How Spelunky 2 Fixes Difficulty Levels

[@ArchitectofGames]

Greetings Traveler! Welcome to my shop! We have a special on bombs today, simply pay some money and get access to my secret stash! : www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames What's that? You dropped a rock within one mile of me??? That's it. Time to die. See you in hell.: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot

[@dumbsterfirestudio2247]

like 1st or 2nd lol

[@samadams8533]

0:56 To be fair you can die once, you just have to keep the ankh to the CO

[@sirclyan5346]

I beat the game yesterday@

[@ddspog]

Could you make a video about granular difficulty using mods? One of a nice example is Noita, modding allows for quick understanding of the complex wand mechanics.

[@kharijordan6426]

What is that game at the end of this video? It looks good.

[@grfrjiglstan]

*Doesn't show the final boss of Hades to avoid spoilers* *Instead, shows the secret boss of Hades* Never change, Archie.

[@TheMinecraftMan757]

Totally didn't think he'd show a spoiler there. :(

[@Laezar1]

Yeah lol, I'm happy I beat that boss earlier today cause I was totally not expecting it and I would have hated to have the surprise spoiled. I randomly stumbled upon it in my first run of the day in an early shop in tartarus while on higher heat than I'm used to, needless to say I got destroyed =p but I beat him second time so I'm pretty happy about that o/

[@archiegrishipol]

Wait is his name Archie?

[@grfrjiglstan]

@@archiegrishipol It's Adam Millard, I'm just being silly.

[@archiegrishipol]

@@grfrjiglstan :( I was excited. And also forgot the name of the channel

[@yoshibeara3446]

How spelunky fixes difficulty levels... Every thing is as hard as the final level

[@pepi7404]

Why have a difficulty curve, when you can have a big, beautiful wall?

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@pepi7404 Yeah but once you get on top of the wall it's a matter of walking along it, except the wall is lined with barbed wire

[@Yao-fz6ie]

@@pepi7404 Olmec's gonna build this wall, and make the adventurers pay for it!

[@bruh1704]

No one can convince me that the mole rat and horned lizard is equal to olmec. I’ll take 1000 olmecs in the dwelling before I take naturally spawning moles and lizards in every level.

[@yoshibeara3446]

@@bruh1704 The horned lizards are just the best enemy. They are between the difficulty of snake and scorpion and spawn at a fair rate. The moles are like the scorpion where they are not common enough to practice or be prepared for. If the moles were more common then they would be an easier enemy.

[@michaelaeschbacher4648]

Spelunky 2 Trailer: "Fluid dynamics! Layered stages! Mounts!" Actual game: Mole rats, poison, curses

[@Slayerlord13]

What about poisonous, cursed mole rats?

[@yosh12346]

I will actually do that

[@vepply]

cursed mole rat is better than not cursed

[@W0terB0tle]

Ah yes the 3 things that bring be pain the most

[@Hedgpig]

Maps with enough walls to block off 90% of the stage that will cost all your bombs and ropes to explore an otherwise entirely ordinary level

[@skysnow2495]

"Extra lives are a bad reward for experienced players." "If you beat this absurdly hard boss phase that only experienced players can beat, you get an extra life, which is brilliant." Obviously Spelunky 2 and Mario are very different, but that was pretty funny.

[@riccardoorlando2262]

Indeed! The difference is that Spelunky 2 then asks you to throw away that precious extra life to access even more content

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

@@riccardoorlando2262 You can actually skip using up your Ankh if you go Tide Pool.

[@babo0252]

@@marcustulliuscicero5443 I think that was patched.

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

@@babo0252 No, you bomb away the little hutts so that you can put a rope beneath one layer of roof tiles, and then bomb out the floor. The lava will fill up below you as well as on the roof above you, and once the dripping stops you can go back up by either more ropes, crawling up the wall or a jetpack.

[@kunai9809]

also "experienced" players can take the pets to the end of the level for a heart...

[@iamjustkiwi]

"By escorting the pets safely to the end of the level" -Pet gets burned to death then crushed by massive steel ball

[@Babbleplay]

Couple times, pet is literally dead already when I came across it.

[@mihailmilev9909]

@@Babbleplay lmaooo

[@ianramos1027]

At least you can still sacrifice it

[@somerandomguy-3102]

@@ianramos1027it gives way less points tho

[@TheMikirog]

I guess the only downside to this kind of difficulty is probably someone like me, who wants to see everything and challenge themselves, but going in blind without resorting to a wiki sometimes means missing out on huge chunks of content, since most of the harder stuff is hidden as secrets and not as "prove your worth" challenges. Noita for me is notorious for this. As much as I love the game, most of the unlockable spells require exploration and sometimes that means RNG just to get the teleport spell and tons of black holes in order to scale every mountain and dig through everything.

[@silverstar4505]

YES! I see people talking on about how great all these things are, but I have to try and ignore it 'just in case' I get to the skill level required to see them myself. Which I probably won't, since Spelunky 2 is freaking HARD.

[@GelatinousGoop]

Thats kinda just life though(and the beauty of humans working together). If I wanted to learn guitar tomorrow, I could make things 1000x easier for me by looking at the work of millions of guitarists before me and the tips and tricks they learned after decades of playing very easily by just researching on the internet. or I could learn completely by myself with no help and probably take decades to learn something I could have learned in a year. We all think differently and these games are made by multiple minds so sometimes it'll take a long ass time to learn something other people figured out immediately(or stumbled into accidentally,something that also happens in life)

[@stefanolozardo9711]

Its a HUGE trade off, I agree. I think the best example of this kind of exploration was Dark Souls 1, when the shit you need to do to acess some areas (Asylum for example) was just......odd: curl in a ball for 1 minute in a super weird place waiting for a bird to pick you up. BUT, but, for that 1 in 10 players that find this stuff first hand the feeling must be.....nut clarity.

[@aliasisudonomo]

In the case of Spelunky (and Spelunky 2), though, there's deliberate clues at each point of the game, and don't always have to complete every link in the chain perfectly. And if all else fails... getting to Tiamat and beating her is like beating Olmec without any of the extra stuff in the original game: if you do that, that's "beating the game". You get the end credits. All the other endings are just special, shinier ones For example, the Wadjet Eye is pretty easy to figure out, since a special key appears on the same level. In Volcana, there's a control panel that resembles the Eye, and in the Jungle you the Eye will blink as you get closer to the Black Market. But you *can* find the Black Market without the Eye, and you *can* bomb down through the bottom of the level carefully in Volcana. Heck, people have even figured out how to do the step where you are supposed to kill yourself... without killing yourself, thus preserving the Ankh! But you don't NEED to do any of that for the basic credits roll!

[@TheMikirog]

@@aliasisudonomo That's not the point I was trying to make. The point I was making is that getting the extra content is mostly secrets, some of which are brutally difficult to find and you wouldn't find them on your regular playthroughs with basic path diversions or just being good at the game. Example in Noita: seriously, try getting Draft of Midas and figuring out how to get it without looking it up on the wiki. Try exploring literally everywhere without luck on your side giving you all the tools you need to do it in the first place. You aren't expected to be good at the game to experience said content. You're expected to grind your ass off in order to find them. You're expected to be the most dedicated of dedicated players and shame on you if you aren't that. It doesn't test your skills or anything. It's basically a "if you're a hardcore player with no life, you'll jump into spikes, because one of them are fake, right?". It's the difference between easy secrets which can be figured out on your own (puzzles if you will) and stuff that 90% of the players won't even know about. I don't play games to "finish them". I play to get fulfilled and part of that fulfillment is experiencing everything the game has to offer, including experimentation with the spells that can be unlocked. I want to be challenged, not tasked to go on an easter egg hunt.

[@thesacredstick9010]

So the morale of the story is that we should play Spelunky 2. Ok sounds good.

[@cambac-pro]

spelunky 2 will eat your soul and destroy your sanity

[@ghostnoodle9721]

Spelunky 2 is balanced by dark souls weebs that dont understand why dark souls is actually hard

[@babytiny5807]

You should play HD instead it's way more fun IMO

[@micah8793]

I’m doing it after I beat spelunky 1..... but I’m bad

[@thesacredstick9010]

Well literally everyone in my replys is telling me not to play it. So umm I won't play it.

[@_Emrakull]

Actually, in Halo, bumping up the difficulty changes the enemies altogether and sometimes the number of them. In the Halo 1 Truth and Reconciliation level when you first go into the ship and clear out all the baddies, you normally get 2 Jackals behind the big metal door. But on higher difficulties, you get 2 Hunters instead

[@tapetalflipper0]

And don't forget the skulls. A LASO run is a completely different monster

[@gabewright5571]

yeah that kinda bothered me too, halo asks strategy from the player to beat enemies efficiently instead of running headfirst and expending all of your ammo, and the tougher the enemy the more you have to strategize. discrediting that felt... wrong.

[@SendarSlayer]

And the lower enemies act differently. Elites dodge grenades more effectively, fire in longer bursts and are more accurate. Grunts are less likely to flee. Grenades are better timed and aimed. Halo did difficulty right.

[@alexsupertramp4977]

Reach also changes Elite AI on higher difficulties causing them to dodge more, retreat when their shields are popped, and push when your shields are low.

[@relo999]

I think the biggest issue with this type of "difficulty" is that it isn't actually difficulty. To a lot of player simply getting to the credits or "the end" screen is beating the game. But to compare it to movies, it's like saying the credits roll is "having finished the movie". And instead of seeing the whole movie the solution of "granular difficulty" is simply running the credits 10 minutes into the movie and the hour and a half after that be considered "post credits scene". Sure, they have seen the credits but does it feel like you actually finished the game when you know you haven't even seen most of it? It's simply moving the goalpost of what is considered "finishing" the game. If anything what spelunky does is more akin to prescribing different "finished states" based on existing player expectations than anything related to difficulty.

[@bingoccolon]

seeing the credits is beating the game, seeing the post credits is finishing the game. beating [NORMAL ROUTE BOSS NAME] for the first time is the same (if not more) of a triumph as beating [HARD ROUTE BOSS NAME] for the first time.

[@MangaMarjan]

Agree. The game is still extremely difficult and gate keeps even experienced players who don't want to or can't put in the time to master the game. And maybe this people just want to play to find out some more about the world or like the soundtrack.

[@relo999]

@@bingoccolon Is it though? How isn't it some element specific to the "gamer language" of understanding games in the same way hearts and the color red represent some abstract value of life points? Do you finish a book when you read the author page? Do you finish a movie if they pre-rolled the credits? Did you finish a game if you select the credits option in the menu? The whole "credits is beating" is part of the language of gaming culture (taken from movies as a way to show the game was over). Spelunky 2 simply makes players FEEL like they beaten the game, when in actuality they haven't, by using the gamer language. If you told someone who doesn't have an understanding of this language (like a non-gamer or someone from some closed off nation which most modern games are from the 16-bit era) and told them when the normal route "you've only finished 30% of the game", would they feel like they've beaten the game?

[@bingoccolon]

@@relo999 i feel spelunky needs its own form of this language. instead of beating tiamat as "beating the game", its called "beating the normal route", and hunduun is the hard route, and cosmic ocean is the special route. these are terms used in game. by directly changing it from the game itself to a different way of beating it, i feel it fixes the credits is beating issue.

[@relo999]

@@bingoccolon I think there is a vast over reliance on gamer language in games (and especially games criticism) to begin with, but specifically regarding spelunky 2 I would say you are right in the designer itself made so hard that your average player is very unlikely to see the full game. I'd argue to the way spelunky is set up is like "leagues of dedication", not unlike sports. Realistically speaking the chances of you beating the hardest route in spelunky 2 is very low (unless you already a die hard spelunky player) and are essentially training yourself to eventually beating the whole game (not unlike how highscore based games work but they instead have small incremental wins without fixed endings). With the different endings sort of functioning like "beaten this league" type idea. A whole lot of more serious rogue-lites do this, though they tend to be linear in their approach or over repeat play throughs rather than using branching paths. For example Enter the Gungeon has the basic ending, defeating the past is the intermediate ending and defeating the Lich is the "real" ending.

[@Dahras1]

Granular difficulty can be great, and it's a prime reason Rogue-likes are so successful, imo. But I think there are some problems with it. The main one is that players don't typically know what they want, and will almost always take the path of least resistance, even if it's less fun. For instance, JRPGs classically have had granular difficulty through level grinding - if you reach a challenge you can't beat, you can grind to a level where said challenge is easy. But because of this feature, a lot of people have the mistaken belief that turn-based JRPG combat is inherently uninteresting. That isn't true, of course. There are many games with very interesting and strategic JRPG combat, but because players *can* grind their way around challenge, they often do. I actually had a similar experience in Demon Souls recently (the PS3 version). People always accuse the Souls games on not having easy modes, but in effect their multiplayer functions and differing builds function as granular difficulty options. In my case, I decided on a magic build because, despite playing all the Souls games, I had never run full magic and wanted to try it out. But ho boy, was that a mistake. Despite Magic clearly not being a good end-game or PvP build, it completely trivializes the difficulty of a first playthrough, to such an extent that if I had played that way my first time through a Souls game, I would have written the series off. All I'm trying to say is that granular difficulty is good design when appropriate, but you have to be very careful when applying it to core systems because you don't want to create a dominant first-order strategy that ruins the fun of actually playing your game.

[@Alche_mist]

Your part of JRPG way of granular difficulty through grinding, you brought me to formulating that there is another layer of granular difficulty - if the game systems are deep enough, self-imposed challenges are exactly that - a way to up the stakes of a game through the choice of the players when they feel like it. Those may manifest in speedrunning, deathless runs or whatever, as well as probably the best-known named challenge: The Nuzlocke. For those who don't know it (not that I'd expect many such people in this channel), The Nuzlocke Challenge (and its variants, like Punishlocke) add a significant challenge to otherwise admittedly quite simple to beat Pokémon games. Using the same concept of your team list being a finite resource (through self-imposed permadeath and limiting the captures allowed), they allow again quite a lot granular difficulty choices in their exact ruleset (like, how to deal with gift pokémon and static encounters, how much grinding is allowed, limiting the resources even more through limiting item usage or Poké Center usage and a plenty of other choices). For those to thrive, the game needs only one thing - to allow for them within its systems.

[@dmas7749]

some very good points

[@Woodside235]

Given the chance, players will optimize the fun out of a game.

[@NoGoodNamesToday]

I really like how Hades does it. They still subtlety push you to raise your difficulty by giving you the opportunity for more rewards (titan blood, diamonds, and ambrosia). You can still beat the game without these, but now there is an objectable incentive that the player is aware of. I think that's a good solution to the "path of least resistance" problem

[@master0fthearts894]

“I will probably never be able to complete this game in a million years. COMPLETIONISTS: *Sweats nervously.*

[@garthgoldwater5256]

i like the term “granular difficulty”. it’s like the adaptive difficulty methods from a decade ago get put into the players hands

[@dmas7749]

i don't think he gives difficulty modes enough credit just calling them out for buffing enemy HP/attack, the best hardmodes force you to consider your approach and constantly adapt new strategies

[@95yazid]

@@dmas7749 And I find it weird that he praises Hades so much because in this case. I feel like the pact basically is this buffin ennemy HP/Attack or nerfing Hero abilities difficulty model but the player can choose how he's tuning it...

[@LightningbrotherG]

The most important thing to these mastery levels, is that you still need to be able to beat the game (and see the credits) on the easiest settings. If your extra hard levels are just world 5/5, rather than a secret world, it can still feel incredibly unsatisfying.

[@icarue993]

Agreed. Octopath traveller kinda did that. Yes, you see the credits after defeating your 3rd boss, but you don't get the connection of how everything ties toguether unless you enter a secret area, and in a narrative game that is as important if not more so than credits. Imagine Nier Automata, but the 2+ endings you can't unlock unless you do extra stuff and then endings 2+ are insane levels of difficulty (ending 5 not withstanidng).

[@litapd311]

that's why i actually disagree with spelunky 2 as an example. playing the "easy" version of the game means missing out on a lot of content. additionally, it's not really a difficulty setting as much as a game choice. it's not like stealing from shopkeepers is a choice purely to make it more difficult - there's pros and cons for all level of skill. i think hades and celeste should have been the focus of the video

[@iquestioneverything3426]

what does it matter if it's secret or not ? what gameplay does that change beyond having to be lucky or look up a guide to find the secret ?

[@LightningbrotherG]

​@@iquestioneverything3426 This is purely about letting everyone play the game to the fullest. If someone can't complete your game without "getting good", then you're excluding people unnecessarily. However, if you're on the opposite end, and after mastering the base game you want more, then extra difficult secret worlds are exactly that. Poly bridge does this really well. It only shows 4 worlds. If you complete those fully, it shows the 5th world. If you complete all those, it shows the secret 6th. Those extra worlds are for those who go out of their way to master the game.

[@jordanrodrigues8265]

I like the "item you can use differently" trick. It's present in Celeste's chapter (spoiler) - the easy path is get-key-open-door. If you're observant,there's a way around the door, a secret faster way to make progress. If you do both and bring that key into another secret side path, you're rewarded with the Crystal Heart.

[@hatecriminai8241]

The total cost of all the items you would buy in a run won't mean jack to your final score in high-level play.

[@danger2236]

me who can't do 1-1 reliably, and hears that the super-special ending takes 3 hours

[@silverstar4505]

T-T

[@ryansqueri1405]

I come back 3 months later to say... I have beaten the hardest ending in this game. It was with 3 friends but we did it. And damn it felt so good. 100% my favorite experience with a game ever

[@ElBlargho]

The more I play Spelunky 2, the more I lean toward this opinion: I don't think Spelunky 2 is too hard, but I do think it's too unforgiving. Instant death and stunlocks come too easy, and too often they come by means that would've been very difficult to foresee. Not IMPOSSIBLE to prevent, most of the time, just unreasonably difficult. It can be easily tuned here and there to be a little less INSTANTLY LETHAL, but I'm not even sure it should be. Derek Yu seems to take pride in Spelunky 2's gargantuan heights of difficulty. This is how he wants his game to be. Maybe it's okay to accept you can't beat its ultimate challenge...

[@LinoHere]

OMG BLARGH!!!

[@theoutcastleaf3410]

0:50 "Without dying once" *Laughs in ankh skip*

[@silverstar4505]

bruh I can't do Ankh skip, I keep getting crushed against the ceiling

[@lordheadass8310]

You're forgetting the true difficulty of the game here. Its the freakin gold ruberg machine that Derek meticlously crafted to kill you in the most unforeseenable way possible. A bat triggered a trap breaking the ghost pot. Poison snake shot at crocodile so it tele frag you. Ufo get hit by a electric ball and exploded in your face. ...Etc... As difficult as enemies can be, they are predictable, its the fucking interaction between them that caught you off gaurd.

[@therealgboi3895]

Bat with broken ghost jar. Never had that happen or seen it happen. Ufo is sorta your fault for not looking out. Croc man telefraging you is bullshit.

[@ThatMilesGuy]

He designed it to be like pacman where all the ghosts have different AIs and like seperately they aren't special but together it feels like a coordinated attack

[@quinnholloway5400]

Oh yea A lot of these enemies can very easily, through stage interaction, cause you to get hit over and over and if your unlucky they'll be waiting to hit you when your knocked down to 1 hp

[@UnclePhil6705]

Nothing's more infuriating than having 12 health and then getting boomeranged to death by a Tiki Man.

[@tentativegazer]

A rube Goldberg machine designed to kill you is the perfect description of why I love this game.

[@sirsquidpotato3027]

I think my favorite part of spelunky is how the player develops. In the first month of spelunky, I struggled to make it past dwelling. All I wanted was to beat 6-4 and then I would be satisfied. But look at me now, I already beat 7-4 and going for Cosmic ocean/eggplant world. I started by just wanting to beat the game and I didn’t think I’d ever be good. But now I’m trying to do one of the hardest things in the game

[@sasquatch.8]

Same

[@diogostw7286]

1 MONTH?

[@mxnevermind]

good video, but halo definitely changes enemy AI based on difficulty. grunts rarely scatter in legendary and will rush you with stickies, for example

[@Winasaurus]

Yeah but not to any real impactful degree. Sure occasionally you have to deal with suicide grunts instead of normal ones, and generally enemies are more aggressive, I'm pretty sure Jackals keep firing after a shield break on higher difficulties in some of the games, but run around on lower ones. But it's nothing that really changes how you play in general. You still just shoot the enemies, just now they have fuckloads of health and you have to run away more because you die faster. All it does is promote boring or degenerate strategies like hard camping vehicles, plama/other weapon boring combo. It would be nice to have some meaningful change. Like actual enemy layout and squad makeup. Maybe change the AI to act significantly differently on higher difficulties, like maybe make Hunters extremely aggressive, or wraiths target lead better, or elites coordinate flanks. Instead it's like COD, where high difficulty = high health enemies and lots of grenades.

[@LondonLock]

@@Winasaurus Outside halo 2 they really dont have that much health their health buff (there is a rank buff though) is more to make sure you keep changing weapons for the situation and not just endlessly using pistol/ar/br. On harder difficulty's they will actually flank you, Nade you while using cover and all that crap

[@onemansvoice9132]

@@Winasaurus Not true

[@Alianger]

10:50 it's not that black and white - stats not being in your favor produces an endurance challenge but can also help enemy patterns since you might be able to take out enemies before they can act them out properly on lower difficulties.

[@KingKlonoa]

This was really interesting! I had to start skipping around the spoilery bits because it got me interested in finding some of these secrets for myself. It's been really hard for me to get into roguelikes, but I've slowly been falling in love with ones like Risk of Rain 2. Spelunky 2 might be the next one I give a decent shot.

[@dmas7749]

i have a really hard time getting into roguelikes too and this coming from someone who enjoys difficult games its the same reason i have a gargantuan hate-boner for limited continues in older games

[@shirori2004]

@@dmas7749 I ended up beating Rogue Legacy. That's the only one I beat lol.

[@goldfish6525]

You know how roguelikes rng some things together but the things themselves are consistant? Spelunky 2 is not that. Spelunky 2 is not fair.

[@DarkOminigiri]

Put dead cells on that list, you wont regret it

[@bboyleftfoot]

@@dmas7749 You can play it multiplayer if that helps (did for me)

[@kyoyeou5899]

I was really waiting for this video, knowing the whole channel ^^

[@LuccaJordan-c5q]

I recently beat my first spelunky 2 run after 4 years playing it. Never stopped being fun and challenging, aiming for 100%ing it now

[@paultaylor6873]

Did he just call it the Wadget Eye

[@ArchitectofGames]

possibly

[@bumfricker2487]

it's pronounced "Wee-jate"

[@raizin4908]

​@@bumfricker2487 Apparently egyptologists pronounce it with short vowels (IPA: /wɛdʒɑt/), so closer to "wedge at". If you spell it as Wedjat, that is. The spelling Udjat (that's used in Spelunky) would indicate a pronunciation with an 'oo' sound.

[@ICLHStudio]

I've always thought that Celeste's game speed settings in particular are brilliant as a difficulty option (whereas some of it's other options, like extra dashes, mostly aren't good IMO), because Celeste is a challenging platformer about mastering mechanics in two ways: understanding and execution. Slowing the game down makes tricky jumps and tight dashes easier to execute without changing them, but doesn't significantly alter the challenge of understanding the mechanics and planning the route to take through the screen. Extra dashes, on the other hand, allow you to skip not only major parts of the platforming execution but also skip deciphering many of the more convoluted routes. Speed changes the amount of skill needed to play the game, extra dashes change the game to require less skill. I had a way to connect this more specifically back to the video when I started writing, but I have since forgotten what that was...

[@FishSticker]

Yes I'd always thought most of the Celeste help options literally just were free skips of all challenge rather than assists, except for the slowdown

[@grdavis123]

This is one of the main reasons I played all the way through Fell Seal: Arbiters Mark. I could customize everything from number of enemies, power of enemies, squishiness of enemies, and all of the same for my own characters. I preferred to play with more, weaker enemies, forcing me to attack groups quickly before the second or third group could show up to reinforce.

[@gdfish3532]

I know it's not the most topical game right now, but I think the best example of this in the binding of isaac's devil deal system. the vast majority of items dropped by bosses give the player increased health, but if you're good enough to beat the boss without taking damage a devil deal will open up allowing you to trade that health for some of the most powerful items in the game. this insures that new players will have enough health to survive to the late game while offering advanced players the power needed to face the hardest optional challenges the game has to offer.

[@KapitanQaz]

I never finished Cave Story because I couldn't bring myself not to save Curly and the secret level is quite literally hell.

[@normalrachael]

Oh boy I remember when I decided to go back and beat hell. That shit is very hard but it was so satisfying to finally finish

[@Kittycat7070-]

I've been stuck in hell for a few months now lol

[@phasein5413]

That emotional draw hit me too. That is perhaps the only game I pulled deep and played the hard mode... For weeks. Finally got it. Not in any other game, but yeah. You *have* to save curly! That's more important than beating the big bad... So terrible how hard it is to just see him...

[@dudu28r81]

I beat it in 2 hours, lucky me i guess

[@adamnagar7386]

One of my favorite examples of this is Duke Fishron in Terraria. You can beat him at any point after the Wall of Flesh, but newer players won't until the late game. More experienced players, however, can decide to fight him early, getting the good loot far quicker.

[@thetominator6359]

Your LISE head is fantastic Adam

[@amyshaw893]

Shouldn't they see a doctor about that?

[@LiraeNoir]

I'm not sure I would call these "granular difficulty". To me, granular difficulty describes more games that have granularity in their difficulty settings, like combat difficulty, puzzle difficulty, survival difficulty, and so on, all separate from each other. What you describe in Spelunky 2 looks more akin to organic difficulty, or player generated difficulty. But it's certainly not a big deal.

[@maximumforce8275]

I was gonna say exactly this. Because this is what the player chooses to do. Which the same could then be said for every game that exists. Self challenges. Still will always prefer difficulty settings that help actually change the game itself.

[@Diana-tx2iz]

A game I really enjoyed that was super good at this granular difficulty was Ghost Recon Breakpoint, which actually allowed different difficulties for players in a group. This allowed me to actually enjoy playing with my friend when I'm disabled and it was my third ever shooter, and she was already semi-pro in another one.

[@usernametaken4023]

This video got me into Spelunky 2 a year ago. A few days ago I just got the second ending. And now I am trying to get the hardest one. (Cosmic Ocean) Thank you Adam Millard for a new hobby lol

[@Laezar1]

RPG are an interesting case where exploring somewhat punishes you by making the game easier. You level up, you find new gear, and now you are stomping the next boss. Leveling system in general make it hard to find a sweet spot in the difficulty of battles for the player because the system push them to optimize, but optimizing them usually trivialize the game, and there is really no easy way to know how powerful you want to be if you don't know how strong the next boss will be. That's one thing I really disliked with nier automata despite the game being a masterpiece. I usually was good enough to deal with most ennemies at low level, but because I was underleveled ennemy had so much health that fight became boring. On the other hand at some point I decided to try and do every side quest, which led me to being basically maxed out and at this point I wasn't engaged anymore not because I lacked the DPS to have battle not be a grind but because I was basically immortal. So despite the battle system itself being great, the RPG layer of it just made the game worse for me.

[@Krossfyre]

One way to combat this is to make levelling beyond what you need much more time intensive. That way you can tell when you've hit the intended point because you'll find levelling difficult. Unfortunately there's not an easy way to get a high level of granularity in difficulty though. Higher difficulties can change damage taken, damage dealt, and attack patterns. Maybe minions and random encounters can also have their composition changed too. Damage taken and damage dealt often aren't great difficulty options though, pigeonholing playstyles, and changed attack patterns or changed enemy compositions are good but implementing many is costly for developers so doesn't have much granularity.

[@1TieDye1]

Xenoblade 2 has a good solution to that. The experience you get from side quests builds up in a ‘bank’ and you choose how much you level up. You can do every side quest without getting insanely overpowered, jf you don’t want to be. P

[@Laezar1]

@@1TieDye1 That sounds like a band aid more than anything. Ideally you wouldn't have to try and figure out how not to become OP since one of the entertaining aspects of RPG is exactly to try and optimize what you do with the ressources given to you.

[@Laezar1]

@@Krossfyre Jade cocoon did that pretty well actually! lvl 1 battling a lvl 1 got to lvl 2. lvl 2 battling a lvl 2 got to lvl 3. But lvl 2 battling a lvl 1 got 1/2 xp for lvl 3. lvl 3 battling lvl 2 got 1/2 xp for lvl 4. lvl 3 battling lvl 1 got 1/4 xp for lvl 4. And so on. This made grinding very much not encouraged. Also you always more or less caught up to an higher ennemy level by beating them so you never are in a situation where skipping ennemies put you at a disadvantage for the entire game. Like, if you are level 1 and beat a level 12, you don't get to level ~5 or 6 like you'd expect but you instantly get bumped a bit above level 11 if I remember correctly. So yeah, a good xp curve definitely can do wonders. But Jade cocoon is also a short and rather focused game experience.

[@readifdumb]

I think that RPGs are great because there are usually ways to progress through the game that are a lot faster, but require more skill, less levels, and more knowledge. A lot of the fun i get out of RPGs upon multiple attempts are seeing how I can break them. Either that or just creating a new roleplay and limiting myself in fun ways.

[@noodle_monkey5012]

I first watched this video years ago thinking "Surely I can beat spelunky and smugly come back" I thought I was at that stage now but I've barely scratched the surface. I'm so happy you introduced this series to me and I love your videos : D

[@yoyosaur]

GMTK: Difficulty episode AoG: Difficulty episode

[@kanyenortheast3546]

Okay, you didn’t have to call me out by that. Just because I’ve had a thousand deaths and haven’t beat it yet doesn’t mean I never will...

[@zack8596]

A thousand? Those are rookie numbers. Also, I sincerely wish you good luck.

[@corruleumblue3317]

"Goldilocks and the three poorly animated lines" XD

[@somerandomguy-3102]

i love that if you think you beat the game there's always something else. oh you beat tiamat? guess what there's a secret world and you need to do a convoluted questline to get there. oh you got to the secret world? now beat the boss at 7-4. oh you beat hundun? guess what, if you bring a special bow and a special arrow to 7-4, beat hundun and then shoot him with that bow there's *another* secret world. do you think it's endless? well it isn't and you need to beat 95 levels of that secret world to get a special ending

[@SonoftheBread]

That comment at around 10:30 about Halo’s difficulty is very false. Elite behavior in halo reach definitely changes between difficulty levels and especially on Legendary Elite’s and their squads will make more aggressive and intelligent maneuvers like flanking or flushing you out with grenades. Halo AI definitely feels way different on harder difficulties.

[@eimazd]

This video feels like you just played Spelunky 2, enjoyed it immensely, and wanted to tell people about it. That's fine, but it's dishonest to try to tie it to granular difficulty instead of just coming out and saying "hey, Spelunky 2 is a good game." You had great examples in Celeste and Hades, but Spelunky 2 is absolutely terrible at granular difficulty, with the possible exception of Olmec. One of the biggest attractive features of granular difficulty is being able to appeal to both people who are good at the game, and people who are bad at the game. Spelunky 2, instead, appeals to people who are great at the game, and people who are fanatically devoted to the game. It's incredibly and quickly punishing with very little chance for "incremental" progress by way of what can often seem like RNG on whether or not you're able to unlock the next tunnel. Honestly, even Rogue Legacy does granular difficulty better than Spelunky. It's incredibly grindy, but most of the game can theoretically be beaten on the first run if you're really good - or on the thousandth run if you need the stat boosts. You can't set the difficulty at the start, but nor can you do that in Spelunky. It is entirely in your power to make the game easier unless you're absolutely miserable at platforming, which is a range of ability that Spelunky does not cater to.

[@jankbunky4279]

Yeah, genuinely inexperienced players who don't want to die a lot, just shouldn't play Spelunky.

[@readifdumb]

Rogue Legacy is great for all kind of players because the game gets easier as you die more, so for bad players they can grind, but for good players they can rely less on grinding. The game is brutally hard imo - much harder than Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon for me, but I am not as turned off as I am with a game like Noita which doesn't reward its players at all. Unlocks in BoI make the game easier over time, Rogue Legacy gets easier with permanent upgrades over time, but Noita is just hard all the time and relies on knowledge and skill to beat it - a huge turn off when you've died like 5-10 times in the span of an hour and barely learnt anything.

[@Jaximous]

It just seems like you're complaining that Spelunky 2 is hard. Which it is, that is apart of it's identity. It does not mean it's bad at granular difficulty. I would not measure how good granular difficulty is by how hard the game overall is. The game still appeals to people who are bad at the game. They just get better at the game.

[@jamiemccreath3959]

I left a similar comment on the last GMTK video, but I feel like expanding it here. TL;DR Sayonara Wild Hearts does a great job with not just granular difficulty but different KINDS of difficulty. I think an important aspect of this discussion about difficulty is that player skill isn't static. It's not just skilled players and unskilled players; you improve over the course of a game, and you'll often be looking for different experiences even between play sessions of the same game. I for one tend to enjoy my first playthroughs casually and then delve deeper into the game afterwards. Sayonara Wild Hearts is really good at offering challenge variety and always making you feel like a badass. Beating every level is fairly easy (even if you die you only rewind a couple seconds), but the levels are so fun and exciting that you WILL feel awesome when the credits first roll, even if it was technically a cakewalk for you. After that, you can go for gold rank on each level. Usually a challenge like that feels to me like suddenly getting dropped into the deep end, but in Wild Hearts the difficulty progresses pretty nicely across the levels: gold rank on the earlier levels is only a step up from just beating the game, but by the last level you'll need to master pretty much every trick in the game. Going for a high score can also be kind of exhausting, but luckily Wild Hearts has some secret collectibles and special riddles to keep you occupied if you're feeling stuck. After you get gold rank on every level, you unlock the Yolo Arcade, where you play through the whole game without dying. By the time you've mastered the game enough to get that far, I think it's the perfect final challenge. And even after that, you can go for gold rank in Yolo Arcade or even the secret wild rank above it. This kind of thing works perfectly for a game like Wild Hearts because, since the game is centered around its songs, you keep hearing the album over and over again in completely new ways. The first time you play a level, you're in the middle of an awesome song. When you go for gold rank, you're making it YOUR song. The secret riddles make you take a step back and re-evaluate the song. And of course, the Yolo Arcade gets you completely immersed in that song because you have to focus. Again, I think it's important that this isn't just giving harder challenges to more skilled players, and it's not even a linear progression of difficulty. What I really like is the variety in challenge. Sometimes you're getting as many hearts as possible, sometimes you're solving a riddle, and sometimes you're trying not to die.

[@sdsaddwsa3514]

I will say, there is nothing quite like figuring out how to do a certain secret path in spelunker 2. I popped off so hard when I made it to the Dust and when I figured out how to get to the cosmic ocean. It feels so rewarding

[@DaPumpkinHead]

I got really discouraged after watching this for the first time then beat it the same day. Thanks for the motivation man.

[@Spydyr-dead]

Fr I just found this video after I beat the game

[@cjawsome1289]

The "not real final boss" of hades depicted was a spoiler for me even though the real final boss wouldn't have been a spoiler, what the heck Millard!

[@BlackChexi]

this is why i hate games that instead of being: "wow your good huh? ill reward you with these items..." say "wow your good, ig u wont need hp soooo, yeah, no more hp ups... also no more ammo spawn and the enemies will be the exact same but 10 times stronger, and no, no extra reward"

[@Evanz111]

Whilst I agree the systems are all in place to be of the most benefit to players of varying degrees, there’s one thing it doesn’t take into consideration: The one thing putting me off playing Spelunky 2 is that I know the only thing that’ll change the more I play it is my skill level. Because of that, I know that needs to be it’s own reward, but instead I’m thinking that “I’m only going to get more from this game if I continue to play it to completion” as opposed to unlocking more content. Meaning I could come back in two years and have forgotten all the skills I learned, whereas other games I’d be coming back to a game with more content to enjoy.

[@Amalga_Heart]

To be honest though, that's more based on bad design trends overall in the genre than anything else. These games are based on the concepts used in traditional roguelikes, and traditional roguelikes **NEVER** do that sort of thing. Never, ever, ever. No persistent progress, period... they just dont do it. Persistent progress elements are typically added these days for 2 reasons: 1. Because modern game design trends have people feel like they need a steady stream of "unlocks" or achievements in order to have fun (when games used to never pull that nonsense), and 2. Because Rogue Legacy did it. That doesnt mean it truly is at all necessary or even useful. I mean, think about it this way: With Spelunky 2 they could have simply locked all sorts of things behind totally pointless achievement walls. Like maybe you cant use the Jetpack at all until you've defeated Tiamat at least once, that sort of thing. That's how much of the genre would have done it. But what would that add? All it means is no jetpack fun until you clear some stupid arbitrary hurdle. In Spelunky 2, it simply says "screw that, do what you want". It's no different than playing say, Binding of Isaac with a completed save file. Besides, the problem you mention absolutely CAN happen even in games with persistent elements. Isaac again: lets say you were to get everything done, you've beaten Hush, you've beaten Delirium, you did All The Things, you unlocked All The Stuff. You then put it down for quite awhile, and come back, SUPER rusty. You havent touched it in ages! Suddenly, you're dying to normal Mom over and over again, barely getting anywhere, despite playing on that completed save file. The fact that all that extra content was unlocked does not magically mean that your skill and knowledge isnt required to progress through individual runs. It simply means you dont need to flip that switch represented by some arbitrary achievement in order to access those later areas. One way or another, you still need to Git Gud all over again to beat Mom or you wont get anywhere at all. It'd be no different than diving back into Spelunky 2 after a long time, where all content is available but Olmec is now stomping you into paste because you're super rusty. The only games where that CANT happen is something like Rogue Legacy, where your STATS permanently change enough to warp the difficulty as a whole, but that's a special level of broken that actually makes half the freaking game completely pointless due to you becoming permanently overpowered. Overall... it's really just a matter of perception.

[@Evanz111]

@@Amalga_Heart Yeah I agree, and I appreciate the time you put into writing that comment

[@ex0stasis72]

10:14 that baby face is exactly what was on my mind for the first half of the video.

[@SquaredbyX]

Hades clearly has design philosophies carried over from Transistor.

[@gemain609]

And bastion. It's a staple of supergiant to allow players the option to boost difficulty how they please. I usually on retreads of Transistor and bastion leave a few of the hard gods/chips equipped because to me the game is morebboring without them

[@SquaredbyX]

@@gemain609 I would like to see a Transistor deep dive in todays youtube sphere as opposed to 2014's, hardly anything at all back then.

[@drip1192]

“Without dying once” Players with the ank : so that was a fucking lie

[@BasementDweller_]

If I see the game’s credits, I “beat” the game.

[@goonished]

“Without dying once” You fool, I have an ankh!

[@villecor8765]

Yea but what does any of that matter if playing in the safest and easiest way is still not beatable

[@rompevuevitos222]

Personally, i've found that with enough care and focus, beating the game is pretty doable, but maintaining that level of focus trough an entire run is pretty damn hard The game has little to no unfair mechanics, you can always prevent damage if you take a second to look at your surroundings and plan properly

[@caltheuntitled8021]

@@rompevuevitos222 Unless, of course, a snake spits poison at a crock man and he telefrags you in the first second of the level

[@theoutcastleaf3410]

@@rompevuevitos222 "The game has little to no unfair mechanics" *Stares at flying firey Olmite corpses, Explosive projectile UFO's and Ghost urn breaking off-screen in NB*

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@theoutcastleaf3410 The ghost urn shouldn't break, ive never seen it happen either, if ti does it's probably a bug, if you pay attention you should be able to avoid the corpses, again, it's ALL about focus, UFO's are very fair, they consistently fall in the same direction if you hit them in the same place and their projectiles have a notorious sound

[@villecor8765]

@@rompevuevitos222 I think there is a reason for all the memes that come from the game doing some real bullshit to kill you randomly (Also i love the game its fun as fuck but just saying)

[@samcoy4243]

That celeste strawberry you used as an example was one I spent a long time on, and I felt so accomplished. I don't usually love super difficult games, but it's because in most games I either don't enjoy the game enough to want to struggle through it or because it's just scaled up normal game (like you mentioned). In games with the "difficulty slider", I can't tell you how many times I've breezed through most of the game on the hardest difficulty (after maybe struggling a bit with the earliest section) just for the curve to go off and the last boss to require a huge grind.

[@WeaselOnaStick]

> 0:49 "Without dying once" Well, actually...

[@weirdmansamuraioflegend1238]

Actually what

[@amongsussyballs]

@@weirdmansamuraioflegend1238 ankh

[@CaptainJeoy]

It's essentially the concept of internally optional difficulty, really beautiful concept!

[@danidanfm4005]

10:28 "In the halo games, bumping up things to legendary does not make the enemy smarter or meaningfully change their tactics or gear. It just makes them hit way harder and take more shots to kill." WOW, no. i can NOT agree with that. well, not with all of it. ^^ in most (if not all) the halo games, increasing the difficulty level actually does make the enemy smarter and changes their tactics (in more or less meaningfull ways). on easy and normal difficulty enemies barely use cover or stay in cover way too long, use less grenades, rarely dodge away from grenades or vehicles, have worse aim, fire their weapons less frequently and killing a grunts teammate or its group leader can even make it run around in panic. on legendary the ai becomes way smarter (or less dumb ^^), often shown by enemies getting a rank up which grants them also a slightly better ai set. a prominent example is the interplay elites have between using cover, grenades and teammates. compared to lower difficulty settings, elites often retreat behind cover to recharge shields way sooner, especially if they have teammates that can shoot instead of them. they also check if teammates are next to you before throwing grenades at you and try to move into flanking positions if enough teammates are around. to top all that off, halo has skulls you can activate pre mission to increase the difficulty in specific ways, like 'catch' which increases the amount of grenades the enemies throw or 'tough luck' which makes npcs (almost) allways dodge grenades, rockes and vehicles. sadly, those are not implemented like in spelunky where you choose the easy or the hard way through gameplay, but it is not as bleak and simple as you have stated. that said ... halo does have some cheap difficulty modifiers like reducing your damage and resistance and increasing enemy damage and resistance. even one of the skulls (mythic) in some halo games just straight doubled the enemy health, and more modern halo games are worse offenders of such artificial difficulty. it was allways a mix of cheap and artificial difficulty increase with a well designed ai that gets smarter as difficulty levels increase, but there are FAR worse offenders of cheap and artificial difficulty. thats why i disagree strongly with the statement "... legendary does not make the enemy smarter or meaningfully change their tactics or gear. ...". it LITERALLY makes them smarter and changes their tactics and gear. if that increase can be considerd meaningfull or insignificant i could debate, but that statement as it is i would flat out call "false". other than that, great video and thanks to all who have read this far. ^^ PS: i think there is a LOT wrong with halo as game and a franchise, but i will defend its a.i. (and music). ^^

[@calebstuder448]

Skyrim does exactly the thing adam describes. It just lowers your damage output and damage resistance, and strengthens the enemies. And unlike fallout 4, there are no legendary items to be dropped more often at higher difficulties

[@LondonLock]

I mean it is an objectively incorrect statement

[@theSato]

A heads up -- at 12:00 , the subtitles say "Rouge" Legacy

[@willowdrakon]

This video partly explains why I wish there was more available within minecraft even just in peaceful mode I usually enjoy minecraft with keepinventory, peaceful and easy mode switching, and sometimes even duplicate glitches but always with my own set of rules so i dont lose interest

[@CoffeePotato]

This kind of difficulty was handled super well in Fell Seal, as well. You can edit difficulties down to the AI and specific dirty tactics they can use.

[@Captain.Mystic]

10:28 Correction. The real halo games(1 - reach) DO actually have changes to AI and tactics, they are also much more agressive and shoot way more often, other than that they have no change to health or weapon damage. More accurately would probably be [insert rpg here]. Dark souls does both.

[@franzluggin398]

You mean NG+? Otherwise, what difficulty levels are you referring to?

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

Well, higher dififculty levels in Halo does increase the ranks of enemies. For example, on Cairo Station the boarding parties will be led by Elite Minors on Easy, but Legendary will throw Ultras at the player. And the higher an enemie's rank, the more HP it has.

[@fontaine3792]

Rest In Peace twiggle ,you will be missed

[@vizthex]

goddamn you i wanted to know what that secret is, now i gotta go find a let's play.

[@Enavoid]

1:49 ngl I thought King Knight would die to the ghost in 1 hit

[@checkmate058]

Alternatively, a newer player might feel patronized because the game will except unsifisticated strategies. Not helped by toxic online communities who down play low skill achievements because they aren't the "true" or "real" ending.

[@Raymando]

Sorry you had to encounter those kind of players. I talked to a lot of guys from the subreddit and discord and most of them were very helpful. All of us suck, so why not be in misery together xD

[@adrher13]

The git gud of the Dark Souls community is a good toxic example

[@gubus2494]

@@adrher13 hey, not everybody in the community is as toxic as them, they're just loud. Besides, the git gud thing is meant as much as a meme as it is meant seriously

[@checkmate058]

@@Raymando darksouls community be like lol you think that part was difficult? To get the real ending you have to turn your monitor off and play with audio only and only use the knock back from fire pots to move around. I beat it first try no consumables on a broken drumset controller during a power outage.

[@checkmate058]

@@gubus2494 darksouls community be like: "lol you think that part was difficult? To get the real ending you have to turn your monitor off and play with audio only and only use the knock back from fire pots to move around. I beat it first try no consumables on a broken drumset controller during a power outage."

[@vasilivros4166]

I think Disgaea also kinda uses that. There are so many systems that if learned can easily "break" the main story, but none of them can break the post game. Instead, how far you get in the post game depends on how many of those mechanics you've learned and mastered, because the true true most final and hardest bosses and enemies are only beatable of you already understand everything there is to understand in its systems.

[@Zadamanim]

Even though you used dark souls 3 as an example of a game that is unforgivingly difficult for less skilled or disabled players, its not without player-influenced difficulty modifiers. For example, estus flasks can either give you more HP or FP, where a less skilled player will prefer extra HP flasks, a more skilled player will prefer more FP flasks. You can also level up your character to have a ton of health, armor, and use a shield, plus a raw weapon gem that lets you deal a baseline of damage without ever needing to invest in offensive stats. Most weapons have an R1 attack that is perfectly suitable to most situations, so beginners can spam it, but their additional attack buttons can be situationally useful for more advanced players who understand the intricasies of the combat. Weapons you have access to at the beginning of the game are also usually very straightforward, and you unlock the more unique weapons later on. Lastly, you can use boss souls for more EXP (for beginners) or turn them into unique weapons (for people who want to learn or know how to use them).

[@Nawor1996]

the one problem in how breath of the wild did it is that they sacrificed a lot of the narrative and character people had come to expect and were looking for

[@badgerbar3623]

12:20 wont show the Hades fight in the game about escaping Hades but shows the secret boss fight as to not spoil the game

[@rickyroughton8098]

I remember the Gaping Dragon... I'd been stacking defensive stats and had already gotten Stone Giant armor, so when I got hit with its grabbing bite attack I gleefully fantasized about how it was breaking teeth as my health was barely even chipped over the entire attack duration. In fact, due to me having friends present, I would *try* to get hit by any grab attacks because they would lock enemies into long attack animations against my rather durable defenses during which my friends could go ham.

[@rodrigocouto1996]

I was intendint to buy spelunky in steam winter sale, it's recommended that I buy the 1 or 2?

[@thetominator6359]

Spelunky 1 and 2 are fantastic, get both if you can

[@napolpettone]

personally i'd say only the second one, it has most of the things that the first has and more

[@gamma-bv6ty]

both games are fantastic. Spelunky 2 has smoother controls (imo) and a lot more content, but it's a game designed to be very challenging to veterans of Spelunky 1, so it might be very difficult to start out with. Once you get over the difficulty though, Spelunky 1 is almost redundant compared to 2 imo. I'd get both if you can, but if you can only get one of them, I'd say get Spelunky 2.

[@thetominator6359]

Yh I'd say so too, get spelunky 2 first, then if you're really curious, then get spelunky 1 as well, even though it's more than 10 years old it holds up really well

[@Raymando]

Why pretending? xD

[@tavrincallas3218]

I didn't know Hades had the Pact of Punishment thing, but it reminds me a lot of Ascension mode from Slay the Spire! I like the fact that at first you struggle just to get past the second boss without debuffs, but eventually you get good enough to finish the game with 20

[@algs5483]

3:57, well, in my opinion, If you Go for forgivness the game gets easier. Survive one level and you are set for resources ( if you Rob a bomb shopkeeper) or a Jettpack, or a shotgun etc.

[@infamousXsniper055]

Thank you for bringing up Hades's Pact of Punishment in relation to difficulty. I've seen a lot of people say Hades suffers from a weird, reversed difficulty curve like other rouge-lites where the game starts hard but then gets easier as you get upgrades. However, the Pact of Punishment is an IMMENSLY important aspect to Hades's difficulty curve. Yes, the game starts difficult and then gets easier through the mirror, trinkets, companions, and weapon upgrades. The game's difficulty will get easier, but once the player might start getting bored of the game being easy, the Pact of Punishment then allows the player to bring the difficulty curve to just the right spot for them. They can even continue to increase the difficulty for themselves as they get better and better in a variety of ways. Part of the issue might be presentation and unfamiliarity with this type of system. Most games work really hard to strike the right balance of difficulty so most players are used to just being given the correct difficulty. However, the Pact of Punishment requires the player recognize they want the game to be more challenging and boost their heat beyond what'll even give them more rewards. Skelly's rewards help encourage the player to do this (32 heat was insane but satisfying). Sadly, the game stresses it way too much that going to high with heat doesn't gain you anything so it kind of discourages players from experimenting with raising heat beyond what gives them new rewards, even if it makes the game too easy.

[@quintinbassett9467]

The problem with that is that the Pact of Punishment is crucial to gathering resources. So you are hugely incentivized to go 1 heat, 2 heat, 3 heat... etc. to maximize resource gain. But low heat in many cases is no more difficult than 0 heat meaning you will have that drop-off in difficulty or you simply won’t progress as quickly resource-wise. Sure you can hop into higher heat whenever you want, but the sheer quantity of resources needed makes this feel wrong too. You can easily 100% the achievements, do all the Prophecies, and always do the next highest heat and not have nearly enough blood to upgrade all your weapons.

[@infamousXsniper055]

@@quintinbassett9467 You can have your heat higher than the bounty amount and still get the reward for that bounty. I've had my heat set to 12 for a long time and I still get rewards for 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, and so on. Higher heat doesn't skip rewards. Sadly, I can see why you get that misconception. The game stresses way too much that going over the bounty amount of heat is bad that it scares away players from experimenting and finding the right amount of heat for them.

[@quintinbassett9467]

@@infamousXsniper055 my issue is that if you start at higher heat you will objectively be progressing more slowly. The more you die the less resources you get and for someone who is very narratively driven this completely disincentives maintaining heat high enough to be really really challenging. I want to see as much of the story as I can and if I’m dying more then I’m progressing less. It takes more than 100 ambrosia just get get your bonds and keepsakes, not to mention the romances, so having slightly slower progress will really add up over time. You will eventually be back at your highest heat, but for a while you’ll be in a lull just trying to see all that the game has. Great for experimentation, but not great at promoting difficulty in my opinion.

[@infamousXsniper055]

​@@quintinbassett9467 The heat system is very dynamic and flexible. You don't have to raise it till you start dying on runs. You can just raise as much as will make runs challenging but still at a point where you can win them all. For me, I play with Extreme Measures 4 and the option which makes elite fights harder. Although I could get a 15 run win streak with that, each run felt earned because Extremer Measures 4 is just that difficult. I could still progress just fine but I was actually challenged and each successful run felt earned. I didn't find this correct difficulty immediately. I had to experiment with the heat system. I eventually just turned on options that were more fun for me after going up by one at a time and reached the amount I like despite it being above the bounty amounts. If increasing heat by 1 each run is too slow, try bringing it up by 2 instead. You can slowly build it up till you find a comfortable amount which provides the right amount of challenge. You don't have to follow the game's increase of 1 at a time but you also don't have to immediately increase it to levels which will start causing you to lose runs.

[@ABaier-pn1pl]

I like your content, Thank you! Keep up the work! :)

[@benedict6962]

A premise hooks you. An aesthetic gets you comfy Polish KEEPS you comfy and Granular Difficulty lets you think the game was made personally for you.

[@alk_]

Your comment about "halo's difficulties only make enemy health and damage higher" is not entirely correct. In most halo games, it enhances enemy behavior so they are more accurate, fire more quickly, use weapon functions smarter (charge up pistols more often, etc), notice you sooner, hide more often when shields are down, dodge grenades and slow/powerful weapons more often, use team tactics like double flanking, use partial cover more often, use grenades more often, and are generally less reckless, and there are more enemies with additional ranks (some ranks even have different behavior, and change the behavior of other enemies around them) often with better weapons and vehicles compared to easier difficulties. In addition to making damage and health higher, as you said. In addition to enemy differences and player health differences, there are a few core mechanic changes such as resetting both players in coop to the last checkpoint on legendary difficulty only (Halo 2 only). There are more differences that I didn't list here for the sake of not running on. Some of these differences change between games, but every game has most of these changes. Halo 2 in particular has many more changes that returned in later games in the form of optional skulls that add various effects, most of which make the games more difficult. Source: halo.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Difficulties Edit: Also here's my opinion regarding your "plasma pistol wombo combo" comment: I think that the plasma pistol + DMR, magnum, BR, carbine, or sniper combo (not just the sniper) is not forced on the player. You cannot take on longer range enemies with this tactic, as they easily dodge the plasma charge. There are many scenarios where it is not viable, and where many other loadouts are. You certainly can't rely on it to carry you through legendary (or even heroic). However, I do not think that it is a bad thing that the plasma + headshot combo is so viable in close to medium range; it favors high accuracy in the form of headshots. Once the shield is down, the enemies still have a large amount of health. You *need* to headshot them (unless you want to waste ammo). From my perspective, plasma-ing then headshotting with a magnum is a very rewarding way to take down a powerful enemy. If I miss, I'm likely dead because now they get to shoot me (at least on legendary) so I absolutely need to get it right every time. Taking out a whole group of elites that way really makes me feel powerful, like a spartan should. And when going from easier difficulties to harder ones, learning this trick and how to do it well every time is a rewarding experience. That's just my two cents, this part is all subjective. Enjoyed the video by the way!

[@derekeidum1307]

This bothered me too. There are a million games that adjust the difficulty by simply adjusting the amount of damage the player deals and receives. Halo is one of the very few that actually does change its AI behavior to be smarter and more aggressive on higher difficulties, so it's weird for Adam to single it out.

[@oceanman2811]

In resident evil 4 ,there is this hidden game mechanic that helps the difficulty flow well in different player's skill. If you are really skilled and play great without dying, the game purposely became harder, enemies move faster and attack often, enemies also drop less ammo and healing item and the map is also filled with more enemies to kill the player. If you are dying or injured in the game, it will understand this and enemies will stagger more, move slower, stand still often, attack less, there will also be more supllies in the map to help your survival and some enemies in the map will be erased entirely. I think this is a great way to help "the flow" of difficulty in games and the devs also kept this hidden as gamers would flow naturally throughout the game.

[@LondonLock]

10:28 Yes it does infact thats most of what it does it tiers up enemys, gives them better AI It had damage modifiers yes but thats never why legendary was hard

[@ananmaysahu4563]

legendary is hard because It feels like you're playing a 1v200 multiplayer game, i nstead of dominating stupid enemy AI

[@moartems5076]

I think that the main problem of this approach is watering down the story. Of course it works well for gameplay focused games, but ones with a more linear designed story may suffer.

[@Raymando]

I think the biggest way Spelunky fixes difficulty levels is by making the runs quick. Even a short 10-15 minute run is full of action and very very intense. But even if you lose, you don't feel too pissed because it was only 10-15 minutes. If Spelunky runs were over an hour long like most rogue likes - I wouldn't have been drawn to it.

[@sangiorgio5419]

I feel like the duration of the runs was perfect in spelunky 1 but it way off in 2, a normal Victory in 1 take less than 20 min ,in 2 30-40 and for the super secret ending you need a ridicolous amount of time (like 5 hours)

[@Raymando]

@@sangiorgio5419 I agree. The game does seem longer. I've not run into that problem yet because I still die pretty early on. But this might be one gripe with what Spelunky 2 added.

[@CyanicCore]

A popular system for those favoring this is armor. In many cases, such as BOTW, Terraria, and even Minecraft, finding skillful ways to complete a task is more rewarding than using your best equipment.

[@cinderheart2720]

Slay the Spire does the same thing with Ascension levels.

[@actualmadscientist]

Thanks for showing the custom difficulty settings from Xenoblade chronicles 2 as an example.

[@ManOfTheMounten]

12:20 , i do wonder who could possibly be the final boss of the game called Hades , escaping from tartarus (which is some cultures also refered to as Hades ) , and is ruled by the god of the dead named Hades. Whooooo could possibly be the final boss of this game ?True mystery. But the video is great , on point yeah.

[@oammaslastnamethei3063]

4:20 (nice) that sounds like minecraft with extra steps

[@silverstar4505]

really? as an average player that gets to zone 2 semi-regularly, it just makes me feel bad.

[@jankbunky4279]

You'll get there bud!

[@24hrgamereviews48]

@@jankbunky4279 Agree! I played for over 30 hours before I finally (easy mode) beat the game...and to be fair spent at least that much time or more watching people stream it!

[@happytoaster1]

You get to choose to make an extremely hard game be painfully hard instead, with mandatory reading of the wiki.

[@A6by]

Thank you for mentioning disabled gamers in the "difficulty level debate", even briefly. I hate when people erase us and all but claim that we don't deserve to play games.

[@archimedies9369]

The shop mechanic in crypt of the necrodances (seems to be) inspired by the shop mechanic in spelunky, you can buy things to make the game easier for you, or you can save for a higher score. if you do kill the shopkeeper you won't be able to get his items but instead you will get the ring of gluttony, a ring that lets you heal more health from food. if you do end up killing him, his ghosts will spawn in the stages ahead untill you finish the level or die.

[@dallama2616]

in spelunky 2 tho its really easy to rob a shop on 1-2 of all its contents and the owners shotgun then be forgiven by 1-4

[@jammish9802]

You used Risk of Rain 2 as an example of the standard, not great way of difficulty. That is true to begin with but it also has a good example of granular difficulty once you start discovering artifacts.

[@kkosmosL7]

R.I.P. Twiggle 😢

[@Myricaulus]

I am a bit disappointed you missed a key way for granual difficulty used for example by rimworld: Mods :-D Make the game you want to play yourself! Otherwise great video, Thanks!

[@monkeman8759]

Thumbnail: “why you will never beat spelunky 2” Me with 12 CO finishes: “interesting”

[@MizukiStone44]

As someone with a partially nonfunctional left hand... thank you for mentioning that people like me like to play games to, and praising those who include functions that make such possible! Well, more possible. We always find a way.

[@TwoTwoTwane]

I don’t like games that are too too easy, but i dont mind games that are fun and easy, but in my rogue-likes, i need that difficulty