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Should From Software try to explore dynamic difficulty in future games?
- Thread starter ItWasMeantToBe19
- Start date
They're fine the way they are, not only that, they sell extremely well the way they are. Lots of people clearly like the design philosophy behind these games.
The fact that the games aren't tailored for everybody is one of the reasons they're so good, some people just need to accept that not every game is for every person.
The fact that the games aren't tailored for everybody is one of the reasons they're so good, some people just need to accept that not every game is for every person.
Their tutorial and systems are actually very forgiving. That and the stealth kills, my current playthtough is actually pretty easy.
Yep. As long as it's a toggle you can flip on and off.
Accessibility is a good thing.
And this will always be the answer.
Accessibility is a good thing.
And this will always be the answer.
I love the all of the soulsbornekiros out there, but I'm fine with them adding more accessibility options. Honestly, just lock some cool cosmetics behind playing it on the harder difficulty and even the people who weirdly say "no difficulty options in souls games!" would probably be chill about it.
I d say no. Aside from better balancing due to having one difficulty, from doesnt only decide how a boss looks or attacks,but also how scary he is in terms of difficulty. Difficulty is a part of their vision and id say that ishin ashina would never been praised for its skillfull challenge if we had dynamic difficulty
Guardian Ape made you rage? I'm weird because that was one of the easiest fights IMO but goddamn headless fucked my shit up.
Sekiro has multiple difficulties. Hard and WTF (harder) lol. TBH I'm glad I couldn't lower the difficulty because beating the final boss rewarded me with a feeling I haven't had since I beat Atheon in D1. Took 100s of tries and several days but goddamn it felt good.
I do think they could afford to do it like Sekiro again but maybe lower the normal difficulty a bit lol. And if people want a real challenge they can enable hard mode and get unique rewards.
I'm not joking when I say the anger I felt fighting Guardian Ape weakened my immune system and made me sick for a week and a half, which in turn made me even WORSE at beating him by fucking up my response time. It sucked. If it were a Souls game I would've never gotten to that rage point because I would've just said fuck it and ground out some levels or called in a co-op partner.
Two weeks later when I finally beat him I wasn't even happy, I was just glad it was over. That was unfortunately a running theme for me and Sekiro - I was almost never happy when I beat a boss, I was just relieved I never have to fight them again.
i don't think they make hard games, they're just punishing your mistakes. I love this, but if people are really struggling then.. fine, have your lowered difficulty setting.
No, they are loved because of how consistent they are. I want to feel like when I beat something I really beat it. I always notice when a game is scaling up or down with me and it's infuriating. I don't want a "hard core" mode because I do not care about ball bustingly hard games. The whole reason I love dark souls is because it showed me a game can be challenging without just constantly trying to be hard all the time. The games are consistent in that they try to ensure everything is real and authentic and fair. Are they perfect? No, but that's the general guiding philosophy, and if you spend time learning the rules and using your brain, you'll be rewarded whether you're physically as good at pushing buttons and joysticks as anyone else or not.
One reason a lot of people felt put of by dark souls 2 is it felt like it broke that contract a number of times. You'd see a trap coming but you couldn't do anything about it. Instead you were forced into the ambush or whatever, and then had to fight it. You weren't allowed to overcome adversity by any means other than just facing it. That said Dark Souls 2 has other ways to become very overpowered so that these aren't so much of an issue. But still. That whole idea of, I can overcome adversity no matter what, even if I'm not the most technically skilled is for me what is rewarding. I am rewarded for using my head to figure out how to get around something that I am physically not able to do. If the games were harder or scaled with my physical skill, those brain moments wouldn't be required. The sheer difficulty isn't what is fun for me. The pushback that that difficulty engenders and the subsequent solving of that pushback is what is fun for me. Sometimes I git gud. Sometimes I git smart. Sometimes I just brute force it and come back later and go wow that was easy why was that so hard the first time.
The games already have multiple ways to allow you to make them way easier. That's kind of the point. The games are about overcoming adversity. That doesn't always involve increasing your raw skill.
The fact that the game rewards me either by me getting better or finding a way to make it a cakewalk is precisely why people like these games.
If FROM games were the type of games all about raw skill, then you might have a point, but for most of them, especially dark souls 1, 2, and 3, it's just not that simple.
One reason a lot of people felt put of by dark souls 2 is it felt like it broke that contract a number of times. You'd see a trap coming but you couldn't do anything about it. Instead you were forced into the ambush or whatever, and then had to fight it. You weren't allowed to overcome adversity by any means other than just facing it. That said Dark Souls 2 has other ways to become very overpowered so that these aren't so much of an issue. But still. That whole idea of, I can overcome adversity no matter what, even if I'm not the most technically skilled is for me what is rewarding. I am rewarded for using my head to figure out how to get around something that I am physically not able to do. If the games were harder or scaled with my physical skill, those brain moments wouldn't be required. The sheer difficulty isn't what is fun for me. The pushback that that difficulty engenders and the subsequent solving of that pushback is what is fun for me. Sometimes I git gud. Sometimes I git smart. Sometimes I just brute force it and come back later and go wow that was easy why was that so hard the first time.
The games already have multiple ways to allow you to make them way easier. That's kind of the point. The games are about overcoming adversity. That doesn't always involve increasing your raw skill.
The fact that the game rewards me either by me getting better or finding a way to make it a cakewalk is precisely why people like these games.
If FROM games were the type of games all about raw skill, then you might have a point, but for most of them, especially dark souls 1, 2, and 3, it's just not that simple.
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As long as it's a completely separate mode I don't care.
There's so much more to these games than just difficulty. They're all about secrets. Secret pathways, secret bosses, secret NPCs, secret areas, secret items, secret lore. lots of fun to be had besides the game play challenge. People that say these games are only good because they're hard are selling them way short.
I personally wouldn't touch anything else besides a normal setting but I'm all for it. There's a lot to see in these games.
There's so much more to these games than just difficulty. They're all about secrets. Secret pathways, secret bosses, secret NPCs, secret areas, secret items, secret lore. lots of fun to be had besides the game play challenge. People that say these games are only good because they're hard are selling them way short.
I personally wouldn't touch anything else besides a normal setting but I'm all for it. There's a lot to see in these games.
Exactly. It's so much more FUN to figure out how to make things easier.
Which is precisely why randos within the community who try to come in and be like "oh you're playing it wrong!" are typically shunned out of the community preeeeetty quickly if you ever frequent the subreddits and OTs and things. Because for many of us the whole fun is playing how we want. I love Bloodborne but I get why a lot of people don't, because it doesn't have all those options to the same degree or in the same way.
I beat Dark Souls 1 the first time at like level 100 (lotta people do it at like 70, and levels increase exponentially in cost). I was full on strength and intelligence build. I shot everything from far away and stunned everything that got close. I cheesed everything with arrows. But in that, I still got progressively better. Me getting better, and me being able to figure out how to get by was a struggle I really REALLY enjoyed because any time I thought I could try something given the rules the game had given me, I could. And that was magical and rewarding.
Someone as much of a scrub as I am was able to beat this game because it had been designed with the intent of giving anyone the taste of real victory if they wanted to work for it. That's literally the whole point of this design philosophy.
I dislike scaling difficulty. I get the feeling of being punished for playing well and that always bugs me.
For Souls games specifically, I enjoy the difficulty because it complements the design philosophy. Having one difficulty for all players to deal with is important for the online features. And makes seeking help from other players and beating bosses together so much more rewarding.
For Singleplayer games though, go nuts with difficulty settings, no one cares.
For Souls games specifically, I enjoy the difficulty because it complements the design philosophy. Having one difficulty for all players to deal with is important for the online features. And makes seeking help from other players and beating bosses together so much more rewarding.
For Singleplayer games though, go nuts with difficulty settings, no one cares.
Holy shit balls Batman. Lol. If it made you physically ill then yeah I'd say I would have taken a break long before I got to that point lol. There was one day where I was so focused on the game and I don't think I blinked for an entire boss fight that I ended up getting dizzy and had to lie down lol. I decided to not let myself get me that intense again (although the final boss got me close). Being able to Max out my health and getting all the prosthetics prior to doing a lot of bosses definitely helped though.
I would love a co-op feature in Sekiro II if we ever get one. I was going to make a thread on what people want from a sequel and list my own ideas as well. Give me online and some more combat customization (interchangeable stances) please!
They can do whatever they want
I stand by my opinion that the difficulty in their games complement the oppressive atmosphere and sometimes even themes presented in the games, but if it's a new IP that's going for a different vibe then i'd like difficulty options.
I stand by my opinion that the difficulty in their games complement the oppressive atmosphere and sometimes even themes presented in the games, but if it's a new IP that's going for a different vibe then i'd like difficulty options.
Dynamic on the fly difficulty. no. but stick an easy mode in certainly. I don't want enemies getting easier when I first encounter them and take my inevitable licks, I like that feeling of hitting the wall and slowly probing and finding a way to take it down, I don't want it to show me it's cracks, so to speak.
Demons Souls already had dynamic difficulty
Also, if you choose to summon that can also be considered dynamic difficulty, its a twist on the concept, at least
Also, if you choose to summon that can also be considered dynamic difficulty, its a twist on the concept, at least
I prefer summoning, grinding or traditional difficulty settings over dynamic.
So whos taking bets on Elden Ring having a difficulty slider?
So whos taking bets on Elden Ring having a difficulty slider?
perhaps you should examine the games you play if they "weaken your immune system". That's not healthy and the fact that you kept playing is even more worrying. Intentionally hurting yourself?
I don't like Dynamic (Adaptive) difficulties. The last game to be ruined by it was RE2 remake. The worse you do the easier the game gets, but the better you do, the harder it gets (fuck off with that shit and make the actual difficulty options at the start mean something). FROM have been tuning all of their encounters around a specific difficulty, and while having options is good, I wouldn't want them to have to design their encounters with a varying difficulty in mind. You could already make the majority of their games since Demon's easier through summoning players or NPCs anyway.
As it's been stated ad nauseam, not every game has to be for every person. FROM were the ones who were one of the first to buck that annoying trend back in 2009 anyway. If they want to make a game that is generally a lower difficulty, but still mostly a challenge, or at least not mind-numbing and would allow more people to finish it, I'd be fine with that.
Assuming they are talking about World Tendency and also a decreasing max health bar.
As it's been stated ad nauseam, not every game has to be for every person. FROM were the ones who were one of the first to buck that annoying trend back in 2009 anyway. If they want to make a game that is generally a lower difficulty, but still mostly a challenge, or at least not mind-numbing and would allow more people to finish it, I'd be fine with that.
Assuming they are talking about World Tendency and also a decreasing max health bar.
Whatever they're already doing works for me.
Besides they have adaptive difficulty already - most of their games have co-op, OP builds etc.
Besides they have adaptive difficulty already - most of their games have co-op, OP builds etc.
All this begs the question, why even continue to play the game? It sounds like it was literally harming you, and that you weren't even enjoying it either, so why continue playing?
All they need to do is reduce the damage you take and increase the damage you give. All else could remain equal. Stilll have a challenge and have to learn timing etc, you just wouldn't die so brutally fast, one shot most of the time. To me that's all they need to do.
No, if these games are too difficult, either don't play them, or get better. Thats how FS envisioned their games and that's how they are meant to be played. If people start breaking things out of rage over a VIDEOGAME, then maybe they should not play games at all and visit someone to help with their anger management.
This is a terrible idea for me, I like brick walls from time to time and I don't want the game to be tone down automatically against my will.
Difficulty modes are the way to go in this regard.
Difficulty modes are the way to go in this regard.
No matter how frustrating it can be to fight a boss over and over, but it would be infinitely worse if the game took pity on you and started to tone the difficulty down the more often you die. The whole point of Soulsborne games is that the world couldn't care less about your existence. By having the game raising/lowering the difficulty as you play, it creates the illusion of a world that acknowledges the player character as special, as a "chosen one" that is either too skillful for their own good and must be stopped (raising the difficulty), or as too weak to make it to the finish line and must be assisted (lowering the difficulty).
I wouldn't mind conventional difficulty levels, although for the reasons stated above I would let people pick a level at the start of the game and lock it for the reminder of the playthrough.
I wouldn't mind conventional difficulty levels, although for the reasons stated above I would let people pick a level at the start of the game and lock it for the reminder of the playthrough.
