pathologic 2 is supposed to be almost unbearable, otherwise the effect is lost. We concede that everyone has their own limits to push. But we strongly advise against making the game easy for yourself.

However, we do like the notion of giving you this freedom—and this responsibility. This way, the achievement of resisting the temptation and finishing the game on intended difficulty becomes even more true and vivid. And that’s the kind of effect we deeply appreciate.

[Schwengelbengel]

Great news, the battle inbetween the players in this forum is tiresome anyway. With this options, everybody ought to be content.

[Blowfeld]

What was unbearable was not the difficulty, but the horrible optimisation that made me refund...

[Juular]

Day 5: Devs took the quest to fix difficulty, reputation falls further due to gatekeepers being unhappy. "Fixing optimization in 5 days" quest failed, many players refunded.

[Executor]

More options are good. I appreciate your work, and I hope this allows more people to see and experience the amazing (and miserable) world you created.

[Executor]

I think the intention was so that the player would always have some lingering questions. Personally, I think knowing all the answers makes it less fun. If Pathologic (or similar games, like Sunless Sea or other works of speculative or weird fiction) gave up all the answers without a fight, I think my enjoyment would be lessened.

But why are you still complaining about the developer's design philosophy, even if you disagree with it? You are getting what you want! We can both be happy here.

[Executor]

I don't think that was quite the zinger you intended it to be. Unless you were trying to insult yourself?

[Executor]

I mean...you'll have to use a real example that you didn't understand because I personally never thought any of the dialogue was totally inscrutable. Poetic and confusing, sure. But in time and with more understanding of the town it makes more and more sense. Most of the appeal of the game, in my opinion, is making sense of what initially seems chaotic - it's what keeps driving me to keep playing and discover more.

Just because you didn't understand it doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense. If I talked to you in a language you didn't understand, you may not understand it, but I am still saying something. And if you learned that language, you would learn to understand. Pathologic is similar, you learn the language of the town as you play.

Anyways, you quoted me out of context - I asked why you are still complaining about a philosophy you don't really understand and personally disagree with, when the game is being modified to be more of the game you want it to be? We can have our cake and eat it too, here - you can play casual mode if you don't want to deal with the annoying parts of Pathologic.

[Executor]

And poetic is a euphemism for "nonsensical".

...uh...okay.

Maybe Pathologic just isn't the kind of game you're looking for? If you want a straightfoward, play-once-and-then-you-got-it experience, Pathologic really isn't gonna be your game, regardless of difficulty.

[RabidRadioactiveRaccoons]

Originally posted by Demonocrat:

Pathologic 2 was balanced around three principles:

• We want the player to always balance on the verge of death, but also always to have an opportunity to drag themselves out (perhaps loading a save or two back—that’s why the game keeps the full history of your saves)
  
• We want the player to be forced to sacrifice “cool and interesting” content due to their survival needs, to be always short on time and not being able to achieve an optimal playthrough. The story of Pathologic 2 is written to be caught glimpses of, not unfold completely
  
• We want the player to do things that feel clearly wrong, like voluntarily thrashing their reputation or using the healing items that could have saved someone. Among other things, Pathologic 2 is an exploration of selfishness—that video games often allow us to completely disregard as a factor

I appreciate Ice Pick's vision for the difficulty of the game and also welcome the introduction of some means to personally tweak the difficulty (the only time I finished the first game was with some help from the console), but I believe that what would help the most is a somewhat direct inclusion of this statement in the game. I know that the game has a lot of subtle, and not so subtle, ways of communicating with the player, but currently there is nothing to communicate to the player that certain conventions are being defied.
Most people will naturally assume that the "cool and interesting" content is something that can be experienced alongside an optimal playthrough, that's how almost every game works and there is nothing in the game to really signpost that this is not the case with Pathologic. Additionally, due to the nature of a Haruspex start, the game currently teaches players that reputation is something that should be carefully held rather than a resource to be 'spent'; an advantage to starting as the Bachelor in the first game was that the player started with a high (and stable) reputation that they could afford to lose or trade before experiencing the penalties for lacking reputation. This is double for returning players who are used to being able to get away with harvesting organs and stealing items without losing reputation at all.
While this is not to say that I have some objections to certain decisions concerning the difficulty balance, better communication with the player would very likely solve/mitigate at least some of the complaining/fighting.

[CFFG.Shinigami]

Originally posted by Murf_This!:

Originally posted by Demonocrat:

• We want the player to be forced to sacrifice “cool and interesting” content due to their survival needs, to be always short on time and not being able to achieve an optimal playthrough. The story of Pathologic 2 is written to be caught glimpses of, not unfold completely

Ok, so basically you don't want your players to have fun and are fully aware that your game would be boring if one could actually catch a breath without constantly being shoved somewhere by the story progress.

good =/= fun. this game and the original are classic cases of catharsis, which a simple release of emotion, this is one of few games that are not in any way a power fantasy giving you a completely different experience than what any other dev could offer you. you can still find an experience enjoyable without having "fun"

[CFFG.Shinigami]

Originally posted by Demonocrat:

• not being able to achieve an optimal playthrough.

buddy, i'm going to find a way

[FireOfUnknownOrigin]

Originally posted by CFFG.Shinigami:

Originally posted by Demonocrat:

• not being able to achieve an optimal playthrough.

buddy, i'm going to find a way

Optimal or Stop-It-All

[DragofLord]

As one of the posters of threads effectively complaining about the game's difficulty, thank you. I don't know if I personally will make use of this feature (maybe by a single notch, I don't know), but this will make the game much easier to recommend to people.

[Madnesis]

It's nice you guys are listening to feedback but I think this is against the vision you had of the game and for that reason, I don't really like it. I think the game may be difficult but it's not unfair so I fully endorse the current experience so far. Do you guys plan to make some sort of adjustments to achievements because of the difficulty level tweaks? I think people playing the current difficulty that would beat the game should get credit of it.

[rottarot]

On day 4 or 5 I found myself in such a bad situation I ended up starting over, completely, but that was okay. I'm doing better now, my priorities weren't straight before.
Often when I face difficulties in a game I find a guide or hints to help me overcome, but not with this one. I'm supposed to stumble, give up, and try again, just assuming I'll do better this time.

I'm not really into devs going against their own vision due to a couple of loud noises, but I don't blame for budging under a pressure. However, I don't think the noises are even near to the target audience and the work getting put into the difficulty slider might not improve how the game is perceived by them, due to the game putting the player into uncomfortable situations even if it were a stroll in the park when it comes to surviving. They'll be angry about not being able to save everyone, about making bad choices, about missing opportunities.

Something that many players seems to have forgotten is, a game for everybody doesn't exist.