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> Most people who have a life that includes more than gaming (kids, business, partner, other hobbies, etc) don't have that time available

What's the goal here? Is it to complete the game or to enjoy the experience? If it's the former, are you really enjoying the game? If not, why are you playing it? If I'm playing a game I like and it takes me 100 hours to finish it instead of 50 then I consider that a win.

Not all character progression is created equally. Spending 40 hours grinding honey badgers would be one thing (ie overly grindy). But in Elden Ring you're talking about optional areas ie additional content.

> I just failed to progress over and over again. Maybe I just suck and should 'get good',

In BotW you could make gold to improve your armor, you could get different armor sets, you could get stronger weapons (eg particularly Lynel weapons), etc. I'm less familiar with the analogs in Elden Ring but they're there. You can totally go and do some optional area, level up and and come back and cheese the content if that's how you want to play. Elden Ring isn't forcing you to "get good".

ER is part of the venerated class of game that doesn't rob you of the experience of figuring things out. You can make permanent mistakes, break your character, break the world, and fail to improve. Or, you can master it and make the world yours at any level.

I'm watching LobosJr do a SL 1 run (level 1, unupgraded character) right now, which is how I played DeS, DaS, and DaS III. However when I first played Demon's Souls, I couldn't even get up the stairs from the first Archstone without taking a hit, let alone consistently make it to the first boss. I gave it up for months, read a ton, and came back more prepared. My first run of Dark Souls took 44 hours, and now I can beat it in under 2 at SL 1. If you stick with it, you can figure it out, and you can step back at the end and say, "I grew".

I never got far in other Souls games, but with Elden Ring the crucial difference is that if you leave and 'grind levels' before facing a particular boss again, it's not really grinding most of the time.

There's so much unique/interesting content, that one could just work through that and gain enough levels, weapons, etc. to beat whatever situation you struggled with before.

Furthermore, it's only pretty late in the game that a boss truly 'gates' your progress. The first boss and big dungeon, for example, can be bypassed entirely, opening up a region that is as big as the first region(s).

I've played this game for about 30 hours now, and until now I avoided dungeons, mini-bosses, the first 'real' boss, and lots of the stronger enemies. And even though I've explored most of the starting areas, I still find new things.

It's only now (level 30+ character) that this approach starts to feel grindy, so I've finally been exploring caves and dungeons, and tried beating mini-bosses and occasionally the first main boss.

From what I hear, until some of the endgame stuff, I can expect at least as much content and variety from each of the upcoming regions. I've probably encountered less than 10% of all the stuff in this came.

The graphical design and mechanics aside (which are excellent), the staggering amount of content is one of the best things about this game.

There's some easy leveling routes. This takes about 2-4 hours:

1) Do the boulder farm for the initial 30-40 levels. Requires no killing or gear.

2) Go kill the first two bosses in the first zone (use coop summoning)

3) Do a quest to get to a really high level area and a specific easy farming spot

4) Shoot a bird so that it runs off of a cliff and do that until you're level 120 or so

However, it's unlikely you'd have figured that out within the game itself. If you're genuinely playing, you'll try to level within the zone you're in by finding the easiest enemies that give the most XP (runes) because that's what most games have you do.

Casual players should just consult external resources if they want to try these games.

I think they could just put "auto scale difficulty" in settings. Players who want a challange can turn it off, others can run through the world easily and feel like they beat the game.

That basically requires building 2 games as far gameplay is designed.

Sorry, I have two kids and I'm happily progressing in Elden ring, without any feeling of repetitiveness. What are you doing to find the game repetitive? I struggle to find parts I have already been given how vast it is, surely I can't say it's repetitive