Bloodborne actually gets pretty easy once you understand the parry timing. If you ever feel brave enough to give it a shot, just focus on learning that mechanic and you’ll do well.
I hope it’s clear which option is the original difficulty. I plan on playing it and honestly I’m worried how they’ll implement it. Difficulty settings are great but hard to pull off
There are only two ways a difficulty setting has ever been used, and only one would be good for a game like this.
Either the health and damage (and possibly speed) is going to be adjusted so easier difficulty means you take less damage and deal more, while harder difficulties turn enemies into sponges that absolutely destroy you in 1 or 2 hits.
Or they re-do every encounter, 3 times, adding, removing, or re-arranging the mobs so they are easier or more difficult by actually tweaking the challenge and not the just the “numbers.”
Almost every game chooses to do the former and not the latter because it’s cheap and easy to do. Takes literally no effort to adjust some numbers by a percentage. It actually takes some thought and planning and time to actually present different tiers of challenge, naturally.
Imagine if every boss took as long to kill as that one giant dragon in Elden Ring that doesn’t even move because it’s too big and would crash the game if it actually did even when you’re completely maxed out in every stat.
I want to appreciate the additions, but…this is also not a good way of doing it.
The difficulty is often the point in Soulslikes, but quite often it feels like these games are hard in 17 different ways, and a player may only have trouble with 1 of them.
Maybe that’s navigation, and finding the next path forward. Maybe that’s working out how to put together a functioning build, and realizing what each weapon does. Maybe it’s that the parry window is just a few frames too tight because they’re playing with an input delay.
That’s why the games I’ve liked have varied accessibility options to let you change just one thing, like getting your souls back on dying, slowing down the game, slightly decreasing damage values - or increasing them on both sides.
I really wanted to like this game, paid for it and everything, but I just couldnt get in to it. I’m an avid fan of fromsoft’s stuff and have done them all several times, but with LoP i never felt like the combat clicked, and I strongly disliked most of the enemy designs. Not that fromsoft always has great enemy design either, but LoP just didnt vibe with me. I’ll have to revisit it some day though
The game doesn’t really explain this, but you get different dodge animations when you are using an extra light build. To me, this made the game feel more like bloodborne, which made the combat easier to read. Eventually, I ended up parrying everything instead of dodging, but I really like how the game plays in this state. YMMV
On one hand difficulty settings seem good because it gives players choices.
But on the other this genre is meant to challenge you. And for me if Dark Souls hadn’t been one difficulty only and hard was the way it is now I probably would have never beaten it on the hard difficulty. But I persevered and did something that felt great because of that design choice.
I hope he can make lies and then when his nose is big enough he can break it off and use it as a beating stick to fight off the bad guys or light torches in the deku tree
Works for me. I got stuck on the puppet king second phase and gave up. Not like rage quit, I just never went back to the game after like a dozen attempts, uninstalled it months later to free up space.
I love difficulty adjustments. Tuning a game to be right for every audience is impossible, better to let the end client have some control over fine tuning their experience.
Control is an excellent example of this for me. My GOTY when it came out, still an all time fav. I love the story and setting, but the combat is tedious after a while. In that case, lowering enemy health made the game less boring without being substantially easier, giving me the kind of experience I could enjoy.
Amen! There’s nothing I hate more than damage-sponge enemies. I love active dodging, blocking, and targeting weak spots, but NOBODY should survive multiple headshots just because they have a lot of HP.
I’m not sure if you’ve played directly on release but they did nerf the puppet king two weeks after release or so, he has way less HP than he used to when the game came out
I appreciate difficulty options for other people and I think everyone should agree it’s a good thing to make games more accessible or more challenging depending on what a player is seeking.
My only caution is maintaining the vision for the expected experience. I imagine we’ve all played games where the normal difficulty or the default experience feels bad or improperly tuned. Multiple difficulty options can, I imagine, lead to less tuning on the default experience. I have no doubt I disliked games I would have liked if they’d encouraged me to play at a different difficulty or spent more time tuning their preferred difficulty. I have no doubt I liked games that if they’d provided difficulty options I may have changed the default experience to my detriment without realizing it.
right there with you. and there are SO MANY levers they could pull under the hood to tweak the difficulty without fundamentally changing the fights. Adjusting stuff like poise, estus flasks, flask consumption time, etc could all make the game easier for folks without changing the fights themselves too much.
And to be fair, most of these games would still be challenging at a lower difficulty. I expect that the late game bosses of Lies of P would remain difficult in the second difficulty setting (maybe not as much in the first setting, but for now we don’t know what to expect)
Absolutely amazing decision. Difficulty settings make games more accessible - period. And gating accessibility behind “artistic intent” and “vision” is just stupid. Sure, not every game has to meet everyone’s idea of a good time, but come on - it can’t be that hard, and it would only be a net positive for everyone.
Miyazaki wept. Edit: lol people love to complain about gatekeepers and then they gatekeep comment sections about difficulty. Its ok guys, youre safe. The video games cant hurt you.
Downvotes arent gatekeeping. It’s just people not agreeing with you or disliking your tone. Also bitching about downvotes tends to attract more downvotes for your efforts.
If downvotes aren’t gatekeeping, then neither is saying Dark Souls is perfect the way it is and doesn’t need to be changed. Ultimately, I think we’re all picking a side on this one, and dont want to hear what the other has to say. Voting me down is your way of saying “I don’t want to see this kind of thing.” It can’t be hand-waved away as simple disagreement. There is an echo chamber at work here, it is somewhat nasty and honestly disheartening. Like when I make a joke about Miyazaki not wanting this (it is a joke after all) and everyone piles on the dislike; that’s the community trying to send me a message. And yes, I know that calling out downvoters makes them pile on more; I am proud to spit in ya’lls face. The discourse around difficulty is toxic on both sides and I hate it. Can’t even make a joke without bringing out the Defenders of the Casual or whatever. Vote me down some more, its exactly what I expect.
Sometimes difficulty is inextricable from the art, and Dark Souls is a good example of that. When people say they want it easier they are missing the message. You SHOULD have to struggle to get what you want, you SHOULD have to pay attention to the game you’re playing instead of mindlessly hacking your way through only to forget bout it days later. If a game punishes impatience and hubris, you will be more immersed in an oppressive world, you will feel like a small part of a larger tragedy that transcends your typical hero fantasy. These are the things that make the game special, and Miyazaki and his team knew what they were doing. You are spitting on their vision and their talent when you say it should be different. Lies of P… I haven’t played it, and the devs can do whatever they feel is right to make the game they want to make.
But you know, Starry Night is fine and all but its too dark and depressing. They should put some more yellow in there, really make it more accessible to the masses.
See, assuming someone calling out your bitching has downvoted you is part of your problem. I didn’t downvote you before, now I have downvoted you because you sound whiny.
Accessibility options are good. Not everyone is a god gamer with the reflexes of a 14-year old hopped up on Adderall and Red Bull. Some people just want to enjoy the story and the atmosphere of a game and it should be normal for us to let them.
So much this! I love a challenging game but sometimes you just want to experience the game without the frustration, and lowering the difficulty for yourself has zero impact on people who prefer the original or higher difficulty
Black myth wukong would be so great with some difficulty options. I’m sure the rest of it story is great, but if I get stuck for a week on a boss I’m going to stop caring about that story.
It’s true I haven’t played the Elden Ring expansion, and I guess that’s the most difficult one now so it’s required to have played it to be able to parade around your gamer credentials? Whatever that’s supposed to mean? To me gaming is about enjoying a medium of culture, not a dick measuring contest. I’ve played Dark Souls, I’ve played Elden Ring. I’ve beaten Sister Friede, I’ve beaten Malenia.
Reading comprehension, even more challenging than dark souls nowadays eh? No idea what you’re even going on about now, but glad you got your nice rehearsed rant off your chest.
The main souls games have already gotten progressively more and more “””accessible”””, somewhat to the detriment of what originally made them appealing. Options are a mutually preferable alternative - people that enjoyed the original gameplay would still have their torture, or you can play on games journalist difficulty and have basically the same experience as watching someone else play on twitch.
There‘s a potential discussion to be had about how much of the Soulsborne/-like experience is about overcoming difficulty - and let’s be honest, the vast majority of people won‘t finetune difficulty but just go as easymode as possible - but on the other hand I strongly dislike elitism in games and in the end it should be on the player if they wanna potentially ruin their own experience or not, as such I agree with you.
Would Dark Souls have ever become the iconic game it is and FROM/Miyazaki the iconic devs they are with an easymode (in their games)? Hard to say.
I‘m always happy to see these options especially in indie games, which so often go crazy hard on difficulty towards the end (Celeste endgame for example).
Yeah, is a double edged sword. But if it makes more people to stick to the game rather than abandoning it, is nice.
My brother has Elden Ring for PS5 sitting on the shelf. The only serious playtime he’s had was a year ago when I visited him and made some character progress. Now, he keeps asking if I’ll play it again during my next visit. I always tell him, ‘No, I’m good-it’s a great game, but I’m coming over for peace and relaxation, not to get frustrated.
I usually start on easy mode and then steadily increase difficulty as I go. Nothing will make me refund a game faster than being 20 minutes in and dying 74 times in an impossible encounter. LoP is one of those games.
That’s kinda the point of Souls games though. The encounter isn’t impossible, and once your skills and attitude change, you get through it - even though the encounter itself didn’t change a bit.
I’m a perfect game sure, but most of these are far from perfect. They often don’t explain mechanics, rely heavily on changing Metas, RNG, pure chance, reflexes that some people just will not have no matter what their attitude or mindset is, and so on. Let’s have it, these games are FULL of jank.
At the end of the day, the “pros” don’t need to adjust their difficulty if they don’t want to. More options is never a bad thing.
Agreed, it’s a great idea. I don’t even think I would have been good at soulslike games when I was 14. I just don’t have the patience for those sorts of constant boss battles where it takes so many hits to kill the boss but you die in 1 or 2.
You hit the nail on the head. Soulslikes aren’t about difficulty, they’re about patience. And when school was the only thing I had to worry about I had patience. Now that I have to fight for 30 minutes of game time I don’t. Great decision by the devs!
Not everyone is a god gamer with the reflexes of a 14-year old hopped up on Adderall and Red Bull. Some people just want to enjoy the story and the atmosphere of a game and it should be normal for us to let them.
Not everyone just wants to enjoy the story. Some people want a challenge which requires the reflexes of a 14 year old hopped up on Adderall.
Why should every single game be changed to suit your specific play style?
Instead of demanding their games change, maybe you could just accept its okay some audiences have different likes than you and just play the ones that cater to your style?
I have to be honest here and say I don’t understand where you’re coming from at all.
Why should every single game be changed to suit your specific play style?
Literally nobody is asking for this. Accessibility options, not “permanently and irrevocably reduce the difficulty of all games”. The good thing about options is that they’re option-al. If you want the game to remain challenging, the presence of accessibility options does not affect you in the slightest. You can just ignore them and go on with your day, enjoying the game just as it was.
I have to be honest here and say I don’t understand where you’re coming from at all.
Thats okay! Thanks for asking. I’m coming from the place that video games are art.
If games are art, then I choose to support artists, even if they want to make weird or unconventional art. If an artist has a vision which clashes with my own I want them to be able to follow their vision that instead of always conforming to “general audiences”.
As to the rest of your comment I already said first thing accessibility options are good so I’m not sure what got miscomminicated there.
B. The game is a product that they want to sell to more people, adding difficulties sells more
Sure. Not not necessarily untrue.
I don’t see the issue either way
My stances is forced here. I support the artists.
Unfortunately, supporting artists means sometimes you have to disagree with the businessmen when the two groups disagree.
Selling microtransactions and skins and deluxe editions and pre-order exclusive content, etc, etc all “sells more” (or at least makes more money).
If the artists feel for whatever reason adding more difficulties is too much to manage or prevents them from making the experience they want to make, I have to take the side of the artist.
There’s always going to be an argument the product needs to change to make more money, that’s not the art I find super interesting.
Why care what audience it’s conforming to, you’ll either enjoy the game or you won’t?
Because I think of the people who make games as artists and it pisses me off to think of some guy in a suit pressing his fingers into the Mona Lisa and pestering Da Vinci to make her smile and show cleavage so it can sell more.
I get that a business needs to make money, but those should be decisions the artists are in the room for at least.
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