It's why Sekiro and Bloodborne are my favorites of the series. With the other games, no matter what build I make, I always feel like I'm not playing the way I'm supposed to or I don't have an optimal build. With Sekiro and Bloodborne if I'm stuck on a boss or doing poorly I KNOW the only answer is to get gud
Sekiro, okay…Bloodborne though? You can literally just over level like in every other souls game, making it significantly easier…even trivial if you really want.
@@Rahnonymous I think it’s simple enough to just use the executioners by the witches boss fight. Now matter how you choose to do it, you can become super over leveled and mow everything down. I beat Orphan on my first try cause I was superrrr over leveled lol fought him for real the next time I played the game, and it took me much longer lol Although, for whatever reason…I struggled the most with Lawrence. He’s so annoying…I think it’s the run back that really gets me. I hate BSB too…I still struggle with it from time to time(not as much as Lawrence or a few others) but I think the run back is also why I hate it so much…and the poison lol
I feel like Elden Ring was designed for the player to use OP builds, especially if you're not summoning. I am a solo player and playing through my first RL1 run, OP weapons with bleed/frost bleed/fire are almost required. I have also noticed that sprinting and jumping in ER is better than dodge roll. I feel that is a Sekiro playstyle.
What you call "OP builds" I call "the tools the game gives you" in which case yes, Elden Ring is designed for posters up use the tools the game gives you. If you intentionally handicap yourself the game becomes harder.
@@Rusty_Spy The problem is, most of the tools the game gives you are garbage. If you intentionally follow the meta then the game becomes easier, but if you use anything else you're just fucked.
2:00 I hate it when people are like, “oh what? Melania, hard???? It was so easy got her in my second try lol.” But that person is using frost/bleed with a sl 200 character with a +10 mimic
Agreed mate. When I started ER, I used the Lordsworn greatsword with some basic pyromancies to go down the STR/Pyro route. I've had some major grievances and when talking to my friend he always gave me the "Oh it wasn't that hard, it took me like 3-5 tries" Turns out he actually looked up the meta, got the moonveil early via summons and just abused OP shit. He'd summon mimic first thing every fight. if he wouldn't win in 1-2 tries, he'd just summon players or abandon ship to come back overpowered.
@@Ruffy112 you make it sound like this is a bad thing. Being able to leave or summon help is part of the game. Stop shaming people for this. Let them play how they want and ignore the chest beaters because 9out of 10 time they are straight up spouting BS. They died to Malenia the same 100 times everyone else did or they summoned someone who already knew how to beat her.
@@ShadowProject01 we are only shaming if and only if they say "oh what? Melania, hard????" otherwise I dont care how they play the game, the only opinion these players get to have is under things that make the game easy, like idk its like someone saying that Mario 2 the lost levels isnt hard and when pressed they used a gameshark cheat that gives moon jumps, if the answer is that "well the developers added it in so its part of the experience" if so then it really feels like a bandaid solution rather than a meaningful one and probably was implemented when the dev team realized that their game is too tough for their testers and the game being tough because is mostly a variety of reasons like dark souls arms race (to a certain extent live up to the we make hard games moniker) and the multiple build argument btw, sekiro boss philosophy (there are more but I am lazy). Anyways I call it a bandaid solution because it breaks the boss AI, it makes the boss completely not interested in your character and to exemplify a better approach with summons where its not a bandaid its shown in the Radahn boss first we get a cutscene and talk to other npcs then in the battle Radahn can kinda track the player because he has extremely large sweeping attacks meant to hit like 3 or 4 characters at once and since the summons are rather squishy and die quickly it gives Radahn more time to catch up to the player, so its a more meaningful fight were it does not completely feel that I am cheating. However with others the wolves can just draw aggro, break boss AI and fill stagger meter because most bosses dont have large sweeping attacks to deal with summons appropriately and the reason for this I believe its because summons where added like 3/4ths of the development cycle they had all the bosses mostly done and they were on the testing period of design and then they just chucked this answer, since its mostly reusing assets and just changing some attributes. regarding what about dungeon loot how did they plan ahead for ashes rewards this early? I think they put ashes later for rewards but earlier on they probably had like most spells/incantations and equipment sets as rewards for dungeons, I believe this because most spells/incantations are obtained through buying them or destroying scarabs which felt really awkward like the bloodflame sword incantation came from a random scarab, it makes no sense. like I am not a get good guy, use whatever you want to do to pass the game but in terms of difficulty our way to play its the conditioned way to play from older titles and clearly the dev team missed the mark here on some steps. here is hoping we see an improvement in the future, making a means to have easy mode without hurting the whole game because I am not opposed to it but in here the ashes implementation primarily was made to hide their bad boss designs with the sneaky rhetoric of lowering difficulty for non veteran players.
ngl Malenia is hard. I beat her in 4 tries but I used dual wield maxed uchigatanas with mimic +10. So I don't consider my record as base for comparison. Only thing going for me is I didn't use seppukku or any other gimmicks to increase that blood loss. Her healing ability is bs that I legit spammed my katana's at her to get those blood losses in. I have seen enough videos to know she is unfair and challenging.
This is why I like sekiro. I never found the build variety or whatever to be especially fun in dark souls games. So I didn't mind when they took away choice in sekiro in order to hyper focus on the combat without having to worry about spells or different weapon types or stats.
@@tytar1037 sure, but I don't think that dark souls has ever done a great job at making every option fun or interesting. You got your 3 general classes of weapons. Fast, medium and slow. Then you have 3 schools of magic. But they really boil down to just throwing different damage projectiles. The utility spells have never been really useful. and everything besides throw projectile and buff weapon is inefficient in terms of mana, perhaps has a use in pvp. And then you have your useful buffs like sacred oath and...... Hard to think of other good ones right now. There are a few others but not that many. Armor has gone through phases of being useful and cosmetic. Dark souls 3 made weapon arts which was a great idea but in practice the vast majority of weapon arts were only useful in pvp and had little impact on the game. Status effects have been a meme for the entire series till elden. Elden ring is probably the best in the series in terms of having interesting choices for builds, mostly because they made status effects good and then massively powered up weapon arts. Overcorrecting for dark souls 3
@@TheIZproductions the unique status efectts that are usefull in elden ring are bleed and frosbite, Well, i have to say those efects are soo boosted, Scarlet rot is good as well, but there is only one dragón incantation, one or two weapons and limited arrows or volts to use it
After using Eldens reforged mod Im convinced that deflect was the answer to Elden Rings problems but From was too scared to add it in. Deflect re-adds the flow of souls combat that we have all come to love that was removed from elden ring. It feels much better imo.
They have a damn tutorial about Guard Counters right at the start. I've started playing with them in my second playthrough, and it solves a lot of problems. Choose the right attacks to guard and BAM, big damage and a stagger on the counter. I think your deflection mechanic's already in the game.
They did't added the deflect probably because the developmet of elden ring starded in 2016 so they did't have the experiece to add it i'm sure deflect will be in elden ring 2
I completely understand and agree with you. My first souls game was ds3 and my first character was a cleric going for a full faith caster, and god how the game absolutely hates you for doing so. Firstly, you'll only have access to offensive miracles(faith spells that do damage) after at least 2 bosses(gundyr and vordt) and depending of how you explore the game, this number can go up to 4, sometimes 5 speacially if you are not using a guide to help you find those spells; second, one of your first offensive miracles can lock you into the bad ending of you miracles merchant npc questline and if you are REALLY unclucky, she can die before letting you buy all the spells she can offer to you. Third: the decent offensive miracles are only available post midgame and usually after defeating a boss(aldrich with lifehunt scythe, nameless king with lightning storm, and the worst offender: soul of cinder, literally the last boss of the game excluding dlc is the one who gives you the best offensive miracle that in practice does around the same damage a crystal soul spear or a chaos bed vestige does and the latter can be aquired after killing only 5 bosses while you have to finish the fucking game before actually playing with your build). Fourth: In my opinion it looks like miracles were kinda balanced around being cast with special poise casting some talismans do(you spend more fp to cast the spell with hyper armor) since most of them are short/mid range and other litterally having extra damage on melee(all the lightning spears variation), and this is fine for pvp bc you wont use healing estus on duels and in invasions you can oneshot some summons with sunlight spear if you're lucky and that will restore some of your estus, however for pve this is really questionable since you have at least 4 estus assigned for fp and having reduced defenses if you are a dedicated casters means that trading hits while poise casting with your miracles arent worth it cause you'll have way less healing(unless you are bringing a healing spells with you but they are usually inpratical on bossfights) and you'll also usually take more damage than a strenght build while having to spend way more resourses for it. I did finish the game after as a quality build and it was a completely different experience lol.
Midir can easily killed by 1 spell: Pestilent Mist, which deals 1% of the enemy's max health every second a part of his body is in the Mist cloud. It's really useful against him since he has such a giant body. All you need to do it stay under him and cast the spell whenever it wears off, and it makes him mostly a joke since most of his attacks won't hit you underneath him. Of course you still have to watch out for some of the attacks, and in phase 2 he'll have some point blank AoE attacks that can mess you up, but still, Pestilent Mist is a godsend to Int builds in DS3 :P
Yeah, a friend of mine did a mage build run of DSIII and he said that the endgame boss that gave him the most trouble was Halflight spear of the church because the small player esque enemy (he was offline so he got the NPC version) was a lot harder for him to hit with the big damaging spells he used to clear most bosses.
I tried that, but midair would always spam the fire breath underneath himself. I was so sad when the only way I killed him was with the lame straight sword spell :(
The old fashioned "sword and board" knight used to be the "go-to old reliable" and I was heart broken to see that not only is this play-style punished in ER, it was nerfed. Quality build scaling does less dmg compared to heavy or keen even with very high RL compensating. It was no wonder I was struggling so much my first time through.
Bro me and my buddy ran into the same issue intact he didn’t believe me I’m like bro “ heavy is better then quality “ we ran the numbers and were so bummed infact quality is Basicly not even relevant anymore because you can just put ashes on any weapon thus nullifying the need for a quality build IMO since quality in DS 1-3 was the way to use different weapon arcs on the fly that’s the strength but now it’s gone I wouldn’t say sword and board is completely useless considering I’m killing it with a greatshield and a colossal sword but just a long sword and a shield I could see being a issue which is sad
Im a Ds2 type of player who like to play slowly. You guys can combo great shield with thrusting weapon to make the most defensive playstyle ever existed in fromsoftware game. Basically good against physical type enemy only. And with the shabriri woe. You can summon a range spirit doing the damage while you constantly aggro the enemy. And tank playstyle existed in elden ring. Thats not enough? There a shield cannon for this kind of playstyle. The only thing i was hoping was they added the upgrade to armor from Ds2.
Oh, I know the answer: From Software fans. So basically balance is the main issue. I think I agree with this: these games are perceived as fully fair and balanced for every chosen playstyle, while in reality some builds will have a much easier time than others. I do think it is valid criticism. This is why I believe Sekiro to be the most cohesive FS game (since it is very limited in its build options) and Elden Ring is the most chaotic and unbalanced (since it has the most amount of build options).
True but they do seem committed to balancing elden ring so it being the most chaotic may change. Sekiro is getting so much love after ER came it out its crazy an it deserves it.
I do think it's less about balancing the numbers and more about making the levels and bosses mechanically fun for all playstyles, which it never is. And the playstyle their games are built around is changing with every new release.
@@feebleking21 I meant playstyle wise, while fully agree on the mechanics issue, some incants or weapons just don't punch their weight, and making them do so would make them very good incants.
Sekiro is my favourite from soft game easily. The combat system is unparalleled and the player is given all the tools to beat every boss in the game with no gimmicks and no bullshit. I agree Elden is by far the most unbalanced.
On my first playthrough of Elden Ring, when I first discovered I could use my bell to summon I honestly didn’t use it or think anything of it. I tried it sure, but I thought it was just a cool niche trick to use when you need a little extra help clearing mobs. I wasn’t a mage either, so not wanting to spend points on fp also played a factor on me not using it. Man did I really feel like a idiot when I found out how trivial the bosses become when you use the bell summons. There are literally huge swaths of the game that become a breeze when you take advantage of the summoning system and it actually made the boss fights not fun for me, so I decided to complete my playthrough the way I do all souls games, without using summons. It was tough yes, but it was a lot more rewarding. I just wish more of the bosses were designed around a solo playthrough.
It is interesting that the RPG part of Dark Souls goes against the "mechanical fun" part of souls combat, meaning that a game like Sekiro will have the best experience for souls like combat. Or at least I'd assume as I haven't played it yet but I do plan to play it soon!
If you want the break down Sekiro is doom etarnal of the dark souls series You NEED to use all of his dodge types, parry and the attack to succeed and that will put you in the fun zone
This is why Sekiro is so brilliant. One playstyle. People complained about variety but it is absolutely amazing in its focus and what it does playstyle to make things more balanced. Now I'm a trading hits fan, it's how I beat many bosses in all the games. And this just didn't work with Midir. At the same time, I eventually messed up every time with dodging Midir it just didn't work. I will still one day defeat him.
Having only played DS1 and 2, I honestly didn't have much whiplash going into Elden Ring. I'd always used a mixture of shields, dodging, melee and ranged weapons, spells (mainly miracles), items, and NPC friends to take on areas and bosses with whatever seemed best at the time. Elden Ring's emphasis on exploiting enemy weaknesses and finding windows for big attacks to get stance-break criticals while splitting their attention with allies felt good from the get-go. It's not extremely difficult to play this way, but it's still engaging since I find myself mostly defeating encounters by changing my tactics moreso than even memorizing enemy behavior. I understand the frustration with certain bosses, but overall I've yet to find anything I can't beat within a few tries just by changing my setup and learning enemy behavior. And, aside from mandatory bosses, anything that feels too difficult can just be left for later while I do something else and get stronger. Even story bosses can be delayed if there's some side area I was saving for later. I honestly don't mind needing to dodge a long string for a small punish, as is so often the case in Elden Ring. My biggest complaint is more technical, that parrying doesn't feel very rewarding giving the risk it entails compared to other defensive options, especially guard counters. I've always used parries against certain enemies like Silver and Heide Knights, but never bothered in Elden Ring when bosses need multiple parries for one riposte and the startup is so significant that common enemy strings don't often allow setup parries. I guess I wish the defensive options were a little more balanced, but otherwise it feels like Elden Ring wants me to use whatever is best at the moment, which is how I've played previous games. Maybe players who found success getting really good at certain fundamentals or gimmicks find it frustrating
I couldn't agree less. I've done every play style I could think of in DS1, and 4 so far in Elden Ring, and neither game railroads you into playing a specific way at all. Some weapons or weapon categories are bad, but overall there is way more than one viable way to play each game. Whether a given way to play is fun is down to the person. Some play styles are easier than others, which if you ask me is a good thing as it lets you modulate your own difficulty, but there's no single "correct" way to play any of these games.
I never said they railroad you into playing a specific way. I never said there is a single correct way to play dark souls. I think a lot of people did not understand my arguments in this video, as you and many others are not arguing against the points raised.
@@feebleking21 OK, I'll try and address your points more directly here. I'll stick to your DS1 section, since it's the one I'm most familiar with. DS1 teaches you early on that blocking is an option, and it does present you with some scenarios in the first couple areas where it's advantageous. A player may gravitate to sword and board from that. Or they may take that as a queue to use a spear or thrusting sword, since those work much better in tandem with shields. Or they may opt for the halberd or the claymore, seeing as they put up substantially more damage than whatever they're likely using when they find it, which may force them to two hand for a while and learn to play without blocking due to the strength requirements. They might use the heaviest weapon they can get their hands on, or to use something quick that leaves them less open. All of this is assuming that they aren't playing a caster. Speaking anecdotally, my first time through I used sheilds a little bit until I got to Undead Parish, where I found the halberd and used it 2 handed for the rest of the game. Dark Souls is not solely built around sword and board, that's simply one viable playstyle, and what you took away from the design with regards to that playstyle is not what everyone does.
@@Thanatos2996 yup what jimmy pop and lofibros said, they were clearly made around 1 style then branched out to others and fromsoft gave it their best try to make the others work but it clearly springs fourth from one. Sword and shield is clearly the best and intended way of DS1 just off shield mechanics alone that you see in DS1 that later disappear from future titles. This also explains why magic can be useless or super op as it was an afterthought AFTER the primary playstyle was made for the game. It was tossed in and they tried to balance it but clearly it shows where their efforts went. Face the music everyone in this thread can see it besides you lol dont be stubborn and like lofibros said this is why sekiro has the tightest, cleanest combat of any souls game bar none. It was like all their other games starting off from one primary playstyle except instead of shoehorning other weapons, spells and other stuff in that wouldnt matter much they refined that one playstyle to a BRILLIANT degree. Sekiro combat is just on another level compared to any other fromsoft game BECAUSE they had the balls to say "no builds, no 90 weapons that all play the same basically, just ONE sword thats INCREDIBLY polished to a T"
@@ranges787 Absolutely, this is what u get when fromsoft focuses their work and vision on ONE playstyle, it becomes SUPER clean and smooth. No other fromsoft game can even TOUCH sekiro's combat
Honestly Ive played all of these games pretty much the same, a two handed greatsword with a grasscrest shield when available. None of the games seemed to resent this playstyle. In Bloodborne I used the Ludwigs two handed function almost exclusively so yet again, similar. They all work, they just have quirks.
@@feebleking21 dawg I two handed a strength weapon the entire playthrough. It might not be what the game wants you to do, but the game was never difficult enough to notice.
Have you played sekiro? Its my fav fromsoft, it fixes this problem quite a lot, theres still some variety in which you can play the game but mostly the whole experience is build around the base main playstyle and its a blast to play and master!
Sekiro removes the problem , it doesn't really solve it They couldn't balance the entire game for every plastyle so they made one playstyle that has everything
Sekiro unfortunately gets rid of pretty much everything that I love about Souls games, in fact I don't think it should even be counted as part of the "Souls series" because it's so different. That doesn't mean it's not a high quality game or that people shouldn't like it, but I cringe a little bit when people offer it as the "way forward" for Fromsoft games, because I didn't like it at all. It CAN'T be the answer to the problem of Souls games because it's NOT fundamentally a Souls game. The solution to balance issues in an RPG with different available playstyles is not to remove those playstyles entirely.
@@purehollow But it's impossible to balance a game around dozens of builds and playstyles. There is no solution to this problem, only remedies that fix it and avoiding it altogether. These aren't fromsoft problems, it's a problem that every developer has faced when making a multifaceted rpg.
Sekiro is goat tier no souls game comes close to this masterpiece gameplay wise The entire game feels so rewarding and like a rush by far the best souls experience
It's better you develop your own play style on your own instead of watching what other players are doing with their owns play style I had a blast playing as magic Swordsman where I could switch between spells or the sword on the Fly According to some traditional swords melee players I'm playing the game wrong
I recently came face to face with this idea when I played Salt & Sanctuary for the first time and beat almost every boss within one or two tries with a greatsword/greathammer STR build but on repeat playthroughs struggled immensely as I tried playing some of these same bosses with dexterity or magic builds. A handful of bosses on these repeat runs that were extremely frustrating as a STR user were suddenly trivialized when I focused on pistols and one boss in particular went from most obnoxious gank fest to 8 second melt when I used poison. When I played DS1 for the first time, I went with daggers because fast equals easier time, right? Wrong. When I played the game with strength weapons instead (my first clear of DS1 involved heavy use of the Reinforced Club) years later, I actually managed to beat it with barely any issues. When people jokingly say DEX sucks, I think it's in part because of this whole build variety is hard thing. When I first played Elden Ring, I went for a dragon caster and had an absolutely awful time by the end, but since I leveled arcane for the dragon seal, I could use blood too and it became a lot easier that way. Was it fun? Not for me, because the draconic magic I wanted to use ended up being useless in any fight that wasn't the ulcerated tree spirits or Astel. When I replayed the beginning of the game with a STR build, using heavy jump attacks, I suddenly demolished everything with ease where my original character's fire incants required way more effort.
yeah, using the Kureimora (claymore) is basicallu the easy mode in S&S. every other build is just harder. I heard there was a massive balance update to the game years after release (was it last year? it was weird to see anm game recieve bug balance overhaul after its sequel is already released) wonder how the updates are
@@btchiaintkidding7837 The update you are talking about is the Enhanced Mode update. As far as I'm aware, it's actually a fan-made balance patch, but one that is fully endorsed by the actual developer. That's why it came so late and that's also why it's currently only on PC (getting stuff approved on console is a major hassle, and impossible if you are not the original dev) It does in fact balance quite a few weapons in the numbers department - the Kureimoa is still strong, but there isn't such a stark rift between other options anymore. Dual-scaling weapons received the most overhauls for their scaling iirc, making them much more viable. There's also a couple moveset alterations - whips now actually get some detached hitboxes, making them quite strong at angled hits and there's an entire unarmed moveset now. Some bosses also got rebalanced. Personally, I still feel certain builds are just way better than others (STR is still extremely good since 2H weapons just have really nice swing arcs and reach, pistols are crazy strong and have huge reach for how easy it is to get endless ammo supply, etc...), but it's more for actual reach/moveset reasons rather than sheer numbers. I definitely like the enhanced version a lot.
An interesting insight, and speaks to me from a particular experience. A couple of years back, took a break from Dark Souls 3 and got into Bloodborne. Heh, in order my experiences with Soulsborne has been - Dark Souls, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne. Suffice to say, Bloodborne was quite the exhilarating experience. Dark Souls 3 felt like a faster Dark Souls by my chronological experience, and Bloodborne was a whole other beast, hah, in more ways than one. After binging Bloodborne for so long, going back to Dark Souls 3 felt...awkward. It felt weird to use a shield. It felt weird getting hit from attacks that I feel definitely would not have connected in Bloodborne. Such a drastic playstyle change truly can shake one up for what they thought they knew. With Bloodborne experienced, I perceived what was rehashed into Dark Souls 3, and picked up more aware on how faster/more aggressive enemies were than I remembered them being. Still not as on the level of Bloodborne, but essentially a notch down or two. It was still balanced between their respective frameworks. With that said - Elden Ring truly is a colossal dick move. Enemies with cracked out aggression that could make some Bloodborne bosses tell Elden Ring to chill out. The "never should happen" happened. The gross imbalance of making the player feel like a DS Fat Roller against these coked up adversaries. Sword&Shield was the style of DS1, DS3 was a bit more faster-paced but blocking definitely took a noticeable nerf by virtue of said higher-aggression enemies (along with buffed stamina damage to blocking) so it encouraged you to mix and match. Block, Dodge, Attack. Keeping you on your feet, but nowhere near the aggression of Bloodborne. Bloodborne truly was an aggressive waltz for most battle situations. A dance floor for all participants to abide to a certain set of rules. Blocking it not just nerfed, it's just completely stripped. And then there's Elden Ring that punished BOTH. Want to roll away? Get caught in a delayed bait combo. Roll towards them? Better hope that Input Read doesn't auto clap you! Want to block? -Insert J Jonah Jameson laugh.- You serious? You must hate your stamina to give it away so willingly. Nerfing and punishing both defensive options, Rolling AND Blocking. Honestly nothing less of a dick move. People go on about "Well it's not Dark Souls", but honestly, TheDeModcracy said it best in his Unbalanced Disappointment video - "Fromsoft wants to have their cake AND eat it too". It's not, but it is. Don't kid yourself. Elden Ring is mechanically a transmutation abomination of Dark Souls and Bloodborne (I can't speak for Sekiro elements as I've never played it) with the worst type of outcome. It's rehashed the same Dark Souls 3 conditions for multiplayer and the like, along with just simply design philosophy. It's more developed, yes, by a bit, but it's definitely not new. There's no pleasure in critiquing Elden Ring, especially for as much as we do enjoy it. But it is absolutely necessary because the design choices and mechanical cheats as exposed by Swagapagos Turtle's video "Malenia doesn't play by the rules", though Malenia is the highlight in that video, the imbalance of mobility, input reading, etc. all that's been said before with the artificial difficulty inflations, does set a dangerous risk. It's not pleasant to say, but let's face it - With these horrible design and mechanical choices, for the usual high standards of FromSoft's products, these choices have put a blemish of Mediocrity on their name, and it should be paid more cautious attention to.
The worst part is that it's never speeding back down to reasonable speed to match Dark Souls speed. Bloodborne was a fantastic game, but permanently destroyed DS3 and all future titles' balance by keeping the player slow while enemies keep getting faster and faster, combined with the death of poise as a mechanic.
@@gameplayer42069 Honestly the fact that they took this approach and did not even give us inches of Dark Souls 1's virtues of Poise and Upgradable Armor only stems to fuel concern. The bare minimum that should have been implemented in terms of defensive balances. Creative and memorable that happened to have an artistic design of difficulty, sullied by just "chonk big numbers, infinite combo wombo!". It's alarming how with such a design, Elden Ring runs the risk of aging rapidly. Heh.. I can not stress how, despite how specific it is.. It's just left a bad taste for me. A basic example, those Page enemies in the Weeping Peninsula just painting how bad the defense imbalance is with their obnoxious Poise and stagger-spam pokes against you even in heavy armor. By design, and basic immersion - utterly makes no sense and is disingenuous design.
@@berwick1851 The closed beta for ER actually featured DS1 poise, but they took it away on release for some reason. When it comes to DS1, people often cite poise backstabs as OP, and in my opinion they're right. So in ER we have DS1 backstabs for PVE only, but in PVP they have been nerfed to the ground that going for one is actually terrible, leaving you locked in the animation of trying to do it, yet it never connects if the other player isn't brain dead. With backstabs dead for PVP, no reason to kill poise as well, but here we are. Oh, and the game is new so patches will come out regularly, with more nerfs, and at one point we'll be left with these ridiculous bosses and enemies while everything has been nerfed to suit the needs of PVP players, so that's "promising".
Honestly, I dont see all that "aggression" and fast pace everyone speaks about in bloodborne. 30fps already made it feel slow mo for me, and then lots of bosses can become dummies if you hit the right limbs. Its melee combat satisfying as fuck, and trick weapons are unmatched for me, but dks3 feels much faster with 60fps and bosses overall are more aggressive, except for the bb dlc that they wanted to push it to the limit. Like, even dks remastered felt fast for me after playing bloodborne.
@@jonnymario771 It literally is not there and i'm so confused too on why everyone has this idea, nostalgia probably? and maybe the animations. Bloodborne enemies are slow and clunky and so are the bosses, they could all be regular DS3 or ER mobs(but still slower and more like dummies rather than real enemies for those games) and the bosses that actually match your speed like Orphan are considered the hardest for that reason, because you can't just R1R1R1 and get rewarded from it with the infinite healing windows and rally system. I get really confused when people act like Bloodborne is THE fast game and THE smooth game when in Dark Souls 3 both you and your enemy are the same speed and can punish each other just the same even when your character's speed is pretty much exactly the same as Bloodborne, while in Bloodborne you're too fast for your enemies and in Elden Ring way too slow. Sekiro is even faster too lmao.
Blocking is totally viable against Midir tho, you just need a big enough shield. I used a Havel shield and a Lothric longsword and frankly fighting him is a pretty chill experience. You can block all his melee combos and still have enough stamina to hit him in his head for a few times, his charge attack can also be blocked. The only this you need to run away from or use dodge roll is the fire breath and laser beam.
yeah it's like monsterhunter, every boss/enemy has a certain 'weakness' i.e style of play/weapon that they are weak to. RPG's have always been about finding and exploiting enemies' weaknesses
Fromsoft doesn't design every boss around every playstyle, and it's abundantly clear that Elden Ring was built around hit trading and summons while dark souls 3 was built around dodging to find openings to punish with r1. You can beat elden ring like it's dark souls 3 on a weak build, but it's not good.
TBH Bandai Namco and Code Vein more or less beat this problem by letting you change up your build on the fly with no fuss or muss. So if a boss doesn't suit your playstyle you can pretty easily experiment until you find something that works against that boss for you.
ER doesn't have intended playstyle, in encourage you to adapt to each boss. Some bosses are designed for stance-breaking (Misbegotten), some for parrying (Crucible Knights), some for horseback combat (dragons), some for ranged combat (Godskin Duo, arguably) etc. Bosses with big HP pool and small attack windows challenge you to do maximum damage during this window, which naturally leads to applying status effects. If ER was designed for a single playstyle, there would be no motivation to explore open world and collect stuff.
I don't know about previous souls games, I haven't played them. But in Elden ring there is no one default way to play the game. There are that many different weapons, spells and other items to use you can make nearly any playstyle a viable option. As a newbie to the souls genre I started with the samurai because you get a decent starting weapon, a bow and a shield. I didn't like the small parry shield so as soon as I got a medium sized one I stuck with that, and I became very dependant on it. In dungeons I would walk around with it held up most of the time. But as I unlocked more weapons and became more familiar with the game I gained more confidence and stopped relying on my shield. To the point where I rarely even carry one now. My point is in Elden ring the traditional sword and shield playstyle only seems to be there for nostalgia and for the newbies like me..
I am not interesting in elden ring dlc, just because the amount of bosses that will be like malenia, since they are recieving " good" feedback of her fight
I think that Jesus means Fromsoft's goal was to make a ridiculous boss that becomes infamous because they are unfair, and that Fromsoft likes that they did this and will make more unfair DLC bosses that force us souls vets into hit trading with op weapons or summoning.
@@GabryyLG The masochists who are beating their chests in triumph because they see fighting such a ridiculously "Plot-armored" ( what I call a boss that the developers have given so many overpowered traits that allow them to essentially cheat, like a main character in a story who cannot die due to their role in the plot) boss a bragging point instead of something that is just not fun. I've killed her many times on different characters, but it was not enjoyable in any way. The masochists say she is wonderful because they see this as proof that they have "Gotten Gud". BTW- I am being hyperbolic and sarcastic, but really, this fight is not fun at all. Anyone who says so is kidding themselves.
@@baltogames1501 then why did you even beat her multiple times lol? if anyone here is a masochist, it's you. Others people genuinely like her fight, including me. Your opinion and experience isn't universal for everyone
@@ehrtdaz7186 Wait, have I been willingly subjecting myself to this fight when I haven't had to? My God, you're right! I thought I had to finish this fight to progress Millicent's quest to get her talismans. Wow, I have become the very Masochist I have condemned. Fromsoft has got me again!!!!
Dark souls builds in a nutshell: SL1: Hard mode Dodge roll and hit style: Normal mode Tanky high poise and greatshield: Easy mode Summon user: Story mode Magic/long range Andy: this is just cheese and unfun So if you don't wanna feel like you cheesed the whole game with magic or that you're not good enough alone and needed summons at least be a tank and do it yourself.
What I love about elden ring is how easy they made it to prepare a counter build against bosses (and difficult zones). It reminds me of the Witcher 3. I create proper bombs, buff food, switch talismans around. I also switch between using shield or just yolo it in powerstance with around 4 different upgraded weapons. I don't even use spells but I bet they would fit this playstyle too (switching around spells who are more suited against certain enemies).
I have killed every boss using a two handed scythe because i just enjoy dodge rolling and r1 attacking with a scythe. telling me to pick up a shield or use specific items for a boss to effectively cheese them (like how you can sleep godskins for a bunch of free hits) is literally just telling me to cheese a boss to kill them. im not here to kill the bosses by cheesing them or making it easy in some way by using specific items/weapon loadouts. im here to get good enough to kill a boss on my own.
Ah yes, the bosses are so good that people prefer to cheese them so they can end it already instead of legit fighting them, i wonder why the game is getting criticized.
The thing is I actually enjoy Dark Souls II levels, not as a ranged playstyle, in fact I am very much for Dark Souls II a pure physical ultra greatsword and greatshield build and I have enjoyed a lot of the levels as my playstyle. But then I am someone who actually likes to experiment with playstyles but when I say experiment with playstyles, it means I do a different playstyle for every game. I did a magic build for Dark Souls I with the levels being a shield and dex weapon build with intelligence scaling on those weapons mainly. For Dark Souls III I plan on trying a faith and dex weapon build, without relying too much on a shield. So I can't really agree that each souls game is not fun with a certain playstyle because I find it fun to find out what tactics I can use with my playstyle. But then I also play a game that has the same kind of "try different playstyles with all your characters vibe" Divinity II Original Sin and that has influenced the way I experience the Souls games.
The ds series has so much difference when it comes to builds and weapons. Knives in ds2 sucked but are viable in ds3. Uchikatana was op in ds1 but isn't in ds2/ds3. Someone playing a magic build in ds1 or old ring are going to have dummy easy time but a quality build, nope. Different builds shape people's vastly different experiences. Still fun games and thank you for not hating on ds2.
I don't necessarily agree that each souls game has an "intended way to play" for it to be fun. I'm with you in the fact that I like to play without a shield and use dodging as my shield. Infact I typically will do lower damage but fast builds in Souls for quick in and out combat. I enjoy the heck out of that. I have however done many different builds in all of the games and got enjoyment out of each of them. Where I 100% agree is that Elden ring does seem to base their combat around spirit ashes and summons. NOW I'm stubborn and have beaten every main boss in the game by myself and I had a ton of fun with some of them. I dare say Malekith is my favorite fight in the franchise, but he's one of maybe 6 bosses I really enjoy. The others are fine but they don't get that blood pumping like 99% of the fights in Bloodborne or even Dark Souls 2 which out of the 3 is my favorite 😋
These bosses just aren't the same with the same weapon, and while elden ring is my favourite(thanks to the openworld aspect up until keyndell, botw on steroids imo) but the focused aspect of sekiro meant the the boss fights are 100% tight and balanced.
I feel inspired to make a video on why I like dark souls 2 as I feel like many people miss the point besides build variety. Leveling armor. Drip souls. Being able to make armor better just made sense. (And it helped squishy players be able to poise attacks)
I mean usually "dodge attack" was the middle of the road playstyle for all souls games. In elden ring if you use summons the game is too easy but if you don't it's too hard. Magic is actually kinda shit in the late game of Elden ring except maybe some bleed spells or comet azure infinite fp tear.
The Game is probably the easiest of from frosoftware until you get to the snowy area and astel and fortissax, from here the dificulty of the Game increase drastically, and the easiest experiencie of frosoftware turns of the hardest one by really hard
@@jajasking9652 Yeah only real reason in my opinion that the difficulty increases so drastically is that everything takes light years to kill, and they do so much damage back to you for no good reason. If the health bars and damage were nerfed, all the end game bosses would actually be really fun fights, they can still keep their annoying supersonic speeds and 500 hit combos.
I love how everybody says that about Elden ring but it was my first from software game and I learned every boss moves how to dodge them and how to stay just out of reach of attacks and that play style works pretty good if you are willing to learn
It would be literally impossible to make every boss encounter completely viable, or even fun, for every imaginable play style. So there's that, it's not a thing that's even doable. It would ruin the games if they even tried to achieve that. It's important to have a large variety of boss design/mechanics, and with that, it's just a forgone conclusion that every encounter will be easier and more fun for some builds than others.
Dark Souls 2 is fairly well balanced in terms of loadouts. You seem to be having a lot of trouble managing groups of enemies. You can't take iron keep slowly no matter what playstyle you have. It meant to be played aggressively and turns into an aggravating mess if you try to take it slowly. If you push in hard and fast most enemies can be taken out before their backup arrives and archers have a rytham that you can get the timing for or pillers that provide safe spaces. Also, Iron Keep is placed so that if it is too hard you can bounce off it till you are stronger. You get the ladder smith just before you get to Iron Keep and going to The Gutter is a good idea if Iron Keep is too hard for you. DS2 actually supports a huge amount of playstyles. Shielding and tanking is a really fun build in the game. Not having a 100% phisical shield isn't really a big deal, more important is having a high Guard stat which significantly effects how much stamina is consumed by blacking and which attacks bounce. I think you may be vastly misunderstanding DS2
I'd actually day ds2 is easier then ds1. In ds1 I got through the first half in like 6 hours but got stuck on O and S, I can't think of a fight in base game ds2 as hard as O and S. So that's partially gives me reason to think that.
@@patcris8923 I would agree that nothing in DS2 is overly hard, in fact that's why I like it so much. For me it feels like a wonderful sandbox to a variety of playstyles and doesn't particularly force anything. I think later games chase the "Difficult" boss thing and they suffer for it. In many ways playing into the troupe of unforgiving and difficult gameplay is what turns me off to Sekiro, a game I enjoy but only with mods to smooth out the frustration. The later DS3 bosses also followed this trend where you strategy and knowledge of a boss meant nothing compared to your raw reaction time and muscle memory. Something I don't really care for
The actual problem is Souls fans stubbornness thinking they need to beat the game "pure" by them selves with no summons or buff consumables. That problem exists in their mind alone. When facing a gank boss, summon if you have too. When getting crushed by Fire giant use crab legs or fire def boost consumables. When getting ripped by Astel use the magic defense talisman & magic def consumable. If your katana doesn't do shit against a crystalian or fallen star beast, then switch to a flail or mace. There's 0 reason to think you need to go through the entire game with only 1 build and avoiding every single thing the game provided you to beat it all for some trophy that only exists in your mind.
Well said. There still exists this arrogant attitude of the community that when you don't beat the games on lvl 1 naked with only a sword and a shield you are not worthy to play the games at all ;)
Well said. ER is my first souls game and I just completed the game. I didn't try a level 1 naked play through though. I just did what was needed to beat each boss. I think if you like playing the game and, for lack of a better word, "limiting" yourself, well that's cool....but why be condescending about how others play? It just seems that in this community there is direct and indirect "gatekeeping" in the discourse about what "real players" do. But, hey, I am glad people like that type of challenge and seeing them do it is neat, but I also like watching someone find a way to absolutely melt a boss, I also like seeing some of the spectacular spells come off that are tough to pull off with the boss in your face constantly. It's all Elden Ring and it's all awesome is my point I guess.
I would have to disagree with this being a bad thing. If my build was optimal for every encounter in the game it would be kind of boring. I think it's fun when I show up to a boss and my build is making me struggle. Having to adapt to different situations is fun imo
I think you misunderstood the problem, it is not that you build will struggle at one boss, but it won't be the best desinged one. A good exemple of only one build that makes all the fights of the game fun and well desinged, just look at sekiro
It is a bad thing when you dedicate yourself to a build and the game starts going "oh my, you didn't distribute stats and upgrades everywhere for these particular situations to not feel bad?"
@@maxwellsterling that's a part of rpgs man. You make a build it's not going to be optimal in every situation. That's the point. Your build will be good in some situations but not all. It makes things more interesting
For me the survival part of dark souls 2 was often about stacking elemental resistance. Great magic barrier, profuse sweat and those quatz rings could really trivialize many elemental hazards during both exploration and boss fights.With two Yorgh's Spears, Northwarder's set, and poisonbite ring, you can literally live in a poison swamp and never get any buildup. You talked about build varieties in DS2 but there's also an insanely OP build in that game: the powerstance ice rapiers, that trumps everything else.
I'm not so sure I agree completely with your assessment of the games and playstyle. I started in the series with Dark Souls and the only shield I ever used in that game was the Grass Crest Shield which stayed on my back as a stam buff while I tended to two hand my melee weapon. If I wanted to parry in that game I actually used the Parry Dagger, yes I know I'm weird. In Dark Souls 2 I can see your point but having done both melee only and ranged play throughs, as well as mixed play throughs, I don't really agree with the favoring of ranged over melee, or agree with the lock on issues either. I use lock on in every Fromsoft Souls game I play, all of them, and it works extremely well in Dark Souls 2 if you understand the levels are about crowd controlling the mobs, funneling them into chokes you can exploit, or using wide swing weapons to hit more than one at a time. When I look at your video and see you pulling all the enemies under the tree, where they are all laying down and you could literally just walk up slowly and only aggro 1-2 at a time, it seems to me you tried to rush head first through the mobs got swarmed and made no real use of the tools the game actually gives the filter and control the amount of enemies you face at once, yes even in Shrine of Amana. For Dark Souls 3, once again never used a shield in any Dark Souls game including 3, so I can't really disagree I guess. I guess I might actually agree because with how they changed the parry mechanic so that you more or less have to parry before the enemy even attacks to land it I guess I can see your point of them trying to get you away from shields. Bloodborne is an obvious gimmie in terms of playstyle as they left absolutely no way to effectively play with a shield in that game.
Sword board style got progressively worse and more punishable. Using your shield on your back and dagger (which isn't a shield) for parrying don't count for that play style. Bloodborn doesn't really have shields, except only one, but that one is just for meme, so no one would use it. So if some playstyle become so bad and unviable for game - might just remove the option, so players won't try to commit masochism on something that is doomed to fail by game design.
@@1God1Fury I mean you say sword and board got progressively worse and the Elden Ring gave us the Finger Print Shield and and guard counters and they legit had to nerf the playstyle. I think it's more likely is Fromsoft keeps making attempts to refine the game play as a whole and sometimes that means one style is broken one game and useless the next. I mean Sekiro had no shields but you blocked and parried more in that game than any other.
Biggest problem? You're expected to use a great or colossal weapon. Most weapons you get are huge and can stunlock boxes. And they were buffed. Very few daggers or smaller weapons. No advantages being light. You're expected to be a brute with high poise. More weapons besides big bam bam smash and make light builds characters dodge faster and further
You are talking no sense. Dex builds in Elden Ring or Dark Souls III are as effective as colossal builds. But imo DS3 is the most balanced game cause you can use every weapon you want and would be viable. Talking levels and bosses both.
@FukTheGender Agenda Yes, is a really good weapon. I see that you replayed it a lot, so i do. Incredible game. Art, bosses, areas. The second best imo.
I won't see never a good video about ER boss design? Man, this is so sad, no one knows wtf they are talking about but they post videos like if they knew
14:47 i love that Malenia is an exceptiom where you are not supposed to trade with her since she heals and you may get punished heavily if you use summons, but when I did it just happens that my weapon of choice was really good at stagger her, so she had fewer attempt to waterfowl dance my spirit and heal, resulting in a magical 6th attempt where i had like 9 flasks left with her half health in second phase, and i just traded and heal, outdps her healing and running from her waterfowl 😂, the power of spirits is so high that such an "unfair" boss was actually less threatening and difficult than Abyss watchers from ds3, and sure it has rng in first phase, but abyss watcher are meant to be hard challenge only early into the game and I struggled a lot there my first time despite being overleveled
A perfect example of a boss that builds off of mechanics used in a game isn't even a soulsborne boss. It's Mr Freeze from Arkham City. You have to use everything you've learned to bring him down and are rewarded for using different tactics even as the old ones are locked out after using them only once. This game (as amazing as it is at times) makes me feel like I'm going against an unfair fight so I don't care if I'm using a broken weapon or summon since they can take out half my health in 1.5 sec on a good day. Which sadly can cheapen the experience a bit. Still a great game with beautiful moves, enviro, character design and story tho.
Only problem with mister freeze, he's the highlight boss battle in the middle of the 2nd game and everything before him, and after him, is disappointing.
@@feebleking21 Yep. Good times. Too bad Arkham Knights bosses were so lackluster. There's another example of bosses getting worse in a sequel, but in a different way.
As someone who's never played any souls games but has 40 hours in ER, I find this fascinating. Thanks for the awesome video. I've mostly enjoyed my time with ER. I'm doing a big sword and big shield set up because I found great swords and great shields in AC: Valhalla fun. Generally I find the game responds quite well to it. I use summons sometimes if I'm troubled.
I play only melee builds in all souls games and dodge roll also and I completely agree with your ds2 and elden ring takes. I have never even cast a single spell in souls and ive beaten everyone since demons at least 5 times. I dont think its the way everyone should play, its just my preferred style, with that being said elden ring definitely doesnt feel designed for a melee build unless you use spirits which for me was the worst design decision in any souls game. Im glad people are starting to agree with me because when I first started criticizing Elden for these faults and people weren't trying to hear it. Thanks for the perspective.
On one hand, I can see why people are mad about this issue. Fromsoft games generally feel a certain way (at least since demon souls). Yet I do have a problem when Elden Ring is called out for not tetering to the pure melee formula. elden ring is not a souls game. It's a new IP. Sure it has a vast number of similarities with the other games but I, personally, think it's not fair to hold elden ring to the same standards as dark souls (not in terms of quality but preferred playstyle). My preferred playstyle in dark souls is melee, yet in elden ring, I'm having a blast trying out something new. I used ashes very frequently as well and got some of the most epic fights out of fromsoft I have ever had (altough I have to add that, due to lack of ps+, I could never summon players from other worlds, so maybe my excitement stems from that). My all time favourite fromsoft title still is sekiro by a long shot, followed by bloodborne. In elden ring I love being a combat mage. To me it feels like I'm building up on my previous preferred playstyle, mixing in spells and ashes and whatnot. Maybe elden ring just is a game with builds such as this in mind. In previous games, I was never tempted to try a mage build, since I couldn't really get it to work for myself (maybe due to my own incompetence, who knows). In my opinion, it is just not fair to expect fromsoft to keep holding on to the same principles they have been known for building their games around. Sekiro stripped me off any customization options (apart from r1r2 skills and prosthetics) and yet it is one of my favourite games of all time. Not to say you can't have your opinion, as said in the beginning. I just took elden ring on as something new, not as the same game clad in a different skin. Yes, all those games are similar, yet completely different in the details. Just as I don't think I am playing a souls game when I play bloodborne or sekiro, I don't think I am playing a souls game when I play elden ring. I am playing something new. Something that allows me to effectively use spells and summons in combat. Just my point of view, habe a great day and keep enjoying fromsoft titles :)
@@hollyc5417 I did all that and for me Elden ring is the easiest in the series by a longshot. I just dont think its as fun, thats all I was saying. If you do than great, I love fromsoft and I want them to succeed I just hope the next game isnt open world and doesnt have spirit summons because these are the core issues that cause the game not to be as fun for me, as past titles. If you love it though, I totally respect your opinion. I love it more than 99 percent of all games released since sekiro. I love the franchise so much I guess thats why Im over critical of it because all I really play are these games and Im worried that with the success of Elden Ring they will continue to make the games easier and adding more options to make the game easier at the cost of making the games less enjoyable when you dont use the easy mode mechanics like summons. I was attempting a level one run but for some reason my ps5 crashes everytime I play elden ring for more than an hour and it shuts my system off and I have to unplug it and boot it back up and the hard drive repairs its self and I had a ps4 do this and it fried it once so Im scared to play elden ring anymore for fear of it damaging my console that you cant get another one of. Ive moved on to salt and sacrifice and its awesome if you like 2d souls games. Highly recommend it.
@@hollyc5417 because now you need 99 vigor to not get two shotted . GG in build variety becase your variety gets pulled down by putting points into vigor,back then you could survive with 13. Upgrading your weapons in late game won't matter shit since you're reaching the max threshold . Scaling works like - strength or Dex . Quality is useless. Bet you are from mainstream trying to check how good you are at the souls when you only played ER
@@BBQcheese I just dislike open worlds so much that even though elden rings open world is probably the best open world, I would still prefer it wasnt and I think that soiled my experience in general. The games just not as fun to play for me as all the other from games and I just attributed it to my build but playing it a lot more since I originally made the comment I think I just dont like Elden ring as much as past titles. Im by no way saying its bad. I love fromsoft, their my favorite studio and Im happy for their success with ER, I just dont like it as much as any of their previous games but when the dlc drops Ill still be the first one waiting to play it 😃
I played elden ring as my first ever souls game. I have a suggestion of what Is intended for elden ring. When I started the game I used me shield and guard countered alot. I used weak summons usually just the jelly and if there was an npc summon I'd use it. Then about a quarter into the playthrough I dropped the shield cause I learned that rolling is more stamina efficient. I played the rest of the game 2 handing the bloodhound fang and still used summons including mimic to finish the game as I felt I needed the summons for the last 6 bosses. I felt that because of fatigue. After my first playthrough, I felt like I wanted to learn to beat the bosses with no summons. That became my quest and I have done that. I do agree that the bosses are insanely aggressive and it is annoying when there are such long combos and small windows for attack. But that's just the game it is just like ds3 in alot of ways only you have to be more patient in ER. Every boss in ds3 from abyss watchers other than the prince's have an attack that goes on and on. 2nd phase of abyss watchers has some vert long combos. Pontiff has a very long dual sword combo, dancer has the mad spin move that goes on like 12 times, champion gundyr is constantly aggro, fried never stops attacking and like elden ring if you dodge in the wrong direction, no punish for you. Cause it will be the bosses turn to attack again. The differences are that alot of elden ring bosses have inconsistent timings. In ds3 there is a rhythm for most of the game. Elden Ring said okay you perfected fast bosses with consistent timing. How about if we mix quick and slow attacks together? If you look at the punish windows in both games they're very similar. It's the variation of the flow that makes elden rings bosses either something your brain enjoys or it will just be frustrating. I also think malenia is psychological. She has some of the easiest attacks to avoid as long as your brain registers them quick enough. She rarely does and my attacks with a crazy long wind up like most er bosses. Warerfoul is all in your head. I'd rather she did waterfoul three or 4 more times and gave her never do the spirit clone move. Waterfoul has such an easy counter. You just literally run away. Either way people find malenia hard because they either fear her moveset too much or they don't have the patience to wait for the safe attack windows. Either way the difficulty is in your head. Yes it sucks to have attacks that mean you just have to dodge.... but I feel like alot of you guys that shat on the bosses seem to think that in other from games you can beat the boss in 60 thousand different ways... no you can't. In all from games that are soulsbornekiroring... you either get close mele and dodge and hit the boss. Or you use magic and stay as far away as you can... Thats it. Don't pretend that the other games allowed for more when it's a lie. In fact elden ring has more ways to do it Hell you can kill radahn about 3 different ways just using the damn boss arena without fighting at all. Name 1 ds boss you can do that? I'll wait... no thought not. I agree elden ring is farrrrr from perfect. Exploration is something you will do once and then never again as it'd only a surprise once. The game is too long and the end game boss rush is too annoying and makes you frustrated and fatigued by the time you get to radagon. They should've ended the game at leyndell and found a way to fit farum azula in elsewhere. Maybe the halligtree too. Bit alllllll of the mountaintop of the giants can f its self its that uninspired and meh. There sadly is only about 9 bosses in elden ring that are challenging or fun enough to warrant multiple playthroughs. But to me thats not dis similar to ds3. Udex gundyr... too easy Vordt too easy Curse rotted greatwood.... what? Gtfo way too easy Skelebangleman... really are you insulting me with how easy this is. Crystal sage too easy Deacons.... are you joking easy. Abyss watchers. Fun awesome. Yorhm... yawn more like it. 3 hits with the storm ruler and dead. Get real. Oceiros... wtf even was that mess nope. The slithery guy that is basically just crystal sage only now he has an arrow attack that goes on for an actual week. Nahhhh boring. Pontiff was banging. Champion gundyr banging. Dragonslayer armour sick fight Prince's... ehhh its okay. Dancer siiiick fight. Cinder... I actually think is a bad fight. It can go so many different ways cause of all he has access to. There's no flow. So in the base game ds3 has few actual awesome bosses worth doing multiple times too. I won't start with the doc because gael is the only great boss in the doc and those angel things en route to that doc ate fucking unforgivable. The people who designed and signed off in those things will have a special place in hell waiting for them ( I joke but I hate those enemies they are the least fair thing in any souls game they genuinely never ever stop attacking. Not even time to regain stamina on the last bit before you roll into a pit of cursed and will likely die before you get to the bonfire cause haha fuck you do the angel run again you masochistic fuck.
to be honest I always saw this so called “problem” as a strength … and here’s why. Each boss is unique in ER for example stormveil is more melee based mobs while the academy has magic based mobs each mob and boss will interact with each build differently it would be impossible and stupid if each boss was a balanced fight for every build that’s the charm of souls games each boss will give a different challenge to every build some builds will down them easy others will struggle the nameless king is probably the best example of this he was a struggle for my sword and board build but my mage just one attempted him no problem this is the theme of RPGs and I love it personally classic example is the mage vs warrior mage usually wins because melee is always been weak to mages light on there feet but sometimes the warrior pops a potion and one shots the mage so in the end the balance is there you just gotta figure out the niche
Recently I was trying to beat DS3 using 3 different playstyles (greatsword str, estoc dex, pyro), beating every level and every boss side-by-side (no going further until every character did it), and some of the areas were much more punishing for melee characters, while most were significantly easier for the greatsword guy. Maybe it's me but playing without lock-on works better for me, the estoc misses and the camera is awkward when you try to quickly lock on to land a blow on a crowd. For bosses though, unless it's fire-resistant DDD demons or fast unpredictable moveset like Sister Friede, a lot of it was "the only guy with a shotgun in this world" experience for the pyro build. When I was fighting Midir, none of the Fire/Dark/Lightning did the trick, so I just sprayed Pestilent Mist around the arena and lured Midir to stand in it and receive HP% damage while doing his standing attacks. I agree it's an entirely different experience than trying to land a melee blow on his head, but so much of DS3 was just about the ability to find a window to attack anyway.
What I find myself getting frustrated at is the inventory management during combat. Frantically switching to the item, incantation, or spell that I need during an intense fight has buried me many times.
Another thing i hate about Elden Ring's design is weapon upgrades. To put it in one sentence, you have to marry your weapon in Elden Ring because upgrade materials are just incredibly extensive and rare, and you can't buy them at your local store until you find an item. It was like that in previous titles but doesn't really work that well in Elden Ring's enormous hour span.
I like this video but a lot of these complaints are very subjective. I agree a lot of the bosses in Elden ring (especially endgame) are unfair to melee builds but I was able to muscle through it still. Granted this was kinda my own fault because I straight up passed up mimic tear ash drop when I went into Nokron, so I never really used spirit ashes my first playthrough. The only one I think is straight up unfair is Malenia and that’s because of her health rally system. I still think other fights like Godfrey, Radagon, and Elden beast are hard but like I beat them with a shitty colossal club my first play through. (Before the patch too, no idea why I didn’t just respec or something tbh) I get I’m saying it isn’t as bad while being a souls veteran but I personally really don’t feel that most of these problems are AS BAD as people make it out to be. I don’t think I’m a godly souls player or anything, and I was able to beat Elden ring two handing a shitty colossal weapon. This is all nitpicking at the end of the day still love your content.
It's true that you can beat Elden Ring with any weapon but the problem is balancing. The game feels like too easy and too hard at the same time. It's way too unfairly hard if you use melee build yet way too easy if you use summon and magic. There's like no middle ground that make the game feels challenging and rewarding. The only thing I got is pure frustrations.
Actually its you guys that get very subjective dude "are unfair to melee builds but I was able to muscle through it still" just because you CAN force your way through by trying nonstop doesnt mean it was MADE FOR IT. The design doesnt care that you died 90 times to x or y boss but still beat it, it has a clear way it encourages you to play. " kinda my own fault because I straight up passed up mimic tear ash drop when I went into Nokron, so I never really used spirit ashes my first playthrough" you even AGREE with the guys take on summons without even noticing it. You JUST said it was your fault you didnt get the most op summon mimic tear to carry you through tough encounters, aka what elden ring clearly encourages people to do, aka what the bosses were designed around. Design intent is something objective, its clearly made with a purpose. Theres a reason fromsoft kept saying this will be that one souls game even the most casual can beat, and that they hoped they would finally break the stigma of summoning and asking for help. Clearly it points to summons being the intended way to play. And the bosses made around it. "uhhh this boss isnt unfair bc i beat it!" and "what do u mean DS1 isnt meant to be played naked using a guitar hero controller? i did it" are not arguments but thats essentially what you're saying. Your subjective experience doesnt change the facts. I beat demon of hatred in sekiro without kuro charm and demon bell on using mainly deflect and a shit ton of anti fire items, doesnt mean thats how the demon of hatred fight was intended to be played, its a souls boss that discourages deflecting and i knew that. But i wouldnt argue "nah bro its a deflect boss like the others bc i did it bruuhhh"
@@thedoomslayer5863 i thought so too but im a little divided, using ashes trivializes it so badly its a joke, the aggro takin is just too unbalanced for it to be meant to function like that and yet it is pushed makin it so weird. as ppl already stated, too hard or too ez
I honestly hope they move forward with Bloodborne and Sekiro type games. I’m not even saying they are the best ones (tho they are my favorite ones) but it’s kind of obvious that that’s there where their design philosophy is going towards: less variety but faaaaar more tightly designed. Even if that’s not the case, I really don’t want an Elden Ring 2. edit: I’ve used summons and magic on some builds (but have also beaten all bosses on my own with all games except Elden Ring bc I don’t care enough)
I feel like BB had the best balance, if it’s a spectrum with unbalanced build variety on one extreme with dozens of useless reskinned but inferior weapons(Elden Ring) and little play styles but good fights(Sekiro). I felt like virtually every single weapon in Bloodborne had something special and unique and boss fights weren’t as erratic solely depending on your weapon choice. All of the weapons were so fun. Problem with Sekiro, I liked it a lot, and think final Isshin fight was my favorite boss fight of all time, but after a couple playthroughs, I never played it again. Just didn’t have enough build variety to want to play it again. BB was just good balance to me with all weapons being meaningful, even ridiculous ones had some use or reason for existing.
To me the one problem plaguing every souls game is that every single enemy doesn't have "wall hitboxes" so they can just attack through walls unlike you
One thing I feel you missed on Elden Ring is that the game is built heavily around posture breaking and viscerals. It basically wants you to play towards that goal with bosses in mind. So it gives you powerstancing, more useful charged R2’s, weapon skills, the spirit summons, etc to find ways to break the wall that is bosses. That’s the intended play style. Trading is pretty optional honestly. They hit too hard for it to be effective. The half just wants you to know you will get few openings and then use everything to maximize your advantage once you get them. Also on DS1 I will say that (like Demon Souls before it) magic is absolutely broken. Early game you won’t have it, but once you flesh out a magic build it’s perfectly viable. DS3 to me is the bigger problem because while Bloodborne locks you into a play style, that’s really the only way the game lets you play. It doesn’t trick you into thinking you have options. DS3 wants something similar to Bloodborne combat but has a wide variety of builds but they aren’t optimal. So ultimately you do end up needing the aggressive fast dodge style by the end of you are in for a world of hell once you hit the harder mid to late game bosses.
I dont think the game is built around viscerals. Viscerals deal about as much damage as a regular heavy attack. I dont bother critting a boss unless I want to flask up afterwards.
I did mention posture break as a winning strat for people who dual wield collosal weapons and jumping heavy attack spam. I also think that a lot of people trade more than they think they do in elden ring since so many bosses have such insane combos, and if you have a good posture break weapon art after getting an opening on the boss you can trade for posture break, riposte, then heal.
If posture is supposed to be the intended playstyle, it should be visible like in sekiro, but if they did that it would reveal when they cheat the player in fights like malenia.
@@dallascoggins1534 it is true that sometimes enemies don't take posture damage, which is boss dependent and pretty stupid. What I realized is if a boss is jumping or dashing or midair you deal 0 posture damage. This is dumb but I guess it's what they wanted.
I have trouble reconciling "that hitbox is bad" with "that was a shockwave from a stomp/slam." You can't see the latter save for maybe Hoarah Loux, but I always assumed attacks like the DS2 dragon butts' foot stomps were supposed to be generating accompanying shockwaves, it was just poorly conveyed. Or the hitboxes or bad, IDK.
I've been playing through Elden Ring with a greatshield and greatspear, and it is clear that the game was not designed with this in mind. Not because it's too difficult, but because it trivializes any human/humanoid boss. Who needs a summon when you can just stand in front of Morgott and shank him 17 times while only taking chip damage from his elemental attacks? There's probably a lot of fun to be had learning his attacks and dodging (I've beaten him with a different character before the poke build, so I did have some of this experience before), but the G&G makes it way too easy. Except, against some bosses, it's actually pointless. Lanseax shows the opposite "not designed for this" problem, her attacks constantly carry her forwards, so if you're set on blocking and attack the head, you're going to end up between her head and body, where her arm swipes can hit you in the back, ignoring shields. Using a shield for Lanseax cripples you because you don't have mobility. So, it seems clear that, despite shields being the best they were in the game since ds1, they weren't really designed around.
you literally just explained how like in every RPG game, builds have weaknesses and strengthens. No shit one build will be powerful against one enemy or enemy type, then worse against others. That’s how you balance RPG mechanics, you can’t make it universally shit because then it’s shit, you can’t make it universally OP because then there’s no downside.
Honestly if I ever feel that my current playstyle was being a bit of a issue i have no shame in switching out my equipment to better suit the boss or situation, heck i might have never put my shield away and try other things to begin with.
The more I watch these videos, the more convinced I am that DS3 was the best fromsoft game. As someone who considers the attack/roll dance to be the core of souls combat, maybe not a surprising sentiment.
I think sekiro is there best game , it doesn't bother with the whole different playstyle shit it basically has one playstyle that gives everything you need and tells you you can use it whenever you want , like you could pause the game mid bossfight , change your tools , items and weapon art and continue the game like that It's one plastyle with a lot of depth and the entire game is balanced around it
BB was best game imo, because balanced with almost every weapon having a use while most weapons were balanced since dodge and critical worked for every weapon. Can’t think of a useless weapon in BB and each played so uniquely. As much as I liked Final boss in Sekiro, my favorite fight of all the games, I only played Sekiro twice, and never played it again due to lack of build variety, whereas I usually like playing every weapon class at least once. I’m enjoying Elden Ring and addicted, but it feels sloppy in many respects(excusable since game so big but still not good), and why have so many reskinned useless weapons? Who is ever going to use the Weathered Sword or the anemic Ivory sickle when the move sets are near identical to other weapons in the class while AR is lacking? Just too many useless crap weapons and spells in the game. And on the other spectrum too many OP unique ashes and weapons that not only make other weapons useless in comparison but aesthetically, I find appalling. I wish they hadn’t added fifty foot tall laser flames of hell that can kill 50 enemies with one swipe, coming out of a sword. I get lots of people like them but they feel out of place and cartoony to me while feeling you’re underpowered if you don’t use them. It robs you of sense of accomplishment when you slap Malenia with a Blahspemous blade spam, but game seems to encourage it at the same time. It’s like game is asking, “why you not got this OP sword when it’s endgame already???”
I would say dark souls is about mastering all the tools you have, choosing your preferred default one, but switching to any of the others when they turn out to be more appropriate for the situation.
good video my dude!! I just finished DS1 after getting through Elden Ring and boy they are two very different games lol. ER was my first souls game ever and I'm very glad to have started with it because the slowed down action of DS probably would've driven me away to be honest, I wouldn't have known what to expect from it. it felt a lot less forgiving than ER did in most ways, like less saving spots, summons, and far more restrictive gameplay compared to ER, as well as helping me figure out wtf I was supposed to be doing even LESS than ER did lmao. I found myself having a worse time with dodge rolling and instead opting for running, blocking or just stepping out of the way of enemy attacks just because any physical action felt clunky and not super responsive. I appreciated that DS bosses were more choreographed/predictable than ER bosses, but they were strangely all very easy even compared to just normal enemies. Sif was the worst for me because I had to face the fact that my dodging ability is hot garbage lol, but still he only took five attempts to beat. The final boss was much better because I felt like I had to roll away from him and I couldn't just block or step aside every time, but he was actually possible to dodge with my skill level. meanwhile ER bosses could all take 10+ attempts easily and leave me feeling fed up and frustrated rather than any sort of sense of accomplishment. while I enjoyed the freedom of movement in ER, it came with the price of the bullshit meter being turned up to 11... I have yet to play DS2 because I struggle to use controllers due to a physical disability (I played DS1 remastered with keyboard and mouse for the record) but I may give it a try and see how it goes. and I did try DS3 with keyboard and mouse (mistake) but gave up because it gave me next to no chance to get acclimated with the game before throwing that horrible first boss at me, plus I think the game was having an issue with reading my inputs because half the time when I pressed a button, nothing would happen. like I know action queuing is a thing but there was just... no action. I could just run around and MAYBE roll, if it let me. I skipped 2 because I thought since DS3 was newer, it would have better support for keyboard and mouse but... no lmao. just no. DS1 remastered was almost as crisp as ER for keyboard controls, it was just that the game is naturally clunky so of course it felt a little worse. anyways, normally I'm fine with having to switch up my play style when it's asked of me, but I don't like being forced to play one way or gtfo. because of that disability I mentioned before, I spend a longer amount of time in games like these grinding and buffing myself up to be a tank so I don't have to rely on my impaired reflexes as much, but DS and ER hate tanking and I got clobbered a lot for it lmao. less in DS1 of course because it is angled more towards shield usage, but ER was hair-rippingly stupid for me most of the time. I literally only persisted for the interesting story and world building, but I came so close to calling it quits many times. I wish Fromsoft would learn what actually makes a game hard beyond "boss has a million health, never staggers, and hits you 7853987938753 times in a row even when you're knocked over on the floor which kills you instantly and you have exactly 0.0000000001 seconds to hit them in a microscopic opening they give you after draining all your stamina and health refills and also if you die you have to go through half the level again to get back to the boss". bullshit =/= difficult, it's just bullshit. damn these games for having such interesting stories and designs because otherwise I never would've had to subject myself to the torment lmao.
I don’t think Elden Ring requires or encourages hit trading. I think they were trying to emulate Sekiro levels of difficulty with Dark Souls combat which naturally led them to create bosses with fewer openings and longer, more erratic combo strings. Since dark souls combat doesn’t have the same mechanical depth as Sekiro’s the only way to match that difficulty led to more artificial tactics.
I started playing Elden Ring off of playing Dark Souls 1 and 3 for the first time. I started my first Elden Ring play through like every other Souls game I’d played, the ol’ sword and board. I’d finished DS3 with the sword and board, not really learning much roll dodging, not realising why I was having such a hard time with DS3 after playing DS1. It took me up until getting to the Altus to realise I must have been playing the game wrong, sticking to being a quality sword and board build. Getting the Eleonora’s Poleblade, I slowly changed my build and learning to properly roll, going from a sword and shield to a dex/bleed build where I completely ditched the shield and completed two more NG+ cycles playing the game like I’d learned. I miss the shield sometimes, but I actually had so much more fun being able to learn to play without a shield. Going back to DS3, it’s crazy how much easier it is without a shield and rolling instead.
So we’re going to argue that an RPG needs to stop being an RPG to be good? Each build will have its own struggles in a game that lets you make builds, that’s just how it is.
I do agree with your point on trading damage and summons in Elden Ring. Due to summons being an integral part of the game, it does feel harder to fight certain bosses. Which sucks because I want to do a run without summons (just like any game before ER) but that means I'll have to dedicate time to learn the bosses and their attacks and openings but I do not have the time to do so.
This disconnect between player preferences you described, I feel, can be less attributed to person play style and more attributed to stubbornness twords any particular style. I love all of these games and I especially love all the different ways the game expects me to switch up the way I play to engage with different systems and overcome different challenges. Like, I enjoy how Bloodborne expects me to play more aggressive and dark souls 2 makes me play more patient. Both games expect me to learn their systems and adapt accordingly changing my style and I love both of them for it. Elden ring similarly expects different approaches from the player than dark souls 3 but I feel like a lot of people don't enjoy this change because they don't want to engage with other systems from the game. A pure strength or Dex build with no summons is not a "wrong way" to play the game by the developers standards. In fact they implemented even more systems in order to balance this kind of build with faith or intelligence ones. Within the crafting system your able to throwable pots that scale with Dex or strength, Different throwing knife with varying speeds, elemental damage, and status effect procs, as well as perfume that can buff you or do damage. The game gives you so many systems and allows so many playstyles to succeed in different ways. Circling back to those who enjoy dark souls 2, I think dark souls 2 is so appealing to a lot of people because it asks it's players to approach it's challenges in different ways and think of unique solutions. But in eldenring, it seems like a lot of people are so committed to playing the game like dark souls 3 that they ignore complete systems and complain that the game isn't tailored to their narrow view of how a game like this should operate, then actually explore the options they're are giving to make the game more enjoyable.
Just because those options are there doesn't mean they are equal to the blatantly stronger options mentioned in the video. You can use those other systems but there is a clearly more effective way to engage with these encounters and this is where the divide occurs. Just saying they exist and can be effective given enough time and patience doesn't make those systems any less punishing to use. This stubbornness occurs because a large chunk of the player base doesn't enjoy the way they have to change their gameplay. This group of the player base either has to trudge through a game not balanced for the way they want to enjoy the game or play the game in a way they don't find fun or rewarding. In other words, it's a lose lose situation. Either adapt and not have fun or be stubborn and still have no fun. The same thing happens for me in ds2, I try to play the game slowly and try new weapons but I don't enjoy doing that. I don't enjoy using summons, and many others don't as well. This means that giving these new gameplay systems a try makes the game unfun for me. This doesn't take away the fun that others have with these systems but I can't jump into the same boat. It just isn't for me and if the next from game is balanced around summons I'm probably not gonna play it.
I disagree with Elden Ring one. I think that they tried mixing intended playstyles with all the bosses. Some bosses are better melee, some are better range, some are better to be aggressive, and some are better to be passive. I play these games as an adaptable all-around build leveling every stat and using whatever weapon, gear, or playstyle I think is best for the current situation. I think Elden Ring is my favorite just because it felt like I was trying something new for every area and boss. For example when I started in Limgrave, we had Bloodhound Knight who felt like a DS3 dodge and counter using the new jumping system, we had Crucible Knight who felt like you had to get in his face and parry him to death, we had the Demi-human Gank who felt like you had to use the spirit wolves to split agro. Now of course high damage bleed builds will work for 90% of the game, but is that the intended playstyle for the majority? I disagree.
it is fairly well know that it is impossible to do something that appeals equally to everyone in all sorts of levels. I get your point though, but I cannot see it as a problem, more like a reality of game design. Or media design for that matter.
@@henriquemedranosilva7142 yup, this is what you call higher level thinking. Theres a reason many say blooborne has better combat than its soul brothers. And likewise why many say sekiro has the BESt combat. Its focused. From had to worry about less nonesense and stats and game breaking builds ect.. they focused their vision on ONE (like in sekiro) or FEW (like in BB) ways to play and because of that those two games stand above the rest so clearly.
@@henriquemedranosilva7142 Either reduce the options, or have a more liberal experimentation system. A lot of ER's advertisement claimed the game is more flexible with build variety and yet it still sticks to the classic souls design of requiring full commitment to a specific build. The stronger weapons/ spells require a high stat minimum, higher level upgrade materials are in limited quantity, and while we have more opportunities to re-spec, the re-spec currency is also in limited quantity.
For me I don't personally see it as a flaw but more of a design choice. What I loved about ER is that you have the whole world to explore and your build may not be the best to clear an area. For me its always trial and error. Not only with boss mechanics or area hazards but also with builds. It thought me that not everything will go my way. Just like a real journey.
malenia is a lot like demon of hatred in sekiro , the entirety of sekiro is based around parry and deflection and here comes demon of hatred countering that , half of his attacks can't be deflected thanks to fire damage , you have to evade them like a dark souls bloodborne boss except you don't have i frames in sekiro so the fight becomes really long and tedious sometimes So how I see it , malenia is a sekiro boss in dark souls while demon of hatred is a dark souls boss in sekiro , if you replaced them with each other it will feel very natural actually malenia bossfight would have been very interesting in sekiro combat system But if you ask which one I prefer between the two I would say demon of hatred , he is a lot more consistent with his pattern and openings compare to malenia and he is still well manageable thanks to sekiro amazing movement system is still far better than dark souls and elden ring even without I frames
Fighting Demon of Hatred feels like fighting Manus in the wrong the game. Fighting Malenia feels like fighting Sekiro (player character in Sekiro). In Malenia's phase 2 transitioning cutscene the tarnished literally looks the other way like Sekiro enemies reacting to Sekiro's death. Then she turns into Rot Goddess and instantly activates scarlet Aeonia like how you can revive and instantly attack in Sekiro. Both of them have undodgable wombo combos, Malenia being worse considering blocking and parrying being majority of the time detrimental. Miquella and Kuro being child masters to Malenia and Sekiro is just icing on the cake. Also having a prosthetic arm.
The biggest problem for me, personally? The endgame. It's always bad. Dark Souls is straight-up unfinished, so we got that abortion, that is, everything post-Anor Londo. Dark Souls 2 is just all-around lame, and that goes for the endgame, too. The second half of Bloodborne is a massive step down in quality compared to the first half, not as bad as Dark Souls but still not particularly good. Dark Souls 3 is a bit more consistent but I still don't LOVE the lategame, and the DLCs didn't blow me away, either (I recognise I'm probably in the minority on that), and then finally Elden Ring: another game with a tedious endgame that I had almost no fun completing. I feel like Sekiro might be the outlier here, mainly because it felt like it didn't even have an endgame. The entire thing just flowed so well, and I never noticed a drop-off in quality.
Agreed on most things, but for Dark Souls 1 Endgame. Lost Izalith was definitely unfinished and Bed of Chaos the worst BS in the whole game, but the archives, tomb of the giant and New Londo weren't, were they? They have some questionable design choices (crystal cave boss run) and put a "gimmick" into the fights (Nito only a challenge because of the skeletons, immortatiy crystal on Seith, 4 kings being a giant dps race), but they were designed that way and finished. If you like it or not is a different question, but they weren't unfinished I think.
@@Ruffy112 I never really considered New Londo endgame other than the relatively short path leading towards the Four Kings, since you can explore most of it before even reaching Anor Londo. Of the remaining areas, the only one I'll grant you is the Duke's Archives. That area was fairly cool. Tomb of the Giants, on the other hand, absolutely sucked. I'm sorry. From the enemies, to the darkness, to the precarious level design, I thought it was terrible. Crystal Cave also sucked. I'm pretty sure it was unfinished. You couldn't get away with releasing something like that now. 10 years ago, maybe, when the franchise was still relatively new, but not now.
This is a good take, and also a big problem as its hard for Fromsoft to finish a game as ginormous as a soulslike with a good few last levels. Dark Souls 3 endgame was basically non existent before the DLC as the game was too short, but I personally find post DLC DS3 as the best endgame out of the 3 dark souls games and elden ring. Of course I'm biased because I love Gael.
@@feebleking21 Yeah, I recognise that, and like I said, I'm probably in the minority for not being blown away by the DS3 DLCs. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I don't like Friede and Midir all that much. I agree that DS3 does have the best endgame of all the FromSoft titles (excluding Sekiro), and I also love Gael lol. He's my favourite boss in all of Soulsborne.
Ok for reals this. I may not agree with most of the video but this right here is straight up legit. I feel this way about almost all of their endgame bosses barring arguably Sekiro and Bloodborne.
I said something similar about Elden Ring. After matching together dozens of armor sets, incantations, sorceries, and weapons, we find that only 3 or 4 play styles are actually viable endgame. 1) Dex/Arc bleed builds 2) Dex/Int magic builds 3) Str/Dex power stancing 4) Str/Faith with three incantations: Golden Vow, Lightning Strike, and Flame Give Me Strength (because holy damage is questionable against main storyline bosses because of their high holy defenses). Splitting fights into two phases allowed the designers to have one phase that was trouble for melee, while the other was trouble for ranged, but they seemed to not utilize this opportunity as much as I feel that they could have.
As someone who ran through DS2 NG+ with only a Fume Ultra Greatsword, I really don't get all the hate. Shrine of Amana is not even 1/10th as bad as people make it out to be, just kill every enemy as you get to them. If you just run past everything, they will catch up to you and swarm you
The only elden ring build I felt this was true for was my faith build where holy damage did 0 damage to the final boss. So I had to come up with a custom strategy and it still felt very good either way.
@i have no mouth and i must scream he mainly takes physical damage and has some nasty spells, but I enjoy the fight. Reminded me of Princess Mononoke a ton.
Honestly…I agree with everything said. I love elden ring. I’m down to a 1-hit malenia kill (I have a video of a 2-hit) but it really does feel like it’s majorly based on RNG. I cannot say I love Elden ring bosses nearly as much as any of the souls bosses.
I think DS1 should be the exception. I can see where you're coming from with 2, 3 and Elden Ring due to the faster combat that really requires roll dodging. But I literally just beat DS1 with a fat boy build. Stone Knight armor on everything except my head (Fangboar helm), Black Knight Great sword and the Artorias Greatsheild. I couldn't roll so I just had to tank whatever came. There wasn't a single boss that gave me trouble and only one enemy type that did. But for the worms I just killed them with poison arrows so it wasn't really an issue. If you can beat the game comfortably with a build that can't dodge then I'd say it's optimized for any build.
With enough practice, it's not that difficult to consistently solo Malenia as a pure Melee build at RL1 without taking damage. But you do have to play a lot more passive at certain points. I think a lot of Dark Souls players want to stay in a boss's face/butt constantly, and that's a lot more difficult now.
@@wodandelaat1224 I personally got bored with the simple strafe sideways -> dodge roll -> attack. It eventually dawned on me that they were essentially just reskinning 1 boss over and over DS 1-3. And that got boring, with few exceptions. Similar to Sekiro, Elden Ring bosses actually make me think.
@@Yobolight I personally liked sekiro more than the other soulsborne games since it's more mechanical than the other games, even defensive play build up posture damage so everything you do feels more rewarding.
I agree that having certain builds be the best way to go through certain parts of the game is bad for some people's builds and playstyles but having a whole community playing the same game but completely differently in my opinion was one of the best parts of Elden Ring.
This sounds much more like a _you_ problem than a problem with the games. I can’t speak for DS2 and I didn’t experiment much with DS3, but I can say that ER isn’t limiting when it comes to playstyles. I’ve played through the game 4 times now, each time doing a different build. I can say with confidence that ALL playstyles are viable, some just have to work harder than others at certain points. It’s clear that you’re more of a “purist”-style player, but I highly encourage that you use those tools that you write off as being for “casuals.” I was originally going to go with a Strength build when I started playing just like I did with DS3, but decided to mess around with magic a bit once I got to Liurnia. And I’m really glad I did, because I ended up creating my very own subclass: the Spellbrute. And using magic and summons didn’t make the game much easier. Bosses would still take me out quite easily if I wasn’t on my toes. And because I had a bunch more tools to play with other than my melee weapons, every encounter became way more interesting since I could approach them in far more ways than one. The only way to play ER wrong in my opinion is only limiting yourself to that “purist” playstyle, especially when there are a countless number of other ways to play ER.
The issue is if I use the tools I can just trade down bosses in a super quick 1.5 minute fight were I learn very little about the boss and win. I like playing dodge attack because I have to learn mechanics, and if I use the tools Elden Ring provides then I don't learn mechanics. And the mechanics are not very fun to learn with a weak melee weapon for the reasons I've outlined in my critique.
@@feebleking21 That’s not the case at all. The only times I ever beat bosses that quickly were Morgott and Godfrey/Horah Loux, but that was because I also summoned NPCs for those fights. In every other case, bosses have answers to ranged attacks be it evasion or ranged attacks of their own. As for summons, many of them are pretty frail even when fully upgraded. And with the better summons in the game, you only get one person fighting alongside you instead of a group, so having them take aggro all the time is risky since you might lose them midway through a fight. Unless your build is perfectly optimized, you won’t be melting through bosses like you think you will be. And even if you _do_ optimize your build, you then trade your survivability for that increase in damage output. Therefore there’s still a need to learn the mechanics and attack patterns of the bosses. I used to have your mindset: the idea that magic and summons were ways to make the game easier. I know now that’s not true. At least, it’s not for ER. Because ER is a distinctly different beast when compared to the Souls series. The enemies and bosses in ER can combo their attacks, rushdown the player, stagger their attacks, and even read inputs. They aren’t there for an honorable duel or elegant dance of clashing blades, they’re there to beat you down by any means necessary. So why should you be burdened by some notion of how the game _should_ be played, especially when the creator himself has gone on record stating he doesn’t understand how anybody beats these games on their own. Don’t shackle yourself; experiment and explore everything the game has to offer. Trust me, the bosses aren’t gonna pull any punches just because you have a magic wand and some ghosts.
@@feebleking21 I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and guess you used pre-nerf Moonveil. But even then, I'm also gonna guess while you did a lot of damage to them, they also did a lot of damage to you. And based on one (at the time) notoriously powerful weapon which you likely optimized for, you then cast judgement on anything that wasn't pure melee deeming it all as OP. Regardless of the accuracy of my guesses, you said that you don't use all the tools in order to learn mechanics, but then said the mechanics aren't fun to learn with a "weak melee weapon," which is a self-imposed condition not a condition imposed upon you by the game. Therefore, how can you know for sure that using all the tools at your disposal would prevent you from learning those mechanics? All I'm saying is that you shouldn't limit yourself based on the "purist" mindset of how ER should be played. Because even going off of the "no spells, no summons" rules, you can still one-shot a lot of bosses with optimized Strength- or Dexterity-focused builds. But so what if you melt through a boss? It's either you or them. And it's not like you can never fight them again. That's what repeat playthroughs are for. Stop worrying so much about how you go about beating the game and just have fun playing it. If your way of having fun is restricting what you have at your disposal, that's perfectly fine. But you can't then turn around and say the game isn't designed properly based on the restrictions you placed upon yourself, that's ridiculous.
melenia is hands down the worst designed boss in all of souls followed by elden beast , any boss that has undodgable hits that can one shot you at 60 vitality is simply bad
@@Quantum_Cuban yes, but it requires multiple frame perfect dodges and space between the first waterfowl Without those conditions, it’s almost impossible. This is extremely hard, even for good players
i think youre making a fair point. the thing with FS games is that it often feels like certain builds just are only for people who know what they are doing. for example id never recommend a pure mage build to a new player on any FS game on their first playthrough. certain builds are so hard that they are only enjoyable if you know where to go and what to do before you even made your character
The only thing I minorly disagree with is malenia. She has SO MANY openings it's crazy. That 4-5 attacks combo has no hyperarmour, so you can attacks then, lunge and grab are punishable, and ong almost every attack in phase 2 has a punish window.
Phase 2 has more more punish windows after attacks, phase 1 can be hit before many attacks. Having windows to punish was never an issue in that fight for me.
If waterfowl dance is up you technically don't have an opening. Also phase 2 malenia spams her unstaggerable kick and had input reading after some combo finishes.
For me tho, she has so many attacks that have constantly been easy punishes for me, like that quick slash which allows you to space it, roll back and punish with a standing jump, which will stagger her. I honestly think rolling back is the best thing to do for this fight, as mid range is premium range imo.
It’s good to know I’m not the only one who feels this way about builds. I’m currently playing Elden Ring with my fiancé. I’m using full STR build with ultra great sword while she’s using RoB and Uchi. I have a way harder time playing on her account for one simple reason…..the fast DEX weapons have a really hard time staggering a lot of enemies which led to me taking a lot of damage in return. I blame myself for not being used to that play style but it also really opened my eyes to how much of a difference builds can make. My STR build can run up, smack any enemy and stagger them to the point of them being unable to counter attack
I’ve found the exact opposite issue, where the heavier strength weapons get less overall punish windows than dex weapons, which can whale on most bosses almost nonstop, while ultra greatswords and stuff don’t have as easy a time finding openings, especially with the crouch poke’s end lag frames being nerfed previously.
Playing this game reminded me how well designed and balanced Bloodborne and Sekiro were. The amount of bad bosses could be counted on one hand from those games. Only Isshin came close to being unfair. Elden Ring's bosses become cheaper and dumber after Radahn.
It's why Sekiro and Bloodborne are my favorites of the series. With the other games, no matter what build I make, I always feel like I'm not playing the way I'm supposed to or I don't have an optimal build. With Sekiro and Bloodborne if I'm stuck on a boss or doing poorly I KNOW the only answer is to get gud
Then do a sl1 run
Sekiro, okay…Bloodborne though? You can literally just over level like in every other souls game, making it significantly easier…even trivial if you really want.
For me I just love the speed of both games. The fights are just faster paced and more entertaining.
@@jordancave3089yup, just kill Blood-Starved Beast, make the chalice he gives once, then get super overleveled with the cummmfpk chalice
@@Rahnonymous I think it’s simple enough to just use the executioners by the witches boss fight. Now matter how you choose to do it, you can become super over leveled and mow everything down. I beat Orphan on my first try cause I was superrrr over leveled lol fought him for real the next time I played the game, and it took me much longer lol Although, for whatever reason…I struggled the most with Lawrence. He’s so annoying…I think it’s the run back that really gets me. I hate BSB too…I still struggle with it from time to time(not as much as Lawrence or a few others) but I think the run back is also why I hate it so much…and the poison lol
I feel like Elden Ring was designed for the player to use OP builds, especially if you're not summoning. I am a solo player and playing through my first RL1 run, OP weapons with bleed/frost bleed/fire are almost required. I have also noticed that sprinting and jumping in ER is better than dodge roll. I feel that is a Sekiro playstyle.
I was playing a faith build and absolutely struggling with the game until I got the Blasphemous Blade, now I Taker’s Flames my way through everything.
What you call "OP builds" I call "the tools the game gives you" in which case yes, Elden Ring is designed for posters up use the tools the game gives you. If you intentionally handicap yourself the game becomes harder.
@@Rusty_Spy The problem is, most of the tools the game gives you are garbage. If you intentionally follow the meta then the game becomes easier, but if you use anything else you're just fucked.
Curious how you did near the end of the game, I found it fun and enjoyable till near endgame.
@@evanseifert8858 there should not be a meta for what is supposed to be a single player game.
2:00 I hate it when people are like, “oh what? Melania, hard???? It was so easy got her in my second try lol.” But that person is using frost/bleed with a sl 200 character with a +10 mimic
Agreed mate. When I started ER, I used the Lordsworn greatsword with some basic pyromancies to go down the STR/Pyro route.
I've had some major grievances and when talking to my friend he always gave me the "Oh it wasn't that hard, it took me like 3-5 tries"
Turns out he actually looked up the meta, got the moonveil early via summons and just abused OP shit. He'd summon mimic first thing every fight. if he wouldn't win in 1-2 tries, he'd just summon players or abandon ship to come back overpowered.
@@Ruffy112 ew
@@Ruffy112 you make it sound like this is a bad thing. Being able to leave or summon help is part of the game. Stop shaming people for this. Let them play how they want and ignore the chest beaters because 9out of 10 time they are straight up spouting BS. They died to Malenia the same 100 times everyone else did or they summoned someone who already knew how to beat her.
@@ShadowProject01 we are only shaming if and only if they say "oh what? Melania, hard????" otherwise I dont care how they play the game, the only opinion these players get to have is under things that make the game easy, like idk its like someone saying that Mario 2 the lost levels isnt hard and when pressed they used a gameshark cheat that gives moon jumps, if the answer is that "well the developers added it in so its part of the experience" if so then it really feels like a bandaid solution rather than a meaningful one and probably was implemented when the dev team realized that their game is too tough for their testers and the game being tough because is mostly a variety of reasons like dark souls arms race (to a certain extent live up to the we make hard games moniker) and the multiple build argument btw, sekiro boss philosophy (there are more but I am lazy).
Anyways I call it a bandaid solution because it breaks the boss AI, it makes the boss completely not interested in your character and to exemplify a better approach with summons where its not a bandaid its shown in the Radahn boss first we get a cutscene and talk to other npcs then in the battle Radahn can kinda track the player because he has extremely large sweeping attacks meant to hit like 3 or 4 characters at once and since the summons are rather squishy and die quickly it gives Radahn more time to catch up to the player, so its a more meaningful fight were it does not completely feel that I am cheating. However with others the wolves can just draw aggro, break boss AI and fill stagger meter because most bosses dont have large sweeping attacks to deal with summons appropriately and the reason for this I believe its because summons where added like 3/4ths of the development cycle they had all the bosses mostly done and they were on the testing period of design and then they just chucked this answer, since its mostly reusing assets and just changing some attributes. regarding what about dungeon loot how did they plan ahead for ashes rewards this early? I think they put ashes later for rewards but earlier on they probably had like most spells/incantations and equipment sets as rewards for dungeons, I believe this because most spells/incantations are obtained through buying them or destroying scarabs which felt really awkward like the bloodflame sword incantation came from a random scarab, it makes no sense.
like I am not a get good guy, use whatever you want to do to pass the game but in terms of difficulty our way to play its the conditioned way to play from older titles and clearly the dev team missed the mark here on some steps. here is hoping we see an improvement in the future, making a means to have easy mode without hurting the whole game because I am not opposed to it but in here the ashes implementation primarily was made to hide their bad boss designs with the sneaky rhetoric of lowering difficulty for non veteran players.
ngl Malenia is hard. I beat her in 4 tries but I used dual wield maxed uchigatanas with mimic +10. So I don't consider my record as base for comparison. Only thing going for me is I didn't use seppukku or any other gimmicks to increase that blood loss. Her healing ability is bs that I legit spammed my katana's at her to get those blood losses in. I have seen enough videos to know she is unfair and challenging.
This is why I like sekiro. I never found the build variety or whatever to be especially fun in dark souls games. So I didn't mind when they took away choice in sekiro in order to hyper focus on the combat without having to worry about spells or different weapon types or stats.
See, the builds and stats are what I love the most. Different strokes!
Agreed although adding a spear or tomfa would've been cool and had the same combat
@@RedWolfenstein there's a spear you can use but it's a prostatic tool
@@tytar1037 sure, but I don't think that dark souls has ever done a great job at making every option fun or interesting.
You got your 3 general classes of weapons. Fast, medium and slow. Then you have 3 schools of magic. But they really boil down to just throwing different damage projectiles. The utility spells have never been really useful. and everything besides throw projectile and buff weapon is inefficient in terms of mana, perhaps has a use in pvp. And then you have your useful buffs like sacred oath and...... Hard to think of other good ones right now. There are a few others but not that many.
Armor has gone through phases of being useful and cosmetic.
Dark souls 3 made weapon arts which was a great idea but in practice the vast majority of weapon arts were only useful in pvp and had little impact on the game.
Status effects have been a meme for the entire series till elden.
Elden ring is probably the best in the series in terms of having interesting choices for builds, mostly because they made status effects good and then massively powered up weapon arts. Overcorrecting for dark souls 3
@@TheIZproductions the unique status efectts that are usefull in elden ring are bleed and frosbite, Well, i have to say those efects are soo boosted, Scarlet rot is good as well, but there is only one dragón incantation, one or two weapons and limited arrows or volts to use it
After using Eldens reforged mod Im convinced that deflect was the answer to Elden Rings problems but From was too scared to add it in. Deflect re-adds the flow of souls combat that we have all come to love that was removed from elden ring. It feels much better imo.
That could be an idea for a video Mr. String! Can Mods "fix" Elden Ring bosses.
@@feebleking21 They have fixed many a game for me personally. Thanks for the reply, I quite like your content!
They have a damn tutorial about Guard Counters right at the start. I've started playing with them in my second playthrough, and it solves a lot of problems. Choose the right attacks to guard and BAM, big damage and a stagger on the counter.
I think your deflection mechanic's already in the game.
They took some elements from Sekiro but they didn’t go far enough.
The should have taken the visible posture bar and not minimized deflect.
They did't added the deflect probably because the developmet of elden ring starded in 2016 so they did't have the experiece to add it i'm sure deflect will be in elden ring 2
I completely understand and agree with you. My first souls game was ds3 and my first character was a cleric going for a full faith caster, and god how the game absolutely hates you for doing so. Firstly, you'll only have access to offensive miracles(faith spells that do damage) after at least 2 bosses(gundyr and vordt) and depending of how you explore the game, this number can go up to 4, sometimes 5 speacially if you are not using a guide to help you find those spells; second, one of your first offensive miracles can lock you into the bad ending of you miracles merchant npc questline and if you are REALLY unclucky, she can die before letting you buy all the spells she can offer to you. Third: the decent offensive miracles are only available post midgame and usually after defeating a boss(aldrich with lifehunt scythe, nameless king with lightning storm, and the worst offender: soul of cinder, literally the last boss of the game excluding dlc is the one who gives you the best offensive miracle that in practice does around the same damage a crystal soul spear or a chaos bed vestige does and the latter can be aquired after killing only 5 bosses while you have to finish the fucking game before actually playing with your build). Fourth: In my opinion it looks like miracles were kinda balanced around being cast with special poise casting some talismans do(you spend more fp to cast the spell with hyper armor) since most of them are short/mid range and other litterally having extra damage on melee(all the lightning spears variation), and this is fine for pvp bc you wont use healing estus on duels and in invasions you can oneshot some summons with sunlight spear if you're lucky and that will restore some of your estus, however for pve this is really questionable since you have at least 4 estus assigned for fp and having reduced defenses if you are a dedicated casters means that trading hits while poise casting with your miracles arent worth it cause you'll have way less healing(unless you are bringing a healing spells with you but they are usually inpratical on bossfights) and you'll also usually take more damage than a strenght build while having to spend way more resourses for it.
I did finish the game after as a quality build and it was a completely different experience lol.
Midir can easily killed by 1 spell: Pestilent Mist, which deals 1% of the enemy's max health every second a part of his body is in the Mist cloud. It's really useful against him since he has such a giant body. All you need to do it stay under him and cast the spell whenever it wears off, and it makes him mostly a joke since most of his attacks won't hit you underneath him. Of course you still have to watch out for some of the attacks, and in phase 2 he'll have some point blank AoE attacks that can mess you up, but still, Pestilent Mist is a godsend to Int builds in DS3 :P
Yeah, a friend of mine did a mage build run of DSIII and he said that the endgame boss that gave him the most trouble was Halflight spear of the church because the small player esque enemy (he was offline so he got the NPC version) was a lot harder for him to hit with the big damaging spells he used to clear most bosses.
I tried that, but midair would always spam the fire breath underneath himself. I was so sad when the only way I killed him was with the lame straight sword spell :(
The old fashioned "sword and board" knight used to be the "go-to old reliable" and I was heart broken to see that not only is this play-style punished in ER, it was nerfed. Quality build scaling does less dmg compared to heavy or keen even with very high RL compensating. It was no wonder I was struggling so much my first time through.
Bro me and my buddy ran into the same issue intact he didn’t believe me I’m like bro “ heavy is better then quality “ we ran the numbers and were so bummed infact quality is Basicly not even relevant anymore because you can just put ashes on any weapon thus nullifying the need for a quality build IMO since quality in DS 1-3 was the way to use different weapon arcs on the fly that’s the strength but now it’s gone I wouldn’t say sword and board is completely useless considering I’m killing it with a greatshield and a colossal sword but just a long sword and a shield I could see being a issue which is sad
Shields are still pretty powerful in elden ring. Especially with barricade shield
While quality was a bit too good in DS3 especially, I agree that it sucks how little viability it has in ER.
Same. I went into Elden Ring going for a quality build; sword and board, but wound up with pure strength and double greatswords.
Im a Ds2 type of player who like to play slowly. You guys can combo great shield with thrusting weapon to make the most defensive playstyle ever existed in fromsoftware game. Basically good against physical type enemy only. And with the shabriri woe. You can summon a range spirit doing the damage while you constantly aggro the enemy. And tank playstyle existed in elden ring. Thats not enough? There a shield cannon for this kind of playstyle.
The only thing i was hoping was they added the upgrade to armor from Ds2.
Oh, I know the answer: From Software fans.
So basically balance is the main issue. I think I agree with this: these games are perceived as fully fair and balanced for every chosen playstyle, while in reality some builds will have a much easier time than others. I do think it is valid criticism. This is why I believe Sekiro to be the most cohesive FS game (since it is very limited in its build options) and Elden Ring is the most chaotic and unbalanced (since it has the most amount of build options).
True but they do seem committed to balancing elden ring so it being the most chaotic may change. Sekiro is getting so much love after ER came it out its crazy an it deserves it.
I do think it's less about balancing the numbers and more about making the levels and bosses mechanically fun for all playstyles, which it never is. And the playstyle their games are built around is changing with every new release.
@@feebleking21 I meant playstyle wise, while fully agree on the mechanics issue, some incants or weapons just don't punch their weight, and making them do so would make them very good incants.
And balance the playstyles more
Sekiro is my favourite from soft game easily. The combat system is unparalleled and the player is given all the tools to beat every boss in the game with no gimmicks and no bullshit. I agree Elden is by far the most unbalanced.
On my first playthrough of Elden Ring, when I first discovered I could use my bell to summon I honestly didn’t use it or think anything of it. I tried it sure, but I thought it was just a cool niche trick to use when you need a little extra help clearing mobs. I wasn’t a mage either, so not wanting to spend points on fp also played a factor on me not using it.
Man did I really feel like a idiot when I found out how trivial the bosses become when you use the bell summons. There are literally huge swaths of the game that become a breeze when you take advantage of the summoning system and it actually made the boss fights not fun for me, so I decided to complete my playthrough the way I do all souls games, without using summons. It was tough yes, but it was a lot more rewarding. I just wish more of the bosses were designed around a solo playthrough.
The biggest problem is that it's an rpg game basically just how I thought
They perfected the souls experience in sekiro which wasn't an rpg game
It is interesting that the RPG part of Dark Souls goes against the "mechanical fun" part of souls combat, meaning that a game like Sekiro will have the best experience for souls like combat. Or at least I'd assume as I haven't played it yet but I do plan to play it soon!
@@feebleking21 I don't know what stopped you from playing it all this time but you should definitely check it out , it's a masterpiece
@@purehollow probably college and a lack of money haha
If you want the break down
Sekiro is doom etarnal of the dark souls series
You NEED to use all of his dodge types, parry and the attack to succeed and that will put you in the fun zone
This is why Sekiro is so brilliant. One playstyle. People complained about variety but it is absolutely amazing in its focus and what it does playstyle to make things more balanced. Now I'm a trading hits fan, it's how I beat many bosses in all the games. And this just didn't work with Midir. At the same time, I eventually messed up every time with dodging Midir it just didn't work. I will still one day defeat him.
Having only played DS1 and 2, I honestly didn't have much whiplash going into Elden Ring. I'd always used a mixture of shields, dodging, melee and ranged weapons, spells (mainly miracles), items, and NPC friends to take on areas and bosses with whatever seemed best at the time. Elden Ring's emphasis on exploiting enemy weaknesses and finding windows for big attacks to get stance-break criticals while splitting their attention with allies felt good from the get-go. It's not extremely difficult to play this way, but it's still engaging since I find myself mostly defeating encounters by changing my tactics moreso than even memorizing enemy behavior. I understand the frustration with certain bosses, but overall I've yet to find anything I can't beat within a few tries just by changing my setup and learning enemy behavior. And, aside from mandatory bosses, anything that feels too difficult can just be left for later while I do something else and get stronger. Even story bosses can be delayed if there's some side area I was saving for later. I honestly don't mind needing to dodge a long string for a small punish, as is so often the case in Elden Ring. My biggest complaint is more technical, that parrying doesn't feel very rewarding giving the risk it entails compared to other defensive options, especially guard counters. I've always used parries against certain enemies like Silver and Heide Knights, but never bothered in Elden Ring when bosses need multiple parries for one riposte and the startup is so significant that common enemy strings don't often allow setup parries. I guess I wish the defensive options were a little more balanced, but otherwise it feels like Elden Ring wants me to use whatever is best at the moment, which is how I've played previous games. Maybe players who found success getting really good at certain fundamentals or gimmicks find it frustrating
Crucible Knights were kinda designed for parrying, they are also stance broken from one parry unlike most other bosses.
I couldn't agree less. I've done every play style I could think of in DS1, and 4 so far in Elden Ring, and neither game railroads you into playing a specific way at all. Some weapons or weapon categories are bad, but overall there is way more than one viable way to play each game. Whether a given way to play is fun is down to the person. Some play styles are easier than others, which if you ask me is a good thing as it lets you modulate your own difficulty, but there's no single "correct" way to play any of these games.
I never said they railroad you into playing a specific way. I never said there is a single correct way to play dark souls. I think a lot of people did not understand my arguments in this video, as you and many others are not arguing against the points raised.
@@feebleking21 OK, I'll try and address your points more directly here. I'll stick to your DS1 section, since it's the one I'm most familiar with. DS1 teaches you early on that blocking is an option, and it does present you with some scenarios in the first couple areas where it's advantageous. A player may gravitate to sword and board from that. Or they may take that as a queue to use a spear or thrusting sword, since those work much better in tandem with shields. Or they may opt for the halberd or the claymore, seeing as they put up substantially more damage than whatever they're likely using when they find it, which may force them to two hand for a while and learn to play without blocking due to the strength requirements. They might use the heaviest weapon they can get their hands on, or to use something quick that leaves them less open. All of this is assuming that they aren't playing a caster.
Speaking anecdotally, my first time through I used sheilds a little bit until I got to Undead Parish, where I found the halberd and used it 2 handed for the rest of the game. Dark Souls is not solely built around sword and board, that's simply one viable playstyle, and what you took away from the design with regards to that playstyle is not what everyone does.
@@jim3541 thats why sekiro is the king of the souls games
@@Thanatos2996 yup what jimmy pop and lofibros said, they were clearly made around 1 style then branched out to others and fromsoft gave it their best try to make the others work but it clearly springs fourth from one. Sword and shield is clearly the best and intended way of DS1 just off shield mechanics alone that you see in DS1 that later disappear from future titles. This also explains why magic can be useless or super op as it was an afterthought AFTER the primary playstyle was made for the game. It was tossed in and they tried to balance it but clearly it shows where their efforts went. Face the music everyone in this thread can see it besides you lol dont be stubborn
and like lofibros said this is why sekiro has the tightest, cleanest combat of any souls game bar none. It was like all their other games starting off from one primary playstyle except instead of shoehorning other weapons, spells and other stuff in that wouldnt matter much they refined that one playstyle to a BRILLIANT degree. Sekiro combat is just on another level compared to any other fromsoft game BECAUSE they had the balls to say "no builds, no 90 weapons that all play the same basically, just ONE sword thats INCREDIBLY polished to a T"
@@ranges787 Absolutely, this is what u get when fromsoft focuses their work and vision on ONE playstyle, it becomes SUPER clean and smooth. No other fromsoft game can even TOUCH sekiro's combat
Honestly Ive played all of these games pretty much the same, a two handed greatsword with a grasscrest shield when available. None of the games seemed to resent this playstyle. In Bloodborne I used the Ludwigs two handed function almost exclusively so yet again, similar. They all work, they just have quirks.
Strength for the win💪
Exactly this nigga trippin
Elden ring is not suited to this playstyle in my experience. Maybe dual wielding strength weapons but not two handed.
@@feebleking21 dawg I two handed a strength weapon the entire playthrough. It might not be what the game wants you to do, but the game was never difficult enough to notice.
@@feebleking21 the skill issue
Have you played sekiro? Its my fav fromsoft, it fixes this problem quite a lot, theres still some variety in which you can play the game but mostly the whole experience is build around the base main playstyle and its a blast to play and master!
Sekiro removes the problem , it doesn't really solve it
They couldn't balance the entire game for every plastyle so they made one playstyle that has everything
Sekiro unfortunately gets rid of pretty much everything that I love about Souls games, in fact I don't think it should even be counted as part of the "Souls series" because it's so different. That doesn't mean it's not a high quality game or that people shouldn't like it, but I cringe a little bit when people offer it as the "way forward" for Fromsoft games, because I didn't like it at all. It CAN'T be the answer to the problem of Souls games because it's NOT fundamentally a Souls game. The solution to balance issues in an RPG with different available playstyles is not to remove those playstyles entirely.
@@purehollow But it's impossible to balance a game around dozens of builds and playstyles. There is no solution to this problem, only remedies that fix it and avoiding it altogether. These aren't fromsoft problems, it's a problem that every developer has faced when making a multifaceted rpg.
Sekiro is a masterpiece and the best thing Miyazaki has done in his life
Sekiro is goat tier no souls game comes close to this masterpiece gameplay wise
The entire game feels so rewarding and like a rush by far the best souls experience
I agree with this thesis and the stuff you said about DaS2 actually made me want to replay it. Thanks.
It's better you develop your own play style on your own instead of watching what other players are doing with their owns play style I had a blast playing as magic Swordsman where I could switch between spells or the sword on the Fly According to some traditional swords melee players I'm playing the game wrong
I recently came face to face with this idea when I played Salt & Sanctuary for the first time and beat almost every boss within one or two tries with a greatsword/greathammer STR build but on repeat playthroughs struggled immensely as I tried playing some of these same bosses with dexterity or magic builds. A handful of bosses on these repeat runs that were extremely frustrating as a STR user were suddenly trivialized when I focused on pistols and one boss in particular went from most obnoxious gank fest to 8 second melt when I used poison.
When I played DS1 for the first time, I went with daggers because fast equals easier time, right? Wrong. When I played the game with strength weapons instead (my first clear of DS1 involved heavy use of the Reinforced Club) years later, I actually managed to beat it with barely any issues. When people jokingly say DEX sucks, I think it's in part because of this whole build variety is hard thing.
When I first played Elden Ring, I went for a dragon caster and had an absolutely awful time by the end, but since I leveled arcane for the dragon seal, I could use blood too and it became a lot easier that way. Was it fun? Not for me, because the draconic magic I wanted to use ended up being useless in any fight that wasn't the ulcerated tree spirits or Astel. When I replayed the beginning of the game with a STR build, using heavy jump attacks, I suddenly demolished everything with ease where my original character's fire incants required way more effort.
yeah, using the Kureimora (claymore) is basicallu the easy mode in S&S.
every other build is just harder. I heard there was a massive balance update to the game years after release (was it last year? it was weird to see anm game recieve bug balance overhaul after its sequel is already released) wonder how the updates are
@@btchiaintkidding7837 The update you are talking about is the Enhanced Mode update. As far as I'm aware, it's actually a fan-made balance patch, but one that is fully endorsed by the actual developer. That's why it came so late and that's also why it's currently only on PC (getting stuff approved on console is a major hassle, and impossible if you are not the original dev)
It does in fact balance quite a few weapons in the numbers department - the Kureimoa is still strong, but there isn't such a stark rift between other options anymore. Dual-scaling weapons received the most overhauls for their scaling iirc, making them much more viable. There's also a couple moveset alterations - whips now actually get some detached hitboxes, making them quite strong at angled hits and there's an entire unarmed moveset now. Some bosses also got rebalanced.
Personally, I still feel certain builds are just way better than others (STR is still extremely good since 2H weapons just have really nice swing arcs and reach, pistols are crazy strong and have huge reach for how easy it is to get endless ammo supply, etc...), but it's more for actual reach/moveset reasons rather than sheer numbers. I definitely like the enhanced version a lot.
An interesting insight, and speaks to me from a particular experience. A couple of years back, took a break from Dark Souls 3 and got into Bloodborne. Heh, in order my experiences with Soulsborne has been - Dark Souls, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne.
Suffice to say, Bloodborne was quite the exhilarating experience. Dark Souls 3 felt like a faster Dark Souls by my chronological experience, and Bloodborne was a whole other beast, hah, in more ways than one.
After binging Bloodborne for so long, going back to Dark Souls 3 felt...awkward. It felt weird to use a shield. It felt weird getting hit from attacks that I feel definitely would not have connected in Bloodborne. Such a drastic playstyle change truly can shake one up for what they thought they knew.
With Bloodborne experienced, I perceived what was rehashed into Dark Souls 3, and picked up more aware on how faster/more aggressive enemies were than I remembered them being. Still not as on the level of Bloodborne, but essentially a notch down or two. It was still balanced between their respective frameworks.
With that said - Elden Ring truly is a colossal dick move. Enemies with cracked out aggression that could make some Bloodborne bosses tell Elden Ring to chill out. The "never should happen" happened. The gross imbalance of making the player feel like a DS Fat Roller against these coked up adversaries. Sword&Shield was the style of DS1, DS3 was a bit more faster-paced but blocking definitely took a noticeable nerf by virtue of said higher-aggression enemies (along with buffed stamina damage to blocking) so it encouraged you to mix and match. Block, Dodge, Attack. Keeping you on your feet, but nowhere near the aggression of Bloodborne. Bloodborne truly was an aggressive waltz for most battle situations. A dance floor for all participants to abide to a certain set of rules. Blocking it not just nerfed, it's just completely stripped.
And then there's Elden Ring that punished BOTH. Want to roll away? Get caught in a delayed bait combo. Roll towards them? Better hope that Input Read doesn't auto clap you! Want to block?
-Insert J Jonah Jameson laugh.- You serious?
You must hate your stamina to give it away so willingly.
Nerfing and punishing both defensive options, Rolling AND Blocking. Honestly nothing less of a dick move.
People go on about "Well it's not Dark Souls", but honestly, TheDeModcracy said it best in his Unbalanced Disappointment video - "Fromsoft wants to have their cake AND eat it too". It's not, but it is. Don't kid yourself.
Elden Ring is mechanically a transmutation abomination of Dark Souls and Bloodborne (I can't speak for Sekiro elements as I've never played it) with the worst type of outcome.
It's rehashed the same Dark Souls 3 conditions for multiplayer and the like, along with just simply design philosophy. It's more developed, yes, by a bit, but it's definitely not new.
There's no pleasure in critiquing Elden Ring, especially for as much as we do enjoy it. But it is absolutely necessary because the design choices and mechanical cheats as exposed by Swagapagos Turtle's video "Malenia doesn't play by the rules", though Malenia is the highlight in that video, the imbalance of mobility, input reading, etc. all that's been said before with the artificial difficulty inflations, does set a dangerous risk. It's not pleasant to say, but let's face it - With these horrible design and mechanical choices, for the usual high standards of FromSoft's products, these choices have put a blemish of Mediocrity on their name, and it should be paid more cautious attention to.
The worst part is that it's never speeding back down to reasonable speed to match Dark Souls speed. Bloodborne was a fantastic game, but permanently destroyed DS3 and all future titles' balance by keeping the player slow while enemies keep getting faster and faster, combined with the death of poise as a mechanic.
@@gameplayer42069 Honestly the fact that they took this approach and did not even give us inches of Dark Souls 1's virtues of Poise and Upgradable Armor only stems to fuel concern. The bare minimum that should have been implemented in terms of defensive balances. Creative and memorable that happened to have an artistic design of difficulty, sullied by just "chonk big numbers, infinite combo wombo!". It's alarming how with such a design, Elden Ring runs the risk of aging rapidly.
Heh.. I can not stress how, despite how specific it is.. It's just left a bad taste for me. A basic example, those Page enemies in the Weeping Peninsula just painting how bad the defense imbalance is with their obnoxious Poise and stagger-spam pokes against you even in heavy armor. By design, and basic immersion - utterly makes no sense and is disingenuous design.
@@berwick1851 The closed beta for ER actually featured DS1 poise, but they took it away on release for some reason. When it comes to DS1, people often cite poise backstabs as OP, and in my opinion they're right. So in ER we have DS1 backstabs for PVE only, but in PVP they have been nerfed to the ground that going for one is actually terrible, leaving you locked in the animation of trying to do it, yet it never connects if the other player isn't brain dead. With backstabs dead for PVP, no reason to kill poise as well, but here we are.
Oh, and the game is new so patches will come out regularly, with more nerfs, and at one point we'll be left with these ridiculous bosses and enemies while everything has been nerfed to suit the needs of PVP players, so that's "promising".
Honestly, I dont see all that "aggression" and fast pace everyone speaks about in bloodborne.
30fps already made it feel slow mo for me, and then lots of bosses can become dummies if you hit the right limbs.
Its melee combat satisfying as fuck, and trick weapons are unmatched for me, but dks3 feels much faster with 60fps and bosses overall are more aggressive, except for the bb dlc that they wanted to push it to the limit.
Like, even dks remastered felt fast for me after playing bloodborne.
@@jonnymario771 It literally is not there and i'm so confused too on why everyone has this idea, nostalgia probably? and maybe the animations.
Bloodborne enemies are slow and clunky and so are the bosses, they could all be regular DS3 or ER mobs(but still slower and more like dummies rather than real enemies for those games) and the bosses that actually match your speed like Orphan are considered the hardest for that reason, because you can't just R1R1R1 and get rewarded from it with the infinite healing windows and rally system.
I get really confused when people act like Bloodborne is THE fast game and THE smooth game when in Dark Souls 3 both you and your enemy are the same speed and can punish each other just the same even when your character's speed is pretty much exactly the same as Bloodborne, while in Bloodborne you're too fast for your enemies and in Elden Ring way too slow. Sekiro is even faster too lmao.
Very interesting points and had never thought that the level design of each game reflected on base playstyle
There was 7 openings when he said,"watch me run from Melania... Come on bruh"
Blocking is totally viable against Midir tho, you just need a big enough shield.
I used a Havel shield and a Lothric longsword and frankly fighting him is a pretty chill experience. You can block all his melee combos and still have enough stamina to hit him in his head for a few times, his charge attack can also be blocked. The only this you need to run away from or use dodge roll is the fire breath and laser beam.
Every time I open a new portion of the map it's like a whole new game
I disagree. I don’t think there is an “intended” play style but the game can be made easier playing certain styles in certain areas.
Summons are the intented playstyle as much as mikiri counter is in Sekiro
yeah it's like monsterhunter, every boss/enemy has a certain 'weakness' i.e style of play/weapon that they are weak to. RPG's have always been about finding and exploiting enemies' weaknesses
@@Wishuponapancake But Elden Ring doesn't have a dictionary of enemy types. I'm basically brute forcing the bosses to death.
@@Kinos141 it doesnt tell ypu which weapons work best against each monster in monster hunter either, that discovery process is part of videogames
Fromsoft doesn't design every boss around every playstyle, and it's abundantly clear that Elden Ring was built around hit trading and summons while dark souls 3 was built around dodging to find openings to punish with r1.
You can beat elden ring like it's dark souls 3 on a weak build, but it's not good.
The way he says “Friede” sounds like a pet name father Ariendale gave her lol
TBH Bandai Namco and Code Vein more or less beat this problem by letting you change up your build on the fly with no fuss or muss. So if a boss doesn't suit your playstyle you can pretty easily experiment until you find something that works against that boss for you.
ER also gives about 10 re-specs (Silver Tears) per playthrough.
ER doesn't have intended playstyle, in encourage you to adapt to each boss.
Some bosses are designed for stance-breaking (Misbegotten), some for parrying (Crucible Knights), some for horseback combat (dragons), some for ranged combat (Godskin Duo, arguably) etc. Bosses with big HP pool and small attack windows challenge you to do maximum damage during this window, which naturally leads to applying status effects.
If ER was designed for a single playstyle, there would be no motivation to explore open world and collect stuff.
I don't know about previous souls games, I haven't played them. But in Elden ring there is no one default way to play the game. There are that many different weapons, spells and other items to use you can make nearly any playstyle a viable option.
As a newbie to the souls genre I started with the samurai because you get a decent starting weapon, a bow and a shield. I didn't like the small parry shield so as soon as I got a medium sized one I stuck with that, and I became very dependant on it. In dungeons I would walk around with it held up most of the time. But as I unlocked more weapons and became more familiar with the game I gained more confidence and stopped relying on my shield. To the point where I rarely even carry one now.
My point is in Elden ring the traditional sword and shield playstyle only seems to be there for nostalgia and for the newbies like me..
Yeah
Is there a play style option that REWARDS combo mad (especially immediate reward for being stylish)?
just out of curiosity, dwhat was your build ? did you use ashes ?
I am not interesting in elden ring dlc, just because the amount of bosses that will be like malenia, since they are recieving " good" feedback of her fight
Where in the world are they receiving good feedback from her fight?
I think that Jesus means Fromsoft's goal was to make a ridiculous boss that becomes infamous because they are unfair, and that Fromsoft likes that they did this and will make more unfair DLC bosses that force us souls vets into hit trading with op weapons or summoning.
@@GabryyLG The masochists who are beating their chests in triumph because they see fighting such a ridiculously "Plot-armored" ( what I call a boss that the developers have given so many overpowered traits that allow them to essentially cheat, like a main character in a story who cannot die due to their role in the plot) boss a bragging point instead of something that is just not fun. I've killed her many times on different characters, but it was not enjoyable in any way. The masochists say she is wonderful because they see this as proof that they have "Gotten Gud".
BTW- I am being hyperbolic and sarcastic, but really, this fight is not fun at all. Anyone who says so is kidding themselves.
@@baltogames1501 then why did you even beat her multiple times lol? if anyone here is a masochist, it's you. Others people genuinely like her fight, including me. Your opinion and experience isn't universal for everyone
@@ehrtdaz7186 Wait, have I been willingly subjecting myself to this fight when I haven't had to? My God, you're right! I thought I had to finish this fight to progress Millicent's quest to get her talismans. Wow, I have become the very Masochist I have condemned. Fromsoft has got me again!!!!
The time and effort you put into your videos is amazing, I’m puzzled why you’re only under 1k subs, you should have more
Yo, depressed Hollow! I see all your memes! Keep it up man!
Dark souls builds in a nutshell:
SL1: Hard mode
Dodge roll and hit style: Normal mode
Tanky high poise and greatshield: Easy mode
Summon user: Story mode
Magic/long range Andy: this is just cheese and unfun
So if you don't wanna feel like you cheesed the whole game with magic or that you're not good enough alone and needed summons at least be a tank and do it yourself.
What I love about elden ring is how easy they made it to prepare a counter build against bosses (and difficult zones). It reminds me of the Witcher 3. I create proper bombs, buff food, switch talismans around. I also switch between using shield or just yolo it in powerstance with around 4 different upgraded weapons. I don't even use spells but I bet they would fit this playstyle too (switching around spells who are more suited against certain enemies).
Exactly! But cry baby RUclipsrs run into a wall and go trash the developers instead of adapt
I have killed every boss using a two handed scythe because i just enjoy dodge rolling and r1 attacking with a scythe. telling me to pick up a shield or use specific items for a boss to effectively cheese them (like how you can sleep godskins for a bunch of free hits) is literally just telling me to cheese a boss to kill them. im not here to kill the bosses by cheesing them or making it easy in some way by using specific items/weapon loadouts. im here to get good enough to kill a boss on my own.
Ah yes, the bosses are so good that people prefer to cheese them so they can end it already instead of legit fighting them, i wonder why the game is getting criticized.
How did you beat Malenia outside of summoning, pre-nerf bhs, or good rng? Is there some special weeb or unga bunga build?
The thing is I actually enjoy Dark Souls II levels, not as a ranged playstyle, in fact I am very much for Dark Souls II a pure physical ultra greatsword and greatshield build and I have enjoyed a lot of the levels as my playstyle. But then I am someone who actually likes to experiment with playstyles but when I say experiment with playstyles, it means I do a different playstyle for every game. I did a magic build for Dark Souls I with the levels being a shield and dex weapon build with intelligence scaling on those weapons mainly.
For Dark Souls III I plan on trying a faith and dex weapon build, without relying too much on a shield. So I can't really agree that each souls game is not fun with a certain playstyle because I find it fun to find out what tactics I can use with my playstyle. But then I also play a game that has the same kind of "try different playstyles with all your characters vibe" Divinity II Original Sin and that has influenced the way I experience the Souls games.
The ds series has so much difference when it comes to builds and weapons. Knives in ds2 sucked but are viable in ds3. Uchikatana was op in ds1 but isn't in ds2/ds3. Someone playing a magic build in ds1 or old ring are going to have dummy easy time but a quality build, nope. Different builds shape people's vastly different experiences. Still fun games and thank you for not hating on ds2.
I don't necessarily agree that each souls game has an "intended way to play" for it to be fun. I'm with you in the fact that I like to play without a shield and use dodging as my shield. Infact I typically will do lower damage but fast builds in Souls for quick in and out combat. I enjoy the heck out of that.
I have however done many different builds in all of the games and got enjoyment out of each of them.
Where I 100% agree is that Elden ring does seem to base their combat around spirit ashes and summons. NOW I'm stubborn and have beaten every main boss in the game by myself and I had a ton of fun with some of them. I dare say Malekith is my favorite fight in the franchise, but he's one of maybe 6 bosses I really enjoy. The others are fine but they don't get that blood pumping like 99% of the fights in Bloodborne or even Dark Souls 2 which out of the 3 is my favorite 😋
Wholeheartedly agree and you have just outlined the begginning
These bosses just aren't the same with the same weapon, and while elden ring is my favourite(thanks to the openworld aspect up until keyndell, botw on steroids imo) but the focused aspect of sekiro meant the the boss fights are 100% tight and balanced.
I feel inspired to make a video on why I like dark souls 2 as I feel like many people miss the point besides build variety. Leveling armor. Drip souls. Being able to make armor better just made sense. (And it helped squishy players be able to poise attacks)
DS2 is the shit! 🙌🏾 Ppl just love to hop on the hate train to fit in!
Ds2 is great, just expect a lot of people to hate your vid for no good reason that can't be applied to the other games.
no
I loved the sprinkle of the Hollow Knight ost in the background, as well as liking and agreeing to majority of ur points, solid vid!
I mean usually "dodge attack" was the middle of the road playstyle for all souls games. In elden ring if you use summons the game is too easy but if you don't it's too hard. Magic is actually kinda shit in the late game of Elden ring except maybe some bleed spells or comet azure infinite fp tear.
The Game is probably the easiest of from frosoftware until you get to the snowy area and astel and fortissax, from here the dificulty of the Game increase drastically, and the easiest experiencie of frosoftware turns of the hardest one by really hard
@@jajasking9652 Yeah only real reason in my opinion that the difficulty increases so drastically is that everything takes light years to kill, and they do so much damage back to you for no good reason. If the health bars and damage were nerfed, all the end game bosses would actually be really fun fights, they can still keep their annoying supersonic speeds and 500 hit combos.
I love how everybody says that about Elden ring but it was my first from software game and I learned every boss moves how to dodge them and how to stay just out of reach of attacks and that play style works pretty good if you are willing to learn
And that without summons
It would be literally impossible to make every boss encounter completely viable, or even fun, for every imaginable play style. So there's that, it's not a thing that's even doable. It would ruin the games if they even tried to achieve that. It's important to have a large variety of boss design/mechanics, and with that, it's just a forgone conclusion that every encounter will be easier and more fun for some builds than others.
Impossible might be an exaggeration, but it would add years to development so it would be virtually impossible so I do agree.
Monster hunter does it with every release, why can't fromsoft?
Dark Souls 2 is fairly well balanced in terms of loadouts. You seem to be having a lot of trouble managing groups of enemies.
You can't take iron keep slowly no matter what playstyle you have. It meant to be played aggressively and turns into an aggravating mess if you try to take it slowly. If you push in hard and fast most enemies can be taken out before their backup arrives and archers have a rytham that you can get the timing for or pillers that provide safe spaces.
Also, Iron Keep is placed so that if it is too hard you can bounce off it till you are stronger. You get the ladder smith just before you get to Iron Keep and going to The Gutter is a good idea if Iron Keep is too hard for you.
DS2 actually supports a huge amount of playstyles. Shielding and tanking is a really fun build in the game. Not having a 100% phisical shield isn't really a big deal, more important is having a high Guard stat which significantly effects how much stamina is consumed by blacking and which attacks bounce.
I think you may be vastly misunderstanding DS2
Bruh says ds2 is to hard and I can beat it 8 hours. That's not counting the dlc but bruh it ain't that hard lol
I'd actually day ds2 is easier then ds1. In ds1 I got through the first half in like 6 hours but got stuck on O and S, I can't think of a fight in base game ds2 as hard as O and S. So that's partially gives me reason to think that.
@@patcris8923 I would agree that nothing in DS2 is overly hard, in fact that's why I like it so much. For me it feels like a wonderful sandbox to a variety of playstyles and doesn't particularly force anything.
I think later games chase the "Difficult" boss thing and they suffer for it. In many ways playing into the troupe of unforgiving and difficult gameplay is what turns me off to Sekiro, a game I enjoy but only with mods to smooth out the frustration.
The later DS3 bosses also followed this trend where you strategy and knowledge of a boss meant nothing compared to your raw reaction time and muscle memory. Something I don't really care for
The actual problem is Souls fans stubbornness thinking they need to beat the game "pure" by them selves with no summons or buff consumables. That problem exists in their mind alone.
When facing a gank boss, summon if you have too. When getting crushed by Fire giant use crab legs or fire def boost consumables. When getting ripped by Astel use the magic defense talisman & magic def consumable.
If your katana doesn't do shit against a crystalian or fallen star beast, then switch to a flail or mace.
There's 0 reason to think you need to go through the entire game with only 1 build and avoiding every single thing the game provided you to beat it all for some trophy that only exists in your mind.
Well said. There still exists this arrogant attitude of the community that when you don't beat the games on lvl 1 naked with only a sword and a shield you are not worthy to play the games at all ;)
Well said. ER is my first souls game and I just completed the game. I didn't try a level 1 naked play through though. I just did what was needed to beat each boss. I think if you like playing the game and, for lack of a better word, "limiting" yourself, well that's cool....but why be condescending about how others play? It just seems that in this community there is direct and indirect "gatekeeping" in the discourse about what "real players" do. But, hey, I am glad people like that type of challenge and seeing them do it is neat, but I also like watching someone find a way to absolutely melt a boss, I also like seeing some of the spectacular spells come off that are tough to pull off with the boss in your face constantly. It's all Elden Ring and it's all awesome is my point I guess.
This might be the worst argument I've ever heard about Dark Souls
I would have to disagree with this being a bad thing. If my build was optimal for every encounter in the game it would be kind of boring. I think it's fun when I show up to a boss and my build is making me struggle. Having to adapt to different situations is fun imo
I think you misunderstood the problem, it is not that you build will struggle at one boss, but it won't be the best desinged one.
A good exemple of only one build that makes all the fights of the game fun and well desinged, just look at sekiro
It is a bad thing when you dedicate yourself to a build and the game starts going "oh my, you didn't distribute stats and upgrades everywhere for these particular situations to not feel bad?"
@@maxwellsterling that's a part of rpgs man. You make a build it's not going to be optimal in every situation. That's the point. Your build will be good in some situations but not all. It makes things more interesting
@@piszanshid1953 No one's asking for it to be optimal, just for it to not feel like an actual hindrance.
@@maxwellsterling that's why you have builds man. Go play a game where there is only one character and movesets. Every rpg has this "problem"
Really expected you channel to have more subs man, you deserve them
Your videos are well made, good points, funny when needed
For me the survival part of dark souls 2 was often about stacking elemental resistance. Great magic barrier, profuse sweat and those quatz rings could really trivialize many elemental hazards during both exploration and boss fights.With two Yorgh's Spears, Northwarder's set, and poisonbite ring, you can literally live in a poison swamp and never get any buildup. You talked about build varieties in DS2 but there's also an insanely OP build in that game: the powerstance ice rapiers, that trumps everything else.
I'm not so sure I agree completely with your assessment of the games and playstyle. I started in the series with Dark Souls and the only shield I ever used in that game was the Grass Crest Shield which stayed on my back as a stam buff while I tended to two hand my melee weapon. If I wanted to parry in that game I actually used the Parry Dagger, yes I know I'm weird.
In Dark Souls 2 I can see your point but having done both melee only and ranged play throughs, as well as mixed play throughs, I don't really agree with the favoring of ranged over melee, or agree with the lock on issues either. I use lock on in every Fromsoft Souls game I play, all of them, and it works extremely well in Dark Souls 2 if you understand the levels are about crowd controlling the mobs, funneling them into chokes you can exploit, or using wide swing weapons to hit more than one at a time. When I look at your video and see you pulling all the enemies under the tree, where they are all laying down and you could literally just walk up slowly and only aggro 1-2 at a time, it seems to me you tried to rush head first through the mobs got swarmed and made no real use of the tools the game actually gives the filter and control the amount of enemies you face at once, yes even in Shrine of Amana.
For Dark Souls 3, once again never used a shield in any Dark Souls game including 3, so I can't really disagree I guess. I guess I might actually agree because with how they changed the parry mechanic so that you more or less have to parry before the enemy even attacks to land it I guess I can see your point of them trying to get you away from shields.
Bloodborne is an obvious gimmie in terms of playstyle as they left absolutely no way to effectively play with a shield in that game.
Sword board style got progressively worse and more punishable. Using your shield on your back and dagger (which isn't a shield) for parrying don't count for that play style.
Bloodborn doesn't really have shields, except only one, but that one is just for meme, so no one would use it. So if some playstyle become so bad and unviable for game - might just remove the option, so players won't try to commit masochism on something that is doomed to fail by game design.
@@1God1Fury I mean you say sword and board got progressively worse and the Elden Ring gave us the Finger Print Shield and and guard counters and they legit had to nerf the playstyle.
I think it's more likely is Fromsoft keeps making attempts to refine the game play as a whole and sometimes that means one style is broken one game and useless the next.
I mean Sekiro had no shields but you blocked and parried more in that game than any other.
"If you play ds1 blocking style you will have a hard time with midir."
Me in full Dragonslayer Armor set: I can do this all day
Biggest problem? You're expected to use a great or colossal weapon. Most weapons you get are huge and can stunlock boxes. And they were buffed. Very few daggers or smaller weapons. No advantages being light. You're expected to be a brute with high poise.
More weapons besides big bam bam smash and make light builds characters dodge faster and further
You are talking no sense. Dex builds in Elden Ring or Dark Souls III are as effective as colossal builds. But imo DS3 is the most balanced game cause you can use every weapon you want and would be viable. Talking levels and bosses both.
@FukTheGender Agenda I killed Friede a few times with the Exile greatsword. Really funny, also with the Artorias one, same thing.
@FukTheGender Agenda Yes, is a really good weapon. I see that you replayed it a lot, so i do. Incredible game. Art, bosses, areas. The second best imo.
@FukTheGender Agenda Sekiro is my top 1, but never taste Bloodborne. Sekiro's combat is one of the best one kn all videogames imo.
they fixed this issue in Sekiro by just... Not giving you the option to play in the style that isn't fun
I won't see never a good video about ER boss design? Man, this is so sad, no one knows wtf they are talking about but they post videos like if they knew
14:47 i love that Malenia is an exceptiom where you are not supposed to trade with her since she heals and you may get punished heavily if you use summons, but when I did it just happens that my weapon of choice was really good at stagger her, so she had fewer attempt to waterfowl dance my spirit and heal, resulting in a magical 6th attempt where i had like 9 flasks left with her half health in second phase, and i just traded and heal, outdps her healing and running from her waterfowl 😂, the power of spirits is so high that such an "unfair" boss was actually less threatening and difficult than Abyss watchers from ds3, and sure it has rng in first phase, but abyss watcher are meant to be hard challenge only early into the game and I struggled a lot there my first time despite being overleveled
A perfect example of a boss that builds off of mechanics used in a game isn't even a soulsborne boss. It's Mr Freeze from Arkham City. You have to use everything you've learned to bring him down and are rewarded for using different tactics even as the old ones are locked out after using them only once. This game (as amazing as it is at times) makes me feel like I'm going against an unfair fight so I don't care if I'm using a broken weapon or summon since they can take out half my health in 1.5 sec on a good day. Which sadly can cheapen the experience a bit.
Still a great game with beautiful moves, enviro, character design and story tho.
Only problem with mister freeze, he's the highlight boss battle in the middle of the 2nd game and everything before him, and after him, is disappointing.
That brings me back, Arkham City was so good! When that game came out I was still in Elementary school lol, and now I'm a grown ass man!
@@feebleking21 Yep. Good times. Too bad Arkham Knights bosses were so lackluster. There's another example of bosses getting worse in a sequel, but in a different way.
Isshin from sekiro is the perfect example as well. It utilizes every mechanic you learned in that fight.
too bad every other boss in city is just meh.
As someone who's never played any souls games but has 40 hours in ER, I find this fascinating. Thanks for the awesome video. I've mostly enjoyed my time with ER. I'm doing a big sword and big shield set up because I found great swords and great shields in AC: Valhalla fun.
Generally I find the game responds quite well to it. I use summons sometimes if I'm troubled.
I play only melee builds in all souls games and dodge roll also and I completely agree with your ds2 and elden ring takes. I have never even cast a single spell in souls and ive beaten everyone since demons at least 5 times. I dont think its the way everyone should play, its just my preferred style, with that being said elden ring definitely doesnt feel designed for a melee build unless you use spirits which for me was the worst design decision in any souls game. Im glad people are starting to agree with me because when I first started criticizing Elden for these faults and people weren't trying to hear it. Thanks for the perspective.
On one hand, I can see why people are mad about this issue. Fromsoft games generally feel a certain way (at least since demon souls). Yet I do have a problem when Elden Ring is called out for not tetering to the pure melee formula. elden ring is not a souls game. It's a new IP. Sure it has a vast number of similarities with the other games but I, personally, think it's not fair to hold elden ring to the same standards as dark souls (not in terms of quality but preferred playstyle). My preferred playstyle in dark souls is melee, yet in elden ring, I'm having a blast trying out something new. I used ashes very frequently as well and got some of the most epic fights out of fromsoft I have ever had (altough I have to add that, due to lack of ps+, I could never summon players from other worlds, so maybe my excitement stems from that). My all time favourite fromsoft title still is sekiro by a long shot, followed by bloodborne. In elden ring I love being a combat mage. To me it feels like I'm building up on my previous preferred playstyle, mixing in spells and ashes and whatnot. Maybe elden ring just is a game with builds such as this in mind. In previous games, I was never tempted to try a mage build, since I couldn't really get it to work for myself (maybe due to my own incompetence, who knows). In my opinion, it is just not fair to expect fromsoft to keep holding on to the same principles they have been known for building their games around. Sekiro stripped me off any customization options (apart from r1r2 skills and prosthetics) and yet it is one of my favourite games of all time. Not to say you can't have your opinion, as said in the beginning. I just took elden ring on as something new, not as the same game clad in a different skin. Yes, all those games are similar, yet completely different in the details. Just as I don't think I am playing a souls game when I play bloodborne or sekiro, I don't think I am playing a souls game when I play elden ring. I am playing something new. Something that allows me to effectively use spells and summons in combat. Just my point of view, habe a great day and keep enjoying fromsoft titles :)
@@hollyc5417 I did all that and for me Elden ring is the easiest in the series by a longshot. I just dont think its as fun, thats all I was saying. If you do than great, I love fromsoft and I want them to succeed I just hope the next game isnt open world and doesnt have spirit summons because these are the core issues that cause the game not to be as fun for me, as past titles. If you love it though, I totally respect your opinion. I love it more than 99 percent of all games released since sekiro. I love the franchise so much I guess thats why Im over critical of it because all I really play are these games and Im worried that with the success of Elden Ring they will continue to make the games easier and adding more options to make the game easier at the cost of making the games less enjoyable when you dont use the easy mode mechanics like summons. I was attempting a level one run but for some reason my ps5 crashes everytime I play elden ring for more than an hour and it shuts my system off and I have to unplug it and boot it back up and the hard drive repairs its self and I had a ps4 do this and it fried it once so Im scared to play elden ring anymore for fear of it damaging my console that you cant get another one of. Ive moved on to salt and sacrifice and its awesome if you like 2d souls games. Highly recommend it.
@@hollyc5417 because now you need 99 vigor to not get two shotted . GG in build variety becase your variety gets pulled down by putting points into vigor,back then you could survive with 13. Upgrading your weapons in late game won't matter shit since you're reaching the max threshold . Scaling works like - strength or Dex . Quality is useless. Bet you are from mainstream trying to check how good you are at the souls when you only played ER
@@BBQcheese I just dislike open worlds so much that even though elden rings open world is probably the best open world, I would still prefer it wasnt and I think that soiled my experience in general. The games just not as fun to play for me as all the other from games and I just attributed it to my build but playing it a lot more since I originally made the comment I think I just dont like Elden ring as much as past titles. Im by no way saying its bad. I love fromsoft, their my favorite studio and Im happy for their success with ER, I just dont like it as much as any of their previous games but when the dlc drops Ill still be the first one waiting to play it 😃
I played elden ring as my first ever souls game.
I have a suggestion of what Is intended for elden ring.
When I started the game I used me shield and guard countered alot. I used weak summons usually just the jelly and if there was an npc summon I'd use it.
Then about a quarter into the playthrough I dropped the shield cause I learned that rolling is more stamina efficient.
I played the rest of the game 2 handing the bloodhound fang and still used summons including mimic to finish the game as I felt I needed the summons for the last 6 bosses.
I felt that because of fatigue.
After my first playthrough, I felt like I wanted to learn to beat the bosses with no summons.
That became my quest and I have done that.
I do agree that the bosses are insanely aggressive and it is annoying when there are such long combos and small windows for attack. But that's just the game it is just like ds3 in alot of ways only you have to be more patient in ER.
Every boss in ds3 from abyss watchers other than the prince's have an attack that goes on and on.
2nd phase of abyss watchers has some vert long combos. Pontiff has a very long dual sword combo, dancer has the mad spin move that goes on like 12 times, champion gundyr is constantly aggro, fried never stops attacking and like elden ring if you dodge in the wrong direction, no punish for you. Cause it will be the bosses turn to attack again.
The differences are that alot of elden ring bosses have inconsistent timings.
In ds3 there is a rhythm for most of the game. Elden Ring said okay you perfected fast bosses with consistent timing. How about if we mix quick and slow attacks together?
If you look at the punish windows in both games they're very similar. It's the variation of the flow that makes elden rings bosses either something your brain enjoys or it will just be frustrating.
I also think malenia is psychological. She has some of the easiest attacks to avoid as long as your brain registers them quick enough. She rarely does and my attacks with a crazy long wind up like most er bosses.
Warerfoul is all in your head. I'd rather she did waterfoul three or 4 more times and gave her never do the spirit clone move.
Waterfoul has such an easy counter. You just literally run away. Either way people find malenia hard because they either fear her moveset too much or they don't have the patience to wait for the safe attack windows. Either way the difficulty is in your head.
Yes it sucks to have attacks that mean you just have to dodge.... but I feel like alot of you guys that shat on the bosses seem to think that in other from games you can beat the boss in 60 thousand different ways... no you can't. In all from games that are soulsbornekiroring... you either get close mele and dodge and hit the boss.
Or you use magic and stay as far away as you can...
Thats it.
Don't pretend that the other games allowed for more when it's a lie.
In fact elden ring has more ways to do it
Hell you can kill radahn about 3 different ways just using the damn boss arena without fighting at all.
Name 1 ds boss you can do that? I'll wait... no thought not.
I agree elden ring is farrrrr from perfect. Exploration is something you will do once and then never again as it'd only a surprise once.
The game is too long and the end game boss rush is too annoying and makes you frustrated and fatigued by the time you get to radagon.
They should've ended the game at leyndell and found a way to fit farum azula in elsewhere. Maybe the halligtree too.
Bit alllllll of the mountaintop of the giants can f its self its that uninspired and meh.
There sadly is only about 9 bosses in elden ring that are challenging or fun enough to warrant multiple playthroughs.
But to me thats not dis similar to ds3.
Udex gundyr... too easy
Vordt too easy
Curse rotted greatwood.... what? Gtfo way too easy
Skelebangleman... really are you insulting me with how easy this is.
Crystal sage too easy
Deacons.... are you joking easy.
Abyss watchers. Fun awesome.
Yorhm... yawn more like it. 3 hits with the storm ruler and dead. Get real.
Oceiros... wtf even was that mess nope.
The slithery guy that is basically just crystal sage only now he has an arrow attack that goes on for an actual week. Nahhhh boring.
Pontiff was banging.
Champion gundyr banging.
Dragonslayer armour sick fight
Prince's... ehhh its okay.
Dancer siiiick fight.
Cinder... I actually think is a bad fight. It can go so many different ways cause of all he has access to. There's no flow.
So in the base game ds3 has few actual awesome bosses worth doing multiple times too.
I won't start with the doc because gael is the only great boss in the doc and those angel things en route to that doc ate fucking unforgivable.
The people who designed and signed off in those things will have a special place in hell waiting for them ( I joke but I hate those enemies they are the least fair thing in any souls game they genuinely never ever stop attacking. Not even time to regain stamina on the last bit before you roll into a pit of cursed and will likely die before you get to the bonfire cause haha fuck you do the angel run again you masochistic fuck.
to be honest I always saw this so called “problem” as a strength … and here’s why. Each boss is unique in ER for example stormveil is more melee based mobs while the academy has magic based mobs each mob and boss will interact with each build differently it would be impossible and stupid if each boss was a balanced fight for every build that’s the charm of souls games each boss will give a different challenge to every build some builds will down them easy others will struggle the nameless king is probably the best example of this he was a struggle for my sword and board build but my mage just one attempted him no problem this is the theme of RPGs and I love it personally classic example is the mage vs warrior mage usually wins because melee is always been weak to mages light on there feet but sometimes the warrior pops a potion and one shots the mage so in the end the balance is there you just gotta figure out the niche
This is a good video, its food for thought. As for how i deal with this problem, I try to adapt.
Recently I was trying to beat DS3 using 3 different playstyles (greatsword str, estoc dex, pyro), beating every level and every boss side-by-side (no going further until every character did it), and some of the areas were much more punishing for melee characters, while most were significantly easier for the greatsword guy. Maybe it's me but playing without lock-on works better for me, the estoc misses and the camera is awkward when you try to quickly lock on to land a blow on a crowd. For bosses though, unless it's fire-resistant DDD demons or fast unpredictable moveset like Sister Friede, a lot of it was "the only guy with a shotgun in this world" experience for the pyro build. When I was fighting Midir, none of the Fire/Dark/Lightning did the trick, so I just sprayed Pestilent Mist around the arena and lured Midir to stand in it and receive HP% damage while doing his standing attacks. I agree it's an entirely different experience than trying to land a melee blow on his head, but so much of DS3 was just about the ability to find a window to attack anyway.
Yea playing pyromancer is by far the easiest way to play ds3
Also I love the onyx great sword. One of my favorites in the entire series
What I find myself getting frustrated at is the inventory management during combat. Frantically switching to the item, incantation, or spell that I need during an intense fight has buried me many times.
Another thing i hate about Elden Ring's design is weapon upgrades. To put it in one sentence, you have to marry your weapon in Elden Ring because upgrade materials are just incredibly extensive and rare, and you can't buy them at your local store until you find an item. It was like that in previous titles but doesn't really work that well in Elden Ring's enormous hour span.
limgrave has like 40+ smithing stone 1s and you're able to purchase immediately after godfrey
Bro you just started the channel and every video you've posted is amazing, i just binge watched all of your channel, keep it up!!
I like this video but a lot of these complaints are very subjective. I agree a lot of the bosses in Elden ring (especially endgame) are unfair to melee builds but I was able to muscle through it still. Granted this was kinda my own fault because I straight up passed up mimic tear ash drop when I went into Nokron, so I never really used spirit ashes my first playthrough. The only one I think is straight up unfair is Malenia and that’s because of her health rally system. I still think other fights like Godfrey, Radagon, and Elden beast are hard but like I beat them with a shitty colossal club my first play through. (Before the patch too, no idea why I didn’t just respec or something tbh) I get I’m saying it isn’t as bad while being a souls veteran but I personally really don’t feel that most of these problems are AS BAD as people make it out to be. I don’t think I’m a godly souls player or anything, and I was able to beat Elden ring two handing a shitty colossal weapon. This is all nitpicking at the end of the day still love your content.
It's true that you can beat Elden Ring with any weapon but the problem is balancing. The game feels like too easy and too hard at the same time. It's way too unfairly hard if you use melee build yet way too easy if you use summon and magic. There's like no middle ground that make the game feels challenging and rewarding. The only thing I got is pure frustrations.
bah FFCUK the Mimic
Actually its you guys that get very subjective dude "are unfair to melee builds but I was able to muscle through it still" just because you CAN force your way through by trying nonstop doesnt mean it was MADE FOR IT. The design doesnt care that you died 90 times to x or y boss but still beat it, it has a clear way it encourages you to play. " kinda my own fault because I straight up passed up mimic tear ash drop when I went into Nokron, so I never really used spirit ashes my first playthrough" you even AGREE with the guys take on summons without even noticing it. You JUST said it was your fault you didnt get the most op summon mimic tear to carry you through tough encounters, aka what elden ring clearly encourages people to do, aka what the bosses were designed around.
Design intent is something objective, its clearly made with a purpose. Theres a reason fromsoft kept saying this will be that one souls game even the most casual can beat, and that they hoped they would finally break the stigma of summoning and asking for help. Clearly it points to summons being the intended way to play. And the bosses made around it.
"uhhh this boss isnt unfair bc i beat it!" and "what do u mean DS1 isnt meant to be played naked using a guitar hero controller? i did it" are not arguments but thats essentially what you're saying. Your subjective experience doesnt change the facts.
I beat demon of hatred in sekiro without kuro charm and demon bell on using mainly deflect and a shit ton of anti fire items, doesnt mean thats how the demon of hatred fight was intended to be played, its a souls boss that discourages deflecting and i knew that. But i wouldnt argue "nah bro its a deflect boss like the others bc i did it bruuhhh"
@@thedoomslayer5863 i thought so too but im a little divided, using ashes trivializes it so badly its a joke, the aggro takin is just too unbalanced for it to be meant to function like that and yet it is pushed makin it so weird. as ppl already stated, too hard or too ez
@@thedoomslayer5863 keep crying and go back to playing doom
Hey man you just earned a sub. This video was entertaining and you managed to talk for 20 mins without becoming repetitive :) Good job bro!
I honestly hope they move forward with Bloodborne and Sekiro type games. I’m not even saying they are the best ones (tho they are my favorite ones) but it’s kind of obvious that that’s there where their design philosophy is going towards: less variety but faaaaar more tightly designed.
Even if that’s not the case, I really don’t want an Elden Ring 2.
edit: I’ve used summons and magic on some builds (but have also beaten all bosses on my own with all games except Elden Ring bc I don’t care enough)
I feel like BB had the best balance, if it’s a spectrum with unbalanced build variety on one extreme with dozens of useless reskinned but inferior weapons(Elden Ring) and little play styles but good fights(Sekiro). I felt like virtually every single weapon in Bloodborne had something special and unique and boss fights weren’t as erratic solely depending on your weapon choice. All of the weapons were so fun. Problem with Sekiro, I liked it a lot, and think final Isshin fight was my favorite boss fight of all time, but after a couple playthroughs, I never played it again. Just didn’t have enough build variety to want to play it again. BB was just good balance to me with all weapons being meaningful, even ridiculous ones had some use or reason for existing.
To me the one problem plaguing every souls game is that every single enemy doesn't have "wall hitboxes" so they can just attack through walls unlike you
One thing I feel you missed on Elden Ring is that the game is built heavily around posture breaking and viscerals. It basically wants you to play towards that goal with bosses in mind. So it gives you powerstancing, more useful charged R2’s, weapon skills, the spirit summons, etc to find ways to break the wall that is bosses. That’s the intended play style. Trading is pretty optional honestly. They hit too hard for it to be effective. The half just wants you to know you will get few openings and then use everything to maximize your advantage once you get them.
Also on DS1 I will say that (like Demon Souls before it) magic is absolutely broken. Early game you won’t have it, but once you flesh out a magic build it’s perfectly viable.
DS3 to me is the bigger problem because while Bloodborne locks you into a play style, that’s really the only way the game lets you play. It doesn’t trick you into thinking you have options. DS3 wants something similar to Bloodborne combat but has a wide variety of builds but they aren’t optimal. So ultimately you do end up needing the aggressive fast dodge style by the end of you are in for a world of hell once you hit the harder mid to late game bosses.
I dont think the game is built around viscerals. Viscerals deal about as much damage as a regular heavy attack. I dont bother critting a boss unless I want to flask up afterwards.
I did mention posture break as a winning strat for people who dual wield collosal weapons and jumping heavy attack spam.
I also think that a lot of people trade more than they think they do in elden ring since so many bosses have such insane combos, and if you have a good posture break weapon art after getting an opening on the boss you can trade for posture break, riposte, then heal.
If posture is supposed to be the intended playstyle, it should be visible like in sekiro, but if they did that it would reveal when they cheat the player in fights like malenia.
@@dallascoggins1534 it is true that sometimes enemies don't take posture damage, which is boss dependent and pretty stupid.
What I realized is if a boss is jumping or dashing or midair you deal 0 posture damage. This is dumb but I guess it's what they wanted.
Ds3 bosses are the perfect speed for your speed. Not Too fast or slow
I have trouble reconciling "that hitbox is bad" with "that was a shockwave from a stomp/slam." You can't see the latter save for maybe Hoarah Loux, but I always assumed attacks like the DS2 dragon butts' foot stomps were supposed to be generating accompanying shockwaves, it was just poorly conveyed. Or the hitboxes or bad, IDK.
I've been playing through Elden Ring with a greatshield and greatspear, and it is clear that the game was not designed with this in mind. Not because it's too difficult, but because it trivializes any human/humanoid boss. Who needs a summon when you can just stand in front of Morgott and shank him 17 times while only taking chip damage from his elemental attacks? There's probably a lot of fun to be had learning his attacks and dodging (I've beaten him with a different character before the poke build, so I did have some of this experience before), but the G&G makes it way too easy.
Except, against some bosses, it's actually pointless. Lanseax shows the opposite "not designed for this" problem, her attacks constantly carry her forwards, so if you're set on blocking and attack the head, you're going to end up between her head and body, where her arm swipes can hit you in the back, ignoring shields. Using a shield for Lanseax cripples you because you don't have mobility.
So, it seems clear that, despite shields being the best they were in the game since ds1, they weren't really designed around.
you literally just explained how like in every RPG game, builds have weaknesses and strengthens. No shit one build will be powerful against one enemy or enemy type, then worse against others. That’s how you balance RPG mechanics, you can’t make it universally shit because then it’s shit, you can’t make it universally OP because then there’s no downside.
Honestly if I ever feel that my current playstyle was being a bit of a issue i have no shame in switching out my equipment to better suit the boss or situation, heck i might have never put my shield away and try other things to begin with.
The more I watch these videos, the more convinced I am that DS3 was the best fromsoft game.
As someone who considers the attack/roll dance to be the core of souls combat, maybe not a surprising sentiment.
I think sekiro is there best game , it doesn't bother with the whole different playstyle shit it basically has one playstyle that gives everything you need and tells you you can use it whenever you want , like you could pause the game mid bossfight , change your tools , items and weapon art and continue the game like that
It's one plastyle with a lot of depth and the entire game is balanced around it
I think so too. Great levels and bosses. A perfection of dark souls 1.
BB was best game imo, because balanced with almost every weapon having a use while most weapons were balanced since dodge and critical worked for every weapon. Can’t think of a useless weapon in BB and each played so uniquely. As much as I liked Final boss in Sekiro, my favorite fight of all the games, I only played Sekiro twice, and never played it again due to lack of build variety, whereas I usually like playing every weapon class at least once. I’m enjoying Elden Ring and addicted, but it feels sloppy in many respects(excusable since game so big but still not good), and why have so many reskinned useless weapons? Who is ever going to use the Weathered Sword or the anemic Ivory sickle when the move sets are near identical to other weapons in the class while AR is lacking? Just too many useless crap weapons and spells in the game. And on the other spectrum too many OP unique ashes and weapons that not only make other weapons useless in comparison but aesthetically, I find appalling. I wish they hadn’t added fifty foot tall laser flames of hell that can kill 50 enemies with one swipe, coming out of a sword. I get lots of people like them but they feel out of place and cartoony to me while feeling you’re underpowered if you don’t use them. It robs you of sense of accomplishment when you slap Malenia with a Blahspemous blade spam, but game seems to encourage it at the same time. It’s like game is asking, “why you not got this OP sword when it’s endgame already???”
@@adayexpired6370 never had a chance to play BB unfortunately
aye DS3 is my favorite as well!
Dude i First watched a few videos and then took a Look at your subscribers. It felt Like you had 100+k followers really great videos!
I would say dark souls is about mastering all the tools you have, choosing your preferred default one, but switching to any of the others when they turn out to be more appropriate for the situation.
good video my dude!! I just finished DS1 after getting through Elden Ring and boy they are two very different games lol. ER was my first souls game ever and I'm very glad to have started with it because the slowed down action of DS probably would've driven me away to be honest, I wouldn't have known what to expect from it. it felt a lot less forgiving than ER did in most ways, like less saving spots, summons, and far more restrictive gameplay compared to ER, as well as helping me figure out wtf I was supposed to be doing even LESS than ER did lmao. I found myself having a worse time with dodge rolling and instead opting for running, blocking or just stepping out of the way of enemy attacks just because any physical action felt clunky and not super responsive. I appreciated that DS bosses were more choreographed/predictable than ER bosses, but they were strangely all very easy even compared to just normal enemies. Sif was the worst for me because I had to face the fact that my dodging ability is hot garbage lol, but still he only took five attempts to beat. The final boss was much better because I felt like I had to roll away from him and I couldn't just block or step aside every time, but he was actually possible to dodge with my skill level. meanwhile ER bosses could all take 10+ attempts easily and leave me feeling fed up and frustrated rather than any sort of sense of accomplishment. while I enjoyed the freedom of movement in ER, it came with the price of the bullshit meter being turned up to 11...
I have yet to play DS2 because I struggle to use controllers due to a physical disability (I played DS1 remastered with keyboard and mouse for the record) but I may give it a try and see how it goes. and I did try DS3 with keyboard and mouse (mistake) but gave up because it gave me next to no chance to get acclimated with the game before throwing that horrible first boss at me, plus I think the game was having an issue with reading my inputs because half the time when I pressed a button, nothing would happen. like I know action queuing is a thing but there was just... no action. I could just run around and MAYBE roll, if it let me. I skipped 2 because I thought since DS3 was newer, it would have better support for keyboard and mouse but... no lmao. just no. DS1 remastered was almost as crisp as ER for keyboard controls, it was just that the game is naturally clunky so of course it felt a little worse.
anyways, normally I'm fine with having to switch up my play style when it's asked of me, but I don't like being forced to play one way or gtfo. because of that disability I mentioned before, I spend a longer amount of time in games like these grinding and buffing myself up to be a tank so I don't have to rely on my impaired reflexes as much, but DS and ER hate tanking and I got clobbered a lot for it lmao. less in DS1 of course because it is angled more towards shield usage, but ER was hair-rippingly stupid for me most of the time. I literally only persisted for the interesting story and world building, but I came so close to calling it quits many times. I wish Fromsoft would learn what actually makes a game hard beyond "boss has a million health, never staggers, and hits you 7853987938753 times in a row even when you're knocked over on the floor which kills you instantly and you have exactly 0.0000000001 seconds to hit them in a microscopic opening they give you after draining all your stamina and health refills and also if you die you have to go through half the level again to get back to the boss". bullshit =/= difficult, it's just bullshit. damn these games for having such interesting stories and designs because otherwise I never would've had to subject myself to the torment lmao.
I don’t think Elden Ring requires or encourages hit trading. I think they were trying to emulate Sekiro levels of difficulty with Dark Souls combat which naturally led them to create bosses with fewer openings and longer, more erratic combo strings.
Since dark souls combat doesn’t have the same mechanical depth as Sekiro’s the only way to match that difficulty led to more artificial tactics.
Spot on! Totally agree with your assessment here.
I started playing Elden Ring off of playing Dark Souls 1 and 3 for the first time. I started my first Elden Ring play through like every other Souls game I’d played, the ol’ sword and board. I’d finished DS3 with the sword and board, not really learning much roll dodging, not realising why I was having such a hard time with DS3 after playing DS1. It took me up until getting to the Altus to realise I must have been playing the game wrong, sticking to being a quality sword and board build. Getting the Eleonora’s Poleblade, I slowly changed my build and learning to properly roll, going from a sword and shield to a dex/bleed build where I completely ditched the shield and completed two more NG+ cycles playing the game like I’d learned. I miss the shield sometimes, but I actually had so much more fun being able to learn to play without a shield. Going back to DS3, it’s crazy how much easier it is without a shield and rolling instead.
So we’re going to argue that an RPG needs to stop being an RPG to be good? Each build will have its own struggles in a game that lets you make builds, that’s just how it is.
I do agree with your point on trading damage and summons in Elden Ring. Due to summons being an integral part of the game, it does feel harder to fight certain bosses. Which sucks because I want to do a run without summons (just like any game before ER) but that means I'll have to dedicate time to learn the bosses and their attacks and openings but I do not have the time to do so.
This disconnect between player preferences you described, I feel, can be less attributed to person play style and more attributed to stubbornness twords any particular style. I love all of these games and I especially love all the different ways the game expects me to switch up the way I play to engage with different systems and overcome different challenges. Like, I enjoy how Bloodborne expects me to play more aggressive and dark souls 2 makes me play more patient. Both games expect me to learn their systems and adapt accordingly changing my style and I love both of them for it.
Elden ring similarly expects different approaches from the player than dark souls 3 but I feel like a lot of people don't enjoy this change because they don't want to engage with other systems from the game.
A pure strength or Dex build with no summons is not a "wrong way" to play the game by the developers standards. In fact they implemented even more systems in order to balance this kind of build with faith or intelligence ones. Within the crafting system your able to throwable pots that scale with Dex or strength, Different throwing knife with varying speeds, elemental damage, and status effect procs, as well as perfume that can buff you or do damage. The game gives you so many systems and allows so many playstyles to succeed in different ways.
Circling back to those who enjoy dark souls 2, I think dark souls 2 is so appealing to a lot of people because it asks it's players to approach it's challenges in different ways and think of unique solutions. But in eldenring, it seems like a lot of people are so committed to playing the game like dark souls 3 that they ignore complete systems and complain that the game isn't tailored to their narrow view of how a game like this should operate, then actually explore the options they're are giving to make the game more enjoyable.
Just because those options are there doesn't mean they are equal to the blatantly stronger options mentioned in the video. You can use those other systems but there is a clearly more effective way to engage with these encounters and this is where the divide occurs. Just saying they exist and can be effective given enough time and patience doesn't make those systems any less punishing to use. This stubbornness occurs because a large chunk of the player base doesn't enjoy the way they have to change their gameplay. This group of the player base either has to trudge through a game not balanced for the way they want to enjoy the game or play the game in a way they don't find fun or rewarding. In other words, it's a lose lose situation. Either adapt and not have fun or be stubborn and still have no fun. The same thing happens for me in ds2, I try to play the game slowly and try new weapons but I don't enjoy doing that. I don't enjoy using summons, and many others don't as well. This means that giving these new gameplay systems a try makes the game unfun for me. This doesn't take away the fun that others have with these systems but I can't jump into the same boat. It just isn't for me and if the next from game is balanced around summons I'm probably not gonna play it.
I disagree with Elden Ring one.
I think that they tried mixing intended playstyles with all the bosses. Some bosses are better melee, some are better range, some are better to be aggressive, and some are better to be passive.
I play these games as an adaptable all-around build leveling every stat and using whatever weapon, gear, or playstyle I think is best for the current situation. I think Elden Ring is my favorite just because it felt like I was trying something new for every area and boss.
For example when I started in Limgrave, we had Bloodhound Knight who felt like a DS3 dodge and counter using the new jumping system, we had Crucible Knight who felt like you had to get in his face and parry him to death, we had the Demi-human Gank who felt like you had to use the spirit wolves to split agro.
Now of course high damage bleed builds will work for 90% of the game, but is that the intended playstyle for the majority? I disagree.
it is fairly well know that it is impossible to do something that appeals equally to everyone in all sorts of levels. I get your point though, but I cannot see it as a problem, more like a reality of game design. Or media design for that matter.
You can, just reduce the options. Like in Bloodborne and sekiro
@@henriquemedranosilva7142 yup, this is what you call higher level thinking. Theres a reason many say blooborne has better combat than its soul brothers. And likewise why many say sekiro has the BESt combat. Its focused. From had to worry about less nonesense and stats and game breaking builds ect.. they focused their vision on ONE (like in sekiro) or FEW (like in BB) ways to play and because of that those two games stand above the rest so clearly.
@@henriquemedranosilva7142
Either reduce the options, or have a more liberal experimentation system. A lot of ER's advertisement claimed the game is more flexible with build variety and yet it still sticks to the classic souls design of requiring full commitment to a specific build. The stronger weapons/ spells require a high stat minimum, higher level upgrade materials are in limited quantity, and while we have more opportunities to re-spec, the re-spec currency is also in limited quantity.
I agree,
The #1 problem is not enough feet
For me I don't personally see it as a flaw but more of a design choice. What I loved about ER is that you have the whole world to explore and your build may not be the best to clear an area. For me its always trial and error. Not only with boss mechanics or area hazards but also with builds. It thought me that not everything will go my way. Just like a real journey.
malenia is a lot like demon of hatred in sekiro , the entirety of sekiro is based around parry and deflection and here comes demon of hatred countering that , half of his attacks can't be deflected thanks to fire damage , you have to evade them like a dark souls bloodborne boss except you don't have i frames in sekiro so the fight becomes really long and tedious sometimes
So how I see it , malenia is a sekiro boss in dark souls while demon of hatred is a dark souls boss in sekiro , if you replaced them with each other it will feel very natural actually malenia bossfight would have been very interesting in sekiro combat system
But if you ask which one I prefer between the two I would say demon of hatred , he is a lot more consistent with his pattern and openings compare to malenia and he is still well manageable thanks to sekiro amazing movement system is still far better than dark souls and elden ring even without I frames
Fighting Demon of Hatred feels like fighting Manus in the wrong the game. Fighting Malenia feels like fighting Sekiro (player character in Sekiro). In Malenia's phase 2 transitioning cutscene the tarnished literally looks the other way like Sekiro enemies reacting to Sekiro's death. Then she turns into Rot Goddess and instantly activates scarlet Aeonia like how you can revive and instantly attack in Sekiro. Both of them have undodgable wombo combos, Malenia being worse considering blocking and parrying being majority of the time detrimental. Miquella and Kuro being child masters to Malenia and Sekiro is just icing on the cake. Also having a prosthetic arm.
The biggest problem for me, personally? The endgame. It's always bad. Dark Souls is straight-up unfinished, so we got that abortion, that is, everything post-Anor Londo. Dark Souls 2 is just all-around lame, and that goes for the endgame, too. The second half of Bloodborne is a massive step down in quality compared to the first half, not as bad as Dark Souls but still not particularly good. Dark Souls 3 is a bit more consistent but I still don't LOVE the lategame, and the DLCs didn't blow me away, either (I recognise I'm probably in the minority on that), and then finally Elden Ring: another game with a tedious endgame that I had almost no fun completing. I feel like Sekiro might be the outlier here, mainly because it felt like it didn't even have an endgame. The entire thing just flowed so well, and I never noticed a drop-off in quality.
Agreed on most things, but for Dark Souls 1 Endgame.
Lost Izalith was definitely unfinished and Bed of Chaos the worst BS in the whole game, but the archives, tomb of the giant and New Londo weren't, were they?
They have some questionable design choices (crystal cave boss run) and put a "gimmick" into the fights (Nito only a challenge because of the skeletons, immortatiy crystal on Seith, 4 kings being a giant dps race), but they were designed that way and finished. If you like it or not is a different question, but they weren't unfinished I think.
@@Ruffy112 I never really considered New Londo endgame other than the relatively short path leading towards the Four Kings, since you can explore most of it before even reaching Anor Londo.
Of the remaining areas, the only one I'll grant you is the Duke's Archives. That area was fairly cool. Tomb of the Giants, on the other hand, absolutely sucked. I'm sorry. From the enemies, to the darkness, to the precarious level design, I thought it was terrible. Crystal Cave also sucked.
I'm pretty sure it was unfinished. You couldn't get away with releasing something like that now. 10 years ago, maybe, when the franchise was still relatively new, but not now.
This is a good take, and also a big problem as its hard for Fromsoft to finish a game as ginormous as a soulslike with a good few last levels. Dark Souls 3 endgame was basically non existent before the DLC as the game was too short, but I personally find post DLC DS3 as the best endgame out of the 3 dark souls games and elden ring. Of course I'm biased because I love Gael.
@@feebleking21 Yeah, I recognise that, and like I said, I'm probably in the minority for not being blown away by the DS3 DLCs. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I don't like Friede and Midir all that much.
I agree that DS3 does have the best endgame of all the FromSoft titles (excluding Sekiro), and I also love Gael lol. He's my favourite boss in all of Soulsborne.
Ok for reals this. I may not agree with most of the video but this right here is straight up legit.
I feel this way about almost all of their endgame bosses barring arguably Sekiro and Bloodborne.
I said something similar about Elden Ring. After matching together dozens of armor sets, incantations, sorceries, and weapons, we find that only 3 or 4 play styles are actually viable endgame.
1) Dex/Arc bleed builds
2) Dex/Int magic builds
3) Str/Dex power stancing
4) Str/Faith with three incantations: Golden Vow, Lightning Strike, and Flame Give Me Strength (because holy damage is questionable against main storyline bosses because of their high holy defenses).
Splitting fights into two phases allowed the designers to have one phase that was trouble for melee, while the other was trouble for ranged, but they seemed to not utilize this opportunity as much as I feel that they could have.
As someone who ran through DS2 NG+ with only a Fume Ultra Greatsword, I really don't get all the hate. Shrine of Amana is not even 1/10th as bad as people make it out to be, just kill every enemy as you get to them. If you just run past everything, they will catch up to you and swarm you
And if you do die, another 10 minutes to get to where you were
@@lewispooper3138 Maybe if you've never played a video game before
The only elden ring build I felt this was true for was my faith build where holy damage did 0 damage to the final boss. So I had to come up with a custom strategy and it still felt very good either way.
@i have no mouth and i must scream he mainly takes physical damage and has some nasty spells, but I enjoy the fight. Reminded me of Princess Mononoke a ton.
Honestly…I agree with everything said. I love elden ring. I’m down to a 1-hit malenia kill (I have a video of a 2-hit) but it really does feel like it’s majorly based on RNG. I cannot say I love Elden ring bosses nearly as much as any of the souls bosses.
I think DS1 should be the exception. I can see where you're coming from with 2, 3 and Elden Ring due to the faster combat that really requires roll dodging. But I literally just beat DS1 with a fat boy build. Stone Knight armor on everything except my head (Fangboar helm), Black Knight Great sword and the Artorias Greatsheild. I couldn't roll so I just had to tank whatever came. There wasn't a single boss that gave me trouble and only one enemy type that did. But for the worms I just killed them with poison arrows so it wasn't really an issue.
If you can beat the game comfortably with a build that can't dodge then I'd say it's optimized for any build.
With enough practice, it's not that difficult to consistently solo Malenia as a pure Melee build at RL1 without taking damage.
But you do have to play a lot more passive at certain points. I think a lot of Dark Souls players want to stay in a boss's face/butt constantly, and that's a lot more difficult now.
Which is why I see some these fights as boring
@@wodandelaat1224 Sounds like a you problem.
@@wodandelaat1224 I personally got bored with the simple strafe sideways -> dodge roll -> attack. It eventually dawned on me that they were essentially just reskinning 1 boss over and over DS 1-3. And that got boring, with few exceptions.
Similar to Sekiro, Elden Ring bosses actually make me think.
@@Yobolight I personally liked sekiro more than the other soulsborne games since it's more mechanical than the other games, even defensive play build up posture damage so everything you do feels more rewarding.
@@theinternetsightseer2935 ok
I agree that having certain builds be the best way to go through certain parts of the game is bad for some people's builds and playstyles but having a whole community playing the same game but completely differently in my opinion was one of the best parts of Elden Ring.
This sounds much more like a _you_ problem than a problem with the games. I can’t speak for DS2 and I didn’t experiment much with DS3, but I can say that ER isn’t limiting when it comes to playstyles. I’ve played through the game 4 times now, each time doing a different build. I can say with confidence that ALL playstyles are viable, some just have to work harder than others at certain points.
It’s clear that you’re more of a “purist”-style player, but I highly encourage that you use those tools that you write off as being for “casuals.” I was originally going to go with a Strength build when I started playing just like I did with DS3, but decided to mess around with magic a bit once I got to Liurnia. And I’m really glad I did, because I ended up creating my very own subclass: the Spellbrute. And using magic and summons didn’t make the game much easier. Bosses would still take me out quite easily if I wasn’t on my toes. And because I had a bunch more tools to play with other than my melee weapons, every encounter became way more interesting since I could approach them in far more ways than one.
The only way to play ER wrong in my opinion is only limiting yourself to that “purist” playstyle, especially when there are a countless number of other ways to play ER.
The issue is if I use the tools I can just trade down bosses in a super quick 1.5 minute fight were I learn very little about the boss and win. I like playing dodge attack because I have to learn mechanics, and if I use the tools Elden Ring provides then I don't learn mechanics. And the mechanics are not very fun to learn with a weak melee weapon for the reasons I've outlined in my critique.
@@feebleking21 That’s not the case at all. The only times I ever beat bosses that quickly were Morgott and Godfrey/Horah Loux, but that was because I also summoned NPCs for those fights. In every other case, bosses have answers to ranged attacks be it evasion or ranged attacks of their own. As for summons, many of them are pretty frail even when fully upgraded. And with the better summons in the game, you only get one person fighting alongside you instead of a group, so having them take aggro all the time is risky since you might lose them midway through a fight.
Unless your build is perfectly optimized, you won’t be melting through bosses like you think you will be. And even if you _do_ optimize your build, you then trade your survivability for that increase in damage output. Therefore there’s still a need to learn the mechanics and attack patterns of the bosses.
I used to have your mindset: the idea that magic and summons were ways to make the game easier. I know now that’s not true. At least, it’s not for ER. Because ER is a distinctly different beast when compared to the Souls series. The enemies and bosses in ER can combo their attacks, rushdown the player, stagger their attacks, and even read inputs. They aren’t there for an honorable duel or elegant dance of clashing blades, they’re there to beat you down by any means necessary. So why should you be burdened by some notion of how the game _should_ be played, especially when the creator himself has gone on record stating he doesn’t understand how anybody beats these games on their own.
Don’t shackle yourself; experiment and explore everything the game has to offer. Trust me, the bosses aren’t gonna pull any punches just because you have a magic wand and some ghosts.
@@TheBooBomber609 I guess I should've recorded my moonveil run through the game cause that would prove me right. I melted bosses like butter.
@@feebleking21 I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and guess you used pre-nerf Moonveil. But even then, I'm also gonna guess while you did a lot of damage to them, they also did a lot of damage to you. And based on one (at the time) notoriously powerful weapon which you likely optimized for, you then cast judgement on anything that wasn't pure melee deeming it all as OP.
Regardless of the accuracy of my guesses, you said that you don't use all the tools in order to learn mechanics, but then said the mechanics aren't fun to learn with a "weak melee weapon," which is a self-imposed condition not a condition imposed upon you by the game. Therefore, how can you know for sure that using all the tools at your disposal would prevent you from learning those mechanics?
All I'm saying is that you shouldn't limit yourself based on the "purist" mindset of how ER should be played. Because even going off of the "no spells, no summons" rules, you can still one-shot a lot of bosses with optimized Strength- or Dexterity-focused builds. But so what if you melt through a boss? It's either you or them. And it's not like you can never fight them again. That's what repeat playthroughs are for. Stop worrying so much about how you go about beating the game and just have fun playing it. If your way of having fun is restricting what you have at your disposal, that's perfectly fine. But you can't then turn around and say the game isn't designed properly based on the restrictions you placed upon yourself, that's ridiculous.
Hi man i've seen someone hacked your account you are making really great videos hope you can get your account back
Yeah i wondered what the hell his live stream was about??
melenia is hands down the worst designed boss in all of souls followed by elden beast , any boss that has undodgable hits that can one shot you at 60 vitality is simply bad
Undodgable?!
Malenia sword dance or whatever is dodgable.
@@Quantum_Cuban yes, but it requires multiple frame perfect dodges and space between the first waterfowl
Without those conditions, it’s almost impossible. This is extremely hard, even for good players
@@lewispooper3138 Bro you literally have to roll once. You can run away from her 1st two attacks.
@@Quantum_Cuban good luck running away if you just happen to be in the middle of an attack animation
i think youre making a fair point. the thing with FS games is that it often feels like certain builds just are only for people who know what they are doing. for example id never recommend a pure mage build to a new player on any FS game on their first playthrough. certain builds are so hard that they are only enjoyable if you know where to go and what to do before you even made your character
The only thing I minorly disagree with is malenia. She has SO MANY openings it's crazy. That 4-5 attacks combo has no hyperarmour, so you can attacks then, lunge and grab are punishable, and ong almost every attack in phase 2 has a punish window.
Phase 2 has more more punish windows after attacks, phase 1 can be hit before many attacks.
Having windows to punish was never an issue in that fight for me.
@@joaoluizkfsantos8392 yeah fr waterfowl dance ruined so badly. And this is from a collosal powerstance fan
If waterfowl dance is up you technically don't have an opening. Also phase 2 malenia spams her unstaggerable kick and had input reading after some combo finishes.
For me tho, she has so many attacks that have constantly been easy punishes for me, like that quick slash which allows you to space it, roll back and punish with a standing jump, which will stagger her. I honestly think rolling back is the best thing to do for this fight, as mid range is premium range imo.
@@aryankumar7283 that’s not an opening. In phase two, she will combo that with one of ten moves.
It’s good to know I’m not the only one who feels this way about builds. I’m currently playing Elden Ring with my fiancé. I’m using full STR build with ultra great sword while she’s using RoB and Uchi. I have a way harder time playing on her account for one simple reason…..the fast DEX weapons have a really hard time staggering a lot of enemies which led to me taking a lot of damage in return. I blame myself for not being used to that play style but it also really opened my eyes to how much of a difference builds can make. My STR build can run up, smack any enemy and stagger them to the point of them being unable to counter attack
I’ve found the exact opposite issue, where the heavier strength weapons get less overall punish windows than dex weapons, which can whale on most bosses almost nonstop, while ultra greatswords and stuff don’t have as easy a time finding openings, especially with the crouch poke’s end lag frames being nerfed previously.
Playing this game reminded me how well designed and balanced Bloodborne and Sekiro were. The amount of bad bosses could be counted on one hand from those games. Only Isshin came close to being unfair. Elden Ring's bosses become cheaper and dumber after Radahn.
how did isshin come close to bein unfair ?