Difficulty

[Titanomachy_75]

The game is not a 7/10 lol its more like a 3.5/10  

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

This is the most common platinum in From's catalogue. But also apparently the "hardest Fromsoftware game" according to the guide lol. Let that sink in.

[RadiantFlamberge]

Hardest? I don't think so. There will be some early game hell, but you will get stronger enough as you level up and find some helpful items... and being one-shotted will not happen so often.

I'm playing it on PC now, but will buy it later on PS5 to use the PS4 version (for performance). I started as a Warrior build but started adding sorceries and incantations. Glintstone Arc is good for fighting crowds. I have learned to love the guard countering mechanic. Radagon's Scarseal is helpful for raising several stats. Your damage negation is reduced slightly, but the boosts to Vigor, Strength, Endurance, and Dexterity trivialize that.

 

At least if a boss feels OP to you, you can play other areas and deal with them later. And you can fast-travel almost anytime, save for being in combat or a dungeon.

[Domino_Destructo]

There are so many cheap ways to kill bosses in Elden Ring that literally anyone can beat this game. So I believe it's 1/10 for the majority of people.

During my invasions in late game areas (level 150) I met players that still had no clue how to play this game. They used some of the strongest weapons (Moonveil and Rivers of Blood katanas) and all they did was just spamming L2 until they eventually died. No light or heavy attacks, no jumping or parrying, no roll-catching - just spamming the same attack over and over again. 

This proves that you don't need to learn the combat mechanics to reach the final boss because you can just cheese the game with overpowered weapon skills.

Anyway, if you don't use any overpowered builds or cheese magic from safe distance and play solo without summoning - It's a 7/10.

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Domino_Destructo

[Gecko-Byte]

Difficulty is subjective, so I would rate it personally for myself at 5/10 (Would be a lot less now if I was to read a guide or watch what speedrunners are doing before playing likely a 3/10). You could actually get a lot of people saying that it is hard, a few over powered options and they would likely breeze right though.. Or just farm Runes for levels even... This is why Sekiro is my favorite, it gives everyone the same "build" with no option on getting stronger than the competition and forces the player to learn instead of brute force and pray that it eventually works.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Gecko-Byte

[You]

Yeah, I think this game can be cheated in various ways. A few nights ago, my friend bought this game after I told him how good, so I instructed him to go to the first church and spend 1000 runes on a summoning flower. Then we both killed immediately by that knight on a horse cos he charged right into the church, my friend was lvl 8 as my level got scaled down to his lol. So we died really quickly.

 

Anyway, so after inviting me back, we ran around for a bit having fun in the early area, and i tried dropping items for him, and wow true enough I was able to drop items so I gave him duplicates of pretty much every weapon and armour that I had more than one of. I was even able to drop my late game rune items, which allowed him to level up from 8 to 49...

 

I mean wow, if you just have a friend drop items for you right at the start of the game, difficulty of this game is probably a piece of piss right from the start.

 

You can't drop many items, things like summons and most items are not droppable, and you can't drop any weapon that you've started to level up with, but wow I am surprised the devs allowed you to drop runes for other players, that seem a bit game breaking to me, especially since you can probably drop all your gear, and then reload your save from your cloud and drop all of the runes again and again.

 

No wonder this game has such a high platinum percentage and many people with fast completion times...

 

Yeah, with the amount of external things you can do with this game including coop on bosses and the gifting of late game weapons and exp, difficulty goes from 7 or 8 out of 10 to about a 4 or 5.

Edited April 15, 2022 by enaysoft

[technole]

Times is subjective because you could actually setup the list if you know where everything is, and do so much in the game without a single trophy because of an open world. Just look at PC speedrunners beating the game with zipline glitches in 10 minutes, but a more legit required bosses speedrun was clocked in at 2 hours.

 

Also kind of funny some tried to be a critic and they don't even have the game on their cards. Like really go outside and touch grace. Sony even reported it was the #1 game downloaded from PSN store in March, game is still #1 on PSNp, has an average completion of 50% which means people are pretty entrenched in the game. I got several friends who never played a FromSoft game before until this and they loved it.

[tuddeee]

6 hours ago, Domino_Destructo said:

There are so many cheap ways to kill bosses in Elden Ring that literally anyone can beat this game. So I believe it's 1/10 for the majority of people.

During my invasions in late game areas (level 150) I met players that still had no clue how to play this game. They used some of the strongest weapons (Moonveil and Rivers of Blood katanas) and all they did was just spamming L2 until they eventually died. No light or heavy attacks, no jumping or parrying, no roll-catching - just spamming the same attack over and over again. 

This proves that you don't need to learn the combat mechanics to reach the final boss because you can just cheese the game with overpowered weapon skills.

Anyway, if you don't use any overpowered builds or cheese magic from safe distance and play solo without summoning - It's a 7/10.

 

Yeah i agree. You can cheese so many ways in this game For ultimate cheese is to get high lvl friend to drop you some gear and runes to lvl up and thats it. Ashes summons also give you a great help for bosses. YouTube is full of builds and tutorials too

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

I'm excited for tomorrow when hopefully thanks to PS+ we'll see the SpongeBob game RARER than Elden Ring 

[Nuoragh]

Easiest Fromsoft game or Soulslike I've played. 2/10

Edited April 18, 2022 by Nuoragh

[Wikkibur]

On 25.3.2022 at 1:31 AM, tristan12375 said:

This game looks amazing but I don’t if it’ll be too difficult. I got to the spider lady boss in nioh and gave up. Is this game easier than nioh 

With the in game bug it could be even 1/10. If you know what to do. Heard someone beat this in like 13 minutes. World record.

[You]

4 hours ago, Wikkibur said:

With the in game bug it could be even 1/10. If you know what to do. Heard someone beat this in like 13 minutes. World record.

 

Aabs Animals 1/10

Elden Ring 1/10

 

You're just being silly now.

 

Besides even if you could glitch the game to get one of the endings in 13 minutes. One of the endings requires you to play a ton of the game, not to mention that you still need to find and kill each of the bosses and go to almost every area to get loads of the rare items / weapons and whatnot.

 

There's areas you can't coop and some areas require you to do some quite fiddly jumping, not super difficult by any means, but absolutely never a 1/10. And you know, the game is pretty long. Wasn't that also a requirement for trophy difficulty, whether a game was 1 hour or 100 hours? No matter how easy.
 

 

[wackt1]

On 3/24/2022 at 7:31 PM, tristan12375 said:

This game looks amazing but I don’t if it’ll be too difficult. I got to the spider lady boss in nioh and gave up. Is this game easier than nioh 

Nioh is 10X harder than Elden ring can confirm

[Wikkibur]

14 hours ago, enaysoft said:

 

Aabs Animals 1/10

Elden Ring 1/10

 

You're just being silly now.

 

Besides even if you could glitch the game to get one of the endings in 13 minutes. One of the endings requires you to play a ton of the game, not to mention that you still need to find and kill each of the bosses and go to almost every area to get loads of the rare items / weapons and whatnot.

 

There's areas you can't coop and some areas require you to do some quite fiddly jumping, not super difficult by any means, but absolutely never a 1/10. And you know, the game is pretty long. Wasn't that also a requirement for trophy difficulty, whether a game was 1 hour or 100 hours? No matter how easy.
 

 

Ok maybe it is a 5/10 or a 4 (with bug abuse). After more thinking. 

[Larzz]

This is why I always prefer platinum difficulty polls over the opinion of one guide maker when it comes to Fromsoft titles. 
Some people are always going to struggle, even with all the things Elden Ring throws at you to make the game easier. Others are going to breeze through the game without ever needing those things. And for most it’s somewhere in the middle. 

[proud2bNs]

This game is as easy or as difficult as you want it to be.

 

If you rush the main story, ignore optional side content, play a melee build and stay away from power leveling, co-op and OP mechanics, it's 8-9/10.

 

If you do the exact opposite of that, it's a 2-3/10.

[divalent-hostel9]

On 3/24/2022 at 6:31 PM, tristan12375 said:

This game looks amazing but I don’t if it’ll be too difficult. I got to the spider lady boss in nioh and gave up. Is this game easier than nioh 

I've never played a fromsoft game. For trophies, I would say this game is very easy and straightforward. Every trophy is either story related, killing a certain boss, collecting all of one thing or getting a certain ending. The gameplay, however, can be challenging. I just got the plat, so here are my tips (if you haven't already done it):

 

-Rivers of blood is OP (fully upgraded). It takes awhile to get to it, as it is in an endgame area of the map (mountain tops of the giants). Worth investing in this for an easier time with killing bosses. 

-Everyone gasses up the mimic, and the mimic is great, but my choice of summon is black knife tiche. To get her, you have to defeat Alecto. You will need to do this regardless of if you want the summon or not because she is tied to the 'acquire every legendary summon' trophy. Tiche is really helpful, as one of her attacks does a good amount of damage and she pulls agro while also dodging like a mofo. Mimic is also good, but kinda dumb sometimes. 

-When all else fails, do not be afraid to summon another player for help. Many players are willing to help you. I've offered help to many players by placing my summon sign down near difficult bosses. To do this, go into multiplayer and use an item called Furlcalling Finger Remedy. If you don't have one, you can craft one. Once you use it, you can see all the players that are waiting to be summoned, as a golden mark will appear on the ground. A lot of people wait by big bosses (malenia, godrick, final boss, etc.) to help players having a hard time. You can summon up to three people. If none are appearing, make sure you don't have a password on your multiplayer. If you don't have a password, and STILL none are showing, you're unfortunately just shit outta luck. 

-Make sure you upgrade your spirit ashes!! That's very helpful! 

 

hope this helps:) good luck!

[MatThaRiPP3R84]

i both love, and hate this game. 

 

it pisses all over the finely crafted perfectly tuned dark souls trilogy pacing and challenge and just ruins the entire game imo. every boss is way WAY overtuned to a point where it will force you down to your last potion and fucking everything else.  ORRRR you can ring ya little bell cheese it and accomplish nothing. the bosses are totally relentless.. designed to challenge you and your summons at the same time, but that doesn't happen, your summon just IWIN tanks it no problem lol.

 

i like dual wielding or two hander and just roll, yet in this game enemies will chain and chain and chain and constantly pin you, spam you then follow up with 3 more hits you have to perfectly dodge just so you can heal. ai that AUTOMATICALLY casts spells on you the moment you do anything except hit. 

 

i'd prefer to be forced down one route with a paced challenge rather then go east, get fucked, go west, get fucked.. 

Edited April 20, 2022 by MatThaRiPP3R84

[DrBloodmoney]

I'm not wild about assigning numerical values to difficulty, but taking 5/10 as the kind of "bog-standard" difficulty of a general "Triple A" blockbuster type game (Horizon / Infamous / Assassin's Creed, God of War etc.), I'd probably place Elden Ring somewhere around the 6/10 - 7/10 range. A bit above the average, but not insurmountable - even to the Souls-neophyte who puts their mind to it.

 

I definitely found it easier than Dark Souls and Sekiro, and at least a little easier than Bloodborne too - probably around par with Dark Souls II or Dark Souls III, with Demon's Souls (PS5) still being a smidge easier than Elden Ring if I was forced to place it somewhere on that Soulsborne spectrum.

 

 

There's a lot of ways to approach difficulty spikes in the game, including multiplayer etc., and because of the incredible popularity of the game, there is copious amounts of information available on virtually every aspect of the game, so if someone is dedicated to getting the platinum, there is more than enough info to help them past the rougher sections...

 

...but even playing relatively blind, or just in discussion with a small group of friends who are playing in parallel, the game is not too extreme in terms of blockers, simple because of the open-world, "go-anywhere" aspects that cut out some of the real blocks to victory that previous games had.

 

 

 

A Word of warning though - there's some really hyperbolic statements about difficulty (or the lack thereof) being thrown around in this thread - and I'd caution anyone reading this for information... it's worth checking if the poster has actually played the game.

There are quite a few commenters here (in particular the more flamboyant statements) that don't have the game anywhere on their profiles, and would appear to be basing their opinions solely on the rarity of the trophies.

 

 

On that, I certainly agree with what @technole said:

 

On 28/03/2022 at 6:20 PM, technole said:

PSNP Plat rate is really more about how good the game is than difficulty, FromSoft games have a massive following just like CoD. People who don't normally go for 100% in games will do it because it'll be the best game they ever play in 2022. Seen so many Steam 100% cheeves from people who don't normally complete other games. That tells you a lot.

 

I think this has a lot of truth to it.

 

 

After all, if rarity was a simple reflection of difficulty, I'd remind people that of the 7813 people who attempted to climb Mount Everest in the last decade, 5391 of them made it to the top alive...

 

...so with a rarity value of 69.00% those folks would contend that reaching the summit of Everest is not only about the same difficulty as getting the platinum for Life is Strange: True Colours....

...but twice as easy as beating Elden Ring,

three times easier than beating Goat Simulator,

four times easier than Firewatch,

six times easier than  Fallout 4....

 

...and nearly 20 times easier than Space Overlords. 

 

Take from that what you will. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by DrBloodmoney

[czDante92]

I'll give my two cents as well.
 

The game IS hard, especially when you compare it to the average AAA game today. That being said, you can easily overpower yourself by exploring, farming, equiping specific builds etc., the only really hard parts are the beginning, when you're thrown into the world, and the end locations, where the difficulty spike is brutal imo, but you don't really need to fight most of them at that point, just rush past if you want. The bosses are really easy from my experience (katana + shield DEX build btw) because you can summon NPCs and Ash allies, sometimes even both, who will deal massive damage and aggro them. Out of dozens of bosses I fought, I really struggled with maybe 5 of them. My overall difficulty for Platinum is 4, with Malenia herself raising it to 5, holy shit I DO NOT want to fight her again

And to Platinum percentage, ER is very straightforward with only one missable weapon (well, and 3 endings), while the first Dark Souls is much more complicated and you have to defeat O&S in NG+ if I remember correctly, so the % says a lot about trophy difficulty, but not much about game difficulty.

[technole]

9 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I'm not wild about assigning numerical values to difficulty, but taking 5/10 as the kind of "bog-standard" difficulty of a general "Triple A" blockbuster type game (Horizon / Infamous / Assassin's Creed, God of War etc.), I'd probably place Elden Ring somewhere around the 6/10 - 7/10 range. A bit above the average, but not insurmountable - even to the Souls-neophyte who puts their mind to it.

 

I definitely found it easier than Dark Souls and Sekiro, and at least a little easier than Bloodborne too - probably around par with Dark Souls II or Dark Souls III, with Demon's Souls (PS5) still being a smidge easier than Elden Ring if I was forced to place it somewhere on that Soulsborne spectrum.

 

 

There's a lot of ways to approach difficulty spikes in the game, including multiplayer etc., and because of the incredible popularity of the game, there is copious amounts of information available on virtually every aspect of the game, so if someone is dedicated to getting the platinum, there is more than enough info to help them past the rougher sections...

 

...but even playing relatively blind, or just in discussion with a small group of friends who are playing in parallel, the game is not too extreme in terms of blockers, simple because of the open-world, "go-anywhere" aspects that cut out some of the real blocks to victory that previous games had.

 

 

 

A Word of warning though - there's some really hyperbolic statements about difficulty (or the lack thereof) being thrown around in this thread - and I'd caution anyone reading this for information... it's worth checking if the poster has actually played the game.

There are quite a few commenters here (in particular the more flamboyant statements) that don't have the game anywhere on their profiles, and would appear to be basing their opinions solely on the rarity of the trophies.

 

 

On that, I certainly agree with what @technole said:

 

 

I think this has a lot of truth to it.

 

 

After all, if rarity was a simple reflection of difficulty, I'd remind people that of the 7813 people who attempted to climb Mount Everest in the last decade, 5391 of them made it to the top alive...

 

...so with a rarity value of 69.00% those folks would contend that reaching the summit of Everest is not only about the same difficulty as getting the platinum for Life is Strange: True Colours....

...but twice as easy as beating Elden Ring,

three times easier than beating Goat Simulator,

four times easier than Firewatch,

six times easier than  Fallout 4....

 

...and nearly 20 times easier than Space Overlords. 

 

Take from that what you will. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I wouldn't pay attention to hyperbolic comments about difficulty if the game isn't on their card. That is why the achievement system exists, proof of experience and there is weight to commentary. We see this even with some janky reviewers on Youtube that tried to rate it 0/10 and they gotten so much flack or even deleted their video(s) because of the community backlash of stepping into a review lane they were not comfortable with, let alone not getting far in the game to properly review it.

 

Game didn't sell 12+ million copies in the first month for being niche. That's just over twice amount of Call of Duty in the first month, full-blown mainstream game. Universally been rated 10/10, so you're going to get a higher completion rate which is beautiful. Anyone can 100% if they put their elbow grease and time into it. There is so much community support that if you need any help it's out there and the game does a very good job pointing the way to success too.

 

[Swotam]

It can be a pretty difficult game as you get closer to the end. I've played all the Soulsborne games except Sekiro and for the most part Elden Ring was pretty straightforward up until Melania at which point the difficulty escalated significantly. That's about the only caveat I'd throw out. The first 75% or so of the game is reasonably simple, bosses shouldn't cause you too much trouble and odds are you won't find yourself spending a ton of time trying to beat one. But then you get to Melania, Maliketh, and the end game fights and those can definitely be challenging, especially compared to what came before.

 

It's a great game and one of my favourite Soulsborne games, but take claims about how "easy" it is with a grain of salt. You aren't going to just face roll through the game because you have one particular spirit summon or weapon. Many overpowered items have been nerfed to a more reasonable level over the past couple of months. The game isn't easy and you will be challenged, but part of the experience is overcoming those challenges. It's hard but fair, there's always a way to beat a boss you just need to figure out what that way is for your character. Maybe you need to change strategy? Maybe you need to come back later? There's always a way. Some bosses will take minutes, some will take hours, that's the way these games are. No matter what, by the end you'll feel you actually accomplished something.

Edited April 23, 2022 by Swotam

[MatThaRiPP3R84]

best, non overpowered build in this game Has to be a heavy specced greatsword, 50 vigor 50 endurance 70+ str only required items for the ease of finishing the last 10 bosses, feathered chest piece for jump attack damage, claw talisman for jump dmg, then whatever u want 3piece veteran. you can add dragon talismans for physical, lightning, holy and fire res and the talisman that increases how much you can heal with a flask is also good. don't worry about summons u won't even need em, mimic tear is good but i didn't even use it for radagon and elden beast, or malenia.

 

open fights with a crouch R1, end the fight with a jump R2. night night. to pretty much everything in the game. as for bosses, playing this class will just infuse you with confidence as when you get hit you barely feel it, and the class isn't talisman dependant so u can choose 3 defensive talismans if you really must. but I found myself nailing every roll quite confidently, whereas my glass cannon arcane spec got me killed quite a bit. 

 

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by MatThaRiPP3R84

[Arcesius]

My personal opinion after just having finished the game yesterday: This is FromSoftware's most accessible Souls-like game to date. If you impose any kind of restriction on yourself (not leveling up and playing with a torch exclusively) then this game is hard. If you don't and instead take advantage of both the open world game design and build diversity the game has to offer, then this is by far the easiest souls game to come from this studio. Even without resorting to summoning other players for help (there is where I draw the line for my own playthroughs). 

 

BUT... This is also the one game of theirs where the build you are using will have the most impact on your experience with specific bosses. 

 

For example... I used a dual curved-sword bleed / poison build (poison just to trigger the extra damage from the Kindred of Rot's Exultation... the status effect sucks otherwise) and defeated all bosses past the Capital on my first try except Malenia and Maliketh, both of which I defeated on my second attempt. Pretty much everything in this game is extremely weak to bleed, something I didn't know (since I played blind), but it was a happy coincidence that this is usually my preferred style of play. I later learned that Malenia is considered the hardest boss in the game, but I watched my recorded fight and it lasts less than 3 minutes as she has no HP and bleed procs constantly. 

 

But then I got to the final duo (Radagon & Elden Beast), and both are immune to Bleed... And I had a really hard time with them since my build just fell appart. Same with Valiant Gargoyles, they are also immune to bleed. These two bosses (or well, three) were the ones that gave me the most trouble in the entire game. 

 

For someone that doesn't rely on those status effects, those fights will probably be much easier, while other figths (specifically Malenia) might be more troublesome. 

 

Now... compare this to, say, Nameless King... I don't think anyone has encountered that guy and left the battle stating "well, this was easy", regardless of the build they were using. The previous souls games posed a challenge to all types of players and builds due to the more restrictive options AND due to better balancing due to the linear structure of the levels. 

 

So.. is the game difficult? I'd say it's entirely up to the player. It can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be. 

Edited April 27, 2022 by Arcesius

[tranquility101]

10 hours ago, Arcesius said:

But then I got to the final duo (Radagon & Elden Beast), and both are immune to Bleed... And I had a really hard time with them since my build just fell appart. Same with Valiant Gargoyles, they are also immune to bleed. These two bosses (or well, three) were the ones that gave me the most trouble in the entire game. 

 

Yeah, I ended up leveling a new weapon (Great Mace) to +25 on second character to beat Elden Beast, then on first character I used Greataxe +25, both with War Cry. Blasphemous Blade (Fire/Physical) and my Great Stars (Holy/Bleed/Physical) were no-gos. Switching to those weapon types definitely helped.

Edited April 27, 2022 by tranquility101