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

[I can't enter my old name]

I don't know, we seem to be making sweeping generalizations about an entire profession and supposed line of argument based on a single Forbes article that's got a rebuttal also on Forbes.

I understand where you are coming from. Since I don't play shooters on consoles, give me a controller and it'll look something like Polygon's Doom footage. It's just that I don't like games journalists for obvious reasons.

I'm going to confess. While I had a strong itch to rant on game journalists, I also had the ulterior motive to see what people thought was more important: the fact that a player can't beat the game they bought, or defending the honor of game journalists.

Like, if you could link to an article, we could talk about it

It doesn't exist. You can find plenty of them railing on hardcore gamers being related to exclusionary game design (as if devs were going to take the effort to piss on casual gamers), but no one will admit that they played on easy mode. However, someone was bamboozled by the last stage of easy mode, whether it be the journalists playing or their friends, and things got heated from there.

One more time for the back of the class: GAMES JOURNALISTS AND REVIEWERS DO NOT HATE DIFFICULT GAMES! There's literally no evidence about that being a default position.

Game journalists generally do not play difficult games. What passes as a difficult game is debatable, but would you rather review your free super-hype AAA games, or some indie game that takes 50 hours of repetition and gets little clicks?

Accessibility is a thing people talk about because some people don't think people should be locked out of entire games they would otherwise like because of arbitrary bullshit. "Easy mode" is the 101 level of that discussion.

Championing easy mode is good and all, except easy mode is not one-size fits all solution. It puts a burden on devs who want to deliver you a single fine-tuned experience.

Easy modes tend to be half assed, like you do 200% damage while the enemy does 50%. Easy mode can't solve platforming sections a mazelike sections, or a puzzle sections without manual map adjustments. You have to put extra effort to compile and maintain two or more versions of the same map.

You also have to playtest easy mode, because it likely will be an inferior version of the game. You will ignore aspects of the game simply because they are unnecessary, such as scouting, memorizing difficult combos, activating or switching buffs, or prepping with consumables and crafting. Then there's the fact that some games can't let you switch difficulty or chapter select, but only load saves, which means you have to restart the game to play easy mode.

Then, while catering to the people who can't beat normal mode, you also have to cater to the non-gamers who are also oppressed by exclusionary game design. Another mode for sight-seers I guess.

Cheat codes on the other hand takes no effort and bypasses almost every problem. Everyone plays the same game, except you can play seriously with God mode on, and despite the fact you can't die, you also get better playing the game normally. You can experiment by spawning X item during a fight, or just spawn some OP sword and one hit everything. Rather than having the dev handcraft some experience just for you, you can do it yourself.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Easy modes tend to be half assed, like you do 200% damage while the enemy does 50%... You also have to playtest easy mode, because it likely will be an inferior version of the game.

Uhh... How do you think Normal difficulty is reached during development? By changing damage and health modifiers!!! During the development, the lead designer will at some point say the game is a bit too easy, and all you have to do is save that and you have easy difficulty. Easy and Hard difficulties are attained before Normal difficulty, how do you think you get to Normal difficulty? It doesn't just magically happen on the first try. And games are hardly playtested for balance purposes, they're playtested for bugs. Playtesters literally play the game complete opposite of how it's supposed to be played to find bugs. More proof to that is how fucking unbalanced games are, just look at shooters and how unbalanced normal guns are like ARs, SMGs, shotguns, etc. and there's tons of those every year and devs still can't balance such simple shit.

 

[CritialGaming]

Reading the comments in this thread...makes me wonder how anyone ever played videogames in the classic 2D era. Obviously most of the big names were a few notches above SoulsBorne difficulty, yet there weren?t nearly the cries for including easy modes back then. People look back and say, ?Oh yeah, a buddy and I took turns and finally beat Super Ghouls n Ghosts together. It was awesome!? Everyone familiar would instantly recognize it for what it was: a difficult game. There was no need to ask, ?Oh, well what difficulty did you play it on??

Videogames aren?t a passive activity, so concepts like challenge naturally shift to the forefront of factors that can build appeal. Even single player games are played for challenge and the feelings of overcoming the odds against you, let alone the entertainment value. If some games are designed to have a fixed level of challenge, then they shouldn?t be penalized for it. The fact that they are ?just games? is beside the point.

To reiterate, the notion that adding difficulty options won?t change anything falls apart when considering that?s the very point of them to begin with. Then the argument usually pivots into ?Oh, well you must be an elitist to want to keep people from enjoying something!? Uh, no. Consumers choose with their dollars what they consider to be intriguing game design, and FROM has clearly garnered a significant following and acclaim with their current philosophy. Their fanbase has also grown exponentially in the last decade based on the same. Very doubtful the same could be said if they made their games like everyone else. True, the challenge is only a part of their success model, but still a vital one nonetheless.

You know those old sort of games were about forcing micro transactions on you, right? It's the same principle that mobile games have, stupidly difficult to make you spend more money.

Also, fixed level games are being punished? By who? The people who think that the game is too hard? I feel like you need to reread your last paragraph. Becuase you've failed to realise that the only people punishing FROM is FROM. These people are telling FROM exactly what they need to buy their game. It's called feedback. It's up to FROM to decide if they want their money or not.

Lastly, didn't the world suddenly turn upside down? Did difficulty modes ruin Doom? System Shcok? Dues Ex? Dishonoured? Otherwise your claim that difficulty mode ruins games is false. It CAN ruin some games but it's definitely not all.

I only remember paying one retail price for games like 8-16 bit Castlevania, Super Mario, Super Ghouls n Ghosts, all the old Zeldas including N64 entries, etc. where are you getting MT?s from?

And speaking of FROM, they clearly must not be too concerned with their bottom line under their current design philosophy as they?ve stuck with it so far. I think it?s more a case of them having the integrity to realize that some things (like being able to make games how they want) are more important. I already mentioned above that it?s up to the consumer, and they?ve still managed to speak in droves despite the continued absence of a difficulty select. Nothing was a problem until people started complaining that the game needed more difficulty options. So there?s that.

You also kinda contradicted and then self-corrected your own comment at the end there, so...ok.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

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.

Vanilla raids were 40-man. In Burning Crusade they were 25-man. And yeah, they were a lot of work for a guild to put together, but that was the burden of only the handful of people who organized and lead them. The rest just had to apply to a raiding guild, get accepted, prove themselves worthy of a raid slot, and then show up prepared to the scheduled raids, which for the average raiding guild was probably like 3-4 hours/night, 3 nights/week.

Everything in WoW affects everything else because it is a community, or it was. Guilds formed because there are 5-man dungeons and you needed to play in coordinated groups with others to get through that content. Then some guilds became raiding guilds, because the next content after 5-mans were 40-man raids. Success in the game was all predicated on socializing with others and proving your worth to the group.

But some people didn't like that they had to socialize and make friends to succeed. They didn't like that they had to pull their own weight as a player in order to get invited to groups. So they complained. And they complained...

So eventually Blizzard gave in. They put in LFD (Looking for Dungeon). Now to get a 5-man group, you just hit a button and hop in a queue, and bam it ported you into a dungeon with 4 other random people from around the world. And to make it so that these people didn't have to socialize and coordinate as a team or even know how to play the game competently, they dumbed down the dungeons and made them faceroll easy so you could just zerg through it.

Then they did the same for raids with LFR.

So suddenly there is no reason for anyone to have to talk to each other. No reason for anyone to have to learn to play competently. People just zerg through dumbed down dungeons and raids in silence. But here's the catch. That gets boring real fast. So people quit in droves. Subscriptions have steadily declined since then. Some would come back for the next xpac, play for a month or so, get bored, and then quit again. And now subs are estimated to be down to under 2 million, from the 12 million they had before LFR was implemented.

Yes, there are still hard mode raids. And there are still hardcore raiding guilds out there doing them. But I think the number of people doing that is far, far fewer than it was in vanilla and TBC when there was really only one difficulty mode for everyone. And I think that's because the community that once existed doesn't exist anymore and the stimulus to socialize and form large, coordinated guilds is no longer there. And I think most players never get past logging on and queuing for LFD and LFR, before quickly getting bored and quitting. And they've already seen all the raid content, albeit an extremely dumbed down version of it, and they've already gotten all of the gear, albeit versions with lesser stats, and so there is much less motivation, in my opinion, to make the jump to a real raiding guild, especially since nothing they have done up to that point has even required them to learn skills they need to succeed on that level.

Anyway, don't want to sidetrack this thread, but the bottom line is, the people who complained got what they wanted, and then they repaid Blizzard by getting bored and quitting, and it destroyed the WoW community, IMO.

My only objection to the Dungeon and Raid Finders was making them cross realm. Had they stuck within realm, they'd still serve their intended purpose but encourage the same social niceties the older LFG Channel spam did.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

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.

Yeah, and people, some-fucking-how, keep ignoring the fact that the dude praised Cuphead the entire time, wasn't reviewing it, and fully admitted culpability for flubbing gameplay footage from a convention floor on day 3, AND "GAMERS" ARE STILL LOSING THEIR MINDS OVER SUPPOSED "BASHING OF CUPHEAD" THAT NEVER FUCKING HAPPENED!

I'd say it's a perfect fucking parallel, because the people laying into the games journalists have a preconceived box they're pulling arguments from instead of actually listening to the people they're insulting!

Were these people mad about him (in their mind) badmouthing the game though?

I always thought the reaction was a more general "if you're someone who presumes to inform others about games, how are you this bad at simple gameplay that a literal 3 year old can figure out faster than you" one. (Yes there's a video of a 3 year old playing cuphead's tutorial and clearing the jump in like 3 tries)

It's irrelevant whether he was praising the game or not, and I've done 24-hour gaming marathons for charity and I didn't forget how jumpdashing works somehow by the end of it so him being tired was also irrelevant. Fatigue makes your reaction times slower and your reflexes dull, it doesn't make you forget basic mechanical properties and the idea behind how they're supposed to work. The issue with the video was that he seemingly had never encountered these mechanics before in his life and was extremely slow at solving them too.

 

[WindKnight]

Reading the comments in this thread...makes me wonder how anyone ever played videogames in the classic 2D era. Obviously most of the big names were a few notches above SoulsBorne difficulty, yet there weren?t nearly the cries for including easy modes back then. People look back and say, ?Oh yeah, a buddy and I took turns and finally beat Super Ghouls n Ghosts together. It was awesome!? Everyone familiar would instantly recognize it for what it was: a difficult game. There was no need to ask, ?Oh, well what difficulty did you play it on??

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left-Right Left-Right B A Start.
IDKFA

Every games magazine I ever bought included a cheat section detailing lots of cheat codes to make yourself invincible, give infinite lives, give every weapon and max ammo, or let you skip right to end. Some even went so far as to walk you thorugh entire games telling you what you need to do, especially in the more esoteric logic scapes you got in some adventure games.

 

[Erttheking]

Were these people mad about him (in their mind) badmouthing the game though?

Considering people in this thread were bitching about people wanting Cuphead to have an easy mode, yes. Becausue gamers have such a hate boner for gaming journalists that they're not going to let little things like reality get in the way of it.

Snip

It'd be pretty rude for you to assume things about her. There's a difference between someone doing it on Youtube and doing it yourself, not everyone can follow those techniques so easily. Yeah, she knows about that summoning.

Can you please tell me where you're getting this "every gamer" thing? I don't think I've actually seen anyone claim that "every gamer" should be able to play Dark Souls, just that an easy mode would make things more accessible.

If those players can't resist an easy mode, I'll repeat myself. It sounds like they weren't having that much fun in the first place. Frankly, it sounds like they would enjoy themselves more if they just stopped trying to be a tough guy.

Maybe because people admire the desire to push towards something harder, but they don't admire or respect people who whine about needed it too easy. But that's just my analytical thoughts behind it.

And there it is. People see hard mode as admirable but easy mode as being for whiners. Double standards ho.

Gamers really need to stop taking themselves so seriously.

 

[CritialGaming]

Reading the comments in this thread...makes me wonder how anyone ever played videogames in the classic 2D era. Obviously most of the big names were a few notches above SoulsBorne difficulty, yet there weren?t nearly the cries for including easy modes back then. People look back and say, ?Oh yeah, a buddy and I took turns and finally beat Super Ghouls n Ghosts together. It was awesome!? Everyone familiar would instantly recognize it for what it was: a difficult game. There was no need to ask, ?Oh, well what difficulty did you play it on??

Videogames aren?t a passive activity, so concepts like challenge naturally shift to the forefront of factors that can build appeal. Even single player games are played for challenge and the feelings of overcoming the odds against you, let alone the entertainment value. If some games are designed to have a fixed level of challenge, then they shouldn?t be penalized for it. The fact that they are ?just games? is beside the point.

To reiterate, the notion that adding difficulty options won?t change anything falls apart when considering that?s the very point of them to begin with. Then the argument usually pivots into ?Oh, well you must be an elitist to want to keep people from enjoying something!? Uh, no. Consumers choose with their dollars what they consider to be intriguing game design, and FROM has clearly garnered a significant following and acclaim with their current philosophy. Their fanbase has also grown exponentially in the last decade based on the same. Very doubtful the same could be said if they made their games like everyone else. True, the challenge is only a part of their success model, but still a vital one nonetheless.

Those 2D games weren't a few "notches" above Souls, there's an ocean separating them. I don't know how anyone can say Souls is actually hard when I played The Lion King, Rescue Rangers, Daffy Duck, Ducktales and many more as a kid. And I'm purposefully emitting the games from that era that have the reputation for being extremely hard. Making games like everyone else is far far more than just putting in difficulty settings. Bioware putting story mode in ME3 didn't make them a studio that makes games like everyone else, it was Anthem as that's a game that everyone else is making. Souls will still be Souls with the addition of Easy difficulty just like Mass Effect 3 was still a Bioware game. Gaming has grown exponentially since the 2D era as well. Just maybe that has to do with games being more approachable.

Dunkey's video nails what accomplishment in gaming actually is and no easy mode will take that away from any game ever.

"The idea of accomplishment doesn't stem from beating the game, but rather mastering it." It's just that those 8/16-bit games required mastery to beat. Thus, beating them was an accomplishment, which isn't true of beating a Souls game.

The few notches comment was facetious, and yes we?re all very well aware of how easy you think all the SoulsBorne games are.

Again, the failure to understand that adding a difficulty select does indeed change the game, simply by being there in the first place.. Why is there only now an outcry for games all of the sudden to have them when there have been decades of cases of great, classic games that didn?t have them?

Also your logic of games needing mastery to yield a sense of accomplishment vs simply beating them automatically negates an easy mode, since you aren?t mastering or thus achieving a sense of accomplishment there.

Nurburgring, one of the greatest racing courses in the world, only has one official difficulty. It is up to each individual driver to interpret and tackle the same course to the best of their abilities. Some may be slower despite having a better car, some might even be faster despite a worse car. But they all have the exact same course to work with. An easy mode wouldn?t be ?Nurburgring?, anymore than a game like SoulsBorne, Sekiro, etc. would be if it had one. Its design philosophy is simply a part of its identity; the perception of which is subsequently acquired, examined and assigned a value by its users. If they love it and it makes them feel a sense of accomplishment to complete it, then great. If they don?t, they can simply pick another course (game).

The only problem people would have in either case is when, like the topic of this thread, people whine about it and ask that it be changed to suit them personally.

 

[CaitSeith]

I'll never be a Starcraft pro, does that mean Starcraft should change so I can play it?

Well, that's what SC cheat codes are for.

https://ca.ign.com/wikis/starcraft/PC_Cheats

Can't cheat in a multiplayer can you?

Yeah, because that would actually affect the experience of someone else other than the player doing the cheating.

That's besides the point. After all, SC multiplayer had their cheese strategies (like the Zerg Rush) that can't be done in campaign, but were so effective against average players that Blizzard end up nerfing them because the players losing weren't having fun playing.

So effectively, people who wouldn't ever be Starcraft pros were able to enjoy the game after the game changed, and pros didn't mind because they enjoyed complex strategies more than cheesing their way to victory.

 

[Kerg3927]

It'd be pretty rude for you to assume things about her. There's a difference between someone doing it on Youtube and doing it yourself, not everyone can follow those techniques so easily. Yeah, she knows about that summoning.

Well, I wish her good luck. I hope she keeps at it and is eventually able to get over the hump.

Can you please tell me where you're getting this "every gamer" thing? I don't think I've actually seen anyone claim that "every gamer" should be able to play Dark Souls, just that an easy mode would make things more accessible.

Here...

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.

Implying that From Software should change their games to suit those who don't give a shit. Those who give a shit + those who don't give a shit = every gamer.

If those players can't resist an easy mode, I'll repeat myself. It sounds like they weren't having that much fun in the first place. Frankly, it sounds like they would enjoy themselves more if they just stopped trying to be a tough guy.

And this is a good example of where we differ. You seem to think trying to overcome challenges is a bad thing, i.e. trying to be a "tough guy." I see it as a good thing because it builds self-confidence.

 

[CaitSeith]

You seem to think trying to overcome challenges is a bad thing, i.e. trying to be a "tough guy."

If it gets in the way of enjoying your entertainment, then yes, it's a bad thing trying to be a though guy in a single-player game. I don't think Angry Joe would had enjoyed Alien: Isolation as much as he did if he hadn't lowered the difficulty level before his frustration reached the breaking point.

 

[Erttheking]

It'd be pretty rude for you to assume things about her. There's a difference between someone doing it on Youtube and doing it yourself, not everyone can follow those techniques so easily. Yeah, she knows about that summoning.

Well, I wish her good luck. I hope she keeps at it and is eventually able to get over the hump.

Can you please tell me where you're getting this "every gamer" thing? I don't think I've actually seen anyone claim that "every gamer" should be able to play Dark Souls, just that an easy mode would make things more accessible.

Here...

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.

Implying that From Software should change their games to suit those who don't give a shit. Those who give a shit + those who don't give a shit = every gamer.

If those players can't resist an easy mode, I'll repeat myself. It sounds like they weren't having that much fun in the first place. Frankly, it sounds like they would enjoy themselves more if they just stopped trying to be a tough guy.

And this is a good example of where we differ. You seem to think trying to overcome challenges is a bad thing, i.e. trying to be a "tough guy." I see it as a good thing because it builds self-confidence.

That is not me saying they should appeal to every gamer, it was me challenging your unfounded stereotypes. You?ll note I included myself in there despite me being a Souls fan.

Oh you really need to stop with the strawman. I have said over and over again, and I think you?re just ignoring me at this point, that easy mode should still be challenging. Because there comes a point where smashing your head against a brick wall stops being meaningful if the gap is too wide and you just can?t clear it. I played Bayonetta on the harder difficulty and I still regret it. I got not satisfaction from it and I just got frustrated from all the bad scores it gave me. But I soldiered on and beat the game with no satisfaction. I imagine plenty of other people would be like that.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I'ma drop an unpopular opinion. "Difficulty" in games was about profit, not providing gamers an enjoyable experience. Games were either quarter-munchers, or ports of quarter-munchers, and the incentive there was to keep gamers feeding the machine. Or, typically in puzzle or adventure games, the difficulty was actually a stealthy anti-piracy measure since the game manual included either hints or outright solutions to some of the whackiest, least sensible, puzzles in the game, designed to either be unsolvable or put the game in an unwinnable state absent that information.

Sierra was by far the worst offender of that second category.

I mean, Mega Man 2 came up in the thread. The difficulty of Mega Man 2 is "how good is your pattern recognition and memory?". Once you beat Mega Man 2, as long as you remember the game and its levels, you can always beat Mega Man 2. MM2, had it been an arcade release, would have been as perfect a refinement of that "quarter muncher" formula as there ever would have been.

When I was a kid, I found MM2 amazingly fun but not that hard, because I had baller pattern recognition and memory (now not so much); the only place I really road blocked, was the vertical portion of Quick Man's level, and that was timing the falling to avoid the beams. That part was seared into my memory so strongly, that it's probably the only portion of the game I could beat nowadays on my first try.

Hell, Ninja Gaiden is usually right there with MM2 when talking "Nintendo hard". That asshole falcon on level 6-2 is perfectly emblematic of the game's "difficulty"; the same enemies always spawn in the same spots on the same levels, and it's up to you to memorize the pattern. Do that, and there is no more difficulty; it just becomes rote.

The gaming industry didn't evolve beyond that trend for a few decades (and in some ways it still hasn't), and only in the past ten or twenty years games have had budgets, lack of hardware constraint, and labor-hours behind them to actually create games with dynamic difficulties. For the overwhelming majority of gaming history, "difficulty" has been bullshit since "difficulty" simply meant static values changed to the player's disfavor while basic game play remained the same. Space Invaders was the only early game, which I can name off-hand, that actually had a dynamic difficulty curve, and that was completely by accident.

For comparison's sake, I'm going to point out two games from the same time period, Halo 2 and Half-Life 2. It's so subtle players may not even notice it, but those games had highly dynamic difficulty curves which actually did fundamentally alter the experience, because higher-order and more complex AI behaviors were gated behind difficulty. Covenant troops in Halo 2 acted completely differently going from Normal to Heroic, and from there to Legendary, and the player had to learn those new behaviors, adapt accordingly, and play smarter to overcome the challenges.

Compare that to basically any Bethesda game, where "higher difficulty" means "same experience, you just min-max harder". The only actual difference between Novice and Legendary in Skyrim, is how much time you spend in town(s) grinding skills and gear. The difficulty is completely fake, and utter bullshit.

Step 1 of these discussions, when they rear their ugly heads, should always be "define difficulty".

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Again, the failure to understand that adding a difficulty select does indeed change the game, simply by being there in the first place.. Why is there only now an outcry for games all of the sudden to have them when there have been decades of cases of great, classic games that didn?t have them?

Also your logic of games needing mastery to yield a sense of accomplishment vs simply beating them automatically negates an easy mode, since you aren?t mastering or thus achieving a sense of accomplishment there.

Nurburgring, one of the greatest racing courses in the world, only has one official difficulty. It is up to each individual driver to interpret and tackle the same course to the best of their abilities. Some may be slower despite having a better car, some might even be faster despite a worse car. But they all have the exact same course to work with. An easy mode wouldn?t be ?Nurburgring?, anymore than a game like SoulsBorne, Sekiro, etc. would be if it had one. Its design philosophy is simply a part of its identity; the perception of which is subsequently acquired, examined and assigned a value by its users. If they love it and it makes them feel a sense of accomplishment to complete it, then great. If they don?t, they can simply pick another course (game).

The only problem people would have in either case is when, like the topic of this thread, people whine about it and ask that it be changed to suit them personally.

The same game would be there, it ain't changing the default difficulty. Adding options allows players to alter the game how they see fit. You can pretty much alter anything in games in any other medium by nature of those mediums. Video games aren't uniquely special where adding options will ruin a game.

Those old-school classic were far from the best designed games, we just didn't know better as kids because 1) we were kids and 2) that was all we knew of games. It's not like there was a RDR2-like games back then that were easy and we merely decline to play them because we were too hardcore. Games have come to this much easier point because it's preferable over the 8/16-bit era.

Easy modes can help foster mastery a game. To me, Bayonetta is best played on NSIC due to the combat system shining brightest with Witch Time disabled but making everyone only be able to play on that would make the game very inaccessible. I probably would've put the game down myself just because it was my 1st spectacle fighter. Everyone comes into a game with different experiences and skills, some new to the series and even genre. Also, easier difficulties allow for more experimentation from the player. When a game constantly kills you (and punishes you for it), you tend to stick with what you know vs thinking outside-the-box. You start playing sports in very much the same way, kids start baseball hitting off a tee, bowling with bumpers, etc. Dunkey literally explained how playing Ikaruga on easy with infinite lives helped him master the game and get that feeling of accomplishment.

There's different classes of cars when racing on tracks so there is variable difficulty. Driving a car the has a lower top speed requires less reaction and more margin for error, which is literally what easier difficulties in games do.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Reading the comments in this thread...makes me wonder how anyone ever played videogames in the classic 2D era. Obviously most of the big names were a few notches above SoulsBorne difficulty, yet there weren?t nearly the cries for including easy modes back then. People look back and say, ?Oh yeah, a buddy and I took turns and finally beat Super Ghouls n Ghosts together. It was awesome!? Everyone familiar would instantly recognize it for what it was: a difficult game. There was no need to ask, ?Oh, well what difficulty did you play it on??

Ok, comparisons to the good ol? days of 2D difficulty is willfully ignoring WHY it was so. Due to the obvious hard/software limitations, 2D games had less to work with than modern games by orders of magnitude and thusly were much shorter; they HAD to be difficult to merit their asking price. There?s an achievement for ?Contra? on XBL Arcade for beating the game in 12 minutes; how pissed would you be if you paid full retail for a game and saw the credits within an hour let alone 12 minutes? No, the high difficulty, lives and continues systems ensured that kids (for whom games then were largely made) didn?t exhaust their expensive new toy?s value too quickly; they weren?t in place to test the mettle of 8-year-olds.

Videogames aren?t a passive activity, so concepts like challenge naturally shift to the forefront of factors that can build appeal. Even single player games are played for challenge and the feelings of overcoming the odds against you, let alone the entertainment value. If some games are designed to have a fixed level of challenge, then they shouldn?t be penalized for it. The fact that they are ?just games? is beside the point.

Agreed, challenge is an integral part of many games, maybe even the point of some, but fortunately, games have evolved WELL beyond that simplistic focus. Games have narratives, characters, worlds to explore; they offer so much more than simple progress gated off behind frustrating difficulty spikes. Have you ever seen Vaatividya?s Dark Souls lore videos? Watching any of those shows you just how much can be appreciated in game like a Souls game without even MENTIONING the difficulty which is apparently the whole point in some people?s minds. I can see someone into high fantasy being intrigued by Dark Souls and wanting to explore it for themselves, yet simultaneously not having the skillset, time or patience to best it challenges, and that person is forced to miss out simply because the option to level the difficulty to something they can personally manage doesn?t exist. And no one?s penalizing Souls for not having difficulty options; obviously, they don?t and we of the mindset that lower difficulties would be fine still love them; we?re asking why shouldn?t they have them and how would they adversely affect the broader experience. The answers are ?dev choice? and ?they wouldn?t? respectively.

To reiterate, the notion that adding difficulty options won?t change anything falls apart when considering that?s the very point of them to begin with. Then the argument usually pivots into ?Oh, well you must be an elitist to want to keep people from enjoying something!? Uh, no. Consumers choose with their dollars what they consider to be intriguing game design, and FROM has clearly garnered a significant following and acclaim with their current philosophy. Their fanbase has also grown exponentially in the last decade based on the same. Very doubtful the same could be said if they made their games like everyone else. True, the challenge is only a part of their success model, but still a vital one nonetheless.

Miyazaki?s philosophy on his choice not to implement difficulty setting ins Souls games is largely an existential one, a quote from a Twinfinite article:

?We want everyone to feel that sense of accomplishment. We want everyone to feel elated and to join that discussion on the same level. We feel if there?s different difficulties, that?s going to segment and fragment the user base. People will have different experiences based on that [differing difficulty level]. This is something we take to heart when we design games.?

I respectfully disagree with him, the operative reason being he said ?everyone,? and NOT ?everyone good enough to get through my games.? This choice has done the exact opposite of his stated intent; the userbase is ?segmented and fragmented? between the ?cans? and ?can?ts;? the only unified groups are the elitist who smugly expect everyone else to ?git gud;?some of us would like to think the smart thing to do would be to bridge that gap so that more people ?could,? but FROM didn?t, and that?s their choice. Point is, many in here have stated that not every game need be for everyone, but I don?t hear that direct an intent from Miyazaki, that his games are intended for a niche hardcore sect; I feel ?everyone? means ?everyone who buys the game,? and that broad a stroke should account for ?everyone? being a significant mix bag of ability, availability, and how ?accomplishment and elation? are attained, a FACT that simple options could account for.

But, as stated, dev choice, and I continue to love the games as I respectfully feel the rigid experiences they offer that exclude anyone, particularly the willing, could be even better.

 

[CaitSeith]

Step 1 of these discussions, when they rear their ugly heads, should always be "define difficulty".

These discussions seem to always start whenever a From Software game is involved, so it's a safe assumption to define difficulty as "From Software" difficulty.

 

[Kerg3927]

That is not me saying they should appeal to every gamer, it was me challenging your unfounded stereotypes. You?ll note I included myself in there despite me being a Souls fan.

And to that I reiterate my original comment, which is that those who don't give a shit can play other games. I don't think From Software designed their games for people who don't give a shit, hence no easy mode.

Oh you really need to stop with the strawman. I have said over and over again, and I think you?re just ignoring me at this point, that easy mode should still be challenging. Because there comes a point where smashing your head against a brick wall stops being meaningful if the gap is too wide and you just can?t clear it. I played Bayonetta on the harder difficulty and I still regret it. I got not satisfaction from it and I just got frustrated from all the bad scores it gave me. But I soldiered on and beat the game with no satisfaction. I imagine plenty of other people would be like that.

Perhaps, but again, they can play other games. I don't really care that certain types of people exist who might feel a certain way because I don't really care if everyone gets to complete those games. Sometimes a game is just not for you. It's okay. There's nothing immoral about that. That's just life. Learn to accept it and move on.

If I am a painter, and I paint a picture of horses, I don't really care that some people like cows better. I painted it for people who like horses, not cows. The people who like cows can go look at cow paintings.

There are not many 5-year-olds who can read and understand Moby Dick. But nobody expected Herman Melville to create a comic book version for them.

I don't understand why this view is so incredibly difficult for some people to tolerate. Why do people go 8+ pages on a message board trying to prove that this is wrongthink? And none of you are even directly affected by it, because you've already completed Dark Souls as is. Why can't you just let it go, especially considering the massive success of these games? Why can't you just chalk it up to, you know what, I may not like it, but I can't argue with their business model because it's certainly been very successful for them? It's baffling.

Let it beee... let it be... let it beeeee... let it be... whisper words of wisdom... let it beeee...

 

[CritialGaming]

Step 1 of these discussions, when they rear their ugly heads, should always be "define difficulty".

These discussions seem to always start whenever a From Software game is involved, so it's a safe assumption to define difficulty as "From Software" difficulty.

I think it is more of a "define what makes the game hard" in terms of difficulty. Once you do that, you then have to decide how you would make the game easier? What would make Sekrio (since this topic is about Sekiro) easier?

Lowering the enemies health wouldn't work because they don't technically have traditional health and most of the enemies instantly die or lose 50% of their "hp" thanks to stealth attacks.

More healing? Sure that could work, except the enemies can rip through your health quicker than you can heal it.

You could lower the damage of the enemies, but if the player can't learn how to deal with the attacks they will still lose.

So what do you to Sekiro, without completely changing Sekiro's core?

 

[Bedinsis]

I've already stated my opinion; I'm just here to point out that one of this website's features have weighted in on the issue.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/2019/04/04/git-over-yurself/

That, and to ask for a link to the article xprimentyl referred to. It sounded highly relevant.

EDIT: I just realized that since I'm already here I might as well respond to Aiddon's response to my earlier post: I agree. Not much to add really.

 

[Fappy]

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.

Hama/Mudo is certainly the most famous example of it, but Nocturne had a few ways RNG could getcha. An enemy could get lucky with a status effect, especially stone or fly. Enemy reinforcements could spawn endlessly and get multiple opportunities to move first, an enemy who happens to use the element your demi-fiend is weak to may happen along and decide to be picky with who he targets.

really though, none of that had to be terrible. Sure, it leads to trial-and-error and luck based missions from time to time, and generally, for a hard game, when you die you want to feel like you died because you screwed up, not because you couldn't either guess what the game had in store ahead of time, or lost a die roll, but by itself it's just another set dressing. It's when you have those elements in conjunction with long, long periods with no save point that it gets to being just plain frustrating. Replaying an hour of content because you got unlucky just never feels good.

Matador deserves his reputation, for sure. I don't think I've ever met a player who didn't die to him the first time they fought him. I actually like him as a boss idea, though. He foreshadows how much more real the Amala side quests will be compared to the rest of the game, if you decide to pursue them, and teaches newcomers that this is a game where stat buff/debuff spells (which tend to be borderline useless in most JRPGS) are *really* important in this game.

If you can beat Matador you can beat the rest of the game, which is why I like his fight as much as I do. He sets the player's expectations for future boss fights by forcing you to adapt your party comp to play around his tactics. If you go into the fight with a well thought out team and the appropriate spells (in this case 'Sukukaja') for this specific fight you will wipe the floor with him.

For Sekiro I think the boss that served this role, Genichiro, came a bit later in the game, but was a perfect example of this design principle. I will agree with some who say the game up to this point is a bit too hard, but that mostly comes down to scarcity of healing items and damage intake in the early game imo.