Can you make Elden Ring easier or harder? Well, in FromSoftware games, there’s no option to change difficulty in Elden Ring. Everyone plays at the same difficulty and when you speak of Soulsborne games, a high level of challenge is a given. Due to this, it has a niche but loyal audience.
Many love the process – feeling the pain of losing over and over again to a boss, devising a new strategy that will eventually take down the foe, and feeling immense exhilaration at that point. But Elden Ring is hugely popular now and that’s got the attention of a whole new set of audiences. A lot of new players have bought the game to find out why Elden Ring has such hype only to find out that the challenge is something they don’t like.
It all depends on how you play, what’s your class and how your build helps you out. But there are a few things you can do to make you feel like you are playing at an easier or more challenging difficulty.
How to Make Elden Ring Easier
Let’s take a look at the question that will be on the minds of a majority of non-soulsborne players first.
Make Elden Ring Easier by:
- Using the best builds.
- Using Stealth to evade and escape.
- Trying tricks and special paths.
- Summon players for help.
Check out some of the Best Builds you can Use
If you are not sure what is going to make you more powerful, be sure to look for the best build guides and create a build according to that. Elden Ring is a huge game and can be overwhelming at first. Don’t be disappointed, because everyone is going to keep dying when they fight enemies/bosses. But if you carefully plan out which class you prefer to play with and which stats to increase – you will end up dying less often and progress relatively faster.
Study all the classes before you select one and find out which has better HP, better attacks and more. If you feel like you want to choose one of the easiest classes, here’s a guide on the best starting class for beginners. There’s something for all playstyles – melee, ranged or a mix of both. If you are not familiar with parrying or haven’t quite mastered it yet, try making your character a master of ranged attacks (magic or archer).
Use Stealth – Evade & Escape When Required
It’s not compulsory to take on every enemy you see. You can move around stealthily and avoid a lot of opponents to unlock a map, collect Runes etc. Hide in the tall grasses, crouch to evade and you will end up covering a considerable distance without actually killing every enemy. You can sneak and distract your foes with throwable items and sprint away from dangerous situations.
Plus, your trusty horse will come in handy whenever a boss is on your tail. Sometimes, you can collect the items and escape – the enemies will chase you but not for long. Keep leveling up and collecting helpful items until you are ready to go back to the previous location in the open world and kill the enemy (such as the Tree Sentinel).
Use Tricks and Special Paths
Many YouTubers and streamers have found unique tricks and exploits to instantly farm thousands of Runes early, craft powerful items, make your character OP fast, and more. A few players have even completed the game by speedrunning it! So, what you can do is watch their videos, follow their footsteps, put in your Runes to boost the appropriate stats and voilà, you will be able to beat the game with comparatively lesser effort.
Summon Players to Make Elden Ring Easier
If you are playing online, one of the best things you can do is summon other players to assist you in defeating a boss. The difficulty of the enemy does not scale up if you bring cooperators for help. Keep in mind, though, that playing online means you can get invaded by enemies too.
This is everything you can do to make Elden Ring easier, but if you want to really feel like a God, you can try a trainer or mod. But it comes at a risk of players getting banned, even if they play offline, but it’s not confirmed by FromSoftware yet. Trainers will give you unlimited health, attack power and lots of boosts which will make Elden Ring a cakewalk.
How to Make Elden Ring Harder?
Elden Ring is familiar territory for fans of the Souls genre. For the set of players who wish to make Elden Ring even harder than it already is, try this to give yourself a tougher challenge:
Take on Bosses without Leveling up
This can be a good self-imposed challenge where you are forced to think of new strategies to kill the opponent without leveling up too much.
Play NG+
NG+ mode makes the enemies harder to beat (they have more health and deal higher damage in one strike). But, the rewards you get from defeating them are more. You can unlock New Game+ after beating the final boss and finishing the credits. For this, you need to get to Roundtable Hold, rest at the Site of Grace and select the option to Begin Journey 2.
Try a Different Class
If you have already mastered a certain class – say a Magic class, then start a new game with a Melee-based class. Try a new class that you are not comfortable with or haven’t used before and there’s your challenge.
Try Different Weapons and Builds
The replayability of Elden Ring is great – you can use new weapons that you didn’t choose the last time around and make an entirely different build this time.
Restrict the Use of Flasks
Elden Ring is already less forgiving in terms of health. You can level up the challenge even more by restricting the use of Flasks or not using them at all.
Don’t Use Summons
Take on every opponent – big or small – solo and beat the game.
That’s all about how to make Elden Ring easier or harder – hope it helped! For more Elden Ring coverage, be sure to check out our dedicated section.