Poll: Difficulty in games is changing.

[4RM3D]

Nowadays most AAA games piss easy, even on the most difficult setting (if available). Why? Because companies don't wanna lose players when the game is too difficult. This also has to do with the fact that more casual gamers are playing. Also, because game mechanics have changed over the years, so has the difficulty.

I have only played a few AAA games that offered me a challenge over the past few years, e.g. Resonance of Fate and Mirror's Edge (both on hard mode).

Now, I do want to mention two things here. One, I was talking about AAA games (big budget releases), I know that there are indie games out there that are insanely difficult (Touhou Lunatic comes to mind).

Two, some game are not difficult but are still mentally challenging, like Portal 2 co-op (still waiting for a hardcore/nightmare/elite mode

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Having said that games are far easier now to lower the bar for entry. More gamers means more money. Old games killed you far more often than new games ever do.

But the new kids kill me far more than the old ones do

I'd guess you play a lot more people now than you did in the 80's and 90's. You were limited by how many people you could fit in a bed room or by who was at the arcade. I don't think its a case of the players being better.

I think it's a case of me being old and slow

Some of those COD players online are just insane though. Kinda people I can imagine blasting through Batlletoads or Mario 1 with those fast reaction times.

Sigh... I still never finished those two.

 

[mbug]

dude, you ever played Golden Eye 64? game is ridiculously hard >_<"

 

[GrimHeaper]

Having said that games are far easier now to lower the bar for entry. More gamers means more money. Old games killed you far more often than new games ever do.

But the new kids kill me far more than the old ones do

I'd guess you play a lot more people now than you did in the 80's and 90's. You were limited by how many people you could fit in a bed room or by who was at the arcade. I don't think its a case of the players being better.

I think it's a case of me being old and slow

Some of those COD players online are just insane though. Kinda people I can imagine blasting through Batlletoads or Mario 1 with those fast reaction times.

Sigh... I still never finished those two.

My reaction is shot at the age of 18...

 

[TheOneandOnly]

Speaking as someone who recently started the second Kugelstadt mission in Return to Castle Wolfenstein with 6 points of health and no armour, I prefer the "older" version of gaming difficulty. The fact that I'd done so poorly on the previous part of the mission actually had an effect. Obviously searching for health packs wouldn't work in Hardcore multiplayer in COD4, for example; regenerating health is fine when you can gun someone down from full health to dead in under half a second.

 

[GrimHeaper]

Speaking as someone who recently started the second Kugelstadt mission in Return to Castle Wolfenstein with 6 points of health and no armour, I prefer the "older" version of gaming difficulty. The fact that I'd done so poorly on the previous part of the mission actually had an effect. Obviously searching for health packs wouldn't work in Hardcore multiplayer in COD4, for example; regenerating health is fine when you can gun someone down from full health to dead in under half a second.

Unlike the new FPS shooting games in which anyone can eat about 100 bullets and be fine.
Normal humans I mean really :/

 

[Danceofmasks]

"Everybody wins, just try your hardest!"
That kind of thinking is by definition casual.
If you play that way in Tennis, or Bowling, or , then you're not serious about the game.

Now, I'm not saying people shouldn't be playing that way, 'cos hanging out with your buddies is fun, but ...

If there are no losers, there are no winners.

"I finished Demon's Souls" is impressive, because swarms of players can't get to the end.
"I finished Mass Effect 2 on insanity" is not, because it's so ridiculously easy anyone short of a total n00b can get through it.

So I'm (in case it isn't obvious) siding with limited lives.