Difficulty levels and accesibility in games

I posted this on a similar thread from here
http://hg101.proboards.com/thread/11773/talk-difficulty-accessibility

I'm a supporter of the idea of making Super Easy Modes so that less committed players can see all the content they paid for. I think it's sensible to have these modes to sell more to people who otherwise wouldn't buy the games. The less games you are able to complete the less likely you are to buy more. But I respect how difficult it is to make a variety of difficulty modes (more on that later).
I used to be crazy about games and put obsessive time and effort in but now I'm a far less committed player who cant find time for them.

Now the complexity of the hardware is more offputting than there not being modes that are easy enough for me; so I would gravitate towards handheld systems now if I ever buy another console (which I have a hard time seeing myself doing again).

I understand the principle of difficulty being more rewarding to some people but nowadays when I don't ease through a game, I feel like I should be doing something else. When I try to beat a challenge numerous times and finally succeed I feel like I was wasting that time. This might sound dismissive of the games but I really don't mean it that way. I have a lot more priorities than I used to (and I don't even have a job, a home to pay for or real responsibilities to worry about!) and most things inevitably aren't as impressive as they used to seem to my younger self (so less worthy of devotion). I still enjoy games enough to want to keep up with them and I'd rather play an super easy pushover mode than watch a youtube expert (which I do occasionally).
Sure, you wont enjoy it on as deep a level as the expert players on the most difficult mode but that's a very small price to pay. Nobody totally understands and appreciates or even cares about all the aspects of everything they experience, often for fair reasons.

I completed Yoshi's Island when I was about 11 or 12 (and I probably couldn't have done some of the bonus levels without the help of a friend). I replayed it in my late teens on Gameboy Advance and it wasn't nearly as pleasurable as the first time.
My friend had an emulation of it on his PC and I kept using the rewind tool whenever I made a mistake, amazingly this made me far more excited and I breezed through the game and I got a real rush from that.
This might sound crazy to many serious gamers but I wish I had a rewind tool for every single player game, it made it way more fun for me. I don't want to speed through all games because some really need to be wallowed in so you get immersed in the atmosphere and appreciate all the design around you.

It can be very hard for developers to make a variety of difficulty modes for different levels of players and be satisfying.
For some games it is hard to think how they could make an easier mode. Online multiplayers sometimes have separate places for lower skill players but not all such games can integrate this. Some games will have complex maps that cannot be simplified. Some fighting games have moves that are far too difficult for some players to pull off (some games have easy control modes but they usually don't account for every single move). How many games have easier modes for the puzzles? (I found two of the puzzles in Zelda Twilight Princess impossible without a guide).
For some games, a large part of their appeal and reputation revolves around their extreme difficulty and I can see why some developers would be reluctant to let go of that.

How do you make a easy mode for reissues of old tricky shooters and platformers? I think the rewind tool is the only way you can do that and I'd love to see developers use this in official versions of the games. I'd love to play through the early Castlevania games with a rewind tool. I completed about 8 of the Advance, DS and PS2 games in the series and there were a few I couldn't complete but I doubt I could replay most of them without a rewind tool. Maybe some optional cheats too for people who need additional help, on a non-secret menu. But some games are just always going to be long and challenging no matter how many cheats you use.

Yes, I used to be elated after beating some games after much effort but those days are behind me and I actually regret many hours that I spent when I could have done so many other things. Life can speed by scarily fast and games scare me especially in that respect. I feel worried for some of my friends who are totally immersed in games because I think they're missing out on oceans of great stuff I can barely scratch the surface of even when I'm spending most of my time on it (particularly books, music and images). It might sound patronizing but I'm concerned for a lot of people who might lose large portions of their life to games and perhaps only a small amount of that time was really worth it.

How do you make a easy mode for reissues of old tricky shooters and platformers?

You don't. Modern video games have enough handholding and difficulty choices and there's no need to tarnish old game design elements.
I honestly don't feel like playing most modern games anymore. Not every game has to be catered to me, and I feel better realizing that. Right now I'd much rather enjoy SNES platformers and shooters for the challenge, frustration, etc. The Donkey Kong Country games, for example, are a series I'm plowing through right now. When I get a game over, I have to start from the last save point, which often means that I have to replay several levels at once. It's frustrating and a bit unfair, but such is life. No giant safety nets and no bullshit.

Enough anecdotes, what I'm trying to say is: If you feel like wasting time playing challenging games, play comfy games like train simulators.

Or put down that gaming peripheral for good and do something that actually fulfills you.

Or, worst case scenario: Get Good.

If you want to see the ending but suck, watch a Let's Play.

I'm not averse to Easy levels at all, but your post seems to not just be about whether or not they should exist, but rather smothered in dislike for the very medium. Like, I'm concerned for a lot of people who might lose large portions of their life to games and perhaps only a small amount of that time was really worth it basically sounds like you're concern trolling gamers. If you really think they're not worth your time, I'm with Polyphonic. Read a plot summary or walkthrough or watch a youtube playthrough and then forget about games forever.

*for "levels" read "settings" or "modes", I guess.

worrying about whether games have distracted you from consuming other cultural artefacts feels mostly pointless, but if you're worried about whether games have distracted you from some other kind of important experience then just go and do that, you usually can't make other people's decisions - such as they are - for them

I don't play games for the story, so the idea of stripping the gameplay away so someone can watch the story is hard for me to relate to.

I feel worried for some of my friends who are totally immersed in games because I think they're missing out on oceans of great stuff

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s5/5x06/thegame015.jpg

Or you can put the entire Starship Enterprise in danger!!

I guess it depends on if you play for the fun of playing vs. if you play because you want to "experience all the content". The latter is not a bad thing, and is quite reasonable given your role as a consumer. However I think if a game is well-made you can enjoy playing it for any length of time and in any manner that you wish. There is no "wasted time" in video games (or any games) imho. Or if there is, it is an integral part of the game system. How much time is wasted in a baseball game?

As I said, I do tend to watch YouTube walkthroughs (I rarely care about the story, I mainly like the visual and sound design) but I'd rather play the game even if on a cheat mode. It isn't difficult to add cheats like invincibility but the rewind thing on computer emulators might be more challenging but it might make them sell better.
I don't see a major downside of including these options.

DDD says "what I'm trying to say is: If you feel like wasting time playing challenging games, play comfy games like train simulators."

But casual gamers don't always like the type of games aimed at them.

Well, hardcore gamers don't always like the type of games aimed at them, too. Articifial difficulty, broken combat systems, typical over-hyped AAA titles etc.

If a game is well-made enough, all kinds of people will flock to it and WILL adapt to its mechanics.

Also, I like casual train simulators...

lol crabbitts

i like games with punishing difficulty. but i also don't really care too much about beating a game unless i'm fairly close to the end. so when i get stuck in a crazy difficult game, i just quit. just like i do when real life gets too hard!

but as far as your idea for a easy mode/rewind feature goes, i think a fast-forward feature would be more effective for people playing games that just want to get to the end and don't care about being challenged. too hard? just skip to the next part, no big deal.

Didn't Nintendo try to do something like this during the later years of the Wii with some of the Mario games? Like you could just skip ahead past levels you couldn't through? Hardcore gamers scoffed and it seemed like nobody else noticed.

Robert, I wonder what you'd think of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time or Braid, two games explicitly designed with the emulator rewind mechanic are a core gameplay feature, as well for adventure game The Last Express which allowed you to jump back and forth between time points in the story.

In practice, though, wouldn't you be skipping past the training process that makes you better able to tackle those later levels (or w/e)? So you'd just be frustrated again and use the fast-forward more and more - at that point you just want a "win" button.... at least, if the game is well-balanced in the first place. If it's just one kind of self-contained thing that you might suck at, then fine. Sierra/Dynamix would sometimes add "skip" buttons to the arcade mini-games if you just really didn't find them enjoyable or maybe for whatever reason couldn't do fast hand-eye coordination stuff (which was why you were playing a slow, cerebral adventure game in the first place). I think that's fine.

But, not to be a difficulty cop, it sort of seems silly to design your whole game around people who don't want to suffer getting good at its mechanics and so on. Or rather, once you're in the business of designing games that have difficulty (as opposed to gradual spoon-feeding), the ultra-easy mode really says "please make this game a different genre" when you might reasonably respond "perhaps a different game would suit you better."

I was never interested in the Prince Of Persia series or Braid. Haven't heard of Last Express. Thanks.

I had Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, which if you wanted to complete 100% were incredibly hard games (which was an extreme contrast with a lot of the easier Nintendo games). The help feature in that only appeared if you died something like 15 times, but it would not give you the proper star reward this way and I'm not sure you could complete the game this way.

Another game I enjoyed more cheating was Splatterhouse 2. Even on invincible mode I still found it challenging enough, especially aiming arrows at the tentacle creature's eye. I really love that game.

I generally really admire games that have a good range between "keep moving forward" and "get 100%." Yoshi's Island is a great example IIRC. The levels themselves contain ranges of difficulty depending on what tasks you want to undertake, and if you don't want to do the harder stuff it doesn't mean you can't pass the level. I've finally been replaying Goldeneye on N64 after years of deeming it a complete mess and this is also one thing it sorta does well, though it's a bit muddled since you have to load the levels on separate easy/medium/hard modes, and the rewards of achieving completion on hard (stuff you unlock, mainly for multiplayer I think) aren't really spelled out. But it's still: same environment, different challenges.

Spending time on things you enjoy more than trying to beat a game is a reasonable thing to do. I don't think it's necessary or desirable for every game to have a super easy mode; after a certain point you've just turned the whole thing into a series of basic QuickTime events, at which point you're probably better off reading that book or learning that third language.

That really depends on the type of game or what kind of difficulty or what kind of cheat. I guess a "watch mode" is an option. Some Dead Or Alive games had that.

I think part of the reason I like the Metal Slug series on the home consoles so much is that they gave you endless continues and I'm sure most people could beat them with enough time.

I had to give up playing Fallout3 a couple years back because I was just so terrible at it. I really enjoyed the environment/story/characters, but I couldn't do almost anything without dying. I only got about ten hours into it. I have to really like a game for me to stick around and finish it. I end up getting bored with most games about halfway through.

i feel like a lot of this was covered from a very different direction in this thread: "punishing difficulty" - why is this considered such a good thing?

I'm by no means a hardcore gamer (although I certainly seem to be heading more in that direction over the past year) but I have yet to encounter many games that I couldn't eventually get the hang of (and fairly regularly complete) with a little perseverance. That perseverance often is hugely frustrating and generates a lot of swearing and wishing ill upon inanimate objects but it usually pans out and eases its way into legit enjoyment. The willingness to try and try again seems to be the key more than any inherent skill on my part. And sometimes the challenge is too great and the desire to persevere disappates completely, and that's okay. Those games probably aren't for me (go fuck yourself, God Of War). I've also learned that, generally speaking, it's probably best for me to at least start on one of the easier settings of a given game.

Another good rewindy game (and just a good game in general) is Retro/Grade.

i also find myself wondering about games where you can't shift the difficulty mid way through the game - why not allow that? id prob hit more games on the normal setting if i wasnt locked in straight through, because nothing is worse than contemplating restarting and replaying a game on a lower difficulty level halfway through imo.

I'm sure there was often good technical reasons why you couldn't change difficulty in the middle but I'm struggling to think of examples.

There's also some good insights on the latter pages of the link at the top.

Another annoying thing is that I'm often attracted to games that just happen to be difficult. I love the Ghost N Goblins/Ghouls series (notorious for its difficulty) and the upcoming game which most appeals is Bloodborne, which is said to be easier than Demon/Dark Souls series but still punishing.

Anyone know if there is any good Castlevania/Ghouls N Goblins/Splatterhouse/Altered Beast style games for kindle you can buy on amazon?

Wait, you love the GNG series? Those are ridiculous!
I'm a big fan of game systems that are designed around malleable difficulty - the two best examples in recent memory I can think of were The World Ends With You and Bastion. You can change the difficulty at any time, and get better rewards and experience points for taking on more risk.

GNG series despite the insane difficulty are hugely fun (on the 2nd and 3rd games I gleefully replayed the first levels), the visuals, music and those rising shifting grounds are just so cool. I really wanted to play the psp version but it was supposed to be punishing too, but it looked beautiful.
I was a big fan of Maximo too, the first game I couldn't conquer (later levels were grueling), the second was manageable. I highly recommend them.

The GNG series was also a favourite to watch on YouTube. I'd be gutted if those walkthroughs were outlawed. A lot of developers believe they are good for community and business so lots of games would be unaffected even if it were technically illegal but Capcom might be less nice about it.