Dark Souls Softcore mode?

[Project_Xii]

So what you are implying is that I shouldn't be backing up my saves and instead should disconnect from the network every time I play until I unlock the arena, then reconnect. That doesn't sound much better than what I'm already doing. And arguably playing offline is also not playing dark souls as intended.

Neither is backing up your save files, thereby negating any or all risk. That's like playing Hardcore Diablo 2, except making a character back up so when you perma-die, you just reload from the last save and try again ie: completely negating what Hardcore mode is all about.

If you're going to wuss out and back up your saves every time something doesn't go your way, you're not playing the game "as intended" anyway, so why not just go the whole hog and turn off the internet connection? Your OP and subsequent replies pretty much just screams "I want Minecrafts 'Peaceful' mode in Dark Souls so that I can sit and grind for the ultimate gear, completely free of risk and challenge".

Yeah. No. There are other games for that style of play.

All that argument aside, I couldn't care less if they added a "softcore" mode... but there should be penalties for it. Perhaps only half the gear, half the bosses, and a joke end boss that's like a kitten with a mallet. That would drive people to try and play the game proper pretty quick, I'm sure.

 

[Darken12]

well... again i would like to state that the game does have actions or options in it that allow you to make the game easier,ie summoning other players/Npcs to beat bosses, not becoming human. Actually just today i helped someone beat the gaping dragon boss. and again i still dont see how they can balance the easy mode and the online aspects of the game that is persistent as they play. also you are entitled to an opinion, nothing wrong with that, but not having any real understanding or "feel" of the game other than "its hard" makes it an ill informed one

I am not saying that the game, as it is right now, cannot be made easier or harder by the choices you make. That is a truism that applies to practically every videogame there is. The point is that "a different way of playing the game" as an option has no downsides, and I would equally support a "Nightmare mode" that made Dark Souls even harder (which I'm sure pretty much nobody would have a problem with, since it would let the elite rise above their current station to belong to an even smaller elite). Saying "just play it like the rest of us do" strikes me as an appeal to conformism by way of "don't rock the boat."

As for "ill informed", I think we all established already that the game's selling point isn't its story, worldbuilding or design choices, but the difficulty and lack of hand-holding.

I don't care what you do with your video game disc. You can put your disc inside a sega CD and use it as a medieval flail if you wish. That doesn't have anything to do with this argument. What you're asking isn't that people let you enjoy your game the way you want it, what you're asking is that the devs change the game for you because you don't feel like playing it. The first one involves you changing the game by yourself as you see fit. If you want to buy the PC version and mod it to give yourself god mode, go ahead. No one will care. That's your time and you're modding your own game. Asking the devs to change EVERYONE's game isn't doing whatever you want with your game. It's trying to force what you want in the game to everyone else.

See, that's the problem. I keep repeating myself over and over and it's like people are wilfully misunderstanding the argument. The game is not being changed. An option, by definition, cannot change a game because it's not mandatory. If you choose to implement it, then sure, it changes the game, but if you don't, then it cannot change your game. Having an option in the same disc doesn't change the game. Otherwise developers should never release things like optional costumes, extra levels, additional characters, bonus missions and so on, because the addition of something optional is somehow a sacrilege that irrevocably changes the original game you purchased. That idea, to me, is ludicrous.

Nobody's asking the devs to do anything for free. They are going to get money in exchange. That's how the entertainment industry works, I want something, someone makes it for me, and then I give them money for it. Nobody is asking you to buy for it if it comes out as DLC, and nobody's asking you to play it if it comes bundled with the game upon purchase.

And lastly, nobody's forcing you to do anything. This. Is. Optional. On the contrary, by trying to prevent this from happening, you are forcing everyone to play the game your way or not play at all. Adding more options means that if you don't like an option, you can still play the game by choosing something else.

Also where is this elitism you're talking about? I often see more people whining about how people are elitist more than i see actual elitism. No one is screaming from a high horse about how much better they are than other people because they beat Dark Souls. I've already talked about how it makes the game feel different, but there's another factor. Developer time and money isn't infinite. You said you haven't played dark souls so you probably have no idea how the online feature works, but it will probably be a nightmare to build an easy mode for it. The only way to make a cheap easy mode would be to disable online and just fudge the numbers towards the easy side, but that still costs developers money to code everything and get the patches up and running. In the end you have a bad version of the game that wasted development time and possibly alienated a good number of core fans.

Elitism isn't overtly telling someone you are better than them. Elitism manifests pretty much in this exact way, by aggressively resisting something that affects you in no way whatsoever, and in some of the posts I've seen here who encouraged humiliation on people who chose easy mode, or by disparaging the people who want the idea as unskilled, impatient, not-a-true-gamer, and any other negative adjective.

As I also said before, Dark Souls isn't the first online multiplayer game who had to find a way to balance easy and hard experiences. I'm not going to debate how it could be done because none of us here are programmers (or, at least, none of us here are programmers in charge of Dark Souls) and armchair programming will be nothing but useless speculation that will have no bearing on the actual point.

And finally, no adding more options to a game to broaden accessibility is not always a good thing. Like i said, developer time and money is not infinite. The more you devote to one part of the game, the weaker other parts will be. Accessibility also means that things will have to be easier which often means they're shallower too. I have no idea what any of this has to do with the gamer community opening up to others, but i highly disagree with the idea that every game needs to try and appeal to everyone. Those games tend to have very little focus and often turn out very bland.

If the options you are adding result in an increase in sales, the options are paying for themselves. No part of the budget is being wasted on the options if the options end up generating a sufficiently large amount of revenue by increasing sales. Furthermore, options are generally sold separately from the game, as DLC, and that implies a game that has already been finished and whose budget has already been spent completely on the game the creators had originally in mind. The DLC is either born from leftovers that got cut from the game or as new projects with their own budget if sufficient demand has been deemed to exist.

For your reading pleasure:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.396883.16191895
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.397443.16223812

Now I suggest letting this topic die before it devolves into another flame war.

For someone who is so quick to dismiss the elitism argument, those are some hilariously elitist posts. I particularly like the "Not all games are meant for all people" bit and the appeal to "oldschool" mentality (when oldschool mentality is basically right-wing conservative traditionalism for gamers). I don't see anything in those posts I haven't already addressed. I'm not going to distract from the subject by engaging in armchair programming, and I've already reiterated myself over and over on the topics of elitism and how options don't detract from the original product at all.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

For your reading pleasure:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.396883.16191895
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.397443.16223812

Now I suggest letting this topic die before it devolves into another flame war.

Old, easily debunked arguments do not result in "reading pleasure".

Want to add easy mode to Dark Souls?

You don't need to lower enemy HP. As you say, they already die fast. You can, however, multiply player character HP, armor, and resistances. As you're aware, being a Souls player, a goodly amount of the difficulty comes from more than just pattern recognition, it comes from low margin for error. Just as 2-3 blows will dispatch an enemy, 2-3 blows will dispatch you as well. Change that to 20-30 blows, and you're walking down the path to Easy Town.

Want to make easy mode easier? Allow for more Estus flasks, that heal for more.

Want to make easy mode even EASIER? Take care of all those nasty environmental perils? Add F5 for quick save and F9 for quick load.

All of this would require next to zero developer resources, would not require changing the core mechanics of the game at all, and could easily be removed from "normal" difficulty.

Do PLEASE explain to me how any of these things would "take away" Dark Souls as you have come to enjoy it, as it so often the keening whine of the "we swear we're not elitist, we just keep saying ridiculously elitist things" crowd. I mean, for fucks sake. I don't even MIND when people are elitist. If you're some crack esports player and you want to pump your tires in front of a wearied captive audience, I guess you earned it. It doesn't necessarily make you a good sport or paragon of humility, but it's a hell of a lot more palatable than this coy bullshit where a bunch of CLEARLY elitist people will talk you into the ground to try and convince you they're not, all the while pitching a fit about how the existence of an easy mode they'd never play would "take away" the game they love so dearly.

I like Dark Souls. A lot. I don't think I would make use of an easy mode if it were offered to me, because the difficulty is part of the charm. I'm not, however, so arrogant as to assume a difficulty that hits my "sweet spot" must necessarily hit everyone else's sweet spot as well. I understand why different tiers of difficulty exist.

Just own up to it, man. Just wear your elitist blazer with pride. You played a hard game, and you want some velvet ropes put up to keep out the rabble. It's not even INTENDED for them, right? It's for YOU.

e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism (-ltzm, -l-)
n.
1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment (Dark Souls) by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status (gaming skill), or financial resources (perseverance).

 

[chaos order]

well... again i would like to state that the game does have actions or options in it that allow you to make the game easier,ie summoning other players/Npcs to beat bosses, not becoming human. Actually just today i helped someone beat the gaping dragon boss. and again i still dont see how they can balance the easy mode and the online aspects of the game that is persistent as they play. also you are entitled to an opinion, nothing wrong with that, but not having any real understanding or "feel" of the game other than "its hard" makes it an ill informed one

I am not saying that the game, as it is right now, cannot be made easier or harder by the choices you make. That is a truism that applies to practically every videogame there is. The point is that "a different way of playing the game" as an option has no downsides, and I would equally support a "Nightmare mode" that made Dark Souls even harder (which I'm sure pretty much nobody would have a problem with, since it would let the elite rise above their current station to belong to an even smaller elite). Saying "just play it like the rest of us do" strikes me as an appeal to conformism by way of "don't rock the boat."

As for "ill informed", I think we all established already that the game's selling point isn't its story, worldbuilding or design choices, but the difficulty and lack of hand-holding.

by using that same logic that the games difficulty is what it sells it self on, adding an easy mode takes away from that. because now its no longer a hard game but a game that "could" be hard. In addition, if you watch a video of some the earlier areas like the undead burgh youd see that most of the "difficulty" of the game derives from punishing mistakes rather than having actually difficult enemies( excluding the mini bosses and bosses of course), and the flasks are there to give the player some wiggle room for small accidents that happen. Having an "easy" mode where someone can take more hits or have enemies take less to beat (most enemies btw only take 1-2) would dumb the game down to just hacking and slashing the game would lose all substance. The game as it is now forces you to play more thoughtfully and avoid any mistakes because of the nature of the games punishment system

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Really, why not just make the player invincible at that rate. Or maybe just remove all enemies.

Honestly, that only leads to the problem of more environmental deaths...

What you are playing is no longer Dark Souls.

You're way off the reservation now, trying to debate whether or not stripping too much difficulty away will damage the spirit of the game, when your previous argument was a lower difficulty would be impossible to implement without completely rebuilding it mechanically. Putting aside the fact that DIFFICULTY IS RELATIVE, I don't really think it's your place to tell anyone how to play or enjoy a game. I think save scumming ruins XCOM, but it's not my place to tell people 'they're no longer playing XCOM' when they do it. Because I would sound like a huge jackass if I tried.

The fact remains that game is about risk Vs reward, patience and memorization. If you do not enjoy those things, no amount of "easy" is going to change that.

The game is "about" whatever the player chooses to take from the experience. And difficulty is relative.

If these aspects do not appeal to you, then this game is by proxy, not meant for you.

"If you do not enjoy this game in the way that *I* enjoy this game, then it's not FOR you, peasants!"

It's not about trying to exclude people as I could care less who can or cannot play this game.

Yes, it is.

This, my friend, is why we are trying to hold your head in our hands and point it at the realization that you are a being elitist, like trying to get the dog to notice the treat you dropped 2 feet from his nose. I'll say it again. You are operating under the delusion that this game was built ESPECIALLY for you, to tickle YOUR sweet spot, and anyone who does not share your tastes can...I dunno...fuck off and die or something, I suppose. Go wherever inferior gamers go. You build false dilemmas about how an easy mode would be "impossible" to implement, then when I outline an incredibly simple way to do so you moan that the spirit of the game is now compromised. You state that adding an OPTIONAL level of difficulty would alienate the fans, possibly because they're all teenage girls and drama pumps through their veins like blood. You repeatedly state that the game is just not FOR people who can't appreciate a specific level of difficulty...not a difficult experience...just ONE fixed level of difficulty...then cry foul when the things you are saying are rightly characterized as unchained elitism.

Again, guy. Just OWN UP. This is ridiculous. It's like trying to get the ocean to admit that it's wet. You keep trying to rebut accusations of elitism with hilariously elitist arguments, and I cannot for the life of me comprehend how you can't see it.

You mean like the favoured treatment that is being demanded by those that want a game to be be bent to their will because it currently does not fit with their sensibilities?

Get over yourself.

"Bent to their will".

You couldn't pay a team of writers to come up with this stuff.

 

[Trollhoffer]

To my mind, the major reason Dark Souls doesn't need an easy mode is that it's not actually as difficult as people make it out to be. The game is less based on twitch skill as it is based on having the right knowledge with which to overcome certain obstacles. Hedging your bets via your character's statistics also helps. That said, the game could use a better tutorial to help guide players in terms of building their characters.

For as bad as the PvP is, though, I find Dark Souls actually has a really good community and I think a part of that is that we've all faced and overcome the same trials. It's a great process of discovery and part of the reason Dark Souls is one of the best games of any generation -- at least for "discovery" gamers. The appeal of discovery isn't just based on finding locations and objects, but on discovering the machinations behind gameplay systems, and Dark Souls does that last part in particular really well. It's important because it ties into the tactical considerations of any engagement. Before last year's last patch, I was very fond of greatsword-class weapons because they dealt a lot of poise damage without giving up too much speed, which made them ideal for stunlocking enemies of all kinds.

Stunlocking isn't just good because it opens an enemy up for a new attack, but because it prevents them from attacking. Therefore, a lengthy weapon that staggers enemies easily is a form of defense as well as attack.

When I came to realise the above principle, the game became a lot easier because now I could both take initiative in combat and prevent myself from coming to harm. All I had to do was manipulate the distance and timing of the fight so I got the initial attack, after which I could gain complete control. Of course, defensive measures are still useful throughout the game (particularly against enemies that have overwhelming offensive abilities), but by and large my style of play changed to accommodate my new knowledge.

That process of discovery could never have happened with an easier difficulty because there would be no need for it. Of course, not everyone is a "discovery" gamer and not everyone is interest in the minutia of combat. But that begs the question: why play Dark Souls? It's a fantastic game constructed for a particular audience. I get that some people want to play it for the lore or the atmosphere or other things, but other games don't have these kinds of demands thrown upon them. The essential problem, from where I'm standing, is that there's a base of gamers out there who want a game -- that was never made for them as an audience -- to now be geared more towards their preferences. One element of Dark Souls is the consistency of experience between gamers in many respects, and I suspect that was intentional to build a certain kind of social experience outside the game.

Or, in short:

If the lack of an easy mode prevents you from playing Dark Souls, in spite of its other qualities, then it's likely that you're not a part of the game's target audience in the first place.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

If the lack of an easy mode prevents you from playing Dark Souls, in spite of its other qualities, then it's likely that you're not a part of the game's target audience in the first place.

Difficulty is relative. One person might do well on "impossible", another might struggle on "normal". Both would be experiencing Dark Souls "the way it was meant to be experienced"...as a difficult, threatening world. Instead of just one being able to play it, and the other being functionally locked out of the experience.

That, to my understanding, is the purpose of difficulty levels. Not so we can all play on the easiest possible level and faceroll everything. So that everyone can have a crack. Those who like a more casual experience are made happy, those who like a more challenging experience are made happy.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

When I say I could give a crap whether somebody can or cannot play a game, I mean I could give a crap whether somebody can or cannot play a game.

Therefore, in order to accomodate a group of individuals, for who, let's be fair, the game may never have been intended in the first place, we are to cheapen the experience for those who are already (passionate) fans of the series, alienating them in the process.

Not all games are meant for all people. Sometimes we just have to live with that.

Of course, some green eyed monsters can't handle the fact that they just can't grasp the game so they want to bend it to their will and make it part of the homogenous sludge.

Clearly.

You feel that they would "cheapen" your experience.
You feel that they would "alienate" core fans of the series.
You characterize them as "green eyed monsters" and suggest they want to "bend the game to their will".
You suggest they "just can't grasp" the game.
You appear with regularity in every thread about an easy mode in DS and argue venomously against it.

But clearly you do not care about who does or doesn't play Dark Souls, or whether an optional easy mode you'd never use is added to the game. This obviously has NOTHING to do with wanting to keep the riff-raff out of the club house.

Clearly.

So why do people seem to think it's okay to do this to Souls fans?

Not all Souls fans. Just the ones who keep making elitist arguments.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Snip.

That would be all fine and well but the people who are asking for an easy mode haven't given much thought to why the developers made it the way it is. They've missed the point of the game and while they're totally allowed to do that they can't just demand devs to put an easy mode in for them because they can't play it properly. You can do whatever you want to your copy but it isn't your game, it's the developers. If they saw fit to add an easy mode then they would have, the game is clearly supposed to be unforgiving, it's a mechanic, by adding an easy mode you'd be removing the core mechanic.

Even though I haven't played it this is all incredibly clear.

 

[Trollhoffer]

Difficulty is relative. One person might do well on "impossible", another might struggle on "normal". Both would be experiencing Dark Souls "the way it was meant to be experienced"...as a difficult, threatening world. Instead of just one being able to play it, and the other being functionally locked out of the experience.

That, to my understanding, is the purpose of difficulty levels. Not so we can all play on the easiest possible level and faceroll everything. So that everyone can have a crack. Those who like a more casual experience are made happy, those who like a more challenging experience are made happy.

The most difficulty I've seen someone have with Dark Souls is my brother's girlfriend, who had seldom (if ever) played video games before then. She was struggling with the tutorial boss and my brother was doing an awful job of coaching her. He had the right idea -- to suggest that she circle the boss to find a safe spot and opening. But he was missing the important geometric aspect of distance. Obviously, if you circle something at a closer distance, the resultant circle is smaller and so you can move around it more quickly.

As soon as I suggested to my brother's girlfriend that she move closer and circle from there, she dealt with the boss much, much better and ended up beating it.

Alright, so the tutorial boss isn't exactly the heaviest thing that the game can throw at you, but it was pretty impressive for someone who had never really played this kind of game to end up beating it. I'm not entirely sure she had even held a PS3 controller before then. The point is, though, that she won more through knowledge than twitch skill. Reducing the HP and damage of the boss wouldn't have altered the strategy of the fight one iota, because the boss punishes the player heavily for remaining at medium range. One has to be entirely out of distance or at very close distance for that fight, and circling is a major part of any fight where you're offensively outmatched.

Besides, your comment implies that those who play and like Dark Souls begin with skills that allow them to beat Dark Souls. Not true. Beating Dark Souls is a process of development and thought for just about everyone. Demon's Souls was even more hellish, if you'd believe it. So for what it's worth, Dark Souls is already reduced in difficulty from its previous game and I don't think it needs any more reductions. It could use some improvements in some design factors and some telegraphing of particular things, but those things are based on fairly informing the player rather than reducing the challenge of obstacles.

 

[Darken12]

Wow, you really misunderstood that - or you just glanced and tried to cherry pick without understandng the meaning.

Exactly how is the very correct assertion that "not all games are meant for all people" elitist?
Also, where in the old school assertion that I could give a flying fuck who can or cannot play a game, do you find elitism.

If you mean "meant" as "aimed", then that assertion is irrelevant by way of obviousness. No piece of entertainment is purposefully aimed at absolutely everyone. If you mean "are meant for" as "should be played by" then that is elitism, because it means that you don't want any person to play any game, you want specific people to play specific games, according to your views on what each person should enjoy, depending on how you think each game should be played. When it comes to the games you play, it becomes elitism as you are denying others the right to play games unless they do it under your terms, so that they are forced to belong to the same group as you after suffering through the same trials and exhibiting the same desirable qualities.

You seem to be grasping at straws to try to keep your argument viable.

Did you not read my own experience with the FPS genre on that matter, or were you too busy trying to find a way to dismiss these very pertinent arguments that were in NO WAY yet addressed by you beyond "hurr durr - DS fans are elitist - derp".

Your FPS argument boils down to "because I suffer, so shall everyone else." I would fully support your petition for new camera angles on FPSs. I am with Extra Credits on this one: the concept of the FPS genre is absolutely ridiculous. Instead of defining a genre by the emotion it intends to evoke or the type of narrative it evokes, we are defining it by a highly specific and arbitrary mechanic (which has no bearing on the actual narrative, and very little bearing on the setting and mechanics). I fully support the idea of adding optional third person view (like in the TES games, where you can freely switch between either) as a way for more people to be able to enjoy games.

Being resigned to one's disadvantages is not a progressive or positive ideology.

Also, you made some pretty broad assertions about how apparently sales would increase with an easy mode. Can you be sure of this? Or is it possible that the crowd who didn't like the game before, would still dislike it and the original fans, now alienated, would refuse to purchase it?

Can you be sure that it won't? Armchair marketing, just like armchair programming, is a distraction tactic that has no relevance with the topic at hand. The company has its marketers and businesspeople, and I will let them be the judges of whether an easy mode would be a good business decision or not.

by using that same logic that the games difficulty is what it sells it self on, adding an easy mode takes away from that. because now its no longer a hard game but a game that "could" be hard. In addition, if you watch a video of some the earlier areas like the undead burgh youd see that most of the "difficulty" of the game derives from punishing mistakes rather than having actually difficult enemies( excluding the mini bosses and bosses of course), and the flasks are there to give the player some wiggle room for small accidents that happen. Having an "easy" mode where someone can take more hits or have enemies take less to beat (most enemies btw only take 1-2) would dumb the game down to just hacking and slashing the game would lose all substance. The game as it is now forces you to play more thoughtfully and avoid any mistakes because of the nature of the games punishment system

Yes, and? If I want to play a mindless, easy hack and slash, what's the problem? If I'm willing to pay money for it, why shouldn't I get to play something like that? A game that punishes you for your mistakes, forces you to be patient, smart and thoughtful, isn't superior to any other game. No game is objectively better than any other, much less on grounds as irrelevant as gameplay, and you consider those things to be good because you like them. That's not a bad thing. You are allowed to like whatever you want. However, those things aren't an ideal that we should all aspire to, and if I don't like them, there isn't something wrong with me. It's okay for me not to like those things. All those things aren't going to go away because someone else prefers to play the game without them. Me not being punished (because I don't enjoy punishment) isn't going to stop the game from punishing you as much as you like.

Snip.

That would be all fine and well but the people who are asking for an easy mode haven't given much thought to why the developers made it the way it is. They've missed the point of the game and while they're totally allowed to do that they can't just demand devs to put an easy mode in for them because they can't play it properly. You can do whatever you want to your copy but it isn't your game, it's the developers. If they saw fit to add an easy mode then they would have, the game is clearly supposed to be unforgiving, it's a mechanic, by adding an easy mode you'd be removing the core mechanic.

Even though I haven't played it this is all incredibly clear.

Demanding is not the same as expressing interest. I don't think anybody's demanding anything. I think a lot of people started saying "Dark Souls would be great if it had an easy mode" or "I would play Dark Souls if it had an easy mode" and then all the hardcore Dark Souls players jumped on everyone's throats for having the gall not to enjoy being repeatedly kicked in the gonads.

Also, your reasoning is disingenuous. The devs aren't all-knowing. They might have thought that the game would only sell with masochists, but discovered that a significant demographic would be willing to buy it if it had easy mode. That might have come as surprising news to them.

Though I agree: ultimately the decision rests on the developers' shoulders and I personally would respect whatever they decide to do. That doesn't mean I appreciate being told that the very idea of wanting an easy mode is somehow obscene and sacrilegious.

 

[Broderick]

First of all, I love all of you(insert bob ross voice here). As other have suggested, there are quite a few tools already available for you(the OP) to use for your particular circumstance. Being hollow will cut your chances of being invaded to 0%, and your item find still goes up with your humanity counter till 10, regardless of whether you are hollowed or not. The way of white helps cut down invasions substantially too. As for elemental weapons? Most people early level use them because it is easy to pray on new players with them. Ever see someone wielding a lightning uchigatana slamming on someones shield before they either get blood loss or die from the lightening damage? It is REALLY scary for a new player. Better quality armors tend to have better resistance to such elemental damage, so many players tend to just upgrade their weapon to +15 AND use a resin of their choosing.

As for the debate at hand.... I do enjoy these debates, but this horse is tired and beaten. I am on the side that thinks a better tutorial would be a godsend to those new players and people wanting an easy mode. Frankly, I think most of the difficulty has to do with the learning curve of the game, and knowing how to respond to an enemies move set. The game does not do a good job of explaining how certain vital things work, like humanity(I didn't even know it increased item find till after sen's fortress). Heck, the game does not even tell you that you can roll jump. If those, and things like stats(Yes I know you can figure out what stat does what in the stats screen, but the game does not tell you that either) were better explained, people would have a much easier time I think.

A lot of the gripes with an easy mode basically come from the view that there are already tons of tools for players to make the game easier on themselves, so why have the dev waste time and money making an easy mode? There is way of the white, and hollowing if you do not want to be invaded. There is upgrading your armor and weapons to deal more damage and take more. There is kindling bonfires for extra flasks( I know I needed them the first time I faced manus). Players can leave messages for other players, so they can help(or troll if they prefer) others. There is player summoning to help you take out whole areas, including bosses; there is even a covenant(in game guild like thing) designed around that particular addition to the game.

The game also expects players to learn from their mistakes, or die. There are very few deaths that cant be avoided(the exception being the first time you face seath the scaleless, and even then you can just wear a ring of sacrifice to negate the loss of dying. The anor londo archer section was a bit bullshit though, mainly because you did not fight any silver knights up to that point, and you do not know their move set. The knights are easily parried and can be cheesed by poison arrows however. Also the bed of chaos was a terribly designed fight, and if I remember correctly, even the devs agree.

So...yeah! I think a better tutorial would be the best route frankly. It solves early player confusion, and helps show what the player may be coming up against, bettering them for the rest of the game. If there were less confusion about such things, and no bs sections, I believe the game would be near perfect for its niche.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Besides, your comment implies that those who play and like Dark Souls begin with skills that allow them to beat Dark Souls. Not true. Beating Dark Souls is a process of development and thought for just about everyone. Demon's Souls was even more hellish, if you'd believe it. So for what it's worth, Dark Souls is already reduced in difficulty from its previous game and I don't think it needs any more reductions. It could use some improvements in some design factors and some telegraphing of particular things, but those things are based on fairly informing the player rather than reducing the challenge of obstacles.

Dark Souls does not exist in a vacuum. There is much about it that we can bring in from other games. The combat is reminiscent of a lobotomized Mount and Blade. I'm told the boss battles are somewhat reminiscent of Monster Hunter. Anyone with passing familiarity of RPG systems will have a good handle on some of the underlying mechanics. Anyone who has a long history in CRPGs or MMOs will grasp the meta-game quickly and make very powerful, focused builds. And on and on and on. Life long gamers...and I'm assuming you and I both fit that category...can often forget that they are iterating on years and years of experience when they game. Difficulty levels that are pablum for them might be excruciating for the less experienced. Which is why we are presented with the concept of difficulty levels in the first place.

Frankly, the best argument for a single, locked difficulty level in Dark Souls isn't "OMG it would compromise the spirit of the game and alienate a legion of emo fans", it's that the game functions like a poor man's MMO with the invasion mechanic and the hint dropping. Which means everyone gets shackled to a single difficultly level because everyone is inhabiting a single world. And if it's the case that we have a Dark Souls 2 that again has a single fixed difficulty level as a result of this, so be it. I am not PERSONALLY invested in the idea of multiple difficulty levels in Dark Souls. I just don't find it to be an outrageous suggestion, and I find the arguments put forth in opposition to it often smack of serious e-peenery.

I should say that for all that I do enjoy Dark Souls, some of the difficulty does come from...less than admirable things. Tricky bosses? I'm okay with that. Nasty environments? Some of those are brilliant...Tomb of the Giants is particularly inspired. Horrible status effects, like Toxic? Good stuff. All that is top drawer.

There's some bullshit, too. Some forced failure. Some "oh I'm dead now, I guess that guy hits for my entire health bar", where you're basically learning through the repetition of failing. Which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the SLOG back through re-spawning trash. I understand the point here is to punish failure and thus increase tension, but the tension is only high the 1st or 2nd time, and then irritation and tedium sets in. This is Dark Souls at its worst, and I'm sympathetic to people who throw their hands in the air and say "life is too short for this shit" the 15th time they have to back track to a boss.

 

[Burst6]

See, that's the problem. I keep repeating myself over and over and it's like people are wilfully misunderstanding the argument. The game is not being changed. An option, by definition, cannot change a game because it's not mandatory. If you choose to implement it, then sure, it changes the game, but if you don't, then it cannot change your game. Having an option in the same disc doesn't change the game. Otherwise developers should never release things like optional costumes, extra levels, additional characters, bonus missions and so on, because the addition of something optional is somehow a sacrilege that irrevocably changes the original game you purchased. That idea, to me, is ludicrous.

Nobody's asking the devs to do anything for free. They are going to get money in exchange. That's how the entertainment industry works, I want something, someone makes it for me, and then I give them money for it. Nobody is asking you to buy for it if it comes out as DLC, and nobody's asking you to play it if it comes bundled with the game upon purchase.

And lastly, nobody's forcing you to do anything. This. Is. Optional. On the contrary, by trying to prevent this from happening, you are forcing everyone to play the game your way or not play at all. Adding more options means that if you don't like an option, you can still play the game by choosing something else.

So you're saying that adding something you can ignore in a game does not change a game at all? There would be no problem if, say, the developers of the next total war game decided to spend half their time adding an optional clone of call of duty into the game? Just in case people want the option to play a call of duty clone instead? I'm not forcing people to play the game how i want it. I'm playing the game how it was made. You're complaining that it should be changed to suit your own preferences.

Of course the game is being changed. If something changes how the game feels, it's being changed. I know i don't have the option to take it, but that's no excuse. That's like saying that Skyrim isn't too easy, go naked and use your fists. Weapons and armor are optional. Yes they're optional but they're also there and they are meant to be used. You can't just ignore it and say Skyrim is a challenging game.

Elitism isn't overtly telling someone you are better than them. Elitism manifests pretty much in this exact way, by aggressively resisting something that affects you in no way whatsoever, and in some of the posts I've seen here who encouraged humiliation on people who chose easy mode, or by disparaging the people who want the idea as unskilled, impatient, not-a-true-gamer, and any other negative adjective.

As I also said before, Dark Souls isn't the first online multiplayer game who had to find a way to balance easy and hard experiences. I'm not going to debate how it could be done because none of us here are programmers (or, at least, none of us here are programmers in charge of Dark Souls) and armchair programming will be nothing but useless speculation that will have no bearing on the actual point.

People encourage humiliation of easy mode because easy mode completely destroys the theme of the game. Dark souls is 40% atmosphere, and if you can't feel the atmosphere you're missing out on a big part of the game. People also want to be encouraged to play the hard mode. The game itself constantly tells you that the world is hard so you need to use every trick you can to make it easier. Taking the easy mode is the ultimate trick and very easy to do, so not taking it feels wrong if there's another option.

Most games keep online multiplayer separate from the main campaign. Dark souls doesnt. In fact its online multiplayer hasn't been done before. It's persistent, meaning everyone who's online interacts with everyone else constantly, a bit like an MMO. People invade your world, or you can summon people to help you, and you can use special items to mess with other people. Other than separating the servers, there's no way to balance the game without putting a massive amount of work into things like multipliers.

If the options you are adding result in an increase in sales, the options are paying for themselves. No part of the budget is being wasted on the options if the options end up generating a sufficiently large amount of revenue by increasing sales. Furthermore, options are generally sold separately from the game, as DLC, and that implies a game that has already been finished and whose budget has already been spent completely on the game the creators had originally in mind. The DLC is either born from leftovers that got cut from the game or as new projects with their own budget if sufficient demand has been deemed to exist.

If the options result in increased sales, yes they are paying for themselves. If is the big word. Like i said, too much options can make the game shallower, which could result in decreased sales. There's also the fact that developers can't do everything even with all the time and money in the world, and could lose focus if there's too many things to work on.

Also i have never seen a DLC that adds any of the options we're talking about. They add costumes, more places to play the game in, etc.. but I've never seen a game that had difficulty as DLC. Besides, if we're talking about dark souls it's too late at this point. Dark souls 2 is being developed and FROM is a relatively small company, so an easy mode probably won't happen.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It does however, have everything to do with not wanting the core game to be altered. As I mentionned in the links in the first post, it is not possible make DS any easier without altering the level design. This WOULD in fact have an impact on my game.

Uh...did we not cover this? I outlined pretty clearly it was entirely possible to do so, and also incredibly easy. To which you replied, angrily, that the game would "no longer be Dark Souls". Of course it would be, only easier. And whatever the quality of the game play would be in this hypothetical easy mode should really be irrelevant to you anyway, as you'd never play it.

In much the same way, I won't be demanding a third person camera in Far Cry 3 just so that I can play it. The first person camera means that I was never in the target audience to begin with. And I'm okay with that.

This is a terrible analogy. Adding difficulty levels is not the equivalent of adding radically alternative game play modes. If someone was arguing for an isometric Dark Souls this would be the perfect analogy. But they're not. You're reaching.

A better analogy would be someone petitioning for a difficulty level between Normal and Classic, or between Classic and Impossible, on XCOM. Which they have. And which I support completely.

And if they are demanding that the game be altered to suit their own selfish needs because they do not like the current in-game mechanics, for whatever reason, they certainly do not "grasp" what the game is about.

If you continue to characterize them as such, do not be surprised when they in turn characterize you as elitist. It rather puts the lie to the "Why so mean to Souls fans!?" routine when you appear to be positively seething with hostility towards anyone asking for difficulty levels.

Regardless, I am tired of arguing with you, and I suspect you feel the same. I have said repeatedly that it is not a terrible, dread thing to be elitist about a video game, and I meant it. I am not attempting to demonize you, or besmirch your character. I have tried to get you to look at your own arguments critically and see how they can be read as elitist, which I now understand you are extremely reluctant to do. And that's fine, this is an internet forum, not a self-reflection seminar. I appreciate that you are enthusiastic about your game and fear the consequences of a bunch of easy-mode meddling, and given that much of the game's charm derives from its difficulty I can understand why.

The way of white helps cut down invasions substantially too.

You know, I keep hearing this, but I was in the way of white for the longest time and people kept crashing into my game like it was opening night at Studio 54. I was able to kill most of them (I had some surprisingly inept invaders) but it left me feeling like these "way of the white" claims were more than a little dubious. I'm in the sun one now and I haven't been invaded in just about forever.

People encourage humiliation of easy mode because easy mode completely destroys the theme of the game. Dark souls is 40% atmosphere, and if you can't feel the atmosphere you're missing out on a big part of the game. People also want to be encouraged to play the hard mode. The game itself constantly tells you that the world is hard so you need to use every trick you can to make it easier. Taking the easy mode is the ultimate trick and very easy to do, so not taking it feels wrong if there's another option.

I'd argue the game is 80% atmosphere, but that's the problem with perspectives. They tend to vary from individual to individual. I've been gaming long enough and have enough gaming friends to understand we all enjoy games in very different ways. The things I love about game A might be the things my friend hates most about it.

 

[Smithburg]

What the holy hell is everyone's problem. Holy shit. I've been staying out of the "Dark Souls easy mode" because I don't have any intention of playing it, but my goodness, this is absolutely ridiculous. Nobody is trying to take away your toys, people. Stop assuming that by adding something to a game, you are going to lose something else. More options are never, ever a bad thing (why? because they're optional, they're not mandatory, nobody's forcing you to pick them if you dislike them).

Clinging to your elitism and ego-stroking mechanisms, using games as a tool to feel superior to others and resisting any attempt to make games available to more audiences is being awful gamers. It's people like you that rag on about "fake nerds", "casual gamers", "fake nerd girls" or "gay options". Don't be a hateful, toxic gamer. If I want to spend 60 bucks or more and then "miss the point of the game" then fucking let me. If I want to use any game as an expensive coaster for my drinks, that's my choice. If I want to hang all my games from strings in front of a window so that they look pretty when they catch the sunlight, that's my prerogative because I paid for the fucking thing.

Stop. Policing. Other. People's. Fun.

Actually, yeah, easy mode can ruin a game like Dark Souls.

One it can change the basics of the game, if everything has to have an easy mode counterpart, it can screw up the way the game is played.

Two, it would fragment the number of available people online. There is already a system set up to limit online play, you can only get to either 10% or 10 levels + 10% below or above you. Adding easy mode players would lock them out of playing hard mode players. Unless they kept them both accessible, then depending how they did it, it would be unfair to either the hardmode or easymode players. If easymode player lost nothing when they died, there is no danger, and they could just invade others constantly, ruining the balance of the game.

Three, it can change the way they make the game, and start what many other games have done in sequels, where options or different ways of play are stripped out to make easymode more accessible to new players, leaving less depth for the endgame.

Four. Dark Souls and Demons Souls came out to be hard. That was one of the main points of the game. Hell, the slogan of Dark Souls was Prepare to Die. They boasted about it was going to be one of the hardest games out there. The game creators do not want to make it easy, they want this game to kick your ass. They knew this was going to be a niche title, and were fine with that. Having something be a niche title is not bad. You do not need to conform everything to appease the masses. Doing that strips the uniqueness out of a game and changes it to average out interests in the game so the most people buy it, often making the game lose it's identity.

If you do not like Dark Souls as a hard game, then you don't like Dark Souls. It being a hard game is as much a part of it's identity as Lordran or any of the characters. If you think it should be changed to be easy, there are tons of other games out there for you. Go buy them, and don't worry about this game, it's already excellent.

 

[Trollhoffer]

Dark Souls does not exist in a vacuum. There is much about it that we can bring in from other games. The combat is reminiscent of a lobotomized Mount and Blade. I'm told the boss battles are somewhat reminiscent of Monster Hunter. Anyone with passing familiarity of RPG systems will have a good handle on some of the underlying mechanics. Anyone who has a long history in CRPGs or MMOs will grasp the meta-game quickly and make very powerful, focused builds. And on and on and on. Life long gamers...and I'm assuming you and I both fit that category...can often forget that they are iterating on years and years of experience when they game. Difficulty levels that are pablum for them might be excruciating for the less experienced. Which is why we are presented with the concept of difficulty levels in the first place.

Frankly, the best argument for a single, locked difficulty level in Dark Souls isn't "OMG it would compromise the spirit of the game and alienate a legion of emo fans", it's that the game functions like a poor man's MMO with the invasion mechanic and the hint dropping. Which means everyone gets shackled to a single difficultly level because everyone is inhabiting a single world. And if it's the case that we have a Dark Souls 2 that again has a single fixed difficulty level as a result of this, so be it. I am not PERSONALLY invested in the idea of multiple difficulty levels in Dark Souls. I just don't find it to be an outrageous suggestion, and I find the arguments put forth in opposition to it often smack of serious e-peenery.

I should say that for all that I do enjoy Dark Souls, some of the difficulty does come from...less than admirable things. Tricky bosses? I'm okay with that. Nasty environments? Some of those are brilliant...Tomb of the Giants is particularly inspired. Horrible status effects, like Toxic? Good stuff. All that is top drawer.

There's some bullshit, too. Some forced failure. Some "oh I'm dead now, I guess that guy hits for my entire health bar", where you're basically learning through the repetition of failing. Which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the SLOG back through re-spawning trash. I understand the point here is to punish failure and thus increase tension, but the tension is only high the 1st or 2nd time, and then irritation and tedium sets in. This is Dark Souls at its worst, and I'm sympathetic to people who throw their hands in the air and say "life is too short for this shit" the 15th time they have to back track to a boss.

My perspective is simply that the goal of the Souls series shouldn't be to get everyone to play it. Dark Souls is a fantastic game and I understand that some people who want in on it are intimidated by its (highly exaggerated) difficulty. I suggest that those people try it and ask for help if they're having trouble.

I'm personally happy for anyone and everyone who wants to to play the Souls games, but both of them are very deliberate in design and were made without difficulty settings as part of that. I know, for sure, that there's enough versatility in the systems of those games for people of many different skill levels to beat them. True, people who aren't familiar with RPGs or games built around close combat are going to struggle at first, but we don't ask other games of the genre to cut out parts of their design philosophy to accommodate players outside the intended demographic.

And while this doesn't pertain to the topic at hand: in my opinion, the combat in Dark Souls has a lot more depth and versatility than that of Mount & Blade, at least insofar as we're talking about a similar scale (say, a dozen total combatants at most). Mind you, I love the hell out of Mount & Blade, but its combat system is designed to facilitate battlefield combat in a wider context rather than the more "survivalistic" combat of Dark Souls.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

And while this doesn't pertain to the topic at hand: in my opinion, the combat in Dark Souls has a lot more depth and versatility than that of Mount & Blade, at least insofar as we're talking about a similar scale (say, a dozen total combatants at most). Mind you, I love the hell out of Mount & Blade, but its combat system is designed to facilitate battlefield combat in a wider context rather than the more "survivalistic" combat of Dark Souls.

In terms of opponent variety, perhaps. No one in Mount and Blade will throw a magic missile at you, or kill you in one hit, or swing a hammer the size of a city bus. Not without some serious modding, anyway. But Mount and Blade has directional blocking, not "right click and hold blocks everything", and your shield can be shredded by repeated blows. Mount and Blade takes momentum into account when swinging, and adjusts damage accordingly. And of course Mount and Blade has mounts (also, blades).

I'm certainly not trying to diss Dark Souls by calling it a "lobotomized" Mount and Blade. If the game had M&B combat and your shield got mashed after a few hits it would be positively fucking insufferable.

My perspective is simply that the goal of the Souls series shouldn't be to get everyone to play it.

Well, that's ultimately the trade off, isn't it? How much reputation/panache would Dark Souls lose if it had difficulty tiers? How many new fans would it gain? It's impossible to say, all we can really do is speculate. I know XCOM always had a reputation as a murderously hard game despite having difficulty tiers, and it retains that reputation in the new version if all the caterwauling about how unfair it is are any indication. And the new version has a couple of difficulty levels that are pants on head easy.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

What the holy hell is everyone's problem. Holy shit. I've been staying out of the "Dark Souls easy mode" because I don't have any intention of playing it, but my goodness, this is absolutely ridiculous. Nobody is trying to take away your toys, people. Stop assuming that by adding something to a game, you are going to lose something else. More options are never, ever a bad thing (why? because they're optional, they're not mandatory, nobody's forcing you to pick them if you dislike them).

Clinging to your elitism and ego-stroking mechanisms, using games as a tool to feel superior to others and resisting any attempt to make games available to more audiences is being awful gamers. It's people like you that rag on about "fake nerds", "casual gamers", "fake nerd girls" or "gay options". Don't be a hateful, toxic gamer. If I want to spend 60 bucks or more and then "miss the point of the game" then fucking let me. If I want to use any game as an expensive coaster for my drinks, that's my choice. If I want to hang all my games from strings in front of a window so that they look pretty when they catch the sunlight, that's my prerogative because I paid for the fucking thing.

Stop. Policing. Other. People's. Fun.

OK.

Challenge accepted.

Fault #1: You don't play Dark Souls - and yet, you feel entitled to chime in like Spike melonfarming Lee playing opinionated Taliban on Django.

Fault #2: I am not taking anything away from anybody, quite on the contrary: People who are too lazy, stubborn, stupid or plain resistant to learning a new trick or two are intent on changing my game, pee in my soup and turn something beautiful and pretty much perfect into something you can already have in pretty much all shapes and colours from plenty other publishers and peddlers of mediocre gaming fare.

Yes, adding the oft-demanded features to Dark Souls does indeed significantly change the whole ride, into something which Dark Souls is not and should not be. It would imbalance things, it would break the online component, it would mess everything up, which would translate to more man hours being spent on shit that really shouldn't have been bothered with to begin with.

Dark Souls is not something you have adapted to your own individual selfish demands, it is a ride you yourself adapt to, thus becoming better and feeling really, really good when mastering an enemy or understanding rather simple things, like the layout of an area, which is great fun because there is no bloody map or medieval fantasy magic GPS of any sorts whatsoever. You memorize things, which is good for your brain. You are free to try out every weapon and see if its range and moveset is something you favour over other weapons. You can dual wield edged weapons, you can dual wield pretty much everything, thus creating your own character, your own fighting style, your own playstyle. It is a wicked good fun thing to play around in and with, and changing this delicately balanced work of art is disrespectful to both the creators and the players that agreed to play by these rules.

It's not about intended elitism. It's more about perceived elitism, which seems to nag the folks that give up. I don't know of much that has been achieved in human history by people that gave up. I don't think we should empower those that give up and instead take to whining and pestering people online.

The rest of your argument seems unrelated to my Dark Souls experience, and it also looks a bit like flamebait trolling, so I'll treat it as an off-topic rant of sorts that got triggered by your high blood sugar or hormone levels. Happens to the best of us, get well soon.

No more.

 

[IronMit]

If you have to be human and want an easy mode...join the way of the white covenant...it decreases invasions.