History Main / DynamicDifficulty

* The ''Videogame/MegaManZero'' series assigns you a rank after every mission based on how well you completed it. If you fought a boss while having an '''A''' or '''S''' rank, the boss used new, stronger attacks [[VictorGainsLosersPowers which Zero would gain for himself]] after winning the battle.
* The ''Videogame/SpyroTheDragon'' series scales difficulty depending on the skill of the player. Unfortunately, this results in an individual playing on the lowest difficulty setting being incapable of completing the [[VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon third game]] 100%. Thankfully the third game also has cheat codes to adjust the difficulty for you (O, Square, Right, Left, Right, Square, O, X for Medium, and O, Square, Right, Left, Right, Square, O, Square for Hard).
* Perhaps the earliest advertised use of this is in ''VideoGame/{{Gods}}'', which would at predetermined points give the player a "help bonus" if he was doing poorly, or spawn additional enemies if he was unhurt.

** The ''VideoGame/{{Police 911}}'' spinoff give this a SequelDifficultySpike: It's extremely fast, with [[CatAndMouseBoss bosses running and shooting around]]. Players have to aim more precisely in order to defeat the boss.

Implementing DynamicDifficulty can be a nice equalizer, allowing players to just play the game at their own pace without worrying about difficulty, and it also frees the game designers from having to spend time tuning the difficulty since the game will tune itself. It can also address the problem of UnstableEquilibrium by preventing a player from gaining a runaway advantage. It is considered good design practice in tabletop and board games, as a player will likely not enjoy such a game if they feel they have no chance of ever catching up or winning.

The downside of DynamicDifficulty is that, like AI, implementing ''good'' dynamic difficulty is hard. There is no 100% reliable way to tell how good a player is, other than to check in-game metrics and try to interpret their success from those. This can often go wrong in unforeseen and unexpected ways, particularly if the player does something the game wasn't expecting.

[[{{Speedrun}} Speedrunners]], on the other hand, delight in exploiting the nuances of adaptive difficulty settings and will happily use them to manipulate the game into doing whatever is fastest for them.

Not to be confused with SchizophrenicDifficulty, where the difficulty goes up and down unpredictably, regardless of the player's performance. If the single-player mode has dynamic difficulty but the multiplayer mode doesn't, this can result in a MultiplayerDifficultySpike (although this can be mitigated with matchmaking players with other players of similar skill).

* ''Videogame/AIWarFleetCommand'' and ''AI War 2'' both have a particular version of this as the selling point. AI Progress (AIP) is a counted measure you are always aware of, that rises whenever you claim a planet for yourself from the AI, among other actions that either alarm the AI or make it think now's the chance to finish off the problem that is you. The higher it rises, the more tools the AI deploys to deal with you, and the more of its near-endless resources it reassigns from dealing with [[UltimateEvil whatever is outside the galaxy]] to taking care of you. As a result, even in bolder high AIP runs you need to play the guerilla game, because if you just conquer everything you see the AI ''will'' stomp you. The sequel makes it track even more variables, and gives it more to respond with; the AI even gets GodzillaThreshold options if you're ''really'' running wild (or another faction is), in the form of Extragalactic War vessels that are nastier than anything else in its arsenal.

There are also some players who simply don't ''want'' an adaptive challenge, be they a casual gamer who enjoys the satisfaction of kicking ass on Easy mode, or the hardcore masochist who will happily fight ThatOneBoss over and over again on the hardest difficulty and will feel cheated if the game just "lets them win".

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In the worst case, this can result in DoWellButNotPerfect, where players learn that the game will punish them if they are ''too'' good, and thus will deliberately refuse to play their best game. [[{{Speedrun}} Speedrunners]], on the other hand, delight in exploiting the nuances of adaptive difficulty settings and will happily use them to manipulate the game into doing whatever is fastest for them.

There are also some players who simply don't ''want'' an adaptive challenge, be they a casual gamer who enjoys the satisfaction of kicking ass on Easy mode, or the hardcore masochist who will happily fight ThatOneBoss over and over again on Hard mode and will feel cheated if the game just "lets them win".

One common solution is to allow the player to select their own difficulty level, but this can be unsatisfying in its own way - it might make the player feel like they aren't playing the "true" game, or feel inadequate for not being able to play the harder difficulties. (Particularly if the game [[EasyModeMockery insults them over it]]).

When this is invoked, it's important to implement a ranking system so the better players can feel special. That way, casual players feel good about beating the game, and veterans still feel challenged trying to get the [[RankInflation SSS-level]] and beating the TrueFinalBoss.

On the other hand, some players inevitably prefer kicking ass on Easy and will get annoyed that the game won't let them, while others would rather play on Hard even if if means repeating ThatOneBoss 20 times and will feel cheated if the game "lets them win." More opportunistic players will quickly learn to intentionally play [[DoWellButNotPerfect just well enough to continue but no better]] to keep the difficulty down.

A certain measure of Dynamic Difficulty is considered good design practice in tabletop (particularly board) games, as major principles of design are "Don't make a player think they're definitely going to lose" and "Don't make a player ''wish'' they'd lose ''as long as it happens right now and this stupid game is finally over''". As it is very easy to create an UnstableEquilibrium where gathering resources leads to being able to gather more resources later on, many games consciously employ a headwind effect that subtly slows down the leading player by having them auto-targeted by certain attacks or by awarding benefits according to reverse placement.

This is very similar to RubberBandAI. Can cause problems such as EmptyLevels. The opposite of UnstableEquilibrium, where the game gets harder if the player is doing badly. Not to be confused with SchizophrenicDifficulty, where the difficulty goes up and down unpredictably, regardless of the player's performance.

Other human players won't adjust themselves, which sometimes results in a MultiplayerDifficultySpike, though this can be lessened with matchmaking that groups players of the same skill level together.

* DifficultyByAcceleration, when the gameplay speeds up as you progress.
* LevelScaling, when enemies and/or bosses become tougher the higher your level is.
* MercyMode, when the game becomes '''easier''' in response to you failing frequently.

Video games attract all kinds of people, from the casual gamer to the hardcore [[TournamentPlay tournament champion]]. But a game that provides a satisfying play experience for one may be frustratingly difficult or yawningly easy for another.

Thus, some games adjust their difficulty level behind the scenes to match the player (ignoring the fact people can just adjust difficulty levels).

** The ''VideoGame/{{Police 911}}'' spinoff [[SequelDifficultySpike take this]] UpToEleven: It's extremely fast, with [[CatAndMouseBoss bosses running and shooting around]]. Players have to aim more precisely in order to defeat the boss.

* ''[[VideoGame/LegoAdaptationGame Lego Star Wars II]]'', ''Indiana Jones'', and ''Batman'' feature "Adaptive Difficulty" which merely affects the amount of Franchise/{{Lego}} studs you lose upon death depending on how well you play, which can go up to a very high amount.

->''"And then there was our annoying way of making players earn continues [in the first game.] This was a major mistake. It makes players that need lives fail while boring players that don’t. It is the opposite of good game balance. [...]We had realized that if a novice player died a lot of times, we could give them an [extra hit point] at the start of a round and they had a better chance to progress. And we figured out that if you died a lot when running from the boulder, we could just slow the boulder down a little each time. If you died too much, a fruit crate would suddenly become a continue point. Eventually everyone succeeded at Crash. Our mantra became 'help weaker players without changing the game for the better players'."''

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* ''VideoGame/{{Raiden}}'', ''VideoGame/RaidenFighters'' and ''VideoGame/FireShark'' are notorious for this, frustrating would-be 1cc players in the form of the tank/gunboat enemies. If you do well enough (survive long enough, amass loads of points, get lots of powerups/bombs), the tanks/gunboats that initially have poor reaction time as well as {{Painfully Slow Projectile}}s start shooting you with faster and more accurate shots ''as soon as they come onscreen''. If you're doing well enough, you'll start meeting up with [[FanNickname so-called]] "[[ImprobableAimingSkills Sniper]] [[DemonicSpiders Tanks]]".

* ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'': Known formally as "Adaptive Difficulty", it's been a part of several major games in the series.
** In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'', playing well will increase the amount of spawned enemies and improve their AI; conversely, playing poorly and dying often reduces the number of foes and disables most of their AI. Ammo and health item rarity is also affected by how well you are doing. If you are well stocked on ammo, it'll drop much less frequently, but if you are starved for ammo, it'll drop more frequently to help avoid making the game unwinnable.

* The ExpansionPack to ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizationsII'' can be set to feature massive events that intentionally destabilize the playing field from time to time to keep things interesting. Additionally, the player can also tweak the personality, competence, and [[KarmaMeter starting alignment]] of the factions.

%%* ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'' has the option to turn adaptive bot AI on and off, and it gets quite eerie sometimes...

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->''"And then there was our annoying way of making players earn continues [in the first game.] This was a major mistake. It makes players that need lives fail while boring players that don’t. It is the opposite of good game balance. [...]We had realized that if a novice player died a lot of times, we could give them an [extra hit point] at the start of a round and they had a better chance to progress. And we figured out that if you died a lot when running from the boulder, we could just slow the boulder down a little each time. If you died too much a fruit crate would suddenly become a continue point. Eventually everyone succeeded at Crash. Our mantra became help weaker players without changing the game for the better players."''

* The AI opponents in ''VideoGame/WiiSports'' combine Dynamic Difficulty with RubberbandAI. Get enough home runs in baseball, and they start to make it harder to do in subsequent games, for instance.

* ''Creepy Castle'' adjusts things based on how much or how little damage you take as you proceed through each area, as a way to make it feel like you "just barely" made it. If you get hit by traps a lot and/or mess up a lot of [[QuickTimeEvents duels]], then enemies' normal attacks and traps will have a chance of missing entirely, they won't crit as often (if at all), and the food you find will be items that restore more HP. If you ace most or all of the duels you fight, then enemy attacks and traps will crit you more often, and you'll find smaller food items instead.

* ''VideoGame/BattleGaregga'' exponentially increases in difficulty by increasing enemy aggressiveness and health due to a number of factors, such as picking up too many items you don't need and shooting too much. The only way to reverse this? Dying. (Especially effective if it's the player's next to last life.) To make matters worse, every time someone plays the game, the starting rank (difficulty) goes up, and each time the attract mode loops the starting rank decreases. The idea is the more people are playing it the harder it gets, so it can eat more quarters, but if people stop it backs down so a new player will have an easier time and get hooked. However, people figured out that resetting the arcade game also reset the rank. So Raizing fixed this in their next game, ''Videogame/ArmedPoliceBatrider''. The rank at power-on was the ''maximum'' possible starting rank instead! This is a (very infamous) trade mark of Shinobu Yagawa, the programmer of ''Battle Garegga'', ''Videogame/BattleBakraid'', and ''Batrider''. These traits are in his later games with Creator/{{Cave}}, ''Videogame/{{Ibara}}'', ''Videogame/PinkSweets'', and ''Videogame/MuchiMuchiPork''.

* In modern {{Shmups}}, this is known to fans as "rank" and very common. This has been a feature in shooters since the Japanese release of ''VideoGame/{{Zanac}}'' in 1986. That game had artificial intelligence that adjusted itself to your playing style. However, the AI wasn't all that bright, and could be subverted by simply firing less. ''Zanac'' for the NES got this [[UnstableEquilibrium ass-backwards]]. The AI level ''decreased'' if the player could defeat a boss [[StalkedByTheBell within the given time limit]] but ''increased'' if the player could not defeat a boss within the time limit.

** In ''[=DoDonPachi=] dai ou jou'', using a [[SuperMode Hyper]] will cause enemies to fire more and faster bullets.
** In ''[=DoDonPachi=] Dai-Fukkatsu [[ExpansionPack Black Label]]'', you get a new SuperMode known as "red mode" in which continuously using it will gradually crank up the difficulty, indicated by a special gauge off to the side of the regular HUD. Red mode is required for certain score bonuses to activate.
** ''[=SaiDaiOuJou=]'' has a visible numeric rank meter. Getting it high enough is one of the requirements to fight [[TrueFinalBoss Hibachi]].