I love how all the comments insist on discussing the difficulty, despite OP literally pointing it out as bait.
That's good bait.
I know it's bait. I'm just looking for an opportunity to unload.
The circle of "just want to feel something" wraps round and round.
I never understood the obsession with stupid difficult games at all. It's like, let me bang my head on a coffee table for 3 hours trying to make 5 minutes of progress. No thanks
Edit: Wow, this blew up, quite a controversial take, and not a hint of irony from all the people commenting about how I don't get it.
Edit 2: For what it's worth, I have played Dark Souls 1 all the way through, some of Dark Souls 2, got to the end of Bloodborne, played about 3 hours of Elden Ring, and a bit of Lies of P. These games just aren't for me. I played them bcz my friend loves them, and I was trying to make a soulslike bcz that seems to be all the rage right now.
On the flip side, I don't understand why people like playing video games that just tell a story and pretty much spoon feed every victory to the player. It feels hollow and incredibly boring.
like movies?
You know there's a middle ground, right? There exist games that manage to balance difficulty in a way that gives players a consistent challenge that they're just able to overcome. The best games have these things called "difficulty settings" that let you customize that challenge so that you can decide how hard you want it to be
On the flip side, I don’t understand why people like playing video games that just tell a story and pretty much spoon feed every victory to the player. It feels hollow and incredibly boring.
Do you feel that way about movies? Because what you're essentially describing there is an interactive movie. Maybe they're selling it as a game, but that's because there's no market for a product that calls itself an interactive movie.
I will agree with that sentiment somewhat. I don't play games on easy either, that's boring. I don't mind dying a few times to a boss. It's the soul crushing difficulty of Souls games I don't enjoy. 17 deaths in, and i still have barely cracked half health of some bosses. Not my cup of tea.
It's me, the target audience for "walking simulators." Sometimes I just like experiencing stories that stick with me, be it as a movie, book or game. On the other hand, I can't stand games that try to have a story but it's just not a good story (or only good by video game standards).
I like games because of freedom to do things and make choices.
ER is not even difficult unless you specifically want it to be
I got 60 hours in, got bored when while the world design looks nice it just feels so empty to me. Like Disneyland with extreme proportions, not a real place. That killed the vibe of the story for me- which was the only reason I was even trying to play. It was difficult for me, but that's because I don't enjoy trying the same fight 10-20 times.
Overcoming adversity, or maybe they just want to be the guy
It definitely was a nice distraction while shit in my life was going down. That and the gym.....now only if I could get back into the gym.
It's not for everyone, but there's a subset of people who enjoy hitting their desk 10 hours straight just to beat a single boss. It's very satisfying in the end, and often also repeating the fight perfectly just feels so damn good it's worth the struggle.
It's really not different than fighting hard battles with your other hobbies, learning that difficult technique or whatever
I found Elden Ring much easier than people said it was, but I did get some very good advice on grinding early so I was kinda overleveled through a lot of it. I had a blast, though! I’m finding the expansion extremely tough, but I need to explore for more buffs!
For me it was great challenge. Sure it was not easy but it's doable and the feeling of overcoming a fight you thought to be impossible gives a great feeling of growth and succes.
I get that, that's what my friend says too. He really enjoys Souls games. I just don't feel the same way.
See, I feel that way about some games, Celeste for example. I guess I just don't like the punishing difficulty of souls games.
The draw of elder ring and soulsborne games in general is the challenge. Taking the time, failing, learning and getting good, finally beating that challenging boss, the thrill and rush of seeing the big "You Defeated" text across the screen is truly unmatched by most other games.
I also totally get not wanting to go through that. The low moments in the game can hit really hard on the motivation to play. Hitting a difficulty wall and just not having the ability to progress, dying a second time and losing a ton of souls/currency you were going to use to level up.
Do you like a 1000 piece puzzle or a 100 piece
I'm not a big puzzle person, but when I do them with my wife, I usually go for like 500ish piece puzzles.
Very game dependant for me. I enjoy metro/stalker on their highest difficulties and play CS2 sometimes but most other singleplayer games yeah no thanks. It's mostly just a flat increase to health and damage anyway
What I like about ER compared to the other games is that if I find a section too challenging, I have the option to go explore somewhere else and come back better leveled.
They gotta make something their personality!
Sarcastic hilarity must be yours!
Maybe stop and think that it isn't that difficult to everyone? I don't want to sound elitist, but people have different level of skills at video games (or anything really).
Saying no games should be hard is like saying no books should be difficult to read. To take the book analogy further, at some point after reading a lot of books you want to read more and more complex books. To say we shouldn't have difficult books would be a disservice to those who want them.
Both easy and hard games should exist. And everything in between. Not every game needs to be played by everyone, which I think really is the issue. People feeling left out or pressured into games that aren't their play style.
Complaining that the game is too hard , or the opposite, that the player is too bad. Both of these are the wrong approach. The best approach is "I'm not the intended audience for this game"
Because finally conquering that boss and getting to explore further feels so good. It feels good to git gud
Not everyone’s content to be spoon fed their dopamine.
I guess..
All difficult games should have an easy mode for accessibility.
Signed, a Dark Souls enjoyer.
For mechanically difficult games, definitely agree. Celeste is an example I usually bring up - it's a platformer that can get pretty tough at times, especially in the after-story optional levels. But it also has one of the most flexible and useful accessibility modes I've ever seen. It allows you to adjust basically every aspect of the game a player might struggle with (game speed, additional jumps, timed mechanics, you name it). And the game itself is very good as well.
It also has a different sort of difficulty. It's all in bite size chunks, and you can try again immediately. It never feels punishing in the way Souls games do.
Honestly... I disagree. What is accessibility? Every souls game has been beaten with dance pads, rock band drum kits and guitars. They're also frequently beaten by people with serious disabilities using specialized controllers. Input speed is not an issue here, Souls has always been about carefully choosing your moves to manage the end lag and stamina cost of your actions. It's about making the right move, not about moving quickly or pressing a lot of buttons at once.
IMHO, accessibility is frequently cited as an excuse for lower difficulties here, when in reality the difficulty isn't a serious part of the barrier for disabled players. It could use better accessibility options, like configurable colourblind modes, audio indicators, more configurable text size, some kind of clear colour indicators on attacks for low vision, but difficulty? No.
There are also lots of good reasons not to add explicit difficulty options, which is y'know, why From Soft haven't done it yet.
I recently noticed the accessibility settings in Brotato, which are a great example of this. In addition to the normal difficulty setting, in accessibility they give you access to sliders for enemy health/damage/speed and some toggles for other visual and difficulty features.
The only option I use is being able to restart a wave after a death rather than losing the whole run, and it’s kept me occasionally playing the game and enjoying what the devs have created.
Sucks for console users. On PC there are trainers.
It's one of the reasons I got my grandparents to transition from consoles to PC. I knew how to fiddle with PC games to make things easier on them.
Still, oftentimes I would end up sending an email of thanks to a dev of some sort, usually along the lines of "I know this isn't your target audience, but thank you so much for putting in native controller support/UI scaling/story mode/etc in, being able to get this working for my grandparents is a big joy in their lives."
Agreed. Games are meant to be enjoyed or as a measure of skill, but they don't have to be both.
I agree. It's a good think FromSoft doesn't make difficult games. They make challenging games. Their games can be trivialize by meeting it on its own terms. If you pay attention to what things are weak to, it's often pretty easy. Also, you always have the option to level up and improve your situation. Outside of secondary content, everything is easy, but it wants to challenge you to see if you're paying attention. The issue is this is abnormal for modern games, so it's seen by some as being hard. Modern gamers expect to have their hands held, which I don't think developers should always oblige if it weakens the intended experience.
I see where you're coming from, but when a game's message is that meaning and purpose is born through hard work and struggling against impossible odds then that message is kinda undercut by a button that turns the struggle off, even if it's there for a good reason.
I would say that the number of games where that message is core and is reliably reinforced through the gameplay is small.
Getting Over It, for example, would not need an 'easy mode', but the vast majority of games should be accessible to as wide an audience as possible - not by compromising the devs' vision, but by simply allowing players the tools to handle the game at their own pace.
This is extra funny because Elden Ring's diverse player build options means that it has the most adjustable difficulty curve of any FromSoftware game. Holding up Elden Ring completion specifically as any kind of bar to surpass is laughably naive.
That's the key. If you:
- summoned
- used spirit ashes
- used ashes of war
- used sorceries
- used incantations
- levelled up
- drank a flask
- opened the map
- used a weapon
- used a controller or a mouse/keyboard
- opened the menu
- used your hands
You didn't beat the game.
As a man who has never played Elden Ring and really knows nothing about it beyond it being the name of a game, the people getting all het up in these comments are very amusing. I think you guys proved her point.
I dislike how people use game completion as a method to gloat
Like bro, don't we all play games to have fun?
I'm currently playing Elden Ring for the first time and I'm note sure if I'm not just doing it for self-flagellation instead of fun
You've found one your kink.
How am I supposed to have fun if I'm not better than you?????
Edit: ???
League of Legends energy
Absolutely not! I play games to be the best! To dunk on those losers who can't defeat evey boss with only their fists and a dream. This is what it means to be a real gamer, ignoring my family, friends, and calls from my boss.
All you can do is look up at me on my pedestal from your lowly lesser-gamer chair.
I separate people into two camps.
People who beat THE Sega Genesis classic Sonic 3 with lock-on Technology with Sonic and Knuckles and achieved all 12 Chaos Emeralds, and LOSERS.
Oh my god when i was a kid it took me like two YEARS to get all the chaos emeralds in Sonic 1! That’s an eternity in kid time.
There were no save states or anything like that. I failed so many times…but one day I finally did it, i finally got all of them, and on that day I was a god.
Some people see videogames as a legitimate art medium that generates experiences. Not all experiences have to be fun. Some can be scary, somber, or introspective.
Easy mode ftw. I've only got so much free time. I wanna chill when I'm gaming.
You don't want to spend twenty hours trying to beat one boss, and being told to git gud whenever you ask for advice on the internet? But think of the sense of pride and accomplishment you'll feel when you finally beat it! The best part is you get to go through this like 10 times
/s
I am playing Sekiro with a easy mode mod.
Even with being able to kill everything with 1-4 hits, I was getting TRASHED by bosses. People play this without the mod? 😭
It's a difficult game for sure. Probably the most difficult out of the FromSoft games. Not to feed into the meme but the game does click once you get to a certain boss in the game. The combat feels natural, you know what to do and how to do it usually etc. It's a really difficult game and the final boss might just be the most difficult I've ever had the displeasure of fighting against (they get a lot easier once you know what you're doing)
You need to understand the absolute bliss of finnally beating that fucking ape, after hours of trying only for you to decapitate him, then the arm reaches over and picks up the head for the second health bar. Do you know what the reward is after days of attempts? 20 minutes later, you fight two at once, and you'll do it like it was stomping a goomba in Mario Brothers.
Git gud casul?
Otherwise...
Finger but, whole.
I'm vegan btw
I use Arch
I have no idea what it is, please enlighten me in depth! Preferably in a closed setting where any bystanders cannot leave .
I will also need an explanation why Windows is bad and why I should care about online privacy.
I've heard that hackers use Linux, will that make my printer be susceptible to hack so China or CIA can see my bills that I print out every month?
I have nothing against prosthetizing vegans, because vegans make me think of food and I'm always hungry
Can I have an easy mode for veganism where I can still eat some forms of meat?
Absolutely not
(Tbh, I think any reduction in meat consumption is good. You don't have to be a purist to make a positive impact and if people really cared about animals they would ostracize others for not being vegan 100% of the time)
If you care about animal suffering, remember not all animals are the same, there is a continuous line of intelligence between some grass and a dolphin, you have to decide at what point you value. Pig? Chicken? Egg? Insect? Salmon? Sardine? Fungus? Starfish?
From my understanding, cutting out most mammals from your diet would cut out most of the more intelligent animals you eat. (Unless you eat crows or octopus)
Ok :)
I've never had vitriol spewed at me quite like when I argue in favor of easy mode for soulslike games. I'm at a point where I hate soulslike games, half because I don't want to spend ten hours on a boss that I can't beat, and half because I don't want to associate with soulsborne players
I once made the mistake googling easy mode for Elden ring that someone gifted to me. Once I saw the gatekeeping on Reddit, I decided it's not a game for me and uninstalled. I'm sorry that I suck at video games
it gets much easier when you start treating it like a rhythm game where you get into dance offs with the enemies:)
and no need to interact with a game's community when it's shite, it's a single player game you can enjoy it however you want! (or don't, i'm not pressuring you, just don't want you to miss out on a good game because its fanbase is made of out assholes)
I have gotten all achievements for the game and this is the way. I am not even particularly good, just determined. It is a very good game, just dont read the comments on fextralife.
Whoop, I mixed up dark souls 3 with Elden ring. Though, the same applies. I did like the gritty atmosphere and lore. The main issue I had was the learning curve and when trying to playing co-op there was no way to turn off strangers joining what I recall. But I bet by now there's mods for all of that like you said.
I bought Rain World recently, having heard a lot of good things about it, and I found it hard to get into because I didn't really see a point to what I was doing, whether I was doing it right, etc, so I put "how to enjoy Rain World" into my search engine of choice and found an article with some beginner tips, one of which being that the bleak, helpless feel is intentional and part of the experience. I respect it as an artistic decision, but my private and work lives are stressful enough as it is, which is probably partly why I was bouncing off the game, so I just got a refund, and I'm fine with that decision.
I loved every bit of Rain World! But I ended up quitting it mid play through when it became too hard. I found a way to gather stacks of berries to have enough reattempts for the hard parts, but then got lost where I was even supposed to go and gave up after ~25 hours playtime
There are probably some mods that make it easier if you want to play.
And yeah game communities suck sometimes.
If you ever want to give it a shot, everything in the souls games can be trivialized if you just farm a little extra between the next fight.
That's not to say it won't be difficult at times, but if you prepare yourself well enough you can take just about anything.
Honestly just ignoring the YouTuber meme builds and pumping vitality to 40 right away makes all the souls games pretty approachable.
All of the Souls games kinda have an easy mode baked in. Ranged weapons/Sorceries generally provide an easier experience. Honestly though, I just find I don't really care if there is an easy mode or not. I enjoyed the challenge and if a difficulty slider was added, it would not have detracted from my experience in the slightest. I played through the games for the challenge and I enjoyed it immensely. If someone else doesn't enjoy the challenge, then that's okay. I'm not going to gatekeep them. We're all SunBro's at our core and I will always drop my Summon Sign for others in need to find
Praise the Sun, my friend
I was getting frustrated in the first dark souls playing a dex melee character because I wanted to be able to dodge quickly and do quick in and out attacks. Making a mistake was so punishing.
But then I tried a heavy build instead and have been surprised at how well it works. Yeah, it's harder to avoid mistakes but you do so much more damage and take so much less that your can afford it. I've even gone kinda barbarian by using heavy weapons and little armor so I'm not stuck with the slowest roll and the fact you can one or two shot most trash mobs still means I was able to progress farther on that character than on my dex one in way less time.
It's not easy but it's easier.
Those gargoyles are rough though.
I've never touched any game of this series. If I need to replay a section or fight in a game more than 3 times it annoys me so much, I need to take a break. This often led to me never playing that game again, because only thinking about being stuck at that spot again kills all the fun for me.
In Cyberpunk for example my car got stuck in the middle of nowhere by a glitch and I would have needed to walk for god knows how long to find another vehicle. Needless to say I never played that game again, even though I was not nearly even half way through and liked it up until that point.
Can't you just summon a new vehicle?
As I just wrote in another comment, I know that I was aware of that featured. Either it didn't work or I don't remember it correctly why I got stuck there. It's been a few years now.
Lmao yeah. I'm kinda like him but even I knew you could summon your rides in Cyberpunk. I stopped playing that game because it was getting repetitive af.
Did you not just hit the "summon a vehicle" button that the game gives you to summon one of the many cars the game gives out for free? Cause it's there. I believe they tell you about it during the prologue and it's enabled before then.
Did you just skip all tutorials or something? I'm struggling to understand how on earth you got stuck so bad you ended up quitting the game. Plus, if you're half way through, you have a minimum of 2 vehicles, the starting car and Jackie's bike, if not even more. Wtf were you even doing?
Now that you mention it, I know that I was aware of that featured. Either it didn't work or I don't remember it correctly why I got stuck there. It's been a few years now.
I think the whole "Elden Ring is hard" is overrated.
I'm a garbage player. And I manage to cheese my way through the game. It has classic NES/SNES energy where you can absolutely leave and come back when you're way stronger. The game is so massive, you will always find something else to do.
Then again, if cyberpunk made you rage quit, maybe you won't like Elden Ring. I found that game to be really straightforward.
I'm willing to replay a section as many times as it takes, as long as I consistently feel a sense of progression and improvement. The problem is that it can take dozens of attempts before I realize I'm plateauing, and I have to give up.
I cannot tell you how much I want to play Remnant: From the Ashes. In between boss fights, I'm in love with the game. The story is deeply fascinating, and I love the gameplay. There is exactly one boss in that game that I was able to beat without going online and waiting for some random to join and carry. Eventually I got to a point where in order to upgrade gear, I had to kill bosses, and in order to kill bosses, I had to upgrade gear. Uninstalled it after I made no story progress for like 10 hours.
Contrast that with Outriders. Considered by many to be an awful game, it was my favorite game that I've played this year. The story is deeply fascinating, I love the gameplay, and there is exactly one boss in that game that I couldn't beat at the highest available difficulty. So I turned the difficulty down, breezed through it, and turned it back up afterward, and there was no penalty for doing that.
Saying that it shouldn't just to feel something (I.e. a smug sense of superiority)
Yes.
Also just generally better accommodation in general. If a paraplegic guy with control over one finger wants to play Elden Ring, there should be settings to accommodate that. That's not even making it easier; they're already facing much more difficulty in the first place. It's just leveling the playing field.
How would you even expect the developers to accommodate every possible combination of disabilities?
Not the OP but i think these would still be "making it easier" settings but to their point it is just leveling the player field since people without disabilities already have an easier time playing.
You could adjust things like hitbox size (yours and enemies), the i-frame duration (amount of time invincible after rolling), a game speed setting, setting that adjusts the pacing of fights (such as delays between enemies moves are increased by this setting), damage multipler (yours and enemies), or straight up handicapping player level or attribute scores. Thats just off the top of my head, I'm sure there are plenty of other ways.
The bonus to this is that it could also make the game harder. A lot of people like doing challenge runs and this would add depth to that.
EZ mode in Elden Ring is to play Scadow of the Erdtree for a bit. That hands out fifty level-ups for shitting yourself hiding in the bushes, just to mock you for how you still ain't got gud. Go back and beat up Malenia and Placidusax all you want, you're still going to die to the very first expansion boss like you've never played a Souls game before.
I used to disagree with this concept, but then I discovered how Control implements difficulty. The game is hard, and that cannot be changed, but at any time one can pause the game, turn on assist mode, and become unkillable. And the key to this is after one gets past that really frustrating section, they can turn off the "cheats".
That would work for Elden Ring.
That's basically what Another Crab's Treasure does too, as with a few other hard games. Their accessibility modes let you basically become god, and skip the combat if the way it's set up isn't working - and that could just be something you do for a single particular encounter if needed. I've never used them, and don't mind them being there, because a good hard game is satisfying to play without such things.
Every game should copy Another Crabs Treasures easy mode - just hand the player s gun!
Basically how I beat Moloch in Outriders. He has way too much health and deals way too much damage, so you turn the world tier down to one and obliterate him at the cost of one quest reward being low level, then turn it back up to get better gear again
For anyone interested, shameless plug: [email protected]
I just started playing Stellar Blade.
It's really nice to go through the checklist of which soulslike attributes games are now inheriting, and which they decide to throw away. SB happens to have a set that I really jive with. No "lose currency on death", clean and clear tutorials, but still has lots of secrets hidden around the world. And, it has an easy mode - which I'm not using, because as much as the bosses challenge and frustrate me, they're very satisfying to learn.
Hmmmmmmm what do you call a fish with no eye? A fsh
I see a lot of bait like this around, I also see a lot of double standards in gaming.
You want to feel alienation? But isn't this what you are already experiencing?
As for the bait: I don't need easy mode, I don't want easy mode; but it really isn't my decision.
I haven't played Eldin Ring, but if it's story driven, I would 100% support an easy mode for those that want the story and not a time sink.
I love that Nine Sols includes the option, although I haven't personally used it.
Kai nearly had to get therapy on stream to finish this game. If those guys could hear you they would be very upset!
I like turtles
Souls games just require patience, you can get better. It's the stupidly complex games I have trouble with. Games like BG3 are like taking freshmen chemistry again. Too much effort trying to figure out whats going on.
Jeeze SOMEONE wants attention!
One thing I've never understood is devs making a game that is 100% intended to be difficult to complete and then some people come along to said game that has essentially been advertised as a hard game and complaining it's too hard and an easy mode should be implemented for them.
Not every game needs an easy mode and I fully support the idea that devs shouldn't have to put in an easy mode because people think a game is too hard. Especially if it's a souls game. They've never been easy and hopefully never will be.
Not saying they should have to, just saying it would be better if it had it.
I don't really enjoy the way hardness is implemented in souls like games: long health bars just make the game take longer and make it boring for me, so I don't play them. That's OK if they don't want my money 🤷
I know there's also the argument that a lot of players wouldn't bother with the hard mode if easy was available and you're denying the players that experience if you implement easy mode, but I think it's a flawed argument because if you add any small incentive to play on hard mode such as a simple cosmetic reward that's enough to incentivise most players to do it.
It's wild how everyone loves to wax poetic about a mythical auteur developer that breaks from the industry mold to make something unique, but every time that actually happens a massive group of people comes out and says it needs to be like everything else. Pathologic 2 is another example that comes to mind.
It's gonna be very hard for videogames to ever take themselves seriously as an artistic medium if the majority of purchasers prefer committee-designed slop.
Hard games should be hard. Welcome to Tarkov
Its called cheating. Download some mods or something; the game is the game they made. If you want something different, there are plenty of options.
Edit: A question for those downvoting comments; where are the indie souls-likes with an easy mode? The market for a such a thing doesnt really exist as far as I can tell. On the other hand, if those games do exist and im just not aware of them, then for fucks sake just go play them and be happy. Im not out here saying Stardew Valley needs a permadeath mode, that would be childish.
Look, it's the dudes from the meme
Can't download mods on console. Any other advice for getting my $60 worth out of a game I can't refund anymore?
I dont play consoles for this reason
Hey, look, I found one of those posts where it OK to be sexist.
Edit: Saying "Hey, look, I found one of those posts where it OK to be sexist," in a room full of virtue signallers just to feel something.
le edit, the second: I guess based on the downvotes in the thread Lemmy.ml is refederated.
DAE male gamers are the real oppressed ones.
Gamers aren't oppressed, but they should be
Thanks for telling your truth.
remember, as a man on the internet you're not allowed to have opinions on something, even if they're formed by your own experiences and you clarify them as such. your opinions exist to be mocked and ridiculed for sport.
oh, but it's also a real mystery why far right incel groups have seen a massive upsurge in membership, no way to logically connect the two.
screenshot OP: "lol don't Gamers get so heated when you talk about difficulty modes is soulslikes"
the Gamer in question: "I SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO BE SEXIST FOR THIS!!!!!!!!"
also i don't think you know what virtue signaling means
Hey, look, this one is misrepresenting easily verifiable information.
