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Comment on Three developers' different philosophies on difficulty for their games

All art should have difficulty sliders. I want to listen to avant-garde jazz but I think it should be in 4/4 time signature and they should play the most melodic notes. And I think art house movies should have a version where the script is rewritten so the characters explain the allegories and symbolism of the movie while I’m watching. And I think opera should have someone reading what is being sung because I find it hard to follow along with the singing

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starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I mean we literally do have accessibility settings for most art lmao what do you think subtitles and sign language interpreters are

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- ashenone@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Sure and we have subtitles in Fromsoft games so it’s all good right?
  
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  - starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah maybe we should have even more accessibility settings too. Things that don’t fundamentally change the game like changing the time signature on a piece of music changes that piece of music. Like, it wouldn’t fundamentally change Bloodborne if there was an option to make Rom the Vacuous Spider take fewer hits to kill.
    
    It wouldn’t even have to get in the way of players who enjoy spending 5 hours slashing at a blob of flesh. That’s the beauty of options! They’re optional!
    
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    ashenone@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    If From thought they could add difficulty settings without diminishing the vision of their game don’t you think they would? I’m not against difficulty sliders if a dev wants them. I am against difficulty sliders if devs cant or won’t do them. My point is artists should be making THEIR art and not art that caters to the most amount of people.
    
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- tutter@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  No we literally don’t. When the last you went to a museum? Art is presented basically as is, and if you’re blind you will probably go to the sound based works instead of the visual mediums instead.
  
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DudleyMason@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Everyone who is opposed to difficulty sliders should be forced to spend 200 hours on each game using a controller that simulates dyspraxia by randomly adjusting every movement of the sticks by a random degree and lagging every button press by a few microseconds before they’re allowed to play it normally.

Add an additional 400 hours if they also say smug shit like this when pretending their ableism and elitism are just devotion to artistic integrity.

The devs who make games without difficulty sliders should never get their undoctored controllers back.

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- ashenone@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  We should abolish all art since there will always be someone with a disability who isn’t able to enjoy it.
  
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  - roboflop@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I really don’t know where I land on this. I have severe concentration and coordination issues that flair up post covid, this means that I frequently can’t play Fromsoft games. Admittedly I’m lucky enough that this is not constant, but I think I’m still glad their games exist in the way they do. They are just one developer and it’s a niche genre.
    
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    ashenone@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I have wicked adhd and there are plenty of authors I can’t enjoy because their prose is too dense. I don’t demand they write to my level, I choose books that I can enjoy reading. Video games seems to be the only art form where people feel entitled to enjoyment rather accepting there will be things that your just not capable of enjoying. If Fromsoft thought they could make their vision with difficulty sliders I’m sure they would. But if they can’t do that then they should never feel obligated to reduce their vision to something lesser to make it more palatable to wider audience
    
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  - starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Do you think the entire artistic value of soulsikes is in their difficulty? That it would ruin them if players with worse reaction time were given the ability to progress at the same rate as players with exceptional reaction time? That Dark Souls would be essentially the same if instead of Gwyn, Lord of Cinder, there was just a floating hitbox with 4,185 health? What a fucking insult to Miyazaki’s writing
    
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    ashenone@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    Do you think the entire artistic value of soulsikes is in their difficulty?
    
    I mean the entire theme of souls games is overcoming rediculous challenges in the face of what seems like an impossible task. These aren’t games with amazingly written dialogues, or intricate in depth stories. The game you play is the story of your character dieing repeatedly until they overcome a great challenge to meet their goals. It would fundamentally change the game if you could just slide a bar to make it easier.
    
    Let me ask you this, why do you think every game should cater to you? Isn’t it OK for some art to not be for everyone? Isn’t that what we tells chuds when they whine and moan about main characters being women or poc? Why can’t some art be about the overcoming a challenge?
    
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    DonkeyStar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Since I’ve seen your other reply, this got even funnier. “Do you think the entire point of pizza is sauce? What a fucking insult to cheese.”
    
    “Pizza has sauce and cheese. People like pizza that has sauce and cheese.”
    
    “I LOVE PIZZA, I JUST THINK PIZZA SHOULD HAVE LESS SAUCE! IT WON’T CHANGE THE PIZZA!”
    
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- TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  If someone wants to gate their game to people who can handle the level of difficulty, that’s their choice. There are plenty of developers who are willing to be accommodating, to get hung up on games that don’t
  
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  - DudleyMason@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    “There are plenty of ADA compliant buildings, don’t get hung up on the ones that aren’t”…
    
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    DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Are you suggesting that games that don’t provide difficulty settings violate the ADA?
    
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- vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Personally I oppose difficulty sliders because I think they are overly broad and stupid, looking at you Bethesda and your lowsy ass health bar padding. Give me more zomboid and owlcat style difficulty setting where I can customize them in all minutiae.
  
  But no seriously fuck difficulty sliders cause 9/10 they do overly broad gameplay things that some of which I may not want. This is coming from a guy who beat Boltgun on its hardest difficulty with the clown vomit filter so it’s not like I can’t enjoy ulta hard difficulty but what some consider ultra hard I may consider annoying as fuck see yet again Bethesda health bar padding. I do like NV 4s hardcore/survival mode though.
  
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  - starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I think Mortal Kombat does it best. When you die to a boss, that boss becomes ever so slightly less difficult. Unnoticeably so at first, but as you die more and more and more, they get slower and slower and slower
    
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    vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Honestly adaptive difficulty has basically the inverse issue of fucking with shit when I don’t want it. But there is a subtype of it that I do like, that being thingd like the narrative AI in the Dead Space remake which can do really neat shit to fuck with the player and keep them on their toes. Though for me it just made everything foggy especially that one level where it’s just a bunch of cat walks which I’m pretty sure is already a low light area, seriously I couldn’t see shit and kept getting lost in what amounted to a five foot area.
    
    But yeah doing that for a skilled based game like Mortal Kombat seems… cheap. Like maybe I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure there is a difficulty setting in MK which if that is the case that means the game decides to stop the player of their agency and accomplishment rather than let them learn the boss. Not to say you can’t do adaptive difficulty but as a general rule there’s a good reason it’s so rare, sometimes it’s just fine but I rarely see it.
    
    The game taking into account the players actions and effecting the game though to counter that is fun IMO. Like how high casualty runs in Dishonored make the game noticable harder since difficulty only really effects health, enemy, numbers, and detection rate also it serves the narrative of the story well. Also Adam Smasher tayloring his gear to counter the player which can be subverted to catch him off guard rewarding the player for knowing the world. Or the aformentioned Dead Space narrative AI which apparently decided I’m gonna play Dead Space after the crew of the USG Ishimura had a ship wide Silent Hill themed party.
    
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- DonkeyStar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That seems like a lot more work than just trying a new hobby.
  
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Alkali@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I know this is just a joke, but art should have a difficulty slider when possible if it will require active participation by the audience. Otherwise, it is just excluding people and essentially gatekeeping. Even art house movies and have subtitles, and music is often translated to text or sign.

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- ashenone@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Disagree. There are plenty of games out there that try to cater to the widest base possible, plenty of games with a bunch of difficulty sliders and adjustments. From should be able to make their art without having to cater to every single person.
  
  Even art house movies and have subtitles, and music is often translated to text or sign.
  
  That was not my argument. My argument was art movies should explicitly spell out the meanings and symbolism in their movie via dialogues so I don’t have to do it myself. Avant-garde jazz musicians should make albums in popular time signatures and be more melodious. Otherwise people are excluded from enjoying those art forms
  
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Squirrelanna@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Now imagine there’s a song that comes out that you like the themes of. It’s catchy, it hits your buttons just right. One problem: When you play the song, it turns your volume to maximum. Others insist that max volume is part of the artistic intent. You just need to keep on listening at max volume over and over until you can appreciate it. If you could listen to it at a lower volume, it would be a lesser experience. Why? You don’t see what this specific volume has to do with the things you enjoy about the song. People can listen to it at max volume, but there’s plenty of people who would rather listen at the volume they choose. Why not allow for a volume slider?

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- ashenone@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  There’s plenty of music that I can’t connect with for one reason or another. I don’t demand artists make music I enjoy, I go out and find artists I enjoy and listen to their music. If an artist made a song that somehow turned the volume up to full everytime I put it on, that is their right as the artist to make regardless of whether or no I or anyone else enjoyed it. I fucking can’t stand country music, so I simply listen to other music. If I demanded all country musicians made music I enjoy, I wouldn’t expect anyone on earth to respect my requests because it’s not a respectable request. There are many other devs out there making games with plenty of difficulty adjustments. You should play those games.
  
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  - Squirrelanna@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    A genre is not comparable to a difficulty slider. And a difficulty is not a genre.
    
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