Except both sides are talking about how the other sides mentality "Hurts" the accesability/quality of the art. This is by its definition a vield call request for developers to change what they are doing. We have a really good tool to determine if we are interested in what the developers are making and that is reading their interviews watching the gameplay video and making the decision on if what they are showing you is something you would be interested in.Raikas said:
On Difficulty and the State of Gaming.
- Thread starter GreaterGamingGood
- Start date
I don't think adding easy mode would lead to more developers designing game systems and difficulty around the unskilled player (easy mode is much more a symptom or omen, than a cause); I think the future of games all depends on how they're are designed from the beginning.
Tomb Raider on hard, is just the same game with less room for error, or being unlucky. It doesn't actually change the underlying systems of the game. I think developers shouldn't compromise their game's systems; but after design is complete, they can then find ways to make it easier for less skilled players (when a lower difficulty is chosen). That way, the game's mechanics aren't removed or reduced, but can be adjusted. The wrong way to do it, is to design the game for the less skilled players and then "scale it up" for more challenge-hungry gamers. E.g. games that just multiply the enemies' health pools, while slashing yours, and calling that "hard" mode; well, it's still the same simple game, but "harder." It's the same game, just tuned upward. I'd prefer designers to build more complex systems, with low hand-holding, and then scale it down for easier difficulty (more hand-holding, lesser punishment for failure, frustration-avoiding design elements added in). That way, you have accesible, but still deep, games.
As long as developers design from the top down, I don't think easy modes will compromise a video game's depth.
As for the OP. Because that's how games should be, is not a reason. But my desire for games to be designed complex, then tamed for easier difficulties, is also just another "because that's how it should be" argument. I think people's aversion to Darks Souls adding an easy mode is more them fighting against a manifestation of their fear of where game design is heading, more than it is them actually believing adding an easy mode will cause more and more exoteric video game design. "Easy mode" and all the wrongs against video games it may represent to you, are not the problem, they're a symptom (in some games). It's up to the designers and programmers to design games that cater to hardcore, middle of the road and casual players. At least, that'd be ideal to me.
A good example for me is Redlynx's Trials games. They stratify the difficulties of their game through their level design. There are beginner, easy, medium, hard and extreme tracks. So, every level of player has content for them, but the mechanics of the game remain tuned for maximum depth. The flaw is that there is only limited amounts of each strata of difficulty. A very casual Trials player who never had any desire to become better, would run out of tracks to race very quickly. In my perfect design world, each level would have multiple versions. One for each of the classes of difficulty mentioned above. For example, build an extreme difficulty track, then add ramps, shorten gaps and jumps to make it more and more accesible down to beginner level et al. Or build a beginner track, then add in higher jumps and more complex obstacles to make it an extreme (keep the background decor, for less workload). Etc. etc.
That way, each player would have the same amount of content. They might also stratify their game, by tweaking mechanics for different difficulties. E.g. making it take more force to throw the biker off the bike on lower difficulties--plus making recovery when in an awkward position more lenient and flexible (on lower difficulties), so as not to make the previous change pointless. Finally, all difficulties would have separate leaderboards.
Trials is designed with the player getting better and better in mind. From a practical standpoint, my ideas for designing around all classes of player are not feasible. However, moving towards the idea, I think, would make the game more accesible, without limiting or compromising the game's systems, so extremely good players can still have their extreme challenges and have the tools to tackle it.
I'm not sure if my idea for designing is practical--and it's way too nebulous at this stage--but it seems to me the best of both worlds. Hopefully my thoughts made sense, I don't think I expressed that very well. I haven't thought about it for long.
Tomb Raider on hard, is just the same game with less room for error, or being unlucky. It doesn't actually change the underlying systems of the game. I think developers shouldn't compromise their game's systems; but after design is complete, they can then find ways to make it easier for less skilled players (when a lower difficulty is chosen). That way, the game's mechanics aren't removed or reduced, but can be adjusted. The wrong way to do it, is to design the game for the less skilled players and then "scale it up" for more challenge-hungry gamers. E.g. games that just multiply the enemies' health pools, while slashing yours, and calling that "hard" mode; well, it's still the same simple game, but "harder." It's the same game, just tuned upward. I'd prefer designers to build more complex systems, with low hand-holding, and then scale it down for easier difficulty (more hand-holding, lesser punishment for failure, frustration-avoiding design elements added in). That way, you have accesible, but still deep, games.
As long as developers design from the top down, I don't think easy modes will compromise a video game's depth.
As for the OP. Because that's how games should be, is not a reason. But my desire for games to be designed complex, then tamed for easier difficulties, is also just another "because that's how it should be" argument. I think people's aversion to Darks Souls adding an easy mode is more them fighting against a manifestation of their fear of where game design is heading, more than it is them actually believing adding an easy mode will cause more and more exoteric video game design. "Easy mode" and all the wrongs against video games it may represent to you, are not the problem, they're a symptom (in some games). It's up to the designers and programmers to design games that cater to hardcore, middle of the road and casual players. At least, that'd be ideal to me.
A good example for me is Redlynx's Trials games. They stratify the difficulties of their game through their level design. There are beginner, easy, medium, hard and extreme tracks. So, every level of player has content for them, but the mechanics of the game remain tuned for maximum depth. The flaw is that there is only limited amounts of each strata of difficulty. A very casual Trials player who never had any desire to become better, would run out of tracks to race very quickly. In my perfect design world, each level would have multiple versions. One for each of the classes of difficulty mentioned above. For example, build an extreme difficulty track, then add ramps, shorten gaps and jumps to make it more and more accesible down to beginner level et al. Or build a beginner track, then add in higher jumps and more complex obstacles to make it an extreme (keep the background decor, for less workload). Etc. etc.
That way, each player would have the same amount of content. They might also stratify their game, by tweaking mechanics for different difficulties. E.g. making it take more force to throw the biker off the bike on lower difficulties--plus making recovery when in an awkward position more lenient and flexible (on lower difficulties), so as not to make the previous change pointless. Finally, all difficulties would have separate leaderboards.
Trials is designed with the player getting better and better in mind. From a practical standpoint, my ideas for designing around all classes of player are not feasible. However, moving towards the idea, I think, would make the game more accesible, without limiting or compromising the game's systems, so extremely good players can still have their extreme challenges and have the tools to tackle it.
I'm not sure if my idea for designing is practical--and it's way too nebulous at this stage--but it seems to me the best of both worlds. Hopefully my thoughts made sense, I don't think I expressed that very well. I haven't thought about it for long.
Not really. let me give an example, let's say you play an MP RTS and are looking for a challenge, would you purposely not build some units to make it even harder on yourself? Would using all the available assets mean you weren't looking for a challenge? You see, i want the game to provide me a challenge, i don't want to artificially fabricate it by forcing myself not to use all the means it gives me to achieve victory. And in my opinion if you need to fabricate your own difficulty for the game to be challenging than something went extremely wrong.Raikas said:
Wasn't figuring that out the entire purpose of the game? I mean Tomb Raider was a puzzle-adventure shooter, a part of the game has always been to figure out what to do in order to go further. And the better you were at puzzling the least time you would need to figure out which parts of the environment are interactive. (because the answer will come to you and usually there aren't 50 "fake" answers because of objects you can't interact with)kailus13 said:
Firstly Dark Souls isn't even a hard game. It was marketed by itself and gamers as a hard game. I bought it, it was damn easy, and I am totally disappointed in all the gamers calling these games hard. Taking it slow and pulling one enemy at you at a time is hard now? You didn't have to master the gameplay mechanics whatsoever. Bayonetta on normal requires more gamer skill than beating Dark Souls.
Secondly, Bayonetta and Vanquish both have super easy casual modes, neither game is considered less of a game for having these modes. Bayonetta's super easy mode has every button press doing a powerful wicked weave attack where Vanquish's super easy mode basically includes an aimbot so you don't have to aim. Neither game is lacking anything because of these modes, and both are far more hardcore and better games than Dark Souls. I don't remember a single gamer complaining that Platinum (the creators of DMC, Resident Evil, Viewtiful Joe, God Hand, Okami, and more) catered to casuals for including super easy modes in Bayonetta or Vanquish since the games were as hardcore as you can get.
1,000 times this.Vegosiux said:
Secondly, Bayonetta and Vanquish both have super easy casual modes, neither game is considered less of a game for having these modes. Bayonetta's super easy mode has every button press doing a powerful wicked weave attack where Vanquish's super easy mode basically includes an aimbot so you don't have to aim. Neither game is lacking anything because of these modes, and both are far more hardcore and better games than Dark Souls. I don't remember a single gamer complaining that Platinum (the creators of DMC, Resident Evil, Viewtiful Joe, God Hand, Okami, and more) catered to casuals for including super easy modes in Bayonetta or Vanquish since the games were as hardcore as you can get.
I don't think it has to be though.IronMit said:
Here's the thing though. When I think Easy mode, I just think something like, "Monsters deal 20% less damage and have 20% less health while the player deals 20% more damage and has 20% more health. Just a modifier like that. I would have them make the game how it should be made, all the unforgiving mechanics and brutal killings. Then the player gets to choose if they get the full experience or an easy mode.
I wouldn't want the devs to change fights, make monsters do different things for the sake of easy. If they do that, then they are changing too much. Pitfalls, traps, and cliffs should stay the same too. It's easy enough to understand, "If you move here, you will die!" And if they can't learn from that, well...
Then you can still keep the player base together, the same rules still apply for fights but it's just more forgiving. I agree in the fact the core game play shouldn't change just for the sake of easy mode. Will just have to see how they end up dealing with it then.
Dark Souls shouldn't have an easy mode for one simple fact.
Without the challenging, methodical combat, you've got a pointless fuckin' game. The entire reward of beating Dark Souls is knowing that you've managed to master the combat system. Sure, that's not all there is to the game, but deep and challenging combat is core to the game in the same way that the open world is core to Skyrim, or character relationships and empathy is core to the Walking Dead. Without challenge in Dark Souls you've got another B-rated RPG.
Plus anyone who knows the game knows that challenge is pretty much built into the combat system. Making the game easier would require butchering it completely. Imagine Mario if all the holes in the floor were filled in. Hell, you don't even have to imagine. Remember that weird one-off Prince of Persia game? The one where every time you fell off something you just magically got lifted back up? How much did that suck?
It isn't about wanting to be part of an exclusive club, it's about not wanting the game to be shite. Plus there's nothing actually holding anyone back from joining the 'club' in the first place, apart from their own lack of patience.
Without the challenging, methodical combat, you've got a pointless fuckin' game. The entire reward of beating Dark Souls is knowing that you've managed to master the combat system. Sure, that's not all there is to the game, but deep and challenging combat is core to the game in the same way that the open world is core to Skyrim, or character relationships and empathy is core to the Walking Dead. Without challenge in Dark Souls you've got another B-rated RPG.
Plus anyone who knows the game knows that challenge is pretty much built into the combat system. Making the game easier would require butchering it completely. Imagine Mario if all the holes in the floor were filled in. Hell, you don't even have to imagine. Remember that weird one-off Prince of Persia game? The one where every time you fell off something you just magically got lifted back up? How much did that suck?
It isn't about wanting to be part of an exclusive club, it's about not wanting the game to be shite. Plus there's nothing actually holding anyone back from joining the 'club' in the first place, apart from their own lack of patience.
I agree. if they do it the way you say it..then I wouldn't have a problem...but maybe they are planning to do it the other way. Maybe if dark souls fans like me and OP shout loud enough they will do it the way you mentioned.TheProfessor234 said:
Hence why it's a good thing annoying threads like these are made. It's why I'm curious that they have not released an easy mode patch for Dark souls yet? You think they would and say 'look, it's not affecting your game!'. it's probably because changing health will just make standalone enemies slightly easier so you rush through it and fall off a cliff because the entire sense of caution is gone..heavily skewing the tone and pacing of the game.
Have you played dark souls btw? you do know half the deaths happen because of level design. 20% and you will still die a plenty. If you want the 20% boost..just farm and upgrade level and armour/weapons. It is an j/rpg after all! it seems a silly option to add that may or may not change level design to make something marginally more accessible
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong...yep, I think that's covered all your points, but for the sake of argument:
And even if I did have the time, I play games to relax and unwind. That doesn't mean I don't ever want to be challenged, but when I do, that's when I pick the hardest difficulty. When I just want to enjoy a games story or dick around, I'll stick Saints Row 3 on, I'll switch it to easy and have a fucking blast.
Gaming improves reaction time and pattern recognition and that's about it. So if that's all you care about, sell your games and buy Bop It.
Yes, they were more difficult to complete and it did take more practice but, at the end of the day, what did you achieve by doing so? You proved you were more willing to tolerate defeat than others. Yey, good for you, the rest of us turned the console off and went outside. Even then I disagree with myself because, out of the twenty or thirty Mega Drive games I owned I could complete maybe two of them. Hell to this day I don't think I've ever properly completed Sonic the Hedgehog. But I still love all of those games because I was having fun playing them; it had nothing to do with the difficulty, they were just fun games.
In Max Payne 3, I was playing through the game on normal and having a fucking miserable time because, for whatever reason, I just couldn't get to grips with it and kept dying. Now, you could argue that I could have put the graft in and I probably would have got better as a player. On the other hand, gaming isn't my job, so I don't need to work at it if I don't want to. I switched the difficulty to easy and suddenly I was having a ball.
That's great that you've got the free time to master every intricacy of a game, but some of us are busy people and we don't want to take a three-week course to learn every subtle nuance of a games combat system or else reload checkpoint every five minutes.GreaterGamingGood said:
And even if I did have the time, I play games to relax and unwind. That doesn't mean I don't ever want to be challenged, but when I do, that's when I pick the hardest difficulty. When I just want to enjoy a games story or dick around, I'll stick Saints Row 3 on, I'll switch it to easy and have a fucking blast.
Again, not everyone plays video games to test their skills or gain bragging rights, a lot of us just want to enjoy ourselves and there is very little that I would considerable enjoyable about dying for the twentieth time on a boss because I was careless enough to not dodge one attack that sliced off half my health.
Gaming improves reaction time and pattern recognition and that's about it. So if that's all you care about, sell your games and buy Bop It.
The very fact that there was a sequel to Demon's Souls, Ninja Gaiden etc. should tell you that this is nonsense. But more to the point: since when does difficulty=innovation? I must have missed that meeting. Katamari Damacy is one of the most original games I've ever played, but with the exception of the last few levels the game will barely challenge you. Shadow of the Colossus is an undisputed masterpiece, but the only boss that will give you any real trouble is the last one. Opinions like this really fuck me off, because what you are complaining about is the mainstream video game industry, when the indie market and other cult titles display more innovation, intelligence and beauty than any of these games you hold on a pedestal for being difficult.
I wonder if you realise how ironic it is to call difficult games new and innovative and then go on to talk about how difficult games were, back in the day. Old games were designed to be difficult and frustrating because of their brevity; forcing you to reply the same sections over and over disguised the fact that, played well, the games were about an hour long.
Yes, they were more difficult to complete and it did take more practice but, at the end of the day, what did you achieve by doing so? You proved you were more willing to tolerate defeat than others. Yey, good for you, the rest of us turned the console off and went outside. Even then I disagree with myself because, out of the twenty or thirty Mega Drive games I owned I could complete maybe two of them. Hell to this day I don't think I've ever properly completed Sonic the Hedgehog. But I still love all of those games because I was having fun playing them; it had nothing to do with the difficulty, they were just fun games.
In Max Payne 3, I was playing through the game on normal and having a fucking miserable time because, for whatever reason, I just couldn't get to grips with it and kept dying. Now, you could argue that I could have put the graft in and I probably would have got better as a player. On the other hand, gaming isn't my job, so I don't need to work at it if I don't want to. I switched the difficulty to easy and suddenly I was having a ball.
Here's a valuable piece of advice: Not everyone is you. Not every one wants games to be the way you do. Now, you could level those same statements at me, but the difference is, despite your idle braying, adding an easy mode to a game does not affect you; not adding it to a game does affect me, because I won't be able to play it.
Okay, I really don't understand this Dark Souls argument, the game is 100% pattern memorization, in all intesive purposes Dark Souls is Simon with graphics. Like, does anyone honestly need an easy mode? I really do not understand it.
Bingo. Simple and to the point. (and totally missing the fact that multiple organic methods of both decreasing and increasing difficulty already exist in Dark Souls as is)PeterMerkin69 said:
The part I enjoy most is when you compare the Dark Souls difficulty discussion to the tacked on multiplayer discussion.
A developer spending focus, time and money on adding optional easy modes to Dark Souls to broaden it's appeal? Supposedly good, unless you're an elitist masochistic scumbag who's an elitist (so good, you have to say it twice).
A developer spending focus, time and money on addin optional multiplayer modes in beloved game Y to broaden it's appeal? Absolutely terribly awful and repugnant, and if you don't agree you're not a true gamer.
By and large, when speaking of forms of artistic media, it's considered a great thing when specific pieces are focused by the creator on a specific target audience and don't exist to serve everyone. In videogames, however, this for some reason is not the case.. sometimes.
I guess that just means games should try to forge an identity for themselves beyond "it's hard". To be honest, looking back on some of those old games, they weren't really hard, just cheap. Battletoads only got really hard at the biking part, which no human being could ever react to fast enough to do unless you either had clarvoiyance or had played it so much as to perfectly memorize the layout. GaG, made you play through the game twice (seriously) and some of it just came down to blind luck, not player skill. Hope you didn't accidentally pick up the wrong weapons from a dead enemy. You did? Well the game is impossible now. Ha. That has never been good game design, just a throwback to the arcades where they tried to kill you over and over to leech as much money out of you as possible, the same reason extra lives still exist.
I guess Dark Souls is already a pointless fuckin' game then because the game is damn easy. I spent the first areas of Dark Souls learning the riposte as I felt learning that early would have benefits when I got to the harder areas. However, that was not the case as just strafing around enemies for a backstab was an easier and safer way of attacking enemies. I gave up on the riposte because it was just too risky and NEVER did the game force me to use the move against later enemies. All you have to do all game is pull enemies to you one-by-one, then take them out by blocking and using your normal attack, no mastery required at all. The game doesn't even force you to use the power attacks (R2 attacks) either. Bayonetta, on the other hand, made you learn the dodge offset mechanic through the Jeane boss fights and enemies immune to Witch Time. And, Bayonetta had a super easy casual mode too, which didn't ruin the game experience whatsoever.someonehairy-ish said:
The problem with the Prince of Persia (2008) wasn't the not dying aspect, it was because the platforming wasn't nearly as good or well designed as the previous games, the traps were weak as shit (they were so slow, it was almost impossible to even get hit by them), and the combat was really bad. Oh, and the puzzles were lame too. I liked everything else about the game though.
Well yeah, once you figure the combat out. But I seriously doubt all you actually did was block and use the weak attack, by virtue of the sheer amount of attacks that can't be blocked, and the situations where you have to fight multiple enemies, and the simple fact that without learning to judge your timing properly you would never have gotten a hit in against some enemies... and then there's the fact that simply strafing to hit things in the back would never work against a half decent invader...Phoenixmgs said:
Either you're a weirdly gifted player or you're seriously downplaying the actual learning process involved. Either way, it doesn't really undermine what I was saying.
Why do people keep saying that games being harder was somehow better? Do you know why games back then were so hard? There are two reasons: the first is that games weren't designed with the player in mind and often had infuriating logic or reasoning to them. The games were often unfair and sometimes unbeatable because the designer didn't think about how the mechanics might affect enjoyment. The second reason was the fact that arcades actively tried to make you fail, so as to spend more cash on them. The reason games like Ghouls'n Ghosts existed was solely to deprive you of your allowance.
As to the OP:
1. If you can't learn the game because you are frustrated, then why even play? Are these kinds of games not meant to be fun or are they meant exclusively for those who have already mastered it?
2. But the thing is, whether or not I beat the game on a lower difficulty has zero impact on you. None. Nada. Zilch. How does me having an easier time than you lower your sense of self worth. Unless you see beating the game as some sort of exclusive club, where you want as few people as possible to attend.
3. A slippery slope argument and barely even worth acknowledgement. Taking an argument to logical (or rather illogical) extremes like that has little to do with your main point and doesn't help your argument in the slightest.
4. The reason gamers played the earlier harder games was because they had no choice, not because they reveled in the challenge. There weren't nearly as many choices for games and kids often had to play whatever game they had or what was at the arcade. Also sometimes they never even put up with it entirely. When I "beat" Ghost and Goblins for the first time and saw that the game just arbitrarily moved the goal posts and essentially discredited everything I did with that shit, I never played it again.
As to the OP:
1. If you can't learn the game because you are frustrated, then why even play? Are these kinds of games not meant to be fun or are they meant exclusively for those who have already mastered it?
2. But the thing is, whether or not I beat the game on a lower difficulty has zero impact on you. None. Nada. Zilch. How does me having an easier time than you lower your sense of self worth. Unless you see beating the game as some sort of exclusive club, where you want as few people as possible to attend.
3. A slippery slope argument and barely even worth acknowledgement. Taking an argument to logical (or rather illogical) extremes like that has little to do with your main point and doesn't help your argument in the slightest.
4. The reason gamers played the earlier harder games was because they had no choice, not because they reveled in the challenge. There weren't nearly as many choices for games and kids often had to play whatever game they had or what was at the arcade. Also sometimes they never even put up with it entirely. When I "beat" Ghost and Goblins for the first time and saw that the game just arbitrarily moved the goal posts and essentially discredited everything I did with that shit, I never played it again.
Alright this will probably sound stupid, and i don't mean to offend anyone, but why do you want to play dark souls if you know you won't succeed at it and have to have an easy difficulty setting added to complete it? The main part of it is the sense of reward you get for learning the moves and counters and finally overcoming a demon that has been killing you for an hour, or working out where the next trap will be in a dungeon. I didn't play it so i could boast about beating it, and i don't think many people did. The difficulty in dark souls is an integral part of the experience, and without the difficulty the game is surprisingly short and the plot lacking. I will admit i was and still am a casual gamer before Dark Souls, but it has broadened my horizons when it comes to difficulty, causing me to start playing more games on harder difficulties where as before i would simply play the easiest setting and not touch anything higher. So in summary if you want a casual experience there are much better rpgs than dark souls, but if you want a difficult yet rewarding experience then Dark souls is a good game. I wouldn't have a problem with an easy mode being implemented, but it is a slippery slope with a company that said they wanted the game to be more like skyrim and more 'accessible'.
I think Saints Row the third handled the difficulty quite well, because there were cheats for people who wanted shortcuts, but the compromise was that you didn't get achievements/trophies. But then I don't really know how much of a deterent that is for non achievement/trophy whores like myself.
I was trying to be charitable, although I do like Nate just a teensy bit. Nate's an affable dudebro.Vault101 said:
I still don't know why that soulless Russian cardboard cut-out didn't just use his attack helicopters to fly over the area he knew Shangri-La was hidden. Derpaderp, better waste them on this one guy instead of just flying away and looking down for like ten minutes.
UC2 seriously made me not want to play The Last of Us, and that was going to be my first new console game purchase since... Mass Effect 3, I think.
