Where a game has multiple difficulty levels, it is preferred to play on the hardest difficulty level (for more interesting gameplay) unless the only difference between difficulty levels is enemy/boss hit points, in which case the easiest difficulty levels are preferred in the interest of speed.
The topic of difficulty choice has come up pretty frequently as of late, with authors having to, whether pre-emptively or post-submission, defend their choice of easier difficulties. I'm starting this thread in hopes of keeping unnecessary discussion out of the two (as of time of writing) submissions in which difficulty choice appears to be a problem, and to hopefully gather more of the community's opinions on the subject.
Some things I'd like to personally see discussed are:
Why do we have a guideline regarding using the hardest difficulty? It's being enforced as a rule even by the judges: TASes are occasionally, though rarely, rejected for not using the hardest difficulty. Should we lessen how strict this is and let difficulty be up to whatever the author chooses?
What does "hardest difficulty" mean in most games? What are the usual differences between easiest and hardest difficulties? How many games would actually have noticeably different TASes if they were done on different difficulties?
What does "hardest difficulty" mean for a TAS? What does it add to a TAS in terms of entertainment value?
As a separate exercise, here are a few hypothetical situations that should emphasize why we need to discuss this:
1. In a game where difficulty affects enemy health: A boss that changes forms after 10 seconds can be defeated before it changes forms on Easy difficulty. On Normal and Hard, the boss has too much HP, and so it changes forms and fully recovers its health, dragging out the fight by at least 20 seconds. Alternately: A boss has a pattern of being vulnerable for 10 seconds and invulnerable for 20. On Easy, it can be killed within 10 seconds, but on Normal and Hard you have to sit through that 20 second waiting period.
2. In a game where difficulty affects enemy damage: A damage boost that saves 30 seconds of boring downtime can only be done on Easy difficulty due to the enemy being particularly powerful. On Normal, you'll have to spend longer than 30 seconds avoiding more damage, and on Hard you will be killed instantly.
3. In a game where difficulty affects how many enemies there are: You perform a zip glitch that saves 10 seconds, but you're forced to take damage off of fixed enemy spawns. This zip is right before a boss that requires you to take damage for a quick kill that saves 15 seconds. On Easy difficulty, you only take damage twice, and you can perform the quick kill with a little health to spare. On Normal and Hard, you take too much damage performing the zip to be able to perform the quick kill.
4. In a game where difficulty affects the enemy movement speed: On Hard difficulty, enemies move significantly faster, which gives them much more manageable positions for you. On Normal and lower, the enemies move much more slowly and get in the way far more often, requiring creative solutions to overcome. This isn't a hypothetical. This actually happens in Run Saber.
5. In a game where difficulty affects enemy spawn rate: On Hard difficulty, enemies spawn far more frequently, but using various button combinations you can manipulate all of them away without losing time, saving hundreds of lag frames overall. On any difficulty, it is far faster to manipulate away all spawns, meaning no matter what the difficulty, the runs will look almost completely identical.
There are more situations like these that happen more often than you'd think, and there are probably even weirder edge cases where the hardest difficulty isn't actually the hardest difficulty due to coding errors and whatnot.
Anyway. Discuss, I guess.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Starting this up..
Difficulty is a stylistic choice in its own; remniscent of other arbritary goals, no matter how small or big they are: LoZ Swordless and naming your character in an RPG are two opposite examples.
Why does difficulty matter? It is an arbritary goal that is there on 95% of games in existence; it's the most common one. That's all it is.
It differs for each game, and for me the guideline (that most people tend to interpret as a rule and ground for rejection, while this absolutely isn't true) is to do what makes the TAS interesting or technically impressive, in whatever arbritrary goals you chose; including difficulty.
The basic and most fundamental idea behind preferring the hardest difficulty is that a TAS is supposed to represent a perfect superhuman beating the computer at its best, at its most challenging. It's not very challenging to beat the computer at its easiest difficulty, when even a mediocre unassisted player can do that easily.
The entertainment value becomes from seeing how the "player" mops the floor with an an extraordinarily difficult game, which can be excruciatingly hard to play unassisted. Seeing it being beaten at its easiest difficulty is more often a "meh". If there is no challenge, there is little entertainment.
Of course this is not true for 100% of all games, but it's a good rule of thumb. Deviating from this ought be done only if there are good reasons for it.
Very well thought out and fully qualified post below
vvvvvvvvvvvvv
scrimpeh wrote:
Choose the difficulty that makes for the most entertaining run.
I can't believe anyone has to deliberate for more than 5 seconds over this.
Footnote 1:
What difficulty setting is the most entertaining depends on the game and is for the author to determine.
Footnote 2:
Does easy difficulty make this particular run more entertaining? I don't know, I didn't watch it. That's for the judges to decide.
The point is, under normal circumstances you don't have to argue why you chose the hardest difficulty. That ought to be the default. However, you have to give a good reason for a lesser difficulty.
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4089
Location: The Netherlands
I've already given my (brief) take on this in the RotJ submission topic:
Mothrayas wrote:
The spirit behind the difficulty guideline is pretty simple: choose difficulty according to what makes the most interesting run. That's all there is to it.
By default, that would be the hardest difficulty because those are obviously more impressive to complete, but it definitely does not always apply. If raising the difficulty just means that boss battles take more repetitive action and damage-taking speed tricks have to be forgone, then it is definitely justifiable to pick a lower difficulty.
I don't know why people are making such a big issue out of this. We get a more interesting run this way, so why force the change?
That's my general take on the subject. The best choice is what makes the best runs, which sometimes (usually) is the hardest difficulty, but in some cases it's not. If choosing a higher difficulty prohibits using certain TAS tricks like damage-taking strategies (because of reduced player HP/increased enemy damage) or only makes boss battles more repetitive (because of reduced player damage/increased enemy HP), then choosing an easier difficulty could be preferable.
EDIT: What may also need to be taken into account is whether the opportunity of more damage boosting strategies would outclass the harder mode's greater emphasis on health management. This might be a contentious issue.
One point I do believe should be discussed is the enforceability of the guideline as it currently stands. As Samsara said, sometimes runs are rejected for not using the hardest difficulty, and sometimes they are not. Currently the difficulty "rule" is only a guideline so it need not be enforced in its current state. However, we'll probably want to handle this more sensibly than "sometimes do enforce it, sometimes don't".
An easy way out would be not enforcing the guideline at all (keeping it as a guideline), but I'm not sure that's a very good idea as it would in a way encourage TASers to use easy difficulty levels to breeze through the game more easily, cheapening the experience of watching the TAS.
Personally, I think a better solution would be to enforce playing on the highest difficulty, unless a good case can be made for an easier difficulty run that it would make for a better watch than a highest-difficulty run. Runs that use easier difficulties without good reason would be rejected. I think this is what we already have been doing, but having it fixed on paper as a rule might be good. On the other hand, it might also be considered too restrictive. Thoughts?
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
I know that I will not meet with much agreement, but I have to respectfully state I like high difficulty at all times, unless it is really only the enemy health. Things like "you are taking more damage" makes me shake my head. I will not complain if a movie using the easiest difficulty, however, is really up to the author. But I think harder difficulty films are more impressive than the movies on EASY. It is the same reason tases of easy games are not as interesting as games like Contra tases are. I like to see tases where it seems that the player is in danger, and I do not really feel like that when it is on easy. I just do not think it is awesome to plow through a game in which the option is used to become less difficult.
This does not mean I fully dislike movies on easy, they can still be entresting. I enjoyed the new Star Wars tas very much.
In my opinion the real difficulty is the question of what precedent, if any, publishing a certain game on a certain difficulty has on subsequent submissions of that game.
In the current case of Return of the Jedi, arandomgameTASer chose easy difficulty as subjectively the most entertaining choice. So if someone does happen to come along and submit a run on Jedi difficulty, what would happen to it?
Is arandomgameTASer setting a precedent that should be followed?
Can the 2 runs be published side by side?
Does a judge have to rule on preferred difficulty at the time of acceptance/rejection?
The difficulty guideline doesn't seem to address any of this, especially since the argument it is using is also subjective entertainment value.
In its current state, I see the difficulty guideline as at best determining whether a run goes to moons or vault, but in this case it should be made clear that essentially the same run can be made on 2 different difficulty levels and both are publishable.
My opinion would be that this should be stated as: hardest difficulty is always publishable/preferred, while any other difficulty is publishable if the audience finds it sufficiently entertaining. This would put difficulty level on the same footing as any of the other category choices besides the default any% / 100% and be less ambiguous. It also means 'easy' difficulty TASes would be rejected/accepted on the grounds of entertainment value, not difficulty level, more in line with other categories.
If the community is specifically aiming for this NOT to be the case, and that each game have a preferred difficulty, my suggestion would be making something more clear and less subjective, but I'm not sure how this is possible.
Another situation I'd like to see clarified is when the difficulty chosen has major effects on the number of stages/amount of game. For concrete examples, the Flintstones run in the queue, assorted Fire Emblems, Pinocchio, etc. The standard seems to be "It's acceptable, but a run on the right difficulty would obsolete it, even though we know it'll be much slower." I'd like to see that kind of thing a little more codified.
Aside from that, Moons has always been anything goes. If you can make a case for playing at medium hard while upside down and never using the B button, that's publishable. It's been acceptable for the Vault too though. Entertainment isn't supposed to be a factor for the Vault, and accepting games on easy difficulty for it because that's the most entertaining is a contradiction to me.
I don't like chosing an easy difficulty specifically because that makes the game easier to play or simply because it's fastest. That seems counter to the very idea of a super human player crushing the game at its most difficult. Not that I expect the floodgates to open up, but I don't like the idea of 'faster' submissions due to playing on easier difficulties, even if the actual gameplay would be functionally identical.
Example list ho.
(Sports)
http://tasvideos.org/4482S.htmlhttp://tasvideos.org/4577S.html
(Racing)
http://tasvideos.org/4322S.html
(Card)
http://tasvideos.org/4704S.html
(Autoscroller SHMUP)
http://tasvideos.org/4802S.html
Good points everywhere in this topic... It's an interesting debate where a lot of things can be compared in terms of difficulty (not the setting in a game, but difficulty "in general"), entertainment or judging: casually playing vs TASing vs speedrunning, moon and vault, categories, etc...
And everything depends on the game. When looking at speedrunning communities for example, they create their own rules that are specific to each game for that aspect. Sometimes there are categories for different difficulty settings, and I don't have examples (sorry, my lazy side), but I'm sure there are games where only one difficulty level is used, and not always the hardest. It's easy to imagine a game where some difficulty settings are pointless to run (only a small number of levels are playable for example).
There might be games where even speedrunning is easier to do on some harder difficulty level (again, no example in mind, sorry), but when playing normally, it doesn't apply. That's where entertainment can make a big difference.
Just to dig a little deeper and cover one more point, the difficulty of TASing a game in one setting or another is obviously (in my opinion) irrelevant.
In my opinion, for the moon tier, the difficulty setting has a lot of similarities with, say, the choice of a character. We want to aim for entertainment. The thing is that it seems harder to create a different category by picking another difficulty level; the game has to offer something really different here.
And there's the vault. Since entertainment is not a requirement, the rules or guidelines about the difficulty level should in theory be "harsher" there, but again, we'll always find games that will need a special treatment.
...And I'm not even sure about the difference I've just made between the moon and vault tiers :p
In the end, I'm still for a guideline to play in the hardest difficulty by default, and after that, we still have judges and the forum to discuss and accept or not the runs case by case. Whatever rules we can come up with will always end up with exceptions. Even the one about finishing the game is not absolute, there are playarounds that don't follow it.
I'm sure there are games where only one difficulty level is used, and not always the hardest.
Doom. (Common is Ultra-Violent, hardest is NIGHTMARE (besides usual difficulty bumps, enemies randomly respawn, making luck a huge factor))
It's easy to imagine a game where some difficulty settings are pointless to run (only a small number of levels are playable for example).
Most Contras, Golden Axe, actually, about a third of the things on the list here.
There might be games where even speedrunning is easier to do on some harder difficulty level (again, no example in mind, sorry), but when playing normally, it doesn't apply.
Kingdom Hearts 2.5 (Critical mode = ton of bonus starting abilities, permanent +25% to damage dealt, 2x damage taken, -25% exp earned)
===========
TWEWY just occurred to me as a fringe bizarre case. It has a relatively freely adjustable difficulty through (most) of the game. It'd seem a little weird to just set it to easy mode as soon as it was unlocked though, and even weirder if you were to bump it around for the better drops.
My opinion would be that this should be stated as: hardest difficulty is always publishable/preferred, while any other difficulty is publishable if the audience finds it sufficiently entertaining. This would put difficulty level on the same footing as any of the other category choices besides the default any% / 100% and be less ambiguous. It also means 'easy' difficulty TASes would be rejected/accepted on the grounds of entertainment value, not difficulty level, more in line with other categories.
After reading through this topic, this is the view I agree with the most closely.
My opinion would be that this should be stated as: hardest difficulty is always publishable/preferred, while any other difficulty is publishable if the audience finds it sufficiently entertaining.
What happens if someone submits a TAS of a game using the hardest difficulty and it gets published, and then later someone submits a TAS of the same game at a lower difficulty, and the audience finds it entertaining?
Joined: 8/15/2005
Posts: 1941
Location: Mullsjö, Sweden
Sometimes higher difficulty doesn't mean a higher challenge. Despite enemies dealing more damage or enemies having more HP. Or what it may be.
If it's slower to take damage in the run, the damage factor won't matter at all. Considering the TAS will just avoid everything anything, which is often easy to do in a TAS compared to a real time run. Doesn't matter if the enemies do 1HKO attacks, for a TAS it will be all the same.
Enemy HP is another "pointless" factor at times. Doing the same routine to damage the boss a few extra times also doesn't add an extra challenge. It's just extended the same pattern longer. This, again, is different for real time, as it could mean a challenge to stay alive longer.
From an outsider's perspective, just knowing that the game was played on Hard will make the run feel more impressive by the difficulty choice alone. But in reality, when you look into it, it can be the same overall difficulty as on Easy.
Of course, there will always be exceptions. In games were taking damage is faster, planning it on a higher difficulty would mean more health management and planning the boosts more carefully. But if Hard would mean 1HKO, it will simply be "easy dodging" that will also be a lot slower than damage boosts.
Enemies having more HP could mean that you have to plan your item usage, stats and level, so that'll you'll be strong enough to beat the boss quickly or not, or having enough missiles to even kill it at all. This doesn't mean it adds an extra challenge however. Could only mean a detour to grab an extra item, or being forced to fight an extra enemy in order to increase your level. Both which are simple to do in a TAS, both of which may or may not have been a challenge for a speedrun.
It will always be a case to case basis. But higher challenge does not always equal higher difficulty.
From an outsider's perspective, just knowing that the game was played on Hard will make the run feel more impressive by the difficulty choice alone. But in reality, when you look into it, it can be the same overall difficulty as on Easy.
I don't know why you are dismissing that aspect. It's more impressive to see a game beaten knowing it was played at the hardest difficulty, than see it beaten at the easiest difficulty, even if the two runs were extremely similar.
Making the hardest difficulty look easy is the impressive part, not making the easiest difficulty look easy.
Joined: 8/15/2005
Posts: 1941
Location: Mullsjö, Sweden
If the only difference is that enemies damage more and you never ever wish to take damage because it is slower anyway. Easy and Hard will use the same inputs for both runs. Without knowing if it's Easy or Hard: Which run is the most impressive?
Here the only thing making one run more impressive is the knowledge that it was done on hard. People would probably complain, as they always do, that it was done on easy, despite hard mode would look identical. But we are easily fooled by those four letters to believe it is a more impressive accomplishment.
If it makes no difference, then use the hardest difficulty. Nobody will complain. It's that simple.
...do you know how ignorant that sounds? That's like saying "Just accept the most offensive jokes thrown at you because nobody will hate or attack you for it. Plain and simple.". I'm sure you'd like to believe that it works that way, but it doesn't. Regardless of the choice taken, there will someone that'll complain about it.
Why do we have a guideline regarding using the hardest difficulty? It's being enforced as a rule even by the judges: TASes are occasionally, though rarely, rejected for not using the hardest difficulty. Should we lessen how strict this is and let difficulty be up to whatever the author chooses? What does "hardest difficulty" mean for a TAS? What does it add to a TAS in terms of entertainment value?
It's a matter of demonstrating mastery of the game. Most of what prevents people from playing on the hardest difficulty is this lack of mastery. In a TAS environment, we have far more control over what goes on in the game (ranging from "frame-perfect inputs" to "manipulating luck" to "programming an entire game inside of another game via clever memory access exploitation") so this lack of mastery really shouldn't be an obstacle.
What does "hardest difficulty" mean in most games? What are the usual differences between easiest and hardest difficulties? How many games would actually have noticeably different TASes if they were done on different difficulties?
Some games, such as Nail'n Scale or Commander Keen 4-6, are programmed so that basic player mechanics are tweaked to facilitate the change in difficulty. Both games I just cited increase jump height on easy compared to the harder settings, leading to different fastest routes in the absence of glitching. This is, incidentally, why my plans for Nail'n Scale are to do absolute fastest on easy, then do skipless% on hard.
With that said, I do have a perfectly cromulent example of when not to use the hardest difficulty: Rugrats Time Travelers on GBC. The only differences between difficulties in that game are "how many bottles do you have to collect to activate the exit" and "how many bottles do you lose when you take a hit", which only increases the amount of time you spend in the level. For real-time play this makes it far more impressive as for the later stages it results in "Damageless, All Bottles", but in a TAS environment it gets very, VERY boring. I was advised to seek a difficulty exemption for that game on those grounds.
If it makes no difference, then use the hardest difficulty. Nobody will complain. It's that simple.
...do you know how ignorant that sounds? That's like saying "Just accept the most offensive jokes thrown at you because nobody will hate or attack you for it. Plain and simple.".
Huh? Am I missing something here? How are these two situations comparable?
I'm sure you'd like to believe that it works that way, but it doesn't. Regardless of the choice taken, there will someone that'll complain about it.
Well there's always the chance someone will complain about something. But let's say a run like Warp describes is submitted. What would there be to complain about re: difficulty that couldn't be easily dismissed? I'm not thinking of anything.
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Normally i would say Yes, but thennI thought "its not the same hack" so ill stick with meh.
My opinion would be that this should be stated as: hardest difficulty is always publishable/preferred, while any other difficulty is publishable if the audience finds it sufficiently entertaining.
What happens if someone submits a TAS of a game using the hardest difficulty and it gets published, and then later someone submits a TAS of the same game at a lower difficulty, and the audience finds it entertaining?
If the hard mode TAS was entertaining in its own right, they both can stay in moons. If it less entertaining it will go to vault and the easy mode one to moons. In the final case, where the audience found the easy mode one not entertaining, it is rejected.
So basically I'm saying that the default category for any game is 'hardest difficulty any %' For most games, 'Hardest difficulty 100%' will be another default category. These can always at least make it to the vault. 'Easy' mode TASes would need to meet the same entertainment requirements as any other potential category for that game.
Tompa wrote:
From an outsider's perspective, just knowing that the game was played on Hard will make the run feel more impressive by the difficulty choice alone.
I think that is part of the aim of TASes, after all most people aren't TASers and won't actually look into it any deeper, as you suggest in the next sentence there.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
NitroGenesis wrote:
Well there's always the chance someone will complain about something. But let's say a run like Warp describes is submitted. What would there be to complain about re: difficulty that couldn't be easily dismissed? I'm not thinking of anything.
Probably half the runs on this site, if not more, fall under what Warp described: Runs where the difficulty makes no discernible difference aside from a few extra seconds of repetition. The problem is that people are complaining in the first place, not that their claims can't be easily dismissed. If it makes no difference, why do people complain often enough to necessitate a discussion thread? Shouldn't people want the faster, smoother looking run over the slightly slower and slightly more repetitive version? When a TAS ultimately trivializes the difficulty to the point where all runs look the same, it makes no sense that people would still try to enforce using the hardest difficulty.
I don't want to see the guideline/rule itself changed, because I do believe there are obvious cases where easier difficulties should be forbidden: For example, if the game ends early and tells you to play on a harder difficulty for the true ending, then that's a solid reason to reject a run on Easy. I want to see the attitude of the audience changing to become more relaxed, so that we don't have more prolonged arguments over why a run uses Easy when Hard just means you attack bosses two or three more times.
I probably missed something, but after rewriting this post about 10 times I've stopped caring about making sure it's perfect.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family.
Now infrequently posting on BlueskywarmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
If it makes no difference, then use the hardest difficulty. Nobody will complain. It's that simple.
...do you know how ignorant that sounds? That's like saying "Just accept the most offensive jokes thrown at you because nobody will hate or attack you for it. Plain and simple.". I'm sure you'd like to believe that it works that way, but it doesn't. Regardless of the choice taken, there will someone that'll complain about it.
