This Obsession With Difficulty is a Little Absurd
- Thread starter Drago-Morph
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Drago-Morph said:
I'm reluctant to respond because whenever I give people the answers, which they do not like, they tend to freak out and try and turn it into a flame war.
That said the bottom line is one between real gamers, and casuals. To a real gamer part of the point of playing a game and progressing is knowing that your doing something not everyone can do, for whatever reason, and will have probably defeated numerous players before you. If progress is accessible to anyone playing the game simply by playing it, it defeats the purpose. To a real gamer the idea of things like easy modes for many games is an anathema because it makes challenge optional, and allows anyone who decides to play see the content which is supposed to act as the reward for defeating the obstacles.
Whether you look down on real gamers or not for having no life, the bottom line is that to a real gamer someone not being able to devote 20 houra a day to gaming as a lifestyle is not an excuse, or a reason to ruin things for those who can and do make gaming an integral part of how they live. Someone who "has a life" and games as "something else they do" is by definition a casual, as they are approaching gaming as a casual interest as opposed to a major priority.
For the most part the issue is one created by the industry. When you have games for real gamers, alongside those for casuals, there is no real problem as long as most sides get their games. The problem is that real gamers ARE a minority nowadays (if a fairly large one, which is why they are so loudly heard), and given that casuals outnumber real gamers, the industry generally wants to cater to casuals to garner larger sales. This includes taking hardcore games like say "Dark Souls" and adding an "easy mode" making the challenge optional in order to increase their sales. Real gamers are profitable, but a successful "serious" game simply raises the question as to how much more money it could make by "casualizing" it.
The basic arguement is that not all games should have an "easy mode" and there is a dedicated audience that wants games where hardcore challenge is simply how the game is, rather than something that is optional. Outsiders might not get it, but the hardcore audience DOES get it, and at the end of the day that's all that matters.
As elitist as I might be on a lot of levels, I truthfully have no real problem with casual gamers as a whole, and even enjoy a number of games developed for that level HOWEVER I also want there to be decidedly non-casual games and challenges out there, and they are becoming fewer and further between. If the industry caters to both sides there is no issue, but as the industry is going entirely one way due to sheer greed, you see these conflicts intensifying. As casual gamers DO outnumber serious gamers, and the business aspects, including internet critics, realize this, there is rapidly becoming less and less interest in defending serious games, and serious gamers, despite the large numbers, because at the end of the day they are simply outnumbered and more money/more hits can be generated by being casual friendly.
There is also the issue of what is good for gaming as a whole. The problem with casual games and gamers is that they tend to sink to the lowest human denominator and kind of settle there. A lot can be done with gaming as a medium, but things aren't going to move forward as they should when things get stuck in that morass for business reasons. Right now we see a sort of "follow the leader" type thing where a serious game, for serious gamers, will do something cool, then people will casualize it and make even more money. With less games being developed to push the envelope for those who can handle it, it slows the growth of the industry, and at this rate soon there will be no more hardcore games, and then no more... or very little... progression and evolution within the industry.
If you never push yourself, how do you ever expect to improve? I also prefer harder difficulties because the easier ones feel like cheating.
Actually its more exhausting because of all his intellectually insulting "observations". For example he makes the comparison that higher difficulty is "hating the player" which is a point of view thats exhausting to try and even understand, let alone argue.Vegosiux said:
Okay, I'll bite here. People don't take issue with what you say as much as they take issue with how you say it. So it's not a problem of "giving answers people don't like", it's about "treating your partner in conversation as inferior". And that's what makes people "freak out".Therumancer said:
I mean, I can do triple-digit multiplications in my head quickly and reliably, it's a skill that's not that common. A rather useless one, since everyone has a calculator these days, but I still won't claim that people who can't do it (and don't see a reason to try) as "not doing math the way a real mathematician should be doing it" and won't get elitist on you for using a calculator.
That said, I don't disagree with the points you're making in the post. But I felt I had to lay it out how people might get upset about not what's being said but rather about the attitude with which it's delivered. I am aware some people consider confrontational/greater-than-thou/aggressive (those are examples, by the way, not accusations) attitudes "thought-provoking". I don't, I prefer the content to provoke thought, not the form.
Okay, enough ranting from my side. I mean, I like to ramp the difficulty to "self-flagellation with an acid-laced cat-o-nine-tails" sometimes myself. On my days off, mostly. After an intense weekend shift I prefer something easy to unwind. That does not make me a "fake gamer" as opposed to "real gamer".
fun fact about Skyrim: When I first got the game, I was under the assumption that it was too easy and ramped up the difficulty to master. I promptly got my ass handed to me. Then I played for a while, got used to the combat and the importance of blocking and found the game increasingly easy. The people that complain about Skyrim being built to be easy are lying out of their asses. If they want a hard late-game, go play Oblivion without following a leveling guide and maxing out your stats.Drago-Morph said:
One man's 'masochistic' is another mans normal mode. I kill dragons in Skyrim in like 5 hits on the hardest mode. I play nightmare mode DAO without pausing. I won FTL on normal mode on my second try. I soloed an entire campaign of Left 4 Dead 2 in expert realism mode. You simply assume we are masochists when asking for harder difficulties because I highly doubt that is the word used by those asking. I'm sorry that I am really good at videogames, but I need difficulties that are harder for most games.Drago-Morph said:
I never used a leveling guide. I didn't even max out my stats or level. Eventually I got to the point where I would leave the room or sit and read with a stack of quarters on the casting key for a heal spell, while all my enemies died from damage reflect. If I can leave the room and still win, it's not very difficult.uchytjes said:
Yes... just a problem with people wanting a challenge that you think is too much of a challenge, because you're the official challenge bar setter for the universe.Drago-Morph said:
Aren't they though? I mean if they are beating something that is too difficult for you to contend with; isn't that the definition of better? Having skills you lack allowing them to complete something you can't? Or to complete it much quicker than you, without unnecessary reloading and so forth?Drago-Morph said:
Your OP seems to think people exist who I have never heard of, who are sitting around going I want to reload 5000 times before I get a single foot in a game, because I die so much. You don't cite any actual examples of people like this. You just assume that everyone has the same skill level, and thus must hate themselves for playing on higher difficulties then you.Drago-Morph said:
Also Skyrim's unkillable NPCs being retarded isn't a difficulty issue, it's a poor game design issue. One that is very prevalent in RPGs these days. You can definitely fail your quest in Skyrim, it's called dying. The only difference is that some games make you start again from the beginning, and some let you start from a short while back. Just like letting you kill the NPCs would only let you fail your quest insofar as you are unwilling to just quick-load an earlier save.
Okay, okay. 362*412; without using anything but your head, you have 30 seconds. If you can't, then I get to look down on you and incessantly rave on and on about how you don't deserve to do anything that has numbers in it or something but I do because I'm just better than you.Mycroft Holmes said:
Note: in order for people to not run afoul of Poe's law - that was a joke.
Sorry, I got a bit carried away there, serious now. My point? Some people are better at some things and some people at other things. Being "better at" something does not make one "better" in general as in "a greater person". I mean, in order to confirm that you kind of have to compete in multiple categories and all.
...yeah I'm nit-picking semantics. Feel free to ignore, but if you (or anyone else) respond, please make sure you understand what I'm saying first.
It's weird.
I never really thought of this whole thing where a game has to be challenging or engaging stuff when I was little. Back then, I just really liked to play video games It's only did I start spending a lot of time on the internet where I start to hear a bunch of people talking about difficulty in games and how important it supposedly is.
Thinking about it now, I can totally see where people are coming from. At the same time though, I feel that difficulty is sorta subjective. Some people have a much easier time playing certain games than others. Not to mention most of the people on here have played games for a very long time. Most longer than I have.
This has sort of brought a question up in my mind that's sorta been bugs me whenever it comes up.
What exactly is the difference between making a game more manageable or dumbing down in terms of difficulty? Example: Some people have stated that the latest XCOM is a dumbed down version of the original and appeals to casuals, while others, like Yahtzee, say that it (for lack of a better term) trims the fat and gets rid of pointless stuff.
I never really thought of this whole thing where a game has to be challenging or engaging stuff when I was little. Back then, I just really liked to play video games It's only did I start spending a lot of time on the internet where I start to hear a bunch of people talking about difficulty in games and how important it supposedly is.
Thinking about it now, I can totally see where people are coming from. At the same time though, I feel that difficulty is sorta subjective. Some people have a much easier time playing certain games than others. Not to mention most of the people on here have played games for a very long time. Most longer than I have.
This has sort of brought a question up in my mind that's sorta been bugs me whenever it comes up.
What exactly is the difference between making a game more manageable or dumbing down in terms of difficulty? Example: Some people have stated that the latest XCOM is a dumbed down version of the original and appeals to casuals, while others, like Yahtzee, say that it (for lack of a better term) trims the fat and gets rid of pointless stuff.
A useless experiment, as I could say whatever I want and there's not really any way of proving it.Vegosiux said:
It took me about 2 minutes though. You just break it down into parts that are easily handled and then add them back up, as long as you can keep track of which pieces you have done already it's not too difficult. 360 times 400. 12 times 2. 12 times 360. 2 times 400. You can then break down the parts further if you need, like 12 times 360 can be broken into. 10 times 360 and 2 times 360.
You need to provide examples. I've never heard anyone say that people who play easy games don't deserve to be allowed to.Vegosiux said:
I never implied it did, though I'm assuming that was your original implication. If so, then yes I agree that's retarded. Otherwise, people who are able to do things you can't in videogames, are by the very definition better than you where videogames are concerned. And they{I?} have every right to complain that there are almost no developers who make anything to an acceptable difficulty level for them{me?} anymore.Vegosiux said:
Again I think you're reading into things that don't exist, and jumping to a conclusion that wasn't implied by anyone. I have heard people brag that they are better at videogames, which as we have established can't really be denied, but I have never heard them assert that they are better at everything because of it. On the contrary usually when you bring that up as a subject, there is a clear change in dialogue that includes everything(my penis is 10 inches long, I make more money than you, I trained my pet tiger to make strawberry torte and your tiger can't even make top ramen.) This change in discussion clearly delineates that they weren't suggesting that their videogame skills alone make them better.
Oh, those things do exist, just not necessarily as the norm everywhere (see the conclusion of this post), that I am aware of. But GIFT is a very real thing...and the first part of my post was mostly me being too sarcastic for my own good anyway.Mycroft Holmes said:
As for the penis, money and the pet tiger comments...yeah, well I'd likely get put on the sex offender list if I wanted to make sure the size of my penis is not assumed to be something that it's not, be it either way...I mean, I bet that's what you get for waving your wang around on the internet, even if only to make sure nobody ever assumes how small or large it is.
(Note: This part was not meant to be taken all that seriously either.)
I take it you've never seen the inside of the LoL community, for example. Scary place. Abandon all hope, ye who enter there; and find a quick exit >.< Seriously, you should have seen some Tribunal cases I went through. But basically, to more people than I could count in the end it sure looked like "Won a LoL game against you" = "You're a fat, ugly, small-dicked virgin who will never get some" (or something along those lines). Haven't been on the scene in quite a long time now tho, but I'm not too sure the toxicity levels went down any. Decent and helpful folks were the exception.
We'll I've never played LoL, though I have a friend who played it professionally who said it was pretty bad. We played Ultima Freeshards together, and he agreed that it was about on par with those. But anyways, that just sounds like shit talking to me, and I still think you're reading too much into it.Vegosiux said:
As someone who has griefed and trolled(classily) for nearly a decade now I have to doubt that anyone actually literally believes any of that. It's like how fag is often used as a pejorative for someone you don't honestly even believe is a homosexual. It's just things you throw out to show your dominance on a anthropological/societal level, and rattle your opponent on a psychological level so that they don't play as well. Its like this: http://www.cracked.com/video/fantasy_football_18469/
I've insulted tons of people in every way imaginable and even some that are technically not possible to imagine. But I never actually thought anything I said was more than incidentally correct some of the time. But that wasn't the point of it. It's the exact same as in sports, only x100 because it's on the internet and no one knows who you are.
Also none of this really has to do with difficulty. Difficulty means singleplayer. And I have never heard an example of someone going "you didn't play dragon age origins on nightmare mode, you shouldn't be allowed to play it." That's a whole different thing. Because trash talking in a non-multiplayer game makes no sense, and people don't actually care that much what difficulty level other people play on.
Difficulty settings have been a staple of video gaming for what, two decades now? Can we please just accept that we can have the same game be both easy as pie and balls hard with a simple setting alteration in order to have a suitable challenge level for different people's preferences?
That goes for developers too. Dying over and over in Call of Halo: Battle Warfighter 3 is more of a nuisance than a real challenge because you die really quickly and respawn just as quick, set back about 30 seconds in total. Problem's not that the game is "too easy", it's that it's badly designed.
So I guess what I want to say is that I think anyone who derides a game as "too easy" is just being dumb.
... well that would have saved me a lot of time if I'd thought to put that at the top.
That goes for developers too. Dying over and over in Call of Halo: Battle Warfighter 3 is more of a nuisance than a real challenge because you die really quickly and respawn just as quick, set back about 30 seconds in total. Problem's not that the game is "too easy", it's that it's badly designed.
So I guess what I want to say is that I think anyone who derides a game as "too easy" is just being dumb.
... well that would have saved me a lot of time if I'd thought to put that at the top.
I know the video you talk about,and I have to say that the point of it wasn't game difficulty at all.
It was simplification and the reduction of the game's world responding to your actions,the reduction of believability and realism. How hard it is to kill monsters in a dungeon is an entire different subject than being able to kill an NPC or not.
And there is a reason that being allowed or not to kill an NPC is important for The Elder Scrolls,perhaps more than in other games.
It's because in all past TES games before Skyrim the developers wrote a short introductory manifesto explaining their goals and aims for The Elder Scrolls series. In that manifesto they pretty much say that their vision with the series has always been to create a virtual fantasy world that interacts and responds like the real world,so you can get immersed and live an alternate life. The Elder Scrolls was supposed to be a world/life simulator that responds to your actions naturally. For that reason in the older games like Morrowind and Daggerfall you were allowed to kill every single being that is not a God if you would like too,because that's the reasonable outcome of an action like attacking someone with a sword. TES was initially designed to be a life simulator/sandbox in a fantasy world.
What is considered bad by the man who made the video is the fact that the philosophy of the developer team has changed. Instead of trying to make the games the closest in representing a world that have consequences like in real life,a believable world where you can 'live' in it,their goal nowdays is to make mainstream,and may I say 'casual' action games. So a lot of aspects and mechanics that existed in past games are absent in Skyrim,the interactivity is reduced,the consequences are reduced,and basically most life simulator features and mechanics have been reduced or removed.
The amount of difficulty and challenge in modern games is an entirely different subject,unrelated with this Elder Scrolls - specific issue.
It was simplification and the reduction of the game's world responding to your actions,the reduction of believability and realism. How hard it is to kill monsters in a dungeon is an entire different subject than being able to kill an NPC or not.
And there is a reason that being allowed or not to kill an NPC is important for The Elder Scrolls,perhaps more than in other games.
It's because in all past TES games before Skyrim the developers wrote a short introductory manifesto explaining their goals and aims for The Elder Scrolls series. In that manifesto they pretty much say that their vision with the series has always been to create a virtual fantasy world that interacts and responds like the real world,so you can get immersed and live an alternate life. The Elder Scrolls was supposed to be a world/life simulator that responds to your actions naturally. For that reason in the older games like Morrowind and Daggerfall you were allowed to kill every single being that is not a God if you would like too,because that's the reasonable outcome of an action like attacking someone with a sword. TES was initially designed to be a life simulator/sandbox in a fantasy world.
What is considered bad by the man who made the video is the fact that the philosophy of the developer team has changed. Instead of trying to make the games the closest in representing a world that have consequences like in real life,a believable world where you can 'live' in it,their goal nowdays is to make mainstream,and may I say 'casual' action games. So a lot of aspects and mechanics that existed in past games are absent in Skyrim,the interactivity is reduced,the consequences are reduced,and basically most life simulator features and mechanics have been reduced or removed.
The amount of difficulty and challenge in modern games is an entirely different subject,unrelated with this Elder Scrolls - specific issue.
What's with all the people hating on Skyrim in this thread?
The game has adjustable difficulty levels so it's as hard as you want it to be. As long as you don't try to break the game, there will always be a challenge (except the last encounter which was poorly designed) The game lets you change difficulty on the fly which is great.
Some people mentioned bugs, but a bug occurring has nothing to do with the challenge of a game. Bugs are unintended.
People are also saying that the game is easy on the hardest difficulty and that it's imposable to die. They're wrong.
Now a good example of a game that is too easy is Kingdoms of Amalur. Even while playing on hard and avoiding crafted equipment, wearing whatever dropped gear looked good, it was still barely a challenge. In 100 or so hours, I must have died 4 times, and that was only because I was careless.
The game has adjustable difficulty levels so it's as hard as you want it to be. As long as you don't try to break the game, there will always be a challenge (except the last encounter which was poorly designed) The game lets you change difficulty on the fly which is great.
Some people mentioned bugs, but a bug occurring has nothing to do with the challenge of a game. Bugs are unintended.
People are also saying that the game is easy on the hardest difficulty and that it's imposable to die. They're wrong.
Now a good example of a game that is too easy is Kingdoms of Amalur. Even while playing on hard and avoiding crafted equipment, wearing whatever dropped gear looked good, it was still barely a challenge. In 100 or so hours, I must have died 4 times, and that was only because I was careless.
This one strikes close to me because I really, REALLY, liked the new XCOM.scorptatious said:
Far as I'm aware, I don't think the complaints lie with the difficulty but with the idea that many of the features of the much venerated original weren't present in the new one; I certainly felt that the original was a little top-heavy (but then I didn't play it when it until recently), but I don't think the new one was deserving of so much vitriol just because it's a different, more streamlined game. People get attached I guess. Personally I thought that I missed some of the depth, but the original's out there, if I want that kind of depth, I enjoy the new one for what it is, which is basically the tactical game.
Some of the discussions I read really harp on 'the casuals', and of course I find that to be complete bullshit, as I do any discussion that harps on 'the casuals/CoD kiddie' crowd or whatever; what you enjoy in a game is nothing to do with intelligence, and the same goes for difficulty.
The difference is very, very indistinct, because it is ultimately a matter of opinion; any change at all can be twisted into a 'dumbing down' argument, but the idea that it's done so to make it more accessible to less-intelligent people is a fucking poisonous one that shows how needlessly cruel and judgemental people like to be, and coincidentally how much of an ego people have about an entertainment medium.
Because some of us are old enough to have played games that did hate the player and try to kill you. That's the problem with modern games. In order to reach a wider audience they deny any actual danger to the player character for the most part.
It's fine that games are appealing to a wider audience, it really is. But when games that used to actively challenge us release a new version that feels more like a theme park ride rather than an adventure that's when it becomes a problem. The transition between Morrowind and Oblivion is a perfect example of this and this is why people continue to love Morrowind and continue to mod and support it 10 years after it was released.
If you don't want a challenge that's totally fine. But you have no right to complain if I want to exercise my brain while I play.
It's fine that games are appealing to a wider audience, it really is. But when games that used to actively challenge us release a new version that feels more like a theme park ride rather than an adventure that's when it becomes a problem. The transition between Morrowind and Oblivion is a perfect example of this and this is why people continue to love Morrowind and continue to mod and support it 10 years after it was released.
If you don't want a challenge that's totally fine. But you have no right to complain if I want to exercise my brain while I play.
You go play Skyrim with the difficulty all the way up. Then go play Morrowind with the difficulty all the way up. Skyrim's difficulty is just artificial, in that the AI does not change whatsoever, it just hits harder. Now in Morrowind, the AI will be granted new abilities to roll with as well as a bit of a strength boon. Archers will poison their arrows, mages will cast invisibility, warriors will actually surround you. They will also make use of scrolls and potions that are distributed randomly on spawn to mix things up. That's interesting, a giant that clubs you so high you die from fall damage is just frustrating.Maxtro said:
Once I've straightened the Elder Scrolls-specific subject which isn't about difficulty at all,I'll tell you my opinion about average game difficulty these days.
You know what ? I'm glad games are not so hard as they used to be in the Arcade days. And you know why ? Because back then when each game needed its own huge hardware the main costumer of video game companies where bars. That's right developers were getting paid by the bar owners who ordered arcade machines so they can have them on their bars and make money. Video games at that time were designed to be hard for the sole reason of making you spending more coins on the machine,and making the bar owner-arcade machine buyer more rich. By the time home consoles appeared and you didn't had to give money for every single life you loose,there really was no reason for developers to make the games that hard.
Now I might not like classic arcade level and kind of difficulty,but I'm not one of those who want all games to become easier either,and I have to accept that some modern games are way much easier than they should be. A good example is the Wolfenstein game that was released in 2007. Before playing that game I read on the internet that it was extremely easy so I decided to start playing it on my first playthrough at the hard setting,even though I always play games at medium setting. And I did found that the game was kinda easy at the beginning,but I had the suspicion that the game would become harder later on as I progressed in it. So when I found my really good weapons like the flame thrower and the rocket launcher,I decided to conserve the ammo and keep it for the hard points of the game that I expected to come later on,were their power would really be needed. Well you know what ? I finished the game and watched the credits roll and I hadn't used the 3 most powerful of the weapons I had found at least once,because I never needed them,they were so overpowered I never used them in the game to not feel like I was cheating,I was killing each enemy in 1-2 seconds anyway with the starting weapon (mp40).
You know what ? I'm glad games are not so hard as they used to be in the Arcade days. And you know why ? Because back then when each game needed its own huge hardware the main costumer of video game companies where bars. That's right developers were getting paid by the bar owners who ordered arcade machines so they can have them on their bars and make money. Video games at that time were designed to be hard for the sole reason of making you spending more coins on the machine,and making the bar owner-arcade machine buyer more rich. By the time home consoles appeared and you didn't had to give money for every single life you loose,there really was no reason for developers to make the games that hard.
Now I might not like classic arcade level and kind of difficulty,but I'm not one of those who want all games to become easier either,and I have to accept that some modern games are way much easier than they should be. A good example is the Wolfenstein game that was released in 2007. Before playing that game I read on the internet that it was extremely easy so I decided to start playing it on my first playthrough at the hard setting,even though I always play games at medium setting. And I did found that the game was kinda easy at the beginning,but I had the suspicion that the game would become harder later on as I progressed in it. So when I found my really good weapons like the flame thrower and the rocket launcher,I decided to conserve the ammo and keep it for the hard points of the game that I expected to come later on,were their power would really be needed. Well you know what ? I finished the game and watched the credits roll and I hadn't used the 3 most powerful of the weapons I had found at least once,because I never needed them,they were so overpowered I never used them in the game to not feel like I was cheating,I was killing each enemy in 1-2 seconds anyway with the starting weapon (mp40).
This pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter: it's the difference between difficulty through challenging the player and just seeing how many times they are willing to restart the same level/fight/mission over again because one mistake kills you instantly.Legion said:
I've started to play more games on the highest difficulty, like when I went back to platinum Darksiders, and I find it makes me a better player: instead of rushing in and mashing the attack button, I was having to dodge and parry and use more of the games mechanics.
On the other hand, I've never beaten the first level of Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox because there is so little room for error that I would have reloaded checkpoint twenty times before I even got into the groove of the fight. If I'm spending more time watching a loading screen than playing the game then I'm not having fun and I lose interest rapidly.