I don't think it's that games aren't difficult anymore, it probably has more to do with the fact that we have all gotten better at gaming. Think about it, how long have you been playing games, then think about how many different rpgs, shooters, horror titles,fighting games, and sports games you have played in that amount of time. Know think about the mechanics that modern games still share with all those old games. The fact that you are coming into every new game you play with all your experience and strategies means that you are able to deal with whatever the game throws at you despite the fact that it may be slightly more complex and difficult than whatever you played before. Walking anywhere now is easier than babies first steps because of a lack of experience, not because there is a difference in difficulty, the mechanics of walking are the same, you just know how now. Or in gamer terms any new Super Mario bros is easy because we all beat Super Mario world.
Death of difficulty in games.
- Thread starter Jack Joe Tip Toe
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I wouldn't say modern games are harder than, eh, retro (?) games. It's just that some genres have a higher propensity towards being more difficult. Platformers, Shoot-em-ups, Rts's, etc. are all challenging from the get-go. Of course there are games in those genres which are dumbed down, but it would be easier to say FPS's, RPG's, etc. are generally easier than the aforementioned genres.
IDK if I'd say FPS games are easier though. Since most are played in multiplayer that adds the human element to the equation which ramps up the difficulty tenfold because of unpredictability of human opponents. That kind of behavior in AI however has yet to be even tapped, let alone harnessed. The general idea of "hard mode" in modern gaming is either make the enemies hit harder or make you hit softer. I'd say FPS, Fighting and RTS games probably provide the biggest difficulties, because they require mastery of the game mechanics to be effective...you have to know not only what to do but when to do it to be the most effective.freaper said:
I don't want to label them as "skill based" games, but there is a reason why those 3 genres specifically are used in eSports and not your AAA action adventure titles.
For the most part I agree. And it sucks. They could offer better difficulty options offering sliders on various things as so you can customize the difficulty better.
Also an obligatory games are about gameplay not watching a damn film....
Also an obligatory games are about gameplay not watching a damn film....
Halo: Reach. On legendary, elites get muuuuch better at pulling back when their shield are low, while all their comrades advance to shoot you (sometimes the higher shielded units actually move in front of the injured to block you from killing the guy), get better at running forward to flush you out when you're in cover. They become pros at tricking you forward out of cover and then turning around and shooting you to death or charging with a sword to stab you.WanderingFool said:
That's about the only game I can think of.
I think it's not easy to code "cunning" into a video game character. I think that the basic limitations of a video game architecture make it very hard for programmers to make a character that can intelligently respond to the myriad of ways a player might decide to resolve a puzzle. I think that some programmers are better at this than others, and that some of them are under tight deadlines and might cut corners to get out on time. I think that the 100,000 bullets coding is way easier to implement, than to encode an enemy that reacts realistically to whatever strategy you are employing.Jack Joe Tip Toe said:
You're not dreaming dude. Smart A.I. is very possible. Just look at fighter games. Even if you were to nudge the difficulty up to a medium hard range just to get more respite out of the challenge. The computer CLEARLY demonstrates that it's capable of catching familiar patterns and moves, and blocking at moments where you typically spot an opening. That's another reason you don't see too much participation in that genre from western devs. You gotta put quite a bit into A.I. to make them THAT versatile.Jack Joe Tip Toe said:
The original Ninja Gaiden actually approached difficulty very well and managed to have ball-busting difficulty for most people. It achieved this in much the same way as any other game of its type (increased enemy damage, increased enemy health) but it also switched up the enemies and locations of collectables.
Hard mode would pit you against much tougher enemies much sooner and that chest you thought had an upgrade? HERE HAVE SOME BATS INSTEAD. The switchup in enemies kept you on your feet and made you prioritise some upgrades more. The exploration element was kept fresh because of the change in item locations. Beside the Alma battles, that game was difficulty done right. The other option is to offer challenges that extend beyond the scope of the main game, such as FFX's Dark Aeons or the collectables in most 3D Mario platformers.
Hard mode would pit you against much tougher enemies much sooner and that chest you thought had an upgrade? HERE HAVE SOME BATS INSTEAD. The switchup in enemies kept you on your feet and made you prioritise some upgrades more. The exploration element was kept fresh because of the change in item locations. Beside the Alma battles, that game was difficulty done right. The other option is to offer challenges that extend beyond the scope of the main game, such as FFX's Dark Aeons or the collectables in most 3D Mario platformers.
I've been playing games for over twenty years now. I play them less now than I did ten years ago.Retrograde said:
The idea that I'm just so much better at games than I was ten years ago doesn't hold water. Am I better than I was when I was ten years old? Probably. Better than when I was twenty? Definitely not. I certainly haven't improved so much between Metroid Prime and Metorid Prime 3 that I can put down the difference in difficulty between those two to "I got better at it".
I tend to believe that FAIR difficulty died a LONG time ago. Dark Souls and Demon's Souls are an exception, but playing games on anything above Normal, or Normal+1 seems to usually be unfairly difficult.
I played The Last of Us on survivor and got to the point where you have to sneak past a group of runners and clickers while the Ellie and Tess follow you. I make a single noise, and if I were alone I would be fine, but Tess begins shooting like crazy and guess who the clickers attack?
I tried Tales of Xillia on Hard, and I ended up getting destroyed by the second(?) boss, and I had nearly no chance whatsoever of winning. He hits with an AoE attack that does more than 3x my characters total health, even after 75% damage reduction (Earth Guardx2 + Earth Cape). It would have been doable, but it would have just been me chipping away at his 30000ish HP while doing 30-50 damage per hit. I said fuck that, and knocked in down to Normal, and he was still a pain (my AI partners can't avoid the AoE to save their lives so they still died to it, a LOT), but he only had like 12000 HP and my attacks were doing 120-200 damage now.
I don't like games that change everything based on difficulty. I remember playing an FPS on Normal, enemy accuracy, damage, and health were normal. On Hard, Accuracy was boosted by 30%, damage and health doubled, on the next difficulty accuracy was boosted by 75% damage was tripled and enemy health was quadrupled. And this was an action game, where you're meant to get in the enemies faces and shoot them, not a stealth game. It made the heavy enemies (who on Easy took 4 grenades and about 3 mags from a shotgun to kill... which was about the max you could carry) a HUGE pain on anything higher than Easy (Easy reduced accuracy and damage by 20%, and enemy health was halved)
Needless to say, it didn't feel fair on anything higher than Easy
I played The Last of Us on survivor and got to the point where you have to sneak past a group of runners and clickers while the Ellie and Tess follow you. I make a single noise, and if I were alone I would be fine, but Tess begins shooting like crazy and guess who the clickers attack?
I tried Tales of Xillia on Hard, and I ended up getting destroyed by the second(?) boss, and I had nearly no chance whatsoever of winning. He hits with an AoE attack that does more than 3x my characters total health, even after 75% damage reduction (Earth Guardx2 + Earth Cape). It would have been doable, but it would have just been me chipping away at his 30000ish HP while doing 30-50 damage per hit. I said fuck that, and knocked in down to Normal, and he was still a pain (my AI partners can't avoid the AoE to save their lives so they still died to it, a LOT), but he only had like 12000 HP and my attacks were doing 120-200 damage now.
I don't like games that change everything based on difficulty. I remember playing an FPS on Normal, enemy accuracy, damage, and health were normal. On Hard, Accuracy was boosted by 30%, damage and health doubled, on the next difficulty accuracy was boosted by 75% damage was tripled and enemy health was quadrupled. And this was an action game, where you're meant to get in the enemies faces and shoot them, not a stealth game. It made the heavy enemies (who on Easy took 4 grenades and about 3 mags from a shotgun to kill... which was about the max you could carry) a HUGE pain on anything higher than Easy (Easy reduced accuracy and damage by 20%, and enemy health was halved)
Needless to say, it didn't feel fair on anything higher than Easy
I don't know if you guys remember a game called Supreme Commander which have the AI of a Skynet from Terminator. From the PC Gamer, three guys aim to annihilate a single AI opponent but always being outsmart by the strategy that the AI make. AI isn't hard to be apply to games, it's just that game developers always encourage people to make their games easy to beat just so the player doesn't experience frustration, unlike Dark Souls.
If you look at a modded game such as ARMA 2's "headless client AI" which make the enemy able to spot the player and shoot the player miles away, and also the modded Skyrim that have a gazillion AI enhancement, difficulty experience can easily be achieved. But the problem is that those games are considered open world, moddable and no console developers will cater with the difficulty of their games to an elite level just because they don't want to.
It is sad that even a game that offers tools to the player such as Assassin's Creed and Dishonored can easily be finished, which make the tools seems useless. The Dishonored is a best example of consequential outcome, but it lacks the challenge for the player who guns blazing and slashing to the end.
Games are now advertise themselves to be a game that give too much redundant tools to the players such as Infamous 2, Far Cry 3 and especially the new Saints Row(why the hell do you need to use regular guns and driving cars, anyway?) and many newer games. Those games doesn't aim to be hard, but instead to give their own version of variety enjoyment to the players.
I don't dislike these games, but having a hard game that gives me a satisfying success would be nice. I'm looking at you Skyrim, your vanilla difficulty sucks. Going through the main quest is like a rail ride.
If you look at a modded game such as ARMA 2's "headless client AI" which make the enemy able to spot the player and shoot the player miles away, and also the modded Skyrim that have a gazillion AI enhancement, difficulty experience can easily be achieved. But the problem is that those games are considered open world, moddable and no console developers will cater with the difficulty of their games to an elite level just because they don't want to.
It is sad that even a game that offers tools to the player such as Assassin's Creed and Dishonored can easily be finished, which make the tools seems useless. The Dishonored is a best example of consequential outcome, but it lacks the challenge for the player who guns blazing and slashing to the end.
Games are now advertise themselves to be a game that give too much redundant tools to the players such as Infamous 2, Far Cry 3 and especially the new Saints Row(why the hell do you need to use regular guns and driving cars, anyway?) and many newer games. Those games doesn't aim to be hard, but instead to give their own version of variety enjoyment to the players.
I don't dislike these games, but having a hard game that gives me a satisfying success would be nice. I'm looking at you Skyrim, your vanilla difficulty sucks. Going through the main quest is like a rail ride.
Oh look, it's this thread again. You know, the one where "hardcore gamers" complain about games being "dumbed down" and "filthy casuals" supposedly "ruining" games...
I'll just post this fantastic Jimquisition episode on the subject and leave it there:
I'll just post this fantastic Jimquisition episode on the subject and leave it there:
I'm not really sure how that's different than what I was responding to. The problem is that I'm old enough that I'm not just comparing against games I played when I was a kid- I'm comparing them to last generation, when I had a lot more time to sit around and play them than I do now.Retrograde said:
...and that just makes my point stronger, if games feel like they're getting easier even though my twitch reflexes are slowing.Retrograde said:
I wonder if we'd be better off XDerttheking said:
Nah, I don't want the gaming audience to shrink, but Dark Souls is pretty much the only game that approached difficulty in that way. I'm a pretty avid gamer, too. I've played a good amount of games, and that was pretty unique. I think patience is the biggest thing in Dark Souls. The Stray Demon killed me at least 14 times before I beat him. I was pretty frustrated after that, but I kept playing and it payed off in dividends. I loved Anor Londo and The Painted World when I finally got there.
In the 80's, a lot of games were essentially arcade titles that were 20 minutes long so the game developers made them overly difficult on purpose to get us to put more coins into the arcade machines. That's a fact and even the developers admitted it.Jack Joe Tip Toe said:
Some of the games, like Battletoads, were just trial and error games, impossible to get through without memorizing them. I don't think anyone really wants these type of games to return.
I used to spend days on these games. I beat the damn Battletoads, I can still beat Contra on 1 life. I just don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to spend countless hours replaying the same level over and over again.
People say that kids back in the day were better gamers. I think they just were more desperate.
Good video, but would you rather us necro bump an old thread from months ago so you can whine about that as well? It's a forum, people will talk about what they want to. If it's something you've heard before then why not just turn your attention elsewhere?SilkySkyKitten said:
Oh wait, it's the internet. I forgot.
Three star difficulty rating missions from Payday 2 I think are pretty decently set up (except Ukrainian Job). You need a balanced team, and something WILL go balls up. The guards will freak out if you destroy cameras, civilians will sneak out and call the cops, and at some point you have to 'go loud'. The game tells you what to do but not how to do it.
Good teams will be on their way out or drilling into the vault by the time the cops get word. Bad teams run out of ammo about the time the specials come in.
And surprisingly, Splinter Cell still knows how to hurt me so good.
Good teams will be on their way out or drilling into the vault by the time the cops get word. Bad teams run out of ammo about the time the specials come in.
And surprisingly, Splinter Cell still knows how to hurt me so good.
Ehh I've had some ask why dying sends you back, on the basis that "I've already done this, why should I have to start this boss fight again because I died?"
Essentially they wanted every game to be like Fable 3. A game where if you run out of health, you fall over, blast every enemy around you, lose about 4 xp points then get back up again and regain your lost xp by pulling a funny face at the nearest NPC. I ask what is the point in enabling your character to die, if there are no consequences? Why bother with a health bar in the first place, just let em be invincible. Heck, ammo? Infinite! You might run out at a crucial moment otherwise!
I'm all for difficulty settings like in Bayonetta/Mass Effect 3 (baby mode for people who ain't very good or just want to plow through the storyline), but we all know what happens when you turn on God Mode right? Sure it's fun at first, but after a while it becomes pretty stale. There's no tension, no parameters for failure lead to a stale experience.
Of course Kirbys Epic Yarn is the anomaly here, because the way the mechanics and scoring works.
Plus we're all a lot better at games than we were as kids, I'll wager a vast amount of the escapist play on hard due to having played games all their lives, because that's the level that brings it up to what could be considered "normal" difficulty for us. We've all replayed games from our youth remembering certain areas as being hard as nails then breeze through them.
On the flip side of that, Abes Odyssey/Exodus can fucking do one. I have no idea how I managed to get all the Modukons as a kid, those games are SO. FUCKING. HARD.
Essentially they wanted every game to be like Fable 3. A game where if you run out of health, you fall over, blast every enemy around you, lose about 4 xp points then get back up again and regain your lost xp by pulling a funny face at the nearest NPC. I ask what is the point in enabling your character to die, if there are no consequences? Why bother with a health bar in the first place, just let em be invincible. Heck, ammo? Infinite! You might run out at a crucial moment otherwise!
I'm all for difficulty settings like in Bayonetta/Mass Effect 3 (baby mode for people who ain't very good or just want to plow through the storyline), but we all know what happens when you turn on God Mode right? Sure it's fun at first, but after a while it becomes pretty stale. There's no tension, no parameters for failure lead to a stale experience.
Of course Kirbys Epic Yarn is the anomaly here, because the way the mechanics and scoring works.
Plus we're all a lot better at games than we were as kids, I'll wager a vast amount of the escapist play on hard due to having played games all their lives, because that's the level that brings it up to what could be considered "normal" difficulty for us. We've all replayed games from our youth remembering certain areas as being hard as nails then breeze through them.
On the flip side of that, Abes Odyssey/Exodus can fucking do one. I have no idea how I managed to get all the Modukons as a kid, those games are SO. FUCKING. HARD.
Was it actually that intelligent though, or did it just have AI hacks? Most RTS AIs do. Because aside from pro pro pro level players playing against some pretty bad people, I'm not sure how you'd manage to beat 3 people in any RTS. You just wouldn't have the resources, even if you're a micro king, their armies are controlled by 3 people and likely outnumber you 3 to 1 in unit count.The Feast said:
Thank god for optional difficulty, I have been playing Splinter Cell on Perfectionist (the hardest) and loving it but I wouldnt be a douche and force everyone to play on that difficulty.Thr33X said:
If you can play like you want why not let others play like they want?
For me the perfect difficulty slider would be from "Way easy that even a 4 year old can beat it" to "So fucking hard that not even the devs know for sure if its possible to beat". There is fun for everyone.