Why Dark Souls and Souls-like games need "Easy Mode" and "Difficulty Settings"!

[ImoTube]

Hi guys, I'm ImoTube and now I want make a constructive criticism on Souls-like.

I didn't really enjoy Dark Souls, I like his Story but I don't like the absence of Difficulty Options because I'm forced to play in Hard Mode in the first playthrough.
I know Online Mode is easier with summons, but I always play offline. (I don't talk about online)

Now I explain the reasons why Souls-like need Difficulty Options:

1) What are the difficulty options:
- They are options for select the difficulty, usually affect damage and HP, the effect of Difficulty Options can change in every game, but in some games these options are not effective for game design flaws.

2) Why Dark Souls is hard:
- Dark Souls is hard on purpose to make the world of this game more authentic and to give a sense of accomplishment when the player defeat hard bosses and challenges.

3) Why Souls-like games need Difficulty Options:
- Souls-like are not for everyone, usually these games are hard and are not suitable for beginners.
Every Player have different "Gaming Skills", "Reflexes", "Aim" (for FPS games), "Determination" and "attention".
Some players like me have difficulty to predict the next move of the "Bosses" and have difficulty to memorize the "Movesets". (Memorize the Movesets is very important for Dark Souls)
It's a shame when a videogame have a interesting lore, but you can't play it for the Difficulty.

5) How to implement Difficulty Options:
- Difficulty can be affected by multiple things: Damage, Enemies HP, Punishment for losing, Artificial Intelligence, Enemies Moveset, Negative Effects and Quantity of enemies.
For make a Easy Mode you need to do more than just reduce damage.

Conclusion:
"Souls-like" can at least have "3 Difficulty Options":
- "Classic Mode": The Classic Dark Souls Difficulty, with Smart Enemies, Normal Damage and enemies never take turns to fight you. (like Dark Souls)
- "Normal Mode": Like Classic Mode, but Damage is reduced and negative effects are less harmful.
- "Easy Mode": The Easy Difficulty, may contain reduced damage, Simplified AI, Different Movesets for Enemies, Slower Enemies, less penalty for death (for example, you lose half of your souls), and more resistance for negative effects.

It's fine have Hard Videogames, but the Hard Mode must be optional.
And If you want to make a Hard Videogame, you must pay a lot of attention on Gameplay Design:
You must fix "Floaty Combat Sistem", "Clunky Mechanics", "Invincibility Frames", "Damage" and "Player and Enemies Movesets".
And implement "Fluid Combat Sistem", "Defensive Mechanics" and obviously, "The Difficulty Options"!


Thank for reading this Discussion.
This is just a personal outburst, I don't have the intention to offend FromSoft and the Players, I don't want to offend anybody!
And please, share your opinion if you want it.

P.s: I don't put the Number 4 because brings misfortune, and "AI" means "Artificial Intelligence".


Edit: I see Bloodborne, but I don't play it.

Edit 2: I never use cheats and mods in Dark Souls.

Edit 3: I know Difficulty is not a flaw, but the absence of "Difficulty Options" is a flaw!

Edit 5: The "Friendly Phantoms", "New Game +" and "New Game +7" are not like Difficulty Settings.

Edit 6: Difficulty Settings are needed in the first Playthrough.

Edit 7: Thanks to share your opinions, but personally the my opinion remain the same, but I respect your opinions and I don't insult you for this.

Edit 8: I Really want The Easy Mode, that's why I insist to implement this.

Edit 9: Sorry if I make a long comment, but I write something important.

Edit 10: Easy Mode is not for Marketing!

Edit 11: I know Dark Souls 3 is the easiest Dark Souls, but this game still have some unfair enemies.

Edit 12: I think "Get Good" is not the answer for beat Dark Souls, but it's a my opinion.

Edit 13: I think Videogames shouldn't mock the players that play in Easy Mode, because is disrespectful.
I think everyone should have respect for every Players, even the Players of the Easy Mode.

[ImoTube]

Before you ask this, I tell you how many hours I played Dark Souls: (According with Steam)

- Dark Souls Remastered: 144 Hours
- Dark Souls 2 Scholar Of The First Sin: 122 Hours
- Dark Souls 3 with DLCs: 70 Hours

[BlackRose Bambi]

the problem with your proposal is that a difficulty mode would destroy the sense of accomplishment, "souls-like games" are known for there difficulty therefor adding a system witch allows you to bypass that would completely ruin its purpose. If you fail you try again and with practice comes progress

[AgentRuby]

Actually there are difficulty modes. The first Newgame being the easiest. When you get to about Newgame +4 I would say it starts to get very difficult. Even +3 would be a challenge. Unfortunately you don't get to choose but the first Newgame is the easiest so, what is there to choose?

[J4MESOX4D]

Dark Souls is all about learning the game, improving your personal skills and in-game character and then earning the satisfaction of progressing.

Too many games these days have difficulty settings which amount to very easy, easy and fairly easy so it is nice to experience a challenging series.

Not long ago I was intimidated by the prospect of games like these and I'd struggle with controls, my composure and managing thing like stamina and now I can happily beat bosses with my steering wheel.

[ImoTube]

Originally posted by Tempest:

the problem with your proposal is that a difficulty mode would destroy the sense of accomplishment, "souls-like games" are known for there difficulty therefor adding a system witch allows you to bypass that would completely ruin its purpose. If you fail you try again and with practice comes progress

But on the first playthrough I want play in Easy Mode.
I play on Hard Mode later.

[J4MESOX4D]

Originally posted by ImoTube:

Originally posted by Tempest:

the problem with your proposal is that a difficulty mode would destroy the sense of accomplishment, "souls-like games" are known for there difficulty therefor adding a system witch allows you to bypass that would completely ruin its purpose. If you fail you try again and with practice comes progress

But on the first playthrough I want play in Easy Mode.
I play on Hard Mode later.

The first play through is easy mode. If it's too hard then this game and series isn't for you.

[Sack Sleigher]

Originally posted by ImoTube:

Before you ask this, I tell you how many hours I played Dark Souls: (According with Steam)

- Dark Souls Remastered: 144 Hours
- Dark Souls 2 Scholar Of The First Sin: 122 Hours
- Dark Souls 3 with DLCs: 70 Hours

Man, I have not gotten to chew someone out to high hell for their flawed logic in a long time, so let your cruel friend Evil Bob Ross break it down for you small fry.

Dark Souls (♥♥♥♥ playing Remastered) 172 hours
Dark Souls 2, SotFS: 812 hours
Dark Souls 3: Well over 1500 hours between two accounts
Also have clocked hundreds of hours into Bloodborne, and even beat Demon's Souls.

Now, I'm a lad who loves a good challenge. Dark Souls exists because it is a challenging game. The whole point is to overcome the odds...after all, you're literally a human fighting gods. Cool, right?

Your proposal of an easy mode, however, defeats this.

Dark Souls is already an easy game in itself by trial and error, because memorizing a boss's moveset is not algebra. There is only so many things they can do, and they almost all have telegraphs. There's never been a moment where I struggled with something like Vordt, or Aldritch, or even bosses from the other games, because they were already designed fair. Implementing an easy mode would make an already pretty easy-once-you-know-it game just plain silly, not to mention all the jokes that circulate with those lousy game journalists wanting an easy mode for all the new hip games that're MEANT TO BE HARD.

Nobody plays games like Lisa the Painful, The Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon, Dead Cells, Dark Souls, or others to just breeze through it. They're naturally hard games, to challenge the player's skill, because the reward at the end of the day is saying "I beat it, fair and square". Hell, this game is even easier with phantoms, and on top of that the most broken items in the game aren't hard to get, and you can even SEQUENCE BREAK THE GAME (momentarily) if you're good enough. Yeah, fighting the Dancer of the Boreal Valley before fighting Vordt. That's a thing you can do, and I find it to be an outstanding representation of how Dark Souls offers only the hardest fights to the most willing. An easy mode defeats the purpose of what this game was literally made for: a hard fight.

You don't get into the Salty Spitoon by being a baby, bub. Try Weenie Hut Jr's next time.

[desecrated petals]

All the souls games have an easy mode, it's just based on your actions instead on a menu at the beginning of the game that makes enemies do more damage. Most players play in "easy mode" on their first playthrough by summoning phantoms, or leveling up way too much. Then, on subsequent playthroughs, maybe they don't summon, or don't level up as much.

Having a difficulty option that weakened enemy health or made the movesets simpler wouldn't help people improve, it just gives them more ways to brute force their way through bosses, and won't help them at all if they played higher difficulties. Players would get used to the simplified movesets and have to relearn the game entirely.

[Smaugi]

Yeah lets add easy mode so every moron can just say he completed dark souls. Or you know , just get good enough for it to be easy.

[Moh]

not every game is supposed to be for everyone. If you don't like the expirence the devs are giving you then just stop playing the game.

Originally posted by ImoTube:

P.s: I don't put the Number 4 because brings misfortune.

why do people believe in myths such as these?

[quacksouls]

I thought we covered this at:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/374320/discussions/0/3581993464536935497/

For more discussion on game design with respect to the Soulsborne series, see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SOg990vAyk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lnq44iwiVM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC3OuLU5XCw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLItPEpkK7A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV16ROaHVfo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UScsme8didI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np5PdpsfINA

[Esce]

You just need to understand that the "You died" is not like dieing in other games. In Dark Souls you almost do not loose progress after dieing, you can even negate that affect with some items.
Most enemies respawn, but not all and nearly all bosses get their life back. But many things remain made: items remain looted, souls remain spend, bosses remain killed and so on.
In other games your progress gets completly resets by loading an old save. Got killed in Skyrim or Witcher, you better saves in the last minutes are you played for nothing.

Dark Souls is punishing and not very nice when it comes to explaining things, but normally it gives you enough tipps if you keep your eyes open. And it is very predictable, like you should not be surprises at all after the first encounter.
The NG in Dark Souls is not hard, you just can not rush through it.

[ImoTube]

Thanks for share your opinions guys, I know you have different opinions, but I respect them, I just want to say something:

1) I know many of you don't want a "Easy Mode", but this can't ruin "Dark Souls" because the "Easy Mode" is optional.
If you want challenges, you can play on hard mode or play without summons.
You can avoid the Optional things.

2) I know FromSoft made Dark Souls hard on purpose, but have just 1 Option for Difficulty is not great, this bugs me.

3) I know Summons and leveling up make the game a little bit easier, but it's not enough for me.
I think reduced damage and simple AI make more effect on Difficulty, making the game easier.

5) I know not every games are for everyone, I'm not good on FPS games, but I'm good in Action, Racing and Adventure Games.

6) I Get Good in Dark Souls, I finish Dark Souls 1 and 2, I almost finish Dark Souls 3 but I should do the DLCs and the Final Boss to finish it.
I got pratice on Dark Souls but I still have so much to learn about the gameplay, and I struggle in the first playthrough and I'm have been stuck in some bosses, but I don't give up.

7) Dark Souls have a lot of potential and the lore and the bosses are memorable, but obviously Dark Souls have is flaws but can be improved, like other videogames, of course.

I don't Insult you for your opinions, but I want FromSoft being better.
I want improve the Souls-like really.
Thanks for reading this.

P.s: I hope Souls-like games being better in this decade.

[psheue]

Racing games need more guns, amirite?

[Esce]

Originally posted by ImoTube:

1) I know many of you don't want a "Easy Mode", but this can't ruin "Dark Souls" because the "Easy Mode" is optional.
If you want challenges, you can play on hard mode or play without summons.
You can avoid the Optional things.

But you can play with summons if you want an easier mode?
It is much easier to balance a game around one difficulty. If the player can change things something might not work, like kills cams or even boss fights in Skyrim for example, or throws the game balance of like AI buffs in Total War or armor scaling in Mount&Blade. DS provides a good expirience with its difficulty in NG, on NG+ it looks different and some things to not fit that good anymore. Some bosses become jokes while late game enemies might be stronger than the early bosses. This would also happen if you would provide the player with difficulty setting. It would destroy the feeling the atmosphere oft the game.

Originally posted by ImoTube:

2) I know FromSoft made Dark Souls hard on purpose, but have just 1 Option for Difficulty is not great, this bugs me.

Would you like to choose the NG cyle you want to start at, so the current NG becomes the easiest version?

Originally posted by ImoTube:

3) I know Summons and leveling up make the game a little bit easier, but it's not enough for me.
I think reduced damage and simple AI make more effect on Difficulty, making the game easier.

Look up guides and use items like resins, that should do the trick. Maybe a strong shield too.

4)?

Originally posted by ImoTube:

5) I know not every games are for everyone, I'm not good on FPS games, but I'm good in Action, Racing and Adventure Games.

Here are a lot of people willing to provide tipps for you, if you kindly ask. Or even help you beating the game. A "Can someone help me" is more accepted than a "this is too hard".

Originally posted by ImoTube:

6) I Get Good in Dark Souls, I finish Dark Souls 1 and 2, I almost finish Dark Souls 3 but I should do the DLCs and the Final Boss to finish it.
I got pratice on Dark Souls but I still have so much to learn about the gameplay, and I struggle in the first playthrough and I'm have been stuck in some bosses, but I don't give up.

What do you mean with stuck? Around 5 hours at the same boss or area?

Originally posted by ImoTube:

7) Dark Souls have a lot of potential and the lore and the bosses are memorable, but obviously Dark Souls have is flaws but can be improved, like other videogames, of course.

Many people might agree, but also not think the difficulty is one of the flaws.

Originally posted by ImoTube:

P.s: I hope Souls-like games being better in this decade.

Hopefully thay start to include the good ideas from previous games and not ignore them.