Bit of both. I'm certainly better at games than when I started back at age 5 or whatever, however games have certainly gotten easier. However I think alot of it getting easier is down to controls getting better. I recently played Croc: legend of the gobbos for the ps1, and my god the controls are horrible. Truly woeful. It's a game me and my friends had battled through at age 5 or something and cant complete now.
Have games gotten easier or have we gotten better?
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While many mainstream games have gotten easier the same can't be said of some niche genres which pander to a small fanbase that gets more skilled as the years pass by.
Case in point shmups, when they went underground over a decade ago they morphed into the more complex Bullet Hell sub genre. They only started to become easier again just recently as a new wave of gamers discovered the genre on the 360.
Anyway this talk about retro games as just coin munchers makes me sad when that type of game design is still relevant today as Dark Souls proves.
Case in point shmups, when they went underground over a decade ago they morphed into the more complex Bullet Hell sub genre. They only started to become easier again just recently as a new wave of gamers discovered the genre on the 360.
Anyway this talk about retro games as just coin munchers makes me sad when that type of game design is still relevant today as Dark Souls proves.
Bit of both i guess. But i dont mind a game being easy if the story is great and there are some amazing moments within it. Its when games are made hard for no real reason. Make it hard, but not by making enemies take 30 shots to the face. I was playing Max Payne 3 and there are enemies that are bare chested and taking 20 bullets to the chest. Just stupid. Atleast give them body armor on higher settings. Rpgs are always difficult if you rush them to quickly. Morrowind was a tough game at the start, i remember when i first played it i got off the boat went into the first house in Seyda Neen and attacked a peasent. Who then killed me with a fork. lol.
CoD is easy for most people. Its more run and gun than actual strategic gun play. Its why i preferred the original Ghost Recon. But then easier games sell more, people like to win, and thats the difference between buying the sequel.
CoD is easy for most people. Its more run and gun than actual strategic gun play. Its why i preferred the original Ghost Recon. But then easier games sell more, people like to win, and thats the difference between buying the sequel.
Its both really, even though some games still are hard, we are past the arcade days, which is good, and its not like many games today lack diffcultly settings, though which are are good and which make the A.I. just plain cheat is not firgured out.
But on the other hand, gameing veterans will easily be knowleagdeable when it comes to playing a new game then a newbie to gaming, just simple logic really. The better you are at something as a whole to easier it will seem.
Now if just most whiners about diffcultly would remeber that...
But on the other hand, gameing veterans will easily be knowleagdeable when it comes to playing a new game then a newbie to gaming, just simple logic really. The better you are at something as a whole to easier it will seem.
Now if just most whiners about diffcultly would remeber that...
As others have stated it's a little bit of both. I recently rekindled my childhood a little and played Lion King on the SNES. It was nowhere near as difficult as I remember, nor was the Donkey Kong Country games. Now they do still challenge me, but I am obviously better now.
Now last week I tried to an optional boss in Tales of Graces on hard. It turns out it was incredibly difficult.
I'm not that good at shooters so most do offer me some degree of challenge.
Some games are very easy, even on harder difficulties.
Some games are harder than some of the classics, many games are easier, some are the same. Most games are easier to pick up and play though.
Now last week I tried to an optional boss in Tales of Graces on hard. It turns out it was incredibly difficult.
I'm not that good at shooters so most do offer me some degree of challenge.
Some games are very easy, even on harder difficulties.
Some games are harder than some of the classics, many games are easier, some are the same. Most games are easier to pick up and play though.
Definitely that they've gotten easier.
I was playing an fairly old Mario game a little while back (at a friends house, I can't remember which one now) and couldn't get to grips with it for the life of me. I was astonished that my younger self could handle 2D Mario games before and my current self hadn't a chance.
I was playing an fairly old Mario game a little while back (at a friends house, I can't remember which one now) and couldn't get to grips with it for the life of me. I was astonished that my younger self could handle 2D Mario games before and my current self hadn't a chance.
Games have gotten easier. Just look at the differences, for example, in Far Cry 2 and 3. In FC3, suddenly we have enemy tagging, weapons don't degrade, weapons are given for free so they never have to be purchased as long as you complete objectives, the enemies seem a lot dumber and there are fewer of them...
Overall, gaming has moved more towards spectacle and away from effort required on the part of the player, at least among the AAA scene. Smaller games tend to be more punishing, because those tend to be the games where suits are stepping into the development house and complaining that the game they're developing might be a little challenging for grannies and toddlers, two key demographics their investors demand be catered to.
Overall, gaming has moved more towards spectacle and away from effort required on the part of the player, at least among the AAA scene. Smaller games tend to be more punishing, because those tend to be the games where suits are stepping into the development house and complaining that the game they're developing might be a little challenging for grannies and toddlers, two key demographics their investors demand be catered to.
Games have gotten more standardised. Gamers don't have to remember several different play-styles like they used to.
A mixture of both I'd say.
Keep in mind however, the difficulty found in earlier games was not, for a lack of a batter term, good. In most cases they were cheap tactics used to artificially inflate the length of the game. Prime examples of this are a limited number of lives, one hit kill enemies, and the need for ludicrous amounts of grinding. If anything, modern games have given us a margin for error that older games did not.
Keep in mind however, the difficulty found in earlier games was not, for a lack of a batter term, good. In most cases they were cheap tactics used to artificially inflate the length of the game. Prime examples of this are a limited number of lives, one hit kill enemies, and the need for ludicrous amounts of grinding. If anything, modern games have given us a margin for error that older games did not.
Can I be the person to say neither?
I mean, to an extent both things are true, as people have said. We experienced players have skill and familiarity at our backs, which is a luxury not everyone has, so games designed for a larger set of people, and games designed to be able to draw in more people, are naturally easier. Similarly, design has gotten better in terms of GUI, graphics, and controls. Actually being able to execute actions intuitively, and understand what is going on, these things make it easier.
But more than that, games have a different focus now, and the challenge is often in a different place. Call of Duty isn't an easier game than Contra - it is completely different. This can be seen in parts of the campaign and things like that, but is most obvious in that the main element of CoD now is the multiplayer aspect - the challenge is not in finding the exact moves you need to beat the game, but in being able to outwit and outperform other players.
I mean, to an extent both things are true, as people have said. We experienced players have skill and familiarity at our backs, which is a luxury not everyone has, so games designed for a larger set of people, and games designed to be able to draw in more people, are naturally easier. Similarly, design has gotten better in terms of GUI, graphics, and controls. Actually being able to execute actions intuitively, and understand what is going on, these things make it easier.
But more than that, games have a different focus now, and the challenge is often in a different place. Call of Duty isn't an easier game than Contra - it is completely different. This can be seen in parts of the campaign and things like that, but is most obvious in that the main element of CoD now is the multiplayer aspect - the challenge is not in finding the exact moves you need to beat the game, but in being able to outwit and outperform other players.
Games have a lot less bullshit now, as developers have slowly started to figure out that a lot of mechanics designed to prolong length were obnoxious and frustrating. I don't know, though, if I'd say you can quantify "difficulty" in a way that makes comparisons easy.
Is Beowulf more "difficult" than Anna Karenina? It really depends. Beowulf certainly takes more effort if you're just asking about brute strength required to get from the first to last page, but it's pretty simple in actual content, whereas Anna Karenina requires more cognitive strain but doesn't put up much of a fight if you're just rollin' through. In the same way, Contra is definitely more of a slog than CoD, but I think CoD probably requires far more mental computations or thoughtful effort to fully experience.
I think the general trend in most art forms is from complexity masking simplicity to simplicity masking complexity, and video games seem to be doing that too. The interaction of those two elements would be, I guess, defined as a game's "difficulty," but in some ways I think the gulf between Space Invaders and The Witcher is just too great to make a meaningful connection between the two.
Is Beowulf more "difficult" than Anna Karenina? It really depends. Beowulf certainly takes more effort if you're just asking about brute strength required to get from the first to last page, but it's pretty simple in actual content, whereas Anna Karenina requires more cognitive strain but doesn't put up much of a fight if you're just rollin' through. In the same way, Contra is definitely more of a slog than CoD, but I think CoD probably requires far more mental computations or thoughtful effort to fully experience.
I think the general trend in most art forms is from complexity masking simplicity to simplicity masking complexity, and video games seem to be doing that too. The interaction of those two elements would be, I guess, defined as a game's "difficulty," but in some ways I think the gulf between Space Invaders and The Witcher is just too great to make a meaningful connection between the two.
Games have gotten better at teaching us how to play through either tutorials or just through mechanics and difficulty curve. Games are better designed as entertainment rather that quarter devouring machines.
I would say both, though they may have gotten easier over time to a greater degree. After replaying several games from my childhood for a nostalgia bender, I realized that most weren't actually that hard, I was just terrible.
I played the beta for Diablo 3, and I only used one health potion. I played Diablo 1 around the same time, and the butcher ripped me apart. A couple days ago, Twisted Metal: Black had me struggling on level 1. Games are easier today.
A little of both, but I think games are getting easier more than we're getting better. Annoyed Writer touched on a good point about learning the little cues that indicate where to go, what to do. I'm at the point now where I can manipulate pretty much any shooter's AI(I often try to find exploits and break things for fun, because it's more engaging than games themselves) to the extent that even the highest difficulties are rendered easy. I know to hit walls looking for secret passages. I know to be patient and not run into turrets. I used to be too impatient for that.
On the other hand, if I go back and play some of the harder NES games of my youth, I still suck at them. There's no getting around that.
On the other hand, if I go back and play some of the harder NES games of my youth, I still suck at them. There's no getting around that.
Games have gotten WAY easier on average. It's pretty obvious really but if you haven't been playing games for the passed 20 years you might not know this:
-Saving Game Progress. The invention of saving game progress has made games overall a million times easier. (before if you died, you were starting the whole game over again!)
-Infinite Lives. Giving the player infinite lives is the standard for almost all modern games now. (compare that to having to complete a whole game with 3 lives and things are looking much easier today)
-Tutorials and in-game guidance. There used to be a time when you had to figure out everything on your own. there was no text to explain the controls or even where you were supposed to go or what to do. (Now tutorials and NPC dialogue explain every thing for you in today's games.)
-Difficulty Curve. In modern games, we have something called a difficulty curve, which means that the game starts off very easy and gets harder as you progress (along with gaining stronger abilities, evening out the difficulty overall). However back before compact discs, games would start off at a high difficulty right from the start! And it would still continue to get slightly harder after the first level. This means that the overall difficulty of an older game is much higher than a modern game. (since modern games start off easy, the game might not even get mildly difficult until the end!)
-Difficulty Choices. Older games lacked difficulty choices, the game was just one hard setting and that's all. The best you could do is use cheats to make them a little easier but they STILL were too hard most the time. Now-a-days we can just tune down the difficulty by switching to an easier mode and never having to work hard at completing anything!
-Cryptic Puzzles. There are hardly anything mentally challenging about most games today. There are still a FEW puzzles thrown in here and there in some adventure/action games but they tend to be extremely easy when compared to the old NES days of super cryptic puzzles. Puzzles with almost no hints at all and would require the most insane combination of actions that no human on earth could ever figure out even if they were immortal. Resources like gaming magazines and strategy guides were your only options here. (if you got lucky enough to find one)
-The True Nature of Design. In the 80's games were literally designed for you to die as many times as possible. Why? Because most games were ported from Arcades and in the Arcades more deaths meant more quarters and therefor more profit for the Arcade. Fast-forward into the 2000's and Arcades hardly exist anymore and most games are designed specifically for consoles or PC. Not only that but the purpose to the games have changed, they have become more theatrical and story telling is becoming a large design element. Games are made easier because causing the player death doesn't give them any sort of reward, it would only anger the players. They want the players to progress through the game and get to all the big beautiful scenes and events they spent all that money on making. Basically games have become less about challenge and more about "look at this awesome cutscene!".
ALSO because of all of these reasons, players have gotten WORSE at games due to not being challenged anymore. Pick up and old game, maybe even one you used to be good at 10-15 years ago and see what i mean.
-Saving Game Progress. The invention of saving game progress has made games overall a million times easier. (before if you died, you were starting the whole game over again!)
-Infinite Lives. Giving the player infinite lives is the standard for almost all modern games now. (compare that to having to complete a whole game with 3 lives and things are looking much easier today)
-Tutorials and in-game guidance. There used to be a time when you had to figure out everything on your own. there was no text to explain the controls or even where you were supposed to go or what to do. (Now tutorials and NPC dialogue explain every thing for you in today's games.)
-Difficulty Curve. In modern games, we have something called a difficulty curve, which means that the game starts off very easy and gets harder as you progress (along with gaining stronger abilities, evening out the difficulty overall). However back before compact discs, games would start off at a high difficulty right from the start! And it would still continue to get slightly harder after the first level. This means that the overall difficulty of an older game is much higher than a modern game. (since modern games start off easy, the game might not even get mildly difficult until the end!)
-Difficulty Choices. Older games lacked difficulty choices, the game was just one hard setting and that's all. The best you could do is use cheats to make them a little easier but they STILL were too hard most the time. Now-a-days we can just tune down the difficulty by switching to an easier mode and never having to work hard at completing anything!
-Cryptic Puzzles. There are hardly anything mentally challenging about most games today. There are still a FEW puzzles thrown in here and there in some adventure/action games but they tend to be extremely easy when compared to the old NES days of super cryptic puzzles. Puzzles with almost no hints at all and would require the most insane combination of actions that no human on earth could ever figure out even if they were immortal. Resources like gaming magazines and strategy guides were your only options here. (if you got lucky enough to find one)
-The True Nature of Design. In the 80's games were literally designed for you to die as many times as possible. Why? Because most games were ported from Arcades and in the Arcades more deaths meant more quarters and therefor more profit for the Arcade. Fast-forward into the 2000's and Arcades hardly exist anymore and most games are designed specifically for consoles or PC. Not only that but the purpose to the games have changed, they have become more theatrical and story telling is becoming a large design element. Games are made easier because causing the player death doesn't give them any sort of reward, it would only anger the players. They want the players to progress through the game and get to all the big beautiful scenes and events they spent all that money on making. Basically games have become less about challenge and more about "look at this awesome cutscene!".
ALSO because of all of these reasons, players have gotten WORSE at games due to not being challenged anymore. Pick up and old game, maybe even one you used to be good at 10-15 years ago and see what i mean.