Microblog Memes

Fair point! I actually love this suggestion, rethinking more ways to make the game easier without breaking the core experience.

I don't think From Soft is totally languishing in this department, the games include an increasing amount of ways to make the game easier, such as Elden Ring introducing summons, an open world you can tackle in any order (although this falls off post-Morgott, as does the game overall imo).

But you're right, I'd love to see them potentially dabble with things like dynamic difficulty to create something that simultaneously better challenges experienced veterans and eases the ride for newer players. Or at least something to keep bosses you missed in the open world format somewhat interesting when you find them later. I don't think they're done iterating here, and I expect them to continue to improve at accommodating more players, without violating their other design goals.

I also agree there's some worrying trends in the design, as From Soft struggles to find ways to challenge their most diehard fans. Malenia's waterfowl dance, for example, which requires odd specific movement to dodge that's impractical to learn organically. Or her moves where she simply cannot be staggered, breaking expectations in a confusing way. In general as well, the games have trended towards being faster and requiring more "reactionary" play, and I do miss the more methodical combat of DS1, when the game was much less twitchy and more about carefully planning your moves.

I'm not sure I agree that From Soft has stopped being experimental though, Sekiro was a complete departure right before Elden Ring, as was returning to Armored Core for the first time in a decade right after. Elden Ring also dabbles in an interesting blend of mechanics. Transitioning to an Open World is a massive and obvious one, but I'm also happy to see powerstancing back, interesting new weapon arts, the physick flask is a great new system, horseback combat on Torrent, and stuff like charged attacks and posture similar to Sekiro. Not perfect, by any means, I actually find the balancing of this wealth of mechanics and build options to be pretty shaky, but it's far from a boring +1 iteration that doesn't try anything.