tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14705902357204294.post7161776174205463778..comments2023-10-15T07:30:00.231-07:00Comments on A Happier Divide: Awww is it too hard for you? (sad face)Nathan W. Chenghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13217133609547949489noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14705902357204294.post-29750925629918095292009-08-24T16:21:58.747-07:002009-08-24T16:21:58.747-07:00I hate commenting on my own blog, but I fully unde...I hate commenting on my own blog, but I fully understand your statements kyle. However I disagree that it is indeed deemed cheap to take the story concept to players. You forget that while I am being objective, most people are idiots. Let me rephrase that, most gamers are idiots who don't understand the dramatic weight a game brings to bear. Often times a series that challenges the moral and ethical boundaries of our time is criticized as stupid or a dumb game. In my opinion, these gamers deserve the more watered down experience because they walk away with that Super Smash Brother's joy mentality that they achieved something monumental. For the people that wish to experience a deeper more profound experience, that choice also exists. Difficulty should never rest on just making the game kill you faster, that is an archaic design choice and isn't exactly difficult, its just cheap.Nathan W. Chenghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13217133609547949489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14705902357204294.post-20792739011407922672009-08-22T22:46:59.834-07:002009-08-22T22:46:59.834-07:00But I know your idea has been done to a certain ex...But I know your idea has been done to a certain extent. Remember Goldeneye and Perfect Dark for the N64? They each had 3 levels of difficulty. But as you went up, you took more damage, but also there were more objectives, and sometimes even new parts of the level were unlocked that weren't available on easy. The Timesplitters games, which borrowed a lot from Goldeneye, also did this. I remember a level from TS 2, where you have to infiltrate a Russian Cold War base. There is some stealth at the beginning, it turns into more of a shooter as you get inside and go down into the bottom levels. But once you get to the basement on easy, you find the time crystal and the level ends. I though the game was cool, and then decided to go back and play it on the hardest difficulty. On that level, after you get to the bottom, there is a massive zombie outbreak, the soldiers bring in a suppression squad armed with flamethrowers, and there is a massive 3 way battle. then you have to work your way back up to the roof to escape, and there is an epic helicopter boss fight on the roof. It pretty mach adds an extra 50% of the level that the easy mode was. I think that was a really cool way to do it, because to get the full experience you had to try the harder difficulties. <br /><br />You also mention taking out difficulty scaling all together. I really don't think that is a good idea. Let's go back to Halo. Which difficulty is the "correct" one? Certainly not Legendary, it's too frustrating even for most FPS veterans. But if normal was the only mode, fans would clamor for something more after they had beat that. I think scaling works as long as the default difficulty manages to be reasonably entertaining and not too frustrating. And yes I agree that games like Bio Shock or Battlefield: Bad Company where you can't die are stupid, because it eliminates the need for strategy.<br /><br />Some games now automatically adjust the difficulty based on how well you are performing, I think Max Payne was one of the first games to do that. It certainly is a clever idea, and might be the future of difficulty scaling.<br /><br />I'm going to have to wrap up this post, because it is late now and it rivals the length of some essays I have written for school. I hope my thoughts are somewhat coherent and you found them interesting. As a final note, Splosion Man in indeed awesome, and I'm glad you find him hilarious. We should hang out and catch up.Kyle Friedrichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05040600354687922595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14705902357204294.post-58694204807989382472009-08-22T22:46:36.139-07:002009-08-22T22:46:36.139-07:00Now let's take Halo 3 (although any one of the...Now let's take Halo 3 (although any one of them works). On Easy, you can pretty much through without any tactics, but on anything higher than that, you have to play tactically. You have to take cover when you take damage , throw well-aimed grenades, switch your weapons for the situation, ect. The best part of it is that as you go up in difficulty, your enemies actually are smarter and better shots, not just have more hit points.<br /><br />Of course, the games I have described are only shooters, other genres have differences. One thing that really irks me on any type of game is having to use exploits in enemy design to make the game easier.<br /><br />I'll use another example. I'm not sure how familiar you are with Soul Calibur 4, but it's a game I play a lot. On the higher difficulties, the enemies can get really cheap by countering things few humans. They are also programmed to respond to certain moves in certain ways, so some moves they always block or counter, but others they never or rarely do. For example there is this big guy with an axe named Astaroth. He has this one move where he sweeps the ground low with the axe, and then can either follow it up with a second sweep or smashing them vertically with a mid hitting attack. The AI will always crouch and block to block the first attack, and always stays crouching becase they expect the second sweep. So you almost always catch them with the mid hitting vertical, which does massive damage. Almost everyone going through the single player mode uses this strategy, I can see that by checking the leaderboards and seeing that all the top ranked players use Astaroth, despite him being only a mid tier character in multiplayer competitive play. And SC4 is in general a very balanced game in multiplayer and very well made, it just pisses me off things like this are the best way to win instead of having to learn a character's entire moveset and have to use most of it.<br /><br />Kind of related to that concept, it also really pisses me off when games give you lots of choices in playstyle, but then gimp all but one of them so much that you pretty much have to play in a certain way. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is one of the best examples of this. There are some enchantments that make the game lose all challenge such as %100 Reflect Damage, or %100 Chameleon. They both make you invincible, and aren't really hard to acquire the items that give you these enchantments. You could try to play as a straight fighter or thief, but the effectiveness of that pales in comparison to just running though the world completely invisible and never having to fight anyone (and them being unable to fight back when you do engage them). Of course doing it that way takes the fun out of the game, so I feel I have to purposefully limit myself to what I can do in-game in order to keep the challenge, which in a sense also takes the fun out of the game, because I am being constantly reminded of the game's flaw. Fallout 3 had the same problem, using the Chinese Stealth Suit and silenced weapons made it near impossible for the enemy to locate you.<br /><br />To move on to another topic, you bring up an interesting idea about making them game have fewer choices when played on easy mode. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, because it means that someone who is playing for the story doesn't get to experience it fully because they are playing on easy mode. Some people aren't that great at games or aren't looking for a big challenge, and it seems unfair to cheat them out of the story.Kyle Friedrichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05040600354687922595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14705902357204294.post-36385237146232384112009-08-22T22:46:08.614-07:002009-08-22T22:46:08.614-07:00Hey what's up Nathan. I haven't talked to ...Hey what's up Nathan. I haven't talked to you in a while, how have you been? We should hang out at school or get lunch or something. I want to apologize too for not commenting on this earlier, I read your blog a week ago or so, but wanted to write a long, fleshed-out response, but never really got a chance to do that.<br /><br />Anyway, I think you have an interesting post. Obviously we are from the same generation of gamers, but I would assume at your job you get the hear the opinions of older gamers who grew up on arcade games like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, ect. I would argue that most of those older games were just as superficially difficult (probably even more so)than today's games.<br /> <br />Lets take Pac-Man for instance (I have it for XBL arcade so it makes a convenient example). It starts out fairly easy, but once you get into the higher levels it becomes impossibly difficult. Not because the ghosts get smarter or the game forces you to think more creatively; the game just get so fast paced that normal human reflexes can't handle it. In fact since most games back then had little to no artificial intelligence (most enemies had scripted attack patterns) the only way to get through them was to have amazing twitch reflexes, or memorize entire levels. The first way takes luck and exceptional ability, and the second way would take so much trial and error as to make the game not fun anymore.<br /><br />But for the idea that games today are just easier in general than games 15-25 years ago, well I'm not entirely sure about that. I would just argue that they take a different way of thinking. There is little to no strategic/tactical thinking or puzzles that require creative thinking. I'm sure you could find some counter-examples because I am not that experienced at old-school gaming, but I think I am right for the most part. Games these days have artificial intelligence, so enemies respond to your actions, you respond to their actions, they respond to that, and so on. Since enemies in older games lack the ability to respond to your actions, the only way to for them to win is for them to come at you so fast and in such great numbers that you are overwhelmed. Modern games just require more thinking, not only that you have anticipate your enemies' actions, but they are also a lot more complex, and have a more complicated system you need to learn before you can excel at the game. I'm not saying that one of these two vastly different game design philosophies is inherently better than the other, they are just different. Granted, the more complex options weren't available to early developers, but it is still a legitimate game design.<br /><br />I definitely do think that in general, most modern games (especially poorly made ones), tend to be too easy compared to the well made games, and when you ratchet up the difficulty, they get harder in a cheap way. This happens a lot in movie tie-ins, and is probably just a result of the devs not putting a whole lot of effort into the game. <br /><br />I'll give an example: Earth Defense Force 2017. Travis Northup has that game and actually likes it, I can't imagine how. Anyway, I think there are 5 difficulties. It's a terrible, poorly made game on any difficulty. I think on the first 3, enemies die in a few hits and you can just run through the levels shooting at everything that moves without any challenge. The 4th one is hard, just requires you to play smart by picking the right weapons for the level, but still feels cheap. The 5th one, called Inferno, is so ridiculously difficult, it's nearly impossible to beat, even with 2 people. You unload clips into the easiest enemies, and die in 2-3 hits. The only way to survive is to have an extreme amount of luck. That is an example of a very poorly made game for difficulty.Kyle Friedrichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05040600354687922595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14705902357204294.post-39793640347798498502009-08-09T17:27:07.100-07:002009-08-09T17:27:07.100-07:00RANT RANT RANT RAMBLE RAMBLE.
lol
funny you mentio...RANT RANT RANT RAMBLE RAMBLE.<br />lol<br />funny you mention video games. i've been bored outta my mind so i got new games for my ds. well not really new but i started to play zelda and now i'm hooked. LOL<br />how are you buddy?Andreahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00745418575073168642noreply@blogger.com