True, The other Souls games are light years behind Elden Ring in this respect.
But I think Elden Ring is much more flexible than it might seem, with the ashes of war, you can try 80% of the weapons even without respec.
Also even if useless weapons exist in Elden Ring too they are much less than in NRFTW.
Also in Elden Ring the main thing that determines the damage is the level of the weapon, so as long as you have the minimum stats to wield it and the weapon is of an adequate level everything is fine, especially in the first part of the game, and in the mid game it is really difficult that you have not already found the respec.
Also in Elden Ring you can freely choose the armor you want the only limitation is the weight.
The materials for upgrading weapons are clear and intuitive, and if you look carefully you’ll find the Smithing-Stone Bell Bearings.
And as I said, the attribute system is problematic, and the new class system is much cooler.
But the attribute system is not the main problem that holds back customization!
To fix most of the problems the attribute system causes to customization, just replace Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Faith with “damage” and the problems will go away (obviously the problems it causes to the balance remain and therefore it makes sense that the system is reworked).
I talk about The things that are really hurting customization in NRFTW here:
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The RNG Problem, Enchantment System & Gem System “TOGETHER” (BETA)
(and you obviously already know my criticism about it)
Even after the class system is added, I don’t think NRFTW will surpass Elden Ring in terms of customization until these issues I mentioned are resolved, until they are fixed even with the class system, customization will be stuck behind the grind.
(Obviously Elden Ring is not a perfect game, if I had to criticize it I would have to write the same amount of topics that I wrote for NRFTW xD)
I swear before I wrote what I wrote I reread it several times but I have never seen that sentence, dyslexia strikes again.
If you don’t mind, you could separate the sentence from the others so it isn’t in the middle of the paragraph and is more difficult to miss.