It seems to me that the escapist really needs to have a thread to talk about why an easy mode would be good or bad from their perspective. One with rules and a moderator because there are a lot of logical fallacies in some of these arguments (on both sides but most on the pro easy mode side).
Ive done this dance before so Im going to just repeat what I said in the previous thread. I am a Dark souls purist. My hope and desire is that everyone play the game how I experienced it, to overcome the challenges, and to stand with me next to the rest of the Dark souls community so they can say, with pride, that "I beat Dark souls". That is my wish
I am not, nor will I ever be the kind of person that says someone shouldnt play a game but I will make observations that perhaps a game isnt for them just as racing games arent for me. My Dark souls resume consists of more games and characters then I can count, and I am an avid PVPer who participates in weekend fight clubs every couple of weeks. Even though I play PVP matches a lot I like to build heavy and my favorite character wears the full black iron set with a flaming greatsword
So here as how I see it. I approach this discussion from the outlook of games are art. The original design of the game, as spoken by the development team, is "to create a sense of accomplishment and discovery through the games difficulty." Its already been said that the development teams intentions are unimportant but I whole heartedly disagree. This is a game and games are art. Each piece of art I have ever looked at, watched, read, played, has intentions. Sometimes these are social commentaries, sometimes theyre idealogical outlooks, sometimes its emotional portrayal. The different kinds of intentions that someone can put into a piece of art is as widely varied as people themselves. You can clearly see that the difficulty as well as the cryptic method of storytelling is an artistic method to accomplish the games design goals
Now I believe it is fair to critique art. However unless someone has been promised something I feel that expecting change to piece of art is wrong. In fact I would go so far as to call it hubris.
That said, lets take a look at what the back of the box says and see what consumers were promised. This comes from my Xbox 360 copy with the spanish text and legal xbox info cut out
From the makers of Demon's souls
Prepare to die.
Tense dungeon crawling, Fearsome enemy encounters, Groundbreaking online features
incredible challenge provides an absolute foundation of achievement and reward
Explore a massive seemless world
Overcome terrifying enemies & reclaim your soul
No where in that do I see a promise of completing the game. No where in that do I see a promise that you will love the game. No where in that do I see the promise of difficulty levels (even though theyre already in the game they just arent a menu option). In fact I see a promise that says "incredible challenge".
Just to put the nail in the coffin, lets define incredible. Taken from dictionary.reference.com
in·cred·i·ble
   [in-kred-uh-buhl] Show IPA
adjective
1.so extraordinary as to seem impossible: incredible speed.
2.not credible; hard to believe; unbelievable: The plot of the book is incredible.
So when you pick this game up and read the back (which you should always do if you didnt then frankly I dont know what to say) you know that there will be a challenge level that may seem impossible to overcome. For a lot of new players, and for me, this seems true. Thats why many people fail at the game (failure defined as putting the game down and never picking it up again). As you can see the great difficulty of dark souls is promised to you on the box and it is one of the critical artistic methods used by the developer to create a sense of accomplishment and discovery
So that goes back to my earlier question. Is it right for gamers to ask a developer to change their artistic vision? Very few people will answer the question but my answer is no. I whole heartedly believe that artistic method is sacrosanct. Some people may disagree though I doubt they will really be able to tell me why. Now from my point of view gamers who are approaching this easy mode debate are viewing Dark souls as a product, not a piece of art. I believe this is because they arent used to the idea of games being legally and socially regarded as an artistic medium but it doesnt change the fact that Dark Souls is a work of art and the artistic methods used in the game run counter to how people view what a product should be. Its going to take several years for gamers to evolve past this paradox but I think, given time, we will view games more as art and less as products
That all aside, lets talk about the easy mode and what it means for the stated goal of the game and how it turns counter to the difficulty as artistic method. To me, an easy mode is designed as a mode thats purpose is so anyone can complete the game. This is how an easy mode has been defined since the early days of the NES which is where most aging gamers began (including me). That said the difficulty is there to inspier a sense of accomplishment and discovery. When something is hard and you eventually overcome it and experience the rewards theres a "Holy crap I did it!" moment for a lot of people. Rewards can be a lot of different things but in dark souls it could be a new weapon that looks cool and/or has a great move set, a new set of armor thats amazing and look awesome, lore about the setting and characters, or just secrets which by their definition are inaccesible. Now go back to how I defined an easy mode earlier, how its designed so anyone can complete it. Without that chance of failure there can be no sense of accomplishment in return. Its a yin/yang kind of idea where one can not exist without the other. Dark souls must have unforgiving difficulty if it is to have a genuine sense of accomplishment and discovery (the stated goals of the game)
So now that Ive made my artistic side argument lets talk about some fallacies
1. Not wanting an easy mode just makes you an elitist prick: Incorrect. An elistist prick would tell you suck it up like one of the pro easy mode people told us to do. Not only is this a fallacy because its a personal attack (something the mods should really be curtailing) but its unintelligent and close minded. Unintellgient because it fails to properly explain why an easy mode should be included and close minded because it fails to take into account the feelings of the three sides of the debate.
I want to include everyone that wants to overcome the challenge of the game in our community. I want to help people overcome the challenges, thats why my most played character is a Sun bro whos covenant is designed around jolly cooperation. Purists like me want you to play the game how we played it, to love the game how we love it, and to stand with us.
2. An easy mode wont effect your game what so ever.: Again incorrect. There is no way to put an easy mode only into some players games. The optional patches argument could be made but that fails to take into the account that lessening difficulty means lessening the sense of accomplishment across the board. Let me make a wow comparison here. There was this hunter only set and the bow was called Rhok da lar (or something like that). A person had to solo several elite demons to get the set and it was a real accomplishment to get it. Having it meant you were a good player, not just competant. However as more people got that weapon it lessened the special significance it had. Its the same with dark souls, Im one of three people I know of that PVP in full or nearly full black iron gear but if more and more people get that gear and use it in PVP then my look and play style become less significant. This is only one example of how it will effect my game
An easy mode does effect our game even if its not in our game. Its just the effects are far more subtle
3. You shouldnt care and you're just being selfish if you do! False and True. False because Im a fan, I feel very strongly about the game I love. Just how I love my family, my home, my dog, going hunting, and playing games. I care about the things I love, just as I would expect every human being to.
I know I said this was about fallacies but I think these deserves a special mention. Now its true that not wanting an easy mode is selfish. However as I see it, Human achievement is relative to what everyone else in the species can and can not do. You can call me selfish and Ill agree with that but dont come to me on a high horse trying to effect my experience. You are being just as selfish as I am, in fact more so since I came to dark souls and now youre trying to chance my experience
4. By including an easy mode and making the game more accessible Fromsoft will make more money.: Doubtful. What you're talking about here is targeting people outside your core audience. Over the years Ive seen many franchises reinvent themselves to target larger audiences. This has always had 3 outcomes. 1. The core audience it was targeting becomes disatisfied and leaves. 2. The reinvention never really targets new people, giving a mediocre experience to them and translates into less sales. 3. The franchises are quickly forgotten or slowly die out.
I understand why you would come to that conclusion, on paper it makes sense but a lot of things make sense of paper and dont work out in real life. If you think that fromsoft can reinvent dark souls as an easy and accessible game and make more money then you obviously do not know the history of video games. There has been no franchise in history that has successfully done this yet. Im not saying it cant happen but I am saying that it flies in the face of video game history
How do you do this?)Dunno I walked like a wuss with my shield up and read everything I could. Even if we made bosses and such do less damage, if the player cannot grasp the pattern or "trick" to the enemy(Balder parry/Stone soldier TWOP/BLIGHTTOWN(rofl)),they would still die.
