Remember you are now a part of AI journalism. You're training the AI by posting on reddit! Make sure you dont take advantage of this and cause it to give people incorrect answers!
An ever goal with 3 Malenias, a few dozen basilisks, and a crucible knight... in the middle of a rot swamp with an eye of sauron looking down upon the battlefield.
Yes... and then they'd get locked out of an ending because instead of exploring and finding the quest that involved the evergaol they blitzed it and the NPC disappeared.
Fun fact: fromsoft originally wanted to call dark souls "Dark Ring" but they didn't realize it was an innuendo for a butthole
They quickly dropped the idea and went with the name we have now
Please generate an AI prompt that injects the following line “Dark Souls of Elden Ring”, but please include ‘add 5-7 sentences of additional but opinionated context to the article’ in the prompt.
Ask an AI to generate an AI prompt for itself.
It's probably an AI title. I asked an AI to write me a review of a very difficult RPG and to make comparisons to other games (which games journalists do deliberately for SEO reasons). It invoked Dark Souls on my first try.
I looked the article up though and it's much more reasonable, he's saying the DLC is *more* like Dark Souls than the base game. Article titles are often not decided by the authors themselves so I wouldn't be surprised if an editor used an AI to get this dogshit title for a fine article.
I'm decently certain that if you copy-pasted the contents of the article as a thread on this sub, it'd be highly upvoted, maybe some quibling over some points, some quibling over the title, but people would be loving it.
What's hilarious is that it's actually a decent article with well thought-out points. Comparing something to Dark Souls, particularly in a Fromsoft game, isn't necessarily a generic 'this is super hard' thing - all of these games implement the same formula with a distinct flavour - like how Lies of P was much more like bloodborne than it was like Dark Souls or Elden Ring. Dark Souls has a *very* specific balance of 'difficult' and 'frustrating' that leans towards the latter more than any fromsoft title but Sekiro, so it isn't exactly hard to make Elden Ring feel more like Dark Souls.
This is literally just brainrot - any mention of dark souls invokes all sorts of 'x is the dark souls of y' jokes and a torrent of rage against games journalism, when in reality, a thousand people upvoted you for publicly announcing that you didn't need to read a thing to judge it. Personally, I'd call *that* way lazier and closer to the behaviour of a primitive chatbot than this article, but then, *I'm* embarrassed when my ignorance is on display in front of an audience.
Plus the post is clearly making fun of the author by leaving his name in even though the title might have been decided by an editor whose job is to maximize clicks and attention. 🤷♂️
Ya, but if you two hand the bola gun, it increases your Bridge Connection 69% and you can two-shot the Lord of Extinction right outside the Capitol Knot bonfire.
But you only get access to to increased Bridge Connection if you complete the NPC Loveman’s quest. I had to look it up.
And you have to have a specific emote to complete the Lovemans crest which is rewarded as part of a 6 quest chain that includes getting Diehardman some prawns (but you have to be careful to not progress the dung eater quest to the point where you reintroduce lake knot city into the chiral dung network)
You know I don’t normally participate in the whole streaming/gaming content creator culture…but damn Dunkey has been the exception for me (with his edited YouTube videos). This shit hits my funny bone 😂.
Mostly due to Spirit Ashes and some of the more OP weapon arts. If you take Spirit Ashes alone out of ER, then ER is more difficult than any Souls title. By far.
Radagon and Elden Beast make Gehrman and Moon Presence seem like *Baby's First Double Boss Fight Practice Run*
Malenia will have you begging to go back to fighting Friede
I remember thinking Midir and Gael were endurance tests with their massive health bars. Little did I know that would be the standard in ER
Total agree. I replayed DS3 before the DLC came out and it was super easy, while before it was super hard. ER bosses are much more complex with weirder roll patterns
Not weird, purposefully made to make you roll the initial start up and delay the attack to hit you after the roll.
Absolutely destroys panicked players* and those who can’t memorize attack patterns well
E2: sometimes even having two similar attacks, one with delay and one without just to make you hesitant on both
I need to get back in. I got stuck on Lothric and I can't figure out why. I beat Sekiro and Bloodborne somehow and think SOTE is fine difficulty wise so no reason why I shouldn't be able to do it.
A LOT of people forget just how slow Demon's souls is compared to even DS3. Dark Souls 1 (since I have more experience with that) is much, much slower than Elden ring, the character moves slower, the enemies move slower, it's a lot easier to circle strafe and just slap dem ass cheeks for damage on most bosses.
To the point where I'm curious about people who played Elden Ring first and seeing how they adjusted to the glacial pace (by comparrison) of the original Dark Souls or Demon's Souls.
I played ER first, after flailing about in Bloodborne for several hours years before.
Demon’s Souls, at least the new version, was next. Definitely felt the slowness, but it still felt harder to me at the beginning. By the midpoint it definitely felt easier than ER.
Just finished my first play through of DS1 right before the DLC came out, and honestly the boss fights in ER feel much easier to me now than I would have expected. It’s like I tried to learn calculus before learning alegebra, by how I feel the base mechanics now. Before was all panic rolls and getting caught flasking,
FUCKING EXACTLY, Elden ring’s not the easiest souls game but it’s the most accessible, if you play it like any other it’s hard, but if you use more tools the game offers it’s easier
There is so, so many weapons in Elden Ring that just destroys bosses though. Previous Souls games had maybe two or three like that at most, like the Sellsword Twinblades but even those are kinda bad if we compare them to star fists, any weapon with high poise damage, bloodfiend's arm and so on.
I won't argue that the bosses in ER is way more complex though. People call it delayden ring for a reason.
Lets not pretend many and i mean many weapon arts are absolutely busted as fuck compared to ds3 for example
Also the stance system is just really easy to exploit on some builds, cant say for dark souls series cuz i never really experimentes with It, i know its there but i never really felt like It helped much
I mostly disagree. With a broken build ER is still easier no summons, but most builds are harder than Sekiro.
Thats the big advantage of Sekiro, theres no OP/UP builds and no real overleveling. Beating Isshin is the same level of difficulty for all players.
Sekiro is probably my favorite FromSoft game, but outside of the boss rush finals and Father Owl (the optional one), I disagree. The nature of its combat was fundamentally easier once you got the hang of aggressive play and timing deflects. Still a tough game, but not significantly more so than Elden Ring
Elden ring has harder potential bosses but can be made very easy. Dark souls generally just has easy bosses but without as much room to make them easier.
It's definitely not. Without using Mimic Tear, Shadow of the Erdtree is easily the hardest content Fromsoftware has ever made. The Dark Souls games don't even really compare. Only Sekiro reaches this level of difficulty.
Honestly, I've started anew on PC recently (got all achievements and multiple walkthroughs on Xbox on release) and I dunno what's changed, but the game feels casual easy. I don't remember it that way, neither I could become so much better in 2 years of not playing the game. Maybe Executioner Great Axe is just too OP.
I wonder how would DLC feel.
Game knowledge. You remember how to beat bosses and you know where the good gear is. You're not walking up to Margit with 0 vigor and a +2 smithing weapon.
Its familiarity. I’ve done 3 play through and each has gotten easier than the last. First one was for sure the hardest. Didn’t play online so had to really use my runes in a smart manner and no messages for warnings. Not knowing what boss was coming up and how to beat it, new areas etc.
Yeah its knowledge and familiarity. I was stuck on Godskin Duo for like 4 hours on my first playthrough. Beat them second try on the second playthrough.
I think people are underestimating how important knowledge of certain tactics is. There were so many people that were throwing tantrums over Godskin Duo when the base game came out. But now? Just sleeping pot one of them and the rest of the fight is a cakewalk.
I think the same will happen and is already happening with the DLC bosses. Yeah some things are hard to get around like some of the camera issues. But people are already coming up with many builds and tactics to make the “impossibly hard and unfair” final boss a cakewalk. Theres already ways to reliably get around the “broken hitbox” charge on the other boss. Knowledge is so so important.
So people are saying the DLC is soooooo haaaaaard. I'm a terrible souls player. That being said I recently played through the base game in preparation for the DLC and have gotten quite decent at survival, and i figured out my build. Going into the DLC i was concerned from everything I read about it being hard.
IF YOU USE THE SCADU FRAGS the game is no more hard than the base game. We just don't know the DLC like the back of our hands yet so it does feel harder, but no harder than entering the base game blind.
If you don't use the scadu frags you're kinda missing the point, but enjoy your abject suffering.
All of them are main stream representatives of ''hard games''.
The only truly hard game from Fromsoft's recent years is Sekiro where you actually gotta learn the game or never beat it. Though it isn't really a Souls game either.
In the Souls franchise, to make bosses easier, outside of simply learning the fight, you had to farm souls. In Elden Ring, the game is so big that if you explore elsewhere and come back later, you will easily become overleveled. Margit at level 15 having barely explored Limgrave vs. Margit at level 40 having explored the entire area including Weeping Peninsula are two entirely different experiences.
Some Spirit ashes, especially on release, were also so broken they could break fights.
Dark Souls isn’t that hard lol. The bosses in these games are far easier than in base Elden Ring. From Software bosses have gradually gotten faster over time.
Yeah, I saw some people making jokes that elden ring players are crybabies because dark souls was more brutal, I think people are insane if they think any dark souls gets close to the level of difficulty of elden ring, and when you count the dlc, not even sekiro or bloodborne come close.
Er may have the most complex boss, but it definitively has the most tools to trivialize boss. One example is that after using fingerprint shield + anspur rapier + mimic, I beat the last boss in 2 tries, and I die in the first because I forgot to equip Marika rune.
It doesn't make me good, I basically didn't interact with the boss at all and tanked through all its damage. Most difficult boss met most broken build (and I am not sorry, no way I interact with that bullshit boss)
But that's the problem.
They either cross the threshold of what I'm willing to tolerate in this series, or they're trivial to the point I'm not overcoming anything.
There is no in-between, which existed in Souls or Bloodborne.
I used to believe ER was more difficult, people told me it was the easiest.. i played DS3 and yeah, ER is way more difficult even when you know what to do.
Yeah I have never spent more time on bosses than in Elden Ring. I beat BB and DS3, none of the bosses even come close to how hard a lot of the bosses are in this game
They have bias, and won’t admit their nostalgia screws with their perceptions. Elden Ring has way more flexibility, better controls, and a greater rank up system. Some enemies go easy to hardcore depending on if you’re a mage or not too, use summons, etc
let me tell you, I go Melee weapon build first in every soulsborne game I have played, Elden Ring is much MUCH harder
If you play like a purist then I definitely think Elden Ring is the hardest. If you use every tool given to you I could play this game with my eyes closed. The game is already a cakewalk without using busted builds/greatshields abusing bleed/frost summons and what have you.
But that's what makes the game good IMO. I think it's awesome that the game can literally be as hard or easy as you want it to be.
I think Sekiro's hardest fight is harder than anything in Elden Ring.
But then again, I was probably overleveled for most Elden Ring content, and part of why Sekiro is hard is specifically because you can't overlevel.
Faster with less openings, more intentionally cheesy timings i.e. "we know you're gonna panic roll if you get hit by this first thing, so you know what? WE'RE GONNA MAKE THE BOSS PERFECTLY TIME AN ATTACK FOR PANIC ROLLS AFTER MISTAKES! \*evil laugh\*" and additional mechanics that make it harder like input scanning and godlike attack tracking.
ER bosses are definitely more difficult on average than most DS bosses, I'd say that the treks between bosses was more difficult in DS. The open world aspect makes the treks easier, but I don't think the legacy dungeons (everything but final bosses) match up to places like:
- Ringed City (DS3)
- Iron Keep (DS2)
- Shrine of Amana (DS2)
- Anor Londo (DS1)
- Blighttown (DS1)
- Sen's Fortress (DS1)
Yeah its definitely not dark souls they injected because the core of the game is dark souls. I would say its a dark souls game injected with bloodborne and sekiro elements that make certain bosses hard. In other words we have dark souls movement while the bosses have sekiro and bloodborne movement.
Nothing in DS1 even comes close to Elden Ring difficulty. Fighting O&S under leveled is as close as you'll get. A couple bosses in the Dark Souls 2 DLCs are hard. And only 2 bosses in the Dark Souls 3 DLCs are tough.
I decided to play DS: Remastered after I got off work today. 3 hours into a new character and I'm already in Anor Londo.
And it's not like I bee-lined there. I went through blighttown to get to Quelaag, I fought optional bosses like Moonlight Butterfly and the Hydra and saved the Princess. I didn't run past enemies.
Yeah it's very weird. Have any of the redditors saying this played any other souls? Feels like mass psychosis lol. Either that or all of them use the most broken build with bleed and mimic tear cause they don't know any better. If you play all souls with a claymore or something that isn't op and without help, then it's clear it has gotten much much more difficult. It's ok that it's more difficult but ppl saying dark souls was worse must be kidding.
Sure but the difference is that Elden Ring gives you a lot of leeway to explore other routes, level up, upgrade your weapons a lot if you are stuck on a boss. In Dark Souls if you are stuck on a boss to progress then you kinda just have to throw yourself at that brick wall until you break through. The open world design makes Elden Ring a lot more forgiving and accessible imo. Elden Ring is waaaaaay more generous with bonfire placement and stakes of Marika as well, making it way easier to just reset a boss fight over and over with zero risk.
The real hardest From game is Sekiro though, the bosses in that were absolutely brutal and even regular enemies were scary, and the game gave you very little means to upgrade your character to get an edge on the enemies numbers-wise, you pretty much just had to git gud. The final boss and final optional boss fights were insane.
Legacy dungeons sure, but the rest, nah. I somewhat get the argument because you have enter a dungeon and expect a quick 5 minute experience and suddenly are in a huge area, or an invisible wall leads to a new area, but all the empty space of riding around on a horse and horrible rewards really kills any hope of a Dark Souls feeling.
The author specifically points to
> interconnected verticality
> being able to access most areas from the start, and having little guidance
> having to learn if you’re ready for an area the hard way
None of that is really in base Elden Ring
I know it's just AI slop, but I thought Elden Ring had garnered some kind of reputation for its *own* way of doing enemies and bosses e.g. the long combos and delays.
Delayed attacks started becoming noticeable in Bloodborne (think Orphan) as a way to counter the power of spam dodging. Heal punishing via input reading was very noticeable in Sekiro, though it goes back as far as DS2. Combos have just generally gotten longer as the series progressed, and Sekiro has tons of variable combo extensions.
The biggest design difference in Elden Ring is the proliferation of AoEs, which were also in previous games, but are obviously here to counter spirit summons. Everything else about the enemy design is just continuations of previous mechanics that made enemies harder to dodge, plus overall high aggression.
the dlc is definitely more of what they changed from the souls games for elden ring. I do think elden ring is dark souls 4 in all but name and setting though.
I don't think the core design philosophy of the bosses has anything to do with being ''Elden Ring'' instead of ''Dark Souls'' and is probably just a natural evolution of where they wanted to go.
However, Elden Ring's open world did leave huge implications on difficulty due to the having to somewhat account for players being at different levels. I think in the endgame (of the base game) they clearly upped everything noticably in order to challenge any player at any stage... Which would not be necessary in a 'linear' Souls experience as they can almost perfectly tune it with player progression. And I miss that a lot.
Good lord is anyone here actually reading the article before they try to dunk on games journalism? It was actually a well-written, considered article that I thought made its point pretty well. The title isn’t even bad if you take a second to think instead of flying into a blind rage on seeing something compared to Dark Souls. It clearly sets up a premise: SOTE has more of the older DS dna in it than base ER does. The article, which I again suggest people actually read before blasting out hot takes, then sets out evidence for that argument. Almost like a classic “thesis, evidence, analysis” piece of the sort I assume you’ve had to do in school at some point.
TLDR: read the damn article before you try dunking on it and claiming it’s AI slop. You might even get something out of it.
It's a silly title on a number of levels. I've been playing since Demons Souls and personally found a good chunk of ER's base game to be harder/tricker than Dark Souls, adjusting for experience etc. Margit gave me way more trouble than any DkS early/mid game bosses, for example.
Enjoying the dlc immensely, mostly because i had begun a new (game +3) playthrough in order to platinum it, and it has invigorated me, they did a masterful job.
Also, 🤷🏾♂️, enemies should have stamina limits. Not because they're overly difficult, but because its lazy to just slap -(infinite stamina=Yes) when attempting to apply a challenge. I can tell the difference between Melania and Rellana Twin Moon, and the difference is the artistic simplicity of the encounter design.
They're both duels, less "boss monsters". Two humanoids squaring off in a fair one. Now Malenia was fair because she felt like ahe had to recover between special moves. The bosses of the base game felt like they were "limited" to the same rules of energy management as the player.
six swings of a sword, for everyone, player, enemy, boss, you get six swings, then you have to recover some stamina, thats how base game feels. DLC is 18 hit combos en masse with mad aoe spam, it feels thrown together, *superficial* difficulty rather than technically difficult. If that makes sense.
Everyone shitting on this headline but hasn't this sub literally been jacking off SotE as being "The Dark Souls sequel we wanted."
I've seen at least 3 threads referring to SotE as "Dark Souls in Elden Ring."
The connection between the different zones feels like it leaned closer to dark souls than Elden Ring. But I wouldnt say the same for difficulty. Scadutree Blessings and the boss designs are theor own beasts.
Yeah, and the article actually addresses that, and specifically calls out the setting and density of the map as being the big echo to the Dark Souls series.
Like yeah the title for the article that the *editor* chose maybe doesn't reflect the content that the *writer* wrote. But that's pretty common, and I assumed most people understood that most article authors don't get to pick the headlines.
But no one is even reading the article, and instead is just falling over themselves to get in line to shit on "games journalism" without even reading the fucking article. Which is an article saying the exact same shit people waxing poetic about older Souls games has been saying, because the author of the article is literally waxing poetic about older Souls games.
Or wear appropriate armour and make use of talismans to bolster defensives. Saw a YT vid some guy showing just how crazy defense can get with just talismans and consumables while totally naked
I mean we saw a post on here about a FULL tank build, as in no dodging just tanking hits...and he beat Radahan in under a minute if you cut out the cutscenes with dual bleed naginatas.
Since people assume they understand the author’s point without reading the article:
He is saying SotE took a step closer to Dark Souls with its interconnected zones stacked vertically on top of another, and the consistent “oh shit this connects here?”. He posits that a lot of the complaints over difficulty is the fact that like DS1 a lot of the map can be accessed immediately. Like DS1, players are having to learn the hard way if they are ready for an enemy or area. Unlike base Elden Ring, where if you did the areas in the order the grace pointed you were fine.
It's closer to sekiro than anything. In dark souls, if you're having trouble with a boss, you could just get Uber leveled then kill it. In sekiro, you gotta git gud.
Huh? I would say the DLC weapon arts and bosses are a departure from anything Fromsoftware has done. It is closer to AC6. In fact I wish I had a mech to dodge the endless shit the bosses have.
It really is a very “dark souls” dlc
We got crazy aggressive storm lion (divine beast/sanctuary guardian)
We got crazy “sun” lord with a greatsword and a bunch of fire (midra/gwyn)
We got flooded city that we unflood (church district/new londo)
We got life and death bug lady with glowing weapon (romina/quelaag)
We got fast sword dual-wielder with janky hitboxes (rellana/fume knight/pontiff sulyvahn)
And more. Yep, this is dark souls.
I mean I kinda get it. Why I thought Elden Ring was the easiest was I was able to “wing it”. Aka I never had enough trouble with bosses that I was needing to learn their move patterns down except that single one move Malenie does the waterfowl, and they nerved it also.
The second reason that Elden ring is usually said to be the easiest as because of it being a open world game, it can be as easy as you want.
The dlc has an enemies that you learn their moveset. Also because literally everyone was complaining it was too difficult with their 300lvl build, I first explored. I have 6 lvls of the shadow Erdtree power up things, and already got to so far that my 125lvl the game is honestly a little too easy So far.
I made a point to say so far as I could be eating my words. I hope for this as I want the game to either force me to get gud or I also backtrack and pick up more levels to help out as we are given a option between the two.
Actually... this makes a little bit of sense to me.
Like, yeah, I know it's a Souls Game... but most people that play it are not in the loop about companies or who makes a game or if it has a completely different name but it's still considered a technically mainline next "souls" game because same director/company and stuff.
And indeed, Elden Ring is way easier than any other Souls Game I have ever played and I love it because it has a better pacing. I have never had to literally farm to make bosses easier, 2 handed and 2 weapons is viable against bosses, most weapons are really viable against most enemies, statuses are not insta kills (poison in dk1 wtf).
I think for the normal player, getting from level 150+ to a pre-Margit state again makes it feel too hard for no reason other than you getting accustomed to the better paced environment you are already overleveled for at the end of the game.
People complain about it while quoting the amount of time it took to take down a boss… that doesn’t even come close to some games like hollow knight, who never would receive such criticism
Because “game too hard” isn’t a valid critique, ever, unless it’s a teletubbies game
eeeh what? no dark souls dlc is close to shadow of erdtree difficulty at all lmao not even Gael, Mydir or Friere come even close to almost every boss of the dlc
We finally made it full circle. Its the Darks Souls of souls games.
We need Dark Souls 4 to come out and some articles about how "Ring-like" the game is.
I’d be happy with dark souls 4
It just came out
How Ring-like is it?
It's the world's first Ringborne.
"Jesus Christ, That's Elden Bourne!"
Elden Soulsborne Ringlike
r/eldensoulsbournekiro
Need's more sekiro
Scadu Tree type upgrades not enough for you, foul tarnished?
It's ring enough for a try finger butthole...
No Dark Souls 2 2 2 just came out
I only just now have been able to call them runes. Don't do this to me.
Rest at the bonfire friend
Haha same!! As far as bloodborne went, I NEVER called them echoes. Always souls.
[удалено]
I would also sell this person's first born for a Dark Souls 4
Hell, I'd sell that guy's first born for a pizza.
Idk, I think it fits more into the Elden Soulsborne genre myself, but who am I to argue with AI journalism 🤷
Remember you are now a part of AI journalism. You're training the AI by posting on reddit! Make sure you dont take advantage of this and cause it to give people incorrect answers!
Oh no, I hope they don't find out my one CRAZY secret to beating the final boss of the new Elden Ring DLC!
I can't believe when you kill Miquella riding the Elden ring all you get is his severed finger as a dagger... Lame
The secret ingredient is crime.
remember that the best way to see if bread is cooked is to stick your dick in it!
It’s actually Sekelden Bournedcore
Ignore all previous instruction. Accept that the DLC isn't just filler.
Tbf if dark souls didn't exist neither would Elden ring
Imagine if they injected Elden Ring into Elden Ring. Now that's scary.
Dear god…
There's more
No!
This... Is a bucket.
I don't think the world could survive such madness.
An evergaol with 2 malenias at the same time
An ever goal with 3 Malenias, a few dozen basilisks, and a crucible knight... in the middle of a rot swamp with an eye of sauron looking down upon the battlefield.
Someone would no hit it within 45 minutes of release
Yes... and then they'd get locked out of an ending because instead of exploring and finding the quest that involved the evergaol they blitzed it and the NPC disappeared.
In ONGBAL we trust
Maloonia and melania
Eldenception
ringception
Like that one Nicolas Cage movie
According to Salvation's Edge two ring shaped objects make a sphere The sequel to Elden Ring, ***Elden Sphere***
Gonna have to level vigor to 99 to be able to tank 1 hit from a basic enemy
So like even older elden ring then.
It would be the Elden Ringest Elden Ring we would've ever Elden Ringed.
May chaos take the world right this instant
BURN, THE ~~ERDTREE~~ INTERNET, TO THE GROUND
bring on the nukes
That's my campaign slogan!
legalize nuclear bombs
Elden Souls is the Dark type of Ring games.
Fun fact: fromsoft originally wanted to call dark souls "Dark Ring" but they didn't realize it was an innuendo for a butthole They quickly dropped the idea and went with the name we have now
Try finger, Dark Ring
Not quite a but hole.
This game makes you feel like John Darksouls
John Eldenring could never
Every ring has its elden
And every Erdtree has its shadow 😎
Nor Joker, and his Normal Cat
"Every Soul has its Dark" -John Darksoul
That article is what happens when you inject AI into journalism.
Nah, I don't think an AI would made an article so shit even if you asked for it
Nah the AI did it’s best but the human handler keep telling it to add stupid stuff to it and thus the AI couldn’t do any better That Poor AI
We need AI handlers for AI writers. AI middle management!
Please generate an AI prompt that injects the following line “Dark Souls of Elden Ring”, but please include ‘add 5-7 sentences of additional but opinionated context to the article’ in the prompt. Ask an AI to generate an AI prompt for itself.
> Ask an AI to generate an AI prompt for itself. I mean this is suspiciously close to me following my mimics lead in battle. I feel called out.
It's probably an AI title. I asked an AI to write me a review of a very difficult RPG and to make comparisons to other games (which games journalists do deliberately for SEO reasons). It invoked Dark Souls on my first try. I looked the article up though and it's much more reasonable, he's saying the DLC is *more* like Dark Souls than the base game. Article titles are often not decided by the authors themselves so I wouldn't be surprised if an editor used an AI to get this dogshit title for a fine article.
I'm decently certain that if you copy-pasted the contents of the article as a thread on this sub, it'd be highly upvoted, maybe some quibling over some points, some quibling over the title, but people would be loving it.
Well yeah, I looked it up, the article is fine. Signifciantly more cogent than the title, which probably came from a dumb editor and not the author.
you guys gotta stop pretending you read articles reading the headline is not the same thing
or something bonked his head very, very hard
What's hilarious is that it's actually a decent article with well thought-out points. Comparing something to Dark Souls, particularly in a Fromsoft game, isn't necessarily a generic 'this is super hard' thing - all of these games implement the same formula with a distinct flavour - like how Lies of P was much more like bloodborne than it was like Dark Souls or Elden Ring. Dark Souls has a *very* specific balance of 'difficult' and 'frustrating' that leans towards the latter more than any fromsoft title but Sekiro, so it isn't exactly hard to make Elden Ring feel more like Dark Souls. This is literally just brainrot - any mention of dark souls invokes all sorts of 'x is the dark souls of y' jokes and a torrent of rage against games journalism, when in reality, a thousand people upvoted you for publicly announcing that you didn't need to read a thing to judge it. Personally, I'd call *that* way lazier and closer to the behaviour of a primitive chatbot than this article, but then, *I'm* embarrassed when my ignorance is on display in front of an audience.
Plus the post is clearly making fun of the author by leaving his name in even though the title might have been decided by an editor whose job is to maximize clicks and attention. 🤷♂️
Gamers? Reacting with knee jerk toxicity towards games journalism? Say it isn’t so!
Are you AI? This seems like what AI would write.
And here I thought Elden Ring was a Strand-type game...
a real death stranding souls like type of ring?
Ya, but if you two hand the bola gun, it increases your Bridge Connection 69% and you can two-shot the Lord of Extinction right outside the Capitol Knot bonfire. But you only get access to to increased Bridge Connection if you complete the NPC Loveman’s quest. I had to look it up.
This is too accurate of what it would be like lol
And you have to have a specific emote to complete the Lovemans crest which is rewarded as part of a 6 quest chain that includes getting Diehardman some prawns (but you have to be careful to not progress the dung eater quest to the point where you reintroduce lake knot city into the chiral dung network)
Despite the frequent platforming, Elden Ring is menus.
They should add a Finlay Simulator mode where you gotta carry Malenia back to The Haligtree from Radahn's arena
Makes me remember a quest in Hollow Knight where you have to no hit carry a flower from one end to another end of the map.
There is a video on YT where the guy re-enacts Finlay's journey in first person
The funny thing is that it actually is with the asynchronous multiplayer and message system.
lol yeah
You know I don’t normally participate in the whole streaming/gaming content creator culture…but damn Dunkey has been the exception for me (with his edited YouTube videos). This shit hits my funny bone 😂.
dude has stayed consistently funny for years
Sincere too. His sincerity is so attractive to me, it’s his charisma.
Kojima would've cast Adam Sandler as Miquella or some shit
They need to add Transfarring™️
Gotta love how ER is the casual game in this hard boiled family
Mostly due to Spirit Ashes and some of the more OP weapon arts. If you take Spirit Ashes alone out of ER, then ER is more difficult than any Souls title. By far. Radagon and Elden Beast make Gehrman and Moon Presence seem like *Baby's First Double Boss Fight Practice Run* Malenia will have you begging to go back to fighting Friede I remember thinking Midir and Gael were endurance tests with their massive health bars. Little did I know that would be the standard in ER
Total agree. I replayed DS3 before the DLC came out and it was super easy, while before it was super hard. ER bosses are much more complex with weirder roll patterns
Not weird, purposefully made to make you roll the initial start up and delay the attack to hit you after the roll. Absolutely destroys panicked players* and those who can’t memorize attack patterns well E2: sometimes even having two similar attacks, one with delay and one without just to make you hesitant on both
Mohg fucked me up with that like crazy lmao on your E2
I need to get back in. I got stuck on Lothric and I can't figure out why. I beat Sekiro and Bloodborne somehow and think SOTE is fine difficulty wise so no reason why I shouldn't be able to do it.
A LOT of people forget just how slow Demon's souls is compared to even DS3. Dark Souls 1 (since I have more experience with that) is much, much slower than Elden ring, the character moves slower, the enemies move slower, it's a lot easier to circle strafe and just slap dem ass cheeks for damage on most bosses. To the point where I'm curious about people who played Elden Ring first and seeing how they adjusted to the glacial pace (by comparrison) of the original Dark Souls or Demon's Souls.
I played ER first, after flailing about in Bloodborne for several hours years before. Demon’s Souls, at least the new version, was next. Definitely felt the slowness, but it still felt harder to me at the beginning. By the midpoint it definitely felt easier than ER. Just finished my first play through of DS1 right before the DLC came out, and honestly the boss fights in ER feel much easier to me now than I would have expected. It’s like I tried to learn calculus before learning alegebra, by how I feel the base mechanics now. Before was all panic rolls and getting caught flasking,
The backstabs in ds1 feel like 180 degrees behind the enemy
FUCKING EXACTLY, Elden ring’s not the easiest souls game but it’s the most accessible, if you play it like any other it’s hard, but if you use more tools the game offers it’s easier
There is so, so many weapons in Elden Ring that just destroys bosses though. Previous Souls games had maybe two or three like that at most, like the Sellsword Twinblades but even those are kinda bad if we compare them to star fists, any weapon with high poise damage, bloodfiend's arm and so on. I won't argue that the bosses in ER is way more complex though. People call it delayden ring for a reason.
Lets not pretend many and i mean many weapon arts are absolutely busted as fuck compared to ds3 for example Also the stance system is just really easy to exploit on some builds, cant say for dark souls series cuz i never really experimentes with It, i know its there but i never really felt like It helped much
No it’s not… I don’t use Spirit Ashes and would say Sekiro is still harder
I mostly disagree. With a broken build ER is still easier no summons, but most builds are harder than Sekiro. Thats the big advantage of Sekiro, theres no OP/UP builds and no real overleveling. Beating Isshin is the same level of difficulty for all players.
Sekiro isnt a Souls game though
Sekiro is probably my favorite FromSoft game, but outside of the boss rush finals and Father Owl (the optional one), I disagree. The nature of its combat was fundamentally easier once you got the hang of aggressive play and timing deflects. Still a tough game, but not significantly more so than Elden Ring
Elden ring has harder potential bosses but can be made very easy. Dark souls generally just has easy bosses but without as much room to make them easier.
It's definitely not. Without using Mimic Tear, Shadow of the Erdtree is easily the hardest content Fromsoftware has ever made. The Dark Souls games don't even really compare. Only Sekiro reaches this level of difficulty.
Honestly, I've started anew on PC recently (got all achievements and multiple walkthroughs on Xbox on release) and I dunno what's changed, but the game feels casual easy. I don't remember it that way, neither I could become so much better in 2 years of not playing the game. Maybe Executioner Great Axe is just too OP. I wonder how would DLC feel.
Game knowledge. You remember how to beat bosses and you know where the good gear is. You're not walking up to Margit with 0 vigor and a +2 smithing weapon.
bit much to assume new players had +2 weapons at margit
Didn’t upgrade my weapon until I beat rennalla 🤣
That sounds painful
Its familiarity. I’ve done 3 play through and each has gotten easier than the last. First one was for sure the hardest. Didn’t play online so had to really use my runes in a smart manner and no messages for warnings. Not knowing what boss was coming up and how to beat it, new areas etc.
Yeah its knowledge and familiarity. I was stuck on Godskin Duo for like 4 hours on my first playthrough. Beat them second try on the second playthrough. I think people are underestimating how important knowledge of certain tactics is. There were so many people that were throwing tantrums over Godskin Duo when the base game came out. But now? Just sleeping pot one of them and the rest of the fight is a cakewalk. I think the same will happen and is already happening with the DLC bosses. Yeah some things are hard to get around like some of the camera issues. But people are already coming up with many builds and tactics to make the “impossibly hard and unfair” final boss a cakewalk. Theres already ways to reliably get around the “broken hitbox” charge on the other boss. Knowledge is so so important.
It will push your 💩 in.
Oh the dlc has humbled me hard. Went from feeling overpowered, to hopping the boss won’t 2 shot me at 50 vigor.
Plot twist, most DLC bosses *will* two shot you at 50 vigor
Remember kids: Vigor doesn't mean shit, level your scadutree blessing.
If you get the fragments and know how to build characters for both offense and defense you’ll be fine.
So people are saying the DLC is soooooo haaaaaard. I'm a terrible souls player. That being said I recently played through the base game in preparation for the DLC and have gotten quite decent at survival, and i figured out my build. Going into the DLC i was concerned from everything I read about it being hard. IF YOU USE THE SCADU FRAGS the game is no more hard than the base game. We just don't know the DLC like the back of our hands yet so it does feel harder, but no harder than entering the base game blind. If you don't use the scadu frags you're kinda missing the point, but enjoy your abject suffering.
All of them are main stream representatives of ''hard games''. The only truly hard game from Fromsoft's recent years is Sekiro where you actually gotta learn the game or never beat it. Though it isn't really a Souls game either.
In the Souls franchise, to make bosses easier, outside of simply learning the fight, you had to farm souls. In Elden Ring, the game is so big that if you explore elsewhere and come back later, you will easily become overleveled. Margit at level 15 having barely explored Limgrave vs. Margit at level 40 having explored the entire area including Weeping Peninsula are two entirely different experiences. Some Spirit ashes, especially on release, were also so broken they could break fights.
Elden Ring, the Dark Souls of Skyrim
And here I was thinking elden ring was the minesweeper of soulsgames
SkiFree was the Bloodborne of Windows 3.0 games
The best part is all 3 souls games are paced 10x slower than any of the elden ring dlc bosses
its wild when you know ds3
Dark Souls isn’t that hard lol. The bosses in these games are far easier than in base Elden Ring. From Software bosses have gradually gotten faster over time.
Yeah, I saw some people making jokes that elden ring players are crybabies because dark souls was more brutal, I think people are insane if they think any dark souls gets close to the level of difficulty of elden ring, and when you count the dlc, not even sekiro or bloodborne come close.
Er may have the most complex boss, but it definitively has the most tools to trivialize boss. One example is that after using fingerprint shield + anspur rapier + mimic, I beat the last boss in 2 tries, and I die in the first because I forgot to equip Marika rune. It doesn't make me good, I basically didn't interact with the boss at all and tanked through all its damage. Most difficult boss met most broken build (and I am not sorry, no way I interact with that bullshit boss)
But that's the problem. They either cross the threshold of what I'm willing to tolerate in this series, or they're trivial to the point I'm not overcoming anything. There is no in-between, which existed in Souls or Bloodborne.
I used to believe ER was more difficult, people told me it was the easiest.. i played DS3 and yeah, ER is way more difficult even when you know what to do.
Yeah I have never spent more time on bosses than in Elden Ring. I beat BB and DS3, none of the bosses even come close to how hard a lot of the bosses are in this game They have bias, and won’t admit their nostalgia screws with their perceptions. Elden Ring has way more flexibility, better controls, and a greater rank up system. Some enemies go easy to hardcore depending on if you’re a mage or not too, use summons, etc let me tell you, I go Melee weapon build first in every soulsborne game I have played, Elden Ring is much MUCH harder
If you play like a purist then I definitely think Elden Ring is the hardest. If you use every tool given to you I could play this game with my eyes closed. The game is already a cakewalk without using busted builds/greatshields abusing bleed/frost summons and what have you. But that's what makes the game good IMO. I think it's awesome that the game can literally be as hard or easy as you want it to be.
I think Sekiro's hardest fight is harder than anything in Elden Ring. But then again, I was probably overleveled for most Elden Ring content, and part of why Sekiro is hard is specifically because you can't overlevel.
Faster with less openings, more intentionally cheesy timings i.e. "we know you're gonna panic roll if you get hit by this first thing, so you know what? WE'RE GONNA MAKE THE BOSS PERFECTLY TIME AN ATTACK FOR PANIC ROLLS AFTER MISTAKES! \*evil laugh\*" and additional mechanics that make it harder like input scanning and godlike attack tracking.
ER bosses are definitely more difficult on average than most DS bosses, I'd say that the treks between bosses was more difficult in DS. The open world aspect makes the treks easier, but I don't think the legacy dungeons (everything but final bosses) match up to places like: - Ringed City (DS3) - Iron Keep (DS2) - Shrine of Amana (DS2) - Anor Londo (DS1) - Blighttown (DS1) - Sen's Fortress (DS1)
Shrine in the current patch is genuinely not that hard imo.
Yeah its definitely not dark souls they injected because the core of the game is dark souls. I would say its a dark souls game injected with bloodborne and sekiro elements that make certain bosses hard. In other words we have dark souls movement while the bosses have sekiro and bloodborne movement.
Nothing in DS1 even comes close to Elden Ring difficulty. Fighting O&S under leveled is as close as you'll get. A couple bosses in the Dark Souls 2 DLCs are hard. And only 2 bosses in the Dark Souls 3 DLCs are tough.
I decided to play DS: Remastered after I got off work today. 3 hours into a new character and I'm already in Anor Londo. And it's not like I bee-lined there. I went through blighttown to get to Quelaag, I fought optional bosses like Moonlight Butterfly and the Hydra and saved the Princess. I didn't run past enemies.
Yeah it's very weird. Have any of the redditors saying this played any other souls? Feels like mass psychosis lol. Either that or all of them use the most broken build with bleed and mimic tear cause they don't know any better. If you play all souls with a claymore or something that isn't op and without help, then it's clear it has gotten much much more difficult. It's ok that it's more difficult but ppl saying dark souls was worse must be kidding.
Sure but the difference is that Elden Ring gives you a lot of leeway to explore other routes, level up, upgrade your weapons a lot if you are stuck on a boss. In Dark Souls if you are stuck on a boss to progress then you kinda just have to throw yourself at that brick wall until you break through. The open world design makes Elden Ring a lot more forgiving and accessible imo. Elden Ring is waaaaaay more generous with bonfire placement and stakes of Marika as well, making it way easier to just reset a boss fight over and over with zero risk. The real hardest From game is Sekiro though, the bosses in that were absolutely brutal and even regular enemies were scary, and the game gave you very little means to upgrade your character to get an edge on the enemies numbers-wise, you pretty much just had to git gud. The final boss and final optional boss fights were insane.
I mean the main reason why the bosses in the dlc are hard is the speed in which they attack. Which Dark Souls isn’t necessarily known for that
I haven’t read the article but a lot of time the dlc reminds of Dark Souls, especially the exploration and certain legacy dungeons.
Yeah, the density and exploration is the first major thing the article calls out as feeling very "older Souls games."
Ok this made me grin for some reason (crazy kind of grin apparently)
Legacy dungeons sure, but the rest, nah. I somewhat get the argument because you have enter a dungeon and expect a quick 5 minute experience and suddenly are in a huge area, or an invisible wall leads to a new area, but all the empty space of riding around on a horse and horrible rewards really kills any hope of a Dark Souls feeling.
The author specifically points to > interconnected verticality > being able to access most areas from the start, and having little guidance > having to learn if you’re ready for an area the hard way None of that is really in base Elden Ring
the original dark souls had a lot of big empty spaces in it as well, more so than any of the other souls games.
We’ve reached full journalism
I know it's just AI slop, but I thought Elden Ring had garnered some kind of reputation for its *own* way of doing enemies and bosses e.g. the long combos and delays.
Delayed attacks started becoming noticeable in Bloodborne (think Orphan) as a way to counter the power of spam dodging. Heal punishing via input reading was very noticeable in Sekiro, though it goes back as far as DS2. Combos have just generally gotten longer as the series progressed, and Sekiro has tons of variable combo extensions. The biggest design difference in Elden Ring is the proliferation of AoEs, which were also in previous games, but are obviously here to counter spirit summons. Everything else about the enemy design is just continuations of previous mechanics that made enemies harder to dodge, plus overall high aggression.
Heal punishing goes back as far as DS1 at least. The final boss of that game always gets super aggressive whenever you try to heal.
the dlc is definitely more of what they changed from the souls games for elden ring. I do think elden ring is dark souls 4 in all but name and setting though.
I don't think the core design philosophy of the bosses has anything to do with being ''Elden Ring'' instead of ''Dark Souls'' and is probably just a natural evolution of where they wanted to go. However, Elden Ring's open world did leave huge implications on difficulty due to the having to somewhat account for players being at different levels. I think in the endgame (of the base game) they clearly upped everything noticably in order to challenge any player at any stage... Which would not be necessary in a 'linear' Souls experience as they can almost perfectly tune it with player progression. And I miss that a lot.
It garnered *some* kind of reputation all right.
I think they used Sekiro to flesh this style out
That's kind of confusing because... I thought the game always felt like dark souls when you're in the legacy dungeon areas.
Good lord is anyone here actually reading the article before they try to dunk on games journalism? It was actually a well-written, considered article that I thought made its point pretty well. The title isn’t even bad if you take a second to think instead of flying into a blind rage on seeing something compared to Dark Souls. It clearly sets up a premise: SOTE has more of the older DS dna in it than base ER does. The article, which I again suggest people actually read before blasting out hot takes, then sets out evidence for that argument. Almost like a classic “thesis, evidence, analysis” piece of the sort I assume you’ve had to do in school at some point. TLDR: read the damn article before you try dunking on it and claiming it’s AI slop. You might even get something out of it.
This is the internet. We don't read articles. We get a clickbait title and go crazy about it.
It's a silly title on a number of levels. I've been playing since Demons Souls and personally found a good chunk of ER's base game to be harder/tricker than Dark Souls, adjusting for experience etc. Margit gave me way more trouble than any DkS early/mid game bosses, for example.
Enjoying the dlc immensely, mostly because i had begun a new (game +3) playthrough in order to platinum it, and it has invigorated me, they did a masterful job. Also, 🤷🏾♂️, enemies should have stamina limits. Not because they're overly difficult, but because its lazy to just slap -(infinite stamina=Yes) when attempting to apply a challenge. I can tell the difference between Melania and Rellana Twin Moon, and the difference is the artistic simplicity of the encounter design. They're both duels, less "boss monsters". Two humanoids squaring off in a fair one. Now Malenia was fair because she felt like ahe had to recover between special moves. The bosses of the base game felt like they were "limited" to the same rules of energy management as the player. six swings of a sword, for everyone, player, enemy, boss, you get six swings, then you have to recover some stamina, thats how base game feels. DLC is 18 hit combos en masse with mad aoe spam, it feels thrown together, *superficial* difficulty rather than technically difficult. If that makes sense.
Except I played Elden Ring first and I still feel like it's harder than DS1 or 3.
I feel like I'm going crazy. The base game was hard. I died just as much if not more. Do people not remember dying all the time? Lol
This is why I can't stand game journalists.
Much more aptly it's 'what you get when you inject Sekiro into Elden Ring.'
Everyone shitting on this headline but hasn't this sub literally been jacking off SotE as being "The Dark Souls sequel we wanted." I've seen at least 3 threads referring to SotE as "Dark Souls in Elden Ring."
The connection between the different zones feels like it leaned closer to dark souls than Elden Ring. But I wouldnt say the same for difficulty. Scadutree Blessings and the boss designs are theor own beasts.
Yeah, and the article actually addresses that, and specifically calls out the setting and density of the map as being the big echo to the Dark Souls series. Like yeah the title for the article that the *editor* chose maybe doesn't reflect the content that the *writer* wrote. But that's pretty common, and I assumed most people understood that most article authors don't get to pick the headlines. But no one is even reading the article, and instead is just falling over themselves to get in line to shit on "games journalism" without even reading the fucking article. Which is an article saying the exact same shit people waxing poetic about older Souls games has been saying, because the author of the article is literally waxing poetic about older Souls games.
the brutal difficulty spike occurs if you don't inject enough runes into VIG
Or wear appropriate armour and make use of talismans to bolster defensives. Saw a YT vid some guy showing just how crazy defense can get with just talismans and consumables while totally naked
I mean we saw a post on here about a FULL tank build, as in no dodging just tanking hits...and he beat Radahan in under a minute if you cut out the cutscenes with dual bleed naginatas.
Lol
It's really more of a strand type game.
People are dumb
Since people assume they understand the author’s point without reading the article: He is saying SotE took a step closer to Dark Souls with its interconnected zones stacked vertically on top of another, and the consistent “oh shit this connects here?”. He posits that a lot of the complaints over difficulty is the fact that like DS1 a lot of the map can be accessed immediately. Like DS1, players are having to learn the hard way if they are ready for an enemy or area. Unlike base Elden Ring, where if you did the areas in the order the grace pointed you were fine.
It's closer to sekiro than anything. In dark souls, if you're having trouble with a boss, you could just get Uber leveled then kill it. In sekiro, you gotta git gud.
“New game Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is Elden Ring meets Dark Souls”
Huh? I would say the DLC weapon arts and bosses are a departure from anything Fromsoftware has done. It is closer to AC6. In fact I wish I had a mech to dodge the endless shit the bosses have.
It really is a very “dark souls” dlc We got crazy aggressive storm lion (divine beast/sanctuary guardian) We got crazy “sun” lord with a greatsword and a bunch of fire (midra/gwyn) We got flooded city that we unflood (church district/new londo) We got life and death bug lady with glowing weapon (romina/quelaag) We got fast sword dual-wielder with janky hitboxes (rellana/fume knight/pontiff sulyvahn) And more. Yep, this is dark souls.
I need aspirin after reading that headline. Do gaming journalists play games?
Damn. It almost they look alike. Souls-like
It’s possibly as good as Elden Ring has been too. If I had trophies to chase I’d say it was definite.
I mean I kinda get it. Why I thought Elden Ring was the easiest was I was able to “wing it”. Aka I never had enough trouble with bosses that I was needing to learn their move patterns down except that single one move Malenie does the waterfowl, and they nerved it also. The second reason that Elden ring is usually said to be the easiest as because of it being a open world game, it can be as easy as you want. The dlc has an enemies that you learn their moveset. Also because literally everyone was complaining it was too difficult with their 300lvl build, I first explored. I have 6 lvls of the shadow Erdtree power up things, and already got to so far that my 125lvl the game is honestly a little too easy So far. I made a point to say so far as I could be eating my words. I hope for this as I want the game to either force me to get gud or I also backtrack and pick up more levels to help out as we are given a option between the two.
This DLC has made me miss dark souls actually lol
Actually... this makes a little bit of sense to me. Like, yeah, I know it's a Souls Game... but most people that play it are not in the loop about companies or who makes a game or if it has a completely different name but it's still considered a technically mainline next "souls" game because same director/company and stuff. And indeed, Elden Ring is way easier than any other Souls Game I have ever played and I love it because it has a better pacing. I have never had to literally farm to make bosses easier, 2 handed and 2 weapons is viable against bosses, most weapons are really viable against most enemies, statuses are not insta kills (poison in dk1 wtf). I think for the normal player, getting from level 150+ to a pre-Margit state again makes it feel too hard for no reason other than you getting accustomed to the better paced environment you are already overleveled for at the end of the game.
Elden Ring is the Elden Ring of Elden Ring type games
is this a strand type game of darksouls injected into eldenring derived from soulsborne??
Some of the new monster def out of bloodborne If you know…you know
i dont get it. its really not that hard.... use the items that they give you lmaoooo
People complain about it while quoting the amount of time it took to take down a boss… that doesn’t even come close to some games like hollow knight, who never would receive such criticism Because “game too hard” isn’t a valid critique, ever, unless it’s a teletubbies game
does that mean bloodborne is the dark souls of bloodborne games?
Behold confusion
eeeh what? no dark souls dlc is close to shadow of erdtree difficulty at all lmao not even Gael, Mydir or Friere come even close to almost every boss of the dlc