Difficulty vs Accessibility: A responsibility for the developers, not for the players.

[Nautilus]

Ka-pi96 said:

Nautilus said:

That logic is so flawed.If I like everything about a racing game(its graphics, atmosphere, story, RPG systems and so on) except the driving itself, it means that the devs screwed up?

Is it so hard to understand that some people just like it hard, and to make a truly hard game, it needs to be made hard from a level design point of view, which simply makes it impossible to have multiple levels of difficulty because its either financially prohibitive, or simply because the devs dont want to?

And I mean, regarding some things that I have seen written here: If the first Dark Souls had ssell well, but then the sequel had done badly, then that would have sent a message that yeah, the public hated the difficulty and just a tiny portion of gamers liked that way.But with every new From games, they jusst sell more and more, with Sekiro selling more than 4 million units, recalling from the top of my head.And thats in less than one year.And Im not even mentioning Nioh, Code Vein, Dead Cells, etc.

Nah, your logic is flawed since you seem to think gameplay = difficulty. It doesn't. If you don't like the driving of a racing game then you don't like the gameplay of it, that has nothing to do with difficulty whatsoever. The difficulty of a racing game is the AI. If they AI are absolutely perfect, never make mistakes and always accelerate, brake and turn at the exact right time then it's only going to be an enjoyable experience for a very small number of people. It really doesn't take much to add a few other difficulty levels where the AI is more prone to errors. Oh, and the same applies in the other direction too, if the AI is so shit that your only chance of losing is if you drive poorly on purpose then the game's shit as well and should really have some harder AI options.

I challenge you to present a single example that couldn't be made easier/more difficult very easily if the devs wanted to. Seriously, do it!

Racing games = increases/decrease player/AI top speed/acceleration stats
Action games = adjust health/damage stats for the player/enemies
RPG games = adjust player/enemy stats, increases/decrease exp gain rate or enemy encounter freqeuency/size of encounters
Platformers = adjust player jump height, make gaps narrower/wider, increase/decrease enemy frequency, increase/decrease how often health/life items are found
Strategy games = Give boosts/penalties to player/AI economy, increase/decrease unit stats
Sports games = increase/decrease stats, adjust the RNG factor on player/AI actions

There, a whole bunch of ways to easily change the difficulty in a bunch of different games. Level design has absolutely nothing to do with it. AI doesn't even need to be changed for any of those either, so you can save the whole `developing a separate better/worse AI would be expensive and time-consuming` excuse too.

... I honestly dont get what you are saying.

Difficulty has to do with... everything about the game.

Level Design: Its easier to kill an ranged enemy if he stands in the same ground level as you, opossed if he was on higher ground.Thats level design.

Gameplay: There are some games that have bigger windows of oportunity to attack and deflect attacks.Enemies might have a more aggressive and passive behaviour.The game might demand quicker reflexes.Gameplay isnt just about health or damage.

Sound: Paying attention to the sound enemies makes, especially if its done on purpose to identify when someone is comming from you, or from where the attack comes from.The lack of a proper "sound system" might makes things harder(though that simply would make it unfair, not harder)

And so on and so on.Thats is just me giving examples on how difficulty could be incorporated into everything that contemplates a game.

But thats not even the main point Im trying to make.The main point is: Sure, you could dumb down Dark Souls to the point that any attack from a boss does 1% of the damage and call it a day.But that would just ruin the game, and its clearly not what the devs want for the game.Period.

Making a inherently difficult game in which every single part of it was designed to make you think, plan, and learn really well the mechanics dont fit well with different difficulty levels.Not to say that some hard games cant have difficulty levels, they sure can, but usually these games either have very little difficulty inbued into the level design and demands more of the player in its skill alone, or its just plain unfair(Dying in like 2 shots in the hardest difficulty is simply unfair for example, especially for someone who just began the game).