re: Finally starting Elden Ring: The beginning of the end of a journey

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That’s great, but what you are saying does not apply to my play. The game tells you the direct path for the story, so what? Use the map and explore

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Go back and read my previous post again. I get what I’m supposed to do; I’ve already killed Margit and Godrick, along with about another dozen bosses/minibosses/whatever they are in this game. Hell, I stumbled onto the underground Siofra River area and ran it all the way until I popped out in fricking Caelid and then stormed Redmane Castle, because fricking yolo.

My issue is that “you’re supposed to ignore what we’re telling you to do and go do other things first” wasn’t intuitive, at all. And that goes doubly so for a FromSoft game. Again, I’m enjoying the game. It’s not the end of the world, but I consider it to be a valid criticism of the game’s design.

I have to get back on this game. I beat the Fire Giant a few months ago and haven’t played it since.

I skipped that one. Loved the zone, though

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That was my problem. I do not have the time to figure games like that out anymore. I love a challenge but life has changed for me

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One of the reasons I may eventually play Elden ring is I’ve read you can kind of cheese or play “easy mode” using more magic and fighting from a distance. But I haven’t looked much into it.

Here is how AI describes it.

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"Elden Ring" does not have a built-in "easy mode" in the game itself, but players can effectively create an easier experience by utilizing strategies like summoning spirit ashes to assist in combat, using magic builds, and strategically choosing classes that might be more beginner-friendly

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Too many other games for me to tool around with

There are multiple Dark Souls 1 bosses that will (usually, depending on RNG) die to summons even if the player does nothing.

Though there are a few that make the fight significantly harder, so it’s a mixed bag

Haha yep, that’s one. And if you summon both Solaire and Lautrec, they will absolutely gangbang the gargoyles.

I bought Dark Souls 2 for my PC, and was annoyed when I found out it was a direct port from console - in that even the tutorial kept referencing buttons on a game controller instead of a keyboard.

Honestly, after that, I never bothered trying again. I felt if a company wasn't dedicated enough to adjust the game to reflect a different system, where else would i find failings?

Also, watching the videos on people fighting the bosses definitely had me thinking there were other games out there that could still challenge my tactically but had a deeper narrative.

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I don't want to start ranting, but this is completely true. The games have unintuitive mechanics that seem hard, but are not. They're actually quite easy compared to a lot of alternative genres on high difficulties. The community just acts like it's incredibly difficult and does a terrible job of explaining it, which is also the dev's fault at the same time.

The gameplay depth can be summarized as mile wide, inch deep. The deep part is all that matters for the challenge honestly. It really boils down to dodge, R1.

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Most of the difficulty comes from people "playing the game wrong", and I don't mean that in any demeaning or pejorative way: the games almost intentionally set you up to fail. If I know someone is getting into a Souls game for the first time, the primary thing I try to impart on them is that souls don't really matter. And I don't mean that in any hardass SL1 way. I mean that first time players stress themselves sick over reclaiming their bloodstain when they die, when the reality is that if you just immediately sit after each boss to spend their souls, you could not get a single soul from any other enemy in the entire game and you'd be just fine. Slow down, take your time. Understand that learning to dodge is more important than learning to attack. Slow down more.

And once you learn the area, feel free to just jog past all of the enemies. The number of enemies that are actually mandatory are staggeringly low. At this point, I think I kill two to three enemies in the entirety of Anor Londo: the first painting guardian that drops by the ladder when you enter the church, the archer knight on the exposed run, and the basement mimic if I care about getting the occult club to downgrade to +5 holy.