this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2024
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I'm not particularly interested in the game so I can't say whether the game is actually difficult (from what I saw it's still very much about learning attack patterns of bosses and spamming the roll button or something), but my god do big parts of the Souls community get salty if someone wants to have the option to reduce the difficulty in a single player game.
To me it's a completely legit complaint and request to have a difficulty setting.
Just cheat? Whatever happened to ~~class~~ cheating? In the old days if the game was too hard and you didn't have a big brother to do it for you, you just put in the godmode code or turned on a trainer or something.
Some games are just hard. That's what makes getting good at them feel rewarding. The Souls games haven't really been for me either (due to the pking--not so much the difficulty), but it's not like the game makers owe me anything.
ER uses anti-cheat...
Really? Didn't stop me...
which is easy to disable (unless changed since I played the last time) if you're fine with playing offline
They don't owe you anything in a sense that you don't have to purchase their product, that is correct.
Also yeah, the idea of cheating didn't even come to my mind. We used to do that a lot back in the day :D - but to be fair, trainers aside, games often actively supported cheats out-of-the-box, and I don't think From Software's games do. It's probably still trivial to cheat on the PC version, but on console, it might not be feasible.
I totally get the feeling of accomplishment that comes with playing games on high difficulties, I do play quite a few games at higher difficulties, but then again I also enjoy lower levels of challenge at times.
It's still a very valid complaint that difficulty levels aren't a thing. It wouldn't change the difficulty for anyone who enjoys the current default difficulty, and might make the game more enjoyable to other players.
The difficulty is tied to the story and the gameplay though. A lot of things start to break down if the Tarnished is able to travel through the Lands Between unfettered. Should a successful developer who develops niche games for a niche audience be forced to capitulate to the demands of players outside of their niche just because they have a fear of missing out?
Elden Ring sold more than 20 million copies, that's quite a big "niche" if you ask me.
Not sure how lowering the health pool or damage per hit of bosses (as a very trivial example on how to easily reduce difficulty) affects the story of this game. And even if this would make the game less authentic to some players, they could just play it at the default difficulty..?
There is just absolutely no reason (other than maybe ego problems, but just add an achievement for each difficulty level then) why more difficulty options make the game worse for players who enjoy the current difficulty setting, as they can simply stick to the default difficulty. These players will have the exact same experience as they have now, and others who struggled or just didn't enjoy the grind of the default difficulty could turn it down a notch and enjoy the game.
I think the Dark Souls games have kinda earned an undue reputation for being unapproachably hard. They're really not all that tricky once you learn that death isn't a huge loss condition, just a step in the journey. I initially found them frustrating, but once I learned to not be bothered by dying and simply try again, I found an immense joy in exploring the worlds and challenges within.
Some bosses I beat first try, others will take me an afternoon or a few days to beat, but I have fun with it either way. Different strokes for different folks and all that, but I think Dark Souls and it's like are good lessons on how to get over feeling bad about "losing" and just enjoy the game.
Plus, you can always explore areas to gather up whatever you need to level up and slowly get marginally stronger as you become more familiar with your character and tweak it to your liking.
Spoken like someone who hasn't touched the game.
The single biggest issue is that the high difficulty is the only thing that actually pushes you to explore the world. If you were able to just kill every boss right away, 50% of the Elden Ring's content becomes immediately pointless busywork. It already is, but that busywork offers small, incremental rewards that allow you to last a little bit longer, or learn a little bit more about a boss' moveset. The intended gameplay experience is to run into a brick wall, explore and discover new options and opportunities, and then returning to break the brick wall. For experienced players on their second or third playthrough, you can basically strip out the open world entirely after an initial 2-3 hours of running around to grab what you want.
I'd also like to point out that 90% of the difficulty of bosses has nothing to do with their health or how much damage they do. FromSoftware has really pushed the envelope on boss design and AI, to the point where many of the hardest bosses are difficult because of their moveset. You can especially see this in the DLC, where you're able to collect Scadutree Fragments to increase your damage and health, but players still have difficulty with many bosses even after maxing them out. Dealing 3x more damage doesn't mean anything if you can never get a hit in, and taking 3x less damage won't save you from a fatal grab. You can make an argument for difficulty levels toning down boss AI and making them less aggressive, but I'll make a different one.
If a player doesn't want to engage in difficult boss fights, and doesn't want to be forced to learn combat encounters, they probably don't want to play Elden Ring. There's a lot of people who didn't actually want to play Elden Ring in that 20 million. Only about 27% ended up completing the game. FromSoftware is still making niche games for a niche audience, but now they're known for their exceptionally high pedigree, which causes people to feel FOMO. It's okay to not want to play Elden Ring, but no amount of handicap is going to change that feeling for players.
Everyone dies to the capra demon. Everyone has options within the game to adjust difficulty. Change gear or tactics. Summon help. Level up. Adding an out of game difficulty slider on top seems unnecessary.
People that are like "I want it to be easier without using any of the tools" are essentially saying "I want it to be easier but I don't want to turn down the difficulty"
Additionally, the difficulty and the struggle creates a sense of community. People like feeling like they belong to a group.
Also, difficulty is poorly defined. Sometimes people get mad about like being ambushed by monsters that were in plain sight but they didn't notice. Is that too hard?
You don't get it.
Not every game is meant for you.
Sorry but there are millions of others out there for you to play. Everything can’t accommodate you.
Bad at rhythm games? Don’t play em or practice. Doesn’t mean they should add a tone deff mode without rhythm. Would literally defeat the purpose of the game.
Most rhythm games have different difficulties. Last time I checked Guitar Hero had 3 or 4 difficulties for every single song, osu! has a shitton of maps with many songs being available in multiple difficulties, and Beat Saber has what, like 5 difficulty levels?
I wouldn't really see myself enjoying rhythm games if I was deaf (as the music is a big part of it), but if you can make the game more accessible to someone who still enjoys the gameplay, then honestly, why not?
There's room for accessibility options, no one is forcing you to use them. While there are tools in the souls series to solve issues, there's no reason not to have some sort of scaling option at the least for people that want it, things like directional subtitles, colourblind mode, those are just basic. Why alienate players who would otherwise enjoy the game but may have limitations, it's ok for games to have complex systems and themes that may not appeal to everyone, that's totally independent of accessibility. I personally really enjoyed my playthroughs, and would love other people to be able to enjoy these games as well, and I'm pretty sure fromsoft intends for their games to be enjoyable.
Your point about rhythm games doesn't support your point, guitar hero and rockband both had difficulty settings and later entries had nofail modes. They also had practice modes where you could slow down sections you were struggling with and work through it.
Quick edit: my only real complaint is FOV, camera is super zoomed in on some of the giant bosses, DS1 remastered supported ultrawide, would have been nice for Elden Ring to have that at leaat
Accessibility is absolutely fine and highly encouraged but they don’t go directly against the core gameplay loop.
The rhythm game might have been a vague example. They have difficulty sliders but are still on rhythm. That’s the core mechanic, being in rhythm. There’s not a “press whenever you want here’s your participation trophy mode.”
Arguably adding an easy mode would rip a lot of the core from the souls games. Their purpose is to be difficult. That’s the point. They are made to be a challenge. Majority of other games don’t have good difficulty mechanics besides making the enemies damage sponges. It’s fucking boring.
Like playing GTA while following traffic laws. You are missing the point.
A practice mode has been in souls games before like Sekiro. Would be a fair addition for practice but that doesn’t change the core gameplay loop.
If there are no mountains to climb why bother to challenge yourself?
Oh damage sponges are the worst, probably one of my biggest complaints with Bethesda's games difficulty sliders generally just making things a slog, survival mode in fo4 is a good example to me of a challenge that doesnt make things an absolute pain, metro 2033 had a mode like that too that totally changed how you played the game, made it challenging without making it a slog.
Oh, this is an accurate example. The only reason difficulty demand came thru is because souls games are simply more popular.
No. The Souls community is built over the shared experience of beating the challenging game we were put against. If difficulty was optional, the game wouldn't be nearly as popular, as there wouldn't be that common experience.
Maybe another shared experience would have allowed the game to garner a community, but then it wouldn't be a soulslike, and soulslike as a concept would not exist. If that's something that interests you, you can just play a game which isn't a soulslike.
It reminds me of some Redditor who said they always instantly killed every single named companion in BG3 because they found the dialogues of said companions annoying. I have played BG3 for hundred of hours, but I don't even think I played the same game as this person, and I think that if it was something a lot of people did, then there wouldn't be a community around the game at all.
Like for BG3, where the central point is the story and the evolution of your companion as characters, Elden Ring's has that defining element which caused the community to sprout, which is its fair but strict gameplay. If you remove that then all you get is one of those forgettable Ubisoft games, all the while completely destroying the community around soulslikes.
Games are art. I have full respect for an artist who does not compromise their vision for someone who refuses to engage with the art, on the artists terms.
A lot of people played The Witcher 3 and thought the combat was boring, but never spent time preparing for battle by considering which oils and potions to use - because they didn't need to. They were playing on easy or normal.
These people robbed themselves of the experience of immersing themselves in the role of a Witcher, and turned each encounter into a button masher.
Imagine being a developer and seeing people shit on your game for 'unengaging combat'.
Now, sure, you can make the argument that that's just one element of The Witcher 3, and some people are playing for the story - and fair enough.
But there isn't anything analogous in the Souls franchise. The gameplay IS bashing your head against a wall for ten hours. You don't get to just turn down the difficulty, breeze through every boss on the first try, and claim the game is boring.
What definition of "actually difficult" are you using here? All difficulty in games boils down to learning things. If you exclude anything learnable, you reach absurd conclusions like the only true form of difficulty is colorblind inaccessibility.
It is weird because it isn't a single player game. It can be if people take it offline, and on PC: there's mods to hell. They can cheat and singleplayer it up all they want. So it is odd to me that people want what they already have and others are mad that they have it.
Playstation players though are a little stuck without more technical efforts to cheat.
So you buy it, add on content for a game you already know does not have this option. Its well known at this point none of the other games in the souls / fromsoft series dont have this option. But you still buy it and leave a bad review for it? What? Why? Go buy something else
Hades has a 'god mode'. Give them a cheat code already, these kids aren't gonna learn to play a new game
The difficulty is a huge aspect of the game design. It would kind of ruin the game if they took away difficulty.
That being said, Elden Ring already has mechanics to help mitigate difficulty via summons.