Not sure why many are upset by this. The original difficulty is in tact and a higher setting is being introduced, along with easier options for inexperienced or less skilled action players.
The DOOM games come to mind. Do difficulty settings like 'I'm Too Young to Die' and 'Hurt Me Plenty' affect those seeking the Nightmare+ experience? Not at all. Having easier modes doesn't diminish the challenge of existing higher difficulties. The same applies to Khazan.
If the devs had just announced the hardcore difficulty mode nobody would be complaining if fact they would probably be praseing the devs.
Honestly the idea that one difficulty mode will Be JUST FINE for up to 10s of millions of players is absolutely retarded. From Software are successful in spite of this not because of this.
They also have another thing in common; the genre was already dead when those games released. They had no impact on the decline of the genre whatsoever.
Empire Earth 3 was pretty much the poster-child of the turning point.
Have a read of this:
Be careful what you wish for. A lot of RTS gamers have been clamoring for a simplified Empire Earth over the past couple of years, finding the first two releases in the series to be a mess of units and eras as incomprehensible as a history textbook after it's been fished out of a blender. So, welcome to Empire Earth III, a shot back at the critics that answers complaints by dumbing the whole game down to utter dreck. While the first two games in the series at least inspired love or hate, this new arrival is so "blah" that it can only elicit a lot of "What the hell happened here?" shrugs.
Earlier Empire Earth games were acquired tastes that not everybody liked. Now, in an attempt to reach out to the masses, the developer has given us a game that nobody will like. The first two releases in the series were overwhelming, but they're apt to inspire fond memories in anyone who makes the mistake of picking up this lame new sequel
The mobile Chinese game that EA decided to slap C&C Franchise on it for a quick buck? Yea the crappiness of it has nothing to do with lowering difficulties, its not even a fucking RTS.
They all have one thing in common. All dumbed down oversimplified slop because they were all attempting to target a "new" audience that never existed in the first place.
RTS got eaten by all sides from tower defense, moba, grand strategy games, real time factory/city, 4X strategy flourished, etc.
Kind of ironic that the easier to get into MOBA phenomena wiped the floor with RTS, and yet you come in here saying that "being easier" killed the RTS genre.
eSports and meta multiplayer killed RTS genre. A much bigger culprit than "easier" RTS that spawned in the MOBA craze. They got so preoccupied with making competitive games that they forgot to make single player games worth a damn. Basically inaccessible for most peoples. They targeted smaller hardcore fans and not casuals. Focused too much on PVP and not a good meaty single player campaign.
That's the reasons. The campaigns sucks so much now, most of them consider single player campaign like a tutorial to muliplayer PVP, thus this void was filled with a wave of huge success with grand strategy games.
There were 36 RTS games released last year, all kinds of tastes, difficulties, etc. Nobody gives a shit. They don't make a blip on the radar. Nobody is stopping from entering the genre because of easy difficulties, these games are like a time capsule to 30 years ago. Once in a while an RTS remembers to have a meaty single player campaign and finds success, AoE4 comes to mind.
Yet the crowd that do care (dozens!) still eat some good meals and review well.
Aliens dark descent not "common" RTS but still very well received
But overall the novelty wore off a long time ago. Little to no innovation. They don't look impressive compared to what's output in other genres. The skill transfer from RTS to RTS sucks unlike say a shooter, so players stay into the RTS they are good at and rarely budge.
No, an easy difficulty on souls game will not kill the genre.
I don't like either "hardcore modes" nor "easy mode".
I find a great appeal in the idea that a game has just one standard intended difficulty and that it's not supposed to be my job as a player to "pick and choose" at will.
I don't want to be asked to make things deliberately harder for myself AND I don't want to have an easy escape route from anything remotely challenging in the core experience.
Lies Of P is another game that I was planning to pick up on sale at some point, but I'm now going to skip because I find their recent addition of "difficulty options" deeply unappealing.
Why exactly can't you demonstrate the willpower to play these games with the difficulty settings they were released with?
Both these games had an entire dev cycle on Optimising the default difficulty setting. That's the obvious choice no need to worry about "pick and choosing"
Well can only speak for myself since this can be subjective but I felt the balance between hard and fair was pretty good in all souls games except ER, giving a good sende of accomplishment and fun without being too masochist
I must now go have an incoherent rage filled temper tantrum. Difficulty options have ruined my life. I only play games using a knock off NES controller with a missing button while having lemon juice poured into fresh cuts. If you don't play like that, you are a noob and ruining the souls genre.
Why does it bother you that *others* may play the game on easy? Heck, in this same patch they're adding an EVEN HARDER mode, but apparently that doesn't merit even a positive mention? What exactly is stopping you from playing straight away on Challenge (the old Normal)?
[
Well can only speak for myself since this can be subjective but I felt the balance between hard and fair was pretty good in all souls games except ER, giving a good sende of accomplishment and fun without being too masochist
I dunno it can vary a lot depending on what weapon and build you choose let alone doing co-op. Elden Rings open world nature and introduction of Summons and it's completely all over the place.
Bloodborne and Sekiro have less options and probably the most consistent.
Arguably this is part of the fun of the games and I agree. It's fair criticism as well if some players either find it too hard or too easy or are forced to use mechanics they don't like summons.
Any game should be optimized with one difficulty setting, or else it's all a bit nonsensical.
I have issues with the normal mode now being easy, it's gonna confuse new users if they don't know about these changes. But a game having a piss easy mode i don't see a problem. I'm actually very surprised FromSoft hasn't introduced one lowering massively enemies health, damage and adding iframes to health replenishment. I probably would have preferred that than the unbalanced summons mechanism that ends up influencing the main-game.
