Please do not add difficulty sliders or settings. This would just make the game either hard to balance or divert much more resources to balancing than needed.
And for those complaining about the difficulty of the game. I look at it this way (as a musician) i don’t complain about difficult songs not being easy enough for me to play. That would remove from the art of the piece itself. I view games the same way.
It is totally common to use “easier” versions of songs with adapted less difficult parts, or leave out high pitch notes in covers.
If the resources are there or not is up to the devs. So, to stay in that metaphor. Why do you care about little Timmy asking for a less difficult version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star because he needs a less difficult version to learn his flute?
I am really baffled by how people are fiercly fighting against people who only ask for adjustable difficulty… only for asking. Or, like in this case, even proactively. To me this opinion appears self-centered. Even if it would be wasted time for the devs… why would you care if it exists or not?
How does it affect you?
Also: Easier difficulty settings/assists
And now, let the shitstorm begin! 
Rachmaninoff won’t be Rachmaninoff anymore once you reduce it to twinkle twinkle.
Everything does not need to be accessible to everyone. Animal Crossing is not for me, too grindy, I’m not asking the devs to cater to my taste in grind. Same with something like Warframe, too grindy for me. So what, that’s too bad for me. Everything does not need to cater to everyone. This goes for difficulty as well. I mean of course, if that’s the route the devs wanna go, sure. I’m just putting my opinion on it out there, same as people asking for a difficulty slider. It seems to me like you are writing this as if I’m trying to patronize an oppressed group?
It would affect me if it messes witht the balancing, which can be seen in other ARPG’s.
Do you have an example at hand?
Diablo III and IV, even though its a hack and slash, that format would not work with souls combat. Especially considering random damage spikes that where a huge problem in diablo IV.
Also, you could consider practicing on mobs as practicing parts of the music piece, so keeping in my metaphor it works. Your version of it is changing the piece of music to simpler music (twinkle twinkle). So keeping to the metaphor, you changed the game itself. Nowe we are playing a much much simpler game.
Also, you did not really respond to any of my other counter arguments.
I do not intend to play this game with you. I intend to play it with (when multiplayer is enabled) with the people I want to play with exclusively.
And sorry, your comparison is not sound. You state that “messing with the balancing” like in “Diablo III and IV” affects you, because the “format would not work with souls combat”. I can really not see what you want to express with that.
I asked chatgpt what arguments which you state I did not answer, you might mean. This is what it suggested:
And… did you just mark your own opinion as “solution”?.. lol
I will state this again, all games do not need to be accessible to everyone. You have not answered this at all. (Elden Ring is a good example).
If you have to make several different modes you first of all take away from the intended experience and second of all divert resources that could be used to just making the game the developers visioned.
The devs have said they took inspiration for bloodborne, do you think this needs difficulty settings as well?
I’m not saying this game needs to cater to my taste for a difficult game. Im saying that every game doesn’t need to be accessible to everyone and i think the developers should focus on polishing the experience they have made thus far instead of balancing different modes.
(also i wouldn’t consider this game very difficult compared to other souls likes. Though its harder than elden ring which is the easiest by far depending on how you play. Thats what i would call integrating the difficulty option in choice of build and gear)
I’m saying that the difficulty settings used in ARPGs like Diablo III and IV would not work with souls combat. It has even a hard time functioning as intended as is (just see how much complaints there’s been around this for diablo IV)
Remnant II is also a good example of the balancing beeing skewed because of difficulty options. I played on the max one, which apperantly was intended for ng+, without noticing (pretty sure this wasnt stated, but im not sure ont this) and thought the experience was a bit rough. When i discovered it and turned it down, there was no challange either. Id rather they make one intended experience. If that is too difficult for me, fine. If it isnt enganging to me, fine. I just want them to make it the experience they want, without thinking of difficulty.
Also, i don’t like to start a game and then i am presented with a choice of difficulty. How do i know which difficulty will be correct for me? Most likely i will have to test this out. So instead of being incentivised to learn from my mistakes, i’m fumbling around with the difficulty setting.
Also yes, i wanted this forum to be on easy mode, so i marked myself as solution 
So… to get it right… you do not want to be presented a choice of difficulty because you dont know which one would be the right one… but to buy a game with a fixed difficulty where you also dont know if this is the right one, is fine??? What???
How comes there is never a real answer to the easy question in this discussion… always, in this post, in this forum, and for other games aswell. The question being:
“How would one person be infuenced by a difficulty choice of another entirely unrelated person?”
Seriously I think it is because deep inside the people crying against the choice of others know that the real answer is highly egoistic and dont want to voice it out publically… I think this answer is:
“I want others to struggle because I get a ego boost from being better at a game than someone else. I want to wear the completion of a game as a badge so I can brag how good I am. And if someone else can complete a game with less work, it takes away from the worth of my badge.”
Difficulty is subjective. I find racing games easy because I’ve been doing it for 30 years but would never deny the sheer amount of difficulty some racing games add for no reason even as an experienced driver. Some Developers just add difficulty where it doesn’t need to be especially Out the Gate. We don’t even know if we like the button layout yet, chill for a second LMAO.
In the end gaming is primarily about sharing experiences through interactive art. How you balance and get as many people into the game is always up to the Devs but there should always be pursuit to allow the possibility for others to be introduced to these difficult parts of Life or Gaming. For the same reason you start learning music with notes and not complete songs is because you don’t know squat. We can’t just start at difficult without first teaching newcomers how to understand it. Math starts with simple addition. Not Calculus.
Nobody can just know how to do something without first experiencing and overcoming the simpler versions of it all.
There is no reason any game today can’t slowly add difficulty so people with lower skill can ease into the harder parts of the game and the players with the skill (be it from experience or natural lets say) will find the parts further into the game more of a challenge or can add modifiers (like Crucible) into the game which can add or remove difficulty without completely shutting off the game to a wider audience due to immediate difficulty scaled to the experienced user rather than to those trying it their first time or just learning about this genre.
Just like a TV Show you don’t start off a show 6 months into character development. No, you build up a reason for people to want to watch first, then you start going crazy with ideas and design.
I’m always for adding challenge to anything but see no reason we can’t make that process a bit slower overall. I always felt Developers rush gamers to know 50 mechanics and keybinds all within the first 10 minutes while understanding the fundamentals of it all in motion. It’s a lot to take on even for an experienced player.
I’d think it’d be okay if Time to kill was extended more-so so as to give players a bit more time between deaths before they are killed. Or push towards survivability in the beginning of the game and slowly add more damaging effects later like possible 1-shot kills but after you’ve given the player time to adjust to new mechanics and features.
In the end I just hope people are happy being good at something that may be down-right brutal for others.
You misunderstand me. I’m not saying that because the difficulty is fixed, it’s more likely that when i buy i game i haven’t played that it will be fitting my level. Im saying that if the option is there, I’m more inclined to blame me choosing the wrong difficulty option than learning the game. That’s the problem, I may have expressed myself in a bad manner if you understood me this way. I do enjoy games with difficulty options. Amnesia: the bunker for example. You get to play around with the difficulty settings after completing the game. And you get a simple choice at the beginning with a heavy emphasis on what is the intended experience.
When talking of ego, I think it definitely plays a part in not enjoying there being a difficulty option. But also in other ways than you express here. If im presented with a difficulty choice, i might choose the most difficult choice and then be angry with the game afterwards. Or maybe I feel bad for having to choose an easier difficulty. Is this a problem? Not necessarily, but an interesting scenario. There’s no wrong or correct way to play a game, there’s nothing wrong with a game being easy and accessible to people, and there’s no nothing wrong with a game being hard and inaccessible to many. Some people like to take pride in beating hard inaccessible games, and some don’t. You are writing as if one is more right than the other. That’s like saying niche inaccessible music like Arnold Schönbergs music should not be made.
I’m not crying against the choice of others. I’m just stating what i wish the developers to focus on, which is my opinion on what would make the game the best experience… for me. In the same way that someone can argue for there being easy modes, difficulty sliders and so on. You are writing that you think this comes from selfishness and that there’s a need for others not to enjoy the game. That might be true for some, and not for others. Calling it selfish? Sure it is, i want the game to be the best i can for me. I’m not going to give them feedback on how to make the game something I don’t want to play. (hey, devs, make it more like FIFA please, add microtransactions and loot boxes). Yes, of course it’s selfishly motivated, exactly like it would be for you.
“I want others to struggle because I get a ego boost from being better at a game than someone else. I want to wear the completion of a game as a badge so I can brag how good I am. And if someone else can complete a game with less work, it takes away from the worth of my badge. ”
Is this true for some, surely. Is this always the reason why people argue against easy mode. No, that’s a huge generalization to make of a very nuanced argument and a gross oversimplification of the topic. It can also be because some of us have accepted that we don’t have the willpower to challenge ourselves when given the option to go an easier route. Some have acknowledged that they need restrictions to strive and learn (the learning side of games is a huge part of it for me). Maybe some have realized that they need these restrictions to push themselves and get either a sense of pride or accomplishment from it. Mastering something can be very fun to some. So no, I don’t think all who argue against an option in difficulty in some games are secretly proud people who need to see others fail. Some might just have acknowledged that they need restrictions to not choose the easy way out.
I myself have done this, and then subsequently quit. Not saying that it is in any regard “the game” or “the developers” responsibility to make sure im on the right difficulty. But I think this is a reason for a lot of people arguing against “easy modes” or so on. I remember playing Age of Empires: Rise of Rome when I was 6 and getting stuck on a level. I ended up using cheats and then quit the game.
You are writing as these are not valid reasons to make a game with one tailored experience without giving the player a choice to control the difficulty through control over (HP, damage, amount of enemies, ai behaviour and so on). How much control you get over these elements is ultimately up to the developers, and it’s all about taste. What I want is not what someone else wants. I’m talking about this game, and giving feedback to the developers on what I want, not what you want. That’s not more selfish than what you are doing. I am not saying all games should be just one difficulty, but you write as if I’m of that opinion.
I think you should stick to the argument of giving difficulty options that won’t affect other players as much (f.eks easy mode characters/items locked to easy mode realms) than being patronizing. That being said, I’m expressing that I would not like the devs to rather focus on other sides of development. If the devs want to focus on difficult options, fine, I’m not entitled to any say in that process.
I totally agree with this. I would rather they focus on getting this right than adding a seperate mode, difficulty options and stuff like that.
My 2 cents:
Looking at what has been happening to “souls” games after the release - just to name a few: LoP, Wo Long, LotF2, ER - these days I’m all for difficulty sliders (maybe with some negative side effects, like blocked achievements). The bonus good thing is that the slider also have the other end.
Look e.g. at Sifu - it got difficulty options. Casuls got easymode that can be managed basically with 1 button, but on the other end we got also Master difficulty which is a blast to play.
Even this game got few passes, to the point that even a simple thing like repairs is virtually meaningless now (and why isn’t the gear decaying constantly ?).
So yea, get those “bad” sliders in and keep everyone happy, instead of inevitably nerfing the game towards only one (easy) direction.
I do agree with OP and think difficulty sliders are not approptiate.
Souls games created their own genre by being brutal to the player. Those games must be difficult to remain true to the core design philosophy otherwise they are not souls games.
However, it does not mean a casual player should not be able to beat such games. An elegant solution souls games utilize to be more accessible is through character development and itemization. What do I mean by that? Build a defensive charecter:
The “difficulty slider” is already in the game, it is just obscured and cannot be found in the menu.
That is not a “difficulty slider” that is the core element of arpg games. You know… that other genre that this game is heavily based on.
You realize that the de-facto reality is that the souls games just get dumbed down after people start complaining, right ? And there is no reverse gear to that process.
You mean what you are doing right now?
As I understand @msoltyspl that is not what he expressed. (please correct me if i am wrong.) He says:
I mostly meant the latter.
Every recent “souls” games is nearly instantly hit with dumbing down patches, one after another, to the point I actually started making guides how to revert them to earlier versions on steam (e.g. LoP, you might find it useful for symlink trickery).
So as that’s the reality of the times we live in I’d rather have a slider from the start if that’s how it’s going to be either way. And as every slider has two ends, it might have good stuff for people wanting harder experience (this game could really use one on the “harder” end too as of its current state).
My 2 cents:
I personally don‘t like standard difficulty sliders, for multiple different reasons. Here‘s a list of considerations (from my perspective!):
Thank you for your time 
I am afraid that are not valid aruments.
