Many games include a hard mode, which often is just a matter of increasing enemy health/strength/accuracy, and decreasing the player’s health/defense. Occasionally it will also include more/harder objectives (like 00 Agent mode on Goldeneye007). Several of the Zelda games can be pointed to with their “Hero Modes” that don’t give the player recovery hearts on top of the aforementioned enemy buffs. Capcom apparently thought that Mega Man 2 was too difficult for the NA release, so it had an easier mode labeled as “Normal,” which lowered enemy hit points, with the original mode called, “Difficult.” While I appreciate that developers include these options, I also think that the way it’s done for most games is kind of a lazy way of doing it. What we need is a Deep Mode for serious gamers who have hundreds of hours to dedicate to the game, and a Casual Mode for those who only want to spend 5-10 hours (or less) on a game and be done.
This is similar to the oft-repeated argument that there should be a “dad-server” of sorts for those of us who want to play and enjoy a game without the necessary 300 hours of practice needed to “get gud.” This is beneficial to those who only get a couple hours a week for gaming or for those who dump 10-15 hours into a game before moving onto the next one. To give a sportsball analogy, it would be no fun to show up to a neighborhood pickup game of basketball and have Steph Curry or LeBron James on the other team, which is why they have their own elite league. Nor would it be any fun if a game of chess required that both players to know what the Benoni Defense is before being allowed to play (full disclosure: I have no idea what that is - I just googled it).
In Dark Souls, when a new weapon is found, the player is greeted with a page of statistics about it. By comparison, Breath of the Wild whittles the weapon stats down to one number, so it’s easier to compare which weapon is better. That works great for small kids (who don’t need a 16-point breakdown of every item) and dads (who don’t have as much time). The thing is, there actually are those stats in BotW but they’re just not shown to the player. Croton on YouTube has done several videos breaking down hidden stats of each weapon and shield, like its breakability, shield-surfing speed, and how the game calculates what Link can and can’t block. Personally, and because I’m such a Zelda aficionado, I would have liked a deeper weapon/armor rating and upgrading system, but I can see how for a lot of people, less is more, and its simplicity probably contributed to its mass appeal. On the flip side, for something I’m not heavily vested in (like Dark Souls), I would appreciate some simplified gameplay and a better tutorial. I know that the point of the series is to be insanely difficult, but a casual mode would open doors for a wider audience that might not have discovered their love of the games if there is always such a steep learning curve.
Besides weapon/armor stats, here are some other ideas I had for Casual Mode;
Weapon Crafting - Weapon crafting was simple in the fishing game on 3DS Mii Plaza (Ultimate Angler) - Rod A combined with Rod B produced Rod C and there was a simple chart showing how that happened. Games like Fallout or The Outer Worlds have a whole page of stats for weapons and the crafting system is deep and intricate. Games that have crafting could have an option for either a simple or detailed system.
A Standard Ending - Instead of having 8 endings depending on choices made or completion time, have a “regular” ending for those who only want to go through the game once and not try every class/combination of characters or speedrun through it.
Streamlined Skill Tree - While some people enjoy tweaking every little decision with characters and their abilities, games could have just a “normal” path that takes some of the decision-making out of the ordeal.
There could be other things, depending on the genre. More narrative-driven games could have more obvious in-text clues, or in adventure/exploration games there could be a companion guide of sorts.
So what I’m proposing is that in addition to a difficulty selector (one that increases enemy health/accuracy), there could be a second option for Casual Mode that is good for kids/dads/beginners who just want to have fun or Advanced Mode for serious players who are already veterans of the series/genre.
