this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
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Maybe you haven't been convinced by a good enough argument. Maybe you just don't want to admit you are wrong. Or maybe the chaos is the objective, but what are you knowingly on the wrong side of?

In my case: I don't think any games are obliged to offer an easy mode. If developers want to tailor a specific experience, they don't have to dilute it with easier or harder modes that aren't actually interesting and/or anything more than poorly done numbers adjustments. BUT I also know that for the people that need and want them, it helps a LOT. But I can't really accept making the game worse so that some people get to play it. They wouldn't actually be playing the same game after all...

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There isn’t really a “right” side to that one. If developers want to disappoint some potential customers and leave money on the table by not creating an easy mode, that’s their prerogative.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe? I feel like the developers have the prerogative to decide to include it or not, but with the way the discourse has gone it certainly feels like I'm in the wrong here.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Point 1: If adding an easy mode legitimately degrades the “hard core” game, that’s one thing. But unless you were on the development team, how would you know if it had?


Point 2: I don’t think it’s wrong, but I do think it’s… let’s say unskillful in the Buddhist sense. Not immoral so much as clumsy.

People who self-identify as gamers and tie their sense of pride/self-worth to their gaming prowess are cringe. It’s cringey to not want there to be easy modes when nobody’s forcing you to play them.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That human rights really matter in the coming upheaval. The doomsday glacier is probably insurmountable for civ to overcome and that level of change in sea level within a decade to century and a half is going to change everything. Most of the worlds cities are not viable. From what I have seen, the long estimates are all biased and unreliable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yEj9JVRhjA

On the bright side, speculative long term land investments might yield a large sum of money. Shallow keel ferry and airboat operators stand to make a fortune.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, this thread was entertaining until I read this comment

Not mad though, this is what people should be talking about

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Sorry depression is rather strong ATM. Basic needs not getting met hurts.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm not sure how the impending climatic doomsday is going to make human rights unimportant?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

It is an abstraction, an anecdote really. When ordinary people are collectively in dire straights, there is little time or voice for those on the edges that become collateral damage. It is like the military when an army is being pursued in the field by another superior force–the wounded and baggage train support that are unable to fight are left behind. The ethics of the primary force are only circumstantially applicable. No one cares about the disabled or outliers when the attorneys judge and jurists are in crisis mode. While those examples are poor in their applicable timelines and the medium scale big picture. If one abstracts another few layers higher, at the decades to more centuries and even lifespans of civilizations perspective views, the overall stresses and strain on a civilization alter the landscape of the philosophical and morality. Civil rights struggles had little meaning or traction during a world war. Martial law is a mechanism that extinguishes all civil rights in a single mechanism.

I'm not taking sides to making excuses for the behavior of others. It is just my intuition and curiosity allowed to roam freely in the good and the bad without distinction in an attempt to think without bias.

When someone tells me of an unprecedented population displacing event, I see the refugee crisis and disproportionate effects on the poor and disadvantaged. The larger the scope of the poor people problem the larger will be the numbers of people on the edges that fall through the cracks. The experience is empirical from someone that has fallen through the cracks.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I think the logic is essentially right wingers keep winning elections. Their supporters tend to argue first and foremost it's a win against "woke" while the money/interests behind it tend to be "let's burn this planet down and get ALL the oil." If the Left conceded on say trans issues or whatever, maybe we'd win, whixh would undoubtedly benefit the billions who may die because of climate change issues.

(Unsure if this would work or if it'd just split the left etc myself but I think that's the logic.)

An analogy a friend made while making this argument was that the Civil War was essential for Black emancipation etc and we can all agree it was a good thing. BUT, especially in those days, if abolitionists had also demanded trans recognition or whatever, maybe fewer states would've joined the Union or maybe the movement would've never gotten off the ground and there's a possible future wherein Black people might still be slaves because, even with the best intentions, we didn't pick our battles.

It's a utilitarian answer to a Sophie's choice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

Tailism never works

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You know you don't have to play the easy mode right? You can just change the mode in the settings. Most games default to the standard version anyway.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yes, but by that same argument if the experience doesn't work for you as it was intended, perhaps the game isnt for you.

Not that arguing this point is the question here anyway.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

But the developers put a story/easy mode in the game. That seems intentional to me. Maybe those games just aren't for you if the mere option of difficulty settings bothers you so much.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Why wouldn't the developer want as many people as possible to buy the game though?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

From a purely financial view, they don't. There's a reason why games have become as handholdy as possible. And one of the reasons why the Souls series stood out was because it went in a different direction.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why wouldn’t the developer want as many people as possible to buy the game though?

I've never made art (incl. games) with the intention of having as many people view it as possible. Many developers make games as a hobby rather than for mere profit, and some try to draw a compromise in the middle.

I know this doesn't apply as much to major well-known games created by professional game development companies, but there are other incentives guiding development beyond maximizing purchases.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 23 hours ago

And how many boutique niche Indy games made solely for their artistic merit have you played that actually had an easy mode?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Games used to be art and done for passion.

Having to include an "easy mode" in your game has powerful knock-on effects that change how normal and hard difficulties play too. Timings and quantities that would normally be finely tuned and hand-crafted suddenly need to be highly-variable and detract from the freedom of developing for just one difficulty.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 hours ago

How can you tell which mode was developed first and which one was tacked on?

In FE: Echoes SoV, for example, I'm pretty sure they developed easy mode first and hard mode got tacked on. But I only played hard mode. Did I play the game "wrong"?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That sounds like an entirely surmountable engineering problem.

It's not like games are being written in assembly any more.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It goes deeper than just simple engineering though. It affects tone and overarching game design. It is multiple extra dimensions that have to be considered across every aspect of the entire game. If it is done poorly, you get paper dolls on easy mode and damage sponges on hard and nothing of merit to compensate for these facts. The difficulty of the game goes from being genuine to artificial.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's why you design for accessibility, and don't try to cram it in at the last moment. It's not actually difficult, it just requires engineering discipline.

There are also plenty of Dark Souls clones for people like you who demand nothing but punishment.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I don't need a game to be hard, I need it to be consistent and well thought-out. Animal Well for example is a rather easy game, but because it only has one difficulty, the developer was able to keep a very tight focus on the world and puzzle design. Everything is layered there, because they don't have to be containerized and sliced into pieces to account for adjustable difficulty settings.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

Or they could have thought it out even better and included difficulty settings.

They have every right to ignore accessibility, but it will always limit their audience.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Is the word "wrong" spelled "wrong" or "rongue"?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago

You are rong

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

As a Gen Xer, I would agree. When we had games, you had to figure it out. From there, it just got harder and harder until you died. No pretty graphics, no saves, no easy mode.

Now get offa muh lawn!

E: words are hard

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