“Games Must Be for EVERYONE” - Elden Ring’s Difficulty is STILL Being Hated On For No Reason 

But games, inherently, aren't for everyone. Not everyone like "cozy farm sims to battle PTSD from not getting the right brand of chicken nuggies as a kid" or "Obscure russian simulator games that barely work" or "clicker games that sell your data and force ads every 2 minutes" What about those games? Why don't they have shooting for the people that like CoD? Or in walking sim horror games, where's the romanceable characters? Art isn't even for everyone. This IS art for everyone, not all art is for everyone. Get these fallacies out of here.

The crazy part is, Elden Ring can be as easy as you want to make it. Literally just play it like an RPG, level up, use all the cool spells and summons and the game becomes super easy. It’s such an excellent game because it can be enjoyed so many different ways. The shit people are asking for is literally right there but they are too stubborn to see it.

A game for everyone is a game for no one. Games must be for anyone, not everyone. For _anyone_ can play Elden Ring but _not everyone_ will enjoy it and that is ok. We must gatekeep our hobbies from lunatics.

I’m a married dad who also works 40+ hours a week and sure I take easy ways out in games sometimes because I’m no longer single, childless and in my early to mid 20s and I never have the time to play like I used to, but I have beaten BB, DS3, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. There are plenty of ways to make any of those games easier without difficulty options. My long winded point is if my mid life casual ass can beat all those games and really enjoy them and the challenge they pose, anyone can if they actually tried instead of whining about why it’s not fair that the game doesn’t conform to them

I've stopped using "git gud" as a response. Now I've found myself saying "get filtered"

Casuals are entitled beyond belief. "Umm you want a game that caters to you? But what about me after my 9-5 after raising my kids? Every game needs to cater to my lack of time." That "I'm a parent who works a 9-5" is one I hear a lot. That's great, kids are great, I'm sympathetic, but you live in a great time to have your needs met.

This is eerily similar to what I've heard for years, as someone who likes death metal music. "It's too hard for me to listen to, add some pop choruses or something". It's the same mentality, and my response is always the same: "Great, yeah, thanks, ruin the thing for the people who like it for what it is, just because you don't." I don't get why people can't just not play games they don't like, instead of demanding they change to suit their tastes. And that's really what a lot of them mean when they say Souls games etc. should be more accessible, let's be honest.

Nah they demand a "skip boss fight" button prompt.

Elden Ring devs should always have the same response to this as what Eve Online devs have been doing for 20 years towards the same salty players who can't handle the difficulty. "Here's a tissue there's the door"

This reminds me of the patrick and manray meme. FromSoft: You can start the game can you? Noobs: Yup Fromsoft: You can choose a class right? Noobs: Yup Fromsoft: You can kill an enemy? Noobs: Looks good to me Fromsoft: So this game is playable? Noobs: No. Fromsoft:🤦‍♂

TL;DR They don't want games for everyone, they want every game for them and for everyone to conform to their tastes

The idea that video games games should be everyone is wrong, if companies make their games for the people who hate their games in the first place, and abandon their actual audience, the old audience won’t come back, and the audience they want to cater to won’t play it regardless because they’ll just find another way to complain about it or the developers

It's about determination. Dark souls constantly reminded player if they stop playing their character will lose hope, purpose and wander around being a hollow. Margit tells tarnished "put these foolish ambitions to rest" but if you overcome every obstacle in your way you'll eventually reach your goal. People who give up thinking it's too hard, were never ment to be the chosen undead or elden lord.

Here’s some stats about Elden Ring’s dlc for anyone who may find it useful: After 2 years, the dlc had a 80% retention rate of active player on steam alone. Within a week of release over 5 million players had entered the shadow realm. The stand alone review of the dlc is currently counted as the highest rated dlc pack ever made. And the majority of the negative reviews for the game on steam have nothing to do with the contents of the game.

Elder Rings is not my thing, and I'm okay with that I actually see gaming as art itself. You're not going to always like a piece of art that's painted on the canvas you don't blame the artist for it. Just because game developers use a different canvas they use a computer with code and a mouse and keyboard instead of a brush. But it's still art and not all art is going to be for everyone and that's okay.

Imagine if horror movies had a “scary slider”. Imagine if people went to horror movies and said “it’s too scary the movie should be for everyone”. It’s just so dumb. Edit: also, how much are we willing to bet that these people play games like CoD and whatnot at max difficulty?

I'm not a fan of the Souls games, but they deserve props for their difficulty. Most games are way too easy nowadays, and I always have to make sure I turn the difficulty up.

Every product and service should have a target audience. Demanding ALL games to be accessible to everyone in the hobby is like demanding no hard ski tracks because not everyone takes that hobby seriously.

Am I crazy for saying the ability for dropping difficulty is baked in? If ppl complaining about difficulty don’t level up properly or use Summons or Spirit Ashes, I have nothing else to offer them. No one is telling them to solo bosses.

I'm horrible at souls games. That said, Sekiro's final boss took me several hours. It's now one of my favorite games of all time

Souls games do have a difficulty. If a person is willing to grind and learn enemy attack patterns then the game is easier; however if they don't then that person is going to have a harder time. It's almost as if a video game demands that a person plays it in order to have an easier time.

"They should bring guns into Madden and Fifa, it's boring without some action" same kind of demand. The game just isn't for you if you don't like the original version. Souls games already got easy with summons and coop. I'd actually prefer it harder. The DLC seems to be more what I'm looking for. Haven't tried it yet though, too little time at the moment

Whenever I hear The argument about how [insert game] is too difficult I always notice The people who say that always ignore every single thing that would be able to help what's the difficulty of the game😂

if you think souls games need a difficulty option, you don't deserve to play souls games and should move on

I don't understand why people are complaining when they can just as easily not play it.

There's literally nothing that can be catered for everyone , even games like fortnite or Minecraft that anyone can play made for a specific target audience in mind

Mario is not for everyone. Platformers are not for everyone. It doesn't cater to the blind or crippled. It also doesn't have a difficulty slider. Why aren't people crying about Mario?

Removing the difficulty of Soulslikes and Soulsbornes is exactly like removing the identities of the following: 1. NPC's from Bethesda RPG's. (Ex. Fallout 76) 2. Turn-Based Combat in Baldur's Gate. 3. Heartwrenching Character-Driven Stories in Red Dead Redemption. 4. Stakes (via Character Death) in Game of Thrones. 5. Stellar Cinematography in Hideo Kojima games. 6. Substories from Yakuza. 7. Cheese in a Grilled Ham & Cheese Sandwich. 8. Removing Survival and Horror from a Resident Evil game. Even RE6 did this, despite dropping horror, and still found mild success. RE7, however, blitzed past RE6, 5, 3, 2, and even the first by going back to basics with a new twist. Almost anyone can play Mario, but not everyone plays it, because it's not meant for everyone. Do you know how f*cking boring the Souls games would get by removing difficulty in them? Just go back to a starting area in New Game after you beat the final boss and try to enjoy that area without remembering how hard it initially was. It's so f*cking boring for both combat and exploration. You aren't in any real danger anymore. Being weak is the point. What is cooler; a legendary mercenary proficient in killing demons because he is one himself as well; or some guy named Maurice slaying a literal god?

Videogames are like food, you can make something with broad appeal, like Fries, or a very specific thing with a very specific flavor like Licorice, to make a game for everyone, is like to try and make a type of food everyone would eat, and trust me, with my picky ass, there is a lot of food already out for the count. anyone can try food and is free to do so, but if you try to mush everything together, you just end up with stuff that'll make gordon ramsay Hurl in disgust. or be so bland that the spiciest thing you added was Flour. to make elden ring easier, is like that one advertisement, you go into a pizza shop to order a pizza with extra cheese, but no tomato sauce and no crust. you'd remove the very thing that makes it what it is.

Anddd this is why we need to gatekeep

Elden Ring was my first Fromsoft game and after I finished with (with a lot of online help), I bought and went through all the other Soulsborne games I could get for the PS4, because I fell in love with the genre and the tension that its difficulty brought. I recently returned to Elden Ring, to wander the game in post-game in preparation for the DLC. I always felt that my greatsword and greatshield build was not very compatible with the fast bosses and how that gave me a lot of rage. I then remembered "Wait, what if I apply what I learned in Sekiro and mix in some jumping attacks, like I did there with Jump + Ichimonji?". I dropped my greatshield and got a second greatsword, power-stanced and started bonking the bosses I'd find in dungeons I had missed before, crumpling their stances more easily. And yes, while I might have been a tad overleveled, it was so much more fun, because I changed my strategy and it worked out for my playstyle and build. Elden Ring and Fromsoft games' difficulty is as restrictive as your mindset. Experiment a bit with your tools instead of simply lowering numbers. And if that doesn't work out, swallow your pride and summon, it's one of said tools. MAN, I can't wait to get this confidence dashed when I buy the DLC!

Started my first Elden ring play through last week, and despite playing every single Souls game made my Fromsoft, I still think it’s not hard. So many ways to solve the problems. The many solutions allows for almost unlimited creativity. Such an amazing game fr.

As Max0r once said, Elden Ring does have an easy mode, it's called playing a mage build

I'm mostly with you on the response to gaming for everyone bit, but saying, "It's 2024, I thought we were all on the same page" is literally "It's current year, bro". To that I can only say, "No."

I'm in the gross minority that think Elden ring isn't "hard". People who claim it is impossible just haven't explored enough yet. If you explored everything and leveled up enough imo you can beat the game with low reaction based skills. You just have to play smarter. Imo it's a perfectly balanced game in that if you utilized every tool every boss can be beaten with low skill. Will plenty of people consider you "cheesing" the fight yeah sure. But you beat it. You used what you discovered to your advantage. EDIT: difficulty settings can also be considered cheesing the fights. You can think of easy mode as applying a permanent buff to your character and a permanent debuff to all enemies. Elden ring just expects you to explore for the ability to access it's easy modes.

Games should not be for everyone, the should be for gamers and gamers only.

Making a game for everyone means making it inoffensive for everyone and interesting to no one. When you create something for an audience you control what they experience, and knowing what to include in that experience (and what to exclude) is an important part of the job. Making a game difficult is a design decision with the goal of making people feel good about overcoming challenges. Winning means nothing if you can't lose. Hidden secret areas exist to reward people for exploring, and that's only meaningful because the game doesn't just guide you there.

The level of narcissism these people have. GOWR isn't for me but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be made. I don't understand why only FromSoft games get this treatment when literally no game is made for everyone. But these people like GOWR and TLOU and other games that many other people who enjoy souls games don't care for and you never hear them winging. But the moment a game is too hard or not hand holdy enough for them it shouldn't be made because "A GamE SHoUld bE mADE fOr EverYOne". Well In that case could you please give Kratos a Jump button again and reduce the amount of cutscenes by half oh and for good measure get rid of the Atreus bits thankkkksss

"Gaming must be for everyone!" as someone who knows everything we enjoy in life is purely subjective, I say absolutely NOT!

When everyone stops giving them attention It’ll probably die down

These people are totally lazy, it’s hard but not unbearable hard. All it takes is effort and dedication and they too can be a Elden Lord, these people are cheating themselves from the actual FromSoft experience but demanding it be easy.

Elden Ring is already a game for everyone, its basically on all platforms so if you want it it's available to you

people have gotten too comfortable with games designed for casuals

elden rings dlc isnt even central to the story, so youre not really missing out unless u want backstory or what happened to Miquella, it doesnt affect the main games endings in anyway. So i dont wanna hear it from "but i just play for za story" folks

Changing build shouldn’t be mandatory in an rpg, if I have to change my build then it’s bad boss design, Dark Souls was never like that. Hugging Radahns hip isn’t engaging so avoiding his attacks this way is cheese It’s bad game design if I have to go out of my way to get fragments. Punish windows are so short, I don’t have time to run over and punish him These are just a few arguments I’ve seen. I’ve had people get mad at me just for saying I enjoyed the fight.

The issue here really boils down to people mistaking "games for everyone" with "games everyone can play".

Funny thing about games being made for everyone that the Helldivers guy says... If you make them to suit everyone's tastes, you come around full circle to games being for absolutely no one. Gate keep these people who want to change the things you like out of any community for any hobby you have. They should not be and will not be tolerated anymore. We, the people who actually buy and play games rather playing twitter all day, need to speak up more and get them out. Gate keeping is a GOOD thing. Don't ever let these losers tell you otherwise. Elden Ring does nothing but prove that games for a specific audience works. If it's too hard for you then too bad. Play something else.

Well, also saying "A Game for everyone is a game for no one" can mean that trying to make a game for everyone will end up with no one being satisfied, and no one playing it.

Getting upset at a game being challenging yet fair sounds like "I want my participation trophy!"

All the people complaining about accessibility and difficulty, dont even understand why the souls games are loved, popular and have a passionate community. The fact that we all have gone thru the same struggle and understand the feelings of victory, it's what makes us come together and cheer each other after being stuck on a boss for a couple of hrs. Its a gamers problem, we have been conditioned to always win and never lose or fail. But souls games have no problem letting you fail and struggle, you learn to play the game or you just get mad and quit.

Talk about entitlement. Why is it that gamers who want a challenge are the only group of gamers who are not allowed to have games specifically catered to them? These people clearly don't understand that one of the main appeals of these games is the challenge in and of itself. I have felt no greater rush than when I finally conquer that boss that I've been throwing myself against for the past three hours. I play these games because of that euphoria. These people clearly can't get past that boss.

"We're making COD less violent because we have to accommodate peaceful players." This logic is INSANE!!!!!

I had this argument already. No. Not every game should be made 🌈inclusive🌈 for everyone. No, the goal when making a game *should not be* inclusiveness. It should be *making a fucking good game* first.

The only people who want a difficulty option in souls games are people who have never played a souls game. These games are insanely easy if you use everything the game gives you. Level up, game easier. Get good equipment, game easier. Level up equipment, game easier. Use summons, game easier. Some bosses are cake with magic. Some are cake with sword spam. Right tool for the job. Use multiplayer, game easier. There is never a need to learn fight mechanics. But, if you have decided not to use features that make these games easier… that’s where “git gud” comes from. You have handicapped yourself and are engaging in a challenge run. So, get good at playing with your handicap. These games have never once challenged me, because I use every advantage the games give me. They are, by far, some of the easiest I have ever played.

Next souls game gimick idea. A mode that skips bosses called Baby Mode, due to a literal newborn being able to play it. Also this forces your character to wear the worst designed armor set in the game, the bosses will mock you for choosing this mode, enemies will avoid you like a plague, npc's just act awkward when talking to you and leave mid conversation all because they have something better to do.

I can't play shooter games due to being half blind, damaged fine motor skills and dyslexia and I am fine with that because I know no game can be for everyone, hell what about people with no hands? I had a friend who played games with his feet back when I was younger, he could not play shooters or racing games but he dominated at 2d fighters. I have great awareness and reaction time I actually find most fromsoft games to be pretty easy, my friend called me a cheater because I was able to parry enemies easily the first time I encountered them, did the last boss in souls 1 hitless on my first attempt because he was easy to parry.

These losers would have cried like babies if they were playing video games during the NES, Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo era. Those games were difficult.

These people are MASSIVELY conflating a thing being *accessible* by everyone and "for everyone". Just because anyone can physically play Animal Crossing doesn't mean its for everyone. I have absolutely NO interest it the game, most gamers don't. Would I play it if it had random acts of violence in it? You bet. Am I tweeting at nintendo moaning that it doesn't? NO. THAT WOULD BE DUMB.

If the game is too hard, pick something else up because its not for you, this is what i believe for anyone who complains its too hard, with the mimic tear alone the game is the easiest fromsoft game by miles mix that with a strong weapon and I can beat most bosses with my eyes closed. Give the mimic a shabriris woe, lock on and cast magic or holy depending on the resistances with eyes closed, I am not talking out my ass because I have done it, you just need to memorize the button combination to remove the woe so you don't get aggro. So far I have beaten margit, godrick, red wolf, rykard, godfrey, morgott, fire giant, maliketh, sir gideon and the elden beast with my eyes closed with this combo. I have not been able to get rennala, radahn, god skin duo or malenia with my eyes closed after trying for a few hours on each but they are still easy with them open using a mimic tear.

Some of these arguments just sound like "I like hot sauce as much as the next guy but I don't like how it makes my mouth feel. They should make a sweet sauce. They would make more money if they did"

'Games must be for everyone.' Why are their a lot of dead games then? You cant just make everyone play the same game, everyone has different types of games they like. Just make a good game

Ive been doing this longer than most people have heard of this company. Over 2 decades.

Games should be for anyone. Not for everyone

Part of the reason I dropped my game design degree for computer science is the head professor pushed ideas like this: every game should have a difficulty setting, every game should be accessible to everyone, every game should have a monetized store, every game should feed content slowly to keep players interested… like damn… everything I hate about gaming right now is what’s being taught to me in school? Never mind…

I once heard the most self centered take ever. he play Another Crab Treasure, and he say that even tho the game has an easy mode, he now know that he just dont like Souls Likes game. basically proven the point that even if there is an easy mode, people who dont like the game just wont like it no matter what. so why even asked for an easy mode?😂

The in-game items and mechanics serve as your difficulty sliders. Spirit ashes, leveling, magic, they’re the things that dictate what level of difficulty you want to play at. Nothing forces you to level up, use spirit ashes, or use magic.

Crying about this games vision makes no sense. I have a rough time solving puzzles in the legend of zelda. You dont see people crying about an easy puzzle mode where the puzzles solve themselves!

If you think the er dlc is too hard, I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m saying your bad and do better.

How to take away a chunk of HP from the final boss each hit, step-by-step: 1) Get the Mimic Tear and upgrade it to +10 2) Get every possible scadutree fragment 3) Get every possible Revered Spirit Ash 4) Kill the boar rider and get the lance from the his remembrance 5) Upgrade the lance to +25 6) Respec to 99 strength 7) Get the best armor 8) Obtain the +3 physical protection talisman 9) Obtain the piece of hair talisman 10) Obtain the +3 non-physical protection talisman 11) Obtain the +3 crimson tear talisman (more HP healed from crimson tear flasks) 12) Get the flasks to +10 13) Get 14 crimson flasks 14) Use whatever you want for the physic 15) Profit

I may criticize the design of some bosses on occasion but I would never want these games to be designed to be significantly EASIER. I just sometimes disagree on what constitutes a good way to make it hard.

“Games should be for everyone” Name one game that’s made for everyone. I’ll wait

Elden Ring isn't for whiners

Not everyone likes sports. Among everyone who likes sports, not everyone likes the same sports. Take Boxing. Not everyone likes combat sports, but many do. Not everyone who likes sports, mainly combat sports, likes Boxing. In their case, a person who likes combat sports, but not Boxing, may like Kickboxing, Muay Thai, Jujitsu, Karate, etc.

It's unbearable how thickheaded some people are.

Elden ring cannot be defined as “too hard” when there are builds that can ONE SHOT BOSSES, ask anyone with a brain “is a game too hard if you can one shot any boss?” and they’ll tell you no

Souls likes are a total genre, like rouge likes, not a descriptor like open world

When you have people beating Dark Souls and Elden ring with potatoes or something the argument for difficulty falters. If a someone like me who does not have a lot of time to put into Souls Games can beat those bosses eventually, you can too.

so we should apparently not have any M, T, and E 10+ games. since they aren't for everyone.

Funnily enough I think 90% of elden ring's issues AND appeal come from the openness of the progression, out of all of fromsoft's lineup this game has to be easiest even compared to demon's souls because of all of the options there are. These games may not have difficulty settings but a lot of people will tell you what ways of playing make the game significantly easier, and completely trivialize some mechanics. It’s really interesting to me because it seems like the scadutree fragments might as well be the “difficulty settings” for the DLC, and yet it’s attached to the part of the DLC a lot of people find the most boring, the exploration. I think the DLC is good but I definitely think that talking about games being for everyone misreads peoples issue with the DLC. The people who want to play the DLC will play it and I really don't think that people get filtered either, most people complaining probably just think the openness of the progression holds the game back or haven’t played the game. Git gud?, more like git a greatshield and spear lmao.

By Nintendo's own admission, a Mario game is: "a game for beginners with enough complex appeal that intermediate players will enjoy them." (Paraphasing) But having intermediate appeal doesn't compromise on the vision they have. It's just an extra reward for those who are good at the game. They are not designed for everyone in the same way spongebob isn't designed for everyone. The target audience of SpongeBob is kids. But that doesn't stop adults from enjoying it.

Elden Ring was my first from software game. I beat it and I found my experience enjoyable. But I don’t want more of it at the same time playing it I did come to understand why people like them so much. I would never ask for it to be tailored to my tastes. The only thing I don’t like about it is certain people in the community saying you didn’t play the game correctly because you took advantage of what the game offers you like summons etc. Jeez just because I didn’t beat the game and my meat at the same time doesn’t mean I didn’t find it challenging.

Honest discussion about difficulty can be long and nuanced, there is a reason why game designers keep tweaking it until the game is released (and long after these days). In the end we could reach some things that are universally bad (enemy spinning 180 degrees mid-animation to hit you or incredible damage sponges). However in the end, anyone can enjoy a game, not everyone will, because we have different tastes. One thing that is clear however, is a lot of people involved in this are not here to have an honest discussion. They are mad because they can't hop in on a popular trend and thus demand the games to be changed to appeal to them, while ruining a core aspect of the games.

Sports in real life is the same with games. Thats why there are difference people that play football, basketball, chess?, table tennis, ping pong, tennis, swimming competition, volleyball. There's different kinds of games that different people like because thats the type of games or sports they WANT & PREFER because thats what they enjoy. Imagine Elden ring plays like a Sims or Animal crossing. They expect the tarnished to catch some fish in the river swomps?!?!?!?

I Would argue that the Final boss of the DLC should at least have "epilepsy warning" That bastard fried my eyes

It's ironic that the guy brought up Doom, because Dom Eternal got a lot of complaints that it was too hard at launch, there's not enough ammo, the marauder is too hard etc. And there's a reason, because Hugo Martin has said he spent years perfecting the Doom dance and he designed the game around that. Furthermore, nightmare is the best way to do this dance. The weapon switching, weapon mods, meat hook mobility, timers for blood punch, grenade, ice bomb, flamer, chainsaw etc are all designed around the nightmare difficulty and it's clear that easy difficulty is suboptimal and only exists because not everyone can play at that high level. IMO if Hugo Martin had his way there would only be one difficulty, nightmare, and if anyone finds it not enough of a challenge there are the master levels. And it's not like Doom wouldn't be for everyone if that's the case, anyone can still get good enough to play nightmare as long as they work at it.

Your level of sarcasm is incredible. Love it. New sub from me.

I dunno why the difficulty thing is still being talked about, Miyazaki already said git gud or move on my game isn't for you.

I started the dlc blind, did not seek out any fragments but picked them up and used them as I encountered them. I experienced no issues, the bosses hit hard but that's fine. Finally have a reason to use rune arcs, defensive magics and talismans. Difficulty seems pretty standard, you have to try a few times before killing the bosses usually

Whenever people demand fromsoftware to add an easy mode to souls game it always comes from an entitled point of view because they can’t git gud they want the game to change for them

I don't ENJOY casual/cozy games. If From Software made an Animal Crossing clone next, I highly doubt I would play it. It wouldn't be FOR ME.

A game for everyone lacks depth.

I knew this would happen if FromSoft ever gained popularity. I fucking despise modern "gamers."

Tips for new players I wish I knew earlier : Always try to get the enemy health bar before yours, you're welcome.

Games are never for "everyone"... holy fuck

btw Hugo Martin said that Doom Eternal was designed around Nightmare and should be played on nightmare. (and i totally agree)

Alot of people out here exposing their skill issues and are insecure about it 😂 everytime i see difficulty complaints i laugh cause it happens with every release. Theres a reason why the saying "Git Gud" is a thing. Its not an elitist take its literally just a way of saying, keep trying, keep learning and you will get it. But today people want a button to press and beat the game 😂 gamers these days are out here dogging on game journalists but in reality are just as bad if not worse

Nobody would care about the difficulty of the game wasn’t so popular. Some people just can’t stand being left out.

what's next, they want a "skip boss for 100 Elden Credits?

It's a very common problem from many people to have an opinion of a craftsmanship subject without ever putting themselves in the position of the craftsman. They never care to ask "why" was a decision made, only that it inconveniences them as consumers. This, just as much as the discussion of the Souls Games having a pause button, seem to stem from "not getting" what the creator was trying to present in the first place. And they don't seem to care, either. I guess we will have this conversation every year, as always.

Gaming is a hobby Should every hobby be for everyone aswell ?