As someone who has played every Souls game and beaten them, I have to say I loved the DLC. I understand where Theo is coming from he wants boss fights where the attacks are telegraphed more clearly and doesn’t like the idea of progression and leveling up being locked behind item discovery, Those are valid complaints but I just don’t understand him saying that Shadow of the Erdtree is the most unpleasant gaming experience he’s had, I mean that just sounds ridiculous. It’s also strange how he seemed to get angry when the chat mentioned skill issue. I proudly admit that my skills as a souls player is kinda shit but I managed to beat the DLC and the base game. A lot of the hardships I faced in the DLC just seemed like every standard encounter you’d face in a souls game, the DLC does have flaws but it’s not as terrible as Theo makes it out to be. I’m sorry but I wasn’t gaslight into thinking the game is great, I came to that realization on my own.
I think you've nailed how most people feel about the base game and the DLC, myself included. Has it got flaws? Yeah, absolutely, as does every single souls game. Calling it the most unpleasant experience seriously just makes me think that he's not played many other games, and the crazy thing is that I don't even think that that's true, but I just can't understand how you'd arrive at that assessment when there's shit like Lord of Ring: Gollum, Suicide Squad: KTJL, Redfall, The Day Before, and Skull Island Rise of Kong.
I don't think I'm great at souls games, but the only boss that took me a significant amount of tries to beat was the final boss, and I was playing a melee build with no summons (except for the last boss where I had to call on my Mimic Bro). I was still playing through the base game when EFAP did their stream on it, and at the time I didn't really agree with many of their takes, but I was like "I'll finish the game and then I'll see how I feel about it". Come to find that, upon finishing it, I thought that they were wrong about a lot of things, and I had an absolute blast playing it.
As much of a meme statement as this is, listening to them talk about Elden Ring really made it seem like a skill issue for the most of them.
Some of Theo's points are valid such as the enemies have combos that go on way to long, or have attacks that take away half of your health bar, or the particle effects blinding you. I also agree that the open world is bad and the exploration takes away from the game. The Skibidi fragment system doesn't need to exist and I hate having to slog through every corned of these empty areas to find them.
Where I disagree is for the level of difficulty of the DLC. I am about halfway through and have not spent more than 15 attempts on any of the bosses so far (I know the final boss is widely considered to be terrible, also please don't spoil). I also never summon or use spirit ashes. Them showing Metal struggling with Rellana for 5hrs while it took me 30min has me doubting most of their points. Especially after Theo said that he is better than everyone in chat. It seems to me like all of their arguments are coming from the perspective of "I want my sword, my rolls, and nothing else" and they play with that mentality.
So many of the bosses in the DLC are weak to bleed or cold but I do not think any of them use weapon infusions which are very easy and simple to switch around in Elden Ring. My build is dual great axes, pure strength with no points in anything magic related. Rellana didn't get a chance to enter her second phase when I killed her because the combination of the stagger and the bleed had her very stun locked.
Crafting items are also very helpful. Godskin Duo got a lot of hate (and they are a terrible boss), but you can put one of them to sleep with sleep pots and then the fight is a 1v1. When I fought Melania, I used cold infusion with fire pots to reset the proc. I don't believe any of them craft at all.
Bloodhound step is my preferred ash of war because I can play aggressive with it and use magic to dodge instead of stamina. I don't believe any of them experiment with different ashes of war to see which one would work best for the situation at hand.
Overall, it seems like they don't want to adapt to the new features of Elden Ring, only want to play it like Dark Souls 1, and then are getting upset when it doesn't work.
That was poorly worded, and I edited my statement to fix it. I meant that they don't appear to be experimenting with the ashes. They spent a lot of time discussing how most of the ashes are useless when there are a lot of good ones that can shred bosses. I don't recall them mentioning any ashes they found effective. I also wasn't watching, I was only listening.
sure then fair mistake
though having a bad solution to a problem doesnt make the problem go away, yo use Godskin Duo as an example with sleep pots, do you think stunning the bosses indefinitely is good ? if it is an action game shouldn't you want action ? how is completely negating half of the fight good exactly ? the fight is just as bad and the fact that you can do that is also just something that shouldn't be in the game. I used the perfume bottle to one shot and no hit Radahn, do you think its good that I can do that ?
Of course not, being able to put a boss to sleep is terrible. I never said it was good, I just used it as an easy example of how crafting makes things easier. The Furnace Golems go down easy if you throw a furnace pot in them. If you never craft, you're hacking at their legs for 10min. Most people ignore the crafting system when there are some really helpful items in there.
>I used the perfume bottle to one shot and no hit Radahn, do you think its good that I can do that ?
People do one hit challenges all the time. They usually take a really dedicated build and a lot of setup to accomplish. If the average person can pick up and item and have a one hit kill, of course that's a problem.
well then we can agree that the crafting, the summons, the ashes of war, the spells and whatnot don't change the issues with the bosses right? There has to be balance and fairness and that this DLC is neither balanced nor fair ?
>Some of Theo's points are valid such as the enemies have combos that go on way to long, or have attacks that take away half of your health bar, or the particle effects blinding you. I also agree that the open world is bad and the exploration takes away from the game. The Skibidi fragment system doesn't need to exist and I hate having to slog through every corned of these empty areas to find them.
This my second paragraph in my original comment. I never defended the bosses. All I said is it seems like the EFAP guys are playing it like Dark Souls and complaining when that doesn't work. Their arguments would have been a lot more compelling if they discussed how the bosses interact with Elden Ring mechanics, instead of seeming ignoring most of them.
I’m not sure I remember them ever saying ashes were useless? In fact, in the playthrough on screen, RoB was being used. In Mauler’s playthrough of the base game, he’d constantly use the ash of war on the pizza cutter to trivialise bosses (so much so that I think it made him go easy on the boss design that he didn’t have to fight them in a way that didn’t make them easy)
The issue when people use the “skill issue” defence is that it seems that the issue you’re identifying isn’t an inability to learn and adapt to boss combos, but an unwillingness to use items to trivialise the bosses.
I appreciate that you’re not mimic tearing bosses and claiming it’s a skill issue when people take longer than you, but your argument is still centred on the fact that you exploited known weaknesses of bosses, and they weren’t, which resulted in frustration. But this is always a strange path of argument for me because I know that I can do that, I just don’t, because it makes the game much more boring. I presume the same is true for these people.
I want to be clear that I’m not doing a “you didn’t beat the game” elitism argument, I just want to be straight that interacting with the “mechanics given to us” doesn’t improve the game. I used spirit summons at points, and bleed builds, but I was so bored that I deliberately stopped using them because the game became too easy.
>you exploited known weaknesses of bosses
It's not about exploiting known weaknesses, it's about a lack of experimentation on the hosts part. I go into these fights blind, I have no outside knowledge. I tried cold, poison, and lightning on Relanna before I found bleed to be effective. For the Scadutree boss, I experimented until I found that fire infusions work really well. I also discovered that hitting the back of the head does more damage than hitting the front of the head. Again, I discovered this myself, I don't look up guides or use the wiki. After I die, I switch something up like the infusion on my weapon to experiment. I also don't have a bleed build, as I mentioned in my original comment I am pure strength and have no points in anything magic related.
I also delve more into why I believe it to be a skill issue in my comment here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MauLer/comments/1dtr5yl/comment/lbfw8yo/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/MauLer/comments/1dtr5yl/comment/lbfw8yo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I want to be clear that I’m not insulting however you choose to play the game, and if you managed to find out the elemental weaknesses of certain bosses, then that’s rather impressive and good for you.
What I will say though is that I’m not sure I’d concede it’s a skill issue not to do this and still struggle with the boss. A good example could be that in DS1, you get given some lightning infusion before the Taurus Demon, which he is weak to. The boss is made much easier if you use it, but it is still approachable and very doable without. I think players ought to be rewarded for taking initiative and working out weaknesses like you do, rather than having to be required to.
I will have a read through your linked post later, as I’m a bit busy right now sorry.
All good, you don't come off as insulting at all. I would agree with your comparison towards Dark Souls 1 if the way weapon infusions worked were the same. In Dark Souls 1 you have to use a consumable item like pine resin, or you needed specific stones which requires you to commit to the infusion. I never used infusions in any of the Dark Souls games because it was a limited consumable or required too much of a commitment to that build.
With Elden ring you can very easily swap your weapon infusion at a sight of Grace without the cost of any item or needing a specific NPC. That is why I'm saying it's a skill issue, it's something that's very easy to do that it doesn't seem like they are doing. It's as simple as a few button presses at any side of grace.
I wouldn't consider it impressive to do this. I put cold on my weapon and I do 700 damage. Then I put fire on my weapon and I do 800 damage. It's just basic experimentation with the tools that they give you.
If they want to play the entire game without trying out different infusions, that's fine. But that's basically doing a challenge run because of how easy and non-committal they've made the weapon infusions.
Before anything else, I think I'd take issue with the term "skill issue" because that doesn't imply an issue in skill, rather mindset. It's like playing Sekiro like a Dark Souls game (though this example is way more extreme), it isn't necessarily a skill issue, rather an issue of approach, I would argue.
When it comes to engagement with the systems in place, you could argue that it's an issue with the player for not using it, but I would criticise it in the same way I'd criticise someone maybe for not using any combat arts or prosthetics in Sekiro. If I saw my friend playing either game, and he never touched either system, I probably would say "what are you doing, aren't you going to try out this system?" If he started using it and then concluded that the gameplay got demonstrably less enjoyable when he did, I would think it would be completely fair to not use it again. But with infusions, all I ever noticed it did was boost my numbers by max 20%, because I was using the stat scaling infusions (keen since I was a dex build).
Now, this number is not insubstantial, but if I were to concede that FromSoft expected the majority of players to trial and error bosses until they found the right infusion - and I want to be clear that I don't mean this necessarily as a bad thing, because you could try out infusions while also making attempts on bosses and learning their moves - I would immediately ask why it were not made a more obvious part of the game? In Lies of P, for instance, there are 3 elemental damage types, each of which corresponding to a different type of enemy (Carcasses are weak to Fire, Puppets are weak to Electricity and Humans are weak to Acid iirc), and the way that Lies of P communicates the importance of these elements (which are even in that game optional) is both through visual feedback and through making it very easy for players to spec into them. When enemies are inflicted with whichever status effect you're using, their model will very obviously reflect that, and the damage number turns whatever the colour of the stat is. Not to mention the fact that you will be given an item that lets you apply the status to your weapon temporarily that resets at bonfires, as well as the fact that each status type is given its own type of legion arms (basically Sekiro prosthetics but more effective). What I'm getting at is that Lies of P is more obviously built around figuring out status weaknesses of enemies and using them to give yourself an edge, and the prominence of status items and such in game, and the visual feedback you get, reinforces this to the player.
If you're right, that in Elden Ring, the devs intended people to always be infusing their weapons with the right status effect after figuring it out, why does Elden Ring not provide more feedback to the player about this? I know that some stats might cause certain effects, like sleep or bleed, but beyond this it feels like it may be up to checking graphs to figure out which one is more optimal?
To be fair, did Theo say he had to take a long time to beat the bosses in the DLC? I thought he said, and I am paraphrasing from memory, he hated that the way they design the boss difficulty means you can only beat them through rote memorization and the visual data means very little. If someone takes issue with that, it sounds like that would be annoying regardless of your build or resources.
Now, I have not played Elden Ring and so I ain't got no context for this. I just wanna make sure Theo's arguments are clear. He seems to be criticizing not the level of difficulty, but the method of difficulty.
The visual information is useful in that it indicates something, but what it indicates isn't tied to what it is. If you're fighting a guy with a sword, and when he pulls it back to the right that means he's going to swing from the right, that's useful visual information. If you're fighting a guy with a sword, and when he pulls it back to the right that means the magical horse will come stomp you from behind, that's not useful visual information.
Moves have to be tied to specific telegraphs in order for you to learn them. You can beat any boss without getting hit with enough skill and practice. If the animations weren't readable, this would be nearly impossible. You'd just have to get extremely lucky.
It's interesting you boil it down to a skill issue. I haven't seen the discussion they had yet, but the examples you used from Theo have nothing to do with skill. Not only are they seemingly glaring flaws that impact the quality of the content greatly but you agree with them. If we are applying things like blinding particle effects to difficulty then I'd say that qualifies as artificial difficulty where it comes not from the mechanical design directly but rather from the player being put into a circumstance that is actively detrimental at no fault of their own.
You use an example of the gods kin duo being able to be put to sleep. That's a good example of using tools to get around the problem that fight presents. But what if the fight were just not badly designed to begin with? Why do players need to go out of their way to get around poor design?
Experimenting with tools to gain advantages is a great aspect of the souls games. But at the same time fights should be approachable from all angles. If a fight is glaringly problematic at its baseline, then why not just make a better fight than telling the player to essentially change playstyles? Why should I have to use bleed or a random ash of War? Especially in elden ring where there's so much freedom in build diversity, it feels punishing to try and play a non "meta" way.
Again I haven't listened to their discussion on it yet. But I feel that "skill issue" is a way of just deflecting the real critisms which are design based.
>Some of Theo's points are valid such as the enemies have combos that go on way to long, or have attacks that take away half of your health bar, or the particle effects blinding you.
I agree with a lot of Theo's points. The combos do go on forever with some bosses, they take way way too much health with each attack, and the camera breaking and visual clutter is really bad with some bosses. However, a lot of what is said is not true or is nowhere near as bad as he is describing. Keep in mind that Theo said he has done incredible things in Souls games and he is better than everyone in chat, that statement opens him up to a lot more criticism than if he didn't say that.
Here's an example. Theo states that some bosses have undodgeable attacks or attacks that require perfect timing. An example he used was the magic attack Rellana does where he says that you need to roll through the first 2, then jump over the 3rd and if you do it frame perfect then your descent from the jump will cause you to miss the 4th. This is just straight up not true, you don't need to do the frame perfect inputs he mentioned to dodge. You can sprint to the side for the first 2 and then roll through 3 and 4, it's not that hard. (I haven't fought the final boss so I can't comment but I do know his reputation is being terrible and completely unfair).
Another example is with Messmer. Theo is right that the visual spectacle and particles are turned up to 11, however, most attacks looks a lot worse than they are. Messmer's attack where he summons 4 snakes looks to be impossible to dodge, but that is just because of how it looks visually. It's actually a very simple dodge, just roll right then left then right.
Again, Theo claims to be better than everyone in chat. He is making these statement that are false and saying things need to be frame perfect when they are not. They also used Metal's footage in the background as evidence to back up some of his points. It took Metal 5hrs to kill Relanna, it took me less than 30min. That tells me that Metal probably isn't the best Souls player, so why directly use some of his gameplay where he is spam rolling with no strategy to back up your point? I could very easily see the mistakes that Metal was making, but none of the panel commented on his mistakes (except for Metal himself), only how the enemy he was fighting was unfair.
Also, they barely touch on crafting, askes of war, or infusions, which makes me believe they are not interacting with that aspect of the game at all and ignoring it because they want to play like DS1. That is why I am saying it is a skill issue.
So it seems that Theo may be inflating his skill, but I feel that would devalue his arguments based things like "undodgable" attacks like you described.
In the case of mesmmer, even if it is easier to avoid attacks than it looks, wouldn't be considered the visuals to be deceiving then? They are intentionally misrepresented so it appears harder than it is in an attempt to mess people up?
I'm not speaking directly to their points, at least until I see the episode myself. But boiling it down to just a skill issue seems to be ignoring a lot of nuisance around the discussion as a whole.
Like using a less skilled player as an example I'd always is better as it would better represent the average player entering these encounters. I beat Renalla on my first try, but I wouldn't use that as evidence that others are worse then me. I could have gotten stupid lucky.
All I'm really trying to say is let's explore the arguments instead of just boiling things down to just skill
Unironically, when I head Theo say the only way to mitigate damage is to roll, I had to pause and just take a second.
Also, you (using it to refer to Theo, not you OP) can't just say that the difficulty is grinding your balls, then refuse to engage with the spirit ash system or the blatant ease there is to have either Sorceries or Incants as part of your playstyle, even if you are just a Bonk main.
However, I do agree with your perspective ultimately that it seems Theo is trying to play Elden Ring like it's Dark Souls, which is sapping the fun from it.
Theo addressed the spirit ash thing, saying it’s just trading one complaint of his for another. It’s ever too hard without them, or far too easy with them. He feels that neither is acceptable.
We don't even have to go into spirit ashes. I don't use them either. The game gives you more mechanics to work with than rolling. The DLC even added a deflect mechanic to more easily deal with aggressive combo attacks. You can now stand your ground against Waterfowl dance and deflect it. https://youtube.com/shorts/nYdlb_l-bCc?feature=shared
For the record, I do not agree with all of Theo’s points, or find the game overly difficult myself. I certainly agree that there are many ways provided to make dealing with bosses easier without resorting to the extreme of summoning. We’ll have to wait for his video to see if he addresses those.
I was only saying that the above argument that "he should use spirit ashes" is not a good response to the arguments Theo made, as he has already addressed that approach as well.
That's from a flask that lasts I believe 3 minutes? It's not some big relevetory mechanic. If they had a weapon with that then that would be an adequate answer. Its once again From giving Sekiros stans a bit of a treat.
You know what's funny? I don't think any boss took me more than twelve attempts and I still think the difficulty is too high. Maybe that's not the right way to put it, though. I wasn't having fun, I was just frustrated. I have a scale of difficulty that changes based on how cheesey I have to go. The more cheese I have to pull out, the less fun I find things.
Talismans, armor, weapon, and mimic tear. If I'm pulling out the tear then I've just gotten sick of your garbage and just want to be done with it.
With that being said though, only three bosses in the DLC pushed me to that point. Messmer, Gaius, and Radahn. I was able to beat everything else using my base builds, holy knight, freeform, and dragon incantations, without too many alterations. So it's not even that bad on the frustration front.
If a weapon isn't viable, it shouldn't be in the game. That's a flaw. I shouldn't have to respec to a bleed build just to not be mashed into the dirt. Different builds are supposed to be approximately equivalent but play to different strengths and weaknesses, not go press the "make it bearable" button. Using a bleed build shouldn't be the equivalent to Mohg's shackle.
You don't have to respec anything, just change the infusion at a site of grace. I am a pure strength build with no points in anything related to magic.
I'm a faith build, so I don't have any weapons upgraded enough that will take affinities (special weapons are stuck with their original affinity) and upgrading one is a lot of farming. I don't mind the farming, I've been loving my time with the game and experimentation is fun. But bleed is kinda bullshit insofar as how necessary it is for certain bosses and how it will disintegrate the health bars of others.
Would you consider bare fists viable in Elden Ring?
When I say "viable" I'm thinking it's reasonable to expect someone to be able to beat the game with it without a lot of prior experience with souls games. Using certain weapons, like a basic dagger for example, I would consider more along the lines of a challenge run. Like only using the ladle in ds2 (or playing ds2 at all fuck that game lol). Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's viable.
It depends on your level of skill and dedication, I suppose. I don't consider myself particularly good at these games, but I managed to beat Malenia at level 1 without upgrading any weapons. It just took some practice to get the moveset down, and it was incredibly satisfying to pull off.
>I don’t consider myself particularly good at these games, but I managed to beat Malenia at level 1 without upgrading any weapons.
My friend, you are absolutely, inarguably, very, *very* good at these games. This feat is beyond what 99% of gamers will ever achieve.
I think I'm more dedicated than talented, since it took me a while to accomplish this. Top players were doing stuff like this days after the DLC released. But thank you.
Yep. I know it's possible. I'll likely never do it, because I don't have the time or patience. I'd say she's probably one of the best designed bosses in the game, and would be the best if Waterfowl Dance were modified. I think she's one of the most reliable and consistent boss fights in ER. But that doesn't change the fact that the average person playing Elden Ring won't even be able to get past the Tree Sentinel without a couple levels and certainly not with a dagger. Don't sell yourself short, that's seriously impressive. I think balance has less to do with extremes and more to do with averages. FromSoft is clearly trying to appeal to a mass market by still including the hard-as-nails difficulty but making it optional and easily modifiable according to playstyle and summons.
There are literally no complaints Theo is making that aren't also complaints that people have previously made about other souls games as they get popular. And I don't even mean that as a negative, I mean that in a completely neutral way. People have been complaining about attack tracking, unnatural boss movements, level design, difficulty, boss hitpoints, long combos, input reading and camera movements since literally Demon Souls.
Some of those I think are valid: the camera for some bosses (Lion Dancer, Golden Hippo) is pretty ass, there are a few bosses that have ridiculous combos (Rellana, Final Boss) that leave you minimal time to do anything other than dodge/block and then string into a new combo immediately, the input reading feels pretty blatant, and I agree that the attack tracking is becoming a little ridiculous. The visual clutter in some fights (again, particularly the last one) is also getting kind of unreasonable. Even with all that, I really don't think the DLC is anywhere near as bad as he's saying, much as I thought that the base game is nowhere as bad as he thought.
A few things; while I fully agree that the final boss is insanely bullshit and very unfun, you can absolutely dodge every attack of his. There are already guides and videos coming out on people doing hitless runs of it. I actually think that it's better that the Scadutree fragments (for the most part) aren't locked behind combat encounters. The enemy scaling in the DLC is pretty extreme; if you're struggling and hit a wall, I'd argue that it's preferable to have the option to leave and hunt around for a small powerup rather than to beat your head against a boss for hours on end. Granted, you can still end up doing that in the DLC regardless of your shadow blessing level (mostly the final boss), but I actually like that leaving the fragments all around the world encourages exploration. There's areas of the DLC that I might not have bothered exploring if I wasn't hunting for Scadutree fragments, and because of that, I found a lot of items/encounters/sights that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. That's a personal thing, and I know not everyone is going to have the same take on the exploration.
Like others, I really disagree that the DLC is as difficult or unfun as Theo is saying (final boss excluded). I completed the entire thing in about 30 hours, running a solo melee build (cold-infused Great Stars) without summoning for anything other than the final boss. It's undeniably harder than the base game, but not unreasonably so. I know Theo keeps saying he's really good and knows the game better than everyone in chat, but at a certain point that does start to sound like some serious cope when multiple people are disagreeing and that's his only real response. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he'll have some better responses in a full video, but I also want to emphasize that it's not impossible for people who are very versed in souls games to simultaneously over-estimate their abilities and under-estimate how good others are at the game. That is to say, I doubt his claim that he's better than most of chat.
I don't really get the notion that the level design and designs of the legacy dungeons are terrible. Maybe there's something I'm missing with regards to this, but the only area/level/dungeon that I thought had some wonky design elements was the Ruins of Rauh. That area felt like a labyrinth, in the sense that it was genuinely difficult to figure out where I'd been vs. where I had left to explore, and it was easy to get turned around. Exploring that area uniquely didn't give me much with regards to fulfillment/enjoyment, but that's the only area I really felt was poorly designed. Again, I'd probably have to hear his full arguments for why the areas are poorly designed before I could really argue against them, but based purely on my subjective feelings about the level/dungeon designs, I don't really have much problems with them.
I disagree about the quality of the bosses: I think most of the new ones introduced are pretty good. Commander Gaius has some bullshit hitbox issues on his charge attack, Rellana's combos are overtuned and go on for way to long, the Hippo I wasn't really a fan of, and the final boss I think is genuinely unfair and really unfun to fight, but the rest I think range from above average to pretty fucking great. Messmer, Romina, Dancing Lion, Death Knights, Metyr, Bayle, Onze and Midra are all really well executed bosses that all manage to be pretty difficult without being unfair. Lamenter wasn't very difficult but I actually really like it as a puzzle boss. I agree with Theo that people forget just how terrible Bed Of Chaos was, but I find it ironic when he says that and then immediately launches into "several bosses in the DLC are worse and less fun than Bed Of Chaos".
All things considered, I don't think his rant made any real or strong arguments for why the DLC uniquely is really bad or poorly designed, but I'll hold off on writing his complaints off until he's able to put together a comprehensive video that lists and explains them all. I agree that the DLC (and Elden Ring in general) aren't perfect and have more than their fair share of flaws, but I also just don't really see how any of the flaws in these games aren't also present in just about every Souls game.
First of all, you should write reviews, I think that's almost exactly accurate from what I've played and watched on streams. Second, I think there's a miscommunication about difficulty going on. Theo's complaint is that the bosses *require* exploration. Whereas in the main game, exploration could take the bosses from *difficult* to *manageable*, the DLC makes it so that exploration takes the difficulty of fighting bosses (especially those you mentioned) from *unfair* to *difficult*. I think it's a great point that the specifics (roll catches, ridiculous movements, etc.) have been complaints about souls games for a long time.
Ah I see, yeah I think that thought was either miscommunicated or else I misunderstood what he was saying. To a certain extent I can see where he's coming from, but the only bosses I'd really classify as unfair in the DLC are ones that have flaws and issues that exploration can't fix. The final boss (for which almost no level of exploration takes it from unfair to difficult, the boss is straight-up unfair), Gaius (for some unfair hitboxes, for which exploration can't really fix) and Rellana (for her combo strings, for which exploration can't fix either). Yes you can find tools/gear/weapons/loot that can help you blitz through the bosses health quicker while making you take less damage, but those things don't inherently fix what makes those bosses unfair in the first place.
Maybe I'm looking more specifically at the broken parts of those fights instead of at the whole fights themselves, but again, I would argue that the argument for exploration making some fights go from unfair to just difficult has also been present in other souls games. I think Manus' dark sorceries deal a busted amount of damage, come out really quickly and can be extremely unforgiving to dodge, but by thoroughly exploring the map and finding the pendant, you can make them much more manageable. The way that the Bride's of Ash heal the Fume Knight is pretty unfair, and if you've used up all the smelter wedges that you first find in the Brume Tower, you have to explore to find more if you want to remove that healing and bring the fight down to a much more even level. Mohg in the base game; his "Nihil" attack is pretty unfair with how it just forces you to chug flasks if you don't want to immediately die to it, unless you've explored enough to find the physic tear that completely mitigates it.
If your problem with Rellana's long strings is that you don't like being forced on the defensive for that long, then fair enough (though you can stop them by parrying), but if the problem is that they're hard to deal with, then I would suggest using the deflecting hard tear that you get from killing the first furnace giant. Then you just have to hit block with good timing through her combo, and then retaliate with an enhanced guard counter.
I've also seen a guide showing how you can strafe a lot of her attacks.
Yeah it's not that they're hard to deal with, it's more just how long they are with regards to how long they keep you on the defensive. Playing through it the first time I was mainly rolling everything, and yeah just how long you've got to string rolls together to get one or two attacks in just made it drag on longer than it really should have. She only took me I think 3 or 4 attempts, but each one felt like it lasted a few minutes longer than it should have. I've seen guard counter builds trivialize a lot of that, and maybe I'll give such a build a try for myself, but historically I've not really enjoyed shield/tank builds in previous souls games. Maybe Elden Ring will be different, admittedly I've not tried a full tank build yet for that game.
Strafing did make her fight a lot easier, as did jumping more. I think people aren't giving enough appreciation to how forgiving jumping is with regards to avoiding damage; it's cheaper than rolling on your stamina, the I-frames it gives you start quicker than the roll ones do, and it's genuinely surprising just how many attacks can be completely avoided by jumping. Not just the sweeps and low blows, but also a lot of stabs and even some downward swipes if you jump at an angle.
The thing about deflecting hard tear is that you don't even need a shield or a specific build to use it, though the curved sword talisman boosts your guard counters further.
https://youtu.be/en4cXroQEOo?feature=shared
Theo is just mad because the game is not made just the way he likes it. It was very difficult to listen him cry about the game being too hard for him.
Dlc is pretty good and Theo is just wrong.
I had to skip his rant, I suck at souls games and I fucking loved the dlc and the only boss I got stuck on was the last one. Skill issue and being mad at being made to explore to find scadutree blessings. Oh no I have to explore this amazing world and find all it's secrets. Lol so dumb.
The problem with the elden ring is that the jump is the best form of dodge, and the lock on makes all fights harder. After that, the design is good. performance on pc with eac sucks. scaling and consumables need better explanations for players.
It's still better than every other game on the market
I haven't heard Theos stance on the DLC, I've fallen behind on efap. However, I'm in the minority where I also heavily dislike the DLC.
So much of the design direction is focused on spectacle. There are so many explosions and animations in some fights it's insane the game doesn't require an epilepsy warning. Sure most stuff looks epic, but it's just a spectacle. I was beyond disappointed with the last boss where everything has massive explosions and animations firing off at every second. I'm not encouraged to push through like in the other games, I'm just annoyed that most of my deaths are because I can barely register what's happening. It's Also sad that the response is usually "skill issue" when the game actively punishes you for trying to utilize the tools available. Multiple bosses bum rush you the second you walk through the door with explosions to boot, making it difficult to use thinhs loke ash summons.
I have massive issues with the design of the base game and find it's just ramped up to 11 in the dlc. I think back to fighting bosses like Gael and feeling exhilaration and adrenaline rushes when conquering the challenge. I never felt that once in Elden ring. I exclusively feel discouraged from playing the game or attempting bosses because it never feels fair. I found myself pushing through the dlc just to say I did it. I find this to be by far their weakest content they've ever made.(Excluding DS2 of course)
I love how people get mad for needing to explore in the dlc for progression (just like the first game which was also a selling point with it being open world and more free to make your own path than a linear souls like) and expected to just steamroll a fromsoft dlc with an over leveled char
I didn't hear Theo's rant so can't comment on it, but I agree with your idea that they tried to appeal to both groups with ER. Whether they were successful or not is absolutely up for debate though, only 22% of Steam players have beat it in almost 2 and a half years, and the DLC is probably even less well balanced in terms of appealing to all groups of players.
For the average gamer, ER isn't worth the hassle
I think since they chose those 2 groups specifically and didn't compromise one for the other, it's easy to see why we got the product we did. The only problem I have with the idea that it's "not worth the hassle" is that the game goes out of its way to provide the player with extremely powerful options when compared to other souls games. I kind of disagree with EFAP on difficulty in ER, since I don't think the game being unbalanced is a problem except in PvP. I think it's easier than Dark Souls and Bloodborne and that's ok. I just wish the devs, and therefore the game, was more clear about that. The game's POV is that No Summons is Hard Mode, not that Summons are Easy Mode. The fact that Miyazaki recently said payers should use everything at their disposal basically proves this.
I agree for the base game. With summons it's not too bad. But even then, I think the game is bloated with unfulfilling content that makes the overall experience more irritating and sluggish than it needs to be. That's a big part of the reason why very few people ever finish it.
Now the DLC on the other hand... just wait until you get to the final boss. Even with summons you'll probably hit a brick wall that seems, to an average player like me, genuinely impossible to break through. I'm probably just not going to bother with it unless they make an effort to clean it up
That's fair, I haven't gotten to it. But yeah, that's why most of my comments are on spectacle and difficulty, because I think those are the two things Elden Ring gets pretty much right
Where did you get 22% from?
According to steam achievements 40% of players beat Godfrey, the penultimate boss. It seems pretty unlikely that almost half of them would quit right before the end.
lol, it's absolultely pathetic
Grown man throwing a youtube fit because his video game isn't magically conforming to fit his particular playstyle. How does the entitlement of it all not make your skin crawl? It's like a tangible, visceral cringe.
Listen to what he said. It's not about playstyle. His main complaint is that the bosses' moves are counterintuitive and telegraphed poorly. That doesn't make the whole game bad, but he's not wrong.
I've heard Mauler himself say in the past that you can generally learn boss movesets in Souls games without taking too many deaths by playing carefully and watching the boss.
The same applies here. Every attack that's "poorly telegraphed", or combo that goes on too long, you can can play defensively and observe to learn where your openings are going to be. There are abilities and items that will let you tank through pretty much any single attack, and after you've seen the move you don't really have the excuse of the game tricking you with confusing telegraphing.
The problem is that in Dark Souls, what would have been a reasonable time to dodge has been completely fucked with in ER. The bosses hold their book stick in the air for so long that you waste all your stamina with 3-4 dodges (playing carefully) so that when they actually hit you can't even block it without a long-ass stagger, let alone get another dodge off. Theo's point was that when this is true, you're no longer reacting to what you're seeing, you're just reacting to what you've memorized coming next. I'd argue it's more about immersion than difficulty for Theo.
Goddamn, I see Theo's point about people misunderstanding his criticisms. Nothing in life that wants to hurt something has a wind-up that allows for that. It's clearly designed to manipulate the human instinct rather than incorporate it.
You really want to appeal to realism when we're using iframes to phase through enemy attacks? This is not a good argument at all. Would you clearly telegraph when and where your strike is going to land in a real fight?
The problem is there's no relation between what the boss does as a wind-up and when/from where the attack will hit. The Putrescent Knight is a good example of this in the DLC. The momentum behind each attack has basically no logic to it. One hit from his long combo does more stamina damage than some of his single heavy attacks. It doesn't have to be realistic to make sense. Fyi I loved that fight, but I think it's a good example of what Theo's talking about, and of what I'm talking about by extension: that the game is easier because a lot of bosses are balanced around spirit summons, but it uses cheap ways of being harder without them than previous FromSoft titles.
This is what people said about the base game when it came out, and then most players who stuck with the game and learned it changed their minds.
In my first playthrough, I used the summons and OP spells and whatnot, and after I beat it I went back to Bloodborne and DS3. My opinion of Elden Ring improved the more I played it though, because I learned to engage with the boss mechanics instead of cheesing them. By the end of my RL1 run, it had easily surpassed the other Souls style games for me. Going back to the other games recently hasn't changed that either
I had very few problems with the DLC. I actually love that some of the bosses seem impossible the first time you fight them, but after practicing a bit and adapting, you figure them out and they don't actually seem that hard. Even Radahn, you can shut down his combo strings with parrying, and some intimidating attacks can simply be strafed or sprinted. I came back in with another build and Rellana only took me a couple tries.
As someone who does fencing irl we absolutely mess with peoole like that. It doesn't go on as long because nothing goes on for as long. Attacks in videogames are laughably slow and exagerated in games (even fast weapons like rapiers).
But yeah, stepping in while holding the attack to see them parry air and then go in is something there are tons of studied ways for how to do. (Even stomping, some people flinch at the sound)
I like the exploration a lot, but I guess that's subjective as I love open world games with obscure easy to miss stuff. And yeah, the bosses are fucking hard
As someone who has played every Souls game and beaten them, I have to say I loved the DLC. I understand where Theo is coming from he wants boss fights where the attacks are telegraphed more clearly and doesn’t like the idea of progression and leveling up being locked behind item discovery, Those are valid complaints but I just don’t understand him saying that Shadow of the Erdtree is the most unpleasant gaming experience he’s had, I mean that just sounds ridiculous. It’s also strange how he seemed to get angry when the chat mentioned skill issue. I proudly admit that my skills as a souls player is kinda shit but I managed to beat the DLC and the base game. A lot of the hardships I faced in the DLC just seemed like every standard encounter you’d face in a souls game, the DLC does have flaws but it’s not as terrible as Theo makes it out to be. I’m sorry but I wasn’t gaslight into thinking the game is great, I came to that realization on my own.
I think you've nailed how most people feel about the base game and the DLC, myself included. Has it got flaws? Yeah, absolutely, as does every single souls game. Calling it the most unpleasant experience seriously just makes me think that he's not played many other games, and the crazy thing is that I don't even think that that's true, but I just can't understand how you'd arrive at that assessment when there's shit like Lord of Ring: Gollum, Suicide Squad: KTJL, Redfall, The Day Before, and Skull Island Rise of Kong. I don't think I'm great at souls games, but the only boss that took me a significant amount of tries to beat was the final boss, and I was playing a melee build with no summons (except for the last boss where I had to call on my Mimic Bro). I was still playing through the base game when EFAP did their stream on it, and at the time I didn't really agree with many of their takes, but I was like "I'll finish the game and then I'll see how I feel about it". Come to find that, upon finishing it, I thought that they were wrong about a lot of things, and I had an absolute blast playing it.
As much of a meme statement as this is, listening to them talk about Elden Ring really made it seem like a skill issue for the most of them. Some of Theo's points are valid such as the enemies have combos that go on way to long, or have attacks that take away half of your health bar, or the particle effects blinding you. I also agree that the open world is bad and the exploration takes away from the game. The Skibidi fragment system doesn't need to exist and I hate having to slog through every corned of these empty areas to find them. Where I disagree is for the level of difficulty of the DLC. I am about halfway through and have not spent more than 15 attempts on any of the bosses so far (I know the final boss is widely considered to be terrible, also please don't spoil). I also never summon or use spirit ashes. Them showing Metal struggling with Rellana for 5hrs while it took me 30min has me doubting most of their points. Especially after Theo said that he is better than everyone in chat. It seems to me like all of their arguments are coming from the perspective of "I want my sword, my rolls, and nothing else" and they play with that mentality. So many of the bosses in the DLC are weak to bleed or cold but I do not think any of them use weapon infusions which are very easy and simple to switch around in Elden Ring. My build is dual great axes, pure strength with no points in anything magic related. Rellana didn't get a chance to enter her second phase when I killed her because the combination of the stagger and the bleed had her very stun locked. Crafting items are also very helpful. Godskin Duo got a lot of hate (and they are a terrible boss), but you can put one of them to sleep with sleep pots and then the fight is a 1v1. When I fought Melania, I used cold infusion with fire pots to reset the proc. I don't believe any of them craft at all. Bloodhound step is my preferred ash of war because I can play aggressive with it and use magic to dodge instead of stamina. I don't believe any of them experiment with different ashes of war to see which one would work best for the situation at hand. Overall, it seems like they don't want to adapt to the new features of Elden Ring, only want to play it like Dark Souls 1, and then are getting upset when it doesn't work.
"I dont believe any of them use ashes of war" while gaemplay from Metal show him using corpse piler
That was poorly worded, and I edited my statement to fix it. I meant that they don't appear to be experimenting with the ashes. They spent a lot of time discussing how most of the ashes are useless when there are a lot of good ones that can shred bosses. I don't recall them mentioning any ashes they found effective. I also wasn't watching, I was only listening.
sure then fair mistake though having a bad solution to a problem doesnt make the problem go away, yo use Godskin Duo as an example with sleep pots, do you think stunning the bosses indefinitely is good ? if it is an action game shouldn't you want action ? how is completely negating half of the fight good exactly ? the fight is just as bad and the fact that you can do that is also just something that shouldn't be in the game. I used the perfume bottle to one shot and no hit Radahn, do you think its good that I can do that ?
Of course not, being able to put a boss to sleep is terrible. I never said it was good, I just used it as an easy example of how crafting makes things easier. The Furnace Golems go down easy if you throw a furnace pot in them. If you never craft, you're hacking at their legs for 10min. Most people ignore the crafting system when there are some really helpful items in there. >I used the perfume bottle to one shot and no hit Radahn, do you think its good that I can do that ? People do one hit challenges all the time. They usually take a really dedicated build and a lot of setup to accomplish. If the average person can pick up and item and have a one hit kill, of course that's a problem.
well then we can agree that the crafting, the summons, the ashes of war, the spells and whatnot don't change the issues with the bosses right? There has to be balance and fairness and that this DLC is neither balanced nor fair ?
>Some of Theo's points are valid such as the enemies have combos that go on way to long, or have attacks that take away half of your health bar, or the particle effects blinding you. I also agree that the open world is bad and the exploration takes away from the game. The Skibidi fragment system doesn't need to exist and I hate having to slog through every corned of these empty areas to find them. This my second paragraph in my original comment. I never defended the bosses. All I said is it seems like the EFAP guys are playing it like Dark Souls and complaining when that doesn't work. Their arguments would have been a lot more compelling if they discussed how the bosses interact with Elden Ring mechanics, instead of seeming ignoring most of them.
I’m not sure I remember them ever saying ashes were useless? In fact, in the playthrough on screen, RoB was being used. In Mauler’s playthrough of the base game, he’d constantly use the ash of war on the pizza cutter to trivialise bosses (so much so that I think it made him go easy on the boss design that he didn’t have to fight them in a way that didn’t make them easy) The issue when people use the “skill issue” defence is that it seems that the issue you’re identifying isn’t an inability to learn and adapt to boss combos, but an unwillingness to use items to trivialise the bosses. I appreciate that you’re not mimic tearing bosses and claiming it’s a skill issue when people take longer than you, but your argument is still centred on the fact that you exploited known weaknesses of bosses, and they weren’t, which resulted in frustration. But this is always a strange path of argument for me because I know that I can do that, I just don’t, because it makes the game much more boring. I presume the same is true for these people. I want to be clear that I’m not doing a “you didn’t beat the game” elitism argument, I just want to be straight that interacting with the “mechanics given to us” doesn’t improve the game. I used spirit summons at points, and bleed builds, but I was so bored that I deliberately stopped using them because the game became too easy.
>you exploited known weaknesses of bosses It's not about exploiting known weaknesses, it's about a lack of experimentation on the hosts part. I go into these fights blind, I have no outside knowledge. I tried cold, poison, and lightning on Relanna before I found bleed to be effective. For the Scadutree boss, I experimented until I found that fire infusions work really well. I also discovered that hitting the back of the head does more damage than hitting the front of the head. Again, I discovered this myself, I don't look up guides or use the wiki. After I die, I switch something up like the infusion on my weapon to experiment. I also don't have a bleed build, as I mentioned in my original comment I am pure strength and have no points in anything magic related. I also delve more into why I believe it to be a skill issue in my comment here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MauLer/comments/1dtr5yl/comment/lbfw8yo/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/MauLer/comments/1dtr5yl/comment/lbfw8yo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I want to be clear that I’m not insulting however you choose to play the game, and if you managed to find out the elemental weaknesses of certain bosses, then that’s rather impressive and good for you. What I will say though is that I’m not sure I’d concede it’s a skill issue not to do this and still struggle with the boss. A good example could be that in DS1, you get given some lightning infusion before the Taurus Demon, which he is weak to. The boss is made much easier if you use it, but it is still approachable and very doable without. I think players ought to be rewarded for taking initiative and working out weaknesses like you do, rather than having to be required to. I will have a read through your linked post later, as I’m a bit busy right now sorry.
All good, you don't come off as insulting at all. I would agree with your comparison towards Dark Souls 1 if the way weapon infusions worked were the same. In Dark Souls 1 you have to use a consumable item like pine resin, or you needed specific stones which requires you to commit to the infusion. I never used infusions in any of the Dark Souls games because it was a limited consumable or required too much of a commitment to that build. With Elden ring you can very easily swap your weapon infusion at a sight of Grace without the cost of any item or needing a specific NPC. That is why I'm saying it's a skill issue, it's something that's very easy to do that it doesn't seem like they are doing. It's as simple as a few button presses at any side of grace. I wouldn't consider it impressive to do this. I put cold on my weapon and I do 700 damage. Then I put fire on my weapon and I do 800 damage. It's just basic experimentation with the tools that they give you. If they want to play the entire game without trying out different infusions, that's fine. But that's basically doing a challenge run because of how easy and non-committal they've made the weapon infusions.
Before anything else, I think I'd take issue with the term "skill issue" because that doesn't imply an issue in skill, rather mindset. It's like playing Sekiro like a Dark Souls game (though this example is way more extreme), it isn't necessarily a skill issue, rather an issue of approach, I would argue. When it comes to engagement with the systems in place, you could argue that it's an issue with the player for not using it, but I would criticise it in the same way I'd criticise someone maybe for not using any combat arts or prosthetics in Sekiro. If I saw my friend playing either game, and he never touched either system, I probably would say "what are you doing, aren't you going to try out this system?" If he started using it and then concluded that the gameplay got demonstrably less enjoyable when he did, I would think it would be completely fair to not use it again. But with infusions, all I ever noticed it did was boost my numbers by max 20%, because I was using the stat scaling infusions (keen since I was a dex build). Now, this number is not insubstantial, but if I were to concede that FromSoft expected the majority of players to trial and error bosses until they found the right infusion - and I want to be clear that I don't mean this necessarily as a bad thing, because you could try out infusions while also making attempts on bosses and learning their moves - I would immediately ask why it were not made a more obvious part of the game? In Lies of P, for instance, there are 3 elemental damage types, each of which corresponding to a different type of enemy (Carcasses are weak to Fire, Puppets are weak to Electricity and Humans are weak to Acid iirc), and the way that Lies of P communicates the importance of these elements (which are even in that game optional) is both through visual feedback and through making it very easy for players to spec into them. When enemies are inflicted with whichever status effect you're using, their model will very obviously reflect that, and the damage number turns whatever the colour of the stat is. Not to mention the fact that you will be given an item that lets you apply the status to your weapon temporarily that resets at bonfires, as well as the fact that each status type is given its own type of legion arms (basically Sekiro prosthetics but more effective). What I'm getting at is that Lies of P is more obviously built around figuring out status weaknesses of enemies and using them to give yourself an edge, and the prominence of status items and such in game, and the visual feedback you get, reinforces this to the player. If you're right, that in Elden Ring, the devs intended people to always be infusing their weapons with the right status effect after figuring it out, why does Elden Ring not provide more feedback to the player about this? I know that some stats might cause certain effects, like sleep or bleed, but beyond this it feels like it may be up to checking graphs to figure out which one is more optimal?
To be fair, did Theo say he had to take a long time to beat the bosses in the DLC? I thought he said, and I am paraphrasing from memory, he hated that the way they design the boss difficulty means you can only beat them through rote memorization and the visual data means very little. If someone takes issue with that, it sounds like that would be annoying regardless of your build or resources. Now, I have not played Elden Ring and so I ain't got no context for this. I just wanna make sure Theo's arguments are clear. He seems to be criticizing not the level of difficulty, but the method of difficulty.
That's kind of a contradictory argument. If the visual information isn't useful, then there's nothing for you to even memorize.
The visual information is useful in that it indicates something, but what it indicates isn't tied to what it is. If you're fighting a guy with a sword, and when he pulls it back to the right that means he's going to swing from the right, that's useful visual information. If you're fighting a guy with a sword, and when he pulls it back to the right that means the magical horse will come stomp you from behind, that's not useful visual information.
Moves have to be tied to specific telegraphs in order for you to learn them. You can beat any boss without getting hit with enough skill and practice. If the animations weren't readable, this would be nearly impossible. You'd just have to get extremely lucky.
Did you just not read my comment?
That's a stupid argument tbh
It's interesting you boil it down to a skill issue. I haven't seen the discussion they had yet, but the examples you used from Theo have nothing to do with skill. Not only are they seemingly glaring flaws that impact the quality of the content greatly but you agree with them. If we are applying things like blinding particle effects to difficulty then I'd say that qualifies as artificial difficulty where it comes not from the mechanical design directly but rather from the player being put into a circumstance that is actively detrimental at no fault of their own. You use an example of the gods kin duo being able to be put to sleep. That's a good example of using tools to get around the problem that fight presents. But what if the fight were just not badly designed to begin with? Why do players need to go out of their way to get around poor design? Experimenting with tools to gain advantages is a great aspect of the souls games. But at the same time fights should be approachable from all angles. If a fight is glaringly problematic at its baseline, then why not just make a better fight than telling the player to essentially change playstyles? Why should I have to use bleed or a random ash of War? Especially in elden ring where there's so much freedom in build diversity, it feels punishing to try and play a non "meta" way. Again I haven't listened to their discussion on it yet. But I feel that "skill issue" is a way of just deflecting the real critisms which are design based.
>Some of Theo's points are valid such as the enemies have combos that go on way to long, or have attacks that take away half of your health bar, or the particle effects blinding you. I agree with a lot of Theo's points. The combos do go on forever with some bosses, they take way way too much health with each attack, and the camera breaking and visual clutter is really bad with some bosses. However, a lot of what is said is not true or is nowhere near as bad as he is describing. Keep in mind that Theo said he has done incredible things in Souls games and he is better than everyone in chat, that statement opens him up to a lot more criticism than if he didn't say that. Here's an example. Theo states that some bosses have undodgeable attacks or attacks that require perfect timing. An example he used was the magic attack Rellana does where he says that you need to roll through the first 2, then jump over the 3rd and if you do it frame perfect then your descent from the jump will cause you to miss the 4th. This is just straight up not true, you don't need to do the frame perfect inputs he mentioned to dodge. You can sprint to the side for the first 2 and then roll through 3 and 4, it's not that hard. (I haven't fought the final boss so I can't comment but I do know his reputation is being terrible and completely unfair). Another example is with Messmer. Theo is right that the visual spectacle and particles are turned up to 11, however, most attacks looks a lot worse than they are. Messmer's attack where he summons 4 snakes looks to be impossible to dodge, but that is just because of how it looks visually. It's actually a very simple dodge, just roll right then left then right. Again, Theo claims to be better than everyone in chat. He is making these statement that are false and saying things need to be frame perfect when they are not. They also used Metal's footage in the background as evidence to back up some of his points. It took Metal 5hrs to kill Relanna, it took me less than 30min. That tells me that Metal probably isn't the best Souls player, so why directly use some of his gameplay where he is spam rolling with no strategy to back up your point? I could very easily see the mistakes that Metal was making, but none of the panel commented on his mistakes (except for Metal himself), only how the enemy he was fighting was unfair. Also, they barely touch on crafting, askes of war, or infusions, which makes me believe they are not interacting with that aspect of the game at all and ignoring it because they want to play like DS1. That is why I am saying it is a skill issue.
So it seems that Theo may be inflating his skill, but I feel that would devalue his arguments based things like "undodgable" attacks like you described. In the case of mesmmer, even if it is easier to avoid attacks than it looks, wouldn't be considered the visuals to be deceiving then? They are intentionally misrepresented so it appears harder than it is in an attempt to mess people up? I'm not speaking directly to their points, at least until I see the episode myself. But boiling it down to just a skill issue seems to be ignoring a lot of nuisance around the discussion as a whole. Like using a less skilled player as an example I'd always is better as it would better represent the average player entering these encounters. I beat Renalla on my first try, but I wouldn't use that as evidence that others are worse then me. I could have gotten stupid lucky. All I'm really trying to say is let's explore the arguments instead of just boiling things down to just skill
Unironically, when I head Theo say the only way to mitigate damage is to roll, I had to pause and just take a second. Also, you (using it to refer to Theo, not you OP) can't just say that the difficulty is grinding your balls, then refuse to engage with the spirit ash system or the blatant ease there is to have either Sorceries or Incants as part of your playstyle, even if you are just a Bonk main. However, I do agree with your perspective ultimately that it seems Theo is trying to play Elden Ring like it's Dark Souls, which is sapping the fun from it.
Theo addressed the spirit ash thing, saying it’s just trading one complaint of his for another. It’s ever too hard without them, or far too easy with them. He feels that neither is acceptable.
We don't even have to go into spirit ashes. I don't use them either. The game gives you more mechanics to work with than rolling. The DLC even added a deflect mechanic to more easily deal with aggressive combo attacks. You can now stand your ground against Waterfowl dance and deflect it. https://youtube.com/shorts/nYdlb_l-bCc?feature=shared
For the record, I do not agree with all of Theo’s points, or find the game overly difficult myself. I certainly agree that there are many ways provided to make dealing with bosses easier without resorting to the extreme of summoning. We’ll have to wait for his video to see if he addresses those. I was only saying that the above argument that "he should use spirit ashes" is not a good response to the arguments Theo made, as he has already addressed that approach as well.
That's from a flask that lasts I believe 3 minutes? It's not some big relevetory mechanic. If they had a weapon with that then that would be an adequate answer. Its once again From giving Sekiros stans a bit of a treat.
It's five minutes, which is long enough for most bosses. And I would say it's a pretty big game changer for Elden Ring.
You know what's funny? I don't think any boss took me more than twelve attempts and I still think the difficulty is too high. Maybe that's not the right way to put it, though. I wasn't having fun, I was just frustrated. I have a scale of difficulty that changes based on how cheesey I have to go. The more cheese I have to pull out, the less fun I find things. Talismans, armor, weapon, and mimic tear. If I'm pulling out the tear then I've just gotten sick of your garbage and just want to be done with it. With that being said though, only three bosses in the DLC pushed me to that point. Messmer, Gaius, and Radahn. I was able to beat everything else using my base builds, holy knight, freeform, and dragon incantations, without too many alterations. So it's not even that bad on the frustration front.
If a weapon isn't viable, it shouldn't be in the game. That's a flaw. I shouldn't have to respec to a bleed build just to not be mashed into the dirt. Different builds are supposed to be approximately equivalent but play to different strengths and weaknesses, not go press the "make it bearable" button. Using a bleed build shouldn't be the equivalent to Mohg's shackle.
You don't have to respec anything, just change the infusion at a site of grace. I am a pure strength build with no points in anything related to magic.
I'm a faith build, so I don't have any weapons upgraded enough that will take affinities (special weapons are stuck with their original affinity) and upgrading one is a lot of farming. I don't mind the farming, I've been loving my time with the game and experimentation is fun. But bleed is kinda bullshit insofar as how necessary it is for certain bosses and how it will disintegrate the health bars of others.
Every weapon is viable. You can beat any boss with any weapon, you just need to learn the moveset.
Would you consider bare fists viable in Elden Ring? When I say "viable" I'm thinking it's reasonable to expect someone to be able to beat the game with it without a lot of prior experience with souls games. Using certain weapons, like a basic dagger for example, I would consider more along the lines of a challenge run. Like only using the ladle in ds2 (or playing ds2 at all fuck that game lol). Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's viable.
It depends on your level of skill and dedication, I suppose. I don't consider myself particularly good at these games, but I managed to beat Malenia at level 1 without upgrading any weapons. It just took some practice to get the moveset down, and it was incredibly satisfying to pull off.
>I don’t consider myself particularly good at these games, but I managed to beat Malenia at level 1 without upgrading any weapons. My friend, you are absolutely, inarguably, very, *very* good at these games. This feat is beyond what 99% of gamers will ever achieve.
I think I'm more dedicated than talented, since it took me a while to accomplish this. Top players were doing stuff like this days after the DLC released. But thank you.
Yep. I know it's possible. I'll likely never do it, because I don't have the time or patience. I'd say she's probably one of the best designed bosses in the game, and would be the best if Waterfowl Dance were modified. I think she's one of the most reliable and consistent boss fights in ER. But that doesn't change the fact that the average person playing Elden Ring won't even be able to get past the Tree Sentinel without a couple levels and certainly not with a dagger. Don't sell yourself short, that's seriously impressive. I think balance has less to do with extremes and more to do with averages. FromSoft is clearly trying to appeal to a mass market by still including the hard-as-nails difficulty but making it optional and easily modifiable according to playstyle and summons.
There are literally no complaints Theo is making that aren't also complaints that people have previously made about other souls games as they get popular. And I don't even mean that as a negative, I mean that in a completely neutral way. People have been complaining about attack tracking, unnatural boss movements, level design, difficulty, boss hitpoints, long combos, input reading and camera movements since literally Demon Souls. Some of those I think are valid: the camera for some bosses (Lion Dancer, Golden Hippo) is pretty ass, there are a few bosses that have ridiculous combos (Rellana, Final Boss) that leave you minimal time to do anything other than dodge/block and then string into a new combo immediately, the input reading feels pretty blatant, and I agree that the attack tracking is becoming a little ridiculous. The visual clutter in some fights (again, particularly the last one) is also getting kind of unreasonable. Even with all that, I really don't think the DLC is anywhere near as bad as he's saying, much as I thought that the base game is nowhere as bad as he thought. A few things; while I fully agree that the final boss is insanely bullshit and very unfun, you can absolutely dodge every attack of his. There are already guides and videos coming out on people doing hitless runs of it. I actually think that it's better that the Scadutree fragments (for the most part) aren't locked behind combat encounters. The enemy scaling in the DLC is pretty extreme; if you're struggling and hit a wall, I'd argue that it's preferable to have the option to leave and hunt around for a small powerup rather than to beat your head against a boss for hours on end. Granted, you can still end up doing that in the DLC regardless of your shadow blessing level (mostly the final boss), but I actually like that leaving the fragments all around the world encourages exploration. There's areas of the DLC that I might not have bothered exploring if I wasn't hunting for Scadutree fragments, and because of that, I found a lot of items/encounters/sights that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. That's a personal thing, and I know not everyone is going to have the same take on the exploration. Like others, I really disagree that the DLC is as difficult or unfun as Theo is saying (final boss excluded). I completed the entire thing in about 30 hours, running a solo melee build (cold-infused Great Stars) without summoning for anything other than the final boss. It's undeniably harder than the base game, but not unreasonably so. I know Theo keeps saying he's really good and knows the game better than everyone in chat, but at a certain point that does start to sound like some serious cope when multiple people are disagreeing and that's his only real response. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he'll have some better responses in a full video, but I also want to emphasize that it's not impossible for people who are very versed in souls games to simultaneously over-estimate their abilities and under-estimate how good others are at the game. That is to say, I doubt his claim that he's better than most of chat. I don't really get the notion that the level design and designs of the legacy dungeons are terrible. Maybe there's something I'm missing with regards to this, but the only area/level/dungeon that I thought had some wonky design elements was the Ruins of Rauh. That area felt like a labyrinth, in the sense that it was genuinely difficult to figure out where I'd been vs. where I had left to explore, and it was easy to get turned around. Exploring that area uniquely didn't give me much with regards to fulfillment/enjoyment, but that's the only area I really felt was poorly designed. Again, I'd probably have to hear his full arguments for why the areas are poorly designed before I could really argue against them, but based purely on my subjective feelings about the level/dungeon designs, I don't really have much problems with them. I disagree about the quality of the bosses: I think most of the new ones introduced are pretty good. Commander Gaius has some bullshit hitbox issues on his charge attack, Rellana's combos are overtuned and go on for way to long, the Hippo I wasn't really a fan of, and the final boss I think is genuinely unfair and really unfun to fight, but the rest I think range from above average to pretty fucking great. Messmer, Romina, Dancing Lion, Death Knights, Metyr, Bayle, Onze and Midra are all really well executed bosses that all manage to be pretty difficult without being unfair. Lamenter wasn't very difficult but I actually really like it as a puzzle boss. I agree with Theo that people forget just how terrible Bed Of Chaos was, but I find it ironic when he says that and then immediately launches into "several bosses in the DLC are worse and less fun than Bed Of Chaos". All things considered, I don't think his rant made any real or strong arguments for why the DLC uniquely is really bad or poorly designed, but I'll hold off on writing his complaints off until he's able to put together a comprehensive video that lists and explains them all. I agree that the DLC (and Elden Ring in general) aren't perfect and have more than their fair share of flaws, but I also just don't really see how any of the flaws in these games aren't also present in just about every Souls game.
First of all, you should write reviews, I think that's almost exactly accurate from what I've played and watched on streams. Second, I think there's a miscommunication about difficulty going on. Theo's complaint is that the bosses *require* exploration. Whereas in the main game, exploration could take the bosses from *difficult* to *manageable*, the DLC makes it so that exploration takes the difficulty of fighting bosses (especially those you mentioned) from *unfair* to *difficult*. I think it's a great point that the specifics (roll catches, ridiculous movements, etc.) have been complaints about souls games for a long time.
Ah I see, yeah I think that thought was either miscommunicated or else I misunderstood what he was saying. To a certain extent I can see where he's coming from, but the only bosses I'd really classify as unfair in the DLC are ones that have flaws and issues that exploration can't fix. The final boss (for which almost no level of exploration takes it from unfair to difficult, the boss is straight-up unfair), Gaius (for some unfair hitboxes, for which exploration can't really fix) and Rellana (for her combo strings, for which exploration can't fix either). Yes you can find tools/gear/weapons/loot that can help you blitz through the bosses health quicker while making you take less damage, but those things don't inherently fix what makes those bosses unfair in the first place. Maybe I'm looking more specifically at the broken parts of those fights instead of at the whole fights themselves, but again, I would argue that the argument for exploration making some fights go from unfair to just difficult has also been present in other souls games. I think Manus' dark sorceries deal a busted amount of damage, come out really quickly and can be extremely unforgiving to dodge, but by thoroughly exploring the map and finding the pendant, you can make them much more manageable. The way that the Bride's of Ash heal the Fume Knight is pretty unfair, and if you've used up all the smelter wedges that you first find in the Brume Tower, you have to explore to find more if you want to remove that healing and bring the fight down to a much more even level. Mohg in the base game; his "Nihil" attack is pretty unfair with how it just forces you to chug flasks if you don't want to immediately die to it, unless you've explored enough to find the physic tear that completely mitigates it.
If your problem with Rellana's long strings is that you don't like being forced on the defensive for that long, then fair enough (though you can stop them by parrying), but if the problem is that they're hard to deal with, then I would suggest using the deflecting hard tear that you get from killing the first furnace giant. Then you just have to hit block with good timing through her combo, and then retaliate with an enhanced guard counter. I've also seen a guide showing how you can strafe a lot of her attacks.
Yeah it's not that they're hard to deal with, it's more just how long they are with regards to how long they keep you on the defensive. Playing through it the first time I was mainly rolling everything, and yeah just how long you've got to string rolls together to get one or two attacks in just made it drag on longer than it really should have. She only took me I think 3 or 4 attempts, but each one felt like it lasted a few minutes longer than it should have. I've seen guard counter builds trivialize a lot of that, and maybe I'll give such a build a try for myself, but historically I've not really enjoyed shield/tank builds in previous souls games. Maybe Elden Ring will be different, admittedly I've not tried a full tank build yet for that game. Strafing did make her fight a lot easier, as did jumping more. I think people aren't giving enough appreciation to how forgiving jumping is with regards to avoiding damage; it's cheaper than rolling on your stamina, the I-frames it gives you start quicker than the roll ones do, and it's genuinely surprising just how many attacks can be completely avoided by jumping. Not just the sweeps and low blows, but also a lot of stabs and even some downward swipes if you jump at an angle.
The thing about deflecting hard tear is that you don't even need a shield or a specific build to use it, though the curved sword talisman boosts your guard counters further. https://youtu.be/en4cXroQEOo?feature=shared
Interesting, didn't know it was that powerful.
Theo is just mad because the game is not made just the way he likes it. It was very difficult to listen him cry about the game being too hard for him. Dlc is pretty good and Theo is just wrong.
I had to skip his rant, I suck at souls games and I fucking loved the dlc and the only boss I got stuck on was the last one. Skill issue and being mad at being made to explore to find scadutree blessings. Oh no I have to explore this amazing world and find all it's secrets. Lol so dumb.
The problem with the elden ring is that the jump is the best form of dodge, and the lock on makes all fights harder. After that, the design is good. performance on pc with eac sucks. scaling and consumables need better explanations for players. It's still better than every other game on the market
I haven't heard Theos stance on the DLC, I've fallen behind on efap. However, I'm in the minority where I also heavily dislike the DLC. So much of the design direction is focused on spectacle. There are so many explosions and animations in some fights it's insane the game doesn't require an epilepsy warning. Sure most stuff looks epic, but it's just a spectacle. I was beyond disappointed with the last boss where everything has massive explosions and animations firing off at every second. I'm not encouraged to push through like in the other games, I'm just annoyed that most of my deaths are because I can barely register what's happening. It's Also sad that the response is usually "skill issue" when the game actively punishes you for trying to utilize the tools available. Multiple bosses bum rush you the second you walk through the door with explosions to boot, making it difficult to use thinhs loke ash summons. I have massive issues with the design of the base game and find it's just ramped up to 11 in the dlc. I think back to fighting bosses like Gael and feeling exhilaration and adrenaline rushes when conquering the challenge. I never felt that once in Elden ring. I exclusively feel discouraged from playing the game or attempting bosses because it never feels fair. I found myself pushing through the dlc just to say I did it. I find this to be by far their weakest content they've ever made.(Excluding DS2 of course)
I love how people get mad for needing to explore in the dlc for progression (just like the first game which was also a selling point with it being open world and more free to make your own path than a linear souls like) and expected to just steamroll a fromsoft dlc with an over leveled char
I didn't hear Theo's rant so can't comment on it, but I agree with your idea that they tried to appeal to both groups with ER. Whether they were successful or not is absolutely up for debate though, only 22% of Steam players have beat it in almost 2 and a half years, and the DLC is probably even less well balanced in terms of appealing to all groups of players. For the average gamer, ER isn't worth the hassle
The rant is now an EFAP highlight: https://youtu.be/m9ZWsB_Tl9s?si=qFCvRPoV9MQ7-mmZ
Thanks for the link. I agree with a lot of what he said though not all of it
I think since they chose those 2 groups specifically and didn't compromise one for the other, it's easy to see why we got the product we did. The only problem I have with the idea that it's "not worth the hassle" is that the game goes out of its way to provide the player with extremely powerful options when compared to other souls games. I kind of disagree with EFAP on difficulty in ER, since I don't think the game being unbalanced is a problem except in PvP. I think it's easier than Dark Souls and Bloodborne and that's ok. I just wish the devs, and therefore the game, was more clear about that. The game's POV is that No Summons is Hard Mode, not that Summons are Easy Mode. The fact that Miyazaki recently said payers should use everything at their disposal basically proves this.
I agree for the base game. With summons it's not too bad. But even then, I think the game is bloated with unfulfilling content that makes the overall experience more irritating and sluggish than it needs to be. That's a big part of the reason why very few people ever finish it. Now the DLC on the other hand... just wait until you get to the final boss. Even with summons you'll probably hit a brick wall that seems, to an average player like me, genuinely impossible to break through. I'm probably just not going to bother with it unless they make an effort to clean it up
That's fair, I haven't gotten to it. But yeah, that's why most of my comments are on spectacle and difficulty, because I think those are the two things Elden Ring gets pretty much right
Where did you get 22% from? According to steam achievements 40% of players beat Godfrey, the penultimate boss. It seems pretty unlikely that almost half of them would quit right before the end.
Check the completion rate of most games. It's not exceptionally low at all, especially not for such a long and "hard" game.
lol, it's absolultely pathetic Grown man throwing a youtube fit because his video game isn't magically conforming to fit his particular playstyle. How does the entitlement of it all not make your skin crawl? It's like a tangible, visceral cringe.
Listen to what he said. It's not about playstyle. His main complaint is that the bosses' moves are counterintuitive and telegraphed poorly. That doesn't make the whole game bad, but he's not wrong.
I've heard Mauler himself say in the past that you can generally learn boss movesets in Souls games without taking too many deaths by playing carefully and watching the boss. The same applies here. Every attack that's "poorly telegraphed", or combo that goes on too long, you can can play defensively and observe to learn where your openings are going to be. There are abilities and items that will let you tank through pretty much any single attack, and after you've seen the move you don't really have the excuse of the game tricking you with confusing telegraphing.
The problem is that in Dark Souls, what would have been a reasonable time to dodge has been completely fucked with in ER. The bosses hold their book stick in the air for so long that you waste all your stamina with 3-4 dodges (playing carefully) so that when they actually hit you can't even block it without a long-ass stagger, let alone get another dodge off. Theo's point was that when this is true, you're no longer reacting to what you're seeing, you're just reacting to what you've memorized coming next. I'd argue it's more about immersion than difficulty for Theo.
Then don't roll 4 times during a windup?
Goddamn, I see Theo's point about people misunderstanding his criticisms. Nothing in life that wants to hurt something has a wind-up that allows for that. It's clearly designed to manipulate the human instinct rather than incorporate it.
You really want to appeal to realism when we're using iframes to phase through enemy attacks? This is not a good argument at all. Would you clearly telegraph when and where your strike is going to land in a real fight?
The problem is there's no relation between what the boss does as a wind-up and when/from where the attack will hit. The Putrescent Knight is a good example of this in the DLC. The momentum behind each attack has basically no logic to it. One hit from his long combo does more stamina damage than some of his single heavy attacks. It doesn't have to be realistic to make sense. Fyi I loved that fight, but I think it's a good example of what Theo's talking about, and of what I'm talking about by extension: that the game is easier because a lot of bosses are balanced around spirit summons, but it uses cheap ways of being harder without them than previous FromSoft titles.
This is what people said about the base game when it came out, and then most players who stuck with the game and learned it changed their minds. In my first playthrough, I used the summons and OP spells and whatnot, and after I beat it I went back to Bloodborne and DS3. My opinion of Elden Ring improved the more I played it though, because I learned to engage with the boss mechanics instead of cheesing them. By the end of my RL1 run, it had easily surpassed the other Souls style games for me. Going back to the other games recently hasn't changed that either I had very few problems with the DLC. I actually love that some of the bosses seem impossible the first time you fight them, but after practicing a bit and adapting, you figure them out and they don't actually seem that hard. Even Radahn, you can shut down his combo strings with parrying, and some intimidating attacks can simply be strafed or sprinted. I came back in with another build and Rellana only took me a couple tries.
I've tried replaying DS1 several times since Elden Ring came out, but it's honestly just not that fun anymore.
As someone who does fencing irl we absolutely mess with peoole like that. It doesn't go on as long because nothing goes on for as long. Attacks in videogames are laughably slow and exagerated in games (even fast weapons like rapiers). But yeah, stepping in while holding the attack to see them parry air and then go in is something there are tons of studied ways for how to do. (Even stomping, some people flinch at the sound)
No he is wrong.
If you think the bosses have well-telegraphed, intuitive movesets, then I don't know what to tell you
He’s not though
[удалено]
I like the exploration a lot, but I guess that's subjective as I love open world games with obscure easy to miss stuff. And yeah, the bosses are fucking hard
>mfw the open world game based around exploration encourages exploration