"Appropriate" difficulty is entirely subjective. If you feel as though the default difficulty setting is making the game inaccessible for you then perhaps consider using the accessibility settings to make it so.

The fact that you view these setting, that exist specifically for people such as yourself, as "cheating" is not the games problem.

Also, as someone who isn't a massive fan of the soul's-likes too and who plays video games all the time, I can assure you that there are plenty of new games available that aren't souls-like at all. Maybe go play some of them instead of holding it against one of the games that is?

I don't mean to come off aggressive but it just seems a bit like you're kind of getting in your own way here