Problem with modern games: no difficulty untill end game

[deleted fren]

Modern "good game design" is for the entire game to be easy with no rising difficulty untill you reach the optional end game where suddenly the game offers moderate challenge. I'm sick of this. I do not want to play through 20 hours of mediocrity for any decent content. A game that never tests the player or raises the stakes untill after you've beaten the main objective is not a good game. I don't care if skill curves filter normies, having the game never escalate bores me.

 

[Exhunter45]

P

Modern "good game design" is for the entire game to be easy with no rising difficulty untill you reach the optional end game where suddenly the game offers moderate challenge. I'm sick of this. I do not want to play through 20 hours of mediocrity for any decent content. A game that never tests the player or raises the stakes untill after you've beaten the main objective is not a good game. I don't care if skill curves filter normies, having the game never escalate bores me.

Play the armored core games

 

[Antorian]

Its due to the feminization of games and their developers.
Now people make games targetting not only men but women as well, and the majority of women don't like any sort of challenge or difficulty, they want a "comfy" game where they can just "vibe" and relax

Boring and predictable

 

[Aku no Hana]

Modern "good game design" is for the entire game to be easy with no rising difficulty untill you reach the optional end game where suddenly the game offers moderate challenge. I'm sick of this. I do not want to play through 20 hours of mediocrity for any decent content. A game that never tests the player or raises the stakes untill after you've beaten the main objective is not a good game. I don't care if skill curves filter normies, having the game never escalate bores me.

It's just to maximize consumers/profits. They're more worried about normies being dissuaded by difficulty at the start of the game and this hurting the profits of the game than they are the more dedicated/niche/smaller crowd of hardcore gamers that want a game to be genuinely challenging for the sake of it.

I thought this was the point of having different difficulty modes, but of course that makes too much sense. (overall this point is correct and I could leave it at that, but it's worth mentioning that what's also an issue is that for a game to have optimal challenge, it has to be designed around that from the start, you can't usually just tack on various difficulty parameters/modes at the late stage of development and expect as good a result.)

 

[Poopless One]

Play Furi. Very good blend between hack n slash, and bullet hell.

 

[deleted fren]

It's just to maximize consumers/profits. They're more worried about normies being dissuaded by difficulty at the start of the game and this hurting the profits of the game than they are the more dedicated/niche/smaller crowd of hardcore gamers that want a game to be genuinely challenging for the sake of it.

I thought this was the point of having different difficulty modes, but of course that makes too much sense. (overall this point is correct and I could leave it at that, but it's worth mentioning that what's also an issue is that for a game to have optimal challenge, it has to be designed around that from the start, you can't usually just tack on various difficulty parameters/modes at the late stage of development and expect as good a result.)

I don't want the game to be hard from the start. What I want is a difficulty that escalates as the game progresses. Difficulty modes don't solve it. Buffing enemy damage or health doesn't make the game significantly harder.

Its due to the feminization of games and their developers.
Now people make games targetting not only men but women as well, and the majority of women don't like any sort of challenge or difficulty, they want a "comfy" game where they can just "vibe" and relax

Boring and predictable

True

 

[Aku no Hana]

I don't want the game to be hard from the start. What I want is a difficulty that escalates as the game progresses. Difficulty modes don't solve it. Buffing enemy damage or health doesn't make the game significantly harder.

Yes, this was part of my point, but your being specific certainly adds to it. It's why I wrote: "what's also an issue is that for a game to have optimal challenge, it has to be designed around that from the start, you can't usually just tack on various difficulty parameters/modes at the late stage of development and expect as good a result" which I think is connected to what you just said. I'm of course not the first to make this point.

However, I do also at the same time stand by the statement developers without too much trouble really could do more to satisfy everyone with customizable options for how the game is.

Assuming you agree with my main theory that the reason that developers make games easier than they should be is because they want to maximize profits and don't want normie consumers to be dissuaded by the games being too hard and not buy the game as much as they otherwise would, (I know you also are specifically saying that it's the way the game is easy at the start then spikes in difficulty instead of having an even difficulty progression/curve, but I think it's a connected point because I maintain the main reason they make a point of making most of the game easy is the reason I'm saying) it is clear that making most of the game easy and suddenly there's challenge in the optional end-game content is their way of "compromising." Being sure not to dissuade normies so as to maximize profits, while also "throwing a bone" to people like us who want a challenge.

Of course I agree it's a bad compromise, and surely something to the effect of customizable options (which need not be as simply as basic difficulty mode to switch between, which I agree typically just are akin to dip switches that modify certain parameters like enemy health; this isn't enough and is just as often a matter of making the game more tedious if anything, not actually providing a more interesting/engaging challenge) could help to some extent here, if they were more willing to do this.