From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[HeatEXTEND]

But if you have played anything between Demon Souls and DS3, it is the same.

Well yes, that's why I bought it.

 

[Bloodeyes]

This parry made my day! I've only landed about 5 parries in PVP. Because of the nature of invasions I usually lose. So its nice to have a moment like this where I can see I'm getting better:

 

[cvv]

But if you have played anything between Demon Souls and DS3, it is the same.

Well yes, that's why I bought it.

"I've already played this genre once, now I'll move on" - Malachai

This dude will run out of genres p. soon mark my words.

 

[Malachai]

"Dark Souls combat" might be one the narrowest genres. Every one of those games feels very similar to the other.

Developers usually have the good idea to insert specific gimmicks inside their games to differenciate them from those other games belonging to the same genre. FS did that with Sekiro for instance (which is a good game).

How can someone endure a thousand hours of Dark Souls (ER being the worst of the bunch, because of all the time you spend looking for something actually fun to do) is beyond my understanding (while for many other genres it is still "reasonable").

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Have you considered that maybe you don't like these games but got swept up in the zomgSouLsGamEsarEsOoOocOollllll wave? People who actually like these games are periodically forced to replay them as there are no decent substitutes available, imagine that.

 

[cvv]

Every one of those games feels very similar to the other.

And first person shooters are not?

aRPGs (Diablo-likes) are not?

Racing games? Fighting games? Battle-royales?

Have you joined our prestigious hobby last week?

 

[mediocrepoet]

Every one of those games feels very similar to the other.

And first person shooters are not?

aRPGs (Diablo-likes) are not?

Racing games? Fighting games? Battle-royales?

Have you joined our prestigious hobby last week?

Oh come on. The reason there are classics like the Gold Box games, Wizardry series, etc. is because each title had radically different game play. Quit cherry picking, Malachai clearly has a great point and is not at all a complete retard.

 

[jaekl]

Personally, I thought souls combat was changing too much for the worse because I hate rolling invincibility, long attack delays with instant swings, no poise for thee but poise for me, wacky combo strings, cutscenes in the middle of a fight, arenas covered in AOE and always being blinded by particle / lighting effects. I would be a lot happier if it had changed less.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I would be a lot happier if it had changed less.

Agreed, DaS for me is a masterpiece, but DS3 and ER are still great fun in their own way, case of different flavours imo.

 

[Malachai]

Well, it was my understanding that when any normal individual (that is, endowed with a normal brain) repeats the same task over and over, then he, at some point, is overwhelmed by fatigue and discontent. I've enjoyed DS1 when it came out, but everything after that was excessive to me.

 

[cvv]

Personally, I thought souls combat was changing too much for the worse because I hate rolling invincibility, long attack delays with instant swings, no poise for thee but poise for me, wacky combo strings, cutscenes in the middle of a fight, arenas covered in AOE and always being blinded by particle / lighting effects.

Most of this is due to FromSoft refusal to partition the gameplay with traditional difficulty options.

Therefore they have to constantly up the ante coz people are actually getting gud. My first soulslike was DS1 and I was sweating blood trying to stumble through it. Now going back to it it's trivial.

Problem is we aren't gitting gud equally and we also didn't start with the same skillset. I've seen first playthroughs of DS3 or Elden Ring where tubers or streamers actually beat shit like Pontiff, Nameless, Friede, Malekith or Mogh first try. I've seen people beat Saint Isshin second try. Like, what the fuck?

Skill gaps between players are insane. One fixed difficulty is retarded. But FromSoft in trying to cater to souls ubermensch are making some bosses impossible for us peasants without summons.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Skill gaps between players are insane. One fixed difficulty is retarded. But FromSoft in trying to cater to souls ubermensch are making some bosses impossible for us peasants without summons.

I actually don't mind this. It's more like classic gaming, where some people could 1CC arcade games or master a roguelike. It really comes down to whether you think every game should be completable by every person in order to have an experience.

For instance, I played a lot of Contra back in the day. I've never come anywhere close to beating it, but I still have fond memories of it. There are a lot of games from that Era that I have similar stories about. Just like how I like true roguelikes but I've never come anywhere near beating any of them. If you made them easily completable, you'd lose the essence of what they are.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I've seen first playthroughs of DS3 or Elden Ring where tubers or streamers actually beat shit like Pontiff, Nameless, Friede, Malekith or Mogh first try. I've seen people beat Saint Isshin second try. Like, what the fuck?

:fishy:

 

[cvv]

It really comes down to whether you think every game should be completable by every person

I want to complete games that I own and love, yes. Got no objective reason, there's none to give, I just do.

I don't mind if I can't beat a game on the highest difficulty, plenty of games like that. But not being able to finish it at all? Nah, that's bad vibes.

 

[jaekl]

I actually killed Isshin on my second try, but I only played through Sekiro once so it could be a fluke. In Sekiro your sword was like having a greatshield that can parry and you had infinite stamina to run around like an idiot so you I found that game waaaay easier than Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne or Elden Ring

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I actually killed Isshin on my second try, but I only played through Sekiro once so it could be a fluke. In Sekiro your sword was like having a greatshield that can parry and you had infinite stamina to run around like an idiot so you I found that game waaaay easier than Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne or Elden Ring

How the fuck do you beat that huge 3x 360 slash on your second try? Dayum.

I don't mind if I can't beat a game on the highest difficulty, plenty of games like that. But not being able to finish it at all? Nah, that's bad vibes.

In all Souls games you can easily overpower yourself though, you can pretty much set your own difficulty at any point except at the very beginning.

 

[jaekl]

I actually killed Isshin on my second try, but I only played through Sekiro once so it could be a fluke. In Sekiro your sword was like having a greatshield that can parry and you had infinite stamina to run around like an idiot so you I found that game waaaay easier than Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne or Elden Ring

How the fuck do you beat that huge 3x 360 slash on your second try? Dayum.

I don't even remember a 3x 360 slash, about all I can remember is that he had a gun and a lightning move... and the first phase was a different guy who isshin births himself from

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I don't even remember a 3x 360 slash

Been a while for me as well but I clearly remember that move kicking my ass.....a lot lol.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I don't mind if I can't beat a game on the highest difficulty, plenty of games like that. But not being able to finish it at all? Nah, that's bad vibes.

So um...

it's just like...

uh....

git gud.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

So far, my only real complaint about ER's combat is the fact that bosses can throw you to the void but you can't. When fighting the Iron Golem in DS1, I almost always try to go with the making him fall strategy.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Personally, I thought souls combat was changing too much for the worse because I hate rolling invincibility, long attack delays with instant swings, no poise for thee but poise for me, wacky combo strings, cutscenes in the middle of a fight, arenas covered in AOE and always being blinded by particle / lighting effects.

Most of this is due to FromSoft refusal to partition the gameplay with traditional difficulty options.

Therefore they have to constantly up the ante coz people are actually getting gud. My first soulslike was DS1 and I was sweating blood trying to stumble through it. Now going back to it it's trivial.

Problem is we aren't gitting gud equally and we also didn't start with the same skillset. I've seen first playthroughs of DS3 or Elden Ring where tubers or streamers actually beat shit like Pontiff, Nameless, Friede, Malekith or Mogh first try. I've seen people beat Saint Isshin second try. Like, what the fuck?

Skill gaps between players are insane. One fixed difficulty is retarded. But FromSoft in trying to cater to souls ubermensch are making some bosses impossible for us peasants without summons.

I don't know about all that. I started with Elden Ring and I've since gone back and played the Dark Souls trilogy and Bloodborne. I like my RPGs turn-based so I didn't really have a pre-existing skillset that helped me tackle ER.

My impression of the past games, including DS1, is that the dungeons are way harder in the than in ER but the majority of bosses are way easier in the old games. A lot of the cuntier things that can happen to you in general gameplay (getting cursed is DS1, having an acid trap break all your rings in DS2) have been straight up cut. PVE also doesn't follow you very far if you aggro it allowing you to just run through dungeons way more easily than in Dark Souls. The dungeoneering side of ER is by far the easiest of any of the From games and most of the early and mid game bosses are on par with bosses in DS3. DS1 bosses are kind of a joke TBH, they did need to make them harder because they felt underwhelming after the dungeon you went through to get to them.

It isn't until the end game where it gets bullshit hard, but I think that difficulty is justified because ER PCs are far, far more powerful than in any previous title, provided you play naturally and don't restrict yourself for using OP shit. If your weapon arts aren't doing over 1k damage in the late game your build sucks. Elden Ring does have some very difficult encounters in it, but it doesn't seem outrageous or unusual in its difficulty except for Her. But She is an optional boss in a hidden area of a JRPG. Did they go too far with Her? I think so, yes. But she is only one boss in a massive game.

As far as skill gaps between players being a reason for difficulty settings, I disagree. I think that ER (while admittedly a difficult game), can be completed by anyone with enough persistence. Its probably the hardest game that a casual gamer can beat, but there are truly hard games out there that casuals just straight up can't complete (the bullet hell genre comes to mind, or old school platformers with limited lives and no saves).

Instead of toning down the diff some people just have to try harder to beat the bosses than others, but everyone can do it unless they're actually disabled in some way. I'm glad I had to upskill to beat the game and couldn't just turn down the diff if something frustrated me. There are moments where if I could have I totally would have, but then beating ER wouldn't have felt special or like an achievement. It would just be another game I played and forgot about.

A game is just a game and I don't want to be too melodramatic about it, but part of what makes beating a From game special is that you go through adversity and triumph over it, doing something that you at first thought was impossible. Kind of like in life. For an achievement to feel meaningful it needs to have been earned. When I killed Darkeater Midir it was a triumph. If I could have just toned down his HP and beat him without improving I wouldn't have cared.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Its probably the hardest game that a casual gamer can beat

Good take on Souls games.

 

[cvv]

I think that ER (while admittedly a difficult game), can be completed by anyone with enough persistence.

Dunno about "anyone", probably not. But even then, there's a persistence threshold beyond which fun turns to burnout and disgust.

An example - I DID beat Saint Isshin eventually coz I didn't have a choice coz you can't summon help in Sekiro but it took me two separate sittings, 6 hours in total. That's WAY beyond what I consider fun. I didn't feel elation or sense of reward for my persistence like you typically do in soulslikes. I was just tired and glad this shit's over. Same for the Hate Demon - 4 hours.

These bosses were simply too much for me. I COULD beat them but they stretched my elastic boundary of fun so much it actually snapped. I'd much prefer to play Sekiro on "Hard" instead of "Ass Rape" and overcome shit like Saint Isshin in two, three hours, which is about my limit.

And vice versa, those superhumans who could beat him on second or third try would probably welcome an even higher difficulty than we got in Sekiro. Or my little nephews (9 and 11) would love to play it on Easy, just to enjoy the vibe and Japanese culture.

I'm really not sure where this resistance to difficulty options is coming from. Is gud for everyone.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I'm really not sure where this resistance to difficulty options is coming from. Is gud for everyone.

Difficulty options suck ass, only acceptable ones are turbo easy for disabled people and ultra hard as an option post-game for the freaks.

 

[Multidirectional]

An example - I DID beat Saint Isshin eventually coz I didn't have a choice coz you can't summon help in Sekiro but it took me two separate sittings, 6 hours in total. That's WAY beyond what I consider fun. I didn't feel elation or sense of reward for my persistence like you typically do in soulslikes.

Are you saying you were banging your head against the boss for 3 hours straight? That's just wrong in my opinion. When I get stuck on a boss I take a break from the fight every 30-40 minutes. Sometimes even a 20 minutes session is enough. Torturing myself for hours at a time would just drive me mad and cause me to play even worse. Sure, that sometimes means that a bossfight can take up to a week or more for me to complete but at least I'm not going insane with butthurt that way. It's why I always juggle few games, to have something else to play while taking a rest from a fight that's giving me trouble.