Dhruin
SasqWatch
I think you give developers too much credit for that "pure" experience. I haven't played Demon's Souls but if it is superbly balanced, are you sure it isn't simply because they had the resources to fine-tune it?
Having participated in many betas (often as press - I'm not claiming any grand insight as a tester) and read many post-mortems over the years, I've seen many developers admit to getting balance - or balance in a part of the game - simply wrong.
I'm testing a game at the moment and the developer adamantly feels some key battles need to be toned down. Which is the "pure" or "optimal" experience? The game as was first designed (assuming you could even identify a single point of time), or after weeks and months of careful feedback and changes? If they run out of time and ship the game before those changes, is there are hardcore group praising the difficulty that was never really intended to be?
Having participated in many betas (often as press - I'm not claiming any grand insight as a tester) and read many post-mortems over the years, I've seen many developers admit to getting balance - or balance in a part of the game - simply wrong.
I'm testing a game at the moment and the developer adamantly feels some key battles need to be toned down. Which is the "pure" or "optimal" experience? The game as was first designed (assuming you could even identify a single point of time), or after weeks and months of careful feedback and changes? If they run out of time and ship the game before those changes, is there are hardcore group praising the difficulty that was never really intended to be?