The Soulsborne games difficulty doesn't come from enemy skill or fairness, it comes from cheap enemies and clunky mechanics.

[Janthis]

- Enemies can easily interrupt you with weak poke attacks even when you're wearing heavy armor. If there's more than one, they can even stunlock you until you're dead. This is one of the biggest issues imo.

- Many enemies can delay their attacks to various extents to prevent you dodging/parrying, but the actual attack comes out in a microsecond

- Some enemies have extra moves, like being able to run towards you with their weapon raised

- Some enemies have unblockable grab attacks where your character is completely helpless during the entirety of the grab animation, like he or she just gave up on life.

- Enemies can input read / react instantly upon the first frame of you trying to heal, cast a spell, etc.

- Enemies have infinite stamina and can just keep attacking continuously. Many of these are also hard/impossible to stagger.

- Archer enemies have much longer range than you, and also their projectiles are much faster / can home in on you.

- Enemies can hit you through walls and obstacles.

- The camera is too close to your character, and in the case of fighting large enemies, often flips out so you can't even see what is going on. The camera setup also makes it very hard to see if enemies are waiting around corners to ambush or flank you.

For the original Dark Souls, this was somewhat mitigated by the overall design which promoted slow, calculated gameplay. But throughout the newer games, in their quest to keep up their "totally hardcore" reputation, they started making enemies and bosses more akin to Bloodborne or Sekiro while keeping your character's slow, clunky moveset.

In other words it's no longer "hard but fair" but rather "hard because it's cheap". Go ahead and tell me where I'm wrong.

By the way, "I personally beat boss X and Y after 120 tries and 50 hours of memorizing their moveset" is not a valid argument.

[SLOWHAND LUKE]

maybe your pc is a piece of crap

[königplatzen]

Many points are true. Still, it's a matter to get used to that and people enjoy to learn it.
Some things could be ironed out and it would be better experience without (like enemies hit through walls is one of the most irritating thing).
But some things are also on purpose, like slow character vs fast enemy. The challenge is to find a strategy against them despite not being on the same physical level.
I think "hard but fair" is problematic. "Fairness" is quite a subjective term. I wouldn't say, that older Dark Souls are fair. And also a player using an OP weapon is also not fair.

[Janthis]

Originally posted by königplatzen:

Many points are true. Still, it's a matter to get used to that and people enjoy to learn it.
Some things could be ironed out and it would be better experience without (like enemies hit through walls is one of the most irritating thing).
But some things are also on purpose, like slow character vs fast enemy. The challenge is to find a strategy against them despite not being on the same physical level.
I think "hard but fair" is problematic. "Fairness" is quite a subjective term. I wouldn't say, that older Dark Souls are fair. And also a player using an OP weapon is also not fair.

Fair enough, and I think it's funny that in ER they seemingly recognized some of this and added things like spirit summons, only for certain purists to scream that "YoU DiDnT ReAlLy WiN" if you used them. :)

[lemoncurdman]

Another pointless post crying about how they have a skill issue.

[an entire Roman legion]

I just hope both teams have fun

[Sparhawk 59]

dont you just love these threads when they become toxic fast and start insulting others!!!

[Janthis]

Originally posted by Albob:

I just hope both teams have fun

Yeah yeah, for sure, we gotta give 100 percent and keep our feet on the ground and our head in the game, like coach says, you know

[Fineous🔥]

Originally posted by Sparhawk 57:

dont you just love these threads when they become toxic fast and start insulting others!!!

Yeah....i saw "Blocked user" and had to check it. Bless whoever the OP is and i love him/her but just report her/him....a shame they decided to start insulting people without reason :/ breaking the forum rules.

[königplatzen]

Originally posted by Johnny_B_80:

Originally posted by königplatzen:

Many points are true. Still, it's a matter to get used to that and people enjoy to learn it.
Some things could be ironed out and it would be better experience without (like enemies hit through walls is one of the most irritating thing).
But some things are also on purpose, like slow character vs fast enemy. The challenge is to find a strategy against them despite not being on the same physical level.
I think "hard but fair" is problematic. "Fairness" is quite a subjective term. I wouldn't say, that older Dark Souls are fair. And also a player using an OP weapon is also not fair.

Fair enough, and I think it's funny that in ER they seemingly recognized some of this and added things like spirit summons, only for certain purists to scream that "YoU DiDnT ReAlLy WiN" if you used them. :)

Spirit summons or summons generally is something, which changes the gameplay quite heavily, because the enemy behaves a lot less predictable and chaotic. That's why, I don
't like them. It's also something, that was always part of the series, but it got to another level with the spirit summons.

I wouldn't say, that ER tries to counter the gameplay problems with them. Maybe a bit towards, duo fights... But I would say, that purists always hated summons. And the upgrade path of spirit ashes make them more legit as instrument and new players use them more wholehearted. And that is something purist hate even more.

Overall, the gameplay is still quite enjoyable even if it may be non-sense sometimes, but people are stiil able to "git gud" and also get used to the odds.

[2001 Space Oddity]

I don't like that enemies can attack through walls, and infinite stamina can get annoying when RNG leads to a 30 hit combo with no break in between. But a lot of the other stuff isn't really cheap, you have the ability to do a lot of things that enemies can't do so it seems fair to me.

And I disagree about the clunky movement, you can sprint, light roll, jump, quickstep, strafe, etc. The character seems pretty nimble to me, especially considering that heavy armor doesn't restrict your speed or movement as long as you have the stats for it and there are talismans that help with this if you don't want to level endurance.

[McMarc]

l2p
tresshhhhh

[Krazy Wallet]

If the enemy attacks through wells, just attack through the wall back. Make sure you have a few feet between you and the wall or object, and do a jump attack. Most medium-large weapons have just as much cheese potential as the enemy's weapons in this regard.

Just the other day, I was in Lyndell by the dragons foot with the archer and heavy shield soldier. I was in the stable for cover the archer and the shield got stuck on the other side of the half wall. He couldn't hit me, but I could spam jump attack and hit him. Master the cheese, become Elden Lord!

[vamirez]

M8, you won't accept any arguments about where you're wrong. But many of your points are ofc wrong. But what use is any discussion - you will only accept agreement, and are not willing to move a millimeter from your stance. Which has been demonstrated by yourself and your bubble in any thread that couldn't get up on a tree in three seconds, whether it was about "criticizing" the game or not.

[Amanita]

I agree. Difficulty comes from control inputs, like putting roll on the same button as run. Horrible weapons balance, like colossals being faster than axes, swords dealing more damage and having more reach,wider hitboxes than colosals and faster etc. Thrust swords appearing as needles but have the hitboxes as if you are swinging around trees. Game of the year btw

[admos]

Originally posted by Krazy Wallet:

If the enemy attacks through wells, just attack through the wall back. Make sure you have a few feet between you and the wall or object, and do a jump attack. Most medium-large weapons have just as much cheese potential as the enemy's weapons in this regard.

Just the other day, I was in Lyndell by the dragons foot with the archer and heavy shield soldier. I was in the stable for cover the archer and the shield got stuck on the other side of the half wall. He couldn't hit me, but I could spam jump attack and hit him. Master the cheese, become Elden Lord!

Become Elden Cheeselord.
Speaking of, is there a cheese-themed armor in this game?
It will complete the look of being the Elden Cheeselord