The principle of it seems pretty neat in theory. After a short calibration phase, everyone get's to play a game that is tailered to his specific skills. That way, everyone should be playing a game that is challenging, but neither frustatingly hard, nor overly easy.
The problem is though, that in reality, it doesn't work.
Now let's get back to the game I was playing: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Specifically the two story modes. Nobody cares that the story is shallow, badly written, seriously badly dubbed in german and about four times the length it should have, as it has this one flaming flaw that overshadows everything else: the difficulty scaling, which overrides the difficulty setting you chose in the options menue.
The premise is that it starts of easy, but get's harder with every opponent you knock out, and gets easier everytime you have to press 'O' to continue after a lost fight. Now what really is borked with that is that the rise in skill is too steep, leading to following situation: You win three fights easily only uppercutting the oblivious enemies, but the fourth fight is suddenly extremely hard and the AI just kicks your sorry butt around the screen in one long combo until you're out.
Now beat'em-ups getting harder with each victory is pretty much the concept of the genre's single player mode from it's very beginnings, so I have no problem with that. In every other beat'em-up, a tough enemy is a means for me to hone the skills I have with that particular character I chose, learning new moves and tactics to overcome the opponent.
And this personal skill gain is completely defeated by the level scaling, as once I lose, I don't have to look for combos that give me the edge, but simply button mash the now miraculously retarded AI.
What's wrong with me chosing my level of challenge on my own via the options? Thank god only the story mode is plagued with that. So stay clear of it.
Another example of difficulty scaling done badly is the Need for Speed series, especially since it went "underground": The AI rubber banding. That's what I call the phenonemon of the AI cars always being faster than you when they are behind you, but being slower when they are in front of you, causing the AI to oscillate around you like they were strapped to you with an invisible rubberband.
Again, in theory that system provides a challenge for every player, as you can't lose without hope of winning, but yet can't get away too easily. The problem is though, that again, it actually hinders the player in getting more skillful with the game. If you crash three fourths of the race in every object on and off the track, but drive the last fourth well, you win easily. If you blitz through a race but happen to get caught somewhere in the last corners, you lose. In some parts of the series, it went even so far that races were easier if you refused to upgrade your car.
Not only does this system, like most scaling systems, reward you for playing badly, but it also provides only a fake challenge, as once you're overtaken it's usually pretty easy to retake the lead from the AI which left their brains right at your rear bumper, unless they catch you late in the race.
Another bad example of scaling is TES 4: Oblivion. I don't think I have to say more on that one.
Now, as I like to think myself as being fair, I'd like to share a list of games that did scaling well, and explain why. Only I couldn't think of one single game.
No comments:
Post a Comment