Games Aren't Getting Eaiser!

[YawningAngel]

Regenerating Health. Your argument is invalid.

Nothing is as terrifying as older games when yu're at 10% health...

You can make a game with regenerating health really, really difficult.

 

[cloudywolf13]

I don't really have anything to add to the thread, but I feel it necessary to point out that you weren't supposed to fight the Midgar Zolom.

 

[Addicted Muffin]

what?
Games ARE getting easier...by a ton.
Cases in point:

Case 1
Halo: CE Anniversary
In recent halo games, ie 3 and reach, you are able to solo legendary with a considerable number of skulls turned on. When me and a friend popped in the new CE Anniversary and went into co-op, we got our asses handed to us. Despite the fact that our co-op team was contrived of 2 veteran halo players, who have both aced halo 3 and reach's solo campaign on legendary with many skulls equiped, the covenant steam rolled us like we were made of jelly.

Case 2
Call of Duty
Now, I'm not a big fan of the CoD franchise, but I've played a bit of the series, including the first games. I can remember that back in the day, we couldnt suck on that beloved, nourishing gravel to regrow our limbs. If we couldnt find health, we'd get fucked.

Case 3
Contra, Megaman 2, Battle Toads
Do I really need to explain why these are difficult games?

Case 4
Checks and Balances
this isnt really a game, but the balancing of games makes them easier. When game critiques come in, the designers take that into account. They see that if the sniper is a 1 hit, they tone it down, or make it worth the 1 hit kill. When a game first comes out, it is in it's rawest form. The more you mold the systems and make adjustments, the easier the game becomes.

To say games have become harder is just making you look bad.
You may see people who have never played games get owned, but that's because they have no idea what they're doing. My grandma cant work a damn Iphone, it doesnt mean the Iphone is hard to use, it just mean's she's inexperienced

 

[Eventidal]

A lot of games have gotten easier. But game design and structure have gotten a lot BETTER across the board.

I went back to the NES games I got for free on my 3DS. For once I was determined to beat Metroid and Zelda, which I've never done before.
Made it to dungeon 5 in Zelda. There was a room with EIGHT of those blue dudes who move as fast as you, move towards you when you're close, and can only get hurt from hits on their back. Almost impossible to win, I kept trying and failing to beat them and gave up when I tried the other option in the continue screen, which turned out to be the one to bring you to the main menu. (the wording made me think it would start me at the beginning screen of the game instead of the entrance to the dungeon with 3 measly hearts) I hadn't saved since the very start, so I lost all progress.
Metroid was a lot worse. Terrible level design and copy-pasted areas. Huge chunks of the map that lead to dead ends with no incentive to explore them at all. No map or guidance to speak of. I was in the area leading to Kraid when I ended up dying. When you come back, you start at the entrance of the area... with 30 health. I had some 500 maximum health at this point. There is no easy way to get it back. I kept trying to push forward but no. 30 health isn't enough to survive two hits and the AI is erratic, fast and annoying as hell. I could hardly advance a single screen. Thus, I quit trying to play.

Dark Souls might seem difficult and unforgiving, but it's well-designed. Challenges aren't made tough through unfair means, and stuff like starting you back with half or 1/4 health is nothing compared to starting you back with 30 (out of as much as 800 or more!) every time you die, giving you no tutorials, guidance or help whatsoever.

 

[Bagk Nakh]

Who says it's just one particular thing? Games have brought on many difficulty lowering features over the years (checkpoints, saving, etc.), Gamers generally become more apt at controlling the game as they become more adept with general controls, playing many games will generally make you better at playing them, game design practices have also improved making things flow smoother, and blah de blah de blah. As with most things in life, it's not just one specific thing at the root, it's many things.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Regenerating Health. Your argument is invalid.

Nothing is as terrifying as older games when yu're at 10% health...

Yeah, but you die a hell of a lot quicker in regenerating health games. Also, never say "your argument is invalid" especially when the invalidation is both debatable, and not applicable to every game.

Games aren't easier, they just don't punish as much. You probably die a similar amount of times in a play session of CoD and Doom, it's just that Doom sends you back further when you die.


I consider modern games to be a more "pure" form of difficult, because you never die because there aren't enough health packs, you died because you exposed yourself too much. There aren't as many bullshit "insta-death, return to beginning of level" type circumstances. Also, older games (Megaman, etc) weren't as long. They had to punish you for death to justify the cost of purchase, drag it out. That kind of artificial padding is bullshit, and it's great that games have moved away from that.

 

[Antari]

You could be right as a number of my friends have described playing me in a video game like setting the difficulty to pain. Although its hard to follow along with that as I don't see my friends able to progress past a certain point. My time in old school games hardened me to a different level than most are prepared to goto in a modern game. Back then, you needed to go there to finish the game. Now, its sort of an optional thing.

 

[Powereaver]

id have to say a lot of games are becoming easier but there still are a fair few hardcore difficult games out there.. Catherine as said above is one and a few indie titles you have to get lucky with to have half a chance as im currently playing Binding of Isaac and to get one complete playthrough you need luck of the draw on item drops and enemies/bosses

 

[Twilight_guy]

I think the correct question is not if games are getting easier or not but why does anyone care. What does beating a harder game prove? What does not being able to complete a game mean? Why do people want to be punished for failure? (i.e. the PoP argument)

 

[sergnb]

getting used to tired mechanics and 15 year obstacle routines isn't getting better, it's just... that, getting used to them.

While yes, most of us had to look at the controller to see which button was "A", there's a point in which you just know where it is, no matter how new to gaming you are. And pressing A after or before isn't just knowing which button is it, but a matter of skill, reflexes, and other circunstances.

Please, putting ANY final fantasy as an example is just wrong. JRPG's are pretty damn easy, unless you fuck up tremendously or you do not pay any attention to anything anyone has to say, you'll succees, no matter what. And that's true in today's standards, you know. Developers have spent WAY TOO MUCH time developing that final boss fight just to see you not reach it at all. They are gonna hold your hand so you can witness that "so ossum!!11" moment and make sure you don't miss it.

Just how many people do you think beat Contra in their first weekend of playing? I'm talking when the game was actually released here, when almost everyone that played it was a kid that had just started gaming. You know how awesome was that feeling when you came to your school and announce to your friends that you FINALLY beat Contra without using cheats, only to be cheered by all of them.

Yeah... you can't say that about modern games... My father, who is completely inept with a controller, has beaten all modern warfare and battlefield games, metal gear solid 4, all uncharted games, all killzone games, and some more. On medium difficulty. Without having played ANY games prior to this.

These... these are the top-selling videogames of our time. And my completely-new-to-gaming parent beat all of them, some of them even with more achievements than me, who have spent my entire life with this hobby.

So yes, games are getting easier. There's no doubt about that.

 

[pppppppppppppppppp]

It's weird, I feel like games are getting harder, but that's only because I'm awesome at platformers and shitty at shooters. I've beaten IWBTG and gotten the second ending to Super Meat Boy, but sit me down with Battlefield 3 or something and I'll die on the lowest difficulty.

So as games are moving away from 3rd person action/platformers and into FPSs over this generation, it feels like games are getting harder for me. :3

 

[DarthFennec]

Games aren't getting easier, we're getting better as gamers.

That might make sense, except I go back and play the old games and they're still hard as hell.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Snip

I think difficulty depends on age of the developer and how the developer wants their games to be experienced.

I find that with most developers, when I play their "early in life games"(from when they were just barely known and starting out), they tend to be more difficult then the most games they make when they've hit the big time and are a developer that is well know and has loads of fans.

Early on it seems like most developers think of games from a fun through being challenging perspective, that maybe not everybody is going to get through their game or it will take some people forever, and they see that is fine. Then when they get into the big leagues and have the enormous budget to make large and cinematic, possibly heavily story driven type games, they dial down the difficulty so that everybody will get to see the whole thing without it being a pain to experience.

I came to this conclusion when I got Halo CE: Anniversary. I came late into the game on Halo. I had did some random multiplayer on other peoples machines with 1, 2, and finally 3, but I had never experience the campaign.

Truly getting into Halo cam about when I first got my Xbox 360 around 2 years ago and it was the Halo 3, Fable 2, combo pack system. I finally got into it, playing the story as well as multiplayer. Then I got ODST, and I found it great as well, and finally Reach and I love it too. So, of course Halo CE: Anniversary was a must have for me(I hope they do it for Halo 2 as well).

Now what I noticed is a comparison of the difficulty levels, since Halo has always had the four tiered, Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary system. The thing that got me though is that the first Halo's Normal difficulty is much harder compared to the Normal setting on Halo 3 and onward. That is pretty apparent when I open a large door, and out comes a sword zealot Elite and behind him is like ten grunts, five jackals, and behind them is 3 more Elites of different flavors, and I'm alone with no Marines or other help. In the other games, those numbers would be half that at least.

I'm definitely dreading legendary, though I'm glad that there is no alone on Legendary achievement, so a friend and I have decided to meet up sometime and do it together.

Another thing I have figured with difficulty these days, it has come down to more on achievement difficulty. Beating the games isn't too hard in most respects, but when they throw in insanely hard achievements, that is where the difficulty comes in.

That is where my small amount of the Halo franchise comes in, new achievements get added with each new map pack, and of course Anniversary came with the 6 revamped multiplayer maps and the new firefight map, as well as 10 more achievements for Reach. You see, after the first new map pack came out for Reach, I got all the achievements and I got the 100% game symbol in my 100% box on my game profile. Then the second map pack came out, and that 100% disappeared, until I got got those achievements as well, so it was 100% again. Now that Anniversary came out, it is again not at 100%, yeah it does give me something to do with the game, but losing that 100% twice is very aggravating.

But what gets me is with each new set of achievements, they get crazier and more difficult, and with Halo, more difficult means to hard for an average ability player. That is why with the last set of new achievements, my friends and I got our four 360's together with 12 controllers and farmed the stupidly hard ones. Though, Bungie, 343, or whoever is running the thing, obviously found out about that and banned us from earning leveling credits for a couple days. It will happen again though, because we do plan on doing it again with a few of these new achievements. I have gotten 4 of the new ones on my own, but I would say that there are at least 4 I don't think I would be able to get without boosting, the getting a ten skull(Skullimanjaro) score on a headhunter game definitely.

tl:dr: I think difficulty depends on the age of the developer as well as budget.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Nah, games are getting easier in a lot of ways. But they're good ways. A lot of the old games were hard because they were built unfairly, were badly designed or had flawed control schemes. It was an artificial hardness, though, because you were fighting against the system instead of playing with it. It's not so much that they're getting easier as game design is getting better.

Although, there are some games that are just walks in the park, but that's not really the entire gaming industry as a whole.

 

[Something Amyss]

Think about it, Final Fantasy VII was hard for us because most of us were 11-15 when it came out. (1997 for those who don't know) And it was so hard!! I had the hardest time grinding levels to get past one of the cities where you had to run through a patch of water and you could see the giant snake come after you, he killed me a bajillion times. But now, I can sit down and level up enough in Midgar to go out and kill things all over the place.

You could just avoid him. I know I did. That was kind of the point in the first place.

I mean, Super Mario Bros used to be hard for me, I couldn't beat it, I got SM3 for the Wii and beat it in like 30 mins without dying.

I can't do that, but I can readily beat a ton of newer games with minimal fuss and hassle. And that kinda disproves the point there.

 

[Sampler]

Just playing through Skyward Sword and the only thing niggling me is it's easier than past Zelda games - not just the Dungeons but the entire World is a lot more linear, it's always been the case that some parts were blocked off until you got the item that would let you through but not they're almost single paths from the landing point from Skyloft through to the Dungeon.

And you get slightly lost or can't work out an enemies weakness and the very robotic spirit that lives in your sword is on hand to tell you in very small words what's needed to be done - all Navi was any good for was saying "Hey, Listen!"...

In fact the only challenge and difficulty to the game is getting the damn little bastard onscreen to do what you're flailing limbs are trying to convey. Every game over screen I've seen so far is not down to not knowing what needs to be done but in my requests to do something not being accurately passed on - many times now this game makes we wish there was an option to turnoff the wii-mote waggle waving and just use the "classic" controller to play the game.

Games still a lot of fun, twelve hours in I still feel there's a ton more to go (and that's just given by the map isn't full explored yet) - just wish the controls weren't so ass.

So in this one example, games are getting easier to play yet harder to control

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

The Mega Man franchise (classic Mega Man, Mega Man X, Mega Man Zero, and Mega Man ZX) has been notorious of becoming increasingly difficult. They are difficult in a good way, because once you manage to survive a perilous level and defeat the boss, you feel great and are anxious to continue to the next level.

 

[Mr.PlanetEater]

Now? try Saints row 2 last ultor mission after the download patch. Helicopters that spawn out of your sight and shoot you with heat seeking missiles before you can even SEE them? check. That was HARD!!!

Yeah but that's not the game being Hard, that's just the game being dickish and unfair. There's a real difference, and when you realize that a lot of the games that seem hard actually get recognized as the unfair pseudo-challenge that they are. To me, if a game spawns something off screen that can kill you quickly, and you have no way of knowing its there under normal circumstances. Then that game has a serious design flaw.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I'm sorry, but if you're becoming more adept at shooting at 100 yards, you're getting better. anything you do for along time, putting effort and desire and drive into, you're going to get better. I have a grouping of about 16 inches at 40 yards with my pistol, I can let my friends use it and his grouping is at 4 inches, he's much more adept than I am.. and I'll also say he's better, too

Before this analogy drops from your hands, give him a crossbow and ask him to hit a moving target.

Then watch how fast he adapts to it. Adept, not better.

 

[Timberwolf0924]

Then watch how fast he adapts to it. Adept, not better.

I think you're mixing it up.

Adept =/= Adapt

Adept is a skill level,
Adapt is the ability to conform to what needs to be adapted to.

The only way to become more adpet at something is to keep at it. I'm sure I can get as good at 100+ yards if I keep working at it.