How difficult was it for the characters to overcome the challenges in their own canon stories?

Had to use ChatGPT because I really had no idea how to phrase my question correctly.

Anyways, my opinion is this based on what I remember and what I actually read:

Akiyama low-mid diffed everything except the contraband and the four kingdom game, where it was somewhere between very high to extreme (-)?

I dropped Usogui during TOK arc because of school, but I haven't really seen him struggle more than mid-diff. Or what about Marco in the buffalo game where they'd get burned alive? I think he barely scraped by with high diff (+)

Ayanokoji low-diffs (-) almost every situation he faced maybe except his fight with Tsukishiro and Shiba in the second uninhabited island exam where it was mid-high diff? Or maybe even Ryueen vs Sakayanagi. Sakayanagi demolished Ryueen in that final exam with high-diff, but Ayanokoji intervened lol

Anyways, I wanted to ask this question because It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly how troublesome it'd be for the characters to go against other smart characters or be placed in a situation.