Just wanted to comment briefly on the patch thingy that dropped the same day as this video. Think it is very much worth noting that a lot of the changes to Radahn - particularly to the cross slash - are oriented around making him *rollable*. This speaks fairly significantly to From's design priorities. They want the boss to be rollable.
As someone who only played ds1 before, where using a shield was actually a viable strategy, i tried the same in elden ring. Oh boy i found out quickly that its not viable here. Also am i the only one who thinks an armored knight, rolling around, sometimes directly into attacks, to avoid them, just looks stupid? Anyways... Awesome video dude. Showed it to some of my friends who asked me what problems i had with elden ring, as you had articulated them better than i ever could.
@@simsansonguff...i would have to lie to you here. The last time i touched elden ring was almost a year ago. My point was more that using shield felt a lot more punishing in this game, in comparison to ds1. And rolling in comparison seems almost op. Like the game didnt really give me a reason to not rely just on my roll, and instead trying to block the attacks. Which is probably why i never seen people use shields in this game...ever. especially in boss fights
@@wingedassassin9999 boy do I have News for you then, because the most viable way of beating consort radahan was using a shield and rapier, which has a unique attack when guarding with a shield. The entire reason Shield's were so under utilized was because no one really experimented with them, lol. Plus there's multiple talisman that make Shield's really good, and even the deflecting hard tear from the dlc gives you the ability to perfect block, like the way you do in sekiro.
I really enjoyed Theo's 25 minutes long intro about twitter drama, his childhood with DeS and those damn Elitist Gamers with skits, it really made this video enjoyable
I loved the words on screen that repeat what he has already said. Although it lacked jarring transitions and awful structuring that separate his points in artsy fartsy ways. Lastly, it lacked the 1 HP voice coupled with inconsistent delivery. Outside of these few issues, solid video.
@@yanribeiro7108 talking that Soulsborne are his ex gf was a bit much but I understood his point pretty well, let's hope the alt right on r/mauler will not dogpile on him for this
- Random Fromsoft employee: Mr Miyazaki-san... - Miyazaki: Let me guess, a second Matthewmatosis video has hit the studio - Random Fromsoft employee: No sir, this time it was Theo´s - Miyazaki: Oh..
The most frustrating part of modern Fromsoft game discourse is that any time anyone brings up the garbage nature of a lot of the boss design nowadays, some dude that died to the boss 72 times using a greatshield with two summons and 33 spirit ashes will swoop in and condescendingly claim everything is fine and if you have a problem, you're just salty and bad at the game. Having an actual critical discussion around Souls nowadays is literally impossible, simply due to the fact that games are "hard", so if you struggle, it must just be on you, and it can never be due to objective poor design. From could literally create a boss with a one frame grab that instantly kills you, deletes your save file, steals you credit card info, and reaches through the screen to punch you in the mouth, and there would still be droves of morons lining up to say "nah bro just get gud". Swaths of the population place a strange sense of pride and ego on the fact that they beat a Souls game once, and their struggle NEEDS to be validated. That boss they spent 52 hours beating HAS to be a well designed, fair challenge that they were just sick enough to overcome, because otherwise it calls into question their entire bizarre sense of self-worth around these games. Toxic as hell to engage with.
This describes incredibly well how the road to 10/10 for this game must go psychologically. xD It's fine to enjoy it, but the defense is often so unreasonable...
I find people being proud of beating a video game pretty sad and cringe ngl, it's a video game bro, it was made to be beaten. It doesn't make you special or different at all
No, it's only second worst thing. The actual worst one is the fact that the entirety of game design discourse haa dwindled to just "boss hard good, boss hard bad". Like, nobody is talking about progression systems, dungeons, enemy design, enemy encounters, environmental storytelling, secrets, hidden paths, etc. Everyone just keeps arguing about bosses, as if there isn't about a hundred hours of other content around them. The best we have are arguments about skibidi fragments, but this too boils down to "makes bosses too hard/easy", instead of focusing on it's actual problem - being an artificial padding that serves no purpose other than making you waste hours searching open world every time you want to replay this DLC. It's as if there isn't anything else worth talking about in this game and worse - people are okay with that.
@@gameplayer42069I'd say there are challenges and games beating which can be considered impressive. But then again when doing challenges the only one you have to prove anything to is yourself. Too bad a lot of people don't understand this. Souls community used to be a nice spot for challenge and speed runners, now it's mostly just elitists and crybabies.
@@kindlingking I personally found annoying how empty the vast map felt yeah, full of pointless crafting items and redundant weapon upgrade materials I no longer need by that point. Making even regular enemies insanely annoying to fight, whoever put like 20 of the pest thread lobsters on the same small valley really needs to take a step back. The fire knights, hornsent and that insane dancing dude with the circle blades just reinforce the "just run past everything" attitude people been having for years, and that's why now every enemy has a roll catch or some move designed to catch you while running away
I have been realizing lately that despite liking the game a lot, I have been blitzing through bosses and areas so that I'd engage with their mechanics the least, as if I felt like they were wasting my time. This was a very well constructed video, I hope to see more of this.
Theo thoroughly and precisely pointing out the flaws and issues of a not perfect game that has a pretty aggressive fan base is the only thing that brings me joy in life.
I actually hate the Elden Ring fanbase. They took the smug elitism of the Dark Souls fans and cranked it up to 11 and turn rabid if you dare even suggest that Elden Ring is not the most perfect game ever devised by our lord and saviour Michael Zaki.
@@Daniel_C_Griffin They're honestly what killed my enjoyment for ER funny enough. Any issue or criticism I had was always met with so much venom from them. Their toxicity turned my love of a flawed game into a tolerance and then a dislike for ER completely.
@@13JackDiamond ur pathetic for letting a loud minority ruin your enjoyment of an entire game. Stop being chronically online. If i listened to the loud minority of joseph anderson fans/critics, i wouldn’t be able to enjoy anything at all.
I enjoy finding videos like this, which are brilliantly argued and well put together, I disagree completely with almost everything that he says but I respect the willingness to actually make an argument instead of just going "IT NOT LIKE IT WAS 13 YEARS AGO"
My dear friend, it's so nice to share these ideas and opinions with someone else. Sometimes I really ask myself how people can't see the huge flaws of this game, and the enormous potential that this game and his DLC had. Instead, we got a DS3 mod but open world. I'm not saying everything is bad but I really expected something more, something really new. On a closing note, congratulations for the accuracy and meticulous study on the topics of this video. Keep on the good work!
Absolutely delighted to see Fatalis get a shoutout in this That fight needs to be studied at length as an example of a developer who fuly understood the exact limits and possibilities of their combat and boss design
It's my favorite boss of all time, what an amazing fight. Everything about the arena is useful in the fight too, unlike Elden ring's arenas which are nothing but flat ground with walls and sometimes shit terrain elevation.
Fatalis is pretty incredible. I have my share of friction-points with the fight, but that comes with how far they pushed the possibilities of World. Like, I don't usually like bosses enough to try to speedrun them, but here i am with a 10:01 Longsword Fatalis kill and an 11:14 with Greatsword. There's really a huge amount of learning just for that one fight, per weapon even. Prob the best dragon fight I've run into in a game. I do however have a personal soft spot for Azure Rathalos, Tempered specifically so you get more of a fight out of him.
@@Theottree Damn, loving world azure rathalos is a hot take and a half. I think he's very underrated, I love flying monsters in general, and people seem to underestimate how much you can still hit monsters, even if they're flying. They never fly out of reach of any weapon for extended periods, but still offers an extra challenge in dealing with a foe who entered a less vulnerable stance.
Damn, i stopped playing MHW at Furious Rajang because i felt like i had my fill of the game. Always hear a bunch of praise of Fatalis but never got to him
@@Ghorda9yeah jump what? When? What position? The problem isn’t that there isn’t a solution, the problem is that the solution is only found EXCLUSIVELY by trial and error, against something designed to trick you. It’s like taking a test made up of exclusively trick questions. There is barely any helpful information before any of these attacks land, that the only way to find the optimal solution is to behave erratically after every attack to find the best answer, or just panic roll and keep your distance until you notice the upmost safe window. It lulls you into barely surviving until you get a hit in, then running away. Why try something different when it might fuck up the run? I’m very new to SoulsLikes, Elden Ring was my first, a few months ago when the DLC came out. I went back and played DS3 after beating Elden Ring and the DLC multiple times. I didn’t like it for other reasons, but the bosses had so much more logic and reason with why they’re doing the attacks, and how to answer these attacks when you see them the first time. Lies Of P takes this to the perfect degree. I can’t tell you how many times I perfect blocked something the first time I saw them simply due to excellent context clues given by clear animations and good camera work. Yes there’s usually a different answer besides roll forever, but it’s the most tedious BS to try and find that. Everything in the DLC is a “haha, gotcha!” Troll move. The ONLY ways to win are brute force with OP stuff, or straight up memorization. This level of weird “yes daddy I’ll behave correctly next time” masochism is not fun at all. I was never once happy with defeating a DLC boss, I was just relieved that it was over. The world building, rpg progression, vibe and some of the bosses allow me to not hate the DLC and enjoy many parts of it. However, especially after playing Lies Of P, I’ll really never enjoy Elden Ring as much as I used too. I was so late to the party I didn’t know how shitty the party actually became, I was just happy to be there.
This is a well thought out critique, Theo. I will admit, i felt some frustration at your comments on the EFAP, and when i saw this video, i thought it would just be bashing and antagonizing fans. But no, this was a very constructive and observant critique that i think anyone who is a fan of the games should take the time to listen to. I 100% agree that the roll-catch and "gotcha" moves from the main game have gotten a lot worse in the DLC. Messmer may be a favorite boss of mine, but he definitely punishes intuitive gameplay on a first time fight. Many of his attacks have bizarre patterns that only encountering the first time will teach you how to deal with them. I personally hope they do not continue with this mentality of bosses needing to "trick" the player.
The thing is, this is nothing more or less than Theo was trying to communicate on that EFAP episode, he just didn't have the time to explain in detail and the rest of the panel weren't willing to connect the dots on his shortened argument. I've been waiting for this video ever since.
Coming from Dark Souls to Elden Ring, the way bosses would just pause halfway through an attack just to catch you rolling was such an annoying way to increase difficulty.
@@kari2570 maybe exercise some patience. Why do you think you never have to recover stamina? Delayed attacks. + u can just hit them during tje windup. It’s an infinitely better system than the mindiess dodge, r1 in ds3. Allows for way more skill expression.
@@Stanzbey69 I never said I can't fight them, I've finished them game many times over, it's just annoying. Previous games you could react when you see them attack, but now they just pause halfway through an attack because FromSoft knows people like to dodge. You are punished for reacting logically to an attack.
@@kari2570 learn the timing then. The best and most challenging and rewarding bosses have always had tricky timings. Not a problem then, not a problem now
I can’t wait. Your videos are awesome and every time I watch one I feel more educated on game design and why mechanics work the way they do. Thank you.
I miss the immersive elements that have been lost since the early Souls days. The currency made the most sense in Demon's Souls. Demons valued souls and losing yours led to a permanent death. You gained levels from the Maiden in Black using the souls that are spent to gain a level to strengthen your own soul. In Dark Souls, there was a consistent theme that the world you're in is dying, which was reflected through most of the bosses being folks who shaped the world being well past their prime. Gwyn was Hollow, Nito was having his strength sapped, Seath had gone mad and blind, the Witch of Izalith turned into a weird tree, ect. It reinforced the idea that the player character was such a small player in the world, considering they were still in great danger despite the world being on its last legs. Knowing that it took so much strength and skill to overcome this dying land gave me the impression that I would have been very inconsequential if the other residents of this world had been in their prime.
It's not only that, it's also the fact that you weren't the first one, nor the tenth one, nor even a thousandth one who embarked on this journey. Hell, you even go to Lordran because other guy was going to, but got mortality wounded and instead offered this honour to you. And in Boletaria despite getting through the fog you actually die like the rest before you and are only brought back because you were a necessary tool for the Maiden in Black. This always bugged me how in Elden Ring tarnished are supposedly the lowest of the low, yet they're also special and practically all are chosen ones. People try so hard to call ER dark fantasy when it's obviously high fantasy and should've leaned into this more instead of reusing old narratives.
@@kindlingking Narratively, that was also one of my bigger gripes with ER. You plop into the world, and instantly: - Melina, most likely the daughter of literally God, takes a liking to you upon finding you unconsciously on the ground and gives you her magical and legendary horse - Words spread about you receiving the mystical horse, and Demigod + 1/3's Empyrean tracks you down, finds you interesting as well and gives you her magical bell as well Having a harem of goddesses literally tracking you down and showering you with powerful gifts, compared to the humbled fate of Oscar, is an insane contrast I just could never get myself around.
I love how excellent this guy is at the game, cavorting around the bosses like a ballerina, and he STILL understands that finessing a game does equal _enjoying_ the game. I miss Bloodborne. 😟
To make a music analogy, for me, learning a difficult boss in a game with good combat is like learning to play and memorize a difficult song on the piano While learning a boss in Elden Ring is like memorizing 5 pages of random notes on the piano.
Definitely agree on the nonsensical animation hindering the experience. Learning when to i-frame through boss moves in the earlier games was more engaging because most of the stuff you were dodging felt reasonable for a human character to accomplish, and generally easy to understand visually. Fast forward to ER and you're constantly somersaulting directly through lightspeed weapon combos and fiery explosions. Visually it just looks ridiculous, and the safe frames to dodge through attacks are so arbitrary that you basically have to think of the boss fights in terms of frame data and hitboxes, instead of a believable fantasy encounter. It's natural that failing and repeating a difficult challenge in a game will lead to memorizing patterns, but it's far less enjoyable when the visuals feel irrelevant to the actual timing required of you.
I just don't understand how that's inherently bad, it's about trial and error. Every souls game has always been about trial and error. You're not gonna tell me Sekiro bosses always had intuitive movement and telegraphs, yet Sekiro gets praise for its boss design.
@@Zlbm0Demon's Souls, the game from which the entire subgenre originated, is not trial and error by design. You can brute force it and play that way, but world tendency discourages repeated deaths while as a human. All bosses, save for False King Allant and the Maneaters, have substantial weaknesses that you're encouraged to exploit or attainable means of making the fight easier for any build that the game keeps you clued in on. Even the literal infinite reviving boss who can trick you into bashing your head against a wall isn't a skill or DPS check that you're expected to triumph over by trying until you succeed, it only demands that you pay attention to the level design to circumvent the resurrection.
@@myb8955 ok if me saying “every souls game” was that important to you, then every souls game since ds1 has been trial and error. I don’t think demon’s souls, which is generally considered the worst and most outdated in the series, should be a good model for boss/level design. We’ve evolved past that.
@@Zlbm0 I don't care if you think the game is bad or that you imagine that it is widely disliked, it isn't the only game in the series that doesn't conform to trial and error game design anyways. The actual point is that none of its successors, which ape every bit of their identity from Demon's Souls, necessarily have to be trial and error if the first of their kind wasn't. You've been psyopped into thinking that "muh trial and error" is a servicable excuse for boring, repetitive boss and level design purely due to the Prepare to Die branding concocted by the marketing geniuses at Bandai Namco.
@@myb8955 imagine having this much of an ego and superiority complex over a video game opinion. Actual basement dwelling behaviour. “You’ve been psyopped into thinking you find this fun” like shut up honestly. If you think it’s boring then that’s fine, but don’t insult my intelligence just because I like a certain type of game.
Theo mentioning C. Radahn's unavoidable cross slash triple attack as a problem move, the day the game was updated to slow swings enough so the move is now easily dodgable with 3 normal timed rolls stings 😭 My man could not have been more unlucky with that
@@FriedShrimp04 The teenagers defending that move legitimately have brain damage, and maybe me as well for even attempting to argue with them. There's this weird idea that souls somehow isn't a videogame and doesn't need to have stuff "normal" videogames have, like intended methods to pass obstacles, real basic design elements. These are the people who will complain about casuals coming into the series, yet it is they who seem to have not played many videogames or understand the underlying lexicons good ones come with. Of course that move needed to be changed. It was trivial, free punish for anyone using a greatshield (an already simple and easy build), and an almost guaranteed damage, 1 flask tax for anyone on a light build relying on rolls.
@@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERSPeople complaining about casuals coming into the series are mostly the newcomers themselves. Before DS2 released, souls series was obscure game genre that was on same way of popularity as bullet hells or visual novels. Hell, you could have buy Demon Souls back in 2008 in some random store for a few bucks amongst other small games on display, thats how little popular it was. Reason why the difficutly in older games was enjoyable was because the game let you pick your style, ANY style worked. In Elden Ring you are forced into style you dont want to play. For instance in DS2 I could have dual wield caestus and go to town, trade blows, tank boss attacks with high vigor and armor, in Elden ring? Ye armour is made of thin paper and you might get occasional jab at boss after three to four rolls. These new "fans" dont even know what made the old games special.
"I am bad. I am really bad. I'm so bad, that I'm very upset at how bad I am. I wish Elden Ring didn't force me to realize how bad I actually am. I don't want to get good at the video game. This game is very poorly designed." - The Imagined Theo, echoing off the inside of a SotE fan's head
Shadow of the Erdtree basically made me realise that my patience in the Souls games has been worn down to nothing, and watching this video really solidifies this feeling.
Go back and play Dark Souls 3 again if you haven't played in several years and if you haven't played it a ton of times already. I went back and played it again after 8 years and it's so good and honestly much better than Elden Ring.
@@Stanzbey69he destroyed Elden Ring years before it was even conceived - from lazy reuses of old systems, themes and narratives to even further sterilisation of the game and it's shift from an adventure into foreign world, where you have to be observant of surroundings and use them to your advantage, to a roll pressing game. Players kept insisting on "fair duels" and now every fight is just that - a duel in a flat circle which everyone leading to it (world, level, enemy design) being secondary.
Pretty refreshing to see some real critique of the boss design instead of blindly praising everything about the game like I've seen in other essays. You perfectly captured everything that frustrated me to hell and back about this DLC and even the base game. Personally I wish you had gone into more depth with each of the bosses and showed what did and didn't work about them. I don't think you mentioned Romina, Putrescent Knight, Metyr, Midra or Leda w/allies at all. Nothing else on Gaius or Radahn besides their most BS attacks. That's a minor nitpick in an otherwise fantastic video though.
Do you by chance have your own Discord server that you talk more about the game in? I'd love to chat about it and maybe Monster Hunter too. I'm also curious to hear your opinion on Lies of P if you played it.
I don't have my own public discord at current no. Regarding Lies of P, I played about 40 minutes of it or so and it failed to grab me. It was fine enough, but I am at the point that a 'Souls-style' introductory section, or framework in general, turns me off quite fast. I was not enthused by walking around Bloodborne-adjacent locales spamming to death enemies that couldn't fight back, then finding The Big Enemy and needing to maybe learn his attacks for a bit, etc etc etc. Can't really speak for or against the game's actual quality, but I just don't think I'm interested at this point
When Elden Ring first came out I genuinely felt crazy because of all the glazing it got from everyone I knew friends, coworkers, and family. Fromsoft taking their souls formula to the open world was a mistake and their failure with Elden Ring should be apparent to more people. Thanks for highlighting the issues with it and the many problems Elden Ring presents I no longer feel quite so insane.
I disagree completely. The open world was amazing. It was brilliant. Not perfect, but the sense of exploration was unforgettable. I want more of that, not less.
@@joshlin8002 Good news, Elden Ring was very successful so they’ll make more games for you. Glad you liked it but to me it’s all sooooo empty. What is supposed to be engaging about empty fields with infinite hollow soldier reskins? The garbage loot? The lazy reuse of bosses? What is there to DO in the open world? If the answer is that the game is pretty then that means less than nothing to me. I’d agree to have all games look like cruelty squad if they had better gameplay as a result without a moments hesitation.
I had the exact same feeling. I am seeing more people having negative opinions about the DLC about problems already present in the main game. It feels like an "I told you so!"-moment. I guess hype is a hell of a drug?
@@MindIfICutInyoure acting like the other games are filled with whim and wonder at every which turn… fuck no! The other games have holes you fall into and die for no reason. Elden ring also has that but is significantly more enjoyable to travel around in. The map couldve been cut nearly in half, ill give you that, but you’re acting like being not open world is infinitely better when it has tons of problems too. As a result of its design, Elden Ring has T O N S of replayability. Dark Souls 3, for example, has nothing to show for its design after just one playthrough. You are crazy i guess, because most people want to play the game they buy for full price a lot of times and get enjoyment out of it… thats why ER is open world. Also although the enemies leave something to be desired, the point is more so treating it like an rpg on each subsequent playthrough and having to deal with different dungeons each time on different builds.
It’s crazy how I agree with nearly everything you say, yet I still really like Elden Ring. I guess that’s the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. Really great video Theo! I enjoyed this analysis and learned quite a lot!
Correct but most people think that criticizing the game is the equivalent to shitting in their mouth. These people can’t differentiate between their subjective feelings (which can only be changed by themselves) and objective criticism and honestly it kinda saddens me that there aren’t more people with your take, really liking elden ring after listening and understanding the criticism and agreeing that the game has massive problems but still liking it because what the game means to them is for them to decide
Made some excellent points that I totally agree with but I still love the game and I hope fromsoft take some critique to heart and use it to improve in the next one. My biggest wish for the next game is no dodge. It will really make them have to redesign all of their bosses and require a little more depth from the player response. I think Elden ring definitely has a lot of depth, it’s just hidden behind Hours of memorization and optimization, there need to be more intuitive ways to play the game. If I don’t have an dodge and the boss can’t immediately turn 360 to track me then I can intuitively avoid attacks with any/all tools in my disposal.
Messmer teached the Hippo how to delay the first head slam and then deliver the second one right after. This is what they teach in the Elden Boss School. It's actually written in the description of the Shard of the Hippo Turd that you can gather somewhere in some random shack in the world. You people just don't understand the deep lore.
Sidenote I am bewildered by your restraint with this video. So many parts of this dlc deserve multi hour videos on their own right and your self control to not rage against this machine is admirable.
With the various reviews by people like Vaati and Iron Pineapple before release calling it the best thing From Software has made, I honestly felt gaslit when I started playing this. It was so intensely unpleasant that not only do I have no desire to ever revisit the DLC, but the base game just seems significantly worse in retrospect knowing this is what it was all building towards. I've never seen a Souls game repulse me on so many fronts: The huge empty maps, the unfun bosses with all the problems this video lays out, the story that openly and repeatedly contradicts the lore of the base game, even the verticality of the world which is aping Dark Souls 1 but without any of the interconnected looping back or structure or the attention to detail that made it feel natural. I have no desire to play another Souls game again anytime soon after this shit.
About halfway through, had to stop since my lunch was over, but I will pick it up later. Thoroughly enjoying your presentation Theo. Straightforward, no BS approach to a systematic dismantling of this DLC's flagrant errors.
I was disappointed by the Manse as I had the frenzied flame when I went there. Puzzled that Torrent didn’t seem to care about the frenzied village, or the eye of Sauron like tower, but this area he’s gone. Making a HUGE area feel even bigger. Midrange made no comment to it, nothing changed on either playthrough when i had it and went to the manse, or had done it and then went to the three fingers. A BIG missed opportunity in my opinion. Second was The Shaman Village. Village? 4 structures and only 2 have doors which are boarded up. This “village” provided all the Pot Shaman you find in the game? I felt like this being her village it should look like a little town of people she wanted to protect and it’s more like a hill with two houses… SMALL houses. For them to be such amazing environmental storytellers, these were two HUGE moments that told me nothing, or told me a story that makes me think most of it is all lies.
This and matthewmatosis's Lost Soul Art of Demon's Souls made it so much easier for me to put into words my very complicated feelings towards FromSoft's games. As a long time fan of the series, I was very frustrated by not being able to articulate my points precisely. Many times while watching this I've thought something like "Oh wow, that's why I felt like I did, I just never realised that was the reason." Wonderful work, Theo, I really hope you will continue making videos
the meta-argument is spot on. the bosses can only do their delay attacks because they have the meta knowledge that you cant punish(insta kill) them for it. in a real fight you would just stab them if they do crazy shit like that and theyd just die.
So, why can’t you just attack them then? If the attack is slow, surely you have a window of opportunity. You kinda’ defeated your sentiment in real time.
@@ADoggedContender First of all his argument was applied to a "real fight" and for all intents and purposes Dark Souls combat is only very superficially "real". Secondly they ARE punish windows many times once you know how ridiculously long the charge up is, so they rely entirely on you, the player, not thinking that they would be so ridiculously long.
@@ADoggedContender I don't know man, maybe try playing the game a single time. The delays are short enough to set up rolls catches, not enough for you to get any sort of attack in (except for Messmer, who is exquisitely designed). If an enemy staggers, delays are in fact stupid and will get the enemy killed very easily, but almost none of the notable enemies stagger, especially against lighter weapons.
but you can punish them? the delays are literally the attack windows people complain don't exist. For example, Margit holds his sword up for 4 seconds so you can hit him before rolling away. That never stops. Not every attack is punishable but part of learning the fights is finding which windows you have.
@@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERSyou're just lying. Consort Radahn has multiple delayed wind ups that can be punished. As does Rellana, as does nearly every boss in the entire game lmao.
The worst part of seeing this really well constructed critique of not only Erdtree but also Elden Ring is that people are going to say "Yeah well this person did a no hit run so you just need to git gud" as if it dispels all of the issues that the game has.
While we may have some disagreements and our general enjoyment of the game and DLC differ quite a bit, I really appreciate that you've highlighted a lot of the issues that was overlooked by most content creators. Issues I've had with the game from the very start.
Time to watch this a second time. It was a bit weird when you called yourself a cuck because Dark Souls left you for greener pastures, but a good video regardless.
Or sekiro lol. I don't get this complain that FromSoft can do only 1 type of combat system. Sekiro and Armored Core have different combat systems and they are some of the best designed combat systems.
And Miyazaki has talked about Fromsoft having multiple games in development with other directors than himself, so it seems like they've already taken the jump and we'll just have to wait and see.
I think my issue with feints and delays is that it's used too often in ER that it has circled back around to being predictable when the intention was to make bosses unpredictable with them. For some enemies that are established to be highly skilled/intelligent it makes sense to use them a few times, but when every enemy, even non-sentient zombies and giant crabs are using them, it starts to be immersion breaking and exhausting to learn them.
Great video. Does a good job at fleshing out some of the mechanical arguments Mathew made in his video and and does a lot to help explain some of the grievances and annoyances I've had with ER in particular. I especially liked the liked you had about boiling mechanics down.
First time I hear someone talk about the issues of level and encounter design in Elden Ring, especially in legacy dungeons. How everything turned into a simple loop of having a few minor fights in between numerous checkpoints with no flow in progression due to availability of fast travel. There's even quite a few places that you can't leave without teleporting, something that was a rarity in older games, but comes in dozens in Elden Ring, making it feel quite disjointed at times. Something I would add to it is how the focus on the combat loop stripped levels of any mechanical identity. Since it's all about basic combat now, all legacy dungeons play exactly the same, despite looking different. No level shrouded in darkness like Tomb of the Giants, no level full of traps like Sen's Fortress or all the environmental hazards and narrow paths of Blight Town. As mentioned in the video, some side dungeons, even though not amazing, had a bit more going on. Reminded me how in the base game, I found the Carian Manor Tower feeling a lot more magical due to the unexpected twist of it flipping upside down, along with fighting a mage, that actively tries to stay away for some time. And how it compared to the Academy of Raya Lucaria that only had more basic combat to offer with some rooftop platforming, same as every other legacy dungeon in the game.
Brilliant breakdown of telegraphing and responding to them. The enemies build momentum. Hold. killing all kinetic energy. And then releases with all the momentum from before. It doesnt even look cool. It looks like a shitty mod.
I'm looking forward to having my opinions validated, let's go! Also, I love your style of communication, been waiting for this patiently, can't wait to listen to it tomorrow.
“My life is yours Theo, from this day I shall carry forth your will…” “And his fate was sealed, as promised Theo released the Elden ring video, bringing forth the power of a thinker, destroying those who would shill for elden ring and its dlc…”-Narrator (had to finish the bit 😂 )
Top 5 trees in gaming. You got the Whispy Willow in Kirby, Yiddrasil in god of war, Dead Forest in Mortal Kombat, Erdtree in Elden Ring, and the Qliphoth in dmc5
The rubber band snapped for me in base game elden ring. It's become just unintersting level design entirely to serve bafflingly designed copy paste bosses. That's a point I'd like to emphasise. It is atrocious that the reward for exploration is boss fights and a bunch of them are either copy pastes or just plain dogshit.
I usually don´t leave second comments but since this video was pretty good and I like to (whenever possible) engage and offer my perspective to the analysis rather than just a joke, here we go. It´s gonna be a long one, so whether you read the whole thing or just some of it, thank you beforehand for your time and have a nice day. Starting with *level design* , specifically when it comes to the Specimen Storehouse, if I´m to compare it to Research Hall I find that it falls behind. Research Hall was designed around 1 lamp, and it had a system of shortcuts via elevators to connect the different parts of the level, encouraging deeper understanding of how the level worked. Specimen Storehouse has 5 Sites of Grace and the level is layered in a way that, at least to my knowledge, you can´t navigate the whole area from its first Grace even if you already unlocked the rest, you have to teleport and thats it. Even if the level is able to branch into more levels, I find this level to be an example of how Fromsoft often forgets solutions to problems they already solved. Like doing an open world encounter that you have to engage in a sort of Tower Knight-esque way, but much worse, repeated 7-8 times. Or an obscure elevator (from Enir Ilim to Belurat) that by the time you unlock said shortcut you probably realize that it´s of no use to you at that point in the game. Regarding *combat* and *bosses* , I overall find myself agreeing with most, if not all, of your assessments. For context, I´ve cleared most of the DLC bosses on my RL1 character and have nohit them all except for Radahn (So far my pb is 20-ish%) and Midra, using different weapons. Almost every single one of them has some unavoidable (or nearly) or very inconsistent bs going on, Gaius has the charge, Romina has her instant, frame 0 phase transition (which she can keep using), Metyr has the stupid double laser, Radahn has/had the frame trap move (terrain shenanigans in phase 2, AI shenanigans both phases, etc), Bayle´s wonky tracking for his fire breath and also a lot of these have RNG lottery follow-ups they may or may not do. Will Metyr do the ground slam with her head/hands 2 times or 3 times?, Who knows, pretend it´s 3, will Bayle do his headbutt combo extender and/or his firebreath extra-combo extender? Who knows, pretend it´ll happen and roll just in case even if nothing happens. Animation-wise, the Sunflower´s charge animation goes from 0 (enters position and holds it completely still for 2 secs) to 100 (immediately charges at you) with no tell or visual cue in between, Messmer has a subtle tell for his orb when he´s in the air, a grey-ish vfx will appear briefly indicating his descent, Sunflower just doesn´t. I´m sure a lot of you have probably seen people saying things like *"Elden Ring wants you to play differently"* in order to create the illusion that there´s some sort of bandage on top of its problems or that it´s somehow 4D chess in comparison to DS3, it isn´t. If you remove the three mechanics ER adds to the already aging combat blueprint (Guard Countering, ERJump and Crouch) you can still play the game and have a relatively normal experience, if you remove rolling, you´ll be doing a very miserable challenge run. Furthermore, none of these 3 things are nearly as useful or as incentivized as just rolling (there´s barely a couple of main bosses that actively incentivize jumping and only 1 where you could maybe make an argument for crouching). There´s more to it, including bosses, as they are DBZ fusions between at least 6 DS3 bosses (2 of them being Pontiff and Nameless King) but I think it´s clear by this point that this argument is just copium. As Matthewmatosis said, "If you change directions after you hear the shot you´ll be safe...Right?. Wrong, the arrow magically curves in midair because this is no longer a series where you outsmart your opponents, this is a series where you press the roll button at the right time"
Every boss move you said is inconsistent or hard to avoid is not. How have you done a RL1 run and are that bad? Are you just lying to make a point? None of those moves are hard to avoid. Wow.
@@tahireed Try reading what he said again. Like really slowly. I understand you and many others were absent for reading comprehension classes in elementary but just try. Please.
@@crim1188 "Almost every single one of them has some unavoidable or inconsistent bs going on." This is false and all his examples are moves than can easily be avoided. Idk what point you thought he made with that statement but its completely wrong. Learn what the term reading comprehension means and try to not be extremely pretentious and condescending. It will serve you better in the future,
@@tahireed I didn´t say that "Every boss move is inconsistent or had to avoid", I said that almost all of them have inconsistent, outright unavoidable or nearly unavoidable bs going on. You mentioned that my examples are wrong but you didn´t say how or why, just that it is. And just to make things clear, let´s talk about why: -Gaius charge is not consistently dodgeable on medium load, requiring either light load or extra talisman/tear or both. -Romina has an aoe phase transition which deals instant damage right as the vfx/animation starts, it´s not telegraphed in any way and the only way to account for it without taking dmg is by prediction, if you roll right after a punish, thereby predicting or accounting for a move that hasn´t happened yet, it´s likely you won´t take dmg, if you don´t you´ll end up taking dmg, because reacting to this move is at the very least inconsistent. -Metyr´s double laser is not dodgeable if you are at melee range, the move can happen quite fast and covers a lot of ground, and since the first part isn´t dodgeable unless you use Raptor of the Mists, again, you are either forced to use 1 thing to fully dodge it or spend the whole 2nd phase running away, baiting her spinny move and run away again, over and over. Check Aggy´s RL1 no Scadu blessings, check Gino´s strat in his no-hit run of the DLC, that move is the reason why they spend the 2nd Phase running away. -Radahn´s Frame Trap was at the very least, incredibly inconsistent to roll if you happened to be at any place but the one very specific spot to dodge it, it was inconsistent on light load, and even more inconsistent on medium load, as it required frame perfect timing. You can even find footage of Aggy and Gino saying they didn´t like it, Gino even said the boss would still need some tuning(which they did, for a reason) to even be a B Tier boss. -Bayle´s tracking for his fire breath (the one that goes in a straight line) can jump out of the window and go from a breath attack that aims at your current position right at the start to aiming at the position you are running to in order to avoid the first scenario (which is what happens most of the time), making the tracking for this attack inconsistent. If someone needs to learn comprehension, it´s you, this all happened because you made up a statement that I didn´t make, because you didn´t read what I said. And if you want to glaze while offering nothing of substance, go do it somewhere else, this game (a game that I still like btw) has a lot of glazers and you won´t have much trouble finding them.
@@SkepticalBucketman I quoted exactly what you said, word for word and now you are saying that's not what you said. This is one of the saddest things I have ever seen. I'm done. You and the other person need a serious lesson in reading comprehension. You can't literally say something and then say you didn't say that. There is legit criticism of the game but your points and examples regarding bosses are wrong. Every example you gave of inconsistentcy is something I had no trouble avoiding consistently. My experience with the game literally proves you wrong. You are either very bad and got lucky or lying. Gauis's charge is the perfect example. If you seriously had trouble with that move, you are just bad. I dodged it consistently no problem after getting the timing down with a medium load.
Two things that broke me (re enemy telegraphing giving you no indication of what to expect) were Radahn's gravity pull, and the few times he spews light pillars EVERYWHERE. You're supposed to frame perfect dodge these attacks and there's no other way to avoid them. Forget the telegraph not giving you any indication of what to do, the attack itself gave no indication. De jure...they are unavoidable. Why in the fuck would rolling on the floor save me from gravity magic all around me? Why would rolling into a pillar of lasers keep me safe? These attacks were designed with the mechanical reality of how the dodge functions in mind, and not the contextual conceit of "YOU ARE ROLLING TO MOVE OUT OF THE WAY OF THE ATTACK". Can't wait for a boss with an arena full of chests and the only way to avoid attacks are to open the chests at the right time for the i-frames. Absolute pigshit. Excellent video by the way :)
His cross slash move would also catch you when you attempt to jump over the initial low sweep. There's difficult. Then there's artificial diffiiculty. Punishing a player for choosing a correct option is artificial difficulty.
Two of the attacks you listed are telegraphed, the gravity pull is telegraphed is when he stretches his arms out and gets ready to stomp/slam. The light pillars are also spawned after he does the light combo, which would be learned if you fought him more than 5 times. These are learned attacks. Not something you'll know if you just rely on luck to beat a boss or beat the boss too fast.
It’s refreshing to see a well articulated critique like this. Nice work! I wish I enjoyed this dlc but it was genuinely a chore to play through. It seems like ER has become a husk/caricature of what fromsoft games used to be
Very glad this project saw the light of day. I've been on the same side as Matt all those years ago, finding even DS 3 quite straining on my patience with the game mechanics. This was needed. Unofficial sequel to Lost Soul Arts of Demon's souls, not one many wanted to see but one that needs to exist. I am not sure if it was you or someone else but Elden Ring is Skyrim for people who think they are too good for Skyrim, wide as an ocean but shallow as a puddle
Great video! Really enjoyed the talk about a lot of Bosses not really feeling like in-world entities anymore and rather just coded challenges. As well as the comparisons between the "memory game" combat of souls and other action games with more skill expression.
1:08:45 - That was my sentiments exactly when finished base ER. Before, I use to think during my first playthrough: "oh, I'm gonna try this in my next playthrough". But with ER, the last half of the game was so miserable that at the end I was not interested anymore. Why slog through this again? The unique experience of the souls series is definetely lost for me.
oh man, awesome video, honestly didn’t expect such a deep dive into animations/skill expression/rolling/positioning of course a dmc and monhun player would know a lot more about souls games than actual souls fans
Well done Video, I really enjoyed it. While I feel differently about Shadow of The Erdtree than you do, I don't disagree with the things you've said. Having a conversation about feelings is always complicated and honestly not worth it. So instead I'll say again that while I disagree with some of the things you said, none of those disagreements are based on the facts you laid out and I really enjoyed your perspective on the DLC. Keep up the good work.
This DLC broke me. I loved the first third of Elden Ring but at the end of this DLC I was tortured by Promised Consort Radahn until I genuinely didn’t ever wanna touch this game again. It’s sad.
Yeah, I hadn't touched the game since after I beat the DLC several months ago as I couldn't find any reason to play it again, I was honestly tired. When I first saw Consort Radahn and his shenanigans, I almost thought it was satire.
A fair, measured addition to a discourse filled with vitriol, uncharitability and many impassioned fans. You went out of your way to avoid being antagonistic towards the fans, other critics, or anyone in particular, which is evidence for this critique being as fair and methodical as it is. Well done. To fans of Elden Ring and its DLC, give this video a thorough viewing. You will not find another that is as careful with its claims and observations, nor as respectful to everyone partaking in the discourse.
It's still not really valuable, as especially towards the end, Theo devolves in sweeping claims, making the legacy dungeons "straight path and hollow experiences" the rpg elements "worthless", the open world "wandering around" etc. Like, every conclusion he makes is way over the top and is disregarding most of the DLC. He also just sticks to Matthewmatosis original thesis like glue, despite it never really being a good argument. This is its own style of action game and saying Devil May Cry does action game better therefore Elden Ring can't do good action is just so stunted. I don't like these types of action games, but I like the souls niche of action games. No matter how much Theo claims these games have gone anime, they are still more grounded and the simple movesets of players have a certain appeal.
I enjoy SotE, but it's clear From is in an escalating arms race with their players as long as they stick with this combat framework. If From Soft had stuck with the level of boss complexity seen in DeS and DS1, veteran players would find the new games unsatisfyingly easy. I played Bloodborne for the first time this year, with all the other games already under my belt, and I was able to beat almost every boss in the game first try (including legendarily hard ones, like Maria and Orphan). I think the path forward for From Soft needs to involve shaking up the combat framework, as they did for Sekiro. Sekiro changed the rules enough that veteran players were on the same footing as new players, and couldn't rely on their existing instincts. Sekiro is actually quite easy once you get comfortable with its combat framework, but the need to learn the new framework is where the challenge, and the fun, comes from.
These bossee became a tedious checklist of memorization. I have to identify which attacks are positional even though they both come from neutral, absurdly and unintuitive delays, random pauses and slow-mo like Bayle freezing midair before dive bombing, unintuitive attacks that the intended way to dodge makes no sense, purposely misleading telegraphs, etc
What irked me past the breaking point for SotE was seeing all these bosses do their beautiful flowing combos, chaining complex, varied moves one after another, while I'm still lamely swinging my sword side to side like it's 2010. From now on I choose games with skill expression, something that continues the legacy of Sekiro, the best FromSoft game. Wukong felt like a good first step in the right direction for GameScience.
Fantastic video! It really helps to clarify things I've been arguing with people since the release of Elden Ring. This kind of rot has been present in more substance than I can tolerate since Dark Souls 2. Fromsoft have gone from wanting to challenge the player to wanting to kill the player at any cost. Thank you for making this. :)
Spot on analysis! Sincerely, thank you. When I finished the base game, I wanted more. By the end of the DLC, I couldn't wait for it to end. After beating the last boss I just quit out and uninstalled it. I was done. Permanently.
I would like to add a point of criticism. Even though I liked the world, and I agree that the world (and Mesmer) were the strongest parts of the DLC, it has one major flaw. It felt extremely artificial. Much more like a game level rather than a realistic fictional world like the base game. Just consider how you access the Abyssal Woods. You have to find a ladder in Shadow keep, go behind a waterfall into a hidden chamber, go through an illusory wall, ride a coffin, traverse an area and do platforming down a cliff, travel throw some misty woods to find a catacombs entrance, and after 3 depth levels of those catacombs you fight a boss to be granted access to the last section of the map. If this isn't artificial, I don't know what is.
Spot-on. This DLC in particular came across like vast expanses of nothing, punctuated by talismans, and bosses that feel like flashcards with poses as the questions and timings + positioning as the answers, with no hints whatsoever. Don’t think I have ever before in my life spent 45 minutes having absolutely no idea what a Souls boss was doing or how to respond to anything other than the first attack. 45 straight minutes of not even attempting to hit the boss, with the express intent of simply seeing with my eyes, then recognizing with my brain and then hitting roll with my thumb quickly enough not to get snagged by the fastest attacks (which basically determine the difficulty of the entire fight, like Oceiros with his instacharge), or tricked into early or late rolls by everything else, and being absolutely no closer when I finished the session. The learning process is excruciatingly arbitrary and frustrating. I do find it interesting that the boss this happened with was Messmer for me, while Midra (minus the explosion) was somehow more intuitive and fun with plenty of counter windows to me, and we appear to have reversed opinions on their quality. Still, I’ve been stewing in all of these thoughts for a while and you captured basically all of them. I’ve definitely decided never to get gaslit into buying FromSoft games again one day after I entered this DLC and regretted every minute since reaching the first boss, the goodwill is just dead. I really can’t even play Devil’s Advocate on any of these points.
On an unrelated note how are you enjoying offseason so far? Tsukihi undo is one of my favorite stories in the light novels, and wazamonogatari had amazing visuals, the animation really elevated it from my initial opinion of it from the audiobook. Looked almost as good as kizu
@@Theottree I really enjoyed nademonogatari as well, 'loomer nadeko was pretty fun and I love the direction of possibly making her into a specialist like tadatsuru. The story that I'm most looking forward to is the story of how meme and the rest became specialists in the first place (I don't know if that has been written yet it's just a want of mine) so seeing nadeko start that path is really cool. Also seeing more ohnonoki is great ✌️✌️
The worst part is not even that Elden Ring and its DLC are bad, it's that ever since FromSlop started going in this direction with Bloodborne onwards, they've enjoyed increasingly greater commercial success. Meaning that an overwhelming majority of games inspired by/derived from the Souls series are going to repeat the same mistakes at best, and double down on them at worst. It's unlikely we'll ever be getting a true successor to the DeS-DS1-DS2 style of design from From (heh) or anyone else, so soon enough Theo, me, and anyone else who shares this sentiment will have to leave Souls behind in favour of something different that could scratch that itch of exploration-focused action RPGs with strong adventure vibes. So far, the closest to that sort of thing I found for myself is Dread Delusion. It's not even remotely similar to the Souls formula, but I would still recommend anyone reading this to check it out, if only as a point of comparison as to how much fun a game can be when it bothers to make exploration actually rewarding.
"My mode of engagement has changed gears, such that I'm only immersed only in the challenge presented to me and no other aspect beyond that challenge. The enemy has ceased to be a real presence in a world I'm engaging with and has become an isolated step in a sequence of isolated steps, with no relation to one another or the cohesive whole that the game is trying to manifest. All that's left for me in terms of engagement is the combat, as every other aspect has peeled away in the face of that combat." It absolutely feels like a flanderization of the character of the Souls games in a sense - the world itself and its lore was a huge part of my investment in the earlier titles, but with SotE (and to an extent, ER as a whole), it feels like all my energy playing the game has been reduced to getting through the areas in order to slam my head against a wall fighting the next boss. I think a lot of the charm and atmosphere was sacrificed in the name of challenge and spectacle. I replayed Dark Souls 3 somewhat recently and Slave Knight Gael, my favorite fight in the whole series, is ridiculously easy compared to every boss in SotE. And it still feels more impactful beating him. Maybe my investment in the lore and world-building of ER is more strained because of how BIG it is, but I don't really know who any of these bosses are or why I should care, and the huge empty world kind of contributes to that sense of "whatever, just get me to the next boss"
I think the DLC shows a perfect example of both sides, good implementation of the lore in the world with Shaman village and the bad with the finger ruins just being there and empty fields that you don't know how they got there.
Fairly subjective. But don't know how bothered I am by the idea that the learning curve for a boss is intentionally designed to be more about memorization vs player intuition of what an attack will do based on the start up. It's a design complaint I can acknowledge someone having as an issue, but ultimately I don't personally value. If I see an attack for the first time and get hit by it, that's something I can learn from and do better at next time. If I see an attack that has a good tell, and you have a good idea of what it'll do, and I dodge it. And I now know that attack. That's great and all. But IDK how much better I find this to be then the boss having an unpredictable tell your first time through and you getting hit by it. Cus I still learned what the attack is and now know the tell for it. And will dodge and engage with it properly in the future. Basically I understand why you have an issue with this. But it's not something I value in regards to boss design. Fromsoft even in DS1 had this, it's just more prevalent nowadays to make the learning experience for a boss harder. Which I don't really mind. I'm fine with bashing my head against a wall to learn a fight. Gael and Isshin took me hours and I was fine with this. I also don't agree with much of the Open World criticisms. The massive open space not having any sort of encounter design that is difficult and/or is trying to catch the player is fine to me. The open world feels more like it's granting you your own paths and freedom for what the player wants to do whenever they want to do it. If you see an enemy that you think may be interesting mechanically to engage with, and could drop something valuable. It's up to you to go fight him. The enemy won't outrun Torrent and force a combat encounter. I much prefer this. Especially for an open world game. Transversal in that open world being limited because of forced encounter design would be awful and would decentivize the player from wanting to travel the world at all. Having these tight undead burg encounter design within levels in the open world instead of in the open world at all is a much better idea imo. Give a few other smaller complaints. I mostly agree with the video. Fairly good and I enjoyed my time.
100% agree with the learning of attacks if they are unintuitive. It increases the difficulty of learning a fight naturally, and after each time you get hit you can still learn how to dodge it and improve upon next time which is very engaging (minus radahn I'd argue since it isn't clear on how to dodge him upon dying)
You vocalized all my thoughts, even on Messmer being wonderfully designed, even on the flaws of the base game. Thanks for making this video, I wouldn't have the patience.
"Legacy dungeons are a straight line" Yup, which is why it's bewildering that they're called Legacy Dungeons. 'Checkpoint, checkpoint, checkpoint, boss room' is _not_ how From used to design dungeons. They were a series of loops that twisted around on each other and genuinely rewarded thorough exploration. Now, they're a straight shot to the boss, with a few dead-end rooms branching off from the main path containing either items or a mini-boss. There is almost zero variety or complexity to the layouts making them pretty dull to traverse and discover.
Shadow keep, Stormveil, Leyndell, Raya Lucaria, Farum Azula, Volcano Manor are straight lines now? The way Belurat and Enir- Ilim connect to each other at the start and end of the map journey to form a whole is not complex? Farum azula, Haligtree, Leyndell have wildly different and varied layouts And that is entirely disregarding the entire underground section which is a whole legacy dungeon with a few checkpoints. The arguments are incredibly reductive.
I'm hoping this video blows up eventually. But then, is it worth ot receiving the influx of average fromsoft fanboys? Truly one of the mysteries of all time.
This video is just another generic critique of SOTE, there are hundreds of these that have been coming out for months. This one is really well made and makes all valid points that I agree with but I don't want anymore of these hour long videos popping up in my feed for 5 more months. I've already seen multiple of these and they all make the same points eventually but some explain it better or worse than others. This video won't change anything if it blows up, it'll just give people another video to refer to when they're asked why they don't like anything instead of having their own opinion.
@@Krakain If that's your perspective, sure. I completely disagree. I've watched many of these critiques and found them to be all shit, except this one.
Great video. Well-structured, thorough, and puts to words a lot of feelings I've had related to falling off Fromsoft games. Also enjoying watching your editing skills markedly improve with each release, the quality shows. Looking forward to more
They just gimped Radahn and buffed nearly every drop within the DLC too. I agree, the DLC feels very lazy for something that took them 2+ years to finish.
Great video. I, as someone who doesn't like souls like games, had much fun with Elden Ring. I leveled up in the open world, i used magic and i used spirit summons. I clearly don't think much about game design, but i found myself agreeing with your arguments. Keep the good work up
Just wanted to comment briefly on the patch thingy that dropped the same day as this video. Think it is very much worth noting that a lot of the changes to Radahn - particularly to the cross slash - are oriented around making him *rollable*. This speaks fairly significantly to From's design priorities. They want the boss to be rollable.
It's not that he was nerfed, he was just made fightable.
As someone who only played ds1 before, where using a shield was actually a viable strategy, i tried the same in elden ring. Oh boy i found out quickly that its not viable here. Also am i the only one who thinks an armored knight, rolling around, sometimes directly into attacks, to avoid them, just looks stupid? Anyways... Awesome video dude. Showed it to some of my friends who asked me what problems i had with elden ring, as you had articulated them better than i ever could.
@@wingedassassin9999 not visible? May I know what you were using? Because shields are vastly different in Elden ring.
@@simsansonguff...i would have to lie to you here. The last time i touched elden ring was almost a year ago. My point was more that using shield felt a lot more punishing in this game, in comparison to ds1. And rolling in comparison seems almost op. Like the game didnt really give me a reason to not rely just on my roll, and instead trying to block the attacks. Which is probably why i never seen people use shields in this game...ever. especially in boss fights
@@wingedassassin9999 boy do I have News for you then, because the most viable way of beating consort radahan was using a shield and rapier, which has a unique attack when guarding with a shield. The entire reason Shield's were so under utilized was because no one really experimented with them, lol. Plus there's multiple talisman that make Shield's really good, and even the deflecting hard tear from the dlc gives you the ability to perfect block, like the way you do in sekiro.
This video was so easy to understand. I miss when most video essays were like this.
Needs more preamble and piano
@@nodot17and sad anime backstory
And out-of-place political rants
I really enjoyed Theo's 25 minutes long intro about twitter drama, his childhood with DeS and those damn Elitist Gamers with skits, it really made this video enjoyable
I loved the words on screen that repeat what he has already said. Although it lacked jarring transitions and awful structuring that separate his points in artsy fartsy ways. Lastly, it lacked the 1 HP voice coupled with inconsistent delivery. Outside of these few issues, solid video.
Opening with "*sigh* I didn't want to make this video" really set the somber mood that the subject matter deserves.
@@yanribeiro7108 talking that Soulsborne are his ex gf was a bit much but I understood his point pretty well, let's hope the alt right on r/mauler will not dogpile on him for this
@@TrajGreekFire it's so tragic that his mother twitted his tipples when he was young, hope he gets over the psychological trauma soon...
@@IAOIceland1984
You gotta be honest, though. When he said that Dark Souls is the only thing that brings him joy in life, it hit hard.
"This was my 911"
-Theolbo Baggins
Legendary
"Mr. Elden Lord, another critique has hit the Erdtree."
Shadowtree
And on this very september eleventh
My elder lord!, a second dragon has hit the erdtree!.
Reminds me of that Tragedy
You know, with all the blood and guts?
@@Schlorb-Lord-of-Schlirb I walked through blood and bones
This has to be the most devastating thing that's happened on this day, surely
"I walked through blood & bones in the streets of Manhattan trying to find my brother... He was in Northern Canada"
- Random Fromsoft employee: Mr Miyazaki-san...
- Miyazaki: Let me guess, a second Matthewmatosis video has hit the studio
- Random Fromsoft employee: No sir, this time it was Theo´s
- Miyazaki: Oh..
Also Miyazaki: *_makes another poison swamp_*
The most frustrating part of modern Fromsoft game discourse is that any time anyone brings up the garbage nature of a lot of the boss design nowadays, some dude that died to the boss 72 times using a greatshield with two summons and 33 spirit ashes will swoop in and condescendingly claim everything is fine and if you have a problem, you're just salty and bad at the game. Having an actual critical discussion around Souls nowadays is literally impossible, simply due to the fact that games are "hard", so if you struggle, it must just be on you, and it can never be due to objective poor design. From could literally create a boss with a one frame grab that instantly kills you, deletes your save file, steals you credit card info, and reaches through the screen to punch you in the mouth, and there would still be droves of morons lining up to say "nah bro just get gud". Swaths of the population place a strange sense of pride and ego on the fact that they beat a Souls game once, and their struggle NEEDS to be validated. That boss they spent 52 hours beating HAS to be a well designed, fair challenge that they were just sick enough to overcome, because otherwise it calls into question their entire bizarre sense of self-worth around these games. Toxic as hell to engage with.
This describes incredibly well how the road to 10/10 for this game must go psychologically. xD
It's fine to enjoy it, but the defense is often so unreasonable...
I find people being proud of beating a video game pretty sad and cringe ngl, it's a video game bro, it was made to be beaten. It doesn't make you special or different at all
No, it's only second worst thing. The actual worst one is the fact that the entirety of game design discourse haa dwindled to just "boss hard good, boss hard bad". Like, nobody is talking about progression systems, dungeons, enemy design, enemy encounters, environmental storytelling, secrets, hidden paths, etc. Everyone just keeps arguing about bosses, as if there isn't about a hundred hours of other content around them. The best we have are arguments about skibidi fragments, but this too boils down to "makes bosses too hard/easy", instead of focusing on it's actual problem - being an artificial padding that serves no purpose other than making you waste hours searching open world every time you want to replay this DLC. It's as if there isn't anything else worth talking about in this game and worse - people are okay with that.
@@gameplayer42069I'd say there are challenges and games beating which can be considered impressive. But then again when doing challenges the only one you have to prove anything to is yourself. Too bad a lot of people don't understand this. Souls community used to be a nice spot for challenge and speed runners, now it's mostly just elitists and crybabies.
@@kindlingking I personally found annoying how empty the vast map felt yeah, full of pointless crafting items and redundant weapon upgrade materials I no longer need by that point. Making even regular enemies insanely annoying to fight, whoever put like 20 of the pest thread lobsters on the same small valley really needs to take a step back. The fire knights, hornsent and that insane dancing dude with the circle blades just reinforce the "just run past everything" attitude people been having for years, and that's why now every enemy has a roll catch or some move designed to catch you while running away
This is the 9/11 of Elden ring
I have been realizing lately that despite liking the game a lot, I have been blitzing through bosses and areas so that I'd engage with their mechanics the least, as if I felt like they were wasting my time.
This was a very well constructed video, I hope to see more of this.
good that people still remember that Matthewmatosis video. ER is literally everything he feared the series would become
And good for us, as it's a masterpiece.
Theo thoroughly and precisely pointing out the flaws and issues of a not perfect game that has a pretty aggressive fan base is the only thing that brings me joy in life.
I actually hate the Elden Ring fanbase. They took the smug elitism of the Dark Souls fans and cranked it up to 11 and turn rabid if you dare even suggest that Elden Ring is not the most perfect game ever devised by our lord and saviour Michael Zaki.
@@Daniel_C_Griffin They're honestly what killed my enjoyment for ER funny enough. Any issue or criticism I had was always met with so much venom from them. Their toxicity turned my love of a flawed game into a tolerance and then a dislike for ER completely.
@@13JackDiamond I, similarly, hate the game's reception way more than the game itself.
You let the community change your view on the gameplay? @@13JackDiamond
@@13JackDiamond ur pathetic for letting a loud minority ruin your enjoyment of an entire game. Stop being chronically online. If i listened to the loud minority of joseph anderson fans/critics, i wouldn’t be able to enjoy anything at all.
I enjoy finding videos like this, which are brilliantly argued and well put together, I disagree completely with almost everything that he says but I respect the willingness to actually make an argument instead of just going "IT NOT LIKE IT WAS 13 YEARS AGO"
I appreciate that
My dear friend, it's so nice to share these ideas and opinions with someone else. Sometimes I really ask myself how people can't see the huge flaws of this game, and the enormous potential that this game and his DLC had.
Instead, we got a DS3 mod but open world.
I'm not saying everything is bad but I really expected something more, something really new.
On a closing note, congratulations for the accuracy and meticulous study on the topics of this video.
Keep on the good work!
Ah the same day Radahn got big nerfs. Its like poetry. It hits the towers twice.
Absolutely delighted to see Fatalis get a shoutout in this
That fight needs to be studied at length as an example of a developer who fuly understood the exact limits and possibilities of their combat and boss design
Fatalis is probably one of if not the best dragon boss in any game. None from Fromsoft come even close, that's for sure.
It's my favorite boss of all time, what an amazing fight. Everything about the arena is useful in the fight too, unlike Elden ring's arenas which are nothing but flat ground with walls and sometimes shit terrain elevation.
Fatalis is pretty incredible. I have my share of friction-points with the fight, but that comes with how far they pushed the possibilities of World. Like, I don't usually like bosses enough to try to speedrun them, but here i am with a 10:01 Longsword Fatalis kill and an 11:14 with Greatsword. There's really a huge amount of learning just for that one fight, per weapon even. Prob the best dragon fight I've run into in a game. I do however have a personal soft spot for Azure Rathalos, Tempered specifically so you get more of a fight out of him.
@@Theottree Damn, loving world azure rathalos is a hot take and a half. I think he's very underrated, I love flying monsters in general, and people seem to underestimate how much you can still hit monsters, even if they're flying. They never fly out of reach of any weapon for extended periods, but still offers an extra challenge in dealing with a foe who entered a less vulnerable stance.
Damn, i stopped playing MHW at Furious Rajang because i felt like i had my fill of the game. Always hear a bunch of praise of Fatalis but never got to him
Video releases on September 11. My response.
My elder lord! A second dragon has hit the erdtree!
Excellent video Theo. I'd like to add that I LOVE landing a single hit on the boss after dodging a 10-hit combo string. Truly remarkable.
"You guys are landing hits?"
just jump attack or position better, people with this complaint haven't learnt a thing since DS3
@@Ghorda9 sad, isn't it?
@@Ghorda9yeah jump what? When? What position? The problem isn’t that there isn’t a solution, the problem is that the solution is only found EXCLUSIVELY by trial and error, against something designed to trick you. It’s like taking a test made up of exclusively trick questions. There is barely any helpful information before any of these attacks land, that the only way to find the optimal solution is to behave erratically after every attack to find the best answer, or just panic roll and keep your distance until you notice the upmost safe window. It lulls you into barely surviving until you get a hit in, then running away. Why try something different when it might fuck up the run?
I’m very new to SoulsLikes, Elden Ring was my first, a few months ago when the DLC came out. I went back and played DS3 after beating Elden Ring and the DLC multiple times. I didn’t like it for other reasons, but the bosses had so much more logic and reason with why they’re doing the attacks, and how to answer these attacks when you see them the first time. Lies Of P takes this to the perfect degree. I can’t tell you how many times I perfect blocked something the first time I saw them simply due to excellent context clues given by clear animations and good camera work.
Yes there’s usually a different answer besides roll forever, but it’s the most tedious BS to try and find that. Everything in the DLC is a “haha, gotcha!” Troll move. The ONLY ways to win are brute force with OP stuff, or straight up memorization. This level of weird “yes daddy I’ll behave correctly next time” masochism is not fun at all. I was never once happy with defeating a DLC boss, I was just relieved that it was over. The world building, rpg progression, vibe and some of the bosses allow me to not hate the DLC and enjoy many parts of it. However, especially after playing Lies Of P, I’ll really never enjoy Elden Ring as much as I used too. I was so late to the party I didn’t know how shitty the party actually became, I was just happy to be there.
This is a well thought out critique, Theo.
I will admit, i felt some frustration at your comments on the EFAP, and when i saw this video, i thought it would just be bashing and antagonizing fans.
But no, this was a very constructive and observant critique that i think anyone who is a fan of the games should take the time to listen to.
I 100% agree that the roll-catch and "gotcha" moves from the main game have gotten a lot worse in the DLC. Messmer may be a favorite boss of mine, but he definitely punishes intuitive gameplay on a first time fight. Many of his attacks have bizarre patterns that only encountering the first time will teach you how to deal with them.
I personally hope they do not continue with this mentality of bosses needing to "trick" the player.
The thing is, this is nothing more or less than Theo was trying to communicate on that EFAP episode, he just didn't have the time to explain in detail and the rest of the panel weren't willing to connect the dots on his shortened argument. I've been waiting for this video ever since.
Coming from Dark Souls to Elden Ring, the way bosses would just pause halfway through an attack just to catch you rolling was such an annoying way to increase difficulty.
@@kari2570 maybe exercise some patience. Why do you think you never have to recover stamina? Delayed attacks. + u can just hit them during tje windup. It’s an infinitely better system than the mindiess dodge, r1 in ds3. Allows for way more skill expression.
@@Stanzbey69 I never said I can't fight them, I've finished them game many times over, it's just annoying. Previous games you could react when you see them attack, but now they just pause halfway through an attack because FromSoft knows people like to dodge. You are punished for reacting logically to an attack.
@@kari2570 learn the timing then. The best and most challenging and rewarding bosses have always had tricky timings. Not a problem then, not a problem now
I can’t wait. Your videos are awesome and every time I watch one I feel more educated on game design and why mechanics work the way they do. Thank you.
I miss the immersive elements that have been lost since the early Souls days.
The currency made the most sense in Demon's Souls. Demons valued souls and losing yours led to a permanent death. You gained levels from the Maiden in Black using the souls that are spent to gain a level to strengthen your own soul.
In Dark Souls, there was a consistent theme that the world you're in is dying, which was reflected through most of the bosses being folks who shaped the world being well past their prime. Gwyn was Hollow, Nito was having his strength sapped, Seath had gone mad and blind, the Witch of Izalith turned into a weird tree, ect. It reinforced the idea that the player character was such a small player in the world, considering they were still in great danger despite the world being on its last legs. Knowing that it took so much strength and skill to overcome this dying land gave me the impression that I would have been very inconsequential if the other residents of this world had been in their prime.
It's not only that, it's also the fact that you weren't the first one, nor the tenth one, nor even a thousandth one who embarked on this journey. Hell, you even go to Lordran because other guy was going to, but got mortality wounded and instead offered this honour to you. And in Boletaria despite getting through the fog you actually die like the rest before you and are only brought back because you were a necessary tool for the Maiden in Black.
This always bugged me how in Elden Ring tarnished are supposedly the lowest of the low, yet they're also special and practically all are chosen ones. People try so hard to call ER dark fantasy when it's obviously high fantasy and should've leaned into this more instead of reusing old narratives.
@@kindlingking Narratively, that was also one of my bigger gripes with ER. You plop into the world, and instantly:
- Melina, most likely the daughter of literally God, takes a liking to you upon finding you unconsciously on the ground and gives you her magical and legendary horse
- Words spread about you receiving the mystical horse, and Demigod + 1/3's Empyrean tracks you down, finds you interesting as well and gives you her magical bell as well
Having a harem of goddesses literally tracking you down and showering you with powerful gifts, compared to the humbled fate of Oscar, is an insane contrast I just could never get myself around.
I love how excellent this guy is at the game, cavorting around the bosses like a ballerina, and he STILL understands that finessing a game does equal _enjoying_ the game. I miss Bloodborne. 😟
To make a music analogy, for me, learning a difficult boss in a game with good combat is like learning to play and memorize a difficult song on the piano
While learning a boss in Elden Ring is like memorizing 5 pages of random notes on the piano.
Elden ring = Boulez Piano sonatas
@@IAyala1010 Boulez piano sonatas are literally the opposite of random notes...
@@anonymousperson8903 My cat played it by running across my keyboard
@@IAyala1010 I'm not a fan of his sonatas (although I enjoy some of his later works), but I know many who are.
Playing a difficult, well designed boss is like playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata while Elden Ring is like trying to play fucking Rush E
Puts on lumberjack outfit alright lads time to cut down a skibidi tree
Definitely agree on the nonsensical animation hindering the experience. Learning when to i-frame through boss moves in the earlier games was more engaging because most of the stuff you were dodging felt reasonable for a human character to accomplish, and generally easy to understand visually. Fast forward to ER and you're constantly somersaulting directly through lightspeed weapon combos and fiery explosions. Visually it just looks ridiculous, and the safe frames to dodge through attacks are so arbitrary that you basically have to think of the boss fights in terms of frame data and hitboxes, instead of a believable fantasy encounter.
It's natural that failing and repeating a difficult challenge in a game will lead to memorizing patterns, but it's far less enjoyable when the visuals feel irrelevant to the actual timing required of you.
I just don't understand how that's inherently bad, it's about trial and error. Every souls game has always been about trial and error. You're not gonna tell me Sekiro bosses always had intuitive movement and telegraphs, yet Sekiro gets praise for its boss design.
@@Zlbm0Demon's Souls, the game from which the entire subgenre originated, is not trial and error by design. You can brute force it and play that way, but world tendency discourages repeated deaths while as a human. All bosses, save for False King Allant and the Maneaters, have substantial weaknesses that you're encouraged to exploit or attainable means of making the fight easier for any build that the game keeps you clued in on. Even the literal infinite reviving boss who can trick you into bashing your head against a wall isn't a skill or DPS check that you're expected to triumph over by trying until you succeed, it only demands that you pay attention to the level design to circumvent the resurrection.
@@myb8955 ok if me saying “every souls game” was that important to you, then every souls game since ds1 has been trial and error. I don’t think demon’s souls, which is generally considered the worst and most outdated in the series, should be a good model for boss/level design. We’ve evolved past that.
@@Zlbm0 I don't care if you think the game is bad or that you imagine that it is widely disliked, it isn't the only game in the series that doesn't conform to trial and error game design anyways. The actual point is that none of its successors, which ape every bit of their identity from Demon's Souls, necessarily have to be trial and error if the first of their kind wasn't. You've been psyopped into thinking that "muh trial and error" is a servicable excuse for boring, repetitive boss and level design purely due to the Prepare to Die branding concocted by the marketing geniuses at Bandai Namco.
@@myb8955 imagine having this much of an ego and superiority complex over a video game opinion. Actual basement dwelling behaviour. “You’ve been psyopped into thinking you find this fun” like shut up honestly. If you think it’s boring then that’s fine, but don’t insult my intelligence just because I like a certain type of game.
Theo mentioning C. Radahn's unavoidable cross slash triple attack as a problem move, the day the game was updated to slow swings enough so the move is now easily dodgable with 3 normal timed rolls stings 😭
My man could not have been more unlucky with that
On the flipside, it kinda validates the critique, no?
Miyazaki saw the critique himself an ordered it to be fixed ASAP
@@reaps912 Yup. Nobody can say he was wrong about Radahn when even the devs seems to agree it was awful
@@FriedShrimp04 The teenagers defending that move legitimately have brain damage, and maybe me as well for even attempting to argue with them. There's this weird idea that souls somehow isn't a videogame and doesn't need to have stuff "normal" videogames have, like intended methods to pass obstacles, real basic design elements. These are the people who will complain about casuals coming into the series, yet it is they who seem to have not played many videogames or understand the underlying lexicons good ones come with.
Of course that move needed to be changed. It was trivial, free punish for anyone using a greatshield (an already simple and easy build), and an almost guaranteed damage, 1 flask tax for anyone on a light build relying on rolls.
@@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERSPeople complaining about casuals coming into the series are mostly the newcomers themselves. Before DS2 released, souls series was obscure game genre that was on same way of popularity as bullet hells or visual novels. Hell, you could have buy Demon Souls back in 2008 in some random store for a few bucks amongst other small games on display, thats how little popular it was.
Reason why the difficutly in older games was enjoyable was because the game let you pick your style, ANY style worked. In Elden Ring you are forced into style you dont want to play. For instance in DS2 I could have dual wield caestus and go to town, trade blows, tank boss attacks with high vigor and armor, in Elden ring? Ye armour is made of thin paper and you might get occasional jab at boss after three to four rolls.
These new "fans" dont even know what made the old games special.
"I am bad. I am really bad. I'm so bad, that I'm very upset at how bad I am. I wish Elden Ring didn't force me to realize how bad I actually am. I don't want to get good at the video game. This game is very poorly designed." - The Imagined Theo, echoing off the inside of a SotE fan's head
Cringe
He beat the game.
Good joke!
Had me in the first half.
@@duckcrackers5528 doesn't mean he's good at it.
Shadow of the Erdtree basically made me realise that my patience in the Souls games has been worn down to nothing, and watching this video really solidifies this feeling.
Go back and play Dark Souls 3 again if you haven't played in several years and if you haven't played it a ton of times already. I went back and played it again after 8 years and it's so good and honestly much better than Elden Ring.
Replaying Demons Souls remake on PS5 made me realize how much i miss the more focused, heavy design of combat
Another W for matthewmatosis. He called this shit
He didn’t call anything. I mean, these critics don’t even jump in their footage.
@@Stanzbey69he destroyed Elden Ring years before it was even conceived - from lazy reuses of old systems, themes and narratives to even further sterilisation of the game and it's shift from an adventure into foreign world, where you have to be observant of surroundings and use them to your advantage, to a roll pressing game. Players kept insisting on "fair duels" and now every fight is just that - a duel in a flat circle which everyone leading to it (world, level, enemy design) being secondary.
@@kindlingking he destroyed ds2, not elden ring. Matthew would probably love elden ring 😂
@@Stanzbey69 you should really watch the lost soul arts video from matosis. It still holds true today
@@Stanzbey69he didnt destroy anything
Pretty refreshing to see some real critique of the boss design instead of blindly praising everything about the game like I've seen in other essays. You perfectly captured everything that frustrated me to hell and back about this DLC and even the base game. Personally I wish you had gone into more depth with each of the bosses and showed what did and didn't work about them. I don't think you mentioned Romina, Putrescent Knight, Metyr, Midra or Leda w/allies at all. Nothing else on Gaius or Radahn besides their most BS attacks. That's a minor nitpick in an otherwise fantastic video though.
Do you by chance have your own Discord server that you talk more about the game in? I'd love to chat about it and maybe Monster Hunter too. I'm also curious to hear your opinion on Lies of P if you played it.
I don't have my own public discord at current no. Regarding Lies of P, I played about 40 minutes of it or so and it failed to grab me. It was fine enough, but I am at the point that a 'Souls-style' introductory section, or framework in general, turns me off quite fast. I was not enthused by walking around Bloodborne-adjacent locales spamming to death enemies that couldn't fight back, then finding The Big Enemy and needing to maybe learn his attacks for a bit, etc etc etc.
Can't really speak for or against the game's actual quality, but I just don't think I'm interested at this point
When Elden Ring first came out I genuinely felt crazy because of all the glazing it got from everyone I knew friends, coworkers, and family. Fromsoft taking their souls formula to the open world was a mistake and their failure with Elden Ring should be apparent to more people. Thanks for highlighting the issues with it and the many problems Elden Ring presents I no longer feel quite so insane.
I disagree completely. The open world was amazing. It was brilliant. Not perfect, but the sense of exploration was unforgettable.
I want more of that, not less.
@@joshlin8002 Good news, Elden Ring was very successful so they’ll make more games for you. Glad you liked it but to me it’s all sooooo empty. What is supposed to be engaging about empty fields with infinite hollow soldier reskins? The garbage loot? The lazy reuse of bosses? What is there to DO in the open world? If the answer is that the game is pretty then that means less than nothing to me. I’d agree to have all games look like cruelty squad if they had better gameplay as a result without a moments hesitation.
I had the exact same feeling. I am seeing more people having negative opinions about the DLC about problems already present in the main game. It feels like an "I told you so!"-moment. I guess hype is a hell of a drug?
Game is brilliant, your little opinion doesn’t change that fact. Loud minorities are just that, loud minorities. Never listen to them.
@@MindIfICutInyoure acting like the other games are filled with whim and wonder at every which turn… fuck no! The other games have holes you fall into and die for no reason.
Elden ring also has that but is significantly more enjoyable to travel around in. The map couldve been cut nearly in half, ill give you that, but you’re acting like being not open world is infinitely better when it has tons of problems too. As a result of its design, Elden Ring has T O N S of replayability. Dark Souls 3, for example, has nothing to show for its design after just one playthrough. You are crazy i guess, because most people want to play the game they buy for full price a lot of times and get enjoyment out of it… thats why ER is open world.
Also although the enemies leave something to be desired, the point is more so treating it like an rpg on each subsequent playthrough and having to deal with different dungeons each time on different builds.
It’s crazy how I agree with nearly everything you say, yet I still really like Elden Ring. I guess that’s the difference between objectivity and subjectivity.
Really great video Theo! I enjoyed this analysis and learned quite a lot!
Correct but most people think that criticizing the game is the equivalent to shitting in their mouth. These people can’t differentiate between their subjective feelings (which can only be changed by themselves) and objective criticism and honestly it kinda saddens me that there aren’t more people with your take, really liking elden ring after listening and understanding the criticism and agreeing that the game has massive problems but still liking it because what the game means to them is for them to decide
Made some excellent points that I totally agree with but I still love the game and I hope fromsoft take some critique to heart and use it to improve in the next one. My biggest wish for the next game is no dodge. It will really make them have to redesign all of their bosses and require a little more depth from the player response. I think Elden ring definitely has a lot of depth, it’s just hidden behind Hours of memorization and optimization, there need to be more intuitive ways to play the game. If I don’t have an dodge and the boss can’t immediately turn 360 to track me then I can intuitively avoid attacks with any/all tools in my disposal.
Messmer teached the Hippo how to delay the first head slam and then deliver the second one right after. This is what they teach in the Elden Boss School. It's actually written in the description of the Shard of the Hippo Turd that you can gather somewhere in some random shack in the world. You people just don't understand the deep lore.
Sidenote I am bewildered by your restraint with this video. So many parts of this dlc deserve multi hour videos on their own right and your self control to not rage against this machine is admirable.
With the various reviews by people like Vaati and Iron Pineapple before release calling it the best thing From Software has made, I honestly felt gaslit when I started playing this. It was so intensely unpleasant that not only do I have no desire to ever revisit the DLC, but the base game just seems significantly worse in retrospect knowing this is what it was all building towards. I've never seen a Souls game repulse me on so many fronts: The huge empty maps, the unfun bosses with all the problems this video lays out, the story that openly and repeatedly contradicts the lore of the base game, even the verticality of the world which is aping Dark Souls 1 but without any of the interconnected looping back or structure or the attention to detail that made it feel natural.
I have no desire to play another Souls game again anytime soon after this shit.
@@societyman6591
Idk if I’ll ever care again tbh. Still playing Armored Core VI but after that? Who knows?
About halfway through, had to stop since my lunch was over, but I will pick it up later. Thoroughly enjoying your presentation Theo. Straightforward, no BS approach to a systematic dismantling of this DLC's flagrant errors.
Aaand, I finished. Bravo Theo, bravo. Really enjoyed this.
I was disappointed by the Manse as I had the frenzied flame when I went there. Puzzled that Torrent didn’t seem to care about the frenzied village, or the eye of Sauron like tower, but this area he’s gone. Making a HUGE area feel even bigger. Midrange made no comment to it, nothing changed on either playthrough when i had it and went to the manse, or had done it and then went to the three fingers. A BIG missed opportunity in my opinion.
Second was The Shaman Village. Village? 4 structures and only 2 have doors which are boarded up. This “village” provided all the Pot Shaman you find in the game? I felt like this being her village it should look like a little town of people she wanted to protect and it’s more like a hill with two houses… SMALL houses.
For them to be such amazing environmental storytellers, these were two HUGE moments that told me nothing, or told me a story that makes me think most of it is all lies.
This and matthewmatosis's Lost Soul Art of Demon's Souls made it so much easier for me to put into words my very complicated feelings towards FromSoft's games. As a long time fan of the series, I was very frustrated by not being able to articulate my points precisely. Many times while watching this I've thought something like "Oh wow, that's why I felt like I did, I just never realised that was the reason."
Wonderful work, Theo, I really hope you will continue making videos
the meta-argument is spot on. the bosses can only do their delay attacks because they have the meta knowledge that you cant punish(insta kill) them for it. in a real fight you would just stab them if they do crazy shit like that and theyd just die.
So, why can’t you just attack them then? If the attack is slow, surely you have a window of opportunity. You kinda’ defeated your sentiment in real time.
@@ADoggedContender First of all his argument was applied to a "real fight" and for all intents and purposes Dark Souls combat is only very superficially "real". Secondly they ARE punish windows many times once you know how ridiculously long the charge up is, so they rely entirely on you, the player, not thinking that they would be so ridiculously long.
@@ADoggedContender I don't know man, maybe try playing the game a single time. The delays are short enough to set up rolls catches, not enough for you to get any sort of attack in (except for Messmer, who is exquisitely designed). If an enemy staggers, delays are in fact stupid and will get the enemy killed very easily, but almost none of the notable enemies stagger, especially against lighter weapons.
but you can punish them? the delays are literally the attack windows people complain don't exist. For example, Margit holds his sword up for 4 seconds so you can hit him before rolling away.
That never stops. Not every attack is punishable but part of learning the fights is finding which windows you have.
@@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERSyou're just lying. Consort Radahn has multiple delayed wind ups that can be punished. As does Rellana, as does nearly every boss in the entire game lmao.
The worst part of seeing this really well constructed critique of not only Erdtree but also Elden Ring is that people are going to say "Yeah well this person did a no hit run so you just need to git gud" as if it dispels all of the issues that the game has.
While we may have some disagreements and our general enjoyment of the game and DLC differ quite a bit, I really appreciate that you've highlighted a lot of the issues that was overlooked by most content creators. Issues I've had with the game from the very start.
Time to watch this a second time. It was a bit weird when you called yourself a cuck because Dark Souls left you for greener pastures, but a good video regardless.
"fromsoft just wants to make action games"
Seeing as AC6 was as good as it is Id say they should just take the jump
Or sekiro lol.
I don't get this complain that FromSoft can do only 1 type of combat system.
Sekiro and Armored Core have different combat systems and they are some of the best designed combat systems.
And Miyazaki has talked about Fromsoft having multiple games in development with other directors than himself, so it seems like they've already taken the jump and we'll just have to wait and see.
Thought Theo forgot about the video, excited for this
Theo hates this game too much to forget it
@@TomatoSaucer He has literally called it his white whale.
I think my issue with feints and delays is that it's used too often in ER that it has circled back around to being predictable when the intention was to make bosses unpredictable with them.
For some enemies that are established to be highly skilled/intelligent it makes sense to use them a few times, but when every enemy, even non-sentient zombies and giant crabs are using them, it starts to be immersion breaking and exhausting to learn them.
Great video. Does a good job at fleshing out some of the mechanical arguments Mathew made in his video and and does a lot to help explain some of the grievances and annoyances I've had with ER in particular. I especially liked the liked you had about boiling mechanics down.
First time I hear someone talk about the issues of level and encounter design in Elden Ring, especially in legacy dungeons.
How everything turned into a simple loop of having a few minor fights in between numerous checkpoints with no flow in progression due to availability of fast travel. There's even quite a few places that you can't leave without teleporting, something that was a rarity in older games, but comes in dozens in Elden Ring, making it feel quite disjointed at times.
Something I would add to it is how the focus on the combat loop stripped levels of any mechanical identity. Since it's all about basic combat now, all legacy dungeons play exactly the same, despite looking different. No level shrouded in darkness like Tomb of the Giants, no level full of traps like Sen's Fortress or all the environmental hazards and narrow paths of Blight Town.
As mentioned in the video, some side dungeons, even though not amazing, had a bit more going on. Reminded me how in the base game, I found the Carian Manor Tower feeling a lot more magical due to the unexpected twist of it flipping upside down, along with fighting a mage, that actively tries to stay away for some time. And how it compared to the Academy of Raya Lucaria that only had more basic combat to offer with some rooftop platforming, same as every other legacy dungeon in the game.
Peepoheart
@@Booringe PeepoFART
@@siege1289Poopefart
Brilliant breakdown of telegraphing and responding to them.
The enemies build momentum. Hold. killing all kinetic energy. And then releases with all the momentum from before.
It doesnt even look cool. It looks like a shitty mod.
I really appreciate you putting into words the things I've been feeling. this series has lost itself and most people are completely blind to it
I'm looking forward to having my opinions validated, let's go!
Also, I love your style of communication, been waiting for this patiently, can't wait to listen to it tomorrow.
Been waiting for this ever since hearing him rip the game apart on EFAP
“My life is yours Theo, from this day I shall carry forth your will…”
“And his fate was sealed, as promised Theo released the Elden ring video, bringing forth the power of a thinker, destroying those who would shill for elden ring and its dlc…”-Narrator
(had to finish the bit 😂 )
MIYAZAKI I BRING TO YOU THE DESTRUCTION OF SOULSLIKES
I am so glad to see my favourite, notorious streamer Theo post a new video.
Top 5 trees in gaming. You got the Whispy Willow in Kirby, Yiddrasil in god of war, Dead Forest in Mortal Kombat, Erdtree in Elden Ring, and the Qliphoth in dmc5
But you left out Theo.
Yggdrasil in every EO game clears all of those easily.
Great deku tree 😭
Let’s be real absolutely no one has qliphoth or dead forest in their top 20 let alone their top 5,
@dontpreorder2783 qliphoth clears just for the treetop alone
The rubber band snapped for me in base game elden ring. It's become just unintersting level design entirely to serve bafflingly designed copy paste bosses.
That's a point I'd like to emphasise. It is atrocious that the reward for exploration is boss fights and a bunch of them are either copy pastes or just plain dogshit.
I usually don´t leave second comments but since this video was pretty good and I like to (whenever possible) engage and offer my perspective to the analysis rather than just a joke, here we go. It´s gonna be a long one, so whether you read the whole thing or just some of it, thank you beforehand for your time and have a nice day.
Starting with *level design* , specifically when it comes to the Specimen Storehouse, if I´m to compare it to Research Hall I find that it falls behind. Research Hall was designed around 1 lamp, and it had a system of shortcuts via elevators to connect the different parts of the level, encouraging deeper understanding of how the level worked. Specimen Storehouse has 5 Sites of Grace and the level is layered in a way that, at least to my knowledge, you can´t navigate the whole area from its first Grace even if you already unlocked the rest, you have to teleport and thats it. Even if the level is able to branch into more levels, I find this level to be an example of how Fromsoft often forgets solutions to problems they already solved. Like doing an open world encounter that you have to engage in a sort of Tower Knight-esque way, but much worse, repeated 7-8 times. Or an obscure elevator (from Enir Ilim to Belurat) that by the time you unlock said shortcut you probably realize that it´s of no use to you at that point in the game.
Regarding *combat* and *bosses* , I overall find myself agreeing with most, if not all, of your assessments. For context, I´ve cleared most of the DLC bosses on my RL1 character and have nohit them all except for Radahn (So far my pb is 20-ish%) and Midra, using different weapons. Almost every single one of them has some unavoidable (or nearly) or very inconsistent bs going on, Gaius has the charge, Romina has her instant, frame 0 phase transition (which she can keep using), Metyr has the stupid double laser, Radahn has/had the frame trap move (terrain shenanigans in phase 2, AI shenanigans both phases, etc), Bayle´s wonky tracking for his fire breath and also a lot of these have RNG lottery follow-ups they may or may not do. Will Metyr do the ground slam with her head/hands 2 times or 3 times?, Who knows, pretend it´s 3, will Bayle do his headbutt combo extender and/or his firebreath extra-combo extender? Who knows, pretend it´ll happen and roll just in case even if nothing happens. Animation-wise, the Sunflower´s charge animation goes from 0 (enters position and holds it completely still for 2 secs) to 100 (immediately charges at you) with no tell or visual cue in between, Messmer has a subtle tell for his orb when he´s in the air, a grey-ish vfx will appear briefly indicating his descent, Sunflower just doesn´t.
I´m sure a lot of you have probably seen people saying things like *"Elden Ring wants you to play differently"* in order to create the illusion that there´s some sort of bandage on top of its problems or that it´s somehow 4D chess in comparison to DS3, it isn´t. If you remove the three mechanics ER adds to the already aging combat blueprint (Guard Countering, ERJump and Crouch) you can still play the game and have a relatively normal experience, if you remove rolling, you´ll be doing a very miserable challenge run. Furthermore, none of these 3 things are nearly as useful or as incentivized as just rolling (there´s barely a couple of main bosses that actively incentivize jumping and only 1 where you could maybe make an argument for crouching). There´s more to it, including bosses, as they are DBZ fusions between at least 6 DS3 bosses (2 of them being Pontiff and Nameless King) but I think it´s clear by this point that this argument is just copium.
As Matthewmatosis said, "If you change directions after you hear the shot you´ll be safe...Right?. Wrong, the arrow magically curves in midair because this is no longer a series where you outsmart your opponents, this is a series where you press the roll button at the right time"
Every boss move you said is inconsistent or hard to avoid is not. How have you done a RL1 run and are that bad? Are you just lying to make a point? None of those moves are hard to avoid. Wow.
@@tahireed Try reading what he said again. Like really slowly. I understand you and many others were absent for reading comprehension classes in elementary but just try. Please.
@@crim1188 "Almost every single one of them has some unavoidable or inconsistent bs going on."
This is false and all his examples are moves than can easily be avoided. Idk what point you thought he made with that statement but its completely wrong.
Learn what the term reading comprehension means and try to not be extremely pretentious and condescending. It will serve you better in the future,
@@tahireed I didn´t say that "Every boss move is inconsistent or had to avoid", I said that almost all of them have inconsistent, outright unavoidable or nearly unavoidable bs going on. You mentioned that my examples are wrong but you didn´t say how or why, just that it is. And just to make things clear, let´s talk about why:
-Gaius charge is not consistently dodgeable on medium load, requiring either light load or extra talisman/tear or both.
-Romina has an aoe phase transition which deals instant damage right as the vfx/animation starts, it´s not telegraphed in any way and the only way to account for it without taking dmg is by prediction, if you roll right after a punish, thereby predicting or accounting for a move that hasn´t happened yet, it´s likely you won´t take dmg, if you don´t you´ll end up taking dmg, because reacting to this move is at the very least inconsistent.
-Metyr´s double laser is not dodgeable if you are at melee range, the move can happen quite fast and covers a lot of ground, and since the first part isn´t dodgeable unless you use Raptor of the Mists, again, you are either forced to use 1 thing to fully dodge it or spend the whole 2nd phase running away, baiting her spinny move and run away again, over and over. Check Aggy´s RL1 no Scadu blessings, check Gino´s strat in his no-hit run of the DLC, that move is the reason why they spend the 2nd Phase running away.
-Radahn´s Frame Trap was at the very least, incredibly inconsistent to roll if you happened to be at any place but the one very specific spot to dodge it, it was inconsistent on light load, and even more inconsistent on medium load, as it required frame perfect timing. You can even find footage of Aggy and Gino saying they didn´t like it, Gino even said the boss would still need some tuning(which they did, for a reason) to even be a B Tier boss.
-Bayle´s tracking for his fire breath (the one that goes in a straight line) can jump out of the window and go from a breath attack that aims at your current position right at the start to aiming at the position you are running to in order to avoid the first scenario (which is what happens most of the time), making the tracking for this attack inconsistent.
If someone needs to learn comprehension, it´s you, this all happened because you made up a statement that I didn´t make, because you didn´t read what I said. And if you want to glaze while offering nothing of substance, go do it somewhere else, this game (a game that I still like btw) has a lot of glazers and you won´t have much trouble finding them.
@@SkepticalBucketman I quoted exactly what you said, word for word and now you are saying that's not what you said. This is one of the saddest things I have ever seen.
I'm done. You and the other person need a serious lesson in reading comprehension. You can't literally say something and then say you didn't say that.
There is legit criticism of the game but your points and examples regarding bosses are wrong. Every example you gave of inconsistentcy is something I had no trouble avoiding consistently. My experience with the game literally proves you wrong. You are either very bad and got lucky or lying.
Gauis's charge is the perfect example. If you seriously had trouble with that move, you are just bad. I dodged it consistently no problem after getting the timing down with a medium load.
“A second twidded has hit the tipples”
~Bilbo w. Boogie
Two things that broke me (re enemy telegraphing giving you no indication of what to expect) were Radahn's gravity pull, and the few times he spews light pillars EVERYWHERE. You're supposed to frame perfect dodge these attacks and there's no other way to avoid them. Forget the telegraph not giving you any indication of what to do, the attack itself gave no indication. De jure...they are unavoidable. Why in the fuck would rolling on the floor save me from gravity magic all around me? Why would rolling into a pillar of lasers keep me safe? These attacks were designed with the mechanical reality of how the dodge functions in mind, and not the contextual conceit of "YOU ARE ROLLING TO MOVE OUT OF THE WAY OF THE ATTACK". Can't wait for a boss with an arena full of chests and the only way to avoid attacks are to open the chests at the right time for the i-frames. Absolute pigshit.
Excellent video by the way :)
His cross slash move would also catch you when you attempt to jump over the initial low sweep.
There's difficult. Then there's artificial diffiiculty.
Punishing a player for choosing a correct option is artificial difficulty.
@@davidwhidden9337his attack just got nerfed because the hitbox was too big. It's fixed now.
Two of the attacks you listed are telegraphed, the gravity pull is telegraphed is when he stretches his arms out and gets ready to stomp/slam. The light pillars are also spawned after he does the light combo, which would be learned if you fought him more than 5 times. These are learned attacks. Not something you'll know if you just rely on luck to beat a boss or beat the boss too fast.
@@Krakain Yes and? This does not negate the criticism that it was poorly designed that way to begin with.
@@davidwhidden9337 It actually validates the criticism. The devs even agreed.
It’s refreshing to see a well articulated critique like this. Nice work!
I wish I enjoyed this dlc but it was genuinely a chore to play through. It seems like ER has become a husk/caricature of what fromsoft games used to be
Roll Souls - Prepare to be Catched Edition
Happy to see this video finished and released. You put a lot of effort into this one and it shows.
Very glad this project saw the light of day. I've been on the same side as Matt all those years ago, finding even DS 3 quite straining on my patience with the game mechanics. This was needed. Unofficial sequel to Lost Soul Arts of Demon's souls, not one many wanted to see but one that needs to exist. I am not sure if it was you or someone else but Elden Ring is Skyrim for people who think they are too good for Skyrim, wide as an ocean but shallow as a puddle
Great video! Really enjoyed the talk about a lot of Bosses not really feeling like in-world entities anymore and rather just coded challenges.
As well as the comparisons between the "memory game" combat of souls and other action games with more skill expression.
HELLBERG I MISS YOU
1:08:45 - That was my sentiments exactly when finished base ER.
Before, I use to think during my first playthrough: "oh, I'm gonna try this in my next playthrough". But with ER, the last half of the game was so miserable that at the end I was not interested anymore. Why slog through this again? The unique experience of the souls series is definetely lost for me.
oh man, awesome video, honestly didn’t expect such a deep dive into animations/skill expression/rolling/positioning
of course a dmc and monhun player would know a lot more about souls games than actual souls fans
Very impressive and well argued video! I give it a 9/11
Appreciate all the hard work that went into this. At the rate you’re going the next video is going to be like 3 hours long!
Well done Video, I really enjoyed it. While I feel differently about Shadow of The Erdtree than you do, I don't disagree with the things you've said. Having a conversation about feelings is always complicated and honestly not worth it. So instead I'll say again that while I disagree with some of the things you said, none of those disagreements are based on the facts you laid out and I really enjoyed your perspective on the DLC. Keep up the good work.
Love the video Theo, so proud of you! 👏
"the hippo was a mistake" 🤣🤣
On a day of a patch. Theo with the pure timing.
This DLC broke me. I loved the first third of Elden Ring but at the end of this DLC I was tortured by Promised Consort Radahn until I genuinely didn’t ever wanna touch this game again. It’s sad.
Yeah, I hadn't touched the game since after I beat the DLC several months ago as I couldn't find any reason to play it again, I was honestly tired. When I first saw Consort Radahn and his shenanigans, I almost thought it was satire.
SIR A SECOND ROT HAS HIT THE ERDTREE
A fair, measured addition to a discourse filled with vitriol, uncharitability and many impassioned fans. You went out of your way to avoid being antagonistic towards the fans, other critics, or anyone in particular, which is evidence for this critique being as fair and methodical as it is. Well done.
To fans of Elden Ring and its DLC, give this video a thorough viewing. You will not find another that is as careful with its claims and observations, nor as respectful to everyone partaking in the discourse.
Are you an AI the video isnt out yet
@@ErbBetaPatched No. I got to help with drafts of the video's script and the video itself.
@@siege1289You seem biased
@ErbBetaPatched For sure. We all are one way or another. Still, what I said about Theo's video rings true.
It's still not really valuable, as especially towards the end, Theo devolves in sweeping claims, making the legacy dungeons "straight path and hollow experiences" the rpg elements "worthless", the open world "wandering around" etc.
Like, every conclusion he makes is way over the top and is disregarding most of the DLC.
He also just sticks to Matthewmatosis original thesis like glue, despite it never really being a good argument.
This is its own style of action game and saying Devil May Cry does action game better therefore Elden Ring can't do good action is just so stunted.
I don't like these types of action games, but I like the souls niche of action games.
No matter how much Theo claims these games have gone anime, they are still more grounded and the simple movesets of players have a certain appeal.
I enjoy SotE, but it's clear From is in an escalating arms race with their players as long as they stick with this combat framework. If From Soft had stuck with the level of boss complexity seen in DeS and DS1, veteran players would find the new games unsatisfyingly easy. I played Bloodborne for the first time this year, with all the other games already under my belt, and I was able to beat almost every boss in the game first try (including legendarily hard ones, like Maria and Orphan).
I think the path forward for From Soft needs to involve shaking up the combat framework, as they did for Sekiro. Sekiro changed the rules enough that veteran players were on the same footing as new players, and couldn't rely on their existing instincts. Sekiro is actually quite easy once you get comfortable with its combat framework, but the need to learn the new framework is where the challenge, and the fun, comes from.
These bossee became a tedious checklist of memorization. I have to identify which attacks are positional even though they both come from neutral, absurdly and unintuitive delays, random pauses and slow-mo like Bayle freezing midair before dive bombing, unintuitive attacks that the intended way to dodge makes no sense, purposely misleading telegraphs, etc
Sote bosses aren’t fighting the player character, they’re fighting the player
What irked me past the breaking point for SotE was seeing all these bosses do their beautiful flowing combos, chaining complex, varied moves one after another, while I'm still lamely swinging my sword side to side like it's 2010.
From now on I choose games with skill expression, something that continues the legacy of Sekiro, the best FromSoft game. Wukong felt like a good first step in the right direction for GameScience.
Fantastic video! It really helps to clarify things I've been arguing with people since the release of Elden Ring. This kind of rot has been present in more substance than I can tolerate since Dark Souls 2.
Fromsoft have gone from wanting to challenge the player to wanting to kill the player at any cost.
Thank you for making this. :)
Spot on analysis!
Sincerely, thank you.
When I finished the base game, I wanted more.
By the end of the DLC, I couldn't wait for it to end. After beating the last boss I just quit out and uninstalled it. I was done. Permanently.
I would like to add a point of criticism.
Even though I liked the world, and I agree that the world (and Mesmer) were the strongest parts of the DLC, it has one major flaw.
It felt extremely artificial. Much more like a game level rather than a realistic fictional world like the base game. Just consider how you access the Abyssal Woods. You have to find a ladder in Shadow keep, go behind a waterfall into a hidden chamber, go through an illusory wall, ride a coffin, traverse an area and do platforming down a cliff, travel throw some misty woods to find a catacombs entrance, and after 3 depth levels of those catacombs you fight a boss to be granted access to the last section of the map. If this isn't artificial, I don't know what is.
I completely forgot about the coffin travel lol, good point. I agree that the world is straining against any sense of verisimilitude.
Spot-on. This DLC in particular came across like vast expanses of nothing, punctuated by talismans, and bosses that feel like flashcards with poses as the questions and timings + positioning as the answers, with no hints whatsoever. Don’t think I have ever before in my life spent 45 minutes having absolutely no idea what a Souls boss was doing or how to respond to anything other than the first attack. 45 straight minutes of not even attempting to hit the boss, with the express intent of simply seeing with my eyes, then recognizing with my brain and then hitting roll with my thumb quickly enough not to get snagged by the fastest attacks (which basically determine the difficulty of the entire fight, like Oceiros with his instacharge), or tricked into early or late rolls by everything else, and being absolutely no closer when I finished the session. The learning process is excruciatingly arbitrary and frustrating.
I do find it interesting that the boss this happened with was Messmer for me, while Midra (minus the explosion) was somehow more intuitive and fun with plenty of counter windows to me, and we appear to have reversed opinions on their quality. Still, I’ve been stewing in all of these thoughts for a while and you captured basically all of them. I’ve definitely decided never to get gaslit into buying FromSoft games again one day after I entered this DLC and regretted every minute since reaching the first boss, the goodwill is just dead. I really can’t even play Devil’s Advocate on any of these points.
Who would win? The best DLC about a twink God that kidnapped his cool anime gravity wielding half brother or one British Boi?
Yes.
ua-cam.com/video/V9y2Puttze8/v-deo.htmlsi=wmvO4c790Dn0bEzw
HEART STOLEN
Which one is Theo?
Fromsoftware was so scared for this video that they nerfed Radahn
On an unrelated note how are you enjoying offseason so far? Tsukihi undo is one of my favorite stories in the light novels, and wazamonogatari had amazing visuals, the animation really elevated it from my initial opinion of it from the audiobook. Looked almost as good as kizu
Off Season has been phenomenal so far imo. Stellar presentation and Nademonogatari is a top 2 arc in the whole series. Really really good stuff.
@@Theottree I really enjoyed nademonogatari as well, 'loomer nadeko was pretty fun and I love the direction of possibly making her into a specialist like tadatsuru. The story that I'm most looking forward to is the story of how meme and the rest became specialists in the first place (I don't know if that has been written yet it's just a want of mine) so seeing nadeko start that path is really cool. Also seeing more ohnonoki is great ✌️✌️
Tldr, the matthewmattosis prophecies came to pass 🙁
Sir, a second zanzigoyle has hit the elden towers
I love Shadow of the Erdtree, but your video is enlightening.
The worst part is not even that Elden Ring and its DLC are bad, it's that ever since FromSlop started going in this direction with Bloodborne onwards, they've enjoyed increasingly greater commercial success. Meaning that an overwhelming majority of games inspired by/derived from the Souls series are going to repeat the same mistakes at best, and double down on them at worst. It's unlikely we'll ever be getting a true successor to the DeS-DS1-DS2 style of design from From (heh) or anyone else, so soon enough Theo, me, and anyone else who shares this sentiment will have to leave Souls behind in favour of something different that could scratch that itch of exploration-focused action RPGs with strong adventure vibes.
So far, the closest to that sort of thing I found for myself is Dread Delusion. It's not even remotely similar to the Souls formula, but I would still recommend anyone reading this to check it out, if only as a point of comparison as to how much fun a game can be when it bothers to make exploration actually rewarding.
I hope its thorough and visceral.
"My mode of engagement has changed gears, such that I'm only immersed only in the challenge presented to me and no other aspect beyond that challenge. The enemy has ceased to be a real presence in a world I'm engaging with and has become an isolated step in a sequence of isolated steps, with no relation to one another or the cohesive whole that the game is trying to manifest. All that's left for me in terms of engagement is the combat, as every other aspect has peeled away in the face of that combat."
It absolutely feels like a flanderization of the character of the Souls games in a sense - the world itself and its lore was a huge part of my investment in the earlier titles, but with SotE (and to an extent, ER as a whole), it feels like all my energy playing the game has been reduced to getting through the areas in order to slam my head against a wall fighting the next boss. I think a lot of the charm and atmosphere was sacrificed in the name of challenge and spectacle. I replayed Dark Souls 3 somewhat recently and Slave Knight Gael, my favorite fight in the whole series, is ridiculously easy compared to every boss in SotE. And it still feels more impactful beating him. Maybe my investment in the lore and world-building of ER is more strained because of how BIG it is, but I don't really know who any of these bosses are or why I should care, and the huge empty world kind of contributes to that sense of "whatever, just get me to the next boss"
I think the DLC shows a perfect example of both sides, good implementation of the lore in the world with Shaman village and the bad with the finger ruins just being there and empty fields that you don't know how they got there.
Fairly subjective. But don't know how bothered I am by the idea that the learning curve for a boss is intentionally designed to be more about memorization vs player intuition of what an attack will do based on the start up. It's a design complaint I can acknowledge someone having as an issue, but ultimately I don't personally value. If I see an attack for the first time and get hit by it, that's something I can learn from and do better at next time. If I see an attack that has a good tell, and you have a good idea of what it'll do, and I dodge it. And I now know that attack. That's great and all. But IDK how much better I find this to be then the boss having an unpredictable tell your first time through and you getting hit by it. Cus I still learned what the attack is and now know the tell for it. And will dodge and engage with it properly in the future.
Basically I understand why you have an issue with this. But it's not something I value in regards to boss design. Fromsoft even in DS1 had this, it's just more prevalent nowadays to make the learning experience for a boss harder. Which I don't really mind. I'm fine with bashing my head against a wall to learn a fight. Gael and Isshin took me hours and I was fine with this.
I also don't agree with much of the Open World criticisms. The massive open space not having any sort of encounter design that is difficult and/or is trying to catch the player is fine to me. The open world feels more like it's granting you your own paths and freedom for what the player wants to do whenever they want to do it. If you see an enemy that you think may be interesting mechanically to engage with, and could drop something valuable. It's up to you to go fight him. The enemy won't outrun Torrent and force a combat encounter. I much prefer this. Especially for an open world game. Transversal in that open world being limited because of forced encounter design would be awful and would decentivize the player from wanting to travel the world at all. Having these tight undead burg encounter design within levels in the open world instead of in the open world at all is a much better idea imo.
Give a few other smaller complaints. I mostly agree with the video. Fairly good and I enjoyed my time.
😂 you would NOT beat Zenith Tigrex
@@Auvisome Ok
100% agree with the learning of attacks if they are unintuitive. It increases the difficulty of learning a fight naturally, and after each time you get hit you can still learn how to dodge it and improve upon next time which is very engaging (minus radahn I'd argue since it isn't clear on how to dodge him upon dying)
Have I found my spirit animal?
You vocalized all my thoughts, even on Messmer being wonderfully designed, even on the flaws of the base game. Thanks for making this video, I wouldn't have the patience.
"Legacy dungeons are a straight line"
Yup, which is why it's bewildering that they're called Legacy Dungeons. 'Checkpoint, checkpoint, checkpoint, boss room' is _not_ how From used to design dungeons. They were a series of loops that twisted around on each other and genuinely rewarded thorough exploration. Now, they're a straight shot to the boss, with a few dead-end rooms branching off from the main path containing either items or a mini-boss. There is almost zero variety or complexity to the layouts making them pretty dull to traverse and discover.
The straight line description is false. Stormveil wasn't a straight line, neither is leyndell. In the DLC
Shadow keep, Stormveil, Leyndell, Raya Lucaria, Farum Azula, Volcano Manor are straight lines now?
The way Belurat and Enir- Ilim connect to each other at the start and end of the map journey to form a whole is not complex? Farum azula, Haligtree, Leyndell have wildly different and varied layouts
And that is entirely disregarding the entire underground section which is a whole legacy dungeon with a few checkpoints. The arguments are incredibly reductive.
I'm hoping this video blows up eventually. But then, is it worth ot receiving the influx of average fromsoft fanboys? Truly one of the mysteries of all time.
“Erm, Git gud!!”
@@rhoadrunner3281 I am defeat
"The camera's not bad for unlocking at random times, you're just bad at the game!"
This video is just another generic critique of SOTE, there are hundreds of these that have been coming out for months. This one is really well made and makes all valid points that I agree with but I don't want anymore of these hour long videos popping up in my feed for 5 more months. I've already seen multiple of these and they all make the same points eventually but some explain it better or worse than others.
This video won't change anything if it blows up, it'll just give people another video to refer to when they're asked why they don't like anything instead of having their own opinion.
@@Krakain If that's your perspective, sure. I completely disagree. I've watched many of these critiques and found them to be all shit, except this one.
Great video well articulated and reasoned.
Great video. Well-structured, thorough, and puts to words a lot of feelings I've had related to falling off Fromsoft games. Also enjoying watching your editing skills markedly improve with each release, the quality shows. Looking forward to more
They just gimped Radahn and buffed nearly every drop within the DLC too.
I agree, the DLC feels very lazy for something that took them 2+ years to finish.
Watched the whole video, loved it
I am on board with all the criticism on the Souls design at this point
Great video. I, as someone who doesn't like souls like games, had much fun with Elden Ring. I leveled up in the open world, i used magic and i used spirit summons.
I clearly don't think much about game design, but i found myself agreeing with your arguments.
Keep the good work up