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| Grave 420th Post
 
Gold Customer
   
    
|  "Re(1):Poll - Game dificulty redux"
, posted Sat 12 Jul 23:47
I have no way of answering this definitively. I don't like to be frustrated, but I like to be challenged. I like a game to kick my ass now and then, but I'm very picky about it.
I'll use Shinobi as an example. There's nothing in Shinobi I felt I couldn't do, or that I was being unfairly restrained. Nothing about the game felt cheap to me. When I messed up, it was my fault. Shame on me, I vowed to work harder, and I did. This made it a much more rewarding experience than a game like Devil May Cry 2, where I can plow through Dante Must Die mode more easily than I could normal mode in DMC1.
Games should be difficult, but not cheap! Unfortunately, that's an awfully hard balance to reach. Difficult games can be mastered. Cheap games are going to upset everybody. I have trouble explaining it, but I hope people will understand what I mean.
It's like shooters. Most quality shooters look really intense and perhaps impossible to someone who doesn't play them. I've had many a friend totally overwhelmed by Ikaruga. But good players have learned the game inside out and know that it's ver doable, though it has the potential to be insanely hard. But a game that can be kept at and learned is not too difficult.
I used to be obsessed with Metal Slug. I played it in MAME all the damn time, trying to attain my goal of a perfect game, which I never did manage. 3 lives, yes, but that's a far cry from perfect. As long as it's possible to become skilled at a game, I don't think it's too hard... but then there's the issue of learning curve and BLRHRHGIGRGH
There's too much to be said about this and it's 2:46 AM and I doubt I've even made sense up until this point! Sleeping. Now.
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| Gen 1771th Post
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
  
    
    
| "Re(1):Poll - Game dificulty redux" , posted Sun 13 Jul 00:46:
quote:
Okay, my efforts to fix the previous poll ended up screwing the whole thing up. Bleah... at least the phrasing should be better this time around.
Poll
Opinions?
Yes some games are too hard. I remember reviews of a particular Batman game from a magazine who's writers would boast about how good they were - saying the game was too hard and basically not worth whatever struggle it would take to beat it.
Of course hard doesn't mean bad, and sometimes an extremely hard game will have good qualities making the hard play and the long time period it might take to beat worth pursuing.
This is going to be slightly off the topic, but still related. An opinion of mine..
The optional game difficulty levels of the last few dozen games I've played seem to be off. In the past, it seemed that actual difficulty level increased evenly with numerical difficulty options. Lately it seems less incremental and less even.
The first few difficulty levels are barely different, there is practically no challenge increase from level 0-3 or so. Then somewhere around the middle, the incrementation goes totally out the window and their are big jumps.... Know what I mean?
This happens sometimes in both the optional difficulty level of the whole game, and also in the difficulty increases in training modes... Like just the part of some 3d game where it's training you how to use the vast amount of controls.
The rest is mainly to just explain further:
I will try to demonstrate the miss match I sense in some newer games with a generic example. I'll compare the amount of the difficulty level option vs what the actual difficulty feels like. The optional levels are numbers 1 to 8, and the actual difficulty on a scale from 1 to 8...
level 1 = actual difficulty 1
level 2 = actual difficulty 1.3
level 3 = actual difficulty 1.6
so up to here I'm like, why is the game barely getting harder.
level 4 = actual difficulty 3.3
so then it's like hey, what happened, I wasn't ready for that.
level 5 = actual difficulty 4.4
level 6 = actual difficulty 5.7
level 7 = actual difficulty 7.6
level 8 = actual difficulty 8
So say it was training mode, devided into 8 mini assignments. It's as if...
part 1 teaches you that A button punches. part 2 says that B button kicks
part 3 says that C button uses binoculars
part 4 tells you: ok now double jump off the wall so you can grab and hang from that wire, hang-crawl along the wire to the other side, do a silent dismount, attack the three guards using the special moves. So then I think, what? It didn't show me how to do that yet. I think they skipped a few lessons.
[this message was edited by Gen on Sun 13 Jul 00:57] |
| DarkZero
142th Post
Regular Customer
| "Re(3):Poll - Game dificulty redux" , posted Sun 13 Jul 00:51
There's another option here that I didn't even remember when I voted for the poll, and it's one that I probably would've voted for: user-defined difficulty.
I think I've reached the point as a gamer where the genres that I traditionally play no longer challenge me. RPGs, 2D sidescrollers, fighters, racing games, 3D action games... I've been playing these for years, some for as long as the genre has been around (3D action games, for one). Their standard difficulty level no longer has any challenge for me and, given the cult popularity of Shinobi, I don't think I'm alone there. So why can I only unlock Hard Mode after I've beat the game?! I've played more and more games lately that are only fun either A) if I intentionally limit myself, like intentionally collecting all four kisses in Maximo (you get a lame art gallery bonus in Maximo if you waste every level-up opportunity on a useless "princess's kiss" item, which takes the spot where invincibility or badass special moves should go), or B) patiently wait until hard mode is unlocked.
The game I'm playing right now, Megaman Battle Network 3, is a perfect example. I've conquered the previous two games and the third one lets me use many of the same strategies that I've already mastered. Therefore, I only die in those really rare instances where a boss has been designed to perfectly counter the strategy that I've been using. So far I've seen one of those maybe five or six times in thirty to thirty-five hours of gameplay. And yet, all of these games have a Hard Mode, but it's only unlockable after you've beaten the game. So there's a much better, more enjoyable game that really exploits the battle system hiding somewhere in this game cartridge... but I can't use it. That's senseless. Why can't I just go into an Options menu and change "Difficulty: Normal" to "Difficulty: Hard" like I could with an SNES game?
This isn't to say that MMBN3 is a bad game, though. It's great. It's a lot of fun. I'm addicted. Starting off in Hard Mode would've been even better though, and I thought the same thing about MMBN2.
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| Time Mage 1538th Post
Red Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Member
| "Re(1):Poll - Game dificulty redux" , posted Sun 13 Jul 04:29
I've voted the second option because, as Rid said, lately games are usually quite easy.
I understand that games have to be easy for the new and casual players to be able to play them, but I'd like more difficulty in some games.
In fact, the best solution would be 2 or 3 difficulty settings for nearly all games. I don't know why, but not many games have difficulty settings lately.
Also, RPG's should begin to include difficulty settings. FF9, LoZ:TWW, FFT-A are examples of games TOO easy, good for new players, but too easy for the rest. Simply increasing enemy damage in the first two would end many of their difficuly problems, although FFT-A would need many other things, like enemies properly equipped (both items and abilities), more agressivity, more use of their magic points, etc, etc...
So, to sum up... Difficulty settings is the answer!
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| DKW
232th Post
Frequent Customer
| "Re(1):Poll - Game dificulty redux" , posted Mon 14 Jul 00:52
Actually, it depends on the type of game more than anything.
Fighting - Most of them have a selectable range of 6-8. On the highest setting, of course, the computer should show no mercy and use every trick, combo, counter etc. in the book. On level 1, however, it should NOT; in fact, it should be pretty lax on both offense and defense. 1 should be easy enough for a 10-year-old to win, many of whom do play these type of games. And not sickening bone-crushing hard. Again, that's easy, not hard. (You LISTENING, Hudson Soft, SNK, ADK, etc. etc.? Capcom understands this, why can't you??)
Also, the difficulty level should apply equally to any mission/quest mode on the game, instead of being fixed on ultra-hyper super duper impossible.
Wrestling - Wrestling games have become extremely technical in recent years, and there are a lot of things for a new player to learn. Therefore, it's imperative that the easiest difficulty level...novice, amateur, jabronie, whatever...be very gentle. Easy enough for, say, an 8-year old to win with a little struggle (and many of them do play wrestling games). On the hardest level, of course, it's okay for the computer to pull off all kinds of impossible reversals and always do the right move and put tons of pressure on, etc., but this is unacceptable on the easiest difficulty level. Once again, easeist easy, hardest hard. (GET it, wrestling game programmers?? That means I can actually do a damn REVERSAL once in a while, and if I hit the guy with 15 finishers, he STAYS DOWN!!!!)
Also, the difficulty level should apply equally to any special challenge or match on the game (especially if it unlocks something) instead of being fixed on ultra-hyper super duper impossible.
Music - Let's say there are a total of 7 difficulty settings on whatever's the standard difficulty level. That means the highest level should comprise roughly 1/7 of the songs. If there are 9 levels, there should be roughly 1/9 "9" songs, and so on. Of course, expert levels can and should be stuffed to the gills with "hyper" songs; that's the point, after all. But the STANDARD difficulty level should be nice and even, maybe a little stacked in the middle, or slightly hard, but never a gross excess of the hardest songs. And if super-hard songs are needed, just add a new expert level. (That's exactly what happened with Pop 'n Music AND Dance Dance Revolution! Why is this so hard for Beatmania IIDX? Why?)
Shooting - For the type where you're fighting attacking enemies, they should, at minimum, give you ample time to react. The occasional pop-up enemy is fine (notice I said "occasional", Midway), but make them predictable and don't go overboard. Bosses can be tough, but not cheap, i.e. no way to avoid taking damage even with perfect accuracy (*cough*House of the Dead 3*cough*). And lots of enemies that can take tons of hits should at least give you unlimited rapid-fire capability (I'm sorry, just too many examples to list here). For "party" style games, the levels should be fairly equal in difficulty, or if not, then they should be spread out among the levels by difficulty (much unlike the Point Blank games).
Racing - Cut the bazillions of garage adjustments (Auto Modellista-style tuning is more than sufficient), don't have events with ridiculous entry requirements, and put a damn CAP on how powerful the opponents can be so I don't need a 1500 horsepower and turn-on-a-dime capability to win a friggin' $200 race. That's all I ask.
Puzzle - These are all inherently 99.999% blind luck, so difficulty isn't an issue. 
As you can see, I got some issues here. It's gotten so bad, in fact, that most console games aren't even fun at all with a Code Action Replay. At first I viewed such devices as fun tools for tinkering with the game. Now they're a sheer necessity.
homepage - http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dkwff
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so I'm sure I would be good at Hitman 2."
"Re(3):Poll - Game dificulty redux" 