[SlowAndCalm]

I think you touch on why a singular difficulty level can be good when you mention meeting where your capabilities lie instead of forcing you to guess. When I encounter something difficult in a game, I'm always tempted to turn the difficulty down and often do. With Souls games I explicitly know if something is too hard and take it as a sign I need to do something different; whether that's my mechanical technique or the need to explore more. An increasing buff or other difficulty helpers would mean I could eventually brute force my way through without considering other options. Maybe I would prefer that, but it would just be a guess unless I did it the other way.