When Did "Easy" Become "Casual" Difficulty?

[YuriSe]

I'm starting to find "casual" demeaning simply because its starting to be used as an excuse by people to suck at everything. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I fail miserable and was a colossal hindrance to the team? Guess what, I don't care because I call myself "casual" and therefore hold no responsibility for any of my actions.

 

[DoveAlexa]

Hmm, for me "casual" would be more insulting than "easy" cause easy just assumes I suck at the game while casual assumes I'm not taking it seriously enough to get good at it.


Yes, I suck, we all do when we start, that's fine. Don't dare tell me I'm being un-serious though, game, or we'll have a problem.

I'm starting to find "casual" demeaning simply because its starting to be used as an excuse by people to suck at everything. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I fail miserable and was a colossal hindrance to the team? Guess what, I don't care because I call myself "casual" and therefore hold no responsibility for any of my actions.

I second both these reasons. Said it better than I did. It's as if the name of the difficulty level is not describing the gameplay, but trying to describe the player instead.

 

[Dosbilliam]

i play all games on the easiest setting available coz am lazy also coz i play just for story and ending not for frustration and hair pulling

I do the same, I just spell it correctly. Usually, if I enjoy a game I beat, I go through it again on the higher difficulties. Did that with the MW series and I'm running Recruit on Alpha Protocol.

 

[Dosbilliam]

Also, some games use other names. "Tell me a Story" is the "easy" mode in Deus Ex: HR. I know because that's the mode I played it on. And I still died in about half a second, so that "easy" mode wasn't very fucking easy.

I played it on that "difficulty" and had little problem. I'm not that big on cover-based FPS games, otherwise I would have probably tried a harder setting.

 

[bullet_sandw1ch]

In the same vein, I want to know why story achievements exist.

All you do is play the game!


About casual, it does sound better than easy.

i think story achievements are around because they want them to be an extra incentive to finish the game. i can tell you though: what with achievements being so good at what they were made for (i.e, making somebody invest extra time in the game), i have finished many a crappy game because of the achievements.

 

[mooncalf]

AC10 raises a good point of difficulty settings "back in the day" that were way more harmlessly ribbing of people. Using different terms for difficulty settings is not at all a new phenomenon, and the move towards "casual" in gaming might grate on some people but really what's the harm? What "casual" can be taken to say about the fandom is "You do not have to be a social recluse or give up a week of your time to enjoy this." And enjoying games is what people should do, right?

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

The only difference I can see is that the word Casual can be applied directly at you as a label while Easy is more of a plain "how difficult you like it to be" thing.

So mostly, it really depends on the person.

 

[krazykidd]

Probably for the same reason some people think beating the game on hard is an achievement that matters. Because they're pathetic.

Yeah, I never understood the difficulty change either. I usually play games on Normal and switch to easy if some annoying section is kicking my ass.

So liking a challenge is pathetic? Or is it thinking it's an achievement that's pathetic ? But it has to be an achievement if most people can do it right? Isn't that what achievement means? You yourself say you sometimes switch to easy but then say people who play on hard are pethetic because they take pride in it .

Not to say people should look down on you for playing on easy . Play how you want to play.

 

[Martijn Nijkeuter]

Why does it matter to you? Does it harm you at all that it's called "casual?"

Casual is starting to be a more negative word lately, partly due to developers using it as a excuse/reason to limit or remove certain content.

A good example is guild wars 2 where developers intentionally put in diminishing returns and drop/karma caps to "promote casual play styles". (though a case can be made that this system still negatively effects casuals anyway)
Or how Legend of Zelda: The skyward sword did away with a over-world to make it more casual friendly.

 

[gorfias]

I still like the titles doom had for the difficulty levels. I can't remember the names but they sounded cool

Castle Wolfenstein 3d, back in the day, had a "Daddy, Can I Play?" Mode.

I like Uncharted: Easy and Very Easy mode. But, Easy and Casual better mean what they say. If I'm whipping my controller across the room, I am not having fun. I like interaction. I loved how, say, Halo, punished me if I was stupid and charged into a room, guns blazing instead of rolling in several grenades first. I'd die. Very next time, I'd know better. That's fun.

But when I'm doing Battlefield 3 and cannot see my bombing targets come out of their bunkers as it is too cloudy.. in freaking EASY mode, there is a problem.

Go ahead gaming manufacturers! Go ahead and make me take up golf instead!!!

EDIT: Argh, ninjad!

 

[Denamic]

Remember when games had fun difficulty options?

I remember this.
I was scared of playing, but I refused to be insulted by the game, so I played on Nightmare to show it I could do it too! I had to settle for ultra-violence, but I fucking did it. Up yours, game! I think that's roughly when I started pushing myself to play better rather than just dicking around.

 

[Something Amyss]

Casual is starting to be a more negative word lately, partly due to developers using it as a excuse/reason to limit or remove certain content.

So now it's on par with easy? Easy already carried a negative connotation.

 

[elvor0]

Probably for the same reason some people think beating the game on hard is an achievement that matters. Because they're pathetic.

Yeah, I never understood the difficulty change either. I usually play games on Normal and switch to easy if some annoying section is kicking my ass.

So liking a challenge is pathetic? Or is it thinking it's an achievement that's pathetic ? But it has to be an achievement if most people can do it right? Isn't that what achievement means? You yourself say you sometimes switch to easy but then say people who play on hard are pethetic because they take pride in it .

Not to say people should look down on you for playing on easy . Play how you want to play.

No, liking a challenge isn't pathetic. Thinking you're above someone else because you can play the game on hard is pathetic. Unless you talking about a tangible reward, like money or a cookie, the difficulty you play on doesn't matter outside your own head.

Gamers who like to brag about the difficulty they finished a game on (or worse, mock people for not being as good at it as they are) are completely pathetic.

How many gamers do that exactly? Too many.

I'm pretty sure for most people it's done in enjoyment of the fact they did it on the hard difficulties. Going "Aw man, I did it on Legendary, yes!" is completely different to "I did it on Legendary. *Smug smug*" Among a circle of friends who play certain games in challenge mode, it's just done for fun, not because they think they're better than you. For example, my and a friend of mine like to do MGS games on Extreme, without kills, without being spotted etc etc, in order to get the best rank. We both get enjoyment out of who can do it quicker. Besides, getting Big Boss rank on MGS is a reasonably big achievement in the world of MGS, reserved for those who have far too much time on their hands and gaffa tape to stick their hands to the controller.

For you personally doing stuff on the hardest difficulty doesn't matter, and that's fine, some people like to be brutally challenged, and to them doing a rock hard game on the hardest difficulty is an achievement, because it was really hard, it's about the satisfaction and endorphins from FINALLY doing whatever you set out to do. Not only that, I've been playing games for a LONG time now, and Normal generally doesn't cut it for me, a thing a lot of gamers get after a long time, normal is what the average gamer might find normal. For me, I have to turn it up to hard, because then that's my equivalent of normal, very hard equating to hard. So not only is easy there to allow people who may be new to gaming or the genre to enjoy themselves, hard is there for people who are veterans.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter does it? So getting up on your high horse about it, when you obviously do care to a degree just seems odd, if you really didn't care, you shouldn't need to act like you're better than them. I also barely see anyone BRAG about how they've done, sure people talking about it in an excited way, but I think you may be seeing a problem where there is very little on display.

 

[Rangerboy87]

I suppose it's because "easy" is kind of demeaning.
Saying "I just finished gears of war on casual mode" gives you a bit more confidence than "I just finished gears of war on easy mode"

Also, since it's "easy" mode, if you were to have a hard time and die a lot, it's not exactly "easy"

I think "casual", "normal", and "hardcore/insane" just became the politically correct versions of "easy", "medium", and "hard" with variances between games.

 

[Vegosiux]

Probably for the same reason some people think beating the game on hard is an achievement that matters. Because they're pathetic.

Yeah, I never understood the difficulty change either. I usually play games on Normal and switch to easy if some annoying section is kicking my ass.

So liking a challenge is pathetic? Or is it thinking it's an achievement that's pathetic ? But it has to be an achievement if most people can do it right? Isn't that what achievement means? You yourself say you sometimes switch to easy but then say people who play on hard are pethetic because they take pride in it .

Not to say people should look down on you for playing on easy . Play how you want to play.

No, liking a challenge isn't pathetic. Thinking you're above someone else because you can play the game on hard is pathetic. Unless you talking about a tangible reward, like money or a cookie, the difficulty you play on doesn't matter outside your own head.

Gamers who like to brag about the difficulty they finished a game on (or worse, mock people for not being as good at it as they are) are completely pathetic.

How many gamers do that exactly? Too many.

What this guy said. Right to the final full stop.

Once you've got precious little time to spend on entertainment, you're less likely to see it as a "contest" of some kind and just want to have a good time.

Now, if all the "hardcore gamers" went out there and focused their efforts to "becoming better" on something like finding out ways to fix this messed up world of ours, that would be just dandy wouldn't it.

And before anyone says anything, I'm an achievement OCD type of gamer too and am going to bang my head against the wall untill I black out, then some more cause that wall is goin' down. But I do have, say, at least some real achievements to show for myself, finally.

Took me a while to realize that getting all the legendary titles in some game isn't going to make my resume look any better...but better late than never right?

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

.......is this really a big deal? I mean seriously, why is this a problem? It's hardly any different from using the word easy.

You're not looking at the bigger picture here. Sure it may not look like a big deal, but think about why they're making these changes. Take a good fuckin' look at the western society. It's full of pathetic, easily offended incompetent people who can't handle the truth that they're just not good enough. And instead of facing the reality and working harder so they wouldn't have to feel incompetent, we make their incompetence disappear by declaring that everyone is now competent. If you look at the big picture you'll realize that it's not about gaming. Gaming is just one aspect of this that's also infected now. Schools too. Nowadays EVERY kid gets a trophy. Everyone's a fuckin' winner. We're actively lowering the standards of competence. And we mostly do it for profit. People don't want to pay unless they are guaranteed to feel like winners. And we do it everywhere! Do you know how dangerous that is for the society? We are only as good as our weakest link. We shouldn't cater to the weak. We risk weakening everyone. We should encourage the weak to grow stronger.

Calling people lame and pathetic sure isn't encouraging.

I'm guessing it's, frankly, to offset the stigma leveled on people by HardKore Players -- the people who play on Super Hard just to prove they can. Statistically, the more gamers there are, the more HardKore people there will be, and the more the people who just want a story and don't want difficulty will get crapped on because there are more people to crap on them.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I disagree. Casual ≠ Easy.
Besides, like others have said, I miss when devs got creative with the names of the difficulty settings.

Remember when games had fun difficulty options?

How fitting that was.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I'm going to side against the nitpicking on this one.

It really doesn't matter in the slightest.

Yeah yeah, offspring of failed Western society concepts that are going to turn everyone on Earth into pussies.

That may be true in education, but for gaming, it's really quite fine. If designers want to make everyone a winner, there's really no shame in that.

Besides, I think "casual" is a more descriptive term.

 

[Tono Makt]

I don't care either way what the names are for the difficulty levels. I know that the level on one side of the choices is "Easiest" and the other side is "Hardest". Whether they're simple names like "Easy, Normal, Hard" or "Casual, Standard, Intense" or "Blond, Brunette, Redhead"(1) doesn't matter to me.

(1) Mr. Makt is very blond, and very easy. His problem is that his trailer has limited fan appeal. Sigh.