Is Elden Ring too hard?

This may be a controversial one...
Sections:
Introduction 0:00
Difficulty… or Challenge? 1:39
Entitlement? 5:41
Conclusion 10:53
Sources:
• "Elden Ring isn't made...
www.wired.com/story/elden-rin...
www.unilad.co.uk/technology/f...
www.gamebyte.com/elden-ring-c...
Footage:
Elden Ring: • Elden Ring 84 Minutes ...
Demon Souls: • Demon's Souls | PS3 Ga...
Dark Souls: • Dark Souls Remastered:...
Dark Souls 2: • Dark Souls 2 on PC - G...
Kings Field: • King's Field Part 1 (P...
Mario Kart: • Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: M...
Burnout: • [#2] Burnout 3: Takedo...
Gran Turismo 6: • Gran Turismo 6 Gamepla...
Pokemon: • Pokemon Emerald Comple...
Stardew Valley: • STARDEW VALLEY Chill g...
Animal Crossing: • Animal Crossing [57] G...
House of the Dead: • THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD ...
Pac-Man: • Arcade Game: Pac-Man (...
Space Invaders: • Space Invaders 1978 - ...
Super Mario Bros: • Super Mario Bros. (198...
DMC 5: • DEVIL MAY CRY 5 Gamepl...
Music:
Elden Ring soundtrack: • Elden Ring - Full Offi...
Outro music: • Disney's FastPass: A C...
Is Elden Ring too hard?
#eldenring #toohard #jwlar

[@Jwlar]

This may be a controversial one... Let me know your thoughts on this topic. I hope you liked that twist at the end ;)

[@NikoTeaJay]

I was wondering what your uh... "souls credentials" were. It's a silly discussion really, as you seem to agree. I could see a point in these complaints if souls games were marketed as easy. But I don't think Elden Ring is actively deceiving anyone. Know what you're buying, dammit.

[@Dhalisos]

Good lord I feel relieved with the end...I'm still didn't finished Daggerfall, Republic commando, etc...didn't finished my first project inspired by you...I can't manage to beat also another open world game...well, souls open world game. (Plot twist: I've played and enjoyed Bloodborne, but souls isn't my kind of game either)

[@Jwlar]

@@NikoTeaJay I've finished Demon's Souls, it took a year as I suck with a controller. I decided that Soul's games weren't for me from that point, I wasn't a fan of the gameplay loop nor the difficulty curve, but that doesn't mean others can't enjoy it. There's lots of games that weren't made for my tastes, but I'm sure their audience love them as they are. And YES! That last sentence is exactly what this video was about haha! Fromsoft made it clear what this game was, that's why I steered clear of it, no idea how so many missed the clues and are now complaining though.

[@Alva_Lombax]

all of those screen shots from articles are of articles that are not worth their salt ppl complaining about "souls" being too hard is nothing new, its something to be expected the more popular they get further more, its the same exact issue of the stereotypical IGN reviewer not being able to beat it and blames the game not being inclusive correct me if Im wrong, but Souls was never about gate keeping as most ppl will tell you, its about you earning that inclusivity you play, you die, you learn and repeat the games needing to be inclusive for everyone is what got us things like modern warfare 2 asking if you want to lower the difficulty if you died too many times

[@Alva_Lombax]

@@Jwlar id argue thats the point of these games you suck with a controller, but you beat the game anyways, thats all the game asks I remember playing og demons back in 09, and every time I dropped the game, it was like the game was taunting me, so I kept going back

[@klaede9666]

Elden Ring is either the hardest or the easiest Souls game depending on how you choose to play it. Spirit summons, Bloodhound step, Bleed/Frost spams, magic in general, Fingerprint shield etc: even Malenia is a cakewalk. However if you choose to play it like a classic Souls game, it's the hardest and most unfair it's ever been.

[@arturobelano6243]

thats exactly it.

[@DKarkarov]

@Vitor PR Mimic Tear is only as good as the character that summoned it.

[@Spiderdude93]

Agreed, I initially bashed my head at Caelid with my Guts sword, beat the Death birds and bosses there, traveled everwhere available but Stormveil and when I went back to Stormveil, I was hitting extremely hard and tanking hits I shouldn't have survived if I had just went in earlier.

[@pullt]

I've been of the mind that each title has to be harder just because players are overall better and more experienced/knowledgeable. Same thing happened in Classic WoW....I was in a great guild and we never clearned Naxx40 in 2006. My Classic guild was average at best and we smashed it.

[@UrsineBloke]

Except for the majority of ER players playing the game like its an easy MMO co op romp. I've had to strongly encourage two of my friends to play the game like a proper Souls game as opposed to how From clearly designed it. Miyazaki's vision of co-op has been perverted by password systems and a myriad of casual players. Call me a gatekeeper if you will, but the difficulty of ER has been "stripped" as many game series have in comparison to the games from Kings Field to DS2. Fromsoft is losing its soul by marketing to the masses

[@stormlives6051]

There is more enjoyment to be had than just fighting hard bosses. Like hearing 'Plin Plin Plon' in DS1 or seeing Irityhyll for the first time in DS3. I feel like these beautiful moments could lose their impactfulness if the journey to experience these things wasn't as hard.

[@Nodeaa]

Exactly. You reminded me that one of my favorite experiences of the game was fighting the Ancestor Spirit. Not a hard boss by any means. But the music, the atmosphere, and the majesty of the deer was just beautiful. And when I killed it, it just felt bittersweet. It was amazing.

[@zzodysseuszz]

Problem is they weren’t hard. Ds1 was mind numbingly easy and ds3 was so easy I literally lose motivation playing it while I’m succeeding and progressing. Ds2 was eh hard but outside of bosses I rarely died if I tried. Souls games weren’t hard, but what they weren’t was blatantly artificially difficult: which Elden ring is

[@esi__et]

This is a much needed vid for the audience of the game. I am glad that I am not the only one with the kind of perspective you have. Another point is that Elden ring gives you lots of freedom in gameplay and honestly I think some players just cannot deal with not being pushed in a direction or not being spoon-fed info in the game

[@Xpwnxage]

I would rather a game be too hard than too easy, not that I think ER is. Although Maliketh the motherfucker was close to it for me but that first time beating him was so euphoric. I've been playing for nearly 400 hours across two different characters and I haven't even explored every area or fought every demigod yet. This game is perfect for me personally.

[@kristophersmotherman6114]

There are times when I feel like I don't know where to go, but then I think about the Old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, and I remember neither did the heroes in that show. Elden ring is the last game I will ever need,.

[@ayylmao752]

I think the read that the souls series was a homage to a bygone era of difficulty is not exactly true. The director of the game has consistently said when asked about the difficulty of his games, that difficulty was never the intention. He has never held that his games ought to be, or are, overly difficult. He in fact has on several occasions made mention to the peaks and dips in game difficulty as just one thing among many other things to draw the player into the experience. Now i'm no mind reader so he could have changed his perspective on that but judging by the fact that he purportedly apologized for the difficulty, i think he may be feeling the same way. Or maybe not. The more important take away i think is that game difficulty ought never be a sole virtue in a video game. that the success of demon's souls and subsequently critical acclaim of dark souls is in large part due to a multitude of factors that increase player immersion, and the peaks *and* dips in difficulty, which make the peaks more noticeable, are a big part of that charm.

[@zzodysseuszz]

This is true. It can be proven by the fact that the games aren’t actually hard at all. I don’t know where that myth came from

[@channel45853]

The only reason games were difficult back then was mostly for the arcade setting, as the harder the game was, the more money people spent to try and beat it. Lol, just imagine a Souls game as an Arcade Machine

[@paulwalker4044]

Haha, that twist. I’m the same, I may not like Souls games myself, but that shouldn’t mean they should change

[@gavfitzpatrick]

As a new player of the Souls games, I thought that the game was going to be really hard. I'm also a completionist which means I don't like having any games on my games list that are not 100% complete, Turns out it wasn't hard at all, and had a pretty easy completion list. In fact, when I look at the % of players that are completing the game it's really high compared to most games, and I guess that most people are new to the game because of the high sales numbers. I'm currently on HG+5 and it's still not hard. especially now I'm on a high level and have all the best builds on my weapons and talismans

[@DKarkarov]

Yeah, there are more people playing Elden Ring than there are people who played previous From Software RPG's. Elden Ring sold more copies in 1 month than Dark Souls 3 did in 4 years.

[@abyss9316]

That is amazing I am glad that from soft has found another fan... All I have to say now is go forward and complete sekiro having recently finished Elden ring I can reflect back on (Dark Souls 1 2 3 Elden ring) Sekiro is really the best of the lot in my opinion it really Nails the one-on-one overcoming your enemy Against All Odds

[@gavfitzpatrick]

@@abyss9316 Yeah I'm planning on playing Sekiro soon. From what I have seen of the combat it looks very similar to Ninja Gaiden which I used to play when I was a child. I'm looking forward to a more fast aggressive style of playing

[@DKarkarov]

@@gavfitzpatrick Brutal honesty, Sekiro is Ninja Gaiden on it's hardest setting only way worse. In ninja gaiden dodging and landing hits here and there actually works. In sekiro it does not. Just don't go in expecting a traditional action game, even a super hard one.

[@pbjandahighfive]

This is by far the easiest game in the "series" (by which I mean the catalog of Soulsborne-style games from FromSoft). Like it's actually a huge disappointment to me. It's still a fun game, but they've really cut the heart out of it in order to appeal to "more" people, but while it may be very popular it's also alienated a lot of us OG fans and makes me kind of fearful for what this might mean for the direction of their future games.

[@spyc4981]

Elden Ring is a game you can make easier or harder for yourself. My first play through I went with a bleed build, used summons, and did some farming and the game was easier. Did another play through as a heavy without grinding and summons and it was challenging. This was my first souls game so after using the methods to make the game easier I wanted to try the authentic souls experience

[@timliu6870]

Same here. I played all the souls game the same way. First time, I utilize everything I can to understand how everything works. Second play throught I would do something like bow only, melee only or magic only to increase the difficulty and also have a different experience.

[@Tombadillo71]

Honestly, I finished it. I've never finished a fromsoft game before. The difference between this game and the others is that Elden Ring gradually changes your mindset so you actually look forward to a boss battle, rather than dread the grind.

[@pbjandahighfive]

I never "dreaded the grind" of previous games and I don't think the hundreds of thousands of others who played and loved them did either. IMO this game is way too easy compared to the previous releases and is no longer an actual Soulsborne, but instead transitioned to becoming another generic action-RPG. The challenge is what made the previous games special and stand out relative to what else was available. I'm disappointed that we've lost that. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good game and is a major step forward in many ways, but is also a major step back in a number of core ways that matter the most to me.

[@spaceghost4161]

@@pbjandahighfive yea right it’s just as hard cry baby

[@Tombadillo71]

@@pbjandahighfive if you think I had a walk in the park then you would be wrong. I wouldn't say it's easier. It just grabbed my attention far more than the others, and I genuinely fell in love with the challenge rather then "dreading the grind", continuously throwing myself at what would have seemed impossible tasks and challenging concepts. To say this is a step backwards, in any shape or form, is ridiculous. This game has been a beacon of light in amidst a sea of micro-transactions and rinse and repeat games.. People getting upset Because their beloved game series is now being played far more and left previous instalments a little lacking now. Appreciate that fromsoft took all their games, found a new formula, and absolutely owned it.

[@pbjandahighfive]

@@spaceghost4161 lmao ok brainlet. ER is way easier than previous titles. It's super obvious you haven't played any of them and are just doing the typical cope & seethe & argue-with-anyone-that-says-anything-you-don't-like-about-it-even-when-you-literally-have-no-idea-what-you're-talking-about thing that all tiny-mind fanboys do.

[@pbjandahighfive]

@@Tombadillo71 Dude, I already said it's a big step forward in many ways, but no, it is not "ridiculous" to say that the simplification of the combat and relative ease comparable to previous titles is a step backward. It might not personally feel that way to you, but for those of us who enjoy the higher difficulty of the previous entries, which is the fanbase of people that supported and by proxy made FromSoftware into the success that it is today, it most definitely is a step backward. Without us loving and craving the challenge of the previous games Elden Ring wouldn't even exist. If people didn't love Demon's Souls, Dark Souls and all the rest, FromSoftware would have either shut down or they'd still just be making Armored Core games. For the large majority of the people who played and supported the previous games the difficulty was a major aspect of their draw and success.

[@Shmandalf]

The games always give you a lot of tools to use to get passed roadblocks, outside of just levelling up more. A few times I just forwent rolling alltogether and put on the heaviest, strongest armor and tower shield I had and slugged it out with a boss to get passed. Or, figured out which element they were weak to and used it to my advantage. Or just switched weapons to something else, that's more in tune with the bosses patterns. Trying different buffing items or changing my rings, etc. There's always options to make the fights easier, even if you don't fully learn their patterns and movesets.

[@raccoonduck5406]

Love your vids man, subscribed! Will look forward to more insightful vids

[@ReadyAimFire_]

Its easier, but also harder. What i mean by that- it gives you a lot of different tools to defeat enemies, some of these tools are very strong like certain spells, ashes of war or summons. It really makes some bosses trivial, to the point you can melt some of them in 3 seconds without even learning their moves. But also the amount of BS you meet, especially near endgame, is much higher than in previous games. Bosses like Malenia or Malekith can be punishing and relentless, have huge aoe attacks, one shots and combos that never end, with only slight openings to deal dmg. Also some normal enemies can be pain in the ass like million dmg dogs, or revenants. It feels like unfair, artificial difficulty to piss off players, instead of older souls 'hard but fair' attitude. But overall, on average- it is easier game. Just spikes are more annoying.

[@SpittinSquirell]

Elden Ring is the first Souls type game I've played. I know the reputation From Soft has built and what everyone says about Souls games but I was honestly surprised how fair the game was. I died many many times mind you, but if you get the hang of the controls and pay attention I don't think the game is as hard as some say. Maybe it's because I'm 34 and like you said I remember the NES and SNES day when games were brutal and you had a set number of lives

[@wendydanielle3476]

I think some of the outcry of this being an impossible game comes from a lot of people who are playing a Souls game for the time after seeing all the amazing hype and praise directed towards an open world RPG that has absolutely delivered

[@ClearlyCero]

I remember playing DS1 and fighting the four kings, it took me many, many attempts. I'm not an emotional person but when I beat it I nearly cried. Much later on I told a friend of mine and he was like, you struggled on the four kings? What armour were you wearing? I was like, obviously the elite knight set because it looks badass, he then informed me that I was fighting an entirely magical attack boss woth an entirely physical attack armour set and was wondering why it was tough. That's the thing, I did still beat it. Not how the game expected bit beat it none the less. FromSoft literally make puzzle games but what people miss is that the gane itself is the puzzle. You can tank a boss or get "that ring" or "that weapon/item" first and it'll be a breeze. The story is a puzzle, or a meme, depending on your perspective, which uou have to work out. The thing is, the games aren't that hard, by which I mean they aren't sega gamegear hard. They are quite reasonable but expect you to meet them half way; if you don't, you will struggle, and that's fine, you dont have to plsy the game by the games rules, that's the beauty if it.

[@Jwlar]

To be honest, I think forcing myself to beat Demon Souls as an angry 13 year old COD-gamer is what soured me on the games. With the patience I have now, I’m sure I would find a lot to love in the Souls series. I just need to find the time to sit down and give it the time they deserve, which is harder said than done unfortunately. Which I think links into my argument here as well, Elden Ring doesn’t need an easy mode, because (most) people can eventually learn the game if they give it time.

[@ClearlyCero]

@@Jwlar for sure, your video was bang on, especially your point on balancing. As you said, Souls are not ninja gaiden, it doesn't beat you to death with your own skill, it just doesn't hold your hand. Some people don't like that and that's fine too, I'm a huge souls fan and I still haven't completed most of them.

[@SevenPr1me]

I shamelessly let hoarfrost stomp and rock sling carry me through early game. But by the time I was level 90 I re spec'd my character to a different play style. I now run dual whips and use dark magic. So much fun

[@jwlarina]

Yeah I have to agree with you! Elden Ring is not for the faint of heart! 🙈 Thank you for the vid! I always look forward to your videos! 😊

[@fenthedog]

Im 61 years old and defiantly not super fast reactions or a typical souls player. My forte is flight sims and strategy wargames. However, I'm on my second playthrough of Elden ring and I think its deserving of one of the best games ever. Its frustrating and exhilarating in equal measure. The story is a bit beyond me but its just so cool to poke around and bump into stuff. I really love that this game doesn't hold your hand or force you to play their "side quests" . Its like "here have this world, just have fun......and die screaming... a lot" ! They dont point you towards anything, they leave it to you to discover your path. other games invest in making "side quests" in "open world" but feel they have to channel the player towards the "secret areas because they spent so much time and money coding them. Elden Ring is ... to me... a modern version of what Daggerfall was when it first came out. Here is your game, it now belongs to you and you can play it as you please. The sense of achvement I got beating Melania and the last boss after many failed attempts... epic! Just go back to to your spawn and figure out a better tactic. Its total freedom and manages to engage players (like me) that wouldn't normally get within a battle lances length of a game like this.

[@Hostile_Design]

I stay firm on the ground in these arguments. A game developer has absolutely no obligation to compromise their product to fit your needs, and you have no obligation to buy it. As a side note to that, Elden Ring is by far the easiest title in the "Souls"-series so far. It has so many ways to circumvent, cheese, and ease up fights via strategy and summons.

[@ayylmao752]

i don't think the conversation is about obligations more than it is about what a game developer *should* do for the betterment of the player experience.

[@ayylmao752]

Also it's definitely not the easiest souls game. and i think anyone with a good sum of game hours in earlier souls games would outright agree with me that fromsoft has been for the better part of a decade upping the ante on the precision of frame timings required, the number of feints, the sheer number of boss movesets to learn, the seemingly unlimited stamina and generous input reading.

[@Hostile_Design]

​@@ayylmao752 Well, they "shouldn't" do anything other than what they want to do with their own product. And if that is something niche and exclusive, then so be it. I think you are right about the boss movesets and precision timing being amped up throughout the years, really taking effect in Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne, but, this game is way easier because of completely different reasons. The open world allows you to bypass essentially everything in the entire game. It allows you to cheese essentially everything outside of a locked arena, and often enemies in locked arenas as well. Going into this game completely blind, I still had weapons that melted most boss health bars like nothing. Ranged attacks that left enemies like dragons without the slightest chance of even touching me. Summons that drew the attention of bosses away and allowed for heals, as well as doing significant damage, etc. What makes this a comparably forgiving From software game is the options provided, the summons and the lack of confinement. In my own experience of the game, there wasn't a single boss I got stuck on like I would in the older series. Most went down first try, if they didn't, the second. Or in rare cases, the third. Granted there may be one or two exceptions that took a few more (the bullshit instakill Dragonlord lasers comes to mind). I met nothing that came close to the challenge of of facing Artorias, or the Nameless King. Granted, this could also be in part due to experience with the older titles.

[@trashasaurus]

@@ayylmao752 I've 100% Bloodborne, Elden Ring, and DS 1-3. Elden Ring is the easiest game PROVIDED you are willing to use the summon mechanic. Every boss after Morgott is very clearly designed with you using summon ashes. Everyone brings up the Mimic because it's obviously amazing but I found others like Tiche and Dungeater are almost as good and more fun to use personally. The normal summons are really good when you level them up too. When I play FS games I never summon any friends for Co-Op on my first playthrough and because of that mindset I was kind of avoiding spirit summons for most of ER. Once I got to Maliketh though I finally broke and used them. So yes, if you want to not use summons and go 1v1 (or 1v2 in a lot of cases) with the bosses this is probably the hardest souls game ever made. But since bosses are so obviously made with summons in mind I feel like not using them in ER is equivalent to not leveling or not upgrading your weapon in the other games. Some people won't agree which is fine, but personally I don't think ER is harder than their other games as long as you use the tools you're given.

[@ayylmao752]

@@trashasaurus gonna have to respectfully disagree with you both here. given that you properly progress through souls games, there's almost always a summon available to you, and if not, you can always go online and find someone willing to go through the game with you. really there's not much difference here regarding that. Just because you now have access to npc summons on the spot, doesn't mean that you cant get in a situation where you have them in previous games. I can see the argument about just dropping the boss youre struggling with and coming back once you've overleveled it. That totally makes sense, for at least, a portion of the game. The issue here is that there's still plenty of mandatory boss fights in the game, and many of them featuring some of the hardest boss fights in soulsborne titles. these boss fights i'm talking about are the post morgott bosses, which are almost all extremely difficult and by this point in the game, linearity comes back in the mix and overleveling is not as easy anymore. and yes as weve said before, you can summon, but thats not unique. Really when it comes down to it, i don't actually see a legitimate reason to not add a cinematic mode at the very begining of the game as a one time chosable option. similar to what games like divinity original sin have, this would allow players that would otherwise be robbed of the experience due to their inability to play the game to actually experience it, and it would still allow fromsoft to balance around one difficulty, since they dont necessarily need to put much thought into the cinematic difficulty. This should in essence preserve the experience for people willing to play through it on the regular difficulty and give the option for people that aren't capable of that.

[@loudradialem5233]

Your dumbbell analogy is great!

[@marzbar3725]

Thank you for your honesty. I just wish more people would see it your way. I love the game, it sadness me that people are slamming Elden Ring. Like you said it's a From Software game. They don't change anything.

[@arjannijk7647]

Dear Jwlar, have you checked out the ctitique by never knows best? Interested to know what youd make of it! Btw your videos are awesome.

[@rosey_star9497]

I can’t wait to download Elden ring now! I have been thinking about it but now I will definitely do it! It looks so good ! Side note - you have such a lovely accent!

[@FirstLast-cg2nk]

The challenge of the Souls-Likes, and even Elden Ring, are crucial, I think. There's a large number of reasons why, and I am going to highlight the main ones that I feel don't get touched on. Before I start, I'll summarize them. 1. Engagement With Game Mechanics. 2. Novelty Of The Experience. 3. Relevancy To Game Story And Lore. 1. Engagement With Game Mechanics There is a thing in gaming that I have come to term "The Path Of Least Resistance Mindset". You've probably seen many examples of it without realizing. Meta Builds are a good example of it, as they tend to be builds that can melt bosses and trivialize gameplay. Basically, the majority of gamers will take the path of least resistance in a game that will get them from the start to the ending, engaging only with those game mechanics that they absolutely have to. If a player can beat a game just by face-tanking everything and mindlessly attacking, they will do that 9 times out of 10. A good example of this comes from the development of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. During testing, they found that most testers would play the game as follows: Enter area, use gun on all things in area, loot, move on to next area, repeat until ending. There was no engagement with the stealth mechanics, the hacking, or anything else, players just gunned their way through the entire game because that was the easiest way to do it. So, to ensure there was at least some engagement with the game's numerous mechanics the developers greatly limited the amount of ammo a player could obtain in the game. This forced players to engage more with the game's other mechanics. Consider if Souls-likes were much easier than they were. People wouldn't dodge roll, and wouldn't know about I-Frames within said dodge rolls, because they didn't need to if the game can be beaten without doing so. They wouldn't notice the expertly-tuned hitboxes because they wouldn't need to be aware of them. They wouldn't pay attention to stat placement, parry timing, weapon scaling or any of the dozens upon dozens of mechanics of the game if they were not intrinsically linked to being able to complete the game. If you think I'm kidding about people not being aware of game mechanics, look up "War Stories Ultima Online", and watch the video about Ultima Online's Virtual Ecology. If you're old enough to remember Ultima Online, you're probably saying "Ultima Online had no virtual ecology". That's because players absolutely destroyed it instantly without ever being aware of it. For those not willing to go and watch it, the summary is that the developers of Ultima Online dedicated time and effort to creating a system where the wildlife of the world would refresh itself in a manner similar to a food chain, with things like management of the price of animal materials making sure that only the most dangerous and expensive would be killed by players. It was a tool to keep the world populated with creatures to kill. When the game went live, players swarmed the game like a horde of locusts, killing everything they encountered from the biggest bears to the smallest bunnies, regardless of threat or reward. The entire system had to be scrapped and new systems implemented to fix the issue because online players of that era were effectively murder-hobos that killed anything that could be killed if they encountered them. Simply put, without the game's difficulty, there would be no point in fine-tuning the game to the extent that it is, as players would just steamroll through the game without noticing anything. That's why so many triple A games have gameply that's kinda crap and so little fine-tuning on release: They know that players will just find the easiest way to play, use that, and never pay attention to anything else. Why put effort into something that no one will use or even notice was there? People are still finding unused mechanics that were present in games decades old at this point, mechanics no one noticed or used because they were not part of that path of least resistance. 2. Novelty (Don't worry, this is shorter) The Souls series and games like them are unique because of the fact that they don't do what so many triple A games do. In a way, this ties in with something that was mentioned above: Where most triple A games embrace the "Path Of Least Resistance" mindset by allowing players to find this path and use it with no effort, Souls-likes do not do that. They instead require you to take the "Scenic Route", something that very few other games do. That unique approach is something that has set them apart from the crowd and has allowed them to get the attention they have. it's not the same bland gameplay where you're able to get an easy win with zero effort. This uniqueness, this novelty, would be lost if the game was made easier, and it would just become another faceless nothing in a mob of faceless nothings. 3. Relevancy To Game Story And Lore (Likewise pretty short) Okay, so the ongoing theme of the Souls games, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring is that you are fighting something that is much bigger than yourself, something that has, or is currently, ruining the world. With Bloodborne, you're ultimately struggling against the Old Ones, ancient beings of incalculable power whose mere presence can disrupt reality and cause madness. In the Souls games, you're fighting demons, dragons, fallen gods, demigods, and beings who embody fundamental aspects of reality. And your character, meanwhile, is just an ordinary person, not some grand chosen one destined to save the world. In many cases, there is no chosen one, or the chosen ones have literally already failed and you're the last person in a long, long line of possible candidates to save the world. That being said, that you're just an ordinary person fighting against things that have destroyed everyone else who has tried. You regularly come across the souls of experienced soldiers, brave warriors, and storied heroes as you progress, and those are literally from the remains of better men than you who died where you're standing, trying to do what you're attempting. The world is littered with the corpses of the heroes who have failed where you're trying to succeed. After reading the above, ask yourself why what you're attempting should be easy? If bosses did a sliver of health per attack and died in two or three hits, wouldn't that cheapen the lore and story of the game, the idea that an ordinary person can still succeed where thousands of greater heroes have failed? If cosmic horrors, fallen gods, and demigod heroes could be effortlessly slapped around by some random nobody who just showed up, wouldn't that cheapen the entire experience, the lore that proclaims that these beings have brought ruin to cities, kingdoms, or even entire worlds? If it was that easy to defeat these beings, then things would never have gotten as bad as they have. The game's difficulty and challenge are directly tied to the severity of the situation, the nature of the adversaries you're facing, and the nature of the character you're playing. They could not make the game easier without having to radically change the lore of the game that you're playing. You can't be the ordinary everyman *AND* be able to slap around gods with zero effort. Without the difficulty, the plot is just plain nonsensical. Anyway, there's my take on it. I tried to use uncommon arguments, so that anyone reading might take away something that they haven't from reading other statements by other people. I hope that after reading, you come away with something you haven't before.

[@vuavu]

Gym analogy was a good one, I'll use that

[@mrxxsesshomaruxx9642]

I have a few hours into Dark Souls 1, not much but I do remember getting a few achievements, anyway that was like 8 years ago and I quit the game because I just couldn’t get into it back then and not really about difficulty, I went on to skip the series after that but that was until the Elden Ring hype got me, I ended beating Elden Ring, have over 300 hours in it and just can’t quit yet, going for all the achievements now if I can, it’s just one of the best games I’ve ever played and while it’s not easy, it’s not impossible either, there are ways to make it a bit easier for yourself with rune farming and a big open world to explore and unlike many recent open world games Elden Ring’s world is worth to explore all of it, almost everywhere you go you will find something interesting. My only real issue with the game is the lack of a quest lock, it’s just not good and I won’t defend it, some quests look like they end but then I suddenly find a character on an entirely new area of the map and it continues, that’s annoying.

[@KingLich451]

perhaps you should give dark souls 1 another chance

[@jothewerewolf]

You say that this is a shift from how people used to talk about Soulslike games in the past, but I distinctly remember hearing this exact debate back in the days. Some people saying "Dark Souls is difficult", and then there's a wild debate between people who think that means "I'm a baby who wants every game to be baby friendly or I cry", and people who thinks it means "You are all crybaby suckers who shouldn't be allowed to vote or own property until you're as good as me at video games now kiss my boot", and neither side makes any progress because they're both just yelling logical reasoning at different brick walls on opposite sides of town.

[@Dhalisos]

Chadwlar: "Got tilted by Game Critics, Journalist and Twitter trashing some popular game because they can't beat it to fit in, so he trash about them without even playing the game."

[@Jwlar]

Lmao yep. Hard games are hard, so I don’t buy them, doesn’t mean others can’t though.

[@EphemeraEssays]

I totally agree that the best kinds of art are the ones made for a specific audience, and if FromSoft games we're made for a mass market they'd lose all of their appeal. Buuuuuut, you brought up a really good point at the start. You said that a lot of people play these games not to explore the world and the story, but purely so they can say they beat it. Is that a good thing? It feels like it almost reduces and minimises these pieces of art to just "can you take a punch to the balls?". Elden Ring has so many incredible parts, and it seems sad that their main selling point is that it's... hard. Could there be a happy middle ground where the games are still difficult, but that doesn't reduce them to *just* difficulty when they have so, so much more to offer? I hope this makes sense. Really curious what other people think!

[@HDBattlefieldVideos]

Oof, Twitter. They’re opinions don’t matter anyway.

[@Yourmoms12345]

The fire giant stopped me in my tracks. I haven’t played it since .

[@Tantemify]

play this game blind without internet guides and i promise you the difficultly is insane. information is half the battle

[@wbakamagyarleafy]

Hi! Is it possible to get a review of the morrowind's competitor, arkane studio's arx fatalis? One of the best dungeon-crawler game out there, based on ultima underworld.

[@Jwlar]

I’ll put it on the list 😉

[@dafdyy2383]

I just wish they kept the speed and agility of the quick step from bloodborne for people with very low gear weight. some of these enemies have ridiculous timing. I have two characters running right now, a strength faith and a DEX mage, but the difference is is I'm not spamming face spells on my strength, I use him as a warrior/support and help people co-op, with my dex mage being a offense. the difference with that is I use my dexterity and stay in melee. only dodging out to cast a spell to quickly run into put the pressure on. I've noticed I've had a far better time on my strength which should be weird, it only has half the offensive capability since I've devoted most of my faith to straight up support. player support. last night I did a lot of comparison and it's because, for some reason, Dodges feel delayed. they're not as concise as they were in previous series. and between the delays and the fact that some of these enemies just have dragon Ball z physical combos (like when Goku punches six times in under 5 seconds and all you see is a flurry of skin, some of these enemies literally have that and all you see is a flurry of swords) it gets really hard to rely on dodges. you used to be able to bet on never taking a hit if you learn their attack patterns, and this one I'm finding my strength Bill better because no matter how quick I am with the timing, some attacks and some monsters you just have to account for taking a hit or two. and when they do this much damage, and you're focusing on magic and dexterity, vigor is sacrificed.. hey, at least I'm enjoying strength and Faith a lot more than in previous souls. but unfortunately it's for the wrong reasons when it comes to the overall balance in the game IMO.

[@j85grim4]

I love all Fromsoftware games when I'm in the mood for a more intense experience. But I also love Elder Scrolls games which can be intense but give you long breaks to explore and relax in-between. Both game styles were made for me depending on my mood.

[@KonKun_art]

I agree that fromsoftware shoudn't have to apologise for the difficulty but since you brought up Pokemon I wanted to say that I don't understand why people demand Pokemon games to be more difficult than they are. I get that they want the challenge and that's why they make rom hacks and patches to make them harder but people who patch souls-like games to make them easier are frowned upon. My point is, yes the artistic vision of the developers is important to be kept intact but anyone should be able to play games however they want as long as they don't spoil other people's fun.

[@xcalium9346]

I just wish there was a tutorial. I didn't even know I could sprint for the longest time. Or dual wield.

[@Purriah]

There is a tutorial lol. If you just spam buttons to skip the beginning you’ll end up skipping the tutorial too though, but you can turn around and take the plunge into it

[@bedouinknight9437]

I have 100% achievements in DS1,DS2 and DS and BB but this game elder ring is too much and not fun the enemy make no sense and its so slow to advance in the game

[@TheVioletBunny]

Same I’ve beaten them all on s1 elden rings open world is so boring / bland and uninteresting. Fromsoft needs to stick to their wheel house linear RPGs and leave open worlds to Bethesda.

[@bedouinknight9437]

@@TheVioletBunny 100%

[@1YCARADOFACAO]

The main problem is that even the veteran Fromsoft gamers notice that, from a point onwards, the game make a unfair difficulty curve. And other than that, this is the first time in a fromsoft game in which certain enemies sometimes simply deal damage without the chance of dodging. It's such a huge game that it feel unbaked, needs patching, maybe it's difficulty even needs to RAISE on the earlier levels. They need to fix the difficulty curve, that's the main thing

[@ropo_o]

People don't really like the fact that they died in games, much less to a single boss 10 times. People have been conditioned to hack and slash at the enemies, being superior to other enemies. From games require you to pay attention to the moveset of enemies, each swing is deliberate. That's what rubs people off, it feels slow, sluggish. I went through these too, but once I really got several hours into Dark Souls, I realised, we really should have at least a few developers like From in gaming industry. Once I told myself that dying is a game mechanism, a part of the game, as natural as walking and running, I didnt mind dying as much to learn the boss' moveset and beat them eventually. That feeling of finally 'not dying' to something you died to, be it boss of the environment, that's the feeling. Overcoming challenges.

[@jw6588]

I'm glad somebody is saying this. Good vid, Jwlar.

[@IamtheOneHitOnly]

Very well said!

[@Asriel_Cypher]

I think the gym comparison is the best way to address why the game shouldn't be toned down for everyone's sake. I agree, the games should not be toned down just to please everyone. If you still want to, learn. Earn it, simple as that... Maybe try looking up tips and learn.

[@zsasz21]

See my first souls game I got into was elden ring. Well I did play a little bit of bloodborne on ps4 but I switched to Xbox cause all of my friends were on xbox but still. I think it's an issue with the industry as a whole. People are so sick of seeing microtransactions, games as a service, seasons/battle passes that they saw a game that wasn't about to do any of that and just be a game and didn't consider who was making the game. I went into it knowing I was gonna die a lot and I honestly nearly stopped at the tree sentinel at the start but I had a friend who was a good way through it come help me and since then I've been getting better and better. It's not for everyone but of you want you can make it for you and that's why I tell most people that they should buy it when it's on sale that way if it ain't for them, they didn't spend as much Edit: removed some typos and removed a word atthe end cause it'd make no sense for a sentence to end with as

[@andrewbrown4642]

The only reason this game gets on my nerves isn’t even the difficulty with enemies it’s the lack of direction the lack of being able to track quests confusion on how to find things where to go without looking them up and good armor being too hard to find untill the endgame besides that I’m having a blast and it’s my first time

[@kumonom1]

Ocarina of Time absolutely kicked my ass growing up. These kids don't truly know what hard difficulty is. No Zelda wiki back then either. Just prima strategy guides you had to buy for another $20 just to get through the water temple .😭

[@Jwlar]

Majora's mask and the time-of-day mechanic completely wrecked my 9 year old brain.

[@nik021298]

I don't think this is a "hardcore game" for "hardcore gamers". I think you only need patience, humility and not being too prone to frustration. I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore gamer, and it probably took me far longer than most to beat DS 1 and 3, yet I can still enjoy it. I don't think this game is for such a small group of people as its detractors would think.

[@AmonTheWitch]

i don't get the controversy around this, if fromsoftware added an easy mode it wouldn't affect me whatsoever as long as it gets turned off during pvp, let people play the games how they want

[@danielscott70x7]

Exactly

[@Jonkenstonk]

As someone who always plays video games on the easiest possible difficulty I've gotta say Elden Ring is amazing and has mad me want to try the ither souls games.

[@Purriah]

My first souls game. Saw tree sentinel, avoided. Got horse, brain activated. Decided I could hit and run. Two attempts, killed him. Played and eventually got to margit. Died 7 times. Went to weeping peninsula. Back to margit, he died first try back. Etc, etc, game wasn’t even difficult if you’re willing to slow down, think for a moment, and adapt. I even respecced 4 times. Once because I hit a wall, and three more times to try out cool weapons I got and to add more versatility to my build. Basically if you’re an experienced RPG player and you think elden ring is too hard, you’re either stupid or you’re actually just terrible at games and only get through other ones by googling the most powerful build and strats, and lowering the difficulty slider down to where you can turn your brain off.

[@Oriol-oo7jl]

I guess that over the years the expression GET GOOD has become pedantic and pretencious But actually is the best advice. Get good: by playing and playing, and memorizing, improving and putting effort on it. That's how you get good. That's how we all have done (or will do) But also, my advice is: just get good at what you are interested in, otherwise you will be forcing yourself and it will be a pain and also the result won't shine as it could/should. I mean, if you love something, is just gonna be natural that you pour yourself into it. If not, then maybe seek somewhere else Peace yo! and git gut!

[@danielscott70x7]

Got about 7 hours in and dropped it. Don’t have the time or energy to devote to trying and learning boss patterns, let alone dying to random mob enemies around the world. If there was an actual option to adjust the difficulty, I’d have absolutely stuck with it for the exploration, world, and lore, but yeah. Oh well.

[@SatansBestBuddy1]

the thing I've noticed is that a lot of people come in with some preconceived expectations about _how_ and _why_ the game is difficult, and that influences how they approach the game. so like, they'll assume all enemies hit fast and hard, and the way to overcome that is to level up defense and get better gear. and that's only partly right, cause that'll work, but it'll be hell to grind for and super unfun the whole time. but that's how it works in Skyrim so they take that knowledge and implement it in this game and get frustrated that it doesn't work like they expect it to, IE how it works in Skyrim. really that's a lot of what it comes down to, Elden Ring's gameplay is asking for you to learn how it works, but people coming in from Assassin's Creed or The Witcher 3 or Skyrim think _they already know_ how it works, and so the game will beat them over the head cause the combat does not work like it does in those games, the stealth does not work like it does in those games, the stats do not work like it does in those games, it's all very slightly different and tuned to (in my opinion) an incredibly sharp and dynamic combat system that's oh so fun to master and experiment with. but when you're used to Skyrim's or Witcher 3's dice roll combat where the dodges don't matter and the combos don't stagger, then you'll be in for a rude awakening.

[@herrstrudel3231]

Will there be a dedicated Jwlar discord server?

[@Jwlar]

Possibly one day. It's certaintly on my list of things to do lol

[@Ushanka.hathome]

Playing elden ring as someone who's played most of the souls and finished them except demons souls, I really struggled with Elden Ring - hell I haven't even finished the game yet, I did 70ish hours over the course of a week and ended up burning out. I think I have too many gripes with elden ring whne it comes certain bosses/their mechanics. But Elden ring is most certainly one of the best games released in decades

[@maxgrady317]

it was my first from soft game and it really wasn’t that hard. although i did have past rpg game knowledge and was probably over leveling as a result

[@Outer0Heaven]

Game devs can make a hyperspesific game about cheese and it can get popular. The problem lies in that there is a lot of people in this world and there are a lot of gamers.. if this game blew up, we would have thousands of people screaming "it's just cheese!! What about other proteins or carbs?!" Can never satisfy them all but that was never the point either, but they would never get that either...

[@mammamiaculpa]

i think elden ring, like all the souls games, are challenging, not 'difficult' per se. difficulty is something finicky, unfair, but elden ring, like cycling up a hill, is within your reach if you just push. you can do it! i've been a fan of these games since demon's souls, when i was way too young to be any good at them and just had fun making characters and replaying the early areas, and something kevin vanord said when gamespot made demon's souls game of the year has always resonated with me and i think explains the ethos of the challenge quite well. that when you die it's always your fault. i never feel like they're unbeatable, and that's what makes them so good and addictive. they have clear systems that can understood, with a low-ish skill floor but an incredibly high skill ceiling

[@ladyvader3173]

ER feels a lot less clear about its intended experience than DS. It is not exactly streamlined to funnel you into overcoming challenges with tight level design and it's boss encounters have not received the same level of care. It's the only game I unironically see the point of pissing about and seeing the massive open world without dying over and over. But ironically, that same possibility of exploration/grind offers an easy mode already. To make things more confusing, early game bosses can be harder than endgame DS bosses in certain circumstances like low level or poor build. So....eeeeeh?

[@ZRFehr]

Aw fuck I haven't seen a good Battletoads reference in years.

[@botan6213]

Wow, I never related to someones opinions on the Internet so much like your opinion on soul-games

[@odinsplaygrounds]

Elden Ring is the easiest souls game, so anyone saying this game is “too hard” clearly haven’t played (or especially not beaten) the previous games. In Elden Ring you can explore more freely to level and gear up, use summons for bosses and generous checkpoints. Also pretty much no penalty for dying.

[@theNightrage]

In fact Elden Ring has some kind of an easy mode. Go and get the Mimic Tear Spirit Summon. It still won´t be a cakewalk and you still need to use your brain in a boss fight and you still can´t button mash and need to learn to dodge at least, but it will be much easier. Instead of 100 deaths per boss 3 will be enough. In fact in my opinion the game was balanced to having this thing.

[@cmarsh9988]

Meh there should be a difficulty option though, no one is asking for the game to be dumbed down completely. I'm not entitled I just have a disability and struggle to play things other people find easy. Given that it's such a popular game it's not too much to ask to be included in some way, not singled out for ridicule just because I can't react quick enough every single time

[@nathananderson6944]

I think the issue is with the lore. Like sekiro had a huge group complaining about the difficulty just like with elden ring. Sekiro was really unique and with the Japanese setting and lore. Plus u play as a Shinobi. Don't get that many games with that. Elden ring on the other hand got buzz talking around it ever since the reveal. And the magical and magical dark lore was shown a lot. Not many games have that dark magical vibe. So I think a lot of people bought it thinking it was cool looking and suited their taste for lore and setting. But not expecting the difficulty that it comes with.

[@cookiecat3829]

I think in the future, you should preface the video by saying that you’ve never played a souls game. It’s a pretty important thing for your audience to know considering the entire basis of your video is how souls games operate.

[@Jwlar]

I have played Demon's Soul. It took me a year to finish it and I said never again. I am simply not skilled enough for these games, but that doesn't mean I agree with the current narrative they they should make it easier. Some games are hard, and that's that.

[@rodrigonoal]

I bought Elden Ring and had buyers remorse. I got into the lore and the hype, and wanted to experience it first hand, even though I never liked any of the Souls Games. In the end, I figured that I'll probably never buy any other From Soft game, because they aren't for me. Thing is, many of the elements I don't like are the ones that make people fall in love with them: their obscure storytelling, the slow movement in combat, the extremely grim and depressive aesthetic of a hopeless and devasted world, and the overall lack of story-based motivation. In the end, what I really wanted was far more similar to Jedi Fallen Order, for example, which is one of my favorite games, by the way: a challenging game, but far more streamlined, fair, and story focused. Looking back, I wish I had done more research, because it was very evident it was pretty much Dark Souls 4 plus jumping mechanics and a goat, I just refused to see it.

[@EJDubbz]

Anybody who thinks a soulsbourne game needs an easy mode isn't paying attention. I don't play them for the same reason I never played dance dance revolution. I'm not into memorizing patterns, I'm into role-playing. So I'm stuck with old Bethesda games until something better comes along.

[@tyronealfonso]

I originally thought so but no. Just need to level and have a decent build. Really needs a quest log or something tho. You already have to spend half the time online figuring out your build, you shouldn’t have to do it just to get through the story/side quests as well. Ridiculous.

[@nikolamihaylov94]

Bro you can cheese this game 100 ways, I mean a guy already did a run at lvl 1 and a pacifist run where he didn't hit anyone. And Elden Ring actually has a nice story if you explore and piece it together.

[@moilami1]

This video makes so much sense that every whiny gamer should be required to watch this.

[@josetomascamposrobledano4618]

No, far from it, it might be the easiest actually. The tools given are insane, not only because of summons but the weapon arts and classic mechanics. You don’t need to have the strongest items even. Most of the internet are guide watchers (there is a reason Ranni’s quest is the most popular ending despite not being the Any% option). Everyone mentions the Mimic… but in truth all you need is an upgraded ash that will take Agro and any ranged option, be it the standard Lighting attack from early faith or the pebble from a beginner magician. So in conclusion it’s all about the tools, since I’m the guy who likes to master movesets I played very underpowered my first time and never summoned or used all tools because my enjoyment s learning and mastering the fights (and it paid off for future runs by never getting stuck and creating the other 10 characters and finishing the build/game in less than double digit ours). On the other hand my bro used all tools, wasn’t afraid to farm to not feel underpowered. And at the end of the day Malenia as well as the 4 bosses at the end of the game all died first try. Should I insult my bro? No, he got his own enjoyment. Playing Elden Ring to the end isn’t a World breaking feat and in all respect it’s the most accessible among the souls games. A move that sheep will immediately call out as bad but in truth is thanks to the tools that will allow people to finish the game when they wouldn’t finish the other Fromsoft games that will make Elden Ring a topic of conversation for a long time among the general public.

[@MeatSnax]

The biggest issue I see for new players is that attitude that you have to play the "correct" way. This is (mostly) a single player game, beat it any way that you have fun with. I have 3 hours a week to play video games, hell yeah I'm using rock sling and the mimic tear! Between the "tough as nails" marketing and "git gud" community, I think these people are responding to everyone BUT the actually designers when they ask for an easy mode.

[@DKarkarov]

To be honest I see "veterans" having a harder time than new people mostly. New people don't come in with BS preconceptions about how to play or what is good. They will actually experiment with weapons arts, won't think they are "cheating" by using ash summons, will actually read the tutorials instead of assuming they know it all and ignore them, they will try different tactics because they don't "know" those tactics don't work. Etc.

[@beatotheelder6170]

The jellyfish alone carried me all the way to Farum Azula, anything to take aggro off you for a few seconds is more than enough to cut the difficulty of a fight in half.

[@NikoTeaJay]

Ye olde difficulty discussion. For background, I'm what could be called a "Souls veteran". There is a chance that Elden Ring is too difficult. And I mean in the context of Souls series. Arguably Dark Souls 2 added bits that were unfairly difficult. Arguably Bloodborne was too easy with its plethora of healing options. Those are discussions worth having in my opinion. Thing is, yeah Souls games are "difficult". But that alone doesn't really say anything. There's a skill to them. They're punishing. If you're willing to learn, you won't get punished as much. If you're not, well it's a paddling. I think Dark Souls 2 dropped the ball a bit with this. I don't know if Elden Ring did. It's a bit too new of a game for me. It'll be a year or two before I get it and see what's what. But in terms of From Soft making more Souls games in the future, I hope discussion stays focused on fair and fun difficulty as seen in most Souls games.

[@ixiahj]

Its easier compared to older souls games. You hardly have any penalty when dying. When you die, Marika statue spawns you next to fog door. Areas are designed to be cheesed. You just have to solve that puzzle how to cheese it.

[@trashasaurus]

Yeah, generally speaking the runbacks are much easier than other FS games because of the Merika statues. Whether or not someone used summons also seems to play a huge role in how hard you think ER is. If you refused to use the mechanic and tried to go 1v1 with every single boss then it's MUCH harder. But the game is obviously designed with summons in mind so not using them is a self inflicted handicap IMO. It would be like saying "Oh Dark Souls 3 is the hardest because if you play it without upgrading your weapon the bosses are really tough to beat".

[@ixiahj]

@@trashasaurus Is it much harder in ER if you 1v1 the boss? In older souls games, if you summon cooperators in your game, the boss's health goes up based on how many people you summoned to help you. For example: Its harder to fight Radahn with cooperators because you're sacrificing your horse.

[@trashasaurus]

@@ixiahj ER scales boss health with how many you summon in co-op as well. Im talking about Spirit Ashes, not co-op.

[@Dylanquinn666]

Despite what game journalists like to write clickbait articles about, from what I've seen the mainstream reception of Elden Ring has been overwhelmingly positive. As soon as people are willing to actually give it a chance, they're loving it. I've seen so many people shift their opinion of the souls games entirely because of Elden Ring. I've seen so many posts of people asking which Dark Souls game to start with because they loved Elden Ring and want more. Elden Ring is by far the easiest and most accessible From Soft game in my opinion and they've done it in a way that doesn't compromise it's quality. The awful 'difficulty' discourse has done so much damage to the reputation of these games but I think it was much worse when Sekiro came out. These games are not broken or 'too hard'. They're challenging and engaging. The mainstream audience for games have become too accustomed to games that pretty much play themselves for you and I think Elden Ring is making more and more people realize that.

[@dafdyy2383]

when it comes to your point, it's great that it has a Target audience, but people that thought it was something different deserve that get their money back. and it's the gaming companies with their, in my own opinion, s***** return practices that make this sort of outrage far more bolstered. Sony for Christ's sakes doesn't let you REFUND A GAME IF YOU'VE DOWNLOADED IT AT ANY POINT, EVEN IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED IT, that's straight ridiculous and anti-consumer. I bet most of the people pissed off with the PS4 copy would be less toxic if Sony had the same policy as valve with steam.

[@Kindlesmith70]

The beating hard to feel accomplished is only one of many reasons to play games. Using this as an excuse as if no other aspect mattered is pretty stupid. I enjoyed playing Demon's Souls on PS3 with more soul glutton of a character, having exploited the soul duplication glitch to reduce the grind so I could explore without so much stress, and get a bearing on the story being told. It felt hilarious to destroy the opposition. So if I were to say this is why games should allow for options such as this, to invalidate your shitty argument I would belittling myself to your level. Games are there for fun. Not everyone derives it the same way. A game shouldn't be limited to be "hard core", as there is no harm at all for allowing players to choose how easy or hard to make things for themselves. I'll throw in something to consider. All those people that play the games without leveling up, without changing gear, or even speed runners are not using all the tools that are provided to play the game. They are playing the not as designed, effectively adding a harder difficulty mode, or cheating into the mix. So why not allow players an easier route? If not, then all of these should be put on the same firing wall. How dare they allow players to play this game as not intended. It goes both ways. I love my hard games, but I also love games I can just breeze through overpowered. They both have their place. I see nothing wrong for fully customizable games, and actually think these are superior than games that try to be edgy, or l33tist by telling potential players to f off as if they are some special little snowflake. Got an issue with that, you can be gruel the I feed to the prisoners after my tree hugging cannibal cult takes off your limbs and harvests your organs without anesthetic for the blackmarket in Rimworld. The best drug, and spare parts company for all interested parties, as long as you don't ask where it all came from.

[@Philnemba]

I've avoided souls types games for years since Dark Souls 2 due to being too impatience with their hard difficulty however Elden Ring gave me a reason to give them another chance & not only I beaten Elden Ring but I also gave Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin a chance & beat that game too 😎

[@KingLich451]

cool

[@C21H30O2]

Entitlement is a hallmark of our generation...

[@ZELLFE1T]

There is such a misguided view about difficulty in the community. Like for example the common idea that summoning is "easy mode" or even that magic is "easy mode" but back stabbing isn't. I know plenty of games with overpowered mechanics and abilities but the people who play them never call them "easy mode". There's plenty of things about Elden Ring and Souls games that I do like and enjoy- such as harsh dungeons (think those boss runs in the DS2 dlcs) and cruel game mechanics (They did nerf Curse in DS1 remember that), but I find repeatedly trying a boss fight in these games to be as mind-numbing and tedious as grinding exp. Like the thought of fighting Margit gives me the same feeling as completing a WoW quest.

[@Kindlesmith70]

9:00 That's dumb. the locked it behind a full run of the easy mode. Super dumb. All difficulties should be unlocked from the get go. If a player wants to ram through brick walls with their head, they should be allowed to. As I said, it should go both ways for options not one in favor of another. I never did like games locking harder difficulties behind an easy mode as I tend to only play a game once through if it has no, or barely any branching paths. Doesn't really explain why I had so much fun completing all difficulty modes in Nioh even assisting a friend for his run with my legit kunai/shuriken death ninja glass cannon build. Nothing survived for long in my path and my friend barely got to do anything during the boss fights XD Hell that took weeks to get to this build. The grind was not fun. The pay off being OP was freakin amazing.

[@newworldorganics7086]

I wish more games had the guts to be as hard as elden ring

[@Kindlesmith70]

Getting stuck on geometry, attacks that go through terrain, questionable positioning / hit boxes, all are based on the game developers being crap for the job. This goes beyond games similar to Demon's Souls, beyond King's Field, etc. Earlier days it was understandable for things to be not perfect. Hardware just wasn't available to do what was desired and work arounds needed to be done. There is no longer any excuse for this anymore coming from a big game studio, and yet they continue to be so garbage. That being said, there are sufficient things in the game to break the games in your favor, some of those costing unrealistic amounts of time/grind. Naturally if you have some know in cracking/hacking/cheating you can reduce the that unrealistic time constraint and still count it as having played it the legit way; specifically talking about cutting the time of grinding for common mob dropped items, currency (echoes/souls/amrita/experience/ichor), and nothing else. and there certainly is nothing to lose from allowing players to customize the game to their desires, with the caveat they cannot play with other players or are restricted to only playing with the players that began the game with them. Naturally Elden Ring has a really shit multiplayer system (for being an open world game that isn't open at all due to fog walls that aren't there when playing solo), so it naturally it would force custom play style for offline mode only. If you're playing solo, who friggen cares what you do in your games to have fun. Take a gander at The Elder Scrolls Skyrim for all the content that exists online that isn't vanilla. A HUGE issue stems from Elden Ring being marketed as something it was not in various places. I bought it on the marketing spiel I could play this game fully co-op in it's open world nature. Well it isn't fully co-op, as partners will be forced to DC upon death and completion of major tasks, or are forced to disconnect to get through fog gates that don't exist there if you have nobody in your game. That's not full co-op. That's not an open world game. I was sold a lie. These two aspects did make the game more tedious: time consuming due to dis/connect, having to do everything multiple times (once for each player), in ability to resummon players if a main boss was defeated for an area, and the invasions that occurred with EVERY reconnect. Utter garbage. Most of the issues stemmed from the invasions. Obnoxious players that don't fight, or decide to jump in during a large battle against NPCs, and then there's the invasions that somehow happen after a boss is beat and the partner has been sent back to their game. Certainly could have done away with invasions.

[@RawLu.]

Rage is Not Funny & more importantly Not Healthy, and it only gets worse with age...

[@RubedoURTV666]

Love it when KZbin throws me a small channel. Earned a Subscriber :).

[@katsu1715]

being a hardcore souls fan for a while now, i kinda thought the "dark souls is the hardest game ever" meme was kinda ridiculous, the game is insanely fair, you literally have a button to avoid 100% of damage.....you even have 2 buttons if you have a decent shield :/

[@jmarra07]

Whenever a decision is made to focus on the small minority of things or people who complain the most, it's a bad decision. FromSoft should never go out of their way to cater to anybody complaining about difficulty. Things like that ruin the whole experience. It's like the one guy who threw a glass beer bottle at the baseball game, and now all the beer is in flimsy plastic, because the rules were made about that one asshole, and not the majority of people who don't throw bottles. The one descending thing ruins it for the rest.

[@JynxedKoma]

U got Battletoads?

[@WoofInationXP]

Now daggers are going to fall upon you for thy opinion

[@OriginalItsFly]

I think Elden Ring is arguably the 'easier' souls game to have ever come out. Sure for a new player some of the systems can be very vague but I've got friends who I've recommend this to and they've figured it out and enjoyed not getting their hand held during the process. The mainstream traction of this game has brought in the wrong crowd who are opposed to the core design tenants even if a quick Google search would show what the game is!

[@fyr3st0rm65]

Just bugs me when people say it's too hard, as if hard video games just shouldn't exist. If you like easy games, play easy games, don't suggest all games need to be easy.

[@danielscott70x7]

Or there’s a third option. The ability to adjust the difficulty if one so chooses. Doesn’t affect the person who wants it brutally difficult. Crazy how options that be just that, options.

[@aiza9052]

I was hoping you'd call into question the entire concept Elden Ring is hard, rather than focus on community reaction to the game. I'd argue Elden Ring just has a lot of little mechanics that take time to understand. But once you know what you're doing, it isn't hard, nor easy, but provides a healthy challenge. Elden Ring is like a father playfighting with their kid. It puts on a spectacle of invincibility, but as long as you give it some effort, it'll dramatically keel over fainting defeat, simply proud of the fact you actually care enough to be playing and give it some real effort.

[@booradley6832]

Seriously, Jwlar, I really need to know who this Larity guy is, why you talk about him and his dad so much. I hear you mention Papa Larity frequently and I feel like im missing out.

[@MrMyers758]

Difficulty levels should be in every game. You know why? So everyone get's the intended experience. Someone with physical limitation to their speed and reaction times, which cannot simply be overcome with skill, are not able to play the game with the intended degree of difficulty; it is far more difficult than the developers intended it to be for people. Likewise people who have unusually good good reactions times and awareness, are also not able to play the game with the intended degree of difficulty; it is far easier than the developers intended for people. Let's say someone who is more than capable decides to play on easy. So what? They are making the game less fun for themselves. That's their problem, and their choice, and doesn't affect you one bit. Let's say someone who is more than capable decides to play on easy to get all the gear quicker to PVP. So what? They will be less experienced and so that gear will only get them so far. And if a specific piece of gear is so powerful that an inexperienced player can wipe the floor with you with it, then that is a gear balance problem, not a problem with difficulty levels. There is absolutely no good reason I have seen to not have difficulty reasons in games. The main reason appears to be entirely ego: to maintain the idea that this game is incredibly difficult, and that they are one of the few who are good at it, and so they are of an elite status. Difficulty ratings threatens their status by meaning more people can access the game, and it's perception of being incredibly difficult might reduce, and so to will reduce the prestige of being a souls player. All other reasons are mostly just excuses to avoid directly stating this because it is just ridiculous and egocentric on the face of it. But guess what, nobody is actually impressed that you play souls games in the real world, and most people will think you are just a weirdo for wanting to exclude the disadvantaged from having fun in a video game, just to uphold your non-existent status. FromSoft was actually toying with the idea of adding difficulty settings until they got backlash from the weirdo gatekeepers, actively preventing the developers from implementing their intended features in the name of "ensuring people have the intended experience of the devs".

[@m.l.4350]

You know what is too hard? - my table leg

[@joseycarlson3564]

I remember when oblivion came out and after I beat it I thought wow that was easy then I turned that slider all the way up and it was perfect. I love From Soft games cuz I can just play it and the difficulty it perfect as well

[@joseycarlson3564]

I guess my point is I don't care if From Soft makes the game easier for other ppl like I think they did with Elden Ring. I think this game is much easier than other souls games.

[@Azgoon69]

It doesn't have painful environments like Dark Souls, i's not unfair like Dark Souls 2, it's not linear like Dark Souls 3, you can make overpowered builds unlike Sekiro, if something is too difficult simply go somewhere else and explore the world to find better gear, upgrade materials, important tools and gain more levels ... Because of all that it's actually one of the easiest game of the bunch and it's still one of the best games ever made, proving that the difficulty is not really what made people enjoy Souls games

[@takingbacktoxic7898]

Elden ring is about as difficult as your own ego. 1. You can almost run away from every single enemy in the game. 2. You can use co op to absolutely destroy bosses. There are so many people who are so ridiculously skilled at the game they can carry you through any boss fight. 3. For the cooperators that are less that perfectly skilled, you can quite literally spend time buffing and healing them, and almost every boss battle is trivial at that point.

[@Inaluogh]

Only people that find Elden Ring's difficulty fair or balanced are the ones that make gamefaqs and google play the game for them. There's no challenge if you literally look up "how to win the game" on the internet. And that is basically 100% of the "git gud bruh" crowd that wouldn't be able to win a single round in a competitive game. I did beat games like the original Castlevania, Contra, Ghosts and Goblins and the like, as well as a shit ton of Mega Man games. I know what balls to the wall difficulty means. Elden Ring isn't that. Elden Ring is that one kid in your neighborhood that starts changing the rules or pulls some bullshit to when he starts losing. That's how it feels to play Elden Ring. PS: I beat Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1 and 2 and Bloodborne as well. It's not like I don't know how to play a souls game.

[@RedTigerDragoon]

Every new soulsborne game means you have to adjust. I felt it was pretty fair until I hit Malikith and the end game bosses but Elden Ring demands you work towards an end game build. You can't just sword and board and pump your numbers to be effective anymore