Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: subjectivity

A talk about difficulty, part three

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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.


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A talk about difficulty, part two

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First of all, I got my shingles shot on Thrusday (it’s Saturday now), and I was fine for the first ten hours or so. I mean, my arm swelled up and was hot and sore to the touch, but that was a given. Then, the exhaustion hit, and I could barely keep my eyes open.

I was exhausted and my arm was feverish all day yesterday. I could barely keep my eyes open, and I had no energy at all. I’m better today, but still ready to sleep. I attended the first half hour of my Taiji class to do the stretches, but that’s it. I was getting hot and sweaty, which is the time to quit. My teacher has told me that if you have a light sweat, you can keep going. If you break out in a hard sweat, you stop. I was somewhere between a light sweat and a hard sweat, but did not want to overdo it.

*SPOILER WARNING*

Back to the topic at hand–difficulty. It’s coming up in the Retry episodes because Rory has been using the Mimic Tear on the regular. Which has made some people very mad. One person unsubbed because of it. At the end of the last season, Gav laid out some rules as to when they would use the spirit summons. This caused a spirited debate in the Discord with most people wanting Rory to summon whenever he wanted. There were a few who wanted it so that he could only summon out in the field (and not for bosses).

This season, it seems the rule is gone, which makes me happy. However, more than one person has commented that it’s no fun when Rory immediately pulls out the Mimic Tear–which is the best summon in the game. It’s you with all your abilities and whatever consumables you have equipped.

This is the tension with these games, especially Elden Ring. Oh, by the way, it amuses me how much I was pinging back and forth at the end of the last post. My brain was not in any shape to concentrate. I’m a bit better today, but still so tired. I’ll try my best, though.

There are two camps of FromSoft watchers (meaning fans who like to watch other people play the games). One is filled with those of us who just like watching people have a fun time playing the games. Weird, I know. The other camp is filled with people who are VERY LOUD about how someone should be playing the game. I’ve seen content creators apologize for something that is perceived as being cheese or saying they don’t want to be known as a cheeser, and I just shake my head. I’ve seen YouTubers shamed out of their personal preferences, which annoys me to no end.

Games are meant to be fun. At the end of the day, I mean. I know this is hard to believe, but different people have fun in different ways. I don’t like that people think if they are a patreon or a subscriber, they get to dictate what the content creator does. I’m not saying they have to support someone they no longer like, but that’s different than trying to demand the content creator does exactly what you want them to do.


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When does ‘hard, but fair’ turns into ‘too fucking difficult’?

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I’m taking a break from reviewing the Shadow of the Erdtree so I can talk about difficulty. Why? Because it’s fucking FromSoft, and people want to talk about it ad nauseam. The difficulty, I mean. Mostly the hardcore onebros who have way too much of their egos tied up in beating the games in the exact way they deem most pure. And correct.

I have said ad nauseam that the rotten core of the FromSoft community needs to STFU already. Maybe not in that exact way, but I am stalwart in my belief that they are a detriment to the community at large. Not because they play the games the way they do–but because they are so vocal and adamant that it’s the only way to play. Whether it’s without a shield or without armor or without leveling up or without magicks or without summons or–there are a lot of things they insist make you a pussy if you do or use–YOU HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME THIS WAY, NOOB GIT GUD ONEBRO FOR LYFE!!!!!!

It’s been happening since the first game, and it’s only gotten worse. I think that Elden Ring being more for the general public just exacerbated the toxic fans because how dare FromSoft try to pander to the masses?

FromSoft is a company. Their goal is to sell games. I mean, creative vision and all that, but it makes sense that they would want to get more eyes on their games. That’s the whole point–make the game you envision and hope that a lot of people like and buy it. I know that people want the thing they love to never change, but that’s not how life works. In fact, none of the games are exactly the same as the one before. This is as it should be. Otherwise, you could just play the same game over and over again. Which, I mean, FromSoft fans do that, anyway. I always have a From game on the go. Currently, that’s Elden Ring, but it was Dark Souls III for a long time before that. I play mostly From games with indie games sprinkled throughout. Mostly cozy games, but also roguelike/lites.

I am so tired of the difficulty debate, but I think it’s only going to get worse. Why? Because FromSoft has dared to tell it’s most rabid fans that maybe, just maybe, they had to change how they played the games if they wanted to have fun with them. You see, so many people who pride themselves on soloing the bosses, are mad that the bosses of Elden Ring were designed around the spirit summons. It meant that soloing some of the bosses was nigh on impossible, especially with all the other restrictions these players put upon themselves. Not using a shield for one. Or magicks. Or or or.

This is what it means to be a Western white dude, writ large, quite frankly. Not the no shield thing, but the ‘this should be made exactly for me, otherwise it’s bad and wrong’ thing. Everything is pretty much calibrated to that ‘normal’ white dude, so it’s jarring to them when something isn’t. Especially something as beloved by the ‘git gud’ crowd as FromSoft games. They are the same people who were quick to point out that Miyazaki should be allowed to make the games the way he wanted whenever the question of an easy mode came up, but now, he should not be allowed to make the bosses center around spirit summons.


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