The thing is, games have a minimum difficulty to be somewhat generally enjoyable, and the game designers have often built their game around this. The fun is generally in the obstacles providing real resistance that can be overcome by optimizing your strategy. It means that these obstacles need to be mentally picked apart by the player to proceed. They are built like puzzles.
This design philosophy - anyone who plays these games can tell you - is deeply rewarding if you go through it, because it requires genuine improvement that you can notice and be proud of. Hence why there is often a limit to how much easier you can make games like these without losing that because you forget the obstacle before even realizing it was preventing you from doing something.
It’s often not as easy as just tweaking numbers. And often these development teams don’t have the time to rebalance a game for those lower difficulties, so they just don’t.
Honestly, the first wojack could be quite mad too, because often making an easy game harder also misses the point, where the game is just more difficult, but doesn’t actually provide you with that carefully crafted feeling of constant improvement. Instead some easy games can become downright frustrating because obstacles feel “cheap” or “lacking depth” now that you have to spend a lot more time on them.
But making an easy game harder by just tweaking the numbers is definitely easier on the development team, and gives existing players a chance to re-experience the game, which wouldn’t happen the other way around. But it’s almost certainly not a better option for new players wanting a harder difficulty.
At the end of the day though, often there are ways to get what you want. Either by cheating, modding, or otherwise using ‘OP’ usables in the game. Do whatever you want to make the game more enjoyable to yourself. But if you make it too easy on yourself you might come out on the other end wondering why other people enjoyed the game so much more than you did.
The thing is, games have a minimum difficulty to be somewhat generally enjoyable, and the game designers have often built their game around this. The fun is generally in the obstacles providing real resistance that can be overcome by optimizing your strategy. It means that these obstacles need to be mentally picked apart by the player to proceed. They are built like puzzles.
This design philosophy - anyone who plays these games can tell you - is deeply rewarding if you go through it, because it requires genuine improvement that you can notice and be proud of. Hence why there is often a limit to how much easier you can make games like these without losing that because you forget the obstacle before even realizing it was preventing you from doing something.
It’s often not as easy as just tweaking numbers. And often these development teams don’t have the time to rebalance a game for those lower difficulties, so they just don’t.
Honestly, the first wojack could be quite mad too, because often making an easy game harder also misses the point, where the game is just more difficult, but doesn’t actually provide you with that carefully crafted feeling of constant improvement. Instead some easy games can become downright frustrating because obstacles feel “cheap” or “lacking depth” now that you have to spend a lot more time on them.
But making an easy game harder by just tweaking the numbers is definitely easier on the development team, and gives existing players a chance to re-experience the game, which wouldn’t happen the other way around. But it’s almost certainly not a better option for new players wanting a harder difficulty.
At the end of the day though, often there are ways to get what you want. Either by cheating, modding, or otherwise using ‘OP’ usables in the game. Do whatever you want to make the game more enjoyable to yourself. But if you make it too easy on yourself you might come out on the other end wondering why other people enjoyed the game so much more than you did.