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More people should be able to enjoy cool games. It's a simple principle, no? Now imagine an incredibly complex and mechanically dense game that requires hours of investment to fully understand, and it is expected that you will lose again and again before it makes sense. Now, also imagine the possibility of choosing between many difficulty options and improving victory conditions so that you can adapt to what you are good or bad.
It's not a fantasy. I'm literally talking about Civilization VI, a hardcore strategy game that lets you change the hell of its basic rules to fit what you are looking for. Players are already finding ways to do such things on their own, so why not empower them? And if civilization can, why not souls?
But nothing makes the shit lose the Internet faster than suggesting that the FromSoftware game could, may the gods "git gud" forgive such transgressions, appeal to more people if there was a way to solve the difficulty in one way or another. The "easy mode" speech around FromSoftware is cyclical, not like the stories that FromSoftware likes to tell in its games, and it usually ends up in the same place, as summarized by a tweet that I received, after having suggested their last game. Sekiro: the shadows are dying twice, could be easily modified to make it more accessible:
"Let the developers do as they want."
(My point, for what it's worth, was to make resurrections, a mechanism that allows players to come back to life after their death, without limit.) Let people come back as many times as they want.)
It's frustrating to admit I'm going to spend a thousand words on this, because adding such options is, at the base, a fundamental sign of respect for the tens of thousands of disabled players who are regularly prevented from playing and enjoying games that do not consider them as "real" players? But we are here, so we might as well spend some time understanding it.
Some may argue this argument in good faith, a sign of respect for a developer who has found success by mastering industry trends, to become a pioneer in turn. But in reality, it's about people who do not use the phrase git gud with irony, but an elitist badge of honor meaning their membership in a club where the pleasure is knowing that others are not or can not not. be part of it. It's a way to keep something special for them while hiding behind phrases like "artistic integrity" (Even though they are as likely as everyone to get the most out of the game, the designer's intention is damned.)
When I was a kid, I liked to rent games and slam the cartridge into my Game Genie, a device that allowed you to grab codes and play with the game. I did not want to play what the designers "Had planned," but break the game and mess up the parties. Unlimited lives, steps through walls, endless ammo, let me do what I want! Finally, I would take Game Genie and play the game "as expected".
This continued as I grew older, resulting in Grand Theft Auto III, a multiplayer game that, oddly enough, has quickly become the most popular multiplayer game in my high school. The rules were simple: type in the cheat code for all weapons (R2, R2, L1, R2, Left, Down, Right, Up, Left, Down, Right, Up) and try to survive a level of search for five stars for as long as possible. When you passed away, you passed the controller and the next person did the same thing.
This governed. I had fun messing around. Were these experiments invalid because it was not the creator's way, the one that required me to beat the game with three continues?
I'm not alone either. People have always looked for different ways to play a game, and we hypocritically associate the terms "easy", "effective" and "fun" with anything that makes us situational. The players had the habit of holding their PSPs in a strange way, a method called the "claw", in order to properly control the Monster Hunter's camera. Capcom probably did not plan that! Cheat Engine, essentially a Game Genie of modern times, is a software entirely dedicated to allow you, well, to cheat. Each person has a story in which she sneaks through a wall, or watches a boss die of sorrow, and celebrates his progress as a canon. Hell, FromSoftware games were used to celebrate their problems, allowing players to progress, even if a boss had accidentally fallen off a cliff. (Sekiro do not do that anymore.)
And for the record, is cheese a feat? Cheating? A way for players to artificially adjust the difficulty when they are tired of a specific encounter? Because, my God, lock me up and throw me in the players prison for the way I sent a boss this morning Sekiro, waiting for the environment to poison a confused AI while I was waiting behind a cliff:
FromSoftware can, should, and will do what they want, as they have been doing for decades. A different developer would not have created a game as risky and different as Sekiroand their ability to continually surprise people like me, who have spent hundreds of hours in their games and who are constantly waiting for new and exciting ideas to be missed, is a sign of many great games to come.
Does the argument of artistic integrity not mean that FromSoftware is smart? Must we believe that they would not find such a clever way to approach this question? Hell, pushed to its logical conclusion, maybe FromSoftware should be designed to add better, cleaner and more understandable UI elements to its games over time. Why does FromSoftware spend so much time trying to make their games easier to understand? I liked him better when I did not know what a statistic was, honestly. Putting points in the void is part of the challenge, my brother.
While this conversation took place over the past week, it was interesting to watch different developers, especially those who are fans of FromSoftware. Spelunky designer Derek Yu wrote a long thread on the difficulties of communication difficulties, levels of difficulty and balance between a vision and the desires of the players. He was not wrong, but concluded that most of the obvious changes would "miss the goal of the games to many players" in-between ", which is a terribly presumptuous way to watch what people get out of it.
More precisely, not everyone is there for the fight! These games are much more than watching a health bar run out with time. They are also worlds beautifully made, filled with powerful stories and memorable characters, all delivered in a very unconventional style. There's VaatiVidya, a Souls creator, who has made a career out of complex tradition analysis videos that are accumulating millions and millions of views on YouTube. I know all kinds of people who have only interacted with FromSoftware's creations through Let's Play videos, suggesting that there is an opportunity for the developer to meet them half way.
Last year, I interviewed Celestial Matt Thorsen, designer, explains how he made the decision to include a "mode of assistance" in his hardcore platform game, a game whose theme Super Meat Boy or Spelunky. His this kind of game. And again, Celestial allows you to edit elements of the game that otherwise would seem fundamental or even intrinsic to the experience, such as the number of dashes you can perform. The air fringing is one of the CelestialThe basic mechanics, each piece of geometry being set up according to the expectations of the player able to X, not Y. This means Celestial includes an option approved by the developer to throw all this into chaos.
"As a game designer, I think, the support mode breaks the game. I spent many hours solving the difficulty of CelestialIt is therefore easy for me to feel valuable in my creations. But in the end, we want to empower the player and give him a good experience, and sometimes it means letting go. "
"It's frustrating to admit that I hear a thousand words about it, because the addition of such options is, fundamentally, a fundamental sign of respect for the tens of thousands of disabled players who are regularly prevented from playing and to enjoy games that do not consider them as "real" players? "
Thorson even told me specifically Celestial is "meant to be hard." Looks like Sekiro, no?
Celestial That was my favorite game of 2018. One of the biggest reasons I liked it was to bang my head and fingers in its complex and detailed challenges in platforming. But if someone wants to take advantage of his equally touching story about mental health, or give up a particularly difficult part, it's perfect. It means that two people have benefited Celestial on their own terms.
Personally, I would like more people to enjoy games like Sekiro. I would still be able to hit the bad guys. I would always feel cool. If more people could hit the bad guys less, or maybe explore a world without bad guys, that would be fine. (Ubisoft has added a "discovery mode" to Assassin's Creed, eliminating all fights – that's great). This removes nothing from the infinite pride that I always feel from a shot O & S in the original Dark souls. It's always mine.
Damn, I'm not even pure.
The final boss of Bloodborne: the old hunters, the grotesque orphan of Kos, is a bastard. Staged in front of a beautifully ugly water, a moribund sun hanging over his head, Orphan of Kos is tall, fast and brutal. He beat the shit loose my control. I'm dead, as we do in these games, again and again. I've finally had enough and I called a stranger for it to help me in the fight, the one and only time I did it while playing Transmitted by blood, and one of the few times I did it playing a FromSoftware game. The stranger knew what they were doing and Orphan of Kos fell quickly. The fight and my trip were over.
Depending on who you are talking to, what I've done is to cheat. It's allowed by the game, of course, but again, depending on who you talk to, that's not how you are. Assumed to play Transmitted by blood. The way you are Assumed to play Transmitted by bloodOr, Souls, you fight them yourself. This displacement of the goal posts – remember, Sekiro does not include the opportunity to play cooperation or summon aliens – is part of the control process. The goal posts are always moved in favor of the goalkeepers.
I was tired. Other people beat Orphan of Kos on their own. Good for them. But even then, this stranger and I still shared a lot of what it meant to play Transmitted by blood: our awesome design and the complexity of our leader, the surprise when the city of Yharnam was projected under another moonlight, the emerging awareness of what your "insightful" score meant. I would feel the same from everyone who told me about SekiroA giant snake, scary monks or unique skill trees, even if they did not undergo the same "midterm exam" as me.
The games have always been to reject the intention of the designer, sometimes even to encourage them, sometimes despite that. Have you ever downloaded a mod? Watched a step-by-step procedure? Asked a friend for advice? Congratulations, you've undermined the developer's intention. You are defiled. The question of Sekiroor similar games, getting an "easy mode" is in itself a justification for FromSoftware's original mission statement; they did something more than people want to enjoy. For years, however, a select group of players who felt seen and heard by this mission statement worries that it will be removed.
But no one wants to remove it, and if people who experience joy in different conditions from yours are painful and anxious, it may be helpful to start looking for changes.
Follow Patrick on Twitter. If you have a tip or an article idea, send him an email: [email protected].
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