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danasider on 17 December 2018
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SvennoJ said:

Yet how do optional difficulty options ruin your sense of pride when playing at the highest or recommended difficulty level. Why would it bother you that other people can start at a lower difficulty. Personally I didn't feel and pride or sense of achievement getting past that ridiculous boss guarding the path to the under city. It was simply frustrating having to come back from firelink shrine every time, or the other bon fire later. I don't enjoy repeating the same action over and over just to get to where I left off before. It does not heighten my adrenaline, just my frustration level. Difficulty options can also mean more checkpoints.

I enjoyed exploring the world in Dark Souls, sparring with Tower knights, going places I wasn't really equipped for yet. I did not enjoy the bosses much at all. Yet I grinded the spider queen for a while in co-op to meet the level requirement for equipment I wanted to use to continue exploration.

Anyway what wa the developer's vision when it comes to dying a lot. Nobody knows, yet not everyone has the same skill level or understanding of game mechanics. 10 deaths, 100 deaths, 1000 deaths to get to the next bonfire? What is the optimal number of deaths to 'enjoy' the game as intended. It's all flexible, as in any rpg. They always depend on how much time you have to put into it. Is it sensible to say that if you don't have 60 hours to dedicate on a game that you should not buy it? Is there an optimal time you should spend on a game to appreciate it as intended? Some people will finish it much faster than others, who gets the intended experience? Flexible difficulty options are never a bad thing imo. Better yet if the game slightly adjusts the difficulty behind the scenes to serve each player the intended number of deaths and game length.

These things are all somewhat arbitrary so I can't speak for the dev with specifics. More of understanding the game design where death is imminent (the first creature you face in just about every game kills you) and knowing the slogan "Prepare to Die" does it make it obvious to me that the devs intend for you to get used to the idea of using failure as a learning device.

And with people, any game can be conquered and made "easy." Does that mean the SoulsBorne games are easy games simply because some people can go on 0 damage runs? No, because the general population of gamers that try it die a lot more than they do in other games. So yeah, the challenge is intentional and an obvious part of the game.

Additionally, many RPGs are super long. Should people demand that there be less content so they can get through it? I think not. If you don't have the time for it, there are plenty of other games to play. That's the point I am making with SoulsBorne games.