Is it me, or are games getting easier?

[Guitarmasterx7]

Possibly. Though I've got to say, compared to previous halos, Reach on legendary was fucking hard.

A lot of old games were really fucking hard because back in the day videogames were much smaller projects, and every now and then a designer would put in a jump that's a little beyond reason or throw in some enemies to abruptly kill you from offscreen, and these things were never ironed out. Also, usually a well made new game is a bit smoother to play. Making jumps or shooting dudes is much easier if you have a better engine. Not to say all old hard games were only hard because of worse game design, but it's definitely something to take into account.

To be honest I would say as a whole gaming has gotten a little bit easier, but there's still a fair share of hard games. If you want a really hard game, buy any fighting game to ever exist. Assuming you haven't been playing street fighter II nonstop for the last 20 years, every single computer or human you encounter online will instantly lock you in a gigantic combo with no opportunity for escape until you want to smash your controller.

 

[Skoldpadda]

Is it me, or is YOUR MOM getting easier?!

But yeah, Nintendo Hard is a thing of the past, I think we've all noticed that.

 

[Lalalarzi]

Awww..... I was hoping I was just getting better at games.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I think ever since games weren't about stealing children's hard-begged money in arcades, they've been getting easier.
Not that I really care, I'm generally bad at games. If I can't do it after five or so attempts, I lose interest.

And this is the perfect answers to the question.
Only a small percentage of all gamers like to be challenged, so making a game easy drastically increases the range of potential buyers.
Or in other words, there is a ton of casual gamers and they want casual games.

Being a bit more hardcore I don't like this trend because most games just slap the retard cap on and make you do button-mash and quick-time-events till your anus bleeds.

That is what I'm getting at. It drives me through the wall. Why play a game you don't want to be challenged in? Go play Wii Sports or Resort, and let the more serious of gamers get some handprints on the controller.

Well you see we are a minority and companies want more money every year, so they either cater just us abd ramp up the prices exponentially, or they make things brain dead simple and sell it to everyone.
It's sad but we just need to go look for gems in the ever growing pile of poop.

But I will say companies are lazy with this, they could easily make games in both directions, but again it comes down to money - more work they do more money they loose.

 

[Master Kuja]

I don't necessarily think games are getting easier in general (I say in general due to obvious exceptions), rather, I believe that the gaming population as a whole are getting increasingly used to the difficulty of current games due to us having faced up to and beaten these challenges numerous times before.

So, today's hard difficulty probably equates to early gen normal difficulty because we've done it several times before.
For example, place a controller in the hands of someone who hasn't played a game before, or someone who only plays rather casually, you'll likely see them flail and struggle with it like we did when we first started out.

At least, that's my two cents on the matter.

 

[ChipSandwich]

Regarding OP's post:
I remember the first time I played Halo CE on Legendary (I was pretty bad at the time), it took me two hours to get past "Pillar of Autumn"... but the second time I tried it I got through without dying.

9 years later, and we have Halo Reach. IMO it's pretty much the same difficulty if not moreso than CE, the Elites are way more slippery than before and half of them are Ultras who can take three shots with a sniper, and more if you don't score a headshot after that, but I was more familiar with the game and it didn't give me as much trouble. Except the part at the end with the four zealots and the guy with the Fuel Rod Cannon, that part sucks. As far as the Halo series is concerned, it's just familiarity which makes it seem easier. Except for 3, that game was ridiculously easy, even with "Thunderstorm" and "Mythic" turned on. Also, there were a few parts in CE with brutal wave defense situations, Truth and Reconciliation comes to mind, and there was also a part in the 2nd last level with infinitely spawning spec ops elites.

On default difficulties, yes, games are becoming pretty easy, and even in the "harder than hard" difficulties of most games there isn't as much in the way of "first time challenge". However, I've also played IWBTG, my best run is 52 deaths on Hard difficulty in 56 minutes (compared to 2600 deaths in 10 hours on my first try), all of the platforming is just a breeze, even the infamous spike corridor if you play it enough. A lot of older games needed the artificial difficulty to extend their playtime, as they could be beaten in a few hours once you knew what was going on.

The only genuinely hard games of recent that I can think of are Devil May Cry 3 (4 less so) and Ninja Gaiden Black. A lot of games tend to have cheap difficulty, which isn't surprising. World at War's infinite enemies down a corridor with grenade spam and instant death is one of the cheesiest examples of "difficult" I've ever played, as is Ninja Gaiden 2's rocket spam.

 

[thefleeger]

It's just you.

While it's true that the world of quarter-eating Nintedo hard games is largely gone, it passed a while ago. In many respects, you're probably just better at games than you were before, which is sort of to be expected when you spend several years doing something for a fair amount of time.

Also, while the normal difficulty is almost certainly easier in Halo, I'm curious as to whether the perceived easiness of the later games isn't just the result of you having become so much more familiar with the games after having played all of them (though having gone back, Halo CE probably is still the hardest one).

Also, I really don't like this new cool-kid thing where you claim that everything's becoming easier and it's the fault of casual gamers and you need something more hardcore to satisfy your more refined tastes and superior abilities. I can understand that sort of logic applied to actual casual games (though I think it's stupid since they're not detracting from less casual games and a huge number of people enjoy them), but when you apply it to games that are emphatically not casual it just comes off as exactly the kind of elitist bullshit that gives gamers a bad image.

I don't think games are easier. I think they're better designed. You see, if a game is Nintendo Hard because half of the challenge is that it's controls are bad or something...then that's not a difficulty level. That's a fault due to the gap between programming and reality. So, my friend, if you're finding games easier, it's either what I've been saying or...you're getting better at them.

Pretty much this.

And if you want a hard game that illustrates the quoted point perfectly, go download IWBtG.

I don't want it to sound like the casual gamers fault, and although I made a bit of a rude comment about the Wii Sports and Resort. I would also like to point out the developers in my first post. That was my original target, and I became a bit zealous.

Also, I would like to point out, in no way do I believe I am superior at gaming, or that I have some ridiculously high level of taste in games. I play many genres, but have come to this conclusion. I also understand I have been playing the games for sometime now and they can become easier depending on franchise and my own favored niche in gaming.

Now rather than defend myself, I would like say casual gaming is fine, and I enjoyed Portal, but it seems like most games have fallen under the casual profile. Not requesting anyone to cater, but why not make a game with a bit more than a casual approach? Tutorials-especially tutorials make the game what it is in later parts and for one to develop new ways to go about achieving the goal of the mission at hand. Rather than something like a cover-to-cover style game where that is the objective and the way to win, but a new innovative approach within the game itself, something learned previous which gives the gamer a new way to go about the mission. That is difficulty. Having to use more than one strategy to win the game.

I don't want to push off "cool-kid" airs, but there is a developer out there with these ideas in mind. And philosophically speaking I am an elitist, but I don't quite think I am spewing "elitist bullshit" either. I am just a gamer with a question on why and to learn a bit from others while giving my own thoughts to make a better opinion of the statement and questions I have made/asked respectively.

 

[Dexiro]

I don't necessarily think games are getting easier in general (I say in general due to obvious exceptions), rather, I believe that the gaming population as a whole are getting increasingly used to the difficulty of current games due to us having faced up to and beaten these challenges numerous times before.

So, today's hard difficulty probably equates to early gen normal difficulty because we've done it several times before.
For example, place a controller in the hands of someone who hasn't played a game before, or someone who only plays rather casually, you'll likely see them flail and struggle with it like we did when we first started out.

At least, that's my two cents on the matter.

I'm not buying it. Because I can recent games with no difficulty at all, but if I replay games that I struggled with as a kid I still find them as hard as ever.

 

[GotMalkAvian]

Games are definitely getting easier, if only for the implementation of a save feature. Also, I think we're seeing the challenge factor in games diminish as storytelling takes more of a prominent role. No longer will we be taking polaroids of our endgame screens to show off scores, but now we talk about which ending we chose or show off our gamerscores.
I agree that a lot of game difficulty used to stem from arcade versions of games being designed to milk gamers of all their money. However, very view of the NES or even Atari games I owned as a kid had arcade counterparts, so I think difficulty was just the accepted way to measure a game's value back then. As I said, thanks to improved technology, we've been able to replace brutal difficulty with depth, story, and even game length to provide value to consumers.

 

[thefleeger]

Games are definitely getting easier, if only for the implementation of a save feature. Also, I think we're seeing the challenge factor in games diminish as storytelling takes more of a prominent role. No longer will we be taking polaroids of our endgame screens to show off scores, but now we talk about which ending we chose or show off our gamerscores.
I agree that a lot of game difficulty used to stem from arcade versions of games being designed to milk gamers of all their money. However, very view of the NES or even Atari games I owned as a kid had arcade counterparts, so I think difficulty was just the accepted way to measure a game's value back then. As I said, thanks to improved technology, we've been able to replace brutal difficulty with depth, story, and even game length to provide value to consumers.

That is a good point. One of the things you said, the Gamerscores, I believe that also helps perpetuate the trends, as well. Beating the game, getting the achievements, higher score, and ultimately wash, rinse, repeat.

 

[captaincabbage]

It's not you, games are getting easier. It's a combined effort of developers making games more accessable and you getting better and more spacially aware in games.

 

[Soxafloppin]

I'm playing Castlevania at the moment, it's really hard, to me anyways.

 

[Cogwheel]

Indie games are as vicious as ever. And personally, I find "realistic" shooters incredibly difficult, but that might just be me.

As for aforementioned indie games, well, take these two fairly new games (neither is IWBTG, that's less new).



The latter is halfway through the game, on Normal (there are two higher difficulties) with one of the best characters, and not on a particularly difficult boss/stage at that. So yeah.

 

[RuralGamer]

Problem I feel is that there just isn't enough of a difference between difficulty settings; look at Tom Clancey's Rainbow Six Vegas 2; why would you bother playing on easy or normal, when hard causes death one bullet earlier and yet gives you x10 the points as easy and x2 than normal? Personally I rarely play on the harder settings because for me, gaming is about taking a break, but I understand the problem; a lot of my mates were furious at how easy MW2 and Mass Effect 2 were on the hardest setting; one guy beat Mass Effect 2 on Insanity in the first three days after it cameout, second playthrough.

 

[Layzor]

Arcade machines had a big impact on gaming for long after they really should have.

I'd recommend some competative multiplayer as you're playing against other players and I find that usually provides with a perfect "difficulty" setting.

If you're looking to get your ass kicked all over the show and havent played counterstrike yet go for it.

 

[Meestor Pickle]

They aren't getting harder, your just getting better! (Now wouldn't THAT be a lie!)

But yes they seem to be getting less of a challenge and less overall quality, its called beta-testing try it!!!