>>1248 (OP)
Game difficulty boils down to a player's knowledge of the systems, the area, and the enemies.
>systems
These are things you can physically interact with, because it is attached to your controller. The less you tell them about the system, the harder the game can be, but over time a player's skill will increase, therefore overcoming the difficulty of a system.
>area
Experiencing an area for the first time will be difficult on its own, but after a few revisits or a continue a player should find the safest and fastest route through an area no problem.
>enemies
This can be the hardest pill for people to swallow but enemies are your hardest aspect in any game. They have a limit to how hard they can hit you, they have a limit to when they can hit you, they have a limit to how they can hit you, and they have a limit to where they are when they hit you. Making a good enemy consists of ensuring the player is able to defeat it while also ensuring the trial of defeating it isn't a sure thing.
Artificial difficulty, as it's called, is simply not telling the player any of this information that they should have from playing any other video game, and throwing it in their direction with little time to react. Dark souls is a funny game to imply is difficult due to the fact that the systems are very