Easy Mode Hate Explained

Mordekaien

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And here I thought this discussion was over, yet it still creeps back.
How are people complaining about something that makes the game they're enjoying more popular by introducing it to broader audience as if it's bad thing goes beyond me.
Despite gamers saying that we want other people to acknowledge us as a regular media, we are still pretty strict on who gets to play our games.

Challenge in games is nice and all, but some people don't play for the challenge, so what applies to you is not necessarily applicable to them as well.
 

shadow skill

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It is the same shit that causes people to scream troll just because you don't like what they do. They get all invested in these things and no one better say it is not good (Even when it really isn't.) and you better not let dirty heathens play the game that they struggled with for so long otherwise there will be hell to pay.
 

Launcelot111

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I don't see what would be wrong with an easy mode that had reduced damage from traps or some attacks (so an unobservant player might miss a guy coming in from behind but wouldn't be sent back to the bonfire immediately, or so they can experience a mimic biting them for the first time and have a chance to respond before dying), or maybe a system where your souls dropped upon death disappear after three subsequent deaths instead of one. It still keeps the fear of the unexpected and demands vigilance because you'll still die from ignoring enough threats, but it lowers the threshold of punishment for the unskilled or unobservant.

I agree that the guy hiding around the corner waiting to backstab you is central to the Dark Souls experience, but if someone treats the game as a trial and error affair, then the best way to make it easier on him is to allow him more errors per trial
 

Gergar12_v1legacy

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If there is a easy mode, and you don't like the easy, then do the common sense thing, and press hard mode. No one is forcing you to do the easy mode, It's not other people's fault if you yourself have a temptation to press easy mode, and don't like that. Let others play it the way they want to, and you will do your thing. Some people played mass effect 3 for story, and some for gameplay, that is just how it goes.
 

Risingblade

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Maybe people should learn some self control...like if you want to be challenge idk maybe play hard mode and forget all about easy mode?
 

revjor

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Soxafloppin said:
I beat Star wars: The Force Unleashed on the hardest difficulty. Look at my huge Wang.

The fact that the game has multiple difficulties does not take away from that, where is your God now OP?
That game is the very reason I need an easy mode. I started on hard and then after the 13th time I hit a stormtrooper with a lightsaber without him dying I just turned it to easy and actually enjoyed a Star Wars game.
 

Bat Vader

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DioWallachia said:
Zykon TheLich said:
DioWallachia said:
That brings another topic to the discussion: The idea that people dont want the easy mode because of the temptation of spoiling the experience. And for THAT reason, they dont want the rest to suffer the same temptation of being lured by an easy challenge.

Alternatively, they dont trust the rest of humanity because they believe that other people are just weak willed and will always take the easy route to ANY problem.
I have to say, if you can't resist the "temptation" to use easy mode and use that as an excuse as to why others who want it shouldn't have it...well, I actually have no words, just a groan or perhaps a sigh of disgust and contempt. Same for the second reason.

But seriously, I don't think anyone that stupid exists.
I remember people back in the day that used something mystical and strange called......Cheat Codes, that allowed you to be in "God Mode" and never die. The people who used those thought the game was too easy (no shit) and blamed THE GAME instead of themselves.

Most likely under the excuse that "the game was baddly designed and impossible to win. Its not really my fault and blah blah blah"
I miss cheat codes. They were awesome. I loved being an invincible god with infinite ammo that went around squashing the hopes and dreams of my enemies.

I mainly always play on easy mode first just to see the game's story and then if I feel like it I will play the game on a harder difficulty. Especially if the game ending changes on a harder difficulty mode or they give extra content like concept art, new skins for characters, and/or a new weapon.
 

Vegosiux

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Smolderin said:
I think there is a bit more to it than that. People just want challenges, and many people like myself don't want the temptation of an easy mode option there, because we could so easily fall into that trap, robbing us of the sense of enjoyment and fulfillment when we finally beat and complete a hard game.
Well, I'd say asking others to actively keep easier options out of your possible choices because your self-control is so weak you'd so easily give in to temptation...is asking for others to hold your hand.

"I have no self-control so I want others to make sure I never have to deal with temptation", come on? That's like...asking for an easy mode in life.

I mean, to me, doing things the hard way when you had no other choice is not an accomplishment as much as doing things the hard way even when you had paths of less resistance available, even if they were less rewarding.
 

Remaiki

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I really don't like the people that moan about the inclusion of an easy mode. Yes, it might be 'betraying the point of the game', but that's why you're playing on Normal.

Also, I don't think it's the 'bragging' thing. After all: you only have to add 'on Normal mode' to the phrase 'I beat Dark Souls 2' to regain your e-peen status.
 

Smolderin

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Vegosiux said:
Smolderin said:
I think there is a bit more to it than that. People just want challenges, and many people like myself don't want the temptation of an easy mode option there, because we could so easily fall into that trap, robbing us of the sense of enjoyment and fulfillment when we finally beat and complete a hard game.
Well, I'd say asking others to actively keep easier options out of your possible choices because your self-control is so weak you'd so easily give in to temptation...is asking for others to hold your hand.

"I have no self-control so I want others to make sure I never have to deal with temptation", come on? That's like...asking for an easy mode in life.
Nothing wrong with a little hand holding here and there. xD After all I do admit my self control regarding difficulty choices is pretty weak. Should I be ashamed of that? Eh, I don't think so. And considering video games and life are two completely separate things, I don't fully approve of that analogy (but you don't care so watev...). Regardless, I understand what you are saying, but I stand by what I said, especially when in regards to myself. I actually like having the option removed for easy mode, but don't mistake me in thinking that I think that is how it should be for everyone. Video games don't afterall cater to just me.
 

Sordin

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I never found dark souls all that hard to begin with. For a start as the video stated just pay attention and you should do fine, to be honest you can get through the game with ease if you have your wits about you, I myself usually play games on easy but have never had too much trouble with dark souls. However for the people who have played dark souls and would like an easy mode I'm going to make a massive assumption and say that the opinion stems from a few specific points in the game. The capra demon and bed of chaos are perfect examples of where a lot of people might die a lot and conclude that the game is just too hard but these are rare scenario's. They are bits of the game where the developers screwed up and there is almost no excuse for that but it doesn't mean we should de-fang the game because of a couple of slip ups. As I said anyone playing the game with any degree of tactical thinking ought to do fine and to be honest removing challenge form dark souls would probably ruin the experience and leave people with a boring game which they probably didn't want from it. Just my thoughts.
 

Filiecs

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If the point of the game is in teaching players to be aware of their surroundings, analyze themselves and their performance, think things through, and get better, then wouldn't an easy mode invalidate the entire point of the game?

Frankly, how good someone is at a game is more closely related to how much effort they put into actually learning how to play the game than how talented they are at the game.

I see Dark Souls as a game whose point is to teach you how to lift yourself up to overcome obstacles that, just like in real life, will NOT make themselves easier just for you. As such, I see an easy mode as invalidating the entire point the game is trying to make as you wouldn't have to LEARN from your mistakes nearly as much.
If your'e not a person who likes to have to learn as much in a game, which is fine, then I don't think Dark Souls is a game you'd enjoy, easy mode or not.
 

fish iron4

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I feel that making a game too easy or adding an easy setting means that there is the temptation and likely-hood that people will use it (A bit like cheats). Of course its only optional but many people will go for a much too easy option first time round, and then feel a very different game and feel underwhelmed, because lets be honest if Dark Souls did what Skyrim did and make epic monster battles piss easy then it would be nowhere near as good as it is today.
 

Bad Jim

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A fairly common complaint on here is that higher difficulty modes tend to be poorly thought out.

Old arcade games were designed to be hard yet enteraining at the same time. If they weren't fun people wouldn't play them, but if they were easy people would just play for hours on one quarter. Home computer/console games were sold to the same crowd and were also designed to be hard.

These days games are designed for a different crowd, designed to be beatable by the majority of people who attempt them. This is of course a much bigger crowd. But for the people who want a hard game, they can just turn up a difficulty slider right? Well I'm not so sure. Most of the ways to implement this make the game less fun:

-Making enemies tougher means it takes longer to bring them down. It becomes a bit of a chore.
-Making the player more fragile also makes the player more susceptable to bullshit randomness that an ordinary player would shrug off.
-Making enemies or the overall game faster does work, but only to the extent that you have to rely on subconscious reactions rather than conscious decisions. It's a line you can cross once. Going even faster just makes the game unplayable. It's not much good on it's own for a difficulty slider.
-Putting save points further apart increases the frustration of dying. And you can only make the game really hard by putting save points hours apart.

Improved AI is something that doesn't really exist and never did. What used to happen is that the designers played the game, squashed every cheap tactic they could find and made the legitimate tactics awkward. The enemies seemed smarter because the designer knew your tricks, not because the enemies were super intelligent or anything. This is the one true way to make a game hard.

Unfortunately, this particular way of making a game harder amounts to substantially redesigning the game, which is a lot of hard work. Therefore, most developers will only do it if sales depend on it. Souls fans are, I think, legitimately worried, because once a substantial number of casual Souls fans exist, the devs will smell money and future games will be designed easy with hard mode as an afterthought, rather than designed hard with an optional easy mode. The difference being that hard mode in the former will suck.
 

IamLEAM1983

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Aug 22, 2011
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So. Easy Mode, huh? Okay.

I always figured the hate was unfounded. Why? Because some of us enjoy the escapism or diegetic value of games, but aren't the most skilled min/maxers, power-levellers or twitch gamers out there. Some of us might enjoy Dark Souls for its design and basic premise, but be pretty bad at surviving its challenges.

According to some fairly overreacting types, if I can't play the game on Normal, I don't get to play at all. I lose my gaming license. I'm officially declared a Tryhard and a Noob and told to pack my bags and leave. Why? Because by God, this game is for the Hardest of Core, and we won't tolerate no Filthy Casuals in our midst!

That kind of attitude is just really sickening.

I like DotA, for instance. I'm not good at it, I stick with bot matches and play with close friends who don't mind my turning into a complete wash - but I like it. Is my lack of skill an invalidation of my right to play the game? Of course not! Why?

Because one gamer's lack of skill isn't something like cooties, people. You can't catch The Fail like you can chlamydia. It's my sixty bucks, isn't it? Shouldn't I have the right to use it like the way I want? Some communities become closed-off circles where only players who have proven their worth are allowed, and this becomes such a noxious atmosphere that you're automatically kicked out of a game that's about to start. I suck at BlOps II, for instance. Even if I do, is the fact of booting me out of any and all matches I join because of my lack of Prestige a valid way to go about making sure you're playing with people of a sufficiently high skill level? You could try hosting private games and building up your Friends list, for instance. Just saying.

Consider Dark Souls. Let's say Easy Mode does get implemented and it allows me to enjoy the level design, story and mechanics the same way a person of higher skill does for standard gameplay rules. How does that, in any way, invalidate your right to play the game using basic settings? How does the game's code containing an OPTIONAL OPTION (the repetition is intended) to lower the difficulty level prevent you from NOT choosing and NOT playing on Easy?

The answer is, it doesn't.

I haven't met a lot of elitist gamers in my time but the few I *have* met were ultimately immature and insecure. You're saying your ego and general sense of self-worth and accomplishment depends on you clearing a video game on the hardest difficulty? That's it? One game played on Normal or Easy and your ego is destroyed? Then, my friend, you've got problems.

A game is just that. A pastime. A hobby. A lark. A game doesn't net you skills or a job or a roof to call your own or food on your plate. Be worried if you can't procure one of these things for yourself as an adult - but Easy Mode?

Yeah. That's really in the nadir of Things to be Considered Important in Everyday Life.
 

DoPo

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Jan 30, 2012
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Filiecs said:
If the point of the game is in teaching players to be aware of their surroundings, analyze themselves and their performance, think things through, and get better, then wouldn't an easy mode invalidate the entire point of the game?
Not necessarily. If you cut damage down to 70% (for example) what you described is still there - you just have the ability to take two or three more whacks to the head or trigering one or two more traps without dying. It still pays off to be cautious and improve but leaves a little bit more room for mistakes. So no, in that case an easy mode would not invalidate anything.
 

Kroxile

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The easiest way to tell is to put trophies/achievements in said games. If someone doesn't believe you, tell them to check your profile.

Easy as that really.
 

Proverbial Jon

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Nov 10, 2009
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Well... in that case, all the "braggers" have to do is say:

"I beat Dark/Demon Souls on the hardest difficulty!"

I don't see how an easy mode invalidates that achievement. As it stands at the moment I could say to you that I completed Dark Souls. I have not even played Dark Souls but how would you know? You could always check my trophies list I guess, but even if there was an easy and a hard mode, you would see which one I had.

I honestly don't see your point.
 

Hisshiss

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Smolderin said:
So your chocking it all down to bragging rights? I think there is a bit more to it than that. People just want challenges, and many people like myself don't want the temptation of an easy mode option there, because we could so easily fall into that trap, robbing us of the sense of enjoyment and fulfillment when we finally beat and complete a hard game. Sure, I like to brag, but more so than that, I like to feel accomplished.
With all due respect, denying other people the right to play a game on the difficulty they want because you have poor impulse control isn't really a valid argument, there's alot of ways to cheat in life, and if you actually care about doing it the hard way in the name of honor or bragging rights then you should be fine with that.
 

Sneaky Paladin

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And finally I come out of lurking once more to maybe give a differing view on something.

There are tons of games where you can change the difficulty to make it easier or harder to make the game more accessible to certain audiences and that's perfectly fine. The thing is when you're talking about a game like Dark Souls which you mentioned that just doesn't work. The entirety of Dark Souls was designed in a way to make the difficulty a core part of the game as well as something you can avoid with careful observation.

The difficulty in Dark Souls is sort of a huge part of the game already, it's supposed to make the game feel more oppressive and lethal to make the player feel a sense of accomplishment when beating a section they thought was difficult as well as to further get across the point that the player character is in no way special. You're not a god or an extremely powerful warrior and the game tries to get that point across to make the entire experience feel like an extremely difficult task being taken by someone who is in no way qualified. It's the central theme throughout the entire game.

Besides this giving it an easier difficulty that new players choose to take will actually make the game feel worse for them. If the game doesn't feel difficult, and becomes more forgiving overall, it takes away that sense of accomplishment and oppression and will actually make the game feel horribly boring in my opinion.

The point in the end is, some people may not want to try Dark Souls or other similarly difficult games solely because they don't want a difficult experience, which is fair. But there are many different experiences like this that someone needs to try to find out they like, it's the same with food and movies. I hated horror until someone had me try it, now it's one of my favorite genres. Making a different of a horror movie that's less scary WILL take away from anyone who only chooses to watch it that way, which may just turn them off normal horror altogether. That's basically how Dark Souls would end up if newcomers tried the easier mode. They would just consider it a bland, boring, waste of their money.