HoloDust said:
It's not hard - my 10 year old son finished it - he just had to learn to be patient, vigilant and most importantly how to manage stamina. |
Yeah, it is all about patience. Many people have learned to play fast action games and expect the Souls games to fall into that category. But they are slow, you should go into them patient. And that's the whole point. People going in guns blazing will think it is hard, people going in patient will think it is moderate in difficulty.
The antithesis is Serious Sam. Going in slow and deliberate probably leads to a subpar experience.
| morenoingrato said: Celeste is one of the most magnificent and rewarding platformers I've ever played. On the hardest levels, you need precise skill, timing and reflexes. I felt like a God when clearing the ultimate challenges. There's an optional difficulty setting that allows people to win for free and experience the solid story. That allows players to have fun and it certainly didn't take away from my experience. |
Yeah, but did anyone complain about this difficulty setting? Never heard any discussion. And this is the thesis of the OP, why get people upset. I don't think people get upset outside of Souls.
DonFerrari said:
I play mainly AAA games and I'm yet to find a game that disapointed me because they had multiple difficult selections or even a game I thought that got dumbed down and unpleasant because they made it to be mass market. Most were Sony 1st party or exclusives and considering their praise I fail to see this unique view you and some others are seeing that AAA games are on a very bad situation due to panderizing to mass market. |
Yeah, maybe you're part of that mass market and that's why you find no fault. That is OK by the way, nothing wrong with it. The only thing is you should accept that people have different preferences.
KLXVER said:
Its ok to suck at a game. Overcoming challenges are part of the fun. |
Yeah, many people seem to forget that.
| SvennoJ said: Difficulty settings wouldn't be necessary if game AI would work like a good DM in the old table top RPGs. A good DM challenges the party, yet leaves a way out and will adjust difficulty on the fly not to kill off the party and end the game. Games need to figure out how to dynamically scale difficulty to challenge players from start to end without vertical learning curves or obstacles that become frustrating. Unless ofcourse you venture into an area you are not supposed to be in yet. There are many ways to scale difficulty for example rubber banding has been used in arcade racing games for decades to keep races close. Online lobbies offer boost and increased drafting to keep racers together. The last of us also does something similar by throwing you much needed items when you get low. The AI director in Left 4 dead keeps the players on their toes. Unreal Tournament had a setting where players that run out ahead were handicapped by making them easier to hit, while doing the reverse to players that die a lot. In a game about learning patterns like Dark Souls, enemy speed can be flexible as well as hit windows and damage modifiers. A difficulty setting can determine how much the engine can scale the difficulty or not at all. |
Rubber banding and adapted challenges are critized in it's own right. In many games part of the experience is to build the character and progress. If that is part of the game, you want to see, that in the beginning some challenges are impossible to beat, but if you come back later with an upgraded character they get a lot easier. If you adapt the challenge this feel of progression is lost.
JWeinCom said:
Uhhhhh... I was just discussing it... and not in terms of Dark Souls... and you just reacted as if I were talking about Dark Souls O_o... I don't believe this topic was about Dark Souls at all originally. |
Ahem. So for which games are major discussions (not a single youtuber or something, but a bigger discussion) about the difficulty settings? This is the thesis of the OP and yours seemingly, but I fail to see impactful grumblings aside from Souls.
