Sony Wants PS5 Games to Automatically Adjust the Difficulty While You Play

as long as i can choose my difficulty still.

I hate games that are one difficulty. and no i dont get good i quit and play something else

Ahh the return of DA. Wouldn’t mind see that again

At least let me turn it off completely. There’s nothing more annoying than dying repeatedly and having to say no to a pop-up asking to lower the difficulty every single time.

And I want them to get the hell out of the way and stop dictating the degree by which I should be challenged.

@trev666 Yeah I'm the same way. I just don't have the time or patience these days to put up with games that are off-putting in their difficulty. It's basically one of the worst things a game can do IMO, forcing me to play something that feels way too hard.

Yeah saw people bitching about this patent.

I don't know you guys but I still don't have my banana controller and that patent has more than 2 years. Where are the banana controllers?

I like that the souls games have just the one difficulty setting but I'm not against games that have difficulty settings as that makes the games more appealing and accessible to gamers of all skill levels. I'm not a huge fan of trophys being unlocked behind difficulty levels so this could be a solution to getting that elusive 100% completion. I have mixed feelings on this one 🤔

I want no part of this. If I've decided on a difficulty I want to finish on that difficulty. No interest in having Luigi pop in and ask if I wanna cheese it because I've hit a challenging section.

No, I hate this. Sometimes after a hard day at work I WANT to feel like an unstoppable god. I want to just grab a sword and wail through 500 guys without taking a scratch.
I don't want my game choosing how I should be playing.

No. No. No. Sony please kindly stick this idea where the sun doesn’t shine. My game, my choice.

If I want ultra hard, my choice.
Baby mode, again my choice.

Every game is different. God of War works with difficulty modes because combat is all the game offers you meanwhile Elden Ring is designed to make you think carefully about how you explore and progress.

Sony just need to concentrate on making good games. People can choose their difficulties in the option menu if desired.

If it is an option rather than forced I’m all for it. Easy, normal, hard, nightmare and AI mode type thing. If, however, I turn on Spiderman 3 in a few years time and my only option is to play the game at a difficulty AI has decided is most appropriate for me I will not be thrilled.

No, just no. Manual choice is good, games that give you the choice to drop difficulty after a few deaths is fine, hiding behind dynamic difficulty so nobody is sure if they finally accomplished something or the game decided to let them through…hell no.

The problem is Sony don’t care about us few, they care only about continued engagement of the masses.

In the most dystopian world the game could actually make itself progressively harder to “encourage” Microtransactions. Although I don’t think Sony would go there.

As long as i can just turn it off completely in every game, i'd say go for it.
If it gets pushed on me, then ***** no.

Difficult games should stay difficult. Stop all this pandering to people who don't even like the genre complaining a game they don't play is too hard for them. All games don't have to be for all people.

I’m not against this but I want the option to turn it off.

I love difficult games, I’ve beaten every From Soft game and eventually made my way through Returnal (after an embarrassing number of hours/attempts) but I don’t want every game to be super challenging. The combat in BG3 was annoying me so I turned it down and I’m enjoying that game so much more now.

So, SBMM but in single player games

Tired enough of it in modern day CoD's, no thanks.

I'm not convinced this is a good idea to have by default. On some games, I might want my character to be OP and breeze through everything. And other times, I might want to suffer from an extremely tricky challenge.

Securing Intellectual Property is a necessary part of business, I get that, but what this really means in gaming is that a really cool idea gets locked away from a majority of gamers who don't buy into the patent holders platform.

I've heard that the Nemesis system in a Lord of the Rings game was really cool, but has it been seen anywhere else?
The psychology tricks of Eternal Darkness? Imagine those in RE4?
The ability to play Galaga while waiting for Ridge Racer to load is another example of ideas locked behind patents, and now that patent has expired, we have near instant loading via SSD's, so it's not relevant anymore.

Hopefully Sony do figure out the algorithm, but accessibility 'features' such as these should be shared across the industry, with the patent holder claiming the Kudos, and gamers become the real winners.

I’d hate this.

I’m no super tough gamer (Jedi knight is closest I’ve ever come to a souls game!!) but imagine beating that end of level boss on the third try and not knowing if you had actually beaten it or if the game had just put it on super easy for you. No thanks.

Hardcore players getting more of a challenge? How can they complain? This will all be down to actual implementation – way too early to judge.

Plenty of games already have invisible balancing, like adjusting amount of health-drops or even a loop that automatically levels up a "bad" player like me, simply because I have to repeat Central Yarnham 20 times before I can make progress.

The best way is to let people change the difficulty halfway through the game, but only when they want. I hate those popups saying pretty much "You suck! Need me to babyproof the game for you?"

Patenting in the gaming industry seems pretty pointless and depressing. It just adds fuel to the console exclusivity fire.
Patenting can be very useful and they can exist as a stepping stone in innovation if done right or implemented in a mutually beneficial way for the industry and the holder, but when games take so long to make nowadays I get the feeling this won't benefit consumers over the 20 year cycle and more ideas and creativity in the space will be infringed and stifled rather than inspired and implemented. Especially when the natural course of the industry will steer toward implementing AI in different areas and you can be sure the biggest corporations aren't gonna let an opportunity for further control over their competitors slip through their grasp. If the biggest players have run out of ideas they'll simply throw money at the problem - which is precisely what Xbox is trying to do when the potential acquisition of Sega, Nintendo, etc leaked.
More corporate control in the industry will not benefit the consumers.

I can usually handle difficulty myself if given difficulty options at the start and during the game.

Overall I like the process of getting better in games. That is where the obtaining of better weapons and gear, upgrading weapons, acquiring perks, leveling up skills, and learning what works and what don't actually makes surviving easier. I want to see and experience improving my character. Also being op in some games is just plain fun.

Fallout games does difficulty well for an action adventure shooter type game. Very easy, easy, normal, hard, and very hard affect damage received and damage given. Same weapons, same amount of ammo, and same amount of enemies. The difference being how quick the player dies versus how quick the enemy dies.

Ai controlled dynamic auto scaling of difficulty? I prefer the old fashioned way and work it out myself.

I enjoy hard games.so get goot people.word up son

I'm all for dynamic difficulty or more depth in difficulty tuning. Or give me a slider. Ark or Minecraft did with resources why not percentage or +5 health or +6 damage sliders, AI range of suicial, acrobative, or others with movesets and types of enemies and leaders and grunts varying in the options or is that too complex for casuals so they won't add it. Or too much for Devs to expand upon.

Hence why I mentioned survival games I know offer them.

Then again Minecraft had a modded offer that in 1.8-1.13 I think for world gen, ore range and more. It was complex and simple as you wanted. Now 1.13+ buffet is the most eh template thing ever and sucks thanks Mojang you hired a modded and now their idea is gone and dumbed down.

Then again pistons are less launching people and more pushing blocks too.

I like having Dev like tools (but ranges they allow us to go for so it's not completely their level but still maintaining the settings we want while still following their respected rules and not cheating or are but still fairly.

I mean I play games for challenge with less health, upgrades and restrictions I put on my self with old games but don't modern as they are too deep in skill trees and difficulty to be worth it.

AI/heath/damage are so eh. Not much further sometimes but varies. I mean even Forza and GT AI for racing can be pretty eh. Some defending, fake outs, spin ours some may but not by much, I mean I can't even defend as a computer in b spec why Polyphony it's pretty simple to do and a basic feature of I can party/defend why not with cars as a computer player.

A lot of work for some genres don't happen.

Currently. Ubisoft was pushing it and they have well in some games but others I mean where is the movesets, where is the enemy types, where is the level design tweaks, puzzles, I mean Biomutant made me go so you can go gas immunity but not animal movesets traits like Space Station Silicon Valley an N64 game did food chain logic and animal ability for many animals. Why is Biomutant just an animal version of what humans do I get they are anthropomorphic but still it's pretty weak gameplay. Design and exploration and for quests to be more restrictive or accessibility by movesets to each region.

But that's probably my Gran Turismo challenge brain talking. I know the event restrictions well so even more restrictions I put in myself but well for animals their movesets are fun not sprinting on 4 legs but still heavy character weight like humans. I hate modern game design blandness lacking yet an N64 game made animals more interesting, same with Chameleon Twist a great tongue move that no grapple game has done since no chameleon game has done since of Scaler or Yooka Laylee even, if it wasn't clear modern games movesets suck and are repetitive and boring.

AI to respond more dynamically. Bosses maybe as more health then general enemies you get through. But even still. Maybe a blueprint for enemy types and they and their group over the radio to a higher rank or AI brains pass their battles to others of a nest or network.

Any insect or robotic enemies a game can go about that. I love brainstorming these things it's so fun. Will never happen though.

A Binary Domain or Vanquish sequel or unique new robot enemies in the game.

Whatever setting, time travel or just a SciFi city/future land environments.

I do play normal not hard but even those that play hard you o own it's stats, not puzzle difficulty (more eh puzzles unless dedicated puzzle games or auto skip buttons), level design difficulty and skips and changes, actually updating games to be more flexible not stats that are so easy to tweak values of then animations and movsets. Why because it's a lot of work and Devs won't do it (understandable why of course but would still be cool besides yes the amount of effort I know it will account for) but could. Been waitng years, still won't happen.

I think up a lot of game design and hardware changes, still won't happen no matter where I post or what I think and Devs don't read or care.

Too costly, not worth the effort and pushing games forward why bother.

I really hate when a game decides that since I died, it is going to make the boss easier. I would doubly hate it if did so without telling me and without an option to change. Getting stuck on challenging bosses and overcoming is the whole enjoyment. without that everything turns into vanilla paste.

SONY could save money, because that technology is around for few years and is called "Auto-level upscaling" and is ruining every modern RPG game.

It's great difficulty settings are getting better. Personally I have less time to play games. When I do I like to make progress not slaughtered every five mins lol 😅

Choose your difficulty:
Easy
Medium
Hard
Dynamic

Ewww, I'm afraid of change. My game, my choice. Let me do what I want with my game that I've bought. Why doesn't anyone just think outside the box a little bit and stop crying. The answer is simple.

I can live with it. Don't play many first party titles anyway.

So Resident Evil 2?

Hopefully you will be able to turn it off and rock a traditional difficulty setting. I'm not a fan of the handholding that already happens in a lot of modern games.

One of the things I hated about the last of us was that it was a collectathon and encouraged exploration but the second you wandered off the most direct path to the next cutscene you were bombarded with the "does someone need a hint?" messaging. It made me want to scream at the screen "I'm looking for resources and collectibles like I'm supposed to be doing."

Final Fantasy 7 remake also had a thing where if you stopped moving for a second one of the companions would just tell you exactly how to solve the puzzle and it drove me nuts. I would like to be challenged by the puzzles and not have my hand held.

Agree with everyone who says that this should be an option but never forced on the player. This would negatively affect the gaming experience for me in a MAJOR way.

They may not be for everyone, but the hardest difficulty settings are usually the best way to learn how to play a game at a high level. And it's much more satisfying when you succeed.

Also, it feels like this is meant to benefit developers more than players. If this system becomes a default, instead of creating thoughtful and well-balanced tiers of difficulty, they can just dial in the difficulty to whatever ceiling is most convenient for them and trust that an automated system will make it playable for people.

Broadly speaking, I’m not in support of this at all. I felt Final Fantasy XVI did some interesting things to manage difficulty, with in-game items available to specifically tailor the combat to the players liking.

I think difficulty levels in games does need looking at for various reasons.

There needs to be some balance. It's weird when basic grunt like enemies become more powerful just because you levelled up, they haven't gone through any progression, they have just been sat there waiting to get wrecked by you.

But often a big boss will be hard early, and by the time you've got your head around a game, a big boss will be a walk in the park, and not present the intended challenge to fit the narrative, which kind of kills immersion too.

I feel RPG developers can tackle this by being really detailed about their enemy types and hidden backstory elements. Is a level 7 werewolf any different to a level 20 werewolf, or is it just an easy way to reuse an enemy type? A need to be more creative with how enemies function in games would be welcome. But maybe not via random AI scaling. It has to be within the core of a game to work, I think.

This is another reason why I love Kingdom Come Deliverence. Your health never scales, improves or changes in any way. If you get stabbed in your fleshy bits, as a human, you are pretty much f***ed. And this applies to all of the enemies too. You can train to be stronger, and train to be more effective with a weapon, and acquire armour that suits your needs, but the same rule always applies. And if you are alone in the woods and get surrounded by 4 people who want to kill you, you best get to running away, because you can't just even those odds with a massive health bar, you have to be combat proficient to stand a chance, and even then you best be tactically sound, or have a big mace 😁

Ridiculous! If you need help with puzzles just use a guide! Also I don’t want the souls games being made easy for me. I want to grind my way through the bosses

Normally I'd say Sony have other things to put their efforts to but I have one example that stopped me playing a game I loved; Hollow Knight. I must have sunk 50+ hours in to that and got perhaps 60% thru; but there's no way my old eyes/brain/hands were going to get me to 100%. I literally missed almost half a game I loved just because the devs thought it cool to enforce 'git gud' on everyone.
Thus I salute Sony and welcome this change.
And now I am a PC gamer it reminds me to see if someone has modded in an easy mode I can go play........

Ask Diablo 4 devs how that's going, Sony. What a stupid idea and waste of money for them

It’s not a bad idea for a difficulty option but it should never be the standard.

Hope this means we see a reduction in instant puzzle hints.

Nah no thanks

@PSme It could be something like "easy, normal, hard and auto".

Played a game recently that adjusted the difficulty like this

It's the worst of both worlds

The less games that do this the better, Sony should not allow dumb decisions to just happen

I don’t know…I kind of like getting the crud kicked out of me by a tough boss, and then finally taking him down with SKILLZ.
I probably played against Young Xehanort for 2-3 hours before finally taking him down in the KHIII DLC a week or so ago, and it was really satisfying. I still want to beat all the other bosses at some point, but the thrill of victory is so much sweeter when you have to work for it.
I do understand why an adjustable difficulty would be nice (and I have used them before in different games), but the challenge keeps the memories alive longer.
Interesting idea though.

Elden ring and every other game that needs a difficulty level should have a difficulty option in it. People pay money to buy the game and should be entitled to adjust difficulty. It’s there as an option then. . It’s up to the person if they use it.

I’d personally continue to focus on accessibility options as recent games like GoW Ragnarok, Spider-Man 2 and the like have really excelled in allowing games to be played by a far wider audience with the option to tweak various parameters of their choosing. Ultimately gaming should be about entertainment and nobody should be ashamed or forced to play games they find too difficult. The “Git Gud” culture is basically just another bunch of egocentric dullards who’ve nothing better to do than berate others to feed their own inadequacies and it’s ultimately up the individual to make their own choices. That’s not to say I don’t like a challenge but, similarly, there are times I just want to switch off a play a more gentler session where I’m not left ranting, raving and tearing the few hairs I have left on my head out! As many before me have said if a gamer buys a game it’s not up to anyone else but them to say how, when, where and why they play it and forcing an extreme challenge on some gamers will inevitably turn them away …

… just focus on making games fun, innovative and not broken at launch and we’ll do the rest!

Meh, lots of places do patents for ideas that don't actually become reality.

Nope, I "build" a character that is ment to blast thru game so I can reach an item/mission/story section, I sure in the F do not want my game deciding to impede me....