Since difficulty selection options were introduced into the game, many things have changed in my opinion, for the worse. I know this is a personal opinion, but I don’t believe that choosing a difficulty is an accessibility feature, and it often removes the impact the author wants to convey in certain situations.
Making the game easier does not automatically allow disabled players to play it. There are literally AFK builds that work even on the hardest difficulty, where you only need to stand still to kill a boss.
This is a controversial topic, but I believe that facilitating the game through other means can be a solution. A good example is Summons in Elden Ring: players challenge themselves by choosing not to use certain mechanics and don’t complain about being there. It is far easier to balance a single difficulty with mechanics than to implement multiple difficulty options.
I don’t think the game is broken in this regard… the difficulty selection does work reasonably well. However, the fact that the game keeps balancing things by weakening and strengthening mechanics depending on the difficulty is a clear indication that choosing a difficulty doesn’t really make sense.
Instead of constantly nerfing and buffing countless elements for specific difficulties, the game could invest in a universal balance. How can balance feedback be properly evaluated when the game has three different difficulties?
In the end, I would like to see the community united around a single challenge. There are countless ways to make a game easier or harder through mechanics: summons to help with bosses, optional accessories to increase difficulty, such as rings that make the player take more damage. It’s far better to encourage players to engage with certain mechanics than to present the “hardest option” right at the start of the game.