The Deterioration of Video Game Difficulty
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Yes, perhaps, but it was a pretty spurious comment.JemJar said:
There are still games that compare to Oblivion in complexity.
And Oblivion isn't old enough to be part of the "Old Games Are Harder" argument
They're two entirely different genres, just because they have the same perspective doesn't mean they're the same genre. Portal is more of a puzzle game, Oblivion is a full blown RPG
It'd be like comparing Tetris to Final Fantasy.
I don't think it's a bad thing, I think we've moved on as we've come to understand the importance of the player experience.
Games did not have as much content, if they were easy back then you would have completed them very quickly. Also, as you are older you would not put up with the repetitive nature of play required to complete them.
Also, there was nothing else on offer, all games were hard so you didn't have much choice!
Games are still difficult. Try doing them in expert and they will still take a long time. Especially things like Left 4 Dead in Expert, Gears of War 2 on insane. They're by no means impossible but they're difficult.
Games did not have as much content, if they were easy back then you would have completed them very quickly. Also, as you are older you would not put up with the repetitive nature of play required to complete them.
Also, there was nothing else on offer, all games were hard so you didn't have much choice!
Games are still difficult. Try doing them in expert and they will still take a long time. Especially things like Left 4 Dead in Expert, Gears of War 2 on insane. They're by no means impossible but they're difficult.
Valid.Altorin said:
My point perhaps is that the nature of the games industry these days is that there are many more "Final Fantasy" games than "Tetris" games. Alongside the decreasing difficulty of modern games is the increasing complexity of them. Which can be seen by the increasing complexity of controllers (number of buttons, analogue controls, etc.)
Portal is very anachronistic, a game arguably well after its time.
I would almost agree that games are getting easier. As in, a bulk of them certainly became more forgiving than before. But a big bulk of them are getting relentlessly harder.
Within the same franchise, I think developers gets a better hang of timing, etc, so they can make a game less frustrating. Megaman X is by no means easier than megaman 1. Sure, you have more lives, special armors and such.. but with new powers come much deeper skill curve. Jump-dash is not the same as dash-jump, or you can go ahead and pick the flying armor route. Newer megaman games forces you to be more precise, and to pull off much wider array of moves simultaneously. For example, Zero's big combo (at least in X4) was doing the dash->double jump slash, followed by ice sword drop, and finishing with flame sword strike. If you think that is easier than selecting a special weapon and shooting it, then I say to each his own.
New franchises like Resistance is also quite relentlessly difficult. Having no discreet boss fight means every single skirmish IS in itself a boss fight..and it's frikkin hard.
New games are harder because they offer more finesse for you to master. Old games are hard because they are flawed. Their movement is not smooth, things are unpredictable, and they force you to retread old paths all the time.
Within the same franchise, I think developers gets a better hang of timing, etc, so they can make a game less frustrating. Megaman X is by no means easier than megaman 1. Sure, you have more lives, special armors and such.. but with new powers come much deeper skill curve. Jump-dash is not the same as dash-jump, or you can go ahead and pick the flying armor route. Newer megaman games forces you to be more precise, and to pull off much wider array of moves simultaneously. For example, Zero's big combo (at least in X4) was doing the dash->double jump slash, followed by ice sword drop, and finishing with flame sword strike. If you think that is easier than selecting a special weapon and shooting it, then I say to each his own.
New franchises like Resistance is also quite relentlessly difficult. Having no discreet boss fight means every single skirmish IS in itself a boss fight..and it's frikkin hard.
New games are harder because they offer more finesse for you to master. Old games are hard because they are flawed. Their movement is not smooth, things are unpredictable, and they force you to retread old paths all the time.
I agree to an extent that game dificulty has gone down, this is mostly due to the fact that most developers now want to capture a larger audiance that call themselves casual gamers. Now whilst I can understand that casual gamers are not the sort of people who will sit there playing games for hours on end and want games they can finish within say a couple of months I have played some games that where developed for casual gamers and finnished them in a matter of hours shortest so far being 2 hours not including cut scenes. What I don't understand though is why they are sacrificing dificulty so dramaticly, I have gotten into the habbit of putting every game I buy now onto the hardest dificulty setting it will allow seeing as some games have decided that I must unlock the hardest but the more hardcore of the gaming world, the people like me who will play a game for hours to get past even one challange, are being ignored I haven't found a single game that chalanged me since ninja gaiden on the Xbox the second one in comparison is quite simple bar the ninja dogs, I belive that games need harder hard modes to allow the hard core players a challange, too human springs to mind as one of the easiest games I have ever played pong not withstanding.
I only have one unfortunate inescapable truth to offer in this:
I have gamed for some 18 years.
I consider myself a fairly competant gamer.
I suck at Mario Bros now as badly as i sucked at Mario Bros all those years ago
I have gamed for some 18 years.
I consider myself a fairly competant gamer.
I suck at Mario Bros now as badly as i sucked at Mario Bros all those years ago
That is a direct consequence of games trying to be mainstream and art. One of the most snob comments about art is that is better the harder it is for you to get it. If it is mainstream, it is not art. If it is simple or fun, it is not art. It has to be tough as nail to get to it and to understand it to be considered high art.
I know what you mean, but I am up to a point in my life where I want to enjoy a game and enjoy the experience of it, and not spending countless hours trying to beat a boxer that is hard as a wall and can K.O. me with a single punch. If that is not good enough for you, most games have a difficulty setting.
I know what you mean, but I am up to a point in my life where I want to enjoy a game and enjoy the experience of it, and not spending countless hours trying to beat a boxer that is hard as a wall and can K.O. me with a single punch. If that is not good enough for you, most games have a difficulty setting.
Like others have said, it's because video games are more about experience and vicariously following the protagonist's story. Even the original Legend of Zelda had a save system that was introduced because of the scope of the game. When you're playing Missile Command or Pac Man or Donkey Kong, you're not pretending you're Pac Man, you just want to get a high score. The 16-bit era was kind of a transitional period, but games today don't rely on point systems; instead, they want you to experience the story that has been designed, written, and programmed by the developers. The only games that don't really opt for this are usually specifically designed for the "hardcore gamers."
I'm a casual player myself, and I don't have much time at all to play video games, so usually when I'm replaying part of a game over and over and finally beat it, I don't really have a sense of accomplishment and instead just think "Thank Christ THAT'S over." Maybe it's because I didn't have video games growing up as a kid. Either way, I'm happy to play through a game for the experience and have fun with just enough challenge to test me, but not if it tests my patience. I don't get the "I HAVE to beat this game!" urge if I feel like I'm being fucked with by the developers; I just turn the game off and go do something else.
I'm a casual player myself, and I don't have much time at all to play video games, so usually when I'm replaying part of a game over and over and finally beat it, I don't really have a sense of accomplishment and instead just think "Thank Christ THAT'S over." Maybe it's because I didn't have video games growing up as a kid. Either way, I'm happy to play through a game for the experience and have fun with just enough challenge to test me, but not if it tests my patience. I don't get the "I HAVE to beat this game!" urge if I feel like I'm being fucked with by the developers; I just turn the game off and go do something else.
Ugh, writing is definitely not your strong suite.
But it is true. Im getting a little tired of beating a game nearly flawlessly in one night after paying sixty damn dollars for the thing. It's just not worth it. Although a game also shouldn't be incredibly long because of how hard it is and not because of its actual "substance."
Also, I think I might be a little late to this thread...
But it is true. Im getting a little tired of beating a game nearly flawlessly in one night after paying sixty damn dollars for the thing. It's just not worth it. Although a game also shouldn't be incredibly long because of how hard it is and not because of its actual "substance."
Also, I think I might be a little late to this thread...
Yes. I'm afraid many people, including developers, confuse game difficulty with frustration. For me, the difference is obvious: if there is something I must do that I fail at very often, it is hard, but if I must then go through a drawn-out process for a retry, then it is frustrating. Difficulty makes the game harder to complete. Frustration makes the game harder to enjoy. I can give a clear example of this:
In GTA 4 there are many sequences where a mission goes South and you'll need to escape a 3-star rating law enforcement. In GTA 4 Vanilla, I just went for the nearest shore, scouring for boats, because that was the only way I knew how to get away from a 3-star police rating or higher. In The Lost And Damned expansion, one of the earliest missions involves doing just that, except there are no boats nearby- I die, and I have to restart the whole drawn-out gunfight sequence every time, losing some of those precious grenade rounds I spent $700 a pop buying. My other alternative is restarting the mission completely, which means I'd have to do more each time. That is frustrating, and it limits my patience to two tries per sitting, before I move on to another game. This means that this weekend I didn't enjoy my game as I could have had, or if you ask me, should have had. The game, at that point is just not worth the trouble.
If you were to compare how difficult GTA 4 was to Commandos 3, you might as well compare the ferociousness of a kitten to that of a wolf. Yet, I was never frustrated by Commandos 3, which involved quick saving- every time I made a mistake I'd just revert to my last quick-save and have an immediate re-try. It only made me more excited to tackle the challenges of completing each mission, and Commandos 3 is one of the hardest games I've ever played. I would play it for hours on end without being frustrated, albeit taking days to complete a single mission.
The same thing happened to Burnout: Paradise. They recently updated it with an option to restart whatever event one might be on at any moment. So, when I see that I've lost the race, I no longer have to see the game tell me I lost and drive all the way back to the same intersection (which I won't remember anyway) to try the race again. Instead, I can get a quick few shots at it, losing as I must, easily attend to the thing, and enjoy myself better.
I like tough games. I like to make things harder, especially when they get tactically intensive, but I hate being frustrated. Since games are played for fun (well, if you ask me), then frustrating games will get less of my attention, and it's just a shame, because they could otherwise be great.
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I believe that back then, the norm used to be that games were harder and more frustrating. One would often have to restart a level completely if they failed at any point during it, as quick saving was not yet fashionable, or possible. A backlash from this culture produced the easy difficulties of more recent games, coaxing greater and greater markets into gaming and largely destroying the actual essence of playing a game: the negotiation of challenges. I hope that the popular response to this would be to produce challenging gameplay, without including factors which fruitlessly frustrate the player.
In GTA 4 there are many sequences where a mission goes South and you'll need to escape a 3-star rating law enforcement. In GTA 4 Vanilla, I just went for the nearest shore, scouring for boats, because that was the only way I knew how to get away from a 3-star police rating or higher. In The Lost And Damned expansion, one of the earliest missions involves doing just that, except there are no boats nearby- I die, and I have to restart the whole drawn-out gunfight sequence every time, losing some of those precious grenade rounds I spent $700 a pop buying. My other alternative is restarting the mission completely, which means I'd have to do more each time. That is frustrating, and it limits my patience to two tries per sitting, before I move on to another game. This means that this weekend I didn't enjoy my game as I could have had, or if you ask me, should have had. The game, at that point is just not worth the trouble.
If you were to compare how difficult GTA 4 was to Commandos 3, you might as well compare the ferociousness of a kitten to that of a wolf. Yet, I was never frustrated by Commandos 3, which involved quick saving- every time I made a mistake I'd just revert to my last quick-save and have an immediate re-try. It only made me more excited to tackle the challenges of completing each mission, and Commandos 3 is one of the hardest games I've ever played. I would play it for hours on end without being frustrated, albeit taking days to complete a single mission.
The same thing happened to Burnout: Paradise. They recently updated it with an option to restart whatever event one might be on at any moment. So, when I see that I've lost the race, I no longer have to see the game tell me I lost and drive all the way back to the same intersection (which I won't remember anyway) to try the race again. Instead, I can get a quick few shots at it, losing as I must, easily attend to the thing, and enjoy myself better.
I like tough games. I like to make things harder, especially when they get tactically intensive, but I hate being frustrated. Since games are played for fun (well, if you ask me), then frustrating games will get less of my attention, and it's just a shame, because they could otherwise be great.
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I believe that back then, the norm used to be that games were harder and more frustrating. One would often have to restart a level completely if they failed at any point during it, as quick saving was not yet fashionable, or possible. A backlash from this culture produced the easy difficulties of more recent games, coaxing greater and greater markets into gaming and largely destroying the actual essence of playing a game: the negotiation of challenges. I hope that the popular response to this would be to produce challenging gameplay, without including factors which fruitlessly frustrate the player.
stupid regeneration back in the day of sega and nintendo we got by with a few lives. sonic had it easy in the mega drive/genesis version cause he could get the rings back but try it on the master system with built in alex the kidd and there was swearin coming out of my mouth like a train and i only just got my master system
I think there is a huge difference between pattern memorization and difficulty. Alot of the games mentioned weren't hard they just required the player to memorize a pattern. Enemies were always in the same spot doing the same thing. A game should be hard because the AI is actually intelligent. Playing a part and the AI always snipes you from the right causing your untimely demise. SO you catch on to this little trick and try to sneak up on it only to find ha ha it is no longer there. It has moved to a different spot. That is how difficulty should be not oh you died have fun starting the whole game over and this time study better.
I wouldn't call myself an "good" gamer so I usually play on the easiest difficulty for all games and an not really a fan of games that force difficulty on you where even the easiest choice is really hard (for me anyway) that's why I like games like Gears of War which can be hard but only on the harder difficulties but easy even to have mindless fun on the easier ones.