Games

I guess it depends on which weapons you enjoy using, but the fact that there's such a big skill discrepancy between entire weapon categories is in itself a pretty big stain on Elden Ring's claim to be an RPG.

They're fundamentally different play styles. Difficult to you doesn't mean that that's what's most difficult for someone else. You engage from different spacing, move differently, and pace your attacks differently. When most of the difficulty from combat is about learning what gaps you can exploit and how to protect yourself against different enemies with different attack patterns, that difficulty is going to vary heavily based on what your previous experiences are and how you intuitively understand the concepts. It's what "git gud" actually means. FromSoft games force you to learn the mechanics of the combat, and calling strength based sword "harder" than a magic build is mostly about what style clicks better with you personally.

Gameplay wise, FromSoft games are as pure ARPG as it gets. Stats matter a lot and the combination of stats and gear fundamentally changes the optimal approach to encounters. Most RPGs have higher and lower barrier to entry classes, and most RPGs have variation in skill floor and skill ceiling of different types. The biggest difference is that most RPGs with comparable depth don't have anywhere near the level of fidelity mechanically.

That's pretty interesting. I fully agree that builds differ a lot in terms of how much they depend on player skill in these games, and I can see how that's not necessarily a good thing - but it is rather to my point that it's part of the "difficulty settings" that I'm arguing are intrinsic to the game mechanics. You're meant to choose your own difficulty setting in this way, and I think it was a deliberate choice to make it so, and not a failure to balance everything to equality.

I still haven't beaten BB or Sekiro, but DS 1+3 were pretty doable. I admit I haven't gotten through all of ER yet, though from my experiences so far I feel that's mainly due to work and parenting being such a drag on my mental energy.

I used to power through these games in a very slow, mistake-prone fashion. I've never been what you'd call "gud" at these games, which is pretty much my point - but it's only a matter of troubleshooting the difficulty on my own terms (if I ever have free time and no burnout at the same time again, wish me luck on that).