All games should have an easy mode

whooah dude. if you've 3d glasses that image looks way cool

because variable difficulty inevitably regresses to increasing damage done, and damage taken

So easy mode existing at all makes you think you're wasting your time in normal mode?

Maybe you should ask yourself why you're even playing those games at all.

It devalues the game by forcing the developers to work into what amounts to three or four different games with the same time and budget rather than focusing on a single experience, which results in a shorter and less carefully designed game.

It devalues the game by forcing the developers to work into what amounts to three or four different games with the same time and budget

Make the normal game. Now add an easy mode where enemies do -75% damage and the player does +25% damage. It's not that hard.

three or four different games

By taking Souls as an example. We have Normal mode, and OP's Easy Mode.
An easy mode is just 1 "different game".
An easy mode is fittingly very easy to make. Just tweak the damage values and reduce the number of enemies. For singleplayer games this is piss easy. But it would fuck with the online aspect of souls, so they would either have to play offline or have 2 different servers.

They can just put some free intern to make it during weekend. You don't need to make the game 3-4 times lol. They most likely already have automated script to make that for them. Only thing taking time is to play test the easy and hard modes if they bother doing that

devs should dilute their vision as little as possible
and these options are nothing but dilution

demons souls already has an easy mode. It's called looking up how to beat the game.

not saying it should or shouldn't have an easy mode but changing the numbers of damage and HP really isn't that much work

When a game has no difficulty options and it's still an easy game you cry and whine and beg for a hard mode though.

.

if you don't like the game don't play it

wait, don't tell me not to use the easy mode if I don't like it. That's not the same thing even though it clearly is

i don't.
if i am bored i download mods

You seem to know a lot about people you've never met before.

What do you even want an easy mode to be, different numbers? Skipping mechanics? Just use trainers at that point.

Some people just don't want to be challenged

Then don't play video games. Saying that you don't want to be challenged while playing video games is the same thing as saying that you don't want to get wet while going to the swimming pool. "All pools should have a dry mode for the people who don't want to get wet". Ridiculous nonsense. Video games are challenge, if a game doesn't challenge the player then it's literally not a game by definition.

All games should have a Easy mode and a Hard mode only. No Normal mode.

This. Some people should simply be watching TV instead.

I’ve beaten most souls games yet I play fps games like doom and postal brain damaged on easy. I’m terrible at fps games

It's not even comparable, because the inclusion of an easy mode necessarily means the game will be less difficult across the board. A game has to be difficult by design, from the ground up. Tweaking numbers doesn't cut it. By asking for an easy mode, you're also demanding that games should never be allowed to be difficult.

no one is forcing you to play videogames
get out of my fucking hobby

Just make a hard game and then tweak the numbers for easy mode...

That’s not saying much, Souls games are super easy. Just keep rolling rolling rolling.

because the inclusion of an easy mode necessarily means the game will be less difficult across the board

does it? viewtiful joe is a genuinely difficult video game and the only thing higher difficulties do is increase enemy HP and damage

i got little to no reflexes and even i was able to beat souls games
there are shit bosses but most of the time it comes down to

don't have a dogshit build

learn moves

have a decent game plan

execute it well enough

That's the infinitely harder option compared to simply designing a braindead game and tweaking the numbers up, which is what 99.9% of developers choose to do when they're told they must include multiple difficulties.

dark souls difficulty thread #3513

99% of the industry panders to you casual freaks, just play literally anything else.

How is that funny? It seems pretty logical that those soulsfags want to play at a curated, developer intented difficulty. A good option then is the one labeled "normal" and it's even better when the game has no difficulty selection at all.

Some people just don't want to be challenged

Some people getting into books don't want to read, so all books should be just colored pictures

Watch a fucking movie or youtube playthrough.

All games should be as hard as possible to filter fucking casual tourist from the gaming.
The great example of this is Pathfinder WOTR with it's hard and unfair difficulties. It should be the only options and the default for the gaming overall
Casuals, go play mobile games, you are no gamers and have no place in gaming

Which you will just use cheats and beat on the hardest difficulty right? Which makes you just as funny as those soulsfags

I'm not, because they fucking suck, but they could not suck, if they didn't do this difficulty slider bullshit that OP advises.

They don't balance the game for multiple modes, they just have everything but player damage, and enemy damage to the player remain the same. With every actual difficulty mechanic remaining tuned for the easiest journalist mode.

Puzzle? Match three! Boss fight? Hit this guy a few times, even having a fucking glowing weak point would be too hard!

I find it funny that no one had a problem with difficulty modes till dark souls came around

I want to partake in a marathon, but I hate running so I will just drive a car

I'm the same as the other runners and I should be considered such

Fuck off, Karen.

Wasn’t bragging . Please Don’t aggro, Mr badass…

These threads are being used to train bots who will write fluff pieces about videogame difficulty options that will have 300% more words and 300% less insight than your average Anon Babble thread

I agree. Even Bloodbourne is easy depending on build. I haven’t played sekiro though because I don’t have a rhythm bone

Idiot.
It's about everyone sharing the same experience, approaching the same challenges in different ways, creating a conversation.
These games have no story or anything else besides gameplay to form the community around.

part of why you're playing is to feed your narcissim and feel like you can look down on others

Look everyone, I'm projecting.

Some people just don't want to be challenged

Watch a movie
Everything valuable about a videogame involves challenging the player in some way or another. Without the friction there is no game

don't have a dogshit build

This is the thing that trips people up the most. The average joe doesn't understand stat systems at all, and they either just levels things up evenly/randomly or dump it all in an offensive stat. Investing in HP and/or equip load is all you really need to trivialize these games. Anyone who says armor is just fashion has truly never suited up with something heavy. Even in Bloodborne with its lack of heavy armor, pumping your HP directly increases the effectiveness of your Blood Vials. I will never understand how it doesn't click with these people that investing in survivability will let them die less often.

I think it was around the rise of Wordle that I finally understood what made Souls games special. It was the fact that everyone was comparing notes on the same challenge that made the thing worth discussing. Miyazaki is weirdly a genius for realizing that at a time when nobody else seemed to.

If you don't want to play the game as designed, then you don't want to play that game, and the experience you want to have where you just sight-see the game like a tourist, can be achieved by watching gameplay footage.

m-muh easy mode

i genuinely think that that's the same as trans woman wanting to compete in women's sports. Some things are just not designed for you. Games like dark souls are made so that you have a certain type of experience. It's the developer's intended way to play the game

All incels should have access to your wife for sake of accessibility. Some people just don't want to make the effort to get proper pussy and you hubbies who have an ego about that are just losing out. Me fucking your wife doesn't invalidate you wasting time and energy to get and marry a woman.

People are retarded, lazy, averse to inconvenience and terrified of failure and they need to dragged kicking and screaming out of their comfort zone to attempt a properly tuned challenge which with enough effort they WILL overcome and they WILL feel good about doing so and it is your duty as a game developer to force this upon them because that is the only way to make a good videogame

Aren't "easy modes" in soulslike games simply tanky shield builds who can trade hits with bosses without having to worry about dodging, or sorcery builds who can run away and blast enemies from a safe distance?

This. “Fun is a process and boredom is its destination”. Players WANTING something doesn’t mean you should give it to them, it’s the wanting that drives the experience forward to begin with. If they didn’t want to be challenged they wouldn’t have turned on a video game. The problem is the average person is too incapable of self-reflection to understand that being given exactly what they want without effort is robbing them of the very satisfaction they expect it to bring them. It isn’t the reward that you really care about, it’s the satisfaction of earning it.

Why don’t devs just balance the game around the hardest difficulty, and then tack on easier difficulties after the fact?

That way, everyone’s happy.

Why don’t you just not play the game? That way you have all of the satisfaction that comes from not having to engage with it, AND everyone saves a bunch of time and money

Yes but you still have to go through the early game without and there is always that one part or boss that nullifies your strategy and forces your to power through (Anor Londo archers, Shrine of Amana, 30 hit combo bosses). Accessing the easy mode in itself requires effort. What game journos and redditors mean by easy mode is a mode where you will never see the game over screen. For some reason they are terrified by game over screens.

play easier game

*games

It takes literally no effort to retroactively add an easy mode since you don’t need to balance it properly by just making the player overpowered.

I don’t even play easy modes anymore and prefer to play on the hardest difficulty unless I’m unfamiliar with the genre, but I see the value of easy modes because they cater to young kids who just want to fuck around and have fun. I played easy modes as a little kid, and the “graduated” to harder difficulties as I got older.

The only reason you have to crusade against easy mode, is because you think it devalues your achievement because part of why you're playing is to feed your narcissim and feel like you can look down on others.

what a bunch of projection. So you refuse to see why they don't want easy mode and just call it narcissism out of spite. That was disgusting to read, go back

Tbf, the only reason to oppose an easy mode is if the game ends up being balanced around lower difficulties.

I mean, if what he's saying is true, you wouldn't exactly want to admit it, would you?

At the end of the day you're just whining about being bad at a video game.

game is literally about struggle

journos don't want to struggle and review bomb the game

why is gaming journalism a thing? They do no good for the industry, no one trusts them for nothing, they can lie without consequences, they receive games in anticipation (for free) and they vote for awards.

anon gaming journalism is important
rich people's designer trans kids can't be allowed into the actual workforce, they're too fragile for that

We don't deserve him

It takes literally no effort for you to stop playing video games and spend your time on something you enjoy with sincerity. Stop fostering this unhealthy relationship you have with games, where you obsess over them and insist that they be made for you despite the fact that you hate them and everything about them that makes them games rather than movies.

In my perfect world all games have super modular settings for every value. mods and cheat engine get you most of the way there but it would be nice to do that first party

Variable difficulty leads to a shittier game. Rather than crafting an intentional difficulty curve and experience devs are forced to fuck around with numbers so drooling retards can play their game. Not every game needs to be completed by every person who plays it.

the reason why easy mode is not ideal has already been given to you several times on this thread, you just don't want to accept it, so you try to vilify the other side by calling them narcissistic to validate your point.

It always is. Difficulty modes 99.9% of the time mean that enemies have less health and deal less damage on easier difficulties and have more health and deal more damage on harder difficulties. What this leads too is piss easy mindless gameplay or bullet sponge tier enemies. Neither of which are fun.

Some people just don't want to be challenged

Then play another game

It's called summons

I play games because they're fun and relaxing entertainment.

You play games because you're a failure loser irl and need to feel like you're a winner somewhere and that your efforts are paying off.

game has a plethora of options and mechanics explicitly made to make the game easier

if all used together, substantially easier

but none of it counts unless there is a menu option explicitly titled "easy mode"

Why are people like this?

What he's saying only applies to himself. OP ties his self worth to his performance in video games, which is the reason for his insecurity, the reason he demands an easy mode, the reason why he's offended at the idea of people playing hard games and the reason why he gets upset at the idea of other people outperforming him in games. If OP wasn't a narcissist and didn't tie his self worth to his video game performance, he would have no occasion to be upset in the first place. You can tell it's projection, objectively, by OP's own values and complaints. Somebody who simply doesn't like being challenged would just move on to a different game or a different hobby. It only sticks in OP's craw because he feels like he SHOULD be better at video games. But rather than practicing and getting better, he wants to pull the bar down to his level for everybody. Pretty obvious shit if you've ever studied human behavior.

holy shit your post perfectly describes this anon

I'm such a winner IRL bro

Which is why I post on Anon Babble and whine about and videogame that's too hard for me

kek

There are hundreds of other valid reasons as well, and yet not one single valid reason in support of adding easy mode for hard games. Every single request for an easy mode is nested with the presupposition that everyone should be capable of playing every game. But that's a completely dishonest prejudice and if your argument contains it you're automatically wrong.

Not every game needs to cater to every audience, anon.

kek this has to be bait

this whole thread is bait anon

because soulsfags don't play action games or actually hard games
or actually good games for that matter

All games have easy mode
Go buy a rope and hang yourself

You means soulswhiners don't play games. Actual soulsfags are the first to admit that souls games aren't hard at all, and that anyone who has trouble with them is lacking in intelligence, not skill. The only, and I mean ONLY people who hold up souls games as some standard of difficulty are the retards who got filtered and then seethed about it.

I'm better at designing a fun challenge for a game I've never seen before than the people who literally made the game bro, trust me let me at those sliders

sure, let games have an easy mode.
however a playthrough on the hardest difficulty should be mandatory before talking about the game in any objective context.
that's more just because the game is bad as opposed to the problem with difficulties, if a dev thinks the only way to change the difficulty of an encounter is by changing. then they aren't very good at game design and their game probably isn't worth playing.

I hate when games do this, because as a first time player how the fuck am I supposed to know what a reasonable and fun challenge is going to be? It's the dev's job to do that, and it's my job to meet their standards. If I just crank all the sliders up thinking "I want a challenging experience" with no foreknowledge of the game's mechanics, odds are I'll just get an unbalanced and broken experience.

if a dev thinks the only way to change the difficulty of an encounter is by changing THE NUMBERS*
i'm ill at the minute fuck off

agreed, also a hard mode.
like kotor combat is so boring I ended up switching to easy to be done with it faster and enjoy the story
and I like having additional hard option like permadeath/ironman in tactics games, or a blatantly unbalanced difficulty like dominating in underrail once you've beaten normal a few times and want more

people who play on easy mode don't actually want to learn to play the game

yes. I'm a big proponent of making your own fun and most games are made for the lowest common denominator to never actually have to engage with most mechanics

All games should have an easy mode.

All games already have an easy mode you dimwit!
In elden ring there are summons and incantations and friends
In hoi4 you can play as soviets
In m2tw you can play as England
There are thousands of games and in every single one is a simple way to beat the game.

Only some rare rage games like Getting over it etc don't have an easy mode

Everyone should be CAPABLE of playing every game.

Whether it’s to their taste or not is another story.

frogslop, didn't read

Everyone already is capable of playing every game. If you suck shit at a game and keep losing it's not because you're not capable of improving and acquiring the skill, it's because you're a lazy shit waiting to be hand fed who never developed the skills for self improvement. The fact that you're waiting for the developers to hand you your own potential as if it's up to them and not you is extremely telling.

yeah if strawmen were real that'd be fucking gas, real wizard of oz shit