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[tommib]

I really love this from Cory.

 

[tommib]

Every game should give you the opportunity to choose the difficulty level.

No.

 

[The artful mincer]

The best reason I can think of for games without easy modes is they can force the player into experiencing something they never realized they wanted until they tried it.

It happened to me with dark souls. Before dark souls I thought I didn't enjoy hard games I decided to take a risk with it and it ended up being one of my favorite games ever. I think if it had an easy mode I would have chosen to play it that way. I would likely have still enjoyed it but I'am not sure I would have loved it. I don't think it would have ended up selling as well as it did either.

It's difficulty is so intrinsically linked to its gameplay as well.

Why play play in co-op if the bosses are easy? So you can whale on them even harder? Why explore every nook and cranny for equipment to even the odds if its easy? I and others felt this is Ghost of Tsushima some people were actively taking equipment off to make fights more challenging making exploration almost pointless by then the end game. Why even bother to learn the combat system if you have checkpoints every 1 minute?

Will this be for everyone? No the difficulty will push some folks away but that's true of every design decision you make. Difficulty should be done well of course and should encourage the full use of the systems you have not restrict them.

This seems like confirmation bias on Jaffe's part 3 games out of the dozens he plays is not a lot.

 

[Hunnybun]

Because it may be against the philosophy of a certain game's whole design. Dunno, ask the developers, not the players. I assume adding an easy mode isn't as simple as changing a few numbers if your game very heavily relies on overcoming tough challenges.

Something like Dark Souls would have no point if you could beat bosses with a few hits or you being a hit sponge. All the items, the weapons, armor, figuring out a good combination of those along with what helpful items to use, etc, to beat a boss with certain weaknesses or attack style... All of that would be thrown out of the window if such game had it's numbers changed in order to be easier. The whole point of the game would not exist anymore. Just ignore everything, use whatever items happen to drop in your way, press the attack button repeatedly and you win?

If you don't care about the point of a game then how is it different than watching a playthrough of it on Youtube? Why such solution is so offensive to some? Youtube videos have good quality nowadays, you can enjoy the story and enviroments of any game at 4K without having to worry about wasting your time with deaths and challenges.

I understand that that's the point of those games. I think it's perfectly fine for those games to be designed around and balanced for that experience.

What I don't understand - when offering an easier challenge would literally amount to nothing more than halving enemy health, say - is why anyone would want to deprive less skilled or less patient players from being able to experience the game.

Why is it? I don't understand. It's not like I'm asking for whole games to be redesigned or even properly rebalanced. Just a little more accessibility.

And not only can I not ask the developers, I also don't need to, given there are so many players here who share their position.

It really just seems like nothing more than elitism.

 

[The artful mincer]

The thing you dense people cant understand is that we can have both

It can be a rollercoaster FOR YOU, just play on Hard mode or whatever, if you want your "true gamer experience" .
Or it could be a carousel for people that just want to enjoy the story, the art, whatever.

In Mass Effect 3 there was an easier than easy mode called Story Mode that was basicaly "just watch the goddamn thing"
Did I play it? Hell no.
But I bet your ass that there were some people that played that way and enjoyed it.

And you could still play the game on Normal/Hard. Didnt affect shit on your experience.

So no, I cant understand how options are bad, since by doing so it doesnt affect your enjoyment.

"Oh but in Sekiro the enjoyment comes from dying many times and finally succeeding", FOR YOU, you dumbass. Maybe some people just want to die a little less, experience the story, the different environments.

Gatekeeping HOW someone should enjoy the game is so fucking pretentious

Well It can effect me if I choose the wrong difficulty setting and end up enjoying the game less.

Of course having just one difficulty setting will leave some players out as well but at least the developer can fine tune that setting as much as possible. Demanding that all game's have difficulty settings is just authoritarian at the end of day. At the very least it put's a greater workload on the devs if they have to fine tune each difficulty setting properly and not just whack the damage sliders up.

I agree that most games should have difficulty options but I don't think all of them should.

Should easy game's have hardcore settings? Should Dark souls have an even harder setting for vets that find the base game to easy now? How many difficulty settings is enough to please everyone. Of course the more you have the less likely you are to find the perfect fit for you.

 

[nkarafo]

I understand that that's the point of those games. I think it's perfectly fine for those games to be designed around and balanced for that experience.

What I don't understand - when offering an easier challenge would literally amount to nothing more than halving enemy health, say - is why anyone would want to deprive less skilled or less patient players from being able to experience the game.

Why is it? I don't understand. It's not like I'm asking for whole games to be redesigned or even properly rebalanced. Just a little more accessibility.

And not only can I not ask the developers, I also don't need to, given there are so many players here who share their position.

It really just seems like nothing more than elitism.

Again, your notion that adding an easy mode is easy for the devs and all you need to do is half the enemy health or something is false. Game balance/difficulty isn't easy to do if you want your game to be balanced and have a point in playing it.

If you don't care about the point of a game there are already other ways to experience it so why would the developer bother? Again, i ask, what's the difference watching a longplay if someone only cares about the story and seeing all a game has to offer without having to challenge themselves?

And all that without even considering marketing and reputation. You really think someone like FROM software would benefit if they made their games accessible when they have build so much hype and interest around their games because they are so intimidating for everyone?

 

[Hunnybun]

Again, your notion that adding an easy mode is easy for the devs and all you need to do is half the enemy health or something is false. Game balance/difficulty isn't easy to do if you want your game to be balanced and have a point in playing it.

If you don't care about the point of a game there are already other ways to experience it so why would the developer bother? Again, i ask, what's the difference watching a longplay if someone only cares about the story and seeing all a game has to offer without having to challenge themselves?

And all that without even considering marketing and reputation. You really think someone like FROM software would benefit if they made their games accessible when they have build so much hype and interest around their games because they are so intimidating for everyone?

I didn't say that adding balanced difficulty modes is trivial, I said that adding unbalanced modes would be trivial and for many players even unbalanced modes would be preferable to not being able to play the game.

You can't really be serious with this idea that watching the game on YouTube is equivalent to playing a game that isn't punishingly hard. That's just silly. Something like Spiderman on the PS4 is basically never hard - I think you could probably beat the game just by spamming the square button, tbh - but it still obviously offers a level of interactivity that millions of people prefer to watching a video.

As for the reputation - yes, finally we come to the ACTUAL reason. These game have appeal to certain people BECAUSE they lock other people out; because they're hardcore; because they're "pure". That's exactly my point. Some people clearly love that, but I just think it's bullshit.

 

[Hugare]

I'm gonna say the same thing I say when the babies come out to cry about Souls games not having difficulty levels...play something else.

For every "hard" game out there there are hundreds, if not thousands, that can be beaten by a 5 year old, go play one of those. Everything is not about you, made for you, catered to you...suck it up.

If a developer decides to have options for difficulty so be it, if they don't...jog on.

No, they aren't. There has to be gameplay for it to be a game.

A game is an activity where you can either win or lose. You need to overcome your opponent (another player, the cpu, enemies, hazzards, etc) in order not to lose. This makes winning a rewarding experience and that's the whole point of games existing.

If there isn't a losing state to worry about then it isn't a game, it's a toy.

Define "gameplay"

Journey is a game where you cant fail and only has to jump and move around. Dont fight enemies or anything like that. And yet, its considered a very rewarding experience by many.

Your narrow view of what a game should be is very pathetic

 

[GymWolf]

Agree with everything you said except auto aim. Auto aim is absolutely necessary for console aiming. The nature of an analogies stick means without auto aim even a good player would struggle with aiming. There's a reason why it's in every shooter.

Yeah don't know about that, you can disable auto aim in most games on console, sometimes it is too aggressive and ruin all the fun or the game is just too easy that having a worse aim is almost a good thing.

The only recent game where i had autoaim activated was rdr2 because cover\aim system are utter shit and it's almost impossible to aim without bullet time when you are on the horse without auto aim.
But i still tried free aim for like 20 hours before giving up...

 

[LeftThumbstick]

If a game is too difficult on purpose then I simply won’t play it. People say the souls games are good and/or amazing and they probably are, I just haven’t gotten far enough into them to find out. I don’t mind puzzle type games that make you think outside the box to pass a certain stage or what have you, but when it comes to stupidly powered enemies and bosses, that’s where I personally draw the line on a game being enjoyable.

If that’s how a game dev intends their game to be, so be it and that’s their choice to do so, I just won’t buy it or play it. I’m not going to crusade to make them change it either, that’s how they wanted their game to be, not my place to make them change it.

 

[Majukun]

can't stand these people.
we had more than an entire generation where games where gettting easier and easier to cater to the largest userbase possible, and people like me who liked a good challenge were left with unfulfilling games.
the moment something above average in this regard comes out, now we get campaigns about games becoming too difficult and bullshit like this....were was my press campaign when i wanted some challenge?
leave difficult games alone, there are tons of very easy and cinematic games one could play if they want, you don't need to play everything.

and i say this as a now older gamer that doesnp't have the reflex, time and patience of when i was younger, so i would probably not be able to enjoy the next hard game to its fullest, but still let it be whatever the developers want it to be

challenge is what gives gameplay value and makes a game fun (latter is subjective of course).

That's a pretty miserable thing to base creative decisions around

but it's a wise one in the real world where money doesn't grow on trees

 

[Spaceman292]

maximizing their revenues

That's a pretty miserable thing to base creative decisions around

 

[vkbest]

How many games releases every year, and how many games are so hard as people think Dark Souls is?

 

[Majukun]

Define "gameplay"

Journey is a game where you cant fail and only has to jump and move around. Dont fight enemies or anything like that. And yet, its considered a very rewarding experience by many.

Your narrow view of what a game should be is very pathetic

gameplay is , from my point of view, allowing the player to make meaningful decisions.

you can equate it to interactivity but that would not be strictly true because at that point using your remote to go throuh a dvd menu would be gameplay.

the difference here is that whatever choice you are making in this case is not meaningful, since the difference is between "stare at the screen" or "play the movie"...why would i stare at the screen, if i didn't want to play the movie i wouldn't have put the dvd in in the first place.

choice making can be many things: timing, dialogue choice, navigational pattern, the constant is that the game is making the playedr evaluate the situation and produce a response.

tbh i never got what people get out of games like journey, but i also never played it so i can't really judge if said meaningful choice making is present or not...what i do know is that people liked a lot of games that from my point of view have no "gameplay" to speak of, so the facct that people consider it rewarding doesn't really translate in considering it a good game, or even a videogame per se.

also considering how many games nowadays are more cinematic than gameplay, i'd say the reductive idea of what a game is is NOT a game with actual gameplay and challenge in it, quite the opposite in fact...i mean the tendency is to strip away interactivity and choice from the player in favor of scripted cinematic experiences

 

[Spaceman292]

but it's a wise one in the real world where money doesn't grow on trees

They've been successful enough to keep making their games the way they want to with higher and higher budgets.

Your train of thought leads down that soulless, cynical lootbox road that everyone hates.

 

[The artful mincer]

I understand that that's the point of those games. I think it's perfectly fine for those games to be designed around and balanced for that experience.

What I don't understand - when offering an easier challenge would literally amount to nothing more than halving enemy health, say - is why anyone would want to deprive less skilled or less patient players from being able to experience the game.

Why is it? I don't understand. It's not like I'm asking for whole games to be redesigned or even properly rebalanced. Just a little more accessibility.

And not only can I not ask the developers, I also don't need to, given there are so many players here who share their position.

It really just seems like nothing more than elitism.

Well it's not about elitism its about giving the player something they didn't realize they wanted

Like I said above if Dark souls had a easy mode I would have likely used it. I think I would have still enjoyed the game but it would have likely been a game that I enjoyed at the time then moved on. I Don't think it would it would have ended up being one of my favorite game's ever one which I can keep coming back to year after year.

Does this exclude some people? Yes absolutely but it's amazing how big the dark souls series has become. 27 million as a Franchise and dark souls 3 has done over 10 million at this point. Other than Monster Hunter it's the biggest 3rd party Japanese franchise at this point on a game by game basis at least.

You have to remember Dark Souls has a Multiplayer experience as well and multiple difficulties would split the player base. Not a problem now but at the start when it wasn't so big it could have been.

I know what to expect from Dark souls at this point so Multiple difficulty settings wouldn't effect me but future players may have the same experience I had when trying it for the first time which could be robbed of them if there given a choice.

 

[Majukun]

They've been successful enough to keep making their games the way they want to with higher and higher budgets.

Your train of thought leads down that soulless, cynical lootbox road that everyone hates.

and there have been a lot of other projects that failed miserably and led to bankruptcy by just following creative input.
you need to consider both aspects if you want to lead a successful studio..of course just copycatting what's popular with no creative input behing it will lead to a game that nobody cares about, especially if you aim at an already dominated genre (see all the cod clones we had during the ps3/360 era, or all the battle royale that came out and failed after pubg became a thing)

also, while you say that "everyone hates", they apparently still sell a shitload of copies while people complain about them on the internet

 

[The artful mincer]

Yeah don't know about that, you can disable auto aim in most games on console, sometimes it is too aggressive and ruin all the fun or the game is just too easy that having a worse aim is almost a good thing.

The only recent game where i had autoaim activated was rdr2 because cover\aim system are utter shit and it's almost impossible to aim without bullet time when you are on the horse without auto aim.
But i still tried free aim for like 20 hours before giving up...

Lol even if they fixed the aim on that game I still think it would be worst playing 3rd person shooter of a generation

To be fair it's held up by it's hit reactions and satisfying gun sounds. But apart from that absolutely God Awful.

But hey 97 on Metacritic!!

 

[KungFucius]

I kind of agree. I beat a lot of harder games on NES and SNES, but I really do not enjoy having to get good just to get past a boss. It's not mastering a useful skill and I play games to relax not to stress out.

Metroid is kind of weird. The game is hard and some of the bosses are pretty ridiculous. But it feels kind of satisfying to repeat them a few times, or a few dozen times and finally win. The problem is that it requires near perfection or luck to finally win. That isn't relaxing, but getting past the boss is certainly a relief. Personally I would like the number of missiles I need to land reduced by 10% and the margin for dodging hazards increased a touch. I am basically at the end now and I kind of dread going back to it.

 

[nkarafo]

Define "gameplay"

Journey is a game where you cant fail and only has to jump and move around. Dont fight enemies or anything like that. And yet, its considered a very rewarding experience by many.

Your narrow view of what a game should be is very pathetic

A very rewarding experience can be anything. Something not being called a "game" isn't reductive. I haven't played Journey more than a couple of hours but to me it felt more like an interactive visual demo/story. I like those as well, sometimes, because they tend to have fancy graphics and effects.

If your definition of "game" is anything interactive or anything that allows you to move the camera around, that's fine.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

Maybe Jaffe should take a design course about dumping down your game to the lowest of low. I mean the game will suffer, but hey at least 3-year old Kevin finally can finish it It now.

 

[Hunnybun]

Well it's not about elitism its about giving the player something they didn't realize they wanted

Like I said above if Dark souls had a easy mode I would have likely used it. I think I would have still enjoyed the game but it would have likely been a game that I enjoyed at the time then moved on. I Don't think it would it would have ended up being one of my favorite game's ever one which I can keep coming back to year after year.

Does this exclude some people? Yes absolutely but it's amazing how big the dark souls series has become. 27 million as a Franchise and dark souls 3 has done over 10 million at this point. Other than Monster Hunter it's the biggest 3rd party Japanese franchise at this point on a game by game basis at least.

You have to remember Dark Souls has a Multiplayer experience as well and multiple difficulties would split the player base. Not a problem now but at the start when it wasn't so big it could have been.

I know what to expect from Dark souls at this point so Multiple difficulty settings wouldn't effect me but future players may have the same experience I had when trying it for the first time which could be robbed of them if there given a choice.

Is that what it's about? Isn't that just your take on it?

I actually thought your idea that certain games should only be hard because that forces players to confront a situation that they'll enjoy but would otherwise avoid was quite good, certainly better than most justifications.

But I think it still is just a rationalisation.

And even there, there are easy ways to offer an easy mode and still preserve that. What about an easy mode that only opens up after say 5 hours of Play with no progress made? There must be a point at which it's clear that a player just isn't going to have an experience like yours, right?

The multiplayer mode could be restricted only to people playing on the default setting.

So would an easy mode be ok in those circumstances? I suspect not. I just think some people will always consider any concession an intolerable corruption of this pure thing they love.

 

[martino]

Opinions.
Not all games must be for everybody.
It's more a good signals this kind of controversy still exists.

 

[22•22]

Ahh yes, Twitter opinions

Oh well

Anyways

 

[WitchHunter]

I'm too stressed out to play hard games these days.

Hard games are the best stress alleviators. You just smash your controller on the floor, throw something out of the window, even better if you have a punching bag and hit it like an animal.

 

[WitchHunter]

I don't fully understand how people can say "let the devs make the game they want" when it comes to not having easier modes for some players. No one is stopping them from doing that.

Do you think Activision are making the game they want by allowing people to play Call of Duty campaigns on recruit difficulty where you can run through the whole campaign without dying a single time? Are Polyphony making the game they want when having traction control, ABS, automatic gears etc. on every car in Gran Turismo? How about in Far Cry 5 which was just released having a story mode where players can breeze through the gameplay?

You can still make the game you want and have options for those who don't/can't play the game as intended whilst those people who do can. Just because a game is more accessible shouldn't change anything for those who want to play the game as intended.

These are all publicly traded companies who must maximize revenue. So you see people cry about ninja warrior? Why is it so hard? How come a 296 pound lazyass person can't compete? How come I was hit so hard in MMA? Are they nuts, I just wanna enjoy hitting others while they are handicapped. It was intended to be hard and not about being a moneycow.

Ultimately it's up to the creators. If I create something that is meant to showcase a person's excellence then there won't be backdoors.

If you want the story, watch the cutscenes on fucking youtube and piss off.

 

[The artful mincer]

Is that what it's about? Isn't that just your take on it?

I actually thought your idea that certain games should only be hard because that forces players to confront a situation that they'll enjoy but would otherwise avoid was quite good, certainly better than most justifications.

But I think it still is just a rationalisation.

And even there, there are easy ways to offer an easy mode and still preserve that. What about an easy mode that only opens up after say 5 hours of Play with no progress made? There must be a point at which it's clear that a player just isn't going to have an experience like yours, right?

The multiplayer mode could be restricted only to people playing on the default setting.

So would an easy mode be ok in those circumstances? I suspect not. I just think some people will always consider any concession an intolerable corruption of this pure thing they love.

Of course it's just my take on it I can't speak for anyone else. Although lots of people clearly love it and some appear to quit then come back and end up loving it most famous people being Yahtzee and Super Bunny Hop.

Difficulty can certainly be used to force the player into a more fun and interesting method of play. Hugo Martin called this the Fun Zone for Doom Eternal although this pissed off some Doom 2016 diehards so you will never please everyone .

Your idea about introducing a easy mode if a player is struggling is a good one some game's do that already although more subtly like giving more health if there dying a lot etc. Half life 2, God Hand and Resident evil 4 are good examples. Saying that it's nice to have a static difficulty to know exactly where you stand

Although saying that I died so much my first play though of dark souls lol. If a easy mode had been presented to me like you said I may have took it and may have not enjoyed it as much long term but it's impossible too know for sure

I agree for the multiplayer but for games with small player bases this could be an issue .

I'am fine with easy mode's but I'am also fine without them there's pro's and con's to both.

Some players are just odd. The souls series has been refining and changing since demon souls including making it easier in some ways (Bonfires, Etus Flasks etc.) I just feel there's more to keeping the difficulty static other than elitism.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I really love this from Cory.

Cory, is just a down right great person from the looks of it.

 

[BlackTron]

leave difficult games alone, there are tons of very easy and cinematic games one could play if they want, you don't need to play everything.

Unless you're a games journalist, then you really do need to play everything and you might have a problem.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Lol even if they fixed the aim on that game I still think it would be worst playing 3rd person shooter of a generation

To be fair it's held up by it's hit reactions and satisfying gun sounds. But apart from that absolutely God Awful.

But hey 97 on Metacritic!!

This is why it's criminal of Rockstar to refuse to patch it for 60 fps for ps5/series x. FU rockstar

 

[BLAUcopter]

If the building up of the music leading into the Hyperion boss fight after all the deaths and frustration of the previous acts doesn't get the feels meter going then I don't know what to say. Returnal is the most underrated video game classic of all time.

Turn your phone off.
Stay off social media.
Get some snacks.
Go deep.
Beat nemesis.
And just engross yourself in this amazing game.

 

[The artful mincer]

This is why it's criminal of Rockstar to refuse to patch it for 60 fps for ps5/series x. FU rockstar

Meh it could be 120fps with mouse like controls and it would still be terrible. It's problems are far more fundamental than anything framerate and smoothness can fix

 

[GreenAlien]

I don't want to hear that from him. I never made in past the prologue of the original GoW...

 

[MrJTeera]

lol, Metroid at least isn’t even that hard. The world needs some more difficulty to it. Everyone is too used to having their little hands held.

 

[The Eradicator]

If you're not very good at those games, then dying is almost literally punishing, ie you're inflicted with a painful and tedious experience if you want to try again. Enjoying that is masochism, especially in the playful sense I clearly meant.

I've yet to see a single good argument for why very hard games mustn't have an easier mode. The game could still be designed around the hard mode. The hard mode could still be the default. An easy mode need consist of no more than double the health pickups, say.

I genuinely don't understand why that would be a problem for some people. If even a few people enjoyed playing like that, why would that perturb you?

What kind of answer is "not every game is for you!"? Why should that be? When making a game more accessible would be SO easy, why shouldn't it be for more people?

Simply adding more health to the player or more health to the enemies is an extremely lazy way to change difficulty, and it's not a very good method at all. Look at GoW in 2018, for example. The hardest difficulty was balanced like hot garbage. Enemies weren't "harder", they just took about 1000 hits apiece to kill, because Sony Santa Monica did a terrible job balancing difficulties. Naughty Dog had the same problem with Crushing mode in Uncharted 4, it was nearly impossible in later chapters. Much harder than any Souls game, I assure you.
It's not as easy as simply adding health pickups. That's why I would rather have a dev work hard on balancing one difficulty level, so that anyone playing can know that they're playing at the optimum difficulty that the devs could come up with.
And as has been said many times in this thread alone, when the point of a particular game is to present a strong challenge that the player must work to overcome, if you add an easy mode, it defeats the reason for playing it. The hard battles are the moments that you simply cannot get when playing on an easy difficulty.
It's funny, because Deathloop comes out, and everyone complains about how easy the AI is, and when a hard game comes out, everyone complains about how difficult it is. It's almost as though people should just play the games that suit them, and stop thinking that every single game needs to be tailored for 100% of the gaming audience. This is both impossible to achieve and much more likely to displease everyone rather than make everyone happy.
I can also tell you that if I had the option to turn down the difficulty on Returnal, I 100% WOULD HAVE, but then I would never have gotten the satisfaction of pushing through and beating it without having to do so. I'm glad that it didn't have the option, because the payoff was so much better than ANY other new game I've played this year.

 

[GymWolf]

Lol even if they fixed the aim on that game I still think it would be worst playing 3rd person shooter of a generation

To be fair it's held up by it's hit reactions and satisfying gun sounds. But apart from that absolutely God Awful.

But hey 97 on Metacritic!!

Yes, in terms of hit reactions, dead animations and gore is second only to tlou2 (and for some things is even superior because of the euphoria engine), literally the only reasons why i love gunfights in that game even with ultra shitty controls (and part of why it was my goty 2018 with gow).

But hey, i'm an animations nutjob.

 

[Spaceman292]

and there have been a lot of other projects that failed miserably and led to bankruptcy by just following creative input.
you need to consider both aspects if you want to lead a successful studio..of course just copycatting what's popular with no creative input behing it will lead to a game that nobody cares about, especially if you aim at an already dominated genre (see all the cod clones we had during the ps3/360 era, or all the battle royale that came out and failed after pubg became a thing)

also, while you say that "everyone hates", they apparently still sell a shitload of copies while people complain about them on the internet

Also, they sell well because they're designed to sell well, but they're still shit.

From games aren't shit because they don't chase the mass appeal, they make good stuff and trust that people will like it.

 

[Hunnybun]

Simply adding more health to the player or more health to the enemies is an extremely lazy way to change difficulty, and it's not a very good method at all. Look at GoW in 2018, for example. The hardest difficulty was balanced like hot garbage. Enemies weren't "harder", they just took about 1000 hits apiece to kill, because Sony Santa Monica did a terrible job balancing difficulties. Naughty Dog had the same problem with Crushing mode in Uncharted 4, it was nearly impossible in later chapters. Much harder than any Souls game, I assure you.
It's not as easy as simply adding health pickups. That's why I would rather have a dev work hard on balancing one difficulty level, so that anyone playing can know that they're playing at the optimum difficulty that the devs could come up with.
And as has been said many times in this thread alone, when the point of a particular game is to present a strong challenge that the player must work to overcome, if you add an easy mode, it defeats the reason for playing it. The hard battles are the moments that you simply cannot get when playing on an easy difficulty.
It's funny, because Deathloop comes out, and everyone complains about how easy the AI is, and when a hard game comes out, everyone complains about how difficult it is. It's almost as though people should just play the games that suit them, and stop thinking that every single game needs to be tailored for 100% of the gaming audience. This is both impossible to achieve and much more likely to displease everyone rather than make everyone happy.
I can also tell you that if I had the option to turn down the difficulty on Returnal, I 100% WOULD HAVE, but then I would never have gotten the satisfaction of pushing through and beating it without having to do so. I'm glad that it didn't have the option, because the payoff was so much better than ANY other new game I've played this year.

Ultimately I just don't see why the lack of willpower of people like you should trump the opportunity of a less willing player to play on a crappy unbalanced easy mode *if they so desire*.

Everyone knows Souls games are hard. Returnal even explicitly states its intention to be challenging. It's clear how the games are supposed to be played. If you were to know those things and STILL choose an easy mode then I guess I just think that's tough, that's on you for giving in.

I don't see why less skilled players should be penalised to save good players from taking the easy option.

Not to mention, this STILL doesn't explain why there couldn't be an easy mode that was only made available after a certain high number of deaths and just clear lack of progress.

 

[The Eradicator]

Ultimately I just don't see why the lack of willpower of people like you should trump the opportunity of a less willing player to play on a crappy unbalanced easy mode *if they so desire*.

Everyone knows Souls games are hard. Returnal even explicitly states its intention to be challenging. It's clear how the games are supposed to be played. If you were to know those things and STILL choose an easy mode then I guess I just think that's tough, that's on you for giving in.

I don't see why less skilled players should be penalised to save good players from taking the easy option.

Not to mention, this STILL doesn't explain why there couldn't be an easy mode that was only made available after a certain high number of deaths and just clear lack of progress.

You say "tough on me", but I actually took on the challenge and won. I say "tough on you" for not bothering, and just demanding an easy mode. Everyone who starts playing a game is "less skilled", if it's a game they've never played before. Skill only comes with practice. Saying "I don't have enough skill to beat this" really means "I don't want to take the time to gain skill in this game."

 

[R6Rider]

That’s when you turn the lights off on the internet.

How else will I witness complaints about players using fun/meme weapons?

"Scraping Spear? Disgusting!"

 

[coffinbirth]

Really, dude?

From Software's Hidetaka Miyazaki Explains Why Souls Games Don't Have Difficulty Settings

From Software's Soulsborne games are known for their challenge and unforgiving nature. Another notable feature of the Soulsborne games is the absence of a

twinfinite.net

Every fucking time a new From game is released we have this discussion


I know a person that watches Netflix shows at 1.5x speed. Definitely not the way it was intended to be seen.

But this person has watched all of the +4 seasons of the show and loved it.

This doesnt hurt the viewing experience for other people, so why the hell not?

Gaming is an interactive media, so things get even more subjective.

I may finish Mario Odyssey only using basic jumping and collecting the required moons. Other person may finish it using the whole set of movements and habilities and collecting all moons.

Both enjoyed the game in their own way

Let people choose how to play your game

Look how many people would have enjoyed Returnal WAY more with a saving system.

How many people would have replayed Bloodborne with an easy mode just to breeze through and see all that art again.

 

[Majukun]

Unless you're a games journalist, then you really do need to play everything and you might have a problem.

No serious game reviews website has just one reviewer for everything anyway.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

if it's a game they've never played before. Skill only comes with practice. Saying "I don't have enough skill to beat this" really means "I don't want to take the time to gain skill in this game."

something that could be applied to many things in life.

 

[Hunnybun]

You say "tough on me", but I actually took on the challenge and won. I say "tough on you" for not bothering, and just demanding an easy mode. Everyone who starts playing a game is "less skilled", if it's a game they've never played before. Skill only comes with practice. Saying "I don't have enough skill to beat this" really means "I don't want to take the time to gain skill in this game."

No, I did bother, and and I did complete the game.

You're the one who admitted you'd have ducked the challenge if you could have, and needed a game to stop you making that decision.

I think it's a shame that people with less skill or less time should be prevented from playing a good game, and I don't think the reason you gave (that in that scenario people prone to giving up on hard challenges might be likely to miss out on a rewarding experience) is sufficient justification for that.

 

[Vaelka]

Wait.. Kena is hard?

Regardless not every game needs to be easy...
You're not entitled to have every game cater to you.

 

[Keihart]

Personally I think it's kind of ridiculous to think games like Returnal and Demon's Souls shouldn't have easy modes on some kind of warped principle. That's just pathetic to me.

But for me the REAL problem with those games is how cheap they are. That sort of stuff seems to be tolerated because people seem to worry they'll be seen as rubes if they criticise it, but really until recently this was just understood to be bad design and straightforwardly bad.

e.g. in Souls having to constantly trudge through the same sections dozens of times, just to get to a tougher enemy whose patterns you need to figure out. That's bullshit. It's not fun, and it has no place in good game design. Fine, if you're a masochist and actually WANT that, then you can have the option to play that way, but it shouldn't be the default. Returnal does that too. Or the way in Returnal you got these insane difficulty spikes like 20 minutes into a run where you've not taken a single hit and then are just overwhelmed in one big fight.

Sorry but Jaffe's right. There is no good reason not to offer an easy option, and to abide by modern design principles.

What is fun for you? pressing some random buttons without a second thoughts and watch pretty pictures and colors play out on the TV?
I'm being reductive with that sentence, but dismissing the intent behind skill gaps in a video game is just as reductive. There is an experience crafted by the developer that asks from the player to engage with it, if you as a player don't wish to engage in what the developer asks, then you don't like the game, you don't like what the game offers.

Getting through a "zone" dozens of times is not cheap, maybe it's challenging but cheap is not a given. If you don't find challenge in a game to be something worth your time than you probably should save yourself the trouble and play the games that cater to that same opinion. If you want to criticize the difficulty of a game, then you have be a little more nuanced and be specific about what feels unfair to you and why, if not, the there is nothing of valued gained from that "opinion".

Jaffe is wrong because what he perceived as "cheap" or bad design, is the complete opposite and blatantly obvious to most players. There is intent in the design and it works as proven by the hilarious montage, i've watched some of Jaffe's playthrough, he is not the sharpest tool in the box when he streams and he usually says that it's because he is reading chat, but you would be surprised how often he doesn't understand basic mechanics even when reading a tutorial.

Just as a side note, difficulty being something that keeps players away from games is the biggest lie in the industry regarding game design, people chose to play difficult games all the time, the real barrier is making the game appealing enough for someone to try it and stick with it.

Just look at the most successful games on the market, LoL and CSGO are not simple, both games have a really high barrier of mechanical and planning skill, most fighting games keep you at the entrance on the kids table until you learn basic motion inputs, yet all of this games have incredibly big player bases that stick to them for years, because getting better is fun, and nobody gets better without engaging with the gameplay first.

 

[tygertrip]

3 hard games in a sea of easy games. Go play something easy, it’s that simple. Don’t demand that challenging games are made accessible to everyone. I don’t get why this is hard?

“Noooooo! Every game must be made to suit my tastes!” It boggles my mind so many here think every game should be able to be altered to their difficulty level. It’s just fucking video games. You like some, you hate some. Just play the ones you like. And if you want one to where the difficulty is customizable, like LOU2, then go make one. These people are basically demanding devs cater to them. Such entitled brats.

 

[Keihart]

“Noooooo! Every game must be made to suit my tastes!” It boggles my mind so many here think every game should be able to be altered to their difficulty level. It’s just fucking video games. You like some, you hate some. Just play the ones you like. And if you want one to where the difficulty is customizable, like LOU2, then go make one. These people are basically demanding devs cater to them. Such entitled brats.

To be fair, every thread , here at least, leans toward your stance, saying otherwise would be playing the victim.
Jaffe's opinion is not at all the reflection of this community if this kind of threads are any indication.

 

[Banjo64]

“Noooooo! Every game must be made to suit my tastes!” It boggles my mind so many here think every game should be able to be altered to their difficulty level. It’s just fucking video games. You like some, you hate some. Just play the ones you like. And if you want one to where the difficulty is customizable, like LOU2, then go make one. These people are basically demanding devs cater to them. Such entitled brats.

I want to read The Lord of the Rings but not in Tolkien’s Old English, I want The Lord of the Rings translated in to basic tard language so I can fallow along and clap where I’m supposed to.

 

[tygertrip]

It's not the games being hard that I mind, it's the mentality amongst so many of those that revel in hard games.

The 'If you can't beat Souls, you ain't no real gamer' and all that elitist crap.

Two completely different issues. But yea, nothing screams “child” like declaring who is a real “gamer”.