What you're saying is you don't want people to enjoy the game unless they enjoy it the way you enjoy it. That's just selfish and unproductive
I'm not opposed to easier difficulty settings but I think they should maybe be something that you have to unlock after many many failures.
I think Ninja Gaiden Back did this and it also mocked you for being a bitch.
You slipped right into the false narrativ. They got you pal.
Exchange 'you' for 'developers' and you are good to go. To call the creators selfish and unproductive for their game design is really... weird.
I think you are intentionally making this out to be more complicated than it needs to be.
Loads of games have difficulty settings. This game doesn't. It's just on extremely hard mode and that's it. If anything this game is the exception.
Adding easier difficulty settings to the game would not affect the game at all for you. The default difficulty setting can still be there and you can still enjoy your game as is.
Since it's not really an online game aside from the asynchronous stuff (and you could just make it so it matches people on the same difficulty setting), there really is no excuse aside from "don't want to" on the development side.
I'm not going to swipe at the fan base. I do admire people who have the reaction speed and dedication to progress through and actually beat these games. At the same time, I'd love to have a more accessible version.
Assuming that the existing default difficulty is kept at the baseline and completed first, and then an easier mode is added later by tweaking things like enemy reaction time, enemy/player HP, enemy/player attack power etc. etc. there really is no reason to say no, aside from development time being extended marginally.
What you're saying is you don't want people to enjoy the game unless they enjoy it the way you enjoy it. That's just selfish and unproductive.
I'm saying I want you to enjoy the game you want to enjoy it, and then I want to be able enjoy it in a slightly different way that has no effect on your experience.
Hell, maybe after I beat it on 'easy mode', I'll have built up the courage to try it on the real difficult mode.
For people who have a life...
Just to be clear, do you think people are asking to make the game easier by lowering the existing difficulty? From what I see, people are asking for an additional setting separate from the existing one. If they were asking for there to be only one, easier, difficulty setting then your argument would make sense but otherwise it really doesn't.
Surely a more constructive approach would be something like:
"Hey dude yeah it is a damn tough game but once you complete it you have a real sense of achievement. Why don't you try it on 'normal mode' and once you get half way through, switch it to 'Hard" mode and I'll give you some tips"
Your message seems to be:
"If you don't like it go fuck yourself, dickhead"
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but that's how it looks from an outsider's perspective.
Or maybe have better player signaling and overall balance and less cheap deaths.
Then you could take a game like Sekiro where the opposite is true and people are up in arms because the game is too challenging.
Except "holy shit I had to pull out every dirty trick I could think of to beat Gennichiro and it still took me 20 attempts" is not seen as an awesome gaming story.
TLOU2 is made a certain way. "Deal with it, man babies!"
Sekiro is made a certain way. "OMG all the man babies telling us to deal with it! So toxic!"
Why though?
I think sometimes this conversation really gets to the core of why different people even play games at all.
A cheap death certainly extends the time before you can reach the end of the game.
Is that really the only reason why we play though? Just need to see all the content as efficiently as possible?
Isn't the idea of the game screwing the player over in some unpredictable ways kind of "fun" or "exhilarating" to some extent?
I can understand the frustration if you've only got an hour to play in the evening or you just want to experience the story and some enemy jumps from out of nowhere and knocks you off a cliff and back to the checkpoint. Is that a reason to remove it from the game?
I think there comes a point where individual players need to have a proper think about genres.
It's not going to be good in the long run if we just come up with a list "industry standards" that games must follow of face the wrath of Twitter and journalists.
Each game must have a story mode for those who just want to look at the stuff.
No boss battle should take more that 5 attempts to beat.
No surprise deaths.
Etc etc.
Isn't a cheap death a "story" in itself?
What if we consider the way we talk about games?
You could take a Naughty Dog game where people will take to the internet and say basically "I watched that cutscene in the game and oh my gods so emotional who would have expected that this story is so challenging".
Then when people are pissed off about a story or character choice they are mocked as "man babies" or whatever for not being able to get the "challenging themes" of the game.
Then you could take a game like Sekiro where the opposite is true and people are up in arms because the game is too challenging.
Except "holy shit I had to pull out every dirty trick I could think of to beat Gennichiro and it still took me 20 attempts" is not seen as an awesome gaming story.
TLOU2 is made a certain way. "Deal with it, man babies!"
Sekiro is made a certain way. "OMG all the man babies telling us to deal with it! So toxic!"
What cheap deaths? The challenge is incredibly fair. The only cheap death I can think of is when Seathe forces you to die in the original.Or maybe have better player signaling and overall balance and less cheap deaths.
I’m talking about cheap traps and lack of visual feedback
For people who think like this i want to just link this video about Dark souls 2They wouldn’t be Souls games with difficulty settings. Part of the strength of the gameplay is the setting From have dictated. You change the games completely by making them easier. Again... plenty of games out there, for folks who don’t want the challenge.
It's a bit ridiculous to ask for an easy mode in a game where you can run by 99% of the enemies and cheese every boss.
Just watch a speedrun video if you need to learn how to do it.
Literally zero self control eh? pathetic. do you also take the invincibility leaf when offered to you in mario games? cmon.Because we’d all use it. Which ruins the experience From Software intend.
They only people who think having an easy mode in a Souls game would be easy to ignore are people who have never played a Souls game much.
I didn't particularly like Lords of the Fallen, so I ran past every enemy possible and had little problem getting from checkpoint to checkpoint avoiding enemies, and I did it without having played the game before.Nope. Speedrunners make EVERY game easy. Demon Souls is challenging and only easy after you get good at it.
Literally zero self control eh? pathetic. do you also take the invincibility leaf when offered to you in mario games? cmon.
KWow. You're a dick. Enjoy your ban when it inevitably comes, newbie.
yes, because i have self control unlike the people in this thread.I mean.... is there anyone here who wouldn’t have put the damn game on easy mode when you got beat by this fucker for the tenth time? Be honest!
It is for this reason that I found Sekiro to be the "easiest". Every enemy and every boss suffers from numerous weaknesses and exploits. Sekiro can be "broken" in numerous ways, from the moment you turn on the game. Infinite stamina and the counter+posture system can be used to break 100% of the bosses and enemy encounters.It's a bit ridiculous to ask for an easy mode in a game where you can run by 99% of the enemies and cheese every boss.
Just watch a speedrun video if you need to learn how to do it.
OP: "I want something to be more accessible to me that will not affect you in any way shape or form."
Fanboys: "no. If you don't like it exactly like I like it, fuck off or learn to like it like me."
Bloodborne is all about dodging, for example: in Ludwig second phase you need to time your dodge to his swing of his sword or you are fucked, its kind of how you time your parry in Sekiro....and also the reason I can't beat a single boss in Bloodborne despite having finished all 4 Souls games.
But the amounts of the times you die in Souls would make the game call EVERY player a bitch, haha.I'm not opposed to easier difficulty settings but I think they should maybe be something that you have to unlock after many many failures.
I think Ninja Gaiden Back did this and it also mocked you for being a bitch.
Is this true? Can you just grind until you're OP, to get through a tough boss? If this is the case, then I see no issue. That seems like a valid solution.There already is an easy mode:
Grinding.
I'll be honest, Ghouls and Ghosts (Ghosts and Goblins) was an incredibly frustrating for me as a kid
How many examples is this now in the thread where someone starts off like they care about the game being "accessible" only to devolve into weird swipes at the games fan base?
Adding easier difficulty settings to the game would not affect the game at all for you. The default difficulty setting can still be there and you can still enjoy your game as is.
The problem is, how easy ?Easier difficulty modes can make games more accessible for less-skilled gamers.
If by presentation you mean a single option at the start of the game. If this simply existing ruins the whole experience for you then thats a you problem.No, it's more like
OP: "I want something to be more accessible to me by changing the presentation of the game for everyone."
Fans: "No."
I disagree. Some gamers don't want to scale that wall, and will tune out, and play another game. Yeah, you got their money, but you haven't gotten their loyalty. Some gamers will want to scale that wall. I played Uncharted on the highest difficulty level, and it was extremely rewarding. Some encounters took a dozen or more attempts to clear, but it was worth it, because I became the greatest gunslinger in the world. I think every gamer has a specific type of game that they are willing to challenge themselves the most in. However, they still want to enjoy the best of other genres, and that's where difficulty levels come in to play. I'm personally not a huge fan of high-difficulty platformers or top-down shooters, so I appreciate the ability to experience higher levels in some of those game types, without having to find physical skills that I no longer possess. My reflexes and patience just aren't what they used to be, so I don't want to commit to having to retrain those skills at my age. However, I'd like the chance to finish a game like DS.The problem is, how easy ?
Dark Souls+Demon Souls already have player summons to help, Mage is always busted and you can always lame it out with a good shield.
At a certain point, why not add an "Game Journalist" mode that just plays the game for you ?(They certainly need it)
The whole point of the game is that it places Walls in front of you that seem way to high to ever climb, but once you do, thats the rush that keeps you coming back, lower the wall and its gonna feel like
the Game Version of a Participation Medal.
yes, because i have self control unlike the people in this thread.
If by presentation you mean a single option at the start of the game. If this simply existing ruins the whole experience for you then thats a you problem.
I disagree. Some gamers don't want to scale that wall, and will tune out, and play another game. Yeah, you got their money, but you haven't gotten their loyalty. Some gamers will want to scale that wall. I played Uncharted on the highest difficulty level, and it was extremely rewarding. Some encounters took a dozen or more attempts to clear, but it was worth it, because I became the greatest gunslinger in the world. I think every gamer has a specific type of game that they are willing to challenge themselves the most in. However, they still want to enjoy the best of other genres, and that's where difficulty levels come in to play. I'm personally not a huge fan of high-difficulty platformers or top-down shooters, so I appreciate the ability to experience higher levels in some of those game types, without having to find physical skills that I no longer possess. My reflexes and patience just aren't what they used to be, so I don't want to commit to having to retrain those skills at my age. However, I'd like the chance to finish a game like DS.
I'm not yet sure if it's a game that falls outside of my capabilities. I've never played a Souls game before. It might be up my alley, or it might not. However, if it's not, I just want the chance to see the full game. Give me that, and make it a rewarding experience (lower difficulties can have the same feeling of accomplishment for less-skilled gamers as high difficulty for pros), and you'll get my gaming dollar with a sequel. Punish me relentlessly, and good luck getting me to take the plunge a second time. Fool me once.
I'm just saying people are factually wrong when they say it doesn't affect players at all.
It changes a very important aspect of the game's presentation. That is irrefutable. That is a fact.
The devs have thought about how it feels for a player to fail at the game and come back to the menu screen. They haven't wanted to give the player even the thought of there being an option to change things through menus. They have wanted the player to be forced to come back to the game with the same exact difficulty they failed at. They wanted to give that experience to every player. And a lot players like exactly that about it. To change that would completely remove that aspect from the game. It wouldn't be there anymore. That is a fact.
It's not only a "me" problem. It's also a "dev" problem. They like that choice of design and presentation even more than the fans. That's why they made it so.
If you can't accept that, then that is a you problem too.
It is about the game presentation.
Any questions of "why there couldn't be an easy mode" can be decisively answered with just that one sentence. It tells the core reason from both the developers' and the players' point of view.
EDIT:
"A single option" holds in a lot of more power than people seem to understand. What is really odd is that they don't understand it even though the lack of that "single option" makes a lot of people amazingly frustrated and even angry.
It doesn't matter to the developers if someone doesn't like what they've offered and don't buy their next game. I'm sure they rather want the players who liked what they offered to buy their next game than be forced to create a different experience just to get the people who didn't like their original design to buy more from them.
If I make a metal album where the point is to have blast beats through the whole album and someone says I should make an optional version of this album with less blast beats (just remove the drums and release it online - it's cheap to do even!), I wouldn't want to do it even if it would get more buyers. Especially if my artist brand would be all about blast beats. Even as an option that would both hurt the brand and go against my integrity as a musician.
And again, having an easy mode changes the game's presentation. The developers love that presentation. The fans love that presentation. It has been there since the beginning. That has been the thing people really love about it. To change that because of trying to chase new audience and more money would most likely alienate a lot of long time fans. They'd probably rather want to get more new players who are into that exact presentation than get more players who aren't. They are probably very much ok with sacrificing sales numbers to be able to create this exact experience with this exact presentation.
all the people who are experienced with this games can tell you that the easy mode is the first time you play the game most of them get harder on each New game plus up to new game plus 7 in other words you're forced to play on easy mode the first time you play it. There's only one entry where you could up the difficulty prior to beating it and that was Dark souls 2 the most underrated entry it had something called bonfire ascetics which would power up the bonfire and it would make the enemies in the area power up as well it was a really cool way to grind sections you were good at to level up for sections you weren't good at.
From a development standpoint, you also have to consider your market. How much are you limiting your sales by keeping your product inaccessible to certain portions of the gaming market? There's a balancing act that much be found. For example, our products can be extremely feature-rich, and incredibly efficient in a way that most technical or skilled people will be able to understand. By designing the dashboard in a certain way, our power users could accomplish a lot with a lot fewer clicks. OTOH, if we want to open the app up to a larger market, we need to implement QOL improvements to the dashboard, that might dumb things down a bit, but allow newbs to access the same level of functionality as a power user.
This is the crux of the matter, IMO, and as someone who now designs and manages web and mobile apps, it's an aspect of design that I've grown to appreciate. Difficulty settings still maintain the high degree of difficulty, without restricting access. It's like adding an advanced view option to the dashboard, along with a simplified version. You package the same product in different ways to increase accessibility to a much wider range of users. Should DS remain a hardcore-only game? Sure, if they want to limit sales only to the hardcore market. Those gamers that love the hardcore aspects of the game can still get the hardcore experience, just by selecting the more hardcore difficulties. If they don't use those settings, then it's less a reflection of the game than the gamer. The gamer didn't really value the hardcoreness of the game so much as the ability to play. They only tolerated the hardcore aspects because they were forced to.
There's a difference between being forced to do something, and having the choice. I played UC on the hardest settings by choice. The AI was better, and the game was more fun to play as a result. I'd have preferred an easier setting for Ghosts n Goblins, as the forced difficulty simply turned me off of that game. Looking at DS, I see many gamers could be interested enough to pick it up, but a lot might steer clear based on reputation for being an unforgiving experience. With the games costing so much to make, they should want to attract as many customers as possible. Based on the gameplay we saw recently, it seems that they might indeed be incorporating an easy difficulty, to allow more accessibility. That won't prevent people like you from setting difficulty higher, and reaping the rewards of having accomplished what few others could have. Everyone wins then.
From a development standpoint, you also have to consider your market. How much are you limiting your sales by keeping your product inaccessible to certain portions of the gaming market? There's a balancing act that much be found. For example, our products can be extremely feature-rich, and incredibly efficient in a way that most technical or skilled people will be able to understand. By designing the dashboard in a certain way, our power users could accomplish a lot with a lot fewer clicks. OTOH, if we want to open the app up to a larger market, we need to implement QOL improvements to the dashboard, that might dumb things down a bit, but allow newbs to access the same level of functionality as a power user.
This is the crux of the matter, IMO, and as someone who now designs and manages web and mobile apps, it's an aspect of design that I've grown to appreciate. Difficulty settings still maintain the high degree of difficulty, without restricting access. It's like adding an advanced view option to the dashboard, along with a simplified version. You package the same product in different ways to increase accessibility to a much wider range of users. Should DS remain a hardcore-only game? Sure, if they want to limit sales only to the hardcore market. Those gamers that love the hardcore aspects of the game can still get the hardcore experience, just by selecting the more hardcore difficulties. If they don't use those settings, then it's less a reflection of the game than the gamer. The gamer didn't really value the hardcoreness of the game so much as the ability to play. They only tolerated the hardcore aspects because they were forced to.
There's a difference between being forced to do something, and having the choice. I played UC on the hardest settings by choice. The AI was better, and the game was more fun to play as a result. I'd have preferred an easier setting for Ghosts n Goblins, as the forced difficulty simply turned me off of that game. Looking at DS, I see many gamers could be interested enough to pick it up, but a lot might steer clear based on reputation for being an unforgiving experience. With the games costing so much to make, they should want to attract as many customers as possible. Based on the gameplay we saw recently, it seems that they might indeed be incorporating an easy difficulty, to allow more accessibility. That won't prevent people like you from setting difficulty higher, and reaping the rewards of having accomplished what few others could have. Everyone wins then.
Is this true? Can you just grind until you're OP, to get through a tough boss? If this is the case, then I see no issue. That seems like a valid solution.
Otherwise, I kinda agree with the OP. Easier difficulty modes can make games more accessible for less-skilled gamers. I'll be honest, Ghouls and Ghosts (Ghosts and Goblins) was an incredibly frustrating for me as a kid, and it resulted in me playing that game very little, once I got more games in my library.
Try being less of a cunt in future posts. If you came to GAF to pick fights, and big yourself up, your tenure here won't be very long if that post is anything to go by.
I prefer a game that teaches me how to get better at it instead of one that expects me to decide how much I already suck at it when starting a new save file.
Eh, I’d stick him on ignore if I were you. You can tell the fourteen year olds with fragile egos from a mile off.
Ignore? LOL. I'm not offended. I'm just predicting his trajectory based on how things usually play out. Anyway enough OT.
Souls isn't really difficult in the traditional sense of scaled opposition versus really demanding a lot more focus and attention from players compared to other titles in my experience. The level design in Dark Souls in particular really rewards you taking the time to actually look around and truly see the environments versus blithely meandering through as with a lot of other games. It rewards observation and patience.