on a side note, it is user friendly to have these modifiers and options, for example in Minecraft not everything is based on mechanics but rather player freedom, and that's the point of the game, I think it is essential to have a difficulty option for the player there.
Also in theory of game design - what you're talking abour as "fun zone" is called flow state, when difficulty is just right. Here's the thing - but this depends on player skill. Less skilled players WILL achieve "the fun zone" on easy difficulty. So your premise ignores existence of everyone but people as skilled as yourself.
Mehcanics can be gradually introduced and taught to the player one at a time so that they can have the skill necessary to use all of the mechanics. This is what happens in Doom Eternal. The more tools you have, the more difficult the game becomes, and the more urgency you have. Contrast that to a game like Skyrim, where the more tools you get the easier the game becomes, until the tools become boring and no longer exciting as they aren't necessary. You don't start off skilled at a game, you develop the skill by playing and learning the game, and taking in the lessons it teaches you as you play.
@@CorrosiveCitrus Yes, but each player starts at a different baseline skill - a child who never played a game will be less skilled than a Call of Duty veteran starting a new military FPS. Ability also adjusts learning rate and skill ceiling.
@@ShinoSarna if argue that in doom eternal, a child who has never played an fps game can beat the game on its normal (ultra-violence) difficulty setting just like anyone else. They certainly can beat dark souls, hollow Knight, cuphead etc. If they are struggling too much nothing is stopping them from playing an easier game and coming back to Doom Eternal. Other activities and hobbies work the same way.
@@CorrosiveCitrus Sure, they can do that, but they WON'T be in the 'fun zone' - they will be frustrated and annoyed and it will feel terrible. Job of a designer is - wait for it - making games *fun.*
(Technically it's making the game whatever is the stated design goal, like funny, scary, having a deep story, in case of F2P mobile games the adjective is 'profitable' - but usually the goal is 'fun').
I don't know, maybe you're right... ...But I'm sure I wouldn't play Doom Eternal *at* *all* today if the game had come only with nightmare difficulty. It's just not for every gamer to accept that he dies like 20 times or more before he gets good at the mechanics of the game and has fun. And yeah, maybe even that's the players fault for not enjoying the act of learning, but some people can't handle failing that often in the beginning. After I beat the game on Hurt Me Plenty I wanted to go back and see if I can beat it on Ultra Violence, and after that nightmare. It made me a better player in the end. Now I'm trying my first UN runs and I wouldn't do that without the easy difficulties.
By playing on an easier difficulty before moving onto a harder one, you are literally enjoying the act of learning. Learning is most effective when it begins within a safe space for failure. Good games tend to provide those spaces, some with difficulty options and some without.
@@MechaSlinky yes and no, let me explain shortly: When I was playing on Hurt Me Plenty, I wasn't really aware of it, but I didn't want to adapt to what the game was demanding from me (using *all* the tools, learning enemy patterns etc) so I lowered the difficulty to compensate for that. But when I beat the game on "easy mode" and wanted to beat the higher difficulties I *had* to learn the better strategies or I wouldn't succeed. But it was a gradual process and therefore not overwhelming (as being thrown in UN right from the start).
people really aren’t listening here. He’s not saying it’s bad that games have an easier option to play, it’s the fact that so many games allow you to ignore every single mechanic the devs designed to be learned. how tf is that anything but a bad thing for the experience? and i’m not just talking about myself. engaging with a games system can be fun even if it’s not hard. but with how many games handle easy modes, the game plays itself for you, that’s an issue, period.
that's a good point about the difficulty not forcing ppl to use the built in game mechanics. Remindsme of stealth maps, where you just go in guns blazing cause it's easier.
5:37 I've thought a bit after what you said here, that 'why do you play games if you like story'... the answer is simple. Because games are the only medium in existence that can provide INTERACTIVE stories. That's completely unique, and there are multiple genres of games that focus just on interactive stories (adventure games, walking sims, visual novels) and a lot of genres that heavily focus on stories (RPGs, mainstream action-adventure titles...)
The part about Doom Eternal is wrong. The easier difficulties were designed to make you a better player so you can work your way up to Nightmare. Doom Eternal was designed for everyone. My dad felt the same intensity playing ITYTD that I feel now playing those broken modded maps.
Ultra-Violence was designed to be a tutorial for Nightmare. The lower difficulties were designed to allow people to finish the game without learning it. They don't work you up to Nightmare as they aren't the same game.
@@erin3967 Yes you are. If you play the easier difficulty, and then UV, and you can genuinely believe you are playing the same game and not just saying it for semantics then that just reflects exactly what's wrong with that easier difficulty, since it objectively makes the game look bad. I wouldn't want to experience the game on the lowest difficulty, or see a review of the game played at the lowest difficulty, and be duped into believing it reflects the quality off the actual game. I wouldn't want anyone else to either. Easiest difficulty = generic fps with nothing unique about the way it plays. You hold down W and mouse 1 until you finish it or get bored. UV/NM = a game where you feel like a powerful one man army who can ulitlise many different tools and resources in a dance that no other fps game can emulate. A truly unqiue, memorable and endlessly replayable experience.
respectfully disagree w your premise here. it really depends on the game. sure, a game like Dark Souls-where the whole point is the difficulty of the combat-is rendered kinda pointless by making the combat easier. but equally, I just finished playing through Horizon Zero Dawn w my wife, and while she loved the story, she would have really struggled w the combat on her own bc she's just not a big gamer. I think for games like that-story-centric games where the combat is an adjunct to the game, rather than the whole point of it-the addition of a story mode means that more people can enjoy the story without getting bogged down in the combat if the latter isn't their thing.
But, if the point of a game is the story and not the gameplay, maybe that game should be a walking simulator instead. Or maybe not the entire game, the "story mode" you mentioned could be a walking simulator, where you walk around, talk to characters and see cutscenes. But I think that having a mode that completely skips the combat is better than one that dilutes the combat, for what Doom Penguin mentioned at the end; dumbing down the enemies AI also affects the higher difficulties.
I agree with everything here, the main appeal of the souls games is the hard bosses and to take that away would rob the experience. But games that focus on different aspects should have an easy mode
Games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta are the best examples of difficulty settings. Normal mode is for learning the game and it’s mechanics, hard is for mastering them.
I understand what you’re saying but I don’t personally agree. When I first played Doom: Eternal I got my ass handed to me- I felt like a complete failure and would’ve just given up if there wasn’t an easy mode. The flame belt/using chainsaw for ammo/grenades/ice bomb/different mods for different enemies/speed dash/meat hook/weak points/buffering/blood punch was A LOT to take in for new players. I finished the game on Hurt Me Plenty which allowed me to learn the game rather than relentlessly die and give up, thinking it wasn’t the right game for me. I then played again and got much much better, I think you do need to learn at least some of the mechanics, even on easy mode (chainsawing for ammo/experimenting with different mods/blood punch/dashing etc).
5:03 "This is not how the developer intended the game to be played" Actually they did, by fucking putting I'm Too Young To Die mode into the game. It was the developers who did that. If the game necessitated use of Flame Belch or Meathook so early, the streamer wouldn't just learn the mechanic - they'd die. Over and over. Mechanical complexity usually makes things hard to learn.
Its funny, I hated prince of Persia when I was younger because I mashed the attack button. I would have appreciated an easy mode. Now a days I'd play properly, but less experienced players should be able to have fun too. I used to love serious sam on easy because I didn't take rocket damage.
Personally I don't give a shit how others play. All I care that I have challenging but fair encounters and also engaging ones - because challenging and fair can still be super repetitive and extremely boring - which is a lot of Elden Ring bosses that are just some boring lazy spam - like Godfrey spams same few boring moves to no end till Hoarah Loux phase, or Mohg spamming the same 3 attack entire fight to no end - both are perfect examples of challenging and fair but BORING! And if people will use NPC summon + Mimic with some nasty bleed setup - I don't give a damn.
4:44 Why are you watching I'm Too Young To Die streams? That sounds boring as hell! Even Markiplier did his let's play on UltraViolence, and the last mission on Nightmare.
Stating games shouldn't have an easy mode would be like saying movies shouldn't have easy to follow plots... they are forms of entertainment and the objective is to make as much money as possible. I personally don't mind and I'm a fan of FromSoft games. I enjoy their difficulty. But I don't understand how my gaming experience is hurt if I find out Joe Schmoe from down the street played Bloodborne and cheesed the bosses. Which could be considered the equivalent of an easy mode. I just don't spend my time worrying about what other people do.
So let me get this straight: you're telling me that designing a game around the idea that the player should engage with the game's mechanics is a bad idea, and that the players who want mechanical complexity in their games should just shut up so that those that don't can have a button mashy experience? If demanding a certain level of gameplay complexity is a "gate-keeper-y" thing people such as myself do, isn't demanding that games are made simpler to the detriment of the experience of people such as myself a "gate-keeper-y" thing for people such as yourself to do? Apparently, it's ok for your side to gate-keep, but not for mine.
@@doompenguin7453 That's a whole lot of words I didn't say. What I was actually saying is that just the idea that all games should adhere to any one single rule is where gate-keeper-iness seems to stem from. Some games don't need an easy mode, some do. Nothing more. That's it.
@@doompenguin7453 It's a strawman fallacy. Nobody wants to turn soulslikes into a button masher. You just invented your own definition of the words "easy mode" and acted as if that thing you just made up is what oeople want. Example of an easy mode in Dark Souls that'd work would be a mode where e.g. there's twice as many bonfires, bonfire before every boss, and you only lose 1/3d of souls you're carrying on death. So the game's the same, but it's less punishing. What's wrong with that?
This is very wrong, and I'm someone who only plays Doom Eternal on Nightmare. Games should DEFINITELY have easy modes/difficulties. How else can you expect someone to get to grips with the mechanics in a reasonable environment? I definitely didn't start playing Doom on Nightmare, but after working my way up to it, now it's the only difficulty that excites me anymore, because I did it at my own speed. If you're teaching someone how to juggle, while constantly throwing more balls into their hands, they're gonna get frustrated and think juggling is outright impossible. But, if you give them space and only 3 balls at a time, they'll eventually get the hang of it. And then? Once they master juggling 3 balls? They'll want to start adding more balls on their own to see how much more they can handle. For some people, easy mode *is* hard. For some people, they have handicaps and physically can't react as quickly. "Why are you playing videogames" is incredibly shortsighted in this regard. A game shouldn't compromise its core mechanics, but it *can* reduce the severity of the penalty, or game speed, damage/health values, etc. until players are more comfortable with their gameplay loop.
The souls games do a great job at demonstrating how games don't need an easy mode. Those games are difficult, but the simple accumulation of knowledge and muscle memory eventually leads to you actually dominating the game to a large extent. A game needs a sufficiently harsh punishment to reinforce mechanics. Basically, what I'm saying is that an "easy mode" is a mode which allows a player to not engage with certain mechanics and still win, while a well-balanced difficulty is one which makes it borderline impossible for an inexperienced player to proceed if they do not make use of all the mechanics in the game. As for disabilities, well, making a game for everyone is impossible. I can't think of a way to make a video game that is enjoyable for the average person but also allows a blind man to beat it.
I think a lot of people disagree with your point here, but I personally agree. I think when they see "no game should have an easy mode" they immediately assume you are saying "every game should be ridiculously hard" but I get what you mean. It's important that players learn to engage with the game in the way the developers intended. Depending on the game, the way the developers intended can vary. I don't think the developers of animal crossing would want it to be a nightmare to play. At the end of the day, difficulty is a fundamental part of how players engage with the experience and cheaply altering it is never a good idea. A lot of people will say "don't you think people may quit if the game is too difficult?" but I think that's just a part of the experience. Even Dark Souls in of itself is a game about perseverance. By taking away the difficulty, you compromise the experience. My first time ever playing Doom Eternal was a nightmare run and I do not regret it. There was nothing more satisfying than gradually improving and learning to use all of the tools at my disposal. It wasn't easy and I would be stuck on parts of levels for almost hours, but I adapted and made it through. That learning curve is what makes the game engaging. I don't think games should have easy modes. It should be up to developers to decide how to pace their games and how they want their players to engage.
Yep, you're completely right. Although I think it's less people disagreeing with the point, and simply not understanding the point. Half didn't even watch the video. (incoming rant) They seem to think that saying the developers time and resources are limited therefore not every single game can possibly be balanced around every level of challenge means that we simply don't want players who aren't already veterans of a game to enjoy it. Of course we do! That's exactly what we want! All players to enjoy the game, the way it was designed, rather than playing a version of the game that's badly designed for the sake of making it easier to beat. I know for a fact, the first time I played Dark Souls, if there was an Easy/Normal/Hard option, I would've selected Easy because even the first boss in that game is tough for a new player. I would've missed out on the whole experience of the game. It's all about overcoming hardships. I would've just thought, meh, just an average action rpg w/e and never thought about it again. Instead, it's in my top 5 games, because it gave us an experience that simply no other game does and forces you to have that experience. On top of that, I would have probably never even played it/heard of it, if it wasn't for the fact so many people were talking about how great of an experience it is. I've seen a youtube playthrough of Sekiro where the guy modded the game to have god-mode and one-shot everything. After beating the game he says "I don't get the hype around the game, I thought it was boring" "boring story, boring world etc." Well yeah, because you stripped the game of everything that makes it good. It's like taking the platforming out of a Mario game. It's not a Mario game anymore. It would be great if developers had an infinite amount of time and resources so we could have "Dark Souls for 3 year-olds edition, Dark Souls for the blind edition, Dark Souls for people with no hands edition, Dark Souls for players who have 212ms of reaction time and have played 17 minutes of dmc, 46 hours of demon souls and haven't had much sleep last night edition, etc etc" and have each one be a perfectly balanced version of the game for every single person in the world that still gives you the experience of overcoming hardships but allowing every single person to spend the exact amount of time playing and learning the game. But the simple fact is, the world doesn't work like that, and even if it did, there will still be people that don't enjoy the game, simply because they don't enjoy that experience, not because it's too hard or inaccessible. Ted-talk over.
6:18 While I'm re-reflecting on this video, this point is complete bullshit. You are completely wrong - your gripes with what you call 'easy mode' comes from a BADLY DESIGNED easy difficulty. What you call 'easy difficulty' requires MORE work because it requires actually carefully balancing the gameplay so it's still fun. Just slapping together a bad 'easy difficulty' where you just lower damage by 60% or something is EASY and usually an afterthought and why a lot of these modes suck. The actual cost equation is OPPOSITE of what you're presenting.
Well done, you just discovered the whole point. However, you're saying you disagree, while simultaneously re-stating everything that's said in the video.
So you just completely ignore existence of disabled and old people (and in age-appropriate games children) - people who are inherently less able to play games, so "easy" is as hard to them as "normal" is to us. Cool.
@@CorrosiveCitrus Yes, but difficulty is a big part of accessibility. A lot of disabled people play on easy, and I've seen many complaints from disabled people about Souls games.
@@ShinoSarna having an assist mode is a good solution to that in most games along with better accessibility options in general. Something every game can do better. Slapping an easy mode on for that purpose is a lazy bandaid fix. Just because you are less abelled doesn't mean you should have to play a lesser game. Though I've only seen the opposite, disabled gamers posting clips of them beating difficult bosses to prove they don't need journalists speaking for them in order to push their own agenda for example.
@@ShinoSarna You can't account for literally every single kind of player. If you're blind, there is probably nothing a developer can do to make DOOM Eternal accessible to you without turning it into a completely different game. You can't make all games accessible to everyone. This is simply not possible. People with disabilities can become world-class players with players without any special accessibility options anyway. BrolyLegs is a competitive street fighter player and can only use the controller with his face because he can't use his arms and legs. Of course, there are some disabilities like blindness which make reacting quickly to mainly visual stimuli completely impossible, but in most cases, if there is a will, there is a way.
@@doompenguin7453 Sure, that's true. But if it's reasonably easily possible to make your game accessible to some, why not do that? it's not just easy mode, companies are finally starting to insert real accessibility features into games. Ability to skip button mashing QTEs, better and customizable subtitles, colorblindness modes... I don't believe anyone should be *forced* to have an easy mode - I believe it's FromSoft's and Miyazaki's sacred right to not have an easy difficulty. But people also have right to ask for it. Also some players with disabilities can excel, but not all. This is definitely not universal. Some disabilities literally make you have poor reflexes, poor memory, or poor thinking under stress. And some games become genuinely impossible - for example, if a game requires two hands to control with no option to remap controls, how is a disabled gamer with only one arm gonna play it in the first place?
I just moved this video from my other channel to this one. I decided that I'll just upload all of my videos to this channel.
Was about to ask.
I need an easy mode for Touhou games. I'm sorry.
on a side note, it is user friendly to have these modifiers and options, for example in Minecraft not everything is based on mechanics but rather player freedom, and that's the point of the game, I think it is essential to have a difficulty option for the player there.
Also in theory of game design - what you're talking abour as "fun zone" is called flow state, when difficulty is just right. Here's the thing - but this depends on player skill. Less skilled players WILL achieve "the fun zone" on easy difficulty. So your premise ignores existence of everyone but people as skilled as yourself.
Mehcanics can be gradually introduced and taught to the player one at a time so that they can have the skill necessary to use all of the mechanics. This is what happens in Doom Eternal.
The more tools you have, the more difficult the game becomes, and the more urgency you have.
Contrast that to a game like Skyrim, where the more tools you get the easier the game becomes, until the tools become boring and no longer exciting as they aren't necessary.
You don't start off skilled at a game, you develop the skill by playing and learning the game, and taking in the lessons it teaches you as you play.
@@CorrosiveCitrus Yes, but each player starts at a different baseline skill - a child who never played a game will be less skilled than a Call of Duty veteran starting a new military FPS. Ability also adjusts learning rate and skill ceiling.
@@ShinoSarna if argue that in doom eternal, a child who has never played an fps game can beat the game on its normal (ultra-violence) difficulty setting just like anyone else.
They certainly can beat dark souls, hollow Knight, cuphead etc.
If they are struggling too much nothing is stopping them from playing an easier game and coming back to Doom Eternal.
Other activities and hobbies work the same way.
@@CorrosiveCitrus Sure, they can do that, but they WON'T be in the 'fun zone' - they will be frustrated and annoyed and it will feel terrible. Job of a designer is - wait for it - making games *fun.*
(Technically it's making the game whatever is the stated design goal, like funny, scary, having a deep story, in case of F2P mobile games the adjective is 'profitable' - but usually the goal is 'fun').
I don't know, maybe you're right...
...But I'm sure I wouldn't play Doom Eternal *at* *all* today if the game had come only with nightmare difficulty. It's just not for every gamer to accept that he dies like 20 times or more before he gets good at the mechanics of the game and has fun.
And yeah, maybe even that's the players fault for not enjoying the act of learning, but some people can't handle failing that often in the beginning.
After I beat the game on Hurt Me Plenty I wanted to go back and see if I can beat it on Ultra Violence, and after that nightmare. It made me a better player in the end.
Now I'm trying my first UN runs and I wouldn't do that without the easy difficulties.
By playing on an easier difficulty before moving onto a harder one, you are literally enjoying the act of learning. Learning is most effective when it begins within a safe space for failure. Good games tend to provide those spaces, some with difficulty options and some without.
@@MechaSlinky yes and no, let me explain shortly:
When I was playing on Hurt Me Plenty, I wasn't really aware of it, but I didn't want to adapt to what the game was demanding from me (using *all* the tools, learning enemy patterns etc) so I lowered the difficulty to compensate for that. But when I beat the game on "easy mode" and wanted to beat the higher difficulties I *had* to learn the better strategies or I wouldn't succeed. But it was a gradual process and therefore not overwhelming (as being thrown in UN right from the start).
people really aren’t listening here. He’s not saying it’s bad that games have an easier option to play, it’s the fact that so many games allow you to ignore every single mechanic the devs designed to be learned. how tf is that anything but a bad thing for the experience? and i’m not just talking about myself. engaging with a games system can be fun even if it’s not hard. but with how many games handle easy modes, the game plays itself for you, that’s an issue, period.
that's a good point about the difficulty not forcing ppl to use the built in game mechanics. Remindsme of stealth maps, where you just go in guns blazing cause it's easier.
5:37 I've thought a bit after what you said here, that 'why do you play games if you like story'... the answer is simple. Because games are the only medium in existence that can provide INTERACTIVE stories. That's completely unique, and there are multiple genres of games that focus just on interactive stories (adventure games, walking sims, visual novels) and a lot of genres that heavily focus on stories (RPGs, mainstream action-adventure titles...)
Insert What Remains of Edith Finch
@@gabriellacet1172 Edith Finch is a masterpiece of intteractive storytelling, and I'm serious.
The part about Doom Eternal is wrong. The easier difficulties were designed to make you a better player so you can work your way up to Nightmare. Doom Eternal was designed for everyone. My dad felt the same intensity playing ITYTD that I feel now playing those broken modded maps.
Ultra-Violence was designed to be a tutorial for Nightmare. The lower difficulties were designed to allow people to finish the game without learning it. They don't work you up to Nightmare as they aren't the same game.
@@CorrosiveCitrus are you playing another game? Genuinely thats just not correct.
@@erin3967 Yes you are. If you play the easier difficulty, and then UV, and you can genuinely believe you are playing the same game and not just saying it for semantics then that just reflects exactly what's wrong with that easier difficulty, since it objectively makes the game look bad.
I wouldn't want to experience the game on the lowest difficulty, or see a review of the game played at the lowest difficulty, and be duped into believing it reflects the quality off the actual game. I wouldn't want anyone else to either.
Easiest difficulty = generic fps with nothing unique about the way it plays. You hold down W and mouse 1 until you finish it or get bored.
UV/NM = a game where you feel like a powerful one man army who can ulitlise many different tools and resources in a dance that no other fps game can emulate. A truly unqiue, memorable and endlessly replayable experience.
THE CONSISTENCY OMG IT'S SO GOOD HOW??
respectfully disagree w your premise here. it really depends on the game. sure, a game like Dark Souls-where the whole point is the difficulty of the combat-is rendered kinda pointless by making the combat easier. but equally, I just finished playing through Horizon Zero Dawn w my wife, and while she loved the story, she would have really struggled w the combat on her own bc she's just not a big gamer. I think for games like that-story-centric games where the combat is an adjunct to the game, rather than the whole point of it-the addition of a story mode means that more people can enjoy the story without getting bogged down in the combat if the latter isn't their thing.
But, if the point of a game is the story and not the gameplay, maybe that game should be a walking simulator instead. Or maybe not the entire game, the "story mode" you mentioned could be a walking simulator, where you walk around, talk to characters and see cutscenes. But I think that having a mode that completely skips the combat is better than one that dilutes the combat, for what Doom Penguin mentioned at the end; dumbing down the enemies AI also affects the higher difficulties.
I agree with everything here, the main appeal of the souls games is the hard bosses and to take that away would rob the experience. But games that focus on different aspects should have an easy mode
I have a different off topic opinion. Every game needs multiplayer.
Games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta are the best examples of difficulty settings. Normal mode is for learning the game and it’s mechanics, hard is for mastering them.
I understand what you’re saying but I don’t personally agree.
When I first played Doom: Eternal I got my ass handed to me- I felt like a complete failure and would’ve just given up if there wasn’t an easy mode.
The flame belt/using chainsaw for ammo/grenades/ice bomb/different mods for different enemies/speed dash/meat hook/weak points/buffering/blood punch was A LOT to take in for new players. I finished the game on Hurt Me Plenty which allowed me to learn the game rather than relentlessly die and give up, thinking it wasn’t the right game for me.
I then played again and got much much better, I think you do need to learn at least some of the mechanics, even on easy mode (chainsawing for ammo/experimenting with different mods/blood punch/dashing etc).
having only legendary on halo 1 would have been fucking pain.
Except Heroic mode was the intended Halo experience according to the difficulty description and developer commentary.
5:03 "This is not how the developer intended the game to be played" Actually they did, by fucking putting I'm Too Young To Die mode into the game. It was the developers who did that. If the game necessitated use of Flame Belch or Meathook so early, the streamer wouldn't just learn the mechanic - they'd die. Over and over. Mechanical complexity usually makes things hard to learn.
Its funny, I hated prince of Persia when I was younger because I mashed the attack button. I would have appreciated an easy mode. Now a days I'd play properly, but less experienced players should be able to have fun too. I used to love serious sam on easy because I didn't take rocket damage.
There is a easy mode. Its magic
Personally I don't give a shit how others play. All I care that I have challenging but fair encounters and also engaging ones - because challenging and fair can still be super repetitive and extremely boring - which is a lot of Elden Ring bosses that are just some boring lazy spam - like Godfrey spams same few boring moves to no end till Hoarah Loux phase, or Mohg spamming the same 3 attack entire fight to no end - both are perfect examples of challenging and fair but BORING! And if people will use NPC summon + Mimic with some nasty bleed setup - I don't give a damn.
4:44 Why are you watching I'm Too Young To Die streams? That sounds boring as hell! Even Markiplier did his let's play on UltraViolence, and the last mission on Nightmare.
Stating games shouldn't have an easy mode would be like saying movies shouldn't have easy to follow plots... they are forms of entertainment and the objective is to make as much money as possible.
I personally don't mind and I'm a fan of FromSoft games. I enjoy their difficulty. But I don't understand how my gaming experience is hurt if I find out Joe Schmoe from down the street played Bloodborne and cheesed the bosses. Which could be considered the equivalent of an easy mode. I just don't spend my time worrying about what other people do.
Still a wrong, pretty gate-keeper-y idea.
So let me get this straight: you're telling me that designing a game around the idea that the player should engage with the game's mechanics is a bad idea, and that the players who want mechanical complexity in their games should just shut up so that those that don't can have a button mashy experience?
If demanding a certain level of gameplay complexity is a "gate-keeper-y" thing people such as myself do, isn't demanding that games are made simpler to the detriment of the experience of people such as myself a "gate-keeper-y" thing for people such as yourself to do? Apparently, it's ok for your side to gate-keep, but not for mine.
@@doompenguin7453 That's a whole lot of words I didn't say.
What I was actually saying is that just the idea that all games should adhere to any one single rule is where gate-keeper-iness seems to stem from. Some games don't need an easy mode, some do. Nothing more. That's it.
@@doompenguin7453 It's a strawman fallacy. Nobody wants to turn soulslikes into a button masher. You just invented your own definition of the words "easy mode" and acted as if that thing you just made up is what oeople want.
Example of an easy mode in Dark Souls that'd work would be a mode where e.g. there's twice as many bonfires, bonfire before every boss, and you only lose 1/3d of souls you're carrying on death.
So the game's the same, but it's less punishing. What's wrong with that?
@@ShinoSarna Addressed in the video already
@@MechaSlinky no game has ever been released, “NEEDS” an easy mode that’s just wrong
Based
Based on what, though?
@@Lenias7 Based on a true but entirely unrelated story.
This is very wrong, and I'm someone who only plays Doom Eternal on Nightmare. Games should DEFINITELY have easy modes/difficulties. How else can you expect someone to get to grips with the mechanics in a reasonable environment? I definitely didn't start playing Doom on Nightmare, but after working my way up to it, now it's the only difficulty that excites me anymore, because I did it at my own speed.
If you're teaching someone how to juggle, while constantly throwing more balls into their hands, they're gonna get frustrated and think juggling is outright impossible. But, if you give them space and only 3 balls at a time, they'll eventually get the hang of it.
And then? Once they master juggling 3 balls? They'll want to start adding more balls on their own to see how much more they can handle.
For some people, easy mode *is* hard. For some people, they have handicaps and physically can't react as quickly. "Why are you playing videogames" is incredibly shortsighted in this regard. A game shouldn't compromise its core mechanics, but it *can* reduce the severity of the penalty, or game speed, damage/health values, etc. until players are more comfortable with their gameplay loop.
The souls games do a great job at demonstrating how games don't need an easy mode. Those games are difficult, but the simple accumulation of knowledge and muscle memory eventually leads to you actually dominating the game to a large extent.
A game needs a sufficiently harsh punishment to reinforce mechanics. Basically, what I'm saying is that an "easy mode" is a mode which allows a player to not engage with certain mechanics and still win, while a well-balanced difficulty is one which makes it borderline impossible for an inexperienced player to proceed if they do not make use of all the mechanics in the game.
As for disabilities, well, making a game for everyone is impossible. I can't think of a way to make a video game that is enjoyable for the average person but also allows a blind man to beat it.
I think a lot of people disagree with your point here, but I personally agree. I think when they see "no game should have an easy mode" they immediately assume you are saying "every game should be ridiculously hard" but I get what you mean. It's important that players learn to engage with the game in the way the developers intended. Depending on the game, the way the developers intended can vary. I don't think the developers of animal crossing would want it to be a nightmare to play. At the end of the day, difficulty is a fundamental part of how players engage with the experience and cheaply altering it is never a good idea. A lot of people will say "don't you think people may quit if the game is too difficult?" but I think that's just a part of the experience. Even Dark Souls in of itself is a game about perseverance. By taking away the difficulty, you compromise the experience. My first time ever playing Doom Eternal was a nightmare run and I do not regret it. There was nothing more satisfying than gradually improving and learning to use all of the tools at my disposal. It wasn't easy and I would be stuck on parts of levels for almost hours, but I adapted and made it through. That learning curve is what makes the game engaging. I don't think games should have easy modes. It should be up to developers to decide how to pace their games and how they want their players to engage.
Yep, you're completely right. Although I think it's less people disagreeing with the point, and simply not understanding the point. Half didn't even watch the video. (incoming rant)
They seem to think that saying the developers time and resources are limited therefore not every single game can possibly be balanced around every level of challenge means that we simply don't want players who aren't already veterans of a game to enjoy it. Of course we do! That's exactly what we want! All players to enjoy the game, the way it was designed, rather than playing a version of the game that's badly designed for the sake of making it easier to beat.
I know for a fact, the first time I played Dark Souls, if there was an Easy/Normal/Hard option, I would've selected Easy because even the first boss in that game is tough for a new player. I would've missed out on the whole experience of the game. It's all about overcoming hardships. I would've just thought, meh, just an average action rpg w/e and never thought about it again. Instead, it's in my top 5 games, because it gave us an experience that simply no other game does and forces you to have that experience. On top of that, I would have probably never even played it/heard of it, if it wasn't for the fact so many people were talking about how great of an experience it is.
I've seen a youtube playthrough of Sekiro where the guy modded the game to have god-mode and one-shot everything. After beating the game he says "I don't get the hype around the game, I thought it was boring" "boring story, boring world etc." Well yeah, because you stripped the game of everything that makes it good. It's like taking the platforming out of a Mario game. It's not a Mario game anymore.
It would be great if developers had an infinite amount of time and resources so we could have "Dark Souls for 3 year-olds edition, Dark Souls for the blind edition, Dark Souls for people with no hands edition, Dark Souls for players who have 212ms of reaction time and have played 17 minutes of dmc, 46 hours of demon souls and haven't had much sleep last night edition, etc etc" and have each one be a perfectly balanced version of the game for every single person in the world that still gives you the experience of overcoming hardships but allowing every single person to spend the exact amount of time playing and learning the game. But the simple fact is, the world doesn't work like that, and even if it did, there will still be people that don't enjoy the game, simply because they don't enjoy that experience, not because it's too hard or inaccessible.
Ted-talk over.
@@CorrosiveCitrus Certified Based. Said it better than I could have!
6:18 While I'm re-reflecting on this video, this point is complete bullshit. You are completely wrong - your gripes with what you call 'easy mode' comes from a BADLY DESIGNED easy difficulty. What you call 'easy difficulty' requires MORE work because it requires actually carefully balancing the gameplay so it's still fun. Just slapping together a bad 'easy difficulty' where you just lower damage by 60% or something is EASY and usually an afterthought and why a lot of these modes suck. The actual cost equation is OPPOSITE of what you're presenting.
Well done, you just discovered the whole point. However, you're saying you disagree, while simultaneously re-stating everything that's said in the video.
So you just completely ignore existence of disabled and old people (and in age-appropriate games children) - people who are inherently less able to play games, so "easy" is as hard to them as "normal" is to us. Cool.
Difficulty and accessibilty are different topics
@@CorrosiveCitrus Yes, but difficulty is a big part of accessibility. A lot of disabled people play on easy, and I've seen many complaints from disabled people about Souls games.
@@ShinoSarna having an assist mode is a good solution to that in most games along with better accessibility options in general. Something every game can do better. Slapping an easy mode on for that purpose is a lazy bandaid fix. Just because you are less abelled doesn't mean you should have to play a lesser game.
Though I've only seen the opposite, disabled gamers posting clips of them beating difficult bosses to prove they don't need journalists speaking for them in order to push their own agenda for example.
@@ShinoSarna You can't account for literally every single kind of player. If you're blind, there is probably nothing a developer can do to make DOOM Eternal accessible to you without turning it into a completely different game.
You can't make all games accessible to everyone. This is simply not possible. People with disabilities can become world-class players with players without any special accessibility options anyway. BrolyLegs is a competitive street fighter player and can only use the controller with his face because he can't use his arms and legs. Of course, there are some disabilities like blindness which make reacting quickly to mainly visual stimuli completely impossible, but in most cases, if there is a will, there is a way.
@@doompenguin7453 Sure, that's true. But if it's reasonably easily possible to make your game accessible to some, why not do that? it's not just easy mode, companies are finally starting to insert real accessibility features into games. Ability to skip button mashing QTEs, better and customizable subtitles, colorblindness modes...
I don't believe anyone should be *forced* to have an easy mode - I believe it's FromSoft's and Miyazaki's sacred right to not have an easy difficulty. But people also have right to ask for it.
Also some players with disabilities can excel, but not all. This is definitely not universal. Some disabilities literally make you have poor reflexes, poor memory, or poor thinking under stress.
And some games become genuinely impossible - for example, if a game requires two hands to control with no option to remap controls, how is a disabled gamer with only one arm gonna play it in the first place?
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