As someone who’s done Video game QA, working with Tomonobu Itagaki doesn’t sound pleasant. Those campaign sprints are hard enough as is
Itagaki’s comment here reminds me of Malmsteen’s “more is more”
Aw little ying weeeeeeblebleblbledoodlesedledoodlewedleedleweereeeeeeeiiiiiii
Celeste did it perfectly imho with their Assist Mode. Just add those difficulty options in for accessibility, with a statement that it is not how the developers intend for it to be played, but still to use it freely if need be.
“Celeste is intended to be a challenging and rewarding experience. If the default game proves inaccessible to you, we hope that you can still find that experience with Assist Mode.”
It is 2026. Gamers should be able to enjoy any game they want at any difficulty they want without judgement, as long as it does not affect anyone else.
Exactly. I love Souls games but I think having an option somewhere for people that need it wouldn’t ruin the intended experience. Especially if there’s a disclaimer before you choose it.
I’m not mad they don’t have it or anything. But like, shouldn’t there be a way to play if you literally can’t otherwise?
I think it would be a pretty good joke if they made the combat of the next souls game turn based. Still monstrously difficult, release the game on an April 1st and have the entire gaming subset of players switch their stances
Match the type of a game, sheesh.
Bethesda like open world? Gimmie difficulty levels - nothing will change with them except that people will be able to tailor the experience more.
Narrative and/or choice heavy game? Leave difficulty choice off to let the original vision of the author speak for itself - havimg parts too easy or hard due to watered down or pumped up difficulty can ruin the story.
Arcade/Dark Souls games? I…don’t really see reasons for difficulty settings here except for harder than baselines ones? Like new game +. In these games, learning patterns and gettimg good is the game, there is no way around it.
All in all - not every game is for everyone, we have genres for a reason. Having difficulty tailored for arcades in open world exploration game makes no sense just as much as having watered down difficulty levels in narrative heavy games.
Some have limited time and want to enjoy a good game without being one-shot or learning patterns for 5 hours to beat a single boss.
learning patterns and gettimg good is the game
Otherwise it’s fruit ninja lmao which is a fun game you should get if you want an easy sword slashing experience
Lol yes, I dropped High On Life at the first boss because after trying to pass it ten times, I just couldn’t be bothered.
That’s just not a game to me. It’s just packaged frustration, and I’d rather do something else. So that got uninstalled rather fast.You’re way overblowing the difficulty of the Souls games.
I’ve beaten most of them, and my reactions are shit. 90% of the difficulty is from not knowing how it differs from other games.
Some
I never said all, have I?
So…. Play a different game? Not everything is for you? Does this actually need to be said?
Sounds like you’ll need to play a different game then.
Sounds like you need to learn to respect the boundaries of others.
What? I am not interacting with your boundaries at all. I’m not forcing you to play anything that doesn’t suit you. You are complaining that you want to play a game that doesn’t suit you. Maybe you’ll just have to get over the fact that it doesn’t suit you and play something else?
Sounds like you’ll need to play a different game then.
Sounds like you are telling me what my taste is supposed to be
Maybe you’ll just have to get over the fact that it doesn’t suit you and play something else?
I am aware of it and have already decided it not being my cup of tea.
I am talking about those that like a moderate challenge but do not enjoy being stuck for 10hours at a stage without any meaningful progress to achieve.You: “I don’t like the characteristic elements of Souls games.”
Them: “You may want to play a different game then.”
You: “Stop telling me my taste!”
I am talking about those that like a moderate challenge but do not enjoy being stuck for 10hours at a stage without any meaningful progress to achieve.
Maybe they should pick a game that provides a moderate challenge and not one that provides “being stuck for 10h at a stage without any meaningful progress”?
Can’t be real.
This is really such an weird argument. Like arguing that you want to be able to drive a nail with any tool you find, so no matter if these are scissors, a spoon or an actual hammer, all need to be usable as a hammer.
We have genres for a reason. If you do not like soulslikes, pick another game. If you have no time to play arcade style games, pick another genre. There are thousands of games available, and genre overlap is huge - don’t play games that aren’t meant to align with your requirements and then complain they don’t.
Like, this is borderline egoistical of you.
I think it’s a valid argument. For example, if someone wants to read Shakespeare but they aren’t a strong reader, you could provide a simpler version, while acknowledging it isn’t as originally intended. It allows for accessibility for a larger audience while not changing the experience for others. You wouldn’t tell someone to read a different story genre instead. This isn’t tools, where we have to bend the laws of physics, it’s changing some numbers in a database, and something already done for higher level difficulty settings, so just allow a version that is easier. No one is forcing anyone to play it that way.
Also Hideo Kojima: Can I add a setting to have lots of feet. Do you all like feet? more feet!
Difficulty settings are accessibility settings and anyone who disagrees can kiss my ass.
As long as the setting accommodates everyone, including people who want a difficult game
This is why I didn’t finish CO:E33. I’m a from soft fanboy. I have beaten everything they made other than king’s field. I head into brick walled the first Claire obscura optional boss after the intro. But it got way too inconsistent about halfway through. So I switched it to easy and it was just incredibly too easy so I lost interest. Wish they had something in between.
But yeah, if a game is too easy it doesn’t captivate me.
You’re not supposed to be able to beat every optional boss you find the first time you see it, unless you really are a parry God. The game allows you to circle back to optional bosses at later opportunities quite regularly.
Yeah, this was the first optional boss. I had such difficulty with the mandatory ones mid game is when I set the difficulty to easy.
Yeah that’s the point at least in my eyes. I don’t see why it has to be one way or the other. You have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain from difficulty accessibility options. If someone sees difficulty as some sort of status symbol… Well, don’t project that onto me.
The first philosophy is why so many modern AAA games are complete crap. Why not just have FMV of the actors doing the scene and have the audience press X to continue to the next scene?
One of these days, maybe we won’t even have to press X anymore! It can just go scene to scene while we relax! Imagine it!
I don’t mind any of these approaches. Personally I’d want a single difficulty that is made challenging but with specific accessibility options. Like disable quick time events, loose lock on, and other things to make the interface more bearable if you have a physical or mental disability.
While I don’t care if a game has an easy mode, a lot of the “easy mode is accessibility” arguments feel similar to the “AI art is accessibility” arguments. Unless you can’t properly interface with the game, having low skill is not a disability or something needing accessibility support. If you practice you’ll get better at it.
The “but I don’t have much time” argument feels especially weird, like would you demand a cliff notes version of a book or TV show because you don’t have the time otherwise? If you just want the story just find a playthrough online.
If a game has an easy mode, great, it appeals to a wider audience. If it doesn’t, great, it’s catering to a specific audience. A game’s not worse for having an easy mode and a game’s not inaccessible for asking you to practice its mechanics.
The “but I don’t have much time” argument feels especially weird, like would you demand a cliff notes version of a book or TV show because you don’t have the time otherwise?
Sweet Summer child…
Yes, there are dummies like that. I remember reading about someone actually bragging about “reading more” by asking for book summaries via AI.
If I buy a game for €50 and the game is too difficult for me to get past the tutorial, even with practice, I cannot access 90% of the game I paid for. You could call it catering to a small audience but it is different than a game like “pc building simulator” which also caters to a small audience that can at least be fully accessed by everyone (not considering impairments)
If there is no way of scaling down the difficulty then I would like a refund of the money I spent on content I could not access.
The ‘just watch a playthrough for the story’ argument doesn’t work for me. Games are a unique medium in a sense that the story is shaped by player decisions. Even if there is not a branching story, giving the player agency over small decisions like cosmetics makes the player more invested in the character and allow for roleplaying. That’s all lost when you watch someone else play the game.
I agree that if the difficulty is too high you ought to return it. Typically games are balanced for a sizable enough audience, if a game’s tutorial is impossibly difficult then it’s probably not a good tutorial or the game’s for a hyper niche audience.
I guess I can understand the appeal of easy modes just for experiencing the story. This does hit a wall though when a game’s story is dependent on its gameplay. Like Fromsoft games demand a lot of attention to understand the story beyond a basic level, they clearly want to gatekeep that and it’s part of their games’ identity.
My point is basically, difficulty is one of the tools a developer can use to craft their experience. While most games want to appeal to as many people as possible, it should be just as valid for a game to decide their experience requires inherent skill requirements, at the risk of people returning it if they aren’t the target audience.
There’s a lot of “you made your art wrong” in here. If you don’t have legs, you’re not going to be able to play soccer. You can make your own no-leg soccer if you want, but I’m just going to make an “ew” face at you if you say that soccer needs to change for you. Try arm wrestling!
The best argument against games (or any software) that don’t work for you is that you often can’t get refunds, and that’s a valid concern, but it has nothing to do with the content itself.
A nonverbal person joined one of hubs Delta green games on discord and he accommodated it but was confused as to why they didn’t just join one of the text chat based games on the same server. His theory is they were just used to getting whatever they wanted because they then proceeded to insist on playing a shadowrun character until they just kind of broke down that it wasn’t working with the game and ghosted.
Souls ganes has easy modes. Usually there’s an OP build or archetype which makes the game much easier
I think Souls games went too far tho. If we stayed at DS1 level that’d be one thing, but the Elden Ring DLC just went stupid with it.
I think that is what Miyazaki’s philosophy is. Not everybody needs to be a parry god, nor do you need to defeat the boss naked with a broken sword in order for it to “count”. The souls games and their contemporaries are as difficult as you want to make them. If a boss is too hard, come back when you are overleveled and stomp it. Or use some cheesy build to trivialize it. That’s what he means by “fac[ing] that challenge” and “overcom[ing] it in some way that suits them as a player”.
I’m not paying for a game that doesn’t allow changing difficulty if I want/need. I work two jobs and have to do most home cleaning and maintenance. I used to game competitively back in the early 2000s, but I don’t have time for that shit nor gatekeeping.
Good news: Dwarf fortress is free.
Strike the earth!
Is it still available for free? I kinda assumed once it went up on steam it wouldn’t be.
Doesn’t the Steam version just give you different graphics?
It does add a lot of quality of life stuff you would have to mod the original to get access to, though as I understand it, the Lazy Newb Pack mods include most of those QoL changes. Though, them being integrated into the game itself will almost always be smoother than requiring the installation of a mod.
let’s be real here, the steam version is mostly a tax on people who find technology scary and can’t install a few things on their own
It’s also a way to support two stellar devs
… or mostly a cool way to support two guys who have poured their LIFE into what has become one of the most notorious computer games of all time. Exhibited by museums, beloved by million, and distributed for free. Best 30 bucks spend I’ve spendt in a while. If anyone deserves that money, it’s the Adams brothers.
But sure think of it as a mean spirited idiot-tax if you want
I suppose you could think of it that way, though buying it on Steam, even if you’re not going to play that version, does help support the continued development of the game overall. Their Patreon donation stream was apparently waning before the Steam version released, plus there was the family health scare Tarn revealed at the time of the announcement too. I’d prefer the entire project not get put on a long hiatus because the devs got unexpectedly bankrupted by the absurd healthcare costs prevalent here in the US. And the fact that they didn’t take down the free version after the Steam release on its own shows that they didn’t make that version for the sake of greed.
The steam version is the nice graphical one. The original is still free.
Oh that’s cool I didn’t know there was a difference between them
The original is capable of pretty nice graphics too.
Yeah I wasted money on 2 soulslikes before I realized it. Now I avoid them like the plague.
Which 2?
Dark souls I and Elden Ring
With Elden Ring, were you expecting a more “living” open world, like The Witcher 3 or RDR2?
Basically I met the first advirsary and spent 2 hours falling to defeat him. I looked around for another couple hours for something to make defeating him possible. Encountered other creatures I couldn’t defeat. Never opened it again.
I’m a middle aged guy with a family. If Im gonna “git good” at something, it will be something useful I need in my life, not a soulslike. I play games to relax not to add to my very long list of problems in life.
Was it a big golden dude?
This guy?
You’re not supposed to be able to defeat him until much later in the game. In the beginning, you just have to avoid him. He patrols a small area in your path, and there are easier enemies just beyond him.It was a guy in a kind of valley going into a cave. Regardless, if I can’t make something happen in the first 4 hours of a game, it ain’t for me.
Both are perfectly acceptable philosophies, but many Souls players need to learn that losing at a game for 150 hours is not what other people find fun.
The difficulty slider is intrinsic to the system and the world. The whole point is that you have to make it easier by engaging with it on its own terms, rather than by forcing a change upon the world to make it suit you. This is never made explicit; the creator just wants you to either dig deep or bounce off it because struggle is the whole point or something, which is why we have to talk about it forever. Blah
That’s just forcing the player to play the way the creator wants. Which is some arrogant and oppressive fun-destroying gatekeeping bullshit.
Soulslikes always feel like a chore that requires a ton of homework (that you have to find yourself with no hints) to make the setting not feel empty and lifeless.
I get that some people don’t want any hand holding or coddling, but some of us already have to play real life on hard mode and just want to play games for fun, escapism, and wish fulfillment.
You can just play a different game. It’s a toy. This shit doesn’t matter.
Diagetic difficulty is specifically not forcing play the way the creator wants. Its using lack of balance and making it part of the experience.
Then why did they nerf my boy the Mimic Tear.
The difficulty slider in Souls games is how many levels you’ve invested into health
You often can’t do that until you’ve made a little bit of progress. The real difficulty curve early on is knowing that picking the heavy armour class will make things much harder for yourself, that the real progression is knowledge of enemy attacks and opening shortcuts, and that losing your currency when you don’t have enough points to reach the next level isn’t really a big deal.
And the janky camera controls. Those, sadly, can’t be mitigated much.
That and some very strange ideas about where the jump button should be.
Most of us get that, but non souls player must also understand that dark souls on easy mode is just a bad game. There are no big cinematics, the story is scarce, there are only a few npcs. Those are games that puts you on your toes, you must be wary at all times, and learn to master the game bit by bit. It’s not for everyone, or everytime (I think everyone can play souls game but they need to be in the right mindset) but they are my favorite games. But yeah gatekeepers suck
Gatekeepers make things good by keeping those who aren’t serious out.
games
mumble about keeping non-serious people out
(You can just ignore non-serious people as they don’t affect you btw)
If non-serious people are the reason a game series I love gets worse, then they have affected me. It happened to Monster Hunter, and I don’t want it to happen to FromSoft games too.
Why would have an option for easy mode make it worse for you?
Because it doesn’t just end with an easy mode. It ends with Monster Hunter Rise and Wilds, and an entire series losing everything that made it unique all so it can keep chasing the lowest common denominator, who always start their erosion of a once-great series with “it’s too hard. :( Why are the devs so mean to the twelve people born without thumbs?!? Also you should totally remove all of the hunting aspects from the game because it’s super unfair to make me use my brain for more than half a second.”
So I’d rather keep the dwindling number of games I enjoy as they are, and y’all can go play something else, thank you very much.
Top 10 things that never happened*
*in my experience at least, if this alresdy happened make some examples please
You’re making the game on easy sound pretty good to me.
Idk if soul players need to learn anything. Not your style of game thats fine, but all fights in souls games are fair in the sense that anyone can eventually beat it with practice, or overleveling, or innate skill (those who have, ahem, gotten good), and any combination of the three.
Have known a lot of people who played dark souls at a time in their life where they needed the lesson of getting up after getting knocked down.
I have that shit in real life. (Being taken down and having to get back up)
I work. I have to take care of the house/family. I had a leukemia…and I DID fucking rise up again from the dead…literally. With 3 prosthesis after, but hey, its just means im in a different game now (cyberpunk)
But we are talking about fucking games.
I am not a teenager with the time. Or patience. Those are both used on real life…you know…the bigger game. The real game.
I’m Not saying you can’t have the difficulty in your…playthings.
I am saying that there are people who want to play the games you like, they are great fucking games, but we just don’t have the time and energy to waste a few hours in the same fucking level/battle.
And that’s the conversation: Having the possibility to change difficulty. That exists. It’s not impossible.
You do you. No one is robing you of your experience.
Its just a shame…the gatekeeping.
Hey sorry you had cancer; glad you survived.
I mean that, but you are bringing some weird antagonist monologue energy to this thread.
Difficult sliders are simply bad for certain games, soulsborne games are one of them.
You are also robbing your own experience BTW. Give yourself a fair shot at beating these games without taking the easy route.
And lots of people want to go to hawaii but it’s a long flight and people with jobs might not have the time to go. Welcome to real life!
Play something else. (I don’t play games at all anymore but the last thing people want is a square coming into the circles room to complain there’s too many rounded edges.)
I’ve never picked up a Souls game myself, because that kind of challenge isn’t what I play video games for. But I’ve also never felt like I was being cheated out of an experience, there are plenty of other games out there for me.
I think if a developer doesn’t want to add an easy mode because they feel like that would be an inferior version of their game, it’s their prerogative not to do it. When an author writes an intellectually challenging book, nobody serious complains that the author refused to include cliff notes or explanations. Why don’t we treat video game designers the same?
Why does everyone think every game has to be made for the lowest common denominator? If you don’t like a game, don’t play it. Besides, souls games can actually be quite forgiving, the difficulty adjustments just isnt in sliders. Especially in elden ring, you can beat every fight in a pretty brainless (i mean like not needing to dodge almost at all) way if you take the time to set up for it.
I tried Dark Souls and I tried Demon Souls.
It’s not my thing, but I’m glad they are a lot of other people’s cup of tea
Why? Do Souls players not accept others not liking the games? Thats not my experience but maybe many are like that?
Also, usually Souls players dont lose for 150 hours straight. Most of the time its winning, but sometimes youre set back a bit and sometimes youre stuck. Some people like earning their wins. Some cant handle the difficulty and get frustrated, I get thats not fun for them. To each their own.
Yeah, the position of most FromSoft players in my experience is: “You don’t have to like the games, but you can’t just demand that they change for you.”
Some people need to understand that not all games are for all people. I don’t like RTS games, and so I don’t play them! What I don’t do is demand that they all add a turn-based option that would destroy game balance just because that’s what I prefer to play.
Like, what an insanely entitled thing to demand. And for some reason it’s only Soulslikes that have to deal with this craziness. There are thousands of other games out there for you to play, people.
Gamers are so entitled they will argue with other gamers on matters of taste. “That game is not to my specifications! Instead of finding one that is I’ll complain until the game is changed! People that like it the old way need to know i have a job!”
Game should only have 1 difficulty that the developer wants . Simple . Having different difficulty to cator weak is very weak . Same can be said for laws though otherwise it would be a primitive fight between 2 people and whoever wins , wins the freedom while other perish in fire
Ya no, some people do it for the story and choices, and maybe the gameplay is a chore to get through with their limited free time…
The Witcher is “meant to played” where you have to run fetch quests to build the right equipment and consumables for every monster contract you take. I’m sorry, but I play games to have fun and that is not fun for me, it’s a job.
What if the developer wants to have multiple difficulties? You know, like Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake?
Are you fourteen?
Judging by the username… probably yes, lol.
Just tired of my life . Does anything matter when you will die one day . Does it matter if it has difficulty or not .
In my case a similar feeling was caused by depression. After several different drug combinations I finally found one that works for me. And life has become significantly better.
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All souls have player difficulty adjustment. Just find better gear, grind XP etc
Dark souls games start off in easy mode. You can make it harder by your gear/stat decisions or by going into NG+.
