I see a cornucopia of retards have entered the thread so I'll repeat something I wrote in another thread a few weeks ago. This isn't specifically about difficulty, it's about a vocal minority of crying about XYZ and wanting to fundamentally alter the core design/artistic vision of what the game was meant to be.
Let me give a simple, recent example: Baldur's Gate 3. I haven't played it yet, I'm excited to eventually do so. The game is a huge hit both critically and commercially, it has a lot of fans. The game is *far* from accessible though and is definitely not for everybody. It makes no compromises in it's D&D design and deep, RPG systems. Now suppose I buy the game, play for a few hours and simply find it all too overwhelming/obtuse. The solution is to whine like a little bitch about it until the devs cave in and completely neuter the intended experience, right? Fuck no! (and thank the lord Larian isn't listening to any kind of nonsense).
So what do I do in this scenario? I accept that type of game *isn't for me* and move on with my life, end of fucking story. See, we now live in the time of trigger warnings, pronouns, diversity quotas. The pendulum however is going to swing back and it's going to swing back *hard*, I hope the beta boys are ready for it, go join Era if you want to live in a safety bubble in the meantime.
Moral of the story, not every game/book/movie/TV show/song etc etc is for all people, it never will be and never *should* be. Artists should create the art and trust that it will find it's audience. If the art is good enough it ALWAYS does. All the glowing reviews of Lies of P were based on that original, unpatched vision. The many positive posts I and other Souls vets made (I never said ALL Souls vets agree) about the game were based on that intended design, look no further than *huge* Souls fans like Iron Pineapple. I suspect the minority of vets *still* complaining haven't come to terms with P's various systems, I don't exaggerate when I say all the tools are there to make the game EASY.
Balance changes are cool and common place, that's not what happened here. What happened was gross overcompensation to cater to a minority who fundamentally don't jive with this glorious subgenre of game and want to turn it into something it isn't and never was. 2023 has spoiled us for choice, go find some games that truly click with and you can write passionately about, if this ain't it just accept this ain't it.