Why are games so easy these days?

[Kahunaburger]

Anyway, I don't really understand why people want games to be "hard". When I think hard, I think frustrating and annoying.

Challenge is fun

I am of the opinion that frustrating and annoying difficulty is more a product of the game design than an inherent property of difficulty. Stuff like Dwarf Fortress, Tetris, and the last level of Halo: Reach isn't even winnable, and yet people have fun playing them.

I suppose you're right, frustration doens't have to to be connected to difficulty. It just usually is. When you bump, say, COD up to it's highest difficulty, the enemies aren't clever or strategic, they're bullshit. You use as much skill as you do luck. I find it all very aggravating.

But I do see where you're coming from.

Yeah, CoD is a good example of terrible "difficulty" design. Because of the incredibly generous auto-aim and lack of combat depth, CoD on higher difficulties is basically about staying in cover most of the time and figuring out how to trigger the next scripted event. Very little actual shooting/tactical skill involved.

I think this is the issue of difficulty in games - a current common design philosophy is to design easy games, then crank up enemy HP/damage/accuracy and hope that creates a genuine balanced challenge. Unsurprisingly, this rarely works.

 

[xPixelatedx]

Not all games are... but most are in this gen, sure. Why? Well, for the same reason most Hollywood movies now spell everything out. For the same reason most of our cartoons now talk down to children rather then enrich them. For the same reason politics have become the clusterfuck they are now.

This world we live in is now such a connected place, everything made has to involve or cater to the biggest audience possible. While I don't think the average human intelligence has increased or dropped over the years, we do however have the opportunity to now see how truly stupid we are, as a whole.

 

[RJ 17]

I'd argue that it's partially technology's fault. Old games like the original Donkey Kong arcade machine were obscenely difficult 1: so they could draw out more quarters from your pocket and 2: to extend the gameplay time.

Newer games don't need a ridiculously difficult game to extend gameplay, they can make massive worlds and long stories and all that stuff. When you think of old side-scrollers/platformers, they didn't have the data space to make such sprawling worlds to play around in. In fact most games had a kill-screen. If by some chance you manage to make it through all 254 (I think) levels of Donkey Kong, there's not enough info on the game's motherboard for the last level and as such you just up and die and the game ends after about 10 seconds of playing this level.

On that note, everyone should go out and watch a movie documentary called King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters. GREAT film. :3

 

[Lunar Templar]

The only reason we found old games more difficult wasnt because the actual gameplay was harder it just the horrible controls or needlessly complicated interface.

..... what .....
how many 'older games' have you played? cause i could fire of the names a quite i few with great controls

 

[Lunar Templar]

The only reason we found old games more difficult wasnt because the actual gameplay was harder it just the horrible controls or needlessly complicated interface.

..... what .....
how many 'older games' have you played? cause i could fire of the names a quite i few with great controls

Why dont you go back and learn how to read before making stupid comments like that one.

or ... you could you know
1) not be a total jerk in replying,
and
2) not blame the difficulty of all old games on crappy controls, cause tahts what it sounds like

and no, we haven't gotten better, games have gotten easier, by a very wide margin they have gotten easier, and i can tell for the same reason you claim things haven't changed

 

[Lugbzurg]

I'm seeing a lot of this, myself. We're getting (I kid you not) brightly-colored arrows displaying what direction we need to go on a linear path. We have health that regenerates almost instantly. All you have to do is stop to breathe. We have dual-wielding infinite ammo pistols, along with a whole slew of other overpowered weapons. We have enemies that will die it one hit, while you can take hundreds if... just read what I said about health. We have lengthy explanations about how every detail works. We have infinite lives and so many checkpoints crammed together. We have walls for you to hide and shoot behind. We have really short single-player campains.

Here's another example most of you might know, yet aren't speaking much about: Sonic the Hedgehog.

Remember those physics that built the old games? How the games were so focused on them and you had to master them to get anything done? Well, now, you can boost anywhere you'd like. Remember how there were enemies that were designed so that you had to hit them carefully or in a certain way or area? Well, now, you can just kill them all in one hit by doing what you're already doing: Boosting. Sonic has a homing attack that spans several yards. Remember how Sonic 3-D Blast or Sonic Adventure had one that only reached a few feet? Even then, there were plenty of badniks that needed special attention in how you attacked them. Remember those rankings in Sonic Adventure 2 and how hard they were to get a perfect A on? Well, now, you can get a superb "S" ranking, even if you fumble a lot, hardly grab any rings, die a lot, get hurt by spikes and enemies and took your time getting to the end. What's the point of a skill ranking if you get a perfect score for doing poorly?

 

[zenoaugustus]

This is probably because I've played games for 15 years, but I often find that I beat a game on the hardest difficulty in a day or two. There needs to be more difficulty levels like Dead Space 2's Hardcore mode, where you were only allowed to save your game 3 times throughout the game, and there were no checkpoints; If you died, you went back to your last save. There needs to be more of that in games these days.

I dunno dude, I feel like that kind of mechanic isn't really beneficial to gameplay. What if I have other shit to do and need to go do them? I'm not just gonna leave my PS3 on all day. Taking out how many saves you can do is more of an annoyance in my opinion. It isn't making the actual fighting more challenging. What if someone said you could only put a book down twice to really understand the intensity and passion inside it? Personally, I'd tell that person to fuck off and that I'll enjoy it at my own pace.

If you wanna make a game harder, put in more quick time events. Really long ones. Ones that take up 4 to 5 hours in total, out of a 15 hour game. Then another 5 hours can go to cutscenes. And the final 5 hours can go to character uptake in the inventory screen. That'd make a really fun, challenging, and engaging game.

 

[Barry93]

This is probably because I've played games for 15 years, but I often find that I beat a game on the hardest difficulty in a day or two. There needs to be more difficulty levels like Dead Space 2's Hardcore mode, where you were only allowed to save your game 3 times throughout the game, and there were no checkpoints; If you died, you went back to your last save. There needs to be more of that in games these days.

I dunno dude, I feel like that kind of mechanic isn't really beneficial to gameplay. What if I have other shit to do and need to go do them? I'm not just gonna leave my PS3 on all day. Taking out how many saves you can do is more of an annoyance in my opinion. It isn't making the actual fighting more challenging. What if someone said you could only put a book down twice to really understand the intensity and passion inside it? Personally, I'd tell that person to fuck off and that I'll enjoy it at my own pace.

If you wanna make a game harder, put in more quick time events. Really long ones. Ones that take up 4 to 5 hours in total, out of a 15 hour game. Then another 5 hours can go to cutscenes. And the final 5 hours can go to character uptake in the inventory screen. That'd make a really fun, challenging, and engaging game.

It's not like the average gamer would even bother with Dead Space 2's Hardcore difficulty. It is assumed that if someone attempts it, they would have a few hours of free time at some point during the week. I don't know, I just felt like I got my money's worth out of single player more so than other games. You actually had to really think about how you would approach an encounter, not just throw yourself at it until you beat it through trial and error/luck, or your last 2 hours would be a waste. It's all a matter of of opinion really, I had fun with it, most would not.

 

[zenoaugustus]

It's not like the average gamer would even bother with Dead Space 2's Hardcore difficulty. It is assumed that if someone attempts it, they would have a few hours of free time at some point during the week. I don't know, I just felt like I got my money's worth out of single player more so than other games. You actually had to really think about how you would approach an encounter, not just throw yourself at it until you beat it through trial and error/luck, or your last 2 hours would be a waste. It's all a matter of of opinion really, I had fun with it, most would not.

I guess I see how that would add a level of fear of death to the game that is absent in most games. It would encourage you to take time to contemplate how to go about an enemy encounter. Still, as a practical function, it presents to many difficulties to be viable for each and every game to adopt. Perhaps games should add these "hardcore modes" in for those who want them.

New Vegas' hardcore mode was interesting, but just kind of took away time from real gameplay, in my opinion. Of course, you could argue it added gameplay time as you are forced to scrounge for food, water, and shelter. But I never really had to do that, I just had to manage tertiary health bars.

I think if you want to make games more challenging, an interesting idea to try would be to stop focusing so much on realism as opposed to surrealism. Just make a space flight simulator. The shear incomprehensibility of space travel (think Star Wars here) would make it intense. Sometimes, it isn't necessarily the level of difficulty, but the perceived level of difficulty that can add depth to a game and engage further. Make it challenging for sure, but make a game tense, and people will be involved.

 

[Squidbulb]

Personally, I don't give a toss about difficulty. I found Beyond Good and Evil and Portal as difficult as breathing yet enjoyed them much more than Dark Souls, which uses it's difficulty as pretty much the only selling point.

 

[Moth_Monk]

Older games were only harder so that it took the player much longer to complete an otherwise relatively short game. These days games are much longer, more in depth and complicated and as a result there is no need to maintain the difficulty.
Personally I don't understand why lots of people seem to assume that a harder game is automatically a better game (as if it makes the game more badass or hipster or something). I prefer playing games for the story and not 'the challenge' (which is why I played Mass Effect 3 on Narrative Difficulty, for example - the combat sections just seem so tedious and inconsequential to me!).

I think that THIS [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItsEasySoItSucks] applies here.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Older games were hard because the current tech limited yo. For instance, only being able to jump. Then the difficulty was in timing and precision of those jumps and dodging enemies. Things are different, but just crank up the difficulty level.

 

[Terminate421]

halo reach.

What did you do, play on easy mode? Halo reach should be played on Heroic or Legendary

 

[Mandal0re]

OP I don't agree with you at all,

There is a wider range of games on the market these days, many mainstream games are easy and forgiving and many are deep, challenging and satisfying. Many also have the potential to be both deep and challenging and also easy depending on the difficulty setting such as the Mass Effect series. When you say you shouldn't have to change the difficulty setting to get the challenge you want I ask you WHAT IS THE DIFFICULTY SETTING FOR THEN? Why shouldn't mainstream games aim to be enjoyed by both hardcore gamers and casual gamers? If I want I can just blast through a ME title on casual and enjoy the story,or, I can bump it up to Insanity carefully construct my character build and conduct every fight with strategic precision. Not to mention the fact that there are still games being made catering exclusively to hardcore gamers such as dark souls previously mentioned by several others here.

As for your remark that games these days cater to people of a 'lesser intellectual capability' I would think twice before using such arrogant language in the future. Especially considering the ill thought out opinions you have presented in this thread.

 

[velcrokidneyz]

I think the main ting, for me at least, is that I want to experience a story and world in a way movies or books can't. I love exploring abandoned space stations in Dead Space 2, or wandering the environments of Skyrim. I like challenges but I don't want an unbeatable game, I want a game I can finish and be satisfied with, not some insanely difficult game I give up half-way through because I can't beat a boss or whatever reasons you may have.