People keep paying for it so why put more effort into it? When they do it doesn’t seem to pay off. The last game I bought from a big publisher was Hi Fi Rush. It was fantastic, original, clearly had more thought and effort out into it than the average AAA game, and look what happened to them. Hopefully their transition to a new owner turns out to be a positive one, but considering the industry trends I’m not holding my breath on that one.
This is why I do the patient gamers thing. I almost always wait for sales, bundles, etc. Most of my games come in at a deep discount, and the only ones I grab at a slight discount are because it’s got stellar reviews, had enough time to see how the updates, MTX bullshit, or servers played out, and is clearly still interesting enough to be worth both my money and time.
Isthereanydeal.com is my best friend for this. Gog.com is also great. Humblebundle.com is still occasionally worth looking at.
Ive seen so many people say this over the years. If you explore thoroughly it probably takes about 200 hours to do almost every quest in the game, main and side. Doing main quests nets you some key skills and unique weapons, primarily dragon shouts, one of which I use through most of the game. Last time I played I basically beelined it to High Hrothgar to get that started, and then alternated between main quests and getting the thieves guild stuff going for vendors to hock all the bullshit I pick up along the way. It is admittedly super easy to get distracted along the way, and you of course should choose whatever is fun to you, but there’s definitely good reason to do that main path for a little while.
To be safe put it in offline mode. You can always do a clean install later. I do prefer being online but if you’ve played the crap out of it already it shouldn’t matter much
I guess that’s the thing really, is all you gotta do is recognize you can go somewhere else. Come back and practice the hard part occasionally. Go find more scadu fragments, new weapons, spells, tools, experiment a little. Hell if you really need go respec and make a focused build. Or summon people to help you. There’s so many options, I hit some hard stuff but it never felt like a brick wall.
It’s not even that hard. I seriously was bracing for some ridiculous bullshit based on the response but I haven’t struggled at all through it. Sometimes I do hit a hard boss and explore to come back later, but nothing insurmountable. I still have yet to finish but Sekiro still makes this games seem like a walk in the park. Hell, all the Dark souls games are far harder too.
Yeah that’s a potentially endless discussion right there. I actually think Sekiro was the hardest, even if it’s technically not a souls game. Part of what makes Elden Ring so easy is the number of tools and abilities to use, the summoning ashes, OP spells, and nearly always being able to summon two helper players for tough fights. Melania is so much like fighting Isshin, I think he’s way harder than her, and especially because you have to nail the timing with him. There’s no respeccing, using cheesy spells, or summoning help with that guy. Don’t get me wrong, Elden Ring is a great game, but most of the difficulty is easily overcome by just trying out the other stuff you can use.
I don’t, they are right, I can create my own challenge. It’s not really what I’m annoyed about either, its the whole design by a committee of vocal internet people which results in the same bland shit over and over. Part of what made these games cool is the things that are unique, and often times the most memorable moments are also the most difficult. Seeing From pivot because a bunch of people whined about it is just disappointing really. There was a time where the tag line for Dark Souls was “Prepare to Die”, but come down the line to Elden Ring and you can really feel how they’ve softened that edge up. The DLC feels like they sharpened the blade for its final outing, and people want it dulled immediately. To me that’s boring. Embrace the challenge and what you will remember and be satisfied by is overcoming it.