[Waterluvian]

Yeah! That reminds me of something a game dev once taught me about single player games. (paraphrasing) "Almost all AAA titles are impossible _not_ to finish in a reasonable time. The entire challenge of balancing a single player game is to hide all the ways the game holds your hand, while making the player feel responsible for all the times you win."

[stevage]

Great comment. I've been playing UFO enemy unknown (the remake) recently and noticing how it fails at this. The original felt like a real simulation of aliens attacking the earth and were always on the brink of taking over. This one feels like a carefully paced story where unless I try really really hard everything is going to be just fine. Which takes away all the drama and hence a lot of the interest.

[LZ_Khan]

Um.. elden ring?

[wfleming]

From Soft games are, I think, popular with a particular niche precisely because they swim against the tide here.

Even their games, though, although they are famously and genuinely difficult, do try and guide the player to success. They just do it in somewhat subtle ways by trying to kill you a lot. I’ve been watching a let’s play series on YouTube of Dark Souls I & III for a while (“Souls Academy”), and one of things I enjoy about it is how they often talk about what skills particular bosses or game areas are trying to teach you, so that you can be successful with later, harder challenges.

But you’re completely right that these games aren’t “hard not to finish”. They’re extremely hard to finish!

[spywaregorilla]

I thought Elden Ring was a bit weird in this regard. Margit is likely the first boss people fight. And he does introduce a lot of concepts that seem pertinent. He's classic souls boss with a few touches of the game's unique concepts. He hits very fast, sometimes without telegraphing. If you're competent at Margit then Godrey is likely to be mechanically simpler.

But then for some reason every single other major boss is very gimmicky and does not draw upon this. Radahn is a (fun) clusterfuck with yer boys. Rennala just has projectiles and no defenses. Rykard is... just poorly designed and can't hit you if you're in melee range. Fire Giant is a gimmicky horse battle. Astel is sort of similar to Rennala. Hoarah does his own thing with grabs and jumpable stomps. Malekith and Malenia are so awkwardly fast that you need to be proactively positioning rather than reacting to their telegraphed moves for the most part.

Then you've got at the endgame Morgot and Radagon who, for some reason, seem to be not only simpler, but significantly slower opponents than Margit.

Not a complaint really. I thought boss design was great and entertaining. But definitely a bit unusual. Sekiro's boss progression was amazing and the best I've ever seen. It's a really great inflection point when Genichiro swings by to make sure you understand the game's not gonna fuck around anymore.

[rubyist5eva]

I found the biggest challenge with Margit was that he telegraphs too much. Hell raise his weapon and then just hold it much longer than you think he will, you roll early and then he punishes you.

[spywaregorilla]

That move is interesting. If you hang back he does a spinning jump attack twice which is a little tricky to dodge but very consistent. You run towards him he will do a single strike. To me it felt like they were trying to teach you that this game needs you to disengage and sprint during fights. Either running away from him or running around to his backside work well for that.

On the converse is his upwards slash. That thing has basically no indicators and comes out faster than you're likely able to dodge... almost. If you fight him for a while it becomes apparent that when he wants to do this move he will walk towards you and otherwise will never do so. I couldn't tell if this was an intentional mechanic. Malenia later does something similar and it makes her fight much easier when you can understand her intentions before she begins doing any of her moves.

[unrealhoang]

This is something that I learned much later on (50+ hours in), it's much easier to time with action than pause. By slot in a medium/light slash between enemy long winding/telegraphs, I can time the roll/parry much more consistent, and it's dying faster too.

[rubyist5eva]

Now that you mention it, I started doing this as well - without even really realizing it. Poking during the hold and then dodging immediately after is very effective.

[ethbr0]

And I'd argue they wouldn't be as successful as they are if they weren't a rejection of something players sense in most other games, even if they don't consciously notice the systems helping them.

Kind of like the Matrix.

[azemetre]

Literally spent 50 hours mucking around exploring everything I could before realizing that you have to fight Margit to progress the story. I honestly thought it was a game like Shadow of the Colossus where you freely explore and just fight bosses.

Fun game but some very terrible UX decisions that seem spiteful at times.

[ar_lan]

I did the same exact thing. In fact, the whole rest of lakes of Niurnia I had found far earlier than I found Margit because I accidentally found the shortcut and thought - well, he was blocking this path, so I guess he's not necessary.

[rubyist5eva]

I didn’t find the shortcut around Stormveil until my second character. After a while I realized that Margit-Stormveil-Godrick are all completely optional.

[crtasm]

Well, you can explore the world in Shadow of the Colossus but the boss fights have to be done in a fixed order.

[rubyist5eva]

You don’t have to fight Margit, he is completely optional and so is the entirety of Stormveil and the boss there.

[Waterluvian]

I wrote an entire section about Soulsborne in my original comment but felt I was biting off too much.

Soulsborne games succeed because of exactly this. And you might notice that they’re drifting towards mainstream and that’s actually causing them to shed all the little details of what makes a Soulsborne game.

Elden Ring was ridiculously forgiving and I found it boringly easy. But it made me go back to Demon’s Souls.

[mwaitjmp]

Any soulsborne game for that matter. They are all a long enjoyable slog. Recommended for sure.

[Waterluvian]

In my opinion Elden Ring demonstrates how making a Soulsborne game more mainstream actually makes it less like a Soulsborne game.

It’s so player friendly and lacks most of the hard lessons previous titles teach.

[spywaregorilla]

This is something I didn't like about the game. They always had multiplayer so difficulty has always been... optional in a way. But the summons in this game are extremely powerful, and they change the dynamics of the fight from slowly mastering an encounter to high variance gambles on being able to capitalize on the boss just not looking at you. Which is fine. You can just not use summons. But then you see something like the godskin duo with a premade npc ally outside to be summoned and you start to get conflicting feelings about what's appropriate "intended" difficulty.

[Retric]

Can you actually lose elden ring?

As far as I can tell it’s just time consuming not hard.

[beeboop]

I had the same thought - there's too much practice needed considering how little free time I have. I downloaded a trainer (I play on PC) and modified my stats a bit so I don't die so easily and don't feel like I needed to grind to level up