Namco Denies Dark Souls Difficulty Comment

[hazabaza1]

If you ask me...

Spoiler: Very hard challenges in games that are both rewarding to overcome and still remain both fair and enjoyable peaked right about here

Dark Souls ins't hard, it just handicaps the player by making your movements awkward and clumsy while being swamped by numerous enemies.

Adding an easier difficulty is not going to make for a crappy experience. That's insane. If Square-Enix can include "Beginner Mode Hand Holding" and "Hardest Difficulty with no levelling" in the same game, there's no reason why other games can't do it.

Dark Souls would be perfect for this. Beginner Mode, Normal Mode (the difficulty it has now), Hardcore Mode and Critical Mode (with Critical Mode having Level 1 and 1 HP options).

Don't pretend that adding an easier difficulty is going to make the game bad for players who find the game too difficult. You just don't want the "scrubs" to enjoy the same games you do. You want to keep out anyone who doesn't have the patience to train their fingers until an awkward, counter-intuitive control scheme almost seems to work.

I just want to ask something, because I remember a little discussion we had before the PC release.
Were you using a gamepad or the PC controls?

 

[Ranylyn]

My issue with Dark Souls is that everything I loved about Demon's Souls was crushed out.

To use a World 1-1 Demon's Souls example vs a Dark Souls Tutorial example....

You're climbing up a castle wall. Not literally. I mean you're weaving in and out up stairs and walkways as you ascend. Right near the top (near the bastard sword, to narrow it down for those who have played and want to know exactly where) there's a trap. If you angle the camera to look up the stairs, you can EASILY see it; daylight is behind the ball. That ball begins to roll down the ramp upwards as you ascend. If you run forward just to trigger it,then run back, you're completely safe.

Demon's Souls was harsh yet completely fair. If you died, it was 100% your own damn fault for playing like a goddamn berserker. If you advanced carefully, you could see every single trap, avoid every single ambush, and win every single encounter. But ONLY if you advanced SLOWLY and USED YOUR HEAD.


Dark Souls' tutorial, now. It's dark. You climb some stairs. You can't see anything so- WHAM! Exact same style of ball trap, only this time, you CANNOT see it. This is right before you get the Estus Flask,so I could see there being merit in defending it as part of a turotial about healing, but really, I'd have much preferred something less asshol-ish, like a fire wall you have to run through earlier that you're guaranteed to take some damage at, because at least you'd SEE the fire. Fine. Whatever. Undeadberg. This walkway looks clear. I cross. Four undead are in front of me. I lure them back towards the walkway to bottleneck them so I only have to worry about 1-2 at a time, and... I'm flanked! Enemies seriously climbed up over the walls behind me to punish me for backtracking and playing smart!?

Dark Souls is not "harsh but fair." Dark Souls is "Nintendo Hard." As in, it's easy once you memorize it, but memorizing it takes death after death after death. That's not fun. That's tedious. And that is why I refused to buy it myself after only getting as far as beating the Taurus Demon at my sister's place. Because screw that.

If Dark Souls had a "Demon's Souls mode" where it traded the BS for "harsh but fair" then I'd be all over it. But nothing easier. Because I don't want the forums overrun by people calling it a bad God of War clone. I like niche titles because their lack of mainstream popularity keeps the masses away.

 

[Woe Is You]

Everyone gets their slice of cake to enjoy. It seems rather petty to deny people the chance to enjoy an otherwise good game just because the standard difficulty is too high for many.

The thing is, though, that there's truthfully no actual appeal to Souls games outside of the difficulty. Same goes for games like Super Meat Boy, really. The "fun" is pretty much like figuring out a really really hard puzzle.

But to be fair (am saying this not with the intention to troll), there are two ways to get easy mode in the game that already exist. First is hitting a wiki and reading all the information the game obscures. The other is to play the PC version with a trainer and enabling god mode from there.

 

[Woe Is You]

Pardon the double post but I do want to clarify what I mean: when I say that there's no actual appeal to Souls games outside of the difficulty. I mean that if they do tone down the difficulty, you're pretty much left with a mediocre hack and slash that does everything outside of combat (which it only does slightly better) worse than its competition. Cause that's what it is... just that it punishes you way harder for mistakes than pretty much any game today.

 

[Vous Pouvez Pensez]

ive got the answer!!dont change anything about the game. just have NORMAL and Camel Tits Mode where nothing is changed other than you do like 10X more dmg and the enemies hit for like 10X less dmg. that way the normal fans can still play their game w/o casuals ruining it for everybody. itll still be designed around difficulty, then they just go in and descrease dmg for everything on the easy mode so those who choose to do so can play their broke version of the game everyone wins!

 

[hazabaza1]

If you ask me...

Spoiler: Very hard challenges in games that are both rewarding to overcome and still remain both fair and enjoyable peaked right about here

Dark Souls ins't hard, it just handicaps the player by making your movements awkward and clumsy while being swamped by numerous enemies.

Adding an easier difficulty is not going to make for a crappy experience. That's insane. If Square-Enix can include "Beginner Mode Hand Holding" and "Hardest Difficulty with no levelling" in the same game, there's no reason why other games can't do it.

Dark Souls would be perfect for this. Beginner Mode, Normal Mode (the difficulty it has now), Hardcore Mode and Critical Mode (with Critical Mode having Level 1 and 1 HP options).

Don't pretend that adding an easier difficulty is going to make the game bad for players who find the game too difficult. You just don't want the "scrubs" to enjoy the same games you do. You want to keep out anyone who doesn't have the patience to train their fingers until an awkward, counter-intuitive control scheme almost seems to work.

I just want to ask something, because I remember a little discussion we had before the PC release.
Were you using a gamepad or the PC controls?

Gamepad, but I'm currently configuring a logitech keypad and mouse to see if I can make a working PC control scheme.

On that note, if anyone reading this finds Dark Souls to not be hard, here's a challenge: Play using the default PC controls. Whoever beats the game with that wins the "Go Outside" achievement.

Ah, I was planning to do a mocking "I told you so neh-neh" dance if you were using the keyboard controls but as we had the same control scheme I'll just say that I disagree with your comment on how it controls.

 

[StriderShinryu]

It really does seem pretty clear to me that those who want an Easy Mode in DS just don't really understand the game at all. As others have said, difficulty is integral to DS. There is no easy mode for the game that would not fundamentally change (and fundamentally lessen) the game. Pretty much every aspect of the game, from combat mechanics to save structure to story presentation is meant to be a struggle that can be overcome with time, patience, skill and knowledge. As good as DS is when it's difficult, it would be a hollow shell itself with that difficulty removed.

If you want an "easier" DS then you actually already have a number of options out there. If you want an action RPG that you can easily experience all of, try Diablo 3, Fable or Kingdoms of Amalur. If you want a flashy action game that lets you kill big bad monsters, try God Of War or Bayonetta. Or you could get DS and use the things that are already in place to make the game easier, like the Wiki's, Co-op play or the multitude if Let\s Plays and Strat videos on Youtube.

 

[hazabaza1]

If you ask me...

Spoiler: Very hard challenges in games that are both rewarding to overcome and still remain both fair and enjoyable peaked right about here

Dark Souls ins't hard, it just handicaps the player by making your movements awkward and clumsy while being swamped by numerous enemies.

Adding an easier difficulty is not going to make for a crappy experience. That's insane. If Square-Enix can include "Beginner Mode Hand Holding" and "Hardest Difficulty with no levelling" in the same game, there's no reason why other games can't do it.

Dark Souls would be perfect for this. Beginner Mode, Normal Mode (the difficulty it has now), Hardcore Mode and Critical Mode (with Critical Mode having Level 1 and 1 HP options).

Don't pretend that adding an easier difficulty is going to make the game bad for players who find the game too difficult. You just don't want the "scrubs" to enjoy the same games you do. You want to keep out anyone who doesn't have the patience to train their fingers until an awkward, counter-intuitive control scheme almost seems to work.

I just want to ask something, because I remember a little discussion we had before the PC release.
Were you using a gamepad or the PC controls?

Gamepad, but I'm currently configuring a logitech keypad and mouse to see if I can make a working PC control scheme.

On that note, if anyone reading this finds Dark Souls to not be hard, here's a challenge: Play using the default PC controls. Whoever beats the game with that wins the "Go Outside" achievement.

Ah, I was planning to do a mocking "I told you so neh-neh" dance if you were using the keyboard controls but as we had the same control scheme I'll just say that I disagree with your comment on how it controls.

The only issue I came across when configuring the mouse and keyboard controls is that the cursor is always visible on the screen. For some reason, that can really throw you off when positioning the camera. Aside from that, I had the PC Controls working rather well.

Spoiler: However it does require one of these

I have no idea what that is but it looks cool.
But really, this port is just disappointing. Dark Souls is one of my favorite games of recent years, so to see it get buttfucked so badly in every aspect in its port is such a shame.

 

[BX3]

"Masochistically inclined"

I like that term. I like it a lot.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

What's the point of going to the effort of climbing Mount Everest if a travel agency installs an escalator into the side of it?

 

[Vault Citizen]

As long as the easy mode would not have had any impact on the previously existing level of difficulty then per existing players would have had nothing to legitimately complain about your experience would still be the same, don't try to dictate what the experience of others should be

 

[Dandark]

I still have yet to finish the game as it's been a while since I went back to it after getting stuck in Andor londo because of that ****ing archer on the ****ing roof with his ****ing knockback arrows that can't be blocked! THE RAGE!!!!!

I really enjoyed most of the difficulty though, just playing through it and having to be really careful and analyse everything, the fact it made the game feel so hostile and dangerous, it was great. The only thing I didn't like about it was that I could not figure out how to enchant weapons and the PvP sucked.

 

[Woe Is You]

Take away the snobs power, and you're left with a game that has little to no draw.

I'd say you're right but not in those words. What many (me included) have said in this thread, though, is that neither Demon's Souls nor Dark Souls do anything spectacularly well compared to other games. The world and the atmosphere flat out lose to something like Skyrim, Fable 2 and 3, Dragon Age, Kingdoms of Amalur or almost any other big budget western style RPG out there. The story is there but it's minimal (again, compared to just about any other RPG). The battle is serviceable but kind of clunky. The only way it differentiates itself from the pack is the complete disregard for the player.

Now, if you take all that into account, it does seem a bit strange to have people clamoring for an easy mode. If you know you don't enjoy a game that is built to punch your teeth in with everything else coming second, then you aren't missing out on much. Everything else the game does has been done better elsewhere.

 

[kburns10]

On one hand, yes I can simply not choose a difficulty that is in the game and life goes on (I tend to choose Normal by default and never touch Easy). But it's pretty admirable that a game is openly balls hard and makes no apologies for it. I would hate to see them change that to please everyone.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

What's the point of going to the effort of climbing Mount Everest if a travel agency installs an escalator into the side of it?

If you can't see the point of scaling it the "old fashioned way" even if some company were to build an escalator, than you are missing the point the in the first place.

The inclusion of an "easy" mode would have taken NOTHING away from this game, as long as the difficulty outside of "easy mode" were the same. Nothing. In fact it would give all you "core" gamers a chance to further ridicule noobs, which is what you like, right?

Mate, I don't give a square fuck what you do with your time. And truth be told I haven't even played Dark Souls, nor do I feel somehow compelled to prove myself through the conquest of masochistically hard video games. But what I don't do is resent the players that do enjoy those sorts of challenges, nor the companies that make them, whenever they pack a lunch and go on a picnic without me.

Now if someone bought the game thinking that they could prove themselves somehow and ended up being found a little wanting, sorry mate, too fucking bad.

They accepted the challenge. They didn't measure up to it. End of.

The marketing campaign for the game openly and honestly told gamers what sort of gaming experience they were in for, so to anyone who bought the game without first doing their research, not is it too bad but in my opinion that's straight up pretty stupid consumer behaviour and you deserve to have wasted your money.