Jimquisition: Dumbing Down for the Filthy Casuals

Mortamus

The Talking Dead
May 18, 2012
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Korten12 said:
And the game would be very medicore. I think people don't get that. Without the difficulty (which isn't that hard, just need to be patience), the would have nothing to stand out aside from being dark fantasy. The game on easy could be beaten in 5 hours to 7 hours tops. Hell on the current difficulty it can be beaten that fast.
This still wouldn't affect your play experience. As for it taking away from someone else's play experience in "not getting the full game", that is their decision and they can interpret how good the experience was on their own.

We're also assuming that this easy mode is going to be a severe reduction.
 

Mortamus

The Talking Dead
May 18, 2012
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Mortrialus said:
Mortamus said:
I don't really see how you would miss all of that on a lower difficulty. The items, NPCs, and surroundings will still be there. :/
Because why would anyone playing the game on an easy mode where they're guaranteed to beat the game without understanding the basic mechanics, isn't going to look at / care about other items when they're already set up with a winning strategy. If they're told exactly where to go, they aren't going to talk to NPCs. And if they aren't spending a lot of time in an area, they aren't going to notice the details of the varying levels.

The difficulty from Dark Souls doesn't come from the technical skill required to beat the game. It comes from the knowledge base required to beat the game.
This is assuming that the easy mode would allow them to never need those items.
 

Sheo_Dagana

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Aug 12, 2009
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I love the elitist argument that Jim levels at critics of 'Easy' mode. Now I have never been one to select Easy mode for any game, not since I was young at least, but I can see the need for one. Especially for Dark Souls - that game is really awesome, but it shuts out those who cannot contend with it's high level of difficulty. Which is a shame, because the monsters the game offers are are a sight to behold, as are the environments. True that those experiences are more rewarding when pushed to work for it, but the kind of player that selects easy mode is just as likely to be challenged by it as you would be by normal. You can't assume a casual will go into a game with your level of skill on a lower difficulty.

I'm all for people experiencing as much of any game as they would like. I mean, if you are the kind of player that wants that super-high difficulty, is it not still there for you? "No! The Easy Mode is too much of a temptation! Just knowing it is there is blasphemy!" If that is your argument, then that kind of sounds like your problem, really.

I remember how Megaman 2 had an easy mode for the western audience, and even though I play it on the higher difficulty now, I was thankful for the easier difficulty when I was younger. Not to mention it was still balls hard. Fuck you, Air Man.
 

BehattedWanderer

Fell off the Alligator.
Jun 24, 2009
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Man that carrot looks tasty. More on topic, I have no problem with this concept. Of course, I'm one of the vocal few who want cheat codes to come back into style, because sometimes I just seriously fucking hate playing a game, but am extremely interested in the narrative, characters, arcs, or events that transpire. I had this problem with Bayonetta and Devil May Cry. I really disliked the combat, was not fond of the mechanics, and didn't give a single flippant care for most of the actual gameplay. I did, however, still want to know what happened to the characters and how things played out. At a point where I got so bored with the gameplay I turned it off, and watched in online. And while that's fine in one sense, I would have much preferred it if I could have just flicked on a cheat of god mode and been done with the tedious parts I didn't want to slog through just to get to the good bits.
 

Ham Blitz

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May 28, 2009
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I do agree with this video for the most part, though I do sort of feel that on Dark Souls the difficultly was half the point. Though from a financial point of view, the easy mode may have been smart, but I feel the game has been out too long for it to really help them that much. I think most people interested in the game either got it or moved on, but if it actually gets From more sales, good for them.
On a side note, this video most importantly reminded me that the DLC for Dark Souls came out for the Xbox about 2 months ago and I still haven't got that. I might have to get on that soon.
 

Entitled

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Aug 27, 2012
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3 out of the past 4 Jimquisition episodes all followed this same formula, of Jim taking on a complex, multifaceted debate, and mixing it's most hateful, irrational, exaggerated, obviously moronic "arguements" that one could imagine into a single strawman, then and ranting against that, just to lure in anyone to the comment section who might feel defensive about the larger debates.

Yes, people who actually do use the word "filthy casual" unironically are assholes, and anyone who is literally *MAD* about a game having an optional easy mode, is irrational. WE KNOW THAT. Anyone who is that delusional either isn't watching your show, or wouldn't recognize themselves anyways.

Yes, HATING all review scores is silly, you have better things to do with your free time, you don't have to look at them.

Yes, being mysogynistic is evil, and automatically assuming that a female gamer is just trying to lure you with her power of boobs, *is* being mysogynistic.

No, really? Not so long ago, the part of the episode where you uttered such wonderfully rightous statements as "Don't be a Nazi", was the ending gag part, not the serious ranting part. It seems this has changed.
 

Darken12

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Apr 16, 2011
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Since Jim brought up gay marriage (awesome one, Jim), this reminds me of the controversy a couple of years back on Bioware's same-sex romance inclusion (i.e., straight dudes bitchin' about how it was gross that same-sex existed somewhere in the game, even if they'd never see it).

People need to be hammered, over and over, with the knowledge that "more options are never a bad thing."

Until they get it.
 

IamLEAM1983

Neloth's got swag.
Aug 22, 2011
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TwiZtah said:
Easy modes are not the problem. The problem is that games are now designed for inept players, making the experienced players experience of the game extremely easy.

Far Cry 3 was ridiculously easy at Hard, because it was catered towards the casuals.
I'm sorry, give me a moment to recover from my spitting coffee all over my desk.

Ahem.

I played through FarCry 3 on Adventurer. It was *not* easy. The AI is nearly prescient, and the only way to survive is to play a constant game of duck-and-cover. After covering the north islands, LMGs become absolutely necessary as Heavies start to show up. Bringing anything else to a gunfight guarantees your death.

I've been playing games for about 25 years. I don't think I count as a "casual". I'm not particularly skilled, but assuming Hard is catered towards "casuals" is only proving the existence of the problem Sterling mentions in the video.
 

Mortrialus

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Jan 23, 2010
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Mortamus said:
This is assuming that the easy mode would allow them to never need those items.
That is the point of making easy modes that allows everyone to play the game to complete it, as the video suggested.

Why is it every game needs to be the same and offer all the same options, even when they run counter to the developer's intended goal of the game? Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of Dark Souls, has outright said that the point of the game, the reason he created it and the goal they wanted to achieve when making it, is to create a challenging game that gives players a sense of accomplishment when the complete it. Adding modal difficulty literally defeats the purpose of the game.

Go play Dark Souls or watch a playthrough of it. It is not paced or designed to really make modal difficulty even possible without completely changing the design of the game.

And as I said before, people do not think Dark Souls is hard because of the technical skill needed to beat it. The technical skill required to beat Dark Souls is quite frankly minimal. They find it challenging because of the knowledge base needed to beat it. And creating a mode where everyone can complete it without acquiring that knowledge base by definition would mean they never need those items.

Not every game needs to be the same. Not every game needs to offer the same difficulty. Not every game needs to offer the same options. It depends entirely on the individual game and the developer intentions when making it.
 

cynicalsaint1

Salvation a la Mode
Apr 1, 2010
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I'm going to have to disagree with you Jim.

The problem being that your position denies that challenge or difficulty can be a core part of a game's experience. Comparing Dark Souls to Mario is apples and oranges. The fact that you have no choice but to deal with its challenge or give up is part of the experience. Imagine a horror game where you never actually felt threatened - what would the point of calling it a horror game at that point?

Furthermore I find the argument that "being for everyone" necessarily makes a game better to be a lot of BS. With all the various tastes in videogames out there I think that there's room for something like Dark Souls to play buy its own rules.

Your argument that not wanting Dark Souls to have an Easy Mode makes you some kind of elitist snob is also utterly ridiculous. Let me digress for a moment and talk about beer. I like beer. In particular I find that I like good hoppy beers - now I have friends who can't stand really hoppy beers. Does that mean that I believe them to be lesser beer drinkers than me? Of course not - that would be absolutely silly.

I'm perfectly willing to admit that Dark Souls might not be for everyone, and if it isn't for you that's fine - I can't stand Elder Scrolls games despite my best attempts to get into them - I get it, not everyone has to like every game. I'm perfectly content knowing that a lot of people love Skyrim, and that there are people who have no interest in Dark Souls.

But - going back to the beer analogy - if you ask me if I'm okay with someone watering down my favorite beer so that its less hoppy so more people might like it - well then I'm going to tell you to kindly fuck off.
 

Your Gaffer

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Oct 10, 2012
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While I agree that the inclusion of an "easy mode" does not diminish a game too many game's default setting is basically an "easy mode" today.

I do hate that games in general seem to be dumbed down and "streamlined" to the point where you feel like you are in special ed with a special ed teacher sitting next to you as you play the game saying "now go to that wall, press B to take cover, good boy". There are still some great, challenging, and complex games being put out, mostly by indie developers, but I hope we get past this stage in games development.

Everyone in this thread should check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM
 

Hindkjar

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May 1, 2012
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When you choose the dificulty in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, they ask weather you want a story, or a challange.. That pretty much shows how it should be done.. You want a interactive movie, or a game.

Other games ask if you want to change the difficulty if/when you have died enough times..
It all comes back to a quote "Yatzee" made in a ZP episode some time ago:

"Fuck you game, You will not beat me!"
 

RandV80

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Oct 1, 2009
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This is only loosely relevant but I've always found it ironic that the fears the PS3/360 crowd have towards the Wii/casual gaming infecting their platform is pretty much a reality in the logical equivalence of how the PS3/360 effect the Glorious PC Master Race.
 

Elois

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Dec 10, 2012
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An easy mode does affect me, it does alter the experience and it does matter. That is because Dark Souls isn't just a single player game, its multiplier is at the very core of the experience and its status as a niche game keeps the online community what it is. A community of like minded players who most of the time will stop when they see you, bow to you, you bow back then you fight to the death. When most video game online communities involve a bunch of swearing hyperactive 12 year olds the respect the average souls player has for the game and his opponents is an amazing and beautiful thing.

It used to be, if you got invaded in the kilin of the final flame it meant an opponent who had bested the hardest bosses, faced every challenge and was here to fight a good fight against a skilled opponent. Bowing was done, unwritten rules used to be followed, most importantly respectful skilled gameplay took place. Online over a video game, with strangers.

What does this have to do with an easy mode you ask? Well if you allow people to bypass a boss before learning how to play better they won't learn anything about how to control their characters. Dark Souls kinda has an easy mode, they are called Sunbros. Just summon one and they practically do the boss for you. Now what happens when you touch a summon sign and this warrior of sunlight throws 3 or 4 lightning bolts at the boss and takes out 90% of its health? The player learns NOTHING.

What happens when a player scoots by the harder bosses by summoning a much better player to do it for them? They end up in the kilin of the final flame with VASTLY better players and get killed in pvp because they can't play. A lot of players, instead of getting better at the game (because not getting better at it didn't stop them up till now) will resort to dirty fighting just to get a kill and feel better about themselves. We get people who try to gets hits in during the pre fight bow, we get people who resort to abusing lag to land back-stabs, people who spam fast casting aoe spells, people abusing broken combinations of equipment, but worst of all you get people with no respect for the game or the people who play it. People looking to get kills, not have fights.

Now I have no issue with as many people playing Dark souls as possible, but not at the expense of a unique community that is already on the down-slope. If a player is having trouble on a specific boss, I try my hardest to educate them. I show them the fight strategies on the wiki, I suggest optimal equipment setups, I inform them how all the stats work and why they are important, I try my damnedest to teach weaker players to fish instead of doing the fishing for them, or making the fishing easier. You know what I'm saying?
 

Mortamus

The Talking Dead
May 18, 2012
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Mortrialus said:
Mortamus said:
This is assuming that the easy mode would allow them to never need those items.
That is the point of making easy modes that allows everyone to play the game to complete it, as the video suggested.

Why is it every game needs to be the same and offer all the same options, even when they run counter to the developer's intended goal of the game? Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of Dark Souls, has outright said that the point of the game, the reason he created it and the goal they wanted to achieve when making it, is to create a challenging game that gives players a sense of accomplishment when the complete it. Adding modal difficulty literally defeats the purpose of the game.

Go play Dark Souls or watch a playthrough of it. It is not paced or designed to really make modal difficulty even possible without completely changing the design of the game.

And as I said before, people do not think Dark Souls is hard because of the technical skill needed to beat it. The technical skill required to beat Dark Souls is quite frankly minimal. They find it challenging because of the knowledge base needed to beat it. And creating a mode where everyone can complete it without acquiring that knowledge base by definition would mean they never need those items.

Not every game needs to be the same. Not every game needs to offer the same difficulty. Not every game needs to offer the same options. It depends entirely on the individual game and the developer intentions when making it.
So if I pay for the game at the same price you did, but I'm not able to make the same investment that you did in the content in terms of knowledge, then I shouldn't have access to all the content that I paid for?
 

CalUKGR

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Dec 9, 2012
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Great video, Jim - couldn't agree with your sentiments more. I've long felt that developers actually have a duty to ensure there is always a way for any player of any ability level to 'see the content they've paid for'. Being booted back to the menu screen for repeatedly failing to complete a boss battle or a particularly difficult challenge is simply bad design. The developers forgot a basic rule: always find a way to keep the player in the game.

Good to see you speaking up for gamers who simply don't wish to be beaten around the head by a game's spiteful insistence on absolute perfection from all of its players. We are all entitled to enjoy our games at whatever level of participation we choose - and we should not be punished for wanting to enjoy whatever a game might have to offer, even if we might prefer to take the 'easy' option.

Looking forward to your award videos!
 

Shiro No Uma

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Nov 10, 2009
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Jimothy Sterling said:
Dumbing Down for the Filthy Casuals

There are valid concerns with the "dumbing down" of our entertainment, but as with so many issues, there are just as many invalid ones. This is especially true when "inclusiveness" and "dumbing down" are seen as the same thing.

Watch Video
Hey Jim. I'm a bit curious, do you think that this fear of dumbing down games is slightly akin to the "Fake Nerd Girl" issue that you brought up a few weeks back? The idea that groups of people are angry because they don't feel they should share a part their culture and don't have the maturity to see that having more people included in these games doesn't lessen them in any way?

I really like your argument here because it sounds like the issue is more "dumbing down the gamer" and not dumbing down the entertainment in making it easier to finish a game. Although, I personally haven't though any better of someone who brags about beating a game on insane.
 

Rad Party God

Party like it's 2010!
Feb 23, 2010
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Well, I might be a "filthy casual", because in my 24 years of gaming, I still can't live without the "normal" difficulty, I rarely venture through "hard", as I'm reading in some posts that some people claim to plough through games like a cakewalk on hard.

I generally don't give a shit about difficulty, I looooooooooooove Dark Souls to bits thanks to it's difficulty (wich isn't that difficult if you're careful, but still very challenging), but still, I definitely appreciate lower difficulties, we tend to forget that most people don't know how to play a videogame, my nephew for example, I like to play difficult games, but he'd like to play what I play and the only thing preventing him from doing so, is the difficulty.

I don't like to think that games are getting easier, we are getting better and better at them and I'm 100% agreed with Jim on this one, people bitching about difficulty doesn't come up as more than assholes.
 

Rooster Cogburn

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You're an absolutist. You think you know how every game should be and you're unwilling to consider alternatives, forever-and-ever AMEN. You are appealing to people's prejudices and their emotional sense of victimization. All that you have neglected is reason and fairness.

Your dismissal of people who don't want the game to have Easy Mode because you think they are elitist is CLOSE-MINDED because it is obviously preventing you from considering other possibilities. You are like the religious zealot who doesn't explore alternative explanations to natural phenomena because you think you have ALL the answers. First, why are you even speaking your mind on this topic only to immediately admit you have no knowledge of the subject matter? Your assumption that not wanting an easy mode in Dark Souls is rooted in elitism betrays your ignorance of that series and it's intentions and goals. It reflects a closed-minded attitude because you think you know how all games should be and are unwilling to learn what Dark Souls has to teach. You should have shown both sides about this topic. That you didn't suggests to me you don't know what you're talking about.

"Many gamers aren't into games that set out to flagellate and..."

Why does EVERY game need to cater to this audience, or indeed to ANY particular audience? NO game that costs money is allowed to be hard? Never? None? No matter what? And if I disagree, it can only be because I'm trying to exclude people? What the actual fuck? I never DEMANDED that EVERY game be changed to suit my tastes and condemned every single one that didn't. What gives anyone the right to corner the market like that? It's not fair.

"Did an Easy Mode matter to you?"

YES. Dark Soul's difficulty is not incidental. Dark Souls is not a game that just happens to be hard. What you are asking, whether you realize it or not, is comparable to demanding Infinity Ward put a fully featured Turn Based Strategy game in the next Call of Duty, and then acting scandalized when Call of Duty vets think it's a bad idea. Why can't we just leave the developers of this series to pursue the model they established in the first two titles?

Second, this game relies heavily on innovative community features. The fact that everyone is given the same content to explore is INTEGRAL to keeping those feature relevant.

Third, Dark Souls is designed from the ground up to instill a SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT. Putting an easy version of Capra Demon into the game turns Capra Demon from a MEANINGFUL obstacle into a TRIVIAL one and an artificial one of the player's own creation. That breaks the tension of the experience and the sense of accomplishment of it. In any other game, that would be a good trade off. DARK SOULS IS NOT THOSE GAMES. Everything is specifically designed around it's core design focus. What the fuck is wrong with that?

"Mad at the idea a game they liked could be enjoyed by more people".

How about you stop making up bullshit and do a little research next time? This is ridiculous. You should be informing the ignorant, not expanding the population. Why is it so offensive for a game to exist that does not cater to any one particular audience? This is not that complicated. People are just too stuck in their ways and unwilling to consider an alternative way of doing things. This is EXACTLY why we never get anything truly outside-the-box. Let's be perfectly honest. You perceived elitism and reacted without giving the topic a moment's thought.

The Mario comparison is spurious and ridiculous. And unnecessary. Lots of games have easy mode, because the difficulty isn't a core design technique those developers are utilizing to craft an experience. The difficulty of Mario, or say, Skyrim, is essential to the experience but it does not DEFINE the experience.

Thinking that making something optional means it doesn't matter to people who choose not to take advantage of it is an obvious mistake and a misunderstanding of how games work. There is such a thing as tension, you know. There is a good reason the Xbox controller doesn't come with a button dedicated to automatically beating whatever level you are on in whatever game you may be playing, even though using the button would surely be an OPTIONAL OPTIONAL OPTIONAL OPTIONAL OPTIONAL OPTIONAL OPTIONAL OPTION. Ironically it is Mr. Jim Sterling who is being absolutist and black-and-white about this, though I have no doubt he doesn't realize it. He's effectively saying he knows the way that all games should be and isn't interested in alternatives. He doesn't even want to hear your argument. He just says fuck you, you're a childish D-bag, you're an asshole, you're an elitist, I don't want to hear it LA LA LA LA LA.

THERE ARE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE THE IRONY.

This is absolutely the last straw for Jimquisition. It's regularly uninformed but this is just too much. This hateful, ignorant, insulting diatribe is the absolute worst forum troll nonsense I have ever seen as official escapist content save MovieBob.

For anyone who is willing to put aside their prejudices long enough to be informed about this topic:

And a thread from the escapist: [link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.392886-Dark-Souls-an-experiment-in-logic[/link]