Do we need "easy mode" any more?

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

The more options the better. It gives more player control and customisation.
Unless the game is one designed around its difficulty (i.e. Dark/Demon's Souls, etc) I don't see a reason not to have one.

basically this, not to mention sometimes depending on your flavor of game, there can be ONE mechanic that annoys the piss out of you/breaks the gameplay for you if you are playing at a higher level. So if they take it out/nerf it on "easy mode", thus, making the game enjoyable and a solid purchase for you.

i tend to play nearly every game i own on normal and/or easy mode. why? when i'm playing the computer, i could care less about the challenge, i'm just having fun playing the game, if i'm looking to frustrate myself and cause a hernia, i'll go play multiplayer or crank that shit up to the high heavens of difficulty, which that option is USUALLY there.

 

[THeFraz]

When I have children, I am not going to let them play on easy. I will choose the most difficult options for them so they grow up to be Super Gamers. If we have enough people do this, we can have a master race of video game players.

 

[StBishop]

Yes we need it. You might not, but as a community, yes, we need it.

Plenty of people I know don't have time to play games for 50+ hours. My brother only plays games in 4-5 hour bursts once a month or so when all of his family are busy with other stuff. He spends all of the time he's not at work or studying being a family man and I can fully understand why sometimes he doesn't want a game to ***** slap him for not grinding for the last week.

I also like to be able to make the game harder. I wish the assassin's creed series had a difficulty setting so I could turn it up, without easy, there can be no hard.

I also like that when I'm bad at a game, I can still finish it. I'll know I'm not as good as other people who played it one hard, but I still get the full experience of the game I paid for.

 

[OldDirtyCrusty]

There are enough reasons for an easy mode.
the game is a rental - you want to see/play most of it since you have no interest in buying.
the genre is new to you - Youre just starting to learn the controls and game mechanics.
you`re new to gaming or just switched platform - see above
you just want to give`em a hard time or have fun - you just barely made it on the hardest difficulty playthrough.
Those are pretty much my reasons for a easy mode.

 

[k-ossuburb]

PIGEONS!

I get what you are saying but I do not agree that it is a worthwhile way to do it.

There will be gamers who will resent the handholding at the beginning of the game and others who will not not be able to crest the difficulty curve at the top and resent not being able to finish the game. In other words the current system works just fine. Why break it by trying to fix it? Why are having options to set difficulty apparently a bad thing? You say you do not have a problem with them but you are arguing against the need for them. They may not be needed but they make the playing experience better for those both t the upper and lower end of the skill spectrum.

Discuss.

That's the thing, we've got the technology now to deal with that sort of thing. If someone is having trouble with a certain part then the game could stealthily dumb down the AI for a moment or make any attack from an enemy hurt less, the moment they start doing well again, the challenge ramps itself up (again, without letting the player know in any way) to keep things interesting.

Certain games lower the difficulty when a player dies a certain number of times, why not just implement a system like that that has a more active role in gameplay like The Binding Of Isaac changing which floor you go to depending on how well you did on the previous floor.


I honestly don't have a problem with difficulty settings, I think they're fine and they've done well as a standard for a very long time, I'm just saying that now there are ways to think outside of the box and try to tackle this problem of challenge and difficulty in relation to player skill in more creative and innovative ways.

Surely re-invention of some of the old systems is a step in the right direction?

Some people seem to have gotten the wrong idea about this, I'm not some elitist twat who only plays on hard mode and thinks anyone else who plays easy games are pussies. I'm just questioning a standard mechanic in gaming which a lot of people don't even think about and if there's any way we can improve upon it by implementing it in a more subtle fashion instead of literally choosing it directly from a menu.

Maybe a hybrid of systems that allows you to change difficulty in-game while maintaining that "invisible" difficulty changer AI I mentioned above alongside it to keep things interesting. If you'd prefer things stay at a single level throughout then there could easily be an option to turn it off as well.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I agree. If you don't use easy mode, we should probably just get rid of it altogether. There's a pretty good chance everyone else is exactly like you.

 

[DoPo]

Some people seem to have gotten the wrong idea about this, I'm not some elitist twat who only plays on hard mode and thinks anyone else who plays easy games are pussies.

Maybe you are not but you pretty much sounded like this when you said that easy setting doesn't give people a challenge, hence they wouldn't completely enjoy easy mode.

Maybe it's also good if you just want a quick, un-frustrating game to pass the time and just want to relax while you're waiting for something, but the challenge is part of the fun and a lot of gamers would have a lot more fun when the game isn't too easy, so why not just go for what you're used to and play on "normal" or "hard" instead?

Oh and then you followed that with a completely wild guess about the gamers (most play on normal) which, let's assume it's true, completely ignored the ones that do choose easy at first.

Why didn't you say that "hard" was undesirable? After all, the majority of gamers most likely play on "normal" first, so why do we need hard setting? Furthermore, with a flexible system which you suggested, it further means that "hard" etc, are unneeded. Why focus on "easy" alone?

 

[targren]

For me challenge isn't part of the fun, it's a replacement for the fun. Playing the same content over and over again, not getting to see cutscenes or new areas, or getting new abilities.. It spoils the flow and I don't care for it. There are games that offer challenge without falling into this trap though, Bayonetta and The Binding of Isaac being the best examples recently. Also if a game is singlemindedly focussed on challenge (ala Super Meat Boy) I can enjoy a lot more of this kind of thing. But in most games I want that easy mode there.

This. Too many people equate "challenge" with "enjoyment murdering difficulty" [footnote]That's not a dig at you, Rack! The industry's made that equation for decades.[/footnote]. If you have to play the same "pinhead-to-pinhead jumping" sequence 47 times because the controls are wobbly and the camera is positioned by a drunken hamster on meth, that's not "challenge." That's "your developers are bad and you should feel bad."

 

[jklinders]

PIGEONS!

I get what you are saying but I do not agree that it is a worthwhile way to do it.

There will be gamers who will resent the handholding at the beginning of the game and others who will not not be able to crest the difficulty curve at the top and resent not being able to finish the game. In other words the current system works just fine. Why break it by trying to fix it? Why are having options to set difficulty apparently a bad thing? You say you do not have a problem with them but you are arguing against the need for them. They may not be needed but they make the playing experience better for those both t the upper and lower end of the skill spectrum.

Discuss.

That's the thing, we've got the technology now to deal with that sort of thing. If someone is having trouble with a certain part then the game could stealthily dumb down the AI for a moment or make any attack from an enemy hurt less, the moment they start doing well again, the challenge ramps itself up (again, without letting the player know in any way) to keep things interesting.

Certain games lower the difficulty when a player dies a certain number of times, why not just implement a system like that that has a more active role in gameplay like The Binding Of Isaac changing which floor you go to depending on how well you did on the previous floor.


I honestly don't have a problem with difficulty settings, I think they're fine and they've done well as a standard for a very long time, I'm just saying that now there are ways to think outside of the box and try to tackle this problem of challenge and difficulty in relation to player skill in more creative and innovative ways.

Surely re-invention of some of the old systems is a step in the right direction?

Some people seem to have gotten the wrong idea about this, I'm not some elitist twat who only plays on hard mode and thinks anyone else who plays easy games are pussies. I'm just questioning a standard mechanic in gaming which a lot of people don't even think about and if there's any way we can improve upon it by implementing it in a more subtle fashion instead of literally choosing it directly from a menu.

Maybe a hybrid of systems that allows you to change difficulty in-game while maintaining that "invisible" difficulty changer AI I mentioned above alongside it to keep things interesting. If you'd prefer things stay at a single level throughout then there could easily be an option to turn it off as well.

That's an awful lot of additional coding and scripting you are asking the devs to do when there is a simpler and accessible system already available. It's simpler for little indie games to do what you say but when we are talking top shelf RPGs and action games it gets progressively or even exponentially more difficult.

I really don't see the need to add another 10.00 to the price of a game to fix something that is not broken. Chaos loves complicated things. This no more true than it is in computer programming. I can't even imagine the potential for bugs and dev time slow downs, budget overruns et al here. Let's not give them yet another excuse to move the price point please.

Edit:

You might be trying to say you are not being elitist (whatever the bugger all that means) and while I certainly never directly accused you of this, you set the tone in your first post by essentially asking those of us who have no aspirations to be professional gamers to justify using lower difficulties in the OP. My real problem is with making any system more complicated than it needs to be. Your system is very simple from an end user standpoint and if that was the only consideration then bravo good sir you are brilliant. But from an execution standpoint it is a potential nightmare. Let's look at all sides shall we?

 

[Snotnarok]

Besides Resident Evil the remake I can't recall the last game I played on easy. But even then others seem to consider that normal and hard not easy and normal. I feel more games need more difficulty variety, not just player takes more damage and gets less ammo. How about player fights more enemies and gets the same items, or a remix mode where enemies are in different spots in varying numbers.

I don't know I never understood easy mode, it's not been used around here

 

[In Search of Username]

I am not new to gaming, not even slightly. I have played games for years and years now, on a regular basis. Hasn't changed the fact I'm fucking terrible at them. It's only recently I've even had the confidence to start playing Normal mode at all, in anything. And I still went down to easy for Max Payne (because unless you're good you basically have to hide in cover constantly in that game outside of easy mode, and that's not how the game's meant to be played). So yeah, easy mode should stay, practice doesn't always make perfect and I would have given up on games a long time ago without it.

 

[Qeltar]

Personally, no I don't have a use for easy mode. But i'm sure plenty of people want and need easy mode, so I don't see a reason to get rid of it.

 

[Korzack]

I like having the mode in, specially with RPG's, which typically have rather poor mechanics for combat, I'd rather just see what the narrative, story and/or setting have to offer rather than spending ages swearing because I can't master the "dodgy console port challenge"(TM) of "Hold down both mouse buttons and drag in a direction which is perceived as a Very rough guidance as to what I want it to do while spamming Alt gr for no good reason"
If the game's mechanics are fun, or I enjoyed the story or other earlier reasons, I'll just play it again on a harder difficulty - not rocket science.

 

[loudestmute]

Shocking news: Not everyone who plays video games plays them the same way. Some haven't developed the kinesis required to operate a modern controller, some want to experience a story rather than a challenge, and some don't really care all that much about (insert metagame badge system of choice here). Easy mode exists so that these people get to experience many of the same games you do, and removes some of the elements that haven't really helped make games "better" no matter how much we mourn their loss.

Keep easy mode.

 

[revjor]

I pretty much refuse to play a game like Force Unleashed on anything higher than easy. There is nothig worse than having to hit a stormtrooper six times with a lightsaber. Hard mode destroys any imersion in a game with lightsabers.

 

[edudewired]

This really depends, I mean on Just Cause 2 I play on the easiest setting because the fun is in doing stupid stunts not testing your skills, but in games such as Skyrim I'll play on the harder settings.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Depends on what kind of "challenge" it is and what is being "challenged" (my reflexes, my on-the-fly decision making, my patience, my tolerance for arbitrary bullshit?), mostly, I suppose.

I think this is really the most important part of any discussion relating to difficulty. Really, just what sort of difficulty is actually being discussed. So many people like to use terms like "Nintendo-hard" as a positive descriptor but I just don't see it being the case.. and I grew up on the NES. If developers focused on creating better difficulty through things like alternate pathing and scripting, improvements in AI or adaptive difficulty then it is possible that having various difficulty levels could end up a thing of the past. With the way things are done right now, though, having concrete selectable difficulty modes with an easy/casual setting is fairly important.

Personally, I like the way difficulty is handled in things like the EA Sports games. While, yes, the AI just gets stupud cheap on higher levels, there's sliders for almost every sort of game behaviour that you can adjust to your own preferences. In NHL, for example, I like manual passing and shooting as well as referees being fairly strict on penalty calls but I hate having to micro manage stamina and line changes. Because of how difficulty settings work in NHL, I can set up exactly that scenario.