The misconception of the "hardcore" souls community

So with Elden Ring being the big hit it is and reaching more people than a Souls game usually does I'm seeing something come up, as it usually does, and want to try to clear things up as I see it. The "hardcore" Souls community is not what everyone makes it out to be. Anyone on a message board or who has listened to a gaming podcast has heard how awful they are and always call people out for being awful or playing wrong, but this isn't the hardcore community at all. This is the typical vocal gaming ass that all communities have.

To make a Dark Souls analogy that some might recognize. The Drake Sword from Dark Souls.

First someone that has played Dark Souls, maybe they beat it maybe not and thought it was neat. "Oh wow the Drake Sword is the best! You have to get it right away! It's like a cheat code."

Next the vocal jerks that people misrepresent as the actual hardcore community, but aren't. "Oh you use that? Get good noob. Just delete the game if you have to use that. Sword is trash."

Now the actual hardcore community. "Oh yeah the Drake Sword is really strong early, just be careful because it doesn't scale and the upgrade materials are hard to come by so late game it will be weaker"

The actual Dark Souls community is the most "play however the heck you want" community going because that's exactly what they are doing. They are the ones that do "fashion-souls" because they want to look cool or role play a certain character. They are the ones doing challenge runs so they rush to try and get random weapons or items to use. They are the ones who have beaten the game a dozen times over so they are going to mess around. They'll watch Sunlight Blade or Illusionary Wall on Youtube, they will show off their absurd build on reddit. Perhaps they might sound annoying when they give advice or comment, but that's just because they've beat the game a dozen times over and know exactly what to do.

So just the next time you're listening to a gaming podcast and someone talks about the toxic or negative or dismissive Dark Souls community, just know that's only the same vocal jerks that all gaming communities have.

Who decides who is and isn't in a community? I am a fan of things that have been described to terrible communities and as much as I would like to defend the thing involved, I have no control over the people that also like it.

I was linked to a cool clip on reddit for Elden Ring by a friend and the top 4 comments were about how summoning is cheating, nobody who claims to solo the game can use summons and how people who summon are weak cowards. Even though I know they're wrong it still made me feel bad.

These games inspire certain kinds of jerks because they feel rewarded by its harsh nature. No amount of no true Scotsman is going to change that. A plea to also look at the good side of the community is valid though.

It always rubbed me the wrong way how a lot of people got this perception that the Souls community are a bunch of big jerks just because of very loud what I would hope minority of the community. But this is the series that introduced jolly cooperation as a thing and for what I hope is a large part of the community is very important. I can only speak for myself but the first thing I do when I beat a boss is drop my summon sign down and help a few people beat said boss before I move on. Most veterans are happy to help out new players I guess where just not as loud about it.

So this is my own personal experience and it might help to explain why some people have this view of the community.

I first tried a souls game with dark souls 2 after seeing so many people say such good things about it when it was released. I played it for 10 minutes before I returned it as I didn't like the way the character felt when moving, something about it seemed plodding and unresponsive. When discussing this with someone the first response wasnt something along the lines of oh that sucks you didnt like it or anything it was along the lines of "oh you just dont get it".

The next game I played was bloodborne as I heard the game played a bit faster. I found this game to be fantastic and really enjoyed it. However the few times I was stuck and asked around about what certain stats meant, how to lvl for the kind of build I was going for, or what certain items even did I was met with responses of look it up, the game tells you everything you need to know pay attention etc. Granted I played the game several years after its initial release so I can unserstand to a point people maybe being tired of answering some questions etc but the utter hostility of the responses definitely made me sour on asking for help from the community.

Now with Elden Ring i look around and all I see are people saying using in game mechanics are bad at the game or not even playing the game the way it is intended, meanwhile they die to margit 40 times because they are too stuborn to summon, or the counter argument that the people playing without using the summons are the real noobs and bad at the game etc.

Also there seems to be a large portion of the vocal community who seem to think that saying you would like it if the game had something in it (a minimap, notes log, etc) is equivlent to you saying the game design is shit and then taking it as a personal attack.

There may be a large portion of the community willing to help people or listen to ideas without immediately taking the things said as a personal attack but they are either too few and far between, or too quiet for a person only casually interested in the game or trying to find a quick answer to something to rely on.

In conclusion at this point in time much like the overall view of the smash community the bad vocal majority has ruined the general perception of the community as a whole and I doubt it will ever actually recover.

Sorry this got longer and more rambly than originally intended.

I'm just going to add to this that it is now impossible to tell parody from opinion when people say things like "People use sorceries in elden ring? That's cheating, don't they know elden ring is a game about getting bigger and bigger hammers?"

Like, I get that from the latter part of that, it's supposed to be taken as ironic sarcasm, but given how hard this is to ascertain over text, it really makes it difficult to distinguish against those who actually want to gatekeep.

Most Souls players I've met and spoken to agree that playing with summons is a legitimately fair way to finish the game, for example. Then you get vocal assholes who outright scold you for doing so. Both of these players exist in the same community. There are people like this in every community, gaming or otherwise, but with FromSoft it stings a little more because of how unforgivingly challenging their games tend to be.

Even if 100 people say "good on you for beating ornstein and smough, doesn't matter that you summoned help", and only 1 person says "you cheated yourself out of the satisfaction of getting better at the game", you are more likely to remember that 1 than the other 100 due to how the human brain typically fixates on negatives.

Defending the Souls community is like you trying to tell me that the League of Legends community is great and positive because you happen to be on a Discord where you can find non-toxic people to queue with. The average person’s interaction with the community: still pretty toxic and negative.

A few bad apples do ruin the whole bunch. There’s positive camaraderie or whatever in most game fandoms (probably), but certain games have a much more vocal fan base that flames people and prescribes how you “should” play the game. Nobody’s out there telling me I’m playing Mass Effect or GTA or Red Dead Redemption wrong, but people sure seem to have a ton of personal anecdotes about being told they’re playing Dark Souls wrong. All the fashion souls and jolly cooperation memes in the world don’t outweigh harshly negative experiences people have had from the Souls fan base.

Hey, it could be worse. I'm a Paradox fan and that community has a (regrettably, not unfounded) reputation for being full of out-and-proud neo-nazis. Take solace that your community is just associated with elitist assholes.

In my experience there is so much help available outside talking to anyone that I don't even bother with finding a Souls community. I imagine most folks dedicated enough to be a part of some reddit gang are probably too engrained in these games to be level headed. I just use wiki's and check in with certain folks on Youtube. I've always appreciated FightinCowboy for my Soulborne guides and help. And most people in the chat on most channels I have visited(Vaati, Sunlightbro, etc.) have been far more pleasant. I think its best to stay away from any hardcore community for anything as its usually filled with people either too skilled to remember what it was like to suck or folks that have defined half their personality on these games and fly off the handle whenever someone isn't having the same experience.

You're probably better off just coming here where there are plenty of bombers that have lots of experience and aren't joined at the hip to these games. Or, as I said, there are better experiences to be had on many Youtube channels. And extensive wiki's that never require you to deal with anyone, good or bad.

Listen I get it we all have fandoms we’re part of where we just wanna enjoy something without being associated with Those Fuckers over there.

Unfortunately the toxic side of the souls community is one of the most annoying and you kinda just have to hold that.

Also, someone who is good at Photoshop:

Please take this thread title and put it in the movie poster for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It’s all I can think of when I see this thread.

As someone who generally doesn't like these games, I can say that anytime I raise a critique of them in a public way someone comes out of the woodwork to explain how I "just don't get it". If I have one more person tell me that these games are "about grit," as though it's a moral failing on my part for not liking them, I'm gonna lose it. Sorry, but that's the community. The git gud thing didn't come from nowhere. It came from the loudest, most obnoxious part of the community never shutting up.

Like most groups on the internet, the Dark Souls community is defined by the loudest and most annoying people in it, and I've seen a lot of Dark Souls diehards be incredibly insufferable in comments, replies, Twitch chats, etc.

It sucks that these generalizations are formed based on the worst parts of the fanbase, but such is the way of the world, especially online.

The same issue still exists about "gamers" in general. Even though it has improved over time as more of the population plays and has knowledge of games, there are still a lot of people that make generalizations based on the worst stereotypes about anyone that plays video games.

Gamers aren't all misogynistic assholes, but enough of them are (and loudly) that it skews perception enough to where I don't call myself a "gamer." Furries aren't all making porn about anthropomorphized mammals, but enough of them are that...

Ahem. Look, no one thinks that literally a majority of Souls fans are like this. And to be fair, I think a lot if it is passion. Something about these games inspires a passion in people where they don't want to ruin things for other people, but they want to share what they think is the best strategy, or tell someone a secret they might miss. It's not all that different from the people who argue passionately about the proper romance in a BioWare game.

I follow a couple of streamers who have done multiple runs of Soulsborne games, including challenge and randomized runs. And these people will still get assholes coming into their channels to tell them they're doing it wrong. It's not all Souls fans, obviously, but it's enough of them.

Maybe it's just me, but I always based my perception of the "Souls community" by the people who make content for the series (like Iron Pineapple, Plague Of Gripes, Vaati, and others), not some random jerk-offs on various sites, chats and comment sections where, of course those random neckbeards with nothing except Dorito crumbs their usernames are going to create a fucking cesspool of incel energy that'll attempt to cancel out the effort that content creators have put into explaining each game's mechanics and lore for potential new fans.

@facelessvixen: Can you clarify whether you mean you judge the community of something based on who makes content for it OR you judge the community of something based on its content creators as well as those who engage with that content?

The distinction only matters to me in the sense that the second camp probably also contains a lot of overlap with the neckbeards, except that because the neckbeards aren't presented with someone who is delivering Souls in a way they don't like, they aren't able to extend their usual shitty attitudes. At least that's my inference, which is just a random person on the web's opinion so, y'know, you don't actually have to clarify anything if you don't wanna.

Is this why we can't have an easy mode?

@broshmosh: The former; people that I can specifically name have more weight and credibility than some randomer who just so happens to be familiar with the content creators that I know.

To put the Souls community into a hierarchy (out of creators that I can name off the top of my head): Iron, Plague, Vaati, Zullie the Witch, A German Spy, BonfireVN, Pat, Woolie, InfernoPlus (the guy who made the Halo mod for Dark Souls 1), and Matthew Matosis (to an extent) are the actual "faces" of the community. I recommend going to to one of them for information about one of the games for possibly making a purchasing decision or just for entertainment. And then there's everyone else, myself included, where it's a crapshoot between people having some chill or not when either talking to them or casually observing them. I am aware that this is majority of fans who either don't put themselves out there in a creative space, or just haven't received that much attention, ultimately make up the zeitgeist of the fandom for non-Souls fans, which seems to be the main point of this thread. But for my intents and proposes, as a Souls fan who occasionally looks for Souls related content on YouTube as opposed to interacting with other Souls fans, I pay more attention to those with respectable sub counts, like-to-dislike ratios, the overall quality of their content, and other indications of which I attribute to a person's credibility.

@cikame: Little do people know, but there is one for each game. You just have to only increase luck and the the bosses will eventually trip on a twig and die after your third death, accompanied by some Hanna-Barbera sound effects. Or if you're on PC, type "git gud" at the title screen.

This has been my experience as well. People that really like the souls games treat them as some sort of ideal as to what video games SHOULD be, and act like if you don't enjoy them you're some sort of impatient child who needs your hand held at every opportunity. It can't possibly be that you're just... into different stuff. Hell, I've had friends who are fans of the series, not just random internet people, act this way.

@epidehl: I have a distinct recollection of comparing favorite game lists with a friend several years ago. Hers was dominated by Soulsborne games. When she read mine (a lot of Bethesda, Bioware, and Rockstar stuff at the time), she said something along the lines of “oh, so you like simple games,” with the smuggest expression on her face. And this was a friend I’d had for three years, not some drive-by rando. She’s mellowed since then, but it really stuck in my craw and that experience has, fairly or not, indelibly colored my perception of Souls fans.

I think something else that contributes to the perception of the Souls community being a hive of scum and villainy is that it’s very easy to stumble over the loud assholes by just existing on the internet in game-related spaces, whereas the helpful people and personalities that others have mentioned require a certain level of buy-in and seeking out. For reasons I will maybe articulate in a blog post in the near future, I have been playing Dark Souls over the past few weeks and have nearly finished. To get to that point, I found a lot of excellent resources and YouTube personalities that were pleasant and helpful and very in line with OP’s characterization of the community. By comparison, encounters with Souls discourse out in the wild, be it on social media or livestream chats or comments sections or what have you, tend to come with at least a sprinkling of insufferable gatekeeping.

Everywhere and everything sucks if you judge by the cover/loudest screamers.

@banefirelord: Its weird to me that she would respond with "you like simple games." Soulsborne are simple games. Quite simple, in fact. Easy to understand, hard to master. I'm a dumbass and I understand how these games work. But they take practice to master. Sit her down in front of a proper strategy game which is all but simple and lets see how that goes. I don't play those, personally lol.

This attitude seems to coincide with the idea of getting good. And that relates to anything in this world. People get smug about being better than the average person at something and feel the need to project that. Hence why I often ignore the most vocal aspect of most communities because of this behavior. Its even worse when its a friend. It almost seems like people forget that practice makes perfect. And while you may be a champ at this one thing, you're most likely garbage at many other things.

There are enough assholes in every group to make most people outside of that group think they are all assholes. Peoples need to be exclusive and superior will always be loud and stupid and spoil it for the rest of us. It’s no different than the assholes in gaming in general making non-gamers think we are all assholes.

I’ve played souls games since DS1 came to PC, and have now touched all of them plus a Kings Field or two. The amount of people I’ve talked to regarding these games (excluding you folks right now) is probably fewer than 5 people on the planet. I’m not a social gamer and I hate displays of ego or even earned pride (it all looks like public masturbation to me) so I’ve missed this toxic community around these games. I wasn’t even fully aware of it existing. And it’s been a bummer to hear about the exclusionary culture that has apparently been there for quite some time.

What people are missing about these loud and vocal fans is that they want you to quit playing the game. They see completing the game as a sense of pride or fake bravado, and they cling to that bragging right as their identity. The more people that play the game, or the more the game might lean into being mainstream, means that their identity is less and less impressive.

What they tend to not realize is that if enough people bounce off the game, then fromsoft can't make more games. Obviously elden ring sold amazing, but I would wager that a lot of people who bought it because of the hype or love of Martin, will not be getting elden ring 2. That is by no means a belief that from soft can't sustain this.. they absolutely can.. but in general a toxic community that scares away potential fans eventually will bite them in the ass.

As for toxic fan base, it exists everywhere, but it truly takes something to be considered the most toxic, and fans of fromsoft, smash community, and even undertale fans, and moba fans are up there.

@imunbeatable80: I don’t know if it’s a case of not wanting people in their treehouse but rather there’s a lot of people out there who love to point out that you aren’t doing something the way they would and thus wrong and Souls is a perfect conduit for this shitty attitude.

@imunbeatable80: Yeah, this is at least part of it. It's like people who gatekeep Star Wars or comic book movies. The media they consume is their identity. Look, I'm sorry you were called a nerd in middle school, but you're in your 30s or 40s now, so get the fuck over it.

@efesell: there exists a multitude of shitty-ness.. there are fans who maybe want you to play a certain way, but there are some fans (and I've seen them on twitter) who would simply prefer you not to play. How much belongs to each group? I can't say, but I do think that a lot of the posturing from both sides is to hold their victory or skills above you.

The fan who wants you to play a certain way, is because that's how they played and won (presumably) and thus want you to know if you don't play that way your win isn't worth as much as theirs. And the fan who actively wants you to quit is because they want to feel superior for sticking out and beating a game that you didnt/couldnt.

Going to paraphrase a mass effect quote here because why not, "put 3 humans in a room and you get 6 opinions"

That is the souls community. You'll get people saying summoning is cheating and the same people will brag about cheesing a boss that is stuck on geometry because a win is a win.

Echoing this. It's a constant push-and-pull with any community above a certain size to let the good rise to the top, and with the internet and social media governed the way it is, it's nearly IMPOSSIBLE today. From "Star Trek," to "Fight Club," to "Starship Troopers," to "Rick & Morty," to "Batman," to "FromSoft Games": you've got to WORK to make sure the assholes don't get to steer the ship. By all means: signal boost the better parts of the community and let people know they're there but telling people "your experience of this toxic community is false, actually" is not the way to go.

One of the biggest Souls content creators discovers that there’s a convoluted but real way to pause the game and the community goes apeshit over it. The Kotaku comment section on this is hilarious of course.

Ok so this thread has been itching at me since I first posted. So about the people who say that there's a "right" way to play these games is completely mind boggling. The core souls series are games that have a ludicrous amount of room to build out any type of build and play style and its pretty much all a viable way to beat the game. From what I've played of Elden Ring so far (about 60 hours) it seems if anything to increase the amount of choice. So you have someone saying x class with x stat distribution and x weapon ect ect is the ONLY way to play? No you're boring as fuck get some imagination and mess around with some weird builds.

@nodima: that was a hilarious rabbit hole to go down

The more I hear about "the fandom" for any particular thing, the more I chuckle. I play the From games, I watch Star Wars, I play Halo, listen to metal, like the Chicago Bulls. And I get deep into some of this stuff. I'm a fan!

But I guess it doesn't count unless I post stuff on the internet?

Every time there's a discussion on difficulty, or gatekeeping communities, it's always gaming media having these discussions and it's like they're having an argument with a invisible strawman. Sure, there's assholes on the internet who get upset at the "Easy mode" discussion but the attitude has always been completely in-congruent with the Souls series' vibe and these people don't stick around for long in these spaces. Everywhere I've had discussions with other fans of the series, it's like meeting friends at the gym and who are all super supportive and offer advice to each other - it's a lot like the fitness club from Mob Psycho 100 (if you've seen that).

Honestly the only games where there's even room for a more toxic tryhard community are Sekiro and Bloodborne, as these two games force you to play in a specific way which you can't reeeeeally sidestep. In other souls games, you always have options for alternate builds and playstyles which validates a wider audience's preferences but Sekiro in particular (despite being my favourite) demands you perfect a specific dance - and weirdly I've not encountered anyone who's a gatekeeping asshole about that game.

The whole discourse has always been baffling to me because you don't get critics in other art mediums demanding the artists change their art to make it more accessible. They'll respond to it and say "I wish this Merzbow noise album was shorter and hurt my ears less" but it'd be ludicrous of them to say "Merzbow needs to make his music sound less like tv static so that a wider audience can enjoy it." I can't stand Merzbow and I don't demand that he change his music FOR ME. Who do you think you are that you need art to be specifically changed for you? Sure, menus should be readable and UI should be clearer - these games have always sucked ass at these things and you won't get someone slipping into your DMs to brag about knowing what the status effect icons mean XD

I mean there's a difference between having critiques and insisting that these critiques should be listened to and applied, and I've always kinda felt that gaming media are a bit precious with thinking that their words are more prescient and should be listened to. I might be presuming a bit too much but it's always felt a bit that way to me.

Anyway Elden Ring fucking rules and despite (maybe) being a motherfucker of a game, it's the most accessible and I'm glad more people are trying it out!

Sadly, all so-called fandom have the elitist acting assholes who acts like they are better than everyone else because of how good they are at something or how knowledgeable they are at something. This is not going to change anytime soon. I like fighting games, you have those types in the FGC. I like the Souls games, and yes, the community is filled with those types, especially among the speed runners. I could go on and on as my genres for gaming and overall entertainment is expansive. At the end of the day, only you can allow what a person thinks ruin your gaming experience. I don't pay any attention to it myself, most of the time.

@yasha: First part of post: "As a member of the in-group of Souls super fans, let me tell you, this series' fans are super friendly and not gatekeepy to me." Second part of post: "And if you have any critiques that don't match the ones I deem valid, your criticisms shouldn't be listened to. In fact, why do you even think anyone should listen to your criticisms, much less the developers? Souls games are noise albums. So get with it or get out." You just demonstrated exactly the attitude and tone that so many people in this thread are complaining about.

As a person who's already down for 100% of the Souls series' quirks you really aren't in tune with what actually turns people off from these games. Whereas some of the critiques that new players and non-super fans have could make the game more accessible without hurting the experience for entrenched players. Like would it kill the game to have a camera that can keep lock on and keep large enemies on screen at the same time? Or would it really hurt to have a simple way to know what icons mean? There are like 20 NPCs in these games, tops. Could the game have some kind of quest log that keeps track of your last conversation with these people? Most of the dialog with NPCs involves them cryptically whispering names and locations you haven't encountered yet. So what if the game actually let you revisit that without taking hand written notes or looking up answers on a wiki? Much of this game's difficulty comes from getting one shot by enemies you haven't seen before. Would a mode where enemies dealt less damage or you had more health to start negatively impact anyone? I think all of those sorts of changes would improve the experience for both fans and new players and they're the sort of thing I've heard critiques about for going on 10 years now.

I honestly dont think the Souls community is really worse than any other and its a lot about what individuals you happened to have encountered. For example, my experiences with the FF14 community have been pretty terrible with a lot of people explaining at length why I am wrong for not liking particular changes and that the devs know best so I shouldn't have a different opinion. It just lead to me never wanting to interact with other people who were playing the game.

The Souls fandom is the Hamilton fandom of Supernatural fandoms.

@thatpinguino: Ok no you misunderstood, sorry if I came across as an asshole - I'm not saying any criticisms are invalid, just that the nature of criticisms that gaming journalists have for souls games are often about things which would completely go against the vibe of these games. Things like better UI, better camera controls, better controls in general, and some kind of vague Soulsy quest log would all improve the game without fundamentally changing the experience. I honestly had to pause on the Quest Log part because I bet there's a way Fromsoft could include one without it feeling like a list of chores - you could do something like the Outer Wilds and have a mind map of gathered info in the hub area.

These games have always felt like B-games punching WAY above their weight because other games of similar scale and popularity figured this shit out years ago; meanwhile in the opening 10 hours of Elden Ring I constantly had to look up basic shit like how to set the "Quick Item" menu, how to dismount faster, and where all the tutorial hints are hidden. That stuff is bad, has always been bad, and could always be improved. It gets in between you and the experience and while I enjoyed the chaotic nature of Demon's Souls not giving you any fucking info, it's something that's only fun if you have the time/patience for it.

The problem I'm trying to address with the discourse surrounding every Souls game is that people are complaining about things that these games (mostly) already give you the tools for overcoming. The thing is that you need to engage with the game more to access the tools; there's no difficulty sliders or menu options. Enemy too hard? Try a different weapon/build, try a different area, summon a friend/npc, or grind for a bit in an easier area. Getting one-shot by overly powered enemy ambushes or traps? Use the telescope to look ahead, move slower and more cautiously, read the messages and warnings and watch the bloodstains when more appear. That or travel with a different load so you can tank surprise hits easier or dodge roll faster. Don't have enough health - almost every game has a ring or accessory which gives you more health, or slowly regenerates it. Elden Ring gives you tonnes of different accessories which raise/lower stats, give you more health or make you stronger.

I guess my frustration is that when I hear people demanding difficulty modes or to change the damage variables, it sounds like people who want something the game already gives you but don't want to do the work to get these things. Sekiro and Bloodborne are far more unyielding in letting you customize your experience and I think that's the biggest criticisms you could hold against them. But for the rest of these games, you can't escape the fact that they will make you work for them, and engage with them, in a way that's a bit much for a lot of people. It was too much for me in DS2 and I honestly really dislike that game, but that's fine - it wasn't for me.

You could totally surface these options and just have difficulty modes on the main menu, but you're still gonna get lost and not know what to do next. You're still gonna have trouble understanding the story or wtf any of these characters are talking about. There's so many other boundaries on top of the game's combat difficulty which would still remain.

Hope that's not too gatekeepy or weird!

Honestly, I've always found the idea of 'fandoms' to be pretty weird generally. I like stuff as much as any other, but focusing your interest and time into specialised Reddit groups, actually watching streamers play games for the 100th time live (habitually), declaring yourself as part of a fandom, meeting IRL to celebrate a franchise... All of that rubs me the wrong way, and always have, ever since I first heard of Trekkies, or any time I hear some of my acquaintances discuss the latest soccer game (which is always, always a whiny fit whether their team won or lost).

And that's just focusing on all the 'positive' aspects of fandoms, not all the shitty stuff that comes up every day. Anyway, I would never expect level-headness from such groups. Of course, there will always be positive groups and individuals that are part of fandoms, but the general idea of it all will pretty much invariably lead to weird and shitty behavior the moment the 'fandom' interacts with the outside world.

@yasha: This is a very good post and touches on a lot my feelings about these games and the community. I really enjoy these games, but there are undoubtedly things about them that could be done a lot better. I have always been a hater of waypoint driven quest design and games that are terrified of the player getting lost or not knowing where to go, so I definitely like From's approach to player direction in that you have to make your own way. That being said, if the game isn't going to point to you where you're supposed to go (which again, I like) and it's not going to have a quest log, at the very least there needs to be some sort of diegetic means of leading you along quests.

When a character tells you to find someone and gives you zero indication of how to track to them down, or when a character tells you he will meet you somewhere and goes somewhere else completely unrelated (both real examples from Elden Ring), that is just bad design. By all means, don't give me a waypoint, but gives me the tools to find the objective on my own. In some cases Elden Ring does this, but too often it does not. This type of design was more excusable in previous From games (though still an issue in many cases), but in a game as big as Elden Ring having quests progress this way makes organically completing many of them of very frustrating.

The point I'm getting to here is that a significant portion of the Souls fandom will defend design like this as being the point of the game. They will also defend things like the fights against giant creatures that the camera has never been able to handle in any of these games. There are absolutely elements of intentional design in these games that works really well, but I feel like portions of the community will defend all the flaws the series has as also being that way by design.

@yasha:I'm glad you can acknowledge some of the basic polish points. I have had quite a few discussions with Souls fans who act like I'm coming from another planet when I mention the camera or the series' lack of basic quality of life designs. I have a real hard time believing that anyone would be upset if they could look up what Ranni the Witch whispered to you 20 hours ago.

When it comes to the game having the answers to everyone's gameplay critiques, I don't 100% buy that. If you know this series or are consistently willing to look up answers in a wiki, then yes you can get around a lot of scenarios with enough time. But if you aren't willing to do homework, either by grinding or researching, a bunch of the depth in these games is lost. For example, I am using a strength melee build in Elden Ring. When I ran into the sorcerer who teleports away from you and uses a magic bow in the great tower in the Land O Lakes I basically had three choices: grind dex or some magic stat so I could use a bow or magic to fight them (then buy or find magic/ a bow and arrows that would work), abandon the section, or look up a cheese strategy. I did the third and managed to get that enemy to throw herself down an elevator shaft. It turns out I didn't even need to kill that boss, but again I had no way of knowing that without looking stuff up on a wiki. One of my most frustrating experiences in the game was alleviated 100% through accessing knowledge and resources that the community has crowdsourced and the game hasn't provided. That's the Souls experience in a lot of cases. You get around the frustrating stuff because a micro-industry has sprung up around making these games understandable.

The reason I wish some of these more bullshitt-y designs could be toned down is because these games have legitimately incredible movements that have nothing to do with their difficulty that anyone could enjoy. I just beat Radan last night and that fight kicks ass. It is one of the coolest things they have ever put into one of these games and I would not have experienced it if I wasn't forced to play Elden Ring for coverage purposes. If I was playing this game for pleasure, I would have given up after dying to Godrick because my character clipped through the floor. I used all of my throwing items, fully committed to the fight, dealt him lethal damage, and died to his death rattle because I was trapped in the ground. If I could have flipped a switch to make that fight easier, I would have. Maybe I would have stuck with the game under normal circumstances if that were the case. But the prospect of spending hours grinding levels or running around to replenish my items just felt like a further waste of time for a game that had already wasted my time. Again, I did keep playing because I am working on some coverage for this game, but in any other circumstance I would have dropped it over a fight that I, and from the forum threads I've seen on this game, most people, didn't even particularly enjoy. If a difficulty toggle could save folks hours of grinding or rebuilding their character, why not do it? Who does it hurt?

@thatpinguino: I'm glad we're on the same page. Part of the difficulty of discussing these games' shortcomings is that sometimes those same flaws can contribute to providing an experience a lot of people miss, albeit often unintentionally. The blatant unfairness and complete jank of some Souls games does often contribute to this feeling of absolute dread and danger, especially in Demon's Souls. The game will make you walk entire levels to reach a boss on a retry and it's absolutely nightmarish in some cases, especially with Maneater. You'll need to play the game for up to 40 minutes just to retry the dude before getting blasted and I remember being overwhelmed with this stomach-churning anxiety at the thought of needing to make that entire journey again. I think I legitimately became depressed from not being able to beat the Maneater level. It was fucking awful, but also kinda exhilarating. I'm so fucking glad that I never have to do it again, but I absolutely screamed when I beat it. I would NEVER wish that experience on anyone else, but at the same time, I love that the rest of the games still give you micro-sampled versions of it.

But it's hard for me to advocate for that kind of thing because the experience requires you to fight bad design and waste a lot of time in order to chase this endorphin rush. Requiring players to waste so much time doing repetitive activities like grinding or repeating sections is just bad. You should never REALLY be forced to grind in any game and whenever I do it, it's because I can't think of any other option. If you're pushed into doing that I'd agree the design has failed somewhat. Elden Ring seems to get away from this problem moreso than any other FromSoft game just by letting you go somewhere else if you get stuck, which is a WORLD of difference.

Buuuuut, having the occasional bullshit enemy, or badly designed encounter does make the challenge a bit more exciting to me on some sick twisted level. Real life isn't a sloped difficulty curve and I love that these games occasionally evoke that reality, but in a safe contained experience. I loved when I first entered Caelid and everything there was just way overpowered and awful. That area was fucking terrifying because I was suddenly so comically dis-empowered. I could still do all these rad attacks and ninja shit but those awful, awful dog-things would still roll me. It felt so real, in a funny emotional way. Suddenly I was in Bloodborne again, I loved it.

But it's so difficult to design this kind of feeling - this borderline neglectful attitude of having the game feel like it's not at all designed and instead this world you just get plonked into. The occasional unfun bossfight or just completely FUCKED encounter is in no way defensible, but its kept me on my toes in a way few other games have. I know it's a completely insane defense and I might just be broken, but I'm hoping that future games can harness whatever Neglectful Kindergarten Teacher energy these games evoke and dole it out in more reasonable doses because there's something there that gets weirdo Souls fans like me really excited about future installments.

Also @ll_exile_ll I'm having the EXACT SAME issue with quests right now and if I was less broken as an abused souls fan I'd find the issue infuriating instead of hilarious. There's just something so funny and real about an NPC giving you these opaque directions to some place past some windmills you've never seen and the game remaining completely impassive about you gaining that knowledge. It's still shit though!

Edit: I really liked how Pathologic 2 did it's difficulty modes where you could take "the deal" and you'd get a worse ending, but the game would be easier. It felt like a much more organic way to let people experience some of the game without being constantly dogged by survival meters, and also have it feel like you're not being pandered to because you've made a huge sacrifice in the process. I fucking haaaaaate True Endings in games, but I'll settle for it in that game because you're meant to feel like shit by the end even when you get better endings. The developers actually went a step further and added in difficulty sliders but that felt like a reaction to some reviewers taking aforementioned deal and then forgetting about it and being upset that they didn't get the ending they wanted. YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO TAKE THE DEAL, BRENDEN.

I think the only time I was given bad directions to something was a part of one of the meta quests that was just "Hey can you bring this knife to its owner" Like yeah sure who's that? ". . . . . ."

The fucked up part is that I just found it instantly.