Clearly, that’s the same as saying “Ultra baby easy mode has been unlocked”. Luigi is almighty.

@@EmceeJoseph Yeah, Luigi U was way harder. I was just joking lmao.

I really like that they made Luigi able to run faster and jump higher, but is "slidier" and takes a bit longer to stop, as it makes him easier in some levels but harder in others.

and then turning off the gameboy every time i die on my final life

⁠@@memorableman3709I got Luigi U as a gift once and I feel bad because I *cannot* play it. They meant well but Luigi is a nightmare to control, and the games are hard enough for me already with Mario

I really like that method. When I was about 5, I would have my brother beat all the ghost houses for me in NSMB. In the Mario and Luigi series, I would beat the harder bosses for my little brother. Lots of give and take (mostly take for my little brother until a few years ago).

The idea of a brother beating parts of the game for you fills me with nostalgia

@@pinochet3698 Same! Except it was my dad on Super Mario World, and I was mostly having him help because re-clearing the ghost houses was the only repeatable way to save the game. I wonder at what point game developers realized "wait, why are we making them wait to save? It's not like they put another coin in their console to continue playing...". I did however consistently need his help to clear the third castle, the one in Vanilla Dome, because the room with the magikoopa at the start was just a bit too confusing for me.

someone in the design team for sure said "you know how youre older brother always helps you beat the level when you cant do it..."

It proves luigi > mario

I mean, that's not an incorrect assessment

Mario 2 has Princess Toadstool as the easy option, implying she’s just better than Mario.

its not easy being green

Have you ever played as Luigi? In a platformer the last thing you want is a slippery mf like Luigi, he is without a doubt harder, and requires more skill in every game you can play him in

At the same time, it seems like Luigi is the one clearing more of the harder levels. He's maybe can't do as much as Mario, but he's more persistent!

this comment is golden

I was about to comment the same thing lmao

yeah we had the same thought lol

LMAO i didn't think anybody would have the same thought as me there

"more than thirty mainline super mario games", eh mr brown ? WHICH ONES ARE THEY ?

As a kid I would play games I couldn’t play well, so I’d just stay in the beginning areas. Wind Waker, I spent SO long running around Outset Island because the Forsaken Fortress was too scary for me back then. I still remember it as “Forbidden Fortress” 😂

cool :D

Hm. That's an interesting take on minecraft I haven't seen before. I guess that would be an invisible difficulty setting. However, I find it likely unintentional and more of a side effect of the game being an open sandbox with a lot of things to do and very little actual progression. Still, very cool, though.

@Mackinstyle out of curiosity, did you play on Peaceful/ Creative with him? My daughter loves the building but hates the monsters, so every world she makes is a peaceful/ creative mode so she doesn't have zombies and can build all the crazy stuff she wants.

There’s something so awesome and satisfying about watching a younger family member (my 4yo nephew in my case) actively work through an obstacle in a video game themselves. I always try to nudge him in the right direction instead of just doing it for him myself as I didn’t really get that when I was a kid. Growing up I would constantly underestimate my gaming and general problem solving ability so I avoided even attempting challenges I considered insurmountable or beyond my current ability, something I didn’t really get over until I was already a grown adult. It was such a game changer for me the moment I realized I was actually good enough to play, enjoy and complete games I previously thought were “too hard” for me. I don’t want my nephew or anyone else to ever feel like he doesn’t have all of the tools necessary to work through any challenge, virtual or in the real world. Great comment btw

Holy smokes it’s Ocellus!

Same thing happened to me in 3D world. I had no clue that the invincible super tanooki suit existed until I had already completed the main game and started trying to master more complicated tricks.

@@archmagusofevil This was my journey: "How nice of Nintendo to give you an invincibility power up if you can't beat the final boss" *plays some postgame* "Oh". The final boss being 2 stages and the flying wing only skipping one was harsh (but I really loved it)

She showed up for the first time... when I was doing Melty Monster Galaxy star 2 (the rock) I died so many times....

@@laytonjr6601 That's not nice. It's insulting. Giving an invincibility power up is more proof these games are just for kids. Hell, if I was a kid I would be pissed off - if I'm going to beat a boss I'm going to do it properly, what's the point in cheating? Where's the fun? They're making games too easy for kids now, they're never going to learn to get good if they do things like that.

You can’t say smw anymore with wonder around

@@orangemonks894nuh uh. wonder is smbw, world is smw, and wii is nsmbw

Yeah, I think the video sort of acknowledges it. Like, as a player, we want to hit the switches because its part of being a completionist. But it comes with the unfortunate side effect of making the rest of the game easier as a result. What you say is true, that it was meant to be a reward. But that reward does mean making some levels significantly easier with no way to undo it. So when purely talking about difficulty modes, I think it's accurate to point this 'flaw' out (and how it was addressed in a later game.)

Waaaaaaaa 😢

@@orangemonks894My man, this makes no sense.

I had the exact same thing happen to me. I assumed that if I didn't touch the power up, it wouldn't matter. Nope. Just being offered the power up is enough to permanently alter the save file, and you have no way of knowing this until after you've cleared the level, by which point the damage is done. If there had been a way to go back and play a level again to clear it "properly", that would be one thing, but there wasn't, and five deaths in a level can make the shiny stars at the end dim forever with no warning. Fortunately, this punishment got removed from later games.

This flaw existed since its inception in NSMB Wii, IIRC- the second that Super Block appears, you’re permalocked out of an “achievement” even if you opt not to call upon Luigi…

I ran into this too and it annoyed me to no end. The game is pretty damn easy except for a few levels so it felt unfair I lost out on the sparkling stars just because they OFFERED assistance.

Not to mention that if you even *see* the assist block you lose the sparkling stars. Not only are you basically punished for being bad at a particular section of the game, the game doesn't have the courtesy to tell you. I ended up 100%ing 3D Land a second time to get my deserved 5 sparkly stars.

Here's hoping the archaic business side of the company doesn't destroy them in the future

@@Avendesora Here’s hoping they manage to improve on those aspects, without compromising their core stance on fun, quality, gameplay-focused experiences

@@Avendesora Yeah they are terrible company for trying to make profit and protecting their ips so that they can stay in the business and keep making games.

@@hododod246How did you fit that big ass boot in your Throat?

I've heard the work conditions at Nintendo are relatively great, and very few people leave the jobs/get fired. However this doesn't apply to people developing pokemon at Game Freak

No, some of the games still - in their own way - shame you for playing on easy mode. Those bronze stars and level skips sit there to remind you that you didn't REALLY beat the level and thus don't get full credit.

Very much disagree. Just let me pick and pay on easy without all the badgering.

Special world.

Kirby is an excellent series. Actually has badass threatening antagonists so they're "everyone" games. Mario is really just for kids because there is absolutely nothing to be taken seriously or threatened by in ANY of the games. The main threat is a turtle that goes "gwahaha!" since the mid 80's... the games are for 6 year olds.

@@Vaquix000 I'm not an edgy loser so hard disagree lmao

Bowser does have his insane moments sometimes.​@@Vaquix000

@@Vaquix000I’m a Kirby fan, but you being toxic is a massive L

I'm pretty sure the reward is the *_carnage_* of tearing through everything in your path rather than just going around. Oh ya, and then there's post-game. The abridged versions of the story are usually slightly harder than the main story, and then the Arena... Star Allies replaced the Arena with the Ultimate Choice, which has both an explicit difficulty slider (which changes _much_ more than just stats), _and_ an implicit difficulty slider based on the party composition. Want easy mode? Use 4 of the incredibly broken Dream Friends. Masochist mode? Plain Kirby; no allies.

That explains way too many hours I put into 3D Land trying to 100% it...

that's crazy that they even do that. "yeah dude. you sucked too much. you're not a REAL gamer."

What's annoying is that in 3D Land you can get the skip from the Mystery Houses. I got one, and used it not knowing it would remove the sparkling stars.

in NSMB2, if a Invicibility Super Leaf block spawns, the sparking stars won't appear too, even if you don't grab the Leaf

it's definitely intentional, there are some places where you can only get to with badges and they just put a few coins as a nod to the player.

Thou Mark still won't allow for viable reprints for standard or modern mtg

​@@silent_reaper999What on earth are you talking about? Reprints for standard? Those sets are already still in print. Or are you demanding Tarmogoyf and other overpowered cards in standard? Cause game balance is a thing. Weird complaint.

I was seeing Ben brode talk about something kinda similar for marvel snap

Why snap in particular 😅​@@paulakroy2635

Sounds like you play a lot of trash RPGs if leveling up makes you overpowered. They literally solved this with the NES with increasingly leveled enemies that only get overpowered if YOU decide to waste your time and grind

​@@dissraps Wow... um... Okay? So you didn't read what I wrote, did you? Because you literally just described exactly one of the methods I pointed out for how developers deal with the inverted difficulty curve caused by in-game reward systems. I also already mentioned why that method is problematic. So... thanks? I guess? For boosting my comment? Oh, I know what it is. You're probably a Final Fantasy fan, aren't you? That would explain it. The concept of "outlandishly ridiculous power level escalation" wouldn't have any meaning for you because you're used to every game having 20 bosses each of which are "World ending monsters" that immediately turn into casual random encounters once you've beaten them the first time. Oh! Or you just have never actually done any game dev! That's it! I get it now. Because you've never had to balance gameplay yourself. So you just assume that there's a difficulty curve template out there that "the NES" got right and everyone else just imports into their engine of choice and **poof** the game's magically balanced! God I wish that's how it worked. I dare you to GM a D&D campaign just for one night. Use a premade adventure path, even, that's already tuned and balanced for you. Try it :) it'll be fun! Then come back and tell us all how easy it is to balance the difficulty curve.

This video is made infinitely worse by the narrator showing his face on screen.

The worst possible inverted difficulty balance is what Diablo took from 3 to immortal. You begin underleveled, start getting equipment, become stronger and wreck through hordes of enemies while you sleep until you can change difficulty mode from hard1 to hard2 and now you have the same equipment, but you can’t damage your enemies because they are now stronger and then you have to replay the game until you get overheated again. The problem is when you have to not only grind the game, but once you have grinded enough, you have to start over and grind again… it’s lame

I could never beat Oblivion as a kid because of the level scaling system, because I would focus on non-combat skills like alchemy and all the enemies would end up way too strong for me to fight. It was a really nasty feedback loop

It sucks that those two are my favorite characters 😅 I wanna play the “real” way but I love Yoshi and Nabbit

​@@DeathnoteBBSame! Yoshi is my favourite and I didn't get to play as him once.

The thing that's kind of annoying is that the back of the box says it has co-op whether it has actual co-op or just kind of a little brother mode to keep a kid busy. They're definitely not the same thing.

@@ArchibaldClumpy it seems to have actual co-op mode though. There are other characters to choose from that take damage just as Mario does. You don't have to pick the "little-bro" character if you don't want.

⁠@@ArchibaldClumpyMario Wonder does have a proper co-op mode. Either player can pick any character they want. Having played with my 5 year old son recently, he could choose Yoshi or Nabbit for invincibility and once he found his feet or got confident he was happy being Luigi or Toad.

I appreciated that about it! For the life of me I cannot do all the fancy jump combos I see people do online. I can do enough to get around though. Thankfully the game does not force you to git gud or go home

Yes! This philosophy is even applied to the bosses. Each one has faster starts, like throwing bombs back at Harriette or jumping on the hats of the other bunnies when they are in them. It really lets better players use their skills and gives them something to do instead of simply waiting for the boss to be vulnerable again. It also solves the problem that the beginning of the game is way too easy for some players by letting them choose the difficulty of each challenge, like by attempting difficult jumps with Cappy to skip a part of the level. I love this game so much!

Yeah I think thats one of the best examples why Odyssey works for just like everyone. I played Mario since the early 90's and a lot of later mario games - especially 2D games - didnt catch me anymore. Odyssey on the other hand ist probably close to perfect in giving everyone a lot to enjoy.

Pikmin 4 took a similar approach, with multiple answers to the same problem.

This reminds me a lot of Sonic's high-middle-low paths, where getting to and staying on the high path requires more skill/memorization & finishes the level more quickly while maintaining "flow".

I like how in the newer games if you collect the star coin you collected a star coin although if you die it's kind of weird they don't reset but in world when you collect the star coin it doesn't do anything for you unless you collect all five of them and you have to beat the level without dying including Not using the checkpoint though you can actually cross the checkpoint. Problem is if you cross the checkpoint and then die you restarted the checkpoint and sometimes you can't go back for the other star coins which is really annoying that you lose them You think it would save your progress up to that spot including the coins you collected but I guess not.

minimum for a 100 point score to be saved is 7 bits of memory (124 max value). Using bitwise flags you can track 7 *unique* things in those 7 bits (each bit is a flag). Either way you probably need a whole 8bit address space to store which of the 5 coins the player collected. They probably used the score system because it was more versatile and easier to tally up and display.

Agreed. Those coins were introduced in super mario world.

when I heard that, I was upset that he didn't notice dragon coins in Super Mario World.

I agree. Just as it's important not to baby the player, to provide other levels of challenge, it's also important not to let the player baby themselves, to give them aa reason to give it a shoot even if they're not sure

I remember dying over 1000 times in 3A. I just could not do that last stretch. And when I had trouble understanding how the bubbles and wind worked in 4A, I finally said "screw it" and went full assist. By the time I got to 6A, I was wondering how the HELL you were supposed to do some sections at all, let alone without the assistance. In one room, I had to focus on the fact a winged strawberry was present to inform my approach. "Okay, it flies away when I dash. That means it must be possible to reach that area without using that button" and I was eventually able to get there.

Thank you!

@@GMTK You're welcome!

Replayed 3D World recently and while I was ahead for the first few worlds, by the time I got to the last of the regular worlds I was replaying levels for stars. I was already trying to get as many as I could so I wouldn't have to grind to unlock Rosalina post game, so I was surprised that I was about five short to face off against King Kitty Koopa.

The count is 18* (depending on how you count, so you can argue any number you want depending on your criteria).

his grave

@@zym6687 Hi! Jan Misali uses he and they pronouns, hopes this helps! :)

@@mistermetenor1 Hi! His is the genitive form of he, hope this helps! (:

@@zym6687 I wonder why anybody would complain about the usage of gender-neutral pronouns... I would suggest going outside more often.

My first thought when he showed the pipe graphic was "knuckles chaotix". the level design is literally always as you describe

​@@Jeffeffery9knuckles chaotic?

I'm always a fan of when games do this and really make new difficulties way more than just "extra numbers". Makes you feel good to actually explore each difficulty setting instead of just have the same but harder.

You sound like you describing Smash Bros. That mode were at the very end you have to beat Master hand.

@@bland9876 ah, I wouldn't know. I'm much more familiar with kiu, lol

@@loreleiloriestone9179 how are you not familiar with Smash Bros?

@@bland9876 I'm aware of it as a concept, but since I don't like fighting games, I've never played it or watched anyone play it. So, I've heard of it, but I don't understand the difficulty system.

@@loreleiloriestone9179 🤯how do you mention Kid Icarus uprising and then have never played Smash Bros? Also your definition of fighting game has to be super loose to include Smash Bros. I mean if you even look at any footage of Mortal Kombat, Street fighter, or Tekken you would see a huge difference. At least it's not as dumb as calling Dynasty Warriors a fighting game. I'm not kidding they actually do. Also if you have friends would you even do? Mario Kart? Mario Kart has power ups and the physics are kind of weird and you don't even have a proper gas button like you would in say Forza Motorsport. So people consider it different just like they do with Smash.

I think with Forgotten Land there's at least one boss fight (if not more) that has an optional challenge to win without copy abilities. Yeah, the instances of rewards for stuff like that are few and far between, especially when the player decides to take on that challenge without provocation (i.e. no copy abilities because you can, or speedrunning when there's no in-game incentive behind it).

@@gameman250 Forgotten Land also does something really nice with the copy ability upgrades: you can still use the weaker versions.

I think the simplest way I've seen it pointed out to me is: in Kirby, you can just fly over most challenges to clear them easily, or you can take the ground route for more difficulty.

But see that’s the problem with any game that relies on creating difficulty through self imposed restrictions: playing as basic Kirby isn’t very fun, the copy abilities are a huge selling point. It’s like how badges in Mario Wonder break the game but not using them feels like you’re missing out on a big part of the experience.

Forgotten Land also lets you change the actual diffculty setting mid-game and even reminds you that you can!

Here's some ideas. Grinding is the big one, fight more battles, game gets easier. Xenoblade even lets you lower your level to add challenge back (cause it's so easy to overlevel). Adding extra challenges to a battle: - FFX if you do enough damage you get overkill - trying to do as much damage as you can do in a short amount of time (FFXVI shows damage during stagger) (star rating a battle based on how long it was) - Star Ocean 4 builds a board of bonuses as you kill enemies in certain ways but breaks when you take a crit hit, - a lot of modern open-world games have almost randomly generated challenges like kill using certain ability or without getting hit. Legends Arceus Pokedex is my favorite example - FF7 hyper status makes you take more damage but fill limit break more - Obviously postgame dungeons/bosses RPGs usually add a ton of mechanics to make games easier: - Summons in FF (slow but powerful) - Multiple progression systems so if you don't understand one it doesn't hinder you too much - Hidden chests give you better items (rewarding exploration) - Open world lets you go elsewhere and build up before trying again (Elden Ring) Progression systems that make players choose between growing or using what they have are fun: - FF9 equip this to learn an ability even though it's not gonna help you in battle. But if you struggle, change to something that helps you. - Job systems - level up a new job vs use a job I have a lot of abilities in. - Ratchet and Clank's weapons max out and then you need to use new ones if you want to level them up RPGS often suffer from positive feedback loops - aka good players get more rewards => even eaiser. Bad players get less rewards => even harder. So, thought and care needs to be put in to make sure people stay in their flow channels. One idea: instead of just giving more XP/money to skilled players, give something that makes them change how they play (eg. equipment that's high-risk/high-reward), cosmetics / achievements.

@@Paul-to1nb Load balancing is definitely a problem in RPG's. Like with FFT you can only use two jobs per character, but once you get the monk job class you're a walking tank, and once you get calculator you can nearly take out every enemy in one turn. They tried to somewhat Nerf calculator by only giving you four properties to target and four divisors, but they didn't even try with monks. It's why monkulator is the most overpowered job setup that you can have. The only real inhibition they placed is that the higher your levels, the more powerful the enemies you fight in battle, but even that they didn't get right because there are several level degenerator traps that allow you to really beef up your characters. The problem I'm having, is that I don't really know how I'd do it any better and still make it fun to play.

While it's not an RPG, you might take some inspiration from _Super Metroid_ with its fight against Phantoon. By the time you fight Phantoon in a normal playthrough, you have access to missiles, super missiles, and all but one beam type. Super missiles do the most damage to Phantoon of available weapons, but hitting him with one will temporarily put him into an enraged state in which he's invulnerable and attacks you with walls of fire. If you found the Charge Beam in Brinstar and know how to use it defensively, you can use it to avoid damage from his fire attacks in his enraged state, but if you didn't find the Charge Beam or don't know how to use it defensively, you're better off using ordinary missiles instead of super missiles and accepting a more drawn-out fight. In an RPG, you might achieve something similar by building in the potential for riskier strategies that require deep knowledge of one's enemy and battle mechanics that can pay off greatly if done correctly but that punish players who do it poorly. In that case, players would generally stick to safer, more reliable strategies unless they have the knowledge and confidence to pull off something more daring.

@@reillywalker195 Ah, like the Ruby or Emerald Weapons in FF7. Certain attacks would anger them to where they might use a laser beam attack that wipes out your whole party or just kicks you out of the battle. Instead of it being super difficult and requiring a strategy guide, I could scatter clues that hint at strengths and weaknesses for bosses that you need to fight. Maybe even have methods of skipping them outright until you're at a level where you're ready to take them on, but ultimately you would need to because of an item they would have. I suppose that's also like the Zelda series too, at least what I've heard of them since the only one I've played thus far is Link's Awakening because I've got it for the Game Boy, but I've seen enough videos on the others to have seen a similar mechanic in them.

and then he just nerfed all of them except for the Parry & the Guts from Berserk sword 🤣🤣

He netted like rivers of blood and madness for pvp purposes. Bro r you ok?

@@chaselowell4567 Yes, PVP is a huge issue with Souls games. It interferes with what would be best design for a single player experience because everything needs to be balanced for the PVP aspect of the game. If it had no PVP, it could have overpowered weapons and underpowered weapons and it would function well as invisible difficulty settings.

i thought smm2's "call luigi" option would be like the "luigi shows you how to do the level" feature in other games; but it's just a level skip

​@@jfb- How would they do that with user generated content? The game could replay how the level maker played, but what stands in the way for them to stand there for minutes before they do anything?

@@NuiYabuko the feature I'm refering to only exists in story mode

Vowels cost extra when paying for transcripts.

For what it's worth, HAL has said they intentionally toned the difficulty of Star Allies back. Whether people liked it or not it's a separate thing, but it was a thing they did on purpose. Their goal was a celebration of all the past 2d games and they wanted literally anyone to be able to finish it. The difficulty is in the arena and post game Heroes in Another Dimension mode. The game was what they intended it to be and that's why they shipped it.

@@Yirggzmb I mean that’s interesting to know but if that’s their explanation it sounds like they have a very poor understanding of how their own franchise works. Most Kirby games can be beat by literally anyone, the float lets you avoid skip past everything, so neutering everything does nothing for newer players, and only detracts from the experience for everyone else. The most egregious comparison is likely the secret challenges you can only reach by being attentive have been used to be things like speed checks that you needed you to think about the level terrain, or puzzles that had you choose which ropes to cut in order to get an item. Sometimes there would be a chest in the background, but you needed to see that, and not destroy a box in the foreground to get it. The only things locked were optional collectibles, but they kept veterans engaged and helped build up newer players to become better and one day get on the level of those veterans. Kirby took the time to gently build the literacy of beginners, while allowing veterans to express their familiarity. Now we have Star Allies which, and I kid you not this is an actual “puzzle” in the late game, gives you an ice ability, and a sword ability, and a sign that shows you that if you combine the ice with the blade you can get a frozen sword, and then puts a collectible behind a chain that’s on fire. The game does these stupid ability matches through the whole game where they tell you what to do, then you do it. No figuring it out, no allowing the player to stumble and discover what’s wrong themselves, or evolution of a concept that build from previous understandings, no allowing the player to do their thing. Just tell them what to do, give them a shiny, and move on. The main campaign of Star Allies is designed for preschoolers. The difficulty curve is a flatline. The main campaign of other Kirby games is for everyone, as in actually everyone, preschoolers included. It’s not a celebration of Kirby it’s a spit in the face to all the evolution the games have gone through in a journey to bring beginners up to the level of veterans while also appeasing both. You can’t just shove the actual game into the back end. Even if you could the most charitable interpretation of Heroes in Another Dimension would be “Short and Sweet” and a more accurate one would be “the first third of an actual Kirby game plus a buggy mess at the end.” The most charitable version of The Ultimate Choice would be “the arena but worse.” Or to put it in more words “like The Arena, but we didn’t want this additional challenge for experienced players to move you out of your comfort zone or anything, so you can’t lose your ability, no need to change strategies or roll with the punches in order to save a good run, and if you feel like you need to get better to get over a challenge feel free to drop the difficulty down a notch instead. There are 10 and the maximum is far too difficult for a reasonable person, so we know that there’s no option that seems feasible right now that has any meaning, which should hopefully kill your desire to improve.” The whole game just feels like what would happen if the franchise was handed off to a new developer who could grasp the basic framework, but not the meat that made that framework into something exceptional.

@@BIOSHZRD Even as a big fan of Kirby Star Allies as a whole, I have to agree that the way it handles difficulty in the main story (i.e. more shallow than necessary for veterans) could've been a hell of a lot better. That being said, I didn't have any issues with how the Ultimate Choice was handled. Losing copy abilities and being forced to switch was rarely a concern in other arenas in my experience (outside of Sectonia's final fight in Triple Deluxe, what with the numerous pits for your dropped ability stars to fall into), so the fact that you couldn't lose one in the ultimate choice barely even registered to me. If anything, the fact that the difficulty ceiling could go arguably higher than other Kirby arenas made me like it more than those other arenas. I also don't understand how having lower difficulty options would kill a newer player's desire to improve. The lower difficulties have a lot of bosses missing, so I would think many players would then be motivated to try the higher difficulties so they can actually fight every boss.

I dug through the comments to see if I could find anyone else who noticed this and was bothered too.

Mark used it correctly. He is saying that being able to do hard things in the game gives you rewards that make the game easier. From hard to easy, a feedback loop pushing you in the opposite direction of difficulty, hence negative feedback. Immediately after, he describes a situation where being able to do hard things result in being given even harder challenges. From hard to harder, a feedback loop pushing you in the same direction of difficulty, hence positive feedback.

@@HoleSamIt can be pretty confusing, but giving players who are already doing well an advantage is the definition of positive feedback loop.

​@InvaderMik but it entirely depends on the perspective. Mark looked at it from the perspective of a player looking for a challenge. Who was then rewarded with less challenge upon overcoming the difficult part. Which is a negative feedback loop. As he explains, this pushes a player who wants to be in the upper pipe back into the lower ones. Taking away the momentum and changing the trajectory.

I think he meant its a negative feedback loop in terms of the difficulty or challenge faced by the skilled player

Hey! In this instance I was thinking of the pipe scenario - if you move into the "hard" pipe, in an attempt to make the game more difficult, the game gives you rewards that push you out back down to the normal / easy pipe. So it's inadvertently a counteracting the player's desire to make things more difficult. It can then move to become a positive loop (the game gets easier and easier), but I believe it /starts/ as a self-correcting negative feedback loop.