I love hearing about unique takes on game mechanics. Someone recently convinced me that limited inventories are kind of abused currently and that unlimited inventory systems would give more player choices.
I love hearing about unique takes on game mechanics. Someone recently convinced me that limited inventories are kind of abused currently and that unlimited inventory systems would give more player choices.
Hate:
-Real Time Timers: Think FF13 Lightning Returns. It doesn’t matter how many mechanics there are to alleviate the pressure, they make me so stressed out that I don’t enjoy playing the actual game.
-Unrepairable Durability Mechanics: I mean things like Breath of the Wild where you can use a weapon X times before it breaks with no way to repair it. I end up never wanting to use “my good weapon” and tryto beat entire games with a 2x4. If I can go to a vendor and repair my gear, I don’t mind as much.
-Superhard Games without difficulty options. Looking at you Soulsborne games; I appreciate that some people like a challenge, but I really think that whole genre would only benefit from giving the player options. I have noticed that seems to be getting more common though.
Love:
-Meaningful Choices: Not two dialogue options with the same end result, but things that shape either story or gameplay. This could be a major branching story choice OR something like a talent tree.
-Base Building: I like build base. It doesn’t have to be a city builder or strategy game (Though I absolutely love those), but I am a sucker for games including any degree of base building. It’s my favourite part of the XCom games as an example. Bonus if I have to make choices about my base, see previous point.
careful, you might alert the horde with a take like that. (i do agree tho)
I am kind of used to sometimes poking the bear on this one in particular. It’s what I personally dislike though, I don’t necessarily think they are badly designed. I totally get some people absolutely love that kind of thing in games, and I am glad they have games that scratch that itch. It’s just an instant turn-off for me though.
That said, I have never quite understood the people vehemently opposed to having a difficulty slider though; just keep it on hard and it’s literally no different.
Yeah I get why people like hard games too! It’s just baffling that so many are so opposed to others wanting to play on easy. I think maybe for these people they like to be “different” and be fans of something that’s “different,” in that it doesn’t have “medium” or “easy” difficulties. They want to feel like they’re part of a special club.
I think adding difficulty options is fine but the accessibility of difficulty is risky because lowering difficulty is so enticing to the average person. I love souls games but I admittedly, in games where I can change difficulty on the fly, swap the difficulty to quickly move forward if I hit a wall. On the other hand, I spent 8 hours fighting the Guardian Ape in Sekiro and beating them is my favorite gaming experience of the last 5 years. I am pro accessibility but there should be some disadvantages to doing so (ironic, less accessible accessibility options). The easy one is making them a one-chance option. For example, moving your difficulty down from hard to normal, forces you to play the rest of the game at normal (Dragon Quest XI does this). There are other considerations that can be done, hidden difficulty that gives concessions (Crash Bandicoot, RE4) or attempt to estimate a flexible difficulty.
I think with difficulty there’s always going to be a question of “can we make this easier”.
I think the obvious query is “why should I be punished because you can’t hold back your urge to decrease the difficulty” but the reply could easily be “why should Devs do more work so you can play a game not aimed at you?”
Tl;dr: Shits complicated, cheat engine is always an option for the time being. People who mock you are losers.
There are online modes in most of those games, besides Sekiro, that difficulty options would have an effect on, particularly invasions. Fortunately, invasions have been getting scaled back as time goes on, and the games have gotten easier in general, so we might converge on a game with difficulty options.
I am not the expert on the genre by any means, but would limiting invasions to “only other people on the same difficulty” just segregate the player base too much?
Any additional reason you have to divide your matchmaking pool will divide it exponentially, so yes.
If Dark Souls had easier difficulties, they wouldn’t have the reputation they do. People would turn down the difficulty instead of learning the bosses and how to beat them.
The games aren’t as hard as people make them out to be. They just force you to adjust and learn to play in control. There’s a reason people can play them with all kinds of goofy input options, though. If you pay attention to what enemies do and don’t blindly spam attack every second, they’re all beatable
I have definitely heard that argument, and I understand it, but at the same time there are a good number of us who would just simply not play the game then.
I realise it is up to the devs who they want to make their game for, and I am probably not their target audience, but banging my head against a wall until I get through something doesn’t give me any kind of feeling of triumph when I manage it. I just feel frustrated. Whereas the soulslike games I have played where I could turn the difficulty down, I enjoyed way more.
Which is hilarious because people ‘turn down the difficulty’ constantly by using summons or ‘jolly cooperation’ all the time in the games and don’t seem to differentiate that from a difficulty option.
But some people play them with just a Dance pad. Doesn’t that, by your logic, mean they are too easy? Shouldn’t they be even harder? Maybe they’d be even more famous. The point is that difficulty is relative, therefore there OBJECTIVELY isn’t a correct difficulty. You’re just lucky enough to fit into their “difficulty demographic”.
But it’s moot anyway. Games with easy modes will still get played with high difficulty by people that actually enjoy it. Your own enjoyment of a game should not depend on other peoples difficulty levels.
I’ll be one of the “horde” (albeit more tame) but personally I don’t think developers should make their games easier or change their vision in order to broaden its audience. It kinda reminds me of the “rated R” debate. Certain people want movies like Oppenheimer to be rated PG-13 over being rated R so it can reach a bigger audience. But I don’t think Nolan should be changing his vision of the movie just so it sells better
Your comparison doesn’t make a whole lot of sense though? Movies can’t be rated PG-13 and R at the same time, but games can have easy and hard difficulty levels at the same time. The developers don’t have to “change the vision,” they can just put a little tooltip that says hard is “as it was intended to be played” or something like that. I’ve played plenty of other games that did that.
I’m not out here wanting the game to “sell better,” I’m here wanting to enjoy the handcrafted and detailed story and setting without having to worry too much about it being difficult. I’m sorry for not being interested in the challenge?
There’s pros and cons to having a single standard difficulty. But anyway, you can use mods/editors to make the souls games (or any game for that matter) much easier.
I’m torn on this… I love playing Dark Souls 1/2/3/etc for the world and the enemies and exploring and overcoming the difficulties and finding cool gear and weapons and trying out new builds.
But I also absolutely hate pretty much every single boss fight in the games.