Is Elden Ring that hard? Well, it depends what you mean by “hard”

The game's supposed to compete with Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls, Dragons Dogma, etc. And how can it? You don't have a party, you don't have quests, you don't have a narrated story, nor giant enemies who react to weaknesses and have special ways to be fought.

What's the difference between your first handcrafted Draugr cave filled with traps in Skyrim, and your first handcrafted goblin cave filled with traps in Elden Ring? I think, it's that one came out 11 years ago.

This is gatekeeping. Game developers at the AAA level should strive to make them as approachable and accessible as practical. An easy mode or other accessibility options don't necessarily have to dumb down the 'intended' way to play. They can supplement the core experience so that busy or differently abled consumers can enjoy it as well.

Or more specifically, ask them different questions. Asking players what they want to do and see is wrong. You don’t ask customers these things because they don’t really know. You ask them about the outcomes they want and you design your product/game to deliver that.

This game works because it was designed this way. You want to feel immersed, that you’re risking things and choices have consequences; being surprised, and a sense of growth and accomplishment.

It’s like the old quote: “No one goes to the store to buy a 1/4” drill. They go to buy 1/4” holes”.

Heck even in Armored Core you're toast if your mech doesn't have the correct specification with the area, it's even more brutal.

I guess they're asking for the former, to able to grind and steamroll the level after, which can work in other game, but not this genre.

Personally, I don't like level scaling system Skyrim use (and ff8), it force you to specific build or at least you'll need to know how to cheese it.

Breath of the wild actually does have some scaling. Enemies get stronger globally (colors change) as you kill more of them. But it’s subtle enough to not connect the dots. The important bit is that things scale linearly, not exponentially like in most rpg settings. A brand new link with a decent weapon can kill a black moblin without too much trouble if they’re skilled. It’s also completely disconnected but probably correlated with your power level.

Level scaling does suck. Also in the other direction. I hate feeling too strong for content, especially main story content.

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I really enjoyed both Horizon games (Zero dawn and forbidden west) mainly due to their "story mode" difficulty.

The game heavily depends on being able to finely aim using a controller, which I really really suck at and I honestly no longer have the time or patience to master the skill, or grind/cheese my way to better gear that makes up for my lack of skill.

I started the first game on normal diff, and finished it on story mode most cause I enjoyed the story and various encounters.

When the game was out on PC I replayed it on very hard and even tried ultra (was an epic fail) as my overall skills with a keyboard and mouse are much better and enjoy the experience more.

I'm now going through the second game still switching between normal and easy mode whenever I can't be bothered with a 30 minute long fight (remember, I still suck) that I can't be bothered replaying.

I really appreciated that the developers allowed me to play their game in a pace and time that I was able to.

I probably spent the first 5 to 8 hours of that game just bashing my head against the wall trying to figure out what was bad design vs. my poor decision making/inability to read cues. For a father of 2 it’s hard to commit the 2-3hr sit down a few days a week required to learn a game like that and pick up the subtleties (if any exist). I go one way: “hey some baddies by a big skull.” Bop em, no problem. I walk 2 min another direction: “hey the same baddies by a big skull.” One hit, I die, I’ve lost 20min of progress.

Not everyone wants to deal with that headache. And I get it, not every game is designed for every person. But if you’re going to not scale up, you need to tell me when I am way out of my depth. And BOTW does a terrible job of that as it invites you to explore this open world.

Elden Ring does very little differently than what other Souls games have been doing for almost 15 years. The scale and openness are just a bit greater.

I don't think that's fair. You can beat Eldern Ring by working through it and grinding up levels, but that takes a significant time investment. Most people who have a life that includes more than gaming (kids, business, partner, other hobbies, etc) don't have that time available. I want to get through a game without repeating content much because I want to spend my time feeling like I'm getting further, not feeling like I'm working. I play games for fun. I don't particularly want to be challenged. The days when I could boast to my friends about being better at a game than them are long over. Gaming isn't a competition for me; 'winning' at a computer game is essentially a worthless skill. I'd rather put my energy into improving the work I do to make money than making a little guy on a screen more powerful.

I don't think that requires an easy mode, but it does need thought from the devs. Some games do this really well - I never felt like playing GTA:V or Witcher 3 was grinding despite there being no difficulty level option. Every time I played I saw new things and got a bit further. I gave up on Souls games a long time ago because many times I played I didn't get anywhere - I just failed to progress over and over again. Maybe I just suck and should 'get good', but until that happens I'll just play other games.

There's no need to plan out your leveling in Morrowind. You feel you have to because you like to min-max I guess? But that misses the point of a game like this entirely. Which, again, is fine. To each their own. You don't prefer games preferentially focusing on atmosphere, world building, role playing, lore. Obviously you wouldn't say no to those things, but it sounds like they're less important (compared to combat mechanics, e.g.) for you than me.

Similarly, the only MMO that is remotely enjoyable for me is elder scrolls online. It's not for an easy mode. WOW isn't hard. It's just annoying (to me, if that needs to be said).

I'd like to see more open-world games experiment with a flat power curve: simply throw away the idea that the player character's numerical power should increase as the game goes on. If Super Mario World had increased the player's jump height or hit points based on the number of levels completed, it would have made the game much worse - so why do we tolerate the same thing from Castlevania and Final Fantasy?

Players might miss the (artificial) feeling of mastery, but I don't think it's worth the cost. Finding better ways to achieve that same feeling would be an interesting design challenge!

That said I get your points about harder enimies being scaled down to the players level. This could be fixed with a smarter scaling system and i guess a lot of games today do it

In the original Dark Souls, the giants in Lost Izalith respawned on bonfires. This was frustrating and dumb and was changed with a patch. But I bought the xbox version and didn't get the patch. I stopped in Lost Izalith in large part because killing those giants over and over was tedious and frustrating as all get out. Would it have been wrong of me to say "I would have had more fun if that area had been easier and I'd been able to challenge myself with the bosses?"

Or imagine an extreme example. Dark Souls gives you hard modes on repeat attempts. So clearly there is a difficulty scaling. Imagine if instead everything was balanced on the first attempt like it is on the 10th. Or imagine if people were forced to complete a SL1 playthrough because level ups were removed? Would somebody then be wrong in asking for an easy mode that was equivalent to the game that was released in real life?

Wow.

I had forgotten how few, if any, instructions and indications we were given.

No wonder some of these games took me years to finish as a kid.

Game companies made difficult games historically. Some subset of gamers were unable or uninterested in completing them. Consequently, subsequent game companies made easier games that catered to those players.

The bone of contention I have is that the easier games pretend to be difficult games. See: COD's relentless "be a badass in cinematics" style. Which if you think about it, makes sense, as all players want to imagine they're surmounting a challenge.

But the real toxicity is that players themselves aren't clear on whether they're playing a difficult or easy game, because the latter game is lying about and obscuring its nature.

It seems like people have forgotten that not all games used to be about just mastering something difficult as well. In the end, gaming is about having fun, and different people find different experiences fun. SimCity was never hard and was not meant to be hard, but it was still fun (for me). Dark Souls is hard, but was never fun for me. Sifu is similarly hard, but not as hard, and I find the balanced experience fun, even if I die a bit too much.

I guess my point is: gaming is fun, different people find different games fun. This is OK, not everyone is the same, not every game is meant for every type of player.

After an hour more of playing I decided I just wasn’t that interested in the game. It reminds me of the game Cuphead where you have to spend an immense amount of time trying to muscle memory timing critical inputs. Which just isn’t something I find very entertaining but when you say this to anyone you get some snide comment back like “lol, you need the journalist mode”

> The first boss took me 30-50 attempts.

Oh. Nope. Wow.

Maybe it's a factor of 10 problem. Some people like this repetitive method of perfecting execution, but for me 3-5 attempts would be a much more ideal number.

Also there are plenty of guides without spoilers, the player community seems to value not giving up secrets.

It's a timing game, not a reaction / apm game, which IIRC isn't the same with what you usually play.

It's also a bit hard to explain the part that this excels at. I'm trying to find the right words to explain it without too much hyperbole. I honestly think that the scale of this game, would have been broken up into at least 3 games, by many other companies. I'm 70 hours in, and I've roughly found as many "graces", which are spread out throughout the world. So, I'm still finding myself in new areas, new environments, in much awe of the world. And, I'm enjoying all of it.

Now, I have played other souls games. But, perhaps this is the experience that you might relate to. Those games where much, much, more "ok, this is the linear path. Beat hard boss 1.". Repeat for boss 2, etc. Elden Ring is to a much larger extent: "explore the world". Take it in, and wonder why it is the way it is. Most things actually make sense, and it tells a subtle story I'm so grateful for. From Software hasn't followed the regular trend of "we worked on this, and refuse to let the player miss it". It has huge areas that the game almost wants you to miss, because it genuinely rewards curiosity. It is the best open world I've played in, and I'm just... it's truly a masterpiece.

The earlier games were also pretty janky and had unnatural hitboxes. Elden Ring is a stellar improvement in this case.

It also takes advantage of your lizard brain's reaction to hit the roll button as soon as you see an animation start, but that's often a bad idea in these games (definitely more so in Elden Ring).

There's big themes of precise timing and memorizing the moves over raw reflexes, although enemies can do mix-ups and combo options. They will stop the combo early if you're out of range, but if you try to go within range thinking the combo has ended, another attack comes out.

I suspect if you were doing competitive shooters that's where it doesn't match up well. You can't simply act faster to forgo learning the boss moveset. This is also why they say dying is part of the genre. Unless you sit and watch a boss video before-hand, the price of admission to see the boss moveset and know when you can attack safely is dying.

Here is the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS_OR-8xQfQ

OTOH, a friend of mine loves the series and Bloodborne. The way he explains it, the satisfaction of finally conquering a boss after so many trial and error runs is unmatchable. In a sense, it's similar to difficult games (platformers for me) of the 80s and 90s, or some old school shooters. A slow and steady build-up of skills culminating in mastery. I'd rather do that with something else than videogames.

My take is that I've gotten lazier over time, wanting to enjoy a game for its escapism and relative challenge it provides, but not enough investment that it becomes a chore.

I consider the original Dark Souls as one of the best video games ever made (I quit the first time I played it on Ps3). I played it again after playing Bloodborne, DS2, and DS3. And it aged very well. Sure, some parts are clunky, and it is missing some quality of life features found in later games. But it's a classic.

It’s just one of the best crafted games ever imo.

In addition to being able to upgrade any weapon, you can also attach special abilities to them (this one let's me do a charge! That one makes me flip over attacks and slam my sword! The other one let's me make a magical flame!).

So in the end, while the base system is less complicated than breath of the wild's combat, the customization makes it "wider."

Don't let cries of "it's difficult!" enter into your judgment. Every enemy, especially bosses, are just Megaman battles where you memorize patterns. Due to the rpg elements and how you customize your character, you can ignore entire boss mechanics all the way to the end if you so choose. The difficulty people complain about likely comes from your lack of movement (compared to spiritual ancestor ninja gaiden black) and the fact that there is a noticeable delay between commands and execution coupled with a command queue: if you press dodge you will note your character is not immediately dodging so you press it again: your character then dodges twice.

No stutter or fps hitches for me in Manjaro with a Vega 56

I haven't played on Windows, but it runs great after the shader pre-cache update.

I'm running Win10 on an i5-12600kf and 2080 super.