An Easy Mode Has Never Ruined a Game
kotaku.com
kotaku.com
For example, Metal Slug 3. My steam stats show I used to play it for 100+ hours. Before they added easy mode via infinite continues, I was really enjoying the game. I had to learn how every enemy behaves, where the powerups would drop and plan strategies to beat bosses. Every day I would get a couple steps further into the game and I could have played it for years. There's a great satisfaction and getting better at something and seeing the results.
Then the change came and I completed the game in one afternoon. I didn't care about all the cool enemy setups on later levels, because I could just bomb them, die when I ran out of bombs and then bomb them again after I revive. There was no real challenge.
I never turned that game on after that. Easy mode has ruined it for me.
The thing is, once the option showed up, I turned it on once to try it. A couple hours later and I beat the whole game. At that moment, I didn't even know the game was ruined for me. It felt nice being able to see all the levels and content.
But a couple days later, when I thought about turning it on, I figured there's no point because I have seen it all.
It's so easy to fall into the trap of playing easy mode.
If games were seen as something to be played and explored rather than beaten, perhaps people would approach them differently and get a lot more out of them, even if they'd already completed a playthrough.
As someone who plays almost exclusively single player games across a vast numbers of genres, I enjoyed No Man's Sky's "exploring and discovering the unknown" game play at launch and have ever since, as they add more and more content.
0: http://www.thegeeklygrind.com/opinion-no-mans-sky-doesnt-mul...
The reason sim city and dwarf fortress are intersting, and NMS and Spore were not, is because the simulation is sufficiently expanded as to be worth manipulating (while of course not being so expanded to hinder understanding your manipulations; this is the craft); whereas NMS and Spore had very trivial rules: they didn’t really have any. Which is also why when Dwarf Fortress breaks down, its interesting, while in NMS, it’s pathetic.
Note that I’m only referring to NMS on release; though I doubt the simulation has been developed since (I’d bet that the game has since gotten prettier worlds, but not more interesting ones)
Tldr; it was poor simulation/generation game, regardless of whether the current market has ADD
Well, there are 2 branching paths you can take on some levels, so you should play the game twice to see it all. But that is it, once you played it twice, there's nothing new to see or explore.
I just had the same experience with Pathfinder Kingmaker, but came away with the opposite sentiment.
I am super glad to have an easy mode. I don't want to waste more time than I already do playing video games. I want to see what narratives and mechanics they have to offer, not reload the same level for 20 hours.
Consider the extreme -- play through any given game with a mario super star.. it's difficult to imagine the game experience isn't radically changed.
These kinds of defenses for "easy" modes (that is, easier than the game was designed for) seem to be fundamentally based on the idea that an optimal game is simply a movie with some (perhaps optional) QTE's to keep you from getting bored. But they're not. Clearly not all games get any benefit out of increasing difficulty (most game's difficulty increase amounts to turning everything into bullet sponges -- this rarely alters the experience in any notable fashion), but that hardly means difficulty has no purpose or place.
An easy mode might not ruin the game.. but it may be a worthless mode to have, and one that ruins the player's experience. The souls series would be generally uninteresting if you weren't pushed towards playing careful and meticulously. The DMC series would be generally uninteresting if you weren't pushed towards better and faster (and more stylish) combo'ing. Shadow of the Colossus, BioShock would have absolutely no impact/weight (incidentally, an easy mode has been added I guess to latest remasters). Super Meat Boy wouldn't even be a game anymore.
Imagine never experiencing 100 to 0 pikmin loss! Without that threat, is it even the same class of game?
If you couldn't play them properly, it would probably be a waste of time. Their stories aren't that interesting. They ain't books.
Of course, for many games it doesn't matter. Uncharted series really is just a movie with some QTE events (and QTE events in the fashion of a cover shooter), and difficulty isn't a factor. CRPGs/JRPGs generally have such uninteresting encounters that you could rip out most of the non-roleplaying combat mechanics and still have much the same thing (but you lose that sweet, sweet timesink).
Mass Effect 1 and Star Control 2 barely justify the existence of combat in the first place (reduce the fuel needs in SC2 and you'll radically change its early game however, probably much worse). They can be made easy... but it hardly applies generally. And these are all examples where they can be made easier, because they failed to make any use of their difficulty in the first place.
Also there is satisfaction in knowing you beat something that not everyone who bought the game has.
Anyways, take it away from them, and they’ll just find something else to latch their identity to (eg speedrun). Or find it elsewhere. Not a big loss. A small group (actually by definition), a shallow reason, a weak design motivator.
Games are designed, with a particular experience, setting, balance, pacing in mind; if difficulty is part of that design.. then its a part of the design. That’s it.
Caveat:
Not all game features are actually part of a design.
Not all games have an intelligible design in the first place.
I do wonder if the trend towards casual and mobile gaming has stunted a generation of gamers into being unable to cope when a real challenge of skill or wit appears.
I've heard the Souls/Bourne games described as "tough but fair". For some games, the idea is that the fun comes from beating challenges from the design of the game mechanics.
Similarly, there's fun to be had from Role Playing Games by not having magical foreknowledge about consequences. Saving, and loading to see how each choice plays out means the dynamic is "how can I get the best?" rather than "what would this person do?".
I agree this changes the dynamic of a game. On the other hand, is it a bad thing? If someone is more interested in "getting the best" rather than finding out "what would this person do", then why should they be denied such freedom?
That is entirely your subjective opinion. I would likely still have fun playing sudoku where my guesses had instant feedback
2) The artistic vision of the games is to be difficult. Why should the developers compromise that for people who are explicitly not in their target audience anyway?
3) As the article says, beating one of these games is somewhat of an exclusive club - difficulty gatekeeping is necessary to preserve that.
I haven't yet seen a valid argument for adding easy mode - they all are based around the assumption that easy should be there, and has been taken away.
I don't buy disability as a reason to add it, considering a quadriplegic man has beaten Sekiro, and the other arguments I've seen are things like "I don't have the time anymore to beat games on full difficulty" which I don't find compelling - the market is full of titles which cater for that.
And... You don't think disability is a valid reason to add an easy mode? I hope you see some of the raw shit life has to offer then because that's a message that can only come from a place of very privileged contempt.
The software companies can do whatever they want. I'm defending From Software's choice not to add an easy mode, despite pressure from individuals and gaming media to do so.
>You don't think disability is a valid reason to add an easy mode?
In this specific case (Sekiro, as per the article), if the game is able to be completed on standard difficulty by someone who is quadriplegic then clearly the difficulty is fine. I have no problem with disability related changes such as colour-blindness accommodations that do not change the difficulty of the game.
From software games are hard and it's not like they cheated someone into buying the game, who is not in the target audience.
Disability options that don't affect the design vision are not a problem. But the developer should have the option to choose their market and audience.
The problem is that games journalists don't want to play games. They want to get paid to write, and they were only able to get a job writing about video games. That's literally the only reason this is a topic. That and the fact that journalists as an industry have sussed out ways to increase monetization, and one such way that is particularly effective is the "rage bait" method, whereby you infuriate, or "nerd snipe" a particular demographic that feels invested in defending something to the point of sharing the thing they feel is attacking them.
If you want a book, then buy a book. If you want a movie, then watch a movie. If you want to overcome a challenge, then accept that failure is a possibility and thus won't be allowed to enjoy the reward. Failure in these games is accepting specifically because the downside doesn't affect us in a meaningful way. We won't get hurt. We won't lose money. The failure itself is part of the game.
Other games are about the content, the story, and the challenge is preventing you from accessing it.
For example, I play The Witcher on easy mode, but strategy games on hard. I've used save-scumming with some roguelikes, and that tends to ruin them a bit. It's a core feature of roguelikes that you're not supposed to play like that. I'm currently playing CK2 on Iron Man mode (no reloading old saves), which means I'm forced to stick with bad decisions and bad luck, and that makes the game different than I planned, but a lot more interesting; I'm no longer automatically the most successful ruler in the world.
Although in the case of CK2, it does add value that I can also play without Iron Man mode; it allows me to explore alternative histories where I'm more successful than I deserve. But should a game like Pac-Man have an easy mode to allow everybody to finish all levels? I don't think so.
There's a certain amount of "artistic vision" to a game like Dark Souls and I see no need to compromise that to pander to people not willing to put the effort in (and make no mistake, effort is the only factor at play here). The difficulty is part of the game; if you don't like it, you just don't like the game. Don't play it, don't demand it to pander to you.
Games should be accessible to all and you should never be made to feel less of a gamer because you changed the difficulty setting.
I don't think it can always be as simple as giving them everything. Users should be catered to and given the best support, but at a certain point the developer knows best.
The biggest players aren't always the most vocal. It is better to observe how the fanatics are playing and help the newbies grow into that level of game play.
Then I changed the difficulty to the highest setting and it was much more interesting. I had to plan everything and take a lot of care to not to die.
In contrast, Alien Isolation is an unforgiving frustrating game in most difficulties. I hope it gets better on a second playthrough.