My first two games were Megaman X and Super Castlevania IV. I have gone back and played the games before them and while I admit they were harder they are much easier after gaining experience.Vorlayn said:
Poll: Are games too easy?
- Thread starter Confidingtripod
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Games used to be more difficult for sure. I played through bad company 2 recently on the hardest difficulty and the ONLY parts that were remotely difficult were A) moving from cover to cover when a dust cloud comes in and you get lost and end up in the crossfire, no cover, with AI that can see through the clouds, and B) shooting down helicopters who fly above your cover when a dust cloud comes through and you dont know where to run to dodge their bullets. A poorly made environmental effect should not be the hardest part of the game. Take out the frustrating dust and the game becomes a cakewalk.
Half Life (1) was not obscenely hard but it was challenging. Each enemy had a weakness (headcrabs would stop after each attack so you could crowbar them, vortigaunt slaves had a charge time to attack etc...) but if you just casually strolled in without paying attention you would be horribly raped. Not to mention the "traps" seem to have dissappeard from games. Like in HL1 theres the jumping on boxes over water part, but in one theres a huge fish that eats you (and scares the hell out of you) when you thought it was just another regular jumping obstacle.
The "challenge" in modern games is to give your opponent more HP and more DPS, rather than giving them a neat trick which never seems to happen anymore. I think alot of the people complaining about a loss of difficulty want the adaptation to the new trick, rather than needing to use more bullets per opponent. This cant be fixed simply by increasing the difficulty.
Half Life (1) was not obscenely hard but it was challenging. Each enemy had a weakness (headcrabs would stop after each attack so you could crowbar them, vortigaunt slaves had a charge time to attack etc...) but if you just casually strolled in without paying attention you would be horribly raped. Not to mention the "traps" seem to have dissappeard from games. Like in HL1 theres the jumping on boxes over water part, but in one theres a huge fish that eats you (and scares the hell out of you) when you thought it was just another regular jumping obstacle.
The "challenge" in modern games is to give your opponent more HP and more DPS, rather than giving them a neat trick which never seems to happen anymore. I think alot of the people complaining about a loss of difficulty want the adaptation to the new trick, rather than needing to use more bullets per opponent. This cant be fixed simply by increasing the difficulty.
People saying "Just adding health, making damage weaker doesn't change anything" yes actually it does.
Take your average shooter. What happens when you can no longer mow everyone down anymore. You have to use strategy, you have to pick your targets well. You have to conserve ammo. Resistance on hard was a great deal more challenging. Especially the opening part of the church fight.
People saying "It doesn't make the game harder just longer" then what are you expecting? In an fps on hard mode do you want to suddenly have to solve puzzles to board the gunship? Do you want to have to type in geographical coordinates rather then aim your gun manually? FPS games in generally are actually significantly harder today then before. Remember Wolfenstien on the Snes. You walked forward and shot. The only strategies were shoot and walk backwards while shooting, or take advantage of the stupid AI and walk behind a wall for half a second and suddenly they forget you just shot them in the leg.
Today enemies take cover, enemies will take pot shots at you from behind cover and smoke you out with grenades. Killzone 2 has a type of soldier that charges at you screaming and shooting and if you let them get to close they gut you like a fish. Your first play through you don't know when these guys are going to be coming. On hard mode you have to deal with these guys while avoiding your other enemies shots. the same strategy is not going to work.
As for giving them a 'neat trick' what are you hoping for, a one hit kill. Sudden super fast movement, instant dodging? What? These sorts of things have already been called cheap.
So.. to make it harder you can't just amp up the enemy damage and health(because it just makes the game longer), can't give them devastating moves(because that's just cheap), and you can't include environmental effects(because that's just frustrating, not hard)
So, how do you propose they make the game harder while staying true to a genre?
I find whenever a game is hard people just label it frustrating and cheap. Then when a game does a way with the so called 'frustrating' mechanics people say it's to easy and demand a challenge.
To end this anyone remember Super Mario bros Hard Mode? All they did was replace certain enemies with stronger ones, like goombas with those annoying black shell turtles. The time limit was still there so it couldn't have taken much longer, yet it was still much more difficult. Despite the fact all they essentially did was make enemies tougher, which has been repeated here doesn't make the game harder at all.
Take your average shooter. What happens when you can no longer mow everyone down anymore. You have to use strategy, you have to pick your targets well. You have to conserve ammo. Resistance on hard was a great deal more challenging. Especially the opening part of the church fight.
People saying "It doesn't make the game harder just longer" then what are you expecting? In an fps on hard mode do you want to suddenly have to solve puzzles to board the gunship? Do you want to have to type in geographical coordinates rather then aim your gun manually? FPS games in generally are actually significantly harder today then before. Remember Wolfenstien on the Snes. You walked forward and shot. The only strategies were shoot and walk backwards while shooting, or take advantage of the stupid AI and walk behind a wall for half a second and suddenly they forget you just shot them in the leg.
Today enemies take cover, enemies will take pot shots at you from behind cover and smoke you out with grenades. Killzone 2 has a type of soldier that charges at you screaming and shooting and if you let them get to close they gut you like a fish. Your first play through you don't know when these guys are going to be coming. On hard mode you have to deal with these guys while avoiding your other enemies shots. the same strategy is not going to work.
As for giving them a 'neat trick' what are you hoping for, a one hit kill. Sudden super fast movement, instant dodging? What? These sorts of things have already been called cheap.
So.. to make it harder you can't just amp up the enemy damage and health(because it just makes the game longer), can't give them devastating moves(because that's just cheap), and you can't include environmental effects(because that's just frustrating, not hard)
So, how do you propose they make the game harder while staying true to a genre?
I find whenever a game is hard people just label it frustrating and cheap. Then when a game does a way with the so called 'frustrating' mechanics people say it's to easy and demand a challenge.
To end this anyone remember Super Mario bros Hard Mode? All they did was replace certain enemies with stronger ones, like goombas with those annoying black shell turtles. The time limit was still there so it couldn't have taken much longer, yet it was still much more difficult. Despite the fact all they essentially did was make enemies tougher, which has been repeated here doesn't make the game harder at all.
there always is the higher difficulty setting, except in fable I where i had to play through without leveling up for it to be challenging
i think its a combination of things, i think skills have slightly improved over the years, the revolutionary things called "save/checkpoints" so you dont have to go all the way back to the beginning, and people dont figure dying 2000 times isn't worth their time on one level so they make the difficulty multiple different curves, and back in the day some of the programming did things they didn't quite intend to do so i think the difficulty could have been included in this.
overall im not exactly sure, there are alot more games around today so you can pick certain games and say yes while you can pick certain ones (like demon souls) and say hell no
overall im not exactly sure, there are alot more games around today so you can pick certain games and say yes while you can pick certain ones (like demon souls) and say hell no
Games have definitely gotten easier. Ghosts N Ghouls is one I still haven't beaten. And Super Hydlide has been taunting me for nigh 17 years.
There's the odd game that will still kick all your teeth out and throw the console out of the window, but I do feel disappointed sometimes as some games I've played could have been so much better with higher difficulty.
There's the odd game that will still kick all your teeth out and throw the console out of the window, but I do feel disappointed sometimes as some games I've played could have been so much better with higher difficulty.
X-Com. Actually let me rephrase that. Terror from the Deep. So... yes games have gotten easier, and they are not particularly good for it. For me one of the things I hated about Bioshock was it was sooooo easy. Shock, bash, shock, bash, repeat ad infinitum. System Shock 2 however was hard, and scary, and good, unlike BS.
So in conclusion, I'm going to go play Xcom (patched) and SS2.
Oh and don't get me started on Splinter Cell: Conviction.
So in conclusion, I'm going to go play Xcom (patched) and SS2.
Oh and don't get me started on Splinter Cell: Conviction.
Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Uncharted 1, Uncharted 2, Final Fantaxy XIII, Assassin's Creed 1, Assassin's Creed 2 are some of the games that come to mind recently that I found to be stupidly easy.
Currently I'm enjoying a 'Spelunker' (I'm not sure if that is correct spelling.) mode on 3D Dot Game Heroes. That's a challenge! Also looking forward to Demon Souls once it's released in the UK
Currently I'm enjoying a 'Spelunker' (I'm not sure if that is correct spelling.) mode on 3D Dot Game Heroes. That's a challenge! Also looking forward to Demon Souls once it's released in the UK