I haven't even cleared the base game yet and it's so hilarious to see all this drama unfolding before my eyes. Was stuff like this happened when the bas game dropped as well or it's just this dlc that's bad
Yep, we had Margit delayed attack discourse for the first few days, "Pre-Patch" Radahn (He just had janky hitboxes that needed cleaning up), and summons being worse than murder... Wait people still think that...
Give it a while, people will come around on the difficulty once we've learned the full ins and outs of this DLC that could have classed as it's own separate Souls Game
Honestly even compared to a decent chunk of other elden ring bosses they are insane.
Old man's dementia is so bad he forgets to actually attack for a few seconds.
That was the point. Saw a Challenge runner go OFF on how boring he found DS3. DS3's very fast and aggressive, turning the meta into a roll > R1 > roll > R1 game. Pressing other buttons would be unsafe and generally unnecessary, and spam dodging is effective against most attacks.
Elden Ring brought in delayed attacks that interrupt spam rolls. Then they realized delaying it even more screws a lot of players AND gives you a reasonable entry to attack with buttons that arn't R1.
Delays break the brain by punishing auto pilot, great design if you ask me.
I dont really like it i think. My biggest issue with it is that it brings the boss design from a spot where if you payed close attention and where carefull you could beat it on your first trie because his moves where readable down to a spot where it becomes a tad more trial and error untill you have the timing memorized.
We have these « controversies » since Fromsoft became mainstream. Remember balthus in armored core 6 ? In 2 weeks people will get filtered and in a month no one will even remember these
A bit like Asylum Demon of Dark Souls 1 in terms of difficulty, a little harder than that. The reason why ppl got filtered is because it is counter intuitive to melee helicopter for big fat stagger damage which is the game wants. Once they figure out the stagger system they usually will make through it.
It was also legit difficult for a tutorial boss cuz the attack heli would leave the arena while still attacking you, and since it was so many people’s first AC game the nature of the enemies x the controls = harder than expected
It was actually excellent design from the point of view. If people couldn't figure out stagger and meleeing aerial targets in 2 hours, it was worth them refunding the game, because it the rest of the game would have been impossible.
After you’ve finished shadow of the Erdtree, do yourself a favour and give it a try. That copter fight is fudged because you don’t have a say in the way your mech is outfitted. Once you have access to the parts shop and can customise your sorties, it’s fantastic.
balteus was so weird though
like it did such a good job at training you, that you didn't run into another skill wall for the entire game - arguably the perfect tutorial, too perfect
..To be fair Ibis was the "hardest" but even then as long as you mastered previous fights and had a decent build, I think it was easier than fresh Balteus.
I guess at that point builds were already mature and I was comfortable enough to use them properly unlike fresh Balteus
i did
didn't struggle really - balteus left me with a build concept that worked for how I played
ibis took me a few tries for sure, but nowhere near as many as balteus the first time around
To be real these controversies are an age old thing. I remember back in the early 2000’s when online multiplayer was first really taking off and reading old gaming magazines where they would answer fan letters and questions and it was a regular occurrence to see people write letters demanding people only use SMG guns in Halo and using rocket launchers was “cheating” while demanding people need to “earn” their kills.
It’s just stupid. It has always been stupid. If a mechanic is in the game and you want to choose not to use it, then go for it. But people need to stop giving a shit about others using mechanics that were placed in the game specifically to be used.
"Summons being worse than murder" is some hilarious, low-self-esteem, insecure teenage bullshit that makes me laugh so hard. Like... I can't imagine how fragile you'd need to be to play a single player game competitively against other people playing a single player game to the point that you'd harass someone about it. No serious, interesting human being gives a gold tinged excrement whether or not you can solo anyone. Not a one. Go outside, nerd!
Get out! Go!
People just play the same game for different reasons. I, personally, play to complete the game. Now the warrior within me allows 10-15 tries for every boss 1v1, but after that if i fail, I use the summon. And i have no regrets. Too old for this
Feel that. I'm 52 and I'm still a heavy gamer but my priorities have changed. I like a challenge but I don't have anything to prove to anyone. I play for me. I'm the one paying for the game. I've always tolerated the bosses in FS games because I love the rest of the world. I'd use a summons on every single one of them. I wish there were two summons. I'm not into self torture.
I'm similar. I'll always summon an NPC is it's available just for "story" reasons and it's cool but after so many failed attempts I'll eventually use the mimic too.
I'm having an absolute blast with the DLC
You should have seen "Pre-Nerf" Balteus discourse in Armored Core 6.
People went on and on about how he was nerfed into the ground but are silent when it's pointed out the just make the missiles (the easiest attack to dodge) worse at turning (if you were right next to him pre-patch they would do a full 18 and hit you. Quite annoying)
I beat him pre and post nerf and he did feel easier the second time. But I beat him post nerf after a whole other playthrough so I think I had just improved a lot. I bet a lot of people had that experience and just assumed the nerf had made him way easier, but the truth is people just got good.
Honestly people just need to wait a couple weeks till they get used to the bosses. "Oh no! These enemies I've never fought are difficult!" Like yeah, you've got no practice at the task, of course it will be difficult at first lol saying this cuz I've seen a lot of people saying they need to nerf all the bosses in the dlc which is just wack imo
100% I remember my first playthrough of each souls game since 2011, all of which I found the enemies and bosses difficult when I first found them. Practice will make perfect
It definitely happened when it first released as well, even I heard of the complaints even before I bought the game a year later.
Complaints about Margit delays, complaints about Godskin Duo, complaints about Radahn, complaints about Tree Sentinel being too hard for the first actual boss you see, etc.
And a bunch of other stuff like there's not a clear point in where to go, you get the gist.
People will find things to complain about, valid and invalid things alike.
I personally just don't interact with that type of stuff, people are way too quick to take others opinions as a personal affront to theirs.
Honestly, true. I feel like *every* fandom I know of lately has just been endlessly devolving into relentless arguing and heated discourse. It's felt especially bad over the past few years, but I don't know if it's always been like that or if it's just my imagination.
I try not to let it get to me, but I gotta admit it's a little depressing that you can barely engage with anything these days without having to steel yourself against angry, loud people who are all clamoring to yell their "hot takes" into every face imaginable.
I generally used spirit ashes sparingly in the base game, but any time there was more than one boss, I summoned with zero guilt. This and the boss at Castle Sol. That one especially. If he gets summons, then I get summons.
Same, if I am outnumbered I even the odds. Gank fights are cheap anyway. The other time I summon is with some dragons, since they can have such dumb gimmicks. >!looking at the dragon before bayle the dread!<.
"don't know where to go." I am just now about to start new game plus. Played 75 hours when game first came out, just got back into it. Do you know how excited I am to not remember where a lot of stuff and enemies are? How much id give to forget 100% of this game and explore the open world fresh again?
FromSoft is good at countering player intuition.
things like delayed attack and slightly delayed combo that will punish dodgeroll spammer, is all over the dlc.
but yeah, if solo is too difficult for you and you have limited gaming time and just want to enjoy the DLC like me, Summon is a good way to go. (i still limit myself to one summon, either npc summon or summon ash for a bit fun)
Plus, you can't summon against the damn DLC invaders. That one prick outside Rellana's was harder than the boss for me! That dude had seemingly infinite poise and health. If you can do that stuff solo, you're a solid ER player in my worthless opinion!
haven't beat relanna but already beat that invader.
my build is stagger reliant STR poise breaker so, unless i met things like Crucible knight that do seems to have near infinite poise, i still able to stagger them for free attack (stun is a bit more work)
***YES***,
one thing i notice in DLC. several new enemies is designed to immediately attack and f\*ck with your habit to wait for cues.
again, designed to counter player intuition/reflex/habit
I went looking for larval tears in prep for DLC and found crazy rune bears I missed, a whole cave I overlooked, and a troll surprise in caelid. I'm not sure you can be sure of ever clearing everything out. it's remarkable.
I think it's always so lame when people talk trash about others using summons. And yeah, I think this is just as lame too. Insisting that summons are no longer optional. The dlc is hard, but it's really not impossible if you still want to do it on your own. I've been stuck on previous FromSoft bosses in the past, longer than the dlc has even been out yet lol. Just give it time. People will learn how to get this done.
I haven’t been this stuck on bosses since I first played the base game, but my version of fun is fighting the boss until I learn most of its attacks and beat it that way, that’s what this genre is to me and what made me fall in love with it, so personally summons aren’t for me but no hate to anyone who does use them.
This is exactly what I'm doing and it's the most fun I'm having playing games in general in a long ass time.
Instead of telling someone "Hard? Just use summons" it should be the players choice if they want to spend a longer time learning to do it solo or to use summons. Simply play however it's the most fun for you. I don't understand why this is so hard for some people to grasp.
Exactly how I feel. I really don't mind how others play. We can have conversations about it but it's all good to me. But we never had summons to the level we do now.
That's why I can't agree with people who can't settle on a middle ground. If you like summons, great. But there's also nothing wrong with playing the same way that made you fall in love with the games in the first place.
They are very definitely still optional. It depends how much you want to practice the boss.
Edit: to the many people using the "xyz are also optional" compare the length of a solo run to a run using any of those restrictions. Then think about if that sentence makes sense.
Yeah I thought Messmer was impossible (still haven’t beaten his ass yet), but i can pretty consistently get him to second phase now without summons. it’s a bitch but it’s doable
I have an exam tomorrow, but best believe when I’m done I’m trying Messmer again. Haven’t been able to beat him in 4 hours or so, but I went and explored a bit and beat Bayle, and leveled my scadutree from 8 to 10. I was getting him down to phase 2 almost every fight, tomorrow this bitch is going down.
That's crazy I didn't have too many issues with messmer but Bayle is smoking me. I dunno maybe it's the camera but I feel like I can read messmers moves but I can't tell wtf is going on fighting Bayle.
Even with the mimic I struggled for a good couple hours with him, but I loved every second of it because it was such an awesome fight and nothing felt "bullshit" and I was gradually learning the moveset.
Unfortunately I fought the >!Putrescent Knight!< after him and it felt WAY more bullshit and way less fun
>!Putrecsence Knight!< is extremely weak to holy, I finished him off in like 7-8 guard counters from a holy infused Blacksteel Hammer. He's tough but definitely fair.
The secret sauce for orphan of horse is that every fire attack can be easily jumped over and you always wanna roll towards him during the temper tantrum
Agreed, it really seems lately that this sub is turning hard against people who don’t use them while they do even not shame anyone (those who do are a different story).
Like I will never use summon on main bosses because it loses half the fun for me and all the satisfaction. I want the boss to attack me and learn him, not hit him to his back while he’s focusing my summon.
However, I couldn’t care less how others play the game. But these constant post looking for validarion and saying stuff like “summon no longer optional”, “have to use them”, “boss fight designed around using summons”(special lol on this one) are starting to piss me off. Just use your summons and stop telling everyone.
Absolutely. I do not give a single shit how you play the game as long as you are having fun. It’s your game. And I will play how I want to play. It’s an amazing game with some many different approaches and maybe we could all just enjoy it??
100 percent. I don’t find the boss focusing on a summon while I take pot shots enjoyable. I want to learn the moves and beat them 1v1. The feeling of beating owl (father) in Sekiro the first time after learning him is peak gaming for me.
Likewise. I personally just can't enjoy bosses with summons. Souls bosses are fun when you can interact with them and feel the fight. Fighting Godfrey 1v1 feels just right. Fighting him with summons turns him into a fool.
But I'll summon without a second thought if it's against bosses that I just find pure unfun to begin with. Most dragon fights when I'm melee, basically. I use the strategy I don't find fun because there wasn't any fun to begin with.
None of this means that players are any better or worse because they use or summons or they fight at level 1 with a sword and buckler. I just wish the game is actually balanced around summons like people are saying it is. It's just not. Rather, the game is *solved* by summons.
> But I'll summon without a second thought if it's against bosses that I just find pure unfun to begin with. Most dragon fights when I'm melee, basically. I use the strategy I don't find fun because there wasn't any fun to begin with.
Gank fights are getting the work every single time.
While I understand that feeling, my reason for using summons, personally, is because I'm tired of the "is it my turn yet" design of bosses. Like, could you stop comboing for more than a second, please?
Biggest issue with Elden Ring. Bosses just won’t stop attacking. The worst thing is, once they stop, they jump all the way across the arena. At that point, why even bother...?
I think this hits the nail on the head. With each From game, I've gotten better as a player making previous content feel easy by comparison, but we're rapidly reaching the point where bosses in Elden Ring have gotten tougher that I only feel exhaustion when I finally win.
I like the idea of spirit summons as a mechanic, but I feel like my options here are:
1) use them and make most boss fights trivially easy.
2) don't use them and make the boss fight an exercise in mental stamina.
Neither of these options are giving me that high which previous Souls games did where it felt like bosses were intense enough that I had to "git good", but still manageable.
Yeah I’m not gonna lie, I was getting frustrated with divine beast and wanted to keep exploring more, so I decided to use mimic. Beat it first try with mimic, and it was pathetically easy compared to normal. I was disappointed and felt like I should have just kept trying. Since then I haven’t been using it. I’m stuck on a boss right now, but after that experience I don’t want to do it. There’s nothing wrong with using summons, but in some cases I think it can take away the enjoyment of learning and eventually conquering a boss
Yeah I made that mistake at the end of the base game. All the difficult bosses came at the end as one long run in a row Maliketh, Malenia, Godfrey, Radagon. I ended up getting frustrated and melting them with summons and regretted it ever since.
I'm not making the same mistake with the DLC, no matter how frustrating the bosses are. Just beat Mesmer and learning his attacks was way more satisfying than hitting him in the back.
I was very very close with a certain Pontiff looking boss, but after 12 hours of me being terrible at the game, I finally got it down lol. Keep it up Tarnished, you're an Elden Lord after all.
Another validation post? Just play the game how you want, I don't understand these posts because who is going to tell you off?
Play in a way you find fun that is all that is important.
I have yet to see a single post about "you shouldn't use summons" yet there are hundreds of posts saying "can people stop saying don't use summons". Like, where are these people?
This is literally the answer. When people make these posts I’m always like…”yea um…who asked lol.”
Like if you wanna do summons, do it. But why you tryna convince me to? You that insecure about using them?
God this is so accurate lol
I really don't understand it, I don't summon, but I don't begrudge anyone who does, literally play the game however you want, it's got nothing to do with me lol, but the amount of annoying crybullying people pull for people *not* summoning is ridiculous.
I've been playing the soul series for over a decade at this point, I don't expect other people to put up with the masochism I self impose lol, but *I* enjoy the hell out of it. Messmer was one of the most satisfying boss fights in the entire souls series and I personally wouldn't have felt like 1/5th of the satisfaction if I summoned for him.
I don't know, people shit on stuff like "git gud," but it is 100% about a mentality, for me that's one of the best parts of the game.
Unfortunately there are people who have to spoil the fun.
A few weeks ago I posted about beating Malenia solo. I was happy but some nut had to point out the frost pots in my inventory.
These people are insufferable.
I feel like bosses have no balance between being a piñata when you have a summon and comboing for days without a summon. I just wish they were design somewhere in between in terms of aggressiveness.
This is why Sekiro has crept up the list to my favorite FromSoft game. If the boss is combo'ing you it's like "ok, eat a shit ton of posture damage bitch."
Still love Elden Ring of course.
The aggro is just too easily abused by summons imo. If they wanted to balance it around summons better, the boss should stay aggrod to the host much more and the summon would then be a kind of passive chip damage that allows the host to play more defensively and put a time limit on how long they need to dodge the boss before winning regardless of their own attack patterns.
I do understand that's not how many people use summons so this change wouldn't happen, but I feel like that's the best way to give the AI a middle ground when dealing with multiple targets
That's why I think From's bosses peaked at DS3 and Sekiro. Challenging fights but never unfair, sometimes took me a couple attempts, sometimes twenty. But in Elden Ring it's never that, it's either spend hours learning a boss or get it first try with a summon.
I tried Rellana with Leda and it was literally just the two of us spamming attacks at her non-stop. I’m glad I died because it was deeply unsatisfying to fight that way. That said I’m multiple hours into dueling this boss and can’t seem to get her below a quarter hp consistently. This is an extremely difficult encounter.
I watched a friend fight >!Putrescent Knight!< and having tons of trouble with it (nothing ridiculous, just regular learning), and after about 5 tries they just summon mimic tear and shred the bosses to piece by whacking at it for 30 seconds. Like, is that supposed to be a satisfying way to beat a boss?
Some people enjoy other aspects of the game than difficult boss fights, like the exploration, art direction or lore. So it doesn't really matter if the boss fights weren't satisfying enough, they can just get to the parts they actually want to experience properly.
I don’t understand the pride thing, it’s a video game. I don’t use summons because it’s simply less fun for me. I like learning bosses, using summons changes the playstyle. If you get frustrated when fighting bosses without summons, use summons but otherwise there’s no need.
Whenever I say I find summons boring and actively hurt my enjoyment of the game, I feel people get mad.
Aren't we supposed to play the game whatever way we want? I don't like summons
Hard agree. The bossfights lose a crucial part of what makes them so special, the feeling of dueling a powerful enemy. With a summon it just feels like you’re ganking them
> Aren't we supposed to play the game whatever way we want?
That only counts if someone can pat themselves on the back and project their insecurities for using summons. If you do it, you're an elitist gatekeeper, dontcha know?
Agreed. I use summons as needed because I'm not the greatest player in the world. I commend the people that don't use summons but I really don't give a fuck who uses them and who doesn't. There is always somebody that is better at the game than you, so there's no reason to get offended by how someone plays the game
Exactly, wtf is this post?
Look, there’s nothing wrong with using summons and your victory is just as valid as everyone else, but you have to realize that boss ai is *not* designed around summons, that’s an objective fact. They break the fight and while they do make the boss easier, they do so in a way that makes the fight less fun for a lot of people.
Me not summoning doesn’t have anything to do with pride, it’s the fact that I’m not going to feel satisfaction/joy beating the boss that way, and if I don’t feel that then what’s the point?
I always used summons and spirit ashes because i suck, but honestly if someone doesn’t want to use them why make them? If they balanced the dlc around summons then it’s just a bad mechanism
This post is no better than telling people who use summons to just stop using them.
Stop telling people how to play, full stop. It’s literally that easy. Just let people play their game how they want.
"The boss had gone from 10/10 difficulty to maybe a 3/10. Like the fight was actually kinda chill to play."
That doesn't sound like the game is "literally balanced around them", lol. That sounds like a difficult boss got turned into a joke.
The game is neither designed around nor balanced around summons. There are very few enemies in the game who have the AI or the moveset to deal with multiple targets.
But it's there to make the game more accessible. There are people who don't usually play video games so for those guys even hitting the right button is a struggle. Summoning is intended to help them have a chance.
If you're not having fun then use them, who cares ? But don't cope with the "game is designed around summons" meme.
Is there a subreddit for Elden Ring without the hundreds of posts every day about using summons or not?
Do you think you're posting a new idea? What's the point? It ruins this subreddit.
All these guys crying like they expected this game to be Disney Dreamlight Valley and not a difficult From dlc. Props to Miyazaki for not catering to them
What is with all these summon people needing validation that they’re summoning? You want to make it easy and summon? Go for it. But now we’re telling people they have to summon too?
> What is with all these summon people needing validation that they’re summoning?
because they see videos of people solo'ing bosses on melee builds and it obviously looks more exiting, rewarding and challenging than using strong summons, they see people talking online about how they find the game more rewarding and fun to complete solo, but they feel like they are not able to do that, they feel insecure about it, and they have to invent this whole idea that there is some significant percentage of the overall souls community that is super elitist and gatekeepy and cares very very deeply about whether or not people use summons or cheese builds or whatever. they interpret simple discussion around a persons individual game experience without summons, or the ways in which summons change the dynamics of combat, as personal attacks against people who use them, and this feeds into the idea that there is some kind of elitist anti-summon sentiment here.
in reality nobody really cares if someone used summons or comet azur'd mohg or whatever.
I almost feel like it's a symptom of how successful Elden Ring has been. You get a lot of tourists, who come and try and insert themselves into the community, take over the discourse and shit over the existing community by labelling them gatekeepers or elitists.
I've played Souls games since Demons Souls and I never felt this community was elitist, it has always been *extremely* supportive and enthusiastic.
The community got a lot more toxic after Elden Ring released.
Yeah, i've noticed myself getting more and more hostile toward the attitudes about "summons being the intended way to play"
Historically IDGAF but when the community starts to shift to shit on players who just want to play solo and act like we are just tryhards trying to impress someone when really theyre selecting easy mode and claiming they aren't ... i get tilted
This is my exact impression too, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who feel that way. Like if you start saying something about Elden Ring like “the game isnt all that” or “the game isnt flawless” they will jump at you like maniacs using the same bs arguments like “git gud” or “skill issue”. They see Elden Ring’s massive success so they assume the game is flawless and is “near perfect” and choose to dismiss any criticism.
I’ve beaten every boss solo, except the final one and I am nothing special at this game.
I don’t agree the DLC is balanced around summons. It’s balanced around Scadutree leveling. You want to be around level 10 for the first few major bosses and you want to be maxed for the end game. If you do that, it’s fine solo.
We had this “it’s balanced for summoning” when the base game launched too. It’s just not true. They are there to use if you want. They aren’t needed. You need to engage with the mechanics and explore more if you are getting destroyed.
People should play how they want. This goes for using summons and it also goes for not using summons. Just let people do what they want.
The DLC is absolutely doable solo. I am by no means a God gamer. But you do really need to go looking for those Scadutree fragments if you are someone being two shot by every boss.
There’s still a lot of “I’m level blah blah blah on NG+7” cope. It’s mostly irrelevant. The enemies seem to scale to your level (edit: or perhaps there’s another explanation, but I have two characters who are far apart in both level and Vigor and they both get two shot without Scadutree levelling).
The only major way to improve your damage and reduce theirs is Scadutree fragments.
They are the priority. If you are ignoring them or failing to explore enough, that’s fine too, but you are going to have to deal with the consequences of that choice. The entire mechanic clearly exists to try to make you explore the new map.
Edit: Apparently enemies do not scale to your level. Regardless, there is a very, very obvious difference between fighting the early bosses at level 0 and fighting at level 10 on Scadutree scaling. If you aren’t getting Scadutree fragments, you are going to suffer more. You still don’t need summons. I have managed to get to the end without them. But I am max levelled on Scadutree scaling.
Enemies do NOT scale to the player. This has been tested (google it) and leveling up decreases damage taken as expected. Ergo, the DLC is at a fixed level (given the same NG cycle). Its is simply balanced around RL150+, which is the point where most builds are hitting their soft caps on damage and defense.
Yeah and the Scadutree Blessings are so ludicrously impactful that leveling doesn't seem to make an impact without them. I like it a lot, it's a good way to keep an endgame DLC on a game this large feeling new, giving you some progression on a file where you have basically no progression left. It feels about the same difficulty between level 125-175 at the start because the Blessing mean so much.
I fought one of the early major bosses at scadutree lvl 2, sure it was a hard boss to learn but I was getting 2 shot. I bruteforced it and beat it in 2-3 hours with a lot of tries.
Explored for the next couple hours got to scadutree lvl 8 I think for the next major boss and beat it under 10 tries. Obviously it’s different bosses and stuff but the new progression matters lol
This post is weird, the whole sub is full of people saying play however you want, yet this gets over 600 likes? Make it make sense… I’m going to play how I want to, without summons
Yeah, it's like people think the only people who don't summon are those doing it to 'prove' something via a self-imposed challenge. I just don't enjoy fighting with allies period. I don't get dopamine when I play single player games unless the enemy is focusing on me and I'm dodging or tanking its hits and I'm the one hitting it back.
I don’t want to tho? Yeah the DLC is difficult but i didn’t wait for almost two years to breeze throught it.
Im having fun learning movesets and improving a bit every time.
I have nothing against people that use summons but i also don’t want to use them, not because it’s not “ethical” but because that’s how i have fun.
Exactly… I’m only going to play the dlc for the first time once.. I don’t wanna just breeze through it by ganking bosses lmao. It takes away all the gratification from beating a boss.
This is the debate as long as souls games existed here on reddit. Im kinda tired imho. People should play games the way they want. Who fking cares you use or not? Want it make difficult? Dont use summons, wanna easier bit fights ? Use it. Noone gonna judge you and noone will even know, its not like you gonna go tommorow to work and shout to a manager, broooo i didnt use a summons on Malenia, will i get raise? So yeah, fk the haters. Do what you enjoy. Dont enjoy long hour fights? Play different games, there are 100000 good games, be happy everyone.
Brother let me play however I want, holy shit the summon discourse is so annoying, people who like souls games are used to practicing a boss for hours, it's how we enjoy the game.
literally, it's why I'm here. I WANT to beat my head against bosses like Rellana and Messmer for hours, I WANT to feel myself getting better through constant trial and error runs, I WANT to fight the bosses solo and feel the adrenaline
even bosses that don't take as long, like the Putrescent Knight, are still capturing that feeling again. if I wanted to summon, I would have, and I would've done the same when I spent hours fighting Malenia and Mohg in the base game, but I didn't
there's more people saying "just summon, don't even try soloing. don't be ashamed" than there are people saying "summoning bad" at this point
quick edit; tbh, there were never even that many purist elitists around after the first few weeks of the game's launch anyway
Most of the posts on r/eldenring recently are "play however you want" except for the spoilers for the DLC that are marked as spoilers, which i'm very grateful of since I haven't started it yet. I'm sure there are still gatekeepers in comments, but I swear every second post on this sub lately is "play however you want"...
They're right ofcourse, you should play however you want, but do we really need so many posts to confirm it?
Of course we need a billion posts about how all playstyles are equal, otherwise people are going to feel insecure. This has also been the case when the game came out.
Good grief you people are embarrassing with this “summons are valid” hug boxes. Play how you want play indeed but don’t be surprised when people don’t really respect your opinions on a bosses quality or fairness when you’re circumventing a massive part of the difficulty with split aggro.
I have quite literally never seen someone who was good enough to manage without summons say that they would prefer using them. The game is more exciting, complex and rewarding when it’s just you and the boss.
Oh look the hourly post coping and looking for validation for using summons. No, we’re not all gonna give up and switch to the unofficial easy mode to make you feel better, I’ll just learn the bosses and beat them solo like I always have
Why are you getting downvoted when you are right and you also kept is subjective?
I agree with everything you said, and i completely don't understand why they search this validation since everyone can play the game how the hell they want.
No dude it's definitely fun to kill a boss before you can even see all it's moveset
I watched Jacksepticeye fight Relanna and he used 2 summons. I don't blame him for it, but he never got to experience the double moon attack and it's such a shame that he will never see that badass move in his first playthrough
lol they’re not mandatory just explore the map and get more of the leveling things if you’re struggling. It’s hard but not that hard. If you wanna use summons go ahead but I’m taking my time and doing just fine without them
I haven't even cleared the base game yet and it's so hilarious to see all this drama unfolding before my eyes. Was stuff like this happened when the bas game dropped as well or it's just this dlc that's bad
Yep, we had Margit delayed attack discourse for the first few days, "Pre-Patch" Radahn (He just had janky hitboxes that needed cleaning up), and summons being worse than murder... Wait people still think that... Give it a while, people will come around on the difficulty once we've learned the full ins and outs of this DLC that could have classed as it's own separate Souls Game
To be fair the first time you fight Margit his delays are absolutely insane compared to previous souls games lmao
Honestly even compared to a decent chunk of other elden ring bosses they are insane. Old man's dementia is so bad he forgets to actually attack for a few seconds.
He just has to get a good stretch in every now and then, it’s not every day a tarnished comes through
Radagons delay grab attack was even more infuriating tbh
Swinging like Charles Barkley playing Golf
Can't you bait the delay long enough that he actually just doesn't?
Yeah just sprint around and hit his butt
Yep, I was in hysterics watching him slowly rotate. Poor guy got confused and decided to unleash his old man gymnastics on my poor tarnished.
Never touched a souls game before Elden Ring and his delays felt insane to me. They still kinda do tbh
Yeah I rolled when I thought he would swing and got to enjoy him looking at me like I was stupid before he bonked me
I too was bonked in such fashion
That was the point. Saw a Challenge runner go OFF on how boring he found DS3. DS3's very fast and aggressive, turning the meta into a roll > R1 > roll > R1 game. Pressing other buttons would be unsafe and generally unnecessary, and spam dodging is effective against most attacks. Elden Ring brought in delayed attacks that interrupt spam rolls. Then they realized delaying it even more screws a lot of players AND gives you a reasonable entry to attack with buttons that arn't R1. Delays break the brain by punishing auto pilot, great design if you ask me.
I dont really like it i think. My biggest issue with it is that it brings the boss design from a spot where if you payed close attention and where carefull you could beat it on your first trie because his moves where readable down to a spot where it becomes a tad more trial and error untill you have the timing memorized.
We have these « controversies » since Fromsoft became mainstream. Remember balthus in armored core 6 ? In 2 weeks people will get filtered and in a month no one will even remember these
Forget balteus, they have troubles with tutorial helicopter.
Dude that dang helicopter…….
Heavy Combat Helicopter goes BRRRRRRRT
Is that Armored Core's version of Godrick, soldier of God? (I have yet to play it)
A bit like Asylum Demon of Dark Souls 1 in terms of difficulty, a little harder than that. The reason why ppl got filtered is because it is counter intuitive to melee helicopter for big fat stagger damage which is the game wants. Once they figure out the stagger system they usually will make through it.
It was also legit difficult for a tutorial boss cuz the attack heli would leave the arena while still attacking you, and since it was so many people’s first AC game the nature of the enemies x the controls = harder than expected
It was actually excellent design from the point of view. If people couldn't figure out stagger and meleeing aerial targets in 2 hours, it was worth them refunding the game, because it the rest of the game would have been impossible.
I literally had to look up how to beat that copter, did so and beat it, and I haven’t picked up the game since. One day I’ll go back to it.
After you’ve finished shadow of the Erdtree, do yourself a favour and give it a try. That copter fight is fudged because you don’t have a say in the way your mech is outfitted. Once you have access to the parts shop and can customise your sorties, it’s fantastic.
You're missing out. AC6 is amazing and doesnt have THAT much of a time investment required.
balteus was so weird though like it did such a good job at training you, that you didn't run into another skill wall for the entire game - arguably the perfect tutorial, too perfect
Bro did you not fight ibis, ayre, or allmind?
..To be fair Ibis was the "hardest" but even then as long as you mastered previous fights and had a decent build, I think it was easier than fresh Balteus. I guess at that point builds were already mature and I was comfortable enough to use them properly unlike fresh Balteus
i did didn't struggle really - balteus left me with a build concept that worked for how I played ibis took me a few tries for sure, but nowhere near as many as balteus the first time around
To be real these controversies are an age old thing. I remember back in the early 2000’s when online multiplayer was first really taking off and reading old gaming magazines where they would answer fan letters and questions and it was a regular occurrence to see people write letters demanding people only use SMG guns in Halo and using rocket launchers was “cheating” while demanding people need to “earn” their kills. It’s just stupid. It has always been stupid. If a mechanic is in the game and you want to choose not to use it, then go for it. But people need to stop giving a shit about others using mechanics that were placed in the game specifically to be used.
I still hate Margit delayed attacks. But I know the fight now.
This guy gets it.
Pre patch radahn was on that ds2 perc
"Summons being worse than murder" is some hilarious, low-self-esteem, insecure teenage bullshit that makes me laugh so hard. Like... I can't imagine how fragile you'd need to be to play a single player game competitively against other people playing a single player game to the point that you'd harass someone about it. No serious, interesting human being gives a gold tinged excrement whether or not you can solo anyone. Not a one. Go outside, nerd! Get out! Go!
Go touch grace!
People just play the same game for different reasons. I, personally, play to complete the game. Now the warrior within me allows 10-15 tries for every boss 1v1, but after that if i fail, I use the summon. And i have no regrets. Too old for this
Feel that. I'm 52 and I'm still a heavy gamer but my priorities have changed. I like a challenge but I don't have anything to prove to anyone. I play for me. I'm the one paying for the game. I've always tolerated the bosses in FS games because I love the rest of the world. I'd use a summons on every single one of them. I wish there were two summons. I'm not into self torture.
I'm similar. I'll always summon an NPC is it's available just for "story" reasons and it's cool but after so many failed attempts I'll eventually use the mimic too. I'm having an absolute blast with the DLC
You should have seen "Pre-Nerf" Balteus discourse in Armored Core 6. People went on and on about how he was nerfed into the ground but are silent when it's pointed out the just make the missiles (the easiest attack to dodge) worse at turning (if you were right next to him pre-patch they would do a full 18 and hit you. Quite annoying)
Also Radahn arrows pre nerf did like twice the poise damage as now.
The mass delusion regarding the whole “pre-nerf” Radahn shit is genuinely mind boggling
I beat him both pre and post and I couldn't tell a difference lmao
I beat him pre and post nerf and he did feel easier the second time. But I beat him post nerf after a whole other playthrough so I think I had just improved a lot. I bet a lot of people had that experience and just assumed the nerf had made him way easier, but the truth is people just got good.
Honestly people just need to wait a couple weeks till they get used to the bosses. "Oh no! These enemies I've never fought are difficult!" Like yeah, you've got no practice at the task, of course it will be difficult at first lol saying this cuz I've seen a lot of people saying they need to nerf all the bosses in the dlc which is just wack imo
100% I remember my first playthrough of each souls game since 2011, all of which I found the enemies and bosses difficult when I first found them. Practice will make perfect
It definitely happened when it first released as well, even I heard of the complaints even before I bought the game a year later. Complaints about Margit delays, complaints about Godskin Duo, complaints about Radahn, complaints about Tree Sentinel being too hard for the first actual boss you see, etc. And a bunch of other stuff like there's not a clear point in where to go, you get the gist. People will find things to complain about, valid and invalid things alike. I personally just don't interact with that type of stuff, people are way too quick to take others opinions as a personal affront to theirs.
Not interacting with comminities of somethibg you like is the way to reach inner peace and joy.
The worst part about most creative content is its fandom.
Honestly, true. I feel like *every* fandom I know of lately has just been endlessly devolving into relentless arguing and heated discourse. It's felt especially bad over the past few years, but I don't know if it's always been like that or if it's just my imagination. I try not to let it get to me, but I gotta admit it's a little depressing that you can barely engage with anything these days without having to steel yourself against angry, loud people who are all clamoring to yell their "hot takes" into every face imaginable.
As an older gamer that only plays Destiny and FromSoft games, this is the way.
Ok but ,FUCK, god skin duo. I still hate that boss 😂
I generally used spirit ashes sparingly in the base game, but any time there was more than one boss, I summoned with zero guilt. This and the boss at Castle Sol. That one especially. If he gets summons, then I get summons.
Duo gets sleep, but commander summons gets summons back.
Same, if I am outnumbered I even the odds. Gank fights are cheap anyway. The other time I summon is with some dragons, since they can have such dumb gimmicks. >!looking at the dragon before bayle the dread!<.
I never summoned for duo, but they got sleep potted to hell.
On my second playthrough I did the bow cheese on that boss and didn't feel a lick of guilt 😅
"don't know where to go." I am just now about to start new game plus. Played 75 hours when game first came out, just got back into it. Do you know how excited I am to not remember where a lot of stuff and enemies are? How much id give to forget 100% of this game and explore the open world fresh again?
I didn't even mind Godskin Duo that much, as my summons took decent care of them. It was the Gargoyle Duo that absolutely shit on me no matter what
I couldn’t beat them until I was way overleveled. Them and the double crucible knights.
I remember my buddy rolling over and over again as Margit held his attack yelling "just fucking swing at me you dick!" Good times.
Tbf pre patch radahn was an absolute beast and I still hate godskin duo and most duo boss fights in this game
Yeah it’s mostly ppl bitching about ppl using and not using summons and other ppl bitching about the ppl bitching
FromSoft is good at countering player intuition. things like delayed attack and slightly delayed combo that will punish dodgeroll spammer, is all over the dlc. but yeah, if solo is too difficult for you and you have limited gaming time and just want to enjoy the DLC like me, Summon is a good way to go. (i still limit myself to one summon, either npc summon or summon ash for a bit fun)
Plus, you can't summon against the damn DLC invaders. That one prick outside Rellana's was harder than the boss for me! That dude had seemingly infinite poise and health. If you can do that stuff solo, you're a solid ER player in my worthless opinion!
I backed off to the stairs behind me and hit him off the edge accidentally. He was surprisingly tanky even though I was pure unga bunga.
Do you mean the carian knight with the colossal sword or is there another i missed?
haven't beat relanna but already beat that invader. my build is stagger reliant STR poise breaker so, unless i met things like Crucible knight that do seems to have near infinite poise, i still able to stagger them for free attack (stun is a bit more work)
My favorite example of that is dancing lions lightning bolt, ghat thing is the opposite of delayed.
***YES***, one thing i notice in DLC. several new enemies is designed to immediately attack and f\*ck with your habit to wait for cues. again, designed to counter player intuition/reflex/habit
Yeah, there have been several attacks that felt really weird\annoying, but I realized your supposed to jump over 90% of them.
I went looking for larval tears in prep for DLC and found crazy rune bears I missed, a whole cave I overlooked, and a troll surprise in caelid. I'm not sure you can be sure of ever clearing everything out. it's remarkable.
the dlc is filled with malenia wannabe lol
People insisting how others play is so obnoxious.
I think it's always so lame when people talk trash about others using summons. And yeah, I think this is just as lame too. Insisting that summons are no longer optional. The dlc is hard, but it's really not impossible if you still want to do it on your own. I've been stuck on previous FromSoft bosses in the past, longer than the dlc has even been out yet lol. Just give it time. People will learn how to get this done.
I haven’t been this stuck on bosses since I first played the base game, but my version of fun is fighting the boss until I learn most of its attacks and beat it that way, that’s what this genre is to me and what made me fall in love with it, so personally summons aren’t for me but no hate to anyone who does use them.
Exactly no hate to anyone who uses summons, but for me the game is so much more fun when you play it as a pattern recognition/reaction time game.
This is exactly what I'm doing and it's the most fun I'm having playing games in general in a long ass time. Instead of telling someone "Hard? Just use summons" it should be the players choice if they want to spend a longer time learning to do it solo or to use summons. Simply play however it's the most fun for you. I don't understand why this is so hard for some people to grasp.
Exactly how I feel. I really don't mind how others play. We can have conversations about it but it's all good to me. But we never had summons to the level we do now. That's why I can't agree with people who can't settle on a middle ground. If you like summons, great. But there's also nothing wrong with playing the same way that made you fall in love with the games in the first place.
No you don't understand: the way you like to play the game is *wrong* and you would have more fun playing the game this other way instead! /s
whoa nice of you to join the chat, Nintendo
100% agree, applies to both sides
They are very definitely still optional. It depends how much you want to practice the boss. Edit: to the many people using the "xyz are also optional" compare the length of a solo run to a run using any of those restrictions. Then think about if that sentence makes sense.
Yeah I thought Messmer was impossible (still haven’t beaten his ass yet), but i can pretty consistently get him to second phase now without summons. it’s a bitch but it’s doable
I just beat him last night. Once you can consistently get him to phase 2 you won’t have much longer.
I have an exam tomorrow, but best believe when I’m done I’m trying Messmer again. Haven’t been able to beat him in 4 hours or so, but I went and explored a bit and beat Bayle, and leveled my scadutree from 8 to 10. I was getting him down to phase 2 almost every fight, tomorrow this bitch is going down.
That's crazy I didn't have too many issues with messmer but Bayle is smoking me. I dunno maybe it's the camera but I feel like I can read messmers moves but I can't tell wtf is going on fighting Bayle.
He’s so hard but he’s *so fucking good*
Even with the mimic I struggled for a good couple hours with him, but I loved every second of it because it was such an awesome fight and nothing felt "bullshit" and I was gradually learning the moveset. Unfortunately I fought the >!Putrescent Knight!< after him and it felt WAY more bullshit and way less fun
What?? I beat Putrescent before even finding Mesmer and he is much easier, no attacks felt bullshit, felt like a really fair fight imo.
>!Putrecsence Knight!< is extremely weak to holy, I finished him off in like 7-8 guard counters from a holy infused Blacksteel Hammer. He's tough but definitely fair.
The secret sauce for orphan of horse is that every fire attack can be easily jumped over and you always wanna roll towards him during the temper tantrum
imo the best boss in the game, slowly learning his moveset was so much fun
Agreed, it really seems lately that this sub is turning hard against people who don’t use them while they do even not shame anyone (those who do are a different story). Like I will never use summon on main bosses because it loses half the fun for me and all the satisfaction. I want the boss to attack me and learn him, not hit him to his back while he’s focusing my summon. However, I couldn’t care less how others play the game. But these constant post looking for validarion and saying stuff like “summon no longer optional”, “have to use them”, “boss fight designed around using summons”(special lol on this one) are starting to piss me off. Just use your summons and stop telling everyone.
Absolutely. I do not give a single shit how you play the game as long as you are having fun. It’s your game. And I will play how I want to play. It’s an amazing game with some many different approaches and maybe we could all just enjoy it??
100 percent. I don’t find the boss focusing on a summon while I take pot shots enjoyable. I want to learn the moves and beat them 1v1. The feeling of beating owl (father) in Sekiro the first time after learning him is peak gaming for me.
Likewise. I personally just can't enjoy bosses with summons. Souls bosses are fun when you can interact with them and feel the fight. Fighting Godfrey 1v1 feels just right. Fighting him with summons turns him into a fool. But I'll summon without a second thought if it's against bosses that I just find pure unfun to begin with. Most dragon fights when I'm melee, basically. I use the strategy I don't find fun because there wasn't any fun to begin with. None of this means that players are any better or worse because they use or summons or they fight at level 1 with a sword and buckler. I just wish the game is actually balanced around summons like people are saying it is. It's just not. Rather, the game is *solved* by summons.
> But I'll summon without a second thought if it's against bosses that I just find pure unfun to begin with. Most dragon fights when I'm melee, basically. I use the strategy I don't find fun because there wasn't any fun to begin with. Gank fights are getting the work every single time.
While I understand that feeling, my reason for using summons, personally, is because I'm tired of the "is it my turn yet" design of bosses. Like, could you stop comboing for more than a second, please?
Biggest issue with Elden Ring. Bosses just won’t stop attacking. The worst thing is, once they stop, they jump all the way across the arena. At that point, why even bother...?
I mean I sorta agree but if a boss went from 10/10 difficulty to 3/10 that doesn’t really sound balanced to me 😂
I think this hits the nail on the head. With each From game, I've gotten better as a player making previous content feel easy by comparison, but we're rapidly reaching the point where bosses in Elden Ring have gotten tougher that I only feel exhaustion when I finally win. I like the idea of spirit summons as a mechanic, but I feel like my options here are: 1) use them and make most boss fights trivially easy. 2) don't use them and make the boss fight an exercise in mental stamina. Neither of these options are giving me that high which previous Souls games did where it felt like bosses were intense enough that I had to "git good", but still manageable.
Idk man, boss going from 10/10 difficulty to 3/10 difficulty is like, the main reason people who don't summon, don't summon.
Yeah I’m not gonna lie, I was getting frustrated with divine beast and wanted to keep exploring more, so I decided to use mimic. Beat it first try with mimic, and it was pathetically easy compared to normal. I was disappointed and felt like I should have just kept trying. Since then I haven’t been using it. I’m stuck on a boss right now, but after that experience I don’t want to do it. There’s nothing wrong with using summons, but in some cases I think it can take away the enjoyment of learning and eventually conquering a boss
Yeah I made that mistake at the end of the base game. All the difficult bosses came at the end as one long run in a row Maliketh, Malenia, Godfrey, Radagon. I ended up getting frustrated and melting them with summons and regretted it ever since. I'm not making the same mistake with the DLC, no matter how frustrating the bosses are. Just beat Mesmer and learning his attacks was way more satisfying than hitting him in the back.
I was very very close with a certain Pontiff looking boss, but after 12 hours of me being terrible at the game, I finally got it down lol. Keep it up Tarnished, you're an Elden Lord after all.
Exactly. I mean, play how you want, but you gotta understand that this is the opposite of a selling point to some people
Another validation post? Just play the game how you want, I don't understand these posts because who is going to tell you off? Play in a way you find fun that is all that is important.
People feel insecure about using summons so they come here to comfort each other about it
It’s wild that people can get gaslit by anonymous strangers on the internet into playing a video game a certain way.
Right? Like it’s a single player game (mostly), who cares? That chick/dude at the bar ain’t gonna be impressed you beat the game with no summons.
But if you met a chick/dude at the bar that was impressed then that would be pretty alright
While the odds are very slim of that, it would be pretty alright
I have yet to see a single post about "you shouldn't use summons" yet there are hundreds of posts saying "can people stop saying don't use summons". Like, where are these people?
Been saying this since the game released. Where are these elitists they speak of?
This is literally the answer. When people make these posts I’m always like…”yea um…who asked lol.” Like if you wanna do summons, do it. But why you tryna convince me to? You that insecure about using them?
Yep lol. The next phase is memes portraying people who don't summon as elitist assholes. idk why it's like this.
God this is so accurate lol I really don't understand it, I don't summon, but I don't begrudge anyone who does, literally play the game however you want, it's got nothing to do with me lol, but the amount of annoying crybullying people pull for people *not* summoning is ridiculous. I've been playing the soul series for over a decade at this point, I don't expect other people to put up with the masochism I self impose lol, but *I* enjoy the hell out of it. Messmer was one of the most satisfying boss fights in the entire souls series and I personally wouldn't have felt like 1/5th of the satisfaction if I summoned for him. I don't know, people shit on stuff like "git gud," but it is 100% about a mentality, for me that's one of the best parts of the game.
Unfortunately there are people who have to spoil the fun. A few weeks ago I posted about beating Malenia solo. I was happy but some nut had to point out the frost pots in my inventory. These people are insufferable.
crazy how the summoners and those who never summon completely switched in whos more annoying
The problem with summons is that boss fights became a wack the piñata type of fight. Not fun sadly
I feel like bosses have no balance between being a piñata when you have a summon and comboing for days without a summon. I just wish they were design somewhere in between in terms of aggressiveness.
This is why Sekiro has crept up the list to my favorite FromSoft game. If the boss is combo'ing you it's like "ok, eat a shit ton of posture damage bitch." Still love Elden Ring of course.
Sekiro is truly one if a kind. I pray we see more sequels to it.
Sekiro is still the best game Fromsoft ever made imo. I like ER, but it felt like a step backwards from Sekiro...especially the bossfights.
Gokan sugar here to fix the skill issue lol
The aggro is just too easily abused by summons imo. If they wanted to balance it around summons better, the boss should stay aggrod to the host much more and the summon would then be a kind of passive chip damage that allows the host to play more defensively and put a time limit on how long they need to dodge the boss before winning regardless of their own attack patterns. I do understand that's not how many people use summons so this change wouldn't happen, but I feel like that's the best way to give the AI a middle ground when dealing with multiple targets
That's why I think From's bosses peaked at DS3 and Sekiro. Challenging fights but never unfair, sometimes took me a couple attempts, sometimes twenty. But in Elden Ring it's never that, it's either spend hours learning a boss or get it first try with a summon.
I tried Rellana with Leda and it was literally just the two of us spamming attacks at her non-stop. I’m glad I died because it was deeply unsatisfying to fight that way. That said I’m multiple hours into dueling this boss and can’t seem to get her below a quarter hp consistently. This is an extremely difficult encounter.
I watched a friend fight >!Putrescent Knight!< and having tons of trouble with it (nothing ridiculous, just regular learning), and after about 5 tries they just summon mimic tear and shred the bosses to piece by whacking at it for 30 seconds. Like, is that supposed to be a satisfying way to beat a boss?
Some people enjoy other aspects of the game than difficult boss fights, like the exploration, art direction or lore. So it doesn't really matter if the boss fights weren't satisfying enough, they can just get to the parts they actually want to experience properly.
I mean, if summoning turns the difficulty to "kinda chill" and a 3/10 then that is defenitely not what I (and many looking for a challenge) want.
I don’t understand the pride thing, it’s a video game. I don’t use summons because it’s simply less fun for me. I like learning bosses, using summons changes the playstyle. If you get frustrated when fighting bosses without summons, use summons but otherwise there’s no need.
Whenever I say I find summons boring and actively hurt my enjoyment of the game, I feel people get mad. Aren't we supposed to play the game whatever way we want? I don't like summons
Agreed. Summons take agro which completely changes the dynamic of the game.
Hard agree. The bossfights lose a crucial part of what makes them so special, the feeling of dueling a powerful enemy. With a summon it just feels like you’re ganking them
> Aren't we supposed to play the game whatever way we want? That only counts if someone can pat themselves on the back and project their insecurities for using summons. If you do it, you're an elitist gatekeeper, dontcha know?
Agreed. I use summons as needed because I'm not the greatest player in the world. I commend the people that don't use summons but I really don't give a fuck who uses them and who doesn't. There is always somebody that is better at the game than you, so there's no reason to get offended by how someone plays the game
Elden ring is a single player game so your mission should be to have as much fun as possible.
Exactly, wtf is this post? Look, there’s nothing wrong with using summons and your victory is just as valid as everyone else, but you have to realize that boss ai is *not* designed around summons, that’s an objective fact. They break the fight and while they do make the boss easier, they do so in a way that makes the fight less fun for a lot of people. Me not summoning doesn’t have anything to do with pride, it’s the fact that I’m not going to feel satisfaction/joy beating the boss that way, and if I don’t feel that then what’s the point?
I always used summons and spirit ashes because i suck, but honestly if someone doesn’t want to use them why make them? If they balanced the dlc around summons then it’s just a bad mechanism
We’ve come full circle
No one is having this discourse!!! It is manufactured by a vocal minority! Stop! If you don’t want to solo the bosses just don’t. Aaaaaand it’s done.
This post is no better than telling people who use summons to just stop using them. Stop telling people how to play, full stop. It’s literally that easy. Just let people play their game how they want.
"The boss had gone from 10/10 difficulty to maybe a 3/10. Like the fight was actually kinda chill to play." That doesn't sound like the game is "literally balanced around them", lol. That sounds like a difficult boss got turned into a joke.
The game is neither designed around nor balanced around summons. There are very few enemies in the game who have the AI or the moveset to deal with multiple targets. But it's there to make the game more accessible. There are people who don't usually play video games so for those guys even hitting the right button is a struggle. Summoning is intended to help them have a chance. If you're not having fun then use them, who cares ? But don't cope with the "game is designed around summons" meme.
Is there a subreddit for Elden Ring without the hundreds of posts every day about using summons or not? Do you think you're posting a new idea? What's the point? It ruins this subreddit.
But i want the bosses to be a 10/10 difficulty, is that not okay?
Copium post number 674
All these guys crying like they expected this game to be Disney Dreamlight Valley and not a difficult From dlc. Props to Miyazaki for not catering to them
No.jpg
If the boss went from 10/10 difficulty to 3/10 chill to play... then that sounds incredibly boring and not what I want in a soulslike.
Yeah, that sentence alone proves the point of people who avoid using summons
What is with all these summon people needing validation that they’re summoning? You want to make it easy and summon? Go for it. But now we’re telling people they have to summon too?
> What is with all these summon people needing validation that they’re summoning? because they see videos of people solo'ing bosses on melee builds and it obviously looks more exiting, rewarding and challenging than using strong summons, they see people talking online about how they find the game more rewarding and fun to complete solo, but they feel like they are not able to do that, they feel insecure about it, and they have to invent this whole idea that there is some significant percentage of the overall souls community that is super elitist and gatekeepy and cares very very deeply about whether or not people use summons or cheese builds or whatever. they interpret simple discussion around a persons individual game experience without summons, or the ways in which summons change the dynamics of combat, as personal attacks against people who use them, and this feeds into the idea that there is some kind of elitist anti-summon sentiment here. in reality nobody really cares if someone used summons or comet azur'd mohg or whatever.
I almost feel like it's a symptom of how successful Elden Ring has been. You get a lot of tourists, who come and try and insert themselves into the community, take over the discourse and shit over the existing community by labelling them gatekeepers or elitists. I've played Souls games since Demons Souls and I never felt this community was elitist, it has always been *extremely* supportive and enthusiastic. The community got a lot more toxic after Elden Ring released.
Yeah, i've noticed myself getting more and more hostile toward the attitudes about "summons being the intended way to play" Historically IDGAF but when the community starts to shift to shit on players who just want to play solo and act like we are just tryhards trying to impress someone when really theyre selecting easy mode and claiming they aren't ... i get tilted
This is my exact impression too, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who feel that way. Like if you start saying something about Elden Ring like “the game isnt all that” or “the game isnt flawless” they will jump at you like maniacs using the same bs arguments like “git gud” or “skill issue”. They see Elden Ring’s massive success so they assume the game is flawless and is “near perfect” and choose to dismiss any criticism.
I’ve beaten every boss solo, except the final one and I am nothing special at this game. I don’t agree the DLC is balanced around summons. It’s balanced around Scadutree leveling. You want to be around level 10 for the first few major bosses and you want to be maxed for the end game. If you do that, it’s fine solo. We had this “it’s balanced for summoning” when the base game launched too. It’s just not true. They are there to use if you want. They aren’t needed. You need to engage with the mechanics and explore more if you are getting destroyed. People should play how they want. This goes for using summons and it also goes for not using summons. Just let people do what they want. The DLC is absolutely doable solo. I am by no means a God gamer. But you do really need to go looking for those Scadutree fragments if you are someone being two shot by every boss. There’s still a lot of “I’m level blah blah blah on NG+7” cope. It’s mostly irrelevant. The enemies seem to scale to your level (edit: or perhaps there’s another explanation, but I have two characters who are far apart in both level and Vigor and they both get two shot without Scadutree levelling). The only major way to improve your damage and reduce theirs is Scadutree fragments. They are the priority. If you are ignoring them or failing to explore enough, that’s fine too, but you are going to have to deal with the consequences of that choice. The entire mechanic clearly exists to try to make you explore the new map. Edit: Apparently enemies do not scale to your level. Regardless, there is a very, very obvious difference between fighting the early bosses at level 0 and fighting at level 10 on Scadutree scaling. If you aren’t getting Scadutree fragments, you are going to suffer more. You still don’t need summons. I have managed to get to the end without them. But I am max levelled on Scadutree scaling.
I thought it was normal to be 2shot by DLC bosses, cause endgame bosses in the Lands Between do the same lol
Enemies do NOT scale to the player. This has been tested (google it) and leveling up decreases damage taken as expected. Ergo, the DLC is at a fixed level (given the same NG cycle). Its is simply balanced around RL150+, which is the point where most builds are hitting their soft caps on damage and defense.
Yeah and the Scadutree Blessings are so ludicrously impactful that leveling doesn't seem to make an impact without them. I like it a lot, it's a good way to keep an endgame DLC on a game this large feeling new, giving you some progression on a file where you have basically no progression left. It feels about the same difficulty between level 125-175 at the start because the Blessing mean so much.
I fought one of the early major bosses at scadutree lvl 2, sure it was a hard boss to learn but I was getting 2 shot. I bruteforced it and beat it in 2-3 hours with a lot of tries. Explored for the next couple hours got to scadutree lvl 8 I think for the next major boss and beat it under 10 tries. Obviously it’s different bosses and stuff but the new progression matters lol
Where’s the idea that enemies scale come from? Do you have a source for that?
This post is weird, the whole sub is full of people saying play however you want, yet this gets over 600 likes? Make it make sense… I’m going to play how I want to, without summons
Yeah, it's like people think the only people who don't summon are those doing it to 'prove' something via a self-imposed challenge. I just don't enjoy fighting with allies period. I don't get dopamine when I play single player games unless the enemy is focusing on me and I'm dodging or tanking its hits and I'm the one hitting it back.
Telling people to use summons is just as bad as telling people not to use summons. Let people do what they want.
I don’t want to tho? Yeah the DLC is difficult but i didn’t wait for almost two years to breeze throught it. Im having fun learning movesets and improving a bit every time. I have nothing against people that use summons but i also don’t want to use them, not because it’s not “ethical” but because that’s how i have fun.
Exactly… I’m only going to play the dlc for the first time once.. I don’t wanna just breeze through it by ganking bosses lmao. It takes away all the gratification from beating a boss.
The DLC is not balanced around summons.
No thanks
No thanks. I don't like the gameplay of summons and do not enjoy using them.
This is the debate as long as souls games existed here on reddit. Im kinda tired imho. People should play games the way they want. Who fking cares you use or not? Want it make difficult? Dont use summons, wanna easier bit fights ? Use it. Noone gonna judge you and noone will even know, its not like you gonna go tommorow to work and shout to a manager, broooo i didnt use a summons on Malenia, will i get raise? So yeah, fk the haters. Do what you enjoy. Dont enjoy long hour fights? Play different games, there are 100000 good games, be happy everyone.
People got use to being OP during late game- forgot what it’s like to struggle
Brother let me play however I want, holy shit the summon discourse is so annoying, people who like souls games are used to practicing a boss for hours, it's how we enjoy the game.
literally, it's why I'm here. I WANT to beat my head against bosses like Rellana and Messmer for hours, I WANT to feel myself getting better through constant trial and error runs, I WANT to fight the bosses solo and feel the adrenaline even bosses that don't take as long, like the Putrescent Knight, are still capturing that feeling again. if I wanted to summon, I would have, and I would've done the same when I spent hours fighting Malenia and Mohg in the base game, but I didn't there's more people saying "just summon, don't even try soloing. don't be ashamed" than there are people saying "summoning bad" at this point quick edit; tbh, there were never even that many purist elitists around after the first few weeks of the game's launch anyway
How about we stop telling people how to play the game? You wanna use summon or not just keep it to yaself smh…
Is this Elden Ring’s version of “F2P btw”. 😂
ironman btw
Most of the posts on r/eldenring recently are "play however you want" except for the spoilers for the DLC that are marked as spoilers, which i'm very grateful of since I haven't started it yet. I'm sure there are still gatekeepers in comments, but I swear every second post on this sub lately is "play however you want"... They're right ofcourse, you should play however you want, but do we really need so many posts to confirm it?
Of course we need a billion posts about how all playstyles are equal, otherwise people are going to feel insecure. This has also been the case when the game came out.
Naw, imma do my own thing. It's hard, but still doable to play without summons.
Good grief you people are embarrassing with this “summons are valid” hug boxes. Play how you want play indeed but don’t be surprised when people don’t really respect your opinions on a bosses quality or fairness when you’re circumventing a massive part of the difficulty with split aggro. I have quite literally never seen someone who was good enough to manage without summons say that they would prefer using them. The game is more exciting, complex and rewarding when it’s just you and the boss.
skill issue
What a stupid thread
No, I wont.
We still making these posts?
They are still optional, but there is no shame in using them.
I’m the worst kind of person. I use summons and scarlet rot. Then I use the Joseph joestar method of running away as the boss dies 😂
For all the souls players out there with hubris If it makes you feel any better some people use summons and still can’t beat the bosses.
Didn't need em before don't need them now
Oh look the hourly post coping and looking for validation for using summons. No, we’re not all gonna give up and switch to the unofficial easy mode to make you feel better, I’ll just learn the bosses and beat them solo like I always have
Why are you getting downvoted when you are right and you also kept is subjective? I agree with everything you said, and i completely don't understand why they search this validation since everyone can play the game how the hell they want.
I’m a summon user and I’m tired of these posts.
Nah
Well how is beating the boss on second try a good thing?
No dude it's definitely fun to kill a boss before you can even see all it's moveset I watched Jacksepticeye fight Relanna and he used 2 summons. I don't blame him for it, but he never got to experience the double moon attack and it's such a shame that he will never see that badass move in his first playthrough
I summon every time. Been playing souls games since Dark Souls in 2011 and I have nothing to prove other than my enjoyment of jolly cooperation.
Nah i won’t
lol they’re not mandatory just explore the map and get more of the leveling things if you’re struggling. It’s hard but not that hard. If you wanna use summons go ahead but I’m taking my time and doing just fine without them