On Difficulty and the State of Gaming.

[Zhukov]

[snip]

Fine so you don't want to learn how to play the game and want everything handed to you?

Not necessarily.

I like different things at different time in different games.

Which is why I like being able to choose my level of difficulty. Crazy thought, eh? If only games could let you do that... OH WAIT!

I respect that but some people like a challenge and they don't like it when some people blow through a challenge using a awesome device that allows them to bypass it entirely.

On your point that easy mode is optional I agree with that as well but again people like to challenge themselves and to them having the option of making it easy ruins it for them, personally I think it's silly but that's how some people feel.

So you get upset when other people blow through a challenge?

It ruins it for you when it is made easy for other people?

Do you really sit in front of your Ultra Hardcore Hard Game For Real Gamer Men Who Are So Totally Hard Right Now and cry because someone else somewhere out there has just completed the game on easy mode?

That's the crux of this whole thing. People like yourself and the OP are getting upset at the thought of other people playing a game on easy. I find that ridiculous, and I mean that term literally, as in "worthy of ridicule".

 

[Korten12]

Escapist before Dark Souls, "Games are getting too easy for the casual crowd."

Escapist after Dark Souls, "This game needs to be dumbed down for the casual crowd.."

 

[Raikas]

On your point that easy mode is optional I agree with that as well but again people like to challenge themselves and to them having the option of making it easy ruins it for them, personally I think it's silly but that's how some people feel.

Even aside from it being silly - If having an option that they have no intention to use ruins a game for them then that's an issue that has nothing to do with the game, no?

None I hate those who try to change a artform because they did'nt like it or they don't understand the artist's vision.

Every new school or style in art is an alteration of the ones that came before - if art didn't change we'd still be drawing stick figures on cave walls.

just thought I try to help you understand why the people who don't want a easy mode feel the way they do.

I don't think people are confused by that - it's just that it is (as you said yourself) silly, and it is a little baffling that something so silly causes so much emotion. *shrug*

 

[TrevHead]

Darksouls HAS ways to adjust the difficulty and does it without sliders and half baked difficulty modes.

Not that I'm saying difficulty modes are a bad thing but they don't need to be in every game as alot of the pro easy side argue for. Imo the crux of matter is that many of these easy AAAs can't suddenly become Doom or Ninja Gaiden with a few tweaks to the stats. That said Ironman modes and Bioshock Infinite's 1999 mode might be a step in the right direction although I've yet to play a game with this feature.

I also find the "if you don't like easy mode you can just ignore it" to be dismissive of point some ppl are making, The same argument could be applied to DLC especially pre order DLC that includes OP weapons and armor that sits in you inventory the whole game.

Escapist before Dark Souls, "Games are getting too easy for the casual crowd."

Escapist after Dark Souls, "This game needs to be dumbed down for the casual crowd.."

post of the day

 

[Fappy]

You know, back in the day most difficult games had cheat codes. Many of these cheats would quite literally break and trivialize the difficulty of the game. I hardly see the difference between this and an easier setting in a difficult game. Elitists can still have their club. It's called the, "I Beat X on X Mode Club."

I play on high difficulty settings (sometimes artificially limiting myself) when playing games I love and find it great that others who lack the same level of aptitude can have the same overall experience. The simple fact of the matter is that video games are a consumer product (not a service, dammit!) and there is absolutely no problem with empowering the consumer after purchasing the product. If they feel it's too hard and want to dial down then by all means do it. It's not a developer/publisher's responsibility to cater to noobs, but there's nothing wrong with them doing so by including an "easy" or "casual" mode.

As far as I understand there's more to Dark Souls than its difficulty and it might surprise some of you to realize that, well... some people may play the game for a different reason than you.

 

[Username Redacted]

With current gen gaming I don't think I've encountered what I want with regards to harder difficulty settings. In most games harder difficulty equals more and/or tougher enemies (deal more and take less damage). In most cases this sort of thing ends up simply (for me) as a frustrating test of resources and patience (i.e. it just makes things take longer). What I'd like to see is slightly tougher enemies but also have them be significantly smarter. With current consoles and PCs this is (as far as I'm aware) certainly possible. So why not give it a go? Lastly I would add that I think that a lot of the fondly remembered aggressively difficult olde school games are largely holdovers from arcades where harder game = more quarters.

 

[Genocidicles]

Why don't the people whining about wanting an easy game go play something else?

I mean aside from the difficulty and the online features, Dark Souls was just a fairly generic fantasy game. There are tons of games out there filling that 'niche', why not play them instead?

 

[Vegosiux]

Why don't the people whining about wanting an easy game go play something else?

I mean aside from the difficulty and the online features, Dark Souls was just a fairly generic fantasy game. There are tons of games out there filling that 'niche', why not play them instead?

Same can be said to any person about any game they had a complaint about, though.

Hated the ME3 ending? Then why didn't you go play something else?
Annoyed about the new Dante? Then why didn't you go play something else?
Found Dragon Age 2 to not be deep enough? Then why didn't you go play something else?
Didn't like Oblivion's mudcrab comments all the freaking time? Then why didn't you go play something else?
Heavy Rain too easy for you? Then why didn't you go play something else?
Dark Souls too hard for you? Then why didn't you go play something else?

And "Well you have to have played the game to know..." doesn't count, since it applies to them all equally and is not a distinguishing detail. So why should the last one of those six lines be held in special regard against the other five?

And so on and so forth. People get to choose to play what they want, they also get to speak out if they have something to say about it. *shrug*

 

[Genocidicles]

snip

But I mean the difficulty is the entire point of Darksouls. If someone doesn't want it for that then what the hell are they getting out of it?

 

[Vegosiux]

snip

But I mean the difficulty is the entire point of Darksouls. If someone doesn't want it for that then what the hell are they getting out of it?

That would make it pretty one-dimensional, if it's about only one thing. Or, to use those two obnoxious words, [citation needed].

Yes, "difficulty" is a big part of the game, I'm still not sure whether by design or by fan hype (and since I suspect the latter, I might be more negatively disposed towards it than I would have been otherwise, hype aversion at work), but if I want to do something just because it's "difficult", I'll do something thats less complex, something that only has "difficulty" with every other property being irrelevant, or, well, something of which difficulty is "the entire point".

Dark Souls is a game more complex than that. "Difficulty" is not the one sole thing it's about.

 

[ninjaRiv]

Are we still doing this? I kinda hoped this had gone away.

I get that you think it reminds you of old games. I do. But go play the old games. I prefer games as they are now, so why don't I get a say in difficulty levels? Why have I got to go back to the methods that made games less fun for me? That trial and error bullshit was the reason I didn't play those games much. There's a whole bunch of folk who think that way. Why can't you accept that some of us want to play easy mode while you're off on hard mode?

It really really does not affect you. Dark Souls is popular BECAUSE of the difficulty. Other games have impossible difficulties that people love to unlock. Difficult is fun to some.

You know that innovation you love so much? Yeah, that's possible because people buy the games. Would as many people be playing games now if there was no easy mode? Would gaming be as popular as it is now?

I just can't see why this is an issue. More people play games now. There is still a hard mode. There's more money for developers to do more. You have more and you are complaining because other people can play with your toys.

This subject annoys me, as you can tell.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

So this is just the Dark Souls thing again, no you are not alone in wanting your precious Dark Souls club to stay precious, as seen in the dozens of threads on this very topic.

I'm both happy and sad when the 2nd post in a thread sums up all my thoughts concisely. On the one hand, it's already been stated, and people will probably actually see it. On the other hand, it means I have nothing to add and can just kind of figuratively fist pump from the 97th post or wherever I end up.

 

[Korten12]

Yes, "difficulty" is a big part of the game, I'm still not sure whether by design or by fan hype

Fan-Hype? You mean the whole ad campaign: PREPARE TO DIE, hell even: Prepare to Die Edition. Wasn't enforcing the difficulty by the developers? I mean I swear people seem to think that it's the fans who made up the whole Dark Souls difficult thing when the developers actively pursued the difficulty part of the Souls series.

Hell even the games that preceeded Dark Souls, the Kings Field series and even the Shadow Tower series were known for the difficulty.

 

[BuddhaMike]

I guess I'm lost with this whole discussion. Dark Souls too difficult for you? Then don't play it. Simple as that. Making the game easier won't make it more enjoyable for you, or anyone else for that matter, since the whole purpose of the game was to make it that difficult. Other games have different purposes, and so come with sliding difficulty levels to adjust that player's enjoyment. Those games' purpose isn't to challenge the player, and so complaining that it's not difficult enough is like complaining that the Schwinn bicycle you bought isn't a Harley. When I played and beat Ninja Gaiden Black, I felt a sense of accomplishment because I'd worked my ass off to beat one of the most difficult games on the market, a game that most of my friends couldn't make it halfway through. That's the same sense of accomplishment Dark Souls is trying to achieve, and that's great. But I felt no real sense of attachment to Ryu. He was just a mechanism I used to beat the game. Playing the Mass Effect series, however, I WAS Shepard. I was invested in that character, in his relationships, in his quest to save the galaxy. That wouldn't have been enhanced by making the game balls-ass difficult. Quite honestly, it would have interfered with my enjoyment of the game. That's because, for Mass Effect, difficulty wasn't a point of the game. Nor was it for Shen Mue, Uncharted, Dragon Age, or any other number of games I could name. When I play those games, I'm not playing them to achieve that rush that comes from testing myself against a difficult game. Nor do I want it to be that. I want the choice one night to immerse myself in a Choose Your Own Adventure kind of game, and the next night to see if I can beat Contra without using the cheat code. That's the awesome thing about gaming. It's a big enough tent to accommodate both POV's.

 

[Vegosiux]

Yes, "difficulty" is a big part of the game, I'm still not sure whether by design or by fan hype

Fan-Hype? You mean the whole ad campaign: PREPARE TO DIE, hell even: Prepare to Die Edition. Wasn't enforcing the difficulty by the developers?

You said it yourself. That was the ad campaign. A sales pitch. The purpose of those is to draw attention, not to inform.

I mean I swear people seem to think that it's the fans who made up the whole Dark Souls difficult thing when the developers actively pursued the difficulty part of the Souls series.

Hell even the games that preceeded Dark Souls, the Kings Field series and even the Shadow Tower series were known for the difficulty.

There's a difference between "making up" and "hyping up". "Making up" is pulling it from thin air. "Hyping up" is giving it more credit than might be merited. And that's what it looks like to me here, because the game isn't that incredibly, soul-crushingly difficult. And going back to "prepare to die", dying is at times not a sign of failure in DS anyway, but a sign of a new risk to consider. So it's not a difficulty thing as much as it is a mechanics thing.

Hell, Planescape: Torment could pe pitched as "prepare to die". Because it's literally impossible to finish the game without dying a bit along the road. But that would not have anything to do with the difficulty, either.

In short: "Prepare to die" does not mean "This game is difficult".

 

[generals3]

I agree with the OP's sentiment. When i watched a review of Tomb Raider i almost threw up. I mean she can use her instinct to "detect" objects of interest? Really? Wtf is that madness. Where did the good old times go where you actually had to use your brain instead of being spoonfed the answer. The whole looking for the answer and than finding it on your own was what made the game so great. Might as well take away the puzzles if you'll just give away the answer.

Now in general my biggest issue is that easy gameplay becomes the norm (i think the new tomb raider is a great example of that). Giving the option to play "easy" is one thing but what i'm noticing is that the average difficulty goes down and that on top of that the harder difficulties are difficult in a very artificial way. (just give the mobs +x HP/damage) So what we often have are games which were easy by design and where you can chose an artificial high difficulty. And this is a big slap in the faces of players seeking a challenge.

 

[Korten12]

Yes, "difficulty" is a big part of the game, I'm still not sure whether by design or by fan hype

Fan-Hype? You mean the whole ad campaign: PREPARE TO DIE, hell even: Prepare to Die Edition. Wasn't enforcing the difficulty by the developers?

You said it yourself. That was the ad campaign. A sales pitch. The purpose of those is to draw attention, not to inform.

I mean I swear people seem to think that it's the fans who made up the whole Dark Souls difficult thing when the developers actively pursued the difficulty part of the Souls series.

Hell even the games that preceeded Dark Souls, the Kings Field series and even the Shadow Tower series were known for the difficulty.

There's a difference between "making up" and "hyping up". "Making up" is pulling it from thin air. "Hyping up" is giving it more credit than might be merited. And that's what it looks like to me here, because the game isn't that incredibly, soul-crushingly difficult. And going back to "prepare to die", dying is at times not a sign of failure in DS anyway, but a sign of a new risk to consider. So it's not a difficulty thing as much as it is a mechanics thing.

Hell, Planescape: Torment could pe pitched as "prepare to die". Because it's literally impossible to finish the game without dying a bit along the road. But that would not have anything to do with the difficulty, either.

In short: "Prepare to die" does not mean "This game is difficult".

Problem is... What's the downside of death if the game makes Death pointless? Make the game easier and you suddenly have reason to fear death. Oh you just lose half your souls or 1/3. Big whoop. The game is easy enough then to get back and pick them up. Your basically taking away any risk.

So yes it's part of the difficulty. Where in other games death is simply a reload, in Dark souls it's something that actively happens to you. You die and you lose souls, and if you die before getting to them you lose them. It makes the game play differently because if you need to reach those souls than you will move slower and be more aware of your surroundings because one mistake and you just lost a lot of hard work.

If that isn't adding difficulty by forcing a player to take things slower because death is literally dancing with you than I don't know what is. Mechanics can be worked in to make the game harder. Hell if they had taken in the Demon's souls route where you had less health when you were dead then the game would be truly harder. If anything they're being lineant by having you have full health even when in hollow form.

Also they stated in many interviews that they designed the game from the ground up to be difficult... So unless the players know more than the developer themselves...

 

[Yopaz]

Jesus fucking christ I thought we were done with this.

How does an option (that NO-ONE is forcing you to use) ruin the game?

Now I just completed the main story of Tales of Graces F and it got the difficulties easy, normal, moderate, hard, evil and chaotic. Chaotic is so hard that I am killed by normal encounters, easy makes it possible to beat most bosses without a problem. Difficulty options is part of why I like that game. I can make the game harder than it is.

Let's change the phrase. What if Dark Souls were to get a hard mode? Enemies deal more damage, enemies have more health, enemies have different attacks and strategies. How would that sound? Difficulty options go both ways. Hard mode and easy mode. Please stop making your views so narrow and complain that some people enjoy games for different reason than you.

Can you actually mention one way that an easy mode you wont use will affect you? It's not the added difficulty mode that will ruin your hard game. It's the absence that forces the game to get easier.