“Git gud or die” literally is a genre. It’s called soulslike.
Also “every game should have difficulty options” and “every game should be a survival crafter” are both fundamentally “every game should be what I like.”
You can set a difficulty option to the default, what it would be if there weren’t a choice. Changing the genre of a game isn’t generally in the settings menu.
“Soulslike” is an absurdly nebulous term that just means “hard.” It isn’t a genre. It gets applied to games of every conceivable genre based solely on their difficulty. Battletoads is a Soulslike. Path of Exile is a Soulslike. Dead Cells is a Soulslike. Never mind that all of Fromsoft’s Souls games are specifically action-adventure RPGs, which is a genre.
Lets say they keep everything as it is right now, like they literally have the games they already have and add some difficulty options like less annoying backtracking. How does this “ruin” your experience?
Every one of these arguments is based on the entirely made up idea that sacrifices must be made to achieve these improvements.
What makes you think every game should be for every person?
No, it absolutely isn’t a made up idea that allowing barnacles to glomp on to an experience so that they can feel included cheapens the whole experience.
I do not want McDonald’s Souls. I get that you’re fine with it, I’m not.
What makes you think every game should be for every person?
What makes you want to make such a clear strawman argument?
No, it absolutely isn’t a made up idea that allowing barnacles to glomp on to an experience so that they can feel included cheapens the whole experience.
I love that you literally cant answer the question because you know its immature gamer gate keeping. You just completely avoided it.
I’ll repeat:
Lets say they keep everything as it is right now, like they literally have the games they already have and add some difficulty options like less annoying backtracking. How does this “ruin” your experience?
Edit: for a real answer, since the advent of video games there have been people like you claiming that they’re too hard. Video games are meant to be beaten. They are literally designed that way, just because you can’t seem to beat them doesn’t mean everyone should conform to you.
Seriously, go pick a different game. Thousands of games exist with difficulty sliders. Pick one and shut the fuck up about the ones that don’t.
for a real answer, since the advent of video games there have been people like you claiming that they’re too hard. Video games are meant to be beaten. They are literally designed that way, just because you can’t seem to beat them doesn’t mean everyone should conform to you.
This is not a real answer at all.
This is you first poisoning the well by insinuating that I’m bad at games firstly, and then pretending that these settings only have to do with hardness in 1 dimension. Its not remotely a good faith effort to answer.
Why would I assume anything but ineptitude on your part?
You either have a fundamentally flawed understanding of why single difficulty games exist or you are just bad at games. I don’t care which, I will say that Atomfall is extremely fucking boring.
Why would I assume anything but ineptitude on your part?
If you were being a reasonable well rounded human being and not a toxic gamer trope, that would be a reason.
You either have a fundamentally flawed understanding of why single difficulty games exist or you are just bad at games.
Given that not a single person has been able to make a cogent argument for them existing and the second thing is the comment of a toddler, Im going to go with the third option that Im shocked this level of toxicity exists on lemmy.
I don’t know why I expected better, but this is bottom of the barrel. You get better conversation on reddit, legitimately. This is all over a difference in opinion on difficulty settings in gaming. Its amazing really. Like you never sat back for a second and thought about how you were acting over a video game opinion.
No, this is all over you deciding that what you think is superior to everyone simply because you’ve declared it.
There are games that are designed to have varying difficulties. There are games that are not. Both can be complete experiences, both can be dogshit and lazy. I really don’t care what you ‘expect’ because Atomfall absolutely falls in the ‘lazy as fuck’ category. Gunplay is basic. Melee combat is basic. Stealth consists of ‘be behind something, don’t not be behind something’.
And you want to know something? It’s ok to be entertained by a game like that! What’s not ok is turning around and acting like you have some valuable opinion centered on games being more like fucking Atomfall.
Edit: I’m gonna quote you
Apples are so much better than oranges. You don’t have to peel Apples, the skin is actually good for you. I honestly fucking hate oranges because I can’t just bite into them.
If the above seems like an unreasonable statement to you, congratulations — you have conceded the argument. If you agree with the above statement, congratulations — you have outright lost the argument.
No, this is all over you deciding that what you think is superior to everyone simply because you’ve declared it.
At this point you arent even pretending to argue in good faith so there isn’t much point in continuing. You’re incapable of good faith discussion it seems, cant answer simple questions and couldn’t make an honest comparison to save your life.
Hopefully you don’t explode over every minor disagreement you have.
What was that? I couldn’t hear you over the ad hominem, you can cry in this cup I’m holding.
Difficulty sliders have existed for decades, just because you’re an idiot that’s never noticed that the games they’re attached to are typically bad isn’t my problem. Maybe go research game balance and why different designs exist for different games, it isn’t my responsibility to drag you to the finish line.
You are so toxic right now that if you ever grow as a person you’ll think back to how shitty you were right now in time.
Literally talking like a 4channer to someone, calling them an idiot, pretending you know what an adhominem attack is because you … don’t like adjustable difficulty settings in video games (and seem to think that sliders are all that difficulty settings are).
I have already addressed that you can have complete experiences from both single difficulty games and variable difficulty games.
The only thing that is unique about Atomfalls difficulty settings outside of the difficulty sliders is that there’s a very very easy mode instead of a very hard mode.
Again, research design philosophy for video games. Because as other users have mentioned — you are objectively incorrect. In the exact same way as someone who believes that games should only have one difficulty are incorrect.
The only one posed in the question this spawns from??
Lets say they keep everything as it is right now, like they literally have the games they already have and add some difficulty options like less annoying backtracking. How does this “ruin” your experience?
You’re objectively wrong. I just wanted to make sure you understood that.
No one cares what “you” want, unless “you” perfectly describe the purchasing power of 100k potential customers.
FROMsoft doesn’t care if you play their game, which is great for me because I like their artistic vision unfettered by useless contrarianism.
Oh, and to answer the question you think is a gacha - I’d rather the team spend every second making the game they want to then to spare even one developers afternoon to add “difficulty settings” - that employee could have been doing something actually useful to the game and its target audience.
You really following me around to just assert that your bad take is “objectively” right over and over again?
No one cares what “you” want, unless “you” perfectly describe the purchasing power of 100k potential customers.
This is a common complaint, and its what the folks like you are bitching about; the idea that anyone would dare have criticisms that you dont agree with.
Oh, and to answer the question you think is a gacha - I’d rather the team spend every second making the game they want to then to spare even one developers afternoon to add “difficulty settings” - that employee could have been doing something actually useful to the game and its target audience.
This isn’t an answer at all, as expected from you given that the stipulations are that this is separate to the games creation. The fact you can’t answer really goes to show that it is indeed just useless gatekeeping. That you follow me around for this really goes to show how toxic your mentality is.
You’re right, that was overly harsh. I have 0 respect for this clown shoes opinion of yours, don’t bother, goodbye. It’s possible not all of your opinions are this asinine - not likely, but possible. Not interested in learning really.
Why do you keep commenting to me? You seem to be extremely bothered by my opinions, I assume mostly because you have no real rebuttal, just weird gatekeepy anger.
Dark souls would be a very different experience if the monsters weren’t threatening and there were no setbacks for defeat. People believe the experience is important. Accepting that defeat is only a temporary setback and you can just try again is a significant experience, and if you make the game trivial you won’t achieve that.
Dark souls would be a very different experience if the monsters weren’t threatening and there were no setbacks for defeat.
Crazy strawman argument here. Its not even remotely close to what is being argued.
People believe the experience is important.
What Im suggesting doesnt prevent them from having that. The fact they feel it must be imposed on others for them to play those games is ridiculous and childish.
Accepting that defeat is only a temporary setback and you can just try again is a significant experience, and if you make the game trivial you won’t achieve that.
This assumption that difficulty settings are all about making a game trivial is just so obviously bad faith nonsense.
More than that, some people do just enjoy things that way and they don’t care about the other parts of the experience. There is literally no reason all people involved cant have cake. Its literally just angsty gatekeepers whining that they think there needs to be a bar to entry to play a video game; something people do for fun.
Let me just skip ahead to asking you the question none of you annoying gatekeepy folks can answer.
Lets say they keep everything as it is right now, like they literally have the games they already have and add some difficulty options like less annoying backtracking. How does this “ruin” your experience?
I think our assumptions are not shared, so arguing more isn’t going to be productive until that’s straightened out.
When you say difficulty settings, I think of lowering enemy effectiveness, raising player effectiveness, and removing consequences for bad play (eg: permadeath of characters). Is that what you mean?
You mention less annoying backtracking. Can you imagine a game where the “annoying back tracking” is fulfilling an important role (eg: resources attrition, encouraging revisiting areas)?
If so, is there a threshold beyond which is too much? If there’s a slider that adjusts enemy damage, should it go to zero? If no, how do you decide the limits? What about the players who want to exceed them?
It seems like you have the assumption that everyone should be able to complete every game. Is that correct? Is that true for all media, or only video games?
I would write more but I’m on my phone and almost to my destination.
When you say difficulty settings, I think of lowering enemy effectiveness, raising player effectiveness, and removing consequences for bad play (eg: permadeath of characters). Is that what you mean?
Can be, doesn’t have to be.
Can be things like making it such that you can fast travel instead of travelling slowly back. Can be that you skip a minigame you just don’t think adds anything to the game. Can be that you do or don’t want certain queues etc.
Can be a lot of things and the point is basically that there are a lot of things which can be toggleable settings which are extremely easy to implement, and greatly improve the experience for some players, while players who want “what the developers envisioned” or whatever, can play it that way just fine.
Others can make certain elements harder or easier or non existent based on their preferences.
You mention less annoying backtracking. Can you imagine a game where the “annoying back tracking” is fulfilling an important role (eg: resources attrition, encouraging revisiting areas)?
I can imagine some situations where it could be sure, but most of the times it isn’t and the times it isn’t isn’t worth the effort for me. It just makes the game less fun for no conceivable benefit most of the time. The backtracking Im describing here is essentially filler (the type I don’t think most people like).
If so, is there a threshold beyond which is too much? If there’s a slider that adjusts enemy damage, should it go to zero? If no, how do you decide the limits? What about the players who want to exceed them?
I think the idea here that you seem to be putting out is that there is some point at which a players choice to change the difficulty is no longer valid, and I don’t think any such point exists. Let people do what they want, and give them some reasonable defaults that you’ve actually tested for/think blend well.
It seems like you have the assumption that everyone should be able to complete every game. Is that correct? Is that true for all media, or only video games?
I’ve seen someone ask this before and I think its an absurd question to ask. No one in their right mind buys any media to not finish it. No one walks into a movie hoping its so shit they walk out half way, or starts a novel hoping they’re so bored they put it down.
Of course everyone should be able to complete every game. I can’t even think of what point this could be leading to except the obvious absurd idea that people should be expecting not to be able to enjoy the things they purchase.
Still on my phone so this might be a little limited.
I can imagine some situations where it could be sure, but most of the times it isn’t and the times it isn’t isn’t worth the effort for me. It just makes the game less fun for no conceivable benefit most of the time. The backtracking Im describing here is essentially filler (the type I don’t think most people like).
So when it is not filler, should you be disallowed from skipping it? Who is to say what the benefit is? Does the design intent matter?
Of course everyone should be able to complete every game. I can’t even think of what point this could be leading to except the obvious absurd idea that people should be expecting not to be able to enjoy the things they purchase.
This is a big disagreement. I don’t think everyone should be able to finish every game. They should be able to work the controls. If someone made Calculus Souls I’m just not going to beat it. I’m not good at math. I don’t expect them to give me the answers or add in an Arithmetic mode. If it’s there, fine, but that’s gravy. That’s like getting a second game for free.
Did you ever read the book House of Leaves? It’s great. Unreliable narrators, unconventional layout and use of form. Several friends of mine bounced right off of it. “Can’t read this”, they said. I wouldn’t say they were gatekept. I wouldn’t say the author is ableist because they didn’t also provide a linear narrative, without all the footnotes. I accept that not everyone is going to finish that book. Even if they paid money for it.
My dad bought a big jigsaw puzzle once. Loves puzzles. Couldn’t do this one. He put it back in the box and never finished it. He didn’t say it was an accessibility problem. It would never occur to him to ask for, like, the backs of the pieces to be numbered
People routinely accept that things will be hard, and maybe they can’t beat them. Maybe they could with more practice, but it’s not worth it. This is not a failure of the game or toy.
That’s what a lot of these discussions feel like. Someone made something interesting and challenging, and people want it changed. If you take all the footnotes out of house of leaves, you get a very different, much reduced, result.
I think the idea here that you seem to be putting out is that there is some point at which a players choice to change the difficulty is no longer valid, and I don’t think any such point exists. Let people do what they want, and give them some reasonable defaults that you’ve actually tested for/think blend well.
Well, earlier I said something about tuning difficulty down to the point of triviality, and you said that was a straw man.
But look, I’m not against options in games (assuming everyone playing gives informed consent. Unilaterally cheating is not okay). I just think the framing of it as accessibility in the same way that subtitles or changing controller inputs is dicey. “I think this would be more fun” is a fine, subjective, argument. “This game is ableist” is much shakier.
Of course, if you’re not saying lack of options is ableist but having them makes the game more fun, then I guess we violently agree.
Well, with the footnote that I do believe some people would ruin their own fun by turning the difficulty too high or low, but that’s not my business, and could be a net zero when compared to people not having fun with the available options. (But like for real when I was a kid I briefly ruined Diablo by cheating myself all the cool items.)
And the thing I was waiting for in real life has occurred. No more editing! Post away!
What a trite, immature, troll like response this is.
Not having good difficulty settings is not a genre. It’s a lacking.
This tired response of pretending any criticism of anything means a person “must clearly not be the target audience” is extremely thoughtless gatekeeping.
It’s such a bad argument on its face too, as if someone disliking a flaw in something means they clearly must haste the thing in its entirety. insufferable people.
I don’t know where all your hatred is coming from. My comment was a genuine suggestion to a problem you’re facing that worked for me. Do you need to be able to consume and experience everything there is? Personally, I don’t. If a game is not for me, then it’s not for me and I move on. It has never stroke me as ‘gatekeeping’.
Furthermore, what you’re expressing are neither criticism nor preferences. It’s just pure hate towards anything and anyone you don’t like, as displayed here:
I fucking hate creatives who believe super deeply they’ve created some masterpiece meant to be played one way.
Sure, ‘hate’ doesn’t have to be literal. I sometimes say it too, without meaning it literally. However, I’d argue that the second comment has clearly showed the intent and meaning behind the first one.
I don’t know where all your hatred is coming from.
Yes, you do
My comment was a genuine suggestion
You know it wasn’t
Do you need to be able to consume and experience everything there is?
No one has made the claim they do. They’re discussing something they dislike, in this, a place for discussion.
Meanwhile, you’re over here like “just dont play games then if you’re going to complain”. Why don’t you just not use lemmy if you’re going to complain. See how useless and bad faith that argument genuine suggestion* is?
Personally, I don’t. If a game is not for me, then it’s not for me and I move on.
This right here is annoying, trolling, gatekeepy bullshit too where you pretend that if someone has any criticism of anything, clearly it’s not for them.
Furthermore, what you’re expressing are neither criticism nor preferences. It’s just pure hate towards anything and anyone you don’t like, as displayed here:
This is the most ridiculously blatant words twisting I’ve ever seen. Your brain stem must be tied into knots with those mental gymnastics.
In this context, though, yes, you are obviously not the target audience and that is specifically your issue with it. You really are just being a crybaby about something not having a specialized programming element to allow you to customize the game to make it just right for your specific taste and play style preference.
Should every restaurant make sure to have everyone’s favorite food available even if it’s entirely antithetical to the intention of the menu?
In this context, though, yes, you are obviously not the target audience and that is specifically your issue with it.
It literally isnt at all. You know you’re wrong too and thats why this is a frustrating argument. You aren’t arguing with your real opinions here.
If you made your restaurant analogy honest, it would be like a restaraunt has peanuts sprinkled on a dessert you like, so you ask them not to sprinkle peanuts there, and some other patreons flip their tables and bark like dogs at the idea that you would dare ask them not to do that, acting as if it must mean you don’t like the dessert if you don’t get the peanuts.
You really are just being a crybaby about something not having a specialized programming element to allow you to customize the game to make it just right for your specific taste and play style preference.
While I like games that have multiple difficulties to make them more accessible this is an unrealistic expectation. Difficulty settings can add a lot of extra development time. Its not always as easy as just adding a slider in the menu. There is a lot of Q&A that needs to go on behind the scenes. I do appreciate the games that put in the effort to flesh out a good difficulty system. Single difficulty games also have a rough balancing act as now matter what they do there will be people that say its to easy or too hard.
In what way is any of what I said unrealistic? Its already been done. Many games have much higher standards than just one difficulty.
Difficulty settings can add a lot of extra development time.
Literal nonsense. This is one of the things that modders change most easily. Many of the things I want in difficulty settings are as simple as flipping a boolean.
I’m not saying difficulty settings that are robust are nothing, but you’re pretending they take up way more effort than they do.
Difficulty is a way some devs express their vision - nearly anything by FROMsoft, for example.
Why would you want to limit their artistic expression to suit your needs? Just play something else. Or mod the difficulty down if it’s so important to you, but it’s not their job to make sure you, personally, enjoy the game, because that’s how you end up with mediocre catch all by-the-numbers fests like GTA.
Why would you want to limit their artistic expression to suit your needs?
This is a nonsensical argument as no ones artistic vision is limited with what I’ve suggested.
You are now following me around and its kinda weird you are so entrenched and toxic about it.
The fact you could not answer the question regarding fromsoft of
Lets say they keep everything as it is right now, like they literally have the games they already have and add some difficulty options like less annoying backtracking. How does this “ruin” your experience?
Combined with this super weird behaviour of following me around with comments varying from just insults to half-assed answers tells me that your toxicity is something you are aware of and don’t have a problem with.
The director should have reasons for the difficulty of the game. Celeste is a Perfect example. It’s hard but it lets you learn and allows you to try again easily even if what you are doing is hard. Hard games that punish you and make you walk for 20-30 mins just so you can learn a few new moves the boss does can be incredibly frustrating. Many people who play these games eventually look at videos online to help after multiple tries because just “getting there” is extremely time consuming. A lot of games have normalized looking things up and that is disappointing as someone who would rather figure it out on my own. But wasting 30 mins to be killed in 2-3 hits from multiple stage bosses is not enjoyable IMHO.
One can think of it just like about a fastfood joint. Two lines of coordinates: food and service, or user experience and mechanics. We do play clunky old games for their plot or shallow timekillers for their gameplay. Striking the right balance that is fitting your core audience is the goal. There, Kodjima thinks about better service, toning down mechanics so that everyone can eat their burger, while Miyadzaki serves artisan sets knowing their inaccessibility is a part of the deal for their niche audience.
I love ULTRAKILL for many reasons, but this is one of them. I would never have completed the Prime Sanctums if I had to wait longer than 1 frame to reset to the checkpoint.
This is the entire problem with modern gaming meta though. There basically is an assumption that people will look up the walkthrough, so you need to scale difficulty with that in mind.
I am like you, and this is a big part of why I’ve almost entirely stopped gaming. Either the game is too hard, or it has like 20 minutes of cir scenes per hour, or it requires an hour of supply grinding any time you pick it back up.
Like cyberpunk? The borderland series? Elder scrolls series? Expedition 33? Assassin’s Creed series? Tons more hyper popular games I’m not aware of because I play mostly arpgs too.
There’s plenty games that try to offer easier playthroughs, unless you wish for a game without easy mode but an easier baseline experience, in which case… Pokémon? The TLoZ games from Wii onwards? Idk, there’s plenty and plenty more I don’t know of.
I found expedition 33 to be difficult even in the story telling mode. It suggests a focus on the story, but you absolutely have to scale your characters correctly, learn boss fights patterns etc. I don’t like the fight gameplay (not my cup of tea), so I tried to avoid them, but I couldn’t progress past a certain point. Love the story and universe, but wish they’d made an even easier mode because I don’t want to spend time learning all the mechanics and combos etc.
Weird, I beat everything but the last optional superboss (Simon) in hard (the difficulty before max) and it’s not like I learnt character combos much. Yeah I did learn enemy movesets, sorta, but I always dodged, fuck the parry. Enemies did hit my characters a lot and almost half the turns were spent reviving them, but the revives recover post fight so it’s whatever.
I did reach a point where Maelle and Verso were so strong that enemies hardly got a turn though.
I put exactly 0 thought to the characters builds, so I know it’s my fault and I suspect it’s not that hard. But I literally have no interest in the combat system, so of course the game is not entirely made for me. However, this story mode shows that some devs don’t consider difficulty as a pre-requisite to enjoy their art.
Maybe there’s a mod that autowins the battles for you if that’s something you would enjoy? If all you want from the game is the story and the art but go along at your own pace, so not game play videos, god mode cheats might give you what you want. I’m being 100% serious.
Don’t let the word cheat be a distraction, games are for enjoyment and if the default experience is not enjoyable for you tweaking is 100% fair in offline games tbh. My point was that I like there to be an actual default unified experience, but everyone is free to enjoy how they like. I’m one of the cheesiest players of offline games of all time lol.
Yeah no worries I dont have any issue with cheating in single player games.
I used loads of trainers in the past to expend the fun in a game after beating it. It’s just rarer the times I need to pull out one to finish it
Because the game is prettier/smoother running on my computer native res at 100fps, than watching compressed videos on YouTube.
Otherwise yeah I would have watched a play through instead.
Also going at your own pace and being free to explore the environment is more pleasant than watching someone do it for you
Something a lot of people forget is that looking stuff up is not something normalised recently, older games tended to have a freaking manual that explained most bosses and areas, it even gave hints!
I get that you would prefer that, lucky there’s plenty games for both of us.
Fair point. I always associated those with the fact video games were relatively newer media at the time but you are correct. Some times they would give you maps and instructions.
Respectfully disagree with your stance (which is fine, as fushuan said, there’s games enough for all of us.) When I was younger and played more games, I would frequently look up how to get through them on GameFAQ. The joy wasn’t in figuring out puzzles, it was in getting to see the story unfolding.
EDIT: I seem to have upset the try hards. I’m sorry, but playing the the same part of a game over and over again and then beating it doesn’t make you special or give you any real life accolades… It’s a fuckin’ game. People play games to relax.
Games are supposed to be fun. End of conversation. There shouldn’t be a game that some people can’t beat just because they have slower reaction times or have a disability that prevents them from playing something such as Dark Souls. Dark Souls is a great game, but dying to some of the lower level enemies because they kept hit stunning me isn’t fun or cool in the slightest. It’s just fucking annoying. I can’t even imagine what someone who has disabilities or slower reaction times would feel.
Also, quit fucking gatekeeping games people. Jesus.
Games are supposed to be fun, but they’re not supposed to be fun for everyone.
So, some people will not enjoy dark souls, because the main gameplay - learning movesets until you’re able to not die to them - is not fun for some people. On the other hand, learning movesets at a really slow pace because the run back to the boss takes ages, or a boss that you can learn quite well but takes ages to kill because it leaves very few openings, or a boss that you would be able to learn except it’s in a tiny arena and the camera always fucks up… these are all areas in which dark souls games sometimes let down players who are geared to enjoy them.
Eh, fun isn’t the only thing people want from entertainment but even if that were always true there isn’t any reason niche games shouldn’t exist. Who am I to tell someone what kind of game they should play. Lots of games out there that I won’t play because I know it’s not for me - sometimes that sucks cause I like the art or the concept and wish the mechanics were what I want but they aren’t and I move on.
Catering to “most” also results in games that tend to be homogeneous in some way and that sucks for those that want niche. Also sucks when niche exists and gets ruined to appeal to “most” but that’s just how it goes.
Deep breaths, it’s gonna be OK. You are saying that all games should include a toggle/slider. I don’t agree. Devs should make games they want to make and I’ll play them if they appeal to me and you should too. But don’t get bent when they don’t have a feature you want.
Ugh. You people just don’t get it. You’re essentially saying that people who can’t physically interact with the game like you and I can are just shit out of luck. It’s literally not about me in anyway whatsoever. I can play them just fine.
I love video games, and I just think that they should be accessible to everyone. Whether that be a difficulty slider or just some accessibility options for those who need them. I want everyone to be able to play some of the games I love, so that I can have more people to talk about it with.
Thats the difference between me and most of the other people like you here in these comments. I’m not asking for them for me, I don’t need them. I’m asking them for people who would love to be able to play some of these big franchises but physically can’t.
Again, gatekeeping is such a fucking weird thing to do.
It’s not gate keeping, and the demand is unreasonable. Not all modes of transportation require accommodation for everyone. A paraplegic is not riding a motorcycle. That’s not a dig at them. And despite your frustration it doesn’t make your opinion more valid than a developer’s.
EDIT: Oh WAIT! I just realized I didn’t say anything about your motorcycle example. Get this. They have an attachment, a side car, that can go on the side of motorcycles that can allow a passenger. This passenger can be paraplegic! Amazing!
Ah yes. So unreasonable. I guess all the others games that include those kind of options just don’t exist!
Ah yes. Sticking up for others is a classic crybaby attitude. It’ll be okay! You can still be a “real” big gamer while allowing others to enjoy your favowite wittle games.
This is why it should be even easier for consumers to return games. Playing a game and deciding it’s not for you is one thing. Playing a game and realizing you just flushed $70 down the toilet is infuriating.
Let’s turn, “I deserve to get my money’s worth” into “I deserve to get my money back.”
Yeah they’re not great when it comes to some stuff for returns.
Last year I bought Assassins Creed 1 and 2 on sale. I played through 1 first, had a lovely time, then went to 2 and noticed some annoying graphical issues. Things that seemingly can’t be fixed after I tried with various mods and patches.
I had only played it for 30 minutes so i tried to get a refund and they declined me because I had bought it so long ago, even though I argued that the game was technically too broken for me to play.
I had to just suck it up and just play it on the PS4 with the Ezio Collection.
Yeah, it should be based on playtime though there’s probably a reason why it isn’t. There are times were I’d have a game in my library that I only get to many months after purchase only to find out its not what I was expecting.
I’ve beaten the Dark Souls trilogy and Elden Ring. I didn’t have fun when I was dying to the combat, I was having a BLAST with the exploration and the rest of the games mechanics. It’s almost like you can have both be fun…
What are the rest of the mechanics? It’s almost all combat and exploration (that leads to more combat). There’s no, like, base building or grand strategy or romance plots.
That said, I don’t think you can please everyone. I found the games enjoyable as they are.
The armor/weapon system is fantastic, the level up system is simplistic, but also super in depth, the level design and how everything connects is amazing, etc. etc.
You can though. You add a difficulty slider, or some options in an accessibility menu. God of War (2018), and God of War Ragnarok, the newer Spider-Man games, and probably some of the other Playstation exclusives ALL have options in game that allow people to play their games. I don’t want to hear that nonsense that it just can’t be done.
I consider the weapon system part of the combat. I guess the leveling system is its own mechanic, but it’s super shallow compared to many other games (eg: path of exile, or even Baldur’s gâte)
Some people wouldn’t be happy with a difficulty slider. Some people would use the slider to make themselves unhappy. Either by turning it too high due to hubris, or too low from lack of confidence. The unified difficulty of the souls games for many people is a plus, and creates a sense of shared struggle they enjoy.
And as I said elsewhere, I really don’t think meta game options are the only way to do difficulty.
Video games are art. Just like a movie can be sad or a painting can be distressing, video games are allowed to explore all kinds of emotions.
Sometimes a higher difficulty is part of the artist’s vision. They get to decide how they convey what they want to convey.
One of my favorite new games is UFO 50. It’s a collection of retro-style games where some of them are genuinely very difficult, and others are just do a great job of simulating difficulty. The difficulty drops off right around the time you start to get a handle on the mechanics, so it’s hard to tell if it’s the game getting easier or if you’re just getting better.
Don’t worry! We have actual letters to read, we have oral ways of explaining things to you, we can even do pictures! What are your needs? I’m sure we can find a way to accommodate you!
So, the fact that I can’t read braille isn’t stopping me from enjoying the medium of reading, just that there are some books that are meant for people other than me? Not all books are meant for me to enjoy and that doesn’t mean I’m being gatekept by braille? Is that the point you’re trying to make?
There are all types of people on this planet. Some of them have the same interests and wants as you, but something happened to them during or after birth that drastically lowered their quality of life. Just because you were born or ended up at this point in your life just fine doesn’t mean that their issues are any less important.
All the books you like, someone with disabilities might want to read. We have the tools to make that book into a form they can partake in the excitement of that book.
That is my argument. No matter what you may have to say, it does not mean others shouldn’t be able to partake in the same activity.
Basketball was probably thought to be a “normal” human thing to do, but instead of being bound by that, we have wheelchair basketball. I think that’s beautiful and a perfect example of being able to accommodate someone’s physical needs.
There is literally no other reason than being an asshole on why someone shouldn’t want more people to be able to play a video game.
Fine. You’re being purposely gatekept from videogames. You’re entirely right and entitled to everything. Have fun being mad about it. Everyone other than you is just an asshole. Have a good one.
Of course not! Only those who took the time to reply and try to defend their hardcore gamer feelings are assholes. Normal people would just say, “yeah. That makes a lot of sense actually. Everyone should be able to physically play my favorite games!” But you can’t do that for some weird reason. Sad.
You’re not really good at this, are you? I’m not a game developer. They have the power to do this, I do not. It was even stated in the OP photo that the director made the game harder, for no other reason than to be a dick. And you applaud that for some reason. It’s mind boggling.
Movies “can be” made accessible to everyone but that would mean shaving off any theme or imagery that might trigger a trauma or phobia, cutting all content that may be inappropriate to children, avoiding any topic that could offend someone’s beliefs. Why are these unreasonable expectations but all video games have to pander to someone with poor reflexes or insufficient free time to learn the nuances of a mechanical system?
Because you’re trying to bring this back to people not being able to play video games? I can see why you’d think that’s a clever comeback, but I hate to break it to you, games can be developed to have accessibility options. I can’t magic you the understanding of what I’m trying to get across to you.
Nobody is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to play every game. Not every game has to be for everybody, and that’s ok. The exact same criticism can be made the other way around, that no game should be too easy because boredom is bad. And it’s exactly as stupid an argument in either direction.
Of course not. I do believe that gatekeeping gaming is a fucking stupid thing to do though. Not every game HAS to be for everyone, and that’s not even what I’m saying so bad argument to begin with.
What I AM saying though, is more people can play the same games and… GASP… actually be able to talk to their more hardcore friends about the game that their friend recommended! Man! What an idea!
There is nothing preventing YOU from playing on the highest, most hardcore gamer difficulty, so again, your point is moot.
My point is preventing people who aren’t able to function on the same level as a “normal” human from playing one of the biggest franchises in gaming history is stupid and there is nothing and no reason whatsoever to exempt them from being able to enjoy the games other than this stupid ass arbitrary gatekeeping bullshit a lot of so called gamers like to pull out.
You can still sit there and run around with no armor and do a no hit run. There is literally nothing stopping you from that… unless… you want to play on an easier difficulty and don’t want to admit it…?
actually be able to talk to their more hardcore friends about the game that their friend recommended!
The journey is often as important to the experience. It would be like your friend telling you about a great hike but then driving to the top just to talk about the view.
God, I wish I lived in a fantasy world. But, unfortunately, I have to exist alongside people who can’t think of anyone other than themselves. Like… most of the commenters here who kept trying to bring up what they believe to be valid points, but really just paint themselves as assholes who don’t want people to be able to enjoy their hardcore gamer games. Oh well. There plenty of people like you out there.
“People play games to relax, they’re supposed to be fun” your preference for relaxing is not universal, your inability to enjoy any particular game is your own problem, the mere existence of shit that was not made for you is not in any way gatekeeping
You have the option to play a different game or none at all, if you choose not to avail yourself of that option then you have voluntarily selected your difficulty
That’s such a lame ass rebuke. It can be done, has been done, and will continue to be done by developers who actually care about the medium and want more people to play their games. Did we not fucking invent braille so blind people can read???
I wasn’t expecting this post to bring out this kind of animosity in people. Jesus fuckin’ christ.
Video games are not a public service, there is no such thing as a 100% universally enjoyed video game for a reason. It’s ok that there are different types of video games, folks, be them too hard or too easy for your tastes, it’s kind of stupid to throw these kinds of stones about it.
I mean, is every book supposed to be palatable to everyone? Are we all supposed to feel the exact same way about every piece of art? This is like being mad that Guardians of The Galaxy involved sci-fi and super heroes and wasn’t a WWII documentary because that’s what you’d have preferred to watch.
Some books are written in smaller text than others. Some people have difficulties reading small text. Some people argue the enjoyment of such books is based on the small text. Others disagree and want to be able to experience the book with larger text.
Some texts are too esoteric or hard to understand. Some people argue that the enjoyment of such books is based on the obscure meaning of said books. Others are stupid and should get better at reading comprehension. Git gud, shitter.
Games, like movies, are easily consumed but difficult to create. As a result, everyone and their grandma can critique them and publish on the Internet which only further self-selects for the highly opinionated to do so.
But not all opinions are equal. You can be well studied in your field and generally intelligent, but if you don’t have a relevant background in the humanities and the sciences, you can have complex reasoning but without having the depth, the breadth, and the relevance in the analysis.
Case in point the first replier. The analogy is fine and the deductive reasoning is self-consistent, but they didn’t show the relevance to game design. (Ie. Why must the author make the text size bigger for people who can’t enjoy smaller text, and why must the same apply to games.)
That’s why gamers seem to be notorious for having takes that miss the trees for the forest.
(I am aware that I’m very much at risk of committing this very error with my post.)
I dont get why people think the difficulty with souls likes is so cool. It isnt difficult in a sense that you have to think a lot but rather that you memorise what moves the boss has and press your buttons fast enough. In a deep multiplayer game like dota2 or other strategy games you have real people who wont just do what they are programmed to. Heck i would say a auto battler like mechabellum is “harder” because i have to think on what to do… but do what you love…
Yea true, but a good part of the souls like people really get high from playing the “”“hardest”“” game. Not dimbing down mechanics is great…for multiplayer so “good” players see that they are better. Giving every player in a fps a aimbot wouldnt be fun, the fact that lots of shooters go further in the direction of less skill ceilling is propably the reason why stuff like arma, tarkov or squad gets players. Dying and getting shit on is as much of the fun in these games as is winning imo.
What you describe strikes me as reaping enjoyment from technical accuracy. I think of it like mastering Moonlight Sonata as opposed to riffing something jazzy with friends. Both enjoyable, but quite different.
Depends on how reductive you’re being. To me, your initial assertion that Dark Souls isn’t difficult (or is not as difficult as an online game) because it’s ultimately just a test of your pattern recognition / memorization and reflexes is ignoring the forest for the trees. If I applied that same mindset to playing an instrument, I could argue that, mechanically, they’re the same. You learn a boss’ pattern (I.e. learn the sheet music) and then it’s just a matter of moving your fingers to hit the requisite inputs.
Of course, I think most people would balk at describing making music as nothing more than playing the right notes at the right time, and rightly so. We tend to attach a certain amount of ineffable poetry to that act. I’m not saying that they’re 1:1 equivalent, mind you, but I’ve heard enough folks discuss a Souls boss fight in musical terms (tempo, rhythm, crescendos, etc.) to see the parallel.
Yea i get your point, i have to clarify that i ddont think that there is no skill involved but rather that the skill is more on the line of learning a pattern not of making descisions and understanding and adapting. If the music anology is used my point would be that learning sheet music is hard but understanding hoq music works to play together with a few people without giben sheet music is a whole other level. My point is that you dont just remember the pattern but that you have to adapt and no jam session is “the same” as in no other (musical) ülayed just plays the same pattern off notes every time.
I dont really care what is “harder” but i hate the culture in the souls like community where people think they are soo hardcore because they learned the sheet music/boss patterns.
No I hear you. I just think you’re letting your negative perception of that element of the game’s community weigh in a little too heavily on your analysis of the game. People being annoying by talking about the game like beating it is a badge of honor (spoiler alert guys, you’re meant to beat the game) and your assessment of the Souls-like gameplay loop are, at best, tangentially related.
No shade to you, by the way. How the culture receives and talks about media is as big a part of its legacy as any constituent element of the text, and it’s a worthy subject for criticism. It’s just that, in my opinion, criticism is sharpened when the author is very clear about when they cease to review the game/book/movie and when they start to review the phenomena around that media.
Fwiw, this subject has been on my mind since reading a review of the movie Eddington in which the author talked about the temptation to stop talking about the movie and start talking about the subjects the movie was touching upon. I have been making a concentrated effort to improve my critical writing this year, and that line resonated with me. So, this diatribe has been fermenting in my head for awhile now, and your post was my excuse to get it out. By no means do I mean to lecture you on how you should feel about Dark Souls or it’s fandom.
isnt difficult in a sense that you have to think a lot but rather that you memorise what moves the boss has and press your buttons fast enough.
I see this a lot, but that wipes out like most games. Baldur’s gate you just click on stuff. Tekken you just hit buttons. Tetris is just moving blocks around.
Also you often don’t rote memorize the moves. People play by reaction or without knowing exactly what’s coming.
I dont think this would rule out baldurs gate, yea if you play your 19384728 playthrough and you already know the whole lore, what every dialog option would do and the respective dc what is the skill? In a normal playthrough you have to be generally smart about what you do. You have tons of options you can think of and you can solve problems in a bunch of different ways. Yea if you just do things and if it doesnt work out you reload i dont think there is much “skill” required to beat the game. But i also dont think that baldurs gate would be a game where skill matters. My point is that one is memorizing the awnsers for the test from trying it 300 times and the other is understanding the material so you could write any test without first failing it as soon as you are confronted with a new question…
The 3d Ninja Gaiden games (not the NES ones). They are unfairly hard, in the sense that they don’t really teach you how to play them before throwing you at massive problems. There are the people who find (or are told/shown) various cheese strats and thus say the game is easy (“git gud, scrub!”) but without using degenerate strats the game is nigh-impossible. I’ve heard it likened to bringing a brand new player to a fighting game tournament and making their first match against a mid-tier opponent— there’s literally no chance of victory.
I think Kojima gets it. For a lot of players, esp. on the more cinematic games, the story is the main driver and the action is how it progresses. The games I’ve played that were ordeals are often the ones I’ve given up on. It’s the ones you can start on story mode with, enjoy the narrative and then re-play at the harder levels that I’ve stuck with.
I’ll keep saying it: I already have a job. I want to play a game to unwind.
Implementing a wide gamut of difficulty settings is also an accessibility feature, and allows people with certain physical or mental challenges the opportunity to enjoy your game firsthand. Why would you want to deny your audience this opportunity?
Is poor the word you’d use for art that fails to be amusing and charming? Because a lot of art is not trying to be amusing and charming.
Edit: I don’t care if people disagree, but at least have an answer. Not liking art because it wasn’t intended to be delightful and pleasing is not how to do art criticism.
Ah, I think there's a bit of a disagreement here between what types of art are respectable and what types aren't. For context, I subscribe to the definition of art that says "everything made with intent" is some form or other of art.
Suppose you go to a gallery. Would you consider handicap-hostile architecture, which is part of the exhibit itself, to be worth respecting as a art enthusiast? (Stairs required to be used in order to see a painting, specifically because the artist wants you tired from walking, not pushing a wheelchair, which they don't like, when you look at it, for example.)
I could see it both ways, but I fall more on the side of accessibility. If an artist requires someone to use stairs to see their art, they are an asshole, regardless of how good their paintings actually are.
This is exactly the kind of conversation that I’d rather be having. Thank you! I’ll try to disagree at least interestingly.
I subscribe to the idea that art is the study of choice, and that’s fairly close to your definition of art, but the difference is that I’m not saying I can draw a circle around what is and isn’t art. Gun to my head, I’d probably define it as something like “anything done with aesthetic intent”, to exclude the act of intentionally kicking a puppy as performance art. We intend many things in life, many of which are also intentionally artless.
I think I see what you’re driving at with the bit about ramps. To hew to the heart of the matter as the metaphor applies to video games, I would still call that exhibit art - it would simply be limited in how successfully it achieved what it was attempting, which is a severe flaw. I would want to talk about how it could have better achieved its aims. The aim of such an art installation could have merit, if it was more intelligently done.
The reason I do not place the accessibility question from the metaphor on the same level as difficulty in video games is that completion of a game is, I would submit, something that the creator should only endeavour to guarantee if they believe completion of the game is part of the intended experience. I would caution against taking this as a maxim.
When media is highly interactive, as with games, it is a mistake to take it as an implicit assumption that that this media must be completable by a broad majority of participants. Booksellers do not make such guarantees, and books are far less interactive.
If we all raise our voices on behalf of accessibility proponents with the idea that games that are not as easily completed are of lesser value, or if we even become so strident that we say they are not even art, we are limiting the space of an art form that is still in its nascence. We are very permissive with other, older art forms (and they have all taken their lumps with highly prescriptive and proscriptive schools of thought, over the years). It would be like saying music with too many notes isn’t music, or that music isn’t good if I can’t personally dance to it. Those are preferences, not art critiques. We should be asking how the choices of a game developer serve or betray their creative aims. We won’t always get what we want out of every game, but at least we’ll have better conversations.
I like games that take a generous view of accessibility, and I respect that vision. Celeste is a masterpiece. I like games that take a stern view of difficulty also, when it serves their aesthetic vision in a meaningful way.
That last bit is easy to get wrong, and I respect people who struggle with the subject of difficulty in how it interacts with creative ideas, but I have less time for people who hate the music just because they can’t dance to it. That’s not always the point.
it is. but if the reason that you think something is poor is because you were not the target audience, you can come across as entitled and clueless. it is not like their games pretend to be easy games, it is clear from the start that that the challenge is part of the design
It’s like making music and experimenting with discordant harmonies and unusual rhythms. Art can be challenging, it can require engagement and time and study to fully experience. It can make people uncomfortable and it can appeal to only a small audience and still be good.
It’s like with any other art. Some of it is a simple pleasure, and some of it wants you to struggle. Some people read Gwenpool, some people read Cerebus.
You’ll have to do a little more legwork to make that connect back to the idea it’s being used to support, which correct me if I’m mistaken is that every game needs to make all of its content easily received or it’s not valid art/less valuable/somehow problematic.
You don’t demand a guarantee that you’ll finish every book you’ll buy and you don’t hate every song you can’t dance to, why are games different? They’re different because you think of games as purely entertainment, and you don’t respect it as art. If you did, you would not be arguing that creators should conform to your personal preferences.
I’m not arguing that every game must cater to my casual needs. What I’m expanding upon the op is that art is art only in the eye of someone experiencing it. Artists like game devs are free to make the kind of games they want, but it is a balance between making the game attractive and marketable and making something only the most purist will like. Concessions are to be made for the game to be accessible, as you will have to sell it to make a profit. All the examples are from commercial games that need a consumer base to buy it.
Some will criticize Elden ring for being a bit more easy and approachable (than previous DS), because they are used to the elitist view that games must be difficult to play. But on the other hand, all gamers that had fun playing their own way are valid. Some will like having a hard time, some will like having an easier path to progress.
In the end, if you make art you want for others to see it. If your game doesn’t sell because only hardcore players can progress, it could be seen as a failure for your art to be spread. It’s also certainly a business failure as well.
So as I said, it’s a balance and there is no right or wrong way to do it. People can still discuss what their preferences are, be it hard games or story mode for easy gameplay.
I’m not 12 anymore so I don’t have time to learn, memorize and train for some of the newer games. I can appreciate games that include an easy path for me, allowing me to experience their art. Unlike eg. the Dark Souls universe where I’ll never truly experience it because it’s too hard for me.
Devs are then free to take this feedback into consideration for their next game.
art is art only in the eye of someone experiencing it
That flies in the face of one of my core values so I’m glad you underlined it for me. My view is ars gratia ars. That is an entire body of thought that stands against the idea that art needs to serve some purpose or agenda in order to be valid. Art is complete in itself no matter who gets to receive it, and anyone who tells you otherwise is some brand of authoritarian sooner or later. I’m ride or die with the bohemians on this one.
As for Elden Ring, I am fully onboard with their design choice with regard to difficulty. I enjoyed the time I spent with it, and the only reason I didn’t finish it is because I approached it while burnt out in other areas of my life. I finished all but one Dark Souls game, and I found them harder for sure. The creative vision with Elden Ring is a few steps toward the accessibility crowd, and you seem to notice how it’s still not enough. It never will be, and it’s folly to try. Once they’re running the show, you get to do a lot less.
Again, I am not talking about preferences, I am arguing that we should treat games as art and do art critique about it. We should not be treating games as mere commercial products that must amuse us at all costs, that is a long road that goes nowhere. Difficulty in games has a meaning, it is a design choice, and we can talk all day about what that choice meant - whether it served the creator’s aims - whether that difficulty achieved what it was trying to achieve - but if we are only here to bicker about whose preferences are more important, leave me out of it.
I’ll check out your link later, but holy shi, this went from 0 to 100 really quick. I’m authoritarian because I think you can’t appreciate art if you don’t see it? Like I can tell you I made a super cool game, but I’m the only one allowed to see it. Is it art? To me yes but how can you know if you never even saw it or know what it’s about?
For me, art is inherently human. If it’s not seen by anyone, it may as well not exist for anyone.
The art someone makes is not always meant for everybody, you can make art for yourself or a specific group, but you always make it for someone.
Once again I’m not advocating for removing all difficulty. But in the case of Elden ring, they probably went like “DS is too hard, let’s make some adjustments so more casual players can also enjoy the game”. And it seems to be not at the detriment of the experience for others.
I’m not here to bicker about preferences. I’d like to criticize games as pure art but we both know it’s not the reality. Big games only get made because lots of money is invested and they must make some back unless they want to lose their jobs. I’m not suggesting that Elden ring must be made easier, but they evidently saw that there is value (art and/or monetary) in making adjustments to make it more accessible.
For these games where the difficulty is core to the game it’s difficult to do it without compromise. Other games allow a choice and aren’t so tight about how difficult the gameplay must be. I think more games could see the value in having it more accessible. They already provide so much accessibility when it doesn’t impact the artistic vision: localisation, subtitles, key binding, color blindness, etc.
Like you said, it’s a design choice. Some games make the choice to be overly difficult and some like that, cool. Not all games are like that, and having options to allow more casual gamers to enjoy the game is a free win.
It’s possible to implement without compromise for the core users, and it will expand the reach your art has.
Edit: as a final point, in TTRP the golden rule is to have fun. If a rule in the book is not fun, the DM has the ability to change it so it’s fun to play. Why can’t I play a game and be like “this is way too hard for me, I’ll do X to have it easy there to advance”. Must I be frustrated to be able to enjoy the game? For ER/DS the idea seems to be yes, the game is for masochist. For other games why would it be?
Some games even allow custom rules to be set. BG3 and others have options where you change the rules so you can have fun your way. (Again not all games need this, but it doesn’t detract from the art of those games).
The conversation was at 0 yesterday. If you look around you, a lot of ink has been spilled since then, and the people who are really at 100 with it are not getting responses from me anymore! To be clear I am not calling you anything, I’m talking generally about philosophies of art and art history, some of which you will read is mixed up in Maoism and stuff - I apologise for not being clearer, and I do appreciate that there are still sane people who think I’m worth talking to about these things.
I still disagree that art has to be for somebody. If I do some art and then delete it because I wasn’t satisfied with the attempt, I still did the art. It still existed for its own sake, and it was art while it existed. When we treat art as a means to an end, I feel it is diminished. Video games are almost always a means to an end, just as with almost all commercial art products. That doesn’t mean we should treat it purely as a commercial product.
“Pure art” might be that which we do for no reason other than we want to do it. You’re putting your finger on that in your middle paragraphs there, and my view is just this: treat the commercial aspect of art as nothing more than a regrettable circumstance, sort of like the fact that Harvey Weinstein was involved in so many great movies. It’s just a fact of life, but that doesn’t mean you discard all that art - you just keep it in mind. Babies, bathwater, etc.
Elden Ring kept to the “single difficulty mode” while easing up the overall challenge, likely out of commercial interest (in order to have wider appeal) and that was commercially successful, but they managed to do so in a way that maintains the fact that they have set the challenge at the same level for all players, so that challenge still has the sense of impact in the intended play that melds with the themes of the game so well. I would call that a commercial and artistic success story.
TTRPGs are games also and they are definitely an art form, but the situation is subtly different. If you get that many people together to play in realtime, the impetus has to be geared towards maximum fun. I would consider it a practical limitation of the artistic medium of TTRPG design, rather than some deeper truth known only to Brennan Lee Mulligan and his ilk - video games need not attempt to be fun at all times, because not all art is trying to be pleasurable. Games are free to have any intended experience, any not all of it is going to be for all people. This is a feature, not a bug - but the commercial interests will always side with the accessibility interests. If I spent a little more time writing, I might even connect the dots between capitalism and fascism somewhere along the way, but I should probably be decreasing the temperature in the room.
Agree to disagree then :) (even though I don’t mean it has to have a target audience) For me, in your example of art you made then deleted, the art is still art. But you did experience it yourself. It wasn’t to your liking so you trashed it, but you did evaluate it through your psyche. For me every art made has at least one person as the recipient: the creator. You make something because you want to see it in the world, or maybe just to practice, or for any other reason. We humans don’t do things randomly (or at least not truly) and imo the creator gains something by creating the art (tangible or not).
Art for the sake of art seems to imply we create stuff just because it’s art, without any expectations. For me that seems a bit reducing, as what’s seen as “objectively pure art” is cultural. Poetry structure in the west is not the same as in the east, so even if you write some for the sake of it, you are implicitly making it western style for a western audience (unless you go out of your way to try eastern style, but then it has a meaning to you).
Sure I don’t want to discard everything and the baby with it, but even then I don’t know (which is logical) any game that was made and finished but never published/distributed to anyone. Every game dev I see at least has some goals for it to be played by someone. Even the games I made in game jams were intended for me to play, or others at the event to test.
There is a ton of research done on UX (not just UI, but also level design) so that the game can be enjoyed by others.
Anyway, my point with Elden ring is that it is possible to do it, so I can understand some people asking for the same treatment for other hard games. It is possible to make the game more accessible without interfering with the artistic vision. So why not?
For TTRPG as well as video games in general, fun can be different things for different people. Some like hard psychosocial thrillers, some like dumb dungeon fights, others like to discuss with every npc. It is up to the DM or game dev to decide which they’ll put forth. For DM it’s easier to change course if needed, but for games it’s less personal. So having options to turn the difficulty up or down is imo not that big of a compromise.
Regarding your first paragraph, after reading the Wikipedia page (English and French, since the EN one is quite short).
Seems like it’s mostly as a reaction of moralism and sentimentalism.
While I agree that art is art in itself, it still has to be experienced by someone else to exist.
and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear.
To me it seems to imply that art must be experienced for it to be, even if just by its creator.
Art is purely human, made by humans and experienced by humans. The concept wouldn’t exist without us. That’s also why AI gen is not art most of the time.
On the other hand, I disagree that art can be “pure” without any moral or political stance. Everything we do and express, we do through the lenses of our mind, which inherently lives in a world surrounded by morals and politics.
Also the Wikipedia article suggests that this view is completely eurocentric and does not represent other cultures around the world. So I would take it with a grain of salt.
That’s fair enough - the hill I’m trying to die on is the idea that nobody should be allowed to tell artists what they can or can’t do, whether it’s for politics, ideology, morals, or money. Let art simply be, and let us talk about whether and how it succeeds. Enough art has been prescribed or prohibited for long enough.
Yes that I totally agree with you. Nobody should force artists to do stuff. However we are still in a capitalist system, so most probably they will have to adapt to sell to an audience.
This isn’t a very honest argument. If the only saving grace of the game was its difficulty, nobody would mind not being able to finish it.
Something is lost and gained with every substantive choice in game design. That’s what makes the choices interesting, and worth discussion.
Let’s play with that idea. Take one of my favourite games of all time, Morrowind. It’s hard to get through, maybe. Weird UI, weird bad combat. Those are flaws. But it also has a big fat 0 to 100 difficulty slider. Is that a flaw? I would argue no, because in that game the intended struggle is to engage with the world and the story on your own terms. The combat is all window dressing for the real struggle, which is with the story’s frustrating ambiguities.
In the case of Morrowind, some of the difficulty fails to serve the intended experience and some of it supports that vision wonderfully. It’s not a flawless game, but importantly I am discussing how the difficulty helped or hindered the creative vision. That is art criticism, and it’s a more interesting conversation than arguing over personal preferences.
You don’t have to play difficult games. Not everything has to cater to a wide audience. Most of today’s re-boots and sequals were from stories that catered to a niche audience only to lose its appeal by going too mainstream…
It would also seem like bad business to leave it out of your niche game, unless the niche is specifically about the difficulty level. Why would you want to eliminate whole chunks of your already limited number of potential customers by only offering a very challenging difficulty?
[CITATION NEEDED]
It seems pretty clear you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about from a game development standpoint. Difficulty is the entire driving mechanism behind gameplay and you can’t just add multiple versions of that trivially. Even Bethesda’s classic “bump up the health” stuff isn’t a trivial thing to implement. Just come on with this.
Let’s take Elden Ring as an example: how do you scale poise? Is the player harder to stagger? Are enemies easier to stagger? How about status effects? Can you trigger hemorrhage with less hits on low difficulty? Dodge frames? Parry timing?
That’s just off the top head, there’s tons more mechanics I’ve never even touched in there.
Combat systems (which is 95% of what difficulty affects) can get so much more complicated than just HP/Armor. And that makes scaling more them just percentages of damage in/damage out.
I’m not saying it can’t be done. But it’s a gross injustice to blame lazy devs for not implementating a system that probably takes weeks if not months to create and balance.
Sure, a complex difficulty system that the user can tweak is nicer to have. But making the player take more hits to kill is pretty simple and could be argued as an accessibility feature.
How exactly is that an accessibility feature…? No seriously I sound like I’m being shitty (and that’s because in a small way I am, this conversation is deeply personally insulting) but I’m really curious why this is being considered accessibility when what we’re doing, the actual push for accessibility in gaming, is all things like allowing people to access the games not coddling people to where they have to have their own special extra-easy game modes.
Things like support for 3rd party controllers, key rebinding, compatibility with external sound processing equipment, video setting adjustment (remove particle effects or other visual noise, colorblind modes, onscreen hilighting) are all the things we’re actually fighting for broad inclusion into videogames. Mandatory godmode isn’t, and it’s so dumb that it sounds like some kind of philosophical false-flag dreamed up by the conservatives to discredit the concept of disability accommodation in general…
Game design is the entire driving mechanism behind gameplay. Difficulty just plays around with the variables that you already have made for said game design.
Do you really think they completely redesign a game for every difficulty?
Game design is the entire driving mechanism behind gameplay.
Been a while since I’ve seen a good old fashioned tautology. Stop trying to be disingenuous, ‘difficulty’ (or if you prefer, ‘challenge’) is the #1 factor in game design. You either should know this, because it’s patently obvious, or you should just stop talking about this subject like you have any idea what you’re talking about.
Do you really think they completely redesign a game for every difficulty?
Strawman me harder, zaddy!
No, they don’t redesign a game for every difficulty - that’s absurd. But it does have a huge impact on every aspect of gameplay, and like I said, it’s far far from trivial to alter the abstract concept which defines things like the core gameplay loop.
I see you have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you think it’s a simple as reducing a health bar? Because games that do difficulty scaling like that are not fun at all and I would consider that lazy.
How can you be niche without a “gatekeeping” to some degree? Again, not every game or piece of media need to cater to everybody.
I designed games myself. It is very easy. Just switch around some variables.
Every game does it like that, whether it is HP, damage, enemy spawns, probability to take a specific action, … it is all just playing around with variables.
It is neither lazy nor not fun.
Did you really think they completely redesign a game for every difficulty?
It is you that has no idea what you’re talking about.
“All game design is just changing numbers” sure, and all programming is just manipulating two values over and over and over. But the difficult part isn’t changing the numbers, the difficult part is the mechanisms that define how those numbers interact with other numbers. “Magic Numbers” have a place in game design yes, but they are not by any stretch how those systems are defined. If your game was created like that, it cannot have been very good…
I mean, presumably because it'd compromise their vision for the game or some such? Some games use gameplay as part of the storytelling, so nontrivial difficulty swttings would compromise the story being told (for example if the game wants you to experience a gruelling trek through a hostile area). Now that doesn't mean a story mode or similar is bad, but there are reasons to consider for a game dev to consider such settings incompatible with their game. Also in a game with more complex mechanics difficulty would be more complicated than player and enemy stats, and a dev might simply consider implementing satisfactory difficulty settings not a good use of their time.
I meant that the story/easy mode wouldn't conform with their vision. To expand on my example, if your game is portraying a grueling trek through a swamp where enemies abound and rest is scarce, the struggle would be an inalienable part of the experience; removing the struggle would fundamentally alter the story being told through the game. It's not about their vision being intact or not; it's about not wanting to intentionally make an inferior version of their art.
Then they label the intended difficulty with “recommended” and say that will give the best experience and that if you choose a difficulty higher or lower you might impede the intention of it.
I really don’t see the problem with having options.
Like I love the Kingdom Hearts series and was able to play it and fall in love with them as a kid on normal and sometimes beginner difficulty. As an adult I play critical because it makes me engage with all of the mechanics of the game. But I would have unlikely got to the point of being able to play at that level if I couldn’t work my way up through Normal > Proud > Critical.
The same admiration you have to grinding on a single playthrough to overcome an intended challenge can still be obtained through multiple playthroughs of increasing difficulty.
Then they label the intended difficulty with "recommended" and say that will give the best experience and that if you choose a difficulty higher or lower you might impede the intention of it.
You're missing the point, which is weird because I explicitly stated it. To repeat, an artist might not want to create an inferior version of their art, irrespective of the utility of doing so. Art is an egotistical affair.
I really don't see the problem with having options.
Options can make sense in some games but not in others; a developer deciding not to include them has likely either figured they wouldn't work with the game's structure, wouldn't be a good use of their time or both. Difficulty options are simply not a one size fits all solution, for the same reason it wouldn't make sense to demand all painters make colorblind-friendly versions of their paintings.
Difficulty is not simply one aspect of a game that can be adjusted with a slider. Difficulty is the confluence of many different gameplay aspects coming together. Sometimes, those systems allow for easy and discrete adjustment like with the old Doom games where settings can simply vary the enemies that spawn, the damage dealt, or the health and ammo from pickups.
The deliberate decisions and balance that make Dark Souls good also make it difficult, it’s not good simply because it is difficult. Take Blighttown for example, one of the most notoriously difficult areas of the game. It’s difficult because the architecture is hostile and confusing, and encounters place immense pressure on the player through application of Toxic and confined or deliberately open spaces that allow you to dodge yourself off a cliff. How do you make that “easier”? There really isn’t an abundance of enemy placement throughout most of the game, it’s very deliberate. Equipment attribute numbers are all low to maintain a tight balance and even things like parry windows are affected by the specific shield you have equipped. Adding in additional difficulty options is a retuning of the entire game, which also retunes the formula. Look, I’m sorry if it sounds snobby but there’s just no other way to say that if you start making substitutions to a dish at a restaurant it’s not the same dish!
This insistence that all games MUST be for all people is what leads to the bland homogeneity of modern game design. Dark Souls comes from the rich legacy of dungeon crawlers like King’s Field before it and those games are notoriously oppressive and difficult, it’s why people like myself love them. Everyone attributes poison swamps to Miyazaki but go back to Eternal Ring or Shadow Tower: Abyss in the early 00’s before his involvement and you’ll find mandatory poison damage areas there as well. It’s a staple of the genre. Heck, play Megami Tensei (no, not Shin Megami Tensei, MEGAMI TENSEI from the NES) and there’s a whole section of mandatory fire damage that you can’t negate until you’re already 4/5 of the way through it.
I also find the accessibility angle disingenuous and a little insulting even. All props to devs that add difficulty to their game as a means of accessibility when they are able to or want to, but it should not be necessary. This also diminishes real accessibility options like colorblind modes, reading assistance modes, keybinding modes, etc. I do not appreciate that.
Everyone thinks they’re a critic because they don’t like a game or certain things about a game and that it would be better if it catered to them, but difficulty is already highly subjective to begin with and insisting that devs find ways to foresee and cater to all possible permutations is untenable.
If you don’t like the game: fine. If you want to levy valid criticisms about the game in your opinion: fine. But this insistence that the developers are being foolish for creating a game to their vision and not yours is the actual thing cheapening it as art.
Honestly don’t care. Because see the thing is, I get to enjoy these games while you gotta come online and whine about them. I wrote my post out of passion because I see something there worth valuing. You wrote your post to whine and tear something down you didn’t understand.
I’ll keep saying it: I already have a job. I want to play a game to unwind.
This is not a universal response. Some people like difficult games for many reasons. Overcoming a challenge can give me a taste of triumph absent from my day job.
Implementing a wide gamut of difficulty settings is also an accessibility feature, and allows people with certain physical or mental challenges the opportunity to enjoy your game firsthand. Why would you want to deny your audience this opportunity?
Sure, maybe, but the devil is in the details.
I suppose it’s not the game maker’s responsibility to stop people from ruining their own experiences. I’m pretty confident that some people would just easy-mode through dark souls and have a vastly diminished experience. “I don’t see the big deal. It’s just an action game”, they might say, because easy mode gave unlimited healing and no monster respawn. The difficulty (which is vastly overstated) is part of what makes it work. People remember Blight Town and Sen’s Fortress because of the ordeal. I can’t remember a single dungeon from Skyrim.
Furthermore, meta game options found in menus is not the only way to do difficulty options. Elden Ring, for example, is very generous with spirit summons.
No one is asking devs to remove hard mode. They are asking them to include an easy mode for people who can’t deal with hard mode. People with physical or mental barriers, people who don’t have time, or really any reason.
This is no different than inclusivity.
YOU might not remember anything that wasn’t challenging but that doesn’t mean it’s like that for others. I remember everything from Skyrim. I love Skyrim. I had fun with it so I remember it.
I don’t remember much from Elden ring cus I never made it. I struggled at it and couldn’t her anywhere.
I can back years later and cheated on a bit more health and more health potions. It was challenging still but I could at least experience the rest of the game.
I really don’t think that’s a productive use of “gatekeeping”.
Do you apply this to other mediums? There are books and movies that are difficult to follow, but no one demands that authors and publishers release a simpler edition. Video games seem to be an exception.
Accessibility like “let me remap the controls” or “give me subtitles” is a whole different beast from “let me be invulnerable”. Treating those as the same is strange to me.
I’m not particularly against difficulty options. I didn’t have the patience to finish Nine Sols without turning the difficulty down. I wouldnt have felt “gate kept” if I just had to put the game down without finishing it.
You’re saying some people shouldn’t get to play a game where difficulty options are an easy solution.
A book or a movie isn’t an equivalent comparison. Not too mention there ARE simplified versions of popular books or abridged versions and movie guides and so on anyway.
Almost all the time this is brought up it’s for single player games. Why do you care if I need a bit more health to get through it? How does that take anyone away from you? I assure you nothing will be lost by allowing people to play it with double the health, or without a arbitrary grinding mechanic that inflates the games length, or whatever really.
No one is asking for the subject matter to be dumbed down, or for the story to be shallow or transparent.
Why should someone not get to play through a game because they insisted their hand and can’t dodge anymore?
You’re saying some people shouldn’t get to play a game where difficulty options are an easy solution.
They can play it (assuming they have the money to buy the software and hardware, but that’s a whole other accessibility problem). There’s no guarantee they’ll be able to 100% it. I don’t think it’s axiomatic that everyone should be able to 100% every game.
You’re right that it doesn’t really matter in single player games. I did once have an argument on this topic where the other person said they should be able to change the rules in multiplayer to suit their desires. They wanted more forgiving dodge windows, just for them, unilaterally. That can fuck off.
A book or a movie isn’t an equivalent comparison.
Why not?
Not too mention there ARE simplified versions of popular books or abridged versions and movie guides and so on anyway.
There are let’s plays and wikis for games.
No one is asking for the subject matter to be dumbed down, or for the story to be shallow or transparent.
In some cases, they are. It’s cliché now, but part of the story of dark souls is often cited repeatedly struggling against an uncaring, dying, world until you persevere. If you rip that out and make all the creatures docile, I don’t know if I would call it “dumbed down” but it would certainly be a substantial change. Sometimes the medium is the message. But, often, you are correct that it is not really the case.
Why should someone not get to play through a game because they insisted their hand and can’t dodge anymore?
No one’s arguing against accessibility for controls. I’m not even against well done difficulty options. (The Bethesda style “we just give the enemies more health and damage” is a poorly done difficulty slider, in my view). I just think “I cannot hear so I need subtitles” and “I just want to win on the first try” don’t belong together.
Though, introspecting a little, I think what’s going on is maybe ableism or something like it. I don’t actually believe some of the people who say “this game is too hard. I want an easy mode” are disabled. I read them as just half-assing it. Like someone who wants to play pro soccer but doesn’t want to actually get in shape so run, so they want a smaller field. And, as you say, it doesn’t really matter what someone does in a single player game on their own time, but for some reason it irritates me when someone’s like “I’m just as disabled as that blind guy” when they’re perfectly capable, they just haven’t practiced. Something about “I’ve spent an hour on this task and I haven’t mastered it, I’m disabled” sits wrong with me.
Elden ring opened the gate so wide that we got newcomers trashing on some gameplay features which have been a staples of those games since from software started making them. At some point gatekeeping ensure that you don’t alienate the players who played all your games and played a big part on your success. Cause the wider you want to open the gate and the more you have to move away from your vision. Imo not all games are meant for everyone and that’s fine.
I can back years later and cheated on a bit more health and more health potions. It was challenging still but I could at least experience the rest of the game.
See, here’s the thing about Elden Ring (especially compared to older FromSoft games imo), you can do this right in the game. A boss kicking your ass? Walk away, go somewhere else and come back when you’ve leveled up more, maybe gotten some extra flasks for healing or upgraded your armor and weapons. Does Elden Ring do it well enough? That’s up for debate and I have some complaints in that department myself (the final boss of the DLC before the nerf is the only time that I’ve ever put down the controller and decided that beating a FromSoft boss simply wasn’t worth the effort - especially after looking at the wiki and seeing one attack that needs a frame perfect dodge to avoid being hit and another where they straight up said “we don’t know how you’re supposed to dodge this attack”), but it is built right into the game.
But after at a certain point, accessibility comes at compromising design integrity. Every piece of media doesn’t have to cater to everyone. I don’t see people complaining about Andy Warhol gatekeeping because colorblind people can’t see all his paintings. Or that Ozzy Osbourne didn’t make enough country music songs. But with games, it’s a different story. People complain constantly about games not catering to everybody. Bennett Foddy made an entire game to talk about this. It’s called Getting Over It, and it’s considered one of the hardest games of all time. If you’ve never seen it, I highly suggest reading his monologue at least, as I think it’s very relevant to any conversation about game difficulty, especially Souls games which are the most frequent subject of this discussion.
This game is an homage to a free game that came out in 2002, titled ‘Sexy Hiking.’ The author of the game was Jazzuo, a mysterious Czech designer who was known at the time as the father of B-games. B-games are rough assemblages of found objects. Designers slap them together very quickly and freely, and they’re often too rough and unfriendly to gain much of a following. They’re built more for the joy of building them than as polished products.
In a certain way, Sexy Hiking is the perfect embodiment of a B-game. It’s built almost entirely out of found and recycled parts, and it’s one of the most unusual and unfriendly games of its time. In it, your task is simply to drag yourself up a mountain with a hammer. The act of climbing, in the digital world or in real life, has certain essential properties that give the game it’s flavor. No amount of forward progress is guaranteed; some cliffs are too sheer, or too slippery. And the player is constantly, unremittingly, in danger of falling and losing everything.
Anyway, when you start Sexy Hiking, you’re standing next to a dead tree, which blocks the way to the entire rest of the game. It might take you an hour to get over that tree. A lot of people never got past it. You prod and poke at it, exploring the limits of your reach and strength, trying to find a way up. And there’s a sense of truth in that lack of compromise. Most obstacles in videogames are fake; you can be completely confident in your ability to get through them, once you have the correct method or the correct equipment, or just by spending enough time. In that sense, every pixelated obstacle in Sexy Hiking is real.
The obstacles in Sexy Hiking are unyielding, and that makes the game uniquely frustrating. But I’m not sure Jazzuo intended to make a frustrating game - the frustration is just essential to the act of climbing, and it’s authentic to the process of building a game about climbing. A funny thing happened to me as I was building this mountain: I’d have an idea for a new obstacle, and I’d build it, test it, and it would usually turn out to be unreasonably hard. But I couldn’t bring myself to make it easier. It already felt like my inability to get past the new obstacle was my fault, as a player, rather than as the builder. Imaginary mountains build themselves from our efforts to climb them, and it’s our repeated attempts to reach the summit that turns those mountains into something real.
When you’re building a video game world, you’re building with ideas, and that can be like working with quick-set cement. You mold your ideas into a certain shape that can be played with, and in the process of playing with them, they begin to harden and set until they are immutable, like rock. At that point, you can’t change the world. Not without breaking it into pieces and starting fresh with new ideas.
One of the things people love about Souls games is the challenge of it - not difficulty, as difficulty for the sake of difficulty is bad design (see my complaints above), but the challenge of learning how a boss moves like you’d learn the rhythm to a dance or a song. You’ll get pushback because Souls games cater to a specific audience who crave that kind of struggle. The story, music, and world of FromSoft games are great, but these gamers feel that without the obstacles to overcome, the games would be missing a core component of what makes them great, and that by removing it you would cheapen the experience for yourself. Like wanting to play a city builder but you don’t want to have to place any roads. At that point, why not just watch a playthrough on YouTube?
For years now, people have been predicting that games would soon be made out of prefabricated objects, bought in a store and assembled into a world. And for the most part that hasn’t happened, because the objects in the store are trash. I don’t mean that they look bad or that they’re badly made, although a lot of them are - I mean that they’re trash in the way that food becomes trash as soon as you put it in a sink. Things are made to be consumed and used in a certain context, and once the moment is gone, they transform into garbage. In the context of technology, those moments pass by in seconds.
Over time, we’ve poured more and more refuse into this vast digital landfill that we call the internet. It now vastly outnumbers and outweighs the things that are fresh, untainted and unused. When everything around us is cultural trash, trash becomes the new medium, the lingua France of tue digital age. You could build culture out of trash, but only trash culture. B-games, B-movies, B-music, B-philosophy.
Maybe this is what digital culture is. A monstrous mountain of trash, the ash heap of creativity’s fountain. A landfill of everything we’ve ever thought of in it, grand, infinite, and unsorted.
…
Everything’s fresh for about six seconds, until some newer thing beckons and we hit refresh. And there’s years of persevering disappearing into the pile, out of style, out of sight.
In this context, it’s tempting to make friendly content that’s gentle, that lets you churn through it but not earn it. Why make something demanding, if it’s just gonna get piled up in the landfill, filed with the bland things?
When games were new, they wanted a lot from you. Daunting you, taunting you, resetting and delaying you. Players played stoically. Now everyone’s turned off by that. They want to burn through it quickly, a quick fix for the fickle, some tricks for the clicks of the feckless. But that’s not you, you’re an acrobat. You could swallow a baseball bat.
Now I know, most likely you are watching this on YouTube or Twitch while some dude with 10 million views does it for you. Like a baby bird being fed chewed up food. And that’s culture too.
But on the off chance that you are playing this, what I’m saying is trash is disposable, but it doesn’t have to be approachable. What’s the feeling like? Are you stressed? I guess you don’t hate it if you got this far. Feeling frustrated, it’s underrated.
An orange, a sweet juicy fruit locked inside a bitter peel. That’s not how I feel about a challenge. I only want the bitterness. Its coffee, its grapefruit, its licorice.
It feels like we’re closer now. Composer and climber, designer and user. You could have refused but you didn’t. There was something hidden in you that chose to continue.
It means a lot to me that you’ve come this far, endured this much, every wisecrack, every insensitivity, every setback you’ve forgiven me is a kingly gift that you’ve given me.
Have you ever thought about who you are in this? Are you the man in the pot, Diogenes? Are you his hand? Are you the top of his hammer? I think not - where your hand moves, the hammer may not follow, nor the man, nor the man’s hand. In this, you are his WILL. His intent. His embodied resolve in his uphill ascent.
Now, you’ve conquered the ice cliffs, the platforms, the church, the rectory, the living room, the factory, the playground, and the construction site, the granite rocks, and the lakeside. You’ve learned to hike. There’s no way left to go but up, and in a moment, I’ll shut up, but let me say, I’m glad you came.
I dedicate this game to you, the one who came this far, I give it to you with all my love.
“If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them” –Andrei Tarkovsky
Difficulty options still allow you to play them at their intended difficulty. Letting someone else play the game easier doesn’t stop you from playing it at a higher difficulty. In fact with options you could make it even harder for yourself than you would’ve done otherwise and feel even more rewarded when overcoming it.
A lot of hobbies like gardening, sports, chess require effort, why is it necessary for video games to be easy?
Forcing some challenge gets you to engage with more things rather than taking the easy way out. It’s like bungee jumping (I’d assume), sometimes a push is necessary to experience something new.
Some of my favourite moments were trying Fire Emblem Ironmans, which initially made me go “this is stupid, I’ll regret this, I should reload”, only to change to “this is peak”
If the main difficulty is intentional, then it’s not an artifical barrier, the easy mode is an artificial easener. How easy is easy enough? Some people can’t beat Clair Obscur on the story mode (presumably by not doing side content) In case of gardening, it’d be getting someone to garden for you, and just chilling with the results.
Let’s plays/walkthroughs exists, and only lock you out of interactivity. And interactivity doesn’t mean much if every option beats the game.
Case in point, if I see some post-game superboss with lore behind it, I just look up the thing online.
I’m not sure there’s an agreed upon definition of “artificial difficulty”. The whole game is artificial so I’m not sure what “natural difficulty” would be.
A list of every single game with difficulty settings? Or just one example, such as Death Stranding, which was explicitly referenced in the original post?
Sports are games and have some degree of artificial difficulty. The size of the goal and ball, for example, is arbitrary (within the bounds of practicality. No moon sized basketballs, for example)
But that doesn’t really address what I was trying to get it. I feel like sometimes people online complain about “artificial difficulty” in video games, and it’s unclear what they actually want. I’ve seen it applied to everything from “The enemies hide around corners” to “you can’t quicksave”. I think it’s a kind of duckspeak thing that people say to just mean “i don’t like it” while making it sound less subjective.
Options don’t stop you from having those moments in fact they make it more possible for you to find the difficulty for those moments. For you and everyone else.
I think it’s an age gap 9f when you started gaming. If you were a gamer back in the 80’s and early 90’s, you played because it was a challenge to overcome and that’s what you enjoyed.
You didn’t want to “play” a game. You wanted to “beat” a game. No one played Mike Tysons Punch Out for the story. It was a challenge that took many hours worth of attempts, trial and error, and skill to beat. You liked it and remembered it because it was hard.
Part of the reason they were hard back then was due to file size and lack of saving and such, so hard games took longer to be bored of and sold better, but those were the games that we got hooked on. The challenge. New gamers are hooked on the stories and the entertainment, which is all well and good. Just a different type of crack.
I started gaming in 1983. (with Pac-Man!) I played games then because I enjoyed the gameplay and only suffered through the difficulty of the NES era because was either that or you didn’t play at all. I prefer easier games now.
That said, I think the hardest thing I’ve done in the modern era is this level in Rayman Legends. I still can’t believe I actually had the patience to do it over and over until I beat it.
Straight up answer which yes, will sound confrontational, but it is made in a blustery manner to drive home the point: People who want games tuned to what they need in terms of difficulty are the same kind that go to a Vietnamese restaurant and complain that spaghetti or chicken nuggies aren’t on the menu. “Why would you deprive a paying customer food they’re willing to pay for??”
That’s what it comes down to. The game wasn’t made for you to unwind. It was made with intentional choices made for other people to play and feel the experience of surmounting challenge.
If anything there is spicy then yes, definitely more difficult for some people to eat, and obviously they have spicy shit it’s a vietnamese restaurant. Restaurants don’t pay you to eat their food, but they also don’t take requests beyond relatively minor variations on their pre-selected menu. Quit expecting the world to revolve around you, put some effort into finding the developers that are doing what you want and patronize them instead of complaining about the existence of games that are not made for you.
And if you order something spicy then you get something spicy, yes, and if you complain that the restaurant serves things that are spicier than you enjoy you will be politely asked to leave. If you don’t like Dark Souls then don’t purchase and consume goddamned Dark Souls, simple as.
With difficulty options you will still get that, in fact you may get it better. Maybe for a specific game the difficulty needs to be lower or even higher for you to find that sweet spot.
If difficulty is just hit points, higher difficulties are not really enjoyable. Adjusting hit points, items, weapon damage, etc. together to achieve good flow on every difficulty is not an easy task.
They don’t have to go all out. Shitty easier/harder difficulties that just multiply or divide values in a basic manner is better than nothing at all.
Devs should absolutely just focus on the difficulty specific experience they planned but nothing is stopping them from doing the bare minimum. And if you have good coding practices, it’s easy as fuck to implement with the difficulty menu itself likely to be the hardest part to implement after the fact.
This just is not true for souls like games. The difficulty is a core part of the experience, and lowering it would literally compromise the artistic vision
Why are you pushing to deprive people of challenging games where they know everyone playing it is playing on the same level field? Even if it’s single player, a lot of games are a social experience.
Your point seems to be like not making an easy mode is being evil, yet you denounce players that specifically want games like that. It boggles my mind, there’s plenty games with all the freaking sliders you want, let us have our games.
Why would you want to denounce your audience this opportunity?
Yeah, that exactly, people who dislike hard games are not the audience of hard games and it’s weird for you to take issue with that. Full disclosure, I tend to cheese the fuck out of hard games with the tools they give me, I like to find the way to make the game “easy as fuck” via tools in the game instead of a slider, it creates the illusion that I’m smart and I like that.
I enjoyed expedition 33 and cyberpunk but they are a different experience than dark souls, no rest for the wicked, path of exile, last epoch… Sorry for the long post.
How does someone beating a game on “story” mode reduce your enjoyment of beating it on “nightmare”? I don’t get it. We can have both in the same game; isn’t that just better?
(Assuming we’re talking about single player, obv.)
We can have both in the same game; isn’t that just better?
This is the crux of the problem right here: it assumes that adding in difficulty adjustments is zero cost for the dev and can be done without affecting the overall game feel and I insist that that is a wildly incorrect assumption. This isn’t about other people playing the game on “easy mode” reducing my enjoyment of the game, it’s about adjusting the perfect balance and vision of the game reducing the enjoyment for everyone overall.
Difficulty can be, but is not always a discrete series of elements that can just be adjusted on sliders. Difficulty is a derivative attribute of other gameplay elements that give rise to it. Adjusting the difficulty as a derivative element can negatively flow backwards into poor adjustments to the game design if not done properly. Adjustments to the game design that allow for easier control and flow into the derivative attribute of difficulty may undermine the overall vision? Does that make sense?
Given an old school game like Ninja Gaiden on the NES it’s easy to think of how difficulty modes could be implemented by simply adjusting damage values, hit point values, life count, etc. But something like Dark Souls derives its difficulty from item balance, level architecture, encounter design, world puzzles. Rebalancing all of that for one or several difficulty modes is non-trivial! Furthermore, anyone who has played any of the Soulslikes can tell you that no playthrough is the same. One build may breeze through an area because they have specific strengths while other builds may struggle. How do you balance around all builds on multiple axes of gameplay elements?
A lot of people agree that Dark Souls is perfect (or near so) as it is and exactly the kind of thing we want while another group of people says, “I hate this thing and it’s not to my liking but by changing it I could maybe hate it a little less.” Think of it like the audio of a song being too loud and rather than properly adjust the overall range to preserve the entire tune you simply clip the highs and lows. It’s not a good song anymore … for anyone.
Gamers have a hard time properly articulating their critiques and I absolutely abhor the “git gud” mentality, but taken in the most positive light I can, I believe what most of them really mean isn’t just simply practice or skill up. It’s to learn to meet the game where it’s at. And if you still don’t like it, it’s not a game for you.
and I insist that that is a wildly incorrect assumption.
Based on nothing but your gatekeeping feelings.
Gamers have a hard time properly articulating their critiques and I absolutely abhor the “git gud” mentality,
No you don’t, thats literally just one of the excuses you use here for your gatekeeping.
. And if you still don’t like it, it’s not a game for you.
They are absolutely allowed to criticize a game that you believe isnt for them. They’re allowed to review it poorly if they’ve bought it, and they’re allowed to shit on it for not being to their liking just as you’re allowed to praise it.
Based on the detailed arguments of the entire post you just replied to without responding to any of those points.
No you don’t, thats literally just one of the excuses you use here for your gatekeeping.
This is not gatekeeping. It is explaining why I like the game as it is and implore others to experience and enjoy the game where it wants you to be.
They are absolutely allowed to criticize a game that you believe isnt for them.
For fuck’s sake, yes! Everyone is allowed to criticize but everyone in this thread is trying to “fix” the game and demand the developers do things to cater to them that they have directly stated they do not or have no intention of doing and somehow we’re the selfish ones here?!
Look, I can review a Barbie game, but I’m going to hate it because I’m am must in no way the intended audience. Should the developer cater to my sensibilities until it becomes a game I want to play? The intended audience of any specific Souslike game or other difficult game is a lot blurrier because it could be anyone from any demographic.
If you think the game is bad, say the game is BAD. Say YOU hate it! Don’t make arguments about how the game should be when other people love it the way it is. Sit with your opinion and recognize it for what it is. Your opinion.
Based on the detailed arguments of the entire post you just replied to without responding to any of those points.
They were not detailed arguments at all. You just “feel” like game difficulty has to be this magic thing that can’t possibly have settings without compromising your dream experience. You have no evidence for this. You just want it to be true to justify the gatekeeping.
This is not gatekeeping. It is explaining why I like the game as it is and implore others to experience and enjoy the game where it wants you to be.
Using fancy verbal diarrhea to say exactly the same thing is not convincing.
You are absolutely gatekeeping as you want games not to have options because you think people should play the game how you want to play games.
For fuck’s sake, yes! Everyone is allowed to criticize but everyone in this thread is trying to “fix” the game and demand the developers do things to cater to them that they have directly stated they do not or have no intention of doing and somehow we’re the selfish ones here?!
You absolutely are the selfish ones here. I mean look at that ridiculously bad faith summary of the comments here.
People are 100% reasonable and right to complain about games doing things they don’t like here, on a forum for discussing games.
They aren’t at all unreasonable for doing so. This specific excerpt from you is such nonsensical double speak, where you start by saying yes people can criticize, but finish by calling people selfish for not liking aspects you like.
Im sure youll try to weasel around that being what you’ve done, but thats what it is.
Look, I can review a Barbie game, but I’m going to hate it because I’m am must in no way the intended audience.
This is a bs weasel though, because many of the people are the intended audiences. These arent crazy mismatches, these are developers being stubborn and stuck up in bougie, high artsy, self important ways that a great deal of their playerbases don’t appreciate.
From what you’re suggesting, you basically think all the games you like should get about half the sales numbers they are getting because anyone who doesn’t like any noteworthy aspect of the game clearly just isnt the intended audience and shouldn’t have bought it.
Its a silly, childish black and white view solely there so you can continue to be angry at people for being critical about the aspects of a game you gatekeep around.
Don’t make arguments about how the game should be when other people love it the way it is.
Why? This is you pretending to be for open conversation but not at all being… This is the gatekeepy bullshit I am talking about.
Adding difficulty options does not cheapen the game, it widens its appeal and makes games far more fun for a larger amount of people without subtracting from the experience for others.
For instance, lets say you have a game that has painful backtracking that a large number of people complain about. Who does it harm to have a setting to skip the painful backtracking? Fucking nobody.
You can’t argue even for a second that this ruins the experience for those that say they do like the painful backtracking as this by no means would take away from their experiences, yet you would argue that people shouldn’t complain or ask that developers include that because you want to gatekeep experiences.
Sit with your opinion and recognize it for what it is. Your opinion.
This is a bullshit way of you insisting your (shitty) opinion is objective (where you think people shouldn’t complain about things you like) while pretending people stating their opinions are somehow doing exactly what you’re actually doing.
Oh dude … I don’t know how to tell you this but at this point you’re just wrong. Sorry to be the one to break it to you.
They were not detailed arguments at all. You just “feel” like game difficulty has to be this magic thing that can’t possibly have settings without compromising your dream experience.
I’ve broken it down several times in this topic already, but sure, let’s do it once more. Difficulty is a complex equation that is the result of various components like level architecture, encounter design, world puzzles, and complex stat curves across enemies, equipment, and player characters in addition to intricate boss fight routines with varied movesets. There’s no “slider” here. Everyone keeps mentioning these mythical sliders and THAT is the magical thinking here. That there is a simple way to adjust the game to Easy that adjusts all those other variables.
In addition to this if you were to implement sliders for each one of those features separately (neverminding how you’d do something like level architecture) what you end up takes both additional developer time and may not be as good. The fine tunings don’t fit together as nicely; it’s the difference between a model kit you buy and assembly yourself vs. one that comes premade form the manufacturer. There are different tolerances here and I think you need to get some dev perspective on this at this point.
People are 100% reasonable and right to complain about games doing things they don’t like here, on a forum for discussing games.
Here is criticism: “I do not like this game because I find it too difficult.” Here is not criticism: “This is a bad game because the developer did not make more effort to cater to the wide range of entirely subjective opinions on what difficulty is.”
I hate to rely on arguments from popularity but when the dev of the game itself says “naw” and the game is so popular it literally spawns its own subgenre with millions of adoring fans and you’re trying to armchair unnecessary solutions to things people don’t think are problems, I ask again who is being selfish. This game ain’t for you, dawg.
From what you’re suggesting, you basically think all the games you like should get about half the sales numbers they are getting because anyone who doesn’t like any noteworthy aspect of the game clearly just isnt the intended audience and shouldn’t have bought it.
Miss me with that sales speak. Disgusting. We’re talking art here. Gross.
This is the gatekeepy bullshit I am talking about.
I think you need to look up what gatekeeping is. At this point looking at your other responses in this topic I think you’re kind of a troll? But I mean I don’t care, I have fun talking about and critiquing the finer points of games online and then actually playing them. I think I’m gonna go beat Dark Souls again while you mald.
FINAL EDIT: Cheat. Just cheat. We’ve already established elsewhere in this topic that I and many others DON’T actually care about the “sanctity” of the game, that’s a talking point people like you made up to throw around, mostly. Nobody cares. Get a cheat engine and double soul drops. Crank your stats. Enable one hit kills. Cheat. Don’t care, cheat.
Oh dude … I don’t know how to tell you this but at this point you’re just wrong. Sorry to be the one to break it to you.
What riveting, useful commentary.
I’ve broken it down several times in this topic already, but sure, let’s do it once more. Difficulty is a complex equation that is the result of various components like level architecture, encounter design, world puzzles, and complex stat curves across enemies, equipment, and player characters in addition to intricate boss fight routines with varied movesets. There’s no “slider” here. Everyone keeps mentioning these mythical sliders and THAT is the magical thinking here. That there is a simple way to adjust the game to Easy that adjusts all those other variables.
Just because you state something repeatedly doesn’t mean you’ve made a logical argument or a good point.
The easy rebuttal to this nonsense, is the question, for a game that is already made, where you are already happy, lets say they keep everything as it is right now, like they literally have the games they already have and add some difficulty options like less annoying backtracking. How does this “ruin” your experience?
There has yet to be a legitimate answer to this question.
The truth therefore, is that the only answer is gatekeeping, because you don’t want other people to be able to experience the game in a way they enjoy.
More than that, the idea that difficulty is just a series of sliders is something entirely constructed in your mind.
Atomfall for instance has things like live hints vs you figuring it out your self. Stamina, vs infinite running, etc etc. There is so much more that can be done with difficulty than your simplistic view that its about sliders.
Basically your whole point is nonsensical.
Here is criticism: “I do not like this game because I find it too difficult.” Here is not criticism: “This is a bad game because the developer did not make more effort to cater to the wide range of entirely subjective opinions on what difficulty is.”
Just because you make a hyperbolized version of opinions you disagree doesnt mean they arent criticism. Also, its 100% legitimate to criticize something for being too focused in certain areas.
You are here literally gatekeeping criticism. Is gatekeeping all you do?
I hate to rely on arguments from popularity but
Then don’t. This should be a sign to you that your point is weak.
and the game is so popular it literally
Just because something is successful does not mean every single element of it is what made it so, or is good.
I think you need to look up what gatekeeping is. At this point looking at your other responses in this topic I think you’re kind of a troll?
Least obvious attempt to troll possible by you here. When you don’t have an argument you just imply the other person must be trolling for not agreeing with your bad take.
But I mean I don’t care, I have fun talking about and critiquing the finer points of games online
Evidently not judging by this conversation.
Cheat. Just cheat.
Modding games is extra effort and not immediately available, especially for consoles. This isn’t a solution and you know that.
For some games, where hardship and strife is a genuine core element of the creative vision, a single level of difficulty doesn’t just create a striking apprehension of the genuineness of that hardship, it also allows the developer to tune that difficulty with great care, further pushing that choice to serve the intended experience.
The game is only “just better” with difficulty options if you have implicitly accepted the idea that you should be able to complete any game you buy. If you don’t feel that way about, say, books you purchase, please investigate that feeling.
For some games, where hardship and strife is a genuine core element of the creative vision, a single level of difficulty doesn’t just create a striking apprehension of the genuineness of that hardship, it also allows the developer to tune that difficulty with great care, further pushing that choice to serve the intended experience.
This is all a very flimsy excuse for annoying gate keeping.
Pretending that difficulty tuning has to suffer if there is more than one difficulty is absurdly nonsensical.
Of all the parts of a game that take significant effort, this is not one.
Studios literally already tune their games for a specific difficulty firstly usually, and tune up or down from there.
You are just imagining that magically one difficulty means higher quality difficulty.
The game is only “just better” with difficulty options if you have implicitly accepted the idea that you should be able to complete any game you buy. If you don’t feel that way about, say, books you purchase, please investigate that feeling.
This is such an absurd prick opinion that makes no fucking sense whatsoever.
Who in the fuck buys any media they don’t intend on being able to finish. What???
You think people are buying books they think they’ll want to stop reading half way? Movies they’ll want to walk out of?
How did you get so deluded you even thought you were making a cogent argument here.
Even if the game is single player, some games are a social experience. You discuss in forums, with friends, about your experience, and when I want that kind of experience difficulty levels cheapen the social aspect of the single player game.
This is not new either, I remember talking to friends about how I beat the water temple in ocarina of time as a kid. Everyone who beta it had to go through beating it and it gave them something to talk about. It just wouldn’t be the same if there was an easy mode, it’s not the same shared experience.
I guess my answer is that no game is truly single player because humans are social creatures. And again, there are games catered to your interests so it’s not like either of us is suffering from a shortage of enjoyment.
It just wouldn’t be the same if there was an easy mode
What’s the difference between saying, “I beat that level” for a game with only one difficulty setting and saying, “I beat that level on hard mode” for a game with multiple difficulty settings?
Multiple difficulty settings never stopped people from talking or bragging about accomplishments in Doom.
It doesn’t feel the same. I enjoy knowing that when someone on the internet or on forums complains about X that my experience matches theirs without having to look for the difficulty they played on. It’s not really bragging rights, but knowing that everyone in the community is having the same shared experience, no need of tags or anything. It’s a social thing for me more than anything.
Then there’s the matter of Devs being able to fine tune things better if they don’t need to care about multiple patterns, progression levels, etc. I won’t get to those because while important, the point I wanted to make is that single difficulty games allows for a shared experience between players which facilitates more community. You can have it with different difficulties but that breeds elitism and fuck that, everyone on the same field and that’s it.
I mean it both ways btw, some games are easier and that’s how you are supposed to experience them, ex: Slimer Rancher
Every time there’s a multiple diff game I always search for the one devs “intended” originally because it’s the most fine-tuned and the expected experience (usually the one before the hardest diff), but I prefer not having to make that choice.
Easy games are fine. It can be a nice way to just plow through a good story. However, I’m absolute trash at games and beating Dark Souls was one of the best and most memorable gaming experiences I’ve ever had. (it took me well over 200 hrs because I am a garbage-person) Had the game been easier I don’t think it would have hit the same way.
That’s not to say every game has to be like that but it’s great when it works
Oh, can totaly relate to winning that final battle or overcoming that boss in a fight.
My best favorite was in Horizon: Zero Dawn when I worked out how to take down a Thunderjaw with just the bow and arrow. I’m too easily visually overwhelmed by fast motion and end up just mashing buttons in melee fights, so the long, tactical takedowns are the cat’s pyjamas for me.
(I’ve been told that I would love Skyrm based on my play style. Will have to check that out at some point.)
Right now I’m on an ultra hard playthrough using just the Banuk Powershot Adept bow, (which is a mean weapon) and if done in the right order, you can disassemble the machines you’re hunting, get all the parts off, kill it then make fat bank picking up the pieces.
Doing Fire Emblem soft Ironmans (not reloading when a unit permadies) made me love the series even more, it went from “ughhhh do I really have to move on without this guy? This sucks, what if I’m underpowered later” to “I lost 40 people and died for the first time at the penultimate map, this is a beautiful, sorrowful story”.
I now let a unit or two die even when playing for the first time, because it basically adds your own personal death scenes to the story. I will always pay respects to wolf boy who died to make that one final push happen, or respect the axe bro who went through his Kratos arc with a dead wife, kid and second dead wife.
Playing Final Fantasy Tactics as a kid basically made me refuse to allow any units to ever permadie because it took so much goddamn time to level them up and develop the jobs, and the thought of having to hire a new unit at level 1 to replace them is enough to drive a child insane.
Some of the newer FE games suck at that too, Three Houses in particular apparently.
Older games give you very good prepromotes in the midgame, and the 3DS games have the child recruits (it makes sense I swear) scale up to current story progress and scale off stats/skills of parents.
Celeste is the perfect embodiment of that philosophy IMO. The whole story is an explicit metaphor for overcoming a great personal challenge. And the gameplay’s difficulty is what drives that point home and makes the game an all-time great.
I’ve seen a couple streamers with G4m3r Skillz breeze through Celeste, and the game didn’t leave them much of an impression. But it touches very deeply those who struggled through it because the struggle is the bond that ties the player to Madeline.
Other games it doesn’t really matter. Portal 2 is a great game even if the puzzles are quite easy, because the greatness lies in its writing, atmosphere and worldbuilding. There’s an Aperture miniseries just begging to be made - but a Dark Souls or Celeste cinematographic adaptation would miss the entire point.
With mods it’s an option and it definitely wouldn’t have hit the same way. The whole point of souls games is overcoming challenges with practice. Too many people avoid challenging themselves and it’s a real problem I’ve seen in many people. That’s why you see people who waste away at the same job and same level for years instead of taking chances and risks and pushing themselves to try something new. I’ve known people with budding talent in things like music that gave up because they weren’t instantly the best at it. Not everything in life will be easy, or instant, or convenient. Too many people either forget that or don’t realize it. Some things take hard work and practice and they are extremely rewarding when you put in the work.
Would you complain that a rubiks cube is too hard or a crossword puzzle or anything else that’s designed to challenge you?
The Souls games are easy. They’re just easy in a way that makes you a part of the game/world. You don’t just click a button in the menu. You earn it by paying attention. The point is, every player comes out satisfied of having accomplished something. Either they directly defeated a challenge through brute force or they looked around and founds it’s weakness, or got stronger to overcome it. It makes it earned.
Sure, story games the story is maintained with an easier difficulty and that’s fine. However, games where the act of playing forms the story are made worse by this. I’m all for difficulty modes in games where it makes sense, but a lot of people would turn down the difficulty in a Souls game and end up with a boring experience, because they didn’t actually try to meet it at its level.
Just like paintings, there’s a place for slop that just looks pretty and things that engage you. If you go into a museum and complain that an artist challenged you, that’s on you, not them.
They’re specifically designed to have easy options for almost every fight. There are very few bosses where you actually need skill, and they’re mostly optional. If you’re paying attention, it’s normally pretty easy to find a pretty easy option to defeat most bosses. Sometimes the game tells you this, like jumping down on the head of the demon at the start of DS1. Usually it doesn’t directly, but there will be hints if you’re reading everything and looking at your environment.
You don’t have to just “git gud” and dodge everything while fighting. That’s an option, but not the only one. Most people hear “Souls games are hard” and they think this is the only option, and they don’t look for more. If this is you, then you were mislead. The community has ruined the game for so many people by acting like there’s a huge skill barrier that you need to overcome, instead of the reality where the game just wants you to pay attention to the world/lore.
You certainly can make them easy if you know enemy positions, boss attack patterns, strategies and you tailor your skills and items for it. And before you say “I don’t have time to learn all that!” There are guides, and if you don’t have time for that either, do you even want to play the game? It doesn’t have much of a story, if you skip learning, fighting skills, optimizing, what are you even enjoying?
You certainly can make them easy if you know enemy positions, boss attack patterns, strategies and you tailor your skills and items for it.
Do you hear yourself? Like, actually hear yourself? Those things are not easy to do. It’s great that you enjoy the game and want more people to try it if they’ve gotten discouraged but don’t call it easy when the caveat is doing all of that. Needing to do all of that is precisely why it’s difficult.
I do hear myself. It is easy to know that stuff, it might be annoying for some, but it’s certainly easy. I can get all that info in 30 seconds tops. You don’t need to do all of this but knowledge lowers the skill barrier by an absurd amount; I know that because I’m bad as fuck and beat the games because I search (in-game) for cheese strats, but if something annoys me a 30s google search usually gets me an optimised cheese strat. I enjoy playing like this.
I don’t really want more people to play it or whatever, if you don’t enjoy it don’t force yourself please, games are for entertainment in the end.
whatever part of your brain that’s supposed to make you feel satisfied or accomplished when you beat a hard game isn’t present for me, the only thing I got out of finishing dark souls was relief that that annoying game was over and I could finally get my friend to shut the fuck up and stop telling me I just didn’t like it because I hadn’t finished it.
I think he’s entirely right for the kind of game he usually makes.
I also think not having difficulty settings is the right approach for souls games, it would destroy the vision.
Different people are looking for different things. Sometimes, the same person is looking for different things. I play story games on difficulties I don’t struggle on, more gameplay-focused games I like making hard and struggling with them.
Personally I don’t like replaying games, so this wouldn’t work for me. Generally, story-driven games are easy, so it’s rarely an issue.
If you don’t enjoy a game, there are countless others to play. Not saying this as a ‘fuck off, this isn’t for you’. But genuinely - there are so many games, and no single game should be for everyone. It’s perfectly normal that we all have our own unique preferences.
There are a few games that I’ve dropped due to their gameplay, but wanted to finish the story. So I watched playthroughs of them. Was it at all an issue for me? Absolutely not. Do I wish the game fit my preferences better? Uhh, I guess? But then it would have been ruined for everyone else, so it doesn’t really make sense.
I watched the playthrough of Death Stranding, as it got too depressing for me about halfway through. Totally get it. I paid a lot for it though, so felt kinda bummed that I’d dropped that cash and coulnd’t muster the energy to play it to the end.
On the other hand, I’ve got over 2,000 hours in on No Man’s Sky, (I’m playing in creative mode now and having a blast building cool bases in breathtaking locations) which I got on sale through GOG for 10 bucks, so I suppose it balances out.
The one that I’ve come to a complete stop in is The Talos Principle, and I love it but just can’t seem to finish it. Has been as frustrating to finish as Firmanent, which was built for VR so playing it in 2D leaves a lot to be desired - there’s a ton of items that require exact placement and it’s hard as hell to see how to manipulate then w/o the 3D… Oyyyy.
If you’ve never gotten it yet, get “Shattered Pixel Dungeon” on your phone. Completely free game. Most of what you speak of, and you’ll feel like you’ve really pulled some shit off after you beat it the first time.
SPD is proof that I’m just bad at vidya. I’ve gotten to floor 10 once. There’s clearly come meta I am missing, but I’ve read strategy guides so I’m just kind of lost at this point.
It’s just fucking hard. All the random builds and bad guys. The best hint is to use small walls to your advantage and to sometimes run away and avoid creatures. After you die and die and die you start to learn how all the baddies move around. You can eventually get good. It took me 45 attempts to get my first win, but I had 10 more wins by attempt 70. I was hooked on that game hard for a while.
SCP-4098 seemingly changes people spreading communication properly, specifically communication proximally Site-94 centered, procedurally. Said communication prohibits speaker’s choices, producing speech constructional primaries: SCP.
Reading this thread has re-confirmed that gatekeepers are a blight on humanity.
I will cheat in your sacred games and you can’t stop me. I’ll make my own rules. What are you gonna do about it, break into my house and steal my computer?
I don’t think you’re getting the point here. If you buy a game you can do whatever you want with it. Same goes with developers, it’s their creation and they can do whatever they want with it. It doesn’t have to please everyone.
This is a very bad and damaging take and undermines real accessibility options in games.
You are conflating two different things. The game is the food and the difficulty is a nuanced flavor that results from the individual ingredients. You are arguing that the flavor of the dish or the way it is prepared should be changed for everyone to suit your tastes.
Accessibility ramps are structural and in no way related to the food. I in no way want to be seen as arguing against accessibility because I am a strong believer in it myself. But accessibility comes in the form of color blind modes, subtitles, ability to change or rebind controls. Actual structural issues to the game that allow you to engage with it as it has been designed.
I do not suppose I will get through to people that have already taken up this position, but I cannot allow it to go unchallenged. Difficulty IS NOT (*necessarily) accessibility.
If you want to dislike a game: fine. If you want to critique a game: fine. If you want to say, “I think this game is bad”: fine. But do not try to conflate your own distaste with the difficulty level as some accessibility issue.
For a game where difficulty is based on reaction time then it is accessibility. Your whole page of arguments is based on that ableist assumption and doesn’t hold up.
Food and cafe is just an extreme example, you don’t have to discredit the idea based on the specifics of a cafe. It was supposed to make you think about the problem from the perspective of someone who feels excluded which you didn’t do. You just used to to further your agenda with emotive language like “bad and damaging”. It’s a little bit pathetic actually when all people are asking for is a slider
For a game where difficulty is based on reaction time then it is accessibility.
This describes literally any action game.
It’s a little bit pathetic actually when all people are asking for is a slider
And I’m telling you, sliders are not always structurally viable to the game or efficient for the developers to implement. By your arguments here, what do you want? A literal speed timer that slows down the entire game? Should Super Mario Bros. have had an easy mode that runs the game at half frame rate?
A game isn’t a public service. There are many games where part of the experience is that everyone has to go through the same or similar difficulty and the learning curve involved in that. If that isn’t something that you can manage then you don’t have to play it.
If anything, demo versions should be more readily available so that you don’t end up buying something you can’t return.
Who decided that only things that are public services need to be accessible? Why is everyone latched onto that like it’s a given.
If your a dev and you have x hits to kill thing x and you don’t put in a tiny bit of extra effort to multiply that by a difficulty slider “because of art” then I’m going to say you’re a bit of a dick.
Games are barely art anyway. Most are just a toy that you play with for a bit to waste some time
That’s not what people are saying, but the entitled attitude here makes it seem as if games are a mandatory interaction.
If you are a game dev and you decide that part of the experience of your game is the difficulty, so be it. Art was never and isn’t something that pleases everyone. You can call them a dick but you don’t have to engage in what they produce.
That is such bullshit. There are large variety of games out there that still give meaningful experiences to players that calling all of them “barly art” is just wrong.
There are plenty of places that aren’t essential that are accessible just to be inclusive. A theatre for example.
I’m not even disabled and I struggle with games without a difficulty slider. I can’t imagine to be actually disabled and excluded just because someone’s ego prevents them from adding a single slider to their game.
A theater is a social event and experience. Lots of video games are solo experiences. That’s a huge difference. Social events and activities need inclusion much more.
A dense philosophical book doesn’t need to include a „for dummies“ version. Tarot cards don’t need their meaning printed on them.
I think it would be illuminating for you to try making a game where the difficulty slowly increases, such as Tetris. Once you’ve done so, add a slider to it so that the difficult does not slowly increase.
You will find the experience completely different when you play. Difficulty in games isn’t just about accessibility.
If a game is particularly hard, I’ll use mods or cheats to make it easier. Gamers who sweat for difficulty can play it as hard as they want. I just want to experience the story, even if my play style goes against the creator’s vision.
I hate to keep overextending the restaurant metaphor, but it’s the difference between demanding a world class chef be prepared to make a number of different substitutions on the spot to suit your individual tastes vs. taking the dish home in a doggy bag and then slathering it with ketchup.
It’s fine. There’s no law against it. It doesn’t hurt anyone else (assuming we’re not talking about multiplayer here). No one has to care. No one does. Cheating and mods are a great way for you as an individual to tailor a more personalized experience to your tastes with the tools you have available.
Yep. Fling Trainers usually. I pick one game a year and play it for 3 days, no way in hell am I going to get bogged down on grinding things. I’m there for the immersion, the gameplay, and the plot.
If grinding is the gameplay in the sense that it levels up your joystick skills, then fine I’ll sit and suffer (Souls / Knight). But if it’s grinding for items of all things, no thank you
This was never the argument. Cheat all you want, no one cares.
There’s just a bunch of people in this topic that read these developer’s own words on their artistic takes and were like, “Wow, uh, wrong? Cater your games to me.”
I play Stellaris and Terra Invicta in easy modes basically, cuz I just enjoy nation building and the game mechanics. Tho Easy in Terra Invicta can still be a pain if you ignore certain things.
I play a lot of games (over 4,000 games in my Steam library) and I’ve made a hobby of reviewing them here on Lemmy over the past year. I especially love horror games. I would love to give it a playtest and provide constructive feedback.
It’s up to you if you’d like me to also post a review of it here on Lemmy or wait until a finished product is available. You can see my post history to see the kind of reviews I write, or you can check out my blog where I’m archiving my reviews here. Easier to browse the history of posts on the sidebar at that website.
Hi, this is very very early beta. I don’t want anything from it shared in the public. It’s just not ready for the wider audience. That’s why I’m doing playtesting, so this thing can git gud before people try it :D
bin.pol.social
Aktywne