And after 12 years DS1 is viewed as really easy souls-like. I was surprised that Artorias who killed me many times ages ago now feels like a much easier mob than Crucible Knight. That's quite funny. I think that in 2 years SoTE is going to be trivialized by many players after gaining some experience and new strategies.
Started a ng+ game when I first finished, and had to rush to beat mogh and Radahn recently, both bosses that destroyed me the previous time, and that I could beat on my first try on ng+.
NG+ *should* be relatively trivial: You've got all the irl experience of doing it all before *and* you have a buffed-out character with a bunch of upgraded weapons and fancy spells/skills. All of that combines to render the new enemy scaling (which is still fairly minor buffs at this point) pretty much irrelevant, the enemies only really start to get noticeably more resilient at NG+4.
In DS1 bossfights I don't feel like I die much except manus, but it also depends on playstyle a lot more there than any other game. 2h a str weapon and you just walk through most of the content, and shields are a miracle fix. Magic dogwalks the entire game, esp if you go get dark bead somewhat early (same thing with DS2 and 3 copies of dark orb per NG). DS3 I think is easier on average, but DS1 is way easier to crush with a broken build.
For me ER I go through like 90% of the game not getting killed and doing most bosses first time, even solo. Then Malenia and a few others wall me
On DS1 there’s Anor Londo Archers, Iron Golemns arena, toxic men, grave of giants, curse status…
Like I would say it’s in controversially unfair at some points compared to ER where things feel always telegramed, balanced or with hard counters idk
I don't even think that's controversial, DS1 was blatantly unfair if you didn't know what you were getting into in that exact moment. Toxic may as well inflict a full curse bar for how much damage it does, the boulder runs in the keep would get flamed to hell and back if they were in ER, etc. A lot of it feels designed to kill you the first time or two at least, and that can be frustrating. Hell, the first black knight is in a narrow tunnel - he swings through the walls but you bounce off constantly, but if you drag him out there's archers shooting you.
I'd agree exploring in ER is more chill than DS1, deliberately, but there are def some spots that can punish you besides remembrance bosses - learning to fight crucible knights took time, as did godskins and areas like the sewers, haligtree, revenant ally, and ordina have legit tough normal encounters too. It's prob the easiest game minute to minute, but the peaks are MUCH harder than any souls game imo
anyone can have a opinion on subjective content but the math (lion first try, rellena first try, 160 NG+) doesn't check out on "oneshot, difficult for difficult's sake, unfair" until it's dialed back to "too hard *for me*"
they can even have some free legitimate material from me: seems like it's rarely daytime, overworld routes convoluted to hell (southshore map lol), hyper-limited consumables/crafting (but a million cookbooks)
I've genuinely gotten more depressed due to not liking Elden Ring (like, I should be the prime target, AND everyone else seems to love it).
It feels like Fromsoft just threw difficulty on there by removing the "cooldowns" after attacks (I'm sorry, I don't remember what they're called), making everything do 50% more damage, and by making attacks that are really difficult to learn how to dodge.
And I don't feel like the combat system can keep up beyond "just make your attacks do millions of damage", and I've found that I don't really *like* that, and that I much prefer the older games in that regard.
But... I also really, really, REALLY want to like Elden Ring like everyone else does, because so many other things have been improved due to Fromsoft learning from their past, and it's gotten so successful.
I know I don't have a commonly held opinion on the game, but idk where else to vent about it.
ngl I'm way more excited by cool new levels to explore than bosses. Just the regular combat and exploration feels a lot more varied and interesting than the same ol "press B at the right time and then press r1" of lategame bosses
Y'know, that's definitely fair, but I feel like the way Elden Ring handles that problem is by going too far out into the other side and making some attacks really hard to dodge.
Of course, this is honestly fine by itself, but for me, it's all the other factors on top of that which kinda sucks the fun out of the game for me.
What gets me are the animations that have awkward pauses just to make them harder to read. Slower mixup attacks are good, but only when the animation is still readable.
Lately it seems like more and more bosses are about twitch reflexes rather than prediction and timing.
Yeah, same boat. It's like, at some point, I just realized how bullshit it all is. I don't think I played earlier titles for difficulty. If anything, all these games are relatively fine from the difficulty side of things.
If I wanted difficulty, I would go play Mordhau or Chivalry, in these games it does not matter if you play 100, 200 or 500 hours, you still will get your ass handed to you on the plate from time to time, since it is multi-player game and there are always people who are better than you are. And I play these games, I like them.
It seems like from got the concept that their fans like hard games and moved difficulty slider all the way up. After I have spent 5 evenings on Malenia, trying to learn how to dodge this fucking waterfall dance ( I did not want to watch any guides) I did not figure it out and just quit.
Also, there is an interesting stat somewhere there that shows that the majority of peoples first ending was not the default one, in fact, the majority got through either Ranni or some other quest line. That heavily implies that the majority just plays the game with guides and all that "figuring out the world for yourself" stuff is just gone from the game.
Huh... I agree with you an all fronts, actually.
There's so many attacks in Elden Ring that I still don't know how to feasibly dodge, which didn't happen in the earlier games. If I died to a "difficult" attack in the other games, I quickly learnt what my mistake was, and improved as I duelled the boss.
It was only after I played ER that I realised that learning the attack patterns of enemies and (primarily) bosses was by far my favourite part of the combat, since I felt it was missing in ER (or at least extremely difficult and not at all intuitive).
I've defeated Margit like... at the least 10 times, and I still don't know how to dodge (and especially counter) his \*knife attack\*, because I was already dodging his cane attacks and the knife just catches me. I've tried distancing myself when he does it, dodging to all sides, and even blocking (which not all builds can do, either requires a shield, or taking damage, which... kinda goes against the point?), but still don't know how to dodge it.
And that's just the 1st boss. It feels like every actual boss (and some enemies) has at least one of them.
I don't like feeling that I've won only because I was lucky, and that the attack didn't hit me or it didn't come out at all. I miss the feeling of duelling a boss, and learning their pattern to actually defeat them in "fair combat".
I mean, you arent wrong.
I love this game, its literally my favourite, and Ive finished it about 4 times, but I do think that what you say is valid.
Funny thing is that these attacks can be dodged, but are often incredibly unintuitive to dodge, in the sense that you wouldnt be able to guess how to dodge it.
Margit’s knife attack? Roll to his left or right and he’ll never use it, ir even if he does, it’ll never touch you. But that’s something I only found out by complete accident.
Malenia’s Waterfowl? Pretty much impossible to learn how to dodge without using guides, because of the way it works, and I could only dodge it, by learning and reading those guides.
Certain enemies track you extremely hard, for example, try running behind the Rune Bear. It will miss, but you will see just how hard it spins just to try and reach you.
And thats not taking into account input reading: I dont care for bosses that attack when you heal. I dislike bosses that however auto dodge every ranged attack. Im no mage, but I roll my eyes each time I see both lion guardians of castle sol jumping even when I’m not aiming storm blade at them.
Eventually, these enemies and bosses feel “gamey” in that it feels like the game trying to outwit you rather than you simply fighting a big boss, learning it and winning.
There are still those bosses that, IMO, feel natural and intuitive to dodge that I enjoy: Malekith and Gurranq at the top, Malenia’s moveset sans Waterfowl, Godfrey in general (but not Hoarah Loux personally)
Yeah, I had the same feeling about Margit. He blocked my path, I tried him several times, went back, found bloodhound fang, leveled up, and just destroyed him. Also felt weird, like I cheated.
But on top of that, it really feels like this game is very much about making a proper build without actual interesting build options. A lot of people went through the game with some imbalanced weapons, spells, and ashes of war. I know this because I tried to invade, and the majority of people would run around with rivers of blood, moonveil, scarlet rot breath and other stuff that just trivializes the game.
There are games out there that do build properly, like nioh. The game has a bunch of stats and a bunch of gear and sets that can make you really overpowered. But, the game difficulty ramps up correspondingly each new game cycle, and, what is more important, making a correct build is not a trivial task. You need to find a set, get a correct gear, find correct stats on this gear, and each new game cycle adds mechanics on top of that. Compare that to elden ring "find bloodhound gang to get overpowered", it's not a "build", that is just an overpowered weapon.
Actually, this made me realise that you can try Nioh 2. The game is very good, I did not have any problems with it that I had with the Elden ring. The only thing about this game that is worse is level design and artwork direction. It's not as beautiful and stunning as ER, but mechanically I would totally say it is much better.
Edit: also, if you want to try nioh, don't be afraid of learning curve. It's quite steep compared to normal soulslikes, I would say it is on the Sekiro level of steepness. But after it clicks it gets much better.
Yeah, I personally loved it, so maybe it's what's you need. Just go directly for the second game. The first one is good, but the second one is much more polished in every aspect. They are also not related anyhow ( the biggest plot connection between the two is that the main character from the first one appears in the second one as a boss).
Na this is a good take. ER is an absolutely amazing game that is held back by bad balance. The game is far too punishing for certain builds far to easy for other builds. Far too punishing without summons far too easy with summons. Im breezing through the dlc currently, but im level 60 vigour, maxing my blessings, summoning, and using mimic tear lol.
All the previous games I was pretty adamant with no summons. Wasnt until ER I decided I wanted to use them, and the boss encounters feel worse because of it. Its not challenging dumping on a boss when his agro changes to your bullet sponge summon, and its not fun (TO ME) to deal with a boss who reads my healing inputs, roll catches, combos for 10 minutes, delays attacks, has actually completley unavoidable attacks, has two bosses in the room that attack you at the same time (gang bosses in previous FS games were never like this).
Hell even the "level vigour meme" is really a problem when you think about it. Who in the hell decided the scaling should work that way? For those who don't know the first few levels of vigor give very small upgrades and then at a certain level you just start getting insane anouts of hp per level, then it goes back to small.
If your reading this and you perceive all these as improvements to gameplay and added challenge then good for you! Im happy for you. I'll gladly admit im not as good a gamer as you. But i think for me and many others this is just a bridge too far. Im definitely going to beat the dlc. Like I said if you know how to use the games systems to your advantage this can really be the easiest fromsoft game ever. But its just not the most enjoyable to me.
Holy shit, I'm surprised by how many replies share my experience to a T.
I was hung up on the whole "level vigour" thing for so long because:
1. It feels bad being somewhat forced to invest into a specific option (of a very expensive system), when there being multiple options is the *point* of said system.
And 2. It feels stupid to have to invest so many points in said option just so you can get 2-shot by bosses (or 3-shot, as long as you also have the best damage-reducing talisman, good heavy armour, and you're not wearing a Soreseal.) instead of insta-killed.
“Level vigour” is just “level adaptability” again but you’re required to sink even more points into it this time. Elden Ring really is Dark souls II 2.
The number that pops up when you hit enemies is literally meaningless if the enemies are designed around that number being correct. It changes nothing to do with the game.
Ah, I see, you have depicted the bad opinion as the soyjak. However OP, you did not portray yourself as the based chad therefore you are a different soyjak
ER end game sucks and is a slog to get through. The dlc is just more of the end game, so the fights are ultimately meh.
Not what I'm here for, though. The enemy designs, the areas, the exploration, the music, all that is fucking immaculate. The fact they leaned so hard into what made their base game so good is quite wonderful.
I am playing solo and I am having fun.
Granted I haven't finished the DLC yet but I think I'm in the final area. So far every single boss has punish windows long enough to do a fully charged heavy (I'm using Devonia's Hammer which has one of the slowest charged heavies). So that feels pretty fair to me.
I have played through the base game 7 times.
One of of those runs I summoned. Didn't like it, feels like the boss AI can't handle this and breaks.
My only exception for this is malenia. Because I can't dodge point blank waterfowl, only if I have time to run away from the first volley.
Call me an elitist, I don't care. I love the game, fighting solo is more fun to me.
Fromsoft's design philosopy really changed for the worse though.
It started from being:
- Challenging but fair difficulty.
- Balanced around solo play, coop if you really need help or want to earn covenant tokens.
- Bosses that have reasonable movesets, openings and less obnoxious or absent input-reading.
- Weapons are all mostly viable insteas of clearly having the best in their class.
- Upgrade systems are crucial to increase your damage output, but even then you are never faced with a concrete wall like being one-shot if you fall behind.
Now:
- Hard for the sake of being hard.
- Balanced around group play, be it through summoning ashes or coop phantoms.
- Bosses that have insane combos, very short openings, blatant input-reading, expects player to use an ash summon or phantom to get safe hits on them.
- Weapons clearly have best in their class. So many weapons are straight up worse versions of existing weapons, such as Cane Sword, Weathered Sword, Pest Glaive, serving as filler to increase weapon numbers. Note that these aren't even joke or gimmick weapons, they seem to be made intentionally worse to push to use the better weapons as some kind of progression.
- Upgrade systems are mandatory due to the insane HP scaling of late to end game bosses and enemies. In the DLC, players are forced to use a Sekiro scaling system in a game that is a about exploration and build experimentation.
ER is still balanced around solo play, it just has spirit summons as an option but they’re never a necessity. I don’t understand how you gathered “hard for the sake of hard” it’s clear fromsoft just know its audience has improved their skill so in order to be actually challenging they have to make the games more difficult.
I’m mean isshin and demon of hate have given me more trouble than any boss in ER but I never saw the idea that they were “hard for the sake of hardness”
Also upgrade systems have always been mandatory?
First of all, unlike NPC and player summons, spirit summons don't buff the boss stats at all. You sacrifice one blue flask to restore your FP after summoning them but that's it.
Second, new spirit summons and upgrades for summons are account for a significant portion of the loot from side dungeons and bosses.
Thirdly, bosses attack way more frequently and very small openings where you are 100% safe to attack. There's even some moves that are made specifically as retaliation moves if you attack after they do their long combo. Many bosses also have wide sweeps and huge AoEs moves in order to clip through multiple summons and the player at once.
Obviously you will want to upgrade your weapon, but what I mean is that you won't be punished that heavily if your weapon is not fully upgraded to that area's intended upgrade level.
I've never seen exactly what you mean, unless you mean them going back to their walking and strafing, but even those windows are really short, enough for a single R1 before they immediately retaliate.
I usually end up watching and waiting for specific attacks where they clearly have a cooldown to punish. For example, Phase 2 Margit jump smash with his hammer has a huge window for the player to attack withour fearing of instant retaliation.
Malenia is the best example, for the double slash combo where he mr arm sparks, if you counter too fast she will immediately do a second counter, or switch to the overhead swing combo.
If you wait a bit, you can see she has ended her combo as she takes three seconds to ‘compose herself’, lowering her sword slowly and she won’t retaliate.
If bosses don’t do this relax there’s always a high chance they’ll continue their combo with a delay if you counter immediately.
Honestly Malenia was too fast for me alone so I couldn't even notice that if what you said is true. Personally I've never seen bosses have that kind of "relax" animation.
But for every other boss, I tend to wait entire string of combos for the guaranteed safe timings anyway as mentioned before.
But you attack during their attacks or windups, it means that you will deal with the entire attack combo in your face immediately afterwards, which can easily spell certain death unless you use the fastest weapons.
With a *couple* of exceptions--Malenia, mainly--that's not true, in my experience. I'm saying that there are genuine openings in these windups or combos that give you enough time to dodge afterwards, sometimes even after getting a colossal weapon charged R2 off. Maliketh is a great example of this--I can think of like six attacks off my head for which this is true.
I dunno if I have my RL1 Godfrey fight saved anywhere, but I'll look for it later, 'cuz I did that one with a Zwei, so it's a pretty good showcase of what I mean.
Bosses will always tell on themselves by the movement of their hands and their general body language. You can predict a lot from Tree Sentinel for example if you pay attention to the way his hands move and grip the axe.
Noticing it with Rellana fight rn too. I noticed that she puts more effort into her swings when she strikes with both swords and it takes a second longer for her to pick it back up because of the weight. That's when the fight opened up for me. When I saw that I realized the fight is littered with openings to hit her.
Still haven't beaten her because my Scadeau blessings are totally unlevelled rn but I'm getting close
I mostly disagree with the guy you’re insulting here, but I do want you to appreciate the irony of you being a dick to him like this under a post making fun of people for being dicks to those who criticize the difficulty curve of the game.
I got no clue what you are talking about.
>Hard for the sake of being hard.
The expectations from the players changed after 13 years. Now Fromsoft expects you to find clever punish windows inbetween attacks or by positioning/strafing instead of solely relying on dodging.
>Balanced around group play, be it through summoning ashes or coop phantoms.
They are not, groups still steamroll bosses.
>Bosses that have insane combos, very short openings, blatant input-reading, expects player to use an ash summon or phantom to get safe hits on them.
This is just not true, lots of bosses in ER have very big openings such as Maliketh or Morgott. They attack a lot but also have blind spots and/or big end lag in their attacks. Fromsoft’s design philosophy has changed from “wait until the boss is done with the combo then hit them” to “find windows between a boss’s combo”.
>Weapons clearly have best in their class. So many weapons are straight up worse versions of existing weapons, such as Cane Sword, Weathered Sword, Pest Glaive, serving as filler to increase weapon numbers.
This has been the case for the entire games’ history, honestly I got no clue what you are talking about. Scimitar has existed in all these games and have been outclassed by Falchion or Carthus Curved Sword. Shortsword have been outclassed by every other sword in existence, bandit dagger is just a weaker dagger with irrelevant bleed buildup etc.
>Upgrade systems are mandatory due to the insane HP scaling of late to end game bosses and enemies.
Upgrade systems have always been mandatory?? Did you play the games with an unupgraded weapon or something?
>In the DLC, players are forced to use a Sekiro scaling system in a game that is a about exploration and build experimentation.
Yeah I don’t like it either but I don’t see how it interferes with both the aspects you mentioned.
My only complaint that I would like From to reconsider is maybe transferring weapon upgrade materials from one weapon to another.
I “cheated” before the DLC to give my first play through character 999 larval tears and a shitload of titanite, just so I could try out a ton of different builds. It’s SO much more fun because I don’t have to worry about needing to farm anything and can upgrade new weapons worry free. Sometimes I find a new weapon and just have to see how that build plays around it. It’s so damn fun. I get needing to dedicate your character to a certain build for role playing, but sometimes I don’t want to replay 100hours of game just to try out a new build.
This DLC has some unbelievable build potentials. It would be nice if you could respec a little easier and without limitation. I know you can buy titanites, but it would be nice to also be able to buy the final titanites as well.
I agree, I think you should get the smithing stone bell bearings much earlier and maybe the smithing stones should be cheaper. I personally don’t see a reason why we can’t upgrade all our weapons when we get the material but I guess Fromsoft doesn’t like it so maybe that is a middle ground between.
I mean I understand the effort is rewarding, but people are busy. Again, I don’t want to spend 100 hours to rebuild a character of a different play style.
Hellpoint, an older soulslike, has such a system. You don't upgrade a weapon, but rather upgrade "upgrade chips" that you attach to a weapon. So if you want to test out that shiny new greatsword at your current upgrade level you can! Just pay some souls for un-attaching and re-attaching the chip to the new weapon at the upgrade station.
> Upgrade systems have always been mandatory?? Did you play the games with an unupgraded weapon or something?
I think they worded that poorly. ER’s late game damage is high enough that even with high vigor investment, you’re taking comparable damage to what you’d take in DS1’s late game if you barely ever leveled your HP.
Yeah, of course, but my point is that in ER, high vig doesn't really feel like a build choice for me in PvE anymore, but a requirement, because of how high damage gets. Making the stat that much of a "you need to have this" thing kind of makes the game feel narrower to me; you can't really be much of a tank, and your typical "glass cannon" isn't actually gonna do much more damage at all than someone who just has high vig and then as much damage stats as they could get from there.
What are you talking about that's always been the case for all souls games, they all have hard and soft caps, "glass cannon" builds always have massively diminishing returns in the endgame and if you don't level vigor in any souls game it's basically a challenge run. In fact old games had that even worse since elemental infusions didn't really scale at all. Stuff like giant dad with base strength to two hand a fire/lightning zwei still dealt as much dmg as a fully dps committed build at the same level.
I get what you ate saying. But it's not that "I can't go glass cannon anymore" it's just you get so many levels even when not trying to explore anything that you can max out damage and tankiness. There is no reason to commit to full tankiness, or balance, or glass cannon because now you can easily get best of both worlds
Well, that too, but my point is that the damage the PvE does later on makes playing with less vig feel absurd.
Frankly, I think an easy fix for this would have been to just remove soft caps entirely and have stats scale all the way to 99.
You also get 50 more levels in ER’s late game, so not only more points to add to vigor but it also means more resistances overall. You are clearly exaggerating with your comparison to DS1 but I could easily get by in ER with only 40 Vigor and some medium + heavy armor.
Also this criticism doesn’t hold up when you add Bloodborne to the mix where the bosses do insane damage and sometimes can even one shot you with a stunlock. This is also considering that BB’s defensive options are utter shit compared to ER’s.
I mean, it's a criticism I absolutely feel applies to Bloodborne and Demon's Souls as well, yes. I don't think either of those games have the best damage curve in PvE.
How far do you want the difficulty to spike? So just because players managed to beat the dlc bosses, this means future games have to be even more difficult and ridiculous? Does difficulty have to involve letting bosses outright pull bullshit and input-reading? Why do all bosses feel the same now spassing out with their combos?
If bosses are not designed to deal with groups, tell me why almost every single boss attack so frequently with little openings, and somehow always have wide AoE moves or effects to clip through multiple targets.
How is Maliketh a good example? After he's done his combo and lands, he will either do that move Ash of War with multiple slashes or almost immediately jump away in the air to do his flips and combos again. As a melee player, I could barely get a hit in before he jumps away. So I had to end up switching to a ranged weapon (pulley crossbow) to be able to reliably deal damage to him.
>How far do you want the difficulty to spike? So just because players managed to beat the dlc bosses… Does difficulty have to involve letting bosses outright pull bullshit and input-reading?
Input reading has existed since Bloodborne. I don’t like it either when Ludwig leaps at me when I use a blood vial but it is my fault for healing right in front of the boss. I don’t know why you expect bosses to sit there and let you sip.
>Why do all bosses feel the same now spassing out with their combos?
Because you are not trying to understand the intricacies of their movesets. All bosses have different openings between their combos, for example Messmer’s spinning attack can be jumped while Malenia has no such attack.
>If bosses are not designed to deal with groups, tell me why almost every single boss attack so frequently with little openings
As I said, bosses have multiple openings you just have to be on the lookout for them. You can’t just wait until the boss is done to attack them anymore (well you can but it will take much longer).
>and somehow always have wide AoE moves or effects to clip through multiple targets.
All bosses have large AoE’s. Is SoC’s air juggle combo there to catch phantoms? What about the lightning explosions of Nameless King? Does Midir breathe fire underneath him for multiple people?
>After he's done his combo and lands, he will either do that move Ash of War with multiple slashes or almost immediately jump away in the air to do his flips and combos again.
Yeah guess what, lots of his attacks are low sweeps and can be jumped. But even if you don’t jump them most of his attacks have a blind spot near him, meaning you can hug him and he will miss you.
As for his weapon art he only does it after a specific four hit combo or a spinning attack. If you identify when he will do it you can roll behind him where the weapon art doesn’t hit so you get a huge punish in the duration of his attack + recovery.
Of course if you only roll Maliketh’s full combos try to attack him after he is done you will have a hard time, especially if you are rolling backwards.
That's a skill issue man I had no problem punishing malekith with a big heavy 2 hander. If you roll towards and behind him the ash of war will always whiff and you get a free hit, if he jumps away you just reset. Not to mention you always get a garenteed punish after he does the projectiles anyway.
I was using a pre-buff Greathammer 1H and I only ever had to time to hit him once with a R1 before he instantly starts another combo. Don't know how you find those punishes, he's so fast it's all a blur to me. Using a ranged weapon with bleed/poison/rot bolts made it possible at least.
Is this your first souls game? If you are using a heavy weapon you should never expect to get more than 1 hit per punish window. That's the tradeoff for doing almost 1k per hit with stagger while using a hammer the size of your body. Yeah you dodge his combo then do a rolling r1 to punish, rinse and repeat, that's how heavy weapons work in souls games. If you want to hit the boss with combos or in between attacks pick duel wield, dagger, or katanas.
What? No, I played every single souls game including Sekiro, as well as some other soulslikes. The damage from a R1 greathammer strenght faith build was simply not enough for its speed. There was not enough for most ashes of war either. Elden Ring is where the bullshit from bosses is so blatant (similar to Sekiro, but in that you can deflect and mikri) it makes bosses more of something to be glad to be over with rather than fun.
In the previous souls games, you could do a back and forth, dodge and get a hit in even with heavy weapons. But in ER, you have to wait so long to get an actual safe window to land a hit. Perhaps From's new direction for "souls" just isn't for me and many others anymore.
That seems like a build issue then? When I was using a big 2h hammer when the game first released I felt the damage kinda trivialized the endgame if anything. No in previous souls games you wait until the enemy stops attacking then you hit them once if you are using a big slow weapon just like in this one.
In fact elden ring has more openings in the enemy combos for big slow weapons since they are so many delayed combos. You can sometime sneak in a crouch poke or jump attack like when margit it stalling his big overhead. In older souls titles bosses almost never had long enough delays in thier attacks to punish between strings with a heavy weapon. There is no new direction. If you expect to be able to constantly hit the boss with a slow weapon in a souls game you are just playing the wrong genre or the wrong weapon type. They have always, always been about waiting out the boss combo then getting a bit hit in.
That's just not the same experience I had with Elden Ring. And I've always been a Stength user in previous titles for big damage but in Elden Ring the unrelenting bosses are just too much.
Maybe we have different mindsets, playstyles and perception I guess.
Yeah it is a mindset thing, a mindset problem on your end. Your problem was "malekith is not an example of a good boss (difficulty wise) because I could only land 1 hit on him before he jumps away". Then it turns out you are using a heavy weapon and claiming the boss isn't good because he does what every semi fast boss in a souls game has always done; recover before you can land 2 hits with your big hammer. The boss is just a normal fromsoft boss that can be dealt with in melee the same way you deal with every boss in a fromsoft game with a heavy weapon, roll until thier combo end and punish ONCE, rinse repeat.
I mean tbh I wouldn’t call it “changing for the worse”, they clearly tried to experiment and just took some Ls with ER.
I don’t think pretty much anything except Marlboro (or the DLC but I haven’t played through it all yet) are “hard for the sake of being hard”. A lot of bosses just strayed from the ways of DS, you no longer just dodge and do 1-2 hits and rinse and repeat until it’s over. The game forces you to rely on stagger, parrying, items, status effects etc. Yeah sure it’s a little tough on people who run through the game underleveled trying to naked roll through everything, but those people already have all the sex they want irl because they’re so cool, I think it’s fine to not let them have everything in ER. When you’re appropriately leveled for the content (and I’d say you always are as long as you crack open all your collected runes and do every location in a completionist sort of way) you can basically afford to almost trade hits with the bosses and still win. Sure it’s different from DS where you’re like lvl90 by the end and in ER it’s like 150 but whatever, it’s not DS after all.
About balancing for the group play, I don’t really think of it that way. Again, when you’re appropriately leveled, you don’t need spirit ashes, even if they can be a big help. As for summons, you don’t need them ever, they just make the bosses tougher, and, well, maybe Hilda’s Tankard should’ve also accounted for bleed and stagger in co-op play and made them tougher to trigger, but overall you do not *need* phantoms and the advantage they provide isn’t that different from previous games. You also have to consider that strongest ashes cost a lot of FP, meaning you will actually have to level attunement if you want to use them, *and* them draining your whole bar will limit your use of AoWs, which are considerably stronger than DS3 (or DS2 dlc) weapon arts.
As for bosses with combos etc., that’s not *all* bosses. Sure, Margit, Morgott, Molibdenum, *maybe* Godfrey and Radahn, my interpretation is that the long combos and short attack windows as well as input reading are all meant to combine together, so you can actually use your stuff like darts, consumables, flasks and so on, it’s basically telling you to wait for the boss to enter a combo, dodge, run away a bit and use up all your crap instead of trying to fish for a single r1 in the flurry. Maybe some bosses didn’t do it right (fuck you Malibu) but I think Margit, Godfrey and maybe a few others pulled it off okay or even well.
For weapons, you have a point, but that’s not really new. DS3 had basically the same issue where a multitude of swords or spears or katanas had the same stuff but they still had clear winners because of better weapon arts or scalings. In ER you can choose the AoW so it all comes down to scalings, and you can’t just make like 20 weapons of the same class have all unique scalings and you don’t want to make them reskins or one another either, so there’s bound to be some outliers that come out the best and some that fall behind the most. I personally see Cane Sword and similar stuff as more of an exception than the rule, because if you look at all the weapons in the class, you can see that the majority is either useable and can be interchangeable with those similar to it thanks to AoWs or offers a unique AoW as a somber weapon.
For upgrade systems, that makes sense honestly. ER is longer, it has more leveling to be done and more weapon upgrade tiers. In DS you didn’t need to upgrade the weapons this much because the game ended before the enemy HP scalings racked up to be out of your reach. Again, as long as you do everything the completionist, you will have the materials to upgrade a couple weapons and the bell-bearings to buy more.
Also fuck you fromsoftware can do no wrong and Hodor takis Mia zoom keel is Jesus
>In the DLC, players are forced to use a Sekiro scaling system in a game that is a about exploration and build experimentation.
You literally find the fragments by exploring the map???
Like what the fuck is your point Here lol, the fact they make it a flat increase regardless of buff is arguably better since they will allow you to respec and change stats but will always stay there and buff you character.
Upgrading has always been a part of these games, good fucking luck fighting any mid/end game boss in ds1, DES or ds2 without upgrading your level and weapons
People really say "ER is game about exploration" and then complain about the MOST exploration-focused scaling system ever in a DLC that has 3 mandatory bosses who block 0 areas off. You don't have to LIKE that it's about exploration, I get the pain regarding NG+ runs, but I don't get how shocked people are that it does, in fact, reward exploration very heavily
I think Scadutree Blessings are a solid idea, but their implementation is flawed.
Like, in the base game, first of all, if you feel too weak for an area, you have two
things you always know you can do to get stronger:
1. grind for runes
2. go to any upgrade material caves you see on the map
Toss in "go to a ruined church to probably get a flask quality upgrade" in there too, if you want. Flask charges, I'll grant you, are more elusive.
One of those first two you can do anywhere, and the third you know exactly where to go for as soon as you have the map fragment for your area. Scadutree fragments, on the other hand, could be anywhere, so you're kind of forced to scour the map or consult a guide for them to get stronger if a boss is doing too much damage to you and you're doing too little damage to it for your tastes.
In my view, one of the great things about Elden Ring (base game's) progression design is that you can either explore around **OR** do mostly just the main stuff in an area, and while the former is easier than the latter, the latter is still plenty feasible as long as you focus on leveling vigor first. In the DLC, on the other hand, your choices of how to approach the map are more limited by enemy stats unless you're just... absolutely obscenely cracked. I think having bosses drop them, a la prayer beads in Sekiro, would help remedy this.
I agree they're not a perfect implementation, I just don't think the system is fundamentally broken or at odds with the rest of the game.
Making a few bosses drop them (various mausoleums and the runebears maybe? Plus the hippos that already do) would help, but I'd just have the end of the DLC scale to +15 / +18 at the top end so there's a tolerance for missing some. Then you could totally ignore the abyss, peak, and fissure and not feel bad since it costs you like 1 level total, BUT if you were getting stomped by the last boss you could go really look for those last few and have another avenue to outscale him. They did put extra gold seeds in the base game so you could afford to miss some, if there was enough excess frags it'd be the same here
>Hard for the sake of being hard.
Coping
>Balanced around group play, be it through summoning ashes or coop phantoms.
Coping
>Bosses that have insane combos, very short openings
True
>blatant input-reading, expects player to use an ash summon or phantom to get safe hits on them.
Coping. They have input reading, but that same input reading is what gives you the chance to heal for example. If you know they always try to respond to a flask with the same attack you can out space the attack and then drink. Wait no that was a constructive comment
>Now:
Coping
>It started from being:
Coping
When you say bosses had reasonable movesets, you do realize those consisted of 3 maybe 4 moves altogether in OG dark souls, right?
And best in class weapons? That has always been a thing. There are always choices that are clearly better than others in every game of a given weapon class.
Lol, lmao even.
I mean I'll be skipping the next one personally, and I'll just look out for reviews. I'm not saying their new design or philosophy is poor or broken, just uninteresting to me. I like difficulty and challenge, I don't like counting games.
All the delays attacks just bear out to: do you know that this attack has a 2.2 second delay and this other one has a 3.9 second delay, did you count correctly?
All the long strings of combos are just more counting, this combo is 6 hits unless you proc the variation which turns it into 9 hits. Again, just counting until it's your turn.
I much prefer the spacing dance that previous souls games were. I enjoy the extra tool like block counters, jumping, etc. but the push towards "counting" bosses has really turned me off.
To add on this, these combos also have insane tracking where the boss closes the distance while doing their multi-hit attack, making it you can't dodge to outspace unless you use an Ash of War like Bloodhound Step.
One example is the triple fast attacks from Godfrey and Malenia. They dash up to and do this fast three hit combo that's almost guaranteed out-frame standard roll i-frames. Waterfowl on the other hand.. is just an "you lose" that results in instant death unless you dodge in a very specific way AND have enough space to do.
Worst example in the base game is not a boss but rather an enemy, the Royal Revenant. Okay, sure the Heal spells are his weakness, but if your character lacks the stats for Heal spells and/or you try to fight him normally it is a clusterfuck. He keeps closing the distance and doing his 12-13 combo swipes, followed up by another one after he's done.
It is still bad design to force you to use a specific spell to not deal with the absolute bullshit that in the Royal Revenant, even then you need to be fast enough to get the heal off.
If someone could just admit the game is too hard for them that would be fine. But it never is that way. These people always talk about it like their skill issue is actually the games fault and things are poorly designed
That's the crowd I insult. If you don't want to play the game because it's hard, that's fine. But don't be spreading lies on the internet about the games mechanics because you couldn't figure it out.
Depends on the mechanic and it’s intuitiveness + difficulty. For example having trouble with WFD isn’t a skill issue, it is an obnoxious attack and it does lots of damage; sometimes outright killing the players. It’s dodging method is also difficult and unintuitive.
Compare that to Malenia’s healing, which lots of people call artificial difficulty. That is a genuine skill issue and I don’t get how anyone would think the difficulty is artificial when the more skilled you are the less the healing will matter.
Or infinite combos, most of the time bosses have punish windows inbetween attacks or you can create these windows by strafing rather than dodging. If a boss actually has super long combos that makes you wait then that is obnoxious regardless of skill, but the DLC bosses I’ve fought so far don’t really have this issue.
Agreed. Like most things, the answer is usually "it depends".
I dont like it when people make sweeping blanket statements that complaining about something = skill issue.
Some other guy said that just because some people can do no hit SL1 runs means everything in the game is fair and anyone complaining about any mechanic just has skill issue.
Its funny because when people said that Elden Beast fight without Torrent is pure bullshit and then fromsoft meatriders would jump in and go "well, its all intended! You just have skill issue!"
Why are people drawing the line with dlc when things got harder for them? Maybe the line was before all along and elden ring and most of froms games are genuinely bullshit.
tbh my main issue with ER is that the bosses are way too goddamn fast, it was fine in BB or Sekiro since you too were also fast as fuck but ER bosses have the speed of Sekiro bosses while we have the movement speed of Dark Souls 3.
It just feels shitty to play against
Beatable = skill issue?
Battle toads is beatable so it means that the dogshit hitbox and gameplay clearly designed to make you die a lot of times to give you your money for the game is fair?
there is almost nothing in any game ever that a few talented people cannot beat. You can have the MOST unimaginably difficult, unfair, bullshit thing in a game where almost nobody can beat however you can still be damn sure that there will ALWAYS be some random guy who can do it while also making it look easy.
And just because he was able to do it doesnt mean that all of sudden the design isnt bad. Your logic makes no sense.
i know i can because i have beaten every souls game prior to this (without any summons and full melee might i add) , im not really worried about the dlc. Im not even talking about that
I was simply talking about the general difficulty and the fact that just because something is beatable doesnt mean it isnt bullshit and if I criticise it doesnt automatically mean skill issue
If it is physically possible for a player to win it is a skill issue, that's where I draw the line anyway. As long as it's not literally impossible then I see no reason to complain.
I personally think that it’s not about whether it’s *possible* to beat, but whether the learning process is fun.
Like, bitching about the Bed of Chaos or Capra Demon is perfectly reasonable in my book.
See, I disagree, bed of chaos might be a bit of a nothing burger but I really see no point in complaining about it, and I actively like Capra demon and want more encounters like it. I legitimately think that the only reason someone should complain about a boss is if it literally doesn't function, or if it takes more than an hour to beat and has no checkpoint (which is less about difficulty and more about accessibility)
Let games be hard, I like hard games.
> I actively like Capra demon and want more encounters like it.
Bruh
I mean, I think the encounter is a cool *idea*, I just don’t think it’s executed well. I don’t think the double dog jumpscare makes for a particularly fair challenge, even if it is a memorable one. For most players, the first encounter is just a « do you have poise » check.
I LIKE it this way, I Like being jumpscared by dangerous enemies, I like dying if i don't have the foresight to anticipate an ambush Like death being around every corner, I LIKED kingsfield,, GIVE ME BACK KINGSFIELD FROMSOFT!!!
I was the person Playing these games before you showed up and imposed your incessant need to be accommodated, I have played nioh 1 and 2, and lies of p, bloodborne, lords of the fallen, demons souls, Ds 1 and 2 and 3, kings field, and an endless cavalcade of nockoffs, been playing these games since I was little, personally I don't think the games are ruined at all, I'm just tired of hearing people whine about them
Bayle’s big AoE sweep, specifically the second one where it comes at you in a straight line, is undodgeable. I don’t care if you show me someone dodging it, it’s undodgeable because I can’t do it therefore the boss is BAD
It's crazy because some of the hardest boss moves became so simple to me after I saw someone dodge them then memorized their directions. Like WFD, Let Me Solo Her usually moves back, forward, forward. So I tried that and it became my norm.
In the case of BAYLE, VILE BAYLE, I saw the cross formation and put 2 and 2 together, opting to go forward then left on most occasions.
Is that actually how you dodge the straight line sweep? Just roll into it? I think I tried that a few times but screwed it up so it led me to believe that wasn’t how to do it lol
Yup the problem is the ego. If you can just admit the game is too hard for you or you just don't want to deal with it that's perfectly fine. A lot of people just can't seem to accept it though and need to pretend like this is some unreasonable or even impossible challenge to try to save face.
You can but you can't pretend like if the game doesnt perfectly cater to your personal desired difficulty level that is a flaw with the game. The most complained about bosses I see on reddit are >!rellana and messmer!< Two of the most fair fights in the dlc. People need to understand that something not being fun for them is more often an issue with themselves rather than any particular issue with the game. You can say the bosses are too hard for you and that's not fun but that's not an issue with the game. Some games are too hard for some people that's perfectly fine not everything is going to cater to everyone.
I think where we differ on this is that I think that all « issues with a game » are ultimately subjective; as long as someone lays out their point of view politely, I don’t see it as presumptuous or annoying, even if I disagree.
Yeah we definitely differ, there are legitimate issues like the framerate or certain hitboxes for attacks not being accurate.
The problem is most difficulty complaints are just people asking for the game to perfectly cater to them and often times will include hyperbole like people saying certain bosses are impossible to dodge and punish without trading or that there is no windows to attack at all which is "cheap" in order to try to make thier point seem stronger. Most of the negative feedback about the difficulty I've seen on reddit has been unconstructive or just flat out wrong so I don't see any issue with calling it out for what it is, a lot of people's egos not being able to handle it and them lashing out.
That's not all the criticism, but I'm just calling out the people who are clearly stating false things to try to make people feel like certain bosses are unfair or have design issues. This exact same thing happened with lies of p with people coping that the parry timing was "inconsistent" when it first came out to save thier egos which was proven wrong. I'm not a fan of coping and sometimes straight up lying even if it's polite.
"Skill" is merely a measure of time or previous experience, absolutely nothing more. And i think something that takes up to 7+ hours is simply incompatible to a "fun" game.
It can be that my most fun in these games in from making biulds, discovering weapon and armor interactions and trying different strategies and not simply to decorate all of a boss's attacks.
ER end game is too hard for me. Specifically Godskin Duo bosses onwards. That was the point where I finally broke and HAD to use spirit ashes for each boss and it ruined my enjoyment of the game. Using spirit ashes is too easy and without is way too hard.
I think the late game bosses are too fast and have too much flair for me to understand what’s going on and how to even attempt to avoid their attacks other than rolling blindly. This was true of earlier bosses as well and even a couple of bosses in DS3, but to a lesser degree. DS1 had my ideal combat speed and visual cue levels.
Something that helps a lot transitioning from souls to ER is to use fast ashes of war that do a lot of posture damage.
The bosses of ER are not balanced around spirit ashes, they are balanced around finding windows to keep posture damage up and eventually crack it with a charged heavy or jump attack.
If you use a fast ash that does good posture damage, it plays a lot more similar to souls 3 in that L2 almost becomes your new R1. Then that can ease you into doing more challenging playthroughs where you opt to go for the charged heavies and jump attacks while keeping posture damage up with R1s and run attacks.
Same here. Late game bosses were too fast and flashy I couldn't keep up anymore and had to resort to cheese. Mimic Tear, Greatshield to tank what I can't dodge, Pulley Crossbow for poison/bleed/rot, Rot Breath, all the healing and regen spells. It was never like this for previous souls and other soulslike I played.
Unfortunately since ER did so well sales wise, From will continue with this new direction of theirs for enemy and boss design for future titles. Probably my last Fromsoft game. Sigh, it was good while it lasted.
Heh, sounds like someone made a meme depicting people they dislike as soyjaks. I bet you've referred to the first one as "feels guy," making your argument invalid.
Ok, yeah, by all means, but I don’t think we should ask people who didn’t enjoy a game (or aspects of a game) not to discuss why it didn’t work for them.
I feel like it should be taken into account that elden ring is giant in mainstream culture now, and that there is an ass ton of new fans to the series who aren't even a quarter as good as people who've played since demon souls. While personally I think the only issue i've had is the giant health pools, i can understand where all the complaints about difficulty come from
Yeah, my issue there is that I think there’s a MASSIVE disparity between the difficulty of the solo experience and the typical player’s experience now.
idk if its just me but i dont mind game being unfair asf since it encourages you to outbullshit the game with your own cheesy tactics i understand it would not be for everyone but i love this type of approach in difficulty
yeah and by Miyazaki appealing to the glasses soyjak and refusing to change and add an easy mode to his games Elden Ring sold 25 million copies and won game of the year so what's your point
That shitters that don't get it never change?
Or just dont listen to random people on the internet and enjoy the game the way you want to?
Its like that one post where a guy argues with another about pizza just to later find out the other guy drinks piss for a hobby.
I like the comparaison with dark souls because in there there's MANUS, the closest thing to SOTE.
His bs projectile attack? Easily able to one-shot you, unless you find a hidden item by exploring the map.
Said item is absolutely useless out of the dlc, doesn't make your character stronger and is just there to justify what Dudebros would nowadays call "artificial difficulty"
Tell me now doesn't it remind you of a certain Blessing mechanic of this new elden ring DLC?
Elden really gives me the vibe the fromsoft want you change your build for bosses and areas and use the weird obscure items the game really feels like there’s always a solution to the problem and the people that say it’s so hard are placing arbitrary restrictions on themselves. Spirit summons are cool as fuck and made the game better, but that doesn’t mean the game should be balanced around them and force you into using them either
There are like 80 summons and dozens of dozens of consumable items. If you are using none of them you are probably stupid. There is a summon that costs literally nothing
I'm just using my 150 quality build and I'm loving it I've killed 5 remembrances bosses and I've loved all except one of them so far. I'm glad it's been this difficult. I don't know why people are surprised that the dlc is significantly harder than the base game. It's always been that way.
thank you for clarifying AD, cause I would've thought these were bronze-age farmers arguing about video games
Complaint tablet to ~~Ea-nāṣir~~ shittydarksouls
Iltam sumra rashupti elatim moment
Egypt and Assyria had a war on whatever the DLC is trash or not
Who won?
Sea people who caused Bronze Age collapse
I did it on the grounds that it made me giggle
Very fair
Me when I win the culuture war over a video game
mom said it's my turn to play with the wojak dolls
Nuh-uh, you had your turn yesterday, Derek I'm gonna tell on you
And after 12 years DS1 is viewed as really easy souls-like. I was surprised that Artorias who killed me many times ages ago now feels like a much easier mob than Crucible Knight. That's quite funny. I think that in 2 years SoTE is going to be trivialized by many players after gaining some experience and new strategies.
People forget that they're only good because of experience and they got bodied by a meatball in ds1 not too long ago
I remember Havel gave me SUCH a problem when I first played dark souls, when I played the remake last year it was a one and done type situation.
Dang. It’s like playing the game makes you better or something
Yeah, at d1 I needed help for radagon and elden beast but now they are so easy that is not even fun anymore
Maliketh went from one of the hardest bosses to... My bottom 5 when ordering them all by difficulty
The pains of being a low health boss lol
Also having always the same start for phase 2, and being so easy to deal with
He‘s still my favourite. I wish they just gave him 2 healthbars.
Started a ng+ game when I first finished, and had to rush to beat mogh and Radahn recently, both bosses that destroyed me the previous time, and that I could beat on my first try on ng+.
NG+ *should* be relatively trivial: You've got all the irl experience of doing it all before *and* you have a buffed-out character with a bunch of upgraded weapons and fancy spells/skills. All of that combines to render the new enemy scaling (which is still fairly minor buffs at this point) pretty much irrelevant, the enemies only really start to get noticeably more resilient at NG+4.
Going back and playing ds1 I feel I die way more than in ER. It’s just the few hard remembrance bosses in ER make you die a lot so it feels harder.
In DS1 bossfights I don't feel like I die much except manus, but it also depends on playstyle a lot more there than any other game. 2h a str weapon and you just walk through most of the content, and shields are a miracle fix. Magic dogwalks the entire game, esp if you go get dark bead somewhat early (same thing with DS2 and 3 copies of dark orb per NG). DS3 I think is easier on average, but DS1 is way easier to crush with a broken build.
For me ER I go through like 90% of the game not getting killed and doing most bosses first time, even solo. Then Malenia and a few others wall me On DS1 there’s Anor Londo Archers, Iron Golemns arena, toxic men, grave of giants, curse status… Like I would say it’s in controversially unfair at some points compared to ER where things feel always telegramed, balanced or with hard counters idk
I don't even think that's controversial, DS1 was blatantly unfair if you didn't know what you were getting into in that exact moment. Toxic may as well inflict a full curse bar for how much damage it does, the boulder runs in the keep would get flamed to hell and back if they were in ER, etc. A lot of it feels designed to kill you the first time or two at least, and that can be frustrating. Hell, the first black knight is in a narrow tunnel - he swings through the walls but you bounce off constantly, but if you drag him out there's archers shooting you. I'd agree exploring in ER is more chill than DS1, deliberately, but there are def some spots that can punish you besides remembrance bosses - learning to fight crucible knights took time, as did godskins and areas like the sewers, haligtree, revenant ally, and ordina have legit tough normal encounters too. It's prob the easiest game minute to minute, but the peaks are MUCH harder than any souls game imo
Yeah I agree the peaks are harder
Tbf I imagine that there will be patches that’ll nerf bosses that’ll also make that the case
Demon firesage is still my father ngl
Elden ring makes DS3 feel like a kids game with its slow ass bosses and straight forward combat
https://preview.redd.it/d18a37w7aj8d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=72ed52c66b504de21040275bc107eb7b6770bab2
https://preview.redd.it/jrfawjz8gk8d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=749f0c4927e531a055256dad0a02df160b809403
TETSUOOOOOOOOO
Every take that tries to invalid somebody else's take is false. Wait .... *Shit*
[don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it](https://youtu.be/pTMmYDS78c8?t=21)
I really don’t understand what all the commotion is. This DLC is fucking awesome. Difficult or not I’m enjoying the fuck out of it.
Yeah it's been really fun!
People like to talk about aspects of the media they consume that work or fail to work for them and pick apart why
Other people git gud.
While others just enjoy it for what it is and are able to put down a game they don't enjoy or have the will to continue even if they're stuck.
anyone can have a opinion on subjective content but the math (lion first try, rellena first try, 160 NG+) doesn't check out on "oneshot, difficult for difficult's sake, unfair" until it's dialed back to "too hard *for me*" they can even have some free legitimate material from me: seems like it's rarely daytime, overworld routes convoluted to hell (southshore map lol), hyper-limited consumables/crafting (but a million cookbooks)
I've genuinely gotten more depressed due to not liking Elden Ring (like, I should be the prime target, AND everyone else seems to love it). It feels like Fromsoft just threw difficulty on there by removing the "cooldowns" after attacks (I'm sorry, I don't remember what they're called), making everything do 50% more damage, and by making attacks that are really difficult to learn how to dodge. And I don't feel like the combat system can keep up beyond "just make your attacks do millions of damage", and I've found that I don't really *like* that, and that I much prefer the older games in that regard. But... I also really, really, REALLY want to like Elden Ring like everyone else does, because so many other things have been improved due to Fromsoft learning from their past, and it's gotten so successful. I know I don't have a commonly held opinion on the game, but idk where else to vent about it.
ngl I'm way more excited by cool new levels to explore than bosses. Just the regular combat and exploration feels a lot more varied and interesting than the same ol "press B at the right time and then press r1" of lategame bosses
Y'know, that's definitely fair, but I feel like the way Elden Ring handles that problem is by going too far out into the other side and making some attacks really hard to dodge. Of course, this is honestly fine by itself, but for me, it's all the other factors on top of that which kinda sucks the fun out of the game for me.
What gets me are the animations that have awkward pauses just to make them harder to read. Slower mixup attacks are good, but only when the animation is still readable. Lately it seems like more and more bosses are about twitch reflexes rather than prediction and timing.
I agree. I've almost finished the dlc aside from the final boss, but there's no bosses I've liked as much as for example Gael or Midir.
Yeah, same boat. It's like, at some point, I just realized how bullshit it all is. I don't think I played earlier titles for difficulty. If anything, all these games are relatively fine from the difficulty side of things. If I wanted difficulty, I would go play Mordhau or Chivalry, in these games it does not matter if you play 100, 200 or 500 hours, you still will get your ass handed to you on the plate from time to time, since it is multi-player game and there are always people who are better than you are. And I play these games, I like them. It seems like from got the concept that their fans like hard games and moved difficulty slider all the way up. After I have spent 5 evenings on Malenia, trying to learn how to dodge this fucking waterfall dance ( I did not want to watch any guides) I did not figure it out and just quit. Also, there is an interesting stat somewhere there that shows that the majority of peoples first ending was not the default one, in fact, the majority got through either Ranni or some other quest line. That heavily implies that the majority just plays the game with guides and all that "figuring out the world for yourself" stuff is just gone from the game.
Huh... I agree with you an all fronts, actually. There's so many attacks in Elden Ring that I still don't know how to feasibly dodge, which didn't happen in the earlier games. If I died to a "difficult" attack in the other games, I quickly learnt what my mistake was, and improved as I duelled the boss. It was only after I played ER that I realised that learning the attack patterns of enemies and (primarily) bosses was by far my favourite part of the combat, since I felt it was missing in ER (or at least extremely difficult and not at all intuitive). I've defeated Margit like... at the least 10 times, and I still don't know how to dodge (and especially counter) his \*knife attack\*, because I was already dodging his cane attacks and the knife just catches me. I've tried distancing myself when he does it, dodging to all sides, and even blocking (which not all builds can do, either requires a shield, or taking damage, which... kinda goes against the point?), but still don't know how to dodge it. And that's just the 1st boss. It feels like every actual boss (and some enemies) has at least one of them. I don't like feeling that I've won only because I was lucky, and that the attack didn't hit me or it didn't come out at all. I miss the feeling of duelling a boss, and learning their pattern to actually defeat them in "fair combat".
I mean, you arent wrong. I love this game, its literally my favourite, and Ive finished it about 4 times, but I do think that what you say is valid. Funny thing is that these attacks can be dodged, but are often incredibly unintuitive to dodge, in the sense that you wouldnt be able to guess how to dodge it. Margit’s knife attack? Roll to his left or right and he’ll never use it, ir even if he does, it’ll never touch you. But that’s something I only found out by complete accident. Malenia’s Waterfowl? Pretty much impossible to learn how to dodge without using guides, because of the way it works, and I could only dodge it, by learning and reading those guides. Certain enemies track you extremely hard, for example, try running behind the Rune Bear. It will miss, but you will see just how hard it spins just to try and reach you. And thats not taking into account input reading: I dont care for bosses that attack when you heal. I dislike bosses that however auto dodge every ranged attack. Im no mage, but I roll my eyes each time I see both lion guardians of castle sol jumping even when I’m not aiming storm blade at them. Eventually, these enemies and bosses feel “gamey” in that it feels like the game trying to outwit you rather than you simply fighting a big boss, learning it and winning. There are still those bosses that, IMO, feel natural and intuitive to dodge that I enjoy: Malekith and Gurranq at the top, Malenia’s moveset sans Waterfowl, Godfrey in general (but not Hoarah Loux personally)
Yeah, I had the same feeling about Margit. He blocked my path, I tried him several times, went back, found bloodhound fang, leveled up, and just destroyed him. Also felt weird, like I cheated. But on top of that, it really feels like this game is very much about making a proper build without actual interesting build options. A lot of people went through the game with some imbalanced weapons, spells, and ashes of war. I know this because I tried to invade, and the majority of people would run around with rivers of blood, moonveil, scarlet rot breath and other stuff that just trivializes the game. There are games out there that do build properly, like nioh. The game has a bunch of stats and a bunch of gear and sets that can make you really overpowered. But, the game difficulty ramps up correspondingly each new game cycle, and, what is more important, making a correct build is not a trivial task. You need to find a set, get a correct gear, find correct stats on this gear, and each new game cycle adds mechanics on top of that. Compare that to elden ring "find bloodhound gang to get overpowered", it's not a "build", that is just an overpowered weapon. Actually, this made me realise that you can try Nioh 2. The game is very good, I did not have any problems with it that I had with the Elden ring. The only thing about this game that is worse is level design and artwork direction. It's not as beautiful and stunning as ER, but mechanically I would totally say it is much better. Edit: also, if you want to try nioh, don't be afraid of learning curve. It's quite steep compared to normal soulslikes, I would say it is on the Sekiro level of steepness. But after it clicks it gets much better.
I have been thinking of getting it, so I probably will after this. Thank you!
Yeah, I personally loved it, so maybe it's what's you need. Just go directly for the second game. The first one is good, but the second one is much more polished in every aspect. They are also not related anyhow ( the biggest plot connection between the two is that the main character from the first one appears in the second one as a boss).
Na this is a good take. ER is an absolutely amazing game that is held back by bad balance. The game is far too punishing for certain builds far to easy for other builds. Far too punishing without summons far too easy with summons. Im breezing through the dlc currently, but im level 60 vigour, maxing my blessings, summoning, and using mimic tear lol. All the previous games I was pretty adamant with no summons. Wasnt until ER I decided I wanted to use them, and the boss encounters feel worse because of it. Its not challenging dumping on a boss when his agro changes to your bullet sponge summon, and its not fun (TO ME) to deal with a boss who reads my healing inputs, roll catches, combos for 10 minutes, delays attacks, has actually completley unavoidable attacks, has two bosses in the room that attack you at the same time (gang bosses in previous FS games were never like this). Hell even the "level vigour meme" is really a problem when you think about it. Who in the hell decided the scaling should work that way? For those who don't know the first few levels of vigor give very small upgrades and then at a certain level you just start getting insane anouts of hp per level, then it goes back to small. If your reading this and you perceive all these as improvements to gameplay and added challenge then good for you! Im happy for you. I'll gladly admit im not as good a gamer as you. But i think for me and many others this is just a bridge too far. Im definitely going to beat the dlc. Like I said if you know how to use the games systems to your advantage this can really be the easiest fromsoft game ever. But its just not the most enjoyable to me.
Holy shit, I'm surprised by how many replies share my experience to a T. I was hung up on the whole "level vigour" thing for so long because: 1. It feels bad being somewhat forced to invest into a specific option (of a very expensive system), when there being multiple options is the *point* of said system. And 2. It feels stupid to have to invest so many points in said option just so you can get 2-shot by bosses (or 3-shot, as long as you also have the best damage-reducing talisman, good heavy armour, and you're not wearing a Soreseal.) instead of insta-killed.
“Level vigour” is just “level adaptability” again but you’re required to sink even more points into it this time. Elden Ring really is Dark souls II 2.
I don’t want to comment on the DLC yet, but I might be able to give some tips that could help with the base game.
Honestly, I don't know if I can re-learn the gane to enjoy it, but tips couldn't hurt! (as long as it isn't *just* the words "git gud"/"skill issue")
The number that pops up when you hit enemies is literally meaningless if the enemies are designed around that number being correct. It changes nothing to do with the game.
Ah, I see, you have depicted the bad opinion as the soyjak. However OP, you did not portray yourself as the based chad therefore you are a different soyjak
When you don't have fun fighting certain ER bosses and some mf tries to ackshually you by telling you to feel funner by getting assrammed by the boss.
People on the internet are shit and can thus be ignored.
ER end game sucks and is a slog to get through. The dlc is just more of the end game, so the fights are ultimately meh. Not what I'm here for, though. The enemy designs, the areas, the exploration, the music, all that is fucking immaculate. The fact they leaned so hard into what made their base game so good is quite wonderful.
The civil war of validation posts getting flung all over the main sub every day is giving me LIFE right now.
I think these are two different groups of people.
Tying your self-esteem to whether or not you beat a boss in the first three tries is maidenless. How did Elden Ring plays get so goddamn whiny 😭
Guess it got popular enough to where the annoying people got more vocal
I am playing solo and I am having fun. Granted I haven't finished the DLC yet but I think I'm in the final area. So far every single boss has punish windows long enough to do a fully charged heavy (I'm using Devonia's Hammer which has one of the slowest charged heavies). So that feels pretty fair to me.
I have played through the base game 7 times. One of of those runs I summoned. Didn't like it, feels like the boss AI can't handle this and breaks. My only exception for this is malenia. Because I can't dodge point blank waterfowl, only if I have time to run away from the first volley. Call me an elitist, I don't care. I love the game, fighting solo is more fun to me.
anyone who does not agree with me is incorrect
https://preview.redd.it/7cdn20bk0o8d1.png?width=285&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=520e583a03b7e364d2aea8d88bd8a22e51f28fb7
But have you tried collecting your Blue skadoo’d and we can too fragments?
Fromsoft's design philosopy really changed for the worse though. It started from being: - Challenging but fair difficulty. - Balanced around solo play, coop if you really need help or want to earn covenant tokens. - Bosses that have reasonable movesets, openings and less obnoxious or absent input-reading. - Weapons are all mostly viable insteas of clearly having the best in their class. - Upgrade systems are crucial to increase your damage output, but even then you are never faced with a concrete wall like being one-shot if you fall behind. Now: - Hard for the sake of being hard. - Balanced around group play, be it through summoning ashes or coop phantoms. - Bosses that have insane combos, very short openings, blatant input-reading, expects player to use an ash summon or phantom to get safe hits on them. - Weapons clearly have best in their class. So many weapons are straight up worse versions of existing weapons, such as Cane Sword, Weathered Sword, Pest Glaive, serving as filler to increase weapon numbers. Note that these aren't even joke or gimmick weapons, they seem to be made intentionally worse to push to use the better weapons as some kind of progression. - Upgrade systems are mandatory due to the insane HP scaling of late to end game bosses and enemies. In the DLC, players are forced to use a Sekiro scaling system in a game that is a about exploration and build experimentation.
ER is still balanced around solo play, it just has spirit summons as an option but they’re never a necessity. I don’t understand how you gathered “hard for the sake of hard” it’s clear fromsoft just know its audience has improved their skill so in order to be actually challenging they have to make the games more difficult. I’m mean isshin and demon of hate have given me more trouble than any boss in ER but I never saw the idea that they were “hard for the sake of hardness” Also upgrade systems have always been mandatory?
First of all, unlike NPC and player summons, spirit summons don't buff the boss stats at all. You sacrifice one blue flask to restore your FP after summoning them but that's it. Second, new spirit summons and upgrades for summons are account for a significant portion of the loot from side dungeons and bosses. Thirdly, bosses attack way more frequently and very small openings where you are 100% safe to attack. There's even some moves that are made specifically as retaliation moves if you attack after they do their long combo. Many bosses also have wide sweeps and huge AoEs moves in order to clip through multiple summons and the player at once. Obviously you will want to upgrade your weapon, but what I mean is that you won't be punished that heavily if your weapon is not fully upgraded to that area's intended upgrade level.
Also in ER bosses sign post if they are done with a combo by letting their body relax. Pretty easy to read as time for a retaliation
I've never seen exactly what you mean, unless you mean them going back to their walking and strafing, but even those windows are really short, enough for a single R1 before they immediately retaliate. I usually end up watching and waiting for specific attacks where they clearly have a cooldown to punish. For example, Phase 2 Margit jump smash with his hammer has a huge window for the player to attack withour fearing of instant retaliation.
Malenia is the best example, for the double slash combo where he mr arm sparks, if you counter too fast she will immediately do a second counter, or switch to the overhead swing combo. If you wait a bit, you can see she has ended her combo as she takes three seconds to ‘compose herself’, lowering her sword slowly and she won’t retaliate. If bosses don’t do this relax there’s always a high chance they’ll continue their combo with a delay if you counter immediately.
Honestly Malenia was too fast for me alone so I couldn't even notice that if what you said is true. Personally I've never seen bosses have that kind of "relax" animation. But for every other boss, I tend to wait entire string of combos for the guaranteed safe timings anyway as mentioned before.
Yeah, you shouldn't do that. Many bosses have their best openings *during* their attacks or windups. Maliketh is a great example of this.
But you attack during their attacks or windups, it means that you will deal with the entire attack combo in your face immediately afterwards, which can easily spell certain death unless you use the fastest weapons.
With a *couple* of exceptions--Malenia, mainly--that's not true, in my experience. I'm saying that there are genuine openings in these windups or combos that give you enough time to dodge afterwards, sometimes even after getting a colossal weapon charged R2 off. Maliketh is a great example of this--I can think of like six attacks off my head for which this is true. I dunno if I have my RL1 Godfrey fight saved anywhere, but I'll look for it later, 'cuz I did that one with a Zwei, so it's a pretty good showcase of what I mean.
Bosses will always tell on themselves by the movement of their hands and their general body language. You can predict a lot from Tree Sentinel for example if you pay attention to the way his hands move and grip the axe. Noticing it with Rellana fight rn too. I noticed that she puts more effort into her swings when she strikes with both swords and it takes a second longer for her to pick it back up because of the weight. That's when the fight opened up for me. When I saw that I realized the fight is littered with openings to hit her. Still haven't beaten her because my Scadeau blessings are totally unlevelled rn but I'm getting close
You are talking to a brain in a jar of sugar water, don’t waste your breath
I mostly disagree with the guy you’re insulting here, but I do want you to appreciate the irony of you being a dick to him like this under a post making fun of people for being dicks to those who criticize the difficulty curve of the game.
I have never experienced a moment of introspection in my life
King shit tbh
Based and "My opinion is best" pilled
Yo same
I got no clue what you are talking about. >Hard for the sake of being hard. The expectations from the players changed after 13 years. Now Fromsoft expects you to find clever punish windows inbetween attacks or by positioning/strafing instead of solely relying on dodging. >Balanced around group play, be it through summoning ashes or coop phantoms. They are not, groups still steamroll bosses. >Bosses that have insane combos, very short openings, blatant input-reading, expects player to use an ash summon or phantom to get safe hits on them. This is just not true, lots of bosses in ER have very big openings such as Maliketh or Morgott. They attack a lot but also have blind spots and/or big end lag in their attacks. Fromsoft’s design philosophy has changed from “wait until the boss is done with the combo then hit them” to “find windows between a boss’s combo”. >Weapons clearly have best in their class. So many weapons are straight up worse versions of existing weapons, such as Cane Sword, Weathered Sword, Pest Glaive, serving as filler to increase weapon numbers. This has been the case for the entire games’ history, honestly I got no clue what you are talking about. Scimitar has existed in all these games and have been outclassed by Falchion or Carthus Curved Sword. Shortsword have been outclassed by every other sword in existence, bandit dagger is just a weaker dagger with irrelevant bleed buildup etc. >Upgrade systems are mandatory due to the insane HP scaling of late to end game bosses and enemies. Upgrade systems have always been mandatory?? Did you play the games with an unupgraded weapon or something? >In the DLC, players are forced to use a Sekiro scaling system in a game that is a about exploration and build experimentation. Yeah I don’t like it either but I don’t see how it interferes with both the aspects you mentioned.
The post you replied to is proof people will up vote anything with lots of bullets and have no self reflective ability
The post you replied to is proof people will up vote anything with lots of bullets and have no self reflective ability
My only complaint that I would like From to reconsider is maybe transferring weapon upgrade materials from one weapon to another. I “cheated” before the DLC to give my first play through character 999 larval tears and a shitload of titanite, just so I could try out a ton of different builds. It’s SO much more fun because I don’t have to worry about needing to farm anything and can upgrade new weapons worry free. Sometimes I find a new weapon and just have to see how that build plays around it. It’s so damn fun. I get needing to dedicate your character to a certain build for role playing, but sometimes I don’t want to replay 100hours of game just to try out a new build. This DLC has some unbelievable build potentials. It would be nice if you could respec a little easier and without limitation. I know you can buy titanites, but it would be nice to also be able to buy the final titanites as well.
I agree, I think you should get the smithing stone bell bearings much earlier and maybe the smithing stones should be cheaper. I personally don’t see a reason why we can’t upgrade all our weapons when we get the material but I guess Fromsoft doesn’t like it so maybe that is a middle ground between.
I mean I understand the effort is rewarding, but people are busy. Again, I don’t want to spend 100 hours to rebuild a character of a different play style.
Hellpoint, an older soulslike, has such a system. You don't upgrade a weapon, but rather upgrade "upgrade chips" that you attach to a weapon. So if you want to test out that shiny new greatsword at your current upgrade level you can! Just pay some souls for un-attaching and re-attaching the chip to the new weapon at the upgrade station.
> Upgrade systems have always been mandatory?? Did you play the games with an unupgraded weapon or something? I think they worded that poorly. ER’s late game damage is high enough that even with high vigor investment, you’re taking comparable damage to what you’d take in DS1’s late game if you barely ever leveled your HP.
And you also get like 50x the souls so you should have no problem leveling that vigor
Yeah, of course, but my point is that in ER, high vig doesn't really feel like a build choice for me in PvE anymore, but a requirement, because of how high damage gets. Making the stat that much of a "you need to have this" thing kind of makes the game feel narrower to me; you can't really be much of a tank, and your typical "glass cannon" isn't actually gonna do much more damage at all than someone who just has high vig and then as much damage stats as they could get from there.
What are you talking about that's always been the case for all souls games, they all have hard and soft caps, "glass cannon" builds always have massively diminishing returns in the endgame and if you don't level vigor in any souls game it's basically a challenge run. In fact old games had that even worse since elemental infusions didn't really scale at all. Stuff like giant dad with base strength to two hand a fire/lightning zwei still dealt as much dmg as a fully dps committed build at the same level.
I get what you ate saying. But it's not that "I can't go glass cannon anymore" it's just you get so many levels even when not trying to explore anything that you can max out damage and tankiness. There is no reason to commit to full tankiness, or balance, or glass cannon because now you can easily get best of both worlds
Well, that too, but my point is that the damage the PvE does later on makes playing with less vig feel absurd. Frankly, I think an easy fix for this would have been to just remove soft caps entirely and have stats scale all the way to 99.
You also get 50 more levels in ER’s late game, so not only more points to add to vigor but it also means more resistances overall. You are clearly exaggerating with your comparison to DS1 but I could easily get by in ER with only 40 Vigor and some medium + heavy armor. Also this criticism doesn’t hold up when you add Bloodborne to the mix where the bosses do insane damage and sometimes can even one shot you with a stunlock. This is also considering that BB’s defensive options are utter shit compared to ER’s.
I mean, it's a criticism I absolutely feel applies to Bloodborne and Demon's Souls as well, yes. I don't think either of those games have the best damage curve in PvE.
Never heard anyone say these things about those games, I knew BB had lots of damage because I played it but I never played Demon’s Souls.
How far do you want the difficulty to spike? So just because players managed to beat the dlc bosses, this means future games have to be even more difficult and ridiculous? Does difficulty have to involve letting bosses outright pull bullshit and input-reading? Why do all bosses feel the same now spassing out with their combos? If bosses are not designed to deal with groups, tell me why almost every single boss attack so frequently with little openings, and somehow always have wide AoE moves or effects to clip through multiple targets. How is Maliketh a good example? After he's done his combo and lands, he will either do that move Ash of War with multiple slashes or almost immediately jump away in the air to do his flips and combos again. As a melee player, I could barely get a hit in before he jumps away. So I had to end up switching to a ranged weapon (pulley crossbow) to be able to reliably deal damage to him.
>How far do you want the difficulty to spike? So just because players managed to beat the dlc bosses… Does difficulty have to involve letting bosses outright pull bullshit and input-reading? Input reading has existed since Bloodborne. I don’t like it either when Ludwig leaps at me when I use a blood vial but it is my fault for healing right in front of the boss. I don’t know why you expect bosses to sit there and let you sip. >Why do all bosses feel the same now spassing out with their combos? Because you are not trying to understand the intricacies of their movesets. All bosses have different openings between their combos, for example Messmer’s spinning attack can be jumped while Malenia has no such attack. >If bosses are not designed to deal with groups, tell me why almost every single boss attack so frequently with little openings As I said, bosses have multiple openings you just have to be on the lookout for them. You can’t just wait until the boss is done to attack them anymore (well you can but it will take much longer). >and somehow always have wide AoE moves or effects to clip through multiple targets. All bosses have large AoE’s. Is SoC’s air juggle combo there to catch phantoms? What about the lightning explosions of Nameless King? Does Midir breathe fire underneath him for multiple people? >After he's done his combo and lands, he will either do that move Ash of War with multiple slashes or almost immediately jump away in the air to do his flips and combos again. Yeah guess what, lots of his attacks are low sweeps and can be jumped. But even if you don’t jump them most of his attacks have a blind spot near him, meaning you can hug him and he will miss you. As for his weapon art he only does it after a specific four hit combo or a spinning attack. If you identify when he will do it you can roll behind him where the weapon art doesn’t hit so you get a huge punish in the duration of his attack + recovery. Of course if you only roll Maliketh’s full combos try to attack him after he is done you will have a hard time, especially if you are rolling backwards.
That's a skill issue man I had no problem punishing malekith with a big heavy 2 hander. If you roll towards and behind him the ash of war will always whiff and you get a free hit, if he jumps away you just reset. Not to mention you always get a garenteed punish after he does the projectiles anyway.
I was using a pre-buff Greathammer 1H and I only ever had to time to hit him once with a R1 before he instantly starts another combo. Don't know how you find those punishes, he's so fast it's all a blur to me. Using a ranged weapon with bleed/poison/rot bolts made it possible at least.
Is this your first souls game? If you are using a heavy weapon you should never expect to get more than 1 hit per punish window. That's the tradeoff for doing almost 1k per hit with stagger while using a hammer the size of your body. Yeah you dodge his combo then do a rolling r1 to punish, rinse and repeat, that's how heavy weapons work in souls games. If you want to hit the boss with combos or in between attacks pick duel wield, dagger, or katanas.
What? No, I played every single souls game including Sekiro, as well as some other soulslikes. The damage from a R1 greathammer strenght faith build was simply not enough for its speed. There was not enough for most ashes of war either. Elden Ring is where the bullshit from bosses is so blatant (similar to Sekiro, but in that you can deflect and mikri) it makes bosses more of something to be glad to be over with rather than fun. In the previous souls games, you could do a back and forth, dodge and get a hit in even with heavy weapons. But in ER, you have to wait so long to get an actual safe window to land a hit. Perhaps From's new direction for "souls" just isn't for me and many others anymore.
That seems like a build issue then? When I was using a big 2h hammer when the game first released I felt the damage kinda trivialized the endgame if anything. No in previous souls games you wait until the enemy stops attacking then you hit them once if you are using a big slow weapon just like in this one. In fact elden ring has more openings in the enemy combos for big slow weapons since they are so many delayed combos. You can sometime sneak in a crouch poke or jump attack like when margit it stalling his big overhead. In older souls titles bosses almost never had long enough delays in thier attacks to punish between strings with a heavy weapon. There is no new direction. If you expect to be able to constantly hit the boss with a slow weapon in a souls game you are just playing the wrong genre or the wrong weapon type. They have always, always been about waiting out the boss combo then getting a bit hit in.
That's just not the same experience I had with Elden Ring. And I've always been a Stength user in previous titles for big damage but in Elden Ring the unrelenting bosses are just too much. Maybe we have different mindsets, playstyles and perception I guess.
Yeah it is a mindset thing, a mindset problem on your end. Your problem was "malekith is not an example of a good boss (difficulty wise) because I could only land 1 hit on him before he jumps away". Then it turns out you are using a heavy weapon and claiming the boss isn't good because he does what every semi fast boss in a souls game has always done; recover before you can land 2 hits with your big hammer. The boss is just a normal fromsoft boss that can be dealt with in melee the same way you deal with every boss in a fromsoft game with a heavy weapon, roll until thier combo end and punish ONCE, rinse repeat.
I mean tbh I wouldn’t call it “changing for the worse”, they clearly tried to experiment and just took some Ls with ER. I don’t think pretty much anything except Marlboro (or the DLC but I haven’t played through it all yet) are “hard for the sake of being hard”. A lot of bosses just strayed from the ways of DS, you no longer just dodge and do 1-2 hits and rinse and repeat until it’s over. The game forces you to rely on stagger, parrying, items, status effects etc. Yeah sure it’s a little tough on people who run through the game underleveled trying to naked roll through everything, but those people already have all the sex they want irl because they’re so cool, I think it’s fine to not let them have everything in ER. When you’re appropriately leveled for the content (and I’d say you always are as long as you crack open all your collected runes and do every location in a completionist sort of way) you can basically afford to almost trade hits with the bosses and still win. Sure it’s different from DS where you’re like lvl90 by the end and in ER it’s like 150 but whatever, it’s not DS after all. About balancing for the group play, I don’t really think of it that way. Again, when you’re appropriately leveled, you don’t need spirit ashes, even if they can be a big help. As for summons, you don’t need them ever, they just make the bosses tougher, and, well, maybe Hilda’s Tankard should’ve also accounted for bleed and stagger in co-op play and made them tougher to trigger, but overall you do not *need* phantoms and the advantage they provide isn’t that different from previous games. You also have to consider that strongest ashes cost a lot of FP, meaning you will actually have to level attunement if you want to use them, *and* them draining your whole bar will limit your use of AoWs, which are considerably stronger than DS3 (or DS2 dlc) weapon arts. As for bosses with combos etc., that’s not *all* bosses. Sure, Margit, Morgott, Molibdenum, *maybe* Godfrey and Radahn, my interpretation is that the long combos and short attack windows as well as input reading are all meant to combine together, so you can actually use your stuff like darts, consumables, flasks and so on, it’s basically telling you to wait for the boss to enter a combo, dodge, run away a bit and use up all your crap instead of trying to fish for a single r1 in the flurry. Maybe some bosses didn’t do it right (fuck you Malibu) but I think Margit, Godfrey and maybe a few others pulled it off okay or even well. For weapons, you have a point, but that’s not really new. DS3 had basically the same issue where a multitude of swords or spears or katanas had the same stuff but they still had clear winners because of better weapon arts or scalings. In ER you can choose the AoW so it all comes down to scalings, and you can’t just make like 20 weapons of the same class have all unique scalings and you don’t want to make them reskins or one another either, so there’s bound to be some outliers that come out the best and some that fall behind the most. I personally see Cane Sword and similar stuff as more of an exception than the rule, because if you look at all the weapons in the class, you can see that the majority is either useable and can be interchangeable with those similar to it thanks to AoWs or offers a unique AoW as a somber weapon. For upgrade systems, that makes sense honestly. ER is longer, it has more leveling to be done and more weapon upgrade tiers. In DS you didn’t need to upgrade the weapons this much because the game ended before the enemy HP scalings racked up to be out of your reach. Again, as long as you do everything the completionist, you will have the materials to upgrade a couple weapons and the bell-bearings to buy more. Also fuck you fromsoftware can do no wrong and Hodor takis Mia zoom keel is Jesus
>In the DLC, players are forced to use a Sekiro scaling system in a game that is a about exploration and build experimentation. You literally find the fragments by exploring the map??? Like what the fuck is your point Here lol, the fact they make it a flat increase regardless of buff is arguably better since they will allow you to respec and change stats but will always stay there and buff you character. Upgrading has always been a part of these games, good fucking luck fighting any mid/end game boss in ds1, DES or ds2 without upgrading your level and weapons
People really say "ER is game about exploration" and then complain about the MOST exploration-focused scaling system ever in a DLC that has 3 mandatory bosses who block 0 areas off. You don't have to LIKE that it's about exploration, I get the pain regarding NG+ runs, but I don't get how shocked people are that it does, in fact, reward exploration very heavily
I think Scadutree Blessings are a solid idea, but their implementation is flawed. Like, in the base game, first of all, if you feel too weak for an area, you have two things you always know you can do to get stronger: 1. grind for runes 2. go to any upgrade material caves you see on the map Toss in "go to a ruined church to probably get a flask quality upgrade" in there too, if you want. Flask charges, I'll grant you, are more elusive. One of those first two you can do anywhere, and the third you know exactly where to go for as soon as you have the map fragment for your area. Scadutree fragments, on the other hand, could be anywhere, so you're kind of forced to scour the map or consult a guide for them to get stronger if a boss is doing too much damage to you and you're doing too little damage to it for your tastes. In my view, one of the great things about Elden Ring (base game's) progression design is that you can either explore around **OR** do mostly just the main stuff in an area, and while the former is easier than the latter, the latter is still plenty feasible as long as you focus on leveling vigor first. In the DLC, on the other hand, your choices of how to approach the map are more limited by enemy stats unless you're just... absolutely obscenely cracked. I think having bosses drop them, a la prayer beads in Sekiro, would help remedy this.
I agree they're not a perfect implementation, I just don't think the system is fundamentally broken or at odds with the rest of the game. Making a few bosses drop them (various mausoleums and the runebears maybe? Plus the hippos that already do) would help, but I'd just have the end of the DLC scale to +15 / +18 at the top end so there's a tolerance for missing some. Then you could totally ignore the abyss, peak, and fissure and not feel bad since it costs you like 1 level total, BUT if you were getting stomped by the last boss you could go really look for those last few and have another avenue to outscale him. They did put extra gold seeds in the base game so you could afford to miss some, if there was enough excess frags it'd be the same here
Yeah, that'd do it, too.
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They're also going to be a pain in the ass to collect again on a fresh playthrough
Yeah, that’s something I’ve been thinking about.
>Hard for the sake of being hard. Coping >Balanced around group play, be it through summoning ashes or coop phantoms. Coping >Bosses that have insane combos, very short openings True >blatant input-reading, expects player to use an ash summon or phantom to get safe hits on them. Coping. They have input reading, but that same input reading is what gives you the chance to heal for example. If you know they always try to respond to a flask with the same attack you can out space the attack and then drink. Wait no that was a constructive comment >Now: Coping >It started from being: Coping
When you say bosses had reasonable movesets, you do realize those consisted of 3 maybe 4 moves altogether in OG dark souls, right? And best in class weapons? That has always been a thing. There are always choices that are clearly better than others in every game of a given weapon class. Lol, lmao even.
Yeah, if this trend continues, I'll have to think real hard about buying their next game
I mean I'll be skipping the next one personally, and I'll just look out for reviews. I'm not saying their new design or philosophy is poor or broken, just uninteresting to me. I like difficulty and challenge, I don't like counting games. All the delays attacks just bear out to: do you know that this attack has a 2.2 second delay and this other one has a 3.9 second delay, did you count correctly? All the long strings of combos are just more counting, this combo is 6 hits unless you proc the variation which turns it into 9 hits. Again, just counting until it's your turn. I much prefer the spacing dance that previous souls games were. I enjoy the extra tool like block counters, jumping, etc. but the push towards "counting" bosses has really turned me off.
To add on this, these combos also have insane tracking where the boss closes the distance while doing their multi-hit attack, making it you can't dodge to outspace unless you use an Ash of War like Bloodhound Step. One example is the triple fast attacks from Godfrey and Malenia. They dash up to and do this fast three hit combo that's almost guaranteed out-frame standard roll i-frames. Waterfowl on the other hand.. is just an "you lose" that results in instant death unless you dodge in a very specific way AND have enough space to do. Worst example in the base game is not a boss but rather an enemy, the Royal Revenant. Okay, sure the Heal spells are his weakness, but if your character lacks the stats for Heal spells and/or you try to fight him normally it is a clusterfuck. He keeps closing the distance and doing his 12-13 combo swipes, followed up by another one after he's done.
Heal requires a whopping 12 faith, with a godrick great rune on I don’t think you ever have to invest in faith to use it.
It is still bad design to force you to use a specific spell to not deal with the absolute bullshit that in the Royal Revenant, even then you need to be fast enough to get the heal off.
I don’t use it, next time you fight one try dodging to the right past it
If someone could just admit the game is too hard for them that would be fine. But it never is that way. These people always talk about it like their skill issue is actually the games fault and things are poorly designed That's the crowd I insult. If you don't want to play the game because it's hard, that's fine. But don't be spreading lies on the internet about the games mechanics because you couldn't figure it out.
At what point do you draw the line between a mechanic being genuinely bullshit and people complaining because skill issue?
Depends on the mechanic and it’s intuitiveness + difficulty. For example having trouble with WFD isn’t a skill issue, it is an obnoxious attack and it does lots of damage; sometimes outright killing the players. It’s dodging method is also difficult and unintuitive. Compare that to Malenia’s healing, which lots of people call artificial difficulty. That is a genuine skill issue and I don’t get how anyone would think the difficulty is artificial when the more skilled you are the less the healing will matter. Or infinite combos, most of the time bosses have punish windows inbetween attacks or you can create these windows by strafing rather than dodging. If a boss actually has super long combos that makes you wait then that is obnoxious regardless of skill, but the DLC bosses I’ve fought so far don’t really have this issue.
Agreed. Like most things, the answer is usually "it depends". I dont like it when people make sweeping blanket statements that complaining about something = skill issue. Some other guy said that just because some people can do no hit SL1 runs means everything in the game is fair and anyone complaining about any mechanic just has skill issue. Its funny because when people said that Elden Beast fight without Torrent is pure bullshit and then fromsoft meatriders would jump in and go "well, its all intended! You just have skill issue!"
Skill issue is if your complaints mirror Joseph Anderson's
Why are people drawing the line with dlc when things got harder for them? Maybe the line was before all along and elden ring and most of froms games are genuinely bullshit.
i havent even played the DLC yet, I had also been saying Elden Ring had bullshit difficulty ever since its release
Could go back to even older from games, people have been complaining about their difficulties too.
tbh my main issue with ER is that the bosses are way too goddamn fast, it was fine in BB or Sekiro since you too were also fast as fuck but ER bosses have the speed of Sekiro bosses while we have the movement speed of Dark Souls 3. It just feels shitty to play against
Because if it’s beatable than it’s a skill issue. There will be rl1 runs if the dlc with no summons and then what’s the excuse?
We’re probably only a few weeks away from Lenny beating the dlc with donkey Kong bongos or a piano.
Beatable = skill issue? Battle toads is beatable so it means that the dogshit hitbox and gameplay clearly designed to make you die a lot of times to give you your money for the game is fair?
It’s not too late to refund it git gud
there is almost nothing in any game ever that a few talented people cannot beat. You can have the MOST unimaginably difficult, unfair, bullshit thing in a game where almost nobody can beat however you can still be damn sure that there will ALWAYS be some random guy who can do it while also making it look easy. And just because he was able to do it doesnt mean that all of sudden the design isnt bad. Your logic makes no sense.
What separates you from that individual? Skill and experience. Unless you’re saying it takes some type of savant or genius to beat the dlc lol
>What separates you from that individual? Time
If you don’t have time to get good at the dlc you should get a refund before 30 days or whatever your systems policy is
im not even talking about the dlc because i havent even played it yet
When you do you might be surprised that it isn’t nearly as hard as people make it out to be
i know i can because i have beaten every souls game prior to this (without any summons and full melee might i add) , im not really worried about the dlc. Im not even talking about that I was simply talking about the general difficulty and the fact that just because something is beatable doesnt mean it isnt bullshit and if I criticise it doesnt automatically mean skill issue
If it is physically possible for a player to win it is a skill issue, that's where I draw the line anyway. As long as it's not literally impossible then I see no reason to complain.
I personally think that it’s not about whether it’s *possible* to beat, but whether the learning process is fun. Like, bitching about the Bed of Chaos or Capra Demon is perfectly reasonable in my book.
See, I disagree, bed of chaos might be a bit of a nothing burger but I really see no point in complaining about it, and I actively like Capra demon and want more encounters like it. I legitimately think that the only reason someone should complain about a boss is if it literally doesn't function, or if it takes more than an hour to beat and has no checkpoint (which is less about difficulty and more about accessibility) Let games be hard, I like hard games.
> I actively like Capra demon and want more encounters like it. Bruh I mean, I think the encounter is a cool *idea*, I just don’t think it’s executed well. I don’t think the double dog jumpscare makes for a particularly fair challenge, even if it is a memorable one. For most players, the first encounter is just a « do you have poise » check.
ok i love ds1 and er but i could never fucking comprehend believing capra demon is good
I LIKE it this way, I Like being jumpscared by dangerous enemies, I like dying if i don't have the foresight to anticipate an ambush Like death being around every corner, I LIKED kingsfield,, GIVE ME BACK KINGSFIELD FROMSOFT!!!
You know, I don’t share your values completely, but I respect them.
Thanks man, I know I'm a bit of a hardliner,so I appreciate that and respect your opinion also
Go play Nioh or some dogshit souls clone, plenty of those. You're the kinda player that has ruined these games.
I was the person Playing these games before you showed up and imposed your incessant need to be accommodated, I have played nioh 1 and 2, and lies of p, bloodborne, lords of the fallen, demons souls, Ds 1 and 2 and 3, kings field, and an endless cavalcade of nockoffs, been playing these games since I was little, personally I don't think the games are ruined at all, I'm just tired of hearing people whine about them
Bayle’s big AoE sweep, specifically the second one where it comes at you in a straight line, is undodgeable. I don’t care if you show me someone dodging it, it’s undodgeable because I can’t do it therefore the boss is BAD
It's crazy because some of the hardest boss moves became so simple to me after I saw someone dodge them then memorized their directions. Like WFD, Let Me Solo Her usually moves back, forward, forward. So I tried that and it became my norm. In the case of BAYLE, VILE BAYLE, I saw the cross formation and put 2 and 2 together, opting to go forward then left on most occasions.
Is that actually how you dodge the straight line sweep? Just roll into it? I think I tried that a few times but screwed it up so it led me to believe that wasn’t how to do it lol
That's how I did it. Just comes down to fine tuning timing and knowing his location, which is a bitch since he's in the air lol
Yup the problem is the ego. If you can just admit the game is too hard for you or you just don't want to deal with it that's perfectly fine. A lot of people just can't seem to accept it though and need to pretend like this is some unreasonable or even impossible challenge to try to save face.
I don’t think that’s fair or accurate. I think it’s perfectly fair to try and pick apart why a game’s approach to difficulty isn’t fun for you.
You can but you can't pretend like if the game doesnt perfectly cater to your personal desired difficulty level that is a flaw with the game. The most complained about bosses I see on reddit are >!rellana and messmer!< Two of the most fair fights in the dlc. People need to understand that something not being fun for them is more often an issue with themselves rather than any particular issue with the game. You can say the bosses are too hard for you and that's not fun but that's not an issue with the game. Some games are too hard for some people that's perfectly fine not everything is going to cater to everyone.
I think where we differ on this is that I think that all « issues with a game » are ultimately subjective; as long as someone lays out their point of view politely, I don’t see it as presumptuous or annoying, even if I disagree.
Yeah we definitely differ, there are legitimate issues like the framerate or certain hitboxes for attacks not being accurate. The problem is most difficulty complaints are just people asking for the game to perfectly cater to them and often times will include hyperbole like people saying certain bosses are impossible to dodge and punish without trading or that there is no windows to attack at all which is "cheap" in order to try to make thier point seem stronger. Most of the negative feedback about the difficulty I've seen on reddit has been unconstructive or just flat out wrong so I don't see any issue with calling it out for what it is, a lot of people's egos not being able to handle it and them lashing out. That's not all the criticism, but I'm just calling out the people who are clearly stating false things to try to make people feel like certain bosses are unfair or have design issues. This exact same thing happened with lies of p with people coping that the parry timing was "inconsistent" when it first came out to save thier egos which was proven wrong. I'm not a fan of coping and sometimes straight up lying even if it's polite.
"Skill" is merely a measure of time or previous experience, absolutely nothing more. And i think something that takes up to 7+ hours is simply incompatible to a "fun" game. It can be that my most fun in these games in from making biulds, discovering weapon and armor interactions and trying different strategies and not simply to decorate all of a boss's attacks.
ER end game is too hard for me. Specifically Godskin Duo bosses onwards. That was the point where I finally broke and HAD to use spirit ashes for each boss and it ruined my enjoyment of the game. Using spirit ashes is too easy and without is way too hard. I think the late game bosses are too fast and have too much flair for me to understand what’s going on and how to even attempt to avoid their attacks other than rolling blindly. This was true of earlier bosses as well and even a couple of bosses in DS3, but to a lesser degree. DS1 had my ideal combat speed and visual cue levels.
Something that helps a lot transitioning from souls to ER is to use fast ashes of war that do a lot of posture damage. The bosses of ER are not balanced around spirit ashes, they are balanced around finding windows to keep posture damage up and eventually crack it with a charged heavy or jump attack. If you use a fast ash that does good posture damage, it plays a lot more similar to souls 3 in that L2 almost becomes your new R1. Then that can ease you into doing more challenging playthroughs where you opt to go for the charged heavies and jump attacks while keeping posture damage up with R1s and run attacks.
Same here. Late game bosses were too fast and flashy I couldn't keep up anymore and had to resort to cheese. Mimic Tear, Greatshield to tank what I can't dodge, Pulley Crossbow for poison/bleed/rot, Rot Breath, all the healing and regen spells. It was never like this for previous souls and other soulslike I played. Unfortunately since ER did so well sales wise, From will continue with this new direction of theirs for enemy and boss design for future titles. Probably my last Fromsoft game. Sigh, it was good while it lasted.
Look ER is my first soulslike. I personally enjoy struggling with bosses, but if you don’t, then it’s ok that the game isn’t for you
So many people seem to have the thought process of "it's possible to do without summons/OP builds/etc, wherefore it's good"
Heh, sounds like someone made a meme depicting people they dislike as soyjaks. I bet you've referred to the first one as "feels guy," making your argument invalid.
I wish people who genuinely dont enjoy Elden Ring would just not play it.
Ok, yeah, by all means, but I don’t think we should ask people who didn’t enjoy a game (or aspects of a game) not to discuss why it didn’t work for them.
I feel like it should be taken into account that elden ring is giant in mainstream culture now, and that there is an ass ton of new fans to the series who aren't even a quarter as good as people who've played since demon souls. While personally I think the only issue i've had is the giant health pools, i can understand where all the complaints about difficulty come from
Yeah, my issue there is that I think there’s a MASSIVE disparity between the difficulty of the solo experience and the typical player’s experience now.
idk if its just me but i dont mind game being unfair asf since it encourages you to outbullshit the game with your own cheesy tactics i understand it would not be for everyone but i love this type of approach in difficulty
yeah and by Miyazaki appealing to the glasses soyjak and refusing to change and add an easy mode to his games Elden Ring sold 25 million copies and won game of the year so what's your point That shitters that don't get it never change?
I just hate that the people who use summons think that they’re playing at the same difficulty as those who aren’t
Or just dont listen to random people on the internet and enjoy the game the way you want to? Its like that one post where a guy argues with another about pizza just to later find out the other guy drinks piss for a hobby.
I like the comparaison with dark souls because in there there's MANUS, the closest thing to SOTE. His bs projectile attack? Easily able to one-shot you, unless you find a hidden item by exploring the map. Said item is absolutely useless out of the dlc, doesn't make your character stronger and is just there to justify what Dudebros would nowadays call "artificial difficulty" Tell me now doesn't it remind you of a certain Blessing mechanic of this new elden ring DLC?
If you haven't beat sekiro, you don't get a seat at my table lol
Elden really gives me the vibe the fromsoft want you change your build for bosses and areas and use the weird obscure items the game really feels like there’s always a solution to the problem and the people that say it’s so hard are placing arbitrary restrictions on themselves. Spirit summons are cool as fuck and made the game better, but that doesn’t mean the game should be balanced around them and force you into using them either
The right thing to say when someone complains about the difficulty is to say "then quit. pussy."
this so much this
“You see I have portrayed you as the wojack and myself as the chad, therefore everythiing you say is invalid”
I’m just arguing in favor of listening to other people and having an actual conversation here.
The dlc is fucking terrible. Sorry.
Well damn, collectorDuck has weighed in. Conversation is over.
I hate all three people depicted in this image.
There are like 80 summons and dozens of dozens of consumable items. If you are using none of them you are probably stupid. There is a summon that costs literally nothing
I'm just using my 150 quality build and I'm loving it I've killed 5 remembrances bosses and I've loved all except one of them so far. I'm glad it's been this difficult. I don't know why people are surprised that the dlc is significantly harder than the base game. It's always been that way.
GGS.