Lies of P is getting difficulty options to make the Soulslike more accessible
-
Oh yeah I didn’t do a ton of parrying in Elden Ring, I just found it an easier game overall because you have so many options for weapons and play styles, and more opportunities to overlevel if you want to. In Elden Ring making use of things like bleed and rot or even just a big old bashing club can really turn things in your favour
wrote on 22 May 2025, 15:08 last edited byYeah, Elden Ring is definitely easier, I was just talking about parry timing since GP talked about parrying being hard in Demon Souls.
-
Gatekeepers in shambles
wrote on 22 May 2025, 15:21 last edited byI really wanted to like this game, paid for it and everything, but I just couldnt get in to it. I'm an avid fan of fromsoft's stuff and have done them all several times, but with LoP i never felt like the combat clicked, and I strongly disliked most of the enemy designs. Not that fromsoft always has great enemy design either, but LoP just didnt vibe with me. I'll have to revisit it some day though
-
Works for me. I got stuck on the puppet king second phase and gave up. Not like rage quit, I just never went back to the game after like a dozen attempts, uninstalled it months later to free up space.
I love difficulty adjustments. Tuning a game to be right for every audience is impossible, better to let the end client have some control over fine tuning their experience.
Control is an excellent example of this for me. My GOTY when it came out, still an all time fav. I love the story and setting, but the combat is tedious after a while. In that case, lowering enemy health made the game less boring without being substantially easier, giving me the kind of experience I could enjoy.
wrote on 22 May 2025, 15:22 last edited by teft@lemmy.worldOnly a dozen attempts?
/s
-
Miyazaki wept.
Edit: lol people love to complain about gatekeepers and then they gatekeep comment sections about difficulty. Its ok guys, youre safe. The video games cant hurt you.wrote on 22 May 2025, 15:25 last edited byDownvotes arent gatekeeping. It’s just people not agreeing with you or disliking your tone. Also bitching about downvotes tends to attract more downvotes for your efforts.
-
Works for me. I got stuck on the puppet king second phase and gave up. Not like rage quit, I just never went back to the game after like a dozen attempts, uninstalled it months later to free up space.
I love difficulty adjustments. Tuning a game to be right for every audience is impossible, better to let the end client have some control over fine tuning their experience.
Control is an excellent example of this for me. My GOTY when it came out, still an all time fav. I love the story and setting, but the combat is tedious after a while. In that case, lowering enemy health made the game less boring without being substantially easier, giving me the kind of experience I could enjoy.
wrote on 22 May 2025, 16:22 last edited byI had a similar experience with the final boss of the Elden Ring DLC. Tried to beat him like 200 times and then quit playing for several months.
-
Gatekeepers in shambles
wrote on 22 May 2025, 17:36 last edited byI want to appreciate the additions, but...this is also not a good way of doing it.
The difficulty is often the point in Soulslikes, but quite often it feels like these games are hard in 17 different ways, and a player may only have trouble with 1 of them.
Maybe that's navigation, and finding the next path forward. Maybe that's working out how to put together a functioning build, and realizing what each weapon does. Maybe it's that the parry window is just a few frames too tight because they're playing with an input delay.
That's why the games I've liked have varied accessibility options to let you change just one thing, like getting your souls back on dying, slowing down the game, slightly decreasing damage values - or increasing them on both sides.
-
There‘s a potential discussion to be had about how much of the Soulsborne/-like experience is about overcoming difficulty - and let’s be honest, the vast majority of people won‘t finetune difficulty but just go as easymode as possible - but on the other hand I strongly dislike elitism in games and in the end it should be on the player if they wanna potentially ruin their own experience or not, as such I agree with you.
Would Dark Souls have ever become the iconic game it is and FROM/Miyazaki the iconic devs they are with an easymode (in their games)? Hard to say.
I‘m always happy to see these options especially in indie games, which so often go crazy hard on difficulty towards the end (Celeste endgame for example).
wrote on 22 May 2025, 17:58 last edited byI usually start on easy mode and then steadily increase difficulty as I go. Nothing will make me refund a game faster than being 20 minutes in and dying 74 times in an impossible encounter. LoP is one of those games.
-
Downvotes arent gatekeeping. It’s just people not agreeing with you or disliking your tone. Also bitching about downvotes tends to attract more downvotes for your efforts.
wrote on 22 May 2025, 21:01 last edited byIf downvotes aren't gatekeeping, then neither is saying Dark Souls is perfect the way it is and doesn't need to be changed. Ultimately, I think we're all picking a side on this one, and dont want to hear what the other has to say. Voting me down is your way of saying "I don't want to see this kind of thing." It can't be hand-waved away as simple disagreement. There is an echo chamber at work here, it is somewhat nasty and honestly disheartening. Like when I make a joke about Miyazaki not wanting this (it is a joke after all) and everyone piles on the dislike; that's the community trying to send me a message. And yes, I know that calling out downvoters makes them pile on more; I am proud to spit in ya'lls face. The discourse around difficulty is toxic on both sides and I hate it. Can't even make a joke without bringing out the Defenders of the Casual or whatever. Vote me down some more, its exactly what I expect.
Sometimes difficulty is inextricable from the art, and Dark Souls is a good example of that. When people say they want it easier they are missing the message. You SHOULD have to struggle to get what you want, you SHOULD have to pay attention to the game you're playing instead of mindlessly hacking your way through only to forget bout it days later. If a game punishes impatience and hubris, you will be more immersed in an oppressive world, you will feel like a small part of a larger tragedy that transcends your typical hero fantasy. These are the things that make the game special, and Miyazaki and his team knew what they were doing. You are spitting on their vision and their talent when you say it should be different. Lies of P... I haven't played it, and the devs can do whatever they feel is right to make the game they want to make.
But you know, Starry Night is fine and all but its too dark and depressing. They should put some more yellow in there, really make it more accessible to the masses.
-
If downvotes aren't gatekeeping, then neither is saying Dark Souls is perfect the way it is and doesn't need to be changed. Ultimately, I think we're all picking a side on this one, and dont want to hear what the other has to say. Voting me down is your way of saying "I don't want to see this kind of thing." It can't be hand-waved away as simple disagreement. There is an echo chamber at work here, it is somewhat nasty and honestly disheartening. Like when I make a joke about Miyazaki not wanting this (it is a joke after all) and everyone piles on the dislike; that's the community trying to send me a message. And yes, I know that calling out downvoters makes them pile on more; I am proud to spit in ya'lls face. The discourse around difficulty is toxic on both sides and I hate it. Can't even make a joke without bringing out the Defenders of the Casual or whatever. Vote me down some more, its exactly what I expect.
Sometimes difficulty is inextricable from the art, and Dark Souls is a good example of that. When people say they want it easier they are missing the message. You SHOULD have to struggle to get what you want, you SHOULD have to pay attention to the game you're playing instead of mindlessly hacking your way through only to forget bout it days later. If a game punishes impatience and hubris, you will be more immersed in an oppressive world, you will feel like a small part of a larger tragedy that transcends your typical hero fantasy. These are the things that make the game special, and Miyazaki and his team knew what they were doing. You are spitting on their vision and their talent when you say it should be different. Lies of P... I haven't played it, and the devs can do whatever they feel is right to make the game they want to make.
But you know, Starry Night is fine and all but its too dark and depressing. They should put some more yellow in there, really make it more accessible to the masses.
wrote on 22 May 2025, 21:20 last edited bySee, assuming someone calling out your bitching has downvoted you is part of your problem. I didn't downvote you before, now I have downvoted you because you sound whiny.
-
Gatekeepers in shambles
wrote on 22 May 2025, 21:25 last edited by kolanaki@pawb.socialThere are only two ways a difficulty setting has ever been used, and only one would be good for a game like this.
Either the health and damage (and possibly speed) is going to be adjusted so easier difficulty means you take less damage and deal more, while harder difficulties turn enemies into sponges that absolutely destroy you in 1 or 2 hits.
Or they re-do every encounter, 3 times, adding, removing, or re-arranging the mobs so they are easier or more difficult by actually tweaking the challenge and not the just the "numbers."
Almost every game chooses to do the former and not the latter because it's cheap and easy to do. Takes literally no effort to adjust some numbers by a percentage. It actually takes some thought and planning and time to actually present different tiers of challenge, naturally.
-
See, assuming someone calling out your bitching has downvoted you is part of your problem. I didn't downvote you before, now I have downvoted you because you sound whiny.
wrote on 22 May 2025, 21:47 last edited byYou sound whiny too
-
Gatekeepers in shambles
wrote on 22 May 2025, 22:02 last edited byI 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
-
Gatekeepers in shambles
wrote on 22 May 2025, 22:15 last edited by godric@lemmy.worldBetter 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. 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.
wrote on 23 May 2025, 03:08 last edited byAccessibility 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?
-
I really wanted to like this game, paid for it and everything, but I just couldnt get in to it. I'm an avid fan of fromsoft's stuff and have done them all several times, but with LoP i never felt like the combat clicked, and I strongly disliked most of the enemy designs. Not that fromsoft always has great enemy design either, but LoP just didnt vibe with me. I'll have to revisit it some day though
wrote on 23 May 2025, 03:09 last edited byThe 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
-
Gatekeepers in shambles
wrote on 23 May 2025, 03:19 last edited byI 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
-
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?
wrote on 23 May 2025, 13:12 last edited byI 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.
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.
wrote on 23 May 2025, 13:20 last edited by whatstheholdup@lemmy.mlI 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.
-
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.
wrote on 23 May 2025, 13:52 last edited byA. 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?
-
There are only two ways a difficulty setting has ever been used, and only one would be good for a game like this.
Either the health and damage (and possibly speed) is going to be adjusted so easier difficulty means you take less damage and deal more, while harder difficulties turn enemies into sponges that absolutely destroy you in 1 or 2 hits.
Or they re-do every encounter, 3 times, adding, removing, or re-arranging the mobs so they are easier or more difficult by actually tweaking the challenge and not the just the "numbers."
Almost every game chooses to do the former and not the latter because it's cheap and easy to do. Takes literally no effort to adjust some numbers by a percentage. It actually takes some thought and planning and time to actually present different tiers of challenge, naturally.
wrote on 23 May 2025, 13:55 last edited bywhile 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