Insane Difficulty: Why You Shouldn't Want Dark Souls to Have an Easy Mode - Insane Difficulty

EpicNameBro, on 11 September 2012 - 12:20 AM, said:

Random aside - I'm about halfway through your video right now, and I've got to say that I'm very thankful you're not arguing that other people playing the game on easy mode cheapens your experience, because that's an argument that cropped up very early in this discussion which I find preposterous. Besides, if someone thinks that other people beating it on easy mode cheapens their experience, well, it's already happened since there have been hackers and modders in every version of this game, which you pointed out in your video. They're certainly playing it on no-difficulty-mode.

You're right, you can't prove that an easy mode will improve the experience until you put it in there. I haven't been arguing that it will. I've been arguing against the notion that putting an easy mode in there will lessen the experience. It's this thing I do where I don't make a stand on either side of the fence, but I argue against the louder side. I dunno, I guess it's just fun.

I can address some of your specific points though.

Putting a modal difficulty selection in the menu makes the game worse: You praise Dark Souls for having a good attempt at organic difficulty, but then assume that the only way to make it easier would be through model difficulty selection. Clearly there's a way that would be better, it doesn't have to be modal.

If Dark Souls was easier it wouldn't be the best game ever: I just watched this part of your video, and it made me face palm. You list of a bunch of things that DS doesn't have that is very prominent in other action games, and by the tone of your voice I can tell you don't have a very high opinion of the things you list. You claim that these things are added to games in order to artificially lengthen the games and make them better, and that without them DS would be too short. You're assuming that if DS was a short game, it would be a bad game, and that it would need this bad filler in order to lengthen it, to make it a good game. That doesn't seem very logical.

Reducing the difficulty to make it accessible to more players removes the chance of failure, therefore it removes the satisfaction for progressing: This definitely does not have to be the case. There's a balance between failure and success that every game has, (I dunno, I guess things like the Wario World games for Gameboy don't really have a means to fail) and I get that a lot of players enjoy the balance that DS incorporates, (myself included) but that doesn't mean that DS gets it perfectly right. Reducing the failure and increasing the success on the scales doesn't necessarily mean that the failure is eliminated.

I also found it amusing that you said the game isn't difficult because of the mechanical skill required, but the knowledge base you need to develop, while fighting Ornstein and Smough with pimped out gear, DWGR, and fire resin, yet still getting your ass kicked. I can sit down and pour over the DS wiki for hours, yet still have a hard time with those two.

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 12:16 AM, said:

1) And once again, my point rolls back to Demon's Souls, a low budget game, with a forecast of 75,000 sales, having just as many audio/visual assets. Further more, you have been unable to correlate a budget and cost to the quality of the audio visual experience. For example, Skyrim is a multimillion dollar production, yet the art quality is absolutely abysmal, and require independent modders to fix it. So no, I don't really see your point at all.

2) You have been unable to indicate, to my knowledge, any ways to decrease difficulty without removing the challenge other than the anor londo archers, which seems to be not as big of an issue as everyone says it is.

3)I beg to differ. A lot of the sprites have been reworked since the original, and while the assets are reused repeatedly for item world (though the ltem world and class world have their own specific pool of differential assets.) It is most certainly a consistent art style, something demon's souls shares with dark souls. It'd be like me going "Man, they reused all of the 5-1 to 5-3 resources in blighttown?" Another thing is that for the most part, item world is optional, and is not something indicative of the story experience, which you failed to comment on. Lastly, I've commented more than enough that demon's souls was a low budget niche game, so if you wish the read it again, point 1 is up there.

4) No, for the most part, it's vets of Demon's souls who do the high level PvP, or players who've played for a long time. I doubt that they heard along the grape vine that Demon's Souls PvP was legendary, or that the gameplay was really good, or at the very least, it certainly wasn't the main point. I know plenty of people who do continue to play for the PvE experience.

Harbringer, on 11 September 2012 - 12:54 AM, said:

1) So, what was the budget?

2) Oh, so it's impossible. Thanks for clearing that up.

3) I've commented that developing games for HD consoles is expensive. If you wish to read that comment, it's up there. It's the reason most JRPG developers didn't make the switch to PS3 and instead stuck with the PS2 or the PSP, even though their games were targeted towards the mass RPG audience. Because it's expensive.

4) Yes, a majority of people who PvP have been playing the series for a while. Chances are, because they enjoy the PvP. That has nothing to do with the difficulty of the PvE. If the gameplay was bad, they wouldn't bother with it.

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 12:41 AM, said:

I'm not assuming that at all. That's a different discussion (and one that makes more sense). People are insisting that it needs an easy mode. If someone is saying that the current organic selection mechanic needs to be improved, I'd probably agree. I think the people who are supporting the easy mode don't know about the organic selection that already exists in the game... which is why I get a little irritated about people arguing about a game that they literally don't understand.

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 12:41 AM, said:

I read this part of your post, and it made ME face palm. You're arguing from assumption about what I like and don't like and managing to completely misrepresent the truth. For someone who's quick to point out an assumption, you don't seem shy about making them.

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 12:41 AM, said:

It didn't say it was perfect. The exact point that I was trying to make is that there NEEDS to be a balance. It might sound obvious to you, but a surprising amount of people reject the idea that the balance is needed. Many people simply want not to fail. I am further stating that Dark Souls doesn't need an easy mode to assist in the balance, because it already has a system to do so... which none of the proponents of easy mode have yet to address.

Stann said:

Pimped out gear? The Man-Serpent Greatsword +FIVE? Hooray for not knowing what the fuck you're talking about.

EpicNameBro said:

I, uh, have no response to that kind of logic. I suppose it's also their failure if the player suffers from chronic depression and uses the controller to hang themselves. Why blame the player for anything they do. I'm just gonna turn on Demon Souls and then shoot my wife. Developer failure, officers.

EpicNameBro said:

Repeating it doesn't make it true.

So, if players think the game's too hard and give up that's the developers fault, but if players think it's too hard and choose an easier difficulty, it isn't?

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Edify my punk ass then.

When you die to the bell gargoyles 40 times in a row, how does the game's system assist in the balance?

philsov, on 11 September 2012 - 05:34 AM, said:

The game has a summoning system that will allow you to call for help, either from another player or an NPC. It allows the player to get help for exactly the part of the game they are stuck on and nothing more. You can also back off and watch the summon fight to learn the enemies' attacks. Summons can show you shortcuts and treasure. You can summon up to two of them. If you summon a player like me, I can beat the boss for you without a problem. If that's more help than you want, you can summon an NPC who will be less effective but will soak some of the bosses' attacks to buy you time to learn the fight. This is balanced in online play by the risk of an invading player attacking you- even if you summon someone to clear the boss for you, you STILL can get a sense of achievement from getting to the boss without an invader killing you.

I'll say it again, very clearly: Most of the people who are calling for an easy mode for this game are ignorant of the mechanics. You gain access to this system after the very first real boss (Taurus)... a boss that even my non-gamer wife took out without help.

Edited to add an apostrophe.

No, that was your analogy words, it isn't a developer's failure either way.

EpicNameBro, on 11 September 2012 - 01:30 AM, said:

Fair enough.

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Yeah, it was an assumption. Do you like hallways with hundreds of mindless enemies to fight? From the tone of your voice, it seemed like you have the same opinion of this kind of padding that I do, that it's unnecessary filler. I guess I should have said "It seems to me that you don't have a high opinion of this kind of padding, now let me explain why I think it wouldn't improve Dark Souls." Kill rooms make games longer, they don't make games better. <- Personal opinion.

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You know, my first run through the game, where I died to Ornstein & Smough and ragequit for about a year, I didn't know that you could summon Sunbro for that fight. I had been in hollow form since the beginning of the game because humanity is an expendable resource, and if you die in every area you come across, you expend it quick. I even stopped playing it online because of the frustration of being invaded while you can barely handle the enemies in that area. I think DS's balance needs much improvement.

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To be fair, you didn't show your gear in the video, but thanks for the insult anyway. I saw you ninja flipping around in heavy armour with a resin-applied sword being beat by the hardest fight in the game, then schooling the fight with a half naked dude. I think my point still stands, I've seen enough DS streams where people decked out in the sweetest gear get owned by bosses that I don't have trouble with anymore. DS is way more of an action game than it is an RPG. If it was a pure numbers game, the guy in the Havel's set and the great club would school the game, and instead he was taking every hit and healing after every enemy.

zombero, on 11 September 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Then I guess they don't need to add an easy mode?

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

It depends on the game. I love Dynasty Warriors games that are almost entirely mindless filler.

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

Not a mechanical skill issue.

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

If you knew the shortcuts, you wouldn't die to enemies (as you don't need to fight any on the way to OS). You also would have a much lower chance of being invaded (they wouldn't have enough time to find your world... or your location even if they did invade you). For that matter, if you had joined particular covenants, you would be less likely to be invaded. Once again, not issues of mechanical skill. If you think DS's balance needs improvement, yup I agree. I think it needs small tweaks rather than an entire new game mode.

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

Take a cheap shot, get one in return.

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

Hard leather armor set with an elite knight helm isn't exactly heavy armor. And I won that fight... even with the complete lack of knowledge that I had at that time. That's something that IS great about this game- if you know what you're doing, it's easy, but you can compensate for a lack of knowledge with a bit of skill.

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 07:19 AM, said:

Your point doesn't stand, because (while gear DOES matter) knowledge is key. Knowledge ABOUT the gear is certainly useful (like knowing that Havel's isn't the best set for a number of reasons... particularly when paired with a heavy weapon), but knowing where summons are located and how to unlock them, knowing shortcuts to get to the boss with a full stock of Estus, knowing the enemy weaknesses, knowing the enemy attacks... all of this can be used in exchange for a lack of raw mechanical ability. Likewise, a lot of challenge runs revolve around intentionally using poor equipment or suboptimal tactics in order to demonstrate mechanical ability.


If you tell me, "Marcus, Dark Souls needs a better tutorial," or, "Hey, Marcus. Dark Souls needs to make NPC summons more useful either through more obvious placement of summon signs or buffing the NPCs," I would really think you might have a point. Even if you said, "Some of the shortcuts are really tough to find. They should give better hints," I'd probably listen with a sympathetic ear, even though I personally don't have trouble with the shortcuts as they are (the ones for the difficult bosses are all fairly obvious). But the people who are calling for an easy mode in the game without realizing that a lot of the troubles people have with the game stem from a lack of knowledge (whether it's shortcuts, gear, how to dodge enemy attacks, where to find NPC summons, whatever) don't really have much of a leg to stand on.


This game is about action, yes. It is also about exploration. For example, you can get Gold Pine Resin for Taurus and the Gargoyles. You can get Charcoal Resin for Capra (along with other helpful items, like the Wolf Ring). You can have a +10 weapon easily before Quelaag. You can +15 anytime you like after Capra. There are numerous shortcuts that cut down on enemies that you have to fight and the risk of invasion. You can upgrade your Flasks so that it heals tons more HP.... all of these things are a major part of the game.


People think the game is hard because they play it like an action game without exploring, reading item descriptions, pressing the select button in the menu to get an explanation if they don't understand a stat... this is an RPG. It doesn't take elite action skills to win if you explore and experiment with things like you would in an rpg. But it doesn't require you to do that if you DO possess elite button mashing talent. For that matter.... this IS an RPG. Simply leveling up can make the game easier... especially if you use those levels to get HP. If you see someone in pimped out heavy armor that has high vitality losing fights, it's strictly a lack of knowledge about the enemy.


Some of the things in the game need to be explained more clearly via a tutorial- like poise and stability. You CAN learn about them if you press the help button in the menu, but pretty much no one does. That's something they need to change. On the other hand, the series THRIVES on secrets (like being able to jump the staircase in Anor Londo and challenge OS without ever fighting a Silver Knight in fair combat).


Perfect? Hell no. In need of an easy mode? Nope.

Edited for typos

Stann, on 11 September 2012 - 01:16 AM, said:

1)I am unable to find the development for demon's souls as well, but I did find the development budget for Skyrim. Regardless, I am going to drop the point because the two of us are arguing over hearsay, with the exception that the projected sales was 75,000.

2)

Stann, on 07 September 2012 - 09:38 AM, said:

If you have something to actually add, please do so. I like hearing others thoughts on what makes a better game. I just find that you being facetious when someone counters a point of yours is starting to get a little tiring.

3)I wouldn't necessarily agree that it's for mass RPG audiences. Rather, they're marketing to the core of the market: Japanese gamers. And while it is certainly more cost effective on the psp, there's very little doubt in my mind that the fact that there was 3x as many PSP owners as there are PS3 owners largely influences that decision to put more jrpgs on the psp.

4)Correct, had the gameplay sucked, no one would have stayed for the PvP. However, had the PvE not been difficult, I am skeptical that it would have broken niche status, considering that the PvP was technically one of the reasons why Demon's Souls was difficult in the first place, since losing affects your PvE progress of that level. Considering that the word of mouth was almost always about its difficulty, that feels like a pretty big part to me as to why most people got into it.

EpicNameBro, on 11 September 2012 - 05:47 AM, said:

Unless the summon's name is "IRON TARKUS."

EpicNameBro said:

It isn't people getting frustrated and giving up that's indicative of failure. The product can be improved to appeal to more audiences by packaging what essentially amounts to multiple games within it, including the current version in an unchanged state, so that players who don't like one of the games within the product can play another one instead. Difficulty settings are so easy to make and can let you make a product that can appeal to a much wider range of people than a single difficulty setting ever could. Again, from my own perspective, this has the potential to let me play the... 99% of RPGs I can't enjoy because they are too easy. If all of them had a hard mode, I could play those games and have vastly more options in what I choose to play. As such, I don't mind allowing others access to the 1% that suits me.

As I said in the last thread about this, I surely can't argue mechanics with people like ENB, Harb, or Stann who've played through it multiple times, but I am going to address a few holes in the logic I see here.

I am neither for or against an easy mode, but the notion that "it's the developer's fault when they switch to easy mode" is absolutely flawed. This very idea of spoonfeeding something -- be it the plot, difficulty, or whatever -- instead of giving them the freedom to choose, is something that was touched on in the SSvSE thread.

If you choose to cheapen your experience (speaking generally) by changing the difficulty of a game, then that is your fault and yours alone. Zombero touched on this.

Also, saying that putting an easy mode in automatically means it cheapens it for everyone isn't correct either. Execution is everything. That's the slippery slope fallacy; just because it happened once, clearly means it will always happen regardless of variables.

Saying that "you don't need an easy mode, therefore it should not exist/it'll cheapen your experience" is, as dramatic as it sounds, a form of oppression.

Not to derail this thread, but a lot of the beef I see with people about FFXIII is because of that very same concept; the plot was spoonfed to them and they didn't have the freedom to do what they will (nostalgia notwithstanding). This, while not exactly the same thing, is relevant, and highly similar.

Noone -- not Stann, not Harb, not ENB, not myself -- knows if an easy mode is going to cheapen the franchise. Based on statistics, I personally don't see it going over well, but that does in no way mean they'll go down the same road.

Another thing I wanted to address that isn't really a logic hole is the stigma of the word "easy mode" in games nowadays among gamers. It's like the word "casual" in MMOs; among hardcore players it has come to be synonymous with "bad player." Something can be made easier without cheapening the experience or making it completely and utterly faceroll.

Whether FromSoftware will succeed at this or not, is something else entirely.

No one knows if it will cheapen the franchise, because easy mode doesn't exist (yet). All we're doing is speculating about the effects that adding an easy mode would have on the game if implemented, and sometimes, you have to pre-empt decisions like this. You can't always wait until something is created to decide if creating it is a good idea or not. That much we can all agree on, right?

ID Bot, on 11 September 2012 - 10:57 AM, said:

Of course. I'm just calling it how I see it. You can say "I think this will happen" but saying "This will happen" is something different. Most of what I saw is "This will happen if they put easy mode in," so I'm just calling it like I see it.

Advent, on 11 September 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

I think it's safe to say that any and all discussion regarding future decisions FromSoftware makes is based on what we think will happen if they make those decisions. There's no point in stopping discussion just because no one knows without a doubt how things will turn out.

ID Bot, on 11 September 2012 - 11:25 AM, said: