If you really pine for the old days, then Elden Ring should give you three lives, or 30 if you punch in up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A at the menu.
Modern AAA titles generally do. I think of game development should generally be moving forward rather than “This is how they did it in 1994” (or 1982 or 2001 or whenever)
That would make a pretty large difference, really. In fact, the whole “accessibility” angle on the game was “You can skip a boss now and come back later”. Later, as in when you do more damage and have better armor/hp to soak hits. Even if you’re thinking about the skill in dodging hits and landing them when the opportunity arises, the PC doing more damage and the monster doing less means less times where you get the boss to 50% before screwing up since now the boss would just be dead.
Elden Ring takes that even farther. Unlimited lives with virtually penalty free death.
Death is the penalty.
Exactly–it’s a game designed for modern weenies. Back in the good old days, you had limited lives and that was it. Back to the beginning if you ran out. Haters just need to get gud. Frankly, even that was too generous. The game cartridge should have set off a thermite charge when you ran out of lives. Have some real stakes for once.
If you think that most games don’t have a difficulty slider, I wonder what you’ve been playing for the last 20 years. Aside from games with no combat element at all, I’m not aware of any without some kind of difficulty setting (outside of the Soulsborne series and imitators).
I don’t really get the gripe about lack of difficulty slider either. It is part of the core game concept and I’m fine with it despite the fact that I will probably never “beat” any Souls game. I do enjoy the challenge and enjoy the feeling of felling an enemy that I’d been struggling with.
I read an interesting article today from someone who had not played Elden Ring because of his experience with Dark Souls but had recently gone back to playing Dark Souls again and found his perception of it had changed. I think Yahtzee also initially didn’t get on with Dark Souls but now he plays it like it’s comfort food.
First I don’t see it as condescending at all. But maybe you hear it from Souls players because people seem to complain about Souls games not being how they want them to be. If I was to suggest that World of Warcraft would be much more enjoyable if it was an offline single player game then I would rightfully be told the game simply isn’t for me, but I don’t do that because I already know WoW is not for me, having tried it a number of times. In fact I’ve realised over the years that pretty much ALL multiplayer games aren’t for me. I don’t like playing against other people (not good enough) and I don’t like playing with other people (feel like I’m not good enough and holding the team back, also don’t feel like I have the freedom to tackle things at my own pace.)
Nah. I mean, I can’t prove it to you or anything but there’s no exclusive thing about Souls games that causes that response aside from the people responding. I’ve seen plenty of people complain about game difficulty for other games and even lament the lack of an easier mode (say, Cuphead) without the same smug responses. When it comes to Souls games, it seems to always come back to “Well, it’s just not a game for you”.
There is a difference here.
Your example suggests a fundamentally different game. Something completely different from what they intended to make.
I do not think anyone here is suggesting Souls games do something differently. The game is fine as is. Just some wish it was more accessible with a difficulty slider. Something that would not change the game at all, in any way, for those who like the difficulty where it is and the game as is.
As I mentioned above, I am simply barred from playing this game by virtue of my age. I mean, I am sure I could probably manage but the effort I would have to put in would be markedly more than when I was 20 years old and 20 year old me would have had to put in a lot of effort.
But, as I said before, I won’t lose sleep over it. I find the discussion interesting on the philosophy of games but I’m not really fussed about it. Just a little bummed because ER looks like it could be fun (for me).
I suppose that’s it: To the Souls fan who says it’s not for you, the difficulty is the fundamental nature of the game. That’s why they play. Take away the 2hard4u aspect and it’s just another action RPG to them. To people who aren’t into that, they see the game as being fundamentally the same regardless of whether it takes them one or two tries to kill some boss or if it takes them ten tries.
I agree that WoW as a single-player game is much more of a shift than an Elden Ring where stuff potentially dies a bit faster and you live a bit longer. But I suppose if someone saw WoW not as a communal experience but as a chance to kill 15,000 Murlocks and run some quests, they wouldn’t see it the same. But then there’s generally nothing actually stopping you from killing Murlocks and running quests even if they don’t like other people sharing their world whereas the difficulty in the Souls games is a hard lock for some people. Which makes requesting an easier mode seem more reasonable than saying WoW needs to be single player only.
Also, making WoW a single player game changes it for everyone. Making a Souls “easy” mode is optional and only makes it more accessible, even if some people get mad about it
I think the idea is that some people consider the game as kind of a puzzle to solve.
Imagine I bought an original Rubik’s Cube and I asked for help solving it. Natural responses from people would be giving hints or giving a link to a video discussing the solution. Is that the same as saying “git gud”? Sort of, I guess. If I suggested that something is wrong with the construction of the cube because it’s too hard, I would probably get a few raised eyebrows.
(For the record, neither Dark Souls nor the Rubik’s Cube were really for me.)
There’s a named in ER who is ridiculously easy to cheese. Not exactly an exploit but close to it. I killed him with the cheese method a few days ago. Has anyone else playing the game noticed that I did so? Did their experiences fundamentally change? When it happened, did they suddenly feel their effort in dodge-rolling was devalued?
No. Because how I play the game affects other players… not at all. Just like it would have affected them zero if i used a difficulty slider to make the guy easier instead of a cheesy trick.
(I’m not even really advocating for a slider, i just find the defenses against it to be very poor and really boil down to “If those chumps can kill this guy, I’m not special for killing him”)
As I mentioned above, I am simply barred from playing this game by virtue of my age. I mean, I am sure I could probably manage but the effort I would have to put in would be markedly more than when I was 20 years old and 20 year old me would have had to put in a lot of effort.
I think you’re over-playing the age issue - I mean we all age differently and if that’s your direct experience of playing Dark Souls then fair enough. But if you’re just looking at gameplay vids and thinking it looks too hard and too fast then that’s probably not the case.
I’m late 40s and pretty good at Souls - started playing three years ago. Done no death runs, can hang in the metapvp game, stuff like that. I’m sure that will slowly decline but I’d honestly expect to be crushing pve at least as an old codger.
I think part of it is that the bosses look absurdly difficult, and honestly they are proper hard in ER, but it’s not like you have to execute some very intricate choreography to win. It’s sloppier than that - you can make mistakes, there’s rng luck, every Boss has a weakness, and the epic encounters you see late game are when you yourself are epically strong. Plus co-op can get you past anything that is walling you out.
But if you really feel it’s not for you then you’re prob right (and it is a big time commitment game regardless). Any time I’ve dabbled in an fps, for example, I definitely feel too old for it - don’t have the hand eye coord to even get mediocre at the game. I could be wrong - I don’t much like the genre so it doesn’t engage me, perhaps it’s practice like anything else. But the rapid accurate aiming seems like its for the younger generation. I don’t think that Souls is anything like this, but do appreciate your point that sometimes the controller says no and that’s just the way it is.
You know, in the end, I doubt most fans would actually object if Soulsborne games added a difficulty selection option. The “Get Gud” crowd would complain, probably, but they’re annoying dorks; I personally wouldn’t like it, but my preference in this area is so idiosyncratic that it’s not worth considering. Assuming that adding difficulty options is easy on a programming front (I know literally nothing about that so I may be wrong, who knows), it’s fine.
But I think I’m skeptical that it would make much of a difference. Scanning this thread - and indeed, in most of the negative criticisms of the series - you don’t see a lot of “this game/series would be perfect if it had a difficulty slider.” You see people who dislike the game - the controls, the systems, the overall vibe - and think it’s too hard. Reduce the difficulty, and those people will be left with an easier game that they don’t still don’t enjoy.
I think difficulty (in any game) is really a red herring - difficulty only exists to encourage players to interact with the game’s systems and features. The Souls series has a lot of combat options (the persistent idea that constant dodge rolling is the only viable path to success is factually incorrect), and if the controls and combat feel good to you, you’ll have fun exploring those options and getting better at using them. But if they feel clumsy and imprecise to you, you won’t - so the game will seem too hard.
The Souls series offers the asynchronous multiplayer as a difficulty salve. You can summon other players to help you (or NPCs in the earlier games - not sure yet if that’s an option in Elden Ring), or throw down your own sign and go do a risk-free test run against a particular boss while helping someone else. You can read the various messages and get hints and guidance (In ER, messages pointed me directly to the game’s first merchant). You can use the ghosts and bloodstains as ways of seeing how other players approached situations (and how they failed). And if you like all this stuff, it feels great and absolutely ameliorates the hardest parts of the games. But if all this feels distracting or annoying to you, and you don’t use it or dislike using it - the game will seem too hard.
The Souls series doesn’t want you to fight the same boss 30 times. It wants you to realize early that you’re not ready for this fight, and go do something else. Open that door you saw an hour ago, explore a cave you passed, learn a new spell, upgrade your equipment. Come back later! But if this solution doesn’t appeal to you - the game will seem too hard.
The advice I’d give any new player is: forget the difficulty: figure out if the game is fun for you. Do you like the combat? Do you like the atmosphere? If the answer is yes - then play it. There are a thousand ways around the difficulty; I know, because I’m actually quite bad at video games. Look up strategies online. Cheese when you can. Read the messages. Summon as often as you can, and go help other players for practice and rewards. Grind XP. There’s no wrong way to play.
But if you don’t think the game is fun, full stop? Then yeah, without condescension, it’s probably not for you.
I see a lot of “I would be willing to engage with this game if it had a difficulty slider or easy mode”. At which point maybe they would be interested in the lore and mechanics and all that.
Miyazaki straight up says you’re supposed to thrill to finally overcoming difficult foes and the struggle is (in his opinion) an integral part of the game. Maybe he meant the euphoria of “Find boss, shrug, wander off and come back when it’s not hard” but I sort of doubt it. And all the Souls fans I know gush on about the huge rush of finally defeating some guy after umpteen tries.
Imagine that I bought an original Rubik’s Cube and it came with a sealed envelope labeled, “hints!” and another sealed envelope labeled, “solution!”
My reactions might be:
- To use one or both envelopes as pleases me.
- To use neither envelope and work at the Cube until I figure out the solution.
- To be upset because the very existence of the envelopes damages the integrity of the experience, even if I throw them in the fireplace and never look inside.
What I strongly disagree with is the notion that lack of accessibility is fundamental to the art of any game. I absolutely wouldn’t want the ER experience to change for people who don’t want to use the ‘envelopes,’ and difficulty settings (whether a slider or something more granular like in the game I’m currently playing) would not do that.
But I’ve definitely seen people online with very strong opinions about the way others play single-player games. I understand the reluctance to invite other people into a clubhouse that has a reputation for exclusivity. I just don’t think it’s a very good look.
None of our opinions are particularly worth considering. That’s why we nerd about on message boards. 
But I’d just ask you to consider why you wouldn’t like it. How would its existence impact your enjoyment?
Strong disagree. A feature that’s begun to crop up lately in expansive games is a new difficulty called “story,” which is even easier than easy. It effectively nixes the challenges of combat altogether so that you are free to interact with the story, the environment, the questing, whatever else might take your fancy. It’s absolutely not for me, but I’m glad when I see it because it means I might be able to recommend the game to my dad: he loves video gaming but gets very easily frustrated with the increasingly complex combat systems in modern game design. I’m also glad because accessibility is always a good thing. Full stop.
Another feature I’ve seen is dying three or four times in a section and the game saying “Eh, maybe we should take this down a notch on the ole slider for you, okay?” Which really represents a shift in game design philosophy.
To be fair, I was never particularly good at twitch games when I was young. I could do it but my friends regularly kicked my ass in such games. Age has only made it worse for me.
Think of this in terms of rated R movies. Maybe you don’t like blood, sex, swearing, whatever but there is a movie out thats getting rave reviews and you’d really like to see it but it’s got a bunch of that content so you “can’t” go see it. Now you’re stuck because this great story, or great musical score or great cinematography is inaccessible to you because of your own sensibilities. Do you think the director/producer/theater should offer up a version of the movie that skips all objectionable content just to make the movie more accessible? It would be pretty easy nowadays. Literally remove the objectionable frames, and let folks watch a choppy version of the movie? You don’t need to see someones head blown off on screen to know that they did right? An algorithm that replaces fucks with fricks and shits with shoots? Sure, hearing Vincent say fuck for the 1000th time in Pulp Fiction isn’t critical to understand the story. Should there be a button that changes the guns to radios ala ET or turns blood green?
I think generally speaking most people would answer no to those questions. No one expects other forms of entertainment/media to be tailorable because that tailoring compromises the artists creation. I don’t think video games are any different. The game directors vision/creation includes a bunch of different things, graphics, audio, controls, etc… and to suggest so matter-of-factory that a game director should add difficultly scaling to a game in which the challenge is core to the “vision” gives the impression that they are not respected as an artist. If a consumer doesn’t like the creation don’t buy it but don’t flippantly suggest that the artist allow you to change their creation.
Sure. Why not? Presuming I still have the same access to the uncut version, it has literally no impact on me. What impact would it have on you?
Deadpool 2 put out a PG-13 version so younger kids could get in on the action too.
That said, I think re-editing and re-marketing and re-distributing a movie is an exceptionally expensive task so most movies will not do it. Deadpool-2 had enough market in those younger kids to make it worthwhile.
I do not think adding something like a difficulty slider is expensive or intrusive or confusing. Apples and oranges.