• Game Makers Toolkit - Should Dark Souls have an Easy Mode?
    57 replies, posted
What a weird question. I mean the whole fucking hype around the game is its difficulty or hell its not even difficulty its just being very careful and learning how your enemy behaves and removing that fundamental part would remove a core element of the game in which you just follow a path, ram the X button and hop around
The question is rhetorical and the video explains this. I feel like no one watched the video.
[QUOTE=Raidyr;50201030]The question is rhetorical and the video explains this. I feel like no one watched the video.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=mooman1080;50198510]Do you expect different ratings when the title of a video is the qeustion it self "should the game have an easy mode?"[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=MenteR;50201096][/QUOTE] I wasn't talking about ratings I was talking about the replies saying it's a dumb question then using the exact same logic the video uses to explain why an easy mode isn't necessary.
Pfft, Dark Souls 3 [i]is[/i] easy mode. Also, great channel, never heard of him before. Thanks for sharing this!
When it comes to difficulty in games, Dark Souls never caught my eye for it. Personally, I really enjoyed Super Meat Boy, Super Hexagon and others like them, games touted as being extremely difficult, but Dark Souls was something that I gave a shot and it just never really clicked. The difference between these challenges is that Dark Souls is really punishing about it. Where the others I mentioned have much higher death counts, those deaths are so fast that you don't even have time to think about them, whereas Dark Souls makes death as punishing as possible by making it long, shoving it in your face and actually taking stuff away from you. Should Dark Souls have an easy mode? No, I don't really think so. Making it easy could ruin the theme or reason people should really play. I can see the argument for it, to make it accessible to players who don't want the game to be so punishing, but even as someone who didn't like it for how punishing it was, I don't believe it will help very many actually enjoy the experience.
I don't think that Dark Souls should be made easier but I wouldn't complain if someone else made a game similar to Dark Souls but was slightly more accessible. My only real complaint about the Souls formula is the multiplayer summoning aspect of it. I know it's part of what makes the game what it is, and I wouldn't want them to change it, but I'd like a game with Souls-like combat but where my friends can join me for co-op and that's it, they're with me for the rest of the play session like any other co-op game instead of being kicked out after a boss fight or when the host dies.
I feel like an "Easy Mode" would split the community. People would complain that the point of Dark Souls was that it was Nintendo Hard and that people needed to learn from their mistakes and nothing was spoon-fed you. Then other people would complain that the difficulty was BS all along and a Easy Mode was what we needed. Hell, Dark Souls 3 MOCKS those easy mode complainers. [url]http://darksouls3.wiki.fextralife.com/Simple+Gem[/url] Desc. [I]"A gem of infused titanite, said to be an object of infatuation for victims of stunted development. Used in infusion to create simple weapons. Simple weapons inflict magic damage and restore FP very gradually, to help even a simpleton muster some mettle."[/I] One of my favorite Youtubers complained about Dark Soul's difficulty(albeit "whined" about it), and it'd be a guess that he'd be all in for a "Easy Mode." I think there should be spin-offs of the Souls formula by the same developers with the intent of making the universe accessible, and not just 3rd party rip-offs. Make a point-click game ala Walking Dead for Lore lovers as an example.
how would you even fit difficulty settings in with the online play?
[QUOTE=squids_eye;50202483]I don't think that Dark Souls should be made easier but I wouldn't complain if someone else made a game similar to Dark Souls but was slightly more accessible. My only real complaint about the Souls formula is the multiplayer summoning aspect of it. I know it's part of what makes the game what it is, and I wouldn't want them to change it, but I'd like a game with Souls-like combat but where my friends can join me for co-op and that's it, they're with me for the rest of the play session like any other co-op game instead of being kicked out after a boss fight or when the host dies.[/QUOTE] The multiplayer aspects of Dark Souls are so specific, I feel like a lot of people don't get it because it appeals to some niche of people with just the right mindset. I tend to end up isolating myself completely in my game because multiplayer isn't geared toward me. I get how it would make sense if you're a person who wants to go through the game with help. You use the Humanity/Ember, summon some helpers, invaders show up, maybe you fail at the boss, you end up wanting to be the summon so you can learn the boss' moves and earn more Humanity/Embers and the cycle continues. But the moment you have motivations outside of this, [i](Co-op with specific people or wanting to beat the bosses alone)[/i] the whole rigmarole can come off as awkward and inflexible. About the difficulty, I think there's something wrong with how people talk about Dark Souls and difficulty in general. I'm not sure what it is though. I'm a big fan of the Soulsborne games but honestly, I find myself choosing the easier difficulty settings when a game gives me the chance. I don't much care about 'being challenged' as much as I care about experiencing game play with good flow. Take something like Bethesda's games - notorious for how they handle difficulty. Upping the difficulty definitely gives you a challenge, but I'm personally not interested in being pushed to plan everything ahead, carrying and managing useful potions, spells and gear. I just want to kill some dudes and feel good doing it. Dark Souls, 'difficult' as it is, lets me do this. Dark Souls doesn't care if I'm even wearing armor, it just tells me [i]"Well, then roll or parry, see if I care."[/i] and so I dance. I think the most satisfying part of the Dark Souls gameplay is nailing dodges and nailing parries. So for my particular tastes, it would probably be very possible to create an easier game as long as you still get rewarded for dodging through and into attacks and parrying. As an example, with certain runes in Bloodborne, parrying rewards you with Quicksilver bullets and health up the ass for pulling off parries, AND parrying is easier in Bloodborne than in any other Souls game. Bloodborne is my absolute favorite of them all, so it is definitely possible.
The Dark Souls games should not have an easy mode. As elitist and jerkass-y as this may sound, not every series or game out there needs to be contorted and figured to appeal to everyone. Dark Souls is known for its challenge, sometimes fair and sometimes bullshit, and its reached mainstream appeal even despite this in an industry era where easy, handholding games are commonplace since most triple-A devs try to appeal towards everyone they can. Hell, Dark Souls 3 is Bandai Namco's [i]fastest selling game ever,[/i] in spite of a lack of difficulty settings. They did take a number of measures to accommodate for those who don't like certain features and functionality, and the player has plenty of choice in how they want to make things harder or easier on themselves, without butchering the game and its difficulty or intent inherently.
Like Mark says in the video some people just want to explore the world or experience the lore of not just dark souls but a bunch of games. I remember a while ago seeing some disabled guy praising L.A Noire and Mass Effect(?) for the options to skip combat segments because he just wasn't able to do them but still wanted to see their respective stories unfold. Though I do see the argument for the developers intentions for those games to have combat/the feeling of overcoming a huge challenge in the souls games I don't see why they'd effect the non casual players. I guess there would be a fear that they'd dumb down the game to make it appeal to a broader and therefore more casual audience but as long as the two difficulty modes were kept distinct I don't see a problem.
I'm considering maybe buying this, is this playable without a controller at all and just M&K? Also, what, only 77% positive rating in the steam store?
[QUOTE=StrawberryClock;50211461]I'm considering maybe buying this, is this playable without a controller at all and just M&K?[/QUOTE] You can, but its' not a smart move. Pick up a USB 360 controller, as it goes a long way for a lot of games. [QUOTE=StrawberryClock;50211461]Also, what, only 77% positive rating in the steam store?[/QUOTE] High cost, linear world, not enough innovations on the base game, supposedly easier difficulty, and a botched PvP Meta are just a few reasons as to why - or so I've heard
Summoning phantoms to help you is the easy mode.
[QUOTE=Doom14;50212120]You can, but its' not a smart move. Pick up a USB 360 controller, as it goes a long way for a lot of games. High cost, linear world, not enough innovations on the base game, supposedly easier difficulty, and a botched PvP Meta are just a few reasons as to why - or so I've heard[/QUOTE] Seems like most complaints are regarding FROM's botched handling of hackers and flagging.
[QUOTE=StrawberryClock;50212223]Seems like most complaints are regarding FROM's botched handling of hackers and flagging.[/QUOTE] I can't comment on flagging, but hasn't Dark Souls always had notoriously shitty anti-hack? ie absolutely none?
No. The game that's done difficulty the best in my opinion is God Hand. It rewards the player for doing well by cranking up the difficulty on the fly. As if to say "OH YEAH?", and conversely "YOU FUCKING LOSER CLEARLY CAN'T HANDLE THIS"
[QUOTE=Virtanen;50212445]No. The game that's done difficulty the best in my opinion is God Hand. It rewards the player for doing well by cranking up the difficulty on the fly. As if to say "OH YEAH?", and conversely "YOU FUCKING LOSER CLEARLY CAN'T HANDLE THIS"[/QUOTE] Eh, I really hate games with dynamically scaling difficulty. Like, it means you can't really "master" a set of parameters. Just look at Homeworld 2 and how it would spawn exponentially more enemy ships depending on how many you ended a mission with, that was BS.
[QUOTE=Dirty_Ape;50212205]Summoning phantoms to help you is the easy mode.[/QUOTE] Sometimes. A couple of players can gang up on enemies easily, and in the right circumstances a phantom can draw aggro from a host, especially in boss fights, which can elongate one's survival. But enemy health scales up a little to compensate, and if a phantom is blindsided or dumb as balls then they're basically going to be no help at all AND the enemies are a little tougher to boot.
[QUOTE=StrawberryClock;50211461]I'm considering maybe buying this, is this playable without a controller at all and just M&K? Also, what, only 77% positive rating in the steam store?[/QUOTE] I imagine it going like this: people who haven't played Dark Souls before will be satisfied by this game (assuming they're receptive to the difficulty), people who have played earlier Dark Souls will find this one to a faster change of pace with more breadth, and people who have played Bloodborne will think this is Bloodborne 1.5, or perhaps more accurately, a natural progression for the series using the lessons learned from Bloodborne. I think a lot of the difficulty has been removed from this latest entry with the addition of fast travel, the magic meter, and bosses that are overall easier to kill (or reliant on gimmicks to beat). It's not [i]easy[/i], just easier, and I think that's the consensus among many returning players. tl;dr: It's the first Souls game I would describe as "fun" before "challenging". Not really a bad thing, but not really a "Souls" thing either.
[QUOTE=RikohZX;50213388]Sometimes. A couple of players can gang up on enemies easily, and in the right circumstances a phantom can draw aggro from a host, especially in boss fights, which can elongate one's survival. But enemy health scales up a little to compensate, and if a phantom is blindsided or dumb as balls then they're basically going to be no help at all AND the enemies are a little tougher to boot.[/QUOTE] Even Dark Souls' version of 'easy mode' can't help you if you're retarded.
So basically if you never played a souls game it's a good entry to start with?
[QUOTE=StrawberryClock;50215862]So basically if you never played a souls game it's a good entry to start with?[/QUOTE] Only because it's the most refined of the games. It does away with some of the aspects of the previous games that were less than stellar IMO, but it doesn't change the formula up in any big ways. Personally, I just think of all of the Soulsbourne games as one giant game. They're all similar enough that they play alike, they're all based on the same basic rules. I think they're all worth investing in personally.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;50215887]Only because it's the most refined of the games. It does away with some of the aspects of the previous games that were less than stellar IMO, but it doesn't change the formula up in any big ways.[/QUOTE] Unfortunately, the mistakes that I see DS3 making are only more easily ignored if you're already a vet Soulsborne player. DS1 is about the only one in the series where everything feels viable build-wise, and the pacing is just about right if you're heading the recommended ways. And at the same time, you can do a 180 and start fuckin' bout in the Catacombs 5 minutes in if you're ballsy enough. The SL-level system is also nice for online play next to the fetal abortion called Soul Memory. Sure, you might get invaded by asshole vets at SL0-10, but you can also wriggle right out of the entire thing all together once you level up enough. There are also now nice PC options like Wulf's connectivity mod and anti-cheater tools available if you want to forgo getting invaded by a cunt all together. The downside obviously being that the PvP Covenants are kind of dead now.
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