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THE GREAT DIFFICULTY MODE DEBATE: ANOTHER STORM IN A TEACUP? - by Mr Biffo

3/5/2016

24 Comments

 
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Once upon a time, nobody cared about difficulty settings in games. Not even when games - I'm looking at you, Doom and Duke Nukem 3D - mocked those who needed an easier setting.

The issue has come up now because of Star Fox Zero and Dark Souls III. The former includes the ultimate easy mode - basically, you're invincible - while the latter has its gears permanently stuck on ultra-hard.

​Because gamers can always find something to get annoyed about, the debate has split the gaming community down the middle. In short: you're either a hardy or a softy. 

HANDLE
As you may be aware, I really can't handle Dark Souls III. By Lupin I've tried, but I've just had to give up. Had I not purchased it out of the Digitiser2000 Patreon fund, it would've been an enormous waste of my own money. Fortunately, it was merely a waste of yours.

I've many mates who bleated on about the earlier instalments being their favourite games, and I felt entirely left out. I know the level of challenge I want from a game, and I knew I didn't want what they were describing.

I mean, given a choice between an escalator and a flight of stairs, I'll always take the former. But - hey - at least I'll walk up it, rather than stand on the right. That's where I'm at on the scale. Dark Souls is like taking the stairs while dragging a VW Beetle and simultaneously cramming for a PHD in Gizzard Studies. 

Conversely, I don't want my games too easy. If I can breeze through a game without ever dying, then I feel like I'm being spoken down to.

​Everything about Dark Souls is difficult, from the gameplay itself, to the obscure storyline and vagueness of the world. Nothing is handed to you on a plate. And that's precisely what its acolytes love, and I can't stand. It feels wilfully challenging, and that irritates me. 

And I wonder if my feelings around this issue are simply more moderate reflections of the more extreme fringes of the debate.
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NEUTRAL GUY
​Like the circus performer who fell onto his own stilt... I'm torn, see. Part of me doesn't care that I can't play or enjoy Dark Souls.

​I mean, I don't much like racing games or flight simulators, but I wouldn't for a second expect those to include some sort of arcade mode. 

I probably wouldn't care about any of this if Dark Souls looked and played like some avant-garde Polish animation, but because it bears more than a passing resemblance to the sort of game I usually enjoy... I feel like I'm missing out. 

Worse than that, I feel outside of a clique.  

And I wonder if that's what those demanding Dark Souls feature difficulty levels are also feeling: that they're being left out of the conversation. Nobody likes that. Back in the 90s, I always felt outside of the games journo clique. I mean, I still do, more or less.

Now, as then, I'm kind of on the fringes of it all. Standing out, but not really being part of it, because I seem incapable of writing anything without mentioning The Kraken. It's a sickness. Pretty much every gaming article or review I've ever written has mentioned The Kraken. I wish I knew why, but I'm compelled. The Kraken simply fascinates me, just as it does millions of other Krakenheads.
 
At school I was the same. Seemingly too idiosyncratic to be part of the popular clique; you know - the sorted kids, the ones whose hair just seemed to do what they wanted without them even trying. The kids who looked like they'd all been pressed out of the same mould. They'd want to talk about the latest chart hits, and I'd just want to talk about The Kraken. 

I might be digressing a little too far, but it's the same sort of feeling regarding Dark Souls III; I wanted to be part of that gang, but I never fit in.

​Physically, I was too tall, too odd looking. Forever rolling around in puddles pretending to be The Kraken, or staging comedy revue shows to raise money for an expedition to find The Kraken. I even encouraged my peers to call me by the nickname "Kraken Bob", but there were few takers.

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KRAKEN UP
See, that's the thing about The Kraken. Once it gets under your skin, there's no talking about anything else.

​Anyone who has read the 13th Century Icelandic saga Örvar-Oddr - the first documented reference to the legendary sea monster (known in Icelandic as Hafgufa) - will tell you the same. 

I talk about The Kraken singular, but of course, the narrator of the Norwegian scientific text Konungs skuggsjá, written circa 1250, believed there were two Kraken in existence.

He stated: "It seems to me as though there must be no more than two in the oceans, and I deem that each is unable to reproduce itself, for I believe that they are always the same ones."

Many believe that The Kraken is no more than a mislabelling of the giant squid - typical descriptions of it refer to tentacles with spiked suckers. However, earlier texts seem to describe a more crab-like creature.

Regardless, whether the origin of The Kraken myth is biological or geological - some suggest that undersea volcanic activity may have been attributed to he actions of the creature - there is little doubt that The Kraken is one of the more fascinating 
legends to have gripped our imaginations.

The Danish Bishop Erik Pontoppidan was an 18th Century cryptozoographer, who wrote a two volume work on the natural history of Norway. In it he put forward his own evidence for the existence of the elusive Kraken (as well as mermaids and sea serpents).

Some critics of cryptozoology have argued that prior to Pontoppidan's writing, alleged sightings of such creatures were relatively rare, and that he may have provided a cultural template which led to myths such as the Loch Ness Monster, and other beasts.

Certainly, Pontoppidan was name-checked in Herman Melville's Moby Dick - published in 1851 - while Alfred Tennyson's 1830 sonnet, The Kraken - could be attributed with spreading the myth far beyond Scandinavia:

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.


From Moby Dick, to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, to Clash of the Titans, to Pirates of the Caribbean... regardless of the actual origins of The Kraken, there's no doubt that its legend will continue to fascinate the makers of popular culture for generations to come - whether you're a Krakenhead or not.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
WE ASKED THESE VETERAN GAME DESIGNERS WHETHER THEY'D EVER GIVEN BIRTH TO A LIVING MINIATURE VERSION OF THEMSELVES - AND NOT A SINGLE ONE REPLIED

HAVE A LOOK AT THESE SHITTING BABIES WHILE WE TELL YOU EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT CALL OF DUTY: INFINITE WARFARE

​BLESSED ARE THE GEEKS - BY MR BIFFO

WE ASKED BORIS JOHNSON WHAT HE THOUGHT ABOUT THE LATEST GAMING DRAMAS
​

25 BIZARRE THINGS YOU CAN BUY ON AMAZON.COM
24 Comments
Bruce Flagpole
3/5/2016 11:22:02 am

Erm, is there someone I can call to come and pick you up?

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Col
3/5/2016 11:31:08 am

The Kraken rules. Get rekt, ship!

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Superbeast 37
3/5/2016 11:31:29 am

Have you been leaving little notes on P&O ferries saying "reeks of beast"?

You're in the know right?

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Keith
3/5/2016 11:34:57 am

I love the false sense of normality in articles like this. Sorry to dissect the frog, but I got to the end of the article before I was like "wait a second..."

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Dr Kank
3/5/2016 11:47:01 am

Everybody knows Megalodons have better graphics than Krakens.

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Rakladtor III The Terrible
5/5/2016 06:43:05 am

an impressive feat, given that Megalodon ran on earlier hardware

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Clice Peppard
3/5/2016 01:27:52 pm

Play Smite as Neptune. You can release the Kraken at will then! and yeah, games should be challenging but approachable and doable in the long term. much like at school i see the clique im not a member of and i laugh at them, and go off to join my like of slightly odd auteurs who struggle with reality (Fallout players)

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MrDrinks
3/5/2016 01:28:09 pm

I was all ready to write a post about how I thought Dark Souls could be improved and Star Fox was perfect, then the Kraken happened and I was too confused to know what to do.

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Euphemia
3/5/2016 01:33:08 pm

It's not hard. You just can't play it like God of War and Skyrim where you run around twatting everything and generally being indestructible. It's also got an easy mode, you can bring up to 3 other players into your game to assist, which basically removes much of the challenge.

That something so vague became a hit still surprises me, but I can't say that it feels exclusive to me, although it does require a bit of investment.

Krakens are ace, but my local squid cult got broken up for stealing from the bins of the sushi restaurant next door. Infidels!

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Mrtankthreat
3/5/2016 04:09:42 pm

The problem I have with people asking for an easy mode in Dark Souls is that they don't actually specify what it is that they want or how it would work. What would make it easier without fundamentally changing the gameplay? Do you want the enemies to have less hp? To be able to do more damage to enemies? To not take as much damage yourself? That might make it easier but would reduce the point of levelling up.

As others have said, the overall game is not that hard. The early parts are because you don't really know what you're doing but once you figure out the levelling system it can actually become trivially easy. If you're not that good at the game you may have to spend a good bit of time grinding but beating the game is achievable. It just requires practice and patience. It's no different really than learning the patters of the boxers in Punch Out.

At least you have infinite lives and checkpoints so that you can gradually progress unlike properly hard games of the past. I have completed Super Punch Out, I've never gotten past the first level of Hard Corps: Uprising because I keep running out of lives. Similarly I could never get very far in Contra III without an infinte lives cheat.

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Mrtankthreat
3/5/2016 04:11:45 pm

I meant to say I haven't completed Super Punch Out, and the pattern of the boxers.

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Superbeast 37
3/5/2016 04:51:23 pm

Dark Souls should not have an easy mode.

However this is not for the reason you list

If would be perfectly easy to add an easier mode to DS3. As you say, reduce enemy hp and dmg, whilst boosting player hp and dmg.

There would still be a reason for those players to level - to maintain the relative ease. I'd add a quick save option and make consumables like flasks and fire bombs more readily available at a very low soul cost.

The essence of the game would be lost to those players that use that mode but that is their choice and the Biffo's of this world would rather have a watered down experience than no experience.

I personally wouldn't allow it because it would remove the sense of achievement of actually reaching certain points of the game. If every man and his dog has been there on easy mode already, it is kind of like Neil Armstrong landing on the moon and finding a branch of Maccy D's!

I didn't used to think that way but now I accept that this is a key motivation for the core customers so I can't support an easy mode.

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Super Bad Advice
3/5/2016 05:00:40 pm

I like the Platinum Games approach. They have various difficulty modes that cater for people who love button-pressing perfection unleashing eye-watering combos, or a mode that just lets you see what the game has to offer and enjoy the ride. After all, some of us like a nice walk. Some of us like running marathons. Some of us do both. Letting someone else see and experience what a game has to offer takes nothing away from your own achievement of beating 'hard mode'.

The thing is, apart from its good looks I'm increasingly getting the sneaking suspicion that there's not actually much *to* DSIII other than the relentless toughness. The story seems to be meaningless bollocks, that's for sure.

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Damon link
3/5/2016 06:30:28 pm

I wonder if Kraken, the spiced rum, has had anything to do with this...?

At any rate I don't think Dark Souls and Star Fox Zero are really related.

I don't like a game that I literally can't lose... but let's say that in Star Fox Zero you had a target point amount to advance but you could re-try the stage as many times a you liked. Even if you were invincible there would still be a challenge. There would still be a sense of accomplishment.

There's Wario Land 4 where taking hits costs you points but you can't actually die, even if you run out of points to lose. But in that game you really need to solve puzzles more and the sense of accomplishment comes from finishing some of the screens.

I don't think the issue with Star Fox Zero so much is that you can make it so you can't die but just how easy that is. In a game like Skyrim, or even Hexen, the player can save and reload at any time meaning there's no death penalty so you are effectively invincible anyway and if you think to stop and save (or just use quicksave before opening a door!) you don't lose much of anything meaning the difficulty really does not matter and you might as well play on Easy.

Back to Dark Souls 3 -- that's a very different game. It's a bit more like Diablo II in that it has an intentional death penalty and the player can't just reload. Dying is part of the game by design. Could it be easier? Probably. But the designers designed it to be hard. It's an intentionally hard game and I respect that.

There is a group of people who feel that dying in a game is too final and become too frustrated if they die. There's various reasons which aren't really relevant but I feel like people don't realize there's an increasing number of people playing games who don't see dying as 'oh well, try again' but an actual end to their progress -- even if you can just reload to .5 seconds before you died.

You can dress up the issue however you like but developers will continue making the games their publishers and parent companies want.

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Kelvin Green link
3/5/2016 07:20:42 pm

What a Kraken post! Ho ho.

I don't mind hard games, and I don't mind easy games. What I do mind is the sociopaths who belittle those who would prefer an easy mode by calling them soft, or wimps, or whatever. It's as if their fragile masculinity is threatened somehow by the existence of a difficulty toggle.

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Dangerous Dave
4/5/2016 12:56:49 pm

Dark Souls, hard?! Have people forgotten Castlevania 1 & 3?!

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Euphemia
4/5/2016 06:49:54 pm

Or Mega-Man. The closest I've ever come to defenestrating a console.

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Rakladtor III The Terrible
5/5/2016 07:34:42 am

Mega Man starts off a toughie but it isn't amazingly hard to learn. No random elements and probably no harder than derk sols

Euphemia
5/5/2016 01:08:25 pm

It made me SAD.

Superbeast 37
4/5/2016 08:44:20 pm

Ghouls N Ghosts - seriously, screw that game!

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Wicked Eric
4/5/2016 03:17:11 pm

Speaking of difficulty in computer games and the Kraken... what about that Shining Force 2.

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Acid Arrow
4/5/2016 05:56:12 pm

The Kraken is merely a servant of Cthulhu, who can't be bothered to go round sinking ships himself because he is a lazy, fat oaf.

All games should have difficulty levels and a button that just says "finish" to skip playing.

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Rakladtor III The Terrible
5/5/2016 06:08:45 am

Q: How many derk sols players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: 4
1 to die on the first attempt, 1 to "get gud", 1 to be summoned for assistance, plus a spare (we'll put it in the cupboard)

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Old Red
5/5/2016 05:51:08 pm

Good article, I always felt the same with Assassins Creed. Having a game or series that everyone bangs on about can be really frustrating when you can't understand the appeal.

I'd go back and try out Demons Souls if you wanna see what makes the games so good. It's cut up into smaller sections and the bosses are still the best in the series in my opinion. It will feel a bit strange again now it's a bit old and empty like when I first imported it and everything was such a mystery. If you don't understand the appeal after getting past the dragon bridge near the beginning then you'll never like the souls games.

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