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Elden Ring is probably the easiest souls game so far [An interview with FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazki]

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Got wrecked more than once and twice during the network tests. I expect bosses to be just as difficult as ever.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
If you learn the systems, they are some of the easiest games ever. I literally killed the final boss of bloodborne by parrying him three times. He joined the hunt for like a minute.
Gehrman is not the true final boss in Bloodborne. Moon Presence is. :messenger_winking_tongue:

Better example would be Gwyn from Dark Souls who becomes a push over if you've learned to parry.
 
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Alebrije

Member
Will be easier due to the open world setup..

But it will be as difficult as you want depending your class and equipment ....
 
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YukiOnna

Member
He said this stuff before with his other titles, as well. People misunderstand what he's talking about and is simply saying to utilize what you have in the game world and they've naturally improved the QoL side of things so you have more to work with.

Anyways, happy with the influence they took from Sekiro, especially from a narrative standpoint. It was their best handling of characterization yet and shows they can add a lot of depth in places like the NPC's while still leaving room for imagination.
I like the lack of options and alternative paths in Sekiro. I think it's good that From Software made at least one game this way.

A lot of people can get away with Soulsborne difficulty by using co-op and guides to get overpowered weapons and magic/miracles. In Sekiro, or the player achieve the necessary mechanical skill level to beat the game, or he don't.
Yes. I actually love the focused design of Sekiro. From a combat standpoint, it feels like the ultimate melee action game and I don't think every game needs a plethora of options. That said, I've seen people use the prosthetic tools and combat arts in ways I've never thought of. Every battle is meant to be an intense dance and that's awesome.
 
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Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I agree, except where did you hear about it being shorter? I've heard it's MANY times larger/longer than any of their other games.
There has been talks of it being 30 hours for the main quest. That’s straight through without detours, without exploring, and etc. It’s been said by two different employees at the company. One of which says it’s hard to estimate game length. The main path is at most 30 hours. That’s perfect if you ask me.
 

SafeOrAlone

Banned
I don't mind it. I've beaten Ninja Gaiden Black and a few Souls games, so I'm not against high difficulty, but I'm down to play a slightly different take on Souls, with a little less challenge, as long as it's not a pushover.
 
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Vaelka

Member
It's funny every From game Ive played with the exception of DS3 gave me nightmares. But then I would restart the game on a new save and because i had learned the game's systems, combat and level design, i would have no problems flying through the game even without every using NG+ loadouts. Sekiro especially is surprisingly easy when you finally understand how broken parrying is in the game.

I thought Demon Souls was bullshit, but again, it's about learning the game. I had so much trouble with 4-2 i literally dreaded it even on NG+7. But then i realized that you can use soul remains that are dropped by every enemy in that level and in 4-1 to distract all the enemies and literally sleep walk through the whole level. the boss in that level is blind so if you use a thieves ring, you can easily kill him. same goes for all the other enemies in the game.

If you learn the systems, they are some of the easiest games ever. I literally killed the final boss of bloodborne by parrying him three times. He joined the hunt for like a minute.

If you keep leveling NG+ tends to be easier than NG, I find that your character outscales the difficult way faster than the enemy.
 

Metnut

Member
I have a feeling the main path will be relatively tame (not easy, just on the easy side of souls games) but there will be a number of optional areas/bosses that’ll really challenge even the veterans.
 

Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
RIP SoulsBorne hardcore. This will be the best selling "Souls" game and we will never again see the same level of challenge.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
If you keep leveling NG+ tends to be easier than NG, I find that your character outscales the difficult way faster than the enemy.
Yeah that’s the case in pretty much all souls games except for the first souls game where enemies got far more health and damage.

But i had such a hard time with sekiro and demon souls that i wanted to see if it was the game’s difficulty or my stubbornness to brute force my way through every encounter. Soo started a ng run and it was definitely not the difficulty. I killed every boss in sekiro on my first try in NG without any op NG+ stats and abilities. Same with demon souls.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I think they decided to lower the difficulty after the reception of Sekiro.

Journalists kept crying about accessibility, From Software games being elitists and about "what's the limit of the difficulty in games".

Like, "I can't beat this game, so it should not exist." :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Eh journos gave it their game off the year at the VGA awards.
 

Fredrik

Member
I read it as it becomes easier because it’s easier to get help from other gamers.
I never play multiplayer so I remain skeptic. Haven’t finished a single Souls game yet.
 
You are so wrong about that, during the fight I felt like had more option than most Souls games.

I'm aware that the game has lots of fans, but I'm not wrong about that. You objectively have less options than every other souls-like, and less options than almost all serious action games. There's some room to play around with the sub-weapons and weapon arts, but that's it really. The options in a game like Nioh for example are like 10-20x more, literally.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
If this game is "easiest" does that mean we wont get another stupid internet outrage about why FROM games dont have difficulty option?
 

CZY

Member
RIP SoulsBorne hardcore. This will be the best selling "Souls" game and we will never again see the same level of challenge.
Most of the difficulty in this series is rooted in trial and error; the rest is pretty straightforward and fair, and not particularly hard at all. This is a fairly universal opinion about souls games so you sound weird to me right now.

And regardless, Elden Ring will feature players dying 50-500 times on their first play-through, cmon, you know this.
 

Duchess

Member
Finished the Soulsborne games, but I sucked balls at Sekiro.

It's like many have said - at heart, it's a rhythm game. If you can't master the timing for those parries, you're pretty much out of luck. I never made it to to first boss :|
 

TexMex

Member
I don’t understand how this is any different. Nothing stopping you from just grinding souls to improve your character and make fights easier in any of the previous games. Sekiro is the only one where that isn’t a thing.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Finished the Soulsborne games, but I sucked balls at Sekiro.

It's like many have said - at heart, it's a rhythm game. If you can't master the timing for those parries, you're pretty much out of luck. I never made it to to first boss :|
you dont need to master the timing. Just spam the parry button.
 

Barakov

Member

When asked about Elden Ring's difficulty, and how it ends up excluding more casual players, Myazaki says it's a valid discussion, and that this time the team worked to make the game more accessible and intuitive:

In other games, Myazaki says that because of linearity, players were forced to use all their skills to beat bosses, which ended up causing long frustrating fights and many players ending up giving up on the game. In Elden Ring, with the open world, if the player gets stuck in a boss, he can go elsewhere to improve his character, and come back stronger and more confident. Myazaki also says that Elden Ring makes co-op easier; making it easier to call friends to help you this time:

How has the ongoing discourse around game difficulty and accessibility impacted the way you’ve tailored and maintained FromSoftware’s trademark difficulty in Elden Ring? Was this something your team has been trying to be more mindful of?


Other stuff:

  • He loved playing It Takes Two with a friend & praises its quality (finished it in 3 days)
  • Miyazaki can imagine to collaborate with another creator again, but he'd probably choose someone outside of gaming
This sounds like a trap for the normies.
plotting episode 4 GIF
 

dorkimoe

Member
Hopefully it has some sort of tutorial. Cuz i tried playing demon souls on ps5 and had no fucking idea what to do. Really frustrating
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
That will get you in trouble with bosses like O'Rin of the Water who can do big posture damage to you and becomes worse if you want to do playthrough without Kuro's Charm.
i dont think a guy who quit the game before the first boss is going to try hard mode.
 

Orbital2060

Member
Well Ive just preordered ❤️

The notes on the store says something about an Adventure Guide as a pre order bonus - is that available in the game, or something else?
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
i dont think a guy who quit the game before the first boss is going to try hard mode.
But spamming parry is not exactly good advice, I used to do that when first started playing the game and it got more trouble with bosses as result, especially with ones that loves to delay their attack.
 
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Rat Rage

Member
Of course it is. That's the way it goes: you make game with a lot of soul (duh!) for hardcore players > game becomes popular > you make a sequel > sequel becomes even more popular > higher management notices the success and comes up with an amazing idea: "how about we force our developer to appeal more to "everyone" in order to sell more of (the now very popular) game?" > game starts to get dumbed down and eventually the IP/series becomes shit.

Here you have it folks, the 101 of modern game develpment, except most of the games start at step 5 these days (come to think of it: it's a mirracle demon's souls was even made...)

This is (one reason) why videogames will never be art, since art is not influenced by money.
 

Boneless

Member
Of course it is. That's the way it goes: you make game with a lot of soul (duh!) for hardcore players > game becomes popular > you make a sequel > sequel becomes even more popular > higher management notices the success and comes up with an amazing idea: "how about we force our developer to appeal more to "everyone" in order to sell more of (the now very popular) game?" > game starts to get dumbed down and eventually the IP/series becomes shit.

Here you have it folks, the 101 of modern game develpment, except most of the games start at step 5 these days (come to think of it: it's a mirracle demon's souls was even made...)

This is (one reason) why videogames will never be art, since art is not influenced by money.

Ehm, art IS influenced by money. Also, though your rethoric is a common trend, it luckily doesnt always pan out that way. And we've seen successes of GoW vs a massive failure of a dumbed down battlefield.
 
im not trying to brag but outside of a few bosses, i havent found souls games too difficult at all. i only remember a couple of bosses that were legit difficult. sekiro though, is hard as fuck because you need to relearn how to play. its very different to souls combat.
 

Vaelka

Member
im not trying to brag but outside of a few bosses, i havent found souls games too difficult at all. i only remember a couple of bosses that were legit difficult. sekiro though, is hard as fuck because you need to relearn how to play. its very different to souls combat.

I don't think that the Souls games are hard, they're just fair and punishing.
Most people I think are just not very good at games and they button mash a lot they don't rly think or learn much when they play so it's a bit of a shock to a lot of people, fighting games come to mind too when online.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I don't think that the Souls games are hard, they're just fair and punishing.
Most people I think are just not very good at games and they button mash a lot they don't rly think or learn much when they play so it's a bit of a shock to a lot of people, fighting games come to mind too when online.
The problem I see often is players don’t want engage with the game’s combat or mechanic and want to just turn off their brain when playing.

I get that everyone plays games for different reason but this is exactly why we have different type of games for different players, you can't expect game like Souls series which mostly about combat and boss fights played for “relaxation”.
 
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“We don’t want players to feel like the game is unfairly punishing, but rather that there’s a chance to win a difficult encounter and make progress.”


This quote makes me immediately think of Metroid Dread. Every boss was hard at first and then became understandable after a couple attempts.
 

Kumomeme

Member
meanwhile taken from Gameinformer:

“But when making the game I rediscovered my love for making poison swamps. I know how people feel about them, but you know, suddenly I realize I'm in the middle of making one and I just can't help myself. It just happens.” - Hidetaka Miyazaki
"..It just happens."

Cracking Up Lol GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
 
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I don't think that the Souls games are hard, they're just fair and punishing.
Most people I think are just not very good at games and they button mash a lot they don't rly think or learn much when they play so it's a bit of a shock to a lot of people, fighting games come to mind too when online.

agree. those of us who are older will remember how hard some games used to be in 80's and 90's. younger gamers these days are just used to much easier games that have no real challenge at all. its not that souls games are super hard but alot of gamers aint accustomed to a game with a bit of a challenge. a bit of time relearning and you will be a master at souls games in no time.
 
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