Apologies in advance for the essay lol, Souls is one of my favourite franchises, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and talking about these games.
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.
I don’t think Souls requires any amount of skill beyond just… basic understanding of how to control a 3D character. They even tutorialize that, actually. Everyone starts somewhere, I personally got thrashed immediately after the tutorial in Dark Souls 1, and it took me hours to beat the first proper boss, with many deaths to regular enemies. Like any good video game, Souls teaches you the skills you need progressively, and gets gradually harder and asks more of the player over time. It’s not like just starting Guitar Hero on the highest difficulty, the game is balanced for anyone.
Time is also an accessibility factor.
I don’t actually think these games require an excessive time investment. Howlongtobeat puts Dark Souls Remastered’s Main Story at 30 hours. Even if you’re somehow spending 4x that time, that still only puts it at 120 hours, which isn’t unreasonable, lots of games have runtimes around that length.
I also take issue with the idea that you can consistently take 3-4x longer than most. In reality, you only get seriously walled a handful of times learning the game, and surpassing those tough challenges teaches you how to play. For example, in Sekiro, I got walled for hours on one of the games earliest minibosses, but once I got a solid enough grasp on the game to beat him, I wasn’t seriously walled like that again for several hours of gameplay. Getting stuck just means there are lessons you’re learning, and you tend to remember what you struggled hard to learn.
The ultimate point for me just seems to be that the community needs to be listened to.
A key part of developing anything for millions of people is that you have to learn what feedback to take and how to implement it properly. From Soft absolutely has listened to their community. First of all, there’s a vocal community that doesn’t want difficulties, which is what this whole post is joking about. I’d argue From Soft have done a phenomenal job of listening to their audience, and catering to the niche of people that want a tough, unyielding experience is how they’ve slowly built themselves into the multi-GotY juggernaut they are now.
But second of all, they’ve put a ton of effort into introducing ways to make the game easier. In Sekiro, if you’re hard stuck on a boss, tough luck, that game is mostly linear, and has key story moments that leave you no alternatives but to “git gud”. In Elden Ring, you can go elsewhere to learn the game more against a different boss, level up, and come back. In most cases, you don’t even need to come back. You can also explore different builds, respec your character, try a different weapon or spell or summon, summon a friend in multiplayer, go find more equipment, anything.
And personally, I really preferred Sekiro, it’s my favourite game they’ve ever made. I got stuck for hours on every key boss, and that game absolutely wiped the floor with me. It has barely any buildcraft, you truly do just have to “git gud”. And the purity of that experience really speaks to me and what I want out of a game. There’s no “questioning if I’m doing it wrong”, I just need to get in there and learn the required skills head on.
Ultimately, I’m really just tired of being villainized (not that your comment is doing that, to be clear) for wanting some games to pursue a single well-crafted and balanced hard experience that challenges me to push myself, when basically everything else on the market is pursuing the widest audience possible, with aggressive hints telling you how to do puzzles before you can even think, and several difficulty options that make things incredibly easy, at the cost of the harder difficulties usually being poorly balanced and uneven. I’m not going around saying every Mario game needs to be a Kaizo, with no way to tone it down, but it feels like many are coming to my favourite games and telling me they’re bad for being what I love.
Especially when I feel like From Soft is hitting that balance you’re talking about, and giving the player lots of options, but some people will seemingly just never be satisfied until they can choose “Easy” from the start screen. I don’t feel like me or From Soft is being dismissive when there are an abundance of accommodations and options to make things easier, you just need to actually engage with the game to use them.
I don’t think Souls requires any amount of skill beyond just… basic understanding of how to control a 3D character.
That’s obviously not true. Try playing an FPS with a mouse and keyboard vs controller and you’ll see understanding how to do something theoretically is less than half the battle. Say someone is missing arms so plays with their feet, it is far far more difficult to get a higher level of precision, and some people just won’t be able to no matter the amount of practice. People have a peak of reaction time no matter the amount of practice, and its different for different people. People have a peak of ability to move with precision no matter the amount of practice(see dyspraxia). People have shakes that cannot be controlled no matter the amount of practice.
I also take issue with the idea that you can consistently take 3-4x longer than most. In reality, you only get seriously walled a handful of times learning the game, and surpassing those tough challenges teaches you how to play. For example, in Sekiro, I got walled for hours on one of the games earliest minibosses, but once I got a solid enough grasp on the game to beat him, I wasn’t seriously walled like that again for several hours of gameplay. Getting stuck just means there are lessons you’re learning, and you tend to remember what you struggled hard to learn.
Ignoring that that experience just isn’t fun for a lot of people, you’re using your own experience of your own ability.
Ultimately, I’m really just tired of being villainized (not that your comment is doing that, to be clear) for wanting some games to pursue a single well-crafted and balanced hard experience that challenges me to push myself,
… It doesn’t detract from your experience at all to add an optional mode for quick save or other similar features.
Accessibility is literally how this thread started. I also disagree that the game requires a high degree of precision. Dark Souls originally came out with only 8-directional rolling, which you could do on a D-Pad, Fight Stick, or any other accessible controller. There’s no FPS-style aiming or anything, and again, you can find challenge runs of people beating the game while wearing oven mitts and other such shenanigans. The series main difficulty is in making the right decisions with the committed attack animations, end lag, and stagger mechanics, not quick reactions or precise inputs, although I’ll absolutely grant that the combat has become faster over time. Not that you can’t conquer the game with good buildcraft anyway, check out an “all hit run” for ways to beat Elden Ring while literally not dodging any attacks.
Ignoring that that experience just isn’t fun for a lot of people, you’re using your own experience of your own ability.
Sure, but skills and muscle memory are skills and muscle memory. Unless you’re referring to learning disabilities, people improve at things with practice, and time spent practicing the combat will make you better at the combat.
… It doesn’t detract from your experience at all to add an optional mode for quick save or other similar features.
I’ve also replied to that in this thread. But I’ll also add that something like a quick save is very different from adding a new scaled difficulty option, and Souls already implements a wealth of options to make the game easier. Adding another option in that same vein is a separate conversation from adding an Easy Mode.
P.S. I don’t mean to be snarky by linking my own comments. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t constantly be re-reading every comment I’ve made on this thread before replying, but I am getting a bit fatigued after debating this all day with Lemmy, and don’t feel a need to re-hash the same arguments here.
Accessibility is literally how this thread started.
What? Yea? Sorry maybe you mixed me up with someone else I didn’t deny that.
I also disagree that the game requires a high degree of precision. Dark Souls originally came out with only 8-directional rolling, which you could do on a D-Pad, Fight Stick, or any other accessible controller.
Its not just a matter of precision in being able to input a control, its being able to reliably input a control quickly.
you can find challenge runs of people beating the game while wearing oven mitts and other such shenanigans.
Again, someone being able to do something doesn’t mean everyone can.
The series main difficulty is in making the right decisions with the committed attack animations, end lag, and stagger mechanics, not quick reactions or precise inputs
Yea this I wouldn’t agree with, there definitely is a lot of quick inputs needed
Sure, but skills and muscle memory are skills and muscle memory. Unless you’re referring to learning disabilities, people improve at things with practice, and time spent practicing the combat will make you better at the combat.
Look into stuff like dysgraphia and dyspraxia, or even speech impediments. People can practice things repeatedly, but still because of muscle or neurological issues be unable to reliably perform certain actions. Obviously practice can improve, or it might not, or there might be a ceiling much lower than people without those issues- as well as improving much more slowly. What you seem to be misunderstanding is people aren’t saying its impossible for anyone to play the game with differing levels of ability, they are saying it might not be viable- and they won’t necessarily follow the same path of improvement that you did. This could make it way more frustrating or even impossible to finish the game.
I’ve also replied to that in this thread. But I’ll also add that something like a quick save is very different from adding a new scaled difficulty option, and Souls already implements a wealth of options to make the game easier. Adding another option in that same vein is a separate conversation from adding an Easy Mode.
P.S. I don’t mean to be snarky by linking my own comments. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t constantly be re-reading every comment I’ve made on this thread before replying, but I am getting a bit fatigued after debating this all day with Lemmy, and don’t feel a need to re-hash the same arguments here.
Fair, at least from my perspective it seems like you’re kinda talking past people though of course I would think that.
Fair, at least from my perspective it seems like you’re kinda talking past people though of course I would think that.
Fair enough, I do actually think we’re having a fundamental misunderstanding here. I get the impression that when you’re asking for accessibility, you’re looking for a perfect accessibility, where literally anyone can play the game.
When I say accessibility, I’m picturing more of a sliding scale, from completely inaccessible (a game that just crashes on boot or something) to perfect accessibility.
I think a game like Elden Ring is actually very accessible, despite it’s difficulty. I bring up examples like beating the game with oven mitts or voice control to say that it doesn’t require superhuman precision or reaction time. I assume that the majority of disabled players, using an adaptive controller or specialized rig that they’ve had years of practice with will be able to control their character with better precision or reaction time than the ridiculous twitch streamers who completed those challenges. Those players will still have to invest time to build game knowledge and experience to apply that to beating the game, but fundamentally, the game “can be accessed” by them.
I also have no illusions that “everyone can beat Elden Ring in 140 hours”, like you’ve implied that I do. And uh… yes? Games take different amounts of time to beat for different players, and that’s fine. If Elden Ring was your first ever video game, then uh… questionable decision, but the game would eventually teach you everything you need to know to beat it. I’m not exactly sure why this is a gotcha, honestly. If you take 1000+ hours to beat Elden Ring and love it, then power to you, I would never shame you for it or assert you had a worse experience than mine. Same way I feel about summons, or using multiplayer to beat bosses, or whatever else Souls weirdos can be elitist about.
If you look hard enough, you’ll always be able to find a disability that can’t play the game. That’s unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s a requirement that the game is playable by everyone. Books are written in languages I don’t speak, art is made about life experiences I can’t share, and that’s OK. A wealth of good games are coming out all the time, and I’m sure someone with dyspraxia can find games they can play and enjoy.
Obviously, I know how that sounds, if a game can be made accessible to more players, and has the budget, it should be. I wholeheartedly agree. That’s why I’ve advocated for better support for captions and flashing visual cues and audio indicators. I would love the next Elden Ring to be a better experience for the visually impaired or hard of hearing.
But I also think that games are art, and that the careful crafting and balancing of souls games are a part of that art. And they’re designed from the ground up with that difficulty in mind. Honestly, I think it’s a fundamental part of what Souls offers, and an easy mode wouldn’t be the same experience. To quote Miyazaki:
“If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more. But that wasn’t the right approach,” he said.
“Had we taken that approach, I don’t think the game would have done what it did, because the sense of achievement that players gain from overcoming these hurdles is such a fundamental part of the experience. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy - which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.”
As a piece of art, if an easy difficulty was added, lots of people would play it. But I’ve already articulated why I don’t think a simple scaling difficulty would work, and why I think it’s important the base game is difficult. The only way to do it properly would be a bespoke and balanced lower difficulty. But the artists that made the game have no passion for that, and bluntly, I don’t feel it would be worth their time and talent because it would just… be like a lot of other games you could go play instead, rather than the unique experience that Souls is.
And unfortunately, this does fundamentally exclude some people. Elden Ring takes tons of measures to minimize the excluded crowd, but it won’t ever be zero, without fundamentally changing what Souls is. That’s a shame, but ultimately, I really think Souls should exist, and is important art all the same. Do a quick google search for “Dark Souls saved my life” and you’ll see just how powerful a piece of art it can be.
My real point here is, just because a small sliver of people can’t play it, or because people don’t want to invest the time or effort to experience it, Souls has the right to exist, and From Software should be allowed to make the game they want to make, even if it’s for a niche crowd. They don’t have to offer an option that they feel compromises the experience, regardless of whether or not we agree.
Apologies in advance for the essay lol, Souls is one of my favourite franchises, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and talking about these games.
I don’t think Souls requires any amount of skill beyond just… basic understanding of how to control a 3D character. They even tutorialize that, actually. Everyone starts somewhere, I personally got thrashed immediately after the tutorial in Dark Souls 1, and it took me hours to beat the first proper boss, with many deaths to regular enemies. Like any good video game, Souls teaches you the skills you need progressively, and gets gradually harder and asks more of the player over time. It’s not like just starting Guitar Hero on the highest difficulty, the game is balanced for anyone.
I don’t actually think these games require an excessive time investment. Howlongtobeat puts Dark Souls Remastered’s Main Story at 30 hours. Even if you’re somehow spending 4x that time, that still only puts it at 120 hours, which isn’t unreasonable, lots of games have runtimes around that length.
I also take issue with the idea that you can consistently take 3-4x longer than most. In reality, you only get seriously walled a handful of times learning the game, and surpassing those tough challenges teaches you how to play. For example, in Sekiro, I got walled for hours on one of the games earliest minibosses, but once I got a solid enough grasp on the game to beat him, I wasn’t seriously walled like that again for several hours of gameplay. Getting stuck just means there are lessons you’re learning, and you tend to remember what you struggled hard to learn.
A key part of developing anything for millions of people is that you have to learn what feedback to take and how to implement it properly. From Soft absolutely has listened to their community. First of all, there’s a vocal community that doesn’t want difficulties, which is what this whole post is joking about. I’d argue From Soft have done a phenomenal job of listening to their audience, and catering to the niche of people that want a tough, unyielding experience is how they’ve slowly built themselves into the multi-GotY juggernaut they are now.
But second of all, they’ve put a ton of effort into introducing ways to make the game easier. In Sekiro, if you’re hard stuck on a boss, tough luck, that game is mostly linear, and has key story moments that leave you no alternatives but to “git gud”. In Elden Ring, you can go elsewhere to learn the game more against a different boss, level up, and come back. In most cases, you don’t even need to come back. You can also explore different builds, respec your character, try a different weapon or spell or summon, summon a friend in multiplayer, go find more equipment, anything.
And personally, I really preferred Sekiro, it’s my favourite game they’ve ever made. I got stuck for hours on every key boss, and that game absolutely wiped the floor with me. It has barely any buildcraft, you truly do just have to “git gud”. And the purity of that experience really speaks to me and what I want out of a game. There’s no “questioning if I’m doing it wrong”, I just need to get in there and learn the required skills head on.
Ultimately, I’m really just tired of being villainized (not that your comment is doing that, to be clear) for wanting some games to pursue a single well-crafted and balanced hard experience that challenges me to push myself, when basically everything else on the market is pursuing the widest audience possible, with aggressive hints telling you how to do puzzles before you can even think, and several difficulty options that make things incredibly easy, at the cost of the harder difficulties usually being poorly balanced and uneven. I’m not going around saying every Mario game needs to be a Kaizo, with no way to tone it down, but it feels like many are coming to my favourite games and telling me they’re bad for being what I love.
Especially when I feel like From Soft is hitting that balance you’re talking about, and giving the player lots of options, but some people will seemingly just never be satisfied until they can choose “Easy” from the start screen. I don’t feel like me or From Soft is being dismissive when there are an abundance of accommodations and options to make things easier, you just need to actually engage with the game to use them.
That’s obviously not true. Try playing an FPS with a mouse and keyboard vs controller and you’ll see understanding how to do something theoretically is less than half the battle. Say someone is missing arms so plays with their feet, it is far far more difficult to get a higher level of precision, and some people just won’t be able to no matter the amount of practice. People have a peak of reaction time no matter the amount of practice, and its different for different people. People have a peak of ability to move with precision no matter the amount of practice(see dyspraxia). People have shakes that cannot be controlled no matter the amount of practice.
Ignoring that that experience just isn’t fun for a lot of people, you’re using your own experience of your own ability.
… It doesn’t detract from your experience at all to add an optional mode for quick save or other similar features.
Accessibility is literally how this thread started. I also disagree that the game requires a high degree of precision. Dark Souls originally came out with only 8-directional rolling, which you could do on a D-Pad, Fight Stick, or any other accessible controller. There’s no FPS-style aiming or anything, and again, you can find challenge runs of people beating the game while wearing oven mitts and other such shenanigans. The series main difficulty is in making the right decisions with the committed attack animations, end lag, and stagger mechanics, not quick reactions or precise inputs, although I’ll absolutely grant that the combat has become faster over time. Not that you can’t conquer the game with good buildcraft anyway, check out an “all hit run” for ways to beat Elden Ring while literally not dodging any attacks.
Sure, but skills and muscle memory are skills and muscle memory. Unless you’re referring to learning disabilities, people improve at things with practice, and time spent practicing the combat will make you better at the combat.
I’ve also replied to that in this thread. But I’ll also add that something like a quick save is very different from adding a new scaled difficulty option, and Souls already implements a wealth of options to make the game easier. Adding another option in that same vein is a separate conversation from adding an Easy Mode.
P.S. I don’t mean to be snarky by linking my own comments. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t constantly be re-reading every comment I’ve made on this thread before replying, but I am getting a bit fatigued after debating this all day with Lemmy, and don’t feel a need to re-hash the same arguments here.
What? Yea? Sorry maybe you mixed me up with someone else I didn’t deny that.
Its not just a matter of precision in being able to input a control, its being able to reliably input a control quickly.
Again, someone being able to do something doesn’t mean everyone can.
Yea this I wouldn’t agree with, there definitely is a lot of quick inputs needed
Look into stuff like dysgraphia and dyspraxia, or even speech impediments. People can practice things repeatedly, but still because of muscle or neurological issues be unable to reliably perform certain actions. Obviously practice can improve, or it might not, or there might be a ceiling much lower than people without those issues- as well as improving much more slowly. What you seem to be misunderstanding is people aren’t saying its impossible for anyone to play the game with differing levels of ability, they are saying it might not be viable- and they won’t necessarily follow the same path of improvement that you did. This could make it way more frustrating or even impossible to finish the game.
I’m advocating either or/both, an easy mode would be an improvement. But I’ll add more in the comment there.
Fair, at least from my perspective it seems like you’re kinda talking past people though of course I would think that.
Fair enough, I do actually think we’re having a fundamental misunderstanding here. I get the impression that when you’re asking for accessibility, you’re looking for a perfect accessibility, where literally anyone can play the game.
When I say accessibility, I’m picturing more of a sliding scale, from completely inaccessible (a game that just crashes on boot or something) to perfect accessibility.
I think a game like Elden Ring is actually very accessible, despite it’s difficulty. I bring up examples like beating the game with oven mitts or voice control to say that it doesn’t require superhuman precision or reaction time. I assume that the majority of disabled players, using an adaptive controller or specialized rig that they’ve had years of practice with will be able to control their character with better precision or reaction time than the ridiculous twitch streamers who completed those challenges. Those players will still have to invest time to build game knowledge and experience to apply that to beating the game, but fundamentally, the game “can be accessed” by them.
I also have no illusions that “everyone can beat Elden Ring in 140 hours”, like you’ve implied that I do. And uh… yes? Games take different amounts of time to beat for different players, and that’s fine. If Elden Ring was your first ever video game, then uh… questionable decision, but the game would eventually teach you everything you need to know to beat it. I’m not exactly sure why this is a gotcha, honestly. If you take 1000+ hours to beat Elden Ring and love it, then power to you, I would never shame you for it or assert you had a worse experience than mine. Same way I feel about summons, or using multiplayer to beat bosses, or whatever else Souls weirdos can be elitist about.
If you look hard enough, you’ll always be able to find a disability that can’t play the game. That’s unfortunate, but I don’t think it’s a requirement that the game is playable by everyone. Books are written in languages I don’t speak, art is made about life experiences I can’t share, and that’s OK. A wealth of good games are coming out all the time, and I’m sure someone with dyspraxia can find games they can play and enjoy.
Obviously, I know how that sounds, if a game can be made accessible to more players, and has the budget, it should be. I wholeheartedly agree. That’s why I’ve advocated for better support for captions and flashing visual cues and audio indicators. I would love the next Elden Ring to be a better experience for the visually impaired or hard of hearing.
But I also think that games are art, and that the careful crafting and balancing of souls games are a part of that art. And they’re designed from the ground up with that difficulty in mind. Honestly, I think it’s a fundamental part of what Souls offers, and an easy mode wouldn’t be the same experience. To quote Miyazaki:
As a piece of art, if an easy difficulty was added, lots of people would play it. But I’ve already articulated why I don’t think a simple scaling difficulty would work, and why I think it’s important the base game is difficult. The only way to do it properly would be a bespoke and balanced lower difficulty. But the artists that made the game have no passion for that, and bluntly, I don’t feel it would be worth their time and talent because it would just… be like a lot of other games you could go play instead, rather than the unique experience that Souls is.
And unfortunately, this does fundamentally exclude some people. Elden Ring takes tons of measures to minimize the excluded crowd, but it won’t ever be zero, without fundamentally changing what Souls is. That’s a shame, but ultimately, I really think Souls should exist, and is important art all the same. Do a quick google search for “Dark Souls saved my life” and you’ll see just how powerful a piece of art it can be.
My real point here is, just because a small sliver of people can’t play it, or because people don’t want to invest the time or effort to experience it, Souls has the right to exist, and From Software should be allowed to make the game they want to make, even if it’s for a niche crowd. They don’t have to offer an option that they feel compromises the experience, regardless of whether or not we agree.