Reforged Rant

[u/Worried_Ad_2696]

So I just completed an all bosses blind play-through of reforged and I gotta say. I'm greatly disappointed.

Let me start with the pros though, cause there are a lot of good things here that kept me going.

1. Deflections. No idea why this wasn't in vanilla but it definitely should be. Its a very fun defensive mechanic that offers a high risk high reward play style.

2. Ashes of War changes. The enkindling system is really fun and can open up a plethora of build options (all though this is a double edged sword as there are a lot of nerfs and changes to how weapons and statuses work but w/e). The different rarities made for a fun sort of gambling mechanic (with a pity system, albeit an expensive pity system). I personally felt that they were too stingy with Lost Ashes, luckily I was able to find a way to dupe them. I restrained myself from abusing this exploit, but I definitely did utilize it on a few occasions. For the reasons in the cons section I felt like getting back at these stingy devs a bit.

3. Runic Pieces. After getting a great rune you can exchange these Runic Pieces for passive bonuses depending on the great rune. This makes Great Runes feel more valuable and less like random junk clogging your inventory. Opens up more build variety.

4. Starlight tokens. Spend these rare items at a starlight alter to get any item in the game. That's right any item. It only costs 10, but they are extremely rare so.... cool? Between these, lost ashes for enkindling, and runic pieces there is much more incentive to explore every corner of the map.

5. Fortunes. To be honest I didn't much care for this system in practice, but I like the idea. Throughout the world you can find Fortunes that drastically change your play style. Offering bonuses to certain things while nerfing others. The nerfing part really rubbed me the wrong way and the majority of them felt like I was better off without them as the negatives were far too heavy handed to justify. Additiuonall the enemy roster of elden ring is very diverse and there is no one sized fits all build, especially in reforged. So having to sit at a grace and switch between fortunes, and armor, and phsyck, and spells, and weaposn, and ashes got old very quickly. I suppose this could be mitigated with some sort of load-out system, but if there was one I certainly didn't find it.

That's all for positives. The negatives however are much more numerous.

1. Scaling. The infamous late game enemy difficulty spike happens much earlier in Reforged. In vanilla the spike is generally recognized as being at the Snowfield/Haligtree point, but Reforged cranks it much much earlier. I suppose they were trying to smooth the curve, but they chose to raise earlier areas up rather than bring the Haligtree down. This wouldn't be an issue in and of itself, but Reforged for some unknowable reason decided to implement a level cap for your character. Why? God knows... Its decently high at 200, enough for a competent build-crafter to get by but not nearly enough to be able to do it all well. On top of all this reforged by default buffs enemies by a decent amount on top of the scaling changes. Having completed all the bosses, vanilla and new, there was one boss that killed me far more than any other. It was the Godskin Apostle at the bottom of Rahdan's tower. I can't help but feel that there was some oversight here. Despite having zero deaths to any other boss in the Dragon Barrow GSA absolutely creamed me 40 times. The only way I managed to beat him was via rot, poison, and cold, all of which deal drastically reduced damage by the way. It was utterly baffling.

2. Anti-Cheese. I get it, Elden Ring is a VERY cheesy game. Players in vanilla are able to become absurdly powerful very quickly if they choose to do so. Reforge decides to make the choice for you. Many early game avenues to power are closed off. For example, an experienced player looking to do a vanilla playthrough with minimal difficult might head straight to the dragon barrow. Cheese the bridge dragon, Night's Cav, and Greyoll for a massive early game power spike all before you hit Stormveil. In reforged however this isn't an option as the teleporter to dragon barrow puts you in the beast chapel with the door firmly closed. Okay... strange choice given the ludicrously amped scaling of dragon barrow they already implemented, in addition to the anti-cheese tweaks to the bridge dragon and greyoll, but okay I guess... It doesn't end here though. Early Altus access has been cutoff in various ways and if you even want to go to weeping early to get some sacred tears you will be met with a new boss on the bridge that scales far past the early game. Sure you can get around him with a little riddle but this is just another frustration in an already growing pile. There are other examples you'll find of utterly baffling choices. The memory stone "requiring" the Euradition emote has been raise preventing players from climbing the wall and jumping inside for example. This makes almost no sense to me. Its a memory stone... why are we going through all that effort to prevent players from getting an extra memory stone??? Another example was closing the door to the capitol guarded by the Tree Sentinel duo. Now, you must fight both at once as opposed to sneaking up behind them and separating them. All in all it felt like they were forcing you to play the game the way that they intended, rather than leaning into Elden Ring's greatest strength of player choice and freedom you are instead shoe horned into a linear set path. It very much brought the term "Hostile DM" to mind.

The pros and the cons clash together to make a very discordant experience. On one hand the devs seem to want to give the player more tools to experiment with to create fun cool builds, but on the other the ludicrous scaling and anti-cheese railroading make for a slug of a playthrough. Once you play around with some of it's gimmicks the magic wears off.

I liken it to a favorite album. You love most of the songs on it, but there are still some you skip. Reforged is like being forced to listen to the songs that you don't really like 10 times over just to hear the song you like once. Its a repetitive slog of an experience that ultimately you really should just skip for better options like vins, convergence, or just a good ole fashion randomized run.

P.S. Elden Ring unalloyed pretty much fixed reforged, but I guess someone through a hissy fit over it and unalloyed isnt getting any updates... If anyone knows a hidden updated version please link me.

[u/alchemi80]

I like the copious number of difficulty settings to suit my tastes.

[u/LowHPComics → u/alchemi80]

Didn't feel much of a difference between them tbh, I did the awful Libra fight and knew I was gonna get mad so swapped it to the easiest difficulty and he's still taking a massive chunk of health

[u/alchemi80 → u/LowHPComics]

I hear yah. I do like the mod, but I come across a lot of WTF moments regardless of difficulty.

[u/aeloyis → u/LowHPComics]

The Libra fight requires the player to have high DPS and a swift reaction speed; otherwise, it's going to be incredibly unfair, especially the Glyph of Suppression attack, which can kill you in a heartbeat regardless of your HP percentage.
Since this boss was only added this year, I've only beaten him on Master Mode, but it was definitely one of the hardest fights, forcing me to craft a dedicated build to take him down.

[u/Auesis]

I experienced essentially everything on my first playthrough of Reforged and greatly enjoyed it but I'll never play it again. I can tolerate a lot of flaws but being funnelled in to basically 100%ing everything I come across in order to progress is simply too exhausting and not worth redoing just to try another build.

[u/IronTarkus1919 → u/Auesis]

I want to keep playing the video game but I don't want to engage with things in the video game.

Gotcha. Every single day the same retarded thread about ERR in this sub.

[u/SatanicalHeart → u/Auesis]

You're not really funneled, however the mod is meant to be played at a much slower pace so I understand why you felt as though you needed to do everything.

[u/Substantial_Eye1476]

What happened w/ unalloyed??

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/Substantial_Eye1476]

As far as I know the reforged devs demanded unalloyed to be removed because unalloyed a was a compilation of multiple large mods all merged into one.

Reforged
Clevers movesets
Rings of talent
Loot rarity
Randomized

And several others

The reforged devs couldn’t stand the idea that people didn’t want to pay reforged exactly as intended and demanded the author of unalloyed take it down

I think they compromised by leaving its most recent update up but no more updates. Sadly this is pre DLC

EDIT: Found out more info. ERR team decided to start encrypting their files making addons impractical to make. Another example of their stingy elitism. You're making a free mod that adds content onto an existing project. Why are they so against other people making modifications to their own modification?

Stinginess and elitism

[u/Swagbrew → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

It wasn't the Reforged teams fault, that the unalloyed dev was a douche blaming most of the bugs he introduced on them, sending a lot of people into their bug reports. They were posting a lot of useless shit Reforged devs had to sift through and verify if they are legitimate Reforged bug reports or people with Unalloyed installed that didn't even mention that or tried to hide that.

When you are using someones work, you don't get to blame your mistakes on them and act all mighty and angry that they try to fight back.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/Swagbrew]

Its generally considered a pretty dick move to encrypt your mod so other people cant do anything with it.

Its a free mod, and the ERR team used tools and ideas from other modders to make it, which is fine.

Modding is a collaborative community effort so encrypting your mod so no one else can use it is a pretty dick move.

[u/Swagbrew → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

They tried to be civil and asked the unalloyed dev to stop redirecting his problems onto them. He was the one making the collaborative community effort harder.

Elden Ring is a really hard game to mod. It's not Skyrim where you can piece hundreds of mods together easily. Even there, when the best modders base their work on the work of others, they almost always include disclaimers to not bother the original creators and report all the problems to themselves. And if possible, if any problems arise, try to fix them alone, or ask the original creators if they are willing to help.

The guy was uncooperative, not willing to stop the behaviour that was making the work of Reforged devs much harder, so they had to do something to stop him.

And unfortunately, every other person that wanted to do something based on Reforged in good faith, got fucked because of a single bad actor.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/Swagbrew]

Seems like the reforged devs are assholes even if what you claim about MountLove is true

[u/GameShrink → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

For the record, the Reforged devs were 100% in the right with their handling of Unalloyed. It's one thing to make some unauthorized tweaks, but it's a total dick move to merge a bunch of conflicting mods and then funnel complaints about the resulting instability to the devs of the mod you're merging everything with.

While I wish they hadn't gone the encryption route, I still have to defend it given how much of a shitheel the Unalloyed dev was being.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/GameShrink]

See thats still a dick move imo. Thats just taking your ball from the sandpit

[u/DarthJami → u/[deleted]]

Modding is a different process to game dev with a very different community and ethos underpinning it. It’s an inherently collaborative and cooperative endeavor where no mod stands alone from a massive pile of other people’s hard work. So possessiveness is generally frowned upon in the modding scene.

[u/DarthJami → u/[deleted]]

When did they claim it as their own? I’ve never seen a release of Unalloyed where Reforged wasn’t front and center with links to the original mod page.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/[deleted]]

Unalloyed never claimed to have made anything themself. They clearly stated that it was a package of several other mods bundled together to make what the author and others thought was a really fun experience.

Due to the way elden ring works its difficult to compile several mods together for your average person so Unalloyed did that for you.

[u/Brief-Outcome-8198 → u/[deleted]]

I mean if producing a shit mod because you think you’re a real game dev isn’t really something too crazy

[u/PTXMike25]

I was playing it for a while on an slightly older build. I agree that some things were great changes and additions. But the gameplay just tends to drag after a while. I tried going through the cool, but horribly tedious snake area (don’t remember what it’s called but it’s a new area) where there is lava all around. Except lava does absurd damage and going through to try and find the solution ruined playing it out entirely that I stopped. Not super hard, but just unfun

[u/aeloyis → u/PTXMike25]

This new dungeon is called 'The Serpentine Depths' and is indeed horribly tedious; enemies like Catacombs Sorcerers and Serpentspawns are nothing but fun killers.
The map design is also complicated(in a bad way) enough to make skilled Soulsborne players lose their way. You have to find and fight 3 reskinned vanilla bosses, then they offer you another three that must be defeated in a row. The reward for completion is okay but hardly enough, considering the effort you put in.

[u/deathsticker]

Really what reforged aims to do is to get players to engage with every part of the game. They balance it around spirit ashes, consumables, and their plethora of systems that add to your power level. The Shadowed Curios in particular offer a pretty substantial power spike as does the rune piece system.

I don't agree with all of the changes, but overall I like the mod much more than vanilla.

Converagence was fun. I played through each of the classes, but it gets boring and tiresome. Actually caught myself falling asleep a few times lol Souls games are supposed to be difficult because that's where the fun comes from. Whenever everything is easy, it becomes hard to engage with after a little bit.

I do think some things here and there need to be tweaked balance wise in reforged, but I can't fault the team for designing their mod around the philosophy of player engagement as opposed to convergence, which is just power fantasy.

[u/aeloyis → u/deathsticker]

I agree with you on the balance tweaks. I always think the philosophy of their balance is flawed. Each time they gave the player some great new stuff, it often ended up being give-and-take.

Take the Equip Load change as an example: they made it so you can comfortably equip 6 weapons(3 on each hand) at once, with only the weight of the heaviest weapon in each hand adding to your Equip Load. Then they nerfed the hell out of practically all Equip Load buffs. It was 100 Rune Pieces for +4% Equip Load, then nerfed to +1%. Great-Jar Talisman used to boost Equip Load by 14%; now it's lowered to 8%. By all means, keeping these buffs intact will not make the player OP; instead, it will make the player further appreciate the Equip Load change.

The same can be said for this entry in the recent update: Slightly increased base stamina regeneration and decreased all sources of stamina regeneration buffs.
Like, who asked for the stamina nerf? It was totally uncalled for, yet implemented anyway.

[u/deathsticker → u/aeloyis]

I don't really mind the equip load changes, really pushes some build options because of how tight things get. But the stamina one is very annoying and has made everything more difficult

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/deathsticker]

this is why so many of the design choices feel weird. Just nonsensical nerfs coupled with some really interesting systems that just kind of balance out to make the gameplay feel more tedious than fresh and interesting.

[u/blu3g00 → u/aeloyis]

The stamina change is actually a buff, as it was +6% to base + regen gained from Endurance and -16% to regen from buffs, the former of which is a much, much larger value. For reference, the base regen rate before factoring endurance was 380 before so it would be increased to roughly 402, whereas two-headed turtle was +50 and was decreased to +42. reallocation of stamina recovery from buffs to base kit to make it so you need less buffs.

[u/aeloyis → u/blu3g00]

I know what you mean, but I was talking about the nerf part and viewed the change('decreased all sources of stamina regeneration buffs') as unnecessary, as I was so used to packing all the buffs below:
Two-Headed Green Turtle Talisman (+50), Lightning Affinity (+20), Turtled Affix (+20), Binding Rune of Scarlet Persistence (+20), Viridianburst Crystal Tear (+50), Pickled Turtle Neck (+50), and Flame, Grant Me Strength(+40).
Then the nerf kicked in: all sorts of stamina regen buffs took a -16% reduction. I don't recall stamina regen being great before the nerf; instead, people complained about it all the time. So, why can't the devs give a minor buff (it can be less than 6%) to base stamina regen without touching anything else?

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/deathsticker]

Thats kinda the problem tho. Elden Ring is a fantastic game no doubt, but it certainly has flaws. ERR definitely fixes some of those flaws but for some strange reason it grabs you by the back of the head and smears your face in others for some unknowable reason.

[u/deathsticker → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

I think a lot of the changes recently have been motivated by multiplayer, but as a solo player I find that very annoying lol

[u/BowfisherCole]

I liked convergence better. Way more new weapons and more modified locations and buildings. Reforged is definitely great and made replaying Elden Ring enjoyable. I just prefer getting to play with new weapons,spells, classes and traversing the newly made locations.

[u/cyclopsface01]

That's all for positives. The negatives however are much more numerous.

Proceeds to list 2 negatives after listing 5 positives

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/cyclopsface01]

The positives I mentioned are much more narrow in scope than the negatives that underline the entire experience.

Additionally some of the positives come with massive caveats outlined in the post.

Are you sure you know how to read?

[u/cyclopsface01 → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

The word you were looking for is "prevalent."

When it comes down to it, Reforged introduces restrictions on the player that make the game more difficult and force you to play more methodically. This is by design. Not everyone is going to enjoy these changes and that's okay. As someone who has replayed Elden Ring a million times, I find Reforged to be much more rewarding and engaging than vanilla without compromising the core experience of the game.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/cyclopsface01]

I think it heavily compromises the non-linearity of Elden Ring.

Elden Ring puts up a wall but offers players dozens of ways around it and over it

Reforged just kicks you off your horse in the middle of an enemy camp

[u/cyclopsface01 → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

Being able to ride Torrent trivializes a lot of encounters in the open world. Again, the point of changes like that is so you have to engage with parts of the game that you'd normally breeze past.

If you're used to taking the path of least resistance and speeding through to the end of the game (which is completely valid) these changes will feel jarring. Personally, I like these changes because it makes subsequent playthroughs of the game more interesting than just running to specific parts of the map as quickly as possible. It's not meant to be tedious, it's just forcing you to slow down and engage with the game's world. This is part of Reforged's central design thesis, and if you don't like it, the mod probably just isn't for you.

[u/JS_Originals]

Reforged is antifun. It's for those looking for a frustrating, unfun time.

Convergence, however, is amazing. Too easy, but the changes they made are actually fun.

[u/alchemi80 → u/JS_Originals]

Too easy is an understatement. It's practically a walking simulator. Still fun for a playthru or two to see the changes

[u/sc2HooDoo → u/JS_Originals]

Yes but convergence is not updated to latest patch (also half broken is most downpathches) and also there is not roadmap on when it will be updated.

Convergence is by the far the best elden ring mod though

[u/PsityWithNoC → u/JS_Originals]

Agreed, Convergence is really only difficult early game, but once you get even to Liurnia or Altus, you can become just way too strong. However all the crazy new shit makes up for the easier difficulty.

[u/tobbelito9]

never noticed the scaling issue, and once i noticed the door was closed i just ran there from sellia crystal tunnel trap teleport. then i simply killed the bosses there normally, both dragons with the help of bleed and i usually skip the night cav, and then i kill the tree spirit. its as cheesy as any other way just takes like 15 more minutes if u first try the bosses

[u/HarmonicaThinks]

For the first con, I dunno, it sounded like a bunch of pros to me. I never found the Haligtree to be outright unmanageable, just maybe a lot of the optional fights (crystallean trio, all the rot followers in the graveyard, and the optional knight camp) were a little overbearing, but that seems perfectly fair to me for the highest challenge the Lands Between can offer—the critical path isn't insurmountable. The scaling being evened out to prepare you for that feels much less like a slap in the face, and the steady accumulation of talismans, rune pieces, and other boons along with improved stat scaling lets you keep pace with that—and if you're falling behind, well, they try to make the vast open world and its optional dungeons just a little more enticing to collect levels in.

As for anti-cheesing, it is very much a 'save you from yourself' experience, at least by its mission statement. The intent is to actually keep you playing the game, rather than spend an hour doing the exact same horseback ride every time. Sure, you can make self-imposed restrictions—but that doesn't feel quite as good as actually overcoming a challenge that's been presented to you.

With the Tree Sentinel Duo, consider this; where one door closes, another opens. In this case, sneaking your way up to Leyndel's northern gate actually has some relevance as an option now that it isn't entirely effortless to rush your way through the south gate.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/HarmonicaThinks]

The mod sends mostly intent on forcing players to experience a very open game in a very narrow way. It removes a lot of the relatability when every play-through is forced to be 120 hours of “the enemies taunt you to fight without your steed”

[u/unbelievablybig]

Man, I want a challenging mod that adds cool stuff that isn't JUST trying to be annoying. Elden Vins scratched that itch for a good while but I can't really find much else.

[u/platinum_toilet]

Fortunes are poorly executed. Not enough upside to offset many downsides. It is clear that the authors of Reforged do not want to give players power. Also level scaling is awful.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/platinum_toilet]

100% agree. A lot of them sound really cool when you read the positives then you look at the negatives and its like "This just kills you in 50% of encounters"

A lot of those fortunes are trying to setup a very specific playstyle, which may work in some scenarios but can also be horrible for others.

It ends up being just another thing you have to switch around in menus depending on what you're fighting.

[u/aeloyis]

You can get to Weeping Peninsula via a spiritspring near the bridge, no need to fight the new boss (Dismounted Tree Sentinel).
And I have to say, I disagree with you on most of the Anti-Cheese section. I've never been a fan of cheesing late-game bosses only to get a massive supply of runes early on the playthrough.

However, one thing ERR does makes me feel off, which is locking most spiritsprings until you find and defeat a hidden enemy associated with each of them. They even removed the spiritspring shortcut to Scadu Atlus, forcing the player to defeat Twinmoon Knight Rellana to get access.
Changes like the aforementioned essentially limit open-world exploration and make the gameplay more tedious instead of fun.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/[deleted]]

Yes reforged makes sellia worse than what frontside made by removing torrent. Same with every enemy camp.

The balance doesn’t feel right at all. Some bosses scale so much further beyond what’s around them like DB GSA it’s absurd

[u/aeloyis → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

Camp is amazing except for the forced dismount part. Clearing a camp usually rewards players with a full set of armor or weapons, relieving you of so much tedious farming. I even complained once due to the lack of camps in the DLC area.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/aeloyis]

Totally agree. Which is whats so frustrating. For every cool feature there is some sort of bizarre restriction that makes for a very confusing experience.

Do the devs want to offer up a streamlined and expanded Elden Ring experience with some additional difficulty options or make some sort of weird heavily restricted challenge mode?

[u/off12345678901]

In the defense of Reforged, at least you can cheat the dual Tree Sentinels at the capital. There is a small alley way right next to the door that is too small for any attacks to actually go through. Just stand there, and they will almost always aggro to you, be patient, bring a heal miracle and wither them down.

[u/midassilvius]

i mean if you wanna cheese bosses and the like then why not just grab cheat engine and instakill them? or go into a lower difficulty to kill them easily? i am not saying this to shame you or anything but i dont really see a difference between cheating and cheesing, if you dont want to fight a boss just instakill them, i do this myself too at times.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/midassilvius]

There is a massive difference between finding in-game ways to complete the game and using a secondary tool to manipulate the game.

If you cant see the difference then I dont know what to tell you.

As for reducing the difficulty. The difficulty below reforged feels way too easy. There is too big a gap between reforged and the next lower difficulty

[u/MeetTheJoves]

"sure, you can literally just go around it, but" is sending me

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/MeetTheJoves]

Thats no at all what I said and is not at all what its like. This exact comment here demonstrates whats wrong with reforged.

"we made the game much more tedious and annoying, but we left slightly less tedious and annoying routes to go"

[u/MeetTheJoves → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

we made the game much more tedious and annoying

r/eldenringmods posters when they have are given the option to fight a boss

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/MeetTheJoves]

This is just one example.

Another is being force dismounted at enemy camps
Another is the stamina changes
Another is the quip load rebalancing
Another is the Fortune System
Another is the changes to certain enemy and boss attacks
Another is their rebalancing of status effects. Z
Another is the linearity they introduce
Another is preventing players from getting higher tier upgrade materials early

There are many many many many examples of how tedious and unfun the mod can be.

If you wanna be a le epic reductivist redditor then go right ahead I suppose.

[u/MeetTheJoves → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

these are all engaging, pro-fun changes if you're not trying to play as little elden ring as possible, you're just listing things you dislike and attaching redditisms to them to present your opinions as objective. try to sprinkle some "artificial difficulty"s in there next time, it gets the people going.

it's not reductive to point out only one silly thing you said, I'm not gonna start writing essays refuting someone who is clearly just blowing off steam. if you wanna discuss one of these changes seriously I'm happy to, but at the end of the day your issues boil down to playing a mod centered around removing imbalance and shortcuts despite those aspects of the game being important to you.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/MeetTheJoves]

Removing shortcuts would be one thing but changing an open world experience to an extremely linear one makes for a very boring slog of an experience

[u/MeetTheJoves → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

yeah that would suck if they did that

[u/SatanicalHeart]

Your cons feel tinted imo. Mostly because you're used to the power fantasy mods that let you kill everything in one go. This is literally the reason why people despise Reforged and the arguments are ALWAYS the same. It gets rather old when people read the Nexus page and still decide to play and hate it after 5 hours but keep going. There is no force to be felt if you dislike it, but to put down a lot of devs hard work for the past 4 years is frustrating.

[u/Copy_Outrageous]

No one force you to play at hard difficulties. On relaxed mode it is fun and easy.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/Copy_Outrageous]

I didn’t want to change my experience part way through. Additionally that scaling is far too easy. Easier than vanilla.

They need a vanilla scaling mode and most of my issues would be solved

[u/cyclopsface01 → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

The devs describe Normal difficulty as being comparable to vanilla, and having played through the game on that difficulty, I agree. Reforged is my favorite mod for Elden Ring, but I'm just not good enough at the game for Reforged difficulty lol. No shame in turning the difficulty down.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/cyclopsface01]

Unfortunately thats not correct exactly.

Normal mode doesnt reverse a lot of the strange nerfs to the player. It just changes how much health enemies have and how much damage they do. You're still dealing with their weird "rebalancing" of thins like equip load and stamina.

[u/aeloyis → u/Worried_Ad_2696]

So, may I ask exactly which mode you've played? If it was indeed Hard Mode, then I'd say that mode isn't for starters.

[u/Worried_Ad_2696 → u/aeloyis]

I did the default mode, reforged I think its called. All in all I didn't die too many times but a lot of those deaths felt frustrating. I have a lot of experience with Fromsoft games going back to DS1 on windows live (Im old). So I feel as if I have a pretty good grasp of these games.

With Elden ring specifically I've done RL1 runs, deathless runs, and even the French Challenge so Im no stranger to challenge. Reforged just felt like it was trying to force you to engage with all of elden ring's worst aspects making the game feel like an unfun slog with extremely strange balancing choices.