Insane Difficulty: Fake Difficulty is Real - Insane Difficulty

Fake Difficulty is Real
by Archael

The term "Fake Difficulty" is used by many gamers, both online and offline, to describe difficulty that doesn't fit within the rules set by the game world. It's also used to describe difficulty that is not expected, or not traditional to the experience of sitting down and playing a video game. As the gaming industry evolves, new ways of making the player adapt to a game are being implemented, and some aren't welcome by all. In this writing, I will explain why what most people dismiss as being "fake" is actually very real difficulty.

If you do a Google search on the term "Fake Difficulty" you'll get several articles and forum posts trying to explain the gaming concept as your most relevant hits.


I Wanna Be The Guy, a very difficult home-brew platforming game often accused of having "fake difficulty".

For the purpose of this writing, I'm going to use tvtropes.org's definition of the concept, which seems to be agreed upon by the majority of people that I have seen writing about it: <!-- m -->http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... Difficulty<!-- m -->

"Occasionally, however, the difficulty comes from somewhere else. It could be due to shoddy programming, a game breaking bug, poor implementation of gameplay elements, or time constraints, but the developers threw in something which makes the game harder, but which has nothing to do with the player's or AI's skills. That's when you run into fake difficulty."

The article goes on to mention 5 kinds of Fake Difficulty. We're going to go through each one of them and try to explain why they are valid complaints or not.

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I agree that some elements mentioned in point #1, such as a camera angle that doesn't allow you to see where you're going, simply interfere with the player's ability to play the game, regardless of it's difficulty. Bad controls or bad physics can add difficulty, though, and it is all real difficulty inherent to the game.

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This is another way of saying: "This puzzle wasn't designed in a predictable way, so let me call it fake difficulty and blame the game." If the game desinger wants to incorporate random elements into the game which make something like a puzzle harder, then that's how the game was designed. That random element is adding to the difficulty of the puzzle or whatever gaming element this point is supposed to refer to. Just because something is harder in a way you don't approve of doesn't make it "fake", and the fact that people even complain about it is testament to just how much difficulty things like the above can actually add to a game.

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This one's pretty funny. First of all, so what if the player has to go through trial and error? Is that so bad? If someone plays the game for the first time, heaven forbid that he might fail and have to re-learn an approach to something. Second, I doubt that there's games that are impossible to beat without a guide or walkthrough.
Unstable Equilibrium? A level that becomes harder if you do badly at an early level? Gameplay elements that change in difficulty based on how the player did before? WOW. That sounds terrible! Just kidding. That actually sounds like it would add alot of replay value.

This point is another way of saying: "I don't like seeing Game Overs, please let me find all necessary information for me to beat the entire game in one sitting or else I will label it fake difficulty and blame the designers!" When did learning the secrets of a game become a bad thing? Has modern gaming really convinced you that exploration and learning within a game are THAT BAD?

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What? Let me see if I understand this one. A game that offers a "Joke Character" (presumably a character that is weak performance-wise) is OK as long as it makes it clear to the player that the character is weak? But a game that offers a "Joke Character" and doesn't blatantly inform the player is not?

Recently I played a game called Mass Effect 2. I used no guides and no outside help. Do you know what the designers did near the game's conclusion? *SPOILER*: They killed off half of the main characters in my party. I had no idea it was coming, and I had no way to prepare for it. Did this add to the difficulty of the game near the end? You bet. Is it bad game design? Hell no. The way they killed the characters off is based on how well the player uses his or her own judgement to assign them to tasks. It added a huge level of depth and involvement based on the decisions I made, and added a very real level of difficulty.

In other words, games that spoon-feed the player performance information about the characters it offers and don't require that the player actually makes decisions and use his own judgement are TRUE difficulty. Everything else is FAKE! FAKE!!

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I would be inclined to agree with this one except that it's way too general and obviously cannot possibly apply to every game. I've played amazing RPG's that reward my timing, not my ability to learn the game's story. And yes, the difficulty was real. I've played other games in completely diverse genres where my math skills and puzzle-solving skills (even if the game wasn't a puzzle game) have been necessary to progress. Why is this a bad thing? Are we so desperate to dismiss anything that might cause us troubles within a game as soon as it doesn't fit into our pre-formed opinion of what a game of that genre should behave like?

Why should we have to constrain our expectation of what the game will require to something as silly as "Math games require Math, Football games require Jerry Rice trivia, and strategy games only require strategy"? And then everything that doesn't fit that expectation we can label it as "Fake Difficulty" and move on, without having to blame ourselves? Rather convenient if you ask me.


I'll add another one of my own which I have seen frequently thrown around the internet. The classic "this isn't hard, it's just time consuming and requires grinding, not skill!"

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The answer to this one is pretty obvious. If it's so easy and only requires grinding, why don't you just stop complaining and do it? Pretending like huge time sinks aren't difficult to complete only results in fooling yourself. Yes, spending hours and hours daily to get a rank in that MMORPG constitutes difficulty. Not everyone can get there, and whether or not there's skill involved in any of the grinding doesn't make the difficulty any less real.



If tremendous grind-fest time-sinks in gaming were so easy, everyone would do them, because they would just be "fake difficulty" and anyone with free time could do it, right? But that's not the case. Because having a tremendous amount of free time dedicated to a goal as well as the perseverence and strength of will to complete it IS difficult, and not everyone can do it, regardless of their skill, timing, or game mechanics knowledge. Not everyone could grind to Rank 14 on the old WorldofWarcraft PVP system. Not everyone got their characters to 99 on Diablo 2 before bots hit Battle.net. Not everyone can stand time-sink grind-fest challenges, and that's where their difficulty lies.

The more repetitive, mind-numbing, and ridiculous a time-sink achievement is, the more difficult it is for most players. It's not fake difficulty, it's still difficulty, just not the type you're used to. Spending hours and hours on a game to complete a time-sink achievement can be tremendously difficult. In a very real way.



Fake Difficulty can be extremely real difficulty. Perhaps a better term would be: "Difficulty which I don't agree with and find rather inconvenient."

This was a good read and I have to agree with everything you said in it. Thanks for writing this up, and I look foreword to another one sometime. I might come in and talk a little bit more about my views on the subject, but I'm rather tired. I just wanted to give you my thanks before I went to bed.

There was actually one guy who livestreamed his own playthrough of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Many of us were watching, and it was hilarious because it took him literally 20 minutes to figure out that he needs to find the Kokiri Sword. After that, he went to the shop to buy a shield, which costs 40 rupees, but he didn't know where to even find the money. He quit there, and called OoT the worst Zelda game ever. In other words, he didn't even get to the very first dungeon/level of the game, and instantly branded it a bad game.

This is how most people seem to play and react, when after they've played whatever is out on the latest gen consoles, and get back to playing old games, they're so unfamiliar to the concept of exploring and figuring out things by themselves.

Zelda 1 is probably one of the best examples. The goal is set short, 9 temples, no towns, with no long story explanation, but the paths to getting to the places are so vague, such as having to set bombs on destructible walls, which are completely indistinguishable from normal walls. The number of bombs Link holds is also limited, so this turns the game into a big trial and error, and in a way, creates a sort of "fake difficulty".

But this sort of "fake difficulty" is in my opinion great. It was a clever method by Nintendo in disguising the still limited capabilities of the NES console at the time, and in exchange for long winded cutscenes, the player spent a lot more time exploring and actually playing the game. Basically, I think the less a gaming system is capable of, the more game developers prioritize on the bare essentials (the gameplay and its difficulty) and THEN perhaps think about the plot, the characters, and other such.

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Yes, but difficulty is not always a good thing. Too much "fake" difficulty and the game is literally shit.

For example:

- Final Fantasy X. Having done several playthroughs of this game, I recently attempted a Kimahri-only challenge. But I never finished it. Why? Because of long, drawn out, unskippable cutscenes with crappy voice acting and crappy characters. Without grinding the game takes like 30 hours to beat, and while I have yet to measure the damned thing, I wanna say upwards of 10 of those hours is sitting there WATCHING (literally, I'm not even -playing-, at least let me mash X to speed up the text) the screen wishing Tidus' head would explode or Yuna somehow manages to say four words in a row without a pause. It's worse than your standard timesink grind because you're not even interacting.

- FFT. Was 1.3 without text edits more difficult? When life drain didn't drain life and I had to refer to an etera sheet on a regular basis or do large amounts of trial and error? Sure. Would anyone in their right mind prefer the game with incorrect text? Newp. We can also apply the concept of FFX to FFT, if so desired. Set all event text to be delay:99. L-i-t-t-l-e m-o-n-e-y is delay 18. The game is now more difficult, by your definition. Is it better? More enjoyable? Certainly not. It's just more time consuming, and thus less worthwhile lest you're not familiar with the concept of time economics.

Having both the time and the willingness to sit through that much crap is not something worth celebrating.

Some fake difficulty is really the result of poor programming or budget constraints or something, and rather than admitting to this, the designers go "well, I meant to do that! Yeah! Enjoy the difficulty!!!!". It's such a copout ~_~.

The article doesn't say that difficulty is always a good thing.

The argument presented in the article is that fake difficulty is indeed very real difficulty, and that labeling difficult elements as "fake" doesn't make them any less valid as goals or obstacles to overcome.

The point of the article was simply that such difficulty IS indeed difficulty and shouldn't be dismissed as anything less than difficulty, though perhaps of a kind we're not used to.

Fake difficulty is when the player takes it upon himself to make the game more difficult, or expects the player to do the same. Example: In jade empire I ran a stun lock on most bosses (even the final one) which made the boss not move throughout the entire fight. If I were to restrict myself from that tactic, I would be using fake difficulty.

Well, that's not the definition of fake difficulty the article responds to, but I see what you're saying.

What you are describing is what I call self-imposed rules or self-imposed challenges.

The only thing I would consider fake difficulty would be:
1. Bad controls. Games like this still pop up. I am told you need a third hand to fight on a horse in Red Dead (never played just heard about this). If the developer intended the game to be difficult to control (flight simulators and the chopper in Bad Company 2 come to mind) then that is indeed real difficulty.

2. Bugs, glitches, or crashes that prevent you from playing the game. Fallout 3 is a good example of this. Crashing randomly and corrupting save files so much without a single mod. It was a chore just to make a different save file before entering and exiting every door, not to mention the times when I die and have to reload.

The subject of fake difficulty can be seen differently for everyone. I personally think that the element of randomness is fake difficulty only in some cases. In some games like the Yu-Gi-Oh video games, for example, luck plays a major role, and you can win or lose solely based on the cards you draw, regardless of how good your entire deck of cards is. That's not fake difficulty, because it's just like it would be in real life. The randomness is part of the game in cases like that. Kinda like Poker. Even if you know all the statistics and probabilities and winning or losing with your hand, it all comes down to luck as to whether the next card makes you win or lose. But there are other cases of randomness that just are not as "fair"... (Okay, none comes to mind right now, but I know I've come across many things like that.)

A good example of fake difficulty is when you have to deal with a cheating AI. For example, when the AI seems to read your move and react accordingly (and is actually programmed that way - some fighting games are like that), or can do things players can't (like when the AI opponents can throw you multiple items without running over an item box in Super Mario Kart), and the like. I mean, sure, games don't have to be "fair" per se all the time, but it just shouldn't be like that if you ask me.

On a sidenote... I think careful and precise jumping/platforming is correct difficulty. But I think that pixel perfect precision isn't. Just my opinion. Especially when you have to deal with poor hit detection and such, that's just terrible.

The are various points I disagree within the article:

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Disagree, unless for some strange reason developers thought making things shitty would be fun in interesting, in which case I'll be more than happy to report that it isn't. Jumps being harder because somebody for got to carry a zero somewhere is while yes in a sense, harder to do, doesn't make the game more difficult. Difficulty should be what skill level is needed to do something(make that jump, etc) based upon the original concept of the game engine and physics.

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There's a difference between "I have the possibility of getting this right on the first try if I use my head and think about it" to "I could be here for days, or I'll only need one push." Random elements are fun if used in a somewhat fair way. An example of this is just using a different puzzle every time you play, so that you have to logically think, and not just memorize. Something unfair would be a boss with no turn pattern and an all party death move that could only be blocked by a certain spell.

Point three is pretty well the only one I agree with, since seriously, if you suck, yeah, things are going to get harder for you. Blind trial and error however sucks, and there should be a way of at least narrowing it down, though the relevant information really should not go beyond "it's on this side of the room" or some jazz like that.

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I managed to save most of mine, so I'm putting that under the category in the brackets of the fake difficulty quote you are commentating on.

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You notice how the main genre of the game is what typically dictates the game structure, and everything else is minor/easy in comparison. Yeah, turns out, math is useful in strategy, but does strategy require it? Not really. It's good to have puzzle skills in RPGs, but are they necessary? Unless it's hailing itself as a Puzzle RPG, well no. The puzzle segments shouldn't be so overtly difficult if I'm playing an rpg.

As for point six, I'll leave it as this:
Every level of doom is pistol-start winnable. I do not need full ammo and every weapon from the last level to beat it. In WoW if I want to beat the next boss, I best be prepared to have the best equipment for my level, the best skill point allocation, and the highest numbers possible(party members, level, all that good jazz.)

Eh, most of what you say I agree with, though when success in a game is entirely random, and not just because the strategy implemented was poor, the game has fake difficulty.

Case in point: the last boss of FF13. Randomly casts a death spell, that even when you are prepared for it, will still instantly cause a game over at least 15% of the time. That is fake difficulty. It isn't hard, just like rolling 7s on a pair of dice isn't hard. You just have to be lucky.

Hell, the strategy needed to win that fight is almost none. Letting my one year old son flail away on the controller was sufficient to beat that boss, because he got lucky, and the death spell never connected.

Grinding? Never hard, just time consuming.
Glitches? Fake difficulty, as it was unintended by the creator.
Bad physics? Uh, if the physics are consistent through the whole game, that isn't fake difficulty.

Mostly, like I said, if success is entirely random, then the difficulty is fake. If a good strategy will skew the odds in your favor, and you still roll snake eyes, that isn't fake difficulty, though it can be frustrating.

I have never played FF13, but that sounds like they wanted a last boss who was hard no matter how much you were powered up but failed. If you can just flail at the controller and win more than 10% of the time, it is bad design.

What about the so-called hardest boss in FF13? I am assuming there is a harder boss than the last story focused boss, as usual in FF's (Ozma ff9, the arena fights ff10, etc).

Here's the difference: Tedium is not challenge. To take the example of a puzzle where you have to push a button a shitload of times to proceed, figuring out that you have to hit the button in order to move on may be challenging, depending on the puzzle. Figuring out that you have to hit it a lot may be part of that same puzzle. Depending on the controls or level design, the mechanics of hitting the button may be a challenge. But just sitting there, hitting a button over and over long after you've figured out what you need to do to move on, and with no chance of failure except if you realize that you could be having more fun if you shut this crapfest off and did something else? That's not difficulty, that's just boring-as-shit game design.

If I had to keep hitting the button over and over until I hit it right, that would be challenge. I can't pass until I demonstrate the necessary level of skill, and, ideally, every failure would bring me closer to reaching that level of skill. But pressing a button a hundred times isn't a test of skill, just of patience.

Likewise grinding for XP/loot/whatever on piss-easy enemies in WoW. If there is no chance that the enemies I'm fighting will hurt me in any meaningful way but I have to keep fighting them over and over and over, I'm not being challenged - I'm being bored into submission. There's a difference.

That article swayed my opinion for sure.

I completely agree that the increased difficulty isn't always a good thing.

Shale said:

The article isn't saying that all fake difficulty requires skill. Or that tedium = challenge.

The article is saying that what people call "fake difficulty" is still real difficulty.

Tedium can be extremely difficult, in a very tedious way, whether it tests your skills or not is irrelevant.

Grinding for some ridiculous WoW achievement can be tedium, but it can also be extremely difficult, whether it requires skill, or simply patience, or both doesn't matter. It's still a type of difficulty.

See what the article is actually saying? Skill is not necessarily a requirement for something to be considered *difficulty*, at least not in a video game setting. If tedium can never be considered difficulty, then go (for example) grind #1 in a WoW Arena PvP Server (it's all tedious repetitive, skill-less grind farming basically) and come back to me and tell me it wasn't difficult.

Hitting the "X" button 1 million times is difficult. Whether or not it requires skill and is purely tedium is irrelevant. It's a type of difficulty, and that's all the article is saying really.

The problem with the article is that you haven't defined "difficulty".

What does a "difficult" task constitute? The concept in itself is not as self-evident as you might think.

Given how you've used it so far, it could mean anything from a test of dexterity and understanding a game's rules, to a simple, repetitive, and time consuming task (which explains some responses you've gotten already).

Define "difficulty" and you'll probably clear up the issue.

Something that is hard to do, understand, or surmount; an impediment or obstacle.

The article is saying that the REASONS that make something difficult don't give anyone the right to dismiss it as "fake" difficulty. If something is difficult because it's a mind-numbing grind fest that requires hundreds of hours, it's still difficult regardless of the reasons why. Something that is difficult because it requires tremendous amounts of skill is still difficult.

They might be difficult in different ways, perhaps ways you don't agree with for video games, but it's all still real difficulty.

I thought this was all pretty clear.

Actually, that definition made it worse.

Here's the problem: "Something that is hard to do, understand, or surmount; an impediment or obstacle" is such a vague explanation that it could apply to anything. The very idea of a game consists of obstacles and impediments (not including non-games like Second Life) to a particular goal. Let's assume the idea of a game for now (since that's nearly impossible to define well).

For example, executing a combo in Street Fighter IV in training mode is relatively simple: I know how to do it, and there's no pressure. In an actual match, however, executing that combo becomes harder, as I have to find ways to land that combo versus the opponent.

This is simply MY perspective; somebody might think both of the above are piss easy, or impossible. And there's your problem, since "difficulty" remains in the eye of the beholder. Sure, we can agree on things that are "difficult", but absolute consensus is impossible.

Furthermore, "fake difficulty" would then be a real idea for some. The rules of the game do not fit the rules of the genre (and genre, I might add, is very important to identify), or perhaps they misidentified what genre the game was. The problem is not the identification of "fake difficulty" as a nonexistent concept; the problem is people perceiving a game as something very different from what that game is. To use a common example, IWBTG is an action game, just one that presents a different rule set than, say, Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog. If action game X is like Mario, then fruit won't kill you, and random elements won't appear.

Harbinger totally has it right, I think. "Difficulty" only exists as the original concept of the developers; the things that extend after that are irrelevant. Beyond that, stating that all these various things you have stated makes "difficulty" a superfluous terms that is meaningless, like saying "all games are games".

I understand your purpose in writing the article, but you're assuming a LOT of concepts you really need to define to say that "fake difficulty" = "real difficulty", and the difference between those two.

For me the article bridged the gap between what I see is difficult and what is just mind-numbing. I used to think pushing x 10000 times was just time consuming and not difficult. But now I see the time it takes to push that button is where the difficulty comes from. If something is a certain way that prevents or impedes you from doing it, it is difficult.

Numbers help with defining what is difficult. The hardest achievements in games have a lower percent of people doing them, for example.

ViewtifulZFO said:

Yes, and pushing a button 1000000 times is an obstacle. A difficult one. Regardless of anyone perceiving it as difficult in a "fake" way or not.

Another example:

Grinding for 2 months to be able to beat that boss in FF-Whatever-Online is hard. Not everyone has the patience to do it. Yes it's mind-numbing, yes it's repetitive, no it doesn't require skill, and yes, there will be people who really believe it is "fake difficulty". But it's still difficult, just in a way those people don't approve of.

Is that clearer?

Fake difficulty is still made up of very real obstacles. The definition is very appropriate I think.

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Dude, many things are *real* ideas. Unicorns, goblins, dieties of various religions. That doesn't make them accurate descriptions of anything real. Not saying that difficulty itself is anything other than a concept, but just because a term is a *real idea* doesn't add any weight whatsoever to it in this case.

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I'm not trying to equate the terms in the article. The idea some people have in their heads of what fake difficulty is - is obviously different from the idea they have of what real difficulty is. What the article is trying to say is that fake difficulty can present challenges and obstacles that are just as *valid* in a game as any other kind of difficulty anyone can describe (usually what they perceive as the legit skillful kind).