True, but it's not lacking in opportunities to soak up the view. Figuring out the lore is immaterial - vagueness is more unsettling than knowing the truth. As for difficulty and achievement, I think you're grossly overestimating how easy From Software would have to make the game in order it to appeal to a broader audience. Toning it down a notch and removing at least some of the penalty for death would still make it harder and more rewarding than the competition, but still more accesible and new-player friendly than before.

Actually, I think it should work just like Fire Emblem (again, an RPG series well-known for punishing difficulty) in which there's "Classic" and "Casual" modes - which are essentially the same difficulty level, except "Casual" is basically the equivalent of letting players pause the game and not be so harshly penalized upon death.

Orstein and Smogg is best fought with a summoned player/npc, so its a 2v2 fight.

Capra Demon fights trick is being aware of your surroundings (The stairs leading to the ledge).

4 Kings is basically a race against the clock, kill each king before the next one spawns.

Bed of Chaos is an environment puzzle which is the only one I understand people disliking.

Ornstein and Smogg is one of the best boss fights I've ever played.  It was the hardest part of the game for me and took a long time to beat.  Looking back on it i would say it was one of the most fun parts of the game for me and wouldn't change a thing about it.

How? 

The following sentence is to your second response to my other post (well actually it's the main point that you guys can't seem to grasp). Having different difficulties wouldn't change a thing for you or anyone else that wants to play the game like Demons/Dark souls.

You play on your hard/classic mode and nothing changes for you in the least. All that changes is other interested people that don't have the time and patience for classic Soul's games get to enjoy it as well. It's that simple and basic.

Lore is really the only reason I can see why someone would want to play it on easy...despite finding the lore and thinking about it takes a shit ton of time. ..and about the view...Not enough to justify easy mode. Also figuring out the lore actually is important. Especially for DS2...I can already understand alot more story wise than people that don't know the lore. Since DS2 is going to have elements of a prequel with possible time travel. I have the actual joy in knowing whats going on in DS while many others don't even notice a story outside of ringing bells no matter how many times they play it.

Another difference is that Journey actually has a story to push through for.  Dark souls has nothing you can push/rush for...and about those bosses...The only one I can agree with you is the bed of chaos...the other 3 gave me and many others a massive amount of achivement. In DS you can play in many ways as well and experiment. Soo many players tries what seems like an unlimited amount of different type of creative builds its crazy.

taking down ornstein and smogg in NG+ as a level 17 twink was quite possibly the best gaming accomplishment of my life.

Yeah, that's why I said that not everyone will agree with me. There isn't a single game that can please every gamer and there isn't a single thing that everyone can agree on. I'm sure that there are plenty of people who would agree with you, but I still think that the vast majority of players who played the game would argue that the game without its difficulty is a completely different game.

@Kyliedog

I think we can all agree that internet forums are by no means representative of the general public. If that were the case, rpgs would be selling better than COD. Now, in my opinion, many of the people who go to those forums/game boards are negative people who spend most of their lives complaining about things, instead of enjoying life. Their comments make an almost full glass of water sound like empty instead of an almost full glass of water. I'm talking about people who have sucky lives and resort to writing negative comments about anything (celebrities, movies, video games etc; just look at all the hatred and vile comments on youtube, even on gamespot and ign). Of course they're not gonna bother making a thread about how awesome a game was, but instead what they didn't like about it. And when it comes to DS, I can easily picture them getting a phone call and not being able to answer and getting mad at the game. Or again, if they have sucky lives, they want to feel special by playing video games and the fact that they fail yet again is off putting and some times even enraging (hope I did not offend anyone; it's just an observation, which might be wrong).

It's kind of like Gamestop (?) being considered as the worst company by its employers. It's not that it's the worst company and treats them like dirt; they're just more vocal than people who work for other companies. Similarly, a happy gamer will probably avoid such boards and the developers might be given the wrong impression by the feedback they get.

In other words, people who complain about such things might be the minority, while the majority prefers the non pause option or the pvp aspect of the game (though the ones disconnecting should be punished, even if it's their internet's fault. I think it was a great rule in Tekken 6). I get that you don't like some of the mechanics, but some of us prefer them (we might be the minority, sure, but I'm all I'm saying is there's no way the developers can find out what the majority prefers). I know that if I had the option to pause, I'd do it all the time, which would take away from my experience.

Ornstein and Smough was the worst. It took 20 tries to get to Ornstein and Smough with summoned players, getting invaded every time by griefers on the way there. Even clearing everything out offline before logging in to summon players wasn't fast enough.
When we finally got it was when we got paired up with an overpowered character, needless to say that degraded the boss battle completely. (Yes I know you can summon an npc offline, he was completely useless with my character build, died every time before I could wear the first one down)

Capra Demon sucked because it pounces as soon as you zone in. It took 6 attempts to finally dodge his first attack successfully and not get 1 hit killed and have to walk all the way back again. After that it was indeed a matter of hiding on the stairs and throw bombs, boring.

4 Kings, yup needed a high dps co-op partner, lousy fight.

Bed of Chaos, environmental puzzles are fine, just not having to walk back all the way to learn the next little part of the sequence.

A lot more boss fights were iffy, those 4 stand out the most. Fighting the normal npc's was much more fun then the bosses. Getting lost somewhere, barely hanging on, awesome. The bosses mostly stood in the way of fun, as did the invasions.

because of what i described in my post..

most games add a lower difficulty by give you more health or ammo or whatever.  i promise you, all the health in the world won't make the game easier for you.  the game is a puzzle game at it's heart.  you learn how to exploit the AI and when you do i promise you -- the game is really really REEAAALLY easy. 

you can easily beat the game without taking a single hit one you know the AI.  this isn't a BS statement.  it's a fact.  i beat DS NG+ as a lvl 17 with no point in stamina. any hit was a death blow.  i still beat it.

it's like asking for an easy mode for braid.  what's the point... all you can do is tell the player the secret of how to win.  but if you don't earn that knowledge you didn't do a damn thing.  at that point just go on youtube and what someone else play.

so the only way to make it easier is to make simplier puzzles.  in demon's soul's did you figure out that the Old Hero was blind and that the only way to beat him is to not move quickly without clothes so to not make noise so to be invisible and therefore impossible to take a hit thereby making the boss fight really really REEAALLY easy?  cause if you take that puzzle out Old Hero is just a really bad boring stupid boss fight that you aren't going to have fun with over on easy mode anyways.  ...and i get a bad game.

My concern right now (and Namco's) is with coming up with ideas of how to make the game easier to understand, and possibly even more rewarding to certain types of RPG fans, without greatly dumbing down the experience. I'm not interested in an "easy" mode in the sense that what I have in mind is still significantly more challenging than the typical RPG experience (otherwise, why bother at all?), and there would still be a far more punishing mode for veterans (or ambitious newcomers) to tackle. But since difficulty is relative/subjective/whatever, I'm in no postition to tell you to stop using the term "easy mode".

From my perspective, there are still (arbitrary?) aspects of the game not directly related to the puzzle aspect that compounds on the difficulty - namely the loss of souls and humanity upon death, as opposed to just having to try the puzzle again. In fact, I'm beginning to think that the bloodstain idea isn't very great, as I imagine it encouraging players to make similar mistakes (like going someplace they probably shouldn't yet) over again, as opposed to trying a more ideal solution.