Hacker News Reader

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.

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.

> 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.

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.