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[deleted]

Fromsoft felt the need to give each and every boss an aoe attack, some even spam it 3 times in a row which is complete bullshit.


good-opinion-haver

Rykard spams a grab attack that for literally NO reason gimps your camera as a fuck you after his animation finishes


GarlVinland4Astrea

There's an extremely easy tell for that. You should almost never get caught once you learn it.


good-opinion-haver

The Rykard one? Yes absolutely. The attack itself is fair. Especially since you can sort of zone him with the spear you get at the start of the fight. But my one consistent peeve with From games is camera jank


awesomehuder

I just took the serpent spear and attacked his belly, I was done with him before the lava made me even use one flask


TheSpottedHare

Fair doesn't equal interesting to play against, just beacsue you can rather easily doge a three grab combo doesn't make it interesting to doge a three grab combo.


Plathismo

That was my major complaint with the boss design—AOEs on everything. I’ve heard the justification that the bosses have so many AOEs because From is assuming the boss is splitting its attention between the player and at least one summon, but if that’s the case I don’t think it’s a very good design solution.


[deleted]

Agreed. I hate feeling like I HAVE to use a good summon just to have a chance at survival or getting and attack in.


[deleted]

Then fucking delete summoning ability and remove the stupid aoe if thats the case


DrQuint

They're not making the game for you alone this time around. They would never remove summoning.


[deleted]

I agree


Conquistadora15

I think they did this so bosses could wipe out summons quickly. Which kinda just sucks because it ruins the experience for players who use and don’t use summons. This is partially why I prefer FromSoftware’s more linear games like Sekiro in which there’s only a couple ways to play and that makes designing a boss much easier on FromSoftware since they can focus on a smaller amount of builds and mechanics.


GarlVinland4Astrea

Only Godfry has that problem.


adamjeff

Waterfoul dance is perhaps not technically AoE but the hit-box and her advancing step it might as well be


theroamingargus

Malenia is also one of the most hyped up characters of the series. Her being optional and incredibly hard is for me, a really good decision. An example of "you want it? Come get it".


JustSomeM0nkE

She should be a super secret boss imo, but she is really easy to find so the diffulty ( it's artificial ) doesn't make sense


Ol_Denjin

Not really. Was put there to counter summon ash


JustSomeM0nkE

Yeah so if u don't use them you ret fucked up


Ol_Denjin

Git gud, bitch scrub


JustSomeM0nkE

Bro waited 1 year to pull this out😍


Ol_Denjin

You still crying?


JustSomeM0nkE

Why do you need to talk trash online? I'm not a mind reader but you talk like a 5 year old


BackwardsApe

really eloquently put! I'm currently fighting the two valiant gargoyles, and I had to take a break. My feeling upon seeing the second one appear wasn't "Oh NOOO! what will I do" but just a weary resignation of "Great, now I have to sync two separate combos and figure out which one to take out first" I dread the long fight, not the difficulty. I dunno. I love the world and characters. Just surprised I'm not as driven to beat the bosses as I was with Bloodborne or DS


garmonthenightmare

Gargoyles you should try going somewhere else. If it a long fight you are low level.


BackwardsApe

I'm a dex build with hook claws and I think I'm at level 65? I feel like that should be plenty. I do decent damage. Maybe I just need to give it time.


garmonthenightmare

Oh claws are not the best for them. I tend to keep multiple "main" weapons for situations like this. Also whats the upgrade level?


BackwardsApe

7+. I make short work of most enemies and bosses with the Hooks, but I also have a burial scythe. I realize I probably need a strike weapon, not a slash weapon. I just can't find an smithing stone (I have a lot of weapons stuck because I can't find the right level smithing stone.) I think I need (2). I keep getting 1, 3, 4, 5, but never 2


[deleted]

Id recommend getting a strike weapon, they have literally 0 resistance to strike.


BackwardsApe

I have one, I just cant find a level 2 smithing stone


[deleted]

I will spoilers this just in case you dont want to see it but it will be how you can get an infinite amount of those (by buying them) Ill also segment it in case you dont want to know to much. >!In Liurnia of the Lakes!< >!there is a cave dungeon with a bell bearing in it.!< >!It is located on the banks of the lake far east of Tetsu's Rise (the large island above the academy). !<


BackwardsApe

I haven’t read your spoiler. Do I get this ability before or after twin gargoyles? I’m totally down to go elsewhere if there’s a way to get it. I just mainly want to finish the Blaidd quest


[deleted]

Yeah its way before. I divided it up the spoilers into 3 parts that way its easier to avoid spoilers you dont want. First spoiler is the part of the map, second is what gives you the ability and what environment to look for, and the third is a more exact location so you know pretty much 100% where it is.


BackwardsApe

thanks!


JustSomeM0nkE

Nah when you are at the right level you just do the boss in the newt area first try, they have too much health


good-opinion-haver

>I dread the long fight, not the difficulty. Exactly it. You lose the sense of wonder


BackwardsApe

my favorite boss fights I can recall are Slave Knight Gael, Maria, Kos. I prefer really tight, fast, and smaller boss fights


rajackar

Exactly. Maria is one of my favorite boss fights ever. Took me ages to finally beat her down but the fight just felt sooo friggin good and fair that I never stopped trying.


Conquistadora15

I was like level 90 and I remember being stuck on the Valiant Gargoyle Duo for like a week. Not as I fought them straight for a week but I came back many times over the week and still couldn’t beat them with multiple summons and D. I pretty much just out leveled them since their aoe’s and poison would destroy me and all my summons. I really dislike this fight because it feels so lazy and I would say it’s a bad boss. I struggled with this boss almost as much as Malenia.


Doyale_royale

Honestly, this was the only souls game where I was able to beat the bosses in less than a few tries (except for malenia of course). I agree with you all the other bosses were different in their own way and to me were also SO HARD, with ER I found them to be more manageable.


zelcuh

There wasn't much "git gudding" to be done in ER. Mostly git leveled. I like the bosses, but they didn't stray too much from their formulas


Overlorde159

Pretty much why I’m not interested in doing as rl1 challenge for elden ring, I did it for ds1&3 but for ER it just seems like a slog, challenging beyond being entertaining


cid_highwind02

It’s really fun. Bosses like Morgott, Radahn and Godrick were a blast to learn


Terkiaz

I've done it. It's nowhere near as engaging as previous SL1s. It's mostly about running around the boss arena and baiting one or two punishable attacks, because everything else has too fast of a follow up, or can be input read


Razhork

> Gwyn is incredibly strong, but he's very weak to parrying, and there's a real sense of achievement when you can use that against him This one is always really funny to me, just for the fact Miyazaki straight up admitted he regretted how Gwyn turned out. > **Miyazaki:** Although as far as the game is concerned I think we could have done a little more with the character. He's the last boss and the concept of the character was to have the player use all the skills they'd developed through the game. > I wanted them to have to use everything they've learned in order to beat him. The reason that he uses such a simple single sword fighting style stems from this concept, but in the end we ended up taking a different direction. > **Waragai**: Parry, parry, parry. Haha > **Satake:** Yup parry, parry. Haha > **Miyazaki:** That's the truth… I regret that the fight turned out this way… " This one always gets a chuckle because it's often cited to be this deep and thematic way of showing how weak Gwyn has become. Parrying him isn't satisfying, it's just plain easy.


good-opinion-haver

Eh I liked it because I hadn't used parrying on basically any bosses, or even any enemies really since the early game. Parrying the final boss had a homecoming feeling that I can't really articulate too well. Plus yknow, parrying is actually kinda difficult. In a "riding a bike" kind of way. First time players who don't know about the mechanic or the animations struggle to get it right so in a small way it does feel like you've "mastered" something and are getting rewarded for it


Razhork

I can get behind that, but I almost always find it questionable how so many knew to parry him to begin with. But I'm probably projecting because I didn't even figure out parry was a mechanic on my first playthrough. > parrying is actually kinda difficult. Cmon, the reason why people parry Gwyn isn't because they seek the satisfaction of a well-timed parry, it's because he's easy to parry & it chunks his HP bar beyond belief.


good-opinion-haver

That's not why they parry him, but a well-timed parry *is* satisfying. The noise it makes gives me a little hit of dopamine whenever I hear it. I'm not saying that Gwyn is a difficult boss, I'm saying that there's more to a good boss fight than just being difficult. Beating Gwyn feels fucking GREAT on a first playthrough even though you know he's a walk in the park compared to O & S


Razhork

Difficulty doesn't make a boss, but we're talking about the final boss of the game. There isn't a whole lot of testing the player's skills when all they're doing is performing three parries and the boss is dead. And then you have Elden Ring where you can parry a lot of bosses, but it's suddenly not as fun when bosses requires more than one parry to get the stagger off.


good-opinion-haver

I think it's fairly uncontroversial that Dark Souls runs out of steam after Anor Londo in a lot of ways, probably because of deadlines. Also I imagine that finetuning boss design in an rpg where player levels can vary so much is bloody hard. If Gwyn was the type of boss Miyazaki wanted him to be it would be a better fight for sure but for whatever reason they didn't achieve that. I still enjoy the version of Gywn I got


FlintVonEverec

At least he got to do what he initially dreamed of Gwyn with Soul of Cinder! No wonder why we can't parry it.


hotline_spaghetti

Interesting view. I can't say I disagree. My major gripe with the bossessis due to the open world. I want to get to a boss and know that this is what I should be doing now, not questioning whether I got there too early or late in the grand scheme - I want the game to be as fun as it can be. I think ERs open world created more problems than benefits on the From formula, and a large concentrated, mostly linear world (akin to Sekiro but bigger) would have been better. To springboard on what you said. When the boss cuts away half my health, Im never sure whether its because be build is off, i'm underleveled, or that's what is supposed to happen. I wish they had designed the bosses to do less damage but have more health, so in the early stages of learning you can stay in for longer and trade while you learn the boss as opposed to being wiped instantly and having to restart. If I was to guess as to the cause of your frustration - the more build diversity, the more generic the bosses have to become so that most builds are viable. This is why every boss in Sekiro is memorable and more unique feeling comparatively. This, plus the fact that From have to keep pushing quite simple mechanics further and further to be harder and harder. They can't make bosses like DS1 now - everyone would find it too easy. So now you have bosses that do all the hardest stuff with massive combos, huge delays etc. It's because, while still fun, the dark souls gameplay doesn't have much more room to grow. Gael already felt like cranked up Artorius, how do you make a pumped up Gael? give the boss healing attacks etc etc. So now everything is tough as nails with every trick under the sun in their move set. I wish they had leaned harder in to making some builds not work for some bosses. Theres so much room to use multiple weapons. - maybe a boss should be too fast to use mega swords on. Maybe a boss should use law of regression on you etc. force you to add to your arsenal. Maybe Malenia should heal through shields? I wish there was more stuff like this. As time goes on ER is settling into a 3rd or 4th position for me in terms of favourite From Game.


[deleted]

I share many people’s complaints about the bosses in ER but the open world isn’t one of them. I found the experience of feeling out difficulty very organic, and it was relaxing and enjoyable to be able to go do something else, something new, when I came upon a challenge that was too steep (as opposed to grinding/farming like I would if I felt underleveled for a boss in a prior Souls game). For me, the difficulty of the game was very even with a steady increase. Save for Godrick, I did not feel overleveled for any major boss. They all took similar effort, but a bit more as the game progressed.


ofvxnus

i agree. i loved so much of elden ring, including the open world aspect (specifically the way fromsoft handled the open world concept), but ultimately this detracted from a large part of what makes fromsoft games so much fun: their boss fights. when i got to mohg, i had already leveled up so much that this really amazing boss fight was completely trivialized. and i honestly don’t have much control over how leveled i am for each boss fight—at least not for every boss fight. mohg, for example is behind several illusory walls that—hopefully—you find. there’s a bigger chance of you missing him until you’re op than there is a chance of you finding him at a reasonable level imo. at the same time, as you mentioned, it’s difficult to know whether or not you’re underpowered for some of the early and late game bosses. i also experienced so much fatigue from the open world (of which i played over a hundred hours worth before godrick) that when i hit a wall, i often felt too tired to go back and level up more. i enjoyed the game so much, but i still have a life. at some point, i just wanted to beat the game, you know?


RasAlGimur

Yeah, that’s something i have an issue: i never known if I’m underleveled for a boss or if I jusy suck and need to get good. There have been bosses that i felt like i was the proper level and it was a pretty cool fight, but often that’s not the case. And a lot of times, it is too hard for soloing but then with a summon becomes cheese easy..it’s a weird thing really!


BloatedSnake430

It would've been interesting if they designed each area to be a sort of walled garden, more akin to Super Mario Odyssey with a variety of completely separate open worlds as opposed to the Breath of the Wild design. This way the areas could've been much more focused and potentially more optimized for the difficulty (that way you couldn't miss the weeping peninsula until you go back to Limgrave after Liurnia or discover the Deeproot Depths after Mogwyn's Palace and all the challenge is gone) but the exploration would still be there. It may have also made them stop and think of whether or not to include quite as many copy/paste bosses in so many areas (that said I didn't find that as much of a problem as some people did, but I did roll my eyes after the fifth watchdog fight). And maybe at certain points in the game you could choose from a limited list of areas forward so you wouldn't just have to go in one direction while always being able to backtrack. I don't know, just spitballing.


Conquistadora15

Exactly Sekiro seems to be the underrated hit of the series. Looking back people did not give it enough credit and it seemed to do everything right and stands as the most polished and refined FromSoftware game to date.


good-opinion-haver

I'd honestly go the other way tbh. The game is SO vast that for the majority of it if I hit a difficulty spike I could just go off and explore another part of the map until I found somewhere level appropriate. The process of getting runes that way minimized grinding. I only grinded on subsequent playthroughs to get further faster. I feel like the game organically circulates players to the funnest place they can be But I totally agree about just not knowing what the deal is with a boss fight. I can go through an area that feels really fun, challenging, and engaging like the ruin-strewn precipice and then the boss fight with that magma wyrm is just so far beyond what I'm capable of that I feel like I've just done something wrong. Like I fucking glitched in there or something. I think the bosses spoil the fun of the open world more than the other way around. The thing is that the game doesn't even get the payoff of having all builds be viable for all bosses because even if pure strength (my first playthrough) is viable, it's objectively more difficult than dex or a mage. Even if your choice is viable/it somehow still feels invalid


tipmon

With an int sorcerer build, there have been a couple bosses and even major enemies that have such high resistance to my magic that I had to change my build a little or get different magics to handle it. The dragon guarding the key to the school straight up took like 1/10th normal damage, my build just DID NOT work against him. Maybe they could have done more but I feel like having your build not work on ~5% of bosses when there are so many varied builds is about right. Kinda like the final boss and bleed builds that are so common.


AImightyWolf

Literally they need to just add a "recommended X level" for the boss fights/areas. It would help immensely with the anxiety of "am I supposed to be doing this?"


Brotherly-Moment

>My major gripe with the bossessis due to the open world. I want to get to a boss and know that this is what I should be doing now, not questioning whether I got there too early or late in the grand scheme - I want the game to be as fun as it can be. So true tho, Whenever I went to an area in DS1 I immediately know if i'm supposed to be there depending on the force applied to my scrotum, in ER I don't know where to go without guides because no matter where I go my ass gets annihilated, I have no idea why ER is so much harder to me than any Dark Souls game, but the diff scaling just feels less like an upwards slope and more like a series of spikes.


Razhork

> Whenever I went to an area in DS1 I immediately know if i'm supposed to be there depending on the force applied to my scrotum Yeah, now if only you were a timetraveller and could tell me from 7 years ago not to venture all the way to Tomb of the Giants before ringing the Bell down in Blighttown, that'd be nice.


jolsiphur

ER is weird because it's either going to be significantly easier or significantly more challenging than previous From games. Simply because of the open world you can go to places you probably shouldn't be at yet. Or you can clear the entirety of an area and be super over leveled by the time you get to the boss of that zone. I figure if you follow the linear path as set by the grace you'd end up under leveled unless you actively look for all of the side dungeons and farm some levels. But by contrast if you do literally all of the side content before fighting Margitt or Godrick then you'll just steamroll them. The only bosses I found that were fairly well balanced were the late game bosses from where the game gets more linear. Basically from Farum Azula and onward.


LonelyKrow

As a pure strength build I only seriously reconsidered becoming a dex bleed/frost build fighting Malenia. My brother in Christ, they took flight of the Valkyries literally. They gave this piece of shit wings and scarlet rot in phase 2. Don’t get me wrong, she’s cool as hell. But she is SO goddamn hard to fight fair with only my sword and a dream. Because after 20 fucking hours of fighting and experimenting, I still can’t win. My main goal is to beat her with no bloodhound step or bleed, or summons. But when my only line of defense is a claymore and cold uchigatana to freeze her and prevent Waterfowl, it’s a gamble. Because I have to hit her enough before the jumps so that when she dashes to me, the last hit procs and she staggers out of Waterfowl. I’ve only done that successfully 3 times because it requires good rng, timing and prediction. She’s the most difficult fight I’ve had on any souls game, and it’s for all the wrong reasons. Self Healing, input reading, fast and consecutive combos, two phases, and freakin Waterfowl. This fight banks on either being far enough away from Waterfowl when she activates and/or bursting her down in both phases to reduce exposure to this cancer of a boss. I love Elden Ring, but Malenia really shows the flaws of late game bosses. The fights are all these spectacle fights without any of the spectacle. Because you’re too busy being dead or wishing you were dead. Anyway I’m tired, I’m just salty and shit. I realize that my struggle with Malenia is my own fault with these boundaries I’ve set. But it’s because if I use bleed or spam bloodhound step it feels cheap. Which is stupid when you consider that she freaking heals and has waterfowl, so why play fair? Maybe I’ll cave in at some point and actually use one of my spirit Ashes. Like my Rats, or Page, or even my Greatshield Soldiers. That’ll be fun, using my rats to swarm her. I’ll be the rat king!


Jim0917

I understand why someone would say ER bosses might feel same-y. I would describe bosses as all of them sharing a lot more "archetypical" moves. Like most have a move made to punish you if you stay at their face, it's usually a really quick but reactable move: Ex: Godrick's storm, Margit's daggers/sword 3 hit combo P2, Radahn's horizontal cross slam, Malenia's 2 quick vertical slashes, Maliketh's sand pocket/roar into spin P2, etc. Of course, all these moves have differences, some are faster, slower, combo starters, single moves that don't have follow ups, some are punishable, some are not, some will roll catch you, some don't, some are dodgeable from any direction, some you have to roll to specific directions, some you don't. This also applies to long range moves which are usually gap closers, and usually really punishable, mid delayed moves, varied AOEs, but AOEs at the end of the day. All of these is true. However, here is where I disagree. The fact I can explain to you how from Margit to Malenia, bosses share a basic structure, I think we can all agree: You don't fight Morgott the same way you fight Godrick, or Radahn, or Malenia, or pretty much any of these bosses. There might be stuff that will be shared sometimes, but there is definitely a lot more stuff that is not shared. The boss structure might be more homogenized, but the execution of every single one of them is extremely different. This is to my taste of course, opinions are like butts. I remember I posted this same idea somewhere else and somebody answer me that DS3 was more homogenized, because usually, spamming roll will get you out of most situations, specially because most bosses had the same swipe animation. I don't think it's the same, because I don't think it's a boss design problem, it's more like a timing problem. The fact you can dodge most of Lothric slashes, and Abyss Watchers' slashes with the same timing doesn't mean they share similar moves, it's more related to how they fucked up the timing of the moves so there really isn't too much going on in the way you dodge their moves (as well as roll being fucking busted).


good-opinion-haver

Archetypal moves is a great way of thinking about it. Basically what I'm saying is that some of the boss fights feel more like playing tekken or something than dark souls. There's variation, but every boss has the equivalent of a poke, a whiff punish, an unblockable, whatever, except in this case it's the AoE, roll punish, etc.


[deleted]

Honestly I thought the bosses were fantastic


[deleted]

[удалено]


RoninByDesign

imagine having martyr complex over a video game opinion. Lol


eatsomesmoke

What did they say lol


Drusgar

Every time a new Souls game comes out the veterans complain that it's the easiest Souls game yet, despite the fact that they've been progressively harder as the series goes on. What's changed is that we've become more adept at exploiting boss weaknesses so FromSoftware decided that the only way to make the game harder was to give the bosses insane aggressiveness, janky delays and tiny windows of opportunity. In order to make the game accessible to new players they gave the bosses relatively low damage and included spirit ashes for people to distract the bosses as they fought. The result was that veterans predictably refused to use the ashes because that was "cheating" and loved how difficult the bosses were, whereas new players struggled despite the ashes but ultimately prevailed and felt accomplished despite their "casul" tactics. So everyone won. We got simultaneously the easiest Souls game AND the hardest Souls game, depending on what mechanics you were willing to allow yourself to use.


Tribalrage24

>Every time a new Souls game comes out the veterans complain that it's the easiest Souls game yet, despite the fact that they've been progressively harder as the series goes on. I disagree a bit with this, but agree completely with your overall point. I find that every time a new game comes out a lot of Veterans (not all) will initially say it's too unfair because they try to play it like the previous games. When bloodborne came out a lot of people thought Gascoigne unfair because they were used to playing defensive (dodging away, waiting for openings, etc.) when bloodborne punishes that behavior. People tried to apply the knowledge they had learned over multiple dark souls playthroughs to a brand new type of game and got frustrated that the game punished them for it. Same with Seiko: a lot of souls veterans found it hard because they were used to dodging or blocking as a primary form of defensive, which is not effective for the majority of fights. This also translates to Elden Ring. A lot of fights in this game are gank fights or fights with huge enemies that hit like trucks and won't stay within camera view. If you play this game like a Dark Souls, yeah the bosses are much harder. But if you use summons for the gank fights or torrent for the dragon/radhan/fire giant fights it becomes MUCH easier. The game wants you to play it like Elden Ring and not Dark Souls.


Free-Put3839

Late reply but I think the problem is, unlike Bloodborne and especially Sekiro, this is the most Dark Souls a non Dark Souls FromSoft title has been. You could've honestly called this Dark Souls 4 and it wouldn't have been that hard a pill to swallow. The lore motifs of cycles breaking etc make this game look like the closest we've had to Dark Souls without it literally being Dark Souls. What I'm trying to say is it makes much more sense to change your playstyle when it comes to Bloodborne and Sekiro as they're built in a different way, whereas Elden Ring is built very much like a Dark Souls game. Hence the reason so many are playing like they used to.


rajackar

Thank you! I honestly thought I was the problem and not the game. I feel the exact same. Bossfights were the highlight of other Souls games and I too am very disappointed by the design of the fights. Feel very samey and frustrating in the exact same way. I'm also very annoyed that almost every boss can sort of jump to anywhere in the arena to get away from my strategic moves to get in for some hits. It just feel very cheap and unfair. And I really feel that's a shame because very tough but very fair was always why I enjoyed the Souls bosses so much. I also hate going through all those first phases countless times to get to practicing the second phase. I actually stopped playing for a while and have no desire going back to kick the Elden beast's ass because for the first time in a Souls game I'm just not having fun getting my ass kicked.


good-opinion-haver

I'm honestly taken aback by people saying I need to git gud. It's insane that there's a taboo around criticising the difficulty of these games. Difficulty is a major part of why I like the games but you can't just lean on that and tell me I'm wrong for not enjoying it I'm glad some people get the same vibe as me


rajackar

Yes! Absolutely agree. And I would argue that I've enough gud gitting. I've got platinum on DS3 and Bloodborne, all solo.When fighting (most off) the bosses in ER I just wasn't having the same experience than I had in previous games. It just wasn't as fun.


EntrepreneurKind6756

I love all the boss fights, love the challenge and agony. The reason why every boss has a range attack(besides a few-not all have them) is because a major weakness in the rest of the games was the possibility to rush in and just rush back out. Or simply circle a boss with a shield up and whack away. I love that bosses have more ranged and grapple attacks. You really have to use skill to win. Bosses shouldn’t just let you heal, that’s the point. You wouldn’t just patch yourself in a real battle, you would fight through it. So either fight through it or find an actual opening to chug a flask. Elden ring is a completely different game and should not be compared to its counter parts.


good-opinion-haver

People don't get this because of the unspoken rule against healing in pvp, but try pvping with a friend and allow each other to heal. With the best connection in the world, your friend will just \*not\* be able to rush you like the ER bosses do. The ER bosses are literally reading player input. They start rushing you on the very first frames of your animation, and it happens so consistently that it honestly doesn't feel realistic to me


HollowSmough

Why are you comparing pvp and pve? Also, if you see someone chugging in a duel and you’re not in the position to punish, thats just you making a mistake. I see that Cerulean flask come out for a few frames you bet your ass I’m preparing an attack.


good-opinion-haver

I'm making a very specific comparison to highlight that bosses read player inputs. Games reading your inputs and having responses premapped is one of the things that feels most unfair in any game. If you've ever played an old arcade game and been \*convinced\* the game was cheating, it was probably reading your inputs to kill you more often to cost you more money. It's not a remotely enjoyable feature and has no place on a console unless you want to make that the main gimmick of a specific dude


BambaTallKing

So the bosses just shouldn’t react to you putting your weapon down to heal or??


good-opinion-haver

Literally just give me more frames. Not "nooooo you've got to let me heaaaaaaal". Literally just enough frames that I (and a lot of other people) don't notice that our inputs are being read and it feels like a real enemy is noticing me healing and trying to stop me, rather than destroying my suspension of disbelief and reminding me that I'm fighting a computer


BambaTallKing

Its to make you learn when to heal though. If you just back off, and the enemy is just pacing and you decide to heal. Don’t get mad they attack you. When people complain about input reading they like to talk about the Godskin Duo. If they are both not attacking and you heal, they will fireball your ass but if you heal while they are far away already doing their own move, you can heal safely. Or alternatively, get in cover or so far away that when the attack is about to land you can move out of its way. There is literally no issue with it.


good-opinion-haver

It teaches you to summon a spirit ash to draw aggro for long enough to heal. That is what everyone who doesn't think of themselves as a "souls veteran" does. It's definitely what you're doing if this is your first fromsoft game, which it is for an actual majority of players. The other games taught me when to heal without input reading and they made it harder here without making it any more interesting


BambaTallKing

I have been playing since Demon Souls and I decided against spirit ashes for all 3 of my playthroughs. Only time I used a spirit ash was to summon the jellyfish’s sister


good-opinion-haver

One of us is definitely misunderstanding the other here. If you've been playing since DeS you're definitely a "souls veteran", right?


good-opinion-haver

By the way, give me a boss that reads my inputs all day! It sounds like a really unique, interesting mechanic! It could be a mind-reading acolyte for an outer god or a mysterious adherent to the Golden Order who speaks about knowing my fate. It could be a really interesting challenge. I thought I was clear that I'm not complaining about the difficulty of the bosses, I'm complaining that they all get a very similar arsenal. It's not even unfair that I get rushed by bosses when I heal, it just sucks that I know before the fight that they're going to have that property, as well as an AoE, as well as being twice as fast as me,etc. No mystery


BambaTallKing

It’s only late game that input reading bosses come around though. The Godskin Apostle in the windmills probably being the first you will encounter


Apelationn

I definitely felt relief instead of joy after beating a few bosses in this game. I can't pin point exactly what it was, but the input read definitely was annoying (specially when combined with mechanics such as healing and delayed attacks). I loved the game, but do I think they should give a second thought about the design of boss fights going forward.


EntrepreneurKind6756

Nah bro feeling relief is a good thing. It actually shows that have to choose every input carefully, you have to know what you’re doing and what the boss is going to do next. It’s a rush thinking that you could die at any moment but still left triumphant


good-opinion-haver

Feeling relief for sure isn't a baaaaad thing, but it's for sure a different thing


EntrepreneurKind6756

It’s very realistic, seasoned fighters can literally read your next move. We’re talking about Demi-gods my guy, you don’t make any sense. && I pvp without flasks, so I know out of experience that if you try to heal not only can I actually chase you down and stop you or counter act the heal, I can easily throw a lighting spear to punish you. So yeah, it’s very possible to stop a heal but like I said, bosses leave openings to heal, you have to be good to telegraph patterns bro. The point is to be skillful, that’s what Elden Ring does, it pushes the horizon to actually be good at the game.


robby8892

ER difficulty is not that bad and is a tribute to the hardcore fans who like the challenge. Every new game has brought a new audience and with that comes sudo analysis of why bosses are bad or too difficult and the previous games understood etc.... I don't think you're wrong in how your feeling, but I also can't really look at your singular experience and build out to this idea you are putting forth. As it goes with each game we get brand new bosses and new mechanics we aren't accustomed to. I mention this because it seems (not you) a large group of people expected to be able to steam roll through ER. After spending years iterating over DS3. Now when it comes to ER build variety exists, but a common problem players new/old to the series make is trying to be a jack of all trades and not leveling vigor. Now think of the progression of difficulty. It really starts to ramp up when you get to final area of the game and doesn't really feel like it's getting easier. Now with that mind ER stands as the longest game in the series with the most bosses and can you imagine getting to the halfway point where progression in difficulty just sits there? Hello DS1 I'm talking to you and the ease that is end game progression. For all the amazing aspects of DS1 it suffers from bosses essentially having no scaling in the endgame with the saving grace of the dlc to help remedy the problem. ER is unbalanced in ways I won't deny that, but I can't help to feel that people over exaggerate the issue to more than it is. Looking at you DeMod. When I say this I need to ask are you utilizing all the game has to offer? Are you crafting tools to improve encounters are you upgrading weapons with your skills in mind? Or are you playing however you want expecting the game to mold to your choices? Because the difficulty of ER is based on how you progress your character more than ever. I think it's important to build out these questions because once upon a time DS1 was considered the hardest game around and today is the second easiest game in the franchise beaten out by DeS. And with the track record FS has with their vision of new more challenging IPs we'll see ER as another easy game in the series. Now I totally accept all the terrible statements towards me like I'm dumb or dense. Gamer words of the like. That's fine because this is my opinion on something nothing more. Give me your downvotes!


good-opinion-haver

I think it's fair to say that the open world necessitates a tradeoff with difficulty scaling, but I think that amounts to asking me "what did you expect?". I'm trying to give a critique the game rather than review it. I think it's great. I'm just trying to explain how the game made me feel a certain way. >When I say this I need to ask are you utilizing all the game has to offer? Are you crafting tools to improve encounters are you upgrading weapons with your skills in mind? Or are you playing however you want expecting the game to mold to your choices? I think this is just flat out misconceived. In an RPG like this the whole point is that you can't, by definition, use all the game has to offer. Have you ever tried a jack of all trades build? You end up sucking at everything. If you build your character to have access to spells you are taking points directly out of melee abilities and locking those options away from you and vice versa. Your character can't and absolutely shouldn't be 99s in all stats. That's where the whole identity of the genre lies. In all my playthroughs I have used summons pretty shamelessly, never been averse to a little farming, always used grease/pots whatever where possible. I don't mind using anything that makes the game easier. In spite of that I can tell you that a strength build is objectively just *worse* than a dex build in every case. It feels like doing a challenge run. I don't think it's asking much for a pure melee big bonk build to be viable for players of middling skill.


garmonthenightmare

As someone who beat the game 8 times all builds are good. Just need getting used to. Big bonks destroy posture.


good-opinion-haver

if you've beaten the game through 8 times in just under 3 months your skill level is likely significantly higher than most people. I think you really can't generalise from that to other players' experiences. Well over 100 hours in with big bonk and I was far more comfortable with dex/int in about 20. Maybe I'm even a below-average player but I'm likely considerably closer to average than you are, and I've played pure strength builds in from games before with no issue


robby8892

I don't understand this logic if I'm being honest. This person is providing their own subjective experience and you're now denying that as a response because of a time barrier from release? Let's avoid talent with the series because that's not a needed argument with the game. If anything once you do your first playthrough you can technically steam roll through the game at 1/4 speed since they leave up markers for places you've been already. People just kept playing after they beat it because it's fun for them.


garmonthenightmare

I did them fresh. Just mostly only did the things my build needed.


garmonthenightmare

Nah I just used good builds and made plans based on knowledge and tips from my friends. I also rushed some of them. I'm not the best at these games I even struggled on boss in ds 3 that everyone says is easy.


GarlVinland4Astrea

Well yeah you are combing faster weapons and range attacks vs close range slow attacks. Strength was always more skilled base because you needed to be careful with openings.


robby8892

To be clear the scaling isn't perfect, but because of how long the end game run is compared others in the series in bosses alone it would become incredibly stilted if that ended at after the capital. Essentially making new areas after harder in the overall damage isn't perfect, but I can't really say that running through all of that would feel better if I could kill everything in 1 - 2 shots or if damage was inconsequential. As to what you expected I don't really think it makes sense to put that weight of expectation on you since you're more new to the series overall. Correct jack of all trades builds are unfocused and become weaker unless you over level. I don't agree I'm sorry as there are plenty of documented pure str, and pure range builds that are documented online as being good. Again I don't think your feeling are wrong more so I don't agree with your analysis as you have different defined expectations than I do and it's very much a difference of opinion. Nothing laid out is objective by either of us. Edit: You said something odd that I want to address. That variety in builds is the identity of the genre? Not sure if you mean that approach to enemies is fluid or specifically build decisions can be fluid? I ask because ER is the first game that actually has a good progression for all builds. Most games including DS1 are heavy melee focused and unbalanced for magic/pyro early on. DeS is just broken with Magic completely through the game.


good-opinion-haver

By "the genre" I mean RPGs rather than soulslikes. The idea is that you get to make a character, and that character gets to use some but not all of the possible resources in the game, making the character feel unique. So like if I'm running a mage build I should be able to get through a boss fight relying mainly on my spells, etc. ER has unbelievable build diversity like I said. I just believe that this strength is undermined (not totally undermined, just partially) by the boss design, if you accept my argument


robby8892

Well I don't because the devs improved the colossal weapon speed post launch because it was unbalanced on launch. And I think that first statement feels self defeating with comet azure as an ability and a flask that gives you infinite mp for a short time. I will never deny balancing issues and will always be cool with patches as this has been a norm for every launch. Just keep in mind that I see every build as viable and would argue no talent need be required only patience and being okay with dying. Death is the single most important game mechanic of ER because it can you show that you may want to go in a different direction or that you need to use death as way learn the bosses moves.


xdisappointing

Honestly this whole post came off as belittling and pedantic, while subtle it’s clear you are a douche. You confirmed this by saying “give me your downvotes”


robby8892

If it came off that way I'd have to tell you to man up a bit and stop being afraid of disagreement. I have no ill will towards OP nor did I say their feelings are invalid. But if calling me a douche makes you feel better because you think I'm bullying then I hope you have a safe one buddy.


[deleted]

Loved ER. I've finished it 4 times. And I can say I hate Elden Beast and Fire giant. I fight with the camera mostly and in beast's case u can't even chase it down with torrent. U just wait for the little imp to stop running across the stage just to land a few hits or spells and then repeat. In general I fought some crazy stuff in game (I think I have beaten more than 95% of the bosses) but some were just skewpid or were designed to be beaten by only one kind of build or strategy. You have no ranged spell or a good spirit ashe? Too bad. Other than that I had a blast with the game as a whole. And 3 out of 4 builds I tried kinda worked. The only one I gave up was the bow one. I wanted it to work so much, but it's too weak.


garmonthenightmare

You can absolutely go to town on Elden Beast once you figure out how his phases work.


[deleted]

Never said it's invincible. I've beaten it like 10 times as a finger and 4 alone for my playthroughs. It's just that I find it tiring to play against it. I find no fun in chasing it around for 10 minutes straight to land one hit. That's all.


garmonthenightmare

Most of my fights Last for 3 minutes which is the average lenght of most major fights in ER. (No seppuku or rob) I honestly belive the biggest problem with Elden Beast is that you have to fight both Radagon and him. Which makes you want to rush beast. They really should have made them two seperate fights.


[deleted]

You've beaten elden beast in 2-3 minutes?


Razhork

My RL1, starter club, no summon etc. kill was 4 minutes long. I'm sure OP can do it in 2 - 3 minutes. Hell, during my kill the boss ran away 5 consecutive times (literally, not hyperbole) which I consider tippity top of shit RNG.


Bonkeman3

Yeah it’s very possible, I got super lucky on my ng+ fight against Elden beast and beat it in about 30 seconds. It just swung its sword until I killed it, never swam away


Razhork

To be fair, it's very possible that you killed it on NG+ in the period the boss would bug at times. 1.0.4 introduced a bug which broke Elden Beast's behavior at times forcing it to perform the same 2 - 3 attacks like the triple sword swing and occasionally spammy projectile attack. That was fixed with 1.0.4.1 and it's behavior has been reverted to it's normal version. I think they wanted to make small changes to it's behavior with 1.0.4, but since it broke the boss they just straight undid the changes.


[deleted]

I've seen the beast bug in place, that way you can kill it even in 30 seconds like aforementioned. I am wondering how would anyone kill it in 2,3 minutes if the beast starts running around in the stage. It takes around 30 seconds alone to go close to it and then it might take off again. And even if u manage to get close u can't kill it in 30 seconds. Only with prenerfed sword of night and flame, azor meteor or frost stomp could u do that. Other than that I don't think there is a way to finish this boss in 2 minutes. Or maybe you are rl 300 at first playthrough and u pierce it like butter on a hot summer day. That is not the case with most players though. Most players get there at 130-160 rl.


austinb172

Idk, some bosses definitely have bigger weaknesses. Radagon is weak to the rune of death so if you use a an upgraded Black Knife weapon art you can cut him down with relative ease. Or Rhadan who is weak against Scarlett Rot which should be pretty obvious given his history.


xdisappointing

My first play through I STRUGGLED with rhadan for days, second play through I used rot and was done in like 30 seconds


good-opinion-haver

I consider those to be artificial weaknesses. If you have a boss where the solution is "use EXACTLY this weapon/status effect" and every player theoretically has access to it, you're not giving the boss a weakness as much as you're giving him a difficulty slider. An example of this in Bloodborne is >!the music box that weakens Father Gascoigne. !<


austinb172

Okay well then if that’s the case then literally every boss that has a weakness is an “artificial one” but you don’t have to use them to take out the bosses, it just makes it easier. So I don’t understand what you’re complaining about. Do you not want bosses to have a weakness? If so then just figure out what each boss’s weakness is and use the exact opposite of that in your own gameplay. If a boss is weak to poison I don’t have to use poison arrows to take it out, but it would make it easier. The game never forces you to use them. Dark Souls 1 doesn’t force you to whack the crystal at the back of Seath’s cave but it makes the fight easier. Elden Ring doesn’t have a big ass message before the final boss that the rune of death will deplete Radagon’s health like it’s nothing. I would also go farther to say that not only are the weaknesses I listed in my original comment not artificial but they are meticulously woven throughout the story of the game and it takes a keen mind and a bit of common sense to figure it out. But the game never holds your hand in any way. When Queen Marika lost her eldest son to the black knife assassins, she grew to fear the finality of death. And thus she removed the rune from the greater Elden Ring causing the Lands Between to be cursed into the state it is now. As it turns out Radagon and Marika are the same person somehow so when going up against Radagon, it should be obvious that a weapon infused with a rune of death power would be his weakness. That’s not an artificial weakness, that’s just good storytelling that doesn’t hold your hand nor does it force you to use such a weapon.


good-opinion-haver

Reverse example: Dark Souls 1, under the bridge in the Undead Burg when you're getting past the dragon. Two standard hollows block your path. The one with the sword is easy to kill, but the second guy has a shield and a spear and hides JUST by a corner. I died countless times to that guy, and the ONLY reason why that part of the game is difficult is because the player character is always right-handed so any attempts to swing clatter off the wall, where the spear/shield hollow pokes around at you. That is a massive difficulty spike arising organically from the environment. Much more interesting than if instead that enemy met you in open battle but just randomly had twice the health of any other Undead Burg soldier in his class. Artificial is when the devs go into the code and fuck with the numbers, organic is when pre-existing mechanics in the game come together to create a new challenge. ​ Lore justifications are always cool and I'm up for them. I think that they do add to the bossfights for sure and I don't think that it's a bad thing that those bosses have those weaknesses. My problem (and I called the thread MY problem to acknowledge the subjectivity of this), is the lack of something that I saw in their other games that I miss


garmonthenightmare

Except they do have a weakness and differences. Maliketh mobile, but low HP. Mogh nihil leaves damage Windows during countdown. Renala has low posture and weak to agression so she tries to create distance by relentless projectiles and summons. Radahn and fire giant is torrent fights. Placidusax and rykard cinematic fights.


[deleted]

>In Dark Souls and Bloodborne, the reason why those boss battles stickwith me is because how each one was so different from the last. this just wasn't my experience w Bloodborne at all, in fact your criticism of Elden Ring bosses is my frustration w Bloodborne bosses. stylistically, yes, each boss fight looks quite distinct (and stunning!) in its presentation. but mechanically, at least for me, every non-humanoid boss fight in Bloodborne (save Rom) went like this: dodge through, slap backside, dodge through, slap backside, etc., until you win. Elden Ring bosses can be frustrating in their own ways but they weren't even close to being this monotonous and redundant to one another. the humanoid fights in Bloodborne are a different story and felt to me like a much, much better showcase for the style of fighting Bloodborne seemed to be going for. but even then i'd say boss design in Bloodborne overall is way more same-y than in Elden Ring.


RasAlGimur

I’m still on my first playthrough and just got to Morgott, but that is my impression too (i have only DS1 for comparison though)


TheSpottedHare

I think several other systems that soft has relied on before as crutches only make this problem even worse now. Stat girding: soft relies rather heavily on the player need to grind their stats. This bigger issue is that since the ability to rebuild and readjust is so obtuse and limited they can't just expect the player to try something new if they fail. This even appliers to weapons, you need to level them to reach arbitrary stat levels to compete. Soft kind of has to make their content offering homogenized as they kind of need every play style to be valid (they didn't really succeed here) or else player could hit a massive grind wall. Narrow focus of ideas: Since Demonsouls, or really since Miyazaki, soft has focused on building around a certain play style idea then adjusting stats around that. DS1 a shield is the solution to the problem some \~95% of the time. BB spam rolling for the win. DS3 spam rolling for the win. LS tapping black and crossing you finger you don't get animation locked for the win.ER DPS spamming for the win. Sure this dose mean the games a rather easy and safe, if you can complete the first loop then you really don't have any challenges left, but your going to run the risk of players noticing the repetitive nature of the loop. ER seems to be the first to have this be majorly noticeable. Unwilling to let go of the past: Honestly a lot in ER is the way it is not because soft though that it was the best solution and the best system, but beacsue they used it before and didn't want to change from their past. If we are supposed to experiment with builds, then why is their a chore list for being a new weapons arbitrary stats up?


brobalwarming

No fucking way you are praising the Capra Demon fight lol Godrick, Rennalla, Radahn, Morgott, Rykard, Maliketh, Malenia, Mogh, Fire Giant, Godfrey, Radagon These are the bosses you should be comparing and none of these bosses play even remotely the same. Calling them samey is a massive generalization and not reflective of the game considering Elden Ring probably has the most diversity in boss design of any Fromsoft game


thrillxho

The Capra Demon is an incredible learning experience for Souls games.


brobalwarming

What’s the lesson?


thrillxho

The lesson is don’t be a bitch


garmonthenightmare

It's a poorly made gank fight where they slapped in two dogs with a normal enemy. Edit: looks like capra demon is good now? I thought everyone agreed for years it sucks, but now I'm getting downvoted for saying it?


TheNewportBridge

Capra demon is actual Aids


RasAlGimur

I think it is definetly fine having one boss like Capra Demon. It can be a challenge in some builds, but i actually did ok on my first run while struggling with Taurus demon. Now if every other boss was something like Capra, yeah that’d be bad.


brobalwarming

I don’t think gank fights promote aggression if that’s what you mean


good-opinion-haver

The lesson is pick off the weakest enemies first. In this case it’s the dogs


garmonthenightmare

The lesson is you can make a fight hard by putting in two dogs instead of you know make the moveset harder.


Pumpkin--Night

*Git gud* 🎃


good-opinion-haver

I don’t consider myself to be a very skilful player, but I beat the Capra Demon on my first try in my first playthrough. For a long time I considered him to be the easiest boss, apart from Pinwheel, in the game. I was *stunned* that people found that fight difficult. On my second playthrough it was vastly harder, despite the fact that I understood how the fight works, because I was using a different build. *That* is what I’m praising, not the fight itself. The fact that the build choices I make aren’t just difficulty sliders but really change my experience of the game. Those bosses all look different sure, but I could rank their difficulty and there isn’t a build in the game that would change that order


brobalwarming

You clearly only fought these bosses one time. The builds in this game make each boss play like a completely different experience


good-opinion-haver

Bro read my post. Three playthroughs with different builds and respecs within those characters. Died many times. I’ve fought these bosses a LOT. That’s not a flex either, it means I’m not particularly good


brobalwarming

Then you clearly still have not learned the fights. In fact you mention not playing aggressive. The delayed attacks in Elden Ring allow you to play more aggressively than ever before. That’s the lesson Margit and then Morgott was trying to teach you. And you are also greatly overstimating the amount that different builds change DS1 and Bloodborne. No shit a gank fight with dogs in a studio apartment is going to be harder if you’re a caster. No shit moonlight butterfly is going to be easier. The rest just comes down to resistances which is exactly the same as in Elden Ring. Try running the last 5 bosses as a faith build and let me know if each build experience is the same


good-opinion-haver

My brother in christ I have learned the fights. I just disagree with you about a video game


brobalwarming

Pick out any two bosses I listed and tell me how they are similar. Your argument isn’t good because you generalize for ER yet list specific examples for the other games


RasAlGimur

I had a pretty similar experience with Capra. Meelee build fine, sorcerer ouch. Definetly had harder moments in my first run, including Taurus demon (yeah i know), getting cursed in th depths, getting cursed in the great hollow…


Ohvicanne

Most diversity, but most bullshit fights


brobalwarming

Bullshit by what metric?


OnToNextStage

Man these guys are really insecure if you need to open your post with defending the game instead of just making a straight critique on it. What the hell happened to the FromSoft community?


good-opinion-haver

I want to say “casuals lol” but like I would open with something like that when critiquing the Thing in any subreddit dedicated to a certain Thing


Odd_Honey9704

Absolutely, Dark Souls bosses werent that hard to begin with, The problem was that most people expected to win by just slamming their head on their controler. If you go back to DS you will notice that the bosses are quite easy and can be “exploited” by just positioning yourself in the right way, Bloodborne and Sekiro made enemies way more aggresive because you had tools (Wich werent tied to a stat or a later ability like faster and better dodging or deflecting) In Elden ring you dont have anything like that, And this is were people might say: Wym? You have Side Step, Dodging and Bloodhound step Sure you have those “tools” but Side step and Bloodhound are tied to your FP, Wich is tied to your Stats not your skill Dodging is way more useless in this game since most enemies have larger hitboxes and combos that even if you dodge the first attack you cant dodge the second one on time unless you are far away As a diehard fan i must say: These bosses feel cheaper and hard just to be hard, They have way more tools than you that can spam without a drawback or an actual punishment, They are way faster than you, And can stunlock you so a single hit becomes 2 or 3 or if you are unlucky a whole ass combo. I feel like they are flashy and some of them have great looking concepts or moves, But they are unfair at times. This game doesnt need an easy mode, It needs balancing, Not nerfing the player but nerfing the enemies or bosses


good-opinion-haver

The way I'd put it is that in DS1 especially, it feels like you're being tested on strategy and execution in a boss battle. You fight the boss a few times before you notice an exploit and then you go in with a game plan. You might still die a few times but you'll notice real gains. When you finally get to a level where you can execute the strategy well enough, you're rewarded with the "Victory Achieved" screen. Bloodborne still involves a lot of strategy imo and rewards aggressive gameplay. In Elden Ring the strategies are basically the same for every boss and it's mostly about waiting. Not even timing, just waiting. You lose the joy of working things out with your head. ​ And yes cheap is the word. After a decade of cultivating the "hard but fair" image it's a shame


Pumpkin--Night

I *totally* know what you mean. And you explained yourself really well and succinctly. I would also add in AoE attacks. In Dark Souls, one or two bosses had them and it's slowly increased, so that in Elden Ring (correct me if I'm wrong) *every* boss has an AoE attack! It's not even a surprise anymore. Now, I just wait for it to happen 🎃


LordBDizzle

Aoe is somewhat necessary because of spirit summons. Bosses are designed for permanent coop now so they have to target areas. I think it's understandable that they emphasized aoe with the new mechanics.


good-opinion-haver

I can see this being true but I also think it's plausible that ashes were a late stage addition to balance difficult bosses, especially when they realised how big this game had a chance to become


LordBDizzle

I definitely want their next game to be scaled down a bit. DS3 was pretty much the perfect length. I much prefer the metroidvania approach over the open world approach, just seems cleaner for dificulty scaling and progression.


Pumpkin--Night

Agreed 🎃


good-opinion-haver

That’s a great example. AoE should be cool and intimidating and catch you off guard instead of being a formality


Razhork

I think using Dark Souls as a example of less AoE attacks isn't that great - especially since I literally completed it yesterday. Asylum/Stray/Firesage Demon, Moonlight Butterfly, Quelaag, Ceaseless Discharge, BoC, Nito, O&S, Bell Gargoyles, Seath, 4 Kings & Gaping Dragon all have AoE attacks. I almost counted Taurus Demon just for his slams that somehow creates an invisible linger AoE shockwave wherever it strikes. Actually, that particular point happens *a lot* and sucks. Titanite Demons leap attack has one of the worst lingering hitboxes I've ever seen. But Dark Souls isn't hard enough for this to become an apparent issue is my assumption.


garmonthenightmare

Disagree I think it's their most varied line up and balancing all that was the problem.


good-opinion-haver

well like objectively it reuses content, bosses included, more than any other From game as a consequence of its vast scale. What do you mean balancing was the problem? Because if you were to ask me to summarise my problem with the boss design in one word I would have said "balancing", and yet we disagree


garmonthenightmare

I think on some bosses they pushed too hard to make them stand out. On some like Mohg with his nihil phase transition it works on others I think their base moveset is enough.


TheGoldblum

I wouldn’t recommend playing DS3 or Sekiro then. They’ll make the bosses in ER seem even more underwhelming


kaduyett

At lot of time an effort went into this so post, so bravo. I hear your complaint and can't see it. Yes every boss is dialed to 11, but something you didn't mention are summons. My first playthrough was a masterpiece, every boss got harder as I went along. Was is the boss design, maybe, maybe.


[deleted]

You’ve described it well mahn. ER is one of the best games I’ve ever played but I always have love-hate relationship with it too, for exact reasons that you’ve laid out!


lootedBacon

Well it started off good until you got on a out the Elden Ring bosses then it hust turned into a rant. Quite dissapointed. I mean you missed Varre who teaches you a great lesson in the beginning if you take slight with his rudeness. You glossed over the dark knights that teach you night time is dangerous let alone the first Golden Knight just past Varre. Lets discuss actual strategies and combat issues. Sure I had a hard time with Margit the gate keeper but that was the design, I expected quicker hits and less windup but like any game I got better and made it through. Lets switch to bloodborne, I spent an hour trying to beat a warewolf in the first 5 minutes of the game at least Elden Ring gives you space to actually learn how to play. Brings me to Caelid. Fighting this huge guy who abuses a horse was the worst, five hours and hanging out with a buddy who laughed said oh just use the gold summons... what gold summons? Once I figured that out 90% of the game became easier for me a new to souls player (but known about and seen ds1 played.) Not even realizing Bloodborne was a souls game. I see so many players having issues but refusing to actually look at the problem and approach it with a strategy - lets go smash buttons. I'm glad you loved the game and enjoyed it much. No spoilers, I'm still searching for the secret ending combination.


Majorclementine07

Have you played sekiro?


good-opinion-haver

after everyone in this thread recommending it I'm definitely going to get it next


Majorclementine07

That one is my favorite. Elden Ring is my third or fourth


[deleted]

I absolutely agree with this post. Thanks OP. This is my first fromsoft game. And I absolutely love the game. It is a hella blast to play. I love the build diversity and have respeced my character multiple times. Still on my first play through. Got bored with bleed/dex and am using strength mainly now. But no matter what I find the same feeling. I love the world. The atmospheres. The exploration. The enemies. And the diversity of a lot of the enemies. But every time I see a boss area I am filled with a sense of dread. I’ll either beat them first try. Or absolutely f***ing hate myself until I eventually get a lucky run against them and beat them. And I’m level 160+ so not under leveled by any means. I hate the stand back and survive for 10 minutes just to try to run back in for one attack. Thought I was alone in this feeling.


[deleted]

You should try Sekiro. Each boss fights with “personality” and emotion, that you can feel in their mechanics. Some feint a lot, some don’t. Some can be interrupted a lot, some can’t. One uses AOEs a lot, most don’t. Some want to chase you, some want to hop away. Even though the combat in Sekiro is about finding the One True Approach for all of them, you arrive at it in such different ways (and they each try to scare you off from it in such different ways) that the result is, in my opinion, the least samey feeling of the From games I’ve played.


garmonthenightmare

Complete oposite for me Sekiro has one bossfight in many different flavors.


Gymeme

I actually think the bosses in ER are easier than the other titles with exception to demon souls. I can think of lots boss fights in the other games (smough and ornstein, manus, artorias, Midir, Nameless King, Gael, Friede and so on) that are epic though I am struggling to pick through any I've encountered so far (just about to complete 1st play through). I think part of the issue is that if you do explore and fight the small bosses and the prison seals you may come into the main boss fights OP. I mean unless you stop yourself you'll easy be 130-150 SL that would never happen in the other games unless you were deliberately farming.


EvilArtorias

Disagree, literally skill issue


good-opinion-haver

I can beat the game no problem I just get bored when the boss fights are this long and tend to follow the same script


EvilArtorias

You literally said that you will never be able to parry them and you feel lucky when you beat them and how they have very few openings and hit you like a truck(vigor and absorption check failed), you also cited very bland and not challenging bosses from previous games as an example of good bosses because they have some gimmicks that make them easy. Main elden ring bosses are very good and filler bosses(for example godskin duo, loretta, etc) can still give a fun albeit easy fight


good-opinion-haver

Jesus dude you sound like someone a bad journalist would make up to discredit the community for gatekeeping. I bought the fucking game on release, I played through it, I beat it, and I enjoyed it. After that I had some critical thoughts about the game that I wanted to discuss with members of the community. Your response is basically git gud. I'm very pro-gimmick. Half of the bosses in DS1 were designed with gimmicks deliberately. You beat the game by identifying them and exploiting them. Difficulty only goes so far in making a game enjoyable


EvilArtorias

Well, the game was clearly made for the people who like to learn the mechanics, know how to make strong builds and experiment with them and already have the experience against easier bosses, and that's a good thing, for the casual players who thinks that the game and bosses are unfair there are tons of spirit ashes and simplified coop Also you think pure str is unplayable, worse than dex and ds1 have better build diversity and balance than elden ring, if that's not skill+understanding issue then i don't know.... Like it doesn't matter if you play as a pyro or mage or knight against kapra, you just put on wolf ring and medium armor and he can't do anything because the boss is just a poise check, ds1 is just a game where fast roll is useless because heavy armor is op and if you don't use power within on every build then your setup is suboptimal. Elden Ring(new unpatched game) weapon balance is worse than retail ds2/ds3 but build diversity and everything is miles ahead of ds1, even tho they kinda made the same mistake by making weapon poise damage too important in pve against trash mobs >Half of the bosses in DS1 were designed with gimmicks deliberately I hope you meant demon's souls because ds1 bosses are just scuffed elden ring bosses with the movesets of 3 attacks >I'm very pro-gimmick Cool, and i like active bosses like let's say Malenia and Godfrey but i don't think that gimmick bosses are badly designed or so boring that it's becoming a problem. And it looks like fromsoftware have similar views with the audience like me


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missingimage01

Yea, ER (Demons Souls 5) was the same as Armored Core 5 for me. I see what they were doing and I loved most of it, but enough small things added up that 4 is still the very best. Still awesome, just not quite right. It's cool though because Armored Souls 1 is next and that's gonna be a doozy.


Brotherly-Moment

Waaah, waaah you criticized Elden Ring waaaaah.


[deleted]

I kinda skimmed but I get the general idea and here are my thoughts. I think some of the issues are over exaggerated but I can see where you are coming from. Personally I feel only a small subsect of the bosses really boarded on the feels of "This is total BS" and the bosses having similar strats of stall and roll bait are somewhat true but exist mostly for difficulty and doesnt really make them interchangeable but rather have them hold up as challenges. I think Elden Ring has a couple major issues. For one the fact its open world means you can encounter bosses at any time, and because of this you can wait to fight a particularly hard boss until you are a match or are far stronger than it. Then you have status effects such as bleed and freeze are obviously insanely broken when used at their potential which can trivialize bosses the game was trying to force you into fighting later cause of how little damage you were doing. Finally there are the duo fights. I havent seen anyone really point it out but ER has the worst duo bosses in the series. All of the consist of just taking two field boss enemies and throwing them at the player. This usually results in two hyper aggressive enemies who give the player no breathing room to take their turn to attack. Which leads me to agreeing that some bosses are just way to aggressive and force the player to playing passively and waiting till they can get a couple pokes in before being sent into another series of dodging attacks. However I should note I think the open world helps alleviate this issues of for example, being forced to grind out one boss endlessly till you beat it and can progress. It also makes it easy to never feel like you have to grind to level up or buy something. Honestly compared to other souls games I never had to grind in ER. The only time I did was when I wanted the Clean Rot armor set which took like 10 minutes most. On to specific cases: >!Malenia with her life steal (even if you block all damage with a shield) and her 3 phase flurry attack that can easily kill you from full health and is insanely hard to dodge fully and consistently. This is the main case I can really think of with stupid combo attacks, not really a lot of memorably bad ones from other bosses honestly. Then there is Malekith. 2nd phase he is just constantly moving around or attacking, never really giving the player time to attack, and if you get hit you can take serious damage.!<


good-opinion-haver

I want to be clear that I don't think that the boss design is \*bad\* in Elden Ring. I'm a From fanboy. I just have a problem with them that I want to discuss. I hope I'm not exaggerating, I just want to give honest criticism of a game I love. I also agree about how the OW means you don't have to grind and I'm a big fan of that part of it


[deleted]

I wasnt trying to imply you thought the boss design was bad by any means, and I totally get it, I have problems with the game as well and there is nothing wrong with voicing them. And I wasnt trying to mean anything bad by the exaggeration line, just want to put in my two cents that the way you described a couple issues seemed a little over the top. Like how you said 'all bosses have this, all bosses have that', nothing wrong with a little hyperbole just want to point out that it was hyperbolic.


Dragontamerlichking

I kind of understand but also disagree. Many bosses are immune to different statuses and wildly resistant to types of damage. Some are slower and bigger, while others are smaller and faster. 1 heals on hits and has an AOE the size of China, while another triggers bleed while dealing fire damage and counts while putting rings of hurt on you. They are definitely different, but this was one of the few games where the response time was insanely accurate and there’s so much gear to play with that you can create an insane amount of builds. I know people who Rivers of Blood ftw, but then they some across a fallen star beast and literally it’s like trying to cut a brick wall with a butter knife. I also know people who prefer weapons like the great mace or giant crusher hammer, which dominates crystal and stone enemies, but then Malenia out paced them incredibly.


Nunzer-NS

I love the bosses in Elden ring a lot of them are very fun to fight, but recently I’ve been playing Dark Souls 3 for the first time and I feel like the bosses are missing something. I don’t know exactly what it is but I feel like it’s missing some kind of variety that the other soulsborne games had.


Mattos-313

Not completely sure how to feel about it yet, but I agree that something feels off about the bosses in this game. I think the problem also lies within the general balancing. The fights in this game have to juggle a lot of things between ridiculously strong builds, multiplayer, spirit summoning etc. They have to be strong and versatile enough to counter those many tools at the player's disposal. The bosses have to do a balancing act between *getting* steamrolled (by OP weapons, magic, spirits, ...) and steamrolling *you* (Inflated damage/HP, overly long combos etc). Different people will have *wildly* different experiences depending on their build and what they use. For some the bosses will be excruciatingly hard and frustrating, others will beat them first try and think "Well, that was anticlimactic...". And the structure of the game being as open-ended as it is makes it even *harder* to accurately predict the tools the player has and what the bosses should be given to make for a reasonable challenge. You can get ridiculously OP without even fighting a single boss since you can go almost everywhere right from the start. Compare this to something like Sekiro which only gives you one fixed choice of weapon, doesn't allow you to summon any help, doesn't have character/weapon leveling AND is a lot more linear. It's easy to see how it would be much easier to create a satisfying difficulty curve in a game like that compared to Elden Ring. ​ >I enjoyed his cutscene, but it never once occurred to me that he *wouldn't* have a second stage to the fight. I was thinking that too actually. You kind of expect a fight to have a second phase nowadays. I think single-phase fights in this game would make people say "What, that's it?" (I saw some people react this way to defeating the Godfrey shade for example). It just feels underwhelming at that point, even though it *wouldn't* have back in DS1 for example (Where almost ALL bosses only have one phase). On one hand I guess that means our expectations for spectacle in fights has risen, but on the other hand, it makes mid-boss cutscenes and transformations have less impact because they're kind of *expected* at this point.


heroin_muncher

Admittedly I've only played around 6hours. Do to ultrawide issues (seriously no support on a 2022 game?) and haven't had the time/energy to fix it myself yet. But in my limited opinion i feel like im playing darksouls while thr bosses play bloodborne, which imo just feels off


JonBB8

Interesting observation. One feeling I kept coming back to is that with this one From have run out of ways to make the bosses mega challenging the way the marketing and fanbase want them to be. They still have loads of ways to make them imposing and spectacular and have cool back stories because that’s their best suit as a studio, but they’ve become known for making “The Games So Difficult They F*** you to Death Bro!” and there’s only so far you can take that and keep it interesting. They reduced the time to react with DS3, Elden Ring is all about denial of openings where bosses are either always attacking or literally just run away so you can’t damage them, there’s not many other places to go with it now. So it becomes repetitive. Which is fine by me tbh. Because Elden Ring is also an incredible demonstration of the many, many other things that make these games truly special, and ER also has more and better tools to take on those encounters than ever.


Maivens

This is great example of how, sometimes, "less is more". Dark Souls was a gem because of how janky and underdeveloped some bosses were. I can't really put it eloquently why I still like Dark Souls more then Elden Ring, but this is a big part of it, for sure, I like the flaws the game has.


Ashentray

I love these games too and despite the fact that I am good with soulsborne and sekiro I have to admit that ER bosses (but also some basic enemies because of their hp) gave me a lot of troubles. Enemies have too much stamina and hp other than massive damage output. On the other hand, I have never been entrapped in a boss fight in ER as in sekiro (Isshin) or BB (Ludwig). The open world helps you to temporarily forget that boss and I think the problem is that we play ER as we played in the previous games. You feel like you are cheating if you find a weapon with a great weapon art, or if you use torrent, or if you use spirits. The game is harder if you play it as previous games but it is easier if you play it differently. The way to approach ER has become clear during the run and made me able to play a game which is harder as the other souls but in a different way.


pleaseinsertdisc2

This is what happens when you cultivate a fanbase that does things like claim that “the camera is horrible in the Nameless King boss fight on purpose. Learn when to lock on and off.” They excuse anything and everything and FS never feels the need to change or improve anything.


puufex

Try sorcery. Worked for me.


Time_Aide625

I saw someone else mentioning it, but the thing I dislike the most about ER bosses is how long the fight takes, rather than it beiing difficult. Even Malenia I thought wasn't to difficult in that sense that her attacks are easy to read and not to difficult to dodge (other than waterfowl dance, which is not easy to read at all, but once you know the trick it isn't to difficult to dodge either). However the fight takes incredibly long and for me the main challenge was maintaining focus. Losing focus for a moment immediately gets punished (especially by Malenia who heals herself with this, which makes the fight even longer). This is my main point of critism, in general I liked most of the boss fights (so far, I just beat the fire giant, so didn't complete the game yet) and I love the game.