The vast majority of games these days handle difficulty levels by simply tweaking the numbers of how much damage you take and deal. They build the game around a “recommended” difficulty and then add hard/easy modes after the fact by tweaking the stats.

Other games simply turn off the ability to die, or something along those lines.

In both of these cases the game is clearly built around the “normal” mode first. I’d be curious to see a clear cut example of that not being the case.

How does the existence of an option you never use degrade your experience?

What this article is advocating is vigilantism.

The justice system failed these women, but expanding “self defense” to defend vigilantism is not the solution.