Disabled quadriplegic shows why Sekiro doesn't need an easy mode - Videos for the 97.4%

https://youtu.be/tso8u4OJLuI Puts gaming journalists to shame with their recent demands of Easy Mode. Mad respect.

I've always found the spiel of "We need an easy mode for disabled players" to be ridiculously insulting to disabled people. What disabled people need is tools appropriate to allow them to play the same games as everyone else, like the the Xbox Adaptive Controller or the host of specialised controllers smaller companies make.

Fuck I suck at video games

Different people with different disabilities require different accessibility options. Motor impairment isn't the only reason why someone would want an "easy mode" - cognitive impairments are a thing. And even then, some motor impairments like MS that result in delayed actions could benefit from other options. While I think this guy is awesome, I'd hate for this to be used to push games away from being inclusive for all gamers. I like how Celeste allows you to slow the game speed down, as well as customize tons of other options, and I wish more singleplayer games would offer more robust game-play related accessibility options besides customizable controls or "hold rather than tap for QTEs". Just preface it with "this is not how that game was intended to be played, but these options are available to tailor your game experience to make it enjoyable for you". Then hardcore turbonerds don't have to worry that people can play on easier modes and the devs get to show what their intended design is, and gamers with diverse needs are accommodated based on what they choose to enable.

this isn't recent, game journalists have been complaining about games being too hard since the early days of home consoles. some games have listed their easy modes for "beginners/game journalists" to mock them for this.

games don't need to be inclusive of everybody. there's hundreds of games out there.

Monkey Island 2 went for it in 1992. https://twitter.com/mombot/status/1113788953650294786

Though it could make the individual game more popular.

That's awesome. Do you happen to remember any games that did this? I'd be keen to read about it.

One of these types of things I remember in recent memory was DMCV, there's an option that let's you auto combo by holding down an input instead of a pattern and right before the description it says "Dont turn this on if you want the actual DMCV experience"

why do people bitch about accessibility options again??? here's a fucking pro-tip: if you don't like an option, don't use it lol you can send the nobel to my PO box

You know the original modes still exist, right?

@Janus Vesta if you just wanna rate dumb and fuck off that's fine but i'd be interested in hearing your perspective and have a conversation about difficulty and art, it's a topic i find interesting

When it comes to accessibility options (ex: color blind modes, custom controllers, and subtitles), I'm not against it. I'm against Game Journalists using disabled folk as props/shields to mask the fact that they aren't good at video games. It's disgusting behavior. Sorry Game Journalists, being bad at video games isn't a disability.

Imagine being unironically mad that some game journalists aren't good at videogames. It's almost like people have different talents and skill levels, and having difficulty options in videogames allows more people access to experience it.

Easy Automatic has been a thing since DMC 1, it used to just be a much simpler version of the standard inputs. Moves became more contextual rather than requiring you to remember whether the stick was back or forward. The game did dock points for using it, but it certainly made the whole thing more accessible. Younger me played with it on a bit, before I properly understood the combat systems of the game (I must have been like 11 or 12 or something at the time and complex inputs weren't my jam). There's a really good series as a part of the Game Makers Toolkit channel that covers how you can approach accessibility options for various different impairments. Motor, cognitive, sensory, etc. There's been some really interesting ideas in the industry that either didn't catch on, or were just too specific to that game.

do you honestly think that that's what they're doing? that is so outlandish, i just can't imagine actually believing that there's a conspiracy cabal hell-bent on getting easy S ranks. imagine

Which needs to be disclosed. Don't act like your opinion is objectively authoritative if you lack the basic skills to navigate the developer intended play space. You can can openly disclose you suck at thinking and reflexes and ______ and still discuss merits and problems like an adult. Right now none of that is happening. Reviews of fighting and action games are particularly dishonest, and so are RPGs taking more than twenty hours to complete. I'll be you right now '77s most comprehensive and in-depth "professional" review will be less than 20 hours of play AT BEST, meanwhile in the same span of time some will have already put a play-video compilation more comprehensive within the first week of launch. When you have 6+ people on staff per platform, you can afford to narrow who gets what for the sake of completeness and an open critique, except that's not going to happen, 'so many gaems' is not an excuse that works anymore, as twitch and youtube have aptly demonstrated.

I'm not colorblind but I don't know why every game doesn't have a colorblind mode by now when you can probably just fix it with a shader.

Then said Game Journalists should stick to playing/reviewing games more suited to their skill level. They'll have to realize sooner or later that not every game is for them. The term "Niche" exists for a reason. Difficulty can only be adjusted/balanced so much without compromising level design, mechanics, etc.

I don't have the time to go in depth right now as I have to finish a project for tomorrow. In short, I don't think the majority of games which 'journalists' call to have an easy mode need them. Back when Dark Souls came out 'journalists' cried that the game needed an easy mode because it was 'too hard' and they used disabled people as a shield for their own incompetence. Dark Souls isn't really a hard game, it's just very different to the types of action games which were popular at the time, games like Assassin's Creed where fights amounted to hitting the counter button repeatedly. I prefer games not have difficulty options and instead build in ways for players to make the game easier should they need it. In Dark Souls you can grind souls to level up or upgrade you equipment, allowing you to deal more damage and take less, without being separated from the people who don't level up, play naked, and reset when they die. In Sekiro you don't need an easy mode as you can fight the Elite Enemies for prayer beads to increase your health and posture, you can increase your attack power by defeating bosses, and once you beat the Blazing Bull you can explore the vast majority of the map before continuing the story, which allows you to gather money to by tools, XP to unlock skills, and gourd seeds to increase how many times you can heal. The first required enemy in the entire game, the chained ogre has very slow attacks and the only ones which can't be blocked/deflected are easily jumped grab attacks. Killing him rewards you with a gourd seed and forces you to get used to the controls of the game, which is often the part which limits players the most. I'll take this time to not that Sekiro allows full control rebinding on all platforms, which everyone benefits from. To reach the point where you can freely explore the vast majority of the game world you need to defeat only 3 enemies. The first is the chained ogre. The second in Gyoubu Masaka Oniwa, he rides a horse and it really easy to block, you don't have to dodge his attacks as the only 'danger attack' he has is a stab, which can be deflected (though he barely uses it). The third enemy you have to defeat is Blazing Bull, an enemy who has no danger attacks and can be avoided by running away. If you need more tools to defeat Blazin Bull you have two opportunities to purchase Robert's Firecrackers, which gives you an instant stun on the bull (and pretty much any enemy). If you choose you can also go the the optional Hirata Estate which has 3 prosthetic tools (the flame barrel, the axe, and the feathers), as well as a vendor selling a fire resistance gourd, two enemies who drop prayer beads (and a hidden prayer bead), and a boss you can fight if you want to gain additional attack power (though I have a hard time imagining a person who find Lady Butterfly easier than Blazing Bull, they could exist). Going in to the Blazing Bull fight you could have up to three free heals (along with pellets), at least one attack power increase but possibly two, up to four prosthetic tools (one of which is designed to counter the boss), up to two health and posture upgrades, and as many skills as you're willing to grind for in three of the games five skill trees. You can similarly upgrade yourself before every major boss by exploring the world. The only limiting factor is bosses being too fast for people with issues in reaction time. The only two 'solutions' are to increase player health, which will just extend their issues, or to slow the game down, which could cause issues with the game's timing with deflections and i-frames, I also doubt slowing the game down would be enjoyable compared to a platformer like Celeste. Basically easy mode is a lazy, unimaginative way of increasing accessibility when a game can be designed to allow players to dictate their own difficulty. I also don't think it's an issue for developers to set a minimum skill level on their game if they're trying to deliver a specific experience. Not every game has to be for every person, I don't think Kirby or the Yoshi games should have hard modes. I also just want to note that sites like AbleGamers call for accessibility options to be added to games long before suggesting changes to difficulty because disabled gamers don't want to play watered down versions of games, they don't want to be relegated to a baby mode. It's game journalists who immediately leap to crying for easy modes and use disabled people as a shield from criticism. AbleGamers have a web page for developer to reference when they're trying to make their game accessible for disabled gamers. On it they specifically note that they don't want developers to compromise their games experiences in an attempt to appeal to disabled gamers: Providing access to your games and adapting the challenge changes your game. But we are not saying you should limit or water down the experience your game offers. If you want your game to offer the edge-of-the-seat tension of stalking a wild animal through the forest then that’s the player experience you should be aiming for.

Yeah I think the issue here isn't accessibility but game journos using it as an excuse because they can't hack it despite having no valid excuse themselves. There was even a PC Gamer article titled something stupid like "I used cheats to beat the final boss of Sekiro and I feel fine," and rather than saying "I just wanted to beat the game in a timely fashion so I could review it/give impressions" and owning up to it, the article was instead them bitching about how the final boss isn't just challenging, it's straight up unfair and the use of cheats was justified and blah blah blah. Sekiro did really well at blowing these people out of the water for their ineptitude, but the argument of accessibility is being used as a tool to try and cover that up, not because they actually give a shit.

Imagine being bad at your job and when called out on it you say "Well we need people of all skill levels." You don't need to be bad at games to find faults with a game's accessibility, it's actually important to be good at games, and understand them, to know the difference between good and bad design.

I've never liked easy modes because they take away resources from developing the intended experience. If you have a properly balanced "easy mode" that's dev time and QA devoted just to testing the same game you made over again, and there's always somebody who's going to find something too hard so there's only so far it can go unless it starts eating into the actual mechanics of the game. It goes both ways, hard modes are usually included too and end up feeling just as tacked on. Half-Life's method of increasing/decreasing bullet sponge valve went with really kills the fun of actually shooting things on harder difficulties and makes the game harder but less enjoyable as a result. I'm not against accessibility but I'd rather it be done in a way that doesn't nullify the actual gameplay of the game. On top of this we already have way more games that don't target skillful players anyway where the hard modes are just an afterthought, so I see something so big going for a harder to learn game and actually sticking to it pretty respectable

Also, @Bald & Beautiful I didn't mean to rate you dumb, I didn't notice I did it. I rated @MediocreSpine dumb because I think easy modes are boring and lazy and treat disabled gamers like they're lesser than able gamers. As explained above.

The guy who published that article wasn't the guy who wrote their Sekiro review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZgUt7VHcis Reminds me of this fine, fine specimen~

Then should only speedrunners and expert players be able to review games? (especially hard ones) logically that follows. This type of toxicity is terrible for gaming artform. Game journalism is far greater than just being able to "play gaems gud", consider Jason Schreier, a foundational game journalist. Decidedly not an expert player, yet has made extremely important contributions to the field (A serious chunk of relevant videos posted in this section, source him). The whole thesis here is basically that you expect players to grind and trade time for what is basically an easy mode. How about you let players chose what their difficulty mode is? If a disabled player can play on a higher difficulty mode, they can pick that. If not they can pick an easier mode. Or how about non-disabled players? I'm damn good at DMC3, but sometimes I just want to kick back and focus on breezing through a few missions. None of these options disrespect disabled players – literally they chose what challenge they can face, this is LITERALLY the point of difficulty options.

Soulsborne games are designed around their difficulty and I think a good argument can be made that an "easy mode" compromises the experience if you can chicken out of it.

Okay. I said game reviewers should be good at games. I didn't say they needed to be experts or speedrunner, I said they need to not be fucking shit. If you can't beat a game you're set to review, and it's not a fault of the game being broken, then you are bad at your job. You can't review something if you don't know anything about it. Wow such toxicity, expecting people who play games for a living to be fucking competent at playing them. How fucking unreasonable of me. As for the 'thesis' I was saying in From Software's games if you can't tackle a particular challenge you almost always have other options to take, grinding was only one of the many things I suggested. But sure, just ignore the entire post to strawman my point as "grind and waste your time", whatever. Want to play an easy game? Play a different game, there are millions of them. In any of From's games except Sekiro you can play a tank build and be practically invincible, there's your easy mode. DMC has an easy mode but it actively mocks you for using it, going so far as to deduct points from you for using it. Allowing different modes is a developer choice, as is saying "There's one difficulty, get good."