Is it just me or are most modern games really easy? - General

Wind Waker HD in Hero mode is pretty hard. You take double the damage and you can't find any recovery hearts which means you have to find something to bottle up or you're going to be dying pretty often.

I find this is a common problem in FPS games these days. Call Of Duty is a perfect example, although I'm tempted not to use it as it represents everything WRONG with modern FPS games... Developers seem to spend too much time holding your hand through the entire game. Be it a direction indicator on your hud, or constantly updating map icons, games always seem to give the player an easy route. An option to just give up, lower the difficulty, read the almost certainly provided directions, and fall into the eternal linearity that always seems to inhabit the games, regardless of how "open world" they seem to feel. Saints row 4, for example (Fantastic game, by the way. I'm using the example simply because it fits well) is an open world game. It has great, freedom producing elements that give an entirely independent and vast experience. But when in quests or objectives, there's [I]always[/I] an indicator telling you what to do. Some kind of icon guiding you in the right direction. No matter how free the game is within the standards of priority, the ability to make your own way within missions remains entirely linear. Older FPS games, however, didn't include this. They plopped you right into an environment meant to train and familiarize you with the elements and objectives needed to finish the game. Half life had absolutely no handholding. Even if it wasn't an option for developers, not once was an indicator telling you what to do displayed on the screen. And it went along just fine. So while games don't [I]suck[/I] for it, handholding has established itself as a permanent game element. [I]"Do it yourself with the hints we gave you"[/I] is no longer a route taken by developers. One way or another, there's always a direct explanation for what you need to do, thus ruining the independent and rich feeling us gamers fell in love with.

To the above, part of the reason regarding FPS' can be attributed to how the "modern" FPS is shifting focus towards multiplayer. From what I've seen singleplayer in the recent 2 COD looked like nothing more than something meant to get you used to how it controlled for Multiplayer. Not every FPS is like that, but it is a thing.

[QUOTE=CAPT Opp4;42265527]I find this is a common problem in FPS games these days. Call Of Duty is a perfect example, although I'm tempted not to use it as it represents everything WRONG with modern FPS games... Developers seem to spend too much time holding your hand through the entire game. Be it a direction indicator on your hud, or constantly updating map icons, games always seem to give the player an easy route. An option to just give up, lower the difficulty, read the almost certainly provided directions, and fall into the eternal linearity that always seems to inhabit the games, regardless of how "open world" they seem to feel. Saints row 4, for example (Fantastic game, by the way. I'm using the example simply because it fits well) is an open world game. It has great, freedom producing elements that give an entirely independent and vast experience. But when in quests or objectives, there's [I]always[/I] an indicator telling you what to do. Some kind of icon guiding you in the right direction. No matter how free the game is within the standards of priority, the ability to make your own way within missions remains entirely linear. Older FPS games, however, didn't include this. They plopped you right into an environment meant to train and familiarize you with the elements and objectives needed to finish the game. Half life had absolutely no handholding. Even if it wasn't an option for developers, not once was an indicator telling you what to do displayed on the screen. And it went along just fine. So while games don't [I]suck[/I] for it, handholding has established itself as a permanent game element. [I]"Do it yourself with the hints we gave you"[/I] is no longer a route taken by developers. One way or another, there's always a direct explanation for what you need to do, thus ruining the independent and rich feeling us gamers fell in love with.[/QUOTE] [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/75/Battlezone_Coverart.png[/img] I wish more strategy games were like this. It had very little hand holding, with only an objective marker on your radar in the linear missions, and the occasional hint. When you got missions where you had to destroy the enemy, you weren't told where their base was, and you got no overview at all. You had to scout it out yourself and manage and keep your base defended while you went out. It rarely if ever told you a hint on how to defeat a certain enemy or base. In modern strategy games it would be, here's what their base roughly looks like, or here's where it is, destroy this, and this, or do X/Y/Z and remember A,B and C and you'll win. Often times when it gives you a harder objective further in the mission instead of like old games where you built up new waves of units and adapted, in modern games you're given a group of elite new units to do it for you and support your already strong army, for an objective that then becomes a cakewalk. Old games like Age of Empires sometimes gave you a group of new units for an objective, but most of the time they were either A) mission critical and quite susceptible or B) To let the game introduce the enemy AI's new nastier behaviour patterns involving bigger waves of enemy units or C) If it was an early level or a show casing of a new unit or to make a plot point.

This thread is gonna turn into a dark souls circlejerk real fast.

I stick to my old j-rpgs.

I stick to my old mech games like Armoured Core. I can't get into some new games these days that, even on the hardest difficulty, can be won easily just for overwhelming its poor design or just outsmarting the AI.

A game doesn't have to be difficult to be fun, I like checkers much more than chess, for instance Yatzy just sucks, though

games were bullshit hard years ago to extend playtime

you want hard games? try playing the old NES games Ninja Gaiden, Metroid, Kid Icarus, those sorts of games THOSE were challenging at times (My hats off to people that beat Metroid in under half an hour, I usually take 1-2)

The worst part is, a lot of these games are simple and have a very linear storyline. Basically a controllable movie with directions and no replay value. Anything for a quick buck, ay.

AAA games are. Although we still have games like Dark Souls, SHMUPS etc. Kinda related; [video=youtube;TrnzRI-WM7I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrnzRI-WM7I[/video]

[QUOTE=Hiighwire;42266813]The worst part is, a lot of these games are simple and have a very linear storyline. Basically a controllable movie with directions and no replay value. Anything for a quick buck, ay.[/QUOTE] idk man, dragon's lair and space ace were both exactly that and were still difficult

Mega Man Unlimited, came out July of this year. Play it, it will KICK YOUR ASS. There's also an instadeath mode if you're feeling extra Kaizo.

I've got a pet theory that average difficulty of games has lowered because the guys making the games now spend years on each one, and can't stand the though of someone not reaching the sewer level so they can see the rat animations they worked for months on. That's how I'd think.

[QUOTE=Hawkshadow;42266040]you want hard games? try playing the old NES games Ninja Gaiden, Metroid, Kid Icarus, those sorts of games THOSE were challenging at times (My hats off to people that beat Metroid in under half an hour, I usually take 1-2)[/QUOTE] We're talking about hard modern games not hard old games

Try some roguelikes (ex: nethack, ADOM, crawl, angband) if you want a hard game.

[QUOTE=Lufttygger306;42265989]A game doesn't have to be difficult to be fun, I like checkers much more than chess, for instance Yatzy just sucks, though[/QUOTE]Checkers are not easier than chess though. They have less rules since every pawn is the same but the actual gameplay is far from easy. A game doesn't have to be complex to be difficult seems to be more relevant in your example.

Difficulty is a misleading word in this discussion. One of the hardest games on the NES is Silver Surfer, but it's really bad. Castlevania and Contra is also some of the hardest games on the NES but they are considered classics. You need to think that people that play video-games a lot have experience and usually assess a situation they have conquered before. New players will not know because they haven't tried to deal with the situation before. To keep someone entertained you need to test someones skills, while progressing. Therefore, saving is a downside, because if you are away from the game for a long time you'll lose your skills and maybe be stuck. I played Half Life 2 and was stuck somewhere after my brother played and couldn't get past it after 3 hours. Games have to be hard, but easy to use. When you have 105 keys on a keyboard to use you can't use too much because the player can't adapt everything in a really short time span. That's why many developers end up making "easy" games. Super Meat Boy is a great example because it's all about precision. Modern Warfare or Halo can't use the same game difficulty because it's a different gameplay style.

Can't believe that nobody said this yet, But X-Com. In UFO Defense, 1-2 shots typically kill your guys. If you are lucky it will take 3. In that you had to strategize and not just mindlessly send your troops into the fray.