I think a game can be good at 99 different things but if it fails when it comes to difficulty, it will most likely be a bad game. Difficulty is crucial for an enjoyable gaming experience. No amount of flashy animations, high graphical fidelity, content bloat or banger tracks will ever compensate for a glaring lack of difficulty. It is a shame so many games completely neglect this aspect, in the modern age of gaming.
Game's difficulty is crucial but there are 2 ways of games to be difficult:
1st is- it seems difficult at first but if u dig deep down and get familiar with mechanics/read guides/play long enough u get better at them and eventually are able to beat them- example of such difficult games that we can learn and conquer with basically very low skill/reflexes is diablo 1/2 and soulsborne series(not sekiro tho, parrywindow is super small/punishing there, and u cant use spells/block/dodge, u simply are fucked beyond belief if ur actual reflexes are on the mediocre side).
Now there is other way of game being difficult, simple skill check/ur reflexes dependand, here no matter how much u learn about the game, how many guides u read and how much time u spend in it learning boss moveset, u wont get that much better, u might get bit better but bad reflexes(lowskill) player like myself will never beat sekiro simply coz at 43yo my reflexes arent what they used to be in my teens/early 20s(and even back then they were not topnotch
)
What can be done is for example rpg mechanics/levels like dark souls 2 adaptability- if u were topnotch skilled player u could beat it on soul lvl1(hell there are recorded nohit sl1 runs by legendary streamers), but if u are like me and are relatively lowskill/bad reflexes guy u overlvl ur character to well over 200 with very high adaptability(which makes invincibility frames last almost 3x longer vs starting stats).
Dark Souls 2 Wiki Guide: Weapons, Walkthrough, armor, strategies, maps, rings, bosses, items and more.
darksouls2.wiki.fextralife.com
Lowest agility gives 6 invincibility frames- 0,2s duration
Highest agility gives 17 invicibility frames 0,57s duration for true minmax but
Sweetspot can be easly achieved with 99 agi - 12 frames and 0,4s duration only with 19 points(lvls) of investment, that still doubles ur invincibility frames at very low cost and makes huge difference in difficulty- here most DS2 playerbase would feel its good enough, game is still challenging but definitely beatable.
Half of the internet/darksouls community hated that mechanic but in hindsight it was very well thought, it was optional and u decided urself how much of a "handicap" u needed to feel comfortable with it- its basically hidden difficulty setting where lowest agility is highest difficulty, and from 99 agi on its normal difficulty, normal for dark souls so way harder than 99% other games obviously
For ppl who dont play sekiro/soulsborne series(or who are very skilled and claim sekiro is ez, it might be, for them only tho), here is snipped of a footage from very popular(5m+yt subs) professional streamer, who needed 57 fricken attempts to beat 1st boss:
And guess what, its first boss only, there are so many much harder/longer fights in the game, this first boss is harder from 99% of games final bosses already(ask urself when was last time u needed 57 attemps to beat any boss in the game, including final/optional ones
www.blackdesertfoundry.com
