• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

What do you consider "easy mode" in Souls games?

I collect VHS tapes

I collect VHS tapes

Member
With Elden Ring coming out in a week, I'm seeing "easy mode" come up a lot in discussions on builds and such.

I'm new to the Souls games. I played Demon Souls a long, long time ago when it first came out, but recently played Dark Souls 3. I got very close to beating it, but decided to put it on hold so I don't experience burn out right before Elden Ring.

Before diving into Dark Souls 3, it seemed like people mostly warned me that pyromancy/magic is OP. as a result I decided to go with a 2h build. When discussing my play through on this forum, it came to my attention that people considered this build OP and easy mode as well.

I then switched to 1h sword and shield and noticed that many shields offer 100% physical damage reduction. I actually found 1h w/ shield much easier than 2h build. the shield seemed ridiculously strong and my 1h weapon had an insanely fast attack speed. When I posted about this, people responded by stating yeah that build (1h sword and shield) is OP and easy mode.

So if 2h builds, pyromancy builds and 1h weapon w/ shield builds are all OP, what exactly do people believe are fair builds?
 
Certinty

Certinty

Member
It’s the only way I would buy and play them.

I get there’s an “experience” From Software want players to have but that’s not for me, it’s just far too time consuming and I’m not a fan of trial and error before succeeding constantly.

I mean, I got stuck on Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order and Kena Bridge of Spirits as they were both pretty hard and I put both to easy mode (which is a joke how easy it is compared to even normal) and still had fun with them.

Pretty sure I would have fun with these Souls-like games on an easy mode but it is what it is. Personally I don’t think giving players a choice is a bad idea.
 
Danjin44

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
The_hunter said:
I would say play the game however you want to. There isn't a set way you have to play to truly "beat" the game.
It's an rpg after all.
Click to expand...
This, there is no set way to play the game and Elden Ring being open world it gives you even more freedom to play however you want.
 
L

LazyParrot

Member
There's always a tradeoff between skill and patience in these games. Builds that favor aggressive high risk/high reward playstyles are generally considered "hard" by most players, ones that favor risk reduction and defensive play are considered easy.

That's just generally speaking, though. There are some people who think a shield makes the game easier, while others think it makes the game harder because it slows them down. Not much point in caring about what others say, anyway. Just do whatever you want.
 
Aesius

Aesius

Member
For pure weapon builds:

In Dark Souls 1 it's using the Drake Sword early and then switching to a Black Knight weapon if you get one.

In Dark Souls 2 it's using a weapon that deals strike damage, as almost everything in the game is weak to it. Mace is a good choice.

In Dark Souls 3 it's essentially the same as Dark Souls 1 but there's no Drake Sword.

In Bloodborne it's Ludwig's Holy Blade 2H mode. Excellent moveset and it stunlocks enemies.

Basically.....big weapons that aren't extremely cumbersome that stunlock enemies and have good range tend to make these games pretty easy.
 
Northeastmonk

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
It’s been pointed to in articles, but utilizing more than just R1 is implied in Elden Ring. R2 or heavy attack will assist with stunning bosses or at least reduce their stamina bar.

Elden Ring was made after all the other games, so it’s really an open playing field. If you’re a 1H person then you just might want to get use to using the heavy attack when you can.
 
Dick Jones

Dick Jones

Gold Member
There is an easy mode in Bloodborne/Demon's/Dark Souls. It's called grinding. Once you get stuck, go back and grind like a fucker. It's always been there.

Personally dont care if you grind that's the preference of the player. The game rewards you for either learning its mechanics or overcoming by brute forcing it. If it's in the game, it's all legal just like shooting arrows through fog.

Best of luck in Elden Ring OP.
 
GermanZepp

GermanZepp

Member
You farm and level up. And by farming learn how to fight navigate the stage effectively, get some gear drop and improve. Now you maybe don't enjoy that kind of play. You do it if you struggle or for take you build in a particular direction, or for weapons required skill points.
 
Yumi

Yumi

Member
2h is a horrible recommendation for someone who is new to souls games. They are some of my favorite games and I always sword and board on my first play through. Once you know the levels and encounters, it’s much easier to experiment with play styles.

I think the only “easy mode” is summoning for coop, which is more available in DS2 and DS3 than the other games.
 
Last edited:
Arthimura

Arthimura

Member
By seeing Soulsborne discussions for years now, I can assure you anything that's not a pure strength build will be called easy mode.

You can check on YouTube, people calling magic builds op, faith builds op, dex builds op...

I recommend playing the type of character you think it's fun. I usually choose big swords and a bit of magic/pyromancy and I had a blast with each game.

Originally, I played Demon's Souls with a melee/magic hybrid character, mostly melee with some buffs. In 2020 i played the Remake, and decided to go with a pure magic character. My experience was that the melee character was easier to explore the world and traverse through the levels, and the magic character was easier against the bosses because he could melt most bosses with the stronger spells. Overrall I think both are balanced.

Also, it's not because a build is easier in NG that it will scale well in NG+ and beyond.
 
Y0ssarian

Y0ssarian

Banned
I used royalty or magic builds for demons souls ps3 and dark souls 1 + 2. It was pretty easy but still died a lot in dark souls 2. I don't know if bloodborne had magic so by the time i got to it i had to learn how to play 'properly', and bloodborne and dark souls 3 i used melee.
 
GooseMan69

GooseMan69

Member
I suck at Souls games. I spammed magic in Demons Souls remake and it actually made the game piss easy for the most part. I completely rekt every boss after the flamelurker.
 
Tschumi

Tschumi

Member
I dunno. It's all easy to an extent in the sense that i eventually beat every boss if i just bash my head against them enough.. i guess it would be easy if i could save scum, stop dragonrot and whatnot, but that'll never happen.

They've already SAID what's easier about Elden Ring: you can run away! They're straight up said as much in Miyazaki interviews, they give players a chance to run off and lick their wounds... Or something, reset.

That was in sekiro too though and Sekiro is often called the hardest souls game to date, so there you have it...
 
Last edited:
Knightime_X

Knightime_X

Member
Easy mode can be achieved a lot of ways that is blatantly easier than normal with no online required.

Easiest way for souls game to have an easy mode is do the exact opposite of how they handle enemy stats in ng+1 and onward.
Simply lower stat multipliers for damage and health.

It's just that easy.
 
Fuz

Fuz

Banned
Everything.
8glWQ.gif
 
ViolentP

ViolentP

Member
Easy Souls seems dull to me. I’m not sure what would be left if the challenge is stripped from it. I love the franchise but certainly not for its storytelling.
 
G

Graciaus

Member
Magic + summon is easy mode.

Not needing to be near anything to kill it. Can kill most enemies in 1 hit. Someone else can kill the boss for you.
 
Faust

Faust

Perpetually Tired
Staff Member
In Demon Souls, just go with Magic. Tends to make the entire game a cake walk, aside from a couple of areas.
In Dark Souls 1-3, I found using a strength/vitality build with enough stamina to do 3 strike combo and dodge away to make the games trivial.
Bloodborne and Sekiro I find anything you do makes the game pretty easy. Aside from two bosses in each game that I found genuinely difficult.

This is the glory of Soulsbourne games. You find what works for *you*. As long as you maintain a basic understanding of the mechanics, some level of patience, and the reaction timing of a 60 year old, you should be fine with getting through the games with little problem.
 
_Ex_

_Ex_

Member
Playing as a magic user spewing ranged offense and casting miracles over and over... while summoning for boss help and following a guide in lockstep.
 
Imru’ al-Qays

Imru’ al-Qays

Member
Magic hasn't been OP since Demon's Souls - it's possible Elden Ring will change that, but I doubt it. The advantage of magic is just that it's safer (since you're not in mêlée range), but it's much lower DPS generally
 
BlitzerRadic

BlitzerRadic

Member
+5 Dragon Mirdan Hammer in Demons Souls is easy mode. You can get everything in World 2. Since dragon path doesnt scale off anything you pump up other stats instead. Wrecks in PVP up to SL 110.
 
Last edited:
Duellist

Duellist

Member
The ability to summon help for each level and boss is the ultimate easy mode. I really don’t get how people can bitch and moan about it being too hard when you can do this. Try the level yourself and if you can’t get past a part summon some help. Same with the bosses.
 
Last edited:
A

ANDS

King of Gaslighting
Duping souls in Demon's Souls, healing items in Dark Souls 2, bloodrocks (or whatever the upgrade materials were) and blood-echoes in Bloodborne, etc.

If you mean legitimately: over leveling the hell out of your character. Summoning I consider light-help, particularly in-game summons.
 
Nickolaidas

Nickolaidas

Member
AJUMP23 said:
Summoning a friend can be easy mode.
Click to expand...
This.

But if you summon A.I. NPCs, sometimes less is more.

For example, in Dark Souls II summoning three damage sponges is not advisable since it'll raise the boss' HP so much that it'll take eons to kill him, and long before that he'll kill your allies (because the game plays them like morons) and then you're stuck with a 1/2 or 3/4 full health boss on your own which needs three times the damage you would cause him on your own to take him down.

So sometimes going with one ally against a boss is a lot better than going with two or three. One NPC is enough to distract the boss and have him off your back, while your attacks still do solid damage and you can take him out before he kills the NPC.
 
Bernardougf

Bernardougf

Gold Member
I collect VHS tapes said:
With Elden Ring coming out in a week, I'm seeing "easy mode" come up a lot in discussions on builds and such.

I'm new to the Souls games. I played Demon Souls a long, long time ago when it first came out, but recently played Dark Souls 3. I got very close to beating it, but decided to put it on hold so I don't experience burn out right before Elden Ring.

Before diving into Dark Souls 3, it seemed like people mostly warned me that pyromancy/magic is OP. as a result I decided to go with a 2h build. When discussing my play through on this forum, it came to my attention that people considered this build OP and easy mode as well.

I then switched to 1h sword and shield and noticed that many shields offer 100% physical damage reduction. I actually found 1h w/ shield much easier than 2h build. the shield seemed ridiculously strong and my 1h weapon had an insanely fast attack speed. When I posted about this, people responded by stating yeah that build (1h sword and shield) is OP and easy mode.

So if 2h builds, pyromancy builds and 1h weapon w/ shield builds are all OP, what exactly do people believe are fair builds?
Click to expand...
Strange is to think you gonna get "burned out"... souls games are the most addictive games I ever played and I game now for 30 plus years .... If you are getting these kinda of feelings maybe you dont like these games that mutch ? And is forcing yourself to finish ? ... dunno, hope you find the best way to play them ... and can enjoy these master pieces ... good luck 😊
 
Rodolink

Rodolink

Member
real easy mode is just summoning others to help you beat bosses.
ps. who cares what build one do to play the game, it's your playthrough, and if game permits abusing a mechanic or building OP then it's fine. I suppose a "fair" play it's just no abusing this. Building a mellow character and not summoning help.
 
ZywyPL

ZywyPL

Banned
Difficulty options in the vast majority of games differ only by enemy DMG/your HP, so that's also how I'd see it if it was about to be implemented in Souls-like games.
 
V4skunk

V4skunk

Banned
I collect VHS tapes said:
With Elden Ring coming out in a week, I'm seeing "easy mode" come up a lot in discussions on builds and such.

I'm new to the Souls games. I played Demon Souls a long, long time ago when it first came out, but recently played Dark Souls 3. I got very close to beating it, but decided to put it on hold so I don't experience burn out right before Elden Ring.

Before diving into Dark Souls 3, it seemed like people mostly warned me that pyromancy/magic is OP. as a result I decided to go with a 2h build. When discussing my play through on this forum, it came to my attention that people considered this build OP and easy mode as well.

I then switched to 1h sword and shield and noticed that many shields offer 100% physical damage reduction. I actually found 1h w/ shield much easier than 2h build. the shield seemed ridiculously strong and my 1h weapon had an insanely fast attack speed. When I posted about this, people responded by stating yeah that build (1h sword and shield) is OP and easy mode.

So if 2h builds, pyromancy builds and 1h weapon w/ shield builds are all OP, what exactly do people believe are fair builds?
Click to expand...
Easy mode is watching a walk through video.
 
ManaByte

ManaByte

Gold Member
This is the closest thing to easy mode in a Souls game:
xbox-series-x-controller-image-3.jpg

news.xbox.com

Xbox Series X: What’s the Deal with Latency? - Xbox Wire

Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘latency’ as “the quality or state of being present and capable of emerging or developing but not now visible, obvious, or active.” And now that I’ve finally gotten to use that hackneyed writing trope in my career, let’s dive into what latency means in the world of...
news.xbox.com news.xbox.com

Playing something like Sekiro with the low latency of the XSX controller compared to the DualSense is like night and day. The XSX controller makes it easy enough to defeat sub-bosses without taking a single hit.
 
K2D

K2D

Banned
There's really no easy mode or hard mode.

Just stubborn-mode or normal.

Like, if you refuse to adapt and throw yourself to a wall until you quit, what are you going to do..?
 
Mato

Mato

Member
Maybe a 10%-15% reduction in enemy health. That should be enough to offset the inherent baseline differences that exist in player skill levels. It doesn't have to be something drastic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

  • Poll
Souls/Souls-Like players: Do you respec?
30
839
MetalRain replied
Souls-like Rise of The ronin will have difficulty options
News 2
81
7K
Reizo Ryuu replied
  • Poll
Would Souls games be better without or less grindy upgrade materials
2 3
112
4K
Trogdor1123 replied
Sekiro Needs A Remake
2
92
4K
Rhazer Fusion replied
Bought Elden Ring. Did I goof?
Opinion 2 3
121
6K
EDMIX replied
Top Bottom