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Elden Ring. The game is just too obnoxiously hard. I don't mind difficulty, I finished Doom Eternal and all its DLC on nightmare. But Elden Ring seemingly makes very little effort to teach me its mechanics, whereas Doom Eternal's mechanics felt pretty intuitive after just a little bit of trial and error.
As far as FromSoft games go, I had a much better time with Sekrio. That game had a good tutorial, and that ghost dude who would help you practice the more difficult aspects of the combat.
Check out the Elden Ring Seamless Co-op Mod if you're interested in playing with a friend or 3. It's a faaaar better experience and was exactly what I wanted in the game to balance the challenge.
I feel like Elden Ring takes more of the Dark Souls aspects here. With that I mean that they just drop you in to explore and figure it out yourself. I understand your point though, it can feel ridiculous to go head first blindly in to a boss arena not knowing what to expect, but the satisfaction of figuring it out and beating it is something else.
Still though, this is not everyone's cup of tea. I enjoyed the game, but never finished it. And I don't think I ever will.
Fromsoft generally teaches you things by killing you with it. That's a style decision that I personally enjoy (usually....) but it's not for everyone. Then once you master the thing, they hit you with another new thing and kill you with it, so on and so forth until the end of the game.
Doom (and don't take this as a complaint, I loved the game), is a game that wants you to beat it. It gives you tools and information up front and generally speaking, presents you a path of least resistance that you can take for optimal slaying. The Doomslayer isn't intended to die, he is an engine of destruction. Elden Ring and by extension earlier Souls games, don't do that. Those games want you to die and learn from it. The Tarnished, the Chosen Undead, all of them, canonically in lore die over and over and over in pursuit of their goals, and you as the player are expected to act that out. It's a fundamentally different approach to gameplay style and intent. Elden Ring provides you the tools to succeed, but they aren't laid out in front of you. You'll have to explore and experiment and die a few times to understand what you're working with.
Sekiro in particular was a little bit of a departure from this with its popup explanations for tutorials, and that was taken into Elden Ring to get even as much explanation as we got in that game. It's still cryptic, more so than Sekiro I think, but cryptic is Fromsoft's style, for better or worse, and this is the refinement of that.
I do, genuinely, recommend the game. It takes some getting used to and has a learning curve, but if you understand the language the game is speaking to you it becomes a little less frustrating. I've learned to love that language from as far back as Dark Souls 1, but if you learn to love Elden Ring first it will translate well backward in time if you'd like to try the earlier games.
You're missing out bigly if you give up on Elden Ring. It's the best game of the century, so far.
If you can parry in Sekiro, then you should be able to dodge or block or parry in ER and win. If not, then go a different direction and level up or something. It's an open world with tons of options.
You’re only missing out if you enjoy soulslikes. If you don’t, you’re just going to be miserable
I would argue that someone who completed Doom on nightmare is somewhat into the masochism of the soulslike experience
Edit: I just realized you’re not the guy I replied to before. Points still stand, but they’re a little less relevant.
I completed Doom Eternal on nightmare too, at least in my case I just enjoy the gameplay elements of doom significantly more than gameplay elements of soulslikes. They’re fundamentally different kinds of difficulty.
But we can probably agree to disagree. Video games are preferences first and foremost. Different individuals like different ones, and that’s not only ok, but should be encouraged
They are fundamentally different games, Doom is all about movement and target prioritization while fromsoft games are focused on one-on-one fights that you die in 3 hits and your movement is very slow even on a light character.
That is true if you look at mechanics. I was referring more to the actual gameplay loop and linearity of gameplay, which is very similar between the two.
I've subtracted some words from your comment to make it more accurate:
"You're missing out if you don't enjoy soulslikes."
Nah. Soulslikes are imo awful to play. There’s really nothing fun about them to me. There’s plenty of people who enjoy them, but they’re not a universally fun experience. I’d slam my balls in a door before needing to complete a soulslike. They’re not fun to me, and that’s completely fine
It’s the best game of the century, so far.
I don't find hyperbole like this especially convincing.
I love Elden Ring but I honestly don't think it lives up to the other soulslikes. Aside from Melania and Milaketh, it's not even a difficulty thing... I think the open world aspect just waters down all of its strengths.
I ended up putting in 300+ hours before I beat the game because the PvP and co-op were way more fun for me than getting to the end.
What's good about it? I've seen people stream it and it looks really boring, just repetitive and dingy.
lol it's not even as good as any of the Dark Souls games. It's probably FromSoft's weakest entry in the last decade. And yes, I finished it solo all bosses...twice.