I think I made the game too easy for myself on my first playthrough

[Greedy]

I bought the game on release but put off playing it for ages while I finished the Metal Gear series.

I should also start by saying I had the Blasphemous Blade and Mimic Tear once I got to Commander Niall, after Fire Giant. I used the B-Blade cause I loved Wolnir's Holy Sword in DS3

Basically, I beat the game a week or two ago and am sort of amiss. At the start it was somewhat difficult - Margit was tough until I upgraded Skeletal Militiamen, Godrick I needed a Serpent God Blade for, etc etc (though I would later beat Rennala on my first try).

Volcano Manor and Leyndell were tough. I've only ever summoned one other person for a boss, and that was for the Godskin Noble in the Manor. I also successfuly beat Godfrey by myself, but needed help from Melina and the Militiamen for Margott (4 tries I think?).

But after the Fire Giant, who was the last real challenge of a boss and took me maybe 10+ attempts, the game just felt so easy when it came to bosses, but not areas. Niall took a ton of time but was eventually beaten. Against the Godskin Duo, i defeated them on my 5th attempt, and Maliketh on my third attempt. Hell, in Leyndell, Gideon and Godfrey went down in one attempt.

Loretta was defeated in one attempt in the Haligtree, and once I finally got to Malenia after defeating Godfrey at around lvl 125, she was beaten in 5 attempts, with the ulcerated tree spirit mini boss being a far greater pain for me beforehand. Malenia was super interesting though, as I could get her down to her second phase without a summon and died from there - i can see why people hated her with that Waterfowl dance of hers essentially one shotting you, it was all a matter of dodging that and not blocking her attacks. Of course, Placidusex was a challenge, but he was about 7 attempts too. At the end, the Elden Beast was beaten in 4 attempts.

I honestly feel like i cheated myself. The areas were very difficult, getting through those centipede guys was a pain, as were some of the Beastmen were a challenge as well. But after getting the Mimic Tear and using it for the lategame bosses post fire giant, it all became so much easier and I almost wish that the Mimic Tear never appeared in the game.

It's safe to say I will not be using the mimic tear or blasphemous blade for my next playthrough - a Necromancer Run currently at Leyndell, 12 hours in.

TLDR; my experience was made incredibly easy by the best summon in the game and one of the best weapons, which meant I couldn't understand why people found the game so hard at all. If you want the definitve Elden Ring difficult experience more difficult experience, DON'T use Mimic Tear lol, that guy is a beast but makes you wonder if you're very good at the game or if its actually quite easy. I still absolutely loved the game though, it was incredible

[Dirak2012]

I actually beat the Elden beast in my first try, and I'm actually happy I did. Who wants to endlessly bang against a wall? I'll try different builds, but I don't believe in the *true dark souls experience*, that's nonsense.

[königplatzen]

If you want it harder, I would not use ash summons or npc summons. This way you also learn the moveset better, which is disturbed, when the boss switches aggro all the time.
If you want even more challenge, you can use less strong weapons or don't level them or yourself too much. If you beeline through the game, you also might get less runes for leveling, etc. Elden Ring can be really hard
EDIT: And yes, some bosses are garbage and you should really gauge, if you want to restrict yourself for them...f.e. Godskin Duo, Elden Beast or Gideon

[Greedy]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

I actually beat the Elden beast in my first try, and I'm actually happy I did. Who wants to endlessly bang against a wall? I'll try different builds, but I don't believe in the *true dark souls experience*, that's nonsense.

That's fair

I've just found that on a lot of forums, if you mention how you didn't find any of the bosses very difficult, they get very mad at you, which makes sense considering different people have different experiences with these enemies

[Senki]

yep the game can be extremely easy with summons and a good build

haven't played with summons for a long time and it's still too easy, and not because i'm dodging too well but because I know how to make a good build

[Senki]

Originally posted by Greedy:

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

I actually beat the Elden beast in my first try, and I'm actually happy I did. Who wants to endlessly bang against a wall? I'll try different builds, but I don't believe in the *true dark souls experience*, that's nonsense.

That's fair

I've just found that on a lot of forums, if you mention how you didn't find any of the bosses very difficult, they get very mad at you, which makes sense considering different people have different experiences with these enemies

some souls fans are obsessed with keeping the reputation of these games as being for ''hardcore gamers'' and it hurts their ego when someone says that they can actually be pretty casual

[Greedy]

Originally posted by königplatzen:

If you want it harder, I would not use ash summons or npc summons. This way you also learn the moveset better, which is disturbed, when the boss switches aggro all the time.
If you want even more challenge, you can use less strong weapons or don't level them or yourself too much. If you beeline through the game, you also might get less runes for leveling, etc. Elden Ring can be really hard
EDIT: And yes, some bosses are garbage and you should really gauge, if you want to restrict yourself for them...f.e. Godskin Duo, Elden Beast or Gideon

That's definitely the plan for my run after my Necromancer Run.

I'm probably going to play as a basic ass knight, no summons, no support from NPCs, etc. Just a knight with a regular long sword, no shield, see how far I can go. Gonna beeline it, not do extra exploring which may have over-leveled me for some of the bosses. Godskin Duo was honestly a complete surprise too, as I could barely get them past 70% and then suddenly beat them out of nowhere.

Thanks for the advice, i just hope this post didn't come across as braggy or anything, I don't want it to look like that at all.

[Greedy]

Originally posted by Senki:

Originally posted by Greedy:

That's fair

I've just found that on a lot of forums, if you mention how you didn't find any of the bosses very difficult, they get very mad at you, which makes sense considering different people have different experiences with these enemies

some souls fans are obsessed with keeping the reputation of these games as being for ''hardcore gamers'' and it hurts their ego when someone says that they can actually be pretty casual

It might also be that a lot of the Elden Ring players were actually fairly new to Souls games, as shown by the massive explosion in popularity Elden Ring had compared to the other souls games.

I've played other Souls games before, so that might have helped in my experience a ton. It's all quite rhythmic.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Greedy:

Originally posted by königplatzen:

If you want it harder, I would not use ash summons or npc summons. This way you also learn the moveset better, which is disturbed, when the boss switches aggro all the time.
If you want even more challenge, you can use less strong weapons or don't level them or yourself too much. If you beeline through the game, you also might get less runes for leveling, etc. Elden Ring can be really hard
EDIT: And yes, some bosses are garbage and you should really gauge, if you want to restrict yourself for them...f.e. Godskin Duo, Elden Beast or Gideon

That's definitely the plan for my run after my Necromancer Run.

I'm probably going to play as a basic ass knight, no summons, no support from NPCs, etc. Just a knight with a regular long sword, no shield, see how far I can go. Gonna beeline it, not do extra exploring which may have over-leveled me for some of the bosses. Godskin Duo was honestly a complete surprise too, as I could barely get them past 70% and then suddenly beat them out of nowhere.

Thanks for the advice, i just hope this post didn't come across as braggy or anything, I don't want it to look like that at all.

Personally I'd offer a different option. It's really fun to use ash summons but not the good ones

It's a really fun system to mess around with, and it's too fun to summon jars or flowers or absolutely terrible nobles.

[Angel]

sorry you feel that way, who would've thought using good weapons and game mechanics to beat the game is a valid way to play

but now that you've beaten it there's nothing stopping you from doing challenge runs

[Senki]

Originally posted by Greedy:

Originally posted by Senki:

some souls fans are obsessed with keeping the reputation of these games as being for ''hardcore gamers'' and it hurts their ego when someone says that they can actually be pretty casual

It might also be that a lot of the Elden Ring players were actually fairly new to Souls games, as shown by the massive explosion in popularity Elden Ring had compared to the other souls games.

I've played other Souls games before, so that might have helped in my experience a ton. It's all quite rhythmic.

yeah but those people don't get mad when you say you had an easy time with the game usually

it's usually the elitist types that say ''you cheated because you used summons or x weapon''

[Greedy]

Originally posted by Angel:

sorry you feel that way, who would've thought using good weapons and game mechanics to beat the game is a valid way to play

but now that you've beaten it there's nothing stopping you from doing challenge runs

Lol, I just feel sort of left out of the discussion when I hear everyone talking about how challenging it was, and the boss' difficulty

I'm absolutely gonna be doing challenge runs. By Necromancer Run is gonna focus on using Death Sorceries and undead summons (so only skeletal militiamen, skeletal bandit, those sorts of guys), and not much else

After that, I'm gonna play a Merchant run with a focused on Frenzied Flame so I can get that ending

And THEN a run where I play as a knight, in just chainmail or Knight Armour, running around with just a longsword and the spells which enchant your armament with poison and the-like. That run sounds like hella fun

[Greedy]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Originally posted by Greedy:

That's definitely the plan for my run after my Necromancer Run.

I'm probably going to play as a basic ass knight, no summons, no support from NPCs, etc. Just a knight with a regular long sword, no shield, see how far I can go. Gonna beeline it, not do extra exploring which may have over-leveled me for some of the bosses. Godskin Duo was honestly a complete surprise too, as I could barely get them past 70% and then suddenly beat them out of nowhere.

Thanks for the advice, i just hope this post didn't come across as braggy or anything, I don't want it to look like that at all.

Personally I'd offer a different option. It's really fun to use ash summons but not the good ones

It's a really fun system to mess around with, and it's too fun to summon jars or flowers or absolutely terrible nobles.

The Skeletons were my absolute favourite for two reasons which made them a blast

1) there were two of them, weak but great distractions that would run around like bozos
2) whenever they died, if you had the Serpent Blade in hand, it would actually heal you, same with Blasphemous Blade, which was made even better since they revived

luv my skelly bozos. Might try out the Bandit a bit more too

[zab]

yes summoning ruins the experience

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Greedy:

2) whenever they died, if you had the Serpent Blade in hand, it would actually heal you, same with Blasphemous Blade, which was made even better since they revived

I had no idea they did this, that's pretty great lol

[Greedy]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Originally posted by Greedy:

2) whenever they died, if you had the Serpent Blade in hand, it would actually heal you, same with Blasphemous Blade, which was made even better since they revived

I had no idea they did this, that's pretty great lol

Better yet, Blasphemous Blade and Serpent-God's blade stack on the health regen, so if you can keep your skeletons alive somehow, they are in essence an infinite source of terrible healing, it's wonderful.

Obviously it isn't optimal at all, but finding that out when fighting against Godrick was amazing