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Easy/Assist mode is a blessing. Every game should have it.
- Thread starter Swift_Gamer
- Start date
I'm of two minds about Easy difficulty modes but accessibility options are awfully undercooked in most games. Huge respect to Naughty Dog for what they did with TLOUPt.2.
I loved the assist options in Celeste, I properly hit a wall about 3/4 into it and had to rely on using the mode and it made me enjoy the game much more than just getting pissed off. I also really like the rewind feature in the Snes switch app, having never played them before I have no nolstagia for them and it takes so long to get back to where you are in most of the games, I love just being able to rewind. I wouldn't have bothered finishing super Metroid, link to the past and Super Mario World if it wasn't for the ease it took to correct mistakes.
option is always nice but what he point of living an easy experience ? Beating a game on easy is like you aren't even trying, go watch a movie if you can't stand dying some times on game that is usually easy for other people
Some games don't do a good job at difficulty spikes. I don't see why having trainers in PC games for example should bother anyone but easy modes should not apply to anything to do with online/trophies/achievements.
I agree to a lot of this. It's also my main gripe with Sekiro. It has no real way to mitigate the difficulty level.
Celeste is, of course, the premier way of taking it in the other direction, with it's many different ways of adjusting the game. It's essentially going back to the cheatcodes that were so prominent in old games. And let's face it. Most of us who are old enough to have played older games did use those regularly.
Sure. But of course, I remain consistent in saying that more options are *always* good, provided the developer can manage to include them within their budget constraints.
"I don't think the way enjoy people enjoy their media is valid, so I'm going to belittle them and tell them to get away from *my* hobby."
Jesus. Embarrassing.
On PC you can curate your gaming experience however you like thanks to Cheats, Trainers and Save Editors. There's virtually no such flexibility on modern consoles unless you crack them and most people understandably don't want to deal with the hassle of doing that. If developers don't want to implement difficulty modes, that's fine but there should be a way to get around that on consoles like you can on PC.
lol what! 99% of games already have an easy mode that is already to easy, some people just want a scenario mode time of difficulty when they can die and smash everything like what's the point ?
I agree! If I'm having fun with the challenge then I keep the challenge, but if I'm not and it's just wasting my time then I'd rather go easy and skip to the next fun bits.
You know, Restaurants, Theaters, etc., are all required to provide these type of options to make services accommodating. Books have braille and audio book options. And yet, trying to discuss about how another optional form of entertainment is not entitled to these sort of things, when the rest of the non-mandatory entertainment industry either is or makes efforts to provide such options, is extremely ablest and, quite frankly? Disgusting. You're effectively saying people like me don't matter, we should just go elsewhere.
Well guess what: Talking, bringing attention, and making efforts to discuss and get these type of changes done. You're the problem, not us.
Man why don't people play games with pins attached and digging into every fingertip? What's the point of living an easy experience?
Difficulty isn't solely for people who want to breeze through (which regardless, is entirely valid).
Just don´t play those kind of games if you don´t feel good about finally beating a boss. or stop playing games in general because games are all about wasting time anyways. "difficulty spikes are not good design" is also questionable, especially for people liking a challenge.
and no, not every game needs an easy mode. for an "enthusiast forum" this topic surely appears often and the discussion is always the same, people chiming in that not every game needs an easy mode and people saying "yeah, more options are always good" when it is bullshit because when you want players to have a fist pumping moment of success you need to have one difficulty where you tune the game around and not having the choice.
thats what people love about the Souls games, this series would have never got its reputation with an easy mode. besides that, it is no rocket science to learn the game if someone really wants to play it, there are no obscure button combinations to learn, you just need to observe and react to succeed. and you need to see dying as learning instead of punishment or wasting time.(but thats true for every game)
assist modes is a different topic though.
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So basically, you're telling people with disabilities, like me, we don't matter that we want more accessibility options.
Okay, gotcha.
Difficulty and Assist Modes are both accessibility options. You cannot say one or the other. Difficulty options, at their roots, were made for accessibility. Same story with Assist mode.
You literally do not get to tell disabled people this. Sorry.
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You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
You didn't grow.
You didn't improve.
You took a shortcut and gained nothing.
You experienced a hollow victory. Nothing was risked and nothing was gained.
It's sad that you don't know the difference
This. If the creators want to make a hard game then they should make that.
Things like the options we seen in TLOU2 are great and we should see more of that, but not every game needs an actual "easy mode"
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I don't understand this. If anything, kids can deal with a lot harder games than adults if given the chance. I didn't know anyone my age back then that said NES games were too hard.
Not you specifically, but so many people want an easy option for their kids. I don't think they need it. They're better than that.
(obviously not talking about a kid with disabilities)
this is so true! failing is part of the game and the reason you feel so good when you finally pass the damn thing.
Definitely and without being an ass, kids have something else to do at 4y old than playing a video game.
Seriously, difficulty options are LITERALLY accessibility options. They NEED to be there. Why do you guys keep trying to hand wave us, disabled users, by saying this stuff. Creators/Developers need to make these options available for users like us, similar to how the general entertainment industry has done as a whole.
Just. STOP. WITH. THESE. TYPE. OF. COMMENTS.
I... I really hope you know you're responding to a meme that was from a legit serious take by someone and ridiculed like it should've. The above user was posting it (likely) in response to people who believe against accessibility options.
Some people have disabilities and any options a game can include which enables them to enjoy the game is a great thing. You never even have to look at those options if you don't want to but there is absolutely no reason to not include them, unless you believe that people with disabilities shouldn't have the option to enjoy a game even if it's not the exact way the developer intended?
Nah only talking about people that can do everything perfectly but don't by laziness or because they can't handle to die some times, I'm glad that people with disabilities can enjoy the same stuff as me and hope accessibility will improve for them, especially controllers.
I'm sorry but in this case, this is true, some people are more competitive than others and loves pushing themselves at their limit because they know how satisfying it can be when the gain are showing.
Game development needs to be more varied. That means you have lgbtq+ people on your team, you have PoC on your team, you have more women on your team, you have people with disablities in your team and so on.
We don't get many options and reflected game because game development is still overwhelmingly white (and straight) in a lot of cases.
We don't get many options and reflected game because game development is still overwhelmingly white (and straight) in a lot of cases.
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The comment was literally disparaging users who make use of re-wind and save stating, which includes further more than what the above meme says (and only really the phrase that took off because it was absolutely ridiculous and ablest as fuck).. It reeks of ableism, and quite frankly? No, no it's not true.
Also, PLEASE do not call gamers lazy for actually wanting options. Some gamers legit just don't have time, because of life and other reasons, and just want to enjoy the game on a mode that they find enjoyable. While this is a different issue compared to what I deal with, it still serves as an accessibility option for users who don't have time, and honestly? Even if that wasn't the case, I'd never call them lazy.
People enjoy games the way they want to play it. So please go off on this.
It really should be this, but apparently some users in THIS VERY THREAD will argue against this. It's absolutely infuriating.
No, but...you're basically agreeing to the equivalent of the NAVY SEAL shitpost or FFXIII crossplatform meme shitpost. it ain't a good look.
That's the thing, for a good chunk of titles, we can't because the options aren't there. And when we push for the options, the second those options include gameplay changes, easy modes, difficulty sliders, etc. we get shouted down, told to 'git gud', told to leave the hobby/community, or that we can't criticise the exclusion of options because 'artistic intent'. Difficulty is a sliding scale, even among the able bodied. And what you might find easy, others may find insurmountable and vice versa, for example, people trying 3D video games later in life struggling with analogue stick controls which is why you'll see a lot of people recommend in the 'get your wife into gaming' threads that 2D games are recommended because of that. That's why options should be available to scale both upwards AND downwards, so that people can actually find the difficulty that gives them, to quote another poster, " a fist pumping moment of success".
I have disabilities, it doesn't mean I don't want to engage in something difficult. Just my difficult is a different threshold than yours
Yeah, all games should budget for difficulty/accessibility options. All the arguments I've heard against implementing these essentially boil down to gatekeeping.
He's 4... And games were a lot easier in structure back on NES, dual stick 3D movement and camera is not as easy as you think, but the assists makes it possible for him to actually enjoy the game, he can beat the bosses all by himself since he can regain hearts by standing still.
My 7 yo plays on the regular mode.
I don't relate to the OP at all. Video games present a specific set of objectives and obstacles for me to complete. Overcoming them is the entire point.
Also the boldness of saying a boss you can't beat is badly designed is really offputting and bizarre. As is accusing an increase in difficulty being "bad game designs." It sounds like you're saying if game progression is not spoon fed to you then the game is a bad. Throwing game designers and playtesters under the bus because you can't beat a boss reads like trolling. It's very weird.
If someone plays their games like this then that's fine, but I don't think that qualifies someone to be making value judgments on game design and game quality as a result. Cheats and modifiers can make a game a lot of fun (Tony Hawk and GoldenEye come to mind). I also replay games on easy with modifiers to get trophies (hello TLoU Pt II). But the notion that games are bad because they are not easy is alienating to me.
Also the boldness of saying a boss you can't beat is badly designed is really offputting and bizarre. As is accusing an increase in difficulty being "bad game designs." It sounds like you're saying if game progression is not spoon fed to you then the game is a bad. Throwing game designers and playtesters under the bus because you can't beat a boss reads like trolling. It's very weird.
If someone plays their games like this then that's fine, but I don't think that qualifies someone to be making value judgments on game design and game quality as a result. Cheats and modifiers can make a game a lot of fun (Tony Hawk and GoldenEye come to mind). I also replay games on easy with modifiers to get trophies (hello TLoU Pt II). But the notion that games are bad because they are not easy is alienating to me.
This is objectively false. Difficulty spikes are absolutely a valid tool in a designer's toolbox - Most genres of games, at their core, rely on a flow of relaxation and stress
Still, all games which do not have mastery as the first pillar should offer easy modes - games explicitly about getting better at the game should tread the field of lowering difficulty with extreme care, if they can at all (pvp games, for obvious reasons, actually can't)
On a related note, especially dev-wise, accessibility doesn't really mesh *that* much with difficulty - Or rather, it does, but the tweaks needed are generally different from the "number" tweak that mostly makes up easy modes - it's more about different control and display modes, relaxing (or giving a way to bypass) timing checks, and really a variety of things - "number tweak" difficulty can have an impact on accessibility for disabled persons, but it's nowhere near the major point of that conversation
Which is stupid, I'll never say something like "Git Gud" at someone that can't play a game because of it's disability or else, I'm for more accessibility in general for people like you and I hope publishers, developers will not disappointed as TloU2 shows how amazing their options are.
I'm just talking about people that are perfectly capable of playing the game at it's full potential but are crying because they can't beat X boss because they find it too difficult in easy mode and wish they could roll on him for no reason instead of learning the pattern, getting better at using all the gameplay at their hand and eventually getting better at the game.
An easy or assist mode existing makes a game more accessible for a lot of people. What is bad about that? What is the downside of more options existing for someone that wants to play on hard mode? The hard option is still there, it is not taken away from you. So just play that and ignore easy if you don't want it.
I guess I was also thinking of my friends' kid who played Transformers Devastation (well) on hard when he was 5. Seriously, they deserve more credit.
Apparently it's threatening to gamers or something, idfk. It's absolutely bizarre. But the handwaving in these damn threads is getting fucking annoying.
Can you give some examples of badly designed bosses? I'm genuinely interested :).
What is easy to you might be more challenging to someone else.
"Well, you know, this resturant shouldn't have a ramp. The chef founded it with the intent of being accessible through stairs, and having a ramp completely deviates the chef's meaning and will completely change how the food tastes and how it is served. The ramp wouldn't work, even if there are people who might simply not be able to go to the restaurant because they can't go through the stairs."
Honestly, I don't end up thinking about the difficulty or the mods or whatever that other people have beaten the game at, because, well...that's their game. There were reasons for the choices they chose and if it's literally 'I can't be assed' then, that's still valid. Someone else playing on a different difficulty or set of options or whatever, it doesn't impact my game and my experience with it because well, that's their experience, and mine is mine. It's not like them choosing to do that has their character come charging in on my screen to oneshot something, after all.
It's LITERALLY this and yet it's so damn hard for people to UNDERSTAND this.
I played through Celeste in Assist Mode, because not only do I suck majorly at 2D platformers to a point where it just isn't fun for me, but my hands also cramp up very easily & it was delightful. And the story/message of the game didn't get lost just because I had an easier time either. It still made me cry a lot.