Memes

Okay, but only if we compromise and you give me “balls in belt sander” level difficulty in casual games too. None of this skyrim “just double the enemy HP and damage” crap either, I want to be fighting for my fucking life trying to avoid tom nook’s bankruptcy beam.

Street Fighter is an odd choice.

It would be a lot to ask the devs to include a variable for the basic functions 😁

I think the irony is, there's a huge overlap between gamers who don't have a lot of time to game because of work and the gamers who have money because they work.

A market for those who want to enjoy games in an easier way that doesn't require practice 😏

I think you’re leaving money on the table

For some people that is ok

intentionally limiting who can experience the art you’re trying to share with the world

Almost every musician, painter, or sculptor ever has done that. It is ok.

You don’t HAVE to include more than the basic colorblind option

I think most devs could include stuff like colorblind options or rebindable control schemes and such, and I definitely think they should

better products for it

Difficulty is not the same as colorblind mode. Colorblind mode is the same as creating closed captions for movies, difficulty is the same as changing the movie to fit another audience. Difficulty is part of the game.

it COULD be a better game if they did

It would be a different game, that they are not trying to make.

That's a paradox. Games are in the unique position to make hardship part of the experience.

If you take out the hardship you wouldn't experience the art in the intended way anyway.

It's not a bad game because they don't have features to make it more accessible to me, but it COULD be a better game if they did.

They already have this feature. With the exception of Sekiro, you can summon a partner to help you defeat any challenge as long as you're outside the tutorial area.

That, or you can just find enemies you're comfortable with defeating repeatedly and use them to level up until the game is easy enough for you. Or you can look up good weapons and where to find them. Or items that may help in certain situations, or weaknesses the boss/enemy you're struggling against has...

I highly doubt that making an easier difficulty will net a higher cash flow. Maybe short term but the souls games sell as they do because they are known for their difficulty. If you take that away they lose their marketing gimmick.

I agree in that it doesn't need to be required, but I think you're leaving money on the table and intentionally limiting who can experience the art you're trying to share with the world.

Buddy, they are not leaving money on the table by limiting who enjoy the experience of their game. I in fact think that ONLY reason they make that kind of money is by being that difficult. It's their staple, it's the reason why people go to those kinds of games.

You don't HAVE to include more than the basic colorblind option and maybe some extra visual cues, but games that go farther and allow more people to enjoy their product are better products for it.

Colorblindness has nothing to do with the difficulty of a game and as much games as possible should include the option as it's not part of game design, is a human defect.

Souls games are great. I don't want to 'get gud' so I haven't bought one ever, and with no difficulty drop I probably never will. I don't have time for that. It's not a bad game because they don't have features to make it more accessible to me, but it COULD be a better game if they did.

I am not by any means a "casual gamer" but I'm not a good gamer either, I still played through-out the entire Elden Ring without that much trouble. It ain't a walk in the park but I think most people could beat it at some point, if not by the normal route you can easily cheese most enemies.

Actually, even easier cuz I judt had to copy the link and paste it in my app and it auto formatted so I really didnt need to do anything

It's almost poetic, when the last thing you see is the Game Over screen.

You're presenting the two options as similar when I'm not entirely sure they are. You've explored making an easy game harder and a hard game easier, but let's look at the other two results from your presented options: making an easy game easier and a hard game harder.

Making a hard game harder is often met with praise because the people who beat or otherwise enjoy the hard game already want and expect a challenge out of the game, so giving them more of that is almost what they expect already.

Making an easy game easier can be met with praise as much as it can be subject to criticism. The Pokemon series has long been critiqued for continually making every next installment easier and easier for the last several generations.

Obviously in your example of making a hard game easier there are people in favor of it but also people against it. The fact that we're having a discussion about this controversy is proof enough that many people want it, but dedicated fans are often against it.

And just like in your example, I don't think I've ever seen someone against allowing an easy game to have harder modes as long as it doesn't negatively impact those playing the easier modes.

The trend I'm seeing amongst these 4 outcomes is usually that allowing the option for a harder mode than the game already allows is often agreed upon by the wider gaming community, but asking for easier modes is often controversial. The trend I'm also seeing is that this remains true regardless of if the game was considered easy or hard in the first place.

Your original post seems to imply that players and fans for hard games are being obstinate and resistant to allowing the same concessions that players and fans for easy games do, when you could use the other two results I brought up to make players for easy games seem just as obstinate. "Us players of hard games are allowing for harder games to be made, why do you fans of easy games seem to be having such a controversy over if easy games should be made easier?" or something to that effect.

In my opinion, the controversy isn't whether hard games should be made easier, it's whether games that fans enjoy should be made easier.

As far as my personal opinion on whether games such as any of the Soulsbourne titles should be made easier, I'm appreciative of the fact that they don't have difficulty sliders in much any regard. If I beat Dark Souls 3, there isn't a question about if I beat it on the easiest mode, anyone who's gone through the entire experience knows what I also went through. While I agree that most of the FromSoft games are sorely lacking in accessibility options (even more so their older titles), Difficulty is only one of many accessibility options. I would rather they add other accessibility options so that players who struggle with the games as is can have an easier time getting the intended experience than reduce the intended experience down to allow for the lowest common denominator.

As an aside, many of the Soulsbourne games already have something in the way of "easier modes" via alternate weapons, different combat systems, and different play styles. Playing almost any of them primarily using ranged combat reduces the difficulty in most every encounter in the game outside of boss battles. Boss battles often have their own gimmick that you can exploit to make them easier to fight. Often the level design, nearby items (and descriptions), or enemy positions are used as clues to make finding these exploits easier.

As an example, the Taurus Demon in DS1 can be killed fairly easily by baiting him to where the skeleton archers are above the fight, then using a plunging attack on him several times in a row. The intended experience is that you would go into the arena, you may run directly towards the other side, spawn the Taurus demon once you run about halfway through the arena, and notice you're being shot at from behind. You'll likely die, but in the next fight against him you can try to take out the archers via your own ranged weapons, but doing so shows a cleverly hidden ladder that leads up to the archers. The ladder isn't visible when entering the arena but the moment you turn around to look at the archers you can clearly see it next to the doorway you entered from. You can go up the ladder and easily dispatch the archers. I don't remember if every following fight you have to run halfway through the arena to spawn him again or if you have to run halfway through only the first time, but regardless an observant player will notice after taking down the archers that the drop back down the ladder will look very similar to the plunging attack the game teaches you in the tutorial boss fight. If you make the connection and perform that attack on the Taurus Demon it'll take out about 30% of his health depending on your class and weapon. Scramble around his legs (now that you're on the same floor as him) back towards the ladder, climb up, and repeat a few more times for an easy victory. Alternatively you can wait up where the archers were for a few seconds and the Taurus Demon will jump up and fight you there. You now have an alternate wider arena better suited to strafing around him instead of the narrow bridge he spawns in on.

Other games would do things like give a prompt to lower the difficulty, reduce the health of enemies in the background after repeated failures, or give you optional power ups after X defeats. All of these reinforce the mentality that "what you're doing is right, but you're lacking the skill to do it" when often in Soulsbourne games that's a harmful mentality to have as it'll lead you to keep repeating a tactic or playstyle that's demonstrably not working. In my opinion, that's the core of what fans of harder games like myself want to keep experiencing and why so many are against "easier modes" because it subverts the intended experience we enjoy: recognizing what's going wrong, correcting it to make things go right, and overcoming great challenges.

I think that stems from the developer's intent. Making a hard game easier waters down the journey the creators intended, but making an easy game harder only adds to the experience. Like, the 2D Mario games are generally really easy, but there's still lots of value in those games. But then there's the bonus stages which are generally really difficult, and that adds even more value to the journey.

Then on the other hand you have From Software's games, where the creator has said many times that the experimentation, adaptation, and the subsequent deep sense of accomplishment cultivated by the difficulty is a key part of the experience he wants his players to have. (There's also the sense of community that comes with helping others with advice or cooperative gameplay) Relieving the player of the difficulty with an "easy mode" only serves to water down that experience.

Well, it was sadly not the original Tetris by Alexey Pajitnov for the IBM PC, but the NES version was indeed beat recently.