Three dominant themes from the discussion
1. “Normal” is subjective – a sensible default matters
“What is ‘normal’ is unfortunately subjective and can mean a lot of different things to different people.” – teamonkey
The community agrees that labeling a difficulty as “normal” is meaningless; users want a well‑designed default that’s fun without extra research.
2. Players want granular, configurable difficulty options
“if you’re making a game and you add in a mechanic or mini‑game that is not typical of the genre, make it optional or provide a way to skip it.” – nkrisc
The prevailing view is that games should let players tweak settings (sliders, toggles, separate mechanics) to match their preferred playstyle rather than forcing a one‑size‑fits‑all experience.
3. Favor transparent/static difficulty & fair matchmaking over hidden dynamic scaling
“Please never do this. This deceptively looks smart to a game designer, but actual players read this like a book and then it feels cheap and massively unrewarding for them.” – orbital-decay
Many commenters criticize opaque dynamic difficulty adjustments and advocate clear, static systems or skill‑based matchmaking (e.g., SBMM discussions), arguing that hidden scaling cheapens the experience.