this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
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Microblog Memes

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[–] [email protected] 191 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I love how all the comments insist on discussing the difficulty, despite OP literally pointing it out as bait.

That's good bait.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I know it's bait. I'm just looking for an opportunity to unload.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The circle of "just want to feel something" wraps round and round.

[–] [email protected] 122 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (38 children)

I never understood the obsession with stupid difficult games at all. It's like, let me bang my head on a coffee table for 3 hours trying to make 5 minutes of progress. No thanks

Edit: Wow, this blew up, quite a controversial take, and not a hint of irony from all the people commenting about how I don't get it.

Edit 2: For what it's worth, I have played Dark Souls 1 all the way through, some of Dark Souls 2, got to the end of Bloodborne, played about 3 hours of Elden Ring, and a bit of Lies of P. These games just aren't for me. I played them bcz my friend loves them, and I was trying to make a soulslike bcz that seems to be all the rage right now.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 4 months ago (9 children)

ER is not even difficult unless you specifically want it to be

[–] [email protected] 44 points 4 months ago (5 children)

I played it for 3 hours. Unless I'm missing something, it's incredibly difficult.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Here's 2 tips:

  1. Level up Vigor. Health is how you make early game easier.

  2. Skip bosses. There isn't a hard linear progression path and different builds struggle with different parts of the game.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Counter-point: No.

I rather play something fun.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago

Everyone experiences fun in their own ways. You're allowed to not want to play hard games just like other people are allowed to want to play hard games. It doesn't have to be an argument about which is "better."

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

Fun is subjective. For me, challenge is fun.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Overcoming adversity, or maybe they just want to be the guy

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 4 months ago (15 children)

All difficult games should have an easy mode for accessibility.

Signed, a Dark Souls enjoyer.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Honestly... I disagree. What is accessibility? Every souls game has been beaten with dance pads, rock band drum kits and guitars. They're also frequently beaten by people with serious disabilities using specialized controllers. Input speed is not an issue here, Souls has always been about carefully choosing your moves to manage the end lag and stamina cost of your actions. It's about making the right move, not about moving quickly or pressing a lot of buttons at once.

IMHO, accessibility is frequently cited as an excuse for lower difficulties here, when in reality the difficulty isn't a serious part of the barrier for disabled players. It could use better accessibility options, like configurable colourblind modes, audio indicators, more configurable text size, some kind of clear colour indicators on attacks for low vision, but difficulty? No.

There are also lots of good reasons not to add explicit difficulty options, which is y'know, why From Soft haven't done it yet.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Accessibility isn't just a case of 'accessible to the handicapped', man.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (13 children)

That's a fair argument then, but... this is literally what accessibility means, whether or not you can "access" the thing.

If someone isn't willing to invest the time or frustration into Souls, then fair enough, but that's a matter of priorities/convenience, not a matter of accessibility.

Also, frankly, the difficulty of Souls for regular people is insanely overblown. Stuff like "Prepare to Die" is just a marketing gimmick, and the games have become substantially easier and more flexible over time. Like in Elden Ring, where you can leave bosses for later, and can frequently just bypass them entirely, experiment with an insane variety of builds, use effective ways to grind ridiculous amounts of souls, and just generally become ridiculously powerful. They've done essentially everything but creating an explicit "easy mode" to make the game playable for as many people as possible. If you want an easy mode, basically every souls game has builds or guides that function as that easy mode.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Difficulty counts as an access barrier. You always have to consider that there are people who, for whatever reason, have a skill capacity that is lower than required for the game in question. And for those people the game will be inaccessible.

Time is also an accessibility factor. If a person with a disability or lower skill has to grind and extend the playtime for 3-4x what a normal player would have, that’s not inaccessible but it’s less accessible comparatively. Especially if that kills the fun.

That being said obviously these things can be tweaked within reason and the problem can’t be solved for every player unfortunately. And they don’t need to be. Some games can just be too hard for some players.

The ultimate point for me just seems to be that the community needs to be listened to. You shouldn’t ever be in the positions as a dev where you are telling disabled or low skill gamers to get good or no dice. If a large portion of people are saying “I’d love to enjoy the art you’ve made, but I can’t. My disability/inability is stopping me” then I’d change my approach.

I think there is a balance that can be struck, grinding is one of the balances and you’re right there are ways to make those games easier that way. But the other people are also right, the games need to be hard sometimes. I just want people to stop being dismissive of people who want to enjoy the same entertainment and art but can’t just because of difficulty.

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[–] YodaDaCoda 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I wanna play a game with story interspersed with fun action combat... not keen on dying a million tonnes until I learn the timings for each enemy in order to be able to defeat them and get the next bit of story. Soulslike games aren't accessible to me.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 months ago (8 children)

I mean, Souls is accessible to you, it sounds like it just isn't for you. There are tons of games that I wish were made in a way that I'd enjoy more, features I've disliked, etc. But in almost all of those cases, someone loves those features the way they are, as is.

Like, for example, I don't love JRPG combat. I would love to play and enjoy Persona 5, but eh, I'm just not interested in investing in those systems to play that game. But that game is beloved, as is. I would never go petition Atlus to make Persona 6 into a Soulslike so that I "could" play it.

And that's great, there are a ridiculous amount of great games coming out every year, far more than I or basically anyone but full-time streamers have the time to play. So just... go play what you like?

Trying to make games that are "for" everyone is how we end up with soulless bland titles like Ubisoft keeps pumping out. Good games have to take risks, and make interesting decisions that alienate some and engage others.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago

Exactly!!!!

Not every game is made for you!

Don’t like the gameplay or the challenge, you are welcome to switch to something else.

Why do people expect everything to cater to their preferences?

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

For mechanically difficult games, definitely agree. Celeste is an example I usually bring up - it's a platformer that can get pretty tough at times, especially in the after-story optional levels. But it also has one of the most flexible and useful accessibility modes I've ever seen. It allows you to adjust basically every aspect of the game a player might struggle with (game speed, additional jumps, timed mechanics, you name it). And the game itself is very good as well.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 4 months ago (2 children)

This is extra funny because Elden Ring's diverse player build options means that it has the most adjustable difficulty curve of any FromSoftware game. Holding up Elden Ring completion specifically as any kind of bar to surpass is laughably naive.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

That's the key. If you:

  • summoned
  • used spirit ashes
  • used ashes of war
  • used sorceries
  • used incantations
  • levelled up
  • drank a flask
  • opened the map
  • used a weapon
  • used a controller or a mouse/keyboard
  • opened the menu
  • used your hands

You didn't beat the game.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I actually beat the game at level 1, no weapons, no items, controlling the character via brainwaves. And every time I died, I resetted the game.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago

So you didn't even turn on the setting that kills you in real life when you die in the game? Casual.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 4 months ago (3 children)

As a man who has never played Elden Ring and really knows nothing about it beyond it being the name of a game, the people getting all het up in these comments are very amusing. I think you guys proved her point.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (6 children)

I dislike how people use game completion as a method to gloat

Like bro, don't we all play games to have fun?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

I'm currently playing Elden Ring for the first time and I'm note sure if I'm not just doing it for self-flagellation instead of fun

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How am I supposed to have fun if I'm not better than you?????

Edit: ???

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Easy mode ftw. I've only got so much free time. I wanna chill when I'm gaming.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Counterpoint: not every game needs to be chill

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (3 children)

It's a choice. You don't have to take it

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

The choice existing would impact how players play, which may also go against the artistic vision. You don't have to play a non-chill game.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

You don't want to spend twenty hours trying to beat one boss, and being told to git gud whenever you ask for advice on the internet? But think of the sense of pride and accomplishment you'll feel when you finally beat it! The best part is you get to go through this like 10 times

/s

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 months ago

I've never had vitriol spewed at me quite like when I argue in favor of easy mode for soulslike games. I'm at a point where I hate soulslike games, half because I don't want to spend ten hours on a boss that I can't beat, and half because I don't want to associate with soulsborne players

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago (11 children)
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 months ago (6 children)

I once made the mistake googling easy mode for Elden ring that someone gifted to me. Once I saw the gatekeeping on Reddit, I decided it's not a game for me and uninstalled. I'm sorry that I suck at video games

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (8 children)

it gets much easier when you start treating it like a rhythm game where you get into dance offs with the enemies:)

and no need to interact with a game's community when it's shite, it's a single player game you can enjoy it however you want! (or don't, i'm not pressuring you, just don't want you to miss out on a good game because its fanbase is made of out assholes)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I don't want to redo the same thing a dozen times just to experience the story and world

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 months ago (2 children)

All of the Souls games kinda have an easy mode baked in. Ranged weapons/Sorceries generally provide an easier experience. Honestly though, I just find I don't really care if there is an easy mode or not. I enjoyed the challenge and if a difficulty slider was added, it would not have detracted from my experience in the slightest. I played through the games for the challenge and I enjoyed it immensely. If someone else doesn't enjoy the challenge, then that's okay. I'm not going to gatekeep them. We're all SunBro's at our core and I will always drop my Summon Sign for others in need to find

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (5 children)

I've never touched any game of this series. If I need to replay a section or fight in a game more than 3 times it annoys me so much, I need to take a break. This often led to me never playing that game again, because only thinking about being stuck at that spot again kills all the fun for me.

In Cyberpunk for example my car got stuck in the middle of nowhere by a glitch and I would have needed to walk for god knows how long to find another vehicle. Needless to say I never played that game again, even though I was not nearly even half way through and liked it up until that point.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Can't you just summon a new vehicle?

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago

Saying that it shouldn't just to feel something (I.e. a smug sense of superiority)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I used to disagree with this concept, but then I discovered how Control implements difficulty. The game is hard, and that cannot be changed, but at any time one can pause the game, turn on assist mode, and become unkillable. And the key to this is after one gets past that really frustrating section, they can turn off the "cheats".

That would work for Elden Ring.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Yes.

Also just generally better accommodation in general. If a paraplegic guy with control over one finger wants to play Elden Ring, there should be settings to accommodate that. That's not even making it easier; they're already facing much more difficulty in the first place. It's just leveling the playing field.

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