doc

So the arguments against this are basically: 1) "art doesn't have to be for everyone" (these people are stupid because they don't realize easy mode is actually hard mode for less skilled players) 2) "FROM is a small 300 person studio" 3) "but muh accomplishment!!"

The first take is interesting because it lacks empathy. It says "this person who is playing on another mode has it easier than me." That's only true if everyone has the exact same skill level. That is NOT why we design difficulty modes.

We design difficulty modes so people with arthritis and muscle spasms or who are just new to games can have the same EXPERIENCE as a hardcore motherfucker who kicks ass and speedruns professionally. nearly all of the "this should be hard" is "my effort would be devalued"

Halo having an easy mode doesn't invalidate my LASO run, you dumb mother fuckers

You know what would happen if Dark Souls had an easy or hard mode? This: you would say "I'm one of the people who beat Dark Souls on ULTRA HARD MODE!!!" bam, you selfish jackass, you STILL have something to brag about, congratulations

I cannot begin to express how much less of a person you are for suggesting "i don't want other people to get through a video game. only me. i must gatekeep this. they cannot have fun. only me." You're just a selfish, unthinking dumbass. Your perspective has NO redeeming value.

This is the only thing I get mad about online. When someone says "hey, doc, i know you and your friends are disabled, so your life is already on hard mode, your life should be even harder," go fuck yourself, your opinions are worth nothing.

I try to be understanding and kind and cool to everyone, but when someone says "you don't deserve to experience the same happiness I experience, I WANT to exclude you," like, my legendary amounts of patience and pain tolerance go out the window.

right now, I'm laying in bed because the muscles from basically half way through my rib cage all the way down to my legs are spasming. i am in intense, incredible pain.

disability is different for every person, but imagine this: the worst you've ever been sick in your entire life. dry heaves, running a fever, whatever. now imagine it's so constant that you're having a hard time working, say, retail to make enough money to see a doctor.

now imagine you never get better. ever. so every day, the vomiting fucks up your teeth, the leg and back cramps that make it hard to sit or stand, the inability to work manual labor jobs to save up enough money to get medical care so you don't have to feel this way.

for me, this is my day to day for the past 15 years of my life or so. imagine the HOLE that puts you in; imagine how impossible it feels to dig your way out. Oh, sure, it's super treatable, but you're too sick to work to get medical to get to a doctor to get treated to be okay.

imagine, then, you get games to play. games help you stay sane. they keep you calm. they take you out of that hell for a while. ever play games when you're sick? it sucks, right? it totally does. but like, it's still some form of relief. It feels okay.

when you're sick, games are harder, maybe even less fun, but they still give you SOMETHING. That's where I am. Right now. Living with a treatable illness I can't afford to treat, enjoying what I can from games because they help me escape. I hate my life, I hate my body.

So when someone says "this situation you are in... it should be made worse, you should be valued less, you don't deserve the happiness or accomplishment I do, because everything should be twice as hard for you as it is for me," imagine what that makes you feel.

i will end with this: when a video came out that explained how resident evil 4 scaled difficulty to you, so everyone had the exact same experience, a bunch of people freaked out and got... mad at the guy for telling them?

and it's so fucking stupid. like... the goal of RE4's difficulty adaptation was that everyone has the SAME experience instead of DIFFERENT ones. It adjusted based on how well you were doing so you EACH played the EXACT SAME GAME.

I think these selfish assholes who think games should just be hard and rigid want to feel that they're better than other people, and hearing that a game was ensuring it was fun for as many people as possible upset them because it showed they weren't better than anyone else.

Some people have suggested this thread is angry. It is! Yes! Thank you for noticing. I don't like being angry, but I mean, when people are sending me messages about how I should kill myself or telling me I deserve to be excluded and my life should suck... How would you feel?

If you were in my shoes, waging a war against your illness, just trying to get out of bed every day, knowing that with medical care, you would be completely fine, and on top of that, people tell you that you don't deserve happiness... I mean, how many years could you survive?

There are so many people who could choose to help me out of this hole, and while I get that I am not entitled to that kindness, imagine being in a literal hole with people walking by every day ignoring you instead of tossing you a shovel or trying to hoist you out. Some jeer.