Why are games so easy these days?

[way2sl0w]

Watch and learn

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/3769-A-Different-Kind-of-Difficulty

 

[snake4769]

Id have to say Witcher 2 was refreshingly difficult. Actually one of the hardest games ive playing in a long, long, time.

 

[T8B95]

Because you're not twelve anymore. Games are more or less the same difficulty they've always been, you've just had 10+ years of experience playing and learning from them. You've gotten better, and the games haven't gotten harder.

haha, thats total bullshit and you know it.

I like how you say that my points are bullshit and then completely fail to give any sort of justification for your opinion.

When I go back and play the games that took me forever to beat as a little kid, they're much easier now. It's much more reasonable to assume that I've gotten better at the game than to assume that the game has somehow gotten easier over the past decade.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Not all the time, my argument is why should i have too.

So... let me get this straight: You're complaining about a game not being challenging enough while ignoring the option that makes it more challenging? Because...?

Games are meant to be challenging and exciting,

No. That's apparently why you play games. Amazingly enough, not everyone wants the same thing you want.

For example, I just got done playing Journey for the third time. The game isn't challenging at all. However, I enjoy it because i am not playing it for a challenge.

Call of duty for instance is not much different on veteran than on recruit, just have to duck more.

Bullshit.

Stop twisting my words, I?m not saying i want the most hardcore extreme game mankind has ever seen, (dark souls can suck my dick) i just don?t see why games have to be spoon fed to people who don?t want to accept that they may die in the trial and error that is gaming. the Alone in the dark remake they did a few years ago, if a level was too hard you could SKIP THE ENTIRE GAME and get the same pay off as someone who completed the game for real, what the fuck is the point of that. Games can be fun without being easy enough that a blind toddler could knock it over in an afternoon.

A. He didn't twist any of the words you've said.
B. The above rage basically completely ignores the idea of a difficulty setting (which damn near every game has)
C. Deus Ex Human Revolution. End. Of Story.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Because you're not twelve anymore. Games are more or less the same difficulty they've always been, you've just had 10+ years of experience playing and learning from them. You've gotten better, and the games haven't gotten harder.

haha, thats total bullshit and you know it.

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

In most games, changing the difficulty setting doesn't do much to affect the difficulty in any meaningful or interesting way.

 

[Eddie the head]

Two words "dice rolls"

Old games had them, newer games, thankfully, don't, at least as much.

Back in the day YOU didn't actually play games, you told the computer to do something and it used random uncontrollable dice roll to determine if you, really it, won an action.

Now that we get to actually play the games its considerably easier because its based on you ability to do something, not a computers ability to pull numbers out of its ass.

The more and more I think about the "challenge" of some games the more and more I go yeah that's true. I would go with this along with stuff you don't realize you know, and better controls.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

In most games, changing the difficulty setting doesn't do much to affect the difficulty in any meaningful or interesting way.

...he wants greater difficulty. There's a difficulty setting. This isn't rocket science. Truthfully, it seems he's searching more for complexity than he is difficulty, in which case, he's going about this the wrong way.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

In most games, changing the difficulty setting doesn't do much to affect the difficulty in any meaningful or interesting way.

...he wants greater difficulty. There's a difficulty setting. This isn't rocket science. Truthfully, it seems he's searching more for complexity than he is difficulty, in which case, he's going about this the wrong way.

Complexity is an important part of most genuinely difficult games. Dark Souls isn't harder than Skyrim only because the combat is less forgiving, it's harder than Skyrim because it demands additional engagement from the player in terms of learning enemy attack patterns, level layouts, and so on. Halo: Reach on Legendary isn't harder than MW3 on Veteran because the player dies faster when he or she makes a mistake (if anything, the opposite is true), it's harder because the enemy A.I. is smarter and has more options available to it.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

In most games, changing the difficulty setting doesn't do much to affect the difficulty in any meaningful or interesting way.

...he wants greater difficulty. There's a difficulty setting. This isn't rocket science. Truthfully, it seems he's searching more for complexity than he is difficulty, in which case, he's going about this the wrong way.

Complexity is an important part of most genuinely difficult games. Dark Souls isn't harder than Skyrim only because the combat is less forgiving, it's harder than Skyrim because it demands additional engagement from the player in terms of learning enemy attack patterns, level layouts, and so on. Halo: Reach on Legendary isn't harder than MW3 on Veteran because the player dies faster when he or she makes a mistake (if anything, the opposite is true), it's harder because the enemy A.I. is smarter and has more options available to it.

Skyrim isn't complex?? @_@

 

[Mikhael Angelo]

I remember when I got Mortal Kombat 9. See, I played it, beat it, and played it again without very much difficulty. Then my friend finds his old super nintendo and old Mortal Kombat Two. Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus. It's like someone put my nuts in a meat grinder playing this game. But the thing is, I remember it being easy when I was younger.

So I came to the conclusion that it's just a matter of when when play games, we just get used to the way they're made. I bet if we come back and play the same games in 10 years, they'll be damn impossible compared to the games then.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

In most games, changing the difficulty setting doesn't do much to affect the difficulty in any meaningful or interesting way.

...he wants greater difficulty. There's a difficulty setting. This isn't rocket science. Truthfully, it seems he's searching more for complexity than he is difficulty, in which case, he's going about this the wrong way.

Complexity is an important part of most genuinely difficult games. Dark Souls isn't harder than Skyrim only because the combat is less forgiving, it's harder than Skyrim because it demands additional engagement from the player in terms of learning enemy attack patterns, level layouts, and so on. Halo: Reach on Legendary isn't harder than MW3 on Veteran because the player dies faster when he or she makes a mistake (if anything, the opposite is true), it's harder because the enemy A.I. is smarter and has more options available to it.

Skyrim isn't complex?? @_@

The combat in Skyrim is very simplistic compared to something like Dark Souls.

 

[Phlakes]

Because in the 2010s, most people don't really want to die several dozen times in one level of a game. Some of us like the momentum of moving through it more than the challenge of trying to get past it. And that doesn't make anyone a better gamer.

Also, this is exactly what difficulty settings are for.

 

[M-E-D The Poet]

So im currently ploughing through mass effect 3, while the universe is huge (im making a point of visiting every system and draining it of everything i can find), and there?s many ''ooohhhhh'' and ''aaahhhhh'' moments of delectable eye candy, i cant help feel i have been cheated. Iv heard about how crap the ending is (PLEASE, no spoilers) but every mission so far is run and shoot enough ammo at any enemy until it drops. i wasn?t aware i was playing gears of war 4. And i'v found many games lately to be far far to easy. Modern warefare 3 had the difficulty curve of circle, as well as gears of war 3, halo reach, homefront, fable 3, assassins creed revelations, countless others! games these days seam to cater to people of a lesser intellectual capability.

Im no brainiac, but i would like more of a challenge than shoot this, run here, stab this. collect the right armour or weapons and the games play them self?s. i have smashed many a controller in frustration over the original resident evil, silent hill, metal gear, conkers bad fur day. games can be knocked over ina few hours now, it used to take weeks. This was meant to be an observation and has turned into a rant, my apologies, but frustration is making my brain melt!! im interested to know what does the wider gaming community think of the level of difficulty today?s games have. i just cant justity spending $100 on a new release to find im twiddling my thumbs the day after.

Try playing football manager 2012 if you want something difficult (This is that football game where having Messi and Christiano Ronaldo on your team does never mean you're even 80% sure of beating say Middlesbrough)
Play other games if you want something relatively fun .

 

[Shadow Master]

I don't buy the "controls are better" nonsense.

Many games are all together interactive movies nowadays.

Instead of playing AGAINST the game, which is what gameplay is (a challenge), you play WITH the game, going through and consuming the content created for you like you would a movie or book.

Game mechanics are swiftly losing ground to story content and gimmicks.
Don't get me wrong, story is what I adore about games more than anything, but game mechanics must always come first. They must provide real challenge and real problems to solve mentally. Without that you aren't playing a game but consuming a media product.

 

[42]

im tired of the argument that Mass Effect was dumbed down. The first games combat was uninspiring, terrible, and a pain in the arse. The second improved the combat, drew the whole RPG elements back, because lets face the fact, anyone who thinks Mass Effect is an RPG is silly. Its a tactical shooter at best, and yes you LEVEL up, but all it does is make you shoot bullets better, or have special powers. and then the third was the best, but people still accuse it of being the same as another game on the market. If no one else has noticed, but there a metric fuckload of games like it out on the market.


if your looking for difficult games, play Super Meat Boy, and the Binding of isaac, both very well done both worth your time.
and as for the reason why everything is getting easy, its because the publisher have to make the game accessible for a larger audience, not just the hardcore fans.

 

[VoidWanderer]

I think it's more like game developers are scared of punishing us for dying to stupid things (which still happens amusingly). They want us to enjoy the game and they believe that dying counters that.

It's like the GM in the D&D game I am in, it is quite fun, but with a Phylactery (not the lich one, an amber stone which captures the soul before death and restores the body to life after they die) and fate points which are essentially the 'Ctrl+Z' or Undo button. I find the fact death is seen as a dead end rather than a branch for creativity spoils some of my enjoyment of the game.

And I wouldn't say that games are easy per se, but 'normal' is for 'normal' people, the ones who have never played a game before. I get why developers do this, it's just a tangent to the 'make games more story-based' cries we gamers make.

The D&D game I am running is currently a Thieves Guild campaign, and I have no objection to killing players. Heck, I even had one player kill another. *wistful sigh* That was a good session.