Worried About Gaming's Future

Is it just me, or are the souls games actually normal difficulty wise and are all the gamers who can't beat it suck? This seems like the case to me and I'm worried that in the future gaming will be ruined because it will be far to easy and if there's a hard game out there, especially multiplayer, people will use cheap spamming tactics and not develop any real skill and just do things like ganking or using guns like the USAS 12 with the nade attachment.

It's not well put but I kind of see what you mean..

However whichever way you look at it, the souls series is definitely difficult beyond normal expectations. Whether these expectations should be higher or not I don't know, but I also think that Dark souls is definitely harder than what would ever be considered normal now.

I think genuinely that in the past it wasn't just that the games themselves were hard, but that they had control systems which didn't work at all well and were very limiting and made everything more difficult for you, while Dark souls controls well but still maintains a very high level of difficulty that you can keep pushing up if you wanted to.

Still though I agree, games indeed cater too much to allow people to win with ease, and not have any penalty if they do cause you to die/lose etc, perhaps games like Dark souls could change the trends, but I'm not keeping my hopes up, games are made to cater to everyone so they make more money *cough* COD *cough*

Look at the history of cinema to see the future of gaming.

Forum Pirate wrote:Look at the history of cinema to see the future of gaming.

I would uprep that, but it's in off topic section. Funny stuff.

However I think games going in that direction as a genre wouldn't be a bad idea. You play Heavy Rain? I think "interactive drama" has potential to be fair, Phoenix wright has a similar story driven style too.

I men in general. New and shiny era, diverse era, shallow clone era, artsy revolution (just starting now, full swing in 5 years or so is my guess), niche revival (as in they get proper funding and develop more), present.

I know you meant in general, though I didn't make that clear As a genre I think cinematic ideals are good or used for effect sparsely in other games but they border on ridiculous at times..

But to be fair I don't care as long as there's still SOMETHING thats still reasonable to play.

Just don't play public (caring) and gaming itself will never get worse.
Games got casualized over the time by a great amount, but it's still easy to find a hardcore or competitive game if you just search.

The way how games are presented, precisely how media presents them, is way more of a critical point to consider then games themselves.
For example... let's talk about the game why we are here, Dark Souls.
Is it harder than pretty much any modern console game? Yes.
Is it a hard game? Depends on the player.
is it a sadistic beast which unleashes agony upon your very existance every second you dare to boot it up? Whoever says or thinks this NEVER played a HARD game. Yet this is what the medial voice is telling us even today. 20 years ago any aspect of Dark Souls which makes it harder than the rest was absolutely common sense...
Incidentally, play eXceed, Touhou, Koumajou Densetsu, etc., and you will see that everything frightening said about Dark Souls applies way more to these games than to, actually, Dark Souls itself.

I would agree to what Extertionist said. Dark Souls is kinda "normal" difficulty. It's fair, it's challenging, it has a learning curve whose impact on the difficulty is crucial.
Other games are easy. Games 500 times harder are easy to find, just no one mentions them... or hears about them that often.
Why? ... true hardcore games don't produce that much money.

The original ninja gaiden games were way harder. Part of the reason though is what serious said. The controls sucked and you had to rely on rote memorization and a small sample of techniques that had to be applied across all challenges. Imagine pve lagging as bad as the worst pvp experience AND you had to do the entire game with only one armor set, the mace and the throwing weapons. That would make Dark Souls on par difficulty wise. Part of the reason new games are easier than old school is the availability of choice. Heavy armor failed? Maybe I need to be faster. Fire isn't helping? Maybe lightning will be better. Dark souls, like the old games severely punishes mistakes. But unlike those games we're allowed to adapt. I think that's true of a lot of newer games. They're not inherently easier, they just allow for our creative thinking to shine.

wanna name me some good ones you'd recommend then His1n?

skarekrow13 wrote:The original ninja gaiden games were way harder. Part of the reason though is what serious said. The controls sucked and you had to rely on rote memorization and a small sample of techniques that had to be applied across all challenges. Imagine pve lagging as bad as the worst pvp experience AND you had to do the entire game with only one armor set, the mace and the throwing weapons. That would make Dark Souls on par difficulty wise. Part of the reason new games are easier than old school is the availability of choice. Heavy armor failed? Maybe I need to be faster. Fire isn't helping? Maybe lightning will be better. Dark souls, like the old games severely punishes mistakes. But unlike those games we're allowed to adapt. I think that's true of a lot of newer games. They're not inherently easier, they just allow for our creative thinking to shine.

Thats well put skare, I like it.

his1n- wrote:is it a sadistic beast which unleashes agony upon your very existance every second you dare to boot it up?

Bed of Chaos

DoughGuy wrote:

his1n- wrote:is it a sadistic beast which unleashes agony upon your very existance every second you dare to boot it up?

Bed of Chaos

Four kings NG++ and beyond.

Yeah that's what a great amount of smart people say.
However, the limits of this statement's applying are quite certain.
For example. One of the hardest games of all times... F-Zero GX:
The customization allowed kinda what you wrote about Dark Souls. Is the handling too extreme? Adjust your parts. Is it too forgiving? Adjust your parts. ...
Does F-Zero GX get easier by even a tiny bit by such actions? Depends on the player I guess, but the actual answer is, it stays an unbelievably hard game.
Was Quake 3 really that much more limited than CoD today is? Is circle strafe jumping that much less of a help than simply hiding behind one of 10 rocks you can choose from?

There are too many factors to be considered. How hard is it to make your choice? Does it need special execution? Certain knowledge? Do you need to unlock something special before by actually playing with given things first?

And if the power of choice made games tangibly easier, what's then with all the hard mainstream game series which got INCREDIBLY easy almost all of a sudden? (Extreme-G, Devil May Cry, Street Fighter, Ninja Gaiden, ...)
A load of things were added, but freedom of choice? Not really.

Only one thing is for sure... the common game nowadays is endlessly much easier than the common game day 20 years ago. And the reason is pretty much indubitably money.

wanna name me some good ones you'd recommend then His1n?

What genre? Modern? 16-bit? PC? Console?

his1n- wrote:Yeah that's what a great amount of smart people say.

Wow, sounds like you're making him out to be a massive smartass, kinda rude in my opinion.

Also, give me some good up to date games that are hard, seriously I'd like to give some a try (Older games are a little out of my possible range), Oh and they need to be console games.

You were too fast D:, I edited a special of specification into my last post. I will gladly give you examples after you andwered.

And I didn't mean to sound like that with the thing you quoted, my general tone is kinda bad these days, sorry.
Just saying, to think that way is smart, but it doesn't lead to a real answer, yet.

Also, give me some good up to date games that are hard, seriously I'd like to give some a try (Older games are a little out of my possible range), Oh and they need to be console games.

Sadly you are talking to a (mainly) PC gamer, but however, you might wanna try stuff like:
Action:
- Ninja Gaiden (Sigma)
- Ninja Gaiden (Sigma) 2
(The Sigmas are a bit easier than the originals)

Not that easy:
- Devil May Cry 3
- Armored Core (series, got a bit easier by every title, #5 rather relies on knowledge than handspeed)
- Shank (only hard because pretty much all and everything has super armor, GODDOMMOD)
- Shank 2

Turn-based:
- Resonance of Fate

Racing:
- Wipeout HD (Fury)
Getting through the singleplayer is only hard because random weapon pickups always lead to the CPU being at an advantage... but without weapons this game is incredibly competitive and has a strong community.

Shooter:
Mark my words... no shooter is hard, either idiotically unfair or plain child's play.
E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy is the closest thing to be called hard yet, but it's a PC-exclusive.

Open-world:
These are always for casuals. Except Souls :p .

Shoot 'Em Up:
You'll have to go PC...
however, the newly released title called Velocity is pretty fast and has a nice difficulty-curve, starting absolutely easy and raising constantly.


The probably hardest game to be played which can still be considered modern is 100%ly F-Zero GX.
Get a Wii, get a GC-controller, get this game... and experience what it means to have to learn.

I would add blood bowl for the difficulty curve.

huh, sounds like I don't have a lot of choice there huh.

Might check out the ninja gaidens, I remember playing the first two on xbox, I never owned them (were my friends) but they were really fun.

also blood bowl? an american football game? good one.

No its based on NFL but using warhammer races. http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/

Yeah, the amount of choice nowadays is rather limited if you wanna suffer... and play console only.

Another problem is that a great amount of, pretty much, hard games don't get released outside of Japan. Why? They consider them too hard for other states. No joke.
That's the official reason Fire Emblem only got released outside Japan by its 7th installment... and it's not even a truly difficult series.

DoughGuy wrote:No its based on NFL but using warhammer races. http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/

but the key concept of the game is still american football.. You don't seem to know what I'm getting at do you?

His1n, I'm guessing that it's more the contrast in style of Japanese games to western games, I'd like to see more japanese originating games coming out and get some culture and ideals into western gaming. I'm sick of the generic stuff like COD that gets AAA plastered on it and universal acclaim, it's just plain ridiculous.

Ah, I thought you were saying all american football games were too easy, now I get you.

DoughGuy wrote:Ah, I thought you were saying all american football games were too easy, now I get you.

it's no offence to the sport, I actually enjoy watching the highlights when they're on, but it's just that I find sporting games except FIFA/FM are just not worth playing, they don't work all that well really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnyVo3XWqV0

This seems somewhat relevant actually. It's about Demon's Souls but it all applies very easily to Dark Souls just as well, and the ideas about its use of difficulty are great.

Very great video.