Games Not Being Difficult Anymore

[Heliocentrical]

I feel as though the video games that I play aren't being challenging anymore and I've played some games with insane levels of difficulty. Super Meat Boy, Unreal Tournament 2004, Quake I, Undertale with all of these games I eventually mastered them and then they effectively became jokes in terms of difficulty for me. The only one I can say is still challenging me is Unreal Tournament but it's only a matter of time before I'll be able to play on Inhuman and Godlike difficulties. I tried going outside of my comfort zone and playing strategy games like HoMM but that didn't take long to master either. Now I've become so bored with video games and I don't know what to do.

[Reverend_UshankaCat_]

I haven't played them myself, but from what I've heard the Dark Souls games might be what you're looking for then!

[BTGBullseye]

Might want to give turn-based strategy a go... I'll have to look the names up again, but there were some from the 90's that made 'instant death if you move wrong' look like godmode.

 

Also, have you ever tried something like NetHack?

[Reverend_UshankaCat_]

Speaking of Strategy, consider giving Wargame: European Escalation a try. Its an RTS game that I found to be very difficult in later stages (but maybe that's just because I suck at RTS despite loving the genre).

[Heliocentrical]

I've been trying to learn how to play Starcraft 2. I'm currently playing Zerg and I seem to have everything down except for build orders. They're so easy to screw up.

[BTGBullseye]

Starcraft 2 vs any AI is incredibly easy... Just build defensively until you can steamroll their base. (quick strikes are only useful against the lower difficulty AIs)

 

The original Starcraft has a mod available for the AI that takes it out to the 'almost cheating' levels of difficulty, you might want to give that a try sometime.

[Selfsurprise]

I would make you some recommendations for what I consider to be hard games, but I'm surprisingly incompetent at all but the most linear titles. Perhaps I'm just a little rusty after all the walking sim/narrative games I've been playing lately, though I have been testing myself on a few titles like Forbidden Siren and The Talos Principle. The former is a hard as nail survival horror game with immortal enemies, a claustrophobic and disorienting atmosphere, and PS2-era controls that feel utterly prehistoric now. Does anybody else find that they are worse at PS1/2 games (or your consoles equivalent) now than they ever used to be as children? It could just be a symptom of adulthood, lack of free time and natural diminishing of one's cognitive capacity, but just moving your character around or panning the camera feels like an absolutely Herculean task. The latter game I mentioned is a rather underrated PS4 first-person puzzle title with extremely fluid controls and increasingly mind-boggling challenges, and with a very intriguing plot about AI, god and sapiency to boot.

[Alyxx Thorne]

... you can play Unreal Tournament on Godlike?

 

*bows before my true master and lord*

[Heliocentrical]

... you can play Unreal Tournament on Godlike?

 

*bows before my true master and lord*

No, I said it's only a matter of time before I'll be able to play on Inhuman and Godlike difficulties. I'm currently on Masterful and have been consistently winning matches on Masterful. I'll be working on moving up to Inhuman shortly.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Still pretty amazing in my eyes. I can barely do well on hard difficulty in UT. And I've never beaten Quake on Nightmare or even Hard difficulties.

Needless to say I find modern games more balanced for my taste in terms of difficulty but I can understand for someone like you they may be too easy.

[TheTron852]

No, I said it's only a matter of time before I'll be able to play on Inhuman and Godlike difficulties. I'm currently on Masterful and have been consistently winning matches on Masterful. I'll be working on moving up to Inhuman shortly.

...I'm a bit afraid to face you in a battle now ^^'

 

As for suggestions: what do you think about rhythm games?

And I've never beaten Quake on Nightmare or even Hard difficulties.

Yeah, I can understand you there. Hard difficulty makes taking a grenade to the face very painful, and Nightmare having enemies attack twice as fast on top of that doesn't help any (hence why I don't like Ogres. They're jerks :<)

[Alyxx Thorne]

And I've never beaten Quake on Nightmare or even Hard difficulties.

Yeah, I can understand you there. Hard difficulty makes taking a grenade to the face very painful, and Nightmare having enemies attack twice as fast on top of that doesn't help any (hence why I don't like Ogres. They're jerks :<)

Yeah, fuck Ogres...

[Heliocentrical]

As for suggestions: what do you think about rhythm games?

The closest I've played to a rhythm game is probably Undertale and I beat that fairly easily. I remember one of friends spent hours trying to defeat Muffet on a pacifist run and it took me only one go. He watched me breeze through that fight and was thoroughly crushed. He's also described my level of play as nonhuman or insane on multiple occasions.

 

You could also describe Super Meat Boy as a rhythm game in a way but that's more of what SMB plays like. I've also beaten SMB. So yea, rhythm games probably aren't that challenging to me either.

 

And I've never beaten Quake on Nightmare or even Hard difficulties.

I've already beaten episode I on Nightmare and am currently working my way through episode II.

Yeah, I can understand you there. Hard difficulty makes taking a grenade to the face very painful, and Nightmare having enemies attack twice as fast on top of that doesn't help any (hence why I don't like Ogres. They're jerks :<)

Grenades are pretty easy to dodge since the ogres are crap shots and they don't blow up immediately as long as they don't hit you. I've never really had any problems with the ogres to be honest. It's the fiends that are awful to me. They take forever to kill and their leap makes them hard to aim for.

[Alyxx Thorne]

And I've never beaten Quake on Nightmare or even Hard difficulties.

I've already beaten episode I on Nightmare and am currently working my way through episode II.

Sounds to me like your level of skill is pretty high compared to most gamers...

[Heliocentrical]

Sounds to me like your level of skill is pretty high compared to most gamers...

Yeah, I've been noticing that lately. It didn't really occur to me that was the case until a friend pointed it out to me. I kept trying to encourage them to try harder difficulties but they insisted that was beyond them. I really didn't understand it for a while. It's almost as if we weren't even playing the same games even though we were.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Sounds to me like your level of skill is pretty high compared to most gamers...

Yeah, I've been noticing that lately. It didn't really occur to me that was the case until a friend pointed it out to me. I kept trying to encourage them to try harder difficulties but they insisted that was beyond them. I really didn't understand it for a while. It's almost as if we weren't even playing the same games even though we were.

Yeah. Sadly that might make it difficult for you to find challenges since games nowadays are balanced for the majority of players.

[TheTron852]

The closest I've played to a rhythm game is probably Undertale and I beat that fairly easily. I remember one of friends spent hours trying to defeat Muffet on a pacifist run and it took me only one go. He watched me breeze through that fight and was thoroughly crushed. He's also described my level of play as nonhuman or insane on multiple occasions.

 

You could also describe Super Meat Boy as a rhythm game in a way but that's more of what SMB plays like. I've also beaten SMB. So yea, rhythm games probably aren't that challenging to me either.

Maybe. Still, I recommend trying rhythm games like Stepmania, osu! or K-Shoot Mania (they're all free, but the last one is a pain to download because Japanese, so I suggest trying it after other two). If you'll like them - great! If not, then I'll try to find something else to suggest.

 

Speaking of Quake: I actually have beaten it and its two expansions on Nightmare before and I moved on to play Quake 2, but lost interest near the end. Guess the second part isn't quite for me.

Currently replaying first Quake on Nightmare again (or QuakeSpasm to be precise), because nostalgia

[Alyxx Thorne]

I've only beaten Quake 2 and the expansions once using cheats. I might complete them legit at some point.

[Heliocentrical]

Someone mentioned Dark Souls and if you didn't understate your skills that game will not be that hard. Sure it's hard but also on of the fairest games I've played and someone with skill and patience will go through it rather easy. That being said, it's also really good and fun. I've never layed down the controller thinking "I've had enough gaming for now" like I do with games I don't like that much or just play for the heck of it. It's one of those games Ross likes so much, those that suck you in and cause problems in real life because you don't want to stop playing. If you want a more difficult challange you could dry Demon Souls. That game is far more punishing from what I've heard though I havn't played that myself.

That's what I kept thinking as well. From what I've seen a good portion of Dark Soul's difficulty stems from patience. People have described Dark Souls as hard but fair and if that's the case then it probably won't be that challenging for me.

 

you can try Mount&Blade Warband. The mechanics are simple to understand but there is huge depth and it gets really hard once you're facing someone who can actually parry your attacks.

Depends on which module you play in M&B Warband. The default module's really easy while something like Blood & Steel is great. I'm pretty sure Blood & Steel was made for people like me.

 

Do you have any interest in speedrunning games? Some games get way harder if you try to speedrun them especially something like OoT has pretty insane glitches that are abused and some of them are frame perfect (which means the input has to be given on that one exact frame if the name didn't explain it). Though it learning that is a very tedious grind and possibly not that fun. Depends on the kind of person you are.

I have considered doing ironman runs on games that normally don't have it.

 

I've one last idea. What do you think of story rich games? Sure they are everything but hard (most of the times), but maybe you can enjoy those because of their enjoyment comes from the characters and story and not the gameplay so maybe it'll be a nice change for you.

Already did Planescape Torment, Undertale, Bastion, Bioshock, Spec Ops: The Line, Working on Fallout 2 and still haven't finished Witcher 3.

[BTGBullseye]

Give the XCOM games a go... Not just the new ones either, as they seem to be a bit easier.