With Hollow Knight: Silksong’s huge launch in full swing, community debate about its qualities and flaws has gone back and forth, with some players insisting their criticisms about things like the game's difficulty are valid and shouldn’t be instantly dismissed as "hate."
I agree with most of it, except I think it’s fine for developers to make a hard (or very hard game) if that’s their vision. Not every games is for everyone. And if developers are fine with targeting just a niche, there is no issue with it.
That being said, I do have issue with players / gamers saying there should be no easy mode. Adding an easy mode doesn’t take away anything for anyone who isn’t playing easy mode. All it takes away is their ability to brag that they finished a game half the people can’t finish. There are ways for developers to handle even that. Give some special achievement or something for those who finish on non-easy mode, but that’s again up to developers, and I am fine if there isn’t one.
Rockband was a good example of achievement-gating the higher difficulties. You got an achievement for beating the game on Medium, Hard, or Expert. And doing it on one of the two higher ones would unlock the ones below if you didn’t already do it on those difficulties. So if you were good enough to beat it on Expert, you got three or four achievements. Now I know you’re probably thinking “wait how do you beat Rockband”? By completing the Endless Setlist, which is unlocked when you beat the story mode. The story mode just unlocked the higher tiers of difficulty. The Endless Setlist was all the songs. Six hours and 20 minutes minimum. Oh, and when I said “three or four achievements”? The fourth one is if you do it without pausing or failing (at any difficulty Medium or higher). That one was called the “Bladder of Steel Award.” Yes, I own it. You food prep in advance, you do it on vocals, and you time your bathroom breaks very carefully (and drop a deuce in advance as well). But those three achievements for beating it at difficulty? Those are per instrument. I only have the gold (expert) vocals award. I may have the bronze (medium) bass award, but I never got any for guitar or drums.
That’s just one example of difficulty and incentives. I like how Deus Ex 1 did it, too. On Easy, you did more damage and took less. On Hard, you did less and took more. On Medium, it was balanced. On Realistic… everyone takes more. That was how I played. I wasn’t getting hit. I played a sniper. Even on Easy it was hard to one-shot enemies with a good gun and a headshot. For some reason that didn’t kill them. On Realistic, a shot to center mass with my .30-06 will drop any human enemy. A shot to the head will drop the augmented ones. So that’s how I play… played. It’s not on Xbox and it’s not on the Mac. My Mac can run it through Whisky, but I haven’t played much more than parts of the first level, so I’m not sure what the compatibility looks like later.
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I agree with most of it, except I think it’s fine for developers to make a hard (or very hard game) if that’s their vision. Not every games is for everyone. And if developers are fine with targeting just a niche, there is no issue with it.
That being said, I do have issue with players / gamers saying there should be no easy mode. Adding an easy mode doesn’t take away anything for anyone who isn’t playing easy mode. All it takes away is their ability to brag that they finished a game half the people can’t finish. There are ways for developers to handle even that. Give some special achievement or something for those who finish on non-easy mode, but that’s again up to developers, and I am fine if there isn’t one.
Rockband was a good example of achievement-gating the higher difficulties. You got an achievement for beating the game on Medium, Hard, or Expert. And doing it on one of the two higher ones would unlock the ones below if you didn’t already do it on those difficulties. So if you were good enough to beat it on Expert, you got three or four achievements. Now I know you’re probably thinking “wait how do you beat Rockband”? By completing the Endless Setlist, which is unlocked when you beat the story mode. The story mode just unlocked the higher tiers of difficulty. The Endless Setlist was all the songs. Six hours and 20 minutes minimum. Oh, and when I said “three or four achievements”? The fourth one is if you do it without pausing or failing (at any difficulty Medium or higher). That one was called the “Bladder of Steel Award.” Yes, I own it. You food prep in advance, you do it on vocals, and you time your bathroom breaks very carefully (and drop a deuce in advance as well). But those three achievements for beating it at difficulty? Those are per instrument. I only have the gold (expert) vocals award. I may have the bronze (medium) bass award, but I never got any for guitar or drums.
That’s just one example of difficulty and incentives. I like how Deus Ex 1 did it, too. On Easy, you did more damage and took less. On Hard, you did less and took more. On Medium, it was balanced. On Realistic… everyone takes more. That was how I played. I wasn’t getting hit. I played a sniper. Even on Easy it was hard to one-shot enemies with a good gun and a headshot. For some reason that didn’t kill them. On Realistic, a shot to center mass with my .30-06 will drop any human enemy. A shot to the head will drop the augmented ones. So that’s how I play… played. It’s not on Xbox and it’s not on the Mac. My Mac can run it through Whisky, but I haven’t played much more than parts of the first level, so I’m not sure what the compatibility looks like later.
Wow, that’s some dedication. Salute to you for actually getting those achievements.
That’s an interesting way to play Deux Ex, never tried the sniper walkthrough, will give a try if I went back to it.