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Sekiro success, sales, and winning Game of the Year is a huge strike against the "difficulty equals bad" notion
- Thread starter CenturionNami
- Start date
we are talking about a hobby where adding an option to reduce difficulty would not make the experience of other users worse.
Accessibility has been an on-going topic for the last few years now, and it has been becoming a bigger and bigger topic each passing year. Video games are so very far behind even the most basic stuff every other medium has as a standard but we're starting to see some decent strides.
I said this same thing a couple of pages ago and agree with you, just waiting for people to explain what the issues are for From games, and why they seem to be less visible for any other title released in the last ten years.
I absolutely agree. I do think they should be more common options.
But no one makes threads to complain about the lack of accessibility features in AAA major budgeted games, unless it's a From title.
People in this thread saying "it was just about accessibility and not about difficulty" are clearly not remembering the debates that went around. Many people argue that accessibility was tied to difficulty, and conflated the two.
I think everyone should be all for accessibility, but the line between that and challenge is tricky. Some games may be too hard for someone with low reaction speeds to play, even with hardware and software accessibility options, and that's the real debate: Does everyone have the right to access (control) a game, and does everyone have the right to complete a game.
I think everyone should be all for accessibility, but the line between that and challenge is tricky. Some games may be too hard for someone with low reaction speeds to play, even with hardware and software accessibility options, and that's the real debate: Does everyone have the right to access (control) a game, and does everyone have the right to complete a game.
People don't have an issue with the concept of easy modes, it's with attempting to compel directors to add them when the original game was designed with a bespoke experience in mind.
Kamiya wanting to add difficulty modes to Bayo is fine, but Miyazaki wanting players to have to fight against overwhelming odds and feelings of despair to reach the end should also be fine.
Soulsborne games are difficult, this is intended. I don't understand why some, who can't keep up with the difficulty can't understand that the game isn't for them.
Super Meat Boy is a hard platformer, I can't beat the majority of the levels in it. I get it, I don't need the devs to add in a slomo easy mode or something, it's not for me. I can watch players much better than me play it on youtube or something.
I don't think games, like any other product should always appeal to the widest audience possible anyways. Niches should exist.
Super Meat Boy is a hard platformer, I can't beat the majority of the levels in it. I get it, I don't need the devs to add in a slomo easy mode or something, it's not for me. I can watch players much better than me play it on youtube or something.
I don't think games, like any other product should always appeal to the widest audience possible anyways. Niches should exist.
let me get this straight: unless there is a thread about accessibility for every single major game release, we shouldn't ever talk about it?
Thank you. It's like people don't understand that you can love these games, and still want the developers to do better.
In-Game Text/Lore for final boss:
"Here beneath this weathered bridge lies Tonka, the Treacherous Taunk. For centuries Tonka found delight in devouring the spirits of a million warriors foolish enough to challenge him. With each death he grew stronger but now Tonka is seeking out battles himself, lurking in the shadows stalking his prey."
(Changes to very easy mode)
2 slashes later...
"Congratulations brave warrior for now you have finished what no other shinobi could."
"Here beneath this weathered bridge lies Tonka, the Treacherous Taunk. For centuries Tonka found delight in devouring the spirits of a million warriors foolish enough to challenge him. With each death he grew stronger but now Tonka is seeking out battles himself, lurking in the shadows stalking his prey."
(Changes to very easy mode)
2 slashes later...
"Congratulations brave warrior for now you have finished what no other shinobi could."
You could fill in the blank with anything my dude. I suck at basketball, puzzle games, driving stick shift. I can try to improve at those or I can just accept that they are not for me.
I'm not suggesting we have to silence all discussion about accessibility, but can you explain why such threads only seem to get made for From games? The other games have colossal budgets and huge teams. They sell millions to tens of millions of copies. It stands to reason that there would be a clamor for such features too, no? Especially if it would impact so many more people?
If Miyazaki tomorrow announced Elden Ring will have an easy mode I would be fine with it.
People telling him what to do, hell even demanding he implements difficulty options or telling him he's an asshole for not doing it, are the people that show up nowhere else. Not in Bayo nor in DMC threads.
And no, neither Bayo nor DMC have to worry about stuff like bonfire and enemy placements in terms of their leveldesign. Definetly not more complex.
Suspension of disbelief. We play many games where we kill a hundred or thousand of enemies.
If you don't play the easy mode it won't cause your disbelief. Only people who choose easy option will "miss" the original experience, but again it will be their decisions.And they might get satisfaction anyways.
What a bad faith argument. Calculus is an explanation for the way the world works. Video games are entertainment. Not only can the former not be changed to meet the needs of a particular individual, but there's no good reason why the latter can't.
This argument is very dumb, my dude.
First of all, you and your friends could play with the rim at a lower height, and it would take away no one else's enjoyment at all. Do you get tilted when bowling lanes offer bumpers, because "bowling just isn't for everyone"?
Also, they did make an easy mode for stick shift. It's called automatic, and it's *what you freaking drive*.
JFC.
That's exactly what the Kirby series is about. The whole thing is upbeat and chill and comfy which is reinforced by the low difficulty and ability to fly over 80% of the obstacles. It's basically the same situation but inverted.
Don't both Bayonetta and DMC already have difficulty options?
There is a quite a few bad faith arguments being thrown about in this topic.
I feel there is some kind of double standard of folks criticizing and because able to dock points off a game because it was the developers intent to make it more accessible to a wider audience and in the same token saying folks should respect the developers vision for the opposite? I've seen it
Hell you already have folks in some other threads with dismissive as fuck remarks in regards to smaller text, telling folks to get their eyes checked or buy a bigger TV. It really makes you take a step back and think.
Challenge and difficulty as inherent core part of central design mechanics is one thing and that is fair, but things like being against being able to pause or being able to play entirely offline is something else.
The fact you have some folks pulling up examples that a extremely small subset of folks can a beat a game using obscure and non-normal control methods as a example because these folks can do this, so can you as a defense for this is telling. Just because the developer designed the game a certain way there are folks that imply that is the defacto or best way and there is no room for alternatives. That to me sounds like an appeal to authority.
no, we just have to constantly change the topic to "but why x game and not y game????" so we don't actually discuss the accessibility issue at hand
i literally just pointed out another big release that only days ago had a lengthy thread made about its accessibility issues and you said it didn't count because... "it was VR:?? and like, "when people complain about Boneworks accessibility, that's valid, but when people complain about Sekiro accessibility, that's wrong!!!!!" ...lol idk what to say
Well yeah, that was their argument. My argument is that they already made a decision to include them, and From simply made a different one. One that a lot of people apprechiate.
i never said it didn't
that's literally what you're doing right now, yes
Yup. Saw a lot of complaints about that one, Super Mario Odyssey as well
This sooo much :)
I never understood all the difficulty drama.
Souls games for example, are just games where you really have to pay attention, and have a little bit of patience. And yeah, maybe you die quite a few times, but that's normal, because you are still learning everything about the game. Just like in many other games, especially when you played games in the 8 and 16 bit era. There are many games where I died like 30 times on some mean mid boss of level one, or died 20 times on the same platforming part of some classic 2D Action games etc. Many of them were like the souls games. Feels more like the normal mode to me. Many games these days, especially in the AAA section, are way too easy, if you choose their recommended/default/normal/medium difficulty. Sometimes to the point that the game gets boring/feels super brain dead, pretty fast in some of my experienced cases.
Should an artist create 2 set of painting, one normal color an one for colorblind? No
His argument being as illogical as it is makes it clear why he's bad at math.
Wha? I used the word forebears, I was comparing Bayonetta to its genre and games that came before it, not to Souls. DMCV is the most accessible of the the DMC series, and is also crazy complex with what you can do. These are genres and games that did not suffer from these easy modes, and instead got quite a bit crazier, especially at higher levels of play.
Most of those already have solutions though. Basketball can be played on any level, not everyone playing it is trying out for a NBA team. Special Olympics exists too. Puzzle games have shortcuts and automatic transmission exists. You're not really helping your argument here, lol.
Snippety snap, that's ruthless. And rude!!
Variable difficulty is a pretty arduous task that severely impacts dev time, game design, balancing and testing. Id much rather have FROM continue to polish one experience to the level of quality we expect than the alternative.
More accesible options for players with handicaps are a must of course, but that goes for most games, especially ones with bigger budgets.
More accesible options for players with handicaps are a must of course, but that goes for most games, especially ones with bigger budgets.
Personal hot take but I'll throw it around regardless: for how combat is designed in Sekiro, a traditional difficulty selector wouldn't do much good for those who struggle. The game requires you to engage with combat in a very specific way and dying in 4 hits instead of 2 wouldn't alleviate the problem. It would require a much more serious overhaul, lot of testing and work. I'm happy if the devs want to do it, but resources are limited. At some point I'd personally rather have more/better content. It's a selfish decision though and I'm totally ok with people disagreeing about this one.
It's one other game. And the issues in Boneworks aren't about colorblind options or subtitle/text visibility or audio/visual cues. If the accessibility issue were really the thing everyone here is purporting to care about, it would be a big deal for every title, especially major AAA games with the team and budget to make such features standard.
But people who rally behind accessibility in Sekiro and other From games only show up to demand these things in From games because it's ultimately about difficulty, not accessibility options, because those people and arguments are nowhere to be seen for other games.
I think every game should have accomodations for colorblindness and other disabilities as part of the game and settings. But a significant portion of people are just using accessibility as a shield when they really just want to cry about difficulty, which is why they only show up to argue about accessibility in From/Sekiro threads.
No, I can't get behind this one. Often times it can take quite a bit to balance, but to my knowledge there exists a bell in the game that just flat boosts enemy's HP by a certain percentage to increase the difficulty.
Add a bell that subtracts by a percentage. It may not be the most elegant solution, but it's clearly good enough in the opposite direction, so.
And a lot of people don't appreciate it. You know what it's called when you don't think something is a particularly big deal because it doesn't personally affect you? Privelege. Consider that someone people might feel differently, it might be important to them. They might want to play the VGA GOTY 2019 but can't because they are just having too hard of a time with the reflexes currently being asked of them by the game. Who are you or anyone to tell them that they're SOL?
That's fair enough, but I hate the shit a few years on forums when people were saying Zelda should be as hard as Dark Souls (when that series was at its peak) and in speculations threads, and some fans of Dark Souls purposelessly wanted to alienate people from classic franchises. I mean Nintendo would never do that, but it was just boring, shit posting.
Has gatekeeping has become a part of a FROM game's cultural identity? "I beat Bloodborne" or "I beat Sekiro" is something you can say and people immediately understand the level of perseverance and dedication required. "Git gud" is such an intrinsic part of FROM games and the discourse around them.
Huh? They could just open the parry window to be huge on easy mode. Let everyone feel like they're good at gaming or parrying, that's what they want. The satisfaction without putting in the time to better themselves. Everyone wants to be good at shit even if they fucking suck.
That's great and all but you still have the option of making it harder if you want.
Imagine not understanding that there exist censored versions of his films, so that people can choose which version they'd like to watch and enjoy it without having to worry about what other people want.
Speaking as someone completely stonewalled at the penultimate boss of the game, the designers are telling me I'm SOL, and I'm totally okay with it. Is that privilege? If so, oh well.
I don't expect every game to be tailored to my taste, so I don't think every game needs to be tailored to everyone else either.
Calculus itself was invented to simplify a series of complex math problems. If there was another way to simplify calculus further, trust me someone would've done it by now. People don't use calculus for a "challenge" or "fun" or "artistic integrity".
It sucks if you're really into the story and lore. I feel a little special to be among the 10% on Xbox that beat the game and got to experience everything. At the same time I feel really bad for those that gave up.
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