Gatekeepers in shambles
Absolutely amazing decision. Difficulty settings make games more accessible - period. And gating accessibility behind “artistic intent” and “vision” is just stupid. Sure, not every game has to meet everyone’s idea of a good time, but come on - it can’t be that hard, and it would only be a net positive for everyone.
Shameless plug: !soulslike@lemmy.zip
Im of two minds on this.
On one hand difficulty settings seem good because it gives players choices.
But on the other this genre is meant to challenge you. And for me if Dark Souls hadn’t been one difficulty only and hard was the way it is now I probably would have never beaten it on the hard difficulty. But I persevered and did something that felt great because of that design choice.
Works for me. I got stuck on the puppet king second phase and gave up. Not like rage quit, I just never went back to the game after like a dozen attempts, uninstalled it months later to free up space.
I love difficulty adjustments. Tuning a game to be right for every audience is impossible, better to let the end client have some control over fine tuning their experience.
Control is an excellent example of this for me. My GOTY when it came out, still an all time fav. I love the story and setting, but the combat is tedious after a while. In that case, lowering enemy health made the game less boring without being substantially easier, giving me the kind of experience I could enjoy.
Amen! There’s nothing I hate more than damage-sponge enemies. I love active dodging, blocking, and targeting weak spots, but NOBODY should survive multiple headshots just because they have a lot of HP.
I’m not sure if you’ve played directly on release but they did nerf the puppet king two weeks after release or so, he has way less HP than he used to when the game came out
I had a similar experience with the final boss of the Elden Ring DLC. Tried to beat him like 200 times and then quit playing for several months.
Only a dozen attempts?
/s
I might actually give this a try now!
I love me some ambience and story, but I’m not masochist enough to grind through a souls-like.
Bloodborne almost got me though
I appreciate difficulty options for other people and I think everyone should agree it’s a good thing to make games more accessible or more challenging depending on what a player is seeking.
My only caution is maintaining the vision for the expected experience. I imagine we’ve all played games where the normal difficulty or the default experience feels bad or improperly tuned. Multiple difficulty options can, I imagine, lead to less tuning on the default experience. I have no doubt I disliked games I would have liked if they’d encouraged me to play at a different difficulty or spent more time tuning their preferred difficulty. I have no doubt I liked games that if they’d provided difficulty options I may have changed the default experience to my detriment without realizing it.
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I want to appreciate the additions, but…this is also not a good way of doing it.
The difficulty is often the point in Soulslikes, but quite often it feels like these games are hard in 17 different ways, and a player may only have trouble with 1 of them.
Maybe that’s navigation, and finding the next path forward. Maybe that’s working out how to put together a functioning build, and realizing what each weapon does. Maybe it’s that the parry window is just a few frames too tight because they’re playing with an input delay.
That’s why the games I’ve liked have varied accessibility options to let you change just one thing, like getting your souls back on dying, slowing down the game, slightly decreasing damage values - or increasing them on both sides.
This is that Pinocchio game right?
Yes.
I hope he can make lies and then when his nose is big enough he can break it off and use it as a beating stick to fight off the bad guys or light torches in the deku tree
lol, that would be fun.
The dodging on this game was frustratingly buggy.
Dark Souls II fans will love it!
The visceral feeling of betrayal I felt coming to dark souls2 never really petered out
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The game doesn’t really explain this, but you get different dodge animations when you are using an extra light build. To me, this made the game feel more like bloodborne, which made the combat easier to read. Eventually, I ended up parrying everything instead of dodging, but I really like how the game plays in this state. YMMV
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My favorite souls like… Excited for more content!
I hope it’s clear which option is the original difficulty. I plan on playing it and honestly I’m worried how they’ll implement it. Difficulty settings are great but hard to pull off
Better find a different term to use than “soulslike” if you’re removing and reducing the skill requirement.
Edit: I invite the doonvootern to comment and fight (Soulslike) instead of whining cowardly (easy mode, afraid of confrontationlike)
Gotta make the stories good for me. The story in all these games is all drawn out dog water trash.
Miyazaki wept. Edit: lol people love to complain about gatekeepers and then they gatekeep comment sections about difficulty. Its ok guys, youre safe. The video games cant hurt you.
Downvotes arent gatekeeping. It’s just people not agreeing with you or disliking your tone. Also bitching about downvotes tends to attract more downvotes for your efforts.
If downvotes aren’t gatekeeping, then neither is saying Dark Souls is perfect the way it is and doesn’t need to be changed. Ultimately, I think we’re all picking a side on this one, and dont want to hear what the other has to say. Voting me down is your way of saying “I don’t want to see this kind of thing.” It can’t be hand-waved away as simple disagreement. There is an echo chamber at work here, it is somewhat nasty and honestly disheartening. Like when I make a joke about Miyazaki not wanting this (it is a joke after all) and everyone piles on the dislike; that’s the community trying to send me a message. And yes, I know that calling out downvoters makes them pile on more; I am proud to spit in ya’lls face. The discourse around difficulty is toxic on both sides and I hate it. Can’t even make a joke without bringing out the Defenders of the Casual or whatever. Vote me down some more, its exactly what I expect.
Sometimes difficulty is inextricable from the art, and Dark Souls is a good example of that. When people say they want it easier they are missing the message. You SHOULD have to struggle to get what you want, you SHOULD have to pay attention to the game you’re playing instead of mindlessly hacking your way through only to forget bout it days later. If a game punishes impatience and hubris, you will be more immersed in an oppressive world, you will feel like a small part of a larger tragedy that transcends your typical hero fantasy. These are the things that make the game special, and Miyazaki and his team knew what they were doing. You are spitting on their vision and their talent when you say it should be different. Lies of P… I haven’t played it, and the devs can do whatever they feel is right to make the game they want to make.
But you know, Starry Night is fine and all but its too dark and depressing. They should put some more yellow in there, really make it more accessible to the masses.
See, assuming someone calling out your bitching has downvoted you is part of your problem. I didn’t downvote you before, now I have downvoted you because you sound whiny.
You sound whiny too
The video games cant hurt you.
Neither can casual disagreement and downvotes, snowflake.
