What's your opinion on easy modes in singleplayer games?

Silent_Gunner · Apr 7, 2021

Easy modes. "You're not a true gamer if you pick the easy difficulty. You're a normie, and should hand your nerd card to someone more H4RDC0R3!"

In all seriousness though, what is everyone's opinion on playing games on lower difficulties for whatever reason, be it trying to rush through games in your backlog, not having as much time for gaming, or just wanting an easier time?

As for me, I think options are great, but games and art in general shouldn't be as focus grouped to death as they've been for at least the past 20-30 years. Just because one group you pull in says one thing doesn't mean that what a dev team or shooting+directorial+writing crew put together isn't good; maybe what they created will appeal to a different group?

Basically, if it can be offered, great; if not, I'd rather have a complete game with one difficulty as opposed to one where they had to cut stuff to appeal to people who probably aren't going to even buy the game in the first place!

The Catboy · Apr 7, 2021

I think gaming is supposed to be about having fun on your own terms. If you just want to enjoy a game and you find it more enjoyable in easy mode, then go enjoy your game in easy mode. If you don't enjoy a game because it's too hard (like Darksouls for example,) that's fine too, no one should be forcing anyone to enjoy a game they don't find fun. The long and short of it, people should just enjoy gaming at whatever level makes them the happiest and that should be seen as perfectly acceptable.

DinohScene · Apr 7, 2021

Couldn't care less about them
If I want to play a game just for achievements, easy mode might very well be the fastest way to collect all of them.

Silent_Gunner · Apr 7, 2021

DinohScene said:
Couldn't care less about them
If I want to play a game just for achievements, easy mode might very well be the fastest way to collect all of them.

Until you get to the achievements for beating the harder difficulties...

DinohScene · Apr 7, 2021

Silent_Gunner said:
Until you get to the achievements for beating the harder difficulties...

After playing the game once I can quickly run through the game on the hardest difficulty without many problems.
I guess it's a plus of speedrunning?

Silent_Gunner · Apr 7, 2021

DinohScene said:
After playing the game once I can quickly run through the game on the hardest difficulty without many problems.
I guess it's a plus of speedrunning?

You say that, but you should read some of the war stories I've heard about people trying to beat Call of Duty World At War's campaign on the Veteran difficulty (AKA the one where your health is basically = to what you have in the Hardcore mode of the multiplayer of every COD ever, as far as my understanding goes, anyways)!

DinohScene · Apr 7, 2021

Silent_Gunner said:
You say that, but you should read some of the war stories I've heard about people trying to beat Call of Duty World At War's campaign on the Veteran difficulty (AKA the one where your health is basically = to what you have in the Hardcore mode of the multiplayer of every COD ever, as far as my understanding goes, anyways)!

Lol, COD, no thank you.

tech3475 · Apr 7, 2021

Unless the difficulty setting affects online modes and there’s no affect on the core game design (e.g. map layout), I don’t see any issue with offering difficulty levels.

Even something like ‘no difficulty’ modes can be nice once in a while when you just want to mess around, such as Doom Eternals built in unlock able cheats.

What I did hate as a young kid though was ‘Practice Mode’, particularly on Mickey Mania/Mickey’s Wild Adventure on the PS1, it was effectively ‘easy’ mode but it also cut off the last part of the game. They’d have been better off not bothering IMO since it felt more annoying.

I know some people will just say ‘git good’ but it came across more as ‘stop having fun’ and IIRC the dev themselves said high difficulty was more because of rentals and had to cheat at their own game when streaming it.

RyRyIV · Apr 7, 2021

Honestly, I just want people to have fun playing games. If someone finds joy in playing a game on "easy," then good on them. Nobody has the right to judge someone having fun without challenging themselves... or for being challenged on the easy mode.

Deleted User · Apr 7, 2021

Silent_Gunner said:
You say that, but you should read some of the war stories I've heard about people trying to beat Call of Duty World At War's campaign on the Veteran difficulty (AKA the one where your health is basically = to what you have in the Hardcore mode of the multiplayer of every COD ever, as far as my understanding goes, anyways)!

getting the skulls in legendary mode in halo

personally i couldn't care less about wether or not a game includes a "baby mode" difficulty for your average kotaku gamer, as long as it doesn't bring down all the other difficulties with it
like bringing everything down a tier, easy = play the game for you, medium = easy, hard = easy, nightmare = medium

Deleted User · Apr 7, 2021

I have so many legit games and ISOs and roms that I'll use it sometimes if I want to get through the game quicker to move onto the next game. I usually just play in normal mode though. I'm not really trying to impress myself that much, much less anyone else.

Tom Bombadildo · Apr 7, 2021

As noted a couple times, as long as it doesn't substantially change other parts of the games and the other difficulty tiers, I don't really care. Games are supposed to be fun, and for the most part people don't like their games to be CBT hard.

I don't personally play on easy, I usually opt for hard modes, but my wife does because she doesn't want to sit there and get frustrated by hard XYZ whatevers for hours on end and just likes playing the game. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

Julie_Pilgrim · Apr 7, 2021

Latiodile said:
getting the skulls in legendary mode in halo

This sentence gave me PTSD

Moffle · Apr 22, 2021

Don't really care since I never use em

subcon959 · Apr 24, 2021

I think it depends on the game as some games are more fun when challenging, and others become too much of a grind.

Hells Malice · Apr 24, 2021

People can do whatever they want
Achievements were a great way of motivating people to push outside of their comfort zone and try harder difficulties
Wish I could make Steam achievements be as great as xbox 360 achievements

I'll always play on the hardest difficulty cuz i'm always looking to be challenged, and most games these days do not have any.

Taleweaver · Apr 24, 2021

Silent_Gunner said:
Easy modes. "You're not a true gamer if you pick the easy difficulty. You're a normie, and should hand your nerd card to someone more H4RDC0R3!"

A normie? I'd think those played on normal difficulty. It's on the name, after all.

In all seriousness : I usually forego easy mode. And hard mode, for that matter. Sorry for the extreme elite Mega gamers out there who can't afford buying games, but I've got a backlog the size of a black hole. I barely finish games once, let alone me than once. And I'll stick to the default mode for that by default.

I consider it a nice touch, though. Last year I played a game I think was called eagle island. Pretty decent rogue lite-is game. But the restarting of a level (and finding the boss in a random generated map) got tiresome. So I switched to easy, which gives you 7 health instead of 3. It still wasn't a walk in the park (or my gaming mojo shrinks... Laugh it up if it makes you happy), but it was a much better game for me.

What's your opinion on easy modes in singleplayer games?

Crazy Cool Cyclops

GBAtemp Official Catboy™: Boywife

Gay twink catboy

Crazy Cool Cyclops

Gay twink catboy

Crazy Cool Cyclops

Gay twink catboy

Well-Known Member

Woke Clown

Deleted User

Guest

Deleted User

Guest

Dick, With Balls

Secretly three raccoons in a trench coat

Member

@!#?@!

Are you a bully?

Storywriter

Similar threads

Popular threads in this forum