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this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2024
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The difficulty is tied to the story and the gameplay though. A lot of things start to break down if the Tarnished is able to travel through the Lands Between unfettered. Should a successful developer who develops niche games for a niche audience be forced to capitulate to the demands of players outside of their niche just because they have a fear of missing out?
Elden Ring sold more than 20 million copies, that's quite a big "niche" if you ask me.
Not sure how lowering the health pool or damage per hit of bosses (as a very trivial example on how to easily reduce difficulty) affects the story of this game. And even if this would make the game less authentic to some players, they could just play it at the default difficulty..?
There is just absolutely no reason (other than maybe ego problems, but just add an achievement for each difficulty level then) why more difficulty options make the game worse for players who enjoy the current difficulty setting, as they can simply stick to the default difficulty. These players will have the exact same experience as they have now, and others who struggled or just didn't enjoy the grind of the default difficulty could turn it down a notch and enjoy the game.
You don't get it.
I think the Dark Souls games have kinda earned an undue reputation for being unapproachably hard. They're really not all that tricky once you learn that death isn't a huge loss condition, just a step in the journey. I initially found them frustrating, but once I learned to not be bothered by dying and simply try again, I found an immense joy in exploring the worlds and challenges within.
Some bosses I beat first try, others will take me an afternoon or a few days to beat, but I have fun with it either way. Different strokes for different folks and all that, but I think Dark Souls and it's like are good lessons on how to get over feeling bad about "losing" and just enjoy the game.
Plus, you can always explore areas to gather up whatever you need to level up and slowly get marginally stronger as you become more familiar with your character and tweak it to your liking.
Spoken like someone who hasn't touched the game.
The single biggest issue is that the high difficulty is the only thing that actually pushes you to explore the world. If you were able to just kill every boss right away, 50% of the Elden Ring's content becomes immediately pointless busywork. It already is, but that busywork offers small, incremental rewards that allow you to last a little bit longer, or learn a little bit more about a boss' moveset. The intended gameplay experience is to run into a brick wall, explore and discover new options and opportunities, and then returning to break the brick wall. For experienced players on their second or third playthrough, you can basically strip out the open world entirely after an initial 2-3 hours of running around to grab what you want.
I'd also like to point out that 90% of the difficulty of bosses has nothing to do with their health or how much damage they do. FromSoftware has really pushed the envelope on boss design and AI, to the point where many of the hardest bosses are difficult because of their moveset. You can especially see this in the DLC, where you're able to collect Scadutree Fragments to increase your damage and health, but players still have difficulty with many bosses even after maxing them out. Dealing 3x more damage doesn't mean anything if you can never get a hit in, and taking 3x less damage won't save you from a fatal grab. You can make an argument for difficulty levels toning down boss AI and making them less aggressive, but I'll make a different one.
If a player doesn't want to engage in difficult boss fights, and doesn't want to be forced to learn combat encounters, they probably don't want to play Elden Ring. There's a lot of people who didn't actually want to play Elden Ring in that 20 million. Only about 27% ended up completing the game. FromSoftware is still making niche games for a niche audience, but now they're known for their exceptionally high pedigree, which causes people to feel FOMO. It's okay to not want to play Elden Ring, but no amount of handicap is going to change that feeling for players.
Everyone dies to the capra demon. Everyone has options within the game to adjust difficulty. Change gear or tactics. Summon help. Level up. Adding an out of game difficulty slider on top seems unnecessary.
People that are like "I want it to be easier without using any of the tools" are essentially saying "I want it to be easier but I don't want to turn down the difficulty"
Additionally, the difficulty and the struggle creates a sense of community. People like feeling like they belong to a group.
Also, difficulty is poorly defined. Sometimes people get mad about like being ambushed by monsters that were in plain sight but they didn't notice. Is that too hard?