Adrian Chmielarz weighs in on why he dislikes the challenge customisation in Doom: The Dark Ages

I think TLoU2 did this and I just never touched it. As long as there are preset difficulty modes that feel properly balanced, I personally won't call bullshit.

On the other hand, I think many of his points are valid and resonate with me. More practically, I'm fucking over every game having absolutely crazy Options menus that require a PhD to decipher and sift through. Options, yes, I can ignore them, but damn it's hard not to and constantly wonder if I'm now "missing out" or if there's a more ideal way I should be tweaking the game.

Anyway. Both Sides (tm).
 
Fucking lmao at people thinking that elden ring was fine tuned...

Do people forgot how many stuff they had to patch because it was overpowered? The ice stomp? Bleed? The mimic? Probably a shitload of other stuff.

The open world nature turned into long stretches of destroying absolutely everything because you were overleveled for that zone/dungeon and weird spikes all of a sudden with some bosses.

Optional evocations are ok but optional sliders are evil?

Wtf are we talking about here?
 
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I've always hated difficulty options. I'd prefer games to not have any, not even the common easy/normal/hard. It's always difficult to explain why, but this guy does a decent job of explaining this.

I can enjoy easy games like a Mario or difficult games like Sekiro for what they are.
 
GymWolf said:
The game has classic difficulty modes, so no, he is not right or at the very least it's highly debatable.
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His point is that he prefers single difficulty balanced with specific intent by creator, but is willing to tolerate multiple vaguely defined difficulties (easy, medium..), but thinks that going so far as to give players tools to fine tune every small aspect of the difficulty is turning the game from creator's work into a consumer's tool. He is right. Even if the "classic" difficulty modes are still there.

Would Soulslikes be better games if it had explicit Dark Ages's like options to fine tune every aspect of difficulty?
Imho not, for all the reasons laid out by Adrian.
 
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Denton said:
Would Soulslikes be better games if it had explicit Dark Ages's like options to fine tune every aspect of difficulty?
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We have option to mod tons of aspects of the difficult of Soulslike games. Did this make them worse for those who ignore those options??

Plus there are sliders everywhere in Souls games. Shields/armors that change the amount of damage you take, weapons and improved weapons that make you do more damage. Freaking level up that increases your HP/stats.
 
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In the meantime I'm having a blast playing at 60 per cent speed lol great for learning the system and seeing the enemy models up close and the damage system eg visible skeleton
 
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rodrigolfp said:
Options = bad. - Never said someone with at least half a brain.
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To me it's not that. It's baby sitting adults = bad. I dont care if when you choose difficulty there is a custom option with all those option. But dont have me choose a difficulty and then present me with all those options. I already chose what i wanted. Same thing with the extra lives now. Any time you die you get an additional screen asking if you want to use them. Just let me play the fucking game. I shouldnt have to go through multiple fucking screens every time i die. Again, it's fine if the extra lives are optional too use, but condense them all in to a single screen.

Even when you launch the game, ever single time before the game opens you get an idtech windows saying if the game crashes or whatever, do this. I've seen it once. That's enough
 
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Brakum said:
To me it's not that. It's baby sitting adults = bad. I dont care if when you choose difficulty there is a custom option with all those option. But dont have me choose a difficulty and then present me with all those options. I already chose what i wanted. Same thing with the extra lives now. Any time you die you get an additional screen asking if you want to use them. Just let me play the fucking game. I shouldnt have to go through multiple fucking screens every time i die. Again, it's fine if the extra lives are optional too use, but condense them all in to a single screen.
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Just ignore them like I do. 🤷‍♂️
 
The Cockatrice said:
cant comment until I played it and finished it.
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Alright, since I had the game bought on Steam, I played it a bit to see peformance and whatnot and I fiddled with the difficulty settings and I think this guy is absolutely wrong, because the default settings the devs intended for the game are just not good, especially the game speed. It was too damn slow for such a shooter and I'm glad they made an option for it as well as options for the parry window which was also too ridiculously easy as I was parrying from miles away. 130-150% speed, nightmare, and a few other tweaks made the game so much better like holy shit. That being said, im putting the game in the backlog till I finish Clair.
 
I do find it odd the game has a "speed" slider. Or is that a mod for pc?

If it's in game that really isn't an option a player should be having to mess with. Same with a parry window being changeable. That's what play testing is for.

But giving players more options for health pools, damage taken, etc seems fine.

The thing is when you don't have any of these options you alienate players or piss off players, and then modders come in to do it anyway. To some extent the game has built in mods if you look at it through that lens.

I find the game thus far good. I'll play more to see if this level of adjustment ended up hurting the core experience for me.
 
neocycle said:
No. You don't get it.
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according-to-doom-the-dark-ages-difficulty-options-you-can-v0-m85yxw7zbzze1.png

Just pick one. It is that way since always.
 
rodrigolfp said:
Yeah. Why? Would not hurt anyone.
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Because you can't experience the art. Doom Eternal is a sweaty stress box with amazing dopamine hits when everything clicks and you get through a master level. That 'sweaty hanging-on-by-a-thread to glorious victory' rollercoaster is the experience. That's the art.

Neutering your own art just turns me off. But we're dealing with people who thought the Sekiro experience was a sight seeing tour.
 
Denton said:
His point is that he prefers single difficulty balanced with specific intent by creator, but is willing to tolerate multiple vaguely defined difficulties (easy, medium..), but thinks that going so far as to give players tools to fine tune every small aspect of the difficulty is turning the game from creator's work into a consumer's tool. He is right. Even if the "classic" difficulty modes are still there.

Would Soulslikes be better games if it had explicit Dark Ages's like options to fine tune every aspect of difficulty?
Imho not, for all the reasons laid out by Adrian.
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And who the hell told him that the difficulty modes are not already fine tuned and the sliders are just an extra for people who want even more?!

Dude is imagining a lot of things to make a point...

And fromsoft games are far from well tuned to perfection, elden ring is a clear example (even outside souls games, the last armoured core was a joke for the whole level and only the bosses had challenge and some weapons\builds were way more op than many others, fine tuned my ass).

Hell you can throw all the "fine tuning" out of the window every time you summon some motherfucker to help you, are the games bad because you have THE OPTION of making the game easier? Cmon...

Difficulty modes + sliders is the best of both worlds, especially today where most games are a cakewalk even on hard, being able to crank up sliders to get even more challenge would help a lot of games.
 
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GymWolf said:
And who the hell told him that the difficulty modes are not already fine tuned and the sliders are just an extra for people who want even more?!

Dude is imagining a lot of things to make a point...

And fromsoft games are far from well tuned to perfection, elden ring is a clear example (even outside souls games, the last armoured core was a joke for the whole level and the only the bosses had challenge and some weapons\builds were way more op than many others, fine tuned my ass).

Hell you can throw all the "fine tuning" out of the window every time you summon some motherfucker to help you, are the games bad because you have THE OPTION of making the game easier? Cmon...

Difficulty modes + sliders is the best of both worlds, especially today where most games are a cakewalk even on hard, being able to crank up sliders to get even more challenge would help a lot of games.
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Health bar still get longs the more people you have summoned. A lot of SoulsRing bosses are easier without the summon because of it. Miyazaki didn't throw his hands up and ask the customer to balance it.

id can shrug off any balancing complaints thanks to these sliders. "You didn't slide it right".
 
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simpatico said:
Health bar still get longs the more people you have summoned. A lot of SoulsRing bosses are easier without the summon because of it. Miyazaki didn't throw his hands up and ask the customer to balance it.

id can shrug off any balancing complaints thanks to these sliders. "You didn't slide it right".
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The option to summon is the customer balancing it, just like adjusting a slider.
 
simpatico said:
Health bar still get longs the more people you have summoned. A lot of SoulsRing bosses are easier without the summon because of it. Miyazaki didn't throw his hands up and ask the customer to balance it.

id can shrug off any balancing complaints thanks to these sliders. "You didn't slide it right".
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Lmao, come the fuck on, 95% of boss fights are easier with another dude that know how to play, of course if you play with absolute morons the thing change but that is the multyplayer variable for you.
Miyazaki didn't balanced a lot of shit that was patched later in elden ring, he is not perfect, no matter how much gaf put him on a pedastal.



I sincerely doubt id gives 2 fucks and a half about this dude tweets or feel the need to ask for forgiveness about the balancing of the game to anyone :lollipop_grinning_sweat:
 
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simpatico said:
Health bar still get longs the more people you have summoned. A lot of SoulsRing bosses are easier without the summon because of it. Miyazaki didn't throw his hands up and ask the customer to balance it.

id can shrug off any balancing complaints thanks to these sliders. "You didn't slide it right".
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There are default difficulties where sliders don't matter. These are an extra feature.
 
neocycle said:
And I disagree with you. It's safetyism.
What's even the point of difficulty names anymore.
I don't want sandbox games. I want games made by a developer with a vision. I want to overcome the artists cchallenge.
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They gave you their 'vision' in the standard difficulties.
The whole thing does bring up an interesting question about difficulty being an intrinsic part of a game and what that means for the varying physical abilities of the players and if it always has be an intrinsic part of the vision.
But this guy approaches it like a complete douche.
 
Denton said:
Don't be idiotic. There is a difference between character building and loot, which is all part of the gameplay, and menu options.
And mods are also another thing entirely.
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What is the difference for the gameplay between a slider to take/do more/less damage vs equipping a "gear" do take/do more/less damage? None!
 
DelireMan7 said:
So there is a difficulty modifier in Elden Ring...

I get it that it's in the game and not a menu but it's the same thing basically. Either you want to "git gud" and don't farm or you can go farm and come back later to obliterate the boss.
Other game decide to put that in a menu.

You can prefer one or the other but in the end it's a similar thing.
Like the difficulty slider are optional, the farming is optional in Elden Ring. Some people will claim that farming and overleveling in Souls game are not the true game like some people claim difficulty sliders are a problem.

Overall difficulty sliders are just an optional menu you don't have to engage with if you don't want. Like farming is in RPG.
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Well that's a valid take... I see your point but I think difficulty being in a menu, and difficulty being interwoven in gameplay, are two very different approaches to game design and the experience for the player...
 
clarky said:
This man knows whats up.

People are now complaining that there are too many options? lol fuck off.

I just picked Knightmare and off I went having a great time.
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Think of it this way, if this is the worst thing people can bicker over regarding a game, then that is a good thing.

I just see difficulty sliders as making what normally would be a mod, official instead.

If I want to play a high stakes Heaven or Hell mode in a game that's not DMC, so that both parties can die in 1 bullet, then having that option to do so sounds awesome to me.
 
I agree with 100% of what he said there.

I try to ignore these sliders being there basically... but they shouldn't exist as a default setting. they should have been a cheat code or an unlock for 100%ing the game.
 
kevboard said:
I agree with 100% of what he said there.

I try to ignore these sliders being there basically... but they shouldn't exist as a default setting. they should have been a cheat code or an unlock for 100%ing the game.
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Why though?
There are two possible reasons I can think of:
Makes it easy to cheat yourself out of a good challenging experience - this is also true of difficulty levels though which have existed throughout the franchise
Gatekeeping - people dont want everyone to be able to play through the game without having a certain level of skill
 
poppabk said:
Why though?
There are two possible reasons I can think of:
Makes it easy to cheat yourself out of a good challenging experience - this is also true of difficulty levels though which have existed throughout the franchise
Gatekeeping - people dont want everyone to be able to play through the game without having a certain level of skill
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friday-ice-cube.gif


Once a copy of the game is in someone's hands, one shouldn't care what they do with it unless they are a reviewer. Even then, since most of GAF wants professional reviewers to all go away that shouldn't matter either.
 
poppabk said:
Why though?
There are two possible reasons I can think of:
Makes it easy to cheat yourself out of a good challenging experience - this is also true of difficulty levels though which have existed throughout the franchise
Gatekeeping - people dont want everyone to be able to play through the game without having a certain level of skill
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he put it very well why it's an issue.
it waters down what the inteded experience is. even with simple difficulty settings like Easy, Medium, Hard it's very easy to make your own playthrough worse than it could be as there are always modes that are badly balanced or just extremely boring.

if I played any other difficulty setting in R&C Rift Apart than the highest one, I think I wouldn't have liked the game even remotely as much as I did. trying these modes after the fact showed me that they are badly balanced in a way that makes some game mechanics completely trivial and useless.

now add multiple sliders to that equation, like the parry timing slider the game puts right up in your face if you want it or not, and it's very easy to make the game less fun for your first playthrough than it could be if there was 1 extremely well tuned default setting.
And I don't think anyone wants to sit there, adjusting sliders all day, just to find the perfect experience for them.

this has nothing to do with gatekeeping, the in my option best games ever made don't have any difficulty settings on your first playthrough, and instead rely on dynamic and intuitive difficulty options that are directly built into the game's moment to moment gameplay.
and he made the exact same point, which is why I 100% agree with him as I said.

in Mario Odyssey/Wonder etc. for example, easy games no matter how you play, but they still hav this kind of design. often within its levels it has an easy route through, which any player at any skill level will easily be able to beat. but then it also has risky paths with collectibles, or harder paths that are faster and give you more coins etc.
and then there are the optional special levels that challenge even the better players.

even Elden Ring does this. it doesn't block your way should you be stuck on a boss. you can just walk a different way, find better loot, level up a bit, and then come back to try again... still can't beat him? summon another player that will destroy him easily... or summon an NPC that takes the focus away from you for easy attack openings. don't wanna summon? try to make a super specialised character built that makes the boss trivial to beat. you have many options, and they show themselves to you during gameplay in a developer intended way, and there's no question if you chose the wrong initial setting or set a slider a bit too high or too low.

Doom The Dark Ages had this opportunity too with its more open level design. they could have made it easier to dodge some fights completely, and they already have many tools to make combat easier if you want to. the shield in combination with long range weapons allows you to play very defensively, while all the shield attack options and close range weapons allow better players to kill faster and more efficiently by going all in all the time.


another way to do it is the DMC3 way. 1 singular mode available when you first start. and if you die too often the game asks you if you want to lower the difficulty (and warns you that you can't go back to normal later). after finishing the game you also unlock higher difficulty modes to add replayability
 
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kevboard said:
he put it very well why it's an issue.
it waters down what the inteded experience is. even with simple difficulty settings like Easy, Medium, Hard it's very easy to make your own playthrough worse than it could be as there are always modes that are badly balanced or just extremely boring.
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So why not make it easier to tailor the difficulty. You have already stated that some difficulty modes can be broken or bad, so why not allow you to goose up the medium difficulty so it gets a little closer to hard. The sliders can also increase difficulty, not only take it away.
The whole 'intended' difficulty for Doom falls apart specifically for me because it is 'intended' to be played on mouse and keyboard. I am playing on controller and I can tell you that there are at least two difficulty levels between my M/KB skills and my controller skills in an FPS.
 
poppabk said:
So why not make it easier to tailor the difficulty. You have already stated that some difficulty modes can be broken or bad, so why not allow you to goose up the medium difficulty so it gets a little closer to hard. The sliders can also increase difficulty, not only take it away.
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no, that makes it even more tedious. imagine sitting there changing sliders up and down to finetune everything...
there are console casuals that get an aneurysm when they get too many graphics mode choices, gameplay sliders are an even more extreme version of that.

the absolutely optimal way would be 1 setting and nothing else, at least on the first playthrough/game start. and that with a mode that is as perfectly tuned as the Devs can do it.


poppabk said:
The whole 'intended' difficulty for Doom falls apart specifically for me because it is 'intended' to be played on mouse and keyboard. I am playing on controller and I can tell you that there are at least two difficulty levels between my M/KB skills and my controller skills in an FPS.
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I think this is only true if you suck on a controller.
I have played competitive shooters online against mouse users before, with aim assist off... and I could keep up. am I at a disadvantage? sure... is it a completely different experience? absolute no. and it's not like I'm a controller FPS god, there are way better players than me that can do the same on high level ranked modes (when Genburten tried playing without aim assist in predator ranked matches he had to check multiple times if he really turned it off because he beamed people as usual).
I am currently playing Deus Ex on the Steam deck for crying out loud 😭, with custom button button binds due to the lack of controller support. I have zero issue doing that and don't feel it would be much different if I played it on a mouse and keyboard.

I played through Doom Eternal on Ultra Violence and partly on Nightmare on controller without aim assist (aim assist annoys me in Doom), and my aim is just fine... the biggest difference there would be how I swap weapons, but that's assuming PC players don't like using the weapon wheel instead of the number keys. the weapon wheel being there on keyboard as well also makes it an intended thing.
 
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Imagine not liking a game because of how somebody else - who you don't even know - plays it. Just pick a difficulty and ignore the options if you don't like them.
 
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