One thing I've never understood is devs making a game that is 100% intended to be difficult to complete and then some people come along to said game that has essentially been advertised as a hard game and complaining it's too hard and an easy mode should be implemented for them.
Not every game needs an easy mode and I fully support the idea that devs shouldn't have to put in an easy mode because people think a game is too hard. Especially if it's a souls game. They've never been easy and hopefully never will be.
It's wild how everyone loves to wax poetic about a mythical auteur developer that breaks from the industry mold to make something unique, but every time that actually happens a massive group of people comes out and says it needs to be like everything else. Pathologic 2 is another example that comes to mind.
It's gonna be very hard for videogames to ever take themselves seriously as an artistic medium if the majority of purchasers prefer committee-designed slop.
Not saying they should have to, just saying it would be better if it had it.
I don't really enjoy the way hardness is implemented in souls like games: long health bars just make the game take longer and make it boring for me, so I don't play them. That's OK if they don't want my money 🤷
I know there's also the argument that a lot of players wouldn't bother with the hard mode if easy was available and you're denying the players that experience if you implement easy mode, but I think it's a flawed argument because if you add any small incentive to play on hard mode such as a simple cosmetic reward that's enough to incentivise most players to do it.