Difficulty Settings
He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
Sun Tzu
Difficulty Settings give players control over the nature of the challenge they face. By selecting the level of difficulty, players decide how much pressure, complexity, and risk they are willing to engage with, shaping their own path through the game experience.
Every game in the Doom franchise has several difficulty settings which adjust various factors, such as for example enemy amount, to make the title as easy or as hard as the player desires.
Unlike automated adaptive difficulty, this mechanic lets the learner choose their own challenge level, which is particularly useful for handling diverse groups with varying backgrounds. Allowing a participant to start with “easier” tasks provides a comfort zone and prevents early frustration. As their confidence grows, they can choose to face more difficult challenges at their own pace.
This empowerment helps learners find their own “flow” zone from the very beginning. While educators might require a certain level of difficulty for official certification, allowing choice during the practice phase fosters a sense of independence and safety in the learning process.
It might be a good practice to allow students to choose whether they want to really challenge themselves with the more difficult exercises for perhaps some extra credit or any other kind of reward, while allowing the less confident participants to take an easier road that still allows them to learn the subject while potentially not completely mastering it.