Feature: Adaptive Difficulty - Friend or Foe?
The advent of adaptive difficulty is appearing more frequently in today’s generation of smart, A.I driven games. The ability of a player can now be judged and reacted to accordingly by the small, little drone who you usually ignore, making those unimportant enemies enough to severely test your gaming metal. Is this a step that must be taken for the realistic, challenging games of the future? Or, are the set levels of difficulty were so used to a perfect way of setting a game’s challenge. To answer this question we should look at the nature of Adaptive difficulty.
Difficulty levels in games generally followed the 3 step outline of ‘easy’, ‘medium’ and ‘hard’, often named things like Veteran or Insane to give the game character. This set-up was successful for games during it’s formative years, which is why many games of today still use the system. But, as the current generation of games keep innovating and re-establishing the norms of the gaming universe, it was only a matter of time before difficulty levels were taken to the drawing board. This allowed games such as LEGO Star Wars and God of War as well as games from the Mario stable to bring in different difficulty types. These games got harder as you got a feel for it’s mechanics. For example, in Super Mario Bros. you have a flat, generic difficulty when you start, you get a feel for the controls such as sprinting through the levels, getting used to enemies and the layout of the land. But as you become better, enemies approach faster, the level layouts become more precarious. Now, games are adding different types of difficulty adaptions. Oblivion’s difficulty is determined by a slider which can be turned up or down, but the game is leveled so that the most powerful weapons and enemies can only exist when you get good at the game. It also means that the game is never too challenging or too easy. This did have it’s issues though, mainly that brigands and robbers had the most powerful armour when you reached a high level, so why are they robbing you when they already have great stuff? While this was a problem, the game still possessed a great concept.
Another form of Adaptive difficulty is realistic A.I featured in many of the top shooter games of today. Enemies will notice you in cover and throw grenades or they’ll see a back alley and flank you. The A.I is becoming smarter and smarter leading to real challenges for any gamer. But, this still may not be enough for your ultra-gamer, who plays multi-player against other ultra-gamers and has the skill of Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and governor Arnold put together. What are they to do when Insane is a walk in the park? Adaptive difficulty may help, with the A.I judging the skill of the said gamer and sending ultra-enemy after ultra-enemy at them.
While this may seem great, what happens if you want to head into impossible odds knowing you won’t survive but want to try anyway? If the difficulty is always a challenge for you but not overly difficult, how can you be a hero over insurmountable odds? Unfortunately, this may not be overcome but it can work the other way. No gamer can take the easy way out to get the easy Gamerpoints.
Personally, I’m all for Adaptive difficulty. You may remember a feature I wrote a while back describing my gaming philosophy of not needing a challenge for me to enjoy the game. Well, if a game adapted to my skill level than it will be challenging and still fun so I’ll have best of both worlds, and that way I won’t get bothered by Dimorphic for not challenging myself.
Feel free to give your thoughts on this concept and if you think it’s the future of gaming.
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