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SvennoJ on 21 December 2018
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Azzanation said:

I find it that making games too easy for the casuals diminishes the achievement of games being finished. I guess its more the old school vs modern gamers.
Games like Battletoads on NES could only be finished by those worthy of the challenge. These days, gamers can adjust the difficulty to make games easier, like on Rares Replay with the rewind feature. Now anyone can finish it and the challenge is no longer there.
It really all depends on the game i guess. It doesnt bother me but i can see why this affects some gamers. It was an achievement to finish a hard game, adjustable difficulty assists changes that method.
Imagin if Donkey Kong Arcade or Pac-Man back in the 70s had optional assists and difficulties? It would have ruined the games.

For me personally,  World of Warcraft is a perfect example. At launch aka Vanilla, WoW was a game of skill and survival of the fittest. It showed no mercy to new comers. It had its charm and built its popularity because of many reasons. Modern WoW is casual friendly and requires little to no skill to level or obtain raiding spots with the exception of Mythic Raids which is hard as balls. The modern game isn't as loved anymore due to anyone can pick it up and be good, and the lack of effort to achieve goals demishinishes the very thing that made WoW what it was.

Here's an example how optional easy modes can add greatly to arcade games
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-12-21-ketsui-deathtiny-review-arcade-perfected

I enjoyed Nex Machina on easy first which inspired me to get better and up the difficulty. It was only available at the intended difficulty I would never have bothered to learn how to play the game. WoW was very easy from the start, yet I came from Everquest. WoW won us over as Everquest became more inaccessible if you didn't have time to gather raid gear to continue. What made WoW was the ability to play it with just 2 people due to the easy difficulty.

I have finally been enjoying Donkey Kong on the snes mini thanks to the rewind feature. Some of those kart levels had me give up long ago, now I finally got to play the rest of the game. Sure it would not work in actual arcades as those are designed to make money out of retries. No need for that anymore.