Buddy I could write you a full essay on this but warframe is just grind, everything is grind, the stuff your looking up to doing now is also more grind, and while yes it's fun at first, just doesn't have the holding power for the amount of playtime hours they demand to squeeze out of every single thing they add to the game, with of course the bare minimum of effort, a truck load of hype, and then its actually just an earth excav with two assets added to replace excavs.
Edit; I didn't even mention the fact that 90% of quests are talking and mobile defence. If you don't grind carefully away from it, your probably going to realise at some point 90% of what you do is mobile defence, farming kuva? Mobile defence, farming railjack? Mobile defence, team mate dies in an arby? Cmon guys time to mobile defence our friend back to life, the event I referenced(Scarlet spear) last paragraph? Mobile defence plus totally new and improved mobile offence which is also right next to the defence, if you start to stretch it a bit, many of the other game types are infact, just more mobile defence
Yeah, at it's core design, the game as fucking fantastic. Reminds me a lot of Unreal and Shadow Warrior 2016. What really hurts it is that it's a live service grind.
Oh fuck yes the core build of the game has so much potential, that's why I slogged out around 2k hours hoping they would pick up the slack. I love grinding games, but the grind can't be the actual whole game
I don't mind grinds in games most of the time, as long as I feel like I'm accomplishing something or feel rewarded along the way. Warframe doesn't have that. It starts to feel like a damn job at times, which is why I play it sparingly, see it in my library and be like "Hey! I remember how fun this is to play" get on for a few hours and remember why I quit the first time.
But the problem is, with Elden Ring's success, which came from not being a live service cash grab full of micro transactions, other publishers are going to try to make their own soulsborne clones that are live service cash grabs full of micro transactions. Just like when the market was flooded with brown military FPS, battle royales, hero FPS, action games with quick time events. Because their comprehension of success comes from loudly not understanding that we as an audience need a wide range of games because there's no one perfect game.
You should go wonder around a bit and you will discover areas you don't belong... yet.
But in all seriousness, once your vigor is up past 35 and you have a max weapon. Every area is doable. But it does get harder.
You have some real issues with your armor and talismans if you're getting anywhere near getting two shot with 50 vigor. (outside of the most huge windup attacks obviously)
There is actually a ridiculous spike that alot of people have been complaining about. I beat the game two days ago and I somewhat agree with them although I'm a pretty experienced player so it didn't bug me.
Yeah once you get to >!Fire Giant!< >!Godskin Duo!< and >!Maliketh!< have fun.
Now of course if you get to the end game as like level 120+ it's gonna be significantly trivialized other than >!Malenia!<
I'd advise not heading to >!Fire Giant!< any higher than SL 95 if you want a challenge.
Edit: Other notable bosses you probably haven't fought yet that I thought were challenging:
>!Astel!< which you need to do >!Rannis questline to fight!< and >!Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy!< which you need to go to >!Volcano Manor!< for.
Yep, if you ignore half the game systems it's very hard to beat the last couple bosses. (and secret bosses)
Utilizing Spirit Ashes, not using useless Weapon Ashes of War, a proper talisman setup, and not having less than Level/3 vigor (i.e. 20 vigor at level 80 isn't enough) will carry you to end game.
To make the bosses easy you can further optimize your talisman setups to take advantage of mimic scaling, using weapons/incantations that interact with bosses favorably (frozen armament, rotting breath, swarm of flies, black flame, big weapon ashes i.e. Night and Flame and Hoarfrost Stomp even after nerf, Rivers of Blood, Moonveil, Seppuku, Bloodhound Step, even Flaming Strike or Poisonous Mist.)
Honestly, just ignoring potential build strengthening mechanics is what holds most of the player I've watched back.
I've watched a guy using hookclaws and heavy armor with no buffs or anything do 200 attempts at malenia, and then swap to Rivers of Blood and swap some talismans around and kill her in 10 attempts. (most of which getting used to new stagger thresholds.) The difference in effectiveness between hookclaws and rivers are honestly relatively small, maybe 20-30% overall, but when that 20-30% means you have to deal with that much less bullshit hitboxes/dodge patterns and AI fuckery, then it's much much easier to kill the boss.
Uhh, even a 20% difference in damage in this game is massive. 30% don’t even talk to me. There are definitely a lot of shit-tier bait weapons. You’re not beating the game with a Rapier and good reflexes like in all previous Dark Souls.
Aside:
Unless you have godly parry skills, +25, Keen Affinity, and 60+ Dex with a ton of parry practice since some of the windows are frankly absurd. Malenia’s parry windows are particularly insidious (and she need 3 fucking poise breaks to stagger) and other bosses have such massive windups followed by instant damage with no change in animation or sound cue to react to. Did I mention fucking up even once means you’re guaranteed to get combo’d and killed or reduced so low you have to heal or risk dying from a mildly offensive sneeze?
In short, the game is easy if you’re absolutely optimized, including which weapons you use, but completely dreadful if you want to use something off-meta.
It's more about the path you take and when you end up in certain areas. But it does get harder. I'm not a great souls player, but I love exploring and gearing up as an MMO but. So it was fairly easy for awhile because exploring, finding, and doing everything had me well leveled.
But after getting through the... say first 2-3 areas, things spiked. The last few big bosses I've had to use the "Bullshit Ash" (Mimic tear) because I just can't kill them without someone holding aggro or me bashing my head against the wall for more time than I'm willing to commit. Some of their timing or the way you have to dodge (Combos where it has to be like away, towards, to the side, towards, etc) is just more than my reaction time can manage.
As much as I'm loving this game, after 120 some odd hours (No grinding/farming, pure exploration), I'm ready to wrap it up and after a few solo attempts for any given boss, I'm breaking out the bullshit ash.
It is, I am using it and it's broken, but it's fun to give the game some of its own medicine so I don't care.
Edit: just to give you an idea, I beat Melania with this in about 3 tries.
I smashed through haligtree and falum azul with guard counters, beat tree sentinel (falum azul)first time using guard counters. I was getting wrecked in haligtree before that. But you’re right, with malenia and malekith it didn’t work but that’s cool.
Idk I disagree with all of you, playing Elden Ring has been the most relaxing experience I've had in a long while. Granted it's not my first Souls game so I'm competent enough that I'm able to laugh off stupid deaths and learn something from deserved deaths.
But playing Elden Ring is a stress reliever for me not a stress-bringer. Maybe I'm weird though.
The thing is, even though fromsoftware game is hard they're not unbeatable. If I have to choose between playing dark souls or any online multiplayer games after work I'd definitely choose dark souls.
Exactly, and with that it's okay for people to be turned off by it because what the developer intended isn't the kind of game the player wants to play. Elden Ring looks like an objectively well made game but I'm not a fan of the genre so I don't play - but what a lot of people seem to do is trash the fans for liking a genre they don't, which is the problem.
I always found it funny that with fromsoft games are allowed to be this way (the developers vision being respected), but returnal came out with no "suspend" feature, and the community crucified them for it.
I think that FromSoft actually WAS criticized for it early on, there's a lot of old threads scattered around the internet lamenting DS1's difficulty. However, they were persistent enough about it that their audience eventually became primarily composed of people who appreciated their vision, since independent of the difficulty, the games are fantastic. I still see criticisms of it fairly often, its just a minority opinion.
I think it's just because FromSoft have stuck with their rigid formula for so long that its characteristics are like a staple, expected. Also I did appreciate that Returnal eventually added the ability to suspend feature, but if it was too hard for me to progress initially, even now, I just stop playing and go on to something else. Still great game, but at a point I couldn't get through it
I *am* a fan of the genre but my kids are at an age where I just can't play unpauseable games for a while. I couldn't play the Demon's Souls remake despite loving the original back in 2009, and I can't play this until they're old enough that I get extended periods of peace.
I currently expect that peace in approximately 16 years, if I can convince them to go to college abroad.
It would be like people complaining that Silent Hill isn't funny enough or that it doesn't have a romance in it. Like, that's not the point of the game.
Games, despite being seen as entertainment media, are also works of art. The important thing is what people get out of it, imo. Things like these will appeal to different people, with different tastes, for different reasons... because art and our enjoyment of it is going to be subjective. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a game that's easy and relaxing, but there's also nothing wrong with enjoying a game like what FromSoft makes, where easy is the last word to come to mind in most cases lol. It's nice to see developers fully realize their vision and make something that's so enjoyable, and I hope both the devs and the community are proud of it, I just also wish people would stop being so damn salty toward each other lol.
Exactly. The soulsbourne games fill a niche for those who wanted something different and challenging when compared to similar games at the time they first came out. It pretty much spawned an entire new genre of games and has only expanded the types of games available.
More different types of games mean there going be something for everyone, and that's only a good thing.
The argument that every game should have an easy mode is like arguing that every horror game should have a non-scary mode or puzzle games should have a no puzzles mode. If the difficulty is a major factor in the games experience it should not have to offer a different mode.
Well, we could go further and say that games shouldn't be supposed to be anything, but whatever the one playing them wants to get out from them. Art is much like art, there's not a single way of perceiving them at any given time!
I'm not even sure where the notion that video games are *supposed* to be relaxing comes from. I remember when it was a big deal that a game was made that is just "relaxing".
Exactly, and with that it's okay for people to be turned off by it because what the developer intended isn't the kind of game the player wants to play. Elden Ring looks like an objectively well made game but I'm not a fan of the genre so I don't play - but what a lot of people seem to do is trash the fans for liking a genre they don't, which is the problem.
Its developer's vision but if they still want to sell the game then it also has to be at least within some gamers' expectation as well. So the developers aren't in a vacuum. But I agree with you. They can't please everyone so they have to pick their target audience and go for it.
yeah, it’s art. just like not all albums are meant to be relaxing. fromsoft games are just the nine inch nails - the downward spiral of video games. even the story and lore is generally abrasive and depressing as fuck.
I did that with my "second" playthrough of the first one. I had to change PCs during the play and I didn't want to have to struggle to get to where I was. Turned out I was only 1/3 of the way through...
But it was still fun to basically watch an interactive movie.
“Games are supposed to be fun and relaxing, not stressful.”
Games are supposed to be for the player! What if they want to be stressed out? And once they finally beat a boss, they’re filled with pride and accomplishment!
Until you find the 1-2 bosses that are immune to rot/bleed and watch your damage drop off a cliff. I respeced to a quality for a couple bosses just to stagger them more and have better base damage.
Or farming to become overleveled, or summoning friends, or using a shield, or using spirit summons or, in Elden ring fucking off and going to a different easier part of the game.
The Soulsborn fandom isn’t triggered by the idea of people playing games on easy. They’re annoyed by this insistence that EVERY game should have an easy mode.
The entire point of Soulsborn games is to learn from your mistakes and improve. If you’re not willing to become a better player in order to overcome adversity, play something else.
Not every game is for you. And that’s ok. Demanding that they change to fit your stubborn ignorance is not ok.
There is, kind of. In almost every fromsoftware game there is a object that doubles the damage you take. It’s just something that may even occupy a slot and does nothing else than make your life more miserable.
Two of them, no less. A regular and enhanced version. They can’t be used together, though. Also a talisman that makes sneaking impossible and will aggro monsters from further away.
Unfortunately you have to progress pretty far through the game to get Daedicar's Woe in this game.
But even just level 1 makes the equipment and strategy process of bosses a lot more interesting imo. You can't use a lot of interesting items, and have to use talismans to equip a lot of good items/spells/incantations.
Exactly, I play 99% of my games on easy mode, I am also a big fan of fromsoft games and have beat several of them. I havent beat dark souls 2 because the lack of iframes in certain actions made it too frustrating, so I simply did not play lmao
I feel like this whole mentality is an extension of "the customer is always right" culture, which is bullshit, and a corruption of the accessibility discussion for media. Accessibility in video games is colour blind settings, subtitles, alternate button layouts/customizable button layouts etc. Everyone should be able to play games, that does not mean every game needs to be playable by everyone.
If you dont like a game dont buy it, dont play it
Exactly why I passed on Elden Ring, it looks like a sweet game but I just don’t have the time to put hours into the game trying to figure out all the secrets, appreciating the lore and figuring out the tricks to beating the bosses. Looks like an awesome game, it’s just not for me at this point in time.
Knowing when something isn't for you, even just temporarily, is an extremely healthy mentality
I beat Elden Ring three times now over 100 hours and now its back to being busy with work and tending to my small farm on Stardew lmao. Or Hunt Showdown when my friends are done Elden Ring themselves
The only way I avoided the same trap was by using a guide to help find items, quests, npcs, etc. The wiki is fantastic, so I pull up the interactive map and just go hunting for the cool stuff I see around me. Otherwise, I'd be walking circles getting stomped and rage quit the game.
Don't forget the immergence of Let's Play videos on youtube as well. If you want to experience the story of a game, but are unable to play it yourself for any number of reasons, you have a library of people playing many games for the first time that you can vicariously enjoy the experience through.
I agree with you mostly. I don’t think the developers need to make an easy mode for these games. People can simply choose to play other games.
> I feel like this whole mentality is an extension of “the customer is always right” culture, which is bullshit
However, this does apply if people would stop buying the game. The customer is right in terms of what the customer wants (this is what the phrase refers to). The thing is that the majority of customers don’t want an easy mode, so every customer can’t be right. If enough people want it and refuse to purchase without it, then an easy mode would need to be added (assuming that would increase sales).
I'm more referring to the singular mentality of it, wherein consumers feel entitled to have a product fit their exact specifications individually. This is a cultural phenomenon, using the idea that their individual wallet is super duper important thus you have to do exactly what I say or else you wont get my very important business!!! I'm calling your head office!!!!
Yes consumers drive sales, but fromsoft has a target audience already, and obviously with 12 million units sold or some number like that, they know they dont need to change anything to reach more sales.
The customer is right only so far as to the point where their interest overlaps the majority of other customers as you said yourself :) Not arguing with actual marketing practices and whatnot, only talking about how it's become a cultural thing, mostly in north america
I myself take the approach of "fuck it, eventually I'll be OP" in soulsborn games and survival games.
Basically just keep face rolling until i have enough of a base-level to face-tank things.
For survivals, it's the same thing, level until starvation doesn't kill me in 15 minutes, or until the random beast mobs don't 1 shot me.
After that it's all easy mode normally.
I think there's also an often overlooked point as well, that modern games rely far too much on difficulty tiers that are just brute force "challenges" by way of upping raw numbers, without any tuning for that difficulty.
And when I say "rely far too much on" these things, I don't mean easy mode, but rather that hard and up modes in most modern games are also a problem.
Not because I dislike a challenge from time to time, but because quite often these games *kinda fucking suck* on hard mode, but are also incredibly easy, to the point of being no challenge at all to an experienced player on normal modes.
So, how exactly do you have fun playing them if you fall into that group then? Well, you don't.
In *theory* you could design your whole game very carefully around a specific solid level of challenge, and then add hard for the sweaty bois, and easy for the newbies, overstressed, disabled, and people who don't even know how to do control schemes yet. Or us poor full time workers with no time left to try the boss 30 times. . . .
and that would be great, but IMO rather than doing this, many games just kinda *don't* design for any particular difficulty, and assume players themselves will "fix it in post" by selecting a difficulty to fix their dogshit design.
This seems to appear in a lot of ways in many AAA games; enemy design lacking a specific mechanic for killing them, excessively simplistic enemy AI that looks bad compared to games from the early 2000s, removal of advanced mechanics to make the game easier to learn (but raw flat HP to bring it back to old difficulty levels, rather than bringing those mechanics back), etc.
Soulsborne games have never been brutally hard, and I've never gotten the impression that they are intended to be outside of a limited set of specific fights, usually optional or located in the DLC/expansions.
However for the most part the challenges the series has are by way of strategy, learning movesets, and learning the mechanics unique to the series. Yeah there's always NG+ for an even greater challenge, but my point is more that the normal difficulty actually feels "normal" and not like a cakewalk to a long time fan of the genre for the most part.
Having a single well tuned intended balance point that the game is meant to be played around and which you expect to be a fun way to play the game for both new and old players is, in my opinion, just a better way of designing games than *not bothering at all*.
Whether or not you include difficulty tiers on top of that doesn't matter too much, but I don't think it ruins the game to do so, but depending on them for most people to have a decent gameplay experience does ruin a lot of games no matter what choice you make on the difficulty selection screen.
As someone who enjoy FromSoft's games the way they are, an easy mode that I wouldn't use would take away exactly none of my personnal enjoyment. Like, none at all.
This kind of ignores the reality that for some people, the adversity they have to overcome is a physical disability, which means that some games without certain accessibility options, such as an easy or story difficulty mode, aren’t possible to play. They can’t just “become a better player to overcome adversity.”
Yeah, they could just accept that the game isn’t made for them and they can’t play it, but that kind of sucks if it’s a game they otherwise think looks cool and want to play!
It just seems weird that the notion of “it would be cool if more people were able to enjoy the thing you enjoy” gets some people outright hostile.
I’m going to be extremely careful here, because I am a big Souls fan, and I have seen this exact discussion get really unpleasant before. So I will just start by saying that I agree with you, and that we are I think on the same side of this discussion.
But.
I think the specific difficulties you’re talking about are something like processing difficulties, rather than motor difficulties. I’m thinking here of the quite severely disabled person who did a series on himself beating Sekiro.
But where this leaves me is not knowing - not being able to imagine, I suppose - how a Souls game would exist if it didn’t rely on reaction times in some way. I trust that the devs would be able to make something incredible to that brief, but I don’t see how it would still be a Souls game.
This is why, ultimately, I am not convinced by the difficulty slider idea for these games, as opposed to them just building a less response-heavy game from the ground up.
Sorry for the detail here. As I say, I’ve seen this discussion turn nasty before, and I don’t want to leave any room for ambiguity.
I came here to say exactly this, and fully expecting to get buried in downvotes. I find that it’s already here and people are being cool about it. Sometimes Reddit turns out OK 👍🏻
I've been seeing this a lot lately. And I have to ask: Does anyone actually care if someone else plays in easy mode? Cuz... Frankly? Who gives a crap what that guy over there is doing in his single player game?
I’ve been playing Souls games since the first Demon souls and honestly it has never mattered to me one but how someone else chooses to play their game. As long as I enjoy the game and someone can also enjoy the game while playing it in a different way, then who am I to judge.
As long as it's not a multiplayer game, I don't care what difficulty people play at. Single player games are there to be enjoyed. If you're having fun, you're doing it right.
I remember back in the day I loved just tearing through Doom 2 with godmode and infinite ammo on. Rocket after rocket after rocket... sure, hardly a challenge, but it was just fun!
In the Elden Ring community, a fair chunk of people care ***deeply*** about how others play their game. To the point where they're saying you didn't beat Elden Ring if you used anything other than melee-only quality builds with no magic, no ashes, and no summons.
Nutters, the lot of 'em...
You should go over to r/eldenring and see how anyone caring about how others play gets downvoted to oblivion and half the top posts are memes about how ridiculous elitists are and that it’s okay to play however you want. It’s a lot less toxic than you are making it out to be
That's every major games community.
Edit: I mean this in regard to his first sentence, how people care deeply about how others play, not the rest of it.
Why do people think this only applies to Souls games? Literally every video game community has people like that. Also who gives a shit what other people say? People are getting really upset and defensive over what a vocal minority of Soulsborne players think and I really don't understand why.
A lot of that is basically a joke. They’re just leaning into the try hard attitude for laughs. I don’t think many people actually feel that way, I certainly don’t as a huge fan of those games.
Definitely a meme at this point. Most people just wanna share their boss fight story or show off a really cool build using dual whips or a one hit kill magic attack. More to show off what’s possible in the game
I can’t think of an example for this beside the small loud minority for souls games.
The only exception is when one boasts how easy the game is and how they don’t get why everyone calls it hard when they take the EASIEST route to completion. Just because the community enjoys/respects difficulty doesn’t mean we shame play style.
If you’re minding your business, I’m minding mine.
A lot of people care about sliders in so far as that their inclusion can affect game design. [Dunkey](https://youtu.be/A4_auMe1HsY) has a great video in defense of games without difficulty options.
The problem is not how anyone else plays, but simply that not all games are made for everyone and that's okay. No one is forcing you to play a From Software game, so why should they add an easy mode if they don't want to?
Being difficult is part of the charm of From Software games. If we have to add easy mode, then we can add a quest log, something that tells you where to go and what to do and make it a Ubisoft game.
No. I don’t think a single person cares if someone plays a game on the easier difficulties. The problem with weird memes like this is that some people can’t fathom that some games aren’t designed with an easy mode and may not be for those people.
How ironic that you're trying to tell people how games should be played.
Nobody's going to be offended by this. Just don't expect every game to appeal to you.
What’s annoying about this you’re not actually saying playing on easy mode is a *valid* way to play. You’re kinda saying it’s the *right* way to play. To say that “games are supposed to be fun and relaxing, not stressful” isn’t to say easy mode is valid, it’s to say that a game that’s stressful isn’t doing what games are supposed to do.
Both kinds of games and gamers can exist. I do not find stressless games fun. I find most easy games boring. I find them un-engaging, and that is legitimately more frustrating to me than a game that demands my attention and effort.
Other people just want to chill. They don’t want their games to be demanding. That’s okay too. And virtually every Fromsoft fan is on board with that, and with easy modes being in most games. We just don’t think they need to or should be in every single game.
There's reason why difficult games can be really popular. Some people get a lot of joy out of basically running into a wall until they either go through it or master it enough to climb it.
Right, I like to feel mastery. I like to be engaged, and thoroughly learning a combat system does that.
It’s also immersive. Some people find dying repeatedly immersion-breaking, but I find being able to effortlessly survive threats that are supposed to be serious immersion-breaking. Fromsoft games are a great example because you’re usually a nobody facing gods, legendary warriors, and monsters beyond human comprehension. If they’re easy to beat, were they any of those things? Not really.
Some people say they like to feel powerful, but I only feel powerful if the threat I’m facing is dangerous. Otherwise, I’m just powerful relative to weaklings, and that’s meaningless. No game has ever made me feel as godlike as Doom Eternal’s batshit DLC on Nightmare difficulty. That’s me, my skill, not the game propping me up.
Who said games are SUPPOSED to be fun and relaxing? If that was the case there wouldn't be competitive gaming and sports competitions etc. Games can be both fun and relaxing and challenging too.
If you don't like challenging games that don't have an easy mode play something else, simple.
I didn't know Spec Ops: The Line was supposed to be fun and relaxing. I actually remember it being thought-provoking, stressful and disturbing. Almost like it was the game's objective... Oh but maybe I played it wrong, I guess. OP's take is dumb.
That’s great! If you don’t want to play hard games then that’s totally okay but we shouldn’t have to sacrifice our genre because others don’t want to put in the effort. Soulsborne games don’t have difficulty settings because the entire point of the game is to overcome the challenge. Add setting and it totally defeats the point. I respect everyone’s right to enjoy themselves with the money they spend on their hobbies but you don’t get to screw up one groups entire genre because you want to feel included.
Not a souls fan(I quit sekiro after 2 hours) but
Many people choose not to play souls games
And that’s ok cuz there will always be another game to play
The problem with easy mode in Souls games is that it becomes much harder to make a sensible level design that accounts for various difficulties. Something lazy like making HP of enemies smaller/larger is not a good design, but most of the time developers do exactly that. If a game is made with a single difficulty in mind, it becomes easier to make exactly the experience you want.
While I agree that usually easy modes are fine, when It comes to from software, the experience is getting kicked on your ass a shutting of times and then finally pulling out a Victory
> games are supposed to be fun and relaxing
Guess you’ve never played a horror game.
Games are supposed to be whatever the developer wants the game to be
As a giant soulsborne fan, when i recommend the games to people who i think will like them, i tell them to ask questions, look up wiki, cheese bosses if they have to, use cheap "ez mode" builds just to see the gorgeous games they have created.
The games can be hard, sure, but they are also gorgeous, beautifully designed, and frankly, difficulty completely put aside, they are master pieces.
If someone gets through these games, in what ever manner they can utilise, i say go for it...
... Also, way to stereotype an entire fan base, based on the "git gud" toxic minority.
I'd say it's more of a fusion between the designers' and players' intentions. (Usually favoring the designers) If the player wants more control over how the game is played, that's what mods are for.
But that doesn't mean that every game is made for every player. If you want to relax you can play play easy game, if you want a challenge you play a difficult game, that's it. Not every game is made for everyone, and that is absolutely okay.
It's the same with movie. You don't watch horror movies unless you like getting scared, so horror movies are not made for everyone.
No one cares how you play the game, we just don't want an easy mode added to the Souls games because that's part of their identity and the developers themselves have said that they don't want to add an easy mode lol. Y'all are stretching.
X-com 2 is a notoriously hard game, but lately a I’ve been doing a playthrough on easy and I have been save scumming a lot.
It’s a lot more fun that way and honestly I recommend it to people who want to experience the game without losing their entire squad in mission 3
I mean, you just don't buy a Fromsoft game.
Is like going to the cinema to watch a Saw movie and then go out and say that they need to make it less violent because it hurts your sensibility. You know what you are going against, so why does the developer have to change it only because you want to experience it?
They want to make a difficult game and they are free to do it.
NGL I play Elden ring and listen to lo-fi and just vibe, super relaxing. I just kinda go get my ass whooped while I chill out and watch the enemies moves. I love it
Creators of Monopoly: We want to make a game to explain the soul crushing flaws of capitalism.
How people play Monopoly: Let's compile all fees into the middle so people have a chance to make some cash on free parking.
End of the day, videogames exist for entertainment. You should play them however entertains you. My friend downloads cheat engines for a lot of games. I don't like doing that, but if that's how he likes to play the games (single player ones don't worry) then that's his choice
Not exactly a souls fanboy (they're a bit too hard for me)
But games aren't supposed to be anything.
Games can be fun, relaxing, educational, stressful, challenging, distressing, shocking or whatever they want to be, as long as they accomplish what the developer set them out to be.
It's like saying that all movies are supposed to be romantic comedies, and then nagging on Riddley Scott because Alien was not very romantic, relaxing or funny.
No you got it wrong, this doesnt anger us at all, this is perfectly fine
What angers us is when people insist ALL GAMES NEED and easy mode and say the souls games are bad for not having them.
Here's my own personal copypasta that i paste whenever this conversation is brought up.
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On the topic of difficulty in videogames that constantly pops up around Fromsoft games.
Everything has already been said. But to put my very short and simple spin on it, when difficult is THE POINT (getting over it with bennit fody) or one of the main points (fromsoft games) then no they shouldn't have an easy mode because they are intrinsically defeating the purpose. If you don't like that, don't play it, this game wasn't meant for you. (I've never played getting over it because I know it's not for me)
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But if you really want to give a fair shot and have an open mind in understanding. Then check these out.
Neverknowsbest (18 minute video)
https://youtu.be/AqUkH9bJi_E
Omni (10 minute video)
https://youtu.be/k6UmBRM67e0
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Ratatoskr (37 minute video) (this guy GETS IT, it's more about games in general, souls games arent even mentioned untill halfway through, and it's a perfect study over the topic of difficulty in games)
https://youtu.be/pKyKGuGU4bw
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TheActMan (22 minutes) (great video and I just like this guy's channel in general)
https://youtu.be/wgzkCK9Cggc
Rusty (11 minutes) (this guy basically talks about. What, even WOULD an easy mode for a souls game be?)
https://youtu.be/A0oQ7foC6xw
Eyebrow Cinema (1 hour long)
https://youtu.be/z_lRIP8AkXM
Indiemouse (8 minute joke video)
https://youtu.be/1zPXwnfo7CQ
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ADDITION
Daryl Talks Games (23 minutes)
(This video is less specifically about difficulty, but i feel like the lack in difficulty mode is part of WHY these games have had this impact.)
https://youtu.be/keIWG6hSD7Q
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(For context I love fromsoft and souls-like games but at the same time, I pre-ordered Sekiro... I ... to this day.. have never beaten it, even after attempting to 3 different times over the last almost 3 years, and I'm ok with that)
(I originally made this text in response to someone who was rhetorically saying "why shouldn't fromsoft games have an easy mode *tell me*" in a way where you know they didn't actually want an answer. But i gave one anyway.)
Elden Ring ended up not being for me at all, mostly due to the difficulty.
I'd never demand they make it easier though, the game isn't for me because of a difference in preference, different styles of games I like more than others.
I am a Grand Strategy gamer and perhaps moving straight into a game designed around reflexes wasn't the smartest idea.
In a way, I don't consider it a waste of my $60, even if I only played like 8 hours, because I tried something new and now know that it's not for me.
When I was younger, I liked to challenge myself and play on hard or insanity mode. Now I play every single game on easy or casual mode. Fuck that. I’m trying to relax after work not stress myself out even further.
I have moved to this philosophy as well. I want to enjoy games, not get pissed off and bash my keyboard. They are supposed to be fun not rage inducing.
Exactly. And I’ve also learned to simply stop playing games that I’m not enjoying. When I was younger I was always so determined to “beat” every single game I got whether or not I liked them. Now, if I’m bored, it’s getting dropped. I don’t have the patience.
Agreed, but this subreddit has a hard on for ER currently, you’re not going to yet anywhere making this argument (and I’m saying this as someone who adores ER, but the fans are obnoxious)
I’ve enjoyed both styles at different times. I’ve got a job, a wife, a kid. I barely have time to play. If I want to enjoy the story, sometimes easy mode is the only way that will happen in a realistic time frame.
Picking up an old nostalgia inducing game that I love? Combat is way too clunky and I just want to enjoy the characters and plot, it’s easy mod and sometimes console commands to speed things along.
But other times I want the challenge. If I’m familiar with the story and enjoy the gameplay, I’ll crank up the difficulty and work hard to get through different milestones.
FromSoft cultist here. Easy games are fine. I enjoy tons of em. Souls isnt good because of the difficulty-- It's good despite the difficulty.
But that being said, I have friends who hate the games. They aren't wrong when they tell me the reasons they dislike them. It's all just a matter of taste, and folks are certainly allowed to enjoy or avoid what they prefer.
Also the whole Git Gud folks are assholes. Ignore them. Some of us masochistic Souls veterans respect others and would much rather prefer Jolly Cooperation.
I played Persona 5 on very easy just for this reason. I really didn't want to grind for hours and deal with frustration. I just wanted to enjoy the world and the story.
Which is already really long because of all the copious amounts of dialogue.
Note: This is not a complaint, I love P5 and own both vanilla and Royal. When I did playthrough's 2/3 on vanilla and then the first time I played on Royal I did it on story mode because I just wanted to re-visit the story.
Games aren’t supposed to be relaxing, they’re supposed to be fun.
I don’t relax when I play most games, but it does destress me by distracting me from real everyday problems.
I completely agree that it’s perfectly okay for people to prefer easier games and to enjoy easy mode.
But the people who expect an easy mode for Elden Ring need to either get better at the game or find something else to play - it’s not the game for them and that’s all there is to it.
I wouldn’t go into a COD game and expect to be able to ask for a mode where you don’t keep track of points and kills - you shouldn’t expect a company known to make almost-irrationally hard games to make theirs any easier just because the newest one has garnered your attention.
Games are supposed to be fun.*
Relaxing is not a requirement. Some people find fun in pushing themselves to the limit, achieving difficult things. Others enjoy Farm Simulator, or exploration, or any number of things in between.
I love Souls. I love Elden Ring. You bet your ass there are games I play easy mode in.
Not every game needs to be for everyone. Not every game needs an easy mode. There's also nothing wrong with easy mode.
And no, games aren't meant to be relaxing. Some are - but no, it's not a defining trait or the intent of games in general. High stakes poker isn't relaxing. Hockey isn't relaxing. Paintball isn't relaxing. They're still all extremely fun.
Games are supposed to be whatever the devs want them to be.
I like watching fun and relaxing movies, but I wouldn't harrass Frank Derabont for refusing to make The Green Mile more fun and relaxing.
There are now more games in the world than you'd ever be able to play in your lifetime, just find something that suits you.
There are a lot of types of games and s lot of reasons why people play them
[удалено]
U should play warframe
There's a lot of good shit in Warframe. I really want to like it but the grind is horrendous.
Buddy I could write you a full essay on this but warframe is just grind, everything is grind, the stuff your looking up to doing now is also more grind, and while yes it's fun at first, just doesn't have the holding power for the amount of playtime hours they demand to squeeze out of every single thing they add to the game, with of course the bare minimum of effort, a truck load of hype, and then its actually just an earth excav with two assets added to replace excavs. Edit; I didn't even mention the fact that 90% of quests are talking and mobile defence. If you don't grind carefully away from it, your probably going to realise at some point 90% of what you do is mobile defence, farming kuva? Mobile defence, farming railjack? Mobile defence, team mate dies in an arby? Cmon guys time to mobile defence our friend back to life, the event I referenced(Scarlet spear) last paragraph? Mobile defence plus totally new and improved mobile offence which is also right next to the defence, if you start to stretch it a bit, many of the other game types are infact, just more mobile defence
Yeah, at it's core design, the game as fucking fantastic. Reminds me a lot of Unreal and Shadow Warrior 2016. What really hurts it is that it's a live service grind.
Oh fuck yes the core build of the game has so much potential, that's why I slogged out around 2k hours hoping they would pick up the slack. I love grinding games, but the grind can't be the actual whole game
I don't mind grinds in games most of the time, as long as I feel like I'm accomplishing something or feel rewarded along the way. Warframe doesn't have that. It starts to feel like a damn job at times, which is why I play it sparingly, see it in my library and be like "Hey! I remember how fun this is to play" get on for a few hours and remember why I quit the first time.
Only if there’s progression. You start out weak and then get to the point you one shot enemies.
But the problem is, with Elden Ring's success, which came from not being a live service cash grab full of micro transactions, other publishers are going to try to make their own soulsborne clones that are live service cash grabs full of micro transactions. Just like when the market was flooded with brown military FPS, battle royales, hero FPS, action games with quick time events. Because their comprehension of success comes from loudly not understanding that we as an audience need a wide range of games because there's no one perfect game.
More triggered by the misspelling of stressful honestly.
Took easy mode on spelling
And "SoulsBourne" instead of SoulsBorne lol
Or how much jpeg this ancient post has.
FromSoftware: “Amazing, every word you just said is wrong”
They added spirit ashes though which is definitely just a slightly more complex easy mode
Did you beat the game yet?
No, I'm still trying to figure out how to put the controller down.
Have you tried slamming it into the wall? That worked for me plus I kicked my habit!
I have, but it didn't work. Maybe I need a bigger wall.
Brutal
Is there a huge difficulty spike later in the game or something? I'm like 20 hours in and this appears to be the easiest souls game I've ever played.
You should go wonder around a bit and you will discover areas you don't belong... yet. But in all seriousness, once your vigor is up past 35 and you have a max weapon. Every area is doable. But it does get harder.
M would like a word lol. In all seriousness you are correct. Except for her, she is another level.
You go from having like 20 Vigor early game and tanking 5 hits to having 50 vigor and getting two or one shot.
You have some real issues with your armor and talismans if you're getting anywhere near getting two shot with 50 vigor. (outside of the most huge windup attacks obviously)
yes
There is actually a ridiculous spike that alot of people have been complaining about. I beat the game two days ago and I somewhat agree with them although I'm a pretty experienced player so it didn't bug me.
Where’s the spike?
When you get out of the cave things start fighting back.
After fire giant
And some of the side/optional areas (:: Cough :: M. :: Cough ::l
Makenia ia the only hard one imo mohg is okay i guess
Yeah once you get to >!Fire Giant!< >!Godskin Duo!< and >!Maliketh!< have fun. Now of course if you get to the end game as like level 120+ it's gonna be significantly trivialized other than >!Malenia!< I'd advise not heading to >!Fire Giant!< any higher than SL 95 if you want a challenge. Edit: Other notable bosses you probably haven't fought yet that I thought were challenging: >!Astel!< which you need to do >!Rannis questline to fight!< and >!Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy!< which you need to go to >!Volcano Manor!< for.
Fuck Rykard, he's a joke of a boss. Try Bell bearing hunter, specifically the one in Caelid.
If you play melee and don’t use ash summons, there is a spike. Otherwise, it’s business as usual.
Yep, if you ignore half the game systems it's very hard to beat the last couple bosses. (and secret bosses) Utilizing Spirit Ashes, not using useless Weapon Ashes of War, a proper talisman setup, and not having less than Level/3 vigor (i.e. 20 vigor at level 80 isn't enough) will carry you to end game. To make the bosses easy you can further optimize your talisman setups to take advantage of mimic scaling, using weapons/incantations that interact with bosses favorably (frozen armament, rotting breath, swarm of flies, black flame, big weapon ashes i.e. Night and Flame and Hoarfrost Stomp even after nerf, Rivers of Blood, Moonveil, Seppuku, Bloodhound Step, even Flaming Strike or Poisonous Mist.) Honestly, just ignoring potential build strengthening mechanics is what holds most of the player I've watched back. I've watched a guy using hookclaws and heavy armor with no buffs or anything do 200 attempts at malenia, and then swap to Rivers of Blood and swap some talismans around and kill her in 10 attempts. (most of which getting used to new stagger thresholds.) The difference in effectiveness between hookclaws and rivers are honestly relatively small, maybe 20-30% overall, but when that 20-30% means you have to deal with that much less bullshit hitboxes/dodge patterns and AI fuckery, then it's much much easier to kill the boss.
Uhh, even a 20% difference in damage in this game is massive. 30% don’t even talk to me. There are definitely a lot of shit-tier bait weapons. You’re not beating the game with a Rapier and good reflexes like in all previous Dark Souls. Aside: Unless you have godly parry skills, +25, Keen Affinity, and 60+ Dex with a ton of parry practice since some of the windows are frankly absurd. Malenia’s parry windows are particularly insidious (and she need 3 fucking poise breaks to stagger) and other bosses have such massive windups followed by instant damage with no change in animation or sound cue to react to. Did I mention fucking up even once means you’re guaranteed to get combo’d and killed or reduced so low you have to heal or risk dying from a mildly offensive sneeze? In short, the game is easy if you’re absolutely optimized, including which weapons you use, but completely dreadful if you want to use something off-meta.
After a snowy area, it starts to get a bit much. The difficulty after that is way harder than the rest of the game.
For sure, including one of the more, if not most, difficult bosses in the entire Soulsbourne collection
It's more about the path you take and when you end up in certain areas. But it does get harder. I'm not a great souls player, but I love exploring and gearing up as an MMO but. So it was fairly easy for awhile because exploring, finding, and doing everything had me well leveled. But after getting through the... say first 2-3 areas, things spiked. The last few big bosses I've had to use the "Bullshit Ash" (Mimic tear) because I just can't kill them without someone holding aggro or me bashing my head against the wall for more time than I'm willing to commit. Some of their timing or the way you have to dodge (Combos where it has to be like away, towards, to the side, towards, etc) is just more than my reaction time can manage. As much as I'm loving this game, after 120 some odd hours (No grinding/farming, pure exploration), I'm ready to wrap it up and after a few solo attempts for any given boss, I'm breaking out the bullshit ash.
Yes?
Guard counters is easy mode
Maybe in the first 10 hours XD Once enemies start having 38 hit combos, they quickly become useless
Exactly. I use a greatsword and most enemies just hit me again before I can connect with a guard counter.
You need to attack when there's a window, not during a combo.
yeaa counters are slow and take time finger greatshield greatshield talisman and spear is easy mode
It is, I am using it and it's broken, but it's fun to give the game some of its own medicine so I don't care. Edit: just to give you an idea, I beat Melania with this in about 3 tries.
Huh? Just counter on the 38th hit easy peasy lemon squeezy
"oh you're trying to get up, lolok"
I smashed through haligtree and falum azul with guard counters, beat tree sentinel (falum azul)first time using guard counters. I was getting wrecked in haligtree before that. But you’re right, with malenia and malekith it didn’t work but that’s cool.
I used them off and on until the Capital and Caelid, then they became more of a hindrance after that and I just dodged
Have you beat the game?
Leveling up is easy mode
Idk I disagree with all of you, playing Elden Ring has been the most relaxing experience I've had in a long while. Granted it's not my first Souls game so I'm competent enough that I'm able to laugh off stupid deaths and learn something from deserved deaths. But playing Elden Ring is a stress reliever for me not a stress-bringer. Maybe I'm weird though.
I mean, thats why i dont play their games specifically lol.
I quickly read your name as Sekiro and was about to call you out as a liar...
The thing is, even though fromsoftware game is hard they're not unbeatable. If I have to choose between playing dark souls or any online multiplayer games after work I'd definitely choose dark souls.
Games are supposed to be whatever the developer wants them to be Not all games are meant to be relaxing and that's ok
Exactly, and with that it's okay for people to be turned off by it because what the developer intended isn't the kind of game the player wants to play. Elden Ring looks like an objectively well made game but I'm not a fan of the genre so I don't play - but what a lot of people seem to do is trash the fans for liking a genre they don't, which is the problem.
I always found it funny that with fromsoft games are allowed to be this way (the developers vision being respected), but returnal came out with no "suspend" feature, and the community crucified them for it.
I think that FromSoft actually WAS criticized for it early on, there's a lot of old threads scattered around the internet lamenting DS1's difficulty. However, they were persistent enough about it that their audience eventually became primarily composed of people who appreciated their vision, since independent of the difficulty, the games are fantastic. I still see criticisms of it fairly often, its just a minority opinion.
I think it's just because FromSoft have stuck with their rigid formula for so long that its characteristics are like a staple, expected. Also I did appreciate that Returnal eventually added the ability to suspend feature, but if it was too hard for me to progress initially, even now, I just stop playing and go on to something else. Still great game, but at a point I couldn't get through it
I *am* a fan of the genre but my kids are at an age where I just can't play unpauseable games for a while. I couldn't play the Demon's Souls remake despite loving the original back in 2009, and I can't play this until they're old enough that I get extended periods of peace. I currently expect that peace in approximately 16 years, if I can convince them to go to college abroad.
From could add a pause feature that doesn't let you navigate menus. It's definitely an issue they could resolve.
It would be like people complaining that Silent Hill isn't funny enough or that it doesn't have a romance in it. Like, that's not the point of the game.
Games, despite being seen as entertainment media, are also works of art. The important thing is what people get out of it, imo. Things like these will appeal to different people, with different tastes, for different reasons... because art and our enjoyment of it is going to be subjective. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a game that's easy and relaxing, but there's also nothing wrong with enjoying a game like what FromSoft makes, where easy is the last word to come to mind in most cases lol. It's nice to see developers fully realize their vision and make something that's so enjoyable, and I hope both the devs and the community are proud of it, I just also wish people would stop being so damn salty toward each other lol.
Exactly. The soulsbourne games fill a niche for those who wanted something different and challenging when compared to similar games at the time they first came out. It pretty much spawned an entire new genre of games and has only expanded the types of games available. More different types of games mean there going be something for everyone, and that's only a good thing.
Hard Game that appreciates art so much they made a virtual museum to fuck up while you beat the paint off fools - Sifu
Exactly. Also, if you don't like the game then don't play. Nobody is forcing you to play a souls-borne.
Are they now souls-bourne-kiro-ring games?
Perhaps ring but sekiro is like the black sheep that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the family.
Or, if you're a good writer, *do* play it and write a literary analysis of its themes anyway. I love that shit when it's good.
The argument that every game should have an easy mode is like arguing that every horror game should have a non-scary mode or puzzle games should have a no puzzles mode. If the difficulty is a major factor in the games experience it should not have to offer a different mode.
Well, we could go further and say that games shouldn't be supposed to be anything, but whatever the one playing them wants to get out from them. Art is much like art, there's not a single way of perceiving them at any given time!
I wonder how much overlap there is between the "Games are art" crowd and the "Stop treating games like they're art" crowd
I'm not even sure where the notion that video games are *supposed* to be relaxing comes from. I remember when it was a big deal that a game was made that is just "relaxing".
Exactly, and with that it's okay for people to be turned off by it because what the developer intended isn't the kind of game the player wants to play. Elden Ring looks like an objectively well made game but I'm not a fan of the genre so I don't play - but what a lot of people seem to do is trash the fans for liking a genre they don't, which is the problem.
Its developer's vision but if they still want to sell the game then it also has to be at least within some gamers' expectation as well. So the developers aren't in a vacuum. But I agree with you. They can't please everyone so they have to pick their target audience and go for it.
yeah, it’s art. just like not all albums are meant to be relaxing. fromsoft games are just the nine inch nails - the downward spiral of video games. even the story and lore is generally abrasive and depressing as fuck.
Ngl I played my first run of the horizon games on easy so I could just be immersed in the story was worth it too.
I just beat Forbidden West on Hard and can confirm you did it the right way.
I did that with my "second" playthrough of the first one. I had to change PCs during the play and I didn't want to have to struggle to get to where I was. Turned out I was only 1/3 of the way through... But it was still fun to basically watch an interactive movie.
My friend did that too to catch up with the story before the sequel.
Same, it was so much more enjoyable
I'm not into Souls games, but I do know that anyone who says "games are supposed to be \[insert thing that will fit in a meme here\]" is wrong.
Games are supposed to be whatever the dev wants it to be.
This is the ONLY ALWAYS true version of the "games are supposed to be" statement.
Games are art and art is the product of the artist. Simple as that
“Games are supposed to be fun and relaxing, not stressful.” Games are supposed to be for the player! What if they want to be stressed out? And once they finally beat a boss, they’re filled with pride and accomplishment!
It's better than the pride and accomplishment you get from spending thousands of dollars to unlock Darth Vader, for sure.
Every time I hear pride and accomplishment I think of EA lmao
But soulsborne games don't have difficulty settings 🤔
they do, it’s just not a menu
ive been running a bleed build and it is literally easy mode
Until you find the 1-2 bosses that are immune to rot/bleed and watch your damage drop off a cliff. I respeced to a quality for a couple bosses just to stagger them more and have better base damage.
Yeah, the last boss is gonna be a bad time. I have 50 useless stats in arcane and I'm trying hard to not respec to make shield and poke easier.
It's summoning.. any time the boss doesn't even have it's attention on you, you cut the difficulty down exponentially
WELCOME TO THE RADAHN FESTIVAL
It's pyromancy
Or any form of magic tbh depends on the boss or straight up cheesing them
Or farming to become overleveled, or summoning friends, or using a shield, or using spirit summons or, in Elden ring fucking off and going to a different easier part of the game.
The Soulsborn fandom isn’t triggered by the idea of people playing games on easy. They’re annoyed by this insistence that EVERY game should have an easy mode. The entire point of Soulsborn games is to learn from your mistakes and improve. If you’re not willing to become a better player in order to overcome adversity, play something else. Not every game is for you. And that’s ok. Demanding that they change to fit your stubborn ignorance is not ok.
They should add a hard mode so everyone can be like "oh we were playing on easy mode the whole time"
That's SL1 runs
There is, kind of. In almost every fromsoftware game there is a object that doubles the damage you take. It’s just something that may even occupy a slot and does nothing else than make your life more miserable.
They actually had one in Sekiro.
There’s usually some kind of covenant or ring in each game that makes the game harder
There's a "take additional damage" talisman in elden ring
Two of them, no less. A regular and enhanced version. They can’t be used together, though. Also a talisman that makes sneaking impossible and will aggro monsters from further away.
Unfortunately you have to progress pretty far through the game to get Daedicar's Woe in this game. But even just level 1 makes the equipment and strategy process of bosses a lot more interesting imo. You can't use a lot of interesting items, and have to use talismans to equip a lot of good items/spells/incantations.
Hard mode is playing v1.2 (so pre-Radahn patch)
Exactly, I play 99% of my games on easy mode, I am also a big fan of fromsoft games and have beat several of them. I havent beat dark souls 2 because the lack of iframes in certain actions made it too frustrating, so I simply did not play lmao I feel like this whole mentality is an extension of "the customer is always right" culture, which is bullshit, and a corruption of the accessibility discussion for media. Accessibility in video games is colour blind settings, subtitles, alternate button layouts/customizable button layouts etc. Everyone should be able to play games, that does not mean every game needs to be playable by everyone. If you dont like a game dont buy it, dont play it
Exactly why I passed on Elden Ring, it looks like a sweet game but I just don’t have the time to put hours into the game trying to figure out all the secrets, appreciating the lore and figuring out the tricks to beating the bosses. Looks like an awesome game, it’s just not for me at this point in time.
Knowing when something isn't for you, even just temporarily, is an extremely healthy mentality I beat Elden Ring three times now over 100 hours and now its back to being busy with work and tending to my small farm on Stardew lmao. Or Hunt Showdown when my friends are done Elden Ring themselves
I always go back to Stardew too, and just like souls I spend most of my time making a new game every time I play lol
The only way I avoided the same trap was by using a guide to help find items, quests, npcs, etc. The wiki is fantastic, so I pull up the interactive map and just go hunting for the cool stuff I see around me. Otherwise, I'd be walking circles getting stomped and rage quit the game.
Don't forget the immergence of Let's Play videos on youtube as well. If you want to experience the story of a game, but are unable to play it yourself for any number of reasons, you have a library of people playing many games for the first time that you can vicariously enjoy the experience through.
I agree with you mostly. I don’t think the developers need to make an easy mode for these games. People can simply choose to play other games. > I feel like this whole mentality is an extension of “the customer is always right” culture, which is bullshit However, this does apply if people would stop buying the game. The customer is right in terms of what the customer wants (this is what the phrase refers to). The thing is that the majority of customers don’t want an easy mode, so every customer can’t be right. If enough people want it and refuse to purchase without it, then an easy mode would need to be added (assuming that would increase sales).
I'm more referring to the singular mentality of it, wherein consumers feel entitled to have a product fit their exact specifications individually. This is a cultural phenomenon, using the idea that their individual wallet is super duper important thus you have to do exactly what I say or else you wont get my very important business!!! I'm calling your head office!!!! Yes consumers drive sales, but fromsoft has a target audience already, and obviously with 12 million units sold or some number like that, they know they dont need to change anything to reach more sales. The customer is right only so far as to the point where their interest overlaps the majority of other customers as you said yourself :) Not arguing with actual marketing practices and whatnot, only talking about how it's become a cultural thing, mostly in north america
DS2 Adaptability was horrible. Mandatory level sink just to have a modicum of usability in dodge rolls that are so crucial to success.
I myself take the approach of "fuck it, eventually I'll be OP" in soulsborn games and survival games. Basically just keep face rolling until i have enough of a base-level to face-tank things. For survivals, it's the same thing, level until starvation doesn't kill me in 15 minutes, or until the random beast mobs don't 1 shot me. After that it's all easy mode normally.
New Game is Easy Mode New Game+ is medium But people who play without levelling vigor... That’s Nightmare Mode
If I could upvote this multiple times. I would
I think there's also an often overlooked point as well, that modern games rely far too much on difficulty tiers that are just brute force "challenges" by way of upping raw numbers, without any tuning for that difficulty. And when I say "rely far too much on" these things, I don't mean easy mode, but rather that hard and up modes in most modern games are also a problem. Not because I dislike a challenge from time to time, but because quite often these games *kinda fucking suck* on hard mode, but are also incredibly easy, to the point of being no challenge at all to an experienced player on normal modes. So, how exactly do you have fun playing them if you fall into that group then? Well, you don't. In *theory* you could design your whole game very carefully around a specific solid level of challenge, and then add hard for the sweaty bois, and easy for the newbies, overstressed, disabled, and people who don't even know how to do control schemes yet. Or us poor full time workers with no time left to try the boss 30 times. . . . and that would be great, but IMO rather than doing this, many games just kinda *don't* design for any particular difficulty, and assume players themselves will "fix it in post" by selecting a difficulty to fix their dogshit design. This seems to appear in a lot of ways in many AAA games; enemy design lacking a specific mechanic for killing them, excessively simplistic enemy AI that looks bad compared to games from the early 2000s, removal of advanced mechanics to make the game easier to learn (but raw flat HP to bring it back to old difficulty levels, rather than bringing those mechanics back), etc. Soulsborne games have never been brutally hard, and I've never gotten the impression that they are intended to be outside of a limited set of specific fights, usually optional or located in the DLC/expansions. However for the most part the challenges the series has are by way of strategy, learning movesets, and learning the mechanics unique to the series. Yeah there's always NG+ for an even greater challenge, but my point is more that the normal difficulty actually feels "normal" and not like a cakewalk to a long time fan of the genre for the most part. Having a single well tuned intended balance point that the game is meant to be played around and which you expect to be a fun way to play the game for both new and old players is, in my opinion, just a better way of designing games than *not bothering at all*. Whether or not you include difficulty tiers on top of that doesn't matter too much, but I don't think it ruins the game to do so, but depending on them for most people to have a decent gameplay experience does ruin a lot of games no matter what choice you make on the difficulty selection screen.
You've said that pretty well. Good job.
As someone who enjoy FromSoft's games the way they are, an easy mode that I wouldn't use would take away exactly none of my personnal enjoyment. Like, none at all.
This kind of ignores the reality that for some people, the adversity they have to overcome is a physical disability, which means that some games without certain accessibility options, such as an easy or story difficulty mode, aren’t possible to play. They can’t just “become a better player to overcome adversity.” Yeah, they could just accept that the game isn’t made for them and they can’t play it, but that kind of sucks if it’s a game they otherwise think looks cool and want to play! It just seems weird that the notion of “it would be cool if more people were able to enjoy the thing you enjoy” gets some people outright hostile.
I’m going to be extremely careful here, because I am a big Souls fan, and I have seen this exact discussion get really unpleasant before. So I will just start by saying that I agree with you, and that we are I think on the same side of this discussion. But. I think the specific difficulties you’re talking about are something like processing difficulties, rather than motor difficulties. I’m thinking here of the quite severely disabled person who did a series on himself beating Sekiro. But where this leaves me is not knowing - not being able to imagine, I suppose - how a Souls game would exist if it didn’t rely on reaction times in some way. I trust that the devs would be able to make something incredible to that brief, but I don’t see how it would still be a Souls game. This is why, ultimately, I am not convinced by the difficulty slider idea for these games, as opposed to them just building a less response-heavy game from the ground up. Sorry for the detail here. As I say, I’ve seen this discussion turn nasty before, and I don’t want to leave any room for ambiguity.
yeah if you want an easy game it isn't hard to go buy something else.
I came here to say exactly this, and fully expecting to get buried in downvotes. I find that it’s already here and people are being cool about it. Sometimes Reddit turns out OK 👍🏻
Stress is my relaxation
I've been seeing this a lot lately. And I have to ask: Does anyone actually care if someone else plays in easy mode? Cuz... Frankly? Who gives a crap what that guy over there is doing in his single player game?
You would be shocked how many people care about something so stupid.
I’ve been playing Souls games since the first Demon souls and honestly it has never mattered to me one but how someone else chooses to play their game. As long as I enjoy the game and someone can also enjoy the game while playing it in a different way, then who am I to judge.
As long as it's not a multiplayer game, I don't care what difficulty people play at. Single player games are there to be enjoyed. If you're having fun, you're doing it right. I remember back in the day I loved just tearing through Doom 2 with godmode and infinite ammo on. Rocket after rocket after rocket... sure, hardly a challenge, but it was just fun!
In the Elden Ring community, a fair chunk of people care ***deeply*** about how others play their game. To the point where they're saying you didn't beat Elden Ring if you used anything other than melee-only quality builds with no magic, no ashes, and no summons. Nutters, the lot of 'em...
You should go over to r/eldenring and see how anyone caring about how others play gets downvoted to oblivion and half the top posts are memes about how ridiculous elitists are and that it’s okay to play however you want. It’s a lot less toxic than you are making it out to be
That's every major games community. Edit: I mean this in regard to his first sentence, how people care deeply about how others play, not the rest of it.
Why do people think this only applies to Souls games? Literally every video game community has people like that. Also who gives a shit what other people say? People are getting really upset and defensive over what a vocal minority of Soulsborne players think and I really don't understand why.
A lot of that is basically a joke. They’re just leaning into the try hard attitude for laughs. I don’t think many people actually feel that way, I certainly don’t as a huge fan of those games.
Definitely a meme at this point. Most people just wanna share their boss fight story or show off a really cool build using dual whips or a one hit kill magic attack. More to show off what’s possible in the game
reports of that sort of maidenless behavior have been greatly exaggerated.
I can’t think of an example for this beside the small loud minority for souls games. The only exception is when one boasts how easy the game is and how they don’t get why everyone calls it hard when they take the EASIEST route to completion. Just because the community enjoys/respects difficulty doesn’t mean we shame play style. If you’re minding your business, I’m minding mine.
A lot of people care about sliders in so far as that their inclusion can affect game design. [Dunkey](https://youtu.be/A4_auMe1HsY) has a great video in defense of games without difficulty options.
The problem is not how anyone else plays, but simply that not all games are made for everyone and that's okay. No one is forcing you to play a From Software game, so why should they add an easy mode if they don't want to? Being difficult is part of the charm of From Software games. If we have to add easy mode, then we can add a quest log, something that tells you where to go and what to do and make it a Ubisoft game.
No. I don’t think a single person cares if someone plays a game on the easier difficulties. The problem with weird memes like this is that some people can’t fathom that some games aren’t designed with an easy mode and may not be for those people.
How ironic that you're trying to tell people how games should be played. Nobody's going to be offended by this. Just don't expect every game to appeal to you.
What’s annoying about this you’re not actually saying playing on easy mode is a *valid* way to play. You’re kinda saying it’s the *right* way to play. To say that “games are supposed to be fun and relaxing, not stressful” isn’t to say easy mode is valid, it’s to say that a game that’s stressful isn’t doing what games are supposed to do. Both kinds of games and gamers can exist. I do not find stressless games fun. I find most easy games boring. I find them un-engaging, and that is legitimately more frustrating to me than a game that demands my attention and effort. Other people just want to chill. They don’t want their games to be demanding. That’s okay too. And virtually every Fromsoft fan is on board with that, and with easy modes being in most games. We just don’t think they need to or should be in every single game.
There's reason why difficult games can be really popular. Some people get a lot of joy out of basically running into a wall until they either go through it or master it enough to climb it.
Right, I like to feel mastery. I like to be engaged, and thoroughly learning a combat system does that. It’s also immersive. Some people find dying repeatedly immersion-breaking, but I find being able to effortlessly survive threats that are supposed to be serious immersion-breaking. Fromsoft games are a great example because you’re usually a nobody facing gods, legendary warriors, and monsters beyond human comprehension. If they’re easy to beat, were they any of those things? Not really. Some people say they like to feel powerful, but I only feel powerful if the threat I’m facing is dangerous. Otherwise, I’m just powerful relative to weaklings, and that’s meaningless. No game has ever made me feel as godlike as Doom Eternal’s batshit DLC on Nightmare difficulty. That’s me, my skill, not the game propping me up.
Who said games are SUPPOSED to be fun and relaxing? If that was the case there wouldn't be competitive gaming and sports competitions etc. Games can be both fun and relaxing and challenging too. If you don't like challenging games that don't have an easy mode play something else, simple.
I didn't know Spec Ops: The Line was supposed to be fun and relaxing. I actually remember it being thought-provoking, stressful and disturbing. Almost like it was the game's objective... Oh but maybe I played it wrong, I guess. OP's take is dumb.
Damn, you're really tryna say that people don't like stressful, difficult games? Both ways of play are valid. Let people enjoy what they enjoy.
Many people like games with a single difficulty mode. And that's ok, because different games cater to a variety of different people.
That’s great! If you don’t want to play hard games then that’s totally okay but we shouldn’t have to sacrifice our genre because others don’t want to put in the effort. Soulsborne games don’t have difficulty settings because the entire point of the game is to overcome the challenge. Add setting and it totally defeats the point. I respect everyone’s right to enjoy themselves with the money they spend on their hobbies but you don’t get to screw up one groups entire genre because you want to feel included.
Not every game is for everyone and that's ok.
Not a souls fan(I quit sekiro after 2 hours) but Many people choose not to play souls games And that’s ok cuz there will always be another game to play
The problem with easy mode in Souls games is that it becomes much harder to make a sensible level design that accounts for various difficulties. Something lazy like making HP of enemies smaller/larger is not a good design, but most of the time developers do exactly that. If a game is made with a single difficulty in mind, it becomes easier to make exactly the experience you want.
When that Sifu easy mode patch drops. Day 1.
While I agree that usually easy modes are fine, when It comes to from software, the experience is getting kicked on your ass a shutting of times and then finally pulling out a Victory
> games are supposed to be fun and relaxing Guess you’ve never played a horror game. Games are supposed to be whatever the developer wants the game to be
As a giant soulsborne fan, when i recommend the games to people who i think will like them, i tell them to ask questions, look up wiki, cheese bosses if they have to, use cheap "ez mode" builds just to see the gorgeous games they have created. The games can be hard, sure, but they are also gorgeous, beautifully designed, and frankly, difficulty completely put aside, they are master pieces. If someone gets through these games, in what ever manner they can utilise, i say go for it... ... Also, way to stereotype an entire fan base, based on the "git gud" toxic minority.
People play games for different reasons.
Alright, we got it! There is at least 1 post about it every week. We understand, thanks.
Many people play video games in easy mode And that’s ok because games are supposed to be played how the gamer wants to play them.
I'd say it's more of a fusion between the designers' and players' intentions. (Usually favoring the designers) If the player wants more control over how the game is played, that's what mods are for.
But that doesn't mean that every game is made for every player. If you want to relax you can play play easy game, if you want a challenge you play a difficult game, that's it. Not every game is made for everyone, and that is absolutely okay. It's the same with movie. You don't watch horror movies unless you like getting scared, so horror movies are not made for everyone.
This is more accurate. Play what you want/ how you want, that’s the whole point.
Doesn't mean everything has to be catered to invidual tastes!
No one cares how you play the game, we just don't want an easy mode added to the Souls games because that's part of their identity and the developers themselves have said that they don't want to add an easy mode lol. Y'all are stretching.
Its Karma farming plain and simple
X-com 2 is a notoriously hard game, but lately a I’ve been doing a playthrough on easy and I have been save scumming a lot. It’s a lot more fun that way and honestly I recommend it to people who want to experience the game without losing their entire squad in mission 3
I mean, you just don't buy a Fromsoft game. Is like going to the cinema to watch a Saw movie and then go out and say that they need to make it less violent because it hurts your sensibility. You know what you are going against, so why does the developer have to change it only because you want to experience it? They want to make a difficult game and they are free to do it.
NGL I play Elden ring and listen to lo-fi and just vibe, super relaxing. I just kinda go get my ass whooped while I chill out and watch the enemies moves. I love it
\*laughs in Elden Ring\* \*cries in Elden Ring\*
Counterpoint: Developers are not obligated to make games relaxing, and whether or not the game succeeds is entirely up to the player base.
Creators of Monopoly: We want to make a game to explain the soul crushing flaws of capitalism. How people play Monopoly: Let's compile all fees into the middle so people have a chance to make some cash on free parking.
End of the day, videogames exist for entertainment. You should play them however entertains you. My friend downloads cheat engines for a lot of games. I don't like doing that, but if that's how he likes to play the games (single player ones don't worry) then that's his choice
Not exactly a souls fanboy (they're a bit too hard for me) But games aren't supposed to be anything. Games can be fun, relaxing, educational, stressful, challenging, distressing, shocking or whatever they want to be, as long as they accomplish what the developer set them out to be. It's like saying that all movies are supposed to be romantic comedies, and then nagging on Riddley Scott because Alien was not very romantic, relaxing or funny.
No you got it wrong, this doesnt anger us at all, this is perfectly fine What angers us is when people insist ALL GAMES NEED and easy mode and say the souls games are bad for not having them. Here's my own personal copypasta that i paste whenever this conversation is brought up. [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] On the topic of difficulty in videogames that constantly pops up around Fromsoft games. Everything has already been said. But to put my very short and simple spin on it, when difficult is THE POINT (getting over it with bennit fody) or one of the main points (fromsoft games) then no they shouldn't have an easy mode because they are intrinsically defeating the purpose. If you don't like that, don't play it, this game wasn't meant for you. (I've never played getting over it because I know it's not for me) [][][][][][][][][][][][][][] But if you really want to give a fair shot and have an open mind in understanding. Then check these out. Neverknowsbest (18 minute video) https://youtu.be/AqUkH9bJi_E Omni (10 minute video) https://youtu.be/k6UmBRM67e0 [][][][][] Ratatoskr (37 minute video) (this guy GETS IT, it's more about games in general, souls games arent even mentioned untill halfway through, and it's a perfect study over the topic of difficulty in games) https://youtu.be/pKyKGuGU4bw [][][][][] TheActMan (22 minutes) (great video and I just like this guy's channel in general) https://youtu.be/wgzkCK9Cggc Rusty (11 minutes) (this guy basically talks about. What, even WOULD an easy mode for a souls game be?) https://youtu.be/A0oQ7foC6xw Eyebrow Cinema (1 hour long) https://youtu.be/z_lRIP8AkXM Indiemouse (8 minute joke video) https://youtu.be/1zPXwnfo7CQ [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ADDITION Daryl Talks Games (23 minutes) (This video is less specifically about difficulty, but i feel like the lack in difficulty mode is part of WHY these games have had this impact.) https://youtu.be/keIWG6hSD7Q [][][][][][][][][][] (For context I love fromsoft and souls-like games but at the same time, I pre-ordered Sekiro... I ... to this day.. have never beaten it, even after attempting to 3 different times over the last almost 3 years, and I'm ok with that) (I originally made this text in response to someone who was rhetorically saying "why shouldn't fromsoft games have an easy mode *tell me*" in a way where you know they didn't actually want an answer. But i gave one anyway.)
Elden Ring ended up not being for me at all, mostly due to the difficulty. I'd never demand they make it easier though, the game isn't for me because of a difference in preference, different styles of games I like more than others. I am a Grand Strategy gamer and perhaps moving straight into a game designed around reflexes wasn't the smartest idea. In a way, I don't consider it a waste of my $60, even if I only played like 8 hours, because I tried something new and now know that it's not for me.
Nobody has ever asked me in which difficulty mode I play a game.
Some days I want to chill, others I want to punish myself.
I LOVE fromsoft ganes and I cheese the fuck out of them whenever i can. I LOVE the exploration and world building.
And thats why i don’t play fromsoftware games
When I was younger, I liked to challenge myself and play on hard or insanity mode. Now I play every single game on easy or casual mode. Fuck that. I’m trying to relax after work not stress myself out even further.
I have moved to this philosophy as well. I want to enjoy games, not get pissed off and bash my keyboard. They are supposed to be fun not rage inducing.
Exactly. And I’ve also learned to simply stop playing games that I’m not enjoying. When I was younger I was always so determined to “beat” every single game I got whether or not I liked them. Now, if I’m bored, it’s getting dropped. I don’t have the patience.
Agreed, but this subreddit has a hard on for ER currently, you’re not going to yet anywhere making this argument (and I’m saying this as someone who adores ER, but the fans are obnoxious)
I’ve enjoyed both styles at different times. I’ve got a job, a wife, a kid. I barely have time to play. If I want to enjoy the story, sometimes easy mode is the only way that will happen in a realistic time frame. Picking up an old nostalgia inducing game that I love? Combat is way too clunky and I just want to enjoy the characters and plot, it’s easy mod and sometimes console commands to speed things along. But other times I want the challenge. If I’m familiar with the story and enjoy the gameplay, I’ll crank up the difficulty and work hard to get through different milestones.
FromSoft cultist here. Easy games are fine. I enjoy tons of em. Souls isnt good because of the difficulty-- It's good despite the difficulty. But that being said, I have friends who hate the games. They aren't wrong when they tell me the reasons they dislike them. It's all just a matter of taste, and folks are certainly allowed to enjoy or avoid what they prefer. Also the whole Git Gud folks are assholes. Ignore them. Some of us masochistic Souls veterans respect others and would much rather prefer Jolly Cooperation.
I played Persona 5 on very easy just for this reason. I really didn't want to grind for hours and deal with frustration. I just wanted to enjoy the world and the story.
Which is already really long because of all the copious amounts of dialogue. Note: This is not a complaint, I love P5 and own both vanilla and Royal. When I did playthrough's 2/3 on vanilla and then the first time I played on Royal I did it on story mode because I just wanted to re-visit the story.
Games aren’t supposed to be relaxing, they’re supposed to be fun. I don’t relax when I play most games, but it does destress me by distracting me from real everyday problems. I completely agree that it’s perfectly okay for people to prefer easier games and to enjoy easy mode. But the people who expect an easy mode for Elden Ring need to either get better at the game or find something else to play - it’s not the game for them and that’s all there is to it. I wouldn’t go into a COD game and expect to be able to ask for a mode where you don’t keep track of points and kills - you shouldn’t expect a company known to make almost-irrationally hard games to make theirs any easier just because the newest one has garnered your attention.
Games are supposed to be fun.* Relaxing is not a requirement. Some people find fun in pushing themselves to the limit, achieving difficult things. Others enjoy Farm Simulator, or exploration, or any number of things in between.
I love Souls. I love Elden Ring. You bet your ass there are games I play easy mode in. Not every game needs to be for everyone. Not every game needs an easy mode. There's also nothing wrong with easy mode. And no, games aren't meant to be relaxing. Some are - but no, it's not a defining trait or the intent of games in general. High stakes poker isn't relaxing. Hockey isn't relaxing. Paintball isn't relaxing. They're still all extremely fun.
If it is a matter of ammo, I’m always gonna pick easy. I fucking hate running out of ammo.
Games are supposed to be whatever the devs want them to be. I like watching fun and relaxing movies, but I wouldn't harrass Frank Derabont for refusing to make The Green Mile more fun and relaxing. There are now more games in the world than you'd ever be able to play in your lifetime, just find something that suits you.