Jimquisition: Dumbing Down for the Filthy Casuals

[Mortrialus]

Double the player damage, half the enemy damage, increase the player health and stamina by 33% lower the enemy health by 33%.

Is that reworking the whole game? All those are stats that are saved in few files outside the source code for easy patching.

Raw numbers like health, stamina and damage only go so far when creating difficulty. For example, there are the Darkwraiths. These enemies are sword wielding dark knights. They do a lot of damage have a fairly high amount of health and attacks don't stagger them, meaning you can't just stun lock them to death easily. Now skilled players who understand the mechanics of the game can very easily take them out by chaining back stabs on them. But for a less skilled who can't do that, they're a much more serious threat and even if you reduced their health by 50%, they're still going to curb stomp inexperienced unskilled players. Balancing them for easy players would require tweeking their AI to make them less unrelenting, and perhaps reducing their poise.

Then there are areas like Blightown. In the first part of Blighttown, the single biggest threat is your footing. It is very easy to fall to an instant death, even without enemies. Making a blighttown that is very easy would required drastically changing the level in it's entirety, like adding guardrails throughout the entire first section. This type of scenario pops up multiple times throughout the game. And it isn't just falling. There are often things like pools of water which reduce your movement speed and you have to fight enemies slowed. There are ways around this, including a pretty big secret in the game, but how do you deal with things like that in an easy mode? Do you just remove all enemy encounters there?

Then there are enemies with knock backs. These can easily knock you straight off a ledge and to your death. The infested barbarians in Blighttown are an example. The most infamous is the Silver Archers in Anor Londo, which is honestly one of the trickier parts of the game (Though you can cheese them). Reducing how much damage they do and how much health they have isn't going to help much. Their bows shoot javelins, with a huge push back, even if you block them. So you'd have to completely change this enemy encounter for an easy mode.

And it's things like that throughout the entire game. Putting modal difficulty into Dark Souls is not cheap, quick, or easy. It requires sitting down and reevaluating pretty much every encounter in the game, and the ones we got are what the director himself intended.

Plus, we haven't even touched on how many problems something like modal difficulty can cause for online play.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

The extent to which this topic has been distorted, inverted, and turned on it's head is just crazy. The people who have pretty much taken over gaming and kicked us out of the club are acting like they're the victims of our aggression at the very moment they are storming our last bastion.

Everything must be sacrificed on the alter of dumbing down. Everything.

We aren't even allowed one game.

Call me when they dumb down Dwarf Fortress, buddy.

There will ALWAYS be some games that aim to be challenges. Allowing other people to dip their toes in on an easier mode and then maybe later decide to play on the real difficulty mode shouldn't be a bad thing.

If it's a shitty company that will half ass the difficulty, then you have an argument. But this is From Software. They are a damn good studio. They won't "take your game away". They will give you your game, and then allow other people who are curious to poke their heads in without getting massacred. Knowing From, they will probably just give you more HP, make healing items better, and give you less of a penalty for dying on the new easy mode. And it probably won't affect PvP, because they're not stupid enough to do that as it would unbalance everything. (they probably will just make it so normal mode players can't invade easy mode players, and make easy mode players switch to normal mode while invading normal mode players. That's what I'd do, at any rate.)

So have a little faith in From, man. See what they do before getting all upset. They're a good developer, they won't "ruin" Dark Souls. They and Atlus love their fanbases, and typically do not screw them over.

 

[Church185]

But what of the newer games in the series? Wasting the time and money on an easier mode in that game that could have gone to making the existing formula better for the established audience. You know, those people that helped make the game infamous and successful in the first place?

First, you completely ignored my reply. So I guess that means it was successful and defeated your post.

Second, yet another false premise. I really wonder how much time and effort you really think it would take in order to take an already finished game, and make a toned down mode. And its not wasted time and effort if more people buy the game. Also, you speak as if they would be building the game going from easy------->hard rather than hard------->easy like they would be now if they did ever make an easy mode.

But ok. Lets just pretend that right now, dark souls had an easier mode, heck, lets call it "story mode". The developers had been developing it the entire time in secret and they just patched the game. And now, at the menu there is a difficulty setting with two difficulties "Story mode" "Normal mode". Where normal mode is everything that dark souls is now.

Please tell how that would hurt the people who were looking for the "true dark souls" experience. I'll save you some time, it wont. The only reason I can fathom people not wanting an easy mode is because they want to look down at others with a smug sense of superiority and be a member of some sort of club where they point and laugh at all the baddies.

Because you know, there are some people who can beat every video game on the hardest setting no matter what it is. And you know what, I don't care. It doesn't take away from my experience that you can beat the game on a harder setting. So why does someone beating a game on an easier setting (at least in theory) take away from yours?

I'll answer your question simply. It's taken time away from making Dark Souls II, for a group of people that may not even care enough to buy the game to play said easy mode.

 

[girzwald]

Dark souls is easy if you LEARN how to play it......

You =/= everyone else.

Whats easy for you =/= easy for everyone else.

 

[Korten12]

snip

Then should I stop trying to argue? Because if like you said I am not really doing it right.

 

[Church185]

Raw numbers like health, stamina and damage only go so far when creating difficulty. For example, there are the Darkwraiths. These enemies are sword wielding dark knights. They do a lot of damage have a fairly high amount of health and attacks don't stagger them, meaning you can't just stun lock them to death easily. Now skilled players who understand the mechanics of the game can very easily take them out by chaining back stabs on them. But for a less skilled who can't do that, they're a much more serious threat and even if you reduced their health by 50%, they're still going to curb stomp inexperienced unskilled players. Balancing them for easy players would require tweeking their AI to make them less unrelenting, and perhaps reducing their poise.

Then there are areas like Blightown. In the first part of Blighttown, the single biggest threat is your footing. It is very easy to fall to an instant death, even without enemies. Making a blighttown that is very easy would required drastically changing the level in it's entirety, like adding guardrails throughout the entire first section. This type of scenario pops up multiple times throughout the game. And it isn't just falling. There are often things like pools of water which reduce your movement speed and you have to fight enemies slowed. There are ways around this, including a pretty big secret in the game, but how do you deal with things like that in an easy mode? Do you just remove all enemy encounters there?

Then there are enemies with knock backs. These can easily knock you straight off a ledge and to your death. The infested barbarians in Blighttown are an example. The most infamous is the Silver Archers in Anor Londo, which is honestly one of the trickier parts of the game (Though you can cheese them). Reducing how much damage they do and how much health they have isn't going to help much. Their bows shoot javelins, with a huge push back, even if you block them. So you'd have to completely change this enemy encounter for an easy mode.

And it's things like that throughout the entire game. Putting modal difficulty into Dark Souls is not cheap, quick, or easy. It requires sitting down and reevaluating pretty much every encounter in the game, and the ones we got are what the director himself intended.

Plus, we haven't even touched on how many problems something like modal difficulty can cause for online play.

Dude, those Darkwraiths are cake when you have a +10 Divine Great Scythe

EDIT: wow that quote failed hard.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Dark souls is easy if you LEARN how to play it......

No need to tell me this. I already know that. But I'm also an experienced gamer. I've been playing games since the age of 4. But what's easy for me isn't necessarily easy for someone else. And that's why I'm for a optional Easy Mode.

-snip-

You failed to address the other points and areas in the game, like "why aren't all of these skeleton's staying dead wahhh" or "i just flipped the switch up there by that patches gentleman, why did i just fall to my death on that bridge?". yes there are obvious traps in sen's fortress, but how do you make timing the blades towards the top of the tower any easier for someone who hasn't played the game before?

Seriously, summon a sunbro, smooth sailing.

No, I didn't fail to address anything. I already said it, easy mode doesn't mean "for idiots". It doesn't mean removing the challenge completely. It doesn't mean changing the game.

Easy mode COULD mean all of that, but it's not necessary. How to make something easy for someone who hasn't played the game before? How about making him LEARN to play it trough the game? By making the challenge get bigger and bigger as the game progresses like EVERY fucking game since the Adam and Eve does?

Just because someone isn't capable to beat the game on normal doesn't mean he/she is a complete idiot who simply can't learn that "falling of this cliff means you die!".

But more importantly, why are you against an OPTIONAL mode that won't affect you in any ways?

 

[EvilRoy]

It really sounds to me, an outsider, like you're saying "by searching in-game constantly, reading forums and buying a guidebook, this game isn't that hard so an easy mode isn't necessary".

But even if I was willing to accept that as a reasonable statement, it doesn't explain why an easy mode wouldn't work. Just put all that in game. Have tooltips, have hints, make checkpoints stand out more prominently against the background, all fairly easy to do.

Actually my friend, you can skip all of that if you would just summon a sunbro.

So if difficulty is that trivial to the game, why are people so up in arms about adding an easier difficulty?

 

[Church185]

It really sounds to me, an outsider, like you're saying "by searching in-game constantly, reading forums and buying a guidebook, this game isn't that hard so an easy mode isn't necessary".

But even if I was willing to accept that as a reasonable statement, it doesn't explain why an easy mode wouldn't work. Just put all that in game. Have tooltips, have hints, make checkpoints stand out more prominently against the background, all fairly easy to do.

Actually my friend, you can skip all of that if you would just summon a sunbro.

So if difficulty is that trivial to the game, why are people so up in arms about adding an easier difficulty?

Because when you summon a sunbro, you don't need to waste development costs for the sequel

 

[anthony87]

Dark souls is easy if you LEARN how to play it......

No need to tell me this. I already know that. But I'm also an experienced gamer. I've been playing games since the age of 4. But what's easy for me isn't necessarily easy for someone else. And that's why I'm for a optional Easy Mode.

-snip-

You failed to address the other points and areas in the game, like "why aren't all of these skeleton's staying dead wahhh" or "i just flipped the switch up there by that patches gentleman, why did i just fall to my death on that bridge?". yes there are obvious traps in sen's fortress, but how do you make timing the blades towards the top of the tower any easier for someone who hasn't played the game before?

Seriously, summon a sunbro, smooth sailing.

No, I didn't fail to address anything. I already said it, easy mode doesn't mean "for idiots". It doesn't mean removing the challenge completely. It doesn't mean changing the game.

Easy mode COULD mean all of that, but it's not necessary. How to make something easy for someone who hasn't played the game before? How about making him LEARN to play it trough the game? By making the challenge get bigger and bigger as the game progresses like EVERY fucking game since the Adam and Ever does?

Just because someone isn't capable to beat the game on normal doesn't mean he/she is a complete idiot who simply can't learn that "falling of this cliff means you die!".

But more importantly, why are you against an OPTIONAL mode that won't affect you in any ways?

OPTIONAL

................

Sorry, it's just that so many people seem to be ignore the usage of the word optional that I figured I'd make it big and blue, maybe draw some attention to it.

EDIT:

yea me = every one else the way u = entitled consumer who should have every game cater to your preferences....... Again if you don't like it why break it for those that do???

Like you. An optional mode doesn't break the game. It adds an option. Hence "optional mode", not "break the game mode".

 

[Church185]

No, I didn't fail to address anything. I already said it, easy mode doesn't mean "for idiots". It doesn't mean removing the challenge completely. It doesn't mean changing the game.

Easy mode COULD mean all of that, but it's not necessary. How to make something easy for someone who hasn't played the game before? How about making him LEARN to play it trough the game? By making the challenge get bigger and bigger as the game progresses like EVERY fucking game since the Adam and Ever does?

Just because someone isn't capable to beat the game on normal doesn't mean he/she is a complete idiot who simply can't learn that "falling of this cliff means you die!".

But more importantly, why are you against an OPTIONAL mode that won't affect you in any ways?

It does affect me, by making From Software make a suboptimal sequel by wasting development time and money, on a gamble like more mainstream appeal.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

-snip-

It does affect me, by making From Software make a suboptimal sequel by wasting development time and money, on a gamble like more mainstream appeal.

It really sounds to me, an outsider, like you're saying "by searching in-game constantly, reading forums and buying a guidebook, this game isn't that hard so an easy mode isn't necessary".

But even if I was willing to accept that as a reasonable statement, it doesn't explain why an easy mode wouldn't work. Just put all that in game. Have tooltips, have hints, make checkpoints stand out more prominently against the background, all fairly easy to do.

Actually my friend, you can skip all of that if you would just summon a sunbro.

So if difficulty is that trivial to the game, why are people so up in arms about adding an easier difficulty?

Because when you summon a sunbro, you don't need to waste development costs for the sequel

Adding an easy mode will take 3 days at most, few hours at best. It's simply editing some numbers nothing more. And it won't take away from the game because there is always a part of the dev. team that isn't working on anything at the moment which means they are free to work on the easy mode anyways.

 

[Professor Uzzy]

But more importantly, why are you against an OPTIONAL mode that won't affect you in any ways?

Because it would put the games storyline and themes in a position of dissonance with the mechanics.

You know how in many other games we complain about gameplay and story segregation, like cutscene incompetence, or when you kill the boss that's been built up as a huge threat in a matter of seconds? Countless games do that. Endlessly. Practically every game does that infact. So many games do it that we've become accepting of it.

Dark Souls doesn't. Again, the backstory of Dark Souls is of a brutal, unforgiving and slowly dying world that is no longer fit for human habitation. The mechanics back that up.

Why are you so desperate to cripple one of the few recent examples of mechanics and storyline working in harmony to deliver a complete experience?

 

[Peithelo]

And frankly, it's pretty insulting to Dark Souls if you think ALL it has to offer the world is difficulty.

This is a misconception. Dark Souls does indeed have much more than the knowledge based difficulty alone to offer, but most all that it does offer is intentionally designed to be achieved through challenge. Difficulty is used here as an essential tool that provides the player with the feelings of accomplishment and discovery, and in doing so defines the experience and these very feelings it is supposed to instill in the player as a crucial part of the experience. Challenge is also one of the greatest reasons why people are still actively playing Dark Souls even over a year after its release.

As for why I care about how others experience the game, it partially comes down to my respect towards the creators right to artistic integrity (yeah, yeah, just choose to ignore the connotations of this concept). In general it isn't the creators responsibility to make sure that their creative works are appreciated and enjoyed by the majority of all people or even accessible to them, only that their product is as promised or advertised. When someone aspires to create something harmless as a form of entertainment or art and then goes on to create it, the ensuing possibility that it might not be for everyone is in most cases of no consequence. Usually this is quite well accepted practice but for some reason the naturally emphasized interactivity in games somehow seems to affect or change this view for many.

And it just so happens that I very much like Dark Souls they way it is now, so I naturally have some level of vested interest in keeping it that way. Also, as the challenge is a great part of the games content, lessening the level of difficulty of Dark Souls' gameplay would in the very least have a diminishing effect on the games overall length. I would estimate that even the first playthrough wouldn't take more than some 5-10 hours. However, this would still leave every other aspect of the game as unaccessible as ever, which wouldn't go well together with the easier gameplay and the expectations that it would undoubtedly generate.

This whole issue and the discussion about it is very confusing. Some of us are at times discussing about the general concept and necessity of difficulty modes while other talk about how they do not apply to Dark Souls and how it can do without them. These issues should be kept seperate as no one is questioning the general practise of using difficulty modes in games, only the implementation of them in every imaginable game; in this case Dark Souls. There are already multiple ways to directly affect the amount of challenge in Dark Souls, but they simply are implemented in such a way that doesn't compromise the intended experience.

 

[Mortrialus]

Dude, those Darkwraiths are cake when you have a +10 Divine Great Scythe

EDIT: wow that quote failed hard.

I know. I messed the quote edits for mine crazy bad.

And that's just another example of how Dark Souls isn't hard because of the technical skill required, but because of the knowledge base required to complete the game.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

snip

Then should I stop trying to argue? Because if like you said I am not really doing it right.

You should keep at it, because you are doing a fine job. But you should stop arguing with people who do not engage you in meaningful discussion.

So then don't play the easy mode. Imagine if you will, that Dark Souls as it is now is actually the "Normal Mode" while there's also an OPTIONAL "Easy Mode" where you have extra health, bosses and enemies hit for less and you don't lose souls when you die. Sounds shite right? Then don't play it. Stick to "Normal Mode" let the people who aren't as good at the game play the "Easy Mode", everyone is happy.

If you are not going to read my posts then don't quote me. It is not fair to me to waste my time. You obviously haven't read one word that anyone has said to you on this topic because you have not even begun to engage their arguments. It is not fair to waste everyone's time.

OPTIONAL

................

Sorry, it's just that so many people seem to be ignore the usage of the word optional that I figured I'd make it big and blue, maybe draw some attention to it.

EDIT:

yea me = every one else the way u = entitled consumer who should have every game cater to your preferences....... Again if you don't like it why break it for those that do???

Like you. An optional mode doesn't break the game. It adds an option. Hence "optional mode", not "break the game mode".

The next Civilization game should come with a submarine-sim mode for people who hate turn based strategy games but love submarine sims. This mode will of course be completely OPTIONAL.

Agree or disagree? Why or why not?

 

[Church185]

OPTIONAL

................

Sorry, it's just that so many people seem to be ignore the usage of the word optional that I figured I'd make it big and blue, maybe draw some attention to it.

Wow methinks someone is compensating for something. (these are the jokes kids, sorry for psuedo-ad hominem attack)

The difficulty setting would be optional, that may be true. But whatever content we may never see or isn't polished isn't optional for me. Sorry that I want the best Dark Souls II that From Software can deliver.

 

[BioRex]

Dark souls is easy if you LEARN how to play it......

You =/= everyone else.

Whats easy for you =/= easy for everyone else.

So should we make a easier version of chess because I'm really bad at it? Should those those sim games add platforming because I don't find its main mechanic engaging? Should Starcraft auto-create my units since I don't know what I should build when? Should soccer fields be shorter since I can't run worth a damn? Should tetris include markers telling you where to put the blocks because my planning ahead skills suck? Should large novels come with a cliff-notes version because I lack patience? I could do this all day, why is it so absurd that if one wants to take part and enjoy something they learn the basic skills needed to understand that thing? It would be rather rude of me to go to some people playing magic and demand we play by my house rules just because I owned a deck.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

But more importantly, why are you against an OPTIONAL mode that won't affect you in any ways?

Because it would put the games storyline and themes in a position of dissonance with the mechanics.

You know how in many other games we complain about gameplay and story segregation, like cutscene incompetence, or when you kill the boss that's been built up as a huge threat in a matter of seconds? Countless games do that. Endlessly. Practically every game does that infact. So many games do it that we've become accepting of it.

Dark Souls doesn't. Again, the backstory of Dark Souls is of a brutal, unforgiving and slowly dying world that is no longer fit for human habitation. The mechanics back that up.

Why are you so desperate to cripple one of the few recent examples of mechanics and storyline working in harmony to deliver a complete experience?

If beating the game on "normal" is impossible for someone, then easy wouldn't make it a walk in the park. It would still be a brutal, unforgiving solowly dying world that is no longer fir for human habitation.

You seem to think that just because you would find the easy mode actually easy, everyone will find it easy. But that's not the case. Easy mode is for people who are not able to beat it on normal.

And even if people who can beat it on normal play it on easy and easy is indeed a walk in the park, it won't affect you if you play it on normal. If on the other hand you pick to play on easy, it's your own fault and you have no right to complain.