I think a lot of people would have been. I would have been.
I think it’s WAY more awesome that they didn’t do that though.
I would encourage you, or anybody else, to self-advocate. Especially if you’re asking for things that will make you happy without impacting somebody else’s happiness.
More to the point, innovation comes from turning convention on its head. “This is the way it’s always been done, no reason to ask for different” is the opposite of what I want in the gaming industry.
These games were innovative partly because of these design decisions in the first place though. If developers heed all the requests for save points, easy mode, open world, etc we’d just end up with a bunch of bland Ubisoft-like games. I don’t want that. I don’t want the individual preferences of the masses to be incorporated into games because then they will all converge into some kind of bland “ideal” that satisfies everyone but excites nobody. I want loot shooters to stay loot shooters, I want Souls games to maintain their punishing reputation, I want roguelikes to maintain the enforced permadeath, I want multiplayer only games to stay that way. I want World of Warcraft to stay completely inaccessible to me because it’s not my thing. I want to have driving simulators that are too hardcore for some players and arcade racers that are too gamey for others. I don’t think developers should go out of their way to make games accessible to more people. I think they should go out of their way to make the most awesome games they can and if that means that certain gamers are left out for one particular game then that is just fine.
The logical conclusion of that is that I’ll just have a handful of games I like, and once I’m done with them, what will I play? Maybe you can play the same game, day in and day out, for years at a time, but I can only do it for a month or so, and then I have to wait a year or two until I’m ready to play it again.
I agree with most of what you are saying.
I think my issue with ER is it seems a game I would really like to play but I won’t because they placed this one hurdle that isn’t seemingly necessary in my way (lack of a difficulty slider).
That is not the same as a racing game I will never play because I just do not like racing games.
Did this finally, but it needs 24 STR and I have 16. That’s a lot of grinding to go…
Jophiel, you are super passive aggressive my friend. Your distain for “purists” is a great example of the disingenuousness I referred to earlier. You’ve been told about 30 different times in this thread why the nasty purists, who are just SO wrapped up in feeling superior over a video game, don’t think the game would benefit from a slider but you’ve just been totally dismissive for [reasons] to every argument that’s been made. The purists “just don’t get it”. You’re really just dumping on other peoples petty feeling of accomplishment over being better than someone else at a stupid video game.
What do you think of arcade high score chasers? Do you think that there should be a setting any low skill player can flip to double the value of each pellet or give infinite ghost chomps just so they can get the high score they want? Joey’s 100 points on stock settings aren’t effected by Matt’s 101 points on easy mode so get over it Joey. It’s just a video game. Maybe Joey and Matt can sign up for a marathon, Joey runs 26mi and Matt drives it. Nothing wrong with Matt saying he finished the race too, doesn’t effect Joey. They both paid their entry fees.
The game is what the game is. I would say it’s just not for you but you seem to keep playing it and complaining so I’m not sure.
I get you are making a hypothetical but I would certainly hope any game that kept score would note what level of difficulty was used (or if it had ever been changed). Without that high scores become kinda meaningless and I would bet the game designers would be aware of that.
Same for speed runs (I assume there is some “agreed” setup they use in a given game to decide who has the fastest times).
I think it’s cool. Speedrunning as well. I… have no idea why you think that’s relevant here? I’ve never seen anyone complaining that they can’t have the high score in Sonic or complete it in nine minutes. We’re talking about basic accessibility in terms of game play, though so I’m not seeing any connection.
Ironically, any complaints I have with the game are not really tied to the difficulty. But I’ve seen other people say that a slider would help them and I’m generally in favor of making things better for more people (especially when others can still enjoy the base experience) than I am in coming up with reasons to tell them no.
Has anyone speedrun Elden Ring?
Is this game exactly like Breath of the Wild, where after an opening tutorial*, you literally can run to the final boss? Note: It’s actually pretty hard to run to the final boss in BotW with only 3 hearts and no real armor, but even I could do it if I tried enough times.
*Uh, it’s a multi-hour tutorial, mind you.
I would think it is too soon for that but I bet some are already working on it.
Speed runs evolve over months and years. It takes speed-runners a long time to eke out each little time saving.
Why is that the logical conclusion? There are lots of games I like to play with new ones coming out all the time.
I know people are working on it because I saw an article about some of them trying the same glitches that were used in previous Souls games. Such as getting so low on health that the game thinks you’re dead and unlocks the yellow mist gates.
A reminder that you can always run past regular encounters you don’t think you can win; the Black Knight in the Undead Burg is guarding a ring that is not really useful (increased defense when on low health). You can always come back when you have better gear.
I actually managed to take him out; he’s pretty vulnerable to fireballs but there’s a lot of random variation in whether they hit or not. I’d been managing to clear the area without them, though, so I could use all 8 of them on the Knight. Took a couple of tries after that. The shield was a pretty nice bonus from what I had.
At what level would you recommend moving on? I think I’m at 21.
Great job! The BK shield is a really good medium shield!
As for the level range, there’s no set range for each zone, so I’d suggest that you just go on ahead and see if you can handle it. Progress will seem slow at the start, but when you get the hang of it, it’s really fun!
One cheesy way to handle most humanoid enemies: do you know you can chain backstab them? Pull off one backstab, wait for them to begin to get back up on their feet, and then circle back behind them and backstab them again. With practise, you can pull this off pretty consistently!
I didn’t know there was a backstab mechanic at all 
. I only just learned how to parry. At least for the spear dudes, it’s pretty much an insta kill where I knock them down and then execute them. Not exactly consistent on that front, though. Seems like I usually do it too early.
If you are interested there are a number of “broken build” videos out there detailing some easy (relatively) ways to pimp your ride early in the game.
Here is one:
Parrying is very, very satisfying when you pull them off! The sound effect is so good, From has used the same sound effect from Demon Souls up till Elden Ring!
I’m pretty crap at timing parries correctly though, so I just turtle behind a greatshield and wait for an opening.
I mostly do the turtling thing, but the spear/shield guys sometimes just circle around forever unless you leave your shield down. I figure I may as well try the parry at that point. Guess I’ll try moving on; grinding until I can use the zwei doesn’t seem like much fun.