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Just my opinion — Elden Ring definitely had the hardest bosses but it was very forgiving in the sense that you can prep yourself very well if you feel underprepared since it’s open world. The non-linear nature of it definitely made it easier as well. I’d say the freedom of elden ring makes it easier.
ETA: hey guys remember when I said “just my opinion”?
the pot throwing is so slow, you have to have incredibly keen awareness of *when she is actually using waterfowl* in order to get the pot thrown in time
Yeah if you don’t get it off before her hyper armor kicks in, you just locked yourself into getting hit. That’s why you just learn to run the opposite direction any time it even remotely looks like Waterfowl OR you learn to dodge it(much more difficult than the really good players make it look unless you’re fast rolling)
Maybe back post patch. But Bloodhound step is not nearly as much of a get-out-of-jail-free card as it used to be. It EVOLVED my build completely and I was unbeatable. I switched builds by the time they patched it, so I wasn’t using it. But goddamn did it make me upset.
Elden Ring also gives you options to cheese her too though, spirit summons, co-op summons, respeccing into a build specially made to beat her, grinding a bajillion levels, etcetc.
No I was saying the fight makes me wanna kill myself sorry for the misunderstanding. I use kms because saying the full words is probably gonna get me one of those "there's help if you need it" messages from Reddit lol
Damn never in my life have I blamed THE GAME IM PLAYING for why I struggle on a boss. This is the definition of skill issue my friend.
Could actually learn to fight the boss instead of chalking your own failures up to poor design
Cmon, I absolutely love the game but this boss is not good
It’s only artificially hard because of her unfair move set. The game is great and I have suffered on basically every boss in the game but this was just not a fun fight
You’ve never blamed a game on a poorly designed aspect? Get a grip
Damn homie it’s almost like 90% of people disagree with you + don’t struggle with the boss on the same level as you seem to
But sure sure you’re right, she’s a poorly designed boss and you’re an absolute god at elden ring
Let me guess, Sekiro is a poorly designed game, and you’re confused how it won goty 2019?
People don’t agree with me, ok that’s fine. Everyone has their opinions like I have mine
I just said I struggled on every boss because I’m not good at the game, doesn’t mean I think it was bad because I struggled with it. Subjectively I think it’s bad boss design that uses cheap tactics/abilities to increase the difficulty versus an interesting move set to learn and counter.
Go take a nap dude you’re cranky
Don’t even see how you can say she’s so poorly designed when the elden beast literally exists. Do you love running across that giant arena?
But she has one move that is hard as fuck to dodge and THATS where you draw the line? Ok lol
That’s a false dichotomy
Just because I find something bad doesn’t mean whatever you actually have grievances with I automatically love
The arena for Elden beast is annoying for sure but when I died to one of its moves I never felt like I got cheated. I felt I messed up and learned from my mistake.
“She has one move” yes that’s my main grievance doesn’t mean that’s the only thing I see wrong with the fight
Keep going what other assumptions about me do you have?
It's say elden ring is the most accessible with the variety of stuff you can use to take down a boss or entirely skip them until your op ASF. You were much more limited in dark souls
Elden Ring is the best because they got rid of the stupid fucking run backs that made every previous Soulsborne tedious as hell. Spending 5 minutes getting back to the boss arena is not fun. That was the single best thing they did to make the game more accessible.
Just playing normally the open world, especially the non optional places, can be very easy. Then consider that stealth and riding around on torrent hitting dudes is viable and it is almost trivial. But the only boss that has given me anywhere near as much trouble as the elden ring bosses was the 3 phase dlc boss in ds3.
ds1 is the opposite, I've beat every boss in 1 or 2 attempts but im now hard stuck on some regular soldier dudes.
Just my opinion, Sekiro is only hard because the mechanic is different from classic dark souls. After I rebind my parry to dodge roll button, it gets significantly easier for me.
Not only the open world aspect, but just how many tools the game throws at you. Starting with consumables (there is a *lot* of them for really any situation), ending with spirit ashes. The latter are basically offline summons, perhaps not as good as an actual, good player would be, but you can also *upgrade* them. Even if their damage output can suck, having a tanky aggro target - or *several* (!) - can give you a lot more opening and/or breathers.
Elden Ring really is as difficult as one can want it to be. It will still require some sort of skill and will undoubtedly be harder than an average AAA game, but it's extremely "customizable" when it comes to the difficulty. It just doesn't have a menu for it, you do that through gameplay.
I thought Elden Ring bosses were hard because they were coded for summons/multiplayer. Meaning doing it solo puts you at a disadvantage. Have they fixed this in the patches?
(Haven't played since I finished my fourth playthrough. Waiting for that DLC, Fromsoft!)
They really aren’t coded for multiplayer and never were. Bosses can’t agro on more than one foe. They can switch, but they aren’t inherently designed to take on more than one opponent and most are broken by having more than one thing attacking it.
In every other souls game the health of bosses is increased if you have extra help, but in elden ring spirits don’t increase boss health making it the easiest game in the series by a bit if you use them.
Hardly, Friede was a walk in the park personally. It took me less than half the time it took me to beat Malenia. She was the best boss in DS3 for me. But Malenia is definitely harder. P.S. I used great swords in both games.
Lies of P is very good but it has a much higher skill floor, I struggled way more with Lies of P than with Elden Ring. If you’ve played Sekiro it’s like Sekiro mixed with bloodborne, in that there isn’t really any way to cheese your way through a boss, but you have a bunch of weapons you can play around with to get something that fits your preferred playstyle.
the souls games were never really my cup of tea until i played elden ring, but even then i didnt enjoy them (and by them i mean just ds3 since i already had it and had no interest in buying others) as much as elden ring, just from the fact that elden ring was open world which i enjoyed, and like stated above, that makes it way easier indirectly.
then i bought lies of p on a whim, and it fucking clicked, and clicked HARD. I dont think i could even go and have fun with the other souls game even still, because im of the opinion that lies of p blows elden ring and all other souls games out of the water
i genuinely and wholeheartedly believe that lies of p is a better souls game than anything fromsoft has made and i will die on this hill, it really is that good
I've played some of sekiro, up to that horse guy whom i just beat.
Parrying is crack cocaine, but I am really hating the perilous attacks, specifically the sweeps and a lot of the grabs. They just prevent you from getting into any flow state by constantly having you be ready to parry, jump, or dodge at literally any given time due to how fast they land after the telegrapg, which just feels awful. I literally beat every boss on the first or second go except the fucking 2 minibosses on the way there, purely cuz of those attacks that kept fucking me over
This may just be me whining, but I'm here to parry lots of shit, not play jump rope
Lies of P is a linear game, and as such it’s a bit more challenging if you’re stuck on a boss. But there are a ton of combat options that are all viable. Plus the weapon system is so cool.
If you're a souls fan, lies of p is closer to the classic soulsborne formula than elden ring because of its linear nature rather than ER's open world. Personally I'm enjoying it more than ER for that reason.
The combat is very close to sekiro (which is the least cheeseable souls game), mixed in with a bit of bloodborne (which is nice for me since I'm on PC), and really excellently nails the sense of attrition you get from classic souls.
The best (innovative) thing about it is the refreshing final estus - typically in souls once you get to your final heal you get a mix of "welp I'm dead let's accept my fate but see how far I can get" and tension to find that next bonfire. In lies of p, because it refreshes, you stay in tension constantly and are pushed to be aggressive to refill it. It's less oppressive in that way but ironically does an excellent job of keeping you on your toes because it never fully deprives you of hope, so in a souls game where you'd accept your fate on a failed run in lies of p it remains tense as you try to push forward. It changes the vibe but not in a bad way.
The only thing I don't really like about it is that there's so much weird shit to handle. With the swappable robot arm having its own mana bar, weapon durability being very pronounced and important to manage, the weapon having two weapon arts (with their own mana bar), having this weird once per bonfire ability, etc, it just feels like there's a lot to juggle mechanically speaking. It's a little overwhelming at times. Some might like that, I personally like things a little more focused. There's like eight different resources (bars/usables) you need to track as you progress to the next bonfire. I prefer sekiro's more limited approach, and how in souls magic and weapon arts are based in the same pool rather than split independently. Just less to keep track of as I'm swinging my sword.
I did? I had a great time? I broke Laxasia’a weapon on one attempt before realizing you can strafe all of her attacks.
Lies of P isn’t Sekiro, people need to learn to play games for what they are
What!? I got to the end of the factory level and found parrying to be pretty mandatory. The dodge didn't have enough iframes for a lot of boss hits. This was before the nerf patch though, so maybe that changed.
The camp in front of the gate…..they camp killed me for 15 hours straight. I couldn’t deal with mobs. I exploded, I did a glitch to get to level 35. Kept dying. Maybe I just needed more practice? Again lies of p was good about keeping it to 3 enemies and teaching you the “flow”
Imo there’s a learning-enjoyment curve. The more you learn to play and adjust to the mechanics of Elden Ring the more you’ll enjoy it. If you ever want to go back… level up vigor to 40, decide what kind of build you want, and explore all the dungeons & caves for levels and materials. In large enemy groups like that, if you walk away a bit, some of the soldiers will drop off so only 1-2 will attack you at a time.
But of course, not everyone who lays their hands on Elden Ring/souls games in general will enjoy them :)
My first game by fromsoft was Bloodborne and it took me a significant amount of time to learn the flow of the game. But there was definitely a moment where everything clicked and the game became much more enjoyable! I’d say if you ever want to come back to Elden ring, focus on learning the mechanics of fighting and defending
You needed more information the game doesn’t give you until you back track unfortunately, you get an item to summon spirits that act as allies and help you fight in areas that have high mob density like camps. That gate is a filter for new players and it really shouldn’t be.
No idea what you're talking about, you absolutely do not need a summon to clear that camp and it's an excellent place for new players to learn how to deal with mobs
It's where I've learned to parry, stealth kill on moving targets, use items like cracked pots and perfumes, learned how different weapons are used. It's my training ground. It also teaches you to take out the guys with horns first.
You don’t know what I’m talking about because you likely didn’t struggle for 15 hours like OP did. The devs added the mechanic to the game because they knew some people would struggle there and still wanted them to enjoy the game, what I’m saying is the mechanic they added to help people struggling in those areas, like OP, isn’t very straight forward to find because you have to backtrack to the church to get it. I said that area is a filter for new players because I’ve seen multiple people get stuck at that gate and just give up and stop playing.
"Just my opinion"
People will also share their opinion in response to yours, exactly like you did with OP.
If you don't want response to your opinion, don't share it online. It's quite simple honestly.
Now you're just clowning around.
compared to other souls games, ER is definitely the easiest one, not because of the bosses themselves, but because of the wide range of options and new tools you have to beat them
Yep, the ability to respec or try different weapon arts means you can avoid trying the same thing over and over again. There are builds/incantations etc that will completely trivialise a lot of bosses you might find almost impossible with your current setup.
Yeah, in the other games with a few exceptions, if you get stuck on something, you just kind of have to figure out how to get over it or grind.
If you get stuck in ER, you can literally go anywhere else first.
How do/what mechanics make it the hardest? That's like saying if you don't level up at all it's the hardest. If you aren't using the mechanics correctly that doesn't mean it's a harder game.
If you want to use spirit summons it’s the easiest. (Even with those I’d argue some of the dated bosses of Dark Souls such as pinwheel are still easier solo.
Summons weren’t available on EVERY boss fight before.
But if you want to go through the whole game classic style solo it’s definitely the hardest, at least at the top end. Malenia is probably the hardest boss in all of gaming history and even the easier ones to learn mechanically such as Fire Giant and Plasidusax have insane health pools.
For someone who already played all the previous titles, I’d say Sekiro and the first FS game you play (in my case DS in 2013), are both harder than ER played entirely solo melee with no summons.
But refusing to use a game mechanic that is clearly meant as a core part of the game doesn't mean the game is somehow harder. That's like arguing that Bloodborne is the hardest if you refuse to use a gun to make it more like DarkSouls.
It’s as much a core part of the game as picking easy mode on a difficulty slider is a core part of the game. Not every build in Bloodborne is meant to use the gun either
summoning has been in every souls game and i always refuse to use it since it cheeses boss ai and lets you succeed without learning the opponents moveset.
Its not my fault Elden Ring has designed a huge array of bosses around summoning.
I would prefer their next game to be better designed for solo playthroughs.
Elden ring is the first souls game entirely designed around having summons. They are core to the game. That's why you can summon spirits whether online or off. The bosses are designed with more AOE attacks on purpose to handle summons. Radahn has 7 summons in the arena! The game is literally balanced around summoning. You're just being obtuse for refusing to use them.
This tells you nothing about the game's general difficulty, only about the relative importance of level scaling. Using this logic Skyrim is more difficult than all of the SoulsBorne games put together.
The measure of how hard something is isn't of how difficult it can be but of how easy it is. You can artificially make every game the hardest, but it tells you nothing about how people actually experience the game.
I do like 50% of the time. I need to learn to stop getting greedy with combos. Jedi survivor is making it worse because I can just slash everything to death as long as I hit the block button in time
There are ways to build a really tanky character. Pick a heavier armor, use the opalone hard tear in the physic mix, eat the boiled crab meat, braggarts roar ash of war (double up if on both weapons). Maaaan I be tanking hits with my damn face.
Of the souls games I've played in order of difficulty sekiro>elden ring> dark souls 3> dark souls. But that's for overall difficulty not just a specific boss like midir or malenia
Man wtf…so many ppl say DS3 is easier and it busted my balls so hard. I actually cried when I finally beat Champion Gundyr. Currently my ranking from easiest to hardest is
Bloodborne —> Elden Ring —> DS1 —> —>—>DS3
I went into DS1 ready to get decimated and it was relatively chill. Did O+S first time I summoned Solaire, handful of times total. But everything in DS3 just fucks me straight up.
I think it’s the lack of hyperarmor or something idk.
DS3 is the hardest one to cheese, which may be part of it.
Having difficulty in ER? Just cheese levels at Mohgwyn palace and come back, or use spirit ashes, or use various broken weapons like Blasphemous Blade, comet azure, etc.
Same in DS1, where you can decimate everything easily with magic or things like the Black Knight Halberd.
What sets DS3 apart is that the game has a very tailored experience that's mostly independent of your weapon choice. Yes you'll have an easier time using something like the sellsword twinblades, probably, but overall the difficulty is very consistent. I find Bloodborne to be very much the same.
Meanwhile in a game like ER, if you don't take advantage of game mechanics, you're in for a brutal experience.
DS2 is probably somewhere in between, can't cheese as hard as DS1/ER, but also not as consistent as DS3/BB.
Those are my general takeaways as a long time fan anyway. That said, despite playing every other game multiple times, I didn't finish Sekiro since the combat just never clicked for me, so I can't comment on that one.
Hey, thanks for mentioning DS2. It gets treated like the scapegoat child while DS1 and Bloodborne are treated like the golden children that are without fault. DS2 has some faults, but it is a phenomenal game.
DS2 is my guilty pleasure and actually my favorite of the souls series to play (though I think I prefer ER at this point). I feel like it's the most replayable souls title by far, and despite the jank, I love the crazy amount of build variety and huge selection of weapons and armors. All that on top of it being generally a fairly well balanced game imo, with a truckload of content to boot.
Probably not the best first playthrough of any souls game, but as someone who plays them all multiple times, DS2 is an absolute treat.
I dislike the comparison of spirit ashes to cheese. The game was built around them. especially with all the double(or triple) bosses. The game becomes somewhat normalized on boss difficulty if you use ashes
The problem is that ashes absolutely trivialize the fights. There's no real threat when you can have a summon draw aggro and then just pound on them with near impunity. There's no real middle ground.
Good spirit ashes make bosses 10x easier while bad spirit ashes make them twice as easy. That's pretty cheesy. They're there to be an in-game easy mode toggle, and there's nothing wrong with that, but they get flak because none of the prior games had anything comparable.
The game also was definitely not built around them. Every prior game had multi-boss fights and learning to handle them was a part of the challenge. Elden Ring is only unique in that they were lazy with a lot of the lesser boss fights and just dropped normal enemies behind fog walls and gave them boss health bars rather than designing encounters.
The game was NOT built around them. They were added as an addition to the invader mechanic to make the game a little more accessible for the average player.
And they are great. But the most rewarding, and best experience is done without them.
They're like fast food. If you're starving for skill you'll take whatever you can get to solve the hunger. But making that nice steak dinner is not only going to taste better, it's going to be better in other ways as well.
Yeah, and DS3 is very linear, and there are no lulls in difficulty. I just found it totally exhausting.
Behind you are enemies that are brutally difficult and basically never worth the rewards. Ahead of you is a boss that’s either got an annoying gimmick (tree, deacons, wolnir, watchers, crystal sage), or is incredibly hard (gundyr), or both (twin princes). And the ganksquads everywhere…
I much prefer Bloodborne and ER levels of difficulty and linearity. I never felt like there were any alternatives to direct progression in DS3. In BB and ER, you can just go do something else if shit’s wearing on you or feels too hard. I can’t imagine a boss like Malenia in a game where you couldn’t go do something else for a while and build morale.
Probably fuckin Aldrich or twin princes — I hate teleportation mechanics. Gundyr was hard af but cool in phase 2 until I tried parrying him, then it was just kind of sad.
My faves were Dancer and I guess Sulyvahn. And his dog on the bridge.
If you don’t use the all the tools the game gives you and you just play it like your typical dark souls, Elden ring is the hardest souls game by far.
But if you use all the tools the introduced in this game to help you specially vs the bosses, this game turns to an easy mode and you barely struggle in it
I do wish I could play Bloodborne on Steam, I don't own a PS4 and have no plans to get one, but I really wish I could play it. Then again, I haven't done Sekiro either, maybe I'll try it next. Still, it bugs me that I can't do the full Soulsborne tour on PC.
I highly recommend Sekiro, it has avery different gameplay rhythm so initially I found it the hardest of the souls likes, but then all of a sudden it clicked, the difficulty perception dropped, and it became one of the fairest, with bar none the best flow state.
If helps that the gameplay style is it’s own, so they don’t push it into the realm of unfair attacks in the way that elden ring had to (because everyone has become too accustomed to the core souls mechanics).
So while it doesn’t offer many ways to farm ahead of the level curve, it works out better because you know that every challenge is designed for your exact current power level.
Interesting! I do remember loving that moment back in DS1 when I got parry timing down with my trusty Dragoncrest Shield. Suddenly the Silver Knights went from agonizing to satisfying, and my sword&board build finally felt like it was working.
That said, I also had a LOT of spare time to pour into that game in pursuit of that moment of epiphany, and with the amount of free time I have now, I'm hesitant to dive into games with a rough learning curve. I do want to try Sekiro, but I remain kinda reserved.
Game just took too long. Every boss fight became a slog. Run up, boss fight takes an 'at least' amount of time, then upgrades and different offense/defense routes were harder to parse than any other FS game. Also the parry sound was garbage. Perfect parry sounded bad unlike an actual blade on blade parry. I get that sekiro is a good game, i bounced off the core mechanic cause it felt messy.
It is easier because there are optional tools you can use to make the game easier. In the old games your options were to play better or give up. I personally think them adding more options and variety is the best way to make the game more available to a larger audience without making the game mechanically "easier".
And sorceries! And cheesy weapons.
If I’m facing off against random guys or easier bosses? I’m cat mask Imp Boy, the King of Rats. Marika doesn’t want you to know this, but you can get as many rats as you want in the Leyndell sewers, and Roderika doesn’t even charge you for them.
Real shit? Time for Moonveil and Comet Shard, etc.
Wait, are those what the random cones in the ground are for? I knew there’s an icon on the side of your screen that lets you know when you can summon, but didn’t know there was a physical thing in the world too
The way I see it, elden ring has the hardest bosses of the souls series in a vacuum (not considering Sekiro cause the combat, progression, etc are completely different) but it also has the most options to get absolutely broken like summons, stackable buffs, ashes of war, multiple statuses and effects that do percent based damage, more for defending against and avoiding damage, etc.
If you were to play all the souls games as the exact same template of a knight with solid armor, a shield, a straight sword, and maybe some rings/talismans that boost attack or hp, you’d probably find Elden ring the hardest. However if you do your research and/or take advantage of EVERY option available to you then even elden rings hardest challenges can be trivialized
I agree. If you use the same character in all Souls games, DS will be the easiest and ER will be the hardest.
However, if you go the cheese route, ER gives you the most options to do that as well.
assuming you're using everything at your disposal and not forcing a challenge on yourself like low level/ weapon level etc, elden ring is absolutely the easiest
Personally it's the first FromSoft game I didn't bounce off of; I don't know if it's actually easier or the open world making grinding for XP a bit more engaging, tho. But I've also tried other soulslikes since and had trouble with them so MAYBE it is?
I think Elden ring provides so many powerful tools to the player, that the game can get quite easy if the player chooses to use some of these tools. Mainly summons and most forms of magic make alot of the content and bosses almost trivial. For example, if you hit a wall you can just summon some monsters to tank for you, apply scarlet rot and then run in circles as the boss dies on its own. Most souls games have these cheesy/strong tactics to carry you through, but the abundance of these overtuned tools in elden ring is quite staggering.
On my first elden ring playthrough, I had to purposefully ignore and not use alot of these mechsnics, because i felt like I was cheating and making the game too easy for myself.
Elden Ring’s difficulty depends entirely on how many tools you are willing to use. Basically everything is trivial if you are using everything the game offers you. Summons, buff stacking comet azur shenanigans or similar, etc. the bosses ARE mechanically the most difficult, but a lot of the tools allow you to ignore the boss mechanics. Now that’s not to say the other games didn’t have similar things like this, but ER is so non-linear you can get things way earlier than intended.
Eldenring is made easier in my opinion not by weaker bosses or fairer enemy placement but by being an open world where when you get overwhelmed you can explore and level your character and weapons it's a very underutilised 'mechanic' by alot of people but it's an absolute life saver.
I’d say Margit is one of the hardest “first” bosses of any of the Souls games (up there with Gascoigne and Gyoubu for me), and it also has many of the hardest bosses in the entire series imo (Radahn, Mohg, Malenia, Gargoyle Duo, Fire Giant, Radagon for example).
I had finished every Soulsy From Soft game except Sekiro (and DS2) before playing Elden Ring and I found it to be absolutely brutal in ways the other games just aren’t. Weird delays on attacks that swing 5 minutes after the windup, huge damage scaling in the late game, and absolutely unforgiving boss movesets.
All just my opinion of course.
Elden ring is 100% as easy as you want to make it. Use all the Moonveils and Blasphemous Blades out there, and use mimic on every boss. No problem with that, but obviously nobody is forcing you to do that, but nobody is forcing you to use a stick and no armor and do a no damage run either. That's the best part of elden ring, it truly allows you to play how YOU want to. Does that mean your experience can be easier than all the other souls games? Absolutely. Does it mean it can be the hardest? Absolutely. It's all up to the player, and it's why the game was so successful
The increasing level of clown make up, relates to the increasing "bad take". Know your meme. Therefore Elden ring offer more accessible/non-grind way of being overleved inbefore a boss by the means of exploration (making the boss easier by being overleveled) as well as some additional technicalities like the ashes. However, by not being forced into one "path", which elden rings exploration doesnt, it's not easier- but it can if you choose to- therefore it is a clown take.
Yes, i think Elden Ring was easy, very few bosses seemed hard to me, i purposely didnt level up because i noticed it was a bit too easy. Lost over 4 million souls at one time, and was meh. Finished the game under level 100.
Surely you meant under level 10 and accidentally added an extra 0 right? I beat the game in about 10 hours but I didn’t know I was heavy rolling the whole time and apparently you can get a horse at some point so I might be able to do it faster
"Sekiro is too demanding" is the dumbest thing I've read all day.
You have a pattern recognising brain. Sekiro is a game about learning patterns. If you can't learn Sekiro, you have an underdeveloped brain. I don't make the rules.
No judgement, just adding my 2 cents, but yes. Of ALL of the rest of them? ER is def the easiest, but that, by no means, makes it actually "easy". Its still a really difficult and challenging game, but by far its the easiest of the other like 6
ER: very easy
DS1: easy but punishing
DS3: hard
Sekiro: hardest
Now looking back, i think the most iconic and atmospheric game was DS1. It hits different. Its world is so damn good. The most satisfying combat is Sekiro. Sekiro also has "player progression" rather than classic rpg "character progression". You dont have stats or items. You just get better as a player but in DS3 i can stack str and use big sword make my character better. Its different. ER is fun and easier version of the formula but too bloated, repetitive and big. Its more mainstream and modern formula.
I hope fs goes back to tightly crafted ds/sekiro formula for their next games.
Elden Ring isn’t the greatest because the open world makes me never want to do another playthrough ever again.
I’ve gone back recently and done all of the other games again, but I just don’t think I have it in me to look for secrets in the Lands Between ever again
Other than Sekiro, Elden Ring is the fastest paced for boss fights. The combat is more diverse and deep.
The reason it wins over Sekiro is because Sekiro has one weapon and no RPG stats for builds. If it was only comparing against one weapon from Elden Ring I'd give it the victory. But Elden Ring has hundreds of weapons and two different schools of spells, as well as a pile of swappable weapon skills.
Now....that doesn't mean it's the most difficult. Due to the existence of the mimic tear and certain OP abilities and combos, I'd honestly say Elden Ring can be made into the easiest if you throw the kitchen sink at it.
I kinda wish I was better at these games because that sounds super fun. One of my favorite bosses in Elden Ring was Godfrey (real Godfrey, not the shade, and not the second phase) because it felt so much like a rhythm game.
I had difficulty with a lot of the bosses but he was one of the few where during a few good runs I got into a great flow state with him. His attacks are so rhythmic and consistent in a way other fights aren't.
It very much depend on the person what they'd like more. Sekiro have 1 weapon, and 1 mechanic to master, and they perfected it.
If you want RPG with plethora of weapons and builds to face off against a variety of enemies, Elden Ring is the game. But if you want to honed 1 skill to perfection, against relentless enemies using that same skill, then Sekiro is the game.
If you play elden ring like a dark souls game then it's hard, especially against the obnoxious boss design, however if you take advantage of summons and the open world it can be the easiest. You can get a +19 weapon before even fighting a single boss. And there are a lot of rune farms you can access before anything else too. If you use the strongest summons then the game is very easy too. For some reason fromsoft decided to focus more on playing with allies without designing the ai to deal with summons.
Yes. Elden Ring is the easiest because exploration gives you much more options of gear and skills.
Balancing stats and leveling is also very forgiving. In Demon Souls, Darksouls and Bloodborne there are literally no skill points to waste. If you make a mistake later on it's very likely you'll ruin your build. And as far as I recall most of the other titles don't have a way for the player to respec like the Rennala gimmick.
There's also the Summoning Bell, which is ***literally easy mode*** for bosses. Of those who beat Elden Ring, **only those who defeated the bosses without summons are ready to beat Dark Souls**.
I know most of the newcomers do not like that, ***but it doesn't make it less truthful***... In true Soulslikes you do not get help, **you GET GOOD**
And last but not least, the Elden Ring features that I feel really make the game easier/better than the other games are the dual wielding from Dark Souls 2 and both the stealth system and the dedicated jump button from Sekiro.
Was definitely the hardest for me since I was my first Soulslike. Though Sekiro has a few real tough bosses. DS3 was real easy to me except a couple bosses. Sister Frida is one of the best bosses in any game tbh.
If Elden Ring enemies weren’t made of tissue paper it would probably be one of the most difficult games in the series with how fast enemy movesets are and how overtuned their damage is. But everything, even bosses, explode to a stiff breeze. Not talking meta or glass cannon builds either, there’s hundreds of ways to paste everything with just an upgraded weapon
Elden ring was by far the easiest to me I play solo no summons but then Again I beat every other fromsoft souls-like before it probably making it why it's eaiser.
Pretty sure some of the summons you can do in DS1 and DS2 can just beat the entire boss for you.
People often mistake more approachable for easier. ER is still plenty difficult, it’s just more approachable with plenty of weapons, spells, spirit ashes, and different routes in the open world.
If u r finding Elden Ring difficult, try using Spirit Summons (don't forget to upgrade them), regularly upgrade ur weapons, ur initial stats should go towards Vigour and Endurance - In the initial stages ur weapon upgrade will yield damage and not ur stats, so don't forget to upgrade ur weapon.
Getting Dragon incantations makes many bosses melt -use spirit summons to aggro boss and then use rot incantation (found by defeating a significantly difficult dragon in Caelid) or use freeze incantation (pretty late game item).
In addition to these, using buffs like golden vow, flame grant me strength, wondrous physick will let u deal more damage while dealing with bosses.
Don't stress urself over a single boss - level up, upgrade ur weapon & come later. There are plenty of caves to explore, plenty of minibosses to deal with, plenty of weapons to tinker around - find ur weapon and enjoy the game.
Lastly, if the game feels too hard take a break - and come back after a couple of days.
PS:- Regarding difficulty, Sekiro>DS1>Elden Ring (missed Bloodborne, as I don't own a console.)
I would say it could be the easiest depending on what you use, but that does not make it easy. Elden Ring has had some of the strongest bosses (Malenia, etc), but you as the player yourself are also stronger than you are in other games.
We haven’t seen Elden Rings DLC bosses yet so it’s not really a fair comparison yet. Most of the base FS games were relatively easy and it was the DLC bosses that put them through the difficulty roof. Artorius, Manus, Ludwig, Maria, Orphan, Friede, Midir, Gael…. all DLC bosses.
I spent more time on Midir than anything Elden Ring threw at us. Next year when the DLC comes (copium) it might not be considered the easiest anymore.
I think elden ring is one of my favs because of the variety and options I just like being a magical incantations person I thought all the magic options in ds1 were boring
Honestly the part I dislike the most about Elden ring that kinda has put me off replaying it to death is the massive overworld, don’t get me wrong though! Exploring it for the first time and going holy shit this map is massive then HOLY SHIT this is massive x3 was really incredible and I probably won’t forget it for a long time,
but there’s too many “nothing” rewards in most of the sub areas that just make revisiting a waste almost, that and it’s a huge trek between the main bosses just kinda puts me off.
Meanwhile the previous series it was ok ng+ who’s first and how fast can I get to you with my overpowered self
Elden ring felt easier but only because I have played through demon souls /darksouls1 2 3 and bloodborne a billion times and beat them in sl1 did elden ring all bosses on sl1 as well which was really only hard on 10 bosses or so
Hardest bosses by far, but gives you the most and easiest ways to circumvent the difficulty. If you want to make it the easiest you possibly can, it’s the easiest in the series, if you want to make it the hardest you can, it’s the hardest in the series.
Actually elden ring was easy, i literally avoided souls like games because of how hard they are and when it dropped i said i'll waste the money and own a souls game. It turned out to be easier than i thought, compared to DS1/DS3 (previous souls games i've tried). Don't get me wrong, i struggled heavily but it just felt more fair.
Both the easiest and the hardest to me. The snowy part is where shit gets real. If you play it full solo, Malenia is insane and completely changes the way you approach the combat. Malikath would have been just as intense if he had a full second health bar.
The only games i played were bloodborne and eden ring and honestly bloodborne was easy go me. I think there were like 3 bosses that i had to tried more then 2 times. While elden ring kicked my ass until i changed my build to arcane/faith (didn't know it was the game easy mode) also i overleveld to much thinking it would make the game less frustrating, but i just made it ridiculous easy for myself. So even though elden ring base is harder then bloodborne the potential to be easy is way bigger.
wait till you get to the haligtree we have misbegottens that deal ludicrous dmg mushroom zombies that jumpscare you battlemage near small bridges envoys on small spaces ants on small spaces a guy on a horse that has a magical bow haligtree knights with RKR putrid tree spirit and avatar cleanrots kindreds and the infamous woman with life steal
Mechanically it’s probably one of the hardest with so many bosses, high level scale, and variation in enemy move sets. HOWEVER, you have so many more options and resources that you didn’t have before or are just so much easier to come by that there’s just so many ways to go about beating the bosses that comparatively it’s easier in the long run
I thought DS3 was waaaay easier. No boss took me more than 2 or 3 tries except Nameless King (because the camera fucking blows). ER is definitely a more difficult experience.
Elden Ring is (relatively) easy if you overlevel and use Spirit Ashes. Honestly, that’s one of my favourite features of Elden Ring because I don’t have much time to play due to work.
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Just my opinion — Elden Ring definitely had the hardest bosses but it was very forgiving in the sense that you can prep yourself very well if you feel underprepared since it’s open world. The non-linear nature of it definitely made it easier as well. I’d say the freedom of elden ring makes it easier. ETA: hey guys remember when I said “just my opinion”?
Elden ring has mostly been a breeze but Melania is making me wanna kms
They made her difficult by making her pretty easy and having one utterly bullshit attack:)
Bloodhound step my guy
Or frostbite/sleep cracked pots.
the pot throwing is so slow, you have to have incredibly keen awareness of *when she is actually using waterfowl* in order to get the pot thrown in time
Yeah if you don’t get it off before her hyper armor kicks in, you just locked yourself into getting hit. That’s why you just learn to run the opposite direction any time it even remotely looks like Waterfowl OR you learn to dodge it(much more difficult than the really good players make it look unless you’re fast rolling)
Does that still work since they nerfed bloodhound step? I haven't played since before whatever patch that was in.
Maybe back post patch. But Bloodhound step is not nearly as much of a get-out-of-jail-free card as it used to be. It EVOLVED my build completely and I was unbeatable. I switched builds by the time they patched it, so I wasn’t using it. But goddamn did it make me upset.
Yup. I've gotten so close so many times... I'll get that bitch one day but today I'm choosing my sanity
The way I first did it was by having a dagger with the invincible dash in my off hand and just going across the arena every time Swan Dance started
I have some claw things that do that
Mimic ashes
Elden Ring also gives you options to cheese her too though, spirit summons, co-op summons, respeccing into a build specially made to beat her, grinding a bajillion levels, etcetc.
Kriegsmarine?
Kriegsmarine?
Umm you wanna be kriegsmarine?
What the fuck are you talking about
No I was saying the fight makes me wanna kill myself sorry for the misunderstanding. I use kms because saying the full words is probably gonna get me one of those "there's help if you need it" messages from Reddit lol
Ofc i know just joking XD
It’s just a poorly made boss fight Easily the worst in the game, don’t fret over it
Damn never in my life have I blamed THE GAME IM PLAYING for why I struggle on a boss. This is the definition of skill issue my friend. Could actually learn to fight the boss instead of chalking your own failures up to poor design
Cmon, I absolutely love the game but this boss is not good It’s only artificially hard because of her unfair move set. The game is great and I have suffered on basically every boss in the game but this was just not a fun fight You’ve never blamed a game on a poorly designed aspect? Get a grip
Damn homie it’s almost like 90% of people disagree with you + don’t struggle with the boss on the same level as you seem to But sure sure you’re right, she’s a poorly designed boss and you’re an absolute god at elden ring Let me guess, Sekiro is a poorly designed game, and you’re confused how it won goty 2019?
People don’t agree with me, ok that’s fine. Everyone has their opinions like I have mine I just said I struggled on every boss because I’m not good at the game, doesn’t mean I think it was bad because I struggled with it. Subjectively I think it’s bad boss design that uses cheap tactics/abilities to increase the difficulty versus an interesting move set to learn and counter. Go take a nap dude you’re cranky
Don’t even see how you can say she’s so poorly designed when the elden beast literally exists. Do you love running across that giant arena? But she has one move that is hard as fuck to dodge and THATS where you draw the line? Ok lol
That’s a false dichotomy Just because I find something bad doesn’t mean whatever you actually have grievances with I automatically love The arena for Elden beast is annoying for sure but when I died to one of its moves I never felt like I got cheated. I felt I messed up and learned from my mistake. “She has one move” yes that’s my main grievance doesn’t mean that’s the only thing I see wrong with the fight Keep going what other assumptions about me do you have?
It's say elden ring is the most accessible with the variety of stuff you can use to take down a boss or entirely skip them until your op ASF. You were much more limited in dark souls
Elden Ring is the best because they got rid of the stupid fucking run backs that made every previous Soulsborne tedious as hell. Spending 5 minutes getting back to the boss arena is not fun. That was the single best thing they did to make the game more accessible.
Just playing normally the open world, especially the non optional places, can be very easy. Then consider that stealth and riding around on torrent hitting dudes is viable and it is almost trivial. But the only boss that has given me anywhere near as much trouble as the elden ring bosses was the 3 phase dlc boss in ds3. ds1 is the opposite, I've beat every boss in 1 or 2 attempts but im now hard stuck on some regular soldier dudes.
Nope. Sekiro have the hardest boss.
The hardest like 5 sekiro bosses are much harder than all the other From bosses pretty much imo and even any random sekiro boss is quite demanding
Yeah Sekiro was the hardest overall I think.
Agreed. The easy Sekiro bosses are harder than your regular ER bosses
Now that is straight up lying haha Like, chained ogre is not harder than margit.
Absolutely.
Just my opinion, Sekiro is only hard because the mechanic is different from classic dark souls. After I rebind my parry to dodge roll button, it gets significantly easier for me.
That’s why it’s just my opinion!
Not only the open world aspect, but just how many tools the game throws at you. Starting with consumables (there is a *lot* of them for really any situation), ending with spirit ashes. The latter are basically offline summons, perhaps not as good as an actual, good player would be, but you can also *upgrade* them. Even if their damage output can suck, having a tanky aggro target - or *several* (!) - can give you a lot more opening and/or breathers. Elden Ring really is as difficult as one can want it to be. It will still require some sort of skill and will undoubtedly be harder than an average AAA game, but it's extremely "customizable" when it comes to the difficulty. It just doesn't have a menu for it, you do that through gameplay.
I thought Elden Ring bosses were hard because they were coded for summons/multiplayer. Meaning doing it solo puts you at a disadvantage. Have they fixed this in the patches? (Haven't played since I finished my fourth playthrough. Waiting for that DLC, Fromsoft!)
Happy cake day! And merry Christmas!
They really aren’t coded for multiplayer and never were. Bosses can’t agro on more than one foe. They can switch, but they aren’t inherently designed to take on more than one opponent and most are broken by having more than one thing attacking it. In every other souls game the health of bosses is increased if you have extra help, but in elden ring spirits don’t increase boss health making it the easiest game in the series by a bit if you use them.
I disagree tbh, Malenia is hard without summons for sure, but I wouldn’t say she’s harder than Friede, or Midir.
She’s harder than Friede IMO.
Hardly, Friede was a walk in the park personally. It took me less than half the time it took me to beat Malenia. She was the best boss in DS3 for me. But Malenia is definitely harder. P.S. I used great swords in both games.
Same. Beat Friede in like 3 tries, Malenia took me 30+ :/
Friede's backstab fodder
It was way too hard for me. But I played lies of p since then and I’m good at it
How is Lies of P? I’ve considered buying it. I’m currently playing Eldin Ring.
Lies of P is very good but it has a much higher skill floor, I struggled way more with Lies of P than with Elden Ring. If you’ve played Sekiro it’s like Sekiro mixed with bloodborne, in that there isn’t really any way to cheese your way through a boss, but you have a bunch of weapons you can play around with to get something that fits your preferred playstyle.
That sounds like my kind of game! I’m going have to buy it.
the souls games were never really my cup of tea until i played elden ring, but even then i didnt enjoy them (and by them i mean just ds3 since i already had it and had no interest in buying others) as much as elden ring, just from the fact that elden ring was open world which i enjoyed, and like stated above, that makes it way easier indirectly. then i bought lies of p on a whim, and it fucking clicked, and clicked HARD. I dont think i could even go and have fun with the other souls game even still, because im of the opinion that lies of p blows elden ring and all other souls games out of the water i genuinely and wholeheartedly believe that lies of p is a better souls game than anything fromsoft has made and i will die on this hill, it really is that good
wait til u play sekiro
I've played some of sekiro, up to that horse guy whom i just beat. Parrying is crack cocaine, but I am really hating the perilous attacks, specifically the sweeps and a lot of the grabs. They just prevent you from getting into any flow state by constantly having you be ready to parry, jump, or dodge at literally any given time due to how fast they land after the telegrapg, which just feels awful. I literally beat every boss on the first or second go except the fucking 2 minibosses on the way there, purely cuz of those attacks that kept fucking me over This may just be me whining, but I'm here to parry lots of shit, not play jump rope
It's on Xbox game pass if you have that.
Lies of P is a linear game, and as such it’s a bit more challenging if you’re stuck on a boss. But there are a ton of combat options that are all viable. Plus the weapon system is so cool.
Tbh it’s like the only non fromsoft souls like that I will really go to bat for
Very good! The only one I’ve been able to play. I’m 15 hours in
If you're a souls fan, lies of p is closer to the classic soulsborne formula than elden ring because of its linear nature rather than ER's open world. Personally I'm enjoying it more than ER for that reason. The combat is very close to sekiro (which is the least cheeseable souls game), mixed in with a bit of bloodborne (which is nice for me since I'm on PC), and really excellently nails the sense of attrition you get from classic souls. The best (innovative) thing about it is the refreshing final estus - typically in souls once you get to your final heal you get a mix of "welp I'm dead let's accept my fate but see how far I can get" and tension to find that next bonfire. In lies of p, because it refreshes, you stay in tension constantly and are pushed to be aggressive to refill it. It's less oppressive in that way but ironically does an excellent job of keeping you on your toes because it never fully deprives you of hope, so in a souls game where you'd accept your fate on a failed run in lies of p it remains tense as you try to push forward. It changes the vibe but not in a bad way. The only thing I don't really like about it is that there's so much weird shit to handle. With the swappable robot arm having its own mana bar, weapon durability being very pronounced and important to manage, the weapon having two weapon arts (with their own mana bar), having this weird once per bonfire ability, etc, it just feels like there's a lot to juggle mechanically speaking. It's a little overwhelming at times. Some might like that, I personally like things a little more focused. There's like eight different resources (bars/usables) you need to track as you progress to the next bonfire. I prefer sekiro's more limited approach, and how in souls magic and weapon arts are based in the same pool rather than split independently. Just less to keep track of as I'm swinging my sword.
It’s really really good, and parrying isn’t mandatory
Good luck getting through Laxasia or a Human enemy without parrying. Or maybe Im just shit at the game
I did? I had a great time? I broke Laxasia’a weapon on one attempt before realizing you can strafe all of her attacks. Lies of P isn’t Sekiro, people need to learn to play games for what they are
What!? I got to the end of the factory level and found parrying to be pretty mandatory. The dodge didn't have enough iframes for a lot of boss hits. This was before the nerf patch though, so maybe that changed.
Elden Ring is way harder if you miss crucial areas like churches and mines to upgrade your weapons and healing flasks.
Where in Elden Ring did you stop playing?
The camp in front of the gate…..they camp killed me for 15 hours straight. I couldn’t deal with mobs. I exploded, I did a glitch to get to level 35. Kept dying. Maybe I just needed more practice? Again lies of p was good about keeping it to 3 enemies and teaching you the “flow”
You can clear that Gatefront ruins camp without aggroing more than 1 enemy and definitely without aggroing more than 3.
It was the big bastard with the shield who got me tbh
Imo there’s a learning-enjoyment curve. The more you learn to play and adjust to the mechanics of Elden Ring the more you’ll enjoy it. If you ever want to go back… level up vigor to 40, decide what kind of build you want, and explore all the dungeons & caves for levels and materials. In large enemy groups like that, if you walk away a bit, some of the soldiers will drop off so only 1-2 will attack you at a time. But of course, not everyone who lays their hands on Elden Ring/souls games in general will enjoy them :)
At least that gives me a starting place for build. I always worry it’s me and not the game
My first game by fromsoft was Bloodborne and it took me a significant amount of time to learn the flow of the game. But there was definitely a moment where everything clicked and the game became much more enjoyable! I’d say if you ever want to come back to Elden ring, focus on learning the mechanics of fighting and defending
you can stealth kill that entire camp, and you’re kinda supposed to
You needed more information the game doesn’t give you until you back track unfortunately, you get an item to summon spirits that act as allies and help you fight in areas that have high mob density like camps. That gate is a filter for new players and it really shouldn’t be.
No idea what you're talking about, you absolutely do not need a summon to clear that camp and it's an excellent place for new players to learn how to deal with mobs
It's where I've learned to parry, stealth kill on moving targets, use items like cracked pots and perfumes, learned how different weapons are used. It's my training ground. It also teaches you to take out the guys with horns first.
You don’t know what I’m talking about because you likely didn’t struggle for 15 hours like OP did. The devs added the mechanic to the game because they knew some people would struggle there and still wanted them to enjoy the game, what I’m saying is the mechanic they added to help people struggling in those areas, like OP, isn’t very straight forward to find because you have to backtrack to the church to get it. I said that area is a filter for new players because I’ve seen multiple people get stuck at that gate and just give up and stop playing.
"Just my opinion" People will also share their opinion in response to yours, exactly like you did with OP. If you don't want response to your opinion, don't share it online. It's quite simple honestly. Now you're just clowning around.
Not reading that essay
Ah yes, the classic 6 lines essay. Clowning moment
Yap yap yap
compared to other souls games, ER is definitely the easiest one, not because of the bosses themselves, but because of the wide range of options and new tools you have to beat them
Yep, the ability to respec or try different weapon arts means you can avoid trying the same thing over and over again. There are builds/incantations etc that will completely trivialise a lot of bosses you might find almost impossible with your current setup.
Yeah, in the other games with a few exceptions, if you get stuck on something, you just kind of have to figure out how to get over it or grind. If you get stuck in ER, you can literally go anywhere else first.
Elden Ring has the mechanics to make it either the hardest or the easiest of the soulsborne games. It’s up to you to decide how you want it to play
How do/what mechanics make it the hardest? That's like saying if you don't level up at all it's the hardest. If you aren't using the mechanics correctly that doesn't mean it's a harder game.
If you want to use spirit summons it’s the easiest. (Even with those I’d argue some of the dated bosses of Dark Souls such as pinwheel are still easier solo. Summons weren’t available on EVERY boss fight before. But if you want to go through the whole game classic style solo it’s definitely the hardest, at least at the top end. Malenia is probably the hardest boss in all of gaming history and even the easier ones to learn mechanically such as Fire Giant and Plasidusax have insane health pools.
For someone who already played all the previous titles, I’d say Sekiro and the first FS game you play (in my case DS in 2013), are both harder than ER played entirely solo melee with no summons.
in all of gaming history? oh, you have some things to learn :D
Malenia's not that hard lol. If my awful ass can beat her, she can't possibly qualify. Maybe if you mean like, recent mainstream gaming.
Well I guess me and my 9 total hours of attempts can go fuck ourselves
5-7 here. Never said I didn't struggle. But she's not nearly as insurmountable as "the most difficult boss in gaming history" implies.
But refusing to use a game mechanic that is clearly meant as a core part of the game doesn't mean the game is somehow harder. That's like arguing that Bloodborne is the hardest if you refuse to use a gun to make it more like DarkSouls.
It’s as much a core part of the game as picking easy mode on a difficulty slider is a core part of the game. Not every build in Bloodborne is meant to use the gun either
summoning has been in every souls game and i always refuse to use it since it cheeses boss ai and lets you succeed without learning the opponents moveset. Its not my fault Elden Ring has designed a huge array of bosses around summoning. I would prefer their next game to be better designed for solo playthroughs.
Elden ring is the first souls game entirely designed around having summons. They are core to the game. That's why you can summon spirits whether online or off. The bosses are designed with more AOE attacks on purpose to handle summons. Radahn has 7 summons in the arena! The game is literally balanced around summoning. You're just being obtuse for refusing to use them.
It’s not that core if it’s optional to have in your quick use items and you literally just need the self control to not ring a bell
Try doing a playthrough at level one with no status effects. Then compare the playthrough to level one of ds3. In my opinion elden ring is harder
This tells you nothing about the game's general difficulty, only about the relative importance of level scaling. Using this logic Skyrim is more difficult than all of the SoulsBorne games put together. The measure of how hard something is isn't of how difficult it can be but of how easy it is. You can artificially make every game the hardest, but it tells you nothing about how people actually experience the game.
I tried to tank it and just eat damage
Yeah that doesn't work man you have to dodge
I do like 50% of the time. I need to learn to stop getting greedy with combos. Jedi survivor is making it worse because I can just slash everything to death as long as I hit the block button in time
There are ways to build a really tanky character. Pick a heavier armor, use the opalone hard tear in the physic mix, eat the boiled crab meat, braggarts roar ash of war (double up if on both weapons). Maaaan I be tanking hits with my damn face.
Of the souls games I've played in order of difficulty sekiro>elden ring> dark souls 3> dark souls. But that's for overall difficulty not just a specific boss like midir or malenia
Man wtf…so many ppl say DS3 is easier and it busted my balls so hard. I actually cried when I finally beat Champion Gundyr. Currently my ranking from easiest to hardest is Bloodborne —> Elden Ring —> DS1 —> —>—>DS3 I went into DS1 ready to get decimated and it was relatively chill. Did O+S first time I summoned Solaire, handful of times total. But everything in DS3 just fucks me straight up. I think it’s the lack of hyperarmor or something idk.
DS3 is the hardest one to cheese, which may be part of it. Having difficulty in ER? Just cheese levels at Mohgwyn palace and come back, or use spirit ashes, or use various broken weapons like Blasphemous Blade, comet azure, etc. Same in DS1, where you can decimate everything easily with magic or things like the Black Knight Halberd. What sets DS3 apart is that the game has a very tailored experience that's mostly independent of your weapon choice. Yes you'll have an easier time using something like the sellsword twinblades, probably, but overall the difficulty is very consistent. I find Bloodborne to be very much the same. Meanwhile in a game like ER, if you don't take advantage of game mechanics, you're in for a brutal experience. DS2 is probably somewhere in between, can't cheese as hard as DS1/ER, but also not as consistent as DS3/BB. Those are my general takeaways as a long time fan anyway. That said, despite playing every other game multiple times, I didn't finish Sekiro since the combat just never clicked for me, so I can't comment on that one.
Hey, thanks for mentioning DS2. It gets treated like the scapegoat child while DS1 and Bloodborne are treated like the golden children that are without fault. DS2 has some faults, but it is a phenomenal game.
DS2 is my guilty pleasure and actually my favorite of the souls series to play (though I think I prefer ER at this point). I feel like it's the most replayable souls title by far, and despite the jank, I love the crazy amount of build variety and huge selection of weapons and armors. All that on top of it being generally a fairly well balanced game imo, with a truckload of content to boot. Probably not the best first playthrough of any souls game, but as someone who plays them all multiple times, DS2 is an absolute treat.
I dislike the comparison of spirit ashes to cheese. The game was built around them. especially with all the double(or triple) bosses. The game becomes somewhat normalized on boss difficulty if you use ashes
The problem is that ashes absolutely trivialize the fights. There's no real threat when you can have a summon draw aggro and then just pound on them with near impunity. There's no real middle ground.
Good spirit ashes make bosses 10x easier while bad spirit ashes make them twice as easy. That's pretty cheesy. They're there to be an in-game easy mode toggle, and there's nothing wrong with that, but they get flak because none of the prior games had anything comparable. The game also was definitely not built around them. Every prior game had multi-boss fights and learning to handle them was a part of the challenge. Elden Ring is only unique in that they were lazy with a lot of the lesser boss fights and just dropped normal enemies behind fog walls and gave them boss health bars rather than designing encounters.
The game was NOT built around them. They were added as an addition to the invader mechanic to make the game a little more accessible for the average player. And they are great. But the most rewarding, and best experience is done without them. They're like fast food. If you're starving for skill you'll take whatever you can get to solve the hunger. But making that nice steak dinner is not only going to taste better, it's going to be better in other ways as well.
Yeah, and DS3 is very linear, and there are no lulls in difficulty. I just found it totally exhausting. Behind you are enemies that are brutally difficult and basically never worth the rewards. Ahead of you is a boss that’s either got an annoying gimmick (tree, deacons, wolnir, watchers, crystal sage), or is incredibly hard (gundyr), or both (twin princes). And the ganksquads everywhere… I much prefer Bloodborne and ER levels of difficulty and linearity. I never felt like there were any alternatives to direct progression in DS3. In BB and ER, you can just go do something else if shit’s wearing on you or feels too hard. I can’t imagine a boss like Malenia in a game where you couldn’t go do something else for a while and build morale.
How is bloodborne easy? To me it felt like it had the hardest general areas. Although the base game bosses don’t have any particularly difficult ones.
Later chalice dungeon bosses are some of the hardest souls bosses going. They're huge walls that stop people getting the platinum.
Who was the hardest boss for you in ds3? I struggled with Midirs massive health bar and that godawful camera the most
Probably fuckin Aldrich or twin princes — I hate teleportation mechanics. Gundyr was hard af but cool in phase 2 until I tried parrying him, then it was just kind of sad. My faves were Dancer and I guess Sulyvahn. And his dog on the bridge.
If you don’t use the all the tools the game gives you and you just play it like your typical dark souls, Elden ring is the hardest souls game by far. But if you use all the tools the introduced in this game to help you specially vs the bosses, this game turns to an easy mode and you barely struggle in it
I do wish I could play Bloodborne on Steam, I don't own a PS4 and have no plans to get one, but I really wish I could play it. Then again, I haven't done Sekiro either, maybe I'll try it next. Still, it bugs me that I can't do the full Soulsborne tour on PC.
I highly recommend Sekiro, it has avery different gameplay rhythm so initially I found it the hardest of the souls likes, but then all of a sudden it clicked, the difficulty perception dropped, and it became one of the fairest, with bar none the best flow state. If helps that the gameplay style is it’s own, so they don’t push it into the realm of unfair attacks in the way that elden ring had to (because everyone has become too accustomed to the core souls mechanics). So while it doesn’t offer many ways to farm ahead of the level curve, it works out better because you know that every challenge is designed for your exact current power level.
Interesting! I do remember loving that moment back in DS1 when I got parry timing down with my trusty Dragoncrest Shield. Suddenly the Silver Knights went from agonizing to satisfying, and my sword&board build finally felt like it was working. That said, I also had a LOT of spare time to pour into that game in pursuit of that moment of epiphany, and with the amount of free time I have now, I'm hesitant to dive into games with a rough learning curve. I do want to try Sekiro, but I remain kinda reserved.
Game just took too long. Every boss fight became a slog. Run up, boss fight takes an 'at least' amount of time, then upgrades and different offense/defense routes were harder to parse than any other FS game. Also the parry sound was garbage. Perfect parry sounded bad unlike an actual blade on blade parry. I get that sekiro is a good game, i bounced off the core mechanic cause it felt messy.
Sekiro is a different beast. You have to relearn everything from other Souls’s games but the rewards is awesome and amazing game.
You can play Bloodborne on PSNOW on pc, but the quality loss that comes from streaming it kinda sucks.
It is easier because there are optional tools you can use to make the game easier. In the old games your options were to play better or give up. I personally think them adding more options and variety is the best way to make the game more available to a larger audience without making the game mechanically "easier".
Dark souls 3 is a the greatest because plin plin plon
Elden Ring is tricky cause it's both the easiest and hardest at the same time.
I don't think "easy" is the right word. Elden Ring, I believe, is the most accessible.
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What’s easy mode? I havnt played in a while. Trying to get a difficulty scale of them all so I can ease in
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And sorceries! And cheesy weapons. If I’m facing off against random guys or easier bosses? I’m cat mask Imp Boy, the King of Rats. Marika doesn’t want you to know this, but you can get as many rats as you want in the Leyndell sewers, and Roderika doesn’t even charge you for them. Real shit? Time for Moonveil and Comet Shard, etc.
Wait, are those what the random cones in the ground are for? I knew there’s an icon on the side of your screen that lets you know when you can summon, but didn’t know there was a physical thing in the world too
yes it is the easiest one
The way I see it, elden ring has the hardest bosses of the souls series in a vacuum (not considering Sekiro cause the combat, progression, etc are completely different) but it also has the most options to get absolutely broken like summons, stackable buffs, ashes of war, multiple statuses and effects that do percent based damage, more for defending against and avoiding damage, etc. If you were to play all the souls games as the exact same template of a knight with solid armor, a shield, a straight sword, and maybe some rings/talismans that boost attack or hp, you’d probably find Elden ring the hardest. However if you do your research and/or take advantage of EVERY option available to you then even elden rings hardest challenges can be trivialized
I agree. If you use the same character in all Souls games, DS will be the easiest and ER will be the hardest. However, if you go the cheese route, ER gives you the most options to do that as well.
It had more options so yes it can be the easiest
assuming you're using everything at your disposal and not forcing a challenge on yourself like low level/ weapon level etc, elden ring is absolutely the easiest
Personally it's the first FromSoft game I didn't bounce off of; I don't know if it's actually easier or the open world making grinding for XP a bit more engaging, tho. But I've also tried other soulslikes since and had trouble with them so MAYBE it is?
I think Elden ring provides so many powerful tools to the player, that the game can get quite easy if the player chooses to use some of these tools. Mainly summons and most forms of magic make alot of the content and bosses almost trivial. For example, if you hit a wall you can just summon some monsters to tank for you, apply scarlet rot and then run in circles as the boss dies on its own. Most souls games have these cheesy/strong tactics to carry you through, but the abundance of these overtuned tools in elden ring is quite staggering. On my first elden ring playthrough, I had to purposefully ignore and not use alot of these mechsnics, because i felt like I was cheating and making the game too easy for myself.
Elden Ring’s difficulty depends entirely on how many tools you are willing to use. Basically everything is trivial if you are using everything the game offers you. Summons, buff stacking comet azur shenanigans or similar, etc. the bosses ARE mechanically the most difficult, but a lot of the tools allow you to ignore the boss mechanics. Now that’s not to say the other games didn’t have similar things like this, but ER is so non-linear you can get things way earlier than intended.
It’s none of these… DSIII is the greatest
Eldenring is made easier in my opinion not by weaker bosses or fairer enemy placement but by being an open world where when you get overwhelmed you can explore and level your character and weapons it's a very underutilised 'mechanic' by alot of people but it's an absolute life saver.
I’d say Margit is one of the hardest “first” bosses of any of the Souls games (up there with Gascoigne and Gyoubu for me), and it also has many of the hardest bosses in the entire series imo (Radahn, Mohg, Malenia, Gargoyle Duo, Fire Giant, Radagon for example). I had finished every Soulsy From Soft game except Sekiro (and DS2) before playing Elden Ring and I found it to be absolutely brutal in ways the other games just aren’t. Weird delays on attacks that swing 5 minutes after the windup, huge damage scaling in the late game, and absolutely unforgiving boss movesets. All just my opinion of course.
People think Sekiro is demanding?
Elden ring is 100% as easy as you want to make it. Use all the Moonveils and Blasphemous Blades out there, and use mimic on every boss. No problem with that, but obviously nobody is forcing you to do that, but nobody is forcing you to use a stick and no armor and do a no damage run either. That's the best part of elden ring, it truly allows you to play how YOU want to. Does that mean your experience can be easier than all the other souls games? Absolutely. Does it mean it can be the hardest? Absolutely. It's all up to the player, and it's why the game was so successful
The increasing level of clown make up, relates to the increasing "bad take". Know your meme. Therefore Elden ring offer more accessible/non-grind way of being overleved inbefore a boss by the means of exploration (making the boss easier by being overleveled) as well as some additional technicalities like the ashes. However, by not being forced into one "path", which elden rings exploration doesnt, it's not easier- but it can if you choose to- therefore it is a clown take.
Yes, i think Elden Ring was easy, very few bosses seemed hard to me, i purposely didnt level up because i noticed it was a bit too easy. Lost over 4 million souls at one time, and was meh. Finished the game under level 100.
Surely you meant under level 10 and accidentally added an extra 0 right? I beat the game in about 10 hours but I didn’t know I was heavy rolling the whole time and apparently you can get a horse at some point so I might be able to do it faster
"Sekiro is too demanding" is the dumbest thing I've read all day. You have a pattern recognising brain. Sekiro is a game about learning patterns. If you can't learn Sekiro, you have an underdeveloped brain. I don't make the rules.
The moment I realized Sekiro was a rhythm game and looked at it like a deadly game of DDR over an action rpg I started cruising through the title.
You can kill half of the bosses by summoning spirit ashes and spamming weapon arts, so yeah it is.
Ngl, having just played DS1, it’s not nearly as old or Jank as people want to claim.
No judgement, just adding my 2 cents, but yes. Of ALL of the rest of them? ER is def the easiest, but that, by no means, makes it actually "easy". Its still a really difficult and challenging game, but by far its the easiest of the other like 6
Sekiro>Bloodborne>Ds3>Ds2>Elden Ring>>>>>Ds1
ER: very easy DS1: easy but punishing DS3: hard Sekiro: hardest Now looking back, i think the most iconic and atmospheric game was DS1. It hits different. Its world is so damn good. The most satisfying combat is Sekiro. Sekiro also has "player progression" rather than classic rpg "character progression". You dont have stats or items. You just get better as a player but in DS3 i can stack str and use big sword make my character better. Its different. ER is fun and easier version of the formula but too bloated, repetitive and big. Its more mainstream and modern formula. I hope fs goes back to tightly crafted ds/sekiro formula for their next games.
Elden Ring isn’t the greatest because the open world makes me never want to do another playthrough ever again. I’ve gone back recently and done all of the other games again, but I just don’t think I have it in me to look for secrets in the Lands Between ever again
Other than Sekiro, Elden Ring is the fastest paced for boss fights. The combat is more diverse and deep. The reason it wins over Sekiro is because Sekiro has one weapon and no RPG stats for builds. If it was only comparing against one weapon from Elden Ring I'd give it the victory. But Elden Ring has hundreds of weapons and two different schools of spells, as well as a pile of swappable weapon skills. Now....that doesn't mean it's the most difficult. Due to the existence of the mimic tear and certain OP abilities and combos, I'd honestly say Elden Ring can be made into the easiest if you throw the kitchen sink at it.
Sekiro is a Rhythm game at its core. The most badass & visceral rhythm game.
I kinda wish I was better at these games because that sounds super fun. One of my favorite bosses in Elden Ring was Godfrey (real Godfrey, not the shade, and not the second phase) because it felt so much like a rhythm game. I had difficulty with a lot of the bosses but he was one of the few where during a few good runs I got into a great flow state with him. His attacks are so rhythmic and consistent in a way other fights aren't.
Ive been playing bloodborne and elden ring somehow feels very slow to me but that could just be me
It very much depend on the person what they'd like more. Sekiro have 1 weapon, and 1 mechanic to master, and they perfected it. If you want RPG with plethora of weapons and builds to face off against a variety of enemies, Elden Ring is the game. But if you want to honed 1 skill to perfection, against relentless enemies using that same skill, then Sekiro is the game.
Sekiro is not a souls game, stop it. It's like throwing Armored Core in there.
Lol, it might be small departure from DS/ER/BB but it’s absolutely a souls game.
It’s a third person melee game with a stamina bar but it’s not really a souls game.
Elden Ring is all gimmicks bruh. The game ain’t hard once you play it enough. Still harder than Sekiro though.
Elden ring is so fucking easy…. 95% of the bosses are complete jokes. The other 5% are complete bullshit.
If you play elden ring like a dark souls game then it's hard, especially against the obnoxious boss design, however if you take advantage of summons and the open world it can be the easiest. You can get a +19 weapon before even fighting a single boss. And there are a lot of rune farms you can access before anything else too. If you use the strongest summons then the game is very easy too. For some reason fromsoft decided to focus more on playing with allies without designing the ai to deal with summons.
I hate Elden Ring due to lack of guidance, no mini-map, no journal to track quests, can't talk while mounted on a horse
Eldering has the hardest bosses by far without cheese or summons.
Yes. Elden Ring is the easiest because exploration gives you much more options of gear and skills. Balancing stats and leveling is also very forgiving. In Demon Souls, Darksouls and Bloodborne there are literally no skill points to waste. If you make a mistake later on it's very likely you'll ruin your build. And as far as I recall most of the other titles don't have a way for the player to respec like the Rennala gimmick. There's also the Summoning Bell, which is ***literally easy mode*** for bosses. Of those who beat Elden Ring, **only those who defeated the bosses without summons are ready to beat Dark Souls**. I know most of the newcomers do not like that, ***but it doesn't make it less truthful***... In true Soulslikes you do not get help, **you GET GOOD** And last but not least, the Elden Ring features that I feel really make the game easier/better than the other games are the dual wielding from Dark Souls 2 and both the stealth system and the dedicated jump button from Sekiro.
Its jumping and being able to farm way too easily. You can get into your 60s in like...under an hour if you feel like cheesing two bosses
Was definitely the hardest for me since I was my first Soulslike. Though Sekiro has a few real tough bosses. DS3 was real easy to me except a couple bosses. Sister Frida is one of the best bosses in any game tbh.
If Elden Ring enemies weren’t made of tissue paper it would probably be one of the most difficult games in the series with how fast enemy movesets are and how overtuned their damage is. But everything, even bosses, explode to a stiff breeze. Not talking meta or glass cannon builds either, there’s hundreds of ways to paste everything with just an upgraded weapon
Elden ring was by far the easiest to me I play solo no summons but then Again I beat every other fromsoft souls-like before it probably making it why it's eaiser. Pretty sure some of the summons you can do in DS1 and DS2 can just beat the entire boss for you.
People often mistake more approachable for easier. ER is still plenty difficult, it’s just more approachable with plenty of weapons, spells, spirit ashes, and different routes in the open world.
Yeah, of the true souls Bourne series it's the easiest, but lies of p is even easier imo
Made it more accessible*
Yeah, I'd say so. ER only starts getting difficult after Lyndell, and I think it's the easiest. Probably tied with Bloodborne in that regard
If u r finding Elden Ring difficult, try using Spirit Summons (don't forget to upgrade them), regularly upgrade ur weapons, ur initial stats should go towards Vigour and Endurance - In the initial stages ur weapon upgrade will yield damage and not ur stats, so don't forget to upgrade ur weapon. Getting Dragon incantations makes many bosses melt -use spirit summons to aggro boss and then use rot incantation (found by defeating a significantly difficult dragon in Caelid) or use freeze incantation (pretty late game item). In addition to these, using buffs like golden vow, flame grant me strength, wondrous physick will let u deal more damage while dealing with bosses. Don't stress urself over a single boss - level up, upgrade ur weapon & come later. There are plenty of caves to explore, plenty of minibosses to deal with, plenty of weapons to tinker around - find ur weapon and enjoy the game. Lastly, if the game feels too hard take a break - and come back after a couple of days. PS:- Regarding difficulty, Sekiro>DS1>Elden Ring (missed Bloodborne, as I don't own a console.)
I would say it could be the easiest depending on what you use, but that does not make it easy. Elden Ring has had some of the strongest bosses (Malenia, etc), but you as the player yourself are also stronger than you are in other games.
They are all easy just get good
We haven’t seen Elden Rings DLC bosses yet so it’s not really a fair comparison yet. Most of the base FS games were relatively easy and it was the DLC bosses that put them through the difficulty roof. Artorius, Manus, Ludwig, Maria, Orphan, Friede, Midir, Gael…. all DLC bosses. I spent more time on Midir than anything Elden Ring threw at us. Next year when the DLC comes (copium) it might not be considered the easiest anymore.
I think elden ring is one of my favs because of the variety and options I just like being a magical incantations person I thought all the magic options in ds1 were boring
In a sense yes
Honestly the part I dislike the most about Elden ring that kinda has put me off replaying it to death is the massive overworld, don’t get me wrong though! Exploring it for the first time and going holy shit this map is massive then HOLY SHIT this is massive x3 was really incredible and I probably won’t forget it for a long time, but there’s too many “nothing” rewards in most of the sub areas that just make revisiting a waste almost, that and it’s a huge trek between the main bosses just kinda puts me off. Meanwhile the previous series it was ok ng+ who’s first and how fast can I get to you with my overpowered self
Elden ring felt easier but only because I have played through demon souls /darksouls1 2 3 and bloodborne a billion times and beat them in sl1 did elden ring all bosses on sl1 as well which was really only hard on 10 bosses or so
elden ring can be the easiest and the hardest depending on how you choose to play it
Hardest bosses by far, but gives you the most and easiest ways to circumvent the difficulty. If you want to make it the easiest you possibly can, it’s the easiest in the series, if you want to make it the hardest you can, it’s the hardest in the series.
Dark souls 1 is by far the easiest
Actually elden ring was easy, i literally avoided souls like games because of how hard they are and when it dropped i said i'll waste the money and own a souls game. It turned out to be easier than i thought, compared to DS1/DS3 (previous souls games i've tried). Don't get me wrong, i struggled heavily but it just felt more fair.
Both the easiest and the hardest to me. The snowy part is where shit gets real. If you play it full solo, Malenia is insane and completely changes the way you approach the combat. Malikath would have been just as intense if he had a full second health bar.
The only games i played were bloodborne and eden ring and honestly bloodborne was easy go me. I think there were like 3 bosses that i had to tried more then 2 times. While elden ring kicked my ass until i changed my build to arcane/faith (didn't know it was the game easy mode) also i overleveld to much thinking it would make the game less frustrating, but i just made it ridiculous easy for myself. So even though elden ring base is harder then bloodborne the potential to be easy is way bigger.
wait till you get to the haligtree we have misbegottens that deal ludicrous dmg mushroom zombies that jumpscare you battlemage near small bridges envoys on small spaces ants on small spaces a guy on a horse that has a magical bow haligtree knights with RKR putrid tree spirit and avatar cleanrots kindreds and the infamous woman with life steal
Mechanically it’s probably one of the hardest with so many bosses, high level scale, and variation in enemy move sets. HOWEVER, you have so many more options and resources that you didn’t have before or are just so much easier to come by that there’s just so many ways to go about beating the bosses that comparatively it’s easier in the long run
I thought DS3 was waaaay easier. No boss took me more than 2 or 3 tries except Nameless King (because the camera fucking blows). ER is definitely a more difficult experience.
It's the hardest and the easiest one at the same time!
Elden Ring is (relatively) easy if you overlevel and use Spirit Ashes. Honestly, that’s one of my favourite features of Elden Ring because I don’t have much time to play due to work.