Skill Issue? 4 Signs a Game’s Difficulty Is From Poor Game Design

Ever found yourself smashing your keyboard, punching your monitor, or throwing your mouse in frustration, wondering if the game you’re playing was designed to test your patience and not your skills? That’s probably because of poor game design. 

Great game design ensures that challenges are tough yet fair. Pushing players to refine their abilities and think strategically in order to overcome difficulty. While skilled players can adapt to and overcome legitimate challenges, even the best players can be thwarted by poor design choices. Let’s dive into the five telltale signs that a game’s difficulty is a product of poor game design rather than genuine challenge.

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Disclaimer: Photos used are not examples of games with poor designs

Unpredictable Enemy Behavior

From IMDB

When enemies act randomly, it can turn a challenging game into an exercise in frustration. We’re not saying that good game design equals being predictable, but what’s more important to good game design is allowing players to learn and adapt to the tells, patterned behaviors, and nuances of a challenge. 

Good game design allows players to study and understand enemy behavior, making every encounter a test of skill rather than luck. For example, even if the Dark Souls franchise and other ‘soulsborne’ games are notoriously difficult, they’re not considered unfair because most of the challenges can be overcome if players just follow two simple words — ‘Git Gud’.

The Camera Is Your Enemy

Embed: God of War: Guide to Combat

An erratic camera that often obscures the action is a recipe for disaster and unnecessary deaths. These aren’t exclusive to games with fixed camera angles either. Even in games where the player can control and adjust the camera angle, this problem can still occur if the game isn’t designed to keep the player character within view at all times or warn the player of any off-camera threats. God of War (2018) and God of War: Ragnarok made great use of these two design elements by always having Kratos on the player’s screen, while also giving both visual and auditory warnings that an attack offscreen is incoming, ensuring players can’t blame invisible enemies for their deaths. 

Quantity Over Quality

From IMDB

Difficulty can also take the form of spam. We’re referring to the endless hordes of enemies that aren’t really all that difficult to beat on their own, but are a grind to get through due to their sheer number. This alone isn’t poor design—it is purposeful for much loved games like Left 4 Dead and Dynasty Warriors. However, when it’s combined with a lack of reward for the player’s hard work, or if dealing with the mob becomes monotonous, that’s when it crosses the line. 

Despite the Uncharted series being quality games overall, it does suffer from this issue, with very repetitive enemies just being upped in quantity as you progress through the game. Quality game design focuses on creating challenges that require thought and adaptation, rather than just upping the enemy count to create the illusion of difficulty.

Damage Sponges

Embed: Final Fantasy XII Zodiac Age: Yiazmat Boss Fight (Super Boss) (1080p)

When a game's idea of increasing difficulty is to just give previously beaten enemies higher health pools, turning them into "damage sponges,” then it’s a possible sign of poor game design. This approach often makes battles feel like tedious slogs rather than thrilling encounters. It can make combat feel more like a test of endurance rather than skill. Instead of focusing on creative strategies or precise timing, players end up repetitively chipping away at large health bars instead. 

Relying on health sponges often signals a lack of innovation in enemy design. Instead of creating enemies with diverse abilities and weaknesses, designers opt for artificially inflated difficulty by simply increasing health points.

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