Why people think elitist is an insult, I'll never understand.
It's just an insult if you consider it an insult.
I added "pricks" in, exactly because "elitist" in and out of itself is not necessarily an insult.
An
elitist in an elitist, an
elitist prick is an elitist, who has to be a prick about it.
There is no way to implement an easy mode where I would not have to deal with it at some point. If I see it, I'll have to choose to not to pick it despite it being the strategically superior option (as relative to "reaching the end point") and then push the existence of it to the back of my mind. This is a hideous activity that I hate doing with every game (and boy do I have do it a lot): forcing myself to ignore a side of it that is abominable (in this case, restraining myself from power). The upside is that unlike a broken mechanic found within the combat system, it might be easy to ignore unless it is quite pervasive (don't get me started on games which force you to use quicksaves). I've become quite good at ignoring it, I think most people have if it ever bothered them (I think you would have to have some form of appreciation for arcade classics in order for that to develop), but I can still recognize that I'm doing it.
I sympathize with your personal willpower issues, but how do they factor in what is right and wrong for everyone else? I already said that a straight up "easy mode" selection would be lame, but underlining certain conditions that would make the game easier, at the start (
that are already present as of now, in Dark Souls) would not hinder your experience in any practical way.
Moreover, there are plenty of people for whom Dark Souls is not hard enough as it is, and cast themselves in "SL 1 runs" and other escapedes, not required in any way by the game (and not officially rewarded by it); so there are always ways to skip around the game's structures to fit you criterias.
You know that deflation I had for "Dark Souls with easy mode"? I still feel that to some extent when I look at the game-breaking co-op, the multitude of exploitative tactics, and GRINDING. So people want to take that feeling I have for Dark Souls now and make it harder to ignore. At this point I'm busy trying to ignore the fact that Dark Souls already has an easy mode.
Again, i'm sorry but people can't develop a game around your very peculiar psychological needs.
If they find a way to implement an easy mode that doesn't directly alter the "normal" experience, there is no (logical) reason to be against it.
Avoiding some crossover is very hard to do with 100% certainty and here in lies a more immediate problem. It doesn't take much thought to realize there is new found workload that comes with designing multiple versions of your game that have to be balanced to several skill levels (which is not exactly something that is concrete).
Let me stop you right here:
1) Again, no need for 2 or 3 different difficulty modes to balance, just put in several options during character creation (class, starting gift etc) that will make it easier for whoever needs a hand.
And AGAIN, this already happened in Dark Souls, you just had to go ask on a forum instead of taking it from the game, but if you
don't want to be Pyromancer + masterkey + Drake Sword + summon, nobody is forcing you.
2) Dark Souls is FAR from being a perfectly tuned and balanced game, so worrying about multiple tiers of difficulty breaking the game is utterly silly, and renders your preoccupations pointless.
3) The Press Realese clearly goes out of its way to point out how the game still aims at bringing you the punishing, challenging, blah blah, Dark Souls experience, so they're not turning ship completely.
Another thing that concerns me that by not forcing gamers to rise up to a higher form, you are eventually allowing the medium to drop in standards. I don't have the facts to support it, so I won't lean too strongly on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if the state of difficulty and punishment of games today can tied to the introduction of convenient, accommodating difficulty settings. Because "Normal" sure as hell isn't "Normal". If a good "easy" were to exist, it would be one that before the game is through there is no difference between players of different difficulties. If I was a game developer and someone put a gun to my head, this is what I would try to aim for. I'll add modes called "Child" which results in the main character being turned into a monster two hours in (basically a joke on the player, maybe one that comes back to haunt them), "Adolescent" which is a little more friendly, but stops being so by 2 hours in, and "Adult" which would be the game. And that would be a painful compromise.
This is a whole other can of worms, frankly.
And while i can agree that the standard is made up by the specific examples (so more easy games means lowering the difficulty standard) i also think that different people are "
in it" for different reasons.
That's why i think that yes, Dark Souls should remain a mainly unintelligible (to an extent) and fairly punishing experience (again, with a good design behind it, not just retardedly hard) because it's good to have variety and identity, but i also think that there are ways to make this game more soft for some people that might still enjoy it, without hurting in any practical way, players who seek the challenge.