Difficulty in games

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

I have seen many times before people in retro gaming places state that they don't want to play certain games because they are too difficult or grindy, i assume because retro gaming fans tend to be older and face more responsibilities like having a family so they don't want to spend their time playing challenging games when they could just be chilling with a game after a day of work.
In my case i often seek difficult games by default(even uncounsciously) and i think the whole challenge is what makes it fun for me, losing and struggling never was something that made me have less fun with a game but i guess i'm just a dirty NEET zoomer

I am actually curious to know what people in RGT think about difficulty in games since i noticed that this community is very diverse but with people's average age being a little higher than most gaming communities out there. I've also noticed that most people here are more leaning into sort of casual RPG games in general rather than competitive, flashy or notoriously challenging games.

You think difficulty is detrimental for your enjoyment of the game or you don't care at all as long as the game is good?

(gif unrelated)

 

[Flamebeard]

The one thing I'm not really fond when it comes to retro games (despite loving them to death) is having to restart an entire game because you lost all your lives. I'm otherwise perfectly fine with a game being a challenge. Though these days, I tend to play some games on an easier setting if I can help it as I need to just relax and unwind.

 

[Frickinfrik]

Sometimes, when a game is extremely brutally difficult, I’m convinced that the developers hate the player.

 

[Akiba]

Is the difficulty a well considered part of the experience?

Some SNES games are difficult just in a you need to memorize it and good luck beating it in the rental period lol

Some games are designed with difficulty in the mind in order to craft a better overall impression and to inflect different levels of progression, IE, a Dark Souls or something like that.

Grinding the same shit for hours just to make numbers go up in an FF game is boring and I want to an hero.
Grinding Malenia for 5 hours just so I can beat her ass with my fists is a good grind that actually helps me train pattern recognition and keeps my reaction time sharp. As well as helps me practice to stay calm under pressure.

It depends on the game.

 

[Coon]

A difficult in games is important otherwise it would just be boring. I couldn't imagine playing only simple games there should always be a bit of difficulty.

 

[Cantarella]

iunno, totally a case by case basis. just depends on the kind of difficulty. some times it just feels like a totally arbitrary test of patience. At its best your brain is pushed and you get the satisfaction of winning. That satisfaction can't really exist when a game is super easy.

I've also noticed that most people here are more leaning into sort of casual RPG games in general rather than competitive, flashy or notoriously challenging games.

this is just the case across all aspects of life. more people are casual than 'hardcore' or whatever in any hobby. Until you get to really niche things where to be in the hobby at all you have to be seriously invested.

 

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

Is the difficulty a well considered part of the experience?

Some SNES games are difficult just in a you need to memorize it and good luck beating it in the rental period lol

Some games are designed with difficulty in the mind in order to craft a better overall impression and to inflect different levels of progression, IE, a Dark Souls or something like that.

Grinding the same shit for hours just to make numbers go up in an FF game is boring and I want to an hero.
Grinding Malenia for 5 hours just so I can beat her ass with my fists is a good grind that actually helps me train pattern recognition and keeps my reaction time sharp. As well as helps me practice to stay calm under pressure.

It depends on the game.

I share a similar opinion related to difficulty.
I love difficult games but i only grind stuff that isn't just mindless grinding where you just mash the same button for hours and hours, i enjoy seeing myself improve as i keep playing and that makes it so gratifying to me. This is kinda why i'm not much fond of MMORPGs

 

[Jackoragen]

a eazy game is like a tasteless food for the gym when i play a game my ass need to be burnt that's why im a dark souls fan

 

[Tortuga]

I have seen many times before people in retro gaming places state that they don't want to play certain games because they are too difficult or grindy, i assume because retro gaming fans tend to be older and face more responsibilities like having a family so they don't want to spend their time playing challenging games when they could just be chilling with a game after a day of work.

I actually think it's the opposite: younger people interested in retro games because its a popular thing now, but too spooked because of scary stories about impossible difficulty or whatever

Anyway difficulty is important, if game is too easy it become bored fast, and at the end you feel like it was waste of time
That doesn't mean every need to be painfully hard but it need to have challenge

I also dont think most old game was that hard, sure some are but mostly it just require you to learn mechanics and get used to UI and controls

While many modern games are so damn streamlined they all, look same, play same and even has same god damn UI
If you ask me learning more complex game is simply more fun

 

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

iunno, totally a case by case basis. just depends on the kind of difficulty. some times it just feels like a totally arbitrary test of patience. At its best your brain is pushed and you get the satisfaction of winning. That satisfaction can't really exist when a game is super easy.



this is just the case across all aspects of life. more people are casual than 'hardcore' or whatever in any hobby. Until you get to really niche things where to be in the hobby at all you have to be seriously invested.

I agree, difficulty is interesting because of seeing you grow and evolve.

I said that mainly as an observation on the forum being into this sort of genre rather that anything else. I don't really think people only play these games here because it's casual

 

[qw90700]

TBH there was no concept of "difficulty" back then. From the start we accepted games are developed in the way you cannot finish it. So we had no "finishing a game" mentality. So many arcade games we grew up with before console games was in the way you just play it until you die.

So, the concept of "progression" probably invented in NES-era but I honestly still had arcade mentality. For example playing Super Mario on NES, I went to the castle and princess wasn't there so I unlocked the next castle and princess wasn't there again I was like "princess is a lie" and never played a Super Mario until this day lol. The game was playable but it was so easy to not die I didn't see any point in playing the game because we already got used to dying. We were already master of surviving.

So in this regard the idea of video games started as "survival game". The longer you survive and do stuff to raise your highscore the more it matters.

For example I have no idea why video game consoles had highscore stuff because who can see it other than me? Arcade places had highschool thing so we can flex and some guy from another town challenge us to beat our score. There were bets about it and special events for it. So back then video gaming wasn't limited to playing a game, it was mostly about what society did about video game and all the friendship we had along the way lol.

But then survival sense continued in many NES games but then it was more like "boring games" especially developed in the way you cannot finish it because if you had finished it it would take 20 minutes to finish it. There are so many boring NES games and they had no arcade sense of survival. In arcade games when you die it's your fault and because of it you wanna play it, but when it's not your fault you don't wanna play it. NES games had no idea how to make you die because it's your fault lol. For example:

This is not difficulty, this is BS. Just because of one pixel or two you die. If arcade games were that BS they wouldn't be hit and video gaming would die there lol.

And then I think around Sega Genesis-era I learned the concept of "difficulty" because games could have "easy" modes. Until then I didn't think games are "easy" or "hard". It was either "you died" because you gotta get used to the game or "you don't die" because you learned the ropes. So seeing dfficulty options in games activated a neuron or something in my brain. When game was badly designed in a way it's game's fault that you die because of BS ways I made the game easy, if it's still my fault because I die even in hardest difficulty I enjoyed playing in insane hard way.

So this difference is important but what's important is if a game worth mastering because it gotta be cool and fun to even play that game.

Then we started to come up with the concept of speedrunning, but in our mind it was mostly about "perfect gameplay" so not necessarily finishing it as fast as we can. We would play the game so many times we could finish them without losing health or something. However speedrunning was natural result of being able to play the game so perfectly. When you play the game perfectly it gets "easy" to you but if the game is hard it would be still hard because lots of games required complex thinking as in multiple things at once and jedi reflexes to survive.

In that regard when it comes to difficulty it's important that game always have an obvious way to make you survive and if you cannot survive it shouldn't be because game is BS. No one wanna play a game that's BS so if a game is that BS that this game is not "hard" and ain't gonna waste my life to beat this game lol:

What's actually enjoyable is being able to beat last boss of Metal Gear Rising in hardest difficulty without taking damage so you get S ranking. This is fun, not the bloody Silver Surfer lol:

Bahawahaha ha, come at me bro!!! *Jack the Ripper mode activated* lolol

 

[Esidemoken]

I think that video games should have a minimum difficulty for sure, I would say enough so that it doesn't look like you activated an invincibility cheat and beat enemies with one hit.
Personally as an adult the difficulty doesn't affect me more than the duration, only in RPGs I don't mind if they are long as long as it's not artificial.

Finally I am of the idea that games should not lower their difficulty to suit the players, we are the ones who should learn to overcome that difficulty and if we can't then look for another game.

 

[Jackoragen]

being a dark souls fan ir a guy like difficulty has it pros and cons pros are ur reaction is good except anything cons people think ur a weirdo for liking ur ass to burn and ur suggestions will have dark souls and ur friends hate u because the game is impossible

 

[KaiserMk7]

The difficulty has to feel surmountable in some fashion and lead you to develop ways to overcome it. Low-penalty deaths make it better. RNG must only produce manageable problems and not be so poorly implemented as to be able to ruin your entire attempt if you're not some sort of speedrunner. The works.

 

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

I actually think it's the opposite: younger people interested in retro games because its a popular thing now, but too spooked because of scary stories about impossible difficulty or whatever

Anyway difficulty is important, if game is too easy it become bored fast, and at the end you feel like it was waste of time
That doesn't mean every need to be painfully hard but it need to have challenge

I also dont think most old game was that hard, sure some are but mostly it just require you to learn mechanics and get used to UI and controls

While many modern games are so damn streamlined they all, look same, play same and even has same god damn UI
If you ask me learning more complex game is simply more fun

I think it's also true that people that never were exposed to retro games had this thought that they were super impossible yeah, but i usually see more people that were already retro gamers(since they started when gaming was still so early) complaining that they lost interest in certain games because of thinking it's inconvenient to spend so much time in a challenging game.

I agree a lot that this notion that old games were absolutely harder is bullshit.

TBH there was no concept of "difficulty" back then. From the start we accepted games are developed in the way you cannot finish it. So we had no "finishing a game" mentality. So many arcade games we grew up with before console games was in the way you just play it until you die.

So, the concept of "progression" probably invented in NES-era but I honestly still had arcade mentality. For example playing Super Mario on NES, I went to the castle and princess wasn't there so I unlocked the next castle and princess wasn't there again I was like "princess is a lie" and never played a Super Mario until this day lol. The game was playable but it was so easy to not die I didn't see any point in playing the game because we already got used to dying. We were already master of surviving.

So in this game the idea of video game started as "survival game". The longer you survive and do stuff to raise your highscore the more it matters.

For example I have no idea why video game consoles had highscore stuff because who can see it other than me? Arcade places had highschool thing so we can flex and some guy from another town challenge us to beat our score. There were bets about it and special events for it. So back then video gaming wasn't limited to playing a game, it was mostly about what society did about video game and all the friendship we had along the way lol.

But then survival sense continued in many NES games but then it was more like "boring games" especially developed in the way you cannot finish it because if you had finished it it would take 20 minutes to finish it. There are so many boring NES games and they had no arcade sense of survival. In arcade games when you die it's your fault and because of it you wanna play it, but when it's not your fault you don't wanna play it. NES games had no idea how to make you die because it's your fault lol. For example:

This is not difficulty, this is BS. Just because of one pixel or two you die. If arcade games were that BS they wouldn't be hit and video gaming would die there lol.

And then I think around Sega Genesis-era I learned the concept of "difficulty" because games could have "easy" modes. Until then I didn't think games are "easy" or "hard". It was either "you died" because you gotta get used to the game or "you don't die" because you learned the ropes. So seeing dfficulty options in games activated a neuron or something in my brain. When game was badly designed in a way it's game's fault that you die because of BS ways I made the game easy, if it's still my fault because I die even in hardest difficulty I enjoyed playing in insane hard way.

So this difference is important but what's important is if a game worth mastering because it gotta be cool and fun to even play that game.

Then we started to come up with the concept of speedrunning, but in our mind it was mostly about "perfect gameplay" so not necessarily finishing it as fast as we can. We would play the game so many times we could finish them without losing health or something. However speedrunning was natural result of being able to play the game so perfectly. When you play the game perfectly it gets "easy" to you but if the game is hard it would be still hard because lots of games required complex thinking as in multiple things at once and jedi reflexes to survive.

In that regard when it comes to difficulty it's important that game always have an obvious way to make you survive and if you cannot survive it shouldn't be because game is BS. No one wanna play a game that's BS so if a game is that BS that this game is not "hard" and ain't gonna waste my life to beat this game lol:

What's actually enjoyable is being able to beat last boss of Metal Gear Rising in hardest difficulty without taking damage so you get S ranking. This is fun, not the bloody Silver Surfer lol:

Bahawahaha ha, come at me bro!!! *Jack the Ripper mode activated* lolol

I agree with you but i think there is many ways you can find a way to have fun with this sort of bs games, it all depends much of the mentality of wanting to overcoming self imposed challenges, which is one of the principles of speedrunning.
But i'm 100% aware is not easy as i say to simply have this mentality over stupid games and many times it's not worthy. But it's something i found to make me have fun at the end just by the fact that "damn, i spend so much time into this arbitrary pointless thing and i made it, i feel like i accomplished my own goal" and it makes me satisfied lmao

 

[KaiserMk7]

So, the concept of "progression" probably invented in NES-era but I honestly still had arcade mentality.

I mean Adventure? for Atari 2600 had lock and key type items to pick up and use to advance toward an end goal, even if encountering a dragon without the sword meant death and I think it spat you right back into another run with different randomized item placement when you won.

 

[qw90700]

I mean Adventure? for Atari 2600 had lock and key type items to pick up and use to advance toward an end goal, even if encountering a dragon without the sword meant death and I think it spat you right back into another run with different randomized item placement when you won.

Hmm. It kinda felt like games are endless in Atari 2600-era but it's my child memories. You survived, there was goals, and then the game never ended until you die or turn off the console so this is the way I mean there was no sense of "progression". When there was a sense of "level change" it was like same level but something else happens but to me it was like game is endless, just levels changing just like how arcade games were.

So, I learned games can "end" in Sega Genesis-era because I was so stuck with arcade mentality. I thought all the next levels are same shit and it would go on and on endlessly as how arcade games are. So when I played Streets of Rage and finished it I was like "WTF happened" because there was an end lol, however not many games were fun to play enough to bother ending it for me. I usually played first levels of games and after first level I swapped games until I get bored for the day.

It was only during Playstation 1-era with Metal Gear Solid 1 that I cared about games can have a story and it can be worthwhile to end them, but then I only cared about stealth gameplay so it was fun. It made your brain get familiar with the idea of "progression".

If I had played SNES RPG at the time my gamer brain stucked in arcade mentality would be improved way before than PlayStation 1-era. I had no idea SNES existed until I was enjoying the technology of internet and PS2 lol.

 

[dropsmegamega]

I like chilling with a game after a day of work with a cup of coffee and don't enjoy souls-like

 

[Need4Power]

I think the difficulty of a game can be part of its identity and artistic direction. I believe it's often better to make a game for a specific target audience rather than spread yourself too thin trying to please everyone. It's not a bad thing to have difficult, uncompromising games or easy, relaxing games.

That said, I usually love challenge! If there's something difficult I really dislike in games is to go pixel hunting after some hidden interactable object

 

[parmee]

sometimes i want to play with one hand and fall asleep gaming and other times i want to play flicky and get really really angry

 

[Varyag]

Is the difficulty a well considered part of the experience?

Some SNES games are difficult just in a you need to memorize it and good luck beating it in the rental period lol

Some games are designed with difficulty in the mind in order to craft a better overall impression and to inflect different levels of progression, IE, a Dark Souls or something like that.

Grinding the same shit for hours just to make numbers go up in an FF game is boring and I want to an hero.
Grinding Malenia for 5 hours just so I can beat her ass with my fists is a good grind that actually helps me train pattern recognition and keeps my reaction time sharp. As well as helps me practice to stay calm under pressure.

It depends on the game.

Absolutely this. Depends on how the difficulty was implemented in the design of the game, and more importantly, how the difficulty relates to you as a player. There are many different ways of making a difficult game. Some of them were meant to make you spend more money feeding quarters to arcade machines. Some of them were to prevent you from running out of SNES game in a couple of hours. Some of them were the Working Designs localized games and everybody hates them. And some games, being hard is part of the intended experience.

Giving some personal examples here: I cannot into difficult platformers, and NES Castlevania style games. I HATE Ghouls and Goblins series. Honestly for most of my life I thought I didn't even like platformer games at all, but I found some I enjoy, like Rayman. Meanwhile, I really like arcade shmups, for the most part. A lot of them are insanely difficult to clear even when spamming credits. I love the CAVE bullet hell games, but don't like R-Type and Gradius for the most part.

 

[Lena CE]

The one thing I'm not really fond when it comes to retro games (despite loving them to death) is having to restart an entire game because you lost all your lives. I'm otherwise perfectly fine with a game being a challenge. Though these days, I tend to play some games on an easier setting if I can help it as I need to just relax and unwind.

Definitely! The allure of a "1cc" clear in arcade games is still appealing and its nice that thanks to emulators and modern arcades setting their cabs to free play you rarely have to shove quarters into a machine upon losing lives. For the most part having to restart a game upon losing lives is a punishment for retro console games only outside of save states for emulators or rom hacks that add checkpoint/save functions naturally.

As much fun as it is to master a game to the point that you can 1cc or even no death it, learning to do that on original hardware where any major mistake means you have to restart from the beginning rly makes it such a taxing process.