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[The artful mincer]

Ding ding ding!

Let’s be honest, you can really have no idea how good a weapon is going to turn out before it’s had a hefty number of upgrades already. Some weapons in Souls only reveal their S-rank stat boost with the final upgrade.
Sure, some will object that the plain sword you can buy from a merchant half a mile from the starting point of the game can‘t possibly become the best weapon in the game, and you’d be dumb to believe so. Right! But in these games you can take so many different paths. It may take you 3 or 30 hours to stumble upon what could reasonably become your weapon of choice. And even if you can find it early on, the materials to upgrade it may lie on a path you won’t take for a long while. Meanwhile, you’re stuck with inferior weapons that you absolutely have to upgrade at some point to stand a chance. And that takes money and materials.

It’s not easy to balance this stuff, but one thing is certain: From never really tried.

Exactly! Even once you found your perfect weapon it can still be damn boring just using that for hours on end.

This is frigging souls not devil may cry or even god of war. None of these weapons have crazy deep movesets that you will still be learning hours later.

 

[MagnesD3]

Souls isnt grindy at all, play the game fully and you will find your crud most likely. The worst one for grind was Demon Souls since some of its upgrad stuff was insanely rare drops if I recall but they have gotten way better at that since then.

 

[DeepEnigma]

In a balanced game maybe but none of these games are balanced so I say let the player go nuts trying cool new toys.

I've never said a player should have access to everything in a single playthrough but certainly a lot more than currently. I think in about 4 playthroughs the player should have been able to try everything the games has to offer.

Explained "balanced."

Souls isnt grindy at all, play the game fully and you will find your crud most likely. The worst one for grind was Demon Souls since some of its upgrad stuff was insanely rare drops if I recall but they have gotten way better at that since then.

The remake corrected that drop as well.

 

[The artful mincer]

Explained "balanced."


The remake corrected that drop as well.

Well does the difficulty feel appropriate. I.e. not too difficult to feel unfair or too easy to be a joke.

Elden ring is nearly always one or the other.If your a little bit underleveled learning a boss fight the traditional way becomes tedious as hell as every small mistake will kill the player. Mistakes the player will have to make to know what works and what doesn't.

But then a few level ups later or a couple of weapon upgrades and that same boss is now a joke. You can likely destroy it while barely learning any of its movesets.

This is just leveling up if we start chatting about summons, Ashes if wars, magic etc etc then it's even less balanced.

 

[The artful mincer]

Souls isnt grindy at all, play the game fully and you will find your crud most likely. The worst one for grind was Demon Souls since some of its upgrad stuff was insanely rare drops if I recall but they have gotten way better at that since then.

It's not grindy if you're happy sticking out with one or two weapons the entire game. However if you want to change a weapon late game you have to go and farm a bunch a runes or stones to get it to the appropriate level.

 

[MagnesD3]

It's not grindy if you're happy sticking out with one or two weapons the entire game. However if you want to change a weapon late game you have to go and farm a bunch a runes or stones to get it to the appropriate level.

In Elden Ring you don't there's plenty in that game but in the oldee ones yeah there are limited material designed to make your choices more meaningful, in the earlier Souls games there are certain limited upgrade materials I recommend saving for a weapon you want to commit to.

 

[crackajack]

You only grind in Souls games if you suck at combat. If you're a decent enough player then you'll never have to resort to it.

Yeah, pure bladestone in Demons Souls drops immediately if you are just good enough...
Souls fans, always proving that they are so self absorbed that reality has to adjust to their dogmas.

In reality it takes probably up to several hours of doing one and the same farming sequence a gajillion of times.

 

[AJUMP23]

They give you enough for what you need to do. But scarcity implies value.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Yeah, pure bladestone in Demons Souls drops immediately if you are just good enough...
Souls fans, always proving that they are so self absorbed that reality has to adjust to their dogmas.

In reality it takes probably up to several hours of doing one and the same farming sequence a gajillion of times.

I'm not a fan, though. More like an enjoyer. I used to suck at them really bad and made the same excuses for myself. But then I learned to be patient and figured out the combat enough to be fairly decent at it and suddenly I didn't feel the need to grind for souls to artificially boost my stats.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Well does the difficulty feel appropriate. I.e. not too difficult to feel unfair or too easy to be a joke.

Elden ring is nearly always one or the other.If your a little bit underleveled learning a boss fight the traditional way becomes tedious as hell as every small mistake will kill the player. Mistakes the player will have to make to know what works and what doesn't.

But then a few level ups later or a couple of weapon upgrades and that same boss is now a joke. You can likely destroy it while barely learning any of its movesets.

This is just leveling up if we start chatting about summons, Ashes if wars, magic etc etc then it's even less balanced.

Elden Ring is the easiest of the souls game, IMO. Both in design and flow, especially for beginners. Trial and error, learning what works and what doesn't, patterns, etc., have always been a staple in these games, and it goes back to the classic design philosophy of how games were in the 80's and early 90's. Before the normie hand holding easy mode boom.

Its regions are broken down into levels, if too hard, do another region first, chances are you will get to where you need to be, before you are ready to tackle the regions you struggled with before.

And the maxed mimic summon you can basically have easy mode, even with a mainly melee character (in my case, have not used guides to spec, but still rocking the twinblade and bloodhound greatsword from early on) and never even retrieved a boss or dragon special moves.

The biggest killer for me in ER, is falling from high places, lol.

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

In almost every souls game you are able to buy almost all upgrade mats except the final one by the end of the game. In ER, its by like 2/3 to 3/4 through the game, depending on how much of the endgame content you wish to do.

Since DS3, upgrade mats are basically progression limiters. Once From decide they want you to have the next upgrade tier, you will have it really quickly.

It is even more quick in ER because you can get the first upgrade tier in shop super early if you just grab a club and rush to the right place. The open world freedom kind of mixes up the progression routes From were able to set in previous games. You can have a late mid game weapon if you rush again, and beat a boss who is somewhat difficult at that phase.

 

[Shut0wen]

Ive never once grinded in any souls games

 

[Trogdor1123]

I never found them too grindy. You don’t NEED to get each weapon to the highest level to beat the game. Plus, for a game like this, it adds to the experience of finding stuff imo