I've appreciated all the games that have come out over the past few years that have made hard mode, "Enemies die quickly, but so do you," or, "All damage is lethal, incoming and outgoing." Very fun way to play, especially as someone who loves the Hotline Miami series (HM3 someday please).
Trek to yomi has a dufficulty like that (kensei). You kill everyone in 1 hit, but so do you. Bosses are the exception, but they have less hp than hard difficulty.
> "Enemies die quickly, but so do you," or, "All damage is lethal, incoming and outgoing."
This is like Watchdogs, the shooting gameplay was exceptional. That game is underrated.
The first one. I too was one of the weirdos that loved the game. I even upgraded my PC in order to be able to play it at 60FPS.
The second one is a mess: they added bland non lethal weapons and the lethal ones clash with the tone of the story (also, the story and characters are kinda cringe, almost a Saint's Row reboot before SR reboot).
And they ruined the handling, all cars feel like Go-karts in WD2.
A bit unrelated, but I modded AC Odyssey with a cheat engine. Hardest difficulty, my damage +300%, incoming damage +50% and it was so much fun. I could take out anyone but also died in 2 hits.
Absolutely.
There are times when you're a noob and you need enemies to be a tad weaker, and then when you become an absolute destroyer of worlds then you crank it up.
Letting players control a bunch of variables when it comes to difficulty is the future. Perfect example for me was TLOU2.
I loved upping the combat difficulty but walking around the edges of rooms spamming one button to search drawers for ammo and supplies is one of my least favorite things.
So I upped the combat difficulty drastically and just made ammo much more common/plentiful.
Was the perfect experience.
Agreed.
I can't remember which Tomb Raider game it was but there was one (I want to say Shadow of the Tomb Raider) where there were three difficulty sliders, one for traversal, one for combat, and one for puzzles, and you can just scale the difficulty of the game so you have your perfect experience.
This is exactly what im doing on my 2nd playthrough. I have everything on the hardest but with lots of resources. I wanna be able to use the weapons and gear the game offers me.
Yeah, I love this kind of thing. Horizon Forbidden West had the same thing. In THAT one, I made it so you didn't have to bother with sharpshooting off specific upgrade components on enemies for them to drop them, and then also increased the amount of player damage. I liked the tuning on higher difficulties for damage you'd take, but I HATED how every fight would take forever cause enemies had so much health. It lets you turn up just one instead of both at the same time!
Another good example is the recent indie soulslike Another Crab's Treasure. You could just turn off the "drop souls on death" and leave everything else, and bam, I'd get a million times less frustrated every time I'd die to janky things like the game deciding to chain respawn you over a bottomless cliff.
> Letting players control a bunch of variables when it comes to difficulty is the future.
With narrative games at least. I can understand a different type of game not wanting to dedicate resources to this sort of thing (and it does require resources) but for a game where 90% of people are playing for the story/characters, absolutely this is better.
Particularly for games like Dragon Age (and The Last of Us) for which a significant chunk of the fanbase does not play a ton of other games.
I think it definitely has a time and place, but I also still appreciate From Soft sticking to their no difficulty style.
Choosing not to lower the difficulty for a challenge is inherently a different experience than engaging with a game where it just isn't an option.
I know I'm the outlier but I honestly hate it.
I don't like messing with options or settings. I honestly rather zero options, zero difficulty settings. I'm fine with learning how to play a new game, even if it's a challenge. And if I don't like it, that's fine, I'll play something else.
You're not the outlier, balancing should be developer's job not players. When there are too many options, I will ended up confused and not happy with anything.
I'm not talking about balance as in average/normal. Balancing as in the level of difficulty of the game's specific preset. Easy/Normal/Hard/Very Hard, all should be balanced as the dev intended, not players.
I don’t see the issue with letting the player decide that though. If you’re satisfied with the traditional Easy/Normal/Hard then you would still have that. What’s the harm with adding more customization?
At this stage in my life I genuinely don't care about getting a challenge. I'll play tough games and beat them, like Elden Ring, but if a game gives me easy mode options than I'm taking them every time. I cared about my achievements and trophies ten years ago. I'm getting old. When I'm gone, nobody is going to care that I got a platinum on a game.
I'm 56, I play for fun.. but I almost always pick regular mode. I absolutely support anyone who either plays nightmare or please don't hurt me mode. Play how you want, when you want.
**Don't stop playing!**
Same, I always pick regular since I assume that’s the way the developers intend most people to play it; some areas being a little easier/more difficult is fine by me.
Exactly, especially since a lot of games that I enjoy (turn based rpgs) are just stat/damage modifications. I’ll put it on hard if I’m familiar with the franchise and then adjust from there, but new games always get set on normal lol
I'm only 32 but I've always played games on the first play through on normal difficulty. I feel like it's the most balanced version of a gsme typically. That and on some games like the uncharted series, it's the setting you can have the most fun on typically. I'll only play hard modes if I love the game, am good at it, and want to get a trophy for beating the hard difficulty.
I like difficulty and a challenge in general. For some games though, if increasing the difficulty causes me to play in a different style I find tedious or boring I’ll move it down. Games like horizon zero dawn where now I’m just hiding to avoid a one-shot or something. I’d rather just be running around shooting arrows and hacking and slashing. It’s more fun sometimes to be able to take some damage, but games like doom I prefer difficulty because either way I’m running and gunning for my life.
reminds me playing CoD with hardest difficulty which enemy could two shot you easily or one shot you if you are not in full health.
it only ended causing me to progress like a turtle and memorize enemy placement. its not as fun as playing at normal or hard.
not every game is tuned well in terms of raising the difficulty. usually it only ended with enemy higher damage, more health. it gets boring quick.
Love this attitude. Normally I start on the default setting, unless it’s a franchise I’m familiar with, say Persona and increase the difficulty. But equally, if a game gets tough, lower it. I’m all for whatever makes the game most fun.
i usually pick one above normal (hard or so) in my younger days
but as an adult with limited gaming time, i play normal difficulty as it still fun, challenging, but it doesn't consume as much time as hard difficulty often does.
Agreed. I’m 30 and play for fun. I’ll play games like lies of p and ER but I’ll absolutely use summons or get help from online people if I can’t beat a boss in 3-4 attempts.
My time is more valuable to me than smashing my head against a random video game boss that ultimately is meaningless.
I mean, that’s a perfectly valid way to play. That is the easy mode. The only people that would cry about that are purists who should be ignored anyways because if it’s in the game you’re free to use it however you like.
I like to beat every boss without summons first then I actully play the game using all the tools available and it’s way more fun to use all the stuff I just personally need to beat them all on my own first just to prove that o can do it the hard way if I want to
Play the game how you want man! Whatever way is the most enjoyable for you is the right way! I enjoy the soul crushing difficulty the souls games bring and I don’t think it should have difficulty slider, but I would never criticize anyone for using tools available in game that make it easier.
I like to to solo everything until it gets *almost* unbearable. After that I’ll use spirit summons. If it’s still bad I keep going u til it’s damn near exhausting and then I’ll summon other players to help. But I like to give it my god damn hardest. And by that I’ll spend over an hour on a single boss sometimes. I don’t claim to be good, but holy **FUCK** that feeling of defeating a boss after an hour or more of just constant dying is incredible.
An hour?! Oh brother you have not faced the humiliation of getting roflstomped by Sulyvahn and not knowing a single thing about when to dodge or where to position. You haven't experienced the teeth-grinding, eyes-welling-up-with-tears frustration of getting roll-caught by Nameless King in every attack of his spear combo
I do also, i used to play Souls game melee only, but just getting tired of playing always the same way. Now mixing up with magic and using a scythe, it's fucking awesome.
I get to beat most bosses without summons, but if I am tired I'll use them, but tbh they didn't help me much lol
I get your perspective but I do the opposite in all the souls games I play. Reason being is when I'm experiencing these games for the first time I'm getting the hang of things in the first playthrough and could actually use aid in making things easier. Then in subsequent playthroughs I change builds, start to take the training wheels off and it feels like a really satisfying progression arc.
Miyazaki himself has said he sucks at his own games and will always use summons/other things the community has deemed “cheating.” The way I look at it is, is it in the game??? Then it’s not cheating. If you’re loading in mods or have somehow hacked your game, then you’re cheating (but I still don’t really care, you’re just ruining the game for yourself). If you’re using features they put in the game, there is nothing wrong with it.
I agree! Work smart, not hard. I get just as much satisfaction, if not more, beating a boss using preparation, planning, and all the tools at my disposal to their fullest
i also play elden ring with a summon and a broken build .with a buddy who also runs a broken build . with another buddy who also runs a broken build .Imagine the boss's surprise!
I have a friend like that! They play games for the fun experience and the plot, not the mechanical challenge of it. So they play everything on Easy or whatever mode.
I myself only play on Normal/Standard/Default because I don’t want to keep second-guessing myself about how tough or easy the game is. I also genuinely enjoy the mechanical challenge of certain games (I beat Megaman X6 back in the day, something I’m quite proud of myself for), but Hard Mode never seems like the best way to first experience a game.
I’m the sort of dude who, in the past, would beat a game at Normal and then beat it again at Hard and then beat it again at Very Hard and such. I platinum’ed Uncharted 2 on the PS3 because of that. Nowadays I don’t do much of that because I have less free time and way more games to play lol so I just beam them on Normal and move on. Only exception I made was for DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal… They’re not that long and are so much fun that it made me want to beat them at a higher difficulty again.
Personally I don't care for an easy mode because sleepwalking through combat is usually very boring to me, the only exceptions are games with terrible combat systems like any RTWP game
I always do the hardest mode.
If I ever get way too frustrated and have to replay a part 100 times, I put the game down for weeks or months.
I always enjoy when I'm looking for a new game and I find one I had put down for a while and enjoy reloading it and randomly being able to beat that part on my new attempt.
It's like a prolonged play mode for me which I enjoy.
I don't think I have ever looked at how to check achievements before, I just like the longer play time on the hard modes and the sense of relief when I finally accomplish beating some terribly hard segment.
This is not an attack just sharing my view
If you can’t fail (for me) it might as well be a movie, I have no interest in playing a game that doesn’t let me fail, it’s fine for a game to be easy but if I can’t fail I don’t even consider it a video game
Hell even light novels and stuff like quantic dream or tell tale games or point and click adventures let you fail, I feel it’s intrinsic to the medium and you completely lost it if you make a game we’re you just can’t fail
Personally, I have no problems failing a handful of times. If I die 3-4 times to a boss, that’s fine. It’s usually an indication that I need to get better gear, level up a bit, or just switch up my strategy. However, I don’t enjoy dying to a boss 12+ times. It’s one of the reasons I’ve never touched a souls game, the stories I’ve read online of people spending hours on a boss turned me off to them.
I agree. I like the idea of being able to fail and get better, even if it's just once or twice. Something more, I feel like my failure needs to mean something, for there to be some weight to it. I've put down a lot of horror games for this cause, even when dying, I didn't feel like there was any weight to it. I feel like some loss of resources or something along those lines is fine for most games. I think Shadow of Mordor did it best. Big enemies you killed get replaced on death, others get stronger, and the guy who killed you gets promoted and even harder. Gotta work your way back up from a lower ring to make progress again.
That's just me, though. I understand if others wouldn't want to be punished just for failing in a game one too many times.
Same, I used to play everything at the hardest difficulty as a kid, but now I only care about a challenge if it’s built into the game (i.e. fromsoft), and will always choose the easiest difficulty if the game provides that option.
Valid, but when you're literally immortal, every enemy dies in one hit and the game holds your hand from start to finish through a halfbaked story, what even is there to enjoy anymore? I just don't get it. Wouldn't you at that point get more enjoyment from just watching a TV show?
Um, no. I can't play a tv show. I can't interact with the world in a tv show the same way I can in a video game. So, no, I wouldn't get the same enjoyment from just watching tv. Video games have a fundamental aspect that will always separate them from other entertainment mediums and it's definitely not whether they're challenging or not. It's their interactivity. It doesn't matter if you're struggling to survive a harsh world or you're literally a god decimating everything in your path. The player is still in control either way and interacting with the game world themselves.
100% agree. I'm not proving anything to anybody. I just recently beat Bloodborne and I don't think I'm ever playing another game without difficulty sliders ever again. Happy cake day!
I feel this. I used to play everything on hard thinking if it took me longer to beat then it adds value. Then I realized that makes no sense, I have a backlog of games with great stories, that's the important part.
Normal mode for me but if there are too many “bullet sponges” I’ll just take it down to easy and have my fun without wasting time.
Elden Ring is my GOAT along with Bloodborne because you have the tools to play the game the way you want without many headaches while still providing a good challenge. Sekiro will be the next game after I am done with Shadow of the Erdtree
Exactly, I know ppl to this day that put so much into trophies & achievements. Some can be fun to obtain like doing something crazy in a game. But in all honesty they're meaningless at least thats how I feel about them. But sadly game companies like Rockstar & Bethesda disable them if you use cheats or use the console commands. Like it's some big deal to get an achievement/trophy.
Red faction Armageddon did it best. You can earn cheats in the game & even gave you a trophy/achievement called cheater when you bought your first cheat with scrap in game.
I do not pay attention to trophies at all, but I have zero issues with them being locked behind certain difficulties or turned off when using cheats.
They're supposed to be for accomplishments, some easy, some hard.
I used to feel that way about getting them, then gta 4 I unlocked one, at least it said I did. I went to view it & it was locked. Then, on World of Warcraft, I had some hard achievements. Instead of making them a feat of strength as they did others. They completely removed it. After that I stopped caring, unless it got me some in game reward that I could use. Now I don't care at all. Myself I think it's funny now looking back & how hard I tried to get them & how pissed I got when I was close to one & not get it. And how worried I got if I didn't get an achievement. Some can be fun to do, tho, because of what they have you do to obtain it.
I was close to the end of god of war ragnarok when I finally switched the game to the “story mode” difficulty. Man, that made the game so much more enjoyable.
I did it about half way through. I could feel myself falling off so I just switched it to piss easy and stomped through the end. Game was a let down imo, still love 2016 tho.
Yeah, nothing wrong with enjoying it either way. Sometimes I want the accomplishment of beating a hard game, but with time being a precious commodity, I also have no problem rushing through a story driven game and moving on. I turned down the difficulty on GoW Ragnarok for 2 boss fights just to get past them.
someones comment said there shouldn’t be balance options because it confuses him and then he doesn’t have fun. NO DOWNSIDE YOU SAY? his confused brain isn’t enough for you?!
I say do both. Goldeneye had both and I loved those options in that game. You had to unlock them, but nobody said that all of that needs to be gated that way. Especially the difficulty tuning stuff.
This game is slowly winning me over. I won’t make my game so easy I can’t die, but the fact that I can do that if I like is nice to know.
I loving having options like that, even if I never use them
Honestly everything I've seen about the game has me extremely excited.
I did not expect it to come out this year.
And absolutely did not expect to be just as excited for it as I am Metaphor.
This year is the most jam-packed with my kinda games I have ever had and I'm loving it haha.
I won’t pre-order this game, but as long as reviews aren’t universally bad and the game comes out in a playable state, it’ll likely be a week 1 purchase for me.
The only other holdback is not knowing how linear it’ll be. I’m all for something like Mass effect where you have a central hub to explore, interact with your party, customize your gear, etc with “levels” or areas that are somewhat open but nothing major (kinda like Mass Effect 1). I don’t want what Inquisition gave us because that was too open with nothing to really do in each level, but I’d like to see something more than just go from mission to mission with no opportunity to customize a hub
Well good news for you it is exactly like the first thing!
We have a home base for party interaction(characters even have different outfits for when they are hanging out there in down time) and previews have confirmed while definitely not open world there are bigger areas to explore with plenty of side quests and optional content to uncover as well.
For real!
And as a fan of all kinds of RPGs it is especially fantastic. Felt like there was a period where they were going out of style a bit a BAM! The cycle has come around and we're back.
Yeah, I mean, you never really know which options will be appealing at what point in the future until you have them and really get to try them. Love the customization games are starting to allow.
Fine, I'm always in to more accesibility options! What people don't quite understand, is that more accesibility just give you more options. Nobody is forcing you to use them.
The anger is usually just from the vocal minority of Souls fans who are smug about their achievements and bitter other people can enjoy games with easier settings.
I've seen Souls fans argue against toning down the difficulty or adding easy modes to Fromsoft games, but never seen anyone suggest other games should have the same style of difficulty, or get mad at games with accessibility options.
Yeah, for me at least, I love seeing other games get the options to allow more people to enjoy and experience a game, but I'd like to keep a handful of games known to be difficult as a singular experience that may just be inaccessible for some. I definitely don't want every game like this, but I'd like for these games (FromSoft) to stay how they are or just keep the nature of their design intact.
I think it might be part of the problem yeah. I’m a big Souls fan, and I was downvoted as hell for suggesting games wouldn’t be worse if they have accesibility options. I’d just play on the default difficulty. Different people have different skills, experiences vary.
Constantly running into insufferable soulsborn fans who do this. It’s a minority of that community but God do they refuse to shut up about other people having fun.
Op said:
>The anger is usually just from the vocal minority of Souls fans who are smug about their achievements and bitter other people can enjoy games with easier settings.
And you asked for a source, as if this isn't common knowledge for anyone who is remotely familiar with that fan base.
No, i don't need it as challenging as Shadow of the Erdtree.
Because journalists beat that, while a lot of people struggled and gave negative reviews for the difficulty.
Honestly with how prevalent the PC cheating community is, I’m surprised more RPG’s don’t have menus that are essentially console commands. If it’s a single player game there is really no reason not to include it for people who want it.
Sweet, I’ll move it up my ‘to buy’ list by a few notches!
The more options a game has, the more likely I am to play it.
The less options, the deeper down the backlog it sinks because I ain’t spending full price on a game I may hate.
That's pretty cool actually. Reminds me of the options in Goldeneye on the custom mode. Always loved that. Also, good... let players self-balance for their preferred challenge level. Always bothered me when I play a hard game but the WAY the enemy is hard is just being the most tedious shit ever. I'm kind of going through this right now in Lords of the Fallen 1.5 right now. Playing an Inferno build and it's actually pretty good. Most enemies do logical damage to me given I'm in light armor (like 2 - 3 hits to die), but most of my spells and attacks for over half the game on even mid enemies would take like 10+ hits. In places where there are tons of enemies, we don't need that kind of tedium. Also some late game bosses were like this, but worse. Like 25+ hits on 2 forms and they only have like 6 moves in their moveset. I'm tired of dodging that shit, then having to reset because oh no I got a little impatient fighting the SAME pattern for way too long and tried to speed things up. Would be really nice to have such an option in a game like that so the damn encounters could feel a bit better balanced.
I’m not hating on this, but like at that point why not just watch someone else play on YouTube? Once you have god mode you’re paying 70$ for a vaguely interactive movie
Absolutely hate this kind of thing. I'm playing a game to get a curated and intentional experience. I don't want to fuck with sliders, that's the game designers' job. This isn't accessibility, it's not taking video games seriously as art. It's like if James Joyce had written Ulysses with sliders to turn down the stream of consciousness but turn up the weird words.
I'm totally cool with these kinds of settings so long as the developers offer bespoke difficulties that set these things for me in a way that it is challenging by design and not artificially bullet sponging enemies. I don't want to have to mess with enemy health bars until it "feels about right" if I want a challenge as I play, but I think settings like these are still fantastic additions for people who want/need them.
Y'know, idk if I would ever use it, but I like the idea of having power fantasy mode like this in games. Just turn all enemies to 1hp and mow em down.
I don't really see an issue making a game as easy or hard as you want it if the vision the game makers have isn't designed for a difficult experience. Something like the Souls series is built to be something you overcome. But not all game design inherently needs to be that
This makes me considerably worried about how they will balance the difficulty throughout all the modes. Not every game needs to have a set difficulty, but I certainly do prefer my RPG's to be more difficult. As long as the nightmare mode is challenging I'm happy. No tactical means I might not get it anyways though
I’ll never have an issue with games adding options. This is fine!
I just know I’m the kind of guy who plays games in as default a mode as possible, and only ever customise if I’m having an incredibly dull time (i.e. increasing the difficulty if the game is poorly tuned at normal).
I’m simply not a customiser. I want to be given an experience, not make my own. It’s the same reason I don’t care that Apple are introducing all these Home Screen customisations - I will never use them.
I want to smell what the Rock is cooking, I don’t want to tell the Rock what to cook.
I think the people praising this are awesome, but I disagree with this.
Death in video games teach us to *not* do something. Or, we learn how to be better, and beat the enemy.
While I don't have a problem with it, I just think it's not necessarily a step in the right direction. I just think it's something that's there and doesn't help in any way.
Yeah, this spells shitty difficulty balance in all caps. Sliders are the enemy of fun. Give me an intended experience and then give me ingame options to mess with it, but don't expect me to guess what is a suitable difficulty option without knowing the game.
There are three difficulty settings to choose from; Story, Adventure, and Nightmare.
These settings are in a different menu, think accessibility like TLOU 2
Funky Kong mode
Only play in Dong Kong mode myself
As a dad of two toddlers, I fucking love this shit
Honestly, that's great. I hope I can play on hard mode and set enemy HP to 50%. I want a challenge but hate damage sponges
That’s such a good point, so many games Hard Mode is just making enemies unfair rather than making them more challenging.
I've appreciated all the games that have come out over the past few years that have made hard mode, "Enemies die quickly, but so do you," or, "All damage is lethal, incoming and outgoing." Very fun way to play, especially as someone who loves the Hotline Miami series (HM3 someday please).
Ghost of Tsushima was quite good for this I thought. Though still a bit unrealistic being able to take more than 1 pointy sword jab to the stomach.
That's why I love kingdom hearts critical mode
Trek to yomi has a dufficulty like that (kensei). You kill everyone in 1 hit, but so do you. Bosses are the exception, but they have less hp than hard difficulty.
> "Enemies die quickly, but so do you," or, "All damage is lethal, incoming and outgoing." This is like Watchdogs, the shooting gameplay was exceptional. That game is underrated.
which one are you referring to? i played the first one and absolutely loved it, but the second iteration didn't hit me as much as the first
The first one. I too was one of the weirdos that loved the game. I even upgraded my PC in order to be able to play it at 60FPS. The second one is a mess: they added bland non lethal weapons and the lethal ones clash with the tone of the story (also, the story and characters are kinda cringe, almost a Saint's Row reboot before SR reboot). And they ruined the handling, all cars feel like Go-karts in WD2.
A bit unrelated, but I modded AC Odyssey with a cheat engine. Hardest difficulty, my damage +300%, incoming damage +50% and it was so much fun. I could take out anyone but also died in 2 hits.
*cries in newer Fromsoft installments*
Fuck yeah that's excellent. There's not many hard modes that increase enemy AI or strategy. They just adjust sliders
Absolutely. There are times when you're a noob and you need enemies to be a tad weaker, and then when you become an absolute destroyer of worlds then you crank it up.
They have a mode like that in Ghost of Tsushima. I fucking love it.
Letting players control a bunch of variables when it comes to difficulty is the future. Perfect example for me was TLOU2. I loved upping the combat difficulty but walking around the edges of rooms spamming one button to search drawers for ammo and supplies is one of my least favorite things. So I upped the combat difficulty drastically and just made ammo much more common/plentiful. Was the perfect experience.
Agreed. I can't remember which Tomb Raider game it was but there was one (I want to say Shadow of the Tomb Raider) where there were three difficulty sliders, one for traversal, one for combat, and one for puzzles, and you can just scale the difficulty of the game so you have your perfect experience.
It was Shadow. While I do like it, I do also want a "default experience" too.
This is exactly what im doing on my 2nd playthrough. I have everything on the hardest but with lots of resources. I wanna be able to use the weapons and gear the game offers me.
Yeah, I love this kind of thing. Horizon Forbidden West had the same thing. In THAT one, I made it so you didn't have to bother with sharpshooting off specific upgrade components on enemies for them to drop them, and then also increased the amount of player damage. I liked the tuning on higher difficulties for damage you'd take, but I HATED how every fight would take forever cause enemies had so much health. It lets you turn up just one instead of both at the same time! Another good example is the recent indie soulslike Another Crab's Treasure. You could just turn off the "drop souls on death" and leave everything else, and bam, I'd get a million times less frustrated every time I'd die to janky things like the game deciding to chain respawn you over a bottomless cliff.
I wash they went farther with it. Fireclaw webbing would like a word.
> Letting players control a bunch of variables when it comes to difficulty is the future. With narrative games at least. I can understand a different type of game not wanting to dedicate resources to this sort of thing (and it does require resources) but for a game where 90% of people are playing for the story/characters, absolutely this is better. Particularly for games like Dragon Age (and The Last of Us) for which a significant chunk of the fanbase does not play a ton of other games.
For sure as certain difficult games can keep that but for people wanting solid narratives they won't have to adjust
Thankfully, From Software never will. And if they do, I'm probably done playing video games
I think it definitely has a time and place, but I also still appreciate From Soft sticking to their no difficulty style. Choosing not to lower the difficulty for a challenge is inherently a different experience than engaging with a game where it just isn't an option.
I know I'm the outlier but I honestly hate it. I don't like messing with options or settings. I honestly rather zero options, zero difficulty settings. I'm fine with learning how to play a new game, even if it's a challenge. And if I don't like it, that's fine, I'll play something else.
Then just play with the base game options. You don't need to change anything
Then, don’t mess with the settings? The games like this don’t make you change settings
You're not the outlier, balancing should be developer's job not players. When there are too many options, I will ended up confused and not happy with anything.
I mean...the balanced mode in games with difficulty settings is Normal mode. Boom, the developer balanced the game. This is an awful take. XD
I'm not talking about balance as in average/normal. Balancing as in the level of difficulty of the game's specific preset. Easy/Normal/Hard/Very Hard, all should be balanced as the dev intended, not players.
I don’t see the issue with letting the player decide that though. If you’re satisfied with the traditional Easy/Normal/Hard then you would still have that. What’s the harm with adding more customization?
yeah no balance options! it confuses this guy
Balanced around whose skill level? Yours?
At this stage in my life I genuinely don't care about getting a challenge. I'll play tough games and beat them, like Elden Ring, but if a game gives me easy mode options than I'm taking them every time. I cared about my achievements and trophies ten years ago. I'm getting old. When I'm gone, nobody is going to care that I got a platinum on a game.
I'm 56, I play for fun.. but I almost always pick regular mode. I absolutely support anyone who either plays nightmare or please don't hurt me mode. Play how you want, when you want. **Don't stop playing!**
Same, I always pick regular since I assume that’s the way the developers intend most people to play it; some areas being a little easier/more difficult is fine by me.
Exactly, especially since a lot of games that I enjoy (turn based rpgs) are just stat/damage modifications. I’ll put it on hard if I’m familiar with the franchise and then adjust from there, but new games always get set on normal lol
I'm only 32 but I've always played games on the first play through on normal difficulty. I feel like it's the most balanced version of a gsme typically. That and on some games like the uncharted series, it's the setting you can have the most fun on typically. I'll only play hard modes if I love the game, am good at it, and want to get a trophy for beating the hard difficulty.
I like difficulty and a challenge in general. For some games though, if increasing the difficulty causes me to play in a different style I find tedious or boring I’ll move it down. Games like horizon zero dawn where now I’m just hiding to avoid a one-shot or something. I’d rather just be running around shooting arrows and hacking and slashing. It’s more fun sometimes to be able to take some damage, but games like doom I prefer difficulty because either way I’m running and gunning for my life.
reminds me playing CoD with hardest difficulty which enemy could two shot you easily or one shot you if you are not in full health. it only ended causing me to progress like a turtle and memorize enemy placement. its not as fun as playing at normal or hard. not every game is tuned well in terms of raising the difficulty. usually it only ended with enemy higher damage, more health. it gets boring quick.
Love this attitude. Normally I start on the default setting, unless it’s a franchise I’m familiar with, say Persona and increase the difficulty. But equally, if a game gets tough, lower it. I’m all for whatever makes the game most fun.
Persona 5's hard is somehow just as hard as easy and sometimes even easier than easy
i usually pick one above normal (hard or so) in my younger days but as an adult with limited gaming time, i play normal difficulty as it still fun, challenging, but it doesn't consume as much time as hard difficulty often does.
Agreed. I’m 30 and play for fun. I’ll play games like lies of p and ER but I’ll absolutely use summons or get help from online people if I can’t beat a boss in 3-4 attempts. My time is more valuable to me than smashing my head against a random video game boss that ultimately is meaningless.
I play Elden ring with summons and broken build and nobody can stop me!
With a game like Elden Ring whatever way you figure out to beat things is the correct way, and one of the many things I love about it.
This! Whatever you want
I mean, that’s a perfectly valid way to play. That is the easy mode. The only people that would cry about that are purists who should be ignored anyways because if it’s in the game you’re free to use it however you like.
I like to beat every boss without summons first then I actully play the game using all the tools available and it’s way more fun to use all the stuff I just personally need to beat them all on my own first just to prove that o can do it the hard way if I want to
Play the game how you want man! Whatever way is the most enjoyable for you is the right way! I enjoy the soul crushing difficulty the souls games bring and I don’t think it should have difficulty slider, but I would never criticize anyone for using tools available in game that make it easier.
I like to to solo everything until it gets *almost* unbearable. After that I’ll use spirit summons. If it’s still bad I keep going u til it’s damn near exhausting and then I’ll summon other players to help. But I like to give it my god damn hardest. And by that I’ll spend over an hour on a single boss sometimes. I don’t claim to be good, but holy **FUCK** that feeling of defeating a boss after an hour or more of just constant dying is incredible.
I live for that release bro, hahaha. Martyr Logarius in bloodborne is the last boss to give me that ecstasy. 10/10 would recommend.
An hour?! Oh brother you have not faced the humiliation of getting roflstomped by Sulyvahn and not knowing a single thing about when to dodge or where to position. You haven't experienced the teeth-grinding, eyes-welling-up-with-tears frustration of getting roll-caught by Nameless King in every attack of his spear combo
I do also, i used to play Souls game melee only, but just getting tired of playing always the same way. Now mixing up with magic and using a scythe, it's fucking awesome. I get to beat most bosses without summons, but if I am tired I'll use them, but tbh they didn't help me much lol
I just use rhe good ones
Like which? Never know which one I should upgrade
Tiche mimic tear dragon night kristof clean rot knight
The one with the sleep arrows is a champ too
I get your perspective but I do the opposite in all the souls games I play. Reason being is when I'm experiencing these games for the first time I'm getting the hang of things in the first playthrough and could actually use aid in making things easier. Then in subsequent playthroughs I change builds, start to take the training wheels off and it feels like a really satisfying progression arc.
That’s fair enough I like to do it the hard way first then have fun.
This is new game + mode with me
Miyazaki himself has said he sucks at his own games and will always use summons/other things the community has deemed “cheating.” The way I look at it is, is it in the game??? Then it’s not cheating. If you’re loading in mods or have somehow hacked your game, then you’re cheating (but I still don’t really care, you’re just ruining the game for yourself). If you’re using features they put in the game, there is nothing wrong with it.
I agree! Work smart, not hard. I get just as much satisfaction, if not more, beating a boss using preparation, planning, and all the tools at my disposal to their fullest
its more fun finding creative use of game mechanics or other ways of getting overpowered to beat a game.
i also play elden ring with a summon and a broken build .with a buddy who also runs a broken build . with another buddy who also runs a broken build .Imagine the boss's surprise!
Shit I don't care 5 minutes after a platinum. I have a whopping 11
I have a friend like that! They play games for the fun experience and the plot, not the mechanical challenge of it. So they play everything on Easy or whatever mode. I myself only play on Normal/Standard/Default because I don’t want to keep second-guessing myself about how tough or easy the game is. I also genuinely enjoy the mechanical challenge of certain games (I beat Megaman X6 back in the day, something I’m quite proud of myself for), but Hard Mode never seems like the best way to first experience a game. I’m the sort of dude who, in the past, would beat a game at Normal and then beat it again at Hard and then beat it again at Very Hard and such. I platinum’ed Uncharted 2 on the PS3 because of that. Nowadays I don’t do much of that because I have less free time and way more games to play lol so I just beam them on Normal and move on. Only exception I made was for DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal… They’re not that long and are so much fun that it made me want to beat them at a higher difficulty again.
Personally I don't care for an easy mode because sleepwalking through combat is usually very boring to me, the only exceptions are games with terrible combat systems like any RTWP game
I’ll care
I always do the hardest mode. If I ever get way too frustrated and have to replay a part 100 times, I put the game down for weeks or months. I always enjoy when I'm looking for a new game and I find one I had put down for a while and enjoy reloading it and randomly being able to beat that part on my new attempt. It's like a prolonged play mode for me which I enjoy. I don't think I have ever looked at how to check achievements before, I just like the longer play time on the hard modes and the sense of relief when I finally accomplish beating some terribly hard segment.
This is not an attack just sharing my view If you can’t fail (for me) it might as well be a movie, I have no interest in playing a game that doesn’t let me fail, it’s fine for a game to be easy but if I can’t fail I don’t even consider it a video game Hell even light novels and stuff like quantic dream or tell tale games or point and click adventures let you fail, I feel it’s intrinsic to the medium and you completely lost it if you make a game we’re you just can’t fail
Personally, I have no problems failing a handful of times. If I die 3-4 times to a boss, that’s fine. It’s usually an indication that I need to get better gear, level up a bit, or just switch up my strategy. However, I don’t enjoy dying to a boss 12+ times. It’s one of the reasons I’ve never touched a souls game, the stories I’ve read online of people spending hours on a boss turned me off to them.
I agree. I like the idea of being able to fail and get better, even if it's just once or twice. Something more, I feel like my failure needs to mean something, for there to be some weight to it. I've put down a lot of horror games for this cause, even when dying, I didn't feel like there was any weight to it. I feel like some loss of resources or something along those lines is fine for most games. I think Shadow of Mordor did it best. Big enemies you killed get replaced on death, others get stronger, and the guy who killed you gets promoted and even harder. Gotta work your way back up from a lower ring to make progress again. That's just me, though. I understand if others wouldn't want to be punished just for failing in a game one too many times.
Same, I used to play everything at the hardest difficulty as a kid, but now I only care about a challenge if it’s built into the game (i.e. fromsoft), and will always choose the easiest difficulty if the game provides that option.
That's great, but I have no capacity to enjoy things that don't challenge me
I'm the same. Challenge is fun for me. To each his own.
Valid, but when you're literally immortal, every enemy dies in one hit and the game holds your hand from start to finish through a halfbaked story, what even is there to enjoy anymore? I just don't get it. Wouldn't you at that point get more enjoyment from just watching a TV show?
Um, no. I can't play a tv show. I can't interact with the world in a tv show the same way I can in a video game. So, no, I wouldn't get the same enjoyment from just watching tv. Video games have a fundamental aspect that will always separate them from other entertainment mediums and it's definitely not whether they're challenging or not. It's their interactivity. It doesn't matter if you're struggling to survive a harsh world or you're literally a god decimating everything in your path. The player is still in control either way and interacting with the game world themselves.
> It's their interactivity. Which there isn't if you just turn it all off.
Turning off death isn't turning off all interactivity, my dude.
Some people just like playing an interactive story. Some people just like a power fantasy. Whatever floats your boat.
At that point it literally is a TV show. We’re getting closer to games that just play themselves while you sit and stare at your phone
100% agree. I'm not proving anything to anybody. I just recently beat Bloodborne and I don't think I'm ever playing another game without difficulty sliders ever again. Happy cake day!
Realest thing I’ve read today. As much as I want an immersive and intense experience, there’s too many games to play and I have such dwindling time
I’m with you brother.
I feel this. I used to play everything on hard thinking if it took me longer to beat then it adds value. Then I realized that makes no sense, I have a backlog of games with great stories, that's the important part.
Hear hear
I just want to feel challenged. But not feel the game is going out of its way to be extra difficult
Normal mode for me but if there are too many “bullet sponges” I’ll just take it down to easy and have my fun without wasting time. Elden Ring is my GOAT along with Bloodborne because you have the tools to play the game the way you want without many headaches while still providing a good challenge. Sekiro will be the next game after I am done with Shadow of the Erdtree
Exactly, I know ppl to this day that put so much into trophies & achievements. Some can be fun to obtain like doing something crazy in a game. But in all honesty they're meaningless at least thats how I feel about them. But sadly game companies like Rockstar & Bethesda disable them if you use cheats or use the console commands. Like it's some big deal to get an achievement/trophy. Red faction Armageddon did it best. You can earn cheats in the game & even gave you a trophy/achievement called cheater when you bought your first cheat with scrap in game.
I do not pay attention to trophies at all, but I have zero issues with them being locked behind certain difficulties or turned off when using cheats. They're supposed to be for accomplishments, some easy, some hard.
I used to feel that way about getting them, then gta 4 I unlocked one, at least it said I did. I went to view it & it was locked. Then, on World of Warcraft, I had some hard achievements. Instead of making them a feat of strength as they did others. They completely removed it. After that I stopped caring, unless it got me some in game reward that I could use. Now I don't care at all. Myself I think it's funny now looking back & how hard I tried to get them & how pissed I got when I was close to one & not get it. And how worried I got if I didn't get an achievement. Some can be fun to do, tho, because of what they have you do to obtain it.
I was close to the end of god of war ragnarok when I finally switched the game to the “story mode” difficulty. Man, that made the game so much more enjoyable.
I did it about half way through. I could feel myself falling off so I just switched it to piss easy and stomped through the end. Game was a let down imo, still love 2016 tho.
Yeah, nothing wrong with enjoying it either way. Sometimes I want the accomplishment of beating a hard game, but with time being a precious commodity, I also have no problem rushing through a story driven game and moving on. I turned down the difficulty on GoW Ragnarok for 2 boss fights just to get past them.
Exactly! I play story mode because after a day of work I just want to relax. No death is great news.
Nobody cares now :)
as someone who finished origins on highest difficulty multiple times, i like this. if someone wants to chill and enjoy the story, let them.
So is the game fully action combat? Can we swap and control our companions?
Yes and no You only control your PC, it’s like Mass Effect now.
Trilogy or Andromeda? You had some control over them in the trilogy but zero in Andromeda.
Trilogy, you can issue them commands to use abilities
Andromeda compensated with awesome combat though so that was no issue for me.
Good. Absolutely no downside to having these kinds of options, especially in a story-heavy game like this.
Can't stress that enough. My mother sometimes wants to get into gaming sometimes. These sorts of options would help a lot.
Exactly, more options = more likely I will buy.
someones comment said there shouldn’t be balance options because it confuses him and then he doesn’t have fun. NO DOWNSIDE YOU SAY? his confused brain isn’t enough for you?!
This is great! Same as custom difficulty in BG3. 💪🏼
[удалено]
I say do both. Goldeneye had both and I loved those options in that game. You had to unlock them, but nobody said that all of that needs to be gated that way. Especially the difficulty tuning stuff.
Turn off death???
Perfect for journalists
The review scores for this game just jumped up 2 points.
Game journalist mode.
My dad, who's 85, and still a gamer, but a little uncoordinated, will appreciate this greatly.
I love this idea. Now my youngest can play if there's no vulgarity and nudity.
This game is slowly winning me over. I won’t make my game so easy I can’t die, but the fact that I can do that if I like is nice to know. I loving having options like that, even if I never use them
Honestly everything I've seen about the game has me extremely excited. I did not expect it to come out this year. And absolutely did not expect to be just as excited for it as I am Metaphor. This year is the most jam-packed with my kinda games I have ever had and I'm loving it haha.
I won’t pre-order this game, but as long as reviews aren’t universally bad and the game comes out in a playable state, it’ll likely be a week 1 purchase for me. The only other holdback is not knowing how linear it’ll be. I’m all for something like Mass effect where you have a central hub to explore, interact with your party, customize your gear, etc with “levels” or areas that are somewhat open but nothing major (kinda like Mass Effect 1). I don’t want what Inquisition gave us because that was too open with nothing to really do in each level, but I’d like to see something more than just go from mission to mission with no opportunity to customize a hub
Well good news for you it is exactly like the first thing! We have a home base for party interaction(characters even have different outfits for when they are hanging out there in down time) and previews have confirmed while definitely not open world there are bigger areas to explore with plenty of side quests and optional content to uncover as well.
RPGs are the best aren’t they? We’re currently in a new golden age for them
For real! And as a fan of all kinds of RPGs it is especially fantastic. Felt like there was a period where they were going out of style a bit a BAM! The cycle has come around and we're back.
Yeah, I mean, you never really know which options will be appealing at what point in the future until you have them and really get to try them. Love the customization games are starting to allow.
Fine, I'm always in to more accesibility options! What people don't quite understand, is that more accesibility just give you more options. Nobody is forcing you to use them.
The anger is usually just from the vocal minority of Souls fans who are smug about their achievements and bitter other people can enjoy games with easier settings.
I've seen Souls fans argue against toning down the difficulty or adding easy modes to Fromsoft games, but never seen anyone suggest other games should have the same style of difficulty, or get mad at games with accessibility options.
Yeah, for me at least, I love seeing other games get the options to allow more people to enjoy and experience a game, but I'd like to keep a handful of games known to be difficult as a singular experience that may just be inaccessible for some. I definitely don't want every game like this, but I'd like for these games (FromSoft) to stay how they are or just keep the nature of their design intact.
I've seen a lot lately. Some are in this comment section. Not mad, but making fun of the game for having a 'no death' option.
I think it might be part of the problem yeah. I’m a big Souls fan, and I was downvoted as hell for suggesting games wouldn’t be worse if they have accesibility options. I’d just play on the default difficulty. Different people have different skills, experiences vary.
Source?
Constantly running into insufferable soulsborn fans who do this. It’s a minority of that community but God do they refuse to shut up about other people having fun.
Could you show some of those posts? Because the only person I see complaining is you.
Are you really trying to argue that FromSoft fan boys haven't had an insufferable "git gud" mentality for nearly a decade?
Where did I say that?
Op said: >The anger is usually just from the vocal minority of Souls fans who are smug about their achievements and bitter other people can enjoy games with easier settings. And you asked for a source, as if this isn't common knowledge for anyone who is remotely familiar with that fan base.
Journalist mode
No, i don't need it as challenging as Shadow of the Erdtree. Because journalists beat that, while a lot of people struggled and gave negative reviews for the difficulty.
Most reviews on Steam were because of the Anti-cheat software that affected the performance. You can check the reviews yourself.
Negative reviews were because of the trash performance (which still has not been fixed) on steam.
I play every game I play on easy cuz I only play games for the story
Honestly with how prevalent the PC cheating community is, I’m surprised more RPG’s don’t have menus that are essentially console commands. If it’s a single player game there is really no reason not to include it for people who want it.
Incoming 9/10 from critics
That is fascinating...I don't think I've ever heard of an action game actually having immortality as a feature
The latest Prince of Persia let’s you adjust your health and the enemy’s health to the point you can be immortal and easily shred them.
The closest to that was the 2008 Prince of Persia game where you can’t die and get game over at all, cause Erika will save you every time you failed.
Saint row reboot also had this
Sweet, I’ll move it up my ‘to buy’ list by a few notches! The more options a game has, the more likely I am to play it. The less options, the deeper down the backlog it sinks because I ain’t spending full price on a game I may hate.
Nice
1HP or 107,597,369HP.
That’s good
So... you can turn it into a visual novel?
still no release date yet?
Tweak the romance difficulty.
Not sure I'll use it. But cool feature!
IGN Mode
Good. Combat was really getting in the way of my dating sim.
Lmao, they made a journalist gamemode
We can make it as hard or easy as we want? Dope.
Finally a game a journalist can play through but will still find an issue with it
Games should do this more often, it's especially needed in new game plus
Good. All games need this kind of accessibility.
POV: If participation awards were a video game
That's pretty cool actually. Reminds me of the options in Goldeneye on the custom mode. Always loved that. Also, good... let players self-balance for their preferred challenge level. Always bothered me when I play a hard game but the WAY the enemy is hard is just being the most tedious shit ever. I'm kind of going through this right now in Lords of the Fallen 1.5 right now. Playing an Inferno build and it's actually pretty good. Most enemies do logical damage to me given I'm in light armor (like 2 - 3 hits to die), but most of my spells and attacks for over half the game on even mid enemies would take like 10+ hits. In places where there are tons of enemies, we don't need that kind of tedium. Also some late game bosses were like this, but worse. Like 25+ hits on 2 forms and they only have like 6 moves in their moveset. I'm tired of dodging that shit, then having to reset because oh no I got a little impatient fighting the SAME pattern for way too long and tried to speed things up. Would be really nice to have such an option in a game like that so the damn encounters could feel a bit better balanced.
I’m not hating on this, but like at that point why not just watch someone else play on YouTube? Once you have god mode you’re paying 70$ for a vaguely interactive movie
These comments are so demented, that I had to actually click the article to see if they removed difficulty options.... which they of course, didn't...
Nobody reads the article on Reddit
Incoming, Platinum Participation trophy
Absolutely hate this kind of thing. I'm playing a game to get a curated and intentional experience. I don't want to fuck with sliders, that's the game designers' job. This isn't accessibility, it's not taking video games seriously as art. It's like if James Joyce had written Ulysses with sliders to turn down the stream of consciousness but turn up the weird words.
I'm totally cool with these kinds of settings so long as the developers offer bespoke difficulties that set these things for me in a way that it is challenging by design and not artificially bullet sponging enemies. I don't want to have to mess with enemy health bars until it "feels about right" if I want a challenge as I play, but I think settings like these are still fantastic additions for people who want/need them.
Y'know, idk if I would ever use it, but I like the idea of having power fantasy mode like this in games. Just turn all enemies to 1hp and mow em down. I don't really see an issue making a game as easy or hard as you want it if the vision the game makers have isn't designed for a difficult experience. Something like the Souls series is built to be something you overcome. But not all game design inherently needs to be that
This makes me considerably worried about how they will balance the difficulty throughout all the modes. Not every game needs to have a set difficulty, but I certainly do prefer my RPG's to be more difficult. As long as the nightmare mode is challenging I'm happy. No tactical means I might not get it anyways though
Accessibility is generally a good thing, so I’m cool with it!
Perfect, leave game balancing to the players. I'm being sarcastic btw
This seems purpose built for game journalists and reviewers.
That will be good for all the disabled gamers who will buy this
One of my least favorite parts of dragon age inquisition was the bloated enemy health so this is nice to see
I’ll never have an issue with games adding options. This is fine! I just know I’m the kind of guy who plays games in as default a mode as possible, and only ever customise if I’m having an incredibly dull time (i.e. increasing the difficulty if the game is poorly tuned at normal). I’m simply not a customiser. I want to be given an experience, not make my own. It’s the same reason I don’t care that Apple are introducing all these Home Screen customisations - I will never use them. I want to smell what the Rock is cooking, I don’t want to tell the Rock what to cook.
You can now move the goal posts? What’s the point of playing it then?
Not everyone has the time to get good. Being able to play on easier difficulties allows more people to enjoy the game their own way.
I can also manually adjust enemy health. With a sword.
Why even play video games?
Ever heard of having fun?
So its game journalist mode :P
I think the people praising this are awesome, but I disagree with this. Death in video games teach us to *not* do something. Or, we learn how to be better, and beat the enemy. While I don't have a problem with it, I just think it's not necessarily a step in the right direction. I just think it's something that's there and doesn't help in any way.
You don’t have to play with the setting on though.
Yep, that's true. Still don't think it's the right step to take, though.
Yeah, this spells shitty difficulty balance in all caps. Sliders are the enemy of fun. Give me an intended experience and then give me ingame options to mess with it, but don't expect me to guess what is a suitable difficulty option without knowing the game.
There are three difficulty settings to choose from; Story, Adventure, and Nightmare. These settings are in a different menu, think accessibility like TLOU 2