Difficulty is fun lol

Difficulty is fun lol

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Bullett

10,873 posts

183 months

Friday 24th March 2023
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Honourable Dead Snark said:
For me it depends on the game. I can’t get into any Souls or Souls like game at all but I don’t know if that’s down to difficult or because I find the lack of story and combat mechanics tedious.

Getting gold on all the GT7 licenses is probably the hardest gaming achievement I’ve done in years (and that was before realising I am quicker turning traction control off completely).

Done a fair few circuit breakers experiences which are just as difficult but I have no motivation to complete them all again because it feels pretty tedious.
I got bored of GT7 pretty quickly. Starting going all gold, then silver then any pass will do on stuff.
The AI racing wasn't really racing just chase the leader and the collecting cars and going to the Cafe and the interminable cut scenes as dull as they could be.
Yet I'll spend days lapping the same car round the same track in Iracing trying to find that final 0.2s that will get me into the top 10 in qualifying.

LukeBrown66

Original Poster:

4,479 posts

45 months

Friday 24th March 2023
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GT games are about as tired as a format gets, but you cannot blame Kaz, people buy the tripe in their millions, it is the same basic game for 20 odd years is it not, I mean it is alright, but it is hardly revolutionary now is it

Bullett

10,873 posts

183 months

Friday 24th March 2023
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You could say that about any racing game or in reality pretty much any sport in real-life or virtual. It's just driving in circles very quickly, it's just kicking/hitting a ball, its just running with an egg on a spoon.

LukeBrown66

Original Poster:

4,479 posts

45 months

Friday 24th March 2023
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I did not really mean that, I meant the format of the game has remained the same though about 10 or so versions now, it has changed subtly, but not changed much, even with regard to tracks and the like. Still the same sorts of cars, the same licences, it is a very tired form at but you cannot blame them, it sells by the bucketload so much so that people like Fanatec even licence a wheel for it, it is beyond crazy, and also that game is largely responsible for the import Japanese car market initially, that was the place you got to see the cars in some kind of detail. Nowhere else could you unless you bought Japanese magazines etc.

A lot of other stuff is either linked to a series, or a style of driving. Then you get stuff like Beam NG which is very unique or the truck sim games or Mudrunner, very unique games that get a cult following

Amazing really that there still is no WEC game,

Mastodon2

13,818 posts

164 months

Friday 24th March 2023
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Dave Hedgehog said:
they are, you disengage brain and then just mindlessly test your reactions for 2-4 hours whilst you learn the tells for a boss then rinse and repeat for the 20 odd bosses in the game, all the time trying not to rage smash your house up because the boss one hits you for the 5th time in a row 20 mins into the fight on 5%

its as much fun as smashing your head against a wall for 20 hours
Why did we ever get rid of the cringe thread hehe

CT05 Nose Cone

24,942 posts

226 months

Saturday 25th March 2023
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LukeBrown66 said:
I loved Dirt Rally as a game, it for me is the best rally sim ever made, I played it to death initially, it was a basic hotch potch of a rushed title but it felt amazing to me. But it was damn hard, you had to put the work in to get time back, you basically had to learn rally stages which is ridiculous in itself. That is what a Dark Souls player feels like, work at it to get the reward, fair enough.

Circle back to DR 2.0. Same basic design and game (enough said about the DLC debacle of being charged extra for stuff form the old game helloo no wonder EA bought them), but little things start appearing, stage finishes in places they would Never even be in a real rally, very unsafe etc to try an catch you out right near the end. Finish boards literally made of stone and right on the line so you are almost obliged to hit them and incur damage, awful wet weather grip that made cars almost uncontrollable, stages of endless hairpins when you might only get into 4 th gear for a few seconds. This is all designed to make an already very difficult game harder, it is totally unnecessary, it is rallying, it is the hardest form of high level motorsport. An example of a developer "souls" ing a title that did not need it.

Edited by LukeBrown66 on Friday 24th March 11:52
I tried DR2 as I really enjoyed Dirt 4, but the difficulty was insane even with the AI at 0 and felt impossible on a controller. I was finally leading an Autocross event when I got spun out on the very final corner, uninstalled the game and never touched it again. Then they made Dirt 5 though, which was far too easy and had some of the most migrane-inducing presentation I've ever seen. I understand it's a sim, but they also make the F1 series where the difficulty can be adjusted to anything from a pro level to one where a Polygon journalist could beat it. That to me is how it should be done, give you the options to make it as hard or as easy as you like.

LukeBrown66

Original Poster:

4,479 posts

45 months

Saturday 25th March 2023
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Talking of F1 games, has anyone been following the cheat debate? it is pretty bad as it turns out

MCBrowncoat

864 posts

145 months

Saturday 25th March 2023
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LukeBrown66 said:
Talking of F1 games, has anyone been following the cheat debate? it is pretty bad as it turns out
Jimmers video yesterday was pretty crazy, if true. Up to 70% cheating. Bonkers.

Looks like his Sebring stream didn't go too well just now either? What happened, does anyone know? I had it on in the background whilst doing some DIY and when I came back it had ended and a Wirtual vid was playing?!! laugh

LukeBrown66

Original Poster:

4,479 posts

45 months

Saturday 25th March 2023
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Have admit to only taking a passing interest bin JB these days, the "look how many cars I have bought and how much stuff i get for free and how many cars I have raced" got a little in your face for me. Which is a shame as journalistically the lad has the clout, but he is so hesitant of annoying people and losing his lifestyle, as are more streamer,s they also ruin games for me hence why I have no interest in following them these days. As devs basically use them for free marketing and tailor games to them hence the difficulty is good thread.

Lucas Ayde

3,541 posts

167 months

Monday 27th March 2023
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LukeBrown66 said:
I am an old school gamer, been at it since the Spectrum, Amiga days.

And I am finding this endless difficulty is fun garbage very tiring.

I know it works for some people, God knows why but being endlessly killed in stuff like Bloodborne and Dark Souls (repeat endlessly since) is apparently challenging and fun.

I do not, I find creative game design to be fun and challenging, not just upping difficulty to an insane state. Yes that is harder to do and takes more time, but the reward is right there, Half Life, Fallout, Skyrim, GTA, Red Dead, Destiny series etc etc. Games that were hard if you wanted them to be, but were mainly story based and long

It also rather stupidly tosses people who play casually on the dirt pile and is basically elitist. "You are not good enough, you are not welcome you might aswell uninstall this"

OK thanks, that was my plan. What kind of developer would do this and NOT try and include as many people as possible? it works for Nintendo and so many other people, why not try and make every game like this?

Difficulty should be a scale, but increasingly it seems to start at madness and go on to ever more insane levels. And developers think just because a tiny minority can complete this, that means we have to make it harder!
I think the problem is that as you get older, reflexes really slow down. You also have less time to devote to playing a single video game unlike when you were a kid and had hours every day to play a game over and over again (and the interest in doing it) until you really mastered it.

There's a lot of stuff that I would have found trivially easy as a kid that I get crushed at today. Equally, even though there were some games that I literally played for 8 hours a day all weekend when I was a kid, I would now simply not have that kind of time .. nor desire .. to endure long gaming sessions to beat a tough game.

I do wish thought that I could show my 13 year old self the kind of modern games (and VR stuff) that we have today. It would be mind blowing. Now we just take jaw dropping graphics, complex physics, huge game worlds and amazing music/voice sountracks for granted.

Dave Hedgehog

14,541 posts

203 months

Monday 27th March 2023
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Lucas Ayde said:
I think the problem is that as you get older, reflexes really slow down. You also have less time to devote to playing a single video game unlike when you were a kid and had hours every day to play a game over and over again (and the interest in doing it) until you really mastered it.
knocking on 60 wink (when the fk did that happen ...)

the lack of time is a huge problem... hardly used my PSVR2 in the last few weeks...





Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Monday 27th March 12:41

Don Roque

17,990 posts

158 months

Wednesday 5th April 2023
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Steven_RW said:
Mindless dirge? I exceedingly rarely use the laughing crying emoji but this is worthy.
Indeed.

Bloodborne is very easy until you try to reach the lowest chalice dungeons. Elden Ring is easy enough until the final boss rush. All the Dark Souls games are mostly pretty fair and forgiving.

I like difficult games so long as they're fair. If they teach you how to win and give you room to develop strategy, even better! I'm not saying to this flex but because I genuinely love the feeling of overcoming a challenge.

Steven_RW

1,727 posts

201 months

Thursday 6th April 2023
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Don Roque said:
Steven_RW said:
Mindless dirge? I exceedingly rarely use the laughing crying emoji but this is worthy.
Indeed.

Bloodborne is very easy until you try to reach the lowest chalice dungeons. Elden Ring is easy enough until the final boss rush. All the Dark Souls games are mostly pretty fair and forgiving.

I like difficult games so long as they're fair. If they teach you how to win and give you room to develop strategy, even better! I'm not saying to this flex but because I genuinely love the feeling of overcoming a challenge.
Well - whilst it appears we agree the games are not mindless dirge, I'd have to disagree about how easy Bloodborne and the others are. My first ever souls game was Bloodborne and I died unbelievable countless times in the first main street leading up to the werewolf on the bonfire cross. It completely boggled my mind how hard it was. I had arrived entirely blind to the series or what a souls game was and was getting mobbed and smashed relentlessly. Now I have no issues at all but that learning curve was steep and harsh especially if playing with no prior understanding of the games. Eventually I worked out how to pick the fights one at a time and learned all the little tricks and traps the game set for me, made some progress and loved it ever since. Orphan of Kos or Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower, or the big shark like enemies in the costal town (still to me) are a long way away from easy.

However, in summary, the games are amazing and as you study them and put time in they feed you more quality gaming than you ever thought possible. Mindless dirge they are not.

Hoofy

76,253 posts

281 months

Thursday 6th April 2023
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99 kills for 16 last night.

Top 4 players.

Camping is life.

Curiously, it wasn't a particularly long game as the highest only got 120 kills. Normally, if I get over 50 kills through camping, I'll be in the middle of the board and the usual good players who wade in will have got over 150 and sometimes over 200. So I was particularly strategic in my play. biggrin

Griffith4ever

4,139 posts

34 months

Thursday 6th April 2023
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Don Roque said:
Elden Ring is easy enough
Christ you are in a very small group who think that.

Think I got RSI from back rolling - which I never really got the hang of. Never has a game made me so mad.

point

40 posts

68 months

Thursday 6th April 2023
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Steven_RW said:
My first ever souls game was Bloodborne and I died unbelievable countless times in the first main street leading up to the werewolf on the bonfire cross. It completely boggled my mind how hard it was. I had arrived entirely blind to the series or what a souls game was and was getting mobbed and smashed relentlessly. Now I have no issues at all but that learning curve was steep and harsh especially if playing with no prior understanding of the games. Eventually I worked out how to pick the fights one at a time and learned all the little tricks and traps the game set for me, made some progress and loved it ever since.
This exactly. In my case I died so many times that it put me off the game for a good year or two, in the meantime I played Nioh which I also struggled with at first but ended up making my way through and completed it. Then went back to Bloodborne and also completed it.
I posted the other day that I had put aside Nioh 2 some years ago as I was struggling against a particular boss but came back to it a few weeks ago, finally beat him and beat the next 3 bosses and completed all side missions without too much hassle. (currently on the 3rd to last boss).

It is all for the challenge anyway, the sense of progression. When I am in the mood to tackle such games I have noticed I am also more patient with most things in life, FWIW.

DKS

1,670 posts

183 months

Thursday 6th April 2023
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Mastodon2 said:
You could look at it from the perspective of the devs not wanting you to experience those parts of the game until you've earned it.
.... unless you're some kind of god-tier player, it would feel like a hollow victory.
I've earned the right to see the entire game because I paid for it. Games are interactive movies with the advantage you can (or should be able to) tailor it to your taste.
Doom 2016 seemed good to me, ramping up the difficulty but adding new weapons to counter this.
The follow up Doom seemed less interesting and so stupidly hard I've given up after receiving the one-hit sword thing. So that's about 1/3 of the game I'll never see. And they've ruined it by trying to give Doom guy a back story.
Bulletstorm is better. Or Singularity. Far Cry series seems ok with people just wanting to explore. Horizon New Dawn nailed it.

Alien Isolation felt amazing trawling around the abandoned space station until the Alien appeared. Got bored, never played it again.
Prey showed how it can be done. Or Bioshock series.

Granted 8/16 bit era was hard, but how many people really finished that many games? Loads I've played up to the point I simply can't proceed, then give up and cheat if there was a code. I feel I should be able to turn the alien off, or make my gun one shot kill if I want, at least to appreciate the effort of designing the world the devs created.
I don't buy new games now, wait for second hand if I'm not going to see all of the game.

ZedLeg

12,278 posts

107 months

Thursday 6th April 2023
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DKS said:
I've earned the right to see the entire game because I paid for it. Games are interactive movies with the advantage you can (or should be able to) tailor it to your taste.
Doom 2016 seemed good to me, ramping up the difficulty but adding new weapons to counter this.
The follow up Doom seemed less interesting and so stupidly hard I've given up after receiving the one-hit sword thing. So that's about 1/3 of the game I'll never see. And they've ruined it by trying to give Doom guy a back story.
Bulletstorm is better. Or Singularity. Far Cry series seems ok with people just wanting to explore. Horizon New Dawn nailed it.

Alien Isolation felt amazing trawling around the abandoned space station until the Alien appeared. Got bored, never played it again.
Prey showed how it can be done. Or Bioshock series.

Granted 8/16 bit era was hard, but how many people really finished that many games? Loads I've played up to the point I simply can't proceed, then give up and cheat if there was a code. I feel I should be able to turn the alien off, or make my gun one shot kill if I want, at least to appreciate the effort of designing the world the devs created.
I don't buy new games now, wait for second hand if I'm not going to see all of the game.
Dara O'Briain did a good bit about this on an old Charlie Brooker show. He was talking about not being able to get past a boss at the start of GoW2 (I think) and how that means he won't get to see the rest of the game, which seems unfair.

I agree tbh and if anything it's got worse in some areas with the advent of the Soulslike. Try finding an RPG or Roguelike that doesn't have a tough difficulty curve these days.

It's why I think that all narrative games should have an essentially passive story mode so that if you're struggling with gameplay you can still see what happens.

For Example I've never seen the last third of Elden Ring as I can't get past the big gold guy in the city but I had already put about 100 hours into it so it's not like I didn't get my moneys worth laugh

LukeBrown66

Original Poster:

4,479 posts

45 months

Thursday 6th April 2023
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I think really people are in two or three camps.

Those like me prefer an easy route, they will probably try a harder skill lever and bail after becoming frustrated and try an easier version.

Some like the difficulty, bring it on, I do not understand this at all, but each to their own.

And finally the learners, those that do not like dying a lot, but will persevere, die even more, respect what is going on and work it out.

I think all games would be made to be accessible to all, but that is harder to develop and program, which is probably why it does not happen!


Hoofy

76,253 posts

281 months

Thursday 6th April 2023
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They probably need to put in some kind of clue system or difficulty level if it's for a story. BF3 and BF4 (they're the newest games I play) have a "campaign mode" (story) that you follow. You can set the difficulty to easy (the enemies tend to miss or cause little damage) so you at least get to work through the entire story. I've tried it on the hardest mode and it's like playing against the best players online - high hit rates, hardly miss - so almost impossible for me to complete.