On the RKG Discord, someone wrote the words that are guaranteed to enflame me (even as a Pyro!): DS 2 doesn’t have an easy mode. It was said presumably to me and another person discussing the fact that you cannot start as a Pyro in DS II. I can tell you my immediate impulse was to cuss out the guy because it’s so fucking tedious to have guys (and it’s usually guys) whining about easy mode in FromSoft games, but I bit my lip hard and just wrote that being a Pyro in the original Dark Souls was not easy mode.
I have written countless words about this, but it continues to linger as a mindset in the community. And it sucks. It’s so not welcoming and it’s gatekeeping at its worst.
He wrote back to say that using pyro melts all bosses except Seath (which is funny because he is susceptible to fire), especially if you use PW (Power Within, a pyro that increases your damage output as it steadily depletes your health).
I said that you could say the same about any playstyle you maximized, which most people don’t do on their first playthrough. I pointed out that a Zwei+15 did the same, which I can say with authority because I’ve done that playthrough, too. He said that was fair, and I left it at that.
I’m still ticked, though. It’s such a stupid knee-jerk thing to say, and it makes the community so much less welcoming. There is already the belief that you have to beat the bosses solo in order to be a ‘real’ Fromsoft fan or you’re cheating. Cheating whom, I can’t tell you as it doesn’t affect me in the least when someone else plays the game differently.
There is cheesing in the game, such as using poison arrows to kill Gwyndolin without him ever disappearing for one. It takes forever, but it does get the job done. I don’t have a problem with it, though, because who cares? During my plat run, I had fun cheesing various bosses because I got bored doing it the conventional way. I tried the bomb cheese for the Bed of Chaos, but was only able to get one orb that way. I used the arrow cheese on the other orb, and then got the Bed herself in the old-fashioned way.
Another reason it irritates me so much is that it’s ableist. One of the reasons I choose to be a Pyro/mage is because I have spatial issues and really shitty reactions. I simply cannot do the parry/deflect/riposte that the games demand. It’s not a question of trying harder. I practiced for an hour on the Silver Knights of Anor Londo (first game) and was able to get them 75% of the time, but the timing for each enemy is different. I was not going to spend the time to learn each enemy’s parry point because I could beat the game in other ways. The only game that it seriously hindered me on was Sekiro, and it’s no coincidence that it’s my least-favorite of the From games.
I would not have been so irritated if he’d said that he thought Pyro was easy, but it’s that dismissive ‘easy mode’ comment that really got under my skin. There are so many things that are considered easy mode in the From games, and it boils down to, “If you don’t play the game exactly as I play it, you’re a punk.” Here’s a list of things considered ‘easy mode’:
Playing with a shield, Haveling up (wearing Havel’s armor, the best and heaviest armor in the game), magic, pyro, using the Zwei, parrying, the uchi, having a ton of endurance, summoning (biggest easy mode of all), to name a few.
Basically, if you’re not a one-bro (no leveling up anything) who wears no armor at all, soloing the bosses while blindfolded, you are cheating according to someone.
Let’s say all of this was true. Let’s say all of this is cheating/using easy mode. Who the fuck cares? Seriously. Who. Fucking. Cares. There was a fairly popular FromSoft YouTuber who put out a video criticizing Elden Ring for being too hard to solo. He said that over time, it will be rated down as a FromSoft game–once all the secrets had been discovered. He had no basis for that declaration and no reasoning. It seems to be that just because he believes it to be true, it’s fact. Which, to be fair, is how most people operate, especially men. Why wouldn’t you think what you believe to be true is the universal truth? That’s basically human nature. Unless, like me, you are constantly in the minority. Then you’re painfully aware that your experience is not universal.
Anyway. He complained that including the spirit summons made soloing more difficult. Which, true. the bosses are tuned with the notion that you will use spirit summons on them, so they are much harder. Would that make soloing them more difficult? Yes. But that’s what the game meant to do! That was a deliberate choice and while, yes, you can not be happy about that, you can’t ding the game for it because that was the point. Was it to make the game more accessible for newbs? Almost certainly. Is it a really fun addition? Yes! Would I want to fight bosses without the spirit summons? No! Could I? Yes. I have done some of the field bosses that way. Or, the spirit summon dies fairly soon in the fight and I finished the boss on my own.
Here’s the thing. FromSoft gets to evolve and change. They get to explore different genres and different ways to do what they do best. They are not oblige to placate their loudest fans by remaining stagnant, which is what I feel that many of the hardcore fans want. It doesn’t help that many of the YouTubers who have made their bread and butter with From games buy into these toxic notions.
The hardest of the bosses in Elden Ring is very hard indeed. It’s almost universally accepted that it’s
*SPOILER*
Malenia. She is an optional boss, which is how From rolls. The hardest boss is usually an optional one. Hm. In the original Dark Souls, Ornstein & Smough was considered the hardest boss of the main game, and you have to beat them. I wonder if the move to making an optional boss the hardest was because of how many people quit because of them.
Anyway, Malenia is legend. There are videos of people spending hours on her. One guy took 3,000 attempts to beat her, but he’s a really weird guy and his schtick is playing games in a way that actively hurts himself. However, a couple hundred attempts on her was not considered a lot–because these people went in without a shield and without spirit summons. That’s valid, but then don’t cry about how long it takes you to beat her.
I went in expecting to get completely battered, and it took maybe a dozen attempts. I was prepared to go for days, and it took maybe an hour-and-a-half. Why? Because I used my spirit summon which was the Mimic Tear (a copy of me), Swarm of Flies (an incantation that releases a, you got it, swarm of flies–after it got nerfed, but still pretty nasty), and walking backwards–a key component to my strategy. This meant that I never had to get close to her dreaded Waterfowl Dance (it’s lethal. If you get caught in it, it will kill you), and I didn’t even know she spawned clones in her second phase.
*UNSPOILED*
Did I feel pleased when I killed her? Hell to the yes! Did I feel as if I cheated? Yes! Did I care? Hell, no! Look. If you want to fight her naked with two uchis and a pot on your head, have at it! I mean that sincerely. If you want to fight her several hundred times until you finally beat her, good for you!
But don’t shit on people who play it differently. What you (general you) get all gatekeeper about things like this, it alienates people who aren’t hardcore fans. Hell, it alienates some of us who are hardcore fans. More to the point, why do you feel the need? It doesn’t make you any harder to scoff at the ways other people play or a certain style of play. You’re plenty hard with your bad self. Try to be satisfied with that.