No matter how old you get ( I'm 53) you will never be too old for pong, if you know pong then you know what I mean. This DLC is awesome by the way.

The difficulty of FromSoft games is one of the main reasons why I play them. I’m a very patient man and love to learn enemy patterns and then eventually take down a boss. It’s super rewarding and unlike anything else. Hope FromSoft never changes. They’re my favorite dev out there.

"We didnt have invasions in Sekiro" , I have to disagree, what the headless did to me surely felt like an invasion...

My only criticsm is that give us a way to rechallenge bosses without doing another save just like Sekiro. Pls

Not everything is for everyone, it is what it is. Just because you can’t play it doesn’t mean everyone’s experience should be changed to suit you, that’s pretty narcissistic. Edit: my point isn’t to gatekeep or tell you that you shouldn’t play, I am trying to say the game was designed a very specific way, and making it easier would alienate the original community that supported Fromsoft. I didn’t play BG3 because I don’t like CRPG’s but I don’t think they should change the design of the game just because I want to enjoy what everyone else does. I would like for everyone to try it because I think anyone could enjoy Elden ring with the right build or enough patience but some people don’t want to be challenged in video games and that’s fine, but don’t try to change something someone else fell in love with just because you want to enjoy it.

I’m 60. I can’t finish Sekiero 😢Damn those parries 😂😂. I’ve also finished or platinumed all of the otherFROMS games that I’ve played . I love them and I have had to adapt strats for my age. Keep them coming FROM!

Honestly, the initial shock of the boss difficulty for the expansion wears off pretty quickly. The only boss that has a crazy challenge boost is the last one. All the other bosses took me under 2 hours to beat

Tbh, the dlc felt fine, but two bosses in particular felt kinda ass to fight. Gaius and Consort Radahn. And i guess that one side boss, Sennesax. That dragon was harder than Bayle lol

The pause button is a thing I think should be implemented at this point, what’s the difference between pausing by quickly quitting out of the game and just having a button in game that expedites the process without having to load out and load back in? Some folk would say it adds to the games challenge by not being able to pause and manage your inventory and equipment mid fight, ok fine, add a monster hunter type pause button to the menu that pauses the game entirely, not allowing for access of any menus while it’s paused, I genuinely believe there isn’t a single argument in good faith against this. Edit: Also, a pause button is an accessibility option, which you yourself advocate for in this vid, and has no bearing whatsoever on the games difficulty if implemented in the way I described above

I didn't expect to be able to complete the DLC in NG+2. But I did (using ALL the things I could, because I like having fun). The things that could use some tweaking, are specifically 2 bosses (Gaius & the final boss) who are on top of you as soon as you enter and give you no chance to do much from the get-go. Aside from that, it was manageable. Huge map, beautiful sights, many interesting new items, spells, weapons, armours, etc. The DLC was so much more than expected and delivered on the lore side too.

This game seems to get people in their feelings more than any single player game I've ever played.

It's wild how this conversation never happens in regards to things like civilization or hearts of iron and other paradox games. Imagine if I demanded paradox reduce the difficulty of their games so I and everyone else could play them.

The less difficult the game, the fewer game systems you need to utilize. Small example: if nothing in the game can hit you, you never need more HP.

Honestly I feel my biggest gripe difficulty wise with this DLC so far has been the hyper armor on some enemies. Bosses and big armored knights being able to stab me through my hits makes sense. Some lanky dual wielding guy being able to tank all but the heaviest of weapons before flinching? I feel that might be a bit overkill lmao.

I am 30 yrs old. I got into souls game when Elden Ring released. I can't think of playing other games now. I've had fun playing COD, and other linear games, but FromSoftware games are a complete package. It makes you think critically, and I also now have the patience to read through items and try different equipment against bosses.

It’s because it’s popular and people want to feel included even if they’re unwilling to put in the effort to learn them. The problem is our community is built on the shared experience of overcoming the difficulty by learning the mechanics. Even if they did get their way and have it easy they still would be left out because they don’t understand that fundamental aspect that connects us.

Man, I just want the ability to fight bosses again without starting a new game. With the DLC, the game has become such a slog to go through just so I can fight the top four bosses I want to fight the most.

Criticism does not mean solely negative things. Criticism can be positive and negative. To be critical simply means to discuss and analyse positives and negatives in a particular thing. So, what I’m saying is, we need to stop using the term ‘critical’ equating to negativity

I get that summoning should be ok. But content creators refusing to use the feature doesn't help that narrative, unfortunately.

It's the vocal minority. But sometimes listening to the vocal minority can have some rare nuance points. But being too concerned about the vocal minority can be a real problem. Because the majority of people are normal and like playing video games.

Honestly I love that miazaki has admitted he isn’t very good at souls games and uses everything at his disposal to win basically shutting down the elitist who criticize how people play

Difficulty is precisely why I love FS games. Mind you, I'm admittedly pretty bad at them, but I appreciate the fact these guys don't just cater to the path of least resistance with a metric ton of hand holding. I appreciate a developer treating me like an adult deserving of a high bar rather than a little toddler who needs to be coddled. Yes, I likely git gud way slower than the average hardcore player, but I just love a good challenge, and the frustration I often experience leads to a massive amount of reward when you finally overcome a tough challenge. I don't think this is a matter of gatekeeping per se, but the fact I find annoying that people hyper-focus on the 0.1% of games that actually respect your intelligence and expect them to become like the 99.99999% that don't. There are quite literally thousands of games out there that will hold your hand and give you an easy power fantasy, so why do people have to try and force that tiny section that doesn't to do the same?

Thanks for this video! I agree with you. Elden Ring and FromSoft games are a glorious spiral. You find it difficult so you have to engage with the community in order to “get good”. Along the way, you start to get involved with the lore that the game may have hidden from you, share opinions, and follow awesome creators like Ruri. Characters like “Let Me Solo Her” emerge, memes like “dog”, the hive-mind engages to solve challenges or find new secrets. It’s awesome.

People complaining about the difficulty when they barely have any scoobydoo blessings.. 🤦‍♂ Also theres so many builds that make the game borderline easy-mode, even the dlc. And you can add consumables ontop of that

Regarding last hitting in MOBAs. In Dota 2 the enemy can actually contest your last hits and dent them by hitting their own creeps. This makes it much more interesting than in league. It's a pretty important part of the genre imo and honestly it blows my mind that most MOBAs don't have denying.

I don't know if this is quite the same difficulty discussion as we've seen previously. I, for one, disagree that the DLC is too difficult. There are still plenty of ways to curb the difficulty, and I did my first run of it on NG+. What I am seeing more of, and it's a sentiment I'm inclined to agree with, is that the way they're creating difficulty is rather annoying. The delayed attacks, the arena nukes, the crazy anime animations, the blinding speed, the damage values, the visual overload. The philosophy of the combat has moved away from learning combat as a whole and applying it to many enemies, to instead rote memorizing the moveset of individual encounters. It no longer feels like my knowledge of one boss or enemy type gives me a tangible leg up when fighting another. It's a different kind of challenge, which I'm sure plenty of people love, but one I don't find as satisfying.

People definitely complained about Lies of P. They just said Lord of the Fallen was 💩 tho lol.

The irony being that so many of the traditional "FromSoft complaints" actually have in-game solutions in Elden Ring.

At multiple points during the dlc I lost a million+ runes. They just don’t matter as much when the scadutree fragments are a thing.

I wholeheartedly believe that the final boss doesn't need a nerf. If anything, allow people to have an option to tone down the affects during the fight. Everything is dodgeable with a medium roll if you're on your A game and hug him religiously during part 2.

This is why I can't take people seriously when they don't use spirit summons and then complain that the bosses never stop attacking and are too hard. Like dude, the bosses are designed around everyone having access to spirit summons and taking the bosses attention a lot of the time. If you're refusing to use spirit summons, that's your choice and the bosses being too difficult is on you because you're not using a key aspect that the bosses are designed around.

Ring-ed city? That’s a first time hearing anyone pronounce it that way. Kinda crazy actually.

as i recall elden ring does have the pause button i think the help button pause the game. unless that was patch out. no it isnt a pause button nor is it intended as such but. it can be done.

Elden Ring and the DLC just suffer greatly by not having implemented the Sekiro deflect (and no, the crystal tear in the DLC is not a valid substitute) and Bloodborne rally implemented in the way Lies of P did. It just makes the boss battles into either some dumb nuke exchange that you will hopefully win, or a tedious waiting game, because you do not have the tools to turn the bosses turbo aggression against them.

I’m sick and tired of miyazaki and people thinking he knows what’s best for us. Give me layered armor. I just wanna be glam. Every other issue everyone is raising is moot

I have to disagree with your assesment. Soulsborne games are not about the difficulty, Difficulty is a tool the games use to achieve another goal, it is an important tool in the arsenal of course let us not get ahead of ourselves. But so is the art direction, the lore, the exploration, the way the levels are layed out for you to explore and then re-explore over and over again. Are there games for which difficulty is the goal? Why yes of course, and the people who play them do know about them and how to find them, and the rest of us do not. These people would play a soulsborne as a holiday game because to them, these games aren't hard. Any game where you can kill the last boss with a meagre 150 pulls isn't worth talking about to these people. But no, the strength of the soulsborne game is the authenticity of the world, the feeling of being there, and how you are just a part of it, you are of course the chosen uber champion, whomst will rise above all and claim your spot as lord almighty, but until that stage, you are just another struggler. Difficulty helps you get into that mindset, but so does the lore, so does the aesthetic. What fromsoftware is doing now is making difficulty more of a goal instead of a tool, aesthetic is being eroded, bosses have very clear "punish" moves that only make sense in the context of it being a difficult video game, why would a boss input read me the first time around? Why would every single boss rush down the foggate? A boss here and there makes sense, particularily if it's a berskerer, but every boss? No they do it because you as the player can otherwise set up inside the boss arena, and the developers, not the boss, want to make that harder to do. Soulsborne is meant to be experienced, and yes the satisfaction of overcoming a hard fight is an experience, but we're now edging away from the satisfaction of a good fight, and towards a sort of sloppy satisfaction of a rehearsel done acceptably. This is admitedly personal anecdote, but I don't quite enjoy a boss fight that takes 12 minutes, I could switch to a meta build, but I don't wanna, and I'm stubborn enough to grind through each boss. But perhaps I should not do that, in this dlc so far there's not a single boss that I was actually excited about beating. On a rare few (Carpet lion) it was elation of it finally being over, but on most it was a checklist "Done". And I think it's mostly because to make the bosses "hard" they have to sacrifice their uniqueness, their own personality. We're giving up the ability to make diverse interesting and yes, even weak feeble bosses for the opportunity to mash in insta-kills and hairtrigger combo's. A boss I enjoyed in the dlc, Renalla, had this issue too, that triple moon attack? Hella cool, shouldn't exist as is. It's a "get one more death in nyehehehe" ability, it's easy to jump once you know it it'll probably kill most players twice. Once because you don't know that it's an arena wide aoe that one shots you, and once more because after she's spend her moons and you think it's over she'll do a sneaky plunge for the same effect. Is it cool? Yeah it is! But it didn't have to be a one shot. Now I do enjoy the dlc, but I do hope they veer back from their direction. Focus on making a satisfying fight first, and a difficult one second, it worked for all other soulsborne games, so why turn the franchise into something that it wasn't? To appease the people who want to farm klicks on youtube? I mean unless you're the guy who can beat consort radahn RL1 with only a broken short sword who cares? I can't ofcourse, not by a long shot, but I think we shouldn't focus on the clippers but rather on the general players when designing a game. In summary, for me the issue growing on the horizon is that I do nt play a soulsborne game to fight the same boss archetype for 40 bosses in a row, I play them to enjoy the bosses and to learn and experience their own little slice of the story through their actions, by homogenizing them all into the same archetype, this is lost and I find this sad. Fromsoft is like a fancy restaurant that you've gone to for years, and damn the food's good every time, This dlc is the equivalent to stillgetting an excelelnt meal but the variety's gone, it's good and you will keep coming back, but you're a little dissapointed that you'll know exactly what meal you'll have next time.

Lmao Miyazaki has been on record saying that he himself sucks at video games and even his own series. Yet he manages to play and complete it so i don't think the people complaining have any valid excuses.

There's a disconnect around this souls difficulty thing. There's a major difference between difficulty and bad design. If you want to do something that's difficult and designed well, then make a fresh character and without leveling up, fight the tree sentinel and crucible knight in the gaol. It's a ton of fun! If you want to see bad design, just look and most of the end game dlc bosses. I beat them solo without summons, but I had to go through a whole buff routine and then spam the infinite hyperarmor lions claw ash of war and just out-dps the bosses during their infinite spam and aoe combos. I won, but I didn't get any "any sense of accomplishment" from it.

Bethesda Softworks could learn a thing or two from Miyazaki's philosophy.

If DSP of all people can beat Fromsoft games then majority of people have no excuse

I just found out that I am a disabled person because I lost to Messmer for the millionth time, Finally, I get my own exclusive parking space

If invasions are the reason there is no pause, the solution is simple, disable pause during invasions. Elden Ring disables the map of you have aggro, so disabling a pause isn’t a hard ask. I’m 1 year older than Ruri, and at our age, there is no holding your bladder. When you gotta pee, you really have to pee. It would be a nice QoL but I’ll take the death if I have to.

For the Pause. I always went in with the assumption because you could be invaded at any moment, the pause button would be bad. But then Elden Ring came around and had Opt-In PvP but no Pause Button. I really think the director should clarify why a Pause is there or not with the next game.

As a fellow early 40s gamer, there was a time in the last boss of the DLC where I thought I would either have to find an easier build, use the NPCs, or just give up. Ultimately I was able to gut it out, but this was definitely approaching my limits as a gamer. That said, I hope they never make it easier, and a part of me looks forward to finally hitting that wall I can't surmount.

Dude... last hitting minions is THE skill in MOBAS, so much of the gameplay and mind games are tied directly around it. And DOTA is even more indepth, there's "Denying", meaning you can last hit your own minions in order to deny the opponent exp and gold.

Alright, challenge accepted. When I get to 80, I will beat the dlc again.

they could fix your invasion problem by adding a taunters tongue that basically just enables regular invasions for solo players.

I am a 64 woman and I started playing dark souls thanks to Rurikhan and Fightincowboy, when I was over 50 and various souls like games and have never been put off by not being able to finish a final boss. Their various playthrough videos have helped me a lot. I always try to do things myself first and then look at their videos to see if I missed something or when I am really stuck. As Rurhikhan says at 64 my reflexes are maybe not as good, but I still love playing on my Xbox. Managed to finish Eldenring, but have not started the DLC yet. Currently playing Remnant 2, Lords of the Fallen is on my list to do and the Eldenring DLC after that. My daughter says that I am a lot better now than when I was 50, so there is hope that this will remain for a while. Love it.

Fact that so many people missed the scadu fragment mechanics that are basically spelled out for you in the start of SOTE, tells me that not only is it a skill issue, but basic reading comprehension issues 😅

The no- pause reason besides adding difficulty, is probably to give players the option to switch weapons and talismans etc while playing.

If fromsoft folds we riot

I'll prefeace this by saying I like Elden Ring and the DLC. I think it's a good game. Not my favorite entry by Fromsoft, but not my least favorite, either. You're welcome to disagree with my opinions, these are simply that. My opinions, and how I felt playing the game. [SPOILERS BELOW] For me, the issue i have had with elden ring is that I didn't have as much fun as i do in previous fromsoft titles. I have 100%ed both the DLC and the base game, before someone comes in and says "lmao, skill issue". I really don't hate the difficulty of this game. But, if you imagine a graph, for fun vs difficulty, there's a point where fun starts to drop precipitously as difficulty continues to increase. Elden Ring feels like it's around that point for me. During the base game, I constantly was saying to a friend who was watching "man, these bosses feel like they're from Sekiro, I want to parry them so bad." Margit and Morgott were prime examples of this. It's kind of like how I felt with Dark Souls 3, that it played like bloodborne, but without the mechanics of bloodborne that supported that more agressive and faster paced playstyle. I had my issues with the open world format for this game, and I feel like the DLC exasperated a lot of the issues I felt in the base game. I think the Scadurtree Blessing mechanic was not well implemented. I get the intent was so that someone didn't just waltz into the DLC at level 300 and steamroll everything, but it presses on an issue a lot of open world games have, and that is scaling. Or lack thereof. Not everyone is into exploring every little place on the map. Some people are completionists who want to do and see everything. Some people will check out places they pass by, but don't actively seek out every place. And some people still just want to go for the main objectives. Tying your scaling not to your level, but instead, an arbitrary macguffin you need to need to go out and collect just doesn't work. And with how much damage enemies and bosses deal, even with more blessings, it forces, or at least, heavily favors, particular ways of playing the game. I think it might not have been a terrible idea to tie those blessings to bosses, but overall, they weren't necessary. The game already has a form of scaling, and that's levels. In my opinion, if someone wants to come into the DLC way overlevelled and steamroll it, let them. Most people I know made a new character in preparation for the DLC anyway. When bosses and even some enemies do all manner of combo extensions, massive AoEs, holding attacks til I die of old age, grabs (shoutout to those enemies that grab you before you can even see them the first time going through an area), and having seemingly unlimited stamina, it starts to feel boring, not exciting. When every boss is a flashy spectacle, it becomes the norm, and it becomes boring. And sometimes gets to the point where I literally just can't see. Bayle and Consort Radahn both had this issue, where there was so much AoE and visual effects going on, I was having a hard time seeing the boss. When I saw Malenia for the first time, I was excited that she might be the kind of fight I was craving, just a simple fight between another person, who'd undoubtedly kick my ass. But, alas, it was not meant to be. She's got the flashy combos too, she can heal herself, and, like most other bosses, she can just float up into the air, and then unleash a big super duper attack. Which, I'm also really tired of bosses that just float/fly. When I saw Commander Gaius at first I went from "Oh, thank god, a mounted enemy, he should be relatively straightforward." to unironically shouting "They fly now?!" because of course they do. Radahn was ... if it was just the first phase, I'd have been fine with it. The gravity pull move I think is a bit overtuned, but overall, fine. Totally fine fight. But ... the second phase - and of course he had to have a second phase - is such a clustermug. That attack where he T-Poses, and then massive AoE was apparently slowing down some people's computers. I just don't find "massive aoe you need to run out of the range of" particularly engaging. Though I usually didn't have to wait to get back into the action, cause he is unrelenting in his attacks, all of which can reach anywhere in the arena. The only time you have a moment to breathe is when you, or your summon, if they lasted that long, get grabbed. I'm not gonna go into the oneshot mechanic much. It's bad design. Whats the point of a health bar if you just one shot me? And yes, I'm aware of the item that prevents the one shot. Still bad design. I had people watching me fight the boss who have not played souls games at all, and more than one of them made comments along the lines of "when are you supposed to attack?" A few of them also commented on the one-shot as well, disliking it. You want to know what my favorite boss from this DLC was? Midra, Lord of Frenzied Flame. Midra, and the area he's in, was one of the handfuls of time in the DLC I really felt like I was enjoying myself. He wasn't a terribly complicated boss, but he was still a challenge, the area leading up to him was a nice change of pace, which I appreciated. After I beat this DLC, I went back and played Dark Souls 1. And I think I realized why I enjoyed the relative simplicity of those games. A lot of the first several bosses in those games teach you general skills that can apply to bosses you fight going forward. Asylum Demon teaches you the basic cycles of combat. He does an attack, he has a recovery, there's your window to attack. Taurus and Capra Demons show you how the environment you fight in can be advantageous or disadvantageous, respectively. Capra Demon also teaches you the power of having extra minions in a fight. Gaping dragon teaches you about how to handle large bosses, and AoEs. Quelaag further teaches you some AoEs can linger, and to pay attention to your surroundings, and not just the boss. And a lot of these lessons get put together in the form of Ornstein and Smough. That fight feels like something your skills have been built up to handle. You have learned how to fight in this game, now put it to use. I constantly see people saying "Oh, you should just learn the boss, god forbid you just learn the boss' moveset." I don't think that's a good approach. You should be learning the skills needed to be able to walk into a boss and beat it after a few tries. Or, hell, even on your first try. If I have to learn every boss' moveset individually, that's telling me that the general skill im building up matters a lot less than the boss having increasing unpredictability, more health and damage, and in general being made more difficult for difficulty's sake. I also found that in those games, I could afford to mess around a lot more. I could do silly builds, and goof around even if they were far from optimal. I don't think I've ever needed to optimize as much as I did in Elden Ring. You're afforded a lot less mistakes on your part, doubly so in the DLC, and that's also what contributes to me not liking it as much as older games. All that being said, though, I agree with Miyazaki, in essence. They give you tools, it's up to you to use them. I'm not ashamed to admit I used summons. I used all sorts of buffs and consumables and everything else, every little thing that would get me my advantages, particualrly for the final boss. I'm a monster hunter at heart, so preparing for a fight is in my nature. Fun Fact: The mimic tear can't be poisoned, so if you throw a bunch of meat dumplings into your hotbar, the mimic will use them to heal themselves, and not get poisoned. Anyway, uhhh, thanks for reading all that, if you did!

I like how Ruri dodges the criticism of the npc questlines. Like yeah I agree on liking the storytelling, but I would have missed 40% of the game plus the dlc if i didnt look up guides. Heaven forbid I kill patches or progress past a certain point without any indications.

If there’s one thing the next Fromsoftware souls-like definitely needs, it’s an option to turn on natural invasions for solo players - I miss it so much.

Super late to this, but I continue to hold I wish there was a red cipher ring that brought back old style invasions. You could either make it so the default was "invasions on" and using the red ring turned it off to what we have now, or the default is off like it currently is and using it turned it on. Just the occasional invade like before, so those of us that loved the occasional invade for dynamism could have that even while they removed it as a could not turn off. I'm a solo player in these games mostly. I cannot express how much I miss getting invaded occasionally. And you're right, taunter's tongue absolutely doesn't replicate what I want, so people claiming it's the invasion tool are wrong. Constant invasions is the dried finger, NOT the default invasions. I miss it so much.

such an annoying QOL to not have a pause button. Literally have to hard quit during a boss if something irl happens.

I love invasions in coop so much and i do alot of helping randoms in coop at various levels and I do it to fight invaders in the chaos of playing thru a level while getting attacked by invaders. It's incredibly fun. FS is really intelligent in their approach and I agree with Miyazaki in that they can't take for granted unlimited success or automatic success. They're staying sharp and not resting on their laurels. That's what the best do to be and stay the best.

With the Scadutree blessings ( pronounced Shadutree btw, like shadow) the DLC becomes quite easy and earlier on it isn't as tough as people make it out to be, unless they're just blasting through without exploring and not getting the fragments. However the final boss will always be a PAIN wether you have none or all of them.

I would agree with most of the DLC not being too difficult, but Radahn is on an entirely different tier than any other boss in the game or even the series. Hes the first boss that felt to me like a DMC boss in a souls game.

I entirely agree that game devs should always be allowed to pursue their creative visions, but I also think it equally important they not be above critique for the choices they make. FromSoft games don't have external difficulty settings and I don't think they "need" them, but I also don't think it would break the experience if they had them either. People always like to trot out the same "challenging but fair" line whenever the topic comes up, however, what is both "challenging" and yet also "fair" is very much a sweet spot. Not everyone has the same level of skill, which is why most other games have difficulty settings, allowing a wider and more diverse range of players to play those game at an appropriate level. Here's the other crazy fact, FromSoft games actually do have difficulty settings, and I'm not just talking about magic or summoning. NG+ is effectively a hard mode, where everything scales up, it's just locked behind game completion rather than something which can be selected from the menu. Still if the game can be scaled up, it can also be scaled down... a sort of new game minus, if you will.

My mantra for Fromsoft games is "If it can be cheesed, I partake" and I'm not ashamed of it one bit. Be that greatshields, summons, guard counters, bow cheese strats etc. I'll take any and every advantage I can get, and fuck anyone and everyone who tries to tell me how to play the game "the correct way".

I've never seen a studio so consistently great, yet so consistently criticized. Let them cook. If they start losing money or they start producing crap, then we start talking.

my issues with the Souls genre isnt the difficulty of bosses, because no matter how hard a boss is, you can grind him long enough to learn his moveset and beat him (case in point Kai Cenat beating the DLC final boss after 70 hours of doing nothing but fighting this one boss), or you can cheese him with shields or summons or whatever. My issue with this genre (as a newcomer) is all the small BS things that's just there to artificially make the game more "difficult", or as i see it "more annoying". Things like no pause in offline mode, there's no excuse for this no matter how hard you try to justify it. Also losing runes on death is pointless since you can grind them back easily which makes me think this "feature" is just there to waste your time. Another time waster is the infamous runbacks to get back to boss fights. And finally, why is everything always so cryptic or hidden? NPC questlines can be hard to follow sometimes or be hidden to the point of missing them completely. And this applies to items and weapons as well as there's a high chance to miss a ton of stuff. For example, after my initial playthrough of ER which was around 150 hours, i was shocked by the amount of items i was missing or entire NPC questlines i completely missed. Even the story and lore seem to be unexplainable or uninterpretable.

Agree with your takes 100%. You are a true souls fan and a man of taste.

There was a moment (more than a day) where I was actually thinking to myself "maybe this is it. Maybe I just will never be able to beat Prime Radahn. I'm simply not good enough." And I felt there was a kind of beauty in that. This magnum opus of a boss, the ultimate challenge, just defeated me. And I really did accept that, but I also never gave up. I just kept trying, at no point thinking I will ever actually best him. Then suddenly, I won. The problem was never "not being good enough", it's giving up.

The worst part surrounding the discourse of these games and difficulty in particular is that you can no longer have a proper conversation about them cause people will fanboy them to death, even from legitimate criticism. It has gotten grating and the brainrot that has been pervasive in this community regarding difficulty in particular and how people are "supposed" to play these games has only gotten worse and worse with every installation. People forget that these games might be A-RPGs, but they are STILL RPGs and people like playing different characters! Hell, one of the greatest motivators to even replay these games is to go through them with a different character that will interact with the world/enemies/bosses differently! They are so focused on just making the game harder for themselves they forget that somes times yes, the power fantasy of just tanking everything is just FUN, or that people like playing the big bonk, or small daggers with status, or magic or whatever. It is insane to me as someone that has played the Souls trilogy with a bunch of different characters multiple times just to have fun with all the different stuff FROM put in their games for us, that some people say that "it is not fun", like buzz off, stop drinking whatever it is you are drinking.

Your argument for why there’s no pause feature in Offline Mode is so flimsy that it proves you are never going to question anything from FS.

Lol what the hell does Pausing the game have to do with immersion? So if i have a phone call: i go to the menus, system settings, and quit the game - thats immersive, but if i go to the menus to pause the game, it breaks immersion. OK xD There is NO justification for not having a pause option in OFFLINE mode, yes in online its a different story, but you cant make it for offline. It doesnt make the game easier, it doesnt break "immersion" more then quitting the game through menus, you are just wasting my time forcing me to sit through a loading screen. Its like defending the game if it didnt have ANY save feature at all, we want you to be immersed, and quitting the game and coming back to it the next day breaks immersion, complete it in one go. Its nonsense. FFS people, its just a videogame, a pause function was in videogames since forever. My theory is that From thinks everyone plays in online, so they are not implementing a pause for offline. For over a decade. That means theyre lazy :P

There are some things I've learned over the last 25+ years of playing FromSoftware games, starting all the way back in Tenchu: Stealth Assassin I've learned some things: 1.) These games aren't designed with me and players like me in mind anymore 2.) I'm getting older and it's getting harder and harder to keep up with Sekiro-like gameplay demands 3.) VaatiVidya is a content thief, or as Aegon of Astora calls him, a "Patreon-Supported Plagiarist" 1a.) Between Miyazaki himself not liking the ideas of bows, shields, physical protection and poise, and the Streamers/KZfaqrs popularizing the twitchy, jerky combat style FromSoftware games have become over the years, it's become apparent that while I love FromSoftware and their games were a huge influence on me, even going as far back as Tenchu: Stealth Assassin, FromSoftware doesn't care about players like me anymore, or perhaps never cared for people like me to begin with, given the way we like to play is consistently getting nerfed into oblivion with each new game. 2a.) I'm 36 years old. I don't have the same reflexes, dexterity or reaction times that I had when I was 25. Just simple as that really. I never had great reaction times to begin with, but getting older is definitely exacerbating things. 3a.) There's not really much proof of this anymore because VaatiVidya either shut everybody down via legal threats, copywrite striking, etc., etc., or people realized they simply were never going to get justice and so they've moved on. There's still the rare video or two floating out on KZfaq going over the receipts here or there, but they're really hard to find and they're mostly re-ups from people who didn't want to let Vaati's bs go quietly into that good night. Look at most the old school content creators for the Souls games, none of them like Vaati. Illusory Wall dislikes him, TerraMantis doesn't like him, DaveControl, The Dark Souls Lore Goat EpicNameBro refuses to talk about him because he doesn't have anything nice to say so he chooses not to say it, Redgrave and Aegon of Astora both put out videos showcasing how Vaati plagiarized them, he's unanimously hated on Reddit, not for typical Reddit reasons, but because his earlier stuff were all rips from Reddit posts, the list goes on and on. It's truly scary to think about just how many promising careers this guy has ended due to his thievery. Redgrave, author of "The Paleblood Hunt" talks about how Vaati's BB lore video wholesale copied from his writing. Aegon of Astora had a precise breakdown of VaatiVidya copying his Lucatiel of Mirrah video shot for shot before he was forced to take it down. Thankfully both of these still exist today due to re-ups you can find. The dudes a content thief but he's constantly getting his dick sucked for it like it's the last source of clean water because of his ability to bury people in legal threats and he has a buttery NZ accent that people cream themselves over. People like Rurikhan, FightingCowboy, Asmongold, all of these Cyber Sleuth content creators, people who have the actual power to check him do nothing because they really don't care.

I think coolest reason to replay elden ring is getting another copy of a weapon to powerstance with(unless ur lucky enough to find someone to drop you one)...this is why im still on my second playthrough and still have yet to start the dlc

I agree with you. I'm in my 50's, I've never been able to finish Sekiro & I wasn't disappointed with that. I suspect I may never finish Shadow of the Erdtree, but thats fine. I'm getting my enjoyment from exploring & if I never get further, I've enjoyed what I've played.

First. Wait people still at this difficulty thing? On my 3rd dlc playthru and this still a thing?

A pause function kills the immersion of the game. For instance: bossfights in Bayonetta are epic, intense and really cool. But the fact that you can pause in the heat of battle and use health items just reduces the feeling of suspense.

I would say it would break the narrative. Difficulty is a key point in the game's narrative. Taking it out of the game would be like taking crime out of a detective movie.

4:45 The problem with Gatekeepers is not that they argue that the games are as hard as they are. The problem with these people is that they belittle and insult everyone who is using the ingame mechanics FromSoft put in the games to make it easier for players. The most prominent feature in this discussion is the use of summons (using them is intended by FromSoft btw). It is perfectly fine if people decide for themselves to do challenge runs and not use summons (yes, gatekeepers, not using summons is a challenge run!). What is not ok is that they attack others for using an ingame mechanic that was put in the game on purpose by the developers including Miyazaki himself. Even worse - it doesn't stop with summons, they also attack people for playing as mages, for using ashes of war, for using buffs (be it spells or consumables) - you name it. These people are the real issue. 6:54 All fine and dandy as far as your opinion goes but I disagree. The following happened just a few days ago to me: I was fighting Mesmer and had a really good try that might have been successfull. But then someone was at my door and I had to open the door, so the best try I had on the boss so far went to s..t. A pause button would have changed that. In my opinion there is literally no reason whatsoever why a single player game (and yes, all Soulsgames are single player games despite the multiplayer aspects) can't have a pause button. It's obviously different for Multiplayer games. A game like World of Warcraft for example cannot have a pause button for very obvious reasons. I also disagree with your opinion that a design decision cannot be criticized only because it is FromSoft. Especially considering that players don't treat other companies like that at all. Let's also not forget what Swen Vincke said in recent interviews: Player feedback was quintessential in BG3's overwhelming success. The players told them many times in the EA phase that specific aspects where bad. So why does this matter? Well because your argument of "FromSoft knows best and no other opinions count" simply isn't true. Swen Vincke and his team are very good and very successfull at making banger games as well (and are the best in their specific genre). But that doesn't mean that they get everything right - and neither does FromSoft or Miyazaki. 18:40 But as mentioned above - that's EXACTLY what happened to me (excatp that it wasn't the mail man, it was a neighbour). Messmer was at about 15 % health and I had 4 flasks left. And no, the Messmer fight is not really fun as a mage because he offers next to no windows to cast a spell. Yes, I took him down eventually, but I had to redo the fight another 20 times before it was finally done. 19:30 Sorry but that is objectively false. FromSoft is NOT an independant developer that has to self-fund everything. 69.66 % of FromSoft is owned by Kadokawa, a corporation of pretty much the same net value as Embracer (pre-split). But even more important: The other two shareholders are Sony (14.09 %) and Sixjoy Hong Kong (aka Tencent because Sixjoy is a subsidiary of Tencent). They have all the funds they need. PS: A pause functionality is NOT "changing the game".

This releasing on the same day as feeble king’s sorry excuse for a ‘critique’ is peak comedy

Painting players who you call "elitists" as some villains is nonsensical. The advice to refrain from using summons and overpowered strategies aims to grant players better experience when playing through the game. Otherwise you get idiots like Asmongold who get constantly wiped unless they use OP tactics complain how difficult the game is and suddenly swap to claiming it's too easy when someone tells him about some braindead strategy, be it 2x halberds jump attacks for the base game or Fingerprint shield tanking for DLC. Use whatever you need if it's too difficult for you, but be advised that training with bosses is a very satisfying way to get better and overcome them, and you're robbing yourself of this achievement by using strategies that break the game.

Fromsoftware make my favorite games but that doesn’t mean they’re exempt from criticism. I enjoy the hard difficulty but all games should have a pause function (not feature, function). Saying there might be a good reason isn’t a strong defensive to this criticism either. Neither is vague quotes like “a game made for everyone is made for no one”.

I have never played games of this type. I am 48 years old and I had a heart attack...I was healing and bought Sekiro while doing so. Hard game but I gave the game a platinum trophy. So I bought an Elden ring.... I didn't know where to go and what to do. I uninstalled the game, but after 2 days I think, I'll give it a go, I have time for it. It took me 150 hours to finish the game but I put it on the platinum trophy. PS- sorry for my English, I'm from Slovakia...

I don't think you understand the concept of an echo chamber, hence these types of videos. People who watch your videos will tend to agree with you. And those who disagree will never watch this video. But whatever feeds the algorithm, amirite? I enjoy watching you playing games that you enjoy, instead of these never-ending crusades against twitter trolls.

why does it seem like there’s some sort of drama around every single popular game? has it always been like this?

I just want to fight the final boss without 20 pillars of light flooding my screen if he so much as farts

The messed up part is it's a fundamentally dishonest topic. People just want to feel powerful thinking they're threatening something

As a disabled gamer, it hurts me to see so many people look at accessibility features as a burden or a detractor for games of all genres, not just Souls games. Accessibility is for everyone, of every ability or background. Simply put more accessibility options (including pauses) allow for more people to engage with and enjoy the games we play. The beauty of accessibility features are that they’re modular and completely Player Controlled. They operate on an individual level. If you don’t want to use or abuse a feature designed to help people that need it because it makes the game feel cheap or easy - great, don’t use it, continue to play the game as you have been, and nothing changes for you. But the people that do need it can use it, and actually start to engage with the game on a deeper level because of it. People try to make the argument that soft gamers are whining about distractions or small inconveniences, but wouldn’t it be fair to say that someone suffering from random spasms of pain, or twitches should be able to pause the game ride out the incident, and then unpause to continue play instead of being unfairly punished for something they can’t control? The options exist to address a users needs, it’s not your job as an outside observer to judge whether those needs are appropriate or not, because at the end of the day it shouldn’t affect your gameplay experience if you don’t need it. How many able-bodied people reading this can say they’ve used an elevator, or automatic doors/push buttons, or larger stalls in the bathroom? In gaming - using difficulty or mechanic modifiers? Changing button taps to holds? Etc? Probably everyone or at minimum most of you. That’s how it should be, because accessibility isn’t just for disabled people, and disabilities aren’t always physical or permanent. Everyone has vision loss in darkness, or has a harder time moving around or using things when they’re wearing thick gloves or clothing. Obviously in series’ like the FromSoft games where it’s predicated on tough and challenging but rewarding gameplay, the idea of a feature that makes the game easier seems tough. But as was discussed in the video, adding mechanics like an offline pause shouldn’t be revolutionary at all. Monster Hunter has a lot of the same roots in its design methodology and it has Offline Pauses on most if not all of its entries. You could easily have it toggle-able with Off as the default and hide it in an accessibility menu and most people probably wouldn’t even bat an eye - better yet they might even complain that it’s not on by default at that point. If the developers want to say that the way they want players to experience the game is “XYZ” in this case “Online with Invasions and all the features they developed for the game in this context” than that’s one thing, but to say that the developers should be allowed to omit accessibility features without critique or criticism feels a bit off to me. Lack of resources or time is one thing, and entirely understandable, but a lack of motivation or effort because “We don’t want to” is another entirely. They can make the game with a certain context in mind, but that shouldn’t negate the inclusion of accessibility features, that’s an inherently ableist ideology - essentially “this game is only for people capable of playing it, and we don’t care about you if you’re not one of those people no matter how much you might enjoy the game.” For clarity I’m not suggesting FromSoft had that mentality or created the game with that kind of malicious intent, but merely showcasing how that kind of mentality while on the surface might seem reasonable but is in practice quite harmful, not just individually but for the industry as a whole. Obviously not every game can cater to every gamer, but doing the most you can with the resources available to make the game playable for as many people as possible should be a goal for most developers - Essentially; priorities aren’t a blanket excuse for neglect. Keybinds/Audio-Video/Physical Gameplay/Pausing should be the essential starting point for every developer looking to make games for most gamers. I’m happy to have a discussion about this for anybody who’s curious or has questions/challenges. I can’t promise quick responses with summer courses going on but I’ll do what I can. Hope I was able to help people think further on this discussion.

As I always say, Fromsoft games are made so that 90% of players will fail a bossfight the first time they fight it, AND 90% of those same players will defeat the boss after a certain number of attempts (fewer attempts for easier bosses, more attempts for harder ones). That's the reason why there are so many helpful tools in the game: _you're supposed to succeed eventually._ In one way or another. However I think that is less true of their DLC content, just because of the nature of difficulty curves. They've explicitly said that they always want to continue challenging players as they get further into the game, but the higher you tune the difficulty the harder it is for the devs to maintain the sweet spot of "challenging but beatable". So like Ruri says, in DLCs they aim to please the hardcore crowd more than the general audience.

As with music and cinema: there is everything but it doesn't mean that it is for everyone. In video games the experience the immersion and many other factors also count, which are part of all this, the bad thing is that we take into account what Twitter says and use it as a weapon to have a way to fight over stupid things that are not important and not wanting to face the problem that to be good at this game you have to take your time we were not born with the innate ability to "be better at a souls game"

The age thing is definetly an excuse. There are people in their 40s competing in fighting games at a high level, there are 20 year olds that struggle with Sekiro. Souls games are more about memorizing enemy patterns anyways. You could argue however, that being older means you have less time to spend on bosses.

I obviously can’t change the games it’s Fromsofts choice at the end of the day, but I think the fact that they have the explanation pause the game, and presumably pause matchmaking means that they could put one in and I really don’t think that it impacts immersion much at all. You could pause Sekiro but for me personally I didn’t really pause during boss fights to make it easier because it would just throw me off my flow state. I’ve played all these games many times, hell the character I made for the dlc was my fifth full playthrough of Elden Ring. I use the explanation pause and it’s great cause in past games if I had something urgent that I needed to attend to during a boss and I’m doing really good this run, well now my immersion is broken anyways because I have to go take care of that and now I’m just pissed off. I don’t understand why the explanation pause is meaningfully different beyond an extra input and the fact that few people would figure out you can do that if they weren’t told. I think Fromsoft should do whatever they feel is best at the end of the day, but I don’t think Miyazaki’s experience as a dev means that people can’t have that as a legitimate criticism.

New souls players: man this game looks sick i want to try but its really hard Old Souls players: Hell yeah! Let us know if you need help learning how to dodge specific attacks or have build questions? New souls player: Um??? Dodge attacks? Couldnt i just turn the difficulty down instead of learning new things? WHY ARE YOU GATEKEEPING ME?

Thank rurikhan! I believe you detailed the majority of the souls-like oldheads' feelings about the complaints we're seeing. We all want to see more people enjoy these games, but part of the charm is finding solutions to difficulties. That's, like, the whole genre. You can mitigate the difficulty without just implementing a difficulty bar (nerf multiplier). All of us are happy to offer suggestions, and no new players should ever listen to people who say "you didnt beat it if you did x". Most of us want to help you. Just ask for help, there are endless ways to ease into it.

Sitting at the bonfire essentially pauses the game toi

Putting the difficulty increase aside, From Soft really screwed up the PC version's performance with the DLC patch. Even the base game is suffering from stutters and below 60 frame rates on some rigs, and mine just happens to be one of them. As much I would love to, I ain't buying that DLC as long those performance issues remain unfixed. Because the game is literally unplayable for me right now, as I get mild headache and nausea from those micro stutters and if the game doesn't run at stable 60+ fps.

Couldn’t agree with you more Ruri just about everything you mentioned is stuff I’ve been trying to get across to people over the years. I’m sitting here nodding in agreement saying “mmhmm... yep” with everything lol

I truly think that people are finding it too hard because some of the more hardcore community are convincing people that if you are a real souls player you have to never summon people or ashes etc. I've been doing a "whatever it takes" approach and so far even though it's still hard, it doesn't feel impossible, it feels like my deaths were my fault. If there are any Souls-like gate-keepers, it's those that are telling people how to play the game they paid for, which even reading it sounds ridiculous. If somebody wants me to play to their personal specifications, but they can buy me it. The very second that Fromsoft pull it back to pander to the gamers who want an easy mode or whatever, they will have broke the seal, and will never be done pandering. The kind of people who try to harrass a developer into giving them what they want, are the type of people that should be ignored, because if you give even an inch, they will take a mile, dig their heels in and never ever stop. Also we are in agreement! Dark Souls 2 is a good game, but it mainly falls short when compared the other games, that were absolutely outstanding. And yeah, I can see why people want a pause button, but I agree in that it detracts from immersion, which is at the core of souls games. ..... .... also being called a "Fromsoftie" by people who want an easy mode or pause button, is the most ironic thing I've heard this year.

Issue with you pause example is that you can pause the game. Go open the map then click whatever the help button is. It's quite useful if I need to stop playing for a moment.

Fromsoft pvp has a lot of issues. Awful netcode aside, the invader has a huge advantage against the invaded. They can make a build specifically focused on pvp encounters, and on top of this, all the enemies are on the invader's side.

I played the dlc on my ng+7 character. And it was *BRUTAL*. The DLC was a reminder that this is STILL Elden Ring. Meaning that everything you find and anything can be used to your disposal to change the difficulty of your playthrough. Maybe like one time make it easy for you and one day make challenges for yourself.

Famous misunderstandings about Elden Ring or Souls Games: 1- They are very hard. The games are hard because you don't take the time to develop your character or understand the bosses patterns or you are just impatient, as you want to kill everything as fast as you could! 2- Unfair. The games are fair and if you feel they are unfair, maybe because you are doing something wrong. 3- Unbalanced. How?! the games are very balanced and in Elden Ring case, I would say it is unbalanced to the players benefit! as players could have builds that destroys the bosses in ease. 4- The game doesn't have pause options. Pause options: Safe zones / Exit to main menu ,the game will auto save your progress/ PS or home button/ Menu explanation After all, the games are easy -in my opinion-. All you have to do is understand how to play the games and build your characters. You will struggle, you will die to bosses and some strong mobs but you will find your way eventually.

Literally 99% of the time you can pull off to the side of a cliff or something with no enemies and just leave and nothing will happen.

Finally got into Elden ring but it took me six attempts to start enjoying the game