Should games have a "Very Easy" mode?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

What annoys me about Uncharted games (a series I otherwise massively enjoy) is what Quom said. Let's take Uncharted 3 as an example. You sneak into a building. No-one sees you enter. You sneak down into a big well. No-one sees you enter. You do your stuff down the well, get ready to go back up again and suddenly BAM! Smoke cannisters, heavy weapon enemies, wave after wave of tough baddies. It doesn't make sense.

It's an example of a game being cheap and that kills everything that such games strive to build. Games pulling a cheap move is probably the thing that annoys me the most.

It doesn't feel like an achievement though. I want to know that I've overcome all the obstacles before I see the credits.

Take Densha de Go (the train driving game). You can complete it on easy and you get the end credits. Complete it on hard and you get the proper full credits with ending video.

There should certainly be rewards for those who complete the game on tougher levels, but those who just want the story probably wouldn't mind so much missing out on the ending bonuses in order to play through the story.

[Skummy]

Hammy, Streets Of Rage 3 was good for that, with a bunch of alternate endings depending on what difficulty you completed it on.

[Your Mom]

I dont like that idea. I mean I am wanting to finish the game because of the story and now I don't get the good story?

[naiwf]

Some RPGs have "good endings", "bad endings" and "true endings" or individual character endings. And to make matters worse, completionists will need to get all of them in order to get the trophies/achievements that come with them. It's quite possibly the cheapest way there is to extend the life of a game.

[Maxx]

They totally should, that way Ruki can finally play Dark Souls.

[Ruki]

They totally should, that way Ruki can finally play Dark Souls.

[TKz]

I don't think it's really viable at all for RPGs. I mean, half the point of these games is that they're as easy or hard as you want them to be, a lot of the time. Having trouble with a boss? Well, you could always spend an hour leveling to bring yourself to his level, or check out some suggestions for strategies. No matter how good the story is, the crux of those games is the battle system. Especially when you're expecting them to lesser the difficulty by adding multiple levels of difficulty to hundreds of different enemies and modify the system as a whole, just to compensate for people that don't want to put in the extra hours intended to level up.

Personally, I don't mind there being an easy mode for games like Uncharted and the like. But the problem with catering more towards the casual audience is that you get a lot of developers not even bother to add any challenge at all any more. And that's fine for those of you who don't like the challenge, but where does that leave those of us that do? There's a reason that rouge-like games are becoming popular again, because most triple A titles have been dumbed down to the point that it's boringly easy to beat them. Half the time, you can't even start the game on Hard difficulty, you have to beat Normal first! It's why games like the new DmC are being shit on. Even on hard mode, you can get SSS Rank on bosses with little to no difficulty. You'd cry yourself to sleep trying to do that on the first ones... which, yeah, frustrating, but that's the challenge. It's all the more enjoyable to beat them if you can on the hardest. I think to an extent, you have to juggle between the original intended vision for the games difficulty and compromising it to an extent for the more casual fans, But there's a limit to that, you can't expect developers to add a very easy mode to certain games, when it's compromising what they wanted to do in the first place.

[Your Mom]

How hard would it be to say have enemies do half damage? Usually if I can take a few hits first I can get the hang of things

[naiwf]

Even if you make all of the enemies weaker, at some point later on the challenge is to beat certain bosses to complete the game. I understand getting frustrated when the difficulty spikes up substantially, but as TKz said in most games you can just get stronger and come back and thump the person who was an obstacle by gaining a couple of levels. I think the problem happens when people want to blow through every enemy throughout the game with as few encounters as possible just so they can see how the story turns out.

[Mick]

Definitely. As much as "hardcore gamers" shit on it, I love that recent Nintendo games have a "guide" where, if you die on the same level multiple times, you get the option of letting a CPU character go through the level for you. You can still jump in and take control at any point. There's nothing forcing you to do it, it's just an option.

For most games, yes. For RPGs and Visual Novels, no

Why not? I can see it being an issue for some games that involve a lot of puzzles and detective work, as you'd end up having to either cut out a bunch of puzzles, or write a whole different set for different difficulty settings, but Curse Of Monkey Island managed it with Normal and "Mega Monkey" mode. I don't see why the majority of RPGs couldn't benefit from an easier gameplay setting.

Ultimately, video games aren't supposed to be a means of proving your superiority by "beating" something your friends couldn't. They're supposed to be fun. And anything that makes a game more fun is fine by me.

Dara O'Brien had a bit on Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe a few years back, where he said something that stuck with me. You fork out between £30 and £50, potentially, on a new game. But if you can't get past a boss halfway through, you're missing out on half of what you've paid for. No other media does that.

You don't get halfway through a book on your Kindle only to find that your access to the next chapter is restricted unless you can answer a series of questions to prove that you understand the themes of the book so far.

Definitely. As much as "hardcore gamers" shit on it, I love that recent Nintendo games have a "guide" where, if you die on the same level multiple times, you get the option of letting a CPU character go through the level for you. You can still jump in and take control at any point. There's nothing forcing you to do it, it's just an option.

For most games, yes. For RPGs and Visual Novels, no

Why not? I can see it being an issue for some games that involve a lot of puzzles and detective work, as you'd end up having to either cut out a bunch of puzzles, or write a whole different set for different difficulty settings, but Curse Of Monkey Island managed it with Normal and "Mega Monkey" mode. I don't see why the majority of RPGs couldn't benefit from an easier gameplay setting.

Ultimately, video games aren't supposed to be a means of proving your superiority by "beating" something your friends couldn't. They're supposed to be fun. And anything that makes a game more fun is fine by me.

Dara O'Brien had a bit on Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe a few years back, where he said something that stuck with me. You fork out between £30 and £50, potentially, on a new game. But if you can't get past a boss halfway through, you're missing out on half of what you've paid for. No other media does that.

You don't get halfway through a book on your Kindle only to find that your access to the next chapter is restricted unless you can answer a series of questions to prove that you understand the themes of the book so far.

As far as the difficulty in RPGs goes, I suppose some of it is the old school gamer in me.

The games I'm thinking about are mainly restricted to 8-bit and 16-bit; those are what I grew up on, I enjoyed them thoroughly and whatnot, but they also had a level of difficulty in them that made the challenge part of the fun. I'm not talking about stupid shit that's thrown in to fuck with you for the sake of fucking with you, I mean games that take a bit of thinking other then spamming a super spell or using some crazy gear setup at max levels (Final Fantasy VI, I'm looking at you with your 'lol, Ultima-Quick-Ultima-Ultima-Ultima' and your Offering+Genji Gloves+Two Atma Weapons at level 99 bullshit); I mean shit where you have to use some common sense.

Dragon Quest III is a good example. Early on, you have to fight a dude named Kandar and his henchmen; it's the first true boss fight of the game. Kandar is unique from most monsters because his health regenerates during the fight; aside from doing a stupid amount of grinding to simply win by brute force, you have to be tactful in this fight, using proper buffs and debuffs if you want to have a chance. That's what I mean. Otherwise, what's the fight when you just have to beat the living shit out him?

And as far as Visual Novels go, it's the whole Good End/Bad End thing. One of my favorites is Fate/Stay Night. What's the fun in the game if I don't see the incredible variety of ways that making the wrong choice bites me in the ass? What's the point if I have some thing highlighting the correct choice, or the game simply advances without me having to make a choice at all?

[Quom]

RPGs aren't video games in the traditional sense. They're like a more visual interactive board game. Which to me makes them a totally different beast to discussing video games. There is no requirement to play the same level of Mario 15 times until you're strong enough to face the next level.

[zero]

Even if you make all of the enemies weaker, at some point later on the challenge is to beat certain bosses to complete the game. I understand getting frustrated when the difficulty spikes up substantially, but as TKz said in most games you can just get stronger and come back and thump the person who was an obstacle by gaining a couple of levels. I think the problem happens when people want to blow through every enemy throughout the game with as few encounters as possible just so they can see how the story turns out.

And what's wrong with that? They paid for it, the option should be there for them to do whatever the hell they want with it. To Skummy's earlier point, if I buy a movie on DVD and want to fast-forward to the last five minutes, I can. Who cares how other people play?

Some people just want the challenge as a badge.

Those people are dumb and their badge is meaningless. It's fine to want a challenge, but to demand that a game can't have a (x-thing) because nerds will get pissed is precisely why I hate the video game industry.

[Skummy]

RPGs aren't video games in the traditional sense. They're like a more visual interactive board game. Which to me makes them a totally different beast to discussing video games. There is no requirement to play the same level of Mario 15 times until you're strong enough to face the next level.

I'd say this is more a failing of specific games within the genre (increasingly so), rather than a failing of the genre as a whole. There are plenty of solid RPGs that don't rely on grinding.

I don't see how it's cheap for a game to have multiple endings. Yes, you can argue that it's trying to "force" you to replay the game, but more often than not these days, it's because the game has multiple story options. If I make vastly different decisions on one playthrough compared to another, I'd be pissed if the end result was always the same. That's the kind of illusion of choice bullshit that pisses me off about Final Fantasy games these days.

[TKz]

I think at some point, when playing RPGs, eventually there comes a point where if you're not willing to put in some time to level and you're not enjoying the battle system enough to go through with a boss you're stuck on, then it might be time to consider a different game, or even a different genre. Story or not, that's kind of the whole point of an RPG. I'm having my most fun in one when I'm figuring out the best configuration for a boss that can't be beaten otherwise, working to get the right materials to make new weapons and so on.

[TKz]

Even if you make all of the enemies weaker, at some point later on the challenge is to beat certain bosses to complete the game. I understand getting frustrated when the difficulty spikes up substantially, but as TKz said in most games you can just get stronger and come back and thump the person who was an obstacle by gaining a couple of levels. I think the problem happens when people want to blow through every enemy throughout the game with as few encounters as possible just so they can see how the story turns out.

And what's wrong with that? They paid for it, the option should be there for them to do whatever the hell they want with it. To Skummy's earlier point, if I buy a movie on DVD and want to fast-forward to the last five minutes, I can. Who cares how other people play?

Some people just want the challenge as a badge.

Those people are dumb and their badge is meaningless. It's fine to want a challenge, but to demand that a game can't have a (x-thing) because nerds will get pissed is precisely why I hate the video game industry.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the developer didn't go through hundreds of hours of coding and designing the game and all of it's levels just so people who get frustrated with it easily can skip all of it.

And no one's demanding that a game can't have an easy mode because they want games to be challenging? The concern is that catering to that specific audience results in then alienating the other audience. The worry, which is a real one, as evidenced by the new DmC, is that once you start catering to that audience, anyone that enjoys a challenge is then the ones not able to get it. Like the example I gave, some games don't even let you play through on harder difficulties the first time through. It's kind of unfair to say, "I can complain that games are too hard, but you can't complain that they're too easy."

And to your point, Skummy. That's true, but I wouldn't call it the failings of the game in a lot of cases. Some games are just made with the intention that you should have to grind. That's not a failing, that's just catering to the audience that enjoys grinding. Hell, MMORPGs are pretty much nothing but this. If you're playing an MMO and you don't like grinding, then you can't say they should change it because you don't like one of the bigger aspects of it. Sure it's not for everyone, but I don't like puzzle games, I can't really complain that they're too hard and it's not fun and I don't get it just because it's not aimed at me.

[naiwf]

Even if you make all of the enemies weaker, at some point later on the challenge is to beat certain bosses to complete the game. I understand getting frustrated when the difficulty spikes up substantially, but as TKz said in most games you can just get stronger and come back and thump the person who was an obstacle by gaining a couple of levels. I think the problem happens when people want to blow through every enemy throughout the game with as few encounters as possible just so they can see how the story turns out.

And what's wrong with that? They paid for it, the option should be there for them to do whatever the hell they want with it. To Skummy's earlier point, if I buy a movie on DVD and want to fast-forward to the last five minutes, I can. Who cares how other people play?

Some people just want the challenge as a badge.

Those people are dumb and their badge is meaningless. It's fine to want a challenge, but to demand that a game can't have a (x-thing) because nerds will get pissed is precisely why I hate the video game industry.

There's nothing wrong with people playing games how they want to. But if there is only one difficulty option, it is kind of silly to make games so simple that everyone can beat the game with minimal effort. If you just want to see a story play out then there are plenty of other ways of getting what you want in another genre of games or a different entertainment medium. Some games are meant to be lengthy and challenging, others aren't. There are some genres that churn out great games that I'll never play because the cornerstones of the genre are things I can't be bothered with. I'm not talking about punitive difficulty just for the sake of it. I'm just saying that wanting games to play themselves when it gets too hard for some gamers is asking a bit much.

[Bobfoc]

Even if you make all of the enemies weaker, at some point later on the challenge is to beat certain bosses to complete the game. I understand getting frustrated when the difficulty spikes up substantially, but as TKz said in most games you can just get stronger and come back and thump the person who was an obstacle by gaining a couple of levels. I think the problem happens when people want to blow through every enemy throughout the game with as few encounters as possible just so they can see how the story turns out.

And what's wrong with that? They paid for it, the option should be there for them to do whatever the hell they want with it. To Skummy's earlier point, if I buy a movie on DVD and want to fast-forward to the last five minutes, I can. Who cares how other people play?

Some people just want the challenge as a badge.

Those people are dumb and their badge is meaningless. It's fine to want a challenge, but to demand that a game can't have a (x-thing) because nerds will get pissed is precisely why I hate the video game industry.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the developer didn't go through hundreds of hours of coding and designing the game and all of it's levels just so people who get frustrated with it easily can skip all of it.

And no one's demanding that a game can't have an easy mode because they want games to be challenging? The concern is that catering to that specific audience results in then alienating the other audience. It's kind of unfair to say, "I can complain that games are too hard, but you can't complain that they're too easy."

That's why I'd say it would be ideal for as many games as possible to have a difficulty setting easy enough for anyone to handle and a hard enough setting to challenge those who enjoy a tough experience. I understand that it's much more difficult to implement that kind of system in, say, a platformer, but I can't see many reasons why it shouldn't be a standard practice in RPGs, action games and shooters, for example. I suppose you could argue that tinkering with multiple difficulty modes could prolong a game's development cycle, especially if you're talking about a small indie studio, but if it's just a case of tweaking enemy strength or stamina, I doubt it would be much of an issue.

[TKz]

I'd say you have it totally the wrong way around with RPGs and platformers. You can easily reduce the difficulty of a platformer - half the number of enemies, more lives and I dunno, add more checkpoints. The only problem is if you suck at jumping puzzles, which, again, if you suck at jumping puzzles and you're playing a platformer, I don't think you can really complain that it's too hard. You're just playing a type of game that you're not very good at. I don't play fighting games and complain that the combos are too hard to pull off, because I know they're not, it's just not something I'm very good at. RPGs on the other hand, if you're cutting the enemies stats in half, suddenly the game is just you tapping X to keep attacking. That's kind of defeating the whole point of the battle system. Again it comes back to that idea that if you're playing a certain genre you're not very good at, maybe it doesn't need to be easier, maybe it's just not for you.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

Man I am old. Im remembering a time when RPG's were the ONLY games you could play past pong.

[Quom]

Again no issue with hard mechanics. Huge issue when you need to work out what the developer had in mind. It's why play testing is so important. I have no issue when a game is difficult but I know what needs doing. I hate it when the design fails and I'm left floundering with no idea of what to do next.

I don't like grinding as a mechanic. It's why I don't play RPGs. To me it makes no sense, in real life you don't keep killing the same enemy to further develop a skill, especially not once you are beyond that challenge.