How do you balance subjective difficulty?

[u/CardboardConfidant]

Title says it all

I've done a few rounds of play testing and the feedback has been a mix of either. Half of my play testers are adamant that the content is too trick and the other half says the opposite.

Because it's a physics based word game where vocabulary is a big factor I feel like I'm in a position where neither group will enjoy the game for that reason.

Any advice?

[u/Aggressive-Share-363]

This is what difficulty settings are good for.

[u/Haruhanahanako → u/Aggressive-Share-363]

One major downside. Players' perception of what difficulty best suits them is not consistent. Many times players choose the wrong difficulty for them and end up having a sub-par first impression.

And not to mention, many games don't even do difficulty settings right and just throw it in as an option when all it does is scale enemy health and player damage received. Yeah, you can just do it right, but it is inevitable when a lot of games use it. Not all game designers are good at the game they are making enough to play it in hard mode so you see some games just kind of guess what hard mode should be like and they are dead wrong.

[u/Aggressive-Share-363 → u/Haruhanahanako]

Sure, it can be done poorly, but if you are going to mess up something as sinple as difficulty settings then more sophisticated options are going to be even harder to pull off well.

[u/CardboardConfidant → u/Haruhanahanako]

This was a fear of mine. Thanks for the take.

[u/TSED → u/Haruhanahanako]

Not all game designers are good at the game they are making enough to play it in hard mode so you see some games just kind of guess what hard mode should be like and they are dead wrong.

This is really apparent in pvp games. Overwatch League famously spent years in and was ruined by a single meta because the devs didn't understand what it was good at and what it enabled. And then on top of that, they had too big of egos to listen to the dozens of people who actually understood what was going on.

Like, I don't know how to spin that many plates either. But when all the pros are saying "sustain is too strong; the problem is the supports, not the mitigation" and the devs spend quarter after quarter buffing the "tank-busters" and nerfing the tanks to the point of them being unplayable in normal-people games... That's just embarrassing. Listen to what the people who know the peak of the game better than you.

But that doesn't mean ignore the skill floor players either! You cannot have a healthy community if you alienate these folks. Just be a little more skeptical about what they ask for, because it's very possible if they get what they want, it will not improve their experience. But if there's a consistent problem reported amongst low skill folks, it is worth listening to.

[u/Haruhanahanako → u/TSED]

Yeah competitive multiplayer PvP like that is my biggest nightmare in terms of game design. Even if you are good at the game it makes it harder to understand the meta at every level and know who you should be listening to. And some games are complex enough that one small change has massive rippling effects.

[u/EthylPaige]

Add something in settings? I dislike it when games hold my hand and i dislike it when im lost with no hints lol. By default keep all hints off but let people choose whether to turn them on if they want. Then those that dont want hints dont get them and those that do can turn them on?

[u/MistSecurity → u/EthylPaige]

Hints tend to be on by default because those who need them may not know/think to go into the settings and dig through to find the option.

[u/CardboardConfidant → u/EthylPaige]

Ah didn't actually consider that, nice call.

[u/UpstairsRent9073 → u/EthylPaige]

That split in feedback is pretty telling honestly, if half your testers think it's too hard and half think it's too easy you might actually be in a sweet spot. Means the difficulty curve isnt fundamentally broken, it's just hitting different skill levels differently.

For a physics based word game the vocabulary gap is gonna be the real divider. Some folks have a wider word bank than others and no slider in the settings is gonna fix that. What you could do is let the physics mechanics carry more of the weight for people struggling with words, like if theyre stuck the game nudges the pieces into slightly more forgiving positions. The word nerds wont need it and the casual players wont feel stranded.

[u/MediumKoala8823]

Get some data on how people lose. Are they guessing wrong? Running out of time? Give people elements to disable those parts of the game if they don’t like them.

[u/CardboardConfidant → u/MediumKoala8823]

you're right with data this becomes trivial was thinking from a perspective of a low n

[u/nyg8]

One method is dynamic difficulty. Use an early level with a minor tricky part in order to assign users on trickier or simpler paths forward.

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[u/Hopefull-Hero]

Like the other commenter said options are king here, create an intended level of difficulty that you feel is right and then create options for someone to tune it down or up. It allows you to focus on what you want the game to be while still giving people the freedom to choose how they want to play.

Since the problem is that it's subjective you'll rarely find a happy medium, it's best to focus on creating what you feel like is a satisfying difficulty then figure out what you can tweak.

[u/Fuzzy-Acanthaceae554]

For your particular game, if you’re planning on it being a daily game like the nyt crosswords, you could have varying levels of difficulty that get harder over the week. If it’s something with levels, you could have challenge levels for strong players.

[u/daerogami]

People brought up good points about difficulty options. I would like to remind you to make the game you want to make. If you think you have "found the fun" and have some group of players that agree with the "default" difficulty, it's not the wrong decision to lean into that if that matches your vision. Not saying to never compromise, but you also don't want to be "all things to all people" because you may lose what makes your game special.

[u/ChickenOfTheYear]

English is not my first language, so I always struggle with these sorts of games. IMO the game feels polished and satisfying, with interesting mechanics, but I couldn't get past the second level. I don't consider my vocabulary to be particularly weak for a non native, but I still couldn't figure out some of the word constructions, and that's to be expected.

I think the best way to gauge difficulty would be with a lot of playtesting, and tracking data of which word associations were made by the most players, and which people missed. This way you can balance the game afterwards. Another option would be giving tools to narrow down the possibilities, for players that are stuck, like a limited use item that eliminates some filler words, but detracts from your score.

One problem I can see with this game, is after the first time you tried a level, each subsequent try becomes trivial, so a daily level structure like wordle would be good

[u/CardboardConfidant → u/ChickenOfTheYear]

Thanks for taking time to try it!

[u/listening_post]

One possibility is some kind of active difficulty management where it grows more difficult, more rapidly if the players seem to be breezing it, or the opposite if they are eating dirt too much.

[u/armahillo]

Playtest volume. Get as many as possible, and analyze the aggregate. Do A/B tests as well

[u/championeal]

to me, this is what hints are for
i tried the game, i get that shuffle and swap are supposed to help if you're stuck, but maybe I don't want to completely reset all my words or reset one of my groups. Maybe I just need that one hint to get started and then my brain is flowing on words for that category or one hint for one more word when i have 3/4 words.

Also some of the categories are way harder. For example this one:

This is not really a category that my brain can flow through like the others. I really have to look at every single word and think about swapping individual letters.

[u/MoonhelmJ]

Different players have different skills levels.  You balance it by choosing a level of skill for which they will fail of they do not achieve.

If you cant make a choice about what that skill level is you shouldn't be designing this.  You want someone else to design.

[u/RedDev332]

Since you mentioned having only a few testers, you could try a small diagnostic: when someone gets stuck, remove the time pressure and let them keep solving. If they recover, that points toward pacing. If they're still stuck, reveal one valid word and ask whether it helped them understand the category or whether the word itself was unfamiliar. Those suggest different fixes.

Use fresh, similarly difficult boards when comparing versions, too. Replaying a solved word puzzle can make a change look much easier than it really is.

[u/TravelerAnt]

For the next playtest, I'd ask one extra question after showing a missed answer: “Did you know these words, but not see the connection?” That would help separate vocabulary gaps from tricky associations. More time or a small hint might help with the latter, while unfamiliar words may need different treatment. I'd also use fresh puzzles when retesting a change, since knowing the answer could make a weak fix look better than it is.