A Dark Souls easy mode would require a fundamental change in level design.

[Korten12]

Ledges? I believe you've missed the actually difficulty of the game

How retarded.

Darks Souls isn't hard because you can walk off cliff. It's hard because enemies deal tons of damage.

Enemy Damage isn't it Either. EpicNameBro stated this in a very nice summary. An enemy can one shot you, sure, have inflated health bar, sure, but the difficulty comes not learning how to to defeat him easily.

What are you talking about? Of course the main issue is enemy damage. Getting one shot is the problem. And then you have a ten minute trek to go against that enemy and hopefully he won't one-shot you, though most likely he will. Then you have to make the trek again.

That's why Dark Souls is hard.

Honestly not really. I rarely every come across enemies that one hit me. Usually it takes three or four. Enemies also for the most part aren't that fast, only some are. Most enemies are pretty sluggish and have only maybe three or two attacks. Bosses usually have an easy way to beat them and easy way to dodge.

Really if they did make it so you had more health and you did more damage. You would be one to two hitting every enemy as even in the start of the game, I usually three or four hit enemies and before late game start two to three hitting every one except for rare enemies like the Dark Knights which only spawn once and don't after they're killed.

 

[krazykidd]

I'm pretty sure most of those wanting an easy mode are thinking about combat not fall damage. An easy mode dose not mean a mode impossible to die on just easier than the normal difficulty.

This.

Half enemy damage, increase player damage by about 50%, remove one or two items from boss move lists, have the player only drop half souls/humanity instead of all of them, more enemies not respawning when you rest at a bonfire...

And you've got a game that is still more challenging than most games these days, honestly.

It's funny ,but also a little sad .

OT: Gah . We'll pass judgement when it comes out . Although i already sharpened my pitch-fork

 

[DementedSheep]

I have yet to see anyone actually demand an easy mode. Request or state that they would think it would be good idea sure and there is nothing wrong with making a request that developers are free to take on board or ignore.

You might be right about that, and I may have had a poor choice of words. As I said in my previous message everyone does indeed have the right to critique a work. In this specific situtation such critiquing should have been done while Dark Souls was still in production or now in an effort to perhaps eventually improve Dark Souls 2 specifically.

The only people I've seen actually getting up in arms about this and doing the usual "raghhh I'll never support you again if you do this!!" BS are the ones against the idea the they might decide of their own free will to put an optional easy mode in the game.

That would depend on the reason why the developers would choose to implement such option. They likely wouldn't get my support if it was added in an attempt to only appeal to a broader audience, but they would be much more likely to get it if they honestly though the inclusion truly improved the game itself. Former would be in a way forced upon the developers and the latter would be them deciding of their own free will.

At the end of the day this is a product they are selling and they do need to make money from this game. I would still class economic reason as there own free will and I don't see anything really wrong with that though of course we don't know what their reason are or what they intend unless they say so themselves.
This is how they make their living, I think adding an easy mode is the least harmful way of broadening appeal and again by easy I mean easy relative to the normal difficulty not easy as in near impossible to die and you don?t have to think at all. Theoretically if it does broaden appeal and they get more sales that means more money for the next game or other projects they want to do.
It would take some work of course but I don?t think that would be hell of a lot and it doesn't have to affect the normal difficulty. So long as the game is designed around and optimized for the intended difficulty and then scaled down to easy the easy mode hasn't harmed it. It doesn't require changing level design, just buff how much damage the player can deal and take, do the opposite for the enemies, reduce penalty on death and maybe add more hints around the place as to what direction to go. It might still be difficult in places but it would be easier.
I think playing on easy would take away from ?the point? of the game, I think the same could be said for Metro 2033 on easy since you are suppose to feel unskilled, unprepared and that your weapons shitty but if people enjoy it for other reasons I don?t see that it really matters.

 

[Sande45]

I'm not touching this shit-storm again until I see the pro easy mode people even acknowledging any arguments from the other side.
Even if they managed to do a great easy mode that doesn't hamper development of the normal mode in any way (pretty big if with Dark Souls 2), it still wouldn't be a 100% positive thing. About 99% yes, but don't pretend it's hundred and therefore nobody has any right or reason to be against it.

 

[Something Amyss]

Dark Souls essentially says "If your dumb enough to walk off this ledge you deserve to die."

Unlike other games, where if you're dumb enough to walk off a ledge you'll just float there.

This changes my whole view on Dark Souls. I didn't know you could fall off cliffs and die. This is a concept uniqye to Dark Souls and completely incompatible with an easy mode.

Seriously, i can't understand this stubborness towards the easy mode.
There's a simple check list: [ ] Does the change interfere with my gaming expirience.
If there's no check in the box: STOP GIVING A FLYING FUCK ABOUT IT.

This is the site with tantrums about how girls are trying to infiltrate our manly hobby. I'm not really surprised all the fixation on how letting filthy casuals into our club is an issue, too.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Lower damage done by enemies, raise damage done by players, increase soul drops. Done.

Stop whining, people.

 

[DayDark]

Lower damage done by enemies, raise damage done by players, increase soul drops. Done.

Stop whining, people.

Sounds like the easiest mod in the world. Question is, will the very existence of this mod destroy the game for everyone, since now it's only a download away? The option is always there, Oh boy am I glad I can simply control myself against temptation.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Lower damage done by enemies, raise damage done by players, increase soul drops. Done.

Stop whining, people.

Sounds like the easiest mod in the world. Question is, will the very existence of this mod destroy the game for everyone, since now it's only a download away?

Only if people are retarded, and then they have no one to blame but themselves.

 

[FoolKiller]

1. I'm against having the 'easy' mode in part 3. I like the idea that I can say I beat this game and it is its own accomplishment. It's not "I beat it on hard mode" but "I beat the game". I'm old fashioned but I liked it when it was you either beat it or you didn't. I'm still working on the TMNT game from 1989 (not the arcade but the NES one). I could play through it with a Game Genie or such but that defeats the purpose of beating a game.

2. While I get what people are saying, has anyone considered that there is no easy if you choose to play online? Anyone who will go online with the game and play it on easy is just going to get beat down by the elitists who are upset that the game is watered down.

3. There is already an easy mode. It's called soul form while playing offline.

 

[DoPo]

My, people just love quoting dictionaries instead of actually giving a real valid argument or at least an addition to the actual thread today... What, did you think I didn't know the definition of those words?

Yes, people sure don't want to give valid arguments. Like this one

Going from no difficulty settings to being able to set it to easy mode is still a large change for the overall game. Like you said, it would be a game with more options. Options that weren't intended. It's like a mod for skyrim that gives you weapons that do 2x more damage than standard weapons and have 100 magic damage on it. It makes things easier than intended. So it doesn't make the game better, but worse. All it does is making the game appeal to people that don't want a real challenge.

Options. That. Weren't. Intended. Yeah. Also throw in a non-argument about made up stuff. You don't know what or even if easy mode would be. You don't even know what "intentional" is, apparently, since you seem to suggest that the devs would throw in the option without meaning and probably realising it. You also somehow link your enjoyment of the game with what a random person you'd never meet does. I'm going to have to be brutally honest with you and make you not like Dark Souls any more - there are people who cheat. There it is. There are people who give themselves quite a lot of health, probably make it infinite and otherwise make their game easier than what you play. You must now be disgusted that you're playing the same game as them.

 

[darthzew]

We've gone so far into bitching about an easy mode in Dark Souls that now we're talking about ledges? God help us all.

Ledges have been around since, well, forever. Here's an easy example: the original Super Mario Brothers. If you fell off a ledge... you died. That's just simple logic. You don't have to fix ledges to make an easy mode. People understand that jumping off a cliff equals death. Casual gamers does not equal stupid gamers.

 

[infinity_turtles]

3: I don't want an easy mode because I don't have enough self control not to choose it (I.E. Easy mode is a tactical advantage that people would be stupid not to choose).
Once again, who cares. If you don't have the will power to complete a game you could otherwise complete, without choosing an easier route, why is it anyone else's problem but your own?

Given that I'm the only one I've seen make the stupid tactical choice argument... Equating that to willpower is kind of a dick move. The whole argument is centered around restricting myself to get a challenge devalues loss which in turn devalues success. I've played plenty of games with multiple difficulty modes on the easiest and hardest settings trying to find a way to make me give a crap about losing and succeeding, but if things are easy I don't care and if I'm handicapping myself for a challenge I don't care. So much of enjoying any sort of media is about your outlook, how you perceive things, and in general the way you think. The fact that you'd suggest that the affects of including something that changes the way someone views what they're doing is a bullshit reason to not want it is rather silly.

As for it being my problem... So it causing me problems isn't a valid argument for why adding it isn't the best thing ever for everyone and does in fact affect at least some people who don't want it?

 

[TrevHead]

I've already said enough when it comes to easy mode so I'll keep it brief.

Easy mode or the devs catering towards the mainstream isnt what I want, to do so really would affect me as difficulty comes in many forms not just HP and stats. It's thinking about difficulty in such a one dimentional way that has given us all these mainstream games with crappy hardmodes in them.

To those who say it won't all they have to do is look at PC gaming 5 years ago when every other game was a shitty console port. Lot's of these old IPs have had radical changes to their design because the devs are making the games for the avarage console gamer and not the oldschool PC gamer who loves System Shock 2, Quake 3 or Doom.

Or how about oldschool WRPG / Bioware fans seeing their beloved devs output have less RPG element with each new game, like Mass Effect 1-3.

Considering these ideas are generally accepted around these parts I find it strange that the same ppl would shove their fingers into their ears when it comes to difficulty.

As for Dark Souls 2, it's obvious that game is going to be "mainstreamed" in some way considering From and BamCo booted the original creator and replaced him with not just one but two devs who have gone on record to say they want the game to be more accessible. I'm not expecting DS2 to be a total POS but it's obvious it won't be the same work of art where almost every aspect of the game is focused towards the creators vision. If DS 2 has any "soul" remaining I suppose only time will tell, especially if From / Namco management intend to keep the directors on a short leash.

 

[BrotherRool]

Just think of it as 'easier mode'. Sure people will still die, but they're going to die _less_

 

[Ishal]

My, people just love quoting dictionaries instead of actually giving a real valid argument or at least an addition to the actual thread today... What, did you think I didn't know the definition of those words?

Yes, people sure don't want to give valid arguments. Like this one

Going from no difficulty settings to being able to set it to easy mode is still a large change for the overall game. Like you said, it would be a game with more options. Options that weren't intended. It's like a mod for skyrim that gives you weapons that do 2x more damage than standard weapons and have 100 magic damage on it. It makes things easier than intended. So it doesn't make the game better, but worse. All it does is making the game appeal to people that don't want a real challenge.

Options. That. Weren't. Intended. Yeah. Also throw in a non-argument about made up stuff. You don't know what or even if easy mode would be. You don't even know what "intentional" is, apparently, since you seem to suggest that the devs would throw in the option without meaning and probably realising it. You also somehow link your enjoyment of the game with what a random person you'd never meet does. I'm going to have to be brutally honest with you and make you not like Dark Souls any more - there are people who cheat. There it is. There are people who give themselves quite a lot of health, probably make it infinite and otherwise make their game easier than what you play. You must now be disgusted that you're playing the same game as them.

I just started playing Dark Souls a few days ago as an early Christmas present and I must say that it is a VERY, VERY fun game. However, I've already been called a filthy casual for two reasons. 1) because it is also known to some of my friends that I enjoy "button mashing games" like Skyrim and God of War 2) My first attempt was with a pyromancer. Apparently I am a dickless coward since I kite/los creatures to my advantage and because I'm a "mage nerd" and FUK MAGIK UZORZ!! But I don't care about that, I'll play it again as a melee class with a lance or halberd (seriously you can use spears and other pole ranged weapons in this game that is really cool). If something is in the game us as players can usually safely assume it was meant to be in there right? I mean, I was given the choice to give my character a class after all.

I guess I'll weigh in on the difficulty a bit too. This game has developed a pretty large cult following, and thus, some of its vocal members exaggerate its difficulty. Make no mistake, it is difficult but only because the player can make it so. Pretty much everything in the game hits ridiculously hard and you often can't just hack and slash your way to victory. Honestly it can all be shown in this boss battle. If you aren't careful and don't mind your surroundings then one of these guys will get the jump on you and its all over.

Spoiler

OT: The game requires you to think and read and otherwise not be lazy. Not too many things are outright told to you and thus people think its "hard". I get why this game has such a cult following, I got quite the nostalgia trip when I first looked at the menu screen and had my first encounter with a lowly skelton or whatever mob and it killed me. This probably will sound odd, but I got a Castlevani:Symphony of the Night vibe from Dark Souls. As to an easy mode or if including something like that would fundamentally change the style of the game, I don't know guys, for me this a tricky one. To me Dark Souls comes across as very purposefully designed to be unforgiving in certain situations. Then there is the weak argument that I hear all the time, "casuals seek experiences, non-casuals seek challenges". I don't know if I'm experienced enough with the game to fully give an educated opinion yet. I still plan to play through it at least 3 or 4 more times, and I haven't even beat it for the first time yet. But there is something to be said about that. The reason I want to is because I know I will be challenged both by the static difficulty of the bosses, and the variable difficulty with facing them each time with a new build and a new style of play that I won't be familiar with

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Well, I think the game is fine the way it is.

That is not to say I find the difficulty that super enjoyable however. After I got through managing the controls (playing the PC version), which is still a pain in the ass, I found most of the difficulty in the game is based around having the right strategy and the right gear / setup to tackle stuff.
You have to grind out souls and the right stats and gear until you are able to clear the next area, possibly dying a few times until you know exactly what is going to happen, then stroll through it.

Sure, there is some skill involved with blocking and dodging and picking your fights, but that's not all too different from other games.

I'm fine with this type of difficulty though, there should definitely be games out there that don't allow you to casually stroll through all levels, that's the kind of thing this game goes for, so I don't see what an easy mode would accomplish, except for hauling in a few gamers who just want to see the sights and be done with it.

Personally I like strategic difficulty way more though, where you have to plan an encounter ahead of time. The sort of difficulty encountered in Dragon Age on Nightmare +.

 

[WoW Killer]

It's thinking about difficulty in such a one dimentional way that has given us all these mainstream games with crappy hardmodes in them.

That's what happens when you design everything around the easy/accessible mode then alter stats for the harder settings. If you design first from the perspective of the harder mode, then you don't run into these problems. I used the example of a map/compass in another thread:

If you design the game around having a map/compass and then take these out for a hardcore mode, then you run the risk of the world not having sufficient landmarks with which to navigate. But if you design around not having these features, you can always add them in over the top for that easy mode. The easy mode doesn't become broken by having a world that's possible to navigate without the extra tools, and the hard mode is unaffected because that's what you initially balanced the game around.

 

[Warachia]

I think you completely missed the point of difficulty, choosing to deliberately walk off a cliff is not the fault of the designer, there is nothing in the game (level design wise) that needs to be changed for an easy mode, you just need to put a warning sign in front of the traps that have no warning.