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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Why do people get upset by OPTIONAL difficult assists?

Qwark on 16 December 2018

There are relatively few people who have something against them. Although in my opinion that decision should always be up to the developers and there are a lot of people against the statement that all games must have difficulty assists. Games are not that hard and we learn trough failure that's part of what makes games enjoyable. Sure you could play a game like The last of us with ammo lying everywhere and being near invincible, but it would take a lot of the immersion of the cold hard unforgiving post apocalyptic world away. When difficulty is too low it can really break immersion and make games arguably worse because no situation feels really dangerous if you can one hit ko everything and you pretty much can not be killed.



Please excuse my (probally) poor grammar

SvennoJ on 16 December 2018
Qwark said:
There are relatively few people who have something against them. Although in my opinion that decision should always be up to the developers and there are a lot of people against the statement that all games must have difficulty assists. Games are not that hard and we learn trough failure that's part of what makes games enjoyable. Sure you could play a game like The last of us with ammo lying everywhere and being near invincible, but it would take a lot of the immersion of the cold hard unforgiving post apocalyptic world away. When difficulty is too low it can really break immersion and make games arguably worse because no situation feels really dangerous if you can one hit ko everything and you pretty much can not be killed.

You can be fully immersed without dying. I have not died once yet in RL and still feel pretty immersed ;)

To me, dying breaks the immersion, or rather the reloading, respawning that comes afterwards. The game should not be easy, yet dying frequently ruins immersion. (Unless it's part of the game mechanics like Dark Souls and Planescape: Torment. In most games it's basically hitting rewind on the VCR while you're in the middle of a story. The trick is to make the player believe he can die at any moment without actually killing him.



DonFerrari on 16 December 2018
Qwark said:
There are relatively few people who have something against them. Although in my opinion that decision should always be up to the developers and there are a lot of people against the statement that all games must have difficulty assists. Games are not that hard and we learn trough failure that's part of what makes games enjoyable. Sure you could play a game like The last of us with ammo lying everywhere and being near invincible, but it would take a lot of the immersion of the cold hard unforgiving post apocalyptic world away. When difficulty is too low it can really break immersion and make games arguably worse because no situation feels really dangerous if you can one hit ko everything and you pretty much can not be killed.

You are supposed to believe that they survived the apocalypse. If you die 10 times per battle then the believability is very low.



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Mnementh on 16 December 2018
SvennoJ said:
danasider said:

AngryLittleAlchemist is right, though. The creators never have tried to put a mode like this despite 5 games in the SoulsBorne series. They made the game a specific way, because its their interpretation of what the game should be and how it should be played. Adding a easy mode would not only dilute the experience that they put so much work into perfecting, it'd essentially suck the soul right out of the series for the gamers who only played that mode, because they'd essentially be playing a different game. I very much doubt From Software would want that despite there being a chance to cater to a broader audience.

Like AngryLittleAlchemist said, not every game is for everyone. This is the only major entertainment medium where consumers believe they are entitled to having the content creator cater to them. People reading a horror novel don't expect the author to make it less scary or the words shorter so that they can get through the book easier. People looking at a painting don't say "well, this should have yellow in it, because it's my favorite color and everyone else has their color in the painting. Giving the painting a broader appeal by including my favorite color shouldn't harm the integrity of the artist's vision."

If we don't like a movie, we don't by tickets. Same with books, and same with games. We show what we like by supporting the devs/publishers with our money. So if you don't like a game the way it's developer intended it to be, the answer is not to change the game. The answer is for you to move on and support the games you like.

On the other hand, if it's already in the game and the devs intended for it to be used in order to appeal to a mass audience. That's fine. But it's not the devs responsibility to make a game YOU enjoy.

Erm what? Movies are modified for tv all the time. Visual media is dubbed, has subtitle options, audio options. Directors bring out director's cuts, talk about the movie to explain things. You can pause, rewind, fast play, slow motion movies if desired, stuff you till can't do in video games. You can enjoy it  on the biggest screen in Dolby Atmos or watch it on your phone without sound at all.

Same for books. Translated or even made easier to read, hardcover, paperback, audio books, digital books, some come with a note from the author or a compendium piece explaining things.

Paintings are published in many forms to be seen by people, often enhanced in color and lighting or blown up. Nobody forces you to go to the Louvre to experience the painting as the painter intended.  Google Mona Lisa and see how many variations there are instantly available online! The original is a small dark painting for which you have to stand in line for to see for a few minutes. Ban all the copies cause you can see the original?

Sorry what? Games have localization options like movies, but we aren't talking about that in this thread. Games also have different distribution forms: optical disc, cartridges, digital distribution, similar to hardcover, paperback or digital books. Still not what the thread is about. Games you can play on your device at home, you don't have to go to the Louvre. Nice to address points nobody made.



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Spindel on 17 December 2018
SvennoJ said:
Qwark said:
There are relatively few people who have something against them. Although in my opinion that decision should always be up to the developers and there are a lot of people against the statement that all games must have difficulty assists. Games are not that hard and we learn trough failure that's part of what makes games enjoyable. Sure you could play a game like The last of us with ammo lying everywhere and being near invincible, but it would take a lot of the immersion of the cold hard unforgiving post apocalyptic world away. When difficulty is too low it can really break immersion and make games arguably worse because no situation feels really dangerous if you can one hit ko everything and you pretty much can not be killed.

You can be fully immersed without dying. I have not died once yet in RL and still feel pretty immersed ;)

To me, dying breaks the immersion, or rather the reloading, respawning that comes afterwards. The game should not be easy, yet dying frequently ruins immersion. (Unless it's part of the game mechanics like Dark Souls and Planescape: Torment. In most games it's basically hitting rewind on the VCR while you're in the middle of a story. The trick is to make the player believe he can die at any moment without actually killing him.

Dying is not the same as failing



omarct on 17 December 2018
Eagle367 said:
I agree that there should be easier modes, even for the souls games. Not only for people who are not good at the games, but also for people like me who are students or have a lot of work and no time to grind and die all the time. It's like I have one hour to pay this game and I die again and again and don't progress at all. I don't have the time to improve at the game and inconsistent playing isn't helping me either. Now imagine everytime you have free time, you do and you don't progress much at all after a month because of the time constraints and the ridiculous amounts of grind and death. You wouldn't wanna play those games anymore right. So you wouldn't buy them not because you're not interested but because they are essentially inaccessible to you. As a dev you are making a weird decision because you're losing profits and new fans and have purposefully made a bubble that does not allow your game and player base to grow. As a player it really doesn't affect you at all because you're still playing the same game. So it's beneficial to the new players and the devs as long as it is optional. You can even add a really hard mode like megaman levels of hard or even harder for thsoe players that like the stuff.

Here's a crazy Idea, play something else. This is what bothers me the most about this argument. All these people obsessed with playing a particular game that they do not like or dont have the time to enjoy. Instead of just playing something else, NO lets change the entire game to fit my gaming needs. This is a disgusting kind of reasoning, I loved playing Dota 2 back when I was younger because I had lots of free time, but nowadays I can't play it because the matches take too long and the game is too time consuming. Should I A: start making a petition for the Devs to reduce match time so they end in 20 minutes, altering the feel of the game completely, or B: Play something else? This is a no brainer for me.

Jesus if you really want to play a piss easy Dark Souls all you need is to buy it on PC and get easy cheats that make your character as strong as you want. Even on console most Dark Souls games have had Glitches where you could duplicate souls and items and make the game a walking simulator because you had so many stats and gear that you were impossible to kill.



DonFerrari on 17 December 2018
omarct said:
Eagle367 said:
I agree that there should be easier modes, even for the souls games. Not only for people who are not good at the games, but also for people like me who are students or have a lot of work and no time to grind and die all the time. It's like I have one hour to pay this game and I die again and again and don't progress at all. I don't have the time to improve at the game and inconsistent playing isn't helping me either. Now imagine everytime you have free time, you do and you don't progress much at all after a month because of the time constraints and the ridiculous amounts of grind and death. You wouldn't wanna play those games anymore right. So you wouldn't buy them not because you're not interested but because they are essentially inaccessible to you. As a dev you are making a weird decision because you're losing profits and new fans and have purposefully made a bubble that does not allow your game and player base to grow. As a player it really doesn't affect you at all because you're still playing the same game. So it's beneficial to the new players and the devs as long as it is optional. You can even add a really hard mode like megaman levels of hard or even harder for thsoe players that like the stuff.

Here's a crazy Idea, play something else. This is what bothers me the most about this argument. All these people obsessed with playing a particular game that they do not like or dont have the time to enjoy. Instead of just playing something else, NO lets change the entire game to fit my gaming needs. This is a disgusting kind of reasoning, I loved playing Dota 2 back when I was younger because I had lots of free time, but nowadays I can't play it because the matches take too long and the game is too time consuming. Should I A: start making a petition for the Devs to reduce match time so they end in 20 minutes, altering the feel of the game completely, or B: Play something else? This is a no brainer for me.

Jesus if you really want to play a piss easy Dark Souls all you need is to buy it on PC and get easy cheats that make your character as strong as you want. Even on console most Dark Souls games have had Glitches where you could duplicate souls and items and make the game a walking simulator because you had so many stats and gear that you were impossible to kill.

Devs could easily make a quick session for DOTA2 if that would bring relevant revenue.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

SvennoJ on 17 December 2018
Spindel said:
SvennoJ said:

You can be fully immersed without dying. I have not died once yet in RL and still feel pretty immersed ;)

To me, dying breaks the immersion, or rather the reloading, respawning that comes afterwards. The game should not be easy, yet dying frequently ruins immersion. (Unless it's part of the game mechanics like Dark Souls and Planescape: Torment. In most games it's basically hitting rewind on the VCR while you're in the middle of a story. The trick is to make the player believe he can die at any moment without actually killing him.

Dying is not the same as failing

It depends on the game. Dying in Astrobot or any platformer, no problem at all. That's all about memorization for which repetition is the best way to learn. Yet dying in a game like RDR2 where you have to sit through cut scenes again or have a lengthy process to get back, or lengthy loading times, very annoying. My argument for Souls is not that you should not be dying, difficulty adjustments should be there to change the frequency of deaths. DS2 had an early difficulty spike for me, I died about 50 times just to get to the next bonfire at the start. Which resulted in me over powering my character making the game very easy later on. You can avoid this upside down difficulty curve with adjustable or dynamic difficulty.



HoloDust on 17 December 2018
SvennoJ said:
Spindel said:

Dying is not the same as failing

It depends on the game. Dying in Astrobot or any platformer, no problem at all. That's all about memorization for which repetition is the best way to learn. Yet dying in a game like RDR2 where you have to sit through cut scenes again or have a lengthy process to get back, or lengthy loading times, very annoying. My argument for Souls is not that you should not be dying, difficulty adjustments should be there to change the frequency of deaths. DS2 had an early difficulty spike for me, I died about 50 times just to get to the next bonfire at the start. Which resulted in me over powering my character making the game very easy later on. You can avoid this upside down difficulty curve with adjustable or dynamic difficulty.

I'm the odd one that of all Souls likes DSII the most - big part of it is setting, of all 3 (well, 4) Souls that one resembles western fantasy world the most...but other thing that I liked very much, and was bummed to see gone in DSIII, is effigy mechanism and the fact that the more you die, less and less life you have everytime you respawn, so you need to be even more careful than in other Souls.

Different strokes and all that...



SvennoJ on 17 December 2018
HoloDust said:
SvennoJ said:

It depends on the game. Dying in Astrobot or any platformer, no problem at all. That's all about memorization for which repetition is the best way to learn. Yet dying in a game like RDR2 where you have to sit through cut scenes again or have a lengthy process to get back, or lengthy loading times, very annoying. My argument for Souls is not that you should not be dying, difficulty adjustments should be there to change the frequency of deaths. DS2 had an early difficulty spike for me, I died about 50 times just to get to the next bonfire at the start. Which resulted in me over powering my character making the game very easy later on. You can avoid this upside down difficulty curve with adjustable or dynamic difficulty.

I'm the odd one that of all Souls likes DSII the most - big part of it is setting, of all 3 (well, 4) Souls that one resembles western fantasy world the most...but other thing that I liked very much, and was bummed to see gone in DSIII, is effigy mechanism and the fact that the more you die, less and less life you have everytime you respawn, so you need to be even more careful than in other Souls.

Different strokes and all that...

Glad I skipped DS3 then, that's the opposite of what I want. I hate it enough that in a lot of games you respawn while still having used up all your ammo and resources. If I couldn't do it with all the stuff I used, why expect me to try again without my resources. Reload. That's what I really appreciated about dark souls, you only lose some soul gems yet keep everything else and respawn fully replenished. (Well apart from some nasty enemies that reduce your health and you have to go all the way back up to the bell tower to cure)