You outlined a comparison between NG+ and regular difficulty in the Souls games while simultaneously missing what makes them different even though you just explained it to yourself. Do you want to know the difference between NG+ and the ability to choose a difficulty mode in the beginning of the game? Well ... you should already know, it's right there for you to see!

That's one of many great things about the Souls games - you start with one difficulty mode. Everything in the game is specifically designed to be very deliberate. The game's difficulty does not change based on some stupid labels you see at the start of the game. It changes based on how the designers meticulously crafted enemies, how they put a level together, and how the world is connected. 

All I can say is that your point ultimately fails because it caters to the idea that every piece of media is for everybody. It isn't. I don't go to racing games so I can play the game as an on-rails shooter. I don't go to Smash Brothers to play Mario Kart. I don't go to Blade Runner to see a lightsaber duel. And unfortunately what people can't accept is that difficulty can be as much a deciding factor on how a game is crafted or how the product ultimately turns out as the genre itself. You see this in games of various quality. Shitty flash games are often made to be obsessively difficult, but that's their main gimmick and no one would play them if that gimmick didn't exist. Now Souls games are a bit different because they have more to offer than being hard, but the fact is that being difficult is a very core component to the feeling of fun and accomplishment that the games provide.

For example, in your last paragraph you say: 

I can't help but feel this is very disingenuous, because it isn't in line with the enjoyment of entertainment as a whole. Entertainment by it's very nature is getting something out of something that holds no real objective value. Just because you don't graduate from school for finishing Dark Souls doesn't mean that feeling of accomplishment can't exist. Just because an option doesn't affect certain people doesn't mean it isn't an important part of the game's point. In fact it's not even a good argument when used by your own standards. If games have no real importance, then why even go to the lengths of buying a game you know you probably won't enjoy? And if they aren't important than what's the point of arguing about whether there should be a difficulty mode on an obscure gaming forum? Of course you didn't say that games aren't important - but you did make a comparison to objective benchmarks that somehow trivialize those of video games. Even though that would fly in the face of the point of entertainment as a whole.

Souls games are mostly about learning. And one of those methods of teaching in a Souls game is the difficulty. If you don't want to learn the game, then why play it? Because that's the thing about most easy modes. They are mostly there so that players don't have to learn anything about the game. People act like difficulty isn't a mechanic of a game, but of course it is. It has as much importance as any other - and that is proved by both people who dislike the difficulty in a game or by those who like it. 

I've seen your posts around this forum and honestly I don't think the Souls games are for your demographic. Most people who get into them have a lot of free time on their hands. Most people who get into them like a challenge. That doesn't mean they should change, it just means it isn't for you. And that's fine. 

Anyways, this is my last post in this thread. I don't want to keep repeating what I've repeated a million times before. Other people are free to disagree or talk. It is obnoxious for me to take up most of the thread. Plus I just remembered that I think one of my first moderations had to do with difficulty in games. So yeah ... not going to get trapped into that again  

Gameplay. It is always about gameplay. This thread is a veiled thread about Souls, because be real, no one really makes a fuss about anything else. You can't tell me there is serious outrage about something like Funky Kong in Tropical Freeze. There might be a few here and there, but no real thing. So the one game series it boils down to is Souls. And here is the thing: it is not about difficulty, it is about gameplay. Many people, the majority, wants fast gameplay, they react fast and snippy to stuff. If you try that in Souls it gets you killed. Because it has a different gameplay. Which is okay. There is a group of people - much smaller - who enjoys this slower gameplay. But some people of the first group think it is a game for them. They go in expecting that, and it doesn't work.

I can't hear anymore about the difficulty of Souls, because it really isn't. Most games that praise themself as hard as a Souls game are in reality much harder. Souls gets easy - if you played it how it was designed. Now adding more HP or giving your attack more power would make the game easier (and I don't think anyone actually is against that), but it wouldn't solve the problem of the complainers. Because still running in guns blazing would get you killed.

So I can't hear anymore about that easy mode for Souls, because in reality people want to say: I want Dark Souls, but it must be a different game. I wish From Software would add an actual easy mode - cheaper progression would do the trick quite easily - so that the complainers are finally shut up. Because they would still hate the game but hadn't any way anymore to propose 'a fix'.

Lol, so much this.

Uhhhh... ok... but that really didn't answer my question in the least.

And yet the game changes completely with a bit of input from the internet, which is what I resorted to after giving up 20 hours in. I started over having leveled up my character ina completely useless manner and missed the point entirely of the importance of upgrading weapons. Yes, the game was very easy with the master key and nabbing a good sword at the beginning putting me on a curve ahead of the difficulty curve I experienced the first time. Without that 'easy' mode I would not have continued with the game and it would not have been in my top 10 games of all time.

I mean, even with Starfox Zero, a game hardly anyone gave a toss about in the first place, the announcement of an invincible mode made headlines on IGN/Eurogamer/etc and brought on loads of angry comments across the net. And again, that's with a game of almost Zero (har har) importance.

I answered that I have no problem with an easy mode in Dark Souls, it just doesn't solve your problem.

Say, you play Mario, but you never jump. You constantly fall into the first pit and die. So you demand an easy mode. Nintendo hears you and let's say give Mario invulnerability against enemies or so. You play the patched game with high hopes, but you still don't jump and so you fall into the first pit and die.

People these days have reduced their gaming options of few gameplay variants. I have played games for more than 25 years and seen a lot of gameplay ideas. These days on the typical consoles we have mostly shooters, action games, some action RPGs and Sports. Puzzlers or turn-based RPGs are already awful niche. Now comes the Switch and has a lot of games which are metroidvanias, platformers or strategy. And people accustomed to the other consoles say: Switch has no games. Because they don't even recognize the different gameplays. Same with Dark Souls. People expect it to play like say God of War, Darksiders or Zelda. And going in with that expectation they aren't seeing that the gameplay is actually different. So it is like playing Mario without jumping: they will fail. But instead of recognizing the different gameplay, they think the game is hard and demand an easy mode. Only it will solve nothing. They still won't jump. because they aren't recognizing a different gameplay if they see it. And yeah, all the git gud stuff - it means play the game like it is intended instead of playing a different game, while having the Dark Souls disk inserted.

I actually don't believe there was much of an outcry. I for one completely missed it. Yes, gaming media probably made a thing out of it, for easy clicks, but were there in real many people upset about it?

Thankfully the majority were cool with it, but there was still quite a lot of complaints in various forums and comments sections. It helped that the game itself wasn't a major release and that thanks to 7 years of Super Guide a lot of the people who were so against it had gotten it out of their system and come to grudgingly accept this sort of thing.

Still there was a lot of stuff like:

"I don't know why games should be made that autoplay themselves. Whats the point? Are people really that incapable of any sort of difficulty? So what if a player struggles. It's the only way they'll get good."

"New gamers are getting catered way too much"

"Giving every scrub a chance to blast through the game is bad game designing"

"Remember when games (especially Nintendo games) were challenging and didn't hold your hand because they assumed you were either a kid or a complete n00b? Remember when even the simplest of games actually required skill to beat or get good at?

Because things like this kinda make me miss those days. Much like the EXP Share and White Tanooki Suit before it, this "Invincible Arwing" looks like another attempt by Nintendo at casualizing their games to appeal to kids and casuals by removing any sort of skill and holding their hands all the way through. Seriously, with features like these, what's the point of even playing the game in the first place?"

"Urgh, at least turn the Arwing into a toy and have it shoot water instead of lasers, having the bosses call you out on it and just fly away in disgust when encountered with this mode on would also be a nice touch.

You know make it blatantly clear that the player sucks and is having his hand held through it."

Literally all the concerns there are to souls being messed up if an easy mode happens, are gone if you can keep the easy mode totally offline with no online functionality. Easy.

Especially since the type of people who would like an easy mode also wouldn't like invaders in the first place.