Poll: Too easy..

[Count_de_Monet]

If you had a good AI would you wait until the hardest difficulty to show it off when it's already hard to show off in the first place?

If it were me I would begin phasing difficulty levels out of games in the next few years. For all it's cheating no AI I've every played against has ever approximated a human player. I'd rather play against a clever enemy than an invincible mechanical juggernaut.

Company of Heroes shows you can make a more versatile RTS AI that can spread out and control an entire battlefield instead of attack along a single route. The CoH computer also will react to your movements, flank your units, retreat, play the directional armor game, and cover it's allies. It still may not be a real person but it's the most fun AI I've played against.

Crysis, for the amount I've actually played, includes a more intelligent AI than I've ever seen. Enemies fan out, they react to noise, they run from grenades, cover each other (to a degree), stay at a distance when they can and run up close when they have to, etc. I have no idea what the difference is between normal and hard but I assume they have better aim, notice you a bit quicker, aren't as easily fooled by cloak, and so on. I have no problem with that as it would make the game much more fun but if they just get auto aim, can see through your cloak entirely, and can take more hits I wouldn't bother playing again. Of course, if the Crysis units are given the ability to take more hits they would never die...unless you're using a shotgun every single kill HAS to be a headshot otherwise they will absorb an entire clip and keep running.

 

[GloatingSwine]

The answer is simple: you risk hiding the best parts of a game from plain sight. On HALO PC, there were certain tactics the enemy would not use on normal difficulty. I breezed through the game assuming the AI was useless, and would have taken that impression to the grave had my younger brother not introduced me to the harder difficulties. I marvelled at the increased depth and wondered why the hell they disabled the AI on normal.

They didn't, However, because you're on a lower difficulty you can charge in and kill them, soaking fire because it doesn't damage you too much, so they respond to that, rather than what you'll do on Legendary, which is generally hide, potshot, and ambush, and their reactions to that look a lot cleverer.

Same with every single game with reasonable AI code, you won't see it on lower difficulties because you play more simply, and you give the AI less to respond to (also they die faster).

 

[LusikkaMage]

They're definitely easier than old NES-type games, but part of the reason is because they can make the games better now, but I like game difficulty better now than then (or, having a choice, like in MGS)

 

[Count_de_Monet]

Going back to difficulty in FPS:
I think Crysis has what I'm talking about down to a science. In normal difficulty incoming grenades slow on your screen but in the hardest difficulty they don't. In normal the enemies speak english, however, on Delta they speak korean. These are all things which are very helpful in avoiding death and encounters on normal which are removed to make it more difficult instead of making the bad guys invincible or giving them ridiculous super-human aim.

 

[blockcity]

A game with save points: The designers want you to win.
A game without save points: The designers don't care if you win.
A lot of modern games are designed to give the player a feeling of accomplishment without having to earn it so much as experience it -- and a lot of players appreciate this, as shown by a few posts.
This is clearly more profitable, as there are less people in the world who want to play a game that is indifferent to their success, via a lack of save points or very demanding challenges.
There is a key difference in player type: Those who want a feeling of accomplishment, and those who dont want the game to lend them a helping hand at all. Fulfilling a fantasy vs overcoming a challenge. Cheers.

I also like the idea of "unusual" changes to the gameplay, not just increasing damage or even AI. Changing items locations, paths through an area etc. That's one thing I like about Nethack and other roguelikes: the mostly-randomly generated games means that you can't predict what will happen, so you can't possibly use a walkthrough. You have to think on your feet, just like players had to do in the first alternate quest for the original Zelda.

Also: "dying a bunch" does not make a game "hard". Hard means it is difficult to complete, and that finishing is uncertain.. how hard is Bioshock, or Halo, really when you have unlimited times to replay a scene? Is it "challenging" or just "tedious"? Knowing that with enough TIME you will win is not challenging, it's tedious. Knowing that with enough SKILL you can win but with too LITTLE SKILL you will impermanently lose the game (forcing an entire restart), is challenge.

 

[clockpenalty]

blockcity

A game without challenge is no game. Many players find it difficult enough to even look around in a dual stick shooter such as halo: those who demand a greater challenge are those of us with a lifetime of experience/pracice behind us.

Your statements should be rewritten to replace 'win' with 'progress'. A game that doesnt give you save points doesnt really care that you make progress- but if players are unable to progress in Need For Speed Most Wanted to the point where they unlock the BMW M3, they will feel cheated.

You DO have to earn your accomplishment in many modern games- however the level of challenge is not so brutal as to exclude an entire category of human beings from the experience. Some people are physically incapable of defeating Cyber Akuma on eight stars on marvel vs street fighter- but you dont need to do that to see what the game has to offer.

On the other hand, ALL players need to get to the end of halo3 to get their money's worth. Afterwards, they can replay on legendary with the iron skull enabled (death sends you back to the start) and the game will reward them with achievement points that are visible on their xbox live account.

A percentage of human beings lack the hand eye coordination and fortitude to achieve this. Why deny these people the full experience of thegame?

Remember Tekken 3? Ignoring the difficulty setting of the game, this game would work behind the scenes, increasing or reducing the difficulty based on how brutally you kill the computer pponents (or are killed by them). That way, any player gets a challenge. If you feel you are a warlord, by the 4th oppponent the computer will be unbeatable. If you just mash buttons the computer will fight like an idiot.

You may say the game is rewarding unskilled play, but in my opinion, it is creating a memorable experience for any player, the one who doesnt have time to learn the game and the one who wants to be the best. Of course in the end the question of who is better will be settled in multiplayer- a feature that is of increasing importance in the modern gaming climate.

 

[Kemmler0]

Yes. Modern games are easy most of the time. But some game designers add in hard bits, but these are nothing more than unimaginative slog. Final Fantasy is severely guilty of this (dodge lightning 200 time to get Lulus super weapon, then never got it...... mumble mumble.... *trails off*).

List of challenging modern games without being annoying.
1. Thief 1 on anything above easy difficulty
2. Deus Ex
3. Vampire Bloolines

 

[Copter400]

I'm fairly inexperienced, but unless you (on a regular basis) manage to find every last secret in a game, get every last achievement, beat it on every difficulty level, with ease and speed and a yawn of boredom, then I suppose you can say games are getting easier.

And remember, you have to have been able to do this with every modern game you've ever played.

 

[raankh]

All I have to say is:

up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start