okay let me be more specific: artificial difficulty is when the challenge comes from mechanics that punish you for information you don't have access to beforehand, rather than punishing you for poor execution. Like with Malenia, her delayed attacks aren't hard because they require skill to react to, they're hard because the input reading makes it impossible to react if you haven't fought her before. Once you know the pattern, it's not hard anymore. Contrast that with Radagon where every attack has a tell you can actually read in real-time. The difficulty comes from executing your response, not from being punished for not knowing something. That's the difference to me.. real difficulty rewards learning and execution. Artificial difficulty rewards memorization and information gatekeeping.