Should games get harder or easier the further you progress?

Should games get harder or easier the further you progress?

Depends what kind of game.

Action RPGs

How about eroge for example?

You're disadvantaged from the very start because you lose half your arms

Optional areas should be hard, required areas should punish poor gear/stats but be otherwise easy

consistent challenge.

Who the fuck thinks it should get easier? It should get harder as you progress, but when you return to an earlier area you should dominate everything so you still have a feeling of becoming more powerful.

harder

what kind of game gets easier the more you play it, where's the challenge in a game like that?

Or have your power grow in a natural way through an ever evolving skill set rather than just getting bigger numbers

excruciatingly hard for the first few levels, easy for the rest of the game

what the fuck, it's not real life, it's a game. Game is supposed to supply challenge for every instance, just because you p[lay the same game a thousand times doesn't make it easier, it's still supposed to be the same difficulty. Amorphous difficulty is even worse than less of a challenge. Playing chess for a lifetime doesn't make the game any easier, why should video games get easier with a lifetime of enjoyment, the development would be skewed entirely. The reason Pannenokek is so popular is because the stuff he's doing is gamebreaking and challenging, not because SM64 is easy to break, the challenge isn't amorphous and evolving, it's static.

Easier in some ways, harder in others. I really hate level scaling where the only difference is enemies have more hp and other stats. I'd like to see a mix of set enemies and enemies that scale but the scaling should involve evolve more complex tactics and differing strengths/weakness instead of just becoming bullet sponges. Problem is, that requires dedicated work and attention to detail which the industry is sorely lacking these days.

Don't respond to tripfags please.

What I mean is your character getting new abilities as a way of showing they are growing stronger despite the game getting harder

it should be hard from the start and be consistent about it. I don't want to have to play 3/4th through the game for it to finally get challenging.

It's not easy to do, but they should be harder while still making you feel more powerful, unless the gimmick is that you get weaker.

A common but low-tier way to do this is just raising the numbers but not much else.

Yeah, I too want progression to be more the accumulation of abilities and tactics more than stat numbers and the increasing challenge to be having to learn using innovative combinations of your skills to take out enemies who get increasingly complex tactics and strengths rather than just more numbers.

Oh that's still kind of annoying.

In DMC3 you get more powers but the rules of the game are the same. The reason the game gets harder is because these rules are emphasized, not changed. That's how a video game should be, you shouldn't have to worry about new powers or abilities relieving previous states of the game and changing your experience permanently.

If you remain more or less the same as you start and as you end like in a platformer or puzzle game then it should get consistently harder.

If you can increase your various parameters and and gain skills, should get easier only if the player is doing it right.

That's kind of okay, there are some games that do that. The problem with games like that is that the game encourages you to do well, so once you start, you don't have to stop so the gaming experience is entirely interpretive and different for everyone leading an entire userbase to have a different experience.

Most games should get harder, but because your skill is improving the challenge should remain roughly the same.

RPG
>Starts hard as fuck because you're a nobody armed with a wooden stick
>Gets progressively easier as you level up and get better equipment
>Becomes hard again in the end-game areas.

>game gets harder as you progress
>gives you rewards for completing the hardest objectives
>as a result, game gets easier as your progress

This. If the game can make you feel like you're getting better as well then it's really good.

yeah that's good.

I don't see how a game rule like, "DON'T LET YOUR HEALTH REACH ZERO," should become a game about, "DON'T RUN OUT OF SUPER METER," or "DON'T RUN OUT OF 'X' THING!" that just makes the gameplay stupidly complex. And I know there are games that have this sort of playstyle and mechanic but the idea is that you don't run out of meter so that you don't run out of health; running out of an arbitrary meter shouldn't kill you is what I'm saying. The rules should be the same, not change dramatically because of new abilities and addons.

>required areas should punish poor gear/stats
>wanting to get cockblocked by NUMBERS
Fuck that

Only one answer

Not entirely sure what you're getting at but if the game's mechanics are solid/interesting enough shouldn't that fix any initial experiences?

Shouldn't the final boss challenge you beyond what you're capable of when you fist get there? Unless the game is story heavy i'd feel cheated if I was able to beat the final boss on my first try without a loss to contemplate a better approach.

Just play RE4

That game is a master class in pacing and challenge progression

>boss
Problematic.

Player skill and difficulty of the game not in scale. I should have made it so that bosses first beat you but you git gud and beat them

Harder,anything else is bad game design

Yeah it doesn't solve anything. If you have a game that's constantly rewarding you for doing well, all you get is an SSX clone where the objective is no longer to crack high scores, but to do as much crazy shit as you can and not trip. That completely changes the core gameplay format and the rules of the game are by definition different.

In God of War, the game rewards you for high combos with red orbs. Getting hit ruins the combo and if you're playing well, basically all you end up doing is combos and ignoring genuinely good weapons. This problem was consistent throughout the entire series.

it should get memeier

both
in a strict "hit enemy with stick" fight you should have greater difficulty; but with more options available to cheese it and rewards for thinking outside the box

lots of final fantasy games are good examples of this; you can beat almost all the games without ever grinding by using efficient spells; but if you choose to just hit attack every round you almost always lose to the first casual filter boss of the given game

fpbp

>Big part of the game revolves around a simple mechanic.
>The game is harder in the beginning because you only unlock the tool that handles that mechanic x hours into the game.
It's mostly obvious in games that don't give you healing spells fast enough.

They should get harder and the rewards for skillful playing should get better, but a problem I have with that is when skilled players get a reward that makes the game easier (such as a powerful weapon) and the difficulty is mitigated by the reward combined with their higher skills as a result. It's like when the difficulty curve doesn't raise quickly enough to match a player's skill combined with rewards that make the player stronger.
Pretty much this. It's a tough issue to deal with.

Games should focus on player and enemy response so that if at any point you get fucked whether it be getting your arm amputated or shot in the legs, you'll have permanent and temporary damage that can effect you the entire playthrough. Difficulty progression should be higher the more hurt you are. Drugs can be made to counter your disabilities but will lead to a higher risk of losing that part of your body or die much more easily. Enemies have to deal with it too.

To be fair i have seen some games do this in smaller ways. In Resident Evil 2, breaking conventional boss wisdom, William Birkin Gets weaker the more you hurt him. Just before you beat him the first time, he limps about in "danger" mode and makes pathetic half hearted swings for you. Just like the player character does when takin more and more damage.

>game gives you a basic rule like, "the game is over when you are cornered," or "the game is over once your escort dies"
>gives you game changing mechanic in the next few hours
>people laud and love this, despite this being inherently bad game design

Why do rewards need to be something that makes your character better? the only problem is that you think playing better = makes your character better

Think that we don't need rewards, just different playstyles and weapons that are unique. The game that perfectly did this is SWAT 4 with their weapons.

It was simply an example for the point I was making, because rewards of score don't deal with that issue. It's true that not all rewards need to make your character stronger, they can be rewards of score or story or collectables or whatever, but when rewards do make your character stronger (which is likely the most common type of reward in modern vidya, I'd imagine) you run the risk of skilled players becoming (comparatively) over-powered, while novice players will find the reward to be more beneficial because it closes the gap between their skill and the difficulty.

>game mechanics are explained
>use them wisely, game gets tricky at times, specifically during boss fights, but fairly easy
>play like a retard and ignore mechanics
>game is very hard for you
thats it mang

>Entirely new mechanic is introduced for the very end of the game or final boss and you don't get enough time to practice with it beforehand

There are other ways to reward players as well. Optional areas, bosses, challenges. And the best part is, the developer will know how "good" the player is when they unlock them. This allows them to craft the challenge to match the current skill level of the player.

So have the main path of the game(story basically) to have static difficulty and have side content be unlocked as the player skill level increases.

No, but the best games remain at the right level of difficult all the way through.

Bayonetta did this well.
Bayonetta 2 did not.
Zelda BOTW actually goes the opposite way and makes shit too easy if you play the main game

>Side quests harder than main quests
I guess it's okay, but it doesn't always blend well with the plot.

I'd say just screw the main plot if it can make the game properly challenging

This is impossible to do correctly. There's good balance, though.

The best kind of games start off hard as shit and make you powerful. The greatest kind of games take all of that power and give you a challenge that makes you feel humbled at the end.

These are both enjoyable to replay, as you can go back to the original parts that gave you trouble with newfound skill, and enjoyable to conquer.