I'm personally disappointed how casual RPG players are looked down and that many easy RPGs or RPGs with easy settings are not considered casuals.

I played both NWN, infinity engine many other RPG on easy mode. But I get downvotes on reddit every time I say something is too hard, or that I wish something more easy.

I have to admit that hard modes are usually over my head and every time I started it I enjoyed game significantly less than on easy mode. For example Deadfire.
But when people talk about casual stuff, they mention Gris or something like it, that I personally found utterly boring.
Some games without difficutly sidebar take infinitely longer to complete than other people like Monster Boy or Ghost of the Tale, but they are my favorite games anyway


How do you feel about easy difficulties on RPGs and do you understand my plight?

I think people should play how they like and I respect everyone.

That said, I think the mental block a lot of us can't get around is that when games have no challenge, they often feel tedious or very boring to us. You need that challenge and risk to have to engage in the systems, learn the combat, pay attention to what's happening, etc. Combat without having to pay attention can feel really tedious. If you enjoy it more that way I'm happy for you, but I do think there's more to being confused by it than simple machismo bragging.

I feel like games should have easy/story modes that reduce combat, rather than making it trivial. For example an easy mode in Fallout 3 could remove most of the world map and dungeon combat, and leave only the important encounters with reduced difficulty.

“Reddit”, see there’s your real problem. That and caring what anyone else thinks. I have soled RPGs, and have played easy mode on the new doom, what does it matter to anyone else?

I'll catch all kinds of hell for this I imagine, but the current generation of gamers shaming people for choosing to play their games at the difficulties they feel most comfortable playing them on is absolutely crappy. The meme crowd dogpiling on for the sake of the "Haw haw"s doesn't help either.

That said, personally and factoring in my current age, a lot of RPGs of the time didn't really have an easy/etc. difficulty. Either you put the time in to get past the obstacles, started again from scratch and did things differently or you just threw in the towel and moved on to something else. There's a small handful of RPGs I came close to completing but never did because something was just brickwalling me (Mana Dragon in SNES Secret of Mana, to name one example).

In the current crop of games, I just go with what I think won't irritate the snot out of me. If it's easy, medium, hard, rare, sunny side up, charbroiled, steam grilled or whatever then I roll with it. If I finish it and feel like I need more of a challenge, I just start it up on the next difficulty setting when I'm ready.

First of all, reddit is dumb.

With RPGs, many of them (sadly) don't support a range of difficulties either content-wise or mechanics-wise. if you see less content when you fail challenges, it makes no sense to fail challenges - play at the easiest difficulty (or the hardest where you still win at everything), or hack your stats, or whatever.

Furthermore, rewards often come in the form of superior items, which means the game gets harder if you try to persevere and punishes you for not giving up until you do.

Finally, Sturgeon's Law says most RPGs don't warrant even one playthrough, not to mention a replay. Very few games deserve your time spent on getting better at them, because what is there to get better at? Woohoo, I clicked every pixel on every screen and found a +255 sword! Woohoo, I solved a single linear optimization problem in my head! Only took me 21 hours to find the best combination! Woohoo, I got f@#ked up on crystal meth and clicked buttons as fast as a third-grader! Look at me go! You only have one life. Spending it bored out of your mind to earn transient approval of dumb people is dumb. Any time someone offers you a problem better solved by a computer, know that they don't respect you as a human, and react accordingly.

(If you want hardcore RPG gamer cred for whatever reason, play Disco Elysium. It has an astounding amount of content to see for every situation.)

It's perfectly fine. The existence of a easy mode doesn't diminish in the slightest the experience of those who prefer to play on hard.

I sometimes play easy difficulty levels or follow a walkthrough, as I see fit. My gaming time is limited and I am the one who chooses how to enjoy it. For some games I enjoy the extra challenge, but sometimes it can feel like a chore.

Wildermyth, check that one out ;)

There does seem to be a some difficulty in determening the border between fun and challenge in a lot of games for, maybe the what younger developers....

rule in general, stay away from games aimed at the student community, those guys are drilled for the hard live many of them need to grow accustomed to too survive in this harsh harsh world

Not really. Why care about what some people on the internet say or think? Enjoy playing games however you like.

Unfortunately 99% of existence nowadays is what people think, what with social media and media in general. That’s not a judgement, just an observation.

Considering only important beings in the multiverse are Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth, I find current state of thing quite amusing.

I do, actually. At least I think so. It's actually something I've been thinking a lot about lately, as I've noticed myself being more and more, quite irrationaly for the most part, frustrated with losing.

Rationally I think the whole thing is beyond silly. Everyone should play every game in whatever way, on whatever difficultythey feel like. It's no one else's business. The idea of someone else, based on their own particular tastes, skill set etc. telling anyone else they are "having fun wrong" is ridiculous.

But it is a particular facet of games, distinct from movies, books or any other form of art and/or entertainment, that ones experience of them can, at least on the surface level, be judged and rated. It's possible, easy in fact, to measure how "well" you did. There is an inherent aspect of competitiveness to games. And there is some part of me, some emotional and childish part, that gets frustrated with losing or getting stuck and either giving up or playing on easy, when "the internet" is full of people who are all to eager to brag about how they won the game in question on the highest difficulty, blindfolded and and using an electric toothbrush as a controller. I feel like, as someone who has been a gamer for over twenty years now, as someone who considers games an important part of his "nerdy" identity, I should be better at this. Maybe I'm not a "real" gamer? Maybe I should leave playing games to the "real" gamers and pick up fishing?

The key is to realise, to be awere all the time, even in moments of peak frustration, how silly that is. How long it took you to beat a game, what difficulty you played on, how many times you died etc. does not determine whether you are a "real" gamer, a "hardcore" or a "casual" or whatever else. If you love a game, if playing it means something to you beyond superficial entertainment - that's all that matters. Just as a game being easy or difficult in no way determines whether it is a good game. So if you play an RPG on whatever lowest, super-easy hand-holding difficuly there is, as long as you are having fun with it and derive something worthwile from it, your experience is just as valid as any mega-hardcore iron-man permadeath playthrough.

Sorry for getting a bit long-winded there :)

I agree that we shouldn't look down on those who play easier difficulties.

For example, maybe one enjoys some parts of the game more than others, and wants to get to the good parts quickly; in this case, turning off the difficulty when the player reaches the less fun parts is perfectly reasonable. (Example: In VVVVVV, finding the Gravitron too frustrating? Just turn on invincibility and you'll be through that part in a minute!)

One interesting feature that VVVVVV and Celeste have is an "accessibility options" menu that allows you to slow down the game or turn on invincibility if you need to. Furthermore, VVVVVV also lets you unlock extra modes this way (but you probably don't want to try No Death Mode if you haven't beaten the game normally yet), and Celeste allows you to get more (or even infinite) air dashes and stamina.

Another interesting case is Morrowind, which can be hard at first, but is unbalanced to the point where you can make the game really easy with the right approach (for example, by using Alchemy to fortify your Luck into quadruple digits; don't forget that high Luck (and Intelligence) will allow you to make stronger potions). If you want a challenge, you then end up having to know what's powerful enough to break the game and what is more reasonably balanced.

Edit: Another thing I should mention: Games should not punish those who play on easier difficulties or with settings that make the game easy. Here are a couple offenders:
1. Castlevania 64: If you play on Easy, the game ends at the end of the 5th stage (and the game doesn't warn you about this when you select the difficulty); it doesn't help that the 5th stage requires you to carry something that will explode (killing you instantly) if you get hit once or fall even a short distance.
2. I Wanna Be The Guy: If you play on Normal (the easiest difficulty, which gives you more checkpoints), the added checkpoints say "WUSS" instead of "SAVE", and you're also forced to wear a bow in your hair (which is a rather sexist way of doing so in addition to its attempt of being demeaning to the (assumed male) player). Troll games have their place and can be quite fun if done right, but they should still be polite to the player.

How "well" did you play the Secret of Monkey Island? (just an example)
I can think of many games that don't have this "inherent aspect of competitiveness".

Personally, I view games as interactive alternatives to movies or books. I rarely play multiplayer, but when I do - I enjoy the social interaction (=never with strangers), not the competition.

I have no problem with games being easy and certainly don't think anyone should be ridiculed or belittled for enjoying easy and / or casual games...

... but...

at the same time, I don't think games need to have easy modes (or conversely hard modes). I think games and game creators should be free to make games as easy or hard as they want... even if that makes their property a niche game. Appealing to a very specific audience isn't a bad thing... even though that means I often might not be the target audience.

Difficulty "sliders" can work for some games -- especially those that emphasize story or gameplay -- but IMO game devs have no audience responsibility to institute "sliders" (in the early 90's this entire topic would have been unheard of)...

... but...

with gaming's audience growing far beyond the core market, I expect to see it more-and-more.

Ah yes, it's Ninja Dog mode from Ninja Gaiden Black all over again (I assume the game is referencing it, but I don't know much about IWBTG at all).