I really wanted to like ER. It’s fucking beautiful and seems to have a lot of depth, but the a appeal to difficulty doesn’t really hold any water, cuz the only thing that makes it difficult is unnecessarily clunky controls.
Maybe there’s a mod or something now that makes the combat more fluid… I should give it another visit.
One could accuse Elden Ring of many things, but clunky controls is definitively not one of them.
It’s probably one of the best combat systems I’ve ever played. When you die, you know it’s your fault (usually because of greed), not the system cheating you. It’s very fair, unlike many others.
I mean, bosses input reading my heavy attack to suddenly turn their three move combo into a four move combo 50% of the time feels a bit lame. For instance the dancing lion suddenly going into the spray carousel after it would have exhausted its combo and rested otherwise. My main issue is on the inconsistency.
Don’t get me wrong, that fight was really fun and I overcame it, but there are many such cases where it feels overtly like the game just threw in the extra attack as a “fuck you” while trying to learn the mechanics. There might be a subtle cue to the boss’s body language I didn’t see but there’s also the issue of the camera in encounters with large enemies.
On the whole though, as frustrating as it may be at times, often there’s still an underlying pattern. The only fights I think are explicitly unfair are the ones with adds or multiple enemies that add a lot of uncertainty especially if some are off camera. The twin gargoyle fight comes to mind, as does the Godskin duo where you explicitly have to kill both around the same time or the other respawns.
What are you even talking about? In what way are the controls clunky?
soulslike mechanics probably feel clunky to people that don’t really play soulslike. That said a bunch of things totally are clunky like cycling through spells and items which hasn’t significantly changed since dark souls, and for people that would rather take their time browsing the items walking while the menu is up is probably pretty jarring. Probably other things. It really has come a long way from demon souls but I honesly kinda prefer the jankiness of the older games.
Get the fuck out of here. Absolute troll post.
Post your steam account stats, I dare you.
People are allowed to not like games you like …
I also find souls likes to feel janky. Elden Ring is playable for me, Dark Souls 3 I just rage quit rather than dealing with its UI.
They have the same UI and flow between each element…
They couldn’t even be bothered to report the correct keys if you use anything but an xbox controller or allow custom key binds in Dark Souls 3. I will never understand the praise the Dark Souls 3 PC port got.
They actually do let you rebind most keys, and they do also have a setting that changes the button prompts to keyboard buttons though I recall it being sorta hidden.
It wouldn’t break shit, the fan base would have a meltdown over their precious thing being more accessible though.
Difficulty is not an accessibility issue.
The game is not “difficult” per se, it’s just that the underlying systems of how to make it easier aren’t made explicit. You’re meant to engage with it and learn how to create the advantages you need. It’s supposed to be a process of learning and growth that feels rewarding and earned. Or read a guide.
It’s honestly one of the easiest From games, once you engage with the particulars. Let me be clear: This isn’t an elaborate “git gud”. That began as an ironically bad opinion that inevitably became a genuine opinion held by fools.
Engage with the systems and dynamics presented to you, and you begin to see that the difficulty setting in ER (and other Souls games) exists on a conceptual level.
The exception that proves the rule here is Sekiro, which was an amazingly interesting experiment in putting you into a character’s shoes through game mechanics - the only way to beat the game is to adopt the bold and precise combat style of the main character. The difficulty of that game comes from hesitation, fear, and carelessness - and it is painfully unforgiving.
It’s honestly one of the easiest From games, once you engage with the particulars.
I see this being said from time to time and I thought it was just me not “Gitting Gud”, so after being filtered by Captain Niall even with my mimic summon, I went through and cleared Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls 1 and 3, Bloodborne, and Sekiro all for the first time, and they were a fucking breeze compared to Elden Ring. I used a strength scaled zweihander in the Demon/Souls games to have the closest comparison possible (and also because I think it looks good). I guess it depends on which weapons you enjoy using, but the fact that there’s such a big skill discrepancy between entire weapon categories is in itself a pretty big stain on Elden Ring’s claim to be an RPG.
edit: I shouldn’t say they were all a breeze. Bloodborne and Sekiro were difficult for sure. Not even close to comparable to my experience with Elden Ring though.
Elden ring isn’t hard. People just need to learn to adapt and try new builds. This game is too massive to play with one build unless you go for something OP. That’s why they give you so many tears to reclass. Learn weaknesses and resistances, use ranged attacks, use summons, use everything you have at your disposal. That’s the whole point of the game.
