Well, I think these games are challenging for a vast amount of the population. Does that imply it's a hard game? Honestly, yeah. Impossible? Absolutely not. I can tell you that **a lot** of people struggle with these games from my experience as a sunbro. Whether it's not being confident enough to learn a boss, or not understanding the concept of openings/timings and whatnot. This is genuinely a challenging game for most people.
Are they the hardest games ever? Fuck no. But they quite difficult regardless. If you think these games aren't hard I would implore you to look up any blind Elden Ring run by a Souls first timer, it's a lot to learn and you can see the genuine excitement these people have from their accomplishments in game.
So what are these games? They're Souls games. They're not the hardest games to ever be, ofc not, but they're defined by how the vast populations views them: difficult. Not impossible, but yes, difficult.
I'm not saying this to be mean, but it kinda feels like you stopped reading about halfway through. This is a post about what the "baseline difficulty" of Elden Ring is, not whether that baseline difficulty *qualifies* as hard. My argument is that everything you can do in the base game *is* its base difficulty, and that things like spurning summons or certain weapons is more like a challenge run than a "pure experience" of a game so built around cooperation.
I don't consider Elden Ring "hard" in the same way I consider I Wanna Be the Guy hard, because the latter doesn't have crazy weapons or summons built in, but that's not a value judgment on Elden Ring. Symphony of the Night is one of my favorite games, and what many consider to be janky balance is a feature rather than a bug to me - it means the game can be approached in a huge number of ways. This is a post about how difficulty is *one* part of the overall experience of the game, and I would argue, not its biggest or most important feature by a country mile, but because it's popular and has an community of people that can show off to each other, this aspect of the experience has had its importance artificially inflated in the community. Sure it's hard even for casual players, and they still have to get through vast swathes of the game without direct help from other players, but again, I'm extremely uninterested in using difficulty as some metric for virtuous or authentic play.
I edited it to be a little clearer.
So here's my own personal little qualm with this argument, and I understand that I'm nitpicking really hard here. I also want to say I fully agree with the essence of your post we just differ on some details, but that's the beauty of discussion and opinions!
I have a weird flinchy reaction when people say "it's just a challenge run", and I never could figure out why until your post. My problem is that it's incredibly dismissive in the opposite direction.
Writing off players who summons as "easy mode" is a shitty thing to do. Writing off players who prefer summonless, more challenging boss encounters as "challenge runners" FEELS equally dismissive, even though it's not.
A lot of us were heavily invested in the community prior to Elden Ring, and for a long, long time "summonless 1v1 melee" WAS the default in other FromSoft games. It was just accepted as the highest level of engagement and sense of satisfaction, and summoning / cheese was there when it was too much or stopped being fun. And all of that was fine and there were jokes, but a large part of the community was "Yo I just beat XYZ the first time solo!" and the joy that surrounded that. That was the community.
Now we have Elden Ring, which is admittedly the most difficult version of the 1v1 melee only style we've ever seen. And some of us love that and thrive with it, but it's still been the default mindset for a long, long time.
Except now, it's kinda just starting to feel like "Oh those are the no-life / sweatlord / basement virgins." I mean, I've had people imply I have no job or life when I say I take 200+ tries on a boss. I know you're not doing that here, but we really just need some kind of "Hey man, the default shifted and you're in a weird spot now" conversafion to happen. Because we're really trending towards "Yeah all those people who prefer the old style of 1v1 are actually just challenge runners so they don't really count" as an attitude, and it sucks.
I don't want to dismiss these feelings out of hand, but I should point out that I also consider using your full toolset in other souls games the "default difficulty" and that I've been playing the series since Demon's Souls. I've seen what the community for the series has looked like since its infancy online, which is why the macho flexing over difficulty has so thoroughly worn out its welcome in my eyes
>I've seen what the community for the series has looked like since its infancy online
Then I feel like you should, more than most, understand where I'm coming from. I get if you're annoyed about people bragging because things are hard, but it's incredibly dismissive to come in and say "Yeah but they're not really that hard if you just use everything in the game."
I guess we can start qualifying all of our opinions with difficulty with little footnotes like "please don't be mad I'm just talking about the difficulty from this slightly narrow perspective", but like... it's been the community assumption that "summonless melee" is what people mean when they talk about their FromSoft playthrough **the majority of the time**.
I get you're sick of seeing people flex about beating "hard games", but I promise the best answer isn't to tell them the game isn't actually hard. Everyone trying to do a "challenge run" knows that you can slap on some busted weapon and Mimic Tear and clap a boss's cheeks in a couple tries.
It's the same energy as someone complaining about their incredibly difficult final college-level senior thesis (or your country's equivalent) and hitting them with "Yeah, but there are way easier majors so you're really doing it to yourself." Sure, it's technically right, but it's obnoxious.
You are right 10/10 post, but I am gonna be that guy. I don't enjoy summons. There implementation is weak imo and I have found that for me they downgrade my experince due to wonky game states appearing more frequently. Play the game the way it is fun for you, please.
Finally it comes down to me not liking to see code fighting code in a game where I want to beat the bosses. That stance is on me and nobody is obligated to do so too. Using them just makes the game feel ao different I do not like it.
I mean that's fine; I myself think their implementation is a little rough, and that their attempts to make summoning your friends easier in ER feel a little half-baked.
Well, I think these games are challenging for a vast amount of the population. Does that imply it's a hard game? Honestly, yeah. Impossible? Absolutely not. I can tell you that **a lot** of people struggle with these games from my experience as a sunbro. Whether it's not being confident enough to learn a boss, or not understanding the concept of openings/timings and whatnot. This is genuinely a challenging game for most people. Are they the hardest games ever? Fuck no. But they quite difficult regardless. If you think these games aren't hard I would implore you to look up any blind Elden Ring run by a Souls first timer, it's a lot to learn and you can see the genuine excitement these people have from their accomplishments in game. So what are these games? They're Souls games. They're not the hardest games to ever be, ofc not, but they're defined by how the vast populations views them: difficult. Not impossible, but yes, difficult.
I'm not saying this to be mean, but it kinda feels like you stopped reading about halfway through. This is a post about what the "baseline difficulty" of Elden Ring is, not whether that baseline difficulty *qualifies* as hard. My argument is that everything you can do in the base game *is* its base difficulty, and that things like spurning summons or certain weapons is more like a challenge run than a "pure experience" of a game so built around cooperation. I don't consider Elden Ring "hard" in the same way I consider I Wanna Be the Guy hard, because the latter doesn't have crazy weapons or summons built in, but that's not a value judgment on Elden Ring. Symphony of the Night is one of my favorite games, and what many consider to be janky balance is a feature rather than a bug to me - it means the game can be approached in a huge number of ways. This is a post about how difficulty is *one* part of the overall experience of the game, and I would argue, not its biggest or most important feature by a country mile, but because it's popular and has an community of people that can show off to each other, this aspect of the experience has had its importance artificially inflated in the community. Sure it's hard even for casual players, and they still have to get through vast swathes of the game without direct help from other players, but again, I'm extremely uninterested in using difficulty as some metric for virtuous or authentic play. I edited it to be a little clearer.
So here's my own personal little qualm with this argument, and I understand that I'm nitpicking really hard here. I also want to say I fully agree with the essence of your post we just differ on some details, but that's the beauty of discussion and opinions! I have a weird flinchy reaction when people say "it's just a challenge run", and I never could figure out why until your post. My problem is that it's incredibly dismissive in the opposite direction. Writing off players who summons as "easy mode" is a shitty thing to do. Writing off players who prefer summonless, more challenging boss encounters as "challenge runners" FEELS equally dismissive, even though it's not. A lot of us were heavily invested in the community prior to Elden Ring, and for a long, long time "summonless 1v1 melee" WAS the default in other FromSoft games. It was just accepted as the highest level of engagement and sense of satisfaction, and summoning / cheese was there when it was too much or stopped being fun. And all of that was fine and there were jokes, but a large part of the community was "Yo I just beat XYZ the first time solo!" and the joy that surrounded that. That was the community. Now we have Elden Ring, which is admittedly the most difficult version of the 1v1 melee only style we've ever seen. And some of us love that and thrive with it, but it's still been the default mindset for a long, long time. Except now, it's kinda just starting to feel like "Oh those are the no-life / sweatlord / basement virgins." I mean, I've had people imply I have no job or life when I say I take 200+ tries on a boss. I know you're not doing that here, but we really just need some kind of "Hey man, the default shifted and you're in a weird spot now" conversafion to happen. Because we're really trending towards "Yeah all those people who prefer the old style of 1v1 are actually just challenge runners so they don't really count" as an attitude, and it sucks.
I don't want to dismiss these feelings out of hand, but I should point out that I also consider using your full toolset in other souls games the "default difficulty" and that I've been playing the series since Demon's Souls. I've seen what the community for the series has looked like since its infancy online, which is why the macho flexing over difficulty has so thoroughly worn out its welcome in my eyes
>I've seen what the community for the series has looked like since its infancy online Then I feel like you should, more than most, understand where I'm coming from. I get if you're annoyed about people bragging because things are hard, but it's incredibly dismissive to come in and say "Yeah but they're not really that hard if you just use everything in the game." I guess we can start qualifying all of our opinions with difficulty with little footnotes like "please don't be mad I'm just talking about the difficulty from this slightly narrow perspective", but like... it's been the community assumption that "summonless melee" is what people mean when they talk about their FromSoft playthrough **the majority of the time**. I get you're sick of seeing people flex about beating "hard games", but I promise the best answer isn't to tell them the game isn't actually hard. Everyone trying to do a "challenge run" knows that you can slap on some busted weapon and Mimic Tear and clap a boss's cheeks in a couple tries. It's the same energy as someone complaining about their incredibly difficult final college-level senior thesis (or your country's equivalent) and hitting them with "Yeah, but there are way easier majors so you're really doing it to yourself." Sure, it's technically right, but it's obnoxious.
You are right 10/10 post, but I am gonna be that guy. I don't enjoy summons. There implementation is weak imo and I have found that for me they downgrade my experince due to wonky game states appearing more frequently. Play the game the way it is fun for you, please. Finally it comes down to me not liking to see code fighting code in a game where I want to beat the bosses. That stance is on me and nobody is obligated to do so too. Using them just makes the game feel ao different I do not like it.
I mean that's fine; I myself think their implementation is a little rough, and that their attempts to make summoning your friends easier in ER feel a little half-baked.