August 8, 2026
Dark Souls of discourse
Making difficulty curves in games
Game difficulty drama erupts as players beg devs to stop making "normal" feel impossible
TLDR: The article says games should stop getting harder in one brutal line and instead alternate between teaching and testing players. Commenters were split between wanting clearer, kinder difficulty options and hating hidden systems that secretly tweak challenge, showing how personal game difficulty really is.
A game designer tossed out a surprisingly spicy idea: maybe games should stop treating challenge like a straight uphill climb. Instead of one giant "it only gets harder from here" line, the article argues for a "difficulty saw" — teach a new idea, let players breathe, then ramp things up again. In plain English: stop blocking people from the fun part just because they missed one tricky jump or puzzle.
But the real fireworks were in the comments, where players basically turned this into a full-on "what even is normal difficulty anymore?" showdown. One self-described cozy gamer said the so-called standard setting should not send them running to guides and walkthroughs, praising Baldur’s Gate 3 for having difficulty options that actually make sense. Another commenter wanted even more control, arguing the dream is adjusting parts of the game separately — especially in genres like city builders, where players can fine-tune the pain level instead of being trapped in one-size-fits-all suffering.
Then came the backlash. One commenter flatly rejected games that lock fun abilities behind story progress, saying multiplayer shooters, sports games, and strategy titles prove players don’t need this whole slow-drip structure to have a good time. And the biggest drama bomb? Dynamic difficulty — the idea that games secretly get easier or harder depending on how well you play. One player called it the designer’s "magic sauce," then immediately torched it as fake-feeling and "massively unrewarding." Bonus points for the EVE Online learning curve meme making an appearance, because of course every difficulty debate eventually turns into jokes about games being secretly a second job.
Key Points
- •The article argues that a single steadily increasing difficulty curve is not the best model for game progression.
- •It defines difficulty curves as the scaling of challenge across levels or puzzles and highlights the challenge developers face in judging difficulty accurately.
- •A tweet from Russell Kay about Lemmings is used to illustrate structuring challenge in sections or chapters rather than only by difficulty settings.
- •The article proposes a “difficulty saw” model, where challenge rises and resets around the introduction and mastery of specific mechanics.
- •It says smoothing difficulty should focus on removing unusually hard or easy spikes and giving each mechanic its own learning curve.