Difficulty is fun lol
Discussion
PhilboSE said:
Those are precise game mechanics that don’t float my particular boat. I feel like I’m being punished for not knowing something I had no way of knowing, and the only way to progress is to learn by long and bitter experience and “git gud”. I don’t enjoy that. Which is fine, we don’t have to enjoy the same things.
I cannot comment on the classic games that defined the genre such as Dark Souls and its sequels as I have never liked the "dungeons and dragons" atmosphere, but I have found equivalents such as Nioh 1/2 and Bloodbourne quite ok and enjoyable.It is all very personal anyway and although I am not a fan per se of Souls games I like to take them as a challenge and do not feel punished dying over and over again as I have always felt I learned and missed something in most death. Only once have I thrown the controller, after dying for the umpteenth time against some boss in Sekiro about half way through. I dusted off Nioh 2 as there was one boss last year that I could not get through and am now getting pretty close, and it will take the time it will take but I will work it out.
In the end I think it just boils down to what sort of mood we may be in when we turn on the console/PC. To me it at least has been cyclical, with periods enjoying such hard games and other periods taking a sit back and just enjoying a good action/adventure game with deep storytelling, often with rather long periods of non playing at all in between.
Elden ring is the only game I uninstalled, reinstalled , then finally uninstalled. It really rea!ly pissed me off. Loads of progress and them blam! Repeat.
I do like FPS battle royals as it's you against humans. I've won PUBG a couple of times solo. MW was tough and finally showed me I'm just not as quick as the young ones any more. PUBG can be very tactical but I found MW was more reflex based and I could not keep up. I STILL jump and twitch the mouse when someone surprises me or shoots at me.
I do like FPS battle royals as it's you against humans. I've won PUBG a couple of times solo. MW was tough and finally showed me I'm just not as quick as the young ones any more. PUBG can be very tactical but I found MW was more reflex based and I could not keep up. I STILL jump and twitch the mouse when someone surprises me or shoots at me.
BrettMRC said:
The hardest games ever were the ones you had to load from a cassette on the BBC-B... even getting the sod to run was a mountain to climb! 
I'll raise you the level of difficulty of getting a copied game tape to load on a ZX Spectrum. After 5-10 minutes of looking hopefully at a flashing CRT screen with lots of wobbly lines it would suddenly go black, reboot and you would start all over again. Some days it would take an hour of fiddling with volume and tone controls, or even trying different cassette players, to even get to the start.
As for in-game difficulty, I think the hardest was Eureka! a five-part text adventure that had no save game option but did have random events that would kill you without warning.
I was watching something on YouTube about old games. And the result was, they were rock hard as they lasted a few minutes at most if you could complete them, so they were made almost impossible.
Eg, 'The Last V8' on C64. The car was virtually uncontrollable. The video I saw was him completing it in about 2 minutes!
Eg, 'The Last V8' on C64. The car was virtually uncontrollable. The video I saw was him completing it in about 2 minutes!
MCBrowncoat said:
And what an exercise! The aesthetics of some of the areas I have seen - but that I personally never got to - look incredible. But a lot of people will never experience them because they sent it back or got bored like me. Isn't that weird?!! A huge portion of this game you created a reasonable proportion of your players will never experience?!!
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. You may suffer, but you must persist. There is less satisfaction in beating a boss who goes down easy.Take Sekiro for example, the final boss is an impenetrable wall the first time you meet him. Hks offense is devastating as you can barely slip an attack through his guard before he crushes you with another blow. But as you study the fight, you start to learn the counters and see the gaps, you position differently and adjust your timing. It takes a while, but by the time you finally beat him, you will have toppled the games mightiest challenge and are now deserving of seeing the ending and saying you beat the game. If you arrived at that fight and won it first or second time, unless you're some kind of god-tier player, it would feel like a hollow victory.
ZedLeg said:
CrutyRammers said:
Dave Hedgehog said:
mmm-five said:
Simple solution, just don't buy/play the stuff you don't like.
I don't like FPS game, so stay away from things like CoD MW, Fortnite, PUGB, Tarkov, etc.
This, I avoid any souls type game or game where you have to repeat sections to get back to the boss again on death, or the boss resets on deathI don't like FPS game, so stay away from things like CoD MW, Fortnite, PUGB, Tarkov, etc.
they are just mindless dirge
add linear games like jedi fallen order, I was bored before I even got to the end of the scrap yard
Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Wednesday 22 March 13:45
I much prefer games where they create a world and you get emergent behaviour, rather than these heavily scripted things. I do like a multiplayer FPS for that reason, but I'm getting worse at those as I get older - or rather, don't invest the time in them in order to be good. I'm getting more casual but I don't see that as a bad thing. These days I prefer the more thinky type of game where you can take your time. Oxygen not included is my fave example at the moment. I doubt many would claim that's not hard, but the difficulty comes from consequences of your decisions, not just because you missed a move in a scripted sequence.
Most of my favourite games are in the former category but I've also spent 100s of hours in big open world games wandering around.
boy seven lol man alive I laughed out loud for that.
Do you remember getting tiny screwdrivers to adjust the head?
Waiting for the 63rd time time you saw blue and yellow instead of red and blue, and the delight of the loading screen being drawn!
Man alive the joy, great memories!
And let me be clear I have no issue with Souls type games, they exist for a reason.
The problem I have is the same as loot boxes, it is devs for all sorts of other game types who just say "oh hard is fun" when it either does not suit their game type or is blatantly obvious. And thankfully the loot box thing was quickly stopped.
let me give you an example
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.
Do you remember getting tiny screwdrivers to adjust the head?
Waiting for the 63rd time time you saw blue and yellow instead of red and blue, and the delight of the loading screen being drawn!
Man alive the joy, great memories!
And let me be clear I have no issue with Souls type games, they exist for a reason.
The problem I have is the same as loot boxes, it is devs for all sorts of other game types who just say "oh hard is fun" when it either does not suit their game type or is blatantly obvious. And thankfully the loot box thing was quickly stopped.
let me give you an example
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
siovey said:
Baldchap said:
I completed Ghosts 'n Goblins back in my younger days, which is something I'm pretty confident very few people ever managed (doing it once doesn't count - you have to kill the big boss using the golden weapon you win on the first completion!), but I no longer have the inclination to put hundreds of or even many tens of hours into a game, so for me I want to play games to be entertained, not particularly challenged.
For that reason it's story/easy mode for me all the way and I'm very happy with that.
Seriously impressive that! I played it recently and didn't even get to the end of level 1 without a LOT of continues! For that reason it's story/easy mode for me all the way and I'm very happy with that.
Even back in the day when I still had reflexes, I didn't get near the end! Like you said , I doubt many people did!
Steven_RW said:
Dave Hedgehog said:
This, I avoid any souls type game or game where you have to repeat sections to get back to the boss again on death, or the boss resets on death
they are just mindless dirge
Mindless dirge? I exceedingly rarely use the laughing crying emoji but this is worthy.they are just mindless dirge
its as much fun as smashing your head against a wall for 20 hours
shouldbworking said:
You'll enjoy this comedy skit about designing escape from tarkov by the sounds of it
https://youtu.be/NzaNzJnh9l8
I think game designers must think there's more value in narcissists who will play forever to stay top of the ladder rather than having a larger but more transient player base
i enjoyed watching summit and lirik playing tarkov, until everyone quit because of the cheaters https://youtu.be/NzaNzJnh9l8
I think game designers must think there's more value in narcissists who will play forever to stay top of the ladder rather than having a larger but more transient player base
Dave Hedgehog said:
Steven_RW said:
Dave Hedgehog said:
This, I avoid any souls type game or game where you have to repeat sections to get back to the boss again on death, or the boss resets on death
they are just mindless dirge
Mindless dirge? I exceedingly rarely use the laughing crying emoji but this is worthy.they are just mindless dirge
LukeBrown66 said:
boy seven lol man alive I laughed out loud for that.
Do you remember getting tiny screwdrivers to adjust the head?
Waiting for the 63rd time time you saw blue and yellow instead of red and blue, and the delight of the loading screen being drawn!
Man alive the joy, great memories!
...snip...
...and forever taking them back to the shop after the nth failure to load, after cleaning, adjusting, trying 2nd tape deck...only for it to load first time and be refused a replacement/refund.Do you remember getting tiny screwdrivers to adjust the head?
Waiting for the 63rd time time you saw blue and yellow instead of red and blue, and the delight of the loading screen being drawn!
Man alive the joy, great memories!
...snip...
I loved it when cartridge versions came out and could be plugged straight into the back of the computer instead.
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.
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.
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