id games are too easy

I'll admit, I liked RAGE. Sure, it was slightly mediocre, but the car gameplay wasn't too shabby (I've played better, though), and the on-foot combat was wonderful. But it's just too damn easy. I usually play on nightmare, and it feels more like a slightly more difficult Doom 1 ultra-violence. I want nightmare mode to feel like complete hell where one wrong move can lead to my death, not to be able to hold up for quite a while, rarely dying.

But it seems that id games have always been too easy. Nightmare in Quake 1 feels just about as difficult as RAGE's nightmare. Doom's ultra-violence is generally equivalent to the later game's nightmare, and the actual nightmare mode has never been done after Doom (not to mention that real nightmare mode was actually added as a joke after the game's initial release in response to people complaining that the game was too easy, and that it was TOO hard).

I too was surprised at how easy the hardest difficulty in Rage was - I found it even easier than any previous id game, actually.

Isn't Quake 1 nightmare difficulty just hard mode with extra damage and quicker enemy reaction? That's the way i have always seen it.

I'd say that it's slightly more difficult than Doom 1 on UV (not counting E4) due to the higher damage to the player from enemies, and the fact that they're not stupid and actually take cover and dodge player attacks, but not more difficult by very much.

Hell's Vendetta said:

Isn't Quake 1 nightmare difficulty just hard mode with extra damage and quicker enemy reaction? That's the way i have always seen it.

Pretty much, IIRC. I know that this is basically the same way RAGE does it.

Nightmare mod! Hopefully id reads this and makes an official mod to make game harder. Either that or someone makes a nonofficial mod and it get popular enough to be considered the standard.

It's gamers vs. people that play games. New games to be popular cannot be too hard...even on the hardest skill. People that play games want to be able to eventually beat a game on the hardest skill which leaves gamers without a good challenge.

This has been discussed on the freedoom forums awhile back. Everyone plays in UV, so game must be beatable for everyone on the hardest skill. Lower skilled players will refuse to play on anything but UV and complain map is too hard.

I am sort of in agreement of games unlocking skill levels. People that play games will still pick the hardest skill while gamers will beat the game fairly quickly and then have the option for the real challenge essentially locking out the casual gamers and nullifying their complaints of game being too hard.

You could play through Rage in it's entirety, on nightmare difficulty, with the pistol and a good stock of the "fat mamma" bullets (even if you don't get the schematic for them until you reach the first town iirc). Probably without using the defibrillator once, either.

Doom 3's nightmare mode is a bit cruel... not by a whole lot, though.

DoomUK said:

Probably without using the defibrillator once, either.

I usually use the shotgun and Authority machine gun, and use the defibrillator maybe once every few levels, do I suck?

Sodaholic said:

I usually use the shotgun and Authority machine gun, and use the defibrillator maybe once every few levels, do I suck?

Well, it's in there for a reason. I'd say you're fine.

Though I forgot all about the defibrillator for most of the game. It made me jump out of my seat near the end at one point.

chungy said:

Doom 3's nightmare mode is a bit cruel... not by a whole lot, though.

I couldn't get very far even with disabling the health decay.

chopkinsca said:

I couldn't get very far even with disabling the health decay.

How do you do that? By console? It sounds like -fast in Doom, an intermediary difficulty mode.

Besides the decaying health in nightmare, isn't the only thing that Doom 3 does to alter the difficulty is how much damage the player takes? No difficulty actually gives the player true damage. Closest you'll get is marine difficulty, which gives 90% damage, or the equivalent of 111 health.

Catoptromancy said:

This has been discussed on the freedoom forums awhile back. Everyone plays in UV, so game must be beatable for everyone on the hardest skill. Lower skilled players will refuse to play on anything but UV and complain map is too hard.

Wut? I almost always play Doom on HMP. It's the default skill: when you start up the game, it's what you get if you just hit the Enter key a few times (or if you just -warp to a level). In fact, I've always played games this way, even back in the 8-bit days.

Furthermore, I'm not afraid to drop to a lower skill (even ITYTD) if the map is too difficult, like the tail end of AV, for example.

I can't imagine that I'm the only one who plays this way?...

"Everyone" was generalized. But the people that usually complain that a map is too hard refuse to play on anything lower than UV.

Yeah I was watching my brother play Doom 3 for the first time a few weeks ago, he made it look like a breeze. His armor never depleted throughout the entire game, there were armor shards EVERYWHERE. So naturally he was taking like 10% damage per revenant missile, and like 3% damage for every time he got shot buy a machine gun zombie, all of which the enemies' attacks were not too difficult to avoid. The only monsters that did a cosiderable amount of damage were fat zombies, hell knights, pinky demons and archviles. the game was seriously generous with forgiving mistakes by making the rest of the monster do hardly any damage, and making sure there were armor shards behind every crate and in every alcove, and the monsters that do lots of damage are easy to avoid. He went through almost the entire second half of the game chainsawing everything to death.

In my experience, the chainsaw in Doom 3 is incredibly powerful anyway - I'd be more impressed if he was to do it with the pistol, flashlight or fists.

id isn't gonna make any of their new games hard because they don't want to turn away any pussified modern gamer kiddies who balk at dying, or actually having to practice and become skilled, at a game. Most modern games, especially the high-dollar AAA titles, are geared so that kids can participate in an interactive movie that keeps going, while a sub-par plot unfolds and some sweet ambient occlusion-laden graphics pop off everywhere. Actually dying or having to try hard would ruin the experience for these modern gamers.

some of us suck at games so there's that. also hi.

40oz said:

Yeah I was watching my brother play Doom 3 for the first time a few weeks ago, he made it look like a breeze. His armor never depleted throughout the entire game, there were armor shards EVERYWHERE. So naturally he was taking like 10% damage per revenant missile, and like 3% damage for every time he got shot buy a machine gun zombie, all of which the enemies' attacks were not too difficult to avoid. The only monsters that did a cosiderable amount of damage were fat zombies, hell knights, pinky demons and archviles. the game was seriously generous with forgiving mistakes by making the rest of the monster do hardly any damage, and making sure there were armor shards behind every crate and in every alcove, and the monsters that do lots of damage are easy to avoid. He went through almost the entire second half of the game chainsawing everything to death.

He was good. I find Doom 3 hard when I'm cornered and when I don't manage well my stamina.

Hell's Vendetta said:

Isn't Quake 1 nightmare difficulty just hard mode with extra damage and quicker enemy reaction?

And endless Ogre grenade spam.

Lüt said:

And endless Ogre grenade spam.

Oh, God, it's coming back. Yeah, I remember the first time I saw that - thinking there's no way this is physically possible, like, even in a game. It was great.

Really, though, my favourite part of Quake's Nightmare mode was that it was hidden.

Vordakk said:

id isn't gonna make any of their new games hard because they don't want to turn away any pussified modern gamer kiddies who balk at dying, or actually having to practice and become skilled, at a game. Most modern games, especially the high-dollar AAA titles, are geared so that kids can participate in an interactive movie that keeps going, while a sub-par plot unfolds and some sweet ambient occlusion-laden graphics pop off everywhere. Actually dying or having to try hard would ruin the experience for these modern gamers.

This.

Luckily there's plenty of super hard games still out there if you take the 2.3 seconds to look for them. Besides creative people will find ways to make a game more challenging for themselves.

picklehammer said:

some of us suck at games so there's that.

Yeah, gonna go with this. Back when Doom was for a niche market (and rapidly became popular outside of that, even ported to SNES) it was hard as balls. now that games are mainstream, difficulty has taken a nosedive to give the average joe a chance. Problem is, they don't still cater to that niche anymore that wants hard videogames.

id perhaps may not, but plenty of other games companies do, with very high difficulty modes (DMC series, for example), or games like Dark Souls that are designed to be very difficult.

Lüt said:

And endless Ogre grenade spam.

Unless you get close enough to them, stepping back and forth to dodge their endless chainsaw attacks. They are easy then. Like Doom Pinkys.

Of course, this can't always be done. Like if there is several of them. Or if they are on a ledge or walkway above you. Or in cramped spaces where you can't dodge their grenades. Or lots of times really.

Csonicgo said:

Yeah, gonna go with this. Back when Doom was for a niche market (and rapidly became popular outside of that, even ported to SNES) it was hard as balls. now that games are mainstream, difficulty has taken a nosedive to give the average joe a chance. Problem is, they don't still cater to that niche anymore that wants hard videogames.

That's bullshit. You're claiming that Doom is particularly hard. Well, it really isn't. We could all breeze through Doom on UV with no problems whatsoever. If it felt hard back in '93 that was because the game was new and we weren't as used to FPS games. With FPS being quite the predominant genre, anyone with any real gaming experience could finish Doom with little problem today.

Games haven't necessarily gotten any easier over the years, save for the disappearance of Nintendo hard from the mainstream market. What's happened is that we, as people who play games, have got better. Personally I've been playing video games since 1990. Of course now, with 22 years of experience behind me, I'm going to find games in general easier than back then. Claiming that they are easier just because they are made that way is a bullshit claim that you can not objectively prove to be true.

Jodwin said:

That's bullshit. You're claiming that Doom is particularly hard. Well, it really isn't. We could all breeze through Doom on UV with no problems whatsoever. If it felt hard back in '93 that was because the game was new and we weren't as used to FPS games. With FPS being quite the predominant genre, anyone with any real gaming experience could finish Doom with little problem today.

Yeah, remember why NM was added.

IMO Wolf3D and Blake Stone were harder than Doom.

Belial said:

Yeah, remember why NM was added.

IMO Wolf3D and Blake Stone were harder than Doom.

Only becasue of the limited movement and dominate hit-scan enemies.

Jodwin said:

Games haven't necessarily gotten any easier over the years, save for the disappearance of Nintendo hard from the mainstream market.

You contradict your own argument with this sentence.

Just because a person can't "objectively prove" that games are easier these days doesn't mean that we don't all know they are. I've been gaming since 1986, so about 26 years or so. So I was able to see the gradual decrease in video game difficulty in real time, year by year. When I go back and play Mega Man 1 or Ghosts 'N Goblins, I still get my ass whooped. By your logic, I should breeze through those titles since my skills have been honed by years of training.