Why only hard and hardcore
It so happens that we play games on high difficulty. The reason is not at all that we are stubborn stubby geeks, but in simple rationality - the desire to get pleasure from the game.
The thing is: before, all the games were quite complicated, because they were designed for much more hardcore gamers. When you do not have internet, there are only 5 cartridges, and there is nothing to do - you play what is. And to go through the game for a child in the 90s didn’t mean that today.
')
Today, “pass through” is to spend some time trying to “view” the plot and make a 200 save-load. And before the "pass" - is a feat. Without a guarantee of results. Here at least the Soviet "Well, wait!". I still remember how I entered the long-awaited final ... and saw that the game was cyclical like Tetris. The cartoon was also not shown.
But back to why only hard or hardcore. And what does this have to do with GameDev and the business.
Easy teaches us to solve problems in the forehead. If this is a shooter, go and shoot, instead of first competently scouting the area, finding the best spot and then joining the battle, for example. In the Easy strategy, it is a reason to circle around everyone and lash out into a blunt attack, and not play a hit-n-run, cut off ways to get resources to the enemy or fight for every centimeter, “squeezing” everything possible from the terrain and conditions.
The person who completed the game on easy, as a rule, is completely not adapted to the network game. He has such a good learned helplessness - 8-12 hours of the game taught him absolutely not what is needed in a “real” battle with live players. No attempt to think - just ahead and everything. With a logical result.
This is the first reason, so we do not switch to easy / normal: it's good when the game immediately forms the correct expectations and does not allow the development of unnecessary patterns.
To feel the thrill of the game, you need to understand all its features. Developers, game designers and level designers laid certain opportunities and situations that, by and large, can be implemented only on high complexity. The original game - IMHO, usually the one that is behind the hard choice in the menu. The rest is a trade-off between marketing and hardcore. Rather, closer to viewing the plot, but with some conscious participation.
It is very good if the complexity changes reasonably. For example, in the old UFO, complexity affected financing (more precisely, the delta of points by country - indirectly) and the number of non-Russians in the knocked-down plate. In the new XCOM complexity affects the number of opponents and the accuracy of your fighters. This is a kind of chaos, because it changes the basis of tactics, not allowing to bet on accuracy. In the same good old Jagged Alliance 2, complexity affected the training of Deidran's troops and their number, plus start-up capital. Estets enjoyed Wildfire, where in the same capital a rare and terrible tank in the basic version was sitting at every corner.
Once upon a time playing the first Max Payne, I understood how my tactics change as I progress on different difficulty levels. Levels began to acquire new features, accuracy increased, and so on. Trite shootouts became more interesting: I got more from the game.
In STALKER, on a low difficulty, you can put a roadblock with the military on the very first map from a distance, just crouching behind a tree and firing a pistol. Finally unrealistic situation, but quite possible. She also cuts off a cool storyline with the fact that it is necessary to get through the tunnel with anomalies to bypass the checkpoint. But it is necessary to increase the complexity - and now you are surprised to understand that you are not the first guy in the village, and the banal hit of any gopnik with a firearm will be the last. Learn to survive and think.
Question to the developers of PC-games : how is this going on inside you? Do you first make a hard-game, and then gradually lower the degree of difficulty to easy, knowing about the mass character of the audience? Or do you immediately test for easy, reconciling yourself with such lost branches as above? Or do you make a game without any levels of difficulty, and then you need to saw them?
If you pass the game on Easy, it does not give anything from the point of view of internal reward. All the time there are unrealistic situations like the attack of five fighters against one RPG main character, - and our hero easily shrugs off a crowbar armed with a firearm. In life it does not happen, but in the game - this is it. On the other hand, on high complexity, each such task becomes more fun and hardcore. “Torn out” victory gives a lot more sense of deep moral satisfaction. Actually, it returns to what was once the happiness of the passing game.
In business, it is important to feel victory and development every day - perhaps it is no less important for the psyche than healthy sleep. The length of many decisions can be up to a year or half a year: they launched it today, implemented it in three months, and only in the high season they found out whether it is working or not. Therefore, when we fly somewhere or go - hard and hardcore. The psyche is pleased. Well, we learn a little more about the mechanics of "parsed" games.
And the high complexity of the banal raises degrees of pleasure. It's like chess - it's not interesting to play with someone who is weaker than you. It is strange to play with someone who is an order of magnitude stronger than you. But to win the one who is stronger than you at the top after a good duel of minds - this is the joy of victory. And we do not deprive ourselves of this.
One more thing. Our founder Dima Kibkalo has children who play not only on the board, but also games on the tablet. So he allows them to play only on hard, so that the skill to find ways of victory appears.
Because the game is a search and training.
UPD: Well, be careful, butthurt.
If that - I'm not talking about the average American player who thinks, then he is cool, killing a motionless boss. Yes, the game can be played like a movie, but this is another pleasure. Like the movie, not like the game.
The thing is: before, all the games were quite complicated, because they were designed for much more hardcore gamers. When you do not have internet, there are only 5 cartridges, and there is nothing to do - you play what is. And to go through the game for a child in the 90s didn’t mean that today.
')
Today, “pass through” is to spend some time trying to “view” the plot and make a 200 save-load. And before the "pass" - is a feat. Without a guarantee of results. Here at least the Soviet "Well, wait!". I still remember how I entered the long-awaited final ... and saw that the game was cyclical like Tetris. The cartoon was also not shown.
But back to why only hard or hardcore. And what does this have to do with GameDev and the business.
Invalid behavior patterns
Easy teaches us to solve problems in the forehead. If this is a shooter, go and shoot, instead of first competently scouting the area, finding the best spot and then joining the battle, for example. In the Easy strategy, it is a reason to circle around everyone and lash out into a blunt attack, and not play a hit-n-run, cut off ways to get resources to the enemy or fight for every centimeter, “squeezing” everything possible from the terrain and conditions.
The person who completed the game on easy, as a rule, is completely not adapted to the network game. He has such a good learned helplessness - 8-12 hours of the game taught him absolutely not what is needed in a “real” battle with live players. No attempt to think - just ahead and everything. With a logical result.
This is the first reason, so we do not switch to easy / normal: it's good when the game immediately forms the correct expectations and does not allow the development of unnecessary patterns.
Thought not
To feel the thrill of the game, you need to understand all its features. Developers, game designers and level designers laid certain opportunities and situations that, by and large, can be implemented only on high complexity. The original game - IMHO, usually the one that is behind the hard choice in the menu. The rest is a trade-off between marketing and hardcore. Rather, closer to viewing the plot, but with some conscious participation.
It is very good if the complexity changes reasonably. For example, in the old UFO, complexity affected financing (more precisely, the delta of points by country - indirectly) and the number of non-Russians in the knocked-down plate. In the new XCOM complexity affects the number of opponents and the accuracy of your fighters. This is a kind of chaos, because it changes the basis of tactics, not allowing to bet on accuracy. In the same good old Jagged Alliance 2, complexity affected the training of Deidran's troops and their number, plus start-up capital. Estets enjoyed Wildfire, where in the same capital a rare and terrible tank in the basic version was sitting at every corner.
Once upon a time playing the first Max Payne, I understood how my tactics change as I progress on different difficulty levels. Levels began to acquire new features, accuracy increased, and so on. Trite shootouts became more interesting: I got more from the game.
In STALKER, on a low difficulty, you can put a roadblock with the military on the very first map from a distance, just crouching behind a tree and firing a pistol. Finally unrealistic situation, but quite possible. She also cuts off a cool storyline with the fact that it is necessary to get through the tunnel with anomalies to bypass the checkpoint. But it is necessary to increase the complexity - and now you are surprised to understand that you are not the first guy in the village, and the banal hit of any gopnik with a firearm will be the last. Learn to survive and think.
Question to the developers of PC-games : how is this going on inside you? Do you first make a hard-game, and then gradually lower the degree of difficulty to easy, knowing about the mass character of the audience? Or do you immediately test for easy, reconciling yourself with such lost branches as above? Or do you make a game without any levels of difficulty, and then you need to saw them?
Self-esteem
If you pass the game on Easy, it does not give anything from the point of view of internal reward. All the time there are unrealistic situations like the attack of five fighters against one RPG main character, - and our hero easily shrugs off a crowbar armed with a firearm. In life it does not happen, but in the game - this is it. On the other hand, on high complexity, each such task becomes more fun and hardcore. “Torn out” victory gives a lot more sense of deep moral satisfaction. Actually, it returns to what was once the happiness of the passing game.
In business, it is important to feel victory and development every day - perhaps it is no less important for the psyche than healthy sleep. The length of many decisions can be up to a year or half a year: they launched it today, implemented it in three months, and only in the high season they found out whether it is working or not. Therefore, when we fly somewhere or go - hard and hardcore. The psyche is pleased. Well, we learn a little more about the mechanics of "parsed" games.
And the high complexity of the banal raises degrees of pleasure. It's like chess - it's not interesting to play with someone who is weaker than you. It is strange to play with someone who is an order of magnitude stronger than you. But to win the one who is stronger than you at the top after a good duel of minds - this is the joy of victory. And we do not deprive ourselves of this.
One more thing. Our founder Dima Kibkalo has children who play not only on the board, but also games on the tablet. So he allows them to play only on hard, so that the skill to find ways of victory appears.
Because the game is a search and training.
UPD: Well, be careful, butthurt.
If that - I'm not talking about the average American player who thinks, then he is cool, killing a motionless boss. Yes, the game can be played like a movie, but this is another pleasure. Like the movie, not like the game.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/242287/
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