New hard game comes out. Idiot press wants easy mode.

[Trunkage]

Apples and Oranges.

WoW got dumbed down because people asked blizzard to make the hard modes easier.
There was a time where:
Easy = Accessible, LFD, Normal Mode Dungeons.
Hard = Challenging, Required a cohesive group, Heroic Dungeons and Raids.

Burning Crusade was tough as nails, but it also had an "easy" mode in the form of normal dungeons. The Heroics were not diminished by the existence of that easy mode. But as time went on more and more people pressured for the hard modes to be made easy. Hard mode ceased to become hard.

People who are asking for an easy mode for Dark Souls are not asking for the challenge of hard mode to be diminished. Hard mode should stay authentic.

Point taken. But I still think it is a good general example of the players demanding things, the developer gradually giving in and giving it to them, and then the players rewarding the company by getting bored and quitting. And the point I was trying to make is that the players don't always know what's best for them. They can and will take a shit in their own sandbox.

I'd agree. If the easy mode actually effects the hard mode, that's a bad thing.

I've never played WoW. I can only do reference from a friend when he translates into ESO. Correct me if I don't understand something. As far as I've heard, raids from Burning Crusade were extremely long and very hard to organise because you had to have 40 people. It was arduous and now its more fun.

I dont know if WoW fits the case of Easy mode making everything easy. I thought it was actually desired by a portion of the player base.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is inspirational [https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=tso8u4OJLuI], and goes to show that an easy mode is a bit of a moot point.

EVERYONE should watch this. Because it shows that easy mode is just an excuse for not wanting to try. FromSoft games are hard sure, but they are beatable by damn near ANYONE who wants to try. And the fact is, that some people just don't wanna try. Some will say that they shouldn't be force to put in the work to get ball bustingly good at a video game or whatever such nonsense, but frankly that excuse is dumb.

If you don't have "time" or simply can't be bothered to try then download the cheatengine tool, turn on god mode and beat the game without adversity, without learning without ever facing the challenge. No problem, have fun.

That's really what it boils down too isn't it? Isn't that always the reason? "I work 1000 hours a week, I can't put a billion hours into a game to get good enough to beat it." That's bullshit, because if you have ANY time to play a video game at all, whether it's 30 minutes a day or 2 hours a day, if you can play for any length of time then you can get through any Fromsoft game.

Look at that video, the sheer effort that person has to go through to move his hands around that controller to beat one of the hardest bosses in the game. I can't help but applaud them and wonder WTF everyone is crying about.

Sekiro is hard. That's okay because overcoming that difficulty feels wonderful. Even my own complaints about the difficulty come from momentary frustration that turn into a joyous rush the moment boss went down.

How about this Twitch streamer who wins PUBG games with tongue and breath controls? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMvikz2cA-8

Are these just exceptions to the rule? Do they just have such an incredible about of skill that even their disability puts them above the skill potential of fully functioning people? Or are they simply determined not to let things hold them back, and they'll put forth whatever effort is required of them to continue to do what they enjoy?

Look Sekiro might not be for you. It's okay not to like the challenge, to not wanna bash your face against a difficult game. But that doesn't mean the game should be changed because you don't wanna deal with it. The game just isn't for you, why is that such a problem? People throw around elitism and entitlement, yet what is more entitled the people who like the game for how it is or the people who demand the game change to suit them?

This is a well reasoned post. I agree with this completely.

 

[balladbird]

Oh, and for the record I've beaten SMT Nocturne, SMTIV, every Mega Man game and all the God of Wars except the newest one. Those I would consider tough but fair, but DS1/2 leap over the hypothetical line early and don't show any sign of heading back.

So... about "Nocturne" and "fair"...

First, let me preface this... I goddamn LOVE nocturne. It's one of my favorite JRPGs of all time, and one of only two games (the other being Fallout: New Vegas) That I played through completely multiple times to obtain all the endings, instead of just loading from previous save states to the decision flags. To this day it's a game I can load up and play and still feel almost the same amount of happiness I experienced when I played it for the first time, so I say this with all love:

Fuck Nocturne. Don't get me wrong, it does have elements of fair difficulty. The game is built around a battle system that rewards observation and punishes random action, expects you to carefully consider every stat point you allocate to your character, and allows you to spec yourself multiple ways and still find success. However, that's only half of the difficulty of the game, and the other half has nothing to do with skill. It's not really something you can 'Git Gud' to overcome... its pure RNG.

Especially if you want to go for the True Demon end, which requires you to traverse the Labyrinth of Amala: a series of progressively longer dungeons, each of which has zero save points, death traps everywhere, and a boss at the end. Losing an hour and a half of progress because the game provided nowehere to save and you ran afoul of the RNG during a single inopportune moment... I mean, I'm sure there's a masochist *somewhere* who would find that fun, but I feel like I can safely say the vast majority of people didn't enjoy that.

SMTIV got a lot of flack from purists for what it changed over Nocturne, but I think they nailed it. It kept the fun difficulty and got rid of the masochism... I guess I can see how being able to come back from death for basically free any time you lost would be a bit much, but I just never chose to accept it if I died. Easy enough.

 

[CritialGaming]

I think what many of us are saying is if someone plays that "gimped" easy mode... it shouldn't make any difference to someone who did. It shouldn't diminish their enjoyment of the game at all... because it doesn't matter. It doesn't affect that "normal" in any way. If anything they should be happy that someone else enjoys the same game they do. The fact that it does matter to some says more about them being gatekeeper entitled elitists than it does about the easy mode player.

And what the rest of us are saying is that the FromSoft games don't need easy modes to play. The games are very specific in what they are, and that will put people off. Every game has its audience, its fans, and the people who aren't interested. It cant and wont appeal to everyone, it can't and wont be even playable by everyone. People have different tolerances, people have thresholds for what they are willing to tolerate in regards to difficulty and gameplay.

What's more likely, Souls games are too hard for a given player or the game just isn't fun for them to play? If you are frustrated by losing to bosses, then the game will never be for you. Even if they did things to reduce the difficulty, the core design is still going to be challenging. And if dying to a boss only to have to run back through an area in which all the enemies are respawned and your exp is gone, is gonna annoy you, then even an "easy" Souls game is not going to appeal to you.

The crux of the argument is how easy does the game need to be? What does the game do to make to make it "easy"?

Say they lower enemy damage? That's great right? But the player will still fail if they cannot learn to read enemy movement, to learn patterns and exploit the enemy when they miss.

What if they made the enemies attack slower? Well that might help the player learn attacks better, but then you are talking about actually changing the design of the game entirely to compensate.

There are just too many stipulations that need to be made.

FromSoft games are what they are, that's the end of it. If someone REALLY wanted to play them, they could, all it takes is some patience and determination. Some people can't handle that, and that's fine the games aren't for them. I don't understand why it's such a big deal.

 

[CritialGaming]

Also I wanted to point out the whole argument is brought up by these gaming journalists who clearly have no respect for the games industry or the media in which they write about.

We've had this debate before on this site. Should a games journalist be competent at video games in order to write about them? Like the whole Cuphead thing where the guy couldn't figure out the tutorial, it would be like reading a book review from someone who reads at a 1st grade level.

There should be a minimum mandate of capability to do your job in order for you to have your job. Why are you writing about something you have no knowledge of. If you don't understand how to play the games, how can anyone trust you to understand how game development works, how can you be trusted to be a judge of when a game is too hard or too easy? The answer is nobody can trust anything you say.

It bothers me just as much when my friends tell me that the Japanese Dub is better than the English Dub when they don't speak Japanese. You can't possibly know if a dub is good if you don't speak the language fluently. Because if you have no idea how shit is supposed to be inflected and phrased, the Japanese dub could be the their equivalent of those horribly badly dubbed Dreamcast games like House of the Dead. You can't possibly know, at least with the English Dub (or whatever language you speak) you can tell if it's good or bad.

I'm not saying you can't prefer to listen to gibberish, that's on you. But don't tell me it's better than the language I understand because it's fucking not.

 

[Silvanus]

We've had this debate before on this site. Should a games journalist be competent at video games in order to write about them? Like the whole Cuphead thing where the guy couldn't figure out the tutorial, it would be like reading a book review from someone who reads at a 1st grade level.

No, it wouldn't; reading comprehension rests on understanding, and somebody can perfectly adequately understand what makes good game design without personally being proficient with them.

Admittedly, they're more likely to appreciate elements of design if they're personally skilled, but it's far from impossible if they're not.

Personally, I really object to the suggestion that the only people saying an easier mode would be welcome are those who're shite at the game. It's presumptuous, dismissive nonsense. I've played through all the DS games, including optional bosses and NG+ playthroughs; got the platinums for Bloodborne & Nioh, etc. I love them, and I wouldn't use an easy mode if one were there. But nor do I think the integrity of the game requires an easy mode not to be present: it simply would not impact my playthrough, so it seems absurd to object to it.

===


OT, there's a reason these arguments against difficulty options only crop up with regards to 'easy' modes, and not for 'hard' modes.

Riley opined in The Escapist's review of Yoshi's Crafted World that a harder mode would be nice, for instance (something I'm inclined to agree with). Nobody has been rustled by that suggestion, or argued that the sacrosanct design philosophy requires the game to be easy.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

is it just me or is there a highly noticeable overlap between the psychology of mindsets arguing against difficulty modes in this and the mindsets of those deeply entrenched in the "event that shall not be named"? all the similar beats are cropping up, it's almost like a direct spin-off from that whole mess recycling all the same preconceptions and outrage manufacturing for a slightly different angle. it's revealing

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I think what many of us are saying is if someone plays that "gimped" easy mode... it shouldn't make any difference to someone who did. It shouldn't diminish their enjoyment of the game at all... because it doesn't matter. It doesn't affect that "normal" in any way. If anything they should be happy that someone else enjoys the same game they do. The fact that it does matter to some says more about them being gatekeeper entitled elitists than it does about the easy mode player.

But it can affect everyone actually.

When opinion about a game is formed, the experience of the community with a game will help form that opinion. This opinion will be something that will be reflected on the fandom of the game and will be used to describe it, it will be what potential sequels will be based upon.

When you introduce the opinions of people who experienced the gimped version of the game into this system, you gimp the status of the game in the common conscience, you diminish its cultural value with a lot of diluted opinions who offer milk-toast contributions to the discourse. A game which once was something you could brag about beating now becomes just one more mundane thing. I think changing the image that the common culture has about a game does indeed affect the original fans of it. It affects those who chose to become invested in it under the understanding that it would still be itself and not something else.


I fully support there being "some" games that one indeed can brag about beating. You don't have to make every game be that way but there being a couple of those games like super meat boy or the souls series and now sekiro is healthy and desired.

Oh, and for the record I've beaten SMT Nocturne, SMTIV, every Mega Man game and all the God of Wars except the newest one. Those I would consider tough but fair, but DS1/2 leap over the hypothetical line early and don't show any sign of heading back.

So... about "Nocturne" and "fair"...

First, let me preface this... I goddamn LOVE nocturne. It's one of my favorite JRPGs of all time, and one of only two games (the other being Fallout: New Vegas) That I played through completely multiple times to obtain all the endings, instead of just loading from previous save states to the decision flags. To this day it's a game I can load up and play and still feel almost the same amount of happiness I experienced when I played it for the first time, so I say this with all love:

Fuck Nocturne. Don't get me wrong, it does have elements of fair difficulty. The game is built around a battle system that rewards observation and punishes random action, expects you to carefully consider every stat point you allocate to your character, and allows you to spec yourself multiple ways and still find success. However, that's only half of the difficulty of the game, and the other half has nothing to do with skill. It's not really something you can 'Git Gud' to overcome... its pure RNG.

Especially if you want to go for the True Demon end, which requires you to traverse the Labyrinth of Amala: a series of progressively longer dungeons, each of which has zero save points, death traps everywhere, and a boss at the end. Losing an hour and a half of progress because the game provided nowehere to save and you ran afoul of the RNG during a single inopportune moment... I mean, I'm sure there's a masochist *somewhere* who would find that fun, but I feel like I can safely say the vast majority of people didn't enjoy that.

SMTIV got a lot of flack from purists for what it changed over Nocturne, but I think they nailed it. It kept the fun difficulty and got rid of the masochism... I guess I can see how being able to come back from death for basically free any time you lost would be a bit much, but I just never chose to accept it if I died. Easy enough.

Are you referring to hama/mudo with the rng comments? Cause you can equip worms that resist those elements if you know you're up against enemies that cast those often.

The game is really hard but only very early on, that Matador fight kicks your ass until you understand how to play smt (mainly that buffs are OP) but that has little to do with rng.

 

[CaitSeith]

OT, there's a reason these arguments against difficulty options only crop up with regards to 'easy' modes, and not for 'hard' modes.

Riley opined in The Escapist's review of Yoshi's Crafted World that a harder mode would be nice, for instance (something I'm inclined to agree with). Nobody has been rustled by that suggestion, or argued that the sacrosanct design philosophy requires the game to be easy.

 

[Erttheking]

Also I wanted to point out the whole argument is brought up by these gaming journalists who clearly have no respect for the games industry or the media in which they write about.

I bring it up. I think it's a good idea. Are you going to tell me I have no respect for the gaming industry?

Also, once a-fucking-gain, the person who posted this article says he loves the Souls games, but you carry on tilting at windmills.

 

[CaitSeith]

Also I wanted to point out the whole argument is brought up by these gaming journalists who clearly have no respect for the games industry or the media in which they write about.

Then you bring up an Ad hominen, and that is bullshit. End of story.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It bothers me just as much when my friends tell me that the Japanese Dub is better than the English Dub when they don't speak Japanese. You can't possibly know if a dub is good if you don't speak the language fluently. Because if you have no idea how shit is supposed to be inflected and phrased, the Japanese dub could be the their equivalent of those horribly badly dubbed Dreamcast games like House of the Dead. You can't possibly know, at least with the English Dub (or whatever language you speak) you can tell if it's good or bad.

Watch the original Japanese dub of The Wind Rises and tell you can't spot the one character not performed by a professional voice actor (*psst* it's the main character). So yes, you can.

Also, it's kinda funny you bringing up how you prefer dubbed anime over the original dialoge, cuz you know, not how it's intended to be experienced and whatnot.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Seriously, the level of pretentiousness in the Souls fandom is extraordinary. It's Monster Hunter with a Gothic aesthetic, and Monster Hunter does just freaking fine with its multiple difficulty modes. The main difference seems to be that you can't grind for levels in MonHun, and Souls is an asshole when you die.

Of course, with levels not being a thing and weapons/gear being easy to specifically acquire, MonHun is superior in the "experiment to find what works for you" aspect.

Yeah, Monster Hunter is basically Souls combat done right. You actually have to pay attention to your stamina in MH because if the dodge requires say 20 of points of stamina, you can't perform the dodge until you have at least 20 points of stamina. Thus, you can't spam attack until out of stamina and dodge away when you recover 1 measly point of stamina like you can in a Souls game. Plus, at least in MH World (the only one I've played) you don't need to use an archaic lock-on system to properly fight.

The crux of the argument is how easy does the game need to be? What does the game do to make to make it "easy"?

What does it matter if you can choose what mode to play? If easy modes are ruining games left and right, where's a singular example of such a thing happening? Bayonetta's easiest mode does wicked weaves on any attack, the hardcore fanbase didn't ***** about it because it doesn't matter, it didn't affect them. Plus, it's not like video games are balanced in a finely tuned manner anyway, they are really quite poorly balanced compared to games in other mediums. Any options given to players can at least give the player the some tools to try to balance it themselves.

A game which once was something you could brag about beating now becomes just one more mundane thing.

Someone that brags about beating a game has far more problems than no longer being able to brag because said game got an easy mode.

"I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast
But I'm intercontinental when I eat French toast"

 

[Schadrach]

What gets me is that a lot of the ones demanding an easy mode on social media are acting like it's an accessibility thing to help disabled gamers. Which led to a quadriplegic (Limitlessquad) defeating Corrupted Monk and posting the video to prove a point. He's not fond of the idea that people are demanding an easy mode to help people like him, because it implies he can't be just as good a gamer as someone able bodied.

 

[Erttheking]

What gets me is that a lot of the ones demanding an easy mode on social media are acting like it's an accessibility thing to help disabled gamers. Which led to a quadriplegic (Limitlessquad) defeating Corrupted Monk and posting the video to prove a point. He's not fond of the idea that people are demanding an easy mode to help people like him, because it implies he can't be just as good a gamer as someone able bodied.

I'm going to repeat what I said earlier in the thread. He isn't everyone. When Mario Kart included smart steering, kids with developmental issues were able to play it for the first time. I'm starting to wonder what the people "defending" the "sanctity" of the difficulty would say if another disabled person said that the game was just too hard for them.

"Oh, well one disabled person did it, therefore you all should be able to do it."

Am I close?

 

[CritialGaming]

OT, there's a reason these arguments against difficulty options only crop up with regards to 'easy' modes, and not for 'hard' modes.

Riley opined in The Escapist's review of Yoshi's Crafted World that a harder mode would be nice, for instance (something I'm inclined to agree with). Nobody has been rustled by that suggestion, or argued that the sacrosanct design philosophy requires the game to be easy.

It's almost as if people understand that a game designed at a younger audience is supposed to be easy and if we want hard games we have other things to play. We understand that a game might just not appeal to us but understand that the game has it's place and let people enjoy the game for what it is. Instead of demanding the game cater to us.

Crazy right?

 

[Erttheking]

OT, there's a reason these arguments against difficulty options only crop up with regards to 'easy' modes, and not for 'hard' modes.

Riley opined in The Escapist's review of Yoshi's Crafted World that a harder mode would be nice, for instance (something I'm inclined to agree with). Nobody has been rustled by that suggestion, or argued that the sacrosanct design philosophy requires the game to be easy.

It's almost as if people understand that a game designed at a younger audience is supposed to be easy and if we want hard games we have other things to play. We understand that a game might just not appeal to us but understand that the game has it's place and let people enjoy the game for what it is. Instead of demanding the game cater to us.

Crazy right?

...Then why didn't you get mad at him suggesting the game would benefit from a hard mode?

 

[CritialGaming]

What gets me is that a lot of the ones demanding an easy mode on social media are acting like it's an accessibility thing to help disabled gamers. Which led to a quadriplegic (Limitlessquad) defeating Corrupted Monk and posting the video to prove a point. He's not fond of the idea that people are demanding an easy mode to help people like him, because it implies he can't be just as good a gamer as someone able bodied.

I'm going to repeat what I said earlier in the thread. He isn't everyone. When Mario Kart included smart steering, kids with developmental issues were able to play it for the first time. I'm starting to wonder what the people "defending" the "sanctity" of the difficulty would say if another disabled person said that the game was just too hard for them.

"Oh, well one disabled person did it, therefore you all should be able to do it."

Am I close?

So now you are speaking for all the disabled folks?

Isn't that kind of rude and almost like you are putting down disabled people? "Oh they are disabled they can't possibly all play the games just because one disabled person did it." That's messed up man.

I've never in my life met a disabled person that didn't just wanted to be treated like a normal person and given all the same chances to do things that a normal able-bodied person could do.

 

[Kerg3927]

I'm pretty sure you accusing her of not putting effort end would end with her slapping the shit out of you. And she's 23.

No offense, not every gamer gives a shit. Some people just want to sit back and have a rewarding experience and for them that puts their difficulty at their own level. Some people say RE2 is best played on its hardest difficulty, but I felt plenty challenged just playing it at normal.

Well glad to see that Dark Souls players can handle fighting the urge to make things easier for themselves and therefore an easy mode wouldn't be some horrible burden on them.

Ok. I'm going to go back and recount what you've said about Dark Souls in this thread. You've said it was a "test of gamer mantle." You said that people who want an easy mode "think mainly, they just don't like successful people who feel pride in their accomplishments, even video game accomplishments, and so they want to take them down a notch and take their source of pride away from them out of pure jealousy." You said that adding an easy mode "would destroy the entire souls-like sub-genre." So...yeah.

At the end of the day, it's From Software's call, and luckily they made the right one as evidenced by the huge popularity of their games. They are one of the biggest success stories in gaming in the past decade. Other companies are copying them. If you think about it, it's pretty damn funny that some people would have the hutzpa to tell this company, "No, no, no ,no, no you're doing things all wrong," while refusing to acknowledge the idea that maybe, just maybe, From's current, highly successful game design is done exactly that way for a very good reason.

 

[Erttheking]

What gets me is that a lot of the ones demanding an easy mode on social media are acting like it's an accessibility thing to help disabled gamers. Which led to a quadriplegic (Limitlessquad) defeating Corrupted Monk and posting the video to prove a point. He's not fond of the idea that people are demanding an easy mode to help people like him, because it implies he can't be just as good a gamer as someone able bodied.

I'm going to repeat what I said earlier in the thread. He isn't everyone. When Mario Kart included smart steering, kids with developmental issues were able to play it for the first time. I'm starting to wonder what the people "defending" the "sanctity" of the difficulty would say if another disabled person said that the game was just too hard for them.

"Oh, well one disabled person did it, therefore you all should be able to do it."

Am I close?

So now you are speaking for all the disabled folks?

Isn't that kind of rude and almost like you are putting down disabled people? "Oh they are disabled they can't possibly all play the games just because one disabled person did it." That's messed up man.

I've never in my life met a disabled person that didn't just wanted to be treated like a normal person and given all the same chances to do things that a normal able-bodied person could do.

Everyone who keeps bringing up that one guy seems to think that they speak for all disabled people, but now you think it's a no go?

And even then, no. I didn't. I said that the disabled guy who was able to play Sekiro wasn't everyone. Some disabled people will not be able to play it in the same way that a lot of disabled people will struggle with things because of their disability. Let me say what I said earlier in the thread. "One size does not fit all."

And yet you somehow twist this into me shitting on disabled people? Anything to win an argument, huh.