Dark Souls Softcore mode?

[Darken12]

I may be a little late to this so I'm just quoting your first comment, but I have read the thread and among all the posts here I have to say your argument interests me the most, at first I would have thought you a troll, poking people and exaggerating views to get a reaction, but your too well spoken and objective for that, I still find humor in you throwing around the title "Elitist" when your reference to psychology among other things is quite pretentious and could be viewed as quite an "Elitist" way of backing up a comment, case and point the tone I'm taking with you is much like that your using on others.

I would take offence at being compared to a troll, but I actually see your point. In my defence, I'm using concepts I feel every single person should be at least passingly familiar with. Under that reasoning, I am trying to be as un-elitist as I can by insisting we all speak in the same terms (or at least possess the same facts) and debate as equals. Having said that, I do kinda see where I might have allowed assholery to get the better of me at some points.

Your argument is quite valid, appreciation of design is free from difficulty, but I find a flaw with your views that I'd like you to expand on, I'm not challenging just questioning.

Why do elitists need to be wrong? it is a game based around the concept of being hard to beat, at least one of the endings involves creatures physically bowing to the player, it is a game based around being the best you can be at the self-contained skill, if someone enjoys that and feels that an option to ignore it is a threat to their enjoyment then who is anyone but the dev to tell them its wrong? Even in your own views the dev has no right to tell them its wrong.

Because elitism is at the very core of oppression. You cannot have oppression without elitism, and I'll be damned if I won't try my hardest to get as many people as possible to be aware of this so that the future can be filled with less ignorant people thoughtlessly oppressing others because they are nestled comfortably in their elitism. What you are saying here is basically arguing that it's okay for people not to be in charge of their own egos. By placing your own ego on the hands of a game, you are going to attack the shit out of anybody who either doubts your prowess or tries to approach the game differently. By investing your ego on the game, you are relinquishing responsibility of your own self-confidence, emotional control and self-worth. All these things are your responsibility to maintain on your own, and delegating them onto a game (especially when the entire point of the game is that it is inaccessible by design) is delegating part of what makes you a mature adult. Not only that, but as I said above, it makes it far likelier that you will attack people, since you are placing core parts of your personality onto external objects that other people also interact with. This interaction can often be seen as a threat, and by default it makes you more hostile to your fellows.

I have no problems with the devs not releasing easy mode. It's their decision and I respect it. I will, however, consider them elitist if they outright state that those who want easy mode are wrong or should be ridiculed. Especially since they aren't ordinary gamers, they are part of the industry and as such, they are subjected to higher standards of politeness. When they say something, it's not a meaningless, anonymous voice like mine or yours, it's an official statement by a section of the industry, and carries a certain degree of officialness and authority. This extra weight they possess comes with responsibility.

I am a fan of the game but have never played it, I watched let's plays, and before anyone shoots me down: I like the setting and find it entertaining to watch but didn't enjoy it to play, it didn't suit me, it wasn't the difficulty, it was the way it handled, so should there have been an "option" for me? No, because then either I'm at an advantage or disadvantage due to my differing mechanics.

You are always at an advantage or disadvantage. That's the crux of multiplayer game development, balancing the advantages and disadvantages people have when they make different mechanical options. In games like League of Legends, every champion is different and presents advantages and disadvantages. In Dark Souls itself, there are choices that give you disadvantages (that have been mentioned in this very thread, such as being human and invasions) and others that give you advantages. Similarly, games like Mass Effect add entirely new companions as DLC, and games like WoW allow players to coexist in the same world despite the fact that one of them may have bought an expansion while the other one hasn't.

My opinion on an addition of "easy" or "soft-core" is that while it would be a good addition for more relaxed players, it would be in contradiction with the mechanics of being unforgiving but consistent, besides the fact that it likely wont be changed for better or worse at this point in time, the laughable part is I have seen people complaining of it being too easy, by finding an exploit or playstyle so suited to them that they breezed through, so the games difficulty is even quite artificial, adding an easy seems redundant when experimentation is your easy option.

I will reiterate myself in affirming that an option is not change by itself. I will also repeat that I would also support the addition of a "hard mode" for people who want things to be even harder.

the thing about the 20 dollar mode is that its no longer slender man but a parody of it . It completely changes the game and how it feels even though the controls and objectives are still the same.

And? If it makes people have a good time, adds replayability and might even score more people playing it, who cares if it goes against the intended experience? It makes people have fun and nobody's forcing you to play it if you don't want to.

another thing is when do we draw the line of adding extra options to pander to as many people as possible. you said that you wouldnt have a problem with "non-scary" options for a horror game. but then is it a horror game? Why should developers have to add an option that fundamentally change a key aspect of a game when thats the type of game they are making. Why cant you or i choose games that suit our needs rather than having a game try to suit them all. if developers did that kind of pandering then all they would create vacous games that dont really have anything special about them.

I never said devs have to do anything. I repeatedly stated I don't really care if they implement it or not, I think that's their prerogative and I'm fine if they don't. They will continue missing out on sales, so if they're cool with that, I'm cool with not buying the game.

What I'm arguing against is people jumping at the throat of others out of something that is none of their business. Expressing that there is a market for something (in this case, easy mode) is not the same as demanding or expecting the devs to comply, it's simply saying "hey, we're a bunch of people who would buy your game if it had easy mode. If you want to take advantage of that, cool. If not, that's okay." What ticks me off is this completely harmless attitude being viciously attacked by people who are out to police everyone's fun because of elitism.

There is a difference between forcing and tempting. Gamers saying that they would buy a game if it had X option in it are tempting developers, not forcing them.

 

[chaos order]

I never said devs have to do anything. I repeatedly stated I don't really care if they implement it or not, I think that's their prerogative and I'm fine if they don't. They will continue missing out on sales, so if they're cool with that, I'm cool with not buying the game.

What I'm arguing against is people jumping at the throat of others out of something that is none of their business. Expressing that there is a market for something (in this case, easy mode) is not the same as demanding or expecting the devs to comply, it's simply saying "hey, we're a bunch of people who would buy your game if it had easy mode. If you want to take advantage of that, cool. If not, that's okay." What ticks me off is this completely harmless attitude being viciously attacked by people who are out to police everyone's fun because of elitism.

There is a difference between forcing and tempting. Gamers saying that they would buy a game if it had X option in it are tempting developers, not forcing them.

you make it sound like it is a bad thing that developers dont pander to as many people as possible and not make a game thats vacuous and empty. you make it sound like the developers of dark souls are losing out. they're not Dark souls did very very well. and thats because they made a game with a certain audience in mind and stayed true to that, just like how the developers of a horror game make their games in a similar way.

also whos attacking anyone? i havent really seen anyone get overly aggressive over this. Also this is a forum its not like people are throwing rocks at each other.

 

[Darken12]

you make it sound like it is a bad thing that developers dont pander to as many people as possible and not make a game thats vacuous and empty. you make it sound like the developers of dark souls are losing out. they're not Dark souls did very very well. and thats because they made a game with a certain audience in mind and stayed true to that, just like how the developers of a horror game make their games in a similar way.

also whos attacking anyone? i havent really seen anyone get overly aggressive over this. Also this is a forum its not like people are throwing rocks at each other.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing that developers don't pander, I'm saying it's a bad thing to try and shut down people who are offering a potential new venue of income to developers (and also, I don't believe that including more options makes a game vacuous, bland and boring, I think it's laziness and a lack of passion for one's work, plus executive meddling and design by committee that makes games vacuous, bland and boring). If the developers don't do something that is liable to get them more revenue, then they are losing out, that's just straight up facts. That doesn't mean that developers should do those things or that there's something inherently wrong with missing out on revenue. If the developers are fine with that and accept the consequences of their decisions, I will have no problem with that and I will fully respect their decisions. In fact, I think that there is an upside to the developers not releasing an easy mode, and it's that at the very least it sends a positive message to the industry that it's okay not to sell out for cash. Basically, provided the developers aren't dicks about it, the situation is win-win for those who wish to see the ethics of the industry improving, as they either vouch for more inclusion and tolerance, or stand against corporate greed.

Nobody's here is shouting obscenities, true, but the overall tone of the anti-easy-mode people has varied from merely dismissive and patronising to outright scornful. "Attack" might be a strong word, I agree, but it gets my point across. The intent isn't to debate, discuss or get to know the other side, but to shut down the conversation.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Dark souls No easy mode the whole point of it is to be on the edge of your seat alert becuase one small mistake is all it takes to fuck your shit up and that's why people love it there is no hand holding its right into the deep end hope you can swim buddy that being side a nice long intro teaching you stuff would make the learning curve less and still mantain what dark souls is about

Aye,

If I'm not mistaken, the friendly folks from From already announced something along those lines - a proper introduction. OK, I could easily nag and whine about this, because it's bound to get old really soon when doing multiple differently specced characters or going for NG+++++++ - think how terrible, say, the baby steps childhood intro scenes played out in Fallout 3 - but I want to trust From Software and I expect them to just pull it off.

Everything else you said - I wholeheartedly agree.

Like some folks already mentioned in the current three or so Dark Souls threads, and some more folks (including me) stated, it's easy to stumble over to the graveyard area and get pummeled and killed again and again by those nasty skeletons. I 'got it' that, probably, I am not supposed to go there yet. I found a hidden area and... landed on top of those pesky skeletons again. Ah, does it not feel good when you find out there's actually multiple paths, beside that graveyard area inhabited by evil skeletons? There's stairs leading up... and there's stairs leading down; Eureka.

YES, it's easy to not 'get it' at the very beginning, it's also easy to not quite 'get it' much later in the game. I know of people, that went through episodes of horrible emotional turmoil because they did extremely insane things, like going back to the asylum to kill the Asylum Demon, with the starting weapon, no upgrades and maybe just a slightly better shield. I've seen grown men cry after finishing a boss for the first time, and I know myself how good it feels to not just feel, but be in control in a game like Dark Souls. Once you figure things out, you can focus on style, see enemies from afar and wonder what's to come. You can enjoy the landscape, the artful ways of how they play with architecture, light and shadow, and player expectations.

Yes, the first playthrough of Dark Souls has got to be an edge-of-the-seat experience. I got lazy or distracted only a fistful of times, and bad things happened every single time. Put down the controller to do something when facing friendly folks might make you attack them, which pisses them off and makes them attack and swear like there's no tomorrow. Pressing the wrong button due to a brain fart when looking at anything you don't want killed or pissed off is a bad thing. Especially when having poison daggers equipped. Yeah, poison kills people. And rats will go gnaw on their remains. You'll feel bad for the rest of the playthrough. I didn't get that anywhere else, not even in Skyrim.

I LOVE DARK SOULS.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

you make it sound like it is a bad thing that developers dont pander to as many people as possible and not make a game thats vacuous and empty.

You need to stop making this argument. It's a false dilemma and it's giving me a headache.

 

[chaos order]

you make it sound like it is a bad thing that developers dont pander to as many people as possible and not make a game thats vacuous and empty.

You need to stop making this argument. It's a false dilemma and it's giving me a headache.

well im sorry?

anyways what i was trying to point out was that having many "options" in a game like an easy mode isnt always the best thing for a game. yes i guess i was being somewhat dramatic by saying that having options in games will make games vacuous and empty and that no other middle ground exists for anything. I just dont see how a middle ground can be reached with dark souls and an easy mode.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I just don't see how a middle ground can be reached with dark souls and an easy mode.

It's certainly more problematic with Dark Souls than most of its contemporaries, but I'd hardly say it was impossible.

 

[chaos order]

I just don't see how a middle ground can be reached with dark souls and an easy mode.

It's certainly more problematic with Dark Souls than most of its contemporaries, but I'd hardly say it was impossible.

Exactly. its would be difficult to add an easy mode. the thing is i think that not having an easy mode option is such a small concern, because the game was designed to be difficult, that its a non issue and shouldnt really be on the top list of things that the devs should work on.

 

[runic knight]

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.

 

[Confidingtripod]

I would take offence at being compared to a troll, but I actually see your point. In my defence, I'm using concepts I feel every single person should be at least passingly familiar with. Under that reasoning, I am trying to be as un-elitist as I can by insisting we all speak in the same terms (or at least possess the same facts) and debate as equals. Having said that, I do kinda see where I might have allowed assholery to get the better of me at some points.

I was saying at first, no offence intended, just making an observation on how the situation unfolded.

Because elitism is at the very core of oppression. You cannot have oppression without elitism, and I'll be damned if I won't try my hardest to get as many people as possible to be aware of this so that the future can be filled with less ignorant people thoughtlessly oppressing others because they are nestled comfortably in their elitism. What you are saying here is basically arguing that it's okay for people not to be in charge of their own egos. By placing your own ego on the hands of a game, you are going to attack the shit out of anybody who either doubts your prowess or tries to approach the game differently. By investing your ego on the game, you are relinquishing responsibility of your own self-confidence, emotional control and self-worth. All these things are your responsibility to maintain on your own, and delegating them onto a game (especially when the entire point of the game is that it is inaccessible by design) is delegating part of what makes you a mature adult. Not only that, but as I said above, it makes it far likelier that you will attack people, since you are placing core parts of your personality onto external objects that other people also interact with. This interaction can often be seen as a threat, and by default it makes you more hostile to your fellows.

but what about the people who arent delegating their emotions to the game, hard games are designed to give the player a sense of satisfaction, I'll bring up "Xcom: Enemy unkown", there is an easy difficulty in that game but many people who use it find the game boring because its like loading dice, but many people fear the introduction of an easy difficulty will follow trends and cause the entire series to be geared towards "broad appeal" while ceasing to be one of the few games based around the satisfaction of victory.

I have no problems with the devs not releasing easy mode. It's their decision and I respect it. I will, however, consider them elitist if they outright state that those who want easy mode are wrong or should be ridiculed. Especially since they aren't ordinary gamers, they are part of the industry and as such, they are subjected to higher standards of politeness. When they say something, it's not a meaningless, anonymous voice like mine or yours, it's an official statement by a section of the industry, and carries a certain degree of officialness and authority. This extra weight they possess comes with responsibility.

I agree with you there, the people making games are larger representatives than many seem to acknowledge.

You are always at an advantage or disadvantage. That's the crux of multiplayer game development, balancing the advantages and disadvantages people have when they make different mechanical options. In games like League of Legends, every champion is different and presents advantages and disadvantages. In Dark Souls itself, there are choices that give you disadvantages (that have been mentioned in this very thread, such as being human and invasions) and others that give you advantages. Similarly, games like Mass Effect add entirely new companions as DLC, and games like WoW allow players to coexist in the same world despite the fact that one of them may have bought an expansion while the other one hasn't.

thing is you say in these games the mechanics allow for a change in challenge but I think what people fear is that, I'm getting ahead of myself... in LoL each champion is differing playstyles and some are straight up more difficult to use than others to account for skill, but imagine if there was a semi-story based LoL where if you played on lower difficulty all of the AI elements were easyer but players remained the same, it would turn out like that in dark-souls, people who play on lower difficulty fighting players used to having more nuance in the combat would still be put off while the more experienced player's game just got easyer from an influx of easy pickings, so its really calling on a whole host of other problems.

I will reiterate myself in affirming that an option is not change by itself. I will also repeat that I would also support the addition of a "hard mode" for people who want things to be even harder.

No argument with the option to make things harder, and as a little food for thought: one of the reasons people like the difficulty, as well as those who are elitist but those who arent aswell, is that after trends with the casual gaming explosion they fear that a change to broaden appeal will snowball, just as it did with many other games, to list off a title: "Mass effect (1)" was in my opinion the best in the series because as an attempt to broaden appeal they made the sequels more action oriented and a shallower experience, theres alot of people who fear that if a game is made easyer, even as an option, then the series will start being embedded in a market that is very difficult to escape.

 

[BlackFlyme]

If anything, I think the game revolves around the pvp, not the difficulty.

wrong, the game revolves around what ever the player focuses on more.

I should have clarified a bit more, I meant that I believe there is more emphasis on the multi-player than there is on the game's actual difficulty, what with most of the covenants being highly involved in it in one way or another.

I know that people can play the game without ever playing online once, and can even advance covenant ranks offline, with the exception of the forest hunters, the Way of White, and the Princess Guard, but that is because the latter two don't even have ranks you can advance in.

It is possible to gather covenant items such as souvenirs of reprisal by farming crow demons, dragon scales by farming drakes, and eyes of death by farming basilisk frogs, but the drop rate is rather low. Though a patch did increase the rate, it still took me 2 hours to get only 3 reprisals.

Most of the difficulty that I've seen and experienced has been with self-imposed challenges, and had little difficulty beating the game the first few times, with some exceptions. Most notable among them being the poorly thought out 'Bed of Chaos' puzzle boss and those dick knights in Anor Londo.

Spoiler

I just loaded up with poison arrows and fired from behind a wall where I wouldn't get sent flying when they fired at me.

The indie horror game Slender came with a Daylight mode. It kept the game the same, but turned the night into day. This was assumed to make the game less scary, but for a lot of people, it surprisingly didn't.

I guess that the old-fashioned jump scare is still more effective than we give credit for. Either that or the fact that the players had limited time to finish the game and were being chased made them overly tense. I can't really think of many other reasons to still be scared.

Anyways, I don't care about this whole thing anymore, there are plenty of ways to keep 'dem casuals' out so that the hard-core can say 'the real Demon's Dark Souls begins here!', like through locking easy mode out of achievements or multi-player, like how most other games do it.

They've changed directors for the next game, so it may really go in any direction, despite the Souls series and it's predecessor King's Field's reputation for being difficult games.

Also, a no horror option for horror games? I think F3AR had that, I believe they called it 'co-op'.

 

[Innegativeion]

You're being that condescending... why? And you do realize that doesn't help locating the places where you can summon npc intervention, or encounter the black phantoms. Sounds like you are the one stuck in a corner.

If you find my pointing out the that THE VERY ITEM for use in the VERY FUNCTION you believe players would be confused about gives an explicit explanation of how the human/hollow mechanic affects it makes me condescending, and that you believe a frikken' ITEM DESCRIPTION is a poor medium for DESCRIBING AN ITEM well then... where do I even go from there?

---------------------------------

You seemed to have changed your post in the time I wrote this, so I will change my response;

Have you ever noticed that nearly everything of any use in Dark Souls is hidden or off the beaten path? Weapons, armors, merchants, lost souls, humanity, firekeeper souls, optional bosses, rings, covenants, entire areas.

The idea is that nothing is handed to you. You must risk dangers of some kind to reap benefits. Darkwraith NPCs and White/Sun phantom NPCs are bonuses like the aforementioned as well. They provided a benefit totally unnecessary to completing the game, that you only get if you risk invaders by donning human form.

Complaining that the game doesn't point out these summons is like complaining that blocks containing 1UP mushrooms in Mario aren't clearly marked...

 

[Colt47]

You're being that condescending... why? And you do realize that doesn't help locating the places where you can summon npc intervention, or encounter the black phantoms. Sounds like you are the one stuck in a corner.

If you find my pointing out the that THE VERY ITEM for use in the VERY FUNCTION you believe players would be confused about gives an explicit explanation of how the human/hollow mechanic affects it makes me condescending, and that you believe a frikken' ITEM DESCRIPTION is a poor medium for DESCRIBING AN ITEM well then... where do I even go from there?

---------------------------------

You seemed to have changed your post in the time I wrote this, so I will change my response;

Have you ever noticed that nearly everything of any use in Dark Souls is hidden or off the beaten path? Weapons, armors, merchants, lost souls, humanity, firekeeper souls, optional bosses, rings, covenants, entire areas.

The idea is that nothing is handed to you. You must risk dangers of some kind to reap benefits. Darkwraith NPCs and White/Sun phantom NPCs are bonuses like the aforementioned as well. They provided a benefit totally unnecessary to completing the game, that you only get if you risk invaders by donning human form.

Complaining that the game doesn't point out these summons is like complaining that blocks containing 1UP mushrooms in Mario aren't clearly marked...

Oh I'm not complaining about the fact they aren't marked. I'm just rebuking the idea that their is a solution that fulfills the criteria of the opening argument in your actual statements. But then again, you don't seem interested in that anyway.

 

[Darken12]

but what about the people who arent delegating their emotions to the game, hard games are designed to give the player a sense of satisfaction, I'll bring up "Xcom: Enemy unkown", there is an easy difficulty in that game but many people who use it find the game boring because its like loading dice, but many people fear the introduction of an easy difficulty will follow trends and cause the entire series to be geared towards "broad appeal" while ceasing to be one of the few games based around the satisfaction of victory.

The problem here is that you are saying "what about people who aren't delegating their emotions to the game" and then you immediately argue that this or that game is designed to give the player an emotional experience. That's the entire point of delegating your emotions onto a game. If you merely enjoy hard games, you won't have a problem with easy mode because it doesn't touch you personally at all. If you have a personal investment on a game because you are using it as a crutch to feel better about yourself, then you will obviously attack any attempt to touch the game at all. That's the dangers of getting too emotionally attached to things, games included, and using them as pillars to prop up parts of your personality.

thing is you say in these games the mechanics allow for a change in challenge but I think what people fear is that, I'm getting ahead of myself... in LoL each champion is differing playstyles and some are straight up more difficult to use than others to account for skill, but imagine if there was a semi-story based LoL where if you played on lower difficulty all of the AI elements were easyer but players remained the same, it would turn out like that in dark-souls, people who play on lower difficulty fighting players used to having more nuance in the combat would still be put off while the more experienced player's game just got easyer from an influx of easy pickings, so its really calling on a whole host of other problems.

I don't see that, sorry. I think that's all baseless speculation, since, as I've said repeatedly before, armchair programming is a tangent that gets us nowhere (because none of us here are programmers working on Dark Souls) and distracts from the main point. If easy mode can be safely implemented, then all your concerns will be assuaged. If it can't be safely implemented, then I'm pretty sure it won't. I highly doubt that the devs who take so much pride in their game are going to implement something haphazard. We've been spoiled by EA, Activision, Ubisoft and the like, but not all game developers are lazy and desperate for money.

No argument with the option to make things harder, and as a little food for thought: one of the reasons people like the difficulty, as well as those who are elitist but those who arent aswell, is that after trends with the casual gaming explosion they fear that a change to broaden appeal will snowball, just as it did with many other games, to list off a title: "Mass effect (1)" was in my opinion the best in the series because as an attempt to broaden appeal they made the sequels more action oriented and a shallower experience, theres alot of people who fear that if a game is made easyer, even as an option, then the series will start being embedded in a market that is very difficult to escape.

See, I have a very strong problem with the casual gamer hate. I consider myself a casual gamer, if only because the "hardcore" gamer demographic makes me quite angry at times. I have heard the old "broader audiences make the experience shallower" argument over and over, to the point where I'm pretty sure it's one of those things people repeat without actually thinking about what they're saying.

Games aren't shallowed because they're aimed at more people. Games are shallower because companies are greedy, lazy and scared of losing money. Their inclusion isn't done out of ethics, it's done out of the pressure of making as much money as possible, and the difference between them is clear as day: when inclusion is done out of ethics, great care is taken to make sure the game is the highest possible quality, to ensure that all the demographics that are intended to be included have the best experiences the developers can offer. When inclusion is done out of greed, corners are cut, quality is minimal, employers are exploited and costumers are taken advantage of.

If we want our games to escape corporate greed, we need to band together and tell the companies that we don't agree with what they're doing. Turning against each other and sacrificing parts of the community to appease the developer-gods ("Oh please, don't sell out to corporate greed! Look at how we are fervently opposing the filthy casuals! It's US you want, not them!") not only does it end up harming the gamer community as a whole, but it also doesn't really deter corporate greed, as they can easily just take your loyalty for granted and lower future games' quality while convincing you that they're giving you something nobody else can.

I guess that the old-fashioned jump scare is still more effective than we give credit for. Either that or the fact that the players had limited time to finish the game and were being chased made them overly tense. I can't really think of many other reasons to still be scared.

According to the people who played Daylight mode, many thought that Nighttime mode was cliched and automatically distanced them from the game, making the experience less scary. Daylight mode, to them, felt more real (because not a lot of horror takes place under daylight) and therefore more immersive.

 

[Confidingtripod]

I don't see that, sorry. I think that's all baseless speculation, since, as I've said repeatedly before, armchair programming is a tangent that gets us nowhere (because none of us here are programmers working on Dark Souls) and distracts from the main point. If easy mode can be safely implemented, then all your concerns will be assuaged. If it can't be safely implemented, then I'm pretty sure it won't. I highly doubt that the devs who take so much pride in their game are going to implement something haphazard. We've been spoiled by EA, Activision, Ubisoft and the like, but not all game developers are lazy and desperate for money.

It isnt baseless speculation, it is the literal balancing of multiple difficulty without separating the player base, but agreed, getting into it will just derail into techno babble and an argument of two possibilities with no grounding for either.

No argument with the option to make things harder, and as a little food for thought: one of the reasons people like the difficulty, as well as those who are elitist but those who arent aswell, is that after trends with the casual gaming explosion they fear that a change to broaden appeal will snowball, just as it did with many other games, to list off a title: "Mass effect (1)" was in my opinion the best in the series because as an attempt to broaden appeal they made the sequels more action oriented and a shallower experience, theres alot of people who fear that if a game is made easyer, even as an option, then the series will start being embedded in a market that is very difficult to escape.

See, I have a very strong problem with the casual gamer hate. I consider myself a casual gamer, if only because the "hardcore" gamer demographic makes me quite angry at times. I have heard the old "broader audiences make the experience shallower" argument over and over, to the point where I'm pretty sure it's one of those things people repeat without actually thinking about what they're saying.

Games aren't shallowed because they're aimed at more people. Games are shallower because companies are greedy, lazy and scared of losing money. Their inclusion isn't done out of ethics, it's done out of the pressure of making as much money as possible, and the difference between them is clear as day: when inclusion is done out of ethics, great care is taken to make sure the game is the highest possible quality, to ensure that all the demographics that are intended to be included have the best experiences the developers can offer. When inclusion is done out of greed, corners are cut, quality is minimal, employers are exploited and costumers are taken advantage of.

If we want our games to escape corporate greed, we need to band together and tell the companies that we don't agree with what they're doing. Turning against each other and sacrificing parts of the community to appease the developer-gods ("Oh please, don't sell out to corporate greed! Look at how we are fervently opposing the filthy casuals! It's US you want, not them!") not only does it end up harming the gamer community as a whole, but it also doesn't really deter corporate greed, as they can easily just take your loyalty for granted and lower future games' quality while convincing you that they're giving you something nobody else can.

Your after jumping to a conclusion, I dont hate casual gamers, if anything I'm in support of the concept, its the idea that some games are better introductions to a genre/gaming as a whole than others, if I was to suggest a fantasy RPG to someone that never played one I'd say Skyrim for its mallibility and the clarity of its action=consequence build.

The statement I made was not a dig at casuals but rather at the state the fanbase of gaming is in due to devs not giving a second glance, the fact is that they arent "our" games, we are not in immediate control over their development, the reality is that games that provide a sense of achievment through challenge rather than purely a power fantasy took a hit, and so there is a paranoia that the slightest, inconsequential, change will be the tip of the iceberg, and lets face facts, its fans of something on the internet, someone mildly disgruntled can scream from the rooftops without realising it because its easy to do.

 

[Darken12]

It isnt baseless speculation, it is the literal balancing of multiple difficulty without separating the player base, but agreed, getting into it will just derail into techno babble and an argument of two possibilities with no grounding for either.

That was my point, yes, that the argument would be the equivalent of debating if a unicorn could beat a pegasus or not. It'd be pure speculation because we don't have any "behind the scenes" facts from the people who know the code behind DS.

Your after jumping to a conclusion, I dont hate casual gamers, if anything I'm in support of the concept, its the idea that some games are better introductions to a genre/gaming as a whole than others, if I was to suggest a fantasy RPG to someone that never played one I'd say Skyrim for its mallibility and the clarity of its action=consequence build.

The statement I made was not a dig at casuals but rather at the state the fanbase of gaming is in due to devs not giving a second glance, the fact is that they arent "our" games, we are not in immediate control over their development, the reality is that games that provide a sense of achievment through challenge rather than purely a power fantasy took a hit, and so there is a paranoia that the slightest, inconsequential, change will be the tip of the iceberg, and lets face facts, its fans of something on the internet, someone mildly disgruntled can scream from the rooftops without realising it because its easy to do.

I do see your point, and I agree that we can't trust companies because they have the ethics of the Primordial Evil. So I do acknowledge the fear that suggesting or tempting change (any change) will ruin your games. I do understand that. However, ethically speaking, we can't allow our fears to turn us into assholes. Even if a game changes and your experience is ruined (which isn't a guarantee in any way, it could still turn out to be just the same) for the betterment of others, then you did a good thing at a great personal cost, but it's not the end of the world. On the contrary, use this as a stepping stone for another project, such adding a Dante Must Cry mode to the new DmC, which I heard was quite easy. As you would be living proof that gamers can have games they like "ruined" for the sake of inclusion, you have a right to demand the same, turning games that you wouldn't enjoy that much into an experience that rivalled the one you had with DS before it was "ruined". And all of this, of course, assumes the worst (and least likely) case scenario. The worst thing that could happen still gives you the right to have other games added more options for your pleasure. And in better scenarios, you get those same benefits without Dark Souls being ruined at all.

 

[Little Gray]

There is a distinction between difficulty and user friendliness. A game can be hard as balls but extremely user friendly, like veteran mode on call of duty for example, instantaneous death, but equally instantaneous respawn with constant checkpoints and no penalties whatsoever, wanting one kind doesn't mean you need to sacrifice the other.

And for the record yes, I would have bought and played dark souls if it wasn't for you losing all your shit whenever you died.

You dont lose all your shit when you die. You can potentially lose your souls and humanity if die before you make it back to your corpse but they throw so much at you its meaningless.

 

[Hisshiss]

There is a distinction between difficulty and user friendliness. A game can be hard as balls but extremely user friendly, like veteran mode on call of duty for example, instantaneous death, but equally instantaneous respawn with constant checkpoints and no penalties whatsoever, wanting one kind doesn't mean you need to sacrifice the other.

And for the record yes, I would have bought and played dark souls if it wasn't for you losing all your shit whenever you died.

You dont lose all your shit when you die. You can potentially lose your souls and humanity if die before you make it back to your corpse but they throw so much at you its meaningless.

You lose every soul you had on you that wasn't already allocated to a stat, which can often be quite alot, and any is too much, I don't like all my grinding getting thrown away because a random skeleton invoked the rage of his ancestors and chain combo'd me into a bloody pulp.

 

[Innegativeion]

Oh I'm not complaining about the fact they aren't marked.

Don't know why you would bring it up then...

I'm just rebuking the idea that their is a solution that fulfills the criteria of the opening argument in your actual statements. But then again, you don't seem interested in that anyway.

I never claimed to be arguing against your "softcore" solution, given that until I read the terrarria wiki just now, I had no idea what it meant.

Your grievances with invading players and accessibility for the summon mechanic, however, are absurd.