I hope it's clear which option is the original difficulty. I plan on playing it and honestly I'm worried how they'll implement it. Difficulty settings are great but hard to pull off

Better find a different term to use than "soulslike" if you're removing and reducing the skill requirement.

Edit: I invite the doonvootern to comment and fight (Soulslike) instead of whining cowardly (easy mode, afraid of confrontationlike)

Accessibility options are good.

Agreed.

Not everyone is a god gamer with the reflexes of a 14-year old hopped up on Adderall and Red Bull. Some people just want to enjoy the story and the atmosphere of a game and it should be normal for us to let them.

Not everyone just wants to enjoy the story. Some people want a challenge which requires the reflexes of a 14 year old hopped up on Adderall.

Why should every single game be changed to suit your specific play style?

Instead of demanding their games change, maybe you could just accept its okay some audiences have different likes than you and just play the ones that cater to your style?

The game doesn't really explain this, but you get different dodge animations when you are using an extra light build. To me, this made the game feel more like bloodborne, which made the combat easier to read. Eventually, I ended up parrying everything instead of dodging, but I really like how the game plays in this state. YMMV

I might actually give this a try now!

I love me some ambience and story, but I'm not masochist enough to grind through a souls-like.

Bloodborne almost got me though

I have to be honest here and say I don't understand where you're coming from at all.

Why should every single game be changed to suit your specific play style?

Literally nobody is asking for this. Accessibility options, not "permanently and irrevocably reduce the difficulty of all games". The good thing about options is that they're option-al. If you want the game to remain challenging, the presence of accessibility options does not affect you in the slightest. You can just ignore them and go on with your day, enjoying the game just as it was.

I have to be honest here and say I don't understand where you're coming from at all.

Thats okay! Thanks for asking. I'm coming from the place that video games are art.

If games are art, then I choose to support artists, even if they want to make weird or unconventional art. If an artist has a vision which clashes with my own I want them to be able to follow their vision that instead of always conforming to "general audiences".

As to the rest of your comment I already said first thing accessibility options are good so I'm not sure what got miscomminicated there.

A. The game is actually art and the artist vision includes an option making it playable for more people

B. The game is a product that they want to sell to more people, adding difficulties sells more

I don't see the issue either way. Why care what audience it's conforming to, you'll either enjoy the game or you won't?

while harder difficulties turn enemies into sponges that absolutely destroy you in 1 or 2 hits.

Sounds like a normal dark souls experience to me, I see no issue

I get where you're coming from.

B. The game is a product that they want to sell to more people, adding difficulties sells more

Sure. Not not necessarily untrue.

I don't see the issue either way

My stances is forced here. I support the artists.

Unfortunately, supporting artists means sometimes you have to disagree with the businessmen when the two groups disagree.

Selling microtransactions and skins and deluxe editions and pre-order exclusive content, etc, etc all "sells more" (or at least makes more money).

If the artists feel for whatever reason adding more difficulties is too much to manage or prevents them from making the experience they want to make, I have to take the side of the artist.

There's always going to be an argument the product needs to change to make more money, that's not the art I find super interesting.

Why care what audience it's conforming to, you'll either enjoy the game or you won't?

Because I think of the people who make games as artists and it pisses me off to think of some guy in a suit pressing his fingers into the Mona Lisa and pestering Da Vinci to make her smile and show cleavage so it can sell more.

I get that a business needs to make money, but those should be decisions the artists are in the room for at least.

If it's A I don't care, if it's B I do.

The dodging on this game was frustratingly buggy.

My favorite souls like.... Excited for more content!

Dark Souls II fans will love it!

an impossible encounter

That's kinda the point of Souls games though. The encounter isn't impossible, and once your skills and attitude change, you get through it - even though the encounter itself didn't change a bit.

I'm a perfect game sure, but most of these are far from perfect. They often don't explain mechanics, rely heavily on changing Metas, RNG, pure chance, reflexes that some people just will not have no matter what their attitude or mindset is, and so on. Let's have it, these games are FULL of jank.

At the end of the day, the "pros" don't need to adjust their difficulty if they don't want to. More options is never a bad thing.

I'll have to try that out, thanks

I might get this just to support that they’re doing this. Been abused by “git gud” bros and their gatekeeping for far too long when it comes to difficulty.

Game is too hard, so I want to beat the game at a more comfortable difficulty level. If I like the game enough, I will then try to beat it at the harder level. Why is this such an abominable concept to those people?

Imagine if every boss took as long to kill as that one giant dragon in Elden Ring that doesn't even move because it's too big and would crash the game if it actually did even when you're completely maxed out in every stat.

If, for example, the PSN store let you refund a game that you tried for a bit and gave up on I'd be more sympathetic to their argument, but it doesn't. It, in fact, won't let you refund a game you've only partially downloaded.

Bloodborne actually gets pretty easy once you understand the parry timing. If you ever feel brave enough to give it a shot, just focus on learning that mechanic and you'll do well.