Keeping Your Game Tactical: Guide-Breaking Challenges

Game guides/walkthroughs are quite a double-edged sword, offering much that is both positive and negative to a full game's experience. 

One of the negatives that I want to address here is the way guides are almost mandatory in multiplayer games. In single player, it's easy to say "I like to figure it out myself", and you can just ignore the guide and have a good time. 

Multiplayer is different. In PvP , you can expect to have opponents who have read or watched strategies from the best players in the world, and if you don't do the same thing, you get repeatedly crushed. In PvE, your team mates will usually have read or watched these best-player strategies and will quickly become frustrated with you if you make them fail because you're trying to figure out what they already looked up.

Unfortunately, game guides (as well as similar things like expert streamers, or forum discussions) will quickly change a tactical experience into a pattern experience, especially in static PvE content. If you don't know what I mean by that, see my earlier piece here: https://indulgentcreativity.blogspot.com/2020/04/tactics-vs-patterns-why-mobas-beat-rtss.html.

A Twist on Dynamic Difficulty

I tend to have a negative opinion about most kinds of dynamic difficulty, primarily because it completely wrecks Intrinsic Story (https://indulgentcreativity.blogspot.com/2019/10/intrinsic-stories-in-video-games.html. Yes, my posts tend to build on each other). The idea of thinking I finally accomplished something awesome only to find out that it's because the game quietly made it easier basically makes the achievement meaningless. I know this is can of worms, but raising my primary objection to most dynamic difficulty setups allows me to contrast it to what I present below.

What I suggest here is instead of using dynamic difficulty to make something easier or harder for a given player, use it to transparently make options harder or easier based on how often they succeed. That probably sounds confusing, so on to the concrete example:

Suppose in Helldivers (Team-based Alien shooter missions, for those who haven't played it), every time a mission was cleared, the enemies there became slightly more resilient to the weapons used most often and slightly more vulnerable to those used the least. This information would be clear up front when choosing missions (i.e. Flamethrower is currently 25% weaker on this map, but sniper rifle is 18% stronger), so no pattern could ever stay on top for too long. Any meta that develops in the game will quickly become destroyed by this mechanic.

From an intrinsic story perspective, this can fit very well if presented correctly. In the case of Helldivers, the aliens evolve to be more resilient to whatever threatens them the most, so if they are always hit by the same tactics, they become increasingly difficult, but as they evolve to withstand their common threats, they become increasingly vulnerable to the weapons they aren't used to seeing.

In other games the benefits and weaknesses could be based on character classes, equipment choices, or even the user of certain abilities (Note than in Super Smash Brothers Melee, they actually do this where if you keep using the same move, it starts doing less damage. Worth mentioning even though it doesn't really fit the profile of the games I'm describing).

Alas, It's Always a Tradeoff

I'm guessing that some people read that and thought, "Yes! actual strategy instead of just following the meta!" while others thought, "Great, now I will have to argue strategy with my team mates every single game." 

And I agree with both. It's a hard trade-off, which means that it's definitely not fit for every game--perhaps not even most. Or it can be used only for certain content or modes within a game. But if a game wants to favor tactics over patterns--or if a game wants to favor individuality over conformity--this could be a very effective way to do it.