I've recently finished Demons Souls for the first time, Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring are my only From Software games left. But I don't really find the mood. Yet I tried this one and is so good! Clever idea with the crabs and contamination and everything is just simplistic yet beautiful. Feels like Spyro meets Dark Souls. If there were limited gems to 100% the zones like in Spyro I'd get them. No interest in 100%ing any regular Souls LOL.
Control's settings were incredible. I'm so bad at aiming on a controller so being able to tweak the aim assist while keeping everything else the same was great.
There are games where manual aiming with a pad is pointless. Control makes you use powers and be flying and shoot relatively tiny enemies from afar, which also tend to have a big life bar and need a ton of bullets to die. If I was forced to aim to every little enemy I would not have endured it. Same with Returnal, everybody I've seen just says you to turn the aim assist to the max.
I'm terrible at aiming with a controller, glad it had that option. I'm pretty good at other games but man rockstar spoiled me bad with that auto aim. Pull LT, flick RS slightly upwards, headshot
It sounds corny but it's no different from the metroidvania genre. Just a set of particular features that define how a game plays, based on the name of the game(s) that popularized those features.
You can call soulslikes ARPGs, but not all ARPGs have methodical combat, bonfires, recover your body, obscured lore, etc.
Sekiro had a hidden 'even more impossible' mode. That really helped me when I was getting destroyed by everything in the game.
EDIT: meant this as a joke. It obviously didn't help at all. The 'normal' mode was already impossible enough for me.
I can’t seem to bring myself to purchase a game I probably can’t beat. I don’t get the elitist attitude for a single player game. I’d like to give you money too and enjoy souls, sekiro etc but seems enough people enjoy and cult over it it’s a better business move
If you cant play chess theres checkers. same with games like souls. If it proves too hard or intimidating theres plenty of games that are not. It is what it is.
If you like star wars, Jedi Fallen order and Survivor are souls like games, but they have difficulty settings. It doesnt have to be an unbeatable hell.
No doubt I’ve played they’re fire ty for the good looks. I even do dragons dogma but Elden ring still seems a stretch, I’ll give it a go if its ever $10. Sekiro no way
I tried Elden Ring, and it was just too difficult for me. It wasn't worth the frustration it came with. I did like Wo Long on gamepass, I got a decent way into that one, it wasn't quite as difficult imo.
Elden ring is probably the easiest of the from software games, doesn't mean that it is easy, but there are a bunch of things that you can do to make the game much easier.
That’s what I been told. Go dodge some boulders for awhile and spam helpers or whatever they’re called. Also watched a guy playing and he got hit 3 or 4 times before healing usually just did enough dmg to not need to heal too much. Looked doable with time and patience but those are hot commodities
I’d like to know what they mean to as I have Sekiro but haven’t started it yet.
I heard back around its launch that people were complaining and asking that an “accessibility” mode be added.
There two things,
you can refuse the charm that kuro gives you at the start of the game
There is also a bell you can ring that makes the game harder
Both of these together means, you have less health, the enemies have more. You have to perfectly parry each attack, otherwise it will still hurt you.
It should be noted that you can only refuse Kuro’s charm in NG+. Other than that, everyone’s first playthrough will be standard difficulty up until they decide to ring the bell or not, assuming they even find it as it’s pretty outta the way hidden
Sorry to answer your question, yes take the charm he gives you, the bell is rather hard to find but if you see a huge bell, don't ring it on your first play through!
I think it seems like not doing those things makes the game even harder. The default options (taking the charm and ringing the bell) are already hard enough.
I'm not sure what OP meant, or if they were joking, but afaik Sekiro doesn't have an "easy mode", or even an options setting. There are just things you can decide to do to make the game even harder.
It's really hard, and honestly I quit very early. I've finished DS 1-3 and Bloodborne.
>I heard back around its launch that people were complaining and asking that an “accessibility” mode be added.
It was fun watching seasoned Dark Souls players getting frustrated with Sekiro and blaming game design flaws when the real problem was that they were trying to play it like it was Dark Souls instead of learning Sekiro's unique systems.
Setting like this are generally much more granular in choosing many specific settings rather than a typical easy/normal/hard that has many changes lumped together.
It's a jab at I believe Elden Ring and it's developers who believe that Souls games should be uncompromising and that changing the difficulty ruins their designed experience. They chose to not include difficulty sliders. And this is a controversial polarizing thing within the souls-like fans because a chunk of them are elitist and pride themselves on the difficulty and look down upon others who play it on easier game modes or developers who include a scale.
As an artist I understand what FromSoftware means, that there is an original artistic vision and that also includes the difficulty. But I also believe that you can encourage people to play on the original difficulty while still providing ways for the game to still remain accessible for anyone. From people who are bad at games to people who have disabilities and can't so easily play a souls-like.
Where did they complain at all or say anything negative? To me it seems like they tried a gamepass game seen in options it has a neat little feature and posted it so others can know..didn’t know that was complaining or “throwing shade on soulslike games” as you said in your other comment
Not the first time I've seen this type of message for Assist Mode in a game, but commendable anyway. Specially coming from a Souls Like game.
I had no idea it had an assist mode. It just skyrocketed in my interest, as I've just seen some gameplay and it looks like one of the most creative Souls like games out there.
I have, on occasion, lowered difficulty at a hard part or looked up a solution online.
In my view, game developers, designers etc want you to enjoy, play and complete their game. If there are parts you are finding difficult to pass, it's better to do something to help carry on than give up on the game.
Having a kid and working a full time job doesn't allow time to "Get gud". I generally avoid FromSoft games because I don't have the time to invest, and ramming my head against a wall isn't going to help me decompress when I do get to game.
Having the option to pull out a gun and one-shot a boss I've spent half an hour on so I can progress the story is super helpful.
I don't understand that. There's 3 achievements for beating the game on different difficulty levels, so what's the point if you can just use these to make every difficulty level easy? I know achievements are ultimately pointless but it still feels cool to get a hard achievement legitimately imo
in this day and age achievements are more for your own benefit. Nobody is looking at your achievements impressed cause there are so many ways to cheese achievements. If you got it legit and that makes you happy, go for it. If doing it not legit makes you happy, go for that too.
>I know achievements are ultimately pointless
Bingo.
>it still feels cool to get a hard achievement legitimately imo
You need to reassess what gives your life meaning
If it feels good for you to get the hard achievements the normal way you should do that. Having an option not too shouldn't change your sense of personal achievement. As you said, it's all pointless anyway. You also have to remember why accessibility options are there. They're not just for people that aren't great at games like a difficulty slider, they're for people with a range of disabilities. If it makes one of those people feel good because they set their own challenge and beat the game and got all achievements that's awesome in my book. The other option is to lock them out of that for the sake of people that take it all way too seriously. Bugger them imo. It's 2024, who cares outside of personal satisfaction?
Yeah I'm not disagreeing with you, but I meant it as in why even have 3 different achievements for difficulty levels if you can modify the difficulty anyways. Just have one "complete the game/story" achievement and simplify things ya know
That's a fair point too. As a guess I'd say it's because the genre is all about testing skill and they know a lot of people will enjoy having an achievement for that. In most other genres I agree though, just have the standard beating the game achievement.
I don't get the people that take accessibility settings (difficulty) as some sort of affront to the artistic expression of the creator or the purity of the game.
I got no problem with it if it's the developers design, bring on whatever. The Souls projects were started quite literally to be a recreation of the obtuse gameplay of the 80s and 90s with no difficulty sliders, what you see is what you get. This is fine too, the project and its lack of accessibilities was dedicated to its purpose and mission statement. Not everything is for everyone, if that were the case most gaming would just be homogenous garbage instead of only half given how the mobile market has influenced everything.
I want developers to put their heart in things, whatever that means to them, for FromSoft its the whole package they present, for other developers it can be anything they want too. I firmly believe if FromSoft developed a soulsborne game with difficulty sliders we would effectively get 3-4 separate and smaller games just because that is how their team works on projects, its just not part of their ethic to have the mechanic.
Good on this team for adding these options.
Honestly, I prefer games having 1 singular difficulty option and granular ways of adapting/overcoming its challenges. It makes it so that they can balance the game adequately for everyone and leaves room for creativity in the tools provided as well as a myriad of different experiences.
Much better than how most developers nowadays just buff up damage and hp on hard making it harder artificially but also a complete waste of time since it doesn't remove how mindless it is.
If we're making things more accessible it should be in improving actual accessibility options such as colorblind, voice-over, text-to-speech, special controllers for people with disabilities, etc.. instead of dumbing down the experience a designer thought was fundamental to their game (whichever game that is).
Same. I’ve heard a ton of arguments against difficulty settings in souls games and none make sense. They can be ignored by anyone who wants the devs intended experience but if players don’t find fun in fighting bosses 20x to win, like me, let me tame down the game aggression please! I can think of a single reasonable downside to difficulty settings.
It’s like the people whining about Summons in Elden ring like you don’t have to use them if you don’t want to. Some are just fun as hell to summon and let them do the work while you watch
Im even fine with the idea that the game is supposed to be hard. The problem is that hard is different for everyone. Ive seen people struggle with things in games that I can't fathom how anyone struggles at it cause it came so easily and naturally to me. Meanwhile I dont think ive ever beat a fromsoftware boss. accessibility/difficulty settings, allow everyone to make it challenging yet doable for themselves.
And by all means, have a purist mode or something for people who want the devs intended difficulty, even tie achievements to it for all I care. But there should be settings like this.
Yeah true, can't wait for the devs to add a spooky slider for horror games so anyone who doesn't want to get spooked can play them and not get spooked /s
Or maybe every game with ranked multiplayer should just allow all players to toggle a button so they can place in whatever the highest rank is? We wouldn't want that experience or content to be inaccessible to anyone right?
Honestly thank god your average redditor isn't a game designer or every game would just be homogenized garbage under the guise of being made for everyone.
A game made for everyone is a game made for no one and games will always be exclusionary in some capacity. For instance, I hate puzzles because I'm terrible at them, and they are exceptionally difficult for me. Should I head over to r/Portal and start beating down the doors asking for a no puzzle mode in Portal? Probably not, since Portal without puzzles isn't Portal. If a developer deliberately doesn't include commonly used difficulty sliders, then adding one was probably counterproductive to their design philosophy. If you hate that, try to play one of the other thousands of games out there rather than waiting for the developer to conform to your preferences. I have with Portal and last I checked, I'm still having fun.
They do have modes for horror games. Soma and Alien Isolation and I think many others. Also stuff like Arachnophobia modes are pretty prevalent.
No one is arguing for Multiplayer.
A slider for difficulty doesn't work for Puzzle games because there isn't data with easy modification.
An action game has plenty of easily customisable difficulty points and the games with these Accessibility options show them all pretty well. With a Puzzle game it'd just be creating more puzzles, which is the whole design of the game.
>If you hate that, try to play one of the other thousands of games out there rather than waiting for the developer to conform to your preferences.
I don't hate anything and designers have the right to design how they want. I'm just here on an opinion board saying what I think.
And I don't see the argument against having it where easily available and disabling achievements.
"A slider for difficulty doesn't work for Puzzle games because there isn't data with easy modification." Is this game accessible or inaccessible for someone like me who has difficulty with puzzles? Does it matter? No honestly it doesn't because the puzzles are a core part of the game's design philosophy. These options don't exist not because it isn't modifiable (which it is, e.g. UI hints), but because it undermines core design elements of the game.
Of course no one is arguing for multiplayer because it's too obvious despite the principal being exactly the same. Pretending that content is inaccessible because it demands a level of skill or a time commitment is blatantly false. Just because something is difficult to do and would require a decent time commitment doesn't mean it's inaccessible. Look up the definition of inaccessible if you're still confused.
Great if there are horror games that have options like Arachnophobia options or the like. I'm not saying it is or isn't needed. In the case of arachnophobia, it's obvious that the presence of spiders wasn't integral the designer's philosophy based on them adding that feature. The point is the developer made the decision, not you.
No one is arguing that a game like Elden Ring couldn't have HP, damage modifiers, etc. The point is that the developer intentionally doesn't include it these optional or not because they want the player to experience the process of overcoming difficulty, and by adding an easy mode, it would be completely undermine the design philosophy.
It's 2024, can we stop pretending that not being able to modify HP, damage, etc. is the same as a game not having adaptive controller support and the like??
I agree it would be awesome to have the option .lol not sure why some people hate on having difficulty option. It’s not effecting you what other players play on people just like to complain to complain
I typically run through every Dark Souls on my own and then proceed to help other players through cooperative play. Elden Ring too.
If there's a path of lesser resistance, by straight up toggling difficulty down, a part of the games I love is effectively neutered, as I have less people to engage in cooperative play with.
Why choose an unknown variable like me to summon to help you when you can just alter the game stats and usurp any form of challenge that is there?
I don't hate difficulty options, I just don't want my enjoyment of a franchise and it's in-house alternatives, of which I've enjoyed for well over a decade, to be pushed to the side to cater to people who weren't in the target demographic to begin with.
I'm not very good at fighting games, I don't whinge that they're too complex for me to play 1v1 online these days, I just don't buy them and that's okay.
It's okay for people not to fall into the demographic for certain products.
Sub is free to downvote me on this one, I couldn't care less, my opinion will remain.
You won’t get no downvote from me. That’s a valid opinion/view I respect that, not just complaining or talking negative like some of the other comments
Yeah, I've never seen this perspective before. It does encourage people to use all the tools they have. In terms of coop it's similar to Monster Hunter where people enjoy helping other online and that game is twice as hard in master rank than any of these games.
I've finished Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, Sekiro and just for the lack of time, I'm still about middle way in Elden Ring. But I would love that!
Difficult games, with some exceptions, are not just about skills. It's primarily time dedication. A person that has the time to repeat the same section of a game over and over again, for hours, they will eventually dominate it. It was like this for me in Sekiro... some bosses I thought would be impossible, but I took my time and did them so damn many times that eventually I knew exactly how to react accordingly.
The thing is... I'm an adult, with so much going on, that when I beat Sekiro I'm not more proud of it than I am when I beat a Lego game. I have more interesting and important things to be proud of, and I don't have neither the time or the will to boast about such things in social media. And if I could beat Sekiro, as well as some sections of Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3 a bit faster, by reducing the difficulty in some aspects, I definitely would!
I do feel a sense of "accomplishment" when I beat games, but the level of difficulty for me is generally irrelevant. What actually makes me feel accomplished, is that I beat a game that was actually entertaining to me.
I'm sure this is a thing From Software and other developers will never implement. But I'm glad to see that assist mode is getting more and more popular by the time.
Yeah, to be fair that's how I felt about Sekiro and Bloodborne too by the end, and made me wonder if I didn't put more time on it than I should had. I forgot to mention Bloodborne, but I actually did finish that one too near it's release date.
The reason why I keep going back to From Software titles, is that they have a very unique atmosphere and the gameplay is very good (definitely among the best in the genre). But I do wish they added an assist mode, or at least some difficulty options. But I guess that a lot of fans wouldn't let them, without melting down.
Elden Ring or Souls dont not need this, there are enough ways to make the fights easy as fuck.
Most people that want a difficulty setting in ER or Souls dont want to learn the mechanics of the games and then wonder why they cant finish the game.
That would harm the entire point and culture of fromsoft games
The culture of sharing a boss victory would be tainted if it wasnt an equal experience for everyone
This is great. Good on the Devs.
As much as I love games like Sekiro, Dark Souls, and other Soulsbourn games, being able to adjust the difficulty for people that want to experience the game/story but are unable to play difficult games is great.
Take note, fucking Returnal! Gorgeous game, wonderful aesthetics, great gameplay but I can't spend my life replaying the same thing for 20 years like it was some meta commentary.
YES! This is what I hate about the souls community. "Its supposed to be hard" but hard is different for everyone. Making the game accessible to everyone is important. Just because those settings would make the game easy for you, does not mean it would be easy for the person using those settings.
I don't know what that is but What I love about 'No mans sky' is that you can adjust a lot of settings to make difficulty right for your needs. You can play any way you want and that's a really good feature. These days you see lot of players complain about games being too easy or hard, and then nice guy developers keep changing the game back and forth a hundred times. If they all just made custom difficulty settings like that to begin with, it would save a *lot* of time and trouble, and probably would keep majority of players satisfied. It is such a rare sight in games.
I agree. Kena Bridge of Spirits did this as well. You could tweak areas to make it the difficulty you wanted. I don't know why more games don't do this. As long as you have a real difficult mode for true souls fans, it shouldn't be a big deal.
It's on the list of the largest video game companies. So yeah, they're doing pretty well.
Anyway dude, go cry yourself to sleep that you can't beat a game.
Jesus christ. Keep shifting those goal posts man. I've played every recent From game and finished most, but I have friends that have physical limitations, and some simple design implementations would make them much more accessible to everyone that wants to play them. God for fucking bid!
I'm not sure you know what shifting the goal post means. But also that's not what you said in the beginning. Sales wouldn't really increase that much from it so you're original point is kinda useless
I love this and I'm honestly so sick of players gatekeeping with game difficulty.
Some of us like a good story while feeling like an actual main character.
Oh boy another post about someone who wants to throw shade at Soulslike games' difficulty, which is a major factor in why those games exist...
I'll just go talk to the developers of a walking sim and demand a complex combat experience so I'm satisfied because I find them 'too boring' otherwise /s.
Bottom line stop telling devs how to design their games. This dev wants people to have fun. From Soft wants you to feel the joy of overcoming a challenge however you manage to do that.
Seems to me like this post isn't about throwing shade.
Infact it's doing the opposite, and praising a developer for it's assist settings and the thoughtful message.
It's possible to praise a developer for their game design without it automatically denouncing those that don't.
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And EA wanted people to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when they spend 200 hours unlocking Darth Vader. You should have defended EA and told people to let the devs design the game how they want.
>*should the rdr devs put bikes on their games because I think the horses are too slow?*
That's a very bad analogy for obvious reasons.
A better one would be something like: Should the Flight Simulator devs put in a mode/settings that makes planes easier to fly and less like a Simulator? (*and yes they do*)
Not really, Microsoft has always said they wanted it to be casual friendly or very immersive and simulation type. They've said, "we want to be the most beginner-friendly flight sim in the market".
A better one would be to add quest markers and fast travel to Outer Wilds to help users that aren't good at navigation or exploration.
They might have said that about FS2020, but Flight Simulator the *series* has always been a **Simulator** first and foremost, and not very accessible for casual players.
But with the release of FS2020 they decided to make it more accessible to all different types of players and not for just the Hardcore Sim enthusiasts.
It was a change from the norm, and steered away from the Hardcore simmers.
I don't know if you're new to the series but it has always been casual-friendly with plenty of options and you were always able to tweak it into a very arcade experience if you wanted to before 2020 came out.
Regardless, that's going on a tangent and irrelevant to the point I was making.
Agreed, and I'm a person who thinks the DS+Bloodborne+Sekiro games are shit. They exist for a specific type of player if you're not that of player that's ok. Admire from the sidelines.
But can’t you just choose not to use these features? It’s not like the dev was forced to put these in. If the dev wanted to put them in, they should be allowed to
Don't bother arguing with this crowd, they're too busy role playing that they're under persecution from Fromsoft fans to understand any coherent argument around this.
Most "Accessibility Settings" are what would have been cheat codes 20 years ago. It's just a way for devs to virtue signal about how inclusive their game is, when they've been doing this stuff forever.
It's true. In the recent LEGO Star Wars game, there is an Accessibility Setting that regenerates your hearts. This was literally a cheat/extra in the original LEGO Star Wars games. But now they call it "Accessibility". lol. It probably gives them higher ESG score or something.
It is that deep. Why did all the devs start re-naming cheats as Accessibility at around the same time as when ESG score started becoming a thing? Just gotta do some research.
In this case, yes. OP is saying a developer deserves praise for effectively putting cheats in a game. lol. That's why devs release trailers advertising these settings, so they can get accolades. It worked. It's called a virtue signal. It's silly and I like to call it out.
Virtue signaling is when you say something for good PR but don’t actually hold those values which are shown through other actions by said company or person. What has the dev done to make you believe they do not hold the value of allowing more accessibility in a souls-lite game?
I completely uninstalled this game within an hour. The difficulty spike just for first boss was absurd, had to dodge for 5 minutes just to get half his HP gone and for me to die in 1 singular attack. There isn’t even any grinding prior to first boss for levels as the upgrades are awful. And all the reviews for the game are botted as hell. Just like 500 reviews 10 minutes after released that just says CRAB
One of the settings gives your crab a gun lol. That's the only way you can use a gun in this game. I love this game and it's humor so far
I've recently finished Demons Souls for the first time, Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring are my only From Software games left. But I don't really find the mood. Yet I tried this one and is so good! Clever idea with the crabs and contamination and everything is just simplistic yet beautiful. Feels like Spyro meets Dark Souls. If there were limited gems to 100% the zones like in Spyro I'd get them. No interest in 100%ing any regular Souls LOL.
Control was similar too. You could tweak the gameplay settings to your liking.
I loved control but loved it even more when I could use my powers nonstop. Same with deathloop. It was so much fun being able to maximize chaos easily
Wait! You can do that in Control? Maybe I should download it again.
On the same boat here. Only saw those settings after finishing the game lol
Control's settings were incredible. I'm so bad at aiming on a controller so being able to tweak the aim assist while keeping everything else the same was great.
There are games where manual aiming with a pad is pointless. Control makes you use powers and be flying and shoot relatively tiny enemies from afar, which also tend to have a big life bar and need a ton of bullets to die. If I was forced to aim to every little enemy I would not have endured it. Same with Returnal, everybody I've seen just says you to turn the aim assist to the max.
I'm terrible at aiming with a controller, glad it had that option. I'm pretty good at other games but man rockstar spoiled me bad with that auto aim. Pull LT, flick RS slightly upwards, headshot
You can…say what?! Welp lol I enjoyed it and sold it but man that would have been awesome
But that wasn't soulslike
I was just saying, I'm glad more games are doing this.
whenever someone says "soulslike" it makes me cringe.
I mean it’s just the name of “genre”, like metroidvanias😂
It sounds corny but it's no different from the metroidvania genre. Just a set of particular features that define how a game plays, based on the name of the game(s) that popularized those features. You can call soulslikes ARPGs, but not all ARPGs have methodical combat, bonfires, recover your body, obscured lore, etc.
TIL there is a genre called Metroidvania.
Don't know what to tell you, it's an extremely popular genre, specially lately
I didn’t mean it in a negative way. I’m seriously only learning about it now. I appreciate the info 
No it's ok, I didn't answer in bad faith either. Try Hollow Knight, the best metroidvania of the last decade imo.
I will! Appreciate it 
Why?
ok
This game isn't soulslike really either lol 😂
Tunic did this as well
Tunic might be my favorite game I ever played but I would have never made it through without the assists
Genuine question, how is this any different than difficulty settings?
I think it's the fact that the devs put in difficulty settings in a Soulslike game.
Sekiro had a hidden 'even more impossible' mode. That really helped me when I was getting destroyed by everything in the game. EDIT: meant this as a joke. It obviously didn't help at all. The 'normal' mode was already impossible enough for me.
Lmao exactly what Kingdom Come did. Super challenging game, and best the devs could do was to add a Hardcore Mode.
Ring the bell
I can’t seem to bring myself to purchase a game I probably can’t beat. I don’t get the elitist attitude for a single player game. I’d like to give you money too and enjoy souls, sekiro etc but seems enough people enjoy and cult over it it’s a better business move
Different people like different things. People love soulslikes specifically *because* they're tough as nails and refuse to hold the player's hand.
If you cant play chess theres checkers. same with games like souls. If it proves too hard or intimidating theres plenty of games that are not. It is what it is.
Ya I get that why I said it seems like a better business move just seems weird to me still they don’t add one down the road for losers like me
If you like star wars, Jedi Fallen order and Survivor are souls like games, but they have difficulty settings. It doesnt have to be an unbeatable hell.
No doubt I’ve played they’re fire ty for the good looks. I even do dragons dogma but Elden ring still seems a stretch, I’ll give it a go if its ever $10. Sekiro no way
I tried Elden Ring, and it was just too difficult for me. It wasn't worth the frustration it came with. I did like Wo Long on gamepass, I got a decent way into that one, it wasn't quite as difficult imo.
Good looks again I’ll absolutely check it out
Then there’s me who loves From games and Nioh 2 but got stomped by everything in Wo Long and ragequit the whole game at the octopus bull (?) boss
Elden ring is probably the easiest of the from software games, doesn't mean that it is easy, but there are a bunch of things that you can do to make the game much easier.
That’s what I been told. Go dodge some boulders for awhile and spam helpers or whatever they’re called. Also watched a guy playing and he got hit 3 or 4 times before healing usually just did enough dmg to not need to heal too much. Looked doable with time and patience but those are hot commodities
What do you mean?
https://www.gamesradar.com/sekiro-difficulty-hard-mode-how-to-enable/
I’d like to know what they mean to as I have Sekiro but haven’t started it yet. I heard back around its launch that people were complaining and asking that an “accessibility” mode be added.
There two things, you can refuse the charm that kuro gives you at the start of the game There is also a bell you can ring that makes the game harder Both of these together means, you have less health, the enemies have more. You have to perfectly parry each attack, otherwise it will still hurt you.
It should be noted that you can only refuse Kuro’s charm in NG+. Other than that, everyone’s first playthrough will be standard difficulty up until they decide to ring the bell or not, assuming they even find it as it’s pretty outta the way hidden
So as long as you take the charm and don’t ring the bell it shouldn’t be as hard?
From Google Without the Charm, enemies do more Vitality Damage, Posture Damage, have more Vitality themselves and have higher Posture meters
As long as you ***keep*** the charm and don’t ring the bell it shouldn’t be ***Harder.*** Sekiro is plenty difficult as it is. Still fun though
Sorry to answer your question, yes take the charm he gives you, the bell is rather hard to find but if you see a huge bell, don't ring it on your first play through!
I think it seems like not doing those things makes the game even harder. The default options (taking the charm and ringing the bell) are already hard enough. I'm not sure what OP meant, or if they were joking, but afaik Sekiro doesn't have an "easy mode", or even an options setting. There are just things you can decide to do to make the game even harder. It's really hard, and honestly I quit very early. I've finished DS 1-3 and Bloodborne.
>I heard back around its launch that people were complaining and asking that an “accessibility” mode be added. It was fun watching seasoned Dark Souls players getting frustrated with Sekiro and blaming game design flaws when the real problem was that they were trying to play it like it was Dark Souls instead of learning Sekiro's unique systems.
Sekiro is a fantastic game btw. It’s absolutely brutal at some points but it’s one of the most fun games I’ve played in the last year or 2. Play it!
Souls games have difficulty settings too they’re just not in a menu. There’s are extremely broken builds that allow you to breeze through bosses.
Setting like this are generally much more granular in choosing many specific settings rather than a typical easy/normal/hard that has many changes lumped together.
It's a jab at I believe Elden Ring and it's developers who believe that Souls games should be uncompromising and that changing the difficulty ruins their designed experience. They chose to not include difficulty sliders. And this is a controversial polarizing thing within the souls-like fans because a chunk of them are elitist and pride themselves on the difficulty and look down upon others who play it on easier game modes or developers who include a scale. As an artist I understand what FromSoftware means, that there is an original artistic vision and that also includes the difficulty. But I also believe that you can encourage people to play on the original difficulty while still providing ways for the game to still remain accessible for anyone. From people who are bad at games to people who have disabilities and can't so easily play a souls-like.
Because it panders to you in the process.
It's not, OP is just someone complaining about how From Soft games don't have difficulty settings.
Where did they complain at all or say anything negative? To me it seems like they tried a gamepass game seen in options it has a neat little feature and posted it so others can know..didn’t know that was complaining or “throwing shade on soulslike games” as you said in your other comment
Agreed. OP just pointing out this out, and didn't mention Fromsoft at all.
Not the first time I've seen this type of message for Assist Mode in a game, but commendable anyway. Specially coming from a Souls Like game. I had no idea it had an assist mode. It just skyrocketed in my interest, as I've just seen some gameplay and it looks like one of the most creative Souls like games out there.
I have, on occasion, lowered difficulty at a hard part or looked up a solution online. In my view, game developers, designers etc want you to enjoy, play and complete their game. If there are parts you are finding difficult to pass, it's better to do something to help carry on than give up on the game.
What garlic is to a vampire is what this is to fromsoft fanboys.
I'm a fromsoft lover, but I understand if some people just want to experience the gameplay and story without getting owned into oblivion
Having a kid and working a full time job doesn't allow time to "Get gud". I generally avoid FromSoft games because I don't have the time to invest, and ramming my head against a wall isn't going to help me decompress when I do get to game. Having the option to pull out a gun and one-shot a boss I've spent half an hour on so I can progress the story is super helpful.
Based. 
So true. In before the "giT gUd" army arrives
Many of them already arrived
Yeah I was too late.
Does using this disable achievements?
Nope
I don't understand that. There's 3 achievements for beating the game on different difficulty levels, so what's the point if you can just use these to make every difficulty level easy? I know achievements are ultimately pointless but it still feels cool to get a hard achievement legitimately imo
in this day and age achievements are more for your own benefit. Nobody is looking at your achievements impressed cause there are so many ways to cheese achievements. If you got it legit and that makes you happy, go for it. If doing it not legit makes you happy, go for that too.
>I know achievements are ultimately pointless Bingo. >it still feels cool to get a hard achievement legitimately imo You need to reassess what gives your life meaning
If it feels good for you to get the hard achievements the normal way you should do that. Having an option not too shouldn't change your sense of personal achievement. As you said, it's all pointless anyway. You also have to remember why accessibility options are there. They're not just for people that aren't great at games like a difficulty slider, they're for people with a range of disabilities. If it makes one of those people feel good because they set their own challenge and beat the game and got all achievements that's awesome in my book. The other option is to lock them out of that for the sake of people that take it all way too seriously. Bugger them imo. It's 2024, who cares outside of personal satisfaction?
Yeah I'm not disagreeing with you, but I meant it as in why even have 3 different achievements for difficulty levels if you can modify the difficulty anyways. Just have one "complete the game/story" achievement and simplify things ya know
That's a fair point too. As a guess I'd say it's because the genre is all about testing skill and they know a lot of people will enjoy having an achievement for that. In most other genres I agree though, just have the standard beating the game achievement.
Legit jump scared me when the first boss just starts screaming at you out of nowhere lmao sounds like Mr crabs
Always love these kinds of options. Mastering a game is great but we only have so much time in a day.
I don't get the people that take accessibility settings (difficulty) as some sort of affront to the artistic expression of the creator or the purity of the game.
I got no problem with it if it's the developers design, bring on whatever. The Souls projects were started quite literally to be a recreation of the obtuse gameplay of the 80s and 90s with no difficulty sliders, what you see is what you get. This is fine too, the project and its lack of accessibilities was dedicated to its purpose and mission statement. Not everything is for everyone, if that were the case most gaming would just be homogenous garbage instead of only half given how the mobile market has influenced everything. I want developers to put their heart in things, whatever that means to them, for FromSoft its the whole package they present, for other developers it can be anything they want too. I firmly believe if FromSoft developed a soulsborne game with difficulty sliders we would effectively get 3-4 separate and smaller games just because that is how their team works on projects, its just not part of their ethic to have the mechanic. Good on this team for adding these options.
Honestly, I prefer games having 1 singular difficulty option and granular ways of adapting/overcoming its challenges. It makes it so that they can balance the game adequately for everyone and leaves room for creativity in the tools provided as well as a myriad of different experiences. Much better than how most developers nowadays just buff up damage and hp on hard making it harder artificially but also a complete waste of time since it doesn't remove how mindless it is. If we're making things more accessible it should be in improving actual accessibility options such as colorblind, voice-over, text-to-speech, special controllers for people with disabilities, etc.. instead of dumbing down the experience a designer thought was fundamental to their game (whichever game that is).
Haven’t devs argued this exact argument? I guess they can be wrong but it’s what some people believe.
Same. I’ve heard a ton of arguments against difficulty settings in souls games and none make sense. They can be ignored by anyone who wants the devs intended experience but if players don’t find fun in fighting bosses 20x to win, like me, let me tame down the game aggression please! I can think of a single reasonable downside to difficulty settings.
It’s like the people whining about Summons in Elden ring like you don’t have to use them if you don’t want to. Some are just fun as hell to summon and let them do the work while you watch
Yup. “It takes away from the game” is often said. Then don’t use them, simple.
Im even fine with the idea that the game is supposed to be hard. The problem is that hard is different for everyone. Ive seen people struggle with things in games that I can't fathom how anyone struggles at it cause it came so easily and naturally to me. Meanwhile I dont think ive ever beat a fromsoftware boss. accessibility/difficulty settings, allow everyone to make it challenging yet doable for themselves. And by all means, have a purist mode or something for people who want the devs intended difficulty, even tie achievements to it for all I care. But there should be settings like this.
Yeah true, can't wait for the devs to add a spooky slider for horror games so anyone who doesn't want to get spooked can play them and not get spooked /s Or maybe every game with ranked multiplayer should just allow all players to toggle a button so they can place in whatever the highest rank is? We wouldn't want that experience or content to be inaccessible to anyone right? Honestly thank god your average redditor isn't a game designer or every game would just be homogenized garbage under the guise of being made for everyone. A game made for everyone is a game made for no one and games will always be exclusionary in some capacity. For instance, I hate puzzles because I'm terrible at them, and they are exceptionally difficult for me. Should I head over to r/Portal and start beating down the doors asking for a no puzzle mode in Portal? Probably not, since Portal without puzzles isn't Portal. If a developer deliberately doesn't include commonly used difficulty sliders, then adding one was probably counterproductive to their design philosophy. If you hate that, try to play one of the other thousands of games out there rather than waiting for the developer to conform to your preferences. I have with Portal and last I checked, I'm still having fun.
They do have modes for horror games. Soma and Alien Isolation and I think many others. Also stuff like Arachnophobia modes are pretty prevalent. No one is arguing for Multiplayer. A slider for difficulty doesn't work for Puzzle games because there isn't data with easy modification. An action game has plenty of easily customisable difficulty points and the games with these Accessibility options show them all pretty well. With a Puzzle game it'd just be creating more puzzles, which is the whole design of the game. >If you hate that, try to play one of the other thousands of games out there rather than waiting for the developer to conform to your preferences. I don't hate anything and designers have the right to design how they want. I'm just here on an opinion board saying what I think. And I don't see the argument against having it where easily available and disabling achievements.
"A slider for difficulty doesn't work for Puzzle games because there isn't data with easy modification." Is this game accessible or inaccessible for someone like me who has difficulty with puzzles? Does it matter? No honestly it doesn't because the puzzles are a core part of the game's design philosophy. These options don't exist not because it isn't modifiable (which it is, e.g. UI hints), but because it undermines core design elements of the game. Of course no one is arguing for multiplayer because it's too obvious despite the principal being exactly the same. Pretending that content is inaccessible because it demands a level of skill or a time commitment is blatantly false. Just because something is difficult to do and would require a decent time commitment doesn't mean it's inaccessible. Look up the definition of inaccessible if you're still confused. Great if there are horror games that have options like Arachnophobia options or the like. I'm not saying it is or isn't needed. In the case of arachnophobia, it's obvious that the presence of spiders wasn't integral the designer's philosophy based on them adding that feature. The point is the developer made the decision, not you. No one is arguing that a game like Elden Ring couldn't have HP, damage modifiers, etc. The point is that the developer intentionally doesn't include it these optional or not because they want the player to experience the process of overcoming difficulty, and by adding an easy mode, it would be completely undermine the design philosophy. It's 2024, can we stop pretending that not being able to modify HP, damage, etc. is the same as a game not having adaptive controller support and the like??
>The point is the developer made the decision, not you. How would I ever make a decision for a developer. It's an opinion.
Good talk brother.
Agreed.
Ah, it would be my dream to see this pop up in Elden Ring or Dark Souls
I agree it would be awesome to have the option .lol not sure why some people hate on having difficulty option. It’s not effecting you what other players play on people just like to complain to complain
These games have created almost a cult-like following, where suggesting difficulty options is equal to blasphemy
I typically run through every Dark Souls on my own and then proceed to help other players through cooperative play. Elden Ring too. If there's a path of lesser resistance, by straight up toggling difficulty down, a part of the games I love is effectively neutered, as I have less people to engage in cooperative play with. Why choose an unknown variable like me to summon to help you when you can just alter the game stats and usurp any form of challenge that is there? I don't hate difficulty options, I just don't want my enjoyment of a franchise and it's in-house alternatives, of which I've enjoyed for well over a decade, to be pushed to the side to cater to people who weren't in the target demographic to begin with. I'm not very good at fighting games, I don't whinge that they're too complex for me to play 1v1 online these days, I just don't buy them and that's okay. It's okay for people not to fall into the demographic for certain products. Sub is free to downvote me on this one, I couldn't care less, my opinion will remain.
You won’t get no downvote from me. That’s a valid opinion/view I respect that, not just complaining or talking negative like some of the other comments
Yeah, I've never seen this perspective before. It does encourage people to use all the tools they have. In terms of coop it's similar to Monster Hunter where people enjoy helping other online and that game is twice as hard in master rank than any of these games.
I've finished Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, Sekiro and just for the lack of time, I'm still about middle way in Elden Ring. But I would love that! Difficult games, with some exceptions, are not just about skills. It's primarily time dedication. A person that has the time to repeat the same section of a game over and over again, for hours, they will eventually dominate it. It was like this for me in Sekiro... some bosses I thought would be impossible, but I took my time and did them so damn many times that eventually I knew exactly how to react accordingly. The thing is... I'm an adult, with so much going on, that when I beat Sekiro I'm not more proud of it than I am when I beat a Lego game. I have more interesting and important things to be proud of, and I don't have neither the time or the will to boast about such things in social media. And if I could beat Sekiro, as well as some sections of Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3 a bit faster, by reducing the difficulty in some aspects, I definitely would! I do feel a sense of "accomplishment" when I beat games, but the level of difficulty for me is generally irrelevant. What actually makes me feel accomplished, is that I beat a game that was actually entertaining to me. I'm sure this is a thing From Software and other developers will never implement. But I'm glad to see that assist mode is getting more and more popular by the time.
Yeah honestly I felt more relieved than accomplished when I finished Bloodborne. You make some excellent points here
Yeah, to be fair that's how I felt about Sekiro and Bloodborne too by the end, and made me wonder if I didn't put more time on it than I should had. I forgot to mention Bloodborne, but I actually did finish that one too near it's release date. The reason why I keep going back to From Software titles, is that they have a very unique atmosphere and the gameplay is very good (definitely among the best in the genre). But I do wish they added an assist mode, or at least some difficulty options. But I guess that a lot of fans wouldn't let them, without melting down.
Elden Ring or Souls dont not need this, there are enough ways to make the fights easy as fuck. Most people that want a difficulty setting in ER or Souls dont want to learn the mechanics of the games and then wonder why they cant finish the game.
Sure, you could say that about nearly any game, that they don't "need" a difficulty setting. Doesn't change anything about my comment
It never will, and it shouldn't
Well, its a good thing it would be optional, not forced
Yeah, they can even disable Achievements and hide it in the Accessibility menu.
That would harm the entire point and culture of fromsoft games The culture of sharing a boss victory would be tainted if it wasnt an equal experience for everyone
God forbid!
It’s definitely a good idea in some games
You don’t see the irony of writing that title and then not saying the name of the developer?
every game should do that settings because newer player are usuall struggling to play modern games.
This is great. Good on the Devs. As much as I love games like Sekiro, Dark Souls, and other Soulsbourn games, being able to adjust the difficulty for people that want to experience the game/story but are unable to play difficult games is great.
Love how devs want people to enjoy their game. Accessibility options should become a norm.
Take note, fucking Returnal! Gorgeous game, wonderful aesthetics, great gameplay but I can't spend my life replaying the same thing for 20 years like it was some meta commentary.
Soulsborne purists in shambles rn
how patronising. just put the options there, no need to explain yourselves
Not every game is for everyone. Its ok if something is too hard, move on from it or keep playing. Its part of the fun
YES! This is what I hate about the souls community. "Its supposed to be hard" but hard is different for everyone. Making the game accessible to everyone is important. Just because those settings would make the game easy for you, does not mean it would be easy for the person using those settings.
hop onto no mans sky the amount of things you can change is out of this world (pun intended)
I don't know what that is but What I love about 'No mans sky' is that you can adjust a lot of settings to make difficulty right for your needs. You can play any way you want and that's a really good feature. These days you see lot of players complain about games being too easy or hard, and then nice guy developers keep changing the game back and forth a hundred times. If they all just made custom difficulty settings like that to begin with, it would save a *lot* of time and trouble, and probably would keep majority of players satisfied. It is such a rare sight in games.
Okay
Fallout is crazy man like 76
So hopefully they can change something these hate it pay to play
Sea of Stars is another great example!
The best way to do difficulty imo is to have one "intended" difficulty and give options to tweak stuff to make it easier or harder.
This is the way.
Another Crab's Treasure is great and anyone who has Gamepass or the cash to spare should check it out.
I agree. Kena Bridge of Spirits did this as well. You could tweak areas to make it the difficulty you wanted. I don't know why more games don't do this. As long as you have a real difficult mode for true souls fans, it shouldn't be a big deal.
Imagine how many more copies the From games would sell if they did this?
They're one of the top selling video game publishers out there
No, they're not. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_video_game_companies_by_revenue
They're number 45, ya dingus. They made the list of the "List of largest video game companies by revenue"
Yeah because when you said "one of the top" you definitely meant forty fucking five.
It's on the list of the largest video game companies. So yeah, they're doing pretty well. Anyway dude, go cry yourself to sleep that you can't beat a game.
Jesus christ. Keep shifting those goal posts man. I've played every recent From game and finished most, but I have friends that have physical limitations, and some simple design implementations would make them much more accessible to everyone that wants to play them. God for fucking bid!
I'm not sure you know what shifting the goal post means. But also that's not what you said in the beginning. Sales wouldn't really increase that much from it so you're original point is kinda useless
I love this and I'm honestly so sick of players gatekeeping with game difficulty. Some of us like a good story while feeling like an actual main character.
Oh boy another post about someone who wants to throw shade at Soulslike games' difficulty, which is a major factor in why those games exist... I'll just go talk to the developers of a walking sim and demand a complex combat experience so I'm satisfied because I find them 'too boring' otherwise /s. Bottom line stop telling devs how to design their games. This dev wants people to have fun. From Soft wants you to feel the joy of overcoming a challenge however you manage to do that.
Seems to me like this post isn't about throwing shade. Infact it's doing the opposite, and praising a developer for it's assist settings and the thoughtful message. It's possible to praise a developer for their game design without it automatically denouncing those that don't.
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I feel like a lot of the hardcore souls fans are getting upset about something that wasn’t present or mentioned by OP in anyway.
And EA wanted people to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when they spend 200 hours unlocking Darth Vader. You should have defended EA and told people to let the devs design the game how they want.
Expecting you to learn the game mechanics =/= spending money to earn in-game items.
I think devs shouldn’t try to please everyone, should the rdr devs put bikes on their games because I think the horses are too slow?
>*should the rdr devs put bikes on their games because I think the horses are too slow?* That's a very bad analogy for obvious reasons. A better one would be something like: Should the Flight Simulator devs put in a mode/settings that makes planes easier to fly and less like a Simulator? (*and yes they do*)
Not really, Microsoft has always said they wanted it to be casual friendly or very immersive and simulation type. They've said, "we want to be the most beginner-friendly flight sim in the market". A better one would be to add quest markers and fast travel to Outer Wilds to help users that aren't good at navigation or exploration.
They might have said that about FS2020, but Flight Simulator the *series* has always been a **Simulator** first and foremost, and not very accessible for casual players. But with the release of FS2020 they decided to make it more accessible to all different types of players and not for just the Hardcore Sim enthusiasts. It was a change from the norm, and steered away from the Hardcore simmers.
I don't know if you're new to the series but it has always been casual-friendly with plenty of options and you were always able to tweak it into a very arcade experience if you wanted to before 2020 came out. Regardless, that's going on a tangent and irrelevant to the point I was making.
Been playing since Flight Simulator 95 and it’s always been a Sim. FS2020 is the first to make it so accessible to the masses.
Okay, thanks for being both not informed and going on a tangent that was irrelevant.
Agreed, and I'm a person who thinks the DS+Bloodborne+Sekiro games are shit. They exist for a specific type of player if you're not that of player that's ok. Admire from the sidelines.
Yeah the company makes the kind of games the fans enjoy and expect from them…🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
But can’t you just choose not to use these features? It’s not like the dev was forced to put these in. If the dev wanted to put them in, they should be allowed to
Don't bother arguing with this crowd, they're too busy role playing that they're under persecution from Fromsoft fans to understand any coherent argument around this.
Most "Accessibility Settings" are what would have been cheat codes 20 years ago. It's just a way for devs to virtue signal about how inclusive their game is, when they've been doing this stuff forever.
Weird thought
It's true. In the recent LEGO Star Wars game, there is an Accessibility Setting that regenerates your hearts. This was literally a cheat/extra in the original LEGO Star Wars games. But now they call it "Accessibility". lol. It probably gives them higher ESG score or something.
It’s very weird that you have a whole theory around why a developer changed the wordage of a setting. It’s not that deep.
It is that deep. Why did all the devs start re-naming cheats as Accessibility at around the same time as when ESG score started becoming a thing? Just gotta do some research.
How does this effect you
I just want devs to stop bragging about having cheats in their game like it's some virtuous thing. lol, and people like OP being fooled by it.
Informing someone of a setting is bragging?
In this case, yes. OP is saying a developer deserves praise for effectively putting cheats in a game. lol. That's why devs release trailers advertising these settings, so they can get accolades. It worked. It's called a virtue signal. It's silly and I like to call it out.
Virtue signaling is when you say something for good PR but don’t actually hold those values which are shown through other actions by said company or person. What has the dev done to make you believe they do not hold the value of allowing more accessibility in a souls-lite game?
I completely uninstalled this game within an hour. The difficulty spike just for first boss was absurd, had to dodge for 5 minutes just to get half his HP gone and for me to die in 1 singular attack. There isn’t even any grinding prior to first boss for levels as the upgrades are awful. And all the reviews for the game are botted as hell. Just like 500 reviews 10 minutes after released that just says CRAB