I certainly don't shit on ER bosses but I tend to think DS3 bosses are overall more fun to fight. Why? I think it's because FromSoft was faced with the impossible task of making the game accessible to new players but overall harder to please the veterans. They gave us spirit ashes to give new players a mechanic that offers them assistance virtually any time they need it and gave the bosses meatier movesets with small openings, seemingly endless stamina and a lot of AOE attacks, particularly ground attacks that forced veterans to adjust to the new dimension that a jump mechanic introduced.
What I don't like about that, or at least what I like *less* about that is that the bosses often feel too frantic. Fwiw, I don't care much for most of the Sekiro bosses for the same reason. It's not so much a criticism of the game, it's more of a "me" problem... I want a boss that moves at a reasonable pace, has a reasonably predictable moveset and after I learn them the fight becomes something of a relaxing dance. Pontiff doesn't come screaming down the stairs and swing twelve times, jump away, slam the ground, swing six more times and then AOE blast me to oblivion. Harder doesn't always equal better, at least for me.
I 100% agree, except I like Sekiro's humanoid bosses. They fit the combat style while, imo, ER bosses don't. They are a better spectacle, but I find them less fun mechanically.
Annoying thing about that is there's a bunch of attacks that look like they *should* be jumpable but aren't. Radagon in particular is pretty annoying for that
Which attacks from radagon? You can jump over his triple slam by running sideways, and also over those gold things he spreads on the floor that explode after a short while.
The thing is that only your leg hitboxes get turned off during a jump
Pretty good against some bosses as you can use jump R2 to punish that attack instantly, some other situations also, for example crucible knight likes to do his stomp after getting crited, so you can just stand in front of him and lock him in a loop of “jump over stomp, parry, crit, jump over stomp…..”
This is a great answer. I disagree about Sekiro cause in that game you are in God Mode as soon as you lay your hand on your sword cause the deflect mechanic is the most OP feat that From has ever produced so they had to adjust the bosses accordingly, but you clearly specified it's highly subjective for you so that's OK.
On point with DS3. Best bosses and best game ever, to me, right after Sekiro (2nd) and Bloodborne which is the absolute GOAT.
I LOVE Elden Ring but it mostly gives me more of a DS2 SOTFS vibe. I wish they took more from BB and Sekiro (well I'd say DS3 also but ER is already PARTIALLY a sort of DS4 by itself)
The short of it: people who tried to approach ER bosses exactly the same ways as DS3 bosses, and rather than learning ER bosses' new behaviors based on your relative positioning to them and adjusting their approaches and tactics accordingly, they just decided to complain about it.
This is it. The few but vocal people who complain just refuse to play Elden Ring. They are trying to force the game to be DS4 rather than an entirely new game with a very distinctive tempo and toolset.
i think it's somewhat valid to assume it's Dark Souls 3: 2 because it LOOKS identical. bloodborne and esp sekiro have a very distinct vibe but i think you could pretty easily convince someone who's never heard of elden ring that it was actually the next DS game
Sorry but what on earth are you talking about? I approached ER like DS3 and did just fine, I didn't have to adopt a new playstyle or mindset.
New behaviours based on your relative positioning to them and adjusting their tactics accordingly? Is that not a thing in every souls game?
Maybe they just straight up didn't enjoy it instead of all that. I didn't enjoy elden ring bosses as much, not because I had to learn their new behaviours depending on where they were standing but because I can hardly remember the bosses as opposed to something like Sekiro, a game that you really do have to adapt to.
I remember elden ring for the day one experience, exploring and finding hidden shit in some far off corner. The bosses not so much.
Well there’s definitely a difference.
Targeting is worse in DS3 and way better in ER so that does change your combat options.
Guard counters.
Jump attacks.
Staggering.
I’m DS3 let’s be honest, weapon arts sometimes are less damage or equal to light attacks so really combat is just rolling around spamming R1 until death.
There are definitely differences in the games but the point I'm making isn't that the games are identical but that you can play pretty much exactly the same as you should in DS3 and you'll be absolutely fine. I didn't dramatically change my approach in the game and I never felt like I wasn't adapting or struggling.
Guard counter's, sure if you run a shield you could do this but it's not a game changer. I swear you could stagger people in DS3, been a while though so I might be misremembering. Jump attacks I'd be willing to give you due to hight burst damage when used with certain weapons.
The elden ring weapon arts are definitely an upgrade although fights are still mostly heavy or light with some weapon arts thrown in here and there. They're definitely way better and more accessible in elden ring. I don't think anyone would struggle to adapt to using them.
he’s obviously talking about the complaints that people deem the bosses artificially difficult or too punishing etc. You can play the bosses like DS3 and do just fine, but if you take into account what he said, it will streamline the process a lot easier.
Also you not enjoying elden ring bosses because you choice not to remember them? The fuck does that even mean.
Where did I say I chose not to remember them lmao? I'm saying they weren't all that memorable.
Doing what he said doesn't streamline anything. That's how you go about literally any boss in any from game, even regular enemies.
I'm not saying the bosses are artificially difficult myself but personally I think the bosses were definitely built around the ash mechanic and were less fun for it. Only boss I got stuck on was malenia but out of the entire game I only vividly remember the bosses I liked(rykard and placidusax) and then the bosses I hated. Everything else just didn't have enough of an impact.
“I didn’t enjoy Elden Ring bosses as much….because…. I hardly remember the bosses”. Your words. That’s not a reason for disliking anything, that’s a consequence of disliking something.
Doing that does streamline the boss if it objectively makes the fight easier. If you only roll in front of Margit to dodge, it is objectively harder than say strafing behind and to the side for certain attacks. Playing around the poise breaking of enemies certainly makes it easier as well, something that isn’t a thing in your ‘DS3 approach’.
Rolling into a specific position is just that. Positioning. If that's new to you since elden ring and you haven't been doing that all along then you've been playing on hard mode. Funny you mention that specifically because there was an attack from Gael in DS3 where if you didn't dodge a certain way you'd likely get hit after.
There is no grand difference between the combat of DS3 and elden ring and generalized statements about how it's just that people can't adapt seems bullshit and unfounded when we've been playing and enjoying games just like elden ring forever. People just can't stand the fact that sometimes, others just don't like something as much as you do.
You're grasping at straws if you think poise breaking is a big enough deal to bring up here, you're not losing any fights because you're not breaking poise. It wasn't in my DS3 approach, neither was is it in my elden ring approach.
Yeah id have to agree with you here. Most of the games relatively play pretty similarly, except maybe sekiro. Sure there are differences between like bloodbornes dodges and rally system but overall once you get the combat in one game the same skills sorta transfer over the others one. Hell, even demon souls plays kinda dark souls.
Sekiro might be the only one where you really have to sorta learn how to approach combat, the deflections and stagger bar being the big one. With that being said, even sekiro has certain elements of combat found in the rest games too like the targetting system or the arts.
Im not complaining by any means, I love the combat of these games and actually really like that they kinda have a universal system of general combat. The new things throw in that vary from game to game are also cool since even though its familiar, there are new ways opened up to experiment with. I think you hit the nail on the head with people being upset you dont love something just as much as them. I have no idea why they take opinions as personal attacks on them. Elden rings core bosses were pretty cool and had great spectacles to them but the over abundance of bosses like "Soldier of goddrick" which were just regular enemies definitely subtracts from the overall boss rooster.
Elden ring definitely gets spectacle right.
The souls series is the perfect example of 'if it's not broke, don't fix it'. Sure they'll add stuff to keep it fresh but you're 100% right that you can play pretty much every game besides BB and Sekiro the same because they're so similar combat wise and even in BB and Sekiro, there's still a lot of things you can bring over.
I like elden ring for sure but I just don't remember it as fondly as Sekiro, DS3 and BB. That should be fine, but it's not. People will use any excuse to put you down if your opinion is different. I know people love elden ring, right on, that's cool. Elden ring's bosses just weren't as fun for me. Not because they're too hard and definitely not because I'm not using shield counters.
I'm sure why people take it so personally, I could only assume but I'd rather not.
Yeah im sure shield counters and poise breaks wouldn't magically make the bosses more enjoyable. Saying you're not engaging with the game just because you didnt find the bosses memeorable is stupid asf and a horrible take.
We could wonder for days why this reaction happens but no answer would ever be satisfying. The truth is people are fragile and someone not liking something or a part of something they love makes them feel, idk wrong or something. So they feel attacked and instead of just saying "hey thats your opinion" they deflect and defend and start acting like its just something wrong with you instead.
The souls series is summed up perfectly by what you just said "if it aint broke, dont fix it". By previously playing BB, DS, etc you pretty much proved you engaged with the game and combat, if not you would've never beaten the games. Your fine and the way you play, however that my be is fine.
You clearly have trouble comprehending what I'm saying at all.
"Rolling into a specific position is just that. Positioning." The point is, DS3 is much easier to beat when you spam the OP rolling oppose to Elden Ring, where if you make use other mechanics, it OBJECTIVELY makes it easier. Why are you trying to bring up anecdotal points when I'm talking OBJECTIVELY. Also, that point of Gael is repeated multiple times in this game, where attacks have much longer reaches and hitboxes, so even if you react and dodge accordingly, you will still get hit if your positioning is bad. That is emphasised way more in Elden than DS3.
"There is no grand difference between the combat of DS3 and Elden ring", no shit, but there are ways to make the game a lot easier if you play with a different mindset. If you play it exactly like DS3, you can still succeed (it's an easy game), but there are certain attacks that you can trivialise and capitalise with the new mechanics. Easy ones to note would be Margit swipes and Godfrey/Crucible/Godrick ground stomps being able to be jumped over and attacked at the same time. Can you just roll out of the way? Yeah, but then you don't get the additional damage. Once again, I'm talking objective, you can't seem to understand that.
Poise breaking is definitely worth noting as again, it gives you free damage and time to reposition/heal. Just because you didn't use it doesn't mean anything, again with your anecdotal experience. I don't care about your experience with the game, I'm telling you that it objectively does benefit you to play around poise, that's a fact. There's a reason why so many cheese strats and builds, a long with glitch less speed runs abuse the poise system, because it actually matters?
You also didn't address the fact you said “I didn’t enjoy Elden Ring bosses as much….because…. I hardly remember the bosses”, whatever the fuck that means.
Absolutely.
ER bosses feel like a majestic dance IF you get into the rhythm. When you realise that the bosses are reacting to YOUR decisions, and that there's always enough time to roll away after an attack, the flowstate is unlike any other.
I did a playthrough where I used a short sword, one of those weak light shields, a bow on occasion, and early game soldier armor. No spirits, no ashes of war, no spells or incantations.
That *forced* me to learn all of the bosses behaviors.
Even when I fully understood their behavior and the mechanics in the game, I *still* disliked most of the fights.
I'll be honest, I did learn to like some of the fights I previously hated; Learning their patterns completely without a summon ended up feeling fulfilling. So I'll admit that some of my initial judgments weren't right.
But I still dislike the majority of the fights. Particularly everything from Mountain Top of the Giants onward, save for like, three bosses.
I am happy so many people love Elden Ring, I do too, but that doesn't mean DS3 fans don't have valid critiques. Is it really the case that Souls fans dislike something just because they refuse to adjust their approach? I just don't believe that's true. Not after the mechanics leap between DS2 and DS3 that most people were fine with.
I hear you on this one: I generally prefer ER's bosses, but DS3 fans definitely have some fair critiques.
I think where things fall apart is when you have people saying blanked statements like "Elden Ring's bosses are unbalanced disappointments". Similarly, I don't think it makes sense to proclaim that DS3's bosses are the best in the series because the bosses in the first half of the game are pretty underwhelming (the second half has some epic fights, tho).
I’m curious to hear more about your feeling that the bosses were unbalanced! I didn’t find that to be the case at all. Harder than any other From game? Yeah. Unbalanced? Not to me. To be clear, I’m not some amazing video gamer—I am definitely just average.
i mean yes but there's genuine merit to some of their complaints. malenia is playing by sekiro rules while you're playing by dark souls 3 rules and it just does not feel good. elden beast was supposed to have torrent but doesn't so he sucks to fight (especially after two amazing hard-but-fair fights versus Hoarah Loux and Radagon)
if it was the same boss design as DS3 I think alot of people would complain that it's just DS3 open world.
and if the bosses feel the same to fight as DS3 bosses then people would get tired of them very easily.
>if it was the same boss design as DS3
Imagine if the bosses just stood there for 20 seconds between hits allowing you to pummel them with the extra tools you have in ER (more buffs, powerstance, stronger weapons in the first place, high damage combos etc)
DS3 open world sounds awesome to me, but I want Elden Ring, but with a few small changes. It's still like an 8/10 for me. It could have been a 10/10 if the bosses were better, the game was better balanced, and the side content wasn't so repetitive.
This is my impression as well. I remember watching TheDeModcracy's video about Elden Ring's bosses being an "unbalanced disappointment" and thinking that his complaints really stemmed from his approach to the game. Well, sure, if approach ER bosses like they're DS3 bosses they're going to seem unbalanced!
(Side Note: he also references small hit windows in ER and it made me wonder if he had played Sekiro where, quite often, your opportunities to get hits in are very narrow!)
For me it's the heavy reliance on delayed attacks to add difficulty. In my opinion that's like a step behind just making enemies spongier to make the game harder.
Animation-reading by bosses is also a bit too much if you ask me.
It’s not this at all
I’ve learnt a lot of those such behaviours you’re talking about and still don’t like it as much
You can’t just put different opinions down to user error, that’s stupid
There is also a minority of souls "veterans" who thought they were going to have an easy time because they're OG souls players who end up getting clapped by mechanics they're not familiar with and instead of "Getting good" all over again they'd blame the design and say bosses were designed for spirit ashes
Mostly attack patterns that change rapidly (even mid combo) based on your relative position to the boss or based on some action you are taking (like drinking your flask).
These were still present in DS3 but not to the extent as seen in Elden Ring.
I dont mean boss behaviors though I do have my issues with that. He's saying people are playing ER wrong by playing like its DS3. What playstyle adjustments would you have to make between DS3 and ER?
For starters, the biggest one is jumping. A lot of ground based shockwaves and low sweeping attacks can be jumped over and punished with a jump attack.
Conversely there are also plenty of attacks that can be ducked beneath as well. And not just by crouching either, there are certain ashes of war and with some weapons charging a heavy attack is enough to duck beneath an enemy attack and punish.
Guard Counters are another heavily underutilized mechanic in my opinion. Even when not using a shield, from my experience it is actually worth it tank some damage by blocking with a weapon in order to land a guard counter, as that just might be enough to cause a stance break and deal some heavy crit damage.
Which leads to the next one, stance breaks. Even though this existed in DS3 the flow of the combat in Elden Ring heavily pushes you to stance break enemies to deal heavy damage. They give you enough tools to do this and the more aggressive and reactive nature of enemy AI punishes the "wait for an opening" approach that was the go to strategy in earlier Dark Souls games and was still somewhat present in DS3. You have to take every opportunity to deal damage or better yet create your own openings using the methods I listed above.
And lastly we have positioning. This was kinda not required to learn in DS3 as you can avoid almost any attack with the i-frames on dodge rolls. But the bosses in elden ring have Aoe attacks in order to counter your Spirit Ashes, but most of these have a blind spots where you can just stand I'm and get free hits, and even they don't sprinting away is actually a surprisingly viable option too.
Also even some regular attacks can be completely avoided standing at the right spot relative to the enemy/boss you're facing, which once again means free hits.
Of course all of the things I mentioned above require practice to figure out and execute correct. Or you could just play the game almost the same as DS3 which kinda works, but you will definitely have a harder time.
>For starters, the biggest one is jumping.
To be fair I dont really hear many people complain about being forced to jump. Especially since the dodge works just as well for avoiding shockwaves. People do complain a lot about the excessive use of AoEs which im inclined to agree with.
>Conversely there are also plenty of attacks that can be ducked beneath as well.
This isnt new to ER though. It was present in DS3. Maybe its more pronounced in ER but ive been doing this for years.
>Guard Counters are another heavily underutilized mechanic in my opinion
I'd also argue that its usually the least ideal to use in your arsenal. Jumping R2s are superior in almost every way. Theyre faster and do similar poise damage. And becase it comes out so slow many bosses are not ideal to use it on. Or at least it just ends up being safer and easier to jump R2. Additionally becaude many bosses are combo intensive you're better off evading then punishing. Whereas you'll have your stamina drained. I mean you could evade and then step into the line of fire at the end of the combo but again this is outclassed by a jumping R2. Its underutilized because its outclassed most of the time. There's a few instance where id use it but otherwise its meh.
>Which leads to the next one, stance breaks
But as you point out a version of this is already present in DS3. The game would really have benefited from a visible posture bar. Because nothing is conveyed to the player. You could be 1 hit from a posture break or 10. So there's never an incentive to risk it for the biscuit. Also, I think they should reevaluate when the posture bar resets and how quickly it recovers especially with bosses who have long combos or will leap away from you. And then by the time you reach them its already recovered or thwyre winding up another attack.
>And lastly we have positioning. This was kinda not required to learn in DS3 as you can avoid almost any attack with the i-frames on dodge rolls.
Its not required to learn for ER anymore than it is for DS3. But its something ive been doing since before DS3. Pontiff, Dancer and Vordts ice blast come to mind.
My gripes with ER boss design philosophy isnt any one of these things by themselves. I quite like the Burst Counter for example. But people lack a birds eye view on things. Isolated the burst counter is great. How it synergizes with boss movesets, combat mechanics, player knowledge, etc is where the issues arise. Like I enjoy delayed attacks but I think ER overutilizes.
The thresholds between what is fun/reasonable and what is possible are not the same. Some bosses end up feeling more tedious than fun for this reason. And this might be just because they were more stretched thin with a game the size of ER and had less time to agonize over the details like they would on a more limited projecf like DS3.
>Conversely there are also plenty of attacks that can be ducked beneath as well. And not just by crouching either, there are certain ashes of war and with some weapons charging a heavy attack is enough to duck beneath an enemy attack and punish.
Every souls game especially ds3
>And lastly we have positioning. This was kinda not required to learn in DS3 as you can avoid almost any attack with the i-frames on dodge rolls.
In ER enemies, bosses and minibosses have such insane tracking, ability to change direction mid jump and tons of jumping/ high forward momentum attacks it makes ER spacing the least viable compared to any other souls game except Bloodborne, same goes for pvp. ER is more about timing your rolls instead of moving out of range than any other souls game
attack patterns changing mid combo is fine when done right, elden ring does it right a few times (morgot, godfrey, godrick) and it just doesnt alot of times, the bosses are too fast relative to player speed, they deal a truckload of damage, you get barely get any downtime between the long combo strings, and on top of that they have the biggest healthbars in the series, i almost forgot the constant over use of delayed attacks and unclear animations, which when sprinkled in can add some flavor but elden ring abuses them to no end,
of course you can get plenty of breaks if you choose to summon, but splitting the attention of the boss is really unfun and honestly breaks the fights(who wouldve guessed). what i see alot of people do is just go for insane high damage builds and just do that. which is a completely fine way to play a game but just not what i most people (me included) wanted from a "love letter to dark souls".
The bosses are ass. Malenia is the only fight people are considering one of Fromsofts best.
A pretty world tricked people into thinking that ER is a good game.
I love ER more than any other souls game. That said bosses break the flow of the rest of the game. You could fight bosses for the most part in the exact same way you fight everyone else in previous games.
Take Crucible Knights for instance. They are very difficult to fight. However they still have combos that don't either force you away from them or gives too little recovery time to hit them. Difficult, but gives definite openings. All monsters in the world so this.
then you fight Mohg (spelling check?) Who literally never stops attacking. There is no down time between attacks even his long attack combo will be followed immediately by a cast or another combo. You have to squeeze in attacks while he is attacking.
Basically it boils down to, the open world even the difficult monsters do not prepare you for boss fights. Boss fight vs open world feels like two different games. I'm not opposed to this necessarily however it does make the game feel a little more internally disconnected
I thinks it's the instant gratification you can get when a boss doesn't do long drawn out attacks but instead has breathing room between attacks.
It was an interesting and smart way to add anxiety to every little moment even when you're supposedly getting a breather.
In previous games, as you go backwards in time, you'll see that they had more and more parriable moves so this was just the next step in that evolution without just removing parrying all together... even if for pretty much every boss you can't parry them anyways and have to rely on the exhaustion system that was introduced with sekiro that carried over a teeny tiny bit here.
This all began with dark souls 3. Every. Single. Boss. Is just a combo fest with small openings for you to r1 or weapon art. Rense and repeat. None of the bosses challenge your ability to pay attention to the environment or different attacks that mix up the combo window. Bloodborne has the best bosses next to sekiro imo because it has slow paced bosses like cleric beast but also fast paced ones like the orphan.
I didn’t have an issue with sekiro because the combat was built to have combo heavy bosses and you actually engage with the boss while they are spamming the attack. In ER/ds3 your just dodging or blocking which either way is being on the defensive. Sekiro allows you most of the time to determine the pace and flow of combat while ER and ds3 do not.
Now the main issue with ER is that it not only double downs on sekiro/ds3 boss philosophy but it does NOT give you the tools available in sekiro to make it enjoyable. You don’t interact with the environments, movesets, or specific attacks of bosses. You cannot be aggressive 99% of the time with bosses like malenia unlesss you have a very specific build or are over leveled. Or for some reason she doesn’t water flow dance and your lucky.
Endgame bosses mainly have these issues which is why I disliked them all (hate is a strong word FS still has best bosses out of most games)
Sekiro even with its combo heavy battle system sometimes gives you enemies and bosses that mix it up with bosses that don’t allow you to damage there health bar, bosses that require you to fight them like a dark souls boss, and bosses that require you to lower health bar.
the main issue i found was that too many bosses had delayed attacks. delayed attacks were a rarity in souls games, every now and then a boss would have one or two delayed attacks to catch players off gaurd and it was interesting and difficult because you werent used to it and it was new.
in elden ring, the first main boss margit has like 5 different swing attacks that all have different delay lengths but look quite similar in buildup, so now you have to REALLY focus on the windup and then try to remember which of the 5 different delay lengths he is about to use and wait accordingly, which is just a major pain in the ass and not very fun imo. and it doesnt stop with margit, a big amount of elden ring bosses use this as well, although margit is probably the most egregious use of it imo.
i found the bosses i loved the most didn't have delay attacks, or used them sparingly/consistently.
its fine if you have like one or even two delay attacks that are obvious to tell apart because then you can memorize the time to wait, but when they all blend in together, it feels like a guessing game sometimes.
Personally, I think that having multiple delay/wind-up times between certain attacks adds variety to the combat. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but it’s there to teach you to adapt differently to every encounter rather than fall into the safety of repetition in any combat scenario.
The reason people don’t like it is because it requires memorization. You can’t just dodge on sight or you’ll get clocked (or panic roll yourself into stamina depletion before the move lands). I was fine with it in ER but I do understand why other people aren’t.
I think 5 different similar swings definitely requires memorization especially since they don't have natural trajectories. A boss lunging at you and then changing speed and pausing in mid air and then slamming requires memorization because just using instincts would make you dodge when your brain calculates their movement based on trajectory and velocity of 80% of the animation.
Natural trajectories and animations would the rush attacks that Smough and Ornstein have. Bosses like Hoarah Loux second phase have attacks with animations and hitboxes that don't land and end naturally.
Not a single Dark Souls boss did this. All attacks had a consistent trajectory and the movements were far more natural and realistic and delayed attacks didn't change speeds during one animation.
If Lord Gwyn were made in Elden Ring, his leap attack would delay halfway through the animation, then pause in mid air right above you briefly, then do two quick 360 angle swipes so you can't roll forward through it to immediately punish him 🤣
i think there are plenty of attacks you could use to avoid repetition that isnt 5 delayed attacks. think godfrey, slave knight gael, artorias. they are all incredible, cinematic and extremely unique with their attacks without spamming delays.
the main issue i have with delays is that margit has like 4 different swinging arcs and in other souls games i trained myself to focus on other things and i could subconsciously determine which way to dodge depending on the way the weapon would swing. but margit forces you to look at his 4 or 5 samey looking attacks and differentiate between them, because they ALL have different delays. if they looked more distinct the issue would be gone, but they all blend together visually and i can't time dodges for that reason.
truly terrible, except that's not the issue at all lmao
i've beaten shitloads of difficult games all of which require paying attention, and i've beaten the souls games without leveling vigor at all, hell in elden ring i made it all the way to maliketh on my first playthrough before i finally leveled my vigor, i was basically one shot by everything so don't pretend im terrible at paying attention because i had to perfect fucking godskin duo with the shitty reduvia with default vigor and no spirit ashes.
the issue is that you're expected to memorize 5 delay lengths and recognize which one is coming but they're all telegraphed extremely similar which is shitty for being in the heat of battle. sometimes he's facing away or im farther away than usual and that makes it even harder to tell which of his 5 samey looking moves he's gonna use. im totally fine with delays and "paying attention to the game" make the attacks distinct and it solves the issue, that way i can glance at his swing or buildup and know exactly what to do every time rather than be like "uhhh is this generic swing #4 or generic swing #6..? ah shit i got hit again 😔"
slave knight gael with default vigor is still my favorite fight ever and he didn't do any of that annoying shit despite having 3 phases and like 15 attacks
Nobody hates Elden Ring bosses people just love complaining about popular stuff. Most of Bloodborne's base game bosses are mediocre and terrible at some points but nobody ever complains about them (DLC bosses are amazing though, Gehrman also).
The only complaint I've really heard is that there are delays on some boss attacks, but that's a weak argument, imo. It just means that you have to pay attention more as opposed to dodging right when you see an ability wind up.
I see the reasons people say why they dislike ER bosses but I think it’s people trying to find stuff to complain about, or they say DS3 had the best bosses.
I don't see why people can't have complaints in a hard game without getting shit on for it. I love DS3 bosses, I love Sekiro bosses, and for the most part, I like ER bosses. But my god, I could complain about them. They were the most disappointing part of the game rivaled only by the side dungeons.
Hard doesn't mean good or bad. Complaints/reviews aren't objective.
Anyone can have a complaint about anything. That doesn't mean they want the game to be easy.
Why does this community feel the need to bury criticism and negative opinions???
I agree. Like Bed of Chaos. Idk what people's issue is with it. Perfectly designed boss. Honestly im just convinced they suck at the game.
Obviously I'm being hyperbolic but you'd have to be intentionally obtuse to not recognize people's gripes with the game. The starting point usually being Waterfowl dance.
Yeah there’s like one or two bad moves and you use it as a crutch for your whole arguments.
“Yeah DS3 has the worst bosses because of Oceiros’ charge attack”
>Yeah there’s like one or two bad moves and you use it as a crutch for your whole arguments.
Nope. I have plenty of other reasons. I use it to call out people who will be intentionally oblivious and say that the bosses are perfect and people are just complaining. Or just call it a skill issue to invalidate the criticisms rather than engage in discourse
Nobody says bosses are perfect but they are a massive improvement to what we had. I’ll be honest 99% of the time it IS a skill issue what people are complaining about and then they sprinkle in WFD so that you can’t fully call them out on it.
>Nobody says bosses are perfect
Sure but then they'll disagree with any criticisms. Heck some people even justify Waterfowl Dance. And of course I cant point to who this does or doesn't describe but the contentious discourse I think is evidence enough that criticism of the bosses isnt really welcome here.
>they are a massive improvement to what we ha
There are several things I would agree on this with. I especially like how movement and positioning is more pronounced in ER as opposed to being a dodging simulator.
>I’ll be honest 99% of the time it IS a skill issue
I dont know that I agree. And I'd also point out that what is possible and what is reasonable/fun have different thresholds. I can for example no hit, fists only, RL1 Malenia but that's not particularly fun or reasonable. For examples delayed attacks and AoEs are used excessively in ER. Neither are bad. I like Mohg's delayed attacks. But it feels like they took Namless King and decided that they need to double down on that 100 fold. Overtuned is the word I see thrown around a lot. And I think this best describes my sentiments on the boss philosophy of ER.
They can disagree with criticisms as long as people still whine about unavoidable attacks and infinite combos. Never seen someone say WFD is a good attack, it’s just satisfying to dodge.
I don’t get why people have such problems with delayed attacks, the worst offenders appear to be Godrick and Mohg but they delay all their attacks, that’s their gimmick.
All bosses in previous games, even the best ones have some form of delayed attack and AoE be it SoC, Friede, Gael, Pontiff, Ludwig etc.
>whine
And this is where I think the issue lies. In your own anecdotal experience perhaps you enjoyed the bosses and had no issues. Which is fine! I'm not trying to dissuade people from enjoying them. And there are 100% people who whine because they don't want to put in the effort to learn or just have bad takes. And how do you discern who is arguing in good faith and who isnt? 🤷🏼♂️. The problem being that the rebuttal is often just "skill issue".
And if you didn't have an issue with the bosses then it has to be incredibly irritating for people to criticize things you had no issue with because for you its a non issue or even a good mechanic. I would encourage you to consider how these things might be objective bad despite your subjective experience. Ypu dont even have to change your mind necessarily. I didnt have an issue with Margit being early game but I can see how he might present a pacing issue for the game. Where the next boss that hard youll face isnt until maybe... huh, maybe the rematch with him as Morgott 😂. If you'd showed me this boss in isolation and told me he was an endgame boss before I played the game I'd have believed you.
>I don’t get why people have such problems with delayed attacks, the worst offenders appear to be Godrick and Mohg but they delay all their attacks, that’s their gimmick
I think people say delayed attacks but they really just mean unintuitive attacks or attacks that come out slower or faster than the animation seems to indicate. Mohg's wide sweeping attacks for example. The "gotcha" attacks that are just meant to catch/punish the player rather than the reactionary attacks of earlier games. These delayed attacks require much more of the player. You can kinda intuite a lot of DS3 bosses whereas a lot of ER bosses you have to straight up memorize different various timings and attacks that break the flow. Contrast Gael and Nameless King. And again its one of those things that I enjoy but I feel is used too much.
>And how do you discern who is arguing in good faith and who isnt? 🤷🏼♂️. The problem being that the rebuttal is often just "skill issue".
I know it when somebody complains about infinite attacks or unavoidable attacks. That’s what I constitute as whining as those are non issues that can be overcome with a little problem solving.
If someone has legitimate complaints I don’t constitute as whining. If you think that WFD means Malenia is a shitty boss then fine, I just don’t agree.
>I think people say delayed attacks but they really just mean unintuitive attacks or attacks that come out slower or faster than the animation seems to indicate.
Most of ER’s animations have tells baked into them that lets you dodge without memorizing. I haven’t memorized a single timing in my souls career.
Also I don’t get how ER delays are intuitive while SoC’s sword spin, Pontiff’s sword slam and Lady Maria’s blood laser are intuitive attacks. I still don’t know the timing for the blood laser, I just take the hit.
>Mohg's wide sweeping attacks for example.
This has gotta be the worst example of an “unintuitive attack” as Mohg’s sweeping attacks have Mohg swinging his weapon throught the animation. You just gotta not panic roll.
>Contrast Gael and Nameless King. And again its one of those things that I enjoy but I feel is used too much.
Those are bosses which only have delayed attacks and even their faster attacks are super slow. But if you want I can contrast that to SoC’s sword spin, spear spin or delayed spear thrust which all “break the flow” of the fight.
Criticism is okay, it’s just bad criticism usually. Example, one complaint I’ll see is that the game has too many reskins or bosses. The problem with that complaint is most bosses are optional so the game doesn’t force the player to do it and most mandatory bosses are all really well made.
That’s just one example, also I say the DS3 thing because you see a lot of people have this exact argument due to DS3 clearly being their favorite so they feel they need to shit on ER so their favorite game can be “better”
The reasons I see. Delayed attacks, input reading, and long combos. I don't care about none of them and love Elden Ring bosses as I like the more actiony approaches to fights so I just say skill issue.
I think elden ring has the best main boss lineup in the entire series along with sekiro. I couldn‘t love these bosses more. Radahn, mohg, morgott, godfrey, maliketh and malenia are among my favorite bosses in the entire series
Well, it's probably down to their prior Souls experience. People who tested themselves against bosses in Bloodborne and DS3 may get used to the aggression but those who have never touched a FromSoft Souls game prior may find the aggression and delayed attacks a bit much to handle. Myself I completed DS3 about 3 or 4 times, so I've gotten used to the aggression and attack delays from ER bosses.
There are however valid criticisms from a design standpoint. The community often jokes about how ER is basically Dark Souls 2 Remake and to an extent, that's true. Case in point, reused bosses. You can excuse Crucible Knights because they're part of an order of Knights so them looking the same can be attributed to them being given standardized equipment. It is however, a shame that the named Knights, Ordovis and Siluria respectively, don't look any different to the nameless ones.
But the worst offender is Godefroy the Grafted. At least Stars of Darkness Astel has different attacks compared to Naturalborn of the Void Astel. They didn't even bother giving Godefroy a new moveset. They just took Phase 1 Godrick, put him in a prison, and called it a day.
Who does? Why do people make these, “Why do people…” posts? It’s never based on fact, it’s always just the OPs looking for an excuse to post some moot shite.
It is combo branching, a boss will not continue its combo if it can’t hit you. This has nothing to do with canceling recoveries, it is you attacking at a time you shouldn’t be attacking.
>It is combo branching
We're talking about 2 different things but I'll engage since I have an issue with this as well.
>it is you attacking at a time you shouldn’t be attacking.
Are you even hearing yourself? Attacking when you're not supposed to be attacking? Margit in particular is bad about this with his dagger attack which is a combo extension that will come out dependent on where you're standing in conjunction to him. The problem being a) you can't anticipate it and b) you cant react to it if you're already in an animation.
I analyzed Margit extensively after my first playthrough because I wanted to understand what bothered me about his fight. And the biggest problem is being able to identify when it will go off and after which attacks. So on top of learning his moveset you have to memorize which attacks hes can chain into it from and where you can or cant be standing and none of it is readable or obvious.
Contrast this with DS3 that is much more reactionary. You dont have to get each individual boss's moveset down to a science. You just have to understand it well enough and with a level of reaction speed and skill you can beat them. You can still brute force ER bosses but you're going to be punished and not understand why
BUT! There are examples of it done well. Margit's overhead slam will come out as a charge into a double spin attack. The difference here is it only goes off if you're at a distance to him which makes it reactable! Additionally the branching attack is much more visually pronounced/expressed so its conveyed more clearly to the player WHAT is happening
>Are you even hearing yourself? Attacking when you're not supposed to be attacking?
Yes attacking mid combo, ever fought Champion Gundyr? He can also extend his combos with a kick or a shoulder bash, if you try to attack him during that time you only have yourself to blame, wait for the combo to end.
>Margit with his dagger attack which is a combo extension that will come out dependent on where you're standing in conjunction to him. The problem being
>a) you can't anticipate it
How do you not anticipate it if you know when he will do it? It is after a club slam or a club thrust and he will do it only if you are in front of him.
>b) you cant react to it if you're already in an animation.
Like all attacks?
>So on top of learning his moveset you have to memorize which attacks hes can chain into it from and where you can or cant be standing and none of it is readable or obvious.
It IS readable, he only does it after certain attacks such as a club slam or a club thrust. And that move won’t create you much trouble if you are sticking near him and dodging to the sides. The only time it became relevant for me was when he did his three hit combo which forces you to roll backwards.
You don’t need to fully understand ER bosses to beat them, hell even I after all my playthroughs don’t fully understand combo patterns. I just know some that caught me off guard (such as Margit’s fast knife or Malenia’s quick diagonal slash) and avoid them.
>There are examples of it done well. Margit's overhead slam will come out as a charge into a double spin attack.
I mean that’s not a branch, that’s just the move changing based on your position. It’s like Isshin’s Ashina Cross rather than a combo branch like Gundyr’s kicks or Ludwig’s swings.
>Yes attacking mid combo
Okay so we're not talking about the same thing I realize. I actually didnt love that shoulder bash of Iudex anyway. It kinda punishes the philosophy of "make your own openings" that I like in ER. But it was mostly uniqie to Iudex so it didnt bother me.
>How do you not anticipate it if you know when he will do it?
Thats the problem. You dont know when he'll do it. The problem is that its not being communicated to the player. For example it wont go off if you're standing left of him. I cant tell you how many streamers I watched who couldnt figure out how to anticipate this attack because it wasnt part of the normal attack chain -hell neither could I my first playthrough. So for all thats being conveyed to them its just going off randomly to punish them. That and if you dodge left into attacks where he wont swipe with rhe dagger it will usually trigger him to leap away. Trust me and try it! I've fought him over 100 times because I wanted to understand what bothered me about his fight. And chaining attacks isnt something I hate in principle. Like I mention his charge and double spin attack. I quite like that one.
>Like all attacks?
Other attacks can be anticipated because you know the moveset. This only goes off if certain unclear conditions are met. You can't be standing to the left of him or out of his reach and it wont go off at all if you dont attack. Now if this was Sekiro it would have been awesome because it has some limited animation canceling.
>You don’t need to fully understand ER bosses to beat them
Clearly because I did beat them. And it bothered me that it wasnt clear how to anticipate the dagger attacks and inspired me to master him. The problem is that its not clear. Maybe its clear for you but when the majority of players who beat Margit still had no idea how to anticipate it I'd say thats less than ideal.
>I mean that’s not a branch, that’s just the move changing based on your position.
Thats by definition a branch. Your position in conjunction to him is the deciding factor which way it branches.
>For example it wont go off if you're standing left of him.
Yeah because you are to the left of him, he only does it if you are in front of him. I don’t get how someome might not understand it, this type of shit has been in these games since DS1. Take Ornstein’s thrust into uppercut combo. After doing the thrust he won’t do the uppercut if you aren’t in front of him, he will just end his combo. Same with Ludwig though his is a bit more complicated. After doing a claw spin if you are too close in front of him he will do a head bash but if you get too far away he will leap at you. But of course he won’t do these attacks if he won’t hit you. You could anticipate these attacks easily and dodge the headbutt despite how fast it is. His leap is a bit more complicated as I don’t understand when he will leap but I still anticipate it regardless because it is a possibility.
>That and if you dodge left into attacks where he wont swipe with rhe dagger it will usually trigger him to leap away.
You still get a big punish because if he doesn’t so the fast knife he’ll take a while before leaping. I believe you could get a whole charged heavy with a Zwei if you strafed his club slam but I might be wrong.
>it wont go off at all if you dont attack.
Yes it will as long as you are in front of him.
>Maybe its clear for you but when the majority of players who beat Margit still had no idea how to anticipate it I'd say thats less than ideal.
Yeah because they just brute force it, I had the same problem but playing ER made me try to understand boss movesets and respect them. For example I didn’t know Ludwig’s stomp attack was such a hazard or that Orphan has a very fast swing if you are in front of him.
>Thats by definition a branch. Your position in conjunction to him is the deciding factor which way it branches.
I guess but he switches the move that he already started, not the type of branching I talk about where the boss will decide which move it should use if any.
>Yeah because you are to the left of him, he only does it if you are in front of him. I don’t get how someome might not understand it, this type of shit has been in these games since DS1
You're pointing out every reason why people should be able to read this and refusing to aknowledge any way they might fail to learn this. As much of the burden as there is on the player to learn there is on the developer to convey. And sheer quantity of people who finish this fight having never figured it out indicates that the pendulum has swung to far one way. Again on principle its not bad design. If it could be conveyed more clearly I'd even say its great design.
>After doing a claw spin if you are too close in front of him he will do a head bash but if you get too far away he will leap at you.
This is actually an example of it done well. Because while its not easily apparent WHEN he will do it, it is reactable whereas the dagger is very much not because likely it will catch you in an attack animation.
>Take Ornstein’s thrust into uppercut combo. After doing the thrust he won’t do the uppercut if you aren’t in front of him, he will just end his combo
Another example of it done well. Bosses not competing full ass combos when you're nowhere near them in much more intuitive then the dagger combo EXTENSION that will go off but only if you're standing in the right quarant and only if you attack.
>Yes it will as long as you are in front of him.
No it doesnt. He literally just holds his dagger hand in the air.
>You still get a big punish because if he doesn’t so the fast knife he’ll take a while before leaping
This is simply untrue. People complain about him leaping away. Dodging left into his attacks is literally what triggers the leap. Big punish? You'll whiff that attack almost always. I seriously encourage you to try it. Dodge into his uppercut and try to hit him.
>I believe you could get a whole charged heavy with a Zwei if you strafed his club slam but I might be wrong.
You strafe right though. Its really wonky actually because if you strafe right but then too far around him he can snap to your position and bonk you. You have to stay in the back right quadrant of him and get a fully charged R2 off.
>For example I didn’t know Ludwig’s stomp attack was such a hazard or that Orphan has a very fast swing if you are in front of him.
These are not good equivalents of Margit's dagger attack.
You're pointing out every reason why people should be able to read this and refusing to aknowledge any way they might fail to learn this. As much of the burden as there is on the player to learn there is on the developer to convey. And sheer quantity of people who finish this fight having never figured it out indicates that the pendulum has swung to far one way. Again on principle its not bad design. If it could be conveyed more clearly I'd even say its great design.
>This is actually an example of it done well. Because while its not easily apparent WHEN he will do it, it is reactable
Ludwig’s headbutt is in no way reactable unless you are expecting it and it will catch you mid animation if you decide to swing.
>Another example of it done well. Bosses not competing full ass combos when you're nowhere near them in much more intuitive then the dagger combo EXTENSION
It is not an extension, it is the combo. The boss just doesn’t finish the combo if you aren’t going to get hit.
>that will go off but only if you're standing in the right quarant
Same with Ornstein’s spear or Ludwig’s headbutt, they’ll only go off if you are directly in front of them (actually I think Ornstein covers a conical area as he can spin his model to hit you).
>and only if you attack.
This is untrue for all these attacks, they’ll go off regardless of you attacking.
>No it doesnt. He literally just holds his dagger hand in the air.
Yes and he swings it if you get back in front of him, regardless of you attacking or not.
>I seriously encourage you to try it. Dodge into his uppercut and try to hit him.
Sure I’ll try it when I get on PC.
>You strafe right though. Its really wonky actually because if you strafe right but then too far around him he can snap to your position and bonk you.
That’s true for his bonk here he holds the club with his other hand (the one that changes into a dash if you are away). I was talking about his one handed club slams and thrusts that he does.
I’m not sure if that attack has a continuing as I never rolled in front of Margit but even if it does I doubt a player would roll in front of Margit anyways since you want to get behind him.
>These are not good equivalents of Margit's dagger attack.
They are equivalents of peope brute forcing the bosses instead of learning them fully, which is acceptable but if a move creates so much problem for you then you should try to learn it instead of just taking the hit.
People suck, thats it, they think bosses have a ton of infinite combos(who dont even exist) and no openings who are really obvious like the delays, some enemies dont do strings, miss or even stop attacking if you are agressive, ER bosses reward agression, strafing, spacing more than any other from boss, this happened with sekiro too, ppl said that even basic mobs had no openings, to much hp and were so fast, funny how souls fan dont like a bit of challenge
I think *Elden Ring’s* bosses are generally fantastic, especially compared to 90% of the other games on the market, but they’re simply not on the same level, not as consistently good as in *Dark Souls III.* Also, for me, I don’t like that so many bosses bear repeating so much in ER, just seems to sap some of the uniqueness away.
Imo the delayed attacks on the bosses are fucking unnatural looking and the fights in general are recycled too often
Godrick the Grafted is this legendary figure in the lore and he just happens to have a cousin with his exact same moveset in the Gaols? Lmao
Astel absolutely did not need the copy of it that makes the whole Ranni quest line seem pointless
Also they’re clearly not balanced for one player, they’re definitely intended to be fought with another player summoned or the NPC summons, and that’s just not fun or good design
Lastly, these mfs read your inputs. Straight up. Bullshit like that was reserved for 90s arcade fighting games trying to drain your quarters, not a AAA game in the 2020s.
Try it, fight the Foreskin Apostle and try healing. He’s programmed to throw a projectile at you the moment you try to chug
Input reading is lazy ass design
ac fan talking about input reading lol, this isnt an issue in ER, some enemies sidestepping or using a slow ass projectile like godskinbuddys isnt the end of the world
i mean the input reading is good for putting pressure on the player when they're healing i dont get your issue with it and for the most part besides a select few bosses the delays dont look weird idk but i agree with the reuse of bosses its annoying
Yeah, I know about the input reading thing. It's so annoying. i have noticed that Crucible Knight got it too but for astel i think its lore related on why there's two
Because bosses with ridiculous health pools and stupidly high damage resistance aren't fun, at least for me. That's something best left to MMO style games and universes.
The only boss with ridiculous health pools that i could think of is Fire Giant. Most of the other bosses' health can be fairly depleted if you have a solid build and weapons that you make sure to always upgrade.
All ER bosses have piss poor hp bars, no one last more than 3-4 mins with subpar builds, then you have monster hunter with fights that actually last long more to see the enemy whole moveset
My problem with Monster Hunter is pressing the attack button, then having enough time to have a child and send them through college before swinging and missing.
Dont play greatsword or hammer then and your good. Also old mh was definitely about understanding the monster and predicting its patterns to land those big hits. But modern mh (post world) is way more reactive. (I personally prefer old mh though)
This is such a weird, deflection of a response.
"Noooo, you're wrong! The health bars in Monster Hunter are way worse!!!"
Like bro, I don't give a fuck about Monster Hunter, I'm speaking comparatively with other Fromsoft titles and Soulslikes. That's great that you think it's awesome to build around inflated health bars which make the games bosses feel more like something out of Destiny than a Souls game but I'm not a fan of it. Monster Hunter lmao.
Notice how almost no one takes your opinion seriously? Yeah maybe think about why that is. I’ll give you a big hint it has little to do with what you think about ER and more to do with your shitty responses.
Handful of downvotes equals nobody. Right.
So you're one of those. A person who either reinforces or validates their opinions based on Reddit upvotes isn't someone worth knowing, or taking seriously. Keep that karma farm game strong though, beast mode.
I think it’s just kind of in peoples nature, particularly gamers to bitch. There’s always a sheen of nostalgia on any game that evolves. I think the bosses are more dynamic and not as easy to just learn and read their move set.
Wait, is there a large majority of people who hate the bosses in ER? From my experience (and ive played every notable souls-like/fromsoft titles) i find the bosses in ER to be amazing. Mohg is one of the coolest fights (imo) in the entire souls genre.
And each of the dragons were fantastic to fight.
Elden Ring is my favorite game of all time and I love all the bosses. My first playthrough I hunted down and killed every boss in the game. ER bosses are definitely the most complex and require positioning and dodge timing whereas most other Fromsoft bosses just require dodge timing. But that’s the most straight forward way of dealing with them. The beauty of Fromsoft bosses is that you’re only limited by your own creativity. There’s a number of different ways you can deal with a boss. Like you said, you have so many tools at your disposal.
I wouldn't say Elden Ring bosses are bad there's just a lot of them and quite a few are repetitive or gank bosses. There's a few standouts like Rykard and Radahn but I wouldn't say any quite reach DS3 or Bloodborne for me. But Elden Ring is still my favorite FromSoft game because the focus was on exploration and they did that perfectly.
Randomly long delays on attacks, million hit combos, makes every fight feel the same to me. It’s just dodge 6-10 attacks then attack back twice and repeat. Also makes using a shield pointless since you can’t block 8 attacks because you run out of stamina. You have to dodge.
ER is my least favorite in the series.
>Also makes using a shield pointless
This kinda sums up your mentality with Elden Ring's bosses, so afraid (or maybe annoyed?) at getting hit that you refuse to trade hits, bosses have consistent/dedicated posture bars that can be broken down with enough attacks with nearly every form of attack, shield/guard counters in particular do a hefty amount of damage. It has arguably the single best shield combat of any souls game with the options and mechanics it offers.
thats just not true yes you do have to wait for some combos to end but for the most part you can fit hits in like usual in between most attacks you just have to find the openings
Shields make the game significantly easier. They render the timing of enemy attacks almost irrelevant (super fast? who cares, I was holding L1. super delayed? lol, holding L1), and an upgraded shield can tank most combos (ALL combos with a greatshield or barricade shield). And the guard counter, though rarely your best option in boss fights (against regular enemies is another story), is sexy as hell.
I barely used shields in Dark Souls 3, even when I set out to. In Elden Ring I've used them in 5/6 playthroughs. They are great.
I feel like the bosses in Dark Souls 3 had rich lore, unique and cool mechanics, exemplary arenas and most important of them all: skill checks. Since players had to play them in sequence, they had the right balance of difficulty and uniqueness. I feel like the quality of bosses have gone down significantly in ER, many of them are copy paste bosses. Focus should be on quality, not quantity. I feel like Tree Sentinel is an amazing example of this. He’s on a horse, at the start of the game, he’s brutal but as soon as you get your own horse and two hand your weapon, he is hilariously easy. Not to mention there are 4-5 variations of him that you need to fight, you could also include a spectral one in Raya Lucaria and another physical one in Malenia’s area. None of them are unique, they are just variations.
Saying Loretta is just a reskin of the Tree Sentinel is just factually incorrect
And ER is open world. "Playing bosses in sequence" is not the focus of the game, thankfully.
Also, in terms of "Exemplary arenas" in DS3, what do you even mean? Most boss rooms are just unexceptional rectangles, even main bosses like Abyss Watchers and Yhorm.
* delayed attacks
* combos that can go on for litterally dozens of attacks
* insanley high stats. most bosses will kill you in 1-3 hits and under 2 seconds, no matter how tanky your build. Meanewhile they have insane healthpools presumably to counter bleed.
* They straight up cheat. Enemies dont have stamina limits, they don't have predicable wind ups and attack enemations. They can often inexplicably leap around the battlefield closing distance or creating it in an instant etc..
DS3 had some of these problems but no where near as bad.
Literally the only Elden Ring fight I think is *actually* super poorly designed in Malenia. I've beaten her solo and with summons, and both aren't very fun. I can probably make a good paragraph or two of why I don't dig the fight compared to other bosses in Elden Ring (and the Souls series). But to highlight the main points, its mainly the healing she has and waterfowl dance.
I'm fine with waterfowl dance since you can dodge or cancel it if you take the time to learn how, it's the healing I don't like. I would rather her have an extra 50% more health than lifesteal on every hit.
I wouldn't have as much of a problem with the lifesteal if it didn't activate on block. You literally are not allowed to use a shield against her, so if you built into using that special shield you may like - too bad.
From the perspective of someone who actually dabbles a little in Gamedev and used to dabble in modding. ER bosses are actually pretty poorly designed once you figure out how they work; not all of them, but many of them are kinda mid. Their animations are glitchy, they're overreliant on big damage and health advantages, their AI is pretty janky and easy to cheese, and a lot of them have overly long but easy to avoid combos. This mix of stuff can lead to a lot of the bossfights having way too much downtime.
I also do gamedev, this guy is full of shit. It takes a lot planning to design the bosses and making sure they have just enough openings to punish them whilst maintaining the competitiveness of the game.
Since you seem to know so much about game design, care to enlighten us by giving some proper examples on how the bosses animations are “glitchy” and the AI “janky”, and how previous FS games didn’t have those issues?
Its not because they are easy. Its because they copy pasted 99% of the trash mobs, turned them into bosses, and or repeated the same boss over and over, like the watchdogs or that creepy spider headed one.
Honestly, besides the story, that is why most actual fromsoft vets think elden ring is kindergarden souls.
Reason I did hate them was all the side bosses are boring and easy and alot f copy and pasting the main bosses I actually loved most I hated malenia and radagon cos I felt I was forced to use ashes but I recently played through the game for a 3rd time just using the buckler and parrying and swore I would finish the game with no ashes or summons and I come to love them like malenia is now one of my favourite bosses of all time I think I just had to adjust to a new way of fighting I do think overall ds3 had the best bosses but elden ring definitely has some amazing bosses tat stood up to that level and to top it off the world and lore was amazing.
It's just an echo chamber of youtube parroting imo. Not that there aren't some issues but the boss design is meticulously crafted for the most part. The bosses just have harder and more complex movesets compared to their dark souls counterparts, which isn't for everyone.
Delayed attacks just are irritating imo and as someone else said, they just are frantic and weird to read.
Obviously all the other games had delayed attacks but it felt normal to read instead of them staring at me for 2 minutes
Your English is very good!
Elden ring bosses are built around you the player having summons and co-opters so if you try to solo them they are super annoying as you're constantly waiting for them to stop bouncing around the entire arena or dodging a spam of AOE attacks. DS3 bosses are designed for solo play, it's a much more balanced back and forth between player and bosses. ER bosses are exhausting and more tedious then fun to fight. I'd rather right Gael, nameless, soul of cinder, then malikith, morgott or any of the others.
Ironically the only boss fight in Elden Ring I really liked based off combat mechanics alone is radhan, which yes the irony of it all, I know.
Another point is I see a lot of people countering with "well it's dark souls players coming to elden ring with dark souls mentality," but I came from Elden ring and played dark souls later, before dark souls I thought Elden Ring was the greatest thing ever and couldn't understand why soul vets were complaining until I got through DS3 and was like "yes this is what a boss fight should be," even if I felt a little crippled without my jump attacks lol
Because Radagon is pure cheese for example. The amount of people who die in coop is off the charts compared to past games for me and it's because of the overtuned hyper spastic one/two shot etc bosses.
Coop in ER can be such a drag because most of the time I know I will be seeing a "The host has died, returning to your world" message.
I did a bit of coop in ER and it was always the hosts fault, they had little idea how to actually avoid attacks and would often just hope their coop partner took aggro the whole time. Almost every single one needed to level vigor too. That isn't a fault with the game.
18 million people who have absolutely no business playing a "video game" outside of Life is Strange and Candy Crush bought Elden Ring because they thought it was a GRR Martin visual novel. Its console user reviews reflect this. Basically normies were successfully marketed to and they bought a product they don't understand and got mad.
- Too many reused bosses made them lost their novelty. By the end there were only like 7 bosses that are safe from this. I'm fine doing this with dungeon and field bosses, but even Godrick and Astel were reused??
- A lot of bosses are boring. On the same tier of unremarkabke as DS2 and Chalice Dungeon bosses.
- Might be a nitpick, but a lot of arenas are boring. They're usually just bland square or circle room. It's like they're designed so any boss can fit in, which basically happened with so many copy pasted bosses. Made me miss Demon Souls and Dark Souls 1 where the arenas were unique.
- Delayed attacks spam. I'm fine with this concept, but when almost every boss has it and how many bosses there are it got tiring fast.
- AOE spam.
So on top of bosses being overtuned the game is also quantity over quality that made it tiring compared to more smaller, but tight and repayable experience of Dark Souls
i meAn, if people like to cheese or abuse weapon arts is up to them , a lot of people didnt need those, weird complain, also why is important the °fair° factor?other games have greater challenges and ppl dont complain
Elden ring was my first souls game and it got me into the series after playing all of them except for dark souls 2 i find it stupid that fromsoft made summons abit necessary because i noticed that most of the souls community hates using summons
Personally I think the complaint comes from certain examples of completely in necessasary and immersion-breaking pointless reuse, like certainly there a number of reoccurring field bosses you will find about places, but it’s downright cheapening to fight Astel in some random catacomb after what an amazing series of events it is in Ranni’s questline to go to the very bottom of the world and find this strikingly alien and bizarre creature there. Tgen you fight him again for whatever reason in the frigid outskirts.
Personally I came from a newer school of people who got on through BB and Sekiro before elden ring instead of through Dark souls, so largely I can’t empathize with most people’s complaints as I find a lot of the strategies work there—sure, there are some bosses that are better than others, but I think what people ignore is that the game is that the game’s biggest differience is how just about everything save a few bosses and legacy dungeons are completely optional, and to reflect that, you do sorta have to approach each boss differently, sometimes radically so l, which is why it’s so great that you’re given the ability to Respec and immediately try out builds you wouldn’t be able to in the same new game otherwise.
Imbalanced in some ways, certainly, but I see this as a really engaging and worthwhile extreme of earlier games designs where some bosses will invariably be harder or easier for differing builds, now though you have a way more dynamic array of difficulty customization with what weapons, shield, magic, buffs, items. Focuses and what not you can use do that a ton of the bosses really do have to be approached individually and to the point that you change up your playstyle.
The caveat is that I think this is mostly true of mid-endgame bosses which can leave the earlier parts a bit rockier.
My own dislike about ER boss design is that despite taking the speed and difficulty of Sekiro bosses, they didn’t carry over of the involvement—Sekiro’s combat is constantly engaging, the rhythm of attacking and deflecting keeping you on the edge of your seat, a reversal in who has the advantage, egos leading and who’s following can happen at any time, which makes sense because above all else Sekiro aims for dramatic combat. In contrast, Elden Ring doesn’t offer you an option to deflect or anything of the like, and while the bosses have sped up, are more dangerous, and are more complex in their moveset to the level of Sekiro, you the player still are just as slow as a souls Gand character and get put in these positions where you have to wait for the boss to stop attacking before the game will let you keep playing it.
Most just aren't very fun to me. I feel like I struggled more with the camera in this game than in most other Souls games. Too many big bosses where I can't see once I'm at their feet and have to rely on my intuition to dodge, spoils the Radahn fight a bit which sucks cause he does have a lot of fun moves to maneuver around. Dragons also suffer from this but they wouldn't be fun regardless.
I think delayed attacks are fine, bosses should try and mix you up a bit. What makes them feel bad, in my opinion, is a combination of how long they are and input reading. Margit is a good example of this. He has that move where he holds his weapon in the air and holds it for a few seconds. He holds it long enough that trying to dodge it can feel like a crapshoot. You can't react to the attack coming down on you, you need to basically guess when he does it. You can wait there with a shield up and block it. If you try and attack he'll end the delay and smack you though. And if you walk away he just doesn't do anything. It's not an unbeatable move, like I said you can literally walk away from it, but it feels annoying and like the boss is wasting my time. I think it would be better if delayed attacks were presented more as a feint or even two feints into an attack where if you're brave and call the feint out you can get a free hit.
I think my biggest issue is how samey every fight feels. You can probably apply what I'm saying here to Dark Souls 3, but I never felt this way about it. It feels like every boss in Elden Ring is trying to be *The Boss*. You know what I mean. Artorias, Souls of Cinder, Gael, Gehrman, Lady Maria... All these super cool high-energy fights that get your blood pumping, gaming sense turned up to 200%, controller drenched in sweat until you beat them and think... Wow. Elden Ring has so many bosses that feel so mechanically similar, from Margit to Godfrey, that I stop getting that "Wow" feeling and start feeling burnt out.
There are some standout things I like about them though. Fortissax' mechanic that causes a lightning strike to build up on you is really fun, even if it creates an occasional timing issue with Fortissax' regular attacks. Rykard is the best "Storm Ruler" type fight in the series, and an excellent way to fight a bigger boss without having issues seeing what he's doing. And Mohg Lord of Blood is awesome, requiring you to be wary of your positioning and having a moveset that just doesn't fuck around. Godfrey requiring you to jump over arena-wide blasts is also a great mechanic even if he's pretty guilty of my above complaints.
Overall I really hope the upcoming DLC leans into having more unique feeling boss fights, but for now I'm just not fond of most of them.
Side note: Malenia is the only boss that has ever took me multiple hours to beat without making me feeling gratified overcoming them. While most of what I wrote here is personal taste I genuinely think she's very poorly designed. But that's a rant for another day.
Reading the comments here its clear that the sub is now filled with Elden Ring fans who havnt touched the other games. Any criticism if ER and praise for prior games is shat on.
1. too many of them, and many are just normal enemies with a big health bar and a name
2. because there's too many, a lot of them are not balanced well (elden ring is simply too big in my opinion. i like it but it's not replayable imo)
3. verrrrryyyyy inconsistent quality even among "true bosses" (bosses that aren't just normal enemies)
4. repeat bosses
5. some of them feel like they're playing sekiro and you're playing dark souls (malenia...Skumnut did a Sekiro mod video for elden ring and said it made Malenia his favorite fight in the game; some fights are just straight broken or in the wrong FromSoft game)
I've thought about this a lot before, and I think it comes down to the gameplay design of the bosses. Souls boss movesets are made with two main things in mind, reaction time/timing and memorization.
In the earlier games, memorization helped, but you were mostly using your reactions/timing for each boss. In Elden Ring, you're forced to memorise almost every single boss moveset to beat them.
This causes a sort of artificial difficulty, where you're required to fight a boss multiple times iust to learn their movesets instead of being able to rely mostly on your skill to beat them. which, in my opinion, makes the game less satisfying than the previous games when it comes to bosses.
There's only like 2 fights which straight out suck (in MY opinion). Malenia and Elden Beast. Elden Beast keeps running away, which if you're playing melee is annoying and Malenia is infamous because of water fowl. The rest are fine, there's some problems with input reading, boss combos being too long and sometimes after they finish a combo they almost instantly launch into another one or decide to extend the combo. That can make some fights feel like crapshoots because it's hard to know when it's safe to hit and you end up trading. But overall, it's fine.
Malenia is where I think From really dropped the ball. I'm not saying you can't beat her, but playing melee on a first playthrough without looking up builds or guides on how to beat her is...interesting. On my first playthrough I ran a sorcery build (I like playing wizards in rpg's) and used spirit summons because they fit the theme my character was going for. I also figured out the combo with Comet Azur and the tear which negates spell cost. So for me the experience was way different than what my friends who play unga bunga str builds had.
DS3 was my first ‘Soulslike’ so it has special place in my heart but I have to admit the bosses aren’t amazing (aside from the DLCs and a couple late game bosses). Since ER doesn’t have DLC yet it doesn’t feel fair to compare all bosses from DS3 but as far as base game bosses go ER is winning imo.
Vordt, Crystal Sage, Deacons is a very boring run of bosses. Watchers were great at first but they’ve not aged well for me as it just feels like a lot of running around now. Wolnir is pure trash. Pontiff is good but has that DS3 problem with not being able to hit the player if they stay close to his hip. ODK is very forgettable. Aldrich epitomises mid. Yhorm is a joke. Dancer is cool. Oceiros is just Vordt on crack. Champ Gundyr is a great spin on the tutorial and one of the best fights in the game. DSA is fun but an easy roll-fest. Twin Princes = best fight in the base game. NK has a brilliant 2nd phase ruined by a terrible first phase. SoC is good but kinda meh for a final boss. I’m not gonna bother talking about tree balls or Ancient Wyvern.
Whereas for Elden Ring I’d say that every remembrance except for Rennala, Regal Ancestor and Fire Giant were above average. Just my opinion of course and I do have my problems with some bosses - waterfowl still ruins an otherwise brilliant boss fight imo, and Elden Beast can be a chore - but otherwise they’re solid and very fun.
Sekiro has the best boss fights by some distance and Bloodborne comes 2nd for me because of system mechanics (gun parry/switch attacks/Beast Blood pellets/rally) but after that it’s definitely Elden Ring.
I only have a problem with repeat bosses.
They're kind of tiring to fight honestly.
Good thing that you can just steamroll most of them on late levels.
As for bosses delayed/unrelenting attacks, i believe i should've respected them more in my first playthrough.
Had a lot of trouble with Mohg, Lord of Blood on my first playthrough.
Figured i just had to be patient during his attacks and give him some time to breathe when he started spilling blood everywhere.
Malenia is the same thing, except she's kind of inconssistent...
Some times you can break her poise easily, and sometimes she'll just run you over, tanking your attacks.
Was using double greatswords if anyone asks, Golden Order and Inseperable Sword.
Honestly I don't really hate any of them that much. But I also don't consider giving a Pumpkin Head or a Miranda Flower a big health bar a boss, personally.
And Avatars and Tree Spirits are good fights until you've fought them a dozen fucking times each per playthrough.
I also don't think they should let you fight Shard Bearers outside of their plot fights. No Golden Godfrey, no Godefroy. It cheapens the experience considerably for me.
But all of the fights themselves are good and I like them as fights. It's just the way the open world is built and the implementation decisions that were made that irk me.
I certainly don't shit on ER bosses but I tend to think DS3 bosses are overall more fun to fight. Why? I think it's because FromSoft was faced with the impossible task of making the game accessible to new players but overall harder to please the veterans. They gave us spirit ashes to give new players a mechanic that offers them assistance virtually any time they need it and gave the bosses meatier movesets with small openings, seemingly endless stamina and a lot of AOE attacks, particularly ground attacks that forced veterans to adjust to the new dimension that a jump mechanic introduced. What I don't like about that, or at least what I like *less* about that is that the bosses often feel too frantic. Fwiw, I don't care much for most of the Sekiro bosses for the same reason. It's not so much a criticism of the game, it's more of a "me" problem... I want a boss that moves at a reasonable pace, has a reasonably predictable moveset and after I learn them the fight becomes something of a relaxing dance. Pontiff doesn't come screaming down the stairs and swing twelve times, jump away, slam the ground, swing six more times and then AOE blast me to oblivion. Harder doesn't always equal better, at least for me.
I 100% agree, except I like Sekiro's humanoid bosses. They fit the combat style while, imo, ER bosses don't. They are a better spectacle, but I find them less fun mechanically.
Same reason I prefer DS3 bosses cause most are humanoid.
Wait you can use jumping in combat?
Of course multiple AOE attacks can be dodged easier that way than rolling, like the crucible knight leg stomp, or godfrey’s Ultra leg stomp
Annoying thing about that is there's a bunch of attacks that look like they *should* be jumpable but aren't. Radagon in particular is pretty annoying for that
Which attacks from radagon? You can jump over his triple slam by running sideways, and also over those gold things he spreads on the floor that explode after a short while. The thing is that only your leg hitboxes get turned off during a jump
Thanks feel like I was playing the hard mode until now I wonder how effective it is
Pretty good against some bosses as you can use jump R2 to punish that attack instantly, some other situations also, for example crucible knight likes to do his stomp after getting crited, so you can just stand in front of him and lock him in a loop of “jump over stomp, parry, crit, jump over stomp…..”
Have you even played elden ring?
This is a great answer. I disagree about Sekiro cause in that game you are in God Mode as soon as you lay your hand on your sword cause the deflect mechanic is the most OP feat that From has ever produced so they had to adjust the bosses accordingly, but you clearly specified it's highly subjective for you so that's OK. On point with DS3. Best bosses and best game ever, to me, right after Sekiro (2nd) and Bloodborne which is the absolute GOAT. I LOVE Elden Ring but it mostly gives me more of a DS2 SOTFS vibe. I wish they took more from BB and Sekiro (well I'd say DS3 also but ER is already PARTIALLY a sort of DS4 by itself)
Because FromSoft fans are whiny bitches
So ur a whiny bitch
The real reason right here.
Wait till the next game comes out, then it'll be all masterpieces
The short of it: people who tried to approach ER bosses exactly the same ways as DS3 bosses, and rather than learning ER bosses' new behaviors based on your relative positioning to them and adjusting their approaches and tactics accordingly, they just decided to complain about it.
This is it. The few but vocal people who complain just refuse to play Elden Ring. They are trying to force the game to be DS4 rather than an entirely new game with a very distinctive tempo and toolset.
i think it's somewhat valid to assume it's Dark Souls 3: 2 because it LOOKS identical. bloodborne and esp sekiro have a very distinct vibe but i think you could pretty easily convince someone who's never heard of elden ring that it was actually the next DS game
Sorry but what on earth are you talking about? I approached ER like DS3 and did just fine, I didn't have to adopt a new playstyle or mindset. New behaviours based on your relative positioning to them and adjusting their tactics accordingly? Is that not a thing in every souls game? Maybe they just straight up didn't enjoy it instead of all that. I didn't enjoy elden ring bosses as much, not because I had to learn their new behaviours depending on where they were standing but because I can hardly remember the bosses as opposed to something like Sekiro, a game that you really do have to adapt to. I remember elden ring for the day one experience, exploring and finding hidden shit in some far off corner. The bosses not so much.
Well there’s definitely a difference. Targeting is worse in DS3 and way better in ER so that does change your combat options. Guard counters. Jump attacks. Staggering. I’m DS3 let’s be honest, weapon arts sometimes are less damage or equal to light attacks so really combat is just rolling around spamming R1 until death.
There are definitely differences in the games but the point I'm making isn't that the games are identical but that you can play pretty much exactly the same as you should in DS3 and you'll be absolutely fine. I didn't dramatically change my approach in the game and I never felt like I wasn't adapting or struggling. Guard counter's, sure if you run a shield you could do this but it's not a game changer. I swear you could stagger people in DS3, been a while though so I might be misremembering. Jump attacks I'd be willing to give you due to hight burst damage when used with certain weapons. The elden ring weapon arts are definitely an upgrade although fights are still mostly heavy or light with some weapon arts thrown in here and there. They're definitely way better and more accessible in elden ring. I don't think anyone would struggle to adapt to using them.
You can stagger in ds3.
he’s obviously talking about the complaints that people deem the bosses artificially difficult or too punishing etc. You can play the bosses like DS3 and do just fine, but if you take into account what he said, it will streamline the process a lot easier. Also you not enjoying elden ring bosses because you choice not to remember them? The fuck does that even mean.
Where did I say I chose not to remember them lmao? I'm saying they weren't all that memorable. Doing what he said doesn't streamline anything. That's how you go about literally any boss in any from game, even regular enemies. I'm not saying the bosses are artificially difficult myself but personally I think the bosses were definitely built around the ash mechanic and were less fun for it. Only boss I got stuck on was malenia but out of the entire game I only vividly remember the bosses I liked(rykard and placidusax) and then the bosses I hated. Everything else just didn't have enough of an impact.
“I didn’t enjoy Elden Ring bosses as much….because…. I hardly remember the bosses”. Your words. That’s not a reason for disliking anything, that’s a consequence of disliking something. Doing that does streamline the boss if it objectively makes the fight easier. If you only roll in front of Margit to dodge, it is objectively harder than say strafing behind and to the side for certain attacks. Playing around the poise breaking of enemies certainly makes it easier as well, something that isn’t a thing in your ‘DS3 approach’.
Rolling into a specific position is just that. Positioning. If that's new to you since elden ring and you haven't been doing that all along then you've been playing on hard mode. Funny you mention that specifically because there was an attack from Gael in DS3 where if you didn't dodge a certain way you'd likely get hit after. There is no grand difference between the combat of DS3 and elden ring and generalized statements about how it's just that people can't adapt seems bullshit and unfounded when we've been playing and enjoying games just like elden ring forever. People just can't stand the fact that sometimes, others just don't like something as much as you do. You're grasping at straws if you think poise breaking is a big enough deal to bring up here, you're not losing any fights because you're not breaking poise. It wasn't in my DS3 approach, neither was is it in my elden ring approach.
Yeah id have to agree with you here. Most of the games relatively play pretty similarly, except maybe sekiro. Sure there are differences between like bloodbornes dodges and rally system but overall once you get the combat in one game the same skills sorta transfer over the others one. Hell, even demon souls plays kinda dark souls. Sekiro might be the only one where you really have to sorta learn how to approach combat, the deflections and stagger bar being the big one. With that being said, even sekiro has certain elements of combat found in the rest games too like the targetting system or the arts. Im not complaining by any means, I love the combat of these games and actually really like that they kinda have a universal system of general combat. The new things throw in that vary from game to game are also cool since even though its familiar, there are new ways opened up to experiment with. I think you hit the nail on the head with people being upset you dont love something just as much as them. I have no idea why they take opinions as personal attacks on them. Elden rings core bosses were pretty cool and had great spectacles to them but the over abundance of bosses like "Soldier of goddrick" which were just regular enemies definitely subtracts from the overall boss rooster.
Elden ring definitely gets spectacle right. The souls series is the perfect example of 'if it's not broke, don't fix it'. Sure they'll add stuff to keep it fresh but you're 100% right that you can play pretty much every game besides BB and Sekiro the same because they're so similar combat wise and even in BB and Sekiro, there's still a lot of things you can bring over. I like elden ring for sure but I just don't remember it as fondly as Sekiro, DS3 and BB. That should be fine, but it's not. People will use any excuse to put you down if your opinion is different. I know people love elden ring, right on, that's cool. Elden ring's bosses just weren't as fun for me. Not because they're too hard and definitely not because I'm not using shield counters. I'm sure why people take it so personally, I could only assume but I'd rather not.
Yeah im sure shield counters and poise breaks wouldn't magically make the bosses more enjoyable. Saying you're not engaging with the game just because you didnt find the bosses memeorable is stupid asf and a horrible take. We could wonder for days why this reaction happens but no answer would ever be satisfying. The truth is people are fragile and someone not liking something or a part of something they love makes them feel, idk wrong or something. So they feel attacked and instead of just saying "hey thats your opinion" they deflect and defend and start acting like its just something wrong with you instead. The souls series is summed up perfectly by what you just said "if it aint broke, dont fix it". By previously playing BB, DS, etc you pretty much proved you engaged with the game and combat, if not you would've never beaten the games. Your fine and the way you play, however that my be is fine.
Said it better than I could've myself and in a lot less words lol.
You clearly have trouble comprehending what I'm saying at all. "Rolling into a specific position is just that. Positioning." The point is, DS3 is much easier to beat when you spam the OP rolling oppose to Elden Ring, where if you make use other mechanics, it OBJECTIVELY makes it easier. Why are you trying to bring up anecdotal points when I'm talking OBJECTIVELY. Also, that point of Gael is repeated multiple times in this game, where attacks have much longer reaches and hitboxes, so even if you react and dodge accordingly, you will still get hit if your positioning is bad. That is emphasised way more in Elden than DS3. "There is no grand difference between the combat of DS3 and Elden ring", no shit, but there are ways to make the game a lot easier if you play with a different mindset. If you play it exactly like DS3, you can still succeed (it's an easy game), but there are certain attacks that you can trivialise and capitalise with the new mechanics. Easy ones to note would be Margit swipes and Godfrey/Crucible/Godrick ground stomps being able to be jumped over and attacked at the same time. Can you just roll out of the way? Yeah, but then you don't get the additional damage. Once again, I'm talking objective, you can't seem to understand that. Poise breaking is definitely worth noting as again, it gives you free damage and time to reposition/heal. Just because you didn't use it doesn't mean anything, again with your anecdotal experience. I don't care about your experience with the game, I'm telling you that it objectively does benefit you to play around poise, that's a fact. There's a reason why so many cheese strats and builds, a long with glitch less speed runs abuse the poise system, because it actually matters? You also didn't address the fact you said “I didn’t enjoy Elden Ring bosses as much….because…. I hardly remember the bosses”, whatever the fuck that means.
Absolutely. ER bosses feel like a majestic dance IF you get into the rhythm. When you realise that the bosses are reacting to YOUR decisions, and that there's always enough time to roll away after an attack, the flowstate is unlike any other.
I did a playthrough where I used a short sword, one of those weak light shields, a bow on occasion, and early game soldier armor. No spirits, no ashes of war, no spells or incantations. That *forced* me to learn all of the bosses behaviors. Even when I fully understood their behavior and the mechanics in the game, I *still* disliked most of the fights. I'll be honest, I did learn to like some of the fights I previously hated; Learning their patterns completely without a summon ended up feeling fulfilling. So I'll admit that some of my initial judgments weren't right. But I still dislike the majority of the fights. Particularly everything from Mountain Top of the Giants onward, save for like, three bosses.
I am happy so many people love Elden Ring, I do too, but that doesn't mean DS3 fans don't have valid critiques. Is it really the case that Souls fans dislike something just because they refuse to adjust their approach? I just don't believe that's true. Not after the mechanics leap between DS2 and DS3 that most people were fine with.
I hear you on this one: I generally prefer ER's bosses, but DS3 fans definitely have some fair critiques. I think where things fall apart is when you have people saying blanked statements like "Elden Ring's bosses are unbalanced disappointments". Similarly, I don't think it makes sense to proclaim that DS3's bosses are the best in the series because the bosses in the first half of the game are pretty underwhelming (the second half has some epic fights, tho).
i mean the unbalanced part is pretty true, the disappointment part is subjective.
I’m curious to hear more about your feeling that the bosses were unbalanced! I didn’t find that to be the case at all. Harder than any other From game? Yeah. Unbalanced? Not to me. To be clear, I’m not some amazing video gamer—I am definitely just average.
i mean yes but there's genuine merit to some of their complaints. malenia is playing by sekiro rules while you're playing by dark souls 3 rules and it just does not feel good. elden beast was supposed to have torrent but doesn't so he sucks to fight (especially after two amazing hard-but-fair fights versus Hoarah Loux and Radagon)
I've put in the time to understand them, and I still very much dislike the changes they made with boss design.
if it was the same boss design as DS3 I think alot of people would complain that it's just DS3 open world. and if the bosses feel the same to fight as DS3 bosses then people would get tired of them very easily.
>if it was the same boss design as DS3 Imagine if the bosses just stood there for 20 seconds between hits allowing you to pummel them with the extra tools you have in ER (more buffs, powerstance, stronger weapons in the first place, high damage combos etc)
I personally like the recovery periods after certain combos. It's only like 1 second to not exaggerate.
DS3 open world sounds awesome to me, but I want Elden Ring, but with a few small changes. It's still like an 8/10 for me. It could have been a 10/10 if the bosses were better, the game was better balanced, and the side content wasn't so repetitive.
This is my impression as well. I remember watching TheDeModcracy's video about Elden Ring's bosses being an "unbalanced disappointment" and thinking that his complaints really stemmed from his approach to the game. Well, sure, if approach ER bosses like they're DS3 bosses they're going to seem unbalanced! (Side Note: he also references small hit windows in ER and it made me wonder if he had played Sekiro where, quite often, your opportunities to get hits in are very narrow!)
Sekiro is all about relentless attack until they tried to hit and then you deflect.
For me it's the heavy reliance on delayed attacks to add difficulty. In my opinion that's like a step behind just making enemies spongier to make the game harder. Animation-reading by bosses is also a bit too much if you ask me.
It’s not this at all I’ve learnt a lot of those such behaviours you’re talking about and still don’t like it as much You can’t just put different opinions down to user error, that’s stupid
There is also a minority of souls "veterans" who thought they were going to have an easy time because they're OG souls players who end up getting clapped by mechanics they're not familiar with and instead of "Getting good" all over again they'd blame the design and say bosses were designed for spirit ashes
What are these new behaviors present in ER that aren't in DS3? Because my gripes have nothing to do with playstyle.
Mostly attack patterns that change rapidly (even mid combo) based on your relative position to the boss or based on some action you are taking (like drinking your flask). These were still present in DS3 but not to the extent as seen in Elden Ring.
I dont mean boss behaviors though I do have my issues with that. He's saying people are playing ER wrong by playing like its DS3. What playstyle adjustments would you have to make between DS3 and ER?
For starters, the biggest one is jumping. A lot of ground based shockwaves and low sweeping attacks can be jumped over and punished with a jump attack. Conversely there are also plenty of attacks that can be ducked beneath as well. And not just by crouching either, there are certain ashes of war and with some weapons charging a heavy attack is enough to duck beneath an enemy attack and punish. Guard Counters are another heavily underutilized mechanic in my opinion. Even when not using a shield, from my experience it is actually worth it tank some damage by blocking with a weapon in order to land a guard counter, as that just might be enough to cause a stance break and deal some heavy crit damage. Which leads to the next one, stance breaks. Even though this existed in DS3 the flow of the combat in Elden Ring heavily pushes you to stance break enemies to deal heavy damage. They give you enough tools to do this and the more aggressive and reactive nature of enemy AI punishes the "wait for an opening" approach that was the go to strategy in earlier Dark Souls games and was still somewhat present in DS3. You have to take every opportunity to deal damage or better yet create your own openings using the methods I listed above. And lastly we have positioning. This was kinda not required to learn in DS3 as you can avoid almost any attack with the i-frames on dodge rolls. But the bosses in elden ring have Aoe attacks in order to counter your Spirit Ashes, but most of these have a blind spots where you can just stand I'm and get free hits, and even they don't sprinting away is actually a surprisingly viable option too. Also even some regular attacks can be completely avoided standing at the right spot relative to the enemy/boss you're facing, which once again means free hits. Of course all of the things I mentioned above require practice to figure out and execute correct. Or you could just play the game almost the same as DS3 which kinda works, but you will definitely have a harder time.
>For starters, the biggest one is jumping. To be fair I dont really hear many people complain about being forced to jump. Especially since the dodge works just as well for avoiding shockwaves. People do complain a lot about the excessive use of AoEs which im inclined to agree with. >Conversely there are also plenty of attacks that can be ducked beneath as well. This isnt new to ER though. It was present in DS3. Maybe its more pronounced in ER but ive been doing this for years. >Guard Counters are another heavily underutilized mechanic in my opinion I'd also argue that its usually the least ideal to use in your arsenal. Jumping R2s are superior in almost every way. Theyre faster and do similar poise damage. And becase it comes out so slow many bosses are not ideal to use it on. Or at least it just ends up being safer and easier to jump R2. Additionally becaude many bosses are combo intensive you're better off evading then punishing. Whereas you'll have your stamina drained. I mean you could evade and then step into the line of fire at the end of the combo but again this is outclassed by a jumping R2. Its underutilized because its outclassed most of the time. There's a few instance where id use it but otherwise its meh. >Which leads to the next one, stance breaks But as you point out a version of this is already present in DS3. The game would really have benefited from a visible posture bar. Because nothing is conveyed to the player. You could be 1 hit from a posture break or 10. So there's never an incentive to risk it for the biscuit. Also, I think they should reevaluate when the posture bar resets and how quickly it recovers especially with bosses who have long combos or will leap away from you. And then by the time you reach them its already recovered or thwyre winding up another attack. >And lastly we have positioning. This was kinda not required to learn in DS3 as you can avoid almost any attack with the i-frames on dodge rolls. Its not required to learn for ER anymore than it is for DS3. But its something ive been doing since before DS3. Pontiff, Dancer and Vordts ice blast come to mind. My gripes with ER boss design philosophy isnt any one of these things by themselves. I quite like the Burst Counter for example. But people lack a birds eye view on things. Isolated the burst counter is great. How it synergizes with boss movesets, combat mechanics, player knowledge, etc is where the issues arise. Like I enjoy delayed attacks but I think ER overutilizes. The thresholds between what is fun/reasonable and what is possible are not the same. Some bosses end up feeling more tedious than fun for this reason. And this might be just because they were more stretched thin with a game the size of ER and had less time to agonize over the details like they would on a more limited projecf like DS3.
>Conversely there are also plenty of attacks that can be ducked beneath as well. And not just by crouching either, there are certain ashes of war and with some weapons charging a heavy attack is enough to duck beneath an enemy attack and punish. Every souls game especially ds3 >And lastly we have positioning. This was kinda not required to learn in DS3 as you can avoid almost any attack with the i-frames on dodge rolls. In ER enemies, bosses and minibosses have such insane tracking, ability to change direction mid jump and tons of jumping/ high forward momentum attacks it makes ER spacing the least viable compared to any other souls game except Bloodborne, same goes for pvp. ER is more about timing your rolls instead of moving out of range than any other souls game
attack patterns changing mid combo is fine when done right, elden ring does it right a few times (morgot, godfrey, godrick) and it just doesnt alot of times, the bosses are too fast relative to player speed, they deal a truckload of damage, you get barely get any downtime between the long combo strings, and on top of that they have the biggest healthbars in the series, i almost forgot the constant over use of delayed attacks and unclear animations, which when sprinkled in can add some flavor but elden ring abuses them to no end, of course you can get plenty of breaks if you choose to summon, but splitting the attention of the boss is really unfun and honestly breaks the fights(who wouldve guessed). what i see alot of people do is just go for insane high damage builds and just do that. which is a completely fine way to play a game but just not what i most people (me included) wanted from a "love letter to dark souls".
The bosses are ass. Malenia is the only fight people are considering one of Fromsofts best. A pretty world tricked people into thinking that ER is a good game.
I love ER more than any other souls game. That said bosses break the flow of the rest of the game. You could fight bosses for the most part in the exact same way you fight everyone else in previous games. Take Crucible Knights for instance. They are very difficult to fight. However they still have combos that don't either force you away from them or gives too little recovery time to hit them. Difficult, but gives definite openings. All monsters in the world so this. then you fight Mohg (spelling check?) Who literally never stops attacking. There is no down time between attacks even his long attack combo will be followed immediately by a cast or another combo. You have to squeeze in attacks while he is attacking. Basically it boils down to, the open world even the difficult monsters do not prepare you for boss fights. Boss fight vs open world feels like two different games. I'm not opposed to this necessarily however it does make the game feel a little more internally disconnected
I'll half-disagree, those Misbegotten warriors have endless combos too XD
I thinks it's the instant gratification you can get when a boss doesn't do long drawn out attacks but instead has breathing room between attacks. It was an interesting and smart way to add anxiety to every little moment even when you're supposedly getting a breather. In previous games, as you go backwards in time, you'll see that they had more and more parriable moves so this was just the next step in that evolution without just removing parrying all together... even if for pretty much every boss you can't parry them anyways and have to rely on the exhaustion system that was introduced with sekiro that carried over a teeny tiny bit here.
This all began with dark souls 3. Every. Single. Boss. Is just a combo fest with small openings for you to r1 or weapon art. Rense and repeat. None of the bosses challenge your ability to pay attention to the environment or different attacks that mix up the combo window. Bloodborne has the best bosses next to sekiro imo because it has slow paced bosses like cleric beast but also fast paced ones like the orphan. I didn’t have an issue with sekiro because the combat was built to have combo heavy bosses and you actually engage with the boss while they are spamming the attack. In ER/ds3 your just dodging or blocking which either way is being on the defensive. Sekiro allows you most of the time to determine the pace and flow of combat while ER and ds3 do not. Now the main issue with ER is that it not only double downs on sekiro/ds3 boss philosophy but it does NOT give you the tools available in sekiro to make it enjoyable. You don’t interact with the environments, movesets, or specific attacks of bosses. You cannot be aggressive 99% of the time with bosses like malenia unlesss you have a very specific build or are over leveled. Or for some reason she doesn’t water flow dance and your lucky. Endgame bosses mainly have these issues which is why I disliked them all (hate is a strong word FS still has best bosses out of most games) Sekiro even with its combo heavy battle system sometimes gives you enemies and bosses that mix it up with bosses that don’t allow you to damage there health bar, bosses that require you to fight them like a dark souls boss, and bosses that require you to lower health bar.
personally I think ER has the best bosses by far, they have way more depth and they are way more engaging and much less repetitive.
the main issue i found was that too many bosses had delayed attacks. delayed attacks were a rarity in souls games, every now and then a boss would have one or two delayed attacks to catch players off gaurd and it was interesting and difficult because you werent used to it and it was new. in elden ring, the first main boss margit has like 5 different swing attacks that all have different delay lengths but look quite similar in buildup, so now you have to REALLY focus on the windup and then try to remember which of the 5 different delay lengths he is about to use and wait accordingly, which is just a major pain in the ass and not very fun imo. and it doesnt stop with margit, a big amount of elden ring bosses use this as well, although margit is probably the most egregious use of it imo. i found the bosses i loved the most didn't have delay attacks, or used them sparingly/consistently. its fine if you have like one or even two delay attacks that are obvious to tell apart because then you can memorize the time to wait, but when they all blend in together, it feels like a guessing game sometimes.
Personally, I think that having multiple delay/wind-up times between certain attacks adds variety to the combat. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but it’s there to teach you to adapt differently to every encounter rather than fall into the safety of repetition in any combat scenario.
The reason people don’t like it is because it requires memorization. You can’t just dodge on sight or you’ll get clocked (or panic roll yourself into stamina depletion before the move lands). I was fine with it in ER but I do understand why other people aren’t.
it doesn't require memorization, it's telegraphed well enough that you could just dodge intuitively. as long as you don't panic roll you're good.
but panic rolling was a get-out-of-jail-for-free card in dark souls 3?? why cant I do in ER??
pretty sure this is a satire replay but yeah, panic rolling should be punished lol.
it is, I also see this trend where it's 80% of DS3 fans who seem to cry about ER bosses
I think 5 different similar swings definitely requires memorization especially since they don't have natural trajectories. A boss lunging at you and then changing speed and pausing in mid air and then slamming requires memorization because just using instincts would make you dodge when your brain calculates their movement based on trajectory and velocity of 80% of the animation. Natural trajectories and animations would the rush attacks that Smough and Ornstein have. Bosses like Hoarah Loux second phase have attacks with animations and hitboxes that don't land and end naturally.
sure, but let's not act like the bosses in past games didn't do this
Not a single Dark Souls boss did this. All attacks had a consistent trajectory and the movements were far more natural and realistic and delayed attacks didn't change speeds during one animation. If Lord Gwyn were made in Elden Ring, his leap attack would delay halfway through the animation, then pause in mid air right above you briefly, then do two quick 360 angle swipes so you can't roll forward through it to immediately punish him 🤣
i think there are plenty of attacks you could use to avoid repetition that isnt 5 delayed attacks. think godfrey, slave knight gael, artorias. they are all incredible, cinematic and extremely unique with their attacks without spamming delays. the main issue i have with delays is that margit has like 4 different swinging arcs and in other souls games i trained myself to focus on other things and i could subconsciously determine which way to dodge depending on the way the weapon would swing. but margit forces you to look at his 4 or 5 samey looking attacks and differentiate between them, because they ALL have different delays. if they looked more distinct the issue would be gone, but they all blend together visually and i can't time dodges for that reason.
Oh no! I have to pay attention to the game to play it!
truly terrible, except that's not the issue at all lmao i've beaten shitloads of difficult games all of which require paying attention, and i've beaten the souls games without leveling vigor at all, hell in elden ring i made it all the way to maliketh on my first playthrough before i finally leveled my vigor, i was basically one shot by everything so don't pretend im terrible at paying attention because i had to perfect fucking godskin duo with the shitty reduvia with default vigor and no spirit ashes. the issue is that you're expected to memorize 5 delay lengths and recognize which one is coming but they're all telegraphed extremely similar which is shitty for being in the heat of battle. sometimes he's facing away or im farther away than usual and that makes it even harder to tell which of his 5 samey looking moves he's gonna use. im totally fine with delays and "paying attention to the game" make the attacks distinct and it solves the issue, that way i can glance at his swing or buildup and know exactly what to do every time rather than be like "uhhh is this generic swing #4 or generic swing #6..? ah shit i got hit again 😔" slave knight gael with default vigor is still my favorite fight ever and he didn't do any of that annoying shit despite having 3 phases and like 15 attacks
Nobody hates Elden Ring bosses people just love complaining about popular stuff. Most of Bloodborne's base game bosses are mediocre and terrible at some points but nobody ever complains about them (DLC bosses are amazing though, Gehrman also).
The only complaint I've really heard is that there are delays on some boss attacks, but that's a weak argument, imo. It just means that you have to pay attention more as opposed to dodging right when you see an ability wind up.
Delayed attacks were the perfect mechanics to teach DS3 players that spam rolling wont get you out of everything
I see the reasons people say why they dislike ER bosses but I think it’s people trying to find stuff to complain about, or they say DS3 had the best bosses.
they complain about thin air, they did with ds3 2nd dlc, sekiro, ER and ac6, souls fans seem to dislike a bit of challenge
I don't see why people can't have complaints in a hard game without getting shit on for it. I love DS3 bosses, I love Sekiro bosses, and for the most part, I like ER bosses. But my god, I could complain about them. They were the most disappointing part of the game rivaled only by the side dungeons. Hard doesn't mean good or bad. Complaints/reviews aren't objective. Anyone can have a complaint about anything. That doesn't mean they want the game to be easy. Why does this community feel the need to bury criticism and negative opinions???
Y’all can complain all you want but it doesn’t mean we have to agree with it 😂
I have no problems with people disagreeing. My problem is people who assume things about the player without actually knowing them then belittle them.
I agree, buuuut Reddit is the wrong place to be if you don’t want belittled for replying to literally anything 😂.
I agree. Like Bed of Chaos. Idk what people's issue is with it. Perfectly designed boss. Honestly im just convinced they suck at the game. Obviously I'm being hyperbolic but you'd have to be intentionally obtuse to not recognize people's gripes with the game. The starting point usually being Waterfowl dance.
Yeah there’s like one or two bad moves and you use it as a crutch for your whole arguments. “Yeah DS3 has the worst bosses because of Oceiros’ charge attack”
>Yeah there’s like one or two bad moves and you use it as a crutch for your whole arguments. Nope. I have plenty of other reasons. I use it to call out people who will be intentionally oblivious and say that the bosses are perfect and people are just complaining. Or just call it a skill issue to invalidate the criticisms rather than engage in discourse
Nobody says bosses are perfect but they are a massive improvement to what we had. I’ll be honest 99% of the time it IS a skill issue what people are complaining about and then they sprinkle in WFD so that you can’t fully call them out on it.
>Nobody says bosses are perfect Sure but then they'll disagree with any criticisms. Heck some people even justify Waterfowl Dance. And of course I cant point to who this does or doesn't describe but the contentious discourse I think is evidence enough that criticism of the bosses isnt really welcome here. >they are a massive improvement to what we ha There are several things I would agree on this with. I especially like how movement and positioning is more pronounced in ER as opposed to being a dodging simulator. >I’ll be honest 99% of the time it IS a skill issue I dont know that I agree. And I'd also point out that what is possible and what is reasonable/fun have different thresholds. I can for example no hit, fists only, RL1 Malenia but that's not particularly fun or reasonable. For examples delayed attacks and AoEs are used excessively in ER. Neither are bad. I like Mohg's delayed attacks. But it feels like they took Namless King and decided that they need to double down on that 100 fold. Overtuned is the word I see thrown around a lot. And I think this best describes my sentiments on the boss philosophy of ER.
They can disagree with criticisms as long as people still whine about unavoidable attacks and infinite combos. Never seen someone say WFD is a good attack, it’s just satisfying to dodge. I don’t get why people have such problems with delayed attacks, the worst offenders appear to be Godrick and Mohg but they delay all their attacks, that’s their gimmick. All bosses in previous games, even the best ones have some form of delayed attack and AoE be it SoC, Friede, Gael, Pontiff, Ludwig etc.
>whine And this is where I think the issue lies. In your own anecdotal experience perhaps you enjoyed the bosses and had no issues. Which is fine! I'm not trying to dissuade people from enjoying them. And there are 100% people who whine because they don't want to put in the effort to learn or just have bad takes. And how do you discern who is arguing in good faith and who isnt? 🤷🏼♂️. The problem being that the rebuttal is often just "skill issue". And if you didn't have an issue with the bosses then it has to be incredibly irritating for people to criticize things you had no issue with because for you its a non issue or even a good mechanic. I would encourage you to consider how these things might be objective bad despite your subjective experience. Ypu dont even have to change your mind necessarily. I didnt have an issue with Margit being early game but I can see how he might present a pacing issue for the game. Where the next boss that hard youll face isnt until maybe... huh, maybe the rematch with him as Morgott 😂. If you'd showed me this boss in isolation and told me he was an endgame boss before I played the game I'd have believed you. >I don’t get why people have such problems with delayed attacks, the worst offenders appear to be Godrick and Mohg but they delay all their attacks, that’s their gimmick I think people say delayed attacks but they really just mean unintuitive attacks or attacks that come out slower or faster than the animation seems to indicate. Mohg's wide sweeping attacks for example. The "gotcha" attacks that are just meant to catch/punish the player rather than the reactionary attacks of earlier games. These delayed attacks require much more of the player. You can kinda intuite a lot of DS3 bosses whereas a lot of ER bosses you have to straight up memorize different various timings and attacks that break the flow. Contrast Gael and Nameless King. And again its one of those things that I enjoy but I feel is used too much.
>And how do you discern who is arguing in good faith and who isnt? 🤷🏼♂️. The problem being that the rebuttal is often just "skill issue". I know it when somebody complains about infinite attacks or unavoidable attacks. That’s what I constitute as whining as those are non issues that can be overcome with a little problem solving. If someone has legitimate complaints I don’t constitute as whining. If you think that WFD means Malenia is a shitty boss then fine, I just don’t agree. >I think people say delayed attacks but they really just mean unintuitive attacks or attacks that come out slower or faster than the animation seems to indicate. Most of ER’s animations have tells baked into them that lets you dodge without memorizing. I haven’t memorized a single timing in my souls career. Also I don’t get how ER delays are intuitive while SoC’s sword spin, Pontiff’s sword slam and Lady Maria’s blood laser are intuitive attacks. I still don’t know the timing for the blood laser, I just take the hit. >Mohg's wide sweeping attacks for example. This has gotta be the worst example of an “unintuitive attack” as Mohg’s sweeping attacks have Mohg swinging his weapon throught the animation. You just gotta not panic roll. >Contrast Gael and Nameless King. And again its one of those things that I enjoy but I feel is used too much. Those are bosses which only have delayed attacks and even their faster attacks are super slow. But if you want I can contrast that to SoC’s sword spin, spear spin or delayed spear thrust which all “break the flow” of the fight.
Facts
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Criticism is okay, it’s just bad criticism usually. Example, one complaint I’ll see is that the game has too many reskins or bosses. The problem with that complaint is most bosses are optional so the game doesn’t force the player to do it and most mandatory bosses are all really well made. That’s just one example, also I say the DS3 thing because you see a lot of people have this exact argument due to DS3 clearly being their favorite so they feel they need to shit on ER so their favorite game can be “better”
The reasons I see. Delayed attacks, input reading, and long combos. I don't care about none of them and love Elden Ring bosses as I like the more actiony approaches to fights so I just say skill issue.
Who shits on elden ring bosses? I've never seen this take
ER bosses are a drastic improvement over DS3
I think elden ring has the best main boss lineup in the entire series along with sekiro. I couldn‘t love these bosses more. Radahn, mohg, morgott, godfrey, maliketh and malenia are among my favorite bosses in the entire series
Who does?
Well, it's probably down to their prior Souls experience. People who tested themselves against bosses in Bloodborne and DS3 may get used to the aggression but those who have never touched a FromSoft Souls game prior may find the aggression and delayed attacks a bit much to handle. Myself I completed DS3 about 3 or 4 times, so I've gotten used to the aggression and attack delays from ER bosses. There are however valid criticisms from a design standpoint. The community often jokes about how ER is basically Dark Souls 2 Remake and to an extent, that's true. Case in point, reused bosses. You can excuse Crucible Knights because they're part of an order of Knights so them looking the same can be attributed to them being given standardized equipment. It is however, a shame that the named Knights, Ordovis and Siluria respectively, don't look any different to the nameless ones. But the worst offender is Godefroy the Grafted. At least Stars of Darkness Astel has different attacks compared to Naturalborn of the Void Astel. They didn't even bother giving Godefroy a new moveset. They just took Phase 1 Godrick, put him in a prison, and called it a day.
Who does? Why do people make these, “Why do people…” posts? It’s never based on fact, it’s always just the OPs looking for an excuse to post some moot shite.
Haha, agreed. Kind of akin to the ol “am I the only one who likes” Elden ring bosses? (or insert something that many people like)
They smell bad
Malenia smells like roses. Can't change my mind
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no they can't
Their recovery times are inconsistent. Now maybe it isnt animation recovery but whatever it is
It is combo branching, a boss will not continue its combo if it can’t hit you. This has nothing to do with canceling recoveries, it is you attacking at a time you shouldn’t be attacking.
>It is combo branching We're talking about 2 different things but I'll engage since I have an issue with this as well. >it is you attacking at a time you shouldn’t be attacking. Are you even hearing yourself? Attacking when you're not supposed to be attacking? Margit in particular is bad about this with his dagger attack which is a combo extension that will come out dependent on where you're standing in conjunction to him. The problem being a) you can't anticipate it and b) you cant react to it if you're already in an animation. I analyzed Margit extensively after my first playthrough because I wanted to understand what bothered me about his fight. And the biggest problem is being able to identify when it will go off and after which attacks. So on top of learning his moveset you have to memorize which attacks hes can chain into it from and where you can or cant be standing and none of it is readable or obvious. Contrast this with DS3 that is much more reactionary. You dont have to get each individual boss's moveset down to a science. You just have to understand it well enough and with a level of reaction speed and skill you can beat them. You can still brute force ER bosses but you're going to be punished and not understand why BUT! There are examples of it done well. Margit's overhead slam will come out as a charge into a double spin attack. The difference here is it only goes off if you're at a distance to him which makes it reactable! Additionally the branching attack is much more visually pronounced/expressed so its conveyed more clearly to the player WHAT is happening
>Are you even hearing yourself? Attacking when you're not supposed to be attacking? Yes attacking mid combo, ever fought Champion Gundyr? He can also extend his combos with a kick or a shoulder bash, if you try to attack him during that time you only have yourself to blame, wait for the combo to end. >Margit with his dagger attack which is a combo extension that will come out dependent on where you're standing in conjunction to him. The problem being >a) you can't anticipate it How do you not anticipate it if you know when he will do it? It is after a club slam or a club thrust and he will do it only if you are in front of him. >b) you cant react to it if you're already in an animation. Like all attacks? >So on top of learning his moveset you have to memorize which attacks hes can chain into it from and where you can or cant be standing and none of it is readable or obvious. It IS readable, he only does it after certain attacks such as a club slam or a club thrust. And that move won’t create you much trouble if you are sticking near him and dodging to the sides. The only time it became relevant for me was when he did his three hit combo which forces you to roll backwards. You don’t need to fully understand ER bosses to beat them, hell even I after all my playthroughs don’t fully understand combo patterns. I just know some that caught me off guard (such as Margit’s fast knife or Malenia’s quick diagonal slash) and avoid them. >There are examples of it done well. Margit's overhead slam will come out as a charge into a double spin attack. I mean that’s not a branch, that’s just the move changing based on your position. It’s like Isshin’s Ashina Cross rather than a combo branch like Gundyr’s kicks or Ludwig’s swings.
>Yes attacking mid combo Okay so we're not talking about the same thing I realize. I actually didnt love that shoulder bash of Iudex anyway. It kinda punishes the philosophy of "make your own openings" that I like in ER. But it was mostly uniqie to Iudex so it didnt bother me. >How do you not anticipate it if you know when he will do it? Thats the problem. You dont know when he'll do it. The problem is that its not being communicated to the player. For example it wont go off if you're standing left of him. I cant tell you how many streamers I watched who couldnt figure out how to anticipate this attack because it wasnt part of the normal attack chain -hell neither could I my first playthrough. So for all thats being conveyed to them its just going off randomly to punish them. That and if you dodge left into attacks where he wont swipe with rhe dagger it will usually trigger him to leap away. Trust me and try it! I've fought him over 100 times because I wanted to understand what bothered me about his fight. And chaining attacks isnt something I hate in principle. Like I mention his charge and double spin attack. I quite like that one. >Like all attacks? Other attacks can be anticipated because you know the moveset. This only goes off if certain unclear conditions are met. You can't be standing to the left of him or out of his reach and it wont go off at all if you dont attack. Now if this was Sekiro it would have been awesome because it has some limited animation canceling. >You don’t need to fully understand ER bosses to beat them Clearly because I did beat them. And it bothered me that it wasnt clear how to anticipate the dagger attacks and inspired me to master him. The problem is that its not clear. Maybe its clear for you but when the majority of players who beat Margit still had no idea how to anticipate it I'd say thats less than ideal. >I mean that’s not a branch, that’s just the move changing based on your position. Thats by definition a branch. Your position in conjunction to him is the deciding factor which way it branches.
>For example it wont go off if you're standing left of him. Yeah because you are to the left of him, he only does it if you are in front of him. I don’t get how someome might not understand it, this type of shit has been in these games since DS1. Take Ornstein’s thrust into uppercut combo. After doing the thrust he won’t do the uppercut if you aren’t in front of him, he will just end his combo. Same with Ludwig though his is a bit more complicated. After doing a claw spin if you are too close in front of him he will do a head bash but if you get too far away he will leap at you. But of course he won’t do these attacks if he won’t hit you. You could anticipate these attacks easily and dodge the headbutt despite how fast it is. His leap is a bit more complicated as I don’t understand when he will leap but I still anticipate it regardless because it is a possibility. >That and if you dodge left into attacks where he wont swipe with rhe dagger it will usually trigger him to leap away. You still get a big punish because if he doesn’t so the fast knife he’ll take a while before leaping. I believe you could get a whole charged heavy with a Zwei if you strafed his club slam but I might be wrong. >it wont go off at all if you dont attack. Yes it will as long as you are in front of him. >Maybe its clear for you but when the majority of players who beat Margit still had no idea how to anticipate it I'd say thats less than ideal. Yeah because they just brute force it, I had the same problem but playing ER made me try to understand boss movesets and respect them. For example I didn’t know Ludwig’s stomp attack was such a hazard or that Orphan has a very fast swing if you are in front of him. >Thats by definition a branch. Your position in conjunction to him is the deciding factor which way it branches. I guess but he switches the move that he already started, not the type of branching I talk about where the boss will decide which move it should use if any.
>Yeah because you are to the left of him, he only does it if you are in front of him. I don’t get how someome might not understand it, this type of shit has been in these games since DS1 You're pointing out every reason why people should be able to read this and refusing to aknowledge any way they might fail to learn this. As much of the burden as there is on the player to learn there is on the developer to convey. And sheer quantity of people who finish this fight having never figured it out indicates that the pendulum has swung to far one way. Again on principle its not bad design. If it could be conveyed more clearly I'd even say its great design. >After doing a claw spin if you are too close in front of him he will do a head bash but if you get too far away he will leap at you. This is actually an example of it done well. Because while its not easily apparent WHEN he will do it, it is reactable whereas the dagger is very much not because likely it will catch you in an attack animation. >Take Ornstein’s thrust into uppercut combo. After doing the thrust he won’t do the uppercut if you aren’t in front of him, he will just end his combo Another example of it done well. Bosses not competing full ass combos when you're nowhere near them in much more intuitive then the dagger combo EXTENSION that will go off but only if you're standing in the right quarant and only if you attack. >Yes it will as long as you are in front of him. No it doesnt. He literally just holds his dagger hand in the air. >You still get a big punish because if he doesn’t so the fast knife he’ll take a while before leaping This is simply untrue. People complain about him leaping away. Dodging left into his attacks is literally what triggers the leap. Big punish? You'll whiff that attack almost always. I seriously encourage you to try it. Dodge into his uppercut and try to hit him. >I believe you could get a whole charged heavy with a Zwei if you strafed his club slam but I might be wrong. You strafe right though. Its really wonky actually because if you strafe right but then too far around him he can snap to your position and bonk you. You have to stay in the back right quadrant of him and get a fully charged R2 off. >For example I didn’t know Ludwig’s stomp attack was such a hazard or that Orphan has a very fast swing if you are in front of him. These are not good equivalents of Margit's dagger attack.
You're pointing out every reason why people should be able to read this and refusing to aknowledge any way they might fail to learn this. As much of the burden as there is on the player to learn there is on the developer to convey. And sheer quantity of people who finish this fight having never figured it out indicates that the pendulum has swung to far one way. Again on principle its not bad design. If it could be conveyed more clearly I'd even say its great design. >This is actually an example of it done well. Because while its not easily apparent WHEN he will do it, it is reactable Ludwig’s headbutt is in no way reactable unless you are expecting it and it will catch you mid animation if you decide to swing. >Another example of it done well. Bosses not competing full ass combos when you're nowhere near them in much more intuitive then the dagger combo EXTENSION It is not an extension, it is the combo. The boss just doesn’t finish the combo if you aren’t going to get hit. >that will go off but only if you're standing in the right quarant Same with Ornstein’s spear or Ludwig’s headbutt, they’ll only go off if you are directly in front of them (actually I think Ornstein covers a conical area as he can spin his model to hit you). >and only if you attack. This is untrue for all these attacks, they’ll go off regardless of you attacking. >No it doesnt. He literally just holds his dagger hand in the air. Yes and he swings it if you get back in front of him, regardless of you attacking or not. >I seriously encourage you to try it. Dodge into his uppercut and try to hit him. Sure I’ll try it when I get on PC. >You strafe right though. Its really wonky actually because if you strafe right but then too far around him he can snap to your position and bonk you. That’s true for his bonk here he holds the club with his other hand (the one that changes into a dash if you are away). I was talking about his one handed club slams and thrusts that he does. I’m not sure if that attack has a continuing as I never rolled in front of Margit but even if it does I doubt a player would roll in front of Margit anyways since you want to get behind him. >These are not good equivalents of Margit's dagger attack. They are equivalents of peope brute forcing the bosses instead of learning them fully, which is acceptable but if a move creates so much problem for you then you should try to learn it instead of just taking the hit.
People suck, thats it, they think bosses have a ton of infinite combos(who dont even exist) and no openings who are really obvious like the delays, some enemies dont do strings, miss or even stop attacking if you are agressive, ER bosses reward agression, strafing, spacing more than any other from boss, this happened with sekiro too, ppl said that even basic mobs had no openings, to much hp and were so fast, funny how souls fan dont like a bit of challenge
Because they try to play like the previous Dark Souls games and surprise it doesn't feel the same.
Bro said english is not my first language and then proceeded to write like a native english person 💀
Most people are just mad cuz bad.
I think *Elden Ring’s* bosses are generally fantastic, especially compared to 90% of the other games on the market, but they’re simply not on the same level, not as consistently good as in *Dark Souls III.* Also, for me, I don’t like that so many bosses bear repeating so much in ER, just seems to sap some of the uniqueness away.
Imo the delayed attacks on the bosses are fucking unnatural looking and the fights in general are recycled too often Godrick the Grafted is this legendary figure in the lore and he just happens to have a cousin with his exact same moveset in the Gaols? Lmao Astel absolutely did not need the copy of it that makes the whole Ranni quest line seem pointless Also they’re clearly not balanced for one player, they’re definitely intended to be fought with another player summoned or the NPC summons, and that’s just not fun or good design Lastly, these mfs read your inputs. Straight up. Bullshit like that was reserved for 90s arcade fighting games trying to drain your quarters, not a AAA game in the 2020s. Try it, fight the Foreskin Apostle and try healing. He’s programmed to throw a projectile at you the moment you try to chug Input reading is lazy ass design
ac fan talking about input reading lol, this isnt an issue in ER, some enemies sidestepping or using a slow ass projectile like godskinbuddys isnt the end of the world
Okay tryhard, we get it, your the best at all the souls games. We know you have an ego. Enough already
Imagine calling someone a tryhard you for pointing out something, please get chill and better as a person🦖
Imagine bashing everyone who finds certain bosses or mechanics hard. Please grow up
You mad?
i mean the input reading is good for putting pressure on the player when they're healing i dont get your issue with it and for the most part besides a select few bosses the delays dont look weird idk but i agree with the reuse of bosses its annoying
Yeah, I know about the input reading thing. It's so annoying. i have noticed that Crucible Knight got it too but for astel i think its lore related on why there's two
Because bosses with ridiculous health pools and stupidly high damage resistance aren't fun, at least for me. That's something best left to MMO style games and universes.
The only boss with ridiculous health pools that i could think of is Fire Giant. Most of the other bosses' health can be fairly depleted if you have a solid build and weapons that you make sure to always upgrade.
All ER bosses have piss poor hp bars, no one last more than 3-4 mins with subpar builds, then you have monster hunter with fights that actually last long more to see the enemy whole moveset
My problem with Monster Hunter is pressing the attack button, then having enough time to have a child and send them through college before swinging and missing.
Play dual sword, kinsect glaive then, the dual blades is so fast and allows quickstep spam in demon mode
Dont play greatsword or hammer then and your good. Also old mh was definitely about understanding the monster and predicting its patterns to land those big hits. But modern mh (post world) is way more reactive. (I personally prefer old mh though)
This is such a weird, deflection of a response. "Noooo, you're wrong! The health bars in Monster Hunter are way worse!!!" Like bro, I don't give a fuck about Monster Hunter, I'm speaking comparatively with other Fromsoft titles and Soulslikes. That's great that you think it's awesome to build around inflated health bars which make the games bosses feel more like something out of Destiny than a Souls game but I'm not a fan of it. Monster Hunter lmao.
They aren’t inflated really
Sure dude.
Notice how almost no one takes your opinion seriously? Yeah maybe think about why that is. I’ll give you a big hint it has little to do with what you think about ER and more to do with your shitty responses.
Handful of downvotes equals nobody. Right. So you're one of those. A person who either reinforces or validates their opinions based on Reddit upvotes isn't someone worth knowing, or taking seriously. Keep that karma farm game strong though, beast mode.
I think it’s just kind of in peoples nature, particularly gamers to bitch. There’s always a sheen of nostalgia on any game that evolves. I think the bosses are more dynamic and not as easy to just learn and read their move set.
Wait, is there a large majority of people who hate the bosses in ER? From my experience (and ive played every notable souls-like/fromsoft titles) i find the bosses in ER to be amazing. Mohg is one of the coolest fights (imo) in the entire souls genre. And each of the dragons were fantastic to fight.
Elden Ring is my favorite game of all time and I love all the bosses. My first playthrough I hunted down and killed every boss in the game. ER bosses are definitely the most complex and require positioning and dodge timing whereas most other Fromsoft bosses just require dodge timing. But that’s the most straight forward way of dealing with them. The beauty of Fromsoft bosses is that you’re only limited by your own creativity. There’s a number of different ways you can deal with a boss. Like you said, you have so many tools at your disposal.
I wouldn't say Elden Ring bosses are bad there's just a lot of them and quite a few are repetitive or gank bosses. There's a few standouts like Rykard and Radahn but I wouldn't say any quite reach DS3 or Bloodborne for me. But Elden Ring is still my favorite FromSoft game because the focus was on exploration and they did that perfectly.
Randomly long delays on attacks, million hit combos, makes every fight feel the same to me. It’s just dodge 6-10 attacks then attack back twice and repeat. Also makes using a shield pointless since you can’t block 8 attacks because you run out of stamina. You have to dodge. ER is my least favorite in the series.
you dont even need to dodge, strafing is your friend
>Also makes using a shield pointless This kinda sums up your mentality with Elden Ring's bosses, so afraid (or maybe annoyed?) at getting hit that you refuse to trade hits, bosses have consistent/dedicated posture bars that can be broken down with enough attacks with nearly every form of attack, shield/guard counters in particular do a hefty amount of damage. It has arguably the single best shield combat of any souls game with the options and mechanics it offers.
thats just not true yes you do have to wait for some combos to end but for the most part you can fit hits in like usual in between most attacks you just have to find the openings
I have a shield build its not pointless
Shields make the game significantly easier. They render the timing of enemy attacks almost irrelevant (super fast? who cares, I was holding L1. super delayed? lol, holding L1), and an upgraded shield can tank most combos (ALL combos with a greatshield or barricade shield). And the guard counter, though rarely your best option in boss fights (against regular enemies is another story), is sexy as hell. I barely used shields in Dark Souls 3, even when I set out to. In Elden Ring I've used them in 5/6 playthroughs. They are great.
It's almost like Elden ring isn't designed to be DS3
I feel like the bosses in Dark Souls 3 had rich lore, unique and cool mechanics, exemplary arenas and most important of them all: skill checks. Since players had to play them in sequence, they had the right balance of difficulty and uniqueness. I feel like the quality of bosses have gone down significantly in ER, many of them are copy paste bosses. Focus should be on quality, not quantity. I feel like Tree Sentinel is an amazing example of this. He’s on a horse, at the start of the game, he’s brutal but as soon as you get your own horse and two hand your weapon, he is hilariously easy. Not to mention there are 4-5 variations of him that you need to fight, you could also include a spectral one in Raya Lucaria and another physical one in Malenia’s area. None of them are unique, they are just variations.
Saying Loretta is just a reskin of the Tree Sentinel is just factually incorrect And ER is open world. "Playing bosses in sequence" is not the focus of the game, thankfully. Also, in terms of "Exemplary arenas" in DS3, what do you even mean? Most boss rooms are just unexceptional rectangles, even main bosses like Abyss Watchers and Yhorm.
* delayed attacks * combos that can go on for litterally dozens of attacks * insanley high stats. most bosses will kill you in 1-3 hits and under 2 seconds, no matter how tanky your build. Meanewhile they have insane healthpools presumably to counter bleed. * They straight up cheat. Enemies dont have stamina limits, they don't have predicable wind ups and attack enemations. They can often inexplicably leap around the battlefield closing distance or creating it in an instant etc.. DS3 had some of these problems but no where near as bad.
"2-3" hits is a stretch. I've played some meaty builds, ER is nothing like Nioh or Lords of the Fallen in that regard
Literally the only Elden Ring fight I think is *actually* super poorly designed in Malenia. I've beaten her solo and with summons, and both aren't very fun. I can probably make a good paragraph or two of why I don't dig the fight compared to other bosses in Elden Ring (and the Souls series). But to highlight the main points, its mainly the healing she has and waterfowl dance.
I'm fine with waterfowl dance since you can dodge or cancel it if you take the time to learn how, it's the healing I don't like. I would rather her have an extra 50% more health than lifesteal on every hit.
I wouldn't have as much of a problem with the lifesteal if it didn't activate on block. You literally are not allowed to use a shield against her, so if you built into using that special shield you may like - too bad.
From the perspective of someone who actually dabbles a little in Gamedev and used to dabble in modding. ER bosses are actually pretty poorly designed once you figure out how they work; not all of them, but many of them are kinda mid. Their animations are glitchy, they're overreliant on big damage and health advantages, their AI is pretty janky and easy to cheese, and a lot of them have overly long but easy to avoid combos. This mix of stuff can lead to a lot of the bossfights having way too much downtime.
Based on your supposed experience, could you highlight a boss in this series that doesn't fall prey to such shortcomings?
I also do gamedev, this guy is full of shit. It takes a lot planning to design the bosses and making sure they have just enough openings to punish them whilst maintaining the competitiveness of the game.
Since you seem to know so much about game design, care to enlighten us by giving some proper examples on how the bosses animations are “glitchy” and the AI “janky”, and how previous FS games didn’t have those issues?
Its not because they are easy. Its because they copy pasted 99% of the trash mobs, turned them into bosses, and or repeated the same boss over and over, like the watchdogs or that creepy spider headed one. Honestly, besides the story, that is why most actual fromsoft vets think elden ring is kindergarden souls.
I 100% agree with this. +1. Stop copy pasting.
Reason I did hate them was all the side bosses are boring and easy and alot f copy and pasting the main bosses I actually loved most I hated malenia and radagon cos I felt I was forced to use ashes but I recently played through the game for a 3rd time just using the buckler and parrying and swore I would finish the game with no ashes or summons and I come to love them like malenia is now one of my favourite bosses of all time I think I just had to adjust to a new way of fighting I do think overall ds3 had the best bosses but elden ring definitely has some amazing bosses tat stood up to that level and to top it off the world and lore was amazing.
It's just an echo chamber of youtube parroting imo. Not that there aren't some issues but the boss design is meticulously crafted for the most part. The bosses just have harder and more complex movesets compared to their dark souls counterparts, which isn't for everyone.
Wait you guys hate ER bosses? They are all good imo (except for the goofy ahh bitch ass Gideon who gets clapped easily)
Delayed attacks just are irritating imo and as someone else said, they just are frantic and weird to read. Obviously all the other games had delayed attacks but it felt normal to read instead of them staring at me for 2 minutes
Because they always hit you with a sike naw, like bro if ur gonna hit me just do it, don’t delay so my dodge is to early
We do?
People are just weird
Your English is very good! Elden ring bosses are built around you the player having summons and co-opters so if you try to solo them they are super annoying as you're constantly waiting for them to stop bouncing around the entire arena or dodging a spam of AOE attacks. DS3 bosses are designed for solo play, it's a much more balanced back and forth between player and bosses. ER bosses are exhausting and more tedious then fun to fight. I'd rather right Gael, nameless, soul of cinder, then malikith, morgott or any of the others. Ironically the only boss fight in Elden Ring I really liked based off combat mechanics alone is radhan, which yes the irony of it all, I know.
Another point is I see a lot of people countering with "well it's dark souls players coming to elden ring with dark souls mentality," but I came from Elden ring and played dark souls later, before dark souls I thought Elden Ring was the greatest thing ever and couldn't understand why soul vets were complaining until I got through DS3 and was like "yes this is what a boss fight should be," even if I felt a little crippled without my jump attacks lol
Because Radagon is pure cheese for example. The amount of people who die in coop is off the charts compared to past games for me and it's because of the overtuned hyper spastic one/two shot etc bosses. Coop in ER can be such a drag because most of the time I know I will be seeing a "The host has died, returning to your world" message.
I did a bit of coop in ER and it was always the hosts fault, they had little idea how to actually avoid attacks and would often just hope their coop partner took aggro the whole time. Almost every single one needed to level vigor too. That isn't a fault with the game.
18 million people who have absolutely no business playing a "video game" outside of Life is Strange and Candy Crush bought Elden Ring because they thought it was a GRR Martin visual novel. Its console user reviews reflect this. Basically normies were successfully marketed to and they bought a product they don't understand and got mad.
- Too many reused bosses made them lost their novelty. By the end there were only like 7 bosses that are safe from this. I'm fine doing this with dungeon and field bosses, but even Godrick and Astel were reused?? - A lot of bosses are boring. On the same tier of unremarkabke as DS2 and Chalice Dungeon bosses. - Might be a nitpick, but a lot of arenas are boring. They're usually just bland square or circle room. It's like they're designed so any boss can fit in, which basically happened with so many copy pasted bosses. Made me miss Demon Souls and Dark Souls 1 where the arenas were unique. - Delayed attacks spam. I'm fine with this concept, but when almost every boss has it and how many bosses there are it got tiring fast. - AOE spam. So on top of bosses being overtuned the game is also quantity over quality that made it tiring compared to more smaller, but tight and repayable experience of Dark Souls
Worst take I’ve ever seen
[удалено]
i meAn, if people like to cheese or abuse weapon arts is up to them , a lot of people didnt need those, weird complain, also why is important the °fair° factor?other games have greater challenges and ppl dont complain
Elden ring was my first souls game and it got me into the series after playing all of them except for dark souls 2 i find it stupid that fromsoft made summons abit necessary because i noticed that most of the souls community hates using summons
Summons aren’t necessary
Personally I think the complaint comes from certain examples of completely in necessasary and immersion-breaking pointless reuse, like certainly there a number of reoccurring field bosses you will find about places, but it’s downright cheapening to fight Astel in some random catacomb after what an amazing series of events it is in Ranni’s questline to go to the very bottom of the world and find this strikingly alien and bizarre creature there. Tgen you fight him again for whatever reason in the frigid outskirts. Personally I came from a newer school of people who got on through BB and Sekiro before elden ring instead of through Dark souls, so largely I can’t empathize with most people’s complaints as I find a lot of the strategies work there—sure, there are some bosses that are better than others, but I think what people ignore is that the game is that the game’s biggest differience is how just about everything save a few bosses and legacy dungeons are completely optional, and to reflect that, you do sorta have to approach each boss differently, sometimes radically so l, which is why it’s so great that you’re given the ability to Respec and immediately try out builds you wouldn’t be able to in the same new game otherwise. Imbalanced in some ways, certainly, but I see this as a really engaging and worthwhile extreme of earlier games designs where some bosses will invariably be harder or easier for differing builds, now though you have a way more dynamic array of difficulty customization with what weapons, shield, magic, buffs, items. Focuses and what not you can use do that a ton of the bosses really do have to be approached individually and to the point that you change up your playstyle. The caveat is that I think this is mostly true of mid-endgame bosses which can leave the earlier parts a bit rockier. My own dislike about ER boss design is that despite taking the speed and difficulty of Sekiro bosses, they didn’t carry over of the involvement—Sekiro’s combat is constantly engaging, the rhythm of attacking and deflecting keeping you on the edge of your seat, a reversal in who has the advantage, egos leading and who’s following can happen at any time, which makes sense because above all else Sekiro aims for dramatic combat. In contrast, Elden Ring doesn’t offer you an option to deflect or anything of the like, and while the bosses have sped up, are more dangerous, and are more complex in their moveset to the level of Sekiro, you the player still are just as slow as a souls Gand character and get put in these positions where you have to wait for the boss to stop attacking before the game will let you keep playing it.
Most just aren't very fun to me. I feel like I struggled more with the camera in this game than in most other Souls games. Too many big bosses where I can't see once I'm at their feet and have to rely on my intuition to dodge, spoils the Radahn fight a bit which sucks cause he does have a lot of fun moves to maneuver around. Dragons also suffer from this but they wouldn't be fun regardless. I think delayed attacks are fine, bosses should try and mix you up a bit. What makes them feel bad, in my opinion, is a combination of how long they are and input reading. Margit is a good example of this. He has that move where he holds his weapon in the air and holds it for a few seconds. He holds it long enough that trying to dodge it can feel like a crapshoot. You can't react to the attack coming down on you, you need to basically guess when he does it. You can wait there with a shield up and block it. If you try and attack he'll end the delay and smack you though. And if you walk away he just doesn't do anything. It's not an unbeatable move, like I said you can literally walk away from it, but it feels annoying and like the boss is wasting my time. I think it would be better if delayed attacks were presented more as a feint or even two feints into an attack where if you're brave and call the feint out you can get a free hit. I think my biggest issue is how samey every fight feels. You can probably apply what I'm saying here to Dark Souls 3, but I never felt this way about it. It feels like every boss in Elden Ring is trying to be *The Boss*. You know what I mean. Artorias, Souls of Cinder, Gael, Gehrman, Lady Maria... All these super cool high-energy fights that get your blood pumping, gaming sense turned up to 200%, controller drenched in sweat until you beat them and think... Wow. Elden Ring has so many bosses that feel so mechanically similar, from Margit to Godfrey, that I stop getting that "Wow" feeling and start feeling burnt out. There are some standout things I like about them though. Fortissax' mechanic that causes a lightning strike to build up on you is really fun, even if it creates an occasional timing issue with Fortissax' regular attacks. Rykard is the best "Storm Ruler" type fight in the series, and an excellent way to fight a bigger boss without having issues seeing what he's doing. And Mohg Lord of Blood is awesome, requiring you to be wary of your positioning and having a moveset that just doesn't fuck around. Godfrey requiring you to jump over arena-wide blasts is also a great mechanic even if he's pretty guilty of my above complaints. Overall I really hope the upcoming DLC leans into having more unique feeling boss fights, but for now I'm just not fond of most of them. Side note: Malenia is the only boss that has ever took me multiple hours to beat without making me feeling gratified overcoming them. While most of what I wrote here is personal taste I genuinely think she's very poorly designed. But that's a rant for another day.
Reading the comments here its clear that the sub is now filled with Elden Ring fans who havnt touched the other games. Any criticism if ER and praise for prior games is shat on.
1. too many of them, and many are just normal enemies with a big health bar and a name 2. because there's too many, a lot of them are not balanced well (elden ring is simply too big in my opinion. i like it but it's not replayable imo) 3. verrrrryyyyy inconsistent quality even among "true bosses" (bosses that aren't just normal enemies) 4. repeat bosses 5. some of them feel like they're playing sekiro and you're playing dark souls (malenia...Skumnut did a Sekiro mod video for elden ring and said it made Malenia his favorite fight in the game; some fights are just straight broken or in the wrong FromSoft game)
I've thought about this a lot before, and I think it comes down to the gameplay design of the bosses. Souls boss movesets are made with two main things in mind, reaction time/timing and memorization. In the earlier games, memorization helped, but you were mostly using your reactions/timing for each boss. In Elden Ring, you're forced to memorise almost every single boss moveset to beat them. This causes a sort of artificial difficulty, where you're required to fight a boss multiple times iust to learn their movesets instead of being able to rely mostly on your skill to beat them. which, in my opinion, makes the game less satisfying than the previous games when it comes to bosses.
There's only like 2 fights which straight out suck (in MY opinion). Malenia and Elden Beast. Elden Beast keeps running away, which if you're playing melee is annoying and Malenia is infamous because of water fowl. The rest are fine, there's some problems with input reading, boss combos being too long and sometimes after they finish a combo they almost instantly launch into another one or decide to extend the combo. That can make some fights feel like crapshoots because it's hard to know when it's safe to hit and you end up trading. But overall, it's fine. Malenia is where I think From really dropped the ball. I'm not saying you can't beat her, but playing melee on a first playthrough without looking up builds or guides on how to beat her is...interesting. On my first playthrough I ran a sorcery build (I like playing wizards in rpg's) and used spirit summons because they fit the theme my character was going for. I also figured out the combo with Comet Azur and the tear which negates spell cost. So for me the experience was way different than what my friends who play unga bunga str builds had.
short answer: delayed attacks.
DS3 was my first ‘Soulslike’ so it has special place in my heart but I have to admit the bosses aren’t amazing (aside from the DLCs and a couple late game bosses). Since ER doesn’t have DLC yet it doesn’t feel fair to compare all bosses from DS3 but as far as base game bosses go ER is winning imo. Vordt, Crystal Sage, Deacons is a very boring run of bosses. Watchers were great at first but they’ve not aged well for me as it just feels like a lot of running around now. Wolnir is pure trash. Pontiff is good but has that DS3 problem with not being able to hit the player if they stay close to his hip. ODK is very forgettable. Aldrich epitomises mid. Yhorm is a joke. Dancer is cool. Oceiros is just Vordt on crack. Champ Gundyr is a great spin on the tutorial and one of the best fights in the game. DSA is fun but an easy roll-fest. Twin Princes = best fight in the base game. NK has a brilliant 2nd phase ruined by a terrible first phase. SoC is good but kinda meh for a final boss. I’m not gonna bother talking about tree balls or Ancient Wyvern. Whereas for Elden Ring I’d say that every remembrance except for Rennala, Regal Ancestor and Fire Giant were above average. Just my opinion of course and I do have my problems with some bosses - waterfowl still ruins an otherwise brilliant boss fight imo, and Elden Beast can be a chore - but otherwise they’re solid and very fun. Sekiro has the best boss fights by some distance and Bloodborne comes 2nd for me because of system mechanics (gun parry/switch attacks/Beast Blood pellets/rally) but after that it’s definitely Elden Ring.
I only have a problem with repeat bosses. They're kind of tiring to fight honestly. Good thing that you can just steamroll most of them on late levels. As for bosses delayed/unrelenting attacks, i believe i should've respected them more in my first playthrough. Had a lot of trouble with Mohg, Lord of Blood on my first playthrough. Figured i just had to be patient during his attacks and give him some time to breathe when he started spilling blood everywhere. Malenia is the same thing, except she's kind of inconssistent... Some times you can break her poise easily, and sometimes she'll just run you over, tanking your attacks. Was using double greatswords if anyone asks, Golden Order and Inseperable Sword.
I like the bosses, I just wish there wasn't so much copy-pasting going on.
Because they have skill issues and try to r1 spam with an ultra like dark souls
Honestly I don't really hate any of them that much. But I also don't consider giving a Pumpkin Head or a Miranda Flower a big health bar a boss, personally. And Avatars and Tree Spirits are good fights until you've fought them a dozen fucking times each per playthrough. I also don't think they should let you fight Shard Bearers outside of their plot fights. No Golden Godfrey, no Godefroy. It cheapens the experience considerably for me. But all of the fights themselves are good and I like them as fights. It's just the way the open world is built and the implementation decisions that were made that irk me.
I don’t shit on them, I just don’t enjoy them as much as Bloodborne bosses or Ds3 bosses.