Jimquisition: Dumbing Down for the Filthy Casuals

[infinity_turtles]

Let me spell it out for some people, like that idiot Cliffy B, alot of people play games for FUN, its why cheating has been common as long as games exist like with Game Genie to now with game trainers, alot of people do not care if there is no risk of loosing, just because a hardcore player wants that risk does not mean all people are created equally.

I find challenge FUN. Just because you don't want a constant risk that forces you to adapt to it instead of the other way around does not mean all people are created equal. There's loads of games that play the way you like, let me have the ridiculously few that play the way I like. Stop trying to take my fun when you already have yours.

 

[BytByte]

Yes, that's more or less what I'm saying. And I'd say difficulty choice is part of how the game mechanics work. It's a static debuff on all your enemies forever. That's a very clear part of how the mechanics work and that makes it a tactical choice as far as I'm concerned. I really can't see it as anything else, and so I can't just ignore it when it comes to doing my best to win. Not playing on the easiest difficulty will always look like handicapping yourself to me, because that's what it is from a tactical/mechanical perspective.

Okay, so we agree to disagree. Nice, civil debate. Ta

 

[asinann]

The problem isn't easy modes, it's that when the devs get too lazy to do multiple difficulties, they default to "a five year old with a hammer and controller can beat it" difficulty.

 

[barbzilla]

First of all, it is not complaining, but a valid suggestion that games can broaden their audiences without compromising the game in question.

Just having the easy mode compromises the game series in question, why can't you understand that? Every time a developer makes a game in a series easier, they are compromising it. You can broaden the audience of a game series without compromising it by improving it's mechanics, and/or by improving it's storyline, but difficulty is something that if compromised will continue to be compromised further and further until it ruins a series entirely. That has happened to every video game series that has ever existed. Out of everything, difficulity is thing that matters most in a game's quality, it's the one thing that separates video games from every other form of entertainment.

You're coming back to the idea that because someone else can do something, it makes you feel less accomplished. Like I said, you have the knowledge that what you completed was more challenging, meaning that it took more skill, even if the same exact thing was done by you and someone playing on an easier difficulty. Some people, like you it seems, get enjoyment out of challenging themselves by trying out harder difficulties. That's what difficulties are there for.

If other people knew you beat the game on the hardest difficulty or beat the most strenuous challenge and exalted you endlessly for being "better", would you have any qualms with people who beat it on easier difficulties and received no such praise?

I keep coming back to it because it does. Being the fastest runner in the world is only an accomplishment if everybody else isn't equal in running speed, being one of the top 10 shots with a pistol in the world only means something if everybody else can't shoot just as well. Similarly, the fewer people that can beat a game the more meaning beating it has, and arbitrarily making it easier on other people to beat a game increases that number of people, thus decreasing the meaning of beating the game. Worst of all, it is an unfair advantage for those people to have it easier in beating the game than those who already have.

I am really sorry, but you need to take a step back and re-read what you just said. Most people I see advocating NO Easy Mode are actively trying to make points other than "I'm an elitist and I want to feel like I'm better than everyone else". If you are relying on a video game to give you a sense of accomplishment then you really need to get out of the basement and experience the world. Just because someone got something easier than you did, doesn't mean they had a superior experience, and if they did then what's your beef? Let them enjoy things the way they want to. You obviously enjoy feeling like you accomplished something hard, well congratulations. If there was an easy mode it doesn't diminish your sense of accomplishment one bit. You still have the same number of people who finished it on Normal mode, so how does it decrease the meaning of beating the game?

You also go on to say that it is unfair if they have an easy mode? How is it unfair? Maybe they think its unfair that you are able to finish a game that they can not.

I have only ever heard one person make a point that I find valid while defending Dark Souls not having an easy mode. Aside from Rooster's comment, all I see are people complaining that they won't have the same sense of accomplishment, people that say they don't have enough self control to not choose an easy mode, and people that automatically make the assumption that if they make an easy mode it will ruin the series as they will "dumb down" the rest of the games. I don't see it.

From is trying to make the sequel more accessible, they have already said they are streamlining the game. My guess is they saw the backlash at making an easy mode and decided that fans only want one difficulty, so now instead of making an easy mode, they are just trying to make the game more "accessible" for everybody. This is the exact opposite of what the fans wanted, but like I have said in other threads "Video games are a business, and From will do what they have to do to turn a profit".

 

[grumbel]

I'm too lazy to start wading through it for you but this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.395777-Jimquisition-Dumbing-Down-for-the-Filthy-Casuals?page=26#16114556] recent reply sums up why "it's OPTIONAL, so it doesn'f affect YOU at all!" is bs.

That post doesn't address that point at all. It tries to give some justification why hard is fun, but that is not what we are discussing. If somebody likes their games hard and likes challenge and failure. Good for them. A ton of other people will just toss the game in the garbage can or not touch it in the first place due to it's difficulty. So how exactly is difficulty improving their experience? The rest boils down again to "My experience is lessened because other people now can enjoy the game to".

Or they could just double the player hit points or some such bullshit and end up with a horrible easy mode that wouldn't be all that different (because difficulty mostly derives from other factors than stats like HP) and some parts wouldn't be at all easier (Anor Londo snipers for example).

Lack of health is a very big part of what makes the game so hard and frustrating, as lack of health means you don't really have any time properly studying enemy patterns in a single go, instead you have to do trial&error, die a lot and replay the same sections over and over again before you figured it out. I have given up on Demon's Souls for exactly that reason, I just got to fucking bored to walk down the same corridors five times before I figured out how to defeat what was at the end of them. More health would helped a lot, so would have more savepoints or quicksave and neither of which would have changed anything about my experience, other then that I would have actually finished the game and had fun doing so.

And by the way, I probably could have finished the game by using a walkthrough, as that would have removed a lot of the trial&error as well, but I much prefer to actually figure things out myself and that I can't in any enjoyable way with the way the game forces you to replay sections you already beat.

Also I think it would help when we stop focusing so damn much on Dark Souls, it's by far not the only game where difficulty is a problem. For a less successful example take a look at Project Black Sun [http://www.desura.com/games/project-black-sun]. Super cheap extremely high quality Metroidvania (with a bit of Flashback and MetalSlug) and it tanked in very large part due to it's difficulty. Or take Dead Rising with it's notorious time limits, if those wouldn't be forced on people but optional there would probably a lot more people enjoying those games.

 

[DanDeFool]

Generally, I agree with Jim's point, but I feel that Dark Souls is a bit of a different animal. To be honest, I feel that if Dark Souls were easier, there would almost be no point to playing it.

Much of the gameplay satisfaction in Dark Souls comes from learning to overcome the difficulty through strategic thinking, and opening up new areas of a large and mysterious world through your own wit and cleverness. Defeating a powerful boss in Dark Souls actually makes you feel like a hero, but that's ONLY because it's so hard.

I'd go so far to argue that removing the difficulty from Dark Souls would even hamper the game's overall theme. You're supposed to feel like a weak and insignificant force in a world you don't understand, at the mercy of forces greater than yourself. If you want to overcome those forces and emerge a hero, you have to do it yourself. Not your character; YOU.

I can't think of any other game in a long time that's given me as much satisfaction. If Dark Souls were easy, it'd lose that, and would just be a relatively mediocre third-person action game with some pretty good artwork.

My point is, Dark Souls doesn't need an easy mode because Dark Souls wouldn't be worth playing if it were easy. Unlike, say Devil May Cry, which is totally worth playing for the spectacle alone, even on lower difficulties, deep and fair challenge is really all Dark Souls has going for it. Perhaps a compromise is in order; say, if some areas of the game cannot be accessed unless you defeat bosses on normal difficulty, or maybe you play through a sort of side quest as a powerful warrior in the easy mode, and have to play as an ordinary, weaker character in normal mode to complete the story.

 

[LetalisK]

If Dark Souls were easy...

But it wouldn't be. Well, I suppose if one had absolutely no self-control and had to be forced into challenging situations rather than seeking them out themselves, yes. But then I would also note that sounds like a serious personal problem.

My point is, Dark Souls doesn't need an easy mode because Dark Souls wouldn't be worth playing if it were easy.

I agree that Dark Souls doesn't need an easy mode, but why would you be playing it on easy mode?

Perhaps a compromise is in order; say, if some areas of the game cannot be accessed unless you defeat bosses on normal difficulty, or maybe you play through a sort of side quest as a powerful warrior in the easy mode, and have to play as an ordinary, weaker character in normal mode to complete the story.

If those areas were some kind of bonus areas, yes. But if they can't actually advance the story, ie finish the game, without going to the higher difficulty, you've undercut the reason for having a lower difficulty in the first place. Or did I misunderstand your compromise?

Ultimately, it's the developers choice. If they don't want to introduce easy mode, tough shit for lesser skilled players, they're not entitled to that gaming experience. On the flip side of that coin, if they were to introduce an easy mode, tough shit for the original players, they're not entitled to exclude people from the game just because of misplaced fears of changes that are ultimately not going to affect them besides having to deal with the occasional poser who thinks simply because he beat Dark Souls on a lower difficulty that he's a gaming badass.

 

[Sande45]

I'm too lazy to start wading through it for you but this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.395777-Jimquisition-Dumbing-Down-for-the-Filthy-Casuals?page=26#16114556] recent reply sums up why "it's OPTIONAL, so it doesn'f affect YOU at all!" is bs.

That post doesn't address that point at all. It tries to give some justification why hard is fun, but that is not what we are discussing. If somebody likes their games hard and likes challenge and failure. Good for them. A ton of other people will just toss the game in the garbage can or not touch it in the first place due to it's difficulty. So how exactly is difficulty improving their experience? The rest boils down again to "My experience is lessened because other people now can enjoy the game to".

It does address it in the beginning. You might want to read it again and drop the bias this time or work on your reading comprehension. Here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.395777-Jimquisition-Dumbing-Down-for-the-Filthy-Casuals?page=27#16117754] is another aspect of it. The thing with Dark Souls is that a possibility to have it easier doesn't fit the setting at all (it's supposed to be a cruel and unforgiving world so why should it care if you can't handle it and conform to your abilities?). Difficulty setting would stick out like a sore thumb because everything else is so coherent. You might find all these reasons too minor to justify not having an easy mode, but at least acknowledge their existence and the fact they do not boil down to elitism and exclusivity.

Or they could just double the player hit points or some such bullshit and end up with a horrible easy mode that wouldn't be all that different (because difficulty mostly derives from other factors than stats like HP) and some parts wouldn't be at all easier (Anor Londo snipers for example).

Lack of health is a very big part of what makes the game so hard and frustrating, as lack of health means you don't really have any time properly studying enemy patterns in a single go, instead you have to do trial&error, die a lot and replay the same sections over and over again before you figured it out. I have given up on Demon's Souls for exactly that reason, I just got to fucking bored to walk down the same corridors five times before I figured out how to defeat what was at the end of them. More health would helped a lot, so would have more savepoints or quicksave and neither of which would have changed anything about my experience, other then that I would have actually finished the game and had fun doing so.

And by the way, I probably could have finished the game by using a walkthrough, as that would have removed a lot of the trial&error as well, but I much prefer to actually figure things out myself and that I can't in any enjoyable way with the way the game forces you to replay sections you already beat.

Did you forget to kindle because I understand your problem with 5 estus flasks, but with 10 you really should be able to get from bonfire to bonfire. You usually don't have more than 5 minutes to a boss fight from the closest bonfire and you can usually just run through areas if you so desire. The amount of repetition is really not that high. And besides, all this makes it sound like this is just not your type of game. I doubt that would change if they made it little easier for you to beat.

I disagree on health being a main source of difficulty. The problem is getting hit too much, not having too little health and the correct fix to that is to learn to not get hit, not to have your health raised. Raising the health a bit (20% max, any more would start reaching the mindless hack'n'slash territory and fundamentally change the game) would help make the game overall a little more forgiving but those few situations where health isn't a factor (Anor Londo snipers, most of Sens Fortress for example) would result in significant spikes in difficulty so in a way the game would be more frustratingly difficult.

Btw. Would you mind sharing what areas you cleared and where you finally decided to call it quits?

 

[grumbel]

You might find all these reasons too minor to justify not having an easy mode, but at least acknowledge their existence and the fact they do not boil down to elitism and exclusivity.

They very much still all boil down to elitism and exclusivity. You don't have to use the easy-mode. Depending on where they place it in the menu you don't even have to see it, ever. How exactly is something that has absolutely no impact on your gaming experience destroying it?

Did you forget to kindle because I understand your problem with 5 estus flasks, but with 10 you really should be able to get from bonfire to bonfire. You usually don't have more than 5 minutes to a boss fight from the closest bonfire and you can usually just run through areas if you so desire.

I am talking about Demon's Souls, not Dark Souls, never bothered with Dark Souls. The path to the next checkpoint in Demon's Souls aren't super long there either, that however doesn't make the repetition any less worse, because it's still just very much a complete waste of time. For all the great moments in the game, the stuff that sticks out are the annoying ones like that stupid scripted dragon on the bridge that I had to walk by far to many times. That dragon isn't hard by any means, but it's always the damn same boring pattern.

all this makes it sound like this is just not your type of game.

With better checkpoints/quicksave and a little bit less obtuse item management I would have loved the game. I really like the combat, artstyle and everything else, but I really don't care about all the repetition.

I disagree on health being a main source of difficulty.

Depends on how you play the game. When you play it like a modern action game, of course a little bit more health won't help you and you will still die a lot, as you have to pay attention and can't just button mash your way through. But for me the lack of health was a major problem as it meant I could essentially try one tactic on an enemy and when that failed I would be toast and could restart from the last checkpoint.

Btw. Would you mind sharing what areas you cleared and where you finally decided to call it quits?

Demon's Souls, ~13h in, two thirds into the Towers of Latria by the arrow shooting ballista is where I stopped. Was like "Oh, those columns look like they might be good for cover from the arrows..". Well turns out they didn't stick out quite far enough, at that point I had enough of it, as I already died a few times figuring out how to beat that big round enemy that comes shortly before that.

 

[zinho73]

If Dark Souls had an easy mode I would have taken it, because I was getting trashed on the beginning. Instead of an easy mode, the game had an strange allure that made me persevere and do things that I thought were impossible to me, only to realize that the game can be actually quite easy and a lot of shortcuts were already in the game (some NPCs destroy the bosses without the player help).

Dark Souls is easier than most games on the market. But it requires patience and lateral thinking. People that want an easy mode are not without skills, they lack patience and are really missing the point of the game.

I'm all for easy mode, but I think it is way more important to preserve a unique achievement in gaming: a game that requires attention, patience and thought. I have a friend with arthritis that was able to finish the game - he would never finish or even properly play a game like Mario Bros.

Being against an easy mode or better tutorials in general is dumb. But messing up with the Dark Souls formula of obscure mechanisms, dread atmosphere, secrets and several ways of accomplishing a goal might kill the game.

Remember also that:
- you cannot truly fear bosses and the environment if the risk of dying doesn't exist. So players playing dark Souls in easy mode would be playing another thing entirely. Is that a bad thing? I really don't know, but from people that defend videogames as art this should be a terrible thing.

- Resources and development time invested in "fix" the game for the masses can hurt the overall development of the game. Fromsoft already proved that they are not very good when they stray a little bit from what they know (shoddy port anyone?).

- The discussion about accessibility and Dark Souls being different from what it is are two different things. Dark Souls is already super accessible it just requires a set of skills that impatient games don't have - this is the gaming industry being pushed in new directions, please do not pressure the developer to change that - this would be extreme dumbing down. Look at the mirror and you will see that the impatient gamer are the ones being elitists here: "I don't wanna loose my time thinking about how to upgrade my character or discovering the game secrets - I payed for it and I want all the content now". Following the book analogy it would be the equivalent of buying a book and expecting the writer to go to your house and read the book for you, because you payed for it. If the book has complicated words you still have the right to read it full, but it is on you the skill and effort to understand it.

 

[DanDeFool]

If Dark Souls were easy...

But it wouldn't be. Well, I suppose if one had absolutely no self-control and had to be forced into challenging situations rather than seeking them out themselves, yes. But then I would also note that sounds like a serious personal problem.

Okay, I think I figured out why I have a problem with the concept of Dark Souls having an easy mode.

It's a huge immersion breaker.

The only reason I bought Dark Souls was because I wanted to explore the land of Lordran, discover it's mysteries and secrets, and emerge victorious in my quest after a long struggle. It's like I was preparing to journey to an actual place, a place that was real and had characteristics that were inherent to its structure and history. That included danger. Lots and lots of danger. And punishments for when I screwed up and got stabbed by pike-wielding zombies fifty-six times in a row.

If you add an easy mode to Dark Souls, to the land of Lordran, it stops being a quasi-real place in a quasi-real universe, and now it's unambiguously a game environment in a piece of software. I turn a dial, I flip a switch, and now that place I was going to is different. It's very jarring to go from an environment that has it's own characteristics regardless of what you think it should be (you know, kind of like a real place in the real world), to an environment that bends to your will at the push of a button.

I can't really argue with the point that a person who pays for content should be able to experience the content they paid for, but at the same time I feel that the difficulty is so central to the experience of Dark Souls that it's key to the appeal of the franchise. Like I said before, you're not supposed to be some super bad-ass like in Devil May Cry or Viewtiful Joe or something. You're supposed to be just a normal-ish person who can swing a sword and block with a shield and dodge stuff and... that's basically it. And now you have to go kill a dragon that's as long as a city block and looks like a vagina filled with canine teeth.

Having a single difficulty level is key to the genius of Dark Souls, because the game is about YOUR quest. Not your character. YOU, THE PLAYER. If there's only one difficulty level, the onus is not on the character and their stats to overcome the challenges in the game, it's on YOU. You, the one with the controller in your hand. The game is hard because YOU are the one who's so weak and powerless in the face of all these crazy monsters and traps and shit. But, as with any challenge in real life, if you have some patience, think carefully, and practice, YOU can overcome those challenges.

Giving the player the ability to change the difficulty damages the experience because now it's not YOUR quest anymore. It's just some character in a place that's doing all the work. You become the god of Lordran, pulling the strings of some unwitting puppet for your own amusement, in an environment you control. You can make it harder for the puppet, or easier, but it's YOUR choice.

Well I don't want to be a god, God dammit! I don't want to have choice! In this game, in this ONE game, I WANT TO BE A MAN!

JUST A MAN! NOTHING MORE, AND NOTHING LESS THAN WHAT I BRING WITH ME! AND IF I CAN'T HACK IT, THEN DAMMIT, I WANT IT TO BE MY FAULT! I WANT TO FAIL, AND SUFFER, AND LOSE, AND HAVE NO WAY OUT EXCEPT TO TURN THE GAME OFF AND NEVER PLAY AGAIN. AND IF I WIN, IT'LL BE MY VICTORY! NOT THE VICTORY OF SOME CHARACTER IN A FAKE UNIVERSE DOING FAKE THINGS. MINE!

And is that so wrong? You can call me crazy and stupid and immature for thinking that playing a game can feel like a real achievement, but isn't that what we've wanted this whole time? For games to feel REAL? Why make a deliberate design choice that diminishes those feelings?

But, in the end, I have to concede the point. Games are fake. They're pointless. We're all wasting our time with this shit. We should turn off our consoles and our computers and go out into the real world if we want to feel like we've achieved something. There's no meaning in pretending to be a fantasy adventurer, or future space hero, or a miner, and I should stop pretending that there is. What all you people advocating easy mode in Dark Souls are telling me, is that I should get a life.

And you're right. Sorry.

 

[GrimHeaper]

Info on edge artical on imgr.
http://imgur.com/a/q34ES
-The game is roughly 25% complete. Very unlikely to release in 2013.

Spoiler

-This is the article source for the infamous "we want the skyrim audience" quote. To be perfectly clear, even though this was already known, this quote is from the writers of the article and not From Software.

-Huge leap in graphical quality. The game is compared to Watch Dogs and Star Wars 1313. Dynamic lighting and smoother animations all around.

-Hidetake Miyazaki, the director for Dark/Demon's souls, will not be directing the game and will only be lightly involved in the production. To be perfectly honest it basically seems like his name is there to be there- his involvement is mostly about getting the project started and occasionally checking in on it.

-The unknown nature of the games came from Miyazaki's interest in western fantasy/mythology and his relative inability to read the English text as a child, leaving him to fill in the blanks.

-Miyazaki was disappointed about having to patch Dark Souls, saying that they pushed the game out without being 100% complete. Dark Souls II will be complete when it launches.

-Server based PVP is back (yay!)

-The information about the directors for the game is worrying. Information is unclear whether or not Miyazaki willingly stepped down from the director's chair. Namco calls is a "company decision" and has this disturbing anecdote to share:

"For the IP to evolve and provide a new experience within the Dark Souls world the new wind from directors Shibuya and Tanimura is key to providing players with a brand new Dark Souls experience. In order to maintain expectations and satisfaction and the rewards players experience this was the time to bring in new characteristics and tastes of the directors for the series to continue evolving."

-Miyazaki is working on a new game he can't talk about.

-Miyazaki is disappointed he doesn't have a greater role in Dark Souls II

-The Graphics are shockingly close to the trailer's quality

-According to Shibuya, one of the co-directors, the player's ability to parse meaning from subtle hints or clues will determine the difficulty of the game and the challenges that are there to experience.

-The map is roughly the same size, but has more content and more "areas of interest".

-The notion that Dark Souls needs to evolve was "common". Edge says not to expect a minor update.

-In designing map areas, the main concept was to create areas that had not been in either game.

-Talks of implementing a system that will let you reveal the clues you've learned over the course of the game (wut?)

-Shibuya talks about "limiting players options for the early portion of the game, making it simpler to understand new concepts. Then, after a certain amount of time has elapsed, they will suddenly experience the true dark souls experience".

-The game is a direct sequel to Dark Souls, but will not take place in Lordran. It takes place in the same world, but in a different location.

-Time travel may play a part in the plot, and the "theme" of the game is "time" and "eras"

-Shibuya does not intend to change the controls.

-There may be slight awkwardness coming in from Dark Souls, but people should be able to adapt easily.

-Covenants will return, but be easier to understand

-Dark Souls II will be more straightforward and understandable in regards to gameplay and plot. Sibuya says he enjoyed the way Dark souls handled things, but he feels that there were elements so subtle that almost no one experienced them.

-The game has been in development since September of last year, and work on the patch/DSII was done simultaneously.

-The team for DSII is substantially bigger. The team for world construction is doubled in size, and people have been added in every other area as well.

-The game is roughly 25% complete. Very unlikely to release in 2013.

 

[BilltheEmu]

This thread is full of them.

Could you cite some? All I see is a bunch of boys that feel threatened in their manhood when somebody plays their games on easy.

Well I, for one, put some effort into commenting (Here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.395777-Jimquisition-Dumbing-Down-for-the-Filthy-Casuals?page=20#16100845] and here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.395777-Jimquisition-Dumbing-Down-for-the-Filthy-Casuals?page=25#16110877])on this argument in a thorough and rational manner. I've avoided metaphors and analogies, because everyone is comparing video games to books, and I wanted to specifically talk about Dark Souls II.

One person responded to the content of one of my posts. And that's fine. But to see comments like:

I would like to hear an argument for the excluding of an easy mode that doesn't really on idiotic elitism.

from both yourself and others, is a bit frustrating. Especially with well thought out posts from other users are also going unnoticed, such as this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.395777-Jimquisition-Dumbing-Down-for-the-Filthy-Casuals?page=25#16109456] post, made in response to you, two pages ago, which you did not acknowledge, nor did anyone else. That, as well as replies such as this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.395777-Jimquisition-Dumbing-Down-for-the-Filthy-Casuals?page=25#16109656], are being largely ignored.

My argument, in particular (not speaking for anyone else), is that while a retroactively added easy mode for Dark Souls would be irrelevant to my experience, creating Dark Souls II under a design philosophy of "broadening appeal" would be detrimental to the quality of the game. I'm definitely not speaking for anyone else, because most of the others on this thread arguing in support of difficulty would not concede the first point. I can understand that perspective, but I do not feel particularly strongly about it. As for Dark Souls II, allow me to address these quotes:

If you don't like that a game isn't easy enough for you, you can always leave and find another game or entertainment,

That's what people have been doing for the last 20 years and that's the reason why modern games are so watered down these days. Publishers see the sales for the hard games dwindle and retool their next game so that they are more accessible to wider audiences by making them easier by default.

Your suggestion of simply not buying those games is the cause for all the problem we have with game difficulty today, not the solution. If you want to have hard games stay hard, they have to sell and adding optional difficulty settings that preserves the challenge, but make the game accessible to new gamers is quite a good way to do that.

I have only ever heard one person make a point that I find valid while defending Dark Souls not having an easy mode. Aside from Rooster's comment, all I see are people complaining that they won't have the same sense of accomplishment, people that say they don't have enough self control to not choose an easy mode, and people that automatically make the assumption that if they make an easy mode it will ruin the series as they will "dumb down" the rest of the games. I don't see it.

From is trying to make the sequel more accessible, they have already said they are streamlining the game. My guess is they saw the backlash at making an easy mode and decided that fans only want one difficulty, so now instead of making an easy mode, they are just trying to make the game more "accessible" for everybody. This is the exact opposite of what the fans wanted, but like I have said in other threads "Video games are a business, and From will do what they have to do to turn a profit".

I argue that making the sequel more accessible is absolutely unnecessary, and detrimental. For the matter of From making money, Dark Souls has already done well [http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2012/05/08/namco-bandai-touts-dark-souls-sales-over-1-19-million-in-us-and-europe/] for them. That link suggests sales of 1.19 million for Dark Souls, as of March of this year. Taking into account the PC release and DLC which happened in October, I'd say that it did quite well. It's certainly not outselling Call of Duty, but for a niche title, it's been a pretty good success.

This, of course, following the success of Demon's Souls, selling at least 500,000 copies [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103514-Demons-Souls-Price-Slashed-By-Gigantic-Halberd], as a relatively unknown and unmarketed new IP. From did not add an easy mode. I'm not understanding the suggestion that they NEED to make concessions in order to attract new players to make more money.

The changes that they made between Demon's Souls and Dark Souls did involve streamlined mechanics, but they made for a better game, but not an easier one. They also added plenty of new things to make it harder. Such as the curse [http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/curse] mechanic, one of the least friendly things the game can throw at new players. They even nerfed it in a patch, making it so the effect could not stack anymore. But even then, getting stuck with half of your HP until you figure out how to cure yourself is not particularly "accessible" to many players. But many fans appreciate that this sort of thing exists at all. This is the sort of thing I want to see more of, despite being not accessible. I don't want the developers to exclude mechanics like this in order to broaden appeal. And in this instance, for an easy mode, the mechanic would need to be reworked in some way, or omitted entirely, which would have literally reduced the threat of those enemies to zero.

Two more things. First, this video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm-Jjvqu3U4&list=LLZfVa5LeJDCBa62O_HUSTlA], which was posted by Peithelo [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.395777-Jimquisition-Dumbing-Down-for-the-Filthy-Casuals?page=22#16103418] earlier in the thread. Second, an interview [http://www.edge-online.com/features/dark-matters-0/] with Dark Souls' creative director Hidetaka Miyazaki.

Q: Critics writing about the game have called you 'cruel' and 'sadistic' ? to mention a few of the more polite adjectives. Are those fair accusations, given the game's extreme difficulty?

A: If I had to say for myself, it's actually the opposite ? I'm more masochistic. Because I created Dark Souls while thinking about what type of game I would personally like to play. I wanted somebody to bring out a really sadistic game, but I ended up having to make it myself.

This interview is quite revealing about the way that they designed the game, and I think Dark Souls II would be best if they continue to use a similar design philosophy, while creating new worlds, stories, and challenges, and improving upon the previous two games that they created.

Dark Souls II should remain true to the series, and spending any time or thought on how to make it more accessible could potentially detract from the challenging experience that the series is known for. I believe that the end result would be much better if they simply did not consider it.

 

[immortalfrieza]

But, in the end, I have to concede the point. Games are fake. They're pointless. We're all wasting our time with this shit. We should turn off our consoles and our computers and go out into the real world if we want to feel like we've achieved something. There's no meaning in pretending to be a fantasy adventurer, or future space hero, or a miner, and I should stop pretending that there is. What all you people advocating easy mode in Dark Souls are telling me, is that I should get a life.

And you're right. Sorry.

I sure hope this was sarcasm, because it's not true. There are PLENTY of things every day that we're "wasting our time" doing, hell, most of what we do every day could be considered a waste of time. Name something we do that we don't need to in order to keep breathing, it's probably one of these pointless things. Yet, we continue doing them and many of those things give us a sense of accomplishment, video games included. Life would be meaningless if we didn't do these things, we'd just be born, grow up, bonk somebody, have a kid, raise them, then die, that's it, without "wasting our time" that's all our lives would ever be. "Wasting our time" is one of the primary reasons we don't still live in caves.

Just because we get a sense of accomplishment out of playing video games, doesn't mean it's meaningless.

 

[LetalisK]

But it wouldn't be. Well, I suppose if one had absolutely no self-control and had to be forced into challenging situations rather than seeking them out themselves, yes. But then I would also note that sounds like a serious personal problem.

Okay, I think I figured out why I have a problem with the concept of Dark Souls having an easy mode.

It's a huge immersion breaker.

The only reason I bought Dark Souls was because I wanted to explore the land of Lordran, discover it's mysteries and secrets, and emerge victorious in my quest after a long struggle. It's like I was preparing to journey to an actual place, a place that was real and had characteristics that were inherent to its structure and history. That included danger. Lots and lots of danger. And punishments for when I screwed up and got stabbed by pike-wielding zombies fifty-six times in a row.

So are you saying you've never been immersed in a game with a difficulty setting?

I turn a dial, I flip a switch, and now that place I was going to is different. It's very jarring to go from an environment that has it's own characteristics regardless of what you think it should be (you know, kind of like a real place in the real world), to an environment that bends to your will at the push of a button.

Assuming you never visit the difficulty option again after intitally setting it at the main menu, usually, why are you touching it?

Having a single difficulty level is key to the genius of Dark Souls, because the game is about YOUR quest. Not your character. YOU, THE PLAYER. If there's only one difficulty level, the onus is not on the character and their stats to overcome the challenges in the game, it's on YOU. You, the one with the controller in your hand. The game is hard because YOU are the one who's so weak and powerless in the face of all these crazy monsters and traps and shit. But, as with any challenge in real life, if you have some patience, think carefully, and practice, YOU can overcome those challenges.

That actually looks like a perfect argument for having difficulty settings. If the purpose is to present a certain standard of experience, in this case a very difficult but ultimately surmountable challenge for YOU, then it makes no sense to take a One-Size-Fits-All approach. Only a small section of the gaming population, the portion where the difficulty actually fits, will actually have this experience, while everyone of lesser and greater skill with have vastly different experiences. Now, for this specific intent, an analog difficulty option wouldn't be best option, but rather a more built-in auto-scaling one.

Of course, in the end, I even disagree with what you believe the purpose of the game to be. The purpose of Dark Souls, as it stands now, is not to give YOU a certain experience, since experiences are relative. It's to create a single standard of difficulty and to let the players sort out where they are themselves. It ultimately does not care if your subjective experience is different than what the objective standard is. There's nothing wrong with that, btw.

Well I don't want to be a god, God dammit! I don't want to have choice! In this game, in this ONE game, I WANT TO BE A MAN!

JUST A MAN! NOTHING MORE, AND NOTHING LESS THAN WHAT I BRING WITH ME! AND IF I CAN'T HACK IT, THEN DAMMIT, I WANT IT TO BE MY FAULT! I WANT TO FAIL, AND SUFFER, AND LOSE, AND HAVE NO WAY OUT EXCEPT TO TURN THE GAME OFF AND NEVER PLAY AGAIN. AND IF I WIN, IT'LL BE MY VICTORY! NOT THE VICTORY OF SOME CHARACTER IN A FAKE UNIVERSE DOING FAKE THINGS. MINE!

Then don't touch the difficulty setting. Though, if having the initial option to choose a difficulty before the game starts shatters your ability to be immersed for the remainder of the game, that point is moot.

But, in the end, I have to concede the point. Games are fake. They're pointless. We're all wasting our time with this shit. We should turn off our consoles and our computers and go out into the real world if we want to feel like we've achieved something. There's no meaning in pretending to be a fantasy adventurer, or future space hero, or a miner, and I should stop pretending that there is. What all you people advocating easy mode in Dark Souls are telling me, is that I should get a life.

I'm sure there are some particularly vitriolic people that would put it in that terms, but that would not be me.

edit: fixed the broken quotes

 

[Sande45]

They very much still all boil down to elitism and exclusivity. You don't have to use the easy-mode. Depending on where they place it in the menu you don't even have to see it, ever. How exactly is something that has absolutely no impact on your gaming experience destroying it?

If by 'boiling down to' you mean 'can be twisted into and/or misunderstood as' then I agree. People are worried that their experience suffers, not that other people can have that experience as well (which they full well can already). Those things mentioned in my previous post were some of the impacts. Like I said, you can find those impacts too minor or completely meaningless but they exist nonetheless.

I am talking about Demon's Souls, not Dark Souls, never bothered with Dark Souls. The path to the next checkpoint in Demon's Souls aren't super long there either, that however doesn't make the repetition any less worse, because it's still just very much a complete waste of time. For all the great moments in the game, the stuff that sticks out are the annoying ones like that stupid scripted dragon on the bridge that I had to walk by far to many times. That dragon isn't hard by any means, but it's always the damn same boring pattern.

With better checkpoints/quicksave and a little bit less obtuse item management I would have loved the game. I really like the combat, artstyle and everything else, but I really don't care about all the repetition.

Demon's Souls had it even easier in that respect because you could acquire almost endless amount of healing grass. Again, if that system where you can lose up to ~20 minutes of progress isn't to your liking then Souls games really aren't for you because that's something I doubt would change even with the inclusion of an easier mode. Only level I had any issues with the repetition in Demon's Souls was 2-2 (Flamelurker) because I had to fight him MANY times before I succeeded and the level was a grind to me (one mandatory giant bearbug). But I've heard there's an even easier route so it was more my fault than the game's. Almost all the levels have huge shortcuts or you can pretty much just run through them. Or they're just very short like 1-2.

I disagree on health being a main source of difficulty.

Depends on how you play the game. When you play it like a modern action game, of course a little bit more health won't help you and you will still die a lot, as you have to pay attention and can't just button mash your way through. But for me the lack of health was a major problem as it meant I could essentially try one tactic on an enemy and when that failed I would be toast and could restart from the last checkpoint.

But even in that situation the health isn't the source of the problem in the way it is in something like Skyrim where tanking the damage is par for the course with a warrior character. I already admitted that increasing health slightly would overall help but also make some parts more frustrating in comparison.

 

[FriedRicer]

But it wouldn't be. Well, I suppose if one had absolutely no self-control and had to be forced into challenging situations rather than seeking them out themselves, yes. But then I would also note that sounds like a serious personal problem.

Okay, I think I figured out why I have a problem with the concept of Dark Souls having an easy mode.

It's a huge immersion breaker.

The only reason I bought Dark Souls was because I wanted to explore the land of Lordran, discover it's mysteries and secrets, and emerge victorious in my quest after a long struggle. It's like I was preparing to journey to an actual place, a place that was real and had characteristics that were inherent to its structure and history. That included danger. Lots and lots of danger. And punishments for when I screwed up and got stabbed by pike-wielding zombies fifty-six times in a row.

So are you saying you've never been immersed in a game with a difficulty setting?

I turn a dial, I flip a switch, and now that place I was going to is different. It's very jarring to go from an environment that has it's own characteristics regardless of what you think it should be (you know, kind of like a real place in the real world), to an environment that bends to your will at the push of a button.

Assuming you never visit the difficulty option again after intitally setting it at the main menu, usually, why are you touching it?

Having a single difficulty level is key to the genius of Dark Souls, because the game is about YOUR quest. Not your character. YOU, THE PLAYER. If there's only one difficulty level, the onus is not on the character and their stats to overcome the challenges in the game, it's on YOU. You, the one with the controller in your hand. The game is hard because YOU are the one who's so weak and powerless in the face of all these crazy monsters and traps and shit. But, as with any challenge in real life, if you have some patience, think carefully, and practice, YOU can overcome those challenges.

That actually looks like a perfect argument for having difficulty settings. If the purpose is to present a certain standard of experience, in this case a very difficult but ultimately surmountable challenge for YOU, then it makes no sense to take a One-Size-Fits-All approach. Only a small section of the gaming population, the portion where the difficulty actually fits, will actually have this experience, while everyone of lesser and greater skill with have vastly different experiences. Now, for this specific intent, an analog difficulty option wouldn't be best option, but rather a more built-in auto-scaling one.

Of course, in the end, I even disagree with what you believe the purpose of the game to be. The purpose of Dark Souls, as it stands now, is not to give YOU a certain experience, since experiences are relative. It's to create a single standard of difficulty and to let the players sort out where they are themselves. It ultimately does not care if your subjective experience is different than what the objective standard is. There's nothing wrong with that, btw.

Well I don't want to be a god, God dammit! I don't want to have choice! In this game, in this ONE game, I WANT TO BE A MAN!

JUST A MAN! NOTHING MORE, AND NOTHING LESS THAN WHAT I BRING WITH ME! AND IF I CAN'T HACK IT, THEN DAMMIT, I WANT IT TO BE MY FAULT! I WANT TO FAIL, AND SUFFER, AND LOSE, AND HAVE NO WAY OUT EXCEPT TO TURN THE GAME OFF AND NEVER PLAY AGAIN. AND IF I WIN, IT'LL BE MY VICTORY! NOT THE VICTORY OF SOME CHARACTER IN A FAKE UNIVERSE DOING FAKE THINGS. MINE!

Then don't touch the difficulty setting. Though, if having the initial option to choose a difficulty before the game starts shatters your ability to be immersed for the remainder of the game, that point is moot.

But, in the end, I have to concede the point. Games are fake. They're pointless. We're all wasting our time with this shit. We should turn off our consoles and our computers and go out into the real world if we want to feel like we've achieved something. There's no meaning in pretending to be a fantasy adventurer, or future space hero, or a miner, and I should stop pretending that there is. What all you people advocating easy mode in Dark Souls are telling me, is that I should get a life.

I'm sure there are some particularly vitriolic people that would put it in that terms, but that would not be me.

edit: fixed the broken quotes

The one-size does fit all.The entire games is filled with opportunities to make itself easier.The more you learn the mechanics and are patient,the easier it becomes.This game has one of the most flexible difficulties I have experienced.Name any boss,and I can tell you the "easy mode".It's frustrates alot of Soul's players to hear about a mode that makes the entire games mechanics redundant.

 

[LetalisK]

The one-size does fit all.

Then why are people complaining that one size fits all is cutting off their circulation? Are they just delusional?

The entire games is filled with opportunities to make itself easier.The more you learn the mechanics and are patient,the easier it becomes.This game has one of the most flexible difficulties I have experienced.Name any boss,and I can tell you the "easy mode".

Learning the mechanics leading to making the game essentially easier is not unique to Dark Souls. Most games do this, hence why they have to put in more and more complex tasks the closer to the end the player gets to avoid the game becoming a roflstomp.

It's frustrates alot of Soul's players to hear about a mode that makes the entire games mechanics redundant.

Why would you use those redundancies?