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This is such a terrible take. You can have difficulty accessibility options in difficult games (eg. Celeste, Furi) and it doesnt make the game worse. This is just gatekeeping bs
Honestly how is this gatekeeping? That word gets slinged around a lot and it using it here seems like it diminishes the real situations where the word is useful. So they're limiting access to the game from people who what? It's hard for everyone, they're not being selective about the difficulty somehow.
Except some people have disabilities that prevent them from enjoying difficulty in a game. Some people just want the ambiance and story. Some people have reflexes that are not as sharp as they used to be. They should be able to also enjoy this art form as much as others
Eh I'm sorry but I still don't buy it. Making it a game about ambiance and story makes it a different game, doesn't it? Every game has a target audience right? Why does it seem like it's just games like this that get this sort of outrage thrown at it? FPS games have a similar level of entry yet no one is out there demanding they make Counter Strike less twitchy.
Counter strike is a multiplayer game, I'm talking about solo game (and even mp games can have difficulty accessibility options, like Tekken 8 does). About your target audience thing, I'd love to play dark souls and elden ring for the exploration, awesome music and ambiance but the difficulty and slow paced gameplay always put me off. Or to take the other example of Celeste, some people play it because of the difficulty and fun platforming, but I played it for the story and music and I loved it. Giving accessibility options will help people enjoy their game how they want with close to 0 additional development time cost.
I should say that I appreciate the candid discussion, nice to have a civilized chat on the internet. Also - in the end it wouldn't really bother me if Fromsoft did implement a simple difficulty slider. I think it'd be a bit more difficult than you are assuming however since it is also a multiplayer game. I guess they could limit the difficulty options to offline players only.
But as a very long time fan, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that they have actually gone a long way to addressing the difficulty complaints of their games. ER is their most accessible game and there are a lot of in-game opportunities to customize the amount of difficulty one faces. I could go on and on about it but I'll leave it at that for now.
I believe a difficulty slider in a game specifically Elden Ring would destroy the game design. Biggest example is my own experience after walking out the starting area seeing and having that horse fella as the first thing I saw and tried to kill for longer than I would like to admit (before going to Google) if there was just a slider to slide down so I could kill that guy I would have never learned how to play the game and explore and kill bosses to level up. Not saying sliders don't work in ANY game but I just think it would ruin the experience of elden ring.
I mean you could just not use the difficulty slider. I've never turned down the difficulty in any game even if I could have, but I don't begrudge people that do if they're struggling.
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I think ER had a great difficulty design since you could go to other areas to overlevel. But I haven't played it or the DLC so I can't really give a specific opinion on the implementation in fromsoft games, I just think that general anti-accessibility statement like the original quote are uninformed and ableist opinions. And you're welcome for the discussion!
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Making it a game about ambiance and story makes it a different game, doesn’t it?
Not really. The experience with the Easy Mode mod in place is pretty much the same. I saw more "You Died" screens on easymode than the typical player sees on regular mode. The only difference is that I didn't waste my money on Elden Ring by having to give up less than 10% into the game like I did on Bloodborne after 50 hours or so.
Some of us, especially older gamers, just don't have the reflexes for that type of game. Unfortunately for us, Fromsoft writes GREAT stories and Let'sPlays are still kinda boring.
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Being bad at games isn't a disability.
Say that to the person that has lost an arm and is playing with a special controller
There are plenty of videos showing people beating the game using one hand with disability controllers as well as entirely with voice controls or controllers that were specifically designed to be as stupid as possible (like bananas).
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they're gatekeeping the game story and experience, and ability to finish experiencing the game, from people who might be disabled or simply bad at games.
by making the game more accessible they would allow more people to enjoy the whole game
it's a pretty standard example of gatekeeping
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Honestly how is this gatekeeping?
"Gatekeeping: the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something."
The lack of difficulty sliders make the game inaccessible to people who have no ability or desire for the unforgiving experience, nor any ability/desire to "Git Gud Scrubs". It's intentionally left out to exclude those people. That makes it "gatekeeping" by the definition for the word.
This is substantiated by the fact that a mode to make the game easier and a mode to make the game harder are in the top 10 downloaded mods for Elden Ring. If you leave out the loaders and modutils, those same mods are top-5. This is basically unheard of in most games.
You can argue that you approve of this gatekeeping, but it's silly to die on the "it's not really gatekeeping" hill.
Soooo a game, which is not paid for nor developed by the community, and is rather purchased with the knowledge that it is a difficult game which will require ample skill to surpass its many challenges, should put in difficulty sliders despite them fundamentally going against the very nature of the game itself?
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If you don't like spicy food. Don't buy spicy food. They're not gatekeeping food from you. You have other options.
If you don't want to "git gud". You can use summoned spirits. NPCs, other players. There already is a difficulty slider. It's one you set for yourself.
You always have the option to come back when you're stronger. The boss is not going anywhere.
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It has difficulty options. They're just not in a menu. If you want to play on hard mode, use fist weapons and never summon. If you want easy mode, be a mage carrying a great shield and summon every fight.
Those are not difficulty settings and you know it. This argument is so fucking shit.
Of course they are. They literally allow you to ignore all of the most difficult game mechanics. With a great shield you literally never need to time dodges. As a mage, you can easily do ranged damage, so you don't need to time your attacks or worry about positioning. Using a summon means the boss doesn't even attack you half the time, and some of them are so powerful that they can beat many bosses on their own.
It's actually a far better difficulty system than the standard "the game mechanics are the same, but enemies do less damage and have less health" system that most games use.
Accessibility is an extremely important topic and Elden Ring could absolutely be better in that aspect.
Difficulty, however, is unrelated to accessibility. Disabled people should be able to play difficult games -- that's what accessibility is about, letting people with disabilities experience the same content as everyone.
You mean like summoning NPCs and other players to your world to help you defeat the boss?
No one is gatekeeping anything just because you don't agree with the art the artist has created.
I feel like the main difference is that Elden Rings difficulty is innately linked to its game design. A similar game in a largely different genre is Underrail which is basically designed with CRPG fans who want to be kicked in the dick... repeatedly. Seriously Underrails combat is weirdly complex and frankly speaking even on easier difficulties is still a bitch.
I get that accessibility is a factor and all but theres only so much one can do thatll help without compromising the game design. I think the current situation is for the best, folks can mod the game to make it easier but there shouldnt be any official fuckery.
Also go play Underrail if you like Isometric CRPGs it hurts so good.
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I just beat one of the bosses that I've heard the most complaints about, and I did it on the 5th try using a non-dlc weapon. I went in fully prepared to throw a controller, but it really wasn't that bad. So far I'm really enjoying the DLC, and it's because it has been difficult yet rewarding.
It's mostly fine if you go for the skibidi tree fragments. There's a couple of bosses feel like they were designed out of spite though, specially the final one.
They did roll out a nerf yesterday, but that's not to diminish your accomplishment!
Yeah, I'm already past the curve so the nerf didn't do much to boost my power. I had already run some numbers when I was working out a build, and the difference in pre- and post- nerf was around 3%. The real secret to the DLC is to run around and explore. Getting fragments to boost yourself makes all of the fights much more tolerable. I was at 10 when I beat the aforementioned boss, and now I'm at 15, and it's getting pretty even with the base game. I think people just weren't expecting the fragments to be as important as they are.
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Ironic considering the rapidly dropping playerbase of Helldivers 2 due to Arrowheads questionable balancing changes lately.
Is it ironic and not just the most normal thing in the world that people don't play a game forever?
For me, it was their lack of attention to the bugs and crashes and pushing other unfinished and paywalled content.
When they patch things “should” work as described and still don’t.
The base game lures in newcomers by being the easiest one of the bunch; then the DLC kicks it up to Dark Souls 2+Ringed City difficulty and those newcomers are getting a taste of what the real game is and can't handle it lol
I got into these games because of their difficulty. When DS1 came out, the trend was that most games would hold you hand and just give you free victories so you get your dopamine fix. The base game got a little boring because most of the bosses are just regular mobs at the end of a cave with a boss health bar. I actually like getting to the end of a small side dungeon and having a challenging fight and not just a copy of the random little dudes I've been one shotting as I walk to the boss room.
Am I weird in thinking that once you get to the Mountaintops of Giants it becomes harder than any other Souls base game?
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I don’t think the game’s too hard but I also don’t think the bosses are particularly fun to fight. With how complex and fast they’re making enemies now and not really changing how the player controls it’s making fights take much longer. Not because it’s any harder to press the B button but because you spend most of the fight now dodging bosses endless combo extenders waiting for the opportunity to get a single hit in and then dodge for another 30 seconds. I feel like this game would have really benefitted from bloodbornes quickstep and rally systems
I genuinely think these games would not have the rep for difficulty if dodge was on button-down instead of up. That slight lack of responsiveness kills your a lot until you train yourself to compensate for it by pre-empting attacks (which means you have to learn the full moveset of the boss).
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With this crap again. I hope they don't start crying when people leave their multiplayer game because it's not very enjoyable to most players, just sweaty nerds who kick you for not using the meta build
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I think some people are just frustrated that the majority of the new cool weapons/ashes are locked behind difficult content. If you are too rusty to clear the initial difficulty wall, you'd be restricted to very little stuff after buying the $50 dlc.
That being said, a castle skip already exists so you can go collect the Smithscript series and Anvil Hammer - without killing a thing - as long as you explore hard enough!
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Among Us did pretty good as a game for nobody.
It's almost like making a game fully accessible to most people will mean more people will play it... Hmm... 🤔🤔🤔
Fuck people with disabilities and other problems. They don't deserve to have fun.
Dark Souls was beaten with voice input alone. I saw someone working on doing that with Elden Ring just the other day. This isn't a disability issue. People just don't like difficult games, and that is very much a skill issue.
"a few people did it this way so there's no excuse!!!"
Fuck you.
If you understand the design philosophy of From's games, you know why you're wrong here. Have you ever even played their games? They all require you to be capable of knowing how to overcome obstacles and rise above a challenge. It's on you, no one else. They've literally always been this way. Their games are wildly successful with or without your complaints for a damn good reason.
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Elden Ring doesn’t even feel like a game for everyone who liked Dark Souls. They completely lost the plot on what a fun challenge is.
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this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
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