Sure, but that seems like a separate, closely related, topic.
I was mostly objecting to the idea that souls games are just memorizing and pushing buttons. That accusation could be leveled at most single player games, but people seem to mostly bring it up to denigrate souls games.
Multiplayer often has less memorization though, as you say.
Still on my phone so this might be a little limited.
I can imagine some situations where it could be sure, but most of the times it isn’t and the times it isn’t isn’t worth the effort for me. It just makes the game less fun for no conceivable benefit most of the time. The backtracking Im describing here is essentially filler (the type I don’t think most people like).
So when it is not filler, should you be disallowed from skipping it? Who is to say what the benefit is? Does the design intent matter?
Of course everyone should be able to complete every game. I can’t even think of what point this could be leading to except the obvious absurd idea that people should be expecting not to be able to enjoy the things they purchase.
This is a big disagreement. I don’t think everyone should be able to finish every game. They should be able to work the controls. If someone made Calculus Souls I’m just not going to beat it. I’m not good at math. I don’t expect them to give me the answers or add in an Arithmetic mode. If it’s there, fine, but that’s gravy. That’s like getting a second game for free.
Did you ever read the book House of Leaves? It’s great. Unreliable narrators, unconventional layout and use of form. Several friends of mine bounced right off of it. “Can’t read this”, they said. I wouldn’t say they were gatekept. I wouldn’t say the author is ableist because they didn’t also provide a linear narrative, without all the footnotes. I accept that not everyone is going to finish that book. Even if they paid money for it.
My dad bought a big jigsaw puzzle once. Loves puzzles. Couldn’t do this one. He put it back in the box and never finished it. He didn’t say it was an accessibility problem. It would never occur to him to ask for, like, the backs of the pieces to be numbered
People routinely accept that things will be hard, and maybe they can’t beat them. Maybe they could with more practice, but it’s not worth it. This is not a failure of the game or toy.
That’s what a lot of these discussions feel like. Someone made something interesting and challenging, and people want it changed. If you take all the footnotes out of house of leaves, you get a very different, much reduced, result.
I think the idea here that you seem to be putting out is that there is some point at which a players choice to change the difficulty is no longer valid, and I don’t think any such point exists. Let people do what they want, and give them some reasonable defaults that you’ve actually tested for/think blend well.
Well, earlier I said something about tuning difficulty down to the point of triviality, and you said that was a straw man.
But look, I’m not against options in games (assuming everyone playing gives informed consent. Unilaterally cheating is not okay). I just think the framing of it as accessibility in the same way that subtitles or changing controller inputs is dicey. “I think this would be more fun” is a fine, subjective, argument. “This game is ableist” is much shakier.
Of course, if you’re not saying lack of options is ableist but having them makes the game more fun, then I guess we violently agree.
Well, with the footnote that I do believe some people would ruin their own fun by turning the difficulty too high or low, but that’s not my business, and could be a net zero when compared to people not having fun with the available options. (But like for real when I was a kid I briefly ruined Diablo by cheating myself all the cool items.)
And the thing I was waiting for in real life has occurred. No more editing! Post away!
I think our assumptions are not shared, so arguing more isn’t going to be productive until that’s straightened out.
When you say difficulty settings, I think of lowering enemy effectiveness, raising player effectiveness, and removing consequences for bad play (eg: permadeath of characters). Is that what you mean?
You mention less annoying backtracking. Can you imagine a game where the “annoying back tracking” is fulfilling an important role (eg: resources attrition, encouraging revisiting areas)?
If so, is there a threshold beyond which is too much? If there’s a slider that adjusts enemy damage, should it go to zero? If no, how do you decide the limits? What about the players who want to exceed them?
It seems like you have the assumption that everyone should be able to complete every game. Is that correct? Is that true for all media, or only video games?
I would write more but I’m on my phone and almost to my destination.
Dark souls would be a very different experience if the monsters weren’t threatening and there were no setbacks for defeat. People believe the experience is important. Accepting that defeat is only a temporary setback and you can just try again is a significant experience, and if you make the game trivial you won’t achieve that.
isnt difficult in a sense that you have to think a lot but rather that you memorise what moves the boss has and press your buttons fast enough.
I see this a lot, but that wipes out like most games. Baldur’s gate you just click on stuff. Tekken you just hit buttons. Tetris is just moving blocks around.
Also you often don’t rote memorize the moves. People play by reaction or without knowing exactly what’s coming.
Sports are games and have some degree of artificial difficulty. The size of the goal and ball, for example, is arbitrary (within the bounds of practicality. No moon sized basketballs, for example)
But that doesn’t really address what I was trying to get it. I feel like sometimes people online complain about “artificial difficulty” in video games, and it’s unclear what they actually want. I’ve seen it applied to everything from “The enemies hide around corners” to “you can’t quicksave”. I think it’s a kind of duckspeak thing that people say to just mean “i don’t like it” while making it sound less subjective.
You’re saying some people shouldn’t get to play a game where difficulty options are an easy solution.
They can play it (assuming they have the money to buy the software and hardware, but that’s a whole other accessibility problem). There’s no guarantee they’ll be able to 100% it. I don’t think it’s axiomatic that everyone should be able to 100% every game.
You’re right that it doesn’t really matter in single player games. I did once have an argument on this topic where the other person said they should be able to change the rules in multiplayer to suit their desires. They wanted more forgiving dodge windows, just for them, unilaterally. That can fuck off.
A book or a movie isn’t an equivalent comparison.
Why not?
Not too mention there ARE simplified versions of popular books or abridged versions and movie guides and so on anyway.
There are let’s plays and wikis for games.
No one is asking for the subject matter to be dumbed down, or for the story to be shallow or transparent.
In some cases, they are. It’s cliché now, but part of the story of dark souls is often cited repeatedly struggling against an uncaring, dying, world until you persevere. If you rip that out and make all the creatures docile, I don’t know if I would call it “dumbed down” but it would certainly be a substantial change. Sometimes the medium is the message. But, often, you are correct that it is not really the case.
Why should someone not get to play through a game because they insisted their hand and can’t dodge anymore?
No one’s arguing against accessibility for controls. I’m not even against well done difficulty options. (The Bethesda style “we just give the enemies more health and damage” is a poorly done difficulty slider, in my view). I just think “I cannot hear so I need subtitles” and “I just want to win on the first try” don’t belong together.
Though, introspecting a little, I think what’s going on is maybe ableism or something like it. I don’t actually believe some of the people who say “this game is too hard. I want an easy mode” are disabled. I read them as just half-assing it. Like someone who wants to play pro soccer but doesn’t want to actually get in shape so run, so they want a smaller field. And, as you say, it doesn’t really matter what someone does in a single player game on their own time, but for some reason it irritates me when someone’s like “I’m just as disabled as that blind guy” when they’re perfectly capable, they just haven’t practiced. Something about “I’ve spent an hour on this task and I haven’t mastered it, I’m disabled” sits wrong with me.
I really don’t think that’s a productive use of “gatekeeping”.
Do you apply this to other mediums? There are books and movies that are difficult to follow, but no one demands that authors and publishers release a simpler edition. Video games seem to be an exception.
Accessibility like “let me remap the controls” or “give me subtitles” is a whole different beast from “let me be invulnerable”. Treating those as the same is strange to me.
I’m not particularly against difficulty options. I didn’t have the patience to finish Nine Sols without turning the difficulty down. I wouldnt have felt “gate kept” if I just had to put the game down without finishing it.
I consider the weapon system part of the combat. I guess the leveling system is its own mechanic, but it’s super shallow compared to many other games (eg: path of exile, or even Baldur’s gâte)
Some people wouldn’t be happy with a difficulty slider. Some people would use the slider to make themselves unhappy. Either by turning it too high due to hubris, or too low from lack of confidence. The unified difficulty of the souls games for many people is a plus, and creates a sense of shared struggle they enjoy.
And as I said elsewhere, I really don’t think meta game options are the only way to do difficulty.
What are the rest of the mechanics? It’s almost all combat and exploration (that leads to more combat). There’s no, like, base building or grand strategy or romance plots.
That said, I don’t think you can please everyone. I found the games enjoyable as they are.