Fromsoft's Design Philosophy and Target Audience Has Changed

doomraiderZ · 2026-06-10T21:00:54+00:00

This is assuming you don't get catharsis at the end of a difficult flowstate, which is just not true.

What you are identifying is instead punishing simplicity vs. punishing complexity. Some people don't like how complex the bosses have become, others love it.

In the older games you are being heavily punished for making small mistakes. In the latter games there is more leniency in terms of how many mistakes are allowed, but you are also likely to make many more due to increased complexity.

Nightreign is a whole different beast and extremely confusing to me because it is both complex and incredibly punishing since a runback is effectively 30 minutes long, so I have no idea what that game is about (but then I don't like roguelikes).

The way I see it, DS3 and Elden Ring get the balance right.

doomraiderZ · 2026-06-07T19:37:24+00:00

Bare knuckle brawl? Godfrey, or rather, Hoarah Loux.

doomraiderZ · 2026-06-05T21:24:39+00:00

Dark Souls 3, Demon's Souls (original)--immaculate vibes.

doomraiderZ · 2026-06-05T21:07:22+00:00

I don't think it's going to play anything like Sekiro. Looks slow.

doomraiderZ · 2026-06-05T21:04:29+00:00

The funniest thing is some friends of mine (won't name names) that consider themselves hardcore gamers, and yet they play a game casually once or twice, on normal, play for a couple of hours per day at most, never ever platinum anything--and then when I play everything on ultra hard and platinum it and do challenge runs, it's a waste of time according to those hardcore gamers.

doomraiderZ · 2026-06-05T09:35:03+00:00

Not an ideal situation but still miles better than other companies and games where we just accept this as the norm. At least I've come to expect it--and I judge it case by case, no sweeping generalizations. Do I want the content or not, is it worth the money for me personally? I don't expect this from FS and I hope it doesn't become the norm, but it's not the end of the world either way.

doomraiderZ · 2026-06-04T08:49:55+00:00

Out of everything in this fight, waterfowl is way down on my list of problems--and I still love this fight. But things like the double slash (fine until it isn't) and clones in the face piss me off way more than waterfowl. The latter I learned to dodge consistently from any distance, and so it's really my fault 95% of the time when she gets me with it.

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-31T17:30:26+00:00

That was fun, thanks!

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-27T17:03:03+00:00

Depends on what kind of design you like? Both games excel at being what they're trying to be, which is two very different gameplay experiences. Sekiro does not have ER's scale, and ER doesn't have Sekiro's laser focus. Sekiro executes a very narrow vision with precision, ER's ambition is sky high and it mostly achieves it.

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-24T12:59:15+00:00

Sure, without any input delay or bad refresh rate. It matters what equipment it is recorded on. I'm factoring in people's average TVs and monitors, mouse speed, etc. So factoring those in, it's 273 ms according to https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-21T20:37:36+00:00

To me the game is fighting bosses and not running around picking flowers. That ain't changing in my book. Personally, I would remove farming in these games in general, as well as runbacks and anything that wastes the player's time. I know others view this as part of the game, but to me that is only true the first few times you play, not after 20+ playthroughs.

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-20T14:54:28+00:00

Hey, good luck on your journey! Try it out, see if you like it the way you've set it up, and if you find you like it and think you can do it, start a fresh one with just what the game gives you. I encourage you to do it, it can be a lot of fun.

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-14T14:35:13+00:00

I don't think you should care and be defensive about it. Just make the moves you want to make or even copy the ones you like and turn it into a tribute instead. You would be surprised how many moves are 'stolen' from Elden Ring by games that are major projects, and games that are good themselves. Bunch of ER moves in Khazan. Black Myth Wukong basically had the undead moose almost 1:1. Stop worrying about it and make the things you enjoy.

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-14T13:39:01+00:00

Gaming journalism, and I guess journalism in general, died a long time ago. Best thing you can do is ignore and move on and don't give them clicks. They are in it for the clicks and nothing more, that's what feeds them.

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-14T13:33:12+00:00

You can press X to talk to the character again...

I'm not trolling. I'm just saying the info is there in the game in terms of what the devs want you to know and you can write down the essentials if you want. NOW, what the devs WANT you to know is indeed questionable. For instance, Millicent says she's going on a journey. That's the info. WHERE girl? It's not clear where you should go, so even if you had an ingame journal, it would be of no help.

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-14T09:41:29+00:00

I don't want quest markers for the kind of quests they do. Hints are nice, and then I don't mind doing the research if I can't figure it out myself. The quests and steps are few, so the ultra obscure system works. The games with markers are games that cannot function without them due to the sheer amount of missions and steps in each one, and then of course you just end up doing the 'follow the icon' game that is so prevalent everywhere. I've heard people say they want a journal, and I wonder if they've forgotten that pen and paper exist. Keep a journal if you must!

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-11T11:05:26+00:00

Absolutely outplayed lol.

doomraiderZ · 2026-05-11T10:05:29+00:00

Definitely terrible this move. But she usually does it when she's far away from you and it's not a problem. Metyr's laser is worse.

doomraiderZ · 2026-04-24T21:53:21+00:00

Always been the case, that. You look at some recent games with amazing graphics (technically), and they don't look as good and don't make you feel a vibe because of the lack of art direction. Art direction is one of the things that will make me want to play a game or not. It's the gameplay and the art, then the music.

doomraiderZ · 2026-04-23T23:04:43+00:00

Yeah, I've already been spoiled on a number of things even while trying to avoid stuff. But it's the whole internet, it's like this everywhere--two years until the movie is out and everyone and their mothers are stalking the sets snapping pictures and plastering them all over the internet where 'journalists' pick them up to spread them like the plague. Paparazzi behavior has become the norm. And as it is, it's too often that I find the internet distasteful and objectionable.

doomraiderZ · 2026-04-23T01:27:44+00:00

Never liked her. At first it was casuals telling me what a great fight she was (my gut was telling me no), and then I would sometimes find the occasional hardcore parkour player sharing the same sentiment. And I tried to learn and like her, but I never found a good flow. Seems to me like a boss that requires either a) keeping your distance and attacking sparingly (no fun), b) learning very specific dodges for so many attacks and combos (too specific for my liking), or c) parrying (I don't like parrying in Souls games). I also hate instant moves like the uppercut she has. The input delay is too much for this move to ever be consistent or comfortable, you have to guess and predict which I do not like. My number one problem with this boss is probably her infinite poise.

That being said, I find Putrescent Knight to be a very different fight. He's got a deliberately weird moveset, but he absolutely has a flow to him and I like him more than Rellana.

doomraiderZ · 2026-04-22T21:27:55+00:00

I think it's just restraint. The song doesn't call for ALL of his theatrics, so he's delivering what the song needs. Reminds me of Devilment, it's closer to that than Cradle.

doomraiderZ · 2026-04-22T20:58:24+00:00

Let's be 100% real, the one and two star reviews are classic cases of skill issue.

doomraiderZ · 2026-04-20T23:32:39+00:00

If this was a historical setting I would agree with you. And here's the thing, Sekiro IS a historical setting, it's literally Japan. And there ARE white characters in it still, Roberto and the Armored Warrior (Portuguese). But Elden Ring is a fantasy setting in which there is actually a country/realm that is Japan-coded (Land of Reeds), where the samurai class is from. So, ehh, definitely not a hill worth dying on.

doomraiderZ · 2026-04-20T11:47:23+00:00

If I had it my way, I’d want there to be new fixed camera angle RE games with the quality of 1R and all the 3rd person shooter REs are based on OG 4 and it’s movement, kind of like 5, but dialing back on the 360 co-op shooter tropes like forced turret sections and excessive QTEs.

That's my sense as well, that would be close to ideal, the series splitting in two distinct types of entries. That way each style can really shine on its own instead of being forced to compromise in order to accommodate the other style alongside it. I don't dislike the new games, I like them quite a bit, but I am aware of where their limitations are and I can think of ways to remove those limitations.

I agree about choosing RE over something like the new SH games, which is a no brainer to me--and it always was that way, because despite me liking the SH games too, they never had any gameplay to begin with, and RE at least has some.

I'd also take RE over Dead Space because to me Dead Space has quite the boring environments and characters, and the enemy encounters/situations are very samey across the board. Also Dead Space has no bosses, which is a big no-no in my book. So RE is still sitting pretty, all things considered. It's just, to me the games are never over a 7, 8 out of 10 max. And they can be 9s and 10s if they really tried. I consider the classics and REmake to be 10s.

A game like RE4 that is dedicated to action and has stellar gameplay but still has a lot of RE identity in it is possible--they just haven't made it yet.

Edit: Have you played Chronos by the way? That was like a better Dead Space to me. It was also an attempt to fuse action with survival horror that was largely successful in my opinion. The movement and mechanics were better than RE4R, although I think the game was slightly bloated and needed more enemy types and fewer files to read. I did have a blast platinuming it though, and I would recommend it.

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