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Comment by glimshe | Hacker News Reader

I won't play action games without an easy mode anymore. I've beaten all Dark Souls games and I just got tired of proving myself over and over. Nowadays I just want mild challenge and the certainty I will win after trying a couple of times.

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I want either an easy mode or just let me skip a boss battle after a few tries.

There’s also an accessibility aspect to it. Accommodation for players who may have different physical capabilities is just the right thing to do.

Does James Joyce's Ulysses need an easy mode too?

Cheat codes were the original technique for this and they’re probably fine even today.

sparknotes exists for a reason

Definitely! A story mode in a game lets everybody play through the same way that a braille or audio edition of Ulysses makes the text of Joyce's book available to people who can't see.

I really appreciated that TUNIC had infinite stamina and infinite life options under the accessibility settings. I would not have completed the game without the infinite stamina. And that would have been unfortunate because the way the game unfolds is incredible. Such a cool design for a game.

Dead Cells did this. I was about to give up, because I am old and I want to play games not grind one part of a game. But I found an assist mode menu that lets you tweak making it easier, with no penalty, and a nice message from the devs explaining they just want their game to be enjoyed. I got about double enjoyment time out of it by just making it easier a bit.

On the other hand, you have games like Borderlands that force you to finish the game once (or even twice) to unlock an "acceptable" level of difficulty (via lazy bullet sponge metamorphosis).

Same with Bioshock Infinite that needed a hack to unlock "1999 mode" or Bloodstained its harder difficulty (still easy, though).

Balance and fair difficulty really are some of the hardest and most important things to get right in video games.

There are plenty of games with no difficulty settings at all that are easier than, say, Touhou Kinjoukyou’s easy mode. Elden Ring, for instance. Why is the presence of an ‘easy mode’ even a significant factor here?

Mods already exists which can make game more forgiving. Limiting damage to one is great start. Don't be ashamed to use them on Silksong, developers went hardcore for this one.

I aborted my 3 Hollow Knight attempts because of boss runbacks. Is there a mod that, I don’t know, adds benches before bosses or something? Then I might finally finish the game. I do enjoy hard-but-fair boss fights after all.

Yes, there is a mod for Hollow Knight called Benchwarp that lets you place benches wherever you want and fast travel between them.

So far Silksong seems to be much better about placing benches near to bosses than Hollow Knight was

I can't play dark souls and eden ring without a fov mod, so I can't go online and summon if a boss gets too difficult. Sadly pointless for me.

I agree. The game got much more fun once I installed some nice QoL and damage reduction mods.

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