It's true lol it's just some guy with sun for a head coming at you with a sword........ The creepy build up to him was okay... A bit slow but fine... But the fight itself is pretty meh and soooo not worth the effort to get to again lolz. Didn't go to him again in my 2nd dlc run for a reason... It just wasn't THAT worth it...
I wanted to love this boss so bad but I have to say, the game really let me down in terms of maintaining my engagement and interest. Only so many cheap unearned deaths I can take before I find something more rewarding to do with my time
In the next Souls game, the first boss will follow you around the arena with their weapon raised for five minutes, then the fog wall will dissipate. You will continue through the rest of the game with the boss trailing behind you
and then when you killed the last boss the boss that trailed you will attack and one shot you making the win in the extremely hard final boss not count.
@@heideknight7782 Better comparison would be the forlorn because the pursuer encounters are scripted and guaranteed every time whereas the forlorn can invade randomly in dozen or so different places.
@@Astreon123always depends on what point in the game you are when you get to a boss. If you try to rush the volcano manor godskin noble for the somber stone +7, it can be really frustrating to be one shot by his super delayed mega thrust move.
@@Astreon123thats not the point the point is that its a design flaw which makes the boss harder and more awkward to read in a really cheap way difficulty is completly besides the point
Part of the issue is that you have to visually justify the delay. Mohg for example has a certain weighty flow to him. Whereas Horah Loux sill leap at you and literally go into slow-mo mid air. The first time I saw this attack I started laughing.
Omg yes, THIS. I really have no issues with delayed attacks but this one I fuckinf hate. Not because it's difficult but because it's so goddamn dumb. While they're at it should've given us time to have a flashback and power boost
@@thecatinthehatwithabat9903 It is dumb. It is there only to kill you. There is nothing about what you're seeing that suggests "oh maybe I should delay my dodge". Its why a lot of these fights feel tedious because none of it is reactionary its just a checklist of moves to memorize individual timings.
I have honestly never understood the complaints with this attack. It looks cool and it's just fun to dodge. It also successfully conveys the feeling of having a fast hulking man rapidly closing in on you without it feeling unfair or cheap.
@@caleb-f1c A fast hulking man that freezes in midair. There are more logical and intuitive ways to have a delayed attack that doesnt require the player to have to go against every instinct a break the flow to the fight. Instead of attacks being reactionary they become a checklist of attacks that you have to memorize and then internalize thw different timings of each. Mohg and Midra do it better imo because there's a more consistent flow and line of logic to their movements. When that particular attack is there ONLY to trick you. Tricking the player as a mode of difficulty isnt my favorite. Its still an overwhelmingly cool fight but they could have gotten the desired result in a less annoying way like aforementioned bosses
I like the idea of having delays sprinkled in, because they should realistically be used by enemies to catch you off guard. But having almost every attack be delayed makes no sense from a combat perspective for most enemies. Why would you leave yourself wide open expecting your enemy to dodge when there's no reason to expect them not to just attack you? And if the plan is just to hit trade because you're stronger, then why bother delaying at all?
"Why would you leave yourself wide open expecting your enemy to dodge when there's no reason to expect them not to just attack you?" Uh, because it is an AI attack based pattern designed for you to observe and understand, not another human player. You definitely do not want enemies to be mixing you up as if it were a human, thinking how to trick you by using delayed attacks sometimes and sometimes not. You think you're annoyed by attacks always being delayed, now just think of how much more you would complain if you could never truly adjust to the attack because the boss suddenly decided to let the attack rip instead of holding it. Fighting games are niche because this level of dedication to beating a thinking opponent takes significantly more focus and effort. You'd immediately alienate a majority of the players if bosses functioned this way.
@@Tjerty It would also make bosses actually interesting to fight and not just boring 1 trick ponies. Games are generally better when they don't try to cater to everyone.
@@102ndsmirnov7 I'm certain your takeaway from elden ring wasn't "oh god all these bosses are just 1 trick ponies". You and I both know they aren't. You just felt compelled to respond.
Dodging too early for a delayed attack isn't "panic rolling". It's instinctive rolling. There's a difference. Panic rolling is when you're rolling randomly out of panic without intention or deliberate timing. Instinctive rolling is when you think the attack will hit before it actually hits based on the animation. I understand when the devs try to punish panic rolling, because it makes sense, they want you to time your rolls, but when they punish instinctive rolling that's what gets me the most. I absolutely hate that shit. They artificially delay the actual landing of the hit.
And like mentioned before some enemies can have delayed attacks but if most enemies have them, they start to feel artificial aka like a video game, same problem arises how grace checkpoints are placed and how vast majority of the game has reused content.
I think that’s probably why I dislike Elden Ring’s combat so much. In the previous games (including Sekiro) you could get away with just having decent reactions and instincts based on visual cues and still have a pretty easy to moderately difficult time with the games. Sure, you would have it easier if you did memorize combos and patterns but that just is not fun to me whatsoever. That is not what I enjoy when playing a game. And you don’t have to. In Elden Ring it IS mandatory unless you go in to a fight very over leveled. Most bosses no longer work on instinct, they all try to fool you… wow so difficult that you held your attack for 7 seconds before instantly striking me. Oh how much fun I’m having… I really wish they would ditch this design philosophy because however much people always used to claim that you “have to learn the bosses attack patterns” it really wasn’t an obligation until Elden Ring. In Elden Ring if you don’t, you’re cooked
No. Panic rolling is when you see the boss start to move and incorrectly time your dodge to get hit. It occurs because you dont actually know the moveset of the boss, youre attempting to just roll off of reaction to movement. Youre panicking. Instead of waiting for the actual attack, you "instinctually' make the wrong fucking move 😂. What a joke of a video and even more laughable comment section.
Theres no fucking way you said they artificially delay the landing of the hit. Man, sometimes i wish elden ring wasnt as popular as it is so these skyrim ass players can go back to where they feel strong, in games made for 12 year olds.
I have no problems with delayed attacks per se, as long as they make sense. Mohgs bloodflame explosions never bothered me because I figured that that's just how all those attacks work and they are a type of magic. But I always found it extremely ridiculous with how long Margit holds his cane because no serious combatant would ever fight like that. That is also why Midra was fine for me, since it suits his style - he gracefully swings his swords like some sort of dance and thus delays almost every attack all while being a lord of frenzied flame rather than a knight that you duel. I know that this is no reliable metric, but for me personally it needs to be in line with what the enemy is and if it suits him, the weapon swung, etc. but as soon as I get the feeling that it's just a game mechanic meant to punish you, I'm lost.
My guess is that Margit underestimates the tarnished on first meeting them, which seems right since when we get em to his midphase he be saying "Thou art of passing skill" and seems to do less of the delayed attacks and more rush down oriented moves. But I just thought of this, so I could be wrong but that is the impression I always got. Then when we fight morgot he goes all out to kill us.
So yeahh a normal fighter wouldn't delay their attacks in actual combat, but this is a demigod fighting a lowly tarnished that he thinks is of no skill whatsoever so why not play with your food and slap them around a bit
@@Shishakind86 well in my eyes it's like in his head, "Sure hit me as much as you want weak tarnished, watch me hit you 10x harder" kinda deal but I dunno maybe I'm seeing stuff that isn't there. But I don't think Morgot out of the gate would take the tarnished any bit serious, he's probably killed countless tarnished out of there league trying to become a lord.
No serious combatant would ever shift to a high guard waiting for the right moment to strike ? Pretty sure that's a classic stance in many martial arts
I don’t mind NORMAL delayed attacks. Those are in every fromsoft game including Sekiro. What I have a problem with is when they LITERALLY FREEZE FRAME THE DAMN ANIMATION. It looks completely unnatural and is just confusing for no reason. Godfrey on his second phase freezes MID AIR like WTF.
Yeah screw that tracking unironically. Positioning is very important in combat and now it just feels like fights are quick time events where you press your invincibility button at the right moment.
A lot of these moves have good tracking so that they're not all invalidated by just mindlessly strafing to the right or left, but most of them can still be dodged positionally by running. And some of these can just be dodged by walk-strafing.
This just isn’t true. If you’re unlocked and sprint at the right angle you strafe almost all delayed attacks. One that seems weird that you can’t strafe is the Messmer delayed thrust.
@@porkwhisperer3050 for some reason, the AI's brain just behaves differently when you unlock. Which doesn't make any sense. It's probably bad coding, which makes the AI lock and unlock at the same time you do xD It's a completely unintuitive "solution".
Honestly I thought the way Midra and Bayle did delay attacks was pretty engaging, fair and added a lot to the rythm of the fight. Both fights are in my top 10 most enjoyable souls bosses.
Midra and Mohg are bosses I'd call the "Nameless King of Elden Ring". All 3 bosses play similarly in the way that their attacks and combos are defined by delayed attacks and specifically designed to roll-catch you. They're not like Margit who can purposefully drag out his attack super long and have a fixed interval
Forget the terrible looking delayed attacks why is every boss fight in a square boring looking areana i mean whats the story with this guy being in here? God from soft have gotten lazy
@@CosmicVoid_119simplistic or square boss rooms are the most fair for the player to fight in. Having complex terrain and elevation can make dodges and attacks feel more inconsistent, as seen in Consort Radahn’s fight (some moves are undodgable depending on the terrain)
@@Letwoo67 Right? "WTF THIS BOSS STAYS SLIGHTY TOO LONG IN THE AIR, THATS NOT REALISTIC" The player character: fires a literal kamehameha, fire from his eyes or flips 3 times in the air with a gigantic sword or a hammer the size of an anvil.
I wouldn't include Midra. When you complain about delayed attacks, it's important to take into consideration the most important quality that can make or break said attack: animation legibility. Midra's attacks are very well animated from his weird cape/cloth thing to his actual sword swing, you can absolutely dodge his attacks on reaction just by paying attention to the animation. That's not the case for every boss, Margit/Morgott's overhead swing is infamous because....there's not much distinguishing animation work to telegraph when the swing will occur. That's not the case for Midra. In fact, I'd say Midra is an example of a well done delayed attack boss. All his physical sword attacks are delayed, but his frenzy AOE attacks can be quick and erratic. It's actually a good way to clue you in on how to deal with the boss pretty quickly. I'd say I had much more pleasant time learning Midra than Consort Radahn for example. The other factor that makes delayed attacks obnoxious is tracking. Consort Radahn tracks excessively, his cross slash attack can turn him on a dime, which makes the delayed aspect worse. So all in all, I'd say delayed attacks by themselves are not a problem. They're a problem when animation legibility isn't good and attack tracking is overtuned. Which surprise surprise, is the main issue with Dark Souls 2. It's also why I give Dark Souls 3 a pass most of the time, the animation quality in that game is very good. Gael phase 2 is another example of a boss with entirely delayed attacks on top of another layer of delays, but he's amazing because of the animation work. Also you seem kinda salty over the fact that he's the only frenzy related content...which yeah sure I guess that's fair. It's not really enough for me to ding the boss quality. If we're talking about narrative dissatisfaction, Consort Radahn is worse in almost every regard. also final edit...the deflection tear more or less dumpsters delay based attacks. Did you play Sekiro? It's waaaaaaaaaay more intense with the delays than Elden Ring.
One thing to remember, whoever, is that Sekiro's perfect block combat and Dark Souls' dodge-roll combat are fundamentally the opposites of each other. In Dark Souls, e.g. Elden Ring, you see an attack's wind-up, you roll. You may roll early, but you can never roll late. Your I-frames are simply not instant. In Sekiro, though, no matter what attack is thrown at you, unless it is a special Kanji attack, you always wait for the last moment, before enemy's hitbox collides with you to the perfect block and deflect it. TLDR, in Elden Ring you react to an attack before it happens, in Sekiro you react to an attack, the moment it hits you.
@@israfel916yes that’s why you use the correct tool for the correct problem. I personally was not satisfied by PCR and rellana mechanically, but Bayle, Gaius, Midra, and Messmer(in that order) are some of my favorite fights in the game for how they allow you to win by just rolling, but become the dance that Souls and Bloodborne used to give you when you learn where to mix in jump attacks over low sweeps, crouching under high sweeps, guard counters at the end of combos, and throwables to maintain stance damage. I absolutely agree that the combo structures need more polishing for the next game, but I think From’s biggest issue is poor communication on how to apply the tools at your disposal and poorer incentives to try new things.
@@israfel916 your s are instant on an elden ring roll from when you release the dodge button also sekiro parries are much more forgiving with early inputs than an elden ring roll if ur not spamming block both points wrong + you type like a bot + L + ratio
@@ETBrooD this is due to hardware/driver issues or controller input lag (differs by indivdual consoles). if you have this delay it will apply to all inputs in many games u can prove me wrong if u want but of the 3 vids i watched none of them had a fair test of other inputs to compare
His dash grab isn't that bad in all honesty, the only incredibly weird attack in the main game is radagon's double swing, which looks like it could easily be rolled back to back but actually has the slightest delay to it
They aren't delayed, though. Godfrey and Hoarah Loux are my favorite and. iMO, the best bosses in the game because they have a distinct tempo to their fight. They always move to the rhythm of their soundtracks, and it makes predicting their attacks better.
i think the majority of people just have more fun fighting a boss when they can use their reaction time to their advantage and maybe get a first try victory instead of going into every boss fight and feeling like they have to study for the boss exams
then they can play ds 1 2 or 3. Which all take far less knowledge of the bosses to beat. Or just use any of the broken items in the game if you don't want to have to learn it.
even as a fan of delayed attacks, and a massive fan of midra, you're completely right how overused delayed attacks are in elden ring, sure they've made me stop panic rolling as much, but every fight feels like a game of timing and it all blends together, in dark souls 3 I find I can reaction roll on almost every boss and get away with it, and the delayed attacks are a good mix-up that keep me on my toes, in elden ring however that reaction roll feeling is gone, which is a shame because it feels like I go into every boss on a blank slate and I don't actually get better at the game, just that one specific boss.
You can tell their goal is to stop souls vets from transferring their skill from prior games, or even within the game game, to new challenges. You're right. It never feels like you got better at the game. Past souls game rewarded you for mastering the fundamentals of combat. ER? Not so much.
@@enigmatic8280can't you argue that er rewards yors abilities of finding punishing windows, by transferring your experience from past bosses to new. Founding, jump in, crouching, high low stances, positioning. Founding when you can land r1, test if in that window r2 fit, then charge r2 or skill . Of course this gonna need some testing, some time lucky observation. Clearly higher skill level players have easier time fighting new bosses than people who less knowledgeable about er mechanics. P.s. I'm not good at this games, I'm just confused by statement
What a baffling incorrect comment. In DS3 the fact that you just reaction roll and hell, spam, everything is fucking dogshit. It rewards nothing. Any boss in ER has a more interesting moveset to learn, and most attacks have at least two ways of dodging, not wven considering the inclusion of the Deflect Year now. @@enigmatic8280
Sure dude, the game that is just reaction rolling and mildly side-strafing 95% of bosses doesn't blend together, but the one that asks you to pay attention does. Very insightful and not stupid claim.
@@AlexAndriy1995 yes elden ring rewards finding punishing windows. However, you cannot transfer experience from fighting one boss to another unless they are literally the same boss or have basically indistinguishable movesets. When you can land an r1 or r2 is entirely different for everyboss. For example, learning the fire giants timing has no impact on whether you can learn radagons timings. Each boss fight is different because each boss has different recovery timings, hitboxes, posture values, dmg,etc.
Hard disagree on Midra. I found him to be exactly what you described him not to be, a breath of fresh air. On my first playthrough I found all his attacks extremely readable and reactable. He's much slower than your average Elden Ring boss and gives you plenty punish windows, even during the middle of his delayed attacks, in comparison to many of the bosses before him. To me he's an example of delayed attacks done right.
Elden Ring has three major problems: Homogenization, no rhythm to the fights, and speed. Every single boss follows the exact same formula - start out relatively manageable, have a second phase that is designed to utterly fuck over the player. I can't tell you how many bosses in ER I can describe as "Okay, yeah, this was pretty good. THEN the second phase happened." How cool would it be to have a boss who's second phase was them getting WEAKER, instead of stronger? Y'know, like how a real person gets weaker the more you just obliterate them. Not only that, but as you touched on, even the biggest of bosses are allowed to just move around as quickly as they want, as though their actual weight has zero bearing on how they're able to move - which was something they put a lot of consideration into for previous games. The rhythm is pretty obvious. If you have a boss fight who's intentionally designed to throw off the rhythm of a player, then the fight ends up feeling as though it has no rhythm - it has no flow. If the player knows they have to wait for every attack a boss has before rolling, they're not in the moment, trying to whittle down a living opponent - they're a player outside the world, gaming the AI. Lastly there's the player speed. In every previous game, whenever the devs wanted to speed up the combat, the player was sped up with it. BloodBorne is the biggest example obviously. The player stamina is generous, and the actions they can perform consume less stamina on average than in previous games. Hell, even Greatswords and large weapons are the fastest they've ever been. However in Elden Ring, they wanted to have the bosses speed up without doing the same to the player. As such they're able to make moves that at times the players just cannot dodge unless they are hard memorizing every boss fight. And when you're turning every boss fight into a test of memorizing all of their attacks, you're not presenting the player with a natural back and forth fight, which they have to react to, and pay attention to. You're turning it into homework. Where the player simply has to memorize every little action, or they get punished. The Souls/Borne combat is not built for combat that's as fast as Elden Ring wants it to be, and FromSoft has pushed it as far as the combat can go. They, and fans, unfortunately just don't wanna accept it.
Sorry dawg but the flow state is still there. There's just a learning phase behind every boss instead of getting better at the game as a whole. Sounds like a bad thing but who wants another dark souls 3 level of difficulty? That shit is so easy nowadays. In my first dark souls 3 run I almost first tried Gael because I was simply good at dark souls 3 by that point. That would have been unsatisfying... Having each boss be its own challenge helps to offset the growing skill of the playerbase Like I can lock in and fight Messmer without even thinking now. You just need to learn his attacks, which for some reason is an alien concept to a lot of souls fans. It's not like you're constantly referring to a spreadsheet of timings in your mind, they do get ingrained as you play. It's the same as it used to be. Remember your first dark souls experience, how weird the attack timings felt until you got an instinct for it? It's the same now, but the instincts are for bosses instead of games now if you know what I mean.
@@Volsraphel Wrong. What flow can there be when the bosses can randomize their combos, chain them into each other, choose to delay an attack for 1 to 3 seconds, cancel their recovery animation to chain into more attacks endlessly without pause, chase you from the other side of the arena in less than a second, cancel their stun animation at random to start another attack chain, etc. The bosses in elden ring have long stopped playing by the same rules as the players (like input or animation reading) which is the fundamental block for making a fight have a flow. The game has simply devolved into gaming the AI into a tiny attack window, instead of having a ebb and flow battle.
@@devildante9 Skill issue? No matter how it chains and diverges, if you can recognise what attack is coming before it lands then you can dodge it. That's where the flow comes from, being focused on recognizing each move
@@Volsraphel You didn't address any of my other points. But to get to the "divergent" combo chains, if a boss has a chain with RNG for doing either 4 or 5 moves, you have to awkwardly stand waiting for the 5th move that never comes and you loose your attack opportunity, or try to attack only to get slapped by the 5th move. This breaks the flow. If this was a fighting game (which have complex mechanics as opposed to the very simplistic combat fromsoft games have from a mechanical perspective), or a character action game like DMC, or a hunting game like monster hunter; I would agree. But there are no frame traps, footsies, meaties, roman cancels, and such those games have, so delays or divergent combos end up freaking the flow instead of adding to the combat.
"Muh realism" I am playing a game. The enemies are fighting me in this game. When the enemies are not so much fighting me as they are playing the game with these awkward pauses after readying attacks, it just feels gimmicky and inauthentic. Just beat my ass ffs.
My 2nd playthrough of the DLC is when I say to myself, "ok I will not use any summon & learn all the bosses pattern" and hell they kicked my ass mostly from their delayed attack lol, but it was worth it, it was sooooooo satisfying when you deveated them by pure skill.
Imho the thing with these new "delayed" attacks is that they're made of two parts: the charging and the swing. The charging part is not the issue, because it's almost always telegraphed and recognizable. The swing is where it all falls apart. No matter how long or slow the charging portion of the animation is, if the actual hit takes less than a quarter of a second, you'll likely be unable to dodge it because of simple human reaction time. Knowing that an attack is coming is only half the battle, you also have to know _when_ the attack is coming. What this all means is that you have to internalize the timing of the attacks through trial and error to be able to predict when the swing is gonna come out. Needless to say that your internal clock is never going to be perfect. You'll never count seconds as well as a real clock. Add to all this the fact that enemies can randomly choose to mix up the timings of their swings, and you have a well oiled machine that ensures you will get hit from time to time, never truly able to react to attacks.
I played this game a lot, almost all enemies in the game have fixed timing for their delayed attack so you can memorize them. The delayed attacks can be consistently used as a punish window by pro player because of this. The only enemies I know with mix up timing delayed attack are Margit and watchdog holding their attack, even then they have telegraph and tell when they actually decide to swing.
@@rizuki9983 Yes, memorizing the timing is indeed the way to go. However, I'm trying to say that as human beings we sometimes _feel_ time differently due to a variety of reasons. If you count seconds along with a clock, and then you stop looking at the clock and start counting by yourself, you'll very quickly fall out of sync with it. That said, there are a few (not many) enemies that do delayed attacks right. One example is the Watchdog (like you mentioned), who slightly raises their sword before they swing, so you can react immediately after seeing that animation.
@@sonikku997 idk the only delayed attack I found to be bad are the Radahn one (because he is doing it while riding his horse so is unpunishable) and scally misbegotten (he has attack that similar to delayed one but come out so much faster) the rest I found to be not hard to memorize or learn the timing. I rarely struggled with delayed attacks after learning a lot of them can be used for your advantage for more opening and punish window, I like them mechanically but I do agree they look jarring.
I totally disagree. You start with the idea that "delayed attacks" are by default bad. You argue for "telegraphed attacks". You argue that there is "artificial difficulty" from the delayed attacks. When an attack happens, you need to react to it. Whether that be move out of the way, block, parry, roll, stagger your opponent, whatever. In a "telegraphed attack" you have a very gradual and clear signal to react. This is fine, but it's easy. You don't need to learn anything, you could basically avoid every attack in the same way, watch the weapon come towards you and dodge. So the question then is how do you make this more challenging? The answer to that is to create a smaller window to react. This makes sense, if the sword is slowly coming towards you at a consistent speed, you can easily roll out of the way. If it does the same in a quarter the time, it's much harder to notice and roll. But the issue here is one of perception. If you're waiting for something to react to, you can react to it quickly, whereas if you're not "primed" to be waiting for it, it's really hard to be ready to react. So this is what the "delayed attack" actually is. For example, you talk about Margit's swings, those are are things you can roll on reaction to, you don't need to memorize them. BUT you have a reasonably small window to react to them. So you have to be paying attention. Thankfully, he primes you, he raises his staff above his head to signal "Hey, stop attacking, don't lock yourself in an animation, this big staff is going to come down." then you have the chance to roll when you see it come down. If you are just watching him, if you can focus your mind a bit, you don't need to be able to memorize, or predict the swing. In fact, prediction is what is punished the most. Panic rolling is when you're rolling on stimulus, like flinching, being stuck in a kind of stress response. This is actually important to enjoying the game I think. The game is more fun when you're in a kind of flow state. In a flow state, you're not letting that stress response take over. You're just seeing the staff come up, seeing the staff start to come down, and your mind isn't cluttered and you just press the roll. The staff going up primes you, the staff coming down forces you to react. Things like Elemer's variants on his sword swing, if you rely on "learning the difference" you're going to fail, because some combos do have mix ups, they don't always progress in the same way. You can't tell them apart in the middle of combat because you're getting stressed, and you're trying to predict them. But they're very clear, one of them the sword doesn't go back to swing. As a hint though, it's based on your distance to him. If you're in range, he'll do the fast swing, if you're further back the sword will stop and swing further out to hit you, this is the delayed one. If you roll into him, the whole dancing sword combo will end, and he'll bring his sword back to his hand. There's definitely some benefit from learning, and it's true that not everything can be reacted to, something like waterfowl dance you need to memorize a pattern. A lot of the challenge comes from conflicting thoughts, you're thinking about how to get in range, when you can fit in a swing, how close you might be to posture breaking him, and that cluttered mind can be distracting and make the roll more difficult. But this is why I like the game, because the more you play it, it's not so much that you memorize the moves, though you do a bit, but rather all of the different conflicting cluttered thoughts start to quiet down as you batch things together, "Oh, this combo can be punished with 3 hits, oh, I shoudn't try to attack after this move or he will recover and has a quick attack before I can roll, etc." But those are different things than whether you can react to a move. There's a big difference between being unable to avoid an attack because you're animation locked, and being unable to avoid an attack because you physically don't have enough frames to notice it and avoid it. And again, this is where delayed attacks are actually good. Because the "delayed attack" is actually a signal to be ready, to not lock yourself in an animation, and to be ready to react. If you had no delayed attacks, then you would be always relying on only responding in recovery animations, or else the telegraphing would have to be so long that avoiding it would be trivial.
You know how fromsoftware fans are when you point out a flaw in any souls like game. They instantly start to suck and blow miyasaki with no hesitation 😂
@@pancakes7483 it's not an objective flaw so it will obviously get criticism. Many like delayed attacks, without delayed attacks you get the problem that is ds1 bosses. They are far too easy, every single boss in that game you can beat by just rolling the moment you see an attack, with no thought. The direction you roll doesn't even matter either, there's almost no attacks before elden ring that require you to roll in a certain direction or time it well. You just roll and swing while circling the boss and you clear all the games easily.
@@ragegaze3482 Gael doesnt have any. But he is consistently #1 boss. Some people like eating shit from toilet, but that doesnt mean its objectively good food
@@nurikkulanbaev3628 Gael is easy though, so that matches my point. He's a highly rated boss because he's cool, that's it. He wouldn't even be top 10 in the hardest fromsoft bosses. Plus there is no agreed upon #1 boss in the community. He's normally in the top rankings of people's list though.
@@nurikkulanbaev3628 It'll depend on how people rate their bosses. Some take in music, lore, arena and not just gameplay into consideration. Gael is great and an S+ tier fight but Messmer and Soul of Cinder are just better for me
Since dark souls 3 the games became like a "guitar hero" of rolling. For someone who plays this games again and again and again, it helps to don't make them feel boring from one playtrough to another, i have to adjust my timing, it makes me think, and that is entertaining for me.
Pretty much, delayed attacks exists because without them it becomes way to easy to just see a boss twitch and Iframe, now you have to fully take in the move. Delayed attacks are still very reactable.
@@boredomkiller99 I used to be on the hater side so I can tell you its all just cope If elden ring was just dark souls 3 again where once you get a feel for general dodge timings you can beat all bosses in a couple attempts it would have been way too easy I used to say "In elden ring it feels like you're not getting better at the game, but better at that one singular boss" as a negative, but now I see how varied and interesting the movesets are that switched to a positive
@@Volsraphel I know I'm late but thank you, all of these comments are pissing me off. Seriously, Elden Ring is a way better game than its toxic community gives it credit for, I don't know why there are so many people looking for anything to complain and overreact about. "I'm not used to bosses having a fucking brain and tricking my overreacting ass into rolling early, time to chew off Myazaki's jugular again for making a goddamn video game. Wait... is that someone praising it? They must be some kind of filthy casual who has only played Elden Ring and is incapable of basic objective or artistic judgment." Ok I realize I overrated as well and went off topic but I mean to say that this community is way too hostile and overcritical, like way, way too overcritical. I've never seen a game I appreciate so much get ripped apart so badly so I'm lowkey just mad lol
@@pengoo1933 I think you need to take a step back, the common consensus in the gaming community is that Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time lol It's once you zoom in to the hardcore souls fanbase where you find the naysayers. They may seem to be the majority from this perspective, but they certainly aren't the majority when looking at the bigger picture
@@Volsraphel That's just the way algorithms work huh, I guess I fell into the trap of being profited off of by social media rage baiting me lol. It's a shame though, as someone who's favorite souls game is Elden Ring by a landslide (although I can totally see the argument for Bloodborne, ds3, or Sekiro; its probably because I'm one of the filthy casuals who was brought into souls games by Elden Ring), my experience with Shadow of the Erdtree has really been sullied by all of the negative reception, despite it otherwise being what may be my favorite game of all time.
I completely disagree that abundance of delayed attack makes it dull and repetitive because I was on the boat where roll reaction gameplay of Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne was getting old to me. Elden Ring causes you to think a lot more compared to the previous game. I agree that you cannot reasonably dodge all attacks intuitively first time, but I will say the exact same thing for Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, and Sekiro. If all previous games where truly intuitive first time encounter, then most player should be able to beat it on the first try. The bosses were always memorize and adapt, it’s just that ER bosses are much more complex and interesting, and I believe to be superior to previous titles.
I think it’s telling that the best boss in the DLC, Messmer, feels more like a DS3 fight than an ER fight. You actually get openings and time to breathe between attacks and after combos which makes the fight feel very dynamic, rather than having to dodge a long combo string to get one or two attacks off, on a boss with an outrageous health bar
I think you forgot one important thing when it come to bosses delay attacks, they are also your breather, small break between attacks for your charater to stablize and manage your own stamina Take well, Margit, he have alot of delay attacks, yes they are there to make him harder but it’s also there for you to recover your stamina, your attacks and rolls aren’t limitless, if you simply remove these attacks then it will probably be boring and just take to effort to learn or react cause without variations then what’s gonna stop people from spamming roll without bring punish?
I cannot express how much ive punished bosses for that "delayed" bullshit. I beat margit in 3 tries when the game first came out simply because while he had his hand in the fucking clouds, i was getting 2-3 free hits on his ass with my katana.
I hate how the delayed attacks read your rolls in an attempt to try and stop you. It genuinely feels like they made the enemies try their absolute hardest to kill you and trip you up without making it straight up impossible
I just replayed a bit of Code Vein to see where its combat stacked up to Elden Ring just because I could and was surprised to find many of the same tactics used to throw off players in the endgame, including super tracking on even basic attacks, erratic high speed maneuvers and opponents with delayed attacks (at least there are no attacks which unnaturally extend airtime on jumps). There really is only so much that can be done to shake up this gameplay formula.
I feel that the DLC is a lot more fair than the end game of base Elden Ring. There are no 13 hit waterfall moves or Elden Beast garbage. The DLC fixed many problems from the base game imo.
Not convinced by this vid, sorry. The part where you randomly complain about bosses having second phases(???) around 15:30 is what really lost me. I prefer the delayed attacks because they’re much easier to strafe most of the time (the Margit attack you all keep complaining about is a perfect example of this) and delayed attacks mid-combo allow for a quick rolling attack mid-combo as well. They also provide opportunities for stamina regeneration, and overall make the fights look and feel cooler. While I’m at it the multi-phase bosses are awesome too. (In fact I was disappointed that we didn’t get any bosses with multiple health bars other than Scadutree Avatar.) I honestly don’t feel like many of these complaints are really all that big of a deal, especially in the DLC. Maybe From doesn’t make games for you anymore. Personally, I hope they keep going in this direction instead of regressing to appease the old heads. Elden Ring has flaws but complaining about shit like delayed attacks just muddies the waters and makes it so the real flaws don’t get discussed because everyone’s still complaining about one Margit attack. (Also, I’m sure I’m just going to be called a basement dwelling fanboy for daring to defend this game but frankly the toxicity among the people complaining about this game’s bosses and pretending their personal opinion is objective fact is purely asinine and will age poorly.)
If visually the attack looks or seems like it should/would be delayed then I think it’s fine but with a boss like Margit he has way too much delay on some attacks that make no sense. Same goes for if the boss is larger, it should have slow attacks with some delay to convey the size and weight of the boss and their weapon. Attacks being delayed to be delayed are bs, if they are sprinkled in on bigger bosses to impart the physical toll or a mostly uncommon delayed attack, while telegraphed, on a faster boss to punish spam/panic roll so you can’t use that as a crutch, it’s perfectly fine if not what I’d prefer. Btw I spent 2 attempts on Godrick compared to my almost 2 hour endeavor to beat margit. Also Godricks delays make sense considering the size of his axe except the over head attack. I’m telling you right now that MF DEFIES GRAVITY, HIS AXE IS JUST FLOATING AND ALL HE HAS TO DO IS DROP IT
Midra was honestly some of the best combat fluidity I’ve seen in Elden Ring. And Radahn didn’t really have too many. Regardless, “just for artificial difficulty” always confuses me. Yeah, you have to learn the move set of the boss, if having to learn patterns is artificial, most games are artificially difficult
I was a bit annoyed by them at first, but they have grown on me and the longer I thought about it, the more I like this design. Of course, not all attacks should be delayed, and I don't think all are in DLC - but they are good, since there is only so much you can do with stuff like instinctive rolls or slight delays like Nameless. So, generally speaking: I'd categorize attacks into three categories: - normal delay - basically, attacks that feel "natural" and allow instinctive dodges, often reactive - slight delay - a delay that will catch you if you roll too early, these want you to react not to the blade raising, but blade falling, for example a lot of Nameless King's delays - longer delay - most present in Elden Ring, this delay will often make you panic at first, but is very manageable once learned and can be turned to your advantage Basically, each of these three tests you in some way: reactions, focus, and knowledge. Reactions for fast attacks that you can't wait with dodging, focus so you don't panic roll and instead wait for the attack to come down, and knowledge so you know how to best make use of this attack. The first two are more natural, but I'll explain why I'm enjoying the third check more nowadays. The thing is, with an attack like this, while it will catch you early, as long as you're paying attention and are willing to learn, you will see that such an attack is coming down. Now that you know the delay, of course, you can just wait for it, and dodge. That's a reason I saw people criticize those attacks for, that it's a cheap delay that is meant to catch you and waste your time with little pay-off, since after the delay, a boss can just continue attacking. And I agree - IF you're waiting for the attack. But there is much more you can do. For starters, let's take a famous example of Margit's infamous cane hold. You can wait for it and dodge, yes. But, you can also reposition to his side, to be in a position where attack will miss you once it goes off. And once you're there, in a safe space, you can do anything. You can use this moment to heal, you can use it to do a couple normal attacks, maybe even a charged attack or a skill. Or just wait a moment longer to let your stamina regen, so you're not caught off-guard mid-combo. This isn't something you will realise on your first attempt, but once you get the hang of it, you will feel satisfied that you could come up with interesting strategies that just wouldn't be possible if the boss always had normal or slightly delayed attacks. Another reason I like it is aggression. Admittedly, bosses in ER are very aggressive and don't give you much of a breathing room. So, it might result in a stamina issue. Take Pontiff as an example, with his special cross combo, you will be drained off your stamina and will need to disengage to let it regenerate, before going back in. Longer delayed attacks solve this issue - since each delay, once you recognize it, is a breathing room for you, that allows you to regenerate stamina without having to back away from the boss. This may be a crazy hot take opinion, but once I realised this, it let me be more aggressive against bosses than I'd ever be in Bloodborne, a game that favors aggression. Even in that game, I occasionally had to disengage and regenerate stamina or health, while in ER, I can do so through knowledge of delays. In general, I quite like this direction. And I think that a good boss should be a mix of all 3 of these - being a test to how you can react, how well do you maintain focus and how well can you observe and learn. Plus, let's be honest - if all bosses would be just the first two, or god forbid only one of each, I'd argue we'd see way more complaints that "bosses are too easy" or "bosses feel uninspired". I've already seen some complaints that Midra or even Messmer were "good, but too easy", and for second, there is only so many ways you can swing a sword without a delay until it gets repetitive.
I’m just a simple man tbh. If I know a move is delayed, I’ll remember it next time and dodge it properly. Delayed attacks have never been an issue for me
And that's precisely the problem as to why they are bad. You're not supposed to see delayed attacks as "not an issue", that in my opinion is the root cause as to why they are so badly executed. Delayed attacks are, in their concept at least, supposed to be faints, if you "know next time you need to dodge at the right time" it's no longer a faint attack. Delayed attacks are easy to dodge once you know the animation and timing which defeat the whole purpose of them existing in the first place. Delayed attacks are supposed to be the hardest moves that you face against, you're not supposed to feel safe (once you have fully memorized the pattern) when they happen to you. You're not supposed to see them as easy patterns. Delayed attacks are bad if they become easy to avoid. However delayed attacks serving as actual faint attacks that are rightfully executed do exist in this game : Consort Radahn has one. One of his patterns has a good properly executed delayed attack.
The attacks in this game feel so unintuitive very often. It seems like they design the attacks around tricking the player at the cost of losing immersion
As someone who played Elden Ring as their first fromsoft game, I personally like delayed attacks. Its a good way of making the player learn the bosses' attack patterns and a good way of putting some mind-games into the mix. Though I do see your points, I personally disagree. Still, great video!
@@BertoPlease If they have become "predictable" then what even is the problem? If you are complaining about having to learn bosses you are playing the wrong series.
I majorly dislike delayed attacks because it makes fights feel less authentic to me. I used to box so it is very deeply ingrained in me that when an opening resents itself you instinctually need to punish by beating them to the punch A good trade always happens when both people are on the offensive because you will almost never land when the other person is in defense mode. Typically what you want to do is make a prediction about what the next punch your opponent will throw then have a punch lined up to exploit the opening that you hope will open up the split second their hand moves from their chin. So moving to eldenring as my first souls game it severely severely messed with my head and annoyed me when I would attack the enemy really quickly before they could land their attack and then I get punished for it. We're getting to a really really silly point in fromsoft games where the "best" warriors are getting worse and worse fundamentals, and are now blatantly disobeying the laws of gravity as long as it surprises you. So to steel a term from gabe newell, im getting a narcissistic injury when I get punished by enemies that bend the rules of the world to their advantage just to subvert my expectations of a fair fight. When I jump in the air, I cant float there in the sky for an awkward amount of time like godfrey, and I cant just charge up a charge attack that I cant be interrupted or poise broken out of to do massive damage to the enemy. I have to play by the rules of the world, but the enemies play by them much less often.
6:56. "I saw a reddit thread that puts it really well, a lot of the bosses were like Nameless King." -Penguinz0 during a stream of his 1st playthrough, he was in Altus Plateau.
I am genuinely puzzled by how much discourse the delayed attacks have been generating. I do understand why it is likely design that serves to make fights more difficult, but this disregards that it is also likely intended to be design that makes bosses more engaging too. I do not think that being able to smash your face into the circle button the moment a boss moves its sword arm is particularly interesting. These attacks actually force you to learn and engage with a boss’s moveset in a way that previous series bosses did not really do. Additionally, though it was not explicitly brought up in this video, the complaint of delay attacks in tandem with the complaint about punish windows is something I find crazy to reconcile. If the boss is delaying their attacks, that’s your punish window. Hit them! It makes the fight so much more engaging and even complements the aggressive playstyle you mentioned you enjoy.
@@justifano7046 They are not the only way, nor did my comment imply that they were the only way. What I said was that it was likely an intended design goal of adding them, and I do believe this to be the case, understanding that it does also have the knock on effect of making the boss harder. I think a happy middle ground for people would probably be roll-catch attacks similar to Nameless King, but more straightforward in the presentation of their animation. Attacks such that you need to delay between the first and second roll, but starting the animation for the second attack at a time when you will not be punished for reaction rolling when it starts. The downside to this, in my eyes, is that you do not have a window to attack the boss mid-combo, and you are forced to dodge through the whole thing. I do legitimately see this as an advantage of the egregious delays that ER likes to employ on some bosses.
@@hrr2b239 of course it's intended they input them into almost every single enemy. But its just bad difficulty. Fromsoft has tried too hard to make the game difficult that it's come at the cost of good gameplay. Luckily, the total package is quite good allowing many to overlook these issues.
@@danielantony1882then you're not timing correctly...even on margit, when he does his infamous delayed overhead swing, you can even see in the video you have an extremely forgiving window to attack. you probably won't get off something like a lions claw without trading, but you can light attack and be safe. it's not an insane suggestion to understand when your openings are, because the more damage you do, the faster the fight ends, and the lesser the chance of you dying
I feel like FromSoftware is on an "Arms-race" with their fanatical followers and Malenia (Blade of Miquella) is the proof of that, IMO. Being an optional boss that in lore is legendary for being deadly, justify she being so hard (although Radahn defeated her, so she saying she never knew defeat is bullsh1t), HOWEVER Waterfowl Dance is designed to kill "Souls-veterans". Why after she stops moving is there a damaging wind strike out of (her ass) nothing? To kill players who are used to keeping close to an enemy to try punishing after their big attacks. A new player would not have that mindset, but people who are playing this games for years and even decades, would. Adding to that, the sheer amount of enemies with delayed attacks, the horrible multifights of Elden Ring (with duo gargoles and duo crucible knights being unexcusebly bad) and NPCs that have no stamina are just annoying and tiresome by now. P.S: How could I've forgotten, the ennemies with 5 min combos that jump away the moment they finish their kata presentation. Fuck that! It's annoying and unfair, since enemies don't have stamina to manage.
FS will eventually hit the bottom. Many players have gotten bored of this boss design, myself included. memorizing patterns just isn't fun anymore. its slop.
@@ShaunRFeven millicent says that malenia was overpowered by radahn and had to use rot power to meat his measure, meaning that without rots help she would lose
@@ShaunRFno, she bloomed, which only happens when she's about to die, so it's safe to assume Radahn was ready to finish her off. But then rot nuke happened.
Imagine learning a boss through trial and error, it’s kinda like that was the entire game design since DeS. Delay attacks are used to keep up the pace as you can use them in multiple ways. Regen stamina Attacking mid combo Positioning Healing Ds3 bosses all had the same flow for the most part which was boring to me, usually roll 1-3 attacks and punish, which culminates in Geal whose entire moveset is just 2-3 hit combos, ER bosses are by far my favourite. Also I reaction rolled all of Midra attacks, they are very natural and smooth. This entire video is just “I reaction rolled my way through the previous souls games and now I’m getting punished for it and I don’t like or enjoy that” which is a completely fine OPINION to have but don’t trying to paint your opinion as objective flaws like you were at the last 5 minutes of your video. My first souls game is bb, just saying that because you tried to pull the “new players to the franchise can’t criticize the game” card at 18:48, I have my own criticism with the game but I don’t agree with you on delayed attacks at all.
@@killadrillYou fundamentally do not understand what trial and error is if you think this. Ds1’s beginning quite literally starts with multiple paths you can go that are higher level than the main path. The game is designed to allow you to experiment and learn from failure. It’s saying “if you go to this path you will die and you will eventually learn from that experience that you should not go there yet”. The developers allowing you to fail and be punished for making a wrong choice or guess and learning from that negative experience is very much the essence of what trial and error is. If fromsoft didn’t like trial and error they wouldn’t have even allowed you to mistakenly go down the wrong path without any initial clear indication that it’s the wrong path until you are already being punished for going there.
I adore the Midra fight, tho I get the point you're making. It's that if we can abuse a pattern of having a lot of delayed attacks, or that you have to wait solely to memorize the moveset, and thus not have a chance to beat the boss by sight reading, it leaves a worse and less immersive challenge. I however do think there are worse ways to make a boss difficult. Like how they did Radahn 2. Man has deceptive hitboxes, but worse, he has a pocket attack that can't ever be reacted to unless you hug his right leg. Which forces even less variety in playstyle and encourages cheesing moreso
so i still dont get really get why you dont like midra? he's too easy? i thought the fact he was a character that thematically utilizes delayed attack for all of his attacks to the point it becomes unambiguous reinforced his thematic style of being flashy and visually interesting. what's the big issue? there wasn't really a concrete reason given why there's a dislike for him
They have created the problem themselves by making the combat more agressive. Dark Souls and Demon Souls had a much slower and punishing combat, but DS3/BB/ER are noticeably faster and with way less recovery frames, so naturally it's much easier to be agressive and doge bosses, hence FS has to come up with something new to make enemies hard again. P.S.: In DS1 you'd get even more recovery frames if you wiff with certain weapons. DS2 had the best combat pacing imo.
i miss the slow combat, it was more methodical and in my opinion the fights had more tension because of this, in bloodborne sometimes i didnt knew what was happenning i just keep dodging, in dark souls dodging every attack feels good, every swing of the sword mattered.
Good video, I just don't agree with your points so I will try to keep this as understandable as possible sorry if I make any grammar mistakes :) (also I won't talk about previous games since that's not what I disagree with even tho I feel like the nameless king point makes no sense, his attacks are clearly telegraphed) BASE GAME SECTION: 1. Margit --> 9:10 "Yeah, you won't learn this attacks by reaction." first you won't NEED to memorize any attacks, this tip is simple and easy, look at his movement. Every attack is telegraphed he charges up and then you can clearly see his body twitch. That's your moment to dodge. IMO it's a good thing every attack was a delayed one, since you WILL NEED to learn how to dodge delayed attacks in this game. Also quick tip you can jump this attack and get a free heavy jump attack hit (9:58) I just disagree with the points of margit's boss design being "muddy" I always knew when to attack there is clear openings, I know not everyone has the same opinion, but I think his attacks are telegraphed and easy to know when to punish :) 2. Radahn (???????) --> Radahn is extremely slow and heavily telegraphed. It's actually insane how easy it is to tell when he's doing an attack. 11:27 you show him phase transitioning as to say he's fast? this just makes no sense. 11:34 "What telegraphs that about his design?" the purple lighting and light around him. If you went through Caelid, you would've seen soldiers using gravity magic, which has the same light and effect, not to mention that he's also referred to as "the conqueror of the stars" like cmon. 3. Radagon (??????????????) --> Radagon might be one of the most telegraphed bosses in ER. 12:29 Dodge forward. Nothing about his attacks are complicated, just dodge forward that easy, the aftershocks will NEVER hit you. 12:58 "heal punishing" aka you tried to run from the boss to heal on neutral instead of dodging and actually healing after an attack combo. This never worked in any FROM game and it was always a huge risk to take. 13:14 "just to panic roll" well I kind of agree that's usually how any first attempt with any boss goes no matter the game, but instead of continuing to do that in the next couple of attempts, what if you actually tried to learn it? SHADOW OF THE ERDTREE SECTION: Main point is "there is too many delayed attacks" like sure I can see your point, but simply learn the boss? like genuinely do you find it fun to first try a boss never having learnt it because it's attacks are easy to dodge and predictable or do you want to learn a boss and engage with their mechanics and get better at them? just maybe we have a different view of what makes this games fun. 14:45 "It's become predictable and boring."... are we acting dumb on purpose? Are we going to ignore the last 6 GAMES of easily predictable, easy asf attacks that became a boring repetition and was the most predictable shit ever, even with just 1 attempt on the boss? Also makes the point that it wrapped back around to making the boss easier, but then doesn't that mean that the game taught you how to play? Isn't that the point of these types of games? The more you play it, the more you recognize patterns, and now, with even new bosses, you can interpret what they are going to do without even seeing it. You learned to play the game, which in my opinion is excellent. You don't like Midra? Sincerely, what can I even say about this? Just not something I agree with at all; I won't go into detail, but he's one of my favorite bosses from this new DLC. 16:32 I just want to call out how almost all of these are either big-ish enemies, knights, or have big weapons. Didn't you earlier say big enemies and weapons matter when considering delayed attacks? Also, didn't you excuse the penetrator's attacks because he's a knight? 17:28 Now this is your opinion but I disagree heavily. Bosses are fun, enjoyable, beautiful, and all the positive words I could use to describe them, ER bosses are the best thing FROM has made and will ever make, in my opinion. Now, if you haven't been able to tell by now, I love Elden Ring, which might make you think that I don't have complaints against it, but I do, but one of my complaints is not delayed attacks or "unfair fights", The fights are as fair as ever. IMO we are focusing on the wrong thing when complaining about ER, delayed attacks? Learn them, look at animations for tells, and something I haven't mentioned is that delayed attacks help you regen stamina, which makes it almost impossible to break the flow of the fight like you had to do in previous FROM games. Also the whole unfair fight thing makes no sense, these fights are extremely fair and unique, if you want to look at unfair fights, look no further than Bloodborne the same game that took 4 years to no-hit. Look at ds2 with it's shitty hitboxes. Not ER, this is not an unfair game. 18:05 Be aggressive, its the most fun and easiest way to play the game (IMO) Just don't be stupid and attack the boss expecting it not to attack back, don't attack mid combo, etc. In general, just think a little before acting. 18:28 OFC This game has flaws, but delayed attacks? really? Also, the point about how it changed a lot from the original games, like? Don't you want an evolution of the old games, or do you want to play games that do the same shit for 20 years? Again let me say I think this video is good and I'm sorry if I was condescending in any of my points. I assure you, it was not my intent, I just disagreed with your points and felt the need to put my thoughts out there, also I agree that we SHOULD criticize games, especially games we love, so we can see them better in the future, but I don't think delayed attacks are flawed or bad. At the end of the day it doesn't matter its just our opinions :)
Totally agree, majority of the delayed attacks complained about in this vid are completely fine. Sure delayed attacks can be difficult to dodge the first time you see them, but once you learn the timing they become the easiest attacks to dodge. And the aftershocks mentioned in radagon and consort radahns fights are not cheap ways to extend the difficulty. For consort radahn phase 2 has many of the same attacks as phase 1 with added lightbeams that punish where players would intuitively dodge to in phase 1. For most of these attacks, if you dodge into radahn instead of away, you won't have to dodge the follow up lightbeams. Same with radagon, just dodge the initial attack in a way that puts you out of range for the follow up aftershock (usually dodge forward). And he doesn't "heal punish", he teleports and uses gap closing moves if you try to run away from him. If you want to heal, don't run away and heal after dodging one of his attack combos. These "aftershock" attacks are teaching the player that not just timing, but the direction of your dodge matters, which is great game design imo. I think Berto's is wrong in thinking that changing some of the fundamentals of the game design from dark souls is a bad thing.
IMO good vid but I disagree with your opinion that learning a bosses moves are a bad thing, u are not meant to beat or even necessarily come close first try. Isn’t the point of a souls like struggling until you overcome a challenge? Just learn the boss moves and be patient with delays.
While I understand your grievances against delayed attacks, I disagree. Just as you brought up the "trend of second phases", I think delayed attacks are a natural evolution as part of a game's enemy engagement, not simply as an arbitrarily hard challenge. The way you describe delayed attacks is in such a generalized way that much context is removed from a boss's overall toolkit. Godrick's delayed attacks have the purpose of moving you back into mid-range and away from being close to him, while Margit's delayed attacks serve to punish reckless positioning or over-reactive dodging. In addition to this, delayed attacks do pose a danger within the flow of combat but also have the caveat of giving you an opening to punish the boss. This keeps the flow of combat engaging. I played my first playthrough of Elden Ring with the colossal Greatsword primarily (because my friend sold me on this because of the Berserk reference and showed me how to reach it early) and finding these openings through trial and error during my boss fight attempts was crucial for me being able to land jumping heavy attacks or charged heavy attacks on these bosses. If Margit takes a year to swing his cane or to stab it into the ground, he's going to be winded long enough for a light weapon to land a charged heavy and a jumping heavy, and a heavy weapon can land one charged heavy or one jumping heavy. Malenia's delayed attack in her first phase ends with her performing a downward sword slash with a recovery window that is long enough for me to land a jumping heavy with my Greatsword. /// Your perspective on delayed attacks is also that attacks may be delayed but they are also fast upon striking...which to me is a really unusual complaint. From your script, it sounds as if you prefer for boss attacks to have attacks in which you have to reactively dodge upon a visual/audio cue, which these attacks DO have with their long delay. The delay is the visual cue that an attack is approaching that you must avoid. I think the differentiation you did with "delayed, slow moving attacks" vs "delayed, fast moving attacks" stuck with me though not in a good way. This comparison attempts to present the latter form of delayed attacks in a bad light but I don't think one form of delayed attack is inherently superior or inferior to another. The more I think on your video, the more I get the impression that your bad experiences from these delayed attacks have just ultimately soured your overall game experience. I don't think its a "skill issue" like a lot of players love to say, but if what I said is true, I think this stops you from evaluating the boss fights as a whole and appreciating their flow of combat. I think with how you mentioned "healing punishes" and then how Pontiff can "combo", it just gives me the ick, the same ick that I get when frustrated players want to transform their venting into a talking point or criticism. In spite of this, I think you did bring up a good conversation point: are DELAYED ATTACKS OVERUSED? /// Going back to what I said earlier about the natural evolution of a game's enemy engagement, I think delayed attacks fit right in just as with "boss second phases". I do not believe that they are overused. I do not believe that these design elements exist as a method to arbitrarily heighten a game's difficulty, but rather to compliment the combat engagement with enemies and bosses. Enemies that perform quick, immediate attacks when they see you and when you are in range...are already such a common occurrence even within Elden Ring. The usage of delayed attacks serves as a means to disrupt traditional combat expectations and to create better combat engagement through making the player more observant instead of simply being reactive. I will confess that I too have fallen prey to delayed attacks given how I play and with what weapon I play. Midra caused me a bit of frustration with his delayed attacks on top of his health pool, to where my impatience started to take a toll on me and caused me to not enjoy Midra's fight as much as other people did. And this is a good transition into the "fun" of it all. Can you find delayed attacks to not be fun? Sure. Though when presented as good faith criticism, it fundamentally sounds like a complaint disguised as criticism and propelled by misunderstanding. It is similar to when the popular community sentiment against Elden Ring bosses was that "they're unfair because they never stop attacking" or "its impossible to heal against them". I think the community has a collective desire to gather together to rationalize their frustrations instead of overcoming them or understanding them. This isn't to say that I play FromSoft video games without ever getting frustrated but what ultimately drives me push on through and enjoy the experience is because I enjoy playing these games. Like everyone else, I too got stuck at Malenia and felt overwhelmed but I never felt like there was an outside force that tried to rob me of my enjoyment.
Fantastic analysis. This is similar to my feeling on delayed attacks. While I don't feel like they're overused I feel like they should be a smaller percentage of a boss's total attacks (outside of bosses like Margit who are intended to train you to dodge them) because I like being surprised when they hit me. I feel like regular enemies should also get fewer of them. Overall, however, I'm happy that so many bosses have at least some form of them to keep me on my toes. I can see this being very difficult for new players though. Especially in a not-elden ring game where you can't just go somewhere else when you're having trouble with one area. I don't think FromSoftware has found the balance quite yet. But they're getting there. And I look forward to when they finally perfect it. And I'm sorry you didn't enjoy midra as much as others. Go back on another playthrough when you're awake and alert. Maybe try fighting him with a light roll setup. He's a blast.
The problem I see in your argument is that you talk ONLY about the mechanical layer of the combat. My main takeaway from the video was that delayed attacks make no sense from the perspective of the enemies not mechanicaly but from the in-game world logic. It makes no sense for the boss to open themselves up for a punish from the player just to throw you of with a delay. As it was shown in the video delayed attacks have been a thing since Demon's Souls and the author explained why they were well implemented back then. From that perspective Elden Ring having majority of the bosses use delayes should be obvious to anyone as a thoughtless attempt to increase the difficulty for the sake of difficulty and that also was explained in the video. I will be an asshole and say that If you want mechanicaly complex and demanding experience then play multiplayer fighting games or any competetive title against real humans, I guarantee you will find a lot more depth in there. The biggest strength of Souls games has never been the combat but their immersive quality and putting you in unique scenarios to overcome. If the "natural evolution" of Souls games is having every boss be a hyper agressive moveset exam than I'd rather play Devil May Cry.
@slei4676 delayed attacks used to keep the players in engaged in the fight let me explain. Games luke hogwarts legacy every attack is indicated by a visual effect it light yellow or red because of this I could realistically just stare at the top of my players head and beats the game only have to occasionally look at the opponents shield color. But with the souls born games you are forced to engage with the fights or you will lose. If they didn't use delay attacks you would eventually be able to panic roll your way to victory. The whole point of delayed attacks are to keep the players ingaged it's the whole reason the games does not let you pause. Once your in the game your in your ment to lock in. That's my take on it.
@@slei4676your opinion is absolutely nonsensical. things making sense according to the logic of reality in a fantasy game is an extremely stupid standard for a game to be good. it makes perfect sense for an enemy to throw out attacks with different timings so the player can't dodge at the same way for every attack. like, i don't know what to tell you. if you want to reject the concept of player versus enemy in video games, then that's fine, but then you don't have any ground to criticize pve games.
Im personally ok with delayed attacks. However there are a few attacks that are delayed so long and don't have a visual or audio queue when the delay ends that it becomes overwhelmingly tedious to learn. Radahns attack at 11:20 is one that I still cant get down consistently even though I know its super delayed.
I find it more fun when the bosses have delayed attacks. It makes you constantly pay attention to its attacks and learning it is satisfying Ishin, for example, has mostly simple attacks but it has a certain delay in them that confused me a little at first but then it was very rewarding to know how to react properly
@@StrangeLeapFor Malenia, I agree with you. For Radahn, I disagree. He has a few problems that keep him from being an all time great boss fight in my opinion
I personally never had an issue with the delayed attacks--I can see where other people might--but I never did. I just learned to dodge when they attacked rather than dodge when they started to attack. I ended up using the delays to get damage in or heal. Honestly, it'd say the delays make the game more easy with how often they allow me to finish off the boss when they should've killed me
The problem with Delayed attacks is that they're counterintuitive when they're mixed with extremely fast attacks. The game punishes you for dodging on reaction with a delayed attack, but also punishes you for not dodging on reaction with a quick attack. The animators spent way too much time going "Look at how cool we made this attack! It's so awesome! look at all the effects and explosions and light!" and not enough making animations more distinct, which is especially the case with combos having changing ends and mixable moves. The game forces you to assume an attack is coming after an attack, but then pulls the rug out from under you by having a different attack happen with little distinction. Sometimes Radagon will teleport after an attack and sometimes he wont, it's this uncertainty that ruins battles when the entire combat system is almost entirely hinged on memorizing patterns. You can't do that if the patterns keep changing to whatever the boss feels like.
Y'all whine about delayed attacks but then stand there and do nothing until the boss slaps you in the face You're supposed to attack the boss during their delays
I don't see the problem if you don't like it okay but changing everything as a response for everyone wants will not make a good game i think we should let them make there game not yours i don't see the problem with the delayed attacks so i don't want them to over correct the way they make games
i dont get the complaints, for the most part. delayed attacks in elden ring are almost always just a part of a fights rhythm and tempo, not an interruption of them. if all of midra's attacks are "delayed", then whats the problem? that also means that all of his attacks are consistent. very rarely are these attacks not telegraphed, or woven into the general flow of the fight. messmer's spear scrapes against the floor before releasing forwards towards you. mohg's attack have a consistent weight and heave to them, due to his massive trident. margit/morgott give you plenty of time to react once they swing, making their roll-catches a game of patience and intuition. even when just looking at his feet, you can predict the fire giants delayed attacks just off of his body movement and heavy battle style. all of these delayed attacks have their own purpose in their individual fights, and are given their own worthy justifications and consistencies. i really dont get what the problem is.
Firstly They look stupid lol And the attack technically isn’t “telegraphed” When Margot raises his sword. That isn’t the attack. The attack is the swing after the 45 minute delay. The follow up swing has no telegraph. It’s pure reaction. Also the dodge input delay makes reacting a bigger pain in the rear
You don't need to react to margit's swing though, as soon as you see the staff go up you just get close and circle around him and you get a bunch of free attacks while he misses entirely. So you have all the telegraphing you need Also, him holding the staff up is a telegraph to the player to stop trying to predict when the swing will come and instead just react to it. And yes, you can roll it on reaction, I've done it plenty of times I can understand the frustration with the dodge input delay though, and if that isn't fun for you then that's fair. I think Quickstep comes out on button press, and not release
Just wrong. Hitting someone with anything is a fluid motion once the motion is begun. It doesn't matter what kind of weapon you have or what kind of creature you are, it's just physics. Pausing the motion and restarting it defies physics and makes the motion uncanny. And it means instead of dodging when a move you see start would normally hit, you have to instead turn off the logical part of your brain and simply memorize and arbitrary timer value for every enemy and all of their moves. It's a terrible experience.
My biggest gripes with Elden Ring boss design are input reading, animation canceling, free flowing combo extensions, and inconsistent punish windows. Morgott will delay his swing for ungodly amounts of time... but if you roll before the delay is over, he'll immediately snap to catch your roll because he read that you pressed the button, which cancels the rest of the animation to perform the attack earlier than he would have normally if you didn't roll. An example of two enemies that I believe have wacky combo extensions are the Crucible Knights and Bell Bearing Hunters, once a Crucible Knight has entered phase 2 they can swipe with their tail to smack you to cover their previous whiff punish window, meaning you either need to delay your punish until they've reached the moment of their recovery animation that they can no longer use that move (which limits your selection of weapons due to speed-related concerns) or you need to bait the tail swing with something really fast with low recovery like a Dagger so you have enough time to dodge it afterwards. Bell Bearing Hunters have a thing where if they do their shield slam attack, they have an optional extension that will make the shield explode in a massive AoE if you attack into them before the animation is over, so you have to wait until they start the animation for putting the shield on their back before you can start attacking them, which just feels unnecessary? Just make the explosion happen every time so I don't have to guess when it's safe to start attacking him. Malenia breaks all of these rules and more, having endless free flowing combo extensions on top of being able to cancel her "damage level hit stun" stagger animation into a dodge away from you which reduces the damage of your attack, or she can perform an attack that will punish you for attacking her, both of which gives her an inconsistent punish window, which is made even more inconsistent because of her Super Armor that makes her Stance unbreakable during many of her attacks, which means that despite her only have 80 Poise she can tank a 100 Poise damage attack with her Super Armor which will then put her Poise into the negatives and immediately start regenerating it without waiting for the 30 second Poise recovery timer, _without_ breaking her Stance. She can recover her health when hitting a 100% Physical Block shield, she can recover her health from hitting the _air_ due to having a poor connection with your Host if you are fighting the boss as a Phantom, she has two phases with entirely separate health bars that give her more equivalent health than the Fire Giant when accounting for innate Negation and the fact that percentage-based damage sources will be cut in half due to her having two phases with two separate health bars, you need to parry her _three_ times to break her Stance and open her up to a Riposte, she has an incredibly short Riposte window meaning if you end up smacking her because of input buffering you'll miss your opportunity for a critical hit, and as a further punishment she has an extremely high likelihood of performing a Waterfowl Dance when you fail to Riposte her. Don't even get me started on her Phantom Spirits attack having extremely poorly telegraphed and arbitrary dodge windows with precise directions so you can actually dodge the attack (two backward rolls with a small delay between them, two forward rolls, two rolls to the left, good luck figuring any of this out without looking up a guide.) Elden Ring is a fun game, but it's heavily flawed.
1. Morgott doesn't read your dodge roll timing as far as I'm aware 2. I really hope Morgott reads your dodge roll timing because that is an amazing feature that punishes panic rolls, which I think is amazing, especially when you have like no HP, about to die and then the tension of waiting and the strength of will required to refrain from panic rolling, just to perfectly make it through the next attack and heal in the opening. omg please I hope this is a prevalent feature in the next game.
Morgott’s classic overhead delayed attack I think is great-he makes it harder for you, but the swing is still clean. And the variation on it (if you’re close or far) is quite good imo
I dont think bro is "completely right" like others are saying. Elden rings boss design does use unintuitive swing timings. Other times, bosses like Midra may have slow swings, but they're perfectly readable if you watch their hand movements. Souls games were always rhythm games to some degree. Changing or slowing the rhythms doesnt make bad boss design.
@@Apophes sometimes that's just memorization/quick reaction times. Not saying it's always perfect/intuitive, but get hit by it once or twice and the average human should be able to get timing down. It's not a fatal flaw.
i think that’s honestly a skill issue once you learn their attacks it’s a really good boss fight. you’re just lazy. quit calling bosses cheap or bad design just bc you’re bad
I personally didnt think some bosses mentioned had the delayed attack problem. Putrescent knight for example is actually quite aggressive and attacks often that usually you can dodge on instinct (barring combo attacks you actually need to learn), my issue with him however is that you fight so close to him that his neutral posture always looks like an attack is incoming...
Delays are a bad thing, but the fights get horrible when the delays are accompanied by the bosses dealing insane amounts of damage, constantly attacking (with combos too) without letting you do anything, and also having huge health bars. I don't feel like I'm fighting a boss that I could imagine being "real", I just feel like I'm fighting against an unfair bot.
Delayed attacks are a complete non issue and they contribute to bosses being more difficult and rewarding to learn and fight in a way that is fair for the player. Sure it might seem cheap to get caught out by a delayed attack that caught you off guard the first time around, but eventually you should learn from enough failure that you develop a sense of timing for the attack and overcome it. This feeling of overcoming something and developing a consistency or rhythm to a fight or attack is much more rewarding than the alternative, which are bosses that just have telegraphed attacks that you dodge by simply pressing b when it’s obvious. A lot of delayed attacks give you opportunities for your own aggression before the attack even comes out (like margot), which can make the fight more rewarding to master and more dynamic. Additionally the conversation around delayed attacks has become so diluted with extreme exaggerations. “Unreactable” is perhaps the most grossly misused term that I see haphazardly thrown around by people who don’t care if it’s actually even true. Almost none of the common delays that people complain about are actually unreactable in the slightest, yet I’ve seen many people act as if every boss in the game has multiple unreactable delayed attacks.
So far as the delayed attacks were concerned, I think they're most ill used on creatures who shouldn't have the intelligence to psych you out. If its a knight or Radagon deploying feint tactics, that's sensible - but every common wolf and rat? That's silly. Like footsoldiers' arrows curving toward you, there's no narrative reason for it.
it's when an enemy telegraphs a swing, so thinking you're prepared you DON'T panic roll, only for the actual swing to be so quick it's unreactable and you just need to memorise the timing anyway. At least Lady Maria had a small mody movement + sound in the moment before the attack so that an observant player knew when to dodge
To be honest, I quite like delayed attacks. I think they feel quite satisfying to dodge and can feel pretty natural if done right. Of course, at some point, it just gets ridiculous, as you said with margit where he just holds his stick up for multiple seconds before bonking you with the speed of light, but with bosses like radagon or rellana i really had fun fighting and learning them. Both are really aggressive and have some difficult to dodge combos. But apart from rellanas 2 balls the fight never felt unfair to me. She has a pretty slim health bar, so even if u dont get to hit her that often because of the few openings she gives u she goes down quite fast, pretty similar to maliketh. He also gives u close to none openings and hits like a truck if u cant dodge him properly, but in return he dies in like 5 to 6 hits himself. And the only complaint I have about midra, is that he can fire his laser beam like milliseconds after he nuked the arena, so fast that he is still kinda hidden in the explosion and given that he normally and quite understandably takes his sweet time to recover after blowing himself up, it is kinda random and pretty annoying when he decides that its not over yet and oneshots u with his ray of doom just because theres a 20% chance for him to do that and u thought u wanted to punish him for going all out with the nuke and failing at doing so. Besides that i really like the delayed attacks and they fit the theme quite well, being also kinda represented in his score with the heavy feeling u get by listening to his ost. His weapon is pretty big as well, even tho im not quite sure if its supposed to be a thrusting weapon rather than a big bonky stick considering its form, but thats not too important since it just looks fucking awesome
Love how the delays are slow enough to look like you can sneak a hit in but are fast enough to hit you before you can roll out of the recovery animation and you get hit for DARING to do something that isnt watch the boss do his super flashy anime combo till the end
9:53 Fighting Elemer at any range other than direct contact is pure suicide because of these unreadable moves. Fighting this guy at low level became much better once I accepted this fact.
Yeah the footage I showed was from a RL1 run, I figured out the fight was a piece of cake up close, but wanted to learn the differences of the jedi attacks, and was just baffled at how punishing these attacks were. It really punishes ranged builds to an unnecessary degree
I'm currently trying to put together a build centered on the deflecting hardtear, added in the shadow DLC. It's made me realize just how insane it is, the delayed attacks. Trying to deflect perfectly based on instinct feels hopeless.
i really dont get complaints about delayed attacks, if you personally think its bad design philosophy that's your opinion but every single complaint given towards them just doesn't make sense to me. Firstly learning and reacting to boss attacks is still possible with delayed attacks just takes you seeing them a few time or just waiting for start of swing, and memorizing bosses is literally how you get better at them its been that way since ds1, you even admitted this yourself at 10:55 "ive come to not mind it as much cause i got used to it later on" ya bro that's called learning the boss. in every game they have made learning the boss is literally how you beat it. Is the solution then to make every attack reactable first attempt cause then what is the point of the boss in the first place. for radagon all of the holy attacks and physical are possible to dodge in 1 roll depending or even jumping, same goes for most of rellana's attacks. also ELDEN RING ISNT DARKSOULS 4, its a separate franchise every single boss in elden ring has a learning phase and then expands there moveset in 2nd phase. Rellana is a boss that you can dodge so much of her attacks from jumping and roll, radahns holy attacks aside from blinding you are actually hard to get hit if you just roll to the sides and not backwards, which you should never do against him anyways if you fought him so much. Lastly if you keep getting attacked trying to heal from a far and get hit then maybe dont keep trying to heal from a far, heal after there done there combo instead of hitting.
lastly this is gonna be rude but its braindead takes like this that distract people from the actual critisisms for the game, delayed attacks are the most non issue ive ever heard, learn the boss dude thats what these games are about.
Furthermore, every boss in the game, like every game in the series, is and has been done at lvl1 without rolling blocking or parrying. All strafing and positioning. A ton of ER players seem like if they can't react and kill a boss within a few attempts then it's a boss design issue. And don't even get me started on how many players seem to ignore the jump mechanic when you can dodge an ungodly amount of boss attacks by jumping. Even more easily than rolling. Rolling and lock on are just more tools, they are not the end all be all and should never be relied upon for everything. If the camera is janky for a big boss, you probably should not be locking on. Common sense stuff here to me
@@JTsHorrorDiscussions i know when base elden ring came out people complained about fire giant being so big that you cannot see its attacks, like look up at the boss. Fans of the games just dont want to learn bosses they want to be able to react to every attack first try, and if they did that i know for a fact they would complain its too easy.
I can't speak for other people, but I think it's a multi-layered issue. Delayed attacks themselves aren't the problem, it's the fact they compound with other things with the combat in elden ring that people aren't a fan of. Mainly that some boss attacks have very similar animations for delayed attacks and non-delayed attacks, and the fact that a lot of boss combos feel like they go on and on for a very long time. One of these things is a hurdle. Two of these things is a challenge. All of them at the same time can feel excessive and annoying. I understand not wanting to hear people complain about it being too easy, but let's be honest there will always be complaints about fromsoft games. In my personal opinion, having bosses that are both challenging and also fun to fight is ideal, and delayed attacks paired with excessively long combos encourage players to turtle or run away instead of weaving through attack chains to get some cheeky hits in like you do in bloodborne. I think that's what From was going for with Elden ring, more aggressive combat on the player's end. But since the healing system is different from bloodborne, as well as the dodging being the traditional dodge roll instead of a sidestep, it makes players want to stick with the tried and true fighting style of blocking or dodging and waiting for safe windows to attack. Windows which are far, far less common in elden ring compared to dark souls. In this way, you could argue its an issue of players not having the tools that bosses expect you to have. The rally system from bloodborne takes up a talisman slot, and the animation for drinking estus is both slow as ever AND prone to getting unfairly punished by an AI which reads your button prompts the second you press it. It feels like you can never get a second to breathe with elden ring bosses, and while that may be enjoyable to some, it won't be to all.
I feel like you saying "delayed attacks are problematic" is really just the equivalent of someone saying "I dont wanna learn the boss moveset" which has always been the staple of Souls games. I get it dude they feel bad for the player, but thats the damn point you are meant to suffer. Its no secret that Miyazaki is inspired by Berserk, which to a certain degree is about being defiant in the face of suffering. So if you dont want to suffer play a different game.
I really don't get all the sh*tting on delayed attacks. Ok sure, of course, purposefully for panick rolling...learn the length of the delay like you would learn any other dodge timing for any other attack, and move on. Thats just me
interesting, something i really liked about elden ring was delayed attacks and attacks that are harder or impossible to avoid by just rolling but are easy to evade by running or jumping, and for malenia and godfrey that made the fights really dynamic imo, midra was one of the best and funnier bosses i have ever faced in elden ring and radahn is the hardest and most dynamic boss i have ever faced, in any souls game, but i do wish he was more consistent because there are some attacks that i genuinely can not evade, never, i feel like the combat is definitely improving but does require some calibration, my brother doesnt have good vision, he really can not see what the enemy is doing, he also doesnt want to use tools to make the fight easier, he wants the most true experience he can get, but his vision simply makes him get hit by most of the attacks, he cant read the attacks, he cant even see them, he is most likely avoiding based on instinct and luck, thats why i suggested that elden ring should have an accessibility feature for auto rolls, based on chance and dependent on some attribute like armor or endurance, like the old adventure rpgs i used to play 20 years ago where evading attacks was based on your agility stat, not your reflexes because the battle was based on turns and you could only sit and watch your character getting hit or successfully evading the attack.
I've never played Demon's Souls, but from what I can see those faints really should be incorporated into more fights in souls games. It's so much better when an opponent actually tricks you with their movement whilst still keeping the fight dynamic, instead of awkwardly stopping in the middle of an attack. In Elden Ring, the amount of times you have to awkwardly do nothing when the opponent holds their weapon in the air is ridiculous. You can't roll without waiting or you'll get hit. You can't even attack, the boss will ignore it, hit you before you are able to roll, and trading is usually not worth it. In previous souls games you were able to intuitively figure out when to roll/parry an attack, even if it was your first time seeing it. In ER you pretty much have to get hit by an attack the first time you see it to figure out how long to wait before rolling.
I 100% agree about not being able to learn boss attacks through reacting and I think that’s why I have never been able to have fun playing Elden Ring like I have From’s other titles. This is not a fast, frenetic experience, it’s a puzzle game where you have to watch something happen to you and then recite the exact solution.
Your video made it really clear to me that delayed attacks are not the problem. I observed your fight against Midra and I have to say... I think I would call him out for only two attacks with delay. The first is the jumping attack when he bums the sword into the ground, the second when is the last hit of his 5 hit combo. In general I think Midra just has slowerish moves. Now we compared this to a boss with no delayed attacks. Or lets just say Midra has a little faster moveset in general. Would I like the boss without delayes attacks more? Would I like the second version of Midra more? My answer is no. I don't think delayed attacks are a problem at all. I just think that Fromsoft became "better" with their boss design. The bosses have more advanced moves than before and also more delayed once. And yes, some bosses might have more delayed attacks than other onces. Still, I don't think it is bad. Some delayed attacks might be really stupid yes. But this doesn't get the game down for me. Changing the boss design from what it is to the average reaction based boss design would not make a better boss.
Most of your footage shows constant panic rollspam, it's not a surprise why you keep getting demolished by delayed attacks, their very purpose is to catch consecutive rolls. These games are not for button mashers. Similar to Sekiro, Elden Ring was made with the expecation that you'll use a mix of rolls, blocking, strafing, jumps and even parries to evade the various types of attacks. Just because you technically can roll everything doesn't mean it's even close to the optimal strategy, for attacks like thrusts it's a waste of time because you can just strafe most of them. I beat Midra underleveled at RL120 and only Scadutree level 7 with with just a cold greathammer, brass shield and guardcounters+charged R2s+posture breaks, only rolling for grabs, projectiles and a few phase 2 attacks. Fun fact: if you guard counter him with a greathammer on the 2nd hit of his 3 hit combo, the counter animation will make you duck in such a way that the 3rd hit will miss you.
I was very surprised you didn't like Midra, especially since you mentioned Mohg as a good use of delayed attacks. My first thought when fighting Midra was Mohg, a lot of delayed attacks, to the point it was predictable and fun, had a rythm to it. I guess maybe you were just tired of the delayed attacks which I understand completely XD Great video
I feel that this discussion about delayed attacks misses a good question, what even is a delayed attack, a boss charging an attack? A boss using a stance of some kind? Or the attack being simply slower than the others?
@@La0bouchere holy shit a round of applause for this counterargument, if they wanted the player to die then a roll would not have s it would be impossible to lv vigor Here's an actually counterargument, delayed attacks allow the player to regain stamina and they punish react rolls so the player has to learn how to dodge instead just pressing the button, tldr delay attacks increase risk and reward which is engaging for a player that wants to learn
I don't agree with this video, I think delayed attacks are absolutely fine, the only issue is when a boss has un-seeable mixups that either need to be dodged immediately or with a delay. That footage of elemer of the briar is one of the most perfect well captured examples I've seen, however a boss where all the attacks are slower and sight readable is fine. Also I think you're not jumping enough in combat, a lot of these attacks are meant to be jumped and I suspect the day is is to give you time to reposition so you can dodge the swing with the spacing and the aoe with the jump
Delayed attacks with different timings force you to not just instinctively or reaction roll making the boss not just 100 attack spam that comes out immediately
Delayed attacks are literally the easier attacks to dodge as soon as you've seen them a couple of times and you know what they're doing you can just time your dodge lol
Yeah first time playing this game and fighting Margit when he does that ridiculous overhead attack and holds it for like 5 minutes, it told me that we were in for a rough ride with boss design and that they were doing everything they could to trip up us experienced players. There are so many cheap tricks in the game.
If youre having trouble with margit you just suck. Hes an introductory boss designed to be beaten by everyone and a joke after your first playthrough. You suck. Thats all.
@@kindlingking You can be more aggressive by attacking in between combo. The bosses have long combos but they also have slow attacks or delayed attacks that you can utilize as opening. For example I'd recommend you watching pro players like Ongbal or Ginomachino. Those players manage to play more aggressive by utilizing opening in between combo.
you have just stated that there bad. not why there bad & not how they are artificial difficulty. I think its just straight foward difficulty. The ingredients are timing & positioning. Sure there are varying degrees of how well that can be done but just saying that delayed attacks = unfun boss does sounds perilously close to "too hard = unfun boss." If a boss is "too hard" sure make a video on that. But again thats completely subjective. Just look at the God run 3 challange runners or rl1 one runners.
You‘re right. Personally I still think Midra is a great boss because this delayed style fits his theme. Same with Pontiff but besides that you’re completely right. Also I absolutely despise Margit as a first boss. He’s way harder than most of the other earlygame bosses and his attacks aren’t fun to dodge. As you said, it teaches the players to just learn the timing instead of using reflexes. Gundyr, I miss you.
I understand why delay attacks are hated. But honestly, they're not that bad. It is getting used to them, just like fast combos or something like that.
![Marika's Ascension was NOT legitimate; AND IT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING [Elden Ring Lore]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Uo7Froo5xS8/mqdefault.jpg)
MORE LIKE MID-RA AMIRITE 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
can u tell i couldnt think of what to put for the pinned comment
fuck you he's good
Midra is goated
It's true lol it's just some guy with sun for a head coming at you with a sword........ The creepy build up to him was okay... A bit slow but fine... But the fight itself is pretty meh and soooo not worth the effort to get to again lolz. Didn't go to him again in my 2nd dlc run for a reason... It just wasn't THAT worth it...
I wanted to love this boss so bad but I have to say, the game really let me down in terms of maintaining my engagement and interest. Only so many cheap unearned deaths I can take before I find something more rewarding to do with my time
bro how do you talk about delayed attacks and forget HORA LOUAX
In the next Souls game, the first boss will follow you around the arena with their weapon raised for five minutes, then the fog wall will dissipate. You will continue through the rest of the game with the boss trailing behind you
Sounds like a fun modded challenge run ngl
Like the Pursuer in Dark Souls 2, but worse.
and then when you killed the last boss the boss that trailed you will attack and one shot you making the win in the extremely hard final boss not count.
Sounds ok
@@heideknight7782
Better comparison would be the forlorn because the pursuer encounters are scripted and guaranteed every time whereas the forlorn can invade randomly in dozen or so different places.
"Imagine trying to fight a thrusting attack boss with delayed and non delayed attacks"
Godskin Noble- "You called?"
🤣
The easiest boss in the game you mean? Took 2 tries
@@Astreon123always depends on what point in the game you are when you get to a boss. If you try to rush the volcano manor godskin noble for the somber stone +7, it can be really frustrating to be one shot by his super delayed mega thrust move.
@@martinvraniskoski7379 i went it at 153 with a bloodhounds fang blackflame blade build
@@Astreon123thats not the point the point is that its a design flaw which makes the boss harder and more awkward to read in a really cheap way difficulty is completly besides the point
Part of the issue is that you have to visually justify the delay. Mohg for example has a certain weighty flow to him. Whereas Horah Loux sill leap at you and literally go into slow-mo mid air. The first time I saw this attack I started laughing.
Omg yes, THIS. I really have no issues with delayed attacks but this one I fuckinf hate. Not because it's difficult but because it's so goddamn dumb. While they're at it should've given us time to have a flashback and power boost
@@thecatinthehatwithabat9903 It is dumb. It is there only to kill you. There is nothing about what you're seeing that suggests "oh maybe I should delay my dodge". Its why a lot of these fights feel tedious because none of it is reactionary its just a checklist of moves to memorize individual timings.
@@thecatinthehatwithabat9903 Perfect example of a dumb looking attack that is only there to fuck with those who played prior souls games.
I have honestly never understood the complaints with this attack. It looks cool and it's just fun to dodge. It also successfully conveys the feeling of having a fast hulking man rapidly closing in on you without it feeling unfair or cheap.
@@caleb-f1c A fast hulking man that freezes in midair. There are more logical and intuitive ways to have a delayed attack that doesnt require the player to have to go against every instinct a break the flow to the fight. Instead of attacks being reactionary they become a checklist of attacks that you have to memorize and then internalize thw different timings of each. Mohg and Midra do it better imo because there's a more consistent flow and line of logic to their movements. When that particular attack is there ONLY to trick you. Tricking the player as a mode of difficulty isnt my favorite. Its still an overwhelmingly cool fight but they could have gotten the desired result in a less annoying way like aforementioned bosses
I like the idea of having delays sprinkled in, because they should realistically be used by enemies to catch you off guard. But having almost every attack be delayed makes no sense from a combat perspective for most enemies. Why would you leave yourself wide open expecting your enemy to dodge when there's no reason to expect them not to just attack you? And if the plan is just to hit trade because you're stronger, then why bother delaying at all?
Because haha made you roll. Wait, you can't run a giga hammer build bro that's not fair.
Ye, it feels like playing against a game rather than fighting the boss. Just feels artificial and boring.
"Why would you leave yourself wide open expecting your enemy to dodge when there's no reason to expect them not to just attack you?" Uh, because it is an AI attack based pattern designed for you to observe and understand, not another human player.
You definitely do not want enemies to be mixing you up as if it were a human, thinking how to trick you by using delayed attacks sometimes and sometimes not. You think you're annoyed by attacks always being delayed, now just think of how much more you would complain if you could never truly adjust to the attack because the boss suddenly decided to let the attack rip instead of holding it. Fighting games are niche because this level of dedication to beating a thinking opponent takes significantly more focus and effort. You'd immediately alienate a majority of the players if bosses functioned this way.
@@Tjerty It would also make bosses actually interesting to fight and not just boring 1 trick ponies. Games are generally better when they don't try to cater to everyone.
@@102ndsmirnov7 I'm certain your takeaway from elden ring wasn't "oh god all these bosses are just 1 trick ponies". You and I both know they aren't. You just felt compelled to respond.
Dodging too early for a delayed attack isn't "panic rolling". It's instinctive rolling. There's a difference. Panic rolling is when you're rolling randomly out of panic without intention or deliberate timing. Instinctive rolling is when you think the attack will hit before it actually hits based on the animation. I understand when the devs try to punish panic rolling, because it makes sense, they want you to time your rolls, but when they punish instinctive rolling that's what gets me the most. I absolutely hate that shit. They artificially delay the actual landing of the hit.
And like mentioned before some enemies can have delayed attacks but if most enemies have them, they start to feel artificial aka like a video game, same problem arises how grace checkpoints are placed and how vast majority of the game has reused content.
I think that’s probably why I dislike Elden Ring’s combat so much. In the previous games (including Sekiro) you could get away with just having decent reactions and instincts based on visual cues and still have a pretty easy to moderately difficult time with the games. Sure, you would have it easier if you did memorize combos and patterns but that just is not fun to me whatsoever. That is not what I enjoy when playing a game. And you don’t have to.
In Elden Ring it IS mandatory unless you go in to a fight very over leveled. Most bosses no longer work on instinct, they all try to fool you… wow so difficult that you held your attack for 7 seconds before instantly striking me. Oh how much fun I’m having…
I really wish they would ditch this design philosophy because however much people always used to claim that you “have to learn the bosses attack patterns” it really wasn’t an obligation until Elden Ring. In Elden Ring if you don’t, you’re cooked
Yeah that's why I put in "panic rolls" in quotes the first time lol, it's a "lack of a better term" kind of situation. Wholeheartedly agreed
No. Panic rolling is when you see the boss start to move and incorrectly time your dodge to get hit. It occurs because you dont actually know the moveset of the boss, youre attempting to just roll off of reaction to movement. Youre panicking. Instead of waiting for the actual attack, you "instinctually' make the wrong fucking move 😂. What a joke of a video and even more laughable comment section.
Theres no fucking way you said they artificially delay the landing of the hit. Man, sometimes i wish elden ring wasnt as popular as it is so these skyrim ass players can go back to where they feel strong, in games made for 12 year olds.
I have no problems with delayed attacks per se, as long as they make sense. Mohgs bloodflame explosions never bothered me because I figured that that's just how all those attacks work and they are a type of magic. But I always found it extremely ridiculous with how long Margit holds his cane because no serious combatant would ever fight like that. That is also why Midra was fine for me, since it suits his style - he gracefully swings his swords like some sort of dance and thus delays almost every attack all while being a lord of frenzied flame rather than a knight that you duel.
I know that this is no reliable metric, but for me personally it needs to be in line with what the enemy is and if it suits him, the weapon swung, etc. but as soon as I get the feeling that it's just a game mechanic meant to punish you, I'm lost.
My guess is that Margit underestimates the tarnished on first meeting them, which seems right since when we get em to his midphase he be saying "Thou art of passing skill" and seems to do less of the delayed attacks and more rush down oriented moves. But I just thought of this, so I could be wrong but that is the impression I always got. Then when we fight morgot he goes all out to kill us.
So yeahh a normal fighter wouldn't delay their attacks in actual combat, but this is a demigod fighting a lowly tarnished that he thinks is of no skill whatsoever so why not play with your food and slap them around a bit
@@05-Overseer Even for something "playing with its food" it's a long ass time but yeah, as mentioned, it's subjective.
@@Shishakind86 well in my eyes it's like in his head, "Sure hit me as much as you want weak tarnished, watch me hit you 10x harder" kinda deal but I dunno maybe I'm seeing stuff that isn't there. But I don't think Morgot out of the gate would take the tarnished any bit serious, he's probably killed countless tarnished out of there league trying to become a lord.
No serious combatant would ever shift to a high guard waiting for the right moment to strike ?
Pretty sure that's a classic stance in many martial arts
I don’t mind NORMAL delayed attacks. Those are in every fromsoft game including Sekiro. What I have a problem with is when they LITERALLY FREEZE FRAME THE DAMN ANIMATION. It looks completely unnatural and is just confusing for no reason. Godfrey on his second phase freezes MID AIR like WTF.
The delayed attacks also suck because the vast majority of them have 360 degree tracking, making poisitional dodging irrelevant.
Yeah screw that tracking unironically. Positioning is very important in combat and now it just feels like fights are quick time events where you press your invincibility button at the right moment.
Many attacks tho you can dodge by just walking or running around to the enemy's back
A lot of these moves have good tracking so that they're not all invalidated by just mindlessly strafing to the right or left, but most of them can still be dodged positionally by running. And some of these can just be dodged by walk-strafing.
This just isn’t true. If you’re unlocked and sprint at the right angle you strafe almost all delayed attacks. One that seems weird that you can’t strafe is the Messmer delayed thrust.
@@porkwhisperer3050 for some reason, the AI's brain just behaves differently when you unlock. Which doesn't make any sense. It's probably bad coding, which makes the AI lock and unlock at the same time you do xD
It's a completely unintuitive "solution".
Honestly I thought the way Midra and Bayle did delay attacks was pretty engaging, fair and added a lot to the rythm of the fight. Both fights are in my top 10 most enjoyable souls bosses.
Idk..visually I couldn't figure midrange out and dodge everything...also w
too Worried about cheap magic damage too..from's design is offy
Midra and Mohg are bosses I'd call the "Nameless King of Elden Ring". All 3 bosses play similarly in the way that their attacks and combos are defined by delayed attacks and specifically designed to roll-catch you. They're not like Margit who can purposefully drag out his attack super long and have a fixed interval
Forget the terrible looking delayed attacks why is every boss fight in a square boring looking areana i mean whats the story with this guy being in here? God from soft have gotten lazy
@@CosmicVoid_119simplistic or square boss rooms are the most fair for the player to fight in. Having complex terrain and elevation can make dodges and attacks feel more inconsistent, as seen in Consort Radahn’s fight (some moves are undodgable depending on the terrain)
@@Mo167ose fair my arse when have these games ever been fair? gtfo just another excuse
Jumping in the air and staying mid air for 3 seconds is RIDICULOUS
So is summersaulting and having things go through you.
@@Letwoo67 Right?
"WTF THIS BOSS STAYS SLIGHTY TOO LONG IN THE AIR, THATS NOT REALISTIC"
The player character: fires a literal kamehameha, fire from his eyes or flips 3 times in the air with a gigantic sword or a hammer the size of an anvil.
I wouldn't include Midra. When you complain about delayed attacks, it's important to take into consideration the most important quality that can make or break said attack: animation legibility. Midra's attacks are very well animated from his weird cape/cloth thing to his actual sword swing, you can absolutely dodge his attacks on reaction just by paying attention to the animation. That's not the case for every boss, Margit/Morgott's overhead swing is infamous because....there's not much distinguishing animation work to telegraph when the swing will occur. That's not the case for Midra. In fact, I'd say Midra is an example of a well done delayed attack boss. All his physical sword attacks are delayed, but his frenzy AOE attacks can be quick and erratic. It's actually a good way to clue you in on how to deal with the boss pretty quickly. I'd say I had much more pleasant time learning Midra than Consort Radahn for example. The other factor that makes delayed attacks obnoxious is tracking. Consort Radahn tracks excessively, his cross slash attack can turn him on a dime, which makes the delayed aspect worse.
So all in all, I'd say delayed attacks by themselves are not a problem. They're a problem when animation legibility isn't good and attack tracking is overtuned. Which surprise surprise, is the main issue with Dark Souls 2. It's also why I give Dark Souls 3 a pass most of the time, the animation quality in that game is very good. Gael phase 2 is another example of a boss with entirely delayed attacks on top of another layer of delays, but he's amazing because of the animation work.
Also you seem kinda salty over the fact that he's the only frenzy related content...which yeah sure I guess that's fair. It's not really enough for me to ding the boss quality. If we're talking about narrative dissatisfaction, Consort Radahn is worse in almost every regard.
also final edit...the deflection tear more or less dumpsters delay based attacks. Did you play Sekiro? It's waaaaaaaaaay more intense with the delays than Elden Ring.
One thing to remember, whoever, is that Sekiro's perfect block combat and Dark Souls' dodge-roll combat are fundamentally the opposites of each other.
In Dark Souls, e.g. Elden Ring, you see an attack's wind-up, you roll. You may roll early, but you can never roll late. Your I-frames are simply not instant.
In Sekiro, though, no matter what attack is thrown at you, unless it is a special Kanji attack, you always wait for the last moment, before enemy's hitbox collides with you to the perfect block and deflect it.
TLDR, in Elden Ring you react to an attack before it happens, in Sekiro you react to an attack, the moment it hits you.
@@israfel916yes that’s why you use the correct tool for the correct problem.
I personally was not satisfied by PCR and rellana mechanically, but Bayle, Gaius, Midra, and Messmer(in that order) are some of my favorite fights in the game for how they allow you to win by just rolling, but become the dance that Souls and Bloodborne used to give you when you learn where to mix in jump attacks over low sweeps, crouching under high sweeps, guard counters at the end of combos, and throwables to maintain stance damage. I absolutely agree that the combo structures need more polishing for the next game, but I think From’s biggest issue is poor communication on how to apply the tools at your disposal and poorer incentives to try new things.
@@israfel916 your s are instant on an elden ring roll from when you release the dodge button
also sekiro parries are much more forgiving with early inputs than an elden ring roll if ur not spamming block
both points wrong + you type like a bot + L + ratio
@@gevurah6 It has been proven by several people on UA-cam that the Elden Ring dodge animation has a significant input delay.
@@ETBrooD this is due to hardware/driver issues or controller input lag (differs by indivdual consoles). if you have this delay it will apply to all inputs in many games
u can prove me wrong if u want but of the 3 vids i watched none of them had a fair test of other inputs to compare
The only delayed attack I have am issue with is Horaux Loux's bullshit dash grab where he suddenl6 fucking freezes mid air without any explanation
Warrrriorrrrrrrrr!
He's anime like that xD
His dash grab isn't that bad in all honesty, the only incredibly weird attack in the main game is radagon's double swing, which looks like it could easily be rolled back to back but actually has the slightest delay to it
They aren't delayed, though. Godfrey and Hoarah Loux are my favorite and. iMO, the best bosses in the game because they have a distinct tempo to their fight. They always move to the rhythm of their soundtracks, and it makes predicting their attacks better.
Lol horrible lou drags the player along in a slap fight haha
i think the majority of people just have more fun fighting a boss when they can use their reaction time to their advantage and maybe get a first try victory instead of going into every boss fight and feeling like they have to study for the boss exams
"just use mimic/spells/cheese/that one specific weapon that you probably aren't even built for"
then they can play ds 1 2 or 3. Which all take far less knowledge of the bosses to beat. Or just use any of the broken items in the game if you don't want to have to learn it.
“I want to beat everything first try and not have to learn the bosses, one of the basic principles of the genre”
Damn, imagine asking Fromsoft do the opposite of what made them get to this point specifically.
@@Zayd-bg1pt let me guess you either abuse mimic or some other broken AOW
combat feels exhausting sometimes because of all those delayed slow motion ahhh attacks
Delayed attack look so weird and unnatural it make sense for bosses like midra and fire giant but for all the bosses is a bit excessive
Very unnatural. To me, it looks caricatured. Like a ballet, but with random tempo and rhythm.
even as a fan of delayed attacks, and a massive fan of midra, you're completely right how overused delayed attacks are in elden ring, sure they've made me stop panic rolling as much, but every fight feels like a game of timing and it all blends together, in dark souls 3 I find I can reaction roll on almost every boss and get away with it, and the delayed attacks are a good mix-up that keep me on my toes, in elden ring however that reaction roll feeling is gone, which is a shame because it feels like I go into every boss on a blank slate and I don't actually get better at the game, just that one specific boss.
You can tell their goal is to stop souls vets from transferring their skill from prior games, or even within the game game, to new challenges. You're right. It never feels like you got better at the game. Past souls game rewarded you for mastering the fundamentals of combat. ER? Not so much.
@@enigmatic8280can't you argue that er rewards yors abilities of finding punishing windows, by transferring your experience from past bosses to new. Founding, jump in, crouching, high low stances, positioning. Founding when you can land r1, test if in that window r2 fit, then charge r2 or skill . Of course this gonna need some testing, some time lucky observation. Clearly higher skill level players have easier time fighting new bosses than people who less knowledgeable about er mechanics. P.s. I'm not good at this games, I'm just confused by statement
What a baffling incorrect comment. In DS3 the fact that you just reaction roll and hell, spam, everything is fucking dogshit. It rewards nothing. Any boss in ER has a more interesting moveset to learn, and most attacks have at least two ways of dodging, not wven considering the inclusion of the Deflect Year now. @@enigmatic8280
Sure dude, the game that is just reaction rolling and mildly side-strafing 95% of bosses doesn't blend together, but the one that asks you to pay attention does. Very insightful and not stupid claim.
@@AlexAndriy1995 yes elden ring rewards finding punishing windows. However, you cannot transfer experience from fighting one boss to another unless they are literally the same boss or have basically indistinguishable movesets. When you can land an r1 or r2 is entirely different for everyboss. For example, learning the fire giants timing has no impact on whether you can learn radagons timings. Each boss fight is different because each boss has different recovery timings, hitboxes, posture values, dmg,etc.
Hard disagree on Midra. I found him to be exactly what you described him not to be, a breath of fresh air. On my first playthrough I found all his attacks extremely readable and reactable. He's much slower than your average Elden Ring boss and gives you plenty punish windows, even during the middle of his delayed attacks, in comparison to many of the bosses before him. To me he's an example of delayed attacks done right.
Elden Ring has three major problems:
Homogenization, no rhythm to the fights, and speed.
Every single boss follows the exact same formula - start out relatively manageable, have a second phase that is designed to utterly fuck over the player. I can't tell you how many bosses in ER I can describe as "Okay, yeah, this was pretty good. THEN the second phase happened." How cool would it be to have a boss who's second phase was them getting WEAKER, instead of stronger? Y'know, like how a real person gets weaker the more you just obliterate them. Not only that, but as you touched on, even the biggest of bosses are allowed to just move around as quickly as they want, as though their actual weight has zero bearing on how they're able to move - which was something they put a lot of consideration into for previous games.
The rhythm is pretty obvious. If you have a boss fight who's intentionally designed to throw off the rhythm of a player, then the fight ends up feeling as though it has no rhythm - it has no flow. If the player knows they have to wait for every attack a boss has before rolling, they're not in the moment, trying to whittle down a living opponent - they're a player outside the world, gaming the AI.
Lastly there's the player speed. In every previous game, whenever the devs wanted to speed up the combat, the player was sped up with it. BloodBorne is the biggest example obviously. The player stamina is generous, and the actions they can perform consume less stamina on average than in previous games. Hell, even Greatswords and large weapons are the fastest they've ever been. However in Elden Ring, they wanted to have the bosses speed up without doing the same to the player. As such they're able to make moves that at times the players just cannot dodge unless they are hard memorizing every boss fight.
And when you're turning every boss fight into a test of memorizing all of their attacks, you're not presenting the player with a natural back and forth fight, which they have to react to, and pay attention to. You're turning it into homework. Where the player simply has to memorize every little action, or they get punished. The Souls/Borne combat is not built for combat that's as fast as Elden Ring wants it to be, and FromSoft has pushed it as far as the combat can go.
They, and fans, unfortunately just don't wanna accept it.
One of the best comments yet 💯💯💯
Sorry dawg but the flow state is still there. There's just a learning phase behind every boss instead of getting better at the game as a whole. Sounds like a bad thing but who wants another dark souls 3 level of difficulty? That shit is so easy nowadays. In my first dark souls 3 run I almost first tried Gael because I was simply good at dark souls 3 by that point. That would have been unsatisfying... Having each boss be its own challenge helps to offset the growing skill of the playerbase
Like I can lock in and fight Messmer without even thinking now. You just need to learn his attacks, which for some reason is an alien concept to a lot of souls fans. It's not like you're constantly referring to a spreadsheet of timings in your mind, they do get ingrained as you play.
It's the same as it used to be. Remember your first dark souls experience, how weird the attack timings felt until you got an instinct for it? It's the same now, but the instincts are for bosses instead of games now if you know what I mean.
@@Volsraphel Wrong. What flow can there be when the bosses can randomize their combos, chain them into each other, choose to delay an attack for 1 to 3 seconds, cancel their recovery animation to chain into more attacks endlessly without pause, chase you from the other side of the arena in less than a second, cancel their stun animation at random to start another attack chain, etc. The bosses in elden ring have long stopped playing by the same rules as the players (like input or animation reading) which is the fundamental block for making a fight have a flow. The game has simply devolved into gaming the AI into a tiny attack window, instead of having a ebb and flow battle.
@@devildante9 Skill issue? No matter how it chains and diverges, if you can recognise what attack is coming before it lands then you can dodge it. That's where the flow comes from, being focused on recognizing each move
@@Volsraphel You didn't address any of my other points. But to get to the "divergent" combo chains, if a boss has a chain with RNG for doing either 4 or 5 moves, you have to awkwardly stand waiting for the 5th move that never comes and you loose your attack opportunity, or try to attack only to get slapped by the 5th move. This breaks the flow.
If this was a fighting game (which have complex mechanics as opposed to the very simplistic combat fromsoft games have from a mechanical perspective), or a character action game like DMC, or a hunting game like monster hunter; I would agree. But there are no frame traps, footsies, meaties, roman cancels, and such those games have, so delays or divergent combos end up freaking the flow instead of adding to the combat.
I like when ppl say delayed attacks are not realistic while rolling on heavy armor or dual wielding 2 giant hammers
Ok. It's bullshit.
"Muh realism"
I am playing a game. The enemies are fighting me in this game. When the enemies are not so much fighting me as they are playing the game with these awkward pauses after readying attacks, it just feels gimmicky and inauthentic. Just beat my ass ffs.
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15:12 so many bosses have second phases that they’ll need to start adding third phases to make it special
Although I barely noticed it the Scadutree Sunflower has 3 phases.😅
My 2nd playthrough of the DLC is when I say to myself, "ok I will not use any summon & learn all the bosses pattern" and hell they kicked my ass mostly from their delayed attack lol, but it was worth it, it was sooooooo satisfying when you deveated them by pure skill.
Imho the thing with these new "delayed" attacks is that they're made of two parts: the charging and the swing.
The charging part is not the issue, because it's almost always telegraphed and recognizable.
The swing is where it all falls apart. No matter how long or slow the charging portion of the animation is, if the actual hit takes less than a quarter of a second, you'll likely be unable to dodge it because of simple human reaction time.
Knowing that an attack is coming is only half the battle, you also have to know _when_ the attack is coming.
What this all means is that you have to internalize the timing of the attacks through trial and error to be able to predict when the swing is gonna come out. Needless to say that your internal clock is never going to be perfect. You'll never count seconds as well as a real clock.
Add to all this the fact that enemies can randomly choose to mix up the timings of their swings, and you have a well oiled machine that ensures you will get hit from time to time, never truly able to react to attacks.
I played this game a lot, almost all enemies in the game have fixed timing for their delayed attack so you can memorize them. The delayed attacks can be consistently used as a punish window by pro player because of this.
The only enemies I know with mix up timing delayed attack are Margit and watchdog holding their attack, even then they have telegraph and tell when they actually decide to swing.
@@rizuki9983 Yes, memorizing the timing is indeed the way to go.
However, I'm trying to say that as human beings we sometimes _feel_ time differently due to a variety of reasons.
If you count seconds along with a clock, and then you stop looking at the clock and start counting by yourself, you'll very quickly fall out of sync with it.
That said, there are a few (not many) enemies that do delayed attacks right.
One example is the Watchdog (like you mentioned), who slightly raises their sword before they swing, so you can react immediately after seeing that animation.
@@sonikku997 idk the only delayed attack I found to be bad are the Radahn one (because he is doing it while riding his horse so is unpunishable) and scally misbegotten (he has attack that similar to delayed one but come out so much faster) the rest I found to be not hard to memorize or learn the timing.
I rarely struggled with delayed attacks after learning a lot of them can be used for your advantage for more opening and punish window, I like them mechanically but I do agree they look jarring.
I totally disagree. You start with the idea that "delayed attacks" are by default bad. You argue for "telegraphed attacks". You argue that there is "artificial difficulty" from the delayed attacks.
When an attack happens, you need to react to it. Whether that be move out of the way, block, parry, roll, stagger your opponent, whatever.
In a "telegraphed attack" you have a very gradual and clear signal to react. This is fine, but it's easy. You don't need to learn anything, you could basically avoid every attack in the same way, watch the weapon come towards you and dodge.
So the question then is how do you make this more challenging? The answer to that is to create a smaller window to react. This makes sense, if the sword is slowly coming towards you at a consistent speed, you can easily roll out of the way. If it does the same in a quarter the time, it's much harder to notice and roll.
But the issue here is one of perception. If you're waiting for something to react to, you can react to it quickly, whereas if you're not "primed" to be waiting for it, it's really hard to be ready to react.
So this is what the "delayed attack" actually is. For example, you talk about Margit's swings, those are are things you can roll on reaction to, you don't need to memorize them. BUT you have a reasonably small window to react to them. So you have to be paying attention. Thankfully, he primes you, he raises his staff above his head to signal "Hey, stop attacking, don't lock yourself in an animation, this big staff is going to come down." then you have the chance to roll when you see it come down.
If you are just watching him, if you can focus your mind a bit, you don't need to be able to memorize, or predict the swing. In fact, prediction is what is punished the most. Panic rolling is when you're rolling on stimulus, like flinching, being stuck in a kind of stress response.
This is actually important to enjoying the game I think. The game is more fun when you're in a kind of flow state. In a flow state, you're not letting that stress response take over. You're just seeing the staff come up, seeing the staff start to come down, and your mind isn't cluttered and you just press the roll. The staff going up primes you, the staff coming down forces you to react.
Things like Elemer's variants on his sword swing, if you rely on "learning the difference" you're going to fail, because some combos do have mix ups, they don't always progress in the same way. You can't tell them apart in the middle of combat because you're getting stressed, and you're trying to predict them. But they're very clear, one of them the sword doesn't go back to swing. As a hint though, it's based on your distance to him. If you're in range, he'll do the fast swing, if you're further back the sword will stop and swing further out to hit you, this is the delayed one. If you roll into him, the whole dancing sword combo will end, and he'll bring his sword back to his hand.
There's definitely some benefit from learning, and it's true that not everything can be reacted to, something like waterfowl dance you need to memorize a pattern. A lot of the challenge comes from conflicting thoughts, you're thinking about how to get in range, when you can fit in a swing, how close you might be to posture breaking him, and that cluttered mind can be distracting and make the roll more difficult.
But this is why I like the game, because the more you play it, it's not so much that you memorize the moves, though you do a bit, but rather all of the different conflicting cluttered thoughts start to quiet down as you batch things together, "Oh, this combo can be punished with 3 hits, oh, I shoudn't try to attack after this move or he will recover and has a quick attack before I can roll, etc." But those are different things than whether you can react to a move. There's a big difference between being unable to avoid an attack because you're animation locked, and being unable to avoid an attack because you physically don't have enough frames to notice it and avoid it.
And again, this is where delayed attacks are actually good. Because the "delayed attack" is actually a signal to be ready, to not lock yourself in an animation, and to be ready to react. If you had no delayed attacks, then you would be always relying on only responding in recovery animations, or else the telegraphing would have to be so long that avoiding it would be trivial.
Completely agree, nice analysis
I feel like you're going to get a lot of angry comments from this video, so I just want to say, you're completely right
You know how fromsoftware fans are when you point out a flaw in any souls like game. They instantly start to suck and blow miyasaki with no hesitation 😂
@@pancakes7483 it's not an objective flaw so it will obviously get criticism. Many like delayed attacks, without delayed attacks you get the problem that is ds1 bosses. They are far too easy, every single boss in that game you can beat by just rolling the moment you see an attack, with no thought. The direction you roll doesn't even matter either, there's almost no attacks before elden ring that require you to roll in a certain direction or time it well. You just roll and swing while circling the boss and you clear all the games easily.
@@ragegaze3482 Gael doesnt have any. But he is consistently #1 boss. Some people like eating shit from toilet, but that doesnt mean its objectively good food
@@nurikkulanbaev3628 Gael is easy though, so that matches my point. He's a highly rated boss because he's cool, that's it. He wouldn't even be top 10 in the hardest fromsoft bosses. Plus there is no agreed upon #1 boss in the community. He's normally in the top rankings of people's list though.
@@nurikkulanbaev3628 It'll depend on how people rate their bosses. Some take in music, lore, arena and not just gameplay into consideration. Gael is great and an S+ tier fight but Messmer and Soul of Cinder are just better for me
Since dark souls 3 the games became like a "guitar hero" of rolling. For someone who plays this games again and again and again, it helps to don't make them feel boring from one playtrough to another, i have to adjust my timing, it makes me think, and that is entertaining for me.
Pretty much, delayed attacks exists because without them it becomes way to easy to just see a boss twitch and Iframe, now you have to fully take in the move. Delayed attacks are still very reactable.
@@boredomkiller99 I used to be on the hater side so I can tell you its all just cope
If elden ring was just dark souls 3 again where once you get a feel for general dodge timings you can beat all bosses in a couple attempts it would have been way too easy
I used to say "In elden ring it feels like you're not getting better at the game, but better at that one singular boss" as a negative, but now I see how varied and interesting the movesets are that switched to a positive
@@Volsraphel I know I'm late but thank you, all of these comments are pissing me off. Seriously, Elden Ring is a way better game than its toxic community gives it credit for, I don't know why there are so many people looking for anything to complain and overreact about. "I'm not used to bosses having a fucking brain and tricking my overreacting ass into rolling early, time to chew off Myazaki's jugular again for making a goddamn video game. Wait... is that someone praising it? They must be some kind of filthy casual who has only played Elden Ring and is incapable of basic objective or artistic judgment."
Ok I realize I overrated as well and went off topic but I mean to say that this community is way too hostile and overcritical, like way, way too overcritical. I've never seen a game I appreciate so much get ripped apart so badly so I'm lowkey just mad lol
@@pengoo1933 I think you need to take a step back, the common consensus in the gaming community is that Elden Ring is one of the best games of all time lol
It's once you zoom in to the hardcore souls fanbase where you find the naysayers. They may seem to be the majority from this perspective, but they certainly aren't the majority when looking at the bigger picture
@@Volsraphel That's just the way algorithms work huh, I guess I fell into the trap of being profited off of by social media rage baiting me lol. It's a shame though, as someone who's favorite souls game is Elden Ring by a landslide (although I can totally see the argument for Bloodborne, ds3, or Sekiro; its probably because I'm one of the filthy casuals who was brought into souls games by Elden Ring), my experience with Shadow of the Erdtree has really been sullied by all of the negative reception, despite it otherwise being what may be my favorite game of all time.
I completely disagree that abundance of delayed attack makes it dull and repetitive because I was on the boat where roll reaction gameplay of Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne was getting old to me. Elden Ring causes you to think a lot more compared to the previous game. I agree that you cannot reasonably dodge all attacks intuitively first time, but I will say the exact same thing for Bloodborne, Dark Souls 3, and Sekiro. If all previous games where truly intuitive first time encounter, then most player should be able to beat it on the first try. The bosses were always memorize and adapt, it’s just that ER bosses are much more complex and interesting, and I believe to be superior to previous titles.
I think it’s telling that the best boss in the DLC, Messmer, feels more like a DS3 fight than an ER fight. You actually get openings and time to breathe between attacks and after combos which makes the fight feel very dynamic, rather than having to dodge a long combo string to get one or two attacks off, on a boss with an outrageous health bar
I think you forgot one important thing when it come to bosses delay attacks, they are also your breather, small break between attacks for your charater to stablize and manage your own stamina
Take well, Margit, he have alot of delay attacks, yes they are there to make him harder but it’s also there for you to recover your stamina, your attacks and rolls aren’t limitless, if you simply remove these attacks then it will probably be boring and just take to effort to learn or react cause without variations then what’s gonna stop people from spamming roll without bring punish?
Great point, I agree
I cannot express how much ive punished bosses for that "delayed" bullshit.
I beat margit in 3 tries when the game first came out simply because while he had his hand in the fucking clouds, i was getting 2-3 free hits on his ass with my katana.
I hate how the delayed attacks read your rolls in an attempt to try and stop you. It genuinely feels like they made the enemies try their absolute hardest to kill you and trip you up without making it straight up impossible
"The enemies try their absolute hardest to kill you"
Well, that's common in a fight to the death
I just replayed a bit of Code Vein to see where its combat stacked up to Elden Ring just because I could and was surprised to find many of the same tactics used to throw off players in the endgame, including super tracking on even basic attacks, erratic high speed maneuvers and opponents with delayed attacks (at least there are no attacks which unnaturally extend airtime on jumps). There really is only so much that can be done to shake up this gameplay formula.
I feel that the DLC is a lot more fair than the end game of base Elden Ring. There are no 13 hit waterfall moves or Elden Beast garbage. The DLC fixed many problems from the base game imo.
Not convinced by this vid, sorry. The part where you randomly complain about bosses having second phases(???) around 15:30 is what really lost me. I prefer the delayed attacks because they’re much easier to strafe most of the time (the Margit attack you all keep complaining about is a perfect example of this) and delayed attacks mid-combo allow for a quick rolling attack mid-combo as well. They also provide opportunities for stamina regeneration, and overall make the fights look and feel cooler. While I’m at it the multi-phase bosses are awesome too. (In fact I was disappointed that we didn’t get any bosses with multiple health bars other than Scadutree Avatar.) I honestly don’t feel like many of these complaints are really all that big of a deal, especially in the DLC. Maybe From doesn’t make games for you anymore. Personally, I hope they keep going in this direction instead of regressing to appease the old heads. Elden Ring has flaws but complaining about shit like delayed attacks just muddies the waters and makes it so the real flaws don’t get discussed because everyone’s still complaining about one Margit attack.
(Also, I’m sure I’m just going to be called a basement dwelling fanboy for daring to defend this game but frankly the toxicity among the people complaining about this game’s bosses and pretending their personal opinion is objective fact is purely asinine and will age poorly.)
If visually the attack looks or seems like it should/would be delayed then I think it’s fine but with a boss like Margit he has way too much delay on some attacks that make no sense. Same goes for if the boss is larger, it should have slow attacks with some delay to convey the size and weight of the boss and their weapon. Attacks being delayed to be delayed are bs, if they are sprinkled in on bigger bosses to impart the physical toll or a mostly uncommon delayed attack, while telegraphed, on a faster boss to punish spam/panic roll so you can’t use that as a crutch, it’s perfectly fine if not what I’d prefer.
Btw I spent 2 attempts on Godrick compared to my almost 2 hour endeavor to beat margit. Also Godricks delays make sense considering the size of his axe except the over head attack. I’m telling you right now that MF DEFIES GRAVITY, HIS AXE IS JUST FLOATING AND ALL HE HAS TO DO IS DROP IT
Midra was honestly some of the best combat fluidity I’ve seen in Elden Ring. And Radahn didn’t really have too many. Regardless, “just for artificial difficulty” always confuses me. Yeah, you have to learn the move set of the boss, if having to learn patterns is artificial, most games are artificially difficult
I was a bit annoyed by them at first, but they have grown on me and the longer I thought about it, the more I like this design. Of course, not all attacks should be delayed, and I don't think all are in DLC - but they are good, since there is only so much you can do with stuff like instinctive rolls or slight delays like Nameless.
So, generally speaking: I'd categorize attacks into three categories:
- normal delay - basically, attacks that feel "natural" and allow instinctive dodges, often reactive
- slight delay - a delay that will catch you if you roll too early, these want you to react not to the blade raising, but blade falling, for example a lot of Nameless King's delays
- longer delay - most present in Elden Ring, this delay will often make you panic at first, but is very manageable once learned and can be turned to your advantage
Basically, each of these three tests you in some way: reactions, focus, and knowledge. Reactions for fast attacks that you can't wait with dodging, focus so you don't panic roll and instead wait for the attack to come down, and knowledge so you know how to best make use of this attack.
The first two are more natural, but I'll explain why I'm enjoying the third check more nowadays. The thing is, with an attack like this, while it will catch you early, as long as you're paying attention and are willing to learn, you will see that such an attack is coming down. Now that you know the delay, of course, you can just wait for it, and dodge. That's a reason I saw people criticize those attacks for, that it's a cheap delay that is meant to catch you and waste your time with little pay-off, since after the delay, a boss can just continue attacking. And I agree - IF you're waiting for the attack.
But there is much more you can do. For starters, let's take a famous example of Margit's infamous cane hold. You can wait for it and dodge, yes. But, you can also reposition to his side, to be in a position where attack will miss you once it goes off. And once you're there, in a safe space, you can do anything. You can use this moment to heal, you can use it to do a couple normal attacks, maybe even a charged attack or a skill. Or just wait a moment longer to let your stamina regen, so you're not caught off-guard mid-combo. This isn't something you will realise on your first attempt, but once you get the hang of it, you will feel satisfied that you could come up with interesting strategies that just wouldn't be possible if the boss always had normal or slightly delayed attacks.
Another reason I like it is aggression. Admittedly, bosses in ER are very aggressive and don't give you much of a breathing room. So, it might result in a stamina issue. Take Pontiff as an example, with his special cross combo, you will be drained off your stamina and will need to disengage to let it regenerate, before going back in. Longer delayed attacks solve this issue - since each delay, once you recognize it, is a breathing room for you, that allows you to regenerate stamina without having to back away from the boss. This may be a crazy hot take opinion, but once I realised this, it let me be more aggressive against bosses than I'd ever be in Bloodborne, a game that favors aggression. Even in that game, I occasionally had to disengage and regenerate stamina or health, while in ER, I can do so through knowledge of delays.
In general, I quite like this direction. And I think that a good boss should be a mix of all 3 of these - being a test to how you can react, how well do you maintain focus and how well can you observe and learn. Plus, let's be honest - if all bosses would be just the first two, or god forbid only one of each, I'd argue we'd see way more complaints that "bosses are too easy" or "bosses feel uninspired". I've already seen some complaints that Midra or even Messmer were "good, but too easy", and for second, there is only so many ways you can swing a sword without a delay until it gets repetitive.
The delays in Elden Ring are there to be your attack openings. Thats why some of them are insanely long, so you can sneak in an attack or 2
I’m just a simple man tbh. If I know a move is delayed, I’ll remember it next time and dodge it properly. Delayed attacks have never been an issue for me
And that's precisely the problem as to why they are bad. You're not supposed to see delayed attacks as "not an issue", that in my opinion is the root cause as to why they are so badly executed.
Delayed attacks are, in their concept at least, supposed to be faints, if you "know next time you need to dodge at the right time" it's no longer a faint attack. Delayed attacks are easy to dodge once you know the animation and timing which defeat the whole purpose of them existing in the first place. Delayed attacks are supposed to be the hardest moves that you face against, you're not supposed to feel safe (once you have fully memorized the pattern) when they happen to you. You're not supposed to see them as easy patterns. Delayed attacks are bad if they become easy to avoid.
However delayed attacks serving as actual faint attacks that are rightfully executed do exist in this game : Consort Radahn has one. One of his patterns has a good properly executed delayed attack.
The attacks in this game feel so unintuitive very often. It seems like they design the attacks around tricking the player at the cost of losing immersion
As someone who played Elden Ring as their first fromsoft game, I personally like delayed attacks. Its a good way of making the player learn the bosses' attack patterns and a good way of putting some mind-games into the mix. Though I do see your points, I personally disagree. Still, great video!
"I want predicatable attacks"
Just saved you 21 minutes :)
Someone missed the part where I said "delayed attacks have become predictable"
@@BertoPlease If they have become "predictable" then what even is the problem?
If you are complaining about having to learn bosses you are playing the wrong series.
@@Pedro_Le_Chefboring and unoriginal is the problem
@@killadrill Elden ring has the best bosses in Fromsoft history. Boring and unoriginal aren't the adjectives you're looking for
@@BertoPlease Yet you still fail to dodge them 😂
I majorly dislike delayed attacks because it makes fights feel less authentic to me.
I used to box so it is very deeply ingrained in me that when an opening resents itself you instinctually need to punish by beating them to the punch A good trade always happens when both people are on the offensive because you will almost never land when the other person is in defense mode. Typically what you want to do is make a prediction about what the next punch your opponent will throw then have a punch lined up to exploit the opening that you hope will open up the split second their hand moves from their chin.
So moving to eldenring as my first souls game it severely severely messed with my head and annoyed me when I would attack the enemy really quickly before they could land their attack and then I get punished for it. We're getting to a really really silly point in fromsoft games where the "best" warriors are getting worse and worse fundamentals, and are now blatantly disobeying the laws of gravity as long as it surprises you. So to steel a term from gabe newell, im getting a narcissistic injury when I get punished by enemies that bend the rules of the world to their advantage just to subvert my expectations of a fair fight. When I jump in the air, I cant float there in the sky for an awkward amount of time like godfrey, and I cant just charge up a charge attack that I cant be interrupted or poise broken out of to do massive damage to the enemy. I have to play by the rules of the world, but the enemies play by them much less often.
6:56. "I saw a reddit thread that puts it really well, a lot of the bosses were like Nameless King."
-Penguinz0 during a stream of his 1st playthrough, he was in Altus Plateau.
I am genuinely puzzled by how much discourse the delayed attacks have been generating. I do understand why it is likely design that serves to make fights more difficult, but this disregards that it is also likely intended to be design that makes bosses more engaging too. I do not think that being able to smash your face into the circle button the moment a boss moves its sword arm is particularly interesting. These attacks actually force you to learn and engage with a boss’s moveset in a way that previous series bosses did not really do. Additionally, though it was not explicitly brought up in this video, the complaint of delay attacks in tandem with the complaint about punish windows is something I find crazy to reconcile. If the boss is delaying their attacks, that’s your punish window. Hit them! It makes the fight so much more engaging and even complements the aggressive playstyle you mentioned you enjoy.
Are attack delays the only way to get you to engage with a boss?
@@justifano7046 They are not the only way, nor did my comment imply that they were the only way. What I said was that it was likely an intended design goal of adding them, and I do believe this to be the case, understanding that it does also have the knock on effect of making the boss harder. I think a happy middle ground for people would probably be roll-catch attacks similar to Nameless King, but more straightforward in the presentation of their animation. Attacks such that you need to delay between the first and second roll, but starting the animation for the second attack at a time when you will not be punished for reaction rolling when it starts. The downside to this, in my eyes, is that you do not have a window to attack the boss mid-combo, and you are forced to dodge through the whole thing. I do legitimately see this as an advantage of the egregious delays that ER likes to employ on some bosses.
You’re even more insane for suggesting to hit a boss during its attack charge-up. That literally never works for me in Elden Ring.
@@hrr2b239 of course it's intended they input them into almost every single enemy.
But its just bad difficulty. Fromsoft has tried too hard to make the game difficult that it's come at the cost of good gameplay.
Luckily, the total package is quite good allowing many to overlook these issues.
@@danielantony1882then you're not timing correctly...even on margit, when he does his infamous delayed overhead swing, you can even see in the video you have an extremely forgiving window to attack. you probably won't get off something like a lions claw without trading, but you can light attack and be safe. it's not an insane suggestion to understand when your openings are, because the more damage you do, the faster the fight ends, and the lesser the chance of you dying
Most of the delayed attacks can be dealt with using good positioning.
I feel like FromSoftware is on an "Arms-race" with their fanatical followers and Malenia (Blade of Miquella) is the proof of that, IMO. Being an optional boss that in lore is legendary for being deadly, justify she being so hard (although Radahn defeated her, so she saying she never knew defeat is bullsh1t), HOWEVER Waterfowl Dance is designed to kill "Souls-veterans". Why after she stops moving is there a damaging wind strike out of (her ass) nothing? To kill players who are used to keeping close to an enemy to try punishing after their big attacks. A new player would not have that mindset, but people who are playing this games for years and even decades, would. Adding to that, the sheer amount of enemies with delayed attacks, the horrible multifights of Elden Ring (with duo gargoles and duo crucible knights being unexcusebly bad) and NPCs that have no stamina are just annoying and tiresome by now.
P.S: How could I've forgotten, the ennemies with 5 min combos that jump away the moment they finish their kata presentation. Fuck that! It's annoying and unfair, since enemies don't have stamina to manage.
FS will eventually hit the bottom. Many players have gotten bored of this boss design, myself included. memorizing patterns just isn't fun anymore. its slop.
Radahn didn't defeat her, they fought to a stalemate.
bro just admit you're bad at the game and aren't willing to engage with the mechanics
@@ShaunRFeven millicent says that malenia was overpowered by radahn and had to use rot power to meat his measure, meaning that without rots help she would lose
@@ShaunRFno, she bloomed, which only happens when she's about to die, so it's safe to assume Radahn was ready to finish her off. But then rot nuke happened.
Imagine learning a boss through trial and error, it’s kinda like that was the entire game design since DeS.
Delay attacks are used to keep up the pace as you can use them in multiple ways.
Regen stamina
Attacking mid combo
Positioning
Healing
Ds3 bosses all had the same flow for the most part which was boring to me, usually roll 1-3 attacks and punish, which culminates in Geal whose entire moveset is just 2-3 hit combos, ER bosses are by far my favourite.
Also I reaction rolled all of Midra attacks, they are very natural and smooth.
This entire video is just “I reaction rolled my way through the previous souls games and now I’m getting punished for it and I don’t like or enjoy that” which is a completely fine OPINION to have but don’t trying to paint your opinion as objective flaws like you were at the last 5 minutes of your video.
My first souls game is bb, just saying that because you tried to pull the “new players to the franchise can’t criticize the game” card at 18:48, I have my own criticism with the game but I don’t agree with you on delayed attacks at all.
This is not true. ER is the first trial and error fs game. I can't think of a single previous game that you couldn't beat a boss on your first try.
@@killadrill well I beat Romina and Metyr on my first try, so your entire point falls flat.
@@killadrillYou fundamentally do not understand what trial and error is if you think this. Ds1’s beginning quite literally starts with multiple paths you can go that are higher level than the main path. The game is designed to allow you to experiment and learn from failure. It’s saying “if you go to this path you will die and you will eventually learn from that experience that you should not go there yet”. The developers allowing you to fail and be punished for making a wrong choice or guess and learning from that negative experience is very much the essence of what trial and error is. If fromsoft didn’t like trial and error they wouldn’t have even allowed you to mistakenly go down the wrong path without any initial clear indication that it’s the wrong path until you are already being punished for going there.
I adore the Midra fight, tho I get the point you're making. It's that if we can abuse a pattern of having a lot of delayed attacks, or that you have to wait solely to memorize the moveset, and thus not have a chance to beat the boss by sight reading, it leaves a worse and less immersive challenge.
I however do think there are worse ways to make a boss difficult. Like how they did Radahn 2. Man has deceptive hitboxes, but worse, he has a pocket attack that can't ever be reacted to unless you hug his right leg. Which forces even less variety in playstyle and encourages cheesing moreso
so i still dont get really get why you dont like midra?
he's too easy? i thought the fact he was a character that thematically utilizes delayed attack for all of his attacks to the point it becomes unambiguous reinforced his thematic style of being flashy and visually interesting. what's the big issue? there wasn't really a concrete reason given why there's a dislike for him
They have created the problem themselves by making the combat more agressive.
Dark Souls and Demon Souls had a much slower and punishing combat, but DS3/BB/ER are noticeably faster and with way less recovery frames, so naturally it's much easier to be agressive and doge bosses, hence FS has to come up with something new to make enemies hard again.
P.S.: In DS1 you'd get even more recovery frames if you wiff with certain weapons. DS2 had the best combat pacing imo.
i miss the slow combat, it was more methodical and in my opinion the fights had more tension because of this, in bloodborne sometimes i didnt knew what was happenning i just keep dodging, in dark souls dodging every attack feels good, every swing of the sword mattered.
Good video, I just don't agree with your points so I will try to keep this as understandable as possible sorry if I make any grammar mistakes :)
(also I won't talk about previous games since that's not what I disagree with even tho I feel like the nameless king point makes no sense, his attacks are clearly telegraphed)
BASE GAME SECTION:
1. Margit --> 9:10 "Yeah, you won't learn this attacks by reaction." first you won't NEED to memorize any attacks, this tip is simple and easy, look at his movement. Every attack is telegraphed he charges up and then you can clearly see his body twitch. That's your moment to dodge. IMO it's a good thing every attack was a delayed one, since you WILL NEED to learn how to dodge delayed attacks in this game.
Also quick tip you can jump this attack and get a free heavy jump attack hit (9:58)
I just disagree with the points of margit's boss design being "muddy" I always knew when to attack there is clear openings, I know not everyone has the same opinion, but I think his attacks are telegraphed and easy to know when to punish :)
2. Radahn (???????) --> Radahn is extremely slow and heavily telegraphed. It's actually insane how easy it is to tell when he's doing an attack.
11:27 you show him phase transitioning as to say he's fast? this just makes no sense.
11:34 "What telegraphs that about his design?" the purple lighting and light around him. If you went through Caelid, you would've seen soldiers using gravity magic, which has the same light and effect, not to mention that he's also referred to as "the conqueror of the stars" like cmon.
3. Radagon (??????????????) --> Radagon might be one of the most telegraphed bosses in ER.
12:29 Dodge forward. Nothing about his attacks are complicated, just dodge forward that easy, the aftershocks will NEVER hit you.
12:58 "heal punishing" aka you tried to run from the boss to heal on neutral instead of dodging and actually healing after an attack combo. This never worked in any FROM game and it was always a huge risk to take.
13:14 "just to panic roll" well I kind of agree that's usually how any first attempt with any boss goes no matter the game, but instead of continuing to do that in the next couple of attempts, what if you actually tried to learn it?
SHADOW OF THE ERDTREE SECTION:
Main point is "there is too many delayed attacks" like sure I can see your point, but simply learn the boss? like genuinely do you find it fun to first try a boss never having learnt it because it's attacks are easy to dodge and predictable or do you want to learn a boss and engage with their mechanics and get better at them? just maybe we have a different view of what makes this games fun.
14:45 "It's become predictable and boring."... are we acting dumb on purpose? Are we going to ignore the last 6 GAMES of easily predictable, easy asf attacks that became a boring repetition and was the most predictable shit ever, even with just 1 attempt on the boss?
Also makes the point that it wrapped back around to making the boss easier, but then doesn't that mean that the game taught you how to play? Isn't that the point of these types of games? The more you play it, the more you recognize patterns, and now, with even new bosses, you can interpret what they are going to do without even seeing it. You learned to play the game, which in my opinion is excellent.
You don't like Midra? Sincerely, what can I even say about this? Just not something I agree with at all; I won't go into detail, but he's one of my favorite bosses from this new DLC.
16:32 I just want to call out how almost all of these are either big-ish enemies, knights, or have big weapons. Didn't you earlier say big enemies and weapons matter when considering delayed attacks? Also, didn't you excuse the penetrator's attacks because he's a knight?
17:28 Now this is your opinion but I disagree heavily. Bosses are fun, enjoyable, beautiful, and all the positive words I could use to describe them, ER bosses are the best thing FROM has made and will ever make, in my opinion. Now, if you haven't been able to tell by now, I love Elden Ring, which might make you think that I don't have complaints against it, but I do, but one of my complaints is not delayed attacks or "unfair fights", The fights are as fair as ever. IMO we are focusing on the wrong thing when complaining about ER, delayed attacks? Learn them, look at animations for tells, and something I haven't mentioned is that delayed attacks help you regen stamina, which makes it almost impossible to break the flow of the fight like you had to do in previous FROM games. Also the whole unfair fight thing makes no sense, these fights are extremely fair and unique, if you want to look at unfair fights, look no further than Bloodborne the same game that took 4 years to no-hit. Look at ds2 with it's shitty hitboxes. Not ER, this is not an unfair game.
18:05 Be aggressive, its the most fun and easiest way to play the game (IMO) Just don't be stupid and attack the boss expecting it not to attack back, don't attack mid combo, etc. In general, just think a little before acting.
18:28 OFC This game has flaws, but delayed attacks? really? Also, the point about how it changed a lot from the original games, like? Don't you want an evolution of the old games, or do you want to play games that do the same shit for 20 years?
Again let me say I think this video is good and I'm sorry if I was condescending in any of my points. I assure you, it was not my intent, I just disagreed with your points and felt the need to put my thoughts out there, also I agree that we SHOULD criticize games, especially games we love, so we can see them better in the future, but I don't think delayed attacks are flawed or bad.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter its just our opinions :)
I completely agree with you 🙏
Totally agree, majority of the delayed attacks complained about in this vid are completely fine. Sure delayed attacks can be difficult to dodge the first time you see them, but once you learn the timing they become the easiest attacks to dodge. And the aftershocks mentioned in radagon and consort radahns fights are not cheap ways to extend the difficulty. For consort radahn phase 2 has many of the same attacks as phase 1 with added lightbeams that punish where players would intuitively dodge to in phase 1. For most of these attacks, if you dodge into radahn instead of away, you won't have to dodge the follow up lightbeams. Same with radagon, just dodge the initial attack in a way that puts you out of range for the follow up aftershock (usually dodge forward). And he doesn't "heal punish", he teleports and uses gap closing moves if you try to run away from him. If you want to heal, don't run away and heal after dodging one of his attack combos. These "aftershock" attacks are teaching the player that not just timing, but the direction of your dodge matters, which is great game design imo. I think Berto's is wrong in thinking that changing some of the fundamentals of the game design from dark souls is a bad thing.
IMO good vid but I disagree with your opinion that learning a bosses moves are a bad thing, u are not meant to beat or even necessarily come close first try. Isn’t the point of a souls like struggling until you overcome a challenge? Just learn the boss moves and be patient with delays.
While I understand your grievances against delayed attacks, I disagree. Just as you brought up the "trend of second phases", I think delayed attacks are a natural evolution as part of a game's enemy engagement, not simply as an arbitrarily hard challenge. The way you describe delayed attacks is in such a generalized way that much context is removed from a boss's overall toolkit. Godrick's delayed attacks have the purpose of moving you back into mid-range and away from being close to him, while Margit's delayed attacks serve to punish reckless positioning or over-reactive dodging. In addition to this, delayed attacks do pose a danger within the flow of combat but also have the caveat of giving you an opening to punish the boss. This keeps the flow of combat engaging. I played my first playthrough of Elden Ring with the colossal Greatsword primarily (because my friend sold me on this because of the Berserk reference and showed me how to reach it early) and finding these openings through trial and error during my boss fight attempts was crucial for me being able to land jumping heavy attacks or charged heavy attacks on these bosses. If Margit takes a year to swing his cane or to stab it into the ground, he's going to be winded long enough for a light weapon to land a charged heavy and a jumping heavy, and a heavy weapon can land one charged heavy or one jumping heavy. Malenia's delayed attack in her first phase ends with her performing a downward sword slash with a recovery window that is long enough for me to land a jumping heavy with my Greatsword.
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Your perspective on delayed attacks is also that attacks may be delayed but they are also fast upon striking...which to me is a really unusual complaint. From your script, it sounds as if you prefer for boss attacks to have attacks in which you have to reactively dodge upon a visual/audio cue, which these attacks DO have with their long delay. The delay is the visual cue that an attack is approaching that you must avoid. I think the differentiation you did with "delayed, slow moving attacks" vs "delayed, fast moving attacks" stuck with me though not in a good way. This comparison attempts to present the latter form of delayed attacks in a bad light but I don't think one form of delayed attack is inherently superior or inferior to another. The more I think on your video, the more I get the impression that your bad experiences from these delayed attacks have just ultimately soured your overall game experience. I don't think its a "skill issue" like a lot of players love to say, but if what I said is true, I think this stops you from evaluating the boss fights as a whole and appreciating their flow of combat. I think with how you mentioned "healing punishes" and then how Pontiff can "combo", it just gives me the ick, the same ick that I get when frustrated players want to transform their venting into a talking point or criticism. In spite of this, I think you did bring up a good conversation point: are DELAYED ATTACKS OVERUSED?
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Going back to what I said earlier about the natural evolution of a game's enemy engagement, I think delayed attacks fit right in just as with "boss second phases". I do not believe that they are overused. I do not believe that these design elements exist as a method to arbitrarily heighten a game's difficulty, but rather to compliment the combat engagement with enemies and bosses. Enemies that perform quick, immediate attacks when they see you and when you are in range...are already such a common occurrence even within Elden Ring. The usage of delayed attacks serves as a means to disrupt traditional combat expectations and to create better combat engagement through making the player more observant instead of simply being reactive. I will confess that I too have fallen prey to delayed attacks given how I play and with what weapon I play. Midra caused me a bit of frustration with his delayed attacks on top of his health pool, to where my impatience started to take a toll on me and caused me to not enjoy Midra's fight as much as other people did. And this is a good transition into the "fun" of it all. Can you find delayed attacks to not be fun? Sure. Though when presented as good faith criticism, it fundamentally sounds like a complaint disguised as criticism and propelled by misunderstanding. It is similar to when the popular community sentiment against Elden Ring bosses was that "they're unfair because they never stop attacking" or "its impossible to heal against them". I think the community has a collective desire to gather together to rationalize their frustrations instead of overcoming them or understanding them. This isn't to say that I play FromSoft video games without ever getting frustrated but what ultimately drives me push on through and enjoy the experience is because I enjoy playing these games. Like everyone else, I too got stuck at Malenia and felt overwhelmed but I never felt like there was an outside force that tried to rob me of my enjoyment.
Fantastic analysis. This is similar to my feeling on delayed attacks. While I don't feel like they're overused I feel like they should be a smaller percentage of a boss's total attacks (outside of bosses like Margit who are intended to train you to dodge them) because I like being surprised when they hit me. I feel like regular enemies should also get fewer of them. Overall, however, I'm happy that so many bosses have at least some form of them to keep me on my toes. I can see this being very difficult for new players though. Especially in a not-elden ring game where you can't just go somewhere else when you're having trouble with one area. I don't think FromSoftware has found the balance quite yet. But they're getting there. And I look forward to when they finally perfect it.
And I'm sorry you didn't enjoy midra as much as others. Go back on another playthrough when you're awake and alert. Maybe try fighting him with a light roll setup. He's a blast.
The problem I see in your argument is that you talk ONLY about the mechanical layer of the combat. My main takeaway from the video was that delayed attacks make no sense from the perspective of the enemies not mechanicaly but from the in-game world logic. It makes no sense for the boss to open themselves up for a punish from the player just to throw you of with a delay. As it was shown in the video delayed attacks have been a thing since Demon's Souls and the author explained why they were well implemented back then. From that perspective Elden Ring having majority of the bosses use delayes should be obvious to anyone as a thoughtless attempt to increase the difficulty for the sake of difficulty and that also was explained in the video.
I will be an asshole and say that If you want mechanicaly complex and demanding experience then play multiplayer fighting games or any competetive title against real humans, I guarantee you will find a lot more depth in there.
The biggest strength of Souls games has never been the combat but their immersive quality and putting you in unique scenarios to overcome. If the "natural evolution" of Souls games is having every boss be a hyper agressive moveset exam than I'd rather play Devil May Cry.
@slei4676 delayed attacks used to keep the players in engaged in the fight let me explain. Games luke hogwarts legacy every attack is indicated by a visual effect it light yellow or red because of this I could realistically just stare at the top of my players head and beats the game only have to occasionally look at the opponents shield color. But with the souls born games you are forced to engage with the fights or you will lose. If they didn't use delay attacks you would eventually be able to panic roll your way to victory. The whole point of delayed attacks are to keep the players ingaged it's the whole reason the games does not let you pause. Once your in the game your in your ment to lock in. That's my take on it.
@@slei4676your opinion is absolutely nonsensical. things making sense according to the logic of reality in a fantasy game is an extremely stupid standard for a game to be good. it makes perfect sense for an enemy to throw out attacks with different timings so the player can't dodge at the same way for every attack. like, i don't know what to tell you. if you want to reject the concept of player versus enemy in video games, then that's fine, but then you don't have any ground to criticize pve games.
i don't like the trend of every song having a chorus. it just makes them cheap and predictable.
Im personally ok with delayed attacks.
However there are a few attacks that are delayed so long and don't have a visual or audio queue when the delay ends that it becomes overwhelmingly tedious to learn. Radahns attack at 11:20 is one that I still cant get down consistently even though I know its super delayed.
I find it more fun when the bosses have delayed attacks. It makes you constantly pay attention to its attacks and learning it is satisfying Ishin, for example, has mostly simple attacks but it has a certain delay in them that confused me a little at first but then it was very rewarding to know how to react properly
Agreed. Consort was the best boss of the dlc, on par with malenia in the base game. Best two bosses in Fromsoft history
@@StrangeLeapFor Malenia, I agree with you. For Radahn, I disagree. He has a few problems that keep him from being an all time great boss fight in my opinion
@@StrangeLeapslave knight and lord ishin laugh at this take lolz
@@soyborne.bornmadeandundone1342 npc opinion.
Yes someone with a good opinion 🤝
I personally never had an issue with the delayed attacks--I can see where other people might--but I never did. I just learned to dodge when they attacked rather than dodge when they started to attack. I ended up using the delays to get damage in or heal. Honestly, it'd say the delays make the game more easy with how often they allow me to finish off the boss when they should've killed me
I love that the first boss in Demon's Souls already had an delayed attack
The problem with Delayed attacks is that they're counterintuitive when they're mixed with extremely fast attacks. The game punishes you for dodging on reaction with a delayed attack, but also punishes you for not dodging on reaction with a quick attack. The animators spent way too much time going "Look at how cool we made this attack! It's so awesome! look at all the effects and explosions and light!" and not enough making animations more distinct, which is especially the case with combos having changing ends and mixable moves. The game forces you to assume an attack is coming after an attack, but then pulls the rug out from under you by having a different attack happen with little distinction. Sometimes Radagon will teleport after an attack and sometimes he wont, it's this uncertainty that ruins battles when the entire combat system is almost entirely hinged on memorizing patterns. You can't do that if the patterns keep changing to whatever the boss feels like.
Y'all whine about delayed attacks but then stand there and do nothing until the boss slaps you in the face
You're supposed to attack the boss during their delays
I don't see the problem if you don't like it okay but changing everything as a response for everyone wants will not make a good game i think we should let them make there game not yours i don't see the problem with the delayed attacks so i don't want them to over correct the way they make games
i dont get the complaints, for the most part. delayed attacks in elden ring are almost always just a part of a fights rhythm and tempo, not an interruption of them. if all of midra's attacks are "delayed", then whats the problem? that also means that all of his attacks are consistent.
very rarely are these attacks not telegraphed, or woven into the general flow of the fight. messmer's spear scrapes against the floor before releasing forwards towards you. mohg's attack have a consistent weight and heave to them, due to his massive trident. margit/morgott give you plenty of time to react once they swing, making their roll-catches a game of patience and intuition. even when just looking at his feet, you can predict the fire giants delayed attacks just off of his body movement and heavy battle style.
all of these delayed attacks have their own purpose in their individual fights, and are given their own worthy justifications and consistencies. i really dont get what the problem is.
Firstly They look stupid lol
And the attack technically isn’t “telegraphed”
When Margot raises his sword. That isn’t the attack. The attack is the swing after the 45 minute delay. The follow up swing has no telegraph. It’s pure reaction.
Also the dodge input delay makes reacting a bigger pain in the rear
You don't need to react to margit's swing though, as soon as you see the staff go up you just get close and circle around him and you get a bunch of free attacks while he misses entirely. So you have all the telegraphing you need
Also, him holding the staff up is a telegraph to the player to stop trying to predict when the swing will come and instead just react to it. And yes, you can roll it on reaction, I've done it plenty of times
I can understand the frustration with the dodge input delay though, and if that isn't fun for you then that's fair. I think Quickstep comes out on button press, and not release
Just wrong. Hitting someone with anything is a fluid motion once the motion is begun. It doesn't matter what kind of weapon you have or what kind of creature you are, it's just physics.
Pausing the motion and restarting it defies physics and makes the motion uncanny.
And it means instead of dodging when a move you see start would normally hit, you have to instead turn off the logical part of your brain and simply memorize and arbitrary timer value for every enemy and all of their moves. It's a terrible experience.
My biggest gripes with Elden Ring boss design are input reading, animation canceling, free flowing combo extensions, and inconsistent punish windows. Morgott will delay his swing for ungodly amounts of time... but if you roll before the delay is over, he'll immediately snap to catch your roll because he read that you pressed the button, which cancels the rest of the animation to perform the attack earlier than he would have normally if you didn't roll. An example of two enemies that I believe have wacky combo extensions are the Crucible Knights and Bell Bearing Hunters, once a Crucible Knight has entered phase 2 they can swipe with their tail to smack you to cover their previous whiff punish window, meaning you either need to delay your punish until they've reached the moment of their recovery animation that they can no longer use that move (which limits your selection of weapons due to speed-related concerns) or you need to bait the tail swing with something really fast with low recovery like a Dagger so you have enough time to dodge it afterwards. Bell Bearing Hunters have a thing where if they do their shield slam attack, they have an optional extension that will make the shield explode in a massive AoE if you attack into them before the animation is over, so you have to wait until they start the animation for putting the shield on their back before you can start attacking them, which just feels unnecessary? Just make the explosion happen every time so I don't have to guess when it's safe to start attacking him.
Malenia breaks all of these rules and more, having endless free flowing combo extensions on top of being able to cancel her "damage level hit stun" stagger animation into a dodge away from you which reduces the damage of your attack, or she can perform an attack that will punish you for attacking her, both of which gives her an inconsistent punish window, which is made even more inconsistent because of her Super Armor that makes her Stance unbreakable during many of her attacks, which means that despite her only have 80 Poise she can tank a 100 Poise damage attack with her Super Armor which will then put her Poise into the negatives and immediately start regenerating it without waiting for the 30 second Poise recovery timer, _without_ breaking her Stance. She can recover her health when hitting a 100% Physical Block shield, she can recover her health from hitting the _air_ due to having a poor connection with your Host if you are fighting the boss as a Phantom, she has two phases with entirely separate health bars that give her more equivalent health than the Fire Giant when accounting for innate Negation and the fact that percentage-based damage sources will be cut in half due to her having two phases with two separate health bars, you need to parry her _three_ times to break her Stance and open her up to a Riposte, she has an incredibly short Riposte window meaning if you end up smacking her because of input buffering you'll miss your opportunity for a critical hit, and as a further punishment she has an extremely high likelihood of performing a Waterfowl Dance when you fail to Riposte her. Don't even get me started on her Phantom Spirits attack having extremely poorly telegraphed and arbitrary dodge windows with precise directions so you can actually dodge the attack (two backward rolls with a small delay between them, two forward rolls, two rolls to the left, good luck figuring any of this out without looking up a guide.)
Elden Ring is a fun game, but it's heavily flawed.
@@michaelbowman6684 there is no animation cancelling in Elden Ring. Grow up already.
@@ferrywogg6590 yeah when I read that I stopped reading, can't take seriously a comment that just invent stuff
Skill issue
@@TheLexere Two years later and people are still crying that a boss hurt their feelings.
1. Morgott doesn't read your dodge roll timing as far as I'm aware
2. I really hope Morgott reads your dodge roll timing because that is an amazing feature that punishes panic rolls, which I think is amazing, especially when you have like no HP, about to die and then the tension of waiting and the strength of will required to refrain from panic rolling, just to perfectly make it through the next attack and heal in the opening. omg please I hope this is a prevalent feature in the next game.
Morgott’s classic overhead delayed attack I think is great-he makes it harder for you, but the swing is still clean. And the variation on it (if you’re close or far) is quite good imo
I dont think bro is "completely right" like others are saying. Elden rings boss design does use unintuitive swing timings. Other times, bosses like Midra may have slow swings, but they're perfectly readable if you watch their hand movements. Souls games were always rhythm games to some degree. Changing or slowing the rhythms doesnt make bad boss design.
Its doest when done bad. For example if you have delayed attack that have 2 years wind up, for accualy attack to be like mach 6
@@Apophesisnt that the whole gimmick of dark souls 1 ennemies ? im pretty every single ennemie does that in ds1, except maybe gwyn and queelag
@@Apophes sometimes that's just memorization/quick reaction times. Not saying it's always perfect/intuitive, but get hit by it once or twice and the average human should be able to get timing down. It's not a fatal flaw.
@@joshuabober9171 dosent change that these moves just bad.
@@Apophessounds like a skill issue. Try adapting to moves that aren’t completely braindead to dodge
“Scripted”. You learn them and use them to punish during their 2 second delay.
i think that’s honestly a skill issue once you learn their attacks it’s a really good boss fight. you’re just lazy. quit calling bosses cheap or bad design just bc you’re bad
I personally didnt think some bosses mentioned had the delayed attack problem. Putrescent knight for example is actually quite aggressive and attacks often that usually you can dodge on instinct (barring combo attacks you actually need to learn), my issue with him however is that you fight so close to him that his neutral posture always looks like an attack is incoming...
Delays are a bad thing, but the fights get horrible when the delays are accompanied by the bosses dealing insane amounts of damage, constantly attacking (with combos too) without letting you do anything, and also having huge health bars. I don't feel like I'm fighting a boss that I could imagine being "real", I just feel like I'm fighting against an unfair bot.
Delayed attacks are a complete non issue and they contribute to bosses being more difficult and rewarding to learn and fight in a way that is fair for the player. Sure it might seem cheap to get caught out by a delayed attack that caught you off guard the first time around, but eventually you should learn from enough failure that you develop a sense of timing for the attack and overcome it. This feeling of overcoming something and developing a consistency or rhythm to a fight or attack is much more rewarding than the alternative, which are bosses that just have telegraphed attacks that you dodge by simply pressing b when it’s obvious. A lot of delayed attacks give you opportunities for your own aggression before the attack even comes out (like margot), which can make the fight more rewarding to master and more dynamic. Additionally the conversation around delayed attacks has become so diluted with extreme exaggerations. “Unreactable” is perhaps the most grossly misused term that I see haphazardly thrown around by people who don’t care if it’s actually even true. Almost none of the common delays that people complain about are actually unreactable in the slightest, yet I’ve seen many people act as if every boss in the game has multiple unreactable delayed attacks.
So far as the delayed attacks were concerned, I think they're most ill used on creatures who shouldn't have the intelligence to psych you out. If its a knight or Radagon deploying feint tactics, that's sensible - but every common wolf and rat? That's silly. Like footsoldiers' arrows curving toward you, there's no narrative reason for it.
Can we talk about the massive flashing aoe and gigantic lingering hitboxes
it's when an enemy telegraphs a swing, so thinking you're prepared you DON'T panic roll, only for the actual swing to be so quick it's unreactable and you just need to memorise the timing anyway. At least Lady Maria had a small mody movement + sound in the moment before the attack so that an observant player knew when to dodge
Elden Ring has that too though for some of its delayed attacks. Sound cues exist and careful observation of the animation of the boss can do wonders.
To be honest, I quite like delayed attacks. I think they feel quite satisfying to dodge and can feel pretty natural if done right. Of course, at some point, it just gets ridiculous, as you said with margit where he just holds his stick up for multiple seconds before bonking you with the speed of light, but with bosses like radagon or rellana i really had fun fighting and learning them. Both are really aggressive and have some difficult to dodge combos. But apart from rellanas 2 balls the fight never felt unfair to me. She has a pretty slim health bar, so even if u dont get to hit her that often because of the few openings she gives u she goes down quite fast, pretty similar to maliketh. He also gives u close to none openings and hits like a truck if u cant dodge him properly, but in return he dies in like 5 to 6 hits himself. And the only complaint I have about midra, is that he can fire his laser beam like milliseconds after he nuked the arena, so fast that he is still kinda hidden in the explosion and given that he normally and quite understandably takes his sweet time to recover after blowing himself up, it is kinda random and pretty annoying when he decides that its not over yet and oneshots u with his ray of doom just because theres a 20% chance for him to do that and u thought u wanted to punish him for going all out with the nuke and failing at doing so. Besides that i really like the delayed attacks and they fit the theme quite well, being also kinda represented in his score with the heavy feeling u get by listening to his ost. His weapon is pretty big as well, even tho im not quite sure if its supposed to be a thrusting weapon rather than a big bonky stick considering its form, but thats not too important since it just looks fucking awesome
I don't understand. You're complaining because attacks aren't telegraphed in the way you prefer them to be?
Love how the delays are slow enough to look like you can sneak a hit in but are fast enough to hit you before you can roll out of the recovery animation and you get hit for DARING to do something that isnt watch the boss do his super flashy anime combo till the end
9:53 Fighting Elemer at any range other than direct contact is pure suicide because of these unreadable moves. Fighting this guy at low level became much better once I accepted this fact.
Yeah the footage I showed was from a RL1 run, I figured out the fight was a piece of cake up close, but wanted to learn the differences of the jedi attacks, and was just baffled at how punishing these attacks were. It really punishes ranged builds to an unnecessary degree
I'm currently trying to put together a build centered on the deflecting hardtear, added in the shadow DLC. It's made me realize just how insane it is, the delayed attacks. Trying to deflect perfectly based on instinct feels hopeless.
lol yeeeeah at least Sekiro allowed some leeway in unsuccessful parries being registered as blocks instead
i really dont get complaints about delayed attacks, if you personally think its bad design philosophy that's your opinion but every single complaint given towards them just doesn't make sense to me. Firstly learning and reacting to boss attacks is still possible with delayed attacks just takes you seeing them a few time or just waiting for start of swing, and memorizing bosses is literally how you get better at them its been that way since ds1, you even admitted this yourself at 10:55 "ive come to not mind it as much cause i got used to it later on" ya bro that's called learning the boss. in every game they have made learning the boss is literally how you beat it. Is the solution then to make every attack reactable first attempt cause then what is the point of the boss in the first place. for radagon all of the holy attacks and physical are possible to dodge in 1 roll depending or even jumping, same goes for most of rellana's attacks. also ELDEN RING ISNT DARKSOULS 4, its a separate franchise every single boss in elden ring has a learning phase and then expands there moveset in 2nd phase. Rellana is a boss that you can dodge so much of her attacks from jumping and roll, radahns holy attacks aside from blinding you are actually hard to get hit if you just roll to the sides and not backwards, which you should never do against him anyways if you fought him so much. Lastly if you keep getting attacked trying to heal from a far and get hit then maybe dont keep trying to heal from a far, heal after there done there combo instead of hitting.
lastly this is gonna be rude but its braindead takes like this that distract people from the actual critisisms for the game, delayed attacks are the most non issue ive ever heard, learn the boss dude thats what these games are about.
Couldn't agree more
Furthermore, every boss in the game, like every game in the series, is and has been done at lvl1 without rolling blocking or parrying. All strafing and positioning. A ton of ER players seem like if they can't react and kill a boss within a few attempts then it's a boss design issue. And don't even get me started on how many players seem to ignore the jump mechanic when you can dodge an ungodly amount of boss attacks by jumping. Even more easily than rolling. Rolling and lock on are just more tools, they are not the end all be all and should never be relied upon for everything. If the camera is janky for a big boss, you probably should not be locking on. Common sense stuff here to me
@@JTsHorrorDiscussions i know when base elden ring came out people complained about fire giant being so big that you cannot see its attacks, like look up at the boss. Fans of the games just dont want to learn bosses they want to be able to react to every attack first try, and if they did that i know for a fact they would complain its too easy.
I can't speak for other people, but I think it's a multi-layered issue. Delayed attacks themselves aren't the problem, it's the fact they compound with other things with the combat in elden ring that people aren't a fan of. Mainly that some boss attacks have very similar animations for delayed attacks and non-delayed attacks, and the fact that a lot of boss combos feel like they go on and on for a very long time. One of these things is a hurdle. Two of these things is a challenge. All of them at the same time can feel excessive and annoying.
I understand not wanting to hear people complain about it being too easy, but let's be honest there will always be complaints about fromsoft games. In my personal opinion, having bosses that are both challenging and also fun to fight is ideal, and delayed attacks paired with excessively long combos encourage players to turtle or run away instead of weaving through attack chains to get some cheeky hits in like you do in bloodborne. I think that's what From was going for with Elden ring, more aggressive combat on the player's end. But since the healing system is different from bloodborne, as well as the dodging being the traditional dodge roll instead of a sidestep, it makes players want to stick with the tried and true fighting style of blocking or dodging and waiting for safe windows to attack. Windows which are far, far less common in elden ring compared to dark souls.
In this way, you could argue its an issue of players not having the tools that bosses expect you to have. The rally system from bloodborne takes up a talisman slot, and the animation for drinking estus is both slow as ever AND prone to getting unfairly punished by an AI which reads your button prompts the second you press it. It feels like you can never get a second to breathe with elden ring bosses, and while that may be enjoyable to some, it won't be to all.
I feel like you saying "delayed attacks are problematic" is really just the equivalent of someone saying "I dont wanna learn the boss moveset" which has always been the staple of Souls games. I get it dude they feel bad for the player, but thats the damn point you are meant to suffer. Its no secret that Miyazaki is inspired by Berserk, which to a certain degree is about being defiant in the face of suffering. So if you dont want to suffer play a different game.
I really don't get all the sh*tting on delayed attacks. Ok sure, of course, purposefully for panick rolling...learn the length of the delay like you would learn any other dodge timing for any other attack, and move on. Thats just me
it seems like this guy just doesnt want to learn boss move sets, saying midra was a bad fight is crazy
No, please, let's not
We have been talking non-stop about delayed attacks for 1.5 years
Just learn boss moveset and time your rolls accordingly
The combat in this game sucks I'll always enjoy videos like this. Hope you have a bad day
interesting, something i really liked about elden ring was delayed attacks and attacks that are harder or impossible to avoid by just rolling but are easy to evade by running or jumping, and for malenia and godfrey that made the fights really dynamic imo, midra was one of the best and funnier bosses i have ever faced in elden ring and radahn is the hardest and most dynamic boss i have ever faced, in any souls game, but i do wish he was more consistent because there are some attacks that i genuinely can not evade, never, i feel like the combat is definitely improving but does require some calibration, my brother doesnt have good vision, he really can not see what the enemy is doing, he also doesnt want to use tools to make the fight easier, he wants the most true experience he can get, but his vision simply makes him get hit by most of the attacks, he cant read the attacks, he cant even see them, he is most likely avoiding based on instinct and luck, thats why i suggested that elden ring should have an accessibility feature for auto rolls, based on chance and dependent on some attribute like armor or endurance, like the old adventure rpgs i used to play 20 years ago where evading attacks was based on your agility stat, not your reflexes because the battle was based on turns and you could only sit and watch your character getting hit or successfully evading the attack.
I've never played Demon's Souls, but from what I can see those faints really should be incorporated into more fights in souls games. It's so much better when an opponent actually tricks you with their movement whilst still keeping the fight dynamic, instead of awkwardly stopping in the middle of an attack.
In Elden Ring, the amount of times you have to awkwardly do nothing when the opponent holds their weapon in the air is ridiculous. You can't roll without waiting or you'll get hit. You can't even attack, the boss will ignore it, hit you before you are able to roll, and trading is usually not worth it.
In previous souls games you were able to intuitively figure out when to roll/parry an attack, even if it was your first time seeing it. In ER you pretty much have to get hit by an attack the first time you see it to figure out how long to wait before rolling.
I 100% agree about not being able to learn boss attacks through reacting and I think that’s why I have never been able to have fun playing Elden Ring like I have From’s other titles. This is not a fast, frenetic experience, it’s a puzzle game where you have to watch something happen to you and then recite the exact solution.
Your video made it really clear to me that delayed attacks are not the problem.
I observed your fight against Midra and I have to say... I think I would call him out for only two attacks with delay. The first is the jumping attack when he bums the sword into the ground, the second when is the last hit of his 5 hit combo.
In general I think Midra just has slowerish moves. Now we compared this to a boss with no delayed attacks. Or lets just say Midra has a little faster moveset in general. Would I like the boss without delayes attacks more? Would I like the second version of Midra more?
My answer is no. I don't think delayed attacks are a problem at all. I just think that Fromsoft became "better" with their boss design. The bosses have more advanced moves than before and also more delayed once. And yes, some bosses might have more delayed attacks than other onces. Still, I don't think it is bad. Some delayed attacks might be really stupid yes. But this doesn't get the game down for me.
Changing the boss design from what it is to the average reaction based boss design would not make a better boss.
Most of your footage shows constant panic rollspam, it's not a surprise why you keep getting demolished by delayed attacks, their very purpose is to catch consecutive rolls. These games are not for button mashers.
Similar to Sekiro, Elden Ring was made with the expecation that you'll use a mix of rolls, blocking, strafing, jumps and even parries to evade the various types of attacks. Just because you technically can roll everything doesn't mean it's even close to the optimal strategy, for attacks like thrusts it's a waste of time because you can just strafe most of them.
I beat Midra underleveled at RL120 and only Scadutree level 7 with with just a cold greathammer, brass shield and guardcounters+charged R2s+posture breaks, only rolling for grabs, projectiles and a few phase 2 attacks.
Fun fact: if you guard counter him with a greathammer on the 2nd hit of his 3 hit combo, the counter animation will make you duck in such a way that the 3rd hit will miss you.
I was very surprised you didn't like Midra, especially since you mentioned Mohg as a good use of delayed attacks. My first thought when fighting Midra was Mohg, a lot of delayed attacks, to the point it was predictable and fun, had a rythm to it. I guess maybe you were just tired of the delayed attacks which I understand completely XD
Great video
time passes
we already played enough of the base boss fights
more than enough
time to have some new experience
i like it
I feel that this discussion about delayed attacks misses a good question, what even is a delayed attack, a boss charging an attack? A boss using a stance of some kind? Or the attack being simply slower than the others?
I think it’s just an attack that doesn’t connect right after the animation starts
@@Hayden-pg4og So... like a charge attack
It's an attack intentionally made to be off rhythm to catch players trying to rolle normally (on reaction).
It's the game designers really trying to make sure people die on bosses
@@La0bouchere holy shit a round of applause for this counterargument, if they wanted the player to die then a roll would not have s it would be impossible to lv vigor
Here's an actually counterargument, delayed attacks allow the player to regain stamina and they punish react rolls so the player has to learn how to dodge instead just pressing the button, tldr delay attacks increase risk and reward which is engaging for a player that wants to learn
I don't agree with this video, I think delayed attacks are absolutely fine, the only issue is when a boss has un-seeable mixups that either need to be dodged immediately or with a delay. That footage of elemer of the briar is one of the most perfect well captured examples I've seen, however a boss where all the attacks are slower and sight readable is fine.
Also I think you're not jumping enough in combat, a lot of these attacks are meant to be jumped and I suspect the day is is to give you time to reposition so you can dodge the swing with the spacing and the aoe with the jump
Delayed attacks with different timings force you to not just instinctively or reaction roll making the boss not just 100 attack spam that comes out immediately
Delayed attacks are literally the easier attacks to dodge as soon as you've seen them a couple of times and you know what they're doing you can just time your dodge lol
Yeah first time playing this game and fighting Margit when he does that ridiculous overhead attack and holds it for like 5 minutes, it told me that we were in for a rough ride with boss design and that they were doing everything they could to trip up us experienced players.
There are so many cheap tricks in the game.
How is it cheap tho? Its a huge opening. maybe i see it differently because Eldin ring was my first soulsborne.
Don't play like ds3 waiting for your turn. Play aggressive and punish those slow ass 5 minute delayed attack
If youre having trouble with margit you just suck. Hes an introductory boss designed to be beaten by everyone and a joke after your first playthrough. You suck. Thats all.
@@rizuki9983 how exactly are you supposed to play aggressively when 90% of time you just roll around trying to avoid bosses combo?
@@kindlingking You can be more aggressive by attacking in between combo. The bosses have long combos but they also have slow attacks or delayed attacks that you can utilize as opening.
For example I'd recommend you watching pro players like Ongbal or Ginomachino. Those players manage to play more aggressive by utilizing opening in between combo.
never understood the complaints about delayed attacks
you have just stated that there bad. not why there bad & not how they are artificial difficulty. I think its just straight foward difficulty. The ingredients are timing & positioning. Sure there are varying degrees of how well that can be done but just saying that delayed attacks = unfun boss does sounds perilously close to "too hard = unfun boss." If a boss is "too hard" sure make a video on that. But again thats completely subjective. Just look at the God run 3 challange runners or rl1 one runners.
Least delayed attack in Elden ring is all I was thinking throughout the dlc 😂
You‘re right. Personally I still think Midra is a great boss because this delayed style fits his theme. Same with Pontiff but besides that you’re completely right. Also I absolutely despise Margit as a first boss. He’s way harder than most of the other earlygame bosses and his attacks aren’t fun to dodge. As you said, it teaches the players to just learn the timing instead of using reflexes. Gundyr, I miss you.
I understand why delay attacks are hated. But honestly, they're not that bad. It is getting used to them, just like fast combos or something like that.