I think the probably biggest mistake from other studios that try to replicate FromSoft's success is to try to make the games as difficult and punishing as possible.

That really isn't the point. The secret sauce is arguably that FromSoft makes puzzle games disguised as action games. Everything is a mystery, from the lore to the game play. They are rewarding to play because it is rewarding to solve puzzles.

The "difficulty" stems from the game developers anticipating how you will approach situations based on earlier situations, and adding new caveats to the rules. If you don't understand that dialogue between player and game designer, it may appear like it's just really punishing. It's really not, it's always easy if you know what to do. The difficulty comes from constantly being forced to adapt your approach.

It's pretty brilliant how they consistently re-use enemy archetypes between the games. A rat is a rat and a dog is a dog, in Dark Souls and in Elden Ring. They form archetypes, elements of design language. You need that to have that sort of predictability on your easel to be able to pull off the sort of unpredictability they do.

Exactly, it's almost a "cargo cult game design" problem. A lot of other studios are just picking pieces of FromSoft's designs without really understanding why those pieces were there in the first place.

I think it can be fruitful to analyze games through the emotions they evoke. After all, the whole reason we play games is to feel a certain way.

I think the problems with many clones stem from misidentifying the emotion of FromSoft games to be frustration.

The reason we play a souls game isn't to get frustrated, that's the price of admission not an ends in itself. What we want is that feeling of accomplishment.

Along this axis, FromSoft's games are closer related to something like The Witness than say Diablo (which is more about feeling strong and powerful).

> The "difficulty" stems from the game developers anticipating how you will approach situations based on earlier situations, and adding new caveats to the rules.

This assessment seems very strange to me. Their games are hard because you need to be rather competent in their demanding mechanics to progress, and you need to learn every encounter perfectly to get past it. That’s why so many reviewers trashed Sekiro, because they were simply unable to play it.

It's in part this process of learning new encounters I'm talking about.

In the beginning of Dark Souls, you can kill every enemy pretty much the same way. Then gradually you need to use more mechanics to get forward. Very little of it is actually mechanically demanding. What's demanded of you is that you observe and correctly assess the situation, that you recognize that what you are doing isn't working, and the solution isn't to do it harder, but to find another solution.

The biggest problem most new players have is that they try to play too fast and they don't react to what's in front of them. They mash buttons and try to do everything at once. They approach every situation the same way, probably rushing in and probably pressing every button on the controller in a mindless flurry. An seasoned player will almost certainly play slower than a newbie because they're playing a lot more deliberately.

You have people playing these games with voice commands[1] and DDR mats[2] and whatever. If that isn't evidence this isn't a test of dexterity, I don't know what will.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m2a2dLdZ0M [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxKsRf6R-vc

> You have people playing these games with voice commands[1] and DDR mats[2] and whatever. If that isn't evidence this isn't a test of dexterity, I don't know what will.

I thought it's precisely the opposite: people find these kind of challenges meaningful because it is a test of dexterity that is particularly difficult to perform with such controllers.

I think you misread the parent comment. They aren't saying that DDR mats and voice commands aren't a test of dexterity. They are saying that people beating the game using DDR mats and voice commands illustrate that the base game isn't a test of dexterity, because people use those weird difficult input methods as a way to add the actual dexterity challenge.

All of their games demand that you get better at the game mechanics as you progress through them, which is what you’re actually describing, but for some reason you think controlling your character in combat is something other than game mechanics? The fact that people have practiced these games enough that they can beat it with all sort of whacky interfaces doesn’t really prove anything.

Get better as in knowing what to do, not so much about fast reactions or very precise timing of the controls, etc. Those help if you want to beat the games 'the hard way' but there are always easier ways. The gameplay is more about finding what those are, rather than banging your head against the wall trying the same approach over and over, which is a trap some players fall into.

> but there are always easier ways. The gameplay is more about finding what those are

Many FromSoft fans would not agree that this is what the gameplay is about. They’ve always put easy modes into their games, but the game designers really want you to just keep practicing until you get it.

Many of the boss encounters they’ve designed are also specifically about fast reaction times and precise timing of the controls. In the souls games recognising the enemies patterns are reacting quickly with precisely timed attacks and rolls is very important. In Sekiro the entire game is about precisely reacting to fast paced combat, especially if you’ve got chip damage enabled.

That entirely depends on the weapon you have chosen. I can guarantee that if you choose greatswords / ultra greatswords and gear up with that choice in mind, the game pace slows down tremendously as you one-hit a lot of the opposition and withstand many blows that would outright ragdoll other builds.

By that definition, "getting good at game mechanics" is so broad as to be meaningless, and "need to be rather competent in their demanding mechanics" is no explanation at all.

The basic combat mechanics of FromSofts games are specifically blocking, parrying, rolling, stamina, and general movement, along with all the different forms of attacking, casting and item consumption. Most of the difficulty of FromSofts games comes from mastering these mechanics, and then learning every boss encounter individually.

To say the games are mechanically easy just seems like such a nonsensical take to me. Simple perhaps, but lots of simple things are especially difficult.

Most of the difficulty is in using the tools at the right times. This completely permeates the design of the games.

At first the game will show you an enemy with his back turned, and you will discover that this initiates a devastating backstab.

Miyazaki has shown you a new tool, but in doing so has also given himself a new tool for manipulating you: A few moments later, the game will show you an enemy with his back turned, and you'll probably mindlessly rush in for the rewarding backstab, only to be bum rushed by an enemy hidden behind a corner that kicks you off the cliff. You really don't stand a chance at reacting to this, and yet again meet see the familiar "You Died"-screen.

This is the dialogue I speak of, it's easier to point out in level design but very much also exists with in the combat system. Some players will probably miss this aspect and think it's just cruelty. Like, how could you have known? Well you absolutely could have known by being being more careful and looking around that corner before taking the bait.

The combat in general works like that as well. First you're shown enemies that are susceptible to one particular strategy, and then the next, you're shown enemies that are not. The difficulty isn't executing, but coming up with an appropriate strategy for the situation. And the games are very cleverly designed to shut down one-size-fits-all approaches to combat. There are no universal combos to memorize because they don't want you to merely go through the same motions, they want you to engage with what is happening on a more direct level.

What? You don't have to 'learn' any bosses. You can beat all bosses by just striking a few times and rolling away. You don't have to learn any patterns or cheeses or weaknesses. IMO that's not a fun way to play.

You make souls games out to be "memorize the trick" simulators. No, no, no. That's the unfun approach.

Dancer of the Boreal Valley would like a word with you.

While the strategy could be oversimplified to 'hit hit run', it misses the nuance of learning how to apply that strategy to a given boss. I ended up clocking over 600 hours on DS3, between personal challenge runs and invasions, and as the other comment suggests, your level (and gear, and how you distributed your stats) will have a big impact on how difficult a boss feels.

My first playthrough was an absolute slog, since I had very little idea what I was doing with combat, and had no idea how to optimize my character. On my 20th (or whatever) time, with a purposefully under-leveled character (Strength build), most bosses were one-and-done with the right game-sense and cheese tactics (Greatclub is great, and if you disagree, you are liable to be flattened).

If I'm in the zone, Gundyr is a minor roadblock between character creation and Firelink shrine. I think my record is around 2 minutes to activate the shrine bonfire?

Vordt? Gimmie that raw +3 (I think) broadsword with lighting resin, and he's dead meat at SL1[0] since his timings are very predictable after the 15th time killing him. Getting a raw +3 broadsword is the hardest part there.

Dancer, Pontiff, and the wrinkly pink screeching guy in the castle side area are still my hardest fights due to their patterns and movesets.

[0] SL1 = Soul Level 1, achievable when you start as the naked guy with a club and never level up. All other base classes have a starting SL greater than 1.

running up to bosses and smacking them to death really only works if you're way over leveled for the place you're in. And not even then, for many fights. A lot of fights you need to deal with additional enemies before the main boss, or even simultaneously. Ornstein and Smough, from DS1. Or Rom from Bloodborne. You definitely need a strategy, especially when that second phase hits.

Did you really play those games? Because what you say sounds like a second hand opinion.

You do need to pay attention to bosses patterns, but overall mechanics aren't demanding.. and most importantly - they are reused. You have a dodge with huge amount of iframes, you can block a lot of attacks(especially in newer games) etc. There is no need for perfection. And you can always grind for more endurance and vitality in souls games.

Take a step back, observe the enemy, gauge the distance.. and adapt. but don't panic.

Sekiro was hard yes, but it was fair. It was more of a rhythm game to be honest, than an action one, and they added stealth as an 'equalizing' mechanic for open world content. And honestly it has a lot of tidbits that i bet most people didn't notice(Ogre being afraid of fire for one, bull being scared by firecrackers etc) that also help you greatly.

Some fights in Sekiro were really hard, but satisfying to finish - Isshin comes to the mind, and the Demon of Hatred. If some boss seemed unfair, or harsh, its because you didn't adapt to it properly - they gave you prosthetics that counter a lot of them(umbrella for block and counter, spear to pull out centipede from dead monkey, firecrackers etc). That game just punished trying to brute force it.

Also judging by how game reviewers play games(DOOM footage comes to mind).. it would be akin to listening to fresh junior JS dev opinion on state of linux codebase.

Furthermore there is a fair chance that the game just isn't made for those people. Not every product needs to work for everyone, or you'll just end up with mediocre sludge of similar games.

The games are easier then I thought they'd be. I waited to play them for a long time, because of how hard people made them out. But you only really need a bit of patience, slow down what you do in the combat, and give bosses a few try.

I find plenty of other games were a lot harder for me, like Hades, Celeste, Meat Boy or Returnal for example. I think actually the genius about Souls games is that unlike Roguelikes or hard room based platformers, the difficulty is actually well balanced, it is approachable. You get better as you play, you learn the boss pattern, you level up and get better gear, and when you die the penalty isn't too harsh, getting back to the boss isn't like dying in a Roguelike where you gotta go through the whole run again, it's just harsh enough to make you really not want to die when you fight the boss though and feel some added stress from having to walk back to it to try again.

And if I think of casual AAA games likes FF7:Remake, Doom, Last of Us, none of those games I was able to beat at their hardest difficulty, yet I could beat all the souls games. And that's often because these games get hard by handicap or cranking the difficulty in cheap ways sometimes. Souls games are an easy kind of hard, they're approachable, that makes it more accessible in a way, and it's why I think they got popular.

Having said that, I still think they should add some accessibility features that can make the game easier. What they do in Mario Kart or Celeste I think is great. Instead of making difficulties which means some of them won't get proper design and balance. Focus on a single difficulty, but add accessibility features that can make it easier. I think it's important to do that so people who have handicaps, are younger, are too old, don't have the time and patience, can still experience and enjoy some of the games. They could choose to play some section normally, and when they get stuck, instead of quitting the game, they can try and give themselves some help to get over it.

That's exactly it, once you're able to get past the intimidation from things like dark corridors, flailing enemies, abhorrent Things That Should Not Be, you can see they're actually fairly slow moving games, and deliberate action is the way to win - as opposed to a lot of games where button bashing and/or quick reflexes work just fine.

The games are punishing and challenging, but they're not unfair. Every time you die, you realize it's your own mistake; you tried to get another hit in, you forgot there was an enemy around that corner, you read a message saying "treasure ahead" in front of a cliff and actually believed it because it was actually true the one time. But there's so many games where you just don't have that amount of control over whether or not you will die there.

The previous game I was playing, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, has that problem because on the surface its combat system is based on reflexes and positioning. But in practice there seems to be too big an element of chance involved. Every strike is a roll of the dice whether the enemy will block or deflect it.

Whereas in, say Elden Ring, raising a shield will block attacks, but only until your stamina runs out. Rolling at the right time will avoid damage, but the challenge is in knowing the enemy's attack patterns - and some bosses have really long and unpredictable wind-ups initially. And an enemy with a shield, you can either wait for them to drop their guard, wear them out with attacks (which keeps you opened up for counter-attacks), avoid them entirely, or use completely different tactics like ranged attacks (arrows, magic) or even a cavalry charge.

>Having said that, I still think they should add some accessibility features that can make the game easier. What they do in Mario Kart or Celeste I think is great. Instead of making difficulties which means some of them won't get proper design and balance. Focus on a single difficulty, but add accessibility features that can make it easier. I think it's important to do that so people who have handicaps, are younger, are too old, don't have the time and patience, can still experience and enjoy some of the games. They could choose to play some section normally, and when they get stuck, instead of quitting the game, they can try and give themselves some help to get over it.

But why? The difficulty is part of the experience and adds up to the oppressive nature of the ambiance. In a sense, the difficulty is part of the artistic vision of the designers. Not every piece of media or hobby needs to be vanilla and accessible to everybody; you would not request of Dostoyevsky for a 'simpler version' of his works, so that children and those not inclined to reading could experience them.

This is more akin to having Dostoevsky on big print and in Open Dyslexic font, on thick pages easy to grab and handle. Is not about easing the media itself or diluting its essence, it's about making it approachable to people that want to experience it and is not able to.

I am not disabled in any relevant way, but i know intimately people that is, and having a big chunk of the world unreachable like that is very demoralizing.

Accessibility is important; short of a punishing worldwide eugenics program, there will always be people that require accommodations, and that may perfectly happen to you or a loved one.

It's always good to be mindful of other's needs.

No, that's not akin to having Dostoyevsky on big print --- that is how you consume the content, not the content itself. Those things would be comparable to having a controller that a disabled person can use, which Souls games don't limit: you can play them with whatever controller you want. Requesting an easy mode, or a god mode, is more similar to requesting for the author to modify complex prose, or avoid using words that you don't know.

I agree that accessibility is important, but the games are not unreachable to the disabled. If you are missing an arm, for example, the game will probably be more difficult, but this applies to every hobby in which you are not a passive consumer.

I think it's debatable; where the «experience» or delivery a game tries to reach, end? Where do we draw the line between considering it a modification of the "soul" of the game?

This is an important distinction because a game is much more rich and complex than a book, and has many more axes where things can change. I fathom that for some people the level of punishment is just too much, and maybe that flies in the face of how do they enjoy the game.

This is not to detract from the artistic vision of the creators, given art has a meaning imbued by its maker, and a meaning bestowed by its consumer, i think that having the /option/ to change something that a player can't enjoy is always a plus.

Not all ability or disability is on the body, as some may lie on the mind, whether it is because of a persistent problem, a bad time in your life, or just constraints.

Gatekeeping things like this is, IMO, a bad pick (assuming that they would be properly implemented and tucked away under several menus, not shoved down your throat or made default).

> Where do we draw the line between considering it a modification of the "soul" of the game?

At this point it is clear difficulty is a staple of the series and the ambiance of all the Souls games. Every time a new game comes out, this complaint is raised by people who don't play the games and Miyazaki has decided not to add these explicit difficulty changing settings, so I think it's evident that its part of the soul of the games.

> Not all ability or disability is on the body, as some may lie on the mind, whether it is because of a persistent problem, a bad time in your life, or just constraints.

You can't expect authors to adjust to every single person on Earth circumstances on their works. This is not accessibility, and I think it's an argument in bad faith to claim it is.

This is not gatekeeping; If you want a challenge with fantastic ambience, you play a Souls game --- If you don't, you don't want to play Dark Souls, and that's perfectly fine, there's million other games where difficulty is not core to the experience. Not every piece of art or entertainment has to be palatable to everyone.

> If you want a challenge with fantastic ambience, you play a Souls game --- If you don't, you don't want to play Dark Souls

What you seem to be missing is that what counts as "a challenge" will vary from individual to individual. When I argue that soulslikes should have better accessibility options (including difficulty settings) I'm not saying that I want the game to not be challenging -- I'm saying that the difficulty should adapt to meet the players where they are to maintain a challenge for them.

You could say, well, there IS an easy mode; just spend days grinding out levels. That kind of sucks, though.

Also ...

> This is not gatekeeping

[goes on to write a paragraph that could be used as the definition of gatekeeping]

>I'm saying that the difficulty should adapt to meet the players where they are to maintain a challenge for them. (...) You could say, well, there IS an easy mode; just spend days grinding out levels. That kind of sucks, though.

That is not the only option. Summon other players. But you understand the contradiction of what you're saying, correct?

>[goes on to write a paragraph that could be used as the definition of gatekeeping]

I think you should rethink what gatekeeping actually is, because I'm not sure you know it. I'm not gatekeeping you out of Grave of the Fireflies if you tell me you don't want to watch a sad movie and I suggest against it. It would be gatekeeping if I said 'if you beat the game with summons you didn't actually beat Dark Souls', and it's not something I would say.

> But you understand the contradiction of what you're saying, correct?

I do not. What is the contradiction in what I'm saying? Giving the opportunity to grind levels isn't at all the best way to meet players where they are. If the game let you beat any boss by poking yourself in the eye with a stick that wouldn't be a good method of addressing difficulty either. Unless you're saying that Dark Souls is somehow about having to grind.

> Every time a new game comes out, this complaint is raised by people who don't play the games

I've played the games and still have that criticism. I consider them less good because of it. Ever since I played Celeste and saw the way they handled accessibility options, when I see a game that doesn't, I'm like, ya, that's just a negative of this game, it just gives you less than Celeste does, and mind you I didn't use them in Celeste, but I tried them out, really well done, really commendable, and I did have to use them for the DLC, that damn Chapter 9, holy cow, Souls games are a stroll in the park in comparison, I don't know how anyone finished Chapter 9 of Celeste without help, but I disgress haha.

That said, maybe this is a good example, if Chapter 9 of Celeste didn't have accessibility options, I'd have not been able to experience all of it, to close out on the story, or to get around some of the hardest rooms in it and in doing so being able to then enjoy beating some of the ones after without the cheats. I'd just have gotten less enjoyment out of it. On top of that, beating something with the cheats feels like training, I still have the thought of going back one day and trying it with less of them, or without them at all, and getting further. So I imagine for some people Souls games are like Chapter 9 of Celeste is to me, and I really see only positives in that case to have such options.

People's response times go to shit as they get older. Games without some kind of affordances for that (or just difficulty settings) are much, much harder for older folks than they were intended to be.

People's cognitive capabilities can also degrade as they age. Should every author write easier to comprehend versions of their works because of it? I don't think so. That being said, even with degraded reaction times, every Souls game is completely passable.

> Should every author write easier to comprehend versions of their works because of it?

The tradeoffs are much less clear for prose. That said, outside of fiction writers should absolutely be thinking about accessibility, and should pay attention that they are writing in a way that can be understood by their intended audience (which may include people with cognitive impairment).

Further, if someone who has difficulty with Crime and Punishment wants to read it, there are abridged versions, audiobooks, dramatizations, and other ways to enjoy it.

>Further, if someone who has difficulty with Crime and Punishment wants to read it, there are abridged versions, audiobooks, dramatizations, and other ways to enjoy it.

And if you really want to play Dark Souls and can't be bothered with all the tools the game gives you that make it easier, you can mod it or use cheat engine.

I'd say it's more akin to having Dostoevsky with easier vocabulary and grammar, or a Crib's note version that condenses it so you don't have to rid all 840 pages of Brothers Karamazov

Having a difficulty selection doesn't remove anything from the game. Those who want to play on easy can, while those who want the "standard" experience can stick with the regular difficulty.

When I play Doom (be it classic, or 2016/Eternal), at a minimum I play on Ultra Violence because I personally think that's how the game is meant to be played. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people that play those games on the lower difficulties and it doesn't impact my experience whatsoever.

> Having a difficulty selection doesn't remove anything from the game.

I actually seriously disagree here. Especially with Souls games. Difficulty, whether it scales with your abilities or not, etc, is a pivotal, foundational component of game design that affects nearly everything else. And as the article points out, the point here is not the difficulty per say (something that is way too overemphasized with these games -- they're not that hard), but the emotional result of it. A "difficulty setting" is just far too basic a paradigm of thinking about something that is actually very complex and not easy to change while still retaining the game as something recognizable as itself.

I'm even against having tutorials in these games. Not because of some "hardcore" or "gatekeeper" thing, but because figuring it out (and the resulting lightbulb moment) is magic and rare in games nowadays, which are pathologically opposed to doing anything that isn't holding the player's hand for dear life. It's annoying and feels condescending, like a piece of software that doesn't allow you to do what you want. The Souls games respect the intelligence and ingenuity of the player, and that's one reason why I truly love them, and why Elden Ring's tutorial kinda irked me a little bit. There's a lot in this game that makes me feel like From is inching more towards all the trappings of standard AAA design -- pop-ups, tutorials, waypoints, etc. The beauty of Souls games is the brutalist, dropping you into the deep end, and letting you figure it out, and I really hope that the genre's popularity doesn't get rid of what makes fans love them.

Was Elden Ring's tutorial any different from what they've been doing? Except for being skippable, it felt basically like the DS1 tutorial.

Their other ones are very minimal. "R1 for fast attack." Etc. That's it. And they're delivered as messages, which simultaneously introduces you to the messaging system.

ER delivers them as very big popups that actually pause gameplay -- a first for the series, I think (pausing of any kind, I mean, besides cinematics). The fact that they're not delivered through the messaging system has I think led to some confusion for new players as to what the messages even are.

The popups also have more info, which I think can ironically be overwhelming for new players. Something as simple as "R1 for fast attack" allows players to discover the intricacies and nuances on their own through trial and error, whereas a big wall of text that takes them out of the game can feel like information overload after the 2nd or 3rd. I'm a pretty experienced player of the genre and even I was like "jesus, chill out" after the first few popups explaining new mechanics that are specific to ER (another problem -- there's a lot of new mechanics, so it really can feel overwhelming fast, and thus finding mastery and the pleasure it brings can be more difficult).

It's not a huge thing, but I definitely noticed it and was actually really struck by it. I found it very surprising, given the previous games' extreme minimalism in this regard.

It impacts your experience in the sense that development time was given to balancing different difficulties. Even if the Souls games had a 'no damage taken' mode, for example, there are multiple mechanics where you fall off a cliff and die, and these things would take development time to correct. And again, it would mess with the author's vision on what the ambiance of the games should be like; It's oppressive because it's supposed to be, and frankly people who don't get it and demand explicit difficulty settings don't really want to play Dark Souls at all.

You don't need to have explicit difficulty selection to make a game easier: as said multiple times in these threads, there are a bunch of ways From does it without recurring to it.

>It's oppressive because it's supposed to be, and frankly people who don't get it and demand explicit difficulty settings don't really want to play Dark Souls at all.

I 100% agree. I'm not really deep into the Souls games. My first game was Dark Souls 3 (after which, I went back to the original, and am still trying to setup and emulator for Demon's Souls).

What I find very compelling about these games' design is that the environment itself is very fair yet brutal. You don't run and jump across cliffs willy-nilly. You don't sprint into a dark room. A rickety bridge isn't something you carelessly waltz over. Everything is designed around patience and observance. Literally every trap in the game (with one exception) is telegraphed by the environment. You just have to look. Things being able to easily murder you is part of the experience. You don't level up in so much as get better at observing the game and learning mechanics. Stats do matter, sure, but even so your large healthbar isn't a guarantee of your survival. It allows you to make a few more mistakes at best.

I think people that want these games with a lower difficulty slider don't "get it". Virtually every other RPG pumps you full of stats and tells you that you're the chosen one. The leader, the one to rule them all. But you don't really earn it. Every level up makes you stronger while the world remains static, eventually culminating into you dominating based off of pure passive, mathematical advantage. Which I guess is fine for a medium that a lot of people use for escapism. But if that's what you want, then Miyazaki's games aren't for you. You have so many other games to choose from I don't understand why there's such a dreary emphasis on one of the few exceptions.

I haven't played Dark Souls, since I'm pretty sure it would be too difficult for me. But from reading what people value of the game, one way that might allow them to adjust difficulty without compromising the spirit is to slow the enemies down. Some of us don't have as good of reaction time and coordination as people who are good at video games, so even if I am carefully watching the game, and thinking about how to approach it, I often times can't execute on that. Games that mix reaction skill with problem solving (like people describe Dark Souls) are the worst because I can never tell for sure if I am approaching incorrectly, need to practice my timing more, or if the game has just hit my fundamental limits.

That said, I have no problem with some games not being made for me. I only state this because the article mentioned Miyazaki wanting to make his games more approachable. I'm curious as to what was done differently in in Elden Ring.

I agree with you in pretty much every case, except probably from games and games aiming for the same thing.

So much of the experience comes from the struggle to overcome overwhelming odds and an oppressive world. That’s thematically why the hollows exist in ds, it all builds toward its theme. Lowering the difficulty would disrupt this, those odds become a lot less daunting, the atmosphere is hurt, and the player dosent engage with the world in its themes in the same way.

A more under appreciated aspect is the bonds it creates within players. There is a shared experience between players, and the difficulty encourages players to engage in the subtle cooperation that inspired the series in the first place. Not to mention the summoning mechanics make the game much easier while pushing this cooperation and solidarity

In games that emphasize this, the difficulty is crucial to the expirences and engaging with it in the same way. I see it the same way as filmmakers or authors using unconventional techniques to push the viewer to engage with the themes in a deeper way

Because I just don't see why not.

The game would still be the same, I'd have experienced it the same way. The only change is a few more people would have also gotten enjoyment out of it.

Dostoyevsky is a bad example, because a book is a book, the only accessibility option you can provide is a dictionary maybe and some guides to go along it.

But a video game isn't a book, you can easily add a few cheats as options without changing the work in any way. I'm not Dostoyevsky, but if I wrote a book, I'd love for a way to have even the illeterate somehow magically be able to read my book just the same. That's what video games allow the authors to do.

I agree with you in pretty much every case, except probably from games and games aiming for the same thing.

So much of the experience comes from the struggle to overcome overwhelming odds and an oppressive world. That’s thematically why the hollows exist in ds, it all builds toward its theme. Lowering the difficulty would disrupt this, those odds become a lot less daunting, the atmosphere is hurt, and the player dosent engage with the world in its themes in the same way.

A more under appreciated aspect is the bonds it creates within players. There is a shared experience between players, and the difficulty encourages players to engage in the subtle cooperation that inspired the series in the first place. Not to mention the summoning mechanics make the game much easier while pushing this cooperation and solidarity

In games that emphasize this, the difficulty is crucial to the expirences and engaging with it in the same way. I see it the same way as filmmakers or authors using unconventional techniques to push the viewer to engage with the themes in a deeper way

I understand what you mean, but I fail to see how adding some accessibility options would change that.

I keep using Celeste as an example, because it's an even harder game, but it had accessibility options done very well, and everything you say exist in that game and was not harmed in any way.

The game is brutal, it plays into the atmosphere and story, the players bond over it, had to learn to overcome the challenges, there's forums of people talking about how brutal and how many times they died and how happy they were when they made it, etc.

That's why I don't see the resistance to adding options like that, because from my vantage point, it doesn't take anything away, it only expands who can get to experience a similar thing.

The only reason I can think of is if you're saying that you personally couldn't resist turning on all the cheats all the time and thus ruining the experience for yourself. I don't have that problem, and from other Celeste players I don't see many who had that problem. It seems even a lot of people when turning on cheats wait a long time, and then they try to turn on the minimum amount and see if they can make it, and only after failing more time do they maybe try to add another one, etc.

Anyways, that's just my point of view. I respect the people feeling differently.

Fair, didnt know too much about the celeste options until this recent debate. Dont have too much to add, but thanks for the very well put together argument.

I am very much one for keeping the artists vision as true as possible so maybe that effects my view on this, also haven’t played much of celeste. Maybe I see the brutality as being so core to dark souls that an abundance of difficulty options might feel like reading the spark notes as opposed to engaging with the book. Saw a tweet from a dev I follow who highlighted the feeling of being trapped so far away from safety in the original dark souls and knowing that he has to make the journey back somehow. I cant help but wonder if that feeling might not be as impactful if you know you can just make it easier. Celeste being able to maintain these things is defiantly reassuring, though I cant say I have experiences with it or similar games with these options.

I’m definitely for accessibility options in games, and in many they have been handled very well. I think the hard part though is finding a balance that aligns with the vision and allows the most amount of people to play the game. At the end of the day not every game is for every person. From soft games are built upon the cycles of immense hardship followed by gratifying relief, and if one dosent enjoy it I dont think they will every really enjoy the game.

>Having said that, I still think they should add some accessibility features that can make the game easier.

They do have that. Particularly the first Dark Souls game:

- You can bonfires if you need extra help getting through levels.

- You can summon people for help if you're struggling on a boss.

- You can just level up or grind some more.

That’s what summoning players for co-op is, a way of reducing difficulty.

Genichiro Ashina fight from Sekiro took me 3 days of multiple 15-20 mins sessions.

With each attempt you learn the attack patterns and tells of which move-set boss will use.

Its immensely satisfying to slowly learn and see yourself improve.

When I eventually beat the boss I felt like a badass.

But most importantly its memorable experience, something that is hard to create.

From Soft can created hard but fair experience, and that's what makes the unique blend of emotions while you slowly master the game/boss.

Ugh, Isshin the Glock Saint. Thorn in my side, as someone who loves the entire soulsborne series, beat most of them (not including DLCs) - he did break me. Sekiro is one of the tightest, most well designed games, it's super fluid, you feel incredible and animations are on point. This game is the hardest of the series because it is not something you can stat-pad against at least not as harshly as you could grind on the other games.

I spent many, many tries against him to get to the later phases but still would die. Like you multiple days, many sessions but against Isshin.

I moved on and came back to my save years later, that muscle memory was lost and did way worse. Realizing this may be a boss I simply don't conquer.

Elden Ring has sparked joy.

The secret to beating Isshin is you dont try to kill him. Think of him as a friend you’re trying to hang around and not let go. Once you get muscle memory for all his movesets you can sense that you can end the game whenever you want.

Genichiro definitely almost broke me. Walked away from the game a few times trying to beat him sure that I wouldn't come back, but every time I returned and eventually I prevailed.

Agreed, Genichiro is such a great boss fight. I remember the exhilaration of finally winning and just staring at the screen with my heart racing for a minute.

The difficulty is definitely an overstatement. It can be rendered trivial with in-game options, the right build, co-op. The quality that these games have is forcing players to be tactful. It's not a mindless affair, but it doesn't require fast reflexes either to excel either.

However, ways to approaching the game are unclear at the outset and they don't hold your hand either, which is a double-edged sword. There is value in discovering things through trial and error or communication with other players, though on the other hand if reading a starter guide drastically improves first-time experience then the games could benefit from better direction. I see that Elden Ring has implemented more guidance, though the open-world nature has created another confusion. You have to kind of enjoy not knowing where to go exactly. But the option to read a guide is there.

Someone made the puzzle game analogy and I think that works. There's always talk about whether an easy mode would be appropriate: would one also demand that puzzle games hold your hand through every puzzle effectively solving it for you? It would miss the point.

> You have to kind of enjoy not knowing where to go exactly

Honestly, this is why I've never really enjoyed the Dark Souls games. Difficult bosses I'm fine with; I can handle gameplay. But I get lost going to the bathroom. If I leave a game for two days and come back to it I have no idea what I'm doing or where anything is. Without something prodding me in the right direction (or helping me get back to where I was before) it's hard for me to enjoy myself.

There are guides, I suppose, but I find following them tedious.

That said, I'm told Elden Ring has a map, which makes me 100% more interested right there.

Yeah I get it. It's funny because, despite ER having a map, I feel way more lost in the open world. DS games may have had a few branching sections but they're more or less linear, here you're having to just pick a direction and hope to find something. And then you encounter all these random bosses that seem overpowered and calculating when would be best to fight them.

> I think FromSoft's games (and specifically the ones directed by Miyazaki) will be among a small set of games released in the past 20 years that will still be played and studied in 50 or 100 years (or more).

I can definitely see this. Until this morning, Dark Souls had been the only FromSoft game I had played, mostly because I only managed Capra last year despite first playing around release. But I still boot it up at least every couple of years, slog my way as far as I can, and enjoy every minute of it. The only problem is that it scratches that itch so well I never got around to trying the later ones.

> Very little of it is actually mechanically demanding.

Sekiro though

100%. There is a lot of love and care that goes into the balance of their games. It's not unfair.

I guess I'm at a loss then.

I've enjoyed the Souls series and have beaten all the games multiple times. They're also the only RPG I've ever played where I have absolutely no idea what's going on with the character past the entrance cinematic. I go into areas, kill things, fight named bosses until they die, and then go somewhere else. I'm sure it's a thematic part of the experience, but it makes the games feel like empty shells past the combat to me.

I love From's games and yes this is a criticism that I absolutely agree with. In previous games, the story and lore was cryptic, but rich. It was delivered in a way that made you intrigued and you had to look for it, but it was all very coherent and cohesive and detailed and satisfying. And even if you didn't dive deep, the cryptic nature was intriguing enough to still make a shallow experience interesting.

I'm 30 hours into Elden Ring, have no idea what the Elden Ring is or why I or anyone else wants to be the Elden Lord, whatever that is. This is easily my biggest criticism of the game. Combat-wise it's as good as ever, but man in this area it is sorely lacking. But who knows, maybe it'll open up more as the game goes on. I've admittedly done very little of the story stuff (ran into Margit and fucked off doing random stuff so I could be strong enough to face him, which I plan on doing tonight), so perhaps that's the problem.

My new take about Miyazaki's games, that I will refuse to give up going forward, is that part of the reason they're so good is because they are secretly comedy games (among everything else): https://twitter.com/docsquiddy/status/1498192962680930304