Hello! Today I want to jump into the topic of sexism. It will tie in with my main topic of difficulty in FromSoft games, though I can’t guarantee I’ll get there today. The reason I’m bringing it up is because it factors into the whole tiresome difficulty debate. Here’s a link to the last post I wrote about this topic.
Over at the RKG Patreon, there are several more people who commented about how disappointed they are with the summoning situation. They say it’s not fun to watch
*SPOILER WARNING*
Mimic Tear beat the bosses. And that part of what they liked about Retry/Prepare To Try was Rory beating his head against a boss over and over again. They mention the Laurence boss fight more often than not (which I dropped below), and it was notorious for taking Rory 15 hours to beat. It’s an epic fight in which the guys pretty much stopped speaking by the end of it just because they had nothing left to say. People still consider it one of the best episodes of all time.
The thing is, though, it was one episode out of twenty. That’s how many episodes there were in the Bloodborne playthrough. Most of them an hour or less. The first series of Retry Elden Ring was thirty episodes with several of them being around two hours. Or at least an hour and a half. We are on episode 42 and not even halfway through the second series. Of three. There are going to be three series in total, not including the DLC. It’s really disheartening to read the comments on Patreon (I don’t dare read the YouTube comments) from all the guys (and, yes, it’s almost all guys) who are so stuck on the summoning thing) when the boys put so much work into the series.
Here’s the thing that really grates on me. There are literally thousands of people doing no-summons runs. That’s kind of the thing for the FromSoft content creators. Not using summons. That’s, like, the base for a FromSoft content creator these days. No shield is also the norm. No magicks because that shit is for pussies, yo. I’m being sarcastic, of course, but that is truly how people in the community feel.
Sometimes, I wonder why I play games with such a toxic fanbase. I mean, there probably is this much bitterness in all fanbases because people are shortsighted no matter what, but there is something about the FromSoft games that bring out the worst in some people. There are a lot of great people in the community, of course, but, boy, the toxic people are so fucking unpleasant.
It’s not even because they mean to be, necessarily. In the Patreon, there isn’t anyone being mean about the fact that they want Rory to stop summoning. Except that one guy who flounced out, but he wasn’t mean, exactly. Just rude.
By the way, the video is just over an hour long. They condensed it a lot. And it was an amazing episode, but here’s the thing. It’s not one that I timmediately think of if I want to rewatch a single episode. The bants are hilarious, but by the end, you could tell the whole situation was really wearing on them.
By their metrics, the Gascoigne fight should be at the very bottom of the list because Rory first-tried him. Or the episodes where he doesn’t fight a major boss. There are 238 bosses in the main game, by the way. How many do you have to beat? Let me count. 2 shardbearers, Godfrey the Golden Shade, Morgott, Flame Giant, Godskin Duo, Beast Clergyman/Maliketh, Gideon Ofnir, Godfrey First Elden Lord/Hoarah Loux, Radagon/Elden Beast. Ten in total. That’s it.
I do sympathize somewhat if that’s what drew them to the channel, but not everything is for them. That’s something they like to say about the FromSoft games in response to people saying the games are too difficult for some people. I’m not saying these particular people are saying that, but it’s the usual retort when people bring up difficulty–maybe it’s not for you.
I do understand that people who pay money for something think they can dictate what they get in return for that money. Patreon is a weird thing in that yes, you’re giving money to content creators you like because you like them, presumably. They say what you get in exchange for that money, and that’s how capitalism works, bay-beee! Except, there’s usually no fine print as to what exactly you get for that money.
Usually, the description is something like, “We will make these kinds of video at this rate, yadda yadda yadda.” The most successful Patreons are the ones who already have an audience. If you’re an unknown, you are probably not going to get known on Patreon. Also, Patreon is still in its fairly early days, and it’s hard to know what it’s really about. I mean, it’s not just supporting a creator from afar because the communities are real–be it through chats or Discords.
Even though the internet has been a thing since Al Gore invented it forty years ago (all of that is hyperbole), it still feels very Wild West at times. There are no laws because the politicians don’t understand it.
Side note: This is one reason Obama won the election in 2008–because he understood how to campaign online. He did not view it as this bizarro thing that only the kids knew anything about–or rather, he did. Which is how he got to the kids. In general, though, he was masterful in his usage of the internet.
I think what the people who are so insistent on no summoning need to realize is that people have fun in different ways. Not just playing the games, but in watching people play the games. More than one person said that it’s not fun to watch Mimic Tear do the work on a boss, but I disagree. I think it’s a lot of fun. Another person said that bringing in a summon breaks the boss. In actuality, bosses are tuned around summoning.
I suddenly crashed. More later.