/vr/ - Retro Games

>>6142464
I'm not really sure. Most of them belong to genres that aren't that common in mainstream games any more so the skills to play them aren't that common either. I suppose a shooter might seem harder to someone who does not have shooters as 30% or so of their games.

I think the idiotic focus on narrative in games makes many modern ones easier than they should be. Maybe its because the developers are vain enough that they feel a need for everyone to see their story or that modern players feel like the completion of the story is somehow owed to them.
I'd cite launch diablo 3 as an example because in order to unlock any non-sleepwalk difficulties you had to play through the story and basically see everything the game had to offer before it would even come close to challenging you.
Very disappointing.

>>6142464
Proportionally? Yes. It's not like new games cannot be hard, but a lot of games in a series have taken a step down in difficulty for sure as companies seek money from casuals.

>>6142464
Old games were made to be as hard as possible to pad play time and justify a purchase, new games are designed to be as easy because babies can't be assed to actually struggle while they hunt down flags in Asscreed

>>6142464
Name all games in your screenshot, OP.

>>6142491
Not him but Dogyuun, Tatsujin, Tatsujin Ou, Batsugun, V-V, not sure about the last one but probably some other Toaplan game

Depends on what exactly you use as examples.

Considering arcade games were typically designed to be as difficult to beat as possible to keep kids playing and spending money I'd say so. The average single player game nowadays will often include features like difficulty tuning specifically to make games easier to beat.

>>6142497
>Considering arcade games were typically designed to be as difficult to beat as possible
False & cringe, something Id expect to read on /v/ not here

>>6142487
>Old games were made to be as hard as possible to pad play time and justify a purchase
That's how it should be, as long as the mechanics are tight and gameplay interesting the harder the better.

Instead of padding gameplay with fetch quests, dialogue scenes and walking from town to town aimlessly looking for an event trigger.

>>6142504
Not every game needs to be that way and a number of retro games are not designed the way you think they were.

>>6142564
easy games are boring and not worth beating

>>6142575
Kirby's Adventure is pretty fun.

>>6142576
haven't played that one.
But I played some kirby games on the gba/3DS and they got boring really fast.

>>6142580
Those are boring, I agree. But I enjoy Kirby's adventure quite a bit, it's got a nice level of snappiness to the abilities and the minibosses are aggressive.
I still wouldn't call it a hard game but it's still a game I revisit

>>6142593
nes games aren't usually "easy" their difficult is okay

>>6142464
For the most part, yes. Old vidya (pre gen4 when vidya actually got good) usually attempted to stretch <30 minutes of unique content into dozens of hours via artificial difficulty. For the most part, new vidya has 8 hours of content at minimum, while allowing the player to select their desired level of challenge.

>>6142605
>while allowing the player to select their desired level of challenge
Piss easy vs piss easy but with damage sponges?

>>6142606
You won't get any argument from me that difficulty modes that simply add an increasing negative multiplier to outgoing damage, and positive multiplier to incoming damage, aren't objectively shit game design.

>>6142605
>via artificial difficulty
good job, you invalidated your whole post

>>6142464
It depends on genres or just individual games. Fighting games will always have high skill ceilings and stuff like War Thunder and Rocket League take a ton of time to get proficient at. But I would say baring those kinds of examples, games overall are easier now, because the harder a game is, the less likely normies are gonna buy it and to make any money, they have to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

>>6142610
Artificial = unreasonable. If you're jacking the difficulty extremely high to mask an utter lack of content, I find that unreasonable. If you've got several hours of content and a good difficulty curve, I'm completely okay with that. The DK series would be a shining example of a difficulty curve done right.

>>6142614
give me 3 solid examples of artificial difficulty.

>>6142614
The time you get out of it is based on how good you can get at it. And getting good will give you a lot of time to play a game.

Like Ghouls and Ghosts is bullshit and I hate it, but I can see how you could get enjoyment out of learning how to progress and then eventually be able to do speed runs after you got really good.

Resident Evil games are a good example of that. First time you're going to bumblefuck your way through, but each time as you know what you're doing, you get better times and better ranks to unlock secrets. Then you do knife runs like a madman.

>>6142631

>>6142614
They aren't "masking a lack of content", everything about the games was built for quick bursts of play and the games were upfront about it. You're thinking of RPG's or something where instead of a tightly designed short game you had endless rehashed encounters that fill up time and create the illusion of content by padding out your single playthrough. That's also not what artificial difficulty means.

>>6142640
What's artificial about it? They have a slow initial movement speed so you can see them and only accelerate if you play passively, also spin slash and flames make short work of them

>>6142631
Working Designs releases alone should cover that. And then some.

>>6142464
depends on the game. in general, yes but that's more because modern games tend to be very merciful to match modern player expectations.

>>6142631
Unresponsive controls, lazy game design, mistranslations

>>6142696
you said "Old vidya (pre gen4 when vidya actually got good) usually attempted to stretch <30 minutes of unique content into dozens of hours via artificial difficulty."
So how can "unresponsive controls" spread 30mins of content into dozens of hours, what game does that exactly? Must be utter shit.

>mistranslations
really, mistranslations can add dozens of hours of gameplay via artificial difficulty? I guess in theory it could stump you, if you're playing some shitty jrpg.

>lazy game design
this isn't a solid example, this is vague and subjective.

You made a general claim about old games getting tons of padding via artificial difficulty, as if this happened often. I asked for 3 solid actual examples, you gave me 3 very vague possibilities that don't mean anything.

>>6142696
>Unresponsive controls
Control latency has its place. The worst part of the Ninja Gaiden sequels is the more responsive sword. The first NES Ninja Gaiden has artificial latency added to the sword only, so it feels big and powerful in contrast to the ultra-responsive movement of the ninja.

Control latency was more of a problem in 5th gen, when everybody traded framerate for disgusting primitive 3D. You can't do tricks like the NG1 sword when everything is already unresponsive.

>>6142464
like >>6142695 & >>6142613 said it depends widely on the genre and kind of game.

for example i think doom is much easier than most modern shooters and i'd put it up there with halo, half-life & dusk as entry level games for someone who wants to get into the genre but most WRPGs nowadays are less number crunchy with a bigger focus on action than they were back in the day.

>>6142631
>declaring yourself the arbiter of artificial difficulty
Been there, done that, not taking the bait.

What a stupid question, but that's what you expect from OP.

>>6142710
>responsive controls bad!
This is the level of contrarianism that I come to /vr/ for.

>>6142614
I find it unreasonable to pad out an absence of gameplay with tons of "content". Half hour games are fine. "Artificial difficulty" is a nonsense concept outside of stuff like game-breaking bugs, which is never what /v/ means by it anyway.

Is "artificial difficulty" some sort of retarded youtuber buzzword or /v/ retardation? I've never heard the term used from an actual person and the entire concept is retarded. All video games are an artificial challenge designed by a game designer.

>>6142613
>stuff like War Thunder and Rocket League take a ton of time to get proficient at.
War Thunder only takes as long as it takes to grind to unlock the russian plane

>>6142952
Accurate and perceptive

>>6142949
It's a perfectly reasonable view that only idiots take issue with. There are entire genres and gameplay styles based around "laggy" controls, such as literally anything with inertia like racing sims or physics based platformers. High commitment also has its place.

>>6142479
God diablo 3 was such a fucking piece of shit they couldnt even randomize the levels running the same shit over and over got old fast

>>6142495
It is another you can see the toaplan logo on screen. My guess is hellfire or zero wing

>>6142576
Kirby's adventure is easy to play every level the actual fun comes from 100% it and unlocking everything

>>6142640
If you weren't mentally retarded those wouldn't be a problem cause you would know exactly how they behave.

>>6142971
>racing sims
>artificial input lag
What did he mean by this?

>>6143259
You retarded son? It means that when you pull the wheel it takes a while for your vehicle to respond to your input because its affected by gravity. In some cases it wont respond at all such as when you lock up the wheel by say braking too hard. The vehicle has a DELAYED RESPONSE to inputs, it's UNRESPONSIVE. Or are you going to back off and say that what you actually meant when you said "unresponsive controls" was not actually unresponsive controls but the input lag of your monitor or some shit?

>>6142575
The contra series, Mario, Kirby, Sonic, etc...all not worth playing? Okay.

>>6142710
What the hell are you talking about

>>6143426
>i've never played racing sims but let me give you my hot opinions on racing sims
You really chose a poor hill to die on.

>>6143059
'Knowing' and being able to execute are 2 different things, you'd understand that if you actually played hard games.

>>6143059
'Knowing' and being able to execute are 2 different things, you'd understand that if you actually played hard games instead of just watching someone else play them on youtube or twitch.

>>6143617
Lol, it's one of the main genres I play you buffoon, especially Richard Burns Rally. You got an argument?

>>6142464
>are retro games harder than modern games
In recent years the videogaming industry has found out that you make way more money by catering to idiots. And the average idiot doesnt like to put effort into something.

>>6143760
Especially when there is so much content out there that is available instantaneously and in some cases free.

I played through a lot of hard shit when I was little because I rented the game for the weekend and I had nothing else. I couldnt just say fuck it and load up something else.

With people getting lazier and more accustomed to free on demand games they naturally take the path of least resistance. Plus many modern games are designed around gambling psychology and also give you simple progression systems to drip feed you dopamine. Most people would rather level up their character doing a fetch quest and unlock a new weapon than to spends hours routing out a level just to get a higher score or a shorter time.

Do you really have to ask that questions?...No, sweetie pls no.....

>>6142464
Are you literally asking me to spoon feed you about hand holding?

Are those seats actually comfortable for long playing sessions?

Old games were only "hard" because you were a six year old who still needed mummy's help to pee in a toilet.

>>6142609
A surprising amount of games would actually benefit from double damage across the board, especially RPGs.

>>6142498
>False & cringe
Something Id expect to read on /v/ not here.

>>6142464
Generally speaking yes, though the source of difficulty varies. You had quarter munchers designed to keep people dropping quarters in to the machine, and you had badly designed games that were made to fulfill a licensing agreement, and you had games that had their difficulty increased in the US because we had a rental market and Japan didn't.

These days it so easy to pull metrics on difficulty, time played, and price payed that publishers can have a real good idea of just what people are looking to buy.