You are absolutly right....I'll just come off as mean and say it:
If you don't like the game as is and refuse to play it as is, you don't get to play the game. Respect your own time by not wasting it playing something you can't or won't enjoy. Therefore, get over YOURself. YOUR life will go on not being able to play this videogame, just as mine goes on not playing the COD's, BF's, and TLOU's the rest of the gaming world seems to enjoy. Nobody's making you play Elden Ring.
There's a clear difference between not liking a game because you don't like its gameplay mechanics or style and not liking a game because it offers only one difficulty mode for no good reason.I'll just come off as mean and say it:
If you don't like the game as is and refuse to play it as is, you don't get to play the game. Respect your own time by not wasting it playing something you can't or won't enjoy. Therefore, get over YOURself. YOUR life will go on not being able to play this videogame, just as mine goes on not playing the COD's, BF's, and TLOU's the rest of the gaming world seems to enjoy. Nobody's making you play Elden Ring.
Nah he's right. I got filtered in Sekiro and Nioh/Nioh 2 but I don't expect the developers to change their vision of the game. If you don't like it because it's hard, play something else. You should be aspiring to get better at the game anywayThere's a clear difference between not liking a game because you don't like its gameplay mechanics or style and not liking a game because it offers only one difficulty mode for no good reason.
AC Odyssey on the highest difficulty is much harder than Elden Ring.I think people need to also consider Souls already has an easy mode for simps, its called Assassins Creed...
And how does adding an "easy mode" to the game change the design of the standard difficulty in any shape or form?Nah he's right. I got filtered in Sekiro and Nioh/Nioh 2 but I don't expect the developers to change their vision of the game. If you don't like it because it's hard, play something else. You should be aspiring to get better at the game anyway
Because the standard level of difficulty is challenging.And how does adding an "easy mode" to the game change the design of the standard difficulty in any shape or form?
How many have sold 20 or 30 million copies in a month. What are you going to say when it inevitably outsold those games?This thread is why video games are still looked at as childish by the adult world. Gatekeeping neckbeards are screaming about "muh difficulty" and clutching their fedoras in terror, as if an easy mode buried in the options somehow shrinks their e-penis, instead of promoting the idea that more difficulty options in games open up the audience to the mainstream and allow for more sales, which could help development and continue to push the genre forward. The game may have sold 12 million, but it was a 97 on metacritic, similarly rated games have sold 20 or 30 million copies. Leaving out a story mode is leaving money on the table.
Difficulty is subjective and largely dependent on playerskill. There is no one shoe fits all which is why insisting on one difficulty mode is rather silly. You also haven't answered my question. I asked how adding an easy mode impacts the standard difficulty mode in any shape or form.Because the standard level of difficulty is challenging.
If difficulty is subjective then an easy mode is irrelevant. And, because you are not experiencing the game how the developer intendedDifficulty is subjective and largely dependent on playerskill. There is no one shoe fits all which is why insisting on one difficulty mode is rather silly. You also haven't answered my question. I asked how adding an easy mode impacts the standard difficulty mode in any shape or form.
The fact that difficulty is subjective is exactly the reason why multiple difficulty levels are important and why the argument "Experiencing how the developer intended" makes no sense.If difficulty is subjective then an easy mode is irrelevant. And, because you are not experiencing the game how the developer intended
I think you are missing a big fat evident difference between having difficulty modes on a game.The fact that difficulty is subjective is exactly the reason why multiple difficulty levels are important and why the argument "Experiencing how the developer intended" makes no sense.
Lets take two players. Player A and Player B. Lets say we can Rank their skill at Elden Ring range on a scale from 1 through 10. Both players are capable of finishing the game.
Player A is Pretty good at Elden Ring and his skill can be considered a 7.
Player B is fairly mediocre/average and his skill can be considered a 5.
If the developer intended a specific difficulty for their game, then one of these players is not experiencing how "The developer intended". Because what is difficult for player B is not so difficult for Player A.
Now lets say that The difficulty experienced by Player B is the one the developers intended. Lets introduce another player: Player C. Player C's skill level is 3/10 and he can't beat the game. If you introduce an easier mode, Player C can now finish the game and his skill would be comparable to player B, which means the player now experiences the game as intended.
The idea that the experience of Elden Ring completely breaks down if you add an optional easier mode in which player takes, for example, 20% less damage is hilarious. You're basically admitting that the game has nothing going for it besides its difficulty, which is not true.
I think you are missing a big fat evident difference between having difficulty modes on a game.
If the game feels too hard for you and there are difficulty options, what you gonna do? probably change the setting right? maybe stop playing, but less likely right?
If a souls game feels too difficult, some of those players, the ones engaged are gonna find ways to overcome the obstacle because the games usually give you optional paths to become stronger.
The design is betting on getting as many people as possible to experience the satisfaction of overcoming the challenges, integrating a menu with an easy mode robs those players of that, defeating the design.
This is more evident on Demon's Souls and Elden Ring , and less evident on Bloodbourne and Sekiro.
how? because not every player finishes the game?A quick look at player tracking for FS games shows they are failing this spectacularly.
how? because not every player finishes the game?
i would say that is the wrong way to measure engagement, i got around 100 hours of playtime (and only lvl 50) before even going to the second legacy dungeon.More than "doesn't finish the game. . ." The engagement with content beyond Margit (which in and of itself is pretty low) is. . .not fantastic. I would say most games of this size have pretty low completion rates (because they are just so fucking long, including this one), but it's the front-end completion that is not fantastic with ER.
The fact that difficulty is subjective is exactly the reason why multiple difficulty levels are important and why the argument "Experiencing how the developer intended" makes no sense.
Lets take two players. Player A and Player B. Lets say we can Rank their skill at Elden Ring range on a scale from 1 through 10. Both players are capable of finishing the game.
Player A is Pretty good at Elden Ring and his skill can be considered a 7.
Player B is fairly mediocre/average and his skill can be considered a 5.
If the developer intended a specific difficulty for their game, then one of these players is not experiencing how "The developer intended". Because what is difficult for player B is not so difficult for Player A.
Now lets say that The difficulty experienced by Player B is the one the developers intended. Lets introduce another player: Player C. Player C's skill level is 3/10 and he can't beat the game. If you introduce an easier mode, Player C can now finish the game and his skill would be comparable to player B, which means the player now experiences the game as intended.
The idea that the experience of Elden Ring completely breaks down if you add an optional easier mode in which player takes, for example, 20% less damage is hilarious. You're basically admitting that the game has nothing going for it besides its difficulty, which is not true.
I think you are missing a big fat evident difference between having difficulty modes on a game.
If the game feels too hard for you and there are difficulty options, what you gonna do? probably change the setting right? maybe stop playing, but less likely right?
If a souls game feels too difficult, some of those players, the ones engaged are gonna find ways to overcome the obstacle because the games usually give you optional paths to become stronger.
The design is betting on getting as many people as possible to experience the satisfaction of overcoming the challenges, integrating a menu with an easy mode robs those players of that, defeating the design.
This is more evident on Demon's Souls and Elden Ring , and less evident on Bloodbourne and Sekiro.
An easy mode have only benefits.Because the standard level of difficulty is challenging.
Pot meet kettleOnly insecure and fragile people in need of something to inflate their egos would do mental gimnastics to justify telling others what they should want to play or enjoy.
This is not a very good argument for two different reasons.I think you are missing a big fat evident difference between having difficulty modes on a game.
If the game feels too hard for you and there are difficulty options, what you gonna do? probably change the setting right? maybe stop playing, but less likely right?
If a souls game feels too difficult, some of those players, the ones engaged are gonna find ways to overcome the obstacle because the games usually give you optional paths to become stronger.
The design is betting on getting as many people as possible to experience the satisfaction of overcoming the challenges, integrating a menu with an easy mode robs those players of that, defeating the design.
This is more evident on Demon's Souls and Elden Ring , and less evident on Bloodbourne and Sekiro.
AC Odyssey on the highest difficulty is much harder than Elden Ring.
At first I also thought it was impossible but if can block the first wave, you can dodge the rest.one shot combos that are almost impossible to dodge
How in the world the bolded part makes any sense? it doesn't, it introduces the whole problem again of players having an easy way out of difficulty spikes instead of giving them a reason to explore and get stronger.This is not a very good argument for two different reasons.
One is the fact that a middle ground is possible. If you must insist on following this rather weird way of thinking, you could simply allow an easy mode, but to only have it be selectable from the start. This means that you can't change it after you've started the game.
The second reason is that this is completely optional.
If you want "The satisfaction of overcoming challenges", then simply don't lower the difficulty settings. The idea that players are just gullible idiots who can't be trusted to select a difficulty level is insane. There are plenty of challenging games out there that have seperate difficulty levels long before any of the Souls game even came out. Devil may Cry 3 is difficult, that game has multiple difficulty options. So does Ninja Gaiden. The hardest difficulty settings are also much, much harder than any souls game is.
Melania is a pretty hidden boss unless you went out of the way to get to HaligtreeIt doesn’t need an easy mode, it just needs a team of consultants that can show From how to balance literally anything. Hoarfrost Stomp, bleed and scarlet rot, Mimic Tear, etc are proof nobody actually play tested any of that busted shit. Look how fast and hard they all got nerfed.
Then you have bosses like Melania which are absolutely ridiculous. Super armor, life steal, and one shot combos that are almost impossible to dodge. Radahn was pretty bad too before his nerf (at least for your average Joe) but still doable and had summons help. Margit is a good example of a difficult boss early on, but Melania is just dumb and makes the dev team look talentless.
How in the world the bolded part makes any sense? it doesn't, it introduces the whole problem again of players having an easy way out of difficulty spikes instead of giving them a reason to explore and get stronger.
do you think that getting someone that doesn't want to engage with the game to play it longer is a win?
Because you have this incredibly strange idea that players must be "protected from skipping a difficult part by picking a lower difficulty". Not only is this obviously a non issue (there's absolutely no reason why anybody should be concerned with how difficult a player wants to experience to be), it solves your entire dilemma of players picking a lower difficulty as soon as they reach a difficulty spike. They wouldn't be able to without having to start the entire game over.How in the world the bolded part makes any sense? it doesn't, it introduces the whole problem again of players having an easy way out of difficulty spikes instead of giving them a reason to explore and get stronger.
All of this is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that Elden Ring is widely considered to be a difficult game by many people, a good portion who would like to enjoy the other aspects it has to offer besides its difficulty. This argument also doesn't work in the Souls games or Sekiro, which are not open world but have the exact same debate happening. These others games are only somewhat supposed to be played in progressive, but only because the hardest difficulties can only be unlocked after beating the game. DMC3 has like what, 7 difficulties? Obviously devs don't expect you to go through 7 difficulties.You seem to be willfully ignorant to the difference between banging your head against a difficulty spike and exploring a game for ways to become more powerfull or finding alternate progression routes.
There is nothing making you fight Margit at the start of Elden Ring, you can easily skip to the second dungeon or just go do something else to get stronger and learn the ins and outs, this is not the case with action games, the dev expects you to bang your head agaisnt it or play on lower difficulties , because they are made to be replayed in progressively harder difficulties.
Hard and Challenging are different terms more or less talking about the same thing. Sure it's a "Design" choice but, as I and many have argued, it is not the sole defining factor of this game (or Souls game in general) and what is challenging or hard is entirely subjective. I have yet to be presented with one single actual argument how having a completely optional "easy" mode changes the game for anyone who doesn't wish to use it.The "difficulty" is a design choice, and it works as proved by the game's success creating new fans with every entry, it's not even about being hard, but about being challenging.
It would open up the game to a much larger amount of players for them to enjoy without harming the experience for those who don't want to use it. You keep talking about extremes. "Players who don't want to engage with the game to play it longer" completely disregards the fact that there are many players with all sorts of varying skill levels.Nothing would be gained with the addition of selectable difficulty, do you think that getting someone that doesn't want to engage with the game to play it longer is a win? the dev doesn't seem to think so, they think a win is to get someone that didn't know they would enjoy the challenge to do so and become a fan.
It's not ignorant, I just don't share your opinion that players are "gullible idiots". Players are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves which difficulty they want to play at. This whole "I'm against difficulty settings" is just gatekeeping with no real defense for it. This becomes all the more obvious when you realise that this discussion is a one way street: Literally nobody is saying "Man, I wish they would remove difficulty settings from other games". Nobody plays any other game with difficulty settings and thinks: "You know, you can really tell that the developer designed around multiple difficulty levels. It's just not as good"This whole "idea that players are just gullible idiots who can't be trusted to select a difficulty level is insane" is very ignorant of you, games are built with the notion that players are gullible idiots, that's how good desing works, the dev is capable of guiding you and motivate you without you even noticing it, all games attempt to do it to different extents and the best ones do so efforlestly.
Because you have this incredibly strange idea that players must be "protected from skipping a difficult part by picking a lower difficulty". Not only is this obviously a non issue (there's absolutely no reason why anybody should be concerned with how difficult a player wants to experience to be), it solves your entire dilemma of players picking a lower difficulty as soon as they reach a difficulty spike. They wouldn't be able to without having to start the entire game over.
All of this is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that Elden Ring is widely considered to be a difficult game by many people, a good portion who would like to enjoy the other aspects it has to offer besides its difficulty. This argument also doesn't work in the Souls games or Sekiro, which are not open world but have the exact same debate happening. These games are only somewhat supposed to be played in progressive, but only because the hardest difficulties can only be unlocked after beating the game. DMC3 has like what, 7 difficulties? Obviously devs don't expect you to go through from the start.
Hard and Challenging are different terms more or less talking about the same thing. Sure it's a "Design" choice but, as I and many have argued, it is not the sole defining factor of this game (or Souls game in general) and what is challenging or hard is entirely subjective. I have yet to be presented with one single actual argument how having a completely optional "easy" mode changes the game for anyone who doesn't wish to use it.
It would open up the game to a much larger amount of players for them to enjoy without harming the experience for those who don't want to use it. You keep talking about extremes. "Players who don't want to engage with the game to play it longer" completely disregards the fact that there are many players with all sorts of varying skill levels.
Lets say I can finish Elden Ring. I find the game challenging, but I can beat it. Now lets introduce another player. This player is 20 percent less skilled than I am. If you introduce a difficulty mode that makes the game 20% easier (By reducing incoming damage for example), then that player is having the exact same level of challenge as I did, so what exactly is the issue here? Just because this opens up the possibility to me playing on that difficulty as well? Why would you, or for that matter, the dev, be concerned with that? This whole "You HAVE to play EXACTLY how it was INTENDED" feels strangely out of place in an RPG that prides itself on multiple playstyles and even more so in an open world game.
It's not ignorant, I just don't share your opinion that players are "gullible idiots". Players are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves which difficulty they want to play at. This whole "I'm against difficulty settings" is just gatekeeping with no real defense for it. This becomes all the more obvious when you realise that this discussion is a one way street: Literally nobody is saying "Man, I wish they would remove difficulty settings from other games". Nobody plays any other game with difficulty settings and thinks: "You know, you can really tell that the developer designed around multiple difficulty levels"
Here's the reality: Most games are build with the normal difficulty setting in mind. That's why it's called "Normal". Having "easier" or "Harder" difficulty settings doesn't suddenly break the experience just because you're not playing at the intended or default difficulty.
it's not my design, it's Miyazaki's.Because you have this incredibly strange idea that players must be "protected from skipping a difficult part by picking a lower difficulty". Not only is this obviously a non issue (there's absolutely no reason why anybody should be concerned with how difficult a player wants to experience to be), it solves your entire dilemma of players picking a lower difficulty as soon as they reach a difficulty spike. They wouldn't be able to without having to start the entire game over.
All of this is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that Elden Ring is widely considered to be a difficult game by many people, a good portion who would like to enjoy the other aspects it has to offer besides its difficulty. This argument also doesn't work in the Souls games or Sekiro, which are not open world but have the exact same debate happening. These games are only somewhat supposed to be played in progressive, but only because the hardest difficulties can only be unlocked after beating the game. DMC3 has like what, 7 difficulties? Obviously devs don't expect you to go through from the start.
Hard and Challenging are different terms more or less talking about the same thing. Sure it's a "Design" choice but, as I and many have argued, it is not the sole defining factor of this game (or Souls game in general) and what is challenging or hard is entirely subjective. I have yet to be presented with one single actual argument how having a completely optional "easy" mode changes the game for anyone who doesn't wish to use it.
It would open up the game to a much larger amount of players for them to enjoy without harming the experience for those who don't want to use it. You keep talking about extremes. "Players who don't want to engage with the game to play it longer" completely disregards the fact that there are many players with all sorts of varying skill levels.
It's not ignorant, I just don't share your opinion that players are "gullible idiots". Players are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves which difficulty they want to play at. This whole "I'm against difficulty settings" is just gatekeeping with no real defense for it. This becomes all the more obvious when you realise that this discussion is a one way street: Literally nobody is saying "Man, I wish they would remove difficulty settings from other games". Nobody plays any other game with difficulty settings and thinks: "You know, you can really tell that the developer didn't build this game around one specific difficulty".
Here's the reality: Most games are build with the normal difficulty setting in mind. That's why it's called "Normal". Having "easier" or "Harder" difficulty settings doesn't suddenly break the experience just because you're not playing at the intended difficulty.
Developer is not equal to a publisher, the intent behind a game is not simply to sell more.I mean...how is that any of your business though? If someone wants to play in such a way, I have no clue how that would be a "whole problem" for you or me tbh. Reason to explore and get stronger needs to be upon the player to decide they want that in the first place.
If they want that, they can play a different mode.
If they bought it at all its a win, fuck you talking about?! lol
The fact that many are even saying this is one of the easier of the Souls games might even suggest they already nerfed it and simply didn't put the words "easy" to allow the simps to feel goodz about their "wins" in the game. Who knows. Though I'm ok with the developer never making that mode, I highly doubt this is the easiest Souls game just cuz, it likely has to do with them wanting that broad appeal, as to why it was even open world.
Keep in mind, this whole bullshit of "play it longer" is irrelevant to something like this. Its not a GAAS bud, they could give 2 shits if you stop playing, so long as you bought it.
MOST don't complete games btw. I recall reading something where some Mass Effect game only got like 40% to beat it.
I came here to say basically the same.After one month proving that the Elden Ring difficulty is adaptative (farming, billions of weapons, spirit ashes, ashes of war, co-op, alternative routes, fast travel, the easiest re-spec stats in all soul series...), there is still people complaining about this? just don`t play games, or stick to the Bayonetta Auto-mode.