From Software Elden Ring - From Software's new game with writing by GRRM

[Hell Swarm]

But those elements never mesh together to form a 'whole' that can be called pretty. The cardinal sin of playing a beth game: noticing an NPC's face. You know what setting would heavily benefit from having both men and women wear burqas? It's TES. You just don't want to look at a person's face in a TES game, whether it's Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim. You don't.

And From are so lazy they can't even animate character's mouths when they talk. It's like a fucking PS1 game up in here.

 

[Odoryuk]

Whatever you mean by "mastered"

SL1, no equipment, no spells, no rolling, no consumables, final destination

Stop being retarded.

In none of my videos i did any of the above. In fact, i made it a point to use every resource available to me precisely to dispell this stupid strawman argument. Even on my SL1 run, aside for the basic SL1 challenge itself (and my rule not to upgrade my weapon past the +10/+4 mark, the only little concession i made to myself to make the game a bit harder), and of course the rule to avoid using summons (which goes without saying), i used every tool at my disposal and every known dirty trick you can think of. Bleed, frost, rot, buffs before a fight, all the good weapon arts like Square Off or Lion's Claw and so on. It's all there in every video i made. At no point you can accuse me of having been a try hard, or having done anything unreasonable to make the game harder (within the scope of the SL1 challenge itself, but note i didn't hold back on my SL150 character either).

Look at my fight with Mogh:



Every single ounce of resource was used by me to make this fight easier. Pots to proc the frost faster, personal buffs of various kinds, all the right gear to maximize my chances etc.

So what does it mean to master the game? Well, as you can see in the above, i pretty much mastered his movie set, to the point making the game artificially harder would have just been a pointless exercise in autism (which is never fun for me). It's enough for me to feel i was in control of the fight the entire time. More than that would have been just a form of show off.

Now i'm not asking new players to get to this level of mastery (which one can only obtain after years of experience), but i think most people should strive to at least feel like they actually beat the boss by overcoming the challenge instead of side stepping it with summons and the like. Keep in mind i'm not opposed to the use of those means, but they should be kept as a last resort. If the player finds the challenge insurmountable, then sure, use the summons, after all, there's always next time, but if you aren't even bothering to put the effort and you are just bypassing every single obstacle with summons, why play the game at all?

Here's the thing though, if you're new to these games and try to follow the advices of tryhards here that spent literal years playing these games, you will be very frustrated and I very doubt that the games will stick with you.
But if you level up when you want and how much you want, use every mean to deal with enemies that the game developers put into these games, then you start to get into these games. When you get into these games, you replay them. When you replay these games, you try new things, you try to keep things fresh, and one day comes the time when you start to restrict yourself to play differently, to get new experience. This natural way of playing is enforced by the devs. Forcing other players to play like you (and thinly veiled bragging how good you are in the meantime) won't help anyone but your ego.

And From are so lazy they can't even animate character's mouths when they talk. It's like a fucking PS1 game up in here.

With voice acting that good I noticed the lips are not animated only on my second playthrough of Dark Souls 1.

 

[Lutte]

But those elements never mesh together to form a 'whole' that can be called pretty. The cardinal sin of playing a beth game: noticing an NPC's face. You know what setting would heavily benefit from having both men and women wear burqas? It's TES. You just don't want to look at a person's face in a TES game, whether it's Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim. You don't.

And From are so lazy they can't even animate character's mouths when they talk. It's like a fucking PS1 game up in here.

They're weak on a technical level, but they do know how to play to their own weaknesses though, unlike Bethesda.
You mention facial animation: From games will very, very rarely put themselves in a situation where you would notice this happening. Most NPCs wear big obscuring hats or helmets, or angle themselves in certain ways (Andre the blacksmith bobbing his head while hammering), plus the camera being somewhat distant, you have to go a little out of your way to see it. I myself legit didn't notice this was happening until someone pointed it out to me a long time ago.

OTOH, Bethesda makes games where you see everything up close in First Person view, and in Oblivion they even took control of your camera to do gigantic, centered closeup of their abominations. Cyrodiil absolutely needs burqas. I'd rather look at the equivalent of a trash bag than those faces.

 

[Hell Swarm]

I don't except excuses for having technology worse than a ps2 game.

 

[Damned Registrations]

But those elements never mesh together to form a 'whole' that can be called pretty. The cardinal sin of playing a beth game: noticing an NPC's face. You know what setting would heavily benefit from having both men and women wear burqas? It's TES. You just don't want to look at a person's face in a TES game, whether it's Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim. You don't.

And From are so lazy they can't even animate character's mouths when they talk. It's like a fucking PS1 game up in here.

They're weak on a technical level, but they do know how to play to their own weaknesses though, unlike Bethesda.
You mention facial animation: From games will very, very rarely put themselves in a situation where you would notice this happening. Most NPCs wear big obscuring hats or helmets, or angle themselves in certain ways (Andre the blacksmith bobbing his head while hammering), plus the camera being somewhat distant, you have to go a little out of your way to see it. I myself legit didn't notice this was happening until someone pointed it out to me a long time ago.

OTOH, Bethesda makes games where you see everything up close in First Person view, and in Oblivion they even took control of your camera to do gigantic, centered closeup of their abominations. Cyrodiil absolutely needs burqas. I'd rather look at the equivalent of a trash bag than those faces.

I don't except excuses for having technology worse than a ps2 game.

This is the difference between appreciating good art and being a graphics whore, and why games from 30 years ago can still look good today.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

It looked like total shit for "its time" too.

Now you're being an edgelord.

Screenshots from a review from when the game released (so no higher resolution texture pack which bethesda themselves released, no mods or any fuckery guaranteed)
...
Beautiful for its time, uh? this was 2011. Aside from DS1 which LS mentioned, Mass Effect 2 also released in that same timeframe.
...

Thanks for establishing that release-version Skyrim didn't look anywhere near as terrible as Mass Effect 2.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

When interacting with Soulsborne players it is vital to learn how to ignore the type of players who want to artificially inflate the perceived size of their genitalia by forcing others to play the games "the right way".
But it is a good idea to learn the boss moves first before summoning help, and using help only when you actually struggle and need help.

Terrible advice.

Beating the game without mastering it is a pointless exercise. You might as well not play it at all. Taking the easy way is permissible but it ought to be a last resort and the idea is that there's always next time. If you aren't growing as a player you are playing FromSoft games wrong and shouldn't bother.

This was my whole reasoning for him playing the earlier games. Demon's Souls is much easier than Elden Ring imo (if you're not cheesing shit) but it's the perfect learning tool in terms of how to navigate a FS environment, predicting enemy placement + traps, finding hidden items, and getting into the ebb and flow of Souls combat.

 

[Skinwalker]

Whatever you mean by "mastered"

SL1, no equipment, no spells, no rolling, no consumables, final destination

Says who? I played as a pyromancer in my first playthrough of DS3. Well, I started as a Deprived, but discovered the Pyromancer in Undead Village and after that wielded a sword in one hand and fireballs in the left. And I foolishly played with mouse and keyboard, because of how deeply anti-consoletard I was at that time, lul.

The only parts of the game that felt punishingly difficult at that time was 1. Iudex Gundyr (tutorial boss), until I figured out that I need to have patience and play it slow and careful, and 2. Twin Princes (penultimate boss) because I relied too much on pyromancy and the "teleports behind you" guy was throwing off my aim.

I had played DS1 prior to that, but abandoned it somewhere in Lost Izalith. It may have been the infamous Bed of Chaos boss battle, but this is already pretty far into the game, and I wouldn't have played as much as that if I found it punishingly difficult most of the time. Of course, I had later returned to DS1 remastered and played the whole game to the end. With a basic greatsword, iirc.

Get gut, scrub, lol.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

The only parts of the game that felt punishingly difficult at that time was 1. Iudex Gundyr (tutorial boss), until I figured out that I need to have patience and play it slow and careful

That's funny. I've always had an easier time being super aggressive towards him. The longer you let the fight go on the tougher he gets. I usually have him almost dead by the time he does his transformation.

 

[Skinwalker]

From are so lazy they can't even animate character's mouths when they talk