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Mummelmann on 18 March 2017
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Robert_Downey_Jr. said:
Mummelmann said:

There are always exceptions, but the 7th gen really kicked off the casual hardcore gaming scene for real. Collectibles, trophies and achievements have very little value from a game design perspective are often used as padding in games with poor writing, slouchy pacing or lacking core content.

One of my all time favorite action movies is from the early 2000's (Bourne Identity), but this is also around the time when almost all action movies started to want to become "smart", foregoing a lot of action, so despite the exception, it still marks the beginning of trends I don't really appreciate.

I definitely don't see the trophy connection.  Can't imagine those take long to program in and I never would have tried many hard modes if they weren't there.  It does make things more inclusive to have easier games, but there's an easy way around that.  It's called difficulty settings.  Then with trophies you can show if you're proud of beating a hard mode of a game as opposed to some people who just would beat the easy mode and not have the trophies.

No, they're not much, which was my point; trophies are used by developers as cheap padding to extend the life of games, especially open world ones. Things like collecting mugs and figurines, feathers, notebook pages etc. is not exactly stimulating gaming in my opinion and "rewards" are either crap or simply a worthless trophy. I guess I don't care about others seeing my gaming prowess.

As for difficulty; yeah, I've heard about it... But games overall are still a lot easier than they used to be, only a decade back. I played through Horizon: Zero Dawn on Hard for my first playthrough and was absolutely shocked at how simple it was save for a few hours in the middle section of the game (first flying foes were a bit tricky when you meet them the first few times), and now I started one on Very Hard, and it's still way too easy. Not just the combat; the resources, money, available gear and upgrades, it just comes flying at your face and I find myself having to sell off or simply dump resources all the time for clogging up my inventory (and I had like 48.000 unspent money at the end of my first playthrough).

The "broaders audience" and the PS/Xbox brand have gradually and unmistakably changed mainstream gaming and there is no denying that the average game is easier to beat today than it was in the 80's, 90's and early 2000's, and for me, that's not a positive but I understand the market reality and wishes none the less.