I’m not gatekeeping anything. Spirit ashes to tank hits, apply status effects, and whatnot is almost as good as what a competent human is going to do. Summoning does make the game easier. Providing more explicit options for making the game easier outside of the numerous less-straightforward options will reduce the need to summon, which has implications on the availability of people to matchmake with. I didn’t even take a stance on whether or not there should just be a more explicit difficulty selection, but it does come with trade-offs, and the ones that From made still allow you to tune the game to turn the odds in your favor.
I’m not gatekeeping anything. Spirit ashes to tank hits, apply status effects, and whatnot is almost as good as what a competent human is going to do. Summoning does make the game easier. Providing more explicit options for making the game easier outside of the numerous less-straightforward options will reduce the need to summon, which has implications on the availability of people to matchmake with. I didn’t even take a stance on whether or not there should just be a more explicit difficulty selection, but it does come with trade-offs, and the ones that From made still allow you to tune the game to turn the odds in your favor.