Easy Mode Hate Explained

[DioWallachia]

It's quite simple really, and it's been answered in this thread several times alraedy. People don't refer to videogames as a developers creation or seem to care about developers intent unless they choose to believe it impacts them directly. See for a quick example the predictable uproar every time a developer announces that a previously single player game will now have a totally optional multi player mode. They don't even refer to it as "the" game. It's always "my" game. For some reason I didn't notice that trend before this thread, but it's sticking out pretty clearly to me now.

Multiplayer is hardly optional in these days. If they cant find a way to implement it (even when its uncalled for, see for example the horror genre) they will shove it anyway because, after all, there is NO way to sell more copies otherwise.

And is not really a good example because, most of the time, the multiplayer has NOTHING to do with the main story and its just there by executive mandate because they are afraid that the product (not art) wont sell (take for example the lackbuster multiplayer on Spec Ops The Line, that was even done by another set of developers because the originals didnt want to touch it). Also, making even a barebones multiplayers subtracts more money on the main dish that is the single player campaing (or story) and takes more time than making the most basic "easy modes" (that is, adding cheat codes or just increasing the damage or health of the enemies with an easy code fix for "difficult")

 

[DioWallachia]

Gamer 1 = "Man, I'm stuck at chapter whatever on easy mode. This game is so tough!"

Gamer 2 = "Oh yeah? Well I'm on new game+++ on uber-expert, look-at-the-size-of-my-penis hard mode."

Gamer 1 = "Cool! Mind telling me how to beat this boss then?"

Gamer 2 = "Pff. As if. Now get away from me you dirty 'casual'. You don't deserve to play Dark Souls. It wasn't meant for you."

You seem to use the tone that a "Dude Bro that plays the game that invented FPS: COD" would use on a casual gamer....even when COD IS a casual game by definition.

You sure that a Dark Soul fan is like that?

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

I look at people who "read" books on CD the way some gamers look at players who play (or want) easy mode.

In a lot of ways it's a matter of do the work, reap the reward. If you can't do the work, you don't deserve to reap the reward.

Then I realize how much I want people to read, how much I want the world to be more filled with people who know the stories I know and have been to the places I have and I think to myself: does it really matter how they got there? Do I really care? Is my sense of self-worth so hung up on my superiority for having put in an effort greater than the person next to me to get that thing?

And that's when I cool down, I nod while my father-in-law tells me about what he's "read" recently and I just silently add the air quotes and otherwise accept it as it is. Same with easy mode.

That's not to say I've never availed myself of easy mode either - some games are just ridiculous to play without it - and I'm not talking about intentional difficulty some games go for, I'm talking about broken mechanic makes you rage quit every other fight until you just say f-it I want to be done with this game so I can get on to something else - or I want an import save or whatever. Also, replays for story - if I've done it once hardcore, I don't need to do it again just to bust my own balls. Didn't need to do it the first time there sure as hell won't be a second round on some games.

People who rage about it - I understand, but you gotta let go at some point. We don't control others, just ourselves. Play how you play and let someone else do the same already.

I think what it really comes down to is that we, as long-term "hardcore" gamers are getting annoyed that other people want in our clubhouse and they have the audacity to want to change the curtains while they're squatting in our hangout. A sharing problem really. Developers could do a lot to alleviate some of this - if they were really part of our community and not our uncaring overlords - simply by making modes significantly different, putting more into their games, and realizing they have not one audience by many diverse audiences at this point. Not going to happen though y'all, so we have to find some solution ourselves.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Gamer 1 = "Man, I'm stuck at chapter whatever on easy mode. This game is so tough!"

Gamer 2 = "Oh yeah? Well I'm on new game+++ on uber-expert, look-at-the-size-of-my-penis hard mode."

Gamer 1 = "Cool! Mind telling me how to beat this boss then?"

Gamer 2 = "Pff. As if. Now get away from me you dirty 'casual'. You don't deserve to play Dark Souls. It wasn't meant for you."

You seem to use the tone that a "Dude Bro that plays the game that invented FPS: COD" would use on a casual gamer....even when COD IS a casual game by definition.

You sure that a Dark Soul fan is like that?

Yes, yes they are...

The first black phantom that invaded me absolutely demolished me with a weapon I hadn't seen before. I asked him what the name of that weapon was and he responded "noob stomper". So I asked him again and he simply said "Fuck off and stop messaging me ******".

On another incident I was summoned as a blue phantom to help deal with a boss. Just before we got to the bosses location my game logged out. It took 10 minutes for it to come back on and when I logged back in my inbox was filled with angry messages that would make a racist homophobic nazi prepubescent blush.

This isn't to take into account the dozens of times people have left unpleasant messages in my inbox for cheesing my way out of black phantom confrontations. All is fair in Dark Souls, but apparently "stalemates" are too infuriating for the "patient" dark souls players.

Dark Souls players aren't some special breed. They are the same as the sort of folks who play cod. The only difference is a completely unfounded superiority complex.

 

[Burst6]

I have an honest question to the people that do not want a easy mode in Dark Souls 2.

What if, hypothetically, there was a patch released tomorrow that added a easy and a Very Hard mode to Dark Souls.
The easy mode would have the following changes;
*Enemies with shield will keep them lowered more often.
*Enemies will do less damage and chain their attacks less often.
*The Player does more damage
*The player has more charges on his Estus flask

Hardcore mode will have the following changes;
*Enemies will have more max health
*It takes more souls to level up
*Your Damage has been reduced.
*The window on backstabbing is even more narrow, as well as for parry
*The amount of health from the Estus Flask is reduced.

These changes are just some random examples I made up and shouldn't be the focus of any arguments.
The point here is that these are, relative, simple changes that (to my knowledge) can be altered by changing the values of some part of the code.

Will this be a issue to you?
The Normal mode will still be the same version you played.
Easy mode and Very Hard are both optional.
Very Hard mode gets a achievement/trophy.

How would you react to this?

Well the normal mode will turn into a slashfest where 99% of enemies die in 1 hit and you carve through everything without taking a hit. Smaller lighter weapons would be useless compared to bigger ones. Also the enviromental hazards will provide a bumpy difficulty curve. The hard mode will become incredibly cheap and parrying will become next to impossible (also, window on backstabbing? How does that work?). Depending on how much HP increase there is for enemies you'll probably be forced to do a lot of MMO style pulling. People will complain. I know they will. People complained about the PC port even when FROM was just doing what the fans said and they explicitly said they were bad at it. Not everyone keeps up with video game forums too so when someone uninformed goes to play the game on easy mode and they see it sucks they're going to think worse of the game.

If they actually put effort into balancing the game properly, as in the same amount of effort they used to balance the main game, then the main game will suffer. They would have to fudge the map to reduce enviromental hazards, change weapon placements, remove invisible walls, weaken enemy AI, etc. This would use up developer time and focus. Either that or they would just remove all environmental hazards and generally make the game more transparent in things like weapon placement. They would probably have to fundamentally change the combat too to make it more fast paced. Current combat is very slow to allow for more precision. If the need for that precision is gone there's really no reason to do anything but spam R1.


Also, when people say "this game isn't for you", they aren't being elitist. You don't go to, say, the Warcraft 3 or Starcraft 2 campaign and complain about how managing all these troops is annoying and you should be able to just beat everything solo with your hero. It's just not part of the game and even if you do add it it'll be pointless and boring. Playing an RTS simply isn't for you and you can go play a MOBA or a ARPG instead. It's similar with Dark Souls.

 

[Loonyyy]

I've got a better explanation: People be silly.

Adding an easier mode takes nothing away from the difficulty of a game. Deal with it. And, depending on the game, adding an easy mode can be incredibly easy.

All of the arguments against it tend to be facile bits of nonsense. Especially since those who argue against it don't intend to use it anyway. Unlike, say, adding Multiplayer to a game, it doesn't take significant resources to multiply the health by 2x. It doesn't take significant effort to slow everything down to 75% of the original speed.

But really, this discussion again? Didn't we come to the conclusion that the epeenery and elitism weren't going anywhere?

 

[Robot Number V]

Here's my reasoning as to why including easy modes in game franchises known for their difficulty pisses people off. People like to brag! Yep, that's pretty much it. I see topic after topic about Dark Souls 2 getting an easy mode and Fire Emblem getting a casual mode and some gamers freaking out and others that can't see the big deal. The deal is that when a gamer beats a brutally hard game, they get to revel in the bragging rights which that accomplishment entails. When a game has no easy mode option, there is no doubt to the accomplishment's validity. However, when a gamer brags about beating a game with an easy or casual mode, even if they didn't use it, just the fact that the option is there is enough to invalidate the win in the minds of anyone they would want to brag to.

An example: When I was a kid, I actually beat Battletoads on the NES. You can bet I bragged my ass off. Now imagine that Battletoads has an easy mode option that slowed down all the vehicle session and chase sequences to manageable speeds, reduced damage taken from enemies, reduced enemies HP, etc. Were that the case, everyone I bragged to just would have assumed that I used the easy mode to beat it just like they would have had to. That's just how peoples' minds work, fair or not.

Being a person myself, I can safely say that what you just described is NOT how "people's minds work", because that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Having an easy mode doesn't actually effect the challenge provided by a hard mode. There absolutely NO evidence to suggest that it does. So why would "people" just assume otherwise, in the face of all logical thought? What possible reason would ANYONE have to think that?

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.

This makes even less sense then the OP. The situation you're describing is insane. Someone buys a game hoping for a challenge. It has an easy mode, so they give in to temptation and play on of a lower difficulty. They are underwhelmed, and now their experience is ruined. Or they could, you know, just TURN UP THE DIFFICULTY. Because that is the EXACT purpose of difficulty settings. Not to mention the fact that this hypothetical person was perfectly free to pick the higher difficulty in the first place.

Sorry, OP. Nothing has been explained here. I'm just as confused about "easy-mode hate" as I ever was.

 

[Erttheking]

Frankly, I just can't bring myself to care anymore. The developers can do whatever the fuck they want.

 

[CountArioch]

My former roommate played Skyrim on Novice. I started new characters on adept, and bump it up to master at around level 30 or so. My roommate would brag about things he could do, and tried to claim it was because of his superior build. For example, I said that I was easing off from killing Krosis until I get some more levels (level 20ish, set to Expert). He went on a tear that he could beat Krosis at level 20 with no problems and I needed a lighter build that dodges better and I wasn't good at the game. (Note: this was post Dawnguard, and although I had heavy armor I did have the circlet that lets you have two standing stone bonuses, one of which was steed. WHICH MEANS THAT ARMOR DOESN'T IMPEDE MY SPEED, YOU BARREL-SUCKER.

Now, maybe some of you can beat Krosis and his dragon buddy at level 20 on expert or higher. And if you can, props to you. But don't play on the easiest setting and try to boast on me.

 

[Bat Vader]

Gamer 1 = "Man, I'm stuck at chapter whatever on easy mode. This game is so tough!"

Gamer 2 = "Oh yeah? Well I'm on new game+++ on uber-expert, look-at-the-size-of-my-penis hard mode."

Gamer 1 = "Cool! Mind telling me how to beat this boss then?"

Gamer 2 = "Pff. As if. Now get away from me you dirty 'casual'. You don't deserve to play Dark Souls. It wasn't meant for you."

You seem to use the tone that a "Dude Bro that plays the game that invented FPS: COD" would use on a casual gamer....even when COD IS a casual game by definition.

You sure that a Dark Soul fan is like that?

Yes, yes they are...

The first black phantom that invaded me absolutely demolished me with a weapon I hadn't seen before. I asked him what the name of that weapon was and he responded "noob stomper". So I asked him again and he simply said "Fuck off and stop messaging me ******".

On another incident I was summoned as a blue phantom to help deal with a boss. Just before we got to the bosses location my game logged out. It took 10 minutes for it to come back on and when I logged back in my inbox was filled with angry messages that would make a racist homophobic nazi prepubescent blush.

This isn't to take into account the dozens of times people have left unpleasant messages in my inbox for cheesing my way out of black phantom confrontations. All is fair in Dark Souls, but apparently "stalemates" are too infuriating for the "patient" dark souls players.

Dark Souls players aren't some special breed. They are the same as the sort of folks who play cod. The only difference is a completely unfounded superiority complex.

How does the multiplayer work in Dark Souls? Do you have to allow players to summon or be summoned/invade your game? While I do own Dark Souls I only played it for about two hours on the PC and I haven't played it again since I bought it so I don't know that much about it.

Those are some of the many reasons why I stay away from the multiplayer in games. I just don't want to deal with people that are rude like that.

 

[thethird0611]

Snip

You seem to use the tone that a "Dude Bro that plays the game that invented FPS: COD" would use on a casual gamer....even when COD IS a casual game by definition.

You sure that a Dark Soul fan is like that?

snip

Im gonna blow your mind here for a second...

You found the small bad side of Dark Souls. Im pretty sure every person youve been invaded by nor every person whos summoned you have said that.

Let me give you a BIG example of the Dark Souls community.

http://darksoulswiki.chatango.com/

This is the chat room from the Dark Souls Wikispaces. Go ahead and ask -any- question you want and tell me how they answer.

When you fight black phantoms, things are personal, that is the way of Dark Souls. Alot of Darkwraiths are assholes, its just plain and simple, they like ruining others days. But quite a few of them arent, just the special breed.

So no. I believe you are skewing your side of the story to make it seem like that, but the Dark Souls community has THOUSANDS upon THOUSAND of people who want to help you move forward, because they want another person to experience the awesomeness of the game.

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

EDIT: The only way that the fallout example makes sense in a in-universe perspective is if the change of difficult ALSO makes the NPC act differently. Start in "Easy" and now everyone of the NPC acknowledges the fact that they FINALLY got the supplies they need to start over. Go in "Hard" and everyone will be on the berge of dying and needing that extra help of you to venture and make the trade of goods possible for their survival.

All the game needs to do is recognize the difference and act acordingly, but that would be more expensive than ever.

EDIT2: Oh, i almost forgot. Its more easy to relate to the protagonist / player avatar when both the player and the avatar EARN that happy ending together aganist all odds.

First of I have to say I LOVE your version of how they could do difficulty in fallout, that would be awesome, I've seen in games subtle nuances like different cut scenes different equipment etc, but to fully integrate it into a game would be really, cool, but yer like you say expensive.

My other point is unfortunately going to be against you. An this is the thing I don't get why people simply do not understand an are just like "yer seems reasonable", I consider myself an adept gamer, I can normally pick up a game have a leaf through the controls and be able to handle what's thrown at me, sometimes might find harder difficulty's a bit of a grind, but I get there.

For reasons unknown some people are not like that. Take my sisters for example, one of them well co-ordinated, picks up task's like games relatively easily, the other, woefully inept at things like fast paced games, if there were no easy modes on games, she simply would not be able to play anything other than like sonic. For some people normal mode is very very hard. Why should some people have a brick wall put up in front of them with a sign saying "if you can't scale the difficulty tough luck, your not welcome" . Just don't make sense to say people, because your not as good, you don't get to enjoy this, or at least some version of this.

Just remembered a good way operation flashpoint handled difficulty, same ai, same amount of health, but on harder difficulty's they take away assists, like a map that when enemy's are spotted it tracks them for a short time. A mini map, eventually you loose your HUD and markers for friend an foe and have a basic map that does not display enemy's.

 

[LazyAza]

Easy mode hate is just jerks who think excluding as many people from experiencing their hobby as possible is a good thing. They're just another sub culture of assholes within our sub culture that has been overflowing with assholes since it began. Thankfully such people will be reduced in number and vocalization as the years roll on.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

It's not bragging rights and it's not the absence of temptation it's gameplay mechanics. A game like Dark Souls was designed entirely with unforgiving difficulty in mind, they want you to struggle to complete the game, they want you to test your ability to finish their game. Adding an easy mode defeats the entire point of that, it's pointless adding something that essentially ruins your game.

 

[Xdeser2]

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.

so.....You dont like it because you have no self control to take the hardcore path if the easy path is presented to you? sounds like a personal problem, having an "easy mode" dosent detract from the harder modes -_-

 

[Madman123456]

Modern games are "easy" because some companies can't even pull off "hard" very well. Has to do with the balancing most of the time or sometimes with Bugs. Or both.
"Fallout: New Vegas" has both in abundance. The aptly named "Deathclaw" will become rather annoying when it kills you for the millionth time on the hardest difficulty setting.
There are many enemies with energy weapons and i can use perks to build a character that is very able to deal with that. Infact even without any perks that reduce the damage by energy weapons or raise my resistance against them those Weapons aren't that much of a Problem, considering the massive nerf they suffered in comparison to the Predecessor.
The People who made up the perks for resisting energy weapons weren't talking all that much with the People who balanced weapon damage.

The aforementioned Deathclaw is very fast, surprisingly silent and ocassionally jumps over mines i previously placed to avoid being shredded.

This frustrates me because i don't know if this is supposed to happen because they're called "Deathclaws" after all, or did someone fuck up the balancing? Did i die because i wasn't good enough at the game or did i die because the makers of the game weren't good enough at making the game?

I wasn't using any mods that influence the deathclaws, the energy weapons or my armor. Otherwise i could just make a mod with a light armor with the stats of ten heavy armors worn over one another and give that thing health regeneration. Also i'd use my supergun that shoots exploding beerbottles.

 

[Bat Vader]

My former roommate played Skyrim on Novice. I started new characters on adept, and bump it up to master at around level 30 or so. My roommate would brag about things he could do, and tried to claim it was because of his superior build. For example, I said that I was easing off from killing Krosis until I get some more levels (level 20ish, set to Expert). He went on a tear that he could beat Krosis at level 20 with no problems and I needed a lighter build that dodges better and I wasn't good at the game. (Note: this was post Dawnguard, and although I had heavy armor I did have the circlet that lets you have two standing stone bonuses, one of which was steed. WHICH MEANS THAT ARMOR DOESN'T IMPEDE MY SPEED, YOU BARREL-SUCKER.

Now, maybe some of you can beat Krosis and his dragon buddy at level 20 on expert or higher. And if you can, props to you. But don't play on the easiest setting and try to boast on me.

I have never really understood the point of boasting. I sort of get why people do it but it just makes them seem really arrogant and I don't understand why people would want to be seen like that. I don't really care how someone plays the game. They can play it on easy, normal, or hard. When I play Skyrim I always use God Mode and other cheats.

In the end it is up to the developer whether they want to add an easy mode to a game or not. I have been wondering what type of difficulty GTA IV, San Andreas, and the other GTA games had. In San Andreas, GTA IV, and Vice City I don't think it allowed players to change difficulties. It seemed to makes players play on one difficulty and that was it.

 

[Vorpal Samantha]

I think that it's mostly fear that the company will ruin the other game modes. Think about it, if the difficulty can be scaled down by just making the enemies easier, then any parts of the game that are truly difficult that can't be scaled will be removed. (Such as a platforming section or a really annoying puzzle. The developers are also taking time to scale each enemy. I doubt they just lower all the health and damage, they probably have to make their individual attacks slower and have the animation redone to fit, this may take valuable time from the game.

This isn't my reasoning, I say that easy mode allows a game to be better, and it is just an added part for people who can't play the game well.
I for one have slow muscles, so in a game that requires QTEs like Uncharted, I like it to be on lower difficulty so I don't have to break my hand tapping.

 

[thethird0611]

Gamer 1 = "Man, I'm stuck at chapter whatever on easy mode. This game is so tough!"

Gamer 2 = "Oh yeah? Well I'm on new game+++ on uber-expert, look-at-the-size-of-my-penis hard mode."

Gamer 1 = "Cool! Mind telling me how to beat this boss then?"

Gamer 2 = "Pff. As if. Now get away from me you dirty 'casual'. You don't deserve to play Dark Souls. It wasn't meant for you."

You seem to use the tone that a "Dude Bro that plays the game that invented FPS: COD" would use on a casual gamer....even when COD IS a casual game by definition.

You sure that a Dark Soul fan is like that?

Yes, yes they are...

The first black phantom that invaded me absolutely demolished me with a weapon I hadn't seen before. I asked him what the name of that weapon was and he responded "noob stomper". So I asked him again and he simply said "Fuck off and stop messaging me ******".

On another incident I was summoned as a blue phantom to help deal with a boss. Just before we got to the bosses location my game logged out. It took 10 minutes for it to come back on and when I logged back in my inbox was filled with angry messages that would make a racist homophobic nazi prepubescent blush.

This isn't to take into account the dozens of times people have left unpleasant messages in my inbox for cheesing my way out of black phantom confrontations. All is fair in Dark Souls, but apparently "stalemates" are too infuriating for the "patient" dark souls players.

Dark Souls players aren't some special breed. They are the same as the sort of folks who play cod. The only difference is a completely unfounded superiority complex.

How does the multiplayer work in Dark Souls? Do you have to allow players to summon or be summoned/invade your game? While I do own Dark Souls I only played it for about two hours on the PC and I haven't played it again since I bought it so I don't know that much about it.

Those are some of the many reasons why I stay away from the multiplayer in games. I just don't want to deal with people that are rude like that.

There are multiple ways of having multiplayer, and most of them arent jerks. I hypothesis that he just told us about the bad ones, and excluded the good and/or the no response.

If you learned about reversing your hollow state and turning human, you found the online mode. When you turn human, you open up your world to be forcibly invaded by other people, which is not common (except in certain areas). While your human ,you can also summon player phantoms, up to two people, where only 1 can invade you (mostly).

 

[thejackyl]

If it's well done I don't see why an Easy Mode isn't available to ease players into the game. But easy mode should have it's pros and cons for players. Make them WANT to play on Hard, and for more than just achievements (which admittedly WILL work for some people).

The way I see it working for a Souls game would be:
+Enemies deal less damage, and have less health
+Less Bullshit enemy placement (Some Giant Skeletons in the Tomb, and the archers and Anor Londo)
-Bosses no longer drop unique souls
-"Unique" Weapons unobtainable (Titanite Pole, Channeler's Trident, etc)
Easy players can only play with easy players (Messages from all difficulties show up)

Where as normal mode is balanced like a standard Souls game.
-Normal enemy health/damage
-All enemies placed
+Bosses drop their unique souls
+All weapons obtainable
Normal players can only play with Normal players

As long as the game is balanced properly and the normal mode doesn't alienate it's fanbase (hence the incentive to play on Normal) than I don't see the issue. I think a lot of people think that if Dark Souls has an easy mode, that it will seep into the "proper" game and the game as a whole will be made easier. And for a game that's known for punishing the brave and foolish, that's not a good thing.