Honestly how is this gatekeeping? That word gets slinged around a lot and it using it here seems like it diminishes the real situations where the word is useful. So they’re limiting access to the game from people who what? It’s hard for everyone, they’re not being selective about the difficulty somehow.
Except some people have disabilities that prevent them from enjoying difficulty in a game. Some people just want the ambiance and story. Some people have reflexes that are not as sharp as they used to be. They should be able to also enjoy this art form as much as others
Eh I’m sorry but I still don’t buy it. Making it a game about ambiance and story makes it a different game, doesn’t it? Every game has a target audience right? Why does it seem like it’s just games like this that get this sort of outrage thrown at it? FPS games have a similar level of entry yet no one is out there demanding they make Counter Strike less twitchy.
Making it a game about ambiance and story makes it a different game, doesn’t it?
Not really. The experience with the Easy Mode mod in place is pretty much the same. I saw more “You Died” screens on easymode than the typical player sees on regular mode. The only difference is that I didn’t waste my money on Elden Ring by having to give up less than 10% into the game like I did on Bloodborne after 50 hours or so.
Some of us, especially older gamers, just don’t have the reflexes for that type of game. Unfortunately for us, Fromsoft writes GREAT stories and Let’sPlays are still kinda boring.
Counter strike is a multiplayer game, I’m talking about solo game (and even mp games can have difficulty accessibility options, like Tekken 8 does). About your target audience thing, I’d love to play dark souls and elden ring for the exploration, awesome music and ambiance but the difficulty and slow paced gameplay always put me off. Or to take the other example of Celeste, some people play it because of the difficulty and fun platforming, but I played it for the story and music and I loved it. Giving accessibility options will help people enjoy their game how they want with close to 0 additional development time cost.
They can, it’s just not in the form of 1 button.
It’s an RPG, if you want the game to be easier then level up your character to have adequate HP/defense/attack power. Not enough? Upgrade your weapons/shield. Still not enough? You can summon two whole extra players to do all the work for you.
Still not enough? There’s mods.
Say that to the person that has lost an arm and is playing with a special controller
Honestly how is this gatekeeping?
“Gatekeeping: the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.”
The lack of difficulty sliders make the game inaccessible to people who have no ability or desire for the unforgiving experience, nor any ability/desire to “Git Gud Scrubs”. It’s intentionally left out to exclude those people. That makes it “gatekeeping” by the definition for the word.
This is substantiated by the fact that a mode to make the game easier and a mode to make the game harder are in the top 10 downloaded mods for Elden Ring. If you leave out the loaders and modutils, those same mods are top-5. This is basically unheard of in most games.
You can argue that you approve of this gatekeeping, but it’s silly to die on the “it’s not really gatekeeping” hill.
Soooo a game, which is not paid for nor developed by the community, and is rather purchased with the knowledge that it is a difficult game which will require ample skill to surpass its many challenges, should put in difficulty sliders despite them fundamentally going against the very nature of the game itself?
Soooo a game, which is not paid for nor developed by the community, and is rather purchased with the knowledge that it is a difficult game which will require ample skill to surpass its many challenges, should put in difficulty sliders despite them fundamentally going against the very nature of the game itself?
Fucking YES it should. I didn’t buy ER until I was 100% certain it had an easymode mod. So I got what I wanted out of it despite them shoving both their middles fingers at me and telling me I’m not worthy to buy their product because they’re intentionally hiding the good part (the story) behind gameplay I didn’t want. I’m still pissed that I wasted my money buying Bloodborne. You want me to get over that, cut me a check.
As I said to the other hater, what is with the ER-fanboys turning the chat into full-on-reddit level bitchfest defending it? Why don’t you just let me have my valid opinions? I know, heaven forbid there exists someone who has an opinion that doesn’t match yours.
If you don’t like spicy food. Don’t buy spicy food. They’re not gatekeeping food from you. You have other options.
If you don’t want to “git gud”. You can use summoned spirits. NPCs, other players. There already is a difficulty slider. It’s one you set for yourself.
You always have the option to come back when you’re stronger. The boss is not going anywhere.
Spicy food does have a difficulty slider. It’s pretty difficult to find a curry in Australia that’s not so full of cream it’s basically a fruit salad.
If you don’t like spicy food. Don’t buy spicy food
I don’t know about you, but every spicy restaurant I know has a little “difficulty slider” where you get to ask them not to pour a gallon of ghost pepper into it. It’s about making the customer happy.
If you don’t want to “git gud”. You can use summoned spirits. NPCs, other players
Or I can fucking mod the piece of shit and complain about it on forums because it’s fucking stupid. But I want BURN Bloodborne because I can’t mod it.
There already is a difficulty slider. It’s one you set for yourself.
Yeah. I’m getting really good at archery. Think I’ll cut my eye out. Natural difficulty slider
Why is it every time I express a valid criticism about an otherwise story-heavy game with a stupid difficulty-related gimmic the cringe-posse comes out and tries to convince me the game is perfect and no human being would find my opinion valid. Like seriously what I tell my little nieces and nephews, if you don’t have anything nice to say, move along.
In other news, I DO respect the Viva La Dirt League reference.
Learning to play the guitar or code also doesn’t have a difficulty slider, but people of all abled-ness manage it anyways. It’s a matter of patience and practice just like any other skill.
But this particular skill has in-game mechanics like leveling up, upgrading equipment, and summoning up to two whole extra players to do the work for you. Then there’s mods…
Learning to play the guitar or code also doesn’t have a difficulty slider, but people of all abled-ness manage it anyways.
Games are about entertainment. They’re not a career. Nobody is paying me to play a Fromsoft game. More importantly, nobody is gatekeeping the entertainment, immersion, and story of music or coding behind me being able to “Git Gud”.
And let’s look at music and coding. Since I can speak a bit to both. For music, OF COURSE there are difficulty sliders. When I took recorder back in school, they had 2 different versions of many songs. When I first learned Christmas music on piano, I learned special “simplified” tracks for the songs. I never “Got Gud” at music, but I still got to the end of the book.
And coding. Coding is the opposite of a Fromsoft game. You’re surrounded by mountains of tools that try to make it easier. When I bring in a junior developer, I’m not giving them some unforgiving code challenge to power through. Maybe they’ll never be good enough to design a specialized cache or optimize queries. So I give them the things they CAN do, and hold their hand so they always succeed. Junior devs don’t ever fail, not because they “git gud” but because I set them up to succeed by this little difficulty slider called “how hard is this ticket to do and how much help do they need from me?”
they’re gatekeeping the game story and experience, and ability to finish experiencing the game, from people who might be disabled or simply bad at games.
by making the game more accessible they would allow more people to enjoy the whole game
it’s a pretty standard example of gatekeeping
The difficulty is the experience, home slice. People need to accept that some things just aren’t for them.
Why does anyone NEED to be excluded? Many games have demonstrated that accessibility options allow more people to play the game the way they want.
This is something we can start to expect from AAA games.
Do you need others to fail the game, or to belittle them for turning down the difficulty, so that you can feel good about yourself?
If someone writes a complicated work of fiction, is it gate keeping to not also include an explainer in simple prose?
Someone might but Finnigan’s wake and be completely baffled by it. Is that an accessibility problem? Is the author in the wrong?
Why or why not?
Note this is distinct from publishing it in braille or audiobook format
But the game that the other half is enjoying is the difficulty and the reward of experiencing the story street overcoming said difficulty