There's been a week-long explosion about people tweeting about difficulty. People seem to come down in one of a few camps, none of which is even vaguely similar to my own opinions. So let me make a big essay about it.
Difficulty is a very messy term with a lot of tangled-up components.
For example, some people say that some games can't let you skip difficult parts or make them easier because those difficult parts are teaching you some aspect of the gameplay you will need. The part you're having a hard time with is hard because you haven't actually learned how to use the double-jump or balance your theme park budget or something.
My rebuttal to that is: who cares? Who cares if a player doesn't get some aspect of your game?
The answer is: the problem with "cheating" (or super-easy difficulty modes) is that most players will end up sliding through your game without enough friction. They won't have fun, because there's no traction to engage with. Super Mario is a lot less fun when you can just fly through every level as Shinypants Mario. Subnautica is a lot less engaging if you have all the modules at the start and can just build anything and dive as deep as you like. These games aren't designed to really be played that way, so there's no player engagement if the player tries to engage that way.
If an RPG is too easy, the battles still consume time but don't have any depth or payoff.
This is a valid concern. Your game is designed to be played a certain way. Some players might be better or worse at that kind of play, but how can you pull them up to the difficulty level where they'll enjoy your game? Is it possible? Maybe this player will never learn to double-jump or balance a theme park budget. Maybe they literally can't for some reason. What should you do then? Just sneer and say 'git gud'?
Rather than sneering, some people try to solve this with adaptive difficulty. If the player fails too much, the game becomes easier. If they succeed too much, the game becomes harder. The problem with this approach is that players have different concepts of what 'too much' is, and if the game interrupts their flow at the wrong time, it's considerably worse than simply being too hard or too easy.
The New Super Mario games are a good example of that. I like having a hard time with these games, which is good, because I suck at them. I tend to die a few times before I come even close to beating a level.
Just when I'm getting into the groove, the game goes "BLOIP!" and pops up a bright, shiny thing that follows me around begging me to use it to beat the level as Shinypants Mario. It's "optional", in that I can keep trying without it. But it's there, and it's the game telling me that it has decided it was mistaken in asking me to beat that level, it's clear I can't beat that level, and I should just skip it.
That's incredibly deflating. The game judged me, and it decided I shouldn't be playing the game like everyone else. I should just skip it.
So I did.
After the third time it appeared, I put the game away and never played another New Super Mario game. I couldn't keep interested when it kept derailing my groove just when I was getting into it.
That's a pretty clear example, but I'll constantly adjust difficulty on my own, regardless of what any game thinks. I might decide to take suboptimal characters into battle because I think it'd be fun to win with them, specifically. I might decide to play as a pacifist. I might decide to climb that clearly-unclimbable mountain. I might throw pebbles at an enemy until it falls over instead of shooting it just because it's fun. I might beat Lavos with a mop.
How will the game interpret this? How will it auto-adjust my difficulty?
I can tell you: it gets scrambled and completely drops the ball. I haven't played an "auto-adjusting difficulty" game that didn't actively annoy me by adjusting it wrong, and the first mod I install is one to change how that works.
Phew.
So what's my opinion, in the end?
I think most people's concept of "difficulty" makes a big assumption: it assumes that you, the developer, should dictate how players play your game.
I understand that you, the developer, have built the game with the intention that it should be played in specific ways. And I understand that there are limits to how far that can stretch. Your puzzle game can't be made easier, because the puzzles are the point. Your score attack arcade game can't have a 'tourist' mode, because that makes no sense.
... Except puzzles are not the point, and tourist modes make sense.
What if a YouTuber wants to put together game footage? What if someone wants to play it with their toddler? What if an expert just wants to try one particular thing over and over? What if my controller broke and I'm stuck trying to control it with a keyboard? What if I'm testing a mod? What if I'm teaching a friend?
I think it's fine to let players play however they want.
Recommend specific difficulties, sure. Your intended play style is probably the best one, in that it's balanced and has good pacing. But if I want to short-circuit your game and play it in a dumb way... why not let me?
The games I keep coming back to are the ones with the best options menu. Kerbal, Space Engineers, Skyrim (via mods). Sometimes I completely disable core systems. Some days I play them one way, some days another way... and sometimes the game isn't balanced and the pacing is screwed up. That's OK.
I made it that way on purpose.
Because now it's my game.
