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[MHubert]

Yeah, thanks for all the replies guys.

I’m losing so much patience with this game, I was having an absolute blast for the first 20-25 hours, but at just over 40 hours in now (and probably 5-10 hours from finishing it if I wanted to) I’m just not sure I can be bothered with it anymore.

It’s not really fun like it was, it just feels like work. And I don’t even think I’m at the worst of it yet!

GOTY it ain’t for me, and I certainly don’t think it’s the best Souls game.

Dark Souls > Bloodborne > Dark Souls 3 > Elden Ring > Demon’s Souls > Dark Souls 2

Holy diver 40 hours, to me that was still the early parts of the beginning of the game.
I agree with what you are saying though. Compared to the other souls games some bosses feel kind of cheap especially mobbing some hard enemies together and a lot of their attacks are unnecessay brutal. Having to sometimes rely on ashes or having enough health buff to feel the fight is fair is not making the combat fun like in the earlier titles.
But regardless, im sad to hear that you are losing the mood and I hope you push through, because to me this is still one of the best games I have ever played.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Yeah, thanks for all the replies guys.

I’m losing so much patience with this game, I was having an absolute blast for the first 20-25 hours, but at just over 40 hours in now (and probably 5-10 hours from finishing it if I wanted to) I’m just not sure I can be bothered with it anymore.

It’s not really fun like it was, it just feels like work. And I don’t even think I’m at the worst of it yet!

GOTY it ain’t for me, and I certainly don’t think it’s the best Souls game.

Dark Souls > Bloodborne > Dark Souls 3 > Elden Ring > Demon’s Souls > Dark Souls 2

I echo this sentiment. I stopped a few weeks ago.

Game feels like I'm logging into work in the morning. its no longer fun. I get more fun out of watching other people discover new shit on youtube.

Its still a fantastic game and I kinda wish other RPG's adopt a similar approach to the open world. Let the player go out and discover things for themselves. Don't paint the HUD with icons. Takes the fun out of an open world.

 

[rofif]

At the end of the game you'll be level ~150. You start with at least 10 points already in vigor. Putting 50 additional points into vigor leaves you with 100 points to distribute however the fuck you want.

If the game is too hard for you, you need to get vigor to the fucking softcap before you start investing in other stats (beyond the minima required to wield your chosen weapons). This is straightforward common sense and it really confirms for me that there's nothing seriously wrong with Elden Ring's endgame difficulty, it's just the usual whiners who show up whenever there's a Souls game.

150?! That’s crazy.
I finished on level 107 and did god 75% of exploration. I didn’t do more because I was playing without wiki and just did what i found.
Now after finishing the game I am doing remaining side stuff. Went from 65 to 80 hours and I am only level 137

 

[Rodolink]

O had same opinion about it until I found that blood slash ash, makes all the difference as now feels like a risk and reward battle like the other games instead of unfair loooong battles with 100 damage per slash.

 

[rofif]

O had same opinion about it until I found that blood slash ash, makes all the difference as now feels like a risk and reward battle like the other games instead of unfair loooong battles with 100 damage per slash.

I found the hoarfrost stomp myself without wiki at the end of the game. Then They nerfed the shit out of it…. Not like it was playing the game for me.
I suspect bleed is next

 

[mxbison]

Yes.

I'm 60 hours in and balance has been all over the place.

Going back and forth between hard and faceroll easy (without grinding or caring much about build).

 

[Raven117]

Before you give up, maybe go grind some levels and look at some op builds. I was exactly where you were, but did the above. Now I’m back on track.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

150?! That’s crazy.
I finished on level 107 and did god 75% of exploration. I didn’t do more because I was playing without wiki and just did what i found.
Now after finishing the game I am doing remaining side stuff. Went from 65 to 80 hours and I am only level 137

107 is crazy low level. I beat the game at 127 and I beelined straight for bosses and didn't explore the endgame dungeons much.

Either way, though, at 107 you can and should easily have 60 vigor.

 

[rofif]

107 is crazy low level. I beat the game at 127 and I beelined straight for bosses and didn't explore the endgame dungeons much.

Either way, though, at 107 you can and should easily have 60 vigor.

crazy talk

 

[SkylineRKR]

60 vigor at 107? Perhaps if all your other stats are low.

I have 40 vigor at 120. 50 faith, 30 mind.. but you also want some endurance and minimum STR and DEX. Arcane as well for dragon spells.

 

[Isendurl]

So can anyone explain to me why the input reading is bad? Because so far I only see stuff like "game is cheating! Shame on From!!!"

While Im here thinking "wow, this is actually pretty good and easy way how to make AI react to players actions" almost like, you know, fighting with real person?

Also even though I think first Dark Souls is still the best, that game is piss easy now, they really need to do stuff like this to keep these games interesting.

 

[rofif]

60 vigor at 107? Perhaps if all your other stats are low.

I have 40 vigor at 120. 50 faith, 30 mind.. but you also want some endurance and minimum STR and DEX. Arcane as well for dragon spells.

In fact, I had 35 vigor at level 99 when I first approached Last boss. I then grinded a bit to level 107 and beat him.
Seriously. They can't expect me to play without a wiki and discover much more than I did.
It took me 65 hours to kill last boss. I did A LOT of exploration. About as much as I could find without wiki.
Sure I skipped some very annoying dungeons or side bosses but I did much more side content than I do in any other games. 65 hours is a lot of game.
I did 15 additional hours after finishing the game, so I guess I could do that before finishing the game... but I needed wiki to discover all of this...

And stat caps are not meant to be reached. 60 vigor is crazy. 35 was enough to survive 1 hit.
I play the game as to NOT GET hit. Avoid, roll, block, use shield.... you know... git gud and not tank damage with 60 vigor. I preferred to put my points in dmg.

Anyway - What I want to say is - expecting someone playing without wiki to discover and do all side content for 100 hours before finishing main game is nuts. And expecting someone to know to level vigor to 60 is another level of nuts. Especially that I played and finished all previous games... and melee builds were more flexible I feel.

 

[ckaneo]

So can anyone explain to me why the input reading is bad? Because so far I only see stuff like "game is cheating! Shame on From!!!"

While Im here thinking "wow, this is actually pretty good and easy way how to make AI react to players actions" almost like, you know, fighting with real person?

Also even though I think first Dark Souls is still the best, that game is piss easy now, they really need to do stuff like this to keep these games interesting.

lol, this sentiment is probably what got into their heads and why the game is so busted. This is bad. It's the opposite of fighting a real person

Check this out:

 

[Isendurl]

This is bad.

Why? Because it looks funny in few gifts?

Jesus Christ, people brains are so rotted by social media, I swear.

It works very well for most of the game and it does what Souls games always did, challenging player to make as little mistakes as possible, because - no mistakes - no need for healing.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Hang on, you can level up ashes of war?

How do you do this?

The game is borderline easy if you use all the tools it provides you. And optimize your build. My build was almost random and I hit a wall at Crumbling Farum Azula. I respecced a bit and tried out different weapons and I was suddenly doing 3x the damage.

I think the problem most people have with the difficulty is that the game is often unnecessarily obtuse and people are missing core mechanics and playing a very gimped version of a build. That makes the game very hard at times, of course.

 

[SatansReverence]

You are way too emotionally invested in a video game, also maybe try to remember that there's a human being on the other end that conversation.

I'm not the one in here having a big ol' cry because I'm bad at the game.

because - no mistakes - no need for healing.

Here's the thing though, you can safely heal against any and every enemy and boss in the game. You just have to, you know, think about when to do it, instead of just desperately trying to chug your estus while having a staring competition with a boss.

I know right!? Shocking!

 

[BadBurger]

In fact, I had 35 vigor at level 99 when I first approached Last boss. I then grinded a bit to level 107 and beat him.
Seriously. They can't expect me to play without a wiki and discover much more than I did.
It took me 65 hours to kill last boss. I did A LOT of exploration. About as much as I could find without wiki.
Sure I skipped some very annoying dungeons or side bosses but I did much more side content than I do in any other games. 65 hours is a lot of game.
I did 15 additional hours after finishing the game, so I guess I could do that before finishing the game... but I needed wiki to discover all of this...

And stat caps are not meant to be reached. 60 vigor is crazy. 35 was enough to survive 1 hit.
I play the game as to NOT GET hit. Avoid, roll, block, use shield.... you know... git gud and not tank damage with 60 vigor. I preferred to put my points in dmg.

Anyway - What I want to say is - expecting someone playing without wiki to discover and do all side content for 100 hours before finishing main game is nuts. And expecting someone to know to level vigor to 60 is another level of nuts. Especially that I played and finished all previous games... and melee builds were more flexible I feel.

I finished my first run through with around 40 vigor, I was also in the 100's level-wise (somewhere between 105 and 109). Seemed enough. That last handful of bosses seem more about avoiding the attacks and positioning, and knowing when one can actually block (usually while correcting position after a mistake).

I'm actually surprised to see so many people were at level 120+ when they finished (not just here but also on Reddit and Twitter). This was my first From game.

 

[NomadicAsiatic]

Hmm…my experience is not all that different from yours op. I’m trash at most “git gud” games(Monster Hunter, DMC, Souls, etc) but I’ve already started to see some bullshit in ER with the Tree Sentinel. I’ll still keep pressing on because everything I’ve encountered so far seems doable but, I get anxiety when I play sometimes.

I shudder to think about late game bosses :S

 

[Guilty_AI]

150?! That’s crazy.
I finished on level 107 and did god 75% of exploration.

No you didn't. If i were to guess, at that point you hadn't seen even half of the game's content. And while questlines can be indeed unnecessarily obtuse, exploration is pretty instinctive, since literally anywhere you go leads to somewhere new. I'm 90 hours in and i'm still finding places on the map i had no idea existed.
There's like 3 or 4 large underground areas (probably even more since there's still 'main' regions i have to get to), as well as bunch "islands", not to mention secret places within secret places, like one elevator in one of the underground areas that leads straight to the inside of a fissure in caelid, or a trio of teleporters at the top of a mountain that leads to secret places within other areas (one of them even leads you to the area at the very start of the game), or a huge plateau with a bunch of stuff in it that you can only get to by following a certain questline.

Seriously, the majority of the people i see complaining about unfair difficulty only have 50 - 60 hours of game. And yes, i call it only because this game is just that massive. If you play this without half-rushing to the end, you'd normally be looking at 100-200 hours minimum.

Hmm…my experience is not all that different from yours op. I’m trash at most “git gud” games(Monster Hunter, DMC, Souls, etc) but I’ve already started to see some bullshit in ER with the Tree Sentinel.

Tree sentinel is easy, unless you tried to fight him as soon as you got out of the underground. Get torrent, practice horse combat and level up a bit, then you should be fine.

 

[Bartski]

This is probably the single valid complaint

I'd argue even that one. Bosses having different attack delays is just how the game punishes roll spamming. Makes perfect sense as it forces the player to focus on reacting against individual attacks in a combo.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I'd argue even that one. Bosses having different attack delays is just how the game punishes roll spamming. Makes perfect sense as it forces the player to focus on reacting against individual attacks in a combo.

i'd say there is still valid criticism that can be made about the game.
The thing about there sometimes there being a dissemblance between a boss actual difficulty and the amount of graces it gives out is 100% true, I feel the amount of graces is more tied to the region/amount of health a boss has, without taking into account things like their moveset or how troublesome they are to fight against.
Game also needs some QoL improvements, mechanics and questlines can be very obtuse at times, its perfectly possible to miss out on summoning upgrades like OP did, and i'd argue thats a very important mechanic to have around.

But i never once felt the game was being unfair with me. Maybe annoying sometimes (like the damn charriot or the lake of rot) but there was always a way to make my life easier whenever i hit a wall.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

60 vigor at 107? Perhaps if all your other stats are low.

I have 40 vigor at 120. 50 faith, 30 mind.. but you also want some endurance and minimum STR and DEX. Arcane as well for dragon spells.

Why do you have 50 faith and 30 mind? Vigor is objectively more important than both of those stats. You can't cast spells if you're dead.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

And expecting someone to know to level vigor to 60 is another level of nuts.

Expecting someone who keeps dying to bosses to the point that it's becoming frustrating to not level the stat that literally prevents you from dying is what's nuts. Do people just not understand how RPGs work or something?

And HP is even more important than it initially seems in Souls games because estus multiplies your maximum effective HP. For every point in vigor from 40-60 you're getting like 200 extra health, not 20, since you can replenish that health 10 times or so.

 

[Bartski]

i'd say there is still valid criticism that can be made about the game.

for sure, I could make a long list of my own. I just think some perceived difficulty spikes are very deliberate and change nothing about ER being the "easiest" Miyazaki game to date.

 

[GermanZepp]

As mentioned before, the screams of 'git gud' is nonsense on this game and irrelevant to what's even being discussed. I've played 120 plus hours and beat tons of bosses, so 'getting good' has nothing to do with this conversation.

The boss fights are more obnoxious than fun and it's being dismissed by nonsensical cries of 'git gud'. Getting good isn't going to make bosses stop jumping in the air and 360 degree rotating in midair and hitting your character. Neither is having bosses read your inputs and throwing daggers or some item at you the moment you try to heal. Neither is bosses having infinite stamina and 8 hit combos that can often take the majority of your life with one hit. Neither is giving bosses ultra long reach to where they all have attacks that can hit you halfway across the screen. Neither is it going to stop the delayed attacks that make finding a rhythm nearly impossible go away. Strategic positioning is almost worthless now and boss fights pretty much devolve into rolling around and hittomg with blood loss, parrying nonstop or blast spells from 20 miles away. Strength builds are pretty much bunny hopping over and over with the jump attack. Shields are pretty much worthless. Strategic positioning is worthless. Either spam a dodge move or hope you can stun bosses over and over with jumping attacks. That's cheese. Cheese or be overly leveled to where boss fights are a breeze. Not fun either.

I agree. I mean, i can beat the bosses and adapt to those things but it makes the fights not fun at all.

 

[rofif]

The game is borderline easy if you use all the tools it provides you. And optimize your build. My build was almost random and I hit a wall at Crumbling Farum Azula. I respecced a bit and tried out different weapons and I was suddenly doing 3x the damage.

I think the problem most people have with the difficulty is that the game is often unnecessarily obtuse and people are missing core mechanics and playing a very gimped version of a build. That makes the game very hard at times, of course.

Easy

Expecting someone who keeps dying to bosses to the point that it's becoming frustrating to not level the stat that literally prevents you from dying is what's nuts. Do people just not understand how RPGs work or something?

And HP is even more important than it initially seems in Souls games because estus multiplies your maximum effective HP. For every point in vigor from 40-60 you're getting like 200 extra health, not 20, since you can replenish that health 10 times or so.

you get 25 health perlevel after 40 which is the first soft cap I think.
Anyway - the idea of good gameplay in souls for me is not to tank the battle... It's to learn it or beat it by other means. Tanking never occurred to me. I don't care if I will survive 2 or 3 hits.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

Easy

you get 25 health perlevel after 40 which is the first soft cap I think.
Anyway - the idea of good gameplay in souls for me is not to tank the battle... It's to learn it or beat it by other means. Tanking never occurred to me. I don't care if I will survive 2 or 3 hits.

I mean, some people insist on wielding nothing but daggers in these games and refuse to use other weapons. If those people start complaining that the game is too hard, unbalanced, or "cheap," what do you think the response should be? "Why the fuck are you using daggers? You're artificially handicapping yourself. Use a different weapon." The same applies to people who refuse to level vigor even though they're having trouble.

 

[rofif]

No you didn't. If i were to guess, at that point you hadn't seen even half of the game's content. And while questlines can be indeed unnecessarily obtuse, exploration is pretty instinctive, since literally anywhere you go leads to somewhere new. I'm 90 hours in and i'm still finding places on the map i had no idea existed.
There's like 3 or 4 large underground areas (probably even more since there's still 'main' regions i have to get to), as well as bunch "islands", not to mention secret places within secret places, like one elevator in one of the underground areas that leads straight to the inside of a fissure in caelid, or a trio of teleporters at the top of a mountain that leads to secret places within other areas (one of them even leads you to the area at the very start of the game), or a huge plateau with a bunch of stuff in it that you can only get to by following a certain questline.

Seriously, the majority of the people i see complaining about unfair difficulty only have 50 - 60 hours of game. And yes, i call it only because this game is just that massive. If you play this without half-rushing to the end, you'd normally be looking at 100-200 hours minimum.

Tree sentinel is easy, unless you tried to fight him as soon as you got out of the underground. Get torrent, practice horse combat and level up a bit, then you should be fine.

I have no idea what you were doing for this long. You know there is a horse in the game right ?! j/k
65 hours in, when I finished last boss at level 107 I really had about 75% explored. RELLY. Sometimes only explored dungeon without killing it's boss but still.
As I sad -I did launched up the wiki and finished remaining stuff in about 15 hours. Rykard(very short area), consecrated snowfield(nothing snowfields), lake of rot (I found other underground areas myself). I've still not done heligtree/melina and I do not plan to.
But even 100 hours for 100% seems like a bit much. Let alone 200.

Anyway - your argument does not hold water. I had a hard time on last boss because I skipped 25% of optional stuff along the way ?! IT'S OPTIONAL EXPLORATION STUFF. You are not meant to do 100% of exploration without wiki. It's not possible. For sure not on first playthrough with these shitty quests.
Main story should be fine to finish by just mainlining which it is clearly not.
Previous Souls games did not had this problem because side areas were on the way of progress which had better flow. You found ugprade materials all along the way.

 

[rofif]

I mean, some people insist on wielding nothing but daggers in these games and refuse to use other weapons. If those people start complaining that the game is too hard, unbalanced, or "cheap," what do you think the response should be? "Why the fuck are you using daggers? You're artificially handicapping yourself. Use a different weapon." The same applies to people who refuse to level vigor even though they're having trouble.

The vigor stat is no so obvious at all. Especially not if you played previous games. 40 is well enough for first playthrough.
In ds2 you can finish the game with a dagger if you want. You can even spec it and build around it so it's one of best weapons in the game.
For me, souls games were always about freedom of playing with what you are comfortable with and then specing the character around that.
And I feel like this gam actively punished me for my usual build. It is OK the game wanted me to use more spirits, ashes and magic. That is great. Maybe it is easier for new players but not obvious for vets

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

You can beat this game using daggers too, but it's obviously harder than using most other weapon types. Just like you can beat this game at 40 vigor, but it's much harder (because the game overall is harder than previous Souls games). It's fine to purposefully make the game harder for yourself by using only daggers or by refusing to level vigor, but you can't really then proceed to moan about how hard the game is when you've made a conscious decision to make the game artificially difficult for yourself.

 

[Punished Miku]

I mean, some people insist on wielding nothing but daggers in these games and refuse to use other weapons. If those people start complaining that the game is too hard, unbalanced, or "cheap," what do you think the response should be? "Why the fuck are you using daggers? You're artificially handicapping yourself. Use a different weapon." The same applies to people who refuse to level vigor even though they're having trouble.

Daggers never once felt like a handicap in Demon's Souls, and were by far my favorite weapons. But they're extremely weak in Elden Ring.

 

[Jadsey]

I said in another post that Lords of the Fallen is a better souls game, and I'll stick by that.

Everyone in enamored by the exploration, variety and art style of Elden Ring...I certainly was too.

But the fundamental combat is laughably unbalanced.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

Daggers never once felt like a handicap in Demon's Souls, and were by far my favorite weapons. But they're extremely weak in Elden Ring.

Daggers have been joke weapons for the entire series, Demon's Souls was just really easy in terms of combat, particularly bosses. Daggers are if anything probably the strongest they've ever been in Elden Ring because of powerstancing and how powerful bleed is.

 

[Punished Miku]

Daggers have been joke weapons for the entire series, Demon's Souls was just really easy in terms of combat, particularly bosses. Daggers are if anything probably the strongest they've ever been in Elden Ring because of powerstancing and how powerful bleed is.

Ridiculous statement. One of the main classes starts with dagger and is designed around that. If you consider that an unusuable joke weapon that's called being "unbalanced." Personally, I used dagger almost exclusively in Demon's Souls, and DS 1 and 2.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

Ridiculous statement. One of the main classes starts with dagger and is designed around that. If you consider that an unusuable joke weapon that's called being "unbalanced." Personally, I used dagger almost exclusively in Demon's Souls, and DS 1 and 2.

The games have never been "balanced" in the sense that all weapons are equally viable. All weapons are in point of fact not equally viable. Daggers are clearly worse than various other weapon types for the vast majority of PvE applications - they have low per hit damage, low DPS, low stagger, and extremely low range. This has been the case in every game in the series, and Elden Ring is no exception. In Elden Ring they're probably more viable than in other games because high attack speed can proc bleed quickly, but they're still objectively worse than, say, curved swords (which have high attack speed and also do more damage and have more range).

I'm frankly baffled that people are now claiming that all weapon types must be equally viable in PvE and if they're not that's a balance problem. "I should be able to use whatever weapon I want and not level my HP stat and not find the game frustratingly difficult" is an insane argument and I'm glad From is unlikely to listen to it.

And yes, the bandit starts with daggers. The bandit is just the thief from previous Souls games, and the thief is always considered one of the more challenging starting classes. The starting classes aren't balanced and have never been balanced either. That's by design.

 

[Punished Miku]

The games have never been "balanced" in the sense that all weapons are equally viable. All weapons are in point of fact not equally viable. Daggers are clearly worse than various other weapon types for the vast majority of PvE applications - they have low per hit damage, low DPS, low stagger, and extremely low range. This has been the case in every game in the series, and Elden Ring is no exception. In Elden Ring they're probably more viable than in other games because high attack speed can proc bleed quickly, but they're still objectively worse than, say, curved swords (which have high attack speed and also do more damage and have more range).

I'm frankly baffled that people are now claiming that all weapon types must be equally viable in PvE and if they're not that's a balance problem. "I should be able to use whatever weapon I want and not level my HP stat and not find the game frustratingly difficult" is an insane argument and I'm glad From is unlikely to listen to it.

All the classes should be somewhat equally viable. This is obvious. One of the main starting classes starts with a dagger and that's been the case the entire series. A normal approach to balancing would be to have the decreased range offset with appropriate benefits in other areas, like attack speed, or other effects. You then have multiple classes with different strengths and weaknesses, but they're all roughly equally viable in the game. That's normal, common sense balancing for almost every game ever made.

 

[Mossybrew]

I suck at Souls games and managed to beat Elden Ring. Just keep yourself overleveled and use whatever OP strategy you can find, in my case Moonveil plus Sorcery. Most required bosses I killed on my first try, only towards the very end did it start to get a bit difficult.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

All the classes should be somewhat equally viable. This is obvious. One of the main starting classes starts with a dagger and that's been the case the entire series. A normal approach to balancing would be to have the decreased range offset with appropriate benefits in other areas, like attack speed, or other effects. You then have multiple classes with different strengths and weaknesses, but they're all roughly equally viable in the game. That's normal, common sense balancing for almost every game ever made.

That is not how Souls games are balanced. It's never been how they're balanced. Not all builds and playstyles are equally viable. Everyone always agrees that the thief is generally one of the hardest starting classes because daggers are weaker than other weapon classes. If your friend were starting Souls for the first time you would not recommend they start as a thief. If you're using daggers in these games it's because you want to impose that level of challenge on yourself, not because you foolishly think they're equally as viable in PvE as katanas or halberds or whatever. They're not, and this is obvious to anyone who pays attention, including new players.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I have no idea what you were doing for this long. You know there is a horse in the game right ?! j/k
65 hours in, when I finished last boss at level 107 I really had about 75% explored. RELLY. Sometimes only explored dungeon without killing it's boss but still.
As I sad -I did launched up the wiki and finished remaining stuff in about 15 hours. Rykard(very short area), consecrated snowfield(nothing snowfields), lake of rot (I found other underground areas myself). I've still not done heligtree/melina and I do not plan to.
But even 100 hours for 100% seems like a bit much. Let alone 200.

I use the horse, like A LOT. I even fight bosses with it if the game lets me. I'm around level 110-120 and i still only started exploring the Atlus Plateau. Haven't purposefully done any grinding even once, it was all from playing the game normally. Have you seem the Crumbling lands? All of eternal city? All of Caelid? How many divine towers you got to? How many elden tree saplings? How many castles did you explore? I've explored 4 or 5 castles already despite having only gotten out of limgrave, i would spend hours in some of them, and i'm probably forgetting some other smaller ones. And you just simply don't find other underground areas, they are whole worlds in and of themselves, they're big enough to be a game just by themselves.

I'm saying you didn't explore a lot because its physically impossible for you to have seem more than half of the game in 60 hours.

Anyway - your argument does not hold water. I had a hard time on last boss because I skipped 25% of optional stuff along the way ?! IT'S OPTIONAL EXPLORATION STUFF. You are not meant to do 100% of exploration without wiki. It's not possible. For sure not on first playthrough with these shitty quests.

You skipped a lot more than 25% of stuff if you were only at level 107. Even more so if you purposefully grinded to get levels. And you don't have to explore 100% of the game either, i sure as hell am losing out on a lot of content, theres just way to much stuff to be able to see everything in the first place.

I mean, look at this shit, i would never for the life of me find out about this, and i'm still finding shitton of stuff by just walking and exploring normally.

Main story should be fine to finish by just mainlining which it is clearly not.

Not necessarely. The game wants you to explore and get stronger, thats just the kind of game it is. If you find doing side stuff and exploring a pain, and just wants to rush to the end while only having a mildly challenging time, then this game simply isn't for you.

Previous Souls games did not had this problem because side areas were on the way of progress which had better flow. You found ugprade materials all along the way.

This isn't Dark souls, no matter how much some want it to be.

 

[tassletine]

If it wasnt apparent when you have to fight any duo bosses than I dont know what From needs to do to say that Ashes are part of the Elden Ring. Soulsborne type bosses died with Dark Souls 3. Consider:

1) With Sekiro, the way I beat Isshin was not to deplete his health bar but to bust his guard for the execution. Did it 3 times with his health was about half full the entire fight. Could I have done it the traditional soulsborne way, sure but it was way harder. This is the same throughout the main bosses in Sekiro.

2) With ER, the first 100 hours of the game is telling you that these bosses while slower moving have the capacity to cheat (infinite stamina), read inputs, combo heavy, cancel combo you name it. They teach you this so while you can solo it, Ashes can trully be a gamechanger to take back the advantage. Late game bosses change it up by giving such a small window to attack that while you can do it the soulsborne way and no summon, its clear that they are balanced specifically for Ashes help.

This would be reasonable if the ashes worked 100% of the time, but the AI breaks for them fairly easily, as it does for the bosses. The fastest speed run at the moment even relies on an AI break to defeat the Elden Beast.

Although I haven't played the base ps4 version, I suspect that it is worse there.
In Sekiro base ps4 was practically unplayable on later levels due to the framerate, input lag and things like the AI freezing/ characters appearing out of nowhere, when things got busy. It was clear the code wasn't up to the task.

I'm sure it's designed to work correctly, but the fact is it doesn't. I think From have definitely overreached themselves here.

 

[Spukc]

wow now i have seen those input reading gifs i am never touching this game again .
1 outa 10 would never play again

from soft is doomed

 

[shoegaze]

So straight out the gate, apologies ahead of time to the community for posting YET ANOTHER Elden Ring thread, but honest question:

Do you think the balance of the bread and butter enemies against the bosses is a bit out of whack this time around?

I’m no Soulsborne vet, I’m pretty bad at all of the games. I’ve beaten then eventually, but I don’t think I’ve even “got gud”, as it were. I don’t have the inside track on the hitboxes or other assorted tips on this particular game, but I can’t be the only one feeling like I’m hitting a slightly harder brick wall than usual when it comes to the bosses in this game?

I don’t know wether it’s a result of the open world nature this time around, maybe I’m doing them in the wrong order or something.

But I’ve never encountered such a discrepancy in difficulty between just making my way around the world whacking monsters over the head with relative ease to then getting utterly steamrolled by the bosses.

Is anyone else finding this? It’s like they’ve made the base game quite a bit easier, only to make the bosses much harder. It’s like they doubled down on the whole “it’s a boss, so they don’t play by the same rules as you” aspect, fully spamming massive life bar draining moves one after another, and brushing off massive attacks from the player as a mere tickle.

I’m now passed the point of giving them a couple of goes solo unless they cheat less than usual, I just summon help and move on from the bullshit to see the rest of the game.

Thoughts?

Sorry mate this is the easiest Soulsborne yet. Unless you follow the story going up the map and play naked with a parry shield and SS, you should be alright. Explore the map, put your points wisely (40 vigor by level 80), use summons and ashes of war and it's going to be a breeze.

Maybe you're putting self imposed challenges on yourself on how the game should be played and bosses beaten. Maybe you're not even aware of them.

Follow this progression route also, maybe you're underleveled for the location. https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Recommended+Level+by+Location

 

[rofif]

Sorry mate this is the easiest Soulsborne yet. Unless you follow the story going up the map and play naked with a parry shield and SS, you should be alright. Explore the map, put your points wisely, use summons and ashes of war and it's going to be a breeze.

Maybe you're putting self imposed challenges on yourself on how the game should be played and bosses beaten. Maybe you're not even aware of them.

"this is the easiest souls game mate. You just need to put 150 hours into it and read quests and area guides on wiki. It's your fault for not finding this obtuse shit"

 

[SkylineRKR]

Why do you have 50 faith and 30 mind? Vigor is objectively more important than both of those stats. You can't cast spells if you're dead.

Just don't get hit. Keep distance, only go in if its safe. At 40 vigor and decent armor this game is perfectly doable. The trade off is that I could use some good spells earlier. Though Incantation do feel considerably weaker than Sorcery.

 

[Punished Miku]

Just don't get hit. Keep distance, only go in if its safe. At 40 vigor and decent armor this game is perfectly doable. The trade off is that I could use some good spells earlier. Though Incantation do feel considerably weaker than Sorcery.

Those are joke spells.

 

[Tomeru]

Well, yes, but: actually no.

The problem arise from the differences between going melee or magic. Every enemy is easy when you use magic. Its not even funny really.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

Just don't get hit. Keep distance, only go in if its safe. At 40 vigor and decent armor this game is perfectly doable. The trade off is that I could use some good spells earlier. Though Incantation do feel considerably weaker than Sorcery.

Sure, but we're talking about people who are currently whining up a storm in this thread about how hard the game is. It seems like people are trying to adopt a playstyle ("who needs vigor just don't get hit bro lol") that they're simply not good enough to pull off, and then they're blaming the game instead of making necessary adjustments.

Those are joke spells.

Is it or is it not a meme that faith builds aren't viable in Souls? They're certainly more viable this time around than they've ever been in the past.

 

[Punished Miku]

Is it or is it not a meme that faith builds aren't viable in Souls? They're certainly more viable this time around than they've ever been in the past.

I was unaware of that. Started as a Confessor and it was not fun.

 

[GermanZepp]

I said in another post that Lords of the Fallen is a better souls game, and I'll stick by that.

Everyone in enamored by the exploration, variety and art style of Elden Ring...I certainly was too.

But the fundamental combat is laughably unbalanced.

Your are absolutely wrong. Lord of the fallen is one of the worst games i ever played. I regreat wasting my time on it.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Faith isn't good. I've used it for 40 hours or so. Its just not good. Lightning Spear is good, Golden Vow is good. Cleanse is good. Bloodflame blade is good.

The other spells have terrible wind up and too low damage (Lansseax Spear is an absolute joke). Holy is decent, but you can just pop Sacred blade on a weapon, and kill skellies with that. I haven't found much use for Holy otherwise.

Its much better to spec on Arcane instead. Get Rotten breath etc, get a blood weapon. And only minimum faith for some decent spells/buffs. Powerstance katanas or something. Perhaps spec towards golden vow only (25 fth), which gives you cleanse, lightning spear etc anyway.

Well, yes, but: actually no.

The problem arise from the differences between going melee or magic. Every enemy is easy when you use magic. Its not even funny really.

Yes but this has always been the case in Souls. Demon's had players starting with Royal and then complaining about how easy and overrated the game was.

However, in Elden Ring probably even moreso because most bosses are harmless from range, their AI routine sort of breaks; they don't try to interrupt your heals and are passive much more. The exception is the bell knight, which is safer to fight up close though not entirely true either, I killed one with just lightning spears. Just need range outside of his phantom swipes.

There is also the fact that the game has more open design, which means you can maintain distance more easily, and there is horseback. Even the spirit summons benefit casters more, since you can nuke while they draw aggro.