Difficulty levels? More like difficu*ty levels...

[Mikic]

So you're playing Gears of War, or Call of Duty, or Halo, or any one of the many fps games out there, and you think 'Man, this is eeeaaasy' so you crank the difficulty level up and what happens? Your guy turns into a pussy. He gets shot once and he's down, his shield last for 1/2 a second or he can be killed even if he's behind one of those chest high walls. Is this what people want when they want more of a challenge? Poking your head out to kill maybe 1 bad guy, then waiting in cover for 30 seconds? Surely the harder the game is, the more baddies there should be. I would much prefer to still be a total bad ass surrounded by hordes of enemies, burning off loads of ammo, making a final stand with the last clip in my pistol and just scraping through, than be successful at figuring out the best place to hide. Am I right? Feel free to call me an idiot if I'm the only one who thinks this.

Another example is sports games. My point relates best to football soccer.
On a lower level, I win every game 6-0. This gets boring so I pop it on 'World Class' and every match is 0-0. The difficulty level has merely made the opposition team excellent at closing down and defending, so that I can't score. They still couldn't score in a brothel and the games become dull, goal less affairs. Why not up the AI defence a little bit, leaving tearing them apart with attacking flair still possible, i.e. the fun bit of the game, but make them better at attacking and presenting you with an exciting match that could end up 4-3?

Oh I dunno...

 

[AlternatePFG]

You win the award for most creative use of the word difficulty in a thread title.

I agree with you, but I don't mind being able to take less damage but I would like a choice between the too. Like, maybe on mode where there is more enemies and one where it's like the normal game but you take more damage.

 

[oplinger]

I prefer difficulty where you take less hits, or enemies are harder to kill (so you have to be more tactical.) ..Now, you mentioned you wanted more enemies as difficulty goes up. So I drew you a picture. Special for you. To explain why this is bad.

Spoiler: Imagine they have machine guns.

So, yeah I'm fine with only being able to take 2 hits before I die. ..The trick is kill them before they kill you.

 

[Dopubalimatu]

You win the award for most creative use of the word difficulty in a thread title.

I agree with you, but I don't mind being able to take less damage but I would like a choice between the too. Like, maybe on mode where there is more enemies and one where it's like the normal game but you take more damage.

I agree with this poster.

 

[The Virgo]

I wish that higher difficulty levels didn't mean that your character gets made of straw and enemy bullets are made of fire, but more like the enemies are smarter, more accurate and there's more of them.

That makes a lot more sense.

 

[therandombear]

I wish that higher difficulty levels didn't mean that your character gets made of straw and enemy bullets are made of fire, but more like the enemies are smarter, more accurate and there's more of them.

That makes a lot more sense.

This is how they work in Splinter Cell: Conviction.

On easy it's only few enemies, but on expert "Realism" as its called there, there's more of them, but they're not stronger nor do you take less damage.

I kinda like that variant.

OT: I play Gears of War, I like it, but I have never completely finished Gears 1 or 2 on highest difficulty, and it's not big portions, I have finished most of the games on highest. 2 scenes in 1 act in Gears 1 and 1 in Gears 2.

The Driving sequence from the bat thingies in Gears 1 on highest difficulty is indeed diffic**tly and I think it's act 4 in Gears 2 I had to skip one of the scenes there. I've beat rest of the game on highest though, but you die like in a sec >.<

 

[AzureRaven]

This is how they work in Splinter Cell: Conviction.

On easy it's only few enemies, but on expert "Realism" as its called there, there's more of them, but they're not stronger nor do you take less damage.

Errr, not sure which Conviction you're playing. You can definitely take way more shots on the lower difficulties, whereas realistic 2 or 3 can be enough to put you down. But in a game like that where stealth is key...it works.

Honestly though, in games like Gears or Halo, I would just prefer more enemies. I think it's depending on a line drawn between Realism and Non. In the above mentioned titles, your character is basically an equivalent of superman, so more enemies...or at least ONLY make them harder to kill seems more logical to me. In realistic games though, I could see the character turning into a bit of a pushover. It's all dependent.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

2x enemy health & damage = easy to program
2x smarter enemy AI = difficult to program

I think it's as easy as that.

 

[therandombear]

This is how they work in Splinter Cell: Conviction.

On easy it's only few enemies, but on expert "Realism" as its called there, there's more of them, but they're not stronger nor do you take less damage.

Errr, not sure which Conviction you're playing. You can definitely take way more shots on the lower difficulties, whereas realistic 2 or 3 can be enough to put you down. But in a game like that where stealth is key...it works.

Honestly though, in games like Gears or Halo, I would just prefer more enemies. I think it's depending on a line drawn between Realism and Non. In the above mentioned titles, your character is basically an equivalent of superman, so more enemies...or at least ONLY make them harder to kill seems more logical to me. In realistic games though, I could see the character turning into a bit of a pushover. It's all dependent.

I didn't really get shot that many times...and I only played the game on realism, but I watched my brother playing it on easy..he kept dying all the time, so I guessed they were as strong on easy as on realism.

I just snuk around silently murdering and taking people out with the OP silenced unlimited ammo pistol...>.>

 

[AzureRaven]

I didn't really get shot that many times...and I only played the game on realism, but I watched my brother playing it on easy..he kept dying all the time, so I guessed they were as strong on easy as on realism.

I just snuk around silently murdering and taking people out with the OP silenced unlimited ammo pistol...>.>

It might not be to the same degree as other games but you can manage to eat more bullets on lower difficulty. (Played it on lowest difficulty for a stress relief sort of thing. Works great when you can run straight up to everyone and melee frustration away. ) But yea...you're right, the pistols pretty much broke that game. Especially the Five-Seven. And combined with the scoped SD-MP5...ohhh even on realistic it's not fair for them. xD

 

[Neonsilver]

The problem with more enemys is, they draw more processing power from the console/pc. So there is a limit, I think especialy the small ram of consoles dictate the limit in enemy numbers.
I would prefer a better enemy AI, but improving the AI will cost time and money during development.
Thats probably the reason why the easiest way, lower health or more enemy damage, is taken.

 

[therandombear]

I didn't really get shot that many times...and I only played the game on realism, but I watched my brother playing it on easy..he kept dying all the time, so I guessed they were as strong on easy as on realism.

I just snuk around silently murdering and taking people out with the OP silenced unlimited ammo pistol...>.>

It might not be to the same degree as other games but you can manage to eat more bullets on lower difficulty. (Played it on lowest difficulty for a stress relief sort of thing. Works great when you can run straight up to everyone and melee frustration away. ) But yea...you're right, the pistols pretty much broke that game. Especially the Five-Seven. And combined with the SD-MP5...ohhh even on realistic it's not fair for them. xD

Upgraded the pistol, get equipment, get 5 execution marks, and AI wasn't really the smartest either...

Dude 1 walks behind crates where I'm hiding, melee death, execute rest of room.
Walk into next area...rince and repeat xD

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

So you're playing Gears of War, or Call of Duty, or Halo, or any one of the many fps games out there, and you think 'Man, this is eeeaaasy' so you crank the difficulty level up and what happens? Your guy turns into a pussy. He gets shot once and he's down, his shield last for 1/2 a second or he can be killed even if he's behind one of those chest high walls. Is this what people want when they want more of a challenge? Poking your head out to kill maybe 1 bad guy, then waiting in cover for 30 seconds? Surely the harder the game is, the more baddies there should be. I would much prefer to still be a total bad ass surrounded by hordes of enemies, burning off loads of ammo, making a final stand with the last clip in my pistol and just scraping through, than be successful at figuring out the best place to hide. Am I right? Feel free to call me an idiot if I'm the only one who thinks this.

Well the problem with that is simply, they can't. See for each additional enemy that is placed the console or computer would need additional processing power for the enemy's AI. After a certain point, there would be so many enemies on screen that the game would lag horribly. In some games this enemy limit is much higher than in others, but in all games, it's the reason why they choose to make the enemies stronger (or you weaker) instead of throwing more of them at you, because it's easier on the processor.

Remember, the consoles don't have that much processing power to begin with, and even among PC gamers not everyone has a super powerful computer that can handle having 100s of complicated AIs working in an area at once.

 

[mirror's edgy]

Some games do alter AI, enemy placement, and available resources based on difficulty setting to force the player to be more careful in addition to damage levels.

Also, I would sigh at the title, but it is a pretty adequate indicator of the thought put into your opening argument.

 

[Mikic]

Well the problem with that is simply, they can't. See for each additional enemy that is placed the console or computer would need additional processing power for the enemy's AI. After a certain point, there would be so many enemies on screen that the game would lag horribly. In some games this enemy limit is much higher than in others, but in all games, it's the reason why they choose to make the enemies stronger (or you weaker) instead of throwing more of them at you, because it's easier on the processor.

Remember, the consoles don't have that much processing power to begin with, and even among PC gamers not everyone has a super powerful computer that can handle having 100s of complicated AIs working in an area at once.

Well that is quite a valid reason, right there. AI does get smarter each time a next gen console appears, so maybe in a few years difficulty levels will get better.

I'm just from a time when video games were powered by magic. How does Escape From The Planet of Robot Monsters work? Doesn't matter right now, they're everywhere!!!!

But yes, technological constraints do have a tendency to constrain, I suppose.

 

[Tharwen]

Crysis has a huge problem with this.

The game is intended to be played as a ninja with a suit that makes him superhuman. When you turn the difficulty up, it turns into a standard hide-behind-cover-and-shoot-at-the-distant-specks game, because doing anything else gets you shot to death very quickly. You can't run at the Koreans and hit them because they shoot you first. You can't sneak around and take them out one by one because the AI catches on very easily and shoots you. You can't sneak through the entire game because... well, because that's fucking boring.

Basically, play on normal difficulty if you want fun, because above that, you're forced to stop.