You can do all the story alone. It’s like 100-200h of gameplay without even touching side content. Some spent 1000h+ on free trial without this last expansion.

However there is some limitations for trial account : you cannot whisper, access auction house, join guild, etc. Theses limitations are mostly done to avoid bots using free trial.

EDIT: I missly undervote you, it’s fixed : sorry for that ! FF14 is wonderful if you like FF universes. It may have some of the best plots and villains of all games! Don’t be afraid by the “online” aspect, main quest is really like a classical RPG. And it’s free so give it a try.

Root have exactly the same issues than Discord, except their are too small to have to add face recognition (for now as it’s trending). It’s closed source, non selfhostable, not encrypted, not federated. If you don’t care about all of this, then Discord still the best choice.

https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/146

There is mod to make the game easier, even dumb easy. However, difficulty is also a part of this kind of game. My recommendation is just to play the game and enjoy ! If game is too hard, just go elsewhere : game is designed this way. Don’t be afraid to farm levels, to summon other player to help you, try different weapon/build or even to start again with a different starting class. You’ll be shocked by how much of the map is explorable without having to hit a single boss !

Reminder OpenMW is a(n awesome) project with bigger potential than any TES remake. And not a single word about it in this article…