Modern developers pulls too many punches when designing enemies.

[Blade Wolf]

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.

 

[Nightbird]

Yeah, "easy" mode should make it more easy to make the right call, not take away any need to make the right call to overcome the challenge you're faced with.

I'm with you OP

 

[Yuntu]

I really don't agree with your Death Stranding take tbh. Weird pick to illustrate your issue.

Game has a lot of gameplay focus and what it doesn't want is conflict and death, core themes of the game. The game wants you to be non violent or atleast not kill someone.

Otherwise I get your point and agree with it.

 

[catswaller]

Different games are trying to do different things. It's not "pulling punches" to make an easy game, its having different goals.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Instant kill attacks aren't fun, especially in modern games where it can take upwards of 30 seconds to a minute for the game to reload after you die.

But even in games with quick reloads, instant kills aren't fun. Get rid of that shit. Leave it for the ultra-hard difficulties.

 

[Blade Wolf]

Instant kill attacks aren't fun, especially in modern games where it can take upwards of 30 seconds to a minute for the game to reload after you die.

But even in games with quick reloads, instant kills aren't fun. Get rid of that shit. Leave it for the ultra-hard difficulties.

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The discussion isn't about instant kill enemies, it's mainly about threatening enemies like the zombies in RE2 Remake.

BT creatures in Death Stranding can instant kill you as well, but they are far from engaging.

 

[Torpedo Vegas]

The Zombie in RE2 were piss easy. If I got hit by anything it was the leapers. I got it on Black Friday and went through Leon's campaign. it is so god damn boring.

 

[BeaconofTruth]

Would go even further and say they focus too much on realism or plausibility and could stand to play with the abstract more. There are whole layers to enemy designs in 3D space that feel missed out on. Which feels even less justified in games like Doom or Devil May Cry or Sekiro, which ain't exactly realistic to begin with so they should have the room to experiment with wackier things.

Enemies simply don't attack space in interesting ways, it's a lot of tried n true enemy set ups for years now. Which seems absurd given how much air time Dante can get, making armored enemies or enemies that fall out of my combos doesn't fix this necessarily.
In doom 4s case, if you've played any Plutonia or Sunlust, you know that ID could be doing way more with how they make the player work for positioning.

mind you all great games, DMC5 for my money is the best game this year, but a lot of times devs focus on depth as in the stuff the player can do, but the flip side is that depth also benefits from the stuff that can happen to the player.

Its one of the biggest downsides of the phantom pain, yeah you can do cool shit, but if you ain't modding that game a lot of the standard enemies aren't a real threat to you and all the stuff you can do.

 

[Thera]

In the game, BT and mules are here to damaged your delivery. When I get cought, I reload my save.

it's mainly about threatening enemies like the zombies in RE2 Remake

Click to shrink...

OK... So no.

 

[THErest]

Where's the "I only read half the OP because I don't want to be spoiled on Death Stranding" poll option?

 

[DaveB]

Well, the one-hit deaths (via clicker) in TLOU were what made it an absolute chore to get through, for me at least. I am not even slightly hyped for part 2, especially if they double down on that shit.

But yeah, I agree with the RE4 and REmake 2 examples of making enemies that feel dangerous at any difficulty, even if the latter is annoying in certain situations.

However, there are also examples where the designers go off the deep end with making dangerous enemies. Take Gears 5 for example. The Swarm are goddamn bullet sponges now, and other enemies like the leech flocks are just plain obnoxious. I have never run low on ammo so many times in a Gears as I did playing through 5.

 

[Blade Wolf]

Where's the "I only read half the OP because I don't want to be spoiled on Death Stranding" poll option?

Click to shrink...

I added spoiler tag

 

[Deleted member 49535]

Agreed. Dumbing down games to the extreme makes the experience worse for everyone.

 

[Deleted member 1476]

Sigh, I knew Sekiro winning would bring back this shit.

Yes I've read the OP, you trying to avoid mentioning it/them does nothing to help your case considering the timeframe that we are in right now.


Also, fuck enemies killing with one shot. If I wanted to die with one hit I would go play Contra or some sidescrolling shooter.

Op has an axe to grind with death stranding, I've seen them post about half a dozen or more negative posts about it. I came into this thread agreeing but then saw that they just HAD to shoehorn in yet more hand wringing about that game that frankly most people are gonna hard disagree with.

Click to shrink...

Another one of those, huh. Good to know.

 

[Velocity:Design:Comfort]

I really don't agree with your Death Stranding take tbh. Weird pick to illustrate your issue.

Game has a lot of gameplay focus and what it doesn't want is conflict and death, core themes of the game. The game wants you to be non violent or atleast not kill someone.

Otherwise I get your point and agree with it.

Click to shrink...

Op has an axe to grind with death stranding, I've seen them post about half a dozen or more negative posts about it. I came into this thread agreeing but then saw that they just HAD to shoehorn in yet more hand wringing about that game that frankly most people are gonna hard disagree with.

 

[Greywaren]

I can't agree with this. Enemies that kill you instantly are almost always garbage. It's not fun to have to reload because a random enemy caught you and killed you instantly. It doesn't make the game harder, just more annoying.

Also, "dumbing down enemies" depends a lot on the kind of experience they're trying to create. It makes sense that enemies will completely destroy you in a survival horror game, but maybe it's not that fun in an action game. At least not for most people.

 

[Blade Wolf]

Op has an axe to grind with death stranding, I've seen them post about half a dozen or more negative posts about it. I came into this thread agreeing but then saw that they just HAD to shoehorn in yet more hand wringing about that game that frankly most people are gonna hard disagree with.

Click to shrink...

You know what, fair enough.
I will admit that too harsh on Death Stranding, and my examples of enemy design doesn't really make much sense as the game really isn't about combat.

I will edit the OP and remove the Death Stranding part, it's a weak argument on my part and a bad example for what I'm trying to discuss.

I can't agree with this. Enemies that kill you instantly are almost always garbage. It's not fun to have to reload because a random enemy caught you and killed you instantly. It doesn't make the game harder, just more annoying.

Also, "dumbing down enemies" depends a lot on the kind of experience they're trying to create. It makes sense that enemies will completely destroy you in a survival horror game, but maybe it's not that fun in an action game. At least not for most people.

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Well it's really not about one hill kill enemies but rather threatening enemies, I guess I should've listed more normal enemies as example.

You made a fair point but I am not really asking for enemies to destroy the player but rather, believable and engaging enemies.
The human enemies in TLoU doesn't destroy you, but they poses a threat and makes you think twice before engaging.

 

[RiOrius]

If your premise is "too many games do X," you need to cite more than one game that does X. Instead of "here are three games that Do It Right and one game that Does It Wrong," do it the other way around.

Or even better, lean into your more positive tone. Title your thread "These games threaten the player, and they're better for it."

But as is, you start of complaining about something that you say happens too frequently, and I don't see that in games I've played recently (except Pokemon, but... it's Pokemon, of course it's easy; and even there, this latest generation was willing to throw overlevelled enemies into the wild, so I'd say it's pretty good in that respect).

 

[Deleted member 60582]

Dying Light, especially in the beginning, was no fucking joke once the sun went down. They expanded on that further with The Following, where getting trapped out in the middle of nowhere after dark was almost a guaranteed death sentence. Once you leveled up and unlocked skills the threats diminish a bit, but you still have to keep your guard up at night because one fuck up could cost you dearly. That was one of the few recent games, outside of the Souls series, where I took regular non-boss enemies seriously.

 

[Blade Wolf]

If your premise is "too many games do X," you need to cite more than one game that does X. Instead of "here are three games that Do It Right and one game that Does It Wrong," do it the other way around.

Or even better, lean into your more positive tone. Title your thread "These games threaten the player, and they're better for it."

But as is, you start of complaining about something that you say happens too frequently, and I don't see that in games I've played recently (except Pokemon, but... it's Pokemon, of course it's easy; and even there, this latest generation was willing to throw overlevelled enemies into the wild, so I'd say it's pretty good in that respect).

Click to shrink...

There're too many examples in modern times, in Call of Duty and Battlefield campaign and even Red Dead Redemption 2 the enemies just hide behind covers and occasionally shoot at you. In Destiny and Far Cry enemies either run towards you or stand in the open like a moving target.

and most zombies games are basically just waves and waves of dumb AI charging towards you, just look at Days Gone.

I've added a F.E.A.R. example in OP to demonstrate how advanced enemy AI can truly flesh out first person shooters.

 

[The Albatross]

I read the OP, but it's mostly about Death Stranding that I haven't played.

I think there's plenty examples of "easy" enemies in modern games, but also pretty complex or difficult AI. Unfortunately, enemy encounter AI hasn't really progressed that much commensurate with other tech. AI is still pretty unintelligent. I genuinely don't think that most military-like games do enemy encounters any better than Half-Life did 20+ years ago. Not that Half-Life is "better" than a lot of modern games, but just that it's not that different, and it's a game that came out 20 years ago... so you'd sort of hope for some commensurate progression in AI sophistication.

I don't really think that the enemies in RE4 are necessarily "difficult" though, except for some of the bosses once you discover the pattern. The most "difficult" encounter in RE4 is that first one in the town because you don't know what you don't know... You don't know the best way to shoot at them, if you should shoot at them, if you should kill all of the zombies/towns folk, or what you should do. I spent a lot of that time just running around unclear on whether I was supposed to kill everyone or not (something discouraged in RE2, where you really didn't have to waste bullets on zombies, but just avoid them strategically).

They're deadly but not difficult. You can still follow the pattern of taking 3 shots with your pea shooter, running back 10 steps, and taking 3 shots with your pea shooter, and repeat until they die. While you get other more effective moves later, the future enemy encounters in RE4 aren't really difficult. Most enemies can be dispatched with little challenge. You might have the guy cut your head off with the chainsaw in the first couple encounters, but how often does that happen for most players after that? Probably pretty infrequently. The guy killing you with a chainsaw doesn't make it difficult, because you can dispatch that guy following a very simple pattern of taking 3 shots, running back 10 steps, and taking 3 more shots (or some other similar pattern).

The only other major narrative based game I've played in a while is RDR2, and I agree that the enemies are dumb-stupid and not hard... There's very little challenge in RDR2 because that's kind of not the point. Any challenge that is present is usually frustrating, like you die for an arbitrary reason. Oddly, I've found the latest Moonshiners update to Red Dead Online to be pretty damn challenging, at least the story missions, because there's TONS of enemies and if you're playing solo it can be tough to dispatch wave after wave. But, still, they're dumb as bricks which is too bad.

But there are plenty of contemporary games that are pretty hard, or can be hard. Sekiro, Soulsborne games, some parts of Hollow Knight, other Soulsborne inspired games (Salt and Sanctuary for instance), and then other games that might have mostly easy enemies, like Guacamelee, but they introduce secondary challenges that can be really hard to achieve (e.g., 100%ing the game requires some damn hard platforming/puzzling, or getting all of the challenges like combo challenges, etc., can also be really difficult). Other games like Ori and the Blind Forest have some difficult parts as well, and while most enemy encounters are fairly easy, it's not a totally easy game... Many of my friends got stuck on key parts. Then you've got games that focus on challenge like Cuphead, a game I'm not even interested in because I don't enjoy challenges like that.

While a lot of AAA narrative games are generally pretty easy to play through, I think it's because the focus isn't on making a hard game to play through, but to tell a story. RDR2 can be difficult at times, though it's usually in difficulty choke points, but that's not the focus of the game, so it shouldn't have to have Dark Souls like difficulty, IMO. I would much rather have an RDR game where revenue agents pose a serious risk and so 6-7 revenue agents is a legitimate threat to you, rather than 30-40 revenue agents which all follow stupid patterns of riding around pot-shotting you on horseback or behind cover waiting for you to come up and blow them apart.

 

[Blade Wolf]

I read the OP, but it's mostly about Death Stranding that I haven't played.

I think there's plenty examples of "easy" enemies in modern games, but also pretty complex or difficult AI. Unfortunately, enemy encounter AI hasn't really progressed that much commensurate with other tech. AI is still pretty unintelligent. I genuinely don't think that most military-like games do enemy encounters any better than Half-Life did 20+ years ago. Not that Half-Life is "better" than a lot of modern games, but just that it's not that different, and it's a game that came out 20 years ago... so you'd sort of hope for some commensurate progression in AI sophistication.

I don't really think that the enemies in RE4 are necessarily "difficult" though, except for some of the bosses once you discover the pattern. The most "difficult" encounter in RE4 is that first one in the town because you don't know what you don't know... You don't know the best way to shoot at them, if you should shoot at them, if you should kill all of the zombies/towns folk, or what you should do. I spent a lot of that time just running around unclear on whether I was supposed to kill everyone or not (something discouraged in RE2, where you really didn't have to waste bullets on zombies, but just avoid them strategically).

They're deadly but not difficult. You can still follow the pattern of taking 3 shots with your pea shooter, running back 10 steps, and taking 3 shots with your pea shooter, and repeat until they die. While you get other more effective moves later, the future enemy encounters in RE4 aren't really difficult. Most enemies can be dispatched with little challenge. You might have the guy cut your head off with the chainsaw in the first couple encounters, but how often does that happen for most players after that? Probably pretty infrequently. The guy killing you with a chainsaw doesn't make it difficult, because you can dispatch that guy following a very simple pattern of taking 3 shots, running back 10 steps, and taking 3 more shots (or some other similar pattern).

The only other major narrative based game I've played in a while is RDR2, and I agree that the enemies are dumb-stupid and not hard... There's very little challenge in RDR2 because that's kind of not the point. Any challenge that is present is usually frustrating, like you die for an arbitrary reason. Oddly, I've found the latest Moonshiners update to Red Dead Online to be pretty damn challenging, at least the story missions, because there's TONS of enemies and if you're playing solo it can be tough to dispatch wave after wave. But, still, they're dumb as bricks which is too bad.

But there are plenty of contemporary games that are pretty hard, or can be hard. Sekiro, Soulsborne games, some parts of Hollow Knight, other Soulsborne inspired games (Salt and Sanctuary for instance), and then other games that might have mostly easy enemies, like Guacamelee, but they introduce secondary challenges that can be really hard to achieve (e.g., 100%ing the game requires some damn hard platforming/puzzling, or getting all of the challenges like combo challenges, etc., can also be really difficult). Other games like Ori and the Blind Forest have some difficult parts as well, and while most enemy encounters are fairly easy, it's not a totally easy game... Many of my friends got stuck on key parts. Then you've got games that focus on challenge like Cuphead, a game I'm not even interested in because I don't enjoy challenges like that.

While a lot of AAA narrative games are generally pretty easy to play through, I think it's because the focus isn't on making a hard game to play through, but to tell a story. RDR2 can be difficult at times, though it's usually in difficulty choke points, but that's not the focus of the game, so it shouldn't hav eto have Dark Souls like difficulty, IMO.

Click to shrink...

I've updated the OP and added better examples as well as deleting the Death Stranding part as they DO NOT make for good examples for my topic. I'll admit my personal opinion on Death Stranding has led to poor, forced arguments.

 

[hanshen]

AI in FEAR is not that advanced at all. It's about clearly telegraphing what the AI is doing so the AI feels most intelligent that it actually is.

 

[Blade Wolf]

AI in FEAR is not that advanced at all. It's about clearly telegraphing what the AI is doing so the AI feels most intelligent that it actually is.

Click to shrink...

We are talking about a 2005 game, it's definitely advanced for its time and still more advanced than most shooter today.

Most shooters don't even try to make enemies this smart and effective.

 

[SkoomaBlade]

Yeah I feel like enemy encounter design has definitely stagnated over the last 10-15 years. I always figured that all aspects of games production would move forward with technology but the only thing that has really significantly improved is graphics and audio. I feel like at this point enemy AI would be significantly better than before but honestly, not really.

 

[DNAbro]

The goal isn't always intense moment to moment encounters. In horror games that works because you are always one step away from death.

 

[Blade Wolf]

Yeah I feel like enemy encounter design has definitely stagnated over the last 10-15 years. I always figured that all aspects of games production would move forward with technology but the only thing that has really significantly improved is graphics and audio. I feel like at this point enemy AI would be significantly better than before but honestly, not really.

Click to shrink...

I played F.E.A.R. when I was 12, looking back it blows my mind how little shooter has evolved.

The only '''advancement'' we get is aiming down sight and console multiplayer, the rest is either worse or the same.

 

[Mike Armbrust]

I'd love to see more games with more dynamic enemies. Running past bad guys because you've worked out their AI patterns and don't want to deal with them is a prime example imo of a flawed experience.

 

[Undeniablybiased]

I'm not super interested in how challenging enemies are as much as how many things they can do, or how many ways they react to the player, or change state based on what the player does. Or how they pair with the level design or other enemies. That's the kind of stuff that makes enemies in RE4 interesting. And it doesn't even have to be complex stuff. I think people's desire for complex ai is kind of misguided anyway. Having an axe thrown at you that you can shoot out of the air is still more engaging than most stuff we see in games to this day.

But this stuff doesn't work in a vacuum. Take that same idea and transplant it into another game and it might not work. It works in RE4 due to the limitations put on the players movement and the oppressive nature of the enemy horde. Forcing the player to keep multiple factors in their mind at once, and to be ready to react to enemies in the back along with enemies within melee range.

So in one sense I kind of agree with you, the game needs to put a certain amount of squeeze on the player to keep them engaged, but I think you can accomplish that in a pretty wide variety of ways. But I'd also agree that there's a lot of games out there that do this poorly regardless. To the point where entire genres are built around being mindless. But it is what it is.

 

[SkoomaBlade]

I played F.E.A.R. when I was 12, looking back it blows my mind how little shooter has evolved.

The only '''advancement'' we get is aiming down sight and console multiplayer, the rest is either worse or the same.

Click to shrink...

Yeah FEAR was awesome in that regard. There were a some really good FPS AI from around that time like Killzone 2 and Halo as well. I realize AI is probably one of the harder things to program well but you'd think there would have been some noticeable incremental changes.

I feel like strategy games, particularly RTSs, have really suffered from a lack of AI development as well. You'd think that in a game about strategy and tactics cranking up the difficulty would make the AI better at out playing you. Nope, all it really does (usually), is just give the AI cheat codes with more resources and stuff.

 

[Blade Wolf]

Yeah FEAR was awesome in that regard. There were a some really good FPS AI from around that time like Killzone 2 and Halo as well.

I realize AI is probably one of the harder things to program well but you'd think there would have been some noticeable incremental changes.

Click to shrink...

This is just my hot take so many might not agree but bad AI is probably one of the reason why so many people generally don't replay singleplayer in FPS games, because the gunfights are just not very engaging at all.

 

[wafflebrain]

I miss this in shooters though sp campaigns for those are becoming less a thing in general too. Games like STALKER and F.E.A.R. had some decent damage models and the latter had great squad AI which kept you on your toes. The world of STALKER in general was hostile to you at almost every turn so you always sort of had this survival mindset, and it made the overall atmosphere a lot more tense and memorable as a result. Let's hope the sequel isn't crap and actually comes out at some point.

 

[Billfisto]

1. People play games for different reasons.
2. Enemies are implemented to service the gameplay.

I really don't get why the "I play games for the challenge" crowd just can't get this.

 

[EvilBoris]

That's a very broadly painted one size fits all statement you are making.

 

[SkoomaBlade]

This is just my hot take so many might not agree but bad AI is probably one of the reason why so many people generally don't replay singleplayer in FPS games, because the gunfights are just not very engaging at all.

Click to shrink...

No, that's definitely a fair take. I think just having more dynamic encounters, a large part of it being good AI, in general helps with playability and replayability not just in shooters but most genres. I mean I probably played through RE4 at least half a dozens time in my youth simply because I always felt on edge and engaged no matter how many times I played through a scenario.

 

[Rotobit]

This argument only really makes sense for games that are trying to forge a sense of tension. So yeah, it makes sense for horror games or levels with a spooky element to have these sorts of threat levels, but I wouldn't say it's necessary for, say, a Platinum game to have tough enemies on easier difficulties.

Some people might play certain games just to relish in that sense of power, or to simply enjoy the story, and I'd argue throwing a super tough enemy at them for no thematic reason would be a negative.

 

[K Samedi]

I always felt that a lot of devs confuse intuitive game design with shallowness. When a game is intuitive to control and play you can make it as difficult as you want really.

 

[Blade Wolf]

This argument only really makes sense for games that are trying to forge a sense of tension. So yeah, it makes sense for horror games or levels with a spooky element to have these sorts of threat levels, but I wouldn't say it's necessary for, say, a Platinum game to have tough enemies on easier difficulties.

Some people might play certain games just to relish in that sense of power, or to simply enjoy the story, and I'd argue throwing a super tough enemy at them for no thematic reason would be a negative.

Click to shrink...

That is a very good point, but a lot of games outside of character action & powe fantasy could definitely benefit from a more engaging enemy design and Ai.

BOTW combat is fun and engaging thanks to the dynamic enemy AI, it gives the gameplay a lot more depth and replayability compared to older Zelda titles and in my opinion that is a big step forward for the franchise.

 

[kubev]

I agree to a point, but I also think you can engage the player in other ways that makes this less of an issue. A great example of this is Sunset Overdrive, as there's nearly always an incentive to keep your character moving in a variety of different ways to keep your style meter going. The fact that the enemies in Sunset Overdrive are generally pretty aggressive helps matters, of course, but you don't have to engage enemies in order to have a lot of fun in Sunset Overdrive. It's fun to just traverse the environment, and even collectibles ensure that you're mixing up the abilities you're using on a regular basis, because the collectibles require you to use your traversal abilities well if you don't want those collectibles to interrupt your flow.

 

[OmegaNeon]

I am a big fan of the Mario games and the difficulty has died down SO much
It was kind of hard to beat Super Mario Galaxy 2
It wasn't really hard to beat 3D World
And Odyssey is just, so d**n easy you might as well play with a blindfold on.

 

[Conkerkid11]

Imagine spending all that time writing about all those examples of games with difficult enemies, and then not coming up with any specific examples of games where enemies are a cake walk on easier difficulties.

I say this because most of the games I played this year either didn't have a difficult setting to begin with, or I played on a harder difficulty setting.

 

[fontguy]

I think it ultimately comes back to modifying enemy behavior in Easy modes vs just making them take less damage and giving you more bullets. Enemies that behave like the chainsaw dudes in RE4, for example, could be made to walk slower instead of just requiring fewer bullets to kill.

This would give players, who either just struggle with a game's controls or suffer from a condition that inhibits their dexterity, the opportunity to engage with the game at the level of difficulty it was designed for without trivializing other challenges, like ammo conservation.

 

[justiceiro]

I don't think enemies being dumb is a modern thing. Is more of a case of them being more evidently dumb because games are easier. I remember a old play test of Halo, where the enemies were considered smarter in a test group where enemies tanked more damage.

Not that I don't think it's a problem, just that I don't see as a reflection of modern game design. Mostly a reflection of poor enemy design in general.

 

[Lightjolly]

I agree. Take rain world for example that did a good easy mode. The enemy ai is still intelligent, but there's less of them and you deal less damage to them than you would on normal or hard mode.

 

[Actinium]

It kind of depends on the game. Sometimes a goomba should just be a goomba because you need something that piss simple to introduce an idea or so there's an understandable sense of progression when you start building complication around an original theme. A zombie in the middle of an open field that isn't even looking at you isn't really a threat, a zombie in a cramped dark hallway waiting to pounce is. An angry bull that has a charge attack can force a player that is otherwise safe standing still into exploring his mobility options to dodge, unless you give the player a ranged attack so powerful he can shoot the bull before it reaches him, then the bull with it's charging mechanic is no different than any other enemy as far as the player is concerned, aim and shoot. In this way the design of the level as well as the design of the player's tools factor in to how engaging an enemy is just as much as the design of the enemy itself.