How hard is too hard?

F

Fantasmo

Member
:SNIP:

How hard is too hard? How easy is too easy? What's a fun difficulty level? Are there games that should be easier or harder in order to have fun? Should games have rewards for beating certain difficulty levels, especially harder ones?

The reason I bring this up is because I've beaten some of the hardest games ever made, yet I still find myself a pathetic gamer when it comes to certain genres and it literally becomes no fun.

To qualify myself as a decent gamer, I have beaten Contra 3 on hard, Actraiser 2 on Hard, and Super Ghouls and Ghosts on Professional. These games border insanity in some respects.

Let me give a few examples of games that (to me) are hurt by their difficulty and rewards other than the above.

First on my list is F-Zero GX. I'm good and I persevere, but to this day I have not been able to unlock the last 4 tracks! That bothers me greatly. For a game with only a limited amount of tracks, I will never get to see them. The game is designed two-fold hard. First, there's a random factor as to how the other crafts will engage you. They might knock you off, and might not. Second, story mode and the harder Diamond Grand Prix tracks give you very little leeway (hundreths of seconds sometimes) and really small paths to fly your craft. Granted, I may suck, but I arguably lose 25% of the game because of this difficulty. Shit, I bought the game to have fun speeding around on some cool tracks. Wipeout XL kicked ass, not because of the difficulty, but after you beat it 100 times, it was still fun to whip around at top speeds! This is the worst offender, because not only do you not get to see an ending, but you miss out on a lot of gameplay due to this mess.

Resident Evil. Now, this game isn't necessarily hard, but you have to play it several times thru from the beginning to win. It's frustrating to have to memorize items and enemies and saves, while concurrently on a time limit to get certain endings. Knowing this, it just ruins it for me. I'm on a clock, and there's probably a small chance of beating it in my first playthru.

The worst part is, I really want to enjoy these games, and I feel that a simple fix can exponentially boost the value. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples, and as I think of more, I will post them.

Rather than start two separate threads, I want to pose another question. Shouldn't gamers that suck be rewarded with cheats to make the game easier? I mean, I understand that some may want rewards for beating a game on Hard, but if you stop and think, the reward should be beating the game on Hard itself! Hell, I beat nearly every single level in Doom/Doom2 on nightmare starting with pistol and 50 bullets and I didn't do it for the ending that's for sure. I think difficult games should unlock cheats if you beat them in an easy mode for those of us who suck or don't have the time to play.

To unlock everything in Panzer Dragoon Zwei, you had to beat every single enemy in the game in 1 sitting. My friend did this; I could not. I'm sure many of you will agree that the requirement is absurd!

Feel free to call me weaksauce :)
 
Unlocking those tracks on F-Zero GX sure isn't hard. The only challenge that game offers are beating the story mode chapters on very hard and beating some staff ghosts without snaking.

Just get yourself a good custom like Frost-Lynx G4 if you want to be cheap and you should own the competition.
 
Well I figured someone would try to call it easy, but Frost Lynx G4 was not enough (for me) to handle Diamond Master. Problem is that I can't even finish the Lateral Shift course because I either get knocked off or even if I place 30th the remaining courses kick my ass.

Unless you have an easy set of game winning suggestions for F-Zero GX, I'd like to hear about what others think of difficulty in gaming, it doesn't have to be limited to how much I suck at F-Zero GX. We all have games that own us, don't we?
 
I too thought this was about junkster's constant state of arousal...

... but since this is about videogames, I'm completely clueless.
 
junkster said:
To qualify myself as a decent gamer, I have beaten Contra 3 on hard, Actraiser 2 on Hard, and Super Ghouls and Ghosts on Professional. These games border insanity in some respects.
Click to expand...

Wow, you call yourself only decent? I find myself decent by finishing Ninja Gaiden on normal... and the HP2 just kick my ass.
 
i totally thought this was in the wrong forum before i opened the thread.
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Taking a cue in the poop chute is not the hard I was talking about. You might want to hit another forum for that discussion. :lol :lol
 
For me personally, there is no such thing as "too hard", even though there's a lot I can't do and I still practice (and fail) despite that.

A glance at most music games show why I'd argue they need to be exceedingly difficult; if everything was easy to do, there'd be less reason for people who are good at them to replay them or further develop any skill level. Taiko Tatsujin and Donkey Konga were released less than a month ago on domestic consoles and already there's very little discussion of the two games (not that I'd except people to keep bringing up the same thing after the novelty wears off). Meanwhile, the only thing that has kept other long-running music game series from 100% dying off is by making them continuously more difficult; Konami's bemani-trilogy of IIDX, Pop'n, and GF/DM are all past their 10th iterations each and have done nothing but become more difficult with every release. See for yourself: 5 years ago, this song was mostly considered "impossibly difficult"; now such a phrase is reserved for something more like this.

I think the whole too easy/too hard debate is a lot of BS no matter how you dissect it, though. Recall when the Capcom/Takumi shooters came out, a lot of people and reviewers said Giga Wing 1 & 2 were "too easy", and the majority of them went on to call Mars Matrix "very difficult" or worse, where in reality they all had the same relative challenge; it's just that Mars Matrix didn't let people endlessly continue. Was that the only difference between making one shooter "easy" and another "hard"? I wouldn't think so, but others seemed to believe it.
 
Wow, you call yourself only decent? I find myself decent by finishing Ninja Gaiden on normal... and the HP2 just kick my ass.
Click to expand...

I beat NG on normal and hard, and I'm working my way thru HP1 currently. To be fair, I suck horribly at HP2; controllers fly.

My main problem with Resident Evil is that you can't survive unless you know all the tricks, in which case it becomes trial and error by which time the horror is lost... ie I'm not scared anymore. So to win the game I have to break the horror appeal. That sucks.
 
dog$, you've missed my point.

I don't think games should be easy, as you can see I've beaten some terribly difficult games!

But wouldn't it be cool if games were hard with the OPTION of being easy -- with ZERO unlockables?

That way, I can continue playing and enjoying these environments, and not have to shelve the f***ing thing because I'm too weak or the developer is a bastard.

If you love a game, you'll attempt to replay it again on Hard without motivation and without rewards.
 
to answer the question, hard is too hard when you have crossed over from determination into despair.

its not so much 'too hard' as it is how games handle their difficulty or how the gameplay revolves around that difficulty. For instance I would say that beating master mode on super monkey ball 1 is quite a feat. And I am quite proud of that accomplishment. I can beat most games that come my way without any problem and in the one time I compared high scores here on gaf (warior ware) I could geet myself in the top 3 for most events as long as I cared to keep trying.

F-Zero though spanks me. I wouldn't go on to say that makes F-Zero harder than any other game though. With enough practice, I imagine I could unlock those last few tracks and beat all of story mode on hard. The problem isn't so much my skill as the game itself did not entice me to keep playing. There was just too many instances where I felt it was not my fault that I lost. The skill of the AI was just too erratic depending on the course. I would play some courses on master diamond and get first place while eating a sandwhich. And then I would play the next race and get 30th with no (in my mind) difference in skill level exibited. I would then continue and try again and race horribly and bump into walls and then get 7th or something. I would scratch my head and be confused.

Thusly, I lost my interest in the game because it did not reveal to me what I was doing wrong or what I could do to improve myself at all. I would just race again and (in my mind) make no errors and do everything perfectly with a fast ship and get dead last.

So my 'real' response is there is no such thing as too hard, there are however many examples of games such as F-Zero that handle that difficulty poorly and fail to entice me to practice by showing definite improvement as a result of practice.
 
Jesus Christ do I hate being spoken down to.
junkster said:
dog$, you've missed my point.
Click to expand...
Look, when the first five words of the thread are "This thread will be subjective.", I don't think there's a fucking point to miss.
 
Difficulty is subjective, not my post.

I agree with you that games should remain hard but should have the option to be easy, and games should not have unlockables. It's like you're only responding to the thread title instead of reading the whole thing.

Besides, you're gonna get plenty of people disagreeing with you here so there's no point in taking things personally. I hear punching walls is therapeutic :)

btw Slayn IAWYP.
 
Personally, I found a game like Viewtiful Joe to have just the right amount of difficulty. I died a good amount of times going through the game, but it was one of those ones where you get a little bit better at a certain part each time you play it, until you finally beat it.

It was also nice to have bosses actually be difficult for a change, instead of just being a bigger enemy that isn't that hard to beat. I knew that the first few times I would fight a boss, I would most likely lose, but once I figured out how they fought, they were nice and easy.
 
There has to be unlockables. They gotta give you a reason to keep trying besides a simpl congratulations, or else many people won't feel like they'll get their money's worth. They also give a sense of progression.

Most games solve these problems buy just giving you cheat codes to unlock tracks or whatever. But I can understand how a dev might not always want to do that, because it might make the majority of people use these codes the second things get hard and be done with it. Instead of learning the design and playing the way the devs want you too.

So I don't agree. In Sonic Adventure 2 I really wanted to see the Green Hill Zone 3D remake, but I doubt I'll ever get every single emblem in the game to get it. That sucks, but if the game just handed me the level with an easy difficulty or a cheat, then I would have stopped trying months before I did.
 
See, I disagree.

Most games have a beginning and an end and are designed such that the locked stuff IS the end of the game. I'm starting to think unlockables should exist, so anybody can get them, little kids and weaksauce gamers included. What's the problem with letting everybody have a chance to enjoy the game? I'm replaying Ninja Gaiden for the 2nd time and I'm gonna still go back to try and beat it on Very Hard because I enjoy it! But just because Normal was somewhat easy for me doesn't mean there shouldn't have been an Easy mode!

Racing games should never have locked tracks, ever. The post above brought up a great point. The game gave me no reason to keep practicing outside of new levels. It became despair instead of determination. F-Zero GX got so hard that I didn't want to play anymore. I can't even pick up the box without being disgusted! And all I wanted to do was enjoy the 25% of the game that they locked away from me.

Most fighting games have locked characters. Well hell, what if the default characters suck. Good going morons, now I have to unlock it to have any fun. Guess I won't be buying this!

If a game's difficulty breaks the game in any way shape or form, it's designed poorly and needs restructuring.

My ultimate thought is that all games should have proper difficulty levels; if a game is good enough, beating it on hard is a reward in itself!
 
I feel pretty much the same way as Future. I'd like to think I'm not a weaksauce gamer, but I definitely do not play as many games as most of the people on this forum, nor play them for as many hours (except for a few exceptions).

IMO, the level of difficulty should vary from genre to genre. I definitely agree with junkster on the Resident Evil point, and that's probably why I never got into the series. But action games, like Ninja Gaiden or Viewtiful Joe, should be difficult. Difficult enough that you must make multiple attempts to beat some parts, but not to the point where it gets ridiculous. But it's extremely tough for developers to gauge difficulty, because the gaming prowess of whoever is playing the game can vary greatly.

Personally, I think Adult Mode on Viewtiful Joe was just right in terms of challenge. Did I get frustrated as times? Yes. But when I finally beat the frustrating parts, the feeling of accomplishment was that much greater. On the other hand, my friend who got the game got frustrated and never beat the game, and he was playing on Child. That that might have been just because he didn't like the game as much as I did, because he unlocked the extra tracks in F-Zero GX, as did I. I never did beat Story Mode on Very Hard though. The tunnel level is just about impossible.

But there definitely should be unlockables. There has to be. I remember when I finally beat everything in Mission Quest (or whatever it was called) in Soul Calibur on DC, and nothing happened, I wanted to cry. All I got was a new menu screen. WTF. Unlockables just allow you to show off how awesome you are. It gives a person a sense of pride.
 
Yea but what about games like Metal Gear Solid? There are people who can beat the game on Extreme without radar, and not killing anybody!

Kojima gives you the stealth camo and infinite ammo on all the difficulties IIRC, so there's no reward for that outside of a nickname that calls you Big Boss. That's the reward... beating it!

Look at the people who can beat Halo on Legendary, they don't get a reward, but they get respect from their fellow gamers.

Locked stuff is a way to trick you into thinking a game is better than it really is. It turns the game into a mission instead of fun. Good games do that naturally without unlockables!

I may be wrong and there are probably a few exceptions, but I digress.

Anyone else have any games they couldn't stand because of the unnecessary/unfair difficulty?
 
They way I see it is I want to play a game to have fun, not get frustrated. I played MGS3 on Very Easy and had a blast but don't care to try it on anyother difficulty.
 
What is 'too hard'? That's pretty subjective. I mean, are we talking difficulty? Because in my opinion Ghosts & Goblins is way too fvcking hard.

Are we talking enjoyment? I thought Breath of Fire 3 was an awesome gaming experience...right up until the trek through the desert. Then the game got tedious, which made it hard.

Are we talking controls? Because I still have trouble with the controls in Ghost Recon, which makes the game hard.

Are we talking lack of money? Because that makes playing Halo 2, Half-Life 2, WoW, and KOTOR2 very fvcking hard for me right now.
 
junkster said:
Anyone else have any games they couldn't stand because of the unnecessary/unfair difficulty?
Click to expand...
Try emulating the Gals Panic series in MAME if you want to see the pure definition of unnecessary/unfair difficulty. And I love the games too. Qix with naked chicks, what's not to love? Too bad they're completely unplayable. Thank god for homebrew devs, and the fact that they made GalPaniX which is actually playable (and even has better graphics and music and such than the original series ever had).

I feel the older I get, the more I agree with this. I don't take much pride in beating a game on hard anymore. It's just a game, and they're supposed to entertain me, not piss me right the fuck off to the point where controllers magically levitate into concrete walls.

One thing I hate, though, is crappy difficulty. I'm reviewing Goldeneye right now, and... I mean, the AI is crap. The height of their tactical ability is strafing left and right. (Hitting them when they do this is difficult due to the poor aiming, even with sensitivity set to max, but that's not what I mean.) Now, since the enemies are really stupid, the only way the dev team could think of to make enemies harder were to just up their HP. To the point where some will take like four fuckin' shots to the head to go down. That's just plain bullshit.
 
^
|

that reminds me, I can't remember the name but there was a star wars game in the early n64 days that had a couple flight levels but was mainly a 3rd/1st person shooter. It had 4 difficulties that I remember:

easy
normal
hard
jedi

hard is a perfect example where the 'hard difficulty' was just not fun to play but the supposedly even harder jedi mode was awesome. The reason was they took completely different ideals in making the game harder.

on normal you have a decent amount of life and enemies take a couple shots and thats that. Hard kept you at roughly the same health but now the enemies take like 10 hits. I meant wtf. You eventually got impatient, jumped out and just started pelting away at each other and then youd die. Not fun.

jedi, on the other hand, made it so that both you and the enemies die in 1 hit (torso/head) and 2 hits otherwise. This mode of the game was extremely fun because of that. That was a mode that presented a true challenge rather than just unfair tediousness.
 
I remember fancying myself as being a great gamer when I was a kid... In the Nintendo days, I was impressed with myself when I finished MegaMan 3, Double Dragon 2: The Revenge and Super Mario Bros. 2. When it came to the Super NES, my finest hours have to have been finishing MegaMan X-2, Super Double Dragon and having an unbeatable record on Big Blue in F-Zero.

But then again, I had friends who made me look like a total chump; Including but not limited to a friend who has beaten every Final Fantasy game without dying, even up to the latest entries, X and X-2, and another who is simply unbeatable in Madden football.

So I don't know, really, if I'd consider myself to be great anymore (or even great back then). I'm proficient at best, honestly, but more than anything, I just want to have fun when I play games. It's unfortunate that some of my favorite contemporary titles are harder than I can handle; Viewtiful Joe and Resident Evil: Zero come to mind.
 
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