11 ms·

>Having said that, I still think they should add some accessibility features that can make the game easier. What they do in Mario Kart or Celeste I think is gre

by aixi 5y ago

>Having said that, I still think they should add some accessibility features that can make the game easier. What they do in Mario Kart or Celeste I think is great. Instead of making difficulties which means some of them won't get proper design and balance. Focus on a single difficulty, but add accessibility features that can make it easier. I think it's important to do that so people who have handicaps, are younger, are too old, don't have the time and patience, can still experience and enjoy some of the games. They could choose to play some section normally, and when they get stuck, instead of quitting the game, they can try and give themselves some help to get over it. But why? The difficulty is part of the experience and adds up to the oppressive nature of the ambiance. In a sense, the difficulty is part of the artistic vision of the designers. Not every piece of media or hobby needs to be vanilla and accessible to everybody; you would not request of Dostoyevsky for a 'simpler version' of his works, so that children and those not inclined to reading could experience them.

aordano 5y ago
This is more akin to having Dostoevsky on big print and in Open Dyslexic font, on thick pages easy to grab and handle. Is not about easing the media itself or diluting its essence, it's about making it approachable to people that want to experience it and is not able to. I am not disabled in any relevant way, but i know intimately people that is, and having a big chunk of the world unreachable like that is very demoralizing. Accessibility is important; short of a punishing worldwide eugenics program, there will always be people that require accommodations, and that may perfectly happen to you or a loved one. It's always good to be mindful of other's needs.
- aixi 5y ago
  No, that's not akin to having Dostoyevsky on big print --- that is how you consume the content, not the content itself. Those things would be comparable to having a controller that a disabled person can use, which Souls games don't limit: you can play them with whatever controller you want. Requesting an easy mode, or a god mode, is more similar to requesting for the author to modify complex prose, or avoid using words that you don't know. I agree that accessibility is important, but the games are not unreachable to the disabled. If you are missing an arm, for example, the game will probably be more difficult, but this applies to every hobby in which you are not a passive consumer.
  - aordano 5y ago
    I think it's debatable; where the «experience» or delivery a game tries to reach, end? Where do we draw the line between considering it a modification of the "soul" of the game? This is an important distinction because a game is much more rich and complex than a book, and has many more axes where things can change. I fathom that for some people the level of punishment is just too much, and maybe that flies in the face of how do they enjoy the game. This is not to detract from the artistic vision of the creators, given art has a meaning imbued by its maker, and a meaning bestowed by its consumer, i think that having the /option/ to change something that a player can't enjoy is always a plus. Not all ability or disability is on the body, as some may lie on the mind, whether it is because of a persistent problem, a bad time in your life, or just constraints. Gatekeeping things like this is, IMO, a bad pick (assuming that they would be properly implemented and tucked away under several menus, not shoved down your throat or made default).
    - aixi 5y ago
      > Where do we draw the line between considering it a modification of the "soul" of the game? At this point it is clear difficulty is a staple of the series and the ambiance of all the Souls games. Every time a new game comes out, this complaint is raised by people who don't play the games and Miyazaki has decided not to add these explicit difficulty changing settings, so I think it's evident that its part of the soul of the games. > Not all ability or disability is on the body, as some may lie on the mind, whether it is because of a persistent problem, a bad time in your life, or just constraints. You can't expect authors to adjust to every single person on Earth circumstances on their works. This is not accessibility, and I think it's an argument in bad faith to claim it is. This is not gatekeeping; If you want a challenge with fantastic ambience, you play a Souls game --- If you don't, you don't want to play Dark Souls, and that's perfectly fine, there's million other games where difficulty is not core to the experience. Not every piece of art or entertainment has to be palatable to everyone.
      - mrtranscendence 5y ago
        > If you want a challenge with fantastic ambience, you play a Souls game --- If you don't, you don't want to play Dark Souls What you seem to be missing is that what counts as "a challenge" will vary from individual to individual. When I argue that soulslikes should have better accessibility options (including difficulty settings) I'm not saying that I want the game to not be challenging -- I'm saying that the difficulty should adapt to meet the players where they are to maintain a challenge for them. You could say, well, there IS an easy mode; just spend days grinding out levels. That kind of sucks, though. Also ... > This is not gatekeeping [goes on to write a paragraph that could be used as the definition of gatekeeping]
- vadansky 5y ago
  I'd say it's more akin to having Dostoevsky with easier vocabulary and grammar, or a Crib's note version that condenses it so you don't have to rid all 840 pages of Brothers Karamazov
ssully 5y ago
Having a difficulty selection doesn't remove anything from the game. Those who want to play on easy can, while those who want the "standard" experience can stick with the regular difficulty. When I play Doom (be it classic, or 2016/Eternal), at a minimum I play on Ultra Violence because I personally think that's how the game is meant to be played. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people that play those games on the lower difficulties and it doesn't impact my experience whatsoever.
- aixi 5y ago
  It impacts your experience in the sense that development time was given to balancing different difficulties. Even if the Souls games had a 'no damage taken' mode, for example, there are multiple mechanics where you fall off a cliff and die, and these things would take development time to correct. And again, it would mess with the author's vision on what the ambiance of the games should be like; It's oppressive because it's supposed to be, and frankly people who don't get it and demand explicit difficulty settings don't really want to play Dark Souls at all. You don't need to have explicit difficulty selection to make a game easier: as said multiple times in these threads, there are a bunch of ways From does it without recurring to it.
  - jterrys 5y ago
    >It's oppressive because it's supposed to be, and frankly people who don't get it and demand explicit difficulty settings don't really want to play Dark Souls at all. I 100% agree. I'm not really deep into the Souls games. My first game was Dark Souls 3 (after which, I went back to the original, and am still trying to setup and emulator for Demon's Souls). What I find very compelling about these games' design is that the environment itself is very fair yet brutal. You don't run and jump across cliffs willy-nilly. You don't sprint into a dark room. A rickety bridge isn't something you carelessly waltz over. Everything is designed around patience and observance. Literally every trap in the game (with one exception) is telegraphed by the environment. You just have to look. Things being able to easily murder you is part of the experience. You don't level up in so much as get better at observing the game and learning mechanics. Stats do matter, sure, but even so your large healthbar isn't a guarantee of your survival. It allows you to make a few more mistakes at best. I think people that want these games with a lower difficulty slider don't "get it". Virtually every other RPG pumps you full of stats and tells you that you're the chosen one. The leader, the one to rule them all. But you don't really earn it. Every level up makes you stronger while the world remains static, eventually culminating into you dominating based off of pure passive, mathematical advantage. Which I guess is fine for a medium that a lot of people use for escapism. But if that's what you want, then Miyazaki's games aren't for you. You have so many other games to choose from I don't understand why there's such a dreary emphasis on one of the few exceptions.
didibus 5y ago
Because I just don't see why not. The game would still be the same, I'd have experienced it the same way. The only change is a few more people would have also gotten enjoyment out of it. Dostoyevsky is a bad example, because a book is a book, the only accessibility option you can provide is a dictionary maybe and some guides to go along it. But a video game isn't a book, you can easily add a few cheats as options without changing the work in any way. I'm not Dostoyevsky, but if I wrote a book, I'd love for a way to have even the illeterate somehow magically be able to read my book just the same. That's what video games allow the authors to do.
- fattless 5y ago
  I agree with you in pretty much every case, except probably from games and games aiming for the same thing. So much of the experience comes from the struggle to overcome overwhelming odds and an oppressive world. That’s thematically why the hollows exist in ds, it all builds toward its theme. Lowering the difficulty would disrupt this, those odds become a lot less daunting, the atmosphere is hurt, and the player dosent engage with the world in its themes in the same way. A more under appreciated aspect is the bonds it creates within players. There is a shared experience between players, and the difficulty encourages players to engage in the subtle cooperation that inspired the series in the first place. Not to mention the summoning mechanics make the game much easier while pushing this cooperation and solidarity In games that emphasize this, the difficulty is crucial to the expirences and engaging with it in the same way. I see it the same way as filmmakers or authors using unconventional techniques to push the viewer to engage with the themes in a deeper way
  - didibus 5y ago
    I understand what you mean, but I fail to see how adding some accessibility options would change that. I keep using Celeste as an example, because it's an even harder game, but it had accessibility options done very well, and everything you say exist in that game and was not harmed in any way. The game is brutal, it plays into the atmosphere and story, the players bond over it, had to learn to overcome the challenges, there's forums of people talking about how brutal and how many times they died and how happy they were when they made it, etc. That's why I don't see the resistance to adding options like that, because from my vantage point, it doesn't take anything away, it only expands who can get to experience a similar thing. The only reason I can think of is if you're saying that you personally couldn't resist turning on all the cheats all the time and thus ruining the experience for yourself. I don't have that problem, and from other Celeste players I don't see many who had that problem. It seems even a lot of people when turning on cheats wait a long time, and then they try to turn on the minimum amount and see if they can make it, and only after failing more time do they maybe try to add another one, etc. Anyways, that's just my point of view. I respect the people feeling differently.

by aixi 5y ago

aordano 5y ago

This is more akin to having Dostoevsky on big print and in Open Dyslexic font, on thick pages easy to grab and handle. Is not about easing the media itself or diluting its essence, it's about making it approachable to people that want to experience it and is not able to. I am not disabled in any relevant way, but i know intimately people that is, and having a big chunk of the world unreachable like that is very demoralizing. Accessibility is important; short of a punishing worldwide eugenics program, there will always be people that require accommodations, and that may perfectly happen to you or a loved one. It's always good to be mindful of other's needs.

aixi 5y ago
No, that's not akin to having Dostoyevsky on big print --- that is how you consume the content, not the content itself. Those things would be comparable to having a controller that a disabled person can use, which Souls games don't limit: you can play them with whatever controller you want. Requesting an easy mode, or a god mode, is more similar to requesting for the author to modify complex prose, or avoid using words that you don't know. I agree that accessibility is important, but the games are not unreachable to the disabled. If you are missing an arm, for example, the game will probably be more difficult, but this applies to every hobby in which you are not a passive consumer.
- aordano 5y ago
  I think it's debatable; where the «experience» or delivery a game tries to reach, end? Where do we draw the line between considering it a modification of the "soul" of the game? This is an important distinction because a game is much more rich and complex than a book, and has many more axes where things can change. I fathom that for some people the level of punishment is just too much, and maybe that flies in the face of how do they enjoy the game. This is not to detract from the artistic vision of the creators, given art has a meaning imbued by its maker, and a meaning bestowed by its consumer, i think that having the /option/ to change something that a player can't enjoy is always a plus. Not all ability or disability is on the body, as some may lie on the mind, whether it is because of a persistent problem, a bad time in your life, or just constraints. Gatekeeping things like this is, IMO, a bad pick (assuming that they would be properly implemented and tucked away under several menus, not shoved down your throat or made default).
  - aixi 5y ago
    > Where do we draw the line between considering it a modification of the "soul" of the game? At this point it is clear difficulty is a staple of the series and the ambiance of all the Souls games. Every time a new game comes out, this complaint is raised by people who don't play the games and Miyazaki has decided not to add these explicit difficulty changing settings, so I think it's evident that its part of the soul of the games. > Not all ability or disability is on the body, as some may lie on the mind, whether it is because of a persistent problem, a bad time in your life, or just constraints. You can't expect authors to adjust to every single person on Earth circumstances on their works. This is not accessibility, and I think it's an argument in bad faith to claim it is. This is not gatekeeping; If you want a challenge with fantastic ambience, you play a Souls game --- If you don't, you don't want to play Dark Souls, and that's perfectly fine, there's million other games where difficulty is not core to the experience. Not every piece of art or entertainment has to be palatable to everyone.
    - mrtranscendence 5y ago
      > If you want a challenge with fantastic ambience, you play a Souls game --- If you don't, you don't want to play Dark Souls What you seem to be missing is that what counts as "a challenge" will vary from individual to individual. When I argue that soulslikes should have better accessibility options (including difficulty settings) I'm not saying that I want the game to not be challenging -- I'm saying that the difficulty should adapt to meet the players where they are to maintain a challenge for them. You could say, well, there IS an easy mode; just spend days grinding out levels. That kind of sucks, though. Also ... > This is not gatekeeping [goes on to write a paragraph that could be used as the definition of gatekeeping]
vadansky 5y ago
I'd say it's more akin to having Dostoevsky with easier vocabulary and grammar, or a Crib's note version that condenses it so you don't have to rid all 840 pages of Brothers Karamazov

ssully 5y ago

Having a difficulty selection doesn't remove anything from the game. Those who want to play on easy can, while those who want the "standard" experience can stick with the regular difficulty. When I play Doom (be it classic, or 2016/Eternal), at a minimum I play on Ultra Violence because I personally think that's how the game is meant to be played. Believe it or not, there are plenty of people that play those games on the lower difficulties and it doesn't impact my experience whatsoever.

aixi 5y ago
It impacts your experience in the sense that development time was given to balancing different difficulties. Even if the Souls games had a 'no damage taken' mode, for example, there are multiple mechanics where you fall off a cliff and die, and these things would take development time to correct. And again, it would mess with the author's vision on what the ambiance of the games should be like; It's oppressive because it's supposed to be, and frankly people who don't get it and demand explicit difficulty settings don't really want to play Dark Souls at all. You don't need to have explicit difficulty selection to make a game easier: as said multiple times in these threads, there are a bunch of ways From does it without recurring to it.
- jterrys 5y ago
  >It's oppressive because it's supposed to be, and frankly people who don't get it and demand explicit difficulty settings don't really want to play Dark Souls at all. I 100% agree. I'm not really deep into the Souls games. My first game was Dark Souls 3 (after which, I went back to the original, and am still trying to setup and emulator for Demon's Souls). What I find very compelling about these games' design is that the environment itself is very fair yet brutal. You don't run and jump across cliffs willy-nilly. You don't sprint into a dark room. A rickety bridge isn't something you carelessly waltz over. Everything is designed around patience and observance. Literally every trap in the game (with one exception) is telegraphed by the environment. You just have to look. Things being able to easily murder you is part of the experience. You don't level up in so much as get better at observing the game and learning mechanics. Stats do matter, sure, but even so your large healthbar isn't a guarantee of your survival. It allows you to make a few more mistakes at best. I think people that want these games with a lower difficulty slider don't "get it". Virtually every other RPG pumps you full of stats and tells you that you're the chosen one. The leader, the one to rule them all. But you don't really earn it. Every level up makes you stronger while the world remains static, eventually culminating into you dominating based off of pure passive, mathematical advantage. Which I guess is fine for a medium that a lot of people use for escapism. But if that's what you want, then Miyazaki's games aren't for you. You have so many other games to choose from I don't understand why there's such a dreary emphasis on one of the few exceptions.

didibus 5y ago

Because I just don't see why not. The game would still be the same, I'd have experienced it the same way. The only change is a few more people would have also gotten enjoyment out of it. Dostoyevsky is a bad example, because a book is a book, the only accessibility option you can provide is a dictionary maybe and some guides to go along it. But a video game isn't a book, you can easily add a few cheats as options without changing the work in any way. I'm not Dostoyevsky, but if I wrote a book, I'd love for a way to have even the illeterate somehow magically be able to read my book just the same. That's what video games allow the authors to do.

fattless 5y ago
I agree with you in pretty much every case, except probably from games and games aiming for the same thing. So much of the experience comes from the struggle to overcome overwhelming odds and an oppressive world. That’s thematically why the hollows exist in ds, it all builds toward its theme. Lowering the difficulty would disrupt this, those odds become a lot less daunting, the atmosphere is hurt, and the player dosent engage with the world in its themes in the same way. A more under appreciated aspect is the bonds it creates within players. There is a shared experience between players, and the difficulty encourages players to engage in the subtle cooperation that inspired the series in the first place. Not to mention the summoning mechanics make the game much easier while pushing this cooperation and solidarity In games that emphasize this, the difficulty is crucial to the expirences and engaging with it in the same way. I see it the same way as filmmakers or authors using unconventional techniques to push the viewer to engage with the themes in a deeper way
- didibus 5y ago
  I understand what you mean, but I fail to see how adding some accessibility options would change that. I keep using Celeste as an example, because it's an even harder game, but it had accessibility options done very well, and everything you say exist in that game and was not harmed in any way. The game is brutal, it plays into the atmosphere and story, the players bond over it, had to learn to overcome the challenges, there's forums of people talking about how brutal and how many times they died and how happy they were when they made it, etc. That's why I don't see the resistance to adding options like that, because from my vantage point, it doesn't take anything away, it only expands who can get to experience a similar thing. The only reason I can think of is if you're saying that you personally couldn't resist turning on all the cheats all the time and thus ruining the experience for yourself. I don't have that problem, and from other Celeste players I don't see many who had that problem. It seems even a lot of people when turning on cheats wait a long time, and then they try to turn on the minimum amount and see if they can make it, and only after failing more time do they maybe try to add another one, etc. Anyways, that's just my point of view. I respect the people feeling differently.