Difficulty

So I've been playing a lot of Beat Saber lately. It's become a morning routine before hitting the showers. Cereal, Beat Saber, Shower, Breakfast, and man, was I rusty when starting it back up. I was never great at the game, but I could play a solid chunk of songs on Expert without a hassle… definitely not on the first day returning. I struggled to complete a minute of songs that were barely two minutes long.

Well… when I tried the game's Vol. 4 Songs.

When I installed the mods to revisit community songs I had a couple years ago, I found myself completing them with ease, even finding ones I used to enjoy to be a little bit boring and slow. So what's going on here? I've gotten worse at the main game but retained my average skills in mods?

No, the main game has just caught up to what the community now considers difficult.

I find this subject a little bit fascinating, when a game evolves not specifically due to the designers own goals, but what those designers have seen players do over a period of years. What Beat Saber's developers and the community considered to be Expert Difficulty four years ago is definitely not what Expert Difficulty is today.

Perhaps that's why people are now screwing the fourth wall, and just naming the difficulties whatever they want. Instead of Expert, on many DOOM songs it's just "Nightmare" or "You Won't Survive."

Blocks that could be previously destroyed in any manner, no require a specific motion, now that people have gotten used to multitasking. Notes for your right saber often require reaching out to the absolute left of the screen during a chain of notes. Speed's continuously increased. We've gone well beyond Dragon Force's Through the Fire and Flames, with some people including song's specifically for difficulty.

The quality of the mods themselves have gotten pretty amazing over the years too. Not only are more of them including 4+ difficulties like the main-game to ease new players in, many go as far as to build their own atmosphere through environmental objects and colors. These always exist within the mod community to some extent, but it's become more and more standard as the years roll by.

This increase in quality and difficulty is what I think's led to things like Vol 4 in Beat Saber, the developers themselves have had to evolve. The jump in challenge and production value in the music is noticeable, but the challenge of those songs has jumped massively from where the game started.

And lemme be clear, I'm not complaining at all. Actually, in a way, it disappoints me that this experience, watching a game grow without altering its core-gameplay isn't what happens in today's world of Live Services. None of Beat Saber's originally content has been removed or altered, and the developers haven't added any new blocks or obstacles.

It's grown alongside it's players.

And it's just a really satisfying progression. There's plenty of songs I've got that baffle me. I'm failing ten seconds into them with their insane combination of speed, note structure, and multitasking. You've gotta be a Cyborg to beat them.

However, in just one week, I went from struggling on the game's latest tracks, to completing five songs I previously couldn’t in a single day.

In some manner, I think this has to do with what Beat Saber's magic is, that being, the physical element making even songs you don't enjoy, fun to play.

Guitar Hero definitely broadened my appreciation for Rock Music, but there's plenty of songs throughout that franchise I don't enjoy even when I'm 95% them on Expert. A good flow in Beat Saber though takes something that'd normally be just your left hand and use your whole body.