(Silly title warning) Are Video Games RUINING Gaming? - General

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50310249]The issue, in my opinion, of an easy mode is that if a game is forcing itself to design an easier way to play the game, the game developers [B]have[/B] to shift resources away from the real game, to create a secondary difficulty system that changes the way the game functions in serious ways. I can't see how this doesn't negatively affect games. [editline]12th May 2016[/editline] Redesigning a game like Dark Souls to have an option casual element would definitely mean a loss of resources from the game. Games have finite budgets, the secondary difficulty will have to take away from that. So in the case of game like Dark Souls 1, the end game of that game would be even more fucked up and rushed. That's fucking terrible for gamers as a whole.[/QUOTE] Even though I've agreed with the opinion the whole time. This is the only argument for this side that is actually well thought out, rather than people saying that people shouldn't want an easy mode because they're dumb, lazy, or pussies.

He definitely has a point when it comes to racing games and the rewind systems that have really started to come into vogue in them. Back when fucking up a corner could cost you the race and you had to start over from the beginning, finally beating a tough race was an incredibly awesome feeling. Now it's just "Oh whoops I didn't do that as optimally as I could, lemme just hit Y and try again" repeated ad nauseam and it doesn't really feel like you accomplished anything. Anyone can win when given the ability to repeat the same 5 second segments infinitely until you get it right, so your victory feels really hollow.

Well this is just another of the flaws of the AAA industry that the indie scene vastly exploits to great effect. People say that games are in a horrible spot, but so long as indies are around I feel that's going to be always moot. Pretty much every time somebody gets disappointed with the big games, they make their own and sell it to like-minded people. Everyone wins.

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;50310299]Yeah exactly. The great part of fighting a tough boss or beating a tough game is that sensation of winning and achieving something. If you just have an easy mode "because I don't want to learn how to play" don't even bother at all.[/QUOTE] I just want to choose whether I want to bother learning the game or not. Dark Souls is one of the few story-driven games that doesn't give you the choice, and I think it's not very nice of them. I still don't get people complaining about Easy Mode making it worse for everyone. I play Skyrim on lowest difficulty but that doesn't stop people from enjoying the game in the hardest difficulty, being proud about it and posting about it on forums. As for "it would be diverting resources and effort from the game itself", well... I may be wrong, but I'm not under the impression that tweaking a few values would be a lot of effort. If those values can be tweaked with CheatEngine, surely it shouldn't be much harder for a dev?

I think another one of the issues is how games cost money. That might seem odd, but when you don't have the time or patience to "get good" at a game, you're basically being screwed out of $60 for an experience you won't be able to enjoy. Games are a weird medium, in that they require the player to have a certain level of skill in order to fully enjoy the medium. Which is why casual games exist, and why modern games are a lot more casual.

[QUOTE=Loadingue;50312380]I just want to choose whether I want to bother learning the game or not. Dark Souls is one of the few story-driven games that doesn't give you the choice, and I think it's not very nice of them. I still don't get people complaining about Easy Mode making it worse for everyone. I play Skyrim on lowest difficulty but that doesn't stop people from enjoying the game in the hardest difficulty, being proud about it and posting about it on forums. As for "it would be diverting resources and effort from the game itself", well... I may be wrong, but I'm not under the impression that tweaking a few values would be a lot of effort. If those values can be tweaked with CheatEngine, surely it shouldn't be much harder for a dev?[/QUOTE] You play Skyrim on easy? Skyrim of all games? Dude what? Why do you not like challenges whatsoever. Like when you saw you had to fight dragons you just went: "Well if I fought a Dragon in real life I couldn't win so I must put it on easy mode:. I'm really confused on why you do this.

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;50312734]You play Skyrim on easy? Skyrim of all games? Dude what? Why do you not like challenges whatsoever. Like when you saw you had to fight dragons you just went: "Well if I fought a Dragon in real life I couldn't win so I must put it on easy mode:. I'm really confused on why you do this.[/QUOTE] ...because I don't care about combat?? It's not so hard to understand, is it? I care about everything else except combat. Can't you just admit there are people out there who don't want to play the same way as you?

[QUOTE=Loadingue;50312767]...because I don't care about combat?? It's not so hard to understand, is it? I care about everything else except combat. Can't you just admit there are people out there who don't want to play the same way as you?[/QUOTE] Why not just watch a let's play then? You're getting everything you want besides the oh so tedious and boring gameplay you don't care about.

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;50312734]You play Skyrim on easy? Skyrim of all games? Dude what? Why do you not like challenges whatsoever. Like when you saw you had to fight dragons you just went: "Well if I fought a Dragon in real life I couldn't win so I must put it on easy mode:. I'm really confused on why you do this.[/QUOTE] You're the problem with gaming, judging people for their playstyle. Why do you care so much about how others play their games? [editline]13th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=SpartanXC9;50312796]Why not just watch a let's play then? You're getting everything you want besides the oh so tedious and boring gameplay you don't care about.[/QUOTE] Because he wants to PLAY it. Are you really that ignorant?

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;50312798]You're the problem with gaming, judging people for their playstyle. Why do you care so much about how others play their games? [editline]13th May 2016[/editline] Because he wants to PLAY it. Are you really that ignorant?[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Loadingue;50309851] Exactly my opinion on most story-driven games. I just want to enjoy the story, universe, art, music, etc. [b]I don't care about combat.[/b][/QUOTE] Uh doesn't seem like it. If you don't want to bother with combat (you know the gameplay portion of games) why bother? Games are expensive so if you don't want to play them but only get the art/story/music/universe from them watch a let's play.

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;50312798]Because he wants to PLAY it. Are you really that ignorant?[/QUOTE] Yeah, exactly. Watching's not the same at all, I want to play the game at my own pace, have the time to look at things and enjoy the details in the environment. And in an RPG or just any non-linear game, it's simply critical to play it to enjoy it. [editline]13th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=SpartanXC9;50312819]Uh doesn't seem like it. If you don't want to bother with combat (you know the gameplay portion of games) why bother? Games are expensive so if you don't want to play them but only get the art/story/music/universe from them watch a let's play.[/QUOTE] Combat != gameplay. If the whole gameplay is 100% combat, then I might skip the game, yes.

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;50312819]Uh doesn't seem like it. If you don't want to bother with combat (you know the gameplay portion of games) why bother? Games are expensive so if you don't want to play them but only get the art/story/music/universe from them watch a let's play.[/QUOTE] Games are not expensive. I got skyrim for 5 euros, that's dirt cheap. I will play it however I want, your dumb ego trips need to be worked on though. If people want to play games on easy, it's their business, not yours. Why do you have to be so nosy and force your opinions on others?

[QUOTE=Loadingue;50309935]"Could"? Is it really important to players how others might play the game? Genuine question, are you bothered to know people could play the game with less difficulty if they wished.[/QUOTE] Yes, actually. For some games, such as Dark Souls, having a lesser difficulty would be a legitimate problem. One of the big elements that makes Dark Souls unique is that it encourages you to find what works best for you. It encourages you to experiment with different strategies, equipment, weapons, spells and items to beat the game. If an easy mode existed, it would essentially be the superior strategy for every encounter. It would ruin a lot of the tension, because you know that if you can't beat it, you could always just switch to easy mode. You don't get that feeling of having to power through, to find the right strategy to defeat the obstacle. Because there's an easy way out built directly into the game.

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;50312734]You play Skyrim on easy? Skyrim of all games? Dude what? Why do you not like challenges whatsoever. Like when you saw you had to fight dragons you just went: "Well if I fought a Dragon in real life I couldn't win so I must put it on easy mode:. I'm really confused on why you do this.[/QUOTE] Probably the biggest mistake I've ever made in a game was deciding to play Wolfenstein: The New Order on the hardest difficulty. It stopped being engaging very quickly and just became downright frustrating. The game doesn't get any more complex, it just makes enemies do more damage and you do less. It wasn't fun, it wasn't engaging. Dying repeatedly over and over again wasn't fun. My bread and butter games tend to be Strategy games, and in these games you losing a battle or a war isn't the end, it just means you have to reconfigure your strategy and move forward from that loss in a meaningful way, you're taking the situation you've now been put into and adapting, it's not over until your Empire is crushed. For any other "normal" game this is the opposite, and dying just puts all the pieces back where they were and to me that isn't engaging or fun at all and quite literally turns me off of the game, with a few exceptions - those being the MGS games and The Witcher 3, where my deaths actually feel like my fault and not the fault of the game fucking me over. Which also brings me to the point of difficulty levels, since most of the time they fucking suck and don't actually create a meaningful challenge. Doing less damage while taking more isn't fun, it just gives the AI an advantage and it isn't balanced out. Like my optimal sort of "hard" mode would be the AI dying in same couple of shots the player does, then the AI doesn't have an unfair advantage over me, but it's still a challenge and feels less BS like. In Strategy games like Total War all the harder difficulties do is give the AI more and more advantages, and that's just not fun to deal with. They get all these ridiculous boosts to how many men/armies they can field, income, all of that fun stuff - but the AI underneath is the exact same as it is underneath. It pulls off the same shit it always can, just faster because of those boosts and it isn't fun or interesting to deal with.

[QUOTE=elowin;50312872]Yes, actually. For some games, such as Dark Souls, having a lesser difficulty would be a legitimate problem. One of the big elements that makes Dark Souls unique is that it encourages you to find what works best for you. It encourages you to experiment with different strategies, equipment, weapons, spells and items to beat the game. If an easy mode existed, it would essentially be the superior strategy for every encounter. It would ruin a lot of the tension, because you know that if you can't beat it, you could always just switch to easy mode. You don't get that feeling of having to power through, to find the right strategy to defeat the obstacle. Because there's an easy way out built directly into the game.[/QUOTE] And that is why DS does not have an easy mode and your argument is moot. Skyrim does not change at all no matter which difficulty you play on.

[QUOTE=Loadingue;50312380]I just want to choose whether I want to bother learning the game or not. Dark Souls is one of the few story-driven games that doesn't give you the choice, and I think it's not very nice of them.I still don't get people complaining about Easy Mode making it worse for everyone. I play Skyrim on lowest difficulty but that doesn't stop people from enjoying the game in the hardest difficulty, being proud about it and posting about it on forums.As for "it would be diverting resources and effort from the game itself", well... I may be wrong, but I'm not under the impression that tweaking a few values would be a lot of effort. If those values can be tweaked with CheatEngine, surely it shouldn't be much harder for a dev?[/QUOTE] It's not a question of whether the developers want you to "suffer" or whatever when they don't included some form of difficulty setting, but rather what the intended experience of the game is. Take Skyrim, as you metioned it yourself. What is it the developer wants the player to experience? Well, they want the player to feel like an legendary hero, travelling the land and slaying lots of bad dudes. Whether the player wants to challenge themselves or not does not impact the intended experience; after all, a player who kills a ton of dudes on easy mode more than likely feels just as much like an badass as the guy who did the same on hard mode. But that is not the intended experience in a game like Dark Souls. You're not an hero in those games, your a small insignificant nobody who, by sheer "luck", gets wrapped up in something much bigger than yourself, something that is hard to understand, something that is much more powerfull and ancient than you could ever imagine... Essentially, your close to hopeless and only through applying yourself will you ever even get the chance to complete your task. The game is not hard to frustrate, but to deliver a certain set of emotions; despair, hopelesness, decay, fear... and most importantly, hope. If you were to create an easy mode for DS, and play that, you would be removing the very core of the experience, the very essence... essentially, you would not be playing DS anymore, but rather another generic fantasy RPG. For what meaning does DS lore, world, and story have if you can take it easy and just stroll through the game without the threat of death hanging over your head constantly? That element makes DS unique man. I have always disagreed with the notion of making games that cater to everyone, because it would homogonize and water down pretty much anything that would attempt such a thing. As long as an developer never develops a game with the intend of specifically excluding anyone, that is fine by me. Even though I would love for Gone Home to have actual gameplay (puzzles or something) I would never demand that the devs cater the game to my tastes because that would go against their vision, and I'm happy knowing that there exists so many varied games that appeal to differentieret people, and provide different experience. So what if you can't enjoy DS because you hate the difficulty? I'm sure you can find a million games out there that provide you with the experience you want, without it having to change something that is amazing the way it is.

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;50312883]And that is why DS does not have an easy mode and your argument is moot. Skyrim does not change at all no matter which difficulty you play on.[/QUOTE] I was not talking about Skyrim. I don't give a flying fuck what difficulty you play Skyrim on.

[QUOTE=Loadingue;50309708]Also walking simulators are games, you can't just say "they're not games because they don't fit my own description of games". I can't take anyone who says that seriously, considering how hypocritical it is.[/QUOTE] Walking simulators aren't games, they're interactive fiction. Games are a subset of interactive fiction, but interactive fiction does not imply a game. Interactive fiction simply means that you can interact with it, but a game extends that definition to provide rules creating gameplay and win/fail states. That's my two cents on walking simulators. [editline]13th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=bdd458;50312882]Probably the biggest mistake I've ever made in a game was deciding to play Wolfenstein: The New Order on the hardest difficulty. It stopped being engaging very quickly and just became downright frustrating. The game doesn't get any more complex, it just makes enemies do more damage and you do less. It wasn't fun, it wasn't engaging. Dying repeatedly over and over again wasn't fun. :snip: Which also brings me to the point of difficulty levels, since most of the time they fucking suck and don't actually create a meaningful challenge. Doing less damage while taking more isn't fun, it just gives the AI an advantage and it isn't balanced out. Like my optimal sort of "hard" mode would be the AI dying in same couple of shots the player does, then the AI doesn't have an unfair advantage over me, but it's still a challenge and feels less BS like. In Strategy games like Total War all the harder difficulties do is give the AI more and more advantages, and that's just not fun to deal with. They get all these ridiculous boosts to how many men/armies they can field, income, all of that fun stuff - but the AI underneath is the exact same as it is underneath. It pulls off the same shit it always can, just faster because of those boosts and it isn't fun or interesting to deal with.[/QUOTE] That's just poor/lazy difficulty scaling. I think a better example of difficulty scaling would be something like Sniper Elite, where the easiest difficulty plays like your run of the mill FPS with dumb AI and simple point-and-click gunplay, whereas the hardest difficulty makes the AI more alert and introduces realistic bullet physics, where wind and gravity affect your shots and you have to compensate for them.

[QUOTE=elowin;50312903]I was not talking about Skyrim. I don't give a flying fuck what difficulty you play Skyrim on.[/QUOTE]What do you give a fuck about then? How people play DS? I'm sure they all play it the same. Still not sure what your argument is if any.

[QUOTE=Loadingue;50309708] Also walking simulators are games, you can't just say "they're not games because they don't fit my own description of games". I can't take anyone who says that seriously, considering how hypocritical it is. [/QUOTE] If you can't loose it's not a game

[QUOTE=bdd458;50312882]Probably the biggest mistake I've ever made in a game was deciding to play Wolfenstein: The New Order on the hardest difficulty. It stopped being engaging very quickly and just became downright frustrating. The game doesn't get any more complex, it just makes enemies do more damage and you do less. It wasn't fun, it wasn't engaging. Dying repeatedly over and over again wasn't fun. My bread and butter games tend to be Strategy games, and in these games you losing a battle or a war isn't the end, it just means you have to reconfigure your strategy and move forward from that loss in a meaningful way, you're taking the situation you've now been put into and adapting, it's not over until your Empire is crushed. For any other "normal" game this is the opposite, and dying just puts all the pieces back where they were and to me that isn't engaging or fun at all and quite literally turns me off of the game, with a few exceptions - those being the MGS games and The Witcher 3, where my deaths actually feel like my fault and not the fault of the game fucking me over. Which also brings me to the point of difficulty levels, since most of the time they fucking suck and don't actually create a meaningful challenge. Doing less damage while taking more isn't fun, it just gives the AI an advantage and it isn't balanced out. Like my optimal sort of "hard" mode would be the AI dying in same couple of shots the player does, then the AI doesn't have an unfair advantage over me, but it's still a challenge and feels less BS like. In Strategy games like Total War all the harder difficulties do is give the AI more and more advantages, and that's just not fun to deal with. They get all these ridiculous boosts to how many men/armies they can field, income, all of that fun stuff - but the AI underneath is the exact same as it is underneath. It pulls off the same shit it always can, just faster because of those boosts and it isn't fun or interesting to deal with.[/QUOTE] I completely agree with you on difficulties. I don't think playing on higher difficulties is generally more engaging than not. There are some exceptions where the higher difficulties genuinely changes the game to be more interesting. Artificial difficulty sucks. But legitimate challenge can still be great fun though, it just requires that your game is designed around those challenges. [QUOTE=rndgenerator;50312921]What do you give a fuck about then? How people play DS? I'm sure they all play it the same. Still not sure what your argument is if any.[/QUOTE] My argument is that, in a game such as Dark Souls where a significant part of the appeal is the challenge, having the option to remove that challenge would make that game less engaging for me. So I wouldn't want a game like that to have an easy mode, as he was suggesting earlier.

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;50312929]If you can't loose it's not a game[/QUOTE] Outdated and invalid term these days. Try again.

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;50312943]Outdated and invalid term these days. Try again.[/QUOTE] There is so much wrong with what you just said oh my god. A game is something with a win/loose state Soccer/Chess/Football are all games

[QUOTE=elowin;50312942]I completely agree with you on difficulties. I don't think playing on higher difficulties is generally more engaging than not. There are some exceptions where the higher difficulties genuinely changes the game to be more interesting. Artificial difficulty sucks. But legitimate challenge can still be great fun though, it just requires that your game is designed around those challenges. My argument is that, in a game such as Dark Souls where a significant part of the appeal is the challenge, having the option to remove that challenge would make that game less engaging for me. So I wouldn't want a game like that to have an easy mode, as he was suggesting earlier.[/QUOTE] In my experience Dark Souls isn't as challengening as it is it goes against your usual gaming conventions, I'm not very far into it but like the Asylum Demon for example. You'd think when you're first pitted against him that you have to fight him, I sure as hell made that mistake my first time going through - when in reality the much better option is going through the door on the left (Yes, I know it's possible to kill him with the broken sword but its extremely difficult). So like Dark Souls is more about breaking out of your usual mindset within games, at least in my limited experience with it.

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;50312819]Uh doesn't seem like it. If you don't want to bother with combat (you know the gameplay portion of games) why bother? Games are expensive so if you don't want to play them but only get the art/story/music/universe from them watch a let's play.[/QUOTE] There are parts to the game-play other than the combat you know, such as the exploration aspect.

[QUOTE=bdd458;50312977]In my experience Dark Souls isn't as challengening as it is it goes against your usual gaming conventions, I'm not very far into it but like the Asylum Demon for example. You'd think when you're first pitted against him that you have to fight him, I sure as hell made that mistake my first time going through - when in reality the much better option is going through the door on the left (Yes, I know it's possible to kill him with the broken sword but its extremely difficult). So like Dark Souls is more about breaking out of your usual mindset within games, at least in my limited experience with it.[/QUOTE] You should probably play a but further before you say something like that. Although now I'm assuming that you haven't played much further, I don't really know how far you've gotten with it. Challenge is a huge part of the game, though. That challenge comes in many different forms. As I said in my earlier post, a large part of it is experimenting with different strategies, finding out what works for a particular encounter. So the challenge doesn't come purely from skill and reflexes, although that's a very large part of it. Also, there's a message right by the Asylum Demon telling you to run. The Asylum is pretty easy since it's the tutorial area.

[QUOTE=bdd458;50312977]In my experience Dark Souls isn't as challengening as it is it goes against your usual gaming conventions, I'm not very far into it but like the Asylum Demon for example. You'd think when you're first pitted against him that you have to fight him, I sure as hell made that mistake my first time going through - when in reality the much better option is going through the door on the left (Yes, I know it's possible to kill him with the broken sword but its extremely difficult). So like Dark Souls is more about breaking out of your usual mindset within games, at least in my limited experience with it.[/QUOTE] Get past the tutorial

[QUOTE=Lone_Star94;50309657]Problem still remains, time is still more valuable than learning a game.[/QUOTE] I don't get when people say this. I play games to have fun, not to make productive use of my time. Otherwise I most definitely would be doing something else. Learning is just part of the journey, and it's part of the fun (assuming the game is well designed).

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;50312796]Why not just watch a let's play then? You're getting everything you want besides the oh so tedious and boring gameplay you don't care about.[/QUOTE] Dude, the combat in Skyrim [I]is[/I] tedious and boring. That's why changing the difficulty "works" at all. The only things that really matter are damage and health, and those can easily be tinkered with. But the difficulty of Dark Souls is a much more complicated beast. How [I]would[/I] you even change it? More health? Damage? Poise? Infinite stamina? Wider ledges and slower enemies? I love Dark Souls but honestly I'll play most games on Easy if it lets me, because any difficulty above it is likely to just have enemies that die slower and hit harder, none of which are qualities that make the gameplay more enjoyable to me. I honestly don't give a shit about 'overcoming challenges'. The fun in Dark Souls is the satisfaction of nailing dodge rolls and parries and slashing multiple enemies to death at once or dancing around all the attacks of a boss. This is the reason why I can't see the sense in wanting an Easy Mode for Dark Souls, but understand and enjoy the fact that there is one for Skyrim - In Dark Souls, there would be no reason to use the gameplay mechanics if you could just tank through enemies' attacks and kill them carelessly. In Skyrim, you don't lose anything from tuning down the difficulty, unless you enjoy the type of difficulty that involves planning ahead with the right potions and equipment to overcome the enemies. In any case, gaming as a whole needs diversity. There should be difficult games, and there should be some games that do not allow you to have an easy time. We should absolutely praise Dark Souls for managing to be that and also being a great experience at the same time. If you don't like challenges, you should still be able to appreciate it for its uniqueness, rather than call for conformity. Honestly I really thought hard and long about what I should say to this topic. I found it really interesting when I realized that I hate playing on anything above Normal in most games while simultaneously being a big fan of the Souls games.

He's right about the Far Cry series in a way. I loved the punishing nature of Far Cry 2, the fact that every decision I made in combat mattered. In Far Cry 3 and 3.5 that feeling has completely vanished, with checkpoints every 2 minutes and AI with the intelligence of a fucking amoeba. (Though even that is pushing it, at least amoebas are able to navigate a maze.)