Okay I won't bring up the fact that you needed learn to do more than reaction roll and I'll simply just say that there are so many things that make the game easier primarily most of all being that basically every boss room has a spawn point right outside of it whether that's the actual site of Grace or one of the new Stakes of merika meaning what made old bosses actually difficult is no longer there because old bosses weren't hard at all because they were actually challenging but because of how hard the Run backs were and how hard it was to get to the boss in one piece with full Estus flasks. Basically now they've switched from massive consumption of time being the punishment to the artificial means of making getting the boss hard to a new idea where now they make the bosses challenging and challenging enough that you died just as many times as he did to the old bosses but you basically always spawn right outside the boss door meaning you can very very very easily come back and fight them over and over and over again and there really are plenty of ways and plenty of things that you should incorporate into your bill that you shouldn't be just using just a strength weapon or just a dexterity weapon but should be really heavily incorporating ashes of War, spells, powerstancing, guard counters, heavy attacks, jumping attacks, and even blocking it in general as a way of avoiding attacks. Basically to say Elden ring is too hard is to not understand why that difficulties there in the first place or just think that the only way I that I from softaim should ever be hard is in a run backs which roughly about like 90% of the entire Community just outright hate because it wasn't fun to waste all my time having to just run back to the bus and then having to restart a some motherfuker hit me like two times and took out half my health with that meaning now I'd be going to the bathroom with less flasks than optimal...
I will agree they're cheese ashes of War, weapons, spells, and spirit summons but not all Spirit summons are something so broken you shouldn't use them at how they basically point out which ones are broken and which ones aren't by the tear of the summit with mimic, Tiche, clean Rot night I forget their name and all the other Spirit summons we typically sink are broken our put in the legendary category but things below that aren't actually too terribly broken and are pretty balanced around the idea of not just summoning them and then playing Dark Souls the way you would but learning how to split up the Agro between them and yourself and learning which Spirit summons are best suited for what bosses like how a boss like radagon would probably have his best Spirit summon match would be the five Great Shield dudes you get from the underground city because they're incredibly tanky and they split up the damage between all of them while also being able to pull aggro as well whereas a boss like Melania would be best suited to being a front by enemies that attack very fast and consistently in general as she's very staggerable.
Well yeah no duh do you want to learn how to avoid the attacks you don't summon them in which is why I point out the fact that you should always spend your first 10 to 15 runs and a boss simply just seeing how long you can survive and learning how to survive best and not attacking. Help whenever I did those runs I wouldn't some of them allies because then it would just fuck up my patterns with the only times I did would be when I knew I would need them and I knew that the boss is going to be weird about how accurate so I wanted to see how that would work almost like I was experimental e studying exactly what this boss would do so that way I would know how to predict what it's going to do and beat it by being able to avoid its attacks before they even come out
Just like how bosses that have a stomp attack heartbroken because of that attack because you can easily jump over them and that's what they were pushing you to do, bosses that leave you no openings to heal our the express reason why they decided to add summons so that way whether it's during the first phase or the second you have the ability to summon and allies and let them take the arrow for just a split second so you can go heal without issue which is personally why the only summons I really used we're both Luhtel the Headless and the aforementioned 5 Greatshield dudes because I just found that their Shields and their ability to take hits was very beneficial to give me openings to heal and honestly I preferred it since they also weren't too broken in the amount of damage they've dealt so I would still have to fight and I would still have to put in all the same effort but they would just give me the openings I need to heal and things like that.
Okay and you are pointing out the exact reason why I kept saying you don't seem to understand how to properly play to make these bosses easy... like all you have to do is learn to predict what they're going to do with Margaret can never stop me from healing even when I don't have Spirit summons because I've learned how to predict his attacks and I've learned how to force him to do the attacks I want that give me the opening I need to heal even without Spirit summons.....
They should have just given the player the bloodborne dodge. Having faster, more aggressive and hard hitting enemies is fine, at least as long as you are able to dodge them. Where I feel that bloodborne and the previous souls games had the perfect difficulty and made it so that each attack is dodgeable and punishable, a lot of Elden Ring boils down to monotonous spacing. These are my favorite games because of the incredible enemy design, music, and difficulty. I didn't start playing these games to back away from the enemy while they execute a 20 hit combo (I'm looking at you melania...). Dodging through your enemies' every attacks just feels so much more badass.
Or a universal deflect/parry mechanic that differs with weapon types. Guard punishes had that potential but there’s only certain attacks they’re safe to use against with most bosses
Especially if those bosses hit for a third of your health with each hit. If the bosses are going to be wicked fast, they should do low damage so its easier to stay in the fight and learn from your mistakes
the problem I don't think is solely boss speed either. I think the greatest issue lies in the fact that character animations haven't changed alongside the bosses speeding up, so effectively everything around you got buffed to Sekiro/BB level+ speed while you're still in DS3
Nameless king does delayed strikes properly. It makes it feel like nameless is putting every ounce of strength into his strikes. It still feels natural. Margit's delays are just unnatural and designed to frustrate the player. I loved ds3 because every fight felt like a vicious hate filled back and forth flurry of aggression. Elden ring has too much boss aggression making the player passively wait for a single poke. It's just not fun.
You fight against an illusion of cursed king who hides his real identity even from royal guards and servants. He shows up to beat you into submission because he's better then you. That's why he delays his strikes. Because for him you're just a toy to play a cat and mouse game.
When fighting margit your positioning is very important.. i hardly can trigger those long delayed attacks. His movement is so different depending of where you stand
When Nameless delays it's more like he's winding up an attack, before he hits you you know that shits gonna hurt. When basically every boss in ER does it it's just so mechanical.
@@junoglrr9119 This... Elden ring is literally DS but you have to learn positioning. If you don't the combos might seem unfair but most bosses you can hit in the middle of a combo right in front of them and get out scot free.
Im so glad people are coming out and saying this. There is a dissonance between the game mechanics and the intended playstyle. And it really sucks because some of these bosses could have been S-tier. Like the feeling I felt getting into that "flow state" fighting Malenia. It felt like a dance. It felt good. But try that fight with anything slower than a Katana and you cant get off more than one hit before shes leaping away or punishing you. This is why people playing with heavy weapons spam jumping attacks. Its the fastest attack in their arsenal -and by a lot.
Yeah I got heavy weapons whips a normal blade ect ect. Some ways it's quicker some ways it's slower I mean if your int str with 99 Dex 99 And in and faith and vigor or endurance you find some good gear and name.
You checked out colossal weapon's after patch 1.04 its like night and day, they are relatively faster, but what you really notice is the recovery is much faster after a swing where you actually have time to dodge after attacking, not like before where you would always trade damage and were limited to just jumping attacks and roll attacks
@@evanwilliams9217 I thought greatswords were already pretty well balanced imo, some really good one's like the blasphemous Blade that has an op ash of war, + you can dual weild it with the Gargoyle black blade for a faith build and still get that poise break after a couple of jump attacks.
I feel like a lot of the new bosses in this game kind had their game design inspired by sekiro. Sekiro started introducing a lot more mobility to their game design. lots of enemies can disengage and reengage very quickly, but the player could do the same thing. kinda turned into a dance. But elden ring kept a lot of the enemy mobility while giving you an old player model that didnt really have any. I think half these problems wouldnt be here if they just updated the player model.
my thoughts exactly. why dont we even get responsive movement when all of the bosses are OP? they can destroy us in seconds and we move like we are stuck in mud. its like the devs just want things to take forever. are you bored yet? are you bored yet? is what the game kept shouting to me until i finally said yes and quit.
I feel like another issue I pray doesn't seep into future FS games is ERs seeming obsession with cramming massive bosses into tiny, arguably poorly designed (from a movement/combat pov) arenas. erdtree guarddog regular mobs in catacombs jerkily clipping through ceilings and columns is the stuff of nightmares. mohg omen surrounded by church pews that the camera clips through as you walk backwards so you don't even realize you're getting stuck on random shit. etc etc etc
That's what I meant by positioning but I didn't explain very well. You have to always know you position in the arena to know to reposition, which is hard but not in my favorite way.
To be honest this is a problem since forever in Souls games. Just look how you fight the Centipede Demon in a goddamn tiny piece of land, or how the the actual boss in the Old Iron King fight is the hole in the floor.
When the game goes from the hardest in the series when you fight the bosses solo, to the easiest using summons… you know there’s something very wrong with that.
@@ehrtdaz7186 I haven't played any other souls games but the research I have done would refute your claim. Most souls veterans have even claimed that cheating is what the game expects of you. Considering that there are ridiculous rune glitch "farms" that haven't been patched yet, would support those claims
Holy shit you're so right on everything it hurts, this is the first time i've actually watched an actual factual video with someone that actually knows what they're talking about and is an actual veteran that has PLAYED the games, which sometimes it feels like the a lot of the people that talk about these games haven't done. Amazing video.
Actual factual is only because he conforms to your way of thinking. Its copium. This game is so easy its funny to hear anyone say its hard in any way for any amount of time
I put around 2000 hours into ds3. I would just play through it over and over again because I LOVED the boss fights. I would do speed runs, challenge runs, meme runs, etc. I finished Elden ring and all the bosses ONE time and honestly I haven’t had any part of me that wants to fight them again. Atleast not for now.
@@Neirean this is my third playthrough and ur right, I realize I find myself excited for bosses like morgott, rykard and godrick but I almost never think about maliketh, radagon and malenia. They just aren’t as special despite being way more lore heavy.
@@iamMildlyUpsetWithMostOfYouTub Maliketh rocks though. A mechanically great fight with AWESOME visuals. Godfrey is also an expetionally good boss and while I am a bit torn on Hoarah Loux mechanically , that part of the fight feels really intense and it is an awesome experience the first time. Radagon is ok, too. Mohg is really solid. He is probably the most DS3 boss in Elden Ring. Loretta is nice. I think mechanically Morgott is actually one of the more bullshit remembrance bosses.
This is exactly what I've been saying for the longest time. Its not balanced enough for it to be punishing yet fair, its just punishing. Not fun when most of the most unfair and inflated moves turn the amazing looking boss fight into RNG slog. I truly felt defeated when I messed up in Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro because they were attacks I should have known and could have avoided. In Elden Ring it just feels like if you make one mistake you get Street Fighter combo'd and flipped off by the developers. Game had to drop down to a solid 8/10 for me because of how hard they dropped the ball in the 3rd act
Nailed it with the different points you made. What’s really telling is how the hardest DS3 bosses are sluggish/slow in comparison to the majority of bosses found in ER. Meanwhile, your character remains the same speed
I remember making the same criticism about dark souls 3 when it came out. A majority of the bosses felt like Bloodborne bosses while you still had the same clunky demon's souls movement. If only I knew how bad things would get 6 years later
God forbid you get knocked off your horse. Which happens way too easily. It's health should at least level up with yours if they won't let us level up Torrent.
So I just tried the Margit fight again real quick. Made a lvl 1 wretch, ran right up to Margit and fought him with my startign blub, baseline level of healing and nothing else. After dying 3 times I beat him on the 4th attempt, and while it was very close he clearly has far more openings than this video suggests. I never had to run away from him to heal, I simply healed when he was locked into other moves so I could stand within his range or barely outside it and still heal just fine. I could find multiple openings, hitting him after he did his 3 hit combo ending with him stabbing the ground, I hit him after his jump where he stabs the ground, I hit him after his jumping hammer slam, after his standing hammer slam, I hit him with running attacks immediately after his dodges, I hit him DURING his massive windup slam, I hit him after his forward dash into 2 spin slashes. I can't remember right now if I found anything else. All of these seemed reliable and safe, several of the mactually allowed me to get full charged R2 atatcks which are the slowest of all attacks in my arsenal, and all of the times I took damage it was pretty clear I did somethign wrong, and I generally never went more than 5-6 seconds between each time I hit him. Only time I DID go over that limit was when I missed a charged R2 and he dashed away at the same time, but if I actually released my R2 fast enough I would have had him. Really, Margit has lots of openings, and they come fairly close to one another. He tricks you into thinking he doesn't by having a few attacks with combo extenders, by having long windups on some moves and by having a good chance of attacking you if you just run at him in neutral, but all of these can be dealt with. You can learn which moves got the combo extenders and be careful with those, you can hit him during his windups (at least with smaller weapons like hammers or smaller, I have not tested with bigger and slower weapons) and always after the windups, and you can find attacks on him in neutral by not attacking. Simply walk into him, he will atack first, you dodge his move and he will give you an opening. This way you can actually be very aggressive against him, it just means that you aggress by moving at him and forcing him to respond rather than by throwing out your own attacks first hoping he doesn't punish them. I get the impression that most of the bosses are somewhat similar to this, they HAVE openings coming up quite often and most of them don't really require you to adopt a very passive playstyle at all, but it takes some getting used to when the openings are and the larger/more complex movesets with combo extenders means that learning their movesets takes more time. In the end though I find it makes for good fights, IMO Margit is not only cool as shit, he's also a joy to fight now that I feel like I have a solid grasp on his moveset.
Elden Ring bosses were designed keeping spirit summons and summons in mind. So, if you wanna play solo, be prepared to deal with non-stop combos, jumping back to safety bs, hard hitting laser fast long-range attacks, insane AOE range, delayed attacks, lightning fast grab attacks etc. These mechanics have been intentionally added to the bosses so that they don't get ganged up and bullied by the player and their summons. The downside is that if you are playing solo, you will get bullied instead. Because the bosses have been designed to deal with a great deal of bs that our spirit summons are capable of. In Dark Souls games, the summons would almost always trivialize boss fights. I beat Nameless King first try with a summoned player. However, the same is not true in Elden Ring. I used wolf summons, summomed Rogier, even summoned fellow tarnished for a couple of tries, and still struggled for half an hour before I finally beat Margit. Trust me, Dark Souls bosses wouldn't survive 2 minutes in Elden Ring. My Mimic and I can murder Nameless King without breaking a sweat. And I am not even a great Souls player. That's how broken spirit summons are in Elden Ring.
I would happily take a massive nerf to all of my spirit summons if it meant that bosses would have a better solo experience, Even nerf them down to bloodborne npc summon tier would be a fair compromise to me since drawing aggro alone is still a massive benefit for new players. I just don't want to be an afterthought swinging at the bosses backside while my punching bag mimic tanks the damage. Feels impersonal,. I understand what they were going for and I honestly love the summon mechanic, but earlier title's boss fights felt like such a deeply personal experience, (Gael, Lady Maria, Orphan. Knight Artorias) and these new bosses just feel so impersonal in comparison utilizing a reliance on summons, they feel like a significant other who doesn't pay attention to you lmao. (Notice me godfrey senpai?) So many players crave that "one-on-one against a God tier enemy" experience but only when the mechanics are adjusted to appropriately match that, which I think certain bosses (namely lategame) are such a far cry from to make up for summons. Losing that experience just to gain a summoning mechanic felt heartbreaking almost, I love these games but the two most important features for the longevity of souls games are their bosses and their PVP. Both of which are in some pretty desperate states (albeit patches are improving them drastically) and are heavily dividing the community in some concerning ways. So no I don't hate summons, in fact I love them, but having them bring the fun I have with boss fights into question just isn't worth it to me. Boss mechanics first, summons second.
@@pastaplatoon6184 I agree with you on everything you said. FromSoft clearly wanted to accomodate newcomers and this was price they had to pay. My solution to this whole ordeal when I am playing solo is to get my hands on as many defense and offense buffs as possible and stack them up, gear up suitably for the boss (using shields or powerstancing depending on the type of boss and using correct talisman to offset the boss' advantages), and use an appropriately upgraded weapon. This balances out most of the bs that the bosses can and will throw at you. However, the downside to this is that this whole extensive preparation prior to a boss requires a whole lot of exploration (which might turn off some people who wanna strictly follow the guidance of grace and avoid unnecessary side-content).
My spirits don't seem to be capable of much of any b.s. against the bosses, but man is their existence in the area of the fight alone such a great help, as distracting the boss is top shelf help.
@@SuperLotus Not trying to blame anyone. Just making some observations. The spirit summons weren't introduced in the game to serve the series veterans. It was added to the game to please the easy mode crowd and newcomers and marketed that way. It's one of the reasons (alongside open world design, mount and other cool stuff) why some new players (initially turned off by the souls formula) even dared/bothered to give Elden Ring a try. However, we all can agree on one point that the introduction of spirit summons had to be balanced by increasing the boss difficulty (often radically) and that's where things went slightly wrong. Even now, FromSoft is trying to patch stuff over and over. It's all game balancing issues that they are trying to get just right. I hope they release more patches in the future to fix some of the remaining issues. However, I don't expect them to make changes to the boss AI. So, the solo experience will never be as organic as it used to be back in souls games. That's the price they had to pay to incorporate the new mechanics in Elden Ring. I understand some devs would opt to change Boss AI behavior based on whether the player is playing solo or with summons. However, we all know that it's one of FromSoft's core principles that they try to bring everyone to the same discussion. So, they would never design two differrnt sets of behaviors for the same boss to cater to solo and co-op players.
The biggest issue that Elden Ring failed to acknowledge from it's predecessors, is the differences between difficulty and reason. Miyazaki was once asked whether if they're making the game too difficult; he noted that it isn't in the sense that if it's too difficult, but is it reasonable. Dark Souls 3 bosses were reasonable in difficulty progression. Iudex Gundyr is one of the best tutorial bosses which is then follows by Vordt, cursed-rotted tree, abysswatchers and so on. Elden Ring however has a very mixed perception of difficulty progression as you can approach the game however you want, and that's fine. That is until you place one of your main bosses in the same map as every other boss that pales in comparison to difficulty. End-game DS3 was reasonable and yet challenging. Nameless King is only hard because of his pacing and hard hitting attacks, whereas other characters in Elden Ring such as Morgott a difference case; Unorthodox combos, insane agility, hardly any recovery after attacks, excessive aoe attacks, status effects such as bleed, environmental hazards(I don't even think those water geysers affect him like Slave Gael's lightning would affect him albeit partially). I love this game, however, fromsoft are somewhat shooting themselves in the foot. First they'll say that they're aren't trying to make bosses pertaining to your reaction time, or they're trying to make them reasonable. Then proceed to create Malenia.
But in their view, it seems, 'making it reasonable' was by providing options to cheese every single boss, including Malenia with Bloodhound Step. We may not agree with them, but your point is kinda moot since we can clearly see what they did to try to make it 'reasonable'. Problem is, it didn't make it 'reasonable', it made it *easy*.
@@Neirean That's the thing, I wasn't asking for easy, alongside many people. Like Fromsoft had made games with trial and error, rather they hit us with "Here's the our new easy mode". I believe Miyazaki also said he wanted people to be in the same discussion when it came to difficulty, but they somehow made two categories. Those who use ash summons(not even the traditional ones, those actually can make the fight harder), and those who don't. It almost seems contradictory, unless they wanted to abandon that philosophy.
The issue with Elden RIng is that the bosses for the first time in the From Soft library are NOT designed to be fought 1v1. From is assuming you will use the spirit ashes and so they try to compensate by making the bosses artificially harder so it's not too easy. The whole point of the summoning mechanics in previous Souls games is to provide an indirect "easy mode." Elden Ring doesn't abide by this standard and so the bosses are way way harder to make sure the challenge is still present with summons. When in reality summoning is supposed to make the game a breeze. The player is allowed the freedom to take that easy route or engage with the game at a harder, higher challenge, level.
Every time From Software adjusts something so the game is "not too easy" they just end up ruining things. They need to focus less on making the game hard and refocus their efforts on making them fun. DS1 can be made easier by using high poise armor yet the game is still fun even with that armor!
The player is still allowed that freedom, they just added an extra difficulty. Spirit summoning with melee is base difficulty. Magic is easier mode. Summoning real people is story mode. Leaving off summons is the brand new masochist difficulty.
@@JokerDoom My point tho is that the base difficulty shouldn't be melee with spirit summons. The base difficulty should be solo melee with NO summons of any kind. Spirit ashes are supposed to make it easier but instead From makes them essentially mandatory otherwise the game feels completely unfair
fuck spirit summons, and no they shouldn't have designed game's boss difficulty around summons, very bad choice, I don't feel like I've truly beaten the game if I'm using a bot to help me beat bosses, I didn't even pick up the summon bell :spits:
The bosses do too much damage. I’ve got a character at level 189 who has 55 vigor. There are some hits, still, that end me in one shot. And if they don’t kill me in one shot, I have to heal - because I know I can’t take another hit. Fighting the Nameless King, though, for example, was just amazing. I could take a hit and keep fighting. I didn’t feel like I was always one hit/grab away from dying. I felt like I had more fun in DS, BB, and Sekiro.
@@Amoeba_Podre likely wasn’t lying, was probably just getting hit with the hidden counter or jump counter mechanics and not understanding what was happening
After watching plenty of other videos about Elden Ring sucks (which is doesn't), this video expresses my same frustrations, even though I would still consider Elden Ring one of my most favorite games. I personally prefer Sekiro (currently) as still my favorite when it comes to combat. The points of the 1) healing being slow AF and 2) delayed attack annoyance and 3) boss speed vs. character speed are unequal are the ones I resonate with the most.
Personally I want to see Sekiro’s style of parry in Elden Ring (don’t know how much it will ruin the game but whatever). Colossal weapons have more wind up time but does more posture dmg, and smaller weapons have fast wind up but less posture dmg. EDIT: I just don’t like Dark Souls parry. It’s clunky.
@@ongka2000 I think it's the natural evolution of the series if the direction of the boss design is to continue the Nameless King/Elden Ring formula (which is what I am really into) Sekiro combat is so satisfying and plays so well that I can't recommend it to friends enough
@@ongka2000 There's at least one mod (Elden Ring Reforged) that does have something of a deflection system, but it's more of a timed block to reduce stamina usage and chip damage (similar to the Champion's Ashes mod for DS3) rather than Sekiro's posture system.
I beat elden ring a couple times. Once with summons and once without. Getting to know the bosses was actually fun for me. I went back and ran through dark souls 3 and honestly was baffled at how easy it felt compared to elden ring after. I could actually play ds3 to relax. It's nuts.
There are a few bosses in ER that *could* have been among From’s best ever, but are undermined by really cheap mechanics. Margit is a good fight, for instance, but it’s undermined by a couple of attack patterns that are deliberately intended to be unfair. As in: you dodge-roll fractionally late, so you get hit, but now a dodge is already queued, so you get up, dodge *and then get hit again*. Punishing the player twice for the same mistake is an instance of a bs boss mechanic. Melania... very nearly a brilliant fight. But waterfowl is bs. Randomly overriding openings is bs. Triple-parry is bs. I get that they’re really trying to push the difficulty with this fight, but fairness and fun are intrinsically linked. Unfair fights stop being fun. Take out the bs and it’s a fantastic fight.
I don't have to feel guilty because I don't enjoy to wait for the boss to finish their 8 hit combo. I want a vicious 1v1 trading blows, with momentum and rhythm, I don't want to feel like I'm in line at post office waiting to be called.
I LOVE the dance that you learn when fighting a boss. The rythym and patterns can be so much fun, but some of the bosses are just annoying and way too combo-heavy. I think they coded the actual bosses to switch to an aggressive thrust to stop you from retreating to heal. I knew after the crucible knight that something was off. I agree that most bosses are annoying. I still enjoy a lot of them and even somehow killed Radahn first try in like 2 minutes. But the mechanics aren't that fun, just way too fast and relentless. cough **malenia** cough
It's also not just that they are combo heavy, it's that the combos are early-endable, self-interruptable, can be inserted into another combo, or transitions into specific punishes depending on your actions or position... From went full Amiibo on these bosses, and I can't bring myself to claim that this is an enjoyable boss experience.
Ive beaten the game twice, I can agree to an extent. Alot of the late game quality fell off as usual with Miyazaki. Mainly the boss design of having bosses play so far from the tradition of how good bosses were. Malenia and Godskin Duo being the worst, Fire Giant, and Maliketh. Malenia is balanced horribly in that she isnt a threat if you can stagger her but not everyone can. Outside of that, 3 moves can essentially nullify any defense/Health a player has. Lazy compared to other fromsoft bosses and the worst Lady Maria type boss. Having to dictate your playstyle for 1/2 moves is not good compared to what Fromsoft has made. And one of the worst at that. Considering she shares a game with Radahn, she stands out. Godskin duo needs no explanation, worst in the company history. Fire Giant, being tedious and annoying rather than interesting. Rolls more than the player. Maliketh's second phase has him turbo assault the player or make himself inaccessible by a normal means by Vega jumping onto walls. Other than that alot of the game is good, just kinda peaks mid game before the Mountain tops.
The Malenia point is 100%. K was getting DOMINATED by Malenia until I eventually realized if I was super aggressive I could stagger her. With a light weapon without bleed it'd have taken me 50+ tries easy.
And don’t forget malekiths ridiculous range on his sword He does half his combos when he’s in the air on on a pillar and he moves so fast it seems unreal I feel like I’m controlling a character from 2001 in a 2022 game
The only thing I feel is legitimately unfair is malenia’s waterfoul dance. The rest of the fight is so fun. But yes, there is a lot of annoying stuff with these bosses
Would have been so much more fun if she jumped into the air, homed in on you, and then when she hit the ground she did a stationary whirlwind of blades so you had a chance to dodge, and did that three times instead of chasing you across the map. It would have been soul-crushingly punishing if we messed up but super fair and exciting. Knowing that you just cant escape her Waterfoul Dance makes it feel less like your fault and more like RNG BS
@@scottiecurrie7927 actualy when i looked pros footage (let me solo her) I realise she land to the ground do the first strike and she jump forward in her blade whirling. I cant test it yet but i think you can time a dodge there and evade the first storm doing that . (Its kinda easy to dodge the second and third wave)
@@csabawars you can if you get right under her. You can get under, bait her to go one direction and dodge the other way. Took a while to figure that out.
U can knock her out of the stance with a frost pot that u can craft but u got to let her go to the stance then throw it u will get hit once but she will stop after that. And this game is not hard I beaten it 4 times and I never played a souls game
God. Thank you for making this. I could not find a way to put what I was feeling into words. This game brutalized me and I could not make sense of it. Even magic, despite being OP, has the same effect as healing where bosses just input read you. I was very hesitant to call the game "unfair" because of previous titles, but I DO think it is less fair/more difficult. This seems like it was by design, giving higher level players a "harder option", something that could still challenge them... while still being accessible to newer players. It just... is not as fun. It feels like Nioh, which is a good game, but Holy Jesus are some of Nioh bosses rage inducing.
The problem with so many bosses is the way they fly high above you or teleport about at light speed making it impossible to hit them. The speed at which they move around in a spaz out manner is ridiculous.
Yeah. I often find with bosses, it becomes almost impossible, because I would attack, get stunlocked out of each attack for thinking there's an opening, but then trying to heal when the boss is supposed to pause for a sec, and then getting one tapped by some AOE attack I can't dodge because I tried to heal.
Today I finally beat the fire giant boss. It was probably my least favorite boss fight. You have to get under his legs and attack his weak leg but because of the camera angle, I found it difficult to see his fire spell. If you have a bleed build, you can trivialize the fight in 3 minutes.
Correct and I'm a veteran monster hunter player if yall know anything about raging brachi he's one of the worst fights. I agree with ER not giving you proper openings. It's like running to attack once and then sprinting back. I didn't have much trouble until the crystal caverns boss. He's stomped me out 4 times so far on my break from work its like nothing u do can get away from him fast enough or close distance to do decent damage
you said you like to beat the bosses the way you like... after hearing this i realize that is the same problem i had playing the game, as a souls veteran, i took myself spending more than 3 hours at malenia with the build i worked during the entire game, going to phase 2 was feeling more lucky than skill. In the end, i was losing a lot of time on a problematic level of dificulty boss, lost 1 more hour because of my own pround(i'am a souls veteran, if others can do i can do it too). Than i got tired, chaged my build to arcane/dex, first try using mimic and rivers of blood. FUN? no.
It is kind of weird that this game is so good, but has a lot of BS. It makes it difficult to criticize. Specially because of the many ways people can approach the game.
Yeah, I agree. I feel like play style is a huge determining factor in how fair the bosses feel. Godskin Duo for example, if you call in Bernholt and kill one, even after he dies, it becomes tag team 1v1s. That made me like it. But trying to do it solo felt stupidly bad.
@George O'Carroll 😂 maybe but it serves them right for ganking lol. I’ve actually been thinking about doing a full solo run though. Mostly used sword and shield paladin my first run but I’m really curious about other builds
I think because FS wanna make the game more accessible, they have broken the boss because some of them can only be broken with summons. They are designed to be fought by two people. Which sucks because as much as I love my summons, sometimes I wanna do them solo too. I love Malenia, she’s amazing, but she is designed to be fought by two people. Winning against her solo doesn’t feel satisfying, it feels tiring (for me).
@@debishvebishwish4839 I agree with this. A lot of bosses have changes to their move set when you add summons. And the unlimited stamina is also probably related to this. I tried to solo Malenia. The first phase isn’t impossible but it’s a pain. The third part of water fowl is SO hard to dodge for me. And she heals so much. I literally had her one-shot and she earned her health back even though I was blocking smh. I’m the end I broke down and used a summon. Still pretty tough though to me.
It genuinely feels like the latter half of the game is harder when you're at the appropriate level than SL1 in any of the Dark Souls games, assuming no cheese, summons or magic.
Obnoxiously difficult is exactly how I would describe the later game bosses. I’ve beaten Dark Souls 1, Bloodborne is one of my favorite games of all time, I could not believe how bullshit some of these bosses are. Like you said, not fun, just tedious and annoying. Still love the game though, if we’re strictly taking open world exploration, it’s the best open world game I’ve ever played, I did find myself REALLY missing that more aggressive style combat from Bloodborne.
For me I feel like many of the bosses are tedious on the initial first few fights until you understand their moveset, and then they become fun, and satisfying, but I won't lie, the bosses are so unforgiving and tanky, and one thing that isn't mentioned in this video is the insane speed after a delayed attack, like some of them are just too fast after such a long wind up to reliably dodge initially, which is unfair, there should always be a chance that you can beat the boss on your first try if you're alert and have good reaction timing.
Its too difficult for the wrong reasons, bosses are obsessively aggressive with super long combo strings and spam attacks so it’s almost impossible to get off dps without taking some damage. But the bigger problem especially with the later bosses is that they all have at least one move that’s almost impossible to dodge, and will outright kill you regardless of your vigor. Melina is a perfect example, all in all not the most difficult boss but that one move she does is extremely difficult to avoid and will absolutely kill you every time.
All what’s in the game is not cheating or cheese! So use magic, summon, bloodbuild whatever. And don‘t cry around. Elden Ring is by far the easiest of souls games!
3:05 actually there is an alternative to running when looking for a heal, heal during an attack window. If in a moment where you would normally attack safely you instead heal, you should be able to heal safely. This is a method that i often used with Radagon, Mogh, Malekith and Godfrey.....sometimes with Malenia. I cant help to notice the glaring omition (when talking about attacks) of two additions that werent present in previous souls games: at will jump attacks and posture damage. Jump attacks are really good to both close distance and do a good damage (above a R1 attacks) in a short time. Posture damage both rewards agressive gameplay and gives a reason for charged R2 to exist. Jump attacks are good consistent source of posture damage and once you find that one window that takes longer than the others you can find ways to fit charge R2s, for example in Mogh when he thrust his trident into the ground he will need to pulled back wich gives you enough time for a charge attack. One might rightly critizice how jump attacks are too good and how you can beat the game with just them, but then again how ist that different from the R1 spams in previous games overshadowing everything else?
I agree with you on this. People just want to play Elden Ring like Dark Souls 3 and when it doesnt work, they refuse to adapt. Jump attacks and spirit summons are the bread and butter of this game, like it or not. I actually believe Elden Ring is the easiest game .
Elden ring is more strategic, while endorsing aggression, and encouraging working together. Different attack animations and jumps also have different hitboxes for your character, so you can sometimes dodge by attacking. ER has so much better hitboxes, you can get away with different shenanigans. Except for Runebears. There are no excuses for those fucks.
Problem is the game becomes a joke with summons and jump attack spam. Why have these elaborate bosses if I can win with summons and jump spamming until they posture break?
The game is too easy when you play it again. After learning how scaling works and finding the right weapon and spell combos you smash everything often without learning the boss patterns.
@@TheSolarium18 I mean you don't Need to cheese or anything. A little stronk and a buff go a long way. Same thing with dex. I run my build the way I planned it I make the boss miss a few times and dex go brrr. So far journey 4 feels a bit harder but I'm still not insanely high level for the amount of HP bosses have. Idk I guess I do have alot of hours in it 😅 I just know there are tons of weapon combos that are viable and I enjoy that.
@@3CA1 You said you beat bosses without learning their patterns i don’t see why playing eldenring or any fromsoft game if you don’t learn the moveset of the bosses and fight them in a challenging way There are far better story games out there so i don’t see the point playing those games if you don’t want to challenge yourself
@@TheSolarium18 I have 500 hours in elden ring and it's platniumed homie. I've used every build and fought almost every boss every way. Go fuss with the wall lol. Using an effective build isn't cheesing bc every build isn't effective against every boss. You try hard soul level 1 running basement dwelling no grass touching try hards can go stand in the corner with disto and the other 14 of you that care.
Holy shit, you expressed all of the frustrations I have with ER bosses lol, some of them feel designed around the spirit summons which totally sucks. I hope From takes a different direction for their next game.
This game gives the player the most amount of options in the series and it seems that to balance that out they gave more tools to the bosses. It creates a strange difficulty level where if you try to tackle it in the same way you would any previous DS game it can become frustrating, but if you take advantage of all the options the game gives you it can feel like it trivializes the game. I guess the reason is just how much harder it is to balance an open world game like ER in comparison to the more linear DS games. Hopefully they learned from making this and the DLC will have a more satisfying power level
I have hundreds of hours in all the souls games and the only way I could beat the endgame bosses in Elden Ring is by utilizing cheese builds like hoarfrost or ROB. So I was left without a feeling of accomplishment
I don’t mind summons being in the game, what I mind is the stupid difficulty without them, levels of difficulty that have never been present in dark souls games.
I decided to try this game, and i never played this genre. I always playes other genres. But i have played this game for 2 hours now, and i'm already sick of this shit game. That Tree boss guy beats the shit out of me, while the game barely started. And even when i bypass him, and i go into the caves, the fucking wolfs gets me every time. I already have enough of this game.
@Solur haha , I have now completed the game and thought it was superb . Hard in places but once you get some of the better later weapons it got easier. Great game can't wait for the dlc
I agree with this 100% Elden Ring is a good game. But between most mid-lategame bosses and enemies having; 20 hit combos, infinite tracking, 1-2 actual openings, hyper aggression and absurd damage all at once will definitely make me think twice before I buy another fromsoft game. I have beaten it 3 times and got the platinum (same with Demon's souls through Sekiro) so its not a "git gud" thing. Its a "game needs some rebalancing before its more fun than frustrating" thing.
the only one he needs to "git gud" right now is Miyazaki hiding behind his cult defending him for all the mistakes he does thinking he'll never get caught. keep going Miyazaki. other companies will take up your formula and evolve it into something that's challenging in a fair and fun way while you slowly die out wondering why, surrounded by your mob constantly telling you in your ears there's nothing wrong with your games for the rest of your life. GoW 2018 already succeeded your formula. it's only a matter of time before more devs start making your formula better since elden ring was popular and many people saw the negative reviews like these
I got about 70% completion (didn’t have the insanity to go for plat) and am currently doing journey 4 or 5 and it’s pretty much unplayable. Agree with you, I don’t think I’m gonna buy their next release 2nd week like I did. Was miserable
@@AratakiBullPowerSiddo1 Bro are you okay? you seem a little TOO personally invested on this. Chll out. Also "GoW 2018 already succeeded your formula"? lol? you mean the game with terrible combat where all the difficulty comes from making every boss a sponge and having extremely boring and monotonous combat?
@@takeshikovacks6708 wait till you get to ng+7. I think one of the biggest reasons why I have such a negative view on bosses in this game is because I've spent most of my time on ng+6 - ng+13. Attacks you could overlook on NG become "destined death" on ng+7.
I feel your sentiment here as someone who beat it without summons it was way harder than dark souls 3 ever thought of being without them. However with Max summons it's too easy for me and all I have to do is not die with them active
@TrevorKl 23 nope you just aren't good enough to solo them 🤷 but to say they are only possible by cheesing is false. Do like you would in any other dark souls game, get gud 👍
@@themaverick1898 I’ve beaten DS1 and 3 and BB solo SL1, and I think the game is too hard. What platform do you play on? Let’s 1v1 and I’ll post the results. Let’s see if you’re actually good enough to be talking that shit
This video is very fucking good because you're telling the truth my dude Elden Ring is awesome and game of the year but they fucked up with some bosses the fact that Elden beast is the final boss harm the game because he is a big pile of shit also Godfrey second phase is terrible and fire giant is trash and dude it a fucking crime to put Elden bitch as the final boss for a masterpiece that is Elden Ring
The worst part of this whenever you criticize the game, the fan community hits you with "git gud". Buddy, I did get good and I have already beaten the game. Can you get that through your thick skull?
Bosses have unique weaknesses in Elden Ring a lot to compensate as well. Like GodSkin Duo is incredibly weak to sleep pots. The crafted items are useful if you don't like summons.
My estimate is that 90% of people going "lol git gud bro, it's ez bro" are cheesing. Most skilled people are rather humble and provide actual helpful tipps to people who struggle
Get good. It’s not easy. I don’t wanna give people tips if they’re crying about how “wahhh ds3 had faster estus wahhh” you’re acting like a baby AND you’re wrong
Git gud. I beat the game without upgrading vigor much at all and using a diversity of spells. No cheese, just strategic playing. Died a lot. Had fun. That’s the purpose of these games. You just suck at video games lol.
The problem in this game is when a bs attack you wouldn't be able to dodge on reaction either kills you or forces you to heal it isn't learning the boss, it's tedious. I can't "learn" Malenia's dance attack if it kills me instantly.
thats bs becuase their networking is ass on PC. And not everyone plays online. They are power creeping the playerbase to maintain their reputation as a hard game studio.
It's not that the game is hard, it's cheap. Everything moves and executes their animations faster than you. The response of the input is so terrible that it makes it seem as if it's hard.
I’m so glad that this is getting attention, when I first encountered Margit I realized something was very off with this game. I’ve beaten all of the dark souls games, and I even almost sl1 ds3 (soul of cinder gate kept me lol) And when I would bring up the subject of boss stamina, and goofy ass combos with delays people would clown me telling me to get good. The boss design took a very heavy hit and people need to realize this.
Just because it's technically possible to beat a boss doesn't mean that you had fun doing it. I think that is the main message I'm trying to say with Elden Ring.
It’s not even just the bosses. Elden Ring has more gank squad bs than all the other souls games combined. From enemies that can cast 4 spells every second that will track you through an entire dungeon and do 1080 degree loops to hit you to marionette archers that can rapid fire bows like fucking uzis lol. Enemies are so overtuned that they actually *look* stupid while attacking you
@@a.g.m8790 The levels are designed with op weapon arts and magic in mind. Once I started using high damage weapon arts the gank squads felt a bit more fair, but if you try to play without those tools like a normal Dark Souls game you will not have a good time. Of course if you use op weapon arts you can agrue that it's too easy, so either way you lose something.
Souls veteran here, and I agree 100%. It feels really jarring and annoying to go from bosses which I can consistently defeat without getting hit, to Elden Ring where seemingly every enemy, let alone the bosses, feels like a major pain in the ass and tedious as all hell. If this is their new design paradigm, if this is the direction they're going with for their other games, I'm out. It's simply not fun. At all. And this is coming from a guy who has three of FromSoft's soulslike games in my top 10 games of all time. That's ludicrous. A single company has managed to produce three games of such exceptional quality that they're in my top 10 games of all time. That's beyond impressive. But Elden Ring? Fuck no. I detest it. There's aspects I love but I hate what it represents. Not a fan. I wish them luck in their future endeavours and hopefully they'll reign back their asshole design, just a bit. Otherwise, we'll part ways and do so amicably.
Re: healing - is it really that hard for people to just... not heal during the neutral game? Like if you're fighting an actual person, like in PvP for example, and you do what people seemingly want to do against bosses in ER, they're just going to run up and stab you. And that's what the bosses do too, if you try to heal while the boss is just standing there, they are going to stop standing there, run up, and stab you. You'd think after the first 50 times, people would realize that healing isn't free, and you need to wait for the boss to be busy, but I keep seeing people who are effectively just complaining that healing isn't free. It's not free, and it shouldn't be free, and the fact that it isn't free means you need to put a lot more thought into fights. Instead of taking a swing during the punish window, take a sip instead. Or create your own healing window, with things like knockdown or stance breaks. Re: Boss stamina - bosses have never had stamina; what they've had are shorter attack chains. In DS1, a boss's attack would just be like a single swing, and that's it. By DS3, that had evolved a bit, and now a boss might have an attack and a follow-up on the same input. What Elden Ring does is essentially put entire combos on single inputs. Now on the one hand, this does mean bosses are capable of throwing a heck of a lot more at you - the whole reason Margit can just keep doing moves is because that entire cane/dagger combo is effectively his R1. That means you need to put more effort into dodging, and it necessarily makes the fight take longer, which means a higher chance to lose your focus and mess up. On the other hand, it actually makes the bosses a lot more predictable - for the most part, if you see a boss start an attack, you know exactly what they're going to do, which means you can learn punish windows, healing windows, all sorts of other things. Re: Margit specifically - So I don't know how you play, but just from the Margit fight footage, you seem to really favor rolling backwards. Margit, and Elden Ring in general really, punishes rolling backwards - rolling to the side, or rolling into the boss, are generally both MUCH safer. In the case of Margit specifically, I don't think it's actually possible to dodge his close-range follow-up to the hammer attack by rolling backwards, at least not without light equip load rolls and the Crucible Feather Talisman. You can, however, dodge it quite easily by rolling into him, which of course leaves you in a position to punish. So just in general a big part of the difficulty curve in this game is just learning to not roll away from danger like in every other souls game, to roll into it instead. I'm not exaggerating when I say that learning that cut the difficulty of this game in half for me. Re: Delays - The delays I don't think actually affect the boss difficulty, it's just an adjustment that people will have to make. If anything, they're a huge buff to the player's ability to be aggressive, since often even with Claymores you can get a hit or two in while the boss is in the middle of their delay. It basically works the same way player Charged R2s do, except most of the time the boss will just always fully charge. And it's not like you can't dodge them on reaction like with normal attacks either. This is actually where being a music kid can come in handy, since the problem with people having slower reaction times against delayed attacks than against non-delayed attacks with the same startup and active frames is effectively the same phenomenon you see with musicians pre-empting or missing notes that come after a long pause. Essentially, your anticipation is killing you, causing you to flinch. You can train yourself out of it, but I find a much better way is to just do something during the delay, such as attacking, so that you're not anticipating the attack, you're just reacting to it when it happens. Re: Problems like Malenia - There was early speculation that Waterfowl was some bullshit, but at this point it's pretty clear that it doesn't work any differently from bosses in previous games with similar long-duration high-tracking attacks. You can dodge it at point blank with unassisted midrolls by circling her and dodging to the side the first hit, the second hit can be avoided with a single dodge roll, and the third you just stand still and she goes right past you. If that isn't enough, unlocking also makes her track worse for some reason, which is a technique that's been around since DS1 O+S. So as usual, it's more a matter of actually fully exploring your own toolkit, rather than the game not being balanced. Re: Attack speed - Elden Ring would have to lose PvP for meaningful attack speed increase on every weapon category but Colossals. DS3 had a really bad trend of every 2nd hit being free on almost every weapon type. Claymore 2H R1 true combo'd into the second hit, the Estoc true combo'd into like four hits, so that really just wasn't a healthy PvP environment. And it's not like the attack speed changes meaningfully affected the ability of medium and light weapons to get their hits in, you can still get your two Claymore 2H R1s in against most bosses, Katanas can still get hits in everywhere and proc Bleed constantly, etc. Re: Crucible Knight since I see it getting brought up a lot - Crucible Knights are pretty much just there to teach you how to parry. Normal attacks they either attack too frequently to be safe on, or they guard them with their greatshield if present, but in exchange they have the absolute largest fucking parry window I've ever seen. As in their parry window lasts longer than some entire attacks. I know there's that one video on the subreddit for example of a dude beating the twin Cruicble Knights by just standing in one spot and parrying everything. They're this game's versions of Sekiro's Long-Armed Centipedes. Ultimately, I think the main bosses - that is, all the ones that are either required for progression or drop Rememberances - are fine in terms of difficulty, with the exception of Elden Beast, I don't know what the fuck happened with that boss but I struggle to think of a build or archetype where it wouldn't be extremely frustrating to fight without doing the AI break. Other than that though, I'm an average at best player, and I still made it through the game quite comfortably without using magic, without summoning, just heavy armor and 2-handed Claymore. There's also, I think, some misunderstanding of the game mechanics going on, mostly because people are just assuming this is Dark Souls 3 - 2, and it's just not. Like people calling the Soreseal the Prisoner's Chain, but that's not accurate at all; Prisoner's Chain was good because it gave you free stats for basically no downside, since the free stats tended to offset the damage negation penalty. But in ER, since damage reduction actually matters a LOT, the Soreseal isn't just free stats anymore, it has a real downside to it. Same thing with ER's equivalent of the Carthus Milkring. Speaking of damage negation, yeah it matters, it matters quite a lot. You were talking about how bosses lategame kill in just 3 or 4 hits, but that's not true at all if you've got decently heavy armor and the Dragoncrest Shield or Dragoncrest Greatshield talismans. There's another aspect to that too, which is Vigor. Everyone is rolling around with like 25 or 40 Vigor because that's what worked in DS3, but it's absolutely not what ER is intending you to have. 25 VIG in 3 is more like 40 in ER, and similarly 40 in 3 is more like 60 in ER. Just 20-40 like what, roughly doubles your HP? and 40-60 is another 500 or so HP on top of that, for a total of 1900, which you can only reach in 3 by leveling VIG all the way to 99. So no, I don't think it's a matter of ER actually being significantly harder, I think it's a matter of people needing to adjust to the game. And maybe people who played a lot of DS3 in the intervening years waiting for ER are going to have a harder time adopting to that then more casual players like myself, who don't have DS3's specific timings and quirks committed to memory - certainly we see that trend reflected in reviews of ER, where for the most part more casual players think the game is generally easier than more dedicated Souls fans do.
many delayed attacks are a window to attack, so this guy (and some others) saying that bosses don't have attack windows is bullshit lol and on top of that ER has a posture system, so every time you break enemy's posture, it's like 2 big windows to attack and for some of the bosses in this game, you are going to break their posture a significant amount of times
Some ppl doesn't like relearning game mechanics that they seems familiar with which results to ppl complaining about it and comparing it to the previous game with the similar mechanic. Personally like the kind of gameplay compared to the darksouls series. Makes you feel alot more engage in the fight rather than just memorizing moveset. ER Isn't DS is probably the most app. thing to said about most ppl who likes to compared combat mechanic with each other.
Can you post a video for what you are describing for malenia??? I freaking swear. Every single waterfowl defender has some different BS "super easy I swear the move is fair to melee only builds" counter but I have yet to see a genuine one that isn't freezing pots. The first hit is the only problem the second and third are fine.
Just wait for the dlc evergaol.. everjail? Were we get meloenia and mroohg lord of glutes in a duel fight (Dont say they're above it just look at godefroy)XD
Great video. There's much here I agree with... However, a certain critique I'm seeing more and more lately is about enemies having delayed attacks and extended wind ups and I'm having a hard time understanding why it's an issue. I don't see this as a problem at all and, at least for me, it puts me in this rewarding sweet spot of actively avoiding impulse panic rolls. I just really like the feeling of being there in the danger zone and having go against my gut reaction to roll and wait for the right time to dodge out. This game more than any other Soulborne game has a huge variety of timings for different moves. And again at least for me, it has been a lot of fun learning each and every one.
In order to learn a wind up you need to get hit. I don't mind this forced type of death of a boss has 1 or 2 wind ups like in dark souls 3, but when every the majority of elden ring boss hits are wind ups then you have to die or get hit a lot to memorize the timing. I prefer it when the majority of attacks can be dodged intuitively with a few wind up attacks. That's how dark souls 3 bosses are. Tl;Dr I like wind up attacks but Elden ring has waaay too many.
The issue is when every boss has the same gimmick, they blend into each other. And they all become a nuisance rather than an exciting challenge. And delayed attacks is just the cherry on top of the issues ER bosses have.
I agree with you on this,the delays make you play more intuitive instead of memorizing everything to death,which is fun and more real and organic to me. The problem for me is their damage output and that they give you so few attack windows.
@@burgerkingas7027 how to intuitively dodge slow windups: don't dodge on the windup, react to their body/feet as they step forward to finally attack. Champion gundyr taught us this. The attacks aren't so fast that you can't react to them.
Its the natural end point of Fromsofts race to keep the game "challenging". Each game they crank up damage input, and make enemy animations more spazzy and fast. You do that long enough, and you get Elden Ring, where half the bosses are just blurs that 1-2 hit you. The problem is ofc is at that point its not so much a challenge as it is just bullshit, and in order to make it playable, they then cranked up the PLAYERS damage output. So now everything is over in a few seconds..... how dull.
The issue is they are trying to keep it hard for veterans rather than all the new people who (whether they enjoy the playstyle or not) are channeled down easier paths. I saw it described as people playing two separate games, you have vets doing their usual thing (or people who find melee fun) and those who have been channeled to magic, spirits and cheese. They have separate experiences, but the Soulsborne series was meant to equalize the experience. Everyone got kicked in the teeth by SOMETHING and had fun doing. But people who take the easier path aren't allowed this, and just become frustrated when a fight does smack them hard. So you have people who are satisfied and happy and others who are just glad its over. [There is more nuance, but these are the most opposed groups of players] There isn't a unifying experience in the community, barring maybe Malenia and Godskin Duo. In Dark Souls, I can say O+S, Gwyn, Artorias, Manus, Bed (shivers), etc whooped my ass and people would agree, others would make suggestions and the ironic 'git gud' would be said. Same in DS3, Bloodborne and Sekiro I can't really speak on Demon's Souls or DS2 as I haven't played them. Eldin Ring lacks this thread of commonality between players.
Prior to ER, I felt that the Orphan of Kos was by far the hardest FromSoft boss. I replayed BB after my first play through of ER and I died to Orphan once, and it was because I was playing greedy and stupid. I honestly cannot believe how much ER bosses have trivialized the bosses from previous games in terms of difficulty (playing solo with no summons).
There are a lot of things you can say, but in short i feel you could say that Elden Ring is designed to make you feel like shit for trying to play classical Dark Souls style
Playing through dark souls 3 on a low soul level is one of the most fun and rewarding ways to play the game. Elden ring definitely has moments that are excellent on low soul level. But then some bosses that are just frankly ridiculous and just feel like they have been put in the game for no other reason than to wear down the player.
Elden Ring is considerably longer than any other Fromsoft game so it's obvious it would be way harder on sl1. Yes, many attacks will one shot a level 1 character in ER, but if the late game bosses did not deal that amount of damage, they would be way too easy since a properly leveled character will have 4 or 5 times the max hp of a lvl 1 character. Not to mention that ER has many tools to reduce damage like that one wondrous physick and the multitude of defensive talismans. On my level 1 run I didn't even find myself getting one shot by anything except the biggest attacks of late game bosses.
13:12 I hope that next time From come up with new combat mechanics ala Bloodborne or Sekiro. Basing the game on DS3 obviously is what allowed From to generate enough content to fill this open world. However I feel this approach is the reason the encounters in Elden Ring aren't as much fun. The DS3 combat system really can't be pushed much further, whilst maintaining a satisfying way of defeating bosses that isn't just cheesing with summons or tedious combo baiting.
Agree. Despite being such a great game, the bosses are the biggest issue, which is weird all things considered. I'm hyped about whatever great overhaul mods come out in a year
God i hate the elden beast star, it last for waaaaayy to long and its way to much to handle when u have to focus on that and 2 other attacks he has coming at u then as soon as u get close enough to it the boss just moves across the entire arena..
It's pretty bad for your game when someone who can RL1 your game complains it's too hard. There is a reason there are thousands of rage quit videos about Radahn and Malenia and Elden Beast.
There's a threshold of difficulty that makes it fun imo. If they wanna make a boss only beatable when perfect. Then they need to have a practice bosses for certain mechanics. Radagon for me is the best boss fight, then Malenia if you remove the weapon art bs move. Out of all the moves in the game, that move is the least practicable. Idk how other people mastered it. Props to them, but i literally couldn't. She does it and i just die without knowing wtf happened.
You dodge an attack, but every boss has the attack speed of 3 attacks a second. So you dodge once and they hit you immediately after with no chance of dodging that. And you get sneezed at and stunlocked, so that one attack essentially kills you. It’s just bad game design simple as that
100% agree with all your points. And it's definitely valuable to have someone who can prove they've done the whole game RL1 to say it. The bosses are a real problem, because they are what keep me coming back to DS3 over and over again. When I consider doing another Elden Ring run, I just... don't want to. I'm not excited to fight any of the bosses. Even after 10+ runs of DS3 I'm hyped for basically all of the bosses except Deacons and Wolnir. I don't think this game is gonna age as well and stay a background presence for a cheeky run here and there over the years as DS1 and 3 do.
@@feebleking21 friede is probably the fastest boss in ds 3 and shes a bit to fast for that game in phase 3 imo (still a great boss but a few more openings would be nice). in elden ring even bosses that are relatively slow (maliketh feels kinda slow to me, because he doesnt swing his sword 3 times a second), but he has less openings than friede.
Having played souls-likes since 2015 with Bloodborne I can safely say Elden Ring was a bit too hard. Bosses endless attack combos due to infinite stamina, undodgeable attacks (example: Margit’s double dagger slash), enemies dodging backwards just to annoy you (Bloodhound knight), excessive use of delayed attacks and of course too much damage late game really, I guess you can say, tarnished this game. People saying it’s greatest of all time are simply finding ways to cope with the fact From Software is going downhill. Sad!
So I'm new to the whole genre, and what you said about the crusible knights really related to me. Most of the times I've encountered them they feel tougher than some of the bosses in the game.
Well i feel like the game is easier when started playing it compared to DS3 tbh because after DS3 we played Sekiro which has faster base fights with perfectly timed deflects this is what prepared most of the people for ER gameplay. And for the series fans they looking at it as easy cause of the played the series too much they remember the boss moves faster than other players which made it easier for them to play
I've beaten this game twice one with an OP faith build and then with a full melee build on my second run forcing me to learn the mechanics more. I can fully say that I legit had way more fun with my faith build. I personally like stating off weak and getting stronger and stronger as I progress until I become a boss myself.
@@feebleking21 they are, you just don't seem to got them. No shame on it. I was stuck on DS3 gameplay mentality until Malenia forced me to learn the new boss logic after beaten her a couple of times solo
@@jimmayorga1863 it's somewhat ignorant to tell me that I don't understand boss logic while I am doing level 1 no hit no weapon art runs on Malenia. ua-cam.com/video/E9RkNGv_PCk/v-deo.html I don't like the way I have to play, but I can still do it.
@@feebleking21 and? You can beat the bosses waiting a couple of punishable moves, that doesn't mean the bosses have more. I'm doing a no hit Malenia as a wretch, trust me, Malenia has a lot more openings than you think, you just have to keep in mind rolling direction against her, specially her, because she gets staggered after every hit.
@@jimmayorga1863 It's not that he doesn't "get" boss mechanics, it's just ridiculously sadistic and unnecessary to force players to bait attack patterns to be able to even hit them once.
I've nearly beat Elden Ring. Not 100%, but I've made sure to do all the notable bosses I can reach so far. I'm playing without no magic, no buffs, just using 2 Godrick's axes. I really don't think it's too hard. Delayed attacks are rough, yeah, but then so is any attack in any game until you know the timing of it. The only hard part is the horse combat, because it sucks ass, and a menu popping up asking if you want to revive your horse, THAT PREVENTS YOU FROM DODGE ROLLING WHILE IT IS OPEN, is stupid. It might be hard if you run to an area that demands near perfection to survive, but you could easily throw that argument towards DS1 catacombs as well. The gigantic bosses and dragons are all just crapshoots though.
It does feel like everything after Radan is kinda designed around cheeseing the boss. Radan is unbelieveably difficult (at least was for me) with a melee build but with a magic build it was almost too easy. That kind of feels like bad design to me. I did think Margit was fun, though with a melee build, although I was a bit overleveled as I was just digging exploring.
Both Margit and Radan are trying to teach a lesson that everyone just ignored, for Margit you were supposed to use heavies to stun him and then crit strike. Radan teaches you to use every item at your disposal (THAT INCLUDES SUMMONS FOR TAKING AGGRO FOR YOU)
@@BPdoggo Summons make the fight worse. His spastic movements mixed with his large size makes his animations really hard to judge when he's targeting multiple enemies. Sometimes mid-combo he would change target to me which would very likely get me killed. Flat out not a great boss. Far too quick for his size.
If you like playing chess against an NSA powered computer, then this game is for you. Otherwise seek fun elsewhere. Your comment regarding the number of spells that lock onto you and the distant positioning of the final boss is spot on. Play video games for fun not frustration.
Loved every bit of the difficulty. Yeah Melania gave me the most stress I've ever felt from a single player game, but the feeling I got from beating her was something I haven't felt in well over a decade. Also I disagree with everyone asking for a difficulty slider, might be selfish but I probably wouldn't have had the will to keep my difficulty at its original setting. I feel like I would've robbed myself of the feeling of victory if I had the ability.
This game is too freaking hard to beat,this game tops all of the Ghosts and Goblin games. I really wished I looked into the reviews,and the gameplay before buying this fifty dollar b s of a game. There should be a difficulty setting in the game,like for real. Some of the bosses,and enemies are easy,but some of them are really really frustrating,and the game will ruin the day for you. If you die in a cave boss fight,that's some b s because all of your ruin/money is in that cave boss section in order to buy new stuff or upgrade your stuff,so your being forced to fight. Or how about you accidentally hit the friendly people,they will keep attacking you if you get near them. I love the creativity of the design of all of the bosses,and the enemies,but i'm done with this game.
I’m making my way towards the end of the game in my first play through and this all feels so real. Some of the fights have been so uncharacteristically difficult and incongruent with other mechanics and rhythms that the game pounds into you everywhere else. This is my first time in a fromsoftware game and some of the design choices are really confusing
If you summon and cheese, you don't truly expierience that "boss mechanic" ... Yep! I don't coz i don't whant to lean in this game. Late game bosses is stooooopid. I don't want to learn how to beat Fire Giant. This guy threeshot me, and have healthpool of a mountain. And i realy do not what to spend any time to learn how to kill him properly. Its painfully boring. Mimic and bleed lazy enough for this lazy boss. Same for many-many-many... 60-70% of this game. Bosses sorta ADHD damage machines with giant healthpools. I foced to wait alot until they have mercy and let me to engage... to land little damage and wait again. This is opposite of bosses was in every game in this series, and i hate it. I remember how i was learning dancer in ds3 for 1lvl run. This was amazing, Frustraiting at first, but cathartic afterwards. I was able to beat her at any level and condition amd feel stylish and cool in prossses. In elden ring i find myself just trying to find most OP method to skip as many bosses as possible.
0:33 only thirty seconds in and this is the most Chad shit I've heard today lmao I'm so sick of people countering complaints with "well you're just bad"
The lengths you have to go to to be able to criticize a dark souls boss is extreme lol. Luckily I'm just the sort of guy to have fun memorizing boss patterns, so I felt like I was able to call fromsoft out on some of the dumb shit they did to artificially inflate the difficultly.
They focused too much on difficulty and not enough on fun boss mechanics. I really didn’t like Elden Ring. I quit playing after I beat Margott. The game just hasn’t managed to match Bloodborne and Sekiro, imo. Those are the greatest games FromSoft has ever made.
All valid points. But please don't use Nameless King's name with Elden Ring bosses. He is above such trash except maybe pre nerf Radahn. Nameless King had delays but his attacks had rhyme which you could dance with. Also he didn't have infinite stamina cheat.
I agree, nameless king had delays but is not like Elden Ring bosses because he doesn't have infinite stamina combos. Nameless king has one hard thing about him that stood out which were delayed attacks, and Elden Ring bosses are all nameless king delays combined with a bunch of other crap was sort of the point I was trying to get at.
As someone who gave up in Darksouls 1 cos I was bad and found it too hard I’m 250 hours into Elden Ring actively making it last as long as possible! I’m finding it quite easy in parts but I am playing a mage
Once I 100% Elden Ring I had this opinion that stuck with me since Margit on the day of release "Jesus fucking christ this boss is bullshit why is he so difficult" And I agreed with your standing point that every boss feels like the nameless king, but I couldn't tell if I was wrong or if I was getting worse but then I went back to play dark souls 3, another game I 100% and I had such a blast playing that game again because I had forgotten every moveset from a lot of the bosses and had to replay another character to get that "from nothing to everything" feel and it was really good. The bosses make up everything to me when it comes to a From Software souls game, everything builds up to the bosses at the end of the day, and when the bosses aren't fun, the run isn't fun, the build isn't fun, and the game isn't motivating me to do something I want. My end goal for another run of DS3 was to fight SKG, my favorite boss of all time, and I put 25 hours into that character before fighting him, and to balance the fight I used shitty weapons. But the whole character was a strength build so I made sure to use a dex weapon. It was easily much more fun than Elden Rings first playthrough. Elden Ring succeeds the feeling of accomplishment for the sacrifice of fun, and I remember you saying that is the other review and it stuck with me because when I saw (Spoilers) the roundtable burn it felt strange, seeing the Smith lose his memory, and almost everyone was dead, but that feeling never hit again after my first playthrough. Dark Souls 3 allowed me to have fun with each boss fight ahead, even if it was more linear I knew what tk expect. The game still kicked my ass when it came to places like the farron keep and the demon ruins lol. Unless Elden Ring gets DLC. I won't be playing the game again. I already sunken 150 hours and I don't want to spend another playing the cancerous and bleed broken pvp. Just so you know, the amount of hours of research I had to put into the game to understand where I was and what to do made my experience infuriating. After I best the fire giant (boring ass boss fight) I light the site of grace on top of the big bowl but didn't know there was an option to talk to the maiden, and I had spent hours and days not knowing what to do until I finally researched it and was like "they couldnt just unlock this option for any site of grace?" I understand it was for the cinematic shot but they couldve just teleported me to a specific location to get that same cutscene. Elden Ring was a mess of progression that felt satisfying to beat, but was unfun for the long run, and I'd rather stick to linear and fun progression rather than a messy string of side quest thag YOU HAVE TO LOOK UP again. (It's universal for all souls games. But they should've done something about it for Elden Ring)
This was a good read! And I agree that Dark Souls 3 bosses keep me coming back whereas Elden Ring bosses keep me away. I didn't mind Elden Ring telling me very little as I never got hardstuck, but I could imagine that it's very possible to have a much different experience than me if you miss a big thing like talking to Malenia at the fire bowl area, since everything is pretty easy to miss, but that's also a part of the charm of Elden Ring is how much the world feels like it isn't a video game and doesn't tell you what to do.
@@feebleking21 I still had a blast exploring locations and several different builds in just my first playthrough alone, but bleed builds fuck up all of my pvp experiences and don't even get me started with summons who one shot bosses. My favorite fight in the game is Radahn. Summons, everywhere, it's one big battle of npcs versus one big ass dude who shoots himself up into the sky and crashes down like a meteor. The playground is beautiful the music is badass, and he rides a tiny horse because of gravity magic??? The amount of stuff you can do in Elden Ring is undeniably high as hell. But the endgame being the bosses, I tend to just want to get it over with, and once I 100% the game I thought pvp would've been a good time to spend, but Jesus fucking christ I was wrong when I got hit by three little tiny swords above some dudes should've and my vigor was at 75 and I got one shotted. I looked it up and turns out it's a glitch you can do with a specific ash of war, I did it, and it deleted people. It's unfair, unfun, funny as hell first time around but in the long run I couldn't see myself getting beat by the same bleed builds and having to respec my entire build just because I got my ass kicked once.
@@feebleking21 currently playing pvp in dark souls 3 as my newest character. It's always been shit lol, you got one guy who force back stabs like hell, the guys who never help, the broken net code ect. I never have fun pvping in these games, and even when I win it doesn't give me the incentive to play more. It's to me a small gimic to prevent some people progressing faster than others.
@@moboatz pvp has never been the focus for fromsoft, but I still think Dark Souls 3 pvp is the most balanced in the series even if its still unbalanced. At least its playable most of the time, whereas Elden Ring pvp is unplayable for me because the balance is that bad.
@@feebleking21 so I'm getting better as Ds3 pvp. And I'm having a whole lot more fun on this game than I ever did on elden rings pvp. Like you said it's not heavily focused, but it's a part of the experience I think should be looked into more carefully. I won't be playing ER again unless it has DLC, I have no reason to especially since the world is so big and I'll have to research everything again. I did this with previous souls games before but because everything's so spread out I won't rememebr everything
Trust me! This game is not too hard. I'm new to "souls" games and I beat the game. However, I did use some unorthodox techniques to get to that point. Nothing illegal, no mods, or anything that isn't allowed. The first thing I did after reaching level 74. I realized the only thing holding me back was the extremely slow leveling system. I realized for me, that Runes were the key. Losing tons of runes upon death and then not being able to reach them before dying again was just too much for me. So i decided to start trying to get some co-op help. After joining several Facebook groups, talking, and meeting a ton of good people and players, I was able to get my hands on A LOT of Runes. Enough to make me be able to use anything I came across and losing runes upon death was not that big of a deal. The second thing I did was use the Mimic during the boss fights once I acquired it.
I made a full Elden Ring critique video here: ua-cam.com/video/X8rBksGzKY4/v-deo.html
Okay I won't bring up the fact that you needed learn to do more than reaction roll and I'll simply just say that there are so many things that make the game easier primarily most of all being that basically every boss room has a spawn point right outside of it whether that's the actual site of Grace or one of the new Stakes of merika meaning what made old bosses actually difficult is no longer there because old bosses weren't hard at all because they were actually challenging but because of how hard the Run backs were and how hard it was to get to the boss in one piece with full Estus flasks. Basically now they've switched from massive consumption of time being the punishment to the artificial means of making getting the boss hard to a new idea where now they make the bosses challenging and challenging enough that you died just as many times as he did to the old bosses but you basically always spawn right outside the boss door meaning you can very very very easily come back and fight them over and over and over again and there really are plenty of ways and plenty of things that you should incorporate into your bill that you shouldn't be just using just a strength weapon or just a dexterity weapon but should be really heavily incorporating ashes of War, spells, powerstancing, guard counters, heavy attacks, jumping attacks, and even blocking it in general as a way of avoiding attacks. Basically to say Elden ring is too hard is to not understand why that difficulties there in the first place or just think that the only way I that I from softaim should ever be hard is in a run backs which roughly about like 90% of the entire Community just outright hate because it wasn't fun to waste all my time having to just run back to the bus and then having to restart a some motherfuker hit me like two times and took out half my health with that meaning now I'd be going to the bathroom with less flasks than optimal...
I will agree they're cheese ashes of War, weapons, spells, and spirit summons but not all Spirit summons are something so broken you shouldn't use them at how they basically point out which ones are broken and which ones aren't by the tear of the summit with mimic, Tiche, clean Rot night I forget their name and all the other Spirit summons we typically sink are broken our put in the legendary category but things below that aren't actually too terribly broken and are pretty balanced around the idea of not just summoning them and then playing Dark Souls the way you would but learning how to split up the Agro between them and yourself and learning which Spirit summons are best suited for what bosses like how a boss like radagon would probably have his best Spirit summon match would be the five Great Shield dudes you get from the underground city because they're incredibly tanky and they split up the damage between all of them while also being able to pull aggro as well whereas a boss like Melania would be best suited to being a front by enemies that attack very fast and consistently in general as she's very staggerable.
Well yeah no duh do you want to learn how to avoid the attacks you don't summon them in which is why I point out the fact that you should always spend your first 10 to 15 runs and a boss simply just seeing how long you can survive and learning how to survive best and not attacking. Help whenever I did those runs I wouldn't some of them allies because then it would just fuck up my patterns with the only times I did would be when I knew I would need them and I knew that the boss is going to be weird about how accurate so I wanted to see how that would work almost like I was experimental e studying exactly what this boss would do so that way I would know how to predict what it's going to do and beat it by being able to avoid its attacks before they even come out
Just like how bosses that have a stomp attack heartbroken because of that attack because you can easily jump over them and that's what they were pushing you to do, bosses that leave you no openings to heal our the express reason why they decided to add summons so that way whether it's during the first phase or the second you have the ability to summon and allies and let them take the arrow for just a split second so you can go heal without issue which is personally why the only summons I really used we're both Luhtel the Headless and the aforementioned 5 Greatshield dudes because I just found that their Shields and their ability to take hits was very beneficial to give me openings to heal and honestly I preferred it since they also weren't too broken in the amount of damage they've dealt so I would still have to fight and I would still have to put in all the same effort but they would just give me the openings I need to heal and things like that.
Okay and you are pointing out the exact reason why I kept saying you don't seem to understand how to properly play to make these bosses easy... like all you have to do is learn to predict what they're going to do with Margaret can never stop me from healing even when I don't have Spirit summons because I've learned how to predict his attacks and I've learned how to force him to do the attacks I want that give me the opening I need to heal even without Spirit summons.....
They should have just given the player the bloodborne dodge. Having faster, more aggressive and hard hitting enemies is fine, at least as long as you are able to dodge them. Where I feel that bloodborne and the previous souls games had the perfect difficulty and made it so that each attack is dodgeable and punishable, a lot of Elden Ring boils down to monotonous spacing.
These are my favorite games because of the incredible enemy design, music, and difficulty. I didn't start playing these games to back away from the enemy while they execute a 20 hit combo (I'm looking at you melania...). Dodging through your enemies' every attacks just feels so much more badass.
Or a universal deflect/parry mechanic that differs with weapon types. Guard punishes had that potential but there’s only certain attacks they’re safe to use against with most bosses
@@goldenbrandon1716 that would definitely be a good addition
Why are you acting like ashes of war don’t even exist in this game lol
@@slackersurf this game is designed around them lol.
@@slackersurf hence all of the AOES and shit the bosses have. Very obviously designed to hit multiple targets at once
When Slave Knight Gale and Orphan of Kos manage to look like their moving in slow mo compared to newer bosses, you know you messed up.
Especially if those bosses hit for a third of your health with each hit. If the bosses are going to be wicked fast, they should do low damage so its easier to stay in the fight and learn from your mistakes
They’re*
Douche*
@@scottiecurrie7927 stay in the fight by learning from your mistakes and not getting hit.
the problem I don't think is solely boss speed either. I think the greatest issue lies in the fact that character animations haven't changed alongside the bosses speeding up, so effectively everything around you got buffed to Sekiro/BB level+ speed while you're still in DS3
Fighting bosses in this game is like fighting a level 9 CPU that uses every option select possible
Exactly, you are fighting a freaking AI
No. Its like fighting a baby teddy bear cpu on lvl 2. You need to die once cry once. And git gud
@@steakcrust558 said while having an op summon and casting from far away, gotta git gud ig
Nameless king does delayed strikes properly. It makes it feel like nameless is putting every ounce of strength into his strikes. It still feels natural. Margit's delays are just unnatural and designed to frustrate the player. I loved ds3 because every fight felt like a vicious hate filled back and forth flurry of aggression. Elden ring has too much boss aggression making the player passively wait for a single poke. It's just not fun.
You fight against an illusion of cursed king who hides his real identity even from royal guards and servants.
He shows up to beat you into submission because he's better then you.
That's why he delays his strikes. Because for him you're just a toy to play a cat and mouse game.
When fighting margit your positioning is very important.. i hardly can trigger those long delayed attacks. His movement is so different depending of where you stand
When Nameless delays it's more like he's winding up an attack, before he hits you you know that shits gonna hurt. When basically every boss in ER does it it's just so mechanical.
@@junoglrr9119 that is right you can control his delayed attacks
@@junoglrr9119 This... Elden ring is literally DS but you have to learn positioning. If you don't the combos might seem unfair but most bosses you can hit in the middle of a combo right in front of them and get out scot free.
Im so glad people are coming out and saying this. There is a dissonance between the game mechanics and the intended playstyle. And it really sucks because some of these bosses could have been S-tier. Like the feeling I felt getting into that "flow state" fighting Malenia. It felt like a dance. It felt good. But try that fight with anything slower than a Katana and you cant get off more than one hit before shes leaping away or punishing you. This is why people playing with heavy weapons spam jumping attacks. Its the fastest attack in their arsenal -and by a lot.
Yeah I got heavy weapons whips a normal blade ect ect.
Some ways it's quicker some ways it's slower I mean if your int str with 99
Dex 99
And in and faith and vigor or endurance you find some good gear and name.
You checked out colossal weapon's after patch 1.04 its like night and day, they are relatively faster, but what you really notice is the recovery is much faster after a swing where you actually have time to dodge after attacking, not like before where you would always trade damage and were limited to just jumping attacks and roll attacks
Roll attack >>> jump attack
@@thomaslareau453 Now do greatswords
@@evanwilliams9217 I thought greatswords were already pretty well balanced imo, some really good one's like the blasphemous Blade that has an op ash of war, + you can dual weild it with the Gargoyle black blade for a faith build and still get that poise break after a couple of jump attacks.
I feel like a lot of the new bosses in this game kind had their game design inspired by sekiro. Sekiro started introducing a lot more mobility to their game design. lots of enemies can disengage and reengage very quickly, but the player could do the same thing. kinda turned into a dance. But elden ring kept a lot of the enemy mobility while giving you an old player model that didnt really have any. I think half these problems wouldnt be here if they just updated the player model.
my thoughts exactly. why dont we even get responsive movement when all of the bosses are OP? they can destroy us in seconds and we move like we are stuck in mud. its like the devs just want things to take forever. are you bored yet? are you bored yet? is what the game kept shouting to me until i finally said yes and quit.
@@noahyes It's unbelievable isn't it? Yet some will mindlessly defend it as if they're getting personal checks from Miyazaki.
I feel like another issue I pray doesn't seep into future FS games is ERs seeming obsession with cramming massive bosses into tiny, arguably poorly designed (from a movement/combat pov) arenas. erdtree guarddog regular mobs in catacombs jerkily clipping through ceilings and columns is the stuff of nightmares. mohg omen surrounded by church pews that the camera clips through as you walk backwards so you don't even realize you're getting stuck on random shit. etc etc etc
That's what I meant by positioning but I didn't explain very well. You have to always know you position in the arena to know to reposition, which is hard but not in my favorite way.
Mad pumpkin head duo is one of the worst offenders
To be honest this is a problem since forever in Souls games. Just look how you fight the Centipede Demon in a goddamn tiny piece of land, or how the the actual boss in the Old Iron King fight is the hole in the floor.
Capra Demon moment
Double mad pumpkin head fight be like
When the game goes from the hardest in the series when you fight the bosses solo, to the easiest using summons… you know there’s something very wrong with that.
this game is the easiest in the series either way (most of the time)
@@pmbbmp well, not for everybody, and that’s exactly what this video is about.
@@pmbbmp because it does both very poorly. When you try and satisfy everyone, you make nobody happy
@@ehrtdaz7186 I haven't played any other souls games but the research I have done would refute your claim. Most souls veterans have even claimed that cheating is what the game expects of you. Considering that there are ridiculous rune glitch "farms" that haven't been patched yet, would support those claims
@@FHSBlackSwarm the game expects you to use glitches? ok, sure
Holy shit you're so right on everything it hurts, this is the first time i've actually watched an actual factual video with someone that actually knows what they're talking about and is an actual veteran that has PLAYED the games, which sometimes it feels like the a lot of the people that talk about these games haven't done. Amazing video.
Actual factual is only because he conforms to your way of thinking. Its copium. This game is so easy its funny to hear anyone say its hard in any way for any amount of time
I put around 2000 hours into ds3. I would just play through it over and over again because I LOVED the boss fights. I would do speed runs, challenge runs, meme runs, etc. I finished Elden ring and all the bosses ONE time and honestly I haven’t had any part of me that wants to fight them again. Atleast not for now.
Trust me, you'll beat Morgott and then drop it. Everything after that is just painful if it's not the first "wow, cool!!" experience.
@@Neirean this is my third playthrough and ur right, I realize I find myself excited for bosses like morgott, rykard and godrick but I almost never think about maliketh, radagon and malenia. They just aren’t as special despite being way more lore heavy.
@@iamMildlyUpsetWithMostOfYouTub tbh im the exact opposite
@@iamMildlyUpsetWithMostOfYouTub Maliketh rocks though. A mechanically great fight with AWESOME visuals. Godfrey is also an expetionally good boss and while I am a bit torn on Hoarah Loux mechanically , that part of the fight feels really intense and it is an awesome experience the first time. Radagon is ok, too. Mohg is really solid. He is probably the most DS3 boss in Elden Ring. Loretta is nice.
I think mechanically Morgott is actually one of the more bullshit remembrance bosses.
This is exactly what I've been saying for the longest time. Its not balanced enough for it to be punishing yet fair, its just punishing. Not fun when most of the most unfair and inflated moves turn the amazing looking boss fight into RNG slog. I truly felt defeated when I messed up in Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro because they were attacks I should have known and could have avoided. In Elden Ring it just feels like if you make one mistake you get Street Fighter combo'd and flipped off by the developers. Game had to drop down to a solid 8/10 for me because of how hard they dropped the ball in the 3rd act
Nailed it with the different points you made. What’s really telling is how the hardest DS3 bosses are sluggish/slow in comparison to the majority of bosses found in ER. Meanwhile, your character remains the same speed
I remember making the same criticism about dark souls 3 when it came out. A majority of the bosses felt like Bloodborne bosses while you still had the same clunky demon's souls movement. If only I knew how bad things would get 6 years later
God forbid you get knocked off your horse. Which happens way too easily. It's health should at least level up with yours if they won't let us level up Torrent.
imo elden ring bosses are easier. im still playing though... astel kicked my ass. level 50, pure str, zweihander...
@@MeLlamoBradly Astel is pretty easy in the grand scheme of elden ring. I say that as someone who also fought it at level 50 as a greatsword build.
@@MeLlamoBradly wait til endgame
So I just tried the Margit fight again real quick. Made a lvl 1 wretch, ran right up to Margit and fought him with my startign blub, baseline level of healing and nothing else. After dying 3 times I beat him on the 4th attempt, and while it was very close he clearly has far more openings than this video suggests. I never had to run away from him to heal, I simply healed when he was locked into other moves so I could stand within his range or barely outside it and still heal just fine. I could find multiple openings, hitting him after he did his 3 hit combo ending with him stabbing the ground, I hit him after his jump where he stabs the ground, I hit him after his jumping hammer slam, after his standing hammer slam, I hit him with running attacks immediately after his dodges, I hit him DURING his massive windup slam, I hit him after his forward dash into 2 spin slashes. I can't remember right now if I found anything else. All of these seemed reliable and safe, several of the mactually allowed me to get full charged R2 atatcks which are the slowest of all attacks in my arsenal, and all of the times I took damage it was pretty clear I did somethign wrong, and I generally never went more than 5-6 seconds between each time I hit him. Only time I DID go over that limit was when I missed a charged R2 and he dashed away at the same time, but if I actually released my R2 fast enough I would have had him.
Really, Margit has lots of openings, and they come fairly close to one another. He tricks you into thinking he doesn't by having a few attacks with combo extenders, by having long windups on some moves and by having a good chance of attacking you if you just run at him in neutral, but all of these can be dealt with. You can learn which moves got the combo extenders and be careful with those, you can hit him during his windups (at least with smaller weapons like hammers or smaller, I have not tested with bigger and slower weapons) and always after the windups, and you can find attacks on him in neutral by not attacking. Simply walk into him, he will atack first, you dodge his move and he will give you an opening. This way you can actually be very aggressive against him, it just means that you aggress by moving at him and forcing him to respond rather than by throwing out your own attacks first hoping he doesn't punish them.
I get the impression that most of the bosses are somewhat similar to this, they HAVE openings coming up quite often and most of them don't really require you to adopt a very passive playstyle at all, but it takes some getting used to when the openings are and the larger/more complex movesets with combo extenders means that learning their movesets takes more time. In the end though I find it makes for good fights, IMO Margit is not only cool as shit, he's also a joy to fight now that I feel like I have a solid grasp on his moveset.
Elden Ring bosses were designed keeping spirit summons and summons in mind. So, if you wanna play solo, be prepared to deal with non-stop combos, jumping back to safety bs, hard hitting laser fast long-range attacks, insane AOE range, delayed attacks, lightning fast grab attacks etc. These mechanics have been intentionally added to the bosses so that they don't get ganged up and bullied by the player and their summons. The downside is that if you are playing solo, you will get bullied instead. Because the bosses have been designed to deal with a great deal of bs that our spirit summons are capable of.
In Dark Souls games, the summons would almost always trivialize boss fights. I beat Nameless King first try with a summoned player.
However, the same is not true in Elden Ring. I used wolf summons, summomed Rogier, even summoned fellow tarnished for a couple of tries, and still struggled for half an hour before I finally beat Margit.
Trust me, Dark Souls bosses wouldn't survive 2 minutes in Elden Ring.
My Mimic and I can murder Nameless King without breaking a sweat. And I am not even a great Souls player. That's how broken spirit summons are in Elden Ring.
I would happily take a massive nerf to all of my spirit summons if it meant that bosses would have a better solo experience, Even nerf them down to bloodborne npc summon tier would be a fair compromise to me since drawing aggro alone is still a massive benefit for new players. I just don't want to be an afterthought swinging at the bosses backside while my punching bag mimic tanks the damage. Feels impersonal,.
I understand what they were going for and I honestly love the summon mechanic, but earlier title's boss fights felt like such a deeply personal experience, (Gael, Lady Maria, Orphan. Knight Artorias) and these new bosses just feel so impersonal in comparison utilizing a reliance on summons, they feel like a significant other who doesn't pay attention to you lmao. (Notice me godfrey senpai?)
So many players crave that "one-on-one against a God tier enemy" experience but only when the mechanics are adjusted to appropriately match that, which I think certain bosses (namely lategame) are such a far cry from to make up for summons. Losing that experience just to gain a summoning mechanic felt heartbreaking almost, I love these games but the two most important features for the longevity of souls games are their bosses and their PVP. Both of which are in some pretty desperate states (albeit patches are improving them drastically) and are heavily dividing the community in some concerning ways. So no I don't hate summons, in fact I love them, but having them bring the fun I have with boss fights into question just isn't worth it to me. Boss mechanics first, summons second.
@@pastaplatoon6184 I agree with you on everything you said. FromSoft clearly wanted to accomodate newcomers and this was price they had to pay. My solution to this whole ordeal when I am playing solo is to get my hands on as many defense and offense buffs as possible and stack them up, gear up suitably for the boss (using shields or powerstancing depending on the type of boss and using correct talisman to offset the boss' advantages), and use an appropriately upgraded weapon. This balances out most of the bs that the bosses can and will throw at you. However, the downside to this is that this whole extensive preparation prior to a boss requires a whole lot of exploration (which might turn off some people who wanna strictly follow the guidance of grace and avoid unnecessary side-content).
My spirits don't seem to be capable of much of any b.s. against the bosses, but man is their existence in the area of the fight alone such a great help, as distracting the boss is top shelf help.
You're really going to blame casual players for developers' lazy game design?
@@SuperLotus Not trying to blame anyone. Just making some observations. The spirit summons weren't introduced in the game to serve the series veterans. It was added to the game to please the easy mode crowd and newcomers and marketed that way. It's one of the reasons (alongside open world design, mount and other cool stuff) why some new players (initially turned off by the souls formula) even dared/bothered to give Elden Ring a try.
However, we all can agree on one point that the introduction of spirit summons had to be balanced by increasing the boss difficulty (often radically) and that's where things went slightly wrong. Even now, FromSoft is trying to patch stuff over and over. It's all game balancing issues that they are trying to get just right. I hope they release more patches in the future to fix some of the remaining issues. However, I don't expect them to make changes to the boss AI. So, the solo experience will never be as organic as it used to be back in souls games. That's the price they had to pay to incorporate the new mechanics in Elden Ring.
I understand some devs would opt to change Boss AI behavior based on whether the player is playing solo or with summons. However, we all know that it's one of FromSoft's core principles that they try to bring everyone to the same discussion. So, they would never design two differrnt sets of behaviors for the same boss to cater to solo and co-op players.
The biggest issue that Elden Ring failed to acknowledge from it's predecessors, is the differences between difficulty and reason. Miyazaki was once asked whether if they're making the game too difficult; he noted that it isn't in the sense that if it's too difficult, but is it reasonable.
Dark Souls 3 bosses were reasonable in difficulty progression. Iudex Gundyr is one of the best tutorial bosses which is then follows by Vordt, cursed-rotted tree, abysswatchers and so on. Elden Ring however has a very mixed perception of difficulty progression as you can approach the game however you want, and that's fine. That is until you place one of your main bosses in the same map as every other boss that pales in comparison to difficulty.
End-game DS3 was reasonable and yet challenging. Nameless King is only hard because of his pacing and hard hitting attacks, whereas other characters in Elden Ring such as Morgott a difference case; Unorthodox combos, insane agility, hardly any recovery after attacks, excessive aoe attacks, status effects such as bleed, environmental hazards(I don't even think those water geysers affect him like Slave Gael's lightning would affect him albeit partially).
I love this game, however, fromsoft are somewhat shooting themselves in the foot. First they'll say that they're aren't trying to make bosses pertaining to your reaction time, or they're trying to make them reasonable. Then proceed to create Malenia.
But in their view, it seems, 'making it reasonable' was by providing options to cheese every single boss, including Malenia with Bloodhound Step. We may not agree with them, but your point is kinda moot since we can clearly see what they did to try to make it 'reasonable'. Problem is, it didn't make it 'reasonable', it made it *easy*.
@@Neirean That's the thing, I wasn't asking for easy, alongside many people. Like Fromsoft had made games with trial and error, rather they hit us with "Here's the our new easy mode". I believe Miyazaki also said he wanted people to be in the same discussion when it came to difficulty, but they somehow made two categories. Those who use ash summons(not even the traditional ones, those actually can make the fight harder), and those who don't. It almost seems contradictory, unless they wanted to abandon that philosophy.
Yup shot right in the foot, not like it is their best selling game, and goty
@@onearmedwolf6512 I said "somewhat", not that it breaks their game entirely. Being the best-selling game and goty doesn't contradict what I'm saying.
The issue with Elden RIng is that the bosses for the first time in the From Soft library are NOT designed to be fought 1v1. From is assuming you will use the spirit ashes and so they try to compensate by making the bosses artificially harder so it's not too easy. The whole point of the summoning mechanics in previous Souls games is to provide an indirect "easy mode." Elden Ring doesn't abide by this standard and so the bosses are way way harder to make sure the challenge is still present with summons. When in reality summoning is supposed to make the game a breeze. The player is allowed the freedom to take that easy route or engage with the game at a harder, higher challenge, level.
Every time From Software adjusts something so the game is "not too easy" they just end up ruining things. They need to focus less on making the game hard and refocus their efforts on making them fun. DS1 can be made easier by using high poise armor yet the game is still fun even with that armor!
The player is still allowed that freedom, they just added an extra difficulty. Spirit summoning with melee is base difficulty. Magic is easier mode. Summoning real people is story mode. Leaving off summons is the brand new masochist difficulty.
@@JokerDoom That.
Especially after the mimic's nerf
@@JokerDoom My point tho is that the base difficulty shouldn't be melee with spirit summons. The base difficulty should be solo melee with NO summons of any kind. Spirit ashes are supposed to make it easier but instead From makes them essentially mandatory otherwise the game feels completely unfair
fuck spirit summons, and no they shouldn't have designed game's boss difficulty around summons, very bad choice, I don't feel like I've truly beaten the game if I'm using a bot to help me beat bosses, I didn't even pick up the summon bell :spits:
The bosses do too much damage. I’ve got a character at level 189 who has 55 vigor. There are some hits, still, that end me in one shot. And if they don’t kill me in one shot, I have to heal - because I know I can’t take another hit.
Fighting the Nameless King, though, for example, was just amazing. I could take a hit and keep fighting. I didn’t feel like I was always one hit/grab away from dying. I felt like I had more fun in DS, BB, and Sekiro.
There isn't a single attack in the game that one shots at 55 vigor. Stop the lies
@@Amoeba_Podre i heard that astel grab is guaranteed one shot for every vigor level
@@godyne It's not at 60 vigor. I know from experience.
@@Amoeba_Podre likely wasn’t lying, was probably just getting hit with the hidden counter or jump counter mechanics and not understanding what was happening
After watching plenty of other videos about Elden Ring sucks (which is doesn't), this video expresses my same frustrations, even though I would still consider Elden Ring one of my most favorite games. I personally prefer Sekiro (currently) as still my favorite when it comes to combat. The points of the 1) healing being slow AF and 2) delayed attack annoyance and 3) boss speed vs. character speed are unequal are the ones I resonate with the most.
Personally I want to see Sekiro’s style of parry in Elden Ring (don’t know how much it will ruin the game but whatever). Colossal weapons have more wind up time but does more posture dmg, and smaller weapons have fast wind up but less posture dmg.
EDIT: I just don’t like Dark Souls parry. It’s clunky.
@@ongka2000 I agree. I find Sekiro parrying much more fun and engaging.
@@ongka2000 I think it's the natural evolution of the series if the direction of the boss design is to continue the Nameless King/Elden Ring formula (which is what I am really into)
Sekiro combat is so satisfying and plays so well that I can't recommend it to friends enough
@@ongka2000 There's at least one mod (Elden Ring Reforged) that does have something of a deflection system, but it's more of a timed block to reduce stamina usage and chip damage (similar to the Champion's Ashes mod for DS3) rather than Sekiro's posture system.
@@Christmas_Johan Well, you have to take PVP into consideration as well. That’s why I said I don’t know how much it will break the game.
I beat elden ring a couple times. Once with summons and once without. Getting to know the bosses was actually fun for me.
I went back and ran through dark souls 3 and honestly was baffled at how easy it felt compared to elden ring after. I could actually play ds3 to relax. It's nuts.
same.
There are a few bosses in ER that *could* have been among From’s best ever, but are undermined by really cheap mechanics. Margit is a good fight, for instance, but it’s undermined by a couple of attack patterns that are deliberately intended to be unfair. As in: you dodge-roll fractionally late, so you get hit, but now a dodge is already queued, so you get up, dodge *and then get hit again*. Punishing the player twice for the same mistake is an instance of a bs boss mechanic. Melania... very nearly a brilliant fight. But waterfowl is bs. Randomly overriding openings is bs. Triple-parry is bs. I get that they’re really trying to push the difficulty with this fight, but fairness and fun are intrinsically linked. Unfair fights stop being fun. Take out the bs and it’s a fantastic fight.
I agree with this take.
I don't have to feel guilty because I don't enjoy to wait for the boss to finish their 8 hit combo. I want a vicious 1v1 trading blows, with momentum and rhythm, I don't want to feel like I'm in line at post office waiting to be called.
Play Sekiro
I LOVE the dance that you learn when fighting a boss. The rythym and patterns can be so much fun, but some of the bosses are just annoying and way too combo-heavy. I think they coded the actual bosses to switch to an aggressive thrust to stop you from retreating to heal. I knew after the crucible knight that something was off.
I agree that most bosses are annoying. I still enjoy a lot of them and even somehow killed Radahn first try in like 2 minutes. But the mechanics aren't that fun, just way too fast and relentless. cough **malenia** cough
It's also not just that they are combo heavy, it's that the combos are early-endable, self-interruptable, can be inserted into another combo, or transitions into specific punishes depending on your actions or position... From went full Amiibo on these bosses, and I can't bring myself to claim that this is an enjoyable boss experience.
Ive beaten the game twice, I can agree to an extent. Alot of the late game quality fell off as usual with Miyazaki.
Mainly the boss design of having bosses play so far from the tradition of how good bosses were. Malenia and Godskin Duo being the worst, Fire Giant, and Maliketh.
Malenia is balanced horribly in that she isnt a threat if you can stagger her but not everyone can. Outside of that, 3 moves can essentially nullify any defense/Health a player has. Lazy compared to other fromsoft bosses and the worst Lady Maria type boss. Having to dictate your playstyle for 1/2 moves is not good compared to what Fromsoft has made. And one of the worst at that. Considering she shares a game with Radahn, she stands out.
Godskin duo needs no explanation, worst in the company history.
Fire Giant, being tedious and annoying rather than interesting. Rolls more than the player.
Maliketh's second phase has him turbo assault the player or make himself inaccessible by a normal means by Vega jumping onto walls.
Other than that alot of the game is good, just kinda peaks mid game before the Mountain tops.
also elden beast constantly runs away. very tedious
agreed.
The Malenia point is 100%. K was getting DOMINATED by Malenia until I eventually realized if I was super aggressive I could stagger her. With a light weapon without bleed it'd have taken me 50+ tries easy.
And don’t forget malekiths ridiculous range on his sword
He does half his combos when he’s in the air on on a pillar and he moves so fast it seems unreal
I feel like I’m controlling a character from 2001 in a 2022 game
Godskin duo is trivialised by sleeping pots ok st trina sword.
Dragon knight before Maliketh is more a threat than them.
The only thing I feel is legitimately unfair is malenia’s waterfoul dance. The rest of the fight is so fun. But yes, there is a lot of annoying stuff with these bosses
Would have been so much more fun if she jumped into the air, homed in on you, and then when she hit the ground she did a stationary whirlwind of blades so you had a chance to dodge, and did that three times instead of chasing you across the map. It would have been soul-crushingly punishing if we messed up but super fair and exciting. Knowing that you just cant escape her Waterfoul Dance makes it feel less like your fault and more like RNG BS
@@scottiecurrie7927 actualy when i looked pros footage (let me solo her)
I realise she land to the ground do the first strike and she jump forward in her blade whirling. I cant test it yet but i think you can time a dodge there and evade the first storm doing that . (Its kinda easy to dodge the second and third wave)
@@csabawars you can if you get right under her. You can get under, bait her to go one direction and dodge the other way. Took a while to figure that out.
Her health steal mechanic is cheap too. She even regens health through your shield, it's so dumb!
U can knock her out of the stance with a frost pot that u can craft but u got to let her go to the stance then throw it u will get hit once but she will stop after that. And this game is not hard I beaten it 4 times and I never played a souls game
Why we cheese bosses has something to do with boss balance. Played bloodborne before elden ring, and I can tell a thing or two about balance. Peace :)
God. Thank you for making this. I could not find a way to put what I was feeling into words. This game brutalized me and I could not make sense of it. Even magic, despite being OP, has the same effect as healing where bosses just input read you. I was very hesitant to call the game "unfair" because of previous titles, but I DO think it is less fair/more difficult. This seems like it was by design, giving higher level players a "harder option", something that could still challenge them... while still being accessible to newer players. It just... is not as fun. It feels like Nioh, which is a good game, but Holy Jesus are some of Nioh bosses rage inducing.
Getting Nioh flashbacks now… think they’ll add the sloth talisman in Bloodborne 2?
The problem with so many bosses is the way they fly high above you or teleport about at light speed making it impossible to hit them.
The speed at which they move around in a spaz out manner is ridiculous.
It's not that it's too difficult. The bosses don't feel fair. They spam attacks and don't really have openings.
Yeah. I often find with bosses, it becomes almost impossible, because I would attack, get stunlocked out of each attack for thinking there's an opening, but then trying to heal when the boss is supposed to pause for a sec, and then getting one tapped by some AOE attack I can't dodge because I tried to heal.
Today I finally beat the fire giant boss. It was probably my least favorite boss fight. You have to get under his legs and attack his weak leg but because of the camera angle, I found it difficult to see his fire spell. If you have a bleed build, you can trivialize the fight in 3 minutes.
Correct and I'm a veteran monster hunter player if yall know anything about raging brachi he's one of the worst fights. I agree with ER not giving you proper openings. It's like running to attack once and then sprinting back. I didn't have much trouble until the crystal caverns boss. He's stomped me out 4 times so far on my break from work its like nothing u do can get away from him fast enough or close distance to do decent damage
I only felt like this is the case with Maliketh’s second phase
@TrevorKl 23 I summoned two people for godskin duo and destroyed them. I'm not trying to frustrate myself.
you said you like to beat the bosses the way you like... after hearing this i realize that is the same problem i had playing the game, as a souls veteran, i took myself spending more than 3 hours at malenia with the build i worked during the entire game, going to phase 2 was feeling more lucky than skill. In the end, i was losing a lot of time on a problematic level of dificulty boss, lost 1 more hour because of my own pround(i'am a souls veteran, if others can do i can do it too). Than i got tired, chaged my build to arcane/dex, first try using mimic and rivers of blood. FUN? no.
It is kind of weird that this game is so good, but has a lot of BS. It makes it difficult to criticize.
Specially because of the many ways people can approach the game.
Yeah, I agree. I feel like play style is a huge determining factor in how fair the bosses feel.
Godskin Duo for example, if you call in Bernholt and kill one, even after he dies, it becomes tag team 1v1s. That made me like it.
But trying to do it solo felt stupidly bad.
@George O'Carroll 😂 maybe but it serves them right for ganking lol.
I’ve actually been thinking about doing a full solo run though. Mostly used sword and shield paladin my first run but I’m really curious about other builds
I think because FS wanna make the game more accessible, they have broken the boss because some of them can only be broken with summons. They are designed to be fought by two people. Which sucks because as much as I love my summons, sometimes I wanna do them solo too. I love Malenia, she’s amazing, but she is designed to be fought by two people. Winning against her solo doesn’t feel satisfying, it feels tiring (for me).
@@debishvebishwish4839 I agree with this.
A lot of bosses have changes to their move set when you add summons. And the unlimited stamina is also probably related to this.
I tried to solo Malenia. The first phase isn’t impossible but it’s a pain. The third part of water fowl is SO hard to dodge for me. And she heals so much.
I literally had her one-shot and she earned her health back even though I was blocking smh.
I’m the end I broke down and used a summon. Still pretty tough though to me.
@George O'Carroll shows you how fucked the balancing is in this game
It genuinely feels like the latter half of the game is harder when you're at the appropriate level than SL1 in any of the Dark Souls games, assuming no cheese, summons or magic.
Obnoxiously difficult is exactly how I would describe the later game bosses. I’ve beaten Dark Souls 1, Bloodborne is one of my favorite games of all time, I could not believe how bullshit some of these bosses are. Like you said, not fun, just tedious and annoying. Still love the game though, if we’re strictly taking open world exploration, it’s the best open world game I’ve ever played, I did find myself REALLY missing that more aggressive style combat from Bloodborne.
For me I feel like many of the bosses are tedious on the initial first few fights until you understand their moveset, and then they become fun, and satisfying, but I won't lie, the bosses are so unforgiving and tanky, and one thing that isn't mentioned in this video is the insane speed after a delayed attack, like some of them are just too fast after such a long wind up to reliably dodge initially, which is unfair, there should always be a chance that you can beat the boss on your first try if you're alert and have good reaction timing.
Dont get me started on how every end game boss can one shot you even with 40 points invested into vig
Seriously, at level 1, the final boss of dark souls 3 won’t even 1 shot you always. In elden ring, well we both know how that is.
Bro the mid/late game enemies can one shot you if you don’t got anything above 40 Vigor
@man with a username you had to almost max out vitality... that's a point against the game
Maybe put on some armour?
Its too difficult for the wrong reasons, bosses are obsessively aggressive with super long combo strings and spam attacks so it’s almost impossible to get off dps without taking some damage. But the bigger problem especially with the later bosses is that they all have at least one move that’s almost impossible to dodge, and will outright kill you regardless of your vigor. Melina is a perfect example, all in all not the most difficult boss but that one move she does is extremely difficult to avoid and will absolutely kill you every time.
All what’s in the game is not cheating or cheese! So use magic, summon, bloodbuild whatever. And don‘t cry around. Elden Ring is by far the easiest of souls games!
Thing is, them being hard is not the problem.
The problem is that they are NOT FUN
3:05 actually there is an alternative to running when looking for a heal, heal during an attack window. If in a moment where you would normally attack safely you instead heal, you should be able to heal safely. This is a method that i often used with Radagon, Mogh, Malekith and Godfrey.....sometimes with Malenia.
I cant help to notice the glaring omition (when talking about attacks) of two additions that werent present in previous souls games: at will jump attacks and posture damage.
Jump attacks are really good to both close distance and do a good damage (above a R1 attacks) in a short time.
Posture damage both rewards agressive gameplay and gives a reason for charged R2 to exist. Jump attacks are good consistent source of posture damage and once you find that one window that takes longer than the others you can find ways to fit charge R2s, for example in Mogh when he thrust his trident into the ground he will need to pulled back wich gives you enough time for a charge attack.
One might rightly critizice how jump attacks are too good and how you can beat the game with just them, but then again how ist that different from the R1 spams in previous games overshadowing everything else?
I agree with you on this. People just want to play Elden Ring like Dark Souls 3 and when it doesnt work, they refuse to adapt. Jump attacks and spirit summons are the bread and butter of this game, like it or not.
I actually believe Elden Ring is the easiest game .
Yessss healing during attack windows just makes more sense.
Especially when you know the boss is more likely to attack if you heal.
Elden ring is more strategic, while endorsing aggression, and encouraging working together. Different attack animations and jumps also have different hitboxes for your character, so you can sometimes dodge by attacking. ER has so much better hitboxes, you can get away with different shenanigans. Except for Runebears. There are no excuses for those fucks.
Problem is the game becomes a joke with summons and jump attack spam. Why have these elaborate bosses if I can win with summons and jump spamming until they posture break?
The game is too easy when you play it again. After learning how scaling works and finding the right weapon and spell combos you smash everything often without learning the boss patterns.
That’s called cheesing
@@TheSolarium18 I mean you don't Need to cheese or anything. A little stronk and a buff go a long way. Same thing with dex. I run my build the way I planned it I make the boss miss a few times and dex go brrr. So far journey 4 feels a bit harder but I'm still not insanely high level for the amount of HP bosses have. Idk I guess I do have alot of hours in it 😅 I just know there are tons of weapon combos that are viable and I enjoy that.
@@3CA1 You said you beat bosses without learning their patterns i don’t see why playing eldenring or any fromsoft game if you don’t learn the moveset of the bosses and fight them in a challenging way
There are far better story games out there so i don’t see the point playing those games if you don’t want to challenge yourself
@@TheSolarium18 I have 500 hours in elden ring and it's platniumed homie. I've used every build and fought almost every boss every way. Go fuss with the wall lol. Using an effective build isn't cheesing bc every build isn't effective against every boss. You try hard soul level 1 running basement dwelling no grass touching try hards can go stand in the corner with disto and the other 14 of you that care.
@@3CA1 Well i think 500 hours are a waste of time invested in one game no matter which game
especially if you don’t play it in a challenging way
Holy shit, you expressed all of the frustrations I have with ER bosses lol, some of them feel designed around the spirit summons which totally sucks. I hope From takes a different direction for their next game.
But spirit summons often *trivialize* them.
This game gives the player the most amount of options in the series and it seems that to balance that out they gave more tools to the bosses.
It creates a strange difficulty level where if you try to tackle it in the same way you would any previous DS game it can become frustrating, but if you take advantage of all the options the game gives you it can feel like it trivializes the game.
I guess the reason is just how much harder it is to balance an open world game like ER in comparison to the more linear DS games. Hopefully they learned from making this and the DLC will have a more satisfying power level
You and I both know they're gonna snort a line of cocaine and pull a Manus on us.
I agree with this. Elden Ring, depending on how you play, is either easy or hard. There is no normal mode.
I have hundreds of hours in all the souls games and the only way I could beat the endgame bosses in Elden Ring is by utilizing cheese builds like hoarfrost or ROB. So I was left without a feeling of accomplishment
Same here, I was glad that fight was over, and I never want to fight them again.
I sum up ER this way: whatever it takes to beat a boss. Summons, etc.. Besides I don’t have the reflexes I used to have when I were a younger dude😌.
I don’t mind summons being in the game, what I mind is the stupid difficulty without them, levels of difficulty that have never been present in dark souls games.
I decided to try this game, and i never played this genre.
I always playes other genres.
But i have played this game for 2 hours now, and i'm already sick of this shit game.
That Tree boss guy beats the shit out of me, while the game barely started.
And even when i bypass him, and i go into the caves, the fucking wolfs gets me every time.
I already have enough of this game.
Your fighting bosses your not meant to fight yet its a open world game your not meant to instantly beat everyone you see
The problem you have isn't that it's too hard, it's that it is more unfair than other souls games.
yeah the game is too hard and should have an easier mode for people that don't have all the time in the world . Simple.
@Solur haha , I have now completed the game and thought it was superb . Hard in places but once you get some of the better later weapons it got easier. Great game can't wait for the dlc
I agree with this 100% Elden Ring is a good game. But between most mid-lategame bosses and enemies having; 20 hit combos, infinite tracking, 1-2 actual openings, hyper aggression and absurd damage all at once will definitely make me think twice before I buy another fromsoft game.
I have beaten it 3 times and got the platinum (same with Demon's souls through Sekiro) so its not a "git gud" thing. Its a "game needs some rebalancing before its more fun than frustrating" thing.
the only one he needs to "git gud" right now is Miyazaki hiding behind his cult defending him for all the mistakes he does thinking he'll never get caught. keep going Miyazaki. other companies will take up your formula and evolve it into something that's challenging in a fair and fun way while you slowly die out wondering why, surrounded by your mob constantly telling you in your ears there's nothing wrong with your games for the rest of your life. GoW 2018 already succeeded your formula. it's only a matter of time before more devs start making your formula better since elden ring was popular and many people saw the negative reviews like these
I got about 70% completion (didn’t have the insanity to go for plat) and am currently doing journey 4 or 5 and it’s pretty much unplayable. Agree with you, I don’t think I’m gonna buy their next release 2nd week like I did. Was miserable
@@AratakiBullPowerSiddo1 Bro are you okay? you seem a little TOO personally invested on this. Chll out.
Also "GoW 2018 already succeeded your formula"? lol? you mean the game with terrible combat where all the difficulty comes from making every boss a sponge and having extremely boring and monotonous combat?
@@takeshikovacks6708 wait till you get to ng+7. I think one of the biggest reasons why I have such a negative view on bosses in this game is because I've spent most of my time on ng+6 - ng+13. Attacks you could overlook on NG become "destined death" on ng+7.
@@Beyond_Immortal fuck that 💀
I feel your sentiment here as someone who beat it without summons it was way harder than dark souls 3 ever thought of being without them. However with Max summons it's too easy for me and all I have to do is not die with them active
Then use weaker summons tf lol
Exactly,too easy with summons ,too hard without.
@TrevorKl 23 nope you just aren't good enough to solo them 🤷 but to say they are only possible by cheesing is false. Do like you would in any other dark souls game, get gud 👍
@@themaverick1898 I’ve beaten DS1 and 3 and BB solo SL1, and I think the game is too hard. What platform do you play on? Let’s 1v1 and I’ll post the results. Let’s see if you’re actually good enough to be talking that shit
@@themaverick1898 you know I never even considered that lol I found quite a few and literally just used Max mimic if I got stuck for too long.
This video is very fucking good because you're telling the truth my dude Elden Ring is awesome and game of the year but they fucked up with some bosses the fact that Elden beast is the final boss harm the game because he is a big pile of shit also Godfrey second phase is terrible and fire giant is trash and dude it a fucking crime to put Elden bitch as the final boss for a masterpiece that is Elden Ring
I think you'd like my late game boss tierlist. I complain quite a lot about these bosses lol.
ua-cam.com/video/9utv1u6B9Gw/v-deo.html
Listen, I agree but please use punctuation!
The worst part of this whenever you criticize the game, the fan community hits you with "git gud". Buddy, I did get good and I have already beaten the game. Can you get that through your thick skull?
Bosses have unique weaknesses in Elden Ring a lot to compensate as well. Like GodSkin Duo is incredibly weak to sleep pots. The crafted items are useful if you don't like summons.
My estimate is that 90% of people going "lol git gud bro, it's ez bro" are cheesing. Most skilled people are rather humble and provide actual helpful tipps to people who struggle
Get good. It’s not easy. I don’t wanna give people tips if they’re crying about how “wahhh ds3 had faster estus wahhh” you’re acting like a baby AND you’re wrong
Git gud. I beat the game without upgrading vigor much at all and using a diversity of spells. No cheese, just strategic playing. Died a lot. Had fun. That’s the purpose of these games. You just suck at video games lol.
The problem in this game is when a bs attack you wouldn't be able to dodge on reaction either kills you or forces you to heal it isn't learning the boss, it's tedious.
I can't "learn" Malenia's dance attack if it kills me instantly.
I agree with you thanks for making this video I agree with almost every point
Emerald splash is the strongest stando power!!
True, although I think the devs are trying to push more players towards co-op and summons which is why this game is so hard solo
thats bs becuase their networking is ass on PC. And not everyone plays online. They are power creeping the playerbase to maintain their reputation as a hard game studio.
It’s as if they are so proud of the Spirit Ash system, they want people to experience it.
As someone who has 250 hours in elden ring. I completely agree with you lol
Thanks! I also made a more in depth critique video breaking down what I love and dislike about this game. ua-cam.com/video/X8rBksGzKY4/v-deo.html
What's your lvl
It's not that the game is hard, it's cheap. Everything moves and executes their animations faster than you. The response of the input is so terrible that it makes it seem as if it's hard.
I’m so glad that this is getting attention, when I first encountered Margit I realized something was very off with this game.
I’ve beaten all of the dark souls games, and I even almost sl1 ds3 (soul of cinder gate kept me lol)
And when I would bring up the subject of boss stamina, and goofy ass combos with delays people would clown me telling me to get good.
The boss design took a very heavy hit and people need to realize this.
Just because it's technically possible to beat a boss doesn't mean that you had fun doing it. I think that is the main message I'm trying to say with Elden Ring.
@@feebleking21 yup and I agree 💯 %
It’s not even just the bosses. Elden Ring has more gank squad bs than all the other souls games combined. From enemies that can cast 4 spells every second that will track you through an entire dungeon and do 1080 degree loops to hit you to marionette archers that can rapid fire bows like fucking uzis lol. Enemies are so overtuned that they actually *look* stupid while attacking you
@@a.g.m8790 if the gank bosses were well designed than it would be okay, but literally none of them are good
@@a.g.m8790 The levels are designed with op weapon arts and magic in mind. Once I started using high damage weapon arts the gank squads felt a bit more fair, but if you try to play without those tools like a normal Dark Souls game you will not have a good time.
Of course if you use op weapon arts you can agrue that it's too easy, so either way you lose something.
Souls veteran here, and I agree 100%.
It feels really jarring and annoying to go from bosses which I can consistently defeat without getting hit, to Elden Ring where seemingly every enemy, let alone the bosses, feels like a major pain in the ass and tedious as all hell.
If this is their new design paradigm, if this is the direction they're going with for their other games, I'm out. It's simply not fun. At all. And this is coming from a guy who has three of FromSoft's soulslike games in my top 10 games of all time. That's ludicrous. A single company has managed to produce three games of such exceptional quality that they're in my top 10 games of all time. That's beyond impressive. But Elden Ring? Fuck no. I detest it. There's aspects I love but I hate what it represents. Not a fan.
I wish them luck in their future endeavours and hopefully they'll reign back their asshole design, just a bit. Otherwise, we'll part ways and do so amicably.
Re: healing - is it really that hard for people to just... not heal during the neutral game? Like if you're fighting an actual person, like in PvP for example, and you do what people seemingly want to do against bosses in ER, they're just going to run up and stab you. And that's what the bosses do too, if you try to heal while the boss is just standing there, they are going to stop standing there, run up, and stab you. You'd think after the first 50 times, people would realize that healing isn't free, and you need to wait for the boss to be busy, but I keep seeing people who are effectively just complaining that healing isn't free. It's not free, and it shouldn't be free, and the fact that it isn't free means you need to put a lot more thought into fights. Instead of taking a swing during the punish window, take a sip instead. Or create your own healing window, with things like knockdown or stance breaks.
Re: Boss stamina - bosses have never had stamina; what they've had are shorter attack chains. In DS1, a boss's attack would just be like a single swing, and that's it. By DS3, that had evolved a bit, and now a boss might have an attack and a follow-up on the same input. What Elden Ring does is essentially put entire combos on single inputs. Now on the one hand, this does mean bosses are capable of throwing a heck of a lot more at you - the whole reason Margit can just keep doing moves is because that entire cane/dagger combo is effectively his R1. That means you need to put more effort into dodging, and it necessarily makes the fight take longer, which means a higher chance to lose your focus and mess up. On the other hand, it actually makes the bosses a lot more predictable - for the most part, if you see a boss start an attack, you know exactly what they're going to do, which means you can learn punish windows, healing windows, all sorts of other things.
Re: Margit specifically - So I don't know how you play, but just from the Margit fight footage, you seem to really favor rolling backwards. Margit, and Elden Ring in general really, punishes rolling backwards - rolling to the side, or rolling into the boss, are generally both MUCH safer. In the case of Margit specifically, I don't think it's actually possible to dodge his close-range follow-up to the hammer attack by rolling backwards, at least not without light equip load rolls and the Crucible Feather Talisman. You can, however, dodge it quite easily by rolling into him, which of course leaves you in a position to punish. So just in general a big part of the difficulty curve in this game is just learning to not roll away from danger like in every other souls game, to roll into it instead. I'm not exaggerating when I say that learning that cut the difficulty of this game in half for me.
Re: Delays - The delays I don't think actually affect the boss difficulty, it's just an adjustment that people will have to make. If anything, they're a huge buff to the player's ability to be aggressive, since often even with Claymores you can get a hit or two in while the boss is in the middle of their delay. It basically works the same way player Charged R2s do, except most of the time the boss will just always fully charge. And it's not like you can't dodge them on reaction like with normal attacks either. This is actually where being a music kid can come in handy, since the problem with people having slower reaction times against delayed attacks than against non-delayed attacks with the same startup and active frames is effectively the same phenomenon you see with musicians pre-empting or missing notes that come after a long pause. Essentially, your anticipation is killing you, causing you to flinch. You can train yourself out of it, but I find a much better way is to just do something during the delay, such as attacking, so that you're not anticipating the attack, you're just reacting to it when it happens.
Re: Problems like Malenia - There was early speculation that Waterfowl was some bullshit, but at this point it's pretty clear that it doesn't work any differently from bosses in previous games with similar long-duration high-tracking attacks. You can dodge it at point blank with unassisted midrolls by circling her and dodging to the side the first hit, the second hit can be avoided with a single dodge roll, and the third you just stand still and she goes right past you. If that isn't enough, unlocking also makes her track worse for some reason, which is a technique that's been around since DS1 O+S. So as usual, it's more a matter of actually fully exploring your own toolkit, rather than the game not being balanced.
Re: Attack speed - Elden Ring would have to lose PvP for meaningful attack speed increase on every weapon category but Colossals. DS3 had a really bad trend of every 2nd hit being free on almost every weapon type. Claymore 2H R1 true combo'd into the second hit, the Estoc true combo'd into like four hits, so that really just wasn't a healthy PvP environment. And it's not like the attack speed changes meaningfully affected the ability of medium and light weapons to get their hits in, you can still get your two Claymore 2H R1s in against most bosses, Katanas can still get hits in everywhere and proc Bleed constantly, etc.
Re: Crucible Knight since I see it getting brought up a lot - Crucible Knights are pretty much just there to teach you how to parry. Normal attacks they either attack too frequently to be safe on, or they guard them with their greatshield if present, but in exchange they have the absolute largest fucking parry window I've ever seen. As in their parry window lasts longer than some entire attacks. I know there's that one video on the subreddit for example of a dude beating the twin Cruicble Knights by just standing in one spot and parrying everything. They're this game's versions of Sekiro's Long-Armed Centipedes.
Ultimately, I think the main bosses - that is, all the ones that are either required for progression or drop Rememberances - are fine in terms of difficulty, with the exception of Elden Beast, I don't know what the fuck happened with that boss but I struggle to think of a build or archetype where it wouldn't be extremely frustrating to fight without doing the AI break. Other than that though, I'm an average at best player, and I still made it through the game quite comfortably without using magic, without summoning, just heavy armor and 2-handed Claymore. There's also, I think, some misunderstanding of the game mechanics going on, mostly because people are just assuming this is Dark Souls 3 - 2, and it's just not. Like people calling the Soreseal the Prisoner's Chain, but that's not accurate at all; Prisoner's Chain was good because it gave you free stats for basically no downside, since the free stats tended to offset the damage negation penalty. But in ER, since damage reduction actually matters a LOT, the Soreseal isn't just free stats anymore, it has a real downside to it. Same thing with ER's equivalent of the Carthus Milkring. Speaking of damage negation, yeah it matters, it matters quite a lot. You were talking about how bosses lategame kill in just 3 or 4 hits, but that's not true at all if you've got decently heavy armor and the Dragoncrest Shield or Dragoncrest Greatshield talismans. There's another aspect to that too, which is Vigor. Everyone is rolling around with like 25 or 40 Vigor because that's what worked in DS3, but it's absolutely not what ER is intending you to have. 25 VIG in 3 is more like 40 in ER, and similarly 40 in 3 is more like 60 in ER. Just 20-40 like what, roughly doubles your HP? and 40-60 is another 500 or so HP on top of that, for a total of 1900, which you can only reach in 3 by leveling VIG all the way to 99.
So no, I don't think it's a matter of ER actually being significantly harder, I think it's a matter of people needing to adjust to the game. And maybe people who played a lot of DS3 in the intervening years waiting for ER are going to have a harder time adopting to that then more casual players like myself, who don't have DS3's specific timings and quirks committed to memory - certainly we see that trend reflected in reviews of ER, where for the most part more casual players think the game is generally easier than more dedicated Souls fans do.
many delayed attacks are a window to attack, so this guy (and some others) saying that bosses don't have attack windows is bullshit lol and on top of that ER has a posture system, so every time you break enemy's posture, it's like 2 big windows to attack and for some of the bosses in this game, you are going to break their posture a significant amount of times
@@ehrtdaz7186 it mostly depends which weapon your using to punish delays since the big weapons do be slow af boi
@@wodandelaat1224 i mean yes, obviously, but even with greatswords you can attack pretty frequently
Some ppl doesn't like relearning game mechanics that they seems familiar with which results to ppl complaining about it and comparing it to the previous game with the similar mechanic.
Personally like the kind of gameplay compared to the darksouls series. Makes you feel alot more engage in the fight rather than just memorizing moveset. ER Isn't DS is probably the most app. thing to said about most ppl who likes to compared combat mechanic with each other.
Can you post a video for what you are describing for malenia??? I freaking swear. Every single waterfowl defender has some different BS "super easy I swear the move is fair to melee only builds" counter but I have yet to see a genuine one that isn't freezing pots. The first hit is the only problem the second and third are fine.
Just wait for the dlc evergaol.. everjail? Were we get meloenia and mroohg lord of glutes in a duel fight
(Dont say they're above it just look at godefroy)XD
Great video. There's much here I agree with... However, a certain critique I'm seeing more and more lately is about enemies having delayed attacks and extended wind ups and I'm having a hard time understanding why it's an issue. I don't see this as a problem at all and, at least for me, it puts me in this rewarding sweet spot of actively avoiding impulse panic rolls. I just really like the feeling of being there in the danger zone and having go against my gut reaction to roll and wait for the right time to dodge out. This game more than any other Soulborne game has a huge variety of timings for different moves. And again at least for me, it has been a lot of fun learning each and every one.
In order to learn a wind up you need to get hit. I don't mind this forced type of death of a boss has 1 or 2 wind ups like in dark souls 3, but when every the majority of elden ring boss hits are wind ups then you have to die or get hit a lot to memorize the timing.
I prefer it when the majority of attacks can be dodged intuitively with a few wind up attacks. That's how dark souls 3 bosses are.
Tl;Dr I like wind up attacks but Elden ring has waaay too many.
The issue is when every boss has the same gimmick, they blend into each other. And they all become a nuisance rather than an exciting challenge. And delayed attacks is just the cherry on top of the issues ER bosses have.
I agree with you on this,the delays make you play more intuitive instead of memorizing everything to death,which is fun and more real and organic to me. The problem for me is their damage output and that they give you so few attack windows.
@@ectoplasma5 It's the opposite. Delayed attacks are *less* intuitive and force you to rely on memory more.
@@burgerkingas7027 how to intuitively dodge slow windups: don't dodge on the windup, react to their body/feet as they step forward to finally attack. Champion gundyr taught us this. The attacks aren't so fast that you can't react to them.
I owuld fucking refund this bullshit expensive game but can't holy sthi it looks so good i was so hyped but these mechanics are jsut fukcing bad
Its the natural end point of Fromsofts race to keep the game "challenging". Each game they crank up damage input, and make enemy animations more spazzy and fast.
You do that long enough, and you get Elden Ring, where half the bosses are just blurs that 1-2 hit you.
The problem is ofc is at that point its not so much a challenge as it is just bullshit, and in order to make it playable, they then cranked up the PLAYERS damage output.
So now everything is over in a few seconds..... how dull.
The issue is they are trying to keep it hard for veterans rather than all the new people who (whether they enjoy the playstyle or not) are channeled down easier paths. I saw it described as people playing two separate games, you have vets doing their usual thing (or people who find melee fun) and those who have been channeled to magic, spirits and cheese.
They have separate experiences, but the Soulsborne series was meant to equalize the experience. Everyone got kicked in the teeth by SOMETHING and had fun doing. But people who take the easier path aren't allowed this, and just become frustrated when a fight does smack them hard. So you have people who are satisfied and happy and others who are just glad its over.
[There is more nuance, but these are the most opposed groups of players]
There isn't a unifying experience in the community, barring maybe Malenia and Godskin Duo.
In Dark Souls, I can say O+S, Gwyn, Artorias, Manus, Bed (shivers), etc whooped my ass and people would agree, others would make suggestions and the ironic 'git gud' would be said.
Same in DS3, Bloodborne and Sekiro
I can't really speak on Demon's Souls or DS2 as I haven't played them.
Eldin Ring lacks this thread of commonality between players.
1st half of the game is wonderful but the 2nd is a mess, the game is very inconsistent in its quality
Prior to ER, I felt that the Orphan of Kos was by far the hardest FromSoft boss. I replayed BB after my first play through of ER and I died to Orphan once, and it was because I was playing greedy and stupid. I honestly cannot believe how much ER bosses have trivialized the bosses from previous games in terms of difficulty (playing solo with no summons).
I was stuck at midir ng2+ two years ago
replayed the old safe after eldenring
Gael and midir were a cakewalk
There are a lot of things you can say, but in short i feel you could say that Elden Ring is designed to make you feel like shit for trying to play classical Dark Souls style
Playing through dark souls 3 on a low soul level is one of the most fun and rewarding ways to play the game. Elden ring definitely has moments that are excellent on low soul level. But then some bosses that are just frankly ridiculous and just feel like they have been put in the game for no other reason than to wear down the player.
Elden Ring is considerably longer than any other Fromsoft game so it's obvious it would be way harder on sl1. Yes, many attacks will one shot a level 1 character in ER, but if the late game bosses did not deal that amount of damage, they would be way too easy since a properly leveled character will have 4 or 5 times the max hp of a lvl 1 character. Not to mention that ER has many tools to reduce damage like that one wondrous physick and the multitude of defensive talismans. On my level 1 run I didn't even find myself getting one shot by anything except the biggest attacks of late game bosses.
In the next game, FromSoft is gonna make permadeath normal and the fanbois are going to be praising that as well
13:12 I hope that next time From come up with new combat mechanics ala Bloodborne or Sekiro. Basing the game on DS3 obviously is what allowed From to generate enough content to fill this open world. However I feel this approach is the reason the encounters in Elden Ring aren't as much fun. The DS3 combat system really can't be pushed much further, whilst maintaining a satisfying way of defeating bosses that isn't just cheesing with summons or tedious combo baiting.
The bosses are just way to broken the combos they sometimes do are pretty much impossible to dodge sometimes
Agree. Despite being such a great game, the bosses are the biggest issue, which is weird all things considered. I'm hyped about whatever great overhaul mods come out in a year
Elden Ring will be the first souls mod that is made famous for making the bosses easier rather than harder haha.
God i hate the elden beast star, it last for waaaaayy to long and its way to much to handle when u have to focus on that and 2 other attacks he has coming at u then as soon as u get close enough to it the boss just moves across the entire arena..
For real :(
It's pretty bad for your game when someone who can RL1 your game complains it's too hard.
There is a reason there are thousands of rage quit videos about Radahn and Malenia and Elden Beast.
I died to Covetus Demon in DS2 and I don't think it's too hard lmao (except Malenia)
I find it amusing how ripostes do virtually no damage.
There's a threshold of difficulty that makes it fun imo. If they wanna make a boss only beatable when perfect. Then they need to have a practice bosses for certain mechanics. Radagon for me is the best boss fight, then Malenia if you remove the weapon art bs move. Out of all the moves in the game, that move is the least practicable. Idk how other people mastered it. Props to them, but i literally couldn't. She does it and i just die without knowing wtf happened.
You dodge an attack, but every boss has the attack speed of 3 attacks a second. So you dodge once and they hit you immediately after with no chance of dodging that. And you get sneezed at and stunlocked, so that one attack essentially kills you. It’s just bad game design simple as that
100% agree with all your points. And it's definitely valuable to have someone who can prove they've done the whole game RL1 to say it.
The bosses are a real problem, because they are what keep me coming back to DS3 over and over again. When I consider doing another Elden Ring run, I just... don't want to. I'm not excited to fight any of the bosses. Even after 10+ runs of DS3 I'm hyped for basically all of the bosses except Deacons and Wolnir.
I don't think this game is gonna age as well and stay a background presence for a cheeky run here and there over the years as DS1 and 3 do.
The ringed city and ashes of ariandle bring me back to Dark Souls 3 every time. Such great but hard bosses that feel good to beat every time.
@@feebleking21 friede is probably the fastest boss in ds 3 and shes a bit to fast for that game in phase 3 imo (still a great boss but a few more openings would be nice). in elden ring even bosses that are relatively slow (maliketh feels kinda slow to me, because he doesnt swing his sword 3 times a second), but he has less openings than friede.
Having played souls-likes since 2015 with Bloodborne I can safely say Elden Ring was a bit too hard. Bosses endless attack combos due to infinite stamina, undodgeable attacks (example: Margit’s double dagger slash), enemies dodging backwards just to annoy you (Bloodhound knight), excessive use of delayed attacks and of course too much damage late game really, I guess you can say, tarnished this game. People saying it’s greatest of all time are simply finding ways to cope with the fact From Software is going downhill. Sad!
There's such a huge unbalanced damage spike to were even having 65vig is still a joke
let me sum up: you follow rules, they dont. plus the game is pricey! level up, upgrade shit, and so on...
So I'm new to the whole genre, and what you said about the crusible knights really related to me. Most of the times I've encountered them they feel tougher than some of the bosses in the game.
Crucible knight can rot in a special place in hell.
I beat Mohg yesterday! Feels good!
Well i feel like the game is easier when started playing it compared to DS3 tbh because after DS3 we played Sekiro which has faster base fights with perfectly timed deflects this is what prepared most of the people for ER gameplay. And for the series fans they looking at it as easy cause of the played the series too much they remember the boss moves faster than other players which made it easier for them to play
So what I get out of this video is, it's not hard like the title says it's " just boring" or not that fun.
Yeah basically. Well it is hard, just in a way I dislike
I've beaten this game twice one with an OP faith build and then with a full melee build on my second run forcing me to learn the mechanics more. I can fully say that I legit had way more fun with my faith build. I personally like stating off weak and getting stronger and stronger as I progress until I become a boss myself.
The boss mechanics aren't suited for a normal melee build like other souls games.
@@feebleking21 they are, you just don't seem to got them. No shame on it. I was stuck on DS3 gameplay mentality until Malenia forced me to learn the new boss logic after beaten her a couple of times solo
@@jimmayorga1863 it's somewhat ignorant to tell me that I don't understand boss logic while I am doing level 1 no hit no weapon art runs on Malenia. ua-cam.com/video/E9RkNGv_PCk/v-deo.html
I don't like the way I have to play, but I can still do it.
@@feebleking21 and? You can beat the bosses waiting a couple of punishable moves, that doesn't mean the bosses have more. I'm doing a no hit Malenia as a wretch, trust me, Malenia has a lot more openings than you think, you just have to keep in mind rolling direction against her, specially her, because she gets staggered after every hit.
@@jimmayorga1863 It's not that he doesn't "get" boss mechanics, it's just ridiculously sadistic and unnecessary to force players to bait attack patterns to be able to even hit them once.
I've nearly beat Elden Ring. Not 100%, but I've made sure to do all the notable bosses I can reach so far.
I'm playing without no magic, no buffs, just using 2 Godrick's axes.
I really don't think it's too hard. Delayed attacks are rough, yeah, but then so is any attack in any game until you know the timing of it.
The only hard part is the horse combat, because it sucks ass, and a menu popping up asking if you want to revive your horse, THAT PREVENTS YOU FROM DODGE ROLLING WHILE IT IS OPEN, is stupid.
It might be hard if you run to an area that demands near perfection to survive, but you could easily throw that argument towards DS1 catacombs as well.
The gigantic bosses and dragons are all just crapshoots though.
It does feel like everything after Radan is kinda designed around cheeseing the boss. Radan is unbelieveably difficult (at least was for me) with a melee build but with a magic build it was almost too easy. That kind of feels like bad design to me. I did think Margit was fun, though with a melee build, although I was a bit overleveled as I was just digging exploring.
Both Margit and Radan are trying to teach a lesson that everyone just ignored, for Margit you were supposed to use heavies to stun him and then crit strike. Radan teaches you to use every item at your disposal (THAT INCLUDES SUMMONS FOR TAKING AGGRO FOR YOU)
@@BPdoggo Summons make the fight worse. His spastic movements mixed with his large size makes his animations really hard to judge when he's targeting multiple enemies. Sometimes mid-combo he would change target to me which would very likely get me killed. Flat out not a great boss. Far too quick for his size.
If you like playing chess against an NSA powered computer, then this game is for you. Otherwise seek fun elsewhere. Your comment regarding the number of spells that lock onto you and the distant positioning of the final boss is spot on. Play video games for fun not frustration.
Loved every bit of the difficulty. Yeah Melania gave me the most stress I've ever felt from a single player game, but the feeling I got from beating her was something I haven't felt in well over a decade. Also I disagree with everyone asking for a difficulty slider, might be selfish but I probably wouldn't have had the will to keep my difficulty at its original setting. I feel like I would've robbed myself of the feeling of victory if I had the ability.
I agree with you malenia is so cool
This game is too freaking hard to beat,this game tops all of the Ghosts and Goblin games. I really wished I looked into the reviews,and the gameplay before buying this fifty dollar b s of a game. There should be a difficulty setting in the game,like for real. Some of the bosses,and enemies are easy,but some of them are really really frustrating,and the game will ruin the day for you. If you die in a cave boss fight,that's some b s because all of your ruin/money is in that cave boss section in order to buy new stuff or upgrade your stuff,so your being forced to fight. Or how about you accidentally hit the friendly people,they will keep attacking you if you get near them. I love the creativity of the design of all of the bosses,and the enemies,but i'm done with this game.
I’m making my way towards the end of the game in my first play through and this all feels so real. Some of the fights have been so uncharacteristically difficult and incongruent with other mechanics and rhythms that the game pounds into you everywhere else. This is my first time in a fromsoftware game and some of the design choices are really confusing
If you summon and cheese, you don't truly expierience that "boss mechanic" ...
Yep! I don't coz i don't whant to lean in this game. Late game bosses is stooooopid. I don't want to learn how to beat Fire Giant. This guy threeshot me, and have healthpool of a mountain. And i realy do not what to spend any time to learn how to kill him properly. Its painfully boring. Mimic and bleed lazy enough for this lazy boss. Same for many-many-many... 60-70% of this game. Bosses sorta ADHD damage machines with giant healthpools. I foced to wait alot until they have mercy and let me to engage... to land little damage and wait again.
This is opposite of bosses was in every game in this series, and i hate it.
I remember how i was learning dancer in ds3 for 1lvl run. This was amazing, Frustraiting at first, but cathartic afterwards. I was able to beat her at any level and condition amd feel stylish and cool in prossses. In elden ring i find myself just trying to find most OP method to skip as many bosses as possible.
0:33 only thirty seconds in and this is the most Chad shit I've heard today lmao I'm so sick of people countering complaints with "well you're just bad"
The lengths you have to go to to be able to criticize a dark souls boss is extreme lol.
Luckily I'm just the sort of guy to have fun memorizing boss patterns, so I felt like I was able to call fromsoft out on some of the dumb shit they did to artificially inflate the difficultly.
They focused too much on difficulty and not enough on fun boss mechanics. I really didn’t like Elden Ring. I quit playing after I beat Margott. The game just hasn’t managed to match Bloodborne and Sekiro, imo. Those are the greatest games FromSoft has ever made.
All valid points. But please don't use Nameless King's name with Elden Ring bosses. He is above such trash except maybe pre nerf Radahn.
Nameless King had delays but his attacks had rhyme which you could dance with. Also he didn't have infinite stamina cheat.
I agree, nameless king had delays but is not like Elden Ring bosses because he doesn't have infinite stamina combos.
Nameless king has one hard thing about him that stood out which were delayed attacks, and Elden Ring bosses are all nameless king delays combined with a bunch of other crap was sort of the point I was trying to get at.
This comment right here, Nameless is a pretty legendary fight and to many people call the fight bs when it is not.
As someone who gave up in Darksouls 1 cos I was bad and found it too hard I’m 250 hours into Elden Ring actively making it last as long as possible! I’m finding it quite easy in parts but I am playing a mage
Once I 100% Elden Ring I had this opinion that stuck with me since Margit on the day of release "Jesus fucking christ this boss is bullshit why is he so difficult"
And I agreed with your standing point that every boss feels like the nameless king, but I couldn't tell if I was wrong or if I was getting worse but then I went back to play dark souls 3, another game I 100% and I had such a blast playing that game again because I had forgotten every moveset from a lot of the bosses and had to replay another character to get that "from nothing to everything" feel and it was really good. The bosses make up everything to me when it comes to a From Software souls game, everything builds up to the bosses at the end of the day, and when the bosses aren't fun, the run isn't fun, the build isn't fun, and the game isn't motivating me to do something I want.
My end goal for another run of DS3 was to fight SKG, my favorite boss of all time, and I put 25 hours into that character before fighting him, and to balance the fight I used shitty weapons. But the whole character was a strength build so I made sure to use a dex weapon. It was easily much more fun than Elden Rings first playthrough.
Elden Ring succeeds the feeling of accomplishment for the sacrifice of fun, and I remember you saying that is the other review and it stuck with me because when I saw (Spoilers) the roundtable burn it felt strange, seeing the Smith lose his memory, and almost everyone was dead, but that feeling never hit again after my first playthrough.
Dark Souls 3 allowed me to have fun with each boss fight ahead, even if it was more linear I knew what tk expect. The game still kicked my ass when it came to places like the farron keep and the demon ruins lol.
Unless Elden Ring gets DLC. I won't be playing the game again. I already sunken 150 hours and I don't want to spend another playing the cancerous and bleed broken pvp.
Just so you know, the amount of hours of research I had to put into the game to understand where I was and what to do made my experience infuriating. After I best the fire giant (boring ass boss fight) I light the site of grace on top of the big bowl but didn't know there was an option to talk to the maiden, and I had spent hours and days not knowing what to do until I finally researched it and was like "they couldnt just unlock this option for any site of grace?" I understand it was for the cinematic shot but they couldve just teleported me to a specific location to get that same cutscene.
Elden Ring was a mess of progression that felt satisfying to beat, but was unfun for the long run, and I'd rather stick to linear and fun progression rather than a messy string of side quest thag YOU HAVE TO LOOK UP again. (It's universal for all souls games. But they should've done something about it for Elden Ring)
This was a good read! And I agree that Dark Souls 3 bosses keep me coming back whereas Elden Ring bosses keep me away.
I didn't mind Elden Ring telling me very little as I never got hardstuck, but I could imagine that it's very possible to have a much different experience than me if you miss a big thing like talking to Malenia at the fire bowl area, since everything is pretty easy to miss, but that's also a part of the charm of Elden Ring is how much the world feels like it isn't a video game and doesn't tell you what to do.
@@feebleking21 I still had a blast exploring locations and several different builds in just my first playthrough alone, but bleed builds fuck up all of my pvp experiences and don't even get me started with summons who one shot bosses.
My favorite fight in the game is Radahn.
Summons, everywhere, it's one big battle of npcs versus one big ass dude who shoots himself up into the sky and crashes down like a meteor. The playground is beautiful the music is badass, and he rides a tiny horse because of gravity magic???
The amount of stuff you can do in Elden Ring is undeniably high as hell.
But the endgame being the bosses, I tend to just want to get it over with, and once I 100% the game I thought pvp would've been a good time to spend, but Jesus fucking christ I was wrong when I got hit by three little tiny swords above some dudes should've and my vigor was at 75 and I got one shotted.
I looked it up and turns out it's a glitch you can do with a specific ash of war, I did it, and it deleted people. It's unfair, unfun, funny as hell first time around but in the long run I couldn't see myself getting beat by the same bleed builds and having to respec my entire build just because I got my ass kicked once.
@@feebleking21 currently playing pvp in dark souls 3 as my newest character.
It's always been shit lol, you got one guy who force back stabs like hell, the guys who never help, the broken net code ect.
I never have fun pvping in these games, and even when I win it doesn't give me the incentive to play more. It's to me a small gimic to prevent some people progressing faster than others.
@@moboatz pvp has never been the focus for fromsoft, but I still think Dark Souls 3 pvp is the most balanced in the series even if its still unbalanced. At least its playable most of the time, whereas Elden Ring pvp is unplayable for me because the balance is that bad.
@@feebleking21 so I'm getting better as Ds3 pvp. And I'm having a whole lot more fun on this game than I ever did on elden rings pvp.
Like you said it's not heavily focused, but it's a part of the experience I think should be looked into more carefully.
I won't be playing ER again unless it has DLC, I have no reason to especially since the world is so big and I'll have to research everything again.
I did this with previous souls games before but because everything's so spread out I won't rememebr everything
Trust me! This game is not too hard. I'm new to "souls" games and I beat the game. However, I did use some unorthodox techniques to get to that point. Nothing illegal, no mods, or anything that isn't allowed. The first thing I did after reaching level 74. I realized the only thing holding me back was the extremely slow leveling system. I realized for me, that Runes were the key. Losing tons of runes upon death and then not being able to reach them before dying again was just too much for me. So i decided to start trying to get some co-op help. After joining several Facebook groups, talking, and meeting a ton of good people and players, I was able to get my hands on A LOT of Runes. Enough to make me be able to use anything I came across and losing runes upon death was not that big of a deal. The second thing I did was use the Mimic during the boss fights once I acquired it.
Try fighting Melenia with colossal weapons, hyperarmor is really inconsistent.
Its not inconsistent, some of her attacks have hyper armor and some don't
@@buckyhurdle4776 so some attacks having hyper armor and some not having hyper armor IS consistent?
@@TheKillaShow The same attacks will always have hyper armor. Whether or not the attack has hyper armor isn't random.
@@TheKillaShow for example, everytime after she jumps left she can be staggered.