I had given DS1 a try on PC back when I saw the game played by PewDiePie (jesus this was ages ago) and didn't really get the game at all; keyboard controls prior to PTD edition probably didn't help either lol
My first real venture into soulslikes was Bloodborne and it went horribly to say the least. I killed the Cleric Beast and Gascoigne the first evening I tried the game and put down the game afterwards but it was just too much for me. I was scared, didn't know what I was doing, and it was just waay to hard for me.
Took me a couple of years to get back to it and give it another shot. One of my all-time favourite games today.
How about you guys?
That sounds awesome. Modular difficulty settings that allow for tweaking individual parts of difficulty of a game are the right step forward. Shadow of the Tomb Raider implemented this really well wherein they allowed to tweak enemy aggressiveness, the amount of hints you receive, the difficulty of the puzzles etc. If you prefer a more chill puzzle-focus experience, the game allowed for it.
You could do the same in soulslikes just like you mentioned it with System Shock. Lock some achievements behind specific difficulties like Horizon, Uncharted, or God of War does it and you're golden.
Balancing is an issue for sure. But patching games is the norm nowadays anyways, so that's not much of an issue, I feel like.
Of course! Having games be approachable right out of the game is awesome, they're just few and far between. I think more could be done to accommodate every swathe of player.