I don’t mean this in the sense of “The beginning and end of a soulslike should be equally hard” or “They need to be easy”, but more like how DS3 is way harder than DS2 or Bloodborne. I feel like whenever there’s a new soulslike, instead of letting me rely on my skill of other games, they have to add something to make it harder and more challenging and frustrating with every new game.
Essentially, I feel like, throughout my journey with all kinds of soulslikes, I’ve already built up skills in those games and I’d rather be able to use those skills in new ways instead of building up new skills I’ll only be able to use in that specific game.
Like, perfect parries, perfect dodges, reflections in Khazan are awesome, but only really good for this game. The combat is awesome and lots of fun, but since its combat is so different to its contemporaries, the skill you build is not really transferable, at least not fully.
I guess in a sense I get why soulslike get so much more difficult these days: fans of the genre had years of practise with other titles, so the challenge needs to be upped to accommodate for their skill. However, unless you accommodate for the rise in difficult and offer difficulty options, which some soulslike have started to adopt recently, it also artificially bars people from playing the game, be it because they lack the necessary mechanical skill or because they lack the patience/tenacity/perseverance to keep at it. Some bosses still just feel absurd (shoutout to Khazan’s final boss who’s easily comparable to Sekiro’s)
I’m just not a huge fan of this arms race that soulslikes have fallen into where every new soulslike has to have the new hardest boss or whatever. I didn’t like it with Elden Ring, even though I appreciate a lot of its boss designs, or Lies of P or Khazan. Just let me feel good about being good again lol. And maybe focus a bit on other aspects of the genre that are so beloved: storytelling, world building, level design, atmosphere
What do you think?
I’ve heard an interesting observation that fromsoft difficulty becomes more artificial, unfortunately. DS3 was hard, because it became faster, but you could rely on the animations to dodge the attacks in most bossfights. But the hardest ER bosses are different. You have to try and trial strategies not for the boss in general, but for a specific attacks. There’s no way you can dodge waterfowl dance or PCR’s clones attack naturally. You will die/take damage a lot without even understanding what are you doing wrong
yea I’ve head a similar experience, I feel like
They can make it harder by adding features that reduce the effectiveness of player skills sharpened in previous titles.
In Elden Ring, jump is sometimes better than roll but you only discover this by facing bosses where jump is much much better then roll. Radagon fight comes to mind but there’s probably many others.
In a sense they made the game harder for those skilled at rolling by offering a complementary way to avoid damage. Now the skill ceiling has raised to knowing when to use which one instead of just knowing when to roll.
This adds both difficulty for veterans and easiness for first-timers.
They had a similar mechanic in Sekiro, enemy power attacks with a special tell/warning & smaller window for normal parries that come in two varieties, thrust and sweep. Thrust attacks can be negated with mikiri counter, step dodge towards the attack during the normal parry window to step on the blade and drive it into the ground. Sweep attacks can be jumped over and have a unique follow-up option, press jump again on top of the enemy’s head to do a bunch of posture damage. There’s also a handful of enemies & bosses with lightning attacks where you can jump, catch the lightning, and throw it back at them, but if you catch the lightning & fail to throw it back before you hit the ground you take full famage from it. You can dodge the lightning entirely and avoid the risk, or catch it and potentially do a lot of damage by returning it to sender. I fucking love Sekiro.
Elden Ring generally speaking is way easier than the rest. With the exception of a boss or two. There’s a lot more ways to get through those barriers. Spirit ashes for example. Plus having a dedicated jump button instead of only being able to do awkward running jumps like in previous souls games is a huge help. Actual FromSoftware games I don’t feel are becoming overall harder.
Elden Ring is one of the most approachable souls-likes IMO. Aside from the final DLC boss which got nerfed hard months after it arrived, I didn’t feel like it was harder than something like Bloodborne.
I feel like the game as a whole offers quite a bit to generally be more approachable than Bloodborne or a game like Sekiro, but some of the boss patterns are just a little crazy for my tastes (can’t comment on the DLC - basically one boss in). It feels like for how few ways you get to interact with attacks, that is block or dodge, the attacks are just a tad too out there. Super long and convoluted chain attacks, huge reach, lots of attack feigning. You can somewhat level the playing field with summons, buffs, leveling, but it only took me so far, personally.
Sure, git gud and all, but yea, that’s been my experience with many ER bosses. In some cases, it didn’t feel like I learned the fight and just lucked through it by chance. One fewer attacks I tanked, a lucky bleed proc, stuff like that. Didn’t feel as accomplished as in Sekiro or Khazan or Lies of P
I think it would be cool if future games would focus on unique NG+ content for those who want that veteran-level challenge, and to keep it fresh (like how DS2 planted the seeds for this). Give us a few bosses that only appear in various NG+ cycles, and another super secret and difficult boss that only appears in NG+7.
I’d be down for that honestly
What you feel is irrelevant, FROM makes exclusively streamer content now. Night Reign sealed that
You no longer need to just git regular gud, now you need to git speedrunner gud
And they aren’t backing down from it, Shadow of the Erd Tree proved that
I feel lile if you cant invade people its not really a souls like, its just an action rpg.
Sure, if that’s what the genre is about for you
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