When Did "Easy" Become "Casual" Difficulty?

[Skratt]

Because potentially the people who are likely to be playing on easy aren't the ones who you want to risk turning away from your game by calling them idiots.

Pretty much this.

Personally, I play some games on easy or casual just because I want to experience the game. Once I beat it, I throw it away. A few games I actually start on the hardest setting because I know I'll have more fun that way (Alice and Alice: Madness Returns) are two examples. I skipped strait to the hardest setting and had a blast.

 

[Jubeigah]

I don't particularly get it. The people against the idea of a casual mode are the ones who play on hardest difficulty... so it affects them... how? Could it be that games are becoming less niche and thus no longer catering exclusively to an elite few who believe they're owed such an indenture?

I'll agree that the softening of language without reason does mad things to a culture, but this is pretty clearly a case with reason, that being actually telling you what to expect when you start up the game. Easy/normal/hard holds no meaning outside of a given game; casual/normal/hardcore is something people who don't regularly play games can understand, or for that matter, people who don't immediately jump to hardest difficulty to torture themselves until they slog through a game. Is beating casual mode more satisfying to say than easy? Yeah, but I don't see many people with too-wide grins smugly proclaiming their achievement. More like they had fun with their purchase instead of feeling like the game's difficulty/mechanics were broken.

 

[Girl With One Eye]

I can't remember which game it was now, but it had "story" instead of "easy". Either way it doesn't really matter as long as you are happy with the difficulty you have chosen.

 

[carpathic]

Because potentially the people who are likely to be playing on easy aren't the ones who you want to risk turning away from your game by calling them idiots.

I'm not bothered by playing the easy mode, or being made fun of for it. I've played games a long, long time but rarely can I beat any game on anything above normal. ME and ME2 I beat on the second highest level. My fast twitch responses are just not good enough any more and Civilization (including Alpha Centauri and all the way to CIV Revolutions) I can beat on deity most of the time (because no fast twitch).

I suspect many people would fall in that category

 

[tstorm823]

Remember when games had fun difficulty options?

My favorite difficulty setting in a game was from an old game called pang that was an arcade game but I played a browser version in the early 2000's where the highest difficulty was "You can call me Steven Seagal."

I just spent 15 minutes looking for this game and could not find the version that had that.

 

[Dansen]

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.

You sound a bit bitter, let them have their fun, it isn't really hurting anyone. I honestly don't think many people translate being better than some one at a game as being inherently better as a person. Just because it doesn't matter to you doesn't mean its worthless. Value is subjective, you should open up your mind a little bit instead of being so ridged. Just my thoughts, take it or leave it.

 

[Doom972]

Some games name their difficulty levels based on what sort of player would use them. Casual gamers, who are less skilled and have reflexes, are advised to try that difficulty level. Likewise, many games name their hard difficulty (usually not the hardest) "Veteran", because they are best suited to someone who played a lot of similar games, has better skill and reflexes because if that, and would probably appreciate a more challenging game.

If someone actually gets offended from a game calling its easy difficulty easy, I'd find it very amusing.

 

[SextusMaximus]

They discovered the Thesaurus.

Remember when games had fun difficulty options?

I like this^ as well.

 

[lacktheknack]

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

My favorite is Blood 2's difficulties, "Genocide" (easy), "Homicide" (medium) and "Suicide" (hard). More games should do that.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels

OT: It became a replacement once "Casual" became a buzzword.

 

[Snatcher]

I remember that Metal Gear Solid 3 had a ''Very Easy'' Difficulty that gave you a tranq gun with unlimmited ammo, laser sights and a 80% camo rating. You could unlock same gun on harder difficulties but you had to get all the food items ingame and that was pretty tiresome.

''Easy'' and ''Casual'' are pretty much interchangable to me because they are both created for the inexperienced gamers. I think that ''Hardcore'' gamers feel offended by calling the easy/easiest difficulty ''Casual'', because it hurts their pride and their belief being better than the ''Casua''l gamers (and with better I don't mean gaming skills but some kind of superiority complex that mostly fanboys seem to have)

 

[generals3]

I don't really care what you call the difficulty settings but it does feel like "Normal" has become "Easy" and "Hard" has become "Normal".

Do you mean "I am now older and more skilled" or "games are easier now"?

I'd guess it's a bit of both. I mean if i play tib sun in hard mode (campaign) it gets kinda tough. With C&C3 it's a totally different story... Or heck Sonic 1 was much more difficult than Sonic 3 (though you couldn't chose a difficulty there, but still shows a certain trend)

 

[DracoSuave]

People complaining about the names of difficulty settings they admit they have no interest in playing.

Yep.

Nothing to see here.

 

[Byzantinium]

.......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.

It's a game. Tone down the crazy social Darwinism a few notches. Human society won't crumble because we decide to relax while being entertained.

 

[FootloosePhoenix]

Funny how you mention A Crack in Time, as I recall that Ratchet: Deadlocked (or Gladiator, depending on where you live) named its easiest difficulty "Couch Potato."

I'm getting tired of player-chosen game difficulties in general. Because everyone has a different definition of what is easy and what is hard, not to mention varying skill levels and perceptions, you never really know what the difficulty is actually going to be like until you play the game for awhile. Therefor I'm generally in favour of developers just making their game however difficult they want to and not adding a bunch of (sometimes) pointless layers. Besides, in plenty of games challenge is a part of the experience. Personally I enjoy striving to get better and overcoming obstacles, especially in order to further an interesting narrative.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Spoiler: Remember when games had fun difficulty options?

A bunch of other stuff was good like that too, like Duke3D (Damn, I'm Good). That was just kind of the way things were done back then, and I miss it sometimes.

I don't really care what you call the difficulty settings but it does feel like "Normal" has become "Easy" and "Hard" has become "Normal".

This is true. I have to play Torchlight on Very Hard mode just to get anything close to the Diablo 2 expereince. I started a playthrough years ago on Hard, and that just felt piss easy after a while.

Very Hard was still far, far too easy with at least two of the classes, as long as you're talking about the first game. Both the Alchemist and Vanquisher had a "win the game" skill that let them just plow through the entire game holding down right click and wiping out everything before it could even make it onto the screen. It was pretty silly.

 

[Nexxis]

.......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.

It's a game. Tone down the crazy social Darwinism a few notches. Human society won't crumble because we decide to relax while being entertained.

My thoughts exactly. I think that some people these days forget that games are just that. Games. They are entertainment. You play at a level where you feel comfortable. If you want a beat a game on the hardest setting, then fine. If you want to beat the game on the easiest setting, that's also fine. Whatever gives you the most enjoyment out of it.

To OP: From the other examples that I've seen on this thread, I think that using the term "casual" rather than "easy" is just something that the devs decided to do, and probably doesn't have any deeper meaning other than just replacing one word with another word that might fit the tone of the game, like using "recruit" or "Daddy Can I play?" (hilarious) instead of "easy".

 

[Weaver]

Remember when games had fun difficulty options?

My favorite difficulty setting in a game was from an old game called pang that was an arcade game but I played a browser version in the early 2000's where the highest difficulty was "You can call me Steven Seagal."

I just spent 15 minutes looking for this game and could not find the version that had that.

lol that sounds really awesome. Let us know if you find out what it was!