What subjective rules determine difficulty for you?

[professor ganson]

We all make judgments about the relative difficulty of the shmups we play. What rules, if any, do you think you are relying on in making those judgments?

For myself, I often ask how many hours of play are required for me to get to level 4 on one credit:

Incredibly difficult: possibly I'll never get to level 4 (e.g. DDP DOJ, Mars Matrix)
Very hard: 15-20 hours (Dragon Blaze: haven't actually put in the time, but this is a probable estimate)
Hard: 10-15 hours (Gunbird 2)
Medium: 5-10 hours (Shikigami no Shiro II)
Easy: 0-5 hours (Stikers 1945 I)

This rule by itself isn't adequate for my purposes:
1. On this rule Strikers 1945 II would be easy and Battle Garegga Easy to Medium, but these games get REALLY hard later IMO. Ideally my rule would be: How many hours does it take to 1CC? But since at this early point in my shmupping career I have only a couple 1CCs, such a rule would be useless to me in practice.
2. I am horizontally challenged, so I need to recalibrate for making judgments about horizontal shmups.

Anyway, please share any thoughts you have about how you make judgments of difficulty.

[BulletMagnet]

For me it's basically how far "percentage-wise" I can get through the game...in my mind, getting to stage 4 in a game with 5 stages total is different than getting to stage 4 in a game with 10 stages. I guess I'd also factor in how consistently I can get to said stage...then there's the whole matter of "how hard is a game to 1CC" versus "how hard is a game to score well in," which is a whole new ball of wax altogether.

[sven666]

i use a similar measure, i judge the game by how far i get on the first 3-4 plays and how much of the scoring system i understand.

on a sidenote i cant believe you put DOJ and mars matrix in the same kategory.. DOJ is a real killer.. but MM isnt all that hard once you understand how it works properly.

[professor ganson]

on a sidenote i cant believe you put DOJ and mars matrix in the same kategory.. DOJ is a real killer.. but MM isnt all that hard once you understand how it works properly.

Well, that's excellent to hear. I love MM and would really like to put more time into it. I'm glad to hear that more time might actually lead to progress. So far everytime I get to level 3 I just get squashed straightaway.

[Rob]

Eh, it took me much longer to 1 credit MM than DOJ. The difficulty level isn't that different, unless by abusing the mosquito (I suppose, could never see the game that mutilated).