Are modern video games easier or simply designed better?

[CritialGaming]

HAHHAHAHAHAHHAA Ya'll are silly. I love it.

Are games easier? Maybe? But last I checked, I was a fucking dumbass kid in the NES-Ps1 era of gaming. So games that I THOUGHT were hard probably wouldn't be nearly as hard now that I think with my brain more than my dick. (Oh shit am I getting old?)

I think this argument is really unfair and really hard to quantify because you can't put yourself in the same mindset of playing games back then, versus play games now.

In modern times I think games are designed differently. There is too much money to be made with gaming that many times, yes perhaps games are made to be a little easier so that the lowest common denominator can get through them. But additionally games are designed with a better mindset (not necessarily better designed overall). What I mean by that is that games tend to have bigger and better tutorials in place to teach players how things work, this means that a game may feel easier because it taught you everything you need to know to get through the challenges it presents to you. The OG Zelda didn't tell you shit, it plopped you into a world and said "Go!" and that makes the experience much different.

With better tech, comes better utilities as well. For example, take a map like the Witcher 3's map, with all the detail and such upon it. Even if you took off all the markers on the map and just gave yourself a plain map, the geographical features are clear and you can find your way around. Going back to OG Zelda, there was a map, but making your way around it, trying to find secrets and dungeons and such, well it is a completely different story. They are both maps, but the higher graphical power allows TW3 to take the same exact tool, and use it more effectively to give information to the player.

Today's games can also be extremely difficult as well. People like to make claims that old Nintendo and SNES games were brutally tough, but that wasn't universally true. Mario wasn't particularly tough, zelda wasn't all that hard either, Battletoads was though, fuck BAttletoads. It was a mixed bag of difficulty much like today. Dark Souls, Nioh, etc, there are games that come out today that don't give a fuck about the player and expect them to learn by loosing. And there are more diffculty options in games now that give players that challenge should they want that.

So the answer to the OP's question is generally designed better, but not really easier. With difficulty modes, players can often craft the challenge they want. Tutorials allow new players to get through games without trying to frustrate people or cause them to lose interest.

 

[CaitSeith]

Changed? Yes. Improved? Not necessarily. Being easy isn't the same as being better. Modern games are usually easier for the players, but contain so many hidden complex parts that they are frequently released in a buggy state. That isn't better design at all! Besides, if you weren't finding other than hard / broken games in the past, you just weren't looking in the right places.

EDIT:

You also need to take into account the improvement to controls over the years. Older games, especially from the PS1 and PS2 era controlled like shit. The Jak and Daxter games, classic Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid; They all controlled like rusty old cranks. Remember how in Metal Gear Solid 3 you had to press and hold like 5 buttons in order to lean out from cover and shoot a dude? Yeah, no longer. Now most of that is contextual and way more refined. Modern games control smooth as butter, and it's actually a big deal when a game controls a bit shitty.

Oh, yeah. That and better camera controls are definitely design improvements that make the games less unnecessarily frustrating.

 

[dscross]

Remember how in Metal Gear Solid 3 you had to press and hold like 5 buttons in order to lean out from cover and shoot a dude? Yeah, no longer. Now most of that is contextual and way more refined.

You should have played MGO on the PS2. Players leaned and precisely shot in first person within under a second. I'll take the manual system of the old MGS games over MGSV's automatic cover system, which fucks with your aim and slowly leans you against every single object you approach. They also removed CQC options and the knife. MGS4 was the sweet spot.

MGS4 was the sweet spot.

That game played almost exactly like Syphon Filter. Not bad but a bit dated even in 2008. I found controls in MGS5 way smoother even elevated above it's modern contemporaries. Don't know about the online as I was never interested in that.

As for games being easier nowadays; I guess so for the average AAA game. Probably a combination of games needing to be accessible for a much bigger audience, superior controls and less necessity to make games difficult to draw out the experience. Old games were often difficult b/c they were mostly simple 2D games that you'd breeze through in 10 minutes if not met by stiff resistance. And these were the better 2D games. The early 3D games with their wobbly cameras and low-res polygons were mostly just difficult b/c of shit controls. Very few games of that era actually hold up now while I think many old 2D games are still a lot of fun. Mainly b/c their difficulty isn't artificial.

MGS4's control scheme was a bit of an old/new hybrid. It still had the framework of earlier games, but with a modern layer on top. I liked it but some input commands were still overly complex or awkward, like taking a hostage and shooting at someone else. It had the most depth, but was button-starved as a result.

With V introducing open world gameplay, they needed to introduce a proper run mechanic, which was a Godsend. Many things are easier to do in V (prone aiming, hostage+aiming, CQC in general) but some of the depth and nuance has been lost. I also preferred hitting Triangle for cover in the old games but not sure if it would've still worked better than V's soft cover in more complex environments. It hasn't really bothered me though, or caused frustration yet.

It's tough to say which I really prefer overall, as each seems to be suited well to the game's overall design. If we could combine them I'd take 4's skill set with V's increased mobility and ease of use, if possible.

 

[CritialGaming]

Changed? Yes. Improved? Not necessarily. Being easy isn't the same as being better. Modern games are usually easier for the players, but contain so many hidden complex parts that they are frequently released in a buggy state. That isn't better design at all! Besides, if you weren't finding other than hard / broken games in the past, you just weren't looking in the right places.

Are you trying to imply that older video games weren't buggy? Games have always been broken and buggy, that aint something new. The only difference is the graphical fidelity tends to showcase glitches in a more obvious way. For example, the original Final Fantasy has stats that didn't work. The Thief class was broken and it's special ability didn't work. The original Pokemon games can be broken and beaten in under 20 minutes. Just look at any number of speedruns on a given Games Done Quick, look at how buggy Ocarina of Time is.

Buggy games are not new and to say they were any better than they are today is just silly.

I think there's a lot less complexity involved in games today as well as fear of being appealing to non-gamers by being easy which just murders most difficulty. Though I will admit it might just be culminated experience in gaming.

Less complexity? WTF are you talking about? In what way are games less complex today than they used to be? Are you talking about Walking Simulators? Or Visual Novels? Or maybe mobile games like Candy Crush? Because then I could agree, though that's low hanging fruit.

But in what way is a modern game less complex than it's old school equivalent?

 

[CaitSeith]

Changed? Yes. Improved? Not necessarily. Being easy isn't the same as being better. Modern games are usually easier for the players, but contain so many hidden complex parts that they are frequently released in a buggy state. That isn't better design at all! Besides, if you weren't finding other than hard / broken games in the past, you just weren't looking in the right places.

Are you trying to imply that older video games weren't buggy? Games have always been broken and buggy, that aint something new. The only difference is the graphical fidelity tends to showcase glitches in a more obvious way. For example, the original Final Fantasy has stats that didn't work. The Thief class was broken and it's special ability didn't work. The original Pokemon games can be broken and beaten in under 20 minutes. Just look at any number of speedruns on a given Games Done Quick, look at how buggy Ocarina of Time is.

Buggy games are not new and to say they were any better than they are today is just silly.

Those were exceptions (the first doesn't make the game more difficult, and the second can only be triggered by following specific steps). Now it's the norm that bugs will appear even if you play the way the developer expected you to play.

 

[CritialGaming]

Those were exceptions (the first doesn't make the game more difficult, and the second can only be triggered by following specific steps). Now it's the norm that bugs will appear even if you play the way the developer expected you to play.

Exceptions? I don't really think so.

There is a degree of that with Ubisoft games here and there. Assassin's Creed Unity was infamous for it. But jarring bugs don't usually appear during normal gameplay in the vast majority of games released even now a days.

Horizon Zero Dawn, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy XV, Persona 5, Zelda Breath of the Wild, Nioh, Yakuza Zero, Nier Automata, all of these are games I played that released in the last 10 months that I never saw a single bug for. Not even small graphical errors or odd pop in.

Yes there are games like Ass Creed and ME: Andromeda that come out and are fucked, but that's a pretty small minority of the games that come out in a given year. So in this regard I think you are being a bit hyperbolic, because buggy messes of games are certainly not coming from the AAA release pipeline most of the time, and I suppose if you want to count shitty Steam Devs you can, but that doesn't really count.

 

[CaitSeith]

Those were exceptions (the first doesn't make the game more difficult, and the second can only be triggered by following specific steps). Now it's the norm that bugs will appear even if you play the way the developer expected you to play.

Exceptions? I don't really think so.

There is a degree of that with Ubisoft games here and there. Assassin's Creed Unity was infamous for it. But jarring bugs don't usually appear during normal gameplay in the vast majority of games released even now a days.

Horizon Zero Dawn, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy XV, Persona 5, Zelda Breath of the Wild, Nioh, Yakuza Zero, Nier Automata, all of these are games I played that released in the last 10 months that I never saw a single bug for. Not even small graphical errors or odd pop in.

Yes there are games like Ass Creed and ME: Andromeda that come out and are fucked, but that's a pretty small minority of the games that come out in a given year. So in this regard I think you are being a bit hyperbolic, because buggy messes of games are certainly not coming from the AAA release pipeline most of the time, and I suppose if you want to count shitty Steam Devs you can, but that doesn't really count.

Games older than 10 months still are modern games.

And don't forget Bethesda games.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Remember how in Metal Gear Solid 3 you had to press and hold like 5 buttons in order to lean out from cover and shoot a dude? Yeah, no longer. Now most of that is contextual and way more refined.

You should have played MGO on the PS2. Players leaned and precisely shot in first person within under a second. I'll take the manual system of the old MGS games over MGSV's automatic cover system, which fucks with your aim and slowly leans you against every single object you approach. They also removed CQC options and the knife. MGS4 was the sweet spot.

Yeah well, not for me.

With every sequel the controls got more annoying and Snake felt more like some weird, wooden puppet man. MGS1 has better controls than 4, since it atleast kept things simple. And MGS5 was the first in the series that finally decided to catch up to its contemporaries. Where we were finally able to play the game as an action game and not as a disablement simulator.

 

[Yoshi178]

Easier. people think even Crash Bandicoot is too hard FFS!

 

[balladbird]

game design philosophy has changed from the 8-16 bit era. As was mentioned above, the difficulty curve of oldschool games was to try to milk more quarters from the pockets of the player, and when they were ported over, it was kept that way because the intense difficulty would increase the time it would take for a player to complete the game, since the limitations of their technology meant the games couldn't be particularly long.


As time progressed, there was no profit in difficulty, and developers could find different ways to engage their playerbases. Games became less punishing and more about formula and gameplay diversity.

funny enough, with the advent of F2P game development philosophy, we're gradually starting to see a return to oldschool arcade game design tactics, because microtransactions have become the "quarters" for the developers to milk from their playerbase once more.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Easier. people think even Crash Bandicoot is too hard FFS!

That's because they confuse bad game design with difficulty. Happens a lot when people talk about old games.

 

[CritialGaming]

Horizon Zero Dawn, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy XV, Persona 5, Zelda Breath of the Wild, Nioh, Yakuza Zero, Nier Automata, all of these are games I played that released in the last 10 months that I never saw a single bug for. Not even small graphical errors or odd pop in.

Nier: Automata's cuscenes are really choppy, some of them. Well below 30 fps. It's unintended. The subtitles are also laggy.

The problem with calling a game buggy is that user experience may vary. In the case of Nier, I played only on PC with a very powerful graphics card, so I didn't notice any sub 30 dips when I played. To be fair, I never saw those crazy face glitches in Assassin's Creed either when I played back in the day. So there is a lot of variance to be taken with this, and I tend not to base my opinions on other people's videos or experiences when it comes to outright calling something out. Not saying that anyone experiencing bugs or whatever is lying, but if I am not having a similar experience with a game, then how can I call the game buggy?

 

[dscross]

Old games were designed as quarter eaters. Even when they moved from arcades to home systems.

game design philosophy has changed from the 8-16 bit era. As was mentioned above, the difficulty curve of oldschool games was to try to milk more quarters from the pockets of the player, and when they were ported over, it was kept that way because the intense difficulty would increase the time it would take for a player to complete the game, since the limitations of their technology meant the games couldn't be particularly long.


As time progressed, there was no profit in difficulty, and developers could find different ways to engage their playerbases. Games became less punishing and more about formula and gameplay diversity.

funny enough, with the advent of F2P game development philosophy, we're gradually starting to see a return to oldschool arcade game design tactics, because microtransactions have become the "quarters" for the developers to milk from their playerbase once more.

I'm some way though, I miss that the old school style of games that were designed to eat money. The home console versions were actually toned down quite a bit. Have you tried the arcade versions of the mortal kombat trilogy? You can get it for PS3 on the psn store. It's brutal.

 

[Wakey87]

Easier.

Back in the day you could only fit a few levels onto a NES cartridge, so one way to keep you playing or have any kind of replayability was to make them hard af.

 

[CritialGaming]

Easier.

Back in the day you could only fit a few levels onto a NES cartridge, so one way to keep you playing or have any kind of replayability was to make them hard af.

False. That doesn't explain the huge RPG's in some of those NES games like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, etc.

Here is a ranking of Est. time to beat a few of the old school NES games and 66 of them take at LEAST 8 hours to get through, which is often longer than a typical Battlefield or Call of Duty campaign. Certainly longer than The Order 1886 and probably a good number of current games.

Game length wasn't a memory limitation, it was a design choice. Poorly designed games, budget games, and rushed games could pad run time by being unfair, but that wasn't a problem for developers that wanted and were able to give their games hours and hours of playtime.

https://www.gamefaqs.com/games/rankings?platform=41&genre=0&list_type=time&view_type=0&dlc=1&min_votes=0

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I would say Easier overall. Aiming for that lowest common denominator.
Those that are harder today are few and are either trying to replicate the "Git Gud or quarter mentality".
There are also other factors such as time constraints, etc.

Design is a nebulous term to me.
Today, much focus is on telling The Story via graphics & sound.
All the while neglecting gameplay, mechanics and controls/camera.
Again, overall.

There are more things I despise in current games than I did for yesterdays.

 

[Wakey87]

Easier.

Back in the day you could only fit a few levels onto a NES cartridge, so one way to keep you playing or have any kind of replayability was to make them hard af.

False. That doesn't explain the huge RPG's in some of those NES games like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, etc.

Here is a ranking of Est. time to beat a few of the old school NES games and 66 of them take at LEAST 8 hours to get through, which is often longer than a typical Battlefield or Call of Duty campaign. Certainly longer than The Order 1886 and probably a good number of current games.

Game length wasn't a memory limitation, it was a design choice. Poorly designed games, budget games, and rushed games could pad run time by being unfair, but that wasn't a problem for developers that wanted and were able to give their games hours and hours of playtime.

https://www.gamefaqs.com/games/rankings?platform=41&genre=0&list_type=time&view_type=0&dlc=1&min_votes=0

Obviously you could pad out RPG's and visual novels til the cows come home, thats another way round it.
Maybe I should of said how big their worlds (levels) actualy are.

And 13 hours for Super Mario Bros? =/

 

[dscross]

There are more things I despise in current games than I did for yesterdays.

Are you thinking of some specific games when you say that or most modern games?