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Where do you rank Elden Ring's difficulty compared to other Souls games?

How would you rank ER's difficulty?

  • Hardest Souls game to date

    Votes: 31 8.9%
  • Not the hardest, but close to it

    Votes: 35 10.0%
  • I'd put it somewhere in the middle

    Votes: 88 25.1%
  • It's one of the easier Souls games

    Votes: 101 28.9%
  • It's the easiest Souls game thus far

    Votes: 95 27.1%

  • Total voters
    350
finally beat the game tonight. despite it being an open world game, I found the boss fights to be much, much more difficult than the other Souls games I've played. granted, I've only played Demon Souls and DS3, but with those games I was able to beat most bosses in 2-4 attempts. some I would beat my first attempt, but I don't think it took more than a handful of tries to beat any boss really.

in Elden Ring, I've spent hours to days on bosses. Melania took me about 2 days, Draconic Tree Sentinel took me almost a full day, final boss took me several days.

and yes, this is even using ash summons. I stopped using co-op pretty early in the game after realizing that it tends to be disadvantage. the boss gets a lot tougher and more often than not, the person you summoned dies pretty quickly leaving you alone to fight a much harder boss.

given that I've only played 2 other Souls games, I'm curious how people who've played more of them would rank ER. which Souls game would you consider having the hardest bosses?

side note, Sekiro is on sale on XSX so I'm thinking of picking it up. I know it's not a Souls game, but I heard the difficulty is on a different level.
 
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Filben

Member
I can summon NPCs and ghost animals, can go somewhere else and/or grind the shit out of Runes and level up, something you couldn't do in Sekiro, which is the hardest Soulsborne game and the game where I only beat two bosses first try and literally couldn't beat it apart from the short ending (in any other From game there were waaay more bosses I could kill first try)

Elden Ring is by far the most accessible, with NPCs literally telling you what to do and where to go and because aforementioned things.
 
40 hrs in. Easiest of the lot so far.

If you explore area before tackling bosses, you automatically level up enough to make them manageable. And exploring is must / fun.

This could change towards the end though.
 
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I didn’t use shields, items, summons or magic. Just a big whacking stick.
And still I steam-rolled everything except Melania (which probably took like 8 hours lol), the Fire Giant and the crusader knight/misbegotten duo at RedMane. And not because I’m particularly good but if you’re thorough you outstat everything

Not the easiest game but definitely on the easier end.
 
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Id say it's a fair bit easier, I'd get stuck on every boss and even mobs on Sekiro for as long as any boss in Elden ring (I'm on NG+)

Spirit ashes, more build variety and easier to grind levels is what sets it apart. Also not having to run back 5 minutes if you do happen to die helps too.
 

Graciaus

Member
Any experienced Souls player can easily make it to the end game solo. Then it ramps up to over tuned. If you use an ash the difficulty is almost non existent. Game is poorly balanced.

Edit: Then there is the input reading cheese the AI does.
 
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Alphagear

Member
For me the easiest and I’m not a Souls veteran.

Only played Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro before it.

For me Sekiro was the most difficult followed by DS3 towards the end.

Found Bloodborne easy and Elden Ring a lot easier.
 

Alphagear

Member
Any experienced Souls player can easily make it to the end game solo. Then it ramps up to over tuned. If you use an ash the difficulty is almost non existent. Game is poorly balanced.

I agree Mimic Tear +10 made the game too easy.

You could sit down and have a cup of tea and watch the Mimic Tear fight a boss.
 
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Tomeru

Member
I didnt think ER being on on the easier side debateable. With all the options and aids you can have in battle - that weren't available in previous games.

Also - balance where?
 
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Plantoid

Member
The jump attack trivialized a lot of the game, you can spam jump heavy attack to poise break most bosses in 3 - 5 hits depending on the weapon class, spirit summons, more stamina than previous games and so on....

But DS3 floaty movement was even easier so i voted somewhere in the middle

I believe ds1 was the hardest, damn narrow corridors
 

Ogbert

Member
Miles easier.

What is difficult about traditional Souls games is dying and then having to schlep through 10 minutes of difficult adds to get another shot. It punishes your *time*.

Not trying to be glib, but there’s not a single moment (so far) in Elden Ring that even feels like trying to run from the undead burg to the Taurus Demon.

Boss Mechanics are certainly harder. But that was never the point.
 
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kraspkibble

Permabanned.
so far i think it's the easiest game. i'm 45 hours in and explored limgrave, mistwood, weeping peninsula, some of caelid, and all of liurnia lake. the mini bosses in caves/catacombs are piss easy. the only major bosses i've fought are margit + godrick. i beat margit 1st try and godrick 2nd. im about to enter the academy to fight another major boss so we'll see how that goes...

spirit summoning makes the game A LOT easier. you don't need to be able to parry at all with guard counters. the game points you in the direction to progress the game story. there is an easy access to crafting. being open world if you do struggle against a boss you can just go do something else and come back. the map has so much stuff to do that if you do most of it then you will become way OP.

i'm not hating on the game cause i'm enjoying it but i was expecting a challenge and 45 hours in i still have to come up against one. i don't know what % of the game i've played but i'd guess maybe about 45-55%. hopefully late game is more difficult.

I'd rate them in terms of difficulty:

1. Sekiro
2. Bloodborne
3. DS3
4. DS1
5. DS2
6. Elden Ring
 
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DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Easiest thanks to the summons but love it gives players these options. You can completely choose how you want to play. The options are unmatched. Saying that, Melanie is awful, not sure if it was just my build but I struggled hard But I finally got her.

so yeah, easiest if you choose it to be imo.
 

8BiTw0LF

Banned
Difficulty depends on how you want to play.
I used the first 50 hours to level up, get the OP spells and summons and then begin to move my way through bosses.

If you want to make a 20 hour run through - it's going to be substantially harder.
 

Valt7786

Member
Probably the easiest overall, but they definitely fucked up with some of the boss and regular enemies movesets and aggressiveness. If you're a melee main player it can feel impossible to get attacks in with some enemies.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
Seems like there are too many ways to cheese in ER compared to souls. I’ve seen lots of bugs and trickery on YouTube.

As far as difficulty that all depends on your build as sorceries is wayyyy easier than a melee build in most battles.
 

GymWolf

Member
Pretty low after around 60+ hours and 3 major boss defeated, i didn't grinded for levels once and i'm like level 80 with +4\+5 weapons, +4 summons and no op skills or magic at all, and my build is a shitty one all over the place.

I think that only demons and maybe dark1 are easier, but not even sure about that...(also don't really remember much of dark1).

Overall the challenge balance feels far from optimal because of the open nature of the game, the sense of progression is all over the place because you can randomly steamroll everything or being fucked in 1 hit while doing shit damage.
 
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RoadHazard

Gold Member
I'm not done yet, but so far it has been the easiest one for me with the exception of DeS (damn that one is easy compared to the later stuff).

Not using any sorceries, melee and bow only (I'm pretending I'm continuing Jin's story from GoT lol). And a spirit summon here and there, but those mostly serve as a distraction.
 
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FunkMiller

Member
With the exception of a few late game bosses, it’s one of, if not the easiest. Allows a huge amount of freedom in how you progress and tackle enemies.

Sekiro remains the hardest for me, due to the restrictions in play style and gameplay choices. It’s the exact opposite of Elden Ring.
 
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Braag

Member
You can make OP builds, over level and use powerful summons to make it easier or ignore summons and play your own way and it can be really challenging.
It's the most versatile souls game.
 
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GC_DALBEN

Member
Its the easiest and i love it, i loved all souls game, but ELDER RING made all my friends play a souls game, so good, they all love it now and want to play the other dark souls.
 

Aion002

Member
It can be really hard or really easy, it's up to the player.

It's not like Sekiro (in which you have to get good), you can reset the character stats easily according to your needs and there are many ways to defeat the enemies.

Overpowered builds, summoning players, spirit ashes and the freedom to choose where to go and when to go (with a lot of places to visit) makes it for me the easiest Souls like game.
 

bootaski

Member
More options, more ways to play - I don't know if that makes the game harder or easier, categorically. But the trophies are easier to get - no co-op trophies, no spell or ring collection trophies, no trophies requiring multiple playthroughs with the same character!
 
I think enden ring is the easiest and sekiro is the hardest especially that last boss ishnn or whatever his name was brought me to my knees and made me cry
 
It's the most unsatisfying difficulty of all because all weapons are overpowered and you feel like you didnt win fair at all and you just cheesed every boss. So it's the easiest. Previous Dark Souls games also had these strong weapons and shit but they were rare af.
 

ViolentP

Member
Sekiro is the hardest. This is in second not because the game itself is hard, but because it's a god damned endurance run of challenging fights.
 

Mess

Member
It's definitly not a hard game if you do side content but then again I replayed DS1 & DLC recently and breezed through it, which definitly was not the case on my first playthrough back then. Years playing Souls games does that I guess.

Elden Ring is probably somewhere in the middle.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Some bosses are quite hard but the overall exploration felt easier than in previous games.
 

Bartski

Gold Member
It's only as hard as you make it for yourself with the abundance of choices you're given. This makes it the easiest one so far, which doesn't mean some fights can feel any less impossible until you figure them out or come in prepared.
 

RafterXL

Member
Peoples perceptions are going to be 100% based on what build they used, what weapon they used, what order they did the zones and what level they killed each boss.

There really is no objective difficulty in Elden Ring. Everything after the Capitol ramps up quite a bit, but if you're level 200 and use Mimic Tear you're still going to say it's easy.

Just based on my first playthrough I'd say it's middle of the pack for the first 2/3 of the game and closer to the harder of these games for the last 1/3.
 

Aenima

Member
Hardest because of the final boss fight i had to level up my character much higher than in any other Souls game. Some bosses and areas are super easy, especially if you use your mimic, other bosses are stupid hard.

Most of the game is in line with other souls games, Elden Ring just has his ups and downs in dificulty spikes.
 
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Elden Ring can be hard or easy depending on how you play. You get summons as well as various ashes of war, but you don't have to use them. Respec-ing your character becomes available quite early on. I like the flexibility and that you aren't locked into one play style.

Sekiro is the completely opposite. Basically learn to parry or die. It's basically a god damn rhythm game. The prosthetic arm is not worth the investment because grinding for the charms is a hassle.
 

01011001

Banned
Soulsborne games from easiest to hardest IMO

Demon's Souls (I first try killed at least half the bosses... with zero farming)
Dark Souls 2 (although I barely played this one, since I didn't like it at all)
Elden Ring
Dark Souls 3
Bloodborne
Dark Souls

(and no, Sekiro is not a soulsborne game! stop it!)
 
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TheZink

Member
How would you guys compare this to Fallen Orders difficulty?

I haven’t played more than an hour of a Souls game so I’m not sure I endure the beatings.
 

01011001

Banned
How would you guys compare this to Fallen Orders difficulty?

I haven’t played more than an hour of a Souls game so I’m not sure I endure the beatings.

fallen order would be about a whole category below the easiest Souls game, which imo is Demon's Souls.

I played Fallen Order on hard (maybe even on very hard, can't remember what they called the modes tho) and basically had barely any issues with any enemy in that game. so not even close imo.
but Fallen Order was also just way more a traditional Action Adventure and didn't really try to have super hard fights or anything
 
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Plantoid

Member
Peoples perceptions are going to be 100% based on what build they used, what weapon they used, what order they did the zones and what level they killed each boss.

There really is no objective difficulty in Elden Ring. Everything after the Capitol ramps up quite a bit, but if you're level 200 and use Mimic Tear you're still going to say it's easy.

Just based on my first playthrough I'd say it's middle of the pack for the first 2/3 of the game and closer to the harder of these games for the last 1/3.
True, i found it "easy", while playing with bleed, and harder than normal while playing with faith
 

Bragr

Banned
I thought it was a lot easier, I have never finished a Soulsborne this quickly. All the exploration levels you up fast, and the summons takes off the edges of a lot of the encounters.
 

RafterXL

Member
True, i found it "easy", while playing with bleed, and harder than normal while playing with faith
I'm trying real hard to enjoy Faith. I've played through the first two areas as both Faith and Intelligence and the Intelligence build is so much more powerful.

I'm also on NG+ as a bleed build and it's so far ahead of even pre-nerf Moonveil it's ridiculous. I will be shocked if they don't do another pass on Arcane scaling. Two weeks ago everyone was using Moonveil and now it's 95% Rivers of Blood.
 

01011001

Banned
I thought it was a lot easier, I have never finished a Soulsborne this quickly. All the exploration levels you up fast, and the summons takes off the edges of a lot of the encounters.

the summons is what makes it way easier than some other games for sure. you get the jellyfish really early on and that thing is like a decoy that tanks a shitload of damage, so bosses get way easier by simply usinf that as your distraction
 

BreakOut

Member
Demons souls took half your health and enemies got tougher in areas you died in frequently. That is by far the toughest one. A lot of people I think mastered it, but thinking through the first time I played through it or even the second it’s clearly the most punishing.
 

Knightime_X

Member
The game can be extremely hard if you do not spend hours upon hours of grinding, exploring, searching for upgrades, weapons, ghost assist, and spells.
Pretty much need to play 1\2 the game before you even start "playing" the game.
Do all of that and the beginning + earlier parts of the game become much easier.

Unless you're one of those huge fanatics who play souls almost exclusively compared to any other game and make it look like a circus act.
 
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