Vertical difficultly vs horizontal difficulty

 The difference between the two is, am I introducing a new challenge or am I introducing a bigger challenge but the same as the last one? That's what it boils down to.

Think of it like Dark Souls vs Warframe; as much as I love the two, souls games focus on adding new mechanics and systems for you to overcome or deal with. Warframe mostly beefs up and introduces more of the same.

Horizontal difficulty forces you to adapt to new challenges and adds more, sometimes the newer difficult content will miss the mark or have some mechanical overlap with older stuff.

Vertical difficulty is the bigger number and more XP drop; more of the same which isn't bad.

You want to know the most funny thing about this is? Vertical difficulty is fun when you have more tools to use on the same bigger number stuff like Warframe and Runescape.

Horizontal difficulty can work with both but works really well with the same move set/ tool set dealing with different challenges.

A game with both is going to be quite costly. Originally was going to call this smart vs dumb difficulty but the two have their place in gaming and both serve a purpose quite well. Only after thinking about Mario vs Warframe did I realize it's not much a smart vs dumb difficulty.

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