oh good, another "Dark souls easy mode" argument. I avoided them when they first showed up, since I had not experienced the game and felt without first hand playing it, I lacked perspective enough to argue my point. I have since had the pleasure of getting the game and loved it, though I never found it as horribly hard as people whine about. Difficult challenge, sure, but well worth the price of time and effort of playing it for the fun of learning and mastering it. Even after playing and looking though arguments here, my initial opinion has not changed much.
1st. Dark souls has an "easy" mode already. It is the standard game. This is the easiest difficulty of the game, a solid challenge that does not hold your hand, does not guide you where to go and requires you learn the game you are playing to progress. After you beat the game, you can play it again with a harder difficulty in NG+, or start new and set your own limits in gameplay.
2ndly. When people ask for an easy mode, I never understand what they mean, exactly. The very nature of the gameplay would mean that the easiness can not come from enemy tactics, world lay out, traps, death penalty or invasions. These aspects are core to the game, and to change them between difficulties would be wasteful of effort, and it would not teach players the game as they play, but rather give them a watered down experience that teaches them the game incorrectly. If the enemies are dumb, slow, and have wide openings in easy mode, you'd get stomped all over again in regular mode as they are no longer held back. Besides, the enemies are dumb, slow and give wide attacks at the start already in game, teaching you as you progress by requiring higher benchmarks of skill that way. A difficulty that scales as you play.
Now, you may make monsters hit softer or die faster while keeping it all the same elsewhere. Still teaches the game, less punishing. This creates a disparity in the online element though, which is a large portion of the game. You could create two groups, though again, I think that takes away from the game. Also, you'd get skilled players going in and butchering new players by playing easy mode and actually knowing how to play through experiences the new players would not have had to deal with. Griefing invaders exist now but can still be caught and punished. Easy mode would be like slaughtering lambs half the time, so would defeat the point of an "easy" mode when the online element is levels above your current skill.
The next line of thought would then be to limit or remove online aspects. No invasions and the like. But given how invasions play a good chunk of the current game, people will complain they are being denied access for picking the easier mode. Or, as some have put it, they are being hazed or mistreated or not letting them have it is elitest. There is a problem with this idea though. At no point is anyone denied it right now, they just have to earn it by growing in skill, same as everyone who ever played a game of any sort. You have to get better at a game to progress through it and experience more of it.
This game is designed to be slow, methodical and to teach the player to play a certain way. It forces them to be of a standard of skill, be clever enough to outplay the system through quirks or a combination of both. That this challenge is difficult and hard is why many gamers love the game. It is a mountain to climb, a challenge to overcome. The game is there, an Everest of sorts, for players to challenge and fail or pass on their own merits. At no point is anyone entitled to it's access or its full content. Like a hard nut, it may require some effort.
The game is what it is, and a large part of that is how the gameplay teaches players and requires practice and learning from mistakes. You can't brute force your way through it without patience of a saint. The idea of making it easier comes from an idea that one is entitled to partake in it. You aren't. It is a game, made by people who designed it to be hard. It is up to them to determine the level of difficulty and how easy it is to access the world. In that effect,a large point of the game is the journey though the difficulty of it. Would mario be better if it was a short, enemyless walk to the flagpole? Accessable, yes, but pointless too.
Suggestions made about having a pink ribbon or what not to mark and, lets be honest, shame those that had to use an easy mode stem from an understanding about the game in that fashion. It is a mountain in game form, taking the elevator defeats the purpose of the game for the sake of a quick look at the view. It may not affect the ones who decide to climb the mountain itself, but undermines the point of the game in the first place AS a challenge. One has to ask what the point is of playing the game in such a fashion. I wonder, could not someone draw parallels between an easy mode in a game designed for difficulty and using hacks in an mmo? Both undercut the purpose of the game and gameplay for the sake of a more instant gratification for the player in question. Both seem to also come from a notion that the experience is entitled.
People may complain about lack of easy modes and elitism and the game being exclusionary, but the bottom line is, deal with it. When the game was designed to be difficult, intentionally made that way, it was done with the care to slowly require players to get better, albeit with the odd wrench here and there to make it less predictable. Like black knights that can stomp you early on or the ability to wander where you wanted for the most part, if you could handle it. That difficulty is part of what made the game such a gem. It seems to undermine artistic integrity of the game, to undermine the very point of the game itself to go "I want to participate, but I don't want to put the effort and time everyone else did. I want it handed to me instead of earning it like others did before me."
It is not elitist to expect someone to have to practice before being able to play an instrument well, or to learn a craft. Hell, it is not elitist to expect practice to learn any game. It is just that when it comes to a game that is harder to get into, people who don't meet the required skill still want to be a part of it, understandable, but are also entitled in the idea that they should.
When people say they want an easy mode for dark souls, I always hear it as "I want to participate in this game but lack the required skill or time to do it" I understand the feeling, it is the same I have when it comes to playing an instrument. I know that I will only get so far in that sort of thing, so I have fun with what I can. Dark souls is hard with intent, though I don't think it is terribly so, or unfair. Exp loss and cash loss (which is essentially what death in dark souls is) is nothing new. Put more effort in or don't, that is the individual's choice. Requesting it be easier just seems like they feel the deserve it.