Assassin's Creed III Dev Says Easy Mode Ruins Games

[hermes]

You are missing the point here. He is not saying "easy games are awful", he is saying "playing games on a easier difficulty that they were meant to can ruin the experience", which is quite obviously true.

Most "easy" and "hard" modes are lazily build by designers... its just a multiplier applied to how much damage you take and how much damage you do. If an enemy takes 3 hits to kill on normal, it will take 1 in easy and 5 in hard; if you can go down with a few hits on normal, its almost a one hit kill on hard; which is cheap because now the combos and the ammo distribution are broken and made redundant. An action 3rd person shooter can reach survival horror levels of scarcity when every grunt takes 10 shoots to the face to kill.

For example, my first play through on ME2 was on easy. Not only did I finish the game, I used cover so little at some point I forgot it was an option. I never used nor needed to give orders to my squad... I went all the way up to the suicide mission rambo-ing my way through the enemies. It didn't lessen my appreciation of the game, but it sure didn't felt satisfying in a risk/reward level.

There is a reason why games like Assassins Creed, Final Fantasy or Super Meat Body don't include a difficulty option. They might be perceived as too easy or too hard by the average gamer, but the point is still the same: it is how they were meant to be.

 

[burningdragoon]

"A lot of games have been ruined by easy modes," he says. "If you have a cover shooter and you switch it to easy and you don't have to use cover, you kind of broke your game."

Correct me if I'm wrong but if this happens, isn't it most usually because:

A. The game mechanics (in this case cover shooting) are not well-implemented/useful to begin with or
B. The people in charge of balancing difficulty didn't do a good enough job

Look if you're going to imply it's poor execution that's at fault and not the very concept of easy mode, then you should... you should... I dunno, get a cookie or something.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Okay. For one, there are easier versions of books. Most literary classic have an abridged version that uses simpler language that is designed for kids, who aren't as good at reading. the notion that this is unique to games is moot. Secondly, the assumption that it runins games relies entierly on the idea that the user is too rock stupid to be able to determine what idfficulty is right for them. It assumes that everyone will choose easy mode even if they don't need it. Judging by the fact that from all indications most gamers don't immediately choose easy mode on games that have had adjustable difficulty (and some immediately choose the hardest fucking mode), I'd say that's not true. Thirdly, forcing a your audience to play the game in a certain way and saying 'it's the best way' has never been a good idea. Fourthly, to all the people who came here to state nothing but 'lol, Assassin's creed is an easy game' or 'DRM is bad, yo' go get an actual opinion before making your snide remarks.

 

[robert022614]

Pretty much with everyone here AC is easy already.

I agree and see his point, but, hearing it from him just makes it

Spoiler: a hard pill to swallow.

Oh dear God.....

Well then good news everybody. Its a suppository!

 

[Hindkjar]

Don't we all know the feeling after you have just beat a part of a game (or Boss), on hard level.. the feeling of "accomplished".. A great feeling like you are the better man.. SAY NO TO EASY-MODE !!

 

[grigjd3]

I get the guy's point but I don't know that this is universally the way things go. If you play the original Gears of War on easy, you still need to take cover. The game mechanic is still there. It seems to me that if an easy mode means you can ignore game mechanics, then the game is poorly designed in the first place.

 

[faspxina]

Easy mode is a way to scale the difficulty to the player's skill.

If you're skilled enough so that you break the game's mechanics when you play in that mode (i.e. not needing cover in a cover-based shooter), then all you have to do is put it back on normal.

Since most games don't allow cheats anymore (which sucks), having an easy mode that basically turns you invincible kind of makes up for it.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

It's a nice option to have, but not every game needs it. Games that require precision to learn, like platformers, don't need an easy mode, because they are a test, and what's the point in a test if you skip through all the challenge. A game like Assassin's Creed is more about deciding which approach to take, and there's usually an easier option tucked into the huge mountain of options they've been giving of late, where the challenge comes from the 100% sync setup and their occasionally ridiculous parameters (don't get hit while in the crappy tank? Take no damage in the cart? Fuck off!).

Long as they fix that broken ass jump mechanic that they had in Revelations, I'll call it a win.

I think I get it

But assasins creed (the later ones) felt too "easy" in that if I screwed up I could jsut hack and slash my way out...or use a smoke bomb or whatever...not much sense of acheivment there

Except that you might actually get an Achievement for it.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I think assuming one difficulty level is more genuine than another is unfair.

I suck at games, generally speaking. I have poor timing, any racing game that focuses on speed ends up turning into an abstract show of colours my puny brain can't handle, which means I keep crashing everywhere; I'm not very observant so I can pixel-hunt for hours at a time...

In other words, I kind of need an Easy Mode to go through some games. I play largely for the sake of experiencing stories and seeing what outcomes can be achieved and I most assuredly am not the super hardcore player everyone thinks of, when I mention I've been known to casually pop in CoD 3.

I remember a bud at my last job who immediately latched onto that and invited me into his Corps. He thought he was getting a decent footsoldier; he ended up with a knuckle-dragger who can't work his way around level layouts for shit.

I play games because I want to be entertained. Not because I want a challenge. If you do, all the more power to you. I think I should have the right to use gross amounts of Aim Assist if I need to, if I don't currently have the time or inclination to really sit down and work at getting better at Game X. I can afford to during the summer months, but these times are officially fucking over, right about now.

If I had to be honest, part of the reason I'm a predominantly PC-based gamer is because you can hex-edit or cheat your way to victory conditions in some cases. It used to be single-player games wouldn't punish you for it because you weren't griefing anyone else with your cheap daamge, but that's becoming a pretty rare thing, what with always-online DRM and watchdog programs monitoring executables for any kinds of tampering.

 

[n00beffect]

Ha! Look who's talking. Not that I don't agree with him to an extent, or that I dislike the games (I love the Assassin's Creed Series), but AC is about as challenging as drinking from a straw. I know this wasn't his argument, but I'm just saying.

 

[LazyAza]

As someone who regularly plays games on easy as I often find it far more enjoyable to just switch off my brain and have good dumb fun with a game in my free time I am somewhat offended at this mans opinion. Easy doesn't ruin a game unless it is implemented really lazily and badly and in my experience this is rarely the case thankfully.

It's an option just as other difficulties are that needs to be available unless your game is indeed perfectly balanced and I can certainly say their were portions of all the Asscreed games that were needlessly difficult due to sudden spikes in challenge and thus become quite frustrating.

AC1 for example I never completed and almost broke a tv over precisely because it's imbalanced difficulty was one of its many glaring flaws.

Their is a very large portion of people who simply wouldn't buy games if easy modes weren't available so he's insulting said people and also saying "hey you know what instead of selling 3 million copies I'd prefer to sell 1.5 because gosh darn I just don't want anyone experience my flawless magnum opus any way but the way I think is best" What a jerk.

 

[Dr Jones]

Wait, dont certain books (more classical ones I think, I dont read much) have a more "aproachable" version with a more modern style of writting?

Indeed they do. The original versions (digital only, though) are actually free, that's how I got started on Sherlock Holmes on my Kindle (and if you have any interest in older litterature, get the Kindle app for tablet/pc, there is a wide variety of older, absolute classics, that are free).

OT: I disagree entirely. Hutchinson says that it's akin to reading an "easier" version of a book, which I don't really see anything bad with. Granted, you could argue that the piece of art should be experienced as the artist wrote it, but let's assume that reading an "easier" version doesen't deprive the book of the main story and point (which is probably the most important part).

Also, games on "easy mode" doesen't necessarily deprive you of any features, and what if the "easy mode" was how the game was "meant to be played"?

Oh and I just realized how stupid this actually is.. If you deprive us of any choices because "It's not how it was meant to be played" then what the hell is the purpose of a videogame? We're supposed to have choices, whether it's from how to navigate or how hard the game is supposed to be. Depriving us of all those choices in the name of artistic meaning would make a game nothing but quick-time-events.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I do get what he's saying (or at least how I interpret it). There are certainly changes in difficulty that can break a game, as he explicitly states. There are, however, also aspects to difficulty that exist in order to make the game part of a game an ejoyable experience. There needs to be pacing and a sort of rise and fall to the experience, and well tuned difficulty (note NOT necessarily soul crushing arbitrary BS difficulty) is a huge part of that. If your game has them, big bosses or difficult battles should feel harder than regular moments. If your game has them, later levels or scenarios generally should feel harder than earlier ones. That sort of growth in skill and depth of experience is crucial to games in a way that it isn't in any other medium. If the entire game is just a couple variations on face roll difficulty then you lose a lot of the experience that can make a good game good.

 

[Fordo]

I think it has everything to do with the game, and how much you grow to love it. The challenge is making a game fun even if it's on easy mode.

My Example: Streets of Rage II. I started barely understanding hit 'x' to punch, 'y' to kick. But because the game was fun, and as me and my buddies got better and better, we would try the game in harder difficulties to try out new moves and sea who was better.

Depends on the genre and goal of the game IMO

 

[GloatingSwine]

After all, not everyone necessarily prefers to suffer numerous defeats before finally feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Are players entitled to feel that sense of accomplisment if they can't accomplish?

I mean if a game's too hard for you, you don't get to win it. Oh well. Practise more or play an easier game.

 

[theultimateend]

That from the dev of AC, a game series where combat can be summed up as "block-counter-repeat". Also, a game series where the main characters are unstoppable juggernauts, so much that stealth is only worth it for self-satisfaction.

DISCLAIMER: I played all of the games and loved them. With a possible exception of Revelations.

Revelations, I think, was one of the best examples of deep symbolism.

That was probably the most well thought out message in gaming that I've ever experienced.

Was it a solid game? Maybe not, but as a work of art the team put in some incredible amounts of effort. I've written about it before but I was pretty moved by it.

Anywho, Easy mode is good because most game developers don't know how to properly work difficulty and as such if you just want to see the story (once you own the game) you can just do that.

Elsewise youtube has been my goto for some pretty bad games that I was still interested in.

After all, not everyone necessarily prefers to suffer numerous defeats before finally feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Are players entitled to feel that sense of accomplisment if they can't accomplish?

I mean if a game's too hard for you, you don't get to win it. Oh well. Practise more or play an easier game.

Games are a form of entertainment, you don't get to dictate how people should experience games anymore than you get to dictate how they should experience films or books.

If this were a discussion of education or say engineering I would be on board with you that the most accomplished among us should get the most reward, but in the case of a luxury entertainment medium people get to experience it the way they want to experience it.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

This is pure idiocy. There isn't a reason for people who care to select easy mode. Maybe easy mode is a good thing for people who are new to video games? I've seen so many people who don't game get curious and try only to pick a game without a difficulty setting and lose all the time right away without getting a chance to get used to controlling a video game character. Games without an easy mode are just saying "Fuck you" to anyone new to gaming and thus making it more difficult to spread gaming as a medium.

That's really what I was was thinking. I bought Portal 2 on the PS3 so that I could play splitscreen with the wife, and it occurred to me how difficult it is to control a player character in the first person for someone new to it, before even figuring out jump, shoot, all the other buttons and combining them to complete the challenges. She also loved DA:O for its story and party banter and sheer number of dialog options that you're given, but never played a RPG with near that amount of scope, tactics, and planning (seriously, maybe Fable?). Easy mode made it possible for her to enjoy the game. Isn't that what it's all about? Having fun, enjoying yourself?

Also, I like seeing Moviebob and other regular contributors chatting it up in the forums. I'd love to see more of that. Your opinions are very welcome outside of your columns, guys : )

 

[Sniper Team 4]

My best friend has Autism and he loves playing video games like Call of Duty and Halo. Problem is, he doesn't play them 'right' (using cover, aiming down the sights, tactics) so if he tries to play them on anything higher than easy without me there to help him, he gets stomped. Easy mode allows him to play the game, still find challenge in it, and be able to beat it.

And I would have personally given up on Ninja Gaiden (Xbox) if they hadn't included the Acolyte path. In fact, I did give up on Ninja Gaiden. It wasn't until Ninja Gaiden Black that I gave the game another chance, and was able to beat it. So I like easy mode.

 

[Milanezi]

The developer's affirmation can only be substanciated in an utopic scenario where every game shares a perfect, non alienating, balance to difficulty and also, where every gamer that will play it has the same ability playing videogames. I could easily eat through Batman Arkham City in the hardest mode, however, the same cannot be said about Call of Duty: Black Ops, where I simply couldn't play it through on the hardest setting. However, I believwe, that, non-sense games put aside, most gamers CAN settle down with the difficulty given and eventually overcome the challenge but... What about TIME? Yes, time. I work most of the day, when I get to a game I certainly don't want to get stuck in a boring, repetitive, stressful gaming scenario where I might not even be learing anything gamewise, I just want to "enjoy" it, and depending on the game, that means I won't have the time to play it on hard mode or even normal and take the game "seriously", like a hardcore gamer would, but on easy mode, just to have some relaxing time, simply because it's cool to jump into the "Fallout universe" or get under the skin of a certain character etc. Disabling easy mode is ok when developers know how, when and where, to apply more or less difficulty in a game; but that seldom happens...

 

[razer17]

Yeah, exactly. If you're not a very apt gamer you shouldn't be allowed to enjoy our medium!