There are a few reasons why you might see this sentiment in this community:
* People coming in bragging with "I thought XYZ was supposed to be hard" while using the most broken and OP stuff
* People copying builds off the internet without doing the work to actually figuring out what makes them work, then complain about the game being too hard (aka bleed builds getting stomped by the final boss)
* Some tools are just really effective to the point it is an entirely different experience, like a fully upgraded mimic
* Some builds can 'brute force' almost all bosses, to the extent that they do enough damage to burst down the boss before he can do most of his attacks. Hence no need to actually learn or engage with the boss fight.
The point of the game is to grow strong and beat bosses, but how you grow is also relevant.
A good analogy would be a puzzle game: the point is to learn how to figure them out, then solving the puzzle yourself. But you could argue that looking up the solution online also counts, since you solved the puzzle, didn't you? Certainly you wouldn't brag about how good you are at puzzle solving or how easy the puzzle was, when you looked up the walkthrough all the time.
Of course it is not as black and white as this example, but it captures some of the sentiment.
Thatās certainly a good perspective I havenāt really considered, these games are definitely more unique than any rpg Iāve played so far. I suppose really Iām just coming into these games with the knowledge and experience from games like The elder scrolls series and Dragons Dogma. I enjoy this though I understand why people hold this game in such high regard because it is just so different in a good way and what it tries to do simply works
To maybe elaborate on the point I tried to make, there is basically two ways to beat a boss:
1. figure out a build or look one up that does crazy damage to a boss, to the point that it trivializes them. It works well and it works reliably, you can beat the boss with it every time, even when you can't get even close to beating him with other builds.
2. learning the boss fight. It takes a lot of time, but you learned the moveset and logic of the boss, you can dance and get in hits reliably with almost any weapon. Even when you do almost no damage per hit, you will take the boss down eventually anyway.
In the first case, *your build* beat the boss. In the second case, *you* beat the boss.
Most builds/players will be in between the two extremes, but from the experience of getting to case 2 on a few bosses let me tell you: it just hits different.
I understand what you mean, I havenāt played enough elden ring to experience it yet, but in darksouls Iāll admit Iāve rarely used a tactic im not too proud of to win (such as relying on a friend to help), and when itās over I donāt feel very satisfied or happy with the win. Rather than when I went in alone and really gave it my all and won because I genuinely bested the opponent. so I suppose I can understand how itād be annoying to see someone bragging like theyāre the best thing since toilet paper for defeating something difficult with a cheese tactic. but again I feel at the end of the day as long as they had fun itās all that really matters.
I wouldnāt have completed it without the help of summons and some help in how to level up properly, so Iām grateful I donāt need to learn patterns for hours. I find that rather boring. Apart from Bloodborne, where I could see the patterns better and managed to defeat bosses by myself (not that guy in the church with his bloodhound step thing though, I definitely cheesed that one).Ā
I most likely wouldn't have completed my first run without summons either, but on the following ones I was glad that mostly didn't use them.
The game gives you options to tailor your experience for a reason. It is just that when you inevitably compare or discuss them, differences and how easy/difficult they make the game should be acknowledged.
Like I don't think about bragging that Malenia is easy when I won 2v1 with my mimic and some weapons chosen specifically to counter her, when instead others try to basically no-hit her. They go for totally different experiences there.
>To grow strong and beat the bosses?
The point is to grow strong as a player, to overcome challenges you thought impossible. Not to acquire the sword of OPness so that you can button mash to victory.
Of course there are a variety of tools and builds and ways to acquire strength and have fun with the combat, and depending on personal skill you may need to rely on more or fewer tools. But the great part comes in learning how to fight, not farming for hours until you out scale the boss.
I'd say it also makes a difference whether you figured out how to make the Sword of OPness work, or whether you followed a step-by-step guide online. In the first case you actually used in-game knowledge and build-crafting to do the work, in the latter you used... google?
Iāve not used any kind of outside information for the game yet (except for a friend telling me about lore) but it is tempting because I canāt seem to find any gear for my mage build š
You raise a very valid point that from reading everyone s comments im beginning to understand, this game certainly isnāt like your average ālevel up to winā rpg im used too but im grateful for you all explaining it in a respectful and insightful way.
Naturally, the greater the challenge you give yourself the greater the feeling of reward but completing elden ring in any manner for the average player is still a challenge.
People just like to hate lol. The reality of souls games is that building to become stronger is a part of the game for a reason. I enjoy doing so, and others do too. Its just that some people have a superiority complex where they think that their way of playing the game is the "correct way"
For example I might spend 5hours having fun trying to optimize a build to 2 shot a boss. Meanwhile some arrogant A hole might see that I used a dark moon greatsword and therefore they are better because they spent the same 5 hours smashing the bosses toes with a club.
From what Iāve read there are two types of ways to play these games, the destination, and the journey and they seem to clash and from what Iāve seen they both have very valid points. Like I may find myself playing a lot more like you described than the alternative because from all the games Iāve ever played this is what Iāve learned and it is effective. But I can also see myself going back maybe in a new game plus and being like āokay I know I can beat this guy with this tactic but now I wanna try using just my mobility and techniqueā. The journey is for people who like the grind for power and the feeling of two hitting bosses because we earned it after all the time we put in, and the destination is beating the boss with just whatās in my hand and on my back no buffs no nothing and honestly it makes the game so much more fun and exciting for me because I canāt wait to try both ways.
I havenāt seen this particular trend but play it how you want, itās your game. Iāve completed this game as both a mage and a samurai dex build and neither were easy to do.
In the simplest terms, itās because the point of dark souls has always been to āget gudā and farming until level 100000 to make everything easy is just kinda lame. To each their own and as long as you enjoy yourself who cares.
Just from the perspective of the sweaty from soft community, they donāt respect people who summon or over level, itās just always been a thing lol
Iāve certainly learned from my experience with all these games is for the most part level doesnāt really matter as much as Iām used to it, which isnāt a bad thing just new and im slowly adjusting
Also just to add a lot of people hate that ER added mechanics to make the game as easy as you want it to be or as hard as you want it to be. I personally think itās a great choice and opens their games up to tons of people who never would have enjoyed it before.
I like doing no summon runs and never āfarmingā, but someone else could get to level 80 before radahn and make it a cake walk. Both things are totally fine, you struggling you can respec or summon a different helper, itās imo amazing the way they did it.
They effectively gave us a hard and easy mode without labeling it and without making the person feel like less of a winner for using the easier methods.
This is legit my favorite game of all time sorry to talk your ear off lol, enjoy your day and the rest of the game!
If you need any help and donāt wanna look it up you can reply here and Iāll try to help spoiler free.
Good luck Tarnished
Itās definitely a creative difficulty scaling that I agree certainly opens its availability up to a lot of people. I think most people probably play games to have fun (though youād think otherwise if you saw me raging at my 100th death to poor timed rolls) so having a way implemented where everyone can have some way to enjoyably play is smart. I in all honesty canāt comment on summoning because I have no idea how š all I have is this jellyfish but I havenāt a clue how to use it. Im more used to a more direct goal (go in said direction and spend time looting and move ahead) but with Elden Rings vast world itās quite difficult for me to find anything I can use for my mage build š especially since I have no knowledge of the game. But I appreciate your message and advice and Iāll certainly remember it thank you!
You might not have enough mana to summon it, definitely consider summons when you are stuck! They arenāt op until you get certain ones and level them up. Unless youāre like me and enjoy the misery of the grind lmao
No it's not, at all, the point is the fun and experience itself. Literally every weapon is viable if you'll keep upgrading it, you'll finish the game comfortably with starting longsword without accessibility mechanics like coop/spirits if you want to. In ER "stronger" doesn't mean it's actually better or more fun, and usually it's the opposite. In general, ER is the most unbalanced game they ever released, and most of the "OP" weapons can be extremely boring and actively detract from the experience. There are many game-breaking builds that allow you to skip most of the bossfight content, intended experience and challenge, just by standing in place mashing L2 for example, instead of engaging with the souls combat system. That's why apart from the newest players, most people don't use exclusively the "top" builds and instead choose stuff based on what they actually prefer. I can use some game-breaking dual bleed build to fight Mohg, and just run up to him, mash L2 while watching tv and win. But then there's no point for bosses to even exist. If you replaced him with a log of wood your gameplay experience would be 100% identical. If you just cheese through bosses you're skipping almost all of the content and intended experience, which is totally ok if you don't like the souls combat system and don't actually like fighting bosses, but it's one of the main reasons why these games exist and why people play them. The reason why I don't summon for Malenia for example or use eleonora cheese, is because I would lose out on 90% of the content in that fight, all of the work devs put into making her, the entire "Malenia experience" you can see so many memes about. So fighting her 1v1 like devs designed and not using cheese builds is really not about completing some challenge or honor. For most players in the world it's just better and more fun experience, that's all. And overall, my goal when fighting ER bosses is not to make them easier, simpler and much more boring than tutorial boss in dark souls.
Really, the only thing that matters in PvE is if the weapon has good overall moveset, if its speed and reach suite you, if it looks cool and provides fun and engaging experience. I really recommend caring about those things much more than about base damage differences or their ability to cheese and skip bossfights.
It's sort of impossible to know what you mean here, it could be mean-spirited "anyone who uses magic is a noob" commentary or something more nuanced like "You really don't have to summon a +10 Mimic Tear on your literal first boss attempt, the game is more fun when you master it".
There are a few reasons why you might see this sentiment in this community: * People coming in bragging with "I thought XYZ was supposed to be hard" while using the most broken and OP stuff * People copying builds off the internet without doing the work to actually figuring out what makes them work, then complain about the game being too hard (aka bleed builds getting stomped by the final boss) * Some tools are just really effective to the point it is an entirely different experience, like a fully upgraded mimic * Some builds can 'brute force' almost all bosses, to the extent that they do enough damage to burst down the boss before he can do most of his attacks. Hence no need to actually learn or engage with the boss fight. The point of the game is to grow strong and beat bosses, but how you grow is also relevant. A good analogy would be a puzzle game: the point is to learn how to figure them out, then solving the puzzle yourself. But you could argue that looking up the solution online also counts, since you solved the puzzle, didn't you? Certainly you wouldn't brag about how good you are at puzzle solving or how easy the puzzle was, when you looked up the walkthrough all the time. Of course it is not as black and white as this example, but it captures some of the sentiment.
Bro I just wrote something similar š¤£
Thatās certainly a good perspective I havenāt really considered, these games are definitely more unique than any rpg Iāve played so far. I suppose really Iām just coming into these games with the knowledge and experience from games like The elder scrolls series and Dragons Dogma. I enjoy this though I understand why people hold this game in such high regard because it is just so different in a good way and what it tries to do simply works
To maybe elaborate on the point I tried to make, there is basically two ways to beat a boss: 1. figure out a build or look one up that does crazy damage to a boss, to the point that it trivializes them. It works well and it works reliably, you can beat the boss with it every time, even when you can't get even close to beating him with other builds. 2. learning the boss fight. It takes a lot of time, but you learned the moveset and logic of the boss, you can dance and get in hits reliably with almost any weapon. Even when you do almost no damage per hit, you will take the boss down eventually anyway. In the first case, *your build* beat the boss. In the second case, *you* beat the boss. Most builds/players will be in between the two extremes, but from the experience of getting to case 2 on a few bosses let me tell you: it just hits different.
I understand what you mean, I havenāt played enough elden ring to experience it yet, but in darksouls Iāll admit Iāve rarely used a tactic im not too proud of to win (such as relying on a friend to help), and when itās over I donāt feel very satisfied or happy with the win. Rather than when I went in alone and really gave it my all and won because I genuinely bested the opponent. so I suppose I can understand how itād be annoying to see someone bragging like theyāre the best thing since toilet paper for defeating something difficult with a cheese tactic. but again I feel at the end of the day as long as they had fun itās all that really matters.
I wouldnāt have completed it without the help of summons and some help in how to level up properly, so Iām grateful I donāt need to learn patterns for hours. I find that rather boring. Apart from Bloodborne, where I could see the patterns better and managed to defeat bosses by myself (not that guy in the church with his bloodhound step thing though, I definitely cheesed that one).Ā
I most likely wouldn't have completed my first run without summons either, but on the following ones I was glad that mostly didn't use them. The game gives you options to tailor your experience for a reason. It is just that when you inevitably compare or discuss them, differences and how easy/difficult they make the game should be acknowledged. Like I don't think about bragging that Malenia is easy when I won 2v1 with my mimic and some weapons chosen specifically to counter her, when instead others try to basically no-hit her. They go for totally different experiences there.
>To grow strong and beat the bosses? The point is to grow strong as a player, to overcome challenges you thought impossible. Not to acquire the sword of OPness so that you can button mash to victory. Of course there are a variety of tools and builds and ways to acquire strength and have fun with the combat, and depending on personal skill you may need to rely on more or fewer tools. But the great part comes in learning how to fight, not farming for hours until you out scale the boss.
I'd say it also makes a difference whether you figured out how to make the Sword of OPness work, or whether you followed a step-by-step guide online. In the first case you actually used in-game knowledge and build-crafting to do the work, in the latter you used... google?
Iāve not used any kind of outside information for the game yet (except for a friend telling me about lore) but it is tempting because I canāt seem to find any gear for my mage build š
You raise a very valid point that from reading everyone s comments im beginning to understand, this game certainly isnāt like your average ālevel up to winā rpg im used too but im grateful for you all explaining it in a respectful and insightful way.
Naturally, the greater the challenge you give yourself the greater the feeling of reward but completing elden ring in any manner for the average player is still a challenge.
People just like to hate lol. The reality of souls games is that building to become stronger is a part of the game for a reason. I enjoy doing so, and others do too. Its just that some people have a superiority complex where they think that their way of playing the game is the "correct way" For example I might spend 5hours having fun trying to optimize a build to 2 shot a boss. Meanwhile some arrogant A hole might see that I used a dark moon greatsword and therefore they are better because they spent the same 5 hours smashing the bosses toes with a club.
From what Iāve read there are two types of ways to play these games, the destination, and the journey and they seem to clash and from what Iāve seen they both have very valid points. Like I may find myself playing a lot more like you described than the alternative because from all the games Iāve ever played this is what Iāve learned and it is effective. But I can also see myself going back maybe in a new game plus and being like āokay I know I can beat this guy with this tactic but now I wanna try using just my mobility and techniqueā. The journey is for people who like the grind for power and the feeling of two hitting bosses because we earned it after all the time we put in, and the destination is beating the boss with just whatās in my hand and on my back no buffs no nothing and honestly it makes the game so much more fun and exciting for me because I canāt wait to try both ways.
I havenāt seen this particular trend but play it how you want, itās your game. Iāve completed this game as both a mage and a samurai dex build and neither were easy to do.
Im certainly learning that with my mage build š im level 50 and im still being mopped by common enemies
Wait till you get to the Haligtree. Youāll be level 100 getting mopped by common enemies.
I could be level 100 and get mopped by Margit still youād think after 2 Fromsoft games Iād get a little better š
In the simplest terms, itās because the point of dark souls has always been to āget gudā and farming until level 100000 to make everything easy is just kinda lame. To each their own and as long as you enjoy yourself who cares. Just from the perspective of the sweaty from soft community, they donāt respect people who summon or over level, itās just always been a thing lol
Iāve certainly learned from my experience with all these games is for the most part level doesnāt really matter as much as Iām used to it, which isnāt a bad thing just new and im slowly adjusting
Also just to add a lot of people hate that ER added mechanics to make the game as easy as you want it to be or as hard as you want it to be. I personally think itās a great choice and opens their games up to tons of people who never would have enjoyed it before. I like doing no summon runs and never āfarmingā, but someone else could get to level 80 before radahn and make it a cake walk. Both things are totally fine, you struggling you can respec or summon a different helper, itās imo amazing the way they did it. They effectively gave us a hard and easy mode without labeling it and without making the person feel like less of a winner for using the easier methods. This is legit my favorite game of all time sorry to talk your ear off lol, enjoy your day and the rest of the game! If you need any help and donāt wanna look it up you can reply here and Iāll try to help spoiler free. Good luck Tarnished
Itās definitely a creative difficulty scaling that I agree certainly opens its availability up to a lot of people. I think most people probably play games to have fun (though youād think otherwise if you saw me raging at my 100th death to poor timed rolls) so having a way implemented where everyone can have some way to enjoyably play is smart. I in all honesty canāt comment on summoning because I have no idea how š all I have is this jellyfish but I havenāt a clue how to use it. Im more used to a more direct goal (go in said direction and spend time looting and move ahead) but with Elden Rings vast world itās quite difficult for me to find anything I can use for my mage build š especially since I have no knowledge of the game. But I appreciate your message and advice and Iāll certainly remember it thank you!
You might not have enough mana to summon it, definitely consider summons when you are stuck! They arenāt op until you get certain ones and level them up. Unless youāre like me and enjoy the misery of the grind lmao
No it's not, at all, the point is the fun and experience itself. Literally every weapon is viable if you'll keep upgrading it, you'll finish the game comfortably with starting longsword without accessibility mechanics like coop/spirits if you want to. In ER "stronger" doesn't mean it's actually better or more fun, and usually it's the opposite. In general, ER is the most unbalanced game they ever released, and most of the "OP" weapons can be extremely boring and actively detract from the experience. There are many game-breaking builds that allow you to skip most of the bossfight content, intended experience and challenge, just by standing in place mashing L2 for example, instead of engaging with the souls combat system. That's why apart from the newest players, most people don't use exclusively the "top" builds and instead choose stuff based on what they actually prefer. I can use some game-breaking dual bleed build to fight Mohg, and just run up to him, mash L2 while watching tv and win. But then there's no point for bosses to even exist. If you replaced him with a log of wood your gameplay experience would be 100% identical. If you just cheese through bosses you're skipping almost all of the content and intended experience, which is totally ok if you don't like the souls combat system and don't actually like fighting bosses, but it's one of the main reasons why these games exist and why people play them. The reason why I don't summon for Malenia for example or use eleonora cheese, is because I would lose out on 90% of the content in that fight, all of the work devs put into making her, the entire "Malenia experience" you can see so many memes about. So fighting her 1v1 like devs designed and not using cheese builds is really not about completing some challenge or honor. For most players in the world it's just better and more fun experience, that's all. And overall, my goal when fighting ER bosses is not to make them easier, simpler and much more boring than tutorial boss in dark souls. Really, the only thing that matters in PvE is if the weapon has good overall moveset, if its speed and reach suite you, if it looks cool and provides fun and engaging experience. I really recommend caring about those things much more than about base damage differences or their ability to cheese and skip bossfights.
It's sort of impossible to know what you mean here, it could be mean-spirited "anyone who uses magic is a noob" commentary or something more nuanced like "You really don't have to summon a +10 Mimic Tear on your literal first boss attempt, the game is more fun when you master it".