"Fun hard" vs "Stupid hard"

[HeartsOfFire]

You wake up in an underground concrete bunker. Half of your unit has already been decimated. There are wounded and traumatized soldiers all around you, and deeper in the bunker others are covered up by black tarps. They were the lucky ones.

You hear your squad leader call to you from the bunker entrance. What's left of the unit is Oscar Mike.

You trudge out of the bunker and to the front line where your ranger unit has met up with another near the west wing of the Library of Congress. Enemy is raininig fire down on you from all levels of the Library, but your orders stand: Make your way into the building through the west entrance.

You ready your rifle, take two steps forward... ! You're hit! Where did that come from?! You take cover, wait for the blood to get out of your eyes, then you poke your head out of cover to look around... over 50 friendlies are ahead of you, many out in the open, suppressing fire on the building. Suddenly a headshot. As you're dying, words slowly fade before your eyes: "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Nathan Hale.

Suddenly you're back in the fray, about five steps back from where you last died. You take two steps forward... Boom, you're dead. More words flash up in front of you: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." M. Ghandi.

Once again, you're brought back to life! You try to move forward... Nope. dead again. This time you see the words: "Before embarking on a journey of revenge, you must first dig two graves." Confuscious

What I am describing is a typical scene in Modern Warfare 2 on Veteran difficulty, a beautiful game spoiled by rendering player skill inconsequential and instead, forcing the player to reply on patience, blind luck, and a billion respawns. This is "Stupid Hard."

"Stupid Hard" is what I like to refer to a game's highest difficulty level when it renders it virtually unplayable due to the level of unbalanced gameplay. Skill becomes a non-factor. This is not what the hardest difficulty ought to be.
Consider in comparison, Mass Effect 2 on Insanity. The difficulty is scaled up high. Enemies will be able to easily shoot you if you're out of cover, and you won't be able to take much punishment before your shields go down.

Conversely, enemies are much tougher to kill as their shields, armour, and barriers are harder to take down, but at least with the Rock-Paper-Scissors elements of biotics, tech attacks, and weapon varieties, tactics are in place to make confrontations beatable. Mass Effect 2 Insanity level is what I call "Fun Hard."

What about you, Calgarypuck? What do you think of "Stupid Hard?"

[gottabekd]

I think Quake III : Arena had a great "Nightmare!" difficulty. The bots had good aim, but were also smart. In order to beat them, you had to play smart AND have some skill. I would call this "fun hard".

I played Half Life on the hardest difficulty. The enemies weren't particularly difficult, they just took lots of damage, meaning you were running out of ammo all the time. This wasn't particularly "stupid hard", just stupid. It was less about skill, and more about conserving ammo.

[Regorium]

From what I've seen, "Fun hard" is the limit of the player's current skill level, and "stupid hard" is anything the player can't do.

Mainly have seen this in WoW. Elite players would say it's too easy, good players would say this is perfectly tuned, mediocre players would say that it's overtuned and needs to be nerfed. On a really really hard encounter, elite players would say that this is perfectly tuned and huge props to blizzard, while everyone else thinks that it is completely ridiculous and stupid.

I personally don't see a lot of analysis of what actually occurred to get your character killed in your example, other than the enemies have great aim. I never played it so I can't really comment much further.

[Hack&Lube]

What I hate about stupid hard games is all they do is give the enemies more life and armor where it becomes ######ed like in Uncharted where guys wearing T-shirts and wifebeaters in the jungle become bullet sponges and shake off dozens of AK-47 7.72mm rounds like they were pebbles.

I can accept it in fantasy or science fiction games where they might have more armor or shields or magic defenses or something, but in many shooters, they don't. They are just bullet sponges in modern game games and it ruins the suspension of disbelief.

[Pastiche]

Battletoads, could not pass that goddam level.

[fredr123]

The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on the NES is stupid hard. Those swimming levels are ridiculous.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by fredr123

The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on the NES is stupid hard. Those swimming levels are ridiculous.

Yeah, the timed part with the bomb. I still can't do it.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Pastiche

Battletoads, could not pass that goddam level.

The one with the hover "seadoos" ? Battletoads was easily one of the best games of all time.

[Human Torch]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

What I hate about stupid hard games is all they do is give the enemies more life and armor where it becomes ######ed like in Uncharted where guys wearing T-shirts and wifebeaters in the jungle become bullet sponges and shake off dozens of AK-47 7.72mm rounds like they were pebbles.

This never bothered me because I was a headshot king. But for the people it did bother the developers did note this and fix it for the GOTY sequel.

[HeartsOfFire]

Originally Posted by Regorium

I personally don't see a lot of analysis of what actually occurred to get your character killed in your example, other than the enemies have great aim. I never played it so I can't really comment much further.

Long story short, I got shot. Over and over again. Often right after I started the mission. Oftentimes I know the general direction in which the shot could have come from, but as for who exactly fired the shot I have no idea.

To elaborate on it, what I found frustrating is that in this scenario, it's night time, and I'm but one of dozens of AI controlled friendlies on the battlefield, many of whom are out of cover and right out in the open. Furthermore, I'm behind all these bullet sponges, and I'm in cover. Despite these guys being much easier targets, enemy AI was capable of going after me and only me in a crowd of dozens.

I will humbly admit that I'm not the best Modern Warfare 2 player in multiplayer games, but I'm a capable and skilled offline player. But I wholeheartedly believe that when it comes to Veteran difficulty, skill is a non-factor. There is not a player in the world that could beat Modern Warfare 2 on veteran difficulty without dying. Hell, there isn't a player in the world that could beat a single level of Modern Warfare 2 on veteran difficulty (except MAYBE the stealth missions).

The only way to beat Modern Warfare 2 on Veteran difficulty is with patience, a billion respawns, and a ton of blind luck.

There are other games that are like this, I'm sure. God of War clones I've heard are notorious for having their highest difficulty setting as absolutely ridiculous.

[Hemi-Cuda]

the only stupid hard part in Mass Effect 2 on Insanity is when the collectors first spring their trap onboard their ship. you're on a floating platform with 2 scions, countless collectors, harbinger, and very little cover. not to mention that you don't get to choose when to do that mission, so i wasn't as prepared as i would have liked. it was impossible to do in my first attempt no matter how many times i tried, i finally had to reload the entire level and pick some squad mates who could absorb a lot more damage, and even then it took me a few tries and i ended up with 0 medpacks at the end

nothing else in ME2 on insanity compared to how hard that one segment was, and i did every side mission available. the end boss was a cakewalk in comparison

[Misterpants]

Haha, TMNT was ridiculous. Same with Battletoads until you memorized the sequence and had to play like a savante. Ah 8-bit.

[Wiggum_PI]

Pretty much impossible to beat without an emulator. Take one hit and your back at the start of the level.

[Hack&Lube]

I guess none of you have played Demon's Souls?

When you die, you start back at the beginning of the level, with all the enemies respawned (that you just spent 2 hours killing), your items, no replenished, and in soul form which means less health.

That is an example of stupid hard that is good though. The challenge keeps you coming back.

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I guess none of you have played Demon's Souls?

When you die, you start back at the beginning of the level, with all the enemies respawned (that you just spent 2 hours killing), your items, no replenished, and in soul form which means less health.

That is an example of stupid hard that is good though. The challenge keeps you coming back.

Probably my favourite RPG of last year. That game was super fun. I didn't care about the difficulty.

[Human Torch]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I guess none of you have played Demon's Souls?

When you die, you start back at the beginning of the level, with all the enemies respawned (that you just spent 2 hours killing), your items, no replenished, and in soul form which means less health.

That is an example of stupid hard that is good though. The challenge keeps you coming back.

I just started it a couple weeks ago. It's the loneliest co-op game ever.

[peter12]

Yeah, I agree with the OP. Modern Warfare 2 has unbelievable graphics and presentation, but the gameplay is ######ed and totally unbelievable. Too effing hard and that no amount of skill can rectify.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Human Torch

I just started it a couple weeks ago. It's the loneliest co-op game ever.

Play it with friends in the room and it's not that lonely as they can laugh or share in your sufferings at his game of masochism. It is a lonely co-op game by yourself though, I wish encounters with other player ghosts were more common and you could interact at will.

[SebC]

IMO ME2 on Insanity isn't too hard, it's just incredibly boring. Hide your squadmates, stay in cover but in front of them so enemies aggro onto you, spam squadmate abilities with the hotkey whenever the cooldown is up, and if an enemy gets too close, unload your precious ammo into him.

[Ren]

Deadly Towers for the NES. I spent many of my formative years trying to master this one. To this day I still can't do it. Before emulators I'm pretty sure nobody could possibly beat it.