this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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This is me playing Elden Ring. I learned to ditch games I don't enjoy after finishing The Last of Us Part II.
EDIT: Loved Dark Souls and Bloodborne, BTW, so, it's not about it being too hard.
I had this exact issue with the first two Dark Souls games. I explored, but did not find the “intended path forward” that would give me a gradual difficulty curve.
This is why I think a better game formula is: Give players some kind of overt objective marker or in-world guidance for their primary destination, but also point out they’re going to start having a very hard time if they never explore for themselves.
Elden Ring? Maybe we had very different experiences, but it felt to like Elden Ring was the easiest to find my way around in
We sure did. Not only was hard to find the intended route to advance the game, it also got too long in consequence, to the point I lost all interest in the story and lore. With some luck, maybe our experiences could have been similar.
Can I ask what part you remember being lost at? Im not trying to retroactively guide you through the game, just trying to come to grips with where the game lost you
Well, several parts, actually, but I definitely don't remember all of them. I just let go after defeating the Fire Giant when I realized there was still too much of the game to play to finish it. I was already burnt out and not enjoying my time. Other parts that got me bored were the infinite amount of optional bosses, so many of them being harder than actual bosses. I remember that getting to Radhan was a maze, too. Also the Giant Snake boss that requires a specific magical weapon that doesn't show anything special against other enemies to be defeated, I mean, I guess someone had beaten it without that weapon, but it becomes stupidly hard even for Souls games. One thing that was a constant set back was that comment in the Round table about an albinuaric woman knowing some secret path to advance. Overall, I really couldn't keep track of the secondary quests.
Now that I think about it, it probably had to do with the fact that I don't play games online. So, there is a lot of feedback and help from other players that wasn't coming to me, I guess.
Elden Ring has a lot of focus on bouncing around the map and sort of finding stuff.
There's hints if you're looking for a specific challenge, but overall you just sort of wander until you say "ooh cool" followed by "ow that was really tough" and eventually getting through it laughing and saying "you all said a tarnished couldn't possibly do this, now who's laughing!".
But hey, if you're not feeling it, don't feel bad about it. You kinda need to be in the right mood for it, and I've not been able to find the energy for a replay because the 'oooh shiny' from exploration is gone.
Dark Souls has a similar exploration piece, but much more defined pathways, and I find it more replayable. ER is just so much.