Game Difficulty

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Ghetsis-Dennis

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Back in the days of the NES and SNES, video games were known to be ridiculously hard to complete with tricky platforms, hard-to-avoid enemy patterns, password system, and starting from the very beginning of the game. Though to be fair, most of those games were ports from the original arcade games, which were purposely made difficult in order to get your quarters. In the later years, video games have become more fair to the players by including features such as saving your progress and limiting the hard levels as bonus levels (the easier levels can still be hard if you're attempting to collect all the hidden goodies). Today, we see a lot gamers on the internet community, including here, complaining about how video games nowadays are easy and want companies to go back to making games being Nintendo Hard (no save feature and cheap deaths), and they want new generations of gamers to have the same experience as they did with the original NES when they were kids and not the more recent titles. Is this a legit reason or a selfish attempt from the hardcore fanbase who want companies to focus only to them?
 
Oh hell, no! I'm an older gamer and no way do I want the old style back xD I do sometimes teasse younger gamers, saying they are spoiled with the save game feature but I wouldn't wish the "old days" on everybody again. I can't forget the horror of pixel perfect jumps or playing through dozens of levels for the computer to suddenly crash or a power cut to happen and having to start the whole game again.

Also, I think that games are a lot bigger now than say, in the early to mid 80s. Some games can take weeks to play, so you'd have to have a save feature on a game like that.
 
NES wasn't hard at all:

[video=youtube;2gTqnQdmDJU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gTqnQdmDJU[/video]

Also, this game came out this year, in the arcade, and is getting a 360 port. It's not an indie game either.
 
The whole reason why games were so difficult was because they were arcade games. They made the games as hard as possible so people will spend more money trying to beat it. That mentality (along with the 'lives' feature) continued when games were ported to home consoles and early PCs.

There is no reason to make as hard as some of the early games. Challenge is one thing but almost all of the difficulty from early games came from fake difficulty: Wonky jump mechanics, fast enemy respawn, screen auto scroll where the screen itself would kill you, one hit deaths, etc. This does not provide challenge. Only frustration.

I will condemn a game thats too easy since some form of challenge is necessary to have fun. They need a balance.
 
Not being able to save was a pain. I remember leaving my SNES running for days so I could finally get through Jurassic Park (not an example of a hard game, just long). I wouldn't want to go back to that. But games are much more enjoyable if they are challenging rather than some kind of interactive movie. I think the Donkey Kong Country series on SNES nailed the right balance of difficulty.
 
Like people have said, it's a style thing. Arcade games were really popular and were designed to be hard as to suck in your money... console games imitated that sort of gameplay because it was so popular but it has now moved in a different direction. Both can be fun... my problem is when a game is difficult due to being poorly made (Epic Mickey comes to mind... the camera in that game was so bad that it made the gameplay difficult (and frustrating). I quit the game and haven't touched it since).

However, games could do well to be a little more difficult. The final boss battles in a lot of games seem anti-climactic (and disappointing), since I'm expecting them to be super-hard and many times they're not (sometimes they're even easier than some of the lesser boss battles).
 
I could see this happening with arcade games. But we don't need console and handheld games to be almost impossible. We've already paid, so they have no reason to make it so hard. I remember playing SNES when I was real little. I almost broke my uncle's SNES because I got so mad. I think we'refine with letting players choose the difficulty of games. Take Halo for example. I can own on normal and heroic, but when it gets to legendary, I can't do anything. I think letting players choose the level of difficulty makes it more fun.
 
I think the concept of a final boss is misused. Not all games require a final boss. I've seen many games try hard to stick in boss fights when the gameplay and general feel of the game does not match well with a traditional boss fight. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is an example of this. The bosses are just HP Sponges who require lots of bullets to kill. That's fine when you lots of guns but since the game offers multiple paths including pacifist and stealth paths, players who choose these are in for a hrad time against these bosses as they don't have the right skill set and weapons to take on bosses. The boss fights in DX: HR felt like something from a completely different game.

I've also seen many gamers wanting a final boss in Mass Effect 3. Almost all want this final boss to be Harbinger since he gets such a minimal role in 3 despite being the oldest and most powerful of the reapers. Bioware was wrong to almost completely leave him out from the game but right in not including a final boss. The final boss of ME2 in particular, while epic in feel, is not a very good boss fight.
 
Slenderman said:
I could see this happening with arcade games. But we don't need console and handheld games to be almost impossible. We've already paid, so they have no reason to make it so hard. I remember playing SNES when I was real little. I almost broke my uncle's SNES because I got so mad. I think we'refine with letting players choose the difficulty of games. Take Halo for example. I can own on normal and heroic, but when it gets to legendary, I can't do anything. I think letting players choose the level of difficulty makes it more fun.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about that. When Mega Man 10 was going to have an easy mode, it caused a lot of backlash from the hardcore fans because they don't want newcomers to play a Mega Man in an inproper difficulty and want them to have the same experience as they had with the NES Mega Man games when they were kids themselves.
 
If they want to play old style so bad then let them get some old style games. I'm glad for new game systems. I'm not the best at video games so when it comes to modes I do easy or normal depending on the game. I fail at hard. The new style makes it better for those of us that like video games, but aren't at the expert level. I also love saving as it makes it easier when a boss kills you. I have a super nintendo and a sega genesis that I played until they got packed in storage. On the nintendo I played Lion King and was annoyed when I lost all of my lives and had to start from the first level, and the same with the game Arkanoid. It had passwords (that were actually confusing sometimes because of the font) but if I didn't write down the password then I got stuck at the beginning. Sonic is an example for my Genesis. Now I have sonic for my DS and it allows me to save. I like this because I'm not stuck playing from level one when I lose my lives, and I don't have to do it all in one sitting. They don't have to use those features if they don't want to, they are just being selfish and trying to make the rest of us suffer
 
Ghetsis-Dennis said:
Slenderman said:
I could see this happening with arcade games. But we don't need console and handheld games to be almost impossible. We've already paid, so they have no reason to make it so hard. I remember playing SNES when I was real little. I almost broke my uncle's SNES because I got so mad. I think we'refine with letting players choose the difficulty of games. Take Halo for example. I can own on normal and heroic, but when it gets to legendary, I can't do anything. I think letting players choose the level of difficulty makes it more fun.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about that. When Mega Man 10 was going to have an easy mode, it caused a lot of backlash from the hardcore fans because they don't want newcomers to play a Mega Man in an inproper difficulty and want them to have the same experience as they had with the NES Mega Man games when they were kids themselves.
Click to expand...

I don't give a damn if a game I played as a kid is as hard for someone else. If they enjoy it more when it's easier, that's how it should be. I don't think everybody should've put Halo Anniversary on the highest difficulty just so it would be the same way I played it. Everybody needs to have their own experience, and games shouldn't be hard just because some butthurt nerds want them to be.
 
Not all people who play video games are intensely into them. Take example my sister and myself. She doesn't play a whole lot, and when she does, she prefers easier games or easier levels. Sometimes fights and bosses scare her (like Tubba Blubba in Paper Mario for the N64), or things get too hard and I end up completing the fights/levels for her. Myself, I like a good challenge. I like trying to beat high scores, I like games that I can't beat within a few days (when I get a new game I obsess over it until I beat it). It's like in SSBB having the Easy -> intense modes. Some people may not like the frustration of Boss Battles on Intense and would prefer to play Easy or Normal. I like Boss Battles on Hard or Very Hard (to be honest, I've never beaten Intense).

So ya. I have no problems with a game having an easy mode because some people are casual gamers and don't want to beat games with a difficulty much higher than they're looking for. I don't like doing easy modes myself, but I don't think having one ruins a game.
 
As others have mentioned, the save feature is absolutely crucial nowadays. With games that take weeks to complete, save capability is a necessity, lest the console be set on fire. That being said, though, a considerable amount of newer games are incredibly easy and present no challenge. Hardly any strike the right balance. I'm not against the idea of modes, but I'll only choose the harder ones once I've finished the game before.
 
I can't imagine not being able to save a game. I imagine if you couldn't, people would leave their consoles on all the time, which I don't know is good for them or not( I worry about leaving my Wii system on for too long) it's just such a convenient feature, because nobody can play all the time. Also about difficulty, I consider myself a very casual gamer, so games definately don't need to be hard to be enjoyable, it should be easy enough for everyone to be able to enjoy, I play Paper Mario 64 occasionally and it's not a hard game but some parts are a bit challenging, I enjoy that kind of game. If you want super hard games, buy those. If not, buy easy games, simple as that.

About modes, you should be able to play harder difficulty modes if you want, but it shouldn't be required.
 
First:
easymode.png


On a serious note, I don't think console games need arcade/Nintendo style difficulty. Many games these days don't have a proper difficulty curve, though. They end up being either not challenging enough or unfairly difficult.
 
I think modes need tweaking. Easy is too easy, medium difficulties often have an inconsistent/scatty pattern of difficulty and hard settings are near-impossible sometimes (in my experience with the games I play, anyway). Games are made to be accessible and easy to dip into now, because that is how companies most often maximise profits - by making something inviting and easy to take up. I don't believe that games should, on average, be made more difficult simply because some people want a tougher challenge - if they want that, surely they should ask for better execution of harder difficulty settings rather than wanting their desired difficulty pushed on everybody else overall.
 
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I like my games not too difficult. Besides, a save feature is needed if a game will take more than a few hours to complete.
 
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