Okay so I have never been into the Souls games. The whole “brutally difficult” thing never appealed to me, and watching my friends play was enough to turn me off.
However I decided to take the plunge and try Elden Ring recently because of all the amazing hype. Tons of “I’m not a Souls gamer but I loved it!” kind of hype.
And it’s pretty fun! I get why it got so much love.
But I also, after a week or two of play, have identified exactly what I don’t like about Souls games. It turns out it’s not the difficulty. I grew up playing in arcades and on the NES so I’m no stranger to trying things over and over until I get it right.
It’s the damn death penalty. I cannot express the depth of my hatred of losing progress. Games with save points that are too far apart or games where you can lose items when you die, etc, are just the worst for me. And in Elden Ring, the stress that goes along with trying to get back to my corpse to get my money/XP back is stress I don’t want or need.
So I ask you all this: can you recommend a Souls style game with the fun gameplay loop but without the punishing death penalty? Does that even exist or is it just not a Souls game without that? I’d love the carrot of [learn fight, get better, epic win] without the stick of [now go grind low level mobs for XP, loser].
Yeah, I have no pride about using summons for the boss fights. I figure I can be l33t and solo bosses on my New Game+ play through if I ever get that far.
I do have alt-itis bad in these kinds of games. I started with a 2h Strength build, tried dual wield, sword and board, pure int mage, pure dex sword/bow, and dex/int spellblade. So far my 2h build and my spellblade have been the most fun for me. As you mentioned, I realized that the versatility of the spellblade worked really well… the ranged magic trivialized some areas and having a melee tool let me hold my own when range wasn’t an option. I am starting to think I need a better dex sword than the Estoc/Rapier tho. The poke poke move set is really bad against groups.
ANYWAYS, I’ll look into the mimic!
I did a int/dex build as well and loved it. I used the Demi Human Queens Staff and Moonveil Katana upgraded to the max, I may have switched the staff at some point but that took me very far. You should also look into the FP physik tears, especially the Cerulean Hidden Tear + Magic Shrouding Cracked Tear which makes it so easy to blast off some big spells for free and high damage. I especially recommend using it with the Comet Azur to wreck bosses right off the bat.
Yeah Moonveil is on my radar but it’s a bit further into the game. I just beat Stormveil Castle on that character. I also am thinking about going for that Fire/Death sword that requires Int and Faith. I’d have to respec later for it but it looks fun.
I’ll look into those tears. Honestly, I forget to use the physik flask a lot. I have a thing in games about hording scarce materials in case I need them later, and ending up never using them. Single-use flasks fall squarely into that category. lol
The nice thing about it is that it refills whenever you rest so it’s not as bad as actual one time use items. I tended to use it for big bosses/hard fights and never really changed the setup once I found that combo. I also play in a way where I scour through every crevice so I did end up overleveled for a lot of fights.
But yea I def also hoard materials and barely use the other consumables other than the boules. Those are a lifesaver in later areas when there are literal lakes of rot/poison/sadness you have to get through.
The standard Uchigatana katana is what I used until Moonveil and it also took me very far if you upgrade it. So you can try that instead. There is a dungeon near the beginning that has it from what I remember. Also one of the merchants had it too.