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What are your thoughts on Easy Mode?

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Easy mode should be an option in every game. Accessbility is paramount in video games regardless of a series' goals of being the hardest thing on the market. To cite a somewhat personal hypothetical situation: I'm a big Dark Souls fan (except for the second game, but that's hardly an uncommon opinion). I've played all the games multiple times and Elden Ring was easily my favorite game of 2022.

For those that don't know, I spent about five years in the army doing boring cool military things. Part of that necessitated some times spent overseas during combat deployment. Although I emerged from that deployment unscathed, there was a genuine risk of me coming back with life or limb damaged.

If I'd returned with one of my hands missing, how would I have played Dark Souls or Elden Ring? While there are options like Xbox's adaptive controller, the Soulsborne games require pretty fast reflexes that would make such a controller miserable to use without a difficulty option. I'd be forced to either give up on a franchise I love or resort to unofficial easy mode mods.

So, yeah. Gimme easy mode options in all games.
Accessibility is good, but games don’t need to pander to you or anyone. If you don’t like/can‘t play a game for some reason play something else, theirs lots of games on the market.
 

Uwu_Oocoo2

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Accessibility is good, but games don’t need to pander to you or anyone. If you don’t like/can‘t play a game for some reason play something else, theirs lots of games on the market.
I don't think I agree with this.
I get where you're coming from but I don't see accessibility as pandering. Perhaps it is if it takes away from the game, but an option that makes the game more accessible to people who are interested but can't / don't want play it in its normal settings isn't catering to them. It's being fair. Having a setting adding written text for deaf players isn't pandering to them, it's making it more accessable. And making a game with lots of dialouge and no text options sucks for any deaf person excited to play it. Not the same scenario, but the message is the same. If I were a huge fan of dark souls but couldn't play it dues to a physical disability affecting my reaction time that'd make me really sad.

Easy mode as an accessibility option is actually a really good point and something I hadn't considered when I started this thread.
 

Dizzi

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I usually play on easy cuz im a wimp and if theres unsubtited dialogue im just gonna not play the game the way it( looking at prince of persia!!)
 

thePlinko

What’s the character limit on this? Aksnfiskwjfjsk
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Accessibility is good, but games don’t need to pander to you or anyone. If you don’t like/can‘t play a game for some reason play something else, theirs lots of games on the market.
I wouldn’t call it pandering, but there absolutely is something to be said about a need for accessibility limiting artistic vision.
 

Bowsette Plus-Ultra

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Accessibility is good, but games don’t need to pander to you or anyone. If you don’t like/can‘t play a game for some reason play something else, theirs lots of games on the market.
It's pandering for a hypothetical Bowsette who suffered a critical injury and lost his hand to want to continue to play a game series he loves?

Adding difficulty options doesn't affect the creative vision. For the people who want to play Dark Souls 7 as it was intended, the difficulty will be there. For those who want to exerpience the games and are unable or unwilling to deal with the difficulty, there will be an easy mode. Playing on easy difficulty doesn't affect the people playing on normal.
 
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Having a setting adding written text for deaf players isn't pandering to them, it's making it more accessable. And making a game with lots of dialouge and no text options sucks for any deaf person excited to play it. Not the same scenario, but the message is the same. If I were a huge fan of dark souls but couldn't play it dues to a physical disability affecting my reaction time that'd make me really sad.
Ok pandering wasn't the right word, but sometimes accessibility options can ruin the artistic vision of a game. The soulsbourne games are meant to be games that require a lot of patience and trying over and over again. If you don't like that or just can't play it, then you can go play another game. What about rhythm games and people with congenital amusia (beat deafness)? Should a rhythm game have an accessibility option that takes that a bit part of the game out because of those people? Not every game needs to be made for every person.

Theirs also other things to consider, like how an easy mode could throw off the balance of the game and such.
Adding difficulty options doesn't affect the creative vision.
It absolutely can
 
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Bowsette Plus-Ultra

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Ok pandering wasn't the right word, but sometimes accessibility options can ruin the artistic vision of a game. The soulsbourne games are meant to be games that require a lot of patience and trying over and over again. If you don't like that or just can't play it, then you can go play another game. What about rhythm games and people with congenital amusia (beat deafness)? Should a rhythm game have an accessibility option that takes that part of the game out because of those people? Not every game needs to be made for every person.

Theirs also other things to consider, like how an easy mode could throw off the balance of the game and such.

It absolutely can

And those games can continue to require a lot of patience to those of us who would continue to play on the game's base difficulty, but for the hypothetical Bowsette who no longer has one of his arms and wants to keep playing then difficulty settings are great. If adding an easy mode option somehow affects the experiences of those playing on normal then someone ****ed up during the development process.
 

thePlinko

What’s the character limit on this? Aksnfiskwjfjsk
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Uh, how? "Oh no this other person played the game differently than me and I don't like that"? Gatekeeping a series from people who want to play it at a different skill level is a bad look.
Well like I said in an earlier reply, a lot of the time difficulty modes are less actually changing difficulty and more changing random health and damage values. This sounds fine in theory, but it doesn’t work when the games combat revolves around learning and utilizing game mechanics. A game that’s easy mode is literally just “the enemies do less damage” doesn’t lessen the challenge, it just turns the challenge from “learn the enemies attack patterns in order to skillfully counter them” to “just brute force it because it’s not like them hitting you is that big of a deal.”

Of course there are other ways that an easy mode can devalue a game, but that’s the most common one in my experience.
 

Azure Sage

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Well like I said in an earlier reply, a lot of the time difficulty modes are less actually changing difficulty and more changing random health and damage values. This sounds fine in theory, but it doesn’t work when the games combat revolves around learning and utilizing game mechanics. A game that’s easy mode is literally just “the enemies do less damage” doesn’t lessen the challenge, it just turns the challenge from “learn the enemies attack patterns in order to skillfully counter them” to “just brute force it because it’s not like them hitting you is that big of a deal.”

Of course there are other ways that an easy mode can devalue a game, but that’s the most common one in my experience.
If it devalues the experience for you, then don't play it like that. If it doesn't devalue it for someone else, then let them play it like that. This isn't hard.
 

thePlinko

What’s the character limit on this? Aksnfiskwjfjsk
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If it devalues the experience for you, then don't play it like that. If it doesn't devalue it for someone else, then let them play it like that. This isn't hard.
A difficulty mode shouldn’t fundamentally change how the game is played. If it does than it’s a pretty obviously poorly implemented system, regardless of who’s playing it.
 

Azure Sage

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A difficulty mode shouldn’t fundamentally change how the game is played. If it does than it’s a pretty obviously poorly implemented system, regardless of who’s playing it.
Why do you care if there's a mode that does that if you aren't being forced to use it? If that makes someone else able enjoy the game, then isn't that a good thing? "But nooo they have to enjoy it the RIGHT WAY"?
 

Chevywolf30

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Why do you care if there's a mode that does that if you aren't being forced to use it? If that makes someone else able enjoy the game, then isn't that a good thing? "But nooo they have to enjoy it the RIGHT WAY"?
Because then you're essentially playing a different game.
 

thePlinko

What’s the character limit on this? Aksnfiskwjfjsk
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Why do you care if there's a mode that does that if you aren't being forced to use it? If that makes someone else able enjoy the game, then isn't that a good thing?
Because they’re effectively enjoying a different game entirely at that point. If the purpose of an easy mode is to make it more accessible for people who can’t handle the difficulty of the original game then making the gameplay experience different to that degree is a horrible idea. It doesn’t matter if I’m not using it or not. I can acknowledge that something is designed poorly without it applying to me.

"But nooo they have to enjoy it the RIGHT WAY"?
“How dare Nintendo not let me use a gun in BotW? I want to use a gun dammit, but nooo I have to play it the right way.”
 

Azure Sage

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Because then you're essentially playing a different game.
Again, why does that matter? It has no bearing on you. If a person who is disabled has to play a super watered down version of a game to get their most out of it, then they should be able to do that without people yelling "BUT NOOO YOU HAVE TO PLAY IT THE RIGHT WAY OR IT DOESNT COUNT JUST GO PLAY SOMETHING ELSE" at them. People can play whatever they want however they want. This is ridiculous.
 

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