I know this isn't the hottest take out there but playing Elden Ring and watching videos about Souls games has gotten this back on my mind.
The Souls community can be really awesome. The Souls community also has a really obnoxious faction who are fucking obessed with the idea that there is ONE PROPER WAY to play any of these games and if you didn't play the way they think you should be playing, you really didn't play/beat the game and you're a fucking casual or something. Also the idea that anything FROM does that runs counter to their preferred playstyle will herald the doom of FROM and SOULS to them.
These include but not limited to:
-Using Magic.
-Using the terrain.
-Using poison.
-Using grenades.
-Using NPC summons/Spirit Ashes.
-Using Co-op.
-Using OP weapons.
-Using OP armor(haveldad, grass crest shield, etc)
-Using weapons the boss is weak to(Again, Poison,etc).
Keep in mind these are all things the game provides to help you play and win, but it feels like to some people that the "PROPER" souls experience is Solo, Melee, no magic, no AI help, No specing for boss weaknesses, etc and because that's the way they play, that's the only way to play and they get fucking mad if you're not doing it the same way because apparently no else else is allowed to have an easier time then they did. I've legit argued with people who said I was cheating myself out of the Souls experience because I "didn't see the bosses entire moveset", whatever the fuck that means.
In particular, it's been notable in the ER playbase where using Spirirt summons(especially the Mimic Tear) is some kind of goddamn heresy. Dude, I've been playing these games since DS1. I've beaten a great majority of the bosses(excluding DS2 because DS2 has a lot of BS extra bosses I don't fucking care about), Dark Souls 1 had a lot of boss encounters were it felt reasonable to take on a boss 1 vs 1 and feel like an amazing epic battle, but I'm long past the point where I'm really to call in help so I don't spend 8 hours bagning my head againest 1 of 100 fucking bosses/mini-bosses in this game because my reflexes just aren't fast enough to deal with thier crazy shit anymore and I'm gonna bring ever fucking edge I can. If that means rolling 4 deep with crazy bleed and rot weapons, that's what we're fucking doing. And honestly, I'm gonna admit, I like co-oping in these games. It feels a lot more interesting to try to work with some random guy on some way to take down some fucking dragon in a way we both survive the encounter and see how the whole thing plays out.
Also, there's the whole thing where these games depict a world where everything has gone to shit, everyone is out to kill you(and notably only you), enemies get to pull whatever they want, but somehow only you are expected to act with "honor" by....not bringing friends, not using every tool in your toolbox, etc because....something something the poor boss AI can't handle 2 fucking targets something something you're not being fair to it(But it's okay if the Boss does it to you).