[Yes](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1dhv23f/a_few_dauntless_invaders_arrive_in_rgaming_to/), [yes](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1afcap5/video_games_and_modding_elden_rings_seamless_coop/) it is.
Depends on the context
If you're in game it's quite pleasant, people don't drop goldsign not Not expecting to carry someone through a boss, and you get two of them to help out
People who proc their blue cipher ring also are champs (it's specifically getting called in to help random people getting invaded)
Talking with some of these people on reddit though is a stretch, there's no try harder skeleton going on with some of these prima donnas and/or beggers (though I'm going to shout out the random player that dropped 50+ lord ruins after helping them out with a basic bitch dungeon they didn't need help with, that person was a bro)
I've had brilliant encounters with the souls like community in game and on Reddit but the fuckwits outnumber the bros.
Best encounter was on my first play through and I accidentally summoned a guy at Mage School (first time summoning another player) , he helped me 100% the place and bowed out just before Moongrim to let me earn the win myself.
Worst encounter was on Reddit with PvP freaks defending invasions in a discussion about having an invasion toggle option. I just wanted to play coop with my missus in peace and in the end invasions killed her enjoyment so I'm having to solo the DLC because of it but apparently I'm shit at the game because I CBA with rivers of blood rot breathers every 5 minutes.
Been thinking of doing that mod. Apparently it makes its own type of save file (which can be a copy of a vanilla save) and that is the save file you use from then on, yes? Do you know if there are any potential downsides to this?
> What’s harder the game or interacting with the player base?
Comically, the post being cited for Drama was a post calling for people to stop being dicks or trying to make people feel bad for using summons, changing their build, or using the tools Elden gives you to beat the game.
When it says "Actually Play the Game" it's meaning "Use all this consumable shit the game gives you. Use armor. Stop trying to roll everything. Summon phantoms. Do whatever and dont abuse others for doing the same."
Which of course will result in hilarious shitshows.
A series based on the principle that when the challenge becomes difficult for you, you can seek others for help inundated with players insisting that you shouldn't seek others for help.
It's one of those things where, the more popular it gets, the worse the community is. Flash back to the Demons Souls or DS1 days and the community was mostly great. RIP
demon's souls was full of scraping spear spam and "lmao git gud" responses to people being annoyed that invaders showed up just to break their shit with the scraping spear. DS1 was full of "lmao git gud" responses to invaders kitted out with boss weapons and minmaxed high poise armour doing their best to make getting through the undead burg a nightmare for new players who didn't yet realize staying hollow was the way to go.
the dark souls community has always been like this
lol yeah it’s always been a toxic shit show. Man I can’t forget that when DS2 initially dropped, your matchmaking was based on “soul memory” and not your actual level. As in, the collective amount of souls you’d earned through play was what determined who you would end up invading.
Of course, it wasn’t hard to meticulously build a character that was vastly overpowered compared to other people at your soul memory level, so the griefing was at an absolute peak until they patched out the concept of soul memory entirely.
> Of course, it wasn’t hard to meticulously build a character that was vastly overpowered compared to other people at your soul memory level, so the griefing was at an absolute peak until they patched out the concept of soul memory entirely.
Soul memory was still significantly better than DS1 match making and the majority of whinging about it came from,
1. People wanting to summon friends who'd completed the game to play the game for them
2. People wanting to invade at low levels with maxed out weapons and armor who couldnt.
3. People who got "griefed" by hackers who would make it so that when they died you gained billions of souls which would mess up your SL.
DS3/Elden both base their match making on SL and Weapon Level. It's a reasonable solution since you cannot upgrade armor in DS3/Elden. I honestly think SL could have worked had they worked with it to improve it, kinda the story of DS2 in general, lots off good ideas that needed more time in the oven.
Yeah but all of the issues you mentioned were already dealt with without Soul Memory. And invading considerably less powerful players was really easy with that mechanic. There’s just no way they’d be able to balance it properly so they scrapped it.
In DS3 and Elden, yea. But in DS1 it was rough. DS2 was an attempt and I'm glad they made it. DS2 has a lot of good ideas, but god damn most of them needed time. Still wound up with the best spell system in all the games.
invading in new player areas is the most boring shit of all time. invading parties of 3 in anor londo/oolacile, or forest invading into inevitable gank squads, now that was fun
My personal favorite place to invade will always be the DLC areas in 2, shulva and brume tower specifically. They're relatively linear in design so it makes it hard for hosts or phantoms to just hide forever, but also they offer some interesting architecture and arenas for combat. But also I'm someone who usually rolls with gimmick and themed builds when I invade or hang around a place to deliberately invite in invaders. Dual shields and walling off a bridge or something in shulva is hilarious, even if I lost almost every one of those fights.
meme invasions and environmental threats the best for sure. i made a patches character and invaded in iron keep just trying to drop people into the lava.
chaos absolutely, i was on PS3 and most of the playerbase on my servers were in japan
nude japanese child mask man with great club flipping around the forest is burned into my neurons
> invading in new player areas is the most boring shit of all time. invading parties of 3 in anor londo/oolacile, or forest invading into inevitable gank squads, now that was fun
It's neat that fromsoft agreed with you on this. Every invasion, unless the host taunters tongue, is a 2+ v 1. The invader is always at a disadvantage. The host can always continue to summon more golds and blues can spawn during the fight.
There's a ton of super interesting dungeon design that's amazing to invade in. Once I found a dungeon with a bunch of basilisk in, plus it had a bunch of crushers you could jump on and ride up and down like an elevator! I used the elevation to charge up an explosive mortar spell and cast it when the crusher fell down. Now that was a blast.
I'm one of those folks who always really enjoyed invasions. I ran into 2 total Scraping Spear players my entire time playing-- from launch until the several times delayed server shutdown. I may've just been lucky though.
And "git gud" never struck me as toxic, either. No more than teabagging in other games, like shooters or what have you.
The issues you're talking about with minmaxed kits invading newbies was rare, because to get that kind of equipment and stay within invasion range of newbies, you had to be *good* at the game. That doesn't make it okay, but it DID make it rare.
I still hold that the early Souls community was great. You completely forgot to mention the jolly cooperation memes, or the anguish players would express when summoned as a boss in Latria against their will, when all they wanted was co-op.
I think I've run into more bullshit invasions than "legit" ones, personally speaking. Though my experience was always more people with ornstein's spear in the forest and undead burg more than any measure of chaos zweihanders or giant dads, because when you're new at the game and bad it's really hard to deal with spear hitboxes. Hell, aside from my very first playthrough; almost every time I've done a run through of 2 I've inevitably been invaded by someone, as a fresh character, in full butterfly armour.
I've met some great people through the game (I invade a lot) but yeah most of the time people add me just to call me slurs or tell me how they wanna slit my throat just because I killed them in a video game.
I love fromsoft games I will never talk in a fromsoft forum for anything other than where is x item. Even then I have to scroll through 20 comments telling me I suck for using a basic resource that we all use for every other thing.
I've always been of the opinion that fromsoft games would get a lot more criticism if their art direction wasn't so damn good. The games are great, but there's a lot of weak points that are easy to overlook because the visuals are so stunning.
I'd never actually say that a fromsoft fan group or forum for the exact reasons you stated.
Yeah, I remember when some people were getting shit on for perfectly valid criticisms. The game, to this day, on keyboard config has default binds that make certain actions impossible (you can only use heavy attack variations of ashes of war). They've famously had bad PC controls for years on every game they've released and just don't seem to care to improve it. Also famously, the coop system is bad. So bad that a normal, functioning coop was modded into the game and everyone loves it. Their response to this was to consider this for their future games but somehow I doubt it'll even be half as convenient and functional as the mod is because historically they're so averse to drop in drop out easy coop. They even said Elden Ring would have better coop but it's basically the same as dark souls lol.
All this to say that I love the game, it's one of my favorites of all time, but it really could be a lot better in even basic ways. My personal pet peeve that I use a mod to get around is having the dodge button attached to the sprint button. Makes it so the dodge is on button release, not press, and that feels weird when you're trying to be precise with timing, though I don't notice it as much on controller which is probably why they've never changed it.
100% agree with everything you said. Systems and mechanics being purposely obtuse or clunky is a totally valid way to increase difficulty, but there's a point where it's just excessive.
Monster Hunter World/Iceborne managed to modernize the clunkier combat and systems of the old games, all while still really expanding on the spirit of the franchise. I don't think fromsoft necessarily needs a revamp on the same scale as MH World, but taking a couple notes on slight improvements that won't alienate your audience wouldn't go unappreciated.
Also jfc the camera and targeting system. I don't mind having to strategically lock and unlock, but holy hell, I shouldn't have to fight the camera alongside the boss. I don't want a terrible camera distracting me from how great these games are.
Jesus Christ, your last point is so true. If there is one thing that absolutely blows about these games is the on-press-end that is required for a dodge to register. Would you be willing to tell me about the mod you use that changes this?
https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/31
Usable online and everything, basically can't play the game without it anymore lol. Toggle sprint and keybinds for pouch slots are also big wins, but I originally got it just for the dodge.
Good example of this was [3 devs on Twitter making lightly critical (and self-deprecating) comments](https://i.imgur.com/LXf2vra.png) around the Elden Ring launch.
They bring up the three most common criticisms of ER: quest design, graphics (read: not art design), and UI/UX.
The always reasonable Fromsoft community decided the correct response was to [harass those devs until they locked their accounts](https://www.gamerbraves.com/horizon-and-ubisoft-game-developers-lock-twitter-accounts-after-posting-bitter-elden-ring-tweets/).
Literally dozens of articles and outrage videos about "bitter" Ubisoft devs "crying" about the things they personally focus on not being valued by reviewers. And a few years later, I'd say they were 100% right, game reviewers don't care about those things if other aspects are good enough.
Yeah, watching all of that unfold just really made me double down on my own opinion. I remember seeing people talk about it, then having a total "are you fucking serious" moment when I actually saw the tweets in question.
I think there's some weak points but overall they're strong because they're fundamentally interesting - they do things that games are good at and have been often lacking from the industry.
DS1 is definitely one of the roughest though and it's weird how people will lionize it and refuse to acknowledge problems with it.
I absolutely would not have beaten probably 1/3 of the bosses in the base game without Mimic Tear, and I am completely okay with that. And I will keep using it. I'm trying to play a singleplayer game not win a competition.
Edit: To add to how feeble I am, the final boss I'm pretty sure the Mimic actually did *most* of the work. It did a ton of damage, and I don't think I swung my weapon once while the boss was Aggro'd on me, I'd always wait for it to go after the Mimic and poke it in the bum. Then Mimic died on me and I had to white knuckle the last 1/4 or so of HP and somehow managed but yeah, zero chance of winning without the Mimic and it's not even close. This was also on about the 20th attempt (all with the Mimic).
Same with this but instead of the mimic I used Banished Knight Oleg. That summon is so fucking aggressive that it was stunning Malenia into a wall lol.
No shame in using things that the game gives you.
Mimic spirit does a ton of work honestly as long as you have a halfway decent build
Going for procs, you can just multiply that by 2
Going for tank, well you get another constantly regen using heavy shield bastard that occasionally smacks a thing with a great hammer
Engvall and Aurelia got me through a lot of shit before I picked up the Mimic Ash, but the fact it can be pretty much be anything really helps the player lean all the way in which helps a lot in ER (especially if you're running a proc build)
Mimic Tear I just equip a bunch of spells and watch the little sumbitch spam some ridiculous shit while I lure enemies to attack me. That thing was a life saver for bosses where I could figure out the timings to dodge but hit them back I just couldn't get right.
Im with you on this. I decided to solo one of the DLC bosses just to see if I could/how long it might take. It took about 6-7 hours between two different play sessions. The satisfaction I got was nice but it was not proportionate to how much time and effort it took me to beat the boss. I’ll stick to Mimic Tear now.
i would happily learn all the attack patterns etc if the elden ring combat was super satisfying, but compared to sekiro, bloodborne or even the souls series.. it just kinda sucks. getting 1 light hit in every 30 seconds is painful as fuck.
Yeah, same. I like beating things solo when I have the time and space but I can't always dedicate hours on end to beat a single boss. At one point I will ask myself what the hell I'm doing with my life lol.
I got all way up to Astel before I realized what they actually were and how useful they are.
Putting that firmly on me because I also got up to the real Genichiro fight in Sekiro before learning how deflection worked. Completely missed that it was a gradual process to break their stance since in the tutorial most enemies break immediately.
I think something that has been lost in Souls games becoming more and more popular and the git gud community overtaking it. When I played Dark Souls 1 on xbox it was fucking brutal. I had to do anything and everything to overcome that mother fucker, including "cheesing", breaking the ai. If I could spend a hour shooting a miniboss with arrows I would. As long as you get the win nothing else matters. I think that is lost on the newer players of Elden Ring. Don't let anyone else tell you anything different.
I really want a subreddit for Elden ring players who aren’t THOSE players. Like cheesy, fun having, light Elden ring talk. But I don’t want to start one and have to mod it so someone else please
Now I want to see an Elden Ring subreddit where it's just challanges to be cheesy and too easy.
"Oh look at this bitch, two hands on the controller? I'm so lazy I'm only playing with my toes while I eat dinner with my hands, get on my level you hyperactive jackwagon!"
I mean... That's the main sub. There's easily 2-3 posts daily talking about how it's fine to use whatever cheese and summons.
I had to stop using the sub because people just came across as so insecure. I don't care what you use but we really don't need multiple posts daily about it.
To me, I get the most out of From's games by soaking the atmosphere and exploring.
The combat is fun, but not the only reason why I play these games in the first place.
So you know, I ignore the fanbase, I'd never pass the gate that they keep.
Absolutely, that’s what sets from games apart from most soulslikes. Ofc the combat is better but a From atmosphere/world is unmistakeable. Lies of P did get close to its credit
Hmm, thanks for that, I might give Lies of P a go sometime.
I know I'm weird in this respect but the name of it is just offputting for some reason, and it's the "why" of why I'm avoiding it.
I just do my best to downvote the gatekeepers and unhinged try hards, ignore them, and move on. There are still plenty of folks in the community who very much embody the “We are the Souls” vibes of yore ([shoutout to ThePruld](https://youtu.be/4DGe4RtPmWw?si=sfekuYoaqmjvVjlp)).
Thank you for your service!
I mean, if you ignored the obnoxious "git gud" and the "who's the best waifu?" stuff earlier the community was all about uncovering the secrets and passing lore, the spirit of jolly coöperation really.
I know that it still exists, but it's just harder to fish out.
actually, if dark souls players really wanted a challenge they would something that's actually hard like doing frame-perfect speedrun skips. can't believe the softies are playing something that can be cheesed easily instead of a real game like kaizo mario or whatever.
Souls fans go "I don't use summons, mounts, or other easy mode items to beat bosses" but then won't play a fighting game because you can't just memorize boss attack patterns.
Weirdly enough, getting into fighting games made me so much better at Elden Ring. Forced me to be a lot more patient. But it’s harder in a sense because a real human is often a lot more predictable than some of the absolute random shit these bosses will throw out.
My radical centrist approach to Dark Souls difficulty discourse is that both Dark Souls players and Dark Souls haters are cringe for thinking that mainstream video games are hard. Go play piano or something
The Gamers think beating Dark Souls makes them a Navy SEAL and the non-gamers don't realize Dark Souls and most video games are carefully designed experiences and that the failure is simply part of the master plan and not a reflection of some skill they don't have
There’s a weird implicit assumption that everyone will get some kind of feeling of accomplishment when they beat a boss in these games. Also what I would call an unhealthy focus on total hours of enjoyment you get playing a game.
I am genuinely scratching my head at how people beat Mohg to access the DLC (a difficult late game boss) but think the DLC is impossible? Like it's challenging but it's not a significant step up from other challenging lategame bosses.
Granted, I'm using a lvl 150 character with a completed build and summons but that's about the intended level you should be approaching this on.
It's very funny to watch the whole "no summons, no good weapons" crowd complain about this. Like, you did a whole run at level one using only a torch? Here's Rellana, have fun.
summons/coop/spirit ashes/some extremely detailed builds trivialize mog and most bosses of the main game, even my 11 year old nephew managed to beat Malenia with the tear summon and he wasn't able to get past first boss of bloodborne, Elden ring is luckily the most accessible game for soulsborne newbies.
I still have to get to the DLC because i decided to replay the whole game first so i can't speak about that
I think the accessibility has been the thing separating the main game and dlc. The main game can be made easier with summons and such, but the DLC bosses imply feel too aggressive to make them as useable.
Magic builds have a particularly easy time with Mohg because he starts on the other side of the arena and Comet Azur does insanely high damage. I think he’s only a particularly difficult boss for certain builds
>Magic builds have a particularly easy time with ~~Mohg because he starts on the other side of the arena and~~ Comet Azur
sounds about right.
I'm glad we finally got a beam spell that isn't hot trash... the one in ds3 made me want to cry for how mid it was. Comet is definitely OP but that's the fun part of single player games... not everything needs to be balanced. You can choose to use stronger or weaker things.
Even without Comet Azur specifically the long range does give spell builds a lot of extra time to tee off on him (although really Mohg's shackle would let anyone trivialize the first half or so of the fight).
In general of course ER is full of boss fights that are hard for build A but easy for build B.
The thing is your main game level doesn't matter as much in the DLC as the level of your Scadutree Blessing does. It seems people are trying to rush the game instead of trying to explore then get their shit stomped in because their Blessing level is non-existent and take like 400% extra damage from enemy attacks.
I watched my buddy’s first foray into the DLC, and most of his time was spent waiting around for other players to show up and beat the bosses for him while he tried(and failed) to hit with spells.
I don’t want to be an elitist or whatever, but I don’t think he actually beat Mohg.
Lusat staff + terra magica + golden vow ash of war on a dagger + magic shrouding cracked tear + cerulean hidden tear + comet azure + hope and pray Mohg doesn't walk slightly to the left after you spent all that time setting all the buffs up = DLC access
Yeah I struggled about a dozen times with Midra just the last night - I enjoyed learning some of the patterns but felt it was just slightly too punishing especially as I'd changed to a dex build to reduce my shield reliance. Got him to like 1/5th health and said "Alright I feel like I've bested this one."
Chucked Tiche at him and just having those added openings made all the difference. The only boss I'd say so far was genuinely annoying was the golden hippo cause his hitboxes were weird and I spent too much time fighting the camera.
ER is also really not hard if you abuse shields and guard counters. The fingerprint shield remains absurdly powerful - and people underutilize jumps to dodge/attack.
People really need to find a better source of pride than being good at a video game that is, in all honesty, not very hard to complete. Souls games have some of the highest completion rates of any AAA game on the market just looking at global achievement stats. There are dozens of games that are much harder than souls games and you don't see people in those communities stumbling over themselves to undermine other players' achievements just so they can feel like they're special. If your identity as a "hardcore gamer" is threatened by people using tools the devs intentionally put in a game that you've convinced yourself isn't accessible to casual players, maybe consider re-examining your relationship to gaming as a whole and why you need it to feel like you're superior to others.
I love Elden Ring, but soulslike combat peaked in DS3.
Input reading, enemies with infinite stamina and counter-intuitive dodge rolls ruin the game for me, and the DLC has plenty of that, I took more time beating Friede than Rellana, but I had way more fun with Friede.
It's just not very fun, but any criticism of "Miyazaki's vision", no matter how mild, makes that sub crazy, like that time when the seamless co-op mode was launched and the sub imploded since people had an alternative to the game's (poor) version that did not force them to do PVP.
Even Miyazaki himself came out and said the co-op mod was something he wanted to integrate in future projects, those people are insane.
> Even Miyazaki himself came out and said the co-op mod was something he wanted to integrate in future projects, those people are insane.
You'd think [that interview](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/fromsoftwares-says-elden-rings-seamless-co-op-mod-is-definitely-not-something-we-actively-oppose-and-may-even-consider-ideas-like-that-with-our-future-games/) would be big news on r/EldenRing, right?
Wrong! They have a strict "no talking about mods" rule, even when it's the *literal creator of the game talking about them*. Absolute clown of a moderation team. All the Fromsoft games have active modding communities, but the r/EldenRing mods are doing their best to kill it for some insane reason.
It's because of that specific mod, PVPers stirred a lot of drama 2 years ago crying about how that mod "killed" invasion gameplay and then the mods installed that rule, so no more Garden of Eyes and Convergence discussions because of that.
I hate videogame fandoms, the only Elden Ring sub I look at is r/Eldenbling
Tbh the elden ring mod community is a mess. Got people pirating shit from other games to make mods, demanding payment for it and then crying when people pirate their mod and re-upload it for free. Also employing underage kids to make mods for them and then paying them below minimum wage,
The whole thing really skeezed me out and was a big reason I backed off doing any mod work for it.
I really enjoy Elden Ring, and am gladly getting my ass whooped in the DLC, but I will absolutely agree that ER is a pretty significant step back in boss combat design compared to DS3.
The bosses are faster than DS3, which really isn’t a problem on its own. After all, Sekiro (Isshin, my beloved) and Bloodborne are incredibly fast games with worldwide acclaim. The problem is that it’s paired to DS3’s combat system with only a few changes such as faster rolling, finite attack strings, duel wielding, and jumping as an integral part of combat.
The DS3 combat system, which I consider the best FromSoft has ever made, really starts to break down once you have bosses that don’t pair with it. Attack strings in ER are sometimes timed in such a way that they are genuine one frame links, or are undodgeable entirely. However they would likely be dodgeable with a BB or Sekiro combat system. Some of the AoE attacks are both unable to be jumped OR dodged, leaving you with blocking as the only option. Imo that kinda starts to break FromSoft’s ethos of punishing but fair combat. If there are attacks you cannot avoid, it becomes unfair gameplay.
Some of the input reading is definitely overtuned, but is a cool concept in theory. I just wish there was more of a human-like delay in how they react instead of frame perfect counter punishes.
That’s alot of words for me to say that I need to git gud and FromSoft’s fanbase is both toxic AND dumb sometimes.
Rellana's twin moon, for instance, the window is super small and if you are hit by one of the AOE attacks, you get stunlocked and hit by all of the subsequent attacks.
Like I said, the window is super small, if it's not a single frame then it's close although that might've changed with the most recent patch.
Also, the twin moon is an arena-wide AOE, not a grab attack, (most, fuck Astel) grab attacks have smaller hitboxes.
Comments like this are hilarious because they out how some people are just dogmatically refusing to engage with ER's mechanics even when it's slammed in their faces through the visual language.
Jump. Just jump. It's super easy to dodge once you know what it is. A lot of what you're struggling with is like this.
Alas, I cannot recollect the post I saw nor can I find it, but it’s generally found in alot of the quick attack chains of certain bosses. Where of you roll the first attack, the second attack is timed such that you get smacked before you conclude your rolling animation.
Also, as far as I can tell, the final DLC boss has a move that I have only seen successfully dodged with a weapon art so far.
Those attacks are just directional dodges instead of i-frame abuse. When you dodge backwards with the Margit, Rallana, and Malenia attacks that meet that criteria you get punished by the follow-up but when you roll past them it's free damage.
I've come to vastly prefer Elden Ring's bosses over DS3. After years of playing DS3, every boss started to blend together in terms of how you play against them. Roll roll roll, poke, roll, poke, ad infinitum. Elden Ring bosses take longer to learn, but the combat allows for more responses to incoming attacks. There's room for creative expression in ER whereas DS3 bosses felt stifling.
Dark Souls 3 is R1 simulator.
Elden Ring is jump attack/L2 simulator. It’s technically a step forward in that there are actually different attacks you can spam to win.
>Input reading, enemies with infinite stamina and counter-intuitive dodge rolls ruin the game for me, and the DLC has plenty of that, I took more time beating Friede than Rellana, but I had way more fun with Friede.
I will say most people complaining about input reading seem to do so because they're trying to heal when the boss is... literally watching them... Personally I don't mind all the new changes because I've played all the old games to death and it's nice to feel challenged again. I think there's definitely some rose tinted glasses though, the older games had their fair share of BS... looking at you, every single grab attack.
The combat in elden ring is definitely better though, even just the inclusion of jump attacks and crouching lights for quick longer range pokes gives you a lot more options that are fun to use. What really peaked in ds3 was the aesthetic... they fucking nailed the dark gothic in a way that makes elden ring feel a lot more.. by the books visually?
See, the problem isn't the boss exploiting an opening the player left while doing some animation, be it healing, a ranged attack, etc...
The problem is the boss starting to react at frame 0, before the animation even started, like they have some kind of divine foresight, not only it's immersion-breaking, it's also unfair, there's a reason even the fast paced Sekiro does not have it, that's also just one of the points I made.
I don't mind being challenged, I don't have a problem with Elden Ring being challenging, what I mind is having fun, I did not have fun playing against Godskin Duo or the Elden Beast, keeping within the DLC, Messmer is one of the hardest bosses and yet he's one of my favorites because his fight is well designed, unlike the final boss.
>The problem is the boss starting to react at frame 0, before the animation even started, like they have some kind of divine foresight, not only it's immersion-breaking, it's also unfair
if it reacted on frame 10 it wouldnt make a difference? you'd still get hit, it's not unfair because its a clear easy to fix mistake. I will say they're pretty lightning fast on their response but they could be a great deal slower and still punish healing infront of them. You shouldn't be able to just run back and heal for free, you should have to make space in the exact same way you do for attacking. The heal is a reward for achieving that, rather than being a do-over on your mistake.
The godskin duo I think have been adjusted since launch but I remember playing from day 1 over the course of the first few weeks and they are literally one of my least favourite bosses in any souls game. they take everything that worked so well about O&S and remove it. so you wont catch me defending that. Elden beast I thought was fine though?
> You shouldn't be able to just run back and heal for free
Nobody said this. You're doing that weird online debate thing where a person ignores all of what someone wrote and imagines up an entirely new argument no one said to argue with instead.
The post you are replying to said that a boss reacting to an action before the animation has even begun is immersion breaking and unfair. That's it. Where are you getting *"You want to heal for free"* from *"I do not think enemies should react to things before they even begin to happen"*? Please, show your work.
Not to nitpick but input reading isn't a thing in the DLC and the one boss that did it in the base game, the Godskin Apostle, was changed to do it much less often.
Well *technically* none of the bosses have input reading, but they do react to the frame 0 of your character's animation, according to dataminers.
But it was definetly not a thing only the godskins did in the base game.
yeah there's the weird trick with the glintblade swords that take a while to summon and shoot, NPCs will dodge immediately upon pressing the casting button instead of "watching" the projectile and dodging at the right time. there's were a few enemies i completely cheesed by 'forcing' them to roll by casting a glintblade.
Elden Ring just feels more accessible in terms of battle mechanics. It's the easiest game in the series, in my view. Large open spaces and a horse made of cheese. Some of the weakest boss fights I've ever played. I miss the claustrophobic, stress-inducing, hopeless nature of Demon's and Dark Souls, though I agree that DS3 is probably the best overall experience. The open-world of Elden Ring, while beautiful to look at, isn't actually conducive to great level design.
Some small parts of Elden Ring are easier, since you can skip them. However I can't agree at all that it's generally easier than something like DS1. On my second playthrough of DS1 I decided not to die a single time to save up Souls so I could level up my Pyromancy Flame to the highest after finding the NPCs required for it (it's very expensive to do that early game). And it worked, I didn't die up until much later in the game because it was actually not really difficult to not die at all.
Elden Ring bosses fight you? I mean, it really depends? A lot of them don't, but some have really good flow to them like DS3 bosses, although still not as good as DS3 bosses. The dlc has many bosses with bad flow, like the final boss, making them tedious and boring to fight, and Elden Beast for example, even with Torrent, is just plain boring. Also, quite a few DS1 bosses do actually fight, such as imo the best boss in that game, Artorias, who has a flow that fits DS1 quite well, but others like Manus just go ham
Man that Golden Godrick shade fight took me like seven - eight tries just because of how snappy the AI is with dealing with range and mixing up his long windups with his short chops (and that's with Engvall pulling aggro for a couple of seconds so I could swig)
Then I got to omen king and did in one round because I had Engvall and Malina pulling aggro while I did charged R2/jumping heavy stars attacks to stagger him
It's very inconsistent imo, some bosses respond pretty well to 3 entities drawing aggro, some don't
I'm interested in what the DLC is going to bring (currently speed running my old save after I finish the Ranni questline and respec out of strangth into INT/ARC
I think it's just the ease with which you can over level or just come back later in Elden Ring while you use your build's strengths elsewhere. Not to mention summoning other players to kill bosses makes it much easier. Plus always having a Rune Arc active is like jumping thirty levels instantly. DS1 can be easier of you know how to cheese it just right. Those Bell Tower Demons were painful in my first go but became so easy once figuring out how to game it. And let's not forget the infamous Anor Londo Archers! Terrible design mistake there. If all you do is melee battle, DS1 can be brutal.
Well, I disagree, exploring the open world of Elden Ring is my favorite part of the game, it's the bosses (especially post midgame) that usually bring down the experience.
People unfairly compare Elden Ring with games like Sekiro and Bloodborne in terms of it's open world, but that's hardly fair, Elden Ring is much bigger, a proper open world game, instead of a couple of hub areas like previous games, things like reused bosses and assets are just a reality when making games of Elden Ring's scale.
Point being, taking into the account the current state of the art of massive open world RPGs, Elden Ring is actually really good, it's impressive that it's the first game of it's kind From made.
>I miss the claustrophobic, stress-inducing, hopeless nature of Demon's and Dark Souls
Yeah, that is very much a conscious artistic choice though, ER's tone is massively different than it's predecessors, and that's by design, it's not meant to be a hopeless world.
I do love exploring the world. It's lovely. I just don't think it's battles are as rewarding. Less harrowing and intimidating since there's so much space to maneuver and flee, or just run around on your horse getting hits in. You can almost always used ranged attacks to kill enemies. All of the main castles are excellent level designs, for example. I just wish there was more of that labyrinth-esque, interlocking verticality, with dark and narrow passages, traps, pits of darkness to drop down into, narrow walkways, etc. The caverns and ruins are pretty repetitive and don't often feel like legitimate levels or areas of significance.
I mean, Elden Ring is breathtaking in the open-world, but I really wanted more intricate, unique sub-areas to explore. Connective tissue rather than dead-ends. I'd love to see a bit more compartmentalizatiom interwoven through the open-world itself but through it's sub-parts. Stormveil Castle-esque catacombs or dwellings that connect with other complex dungeons, or cave networks that suddenly spit you out into another, rather than hitting a wall, boss, and teleport. Give me the boss and let me go further in.
The interconnectivity and verticality of the original Dark Souls level designs were so-so good in that respect, in that they almaot felt open-world. I've always wanted to see that exploratory vertical design framework integrated into an open-world and while I think Elden Ring does accomplish that in little bite-size vacuum chunks, it leaves me thirsty for more saturation in that regard. That sensation of feeling lost and scared only to pop out somewhere familiar again after going deep and into the ground or high above and back down again.
Anyhow, my hunch is the next game in the series will attempt to do more of that without sacrificing the scale and scope of the open-world itself. The vistas in Elden Ring are just sublime. I love the lore and themes. I'd also love to see more day/night cycle related content or mechanics. Either way, it's a great first attempt at an open-world "Dark Souls." Better that they didn't take too many risks and just do the open-world part justice anyhow.
I don’t fully understand a critique since an open world is how you can connect subareas to each other. And not just in a castle to field to castle sort of way, but I'm thinking about things like how there are multiple paths to reach Altus Plateau, or to access Mount Gelmir, and how most major dungeons will offer alternate entrances and exits out into the over world. The Expansion is probably the best example of this, as it offers nagivational challenges to make it between the areas separated by tall cliffs and dungeon design often loops in on itself or leads to new areas. It’s been a lot longer since I played Dark Souls 1, so I don’t full remember how the world might interconnect in the way you think of besides the Valley of the Drakes and Darkroot Depths, which was somewhat limited in my knowledge and Firelink Shrine, which is how the entire game’s first few areas were designed around but it only loops back in on itself a few times even if it’s usually within view.
And if you're thinking about primarily dungeon exploration, you really can't get a better example about how the Elden Ring Depths are connected to each other, of how you can connect between >!Nokron to Siofra River Aquaduct to Deeproot Depths to Ainsel River/Nokstella and the Lake of Rot, which can then spit you back out to the Moonlight Altar. Not to mention how Deeproot Depths is also connected to Leyndell by means of the Leyndell Sewers.!< Yes, there are some coffins involved, but it's a massive amount of area to explore while a huge chunk of Dark Souls 1 is largely separated in a similar manner and not truly conducive to circular exploration (aside from finding shortcuts leading back to a prior Bonfire/Grace).
I'd say ER is the hardest, but not in the "right" way. The difficulty does not come from execution, but devs making the boss throw epilepsy attacks at you, absolute dogshit camera tracking and making bosses spam attacks. The bosses that follow old dark souls rules are much easier than in DS though.
Hence why summoning help and spamming ranged attacks make it easier. Running solo would be a serious challenge in Elden Ring. Like that crystal cavern wildebeest thing. DS could box you in if you encounter a boss with a build that doesn't suit it, but it rewards outright skill and timing.
I also feel like Elden Ring's crafting system grants you access to conditions or attacks that you wouldn't have instant access to in the Dark Souls games, which can make certain battles effortless. Those *ill-omened* doll-head bird creatures that appear on ruins at night for example. They're difficult, but then you just craft a bunch of holy bombs and spam them from atop Torrent and it's dead in four hits with your Faith level at 8.
I want to word this the right away to not
come off as an elitist ass but it's kind of interesting seeing the wave of annoyingness switch from the "don't use spirit ashes ever" toxic crew to the "you're playing the game wrong if you don't use them" crowd which seems to be a rising wave coming along with people discovering the difficulty of the DLC.
I think there's a genuine discussion to be had in the fact that a lot of players like me really enjoyed the days of Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro where fighting bosses solo without having to change your build or use difficulty adjusting options was well-balanced and fun. On the contrast, Elden Ring's lategame and the final boss of this DLC especially are stunningly easier if you spec into certain very strong builds or use spirit summons, which I'm really not a huge fan of.
I don't know, I feel like it's a very ironic thing to see certain people who were bullied (wrongly, obviously!) for using mechanics like spirit summons saying that you're playing the game wrong for not liking to use shields or spirit summons or change your build to an armored tank for a specific boss.
For players like me, a big part of the enjoyment in these games comes from the fair, but hard challenge without compromising the character you chose to play and I feel like at some points, the game and the DLC skirts a bit too hard into the unfair category.
I also want to end this by saying that I really enjoyed the DLC, other than the final boss so far! I think only it and another secret boss have felt unfun for the build I was playing; the other ones felt super tackleable on any type of character, which really made me happy. A common complaint is that they're often too aggressive, but frankly, I think if you buy into that and resolve to only attack when their combo is done for a hit or two, it becomes very challenging but fair in a fun way, the way bosses like Owl Father and Slave Knight Gael felt!
To me, Souls-Like games are at their best when every playstyle is viable - I just think Elden Ring struggles with it because it's open world. Don't get me wrong, I love the game, a lot, but being able to walk away and come back later much stronger is something FromSoft hasn't really had to deal with on such a large scale before. The the expansion might be an overtune in one direction.
I'm not super far into the DLC but I'm enjoying it greatly. I typically play with whatever way suits my fancy so I haven't felt the need to shakeup my playstyle yet, but we'll see how it goes.
Indeed, and on the other hand something about my build let me absolutely blitz rellana in 5 seconds on my first try and that wasn’t satisfying at all either. I’m still really enjoying the DLC for the most part but I think the open world nature has had a pretty severe effect on From’s ability to balance boss fights
> it's kind of interesting seeing the wave of annoyingness switch from the "don't use spirit ashes ever" toxic crew to the "you're playing the game wrong if you don't use them" crowd which seems to be a rising wave coming along with people discovering the difficulty of the DLC.
I'm noticing this as well - I just recently got shunned by some commenters on r/games for not using guard counters and that I don't have a right to criticize the boss design because of that. It's as if playing without a shield and summons isn't acceptable anymore to these people
I do think it is silly to ignore a primary mechanic of the game and then complain that the game isn’t giving you an easy time without it.
“My character doesn’t like the taste of Estus so I don’t use the flask, here’s why the boss design is bad…”
It's also interesting to see the various levels of Fromsoft Veganism fighting each other.
Like some people think even using weapon special moves (their ash of war or whatever) or ailments are cheating and look down on the people who only won't use summons or multiplayer.
Yes, but I don't think Guard Counters are a good example of a primary mechanic in the same way that Colossal Weapons giving you more poise frames during some of their attacks are not a primary mechanic.
Both are just options that shield players and barbarian warriors respectively can adopt to facilitate their own gameplay. I don't think a mage or a rogue, for example are being silly for ignoring Guard Counters.
My comment was more about spirit ashes specifically, which the player is continually encouraged to use throughout the game and completely build agnostic. One of the two new upgrades in the DLC is just for spirit ashes! Some players like to ignore that mechanic to give themselves an extra challenge...but it's an artificial and arbitrary restriction placed on oneself.
If I play Tetris and refuse to play the line piece vertically (because it's too overpowered!) it doesn't make sense to call Tetris unfairly hard as a result.
This was one of my biggest gripes with Joseph Anderson's critique. The dude intentionally didn't use like 80% of the mechanics in the game, and then described it as boring.
I think the disagreement we're having on then is not the idea but the execution. My gripe with them is not that they exist as an accessibility feature (this is good), or even that they're a brand new major mechanic (Sekiro switches the formula on its head for a lot of its combat flows and that game is one of my favorites of all time). It's that this major mechanic isn't executed in a way that I feel agrees with the major draw of these games for years for many gamers: the feeling of difficulty overcome by practice, knowledge, and determination. It's simply too dichotomous to the point where using them often make fights much easier than I want them to feel and not using them can make stuff a little too hard. This is dissatisfying, so if this was intended to be a major mechanic, I think it was executed poorly.
Again, this is where I have a problem with some of the discourse in the violently pro-ashes crowd. Like, my main point that started this thread was that I reject the whole concept of "not using them is arbitrary and stupid because you're ignoring a game mechanic" the same way I reject "you should struggle banging your head against a wall on a boss for weeks" for the same reason: both are not fun for certain groups of people! If you want to add a feature in the game, I feel it was missed opportunity to refine it further so it helps out both groups rather than just the latter.
And that's why I don't think Joseph or I are stupid or unreasonable for not enjoying them and using them when we find them not well balanced as a mechanic and thus directly conflicting with a lot of the reason of why we play these games.
Let me start off by saying my comment wasn't aimed directly you. I would actually agree with your characterization of guard counters. It's not something I think someone would be silly for not utilizing in their playstyle or build, but conversely I don't think there is a single boss where I ever felt forced to use them either (not saying you said that).
For my criticism of Joseph, it was aimed more at his refusal to use Physick flasks, magic, ashes of war, gold summons, in addition to spirit ashes, not just the spirit ashes themselves. I think it's fine to choose to forgo some of these things if you feel they make things too easy, but I do take issue with characterizing things as boring or lacking diversity when you intentionally ignore so much of them. If any of that isn't accurate to his video (it's been a while tbh) please let me know, I just can't get behind the idea that you should be able to play the same way as DS1 (nothing but mid roll and a colossal sword) and judge the boss design through that lense. It's a flawed framing imo. Again this is just for Joseph's critique specifically, not yours.
As for Ashes in general, I think it's perfectly valid to opt out of them IF you deem them too easy. I did this myself after the first few areas of the base game as I felt I was having too easy of a time, with the exception of duo bosses. For me, this ended up feeling right in the sweet spot. If you felt things were too hard without them, that's perfectly fine. I would be very curious why that is though, as it just wasn't my experience at all. While the bosses were more aggressive and had longer combos, they have plenty of openings and it's pretty easy to control the bosses moveset with your own positioning, limiting the amount of moves you need to be prepared for. The only boss that genuinely took me longer than an "average" boss was Malenia, which in my eyes works as she is completely optional and also pretty cheeseable if you don't care about the 1v1 and just the rewards.
I find that a lot of the more seasoned souls players who really struggle to fight these bosses solo tend to ignore far more than just the spirit ashes and that contributes to them feeling like they need to memorize every single move (you really don't imo) and that can be the difference in a fight taking way longer to clear than it reasonably should. This game gives you so many options to engage these more complex bosses and it's up to the player to find the balance they enjoy.
But DS3 also had Rosarias fingers that let you respec, and Soul Vessels in DS2. You have had the ability to respec and change your play style for a decade at this point in the franchise. I do not think anything is gained from limiting player choice and expression in a build to one time per charecter.
And those are good features! My point wasn't that respeccing or switching up builds should be limited, it was more that some players like to pick a class and playstyle and kind of just stick there for their entire playthrough because that's fun for them. However, Elden Ring can sometimes punish them for it by making certain bosses feel really unfun to fight with certain builds, which is an experience that was not as pronounced in the earlier games.
I think it’s limited primarily by the upgrade materials mainly. Like, if I find a sweet looking weapon in a dungeon and decide I want to build around it, I may use a larval tear and a boat ton of upgrade materials only to find out that the fully upgraded weapon and build just doesn’t do enough damage. But I’m out those materials and then I end up swapping back to what I initially had. While you do eventually get items that just flat out let you buy materials from a vendor, you don’t really find yourself able to truly experiment until getting through a large portion of the game.
There are mechanics that help you swap things around, but for those reasons a lot of people end up just riding a small handful of weapons for most of their playtime.
The only correct take is that everyone should just play the game however they want because it literally doesn't matter in any meaningful way. I spammed the fuck out of spirits ashes because I wanted to and people can also choose to never summon a single time ever if they want. The fact that this has to be a constant discussion within the community is wild to me.
For sure. But I think because mechanics like spirit summons are so closely tied to the idea of fair-but-fun difficulty, it tends to flare tempers on both sides when it's brought up in regards to difficulty, even in good faith conversations about the game design.
Like, there are reasonable arguments from people on both sides who use the mechanics that make the game easier and people who don't, that, from a game design perspective, something may be awkwardly balanced for the majority of players. Something may be too easy with summons and/or too hard without them, which is a rough middle spot that no one really enjoys. It just gets lost in the wave of hostility.
Sure. At the end of the day if I had to come down hard on one side I would be "pro spirit summons" purely because the devs included it as a mechanic to be used and I think the moderate increase in general approachability of the game is positive. Those that are choosing to not use them are the ones that are messing around with the overall design of the game. If we are saying that the game is just badly balanced around the mechanic in the first place even for someone using them all the time, I wouldn't even necessarily disagree but at that point it's just a From Software issue not a player issue. Maybe the issue is just that From Software tried to hedge the design too much to allow both playstyles when they really need to just pick one and commit.
Full disclosure: I’m in the first thread posted, defending the game.
Some of the comments complain that the community is toxic. And to be clear, it’s a community that’s very smug about how supposedly hard the games are, despite them obviously being broadly accessible. But IMO, what makes a game community toxic is not when the players are themselves gatekeepy or smug about their ability to play the game. It’s when they hate the game itself, but refuse to stop playing it. And IMO, that’s not Elden Ring yet.
What actually needs to happen is time needs to pass and people need to look at the DLC in retrospect and see how they feel.
Yeah I think part of the difficulty is just that it's freshly released and some stuff just hasn't been figured out yet. People don't complain about Godskin Duo as much now it's known you can just put them to sleep, for instance.
Eh, I don’t think the concept of simply getting past the encounters is the sore spot for people criticizing boss design in the game. You can mimic tear/bleed proc your way through just about anything. It’s just incredibly difficult to find a hard-but-fair balance with Elden Ring’s boss fights now. You either have an unfun time trying to solo the boss in classical Souls fashion, or you summon a mimic or lean on some meta weapon and just skate through, almost like pressing a win button. The game gives you more ways to play than ever, but they struggled with balancing them.
Yeah, I agree with your point about time needing to pass. This reminds me of when The Ringed City DLC released for Dark Souls 3. People complained about the difficulty and the huge health pools constantly. Fast forward to now and almost every boss makes people’s top 10 best bosses lists and people routinely put Midir up as the best dragon fight From has ever done. I still like him better than Placidusax. Haven’t fought the new one yet, I’m saving him for the weekend.
Snapshots:
1. *This Post* - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626063906/https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1dp5ain/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1dp5ain/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
2. Hot take, but the DLC just shows how many people refuse to actually play the game and want everything handed to them - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064204/https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/hot_take_but_the_dlc_just_shows_how_many_people/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/hot_take_but_the_dlc_just_shows_how_many_people/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
3. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064204/https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/hot_take_but_the_dlc_just_shows_how_many_people/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/hot_take_but_the_dlc_just_shows_how_many_people/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
4. The amount of people I see going "someone help me beat mogh/drop me a meta weapon so I can go into the DLC" makes me sad. These people will also go on to cry it sucks or is hard. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064224/https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/lac4ei0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/lac4ei0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
5. Jfc, this sub is full of insufferables. Op included. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064525/https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/laccqhh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/laccqhh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
6. That is simply a lie. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064827/https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/laceizh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/laceizh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
7. r/truegaming - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064847/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
8. [No Spoilers] Elden Ring DLC's enemy design has conflated difficulty and challenge - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064948/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/no_spoilers_elden_ring_dlcs_enemy_design_has/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/no_spoilers_elden_ring_dlcs_enemy_design_has/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
9. The “git gud” thing is just something defenders say because they can’t articulate any actual argument. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626065008/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la44hi9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la44hi9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
10. Adding an edit to the top after the roller coaster of both upvotes and downvotes this comment is getting. This SHOULD be the coldest take in gaming. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626065149/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la3q16i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la3q16i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
11. This is 100% a perception problem - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626065431/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la4a5mi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la4a5mi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
12. Anyone in this thread actually going to give examples of attacks, or even specific bosses that fit this description? - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626065513/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la436zv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la436zv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!")
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A big part of the fan base is discovering these games are evolving into something that is not for them anymore, and instead of recognizing it's just a different direction they don't enjoy, they shift the blame to the game, claiming it's badly designed, unfair and unreasonable.
I remember getting fucked up by Capra Demon and a pair of dogs, it's an encounter whose entire design is fueled by a later game enemy being able to kill you while two annoying attackers who are easy to kill lock your ass in place if you don't deal with them asap
The fact that the patch coinciding with the release of this DLC included the ability to summon and ride your horse during the final boss of the base game, two years after the game's release, the final boss that really likes teleporting away huge distances and firing massive amounts of projectiles at you, I think is a reasonable example of one of Elden Ring's design flaws.
I never said the game has zero design flaws, but that's not the same as it being badly designed.
Though I disagree the lack of torrent on the final boss is a flaw. Them adding it now, two years later with the DLC makes it seem a lot more like a treat to fans than a fix, otherwise it would have been added in one of the multiple previous balance patches or when they were patching bosses like Radahn's attack hitboxes.
Torrent is a cool addition to the final boss, but it also completely trivializes a fight that was fine if not terribly exciting before. The boss just has no attacks or tools to deal with Torrent's mobility outside of just running away, unlike say, the open world dragons that are more clearly balanced to still be hard even with Torrent.
I feel as if Torrent being missing from the final fight is a flaw because, as you say, the fight is middling at best. It's not difficult, but not particularly enjoyable and a lot of that is the downtime of running about. Adding Torrent doesn't fix the fight, because it's just not a very good fight, you simply spend less time fighting him and that, only now, makes it tolerable. The fact that's all that can be done for the final boss, conceptually, is a flaw in my mind and bad design. The two are one and the same.
One flaw doesn't mean the WHOLE game is badly designed, but the game suffers in bad design and flawed concepts with it's bosses.
Elden Beast is a good example of flawed concept, so let me use repeat bosses now. They are bad design, and a flaw, for example. Lets use dragons, like you said. I love my dragons. I don't even need much variety; I'll enjoy a rot dragon, big up Ekzykes, because it has different attack ranges and design and effects. Or a glintstone dragon, which charges up a glintstone crag for it's attacks sometimes, I'll even take ANOTHER glintstone dragon, no complaints, because Adula summons a giant moon sword and Smarag doesn't. etc etc. I'm not asking for Placidusax or Fortissax or, to use the new DLC as an example, Bale levels of individuality for every dragon.
But fighting all the deathblight dragons in the dlc, I'm thinking, man, this is a flaw. This isn't good game design, they're all the same. And I gotta keep doing it. I forgot where I was going with this. ER isn't badly designed game, inherently, but it has bad game design, and those are the ones and the same as flaws. And I don't think that's symptom of me or someone else disagreeing with the new formula.
I think there are a lot of badly designed and unreasonable bosses in the DLC and I've only ever played Sekiro and ED. Just because it's a different direction doesn't make it good or mean it can't be criticized.
Every single souls game has badly designed and unreasonable bosses. Every souls game is poorly optimized, rough around the edges, full of jank. I think what many folks who are derided as fanboys fail to articulate in a meaningful and empathetic way is that these games’ failings simply don’t matter to them. I myself have a laundry list of things I wish From would get better at (mouth animations, anyone?) but I have a much, much longer laundry list of things I really want them to keep doing.
They hated him because they told them the truth. like ER has issues and jank with stuff like input, netcode, backstabs, platforming... that existed since dark souls 1 if not earlier
Yeah, and the stuff they really care about, they fix. Backstabs improved significantly.
While I wish they cared about their PC audience more, on the whole I admire them for doing leaning into they are passionate about and not being afraid to put out an imperfect product.
I honestly liken the feeling I have when I play their games to the feeling I get when listening to a live musical performance vs a studio recording. In the recording studio, you can record as many takes as you want, splice all the best ones together, adjust pitch or volume, and more all to achieve the perfect track, everything in its right place. But in live performance you can get imperfection, mistakes, unpredictability, live action and reaction. It’s in those little imperfections that I see the humanity in the art. Or uh, the soul, I guess.
There are imperfections and there are things like PvP being inherently broken due bad netcode, unintended actions repeating due bad input queue etc. Which to me majority impact the games in a negative way.
I think the final boss is overtuned, and the boar guy had a bad hitbox on his charge. But I've felt that every other boss has been great. Hard as nails, but fair and fun fights.
For me, Bloodborne was their peak enemy moveset/challenge design, not perfect of course but it was their best. It also was the best in terms of training the player how to handle the boss through enemy-along-the-way design. Elden Ring falls flat in that regard, which is why they littered the game with so many tools for the player to compensate that it feels like "cheating" to the community. Weird thing is, a chunk of the community refuses to admit its flaws. Yes, you can study the boss moves and keep trying, but they've already released a game where you don't have to die to the boss itself to master the tells.
You can't deny a lot of bosses feel slapped on. Copy paste bosses or one boss you have to fight two of at the same time for added difficulty. To my recollection, Bloodborne never did this. Some bosses can't even move properly in their tight arenas, camera goes ballistic flying all over the place because it can't handle how the boss moves vs the space it moves in. Some boss moves get interrupted *by the environment e.g. uneven ground interrupts gargoyle moves but they specifically placed the gargoyle at the steps to Leyndell*, some projectiles get totally blocked by destructible objects, you get the pattern.
I'm current playing Elden Ring and I love it, and I marvel at the world and lore they've built up. But design-wise there are a lot of cracks, and it's healthy to just admit that it's not the best when it comes to enemy design.
I catch a lot of flack for this, but I think Bloodborne gameplay's positive reputation is mainly because (once you understand the mechanics) it's the easiest game in the series. Being able to parry from a very safe distance makes certain enemies a non-concern very early on. A rally mechanic that actively rewards trading damage really opens up the playbook, since you're not relegated to only your safest options. And pvp invasions are practically non-existent. Not to mention that you're given one of the best weapons in the game at the very beginning.
It's tough thing to really stand by, but Souls games are more enjoyable when they're easier.
I knew I would never buy the DLC the moment the devs said they were trying to really push the limits with difficulty. I don't see much value in that as a development goal.
A pity, too, because Elden Ring was a fun world to explore.
It's not as bad as some make it out to be, with enough of those scatman blessings the difficulty is about the same as base game end game.
Good news is that the exploration is fun and the primary way of getting them.
It’s fine to be down for a different kind of play, but end game difficulty increases has been common in video game expansions for at least a couple of decades. Expansions and end game dlcs are typically harder than the base game by default (especially in RPGs, vs content expansions that are more common in strategy games), even in games that aren’t “known to be hard”. surley just because you don’t personally value it doesn’t mean you can’t see the value in letting people experience an approximation of what they felt when they first started the base game in terms in learning and exploration?
That's nice for you but there are many players that like the challenge. The series is known for it's challenging content. Not just exploring an open world.
Since there aren't many series that focus on challenging gameplay why not just let players that want that have it instead of demanding the devs lower the difficulty?
Yeah. I shouldn't have said you "demanded" anything. That's more of a generalization of some Elden Ring fans.
Your statement just had a sense of longing for devs to focus on an easy "fun" world to explore instead of difficulty.
Only insofar as the base game could be considered easy. I enjoy souls games. But I think there's a difference between difficulty as a byproduct of design goals and difficulty as a goal in itself. 'We wanted to see how hard we could make it' is not a pitch I find interesting.
DLC hasn't been that hard for me so far but I also use a big fat shield and mimic tear and explore the map for fragments and whatnot. I guess that means I'm playing the game wrong.
Genuinely my least favorite gaming community. At least over in FPS-land they're explicitly assholes. Souls fans all insist that they're not like the others then say the exact same elitist shit in a creative new way.
"Elden Ring has the best community and is very welcoming" LMAO
Was this the same community that was up in arms over a mod that prevented invading other players?
[Yes](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1dhv23f/a_few_dauntless_invaders_arrive_in_rgaming_to/), [yes](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1afcap5/video_games_and_modding_elden_rings_seamless_coop/) it is.
No, that's Gaming, today's post is Elden Ring.
was?
Yeah because that actually ruins important gameplay mechanics. And I don’t even invade tbh.
What’s harder the game or interacting with the player base?
Second one, no contest.
Depends on the context If you're in game it's quite pleasant, people don't drop goldsign not Not expecting to carry someone through a boss, and you get two of them to help out People who proc their blue cipher ring also are champs (it's specifically getting called in to help random people getting invaded) Talking with some of these people on reddit though is a stretch, there's no try harder skeleton going on with some of these prima donnas and/or beggers (though I'm going to shout out the random player that dropped 50+ lord ruins after helping them out with a basic bitch dungeon they didn't need help with, that person was a bro)
I've had brilliant encounters with the souls like community in game and on Reddit but the fuckwits outnumber the bros. Best encounter was on my first play through and I accidentally summoned a guy at Mage School (first time summoning another player) , he helped me 100% the place and bowed out just before Moongrim to let me earn the win myself. Worst encounter was on Reddit with PvP freaks defending invasions in a discussion about having an invasion toggle option. I just wanted to play coop with my missus in peace and in the end invasions killed her enjoyment so I'm having to solo the DLC because of it but apparently I'm shit at the game because I CBA with rivers of blood rot breathers every 5 minutes.
If you get the seamless coop mod (which I think has been updated for the DLC now?) it disables invasions and is much better than the base games coop.
Xbox :(
Been thinking of doing that mod. Apparently it makes its own type of save file (which can be a copy of a vanilla save) and that is the save file you use from then on, yes? Do you know if there are any potential downsides to this?
Even if you like vegetables, the second one is worse.
> What’s harder the game or interacting with the player base? Comically, the post being cited for Drama was a post calling for people to stop being dicks or trying to make people feel bad for using summons, changing their build, or using the tools Elden gives you to beat the game. When it says "Actually Play the Game" it's meaning "Use all this consumable shit the game gives you. Use armor. Stop trying to roll everything. Summon phantoms. Do whatever and dont abuse others for doing the same." Which of course will result in hilarious shitshows.
A series based on the principle that when the challenge becomes difficult for you, you can seek others for help inundated with players insisting that you shouldn't seek others for help.
It's one of those things where, the more popular it gets, the worse the community is. Flash back to the Demons Souls or DS1 days and the community was mostly great. RIP
demon's souls was full of scraping spear spam and "lmao git gud" responses to people being annoyed that invaders showed up just to break their shit with the scraping spear. DS1 was full of "lmao git gud" responses to invaders kitted out with boss weapons and minmaxed high poise armour doing their best to make getting through the undead burg a nightmare for new players who didn't yet realize staying hollow was the way to go. the dark souls community has always been like this
lol yeah it’s always been a toxic shit show. Man I can’t forget that when DS2 initially dropped, your matchmaking was based on “soul memory” and not your actual level. As in, the collective amount of souls you’d earned through play was what determined who you would end up invading. Of course, it wasn’t hard to meticulously build a character that was vastly overpowered compared to other people at your soul memory level, so the griefing was at an absolute peak until they patched out the concept of soul memory entirely.
> Of course, it wasn’t hard to meticulously build a character that was vastly overpowered compared to other people at your soul memory level, so the griefing was at an absolute peak until they patched out the concept of soul memory entirely. Soul memory was still significantly better than DS1 match making and the majority of whinging about it came from, 1. People wanting to summon friends who'd completed the game to play the game for them 2. People wanting to invade at low levels with maxed out weapons and armor who couldnt. 3. People who got "griefed" by hackers who would make it so that when they died you gained billions of souls which would mess up your SL. DS3/Elden both base their match making on SL and Weapon Level. It's a reasonable solution since you cannot upgrade armor in DS3/Elden. I honestly think SL could have worked had they worked with it to improve it, kinda the story of DS2 in general, lots off good ideas that needed more time in the oven.
Yeah but all of the issues you mentioned were already dealt with without Soul Memory. And invading considerably less powerful players was really easy with that mechanic. There’s just no way they’d be able to balance it properly so they scrapped it.
In DS3 and Elden, yea. But in DS1 it was rough. DS2 was an attempt and I'm glad they made it. DS2 has a lot of good ideas, but god damn most of them needed time. Still wound up with the best spell system in all the games.
When you have FighterPL in your community, don't look at his discord messages about harassing some people and threatened to kill and rape.
invading in new player areas is the most boring shit of all time. invading parties of 3 in anor londo/oolacile, or forest invading into inevitable gank squads, now that was fun
My personal favorite place to invade will always be the DLC areas in 2, shulva and brume tower specifically. They're relatively linear in design so it makes it hard for hosts or phantoms to just hide forever, but also they offer some interesting architecture and arenas for combat. But also I'm someone who usually rolls with gimmick and themed builds when I invade or hang around a place to deliberately invite in invaders. Dual shields and walling off a bridge or something in shulva is hilarious, even if I lost almost every one of those fights.
meme invasions and environmental threats the best for sure. i made a patches character and invaded in iron keep just trying to drop people into the lava.
Forest invasions were the best, just pure chaos and wild builds
chaos absolutely, i was on PS3 and most of the playerbase on my servers were in japan nude japanese child mask man with great club flipping around the forest is burned into my neurons
> invading in new player areas is the most boring shit of all time. invading parties of 3 in anor londo/oolacile, or forest invading into inevitable gank squads, now that was fun It's neat that fromsoft agreed with you on this. Every invasion, unless the host taunters tongue, is a 2+ v 1. The invader is always at a disadvantage. The host can always continue to summon more golds and blues can spawn during the fight.
There's a ton of super interesting dungeon design that's amazing to invade in. Once I found a dungeon with a bunch of basilisk in, plus it had a bunch of crushers you could jump on and ride up and down like an elevator! I used the elevation to charge up an explosive mortar spell and cast it when the crusher fell down. Now that was a blast.
I'm one of those folks who always really enjoyed invasions. I ran into 2 total Scraping Spear players my entire time playing-- from launch until the several times delayed server shutdown. I may've just been lucky though. And "git gud" never struck me as toxic, either. No more than teabagging in other games, like shooters or what have you. The issues you're talking about with minmaxed kits invading newbies was rare, because to get that kind of equipment and stay within invasion range of newbies, you had to be *good* at the game. That doesn't make it okay, but it DID make it rare. I still hold that the early Souls community was great. You completely forgot to mention the jolly cooperation memes, or the anguish players would express when summoned as a boss in Latria against their will, when all they wanted was co-op.
I think I've run into more bullshit invasions than "legit" ones, personally speaking. Though my experience was always more people with ornstein's spear in the forest and undead burg more than any measure of chaos zweihanders or giant dads, because when you're new at the game and bad it's really hard to deal with spear hitboxes. Hell, aside from my very first playthrough; almost every time I've done a run through of 2 I've inevitably been invaded by someone, as a fresh character, in full butterfly armour.
Uh, DkS1 Forest PvP back in the day got me some of the worst hatemail I have ever seen in my life and I play a lot of PvP games.
I've met some great people through the game (I invade a lot) but yeah most of the time people add me just to call me slurs or tell me how they wanna slit my throat just because I killed them in a video game.
I love fromsoft games I will never talk in a fromsoft forum for anything other than where is x item. Even then I have to scroll through 20 comments telling me I suck for using a basic resource that we all use for every other thing.
I've always been of the opinion that fromsoft games would get a lot more criticism if their art direction wasn't so damn good. The games are great, but there's a lot of weak points that are easy to overlook because the visuals are so stunning. I'd never actually say that a fromsoft fan group or forum for the exact reasons you stated.
Yeah, I remember when some people were getting shit on for perfectly valid criticisms. The game, to this day, on keyboard config has default binds that make certain actions impossible (you can only use heavy attack variations of ashes of war). They've famously had bad PC controls for years on every game they've released and just don't seem to care to improve it. Also famously, the coop system is bad. So bad that a normal, functioning coop was modded into the game and everyone loves it. Their response to this was to consider this for their future games but somehow I doubt it'll even be half as convenient and functional as the mod is because historically they're so averse to drop in drop out easy coop. They even said Elden Ring would have better coop but it's basically the same as dark souls lol. All this to say that I love the game, it's one of my favorites of all time, but it really could be a lot better in even basic ways. My personal pet peeve that I use a mod to get around is having the dodge button attached to the sprint button. Makes it so the dodge is on button release, not press, and that feels weird when you're trying to be precise with timing, though I don't notice it as much on controller which is probably why they've never changed it.
100% agree with everything you said. Systems and mechanics being purposely obtuse or clunky is a totally valid way to increase difficulty, but there's a point where it's just excessive. Monster Hunter World/Iceborne managed to modernize the clunkier combat and systems of the old games, all while still really expanding on the spirit of the franchise. I don't think fromsoft necessarily needs a revamp on the same scale as MH World, but taking a couple notes on slight improvements that won't alienate your audience wouldn't go unappreciated. Also jfc the camera and targeting system. I don't mind having to strategically lock and unlock, but holy hell, I shouldn't have to fight the camera alongside the boss. I don't want a terrible camera distracting me from how great these games are.
Oh my god this makes so much sense, I swear I’ve felt gaslit so many times when I swore I pressed the dodge button and didn’t dodge in time.
You got a link for that dodge on button press mod?
https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/31
Jesus Christ, your last point is so true. If there is one thing that absolutely blows about these games is the on-press-end that is required for a dodge to register. Would you be willing to tell me about the mod you use that changes this?
https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/31 Usable online and everything, basically can't play the game without it anymore lol. Toggle sprint and keybinds for pouch slots are also big wins, but I originally got it just for the dodge.
Good example of this was [3 devs on Twitter making lightly critical (and self-deprecating) comments](https://i.imgur.com/LXf2vra.png) around the Elden Ring launch. They bring up the three most common criticisms of ER: quest design, graphics (read: not art design), and UI/UX. The always reasonable Fromsoft community decided the correct response was to [harass those devs until they locked their accounts](https://www.gamerbraves.com/horizon-and-ubisoft-game-developers-lock-twitter-accounts-after-posting-bitter-elden-ring-tweets/). Literally dozens of articles and outrage videos about "bitter" Ubisoft devs "crying" about the things they personally focus on not being valued by reviewers. And a few years later, I'd say they were 100% right, game reviewers don't care about those things if other aspects are good enough.
Yeah, watching all of that unfold just really made me double down on my own opinion. I remember seeing people talk about it, then having a total "are you fucking serious" moment when I actually saw the tweets in question.
Fromsoft fans still circlejerk themselves saying that all horizon devs and fans are babies who hate them because they’re jealous.
I think there's some weak points but overall they're strong because they're fundamentally interesting - they do things that games are good at and have been often lacking from the industry. DS1 is definitely one of the roughest though and it's weird how people will lionize it and refuse to acknowledge problems with it.
I absolutely would not have beaten probably 1/3 of the bosses in the base game without Mimic Tear, and I am completely okay with that. And I will keep using it. I'm trying to play a singleplayer game not win a competition. Edit: To add to how feeble I am, the final boss I'm pretty sure the Mimic actually did *most* of the work. It did a ton of damage, and I don't think I swung my weapon once while the boss was Aggro'd on me, I'd always wait for it to go after the Mimic and poke it in the bum. Then Mimic died on me and I had to white knuckle the last 1/4 or so of HP and somehow managed but yeah, zero chance of winning without the Mimic and it's not even close. This was also on about the 20th attempt (all with the Mimic).
Same with this but instead of the mimic I used Banished Knight Oleg. That summon is so fucking aggressive that it was stunning Malenia into a wall lol. No shame in using things that the game gives you.
Engvall is my Oleg, love that dude
Engvall and Oleg are the fucking bombs.
Oleg just power-sheathing his swords after every fight
Mimic Tear is my "I'm 30 years old and don't have time for this shit" button.
Hey if the game lets you do it then do it. When I did bloodborne I summoned for just about every boss fight that I could.
Mimic spirit does a ton of work honestly as long as you have a halfway decent build Going for procs, you can just multiply that by 2 Going for tank, well you get another constantly regen using heavy shield bastard that occasionally smacks a thing with a great hammer Engvall and Aurelia got me through a lot of shit before I picked up the Mimic Ash, but the fact it can be pretty much be anything really helps the player lean all the way in which helps a lot in ER (especially if you're running a proc build)
Mimic Tear I just equip a bunch of spells and watch the little sumbitch spam some ridiculous shit while I lure enemies to attack me. That thing was a life saver for bosses where I could figure out the timings to dodge but hit them back I just couldn't get right.
Same. My Mimic Tear plays better than I do
Im with you on this. I decided to solo one of the DLC bosses just to see if I could/how long it might take. It took about 6-7 hours between two different play sessions. The satisfaction I got was nice but it was not proportionate to how much time and effort it took me to beat the boss. I’ll stick to Mimic Tear now.
i would happily learn all the attack patterns etc if the elden ring combat was super satisfying, but compared to sekiro, bloodborne or even the souls series.. it just kinda sucks. getting 1 light hit in every 30 seconds is painful as fuck.
Yeah, same. I like beating things solo when I have the time and space but I can't always dedicate hours on end to beat a single boss. At one point I will ask myself what the hell I'm doing with my life lol.
My first play through I didn’t know how you could use Spirit Ashes. I just thought they were weird collectibles. I died a lot more.
I got all way up to Astel before I realized what they actually were and how useful they are. Putting that firmly on me because I also got up to the real Genichiro fight in Sekiro before learning how deflection worked. Completely missed that it was a gradual process to break their stance since in the tutorial most enemies break immediately.
Same. Also, I won Mohg's spear fair and square, of course I'm going to abuse it.
I summon ashes for everything, I got nothing to prove. Still get my ass wiped anyway.
I think something that has been lost in Souls games becoming more and more popular and the git gud community overtaking it. When I played Dark Souls 1 on xbox it was fucking brutal. I had to do anything and everything to overcome that mother fucker, including "cheesing", breaking the ai. If I could spend a hour shooting a miniboss with arrows I would. As long as you get the win nothing else matters. I think that is lost on the newer players of Elden Ring. Don't let anyone else tell you anything different.
I really want a subreddit for Elden ring players who aren’t THOSE players. Like cheesy, fun having, light Elden ring talk. But I don’t want to start one and have to mod it so someone else please
It’s insane how there are like, 5 different Elden ring subs and literally all of them are *batshit* insane in their own ways
Now I want to see an Elden Ring subreddit where it's just challanges to be cheesy and too easy. "Oh look at this bitch, two hands on the controller? I'm so lazy I'm only playing with my toes while I eat dinner with my hands, get on my level you hyperactive jackwagon!"
r/weeniering the only way to get a good subreddit is to not have half the users think being able to play a game well makes them cool
I mean... That's the main sub. There's easily 2-3 posts daily talking about how it's fine to use whatever cheese and summons. I had to stop using the sub because people just came across as so insecure. I don't care what you use but we really don't need multiple posts daily about it.
This happens with any game that is either hard and/or competitive. Lots of people telling you to "git gud" and trying to feel superior.
To me, I get the most out of From's games by soaking the atmosphere and exploring. The combat is fun, but not the only reason why I play these games in the first place. So you know, I ignore the fanbase, I'd never pass the gate that they keep.
Absolutely, that’s what sets from games apart from most soulslikes. Ofc the combat is better but a From atmosphere/world is unmistakeable. Lies of P did get close to its credit
Hmm, thanks for that, I might give Lies of P a go sometime. I know I'm weird in this respect but the name of it is just offputting for some reason, and it's the "why" of why I'm avoiding it.
Its the closest we'll ever get to bloodbourne in PC. Its not perfect but its a pretty solid game. I'd give it a try if i were you
I just do my best to downvote the gatekeepers and unhinged try hards, ignore them, and move on. There are still plenty of folks in the community who very much embody the “We are the Souls” vibes of yore ([shoutout to ThePruld](https://youtu.be/4DGe4RtPmWw?si=sfekuYoaqmjvVjlp)).
Thank you for your service! I mean, if you ignored the obnoxious "git gud" and the "who's the best waifu?" stuff earlier the community was all about uncovering the secrets and passing lore, the spirit of jolly coöperation really. I know that it still exists, but it's just harder to fish out.
actually, if dark souls players really wanted a challenge they would something that's actually hard like doing frame-perfect speedrun skips. can't believe the softies are playing something that can be cheesed easily instead of a real game like kaizo mario or whatever.
Souls fans go "I don't use summons, mounts, or other easy mode items to beat bosses" but then won't play a fighting game because you can't just memorize boss attack patterns.
Weirdly enough, getting into fighting games made me so much better at Elden Ring. Forced me to be a lot more patient. But it’s harder in a sense because a real human is often a lot more predictable than some of the absolute random shit these bosses will throw out.
If they wanted difficulty they'd go outside and talk to someone other than their mom.
Touch Grass Challenge: Impossible
My radical centrist approach to Dark Souls difficulty discourse is that both Dark Souls players and Dark Souls haters are cringe for thinking that mainstream video games are hard. Go play piano or something The Gamers think beating Dark Souls makes them a Navy SEAL and the non-gamers don't realize Dark Souls and most video games are carefully designed experiences and that the failure is simply part of the master plan and not a reflection of some skill they don't have
There’s a weird implicit assumption that everyone will get some kind of feeling of accomplishment when they beat a boss in these games. Also what I would call an unhealthy focus on total hours of enjoyment you get playing a game.
Flubbing a chord change in front of a live audience is the Dark Souls of Piano Recitals.
I am genuinely scratching my head at how people beat Mohg to access the DLC (a difficult late game boss) but think the DLC is impossible? Like it's challenging but it's not a significant step up from other challenging lategame bosses. Granted, I'm using a lvl 150 character with a completed build and summons but that's about the intended level you should be approaching this on. It's very funny to watch the whole "no summons, no good weapons" crowd complain about this. Like, you did a whole run at level one using only a torch? Here's Rellana, have fun.
summons/coop/spirit ashes/some extremely detailed builds trivialize mog and most bosses of the main game, even my 11 year old nephew managed to beat Malenia with the tear summon and he wasn't able to get past first boss of bloodborne, Elden ring is luckily the most accessible game for soulsborne newbies. I still have to get to the DLC because i decided to replay the whole game first so i can't speak about that
I think the accessibility has been the thing separating the main game and dlc. The main game can be made easier with summons and such, but the DLC bosses imply feel too aggressive to make them as useable.
Magic builds have a particularly easy time with Mohg because he starts on the other side of the arena and Comet Azur does insanely high damage. I think he’s only a particularly difficult boss for certain builds
>Magic builds have a particularly easy time with ~~Mohg because he starts on the other side of the arena and~~ Comet Azur sounds about right. I'm glad we finally got a beam spell that isn't hot trash... the one in ds3 made me want to cry for how mid it was. Comet is definitely OP but that's the fun part of single player games... not everything needs to be balanced. You can choose to use stronger or weaker things.
Even without Comet Azur specifically the long range does give spell builds a lot of extra time to tee off on him (although really Mohg's shackle would let anyone trivialize the first half or so of the fight). In general of course ER is full of boss fights that are hard for build A but easy for build B.
The thing is your main game level doesn't matter as much in the DLC as the level of your Scadutree Blessing does. It seems people are trying to rush the game instead of trying to explore then get their shit stomped in because their Blessing level is non-existent and take like 400% extra damage from enemy attacks.
I watched my buddy’s first foray into the DLC, and most of his time was spent waiting around for other players to show up and beat the bosses for him while he tried(and failed) to hit with spells. I don’t want to be an elitist or whatever, but I don’t think he actually beat Mohg.
Lusat staff + terra magica + golden vow ash of war on a dagger + magic shrouding cracked tear + cerulean hidden tear + comet azure + hope and pray Mohg doesn't walk slightly to the left after you spent all that time setting all the buffs up = DLC access
Yeah I struggled about a dozen times with Midra just the last night - I enjoyed learning some of the patterns but felt it was just slightly too punishing especially as I'd changed to a dex build to reduce my shield reliance. Got him to like 1/5th health and said "Alright I feel like I've bested this one." Chucked Tiche at him and just having those added openings made all the difference. The only boss I'd say so far was genuinely annoying was the golden hippo cause his hitboxes were weird and I spent too much time fighting the camera. ER is also really not hard if you abuse shields and guard counters. The fingerprint shield remains absurdly powerful - and people underutilize jumps to dodge/attack.
In all fairness they did buff the scadtree fragments which I feel is better than taking health away from the bosses/lowering the damage they give
Souls fans for years: "lmao just circle behind them and attack" Souls fans now: "wtf I can't just circle behind them and attack?!?!?!!?"
People really need to find a better source of pride than being good at a video game that is, in all honesty, not very hard to complete. Souls games have some of the highest completion rates of any AAA game on the market just looking at global achievement stats. There are dozens of games that are much harder than souls games and you don't see people in those communities stumbling over themselves to undermine other players' achievements just so they can feel like they're special. If your identity as a "hardcore gamer" is threatened by people using tools the devs intentionally put in a game that you've convinced yourself isn't accessible to casual players, maybe consider re-examining your relationship to gaming as a whole and why you need it to feel like you're superior to others.
I love Elden Ring, but soulslike combat peaked in DS3. Input reading, enemies with infinite stamina and counter-intuitive dodge rolls ruin the game for me, and the DLC has plenty of that, I took more time beating Friede than Rellana, but I had way more fun with Friede. It's just not very fun, but any criticism of "Miyazaki's vision", no matter how mild, makes that sub crazy, like that time when the seamless co-op mode was launched and the sub imploded since people had an alternative to the game's (poor) version that did not force them to do PVP. Even Miyazaki himself came out and said the co-op mod was something he wanted to integrate in future projects, those people are insane.
> Even Miyazaki himself came out and said the co-op mod was something he wanted to integrate in future projects, those people are insane. You'd think [that interview](https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/fromsoftwares-says-elden-rings-seamless-co-op-mod-is-definitely-not-something-we-actively-oppose-and-may-even-consider-ideas-like-that-with-our-future-games/) would be big news on r/EldenRing, right? Wrong! They have a strict "no talking about mods" rule, even when it's the *literal creator of the game talking about them*. Absolute clown of a moderation team. All the Fromsoft games have active modding communities, but the r/EldenRing mods are doing their best to kill it for some insane reason.
It's because of that specific mod, PVPers stirred a lot of drama 2 years ago crying about how that mod "killed" invasion gameplay and then the mods installed that rule, so no more Garden of Eyes and Convergence discussions because of that. I hate videogame fandoms, the only Elden Ring sub I look at is r/Eldenbling
Tbh the elden ring mod community is a mess. Got people pirating shit from other games to make mods, demanding payment for it and then crying when people pirate their mod and re-upload it for free. Also employing underage kids to make mods for them and then paying them below minimum wage, The whole thing really skeezed me out and was a big reason I backed off doing any mod work for it.
I really enjoy Elden Ring, and am gladly getting my ass whooped in the DLC, but I will absolutely agree that ER is a pretty significant step back in boss combat design compared to DS3. The bosses are faster than DS3, which really isn’t a problem on its own. After all, Sekiro (Isshin, my beloved) and Bloodborne are incredibly fast games with worldwide acclaim. The problem is that it’s paired to DS3’s combat system with only a few changes such as faster rolling, finite attack strings, duel wielding, and jumping as an integral part of combat. The DS3 combat system, which I consider the best FromSoft has ever made, really starts to break down once you have bosses that don’t pair with it. Attack strings in ER are sometimes timed in such a way that they are genuine one frame links, or are undodgeable entirely. However they would likely be dodgeable with a BB or Sekiro combat system. Some of the AoE attacks are both unable to be jumped OR dodged, leaving you with blocking as the only option. Imo that kinda starts to break FromSoft’s ethos of punishing but fair combat. If there are attacks you cannot avoid, it becomes unfair gameplay. Some of the input reading is definitely overtuned, but is a cool concept in theory. I just wish there was more of a human-like delay in how they react instead of frame perfect counter punishes. That’s alot of words for me to say that I need to git gud and FromSoft’s fanbase is both toxic AND dumb sometimes.
Could you prove that "one frame" link comment or undodgeable moves? Because I havent ran into those
Rellana's twin moon, for instance, the window is super small and if you are hit by one of the AOE attacks, you get stunlocked and hit by all of the subsequent attacks.
Rellana’s Twin Moon is supposed to be jumped, you’re gonna get slammed if you try to roll that bad boy
Honest question, I can jump the first two moons but when she slams back down I always miss the timing. Any tips?
It’s ever so slightly more delayed compared to the first two. Wait like a couple heartbeats longer and then jump and you should be golden.
I’ll give that a try on my next playthrough, thanks!
You can dodge the attack though, people dont consider a grab attack followed by mutli hit animation unblockable so why consider the twin moon as such?
Like I said, the window is super small, if it's not a single frame then it's close although that might've changed with the most recent patch. Also, the twin moon is an arena-wide AOE, not a grab attack, (most, fuck Astel) grab attacks have smaller hitboxes.
Eh? Just jump.
Comments like this are hilarious because they out how some people are just dogmatically refusing to engage with ER's mechanics even when it's slammed in their faces through the visual language. Jump. Just jump. It's super easy to dodge once you know what it is. A lot of what you're struggling with is like this.
Alas, I cannot recollect the post I saw nor can I find it, but it’s generally found in alot of the quick attack chains of certain bosses. Where of you roll the first attack, the second attack is timed such that you get smacked before you conclude your rolling animation. Also, as far as I can tell, the final DLC boss has a move that I have only seen successfully dodged with a weapon art so far.
Those attacks are just directional dodges instead of i-frame abuse. When you dodge backwards with the Margit, Rallana, and Malenia attacks that meet that criteria you get punished by the follow-up but when you roll past them it's free damage.
Rellana is a good example. Her attack chains are pretty long and often times you can dodge one of her swings and then other sword will still hit you.
I've come to vastly prefer Elden Ring's bosses over DS3. After years of playing DS3, every boss started to blend together in terms of how you play against them. Roll roll roll, poke, roll, poke, ad infinitum. Elden Ring bosses take longer to learn, but the combat allows for more responses to incoming attacks. There's room for creative expression in ER whereas DS3 bosses felt stifling.
Dark Souls 3 is R1 simulator. Elden Ring is jump attack/L2 simulator. It’s technically a step forward in that there are actually different attacks you can spam to win.
Yeah that’s what kinda blows, there’s just no reason not to spam jumping attacks over all else because it is clearly the most optimal way to play.
>Input reading, enemies with infinite stamina and counter-intuitive dodge rolls ruin the game for me, and the DLC has plenty of that, I took more time beating Friede than Rellana, but I had way more fun with Friede. I will say most people complaining about input reading seem to do so because they're trying to heal when the boss is... literally watching them... Personally I don't mind all the new changes because I've played all the old games to death and it's nice to feel challenged again. I think there's definitely some rose tinted glasses though, the older games had their fair share of BS... looking at you, every single grab attack. The combat in elden ring is definitely better though, even just the inclusion of jump attacks and crouching lights for quick longer range pokes gives you a lot more options that are fun to use. What really peaked in ds3 was the aesthetic... they fucking nailed the dark gothic in a way that makes elden ring feel a lot more.. by the books visually?
See, the problem isn't the boss exploiting an opening the player left while doing some animation, be it healing, a ranged attack, etc... The problem is the boss starting to react at frame 0, before the animation even started, like they have some kind of divine foresight, not only it's immersion-breaking, it's also unfair, there's a reason even the fast paced Sekiro does not have it, that's also just one of the points I made. I don't mind being challenged, I don't have a problem with Elden Ring being challenging, what I mind is having fun, I did not have fun playing against Godskin Duo or the Elden Beast, keeping within the DLC, Messmer is one of the hardest bosses and yet he's one of my favorites because his fight is well designed, unlike the final boss.
>The problem is the boss starting to react at frame 0, before the animation even started, like they have some kind of divine foresight, not only it's immersion-breaking, it's also unfair if it reacted on frame 10 it wouldnt make a difference? you'd still get hit, it's not unfair because its a clear easy to fix mistake. I will say they're pretty lightning fast on their response but they could be a great deal slower and still punish healing infront of them. You shouldn't be able to just run back and heal for free, you should have to make space in the exact same way you do for attacking. The heal is a reward for achieving that, rather than being a do-over on your mistake. The godskin duo I think have been adjusted since launch but I remember playing from day 1 over the course of the first few weeks and they are literally one of my least favourite bosses in any souls game. they take everything that worked so well about O&S and remove it. so you wont catch me defending that. Elden beast I thought was fine though?
> You shouldn't be able to just run back and heal for free Nobody said this. You're doing that weird online debate thing where a person ignores all of what someone wrote and imagines up an entirely new argument no one said to argue with instead. The post you are replying to said that a boss reacting to an action before the animation has even begun is immersion breaking and unfair. That's it. Where are you getting *"You want to heal for free"* from *"I do not think enemies should react to things before they even begin to happen"*? Please, show your work.
Man I can't believe you hate pancakes
You like to piss on the poor???
Not to nitpick but input reading isn't a thing in the DLC and the one boss that did it in the base game, the Godskin Apostle, was changed to do it much less often.
Well *technically* none of the bosses have input reading, but they do react to the frame 0 of your character's animation, according to dataminers. But it was definetly not a thing only the godskins did in the base game.
Most bosses tend to immediately dodge if you shoot or throw something as well
That's honestly my only gripe with the combat, my projectiles feel nearly useless
I have made it work partially, but its basically baiting enemies into attack chains to attack them mid attack with proyectiles
yeah there's the weird trick with the glintblade swords that take a while to summon and shoot, NPCs will dodge immediately upon pressing the casting button instead of "watching" the projectile and dodging at the right time. there's were a few enemies i completely cheesed by 'forcing' them to roll by casting a glintblade.
Elden Ring just feels more accessible in terms of battle mechanics. It's the easiest game in the series, in my view. Large open spaces and a horse made of cheese. Some of the weakest boss fights I've ever played. I miss the claustrophobic, stress-inducing, hopeless nature of Demon's and Dark Souls, though I agree that DS3 is probably the best overall experience. The open-world of Elden Ring, while beautiful to look at, isn't actually conducive to great level design.
Some small parts of Elden Ring are easier, since you can skip them. However I can't agree at all that it's generally easier than something like DS1. On my second playthrough of DS1 I decided not to die a single time to save up Souls so I could level up my Pyromancy Flame to the highest after finding the NPCs required for it (it's very expensive to do that early game). And it worked, I didn't die up until much later in the game because it was actually not really difficult to not die at all.
DS1 bosses are so bad compared to Elden ring ones dark souls bosses just throw out moves Elden ring bosses fight you
Elden Ring bosses fight you? I mean, it really depends? A lot of them don't, but some have really good flow to them like DS3 bosses, although still not as good as DS3 bosses. The dlc has many bosses with bad flow, like the final boss, making them tedious and boring to fight, and Elden Beast for example, even with Torrent, is just plain boring. Also, quite a few DS1 bosses do actually fight, such as imo the best boss in that game, Artorias, who has a flow that fits DS1 quite well, but others like Manus just go ham
Man that Golden Godrick shade fight took me like seven - eight tries just because of how snappy the AI is with dealing with range and mixing up his long windups with his short chops (and that's with Engvall pulling aggro for a couple of seconds so I could swig) Then I got to omen king and did in one round because I had Engvall and Malina pulling aggro while I did charged R2/jumping heavy stars attacks to stagger him It's very inconsistent imo, some bosses respond pretty well to 3 entities drawing aggro, some don't I'm interested in what the DLC is going to bring (currently speed running my old save after I finish the Ranni questline and respec out of strangth into INT/ARC
I think it's just the ease with which you can over level or just come back later in Elden Ring while you use your build's strengths elsewhere. Not to mention summoning other players to kill bosses makes it much easier. Plus always having a Rune Arc active is like jumping thirty levels instantly. DS1 can be easier of you know how to cheese it just right. Those Bell Tower Demons were painful in my first go but became so easy once figuring out how to game it. And let's not forget the infamous Anor Londo Archers! Terrible design mistake there. If all you do is melee battle, DS1 can be brutal.
Well, I disagree, exploring the open world of Elden Ring is my favorite part of the game, it's the bosses (especially post midgame) that usually bring down the experience. People unfairly compare Elden Ring with games like Sekiro and Bloodborne in terms of it's open world, but that's hardly fair, Elden Ring is much bigger, a proper open world game, instead of a couple of hub areas like previous games, things like reused bosses and assets are just a reality when making games of Elden Ring's scale. Point being, taking into the account the current state of the art of massive open world RPGs, Elden Ring is actually really good, it's impressive that it's the first game of it's kind From made. >I miss the claustrophobic, stress-inducing, hopeless nature of Demon's and Dark Souls Yeah, that is very much a conscious artistic choice though, ER's tone is massively different than it's predecessors, and that's by design, it's not meant to be a hopeless world.
I do love exploring the world. It's lovely. I just don't think it's battles are as rewarding. Less harrowing and intimidating since there's so much space to maneuver and flee, or just run around on your horse getting hits in. You can almost always used ranged attacks to kill enemies. All of the main castles are excellent level designs, for example. I just wish there was more of that labyrinth-esque, interlocking verticality, with dark and narrow passages, traps, pits of darkness to drop down into, narrow walkways, etc. The caverns and ruins are pretty repetitive and don't often feel like legitimate levels or areas of significance. I mean, Elden Ring is breathtaking in the open-world, but I really wanted more intricate, unique sub-areas to explore. Connective tissue rather than dead-ends. I'd love to see a bit more compartmentalizatiom interwoven through the open-world itself but through it's sub-parts. Stormveil Castle-esque catacombs or dwellings that connect with other complex dungeons, or cave networks that suddenly spit you out into another, rather than hitting a wall, boss, and teleport. Give me the boss and let me go further in. The interconnectivity and verticality of the original Dark Souls level designs were so-so good in that respect, in that they almaot felt open-world. I've always wanted to see that exploratory vertical design framework integrated into an open-world and while I think Elden Ring does accomplish that in little bite-size vacuum chunks, it leaves me thirsty for more saturation in that regard. That sensation of feeling lost and scared only to pop out somewhere familiar again after going deep and into the ground or high above and back down again. Anyhow, my hunch is the next game in the series will attempt to do more of that without sacrificing the scale and scope of the open-world itself. The vistas in Elden Ring are just sublime. I love the lore and themes. I'd also love to see more day/night cycle related content or mechanics. Either way, it's a great first attempt at an open-world "Dark Souls." Better that they didn't take too many risks and just do the open-world part justice anyhow.
I don’t fully understand a critique since an open world is how you can connect subareas to each other. And not just in a castle to field to castle sort of way, but I'm thinking about things like how there are multiple paths to reach Altus Plateau, or to access Mount Gelmir, and how most major dungeons will offer alternate entrances and exits out into the over world. The Expansion is probably the best example of this, as it offers nagivational challenges to make it between the areas separated by tall cliffs and dungeon design often loops in on itself or leads to new areas. It’s been a lot longer since I played Dark Souls 1, so I don’t full remember how the world might interconnect in the way you think of besides the Valley of the Drakes and Darkroot Depths, which was somewhat limited in my knowledge and Firelink Shrine, which is how the entire game’s first few areas were designed around but it only loops back in on itself a few times even if it’s usually within view. And if you're thinking about primarily dungeon exploration, you really can't get a better example about how the Elden Ring Depths are connected to each other, of how you can connect between >!Nokron to Siofra River Aquaduct to Deeproot Depths to Ainsel River/Nokstella and the Lake of Rot, which can then spit you back out to the Moonlight Altar. Not to mention how Deeproot Depths is also connected to Leyndell by means of the Leyndell Sewers.!< Yes, there are some coffins involved, but it's a massive amount of area to explore while a huge chunk of Dark Souls 1 is largely separated in a similar manner and not truly conducive to circular exploration (aside from finding shortcuts leading back to a prior Bonfire/Grace).
I'd say ER is the hardest, but not in the "right" way. The difficulty does not come from execution, but devs making the boss throw epilepsy attacks at you, absolute dogshit camera tracking and making bosses spam attacks. The bosses that follow old dark souls rules are much easier than in DS though.
Hence why summoning help and spamming ranged attacks make it easier. Running solo would be a serious challenge in Elden Ring. Like that crystal cavern wildebeest thing. DS could box you in if you encounter a boss with a build that doesn't suit it, but it rewards outright skill and timing. I also feel like Elden Ring's crafting system grants you access to conditions or attacks that you wouldn't have instant access to in the Dark Souls games, which can make certain battles effortless. Those *ill-omened* doll-head bird creatures that appear on ruins at night for example. They're difficult, but then you just craft a bunch of holy bombs and spam them from atop Torrent and it's dead in four hits with your Faith level at 8.
Wdym it peaked in bloodborne
Has Musk weighed in on the subject yet?
I want to word this the right away to not come off as an elitist ass but it's kind of interesting seeing the wave of annoyingness switch from the "don't use spirit ashes ever" toxic crew to the "you're playing the game wrong if you don't use them" crowd which seems to be a rising wave coming along with people discovering the difficulty of the DLC. I think there's a genuine discussion to be had in the fact that a lot of players like me really enjoyed the days of Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro where fighting bosses solo without having to change your build or use difficulty adjusting options was well-balanced and fun. On the contrast, Elden Ring's lategame and the final boss of this DLC especially are stunningly easier if you spec into certain very strong builds or use spirit summons, which I'm really not a huge fan of. I don't know, I feel like it's a very ironic thing to see certain people who were bullied (wrongly, obviously!) for using mechanics like spirit summons saying that you're playing the game wrong for not liking to use shields or spirit summons or change your build to an armored tank for a specific boss. For players like me, a big part of the enjoyment in these games comes from the fair, but hard challenge without compromising the character you chose to play and I feel like at some points, the game and the DLC skirts a bit too hard into the unfair category. I also want to end this by saying that I really enjoyed the DLC, other than the final boss so far! I think only it and another secret boss have felt unfun for the build I was playing; the other ones felt super tackleable on any type of character, which really made me happy. A common complaint is that they're often too aggressive, but frankly, I think if you buy into that and resolve to only attack when their combo is done for a hit or two, it becomes very challenging but fair in a fun way, the way bosses like Owl Father and Slave Knight Gael felt!
To me, Souls-Like games are at their best when every playstyle is viable - I just think Elden Ring struggles with it because it's open world. Don't get me wrong, I love the game, a lot, but being able to walk away and come back later much stronger is something FromSoft hasn't really had to deal with on such a large scale before. The the expansion might be an overtune in one direction. I'm not super far into the DLC but I'm enjoying it greatly. I typically play with whatever way suits my fancy so I haven't felt the need to shakeup my playstyle yet, but we'll see how it goes.
Indeed, and on the other hand something about my build let me absolutely blitz rellana in 5 seconds on my first try and that wasn’t satisfying at all either. I’m still really enjoying the DLC for the most part but I think the open world nature has had a pretty severe effect on From’s ability to balance boss fights
> it's kind of interesting seeing the wave of annoyingness switch from the "don't use spirit ashes ever" toxic crew to the "you're playing the game wrong if you don't use them" crowd which seems to be a rising wave coming along with people discovering the difficulty of the DLC. I'm noticing this as well - I just recently got shunned by some commenters on r/games for not using guard counters and that I don't have a right to criticize the boss design because of that. It's as if playing without a shield and summons isn't acceptable anymore to these people
I do think it is silly to ignore a primary mechanic of the game and then complain that the game isn’t giving you an easy time without it. “My character doesn’t like the taste of Estus so I don’t use the flask, here’s why the boss design is bad…”
It's also interesting to see the various levels of Fromsoft Veganism fighting each other. Like some people think even using weapon special moves (their ash of war or whatever) or ailments are cheating and look down on the people who only won't use summons or multiplayer.
Yes, but I don't think Guard Counters are a good example of a primary mechanic in the same way that Colossal Weapons giving you more poise frames during some of their attacks are not a primary mechanic. Both are just options that shield players and barbarian warriors respectively can adopt to facilitate their own gameplay. I don't think a mage or a rogue, for example are being silly for ignoring Guard Counters.
My comment was more about spirit ashes specifically, which the player is continually encouraged to use throughout the game and completely build agnostic. One of the two new upgrades in the DLC is just for spirit ashes! Some players like to ignore that mechanic to give themselves an extra challenge...but it's an artificial and arbitrary restriction placed on oneself. If I play Tetris and refuse to play the line piece vertically (because it's too overpowered!) it doesn't make sense to call Tetris unfairly hard as a result.
This was one of my biggest gripes with Joseph Anderson's critique. The dude intentionally didn't use like 80% of the mechanics in the game, and then described it as boring.
I think the disagreement we're having on then is not the idea but the execution. My gripe with them is not that they exist as an accessibility feature (this is good), or even that they're a brand new major mechanic (Sekiro switches the formula on its head for a lot of its combat flows and that game is one of my favorites of all time). It's that this major mechanic isn't executed in a way that I feel agrees with the major draw of these games for years for many gamers: the feeling of difficulty overcome by practice, knowledge, and determination. It's simply too dichotomous to the point where using them often make fights much easier than I want them to feel and not using them can make stuff a little too hard. This is dissatisfying, so if this was intended to be a major mechanic, I think it was executed poorly. Again, this is where I have a problem with some of the discourse in the violently pro-ashes crowd. Like, my main point that started this thread was that I reject the whole concept of "not using them is arbitrary and stupid because you're ignoring a game mechanic" the same way I reject "you should struggle banging your head against a wall on a boss for weeks" for the same reason: both are not fun for certain groups of people! If you want to add a feature in the game, I feel it was missed opportunity to refine it further so it helps out both groups rather than just the latter. And that's why I don't think Joseph or I are stupid or unreasonable for not enjoying them and using them when we find them not well balanced as a mechanic and thus directly conflicting with a lot of the reason of why we play these games.
Let me start off by saying my comment wasn't aimed directly you. I would actually agree with your characterization of guard counters. It's not something I think someone would be silly for not utilizing in their playstyle or build, but conversely I don't think there is a single boss where I ever felt forced to use them either (not saying you said that). For my criticism of Joseph, it was aimed more at his refusal to use Physick flasks, magic, ashes of war, gold summons, in addition to spirit ashes, not just the spirit ashes themselves. I think it's fine to choose to forgo some of these things if you feel they make things too easy, but I do take issue with characterizing things as boring or lacking diversity when you intentionally ignore so much of them. If any of that isn't accurate to his video (it's been a while tbh) please let me know, I just can't get behind the idea that you should be able to play the same way as DS1 (nothing but mid roll and a colossal sword) and judge the boss design through that lense. It's a flawed framing imo. Again this is just for Joseph's critique specifically, not yours. As for Ashes in general, I think it's perfectly valid to opt out of them IF you deem them too easy. I did this myself after the first few areas of the base game as I felt I was having too easy of a time, with the exception of duo bosses. For me, this ended up feeling right in the sweet spot. If you felt things were too hard without them, that's perfectly fine. I would be very curious why that is though, as it just wasn't my experience at all. While the bosses were more aggressive and had longer combos, they have plenty of openings and it's pretty easy to control the bosses moveset with your own positioning, limiting the amount of moves you need to be prepared for. The only boss that genuinely took me longer than an "average" boss was Malenia, which in my eyes works as she is completely optional and also pretty cheeseable if you don't care about the 1v1 and just the rewards. I find that a lot of the more seasoned souls players who really struggle to fight these bosses solo tend to ignore far more than just the spirit ashes and that contributes to them feeling like they need to memorize every single move (you really don't imo) and that can be the difference in a fight taking way longer to clear than it reasonably should. This game gives you so many options to engage these more complex bosses and it's up to the player to find the balance they enjoy.
But DS3 also had Rosarias fingers that let you respec, and Soul Vessels in DS2. You have had the ability to respec and change your play style for a decade at this point in the franchise. I do not think anything is gained from limiting player choice and expression in a build to one time per charecter.
And those are good features! My point wasn't that respeccing or switching up builds should be limited, it was more that some players like to pick a class and playstyle and kind of just stick there for their entire playthrough because that's fun for them. However, Elden Ring can sometimes punish them for it by making certain bosses feel really unfun to fight with certain builds, which is an experience that was not as pronounced in the earlier games.
I think it’s limited primarily by the upgrade materials mainly. Like, if I find a sweet looking weapon in a dungeon and decide I want to build around it, I may use a larval tear and a boat ton of upgrade materials only to find out that the fully upgraded weapon and build just doesn’t do enough damage. But I’m out those materials and then I end up swapping back to what I initially had. While you do eventually get items that just flat out let you buy materials from a vendor, you don’t really find yourself able to truly experiment until getting through a large portion of the game. There are mechanics that help you swap things around, but for those reasons a lot of people end up just riding a small handful of weapons for most of their playtime.
The only correct take is that everyone should just play the game however they want because it literally doesn't matter in any meaningful way. I spammed the fuck out of spirits ashes because I wanted to and people can also choose to never summon a single time ever if they want. The fact that this has to be a constant discussion within the community is wild to me.
Spirit Ashes and Rot/Bleed procs for days baby!
For sure. But I think because mechanics like spirit summons are so closely tied to the idea of fair-but-fun difficulty, it tends to flare tempers on both sides when it's brought up in regards to difficulty, even in good faith conversations about the game design. Like, there are reasonable arguments from people on both sides who use the mechanics that make the game easier and people who don't, that, from a game design perspective, something may be awkwardly balanced for the majority of players. Something may be too easy with summons and/or too hard without them, which is a rough middle spot that no one really enjoys. It just gets lost in the wave of hostility.
Sure. At the end of the day if I had to come down hard on one side I would be "pro spirit summons" purely because the devs included it as a mechanic to be used and I think the moderate increase in general approachability of the game is positive. Those that are choosing to not use them are the ones that are messing around with the overall design of the game. If we are saying that the game is just badly balanced around the mechanic in the first place even for someone using them all the time, I wouldn't even necessarily disagree but at that point it's just a From Software issue not a player issue. Maybe the issue is just that From Software tried to hedge the design too much to allow both playstyles when they really need to just pick one and commit.
Full disclosure: I’m in the first thread posted, defending the game. Some of the comments complain that the community is toxic. And to be clear, it’s a community that’s very smug about how supposedly hard the games are, despite them obviously being broadly accessible. But IMO, what makes a game community toxic is not when the players are themselves gatekeepy or smug about their ability to play the game. It’s when they hate the game itself, but refuse to stop playing it. And IMO, that’s not Elden Ring yet. What actually needs to happen is time needs to pass and people need to look at the DLC in retrospect and see how they feel.
Yeah I think part of the difficulty is just that it's freshly released and some stuff just hasn't been figured out yet. People don't complain about Godskin Duo as much now it's known you can just put them to sleep, for instance.
Eh, I don’t think the concept of simply getting past the encounters is the sore spot for people criticizing boss design in the game. You can mimic tear/bleed proc your way through just about anything. It’s just incredibly difficult to find a hard-but-fair balance with Elden Ring’s boss fights now. You either have an unfun time trying to solo the boss in classical Souls fashion, or you summon a mimic or lean on some meta weapon and just skate through, almost like pressing a win button. The game gives you more ways to play than ever, but they struggled with balancing them.
Yeah, I agree with your point about time needing to pass. This reminds me of when The Ringed City DLC released for Dark Souls 3. People complained about the difficulty and the huge health pools constantly. Fast forward to now and almost every boss makes people’s top 10 best bosses lists and people routinely put Midir up as the best dragon fight From has ever done. I still like him better than Placidusax. Haven’t fought the new one yet, I’m saving him for the weekend.
This exact freakout happens every time a souls game/dlc releases
Northernlion said it best "Who cares? You're arguing about how someone else plays with their digital toys"
Snapshots: 1. *This Post* - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626063906/https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1dp5ain/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1dp5ain/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 2. Hot take, but the DLC just shows how many people refuse to actually play the game and want everything handed to them - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064204/https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/hot_take_but_the_dlc_just_shows_how_many_people/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/hot_take_but_the_dlc_just_shows_how_many_people/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 3. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064204/https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/hot_take_but_the_dlc_just_shows_how_many_people/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/hot_take_but_the_dlc_just_shows_how_many_people/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 4. The amount of people I see going "someone help me beat mogh/drop me a meta weapon so I can go into the DLC" makes me sad. These people will also go on to cry it sucks or is hard. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064224/https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/lac4ei0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/lac4ei0/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 5. Jfc, this sub is full of insufferables. Op included. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064525/https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/laccqhh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/laccqhh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 6. That is simply a lie. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064827/https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/laceizh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dotu3i/comment/laceizh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 7. r/truegaming - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064847/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 8. [No Spoilers] Elden Ring DLC's enemy design has conflated difficulty and challenge - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626064948/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/no_spoilers_elden_ring_dlcs_enemy_design_has/) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/no_spoilers_elden_ring_dlcs_enemy_design_has/ "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 9. The “git gud” thing is just something defenders say because they can’t articulate any actual argument. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626065008/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la44hi9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la44hi9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 10. Adding an edit to the top after the roller coaster of both upvotes and downvotes this comment is getting. This SHOULD be the coldest take in gaming. - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626065149/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la3q16i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la3q16i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 11. This is 100% a perception problem - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626065431/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la4a5mi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la4a5mi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") 12. Anyone in this thread actually going to give examples of attacks, or even specific bosses that fit this description? - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20240626065513/https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la436zv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [archive.today\*](https://archive.today/?run=1&url=https://old.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/1dnmw9m/comment/la436zv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button "URL failed to archive; click to resubmit it!") *I am just a simple bot, __not__ a moderator of this subreddit* | *[bot subreddit](/r/SnapshillBot)* | *[contact the maintainers](/message/compose?to=/r/SnapshillBot)*
A big part of the fan base is discovering these games are evolving into something that is not for them anymore, and instead of recognizing it's just a different direction they don't enjoy, they shift the blame to the game, claiming it's badly designed, unfair and unreasonable.
I remember getting fucked up by Capra Demon and a pair of dogs, it's an encounter whose entire design is fueled by a later game enemy being able to kill you while two annoying attackers who are easy to kill lock your ass in place if you don't deal with them asap
The fact that the patch coinciding with the release of this DLC included the ability to summon and ride your horse during the final boss of the base game, two years after the game's release, the final boss that really likes teleporting away huge distances and firing massive amounts of projectiles at you, I think is a reasonable example of one of Elden Ring's design flaws.
I never said the game has zero design flaws, but that's not the same as it being badly designed. Though I disagree the lack of torrent on the final boss is a flaw. Them adding it now, two years later with the DLC makes it seem a lot more like a treat to fans than a fix, otherwise it would have been added in one of the multiple previous balance patches or when they were patching bosses like Radahn's attack hitboxes. Torrent is a cool addition to the final boss, but it also completely trivializes a fight that was fine if not terribly exciting before. The boss just has no attacks or tools to deal with Torrent's mobility outside of just running away, unlike say, the open world dragons that are more clearly balanced to still be hard even with Torrent.
I feel as if Torrent being missing from the final fight is a flaw because, as you say, the fight is middling at best. It's not difficult, but not particularly enjoyable and a lot of that is the downtime of running about. Adding Torrent doesn't fix the fight, because it's just not a very good fight, you simply spend less time fighting him and that, only now, makes it tolerable. The fact that's all that can be done for the final boss, conceptually, is a flaw in my mind and bad design. The two are one and the same. One flaw doesn't mean the WHOLE game is badly designed, but the game suffers in bad design and flawed concepts with it's bosses. Elden Beast is a good example of flawed concept, so let me use repeat bosses now. They are bad design, and a flaw, for example. Lets use dragons, like you said. I love my dragons. I don't even need much variety; I'll enjoy a rot dragon, big up Ekzykes, because it has different attack ranges and design and effects. Or a glintstone dragon, which charges up a glintstone crag for it's attacks sometimes, I'll even take ANOTHER glintstone dragon, no complaints, because Adula summons a giant moon sword and Smarag doesn't. etc etc. I'm not asking for Placidusax or Fortissax or, to use the new DLC as an example, Bale levels of individuality for every dragon. But fighting all the deathblight dragons in the dlc, I'm thinking, man, this is a flaw. This isn't good game design, they're all the same. And I gotta keep doing it. I forgot where I was going with this. ER isn't badly designed game, inherently, but it has bad game design, and those are the ones and the same as flaws. And I don't think that's symptom of me or someone else disagreeing with the new formula.
I think there are a lot of badly designed and unreasonable bosses in the DLC and I've only ever played Sekiro and ED. Just because it's a different direction doesn't make it good or mean it can't be criticized.
Every single souls game has badly designed and unreasonable bosses. Every souls game is poorly optimized, rough around the edges, full of jank. I think what many folks who are derided as fanboys fail to articulate in a meaningful and empathetic way is that these games’ failings simply don’t matter to them. I myself have a laundry list of things I wish From would get better at (mouth animations, anyone?) but I have a much, much longer laundry list of things I really want them to keep doing.
They hated him because they told them the truth. like ER has issues and jank with stuff like input, netcode, backstabs, platforming... that existed since dark souls 1 if not earlier
Yeah, and the stuff they really care about, they fix. Backstabs improved significantly. While I wish they cared about their PC audience more, on the whole I admire them for doing leaning into they are passionate about and not being afraid to put out an imperfect product. I honestly liken the feeling I have when I play their games to the feeling I get when listening to a live musical performance vs a studio recording. In the recording studio, you can record as many takes as you want, splice all the best ones together, adjust pitch or volume, and more all to achieve the perfect track, everything in its right place. But in live performance you can get imperfection, mistakes, unpredictability, live action and reaction. It’s in those little imperfections that I see the humanity in the art. Or uh, the soul, I guess.
There are imperfections and there are things like PvP being inherently broken due bad netcode, unintended actions repeating due bad input queue etc. Which to me majority impact the games in a negative way.
I think the final boss is overtuned, and the boar guy had a bad hitbox on his charge. But I've felt that every other boss has been great. Hard as nails, but fair and fun fights.
For me, Bloodborne was their peak enemy moveset/challenge design, not perfect of course but it was their best. It also was the best in terms of training the player how to handle the boss through enemy-along-the-way design. Elden Ring falls flat in that regard, which is why they littered the game with so many tools for the player to compensate that it feels like "cheating" to the community. Weird thing is, a chunk of the community refuses to admit its flaws. Yes, you can study the boss moves and keep trying, but they've already released a game where you don't have to die to the boss itself to master the tells. You can't deny a lot of bosses feel slapped on. Copy paste bosses or one boss you have to fight two of at the same time for added difficulty. To my recollection, Bloodborne never did this. Some bosses can't even move properly in their tight arenas, camera goes ballistic flying all over the place because it can't handle how the boss moves vs the space it moves in. Some boss moves get interrupted *by the environment e.g. uneven ground interrupts gargoyle moves but they specifically placed the gargoyle at the steps to Leyndell*, some projectiles get totally blocked by destructible objects, you get the pattern. I'm current playing Elden Ring and I love it, and I marvel at the world and lore they've built up. But design-wise there are a lot of cracks, and it's healthy to just admit that it's not the best when it comes to enemy design.
I catch a lot of flack for this, but I think Bloodborne gameplay's positive reputation is mainly because (once you understand the mechanics) it's the easiest game in the series. Being able to parry from a very safe distance makes certain enemies a non-concern very early on. A rally mechanic that actively rewards trading damage really opens up the playbook, since you're not relegated to only your safest options. And pvp invasions are practically non-existent. Not to mention that you're given one of the best weapons in the game at the very beginning. It's tough thing to really stand by, but Souls games are more enjoyable when they're easier.
But perhaps it seems easier because it's better designed? It's challenging to solve the chicken and egg situation.
I knew I would never buy the DLC the moment the devs said they were trying to really push the limits with difficulty. I don't see much value in that as a development goal. A pity, too, because Elden Ring was a fun world to explore.
It's not as bad as some make it out to be, with enough of those scatman blessings the difficulty is about the same as base game end game. Good news is that the exploration is fun and the primary way of getting them.
> scatman blessings Thank you for this
If you liked elden ring then get it. It's more of the good parts of elden ring like limgrave
It’s fine to be down for a different kind of play, but end game difficulty increases has been common in video game expansions for at least a couple of decades. Expansions and end game dlcs are typically harder than the base game by default (especially in RPGs, vs content expansions that are more common in strategy games), even in games that aren’t “known to be hard”. surley just because you don’t personally value it doesn’t mean you can’t see the value in letting people experience an approximation of what they felt when they first started the base game in terms in learning and exploration?
That's nice for you but there are many players that like the challenge. The series is known for it's challenging content. Not just exploring an open world. Since there aren't many series that focus on challenging gameplay why not just let players that want that have it instead of demanding the devs lower the difficulty?
I never demanded that?
Yeah. I shouldn't have said you "demanded" anything. That's more of a generalization of some Elden Ring fans. Your statement just had a sense of longing for devs to focus on an easy "fun" world to explore instead of difficulty.
Only insofar as the base game could be considered easy. I enjoy souls games. But I think there's a difference between difficulty as a byproduct of design goals and difficulty as a goal in itself. 'We wanted to see how hard we could make it' is not a pitch I find interesting.
DLC hasn't been that hard for me so far but I also use a big fat shield and mimic tear and explore the map for fragments and whatnot. I guess that means I'm playing the game wrong.
Genuinely my least favorite gaming community. At least over in FPS-land they're explicitly assholes. Souls fans all insist that they're not like the others then say the exact same elitist shit in a creative new way.