Not good enough
I said he should maybe try the mimic tear and he stomped her on the next try. What is that if not an easy mode?I'm not sure using a powerful ingame item is quite the same as difficulty modes
and the souls series are really not really hard. At face value and jumping in maybe if you arent good at them. But every single souls like game has some kind of mechanic or build that just completely breaks the game or makes you OPThe biggest problem is people rely on making the OP build to steamroll a majority of the game, then have no idea what to do when it no longer works. Like in Elden Ring, everybody was making a bleed build because you could melt bosses. Quickly followed by cries of needing help with the last boss because it was stupid and hard and unfair. No, they just aren't vulnerable to bleed and now you're freaking out.
This is easily the most compelling reason to leave it be imo. You literally cannot experience Sekiro, and how good the game truly is, until you conquer it's skill gate.
It's probably the best ARPG by a wide margin, and the only reason it can be that is because it's not only earned, but actually really fucking hard.
But that moment after you finally beat SSI is unlike any game I've ever played, Souls or otherwise.
There is no Sekiro with "easy mode". It's just not Sekiro.
I'm not sure using a powerful ingame item is quite the same as difficulty modesThe Mimic Tear is an extreme example, but I'm also talking about the hardest boss in the game. You the summoning bell pretty much thrown at you and get tons of ashes throughout the game. Mimic tear is braindead mode, but there are tons of others that still drastically reduce the difficulty.
in fact I am quite certain they are very different since a big part of difficulty modes is they are easy to find and choose and are entirely outside the context of the game itself
Also, whole "shared experience" argument is nonsenseIf Miyazaki who's responsible for the most prestigious series of games ever known believes in the concept I'll take his word rather than some randos on the internet.
Just finished the video and here's my final thoughts from the essay.
Some other points he made were not only do players not always know what they want, but player choice isn't always key to a fun experience.
Someone in the comments made a good point. "I'm a disabled gamer and I'm sick and tired of being held up by those 'accessibility=easy mode types'. It's incredibly condescending to suggest disabled gamers require a lack of difficulty."
Finally, he ends the video by basically saying there's no need to cater to either crowd or force change within either groups. Developers should make games how they like.
Though I would have to say there's far too many games that cater to the easy mode crowd. Anyone knows it's more difficult to find a game without easy mode. So basically we shouldn't try to force change in the few remaining difficult games.
I refuse to play any difficult game where the penalty for dying to a boss is to have to go through the same section of enemies again and again.That last bit is something not discussed often - fromsoft games are willing to punish you for things other AAA releases simply do not. It doesnt matter if you mash buttons or overextend by being greedy, games will often give you a reward. Something like dark souls will be like no, you fucked up. You have to hold this death.
Either let me retry the boss battle from where I am with my current health / status going into the battle or put me < 1min away from the boss. Anything else just builds up a sense of "this game is wasting my time", even if it's not actually taking that much time overall. Clearing these types of scenarios with dedication just ends with feelings of relief and not as much triumph, compared to clearing hard scenarios that you can quickly retry.
Too much talk in here about difficulty and not how the punishment for failure works.
It doesnt matter if you mash buttons or overextend by being greedy, games will often give you a reward. Something like dark souls will be like no, you fucked up. You have to hold this death.
I think difficulty is not what gets people - its being punished for something other games generally let slide.
Ooh this video essay looks interesting:wow forgot link
"Super Mario's Invisible Difficulty settings"
This is usually a flawed argument. What he means to say is that "some players don't want what I want, and are therefore wrong."
Which I feel like is a damn shame and not an attitude that should be encouraged if you consider yourself to be a fan of something and want it to see as much success as possible.
The difficulty is the thing, in that series.100% this. Dark Souls is challenging, but the game still wants you to overcome said challenge and win. Miyazaki and the team have said they want the player to have a feeling of accomplishment, which you can't really get if there was nothing accomplished.
if you mean dark souls by this, my thing is, i can't tell how difficult they intended it to be.
i think people just played it wrong.
once elden ring came out people had enough experience to correctly guide new players into leveling vigor. but it wasn't always that way, and some guides still exist on this website which maintain the terrible advice of old, which told players to level damage stats and to just learn how to dodge.
somewhere along the line i think the game feeding back 'you should get more HP' got ignored by the people trying to hype up its difficulty. like they took the thousand runbacks to bosses as a sign that the game was just really hard, not that they had some terrible ideas with their approach.
for anyone brand spanking ass new to the souls series, if you ever decide to try out dark souls 1, i want you to level vit to 30 as the first thing you do and get back to me how hard the game is after that.
I only care about things being successful insofar as ensuring that the medium can continue and thrive. I don't care about how much profits some suits make. I care much more about the artistic integrity of the medium, which sometimes necessitates making experiences that cannot appeal to everyone.
No, you don't have to add "easy mode" to everything. But it does run the risk of making your game less approachable, particularly if the difficulty is already on the high end, and I'm of the sort where if I get too frustrated (or know I will get too frustrated) trying to play your game, I will simply stop or not take the plunge at all. Some developers might care about that; the more opportunistic ones may simply not, perhaps banking on the thought that they've already got the customer's money anyway if they tried their game at all.It's definitely a balance.
You can try to make the argument that "not all games are meant for everyone to play", but honestly, some games are the kind I legitimately have interest beforehand in concept, only to find them unenjoyable to actually play because of their (often unchangeable) difficulty -- which I feel like is a damn shame and not an attitude that should be encouraged if you consider yourself to be a fan of something and want it to see as much success as possible.
I'm fine with easy modes existing, but I do think there should be certain achievements/trophies and maybe specific areas or boss fights that are for normal or hard modes only. Reward skilled players with more content.Achievements are fine, but I'm not a fan of locking off actual content from less skilled players. It seems illogical to make content that a portion of the players won't ever see.
Reward skilled players with more content.That just locks out people with disabilities. Not everything is about "skill".
So how do you ensure the medium can continue and thrive if you make games that don't appeal to everyone?Because several games and game companies that don't appeal to everyone are perfectly financially solvent? You don't need to make derivative slop to make enough money to grow. Maybe you sren't going to make ejough money to get your executives their 4th yacht, but like I said I do not care about that.
Achievements are fine, but I'm not a fan of locking off actual content from less skilled players. It seems illogical to make content that a portion of the players won't ever see.Awarding players for completing in game goals is illogical? Special ships, title screens, skins, characters, true last bosses, etc have been bonuses for completing games without continues, on various difficulties, in first place, whatever, for decades. Bonuses are a completely reasonable feature. Being bothered by the idea of missing something is what is silly. There simply is nothing wrong with missing an item or a bonus. Now pardon me while I snowboard on a penguin, because I earned it.
Because several games and game companies that don't appeal to everyone are perfectly financially solvent? You don't need to make derivative slop to make enough money to grow. Maybe you sren't going to make ejough money to get your executives their 4th yacht, but like I said I do not care about that.
if you mean dark souls by this, my thing is, i can't tell how difficult they intended it to be.I think lack of clarity is a form of difficulty, in a sense? Maybe not the same sort of difficulty as the moment-to-moment action gameplay, but if you have a limited amount of stat points to put into your characters and a bunch of the options are essentially red herrings then trying to locate the correct one(s) is difficulty. And if the game provides poor guidance or feedback to help you tell which ones are good, that increases the difficulty in this aspect
i think people just played it wrong.
the fuck does that mean?
I took it to mean over leveling and then roflstomping the gameLook at TotK. Once the hoverbike was discovered, getting around the map using any other means became pointless since you could just fly over everything. The game gives you complete freedom (which isn't a good thing to me) and all you need is just two fans and a control stick.
Videogames are toys.No.
Why do you need an easy mode?Who does it actively harm to not have one?
Awarding players for completing in game goals is illogical? Special ships, title screens, skins, characters, true last bosses, etc have been bonuses for completing games without continues, on various difficulties, in first place, whatever, for decades. Bonuses are a completely reasonable feature. Being bothered by the idea of missing something is what is silly. There simply is nothing wrong with missing an item or a bonus. Now pardon me while I snowboard on a penguin, because I earned it.That's not at all what I said. If you're gonna give an easy mode, why on earth would you punish players who opt to use it by taking content away from them? I know it's an old part of gaming and it sucked then too.
Who does it actively harm to not have one?Me.
But per your argument every company can and should make games that fit their "artistic vision" which sometimes "necessitates making experiences that cannot appeal to everyone" - so why bother making any profit at all?Because making games costs money and if your games aren't making money you can't make more games.
Because making games costs money and if your games aren't making money you can't make more games.
So you agree that sometimes making games accessible for more gamers is needed for gaming industry to survive? (Not buy the CEO a 4th boat)No, because like I pointed out earlier, plenty of video game companies remain solvent and financially secure while making games that aren't for everyone and aren't watered down.
I'm a fan of motorsport. I jump straight into a new racing game turning off driver aids. Traction control, antilock brakes, racing line (if a game has it), et cetera all go right away. I always encourage others turning the aids off, too, but stand behind their right to ultimately play however makes them happyHuh maybe that's why I find most racing games boring as fuck. If there's all these driving aids turned on by default what is there to really learn besides turning corners?
They should just have hard and expert mode from now on for all the crybabies.I do like that some game devs put in easy mode as "game journalist mode"
Awarding players for completing in game goals is illogical? Special ships, title screens, skins, characters, true last bosses, etc have been bonuses for completing games without continues, on various difficulties, in first place, whatever, for decades. Bonuses are a completely reasonable feature. Being bothered by the idea of missing something is what is silly. There simply is nothing wrong with missing an item or a bonus. Now pardon me while I snowboard on a penguin, because I earned it.