EA - Dynamic Difficulty

[Yaayuh!]

Finding the game hard to play? Want to get better at it? With EA, there's no need! Just fail and the game will make itself easier for you instead. Simple!

EA given the go ahead with their patent put in a few years back.

EA’s Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment system aims to “perform automatic granular difficulty adjustment” in a way that would be “undetectable by a user”. The idea is that your playtime would be measured and in order to keep you engaged in the game, difficulty would automatically lower during a losing streak in an effort to stop players from quitting the game.

“Based on the determined expected duration of game play, the difficulty level of the video game may be automatically adjusted”, the patent says. This would replace static difficulty levels, which according to EA, provides an “inconsistent challenge” as players may find one aspect of a video game challenging but not others.

https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/ea-granted-patent-for-dynamic-difficulty-adjustment/

I think it should be an option, rather than a replacement. But kids have low tolerance and attention these days it seems (back when I were a wee lad etc etc) so I can see why they've done it.

 

[agnes]

All fine and good, but it's main intention is the reverse, the better you do, the harder it gets. It's been in place for sports games for a long time. Forcing the players hand to buy packs for better players.

 

[Quinnaay]

Feels like it's been in FIFA for surplus 3 years

 

[Darujhistan]

Feels like it's been in FIFA for surplus 3 years

Yeah, it's a complete joke. Play well one night, next night pick the controller up and it's like you've never played the game before. It was so obvious it was "fixed".

I haven't touched it for years now and I don't miss it.

 

[Columbo]

People that spend cash on and in these excrement shovelling games deserve exactly these sorts of systems in their games.
These systems wouldn't exist if the Sheeple public would stop dropping ridiculous sums on FUT packs but they won't until the law steps in to stop it. I simply cannot get my head around the sums of money being spent in game on MTX by some players, COD Warzone is the same I just don't understand it but maybe I'm just too old and cynical.

Yes its a scummy system from a scummy company to be used in scummy game and the best thing is for people to stop playing and paying in these turd filled games but they wont so EA will continue to fill their boots until legislation kicks in to restrict it.

 

[Ayahuasca]

Electronic Farts, it's in the name.

 

[Meridian]

Didn't Unreal Tournament have this twenty years ago? If you were playing against bots, obviously.

 

[Rroff]

Didn't Unreal Tournament have this twenty years ago? If you were playing against bots, obviously.

I can't remember exactly which ones but a few games over the years have had dynamic difficulty but it has always been a menu option not potentially hidden functionality.

 

[Hotwired]

I also recall the L4D director being promoted as adapting the "rng" of the level depending on how the group was doing.

 

[Rroff]

I also recall the L4D director being promoted as adapting the "rng" of the level depending on how the group was doing.

Same with Alien Isolation - though the AI in that one cheats a lot though it appears like more advanced AI - the director gives the monster AI loads of hints which kind of ruins the illusion once you figure it out.

 

[MrMarvelous]

One of the first ones I noticed it on myself was resident Evil 4. This has been going on for years, nothing really new. If you're interested then this video is well worth a watch.

 

[Yaayuh!]

I also recall the L4D director being promoted as adapting the "rng" of the level depending on how the group was doing.

Not sure how that worked but with L4D you had a static difficulty choice for the campaigns. Maybe the RNG was on top of that.

Same with RE4, it has static difficulty with dynamic on top and on “Professional” difficulty the the dynamic aspect is disabled.

 

[Begbie]

This is how online multiplayer works..

As long as its an option, and not forced, then it seems like it could be quite good.

 

[montymint]

Dynamic difficulty is fine, especially for single player - as it isn;t driving the player to purchase more.

Activision back in 2017 did a match making system on certain games that linked bad players to whales, to encorage buying microtransactions to even the playing field. That was an abomination.

 

[Gimpymoo]

When I was a lad you had three lives and no saves.

Nothing got easier because I was ****.

 

[adolf hamster]

i was under the impression this has been a thing for a while.

i mean plenty of times i've repeatedly failed a particular boss fight or whatever a few times and then somehow end up completely thrashing them.

and when i say thrashing i don't mean that my character has any better equipment, or that i'm suddenly any better at the game.

for example in the borderlands series, pretty sure the number of ads that spawn (or at least the difficult ones) changes, and likewise if a boss has that one really annoying attack they seem to do it less frequently.

although that's entirely conjecture and i don't know if it's actually a feature or perhaps just luck of the rng gods/the game not resetting everything through respawns.

 

[Malevolence]

This kind of **** would've ruined one of my all time favourite games, Project: IGI.

 

[Rroff]

When I was a lad you had three lives and no saves.

Nothing got easier because I was ****.

I was watching people recently trying to do Bastion of Chaos (Doom map) on ultra-violence with the idea of no lives, no saves - pretty quickly started saving.

 

[PC777]

I also knew and noticed this type of thing since RE4 on Gamecube.

Different games deal with it in different ways, some Mario games give a powered up way to go through if you die a lot or just watch it being played ideally that you can take over at any time. Or even just letting you skip outright. Fire Pro another I noticed on PC, if you fail a stipulation you get an option stating 'Skip as if you completed it or try again.' Pretty nice to add that option for people without a lot of spare time. RDR 2 also lets you skip after a few deaths, nothing's ideal in terms of this difficulty adjustment or avoidance, but at least people get to 'finish' a game rather than give up completely.

 

[Armageus]

Didn't Unreal Tournament have this twenty years ago? If you were playing against bots, obviously.

Yep UT '99 had a "auto adjust difficult" tickbox next to the bot difficulty drop down