Before everyone gets all angry and starts yelling gatekeeping, I am not saying games should be hard. This thread is not about difficulty, it's about keeping player engaged.
Too many developers nowadays design the game around being accessible, which is great, but they also intentionally dumb down the threats in the game (enemies, traps, puzzles etc.) to achieve this goal. Such as making enemy less aggressive, easier to read and easier to kill. They probably didn't know, but doing so actually hurts the game for everyone.
There's a difference between being Hard and being serious. You can make your game easy all you want, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't face your player seriously in combat.
Take RE4 for example, even on easiest difficulty the enemies still poses a big threat, acting carelessly when facing a chainsaw man will only gets you killed.
You see, in Resident Evil 4 no matter what difficulty you're playing on, a threat is a threat. The chainsaw on Easy mode will cut your head off just as clean as the chainsaw on Professional mode, it makes the chainsaw feel real, it makes you terrified of enemies that holds one.
Modern developers couldn't even begin to imagine putting anything like this in their games, it would get rejected the moment it got brought up in the meetings.
Another example is RE2.
People are absolutely tired of zombie games and yet they absolutely adored Resident Evil 2 (2019) and never once moaned about the zombies. Why is that?
Because the zombies in RE2 actually poses a big threat and as a result facing them feels intense and terrifying. Anyone who played the game knows just how fucking brutal these things are, they take lots of bullets to kill and can absolutely fuck you up even on Easy mode. They absolutely pulls no punches when designing these things.
You see, it doesn't make the game hard, on easy mode they do less damage and you get lots of ammo to kill them, but that doesn't dumb down the experience and turn it into a casual zombie shooter, anyone who plays carelessly would still get destroyed in no time, the game remains just as stressful and intense on its easiest difficulty. Because the developers pull no punches when designing the zombies and other enemies.
In Resident Evil 2, a zombie is a zombie, if it sees you it will grab you and eat your face off without any hesitation. The zombie does not care what difficulty you're playing on.
Contrary to many boring zombie games out there where all zombies does is slap you around like some drunkard beating their child, and killing them is so easy it feels like you're just popping balloons with a BB gun.
It's just not survival horror games, let's look at some great examples from first person shooters.
F.E.A.R. (2005) has one of the most advanced AI of its time, the enemies in this game takes the player very seriously and will try their best to defeat you.
They will advance on your position, try to flank at you from different angle and even retreat when taking too much damage.
It makes gunfights truly fleshed out and provides an intense experience you won't get int other shooters.
You can turn on cheat engine and play with infinite health & ammo and the game would still be extremely engaging.
In comparison, we see more and more dumb down enemies in modern games. Shooters where enemies only ever stay behind cover and occasionally peaking out to let you headshot them, mediocre Souls clones where enemies only have two different attack patterns that are painfully slow and clumsy, hack and slash games where enemy just stand there and embrace their demise etc.
I truly believe enemy design contributes a lot to world building and immersion, and I feel like too many developers intentionally dumb down this aspect of the game for various reasons, and it ends up making the experience flat. I've love to see your take on this matter, it would be great if any game developers or designers on Era want to share their thoughts.
EDIT:
I avoid mentioning Soulsborne enemies (even though they are the best examples) because I feel like it could easily derail the discussion as some people believe those games were designed from the ground up to be as punishing as possible which is just untrue.
Thus I use examples from games that includes easy mode to keep the topic focused.
Too many developers nowadays design the game around being accessible, which is great, but they also intentionally dumb down the threats in the game (enemies, traps, puzzles etc.) to achieve this goal. Such as making enemy less aggressive, easier to read and easier to kill. They probably didn't know, but doing so actually hurts the game for everyone.
There's a difference between being Hard and being serious. You can make your game easy all you want, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't face your player seriously in combat.
Take RE4 for example, even on easiest difficulty the enemies still poses a big threat, acting carelessly when facing a chainsaw man will only gets you killed.
You see, in Resident Evil 4 no matter what difficulty you're playing on, a threat is a threat. The chainsaw on Easy mode will cut your head off just as clean as the chainsaw on Professional mode, it makes the chainsaw feel real, it makes you terrified of enemies that holds one.
Modern developers couldn't even begin to imagine putting anything like this in their games, it would get rejected the moment it got brought up in the meetings.
Another example is RE2.
People are absolutely tired of zombie games and yet they absolutely adored Resident Evil 2 (2019) and never once moaned about the zombies. Why is that?
Because the zombies in RE2 actually poses a big threat and as a result facing them feels intense and terrifying. Anyone who played the game knows just how fucking brutal these things are, they take lots of bullets to kill and can absolutely fuck you up even on Easy mode. They absolutely pulls no punches when designing these things.
You see, it doesn't make the game hard, on easy mode they do less damage and you get lots of ammo to kill them, but that doesn't dumb down the experience and turn it into a casual zombie shooter, anyone who plays carelessly would still get destroyed in no time, the game remains just as stressful and intense on its easiest difficulty. Because the developers pull no punches when designing the zombies and other enemies.
In Resident Evil 2, a zombie is a zombie, if it sees you it will grab you and eat your face off without any hesitation. The zombie does not care what difficulty you're playing on.
Contrary to many boring zombie games out there where all zombies does is slap you around like some drunkard beating their child, and killing them is so easy it feels like you're just popping balloons with a BB gun.
It's just not survival horror games, let's look at some great examples from first person shooters.
F.E.A.R. (2005) has one of the most advanced AI of its time, the enemies in this game takes the player very seriously and will try their best to defeat you.
They will advance on your position, try to flank at you from different angle and even retreat when taking too much damage.
It makes gunfights truly fleshed out and provides an intense experience you won't get int other shooters.
You can turn on cheat engine and play with infinite health & ammo and the game would still be extremely engaging.
In comparison, we see more and more dumb down enemies in modern games. Shooters where enemies only ever stay behind cover and occasionally peaking out to let you headshot them, mediocre Souls clones where enemies only have two different attack patterns that are painfully slow and clumsy, hack and slash games where enemy just stand there and embrace their demise etc.
I truly believe enemy design contributes a lot to world building and immersion, and I feel like too many developers intentionally dumb down this aspect of the game for various reasons, and it ends up making the experience flat. I've love to see your take on this matter, it would be great if any game developers or designers on Era want to share their thoughts.
EDIT:
I avoid mentioning Soulsborne enemies (even though they are the best examples) because I feel like it could easily derail the discussion as some people believe those games were designed from the ground up to be as punishing as possible which is just untrue.
Thus I use examples from games that includes easy mode to keep the topic focused.
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