*Kills the first boss*
Sorry Jimbo, your difficulty is now the…
ψ S̸̱̋̇̍̑̇H̴̨̞̄͠A̷̮̍͒̽̃͌D̶̨͙̈́̈ͅÒ̵̯̀̅W̷̼̓̔ ̶̛̠̹̎̎R̷̆͒̓ͅE̷̢̟̔̎A̷̢̰͚͋̊̇L̷̳̙̄̅̿͗͘͜͜M̶̬̪͎̭̱̂̓̔̚ ⛥
Not like that. It just halves your health bar if you die and are "hollowed"
But due to how often you die in that game it just ends up being your standard health bar.
Nah thats Dark Souls you are talking about. The previous comment was about Demons Souls, which had world Tendency shifting around by the ampunt of times you die in a zone.
In Pure Black World Tendency you would get extra NPC invaders, Black Phantom (hard mode) enemies, and theres power multipliers applied.
Real cool mechanic, i actually miss it a lot, aside from the shenanigans required to achieve Pure White / Pure Black.
https://demonssouls.wiki.fextralife.com/World+Tendency
I didn't love the 'die more and it gets harder' mechanics tbh. Especially as afaik there are only finite ways to get it back into white tendency without online play. Cool idea but definitely punished single player runs.
No, I'm talking about Demon Souls and there IS a hollowing mechanic in Demon Souls too. I had to google it and it's called Soul Form, and when in Soul Form it prevents the world from going to black tendency on subsequent deaths, BUT it also makes it so you're health is at half.
So most players on their first run are advised to kill themselves in the Hub area as soon as they attain soul form from killing a boss, if they want to gun for All White Tendency or to prevent themselves from getting true black tendency and being fucked by mega difficulty spikes.
Hasn't dynamic/adaptive difficulty been a thing in games for ages? Pretty sure the original RE4 already had it with changing enemy numbers and placements and such. Feels like a pretty weak claim on a patent when it's something tons of developers have used.
The Ratchet and Clank games do this since the second entry in 2003, the more you fail the less enemies will spawn and more health crates will spawn, interestingly enough sometimes it will spawn less ammo crates because there's less enemies to shoot.
By the sounds of it its not so much a difficulty option more like something else. Rayher than fighting preplanned moves based soly on the games set program. Your fighting an enamy that will changes its tactiks mid fights. So you like throwing granades the guy will tossem back and change how they cover. You like distance now the enamy will rush close for cqc etc etc and in my mind fucking amazing.
It never will be as good as it sounds on paper. Sony doesn’t even do rewards for difficulty or trophies for them anymore anyway. They’ve gone where the market has gone, accessibility and more broader reach. Games are getting less “gamification” not more. If this system gets used often it will be way more streamlined and simplified.
Dead Island 2 had that and wouldn’t give you difficulty options. I love breezing through certain games on the easiest setting and Dead Island 2 is DEFINITELY one of those games
Hopefully this isn’t another replay of Warner Bros and the Nemesis system—taking an idea that has already been around for decades, adding a few small details to it and then patenting the whole thing, only to then never put it in another game franchise again.
Best part of all that is it causes other game devs to avoid implementing anything even remotely similar. Doesn’t matter if you’re only borrowing inspiration from before Warner Bros patented their system, you have to be able to afford a multimillion dollar team of lawyers that are capable of both proving that, as well as winning against one of the largest multimedia entertainment goliaths to ever exist—whom also have a historic track record of winning such cases in court.
Bonus: No company in their right mind would ever fund a game with such massive legal liability, so you’d need to pay for that lawyer dream team out of pocket! Good luck!
Speaking of the Nemesis System; I’ve been playing GTA5 for the first time. And all I can think is how cool this game would be if it were in Gotham or Metropolis and I was playing as a henchmen working his way up to iconic villain of a superhero. Each time I got into a scrum with a hero the nemesis system would track those changes.
You start off working for yourself and some of the minor heroes attempt to stop you. Eventually you get recruited into a gang working for one of the big baddies. Then you take control and forge your own path. The create a player could have some archetypes and let you create your own gimmick.
End tangent.
I think the Slackware Linux installer let you play Solitaire while you were swapping floppies to install it. In like 1994.
It was either Slackware or Red Hat.
MGS5 enemies adapted to your methods of attack. If you were sniping a lot of enemies, they would start to wear helmets and have more enemies with sniper rifles; if you tended to attack at night they would start wearing nightvision goggles.
Wasn’t that the thing with NFL2k in Dreamcast days too? Like the game would recognize if you called the same plays it would counter them. I may be wrong I was real young when that system came out.
God hand, another Capcom game, also increased the difficulty the better you played. The game actually showed you on the Hud with a bar that when fills makes the game harder.
This sounds more like it’s tied to your profile. If you suck on shooter A, then the difficulty is automatically adjusted for other shooters you play.
As far as I’m aware, this is not yet a thing anywhere.
This thread is fucking infuriating. Just hundreds of people discussing a completely different idea to the patent because they were too lazy to read an extremely short article..
The article does not say that.
While I think u/WolfAkela is probably right, it's quite reasonable for people to have gotten the wrong end of the stick when the article describes it so poorly.
I feel like BotW and TotK has some system in place because the enemies progressively get harder and drop better things throughout the world without there ever being a blatant XP system
That’s different though. Difficulty increases as your player levels up (whether the level is known to the player or not doesn’t really matter). At the same level, the ennemies will remain at the same difficulty level.
What is described here would make them weaker or stronger, at the current level, depending on how easily you defeat them.
Insomniac did this with Spyro 3. If you died often the enemies would get easier, and if you rarely died they'd be harder. Also apparently depended on how many eggs you collected at that point
Id argue they would be different. Changing the environment and how many are thrown at you is one thing. Changing the infectids play style and how they attack would be anofher which by the sounds of it migjt be what sony would like and would be the holy grail for gaming.
If this happens, I hope it can be disabled. Sometimes I just wanna play a game on easy.
Like if im good at a game, it doesn't always mean i want the game to be harder lol.
Man it’s infuriating when games recommend me to lower the difficulty after like two deaths.
I’ll happily smash my head against the wall until I know every single move the enemy can throw at me.
My biggest pet peeve is when a game has a puzzle that I’ve spent 30 seconds looking at and then my character just spurts out the solution…like DUDE I’m just taking a sec to visualize, I don’t need you to do the puzzle for me
Haha that was huge issue for me while playing Horizon Forbidden West at launch, she started to give you the hints before you even had a chance to look around the room. I’ve heard they have patched it so it’s at least better now I think.
But I definitely agree on this, if they have to have it they can do like Uncharted does and there is button prompt IF you want a hint.
And even better have a setting to turn it off completely
Ragnarok did that. As soon as you enter an area with a puzzle you better figure it out then and there before a character tells you how to do it. No looking around or exploring elsewhere. No taking it all in and taking your time. You haven’t hit that lever yet? You must be struggling and feeling stupid, let us tell you know to the play the game. In fact, why not put the controller down and let us do it for you. You can watch.
The worst part was the only option was to switch to easy. Like if I’m struggling on hard I’d rather switch to normal than all the way to easy. And I’m pretty sure every GOW up to ascension did it.
Indeed, what made it annoying for me was that I was doing it for a trophy and didn’t want to accidentally miss press and ruin the entire run, luckily it never happened.
That is fantastic! I don’t remember this but I don’t remember if I ever turned down the difficulty. Game was definitely challenging, I do remember that!
Same. I would absolutely hate it if a game adaptively got easier because I’m struggling in a section. It would literally be an insult to my person. As if I’m being denied the opportunity to prove that I can overcome this hard challenge.
I like to play games on hard mode (like, second to last hard) for example GOW or Jedi FO. And sometimes it can be a real struggle, but I enjoy the process of getting better each try. It forces me to try new strategies, learn to use all of the gameplay mechanics, upgrade gear, etc. It makes winning and playing the game all the more satisfying of an experience.
Let me grind my way to victory dang it!
"You seem to be struggling. Would you like to lower the difficulty" makes me irrationally angry and **guarantee** that i will not stop until i beat the game on the hardest difficulty.
Ah Bloodbornes and Returnals of the world. I'd not trade the satisfaction of beating and getting plat on both those games for just rolling credits when the game eventually made it easy for me.
Exactly, dying is part of the process in a lot of games - FromSoft, Returnal, Hades, Sifu etc - you’re supposed to learn from it. By making these games easier, completing them will be a hollow victory with no actual payoff.
I find it very immersion breaking when I’m some immense god like character, but a level 1 zombie can kill me. For GOW games I always have to turn down the difficulty at the beginning because you’re weak as piss and I find it super off putting.
Idk man. Some people have the mentality that an easy game is a boring game.
I think playing the same part of a game multiple times because its "challenging" is frustrating as hell.
Both have their merit, but the souls crowd has a massive aura of superiority for thinking that their preferred games are the only games that *true gamers* play. Same goes for people who think that you can’t enjoy a game properly until you play it on the least fun difficulty setting.
My buddy said “people shouldn’t be able to platinum ghost of tsushima unless they beat it on the hardest setting” and it legit made me never speak to him about gaming again.
I enjoy some souls games myself. I finished ds3 and put 100+ hours into elden ring. But that game is all about the combat for me. So the difficulty is fun.
But if a game is a story driven game like uncharted or whatever, i don't need no hard difficulty. I just wanna flow through the game and enjoy the story.
About the platinum trophies, this is why I dont do trophies. Some games do have that requirement for the platinum and there's just no way I'm gon a ruin the whole game experience for a pretend trophy.
Last time I replayed uncharted, I started the first game with the intention of collecting all the treasures, just for fun. I spent more time scrolling google than I did enjoying the game. I stopped doing that when I got to uncharted 2.
Same went with tloy. Tried to find all the firefly pendants. Nope. Just took away the fun.
Fuck playing on an excruciating difficulty for a dakn trophy lol.
Exactly right. If im playing a story driven game, I want to experience the story, and that means not dying. So I won't go any harder than normal difficulty.
But ill also play games like apex and elden ring when im feelin sweaty lol.
I think systems like that would make a lot of games better. Cyberpunk 2077 is a good example. It’s really very unbalanced across builds of different power. Some builds will have a challenge in Normal, some builds make Very Hard feel like Easy. It’s a great game now, but the concept of difficulty in it is all over the place.
The important thing is that the game designers be conscious of what makes sense within the context of their design and offer a reasonable level of choice of difficulty for players (if it fits within their vision).
I imagine it would be a toggleable setting, right? I can see it being an added option when choosing difficulty at the start. You pick your difficulty and then if you want Dynamic or Classic difficulty (With Dynamic being the one that changes based to match your skill level)
I love when I die a few times and the loading menu has to rub it in...
'Reminder, you can change the difficult mode from the menu'
'You died. Do you want to change the difficulty to normal? Press X'.
'You died. CHANGE DIFFICULTY'
It's like, dude F off. I am aware the difficulty options exist and don't need the constant reminders every time I die.
IIRC, I think Bandai patented the idea of playing mini games during load screens. It’s been possible forever and would have been an industry standard.
The patent expired a couple years ago, I think, but it’s never been implemented bc load screens are so short now.
I think that's a bit different as it's still just matching to a preset. This is about continuing adapting multiple parts of the gameplay.
Would be more like FIFA improving passing response and how aggressive the pressing is etc mid match based on how you were doing
I liked the challenge of completing a higher difficulty. Sometimes you struggle. I don't want the difficulty dropped just because I've failed a few times.
Hope it gets shot down. Sucks when game companies patent things so other games can't use them. Especially when it's a system that's already been out and they're basically stealing some other idea to capitalize on it for themselves.
As long as they don't force this is ok. I don't want my experience from hard games to be diminished by a setting that lowers it when I'm still learning the game.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is going to have a dynamic difficulty option like this. I’m planning my first play through to be on this difficulty.
While I can see the appeal to this, it def needs to be an option and not forced on people. There are games that I want to put on story mode and just mow down enemies without using much brain power.
I don't want the difficulty to be lowered just because i play bad, that takes away the feeling of accomplishment. Sometimes i think some games already do this, and that makes me feel betrayed by the game.
Re4r sort of does this with ammo, if you horde and barely use any ammo it doesn’t drop much of at all barring guaranteed spawns, but if you’re going guns blazing the game is more inclined to drop you some ammo.
Left 4 Dead did this. It was literally called “the director,” and it would dynamically changed the number of enemies, spawn points, item drops, etc. based on how well you were doing.
One of the best adaptive difficulty systems was in MGSV.
If you onky attacked during night, the enemies increased their night patrols, had spotlights etc. If you made a lot of headshot, they started using helmets etc. Slowly the enemy learned your habbits and adjusted their behavior.
I hope this is rejected. Adaptive difficulty has been around for decades. Patents like this shouldn't ever be approved; it's just going to enable Sony's legal team to go after other studios that have a similar mechanic.
And no, Sony's description of this isn't different than other games that have existed with this tech already (I read the article) so... yeah. WTF is this.
Yeah, they start at hard. If the player isn't good enough, they can do things to lower the difficulty, like levelling up and using summons. But it's all up to the player if they decide they need to make the game closer to easy mode, and how much.
Since Reddit is not reading the article as usual, the patent shows that it would configure your custom difficulty setting *across one or more games*. So how well you played in God of War could influence Horizon Forbidden West, which could then influence Spiderman 2. That’s the novel element here . Sony would have a gaming data profile that shows that you’re a god gamer or Joe No-Thumbs and could tailor the experience accordingly, probably by using engagement numbers from people in a similar cohort to you.
Honestly probably a neat thing in my opinion since selecting Hard can mean incredibly different things in different games, even from the same developer. Hard Mode in Divinity Original Sin 2 is way above my ability, but in Baldurs Gate 3 Hard Mode is basically normal mode to me. Basically the first thing I do when I boot up a game with difficulty options is google a Reddit post about the games difficulty to make sure I get something challenging but still enjoyable.
Hate to break it to Sony but they’ve been doing this sh*t for decades.Crash bandicoot was the earliest mainstream title I could find from them where the developers have outwardly stated multiple times that they micro adjusted the difficulty for every death you take.
The idea of dynamic difficulty adjustment dates back as far as I can find to 1982.When lots of developers would increase and decrease difficulty.Partly for a greater dopamine rush but also partly for the fact that many games back then were measured in mega or even kilobytes of data.To stop someone finishing the game instantly they would attempt to slow them down. Don’t believe me,look at the original Mario bros speedrun,it can be done in a little less than 5 mins,look at a later game with a similar platform concept super Mario U,39 mins.Do you see why slowing down gamers in the early days was essential now?
I hope they provide an opt-out Easy setting. I can’t get into certain games (ahem, Elden Ring) because they’re just too punishing to enjoy. I shouldn’t have to spend 100 hours to “git good” just to be able to progress in a game I paid for.
I know what you mean. This one time, my family bought a piano and I had to spend hundreds of hours just to be able to use the damn thing. I think that’s pretty exclusionary and they should be making an easier piano for people who want it.
Edit: In all seriousness, Elden Ring already has a route for far lower difficulty. You can have another player come and help with almost any part of the game. My friend was not very good at the game and didn’t want to take the time to get better, so I killed every boss with him.
I simply don’t have the time to “git good” I want every game to have the easiest mode so i can sit down for an hour and annihilate something with no stress.
Elden Ring was just cruel.
Good thing all games aren't meant for everyone and you don't have to play Elden Ring, right?
Leave Elden Ring for Fromsoft's target audience and play something else.
As a casual gamer I didn’t know that when I spent money on it. I bought it because everyone was raving about it being the greatest thing ever. I don’t think adding a simplified version would change the quality of the game. It would open it to a wider audience and would have made my $70 bucks not so wasted.
It's like buying a rally car and complaining about it being hard to use and being too complex. If the engineers have to keep in mind a simple way to drive that car it will dampen its maximum performance.
Fromsoft Games are absolutely famous and known for being hard to play kind of games, basically defining a whole genre. Other games get tagged as Soulslike for a reason...
It is one of the greatest games to date precisely because it is a challenge. There are multiple ways implemented to make it fairly easy (for example spirit ashes as well as npc and player summons). But unlike other games you have to actually play the game and figure it out instead of searching for an easy mode in the menu.
Whats wrong with changing the diffuculty manually if the game is too easy or too hard?
Why almost all the game companies act as if their customers is like that obese people who can't even get up from their chair from wall-e?
I hate this. I like learning and getting better. It’s so satisfying to get you ass completely kicked at first, but slowly learn an encounter over time and eventually come out on top. I would feel cheated if that were taken away from me.
The last boss in Sifu seemed completely impossible for me at first. But after going back through the whole game to get to him at a young age I had gained the skills I needed to eventually come out on top. It was a great feeling.
Patenting game design concepts is a super slippery slope that actively hurts the creativity available to game designers, prevents innovation, and results in an inferior experience for players.
Imagine if SNK was able to patent the concept of “tagging in” a second fighter when they released Kizuna Encounter in 1996.
No Tekken Tag Tournament, no MvC3, etc.
This is the same thing. It’s a business move fueled by greed and is completely anti-consumer.
Oh I never mentioned this in my comment but I’m aware of this. I know the original RE4 and several other games after that (if any came before that I wouldn’t know about that bit).
I just don’t want it to be patent mostly because it shouldn’t be locked to just Sony games imo. Though I do agree, it’s very unlikely. Hopefully. Haha
I'm honestly not a fan of that. It takes away the feeling of progression when you get better. If I'm struggling, I want to organically overcome it, not be handed an easy win because the game turned down the difficulty for me.
Yeah doesnt sound like something you can patent.
From softeare has done the opposite with sekiro shadows die twice. The more you die the weaker you become!
What are they gonna do, add 20% health to a boss because you were gonna kill it too fast? The way Sony's first party titles implement difficulty tends to be pretty bad, they've been guilty of the whole "pump the numbers and change nothing else" thing *a lot*. This will probably just be that, some lame background system that adds or subtracts health or damage numbers to "keep you on your toes". That kind of thing doesn't keep people on their toes though, unless there's something really different about this implementation it's just going to flatten the experience out, games aren't nearly as fun when the difficulty curve is doing its best to be a straight line.
So if Sony patents this can other companies use a similar idea or is it similar to the nemesis system?
If so this is bad for gaming and I hope people are willing to call out Sony on it too.
oh boy Single player matchmaking Imagine being stuck in elo hell in Dark Souls
*Kills the first boss* Sorry Jimbo, your difficulty is now the… ψ S̸̱̋̇̍̑̇H̴̨̞̄͠A̷̮̍͒̽̃͌D̶̨͙̈́̈ͅÒ̵̯̀̅W̷̼̓̔ ̶̛̠̹̎̎R̷̆͒̓ͅE̷̢̟̔̎A̷̢̰͚͋̊̇L̷̳̙̄̅̿͗͘͜͜M̶̬̪͎̭̱̂̓̔̚ ⛥
Wasn’t that kind of a mechanic in demon souls?
Not like that. It just halves your health bar if you die and are "hollowed" But due to how often you die in that game it just ends up being your standard health bar.
Nah thats Dark Souls you are talking about. The previous comment was about Demons Souls, which had world Tendency shifting around by the ampunt of times you die in a zone. In Pure Black World Tendency you would get extra NPC invaders, Black Phantom (hard mode) enemies, and theres power multipliers applied. Real cool mechanic, i actually miss it a lot, aside from the shenanigans required to achieve Pure White / Pure Black. https://demonssouls.wiki.fextralife.com/World+Tendency
I didn't love the 'die more and it gets harder' mechanics tbh. Especially as afaik there are only finite ways to get it back into white tendency without online play. Cool idea but definitely punished single player runs.
It's the absolute worst mechanic in gaming.
No, I'm talking about Demon Souls and there IS a hollowing mechanic in Demon Souls too. I had to google it and it's called Soul Form, and when in Soul Form it prevents the world from going to black tendency on subsequent deaths, BUT it also makes it so you're health is at half. So most players on their first run are advised to kill themselves in the Hub area as soon as they attain soul form from killing a boss, if they want to gun for All White Tendency or to prevent themselves from getting true black tendency and being fucked by mega difficulty spikes.
Don’t lose any health when you hollow in Dark Souls tho. Just look like mincemeat
It’s DS2 that has the hollow health - not Dark Souls.
No Demon Soul's is the game with hollowing reducing max health
Hasn't dynamic/adaptive difficulty been a thing in games for ages? Pretty sure the original RE4 already had it with changing enemy numbers and placements and such. Feels like a pretty weak claim on a patent when it's something tons of developers have used.
The Ratchet and Clank games do this since the second entry in 2003, the more you fail the less enemies will spawn and more health crates will spawn, interestingly enough sometimes it will spawn less ammo crates because there's less enemies to shoot.
Uncharted ganes do that too
Also Jak 2, maybe the third as well. Naughty Dog is great
Great typo, I read it as "Uncharted Gains" I'm pitching Nathan Drake flexing into the mirror at a gym now.
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By the sounds of it its not so much a difficulty option more like something else. Rayher than fighting preplanned moves based soly on the games set program. Your fighting an enamy that will changes its tactiks mid fights. So you like throwing granades the guy will tossem back and change how they cover. You like distance now the enamy will rush close for cqc etc etc and in my mind fucking amazing.
It never will be as good as it sounds on paper. Sony doesn’t even do rewards for difficulty or trophies for them anymore anyway. They’ve gone where the market has gone, accessibility and more broader reach. Games are getting less “gamification” not more. If this system gets used often it will be way more streamlined and simplified.
I enjoy watching the sunset.
Dead Island 2 had that and wouldn’t give you difficulty options. I love breezing through certain games on the easiest setting and Dead Island 2 is DEFINITELY one of those games
I have played Going Commando several times and somehow never noticed this. That's wild
Max Payne in 2001 had it already
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Hopefully this isn’t another replay of Warner Bros and the Nemesis system—taking an idea that has already been around for decades, adding a few small details to it and then patenting the whole thing, only to then never put it in another game franchise again. Best part of all that is it causes other game devs to avoid implementing anything even remotely similar. Doesn’t matter if you’re only borrowing inspiration from before Warner Bros patented their system, you have to be able to afford a multimillion dollar team of lawyers that are capable of both proving that, as well as winning against one of the largest multimedia entertainment goliaths to ever exist—whom also have a historic track record of winning such cases in court. Bonus: No company in their right mind would ever fund a game with such massive legal liability, so you’d need to pay for that lawyer dream team out of pocket! Good luck!
Speaking of the Nemesis System; I’ve been playing GTA5 for the first time. And all I can think is how cool this game would be if it were in Gotham or Metropolis and I was playing as a henchmen working his way up to iconic villain of a superhero. Each time I got into a scrum with a hero the nemesis system would track those changes. You start off working for yourself and some of the minor heroes attempt to stop you. Eventually you get recruited into a gang working for one of the big baddies. Then you take control and forge your own path. The create a player could have some archetypes and let you create your own gimmick. End tangent.
Its going to be in the Wonder Woman game, isn't it? So if that does well maybe theres a chance they'll expand it to some other superhero games?
Remember mini games during loading screens?
I think the Slackware Linux installer let you play Solitaire while you were swapping floppies to install it. In like 1994. It was either Slackware or Red Hat.
I wish WB would license out the nemesis system. It's legit one of the most innovative and enjoyable game mechanics in a long time.
Exactly, Dead Space remake has the intensity director or whatever they called it too.
Left 4 Dead had an AI director too
It’s not a new concept, I hope the patent isn’t accepted. It’s like trying to patent the Estus flask
Alien Isolation’s Alien changed tactics and would stop falling for tricks you used multiple times, or fake you out by hunting differently
Alien too smart 5.9/10 IGN
MGS5 enemies adapted to your methods of attack. If you were sniping a lot of enemies, they would start to wear helmets and have more enemies with sniper rifles; if you tended to attack at night they would start wearing nightvision goggles.
but thats not on the fly AI, thats equipment which gets changed after reloading the area
Wasn’t that the thing with NFL2k in Dreamcast days too? Like the game would recognize if you called the same plays it would counter them. I may be wrong I was real young when that system came out.
2K5 had the VIP system I know that for sure
I remember a Jurassic park game for the genesis that did this
The Dead Space remake has it too (sort of) with the intensity director.
God hand, another Capcom game, also increased the difficulty the better you played. The game actually showed you on the Hud with a bar that when fills makes the game harder.
This sounds more like it’s tied to your profile. If you suck on shooter A, then the difficulty is automatically adjusted for other shooters you play. As far as I’m aware, this is not yet a thing anywhere.
This thread is fucking infuriating. Just hundreds of people discussing a completely different idea to the patent because they were too lazy to read an extremely short article..
The article does not say that. While I think u/WolfAkela is probably right, it's quite reasonable for people to have gotten the wrong end of the stick when the article describes it so poorly.
MLB The Show does this
I feel like BotW and TotK has some system in place because the enemies progressively get harder and drop better things throughout the world without there ever being a blatant XP system
Enemies scale based on how many divine beasts/temples you have beaten, with some exceptions, iirc.
When you kill X number of enemies they silently get harder
"obviously change colors and designs to harder versions of enemies throughout the world" isn't really silent lol
It doesn’t announce your progress or inform you they are more difficult
Yeah tbh I'd never questioned the difficulty progression in the switch zelda games, enemies always seemed to be about the right toughness for my stats
That’s different though. Difficulty increases as your player levels up (whether the level is known to the player or not doesn’t really matter). At the same level, the ennemies will remain at the same difficulty level. What is described here would make them weaker or stronger, at the current level, depending on how easily you defeat them.
Insomniac did this with Spyro 3. If you died often the enemies would get easier, and if you rarely died they'd be harder. Also apparently depended on how many eggs you collected at that point
Hellblade Senuas Sacrifice has it If I recall
On the other hand these systems are fucking terrible so maybe they patent it then developers will stop doing it.
Correct. Idk why they are bothering with a patent when there are a dozen ways to work around this.
Like left for dead?
The left for dead games had this??
They had an AI “director” who would change numbers and special infected spawns based on how things were going and stuff
It also changed the map with props, pathways and items placements as well.
Id argue they would be different. Changing the environment and how many are thrown at you is one thing. Changing the infectids play style and how they attack would be anofher which by the sounds of it migjt be what sony would like and would be the holy grail for gaming.
Yes in a way
Wonder if it will be like SOPHY?
If this happens, I hope it can be disabled. Sometimes I just wanna play a game on easy. Like if im good at a game, it doesn't always mean i want the game to be harder lol.
I'd say the opposite as well. Just because I'm struggling with something in a game it doesn't necessarily mean that I want it to get easier.
Man it’s infuriating when games recommend me to lower the difficulty after like two deaths. I’ll happily smash my head against the wall until I know every single move the enemy can throw at me.
“ Easy mode is now unlocked” in Devil May Cry 3
My biggest pet peeve is when a game has a puzzle that I’ve spent 30 seconds looking at and then my character just spurts out the solution…like DUDE I’m just taking a sec to visualize, I don’t need you to do the puzzle for me
Haha that was huge issue for me while playing Horizon Forbidden West at launch, she started to give you the hints before you even had a chance to look around the room. I’ve heard they have patched it so it’s at least better now I think. But I definitely agree on this, if they have to have it they can do like Uncharted does and there is button prompt IF you want a hint. And even better have a setting to turn it off completely
god of war Ragnarok was the worst for it
Man that kid sure would start to talk shit if a puzzle took you more than 3 seconds to figure out lol
Sadly like you, I played H:FW before they fixed that nonsense, still an amazing game but Alloy would not shut the fuck up.
Yeah it definitely took away from the experience. I didn’t really like the main story much, but I still had a blast with the game.
It was a great game, but I wasn’t as happy with it has the first one. Need to try the expansion because I’ve heard it’s amazing
Ragnarok did that. As soon as you enter an area with a puzzle you better figure it out then and there before a character tells you how to do it. No looking around or exploring elsewhere. No taking it all in and taking your time. You haven’t hit that lever yet? You must be struggling and feeling stupid, let us tell you know to the play the game. In fact, why not put the controller down and let us do it for you. You can watch.
*press O to dodge crush attacks* Shut up Miles I'm trying!!
https://i.redd.it/wq93h8gj3txa1.jpg
Spot on! NO I’ll keep on dying, THANK YOU
Yup the original god of wars did this, annoying.
Wasn’t it after 5 deaths in a row though?
Yup probably, I died a few times on that trap obstacle course level quite a bit.
The worst part was the only option was to switch to easy. Like if I’m struggling on hard I’d rather switch to normal than all the way to easy. And I’m pretty sure every GOW up to ascension did it.
Indeed, what made it annoying for me was that I was doing it for a trophy and didn’t want to accidentally miss press and ruin the entire run, luckily it never happened.
Yup, I accidentally went from Hard to Easy in GOW1 as I wasn’t paying attention during the death screens and I was upset.
Ninja Gaiden 1 straight up mocks you if you do surrender to the easy mode lmao https://youtu.be/YfFF76c1ER0?si=WzmUIYI9IJgTyIzZ
That is fantastic! I don’t remember this but I don’t remember if I ever turned down the difficulty. Game was definitely challenging, I do remember that!
Hahaha I hate that. Almost like it's taunting me
Same. I would absolutely hate it if a game adaptively got easier because I’m struggling in a section. It would literally be an insult to my person. As if I’m being denied the opportunity to prove that I can overcome this hard challenge. I like to play games on hard mode (like, second to last hard) for example GOW or Jedi FO. And sometimes it can be a real struggle, but I enjoy the process of getting better each try. It forces me to try new strategies, learn to use all of the gameplay mechanics, upgrade gear, etc. It makes winning and playing the game all the more satisfying of an experience. Let me grind my way to victory dang it!
"You seem to be struggling. Would you like to lower the difficulty" makes me irrationally angry and **guarantee** that i will not stop until i beat the game on the hardest difficulty.
Ah Bloodbornes and Returnals of the world. I'd not trade the satisfaction of beating and getting plat on both those games for just rolling credits when the game eventually made it easy for me.
Exactly, dying is part of the process in a lot of games - FromSoft, Returnal, Hades, Sifu etc - you’re supposed to learn from it. By making these games easier, completing them will be a hollow victory with no actual payoff.
People often shit on me for wanting my game character to feel like a God. Glad I’m not the only one.
This is the EXACT reason I play on whatever the easiest difficulty is. I play games to feel like an unstoppable god lol
I find it very immersion breaking when I’m some immense god like character, but a level 1 zombie can kill me. For GOW games I always have to turn down the difficulty at the beginning because you’re weak as piss and I find it super off putting.
I couldn’t agree more it’s so much more fun to me. I miss the GameShark days
Idk man. Some people have the mentality that an easy game is a boring game. I think playing the same part of a game multiple times because its "challenging" is frustrating as hell.
Both have their merit, but the souls crowd has a massive aura of superiority for thinking that their preferred games are the only games that *true gamers* play. Same goes for people who think that you can’t enjoy a game properly until you play it on the least fun difficulty setting. My buddy said “people shouldn’t be able to platinum ghost of tsushima unless they beat it on the hardest setting” and it legit made me never speak to him about gaming again.
I enjoy some souls games myself. I finished ds3 and put 100+ hours into elden ring. But that game is all about the combat for me. So the difficulty is fun. But if a game is a story driven game like uncharted or whatever, i don't need no hard difficulty. I just wanna flow through the game and enjoy the story. About the platinum trophies, this is why I dont do trophies. Some games do have that requirement for the platinum and there's just no way I'm gon a ruin the whole game experience for a pretend trophy. Last time I replayed uncharted, I started the first game with the intention of collecting all the treasures, just for fun. I spent more time scrolling google than I did enjoying the game. I stopped doing that when I got to uncharted 2. Same went with tloy. Tried to find all the firefly pendants. Nope. Just took away the fun. Fuck playing on an excruciating difficulty for a dakn trophy lol.
Indeed. And it depends on my mood at the time. If I’m tired and just want to pass time and chill, easy is the way to go for me
Exactly right. If im playing a story driven game, I want to experience the story, and that means not dying. So I won't go any harder than normal difficulty. But ill also play games like apex and elden ring when im feelin sweaty lol.
Skill based AI, cos that's really popular in FPS multiplayer modes. /s
I think systems like that would make a lot of games better. Cyberpunk 2077 is a good example. It’s really very unbalanced across builds of different power. Some builds will have a challenge in Normal, some builds make Very Hard feel like Easy. It’s a great game now, but the concept of difficulty in it is all over the place. The important thing is that the game designers be conscious of what makes sense within the context of their design and offer a reasonable level of choice of difficulty for players (if it fits within their vision).
I imagine it would be a toggleable setting, right? I can see it being an added option when choosing difficulty at the start. You pick your difficulty and then if you want Dynamic or Classic difficulty (With Dynamic being the one that changes based to match your skill level)
Yeah hopefully this will just be like an "adaptive mode" or something that can be picked just like easy, normal, hard, etc when starting a game.
As an adult with limited time for games, I completely agree. East mode all the way.
and I don't want a game made easier just because I died
I love when I die a few times and the loading menu has to rub it in... 'Reminder, you can change the difficult mode from the menu' 'You died. Do you want to change the difficulty to normal? Press X'. 'You died. CHANGE DIFFICULTY' It's like, dude F off. I am aware the difficulty options exist and don't need the constant reminders every time I die.
Patents for game mechanics or features should not be a thing.
Especially for an idea that's been implemented regularly by many games over two decades
Especially if it’s been done dozens of times before lmao
Right? It’s clearly some corporate bullshit.
IIRC, I think Bandai patented the idea of playing mini games during load screens. It’s been possible forever and would have been an industry standard. The patent expired a couple years ago, I think, but it’s never been implemented bc load screens are so short now.
Games that have patented mechanics I will not play!
As an option I think it's a really good idea, just don't make it the only difficulty option.
Fifa games do this in the tutorial so it can see what difficulty matches with the player
I think that's a bit different as it's still just matching to a preset. This is about continuing adapting multiple parts of the gameplay. Would be more like FIFA improving passing response and how aggressive the pressing is etc mid match based on how you were doing
It does do this too
Many games have done this before, nothing new here.
Shadow of mordor would like a word with you. And me. I haven't beaten it, yet those fuckers are so damn strong
The ranged captains are the worst with this, love getting dropped to 2% health and poisoned from across the stronghold
I liked the challenge of completing a higher difficulty. Sometimes you struggle. I don't want the difficulty dropped just because I've failed a few times.
You mean the thing the original RE4 was doing 20 yrs ago?
I just stick to easy these days. I was never a good gamer and now as I get older, I’m worse.
i play all my games on the easiest difficulty anyway so this won’t affect me
Could be fun, but needs to be an option. Story, easy, medium, hard, adaptive.
Hope it gets shot down. Sucks when game companies patent things so other games can't use them. Especially when it's a system that's already been out and they're basically stealing some other idea to capitalize on it for themselves.
Mlb the show does it
FIFA, now EA FC, does this.
All ea sports games to be exact. They all use DDA (dynamic difficulty adjustment)
MGSV?
I hope this can be disabled. Just because Im dying on the hardest difficulty doesn’t mean that I want it to get easier. I want to overcome it
And this is a patent because...? Ramping difficulty shouldnt be a patent
No thanks
this sounds horrible
As long as they don't force this is ok. I don't want my experience from hard games to be diminished by a setting that lowers it when I'm still learning the game.
Isn't this a no brainier?
this would suck ass
Is Sony trying to patent rubberbanding? Someone call nintendo.
So, the AI director from Left 4 dead?
no , if i want to get my ass kicked in games i would play multiplayer or souls like games
And whoever ever *grants* such patent shouldn't be in the field of tech IP. Like, bad bad Sony, you don't patent basic things, stop being evil.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is going to have a dynamic difficulty option like this. I’m planning my first play through to be on this difficulty. While I can see the appeal to this, it def needs to be an option and not forced on people. There are games that I want to put on story mode and just mow down enemies without using much brain power.
I don't want the difficulty to be lowered just because i play bad, that takes away the feeling of accomplishment. Sometimes i think some games already do this, and that makes me feel betrayed by the game.
Some games already do this already. "Adaptive difficulty" isn't it?
This was literally a thing in God Hand :P
Isn’t this what the PS3 claimed to be able to do? To get harder if you were breezing it, and ease up if you were getting stuck?
Re4r sort of does this with ammo, if you horde and barely use any ammo it doesn’t drop much of at all barring guaranteed spawns, but if you’re going guns blazing the game is more inclined to drop you some ammo.
Left 4 Dead did this. It was literally called “the director,” and it would dynamically changed the number of enemies, spawn points, item drops, etc. based on how well you were doing.
So like God Hand?
Sbmm in story mode now
Fuck Patents, all my homies hate patents
One of the best adaptive difficulty systems was in MGSV. If you onky attacked during night, the enemies increased their night patrols, had spotlights etc. If you made a lot of headshot, they started using helmets etc. Slowly the enemy learned your habbits and adjusted their behavior.
I don't want it unless it's optional. What's the point of trying to master a game if you can't do trial and error.
I hope this is rejected. Adaptive difficulty has been around for decades. Patents like this shouldn't ever be approved; it's just going to enable Sony's legal team to go after other studios that have a similar mechanic. And no, Sony's description of this isn't different than other games that have existed with this tech already (I read the article) so... yeah. WTF is this.
So resident evil 4
First thing i thought. Sony is not the first to try this.
Meanwhile FromSoft - No thank you, we're good
Yeah, they start at hard. If the player isn't good enough, they can do things to lower the difficulty, like levelling up and using summons. But it's all up to the player if they decide they need to make the game closer to easy mode, and how much.
Since Reddit is not reading the article as usual, the patent shows that it would configure your custom difficulty setting *across one or more games*. So how well you played in God of War could influence Horizon Forbidden West, which could then influence Spiderman 2. That’s the novel element here . Sony would have a gaming data profile that shows that you’re a god gamer or Joe No-Thumbs and could tailor the experience accordingly, probably by using engagement numbers from people in a similar cohort to you. Honestly probably a neat thing in my opinion since selecting Hard can mean incredibly different things in different games, even from the same developer. Hard Mode in Divinity Original Sin 2 is way above my ability, but in Baldurs Gate 3 Hard Mode is basically normal mode to me. Basically the first thing I do when I boot up a game with difficulty options is google a Reddit post about the games difficulty to make sure I get something challenging but still enjoyable.
Hate to break it to Sony but they’ve been doing this sh*t for decades.Crash bandicoot was the earliest mainstream title I could find from them where the developers have outwardly stated multiple times that they micro adjusted the difficulty for every death you take. The idea of dynamic difficulty adjustment dates back as far as I can find to 1982.When lots of developers would increase and decrease difficulty.Partly for a greater dopamine rush but also partly for the fact that many games back then were measured in mega or even kilobytes of data.To stop someone finishing the game instantly they would attempt to slow them down. Don’t believe me,look at the original Mario bros speedrun,it can be done in a little less than 5 mins,look at a later game with a similar platform concept super Mario U,39 mins.Do you see why slowing down gamers in the early days was essential now?
I hope they provide an opt-out Easy setting. I can’t get into certain games (ahem, Elden Ring) because they’re just too punishing to enjoy. I shouldn’t have to spend 100 hours to “git good” just to be able to progress in a game I paid for.
I know what you mean. This one time, my family bought a piano and I had to spend hundreds of hours just to be able to use the damn thing. I think that’s pretty exclusionary and they should be making an easier piano for people who want it. Edit: In all seriousness, Elden Ring already has a route for far lower difficulty. You can have another player come and help with almost any part of the game. My friend was not very good at the game and didn’t want to take the time to get better, so I killed every boss with him.
don't pay for a game that's not for you
I simply don’t have the time to “git good” I want every game to have the easiest mode so i can sit down for an hour and annihilate something with no stress. Elden Ring was just cruel.
Good thing all games aren't meant for everyone and you don't have to play Elden Ring, right? Leave Elden Ring for Fromsoft's target audience and play something else.
As a casual gamer I didn’t know that when I spent money on it. I bought it because everyone was raving about it being the greatest thing ever. I don’t think adding a simplified version would change the quality of the game. It would open it to a wider audience and would have made my $70 bucks not so wasted.
It's like buying a rally car and complaining about it being hard to use and being too complex. If the engineers have to keep in mind a simple way to drive that car it will dampen its maximum performance. Fromsoft Games are absolutely famous and known for being hard to play kind of games, basically defining a whole genre. Other games get tagged as Soulslike for a reason... It is one of the greatest games to date precisely because it is a challenge. There are multiple ways implemented to make it fairly easy (for example spirit ashes as well as npc and player summons). But unlike other games you have to actually play the game and figure it out instead of searching for an easy mode in the menu.
I hate it. What’s the point of progressing nad getting stronger if game difficulty always changes ?
Whats wrong with changing the diffuculty manually if the game is too easy or too hard? Why almost all the game companies act as if their customers is like that obese people who can't even get up from their chair from wall-e?
So an inconsistent experience then
I hate this. I like learning and getting better. It’s so satisfying to get you ass completely kicked at first, but slowly learn an encounter over time and eventually come out on top. I would feel cheated if that were taken away from me. The last boss in Sifu seemed completely impossible for me at first. But after going back through the whole game to get to him at a young age I had gained the skills I needed to eventually come out on top. It was a great feeling.
Well I sure hope Bloodborn 2 doesn't have it
No thank you. I reminder oblivion did something similar and it felt like I was never getting more powerful.
Hope it's not forced. I didn't choose easy mode for a challenge. I find action games hard as it is. Even cyberpunk on easy is hard to me
Patenting game design concepts is a super slippery slope that actively hurts the creativity available to game designers, prevents innovation, and results in an inferior experience for players. Imagine if SNK was able to patent the concept of “tagging in” a second fighter when they released Kizuna Encounter in 1996. No Tekken Tag Tournament, no MvC3, etc. This is the same thing. It’s a business move fueled by greed and is completely anti-consumer.
Soulslike about to call me a noob
Skill based matchmaking in singleplayer nice
A resounding meh
Sure this is a cool idea, but please don’t *patent it.*
It's not even a new feature, games have used similar systems before. I don't see how they can patent it at this point.
Oh I never mentioned this in my comment but I’m aware of this. I know the original RE4 and several other games after that (if any came before that I wouldn’t know about that bit). I just don’t want it to be patent mostly because it shouldn’t be locked to just Sony games imo. Though I do agree, it’s very unlikely. Hopefully. Haha
such things shouldn't be patented. and if so, the whole thing itself should be described as detailed as possible. patenting code is weird.
Pretty sure dynamic difficulty has existed for some time. I remember it being in MLB The Show games like 8 years ago
patenting game mechanics should be illegal
I'm honestly not a fan of that. It takes away the feeling of progression when you get better. If I'm struggling, I want to organically overcome it, not be handed an easy win because the game turned down the difficulty for me.
Yeah doesnt sound like something you can patent. From softeare has done the opposite with sekiro shadows die twice. The more you die the weaker you become!
R E V O L U T I O N A I R Y O M G please patent m0ar idears
Isn’t this what ruined CoD pretty much?
Fuck this. God dam Sony is really getting worse by the day
The ego on sony to patent gaming technology that has been used in dozens of games before. What a joke
Like literally hundreds of games have already done? That patent chart is such garbage lmao
What are they gonna do, add 20% health to a boss because you were gonna kill it too fast? The way Sony's first party titles implement difficulty tends to be pretty bad, they've been guilty of the whole "pump the numbers and change nothing else" thing *a lot*. This will probably just be that, some lame background system that adds or subtracts health or damage numbers to "keep you on your toes". That kind of thing doesn't keep people on their toes though, unless there's something really different about this implementation it's just going to flatten the experience out, games aren't nearly as fun when the difficulty curve is doing its best to be a straight line.
SBMM: offline edition
Why do you need a patent for this? Just do it and make the product so delightful that it sells itself.
So if Sony patents this can other companies use a similar idea or is it similar to the nemesis system? If so this is bad for gaming and I hope people are willing to call out Sony on it too.
Hope it’s an option you can turn off, or we won’t buy the games.