The typical Souls fanbase sentiment is alive and well I see. Zero criticism or dissenting opinions allowed. But don't make a separate thread to voice complaints either. Just unanimous praise or it's the user's fault 100% of the time.
Oh, come on dude. I say this as someone who genuinely appreciates you as a member of Gaf but you gotta get over whatever hang-ups you have about the difficulty.
I've said it numerous times, I don't think the game is the GOAT, or flawless, I'm not even that blown away by it, just feels like a Dark Souls game with open world aspects. The game doesn't need to be made easier though and I say that as someone who has never beat a Souls game. I'm honestly not that great at them, I'm just aware of what I'm getting myself into when I play these games and I accept it and try to embrace it as best I can.
Elden Ring affords so many opportunities to just explore at your leisure and it's insanely forgiving with the check point system. I honestly think it's kind of easy due to the ease in exploration, the horse mechanic, and summoning system. Prior Souls games forced you to take on the same areas ad nauseam, Elden Ring allows you to just completely skip on them and go level up somewhere else.
If you're playing on PC and having issues, yea, I totally empathize with that but if your main issue is the difficulty, find something else to do in the game. The map is massive and for me so far, there are always enemies in each area that can be taken out with ease and massive ones that are easily avoided.
The difficulty to me is one of the best aspects of the Souls series. There are so many people playing right now and seeing the messages in the game, the traces of other players, the bloodstains, it's like a collective experience we're all going through, and I think it's brilliant that we're all experiencing the same type of base level gameplay. I think it's super special to be a part of that at launch.
Will I beat the game? I dunno. I might reach a point where it's too difficult and I move on to something else. I'm still gonna appreciate the time I put into it though and when my buddy tells me 3 months from now that he platinumed the game, I'll look back on my experience with Elden Ring and instantly know how impressive it is for someone to fully complete the game. Having an easy mode or other ease of use features would take away from what makes these games unique. If at some point From Software wants to put in difficulty options, so be it, I wouldn't complain. But at the same time, I'm not gonna call for the game to be made easier, it just doesn't hold water for me and I don't think it's necessary at all.