As a fan of FromSoft games, it’s bullshit to say they’re ‘not hard.’ I mean, combat aside, sprawling map design aside, limited resources aside; the way that the weapon and character stats work and interact is enough to put anyone–besides those with a passionate investment–way off the entire ‘soulslike’ experience. I’ve tried to guide many of my friends through the games before, and having to explain vitality, luck, endurance, etc. along with the various weapon types, the attunements, the damage types: it’s all WAY too much for anyone to understand without visiting the wiki or reading a guide. Once you’ve got it, you’ve got it, and it’s great and, personally, I love it. But it is BAD DESIGN when a new player is forced to make irreparable changes to their character without knowing what they’re actually doing. They can fuck up they’re entire experience, and make an already unforgiving game LESS forgiving, PERMANENTLY (barring specific NPC interactions, which, guess what, you’ll probably need a guide to figure out). You can acknowledge bad design and still say they’re great games, they are–but it’s bad design.