That’s exactly the point. What’s easy for one person can be insurmountable to another. What’s the harm in catering to both?
The fanatics will tell you that not every game is for everyone so you shouldn’t play these games because making them accessible is wrong.
The toxicity of that part of the fanbase is astounding.
I’m so happy I don’t let that stuff bother me.
“If you turn off hunger then subnatica isn’t even a survival game anymore”
“Okay”
“It’s not even fun anymore!”
“Was having plenty of fun until you showed up “
I’m the same way with steak. Well done with lots of A1. Don’t like it? Cool don’t eat it then.
Personally I prefer the game to offer in-game methods of changing the difficulty. Elden Ring, for example, has enough summons, consumables, co-op, side content to overlevel with, and just straight op items (something something bloodhounds step) that there isn’t really any main boss you can’t engineer a pretty easy win over. To me that feels more narratively compelling than a simple slider—it lets you trade a mechanical challenge for an intellectual one (“what would make this fight winnable?”) rather than taking you out of the game to just turn the numbers down.
And that’s fair. But you probably wouldn’t bat an eye if there were, in addition to that, just a couple sliders fine-tune to your liking or additional options to tick for those that want that, right? At least it sounds like that from your comment. Some people are just very adamant about such options ruining the game for players
Yeah I don’t mind if a game has difficulty settings. I think they’re a crude way of modifying challenge level, but if that’s how the designer wants to construct the experience, that’s their call. On the flip side, I also respect it if the designer considers those settings incompatible with the experience they’re trying to create; the presence of those settings does have a meaningful impact on the experience of playing the game (this wouldn’t be such a consistent topic if they didn’t), and I don’t believe creatives should be obligated to compromise their vision.
The assist mode being discussed could also be called accessibility options. Think of someone who may be partiality or mostly blind. Or someone who had suffered from a TBI and their reaction speed is shot. The assist mode settings giving extra i-frames, reducing damage, etc lower the difficulty level so that people can adjust it based on their needs. Yeah it breaks immersion but i think it’s a welcome change and they do help in ways summons, coops, consumables, etc can’t.
I like that they really lean into it in Another Crab’s Treasure.
You feel like the game is too hard? Here’s a gun that one shots everything.
As a crab.
I think they should be included for people to use because that’ll get more people interested in soulslikes. The ones who say the difficulty options shouldn’t be there just don’t have the willpower to resist the temptation to turn down the pain.
Absolutely. I appreciate it when devs go the extra mile to enhance their players’ experience.
![[ACT] This seems absolutely sensible and reasonable](https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/53511b2d-c2e1-4bd0-8042-81a4c2fc994e.webp){kind=link}