Should arcade style shmups have a small difficulty curve?

[WarpedByTheNHK]

When I say arcade style here, I mean games that don't have save points. In other words, games where you go all the way back to the beginning of the game if you want to shoot for a higher score.

Second, I want to narrow down what I mean by difficulty curve. I actually meant that no part of the game should be substantially more difficult than the average difficulty of the game (I don't mean difficulty settings, those are mostly irrelevant to this discussion). I realize that is not the same idea as a difficulty curve, but I didn't know what to call this idea.

Finally, I will explain why I think that no part of an arcade style shmup should be substantially easier than the average part of the game. Because the player has to play through every part of the game every time they play, they will inevitably play even the easiest part of the game many many times. If that part is too much easier than the rest of the game, they will master it long before they can really handle the harder parts of the game. After these parts are mastered, it can be very boring to have to slog through them every time you shoot for a new high score or a 1cc. This problem is alleviated somewhat by a practice mode, but I still believe that arcade style shmup are best off having relatively uniform difficulty throughout.

[Immryr]

nah it should get progressively harder imo

[Shepardus]

The problem of players getting bored with the first few stages of the game as they get better is alleviated by adding depth to the scoring that allows them to keep improving even after they can survive consistently. To take a good example, Armed Police Batrider's first stage is pretty trivial if you're not going for score, but getting well over 1 million points like the top players do is much more difficult and requires performing a wide variety of tricks and optimizations. The game as a whole works like this too, if you just play for survival the game is going to get progressively more difficult from stage to stage thanks to both the level design and the rank system, but playing for score it's all over the place (though still generally progressing upwards in difficulty if I'm not mistaken).

This applies to many other games too, like Ikaruga's chaining (learn to survive, then learn to chain the earlier stages as you learn to survive the later stages), Dodonpachi (same thing), even things as simple as Cho Ren Sha 68k where learning the earlier stages better will leave you more lives in the later stages.

Also, if your levels are really great, I won't mind playing them over and over again.

I'm not a fan of a constant difficulty "curve" because without a training mode for individual stage practice, it's not going to avoid the issue of people becoming bored with the first few stages anyway. People are going to get a lot more practice on the first stage than the last stage because they see it every credit, so even if every stage is about the same difficulty they'll still master the first stage earlier than the last. In addition, a constant difficulty across stages messes with the "inter-credit" pacing, which, for me at least, leads to me burning out on the game a lot faster than I do with games with an increasing difficulty curve. What I mean by that is that if I play multiple credits back to back, the time spent on easier stages is sort of a way to unwind from the tension of the previous credit and take pleasure in the stuff you're good at, which you don't really get if everything's hard. With a constant difficulty, if the game's above my skill level, every stage will be a struggle to learn, which gets tired quickly, and if every stage is below my skill level, then it's just too easy to offer much of an experience learning it.

[WarpedByTheNHK]

The problem of players getting bored with the first few stages of the game as they get better is alleviated by adding depth to the scoring that allows them to keep improving even after they can survive consistently. To take a good example, Armed Police Batrider's first stage is pretty trivial if you're not going for score, but getting well over 1 million points like the top players do is much more difficult and requires performing a wide variety of tricks and optimizations. The game as a whole works like this too, if you just play for survival the game is going to get progressively more difficult from stage to stage thanks to both the level design and the rank system, but playing for score it's all over the place (though still generally progressing upwards in difficulty if I'm not mistaken).

This applies to many other games too, like Ikaruga's chaining (learn to survive, then learn to chain the earlier stages as you learn to survive the later stages), Dodonpachi (same thing), even things as simple as Cho Ren Sha 68k where learning the earlier stages better will leave you more lives in the later stages.

Also, if your levels are really great, I won't mind playing them over and over again.

While I agree with you to some extent, since the problem is mostly relegated to playing for survival, it doesn't mean that it is nonexistent. What point does a difficulty curve serve? It primarily only makes games worse when playing for survival, and has very little to no effect (positive or negative) on score chasers.

[Shepardus]

Just finished an edit adding an extra paragraph to my post above. But basically the difficulty curve serves the purpose of pacing, not just within a credit but also between credits. I don't know how other people feel about it, but I get burned out really easily when I play something that's hard all the way through and do so repeatedly (and bored if it's easy all the way through, unless the game's just really really good) (on a side note, this is one reason I don't like Super Meat Boy). Having easy parts and hard parts gives more of an ebb and flow that sits much better with me. It also better conveys through gameplay that feeling of adventuring into an unknown world that gets more sinister the deeper you dive into it.

[ACSeraph]

I'm on the side of progressively increasing difficulty, but it shouldn't be overly drastic. Something like the original Darius feels perfect to me: starts hard and gets harder. But something like Daifukkatsu is garbage when played for survival because it's ridiculously easy and then CAVE!!! right at the end. Same case for Deathsmiles. Makes the game a slog to me, since the only thing that really holds any weight in the game is the final stage.

Also agree completely with Shepardus that score play plays an important role in alleviating the slog (as seen in the aforementioned Daifukkatsu), but you need to have balance, because not everyone is necessarily going to enjoy your score system. DDP in general is really fun for me to play as a straight survival oriented shooter, but I despise the scoring and I doubt I will ever enjoy it. So in this case, the survival pacing can make or break the game for me.

[Squire Grooktook]

Honestly, I prefer games that have small difficulty rises, but multiple difficulty selections.

IE Touhou Lunatic. Each stage is only incrementally harder then the last, but it starts out pretty hard as is.

[Bananamatic]

yes
futari ultra has a small difficulty curve too

[Perikles]

I think it really depends on which mood a game wants to evoke. The arcade Gun.Smoke for example is nail-bitingly tough from start to finish, even the first stage demands absolute concentration and a steady hand. It suits the ruthless nature of the wild west theme extraordinarily well that every single one of those bandits out there is a lethal threat that needs to be fought savagely.

Most games will give the player a bit more time to get used to the controls, general gameplay and atmosphere, I think that it'd be detrimental for, say, an Irem or Toaplan game to immediately start out on a challenging note. It'd be very frustrating if you had to memorize even the very first stage to get anywhere in this kind of game.

Extreme difficulty spikes should be avoided, though (I'm thinking of Cyber Core and Violent Soldier, despite the fact that I love the latter one's final stages), as well as inexplicable fluctuations (i.e. stage 3 is much harder than stage 4 and 5, while stage 6 is even harder than that and the final stage). There should be some sort of a red thread throughout a game, small irregularities are certainly forgivable.

Something like the original Darius feels perfect to me: starts hard and gets harder.

That's interesting! I always was under the assumption that it was easier than the mildly challenging arcade Darius II. Gotta check it out in a timely manner I suppose.

[ACSeraph]

I always was under the assumption that it was easier than the mildly challenging arcade Darius II.

I find Darius II much more frustrating than the original, but it's challenging in a completely different way. II is about route memorization and little else, whereas one is about learning how to properly deal with different types of enemy formations, and then dealing with various combinations of those formations at the same time. It's more similar to a beat 'em up actually, as weird as that sounds. So in Darius 1 you can do different courses even without strict memorization, as long as you are good at the core combat mechanics of the game. This definitely isn't true of II.

With your massive "portfolio" of clears I imagine Darius one won't give you much of a fight, but it's an amazingly fun and stylish game regardless.

[chum]

To take a good example, Armed Police Batrider's first stage is pretty trivial if you're not going for score, but getting well over 1 million points like the top players do is much more difficult and requires performing a wide variety of tricks and optimizations.

It's rather easy actually, by far the easiest stage in the game.

The idea that the first few stages has to be trivial (for survival) is one of my problems with most of these games. From a design perspective I think it's best to have the first stage give you at least something to chew on, and this is dreadfully uncommon. I get that devs don't wanna scare away newcomers right away, this is why difficulty settings should, in theory, fix the problem. Except they almost never do. I really don't want to feel bored while playing these games, which means they should start out harder.

Scoring is a different story and tends to make the first stage engaging in more elaborate games, which is obviously a good thing, but I don't see why you can't have a higher starting difficulty as well. Even in difficult scoring games there comes a time where the first stage is just routine, at that point it's important that it poses a challenge. Most STGs fail spectacularly at this (most games, actually)

[WarpedByTheNHK]

I'm not a fan of a constant difficulty "curve" because without a training mode for individual stage practice, it's not going to avoid the issue of people becoming bored with the first few stages anyway. People are going to get a lot more practice on the first stage than the last stage because they see it every credit, so even if every stage is about the same difficulty they'll still master the first stage earlier than the last. In addition, a constant difficulty across stages messes with the "inter-credit" pacing, which, for me at least, leads to me burning out on the game a lot faster than I do with games with an increasing difficulty curve. What I mean by that is that if I play multiple credits back to back, the time spent on easier stages is sort of a way to unwind from the tension of the previous credit and take pleasure in the stuff you're good at, which you don't really get if everything's hard. With a constant difficulty, if the game's above my skill level, every stage will be a struggle to learn, which gets tired quickly, and if every stage is below my skill level, then it's just too easy to offer much of an experience learning it.

The first argument doesn't really make sense to me. I was never advocating for the removal of practice mode. Even with a practice mode though, people are forced to play the first stage every time they do a full run, and that is why I want it to be just mentally and physically engaging as every other part of the game. If I need to wind down after a hard run, I like to take a break from the game entirely. When I am playing a skill based game like a shmup, I want to be challenged at every moment of gameplay, so I guess we just have different philosophies (On a side note, I really liked Super Meat Boy lol), and can't be expected to believe the same thing about this issue.

[Illyrian]

Arcade games always need to have difficulty spikes to take people's money.

They need to be far enough into the game that people don't feel cheated, but still tough enough to take practice. When I was a shmuppy noob the second half of Futari's stage 3 was this for me. Killed credits but was far enough in to be worth playing to again.

[davyK]

When I was a shmuppy noob the second half of Futari's stage 3 was this for me. Killed credits but was far enough in to be worth playing to again.

You and everyone else. Whilst I can now normally get to level 4 , mid way of level 3 still freaks me out.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Having a wall like *that* point in Futari stage 3 can also turn players away, but CAVE games tend to have them somewhere. Stage 4 Donpachi anyone? It's like you're suddenly playing a bullet hell version of Truxton! Satisfying as hell when you work a route, likewise when you make it through the gauntlet towards the end of the stage.

Ultimately, it is in the best interest of arcade developers to end your credit at some point before the finish line. It's getting that balance up to that point right - the game has to be fun/interesting to still play through up to the wall and then grind through it. I still occasionally get wiped out in Futari stage 2 when the slowdown stops and that shit is as frustrating as a difficulty wall.

Then you have things like DFK's final stage, which is as much a jump from the rest of the game as novice mode is to standard.