Video Games Were Harder Back in the Day!

[dgame]

Er, the article gave a definition in the first paragraph:

. . . a class of mathematical problems called NP-hard. This means that for a given game level, it can be very difficult to work out whether it is possible for a player to reach the end.

Second post in this thread:

Given the mathematical difficulty of these games that's covered in the article, it's now even more interesting to me how the general fall of difficulty in video games seems to have coincided with . .

The conversation deviated from math to more of what the title of this thread is: Video Games Were Harder Back in the Day!

 

[Mr Rob]

Ha, but I must defend Exophase. If we're interested in how difficult games can be to play, then the article has no relevance to this thread.

 

[Blue Protoman]

So wait. It's humanly possible to write a program that plays Zelda II regardless of its maps (assuming they're not malformed), because we can model its flow as a comprehensible procedure. Not the same for Super Mario World. Am I right?

 

[Prometheus]

Er, the article gave a definition in the first paragraph:

. . . a class of mathematical problems called NP-hard. This means that for a given game level, it can be very difficult to work out whether it is possible for a player to reach the end.

Second post in this thread:

Given the mathematical difficulty of these games that's covered in the article, it's now even more interesting to me how the general fall of difficulty in video games seems to have coincided with . .

The conversation deviated from math to more of what the title of this thread is: Video Games Were Harder Back in the Day!

Well, I wasn't sure quite which to go with! :lol:

 

[Mr Rob]

This could also explain why R.O.B the Robot wasn't very fun. Games are too hard for a robot like him.

 

[ElPoco]

So wait. It's humanly possible to write a program that plays Zelda II regardless of its maps (assuming they're not malformed), because we can model its flow as a comprehensible procedure. Not the same for Super Mario World. Am I right?

You're right.

 

[iprice]

Does it really matter if a game is easy or difficult, as long as you enjoy playing it?

 

[Prometheus]

Does it really matter if a game is easy or difficult, as long as you enjoy playing it?

No, but it certainly does matter when it affects the options of those who don't enjoy one or the other, which is probably where the contention about this sort of thing comes from.

 

[diligentcircle]

Video games were not harder back in "the day". If anything, they just had excessive amounts of fake difficulty.

 

[Prometheus]

Video games were not harder back in "the day". If anything, they just had excessive amounts of fake difficulty.

Find them too hard?


Kidding, kidding.


Anyway, they really were more challenging, most often due to plain better design. Undeniably sometimes some games just had bad design, though, but those are for the most part not fondly remembered.


The "fake difficulty" is from games *now* ("now" referring to the last several years, to put it in context), of course - stuff like getting "100%", collecting all the annoying bits of crap, getting "achievements" just for powering the game on, watching cutscenes instead of playing, boring side-quests, and so on and so forth. You know - artificial game-lengthening.

 

[Exophase]

Er, the article gave a definition in the first paragraph:

. . . a class of mathematical problems called NP-hard. This means that for a given game level, it can be very difficult to work out whether it is possible for a player to reach the end.

That quote ranges from misleading to plain wrong, depending on how you interpret it. The implication I get is that it's referring to levels in the actual game. That isn't the point. What it should be saying is "using these game engines, levels can be created that are hard for a computer to navigate." With the understanding that "hard" means time needed for solving is exponentially proportional to size of the level, and also has nothing to do with many conventional sources of difficulty like reaction time and timing requirements, things that a computer would be very good at.


It probably wouldn't be that challenging making an AI which is capable of beating the games with their actual levels, using fairly simple heuristics.

Second post in this thread:

Given the mathematical difficulty of these games that's covered in the article, it's now even more interesting to me how the general fall of difficulty in video games seems to have coincided with . .

The conversation deviated from math to more of what the title of this thread is: Video Games Were Harder Back in the Day!

Yeah, but most are posting about this based on having misunderstood the premise.

So wait. It's humanly possible to write a program that plays Zelda II regardless of its maps (assuming they're not malformed), because we can model its flow as a comprehensible procedure. Not the same for Super Mario World. Am I right?

Not exactly. This is missing the important detail that "hard" doesn't mean non-computable. It's just a way to model growth of the problem's complexity. An "easier" polynomial time problem can still take an impractically long time to solve too.

 

[Mr Rob]

There is some truth with 'fake difficulty', but it's certainly not true for everything. egoraptor's comparison of Castlevania 1 and 2 comes into mind:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Aip2aIt0ROM?feature=oembed

In short, Castlevania 1 is fun and engaging, though the game is difficult and challenging. It takes skill to actually defeat Castlevania 1 (which I haven't done yet). Real difficulty.


They tone down the difficulty in Castlevania 2, you run around, beat monsters, collect heart, to get items and weapons to advance the game. Fake difficulty.

 

[Prometheus]

They tone down the difficulty in Castlevania 2, you run around, beat monsters, collect heart, to get items and weapons to advance the game. Fake difficulty.

Just like modern games!

 

[skeezix]

Didn't read the whole thread yet.. but their whole assertion about NP-hard etc is very flawed; they're just saying that to get page views, but they're on crack.


That all said, I think there is a general consensus that games were harder back in the day, because games were different; there were arcade games that wanted to eat your money and beat you up, and they ported those to home machines. Nowadays, games are generally playe din the home, and it sa whole different $$ model, hence the change. You want to get somewhere now, so they let you, and you enjoy a 40 hour game or whatever. Its not a 3 minute game for 25c liek it used to be. Thats it


jeff

 

[Mr Rob]

Just like modern games!

Solution? Don't play the modern games.

 

[Exophase]

Didn't read the whole thread yet.. but their whole assertion about NP-hard etc is very flawed; they're just saying that to get page views, but they're on crack.


That all said, I think there is a general consensus that games were harder back in the day, because games were different; there were arcade games that wanted to eat your money and beat you up, and they ported those to home machines. Nowadays, games are generally playe din the home, and it sa whole different $$ model, hence the change. You want to get somewhere now, so they let you, and you enjoy a 40 hour game or whatever. Its not a 3 minute game for 25c liek it used to be. Thats it


jeff

Read the paper. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.1895v1.pdf


The article reporting is a little off but the work seems sound. Again, no one's claiming that the games as made require an NP-hard solver.

 

[Prometheus]

Just like modern games!

Solution? Don't play the modern games.

Precisely. My custom has been lost by most companies (except, of course, those making stuff I actually like to play). It sure does save me a nice chunk of money, since barely anyone bothers, nowadays.

 

[diligentcircle]

I don't hate old games and I'm not bad at them. It took me around 2 weeks from the first time I played it to beat Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES.


When I mentioned "fake difficulty", I was talking about having to start all over again constantly, forcing you to play the same levels over and over again towards the end. You don't tend to see that nowadays. I concede this isn't fake difficulty according to tv tropes, though; "unfairness" is a better term.


But really, none of that matters, because not only is difficulty subjective, you can't take a small sample of games made in a particular time frame and say that all games were like that at that time. The NES days had some hard games, sure, but it also had plenty of easy games to choose from: Super Mario Bros and its sequels (except the Japanese SMB2), Lode Runner, Donkey Kong, Mario Bros, Galaga, and plenty of others.


Prometheus, is it just me, or are you using the RPG genre to talk about ALL modern video games?


In the end, this talk about whether old games are harder than new ones is completely useless. Go ahead and say Ninja Ryukenden is the hardest game in the world, but I can easily retort that Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is the most difficult strategy game I've ever played.

 

[fusion_power]

Read the paper. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.1895v1.pdf


The article reporting is a little off but the work seems sound. Again, no one's claiming that the games as made require an NP-hard solver.

My head exploded... :blink: .... :wacko:


However, there also is another definition of "hard" today. Just pick some free2play games where you have a really hard time to make it through if you don't pay anything. Even if it still is possible, it can get just frustrating. I've played "World of Tanks" a while, free, non premium (except some free bonus codes I used). And it is the most frustrating (online)game I've ever played. Especialy when you meet an enemy premium Tank, 3 Tiers above your own Tank tier (10 Tank Tiers are in the game and the tier spread can get +-4, depending of the type of tank) that you can't damage with 10 shots but he perforates and kills you with 1 shot. Imagine an PvP RPG Game where a Level 50 Chara has to fight against an Level 99 Chara and the lvl99 also has the über pro items.


If you really want a insane hard, unfair and frustrating online shooter game where skill means nothing but money does and you usualy also land in the bottom half of the noob fail team, then play WoT.

 

[Prometheus]

Prometheus, is it just me, or are you using the RPG genre to talk about ALL modern video games?

It is just you. I don't play RPGs because I find them chore-like and generally unengaging, so I wouldn't know how that genre currently is at all.


I am primarily, above all else, a platformer nut (I'm sure that nobody thinks I'm a Mega Man nut because of those godawful RPGs ), whose favoured genre has largely been watered down and become mired by the things I've expressed a dislike of in this thread.


Anyhow, I don't see how having to try to do something again is unfair. It's a fact of life, and how skill is built up.